Q) I have been reading Science and Health for many years. In fact, one year I read it through once a month for 12 months. So I am asking why haven’t some of my problems been healed as quickly, or as easily, as some of the testifiers in the chapter “Fruitage”? —A Reader in South Carolina, US
A) It is not mere reading, but deep study and pondering of the ideas in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, that heals. Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Take divine Science. Read this book . . . . Study it, ponder it” (Science and Health, p. 559). When we study and ponder these ideas that we’re presented with and really make them our own, we truly live them by putting them into practice. This study spiritualizes thought, but unless there is a change of thought or basis of thinking from material to spiritual, we read in vain. Healing is spiritual awakening, and knowing or understanding God is Life.
It is important to discern the spiritual sense of what you are reading and to begin your prayerful reasoning with a clear sense of God—recognizing Him as divine Principle, Love, the one supreme Cause and Creator of the universe and man. The sustained recognition of the truth of being—perfection of God and His spiritual creation, man—reaches and destroys the erroneous material belief in any case that needs healing. Such prayer heals because it breaks the hold of the material belief.
