Sin, disease, suffering and evil are nothing but discords, produced by the ignorance, indifference or malice of the players.  Therefore we cannot attribute the discords of life to the Great Composer.  They are of our own making and will last as long as we refuse to learn our parts and to play them in tune with the Great Score.  For in this way only can we ever hope to master the art and science of right living and to enjoy the harmonies of peace, self-content and happiness.

Chapter XXXVII

The Three-fold Constitution of Man

The following diagram and accompanying explanations will serve to illustrate “Three Planes of Being,” the corresponding “Three-fold Constitution of man,” and their analogy tothe artist and his instrument.

The Three-fold Constitution of Man

Planes of Being

Three-fold Constitution of Man

Analogy

Psychical or Moral

Soul

Music, Laws of Harmony

Mental

Mind

Player

Material

Bodies

(Physical and Spiritual)

Violin

Man lives and functions on three distinct planes of being:  the physical-material and spiritual-material, the mental and the soul (psychical or moral) planes.

He may be diseased upon any one or more of these planes.  The true physician must look for causes of disease and for methods of treatment upon all three planes of being.

The purely materialistic physician concentrates all his study and effort upon the physical-material plane of being.  To him, mental, spiritual, psychical, and moral phenomena are merely chemical and physiological actions and reactions of brain and nerve substance.  He has nothing but contempt and derision for the man who believes in or knows of a spiritual body or a soul.

He is like an artist who says:  “My violin is all there is to music.  The musician’s art consists in keeping his instrument in good condition.  Technique and the laws of harmony are a matter of imagination and of superstitious belief.”

On the other hand, mental healers, Christian Scientists and faith healers concentrate all their efforts upon either the mental or the soul plane, frequently making no distinction between the two.  In the treatment of disease, they ignore the conditions and needs of the physical body, and some of them even deny its existence.

These metaphysicians are like the artist who devotes all his time and energy to the study and practice of technique, counterpoint and harmony, neglecting his instrument and taking no heed whether its mechanism is out of order or its interior filled with rubbish.  His knowledge of the laws of harmonics and his execution may be ever so perfect; but with his instrument out of tune and out of order he will produce discords instead of harmony.