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Science and
Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter 17
— Glossary
These things saith He that
is holy, He that is true, He that
hath the key of David, He that
openeth, and no man shutteth; and
shutteth, and no man openeth; I
know thy works: behold, I have
set before thee an open door, and
no man can shut it.
— REVELATION.
In Christian Science we learn
that the substitution of the
spiritual for the material
definition of a Scriptural word
often elucidates the meaning of
the inspired writer. On this
account this chapter is added. It
contains the metaphysical
interpretation of Bible terms,
giving their spiritual sense,
which is also their original
meaning.
ABEL. Watchfulness;
self-offering; surrendering to
the creator the early fruits of
experience.
ABRAHAM. Fidelity;
faith in the divine Life and in
the eternal Principle of
being.
This patriarch illustrated the
purpose of Love to create trust
in good, and showed the
life-preserving power of
spiritual understanding.
ADAM. Error; a falsity;
the belief in "original sin,"
sickness, and death; evil; the
opposite of good, — of God
and His creation; a curse; a
belief in intelligent matter,
finiteness, and mortality; "dust
to dust;" red sandstone;
nothingness; the first god of
mythology; not God's man, who
represents the one God and is His
own image and likeness; the
opposite of Spirit and His
creations; that which is not the
image and likeness of good, but a
material belief, opposed to the
one Mind, or Spirit; a so-called
finite mind, producing other
minds, thus making "gods many and
lords many" (I Corinthians viii.
5); a product of nothing as the
mimicry of something; an
unreality as opposed to the great
reality of spiritual existence
and creation; a so-called man,
whose origin, substance, and mind
are found to be the antipode of
God, or Spirit; an inverted image
of Spirit; the image and likeness
of what God has not created,
namely, matter, sin, sickness,
and death; the opposer of Truth,
termed error; Life's counterfeit,
which ultimates in death; the
opposite of Love, called hate;
the usurper of Spirit's creation,
called self-creative matter;
immortality's opposite,
mortality; that of which wisdom
saith, "Thou shalt surely
die."
The name Adam represents the
false supposition that Life is
not eternal, but has beginning
and end; that the infinite enters
the finite, that intelligence
passes into non-intelligence, and
that Soul dwells in material
sense; that immortal Mind results
in matter, and matter in mortal
mind; that the one God and
creator entered what He created,
and then disappeared in the
atheism of matter.
ADVERSARY. An adversary
is one who opposes, denies,
disputes, not one who constructs
and sustains reality and Truth.
Jesus said of the devil, "He was
a murderer from the beginning, .
. . he is a liar and the father
of it." This view of Satan is
confirmed by the name often
conferred upon him in Scripture,
the "adversary."
ALMIGHTY. All-power;
infinity; omnipotence.
ANGELS. God's thoughts
passing to man; spiritual
intuitions, pure and perfect; the
inspiration of goodness, purity,
and immortality, counteracting
all evil, sensuality, and
mortality.
ARK. Safety; the idea,
or reflection, of Truth, proved
to be as immortal as its
Principle; the understanding of
Spirit, destroying belief in
matter.
God and man coexistent and
eternal; Science showing that the
spiritual realities of all things
are created by Him and exist
forever. The ark indicates
temptation overcome and followed
by exaltation.
ASHER (Jacob's son).
Hope and faith; spiritual
compensation; the ills of the
flesh rebuked.
BABEL. Self-destroying
error; a kingdom divided against
itself, which cannot stand;
material knowledge.
The higher false knowledge
builds on the basis of evidence
obtained from the five corporeal
senses, the more confusion
ensues, and the more certain is
the downfall of its
structure.
BAPTISM. Purification
by Spirit; submergence in
Spirit.
We are "willing rather to be
absent from the body, and to be
present with the Lord." (II
Corinthians v. 8.)
BELIEVING. Firmness and
constancy; not a faltering nor a
blind faith, but the perception
of spiritual Truth. Mortal
thoughts, illusion.
BENJAMIN (Jacob's son).
A physical belief as to life,
substance, and mind; human
knowledge, or so-called mortal
mind, devoted to matter; pride;
envy; fame; illusion; a false
belief; error masquerading as the
possessor of life, strength,
animation, and power to act.
Renewal of affections;
self-offering; an improved state
of mortal mind; the introduction
of a more spiritual origin; a
gleam of the infinite idea of the
infinite Principle; a spiritual
type; that which comforts,
consoles, and supports.
BRIDE. Purity and
innocence, conceiving man in the
idea of God; a sense of Soul,
which has spiritual bliss and
enjoys but cannot suffer.
BRIDEGROOM. Spiritual
understanding; the pure
consciousness that God, the
divine Principle, creates man as
His own spiritual idea, and that
God is the only creative
power.
BURIAL. Corporeality
and physical sense put out of
sight and hearing; annihilation.
Submergence in Spirit;
immortality brought to light.
CANAAN (the son of
Ham). A sensuous belief; the
testimony of what is termed
material sense; the error which
would make man mortal and would
make mortal mind a slave to the
body.
CHILDREN. The spiritual
thoughts and representatives of
Life, Truth, and Love.
Sensual and mortal beliefs;
counterfeits of creation, whose
better originals are God's
thoughts, not in embryo, but in
maturity; material suppositions
of life, substance, and
intelligence, opposed to the
Science of being.
CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. The
representatives of Soul, not
corporeal sense; the offspring of
Spirit, who, having wrestled with
error, sin, and sense, are
governed by divine Science; some
of the ideas of God beheld as
men, casting out error and
healing the sick; Christ's
offspring.
CHRIST. The divine
manifestation of God, which comes
to the flesh to destroy incarnate
error.
CHURCH. The structure
of Truth and Love; whatever rests
upon and proceeds from divine
Principle.
The Church is that
institution, which affords proof
of its utility and is found
elevating the race, rousing the
dormant understanding from
material beliefs to the
apprehension of spiritual ideas
and the demonstration of divine
Science, thereby casting out
devils, or error, and healing the
sick.
CREATOR. Spirit; Mind;
intelligence; the animating
divine Principle of all that is
real and good; self-existent
Life, Truth, and Love; that which
is perfect and eternal; the
opposite of matter and evil,
which have no Principle; God, who
made all that was made and could
not create an atom or an element
the opposite of Himself.
DAN (Jacob's son).
Animal magnetism; so-called
mortal mind controlling mortal
mind; error, working out the
designs of error; one belief
preying upon another.
DAY. The irradiance of
Life; light, the spiritual idea
of Truth and Love.
"And the evening and the
morning were the first day."
(Genesis i. 5.) The objects of
time and sense disappear in the
illumination of spiritual
understanding, and Mind measures
time according to the good that
is unfolded. This unfolding is
God's day, and "there shall be no
night there."
DEATH. An illusion, the
lie of life in matter; the unreal
and untrue; the opposite of
Life.
Matter has no life, hence it
has no real existence. Mind is
immortal. The flesh, warring
against Spirit; that which frets
itself free from one belief only
to be fettered by another, until
every belief of life where Life
is not yields to eternal Life.
Any material evidence of death is
false, for it contradicts the
spiritual facts of being.
DEVIL. Evil; a lie;
error; neither corporeality nor
mind; the opposite of Truth; a
belief in sin, sickness, and
death; animal magnetism or
hypnotism; the lust of the flesh,
which saith: "I am life and
intelligence in matter. There is
more than one mind, for I am
mind, — a wicked mind,
self-made or created by a tribal
god and put into the opposite of
mind, termed matter, thence to
reproduce a mortal universe,
including man, not after the
image and likeness of Spirit, but
after its own image."
DOVE. A symbol of
divine Science; purity and peace;
hope and faith.
DUST. Nothingness; the
absence of substance, life, or
intelligence.
EARS. Not organs of the
so-called corporeal senses, but
spiritual understanding.
Jesus said, referring to
spiritual perception, "Having
ears, hear ye not?" (Mark viii.
18.)
EARTH. A sphere; a type
of eternity and immortality,
which are likewise without
beginning or end.
To material sense, earth is
matter; to spiritual sense, it is
a compound idea.
ELIAS. Prophecy;
spiritual evidence opposed to
material sense; Christian
Science, with which can be
discerned the spiritual fact of
whatever the material senses
behold; the basis of
immortality.
"Elias truly shall first come
and restore all things." (Matthew
xvii. 11.)
ERROR. See chapter on
Recapitulation, page 472.
EUPHRATES (river).
Divine Science encompassing the
universe and man; the true idea
of God; a type of the glory which
is to come; metaphysics taking
the place of physics; the reign
of righteousness. The atmosphere
of human belief before it accepts
sin, sickness, or death; a state
of mortal thought, the only error
of which is limitation; finity;
the opposite of infinity.
EVE. A beginning;
mortality; that which does not
last forever; a finite belief
concerning life, substance, and
intelligence in matter; error;
the belief that the human race
originated materially instead of
spiritually, — that man
started first from dust, second
from a rib, and third from an
egg.
EVENING. Mistiness of
mortal thought; weariness of
mortal mind; obscured views;
peace and rest.
EYES. Spiritual
discernment, — not material
but mental.
Jesus said, thinking of the
outward vision, "Having eyes, see
ye not?" (Mark viii. 18.)
FAN. Separator of fable
from fact; that which gives
action to thought.
FATHER. Eternal Life;
the one Mind; the divine
Principle, commonly called
God.
FEAR. Heat;
inflammation; anxiety; ignorance;
error; desire; caution.
FIRE. Fear; remorse;
lust; hatred; destruction;
affliction purifying and
elevating man.
FIRMAMENT. Spiritual
understanding; the scientific
line of demarcation between Truth
and error, between Spirit and
so-called matter.
FLESH. An error of
physical belief; a supposition
that life, substance, and
intelligence are in matter; an
illusion; a belief that matter
has sensation.
GAD (Jacob's son).
Science; spiritual being
understood; haste towards
harmony.
GETHSEMANE. Patient
woe; the human yielding to the
divine; love meeting no response,
but still remaining love.
GHOST. An illusion; a
belief that mind is outlined and
limited; a supposition that
spirit is finite.
GIHON (river). The
rights of woman acknowledged
morally, civilly, and
socially.
GOD. The great I AM;
the all-knowing, all-seeing,
all-acting, all-wise, all-loving,
and eternal; Principle; Mind;
Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love;
all substance; intelligence.
GODS. Mythology; a
belief that life, substance, and
intelligence are both mental and
material; a supposition of
sentient physicality; the belief
that infinite Mind is in finite
forms; the various theories that
hold mind to be a material sense,
existing in brain, nerve, matter;
supposititious minds, or souls,
going in and out of matter,
erring and mortal; the serpents
of error, which say, "Ye shall be
as gods."
God is one God, infinite and
perfect, and cannot become finite
and imperfect.
GOOD. God; Spirit;
omnipotence; omniscience;
omnipresence; omni-action.
HAM (Noah's son).
Corporeal belief; sensuality;
slavery; tyranny.
HEART. Mortal feelings,
motives, affections, joys, and
sorrows.
HEAVEN. Harmony; the
reign of Spirit; government by
divine Principle; spirituality;
bliss; the atmosphere of
Soul.
HELL. Mortal belief;
error; lust; remorse; hatred;
revenge; sin; sickness; death;
suffering and self-destruction;
self-imposed agony; effects of
sin; that which "worketh
abomination or maketh a lie."
HIDDEKEL (river).
Divine Science understood and
acknowledged.
HOLY GHOST. Divine
Science; the development of
eternal Life, Truth, and
Love.
I, or EGO. Divine
Principle; Spirit; Soul;
incorporeal, unerring, immortal,
and eternal Mind.
There is but one I, or Us, but
one divine Principle, or Mind,
governing all existence; man and
woman unchanged forever in their
individual characters, even as
numbers which never blend with
each other, though they are
governed by one Principle. All
the objects of God's creation
reflect one Mind, and whatever
reflects not this one Mind, is
false and erroneous, even the
belief that life, substance, and
intelligence are both mental and
material.
I AM. God; incorporeal
and eternal Mind; divine
Principle; the only Ego.
IN. A term obsolete in
Science if used with reference to
Spirit, or Deity.
INTELLIGENCE.
Substance; self-existent and
eternal Mind; that which is never
unconscious nor limited.
See chapter on Recapitulation,
page 469.
ISSACHAR (Jacob's son).
A corporeal belief; the offspring
of error; envy; hatred;
selfishness; self-will; lust.
JACOB. A corporeal
mortal embracing duplicity,
repentance, sensualism.
Inspiration; the revelation of
Science, in which the so-called
material senses yield to the
spiritual sense of Life and
Love.
JAPHET (Noah's son). A
type of spiritual peace, flowing
from the understanding that God
is the divine Principle of all
existence, and that man is His
idea, the child of His care.
JERUSALEM. Mortal
belief and knowledge obtained
from the five corporeal senses;
the pride of power and the power
of pride; sensuality; envy;
oppression; tyranny. Home,
heaven.
JESUS. The highest
human corporeal concept of the
divine idea, rebuking and
destroying error and bringing to
light man's immortality.
JOSEPH. A corporeal
mortal; a higher sense of Truth
rebuking mortal belief, or error,
and showing the immortality and
supremacy of Truth; pure
affection blessing its
enemies.
JUDAH. A corporeal
material belief progressing and
disappearing; the spiritual
understanding of God and man
appearing.
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The
reign of harmony in divine
Science; the realm of unerring,
eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the
atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul
is supreme.
KNOWLEDGE. Evidence
obtained from the five corporeal
senses; mortality; beliefs and
opinions; human theories,
doctrines, hypotheses; that which
is not divine and is the origin
of sin, sickness, and death; the
opposite of spiritual Truth and
understanding.
LAMB OF GOD. The
spiritual idea of Love;
self-immolation; innocence and
purity; sacrifice.
LEVI (Jacob's son). A
corporeal and sensual belief;
mortal man; denial of the fulness
of God's creation; ecclesiastical
despotism.
LIFE. See chapter on
Recapitulation, page 468.
LORD. In the Hebrew,
this term is sometimes employed
as a title, which has the
inferior sense of master, or
ruler. In the Greek, the word
kurios almost always has
this lower sense, unless
specially coupled with the name
God. Its higher signification is
Supreme Ruler.
LORD GOD. Jehovah.
This double term is not used
in the first chapter of Genesis,
the record of spiritual creation.
It is introduced in the second
and following chapters, when the
spiritual sense of God and of
infinity is disappearing from the
recorder's thought, — when
the true scientific statements of
the Scriptures become clouded
through a physical sense of God
as finite and corporeal. From
this follow idolatry and
mythology, — belief in many
gods, or material intelligences,
as the opposite of the one
Spirit, or intelligence, named
Elohim, or God.
MAN. The compound idea
of infinite Spirit; the spiritual
image and likeness of God; the
full representation of Mind.
MATTER. Mythology;
mortality; another name for
mortal mind; illusion;
intelligence, substance, and life
in non-intelligence and
mortality; life resulting in
death, and death in life;
sensation in the sensationless;
mind originating in matter; the
opposite of Truth; the opposite
of Spirit; the opposite of God;
that of which immortal Mind takes
no cognizance; that which mortal
mind sees, feels, hears, tastes,
and smells only in belief.
MIND. The only I, or
Us; the only Spirit, Soul, divine
Principle, substance, Life,
Truth, Love; the one God; not
that which is in man, but
the divine Principle, or God, of
whom man is the full and perfect
expression; Deity, which outlines
but is not outlined.
MIRACLE. That which is
divinely natural, but must be
learned humanly; a phenomenon of
Science.
MORNING. Light; symbol
of Truth; revelation and
progress.
MORTAL MIND. Nothing
claiming to be something, for
Mind is immortal; mythology;
error creating other errors; a
suppositional material sense,
alias the belief that
sensation is in matter, which is
sensationless; a belief that
life, substance, and intelligence
are in and of matter; the
opposite of Spirit, and therefore
the opposite of God, or good; the
belief that life has a beginning
and therefore an end; the belief
that man is the offspring of
mortals; the belief that there
can be more than one creator;
idolatry; the subjective states
of error; material senses; that
which neither exists in Science
nor can be recognized by the
spiritual sense; sin; sickness;
death.
MOSES. A corporeal
mortal; moral courage; a type of
moral law and the demonstration
thereof; the proof that, without
the gospel, — the union of
justice and affection, —
there is something spiritually
lacking, since justice demands
penalties under the law.
MOTHER. God; divine and
eternal Principle; Life, Truth,
and Love.
NEW JERUSALEM. Divine
Science; the spiritual facts and
harmony of the universe; the
kingdom of heaven, or reign of
harmony.
NIGHT. Darkness; doubt;
fear.
NOAH. A corporeal
mortal; knowledge of the
nothingness of material things
and of the immortality of all
that is spiritual.
OIL. Consecration;
charity; gentleness; prayer;
heavenly inspiration.
PHARISEE. Corporeal and
sensuous belief;
self-righteousness; vanity;
hypocrisy.
PISON (river). The love
of the good and beautiful, and
their immortality.
PRINCIPLE. See chapter
on Recapitulation, page 465.
PROPHET. A spiritual
seer; disappearance of material
sense before the conscious facts
of spiritual Truth.
PURSE. Laying up
treasures in matter; error.
RED DRAGON. Error;
fear; inflammation; sensuality;
subtlety; animal magnetism; envy;
revenge.
RESURRECTION.
Spiritualization of thought; a
new and higher idea of
immortality, or spiritual
existence; material belief
yielding to spiritual
understanding.
REUBEN (Jacob's son).
Corporeality; sensuality;
delusion; mortality; error.
RIVER. Channel of
thought.
When smooth and unobstructed,
it typifies the course of Truth;
but muddy, foaming, and dashing,
it is a type of error.
ROCK. Spiritual
foundation; Truth. Coldness and
stubbornness.
SALVATION. Life, Truth,
and Love understood and
demonstrated as supreme over all;
sin, sickness, and death
destroyed.
SEAL. The signet of
error revealed by Truth.
SERPENT (ophis, in
Greek; nacash, in Hebrew).
Subtlety; a lie; the opposite
of Truth, named error; the first
statement of mythology and
idolatry; the belief in more than
one God; animal magnetism; the
first lie of limitation; finity;
the first claim that there is an
opposite of Spirit, or good,
termed matter, or evil; the first
delusion that error exists as
fact; the first claim that sin,
sickness, and death are the
realities of life. The first
audible claim that God was not
omnipotent and that there was
another power, named evil,
which was as real and eternal as
God, good.
SHEEP. Innocence;
inoffensiveness; those who follow
their leader.
SHEM (Noah's son). A
corporeal mortal; kindly
affection; love rebuking error;
reproof of sensualism.
SON. The Son of God,
the Messiah or Christ. The son of
man, the offspring of the flesh.
"Son of a year."
SOULS. See chapter on
Recapitulation, page 466.
SPIRIT. Divine
substance; Mind; divine
Principle; all that is good; God;
that only which is perfect,
everlasting, omnipresent,
omnipotent, infinite.
SPIRITS. Mortal
beliefs; corporeality; evil
minds; supposed intelligences, or
gods; the opposites of God;
errors; hallucinations. (See page
466.)
SUBSTANCE. See chapter
on Recapitulation, page 468.
SUN. The symbol of Soul
governing man, — of Truth,
Life, and Love.
SWORD. The idea of
Truth; justice. Revenge;
anger.
TARES. Mortality;
error; sin; sickness; disease;
death.
TEMPLE. Body; the idea
of Life, substance, and
intelligence; the superstructure
of Truth; the shrine of Love; a
material superstructure, where
mortals congregate for
worship.
THUMMIM. Perfection;
the eternal demand of divine
Science.
The Urim and Thummim, which
were to be on Aaron's breast when
he went before Jehovah, were
holiness and purification of
thought and deed, which alone can
fit us for the office of
spiritual teaching.
TIME. Mortal
measurements; limits, in which
are summed up all human acts,
thoughts, beliefs, opinions,
knowledge; matter; error; that
which begins before, and
continues after, what is termed
death, until the mortal
disappears and spiritual
perfection appears.
TITHE. Contribution;
tenth part; homage; gratitude. A
sacrifice to the gods.
UNCLEANLINESS. Impure
thoughts; error; sin; dirt.
UNGODLINESS. Opposition
to the divine Principle and its
spiritual idea.
UNKNOWN. That which
spiritual sense alone
comprehends, and which is unknown
to the material senses.
Paganism and agnosticism may
define Deity as "the great
unknowable;" but Christian
Science brings God much nearer to
man, and makes Him better known
as the All-in-all, forever
near.
Paul saw in Athens an altar
dedicated "to the unknown God."
Referring to it, he said to the
Athenians: "Whom therefore ye
ignorantly worship, Him declare I
unto you." (Acts xvii. 23.)
URIM. Light.
The rabbins believed that the
stones in the breast-plate of the
high-priest had supernatural
illumination, but Christian
Science reveals Spirit, not
matter, as the illuminator of
all. The illuminations of Science
give us a sense of the
nothingness of error, and they
show the spiritual inspiration of
Love and Truth to be the only fit
preparation for admission to the
presence and power of the Most
High.
VALLEY. Depression;
meekness; darkness.
"Though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil." (Psalm xxiii.
4.)
Though the way is dark in
mortal sense, divine Life and
Love illumine it, destroy the
unrest of mortal thought, the
fear of death, and the supposed
reality of error. Christian
Science, contradicting sense,
maketh the valley to bud and
blossom as the rose.
VEIL. A cover;
concealment; hiding;
hypocrisy.
The Jewish women wore veils
over their faces in token of
reverence and submission and in
accordance with Pharisaical
notions.
The Judaic religion consisted
mostly of rites and ceremonies.
The motives and affections of a
man were of little value, if only
he appeared unto men to fast. The
great Nazarene, as meek as he was
mighty, rebuked the hypocrisy,
which offered long petitions for
blessings upon material methods,
but cloaked the crime, latent in
thought, which was ready to
spring into action and crucify
God's anointed. The martyrdom of
Jesus was the culminating sin of
Pharisaism. It rent the veil of
the temple. It revealed the false
foundations and superstructures
of superficial religion, tore
from bigotry and superstition
their coverings, and opened the
sepulchre with divine Science,
— immortality and Love.
WILDERNESS. Loneliness;
doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of
thought and idea; the vestibule
in which a material sense of
things disappears, and spiritual
sense unfolds the great facts of
existence.
WILL. The motive-power
of error; mortal belief; animal
power. The might and wisdom of
God.
"For this is the will of God."
(I Thessalonians iv. 3.)
Will, as a quality of
so-called mortal mind, is a
wrong-doer; hence it should not
be confounded with the term as
applied to Mind or to one of
God's qualities.
WIND. That which
indicates the might of
omnipotence and the movements of
God's spiritual government,
encompassing all things.
Destruction; anger; mortal
passions.
The Greek word for wind
(pneuma) is used also for
spirit, as in the passage
in John's Gospel, the third
chapter, where we read: "The wind
[pneuma] bloweth
where it listeth. . . . So is
every one that is born of the
Spirit [pneuma]."
Here the original word is the
same in both cases, yet it has
received different translations,
as in other passages in this same
chapter and elsewhere in the New
Testament. This shows how our
Master had constantly to employ
words of material significance in
order to unfold spiritual
thoughts. In the record of Jesus'
supposed death, we read: "He
bowed his head, and gave up the
ghost;" but this word
ghost is pneuma. It
might be translated wind
or air, and the phrase is
equivalent to our common
statement, "He breathed his
last." What Jesus gave up was
indeed air, an etherealized form
of matter, for never did he give
up Spirit, or Soul.
WINE. Inspiration;
understanding. Error;
fornication; temptation;
passion.
YEAR. A solar
measurement of time; mortality;
space for repentance.
"One day is with the Lord as a
thousand years." (II Peter iii.
8.)
One moment of divine
consciousness, or the spiritual
understanding of Life and Love,
is a foretaste of eternity. This
exalted view, obtained and
retained when the Science of
being is understood, would bridge
over with life discerned
spiritually the interval of
death, and man would be in the
full consciousness of his
immortality and eternal harmony,
where sin, sickness, and death
are unknown. Time is a mortal
thought, the divisor of which is
the solar year. Eternity is God's
measurement of Soul-filled
years.
YOU. As applied to
corporeality, a mortal;
finity.
ZEAL. The reflected
animation of Life, Truth, and
Love. Blind enthusiasm; mortal
will.
ZION. Spiritual
foundation and superstructure;
inspiration; spiritual strength.
Emptiness; unfaithfulness;
desolation.
Go
to Chapter 18:
Fruitage
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