One evening I came back from dinner after a cross country practice and had lots of homework to do, which was normal. I felt tired and began to notice a headache coming on. I took a nap, and when I woke up, the headache had not subsided; in fact, it had gotten to the point where I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pray for myself effectively. So I called a Christian Science practitioner for help.
The practitioner told me that I could pray with spiritual facts about myself, for example, that I am a perfect child of God and I am pure, innocent, and holy. The practitioner reminded me that because of these spiritual facts, I was safe and nothing could assail me. I began praying with these ideas but felt that it might be good to spend the night at my school’s Christian Science nursing facility. I called the Christian Science nurses and went over for the night.
After a restless night, I woke up feverish and it appeared that I was exhibiting symptoms of chickenpox, and therefore couldn’t go back to my dorm (in obedience to public health laws regarding a suspected contagious disease). I can’t say that I was affirming my spiritual identity as God’s child, although I knew that doing so could bring healing. Animal magnetism, or the false belief that there is a force pulling against our oneness with God, felt very aggressive. At this point, I was allowing this false belief into my thoughts and was mostly waiting for the problem to subside on its own.
