All the Spirits and a Salad

In Washington, Juliet Thompson recorded a lovely thing the Master said at the table of Ali-Kuli Khán. Mrs Parsons was at the luncheon. Before she became a Bahá’í she had been a Christian Scientist, and now she brought up the question of mental suggestion as a cure for physical disease. The Master replied that some illnesses, such as consumption and insanity, developed from spiritual causes—grief, for example—and that these could be healed by the spirit. But Mrs Parsons persisted. Could not extreme physical cases, like broken bones, also be healed by the spirit?

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A large bowl of salad had been placed before the Master, Who sat at the head of the table, Florence Khánum on His right.

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"If all the spirits in the air," He laughed, "were to congregate together, they could not create a salad! Nevertheless, the spirit of man is powerful. For the spirit of man can soar in the firmament of knowledge, can discover realities, can confer life, can receive the Divine Glad-Tidings. Is not this greater," and He laughed again, "than making a salad?"

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