Christian Science Seminar (Class) Notes – Volume 4

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Christian Science Seminar (Class) Notes – Volume 4

These are notes of the fourth day of a six-day seminar on Christian Science classroom teaching in accord with the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy as given in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880’s. Their purpose is to restore to Christian Scientists and to the world Mrs. Eddy’s school of Christian Science teaching.

In an effort to preserve the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, these notes have been compiled from teachers’ class books which conform to the doctrine of Christian Science as taught by Mrs. Eddy.

In Volume 4, we read:

“MATERIAL EXISTENCE A DREAM

“Death is but one of the illusions of error. It is not a step in man’s spiritual progress. It is no friend. It will not restore anything to man.

“Material existence is a dream. This waking dream is every bit as much a dream as is the sleeping dream. It has no reality. Mortal man is this dream. Take away the dream and you take away mortal man. The dreamer and the dream are one, just as the belief and believer are one. What is it that sees the dream, and is conscious of it? It is material sense. Matter takes no cognizance of matter. Take away so-called mortal mind, and matter cannot cognize matter.

“The dead body is just matter with the dreamer, that is, mortal mind, passed into a new state of consciousness. So the dead body cannot see, feel, hear, or take cognizance of matter, because it is only mortal mind — the dream sense — that does so, and ever did. So, you see, matter cannot take cognizance of matter. Matter does not take cognizance of bodies, persons, things. What is it, then, that seems to? It is mortal mind, the dream sense itself, but it is never the body that does so.

“If you dream at night your dream produces a body which you call you, but does this body in the night dream ever see, hear, or feel through the body? No. It is the dream — and the dream only — which sees, hears, feels, acts, and is conscious, the mind alone. When that dream ends, the body goes with it. The dream, or mind, constitutes it. It seems to be you, but it isn’t. It seems to act, suffer, enjoy as a body, but no such things are taking place as a body. It is all the dream-sense. It takes place in corporeal sense but not in matter. That is exactly the same in the waking dream. Matter, or the body, never sees, hears, feels, or talks through the body. It is the dream, or mortal mind alone which does this, in belief.

“If matter were self-cognizant, then the dead body would still see, hear, feel, and so on, would it not? But matter — the body — has never done so. It is only mortal mind — the dream — which constitutes matter’s supposed selfhood. (If one doesn’t do it in the dead body, he doesn’t do it in the live body.)

“So, what is the selfhood of matter? Mortal mind, the dream. Is man ever a selfhood of matter? No. It is error which says, ‘I am man.’ Just as in the night dream you embrace your body in your thought, so is it in the waking dream. You are NOT in the body; the body is A CONCEPT of you which you entertain. But you are never inside of it; never really a servant of it. No matter what seems to happen to the body in the night dream it does not affect your consciousness in the slightest, does it?

“Remember that the dream is mortal mind, material sense, and so is the dreamer. It is not man; it is not you. Your true being, outline, form, are in divine Mind and are forever safe and secure, permanent, and real, reflecting and expressing the one infinite God.”

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