Description
Four Association Addresses: Man Is Evidence of God’s Being; The Mission of Each Individual Christian Scientist; “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me”; “The Coincidence of the Human and Divine”
This second volume of addresses by Helen Spangler is another deeply inspiring collection of four addresses. She takes us beneath the surface of our thinking into the inner thoughts where we find that infinite good is ours as we realize that God is the great Giver. Whether the good we are seeking is health, friendship, or supply, it begins subjectively through a better understanding of God and our relationship to Him.
She writes: Man is like Mind, in which idea has its being and perfection. Man is the evidence of eternity. He is Love manifested, not just loving. He is exactly like Soul, spiritual consciousness manifested in beauty, grandeur, nobility, humility. They not only belong to man; they are man. Mind is Father-Mother of the universe. Ideas are His children. We exist as ideas, not as people with ideas. Jesus left no body behind in the ascension. His so-called material body, being only a belief, an illusion, a human concept, there was nothing to leave behind.
A man’s possessions are the result of his thinking, and not something beyond his control. Jesus was the richest man the world has ever known. His resources were so inexhaustible that property of every description was valueless to him. He knew that the only form of limitation was the false human sense of divine Mind. He eliminated man’s belief of matter-body in the elimination of disease, just as he removed the limitation of food to feed the five thousand. Mr. Kimball wrote: “Take your Scientific Statement of Being. There you have a total denial of matter, but not a denial of man or body. You have, too, the declaration of the allness of God, infinite Mind; this sums up the whole thing. You neither deny man, nor man’s expression, nor his individuality, but you deny the basic lie which says that man or the universe was ever put into matter.” Jesus had in his understanding of Principle, the Principle of producing mentally everything he needed. He knew that “all is infinite Mind, and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.”
God’s way is always simple, clear and direct. Argument does not heal; Truth heals. The essential thing is to see the perfection and eternality of man as God’s likeness, and the perfect ever-present activity of law. We must annihilate the thought that there is any cause or source of disease, or any power to produce it, any man to manifest it, or any substance for it to act or thrive upon.
That which governs the universe and man, that which keeps everything in its right place, expressing perpetual harmony and activity, may seem to be material, may seem to have a material finite motion; but, since God is omni-action, the only creator, the only Mind, the only governing power, that which gives everything life, being, activity, which continues everything forever, is necessarily God, the only power and presence. This infinite Mind embodies its ideas, and this is the body of God. Since man reflects this divine body, in which there is no evil mind to be objectified as pain, disease, imperfection, or inflammation, this body is eternally healthy, complete, and perfect.
Accept these grand facts — that there is no matter, no evil, nothing to fear, nothing to cognize it or express it, nothing to sustain or manifest it. From this standpoint we see that all thoughts, or things, in the universe at this moment, come from the almighty Power. They are maintained, vitalized, directed and governed by itself — the everlasting God, good. Thoughts are things. Mind is not expressed in things, but in thoughts. Let us watch our thoughts, not watch with matter, error.
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We know very little about Mrs. Spangler, but her addresses are so inspiring that she must have been considered an outstanding teacher during the period when Christian Science churches were overflowing, and each year teachers had a full class of thirty pupils. She taught and practiced in Los Angeles, California, from the 1930’s until her passing in 1964. She contributed many articles to the periodicals, beginning with one in the Christian Science Sentinel of March 27, 1937. Only a few of her association addresses have come to light, but they are enough to illustrate the teaching that took place during this period in the Church. Mrs. Spangler now joins the list of those dedicated workers whose early writings are destined to educate the “simple seekers for truth” found in every age
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