SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION - The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute

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It is plain that this tongue is not so much a spoken language or atheoretical explanation as the practical redemption of the wholehuman condition from mortality. It is a language that can be properly'spoken' only through life-practice. Every page of the textbook isconcerned with this language of healing, not only for the sake of wellbeing,but as our evidence that the problem of dualism is beingresolved. Through healing and restoration we demonstrate that weare really thinking and talking in 'Language 1,' - our original spiritualmother tongue, - and no longer in the forked tongue of 'Language 2.'Making great absolute statements about the perfection of being isvery appealing to the human mind, but unless the declarations arecarried through to where they change the human condition we areliving on 'cloud nine'- a cloud without rain. Christian Science doesindeed teach that “Nothing is real and eternal . . . but God and Hisidea. Evil has no reality . . . but is simply a belief, an illusion ofmaterial sense” (S & H 71). Such an idealistic theology, however,would be meaningless in human experience unless it could betranslated into practice, which brings us to the last step in theprocess, where the 'medicine' of Christian Science validates its'theology.'“My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed mind produces all theorganism and action of the mortal body, set my thoughts to work innew channels, and led up to my demonstration of the proposition thatMind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in Mind-science.“Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind is All-in-all, thatthe only realities are the divine Mind and idea. This great fact is not,however, seen to be supported by sensible evidence, until its divinePrinciple is demonstrated by healing the sick and thus provedabsolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion canbe reached” (S & H 108:30). For further study see: S & H 52: 19-23 S& H 492: 17-28 Mis 45: 21-9 522: 3-11 269: 3-8 346: 6-21 340: 4-29MY 357: 22-25Retranslating the MistranslationWhy translation? Why not reversal? Why not the destruction of error?Why not the application of divine law to the problem? The answer30
surely is clear: the error is not a thing in itself, not self-existent. It isbut the truth misstated. There never were two realities. 'Mortal man' isspiritual man misunderstood; he's not another man. The onlysatisfactory answer to a mistranslation is to translate it correctly.The textbook gives us the underlying reason for adopting this divinetechnique for problem-solving. Writing of the revelation to St John ofa new heaven and a new earth, Mrs. Eddy tells us “. . . that theheavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousnesswhich God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unilluminedhuman mind, the vision is material” (S & H 573:6). Note that it is onlythe vision that is material, not the heavens and earth themselves.Nothing has to be done to them. They need no treatment; but we doneed to 'treat' or translate the human consciousness so that it isfound to be the illumined one which God bestows. In this divine light,there is no problem. The whole translation process takes place withinour own consciousness.A fellow-student of Christian Science told the writer of an experiencethat illustrates the point. She and her husband owned some hotelproperty on the Texas coast. Over the radio there came a warning,hurricane imminent. At the time she was too busy with somedomestic nursing to be able to take any precautions, but the voicesaid to her, 'Wind! Go and look up wind. ' Immediately she paused inher task, fetched the textbook, and read from the “Glossary ,” “WIND.That which indicates the might of omnipotence and the movements ofGod's spiritual government, encompassing all things. “„ Wind”' shesaid out loud, 'If you are wind, that is what you are. If you aren't that,you aren't anything.‟ The hurricane came, and swept through thetown, but not a particle of their property was damaged. She hadhandled the situation not by denying it or by reversing it, but bytranslating it scientifically, - by knowing what wind is, in its originalspiritual meaning.The illustration shows that in Christian Science we do not try totranslate the material sense back into reality by starting out from themisconception. Reasoning from matter is illegitimate. We cannotreason intelligently from a mistake. For instance, it would begrotesque to attempt to gain the true idea of man or of body byreading from the corporeal personality. Is there some kind of spiritual31
Page 1 and 2: The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institu
Page 3 and 4: “Christian Science is not copyrig
Page 5 and 6: Chapter VI “Scientific Translatio
Page 7 and 8: PrefaceHow does the divine communic
Page 9 and 10: CHAPTER ITranslation OutlinedThe Th
Page 11 and 12: Everywhere in her writings Mary Bak
Page 13: through a range of capitalized syno
Page 16 and 17: CHAPTER IITo Begin Rightly is to En
Page 18 and 19: hiding the reality fall away by deg
Page 20 and 21: the imprisoning shadows grow less d
Page 22 and 23: A very simple illustration of the d
Page 24 and 25: egarding them as opportunities to p
Page 26 and 27: After presenting the spiritual univ
Page 28 and 29: school in the physical sciences. A
Page 32 and 33: stomach behind the physical organ?
Page 34 and 35: Naturally it could be objected that
Page 36 and 37: CHAPTER IIIReduction to SystemGraci
Page 38 and 39: that it was a person's belief and n
Page 40 and 41: ealization that we are not apart fr
Page 42 and 43: educed must lie in a clear explanat
Page 44 and 45: eastward, to the star seen by the W
Page 46 and 47: (127:15). This is a very different
Page 48 and 49: deductive, deducing the universe fr
Page 50: elements of love, for instance, exc

SCIENTIFIC TRANSLATION - The Mary Baker Eddy Science Institute

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