False stimulus
A patient under the influence of mortal mind is healed
186:1 only by removing the influence on him of this mind, by
emptying his thought of the false stimulus
186:3 and reaction of will-power and filling it with
the divine energies of Truth.
Christian Science destroys material beliefs through the
186:6 understanding of Spirit, and the thoroughness of this work
determines health. Erring human mind-forces can work
only evil under whatever name or pretence they are em-
186:9 ployed; for Spirit and matter, good and evil, light and
darkness, cannot mingle.
Evil negative and self-destructive
Evil is a negation, because it is the absence of truth.
186:12 It is nothing, because it is the absence of something. It
is unreal, because it presupposes the absence
of God, the omnipotent and omnipresent.
186:15 Every mortal must learn that there is neither
power nor reality in evil.
Evil is self-assertive. It says: "I am a real entity, over-
186:18 mastering good." This falsehood should strip evil of all
pretensions. The only power of evil is to destroy itself. It
can never destroy one iota of good. Every attempt of evil
186:21 to destroy good is a failure, and only aids in peremptorily
punishing the evil-doer. If we concede the same reality to
discord as to harmony, discord has as lasting a claim upon
186:24 us as has harmony. If evil is as real as good, evil is also as
immortal. If death is as real as Life, immortality is a myth.
If pain is as real as the absence of pain, both must be im-
186:27 mortal; and if so, harmony cannot be the law of being.
Ignorant idolatry
Mortal mind is ignorant of self, or it could never be
self-deceived. If mortal mind knew how to be better, it
186:30 would be better. Since it must believe in some-
thing besides itself, it enthrones matter as deity.
The human mind has been an idolater from the beginning,
187:1 having other gods and believing in more than the one
Mind.
187:3 As mortals do not comprehend even mortal existence,
how ignorant must they be of the all-knowing Mind and
of His creations.
187:6 Here you may see how so-called material sense creates
its own forms of thought, gives them material names, and
then worships and fears them. With pagan blindness,
187:9 it attributes to some material god or medicine an ability
beyond itself. The beliefs of the human mind rob and
enslave it, and then impute this result to another illusive
187:12 personification, named Satan.