Eyewitness Account of 1902 Association Address
This is a recollection by Miss Church on November 9, 1929 . (Mr. Kimball passed on in 1908)
ASSOCIATION ADDRESS
November 9, 1929
Miss Church
When Mr. Kimball came on the platform the first day, at the time when I studied, he said something like this, “If I seem to manifest any physical disorder, (and he seemed to) it is because many persons believe that I am in error.” He went on to say that many persons had wanted to be in class and had not been permitted and they believed him in great error.
Would that mean that what those persons were believing had produced that physical discord? No-but it did seem that the belief entertained by a great many people seemingly was disturbing his thinking until HIS disturbed thinking about what they were thinking was being objectified as physical discord. There is all the difference in the world. Not what they were thinking, but what he was thinking about what they were thinking, was being objectified as physical discord.
What needed to be treated? Their belief, or anybody’s belief that he was in error? He was not in error and he did not believe that he was in error. You would have denied that belief and seen that that was untrue. Would that have been sufficient? No-but the beliefs that were being entertained by a great many people, that he was in error claimed that they could disturb and harass him, or make him or anybody believe in what they were thinking, in order that what he believed about what they believed, might be objectified, embodied as his physical so-called body.
What needed to be treated? Not simply that he was in error, but the claim that this belief that he was in error could disturb or harass him or make him believe in what they were thinking or fear what they were doing or in any way hinder his or affect his thinking.
The claim was that what they believed could influence, in order that what he believed about what they believed could objectify as his physical condition. In other words the claim of what they were thinking could have some effect upon him and thereby his thinking be externalized as his physical so-called body in some discordant phenomena. The claim about what he thought about what they thought was the only claim to be healed. It wasn’t a question at all of whether he was in error or not. Now this is what we call MALPRACTICE. Then malpractice, so-called, could effect him only as his own thinking and in no other way.
Then what was he to do? His work, then, was to maintain his own thinking-the Christ consciousness, undisturbed and uninfluenced by the thoughts of others, about the thoughts that they were arguing to him about what others were doing or thinking. S&H. 306:25. Paul said, “None of these things move me.” Acts. 20:24, 1st clause.
Even if the whole world believed Mr. K. was in error, this malpractice, these aggressive mental suggestions about him could not make him think erroneously and so produce so-called discordant physical ills and so make him seem to believe in error. These aggressive mental suggestions could not do a thing to his Christ consciousness. So what they were thinking could not be objectified, and the so-called physical discord vanished away quickly. Then this is the work of every Christian Scientist. To do for himself and his patients, and to help his patients to do for themselves, and get his students to do for themselves. S&H 18:6-8.
Then could Mr. K. defend himself against these aggressive mental suggestions, so-called malpractice, by maintaining his own Christ consciousness undisturbed by what others were thinking by refusing to let those suggestions influence
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his thinking? Did he protect himself this way? Is there any other way? Do you do it any other way? It is the only scientific way, the only Christian Science way. Now Mrs. Eddy has said, I am told “It is not what others think about you that counts, but what you think about what they think.”
Mis. Wr. 315:32-4 -S&H 346:13-Man. 84:1-42:4
Suppose a great many persons, all the world, had believed he had heart trouble? What would need to be treated? It would not be sufficient simply to treat or deny that he had heart trouble. The thing that needs to be treated would be the claim that what they believed about him could disturb and harass him and mesmerize him into believing that he had heart trouble until what he thought about it objectified as seeming heart trouble.
“It can’t be done” is the treatment. If the whole world thought he had heart trouble, he couldn’t be mesmerized into believing he had it, there never could be a claim objectified if we did not fear it. Mis. Wr. 109:28-32.
Has all the world’s materia medica belief in heart trouble ever tried to mesmerize you into believing that you had heart trouble or some other trouble? Then what would need to be treated? The belief that you had heart trouble or the belief that you could be mesmerized by the whole world’s materia medica belief in heart trouble?
Then it is evident to you that mesmerism, hypnotism, is always the actual claim to be treated. The actual claim to be treated always is the mesmerism or hypnotism of what other people think, claiming to mesmerize you into thinking of what they think. The claim that you can be mesmerized by some distressing suggestion or fear or worry until you do actually feel the distress and do seem to have some kind of so-called physical trouble or some other kind of trouble.
Now materia medica admitted long ago that just such statements could be externalized as every kind of so-called physical trouble, and that is what it is doing today. That is all there is of so-called physical trouble today. Fear and worry objectified as some form of physical trouble, so-called disease, physical discord. There is no physical disease, but only so many kinds of mesmerism, mesmeric states and because disease (dis-ease) is not physics, but so-called mental in its nature and origin, therefore its diagnosis must be mental and its method of healing. Mrs. Eddy tells us not to give a disease a name. You are disobedient to the revelation if you do. Diagnose metaphysically, but never give a name that materia medica would. S&H 453:24-28.
It is not enough to declare that the distressing suggestions or fear is false, and to maintain the truth about that, unless your realization, your vision of Truth and Love is so complete as to heal it without any reasoning sufficient to wipe out and melt away that manifestation. You know the belief is false even if you seem to believe it, for divine Science has revealed its falsity; therefore the important thing for you to do is to discern and declare that YOU, the CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS, or anybody cannot be mesmerized by those suggestions and so made to believe and objectify materia medica suggestions. Declare it and declare it, until you know it and feel it, that you cannot be mesmerized by aggressive mental suggestions and so made to believe and objectify materia medica suggestions, false theology, materia medica suggestions – any kind of false suggestions, jealousy, criticism, fear; and know that you cannot be mesmerized by aggressive suggestions. This knowing keeps you from seeming to be. It is when you are not knowing that you cannot be mesmerized or hypnotized by them that you are most liable to be.
Mesmerism is not power. There is no mesmeric power, no magnetic power
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and those aggressive mental suggestions are not power and the Christ consciousness does not give them power.
(Take this treatment carefully – it is treatment). These aggressive mental suggestions have no intelligence and are not Mind, and therefore cannot act as Mind or as cause, or be objectified as effect. Aggressive mental suggestions have no substance wherewith to act and cannot act upon the Christ consciousness. They have no law or Principle to support them, to enforce them and they cannot function as law. But the Christ consciousness is law to the aggressive mental suggestion. Aggressive mental suggestions have no ability to function at all, as functions of the Mother Church, its affairs or members – or the Publishing Society, or any function or nations, or at all, for the Christ consciousness is all that is functioning or can function or be objectified. Aggressive mental suggestion has no channel or avenue and cannot find me whereby it can reach me within the radius of my thinking by mesmerizing others with aggressive suggestions about me. It cannot make an avenue of me whereby to reach others by mesmerizing me by aggressive mental suggestions about others and so tempt them to be mesmerized by aggressive mental suggestions and they cannot make me believe they can or are.
Aggressive mental suggestion cannot mesmerize the Christ consciousness (my consciousness) cannot obscure the Christ consciousness, cannot rule or ruin the Christ consciousness, cannot take possession of my thinking and obsess it or persecute or torment it, and they cannot make the Christ consciousness fear death or love death or in any way believe in death at all or make the Christ consciousness believe there is any evil at all or believe in any of its so-called forms or phenomena whereby to make it respond to any other aggressive mental suggestions and thereby objectify it (them) as human discord. S&H 347:26-29. Aggressive mental suggestion cannot parade as Christian Scientists and cannot make me believe that it can. The Christ consciousness does not respond to aggressive mental suggestion. “It can’t be done.” They are not divine possibilities. They aren’t divinely possible. Declare it until you know it and then you will never be tempted again to believe that you do not know how to handle aggressive mental suggestions. They can’t mesmerize the Christ consciousness; and declaring they cannot, keeps them from seeming to do it even if they do seem to be real, even if they do seem to be believing them.
Is this controlling sin, sickness and death on the basis of your spirituality – the Christ consciousness as Mrs. Eddy says Jesus did? S&H 356:9-11. Matt. 12:28-29. Then, as Mrs. Eddy says in 1901 Message 13:9-12 “Take possession of these aggressive mental suggestions with such a sense of their nullity as destroys them.” S&H 7:1-7 – Mal. 4:3.
Now in reading the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings, if you substitute the words “aggressive mental suggestion” for evil or malpractice, or sin, or mesmerism, wherever you can, you will find, I think, that it will be a great help to you in your reading. It will bring out a greater unfoldment, for the aggressive mental suggestion is all there is of anything of that nature.
In handling any claim, then, it is all important to recognize: 1) that this aggressive mental suggestion is a false belief. I know there is no such thing even though I seem to believe it. 2) It cannot mesmerize me to make me believe or think about it. It cannot do a thing to my thinking or to anybody’s thinking. It cannot mesmerize the Christ consciousness. “It can’t be done”; and therefore it can’t create or determine any discordant phenomena. 3) The Christ consciousness creates and determines its own universe. It is determining all the phenomena. The Christ consciousness is all that is going on or doing anything and it operates as law to all that seems to be going on.
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Mis. Wr. 367:29-2 THIS REFERENCE IS AS TRUE OF YOU AS IT IS OF GOD
So you are creating and determining your own universe. Is what you are thinking being reflected as your own universe, as your own image and likeness? The image and likeness of your own thinking? Is that self-evident? You-your thinking-creates your own universe and determines it and is reflected by it. Your universe is your own image and likeness, M.W. 119:1-9. Then, in other words, you must not only recognize 1st. that aggressive mental suggestion is not anything, but also 2nd. that it cannot do anything to the Christ consciousness. It must be recognized as a claim of mesmerism and 3rd. see the spiritual fact about which that belief is a belief about.
Now a second reader, a woman, had to meet a claim for herself at the time of reading, but she failed to meet it very well. When asked how she treated the claim she said she declared it was not real. It was only just a lie and had no truth in it and no reality, etc. Now do you think that was enough to meet the claim? Of course had her vision been big enough it would have met anything, but unless her vision was great enough to wipe it out and melt it away, just denying the belief was not sufficient. Now, how many of you do you think stop right there in meeting a claim? To simply try to heal the belief without going any further? Then it is not enough to try and heal the belief. It wasn’t enough to enable her to meet the claim. What then should she have declared? That the Christ consciousness could not be mesmerized to accept that claim and that claim could not mesmerize her, and that it couldn’t do a thing to the Christ consciousness and so to be objectified as a so-called physical phenomena. The point is to know you can’t be mesmerized by belief, by aggressive mental suggestion.
John 14:30 last half, is aggressive mental suggestion the prince of the world? Then isn’t that what Jesus said, “the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me?” Nothing in the Christ consciousness to respond. S&H 234:31-3 – 451:2-5. Now then, in contrast to this lack of demonstration of the reader, a young woman made a good demonstration for herself. She found it necessary to free herself from the claim of being dominated by another woman and she knew that the Christ consciousness could not be mesmerized by the aggressive mental suggestions of will-power and fear and with each uncovering of these suggestions of fear or will power, and her sense of fear of another person, the suffering grew less until she lost all sense of fear that objectified itself as a great sense of suffering, and a great sense of love came to her for that person and she was conscious of her freedom of the claim of human will or domination. A great sense of love took the place and she was free from the sense of fear and suffering. The Christ consciousness had destroyed fear-had demonstrated it could not be mesmerized by the aggressive mental suggestion of fear, and so illustrated Mrs. Eddy’s words in S&H 401:7-11-16-20; 233:17-24; Matt. 20:25-27.
Mrs. Eddy said something like this to someone: “As long as you believe in evil at all you will have to continue with specific claims.” In other words it is our belief in evil or matter in general or particular, that makes us respond to the fear and hate, materia medica, jealousy, covetousness and suspicion and so makes us determine our own so-called suffering. It is our own mentality which determines our own so-called suffering. It is our own mentality that determines not only our own heaven, our own universe, but our own hell. It is our belief in the reality of hate, jealousy, materia medica in general, even if we yield to it and be mesmerized by these aggressive mental suggestions and so suffer instead of being above them, and out of their reach. Mr. K. said, scorn never affected him because he had risen above it. S&H 53:25-1. Then to criticize these errors in others means that you are believing in them and therefore you may suffer yourself unless you strip the lies. So we too, might pray, “Father forgive us for believing in hatred.” It is said of Jesus, S&H 39:1-2, he “meekly met the mockery of his unrecognized grandeur.” He would rather recognize the person’s real grandeur than to find something to criticize. Do we long to have others recognize our real grandeur? Do you think others long or yearn to have their own
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real grandeur recognized? Don’t you think it would heal you to behold your real grandeur? There is just one grandeur and that is the grandeur of the idea of Truth and Love. The grandeur of divine Science and it is the grandeur of every one of us. MW. 151:22-31.
SO THAT IS THE WAY OF SALVATION: The beauty of the demonstration of the young woman is this; she saw that the demonstration had to be worked out in her own thought-not in the other’s thinking-in anybody’s thinking or in any person but IN HER OWN THINKING. She had learned that this is the way. It was not what the other person thought or was thinking but what she thought the other person was thinking. S&H 346:13-16. Have each one of you learned that very lovely lesson? Well I hope you will learn it today-that every demonstration-no matter how many persons it concerns, has to be worked out in one’s own thinking and not in another’s. It is just what you are thinking about what some other person is thinking. And her demonstration, that she was the Christ consciousness, could stand and break down every mesmeric suggestion of fear and reign supreme as Love, solved her problem or ours. Now suppose that student had not known what that other person was thinking-or suppose Mr. K. had not known; the fact would still remain that it is what you are thinking about what the other person is thinking that counts-that needs to be treated-healed. And your knowing that you, the Christ consciousness cannot be mesmerized by anybody’s thinking, keeps you from seeming to be. (THIS IS THE FIRST STEP IN MAKING THE DEMONSTRATION).
Now Jesus could always discern what the other person was thinking and healed instantaneously. John 2:24-25. (If, in this reference you will cross out the words in italics, you will get a better sense) they were placed there by the interpreters. In reading the Bible you have to punctuate and capitalize it yourselves.
S&H 94:24-28. Because Jesus could always discern what the other person was thinking he could always heal instantaneously. He could see the nothingness of what the other person was thinking instantly with his Christ consciousness. S&H 346:15-17 – 29-30. Therefore, do you not think that it is all important to be able to discern on a scientific basis (and Jesus always discerned on a scientific basis) the aggressive mental suggestion which the other person is thinking or which is trying to mesmerize your thinking? Never mind about the other person, but it is the aggressive mental suggestion that is trying to mesmerize your thinking that you need to discern. But be sure it is always on a scientific basis. It is the same aggressive mental suggestion to mesmerize you and the other person, wholly as something within the radius of your thinking, and often you do not heal a thing until you have discerned, uncovered the aggressive mental suggestion that is specifically trying to mesmerize you or the patient and so be objectified as some discordant phenomena. S&H 252:8-14.
Divine Love pursues the aggressive mental suggestion that hides itself, strips off its disguise and behold the result! Evil uncovered is destroyed. The wisdom of the serpent (aggressive mental suggestion) is to hide itself. Mrs. Eddy speaks of the deep demand of Science to meet and uncover the aggressive mental suggestion and annihilate it. “A knowledge of error and its operation must precede the understanding that destroys it.” If you know what the aggressive mental suggestion is, you can destroy it instantly. To illustrate this point; “A disloyal student, formerly a Director of The Mother Church came to visit a church in Southern California. A student became ill. The first and second treatments were not effective. The third day, Miss C. went to see the patient. She was quite ill. The third treatment apparently had no result. Then she saw that she must discern what the mental, aggressive suggestion was that was claiming to mesmerize the Christ consciousness and thus bring the serpent out of its hole.
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“I asked Infinite Mind, Infinite Omnipotence, my own presence, my own Mind, because that is it-the only infinite Mind there is-to reveal to me.” Was that a scientific basis? I did not ask the aggressive mental suggestion to reveal it, but I asked Mind, the Christ consciousness. I appealed, as Jesus did to God and God’s idea, the same infinite omnipresence, the one Mind, my own Mind, BECAUSE THERE ISN’T ANY OTHER MIND TO APPEAL TO. Almost at once something like this began to formulate itself in my thinking: “No aggressive mental suggestion calling itself an ex-official of The Mother Church could operate alone or with another so-called Christian Science practitioner or teacher, and aggressive mental suggestion could not operate through any claim of hatred of me or my teaching or my practice to mesmerize me or anybody at all and so be objectified as a discordant claim within the radius of my thinking as my patient or student. I declared: “It cannot be done.” Aggressive mental suggestion cannot operate in any such way to mesmerize the Christ consciousness and so be objectified as discordant physical phenomena, for the only official of The Mother Church, the only practitioner or teacher or student or anybody at all, is the Christ consciousness and there is nobody mesmerized.” By this time it had grown very quiet in the room and as I glanced at the patient she said as chipper as could be, “You know, I think I’ll get up and dress.” That was the end of the mesmerism.
Does that show you that if you uncover the mesmeric suggestion that claims to be objectified that you can heal instantaneously? And again, the Christ consciousness has maintained its balance over the aggressive mental suggestion. M.Wr. 210:4-7.
Some are charging $3.00 for office calls. You must put a proper valuation on your healing work if you expect mortal mind to do so. It is the value you put in a Christian Science treatment. You must decide what you will do.
Mrs. Eddy tells us how Jesus discerned what was in the thought of others. S&H 94:24-3 (especially 28-29) 95:16-18.
It is most important to discern the error, the aggressive mental suggestion and it is one of the specific characteristics of success in healing. Now could that discernment of aggressive mental suggestion injure anyone? Mrs. Eddy speaks of this discernment as the “penetration of Soul” wherewith we “search the secret chambers of sense.” She “never knew a student who fully understood this.” M.Wr. 292:25-13 – S&H. 95:16.
Then it requires the same spiritualization of thought to discern and uncover the mesmeric suggestion and its nothingness as it does to discern the divine reality and its allness. It is the same discernment and really you have to carry the same discernment in many cases higher to uncover the error, the suggestion that you do to uncover the divine reality. Mrs. Eddy says S&H 96:4-5 “Love will finally mark the hour of harmony and spiritualization will follow, for Love is Spirit.” So the great need then, is for spiritualization of thought so as to uncover or discern the error that needs to be destroyed. Gen. 33:10; M.Wr. 293:19-21, 25-26; S&H 94:32 only.
Would it help an official or ex-official of a church or so-called church or anyone at all, to be recognized as the Christ consciousness? Now would our recognition of them do much if we could discern their face as the face of God? Would it hasten their own discernment and the uncovering of the error, the mesmeric suggestion that claimed to be mesmerizing them and others and so do much to shorten, as Jesus said, those days of mesmerism, to which he referred in Matt. 24:22? Jesus said these days of mesmerism, or hypnotism, shall be shortened, through and by reason of the elect. Are we Christian Scientists, the elect? (The better translation is: “Shall be shortest through or by reason of, the elect). So, through Christian Science, those days of mesmerism shall be shortened. S&H 96:31-2; M. Wr. 104:29-32.
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Now somebody must do it for Jesus said, unless they were shortened, no flesh would be saved. And it can be done only by Christian Science and only as Christian Scientists maintain their balance as the Christ consciousness over aggressive mental suggestions that would mesmerize them; only as Christian Scientists see others as “The face of God”, see the face of those who are practicing those suggestions as having the face of God. Will you do your utmost to carry the discernment of the Christ consciousness to the point of uncovering and discerning the aggressive mental suggestions and see their nothingness, if you have not otherwise not the claim? II Thess. 2:3. The uncovering has to come first, before the day of Christ (the day of your demonstration) can come.
What made the woman in the prison work ill? Was it what she herself was thinking about what those zeros were thinking or what she thought the others were thinking, instead of recognizing that she, as the Christ consciousness, could not be mesmerized by the aggressive mental suggestions? What needs to be treated then? Was it the belief of illness or the belief that she could be mesmerized by the aggressive mental suggestions to disturb her thinking until her disturbed thinking was objectified as so-called discordant physical phenomena? The Christ consciousness discerned and broke the mesmerism, but the human sense first has to ask for that uncovering, the uncovering of the aggressive. It first had to be willing to be uncovered. She had discerned much before she asked for the uncovering. But her discernment had to be carried still further to the point of discerning the error. Then Jesus must have discerned this, or seen this, when he said, Matt. 7:8 and Luke 18:3-8: “He that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” But the aggressive mental suggestion that tries to hide from the Christ consciousness seems to require an asking for the uncovering. S&H 95:11 only. So, diagnose your own cases. Discern the mesmeric suggestion and its nothingness. Materia medica only adds more mesmeric suggestions, S&H 150: 31-7. The healing will be permanent when you uncover the specific mesmeric suggestion that is claiming to mesmerize the Christ consciousness. So handling mesmeric suggestions or animal magnetism amounts to this; 1) it means discerning its falsity. 2) discerning its powerlessness to mesmerize you – keeping your balance. 3) discern the divine counter reality – the spiritual fact – the point of discerning the nothingness of the mesmeric suggestion. S&H 346:9-13; M.Wr. 3:25-32; Rev. 20:1-3, 6-10, 14. John 18:37.
Now, if Christ’s mission was to bear witness to the Truth and thereby stir up all the error, then it is the mission of divine Science and the mission of every Christian Scientist to uncover the error and its powerlessness, nothingness, in order to prove, as Mrs. Eddy said, “the allness of Truth”. And divine Science has completely uncovered the world’s error. It has already fulfilled that mission of uncovering error, but it is the mission of every Christian Scientist to discern and demonstrate for himself individually, as the Christ consciousness, the powerlessness of any aggressive mental suggestion, to mesmerize him; and to demonstrate his ability to maintain his Christ consciousness, to keep his balance uninfluenced by aggressive mental suggestion.
Now that is your mission on earth today and I hope you will recognize it as a demand of divine Science. The ability to do this is required by the English Navy today. All of those who are in training in the service are required to be able to detect mesmerism and defend themselves from it. It is a wise government, is it not? Because everything today is carried by way of aggressive mental suggestion. That is the way of error. Now, listening to aggressive mental suggestions, even unconsciously, tends to dull and stupefy the thought, to make one feel indifferent to things in general, negative, sleepy and weary, and in this way the Navy students are shown how to detect the suggestion that is trying to mesmerize them. They are taught to thwart the effort to mesmerize them by
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turning their thoughts away at once from aggressive mental suggestions to something that they know to be true (even if it is only the multiplication table) and they are trained never to go to sleep until the mesmerism is broken, never in any way to yield to its suggestion. So the human method patterns the divine, but the human method doesn’t go to the extent of discerning the nothingness of the aggressive suggestion in the divine unfoldment of spiritual reality. And if naval students can stand this test and they do, because they have to, and not be mesmerized by aggressive mental suggestions, the Christian Scientist can stand. They CAN and they MUST and they must maintain the Christ consciousness in the very face of every mesmeric suggestion in the first place and then in the second place, break the mesmerism by turning away from it to what (in the 3rd place) they know to be true. True about what? True about the spiritual idea that the aggressive mesmeric suggestion is a suggestion about, turn away from the suggestion to the spiritual reality. Would that instantly heal it? Break it for the patient or for yourself? Christian Scientists are doing that.
Christian Scientists then must maintain the Christ consciousness in the face of aggressive mental suggestions for Christian Scientists themselves, are the cause of Christian Science and what Christians do, the cause of Christian Science is going to do, and I would see each one of you stand and do your part as though the cause of Christian Science depended entirely upon you and what you do.
Mr. E. A. Kimball.
S&H 453:14-18; 29-22; 457:18-32; Man. Art. VIII (see pg. 43) MY. 297:18-20 (authorizes these writings). Everything in the book has been authorized by Mrs. Eddy indirectly and directly. Look up the definition of the word “authorized” (Authorized: To clothe with authority, with power, to give legal sanction to; legalize; to establish by authority, as by usage. To sanction or affirm or confirm by some authority; warrant: as to AUTHORIZE a report, Webster’s). Aggressive mental suggestion is very active using this word. Then how would you handle the aggressive mental suggestions or the malpractice against this book? You would discern that malpractice is always by way of aggressive mental suggestion. Then you would discern 1st, that these suggestions are false, ungrounded; 2nd. that these aggressive mental suggestions about that book could not mesmerize you or anybody; 3rd, you would discern the divine reality or spiritual fact about that book, its place in the movement and its purpose in the field – the healing significance. It is safe to say that no other person in the Christian Science movement, except Mrs. Eddy, herself, has done so much as has Mr. Kimball. He discerned the pure, absolute Science in her writings and taught it to his students. His writings have broken that mesmerism to a very great degree and have done much to save the cause of Christian Science from the mesmerism and claim of false theology and that work will go on as long as there is work for us to do.
Does a book have to be published by the Publishing Society to be authorized? It would be wisdom for the Publishing Society to publish this book, if it would not be flooded with the demand to publish others. His daughter has done it in a very admirable way. It is almost the last word in book-binding, especially the last edition.
So aggressive mental suggestion is the only malpractice there is. Do you think you see how to handle aggressive mental suggestion against this book? 1st, recognize the suggestions are false. 2nd discern they are powerless to mesmerize anybody. 3rd discern the great glory of the book and the spiritual fact about it. Would the result of that be to make everyone want it and keep anyone from believing the aggressive suggestions about it?
Would you handle the aggressive suggestions against your own teaching that way or against your own practice? Or against anything? It all stands as the Christ idea. Now the suggestions that might be assailing you so aggressively to mesmerize you might be some undestroyed quality in your thinking, known or unknown, some longing or some fear which Truth and Love, as they unfold in your
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thought, has brought to the surface to deliver you from these undestroyed beliefs or qualities of thought. S&H 401:18-20. For just as ideas exist in the infinite Mind and as infinite Mind, abstractly or subjectively, BEFORE they are unfolded consciously, objectively, or concretely as concrete ideas, so also, in the same way these mesmeric beliefs which have been latent in our thinking, unknown, become aggressive and more apparent to us as Truth and Love unfold in our thinking. They bring them to the surface, uncover them to us until their nothingness in divine Science, in the light of unfolding of Truth and Love appears. Do you see the analogy? The parallel operation? S&H 207:2-6, Christian Healing 6:15-25.
I think these references all through these notes will help you very much and glorify your thinking and make the unfoldment clearer and stronger.
So stand and detect the presence of mesmeric suggestion in your thinking, whether known or unknown, just as the Navy students do. Detect them by their seeming effect upon you, and refuse to be mesmerized by them. Stand your test. Maintain your balance. Maintain the Christ consciousness and refuse to be mesmerized by any of the aggressive suggestions. The more aggressive they are, the more mesmeric they seem to be. Prove that you CAN stand your test and turn away from the aggressive suggestions to what you know to be true. Your own highest unfoldment of Truth and Love reveal the perfect reality about that which the suggestion is a suggestion about until the mesmerism melts away in the presence of your unfoldment. M. Wr. 298:1-4.
If you will not go to sleep until you have broken the mesmerism, you will be worth as much to the cause of Christian Science as the man in the Navy is worth to his country. THERE IS NO MESMERIC power. Is it clear to you that there is no such thing as mesmerism, no mesmeric power? Truth and Love, your own two-fold nature is doing all, and as it unfolds in your consciousness it is uncovering these aggressive suggestions, but that undestroyed quality of thought or unbelief, becomes apparent and more obnoxious up to the moment that it is destroyed by the unfoldment. Then, is this evident to you, that LISTENING to aggressive mental suggestions is all there is of malpractice and all the malpractice there is? The suggestion cannot do anything to you or to anybody. It is what you do to it that counts and listening to it, consenting to aggressive mental suggestion instead of turning away from it to the spiritual fact of that which you know to be true, is a claim of lack of loyalty to the cause, the Christ; to the Christ consciousness – to your own true being. So your ability to stand is determined by your ability to master aggressive mental suggestions. Now Jesus mastered them and nobody had greater temptations than he. Luke 4:1-15.
These temptations described in Luke cover all the aggressive mental suggestions, I think, that could ever assail you. Compare Luke 4:1 with S&H. 17:8-9. Did you ever think what that meant? “Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost (the spiritual unfoldment of Truth and Love) was LED BY THE SPIRIT into the wilderness. The wonderful unfoldment of Truth and Love uncovered in his consciousness and brought to the surface every quality of thought that could claim to be used by aggressive mental suggestion to tempt him. Isn’t that what that meant? Did it uncover in his consciousness the qualities of thought, so-called, undestroyed, over which he had not yet demonstrated his ascension or resurrection? Jesus had to make his demonstration. Would those temptations have come to him had there not been qualities of thought undestroyed through which aggressive mental suggestion would seek to mesmerize him? Now this is reference 17:8-9. Jesus prayed even though it led him into the wilderness. “Lead us not into temptation”. Now to whom was he praying? To his unfoldment of Truth and Love. It was the Spirit he said that LED HIM to be tempted. He prayed “Lead us not into temptation”. That is, he prayed the spirit, his unfoldment, not to be led into believing or yielding to the aggressive mental
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suggestion. This is the work we call chemicalization. Do you think we need to pray “Lead us not into temptation”? But remember it is our realization of Truth and Love that has brought them to the surface to deliver us from the qualities of thought that we need to be delivered from to bring out the grandeur of our nature and true being.
Should we murmur because we have to heal the aggressive mental suggestion or welcome anything that will make us search deeper and work more for great unfoldment and so work out the demonstration of being? Now this year, will you make it a point not to murmur and grieve or feel self-pity or discouragement, but rather to rejoice that the good work goes on and that it is because Truth and Love are unfolding as your consciousness that these aggressive mental suggestions are being uncovered not only in your consciousness, but in the universal consciousness as well as individually? Then stand your test by not being mesmerized by any suggestions that claim to be uncovered in universal consciousness, just as much as in the individual consciousness.
Then working out the nothingness of these aggressive mental suggestions in your own consciousness, are you working them out of the world consciousness? Isn’t that worthwhile? Then what you are doing, you are doing for the whole world. That is worthwhile isn’t it? It is worthwhile being a Christian Science practitioner.
Jesus’ unfoldment brought the aggressive mental suggestions to the surface in his consciousness and delivered him from them, and your unfoldment is delivering you if you are loyal to your unfoldment as he was to his, as loyal to the Christ consciousness. It is being loyal to your own being, to yourself. It is working out your own “day of glory” just as he was working out his. II Cor. 4:17; Heb. 5:8.
The purpose of the wrong suggestion is to keep Christian Scientists from being loyal to their unfoldment of Truth and Love and so to make Christian Scientists themselves destroy the Christian Science movement. Because what Christian Scientists do, the Christian Science movement will do. Because Christian Scientists are THE CAUSE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. But note this! Nothing can ever break down the Christian Science movement unless those of us who call themselves Christian Scientists do it themselves, and in just this way – by being mesmerized by aggressive mental suggestions and nothing except yourselves can ever thwart the fulfillment of your own highest possibilities. M.W. 317:5-9; 145:8.
We hear a great deal about maintaining balance today. We are told by a noted doctor that their duty is the only one disease. That is, lack of electrical balance in the body. That is, that health is one’s ability to resist and reduce to nothing, any adverse influence that might assail the body. Sickness of every kind is due to one’s LACK of ability to maintain one’s balance and resist adverse influence and NOT LACK OF ABILITY to resist and cope with adverse influences. He goes on to say that if one’s ability to resist were great enough, there would be no sickness and the only purpose in treating sickness is to strengthen and increase bodily balance to master adverse influences. Isn’t that what Christian Science is treating? Materia medica thinks IT is the discoverer of a wonderful thing, but Christian Science has been telling it to them for fifty years or more. Therefore, maintain your balance over aggressive mental suggestions. Strengthen your ability to be balanced. You could not stand, could you, did you not maintain your balance? The only way you will ever be able to stand at all in the Christian Science Movement is by maintaining your balance over the aggressive mental suggestions. Now will you strengthen and increase your ability to master
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the aggressive mental suggestions? By mastering these that assail you, you are strengthened and so better equipped to master the next one. And with every aggressive suggestion you master, you will have a greater unfoldment of Truth and Love. Aggressive mental suggestion is all the adverse influence there is. And the human thought is beginning to recognize it. Even now, thought calls it material or electrical or chemical or something else.
The human sense or thought is beginning to recognize that actually these so-called influences can only be translated back or resolved into some thought influences. Even now, it does have some faint recognition of that. Therefore, refuse to be mesmerized by the suggestions of destructive material vibration, destructive electrical waves, destructive electrical influences of any sort; super sound and super-light influences: suggestions of destructive ether waves, radio waves and radium waves. All there is of these waves or vibrations or influences is the aggressive mesmeric suggestions. Refuse to be mesmerized by these aggressive suggestions of destructive chemical influences and destructive mental emotions, all claiming objectification as so-called material poison, electrical poison, or just poison. So recognize all these aggressive suggestions as false claims and then translate all thought, as Mrs. Eddy says, into the original fact. All there is of a suggestion is a suggestion about some spiritual reality. Is there ever such a thing as aggressive suggestion about nothing? Never yet is the aggressive suggestion about nothing. It is something about that, that is a divine and beautiful reality. Then have we seen, that first, all we need is to recognize that it is a suggestion, a false belief, and 2nd, recognize that it is powerless to mesmerize, and, 3rd recognize the divine reality–that it is a suggestion until it all melts away in the discernment of the one influence, one action, the one substance, the one true emotion, the one presence, the one function, the one operation of law, and all the harmonious rhythms of Truth and Love unfolding. S&H 213:16.
Mrs. Eddy speaks of the rhythm of head and heart. She calls it music. Would that mean the perfect at-one-ment of scientific understanding signified by the head, the Word of Truth, and the spiritual discernment or Spirit of Love, signified by the heart, or God’s two-fold divine nature, the all harmonious, glorious nature, scientific understanding and spiritual discernment, the male and female of God’s creating, God’s manhood and womanhood? S&H. 249:5-9. What is the suggestion that would be the opposite of God’s two-fold nature? Man’s dual nature? Is that the counterpart of man’s two-fold nature? The two-fold nature exists as one nature, but a dual nature exists, as two antagonistic opposites. Whereas man’s two-fold nature is all-harmonious one and there is no dual nature. Then would you take possession of the aggressive mesmeric suggestion as Mrs. Eddy says: “with such a sense of their nullity (their nothingness) as would destroy them”-melt them away with the unfoldment of the divine reality? S&H 393:10-11; 353:11-13; My 246:11-21.
Then aggressive mesmeric suggestion claims to function as destructive chemical influences, or any adverse influence. Have we seen long before, that all there is of electricity is the conflicting beliefs, conflicting mortal opinions, which would claim to be objectified as poison? Long ago Mrs. Eddy said, “Know that electricity cannot convey poison to you.” Are “conflicting mortal opinions another name for electricity?” Should you distinguish between harmonious vibrations and destructive electrical influences, destructive and constructive vibrations? There is such a thing as harmonious vibration. That is the rhythm of the unfolding idea and means health. But it is the aggressive mesmeric suggestion, the conflict in suggestions that would claim to parade as destructive influences.
The action of drugs (some or all) is known to produce the very same
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effect as the symptoms of every known so-called disease. In the same way the so-called destructive electrical vibrations claims to be objectified in the form of every known so-called disease and there are quite a lot more all the time. As Mrs. Eddy says, the belief is flooding the world. Aggressive mental suggestion also claims to function as the discordant mental emotions to produce the symptoms of every so-called disease in any one of these ways; aggressive mental suggestions claim to function as sympathetic nerves and nerve centers and claims to function as every so-called bodily function. So do you see how aggressive mental malpractice manufactured every symptom in every so-called claim of physical discord? Then what is to be treated? The symptoms, or the aggressive mesmeric suggestion? If you can uncover the aggressive mesmeric suggestion that claims to be doing it the healing will be instantaneous. So, handle these suggestions along these different lines; to heal all so-called physical ills, heart trouble, stomach trouble, and all kinds of trouble, for all there is of the so-called physical ills is the mesmerism of the suggestion, in other words, the being mesmerized by suggestions.
Mesmerism is doing it all and you are manufacturing your own bodily ills. So, melt away the aggressive mental suggestions that would mesmerize you and so disturb and harass you and perhaps torture you until your disturbed thought is objectified as some so-called physical trouble and-you can have the trouble you choose!
Harmonious vibrations, human sense calls it, the harmonious or normal condition of the body; light and sound and heat, all the functioning of the universe, and of the human body, the movement of the bowels, all goes on as the function of harmonious vibration. There is a good normal human belief, whereas the abnormal so-called condition or discordant electrical function and action goes on as the function of aggressive mental suggestion which is destructive. So all there is of physical ills is the ability on your part to be mesmerized by the aggressive mental suggestion sufficiently until you feel your disturbed thought and so objectify your own disturbed thinking, as feeling. Then the aggressive mental suggestion that has disturbed thinking as feeling, that has claimed to mesmerize you, has to be uncovered, discerned and melted away by your unfoldment of Truth and Love. Your unfoldment of Truth and Love has brought these suggestions to the surface to be melted away. That is the way you are delivered from heart trouble. S&H 150:31-16; 151:31-5; Luke 17:1-4; M.W. 109:26-27.
Do you think, then, that the most important thing in the thinking of Christian Scientists, next to the unfoldment of Truth and Love, is the uncovering of the aggressive mental suggestion, and the discernment that the aggressive mental suggestion cannot mesmerize you?
Now, the greatest of all questions on earth is this: are Christian Scientists to be overcome and governed by the aggressive mental suggestion and thus destroyed, by that which their own unfolding consciousness of Truth and Love has brought to Light-to the surface-for the very purpose of destroying and delivering them, or, are Christian Scientists as their unfolding of Truth and Love, going to do their own thinking and maintain self-government by the Christ consciousness and maintain their mastery over aggressive mental suggestions, and refuse to be mesmerized by them? Before Christian Science was discovered, all so-called evil was believed real, and Christian Science has been discovered for that very purpose-to show that it is not real-to deny its reality and discover and uncover their nothingness. Nothing else does. Jesus said that all that had gone before him were thieves and robbers. John 10:8. Now he demonstrated this, but he did not leave it, or give the science to the world. It was not given until Mary Baker Eddy discovered this science. For the first time in the world’s history, she gave it to the world. It was never given to the world before, so
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it was DISCOVERED and not RE-DISCOVERED. So, it has a great mission and it is going to do just what you will allow it to do. Your demonstration is going to do just what you will allow it to do. Your demonstration is going to be the demonstration of divine Science, its fulfillment, its accomplishment, the uncovering and upheaval of so-called evil in the U.S. bears witness to what this unfoldment of divine Science in consciousness is doing to bring to the surface and uncover them to the individual consciousness. For what purpose? To deliver the world. To master them. Well, how are they going to be mastered?
(Miss Church’s treatment for a woman in the Association who became very ill)
“There is no aggressive mental mesmeric suggestion here. Come out of her and enter no more into her. There is nothing here but the Christ consciousness delivering you from what it would seem to have brought to the surface. There is only one presence here working out salvation. There is no aggressive mesmeric suggestion doing anything. The Christ consciousness is all there is going on, the unfolding of Truth and Love as our consciousness, the infinite presence, the all-harmonious presence.” She concluded with the audible repetition of the Lord ‘s Prayer and its spiritual interpretation.
Make use of the better beliefs, but do not be used by them! We hear a great deal about reducing today. Would that be a better human belief to make use of or would it be a case of being used by it, to resort to the mortal mind methods? Now all there is of that, is mesmerism, but the aggressive mental suggestion has played a very lovely trick to get you to be mesmerized. Its way of reducing is to take the water out of the body, to dehydrate it. Now that is the very basis of that disease (all that we were talking about this morning) as destructive electrical influence, because that all works as aggressive mental suggestion to make you believe it. So, if aggressive mental suggestion could get you to believe in de-hydration, it would have you right where it wanted you, to mesmerize you with further suggestions about disease, for that is the way it claims to produce, manufacture disease. Watch out for its tricks and see that it is not you. [in the margin of this paragraph is written by JEJ “Answer is less matter!”]
Letter from a student: others wanted her to use reducing beliefs. Didn’t seem to appeal to her. One day she read of The Mother Church as having all form, color, outline, loveliness, grace, beauty, instantly the thought unfolded to her, “Why, this is my body”! And the true realization of these words, she said, would make that demonstration for her, as well as for The Mother Church. Then the beauty of the loveliness of The Mother Church unfolded to her-how it always stood majestically, nothing could be added to it not taken away from it-without any sense of weight or cumbrance. It brought a great sense that she was walking on air with no sense of weight and it eliminated an over-weighted sense of herself and her appearance, and that was the last she heard about reducing.
(Another healing of a student illustrates what we are talking about). The patient had been ill many years before, and seemed to relapse after these many years. The treatment uncovered that this patient had attended with a friend, who was very persuasive, a meeting of false science called Unity, and she heard a great deal against Science. The belief was false metaphysics disloyal to Christian Science, to Mrs. Eddy, yet claiming to use her statements. All those aggressive mesmeric suggestions were reversed and cast out with the result that the demonstration of healing had been made by the next day. So her own disturbed thought was showing in that way.
Do you see our great need or necessity today for having greater spiritual discernment to uncover the aggressive mesmeric suggestion that claims to mesmerize thought? As soon as that was uncovered, and reversed, the healing was complete. You will heal most for your patients, by handling the claim of
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aggressive mesmeric suggestion for yourself. The more you do for yourself, the more you are doing for everything in the radius of your thinking. The more you maintain your balance, the more you are doing for others. The whole purpose of aggressive mental suggestion is to produce disloyalty and apostasy and hypocrisy in the works of Christian Scientists. Mrs. Eddy says, “You cannot understand error, but you can all understand the nothingness of error.” Error does its best to hide from your discernment. Do you see that aggressive mental suggestion, parading as Unity organization, was parading as a law of relapse, reversal, rebound, or obstruction? Handle the aggressive mental suggestion of hatred of organization. Handle the hatred and jealousy of the Unity Society. Demonstrate loyalty to the Christ consciousness.
There is one thing greater than happiness, and that is holiness, but it includes happiness. The purpose of Christian Science is not primarily that of physical healing, but it produces that effect, so that the purpose of Christian Science is not primarily financial prosperity, but it includes it.
Is it evident to you that there is no such thing as resistance or opposition in reality, because the unfolding Truth and Love is doing it all, melting it all away?
Do you remember the case of the woman who said that she had never been healed of the thing she came into Science for, and although she had done beautiful work and had been healed of many things, this remained; and then she said, “I know there is some error in me”. What made her say that? Mesmerism!!! Had the aggressive mental suggestion argued in consciousness as her thinking and as others about her that she was in error, mesmerized her to make her accept and think “I am in error”? You remember that when it was uncovered to her that she had been mesmerized to accept and consent to that suggestion, that it was her thought that was in error, that being objectified and when she saw it, she was instantly healed. Was anything changed except the mesmerism freed from her consciousness? In other words, aggressive mental suggestion is the demon. The aggressive mental suggestion isn’t anything. Search for the aggressive mental suggestion that has been mesmerizing you and be willing to have them melt away. Get rid of them, don’t hold to them. The aggressive mental suggestions have to give themselves up, have they not?
Would we say that love is always giving, giving, giving? Giving all? It is never trying to get, but the suggestions of error are always trying to get something. Because they have nothing of themselves, they are always seeking to get. The aggressive mental suggestion can only seem to exist by getting something from the Christ consciousness. The Christ consciousness is always giving, giving, giving. The more it gives, the more it is uncovering the aggressive mental suggestions and no matter how long the aggressive mental suggestions refuse to be melted away and resists, the healing doesn’t come until it gives itself. It must give all for Christ. It has to give itself up.
So the whole of divine Science is the Science of giving, is it not? Divine Truth and Love giving, unfolding and bestowing? They have nothing to get because they include all. And so, the aggressive mesmerism of suggestion has to learn how to give itself up. That is its salvation. It saves them. Just as the unfolding is giving all, so the aggressive mental suggestions has all to give. So the upheaval and uncovering of so-called evils in our country, the uncovering of crime and evils of every sort, etc., bears witness to what the unfolding of divine Science is doing to bring these crimes to the surface. Then do we need to stand in awe of the crime and graft? The unfolding of Truth and Love has brought them to the surface, will melt them away and if you and I are half faithful to our unfoldment and destroy the aggressive mesmeric suggestion, so that this crime and so-called evil claims to exist as so-called aggressive mental
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suggestions objectify in all these forms of crime. Do you feel the necessity of standing your test and demonstrating your ability, then not to be mesmerized by aggressive mental suggestion, and to maintain your Christ consciousness? Unity of Good 6:10-13.
The upheavals also of the Christian Science Movement and in your own individual experience indicate that our great necessity is to master the aggressive mental suggestions as fast as they appear, as fast as our own unfoldment appears-to demonstrate and master the nothingness of the aggressive mental suggestion and so demonstrate individually what we can do to thrust upon the unprepared thought, disputed points. Would this claim to bring more extremely aggressive mental suggestions to the surface? And if any were unwise enough to make a statement that you thought “man was God” might that tend to bring to the surface such a very forcible collision of thought as you and perhaps the age, and perhaps the cause of Christian Science might not have strength enough to bear? At any rate, you might not have the strength and it might claim that your teaching and teacher might not have the strength to bear.
Do you see the necessity of seeing wisdom wedded to your Love? You must be just as wise as you love. So much has been said about that, that the human thought is sort of looking for it, or looking for you to say something like that, so it could say you did say something. So the great danger is this; be wise and not thrust disputed points on minds unprepared for them, lest we promote collisions of thought of aggressive mental suggestions beyond that we are able ourselves to bear and produce chaos and old night. Un. 5:21-27.
Now these claims are only claims that Christian Scientists encounter. It is the aggressive mesmeric suggestion that Christian Science has brought to the surface by its own uncovering, of the unfoldment of Truth and Love. Now let that bring normally to the surface in the normal way. What one knows, one can take care of. What makes our work more difficult seemingly, now than in the early days of Christian Science, is because Truth and Love has brought to the surface these beliefs that claim to mesmerize. Aggressive mental suggestions are all that make our work difficult. The only resistance to our healing. It is all there is of destructive electrical vibration, all there is of super sound waves; so, take possession of them. Mess. ’01:113:9-12. For if you don’t take possession of aggressive mental suggestion and destroy it, it will certainly claim to take possession of and destroy you and the Christian Science Movement. S&H 393:8-15. Then is it self-evident to you that you are your own saviour? And where the Spirit of the Lord is (where the unfoldment of Truth and Love is) there is liberty. Then will you refuse to think there is any such oppression and malpractice and mesmerism because the unfolding consciousness of Truth and Love is that which is going on and that which brings to the surface, these aggressive mental suggestions and is able to master and destroy them if you refuse to be mesmerized by them.
Then aggressive mental suggestion cannot parade as destructive insects or anything else, any more than it can parade as loving Christian Scientists and don’t you think all there is to the claim of destructive influence that is claiming to go on in our country is the aggressive mesmeric suggestion claiming to mesmerize the other kingdoms around, vegetable, mineral, as well as human? S&H. 280:6-8, and she says, “Mind creates and multiplies them.”
Another statement that calls forth collisions of thought is-“Man is infinite.” You have never heard me make that statement that “man is God” and I hope no one will ever hear you make it. Could man exist at all if he were not infinite? You have to think it, but you do not have to say it to others, promoting forcible collisions of thought by announcing it. Will you endeavor to be wise in what you say, but think independently?”
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The following is from the book “Christian Science: Its’ ‘Clear Correct Teaching’ and Complete Writings” by Herbert W. Eustace.
“TRANSLATION OF ‘THE FALSE PROPHET’ OF REVELATION INTO MIND ENDING ALL WARFARE”
page 33 (top numbers)/page 943 (bottom numbers).
That which has to be watched at all times is not matter or materiality, but malicious mind as the negation or negative interpretation of divine Mind, operating as the hypnotic suggestion of the malicious mental malpractitioner. This is the one and only evil, the evil Jesus was warning us against, when he said, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation,” and the one against which Paul was prophetically warning us, when he told us, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood…but against spiritual wickedness in high places,” Eph. 6:12. Paul was speaking ahead of his time; he foresaw what would inevitably confront the “Comforter” of which Jesus spoke. Paul’s age was not confronted with malicious mind and its malicious mental malpractice, for that is the negation of Christian Science, and not the negation of Christianity, as such. His warning, however, is just as
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essential as that of Jesus, to “watch” and it means what Mrs. Eddy said in her advice, “not to see mental work as treatment but as a watch to keep out the enemy.” What enemy, but the one and only enemy, the hidden enemy, malicious suggestion!
When Mrs. Eustace and I attended the Metaphysical College in Boston, in 1902, I remember Mr. Kimball brought a message to the class, directly from Mrs. Eddy. The message was, that the only excuse for holding any class, was to show how evil was to be handled, quietly without publishing it broadcast. That was its one purpose. It was not for anything else. The import of this message becomes all the more illuminating, when one remembers that it was sent to a body of Scientists, who had gathered from the “ends of the earth,” with the sole intention of later teaching classes, themselves.
Mr. Kimball brought to the class, several statements from Mrs. Eddy, but I do not remember one that did not bear on the one subject of malicious mental malpractice. The only reason Mrs. Eustace and I had for wanting to attend the class, was our desire to learn more about the handling of malicious mind. Our wish was fully met and the subject was abundantly unfolded. Experience, however, alone supplies the real understanding from which each one best can profit.
Do you think that malicious mind or malicious mental malpractice knows you or anyone else? Of course it does not. Malicious mind is the negative of divine Mind and borrows all its supposed power, activity, knowing, from
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divine Mind, even as mistakes, or ignorance of the multiplication tables is all that there is to the little boy’s saying, “two times two is five.” Ignorance does not know one little child from another. It is wholly impersonal, and does not, as it were, pick out one child and say, “Now here I am going to have this child say three times three are seven.” All that the “three times three are seven” is, is the negative statement about three times three being nine. The seemingly ignorant child is shown that one and one and one make three, and that, with another three ones will make six, and this, with three more ones added will make nine. The child sees that, and so the possibility of three times three being ever anything but nine is forever barred from his mind. The ignorance on that point is gone forever, being replaced by the intelligence which is always omnipresent, awaiting each one’s acceptance.
Ignorance has no power to raise a single objection to this unfolding of intelligence, and never does raise any when once the intelligence is brought to light. Ignorance has no favorites and no enemies; it simply appears as the negative, accompanying whatever one is knowing. The knowing must always be first whether you are consciously aware of it or not. Ignorance itself, knows nothing, it is merely the supposititious opposite of the truth that the lie is the lie about.
The magnitude of ignorance is in exact proportion to the magnitude of one’s intelligent progress along any line. It is never ahead of or behind, but just accompanies the larger sense of intelligence, automatically. It never knows one thing about its so-called victim and has no grudge against him or even knowledge of him. It runs, as it were, alongside all unfoldment, without the slightest purpose or intent, but is just deadly wrong at every point and on every occasion.
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