Page:The Quimby Manuscripts.djvu/343

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GOD AND MAN
339

and if founded on an opinion it is liable to make him unhappy. To separate the truth from the error is a Science the knowledge of which teaches how to correct an error or disease, and in this knowledge is eternal life. Jesus never intended to teach the people a belief in another world, His words and acts showed them that their beliefs were false, and that they were the cause of their misery, but this they could not understand, and being in their belief, their belief became part of their identity. As they were taught to believe in spirits their misery was attributed to them, and as error begets error the people were tormented by their own beliefs. It never entered into the minds of these blind leaders that as a man sows so shall he reap; that action and reaction are equal. Knowledge of science was not general, and the possibility that the belief of man had anything to do with his health was not dreamed of. All that was believed was something that could not be seen, so the prophets prophesied of some one coming from heaven. Now if heaven had not been something that people believed in away and apart from this earth it would not have been in the prophecies. So this heaven was an established fact and all their controversies were in regard to it. They introduced all sorts of mediums who purported to come from and have communication with that place. There was the dwelling of God and all religious theories were based upon the belief that there was another world where God dwelt and where He ordered all things according to His own will. Absurd as this is, a man is made of this composition, for man is only a mass of ideas combined together by a wisdom superior to the matter of which the ideas are formed.

Science is not recognized in this belief for it belongs to that class of minds which have never risen to a state where they can discern that man perceives anything independently of his natural senses. To this class of minds whatever is not established is a mystery. If a lead ball is thrown into the water it sinks to the bottom, that is a fact; if a wooden ball is also thrown into the water it floats, and then comes the mystery. A medium from the other world is required to explain the phenomenon; argument is of no force, the explanation must come from God, and thus it is with every mysterious phenomenon: supernatural power only can explain it. Thus man is kept constantly excited to understand every little thing that happens. He never has thought that heaven and hell were