Max Kappeler’s Teaching Moments
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“CONTAGION”
“… be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake” (S&H 442:30–32)
– Mary Baker Eddy
“CONTAGION”
Mary Baker Eddy
The following is an excerpt from Mary Baker Eddy, Prose Works, Miscellaneous Writings, (pp. 228–229).
“Whatever man sees, feels, or in any way takes cognizance of, must be caught through mind; inasmuch as perception, sensation, and consciousness belong to mind and not to matter. Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say. Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching.
People believe in infectious and contagious diseases, and that any one is liable to have them under certain predisposing or exciting causes. This mental state prepares one to have any disease whenever there appear the circumstances which he believes produce it. If he believed as sincerely that health is catching when exposed to contact with healthy people, he would catch their state of feeling quite as surely and with better effect than he does the sick man’s.
If only the people would believe that good is more contagious than evil, since God is omnipresence, how much more certain would be the doctor’s success, and the clergyman’s conversion of sinners. And if only the pulpit would encourage faith in God in this direction, and faith in Mind over all other influences governing the receptivity of the body, theology would teach man as David taught: ‘Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.’
The confidence of mankind in contagious disease would thus become beautifully less; and in the same proportion would faith in the power of God to heal and to save mankind increase, until the whole human race would become healthier, holier, happier, and longer lived. A calm, Christian state of mind is a better preventive of contagion than a drug, or than any other possible sanative method; and the ‘perfect Love’ that ‘casteth out fear’ is a sure defense.”
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Max Kappeler
The following is an edited excerpt from Max Kappeler, The Pioneer of Truth is Blessed, ©1977 (pp. 2–3).
“Because sickness is only a belief it has no cause, no origin, no power, no mind, no authority, no law, no channel, no target, no effect; in short, there is no reason to fear it in the slightest. But as it is a ‘general’ belief it needs to be handled through Science. General beliefs cannot be handled merely through individual disbelief, or even by ridiculing such beliefs or disbeliefs. ‘… a belief held by a minority … is governed by the majority’ unless the ‘individual dissent or faith … rests on Science’ (S&H 155:11–14). Only through a consciousness rooted in an understanding of Science can collective and universal beliefs be overruled” (p. 2).
“Mary Baker Eddy labored long to formulate the last sentence of the chapter, ‘Christian Science Practice’ in her Textbook and as late as in the February Edition of 1908 she added, ‘Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake’ (S&H 442: 30–32). She could see that mental arguments or single scientific statements would be insufficient to meet the claims of mental malpractice, as only Science, which is ‘knowledge reduced to law and embodied in system’ (Funk & Wagnalls), is able to meet condemnations made by a majority of critics. So let us face this new-old claim of malpractice by dealing with it through a scientific law” (p. 3).