Consentaneous Projections

Seeing a man that was blind from birth, Jesus’ disciples once asked him whether the man was blind from his own sins or the sins of his parents. They were consenting to the belief that there must be a past reason for the man’s present condition.

To be specific, based on the beliefs of their time, the disciples assumed that the punishment of some immorality or religious rule-breaking was the cause of the disease. Today their assumption might have been a hygienic lapse or a genetic misfortune. Jesus, however, did not consent to a reason for the man’s blindness. The gospel records that he answered them, “... Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."* Then Jesus healed the man.

Viewing this incident from the perspective of Christian Science, Jesus’ view of life, as existing for Mind’s present purpose rather than as a consequence of a material past, was more scientific than his disciples’ view. This was evidenced by the healing.

We could say then that the disciples were also healed of some blindness in the process. We could even say that perhaps today we are all in need of similar healing.

A stumbling block for me, finding Christian Science as an adult, was the discoverable material history and the challenge it poses to the Christian Science worldview. Right now you or I can visit a fossil dig and find dinosaur bones from millions of years ago; we can clean them up, place them in a museum, walk around them, and ponder their lessons.

Searching further in these directions, we find cosmic evidence of material existence from long before humanity, dinosaurs, or anything that resembles life and intelligence is thought to have existed, and we find a clear lineage of material evolution and consequence leading to our present circumstances. Matter seems to have preceded the development of consciousness, to exist independent of consciousness, and even to have created it.

Evidence, however, does not mean proof. When we walk out of that museum, we find plenty of evidence that the earth is flat and static also. Yet, our higher sense of understanding, guided by scientific discovery instead of the material picture in front of us, tells us that this picture is incorrect. The testimony of the five physical senses can often prove illusory.

In society we find a strong belief in the material past, both for humanity and for the individual. When thinking about the origin of humanity, for example, most of us look to theories of evolution or creationism for answers. While both types of theories suggest very different views of humanity’s starting point, both also have a strong bias for an objective material history proceeding from that starting point.

Evolution describes a method by which the life and consciousness associated with humanity could have evolved from matter. Creationism describes a method by which the self-existence associated with God could have created matter and given it consciousness.

However, if all experience is in consciousness, as Eddy discovered, then there has never been an actual material experience, and consequently, there has never been an actual material history composed of those experiences. Thus, we are left with the possibility that the historical material record is as direct a result of the general beliefs in human consciousness as are present material experiences.

The most concrete explanation of this idea that I have found is in a chapter of the Christian Science textbook devoted to the biblical book of Genesis.

In writing this chapter Eddy is concerned with a different definition of man than is assumed by both creationism and evolution. Looking to Jesus’ perspective on life as proceeding from an infinite Mind instead of finite matter, she sees the following implications for our understanding of history:

"Whatever theory may be adopted by general mortal thought to account for human origin, that theory is sure to become the signal for the appearance of its method in finite forms and operations."* In other words, the past which general mortal thought adopts, signals the appearance of its own evidence in experience—this experience being in human consciousness though seeming to be independent from consciousness.
“If consentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief will immediately supersede the more ancient superstition about the creation from dust or from the rib of our primeval father."** In other words, the past which human belief consents to, immediately replaces previous beliefs, and hence their experience, in human thought. The discoverable material history is always in line with the current agreed-upon general belief.

As I understand this concept, the present human belief constantly defines and redefines human history in thought—its record, its consequences, and its experience. The material past, like the material future, is a mental projection consented to by humanity. It reflects the human perspective on its current condition.

The belief in a chronologically physical order of causality, from past to present to future, is a misstatement.

If the above perspective seems counterintuitive, we may remember that we all experience a microcosm of it nightly in dreams, which feel just as material as our waking lives while their experience lasts. When needed, these dreams include a logical history—a story which makes sense of the dream's setting—and an instantaneous acceptance of that history. As the dream conditions adjust, so does the dream's history. Its past is a projection of its present conditions.

When awake, we all know the dream's historical record to have been consented to in thought. We know the dream experience was not forced upon us by an objective history. On the contrary, a historical record was forced upon the dream by our present beliefs in the dream. While in the dream, we seem to experience the outcome of its past. Yet, the dream is an illusion with no historical origin. Its experienced order of causality is part of the illusion.

At the quantum scale, scientific experiments have consistently shown a cause and effect relationship from an experimenter's present mental activity to the experiment's past. In every case, the experimenter’s choices have been documented to retroactively affect its subject’s objective material history. For those interested in an accessible illustration of how this works in the laboratory, I recommend the book Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness, by physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner.

At the time this chapter is being written, the summary of the book on the authors' website reads in part: "All of physics is based on quantum theory. It’s the most battle-tested theory in all of science... However, this reliable and useful physics challenges any reasonable worldview. It actually denies the existence of a physically real world independent of its observation... By your free choice you could demonstrate either of two contradictory physical realities. You can, for example, demonstrate an object to be someplace. But you could have chosen to demonstrate the opposite: that it was not in that place. Observation created the object’s position. Quantum theory has all properties created by their observation."*

Not only can the experimenter choose to demonstrate either of two contradictory physical conditions, but they can demonstrate objective historical records for either of those conditions.

The experiments of quantum physics are very limited in scope and scale, presumably because of current technological limitations. Also, the theory is expectedly vague on the mechanics of the mental activity involved, or as it call it, the observation. Physics deals with consciousness only as it relates to physical phenomena. However, there at the most foundational level of modern physical research, the role thought plays in the development of a material history is evident.

At the human scale, patients with Dissociative Identity Disorder offer some important clues as to how the biological human history is created. One identity of the afflicted individual can exhibit an allergy, a freckle, or an astigmatism that the other identities do not. In a New York Times article on the subject, Dr. Scott Miller, a researcher and psychologist, tells of one patient who "... had his left eye injured in a fight, so that it turned out... But the condition only appeared in one of his personalities. It disappeared in the others, nor was there any evidence of muscle imbalance."**

Each of these conditions corresponds to a genetic trait, a lifestyle choice, a deformity, or a physical accident in the individual's objective past, but only for one of the identities. Once the identity is no longer in control, the effects of its corresponding history are gone. Each identity physically expresses the consequences of a different material past for the same physical body. The changing set of beliefs yields a changing historical narrative.

Similar clues to the mental origin of physical conditions are found in the placebo effect, where an ingested sugar pellet can cause the beneficial effects of a drug the patient believes to have taken; the nocebo effect, where the negative side-effects of a drug or condition can be experienced where no such drug was administered and no such condition existed; the phantom limb and phantom eye syndromes, where a patient can feel sensation in a limb or eye that has been removed.

Time and again, evidence gathered from the physical senses can prove illusory.

As in quantum physics, the observation of medical curiosities and mental disorders has yielded many important findings. However, if one's concept of reality misinterprets or misstates reality, these findings will seem like enigmas or anomalies. Whereas a view of material experience as the objective state of material sense reveals that all physical phenomena are subject to the mechanics of belief as described in Christian Science.

Eddy writes that, "The elements and functions of the physical body and of the physical world will change as mortal mind changes its beliefs."***

Hence, on a global scale, the changing general belief precedes changes in the objective material history of the world, though not as a sequence in time. Mental causation and its effects are instantaneous. Hence, the belief in matter, its experience, and its corresponding historical record are simultaneous events in human consciousness.

All physical dimensions and their experience, including time, are part of the illusion

As in any illusion or dream, the solution to the problems encountered does not lie in adjusting the dream, but in waking up from it.

This awakening is a central theme in scriptural stories. The apostle Paul writes that, “... it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."* We may ask ourselves what beliefs may be keeping us asleep today.

Have we consented to an accident or an inherited condition as causal in our experience or the experience of others? Have we consented to the past choices of our nations as the justification for their current state? Have we consented to the theories of evolution, of creationism, or of any other material belief for a description of life and the universe?

For Jesus, the human condition existed only so that the works of God should be made manifest in it. Mind was the present and only cause. This view healed the blind, the sick, and the sinning in his time. It woke them up from the illusion presented by the evidence of the physical senses. It can do the same for us, for our nations, and for humanity as a whole today.

What is misinterpreted humanly as the passage of time and a chain of material events may be the evolution of thought which results in an evolving human experience. Some of this experience is believed to be physical and experienced as such. However, this experience is relative to the current belief it represents rather than previous events.

For example, Eddy notes that the experience of our ancestors may have been physically different from today's experience. She writes that, "Before human knowledge dipped to its depths into a false sense of things, — into belief in material origins which discard the one Mind and true source of being, — it is possible that the impressions from [God] were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the primitive prophets."*

But there is no actual physical link between the experience of those primitive prophets and our experience today.

The allegory of Adam and Eve may be a useful description of the development of material beliefs in human thought. For Eddy, it depicts the consequences of belief in a separation from the one Mind—a move away from humanity’s primal cause, a finite and compartmentalized view of consciousness, and the contemplation of multiple conscious minds sprouting from each other.**

Yet the development of material beliefs is the history of an illusion, self-created and self-consenting.

On the other hand, Eddy sees Darwin’s theories as the most consistent description we have today for the "... history of mortality, …"*** She says that, "Evolution describes the gradations of human belief, ..."****

Neither perspective, however, describes the real cause or origin of creation. Material history, as a false view of creation, has no origin.

"Searching for the origin of man," she writes, "who is the reflection of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self-existent and eternal."***** The infinite Mind, the real cause of humanity and the starting point of the universe, has no origin.

The experience of that universe and its historical record is more or less real, permanent, and harmonious according to how much the present beliefs reflect reality.

Eddy writes, "Because mortal mind seems to be conscious, the sick say: 'How can my mind cause a disease I never thought of and knew nothing about, until it appeared on my body?' The author has answered this question in her explanation of disease as originating in human belief before it is consciously apparent on the body, which is in fact the objective state of mortal mind, though it is called matter. This mortal blindness and its sharp consequences show our need of divine metaphysics."*

In Jesus' life and work, Eddy sees that, " Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself spiritual."** A material body does not hold life or intelligence in it, for any period of time. On the contrary, the material body is an erroneously held concept in human consciousness. Thus, she concludes that, "The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development."***

This view of mental development as causal gave Jesus foreknowledge of his impending betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection.**** The illusion of time—its false evidence and limitations—was disappearing from his experience. He could see the projected results of the current beliefs in the mental order of consequence.

When explaining his origin to an angry mob, he showed no consent to an objective material past, or a sequential and fixed concept of time. His message was: “... Before Abraham was, I am."*****

Searching for a blasphemy the mob missed the implication of his words, and humanity in general seems to have missed it also. However, Jesus proved his understanding through his works, which challenged their perspectives and unveiled a more correct view of existence for future generations to consider.

From Jesus' perspective, the specific material history of a person, of humanity, or of the universe lost much importance. But more to the point, it hid the true nature of reality—for the individual as well as humanity. As Eddy sees it, "The continual contemplation of existence as material and corporeal — as beginning and ending, and with birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages — hides the true and [mental] Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust."******

“You may say that mortals are formed before they think or know aught of their origin," she continues, "and you may also ask how belief can affect a result which precedes the development of that belief. It can only be replied, that Christian Science reveals what “eye hath not seen,” — even the cause of all that exists, — for the universe, inclusive of man, is as eternal as God, who is its divine immortal Principle. There is no such thing as mortality, nor are there properly any mortal beings, because being is immortal, like Deity, — or, rather, being and Deity are inseparable."*******

The belief of life and intelligence in matter "... is the author of itself," she concludes, "and is simply a falsity and illusion."********

Thus, we arrive at the answer to the third Big question:

What originated consciousness?

For that matter, what is the origin of existence, of God, of humanity, and of matter?

In Christian Science, there is no origin to matter, to a mortal sense of man, or to any relative perspective and experience. Searching for one is much like searching for the origin of the earth’s flatness, of a mistaken mathematical postulate, or of the tiger we ran away from in our nightmare. We can address these conditions in the relative terms of human experience, but in absolute terms there is no origin to a false belief. A mistaken view simply does not exist.

The material man and universe are nothing. They are not real. On the other hand, the real man, the conscious identity of being, Mind's outcome, is eternal.

Therefore, there is no time-based origin to the real man of God's creating either. There is no beginning to God's eternal expression—the infinite Mind's conscious activity. Infinity is self-existent. Eternity has no starting point.

The conscious identity of being is continually created and evolved by Mind. God is its starting point, presently. The infinite Mind originates perfect and harmonious ideas, and these ideas are permanent.

Here, we begin to answer the final Big question:

Does consciousness survive death?

“... I give unto them eternal life," preached Jesus, "and they shall never perish, …"*

Eddy writes, “If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfection, then there was a moment when man did not express God, and consequently a time when Deity was unexpressed — that is, without entity."**

“The relations of God and man, divine [Mind] and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history."***

ON CONSCIOUSNESS and the Christian Science view of existence

Consentaneous Projections