The Text - Section 20
Learning to Heal
BU 160:1, LC 7:16
How can a person learn to cure the sick? As a pupil in mathematics learns to
work out a problem. Every word is supposed to have a meaning. Now words are
like nuts. Some are full, some partially full and some are empty. The food or
wisdom is in the word, and if the word contains no wisdom, then it is like husks or
froth; it fails to satisfy the desire of the person who seeks the substance.
Natural food is to satisfy the natural man and spiritual food or wisdom is to satisfy
the inner or scientific man. The child before it begins to know is a blank. It falls
into the hands of the natural man and is fed by natural food, while its spiritual
food is opinions expressed in words. Therefore, as I said, words contain more or
less truth; all are not full and some are empty. But when a person speaks a word
that conveys the real substance and applies it to the thing spoken of, that is what
is called the bread of Life and he neither hungers nor thirsts for wisdom in regard
to that.
The sick have been deceived by false words and have fed on food that contained
no wisdom. Hungry and thirsty they apply to strangers for food; they ask for
health or the bread of life and the natural man taking bread as a natural
substance brings bread to them, but their state or mind does not hunger for
natural food, therefore to them is a stone. There is a bread of which, if a man eat,
he is filled. This bread is Christ or Science. It is the body of Christ. Jesus said,
"Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life. For my flesh is
meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed." The Jews of his day were like the
scholars of the present day. Bread is bread, blood is blood and they said, How
can this man give us his flesh to eat? They do not understand that wisdom is a
body and that opinion is a shadow. The natural man's belief is his body and to
eat and drink the world's wisdom is to eat condemnation or disease.
Now I will illustrate a cure. I sit down by a sick person and you also sit down. I
feel her trouble and the state of her mind and find her faint and weary for the
want of wisdom. I tell her what she calls this feeling that troubles her and
knowing her trouble my words contain food that you know not of. My words are
words of wisdom and they strengthen her, while if you should speak the same
words and the sound should fall on the natural ear precisely as mine do, they are
only empty sounds and the sick derive no nourishment from them.
I will describe this food that you may taste it and be wiser for your meal. In order
to prove that food satisfies a person's hunger I must find a person who is hungry,
and in order to prove that my words satisfy the sick I must take one who hungers
and thirsts for the bread of life or health. The lady I have now in my mind felt an
uneasy feeling as though she was hungry. Being weak and faint from exhaustion,
she applied to a physician for food to satisfy her desire, for she was famished for
the want of wisdom in regard to her trouble. Instead of giving her wisdom that
would have satisfied her, he in his ignorance gave her these words full of poison.
"Your trouble is a cancer in the breast." As she received these words she grew
more faint and exhausted till she became sick at her stomach. She ate of this
poisonous food till the seeds of misery began to agitate the matter; the idea
began to form and a bunch appeared on the breast. As she attached the name
cancer to the bunch, the name and the bunch became one body. The physician's
words contained the poison, the poison produced the bunch. Their ignorance
associated the name with the bunch and called it cancer.
I was called to see the lady and being perfectly ignorant of her trouble, I felt the
faint hungry feeling; and as I felt the effect of the doctor's food or opinion on her, I
said the food that you eat does not nourish you, it gives you pain in the heart.
This I said in reference to the way she reasoned in regard to her trouble. How do
you know, she said. I told her then that she thought her trouble was a cancer and
she admitted that it was so. I then told her that she had no cancer except what
she made herself. I admit the swelling said I, but it is of your own make. You
received the seed from the doctor and he prepared the mind or matter for its
growth, but the fruit is the work of the medical faculty.
Let us see how much of the idea cancer exists in truth. The name existed before
the bunch, then the bunch before it appeared must have been in the mind, for it
was not in sight when the word was first applied to it or when you were first told
that you had one. You know that you can be affected by another mind?
"Certainly," she said. I wish to show you, said I, that every phenomenon that
takes form in the human body is first conceived in the mind. Some sensation is
felt which we cannot account for; we then conjure up some idea which we create
into a belief; it is soon condensed into a form and a name given to it. Thus every
phenomenon taking the name of disease is a pattern of some false idea started
without the least foundation in truth. Now this bunch I call a phenomenon, for I
cannot call it a cancer because if I do, I admit a thing outside the mind.
The senses are the man independent of flesh. That is one thing; the word cancer
is another. Now I want to find the matter that the word is applied to. To say a
thing exists and to prove its existence are two different things. If any doctor will
tell me where that cancer was before it was in sight, I will ask him how he knows.
Let him say it was in the blood, that the state of the blood indicates the presence
of cancerous humor. Now do you deny that I told you your feelings? Certainly
not, she says. Then have I a cancerous humor? No, then there is no wisdom in
that argument.
Again he never knew you had an ill feeling till you told him. Then where did he
get his knowledge? Not from you, for you never thought of a cancer. It must have
been from what you said about your pain. Suppose I had said that I felt these
same pains and you had kept your peace; then according to his theory, I must
have a cancerous humor. Now I know that I have no humor nor had I an idea or
pain till I sat by you; therefore his story of a cancer is a lie made out of the whole
cloth without the least shadow of truth. It is like stories of Sinbad the Sailor or
some other fable that have no existence in truth. Then you will say, What is this
bunch? It is a bunch of solid matter, not a ghost or any invisible thing, but it was
made by yourself and no one else. I will tell you how you made it. You will
remember I spoke of your having a heat. This heat contained no good or ill but it
was a mere decomposition of the body, brought about by some little excitement.
It troubled you for you say your dress fretted the parts. Then your superstitious
fears of disease began to haunt you in your sleep creating an action in the part of
your breast where the error had made a stand till finally you called on the doctor
and got his opinion of what he knew nothing. You commenced then to form the
idea till at last you excited the muscles to such an extent that the bunch has
appeared. If now I have proved the cure, I have affected it and the bunch will
disappear. Do you wish to know why? Yes. Have I not explained that the doctor's
theory is based on a lie? Yes. Can the effect remain when the cause is removed?
I presume not. How do you feel? I feel easy. How do you feel in regard to your
trouble and in regard to what I have said? I think you are right and that it looks
more reasonable than the doctor's story. Then your senses have left his opinion
and have come to my wisdom. This is the new birth. You have risen from the
dead if you are free from the doctor's ideas. This truth has destroyed death and
brought life and health through science. Now I say unto you, Take up your bed or
this truth and go your way. And when the night of error comes, spread out the
garment of wisdom that enfolded Jesus and wrap yourself in its folds or truth till
the sun of life shall shine in upon your body or truth and you rise free from the
evils of the old belief.
1864
Man's Identity
BU 90:1, LC 6:136
We often speak of man's identity as though there were but one identity attributed
to him. This is not the case. Man has as many identities as he has opinions, and
the one his senses are attached to last is the one that governs him. This may
seem strange but it is true. Our senses are not our identity, because they cannot
change; they are principles. But our belief, thoughts and opinions can change, for
they are matter. So when we say a person never changes it is as much to say he
is nothing but a brute, for he really denies the principle of progression because
he does not admit such a thing as change. Now we hear of our tastes changing.
Does the principle change or our belief? The fact that we are aware of the
change shows the change must be in that which can change and this must be
matter.
Then what is it that does not change? It is that principle in matter that never
moves, or the foundation of all things. It is that which says when we have found
out something new, as we think, "Why did you not find it out before?" It says to
us when we are investigating certain mathematical truths, "This truth has always
existed," and we believe it. This is the something that is wisdom. It does not
come nor go, but is like light. You cannot shut your eyes but you see it. You
cannot keep it out of sight; in fact, you acknowledge it in every act. But that which
acknowledges it is not the something acknowledged. For instance, if you work
out a problem and the answer comes out right, you acknowledge a wisdom that
existed before you knew it; so you may change but you won't admit the
something you speak of, can change. The trouble is to get our senses attached
to this something so that we shall not change.
The beast is not aware of this something for they never acknowledge it in their
acts, for they revolve in the same shape their fathers did. But the matter called
man has a higher element called dynamics which the brutal man and beast know
not of. They know no higher law than the common law of statics. Now the
inventive man that changes from statics to dynamics wants to increase his
speed, so he invents motions by gearing into the old idea of statics and increases
the speed, called dynamics. This develops some new idea and then he says,
"Why did I not find this out before?" So here is the beginning of the man of
wisdom. His birth is conceived in matter or statics and brought forth in dynamics.
This is the new birth. This was the life that God prescribed, the God breathed into
statics and he became a living or progressive, dynamic being or soul. Each of the
two has its senses; one in statics and the other in dynamics and the fruits show
their identity. So the senses are the wisdom of each. The senses of the natural
man change, for his senses are matter or belief, but the senses of dynamics are
his wisdom and this never changes, only develops. So the darkness of statics
disappears and leaves the man of dynamics in full possession of all his senses.
1864
Mind Not Wisdom
LC 6:110
Every person admits the mind has a great deal to do with the body and each one
makes a difference between them. To such, the mind is the intellectual part of
man and the body the servant. In one sense this is true to them, but to wisdom it
is false, for they all admit that the mind can be changed and if intelligence can
change, it cannot be wisdom.
Jesus made the real man of wisdom. Wisdom cannot change but it can arrange
and classify ideas each in its proper place and show where mind falls short of
wisdom. To suppose mind is wisdom is as false as to suppose power is in
weight.
The natural man whose intellect is linked with the brute and who cannot see
beyond matter reasons this way. He is in matter but thinks he is outside of it. He
cannot see his absurd mode of reasoning, but it is shown in disease which is the
subject of my philosophy. Man is composed of a combination of fluids and gases
and also his mind. The mind being the offspring of his body or brain is virtually
the same, although in his conversation he makes a distinction between them, but
being in matter his intelligence cannot see beyond it. Therefore, he only believes
in a superior wisdom as a mystery.
The fact that he admits it as a mysterious gift or power shows that he does not
know it. To make man know himself is to convince him that he, his wisdom, is as
distinct from his belief as he is from anything that exists separate from him; then
he will give to mind an identity embracing everything having a beginning and
ending.
Sickness and disease are contained in it but wisdom is no part of it. The sick
embrace what they know and no more. Their wisdom is in their senses. The
cause of so much mystery lies in the fact that man cannot understand how
wisdom can have an identity and not be seen by the man of matter. We put
wisdom in matter and if we cannot see it exhibiting life, then no wisdom
represents it. If we see a dead person, we have no idea of a wisdom that exists
with all the faculties that were exhibited through the body. We try to believe, but
our belief is vague. We cannot describe it.
Man is not developed enough to see outside of his idea matter. He is in the idea
prophesying of what may come hereafter. I have developed this wisdom which is
the real man till I have broken through the bars of death and can see beyond the
world of opinion into the light of Science and Wisdom. I can see what things have
a being and how we take our opinions for a truth. The sun I will take as a
representation of the man of wisdom. Let the light be his senses and the thing we
see, his body. The senses embrace all the light and wisdom even its own
identity. The idea sun sees the light and, not comprehending its power, looks
upon the light as light, without intelligence, while it is the intelligence embracing
everything. This is the spirit world.
The moon is a figure of the natural man. Its light is borrowed, or the light of the
opinions of the sun. It thinks it has life of itself but the sun's light knows that it is
the reflection of the sun's light. The wise man, in like measure, knows that the
light of the body or natural man is but the reflection of the scientific man. Our
misery lies in this darkness. This is the prison that holds the natural man till the
light of wisdom bursts his bonds and lets the captive free. Here is where Christ
went to preach to the prisoners, bound by error, before the reformation of
science.
1864
Misery
LC 10:85
Man's misery always arises from some error that is admitted as true. We
confound our fears with the idea feared and place the evil in the thing seen or
believed. Here is a great error, for we never see that which we are afraid of.
Suppose, for instance, we see a wild animal lying down in the forest. Not
knowing what it is, we are afraid, lest it be a bear or a catamount. This doubt is
what makes our fear or torment. If we knew that the animal was securely
chained, that knowledge would banish our fears.
Man is constantly tormented through fear of death. We may say we do not
believe in the destruction of ourselves, but everything shows us that our lives are
destroyed by this king of terrors. Now if it were possible to convince man that the
life that can be destroyed is life only because his ignorance and fears make it so,
he would then look about to see how he can save himself from the death he so
much fears. At night he lies down and goes to sleep. In the morning he rises from
the dead or the idea that he lived in eight hours before. Night and day are
emblems of man's existence. When man is in doubt, he is in the darkness that he
has been warned of.
All men must pass through this purgatory before they can awake to the light of
wisdom. In passing through the night of error, shadows appear and the mind is
disturbed and anxious for the light of day. In the daytime, we call ourselves
awake, but we are just as much asleep to the light of wisdom as in the night. It,
however, makes a difference in the ideas we fear. In the day or light of health,
the ideas of disease are not near us; but in the night of trouble, we fear the
darkness lest we should never again behold the light. These fears arise from our
education and they are based on the fear of death, but let death be destroyed by
destroying the belief in the evils that lead to it, then it is robbed of its terror. Men
are in the dark about death and in this darkness Jesus appeared and brought the
light of life.
It is the common opinion that Jesus came to convince man of another world, but
this cannot be so for he never proved it. A scientific analysis of the scriptures will
reveal the mission of Jesus. He came into the world as a saviour to save man
from error and not from truth. Their religion had taught them to believe in another
world. He saw the misery it wrought on the people and he made war against it.
He saw that, like a serpent, it wound itself around the life of man, running its
poisonous fangs through every act. Jesus was mortal like any other man, but
Christ was wisdom manifested through Jesus, which could destroy the serpent
by binding him with the cords of wisdom in man's own belief so that he could not
deceive the people again. This was Jesus' mission: to save man from the devil
and teach him to destroy all evil. Christ often comes in the form of some good
Samaritan and saves man from the power of the devil. He is the creature of
man's belief and he is found in priestcraft and its followers. The church has
always fought Christ or science. Their offering of prayers can never take away
pain or sin.
1864
Nothing and Something I
LC 9:84
I have spoken of nothing producing nothing. I will now show that what is nothing
to me is something to the one that believes it. Take a person that believes in
ghosts. Now to that person a ghost is something and if the ghost troubles him by
tormenting his body with pain, the pain to him is as real as the other pain, and
one is as real as the other. Now for me to say that both are nothing is to those
who believe, an absurdity, for they think that their feeling to me is all imagination.
But this is not the case. I will illustrate it another way. The dark makes some
persons nervous, so they want a light; now that light expels the darkness, so
when the light is present the fear is gone. Now there is no such thing as darkness
to those that have light, so the darkness is in those that have no light. So
darkness produces darkness and light produces light. Now to call a belief
darkness and call it something and say that nothing produced it, is to light, an
absurdity. But to darkness it can't see it, for there is no light in their substance
called darkness.
Disease is darkness and all sorts of ghosts exist in this darkness and as the
things are real to the ones that live in darkness, the effect on them is real. Now
as truth expels their darkness by introducing the light of reason, they will then
see that all their troubles are in their minds. For their minds being dark in regard
to truth or light, they choose darkness or belief in their error because it looks to
them as truth. So they had rather acknowledge a lie than investigate the truth
which will condemn themselves. Now these absurdities run all through man's
reason, for all his reason is based on this flimsy foundation of darkness; and as
there is no light about it, all that ever is seen is the effect on their bodies. And
these show themselves to their dark minds in the form of substances and take
the name of disease. Now wisdom sees through these shadows and knows the
author that makes them.
How often I hear these words. Just take away the pain I have in my head or limb
so that it won't come back again and that is all I ask. Now here they virtually
admit the pain as some living thing that I may have the power to rid them of;
therefore it must have an existence separate from them and then it has an
identity. Now where does this belief differ from the belief in Salem witchcraft?
The people then believed that these spirits or witches would come and pinch
them, leaving the marks of their fingers on the flesh. They also believed that all
their pains were from some evil spirit or from God. How often do you hear
persons say that God often afflicts people for their good.
Now all these false ideas and thousands more of the same kind are the cause of
the evils that man suffers and they are all fruits of the old tree of superstition. So
as they begin to trim it up and engraft new ideas into the old stock, it still partook
of the old tree. Once it bore all kinds of fruit of misery and good. It first was good
and evil. It bore this kind of fruit, but the good became extinct by engrafting all
kinds of evil. Now necessity being the mother of invention, man wishes to
account for everything he hears or sees. If he feels a pain, he wants to know the
cause and being ignorant, he attaches it to something. So he has a name for it,
the same as if he saw an animal he would give it a name or he would enquire of
someone till he found a name right or wrong. So the doctors being admitted to be
teachers of health to warn the sick of their danger, it is supposed they are posted
up. So when any of these living things called disease get hold of us, we send for
the doctor to tell us what it is and how to get rid of it.
Now if we did not believe disease was a living thing, why do we want to kill it and
if it had life, where was it before we got it? So all goes to show that we believe
disease is just as much of a living thing as a ghost and witches of Salem times.
When the doctor calls, as he is as ignorant as his patient but wants to appear
wise, his wisdom looks in the dark. If the patient feels a little disturbed about the
chest and tells the doctor, he, that is the doctor, looks very wise into the dark and
says your liver is diseased. Now where was this disease or living thing that has
gotten hold of you before you knew it? In the doctor and the world. So when you
received his opinion you received a lie and this lie brought forth a child, called
liver complaint. Now to you the child is really a living being without a father, but to
wisdom it has a father, for wisdom knows that nothing cannot produce liver
complaint, yet the patient has no idea of its father. But it has a father and he is
the belief in a diseased liver. So to wisdom, it is the child of the devil, or one lie
begets another lie, or one nothing begets another nothing. But you can only see
the effect. This is as far as the natural man can see, but he will always admit that
there is a cause. The true cause he never admits as such, yet in his acts he
admits it.
Now I find the father and make him own the child or disease and then I destroy
both father and child or the devil and his works, for his kingdom is in darkness
and his works are brought to light by wisdom. So as mind is matter according to
man's belief, belief is matter and so is the effect of belief in disease. But as mind
to wisdom is nothing but darkness, the effect on man called disease is the
reflection of his belief, and until the light of science lights up his darkness, the
shadow to him will be seen. So what to the sick is real, to me is mind.
So when I say that disease is in the mind, I mean that it does not exist anywhere
else. For if you feel pain, you know it is you and no one else; if you feel pleasure,
does not everyone that is capable of feeling pleasure, feel it? Is it not so with
grief? Did you ever hear of a man's liver complaining and the owner feel well?
Does a white swelling feel pain? Now if the pain were not in the owner, why does
he try to get rid of it? I have seen a great many sick persons and have found that
all their troubles they lay to something they want to get rid of. Sometimes they
even find fault with their actions and want to act better, and sometimes with their
food and they say it hurts them. Yet if they should have their minds acted upon
by some excitement, the distress is gone for the time. Now convince them that it
is their belief and that their belief is the living thing which has gotten into the
stomach and is gnawing them, and ask them where the living thing is outside of
their belief. For the thing that gnaws is not the thing that complains, it is the one
that gets gnawed, and as they think that they and their stomachs are one, they
want to get rid of their enemy.
Now I propose to convince them that they are gnawing themselves, for when I
change the mind and allay their fears, the ghost or belief lets go. Now to show
the foregoing to be mind, and that although mind with wisdom is nothing, yet to
error it is something and wisdom has to admit it as such, and then destroy it, is
my object. This sort of reasoning is called the Platonic mode of reasoning. Admit
what you know to be a lie and then show your superior wisdom by opposing it.
Socrates denied everything and made his opponent prove what they affirmed
and his pupil, Plato, took both grounds. So I am obliged to admit what I know is
false for the sake of proving it a lie. So with disease. I have to admit the
phenomenon when I know the cause is all in the mind and this the sick deny. So
to prove it I have to analyze mind in every way that can be conceived of, to show
that mind is something that can be changed. When I have proved this, I find facts
that will be admitted to prove that minds can act upon another mind. Then comes
in this truth that nothing cannot produce any one thing.
So if mind produces any one thing, mind must be something. I then show that
mind or thoughts disturb our sleep and strange things arise to disturb us. Now if
all this is nothing, how does it frighten man into fits and other diseases as they
are called? Now to deny that thoughts are anything and admit that we are
affected and that we become sick and lose our sleep and the whole body
becomes perfectly paralyzed by a word from another is to admit that nothing
produces something. Now assuming that mind or thoughts and reason are
something, the way is clear to see and understand how all things come into being
and how these strange things like spirits and ghosts and diseases are formed.
Again if mind is not something, how can it be changed. Grief is a state of mind
and when gayety comes, grief is gone, as when light appears the darkness is
gone. Now no one will say that when a person is in the dark and knows it that his
mind is not in the knowledge of that fact.
Now dissipate the darkness by the introduction of light and will any one say that
his mind is not changed? His senses are now attached to the light where before
they were in the dark. Suppose he was frightened by the dark; when the light
comes his fright disappears. Is not his mind changed, and if so what has
changed it? If the mind is not something that is capable of impression, how does
the darkness impress it? Can there be an effect without a cause? If all men say
no, then what is the cause? Give it a name that will represent something that you
call nothing. Again if mind is not admitted to be something why do persons take
medicine to quiet the mind? Again why are we afraid of things that we cannot see
if we do not believe they exist? And if they do exist, they must be something.
Again if they are something, they must have life, for if dead they wouldn't be
troubling us. Besides if disease was not something that has life, why do we try to
get rid of it and believe that it may be killed or destroyed. All man's acts show that
he believes in all that I have stated and here is the foundation of man's reason.
Now as I said, wisdom knows that all of this is false, the cause and the effect.
The mind is nothing and the effect the same. So to prove that what I have
showed is something to the natural man but nothing to the scientific man, is to
show that there is something that cannot change; this is a solid or wisdom. So I
will try to give some idea of what it can do, and what its properties are and how it
acts on this something that man calls matter. So I must suppose a principle or
something that exists outside of man or that part called mind. For I take the
ground that a principle cannot change so mind cannot be a principle. Therefore
there must be a principle that exists outside of mind. Besides, if there is not, why
does anything act according to certain principles? Laws are not principles, they
are the invention of mind and therefore can be changed to suit any emergency
that arises. But you cannot make a pound of lead rise from the ground into the air
without some power independent of the principle that keeps it still. It may
dissolve and then its weight becomes lighter than the atmosphere. And then it
will rise, not of itself, but it is governed by a principle that air is heavier than the
rarefied lead, and the principle is, of course, that the lighter must give way to the
heavier.
1864
Nothing and Something II
LC 9:90
[orig. SAME SUBJECT]
In investigating the subject of health, I start with the idea that nothing never
produced any one thing; therefore every effect must have a cause. Now
reasoning from the principle that nothing cannot produce any one thing, it is plain
that nothing will produce nothing. If this were not so, everything might produce
anything and there could be no such principle as action and reaction, for all
things would be springing from anything: animals coming out of the ground, trees
bearing fruit in the winter, sleighs running in the summer, flowers springing out of
snow banks.
Now we know that all this is not so, so we say that everything has its cause. Call
the cause what you will, it must be something. As we see seeds produce
vegetation, we may reason that everything has its seed or something that attracts
it to its kind. Assuming this ground, I shall try to show that these seeds grow and
form bodies and these bodies also produce seeds which form other bodies and
all these bodies grow and fill the earth without the aid of man. All this will be
admitted by every person. Now all these things must have their origin in
something. What shall we call it? I will call it Wisdom. I assume that wisdom is
the first cause. We all see harmony in the mineral and vegetable world. All kinds
of matter dissolve and pass into the air or earth and out of the decomposition
springs life in another form, so that matter of one kind produces other matter of
the same kind, and when the matter is dissolved by old age, other kinds spring
up.
Take the forest. When the old growth of trees is destroyed, a new growth takes
its place, but usually of a different combination. Everything in nature is subject to
this law of decomposition, acted upon by some unknown power. We call it old
age or decomposition. In this great garden of creation, created by this wisdom,
comes another kind of matter called animal which may include any kind of living
thing, animals, the finny tribes, the feathered creation, reptiles and every
creeping thing. They are another kind of matter more rarefied than the first, yet
they are composed of seeds or life, and each seed produces other bodies after
its kind. But when old age or time destroys the body, the life that springs out of
the dead body is not like the other. So you see that all matter can produce other
results of a similar kind, till the idea is destroyed, when the matter assumes
another form or identity. Now all I have said is continually going on and yet there
is no higher matter developed than the animal.
Now in this garden, wisdom has seen fit to plant another being of matter, not
differing so much from that kind that was formed before, yet it is different in this
respect. It seems to contain something of the likeness of its father, wisdom. Not a
likeness of matter in a form but of wisdom. It seems to have power over the
matter of other kingdoms. Now I assume that this superior wisdom is from or a
part of the first cause that is to act as an agent to establish a scientific mode of
regulating and keeping and preserving the original stock and improving the
condition of its race. This agent I call the scientific man or God, acting on matter
of all kinds. Now, as I said, matter or seeds produced matter of the same kind,
but when destroyed by a natural decay, other combinations spring up. So with
the animal creation.
So each kind of matter mingles with other matter and thus the species are kept
alive or retain their own identity. Now this matter is devoured by some other
matter. The earth and air devours all kinds of minerals and vegetable matter and
out of itself comes other forms. So the animals live on animal matter or life, and
as this life is seeds or matter, it goes to make the body of the animal that eats it
and his character partakes of the food he eats. This either improves the species
or destroys it. It generally destroys the original combination. This is called the
running out of certain breeds of animals because they are not crossed, as it is
said, but it is the natural result of matter. It, and another species, is brought out or
another development.
So man lives on all the matter of the kingdom and his matter being a part of
every kind, his life is in the combination that governs him. Now as I said before,
new developments in matter are always taking place. So man like all other
animals goes through this change and would run out were it not for a higher
principle that is independent of the seeds or matter for its existence. This is the
scientific man that is not seen by the eye of matter, yet he is acknowledged. So
as matter has its different kinds of seeds and man being a combination of these
seeds, it is not strange that he should express them in his acts. We all know that
beasts express certain feelings we call fear and also desire for food and
sometimes a sort of tenderness not surpassed by even the higher order of
beings. Now in this kind of matter, being separate from the scientific man, you
discover superstition or fear. So as language is the invention of this more rarefied
matter, it gives the matter or life of that kind, that has arrived at that state to learn
a language, to express their feelings by words or language. So then we see by
the expression where they stand or the combination of matter they are composed
of.
This develops this class of matter called superstition, so as that, like all the other
matter, mingles and produces other combinations, it tries to account for that
change that is always acting on all kinds of matter called by the name of decay or
death. So language gives this matter a chance to throw off its seeds into the
world of matter in the form of opinion. These seeds are caught up by the lower
class of matter and go to change the composition of their own matter. Now as
this class of matter, like the brute, has their identity attached to the matter of
which they are a part, the change is not perceptible to them and they think they
are the same person they always were, when their combination has changed as
much as an apple tree that has had all kinds of fruit engrafted on it. And yet the
old stump or body is ignorant of the fruit it produces and holds on to the old
identity of the original fruit.
Like the man who calls himself a democrat and claims to be of the old school that
every limb and branch has been cut off long ago and nothing remains of the old
stock, only the name rubbed into the minds of the people. Now as I said all this
kind of matter is the natural result of progression to prepare matter for a higher
development of wisdom or science. For as matter contains motion, from the fact
that heat is to expand, as matter is dissolved by this heat, it finds itself separated
in a large space. Now there must be outside of this matter a sort of foundation for
some higher or more rarefied something that can exist out of matter.
So here is where the scientific man resides. After pressing forward by the earnest
desire to reach the point from which wisdom flies, he presses on, driven by the
pressure of matter. He, like that, rises, till he finds himself beyond the narrow
limits of this world of matter. So he passes through this into space, and here he
finds what wisdom has created. He then returns to the world of matter and there
becomes a teacher of that class of minds or matter that has passed through the
fire of superstition and is ready to listen to the voice of reason. Now what is
man's mission? To show to the man of matter that his senses are not matter but
his life is, and his happiness is, and his happiness is in his wisdom and not in his
error. His error is the thing to destroy, so he leaves a teacher to the inhabitants of
this world of matter. Now as all things of wisdom's make are in common, man
being one of the things created by wisdom, being subject to all the changes of
matter, his first creation is fear. So that fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Fear begets action and as from being the result of sensation, it creates heat. This
heat is the natural result of fear. Now as this fear rarefies the matter, it becomes
a medium for seeds of error and superstition; so where there is fear there must
be action. Now language being confined to that class of matter called man, he
uses it instead of signs and gestures to convince his friend of danger. So the
language is full of the fear. This is the seed called fear that is sown in the soil of
man. Now fear like all other seeds is composed of different combinations. So if a
man should be bitten by an animal, the language by which he would express
himself would be filled with his own fear, not the animal, for the animal has
perhaps no fear, but the seeds come from the person's fright. Now as these
seeds of fear of the bite spring up in the person, it disturbs the soil of the mind
and the animal is seen in the fright, so the person is always afraid of the animal.
So his fear with some additions is by language communicated to others till the
world becomes a world of fear.
Thus you see that every person's body is continually throwing off from itself these
seeds of fear, in all kinds of belief and opinions. Now to wisdom all this is from
fear. So as fear is the name of every condition of matter from the brute creation
to science, it shows itself in every composition of animal life. But wisdom knows
no fear, so perfect wisdom casteth out fear, for fear hath torment. So a man, as
we see him, is a man of fear. Now the fear of man differs from the fear of the
brutes in this respect. The brutes' fear is confined to such things as wisdom has
made but man's fear is confined to such dangers as man has made or invented.
Now these things that trouble our sleepless nights and haunt our imagination are
among the things of man's invention. Now convince man that at death this is the
end of him, then frightful dreams of endless misery after death will fall harmless
at his feet. Then the fear of dying will be confined to his natural life. Now the fear
of what will be his state after death haunts his imagination or disturbs his mind
and strange things appear before his senses that he can't account for by any
power of his, and so he thinks they come from the same power that created the
things that can be seen.
Thus you see that man by his combination becomes a being of fear. This is the
beginning of his wisdom. Then comes the necessity of protecting himself, so
necessity is the mother of invention, he becomes a superstitious man of
invention. So in his fright he invents all sorts of ideas and gives them names and
talks about them as though they really existed outside of his fears, till at last
these ideas are received and believed as much as the things that Wisdom has
created. Now among those things are creeds that are invented for man. He
believes, so that he may keep clear of some other evil that he is made to believe.
Now as I said these beliefs contain the seed or substance and the man of fear
eats them, the same as the earth opens to receive the seed, and when the time
comes for the seed to come forth, it will come and its growth depends upon the
soil. If you sow the seed of witchcraft in the soil of a man of wisdom it will perish,
but if in a man of fear, it will grow and come forth and show itself by language or
opinion in a belief in witches. So all belief has its seeds, and if the seed does not
grow, the fault is not in the seed but in the soil.
The soil is like salt. It will take up just as much as it can receive, but if it has lost
its fear, it is not capable of receiving the seeds of error. Then the man of fear
looks upon the man of science as an infidel or skeptic and as ignorant as a dog.
So when the fear is lost by wisdom, it is cast out, to be eaten by the dogs. So this
happens to both. The man that has lost his fear by receiving the truth is free from
error, and the man of fear is in his error, and looks upon the other as much
beneath him as a dog. So both are satisfied with their conditions. Now the
difference between the man and the beast is their belief. The scientific man is not
to be included. Now make man as ignorant as the beast and the length of his
days would gradually depend on his safety from surrounding objects. Disease
could not kill him for it is the invention of a higher development of matter. The
natural destruction of matter would apply to him as to the beast but this is not
disease in the sense I speak of. Now introduce the man of science from the world
of wisdom where fear never comes and he will explain all the workings of matter
and how to till the mind or soil so that superstition and all sorts of visionary ideas
of disease, etc., cannot grow. Then man becomes upright in wisdom and also in
person. He learns that his existence is not in his fear but in his wisdom and all
the sacrifice that he offers to this unknown science is lost, for wisdom asks no
sacrifices, only that of a pure and contrite heart, free from all fears.
I will take a case to show where fear prevents a man from arriving at a truth,
although it is the first step towards it, for if there was no fear there would be no
progression. The man of fear reasons in this wise. I will state a case. A lady
called on me for examination. I sat down and after a short time I felt a sensation
in my side accompanied with a feeling of a tumor. This contained the idea of
cancer. So I said to the lady, You have the feeling I have described and she said
she had. I then said, You think you have a cancer. She said, I suppose I have. I
said, No, you have no cancer only as it exists in the mind. You are afraid of one.
She said, No, she had just as lief die as not. I said, Suppose you had, that does
not prevent you from having a fear. But she said it came without her knowing
anything about it. Now here came in this peculiar mode of reasoning that nothing
can produce something, for she believed that her belief had nothing to do with
the effect and yet the effect was there and she could not say where it was till she
saw it and felt it in the side. So of course she could not find it outside of herself.
And as her body contained animal life or living matter and the tumor being a part
of her body, it became a part of herself; so of course the cancer had as much life
as any other part of her body, and it was eating up the body and yet she said or
believed it had no existence that could be seen outside of the body and of course
it must have been in her when she was born.
Now this is the way error reasons. Now truth would show that mind being matter
and the phenomenon being matter, it must take matter to make matter. And as
our beliefs to me are matter, the seed of cancer was in the belief and when her
system was excited, the matter or mind was ready to receive the seed; she
having it in the soil or belief, it sprang up like seed cast on the snow. When the
sun comes out and the snow melts and the earth becomes ready to bring forth,
the seed will spring up unless the fowls come and pick it up. So if there was no
science to explain away the seed, it will spring up when the mind is ready to bring
it forth.
When a man once acknowledges that a belief contains the seeds of disease or
poison, then he will learn to analyze beliefs and see what they contain, taking for
a standard that nothing cannot produce any one thing. So as a belief to the one
that believes it is something and will produce the very thing contained in the
belief; to the one that knows a belief is nothing, it produces nothing. So I had to
destroy her belief that to her was something, for she believed in cancers, but to
me it was nothing. So the belief to me was nothing but what she had made and
man can make anything and put life in it and call it his. So it contained neither life
nor anything only her belief. To make her understand was the work of a science
which is to cure the sick of their fears. This science casts out all their fears and
teaches that man is the author of his own troubles.
1864
On the Draft
BU 26:1, LC 7:99
What will be the effect of the draft on the political parties? The Copperheads
intended to turn the draft to their advantage by hypocritically pretending to help
the poor, while their true object was to prevent the towns from paying the
conscripts. To accomplish this object, the leaders hit upon the idea of making the
cities and town vote to pay each drafted man three-hundred dollars and allow
him to keep it and go into the army or pay it into the government and stay at
home. This all looks very fair but when you analyze it you will see their true
motive. They knew they never could get the loan taken and therefore every
drafted man must either go or pay three-hundred dollars himself. This was the
plan in order to get rid of paying anything themsleves. The deception was so
apparent that it soon showed itself and then they turned and said that the cities
and towns would never have voted to raise a dollar if they had not driven them to
it.
Now let us see how the city stands with those towns that voted to pay every man
who was drafted three hundred dollars, when the Copperheads had everything
their own way. Portland voted to pay every man who was drafted and went into
the army or furnished a substitute three-hundred dollars. Westhook, where the
Copperheads ruled, voted to pay every drafted man three-hundred dollars
whether he went into the war or stayed at home, giving him his choice which to
do. Portland has got her loan taken while Westhook cannot raise hers or the
leaders do not want her to and never intended that she should.
Now, Mr. Copperhead, if you are as good a friend to the poor as you pretend to
be, why do you not step up and toe the mark as Portland has done and take the
Westhook loan and not wait for Union men to do it for you? You never intended
to take it and never will. Now how does it affect the poor? In Portland, the poor
man who happens to be drafted gets from the city three-hundred dollars, and
then by paying out of his own pocket twenty-five or fifty dollars can provide
himself with a substitute, instead of paying three-hundred and fifty dollars himself
as is the case in the towns where the Copperheads conducted the raising of the
money.
Such has been the effect of this deception. It was a trick, laid by the
Copperheads and now they are caught in their own trap. Let the poor conscripts
call on these leaders and ask them to take the loan and advance the money and
show whether they are ready to back up the proposition as the loyal men have
done. They have done what they agreed to, and if these Copperheads do not
back up theirs you will know it was all a trick and a tool with which to work
against the administration.
1864
Quimby's Introductions I & II
LC 7:129, LC 9:298
An Introduction [1st]
In the work which I propose to introduce to the public, one of the principal points
will be to give the reader an account of the causes and facts which led me to
arrive at the following discovery or conclusion, viz:
That man as we see him is a combination of truth and error; that he is as much
those two opposites as he is of right and wrong; that the identity of these two
characters can be traced through every act of his life and the connections or links
can be followed as easily as the progress of science in regard to electricity.
The writings of the Bible have recognized these two principles and the religious
world has tried in vain to separate them, for their separation is based on false
ideas which are opinions instead of wisdom. They have always regarded the
scientific man as a mystery and have thus been trying to divide their own houses
or theories and at the introduction of science their theories must fall. Always
laboring under a mistake, they endeavor to make a truth out of opinions, which
gives rise to parties whose whole business is to have a lie acknowledged as truth
and the people made to believe it. This is the full extent to which the religious
world has developed man. Death to them is a truth, but the state after death is a
question on which there is a wide difference of opinion and is to the Christian
world a complete mystery. They do not embrace the true man of wisdom in any
of their theories but really disbelieve in everything which goes to identify the
scientific man. There are certain elements or principles of life which have an
affinity for each other and as these principles unite or come together, certain
results follow which vary just according to the combinations formed.
Man as he appears is the machine under consideration and all I say will be to
show that he is moved and worked by two agents, science and opinions. But
these two agents have no more affinity for each other than light and darkness but
each acts in opposition to the other. Error is a combination of matter and has
three distinct characters: error, ignorance and opinions, which is all that there is
of the natural man, but all these are nothing to the scientific man of wisdom, for
wisdom can dissolve them all.
I shall first speak of the natural man, by which I mean opinions, errors, ignorance
etc., in fact all there is of man except wisdom, science, and truth. The real or
scientific man is made of elements which are eternal principles, everlasting and
unceasing, and these principles are what I call eternal life, but when they are
united together for certain purposes they are called matter. When the matter is
dissolved into its original state, the principles still exist with their own identities.
Now outside of these principles exists a superior wisdom which controls them by
a medium called science, for by it we prove the identity of wisdom. Science is
connected with eternal life or the first principles. Matter or the combination of
these principles is also a part of life, but it assumes to be the author of its own
existence, while it is but the author of its own acts and it acts in accordance with
itself. Man is so formed that he is a perfect image of these two principles. His
senses are in his life, but his life is no part of the combination called man but the
compound is a union of the principles of life.
The compound has its identity as a machine has life in the inventor. When the
machine is dissolved the elements still live in the principles of matter, though the
identity of the machine is gone. So the life of the machine is dead. The scientific
man's life is his senses and his senses are in his wisdom. The natural man is to
the scientific man as a shadow to a substance, simply nothing. Both have their
identity, one as a shadow and the other as a substance. But the identity of one
depends on the life of the combination of the other.
Take away all science from a man, and you have a complete animal, though not
as complete as some. Yet you have an animal that contains all the elements
which go to make up an animal and these elements are under the law of matter.
The principle of science is not contained in matter or even in its element but it is
a part and parcel of wisdom, so that the destruction of matter does not destroy
the principles which govern it. Man contains within himself all the elements of
matter, but these elements are ignorant of the power that gave them their life or
identity. As the natural man becomes purified from the natural element-
ignorance, it becomes the medium through which the scientific man develops
himself. Matter or the natural man is from above or independent of matter. I will
give an illustration showing the nature of these three characters.
A says to B, "I see a spirit," describing it and B believes it. C hears what A says
and knows it to be false. C's wisdom is outside of A and B and knows that all that
B suffers arises from believing the lie of A. Here we have the three characters: C
the scientific man, B the sufferer or natural man and A the liar or first cause. I will
call the clergy and medical faculty A, their followers B, while I stand to the sick as
C stands to A and B in the foregoing illustration, knowing that what A and B say
is false. It is not necessary to confine the identity of the scientific man to any
particular branch of science, only to create a man who is capable of detecting a
falsehood when it is uttered. For instance, A relates a story affirming that it is
true, but B is not bound to believe it unless A can prove or demonstrate it. If the
story is based on a religious or medical opinion he cannot prove it and B must
use his own judgment about believing it, and if B has been taught to believe in
these opinions he must suffer the penalties of his belief, but if he has been taught
to understand that all their wisdom is founded in superstition then he will stand to
A as C did to A and B, pitying and condemning A for his ignorance and
hypocrisy.
I contend that man's happiness and misery is of his own creation after he began
to know what it was to be affected and I intend to keep the identities separate,
though both are in one. Every thought contains a combination of gases which
makes man, the food merely going to satisfy the brutal part, while all ideas go to
feed the spiritual or selfish part A and B. C is not included in these two but he is
at the elbow of B to check and develop him and if possible to get possession of B
which is but the habitation of A or C. The tempter is B. The disease or elder son
is A. The scientific man or younger son is C. B is the body, vineyard, or field and
contains the principle of both. And the developing of C is the destruction of A. C
is wisdom in B or matter. A is the life of matter changed from one idea to another.
I shall call these two characters by various names, sometimes principles or laws
of nature, sometimes the natural or spiritual man, good and bad, truth and error,
etc. Wisdom is always outside of mind or matter, yet like the seeds in the earth it
is growing and coming forth to assume its identity outside of matter. This is the
child, science, born out of matter, begotten by wisdom, and kept from the evils of
the world till it can speak for itself. All we see of man is a combination of matter
or ideas in a living form, having powers like the brute but differing in some
respects. Wisdom from some cause best known to herself created man and
beast different in their combinations, as the soils of the earth differ in different
latitudes.
The products of a tropical clime would die if transplanted to our bleak and cold
northern latitudes, yet by introducing a higher element into matter, their
transportation can, in a measure, be overcome. It being the design of wisdom
that this should be the case, progression was to be the instrument to bring about
this change and as man's body like the brutes contains the same elements or soil
it was necessary that a different soil be combined with it to bring forth a superior
element. Now man being this element, it was into it that wisdom breathed the
breath of life or wisdom, and he became a double being; not that man has any
preeminence over the brute, for both are of the earth and must return to it again.
The brutal element in man will not, if possible, be governed. It makes itself known
wherever it is, whether in the wild or domesticated beast or in the cultivated man.
It is opposed to everything that interferes with its interests. It is the element to be
subject to science and knowing this it makes war with itself and its life is its own
destruction. Science is in this principle and is in every thought. It accompanies all
the nourishment of the body; it goes with the blood to all parts of the system and
is like C as he stands in relation to A and B, to protect the child in B which A
wishes to destroy. B is nothing but the shadow of A and they make war with
themselves and out of their ashes C springs up. Everything that man thinks
about, hears or admits, that thing takes possession of his body and he, that is the
machine, is worked by that idea, wisdom being but a silent observer.
I frequently introduce subjects into my articles which do not seem to have any
bearing on the subject of disease but they do and could we see what disease is
we should learn that it is a deviation from science or truth and that happiness is
man's aim. But the roads to it are so obstructed by false lights or ideas that it is
almost impossible to travel in the true scientific highway. And Satan has many
agents all over the country calling on every person, in every language and
tongue, entreating them to listen to their story. Some tell you you are in danger of
losing your soul, others offer great inducements for you to enlist in the army of
the Lord and fight for their own particular creed, promising you a crown of glory at
the end of the war or when you die. So you are deprived of every pleasure you
might otherwise enjoy and torment yourself to death, merely for what you are
promised at the end of your lives. Your death ends the war and your crown of
glory depends on your faithfulness to your leader. Satan has so completely
deluded the masses by his deception that his followers "have stolen the livery of
heaven" in which to serve him and have established laws as arbitrary as ever did
any despot not excepting Jeff Davis. Wisdom has no respect for persons but is
like a pair of scales which weighs out to every person his wages for his labor, for
all scientific men are laborers in the service of wisdom and their acts are weighed
and they receive their wages just in accordance with their acts. But their acts
have no effect on the great first cause, wisdom, no more than a person going into
business. If he loses all he has, the loss is his and not the government's, yet the
government protects all its subjects. So science protects man from error, but it
does not protect him by upholding his error. Man stands to wisdom as the child to
the parent. The parent is in the child, but the parent's identity is in itself; but had a
mother twelve children, each child would have a part of its mother's identity, for
the mother's identity is in her wisdom and the wisdom is in the child and the idea
matter is in the mother's ideas. So it makes the child of matter and wisdom; not
the wisdom of science but the wisdom of the mother. The mother, seeing a
shadow of her own belief or ideas, puts into it an identity and gives it a name as
though it was not a part of herself. She, by her own belief, makes the distinction
between herself and child and this belief keeps her separate from her child. This
separation has been going on till man has wandered away from wisdom and
become sick and discouraged and Heaven is to bring him back to the knowledge
of himself. The knowledge of this is heaven, the ignorance of it is hell or misery,
sin and death. It keeps man all his life in fear of death and subject to bondage.
What I say is to break the bands or destroy death and let into the prison science,
who will open the doors and break down the partition walls which separate us
from God or Wisdom, open the cells of disease and let the captives again into the
fresh air of health. Now to do this is a science, which I hope one day will be
understood. I suppose that all will admit that there really is no wisdom in an
opinion and yet there are effects produced by them. All men can give opinions
and those who believe are affected by them. This is true, but man's happiness
and misery have never as yet been acknowledged to be the result of an effect of
our beliefs, but a something we are called upon to get.
We are called upon to get religion to make us happy, admitting that religion is
something outside of our belief. We are told that it comes by some mysterious
power and this causes people to believe that there are unknown agents working
on us of which we are not aware. Now there is a shadow of truth in all this but the
explanation is merely an opinion and not from science.
I will here say a few words in regard to matter or mind. Opinions are the life of
matter or mind for the time they are embraced, just as the gardener is the life of
the garden while he controls it-for the earth would not bring forth the seeds
unless the gardener had placed them in the soil. Man is at the mercy of opinions
which come and take possession of him and cultivate just such vegetation as
they please. So opinions take possession of the mother or native ideas and use
them like slaves to cultivate such ideas as they see fit to have sown. They sow
the seeds of disease and the native ideas become subject to their direction; this
course causes trouble and a war of opinions arises and the doctors or neighbors
are called in to settle the trouble, but as opinions are ambitious and the natural
ideas are lazy the latter are very easily subjugated by opinion. Science is not
known in all this trouble, opinions assuming all the wisdom and that is the exact
case with the sick, they being two characters: one, opinions and the other, the
natural ideas held in subjection.
Opinions are as cowardly as ignorance, and more so, for they fear science, while
ignorance fears error or opinions. Science knows that disease is the effect of
opinions and ignorance. Many cures are performed by persons who have no
claim whatever to wisdom and it is an admitted fact among a certain class that
there is such a thing as foretelling what will take place to some extent and all
science does it in a limited sense, but the foretelling depends altogether upon the
wisdom of the scientific man. All who pretend to cure profess to tell the effect of
their medicine on the patient and that is their science, and it is foreknowledge to
the man of opinions. To the true scientific man, the person who pretends to tell
the effect of his medicine is a hypocrite and wishes to pass himself off on to the
man of opinions as a superior being. He gives the impression as being scientific
but he knows he is uttering a falsehood. The whole composition of his being
differs from the man of opinions. His character is religious in the extreme and his
store of information is inexhaustible.
We have not yet arrived at the scientific man. All these characters that I have
named are prominent in the world, and are in fact the leading characters of the
world, while the scientific man is not known to them at all. person has these two
characters. I know them both, and I know also that the two, opinions and
hypocrites, are consulting together how they may keep ignorance in bondage.
For ignorance is the child that is to be purified so as to receive the scientific man
and opinions and hypocrites are the two characters that must be destroyed in
order to free ignorance. For they are nothing but dross to science, which must be
burned up by the fires of truth. They fear the truth as the burned child does the
fire. They tremble and the earth quakes and that is their disease, and they greatly
fear the light.
I will represent the ignorant man as coming to me for instruction, being in trouble
and not knowing the cause of his misery, and the other two pretending to be his
friends. I see the other two as plainly as I see him, yet they have no idea that I
see them for I do not make myself known to them. Knowing as I do, that they are
the enemies of the ignorant man I treat them as I would anyone who I knew was
trying to deceive a person with false ideas. I do not trouble them (unless they
undertake to uphold their master, error) until I sit with a patient and I come in
contact with them. They have their motives and objects as much as science. And
if the hypocrite wishes to achieve an object he has to exhibit more shrewdness
than opinions, while science has to exhibit more than the three: ignorance,
hypocrisy, opinions, or else he will lose his case. Ignorance would not be
destroyed for it is the soil on which both these two reside. The reason why I give
identities to different principles and ideas, is because principles have as much of
an identity as matter. The only difference being that one can be seen and the
other can see. One fills all space while the other is space and has its conditions.
As wisdom sees opinions, it knows what is the trouble. I talk aloud to the natural
man, but he is entirely ignorant of my conversation with the one who governs
him, who is in him, as the light is in the darkness.
His fears are the workings of matter and all he says is to complain of his troubles.
He is like a person in a quandary, not knowing what to do and afraid of
everything. When I enquire the cause of the trouble, I do not ask the person in
trouble, but those around him, which are opinions of all kinds.
The sick man is like a stranger in the hands of men who are robbing him of his
substance, and he, being frightened, dare not stir. There is, in fact, no end to the
torment which the ignorant man endures at the hands of these hypocrites and
men of opinions. The sick are in their hands as a mouse in the power of a cat,
who will play with it for a while yet will not like it to go free. I find every sick
person in the hands of these characters, become as docile as lambs when
science approaches, unless they see their reputation is to be questioned; then
they will gnash their teeth with rage and try and destroy, not only their own lives,
but that of the sick. I have learned how to approach them unobserved. I ask
questions to find out the trouble and then expose opinions to the light of reason,
which reason is the workings of ignorance. Opinions make false statements from
false basis and then labor to prove their statements. They take the very mediums
of wisdom to prove their assertions. The only difference is, one is science and
knows it and the other is opinions and knows it . I must take the sick man and
separate these different identities and also place the scientific man among his
enemies. I will call the sick man ignorance and his_ enemies-opinions, which are
like a mob. Each opinion having an identity as much as a person, and it is this
point which man does not understand.
Science has its identity in wisdom and is eternal. Opinions reason to save their
lives and unless science destroys their reason they live. Ignorance is the soil to
be cultivated and opinions believe there is wisdom in this soil. They accordingly
reason with themselves according to their belief and operate on the soil to prove
that their reasoning is correct. Science is the life of the soil or ignorance and its
growth depends upon the developing of the soil. The developing of mind or
matter, embraces what opinions call either miracles or humbugs. Either one is
but an opinion to science, who sees what will be the beginning and end of all
opinions. Take the eclipse: opinions could not see the cause, therefore to them it
was a miracle, while science could not only tell the cause but the precise time
when the phenomenon would occur. There is another phase of science like this:
You see Mr. A tell Mr. B to place his property in Mr. C's hands stating that he will
thereby get good interest. Now you know that A and C are leagued together to
rob every person they can. Now just as B is about to place his property in C's
hands, you, knowing that B will lose it, tell him so and interfere with the
speculation. This angers A and C and you are obliged to prove to B before A and
C that he would surely lose his property, which if you do, the process is Science
put in practice for B's happiness.
It is this science that the sick need to keep clear of the priests and doctors; as the
motive of the one is to save the soul, while that of the other is to save the body.
Every sick person is in the power of one of these two enemies to health and
happiness. Yet, they have such hold on the body that ignorance gives them
about one-tenth of their income, while the sick pay about the same as the people
did under the Levitical priesthood.
Our religious ideas and beliefs in a future state are all founded on error and they
really change man's whole nature. Every truth is not a scientific truth, for were it
so we could have no standard to gauge by. Consequently, every man's opinion
would be admitted as a truth. The word science represents the name of the
process by which man arrives at a truth, while the process itself is science. To
illustrate: you wish to know the height of a triangle, the length of the other two
sides being given. I will give three ways in which you may arrive at the true
answer. First having a correct eye you may possibly guess at it; secondly, you
can enquire of one who knows; thirdly, you can measure with a rule; now in all
three ways you may arrive at the truth, yet the true scientific answer can be
arrived at by a mathematical process in which there is not a doubt, a process of
wisdom which is not contained in either of the other three. The science is putting
in practice this principle, not that the answer is science but the arriving at it. The
correct working of problems by the science of the principles of levers would fail if
certain variations were not taken into consideration. For instance, take the first
class lever illustrated by a crowbar. If the bar is six feet long and the fulcrum is
placed within six inches of the end, then one pound on the long end will balance
twelve at the other; and if the weight is raised one inch the other end of the bar
will fall one foot. But if the fulcrum should sink or give way, then this same lever
becomes a third class lever where the power is at one end, the fulcrum at the
other and the weight in the center. Therefore all this must be taken into
consideration or you fail to arrive at the correct answer and the science is to
know of the variations and take them into calculations in working out the problem.
Suppose again that you and I see a person at a distance and we are in doubt as
to who it is. Wishing to ascertain who the person is, we can guess, but we may
be wrong; we can get a person to go and see, but he may deceive us, or we can
go ourselves. And this last process of finding out is the science by which we
arrive at a truth. Science is to labor for what we receive and the reward is
happiness. To cure the sick scientifically is laborious, but to cure by books or
opinions is nothing. It is merely the science of him who had but one talent which
he hid and he got others to think and act for him.
If the world will take an opinion for a truth, then the lazy are on a par with those
who labor, and the wise might well say: if opinions are wisdom, it is folly to talk of
science. These false ideas prevent man from studying into the wisdom of
opinions, which is science falsely so called. Paul speaks of it in his epistle to
Timothy, when he says, "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust,
avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called,
which some professing have erred concerning the faith". I contend that disease is
the result of the reasoning of this science falsely so called and therefore it is
necessary to establish a new mode, or show how man can be scientifically cured
of his errors. My method is based on a science which embraces every part of
man's reason and which destroys opinions on all subjects which tend to disturb
man's happiness. This being my foundation, I assert that everything seen and felt
must have a cause and that nothing cannot produce any one thing. Now
admitting a cause, the process of finding it is a science and is a labor. I repeat
that all there is of us that can be seen is the effect of our belief and our beliefs
are matter and can be changed. Everything I write is to either lead or disturb the
mind so that the truth can be seen as it were, for it is thus that I destroy opinions
and introduce in their place the Science of Health. It is a new mode of religious
reasoning, for all belief is the effect of our religious training, the medical belief
being a part of it as much as any church creed.
I do not intend to attack any person or persons in particular, but the erroneous
ideas of mankind in general. I believe that ideas are something that affect the
happiness of mankind and disturb the senses. The senses are affected by
opinions, which although not admitted as having an identity, yet they have one as
much as heat or cold. have as powerful an effect on our senses and they contain
an odor as disagreeable to health as any atmosphere which man breathes. . . .
The individual who has it, has his senses affected just according to his fear. Now
the question arises, Does disease exist outside of man's belief, as rocks and
trees. I answer, It does not, but the world says it does. Science is to correct the
errors which heathen superstition have handed down to us. Ideas are like
individuals and live and exist as much as what God has created. The mind is full
of these ideas and you can trace their genealogy from the ancient times down to
the present date. In every person you will find some trace of heathen idolatry.
Now it is these errors and evils that we wish to rid the world of; although they are
not seen by man, yet they fill all space. Ideas have life, and both ideas and life
have an odor but not a name unless they are attached to the body. Take the
disease catarrh; in space it has no form or life but like an odor it may be offensive
to a person's senses. It contains no idea so as to make it of any consequence,
but attach a name to it, and then the senses are disturbed and we create the
enemy which torments us, called catarrh. All false ideas in regard to disease
contain the elements which go to make up disease.
Our mind is like the land of a certain lazy man which his neighbors tried to make
him till. At last they told him to dig it all over and he would find a treasure buried.
This he did, but found nothing. They then told him to plant his land to wheat,
which he did. In the fall he went to his neighbors and told them he could not find
his treasure, Well they said, go and reap your wheat, thresh it out and sell it and
then you will find your wished-for treasure. Now we must work over our minds,
looking for a treasure and while doing so rid ourselves of error and find the
treasure to be the truth which we get for the result of our labor; else the priest or
medical faculty will excite the curiosity by relating some story like that of the
treasure which stimulated the person to gain the prize. This excites the mind and
the doctors then sow the seeds of disease or tell them some false story which
makes them nervous and a phenomenon is produced. When the crop of their
own planting is reaped, they show it to the doctor, who says that it is the
treasure, which is disease. If wheat or truth is planted we reap truth, if error or
disease, we reap disease. In either case, the laborer gets the reward for his toil
and if we sow to the wind or believe what the priests or doctors say we must reap
the whirlwind. But if we sow to wisdom or science, happiness is the harvest. It
behooves every person therefore to test opinions and see if they are based on
science or otherwise. For we must be accountable for our beliefs, whether right
or wrong and there is no escape from it. Let man understand that he is
accountable for his belief and then he will be as careful as to what he does
believe as he will be about what he eats or drinks.
Wisdom has never been taken into consideration in regard to man's composition.
But man has been looked upon as a machine, set in motion without any wisdom
to guide it; as a locomotive let loose to run its race and die when its fires were
out. All calculations made in regard to keeping man running are made without
considering wisdom at all, but he becomes a machine of opinions, whose owner
is error and he is subject to all the errors which error can invent.
1864
Introduction [2nd]
In order to understand Dr. Quimby it is necessary to give the reader some idea in
regard to how he treats diseases and also some explanation as to the way in
which he says they were brought about. To do this I must give his ideas of the
cause of disease. These will enable the reader to see some meaning in his
otherwise blind writings, for he reasons about things that would seem to many
persons as having nothing to do with the cure of disease. His ideas are entirely
new to the world and if no explanation or introduction to his writings is made the
reader would of course pass over what he says with indifference and condemn it
as visionary. It is therefore necessary to set the reader right at the outset lest he
should weary in looking for the principle the doctor claims to have discovered.
Dr. Quimby asserts and expects to prove that what is called disease is not a
cause but an effect. He says that thoughts are like the shock of a galvanic
battery, that they are directed by some wisdom outside of the individual and that
these thoughts are deposited according to the direction and bring about a
phenomenon. This phenomenon which he calls an idea is named disease.
He says that every idea, whether of disease or of anything else, is a combination
of thoughts and that every person is responsible to himself for his ideas and must
suffer the penalty of them. Dr. Quimby's theory is to correct these ideas which
are false and avert the evil that flows from them. He holds that disease is caused
by false ideas over which we have no control and that a different mode of
reasoning from that which now prevails will eradicate from society the
phenomena called disease.
In treating the sick, Dr. Quimby introduces the subjects of religion, politics and all
ideas the discussion of which agitates society. These, he says, contain fear and
excite the mind which by a false direction brings about the phenomenon called
disease. Thus it is evident, his ideas are at variance with the belief of the world.
So he stands alone, his hand against every one's, and all, against his.
He takes every patient as he finds him and commences as a teacher with a pupil,
destroying his error by correcting every idea that affects his health. He often
comes in contact with pet ideas of the patients, like religion for instance, that are
so interwoven with his existence that they have become a part of himself. If these
cause the patient trouble it is the doctor's business to correct them.
Chemical changes he talks a great deal about. This phrase he makes use of to
give the patient an idea of the change in the system which always accompanies
a change of ideas. He says that every idea or belief affects people just in
proportion to their capacity to understand. He also says that obstinacy often
prevents people from taking an interest in what they hear, thus protecting them
from disease.
The doctor shows how fear also affects the mind. He says that false ideas
contain some bugbear of which people are afraid and this he has to battle with;
and in order to destroy this bugbear which terrifies them, he is obliged to destroy
the idea which contains it. Patients, he says, will cling to their ideas as a child to
its mother and he sometimes has sharp discussions before they will yield the
point. This discussion he calls the remedy, so he says that the curing of disease
is a scientific mode of reasoning. His theory is to correct man's errors so far as
his health and happiness are concerned.
People not familiar with Dr. Quimby's ideas think that he does not understand the
meaning of language and therefore does not express himself clearly upon these
subjects which he undertakes to elucidate. It is therefore desirable to determine
whether or not he understands his position.
His first principle is that nothing cannot produce something. Life, he says, is not a
reality but an idea and in it is the fear of destruction called death, He shows that
life and death are no part of wisdom, for the words cannot apply to what never
had a beginning or ending. He proves by his theory and practice that every
person has within himself the power of creation and at the same time shows that
the life given to the creature is not in the thing created but springs from its author.
He says that the great creator of all things contains no life nor death, but as long
as the thing created remains a mystery, it contains life. Every false idea that man
believes in contains life as long as he believes it, but when the error is
discovered, the life is gone. Therefore, he says the absence of life is death.
He shows that man is a compound idea without wisdom or intelligence and he
appears to have these only when he is acted upon by an identity that has its
existence in the great father of all. He shows by his theory that two sets of ideas
are admitted in the world, one real and the other unreal; the real being those that
can be seen by the natural eye, the unreal, those that cannot be seen.
August 1864
Spiritualism I
BU 90:7, LC 6:142
Who are to judge of the phenomena of spiritualism; those who see the
phenomena or those who can produce them? It seems to be the opinion of those
who see the experiments and cannot explain them that they must be brought
about by spirits. So all explanation that is given which goes to show that it is the
works of the living cannot be true, for these men, wise in their own conceit,
cannot admit what these narrow minds cannot comprehend to be true. So this set
of wise men must give their opinion, and the world is bound to believe what they
know nothing about, for they admit it is only their opinion. Now I fall in company
with such persons every day and have conversed with them, and they cannot
give one single fact to prove their theory, only those based on a belief in spirits of
the dead. This error is so common and is believed by nearly every person, that to
deny it is to deny our own existence. Now every person that believes in spirits of
any kind is a believer in spiritualism although he may deny it. Yet he is ready to
believe at the first phenomenon that takes place that he cannot account for. So it
is with disease. All men who believe in disease admit it as a thing or spirit outside
of themselves, like spirits, and so they are liable to catch one when they are in a
right condition to take a place or see a spirit. This is the same with religion.
Every religion embraces these evils. Now to suppose that Jesus was a believer
in this is to make him a spiritualist which he positively denies. For when he was
accused of being a spirit, he denied it and said, A spirit hath not flesh and bones
as ye see me have. Now Jesus had a different idea of spirit from the rest of the
world. His spirits were of this world. They were a belief not of wisdom but what
flowed from a superstitious mind.
I will give one parable of his, the parable of the spirits leaving the man when he
wanders about and at last returns and finds the house swept and garnished and
then goes off and gets other spirits more wicked. Then he returns and takes
possession and then he sees the last state is worse than the first. Now in this
parable we shall see what Jesus thought of spirits, how much life they had and
what injury they could do. I will now make a proper illustration. Take a sick man
who believes he has consumption or any disease. His belief is himself a spirit,
not the spirit of truth, but of disease. Now let a person sit down and explain away
his belief and the spirit or fear leaves him and wanders around like a man's mind
when he is convinced of an error. At last it comes back in the form of a doubt, but
everything seems to be cleared up and his house or belief seems to be
completely swept of every error or doubt and he wanders around for happiness.
At last he runs against a doubt or bad spirit. This excites him and more doubt
comes up and these are spirits, so at last they return to his mind or house and
enter. Then comes the conflict with truth.
If the spirit of error gets the advantage, the truth is enslaved and error or evil
spirits rule and this last state is worse than the first. This is spiritualism and this
was Jesus' spiritualism. But the religious spiritualism is the belief in dead spirits,
good and bad, that inhabit another world. The only difference in them is whether
they come and converse with the living or not. Now Jesus never had any such
belief. He labored to convince the world of a science in regard to the working of
the mind, showing that the mind is capable of changes and that in these changes
is what we call reason and thought. And the science is to cultivate these thoughts
for they take form and if we do not understand that they are the creation of
ourselves of some other person, then our superstition calls them spirits. So the
act of thinking is the foundation of spiritualism, for if there was no thought, there
would be no improvement. This is the case with brutes. Their power of thought is
limited to their race, but if the brute be placed under a wisdom superior to
themselves, their matter or mind is lifted up, producing a higher state than the
original one. This is the same with the human species. Man is a thinking
machine. His thoughts are spirit or matter, like the shock of a battery controlled
by this wisdom. If his wisdom is of science, his thoughts are to him the reflection
of his wisdom, but if his thoughts are from his belief, they are spiritual.
So a corrupt fountain cannot bring forth pure water, nor a belief explain a
scientific fact. The science is to change the man or wisdom, not that you can
bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing, but there is such a thing as sound to
those who can hear and there is an echo. Call the sound the real and the echo
the spiritual, like action and reaction. The echo is opposed to the sound.
Reaction is the man of opinions and contains nothing but noise, yet it has its
identity and name and ignorance puts as much life in it as he does in action. For
those who see no reaction cannot see action, so when the action is not seen, to
such the action is dead. But to the scientific man, reaction is a spirit or the echo
of his own act. Now there is no life in the belief that wisdom is in the shadow or
reaction. Make man understand that what he sees is not himself but the shadow
or reaction and then he will not put life into the vessel, but will see himself outside
of the thing or world looking into it instead of being in the thing or vessel or body
looking out.
Here is the difference. The man of belief is in his belief; the man of wisdom is in
his wisdom. One is looking out of his belief to find wisdom and the other is in
wisdom looking into the belief to put wisdom or the real man. Such is the
difference between the religious world and Christ. The religious world is looking
for Christ to come, but Christ is outside looking into their beliefs, saying, I am with
you even in your own beliefs or hearts and you know me not, so repent and
break from your belief and rise in the truth. So the diseased man is in his disease
or spirit, for a spirit is a belief whether of disease, of God, of witches or of the
other world. All are of this world and science will destroy them all.
Our feeling is a state of mind like water. Cold water is expressed by some
intelligence outside the water. Hot water and all the varieties of heat are
expressed by language which expresses the change in the water. This is the
same with ideas. Like water, they affect man and the misery or pain depends
upon his fear and his fears are the result of his error. Let man know that his
thoughts are as harmless of themselves as water and he will not be getting into
trouble as he does. Disease is one of the troubles that follows his ignorance.
Make him learn that any spiritual idea is the out-bursting of a fountain and that
the water contains nothing bad but is a mass of water let loose, and he will be
better off.
So with mind that is under the direction of a belief. It lets off a volley of matter or
opinions in the form of every evil that can be imagined. To the wise it is as
harmless as the water but to the ignorant it contains what is bad and frightful. So
wisdom separates the wheat from the chaff and the separation is the end of the
world or the error, and this is science. As I give my wisdom to one particular
branch of this wisdom, that is the correcting of the false ideas of the sick, I have
to make war with every idea that affects them and the effect is shown on and in
the body through the mind, as it is called. Now the natural man treats the body as
the man and knows nothing of the owner. So he enters his neighbor's house and
upsets everything that is in harmony and sets up his kingdom of darkness or
opinion. So the children of darkness destroy the house. But when the true master
or wisdom comes, then he turns out the children of false ideas and puts in a
more intelligent set of ideas that will render unto the truth a better offering.
1864
Spiritualism III
BU 22:39, LC 9:170
[orig. untitled]
In presenting these facts to the public, my object is to reach those that have a
desire to judge for themselves of the truths of what is called spiritualism. I, for
one, contend that no person of any religious belief, infidel or skeptic, can explain
these phenomena that are taking place all over the civilized world from the fact
that an error has crept into man that prevents him from being outside of the
superstition of the world.
I will show how everyone is a party to his own belief. It is true man's belief
changes and this is the error that prevents him from giving an impartial
investigation. All men believe in what the world calls death and therefore
everyone agrees on this point, yet they differ in some little particulars. There is
one class that believes man does not die; he gets out of his body and his body
dies and the man lives. Now this is the belief of every person except those that
do not believe that man lives at all or they are afraid they don't. Now under these
false beliefs they undertake to investigate their own belief, when all they do is to
make it stronger. The spiritualists have the advantage of all the rest for all admit
the first principle that every person dies. Thus all the experiments are to prove
that they live, so they give an explanation of their belief and prove it. They
change the skepticism on spiritualism into a belief in it or drive themselves out of
one error into another, while those that are investigating run against a stumbling
block in the dark and say, "I do not believe that it is all spirits, but there must be
something to do with the living."
So I say that all the above classes cannot solve the problem. It must come from
some wisdom higher than any that has yet tried to solve it that the world has
known. Now I propose to solve this problem upon an entirely new theory never
advanced to the world. It is true there have been flashes of light in the intellectual
world but these flashes have never been under any wisdom higher than the
church or some scientific man with religious views, and the religious man of all
others is the very man to prove it. It is like taking a man that believes in ghosts to
account for their appearance in a house. He goes to sleep in the house all alone
and he is almost sure to see one. So it has been with all the great professors.
They are learned but they are also very superstitious or religious, and if they are
infidel, their infidelity is all vapor. They have no proof of it to offer to the world and
everything to destroy it. So when they begin to investigate it, their fears that it
may be true have the same effect that the clergy does that it may be the works of
the devil. Both are convinced of what they do not want should be true.
It may look like presumption on my part to stand before the world in opposition to
every person and contend that all these phenomena are nothing, governed by
superstition, but if you will listen to what I will bring as proof of what I shall say,
then you may judge for yourselves. I will state my principles upon what I believe
to be true. It will not be possible to give my theory in full at this time, but I am
preparing a work that will explain all these phenomena upon a scientific truth.
The object of this discovery is to show, so far as it goes, that man investigates
every phenomena according to his belief; and when he gets stuck he either
admits another belief or arrives at a science that will explain his error or belief.
I have no belief in regard to religion of any kind; neither do I have any belief in
another world of any kind. I have no belief in what is called death. In fact I am a
total disbeliever in any wisdom that ever taught any religion outside of man's
beliefs. Then you may ask what kind of a man are you without a belief? I have a
belief like all men, but it does not apply to what I have been talking about. I have
a belief on all subjects that are agitating the country. My remarks are confined to
this one thing-mind or belief in what is called spiritualism or religion. To me both
are the same.
I believe there was one person who had these same ideas and to that person I
give all the credit for introducing this truth into the world, and that was Jesus. I
have no doubt of his being the only true prophet that ever lived who had ideas
entirely superior to the rest of the world; not that he as a man was any better, but
he was the embodiment of a higher wisdom of that peculiar kind, more so than
any man who has ever lived before or since.
Perhaps you do not understand my meaning. Take the discovery of electricity.
There were men who had conceived in their minds some of the ideas of Franklin,
not that Franklin was of himself the discoverer or the person who reduced it to a
science, but this body was the medium that embraced the wisdom of the wise
into a sort of focus so that an experiment might be made to prove the principle.
Then it took the name of Franklin. The wisdom of the world is not confined to any
person, but when it begins to condense into a truth, it must exhibit itself through
some medium. This great truth called Christ was exhibited through the man
Jesus, the same as this great truth was exhibited through the man Franklin and
called electricity. There was a belief at the time of the destruction or overflow of
this great truth at the crucifixion of Jesus-that it should rise again. Since then,
there has been a constant development of facts showing that there was some
wisdom or power superior to man and the superstition of the world has kept it
down, as the superstition of slavery has kept freedom in chains.
Now I, as a man, claim no preeminence or superiority over other men but admit
my inferiority to the learned and wise, but then it was said by one who was
certainly superior to his followers that too much learning had made men mad or
superstitious. So learning, when wrongly directed, led to bad results. So it is with
the South. Their learning, being directed by the false instructions of their early
religious prejudices, led them to believe that slavery was a divine institution, so
their learning will be the cause of their own destruction.
I have none of these sins to answer for. I am free from all that false religion. But I
have had to contend with the devil or error for more than twenty years before I
was free. Now I stand as one that has risen from the dead or error into the light of
truth, not that the dead or my error has risen with me, but I have shaken off the
old man or my religious garment and put on the new man that is Christ or
Science, and I fight these errors and show that they are all the makings of our
own mind. As I stand outside of all religious belief, how do I stand alongside of
my followers? I know that I, this wisdom, can go and impress a person at a
distance. The world may not believe it, but to the world it is just such a belief as
the belief in spirits; but to me it is a fact and this is what I shall show. I shall show
by letters what I have said, that mind can produce all the phenomena that the
world has ever seen and I shall show in my work that Jesus never tried to teach
anything different from what I am teaching and doing every day.
1864
Spiritualism IV
[orig. untitled]
[The following paragraphs appear to date from 1864 and find
almost verbatim duplication in the last five paragraphs of the article
"Spiritualism III," where they occur with some minor changes in
wording, a few major ones, and a handful of additional phrases and
sentences.]
I have no belief in regard to religion of any kind, neither have I any belief in
another world of any kind. I have no belief in what is called death. In fact I am a
total disbeliever in any wisdom that ever taught any religion outside of man's
belief. Then you may ask what kind of a man are you without a belief? I have a
belief like all men but it does not apply to what I have been talking about. I have a
belief on all subjects that are agitating the country.
I believe there was one person who had these same ideas, and to that person I
give all the credit of introducing this truth into the world, and that was Jesus. I
have no doubt of his being the only true prophet that ever lived who had ideas
entirely superior to the rest of the world. Not that he as a man was any better, but
he was the embodiment of a higher Wisdom, more so than any man who has
ever lived.
Perhaps you do not understand my meaning. Take the discovery of electricity.
There were men who had conceived some of the ideas of Franklin, not that
Franklin was of himself the discoverer or the person who reduced it to a science,
but his mind was the medium that brought the wisdom of the wise into focus so
that an experiment might be made to prove the principle. The wisdom of the
world is not confined to any person, but when it begins to condense into a truth, it
must exhibit itself through some medium. This great truth called Christ was
exhibited through the man Jesus; the same as a great truth was exhibited
through the man Franklin and called "electricity." There was a belief at the time of
destruction or overthrow of this great truth at the crucifixion of Jesus that it should
rise again. Since then there has been a constant development of facts showing
that there was some wisdom or power superior to man and the superstition of the
world has kept it down, as the superstition of slavery has kept freedom in chains.
Now, I as a man claim no preeminence or superiority over other men, but admit
my superiority to the learned and wise.... I have none of these sins to answer for.
I am free from all that false religion. But I had to contend with the devil or error for
more than twenty years before I was free. Now I stand as one that has risen from
the dead or error into the light of truth-not that the dead or my error has risen with
me. I have shaken off the old man or my religious garment and put on the new
man that is Christ or Science, and I fight these errors and show that they are all
the makings of our own mind. As I stand outside of all religious belief, how do I
stand alongside of my followers? I know that I, through this Wisdom, can go and
impress a person at a distance. The world may not believe it, but to the world it is
just such a belief as the belief in spirits. To me it is a fact and this is what I shall
show.
1864
Strength I
BU 48:1, LC 9:116
[orig. untitled]
Does man put strength in his legs when he undertakes to rise from a chair?
Every one will say he does. Now this is not the case. When a person rises from a
chair he weighs nothing to himself, any more than his arm. Now just lift your hand
and see if it requires any strength and you will find it does not. It is as easy to
raise it as to put it down. Now take a ten pound weight in your hand and it
requires some force to lift it. Now is the power put into the arm or weight or
neither? I say it is neither, but you exercise a will outside the body and weight
just equal to the weight. The words weight, power and motion as used are all
applied to something that has no wisdom. If you wish to move a table, you do not
put the power in the table but in the weight or resistance, and then you use your
judgment to move the weight. Now the thing to be moved is called weight or
resistance.
Now comes in the science to know how to move the weight. The natural way is
for the power to come in direct contact with the weight. This is the natural man's
reasoning. The scientific man's reason suggests some purchase by which he can
move the weight with less power, so he invents or develops purchase. This
embraces another combination called time. This is often lost sight of by those
that have learned the benefit of the lever. They know that by the use of the lever
they can raise a weight that they can't lift by their physical strength, but they are
not aware that they have gained nothing by the lever. The lever is for
convenience and the loss of time is equal to the gain of power.
I will illustrate. Suppose you have a body to raise one foot that weighs one-
hundred pounds and your strength is equal to lifting twenty-five pounds. Now if
the weight was in four parts, the quickest way would be to lift twenty-five at a time
with the hand. But as the weight is all together, you get a lever that is four times
as long as the height you wish to raise the weight. Then place a fulcrum one
fourth of the length from the weight to be raised, so that the long end will be three
times as far to travel as the weight. And then apply your strength which is twenty-
five pounds to the long end of the lever and it will just balance. Then one ounce
will raise the weight and your twenty-five pounds will drop three times as fast and
the one hundred will rise. So three times as much velocity must be applied to
twenty-five pounds to balance three times the weight. So that what you have
gained in one case you have lost in another. This makes velocity and weight
equal.
Now although these principles are known, man never acts upon them when he
reasons about his body. He reasons as though his body and power were all one,
and in this way he acts against himself. I shall give some illustrations to show
how absurdly man reasons about his body. If he knew he was affected by his
own reason and that his body was as much a weight to him as he believed it to
be, and by false reasoning he acted against himself, then he would learn to
reason correctly.
I will show you how man reasons about his body and also show how he ought to
reason. To reason right man admits his body is heavy or weighty, but he also
admits that the power is in the weight to raise itself and if it can't raise itself then
the legs or lever are not strong enough to raise the body. So you will hear them
say, My legs are too weak for me to raise my body. This is the way the sick man
reasons. The well man does not reason at all. If he wants to get up he can, and
he does not know how he does it, nor does he care. Now the sick man cannot
rise and he begins to reason and if he fails, he applies to some physician who
knows just as much as he does, and both together know nothing, they reason
after this way. There is no strength in your knees and your back is weak. It must
have something to strengthen it. So they rub on some liniment or apply a blister
or something else. To me this is as absurd as if a man should put a green tree
under a rock and wait for it to grow so that it might be strong enough to raise the
rock. In fact it is not wise at all. It is the height of ignorance.
Man is just what he believes himself to be and if when sick he believes he is
heavy, he is so to himself. Now he is in a diseased state and it requires some
one to get him out of this dilemma. To reason as he reasons would be like the
blind leading the blind. I reason according to scientific principles with the sick
man. I say to him his body to him is like a weight to be raised; the power is his
will and the application or reason is the lever. The body is the weight or disease.
So to destroy the idea weight is to change the mind or get up an action like
reasoning and show him that as long as he waits for his body to grow strong he
is doing nothing. The strength is in his own understanding and this is outside of
his body or disease as the doctors call it. The weakness is in his error or mind
and that weakness reasons as though the body was weak.
Now when you will to rise, you make the same effort as though you were raising
any weight outside of yourself. You feel as though you must put power in your
limbs. And you also feel as though you were taking hold of a wooden man and
lifting him up on his feet and getting him balanced. Then it is time enough to put
motion in him; but the first is to feel as though you were a second person lifting
another. But if you feel as if you were lifting yourself, it is like trying to lift yourself
up by taking hold of the straps of your boots as you sit in your chair and see if
you can lift yourself out of your chair. One is just as absurd as the other. Just feel
as though you were outside