The Text - Section 24
Explanation of Science
BU 88:1
[orig. untitled]
Am I right in my explanation of Science when I say it is a knowledge of forces?
"Yes," but that does not cover all the combinations of the word, for science has
no established standard independent of error. I will try to give you a plainer
illustration of the word. To give an explanation of the word science, you must first
know what is to be tested. If intended to apply to acknowledged truths, then your
explanation covers all the ground. But if it is to be applied to wisdom not
understood, then it will not cover the objections, for opinions may come in, as
they are science by the natural man. True science is of the wisdom of God, false
science is of man; so in using the word, this difference must be kept in mind.
I will give you your position before the world in regard to me or this truth. You are
not to be supposed to be the truth or even to be me, but only to explain what I
teach. For instance, one person can execute music on a piano and yet be
ignorant of the science. Another can execute music and understand how he
learned it and how to teach the same to others. Now the masses acknowledge
both as musicians and class them in the same catalog. The scientific musician
knows they are not alike, but the masses cannot understand the difference, for
the tunes sound just alike to them. The wisdom of this world, or the masses, sees
no difference. Now the scientific musician wants someone to tell where he makes
the difference. He need not play or teach music, but show by experiment that one
can play a tune that anyone can bring him and at the same time show that the
other plays by rote.
Exposition of Dr. Quimby's Method of Curing
BU 84:47, LC 5:122
A patient comes to see Dr. Quimby. He renders himself absent from everything
but the impression of their feelings. These are quickly daguerreotyped on him.
They contain no intelligence but shadow forth a reflection of themselves which he
looks at. This contains the disease as it appears to the patient. Being confident
that it is a shadow of a false idea, he is not afraid of it but laughs at it. Then his
feelings in regard to the disease which are health and strength are
daguerreotyped on the receptive plate of the patient which also throws forth a
shadow. The patient seeing this shadow of the disease in a new light gains
confidence. This change of feeling is daguerreotyped on the doctor again, which
also throws forth a shadow and he sees the change and continues to treat it in
the same way. So the patient's feelings sympathize with him. The shadow
changes and grows dim and finally the light takes its place and there is nothing
left of the disease.
The First Symptoms of Disease
BU 1:29, LC 5:147
All disease is what follows some sensation on the mind or the fluids of the body.
Man's body is made of ideas admitted by the world of opinion. The man as we
see him is an idea or reality according to our belief. This makes one fact. All his
reasoning about himself are other ideas that are the life and intelligence of the
idea body. So if the idea man believes his body is out of order, to him it is so.
This is so with every idea made of the idea matter. Matter according to our belief
is porous and God can penetrate it. Wisdom is truth and error is matter or
darkness or it is porous. Wisdom is as much quicker than lightning, as thought is
quicker than the bullet from a gun. So as wisdom is so quick, all ideas are
nothing to it. For instance, look as you are riding in the cars at the high board
fences put up to prevent the snow from blowing in and drifting onto the track. You
know the boards of these fences fit very near together, so the cracks are not far
apart. But when the cars are going at a rapid speed, you can see objects on the
other side as plainly as though there was no fence. In fact you would scarcely
know there was any fence. This is the way with velocity; it destroys space and
distance and weight so that obstacles in the way are not obstacles to the velocity.
Velocity is like wisdom and opinion is like the fence. The wisdom of opinion
stands still and all is out of sight or nearly so on the other side of the fence, while
the wisdom that flies without time sees no fence but sees the objects its attention
is called to. So it is with the idea matter or thought; it is sent so quickly that to
wisdom it is perfectly transparent.
It is generally believed that the earth was once a ball of liquid fire cooled off on
the outside, that now in the center it is a fire and that people were travelling
round while it was cooling off. The prints of their feet are in the earth, also
remains of animals, etc. All of this is no doubt true, but the explanation of geology
is as absurd as the doctor's diagnosis of disease. The phenomenon of the earth
and of disease is just the same; both are founded in error and cannot stand the
velocity or progress of truth. Wisdom can see through the cracks or pores or
error of both and can show that neither is correct. Where were all of these living
things while the earth was in this liquid state, for they must have form and size,
since they are found embedded in rocks and in the earth. Modern theology is not
wise enough to explain these phenomena correctly or satisfactorily; but explain
them on the principle I have laid down in regard to matter, and then there is no
difficulty in understanding it.
To cure disease is to know what produced it, and to know that embraces all
man's ideas and wisdom of the creation of the world, for his religious opinions
embrace the creation of the earth and heaven and all things therein. Men reason
about all this and their ideas are sown in the mind, like seed in the earth. So he
is, as the scriptures say, full of dead men's bones and all sorts of corruption. The
idea earth is full of all sorts of ideas as much as man. Science is to analyze the
earth, and this explains to man his disease, for all are made of ideas. I will give
you an illustration of the growth of the idea earth by comparing it with man. To
base a truth on an idea is like building a house on the sand. When the wind of
investigation shall blow and the wave of science shall beat upon the house of
opinion, it must come down. Everyone will admit that wisdom is superior to the
idea matter. So we have two alternatives: either that wisdom was nothing before
there was matter or that matter is the creation of wisdom.
The world reasons about God as it does about man, that the brain is the seat and
origin of the wisdom of man and that the earth or matter is the dwelling place of
God and that neither God nor man has any identity out of matter. This is the
foundation of man's reasoning; therefore, if one is false, so is the other, but they
are false in one respect and true in another. It is true that the phenomena exist in
the mind of man or in his belief and that matter to the original man is his life and
wisdom, but to wisdom, out of a belief, this is false. The natural man cannot see
wisdom, for wisdom is not visible to the eye of matter. In all mathematics, there is
a wisdom to be admitted, like the principles in geometry. You first assume a truth
and then bring evidence to establish it as a fact. Imagine a vast void or space,
where nothing in the form of matter exists. No one is so ignorant as to suppose
there never was such a time. Every fact proves to the contrary and goes to show
that from the seed things grow, showing progression from void.
In this void, imagine wisdom superior to all the effects that have been developed.
Give this wisdom an identity with all the senses and faculties like man, only
independent of matter, and then you have a perfect fullness of wisdom. Its
motion is its own and from its own self comes all good and perfect wisdom. It
speaks ideas and they come forth. The ideas are in the widsom, as the mist is in
the air. As they move or act by their own wisdom that is in the ideas, it grows till it
gets condensed into a substance that attaches its life to its growth, as a child.
When the child is born, its life is attached to its body and as it grows or creates
new ideas, they become attached to the child and this makes the growth of the
child. No one supposes that a man does not know he was once a child. But if the
child could have been kept ignorant of its growth till he became a man, no one
could even make the man believe that he ever had any earlier existence.
Suppose a chicken hatched; after it became a hen, would it ever suppose it was
the inhabitant of an egg? It is so with everything that has life. Now suppose that
wisdom from some cause unknown to man spoke into existence everything that
hath life, yet like all other life there was progression. So if wisdom spoke worlds
into existence, it is not to be supposed that the worlds or planets were as large
as they are now. But the globe, like a child, is the growth of wisdom that is in
itself like everything on the earth that has life. Each life is not the same life. The
life of minerals is not that of vegetables and no two things are the same. Our
globe is one idea of wisdom and all the other globes and planets that make up
the solar system may be like one family, though each globe contains all the life
that ever can be. But the growth or development is progression. For instance,
man would not be formed before there was some place for him to live or rest
upon. So life attached to matter must have some foundation for the matter before
life could be attached to it.
Suppose this void was full of mist or life, not wisdom, but life. It would then be in
a state like man's mind to be formed into any idea that might be thought of. But
wisdom's works are all done at once. For instance, if you throw a rock into the air,
all the effects were in the act not developed at the time, but they showed
themselves as the progression went on. So when wisdom spake worlds into
existence, it is not to be understood that they could be seen as they are now but
were like thoughts taking form. From this fullness of life, worlds nursed its idea till
it became visible to the idea of itself and then its wisdom was its growth and its
life was its ideas. So its ideas fed of the life of this space. To know its growth is to
know what contains the least life, for its life is its wisdom, subject to a higher life
or progression. Every strata of the earth is a representation of development. So
one generation gives way to another more advanced, which lives on the latter.
As the earth is composed of all the elements of man, when it had passed through
all the generations of life, so as man came forth, he was the substance of all the
life of the earth. Man was first in this visible space with God or wisdom before he
became visible to the living things on the earth. When his life began to act in
matter, then it took form. This was man. I will show you that man reasons about
himself as the world reasons about the earth. The doctors and chemists analyze
men and beasts just as they do the earth. Neither supposes there is any
intelligence outside of what they analyze but think man's body is like the earth
and disease is in it or can get into it, also that man has nothing to do with it; but
this is not the case.
Seed did not make itself. It is the offspring of some life. And as man is the
offspring of all the living, it is not strange that his growth as well as that of the
earth should be encumbered by the errors of his predecessors. You will find
traces of the development of the earth, following along with its growth; so
superstition or the lower life often shows itself in the more enlightened lives. The
body like the earth is the birthplace of both. And the battle is whether the life of
progression shall rule, or the life of oppression, for where one is absent the other
rules. Oppression is the next stratum above pressure. The stone's power is to
press everything under it; ignorance is the same and might is right. When that is
conquered by error or by wisdom just enough to keep clear, then its power
departs and dies and it is buried. Over its grave springs up a wiser growth which
flourishes for a time till some new life is introduced and another battle is fought
and the dead are buried in their own ruins.
The earth developed itself by these strata until the brute creation appeared. Then
contending parties sprang up. The wiser overpowered the weaker and the earth
began to bring forth grass and yield its fruits, for the minerals were not known to
them. At last the life of the human species came forth. Now to suppose that the
man of our age contains the same combination of life as the first men did is to
suppose that the wisdom of man has never progressed. Man is made up of
opinions of truth and error and his life is a warfare like all other lives before him.
Everyone's hand is against his brother, for truth and error claim the idea man.
Wisdom is the son of God and error is the son of the lower life of animals. These
two characters are as easily distinguished from each other as light from
darkness. If the animal life is predominant, then man is arbitrary and
superstitious. If wisdom is predominant, it can be shown. The earth, like man, is
analyzed and geologists can trace life up to human beings. The earth is
examined, phenomena are discovered and philosophers have reasoned and
traced the mineral into the vegetable and the vegetable into the animal kingdom.
But their causes are not attributed to a wisdom outside and apart from all that is
seen. So the medical faculty have traced disease down from Adam to the present
time, not thinking that their own ignorance is the very cause of the phenomenon
they are trying to explain.
The earth commences like a child and every stratum shows the rise and fall of
some lower life. That part of the globe that would be called the least intelligent or
showing the least life represents the child. It may have seed but it cannot come
forth, any more than a child. It can grow and as the identity of the child dies, its
life is transferred to another identity or stratum. So the earth's life passes through
the ignorance of the mineral kingdom, buries its mother, and out of the covering
or stratum the vegetable life springs but brings some of its mother or mineral life
and phenomena are seen, half mineral, half vegetable. Thus the earth has been
growing and developing itself like man, but man is a life of a higher stratum of the
earth. So he brings into his life all the elements of all the other lives. When man
commences, he is like the earth. He is made of all the lives of the lower
kingdoms and his growth is to cover up the dead or ignorance of his birth. So he
grows in size and intellect, ridding himself of his old matter. The growth of his
body, he gets from the other lives and it is of his own existence, but eternal life is
from wisdom or God. This wisdom was in the first life of man. But it could not
come forth till the lower life or strata were fully developed to make the soil fit to
bring it forth. And when it sprang up, lower lives appeared also.
Here must be a battle between the life of man and the life of Science or God. The
latter has prevailed over the lower in nearly all discoveries except theology and
pathology, or religion and disease. These two phenomena are so plainly
discerned in man as tornadoes or disease are in the vegetable world. So far the
higher or scientific man has not arrived at an age to bring forth this new kingdom,
so the powers of darkness prevail and will until the time of reformation or
investigation comes. Then opinion will see that there is a science or wisdom
superior to itself. It is the science of analyzing the errors or phenomena of man.
The chemist can analyze mineral and vegetable life. But man never thinks that all
these developments of the earth are the natural result of ignorance, preparing for
a higher development of man. When man goes on developing error upon error till
he is buried in his own belief, it makes him but little higher than the animal
kingdom. But the wisdom of science is to explain the phenomenon of man called
disease, to show how they are made and how they can be unmade. This is as
much a science as to decompose a piece of metal, which is one of the natural
phenomena of ignorance in itself. No one supposes that the animal, mineral or
vegetable life is aware of itself, how it is affected, or how to account for any
phenomena that takes place. So the natural man is just as ignorant of the misery
he brings upon himself as the beast. Both are the natural development of matter
and the priest and doctor is the link between the animal and the scientific life.
Neither has developed one single idea of wisdom, but they are the stratum for
the scientific man to commence with. Their ideas are the field and their opinions
are the tares to be pulled up and burned. When the axe of science is laid at the
root of their opinions, you will see disease die and be buried in its own ruin. Out
of its soil will rise up wise men, who will rid the world of its errors and its sins.
Their iniquities shall be sealed up and the places where their opinions were once
believed shall believe them no more forever.
So ends the old theory of religion and the creation of disease. Instead of curing
disease, the doctors make it. The battle of disease is waged by the priests and
doctors against ignorance. The doctors through their ignorance make the
phenomenon. Their error calls it disease, their reason about the cure is a belief,
and if they succeed in making the patient believe, his ignorance corrects his error
sometimes and health is restored. Now if the child was never deceived, the
phenomenon of disease would never happen any more than among the brutes,
but our mode of reasoning makes disease. The diseases of brutes are like these
of men and men differ in regard to them as much as some men and brutes. If
disease was fashionable, you would not see so much labor used to get rid of it.
Take a person whose disease makes him feel as though he wanted to be
noticed; it is very hard to cure him.
A Future Life
BU 57:9
All persons admit that after death there is something that lives. Now where is that
something? When man is alive, you see him moving around, talking, reasoning,
etc. All this is a truth and a part of man. We are all told so and taught to believe
that this body or man contains life, that after a while it decays and dies and there
is an end of it. Now where is the proof that there is anything which rises from the
grave or this body according to the common opinion of man's belief? Does not
the common opinion go to strengthen this belief?
Are we not all taught by the clergy to prepare for death, that it will come sooner
or later and we must die and run the chance of a hereafter?
The doctors also preach the same story and invent all manner of bugbears in the
form of disease to frighten us into the belief that we are in danger of death all the
time. Public opinion falls in with the same belief and is it strange that with all this
influence acting upon us sickness and misery and all sorts of trouble must follow
this belief?
Now what is there to counteract all these facts? A mere belief that 1,800 years
ago a man was on earth that God acted through, or a more absurd idea that it
was God himself that left his throne in heaven and came down on earth and told
the inhabitants that there was a place after death that he had prepared for them
that loved him; and all those that did not love him more than all other things or
earthly friends could not get into this place of happiness but were to be shut out
or excluded from the presence of God. This was eternal banishment from his
presence.
The Healing Power
BU 17:9
This power, which from the beginning of the world has been associated with the
goodness of God, has placed those endowed with it above the masses, like
people chosen by God to administer to the suffering of the human race. So the
sick, who are always ready to worship the person who cures them, are very
loathe to believe such dishonesty. This gives those who had this power a
superiority over the sick which they willingly acknowledge to them. In this way
religious sects sprang up established by cures, the person claiming that the
power was from God. This gave it a religious sanctity and gave these persons
power over the sick. Finally the healing power fell into the hands of the priests.
Now the power to heal and the right to dictate are two things. The healing is of
itself a peculiar gift to the world like any wisdom not reduced to practice. So
those who healed were honest, but as soon as their interest came in, there came
the deception and as the deception began to show itself, the power ceased. This
was the way at the time of Christ. Those who healed had become so corrupt that
they were a pest in society, the priests being the worst. A quarrel arose between
these two classes and each gave the power to God, so that at the time of Jesus
the thinking classes looked upon both as humbugs.
How A Cancer Is Sown in the Mind
BU 110:4
[orig. A CANCER IS SOWN IN THE MIND]
It is nourished by human wisdom which says, A cancer is a living thing
independent of our knowledge, that will eat and eat till it eats away life. This fact
takes root in every part of man's sensitive system till his whole frame has
become adjusted to it. The result is that the body takes form according to the
growth of the seed; the mind, deriving its productive power from wisdom, keeps
changing and changing till a living cancer is brought forth in the flesh.
The mind of man is like matter or soil which will bring forth vegetation, and man
himself is the planter. When a new sensation is felt, we want to know what made
it; and as all our knowledge of ourselves makes causes of things which come to
our bodily senses, we reason that it was occasioned by some of our acts in which
we disobeyed some law of nature and therefore this new feeling is the
punishment. We may reason still further and discover what particular law we
disobeyed and the name or nature of its penalty. This we ascertain without
difficulty; perhaps it is one that attacks our very life, consumption. This terrible
name disturbs the mind to its very depths; it takes root and the whole body is set
to work to produce the disease. It derives its principle of life from the
changeableness and futility of the mind; its poison is that of a falsehood; its
efficiency is in our receiving and believing it as true. It may be asked what one's
wisdom had to do with this? It simply sustains the power of creating.
It does not originate or condemn anything wrong, but sets men to work to try to
correct their troubles themselves. This is only done successfully in any
department by the application of truth to human reason. At one time all mankind
believed in a personal devil, but in the progress of intelligence, he has been
reasoned entirely out of existence in many of his relations to man. But although
he is nearly dead as an individual, yet his works live after him and flourish like a
green bay tree. They contain the subtlety, the poison and the hypocrisy of the
serpent and are neatly covered up in our reasoning and opinions, often forming
the most fascinating and respectable qualities of individuals.
How Disease Is Made and Cured
LC 4:121
[orig. HOW DISEASE IS MADE, HOW CURED, OBSTACLES TO THE
PROGRESS OF SCIENCE]
In my remarks on death, I said that every opinion had a center and this center
was an idea. I will try to make this plainer for it is the center or foundation on
which all error rests. Destroy this and disease is out of the mind, for this central
idea is the fortress that error erects to keep the subject in submission-this is the
enemy's fortress. As wisdom is its enemy, it keeps up a constant cannonading to
frighten wisdom into subjection. This idea is built by public opinion got up by
demagogues or doctors and priests; its father or founder was a liar, its foundation
is ignorance and superstition, its reign is tyranny and slavery to wisdom, and its
victims are ignorance. This kingdom of darkness is the errors of man; every
man's mind is subject to this prince of darkness; its power is in its popularity; its
laws are arbitrary and binding on all; it knows no mercy; its chief end is the
destruction of man's happiness. For that purpose it holds out large rewards, as it
did to Jesus, to those who will enter its service. Its honesty is hypocrisy and in
fact its whole aim is slavery or power.
I have given you a little idea of one world; this is Satan's kingdom. What classes
does it embrace? It embraces every opinion of man. Ignorance is the foundation.
Destruction to freedom or science is its chief end so its leaders invent all sorts of
falsehoods and bind them onto the people or matter which is liable to be changed
or molded into their belief. Every inducement is held out to persuade the senses
to become interested in their idea or opinion. Now an opinion is like a city or town
that has its center or laws. So as man's senses are traveling, like the man going
down to Jericho who fell among thieves, he listens to these false leaders and
hears of some idea like a place. It is described to him by some doctor or priest in
an earnest manner. This excites the mind, curiosity is aroused, the senses leave
their home or father's house like the prodigal son and wander away into this
place or state. Here he is accused of being a stranger and is cast into the belief.
The belief is the prison. The idea is the laws and if he chances to hear of
diphtheria, he believes it is as much a place as Boston. So if he chances to go
near the place and happens to feel a soreness of the throat, he is accused and if
he acknowledges that he has it, then his acknowledgement becomes a belief.
This places him in the prison and the sentence being passed, punishment
commences. The prison or belief embraces all persons who have transgressed
the laws of diphtheria. So every opinion is a prison or place to hold the person
that believes it and man's senses may have as many indictments against him as
he has opinions. If science is wisdom, it is used to free men from these prisons.
So Science or Christ enters the cities or towns and pleads the case of the senses
that are imprisoned, and if he gets the case, the prisoner is set at liberty or the
senses detached from the idea and the error in the mind explained. Then the
prisoner or senses rises from the place of torment to the kingdom of health. Here
you see one government or kingdom founded on error. Its boundaries are
opinions, its subjects are superstition and its laws are for the destruction of
science.
To destroy this kingdom is to introduce science so that the warfare is endless, for
neither party will yield. No compromise is entered into by science, but as the
kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. Now as these two parties are in
one man, it may be necessary to define their tactics and show how the senses
may keep clear of both. One party assumes an idea and uses all their cunning to
make it admitted by the senses, so when that is established, then commences
the argument. The opposite side, being more ignorant but more honest, admits
the idea but tries to destroy it. Here is an illustration: the children of the kingdom
assert that sin is of divine origin, so the opposite acknowledge it and then try to
reason it out of existence. They say that Adam's sin was the cause of all sin.
Admitting it, then they try to show how inconsistent it is. They say sin is death;
when admitted it becomes a law so they go on assuming anything, and the other
side admit, then argue about it, so that the kingdom of science is not known in all
their reason. Science has battled down the walls of error and established liberty
or science in much of their kingdom; it has hewn down the trees of superstition
and established the science of mathematics. It has struck at the science of
health. This is an unbroken wilderness never entered by man. Ever since the
days of Moses there have been adventurers but none have as yet planted the
standard of life with such an inscription: "The Science of Life is in the
wilderness." Jesus tried to do it but was crucified before it became a science.
Paul and all of his disciples also tried but no one has ever yet been able to
penetrate through this dark wilderness and raise the standard and sustain it. As I
have done so, it may be necessary to give a "physical" sketch of the inhabitants
who lay in wait to devour everyone who enters this place. Now if you, reader, will
follow me into this wilderness, you can see what man's senses have to contend
with. As you enter at the East you see all sorts of improvements going on, just as
though there was no wilderness anywhere around. The first person you meet is a
very gentlemanly looking man who accosts you in this way. I perceive you are a
stranger in these parts. "Yes." Are you not aware of the danger you are in? "No."
You must have known of that cruel enemy to man that inhabits this wilderness of
error; he comes prowling around, his breath is sure to poison you, his name is
consumption, his place of birth is in the wilderness of error and very few ever get
rid of his grasp. "Where does he attack man?" In the throat and holds on to him
till his master comes; if the person will pay enough the master will let him off, if
he can, but in the battle, the master ninety nine times out of a hundred loses the
victim. "Do not the inhabitants do anything to destroy such monsters?" No, for
our very best men use the creatures or devils called disease to rob strangers.
In the foregoing piece I have undertaken to separate the two ideas life and death,
and as I explained but one side of the question, I will now give the other which is
life. I showed that death is opposed to life. I did not use that term but you will see
that that was what I meant. Now death is life to the natural man as much as error
is. Truth and error have their kingdom and our senses are in one or the bother
just according to our acts. I gave an explanation of the natural ;man or error
which is matter and showed that all our misery is in our ignorance of the other
kingdom called life or science. This Kingdom or Science is that spoken of in the
scriptures which was hewn out and came down to earth or the natural man and
became embedded in the hearts of the people. This was the stone or Science
that the builders of error rejected which has been the head or foundation of the
new Science of Life.
This science or child was the one that was without father or mother. It had no
beginning of days or ending of years, but it is from everlasting to everlasting. It
was the rock that followed Moses in the wilderness of superstition, and upon
whomsoever this rock or science falls, he shall be crushed to powder. Science is
all the solid there ever was or ever can be and is directed by wisdom and cannot
act contrary to itself. It is progression; it knows no evil; it is a consuming fire that
will rage till it burns up every selfish idea. It is never found boasting of its wisdom;
it is not puffed up. It sits and sees itself swell in the hearts of the people but they
see it not. Their minds are now seeing the light that is going before them; they
are afraid, so that even the kingdom of darkness is in rebellion against itself. The
leaders begin to tremble, for they see that the angel of science has sounded his
trumpet; the earth or matter is moved out of its place; the stars of parties are
falling and the powers of the kingdom are shaken. Their sun or science has
ceased to be an oracle of these blind guides. The moon or their error gives no
light and the people or ideas are running to and fro, up and down on the earth or
mind, not knowing what to do to be saved from the plagues that are coming upon
them. So they pray and fast and throw dust into each other's eyes till they cannot
see; the heavens or minds become so dark they run against each other's ideas,
and in their desperation to escape the misery of their own making, they run
headlong into the sea of public opinion and are lost to the world. Now the life of
these blind guides or demagogues is in their error; the length of their days is in
their wisdom; and when their wisdom is destroyed by that of science, they die
and are forgotten. The wind of science passes over them and the places that
once knew them shall know them no more. For their iniquities are sealed up in a
bag and their wickedness is laid in the ground, and as the children of science
pass along and look upon the ground that these demons inhabited, they see not
one stone left upon another. The spears of superstition had been beaten into
ploughshares; science has ploughed up all the stubble and burnt up all the
rubbish. The fields of life are bringing forth the flowers of happiness; the streams
of blood have turned into living waters to quench the soul that is playing on the
green grass. The birds of wisdom are sounding their notes of peace and all the
people rejoice, for the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of science.
The old world or beliefs are passed away and a new belief or heaven is set up in
the hearts of men, where all beliefs shall be tested by science and the wicked or
error shall be destroyed.
Now this is the new kingdom of which I am about to speak. I will give you an idea
of this kingdom or science and show for what it was established. I have shown
that the kingdom of darkness was the devil's or error's kingdom, established by
error or the natural man, and the destruction of happiness was its chief end. Now
science or life is the other, and its chief end is the destruction of error but its
means are not the same as those of its enemies. Its leader is Christ or Wisdom; it
aims at opinions; its march is progression; it knows no fear; its captain is
Wisdom; its qualities are love. It neither turns to the right nor to the left. It is death
to error when error undertakes to retard its progress. It seeks not its own
kingdom or happiness but works on earth or in man for his happiness. Its aim is
to establish its wisdom in man, and as it is a science, its identity is eternal life or
progression. For this cause, it leaves father and mother or error and ignorance,
goes into the kingdom of darkness and seeks out the poor, sick ideas which are
prisons wherein are the children of science, having been deceived by their blind
guides. It enters the prison or belief, unknown to the keeper, for wisdom cannot
be seen by error and error or matter is no obstacle to wisdom. It pleads in this
prison with the captive, reasons and teaches the Science of Happiness and
protects the prisoner from its enemies in this wilderness of darkness-as Christ,
when the king of error sought his life after it grew to have an identity. Herod killed
all the children in his reign; so has everyone since. Now this science is only
named: what its end will be no one knows, not even the science but wisdom
itself. One thing is certain. The time will come when the opinions of priests and
doctors must give way to the Science of Life, for their opinions lead to death and
misery but the Science of Life is health and happiness.
How Does Dr. Quimby Stand in Relation to His Patients?
BU 40:36, LC 8:35
[Part 1 of orig. HOW DOES DR. QUIMBY STAND TOWARDS HIS PATIENTS?]
He stands as a lawyer stands to his client. He pleads their case before the court
of Science or Truth; his pleas are their medicine, their opinions are their crimes,
the punishment is the disease and the phenomenon is the prison. The medical
men are the mouthpiece of public opinion or error and every phenomenon that
takes place must first pass the fire of their batteries and they must give an
explanation to everything which is received as truth; so being blind guides, they
lead the blind till they all fall into the ditch of error and wallow in their own filth. To
get them clear from this mire, which is opinions or disease, is to show that part of
them which is diseased is the cause of the misery and the argument is the
medicine. I will show you how the medicine works.
Disease is a chemical change. Take the infant, for example. When it is born, its
ideas are its body, like the earth in its original state. As the ideas develop the
body develops and the original seeds or ideas come forth; these are called
mother wit or natural sense. This is the earth spoken of in the Bible. Out of this
earth, God or truth made man or opinions and ambition or what is called the
natural man without science. It was not good that opinions should be alone, so
out of opinions came a higher element. Science is not a natural production of
error or the earth or child, but it is from a higher state called God or Wisdom. As
the child is the vineyard or earth, the man or opinion is the husbandman and the
Science or woman is the wife. So opinions or man thinks he is the wisdom, while
wisdom is the owner or proprietor of the whole earth.
The child is like the garden and error or opinions is the man, and wisdom lets out
the vineyard to man to cultivate the little ideas or original growth of the earth. As
new ideas are sown in the mind, they spring up in the form of reason making the
man; and the fruits are opinions etc.; out of this man comes the spiritual or
scientific man. This man is not seen by the man of opinions, but he is the real
man. I will illustrate these two characters.
A little tree grows up, blossoms and bears fruit. This all comes to the natural
sight. The fruit throws off an odor which cannot be seen, yet it is in the
atmosphere and can be detected by the odor or life. This life sees in the odor the
apple and all its peculiar properties. This is the spiritual senses or the life of the
apple tree, so the natural man works out the real essence or property of God into
the spiritual or scientific man that cannot be seen by the man of opinions but is
the real man.
To understand how I cure is to see yourself outside of the natural man or your
opinions, like the odor of the apple, with all your senses or reason; then instead
of you, that is the essence being in matter, you will see that matter is in the
essence. It is often said that God is in everything. This makes God less than the
thing He is in. Now make God the essence with all the senses attached to it; then
you have an eternal and everlasting essence without matter or form, a point
without magnitude but eternal. Call this eternal Wisdom the Father of all that
exists out of matter; see this Wisdom by its will speak the idea matter into
existence and everything that man calls life. All these things are in the knowledge
of this Wisdom, not the Wisdom in the things that are spoken.
It is the same with man. His wisdom is the living man. His opinions are the body
or natural man. To put his wisdom into his opinion is to make an opinion greater
than a scientific truth. Disease is an opinion. To put man's wisdom into it is to
make the disease larger than the real man.
It is a common remark that after we shake off this mortal coil, the spirit will be set
free. This is acknowledging that the body is larger than the mind or wisdom. No
wonder that with such a belief men pray to be delivered from this body of sin and
death.
Thanks to this wisdom I, my wisdom, can see myself outside of this earthly belief
and afloat in the ocean of space, where opinions are like stones and pebbles that
men throw at each other, while to me they have no weight at all. All these are in
me, that is, in my wisdom and not wisdom in them. I stand in my wisdom to the
sick who are in their opinions trying to get out, and the harder they try the deeper
they get into the mire. So Wisdom pleads their case, and if I get their case, then
opinion is destroyed and health resumes its sway. If you understand this, you can
cure.
The Identity of God or Wisdom
Ignorance of Man in Regard to the True God
BU 84:25, LC 5:105
PART 1
We are told that God is watching all our acts and that he knows all our thoughts.
When we ask if he has an identity, the answer is, No, but he is everywhere. He
fills all space and we pray to him asking him to listen to our wants as a child asks
a parent. All this is ignorance of the God we worship. There is no person who has
the least rational idea of an intelligence independent of man. Yet, all see and will
admit that there is something which we cannot comprehend. I have been trying
all my life, ever since I was old enough to listen, to understand man's reasoning
and see if people understood what they professed to believe. After some fifty
years of thinking and listening to people's opinions about God, I have come to
this conclusion: that ninety-nine hundredths of mankind are listeners to some one
telling a story, like the Arabian Nights in marvelousness, till they get excited, like
a mesmerized person, and really create the scenes in their own minds, believe
them to be true and will suffer death rather than abandon their belief.
This is the state of society in regard to religion. But as science has progressed, it
has explained some of the greatest errors. Still, nine-tenths of every man's
wisdom is of that class. I know I was as free from superstition as almost any one,
yet I was full enough of it and all the while I was not aware that I had a belief of
any kind. For the last twenty years, I have been ridding myself of my old
superstitions and am now better prepared to see it in others. I have sat with more
than three hundred individuals every year for ten years. And for the last five
years, I have averaged five-hundred yearly, people with all sorts of diseases in
every possible state of mind. Also I have sat with hypochondriacs and have seen
insanity brought on by all kinds of ideas that people believe in. I will name some
of the beliefs which have caused insanity.
Religion in its various forms embraces many cases. Some cases have been
occasioned by the idea that they committed the unpardonable sin. When asked
what it was, no two persons ever answered alike. One had neglected a little child
by not sending for the doctor. She herself had lost her father and mother and the
doctor had killed two children and she thought she could cure the third herself,
but it grew worse and then she sent for the doctor. When the doctor came, the
child was quiet but almost gone. He gave it an emetic, which threw it into
convulsions and then it died. All this affected the mother who put all her trouble
into the idea that she had committed the unpardonable sin by not calling the
doctor before. I had to convince her that if she committed any sin, it was that she
sent for him at all. I could prove this, for she acknowledged that she believed the
medicine the others had taken had been the cause of their death. Here is one of
the superstitions of our belief, that if a person does not send for a doctor, he
commits a very great sin. This is brought about by the doctor's telling the
neighbors that if he had been sent for before, he might have cured the patient.
Then the neighbors are down on the mourners, accusing them of being mean
and stingy, preferring their friends should die rather than go to the expense of
having a physician. This error I am glad to say is dying away and people are not
bound by public opinion to send for a physician to torment the dying but let them
die in peace. Another error I have tried to correct that has killed many a person is
to send for a priest to pray with the sick. This is done more than the former. I
have seen the bad effect of it and know how it works.
An Illustration
BU 27:22, LC 9:97
As an illustration of what I claim to have discovered which the natural man has
never had any proof of except by a belief, I will take an egg. Man would never
have believed it contained a chicken until he had the truth developed before his
eyes. Take a pair of doves, when they are first hatched, and keep them separate
from all other doves till they come to maturity. Now will anyone deny but that the
female dove has a certain knowledge, instinct or something equivalent to it, that
there is something contained in the egg similar to herself, and she will act
accordingly, and hatch and protect her young to the best of her ability. Now that
something, call it what you will, is superior to the natural man. The chicken is not
ignorant of itself as being in the world till it breaks through the shell, for it is
possessed of life and will peep and peck.
This wisdom in man is like the unhatched chicken trying to break through the
shell of error and assume its real character or identity. The chicken is not
ignorant of its identity in the shell, nor is the child of wisdom ignorant that it
exists. Although it knows that it is in the shell of superstition, it is beating the
hammer of science to break the or prison and escape from belief into the land of
science. Take a person as we see him; place him in a mesmeric state, then he,
to world, is like the chicken in the shell. His natural senses or shell lies cold and
clammy as death, for speak to it and it moves not. You touch it and it awakens no
response. Now every person has life and intelligence, not of the body nor within
the medium of its senses, for the mesmeric sees and describes things at a
distance which it would be impossible to do through his natural senses, and still
he has all his senses and will taste and smell and describe what no one present
knows anything of. Now here you have an invisible being that exists outside of
his senses describing things truthfully which you never saw or heard of. Now let it
break through the shell that binds it and awake or pass into this world, and at last
it begins to act in another sphere. Now what I am trying to teach is to educate
man to up to that state where he shall know that he exists and can prove to the
natural man what the natural man knows nothing of and has never
acknowledged.
Immortality, a Dialogue
BU 69:1
(Pupil) What do you believe about the immortality of the soul?
(Teacher) I have no belief about it.
(P) Do you believe that man has a soul?
(T) I do not know.
(P) Do you believe in death?
(T) What do you mean by death? The crumbling and decay of the body?
(P) Yes.
(T) Yes, I believe in that.
(P) What do you call that which exists after the body crumbles?
(T) I call it the same that existed before the body crumbled.
(P) What is that?
(T) A part of God which can control matter.
(P) I call that the soul.
(T) Well, we will not quarrel about terms.
(P) Where does this something exist after the body dies?
(T) Just where it did before.
(P) Where was it then?
(T) Just where it is now.
(P) Where is that?
(T) Where we are.
(P) Can you see it?
(T) Did you ever see it?
(P) No.
(T) How do you know then that there is one?
(P) Because I see the body moving about.
(T) So do beasts move about. Have they souls?
(P) No, perhaps not. Will you give me your ideas on this subject?
(T) I know that I exist and this truth does not require taste, sight or any of the five
senses to prove it to myself. Does it to you?
(P) No.
(T) This fact proves another fact, viz: that we can exist independently of the five
senses. This part which exists independently of the five senses is what is
immortal, but owing to a vague idea as to what soul means I prefer not to use
that term. I will call it the man. This man contains within himself the knowledge of
the five senses. He also contains within himself all the faculties of the mind, and
by these faculties the man wisdom forms his own body. This by the world may be
called an opinion, but I arrive at it by previous reflection. To this body he attaches
the five senses and thus life is given to it. If any accident happens to this body
and the man wisdom detaches his senses and faculties from it, the man has not
lost anything, although the world may call him dead. But the world has never
seen the man or his faculties, only their representatives or shadow. To the man
the change is no greater than if he were to turn from viewing himself in one mirror
to viewing himself in another. Life and death are to the world conditions. When
the faculties are attached to matter which the world can see, this is a condition of
life; when detached from that and attached to what the world cannot see, that is
called a condition of death. But with wisdom the whole is reversed. Life and
death are merely ideas that may be changed.
Intelligence
BU 3:127, LC 3:213
[ orig. untitled]
You ask me to explain what I mean by that intelligence that is independent of a
person's identity as a natural man. I will try to give you the true answer. The
natural man is made of the substance called dust of the ground, that is of living
matter. This matter is always changing and as it is life it receives into it the
essence of wisdom and this essence or identity receives its birth from the
wisdom or First Cause. As wisdom is all knowledge it fills all space, so that the
natural life or matter is its servant. So as this wisdom spoke the identity called
man into existence, essence is in that identity. So that when a child is born, the
matter contains this essence. Now I speak of the natural man; he is made of
mind and matter; the matter is that part that compares to death; the mind is that
which is called wisdom of matter. Now wisdom is the First Cause. The essence is
the result or effect of wisdom.
Every living being is made of this essence or idea of matter. This essence is
wisdom or progression and as it is attached to matter, it has its father or mother
that protects it till it is able to protect itself. But the wisdom of matter has its
identity, just as much as the wisdom of God has its identity, so that man has two
identities: one of error and the other of science; so as one is destroyed, the other
is set free. Each wisdom has no form only as it is attached to an idea. Our
wisdom may or may not be attached to things seen by the natural man. Yet it has
an identity and is the very substance that makes the shadow we call man. But
the natural man is so gross that he cannot see wisdom or light, so that things
must be shrouded in darkness. When I speak to you, that which speaks is not the
thing that speaks but the shadow of the substance.
I think I hear you say I do not understand. That voice comes from the world of
error. But I hear a different voice that speaks from the inner scientific man, saying
I understand.
Jesus and His Teachings
BU 1:11, LC 5:130
PART 2
You may ask me if I deny that there was such a man as Jesus. I answer, No. I do
not doubt there was, anymore than I doubt that there was such a man as
Washington. But I have doubts that Jesus was the author of the Christian religion
or had anything to do with it. Its author lived in heathen ages and it has been
modified as science developed itself. I believe it is a stain on the character of the
man, Jesus. I will here give my ideas of Jesus and the introduciton of Christ,
which was Jesus' teacher or the God in Jesus, or God manifest in the flesh. At
the crucifixion of Jesus, there was not much account of him. It is said Josephus
speaks of him, thought that is denied. Therefore, there could be but very little
excitement about him at that time. All we hear from him is the account gathered
some years after his death. Paul's conversion took place thirty years after his
death and at that time, he was so unpopular that Paul was destroyed.
Everyone knows that religion has been a thing like politics, changing like the
Democratic party. Yet, its disciples claim to be followers of Jesus as the
democracy claim to be followers of Jefferson. Now there is not one single idea
advocated by the parties of either Jesus or Jefferson that was ever thought of by
these men, yet they claim to be followers of Christ. Go back to the Puritan fathers
and you will find the Christians hanging the Quakers and burning the witches.
Still later, you see these very Puritans fighting every sect differing from them. The
true followers of Christ at this day are disciples of Wesley, Calvin, etc. Now their
religion is a creed and nothing else and unless you subscribe to it, you are not a
follower of Jesus. Jesus was the man who brought this true light or Christ to light,
which the priests have crucified. It came to them first and they refused it. Then it
turned to the Gentile or scientific world and has since then been working in the
hearts of the wise, and will always, till priesthood and superstition have been
blotted out of the natural man.
Return with me to the days of Jesus and see if I do not give his mission a higher
character than what is claimed by the priests and all the religious wars made by
the priests. Everyone who reads the history of Jesus will see that he never
intended to get up a party on his own account, but tried to enlighten the people
on such subjects as would be for their happiness. The people were groaning
beneath the Roman yoke and led by priests who ruled them by a rod of iron,
robbing the widow and fatherless by pretending to pardon their sins. In fact they
were a complete engine of deception, playing upon the superstition of the
masses without the least regard for the people's happiness. This was the state of
the people at the birth of Jesus. Many groaning in their captivity were
prophesying for someone to deliver them, but no one came. Now when this
promise had so matured in the hearts of the people, it must come forth; a child
must be born capable of receiving the science, just as it is in the discovery of any
new knowledge, the discovery of America, for instance. The minds of the people
must be excited so that a certain chemical change will produce a child that can
receive this wisdom. So Columbus was born, not with a knowledge of his future
life; but when the time came, it came forth, and the people called it America.
Franklin was also born after a certain change in the soil of the mind, preparatory
to the production of a new idea or science. Eighteen-hundred years ago, the
world had become so disturbed by their religion that a child was brought forth to
all appearances like other children, with this peculiarity: his mind was preparing
to receive this great truth called Christ. But the child Jesus was as ignorant of it
as Franklin, Columbus or Fulton were of their future. All new sciences come
when they are the least wanted by the wise, for they are disturbed in their
position; therefore, they must expect to meet with opposition. This is as it should
be, for there will arise false lights that will deceive, so there should be some way
to test them.
When Jesus came of age, he was informed with regard to the religion of his day;
and as John the Baptist was preaching, it was not unlikely that the young man
would go to hear him. As he heard him telling of a truth that would strike at the
roots of this heathen wilderness and every tree or theory that could not stand the
test of such a blow must come down, he was excited then by the Holy Ghost or
this truth and was carried up into a wilderness where he could see all their craft
and hypocrisy. Like all men who get a new idea or truth into their heads, they
want to make the most of it, but there is a point where selfishness gives way to
sympathy for his fellow man. This was the case with Jesus. His wisdom knew no
bounds and to cramp it would be to betray it into the hands of its enemies. To
declare it would be to run the risk of his life. He came to the conclusion that it
was his duty to listen to the voice of those poor sick ones bound down in prison
by the priests and come out and separate himself by standing up and
denouncing the political engine that was crushing the poor to death. His first act
was to do good. So he started out and called on men who were fishing to follow
him. Then he went preaching this science and proving it by his works. In this way
he saw that the priests' opinion made the people sick and affected them in many
ways. So he preached the truth by showing how they had been deceived. This
the people gladly received and were healed. So he cured all manner of diseases
by the word of his mouth.
Language
BU 23:1, LC 6:115
PART 1
One great error that man has to contend with is language. To repeat language is
a mere effort of memory and to tell the meaning of words is the same. Now
language was invented to convey some idea and not to be used without any
meaning. Every word contains either something or nothing and goes to help
make up an idea or form or belief in something. There are words used that
convey the true idea. The word nothing conveys an empty space and no person
expects to see or feel any effect from the word. But there are other words that
convey to our senses matter in some form. Yet, when analyzed, they contain not
one particle of matter or substance any more than the word nothing. Now I shall
show that there are a class of persons who pretend to know all about the original
language, yet they use words and give the definition of them so that they have no
meaning at all.
All persons will agree on what there is no chance to differ. If I show that words
are used as empty of matter as the word nothing, then it will be seen that there is
a chance for improvement. Every word that is spoken conveys to a person the
idea of something, but the same word may convey to another, nothing. For
instance, I say to a child, Did you ever see a bear? Now the word to me contains
the matter to make the bear, yet to the child, it is an empty sound. If I do not
impart something from the idea to the child, he is profited nothing. If I persist in
impressing the child's matter with the idea till the senses become cognizant of
the fact, then the child is wiser. But if I do not, the talk is an empty sound.
Therefore words, although to me they may contain something, still, if I have not
the power of imparting the substance to another, they are as nothing.
Every word is filled with something in the form of matter. This something is
thrown out by the person who uses the word and this affects another mind in the
form of a sensation. Now if the sensation is not recognized by the person that
receives it, then it excites their curiosity to learn the cause. I will suppose a case,
for sensation contains no wisdom to the person receiving it till he is made
acquainted with the substance of the thing spoken. If a Frenchman should ask a
person (in French), Have you ever seen a cat? If the person addressed was
ignorant of French, to him the word would contain no wisdom, although the
Frenchman had wisdom. But the wisdom was in him and not in the words. While
they are talking a cat comes into the room, and the Frenchman says, Voila un
chat. Now he has imparted his meaning and both have wisdom in regard to the
animal, but the wisdom is in them and not in the cat. Now here is the trinity in the
principles of reason. The word is the name of the Father, the cat or matter, the
Son or theory and the application of the word to the animal was the Holy Ghost
or explanation of the union of the Father and Son. The word God is the word for
that substance called the father, Jesus or the matter, the son; the explanation of
the union of wisdom and matter is the Holy Ghost or science.
Now here is the introduction of the devil or false reason. A sensation is made that
contains no wisdom. The wisdom is in the explanation of the person that feels it
and wishes to convey it to another. This is done in two ways: one by sympathy
without language, the other by sympathy in the language or using the language
to convey the sympathy. One is wisdom and the other is power. In the case of
the woman who had the issue of blood, the sympathy of Jesus was given to the
woman, not accompanied by any explanation, only a mere word from Jesus to
convince her that he knew that he had imparted something to someone in need
and he knew the woman was the one. Now to the woman, here was a cure by
power; but when he cured by the power of the Holy Ghost, then he explained the
fact, or it was no more than any other cure. So the Holy Ghost is the science or
language that conveys the idea to the sick or associates the word with the thing.
This was heaven and happiness. I will illustrate. I call on the sick; I sit down and
receive from the patient their thoughts, not their language but their feelings.
These to me are wisdom for I can tell what the cause is or what makes them, for
sensation contains the substance of the idea. I know the idea by the sensation
just as a person knows an orange by the odor.
When I smell an orange to me it contains wisdom, but if I had never seen or
smelled one, the smell would be a sensation without wisdom. This is science: to
teach to every person the principles of association (or of attaching the word to
the object). For instance, take the word neuralgia. To all who have never heard
the word, it only produces a slight shock. As truth is light and error darkness, the
word to some is light and to others is darkness. Then the word is in the darkness
and the darkness cannot comprehend it. So to darkness or error, it is a
sensation. This makes error nervous or excites curiosity to know what it is, and
here is introduced false reasoning. Error, taking the word for truth, commences
explaining what it is, so he imparts to ignorance his version or someone's else.
The patient receives the word with joy, not thinking that it contains the seeds of
misery. At last the matter springs up and the patient finds himself nervous and
fussy. Fed by this poisonous substance, he goes to the doctor to hear him give it
a name. The doctor, being an anti-Christ, says it is neuralgia, so he unites the
word to the thing the patient has made and they two become as one twain. This
is the false Christ that Jesus told the people to beware of. Now if I have shown
how language is used by these two elements or by science and error, then you
will see that it is easy to tell the false Christ from the true one, although they both
use the same language, for language is only the echo of our thoughts. Our
thoughts make the wisdom but our language directs it. So if our wisdom is not of
truth, it will show itself by uniting the word to the thing spoken of so that there can
be no doubt. But if it is from opinion, it is evil. I will now make an application with
this remark first.
Every idea spoken of that cannot be seen, only as an opinion, is to be doubted
until some evidence is given to show that it exists outside of man. What state of
the world do you imagine would be struck out of existence if the human race
should cease to breathe at this instant. The world would exist and everything on
it and men's bodies would be lying around and in fact everything that could be
seen by the natural eye while living. I am now supposing that man is gone so far
as his intelligence goes. All is annihilated. Do you suppose that disease would be
prowling round? Would spooks and ghosts be haunting the tombs and dwellings?
Would religion be preached by angels? Would heaven be any where or hell be in
existence? I think I hear someone say this would be the end of all things. Now
just suppose that the Great Cause of all things should cause a deep sleep to
pass over the frames and there should be a shaking among the dry bones. The
flesh should return to the bodies and they should stand up and exhibit signs of
life, but no wisdom. All former ideas of everything known was lost . . . no
language, except the original language of sympathy. Do you suppose if a person
felt a sensation in the brain, he would call it neuralgia or anything? Now he wants
to communicate to his friend how he feels. This he cannot do by language for like
those who built the tower of Babel, their language had become corrupt. So that
when they called for bricks, they brought them mortar. Therefore, there was a
time when language ceased to convey any true idea of sensation.
Now suppose it should enter some one's mind to invent words to explain a
sensation. For instance, if a person felt a sensation from an animal running
towards him, he might say, "Scared." Now the one who heard the word would
have no idea of the sound except as a sensation. So they set themselves to work
to give the sensation a name, and as it was in sympathy with both, they called it
"Scare." To modify it, it might be called fear or some other word. Now they knew
the sensation and applied it to the thing; to them it was wisdom or true. But those
that heard the sound and forgot the sensation would attach the word to the
sound. And when they heard a sound, it would convey the idea of some horrid
thing that frightened them. So you see the very instant man commences using
language to convey an idea of sensation, he introduces a false mode of
reasoning that leads to all sorts of error and deception. People would become
superstitious and false ideas of disease would spring up.
Therefore, all the evils that flesh is heir to are the invention of man. Man has
invented every invisible thing that haunts the mind of man. He has created and
formed it in this invisible world and these things are as much in existence as the
creation of anything in the natural world. As man creates and forms things from
the invisible word, so he creates and forms things in the form of diseases and
teaches the young and old how to make them. So man forges the fetters or
disease that torments him. Man must be taught that he is the author of his own
misery. And until that time comes, man will be tormented by his own belief and
that of others. This is hard to understand, yet it is true.
Now separate false ideas from the true and then language ceases to have such a
sway over the world. But now it is in the hands of the most desperate set of
demagogues that ever existed. I am now speaking of that class of words applied
to the health and happiness of man. The language of mechanics does no harm,
for it means just what it says and so does the language of all science. But when
you come to the medical faculty, the clergy and the politician, then language is
like that of Babel, a confusion of tongues. It has no application to anything, only
the superstition of the world and such superstitious ideas as witchcraft, disease
and devils, ghosts and spirits that never have any existence, only in the invisible
part of man's being. All of which science will destroy.
These being admitted and man being an inventive being as well as a creative
one and his mind being matter, he can create out of his own body or matter any
image that his wisdom can be made to understand. So as disease is the greatest
evil that troubles him, he creates the image of his own belief and sets it up in his
body. And the doctor comes and names it after some invisible thing called
disease and says he has caught it or it has got hold of him. So man torments
himself by his own folly. I will give a case to illustrate what I have said. Take a
man that is in the habit of drinking. He is exciting his system or mind till he gets it
into a complete state of working matter, like the potter's clay. Now he is ready to
produce any kind of living creature. No one will doubt but he does create the
things he sees for they are as real as anything that ever had an existence, but
the life of these things depends upon the person. So the whole world is as much
a hypochondriac on disease as the drunkard is in regard to his blue devils.
Excitement from study under a false direction brings about a state of mind to
create all these devils that the medical faculty produce. So the medical faculty
and the priests stand to the people as the rum shop stands to the intemperate:
workshops for all sorts of evil spirits in the form of disease, insanity and every
kind of misery of the wholesale or retail. Science is opposed to both and to all
sorts of false reasoning that leads to misery. My mode of reasoning separates
the true from the false. Truth never creates any false images but destroys them
all. It never comes to make peace but war, for error is always making trouble.
Therefore, science comes to destroy it. Its work is to set one error against
another and let error destroy itself. And then peace and happiness will reign and
out of the destruction of error comes happiness.
Language
BU 23:16, LC 6:121
PART 1, CONTINUED
[orig. untitled]
The question may be asked what is wisdom? I will try to give you an illustration.
Suppose you invent some new machine for guiding a vessel. Now in illustrating a
truth, you must suppose yourself ignorant of navigation, so you apply yourself to
the study to learn it thoroughly. You enter a ship as an apprentice for the sake of
learning. The word navigation is a word that is applied to a certain kind of wisdom
not reduced to practice. The theory is learned and then your senses attach the
word navigation to the theory and this is called knowledge, for it admits a doubt
whether you know it or not. To know a thing is to put it into practice and know
how you do it, while to teach it to others is another branch. Therefore in all this
there is no true wisdom. Suppose you take a voyage with me and try to put your
wisdom into practice and you fail. Then where do you stand? Your wisdom is not
wisdom but a belief based on what you have no proof of. You believed a person
could navigate a vessel.
Now I want to put your theory or name in sympathy with the matter or elements
or practice of seamanship. So I make the winds and currents and tides and cross
seas and every obstacle that a ship master has to encounter, so that you see all
this as you see your theory. Now both are separate; each has its identity
separate and apart from the other. One is matter, while the other is spirit. Now to
unite the two is wisdom. So when I teach you how to apply your theory to your
practice so that the two become one, the wedding is called wisdom. Before it was
a theory or belief, not wisdom. So now you being one, when you are asked if you
believe you can navigate a vessel, you will say I have no belief, I know I can.
This is known to you. So knowledge is a belief in wisdom. But when you put your
knowledge or belief into practice or apply it to something and it is right, then the
two bring forth the element called wisdom. Now as wisdom creates, it cannot act
against itself, for the beginning and end is the present. It speaks and it is
finished, but belief speaks and then applies itself and when it finds the answer, it
becomes wisdom. Now here is the difference. When man speaks, he either
speaks the truth or he lies. For instance, when I say I believe that there is such a
place as London, do I tell the truth or give my opinion? If I ever was in London
and should say I know there is such a place as London, I lie for I cannot see it,
and it may be destroyed by fire or in some other way. But if I should say I knew
there was such a city called London a year ago for I was there, that is wisdom.
But to say I know there is a place called London now may be true and maybe
false, for it admits a doubt; and if these differences are not made, man gets into
trouble. For instance, you feel a little out of sorts and sick and you call a
physician. You say I am sick and want you to help me. The physician says, How
do you feel? Now apply the wisdom here. Say to him, Tell me how I feel and then
you will convince me that you have some wisdom, for his knowledge of your case
depends entirely upon the application. If his knowledge depends upon your
telling him, then there is no wisdom. But when you apply your wisdom to the
thing spoken of, this is knowledge and it becomes wisdom, for all doubts are
gone and there is no belief or opinion.
The difference between myself and the medical faculty is in the application of
what we know. What they know is just nothing, and what I know is what I feel and
my wisdom is in the knowledge of applying my senses to the thing that produced
the sensation. I enter a room that is hot; I feel the heat and it affects me; you do
the same and both are affected. I know that heat is the cause. Now this
knowledge of heat and the knowledge of my feeling produces the state called
wisdom. But your knowledge of heat is not sufficient to put you in possession of
the fact that your feeling is the effect of heat. So your knowledge is based on a
belief and this belief, not being wisdom, makes you nervous, for you want
wisdom or harmony. So you call a physician and his wisdom like yours is opinion
and he tries to find the cause, so he admits a cause.
Experiments are now tried on you, for in his ignorance he believes it must
originate in you. So in the confusion he and you get up another effect which is
the reaction of your acts, and you give it a name. He being blind, leading the
blind, you both fall into the ditch.
Now I think I have carried you along through this voyage and have now once
more landed you on the shore of investigation. Now I ask if you can tell me what
it is to get wisdom. I think I hear you say it is applying the name of what you do
not know to the thing spoken of. Illustrate. I will. I ask you if you ever heard of a
dwarf and you say, Yes. Can you tell me what it is and how it looks. You say, No.
I do not know what the word means. So I say, Come with me and I will apply the
word to the thing. So I lead you up to Commodore Mutt and say, This is a little
dwarf. Now as your senses are attached to the word before you see the matter or
thing, when I feel your senses or mind in communication with the matter, out
comes another element called wisdom.
So true wisdom cannot be changed and to get wisdom requires the application of
science, for science is wisdom put into practice. Now do you think I understand? I
will answer in the words of Jesus, Oh, Israel, the Lord thy God is our God, and to
love the Lord thy God with all thy might, etc., and thy neighbor as thyself. And the
Scribe said, Thou hast answered truly, for there is but one God and to love him is
more than all burnt offerings. Then Jesus said to him, Thou art not far from the
kingdom of heaven. This God was to put this wisdom into practice and to know
that was more than all the offerings of the priests and wisdom of the wise. To
know it is heaven and the wisdom gives the happiness.
Light
LC 6:7
Every man is a part of God, just so far as he is wisdom. So I will tell you what I
know, not what I believe. I worship no God except my own and I will tell you what
He teaches me.
In the first place He puts no restrictions on me, in fact He is in me, and just as I
know myself I know Him; so that I and God are one, just as my children and I are
one. So to please myself I please God, and to injure myself is to injure my God.
So all I have to do is to please myself. Now as God and I are one so you and I
are one, and to please myself is to please you, and to injure myself is to injure
you, so just as I measure out to you I measure out to myself. As you and I are
one, you and your neighbor are one, and to love your neighbor as yourself is
more than all the prayers made by all the priests in the world. I know that if I do
by another as I would be done by in like circumstances, I feel right, for I judge no
man. I do not judge of myself, for my knowledge of this wisdom is as plain to me
as my senses.
To the world it is a belief, but to me it is wisdom that the religious world knows
not of. It they did they would never crucify me as they do through their ignorance.
So my religion is my wisdom, which is not of this world, but of that wisdom that
will break in pieces the wisdom of man. Man's wisdom is the superstition of
heathen idolatry; all science is at variance with it. I stand alone, not believing in
anything independent of science. So you can put me down as having no
sympathy with any belief or religion concerning another world or in anything
belonging to the Christian death. Neither have I any belief in the resurrection of
the body. My death is this-ignorance. Life is wisdom, and as death is darkness or
matter, so life is light or wisdom. All men have wandered away from light and
believed in darkness. To destroy matter you introduce light or life.
I will illustrate. Suppose you are sitting in the dark; call that this world. Now as the
light springs up where is the darkness? All will say the darkness is gone. The
light is the resurrection of this body or darkness. What becomes of it when the
light rises? So it is with man. Man is an idea of matter or darkness, and as his
mind or matter becomes lit or clairvoyant, the darkness of the idea of matter is
gone, and he is in light that the wisdom of this world of matter or darkness has
not. So light came into darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not.
When I sit down by a patient, I come out of this matter or darkness and stand by
the patient's senses which are attached to some idea of the wisdom of this world
which troubles him. I retain my former man or matter and its senses. I also have
another identity independent of matter, and I (knowing what is the cause of his
misery) stand by the matter or belief of my patient and destroy his belief or the
effect it has on his senses; then as the darkness or belief is lit up by the wisdom
of science, his darkness disappears and he rejoices in the light. The light leads
him back to his health, from whence he had been decoyed by the blind guides
spoken of in Scripture.
Here you have what I disbelieve-the two are my law and gospel. By the law no
one can be saved, but by the gospel of Truth, Science will have all saved, not
from the Christian world but from this world of superstition and ignorance, saved
for the greater truth that was prepared from the beginning of the world for all
those who search and try to find it. You cannot go into the clouds to call it down,
nor into the sea to call it up, but it is in you, and in your very thoughts. It is not of
this world, but of a higher state of matter that can penetrate through this earthly
matter like the light through the darkness. As the senses are the body of truth,
they travel through the light, as a man with a lamp travels in the dark.
So it is not everyone who has a lamp with oil, nor is everyone wise who says he
is so. But he is wise who can come up to the one in the dark, and lead him along
through this wilderness of disease into the light of reason and health. Like the
good man who had the hundred sheep and one wandered away in the dark, he
left the ninety and nine that were in the light and went and found the lost one and
restored him to the fold. Now let those who pretend to be shepherds of the sheep
or of poor sick persons starving to death like the prodigal son for spiritual food,
eating the husk of science, not the priests' food, go and guide them along to the
father of health where they can eat and be glad and have music and dancing.
This was Christ's truth. He was the good shepherd, the people were his sheep,
and all who looked to him and listened to the true wisdom were saved from the
errors of the priests and doctors. As Moses lifted up the serpent of the old
Egyptian theology and creed and explained them, and all those who looked on
his explanation were healed of their errors that made disease, so Christ was
lifted up, and all who understood were healed from the doctrine of the Scribes
and Pharisees. So in our day I hold up the serpent of creeds and doctors'
theories and show the absurdity of their beliefs and all who understand are
healed of their diseases.
Mind
LC 4:84
Every truth is in a minority and is opposed by the majority. The principle of this
world is that the majority is right. So of course, as error is always in the majority,
it must be right. Now let us see if it does not hold good. Is it not so in religion and
politics? Truth is not acknowledged at all as an opposite of error but a balance to
weigh each man's opinion. Opinions are the substances that are weighed. Truth
is nothing but the balance; it has no existence in this world because it is a
stranger to matter. Now these two worlds or philosophies split up the world of
matter, for one reasons in it and the other out of it. One has laws, the other has
none; one has disease, the other none; one has the wisdom of matter, the other
the wisdom of God, and each proves its science. Now man is made up of the
wisdom of matter and matter has its God. And all of its laws are found in matter.
As disease is a transgression of these laws of matter, man is punished by these.
Now to punish a man for disobeying a law is to suppose the law existed before
the offense was committed, for where there is no law, there is no transgression.
So that this world's God supposed that man would do wrong and so made a law
in advance. The disobeying of this law was sin; so by the law came sin, and by
sin came disease, and by disease came death. So every one is under the
sentence of death, for all have sinned. This is one of the majorities' reports and to
get clear is to do something to get rid of nothing. The law is the enemy to get rid
of and that is made of nothing, for it contains nothing. The same majority says
that where there is no transgression, there is no law. Then if there is no act, there
is no law. This makes it just where the wisdom of God makes it.
Every act contains the law of action and reaction and that is all the law that
wisdom ever had. But the wisdom of man puts the other construction on it,
namely, that the effect comes before the cause. This holds good in all of this
world's philosophy and I shall show that all of their philosophy is based on
phenomena that takes place in the spirit world or above the natural man. And
man in his ignorance gets up a philosophy to explain his ignorance of the
phenomena. This causes all the misery that human beings suffer and is
ignorance of themselves. Man invents his misery and lays it to God. Being
ignorant of God or Wisdom, he sets up a standard based on an opinion.
For instance, how often we hear the saying, "Wrap up so you will not take cold."
Now if there had ever been any more penalty attached to cold than to heat, then
man would not have any fear of cold than of heat. But if you go out in the cold,
you transgress one of God's laws. I ask the question if winter and summer, heat
and cold were not made before man? All will say, Yes. Will any person stand up
and say that going out-of-doors alters the weather? No. Then the cold does not
forbid a person going out or have anything to do about it. So if a man goes out,
he goes according to his belief and he is affected according to it.
Suppose there are two persons: one believes in taking cold, so his fears excite
him; the other is accustomed to the cold and never knew anything bad about it.
Now I ask anyone if he thinks these two persons go out under the same feeling?
You answer, No. Then the one that is always catching cold would be the most
likely to be affected? Yes. Now did God make a law that if a person exposed
himself to the cold and he disobeyed this law of health, he must be punished?
You may say that the healthy man was not really exposed for he was not in
feeble health. Then the man in feeble health is the one to be punished or take
cold. Now see how absurd such a belief is. According to this instance and this
holds good in every case, the Great Father of every good and perfect gift is all
wisdom and knows all . things. He sees the effect before it happens, governs all
our acts and . not a hair can fall without his knowledge. He made all laws for the
happiness of man and had such great love for us that he exposed himself to his
own laws and took the penalty to save us poor sinners. All this is taught by the
clergy.
Now listen to me a short time and I will set all this right. This law it seems was not
to embrace those that did not catch cold. They could not have broken the laws,
for if they disobeyed the law in the least, they were guilty. So the law was for
them that disobeyed it. So it is for the sick-these poor weak creatures that cannot
hardly -: get a breath of air without transgressing a law that these benevolent
Gods have made without punishing all that broke them. Now strange as this
crazy idea is, it is the belief of ninety-nine in a hundred. Oh, foolish man, how
long will you be deceived by false teachings? It is just as impossible to disobey
God's wisdom as it is to cut yourself with a razor and say that you were ignorant
that a razor would cut, when you get it for that purpose. God cannot have a law,
for a law supposes a disobedience. If God was not wise enough when He made
all things to know what would be the end of every act, then He is not the God the
Christians claim him to be. And is He dead? No. Then certainly he has respect
for persons and gives preference to the well. For the laws that are attached to
God by the Christian world are to punish the sick, for the well are not punished at
all. So to keep clear of his laws is to have nothing to do with them, for the weak
flourish under this government and the Christian finds it a hard way. And if it was
not for the leaders exciting and driving them on, they would all turn back and
become as bad as the rest of the world.
What infidelity and hypocrisy there is in this nineteenth century, and yet we boast
of our religious wisdom. If any person can show me one single idea in any creed
that Jesus ever subscribed to, I should like to see it. Religion now is just what it
was two thousand years ago. All the Grecian philosophers opposed it and some
were imprisoned and some killed. Jesus opposed it and they murdered him and
destroyed his theory and they kept up the same old theory, only as it has been
broken into by come-outers. It has always been opposed to science. It
imprisoned Copernicus and has persecuted all investigation ever since. The
pagan philosophers explained it and showed its hideous form and bloody bones.
It is founded in ignorance and superstition and is the greatest evil that ever
invaded the human mind. Were it not for science, the world would be at this time
a place of torment. All of this error is the effect of the philosophy of minds.
The wise have never established their philosophy by experiments. Error has, and
so as one is established, the other becomes the subject. Now establish the true
philosophy of goodness and happiness and then you have a heaven on earth.
Then Jesus' words will come to pass, when he says, I will create a new heaven
or philosophy and a new earth or matter where there shall not be any darkness
but all light. This is the new heaven or philosophy that was foretold in the days of
the wise men and repeated by Jesus eighteen-hundred years ago. Now I will
show you the new philosophy or Jerusalem that man is destined to enter; where
there shall be no more sickness or death; where all things are done away and all
things become new. This philosophy was for man alone, for he had wandered
away in the darkness and become so gross that he could not see anything but
gross matter. So Jesus said to such, Ye have eyes but cannot see, and ears but
cannot hear and hearts that cannot understand. Now I shall show that there is a
philosophy that has nothing to do with the common philosophy of the day and
that our philosophy and religion cause all the evils we now suffer.
If man knew the true philosophy, the shadow could do no harm, but man
worships the shadow and loses the substance. I shall prove it, for I do not mean
to give my opinions when I have the truth on hand. My object is the good of
mankind, independent of all religious sects and creeds. It is a philosophy which, if
understood, will make man free and independent of all creeds and laws of man,
and subject him to his own laws, he being free from the laws of sin, sickness, and
death. Being free myself, I know how to teach others. So I must tell you what
must follow this new science and what it teaches man and how far he is bound.
His being bound is a free offering and cannot be altered, but if he knows the truth
or philosophy, he will not enter blindfolded or retreat before he understands. I will
give you my experience as one that believes what he says and is ready to be
judged by his patients. And if the world finds fault, I will listen to them. And if their
philosophy does more good to the world than mine, I will consider it and give it
the preference. I will give mine I or the philosophy of health, so I will not ask any
questions of the world. Are not words sound and is not sound something? If it is
not; something, it could not produce something. Then this something in the form
of language is something. Now as two somethings of the same kind cannot
produce another something, so that one something must act on another
something and then a third something can be produced. So if sound is
something, it does not act upon itself. And if it acts at all, it must act on
something else.
Now one of these somethings, I call God or wisdom. As wisdom is a substance
that cannot be changed, it cannot fill any more space than all space. It cannot act
separate from itself. It is in all and a part of all. It knows no bounds, nor time. It is
eternal. Now as every substance throws a shadow, the shadow must have a
background of something and this something I call mind or matter. As this
something acts on matter, it does not act on itself. So of course that which acts is
not the same as this substance that cannot change, but is under two somethings
that act upon the same something. As it may confuse you to understand these
somethings, I will classify them. The substance acted upon is mind or matter-this
I will call No. 1. This substance that acts upon No. 1, I call: essence of God-this I
will call No. 2. Now the two somethings that govern and direct No. 2 I will call:
wisdom or error. Now as wisdom is all light, it knows no matter and as error is
made of matter or animal life, it acts upon itself. So as error excites No. 1, its light
produces a shadow and its shadow is its own making. Now this world's wisdom is
No. 1 and the wisdom of God or essence is in No. 2. Now there are two
directions: one the wisdom of God or essence, the other the wisdom of animal
life or matter. Animal life or matter is always changing and science or wisdom's
essence or God is always progressing. Man is in these two somethings.
Wisdom is the seed sown in matter or ignorance. And as matter is animal life, it is
disturbed by the child of wisdom and tries to get rid of it. Therefore in its
ignorance, it is excited and the excitement brings out the child of error. So the
children are conceived in the same matter and grow like the two spoken of in the
old testament Jacob and Esau. Jacob (or wisdom) have I loved but Esau (or
error) have I hated. The same characters were in the parables of Cain and Abel.
Cain was the error. Abel was the wisdom. So all through the New and Old
Testaments, you can trace the two characters and know their generations from
Adam and Eve down to the present day. Error is the elder, science the younger.
So the error is always before the truth in this world of matter, but truth is eternal
with the father of wisdom. Jesus illustrated these two characters by himself, the
flesh and blood or mind and matter or animal life. The essence or child of wisdom
was Christ or God. So as the Christ grew in the language of its father or wisdom,
it threw off error or material man and became perfect in wisdom. Yet the Christ
used the servant or earthly body as a medium to communicate to the natural
man. But Jesus, the natural man, knew not Christ, only as Christ made himself
manifest in his works.
These two characters were the mystery to the natural man, so the natural man
called the Christ a power. So it is now. People often ask me if I can impart my
power to anyone. When I tell them it is not a power in the sense they mean, they
cannot understand it, so I have to let it go. I have a power and those that call it a
power are in the same state that the people were that were looking for a second
coming of Christ. When Jesus said he was near you, even in their very thoughts,
they did not know it. When I say I can teach this, I mean that there are a great
many persons that can learn this wisdom. And when once learned, their wisdom
is a power. And to put the wisdom at the root of a tree or error hews it down, like
the axe that strikes at the root of the tree. This wisdom is to error or disease like
fire; it burns up root and branch.
Mind or Introduction
BU 7:4, LC 8:162
[orig. untitled]
In order to introduce my theory of curing disease, it will be necessary to explain
the use I make of a few words to which custom has given a meaning which I am
unable to use. For instance the word, mind. All use it as applied to man's
intelligence and as the word mind has never been applied to any spiritual
substance or any substance whatever, it strikes the reader strangely to hear it as
I have to use it. Still I think I can show that the author must have had a different
meaning in his wisdom from what is commonly attributed to it. It could not be that
he had any idea of any world or existence beyond this life, for mind was
considered man's life and all his reasoning powers and at death it ended.
Therefore the brain was considered the seat of the mind and now various beliefs
show that this false reasoning still holds sway over mankind. The word mind, as it
is used and believed, comprises all of man and beast that has life and instinct
and at death this all dies, and this is what the author of the word intended to
convey.
But as science progressed the weakness of this reasoning was seen and the
religious community invested the word with a new signification which the ancients
never dreamed of, for with their limitations, it could not explain the life of man as
it could not contain the word, wisdom, so a new word was needed and soul was
introduced. Now if you will call the soul, science, you will then have a higher
development than is included in mind. Let "mind" embrace all matter of the
human and brutal creation as the word "matter" embraces all inanimate
substances. Then the soul or science, like that wisdom which creates from
inanimate matter every manufactured article, will control the matter of the human
species that is held in solution and called mind; for mind is always under the
control of some spiritual wisdom superior to the natural man.
I will illustrate my meaning with what can come to the senses of the natural man.
The wisdom which dwells in matter or mind knows nothing of chemistry for that is
a step higher than the natural man or brute goes. The natural man and brute can
both see a gold dollar. The chemist by his wisdom can see and dissolve the
dollar and hold it in solution. But the mind of the man and brute loses the dollar
when it is out of sight. To them, its existence is dead, never to be united in a
body called gold, and the brute leaves, not having any interest in it. But the mind
of man (I here use the word as it was originally applied to embrace all of man that
dies, not science or soul) having set a value on the gold, weeps for he sees it
disappear. The difference between the man and brute is here. The latter sees no
value in the gold and therefore loses nothing, but the man, through his ignorance,
has been made to believe that the gold contains a value which was destroyed
with it; therefore he grieves for his loss. The chemist knows that the gold has no
value of itself but it is only the representative of value of which it is ignorant. He
commences to reason with the man of opinion whose unhappiness is much
greater than the brute and this brings up the proverb "where ignorance is bliss, it
is folly to be wise." The life and senses of the chemist is in his wisdom while the
man of opinion lives in his error. The chemist says to the man, "Why do you
weep?" Opinions: "Because I have lost my gold." Chemist: "How?" Opinions: "It
is dissolved and destroyed." Chemist: "I can bring it to life and restore the value."
Opinions: "How?"
Then the chemist proceeds to condense into a solid the gold that was before held
in solution. To opinions this is a mystery from the world of science. He can never
enter into that world, for when the science comes, opinion is dead. The gold was
matter to the mind of opinion but when dissolved it was nothing; but to the man of
science it was matter or gold in both cases. In the same way the man of opinions
sees a body called man, and the chemist sees the same, but as in the case of
the gold, the former does not see the wisdom that moves, deposits and
decomposes the body; he therefore puts life or value in it. The two sit down by a
sick person and watch the decomposition of the matter; the man of opinion
reasons just as he did about the gold, placing life and value in the matter. But the
scientific man sees the value outside the matter which, like the gold, is a
representative of a value that is held in solution which the man of opinions knows
not. The latter, seeing the value depart, weeps for it, for it has gone from his
sight. The man of science or wisdom sees the matter dissolve like any other
matter, but the separation of the wisdom from the dross or opinion and its
existence, when it can no longer be seen by opinion, cannot be understood. This
was the extent of man's wisdom when Jesus appeared.
Ancient philosophers divided man into two elements: mind and matter, the body
being matter and the soul, mind, and one was the offspring of the other. The life
of the soul was one thing and the life of the body another, but they both died
together. So the word mind embraced all man's life. The intellect of the brute was
termed instinct which was included in the meaning of mind. Science never had a
separate identity, so that at death all were laid in the grave together; the wise
man and the fool, the rich and the poor, all found their level in the grave. The Old
Testament says that "a man hath no preeminence above a beast." We have
evidence enough to show that what is now called the soul in ancient times had
no higher meaning than mind, for we read of good souls and wicked souls. Also
that "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." So here is an end to the soul. Such
teaching as this is great cause of man's misery.
Everyone will admit that all the qualities of soul which I have mentioned will apply
to man's intelligence. They will also admit that mind, according to every definition,
can change; likewise that wisdom cannot change, that it is the same today and
forever. Now can anyone tell me what there is that is not matter that can be
changed? It cannot be wisdom for that does not change. It cannot be any form
which can be seen which, of course, must be matter. Then what is it that is not
wisdom, not God, not spirit nor matter, and yet can be changed? It is matter held
in solution called mind, which the power of wisdom can condense into a solid, so
dense as to become the substance called matter.
Assume this theory and then you can see how man can become sick and get
well by the change of the mind which is a chemical change making the matter of
the man of science, but he is comprehended by the scientific man. Disease is the
natural result of ignorance and error, governed by discords of the mind. For
instance, friction produces heat, heat expansion, expansion motion, motion
disturbs life and life comes out of the motion of mind or matter.
There are various kinds of life-vegetables, mineral, etc. for life is what comes
from the decomposition of matter. Wisdom is not life; it is from everlasting to
everlasting, the same today and forever; but as life ascends from the lower to the
higher kingdom, wisdom attached itself to it in order to develop itself in man. Now
life, being the result of a chemical change in matter, must go through a process
from the mineral kingdom to the spiritual state till life is swallowed up in science
or wisdom.
I will give you the process as it comes to me by this great truth that lighteth every
one who comes into it. The elements of the mineral kingdom, by their chemical
change, bring forth life. This mingles with its mother minerals and an offspring is
produced called vegetable. The life of minerals enters this new kingdom and a
new creation springs into life; this again mingles with its parent kingdom and then
comes a low animal life called the animal kingdom; one generation begets
another till the matter becomes prepared to receive some of the life from the
higher wisdom that rules the lower lives. Now man's life comes from his peculiar
development, so there is as much difference in the idea man as there is in the
other kingdoms, for man is made up of those kingdoms. He combines three parts
in himself: the animal, the human and the scientific. Women have more of the
scientific element and less of the animal; the latter kingdom makes them strong,
the human benevolent and the scientific spiritual and poetical, working in their
natural elements out of matter. Their senses are more attached to the scientific
life, while man is more brutal and wants to rule and govern the higher kingdoms.
I will give the character of Jesus as He appears to me. He embraces the human
and the scientific was therefore gentle in appearance, for there was no animal
element in Him. He came to destroy life, not to save it. All men have a higher
development of the animal in them than of the other kingdoms, and this life dies,
just as the scientific life is received; therefore if a person could be perfectly wise
he would have no life, for everything would be subject to his wisdom; so to lose
your life is to embrace the truth, for that destroys life.
The priests and doctors try to save life, for everyone believes he must die to be
saved. So man living in this opinion, his life is a life of bondage through fear of
death. Jesus came to destroy this fear and break the bands of death or belief and
introduce this great truth of eternal progression. Those who believed rose from
their graves or beliefs, entered the world of science and attached their life to this
great truth. Then they could say, "O! Death, where is thy sting? Matter or grave,
where is thy victory? Truth is the death or sting of opinions. Science of God is
eternal life in this wisdom. This is the science whose light lighteth the dark dens
of disease and leads the sick from their hiding places into that wisdom that will
guide them through this world of opinions and land them safe on the shores of
Eternal Truth.
Nations and Individuals Have Their Characters
BU 67:1, LC 7:111
[orig. untitled]
Nations and individuals are composed of four characters. To the world, the
natural and spiritual man are united in one body, but science can divide and
separate them. The natural lives in truth and also in error and these make two
distinct characters. The spiritual man of truth and error the same. Here we have
four distinct characters or identities: the natural man of truth and error and the
spiritual man of the same and the former is in each case the shadow of the latter.
I will illustrate how these are combined and show how they are distinct and yet
united. Let the United States represent an individual or a union of the four. Two
of these are seen in political parties. One seeking to govern the nation by slavery
may be called disease; the other striving to hold the power over the mind by
sympathy for human rights is like health. These two powers are like a man and
his wife, one wishing to rule the other who is eager to live in peace. Slavery is
that diseased state of mind governed by passion and has its spiritual counterpart
in the devil. The opposite desiring to live in harmony is the shadow of a spiritual
truth, for they are the offspring of matter. Beyond these, there is yet another
being directing and governing all things for the best, Wisdom or God who
overrules and provides everything.
The government of the United States I will take as a symbol of this wisdom and
by it, I will illustrate how the father or wisdom is bringing about his own ends for
the benefit of the world. Slavery and Freedom like heat and cold are necessary to
bring about some great result. They are represented by man and woman, and
when they unite as in man and wife, it is under a contract and the agreements to
bring about the union is the courtship. Like all marriages, this union was subject
to certain contingencies. Between slavery (the man) and freedom (the woman),
there was no sympathy for each was true to its own element. And when new
states like children were added to the union, they partook of their parents' ideas;
and as there never was harmony between them, it was not strange that the
children should disagree and that they should take part in the family jars. Now
the overruling wisdom that I have spoken of is not yet known, but it is in the
element which governs the mother, that is love For her children. But the father
not partaking of that element does not admit it, yet it acts upon both, in one case
to destroy and in the other to purify the mind that is to destroy the earth or
ignorance and bring forth the new man or science. The wife or mother is the child
of wisdom, but the husband is of the earth. For out of the earth the Lord made
man (not woman), and the word man refers to that part of every person that must
perish; it is error. The marriage is for the life of the man, but the resurrection is to
follow death o