"'N. N. N. There is no Pain in Truth, therefore there is no Truth in Pain. There is no Nerve in Mind, therefore there is no Mind in Nerve. There is no Matter in Mind, therefore there is no Mind in Matter. There is no Matter in Life, therefore there is no Life in Matter. There is no Matter in Good, therefore there is no Good in Matter. Nihil nocet nemini; nihil nemini nocet.'
"'Twenty-five dollars, please,' and I returned to my hotel filled with new thoughts, which I found later were very incomplete.
"The next day she said:
"'Man, my dear, is governed by Soul, not sense. Sense is the reflection of matter, and matter does not exist. Thus sense is but the shadow of a dream. In dreams the laws of health are valueless. There is but one Law of Health, and that is the one precept of Neministic Healing.
"'To the awakened mind the seasons will come and go, with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist finds that these changes can not affect his crops. The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars. He will look out from them upon the universe, and the florist will find his flower before he beholds its seed. Thus matter will be finally proved to be nothing but a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect man through its supposed organic action or existence.'
"Then she gave me another mystic card, which read:
"'N. N. N. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and Creation must collapse. Nihil nocet nemini.' And this time I did not need to be reminded of the final ceremony with which the lesson ended. Nor did she need to clink the coins on the table.
"In the fourth lesson the president discoursed more fully on 'the popular gods, Sin, Sorrow, and Sickness, the three S's of Satan; all three illusions of the Sinful Soul. The very word Illusion proves their nothingness. These are but troubled dreams of the darkened soul, and to rise above them is to wake from a cataleptic nightmare to see the stars shining on the hills.
"'When troubled by a horrible dream, my dear, one has only to say, "This is a Dream; I will awaken." Then the stars will shine through the open window and the hideous vision will disappear.
"'So in afflictions of disease and dread and death, one must say, "This is a Dream." Then it becomes a dream, and we rise above it into an atmosphere of Perfect Serenity.