Mr. Kilpatrick’s Association Address of 1935 is one of his finest works, for it explains how our freedom from all discord and suffering can be gained through the use of the treatment as taught in Christian Science. He emphasizes that all being is consciousness, and that each individual is responsible for his or her own salvation. The entire address is focused on how to treat, but he emphasizes the affirmation part of the work; for this reason, it is especially inspiring. He begins by telling us, “Although we are all dwelling, as children of God, here and now, in the full radiance of the light of life, the work of dispelling the darkness and bringing in the light becomes individual.

There is nothing in the world God can do for us. He has done it all. He is here. We dwell in Him. We are surrounded and encompassed by this light of Life, and yet our own wrong thinking has enshrouded us in the darkness of materiality. Therefore our own right thinking is the only thing that will take us out of the darkness and reveal to us the light, and therefore our own seeming progress must be through individual effort. God will never come to us. He has come. We must go to Him. We must bring Him into consciousness, actively, before we can begin to bring the light of Truth into operation and experience.” He shows the need to spiritualize consciousness: “The carnal which is voluntarily held in our individual consciousness, constitutes our material existence, our material environment, our material embodiment, etc. So if our body seems full of misery, pain or sickness, where do we look for the cause? Also where do we look for the remedy? If our material picture is cluttered up with lack, limitation, unhappiness, poverty, inharmony and the like, where do we look for the cause, and where do we look for the remedy? We look for the remedy within.

Who puts sickness into our bodies, and lack and limitation into our experiences? No one but ourselves. . . . “In our work in Science, in our treatments for others, in our daily work for ourselves, the contemplation of God is what will bring the desired results. Nothing can be done in a Christian Science treatment without a firm foundation based upon a clear concept of God. The nothingness of matter can never become clear in our consciousness until we have gained a clear concept of God. All of the arguments, which you mentally employ in your work in Science, must be predicated on your concept of God, and unless your concept of God is clear, your arguments and your treatments will not be effective.”

This book is a compilation of selected passages from the following
Association Addresses:
1928, 1932, 1934, 1937, 1941, 1944

We seem today to have so little control over our lives, but Mr. Kilpatrick brings out that our lives are our thoughts objectified. We are what we think. He then analyzes the source of our thoughts. He writes about the carnal mind, the human mind, and the divine Mind, showing a distinct difference between the three. He explains that there is present an atmosphere of mortal thoughts and emotions outside the individual mind. This mental atmosphere has no power to control or harm us unless we accept it into our own consciousness. We do not originate the illusion of matter and mortality ourselves. Only as we accept certain aspects of it into consciousness do we seem to experience mortal existence. Our entire experience is governed by either the carnal beliefs or divine ideas that occupy our mind. All things are subjective – health, affluence, relationships. Because we are already mesmerized by the belief that matter and evil are real, our prayerful work is to purify consciousness through understanding our oneness with God. Thus we free ourselves of harmful illusions by replacing them with divine ideas. As we replace the carnal mind with the one Mind, we find infinite blessings just at hand. This book is a powerful statement concerning the subjective nature of being – a subject that has never before been explored in such depth. Mr. Kilpatrick writes: “The only reason you and I see another person in need of anything is because of the need in our own consciousness. So human need exists in individual consciousness, and it is the human consciousness that must be healed of the human need and not matter or person. Now, what is it that is going to heal that human need which exists only in individual human consciousness? Why, nothing but divine Love. And why has not divine Love already met that human need which you and I see all about us? Simply because our individual consciousness has not been filled with divine Love. . . . If your or my consciousness beholds hundreds of different people, and we are entertaining hate in consciousness towards one person, the hate which we hold in that consciousness cannot be separated so that it will affect everything and everyone of which and of whom we are conscious. We may not be aware that we are hating everyone because we hate one. Nevertheless, we are, and we can never gain the true concept of even our dearest friends and relatives while we are holding in consciousness hate towards anyone. Whatever is held in consciousness affects, in some way or another, every object of that consciousness, be it person, place or thing.” He teaches us how to govern our thoughts and so spiritualize them that we rise above the carnal or human, and reflect the divine.