Fourth Dimension of Spirit

Author:  Margaret Laird Publisher: The Margaret Laird Foundation Year Published: 1960 Number of Pages: 92	Paperback $10.95

First presented as an address in1943, this book had since been revised, with much of the old terminology having been discarded. Mrs. Laird writes in the forward:

"I have not deleted the many repetitions " nor do I apologize for not doing so. It has been said that: "words are needed in order to transcend words, that thinking is needed to rise above thought."

It may take many words, much repetition, before one discovers that what he is reading is coming from his own withinness. It may take much thinking before one learns to take no thought. Words without the idea are "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal". How foolish "sounding brass" becomes when the idea goes on without it.

"It (intuition) is absolute knowledge founded on the identity of the mind knowing with the object known" (Plotinus.) This absolute knowledge or intuition of Reality is Science " the fourth dimension of Spirit - "the discernment of the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold."

P1 Why the faith which is so impelling that we go forth with confidence in our safety and security, even in the face of danger: Is it not because there is a Principle unfolding an infinitude of existence, divinely perfect, and wholly Good as individual conscious being?

Christian Science is the self-revelation of such a Principle. On page 465:17 Science and Heath we read, "Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, and His reflection (that is, the operation of performance) is man and the universe." Principle and its idea are terms for the infinite One whom mortals call God when viewed from the standpoint of the Life-Principle, and man when viewed from the standpoint of his being. In Science we learn to leave out the and between God and Man, since being or reflection is God being Man and the universe. This is "the order of divine Science." No God that is not Man, and no universe that is not God-man or Mind!

P18 Consciousness is Soul. Soul is Mind's awareness. You might say, Soul is the feeling, seeing, hearing of Mind, and its identity or body is apparent in forms called "matter". The understanding that the senses of Mind are Soul locates the identity or body of Soul in Mind as Mind.

" ..As consciousness is redeemed, that is as theory yields to the understanding that all existence is reflection, what we are conscious of seems to go through a renewing or regenerating process conforming to or keeping pace with consciousness. Existence by reflection means that each one individually has the power to locate, or dislocate, relocate or reproduce himself at will."

P 31 Science is the evolutionary vision that reveals the divinity (infinitude) of humanity. It is Mind's self-awareness or self-knowledge and means that there is no past or future to this all-inclusive, all-constituting consciousness that is yourself-myself as conscious infinity. The past becomes revocable - no past - in the understanding that all that ever was and can ever be is consciously being Now as Man. This understanding lifts the burden of sorrow, guilt and regret for that which seemed to be, and also the fear of what might seem to be in the future. Your understanding of what is eternally being is the being Now of the seeming - past, present future. This being that is the Now unfoldment of Reality is Truth

P 54 Principle is the idea that everything is in order and held fast by a harmonizing, rhythmic law. It is Love as the understanding, the awareness that is never disturbed, never wavers, never fears. Your existence as reflection means harmonious, joyous relationships with all that constitute your universe. Whatever you are doing you are doing as the operation of Principle. This inspired consciousness or Soul, which you are, is undivided wholeness. Nothing can be missing or lost from Mind (your Mind). But you cannot expect these harmonious, joyous relationships to be your experience humanly unless you are being Mind reflecting itself to itself. In being yourself you take no thought for yourself.

P 55 We learn in Science to turn aside from the belief of a man localized in Chicago, or a man in a battle zone, or a man controlling another, or a sick or well man, or a man in business or out of it, to acknowledge indivisible, infinite I AM as the being of all that is being or seeming to be. My Man is always exactly where I put him.  The manifestation of Mind - conscious identity - cannot be other than Mind manifesting infinity, eternality, as individual consciousness. Mind makes no distinction between itself here and itself there.

P 63 The doctrine of one Mind means that Mind is the Mind of all mind. "The senses of Mind are Soul. If our senses testify to good and evil, saint and sinner, health and sickness, joy and sorrow, abundance and lack, it means we are ignorant of the fact that sense is infinite and therefore one. Ignorant of the indivisibility of awareness or sense, we see wrong as belonging to another and right as belonging to ourselves. Both right and wrong exist in our own view of Reality. It is ignorance which causes the ever-present Truth - the Good, the Beauty, the Joy, the Wholeness (health) to be seen in reverse"

P 62 No matter in what apparent situation you may find yourself, you are always free in the withinness of consciousness to be yourself - the perfect One.

P70 When we exclaim over what seems to be a man in the thick of battle escaping injury and death and call it a miracle, we are viewing the divinely natural as supernatural. Man of all men. The locale of Man is Mind; he is therefore not a point in space to be either in danger or out of danger.  Man is the correct view or Christ - the being that is seeming to be.  This identity is neither "lo, here" or "lo, there", but everywhere present as Mind,

your Mind, ever-present as Soul, your Soul. The one universal, indivisible Man which Life is living, Love is loving, Soul is feeling is the Man of all men.

P88 Individuality - the fourth dimension of Spirit - gives new meanings to liberty, equality, justice, authority, government, at the same time eliminates the words fear, obedience, duty, intervention, isolation and war as having any meaning.