Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

“ I stand as one that has risen from the dead or error into the light of truth,—not that the dead or my error has risen with me: I have shaken off the old man or my religious garment, and put on the new man that is Christ or Science, and I fight these errors and show that they are all the makings of our own mind. As I stand outside of all religious belief, how do I stand alongside of my followers? I know that I, through this Wisdom, can go and impress a person at a distance. The world may not believe it, but to the world it is just such a belief as the belief in spirits. ”

“ It is a consuming fire, that will rage till it burns up every selfish idea. It is never found boasting of its wisdom; it is not puffed up, it sits and sees itself swell in the hearts of the people, but they see it not. Their minds are now seeing the light that is going before them; they are afraid, so that even the kingdom of darkness is in rebellion against itself. The leaders begin to tremble, for they see that the angel of Science has sounded his trumpet, the earth or matter is moved out of its place, the stars or parties are falling, and the powers of the kingdom are shaken. ”

“ While your bark is tossed by the breeze or storms of error and superstition, while the skies are dark with error and you are moved by your cable or belief, feeling as though you may be blown on to the rocks of death, you may look to that Truth that is now beating against the errors and breaking them in pieces, scattering them to the winds and even piercing the hardest flinty hearts, grinding them into pieces. ”

“ To me disease is always a lie, but to those who believe it it is a truth, and religion the same. Until the world is shaken by investigation so that the rocks and mountains of religious error are removed and the medical Babylon destroyed, sickness and sorrow will prevail. Feeling as I do and seeing so many young people go the broad road to destruction, I can say from the bottom of my soul, “Oh priestcraft! fill up the measure of your cups of iniquity, for on your head will come sooner or later the sneers and taunts of the people.” ”

“ I divide man into two characters. One governs by selfishness and the other by sympathy, and man's senses are attached to one or the other of these elements. . . . Every combination that leads to disease is like the little streams that run into the ocean of death. As all men live and move in their belief, their belief is like a house or barque either in the ocean of death or the rivers that enter into it. Men find it hard to stem the current when the tide of public opinion is running so fast that they are in danger of being driven on the rocks. ”

“ It embraces all the senses; it is not Wisdom but the power Wisdom uses to bring all things into harmony with itself. To this world of ignorance it is not known but admitted and the matter or ideas of this world is put into this element. Like the ocean it can hold all sorts of ideas, be disturbed to its lowest depths and then calmed by Wisdom so that not a ripple on the surface can be seen. But in the depth of this ocean of love lie all sorts of evil spirits that are gnawing the life of the soul and are identified with it; this is the disease in the mind. ”

“ And knowing this life that is in Christ I teach it to you, not by opinions but by words of wisdom that will destroy death and put you in possession of that true life that will make death only an idea, like all other ideas man must be rid of to be happy.
At the time Jesus taught this eternal world the world was in darkness in regard to one thing, that was life independent of a belief. But as the lamp of Science was lit up it dispelled the shadow of opinions and embraced life. Matter is with Science nothing but a shadow. As its belief is changed death is destroyed and life takes its place. ”

“ So in your belief you foresee evils. The elements of the body of your belief are shaken, the earth is lit up by the fire of your error, the heat rises, the heaven or mind grows dark; the heat moves like the roaring of thunder, the lightning of hot flashes shoot to all parts of the solar system of your belief. At last the winds or chills strike the earth or surface of the body, a cold clammy sensation passes over you. This changes the heat into a sort of watery substance, which works its way to the channels, and pours to the head and stomach. ”

“ Can all this happen without a sunken eye, a pale and hollow cheek, with hectic flush, a purple lip, and nervous cough? In all this the chances are not one out of fifty that they will not both return to cheer you up in your last moments when your life is almost run out. In all this your spirits mingle as though you were only separated like other friends, but when they die, according to our belief, the thread that binds us is severed by the knife that cuts our life and our souls launch into the world of our belief. ”

“ This is to acknowledge that the body is larger than the spirit or wisdom. No wonder with such a belief men pray to be delivered from the body of sin and death.
Thanks to this wisdom I, my wisdom, can see myself outside this earthly belief and afloat in the ocean of space, where opinions are like stones and pebbles that men throw at each other, while to me they have no weight at all. All these are in me, that is, in my wisdom, and not wisdom in them. I stand in my wisdom to the sick who are in their opinions trying to get me out, and the harder they try the deeper they go into the mire. ”

“ In order that truth may come forth, error must be destroyed, and Science groping in darkness bursts into light and rises from the dead as the butterfly, not the caterpillar.
All men have sinned or embraced beliefs, so all must die to their belief. Disease is a belief; health is in Wisdom. So as man dies to his belief he lives in Wisdom. My theory is to destroy death or belief and bring life and Wisdom into the world, therefore I come to the sick, not to save their beliefs or life in disease, but to destroy it. And he that loseth his belief for Wisdom will find his health or life. ”

“ The laws of love are the destruction of the laws of error, and they make us a law to ourselves. This law of love has no penalties or prisons; but, like the bird that flies in the sky, is not troubled with earthly laws, but is a law to itself. Its purity is its buoyancy, its ignorance is its weight or stupidity. Each is governed by a sort of intelligence, like science and ignorance. As ignorance and superstition are what are under the law of error, Science and Truth are their opponents, and the mind is the medium of them both, like the telegraph-wire a medium of truth and error. ”

“ Therefore where man's confidence in these opinions is at an end his senses will seem to be annihilated, but in reality he will be like the young eagle which has burst its shell and soars aloft on the wings of wisdom, where he looks down upon the earth and sees the natural man crawling like a reptile waiting to devour the child of science as soon as it is born. Every development of Wisdom whether applied to creeping things or to the element of freedom, is the child of God. ”

“ They then tell about the good doctor, how much he has done for them, showing that he has deprived them of all noble manly feelings, left them sick, feeble in mind and body, while the doctor struts around like a slave-driver, and the sick curl under the lash of their tongue, as the negroes under the lash of their masters. This may seem strange, but it is God's truth, that the sick are a mere tool in the hands of the medical faculty, to be treated just as they please. It never will be any better till the sick rise in their wisdom and declare their independence. ”

“ It is not of this world, but of a higher state, that can penetrate this earthly matter as light through darkness. As the senses are the body of truth they travel through the light, as a man with a lamp travels through the dark. So it is not every one who has a lamp with oil, nor is every one wise who says he is so. But he is wise who can come up to the one in the dark, and lead him through this wilderness of disease into the light of reason and health. ”

“ It is hard for me to keep myself in bounds when I think of the groans of the sick, knowing that it is all the effect of a superstitious ignorance. Does not the South quote the Bible to prove that slavery is of Divine origin? Do not the priests and doctors quote the old heathen superstition to bolster up a weak and feeble edifice just ready to crumble and crush the leaders? Is not Science raising her voice and crying aloud to the people saying how long shall it be till the old heathen idolatry shall come to an end and man shall learn wisdom and be his own master and not a slave? ”

“ Suppose I believe as you and the rest of the religious world, what must be my feelings when I see you hastening to that world whence no traveller returns; how must you feel, knowing that you are about to be snatched from the bosom of your friends to enter that dark and dismal grave, with only the hope of a resurrection from the dead and that based on a belief? Is not that enough to rock the very foundation of your building and make the walls of your belief tremble even to the foundation? ”

“ You being in the dark stumble and are afraid of your own shadow. I with the eye of Truth see in your darkness or belief, and you seem to me blind. Or, like the rose, you cannot see the light, while I am in the light, and see through the clouds of your ignorance, see your senses and all there is of you, held in this ignorance by error, trying like the life of the rose bud to break through and come to the light. You have eyes, taste, and all your senses, but the clouds are before them, and as. Jesus said, “Ye have eyes and see not, and have ears and hear not, and a heart that cannot understand.” ”

“ Your eyes have not seen, your ears have not heard, and your heart has not understood what happiness there is in knowing that your life, senses, and all that there is near and dear to you is no part of matter, and that matter is only a belief or casket to hold you in till Wisdom dissolves the casket, and lets you into the light of Science. Then you will hold life in the form of the rose, and live in a world of light, where the sorrows of hell and disease can never come, where you can sit and see that what man takes for reality is only the works of heathen superstition. ”

“ Religion is despotism and in politics and disease the misery of the sick is the torment of their belief. Religion makes no compromise, it is rule or ruin. It sometimes takes to itself the name of reform, giving every man the liberty of speech, and then it subjects every one to its laws. Just so with the poor slave, or sick, for the sick are merely slaves of superstition, made so by the sins of our parents. ”

“ Wisdom replies, “I will laugh at your fears, and I will pour out light like wrath and cut you off from the face of the earth and give the earth (or mind) to a more enlightened people, who will obey the laws of Science and teach others to do the same, and you shall be cast into everlasting misery.” This is progression and it is the religion of Jesus. It is the stone of science that the builders of religion rejected. It is the star that guided the wise men to the only true God. Its body is wisdom, its blood is its life and unless you eat it and drink it you have no life in you. ”

“ Wisdom never separates you from me but makes us a part of each other in Wisdom; for what I feel I know and what I do not know I cannot feel. To believe my child is separate and apart from me is a horrid belief to us both, but to know that God cannot be divided is to know that we cannot be separated from our Heavenly Father. The error is only held together by opinions that can deceive, but Science is eternal life. This is in all mankind and is progress, it knows no death or separation. ”

“ Love is an element of itself, without any form; it has no length or breadth, or height or depth; it neither comes nor goes, it fills all space, and melts all error down that comes within its power. Its power is its heat, its heat is its love, it is heaven. For this love Christ laid down His animal life or passions for mankind, that they might understand themselves and be saved from the endless hell of misery that follows our ignorance of this power or love. On these two powers, love and ignorance, hang all the law and the prophets. The gospel is love, the law is error ”

“ Man's wisdom is the superstition of heathen idolatry; all Science is at variance with it. I stand alone, not believing in anything independent of Science; so you can put me down as having no sympathy with any belief or religion concerning another world, or in anything belonging to the Christian death. Neither have I any belief in the resurrection of the body. My death is this, ignorance; life is Wisdom, death is darkness or matter. All men have wandered from light and believed in darkness. To destroy matter you introduce light or life. ”