Science and Health

Front matter

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I.

Natural Science | 9

Preface

PREFACE.

Leaning on the sustaining Infinite with loving trust, the trials of to-day are brief, and to-morrow is big with blessings. The wakeful shepherd tending his flocks, beholds from the mountain's top the first faint morning beam ere cometh the risen day. So from Soul's loftier summits shines the pale star to the prophet shepherd, and it traverses night, over to where the young child lies in cradled obscurity that shall waken a world. Over the night of error dawn the morning beams and guiding star of Truth, and “the wise men are led by it to Science, to that which repeats the eternal harmony reproduced in proof of immortality and God. The time for thinkers has come; and the time for revolutions, ecclesiastic and social, must come. Truth, independent of doctrines or time-honored systems, stands at the threshold of history. Contentment with the past, or the cold conventionality of custom, may no longer shut the door on science; though empires fall, “He whose right it is shall reign.” Ignorance of God should no longer be the stepping-stone to faith; understanding Him “whom to know aright is Life” is the only guaranty of obedience.

Since the hoary centuries but faintly shadow forth the tireless Intelligence at work for man, this volume may not open at once a new thought, and make it familiar; it has the task of a pioneer to hack away at the tall oak and cut the rough granite, leaving future ages to declare what has been done. We made our first discovery that science mentally applied would heal the sick, in 1864, and since then have tested it on ourselves and hundreds of others, and never found it fail to prove the statement herein made of it. The science of man alone can make him harmonious, unfold his utmost possibilities, and establish the perfection of man. To admit God the Principle of all being, and live in accordance with this Principle, is the Science of Life, but to reproduce the harmony of being, errors of personal sense must be destroyed, even as the science of music, must correct tones caught from the ear, to give the sweet concord of sound. There are many theories of physic, and theology; and many calls in each of their directions for the right way; but we propose to settle the question of “What is Truth?” on the ground of proof. Let that method of healing the sick and establishing Christianity, be adopted, that is found to give the most health, and make the best Christians, and you will then give science a fair field; in which case we are assured of its triumph over all opinions and beliefs. Sickness and sin have ever had their doctors, but the question is, have they become less because of them? The longevity of our antediluvians would say, no! and the criminal records of to-day utter their voices little in favor of such a conclusion. Not that we would deny to Cæsar the things that are his, but that we ask for the things that are Truth's, and safely affirm, from the demonstrations we have been able to make, that science would have eradicated sin, sickness, and death, in a less period than six thousand years. We find great difficulties in starting this work right: some shockingly false claims are already made to its practice; mesmerism (its very antipode), is one. Hitherto we have never in a single instance of our discovery or practice found the slightest resemblance between mesmerism and the science of Life. No especial idiosyncrasy is requisite for a learner; although spiritual sense is more adapted to it than even the intellect; and those who would learn this science without a high moral standard will fail to understand it until they go up higher. Owing to our explanations constantly vibrating between the same points an irksome repetition of words must occur; also, the use of capital letters, genders and technicalities peculiar to the science, variety of language, or beauty of diction, must give place to close analysis, and unembellished thought. “Hoping all things, enduring all things:” to do good to the upright in heart, and to bless them that curse us, and bear to the sorrowing and the sick consolation and healing, we commit these pages to posterity.

MARY BAKER GLOVER.

I. Natural Science

Science and Health.

NATURAL SCIENCE.

A few years since we clipped the following from the reports on Science:

“At the University at Oxford, a prize of one hundred pounds was offered for the best Essay on Natural Science, to refute the materialism of the present age, or the tendency to attribute physical effects to physical causes, rather than to a final spiritual cause.” This demand for metaphysics coming from the very fount of erudition meets the wants of the age, and is the one question towering above all others, insomuch as it relates more intimately to the happiness and perfection of man. The control mind holds over matter becomes no longer a question when with mathematical certainty we gain its proof, and can demonstrate the facts assumed. This proof we claim to have gained, and reduced to its statement in science that furnishes a key to the harmony of man, and reveals what destroys sickness, sin, and death.

Metaphysical science explains cause and effect; removing the veil of mystery and doubt, from Soul and body, and from man and God; it unwinds the interlaced ambiguities of Spirit and matter, and sets free the imprisoned Intelligence; explains the phenomenon man, on the basis of his Principle, and how to gain his harmony in science, which seems to us more important morally and physically than the discovery of the powers of steam, the electric telegraph, or any other advanced idea that science has revealed. Views taken on trust cause conflicting opinions and beliefs that emit a poisonous atmosphere of mind more destructive to the harmony of body than the miasma of matter. Understanding cools and purifies this atmosphere, and thus invigorates the body; but before this result is obtained, understanding and belief, or Truth and error must meet in a war of ideas, and the thunderbolt of public opinion burst overhead; but when this outburst of opinion is spent of its fury, like the rain-drops on the earth it will have moistened the parched thought, whereby the rich buds and blossoms that come from the tree of Life may put forth new beauty.

Because Christendom may resist the word science, we shall lose no faith in Christianity, and because we shall apply this word to Truth, Christianity will lose no hold on us. We shall let the Principle of things alone interpret them, and never take an opinion or belief to steady the altar of science. The Principle of the universe and man embraces the understanding, and explanation of Soul and body, and is the basis of all science; but opinions and beliefs regarding God and man, or Soul and body, are the foundations of all error. There is no physical science, the Principle of science is God, Intelligence, and not matter; therefore, science is spiritual, for God is Spirit and the Principle of the universe and man.

We learn from science mind is universal, the first and only cause of all that really is; also, that the real and unreal constitute what is, and what is not; that the real is Spirit, which is immortality, and the unreal matter, or mortality. The real is Truth, Life, Love and Intelligence, all of which are Spirit, and Spirit is God, and God, Soul, the Principle of the universe and man. Spirit is the only immortal basis. Matter is mortality; it has no Principle, but is change and decay, embracing what we term sickness, sin, and death. God is not the author of these, hence Spirit is not the author of matter; discords are the unreal that make up the opposite to harmony, or the real that emanates Truth and not error. Spirit never requires matter to aid it, or through which to act; no partnership or fellowship exists between them; matter cannot co-operate with Spirit, the mortal and unreal with the real and eternal, the mutable and imperfect with the immutable and perfect, the inharmonious and self-destroying with the harmonious and undying. Spirit is Truth, matter its opposite; viz., error; and these two forces control man and the universe, and are the tares and wheat that never mingle, but grow side by side until the harvest, until matter is self-destroyed; for not until then do we learn ourselves Spirit, and yield up the ghost of error, that would make substance, Life and Intelligence, matter. God and His idea are all that is real primitively; all is mind, and mind produces mind only, nature, reason and revelation decide, that like produces like; matter does not produce mind, nor, vice versa. We name matter, error, it being a false claim to Life and Intelligence, that returns to dust ignored by Spirit, that is supreme over all, and knows nothing of matter.

Natural history presents the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms preserving their original species in reproduction; a mineral is not produced by a vegetable, and vice versa; throughout the entire round of universal nature, this rule relating to genus and species holds good; this therefore is science. But error claims the very opposite, viz., that Spirit produces matter; making Spirit, or God, the author of evil as well as good, and harmony the author of discord, evil presenting as much of God as good, which contradicts self-evident Truth. In the science of being we learn all discord, such as sickness, sin or death, is distinct from Spirit, and not produced by God; also, that God is the Soul, or Principle of man, the Truth, unerring and eternal; again, that matter claiming mind, or making itself the basis of mind, is error, and this error, the so-called intelligent body named man, with intelligent nerves, brain, stomach, and so forth. The only reality of being is the Truth of it, and that Life and Intelligence are in matter, is not Truth but its opposite, error; therefore, illusion. Mind and matter are opposites; that mind is in matter, or that matter is the medium through which mind is made manifest is not more real than that a tree embraces a rock in the heart of it, and is the natural medium through which the rock grows, and is identified. Nature and revelation afford no grounds for the belief that Spirit, God, created, or is in a body of sickness, sin, and death, and the only excuse for such a belief is, that the falsity of this opinion of Life is not seen until we begin to learn the science of Life, and enter into our God-being, wherein we learn that Spirit and matter no more commingle, than light and darkness, than God and His opposite, called devil, which reduced to their statement in science, are Truth and error; in other words, Spirit and matter, forever distinct, one possessing immortality, the other mortality. Said the Apostle, “The flesh warreth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.”

Mind, the basis of all things, cannot cross its species, and produce matter. But in order to classify mind that is real, from belief or the unreal, we name one mind, and the other matter; but recollect matter is but a belief, and mind the only reality. Error can only be defined as belief, which is not mind but illusion. The belief, that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are where and what they are not, is error. Spirit is the understanding and possession of Truth, Life and Intelligence. Belief and understanding never mingle, more than matter and Spirit; one is error, the other Truth. All discord is what we term matter, and discord is mortal, nothingness; harmony is real and immortal, for it belongs to Spirit, is produced by it and proceeds from it. Immortal mind is Spirit, an utterance of Soul proceeding from harmony and immortality. The mind, that we name matter, is the so-called mind of the body, and what is termed sinful and mortal man; but this man is a myth, neither mind nor matter, but a belief that embraces all error. God, Truth, never produced error; Soul and Intelligence never originated inharmony; and at some future data we shall learn all that is mortal or discordant hath no origin, existence or reality, but is the absence of the real; yea, native nothingness, the chaos and night out of which error would simulate the creations of Truth, from dust instead of Deity. Error pre-supposes man both mind and matter, but this is not the science of being, but science disputing personal sense beards so relentlessly our belief, we naturally ask what are we, and what is man? We are Spirit, Soul, and not body, and all is good that is Spirit; God and the idea of God are real, and nothing else is real. Harmony and its results are real, but discord and what comes of it are the unreal. It were well to begin from this hour, as you read these pages, to reckon Life only in what is good and true; putting aside evil as unreal, not the offspring of God, and unworthy to be named man, him whom Spirit produces “the image and likeness of God,” but whom matter claims to create in sin.

Admitting error, produces it; but who or what is it that admits error? Not God, Spirit, for error is not the result of Intelligence; error is a self-admission, and admission of self-hood where man is not, and this is all there is to it; admitting a temptation is the only danger in it. To believe in the possibility of pleasurable sin, makes all that is sin; say then to the whole liturgy of intelligent matter, as Jesus said, “You were a liar from the beginning.”

Mind is Spirit, outside of matter, and this is the only mind or understanding; the mind called brains, or matter, is belief only; hence, the more material man is the stronger belief, and the weaker manifestation of Soul, or understanding. Belief is what we term personal sense, and personal sense is a belief. That matter is intelligent, that nerves feel, brains think, and sin, that a stomach makes man cross, limbs cripple him, and matter kills him, is a belief, and this belief, error, opposed to the Truth of being. Sin, sickness and death proceed from the so-called five personal senses that we are taught to revere and cultivate, but which Truth at length destroys, through age, experience or spiritual growth, and in place of sentient bodies, we find sensationless bodies, and immortal Soul, as the recognition of being harmonious and eternal. The body mortal is not man, for man is immortal; but with sensation in the body he is not immortal, and cannot be Spirit, which is Soul.

To admit physical effects is to conclude matter cause and effect, whence it follows there are two causes, viz., mind and matter, else that mind produces matter, or matter produces mind, which contradicts the science of Life in its demonstration, and is like saying dust originated man, and a serpent a dove. Soul is Intelligence, but the so-called mind of body is belief only, the limited and mortal that embraces not the boundless and eternal, for such is Intelligence. Hence we learn that Soul, therefore Spirit, which is God, is not in man, and that man is idea, and Soul the Principle, Life, substance and Intelligence of man.

Having drawn the line between immortal man, or the reality of being, and the unreal or mortal, that is but a personal recognizance of Life, God, which is impossible, we also learn that pain or pleasure in matter is equally impossible. Things, as they appear from the stand-point of personal sense, are diametrically opposite to science, or immortal man seen from the stand-point of Soul; hence the difficulty sensuous man has to understand this science, and his opposition to it, for “the carnal man is at enmity with God.” Mortal man and personal sense are not mind but belief; mind is understanding, belief is ignorance, even the error that Truth consigns to oblivion.

What is deemed Life in vegetable and animal becomes a self-evident falsehood, when all that is left of it is death. The science of being alone reveals Life or Principle, that reverses every position of personal sense; showing also that sickness, sin and death disappear with the understanding of being and our real existence, for in this alone are we harmonious, sinless, and eternal.

Will man lose his identity in conscious infinitude of being? It is impossible that he should lose aught that tends to his completeness, in a state through which he gains all; matter, embracing sickness, sin and death, is all that will ever be lost. Life is not structural and organic, for Life is Spirit, Soul, and not sense, and without beginning and without end. Life is Principle, and not person; joy and not sorrow; holiness, not sin, and harmony, without a tone of discord. In science we learn there is but one God, also that God is Spirit; hence there is but one Spirit, for there is not an evil God. To gain the harmony of being, and be perfect even as the Father, God must be understood, which means, the Principle of man must be understood; believing in God never made a Christian.

The only immortal basis of man is Soul; hence the importance to plant one's self on the basis of being, and work from this to gain our ultimate harmony. Soul and not sense reveals the glorious possibilities of man, even the circumference of his being unlimited by a belief of Life in matter; getting out of material nutshells we get out of error, whereby we learn the last shall be first, and the first last; that which was first in matter will be last, alias, nothing in Spirit. Science puts not new wine into old bottles; we cannot adhere to a belief regarding a subject, and at the same time grasp the Truth of it; we must yield the old, or the new is spilled.

Doctrines and opinions based on a personal God are nothing more or less than beliefs of intelligent matter, that we must yield, or spill the inspiration and wine of Truth that enables man to demonstrate Life higher, and to reach practical Christianity that casts out devils and heals the sick.

We will now consider more minutely the Principle, or Soul of man, named God; learn what it is, and how man is harmonious and immortal. The Scriptures inform us, “God is Love,” “Truth and Life,” and these certainly imply He is Principle, not person. Again, Principle explains person, but person cannot explain Principle. God interprets man, but man cannot explain God, Spirit explains matter, but matter cannot define Spirit, Soul explains body, but body cannot interpret Soul. We must commence with God to explain immortal man, remembering God is Spirit, and Spirit the only substance, because it is Intelligence; holding the earth in equipoise, marking out the pathway of the stars, forming the minutia of identity, and comprehending the universe and man in the harmony of being. Spirit believes nothing, because it understands all, and is Life, not subject to death because it is exempt from matter.

It is mind alone that embraces sensation, therefore, the senses are Spirit and not matter, and belong to Soul instead of body; they are not personal but Spiritual; Intelligence passes from mind to body, that is, from Principle to its idea, but cannot pass from body to mind, for matter is neither cognizant of evil or good, of pain or pleasure. Soul is not in body, it is the unlimited Intelligence, impossible to limit, and the immortality that mingles not with mortality; as light and darkness are opposites, so are Spirit and matter, without the least affinity; light dwelling in darkness would destroy the darkness; thus would the sinless and immortal destroy the sinning and mortal; but darkness extinguishes not light, and matter cannot destroy Spirit, body cannot destroy Soul, but Soul can and does destroy matter. Man is not matter, brains are not Intelligence, they are not the organ of the infinite. Life and Intelligence are not in matter, nor do they act by means of organization; matter is a creation of belief, a chimera of personal sense that reverses science, as we shall hereafter show.

Idea is inseparable from its Principle; man is idea, and Soul the Principle that produces it, therefore man and his maker are inseparable. Opinions and beliefs have no Principle, they are erring and mortal, neither expressing God nor immortal man; but the offspring of personal sense, embracing sin, sickness and death, yea, the dream of Life in matter. Materia medica, physiology, mesmerism, etc., are opinions and beliefs, predicated on intelligent matter, which is error; and the discord and doubt attending them are owing to the false position they occupy. Ideas, like numbers and notes, admit no opinions or beliefs regarding them, when once their Principle is understood; beliefs are theories that change, and are falsely stated, because they are not un The identity of every idea is in its Principle where it is learned; immortal man is harmonious and eternal; matter is the offspring of mortal belief; Soul or understanding, has no part in it.

Philosophy in general, finds cause in effect, Soul in body, Principle in idea, and Life and Intelligence in matter. Materia medica seeking cause in effect, would learn of matter what are the conditions of man, examining the liver, heart, lungs, etc., to ascertain how much harmony they are permitting man; thus admitting matter instead of mind, causation, and producing Life or death, pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, without the mind's consent; this would place man and God, or body and Soul, at the disposal and control of matter. Physiology finds mind unequal to matter, cause not master of effect, the so-called laws of nature failing in their fulfillment to give health to man; making the Infinite insufficient to govern the finite, Principle not controlling its idea, and the Intelligence, or Soul of man, unable to govern the body. To prevent disease, or the effects of damp atmospheres, violent exertions, a heavy meal, etc., destroying man; we say, laws of matter are our only hope, leaving Spirit powerless.

Mesmerism, placing Life and Intelligence in electricity, finds matter superior to God, and the governing Principle of man, an aura of brains, the lack or excess, quality or quantity of which, determines his discord or harmony.

Theology would make the supreme Being a person, in other words, matter embracing Spirit; God dwelling in man, Life in the things it creates, cause in effect, Soul in body, the infinite and limitless, within limits. With this theory, to be omnipresent, God must pass in personal identity over earth; or possess a body that encompasseth universal space; in which case, what would be the personality of God? Spirit is not matter; nor is it both within and without matter; if such were the case, they would be one in substance and Intelligence, else limited to the range of personal sense, or personal sense raised to the capacity of omnipresence, which is again impossible. Our beliefs of a personal Deity place infinite Life and Love within the stature of a man; make man God, or put God into matter, which is atheism. Error is the basis of all belief; we need, instead, the true idea, based on the understanding of God the impersonal Principle, Truth, and Life of man, which is not body, but Soul.

The artist is not in his painting; the picture is a thought of his, an emanation of Spirit, not matter; the Creator is not what he creates. The potter is not in the clay, but has power over the clay; God produces his own personality, and cannot get into it, because it is in Him the circumference and infinite Soul outside of matter and man. The five personal senses are beliefs of Life, substance, and Intelligence in matter, even the fount of error; all discord proceeds from this false source; in reality, there is no personal sense, for matter is not intelligent. The line of demarkation between the Principle that is Intelligence and Life, and the belief of Life and Intelligence in person, is the boundary between belief and science, otherwise, between error and truth. Science contradicts personal sense in every instance, as we shall hereafter show. Understanding is the only admissible evidence of Truth; con drawn from personal sense are foundationless; understanding is a portion of the infinite Principle embracing every idea of Truth. Belief has no Principle; it is a mortal and finite sense of things called knowledge, a lie of limits that would place Soul in body, Life and Intelligence in matter to evolve matter, and call this germination, or nature, seed reproducing itself; not only denying to God the things that are His, but limiting the Infinite, and thinking to fasten Wisdom to discord and decay.

To learn the Truth of things, they must be explained from the basis of Soul, and not sense; personal sense is knowledge, obtained from opinions and beliefs. When our interpretations proceed from the Principle of things, we have them right; but if from observation, or the deductions of personal sense, they are wrong, and beliefs based on the supposition of Life and Intelligence in matter, that are error.

Impressions supposed to proceed from the hearing of the ear, the observations of the eye, from touch, taste, or smell, are these beliefs, but not the ideas of God. Every idea proceeds from Principle, gained through understanding, whereby we arrive at demonstrable Truth. Belief constitutes mistakes, understanding never errs, hence it is necessary to the harmony of mind and body. Inasmuch as belief starts from person, instead of Principle, it is not the Truth of being, but the error called mortal man.

Knowledge is power, even the force that depends on organizations for strength, it is neither moral suasion, moral might, idea, nor Principle; but a faith, supposition, or belief. Repulsion, attraction, cohesion, and power supposed to belong to matter, are constituents of mind; knowledge gives these properties to matter, but science gives them to Intelligence, the Principle of all; to find inherent properties in matter that act independent of mind is impossible. There is no inertia in Intelligence; but science alone determines whence cometh action, from its harmonious Principle, i. e., from Soul to body, or from belief prolific of error.

Science reveals all action proceeding from God, the universal cause that produces harmony only; and that discord, sickness, sin, and death, are neither action, nor being, but beliefs, or error. The absence of Truth, we name error, but whence cometh error, from God? No; “the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter water.” Error is not an idea, it has neither Principle, nor identity; it is not definable as a person, place, or thing; as an agent, or actor; and being without substance, Life, or Intelligence, and neither Principle nor identity, we learn it came not! but is illusion. Again, what is belief? Nothing real or true, and to understand this is the only fact concerning it. Sickness, sin, and death, all that is the opposite and absence of God, is belief and error presupposing good and evil in matter and man. But is the question answered, whence cometh belief? It has no origin, it is neither Principle nor idea; but illusion, without any real cause or creation.

We say disease is a reality, and identity, but science finds it a belief only; disappearing with mortality, and cognizant only to personal sense; not to Soul. “God made all that was made;” there is but one Principle and its infinite idea; harmony and immortality that belong to man, are perceived through spiritual sense, but not personal. Belief has no Intelligence, having neither Principle nor understanding, therefore it is error, and error is the so-called mind of mortal man! totally depraved, sinning, suffering, and dying; this is the absence of God. Man has no mind in matter; the belief that he has, is error. There is but one Intelligence, even God, the infinite Love, Truth, and Life; and God is not man. Matter is not intelligent; brains are not mind; and man is not Soul, a separate God or Intelligence. Jesus laid much stress on this point: “Thou shall have no other gods before Me;” while we daily behold in belief the zeal of error to gain the opposite point, viz.: “I will make ye as gods.”

Science informs us immortal mind is Spirit; but personal sense would have mind both Spirit and matter; a moral impossibility. Spirit cannot act through matter, they are diametrically opposed to each other, and never mingle; personal sense is the only foundation for the theory that Spirit and matter mingle, and time and eternity are wearing away this support. Mind is not confined to organization, nor limited by materiality.

Immortal mind is the atmosphere of Soul pervading all space; and regarding even “the sparrow's fall;” no power can compress it within a skull-bone! matter confines it not, the strongest barrier opposed to Intelligence is as nothing; the only clog, or limit given mind, is mortal belief, error's synonym; understanding constructs not, and has no cognizance of limits; it is finite belief that would limit mind; and there is no finite Intelligence. There is finite error, that pre-supposes mind in matter; but this is the evil and not the good, the belief and not the reality; yea, the error, and not the Truth of man.

Spiritual sense belongs to Soul, and is the only real sense; it takes no cognizance of substance in matter, of suffering, sin, or death; Spiritual sense recognizes all that is Truth, Life, and Love; hence there is nothing left personal sense to enjoy or suffer. Personal sense is the dream of Life in matter, a supposition only of reality and substance, of Life and Intelligence, of good and evil, that would limit Soul, and doom all things to decay. Sensation in matter is one of its beliefs, and belief is the opinion, personal, that supports only what is untrue, selfish, or debased; all these mistakes are but the error we name mortal man. God and man will never be understood, until we listen alone to the senses attached to Principle instead of person, to Soul instead of body.