There is a theory that individuals are governed largely by their subconsciousness. This subconsciousness is supposedly an aspect of our minds that we are not totally aware of and whose function includes protecting us from harm and sustaining our life physically. It would resist growth, creativity, progress, and especially spirituality in the interest of the “safety” of the status quo. It is said that the way to control this subconscious thought is through hypnosis because it is subject not to logic or conscious reason, but to unintelligent repetition.
But when it comes to demonstrating health and progress through practicing Christian Science, we learn that a material sense of consciousness is not our true consciousness. We learn that man, God’s spiritual expression, does not revolve in an orbit of his own, with a supposed subconsciousness delineating his life through limitation and involuntary action; instead, all true action and impulse are sourced in good, another name for God, the only Mind. At the heart of scientific prayer is the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). In the Christian Science textbook, Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of the scientific law of healing that Christ Jesus demonstrated, wrote that this commandment “… signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 340).
If we believe in or ignorantly allow the notion of a “subconscious” mind to go unaddressed, we may see the ill effects of it in our experience. Our dominion, freedom, health, abundance, and purpose may seem sabotaged if we accept a mind or consciousness separate from God, some involuntary force out of His control.
Though cloaked in modern language, the theory of a subconscious—or mind apart from the one divine consciousness, God—is an ages-old notion. The story of Adam starting in the second chapter of Genesis illustrates the false belief of a mind or presence apart from God, as if we all had separate minds subdivided out as individual, materially based consciousness. But the one Mind is never confined to matter or split up into different pieces. Divine Mind is All, a complete whole, infinitely expressed.
As God’s children, we are subject to and governed by divine logic—the law of God.
As God’s children, we are subject to and governed by divine logic—the law of God, as taught in Christian Science. Because a seeming subconscious mind by definition is no part of the one Mind or in line with divine logic, it should be considered an outlaw, or counterfeit. St. Paul refers to this seeming outlaw mind as the carnal mind, enmity against God (see Romans 8:7). Mrs. Eddy refers to “animal magnetism,” a seeming attraction to something other than the spiritual reality of God, Mind, as All. Science and Health says: “God controls man, and God is the only Spirit. Any other control or attraction of so-called spirit is a mortal belief, which ought to be known by its fruit,—the repetition of evil” (p. 73). Allowing the belief of a subconscious mind to go uncorrected would be to open ourselves up to the “repetition of evil.”
Our prayerful defense against the belief of evil, animal magnetism, a so-called outlaw mind, is twofold: understanding that there is no power other than God, Spirit, to attract us; and knowing that there is nothing in us—no mentality, motive, desire—that could be attracted by a seeming other power or god before the one God, divine Mind. There is no part of our true consciousness that is not subject to divine logic, the law of God, which is the very source of our security and underlies our right to mental and physical health.
“Why do I sabotage myself?” we may wonder when we overindulge, can’t break a bad habit, are addicted to partaking of mindless content on the internet, or seem to be out of control in other ways, resisting growth and progress. The notion of “self-sabotage” is a red flag that should alert us to the belief in a subconsciousness. It’s this lower, counterfeit mind that would tell us to indulge in matter while disguising it as simply pampering ourselves or giving ourselves a break, have us yield to a false belief or bad habit without even noticing it, or introduce a subtle fear of growth or change that would hamper potentially enriching work or relationships. The carnal mind, parading as a subconsciousness, would preserve the notion that it’s legitimate by tricking us into thinking it preserves us.
Christ Jesus revealed this carnal mind as an enemy and showed his followers they have power over it: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). It’s clear that Christly authority protects us, not the carnal mind, which is actually an adversary. Christ Jesus overcame every phase of mortality through understanding that he was governed solely by his Father, God. Our defense against those serpents and scorpions—false beliefs that underlie bad habits and block our positive emotional, financial, creative, and moral progress—is to turn to the one Mind to become conscious of our dominion as God’s man. In this way, we also become conscious of the unreal nature of any kind of discord.
I had an experience that proved to me the importance of affirming the powerlessness of the carnal mind’s influence. I had been baking, and when it was time to take the pan out of the oven, I put an oven mitt on one hand and unthinkingly proceeded to take the pan out with my other, bare hand! In pain, I dropped the pan on top of the stove, and I felt it necessary to decide immediately what path I would take to deal with this accident. The sink was next to me, but instead of holding my hand under cold water, I went out of the room to pray. I saw that running the hand under cold water would affirm a belief of sensation, or mind, in matter, when what I really needed was to understand the opposite.
The pain was intense. Also intense was the sharp feeling of foolishness. It was almost as if there was a voice in me arguing that the pain served as an important anchor, urging me to see myself as vulnerable—otherwise, how would I remember in the future not to make such a stupid mistake again? But instead of heeding this voice, I clung to a statement I’d been studying with the high school seniors in the Christian Science Sunday School class I taught: “Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demonstrating the true image and likeness” (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 185).
I immediately began to renounce all that would define me as material rather than spiritual. I refused to give my consent to the thoughts that I was foolish, that I was too overwhelmed with obvious material evidence to counter these suggestions, and that underneath it all I was simply a material being suffering from a pain-inducing accident. I felt the negative thoughts being stifled as I acknowledged my “spiritual identity as the child of God.” As I engaged in this scientific prayer, I could feel the power of Truth, God, reversing every claim that was tugging at me. I truly felt as if I was mentally experiencing the opening of the “flood-gates of heaven,” relieving me far more effectively than running my hand under a faucet. And I did indeed feel cleansed and completely at one with God. I saw clearly that there was no other mind or influence than God.
Within moments, the pain was gone, and there was no discoloration, swelling, or any other evidence of a burn on my hand. I went back to the kitchen to eat my still-warm food, continuing to renounce even any sense of awe, as if the healing were miraculous. I knew that it was not miraculous, but natural, in line with divine logic. I felt the oneness of the divine Mind being evidenced. The belief in a subconscious mind, which would cling to fear and blame and pain, was silenced in that instance.
We can daily declare and affirm the First Commandment: that there is one God, one Mind. This Mind does all the cognizing and knowing. Since we are created by God, we are governed by His loving, divine all-consciousness. So the only true thoughts are what Mind causes us to think. And because Mind is All, there is no such thing as unconsciousness or subconsciousness.
As Science and Health states, “When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness” (p. 264).
