The three degrees · Science and Health, pages 115–116
This page is for when something felt fixed and then it wasn’t: loving patience for yourself, and a steady direction toward Love.
About a minute and a half on the three degrees, and what stays improved.
Have you ever prayed, or worked hard on something, and it didn’t seem to stick? Like you had gone backwards? There is a thought that comforts. There is no retrograde step. In Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy gives three degrees of thought. Physical: fear, pride, sickness. Moral: honesty, compassion, hope. Spiritual: understanding, wisdom, love. Degrees of unfolding understanding. Let’s walk them. Understanding unfolds, one degree at a time. And no one unfolds alone. Honesty. Compassion. Hope. Understanding is unfolding. Fear and pride get loud. So we stay watchful. They aren’t real, and your light stays lit. The road may bend, but what we’ve understood doesn’t slide back. The sun keeps rising. Wisdom. Love. Understanding. We have all we need, right where we stand. There is no retrograde step. Stay watchful. We have all we need. We are loved.
The table describes what appears in thought. It does not rank people, and nobody is stuck on a rung. Each degree has a Bible story that walks the same ground. The lantern shows how much light each one carries.
Depravity. Evil beliefs, and the claim that they are real.
Fear, pride, envy, self-justification, hatred, revenge. Sickness, disease and death are listed here too, as beliefs.
Evil beliefs disappearing. The transitional qualities.
Humanity, honesty, affection, compassion, hope, faith, meekness, temperance.
Understanding. What is real, coming into view.
Wisdom, purity, spiritual understanding, spiritual power, love, health, holiness.
Word lists are shortened here. Read the full table in your own copy of Science and Health, 115:19–116:10.
Anyone who has tried this knows the road does not run in a straight line. The book says so, and it also says something that looks like the opposite. Both are there.
Mrs. Eddy writes of a "zigzag course" and of vibrating "like a pendulum" between sin and the hope of forgiveness. She says moral progress, then, "will be slow."
Science and Health 21:24–22:6
Then comes a line to hold: "Wait for your reward, and 'be not weary in well doing.'"
Science and Health 22:12–14
"An improved belief cannot retrograde."
Science and Health 442:18–19
"In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown."
Science and Health 74:29–30
One way to hold both is to see that the zigzag belongs to the human sense of the road, while what has truly improved stays improved. And "an improved belief is one step out of error, and aids in taking the next step" (296:28–30). That is a reading to test, not a ruling. For honesty: the line at 74:29–30 sits in a passage about death and spiritualism, while 442:18–19 speaks more generally. Take the passages to the book and read them in context.
Put it to the test
These are real-life situations, told with invented names. Pick the one closest to yours. Read it slowly. You are not being graded.
Dana and a colleague spent weeks at odds over how to run a project, and he overruled her in front of the team. Then they sat down and talked it through. It turned out they were each right about different things. They settled it, she let the hurt go, and she felt light for the first time in a month. A while later his name lands on a reply-all that skips a step they had agreed on, and the old resentment is back, louder than before.
The sinking thought, "I thought this was fixed." It stings because you meant it when you let it go, and you still mean it.
That the settling didn't count, or that you are starting from zero.
"An improved belief cannot retrograde" (442:18–19). The road's zigzag is described plainly at 21:24–22:6, with the counsel to "be not weary in well doing" (22:12–14).
Peter walked on the water, wavered, and called, "Lord, save me!" "Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him" (Matthew 14:30–31).
The settling still counts. The hand is already reaching.
Maya, 16, decided last month she was finished comparing herself to everyone online. Saturday night she is scrolling and doing it all over again.
Like proof that nothing really changed. That voice is very sure of itself, and it can sound like your own.
That the month before was fake, or that you are one of the people who "can't."
Mortal belief "says to mortals, 'You are wretched!'" and nothing changes "until the belief changes" (297:1–2). Meanwhile "the purification of sense and self is a proof of progress" (324:4–5).
Elijah collapses under a broom bush and wants to quit. An angel does not scold him. "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you" (1 Kings 19:7).
The journey is allowed to feel like too much. You are still on it, and you are not alone.
Sam promised himself he would stay calm with his kids this week. Tuesday at dinner he raises his voice, and the room goes quiet.
The quiet afterward can feel like a verdict. It isn't one. You care enough to notice, and that caring is the direction you are facing.
That you are the parent you feared you'd be.
"Be of good cheer" (Miscellaneous Writings 118:24–25). And "an improved belief is one step out of error, and aids in taking the next step" (296:28–30).
The father in Jesus' story sees his son "a long way off," is "filled with compassion," and runs to him (Luke 15:20).
Repair is part of the road. Love goes toward you, too.
Chris felt steady after a hard season. The night before an important conversation, the old dread comes back as if nothing had changed.
Dread often arrives with a false memory of how things always go. You can feel it arrive and still know what you've learned.
That the steadiness was luck, or that it is gone.
"In Christian Science there is never a retrograde step, never a return to positions outgrown" (74:29–30). "An improved belief cannot retrograde" (442:18–19).
"Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).
What you learned about Love did not leave. You can stand on it.
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere. It disappears when you close this page.
Then read the passages above with your day in mind: 442:18–19, 74:29–30, 21:24–22:6, 296:28–30. Let the books do the talking. You are seen here, zigzag and all.
This is a place to think with the books. It is not a procedure or a set of steps, and it is not meant to be repeated as a formula. Your own reasoning, from the Bible and Science and Health, is the point.
If things feel heavier than a zigzag, please talk with someone you trust. In the US you can call or text 988 at any hour.
Use this page with a young person or a group as a conversation. Read the passages aloud from your own books, then ask.
Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 115:19–116:3.
Quotations are short on purpose. Please read each passage in your own copy.
Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.