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Chapter 3 - The Christ and Christian Science.
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Actually, this mental blindness is not a natural condition either, but is intentionally induced for the self-serving interests of an oligarchic society that rightfully sees no place for itself in an advanced civilization of intelligent human beings. But this is another story, for another time.
Mary Baker Eddy extents the concept of an intelligent self-perception into the absolute, with the proposition that all is Mind and matter is nothing. This extension of the already discovered and experienced reality about man, has opened up new channels of thought and experiences. If man has proven the capacity to replenish the Earth, then, man has certainly the capacity to maintain his own health on an intelligent basis, rather than through the use of unintelligent drugs. This type of logic has led to numerous fundamental discoveries of principles that underlie Christianity itself, as practiced throughout the ages, and projected forward into logical conclusions that Mary Baker Eddy was able to demonstrate. This is how modern metaphysical healing is based.
The unfolding understanding and demonstration of fundamental principles, also brought about corresponding changes in the way man is perceived. Someone who has experienced the healing effect of an understanding of Truth, cannot go back and regard man as fundamentally material. This door has thereby been closed, and the stage opened for even more advanced discoveries of fundamental principles.
Some of the statements that Mary Baker Eddy presents in her textbook appear irrationally radical at first reading, but if one understands the background against which the radical statements unfolded, one will find them to be inherently rational and fundamentally essential. One will also find that they endow man with a beauty, value, and sovereignty, that has rarely been recognized, much less acknowledged as fundamental to the nature of man.
It may be beneficial at this point to re-read Mary Baker Eddy's definition of man, as presented earlier in this chapter.
One of the reasons why Christian Science healing has become virtually extinct over the last hundred years, compared to its early days, lies not in any fundamental deficiency of its Science, but in the growing materialism and fascism of the age which promotes mental poverty. The correct scientific self-identification of man is such a fundamental platform for spiritual healing, that any devolution of it, closes the door to this most advanced natural capability of man.
Mary Baker Eddy evidently knew full well that any form of mental devolution is not a natural process in itself. It it were a fundamentally natural process, human civilization would have never developed. Thus, she writes with the confidence of a scientist: "The time approaches when mortal mind will forsake its corporeal, structural, and material basis, when immortal Mind and its formations will be apprehended in Science, and material beliefs will not interfere with spiritual facts." And she adds, concerning metaphysical healing: "Sometime it will be learned that mortal mind constructs the body with this mind's own mortal materials."*(Science and Health 402:8) She writes: "If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents, called disease and sin."*(Science and Health 485:24)
The concept that Mary Baker Eddy presents by separating the mental and spiritual status of man, from the perceived material status that belies the true nature of man, is revolutionary to the extreme. However, it its that extreme realization which borders on the scientific absolute, which opens up a platform for healing. One would be greatly tempted to doubt its validity, were it not one of the fundamental factors in Mary Baker Eddy's outstanding ability to heal, which itself bears witness of the truth of what she presents. If the corporeal phenomenon is a subjective state of consciousness, its nature can be altered to reflect the underlying harmony of existence recognized in divine Science, and this will happen in proportion with which divine Truth is coming to light in consciousness, and man appears in his own perception as divine image.
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