Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/273

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE WORLD OF THE SENSES
269

teaches that error can create out of itself another error the same as a tree can bring forth another tree, and that mind can generate itself. Wisdom does not create wisdom, for it fills all space and sheds its light upon the world of matter, thus destroying the things of darkness and bringing to light things hidden.

Small-pox is like a tree whose fruits are scattered abroad infecting those who eat them. It is a superstitious idea and like all such it has a religious cast. It deceived the world so that every person was liable. Therefore the idea “kine-pox” was sent into the world that all might be saved or vaccinated. As many as received the virus or were baptized with the belief were saved. Here is introduced another world which is deliverance from small-pox. To all who have passed from their old belief into the world of vaccination there is no fear of death from small-pox, but a fear lest they have not been vaccinated with genuine virus. Now what does their salvation rest upon? It rests on no principle outside the mind. In ignorance of causes people are satisfied with some one's belief that there is virtue in this savior. Thus their minds are quiet and the fruits are a milder disease, if the graft is put into a healthy tree (or child).

This will apply to all diseases. Every disease is the invention of man and has no identity in Wisdom, but to those who believe it it is a truth. If everything he does not understand were blotted out, what would be there left of him? Would he be better or worse, if nine-tenths of all he thinks he knows were blotted out of his mind, and he existed with what was true? I contend that he would as it were sit on the clouds and see the world beneath him tormented with ideas that form living errors whose weight is ignorance. Safe from their power, he would not return to the world's belief for any consideration. In a slight degree this is my case. I sit as it were in another world or condition, as far above belief in disease as the heavens are above the earth. Though safe myself, I grieve for my fellow man, and I am reminded of the words of Jesus when He beheld the misery of His countrymen: “O Jerusalem! How oft would I gather thee as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not.” I hear this truth now pleading with man, to listen to the voice of reason.

I know from my own experience with the sick that their troubles are the effect of their own belief; not that their belief