Lillian DeWaters, student of Mary Baker Eddy spoke often of Ontology. Her first books were through the Christian Science organization, then she went out on her own, forming her own publishing house, and went beyond the limits of the “religious dogma” which sometimes inhabits organizations and inhibits the Teaching.
The main difference between her teaching and that of Christian Science and much of New Thought, is that she regards Jesus and Christ as inseperable – One and the same God, and in this sense her teaching is much more inline with that of orthodox Christianity.
Like her mentor Mary Baker Eddy, De Waters regards mental healing and spiritual healing to be two quite different things.
In her book The Christ Within she says:
Right here let the reader be fully familiar with the difference between mental healing and spiritual or divine healing. Mental healing uses the power in the individual mentality with which to heal, saying that the individual mentality is God. Mental healing is a process of thought, wherein the healer sends from his own mind thoughts of health, strength, power, peace to the mind of another who has called upon him for help, or, in the case of self-healing, wherein the individual would help himself.
These thoughts of the healer have birth or origin in his individual mentality, and, as the river can rise no higher than its source, so one’s idea of what is right and true “treatment” can rise no higher than his own viewpoint.
Spiritual or divine healing is not based on the healer nor the patient nor the mentality of either nor is it based on any mental cause or mental effect of that cause. Spiritual healing is based on CHRIST and REALITY. It lifts the vision from the mind, from the thoughts, from the self, to the great I AM, and it bases all its declarations on Truth, on Reality, and the finished perfection of God and man.
Spiritual healing is not based on any method or any system of any individual on earth, but it is founded on Jesus Christ, Himself, and His teaching. Any books, based on the Bible, that point away from the self to Christ, Truth, are based on the Rock against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. . . .
. . . The reading of spiritual books causes the reader to cease his own thinking, and to look on High, receive, feel, experience that which quickens him, blesses and illumines him. He forgets himself, and for the time lives in Spirit, above the body, and, later, when he takes up conscious thinking, he finds great uplift present, joy and gladness, for has he not been viewing heavenly Realities, listening to supernal glories, touching divine heights?
If one would hear, he must listen. If one would see, he must watch. If one would receive, he must be still.
Let it be understood, it is the Spirit in another that beareth witness of the Truth; the personal individual does not impart Truth to another. There is but one Path and there is but one Spirit. Acknowledge Truth when it blesses you. As no day is like another, though it is all the one day, so there is but one Voice: though many messengers, each bearing Truth according to his vision of Truth.
Let each follow the Christ urge within him. When we find the Living Bread within, then we are able to recognize the Living Bread without,—in books. All that inspires us to higher action is beneficial. Many prepare the way for us to higher things, while but One consummates it.
The Light that one sees is not his, but is The Light of the World. The Truth that one feels is not his, but is the Truth of the Eternal. The Way that one finds is not his, but is the Way of Life. The heavenly Bread that one inbreathes is not his, but is the body of Christ. The Living Water that one drinks is not his, but is Inspiration from on High.
Rejoice in all books that have raised your vision. Books that cause you to change your thinking into better thoughts are helpful on the way, yet, when the time comes and the Voice whispers to enlarge our borders, let us be obedient. The watchful student ever knows when the Spirit bear witness. We overcome the world when we understand that Christ in us hath already overcome the world. When we receive from above, it is to us a revelation, yet, each one receives the same Word, and hears the same Voice, and sees the one Christ. We are all stars in the one Crown, drops in the one Ocean.
Here is what she had to say on her discovery of TRUTH:
Today, nearly the whole world is giving attention, is some way, to the great triangle,—the Truth (God), the student (man), and the problem (human existence). We all know that problems continually come and go and that man changes his ideas all the time. . . while to God, the Truth, everything remains invariable, and without shadow of turning.
Undoubtebly, we have all placed ourselves as students endeavoring to apply Truth to our earthly problems. Reader, have you not done this very thing?
Suppose that all knowledge of Truth we possessed were inadequate to solve our problems. We might search for more knowledge, and greater ability to make use of it, but the demands upon us might increase, and the problems seem never to cease. We often long for that place where we rest, with no thought of an earthly problem. Have we not all entertained such a wish?
Invariably it takes flash of light to reveal the true meaning of Life and of all things to us: nor can it be obtained in any other way.
As the veil lifts, one moments sudden revelation completely rearranges and shifts our viewpoint; and the scene abruptly changes. In fact, this was exactly what happened to me one day while in deep meditation.
I was considering Mathematics, its students and problems, when suddenly it dawned upon me that the Student-position, which I had assumed, was certainly an unreliable and unsound one.
As this actuality burst upon me, breathlessly my heart cried out,—-oh to be the principle instead of a student!
Instantly there followed a moment of shining light with its electrifying transfusion, sudden and swift. As though a curtain had been raised admitting some startling new sight, I saw the indisputable fact with vivid, clear distinctness–I saw that I was the Principle. . .not a student at all!
Under this flood of blazing revelation, what else could I do but exclaim further,–Why, this means that I am the TRUTH! I am not a student trying to solve problems of human existence, but I am the absolute and changeless Truth itself! The simplicity of all this amazed and overwhelmed me. Here in this brief but thrilling moment, I saw what years of study and research had never given me.
Immediately, I then understood Jesus’ dynamic statement, “I am the Truth!” Yes, this was it. I was not a student of Truth, endeavoring to obtain and attain certain states of consciousness, always letting go one for another higher on the scale. No, I was the Truth itself!
What more then could I ask? What more could be desired? Did Truth, or true Being, have any association with a problem? Certainly not. Neither, then, did I!
“I am the Truth!” exuberantly I told myself again and again, in my newly found changed relationship. I am not trying to do, to think or to know something; but I am doing, feeling and being Truth, the Life, and the Way! Oh, the blessed wonder of light!
I saw then that the problem of human existence could never be solved….but will dissolve when we take our rightful stand as the Truth, the Life and the Way.
Now once having seen and accepted this platform, all other speculations immediately vanished, while beautiful verifications in Jesus” life and teaching came flooding my rapturous thought. How plainly now to see that Jesus never said that he was a student of Life, but insisted, “I am the Life! “. Neither did he intimate that he was a follower of some particular way or system, but again and again reiterated, “I am the Way!”
No wonder he was so absolute, so completingly certain and sure. Never did he speak nor act as though he were using Truth as a means to bring about certain healing results in a material existence! His attention was NOT towards conditions, states nor beliefs, but upon that Being which is unalterable; that Principle which is fixed and absolute; that Life which is wholeness always . . .Against such there is no law.
Reader, Know thyself! Learn who and what you really are; the meaning of life and the fullness of all things. Then for you, wars and problems will cease and be no more; sorrows and limitations fade away; for finding yourself as you really are, you shall be in touch with every good and perfect thing; and shall live here on earth a life of peace, joy and plenty.