Ghostly Beliefs

[Fairlie]

S&H “The age has not wholly outlined the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them more or less. Time has not yet reached eternity, immortality complete reality. All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached. We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, ‘forgetting those things which are behind.’” and as St. Paul says, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.” I appreciate all the opportunities we have to learn the truth at Plainfield. It has been taking time for me to understand this great truth, and to begin to “give up the spectral.” And I’m very grateful to Mrs. Eddy and now Plainfield for opening the understanding.

[parthens]

From SH, 1st edition, page 42:
The most scientific man of whom we have any record, Jesus of Nazareth, called the mortal body that we suppose substance, “ghost”; and his body that others called spirit, “flesh and bones”; showing that substance to his understanding was the deathless Principle that embraces man and is forever inseparable from Soul. But the Jews, strongly material, called the real idea of God, even the body that was not matter, a spirit or ghost; and the body they laid in a sepulchre, substance. By this error they lost logic and Truth, therefore lost sight of Jesus at the very moment when he presented more than ever the real idea of God, and because of this belief, the idea was taken from them. The higher he wrought the problem of being through spiritual science, the more odious he became to the materialistic world that understood him not. Life, Intelligence and substance to them were matter, but to him they were God, the Truth of man; therefore he reckoned himself not matter but Spirit; not sense, but Soul. Said he, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” but this he said three days after his burial, before relinquishing the belief of substance-matter; after that, his disciples even could not see him.

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