Chapter 1 – Introduction

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 1.

“WHOSO READETH

LET HIM

UNDERSTAND”

JESUS

INTRODUCTION

The key to this book is simple but profound.
Because God is the one Mind He must and does embrace within Himself the reality of all that is. Man is the essential effect that this one God is cause to and just as there is only one God so there is only one man. Since self-evidently you are not God, you must be the effect of God and the one effect. Your dealings as this one man are always with God and with God alone.
This leads to the inevitable fact that, what appears to you as persons, places and things “over there” or “out there” is not there at all, but right where you are, “here.” Also since

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God is, and is all that is, now is all the time there is and consequently there are no years or times in the commonly accepted meaning of these words. It is all “now.”
Peoples, races, nations, prophecies, dates, all the so-called formulae of the human mind are really of no vital moment because they are all part of the dream belief called the mortal sense of existence. This is not in reality an existence but a dream belief that, rightly translated, disappears only in reappearing in its true sense as the light of Truth.
Bible history, like all so-called human history, does not record periods of time but as Science and Health points out “states and stages of consciousness.” When understood correctly it presents unfoldments of reality proceeding from the lesser to the greater. The Biblical record of creation illustrates this. First the clearing of the vision, then the discernment of the lesser or simpler phases of Mind gradually unfolding to the higher, until finally the recorder declared the whole as God and man in His image and likeness. There were not six days of creation but clearer visions of the one fact of God’s allness. The remainder of the Old Testament is the clarifying vision of that which is real uncovering and destroying that which is unreal.

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The conclusion is that you can never be deceived into believing that you are dealing with anything but Mind, the one God. Thus your communion with God is your being and all that you behold is God interpreting Himself to you.
With this in mind it will be possible to solve every problem, in other words to understand every problem (place it where it is seen as already worked out) and thus find the solution.
After the opening chapter of the Bible which declares God and man as All-in-all, up to the statements of Jesus, the recorded declarations of absolute Truth uncontaminated by human belief are few and not easily discernible. As Jesus said, “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them.” He did not mean “persons” but conditions of thought. All had previously been in the realm of belief but Jesus spoke and demonstrated the truth dealing only with Spirit, hence the disciples’ surprised exclamation “What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!” and his own declaration “As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just.”
Christian Science, through Science and Health, has given to the world the actual truth and science of Being—one God and one man

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and God’s eternal interpretation of Himself to His man, appearing as the entire harmonious universe and forever showing forth Father, son and Holy Ghost, the unity of good, the trinity of wholeness.
This then is the key: one God one man, one cause one effect. The effect’s relationship, as always, is with cause, never with effect. To start from cause is to start from God. To start from effect, is to start from the one evil.
A statement made by Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science Journal of August 1890 on the subject of malicious animal magnetism is significant in connection with the issue of this book. In that article she says, “It is my impression that at least a half century will pass away, before man is permitted to render his public verdict on some of the momentous questions that are now agitating the world. Also, the discussion of malicious animal magnetism had better be dropped until Scientists understand clearly, how to handle this error—until they are not in danger of dwarfing their growth in love, by falling into this lamentable practice in their attempts to meet it. Only patient, unceasing love for all mankind—love that cannot mistake Love’s aid—can determine this question on the Principle of Christian Science.”

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Virtually, “a half century,” has elapsed since Mrs. Eddy wrote these words, and the one thing that now makes the presentation of this subject in a public way permissible and wise is that evil is now being understood by the Christian Scientist as wholly impersonal and as a state of mind. It is no longer thought of as having anything to do with matter—or with false mentality—both effects, but entirely with malicious mind—“the dragon,” the cause or basis of evil. In other words, evil is dealt with as a belief of consciousness, which when under-stood in its true sense as the negation of divine Mind and reversed is found to be divine Mind. This understanding eliminates all hatred and fear of persons, places and things, and so prevents Christian Scientists from “dwarfing their growth in love by falling into this lamentable practice in their attempts to meet it.” The time is here when this question can be happily understood and God seen as the All-in-all.

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