The mind is the medium in which ideas are sown. Ideas, as distinct from one another as different kinds of seeds, grow like seeds, take to themselves character, and become known by their fruits. When the mind is disturbed, the disturbance is shown in the body as a result of sub-conscious processes and “chemical changes.” Mind in relation to body is “spiritual matter” because it can be changed, is excited through fears, is always in process even when we sleep, is not intelligence but subject to it, and because it receives thought-seeds as the earth receives plant-seeds.
Sensation contains no intelligence in itself, but is a mere disturbance of the spiritual matter called “agitation,” ready to respond to any direction given it by our suggestion. So pain is “in the mind," not in the hip, for example, not in any organ. It contains no intelligence, but might be wisely interpreted. Disease is due to the misconstruing of sensation or pain, it is due to a wrong direction of mind. Hence it is not an evil but an “error.” It is not inflicted on us by God: God created man to be well, happy, free. The reflection or shadow on the body is what the doctors call disease. Our senses or life become imprisoned in the false direction of mind, as a result of “false reasoning.” Dr. Quimby says that he sees both the reflection on the body, the symptoms diagnosed, and the original which casts the shadow, that is, the inward disturbance which might have been wisely interpreted. To cure disease is to (1) see its mental causes, (2) understand the false directions of mind or reasonings, (3) see the truth concerning health as a Divine ideal, (4) realize the great truth that the spirit is not sick; hence (5) to separate the true or “scientific” man from the man of opinion or error. This means undoing the “false reasoning” and learning what would have been the right interpretation of the first sensation or pain.
The senses give us a “knowledge of sensation, with or without Science.” They have their spiritual counterparts, the true or “real” senses, not in and of matter. These are “light,” “life,” and are “in light,” in contrast with the wisdom of this world (in darkness). The true senses constitute the real man or spirit, the child of God. They are larger than the natural man or body. Hence they are not “in” the body. They include our higher consciousness, clairvoyance or intuition, with the inner impressions coming to us
