Description
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.”