The Word Made Flesh, excerpt

Once, when at Mrs. Eddy’s home, one of her beautiful horses was in a serious claim. This was reported to her and in substance she said, “What the horse is to you, is not actually the way that the idea is.” Dr. Powell said, “Things are not what they seem.” (No, things are what they are.) They are figures of the true. If our faith were more simple, we would see them as they are, expressions of the Divine in forms we call material.

Mrs. Eddy showed us that the so-called human mind held within itself its own self-made concept of horse, and attached to its concept of horse, its own qualities of being, sick or well. She also showed us that this one, so-called mortal mind, gives to each of us its own and the same concept of horse. She then showed us that this beautiful horse, which we all so much admired, was wholly within the realm of consciousness as image or idea.

She showed us that the Divine Mind was the only power that can formulate an idea, and that Divine Mind was the substance and character of every particular idea, and that the Divine Mind was all there was to what the human mind called horse.

She showed us that we did not need to heal a horse, but we did need to restore our vision from that which was untrue, to that which was true in the realm of consciousness. The work was not to be done on the horse, the only horse there was, was already perfect, and she showed us that the true horse was the one and the same horse in each individual consciousness.

We thoroughly understood that the horse, which we saw as material and sick, was to be seen as it was. We were not to change a sick horse into a well horse, but we were to change our thought from belief to Truth. We also thoroughly understood that the Divine Mind was the I, or Ego, present, that we were calling the personal I, and this Divine Mind, present, was conscious of and seeing its own contents or idea, horse.

The horse did not need healing. Mrs. Eddy only restored our vision to see Truth or fact, that the only Mind present was aware of its own perfection, and with the restoration of our vision from that of belief to Truth, the horse appeared to us as he had always been.

This was my first clear apprehension of the fact that a Christian Scientist has nothing to do with effects. If a Christian Scientist has the Divine Mind present as the only Mind, this Mind itself sees and is aware of its own identity as effect.

I understood for the first time that if I allowed the so-called human mind to have place, then the human mind would see and know its own imperfect concept, a sick horse needing healing. I understood the necessity of maintaining the fact of the one divine Mind.

True enough, it does seem that there is a so-called human mind that sees and feels the contents and qualities of its own erroneous mortal self, and in order that what I call the personal I, may see and feel the good, I must understand that the divine Mind, the one I or Ego, is all there is present to what I call my mind. I must let that Mind be present which is the cause of good, and which sees and feels itself as being all good effects. There is no other I or conscious being present.

It was the Saviour or impersonal Truth or Divine Mind that saw His own image and likeness. The human mind can see man only according to its own idea of itself, which is always material, corporeal, mortal and finite, and as long as I see or believe man as actually material and finite and corporeal, the Saviour or impersonal Truth is not present in my consciousness.

So every morning, and many times a day, I declare, “The I or Ego or Mind, the Saviour that is present here, is aware of Himself, and this awareness of Himself is His idea, or image like Himself, and is His individual child as divine intelligence or myself, Himself, as idea, is myself.”

Do you see the importance of having that Mind present which sees, and knows, and is all things, as they actually are? Do you understand that this Mind is the only Mind? The divine Mind is the great author of all His children, the sons and daughters of God, known in our human existence as men and women, but I must see men and women as they are, “expressions of the divine in forms we call material.”