The Text - Section 14
About Patients
BU 22:44, LC 11:78
PART 2
The reader will find my ideas strewn all through my writings and sometimes it will
seem that what I said had nothing to do with the subject upon which I was
writing. This defect is caused by the great variety of subjects that called the
pieces out; for they were all written after sitting with patients who had been
studying upon some subject, or who had been under some religious excitement,
or were suffering from disappointment or worldly reverses, or had given much
time to the study of health, being posted in all the wisdom of the medical faculty
and had reasoned themselves into a belief; and their diseases were the effect of
their reasoning. So you will see at a glance that I must have all classes of mind,
as I have all classes of diseases. No two are alike. You will find under the head
of Two Patients, Book III, an article written from the impressions made upon me
at the time I wrote. Although to the world their symptoms were, so far as they
could describe them to a physician, precisely alike, yet the causes were entirely
different.
One person had a strong desire for this world's goods and at the same time had
been made to believe his salvation depended upon his being honest and steady.
Hence his religion acted as a kind of hindrance to his worldly prosperity. This
kept him all the time nervous, and he put all his troubles into the idea, heart
disease. The other was a man who had a great deal of acquisitiveness and self
esteem, so that all his acts were governed by popular opinion. He wanted to be a
great man by making himself wise at others' expense, or getting every idea that
is of any value without paying for it. This made him nervous, for his mind would
often force itself into society where it was not wanted, yet if he made anything out
of it, it was well. So his religion was always the last thing to think of. To him
heaven had no claims till he had gone through hell to make up his mind which
place was the better for his practice.
Now to cure these two men was to show them the hypocrisy of their belief and
show them that all men are to themselves just what they make themselves. I
convinced the former that his ideas of heaven were only a hindrance to his
happiness, for to him religion was a sort of tyrant that he was afraid of. Now I
have no belief, but if any person has a belief that they take for a truth that
governs their lives through fear, I destroy it and I convince them that their
happiness lies not in a belief but in themselves, and to do good from fear is not
doing good from the right motive. But to do good because you feel better, then
you act from love and not from fear. So in regard to any disease, I destroy the
patient's belief in all sorts of medicine and also in all beliefs in disease and show
that the whole foundation is based on a lie, and if I can tear their theory to pieces,
I have nothing to give in return. For if the disease is gone, their belief is also
gone, and to do well requires no belief, but it is wisdom, and to know how to keep
well is to know what makes you sick.
This is what I intend to show. Therefore my arguments are aimed at some
particular thing, sometimes words, sometimes one thing and sometimes another.
So it is impossible to give a work like this to the public like any other. It will be
more like a court record or a book on law with the arguments of each case. It
takes up a little of everything. Sometimes I am reasoning on politics so I have to
show the absurdity of their reason. This stops their mouths and keeps them still
so that they shall not get nervous on politics.
1862
Concerning the Dying
BU 7:39, LC 8:168
PART 1
[orig. also titled SCENES FROM THE BELIEF IN DEATH AND THE BELIEF IN
LIFE]
I will suppose three persons standing over a sick person who, as they all believe,
is dying. First let us sum up what there is of the man. He knows that he is in bed
and that he is about to take his departure to the world of spirits. This is
knowledge; let us examine his belief and see what there is of him independent of
it. He believes he is now going to die, that his body will die, and that he must
leave all that is near and dear unto him (for life is his belief) and he believes that
he shall lose that. So accordingly, he is entirely gone at death, mind, body and
soul, for he believes his soul is his life, so there is not one particle of him outside
of his belief.
His Christian friend looks upon what is his belief. He sees the man wasting away,
he sees his life dying out like a candle, and at last it is gone. All this he knows to
be a fact, yet he believes his soul has gone to God who gave it. The Atheist and
the Spiritualist both see the light of life burn out and they return to their peculiar
belief which neither can prove. The Atheist says, "Well the poor fellow has got
through with his troubles." The Christian and Spiritualist assent, but the latter
insists he still lives and to prove it, he goes to a medium and gets a
communication from the dead, giving the particulars of the death, precisely as
they all believe. To the other, this is all a humbug, for each holds to his belief. I
have seen many such scenes, have attended the sick and dying man, have told
him at various times how he felt, and I know that death as it appears to these
classes and to the dying man is only the phenomenon of their religious belief.
Then what is my belief of man. I have none to myself, but to those who are
looking on, my wisdom is a belief, for if I cannot bring any more proof than my
word to them, my wisdom must be a belief. I will compare their belief with my
wisdom and give some proof of the latter so that the reader may judge between
them. All the aforesaid persons make the man just what they see of him; his life
is in his body and like the life of a plant grows with the body and dies with the
same. They have no life that cannot be seen by the natural eye so death closes
their life. All the life that I admit is my wisdom and what a man knows contains no
mind nor matter. So it is not life but a truth. Wisdom is eternal with no beginning
or end. My senses being in my wisdom are myself. Memory also belongs to my
senses. My belief is what I do not know and that is attached to matter, for when
wisdom comes, our belief is at an end. According to my wisdom, man does not
die for so long as he has the belief that he shall die, so long he is not dead but
going to die. So when he says through a medium that he is dead, he does not tell
the truth, for the very fact of his saying so proves that he is alive.
Wisdom has no life for it has no death. It is the parent of life. So when a person
attaches his senses to wisdom, he then lives in what never had life or death and
he becomes a progressive being. This is what I know to be a truth. So as I sit by
the sick man, I look upon him as a chemist looks on and sees a lump of gold
dissolve. The friends of the sick man not being chemists see the value or life
depart with the gold, having placed value in the gold as it circulates among men.
They never think that the value was in them, while the gold is only a
representative of value, but the chemist knows that he can condense the gold
into form again. They weep to see the gold waste away, their hope is gone, for
they have lost the value that they have put in it; so they mourn just according to
their loss, not knowing that the gold still lives in wisdom or science.
The spiritualist expects the gold to assume a new body and they all reason
according to their belief. But the chemist says you grieve for your ignorance. The
gold still lives, with all its qualities, as it did when you carried it with you, although
your ignorance cannot see it; the real value that you put into the gold was in your
self and the gold was the shadow of it and was only a representative of value,
never knowing any in itself. The value is the wisdom you can reduce to practice,
so you can dissolve the metal and speak it into a solid at pleasure and teach the
same to others.
I will now show you a miracle. The gold is dissolved and held in solution, so that
no one would know it from pure water. Then applying his wisdom, he restores the
gold to a solid form. To them this is a miracle, but to him it is a science. This is
done to show that although they see the gold decomposed, it still exists in that
wisdom
that numbers the hairs of our head. This is the way with the sick man. I know that
the value is not in the matter; it is in the individual. Ignorance weeps because he
has seen the matter in a form like the gold and as he could not see the owner, he
supposed life or value to be in the matter. But like the chemist, I saw the owner
outside the matter or his belief, and as I saw the matter dissolve and their
opinions and hope disappear, I could see the person living as though nothing had
happened to him.
1862
False Reports Concerning My Belief
BU 90:36, LC 9:53
In giving to the public my ideas in regard to curing the sick, it will be necessary to
correct some false ideas that have been circulated in regard to my religious
belief. So I will say I have no belief in regard to any person's opinion or religion or
disease. I know they are all based on a false idea of wisdom. I take the sick as I
find them and treat them according to their several diseases. As their diseases
are the result of their education or belief, I have to come in contact with their
beliefs. Their religious beliefs are often the cause of their trouble, but the medical
theory causes more trouble than all the rest at the present day. In times of old
when the priests led the masses, the causes emanated from the priests, but
since the right of religious freedom has been granted to all, the truth has
destroyed the power of the priest. It has not, however, enlightened the people but
has transferred the idea of disease to the medical faculty, so that now the people
have these two powers to contend with, the physician and the priest.
I will not call the power of the priest religion but in opposition to it. All the religion I
acknowledge is God or Wisdom. I will not take man's belief to guide my barque. I
would rather stand at the helm myself, but the priests and medical faculty have
assumed the livery of truth and one pretends to look after the body and the other
the soul. So between them both, they have nearly destroyed soul and body, for
you cannot find one person in ten but complains of some trouble in the form of
disease. All disease leads to destruction or death; therefore death is one of the
natural results of disease. So to save persons from what may follow, a religious
belief is introduced and another world is made which is to receive all mankind,
and then they are rewarded according to their acts. This makes up the whole
progression of man's life. Now in all this, progression and intelligence and every
kind of goodness is not included. It is true we are told that to live a virtuous life is
good, but you never hear that to be posted up on all the wisdom of the world and
understanding science gave such a person any advantage over the weak and
humble believer who swallowed everything the priest told him; but it is rather the
reverse effect. To be a good Christian according to their explanation of religion is
to be humble and not be wise at all. Now every person partakes of this belief,
and in fact they are all made up of belief, for everything you can think of or
remember is such, except principles, and these are never admitted or spoken of
in any religion.
Now all things must end according to man's belief, and there never has been any
theory yet that has ever come in collision with it. Therefore life and death are the
natural destiny of man. It is true that the medical faculty try to stave it off , but
their efforts are like those of the Rebels-the harder they work the surer they are
to destroy the thing they are trying to save. So man's belief is the thing to be
either saved or lost and to this end all their skill is directed. This was just the
state of the world when Jesus appeared.
1862
The Immortal
BU 48:24, LC 9:188
What is immortal must be solid because it cannot be affected by blows, so that
nothing can pierce it or break it through. This I call wisdom. It has no beginning
nor ending. It cannot be stretched for it fills all space and there is no place to
receive it. So it is like space, and the universe is eternal. But mind is not solid
because it is porous; or there is space in all compound beings so that forces
applied to it deadens or dissolves it and it passes off in air. Now as the soul is the
mind, it must be of matter. If you think she can fly to God and be out of danger
you are mistaken for she sickens with disease of the body and things torment
her. She is disordered by fear and vexed by cares and the consciousness of
crimes committed years ago pierce her through and her crimes are overtaken by
the fear of an endless torment after death. All this goes to show that man
according to Pagan philosophy is made up of just what the Christians make man
in our day. The soul is not a solid because it affects the body and is affected by it;
therefore it takes up space like the body. The doctrine of Pythagoras was that the
souls were shifted out of one animal into the body of another. Then they must be
changed, for when the soul of man entered the dog, the soul must change or the
dog would be a man, for the soul must agree with the body which it enters.
Lucretius says to his friend, If it be pretended that the human soul passes into
human bodies, a man at full age plays the fool in the child. Now if the mind is
weak in a weak body, then the mind changes and so things that can be so easily
changed cannot be immortal.
1862
Jesus, His Belief or Wisdom
BU 46:1, LC 9:139
Had Jesus, like other men, a belief? And if so, what was it? To suppose Jesus
had a belief is to suppose he was not sure of the truth of his words, but to admit
that he knew what he was saying is to believe his words were truth and life, for to
know what one says is to know the truth. Therefore all men will admit that Jesus
knew and therefore had no belief, and the only question to settle is, What did he
intend to convey to the people. It must be something invisible, for Paul, I believe,
says, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of
man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." We
are told that Jesus was a religious man. If he was, then his religion was in the
world before him, for it is said he was baptized of John.
If Jesus was merely a converted man preaching what John had foretold
according to the belief of this world, wherein was his superiority to other
preachers; for others also cured the sick and performed miracles. We are told
also that Jesus is of God. Then where is the God principle in Jesus more than in
any man who does the works that he did. To me these stories are all the
inventions of the priests. I will try to place Jesus before the people, not as the
world places him, but as he places himself, and it will then be seen if he ever
taught the doctrines that are attributed to him. In the first place, I deny that Jesus
ever intended to teach any doctrine of rewards and punishments or ever hint
about a future state, as it is said that he did. If Jesus had no other motive than to
tell man of another world, if his words were not applied solely to this life, then his
wisdom was a failure. He taught the Science of God which destroyed all religion
and introduced a higher wisdom based on eternal wisdom.
The fruits of this wisdom taught by him were in opening the eyes of the blind or
ignorant, in loosing the tongue of the dumb, and breaking the chains of those
bound by party or priest. I believe that Jesus was the very man prepared before
the creation to receive this great truth when the time came, but that he had no
knowledge of it, any more than Columbus had that he was the man to discover
this continent. Wisdom acts through matter, and matter must go through a certain
process of refinement before it can become a medium of any science. At the time
of Jesus the world was in darkness in regard to man's future state. Society was
divided into sects, and priests by their craft ruled the masses and kept them in
bondage, constantly frightening them with what would come after death.
Lucretius who lived one hundred and fifty years before Christ gives a true
account of the religion of his day which could not have varied much from that of
the time of Jesus.
I will quote an extract from his poem. After describing the horrors of religion, he
says, "But still I fear your caution will dispute the maxims I lay down, who all your
life have trembled at the poets' frightful tales. Alas! I could even now invent such
dreams as would pervert the strictest rules of reason and make your fortunes
tumble to the bottom. No wonder! But if men were once convinced that death
was the sure end of all their pains, they might with reason resist the force of all
religion, and contemn the threats of poets. Now we have no sense, no power to
strive against this prejudice because we fear a scene of endless torments after
death." To suppose that Jesus taught any such religion, as is here referred to, is
to put him on a level with the priests. Opposition to the popular religion was sure
death and he was forced to come in conflict with it. It is absurd to say he was a
come-outer from any sect, for he says, My kingdom is not of this world, but your
kingdom is of this world and it must fall. Let the word kingdom represent
happiness arising from wisdom, or misery arising from a belief, and then it follows
that his wisdom was to make men happy or to establish the kingdom of heaven
within them, while their belief made the kingdom of darkness wherein men were
sick and wicked.
His religion was based oil his wisdom and theirs oil their belief. The difference
made trouble. He knew that their religion was based on no true foundation, and
that their future state vvas a heathen belief; therefore to them he was an infidel
and blasphemer in the same manner as any one at the present day who opposes
the popular religion is an infidel. If Jesus should appear among men now, he
would be an infidel to the religious, the same as he was eighteen hundred years
ago. It may be asked what was the religion of Jesus? I answer, his life, spent in
benefiting mankind. He did not labor to save man from another world but from the
evils of this world. He knew that the other world was an evil that the priests had
invented to keep man in subjection.
But had Jesus no belief? To himself I think not, but to the world his wisdom was a
belief. To him his wisdom embraced all things and he was the medium of it. His
religion, if you please to call it religion, was based on an actual truth that could
become a practical thing. If a person wishes to teach a science, he explains it by
the best demonstrations or proofs he can, for science, like religion, is seen only
by its works. Jesus says, "Many shall say, Lo here is Christ, but by their fruits ye
shall know them." As I understand the religion of Jesus, it sweeps away all
religious beliefs and opinions and leaves man to act on scientific principles of
truth. It takes away belief and in its place substitutes knowledge of good and evil.
He disbelieved in death, in heaven and hell. He believed in endless happiness
and misery and that every idle word should be accounted for at the day of
judgment. He believed that just as a man measured out to his neighbor, so it
should be measured out to him. And that if a person commit a sin, knowing it to
be such, there is no forgiveness; he must be punished for it.
He believed that all manner of sin might be forgiven but that the sin against the
Holy Ghost should not be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come. Man
must be born again in order to enter heaven. He did not believe that it was
intended by wisdom that the child should suffer for the sins of its parents but that
it must suffer for its own errors. These are the truths Jesus taught; although I
have used the word belief in stating them, I believe them all. Who is there willing
to be tested by them? They are also statements of the belief of the world at the
time of Jesus, but to these were added the belief that the priests could pardon
their sins. Although the same words express both the belief of the world and the
truth of Jesus, the difference was that one was based on an opinion and the
other on true wisdom.
The priests believed in a heaven, a hell, and a devil and also in the doctrine of
salvation by works. These were also embraced in the teaching of Jesus, yet he
was in conflict with the religion of the priests and the controversy was upon
beliefs. His was a religion of works, theirs of beliefs. One was law, the other was
gospel. One was an invention, the other was eternal truth. The priests believed
that in order to make man pure and holy, it was necessary to believe in their
doctrines. Jesus knew that such a system was false and hypocritical, benefiting
only the priests. The idea that a belief was connected with man's health, as
cause is connected with effect, had never been presented to the world. Jesus
knew that all there is of man that can be affected is his belief, that his wisdom is
of God and cannot change, while his belief is of man.
Man makes himself, that is, his spiritual, moral, and mental condition by his
belief, and to destroy that is death to the belief, and life to the truth. One religion
was applied to man as a belief, while the other applied to man as a principle. The
priests reached no higher intelligence than matter. Therefore mind and matter
composed the whole man, while the soul was an unsettled question. Jesus
divided man into three persons: Father, Son and Holy Ghost; the Christian
church at the present time assume to do the same, but there is as much
difference between them as between the early heathen beliefs and the wisdom of
Jesus. Jesus did not confirm one article of their belief, nor did he in his parables
refer to man's future state. Two separate principles are found in his words: the
truth which came directly from him, and the error which is the interpretation given
by the church. He did not directly attack the mode of worship but brought it in
when he exposed the absurdity of their beliefs. Had he lived in these days, he
would not have been a religious man according to the church, and yet he taught
every element necessary to make a perfect man, not a religious man, but one
who would do unto another as he would that another should do unto him.
When Jesus taught this truth, his object must have been different from that of the
priest who merely sustained an old system. The very fact that men have such a
blind reverence for the Bible shows that there is concealed within its lids
something that cannot be seen. It is this something that affects the people,
making some insane and some infidels, while there are others who appreciate
and reverence it without understanding it. They are affected by the truth, though
they do not know it. The Bible cannot speak for itself; therefore all interpretations
have equal claims to wisdom, and this is why there is so much skepticism in
regard to its true meaning. It is supposed that the learned are best able to explain
it, but could they explain it in the days of Jesus? No, for he says his words are
foolishness to the Greeks and to the Jews stumbling blocks. Is it the rich? Jesus
says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of heaven.
When Jesus was on earth, no one understood him but now all think they know
his meaning. I, like others, once believed that Jesus came to save man from
eternal damnation and to point out the way to another world, but my practice with
the sick has produced an entire change in my mind in regard to that subject. If
any of Jesus' truth lingers in the religion of the world, it would be seen in the sick,
who are just on the verge of another world, as they believe. Yet I have learned by
sitting with them that the religious belief is the worst torment one can have at
such a time. Although they may say that they rejoice in Christ and are ready to
go, they are really afraid and show as much joy when I tell them they will not die
as a condemned criminal feels when, kneeling upon his coffin, he hears the
words of pardon.
It requires a long time to bring a person into this insane state when he wishes to
die. Severe sickness and trouble are necessary to make one ready to leave
friends and all earthly ties. It is the same with any fear, diseases for instance.
There will be more cases of cholera during a panic than if the presence of the
disease was not known. Ghosts are always seen in the dark by those only who
fear them. All these evils are caused by the fear of death and it is included in
religious instructions that they exist in another world, for men are called upon to
accept the summons which calls them to God. This other world contains heaven
and hell, with their terrors and rewards, and the Bible is introduced to prove
them.
In the days of Jesus, the priests proved these same evils by the Old Testament
but he exposed the folly of their belief and showed them that they did not
understand the scriptures. His controversy with them makes the New Testament,
and the priests of our day will still preach this old belief in another world which
they declare is taught by Jesus, while his whole labor was to destroy it in their
belief. He failed to do this because of their superstition and their prejudice, yet
the truth was in him, and like the good sower he went forth to sow the seeds of
truth in man's mind. Some seeds were choked by superstition and were unfruitful,
while others fell upon good soil and came forth. The truth could not grow on
religious soil, for that stifles discussion. But it grew outside of the church in the
hearts of men and shed its light on those who never bowed their knee to the
church but who were a law unto themselves.
The other world taught by the church is out of sight and out of the reach to the
natural world, but it is said to be the place where all men must go, sooner or
later. As it is taught by Jesus, it is a condition corresponding to man's ignorance
containing all the evils of imperfect knowledge but differing in every respect from
the other world of the priests. They said it was a part of God's Providence. Jesus
declared that it existed only in the errors of their belief. According to the priests,
the inhabitants of this world are to be transferred at death to the world beyond,
there to be dealt with according as their acts in this life demand. The exact limits
of the other world were not defined and the idea was started that the inhabitants
might return to earth again. Thus arose the belief in transmigration and spiritual
communications. Speaking of this belief, Lucretius describes the stately palaces
of "Acheron where nor our souls or bodies ever come but certain specters
strange and wonderous pale" and how "Homer's ever celebrated shade
appeared," etc. Ennius, a Latin poet, who lived a hundred years before Lucretius,
held to the transmigration of souls. He affirmed that the soul of Homer was in his
body. The ancients held that ghosts were a third of nature, of which together with
body and soul the whole man consisted. These specters and shadows of the
dead appear or seem to appear when we are asleep or awake and sick and
terrify our minds.
It appears from this that there is but little difference between the ancient belief in
a future state and the present religious belief in another world. Religious
doctrines were the same in the days of Jesus as they are now. There was the
spiritualist then, as in modern days, and it can be shown that every modern creed
started from the religion which was before Christ and which Jesus opposed.
Such ideas as those I have quoted are admitted by every reformer but modified
as science gained ground. They cannot be explained away so long as their
foundations exist, and they will exist till a new philosophy leads man through the
wilderness of progressive knowledge.
What has the religious belief done to enlighten man in regard to his life or in
regard to any science? Nothing. Science, steadily developing, has forced the
church from its ground, while the church has claimed the credit of the increasing
intelligence. Yet it has been an important instrument in civilization because it has
held the people till wisdom could spring up in their minds. But it has been a
prison and when science burst its bands and freed the prisoners, each assumed
a character outside the church. The church is as necessary for the mass of the
people as state laws, yet there are those who require no laws of church or state
to regulate their conduct. Knowing what is for their good, they live by the light of
science and they feel that their religion is their life; and in order to put it in
practice, something more than mere profession is necessary. Therefore they
labor to develop some truth that is for the benefit of mankind. This is the design
of wisdom, and Jesus being the medium of it, I base my faith on the rock on
which he stood, which rock is Christ or the Science of God, and no opinion of
religion must destroy it.
The church in misrepresenting Jesus has proved itself his worst enemy. Jesus
stands to the church as the law to the criminal. The vicious man hates the law for
he dislikes to live up to its standard. The church ignorantly worships God
because it dislikes the labor of seeking to understand him. All religion is of the
law and therefore it cannot save man from sin, but Christ or Science coming
through Jesus puts an end to religion and law and introduces a higher principle of
wisdom which shall save all who understand.
Jesus was a priest, not after the old priesthood, but after the order of
Melchizedek. This was of wisdom; therefore unlike the priesthood of Aaron, it
requires no prayers or sacrifices, for in such it took no delight. The religion of the
Jews commenced with the creation of man and in applying the principles of
wisdom to their religion, Jesus admitted every fact of their belief and interpreted it
as a symbol of truth. They started at the garden of Eden, not as a natural garden
but as a figure of innocence, representing man in his infancy. Jesus illustrated
the condition of man before he began to investigate, by the figure of a child,
whose parents were truth and error. The religious people believe that if Adam
had not eaten the forbidden fruit, he would not have died. Jesus showed that if
the child had not improved since its birth, it would have continued in a brutal state
of bliss and would never have gained happiness. Therefore the death of Adam
represented the introduction of progression. In the wisdom of Jesus, the word
death means simply the change from brutish ignorance to a higher state of
knowledge, but to the religious world it is a real thing for the dead never rise.
Jesus represents Adam and Eve as two opposite principles in man and his body
as a garden, where fruits were the offspring of ideas. True ideas simply nourish
the body in innocence but the food from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil cause death to that state of bliss.
The religious world put a false construction on this passage, believing that the act
of eating the forbidden fruit was an act of disobedience and that it brought into
the world the long train of evils that have followed civilization. Jesus, knowing
that this was a false belief, brought a child among them and said, Of such is the
kingdom of heaven and except ye become as a little child, ye can in no wise
enter the kingdom of heaven. Religion could not enter for it believed that the
kingdom of heaven was in another world apart from this world, as two countries
are separate from each other. Jesus admitted the two worlds not as places but
as conditions of mind. But the people believed that heaven is a place to which
the good go at death, and hell where the bad go. So the illustration of the child
was a mystery to them. With Jesus the kingdom of heaven is the effect of
wisdom, and to enter into it, man must do something that is contained in wisdom.
The child is a representative of the earth and its ideas like seeds in the earth, and
its growth like a vineyard. The vineyard, Jesus said, is cultivated by stewards and
if the steward is of error, the Lord, when he comes, will put him out and put in the
truth. So as error dies, truth lives.
Every man is a representative of the natural and spiritual worlds, as taught in the
religion of Jesus and illustrated in his life and death. Jesus spoke not of the
natural earth as the natural world; he made man's belief the natural world, and
the knowledge of truth the spiritual world. And as opinions and error (the natural
world) died, truth and science rose from the dead; the dead opinions did not rise,
for God is not the God of the dead but of the living truth. As man has borne the
image of error he shall also bear the image of wisdom. Like other men Jesus
bore the image of opinions but he also bore that of God or science.
To the world his science was a belief, but as such it was a mere casket that once
contained life. To Christ a belief contained no life or truth but like all matter was
liable to perish. So he labored to demonstrate his theory and establish it as a
science for the benefit of mankind. Therefore he applied the principles of his
wisdom to man's condition. He saw that troubles of every kind originate in belief
and in order to relieve these he must change his belief. For this purpose he came
into the world, as it is called, not into the natural globe, but into the errors of man.
Jesus was all that was seen by the religious world. Christ was never seen. Yet
Christ was in Jesus and through him entered the world of opinions to reconcile
the opinions to truth and to establish the kingdom of heaven in man's mind as a
science. Hence Jesus preached his truth for the healing of the nations from the
errors of their belief. Every one who believed in a doctrine containing punishment
was liable to be punished; therefore he urged repentance towards the wisdom
that would explain their errors and forgive their sins. Reading the New Testament
with this chart, you will see that the world to be saved is man's, the vast domain
of man's religious understanding which had been enslaved by he priest, that all
men had gone out of the way and none thought right. To save them from their
consequent sick and disheartened condition, Jesus opened their eyes to their
religious errors, loosed the bands of opinion and prejudice and set the captive
free from the prison of his belief.
When he cured the sick he saved them from the other world into which the priest
was forcing them, for he never entertained any idea of "another world" as taught
by religion, ancient or modern. Christ taught Jesus that man is a progressive
being, that his existence is a part of God, that the two worlds were an invention,
and death was an error of belief and not a reality of truth. Consequently, life and
death being conditions, if a person believes he will die, the belief does not alter
the fact, but it keeps a man continually subject to the fear of death. It also taught
that man can in no wise avoid the punishment following a wrong act whether he
knew that the act was wrong when he committed it or not, for action and reaction
are equal and this is true both in matter and spirit.
A man cannot walk into the fire without being burned, and no amount of prayers
to God will prevent it, but he is answerable only to himself for his act, not to an
offended God. The knowledge of this will save man from the evils that he himself
has made and will teach him that the principles of right and wrong are contained
in every thought.
If I tell a man a lie and he believes it, he receives the punishment that follows and
I too get my just reward, for as we measure out to another so we measure out to
ourselves. If I wrong a man, I do not wait for him to repay me; I first wrong
myself, for a pure fountain cannot send forth impure water, and neither can an
honest man do a dishonest act. He must first become dishonest in order to injure
another; therefore Jesus says, "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye and
then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote from thy brother's eye." These
two "brothers" represent the two principles of truth and error in one man. They
are also introduced in the passage where Paul says, "If meat make my brother to
offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth." Here Paul did not refer to any
other but himself. Under this interpretation, the passage means: If meat makes
my error or my belief in dispepsia to offend, then I will eat no meat till I explain
why I cannot, or work myself out of the error. So when he arrives at the truth, the
opinion is destroyed and he has entered the new world where he can eat meat.
Jesus told his disciples that his belief would be destroyed by the religious world
but that his science would rise from the destruction. To them this was a mystery,
for in regard to life and death they were in their old religious belief. To believe
that their idea Jesus should both live and die was a contradiction; it was
impossible. He must be dead or not dead; if dead, then the dead must rise. Jesus
denied this in his dispute with the Sadducees when he said, "God is not the God
of the dead but of the living." But they did not understand him because of their
religious prejudices. At another time he said, "Yet a little while am I with you and
then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me and shall not find me and
where I am, thither ye cannot come." These words were also misunderstood by
the disciples from the darkness of their belief. I will explain them as I understand
them.
Christ is that unseen principle in man, of which he is conscious but which he has
never considered as intelligence. It is God in us, and when man arrives at that
state that he can recognize an intelligence that transcends belief, then death is
swallowed up in wisdom. All will acknowledge that every scientific discovery
might have been known before, that is, the truth existed before we knew it. We,
in like manner, have an existence as active in itself as man in his opinions, but
both cannot be seen at the same time for as one dies the other rises.
To put man in possession of this truth, it is necessary to destroy the entire
religious belief. Jesus endeavored to do this in order to convince man that his
only true living self was the science of God. He also labored to prove that the
sympathy that we feel towards each other is a living being with all the attributes
of intelligence and that it remains when the natural man is destroyed. This was
science to him, and its truth said, "I come again," etc.
I believe that Jesus came to convince man of this truth; I believe it and practice it
so far as I understand it. The world, or man's belief, accuses me of making
myself equal to Christ as they accused Jesus of making himself equal to God.
One of these accusers can visit the sick and with a long face ask God to hear his
prayers and raise the sufferer; then if the patient recovers he believes that God
blessed the means. But if I attribute my cures to God or Christ, the whole church
is against me, and I am accused of making myself equal to Christ. They are not
so sensitive about Christ, but it is their own reputation that they fear; they claim to
be the ordained instruments of God and if man is saved it must be by their
means. Jesus who opposed priestcraft met the same difficulty. It was the duty of
the priests to care for men's souls; therefore he must not enter upon that ground
else he made himself equal to them, which was blasphemy.
Jesus opposed the doctrine of another world and taught that man continued
progressing; therefore at his crucifixion, when the idea matter was killed by
opinions, the Christ that governed it was forced away. The casket or idea was left
with the disciples and this to them was death. To see a form of Jesus was either
to see a spirit or a resurrection of the old form. To him the science was different.
He suffered as a man suffers the penalty of the law. The law of religion said he
must die, and when they saw the law of their belief fulfilled, this was the end to
the law of man. Now it was necessary that the new revelation of Christ should
come to pass and he should show himself to his disciples and others. Therefore
the law did what is done by persons now; it put him into a state of
unconsciousness, not that he might die, for his belief was that he would return,
and the difference of belief made the controversy.
Jesus, like a clairvoyant, went from the idea on the cross to fulfill his promise to
the disciples. Unconscious of change, he believed he had flesh and blood and
when they thought he was a spirit, he said, "Hath a spirit flesh and bones as ye
see me have?" Here he destroyed the belief in death and triumphed over the
grave.
1862
Spiritualism and Mesmerism
BU 7:16, LC 8:136
[orig. untitled]
Can the phenomena of spiritualism be explained on the theory of mesmerism? I
answer, No, not so far as the development of Mesmer goes. Mesmerism is as
much in the dark as spiritualism. Neither has ever been explained and they are
both one and the same governed by differences of opinion. Those who believe in
mesmerism and write about it stand precisely on the same basis because neither
has any wisdom, but only a belief that certain phenomenon will occur, while the
causes are in the dark and man is led by what some person said about it. For
instance, I found I could put a person into a mesmeric sleep, and others could do
the same. Then I wanted to do more, so I procured books and read about it and I
found that the authors accounted for it on the principle of electricity. Of course, I
believed it and all my experiments went to prove the truth of my belief. At last I
found that instead of electricity governing my subject, he was governed by the
minds of myself and others.
So I discarded all this false theory that I was told and discovered that the subject
had an identity of his own and had as much of a being as the one who governed
him. He was governed by the principle of argument as much as any other
person. The subject sat down for the purpose of being mesmerized and if the
operator has the idea of what he wants to do, he can do it. A sits down with the
intention of putting B to sleep. B sits down with no other motive than to see if A
can do it, so their minds mingle. A's will is determined to accomplish his object. B
gives up his will and becomes passive. The only way in which this process has
been accounted for is that A fills B full of electricity. This is all a humbug. Their
minds act precisely as two persons sitting down, one listening to the other
admitting that he knows more than himself and the advantage is first tested. No
one gives up his opinion to the other unless he thinks the other is superior to
himself. I found that out.
The sight is what is the mystery, the eyes not being the medium. The subject is in
another element separate and apart from his natural self, but in his natural belief.
As a man in the dark travels by another's light, the subject sees the idea of his
mesmerizer, but the sight is in the odor of the idea. This is new to the world and
man cannot understand it. Therefore I will give some examples. If A thinks of an
orange, B will see it, everyone knows this. Does he see it as we see it? No, he
sees it in the odor, for the odor is the light of the idea. So it is with everything that
has form, and the background makes the object, for if there were no light at all,
the object could not be seen. It is so with thought. Thought takes form and the
wisdom that makes the thought is the light of its body. The light is felt like the
odor and contains the knowledge of itself. This is the light the subject is in, for the
mesmerizer makes the light by his own belief. It commences in total darkness, is
first blue, then grows light and when it is the color of gaslight, this is the light the
subject is in, and it compares with daylight.
Whatever the subject is asked to see, if the mesmerizer can form the idea, it is
seen in the light. This is clairvoyance. But it is in the blue light or darkness that
the subject sees by sympathy or odor. It is called thought-reading and is the state
persons go into when they are "entranced by a spirit." Then if you see a friend,
the friend is formed but cannot be seen very distinctly but is described like an
apple or pear by the odor. All this is governed by our belief. If you believe in
another world and believe your friends are with you, the belief may so affect the
subject and carry him into the clairvoyant state and, if he believes in this state, he
sees all the living and the dead and they are with him according to his belief.
When he awakes however, it is all dark and he is sure he has been to another
world. All this is as plain to me as daylight for daylight is clairvoyance and
twilight, thought-reading. I have been in both places with both my natural senses,
have seen the sun, land, water, vessels, heard the winds blow, and felt the warm
breezes. When I sit by the sick I see, but not always so plainly, unless the patient
is sure he has a certain disease. Then I see it in every particular. All this teaches
me that my belief no matter how absurd can produce phenomena to prove it;
therefore I believe the writing on the arm, the moving of matter, the spirit hand,
but the medium must be of a peculiar combination of matter. It needs a man
whose eyes will stand out when you tell him the moon is inhabited by people forty
feet high, and make him believe it. Then he can see anything.
1862
What Is a Belief?
BU 29:20, LC 9:24
What is a belief? It is that combined substance which throws off an atmosphere
capable of chemical action, by which the thing believed can be made and thereby
affect the body. If man's life is exposed to the danger of wild beasts inhabiting the
wilderness, his fears excite his mind and from his mind-body is thrown off an
atmosphere in which is seen the wild animal; therefore his trouble is the effect of
his belief. Clearing up the wilderness destroys the danger from wild beasts and
clearing away the error of disease rids man of the fear that he may be caught by
some of the thousand diseases which attack human life. A story which is
believed is nothing, and the result is disease, and people are affected just as
they believe themselves liable to be caught.
For instance, a slave and a union man run away from the rebels; the latter is safe
when he enters our laws, while the danger to the slave is increased when the law
for returning slaves was in force. Repeal the law and convince the black that he
also is free and then he is safe. It is the same with disease. Disease is a story
which follows some act or excitement. The desire for freedom prompts a slave
either black or white to make his escape and the belief that he may be caught
and the story of what would follow is the disease, while the pain is in proportion
to the danger of the punishment. All this is in the belief. Disease is classed by the
world into two kinds: disease of the mind and disease of the body. I believe
disease to be all in the mind for I know that mind is the matter affected. The
senses are not matter, but man in his ignorance, when reasoning beyond the
natural man, makes mind, matter, life and senses synonymous or confounds
their meaning. Therefore in explaining the truth that disease is a lie, I have to
admit a lie in order to reason it out of existence.
For instance, every disease is admitted as a truth. Knowing it to be a lie, I am
obliged to admit it for the sake of proving it a falsehood; consequently I seem to
maintain two contradictory statements and I stand to the world which makes
disease a truth as a man in error. The ancients embodied the foregoing position
as follows. "When I say I lie, do I lie or do I tell the truth? If I tell the truth I lie, and
if I lie, I tell the truth." This was never solved from the fact that they did not know
what the truth was, their truth being merely an opinion of what truth was, and
giving way as science advanced. Consequently, as truth was not known, it was
impossible to tell whether a man spoke the truth or a lie. Every development of
science proves the world's wisdom to be a lie, for as it advances it opposes, face
to face, some popular error that the world believes true and which leads man
astray. In early times, men reasoned and had opinions about the heavenly
bodies, what they were and what their purpose was, but when the truth was
made known through the science of astronomy it conflicted with the popular
opinions and proved them to be errors. Science has always been fought by error
in every branch of learning, but the field that has been travelled over and plowed
up with the most diligence by the learned as well as the uneducated in the hope
of discovering the truth is religion. Many have thought that they have found the
pearl of great price, but when tested by universal application, it has failed as a
truth and only remained as a belief.
To discover a science which will teach man to be master of his own health and
happiness is to find a truth by which man's thoughts can be tested and their
character analyzed. To do this requires a new revelation of wisdom, for all tests
heretofore tried have failed and their foundation has crumbled away. Religion has
been undergoing a change ever since the minds of men have been roused by
scientific discoveries. Its basis has been undermined by the progress of
intelligence and has been swept into the valley of despair where its seeds have
been picked up by eagles and carried to the remote parts of the land and there
dropped into the soil of man's mind, to spring up in some creed having the
ancestral features of its father. The world's religion is constantly decaying and
eagles in the form of demagogues of every kind live on it. Jesus says, Where the
body is, there shall the eagles be gathered. So when people are ignorant and
superstitious, every kind of enemy to science abounds. The effect of science on
general intelligence is to destroy the influence of this class of leaders; therefore
they hate it and oppose its progress all they can. But science has conquered
these enemies in every branch except in this one of man's life, and they have
departed to some error which under their husbandry yields minds who return to
society as hypocrites and demagogues and sap the very life and virtue of the
people.
From the darkest ages of Grecian philosophy, there have been men who have
waged war with this class of minds whom I have mentioned. But if they fight on
the enemy's ground or admit their principles, they are soon surrounded and
disarmed of their weapons or arguments by these corrupt minds and their truth
taken from them to make their enemies more specious and more crafty in their
error. But having obtained a victory over truth, they commence to quarrel among
themselves and in their rash zeal, they expose the rottenness of error so that the
truth shines upon their motives and under this light men see for themselves.
Then, as they cannot bear the light, they flee into darkness or more dense
superstition where the lamp of science has never burned.
There is a solid basis on which the scale of science can balance the body of truth
with the carcass of error, and thereby show that error weighed with truth is
nothing, merely a lie invented to account for some sensation which has taken
place in the mind. I will describe this scale and with it weigh the common ideas of
health and happiness. The ground on which I shall base it is this. The medical
science from beginning to end is an error, and that it is so is shown by the absurd
attempts of the faculty to bolster it up. The religion of today exposes the absurdity
of the pagan religion and that derived its little truth from heathen mythology.
These two systems of religion do not contain a particle of science. These two
errors, religion and medicine, are what truth wants to have weighed to see if they
are what people want for their happiness.
For as man's happiness depends in a great measure on his diet, if his food hurts
him, he is not happy; so ideas being food for the mind, it is necessary to know
the quality and quantity which man needs to make him feel the best. If man eats
froth, he soon gets faint for something more substantial; consequently his food
ought to be weighed by some standard. (There is a kind of food which grows
spontaneously and which feeds large multitudes; it is the food of public opinion.
When this is put into the scales with truth, it sometimes outweighs the latter. I will
explain how it is done. Public opinion supplies ideas to certain worthless minds, a
figure of whom can be found in large cities hanging about eating saloons and
eating the soups set for the customers who come to buy the solid. Such vermin
are always ready to bark at any reform which comes up and when there is a
breach made in the world of intelligence by the advance of new discoveries, this
class is always thrown in like mortar to fill up the breach. Their ideas being so
offensive and contemptible to truth, truth rather than parley retires and leaves
them the field. Eager for anything that will satisfy their craving appetites, these
birds of prey feed on the body of truth which is left them. After eating and
drinking, they lie down to sleep; when they awake, the light of truth shines upon
them and being blind, they cannot bear the light and in the darkness they lead
the blind, till they both fall into the ditch. This illustrates truth and error and where
error weights the most.) Truth is not science, for a man may tell the truth without
knowing it, but if the truth comes from wisdom, the process of getting it is a
science.
I will illustrate. I say to you, If you do not go into the house, you will take cold and
you do not go into the house and do take cold. This shows to you that I am right,
while the fact is, I have only given an opinion based on the belief that the
atmosphere contains danger to which I am also subject. Let us weigh this idea in
the scale of science and see if it contains any truth. God made the air not for man
or beast but for some wise purpose. He placed man and beast on the earth and
so constructed them that the air was necessary to them. Therefore the air is to
them a great storehouse, containing all that they want to make them enjoy life.
Now to make man afraid of the atmosphere is to do him a great damage and
subject him to fear. Science asks the man of error what there is in the
atmosphere which God made that should hurt him and why he should be afraid
of God's works? The man of error is vexed at this question because he cannot
show that his opinion contains any substance; he feels that it is a bubble and as
it bursts, it makes a breach in his knowledge. Then comes the mortar of public
opinion to fill up the breach saying, "We all know that we take cold in the air." The
world being on a level with error, the breach is stopped and science is
overpowered. But as wild beasts venture sometimes near the habitations of man
and are caught and tamed, so error ventures into the field of science and is
overcome, not made wiser, but is like a person who admits what he cannot
understand. So error, like the lion, can be led to truth in wisdom by science as
the little child. This little child was in Daniel when he was thrown in the lion's den.
It makes the lion as docile as the lamb. It cannot be made of error, but as truth
destroys error, from its ashes will rise the phoenix of science.
1862
Why Do I Talk to the Sick?
BU 48:15, LC 9:192
The question is often asked, Why does not Dr. Quimby make his cures and hold
his peace, for his talk only confuses the mind of the patient and makes hard
feeling and it does no good. In this way he is misunderstood, from the fact that
his ignorance of language makes it hard to get the idea which he would convey
for he has never been educated. Upon the whole, his explanation upon what he
knows nothing about is against him. If he had an education, he might have been
a very smart man, but my advice to him is to hold his peace, at least so far as the
explanation of scripture is concerned. He had better let people believe what they
please, cure the patient and let religion alone.
This is the opinion of nearly all mankind who know anything about me. Now to all
the above I plead guilty and I will plead my own case before the world and my
accusers, as they are my judges. So far as electioneering for proselytes in
religion is concerned, I am innocent. That I try to establish my religion is not true.
My religion is my life and my health and every idea that goes to destroy my
health and happiness is evil and it must be destroyed or health cannot be
enjoyed. As I am permitted to speak for myself, I will commence by calling your
attention to the first sentence where it says, Why does not Dr. Quimby make his
cures and hold his peace. Now from the above, it would seem as though disease
was something that a person had gotten and to get rid of it was the cure. This
acknowledges a something outside the patient, for the patient would not want to
get rid of nothing, so disease must be something. Now is this something a living
thing or is it not or what is it? We often hear of people catching a disease or a
patient has gotten this disease. Now if they send for a doctor, what does he do?
Does he not talk, and must not the patient answer certain questions that the
doctor asks him, and is it necessary that the patient should have an education to
answer? For if the patient would not tell the doctor how he feels, the doctor would
be left to find it out and a poor investigation would follow. Therefore it requires
that the patient should talk and so should the doctor.
Now who talks in parables, the doctor or the patient? The patient can say I have
a pain in my side. Now if the doctor knew it himself by his feelings, there would
be no need of deception, but not knowing, he must deceive the patient by his
Latin that to the patient is words without meaning; and of course the words
without an explanation to the patient who does not know the meaning is like
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. For instance, the doctor says, The
pericordium of the heart is thickened. The patient does not know what he means.
The doctor's wisdom is in his words and he thinks that words mean something
without any explanation. Now a word is the name of a substance that has life or
something, so disease is the name of some substance that must have life
according to our interpretation of it, for we say we catch it or it will come upon us.
To use a word without attaching it to the thing that the person can see either by
the eye of the mind or through the senses is no wisdom in the person who uses
it.
It is like a dentist who had been making a set of teeth for a lady. After putting
them in her mouth, she asked him if she could chew her food with them. The
dentist, not satisfied to say, Yes, which would not show that he was a man of
letters, must make a great palaver of words that to the lady meant nothing and
wound up with this sentence-that with these teeth she could masticate any kind
of food. This kind of explanation was of no use to the woman and there was no
wisdom in it, for the wisdom was in the knowledge that the dentist imparted. By
her reply, we get the wisdom of the dentist, for she said, Oh, yes I know all that,
but I want to know if I can eat with them. How often do people laugh at persons
because they do not understand what another says. There are two ways to it. If a
person does not know that his wisdom is what he wants to communicate to
another, he may deceive himself and also deceive others by his words. But when
plain words are used to express one's feelings, if a person does not understand,
it is either that the person has [The article ends abruptly here.]
1862
Works, the Fruits of Our Belief
BU 7:27, LC 8:145
[orig. untitled]
What proof can be brought to show that a man is just what he thinks he is? My
answer is: his works. Man is known by his works, for they are the fruit of belief
and where there is no fruit there is no belief; and in that case man is either
perfectly ignorant or perfectly wise, and stops work because he is God and God
has finished His work. Now man is not supposed to be either of the two, God or
an idiot. So he must be a being between both. That makes him a man of opinions
and belief. To show whether the works are of God or error is the great aim of
each kind of man. Both cannot be of God, for one reasons from what he believes
and the other from what he knows.
I will introduce a man of error who bases his knowledge on others' belief, still
thinking he has an opinion of his own. The effect of his wisdom or belief is seen
by its fruits. The younger son is he who listens to the reasoning of his brother and
sees him contradict himself and shows him his absurdity. This is the scientific
man and he is not known, for when the man of opinions is destroyed by the
scientific man, he is not seen at all. Take two persons talking about mesmerism;
one never heard anything, the other is posted in all things pertaining to the law of
mesmerism. Let A be the wise man and B the ignorant man. A sits down and
expounds the principles of mesmerism. He reads from those who have written on
the subject, how a man sits down, takes hold of another's hand, looks him in the
eye, and at length the man is affected; his eyes close and he goes to sleep. Then
B asks how this is done. Here comes the mystery or science of A.
A, not knowing what to say, commences to tell that the mesmerizer has more
electricity than the subject; and the former being positive and the other negative,
B receives from A this electric fluid till he is changed and is perfectly under A's
control. This story is unintelligible to B so A proceeds to convince B of the truth of
his reasoning. A subject is obtained and A sits down and takes hold of him. I will
call him C. Shortly C is fast asleep. A commences to show B the science. He
takes up a book and asks C what he sees. C answers, The book. B asks him
how he sees the book. A says the electricity passes from me to C and I impress
on his mind the book. B says he understands this though he cannot explain it to
himself but admits what A says.
Another experiment is tried to prove it is by a magnetic principle. A magnet is
placed close to C's hand which immediately moves, proving that the magnet
moves the hand.
Another is tried, the magnet is concealed and A says to C, Go and get the
magnet. C, being blindfolded, starts off and returns with the magnet. B is
surprised and says he would like to hide the magnet. A is a little disconcerted but
yields to B so he hides the magnet; then A sends C to find it and he does so.
Here is A's explanation: when I hid the magnet, C read by thoughts but when you
hid it, he was clairvoyant. This is a higher state. B, being unable to explain the
phenomenon, admits this explanation and these experiments go to establish the
science of electricity and magnetism. So machines are made to take the place of
mesmerism and persons are put into a mesmeric state.
Sometime after these experiments A asks B, What do you think of mesmerism?
B, I do not know. I cannot account for it but I cannot help thinking that there is
something in it, though I do not believe anyone knows what it is. A, Why, don't
you see it must be electricity. B, I do not see how that made him find the magnet.
A, Well, there is a great deal you cannot understand, but when you have seen as
much as I have, you will believe it. I want to show you something far beyond what
you have seen. B: Well, I will go.
So they obtain the subject C. A says, I have learned that the subject can go to a
distance and tell what you know to be true. B, I should like to have him tell what I
have in my parlor and then I will believe. C is thrown into a trance and is put in
communication with B who takes C to his house. C describes all the family and
says, I see a man with spectacles sitting and reading a newspaper. He is a
stranger. B, that is a mistake, there is no one in my house but my family. A, That
is strange but sometimes I do make mistakes and imagine what is not true. Here
they stop and each leaves for home.
When B gets home, he finds Mr. H. reading the newspaper just as C described.
Here comes the mystery. All night the phenomenon runs through the head of B
and A is in the same state, for his science had not explained this phenomenon. In
the morning B starts off for A and meets him. Then he tells him that C was
correct and asked A to explain. Another explanation is given and B becomes a
perfect believer in mesmerism.
Experiments are tried to prove if the subject can penetrate the earth and find
treasure, so they put C to sleep and send him to look for treasure. He finds a
great many. B carries him to the moon to see if he can tell what kind of
inhabitants live there. All these experiments prove their own belief and a little
more.
Finally it enters the head of A to go to the world of spirits. Here is a large field for
operation. C finds the dead and explains about them to A and B. By this time
they have become so wise that their light has lit up the whole world of spirits so
that everything is perfectly plain. Here is as far as they can go, for the whole
world stops here and here ends mesmerism according to the world's belief. At
last there comes a report that spirits made their appearance at Rochester, and
raps and table tipping take place. Then B asks A how he explains these things.
A: "It is by the power of electricity." B: "I cannot believe that, I want to see
something of it." So they go to a medium and everything goes to prove the belief
of the medium that it is spirits. One rap means "yes" and two means "no," and
these prove the spirits. B asks A what he thinks of that. A says, it is a
development of animal magnetism. B says, No, I believe it must be spirits. Here
is a difference of opinion. B is as well posted as A. The medium agrees with B
and so does another person whom we will call G. B believed A till A showed his
ignorance; then B embraced the opinion of the medium and G. So it goes on.
One opinion is believed till some other phenomenon comes up that cannot be
explained; then some one states an opinion and the multitude follow.
Like the rest of the world I began with no belief or opinion. Like a child I went to
see. I did as B did and asked A's explanation and took it; then I went to work to
prove it and did prove beyond a doubt it was governed by electricity. At last I ran
against a stumbling block which upset all my theory and left me without anything
but the bare experiments. I then went to work to prove my belief, and my
experiments proved anything I believed, and I concluded that man is to himself
just what he thinks he is. I have waded through the mire of ignorance, crossed
the river of superstition, have walked on the water of my belief and at last landed
on the shores of wisdom, where I have found the olive branch of truth that tells
me that the water or error had dried up so that the dry land of reason is ready to
receive the seed of wisdom into the earth or mind of man. As I have passed
through the fire of superstition and been baptized in the water or error and belief,
I have come up out of the water and the heavens or wisdom are open to me and
I see the wisdom in the form of a dove or sympathy saying to every one, "Behold,
the truth hath prevailed to open the book of superstition; it hath broken the seal
and introduced a new form of reasoning."
1862
Death
BU 40:26, LC 8:26
This is the basis of all disease. Disease must be classed with ideas or
phenomena without wisdom, that is, such as have never been investigated, and
all these may be traced to the speculations and opinions coming out of the
Bible's belief. These diseases, which are the result of reason, call our first
attention, from the fact that they cause more misery than all the phenomena or
diseases that ignorance produces.
Take two children of the same parents. Place one in the charge of a pious person
who believes in the Bible just as it reads with a literal construction and also in the
allopathic mode of treating the sick with the various improvements to cure
disease. Let the other child be put into the hands of the lowest man of mankind,
the cannibals, for instance. Both children are females. Let them grow up and I
ask any person which they suppose could bear the most hardship, the Christian
or the cannibal child? No one is so ignorant as not to know that the Christian
child is more likely to die by exposure.
It would seem from this that God in his wisdom, if it is his wisdom, instead of
making man healthier and happier, really makes him more sickly and miserable,
so where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise. Here is where the trouble lies.
Man, as Paul says, does what he ought not to do, and leaves undone what he
ought to do. Wisdom does not consist in opinions and health is not the result of
man's wisdom. Man has no right to set up a standard of health or religion. In
bringing up a child, the child should never be taught to fear any punishment
except that which follows the act; but it should be taught scientifically that every
act contains a reaction just equal to the act. This is according to science and is
true. Do not teach the child that this is good and that is bad of itself, but the good
and bad is in the act and the reaction of both must follow. This reaction is the
happiness or misery, and religion is a belief in this truth.
If you understand this, you will then show by fruits which religion you are of,
science or opinion. Health is a word that ought not to be used, for it really has no
meaning. Jesus says they that are whole need no physician. It is man's duty to
know how to correct those who have wandered away from God. I never heard
that God was healthy or sick. God is wisdom, and wisdom is what man wants to
keep him happy, and the lack of it is either ignorance or error. If the former, then
he may be ignorantly happy, but error is misery. Wisdom would teach man that
all his life is outside of his body. This would of course make him happy.
Ignorance has no opinion nor wisdom, but in its way it is happy. The Christian is
unhappy from the fact that he is taught to believe that he has a soul and that it is
in his body. He is also taught that the soul and body make the man, and that the
latter dying, the soul being in and a part of the body, they are left in the dark for
the rest. So at death, everyone must look out for himself, and either the Lord or
the devil gets us at last. Under this absurdity when anything ails a person, he is
like a strange land, without friends, where everyone is laying hold of him and he
does not know which way to turn. He knows not but he may fall into the hands of
bad men. So at this separation called death, when the soul is about to pass, they
do not know where to go or where they will go. So they want their minister or
someone to pray to keep up their courage till they are off, and then their friends
settle their locality according to their opinions. The believers of course land him in
heaven. But if the dead had done something wrong to one of his neighbors, then
that one is in doubt, so the world is left in doubt where he is. Some say he is in
heaven, some say in hell. If the man knows the thoughts of his friends about him,
he will find that their opinions are his judges.
Now I have no heaven or hell to go to. When I lie down on my bed, I do not
trouble myself what will become of me when I am nothing. If I am not anything
and do not know it, then I am nothing, but if I am anything, I know it as long as I
know anything. My wisdom teaches me that wisdom is not matter. And as my
senses are attached to this wisdom, another world, as the Christians believe, is
to me all folly and superstition, like witchcraft, without the least foundation in
truth. Man is like mathematics; he is a principle not developed, his senses being
attached to his wisdom in the same way as they are to mathematics. His senses
are not attached to what he does not know, nor can they ever be till he knows it.
So his life is in his wisdom, and if that is in a belief and his belief is in a body, he
is just as large as his body according to his belief. Job says, "No doubt ye are the
people, and wisdom shall die with you. But I have understanding as well as you
and am not inferior to you." Job knew that all their talk was without wisdom and
would come to an end. He says, "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."
January 1862
Imagination
BU 40:20, LC 8:20
What is imagination? It is the word used to convey to another some idea that
cannot be seen by the person you are addressing and f to him it is nothing but
your own fancy. This is an error, for the word is not applied in the right sense.
The true meaning of the word if there is any such is this: to create a scene in
your own mind by your own wisdom that you know is only the creation of
yourself. It is all the while known to you that you are the author, but if you
convince another of it, then it ceases to be imagination and becomes a reality to
him. But to you it is all the while imagination. Here is the trouble. We take what
man believes that cannot be seen for imagination and that which we believe for
reality. With God all matter is imagination, for to him it is but shadow, while to
man it is a self-evident fact.
Man has the same power of creating things which he knows are shadows or
imagination, but to those who believe, they are reality. For instance, to the
person who believes it, liver complaint is a reality. To me it is imagination as I
define it, for I can make the same idea and know how I make it. But if I believe in
disease and make it so plain as to believe it is real disease, then my imagination
is gone and I am diseased; this is true. There are two kinds of imagination to the
one who imagines, both real to those who believe. Suppose I am a stump really,
and suppose I say to a man, pointing to another stump, "There is a man with a
gun." If my words frighten him, he makes the stump into a man. To me it is a
stump, but to him it is a man, without any imagination. There is no imagination in
either case; we both see according to our wisdom, but I have deceived him and
to him my deception is a truth. Again, suppose I become so excited as to affect
him so that he sees another object to which he calls my attention. If it is anything
that contains life, my fears are excited and the thing is as real to me as anything
that exists.
There is no such thing as reality with God except himself. He is all wisdom and
nothing else. All other things having form are things of his creation or
imagination. His life is attached to all that we call life, and when his life is
detached, the shadow to us is dead, but to God it never had any life. There are
many ways of illustrating this idea of imagination. I believe this very idea St. John
and Jesus tried to explain. Thoughtreading was known at that time, for there are
many instances recorded where Jesus told them their thoughts, but clairvoyance
was rare. All magicians, sorcerers, witches, etc. were thoughtreaders. Jesus
knew that this was the extent of the wisdom of mind known to the priest, and all
those who pretended to cure did so on this idea. So when Jesus saw beyond
their thoughts, he must be something beyond this power. Thoughtreading is what
we call knowledge, but clairvoyance is wisdom. The difference is this: the
clairvoyant sees by his own light, the thoughtreader by the light of another.
Therefore Jesus is called the light of the world. Light means that state of wisdom
outside of the wisdom of man or thoughtreading; it is science. Throughtreading is
imagination or reasoning. So when we say a man imagines this or that, it means
nothing except that he believes what someone has told him. God is the
embodiment of light or clairvoyance and to His light all is a mere nothing. When
he spoke man into existence, His wisdom breathed into the shadow and it
received life. So the shadow's life is in God, for in this light it moves and has its
being and it becomes the Son of God. As Jesus became clairvoyant, he became
the Son of God. He said, Although you destroy this temple or thought I, that is,
this clairvoyant self, can speak into existence another like the one you think you
have destroyed. Jesus attached his senses as a man to this Light or Wisdom and
the rest of the world attached theirs to the thought or darkness of the natural
man.
February 1862
Questions and Answers
BU 144:1
Question 1: "You must have a feeling of repugnance towards certain patients.
How do you overcome it and how can I do the same."
Answer: In order to make you fully understand how I overcome this repugnance it
will require some little explanation of my mode of curing, for my cures are in my
belief or wisdom, and the patient's disease is in his belief or knowledge. Now my
wisdom is not knowledge, for what a man thinks he knows is knowledge or
opinion, but what is wisdom to a man, he has no opinion about. As God is
Wisdom, Wisdom is Science and we call the proof of getting Science knowledge,
belief or reason; but when the answer comes, our knowledge vanishes and we
are swallowed up in God or Wisdom. The sick are strangers to this Wisdom,
being led by false guides without it, who have eyes and see not, ears and hear
not, and hearts that cannot understand; therefore like strangers they are at the
mercy of every one's opinion. Having a strong desire for wisdom or health, they
call on every one for their food or wisdom. So when they ask for bread, they
receive a stone, or for water, they receive vinegar; and thus they are driven like
sheep to the slaughter, not daring to open their mouths. This is the state of the
patient who asks the above question. My wisdom sees their condition, feels their
woes and comes to their rescue; but to get them from their enemies is often an
arduous task. The repugnance of which you speak is not towards their personal
senses but to the ideas their senses are attached to. As the ideas are knowledge
to them, they are a person beside themselves and it is the identity disease that I
first come in contact with. This is what I have to annihilate, and at first I
sometimes feel a repugnance towards the sick such as a man would feel in
entering a penitentiary to rescue a victim who has been innocently confined. The
disturbance of the rescue sets the house in an uproar. The victim not knowing
the cause is as much frightened as her enemies. But when I succeed in
destroying her enemies or opinion and get her to wisdom or self, she receives
me as one who has saved her from the jaws of death. This to her is health and
happiness. You say how can I do the same? If you believe this Wisdom is
superior to opinions and that opinions are nothing but error that man has
embraced, then when you come in contact with a person diseased, your wisdom
will throw the mantle of charity over their errors if it is for the restoration of their
health. But if the repugnance arises from some unknown cause, examine
yourself and see if the fault lies at your own door. If not, you may be sure it is
some false opinion in the person that troubles him. So to overcome their evil or
error, pour on coals from the fire of love or charity in the form of right reason till
you melt down the image of brass that is set up in their minds, and they will leave
their errors and embrace the truth. This is heaven.
Question 2: "You say when you know a thing, it is not an opinion. I can
understand that, but how may I be really sure I know a thing. I have felt perfectly
sure of a thing and still afterwards found I had been in error or had been
mistaken."
Answer: Knowledge, as I have said, is not wisdom, but it may be harmony and it
may seem like wisdom. Yet there is a discord. So discord is harmony not
understood. To know how to correct this harmony or knowledge that it may be
wisdom is the question to consider. The first part of your question where you say
"I can understand that" is contradictory to the last sentence, showing that you do
not understand. Here is the discord. You say you have been perfectly sure of a
thing and yet found you have been mistaken. Now if your wisdom had been
perfect in the thing you thought you knew, it would have revealed the discord or
error. So to purify yourself from error so that you may know the truth or wisdom is
a process of reasoning of matter, for there is no wisdom in matter. So that when
you have arrived at a truth, if you find it attached to a belief, you may know it is
not a truth, for it may change; but this is a truth that a belief may be changed.
God is Truth and there is no other truth, and if we know God the same is known
to us.
I will now try to attach your senses to God, not the God of this world or Christian's
God but the God of the living and not of the dead. My God is my standard of
truth, and as I know God, the same is known to me. I know I am writing this if I
know anything, but to know that I shall finish it admits a doubt and to know that
you will understand it admits more doubt. This doubt is not wisdom but belongs
to that class of man's inventions called reason, knowledge, etc. God is not seen
perfect in this question, except as far as I see, but He is seen in the clouds of my
knowledge. When you read this, if you understand it, then you will see God face
to face but not as Moses did. I await your answer, to know whether He does
appear to your understanding; if so, then here is your proof that you are born of
God in this one thing. Then you cannot know anything more so far as this
question goes. Man's God is all the time listening to his prayers and settling all
sorts of trouble.
My God does not act at all. He has finished His work and leaves man to work out
his happiness according to his own wisdom. I will give you the attributes of my
God. The Wisdom of God is' in this letter, and if you understand, you will hear His
voice saying I understand this. So the understanding is God, for in that there is
no matter, and to understand is wisdom, not matter, and to know wisdom is to
know God, for that is wisdom.
I will give you some ideas of God, reduced to man's knowledge. All science is a
part of God, and when man understands science, the same is known to God; but
the world's God is based on man's opinion and right and wrong is the invention of
man, while God is in their reason, but not known. Here is an illustration. The bells
are ringing. I walk to church and take a seat. The minister opens the Bible and
reads the text from John. The fact of going to church and seeing the minister is
known to me, but there might be a doubt in regard to the Bible, for it might be
another book. This last I admit with a doubt, and also the verse and chapter is a
doubt. He reads the thirteenth chapter of John, 36th verse, where Peter says,
"Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake." All the
above as far as words go is true; but when he comes to explain where Jesus
went, when he came back or if he went at all and why his wisdom was
knowledge, he reminds me of Paul's words, "All men have knowledge,
knowledge puffeth up, charity or wisdom edifieth." I could see nothing but an
opinion of what he had no wisdom of, a parable of something which he might
know as a belief but not wisdom. The explanation of the Bible is founded on
man's opinion and not on Wisdom. The Bible contains Wisdom, but it is not
understood, and to prove a thing is to put your proof into practice, for all men can
give an opinion.
Jesus came into the world not to give an opinion but to bring light into the world
upon something that was in the dark. What was it? Where was it? How did he
describe it? And what was the remedy? He tells the story himself where he called
his disciples together and gave them power or wisdom. Now if it was power and
not wisdom, then he knew not what wisdom was. So far as I can see, it admits a
doubt, but I have no doubt of what he meant to command them to do. In Matt.
Ch. XI he went to preach and put his preaching into practice. John was cast into
prison for preaching the coming of some one who would put this great truth into
practice, so he sent one of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if he was the one that
was to come, or do we look for another. Now what was he to come for?
Jesus answers this question when he said, "Go tell John the things you have
seen and heard, how the blind receive their sight, etc." After telling how John or
this Truth had suffered, how it had been put down by force, he made a parable of
the ignorance of his generation. "We have piped unto you and ye have not
danced." Then giving a statement about error, he says, "Oh Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden this truth from the wise and prudent
and revealed it unto babes, even so is it." All things concerning these errors are
revealed unto me by my Father. No one knows the truth but the Father, save the
son Jesus and those to whom he shall teach this truth. Then he says, "Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, take my
yoke upon you and learn of me, for my burden is light." You see that his labor
was with the sick and not the well, and all his talk was to explain where the
people had been deceived by the priests and doctors, and if they learned
wisdom, they would be cured. The knowledge of man puts false construction on
his wisdom and gets up a sort of religion which has nothing to do with Jesus'
truth. Here is where the fault lies. If you do not believe the Bible as they explain it
then you are an infidel. So all who cannot believe it as it has been explained
must throw it away. I do not throw the Bible away but throw the explanation away
and apply Jesus' own words as he did, and as he intended they should be
applied, and let my works speak for themselves, whether they are of God or man,
and leave the sick to judge.
Question 3: "Our spiritual senses are often more acute than our natural ones.
What is the difference? What do you call spirit-world?"
Answer: I will try to explain the difference between spiritual and natural senses. If
I had never seen you and wished to write you a letter on some worldly affair, I
should address your natural senses, and you would attach yourself to my
knowledge. Suppose you believe what I say, then your belief is founded on my
knowledge. This belongs to the natural world and your happiness or misery is in
your belief. But I have sat by you and taken your feelings; these are your spiritual
senses, not wisdom but ideas not named or classified. In the spirit world there
are things as they are in the natural world that affect us as much, but these are
not known by the natural senses or wisdom. The separation of these is what
Jesus calls the Law and the Gospel. The natural senses are under the law
governed by the knowledge of the natural world, subject to all the penalties and
punishments man can invent. The spiritual senses have their spiritual worlds with
all the inventions of the natural world, but the communication is not admitted by
the natural man except as a mystery.
There is just as much progress in the spiritual as in the natural world, and the
Science I teach is the wisdom of God to the senses in the spirit world. So it
requires a teacher to teach the wisdom of God in the spirit world, as well as that
spiritual wisdom that has been reduced to man's senses in the so-called
sciences. Paul says, "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not
heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?" And how shall they teach
unless they be sent or understand how to teach? I am now talking to your
spiritual senses, standing at your door, knocking with my wisdom at your heart or
belief for admittance; if you can understand, then I will come in and drink this
truth with you, and you with me. This is the spiritual world or senses. Suppose
you are sick and feel you need a physician; then is the time you in your spirit will
call on me or my spirit, and when I come if you know my voice or understand,
you will open the door, and when you do understand, I am with you.
Question 4: "Is not one's own experience wisdom to him in a certain sense?"
Answer: Wisdom is not knowledge but the answer to our knowledge. But in error,
knowledge is wisdom till wisdom comes. For example, suppose I make a sound;
that is not wisdom but a sensation. Suppose you try to imitate it; this process is
called knowledge or reason. When the sound is in tune with me, this is wisdom
not understood, so we call it wisdom. But when we can make the tone
intelligently and teach it to others, then the tone is the effect of wisdom, and
wisdom comes out of the discord. Wisdom is always the same. It is the point of
all attraction and everything must come to this. It is harmony. This is the Christ.
True Wisdom contains no matter; false wisdom is the harmony not understood. I
will illustrate. Suppose you tell me a story that you say is true, but you get your
information from another. I believe it and to me it is wisdom, but you see it is not
wisdom, for there is a chance for deception. But Wisdom leaves no loophole; it
can be tested. This was the controversy of Jesus. The priests thought their
opinions were wisdom, but he knew they were false. To test their wisdom was to
put it into practice, so every one was to be known by his works, whether they
were of God or man. Jesus showed his wisdom by his works, for when they
brought him the sick, he healed them. So did others pretending the same way. If
Jesus knew how he cured, then the kingdom of heaven had come to their
understanding; but if he did not, then he was just as ignorant as they were, and
the world was none the wiser for his cures. His wisdom was from above, theirs
from man's ignorance. These made the two worlds: science and error; and as
man has borne the one, he shall also bear the other.
Question 5: "Is it possible for one to condense his spiritual self so as to be seen
by the natural eye of others as Jesus did?"
Answer: This question is not properly stated. Jesus never said he had a spirit but
said, "Spirit hath not flesh and blood, as you see me have." Here was the rock
that they split upon. Jesus' wisdom knew that it was not in the idea body; their
knowledge made mind in and a part of the body. So each reasoned according to
their wisdom. Their wisdom was their opinion about what persons had said a
thousand years before without any proof but merely as an opinion; this they
called knowledge. Therefore Jesus' wisdom or Christ was a mystery to them. So
when Christ or Wisdom spake through Jesus saying, "though you destroy this
temple I will build it up again," this that spoke was the Wisdom, so the builder
was not destroyed, but the temple. But they believed as all the Christians of our
day do that the temple and the builder were the same; so that when the former
was destroyed, they had no idea of what Christ intended to do. Here comes in
your question. The Christ that acted upon the idea Jesus admitted flesh and
blood as well as his enemies, but his wisdom knew it was only an idea that he
could speak into existence and out. So when they destroyed the idea Jesus they
destroyed to themselves Jesus Christ or mind and matter. Now when this
Wisdom made himself manifest to them, they thought he was a spirit, for they
believed in spirits. But Christ to himself was the same Jesus as before, for Jesus
only means the idea of flesh and blood or senses, or all that we call man. Now,
Christ retained all this and to himself he had flesh and blood. This was to show
that when you think a person dead he is dead to you, but to himself there is no
change, he retains all the senses of the natural man, as though no change to the
world had taken place.
This was what Jesus wanted to prove. Man condenses his identity just according
to his belief; this all men do, some more than others. I cannot tell how much I can
condense my identity to the sick, but I know I can touch them so they can feel the
sensation. To me I really see myself but I cannot tell about them. I will try to
prove the answer to you. When you read this I will show you myself and also the
number of persons in the room where I am writing this. Let me know the
impression you may have of the number. This is the Christ that Jesus spoke of.
How much of the Christ I can make known to you, I wait your answer to learn.
Read the 14th Chap. of John; he speaks of this truth that shall come to the
disciples as I am coming to you.
Question 6: "If I understood how disease originates in the mind and fully believe
it, why cannot I cure disease?"
Answer: If you understand how disease originates, then you stand to the patient
as a lawyer does to a criminal who is to be tried for a crime committed against a
law that he is ignorant of breaking, and the evidence is his own confession. You
know that he is innocent, but you can get no evidence, only by cross-questioning
the evidence against him. Disease has its attending counsel as well as truth or
health, and to cure the sick is to show to the judge or their own counsel that the
witness lies. This you have to show from the witness' own story; then you get the
case. The error is on one side and you on the other, and out of the mouth of the
sick comes the witness. I will first state a case. A sick person is like a stranger in
his own land or like an ignorant man not knowing what is law or right and wrong
according to law. Both are strangers and both are liable to get into trouble, so
each is to be punished according to the crime he has committed. Now the man,
ignorant of state laws, wants a horse. Seeing one, he takes it, not knowing that
he is liable to any punishment, but as a matter of convenience. And when he has
used him as much as he pleases, he lets him go. Now, he is arrested for stealing,
and he, being ignorant, is cast into prison to await his trial.
I appear against him as state's attorney, and you appear for the prisoner. All the
testimony is on my side, but if you are shrewd enough to draw from me an
acknowledgment that the law cannot punish a man that is ignorant of the law . . .
after I have shown the testimony and made my plea, then if you can show that
the prisoner has been deceived and led into the scrape by me, I, having received
pay from him.... the court will give you the verdict, and arrest and imprison me.
A sick person is precisely in this very state. The priests and doctors conspire
together to humbug the people, and they have invented all sorts of stories to
frighten man and keep him under their power. These stories are handed down
from one generation to another till at last both priest and doctors all believe they
are God's laws, and when a person disobeys one, he is liable to be cast into
prison.
Suppose you are a doctor of the law of health, as it is called, and you find a
person perfectly ignorant of disease or your law, so you call on her and
commence explaining the necessity of being acquainted with the laws pertaining
to health. She being ignorant or like a child sees no sense in your talk, but you
continue to explain; and as she grows nervous, you keep it up till she shows
some sign of yielding to your opinion. Then you tell her she has the heart disease
or lung disease and it will soon be found out, and then she will be punished with
death at any time the Judge sees fit to call her. In her fright, she acknowledges
she is guilty; then you enter a complaint against her. She is arrested and cast
into prison, there to await her trial. You are the devil or error's attorney and is the
judge; she is brought into court to be tried by error's tribunal. Now I appear, for I
have heard her story, unknown to the judge or attorney. I have the evidence and
see that the very attorney against her is her disease and the author of her
trouble. This I keep to myself till I draw from the judge that a person cannot be
tried for a crime which they were forced to commit. This being done, I commence
my plea for the victim and show that she has never committed any offense
against the laws of God and that she was born free, etc. Then I take up the
evidence and show that there is not one word of wisdom in all that has been said,
also that she has been made to believe a lie that she might be condemned. In
this way I get the case. Disease being made by a belief or forced upon us by our
parents or public opinions, you see there is no particular form of agreement, but
everyone must suit his to the particular case. Therefore it requires great
shrewdness to get the better of the error; for disease is he work of the devil or
error, but error like its father has its cloven foot and if you are as wise as your
enemies, you will get the case. I know of no better answer than Jesus gave to his
disciples when he sent them forth and told them to preach the truth and cure. Be
ye wise as they were, or serpents, and as harmless as doves, that is, do not get
into a rage. In this way you will annoy the disease and get the case. Now if you
can face the error and argue it down, then you can cure the sick.
Question 7: "I can see this belief places man entirely superior to circumstances,
but will it not therefore take away all desire for improvement and cause invention
to cease and the whole go back, rather than progress, and cause us also to
become indifferent to friends and social relations, and say of everything that it is
only an idea without substance, and so take away the reality of existence?"
Answer: The answer to this is involved in the last. You can answer it by your own
feelings when you plead the case of the sick, condemned by the world, cast into
prison with no one to say a cheering word but left to the cold icy hand of
ignorance and superstition, who have no heart to feel and whose life depends on
its destruction. If you can be the means of pleading their case and set them free
from their prisons of superstition and error into the light of wisdom and
happiness, there to mingle with the well and happy, knowing that you were the
cause of so much happiness, would it not be enough to prompt you to continue
your efforts for the salvation of the sick and suffering till the great work of
reformation is completed? You may answer for yourself and say if it does not
place man superior to the interests of this world. And instead of taking away the
reality of existence, it makes man's existence an eternal progression of joy and
happiness and its tendency is to destroy death and bring life and immortality to
light.
Question 8: "Suppose a person was kept in a mesmeric state, what would be the
result? Would he act independently if allowed? If not, is it not an exact illustration
of the condition we are in, in order to have matter which is only an idea seem real
to us, for we act independently?"
Answer: I think I understand your question. God is the great mesmerizer or
magnet. He speaks man or the idea into existence and attaches His senses to
the idea, and we are to ourselves just what we think we are. So is a mesmerized
subject; they are to themselves matter. You may have as many subjects as you
will and they are all in the same relation to each other as they would be in the
state we call waking. So this is proof that we are affected by one another,
sometimes independently and sometimes governed by others but always
retaining our own identity with all our ideas of matter and subject to all its
changes, as real as it is in the natural or waking state.
Question 9: "What do you think of phrenology?"
Answer: As a science it is a mere humbug. It is at best a polite way of pointing
out the soft spots of a man's vanity.
Question 10: "What is memory or that process by which we recall images of the
past?"
Answer: I have explained memory in that class of reason called knowledge. It is
one of the chemical changes to arrive at a fact, matter being only a shadow.
When the senses are detached from it, we forget the shadow till it is called up by
another. This is memory. If there was no association, there could be no memory,
and those that have the greatest amount of association and least wisdom have
the greatest memories. Those who rely on observation and opinion as the laws of
reason have great memories, for their life is in their memory. But the former
retain their reason, as it is called, and are forgetful of events. Memory is the
pleasure or pain of some cause or event that affects our happiness or misery, or
it is something ludicrous. For instance, a judge heard one tell another "his coattail
was short," and the other who replied, "It will be long enough before I get
another," attempted to repeat the joke. But he forgot the sympathy or music in it
and said, "a man told another his coattail was short and he replied, it would be a
long time before he got another one." The company failed to laugh and he said, "I
do not see anything to laugh at myself, but when I heard it I laughed heartily."
Memory is the effect of two ideas coming in harmony so as to produce an effect
that leaves a scene of some idea either ridiculous or otherwise embracing so
many combinations that it brings up the scene. Memory is one of the senses of
man and will exist so long as the idea matter exists.
Question 11: "What became of the body of Jesus after it was laid in the ground, if
you do not believe it rose?"
Answer: Jesus is the idea matter, so those that believed that Jesus Christ was
one believed that his body and soul were crucified. Now came their doubts
whether this same idea should rise again. Some believed it would, others
doubted. So far as Christ was concerned, all their opinions had no effect. Christ
was the wisdom that knew matter was only an idea that could be formed into any
shape, and the life that moved it came not from it but was outside of it. Here was
where their wisdom differed. The disciples believed that the wisdom of man
would rise out of the error or idea man or matter, and matter comes under the
head of memory. How far their idea of Jesus went I am unable to say. Some said
he was stolen, others that he rose. There is as good reason for believing one
story as another. Now, Jesus said nothing about it. Now, I take Christ's own
words for truth when he said touching the dead that they rise, "God is not the
God of the dead but of the living." He knew that they could not understand, but to
himself Christ went through no change. To his disciples he died. So when they
saw him they were afraid because they thought he was a spirit, but Christ had
not forgotten his identity Jesus, or flesh and blood. So he says, "A spirit hath not
flesh and bones as you see me have."
If Christ's believers of this day could have been there with their present belief, I
have my doubts whether they could have seen or even heard any sound. Yet I
believe Christ did appear and show himself as dense as their belief could be
made, but their unbelief made the idea so rarefied that it was a spirit. These are
my ideas of the resurrection of Christ. But Jesus, the world's idea (if the people
were as they are now), was without doubt taken away; at any rate, their idea man
never rose. Christ lost nothing by the change. Every person rises from the dead
with their own belief, so to themselves they are not risen and know no change,
and the dead, as they are called, have no idea of themselves as dead.
Question 12: "Do we receive impressions through the senses and do they, acting
upon the mind, constitute knowledge?"
Answer: This question is answered by Paul to the Romans, although he did not
use the same words. This belief means faith; the peace in the truth was through
their belief. Hope is the anchor made fast to the truth; belief is the knowledge that
we shall attain this truth so that we glory in the tribulation or action of the mind,
knowing that it brings patience and patience confidence and confidence
experience that we shall obtain the truth. Knowledge is opinions, so when an
impression is made on the mind, it produces a chemical change. This comes to
the senses and opens the door of hope to the great truth. This hope is the world's
knowledge or religion that is used like an anchor to the senses till we ride out the
gale of investigation and land in the haven of God or truth.
Question 13: "How is matter made the medium of the intelligence of man?"
Answer: There are two ideas: one spirit and one matter. When you speak of man,
you speak of matter. When you speak of spirit, you speak of the knowledge that
will live after the matter is destroyed or dead. This is the Christian's wisdom. With