Oct. 2001

EMMA ONLY

From the opening chapter of Class Lessons 1888

All study of mind or mental action or phenomena is essentially meta-physical, taking the student above or out of the province or range of pure physics, which deals with visible phenomena and their laws.

Thus the study of mind and its laws of operation has been called the study of meta-physics, and the knowledge obtained, classified and arranged for further systematic investigation, may be properly termed mental or metaphysical science.

When but partially understood, or known only in its partial application, simply for the cure of bodily ailments, the practice of mind for such results has been called "mind cure," meaning that by the use of mind in some way or other, bodily infirmities and maladies could be healed, as formerly water was used for such purposes, and all practice with that agent was called "water cure".

In the 'school metaphysics' or 'mental science', the study seems to have been for the most part a record of the phenomena of cerebration, as conscious and unconscious, cognitive and motive, without definite information as to whether mental action, controllable or uncontrollable, could be held responsible for health and disease.

The other extreme taken by those un-acquainted with 'school metaphysics', is that mind is useful mainly as a curative agent for bodily sickness.

But mental science has three departments of application to the wants and needs of the people: 
1. Therepeutic - which treats of mind in its relation to all bodily conditions. Shows how health and disease are the results of thought and teaches such rules of thought as will change physical infirmities of all kinds, as deformity, disease, sickness, weakness, pain, and even liability to all these, to a state of health and exemption form danger of their recurrence. 
2. Ethical - which treats of the relation of habitual thought to character quality and intellectual faculty. Uplifts life motives and renovates morals. Intensifies the powers of intellect, and turns the attention of students from sordid cares and depressing anxieties to peace and freedom of mind. It is practical application and proof of the old Socratic doctrine that men act wrongly because they form erroneous judgments. It teaches the laws and conditions upon which right thinking depends, or such thinking as regulates character, conduct and judgment. 
3. Religious - Which treats of the nature of mind, soul and spirit. Shows them to be identical in essence. Proves every mind - every soul to be the direct offspring and emanation of the Divine Soul or Mind and teaches the rebinding of the soul of man to the All-Soul of Divine Soul after the supposed disjunctive agency of sin is annulled (Religion, form re and lige). It is practical revival of the doctrine; "I and my Father are one" - "that they may be one with me as I am one with thee" - "ye are the sons of the Most High," which is the most ancient spiritual teaching known to the race.

The therapeutic application of mind claims attention most strenuously as yet, and all instruction in the new metaphysics is devoted more especially to healing of bodily sicknesses, brain affections, or whatever infirmities the flesh claims. It is promising evidence of the advance of the Science into the higher thought of the people to find that latterly many have urged: Why devote so potent a reformatory principle to the simple healing from physical maladies, when moral and religious instructions have fallen so far short of their high mission? Why not spend the energies of scientific discovery to the curing of depraved tastes and vicious lives?

Later in the chapter she says: 
The earnestness and eagerness with which all classes of people seize upon the study, whether they scold or condemn the 'so-called science', or whether they believe in and practice it, only shows the 

perpetual effort of the race to get wholeness - to solve the problem of life by looking into all that pertains to life conditions. The quest of life is satisfaction. This is the one word that expresses the whole effort of life in everything that lives.

How to get satisfaction is the problem that; absorbs the attention of the race. It has absorbed the attention of all races in all ages. Those who set out on the search for health are pursuing one branch of the great problem of wholeness or satisfaction.

The definition of satisfaction is conceded to be, peace of mind, knowledge of absolute truth, and health of body.

For the January 2002 installment click here