Johnston Letter from 1959

26 August 1959

TO BE MORE SPECIFIC HANDLING DISORDERED NERVES.

Dear Mr. ——:

To repeat, the thing to handle is of course what consciousness is coming to me as, saying to me, unlike consciousness, the only one there is, the one Mind. Here with you, for years as face or neck twisting off and uncoordinated hands, the physical so-called appearing is the wholly mental claim that your consciousness, your mind, embraces for you and presents you disordered and diseased nerve action. The specific lie here is about nerve, nerves, out of the lie that as mind, says you are a mind in matter man, instead of the man of the one consciousness, the man of God just like Him and showing Him forth to the last least detail.

This mental suggestion or mental argument of this supposititious human, mortal, malicious mind, this human lying belief supposedly consciousness, says nerves embrace this lying belief as body, regulating and communicating from all its supposed finite parts as matter, all the intelligence about it to its supposed seat of intelligence or consciousness, the so-called brain. The claim appears-that is not the claim but only appears as finite sense that way-to be impaired and disordered nerve and nerves, “causing” the disordered functioning of the body you describe. These so-called nerves claim to receive and transmit their facts, their “intelligence”, through electrical current, electrical impulses, this mind in matter method.

What is nerve and in infinity of appearing called nerves? What, who, communicates to body, facts? What, who, controls, directs, orders, all action? Is there any whatever of this effect appearing what you are dealing with, what is involved? How can I always handle this claim, any and all claims, not handle the false illusory appearing, but handle what the claim and claims really is and are?

You are of course familiar with the picture of the bird sitting entranced before the snake, frozen in fact (belief), unable to take its eyes off the least bit from the eyes of the snake holding it, looking at just this spot, and of course solely for its destruction. It is straight hypnosis, hypnotism, the mental paralysis of looking at effect, at the appearing. It perfectly describes looking at and dealing with effect, as the hypnotism of mental suggestion.

We stop looking at finite, human, mortal malicious mind nerve and nerves. That is always and can be nothing else then, looking at, starting with, dealing with effect. As WHOSO p. 14 says, “to start from the one evil.”

To start with consciousness, I consciously am instantly to the then forever consciousness IS, we start with God the one Mind and find His nerve in its infinity is the only nerve there is, expressing, showing forth His perfection in all the order, all the control, all the communication. This is the fact, the always forever reality with you, all your experience with nerve and as nerve, ever has been, is now, or ever can and will be. There is no matter nerve and no electricity to operate through it, for there is no matter (All is Mind) and no vibrations or impulses to operate through what does not exist.

The lie about nerve is the same lie and just a phase of the lie you are a mortal, were materially conceived and began. This larger lie embraces all its ramifications, elaborations, and what SCIENCE AND HEALTH says about ADAM, this lie claiming to be you, your nerve and what not, is the world’s masterpiece of condemnation and rejection. But all pointing to what all the lie is borrowing from, you the man of God, the one effect, the one spiritual idea.

This belief of mind as this belief of you as mortal, was conceived with effect instead of cause, always deals with effect (in belief) instead of cause. It always operates with me as mental suggestion never as consciousness is, the incentive malicious animal magnetism operating as malicious mental malpractice. Nothing is more fundamental than the right start. Not as with mental suggestion or effect as the one bird hypnotized by effect as the snake before it. But always and every time with, consciousness IS. God is forever unfolding forever to you Himself as nerve in all its infinite perfection, order, control. You look for it here alone, and always find it.

The Manual asks each of us “to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion” (42). In the final page of the Chapter PRACTICE in S&H., Mrs. Eddy says: “Neither animal magnetism nor hypnotism enters into the practice of Christian Science, in which truth cannot be reversed, but the reverse of error is true.” Its final statement is: “Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake.” (442) In Feb. 1908 Mrs. Eddy issued a new edition just for this statement, this final all-embracing fact and direction as to Practice, and 3 times she asked the field to buy this issue for this statement.

In Sept. 1910 Mrs. Eddy answered the Query My. 240-1, saying, “You can never demonstrate spirituality until you declare yourself immortal and understand that you are so. Christian Science is at this point and must be practiced therefrom. Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration.” Near the opening of THE FALSE PROPHET, saying what this whole meeting (now article) is about, HWE says: “In order to follow through as we have got to do-in order to really get at the pith of the whole meeting, which is to show what evil is and how it is to be seen through and so eliminated-you must understand that you are God’s man and there is only one man.” (3)

In Jan. 1909 in the 1^st of her final 3 directions for PRACTICE, titled THE WAY OF WISDOM, Mrs. Eddy says: “The only incentive of a mistake sense is malicious animal magnetism,–the name of all evil,–and this must be understood.” (My. 357)

HWE writes in his final glorious work late in 1957: “begin by seeing every claim from a scratch to an earthquake as animal magnetism and only that. How could you be conscious of anything unless it 1^st registered with you as a sense of consciousness. Then can you handle a scratch as a sense of conscious or a thing? . . . see it all as a claim of animal magnetism and then clothe animal magnetism in the garments of divine Love and be lost in the eminence of that Love filling all space and the scratch or earthquake will not be found.” God is omnipresent as His one nerve in all the infinity of variety of its perfection, and you are that nerve, the man of God showing forth what God is, all God is. The twists, the incoordination, have no existence, no reality, but are animal magnetism or hypnotism, the false unreal no-mind mental sense, which consciousness, your the only Mind, divine Love, swallows up, your blessing.

In the one “C.C.T.” wholly spiritual bond,

(signed) Joseph E. Johnston

You will want to read in Whoso, How To Handle A Case Properly. J

Johnston Letter from 1959

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