Consciousness

Photo by Nika Benedictova

Because the Science of Being—the Science of Consciousness—is universal, it applies to all persons in all places. Just like the law of gravity.

This excerpt from Addresses by Martha Wilcox provides a remarkable window into the practice of spiritual healing.¹ Wilcox was a noted Christian Science healing practitioner and metaphysical teacher in the first half of the 20th century.

There should be firmly established in the mind of every student of Christian Science [and any student of the Science of Being] that there is nothing that can produce consciousness. One can never go further back than consciousness because there is nothing further back. Consciousness is. There is nothing to God and man[ifestation, the divine image] but consciousness.

God or Mind is infinite, indestructible consciousness at the point of causation, and God is infinite, indestructible consciousness at the point of effect, and cause and effect is one.²

God or Mind is the name given to an infinitude of self-conscious Good, and because God or Good is conscious, this results in the infinite conscious idea of Itself, which is man[-ifestation, the divine image]. If Mind were not self-conscious, It would have no idea of Its divine nature, and there would be no intelligence or man[-ifestation of the divine image].²

All consciousness is [divine] Mind; and [this] Mind is God— 
an infinite, and not a finite consciousness.

This consciousness is reflected
in individual consciousness,
or man[-ifestation, the divine image],
whose source is infinite Mind.
There is no really finite mind,
no finite consciousness.
There is no material substance,
for Spirit is all that endureth,
and hence is the only substance.

There is, can be, no evil mind,
because Mind is God.
God and [God’s] ideas — 
that is, God and the universe — 
constitute all that exists.
Man[-ifestation], as God’s offspring,
must be spiritual, perfect, eternal.³

— Mary Baker Eddy, Unity of Good

A practitioner and patient used this paragraph [from Unity of Good] almost exclusively while working through a severe claim. They both held to the fact that all consciousness is God, an infinite consciousness, and that this infinite God-consciousness was reflected in their individual consciousness; they both held to the fact that since their individual consciousness had its source in God, they, as effect, could be conscious only of infinite good.

By accepting this consciousness as the only consciousness and as their consciousness, the false beliefs gave place to reality and the patient was healed.

We know only what is in our consciousness,
and our consciousness is God or Good.
The true idea of God
which is man[-ifestation, the divine image],
is not only in consciousness,
but is consciousness Itself,
and is the whole of consciousness.

This God-consciousness was the consciousness that Jesus was, and was also the consciousness of “the perfect man in Science” that Jesus saw. If we only knew that the one infinite consciousness is always the consciousness of both the practitioner and the patient, then we too would see “the perfect man[ifestation of the divine image.]”

Jesus understood man[ifestation, the divine image] to be an eternal, living mode of consciousness, as certainly as he understood God to be an eternal, living mode of consciousness. Jesus was eternally aware of the relationship between God and man[ifestation of the divine image].

Four days after the decease of Lazarus, Jesus came to the tomb, having excluded from his consciousness the beliefs of death, and time and disintegration. Jesus knew that such experiences were unknown to God or true consciousness, therefore they were unknown to Lazarus.

Jesus knew that Lazarus, as idea, had never lived in matter or material body and had never died out of it. Jesus knew that Lazarus had no more consciousness of matter or dying than God had.

So Jesus commanded Lazarus to come forth. He knew that there was nothing in the consciousness of Lazarus that could say, “I am dead, and cannot come forth.” Lazarus and God were one and the same consciousness, and Lazarus came forth, exhibiting that one consciousness, seen to human understanding as the normal appearance of man.

Infinite consciousness is never included in anything or in anybody, but consciousness always includes everything and everybody. Consciousness is always all-inclusive, even to the winds, and the waves, and the starry heavens. Anything and everything pertaining to a person or a thing that is real or fundamental, the divine consciousness includes it.

There was once a student of Christian Science who found it necessary to make a trip around the world. He was far from enthusiastic or happy about it, expressing his fear of sea sickness, or storms, and the dangers of ocean travel.

This student failed to remember that the beliefs about man[ifestation, the divine image], about the ship, ocean and storms, were all within himself, and because these beliefs were never external to his consciousness, he, therefore, had dominion over them.

The practitioner reminded the student that all consciousness is God and that consciousness is all-inclusive good, that consciousness always has dominion, that the ship, sea sickness and weather could not think of him, but that he, being the true idea of consciousness, had within his consciousness these things only as they are fundamentally [as ideas in consciousness, the Kingdom of Good.]

This realization that consciousness is all-inclusive met the false beliefs for the man, and proved, also, that false beliefs could not affect realities.

Everything that God or Mind has formed
is in my consciousness.
Infinite consciousness is ever conscious
of all its ideas and, because of this fact,
all ideas are in my consciousness.

If I need an idea,
I have it,
and even before I conceive that I need it,
I have it.
Consciousness never has to recall something
and it never loses anything.
Every useful or desirable thing
that we have ever needed or known,
has always been present in our consciousness.

Let us suppose that I desire to think of the name of some certain person. A realization that my consciousness is as all-inclusive as God’s consciousness is all-inclusive, dispels the belief in my consciousness that something is lost or absent when I need it.

This person’s name will be perfectly clear to me when I realize that there is someone present in my consciousness named “The Son of God.” Realizing that the person’s name is “Son of God,” causes me to remember that his name is James Brown.

Infinite consciousness is ever conscious of all of its ideas as they are in their reality. And the consciousness that you have now and that I have now, is this infinite consciousness.

Our human consciousness is true or false according to our understanding of scientific consciousness, or according to our consciousness as false belief.

If we understood that the consciousness that we now are, reflects or shows forth the one and only consciousness, then our consciousness is true. But if we believe that we are a personality, and include a consciousness of our own, then our consciousness is false.

Then a man came from Baal Shalisha,
and brought the man of God [Elisha]
bread of the firstfruits,
twenty loaves of barley bread,
and newly ripened grain in his knapsack.
And [Elisha] said, ‘Give it to the people,
that they may eat.’

But his servant said,
’What? Shall I to set this
before one hundred men?’

[Elisha] said again, ‘Give it to the people,
that they may eat:
for thus says the LORD,
They shall eat and have some left over.’

— II Kings 4:42-43 (NKJV)

In II Kings, we have set forth for our use an example of a consciousness operating as understanding, and another consciousness operating as false belief. This example of true and false consciousness is set forth when Elisha commanded his servant to feed the one hundred men with twenty barley loaves and some corn.

To Elisha, whose consciousness was scientific understanding, all useful things, and necessary things, were never external to his consciousness, but were always in his consciousness and he was always conscious of them. All things were always intact, inexhaustible, always available to every one.

Elisha was not one of those individuals who, through some means, was going to bring good things into existence, or was going to be conscious of good at some future time. Elisha knew that if any good could ever exist humanly, it was because that very good already existed in his consciousness divinely, or in its reality.

To Elisha, all good and useful things were already in his consciousness; they were intact and available, and he was always conscious of them.

In so far as Elisha was concerned, everybody in the then universe could have eaten barley loaves and corn day after day without exhausting them, because Elisha knew that the idea of barley loaves and of corn in the individual consciousness would still remain intact, unspent or not used up.

Take the number 2.
Everyone in the world
may use the number 2 at the same time,
yet using it does not use it up.
Ideas in consciousness
are not subject to diminution or extinction
because they are used.

There is never less than all good
for every one of us.
And where do we look for our good?
In consciousness.
That is where we shall always find it.

The Kingdom of Good
is within us
and constitutes our consciousness.

The consciousness of Elisha’s servant corresponded to false belief. He believed himself to be a personality with a consciousness of his own, and all things external to his consciousness. His belief was in meagerness, insufficiency, inadequacy, lack, a belief that anything can be used up or be limited in its extent.

The consciousness of Elisha’s servant was the human mind’s misconception of what Good is and where it is. His seeming false consciousness was only his human mind’s inverted way of seeing and knowing what really were spiritual facts at hand and in his own consciousness.

As in Elisha’s time, so today, we can give to the world the concrete proof that the living, acting, spiritual ideas or facts that constitute our consciousness, if recognized and employed by us, can and will annul the false beliefs about these facts or annul supposititious consciousness.

Because Elisha recognized and utilized the consciousness that is scientific understanding, he gave to the world the concrete proof that the good which constitutes consciousness is always at hand for the individual to utilize, and is always abundant and unfailing.

And today, as in the time of Elisha, Truth says to every hungry heart, “Ye shall eat...”

….All belief is without a believer. God or Mind is infinite Truth, and Mind cannot be the opposite of Truth and be belief. Man[ifestation, the divine image], being the reflection of Truth, cannot include belief. There is in reality no such mode of consciousness as belief.

Since the material body is belief in mortal thought only, the thing to do is to improve our belief about the body, and this is done by gaining a higher understanding of true body. A false sense of body must be replaced with a true sense of body.

Progress does not destroy a material body,
it just dispels the belief
that the body we now have
is mortal and material
and organic and structural.
As we clear away our beliefs,
there appears, to our sight and sense,
our ever-present glorious body,
the body that was seen
on the Mount of Transfiguration.

A Christian Science healing indicates an improved belief about the body. When we declare facts of truth about God, we should realize that these facts or truth about God is man[ifestation, the divine image], is body.

God or Mind is man[ifestation, the divine image]; God or Mind is body. The body is always the visible expression of the mind. Whatever images of thought are held within our mind, these images are visibly seen in the body, which is the expression of mind.

Whenever our body shows us that there is a certain image of inharmony in our thought, then we should immediately replace this false image in thought with the counterfact image or the Truth. This process restores health and harmony to our mind, which in turn is visibly manifested in our body.

It seems to us that it is the body
that ages or grows old, independent of the mind,
but man’s body or embodiment
is but the garment of his thought.
The body always visibly manifests
the mind from which it is evolved.

Waves of the Ocean

[1] Martha Wilcox, Addresses by Martha Wilcox, (Plainfield Christian Science Church, Independent), p. 145

[2] [God] replaces “He,” [Its divine nature] replaces “Himself,” [Itself] replaces “Him,” [God’s] replaces “His,” [Itself] replaces “Himself”

[3] Mary Baker G. Eddy, Prose Works: Unity of Good, (1896), p. 24