The Text - Section 13
What Is Disease?
PART I
BU 100:3, LC 5:59
[orig. untitled]
What is disease? This question involves a large number of speculative ideas.
Some suppose that disease is independent of man; some that it is a punishment
from God for the wrongs of our first parents; others that it comes from disobeying
the laws of God. Now let us analyze the above and see if there is any truth in
these statements. If there were not a living creature on earth, then there could
not be any disease. Otherwise disease must have had an existence before man
was created, and, if so, God created it for some purpose. According to man's
reasoning, disease is his enemy and if God created an enemy to destroy man,
God cannot be man's friend as is supposed. Thus the idea that God had anything
to do with disease is superstition; then the question comes up again, where did it
come from? I answer, It does not come, it is created, not by God but by man.
We have not a true idea of God. God is not a man any more than man is a
principle. When we speak of God we are taught to believe in a person, so we
attach our ideas to a person called God and then talk about his laws, and the
disobeying of them is our trouble. How often we hear these words: "If man would
obey all the laws of God he would never be sick." Now the acknowledgment of
this error is the cause of nine-tenths of our sickness, for all laws are arbitrary and
binding; and when a law is so severe that man is liable to be cast into prison for
committing an act or even thinking a thought that is not in accordance with the
law, it is no wonder that people grumble and complain. The Christian's God is a
tyrant of the worst kind.
God is the name of a man's belief and our senses are attached to our opinions
about our belief or God. The savages' God is their belief; the God of the
Mohammedans is their belief and so on to the Christian's God. The Christian's
God, like themselves, is like a house divided against itself. The God of the North
and the God of the South are as much at war as the Christian worshippers; each
prays to God for help and each condemns the other. Thus it is plain that God is a
mere farce, and all our worship is from a superstitious fear of a tyrant whose
name we dare not take in vain.
The time will come when the true God will be worshipped in spirit and truth, for
God is a spirit and not a man. When I say spirit, I mean that invisible something
that, like the earth, is ready to receive the seed of wisdom or error. Wisdom is the
sower and God the vineyard, and as man is made in the image of God, his mind
is spirit and receives the seed of wisdom or error.
Wisdom has no laws; it is the true wisdom or light. The law of man is the
invention of evil thoughts and wisdom is not in it, for as wisdom is in us, the law is
dead. So to be wise is to be dead to the law, for the law is man's belief and
wisdom is of God which is science. Now if we could understand the true idea of
causes and effects, we could learn where the causes of disease originate.
Man has invented a God according to his belief so that God is the embodiment of
man's belief. As man's belief changes, so his God changes, but the true God
never changes. So the wisdom of man condensed into a being called God is set
up for the ignorant to worship, and as all men have been made to acknowledge
what they have no proof of, the idea of a personal God is believed in so that no
one questions the identity of such a being. This God was made up of the wisdom
of the heathen world and we have revered and worshipped it not from love but
from fear. Its only opponent is science. So as science enters, this God gives way
but not without a struggle. The true God is not acknowledged by this, man's God,
but it is in the hearts of the people working like yeast till it affects the whole lump.
It is called by the children of this world of opinions Infidel and Deist, etc. So to be
an infidel is to question that God of man's opinions.
If a man questions a certain class of opinions, he is an infidel. Jesus saw through
all this hypocrisy, that the God of the heathens was not the God of peace but of
war, and this same God is worshipped now as then. He is called on now more
than he has been since the revolution. He is one of the most convenient Gods I
know of. He listens to the North and the South and leads their men on to battle,
and from the prayers of his followers is as much interested in the victory as the
winning party. All this sort of cant is kept up with a certain solemnity and form as
though there were real truth in it. But the time will come when all this must give
way to a higher worship, for it is a vain worship that shows itself in every church
in Christendom. They worship they know not what. This false idea is the
foundation on which the Christian world stands, and the waters that flow from this
fountain are corrupt, for where the fountain is corrupt the stream is also. When
the angel of truth distrubs the waters, they throw forth every kind of corruption.
This poisons the minds of the multitudes and makes them sick. The true wisdom,
like science, explains away this earthly God and brings man into a more happy
state where opinions give way to facts.
Aug. 1, 1861
Man
BU 84:29, LC 5:108
Is man spirit or matter? Neither. Then what is he? He is life. What are his
attributes? A knowledge of himself as a living, thinking, seeing and moving being,
without matter or mind. Then what is this body that we see? It is a tenement for
the man to occupy when he pleases. But as man knows not himself, he reasons
as though he was one of the fixtures of his house or body. I will give you an
illustration. Take the White House at Washington. The President is the name of
the wisdom that governs the man called Lincoln. Suppose in ten years a person
inquires what house that is and he is told that it is the president's, does it follow
that Mr. Lincoln occupies it? Yet the same intellect is there or ought to be. Now
here are three identities in one man: A. Lincoln himself, A. Lincoln as president
and A. Lincoln's house. We do not think or know that all there is of us is our
wisdom and happiness and misery is what follows our belief. If we had no belief,
we should either be fools or wise men, so a belief makes neither but a man of
error or matter that can be changed. All these faculties are not of the idea body,
but one, that is error. The Christian character independent of his senses or life is
his stock in trade, as in other persons. I will take him, for he sets such a value on
his riches. Religion is called riches and riches sometimes take to themselves
wings and fly away. Now there is some standard to test a man's riches to see
what they consist in. I will take the Christian. What does his riches consist in? Not
in charity, for they have none for any who do not believe as they do.
Here is what Jesus says, If you love them that love you, what reward have you?
If you do anything sinners do, you are no better than they. So where is the
Christian any better than a man who does as well as the Christian? There is a
difference but it exists in the person's belief. Here is all the value of a Christian's
inheritance. It is in his belief and all scientific men will see that a belief is worth
just what it will bring and a belief of what you have no proof is nothing at all. I will
assume I am a Christian, independent of any worldly acts. For a Christian
according to the people is a gift of God and not of works lest any one should
boast, so it must be a free gift. I will begin and tell what makes me a Christian. I
believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. I believe that God sent Jesus into
the world to save man. I believe God is everywhere and nowhere in particular.
He has a form and He is without one. He is three distinct persons and He is but
one and He knows all things, etc.
Suppose I believe all this. What does it show? It shows that I have not got
wisdom enough to see that in all the above, there is as much wisdom in it as
there would be to take in the Arabian Nights as true. If this absurdity makes me
happy, it only proves that a fool can be happy in his own folly. To be a Christian
is to attach yourself to the above belief. What does it mean to be a Christian
according to Jesus' ideas? He is the founder of religion. Let us see what it says in
the New Testament. Pure and undefiled religion is to visit the sick in their
affliction and keep yourself pure and unspotted from the world. Do the Christians
of this age do more of that than the skeptic? Where was Jesus' religion? In his
words or acts. Take Jesus as a man, for he was no more than any man and as
such, he was not religious. To be religious is to be something more than a man,
for the natural man knows not God. So to be a Christian is to be born again. Now
religion is a science that can be applied to the happiness of man, but a belief is a
belief to the person who has it and no one else.
Here is the difference between the Christian and the natural man; for instance,
Jesus and another man just as good in all respects. Let a sick person be the test
to discriminate between Jesus and a skeptic. The skeptic is anxious to help his
friend. If money would do it, he would give all that he had or suffer his body to be
burned, but that can't help the sick man. Then Jesus with no money applies his
Christ or religion to the sick and they recover. So religion is that wisdom that can
say to the sick and palsied man, Stretch forth thy hand and I will apply the
Science or Christ and restore it. Here is the difference. The natural man knows
not Science or Christ. To know Science, you must be born of the spirit of religion
or truth, but to be a quack is to believe in something that you know nothing of.
This makes up the religion of man. It never made man any better. I know it from
experience. I do not believe in any God as taught me in my early days, neither do
I believe in any religious belief or anything attributed to the Christian. I will admit
that happiness is the greatest blessing to man and Jesus taught it. But Jesus'
religion and man's religion are as near alike as an abolitionist and a rabid pro
slavery man are. One goes for liberty and the other for slavery and it is a
burlesque on Jesus for a man to preach slavery and claim to be a follower of
Jesus. Jesus preached the true doctrine of Christ or Science: to let slavery alone,
not to meddle with it, but preach the truth.
Sept. 12, 1861
Scientific Interpretation of a Passage in the Bible
BU 84:32, LC 5:112
[orig. untitled]
Scientific interpretation of the following passage-I Cor. 8: 1, 2, 3, vs. "Now as
touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge.
Knowledge puffeth up but charity edifieth. And if any man think he knoweth
anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God
the same is known of him."
Now what did Paul mean by all the above? He begins by saying that we all think
we have knowledge concerning offerings to idols. But this knowledge puffeth up,
so it is not worth much. What does Paul mean by knowledge? He means that
wisdom that man has which is brought out in trying to account for all phenomena.
Man sees, hears or feels a sensation; being ignorant of the cause he undertakes
to account for it. This is knowledge and it makes him vain and puffed up. Paul
says such a man knows nothing as he should know, but if he knows science,
then his wisdom is known of him. So Science is God and God is one of the
names of Science. Wisdom is the only living and true life.
Why should all persons appeal to the Bible? The Bible contains no intelligence of
itself. If you wanted to know anything about mathematics or any science the
world admits, you would not go to the Bible. Then what is the Bible good for?
There must be some cause why everyone should admit a book that everyone
should explain. If we consider the believers in the Bible, we shall find them of all
classes of minds, all differing in regard to the meaning and yet no two agreeing
what it is good for. Suppose the Bibles were burned up, would it have any effect
on you as an individual? I think I hear you say, No, but it would have on some
others. Suppose it would. Then it is of some use, like the law to keep man in
subjugation. This is the fact and Jesus had the same idea of it. So he says, What
the law has failed to do, science will do.
Science has destroyed opinion or law just as far as it can be proved. It has
enlightened man in all the arts and sciences. The Science of Health and
Happiness has not been admitted as yet; still, happiness is what all wise men
have been trying to establish. The ancients thought they had discovered it, but
owing to the superstition of the world, the people could not understand it. They
required that every phenomenon should have a mysterious source. So the
wisdom of the wise was interpreted by the opinions of the ignorant and as
ignorance is increased, the wisdom grew cold and the wise men were believed
when they spoke. Now the ideas of the writers of the Old Testament are not
known to the world, being enveloped by opinions about them which are taken for
truth, while the authors are winked out of sight. The writers of the Old Testament
were scientific men, far superior to the men of our age in regard to the subject on
which they wrote. I shall show that the Bible was never intended as a religious
book according to the opinions of the world.
But it is a scientific explanation of causes and effect, showing how man must act
and think for his own happiness and teaching us how to unlearn our errors that
lead to misery and disease. It has nothing to do with theology. The whole aim of
these ancients was to teach man how to be happy by wisdom, for happiness is
what follows our acts. Man acts according to his wisdom and if his wisdom is of
opinions he is liable to get into trouble, but if it is of science, he gets his reward of
his study and the happiness is what follows. So the Bible is the wisdom of certain
men condensed into a book like any other mathematics. This book if rightly
understood would give man an idea of all the superstitions of the world and the
right understanding of the authors would explain the absurdities of superstition
and show that ignorance is the theory of the day. At the time of Jesus, these
were misrepresented so that not one of these ideas were admitted, but a literal
construction put upon their writing when they never intended to have them
understood as literal facts.
September 1861
Showing How the Errors of Our Beliefs Make Up Human
Knowledge
Also that We Ignorantly Are the Authors of Our Misery
BU 84:27, LC 5:106
PART 2
Disease is what follows these false ideas. If man had no belief at all, he would
either be a brute or scientific as far as his wisdom goes. Now man being a bundle
of ideas, his life is affected by his opinions; and as happiness is man's highest
aim, it is what we are all striving for. Here is one thing that man is ignorant of,
that he is a sufferer from his own belief, not willingly but by his own consent. Not
being intelligent enough to judge of cause and effect, he becomes the victim of
his own free will. He does the very things he ought not to do and leaves undone
that which he ought to do. That is, he takes opinions for truth, which gets him into
trouble and he neglects to investigate all things. When a person tells you
anything you cannot see, you are not bound to believe it, unless you please. But
if you do believe, you convict yourself of a crime that you have acknowledged
right. Our belief cannot alter a scientific truth, but it may alter our feeling for
happiness or misery. Disease is the misery of our belief; happiness is the health
of our wisdom so that man's happiness or misery depends on himself. Now as
our misery comes from our belief, not the thing believed, it is necessary to be on
the watch so as not to be deceived by false guides.
I will now put a belief in practice. Sensation contains no intelligence or belief, but
a mere disturbance of the mind called agitation, ready to receive the seed of
error. Ever since man was created, there has been an element called error,
which has been busy inventing answers for every sensation. It accounts for every
phenomenon no matter where it comes from; in fact it is that power called the
Devil. It is a power, for it contains no intelligence, but it is a brow-beating, knock-
you-down element in reasoning. It invents all sorts of bug-bears in this world. It
has also invented another world and undertakes to account for it and will give
you the wisdom about it. This character can be found in all men and can be
easily detected in the priests. He appears very sanctimonious, giving you an
account of the world of spirits, etc. These two characters give rise to a thousand
lesser humbugs, taking their cue from them. As I have said, mind is matter and
everything seen by the natural eye is a figure or emblem of the first cause. All
things having shape or form made by man is a shadow of the spiritual life of man.
All things created for man's misery are the invention of this character called error.
You see I have two worlds: one composed of things which we call real matter,
but which with wisdom is nothing but an idea. I have nothing to say about this
world; it is the world of darkness which the evil of our thoughts has made. It has
its priests and doctors and every evil that flesh is heir to. It is the world where all
disease is invented. Its actions are in those of the popular doctrines of the day,
which are our guides and directors in all things pertaining to our health and
happiness.
In fact, it is man as we see him in priest or physician. These men stand to society
as a mesmerizer to his subject. It is true they do not always take the patients by
the hand, but they take them into the churches and there they mesmerize the
audience according to their belief. The patients' minds, being like soil, receive the
seed of these blind guides and nourish it in their soul or mind; and when it grows
up into a belief, then it is set down as a truth. So all men now believe in these
guides of another world and their belief is the fruits of the priest's theory. Now
after they are fairly sown in the minds of the people, then cometh the wisdom and
warns the people to beware of the fruit. They, knowing that the fruit is pleasant to
the eye and much desired to make one happy, eat and then their eyes are
opened and they see they are ignorant. I will illustrate what I have just said. Take
the weather. Everyone likes the pure air and wants to enjoy it, so they go out for
that purpose. Now all action has its reaction, and after returning, a reaction takes
place. Then this enemy comes along and says, "You have overdone and taken
cold; you should have known better than to have exposed yourself to the air as
you have done." Now comes the punishment of your belief. You have been made
to believe that there is danger in taking cold. Just as though this God you are
called to worship has made an atmosphere tempting you to go out and then
seizes you and makes you sick. This is one of the follies of the world. The
sensation of cold makes one nervous. The opinions we have of it mesmerize us
into a state in which we see the scene of what will follow. We believe that God is
a being like man. This may be so, but the people in the Old and New Testament
never had such an idea.
God is science, and man not knowing science makes him superstitious, and he
has made a being out of science that he cannot understand and called it God.
This God has been introduced by the superstition of the world and prevents man
from using the reason that wisdom has given him. Hear what Paul said on this
subject. The people were superstitious and worshipped idols as they do now, yet
not the same idols for there are many idols. "Now as touching things offered unto
idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, Charity
edifieth." (Cor. 8:1) What did Paul mean? He means science is not puffed up, but
opinions are. So opinions worship idols, but science does not. So if a man of
opinions thinks he knows, he knows not as he ought to know (v. 2); but if a man
love science as God, the same is known to him (v. 3). Then he goes on to show
that there is no wisdom in these and there is no science or God but one and
though there be many opinions about heaven and earth, there is but one living
and true Science or God.
He also shows there are some who are conscious of this science and eat and
drink and worship idols till they die. Then he sums up all this superstition in these
words: If we eat, are we the better and if we eat not, are we the worse? But take
care that in your reasoning about it, you do not put a stumbling block in the way
of those who do not understand. Science is the one living and true God to
worship. This is more than all the opinions and prayers of the priests put
together. Every man is the medium of these two Gods. Man's opinion is the
natural man. Science is the God or Christ. And it is very singular that if there is a
God, as all will admit, he is out of existence because he cannot be seen by the
natural eyes. It shows that man knows not God. If he did, he would not be so
religious, for God is not in their religion; it is opposed to God in every act.
Science wants no advocate to sustain it; it can exist without any sect or priest to
poultice it up. To learn it is man's happiness and to reject it and embrace religion
is to live in sin and ignorance, being in death from fear of the very best friend
(science) and all your life subject to bondage.
September 1861
To the Old Whigs
BU 1:1, LC 5:122
How often we see editors accuse each other of their party being the cause of this
trouble. The Democrats accuse the Abolitionists and the Republicans accuse the
South. Now when there is a difference of opinion it may be that neither is right.
Every person, sixty years of age, knows that formerly there were two parties, the
Federal and the Republican party and that the South was divided like the North.
How came the whole South or nearly the whole South to change and become
united against this party now called Republicans? My first vote was thrown for
Jackson. Adams was elected; Calhoun nullified the tariff and was put down. The
Democratic party at that time never advocated free trade. Now it is one of their
measures, so Democracy covers that, but it is one of the new Democratic
features. At that time the Whigs advocated the tariff as the Republicans do now.
There was at the North and South another party kept up by the leaders of the
Democracy; this was the ultra party. The Democrats had their hobby to keep their
party together, while the Whigs advocated the constitution and equal rights to all.
The Democrats, after the free trade policy became grafted into their creed,
commenced the cry of aristocracy and tariff, that the people were taxed for the
benefit of the rich and the duties came out of the poor. This bugbear had its
effect on the South and they kept up the cry that it was to build up the rich at the
North at the expense of the South. By this kind of deception the defeated party
got into power and thus deceived the people into free trade. Now how does it
happen that foreign nations are opposed to a tariff in our country if the
consumers pay it? What difference to them is it if we pay the duty? But that is not
the fact. The tariff, like all other competitions must reduce the prices if it is not so
high as to act as prohibitive. You cannot name an article, with one exception, that
is manufactured that has not fallen, and that is liquor. That is a democratic
doctrine of free trade.
I will admit that liquor has risen by competition, for when there was no
competition, foreign liquors were high and yet were retailed at three cents a glass
in all saloons and at the first class houses it was but six cents; now there is forty
times as much and not half as pure. And yet under the Democratic doctrine of
free trade, it has risen to three times what it formerly was. Now the poorest N.E.
rum is six cents and logwood brandy is ten cents a glass. This fine free trade
doctrine has got up a feeling against the two sections of the country. It is one of
the bugbears of Democracy and another is the negro question. That has had its
effect and is still harped on by the Tories of the North, who are the very ones that
have caused the destruction of the political parties. The Democratic party is the
cause of all this trouble. When the Whigs of the North and South were in
sympathy with each other, the northern Democrats were accusing the Whigs of
being Abolitionists for the purpose of uniting the South.
The Democrats at the South were telling the Southern people that the Whigs
were against them at the North. This deception of the Democrats of the South
drove all the South together and split up the North by aggravating a few fanatics
that always voted so as to throw the power into the Democrats' hands till it broke
up the Whig party. Then the honest Democrats united and commenced making
war with the two parties. The Democrats attacked them as they did the Whigs by
calling them Abolitionists. This enraged them and it led large numbers of their
friends to leave the Democratic party. The Whigs who believed this humbug
thought that all who joined this new party must be Abolitionists, so they
abandoned their party and went in for the extension of slavery, when it never was
a question at the time of the two parties. The Republicans of this day are on the
same platform that the Whigs of the North and South occupied thirty years ago
and then the Democrats did not dare to advocate the doctrine they do now. Here
is the beginning and end of all Democracy. It was born in sin and its growth has
been its own destruction. It has finished its work and given up the ghost; its
leaders will go year after year to the polls and look on the party that has
transgressed all honor and patriotism. And their consciences will burn with guilt
and they will become the outcasts of society and the abhorrence of all the
parties.
Now let every old Whig ask himself this question. What did the Democratic
leaders accuse you of; was it not that you were Abolitionists? You know whether
you were or not. This has been all the trouble at the South-at war for political
power. Do not these Tories accuse you now of being Abolitionists? Does not the
Argus try every way to identify Republicans with Abolitionists? Read that paper
about the 1st of September 1861, quotations from Henry Clay about the
Abolitionists, and then turn to the time he made the speech. And in that same
lying sheet, you will see that the same paper that now quotes him, there called
the Clay party Abolitionists. Here is the inconsistency of the Democratic party.
The Whigs never were and never will be Abolitionists; they were for letting
slavery alone and for having Congress do the same.
Sept. 10, 1861
To the Sick:
The Conflicting Elements in Man
BU 84:19, LC 5:103
A sick person is two beings: one of which is opinions and the other Science. The
senses or life is attached to both so that man is not seen at all, but the result or
idea is seen by the idea matter. Wisdom is what is called progression; opinions
are aristocracy. These two powers are acting in opposition to each other. All they
agree in is an identity called themselves or a kind of marriage or co-partnership,
like man and wife. The idea body is called man, but each claim the right to act
through it in their own peculiar way, like a telegraph company. It is the medium of
both unless in times of war when the strongest power controls the company. Now
a man sick is a deceived man, for wisdom never deceives anyone, while error is
always in trouble. So after man is once set in motion, he is then like a ship ready
to receive the master. Every state of mind is under the control of these two
elements: one is caution and the other is recklessness. The regulator is wisdom
or science. This never acts except when the other two get into a quarrel. Then it
acts by harmonizing the two, not by compromise but by convincing recklessness
of its error and caution of its fear or ignorance.
I will try and illustrate. Take a person with the hip disease. He is a man of
opinions called hip disease. This is one person; science is the judge; progression
or recklessness is the other person. Progression wants to go ahead; opinion is
afraid of the danger; it reasons according to its evidence. When the man was
well, he was neither one nor the other but a natural progression. When started or
excited these two characters are at war and each wants its way. I will take this
combination of individual and suppose him one man at first, well or in harmony
with himself, that is, having no opinions or ambitions. At last something starts
him. Progression wants to get rid of the enemy; opinions want to stop and argue.
While in this quandary, another man of opinions comes along and asks the
trouble. Opinion states that there is trouble in the leg. Opinion wants to reason.
Progression does not want to reason but to go on, let what will come. They halt.
The man of opinions or doctor looks very wise and asks all kinds of questions of
ignorance until he gets the entire story and sees that the opinions of the sick man
are based on ignorance or no opinions at all.
Then he gives his wisdom based on the opinions of ignorance that the sciatic
nerve is affected and the inflammation may spread and reach the hip joint, which
would cause disease. In that event, amputation and possibly death may follow.
Ignorance receives this as true and now the man is made of opinions and
ambition, although the latter is ignorance as long as it is held in check by
opinions. Now ambition wants to walk, but opinions says, Don't step; it will injure
the limb. So these two are at war till some one wiser comes to help. The wisdom
of the man listens to the arguments of the two. I will take the lame man, as he is
seen, and myself talking to him. I say to him, Won't you try to walk? This is
addressed to the man of opinions or the natural man. He makes an effort and
then says, "I can't. My hip pains me and I can't step at all." Now I know there is
no pain in the hip, so I say, The pain is not in the hip, it is in the mind. This
sometimes makes the patient angry, for he thinks it is in his hip. I commence to
reason; this makes him nervous and he says his hip pains him. I then ask him
what idea he has of the hip. He says the doctors have examined it and have
pronounced it hip disease, accompanied by an infection of the sciatic nerve.
I then say this name is the cause of all your trouble. He says "Oh, no! I felt the
pain long before I saw a doctor." Well, suppose you did, is there any intelligence
in the pain? (P) Yes. (D) What? (P) Why, when I have a pain I know it. (D) Who
knows it? (P) I myself. (D) Then you yourself exist when you have a pain? (P) I
suppose I do, I know my hip aches. (D) Would your hip ache if you did not know
it? (P) Yes. (D) Does your other hip ache? (P) No. (D) How do you know? (P)
Because I do not feel it ache. (D) Then because you do not feel it ache, it does
not ache? (P) Yes. (D) Then if you do not feel the lame one ache, does it ache?
(P) I do not care anything about your reasoning. I know my hip aches and that is
all I can say and if you can stop it, that is all I want. (D) You get nervous? (P)
Well, you make me so nervous, you make my leg ache. (D) I have not touched
your hip, have I? (P) No, but your talk makes it ache. (D) I know that and that is
just what I want to convince you of. (P) Well, if that is what you want to do, you
have succeeded. (D) Now I want to show you how your hip became as it is.
In the first place, God never made any intelligent ache or pain. The intelligence is
attached to the intelligence of man. I will give you an illustration. Suppose you
should have a lead pipe leading from a well to your house and that you should
drink the water. You admit that the water in the well is good, but if it runs through
a lead pipe, it is poisoned; the one who tells you that story disturbs your mind,
but the disturbance contains no intelligence. Yet, as you reason his belief into
you, you become poisoned and you put your belief into the water, so that
according to your belief, you poison yourself. You now become diseased with
your own belief or the doctor's. You said my talk made you nervous, so it did, and
so did the doctor's and my controversy is with the doctor's belief or poison. So
you listen to my controversy with the doctor or your disease and I address myself
to the disease as a person independent of yourself, as a man of health. In this
way, I say to your disease, it has deprived your life or senses by its opinions and
disease denies it and asks for proof. I say you have told him his hip is diseased.
Disease will ask him if his hip is not lame. Of course, he will say, Yes, for he
believes it true.
September 1861
To the Sick The Conflicting Elements in Man
BU 84:21, LC 11:184
A sick person is two beings: one is opinions and the other science. The senses
or life is attached to both so that man is not seen at all, but the visible or idea is
seen by the idea matter. Wisdom is what is called progression, and opinions are
aristocracy. These two powers are acting in opposition to each other. All they
agree in is the identity of a being called themselves or a kind of marriage or co-
partnership, like man and wife. The idea body is called man, but each claims the
right to act through it in their own peculiar way, like a telegraph company. It is the
medium of both, unless in times of war when the strongest power controls the
company. Now a man sick is a deceived man, for wisdom never deceives
anyone, while error is always in trouble. So after man is once set in motion, he is
then like a ship ready to receive the master. Every state of mind is under the
control of these two elements. One is caution and the other is recklessness. The
regulator is wisdom or science. This never acts except when the other two get
into a quarrel. Then it acts by harmonizing the two not by compromise but by
science, convincing recklessness of its error and caution of its fear or ignorance.
I will take a case to illustrate. Take a person with the hip disease. He is a man of
opinions called hip disease. This is one person. Science is the judge.
Progression or recklessness is the other person. Progression wants to go ahead.
Opinion is afraid of the danger. It reasons according to its evidence. When the
man was well, he was neither one nor the other but a natural progression. When
started or excited, these two characters are at war. Each wants its way. I will take
this combination of individuals and suppose him one man, at first well or in
harmony with himself, that is, he has no opinions or ambition. At last something
starts him, progression wants to get rid of the enemy, opinions or reason wants
to stop and argue. While in this quandary another man of opinions comes along
and asks the trouble. Reason states the case that there is trouble in the leg.
Progression wants to go ahead, opinions wants to reason; ambition or
progression does not want to reason but to go on, let what will come. They halt.
The man of opinions or doctor looks very wise and asks all sorts of questions of
ignorance, till it has got all the story and sees that the opinions of the sick man
are based on ignorance or no opinion at all. Then he gives his wisdom, based on
the opinions of ignorance, that the sciatic nerve is affected, and the inflammation
may spread and reach the hip joint which would cause disease. And in that
event, amputation and possibly death may follow. Ignorance receives this as true
and now the man is made of opinions and ambition, although ambition is
ignorance so long as it is held in check by opinion. Now ambition wants to walk
but opinion says, Don't. Stop. It will injure the limb. So these two are at war till
someone wiser comes to help. The wisdom of the man sits and listens to the
arguments of the two.
I will take the lame man as he is seen and myself talking to him. I say to him,
Won't you try to walk. This is addressed to the man of opinions or the natural
man. He makes an effort and then says, I can't, my hip pains me so that I can't
step at all. Now I know that there is no pain in his hip, so I say, The pain is not in
the hip, it is in the mind. This sometimes makes the patient angry, for he thinks it
is in his hip. So I commence to reason; this makes him nervous and he says his
hip pains him. I then ask him what idea he has of the hip. He says the doctors
have examined it and pronounced it hip disease, accompanied with an affection
of the sciatic nerve. Then I say, this name is the cause of your trouble. He says,
Oh no, I felt the pain long before I ever saw a doctor. Well suppose you did, is
there any intelligence in pain? Yes. What? Why, when I have a pain I know it.
Who knows it? I myself. Then you yourself exist when you have a pain. I suppose
so. I know my hip aches. Would your hip ache if you did not know it? Yes. Does
your other hip ache? No. How do you know? Because I do not feel it ache. Then
because you do not feel it ache, it does not ache? Yes. Then if you do not feel
the lame one ache, does it ache? I do not see anything about your reason. I
know my hip aches and that is all I care, and if you can stop it, that is all I want.
Do you get nervous? Well, you make me so nervous you make my hip ache. I
have not touched your hip, have I? No, but your talk makes it ache. I know that
and that is just what I want to convince you of. Well, if that is what you want to
do, you have succeeded. Now I want to show you how your hip became as it is.
In the first place, God never made any intelligent ache or pain. The intelligence is
attached to the invention of man. I will give you an illustration. Suppose you
should have a lead pipe leading from a well to your house and that you should
use the water for all purposes, for eating and drinking and cooking. Now you will
admit that the water in the well is good, but if it runs through the lead pipe, it is
poisoned. The one who tells this story to you disturbs your mind, but the
disturbance contains no intelligence; yet as you reason his belief into you, you
become poisoned, and you put your belief into the water, so that according to
your belief, you poison yourself. You now become diseased with your own belief
or the doctor's. You said my talk made you nervous; so it did and so did the
doctor's, and my controversy is with the doctor's belief or poison. So you listen to
my controversy with the doctor or your disease and I address myself to the
disease as a person independent of yourself as a man of health. In this way, I
say to your disease, it has deceived your life or senses by its opinions. Disease
denies it and asks for proof. I say you have told him his hip is diseased. Disease
will ask him if his hip is not lame. Of course he will say yes, for he believes it true.
September 1861
What Is a Clairvoyant Person?
BU 100:42, LC 5:87
It is a being conscious of his own existence as a living, thinking, seeing,
intelligent creature. All this is not seen by the natural man. Then what is the
natural man? He is the shadow of the clairvoyant; neither is conscious of the
existence of both at the same time. Why do you speak of two when one is only a
shadow? The clairvoyant is like a man who is just where he thinks he is. The
natural man is governed by a belief. Reason does not enter into the combination
of the clairvoyant for if he reasons, he is not clairvoyant. Where is my
consciousness? I am conscious of my senses in both states at the same time. I
see the substance and shadow at the same time and change the former. I do not
see my own shadow, but I see myself as I really am to myself and knowing that I
am not as I ought to be, I change that knowledge by comparing myself to health
till I feel it. Health is the standard by which we judge ourselves and just as a man
deviates from this standard, he is in the dark and makes shadows. These
shadows are the feelings of the sick and are called disease.
September 1861
How to Make a Belief and How to Correct It
BU 84:39, LC 5:117
I will explain how I am affected while sitting by the sick. All mankind act according
to their belief without knowing it, so to know how to act intelligently is to correct a
false idea. According to our natural belief, man is matter. To my wisdom, matter
is an idea that is used like language to convey to another some wisdom that one
wishes to explain to his friend. Here is the difference between myself and the
world; the world believes in matter and everything out of matter is a mystery. I
admit matter, but I call it the shadow of our wisdom, so the natural man's wisdom
cannot see itself or matter, nor has any idea of an existence in a state outside of
his belief. I admit both, and class them both in this way: science and ignorance.
To make it clear, I will call my mesmeric state the light or world of science and to
get into that we must go through the dark valley of the shadow of death. In each
state we carry our own belief, so that when a person is in the light, he knows it
not as he ought to know; for if he reasons, his wisdom is of the world of error, but
if he does not reason, he is like a child, ready to be instructed by science or
opinions. To illustrate: I take a child and create in my own mind a dog. I do not
speak it to the child, but all the time I am with the child, I have the dog before me.
My feelings change the child's mind till our minds mingle or sympathize. At last
the child grows nervous. Now I am acting upon the child, but the child knows it
not and I may or may not be aware of the fact. Finally the child gets so far under
my influence that when in the dark, it sees a dog. When the child's senses
become attached to the dog, it becomes a real animal and if I am angry when I
create it, the dog will be angry. This produces fear and anger in the child and it
becomes fretful; it feels nervous and at times sees the dog in the dark. This is the
way one mind acts on another ignorantly.
The science is to correct this error. This has been the study of the ancient and
modern philosophers; phenomena take place every day and persons are affected
by them, but how to account for them has never been discovered. This is the
question, How are all these things produced? We hear people, male and female,
talking about some mysterious something. One tells some witch story, another a
spiritual experiment that is unaccountable, and some say this is all humbug.
There is still another class pretending to be in the secret that warns you against
all the above and points you to a God of their invention who knows all things,
which He has revealed to them. Others pronounce them bigots and superstitious
and say we do not know anything about another world and that it is all a mystery.
These are as superstitious as the others. There are some who have their
fortunes told who say they do not believe a word of it; yet everything told them
was true.
These differences embrace all mankind but do not contain one word of science.
They are the working of error to arrive at truth. The child laughs at the
superstition of his father and tries to account for his belief in the phenomenon but
establishes error almost equal to his father. In this way, error has been changing,
not knowing that it has changed. The progress of true wisdom is so slow that the
children of one generation do not see the change but speak of the generation of
their fathers. The son listens to his parents explaining the superstition of their
age, not knowing that the ignorance of the one is equal to the ignorance of the
other. So the world goes on from one generation to another. Now I want my
children, when I am out of sight to the world of opinions, to say when they hear
persons declare that medicine never cured a person "that is just what father used
to say; here is what he says about it." When they hear it said that disease is the
invention of man and is nothing but a continuation of Salem witchcraft, and that
the priests' opinions are the relics of heathen superstition, and Jesus opposed
the whole of it, I want them to show how it has been foretold and laughed at.
Here is where I stand.
In looking back at the Salem witchcraft, when the judges sat in council judging
their fellow men for being witches or wizards, the accused testifying against their
best friends, believing themselves bewitched, just ask yourself if these very
people rich and poor, low and high, were not like the people of our age. And will
not the people of the next generation laugh at the folly of our age? It is twenty
years since I first embarked in what was one of the greatest humbugs of the age,
mesmerism. At that time, the people were as superstitious about it as they were
two hundred years ago in regard to witchcraft. Now see the change; today the
phenomena of mesmerism are admitted as much as those of electricity. And
those who oppose it stand in society on a level with those who believe in ghosts
and witches. The opposers of all science are the material to establish the truth of
any phenomenon, right or wrong. In religion, the more absurd, the more
opposition and therefore the more material to work with, for to oppose a
phenomenon that you admit is to be ignorant of what you oppose. For instance, if
a man opposes the science of mathematics, he must be ignorant. And if a person
should show him or explain a mathematical problem which he cannot see
through, if he is a person capable of investigating, he will listen to the
explanation. And if that is not satisfactory, he will not deny the phenomenon,
though he may not believe the explanation. I have had some experience in
regard to man's belief and I know that the wisdom of man is not properly defined.
Man's wisdom is like his wealth. It does not follow that a man is as rich as he
appears, but when he dies and his debts are paid, then you will see how much
he is worth. So it is with wisdom; the man who is rich in public opinion today may
be a beggar tomorrow; his wisdom is all of this world; when science comes to
reckon and test his wisdom, he falls and is buried in the ground with all those
minds that make a show of wisdom. I cannot give a better explanation of such
wisdom than to quote Paul again, where he says all men have knowledge.
Knowledge puffeth up but charity or science edifieth. Charity is a word well
calculated to embrace what we call science, for a truly scientific man is never
puffed up, but like charity his science is his wealth.
The wisdom of the world is flattery; it puffs man up. Then he continues, If a man
thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing as he ought to know, but if he loves
God which is science, the same is known to him. The position of the scientific
man has neither place nor magnitude. It has length and breadth without
thickness; it is in its own element, out of opinion. The wisdom of man has place,
a starting point, magnitude and matter. When a man is out of matter or opinion,
he is in science. This holds good in all science. Science is to correct all error or
phenomena that the natural man cannot correct intelligently. Now when a
phenomenon is produced called disease, the causes are unknown; therefore
man invents reason to account for it. His reason is the cause of his trouble; his
disease is not the cause but what follows. To illustrate, you tell me I "look sick." I
say I do not feel sick; in fact I don't know what you mean by the word, so you
have to invent some story to tell me or explain by some intelligent sign. I lay my
hands on my left side; you ask me what I feel. Now if I had never heard of
sickness or disease, I should not know what to say, neither would I be frightened,
so it would pass off without anything of any account. But you tell me that people
often die with just such a feeling as I have. This starts me, although I have no
idea what you mean, my feelings not containing danger or trouble, but your
opinions trouble me exceedingly. I begin now to twist and turn, not knowing what
to do. This convinces you that I have disease of the heart and you try to explain
to me what I have and how it affects a person. By mesmerizing me into your
belief you disturb my mind and create the very idea you have invented; and at
last I die just as you foretold. All this is disease and you made it. If I had never
seen you nor anyone wiser than myself I should not have died.
October 1861
To Those Seeking the Truth
BU 1:5, LC 5:125
This is written to show you how you stand in regard to this truth and how I stand
in regard to you. This applies to all persons seeking after the truth. I will liken it
unto a treasure in the wilderness of which you have heard and go in search of.
You stand in your search with no guides but what you have seen and enjoyed.
You hear of men embarking in the enterprise, but not having found it shortly
return to their own opinion. You listen to their story and learn as far as they are
concerned they have never seen one who has entered that land of light, where
disease never comes. They all after a short time return and live and die in their
own belief. This makes you feel gloomy; then one comes along saying, I have felt
the warm atmosphere of the place; it invigorates me and I felt as buoyant as
though I had been in the air. This gives you courage and you pray that you may
be guided by this light that you see now and then dimly and so you travel on,
sometimes in the dark, guided by a power that you cannot see, sometimes by the
light of Wisdom and then you take courage.
Now in the darkness of the night, you hear the cries of the sick who are
tormented and you halt, not knowing what to do. Then some unknown hand
reaches out and in a whispering voice says, Fear not, pass forward; then come
the groans of the dying and you tremble. At last the voice of the sick dies away
and the light of Wisdom springs up and you see the prize you are seeking for in
the darkness. So you tread lighter and lighter till you become so buoyant that you
feel as though you did not weigh anything. Now you are standing in this place
between opinion and Wisdom and looking at everything as you see it, but not
knowing the names of things you meet. You hesitate, but you have gone so far
that you cannot get back, yet not far enough to feel sure that it is the land of the
living. So you are surveying the land and reasoning about it. At last, shadows will
appear before your eyes and your senses will be brought into play. The shadows
will take form, then life will enter. Voices like the rushing winds will salute your
ears, and you will look and individuals will arise of flesh and blood. Then you will
know that you have passed from death unto life; your belief is lost in sight, you
will not doubt. Your grief will be turned into joy and you will see that all your
misery is in opinions. And as you grow, you will see the error of the world's
opinions.
I will now tell you where I am and how I am leading you along. You are in the old
world or testament. I am in the new world or testament, not P. P. Quimby but this
truth. It is the light that lighteth everyone that cometh into this world and to make
you understand it, it takes upon itself flesh and blood. So when it speaks, it
speaks not as man speaks, but it speaks the truth, not opinions. The natural man
is opinion, not wisdom; the scientific man is not flesh and blood but wisdom. And
where wisdom is recognized by the natural man, then the natural man is not far
from the kingdom of heaven. To gain the kingdom of heaven is to gain Science.
There are many kinds of science, but they are all from one great wisdom. And
science is the name of that particular application of wisdom to a particular
phenomenon. For instance, chemistry is the name of a wisdom reduced to
practice and the practice is called science. Now man looks upon chemistry as
something separate and apart from him as much as religion, while chemistry is
one of the elements of his own existence, for it contains no matter. So it is with
mathematics and all the sciences that ever have been developed. Man is just as
large as he is wise in Science, so science is that solid that will break in pieces all
opinions. There is one development of wisdom that has never been
acknowledged by the natural man and when that is acknowledged, the natural
man then becomes subject to a higher power. This is the Science of Wisdom
whose fruits are health and happiness. This is the foundation of all other
sciences. It is the rock of wisdom and man is made of it. Opinion is its servant
and when the servant becomes the master, then the wicked reign and the people
mourn.
It may be asked if health and happiness is a science, how can it be put into
practice for the benefit of man? I answer, Just as you put into practice any other
branch of wisdom for man's good. All wisdom that has been reduced or
developed is the growth of the scientific man. And as wisdom is developed, it is
put into practice for the happiness of man. Opinions or beliefs are the natural
man, and as he dies, the spiritual or scientific man takes his place. Just as the
wilderness is the natural man and civilization clears away the trees and cultivates
the soil, so the natural man is full of brutal and false ideas warring against
himself. And science lies and sees the wicked do wickedly till their wickedness is
destroyed by the weapons of their own make. As the wisdom is developed that
sees through all the evils of the world of opinion and belief, it corrects the error
and establishes the truth. This changes the natural man into a man of wisdom
that will see that human misery is based on an opinion. Let a person just look at
himself as the image of his maker and he will see that man is a complete image
of the very God he ought to worship.
I will make the one living and true man: the father, the son and the Holy Ghost.
The scientific or wisdom is the father; the idea man or matter the son, or flesh
and blood; the explanation of the unity is the Holy Ghost or wisdom. These three
make the one living and true man. The father or wisdom will reign through the
son or matter by the word or Holy Ghost till all enemies are explained through the
son. Then the son shall become subject to the father or science and wisdom
shall reign all in all. In the days of old, this wisdom spake through the prophets.
At last, it spake through science or a wiser medium, but it has never spoken to
the sick in prison. But ancient and modern philosophy has looked for the true
Messiah or Wisdom that shall open the prison doors, burst the bolts and bars,
break the chains of superstition and set the captive free. When this comes, there
shall be a time such as was never seen before, when the priests and doctors
shall hide their faces from the people to keep from being ridiculed for their
superstition and ignorance. They will be set down on a level with the old Salem
witchcraft. Their power shall be taken away from them and they shall be turned
out to eat the fruits of their own labor. Then to be religious is to show the world
that you can correct some of the diseases that have been invented by these blind
guides. As man knows himself, he learns that all he is, is his life, and his senses
are in his life, that opinions are mind subject to his life. His life embraces all his
faculties and his happiness is in knowing that he is no part of what is seen by the
eye of opinion. The world is the shadow of wisdom's amusement. All that is seen
by the natural man is mind reduced to a state called matter.
October 1861
Life and Death
BU 84:34, LC 5:114
What is death? Man from ignorance has associated truth with error till an error
has got to be as true as life itself. For life cannot be seen except as it is made
manifest in some idea. This idea is called matter, and it has become so identified
with life that life cannot exist without it. This is the way man reasons. To destroy
life is to destroy the idea that contains it. Therefore when we see the idea without
life we say our life is dead. This would be true if death was life, but it is not so,
according to the words of Jesus. He says, "I am the life," and he came to destroy
death and him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Now if the devil has
the power of death, death cannot mean what the people think it does.
Let us see what were Jesus' ideas of death and if they are like those of the
Christians of our day. What did Jesus mean by these words, "I came not to save
life but to destroy it and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it, and he that
believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live"? Here you see he used
the word death applied to persons that can be seen at this time. So if death
means what we are taught to believe, then Jesus knew not what he said. Take it
as you please. It either means an idea that can be changed or it means the
destruction of life, and then all he said amounts to nothing.
I am certain that I know what Jesus meant to convey to the people, for I have
seen death myself and eternal life that he spoke of and can testify that I have
passed from death unto life, as he taught his disciples. And knowing this life that
is in Christ I teach it to you, not by opinions but by words of wisdom that will
destroy death and put you in possession of that true life that will make death only
an idea, like all other ideas man must get rid of to enjoy himself. If you will listen
to me while I explain the mystery of life, you will see just where the people were
at the time Jesus taught this eternal life. The world was in darkness in regard to
one thing-that was life independent of a belief. It never entered into their minds
that wisdom was not an idea or that their wisdom was nothing but opinions, not
life but shadows that depended on the light of this life or science. So as the lamp
of science lit up, it dispelled the shadow of opinions and embraced life. Matter, as
it is called, with science is nothing but a shadow; life attaches itself to its own
belief and as its belief is changed, death is destroyed and life takes its place.
For illustration, take the idea man. We all have been made to believe that we are
flesh and blood. I for one do not wish to lose that idea and believe I shall die. So I
believe I am flesh and blood and my life is attached to it. I also believe in death,
according to the New Testament which is eternal life. I will now put myself in the
position of those who Jesus said were dead in trespasses and sin. I believed as
all the world did that this body would die, and if there was anything after death, I
might be raised and united with my friends in another world, either happy or
miserable. Now, all this is under the law. So by the law no flesh can be saved,
but the gift of God must be eternal life. In the darkness of this error, the light
sprang up and I arose from the dead or unbelief to the light of science, and am
now out of my old belief, and my life is still attached to the old idea of flesh and
blood.
Perhaps you do not get the idea so I will state it in a clearer way. You once were
ignorant of mathematics, then if a person should present you with mathematical
book it would be all darkness to you. But the principle or spiritual wisdom was in
the book, and as you began to understand, you had life and your life was in your
understanding and you still had a body of flesh and blood in your belief.
As you lose your life or ignorance, you rise from the dead but you still have flesh
and blood till the grave or skepticism is destroyed and you rise into the scientific
world where those who are in the law or ignorance cannot see you, for the dead
know nothing of mathematics. Here is a resurrection; you have risen from the
dead and are set down with those who have gone before you.
Instead of being in the book, you are out of it, and to prove that you are out of the
book, you say to those who are struggling with the world that you will show
yourself to them by your resurrection. So you do a mathematical problem without
the book, and then show that they are to be judged by their books; and if they are
not found in the book of science, they are dead in their own sins or ignorance.
You have a body of flesh and blood in both worlds.
So it is with all errors, death is ignorance; flesh and blood are admitted and
unless you are made to destroy it by your own belief, you cannot get rid of it. The
world has made an end of life but Jesus was the end of their life. So their life to
him was death and his death was the destruction of their belief and their life was
in their belief. So I believe in flesh and blood but not in death, for I have passed
from that belief into a life that is eternal. I have flesh and blood as you all see and
I shall never be without it; but you from your belief may destroy my life to
yourself, but to me it is the same today and forever. Here you have the belief of
one who has seen the idea of death swallowed up in science; therefore to me the
change is not a thing of belief but a truth.
You may ask me if I do not believe in what is called death. I answer, Yes. If I did
not, I should not try to destroy it in others. But it is a belief to those who are under
it and as our lives are a part of each other, to know that my friends are separated
from me on account of their belief makes me more earnest that they shall believe
the truth. If your father or mother were carried out of your sight and you thought
they were dead, if they knew it, would they not weep for your unbelief? They
know they are alive with flesh and blood, but your belief makes a wall so dense
that you cannot penetrate your own belief.
October 1861
How the Error of Disease Is Made
BU 1:20, LC 5:139
PART 4
All ideas are matter and those that contain danger contain also fear and are of
the same class. I will illustrate the differences of disease and show how they are
created. A child creeps towards the fire, the heat affects it and the sensation on
the child is called fear. There is no wisdom in the sensation, but there is fear. So
it creeps nearer and is more affected, but there is no intelligence in she child. At
last a sort of intelligence comes, enough to make the child creep out of the fire.
Now the burn is called disease. Here is a disease without any intelligence; it is
simply the reaction of the act. Give the child wisdom and the fear is gone, for
there is no danger. This is one class of diseases, or cause and effect without any
wisdom and here is another class. In order to keep the child from getting burned,
you tell him the fire will burn him to death if he goes near and frighten the child by
telling him stories which he will believe. This makes the child see danger, when it
exists only in the mind of his parent, which his parent tells him of to prevent him
from running any risk. This danger contains fear and just as you make danger the
reaction is fear and disease. Here is where disease commences, in the danger of
opinion; the other is not a disease but a phenomenon without intelligence.
You may trace nine-tenths of all disease to danger created by parents when
children are small. The religion of this world is the effect of the danger of
something of which we know nothing and to keep clear of it is religion. Religion,
like fear, is the result of a belief in some idea that contains danger. I will make an
illustration that will explain the two kinds of religion, for works are not a religion
but a belief is. By faith, you are saved and not of works, lest anyone should
boast; but if you believe so and so, you shall be saved and if not, you shall be
damned. So religion is a belief and here is the explanation thereof.
Suppose a dozen children were playing and a stone should be seen by one of
them coming down directly over their heads and he should show it to the rest.
Now down it comes and it frightens them. The children are taught that heaven is
up in the skies; don't you suppose that they would think that God sent the stone
down to frighten them, if they were in mischief? While they are pondering, some
person tells them that they must be good children and obey their parents. The
children believe and the priests have made this danger through their ignorance or
belief. While they are talking and the priest is giving them good Christian advice,
a clap of thunder comes and the lightning strikes a tree. Now they are frightened
again and apply to the priest to explain. He tells them the Lord is angry and has
sent a thunderbolt to show them that they were not good children. This frightens
them. The wind blows and it becomes dark, or perhaps an eclipse of the sun
takes place. This is explained in the same way and so on till every phenomenon
that could happen is explained. The belief in all the above is admitted as true and
this is religion. To believe that, you will believe all the above and ten times as
much more, and to repent of everything which the priest says is wrong will gain
for you a place in heaven when you die; otherwise you must go to the opposite
place. The Christian is one who believes all and so shapes his course as to keep
clear of all till death and then he is landed in heaven.
All of the above belongs to the priests. They are the teachers of the young and
this nursery is to fit them for another class of hypocrites worse than themselves,
the medical faculty. One is sent for to see a child made nervous by the false
ideas of the priests. He finds the child laboring under nervous excitement. He
feels the pulse and inquires what they have been doing; the answer is nothing
except listening to the priests' explanation of the dark day. As the doctor believes
just like the priests, he does not make him the author of the trouble but
introduces the same subject himself. So looking very grave he says, You have
committed a sin against the laws of God or health. For if you expose yourself to
the cold, you are liable to take cold, be sick and die of consumption. This makes
the patient more frightened. The doctor is sent for again; he finds the patient
dangerously sick and says that the brain is affected, that there is a collection of
water on the brain and he must die. The minister comes and talks with the child
to prepare his mind to die, telling him that he must believe that God will forgive
him and receive him to heaven. The minister prays and the friends all weep
violently, all exciting the child and then he is told that God will receive him. By
this time the child is so nervous that it wants to go to heaven and at last
exhausted, he pants and dies. Here is the beginning and ending of the Christian
religion. It was born in ignorance, grew up in error and died in the same. This is
one side of life where I used to be, but now I have turned over the leaf and will
present the religion of Jesus.
While all the above was going on, there was a certain set of infidels who said that
the priests did not know anymore than they did. But they could not account for
the darkness, nor thunder nor water on the brain and did not believe the doctors
could. Some a little wiser began to believe that there must be some natural
cause for all these things as well as for others that were known. Some began to
talk this way. At such a time as this, John came out of the wilderness or darkness
and told the people that some one would come who could explain the falling of
the stone, etc. So the child Jesus, being of a certain combination prepared by the
great truth, would of himself, like all other children, without knowing why he did it,
listen to the priests' belief. He could see that it was all inconsistent with wisdom
and that it made the people nervous and sick. So he investigated the phenomena
and he was often found in the temples disputing with the doctors on these
subjects. At the age of thirty, hearing of John, he went to hear him preach, was
baptized into his belief and it became so clear to him that the priests and doctors
were the cause of nine-tenths of man's misery that the heaven or this truth was
opened to him and he saw the true explanation or Holy Ghost; and it came to his
mind and he heard the voice of science saying, This is my beloved son in whom I
am well pleased. Then he was led up into the wilderness or into all the priests'
and doctors' opinions and saw there was nothing but hypocrisy and priestcraft to
humbug the people. After he had fairly investigated the whole subject so that he
could see that all their misery was their religious belief and the doctors were in
league with them, he came to the conclusion that he would come out from among
them and preach the kind of truth or that science that would explain all their
troubles. His first act was to take some witnesses with him. So he called on
Simon Peter and Andrew, his brother, to follow him and as he went along or
talked, others followed him. So Jesus went all about Galilee teaching and curing
all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went out through all the
country and they brought unto him all sick people to be healed.
Nov. 15, 1861
Strength II (Whence Is It-of Matter
or Wisdom? Errors and Misery Resulting
from the Misapplication of the Word)
BU 1:26, LC 5:141
What is strength? This question sounds as though it might be easily answered,
but on consideration, it is not so easy. Words are so misused that it it impossible
to get at the original meaning of the person who applied the word or at the feeling
or state of mind when the word was first introduced. If you choose to apply the
word strength to machinery, then I have no fault to find with the definition. But if it
means will, then it is wrongly applied, for will is independent of the thing you call
strong. If you say, "That is a strong lever," then it does not include the force that
is applied to it. If the person who first used the word applied it to his wisdom as a
powerful intellect, then it will only apply where there is some intellect, the quality
of which is not taken into account. This confusion of meaning makes a great deal
of trouble, for we put intelligence into everything that has resistance instead of in
the intelligence having the strength. As far as man is concerned the word
strength has no meaning at all unless you call it will. A man's legs are a
combined lever, and if you mean that they have strength you might as well say
that a lever has strength, for one is as much alive as the other, and neither of
itself can do anything.
The word strength does not convey the author's feelings when he made the
expression. He either meant to apply it to wisdom or to matter. If the author
meant to give a name to the phenomenon called will, then it makes a vast
difference in reasoning about strength. For instance, a person is "weak," as it is
called, in the back or limbs. Now the medical faculty goes to work to rub on all
kinds of strengthening medicines just as though there were intelligence in the
medicine and it imparted strength to the weak part. The absurd idea is carried out
all through our lives, and it deprives man of the true wisdom that might make him
happy and intelligent.
My theory gives the lie to all the above, for I have seen that the word strength is a
mere word with no more meaning than to lead man astray and the whole medical
science is based on this word strength. This or that thing is said to give a person
strength. In the case of a fever the whole invention of the medical faculty is
brought to play to discover some medicine that will give strength. The chemist is
employed to discover the chemical properties such and such things contain, and
numberless articles are said to contain strengthening virtue. The food is
strengthening, the air is strengthening and you can find no end to the
strengthening things given to the sick, and all the while they are growing weaker.
This false idea should be corrected.
Every one knows that animals have more strength than the human species and it
cannot be their food; for a man fed on grass would die according to our belief,
while the animal will live, and he will live on the same food as man and still grow
no stronger. Man puts the construction on the word to suit himself. It is used to
work some piece of machinery, a carriage for instance, as though it had
intelligence. If the word applied to man's will is called strength, the thing that it is
applied to should not be called strong. You may ask what this has to do with the
curing of disease. I will tell you, for it is the very thing to correct. Apply the word
strength to man, not to matter, for wisdom has life and the matter has none.
There is such a term as resistance and this is the opposite to strength. For
instance, you wish to raise a stone. That wisdom that wants to raise a stone is
one thing, and the stone is another. So if wisdom chooses to apply its strength
through the arms, its motive or will is applied just according to the amount of
resistance. If a horse is attached to a dead weight, it applies its will or strength
just according to its wisdom; and if it fails, it makes another effort to overcome
the resistance, and as it gets deceived it loses its power or strength. Strength is
intelligence; it embraces all man's wisdom, and if this wisdom is of this world, his
strength is in his muscles; but if his wisdom is of God or Science, his strength is
in himself and to be wise is to be strong.
I will illustrate my idea of strength as I apply it to the sick. When I use the word I
couple it with skill. These two are governed, either by the brutal wisdom or the
scientific wisdom. I will state a case of my own experience. I treated a man who
had lost the use of his lower limbs. He could not move them when he was sitting
in his chair. The doctors called it a spine affection. When he attempted to rise, he
had not strength in his spine to keep his body erect. He would give out at the pit
of the stomach, and this took all the power from his legs. This was the doctors'
theory and the man believed it and applied his will or strength according to this
wisdom. His hope was cut off. He believed the spine was diseased and so did all
his friends and physicians.
According to my theory his body was like the weight to be moved; his will or
strength was applied to his body just as it would be to a lever that you believed
would break if you applied too much power to it. His reason directed the power,
and being deceived he could do nothing. To cure him, or make his legs strong
and his spine well, was to first convince him that there never was any strength in
the idea body and that strength came from some other source.
Everyone knows that, the will being put into action, an effect is produced called
strength. For instance, a person by the power of his will can hold another; this is
called strength. What is the grasp? Strength, or is it the will applied to the hand?
No one supposes that the hand would catch hold and grasp unless it was
directed by another power. This other power is the will governed by the wisdom
and the effect is called strength. Strength is the name of the phenomenon; it is an
act, so will without an act or motive is no will or strength and availeth nothing. So
to sit till his legs grow strong would be as absurd as to make a steam engine and
after it was ready to work, sit and wait till the wood made its own fire, its steam,
and let its steam on to the piston head. For a man that has lost his strength to sit
still and wait for it to come is just as absurd as to prepare a clay bin and then wait
for it to make itself into a vessel. Such an idea of strength is so absurd that it
takes away a man's reasoning faculties. Let man know that his weakness is the
want of right direction to his ambition, then his strength is in putting his will into
action; both are the result of his wisdom. Destroy a man's prospects and
happiness, and you destroy his strength. So as you rouse his ambition and will,
his strength comes. The course taken by the medical faculty in their mode of
reasoning destroys man's natural powers and makes him a mere tool in the
hands of a quack. Every man who reasons that strength can be made by food,
air, or rubbing, or any liniment is a fool, although he may be honest.
I have tried the experiment and know. I do not guess at it when I say that there is
not one particle of virtue in any sort of medicine that people take to give them
strength. Neither is there any strength in one kind of food more than another, but
it may be all summed up in this: the gratification of man's desires embraces all
there is of him, and these vary according to circumstances. All men have a desire
for happiness, and this desire creates an appetite, and the desire wants to be
gratified. This brings up this feeling called will, and then it is forced on by wisdom
to accomplish a desire. The wants of the animal are limited; therefore it is lively
and happy, for it acts according to its will. It is often said that the beasts are sick.
Granted, but man takes their freedom from them as well as from the human
species. Let both be wild and you see a bold race.
Look at the uncultivated savage and you will not see him creeping around as
though he had done some mean, dirty act, like the civilized man. Of all mean
looking things, a human being that is completely under the medical faculty is the
lowest; he is as much a slave as the Negro at the South, and in fact more so.
Look at a sick female suffering from some opinion that the doctors have made
her believe. In her mind she is completely under the doctor; she is not allowed to
eat or drink or even walk or think, except as the family physician gives direction.
The sick have given their souls to the priests and their bodies to the physicians.
They then tell about the good doctors, how much he has done for them, showing
that he has deprived them of all noble, manly feelings, left them sick, feeble in
mind and body, while the doctor struts around like the slave driver, and the sick
curl under the lash of their tongue, as the negroes under the lash of their
masters.
This may seem strange, but it is God's truth that the sick are a mere tool in the
hands of the medical faculty to be treated just as they please. It never will be any
better till the sick rise in their wisdom and declare their independence. You may
say I am making war for my own gain, but I think I can convince anyone who is
out from under these slave drivers that I could make ten dollars where I now
make one. My object is to raise my fellow man to his original state. I am a white
abolitionist. The blacks, it is true, are slaves, but their slavery is a blessing
compared with that of the sick. I have seen many a white slave that would
change places with the black. The only difference is that white slavery is
sanctioned by public opinion. But make the slave know that he is one and you
will see a difference in the result. It is hard for me to keep myself within bounds
when I think of the groans of the sick, knowing that it is all the effect of a
superstitious ignorance. Does not the South quote the Bible to prove that slavery
is of divine origin? Do not the priests and doctors quote the old heathen
superstition to bolster up a weak and feeble edifice just ready to crumble and
crush the leaders? Is not science raising her voice and crying aloud to the people
saying, How long shall it be till the old heathen idolatry shall come to an end and
man shall learn wisdom and be his own master and not a slave.
November 1861
The Case of a Patient
BU 106:16, LC 9:292
I will give you a case of a patient to show how hard it is to cure or to correct an
opinion or disease. The case was a gentleman who was laboring under a
disease called by his physician, a German doctor, "Dropsy in the abdominal cave
and in the subcutaneous cellular tissue." Now to the man this was all Greek so
he requested the doctor to reduce it to writing so that on his return home he
might show it to his physician. At the same time his physician doctored him for
the asthma and the medicines that he gave seemed at first to have some effect,
but after he returned home his family physician was called, and after seeing the
description of his case by the German, he explained his case and gave him to
understand it was the dropsy. Now the patient became nervous; his ankles and
feet began to swell and his sleep departed from him. This bloated him up so that
he was not able to lie down, for the pressure across his lungs was so great that
he would spring up in the most frightful manner looking as red as a cherry.
The doctor all this time was using all his skill to convince his wife and mother that
his chest was filling with water. So when he would be in this dreadful agony his
mother would ask the doctor, "Can't you give him something to relieve his
distress in the chest?" The doctor would reply, "We can't do anything till we get
the water away," impressing on the mother and wife that he was filling up with
water. So here he was; he could not lie down for fear of suffering with the water,
for the doctor had made the wife and mother believe it was water. Now this was
the state of the case when I was called.
To cure the patient was to change his mind. Now with all this amount of
evidence, for me to step in and show that he had been deceived, and the
phenomenon was the result of his deception or belief, was not an easy task. But I
undertook it, and in the first place I convinced him that the doctor was wrong
about his legs, for I reduced the sore one half, the first visit. This gave me a little
chance over him, but he was so nervous that his belief of water in the chest had
such an effect on his mind that he would spring up every time he would lose
himself.
Now I had all the prejudices of the doctor's opinions to contend with. His wife and
mother were like a vane to be operated on by every groan and expression that
would drop from his lips. Their fears would keep him nervous and they would
watch him to see if he bloated any more, and to be sure, they would ask him if he
did not think his legs were more swollen; this of course would make him nervous.
So he would fuss all night and in the morning they would begin with their
complaints by saying, He has had a very restless night and don't you think,
doctor, his legs and bowels are more swollen? See how purple he looks in the
face; and then say, Can't there be something that he can take to get rid of this
nervousness? Then the patient would say, I am so nervous I shall go crazy; is
there nothing that will take this nervousness away, etc.
Now every day this took place and I had to sit and hear all this and know that it
was the very thing that was making him nervous. So I would sometimes say, If
you want to take medicine, why did you send for me? Then his wife would say, I
don't want him to take medicine, for everything he takes makes him worse. Then
his mother would say, Don't you think that soaking his feet would be good? Some
say it is very good for dropsy.
This is the scene of a sick room and it is what I have to go through more or less
with every patient. Now I had to account for all these feelings and ten times as
many more. I had to tell the effects that would follow his getting well, and when
they would come along, he would forget that I had told him. So I would have to
explain every change that came along, showing him that I had explained it all
before.
I will now give you the changes as they took place. I have described his
appearance when I first called. I will now give my argument to convince him that
the doctors were wrong. His trouble was in breathing; he believed he was filling
up with water so that if he went to sleep he would suffocate. Now to convince him
that it was not water in the chest I had to produce an action in the bowels, and I
reasoned with him till he would drop asleep; and while I would sit by him, he
would sleep; but as soon as I would leave, he would spring up on his feet and
exclaim I shall suffocate. Now this I knew was nervousness and not water, so I
sat and would [unfinished]
Dec. 3, 1861
Disease: Cures Outside of the Medical Faculty
BU 42:10, LC 11:225
[orig. DISEASE]
The fact that some cures are made outside of the medical faculty is not denied by
any person, but how they are done is the problem to be solved. I say they are
done by the mind, which is acted upon by some wisdom outside of itself. There
never was a cure performed unless some wisdom superior to the cause was
brought to act upon the mind. Now I have given over twenty years of my life to
the subject and feel confident that my method of curing is entirely new to the
world, that it has never been practiced intelligently by any living man. I am the
first of my practice, while all others are the last of theirs. All will admit that the
allopathic practice is the oldest except spiritualism, if you please to call it a
practice. If spiritualism is admitted to be a mode of practice, it is older than the
allopathic practice, for there were certain men eighteen hundred years ago that
practiced curing and casting out devils by this power. There was one man who
called it the power of the good.
Jesus called it the power of the devil. He admitted that there were some cures
made, for when his disciples told him they saw persons casting out devils in his
name and forbade them, he said, "Forbid them not, for those that are with us are
not against us and those that are not with us scatter abroad." Now here were
persons making cures that were not with Jesus and it was hard to convince the
people that Jesus' cures were not made in the same way in which the spiritualists
of his day made theirs. This false idea of spirits is the foundation of disease and
gives rise to all kinds of practice. Until spiritualism can be explained, the world
must be humbugged in some way, either by the medical faculty or by some of the
other humbugs of the day. To deny that a cure was ever made by the above is to
deny the Bible and all ancient history.
Dec. 9, 1861
Disease Traced to the Early Ages and Its Causes-Religion
BU 40:7, LC 8:6
My object in laying my ideas before the people in regard to the causes of disease
is to separate myself from all others who pretend to cure disease. The world or
the people in it are superstitious from ignorance, but their superstition shows
itself in a variety of ways. Some who think they are free from it are in reality most
affected by it. Superstition is not applied to wisdom but to some idea that has
never been understood, and the explanation of the phenomena is the superstition
if it is not explained on some scientific principle that puts an end to all
investigation. My object in this communication is to confine myself to the
prevailing superstition in regard to diseases, their causes and cures, and to show
where I stand independent of all others.
To commence with the diseases of man, we must go back to the ancients. The
ancients believed that disease was the consequence of sin. The Hebrews were
very little versed in the study of mental philosophy and attributed all their
sickness to evil spirits who, they believed, were the executioners of divine
vengeance. If they could not account for their disease, they did not hesitate to
say that it was a blow from the avenging hand of God, and to him the wisest and
most religious had recourse for cures. King Asa was blamed for placing
confidence in the physicians when he had a painful fit of gout in his feet and not
applying to the Lord (2nd Chron. 16: 12). "So Asa in the 39th year of his reign
was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceedingly great, yet in his
disease he sought not the Lord but the physicians. So in the one and 40th year
he died," having been under the medical faculty two years.
This shows that the medical faculty was of little account with the ancient Hebrews
who claimed to put their trust in God. Asa was blamed for running after quacks,
but the world has since been remodeled, not after the days of King Asa. Job's
friends ascribed all his distempers and sicknesses to God's justice and to comfort
him, they used these words (Chap. 4: 7,8). "Remember I pray thee, whoever
perished being innocent? Or when were the righteous cut off? Even as I have
seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same." Here Job was
accused of transgressing God's laws. Every phenomena that could not be
accounted for was attributed to God or spirits from another world, and these
superstitions of the Hebrews have come down to the present day.
Disease and death were the great evils to contend with, and in order to avoid
them, it was necessary to do something to appease this God. So all sorts of
religious theories and opinions spring up to instruct the people in a belief that will
govern their lives so that they may show the evils which God has in store to afflict
his children. Nearly all the diseases the people had were attributed to God.
Leprosy, so common among the Jews, was treated as a disease sent by God.
The priests judged of the quality of evil, confined the sick and declared that they
were healed or still had the leprosy upon them; then they offered sacrifices to
God for their sins or faults and so deceived the people through their craft or
ignorance. In Numbers: Chap. 12, the case of Miriam's leprosy is recorded.
Aaron and Miriam spake against Moses for marrying an Ethiopian woman. The
Lord sent for the three and after learning the story was wroth and departed.
When the cloud disappeared, Miriam became white as snow. Then Moses called
unto the Lord saying, Heal her now O God, I beseech thee, and the Lord said, If
her father had but spit in her face, should she not be ashamed seven days? Let
her be shut out from the camp seven days. After this was done, she was cured.
Here is the case of leprosy, its cause and cure, but the mode of operating is not
given, but to me it is all plain. There is no doubt but disease is what follows our
belief. They had such power over the masses hat they cured their evils by
imposing upon them the process I have mentioned. Their belief was their religion,
and the forgiving their fns was the cure, so religion was health and disease was
sin. This has Christ's idea, for he said the well need no physician, so according to
the Hebrews it was a disgrace to be sick.
It may seem strange, at first thought, to say that any mode of curing disease was
to make it and all the cures are done by an unknown God and therefore they are
miracles. A miracle is some phenomenon that cannot be explained by the world
of opinions. My object to trace disease to its origin and see what it is and who is
its father, and whether it can be attributed to the one living and true God, for I
cannot believe that God is the author of our misery. Man is the author of his own
misery and to trace disease to its author is to bring it down to man. The priest is
the author of all the diseases in the Old testament and it is easy to show that the
case of Miriam's disease was made by her belief and cured by the same. She
was made to believe it right to object to Moses marrying an Ethiopian or colored
woman; consequently she must have been disturbed at the act. She o of her
system into a nervous excitement and she was ready to bring about any
phenomenon that happened to come up. Moses resented her anger and of
course she felt badly, and her belief being that leprosy was a punishment sent by
God for sin as she thought she had not done right, and so this punishment came
upon her. The priests controlled the people and were the judges of right and
wrong. You see, to make a disease is to transgress some law of God, and if any
person had a brother or sister married to a black person, would he of feel badly?
I am looking for the origin of disease, and I know It is in the mind or belief. I shall
bring the Scriptures to show that the ancient Hebrews of the religious class all
attributed diseases to God as a punishment for sin, so God had to bear the
blame of all heir error and hypocrisy.
I will give some facts that go to show that disease followed some act that was not
right according to their laws, for God never made a law. This is the law and the
Gospel and all sin is death. The people were taught that God sent their diseases
upon them. So by their belief they were made sick and by their belief the priests
could pardon their sins and cure them, and their offerings were to pay the priests
for curing them. There were those who were not so superstitious as the rest and
they were of course called infidels. Show me the Christian who believes that God
brought on the gout to Asa or the leprosy to Miriam or the disease on Job. The
cure of Naaman, the captain of the host of the king will be found in 2nd Kings: 5th
Chapt. Elisha without prescribing any medicine told the man to wash in the
Jordan seven times and he was healed. Elisha would not take pay so his servant
followed Naaman and took silver; for that act the prophet said that the leprosy
should leave Naaman and cleave unto him and it was so. Here you see a cure
made and a disease transferred from one person to another. This was done just
according to their belief and the Lord had nothing to do with it, but the people
believed that Elisha was a servant of God or a medium. You will find in 2nd
Chron: 26th Chap., a case of King Uzziah who had flourished for a long time and
he became great. One day he went into the temple to burn incense and Azariah
the high priest followed with four score priests of the Lord. They undertook to
stop him and he grew wroth and the leprosy arose on his forehead and he
became a leper to the day of his death. This was a case where temper threw his
system into a state to be affected by his belief.
I could show hundreds of cases in our days of men dying of heart disease, as it is
called, while it is all caused by some mental trouble; but all this goes to show that
disease was made by some impression on the mind under a belief that it is God's
wrath. Those who were affected did not believe that the priests could cure them
except the most superstitious, but they all believed in the disease, so a warfare
was kept up between the priests and doctors till Jesus appeared. Then a new
philosophy or priesthood sprang up that asked no sacrifices and Jesus said that
Aaron's priesthood was like an old garment, and the world required a more
perfect mode of curing. The people no longer laid the disease to God but to the
spirits of the dead and to the devil who flourished about the time of Jesus, and
these took away the credit of diseases which had been rendered to God. The
power of the priests was waning; it was like an old garment ready to drop to
pieces, for it was founded on their doctrines or religious beliefs. So when they
wanted to unite Jesus' doctrine with their own, he told them that would be like
putting new wine into old bottles; it would ferment and break them. So his
precepts of happiness would not be confined to their bottles or religion, and as
the people wanted a new religion that would not lay so many burdens on them, it
must be in opposition to all their previous religion.
He said, Come unto me all ye that are sick and bound down by the heavy
burdens of the priests and I will give you rest. The rest was health and the sick
came and he healed them by the word of his mouth. He said nothing about
religion, for his works were in direct opposition to the priests as much as mine
are to the medical faculty. At that time, there were medical men and those who
cured by the laying on of hands. They were opposed to the priests, and as the
latter lost power in curing the people, the diseases took another form. Hell was
invented, and a devil to torment the wicked people was introduced.
At the time of Jesus there was a variety of opinions and people were afflicted
according to their belief. They believed in a devil and that he entered into animals
as well as men, and in this form it was called spirits. Jesus saw that although the
Jews had come up from out of the dominion of the priests in regard to curing of
disease, the deception had only another form which opened the door to all sorts
of quackery, medical and spiritual. There was competition and opposition among
the sects. Each was cured according to their belief which was their religion, so all
who applied to medical men were not religious but placed more confidence in
these than in God. So the medical faculty did not amount to as much as they do
now in the religious world. Job gives a true view of the medical faculty, Ch. 13;
"Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye
know the same do I know also; I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to
the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God, but ye are forgers of lies, ye are all
physicians of no value, O, that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should
be your wisdom."
Job knew that they were quacks, and all they said were idle opinions about what
they did not know. He was a scientific, not a religious man, but one who looked
for causes and effects outside of the priests.
There is one mistake that the world is in and they will not get out of it till the origin
of disease is acknowledged. Then men will learn to reason from cause to effect.
My object is to show that the origin of the phenomenon called disease is in the
mind or belief. Man is made up of opinions, for truth is not matter. The wisdom of
opinions is man's religion; the wisdom of science is God, and that is not matter.
So to find a cause for disease, you must find some fear, for fear hath torment and
the torment is the disease. The idea of death is a cause for fear, and to keep
clear of death is what everyone tries to do. The religion of the ancients did not
contain any positive ideas of another world. Moses was a leader of a people who
had been enslaved in Egypt. He made laws to govern them, and they were the
best he could make, and they all had reference to their relations and comfort in
this life.
Religion is something not found in our words or acts or in our beliefs. It contains
no wisdom; it is a substance. I will liken it unto a well of water; there is no
intelligence in the water but it is to satisfy the desire of a person. It is like bread. It
is the balm for every wound. It is to answer every person's desire for happiness.
This is religion. The priests undertook to give it to the people. Moses undertook
to give it to the multitudes, but the Bible says he never saw this substance, only
heard it, as it were.
The people think religion is in a belief and they can get it; and then they can sit
down and say to themselves as the rich man said, I have much stores laid up, so
I will tear down my barn and build a larger one. Then the Lord said, Thou fool,
this night shall thy soul be required of thee. This illustrates the Christian of our
days. How often do you hear professors of religion talking thus, I take great
pleasure in reading the Bible and meditating on the goodness of God, feeling that
I am worthy to be his servant. This is all cant and is shown up in the illustration of
the rich man by Jesus. This man's happiness consisted in his great wealth.
Therefore he could say I am rich; why should I not enjoy my riches. I will eat,
drink and take my ease. The Christian is also rich in the opinions of the world,
eating vanity, never giving any attention to anyone that will correct a pain or
ache, but sits and enjoys his goodness, condemning everything that he knows
nothing of. He is puffed up with the vanity of the world. When the truth comes
and sets fire to his house or theory and burns up his opinions, it will say to him,
Thou fool! All your riches are vanity or opinion which, when Science comes, will
take wings and fly away. This is the religious man and in such God takes no
delight. His followers are not of that kind. Their religion is their riches in wisdom,
and to impart this wisdom to the hungry and to feed all those who hunger and
thirst after health and happiness.
The error is the idea religion and the priests have taught that God is something, a
spirit that will answer their requests. You never knew a Christian who was
directed to act differently from any but a selfish act. If a man should be inclined to
give up all his goods to the poor and spend his life in relieving those in distress,
he would be looked upon as a monomaniac or fanatic by the church. But if he
should give all his wealth to the church and let his children starve, then he would
be a Christian. So religion is of this world and is the result of sin and ignorance.
The time will come when every man will be rewarded according to his acts or
wisdom. When that time comes, to be religious will be to give to the sick
something that the world of opinions cannot give; and then to be wise is to be
religious, but your religion cannot be distributed among the poor or those that
need it. There is so much absurdity in regard to God, it makes the people
disbelieve in almost everything. For instance, we are taught that God fills all
space. Now we all know that matter in various forms fills some space; we are
also taught that God is in everything. Here is a tree without any intelligence; we
are taught that God is in the tree. How absurd it is to suppose that wisdom is in
what we acknowledge contains none. It is not strange that with such absurdities
people of intelligence should disbelieve in any religion.
Now here is the theory of my religion. My God is wisdom and all wisdom is of
God. When there is no wisdom, there is no God, for God is not matter. Matter is
only an idea that fills no space in wisdom, and as wisdom fills all space, all ideas
are in wisdom. To make the creature larger than the Creator is absurd to me. My
God is in nothing but everything is in Him. Attach all sight, smell and all the
senses of wisdom; then they all fill all space. Everything to which we attach
wisdom and all inanimate substances and opinions are in this wisdom. Then you
see the difference between the Christian's God and mine. Their man is of the
earth, and their God is in him; my man is what we know and their man is in that.
So wisdom is my man and matter is the Christian's. Therefore their wisdom is
under a bushel. Jesus said, Set your light on the bushel that it may give light to
all around. Wisdom in matter is no wisdom at all, but separate yourselves and
come out that your light may shine so that others seeing your light or wisdom
may be benefited. Matter is darkness to wisdom for when a man is in an opinion,
he is in a prison; and when the truth comes, he dies to opinions and lives in God
or wisdom.
To see where I differ from any living man that I ever heard of is to show what
others believe. Disease is something outside of man's opinions as the people
believe. This belief makes disease not dependent on man's belief, but existing
independent of it. To prove it, they quote a child and say the child has no mind
yet it has a disease, so of course some remedies must be applied to cure a
phenomenon which has no connection with mind. Thus error called disease is
admitted by almost every human being and no one denies the phenomenon, and
the whole civilized world agree that disease is something that exists independent
of the mind. But in the causes and mode of cure they differ and this makes all the
varieties of practice.
Since the priests lost the power of curing, the causes of disease have changed.
Under the priests, God was the author of disease which was the punishment for
some crime or misdemeanor and the priests judged of the disease according to
the crime. All through the Old Testament disease followed some sin that the
people had committed as it did in the cases I have mentioned. The gout, leprosy,
scrofula and rheumatism were all diseases that were cured by the priests. Now
how did they cure? The people in those days would answer, By the power of
God. Here was their cause and remedy; the priests had made the people believe
that unless they followed after their wisdom, some trouble would come. All that
was needed when some phenomena occurred was to attribute it to some wrong
which they had done and the priest would ask God to forgive them and their
forgiveness was the cure. This was their religion and to make all healthy and
good, all must believe; but there were some who would not believe in this way
and instead of calling on the priest, they called on the magicians or on some
other craft, for they believed in disease. Every person that cured or attempted to
cure uses the means in which they have faith. The medical men make the people
believe that certain medicines will cure. The Spiritualist makes the people believe
that they have some gift or power from the dead which directs them what to do.
The Catholic priests, although they have lost their power, still claim to cure
through the agency of God. These all admit disease. I stand alone on this ground
that the phenomenon, disease, is the punishment of our belief.
The priests commenced the evil and they are at the bottom of all this. One need
not go back further than Moses to show that restrictions put upon the people
made them nervous and the phenomenon that followed they called a sin or
disease, instead of the fear of the priests, for any simple thing that happened was
some sin and the punishment, disease. Upon my theory, all disease can be
accounted for by explaining the cause. Disease was the great evil that people
were af