The Victorious Attitude

by Orison Swett Marden

Hufeland.

Even those who do not believe in Christian Science as a whole must be impressed with the Scientists' wonderful religious optimism. Their inspiring mental attitude, the hopeful way in which they face life, always looking toward the light, toward health, toward prosperity, toward success, and turning their backs upon the darkness, upon everything which can mar their health, their efficiency, their happiness, is creating a new world for thousands of discouraged souls.

Christian Scientists insist that since God has created everything that is, and since He is perfect, is all-in-all, He could not possibly create anything unlike Himself, such as disease, or anything else which is not good for His children. God is harmony, they reason, and He could not create discord. He is truth and He could not create error. God is love and He could not create the opposite of love,—hatred, jealousy, envy, selfishness, any evil emotion or passion. Hence all disease, all discord, all the enemies of the race, all Satanic influences in the world must be accounted for in some other way than as decrees of His will, for Perfection could not have produced these imperfections. Love could not create anything antagonistic to itself.

Scientists take a positive and vigorous stand against the admission to their mind of any of the enemies of their health, their prosperity, their happiness or their destiny. Not only is all thought of failure and poverty banished, but they close the portals of their mind against fear, worry and anxiety, against the ravages of jealousy, the poison of hatred, envy, and selfishness. They try to keep their mental realm clear of all black, forbidding pictures, of all sorts of distressing emotions and unfriendly thoughts, while they open it wide to the things which help, inspire and bring hope, the friend thoughts and emotions,—joy, gladness, love, truth, and divine inspiration.

They believe that all human beings were not only made to be healthy but also to be happy, successful, prosperous. They regard poverty, no less than illness, as a mental disease, to be treated in the same manner as bodily disease; and this cheerful religious optimism which they try steadily to maintain is not alone a healing force, but is also a great disease-resisting power.

Health, wholeness, is one of the most important and necessary factors for the attainment of those things which every normal human being desires,—peace, power, plenty, success and happiness. The Scientists' religious optimism is a potent force for placing the mind in the most favorable condition for the attainment of all these things. It removes all hindrances to full, complete self-expression.

It is just as necessary to hold the victorious attitude toward health as it is to hold the victorious attitude toward our career and everything which affects it. It is just as necessary to get rid of our doubts and fears regarding our physical well-being, as it is to get rid of our doubts and fears regarding our ability to succeed.

If we would be strong and vigorous it is quite as important to visualize health, to hold the health ideal, to keep the perfect health picture constantly in the mind, as it is to keep the prosperity, the success ideal in the mind when we are striving for an independence.

The habit of always holding a high ideal of our health, of thinking of ourselves as well, vigorous, physically and mentally perfect, will go very far toward building up a strong disease-resisting barrier between ourselves and all our health enemies. On the other hand, people who never think of themselves as whole, healthy, active and robust, but who constantly hold in mind a picture of themselves as weak, ailing, without vim or stamina, with little or no disease-resisting power, are liable at any time to become victims of disease. The building up of a strong health thought barrier, a vigorous health conviction between ourselves and disease is the best sort of health insurance. Fearing disease, thinking ill health, visualizing physical suffering, is the surest way of attracting those things.

Physicians know that the awful incubus of doubt and worry in the minds of patients, the fear that their disease may be fatal, is the greatest obstacle to their recovery. We head toward our doubts, our fears, our convictions regarding our health, just as we do toward our doubts, fears and convictions regarding other things. If we are convinced that we are not going to be strong, rugged, virile, if we fear that we are likely to develop inherited weaknesses and disease tendencies, we are headed toward these conditions, and will probably realize them. On the contrary, if we hold the victorious attitude toward health, if we visualize the health ideal, the health conviction, we head mentally toward health, and what we head toward mentally is the pattern of that which is continually being built into our life structure.