When the student of Christian Science apprehends the mental and spiritual nature of health,—the consciousness of spiritual wholeness,—he perceives the impossibility of true healing by any other means than the divinely metaphysical method employed by Jesus the Christ, and operative to-day in Christian Science. And because every form of human distress is relieved, the seeming predisposing cause of all wrong conditions being removed through Christian Science healing, the student of this Science finds that the term "healing" has a far more comprehensive meaning than the common usage of the word implies.
The Science of healing is the knowledge of the operation of perfect spiritual law made manifest in harmonious action, and is not confined to restoring to normal conditions the functions of the human body, although the practical significance of physical healing continues to be, as in Jesus' time, a satisfactory proof of the redemptive power of Truth. Truth must certainly be divinely metaphysical. But the so-called human mind objects to metaphysical healing because of its inability to comprehend anything outside the fictitious realm of matter, and because the process of spiritual healing is removed from any so-called science in which mortal belief is a factor. The human mind is wont to lose itself in the bewildering mazes of material psychology, mental science (so called), and in various modes of mortal belief claiming to heal, but having no higher basis than the mesmeric influence of so-called mind over matter; but, like the process of treating matter with matter, it is of no permanent benefit to humanity.
Christianly scientific healing is the operation of Truth in human consciousness; and because Truth is unchanging divine Principle, its efficacy to heal must be the same as when it was practiced by Jesus and the apostles. Whatever is true must be scientifically true, and susceptible of demonstration at any time and in any place. The teaching of Christian Science admits of no break in the continuity of divine law, but discloses the fact that all good comes to humanity by way of discovery of that which has always existed. Christian Science demonstrates the fact that all discordant conditions, as the results of erroneous thinking, must be corrected by realization of the absolute Truth, and never by the substitution of one human belief or suggestion for another. This was surely what Jesus insisted upon when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Following the example of the Master, we must make the truth practical in human experience. The life of Jesus was a demonstration of how to make the divine available,—how to bring the true to bear upon the false. This is a problem which always confronts the student of Christian Science, whose previous education has involved a struggle to adjust the human to the divine through a confused interweaving of Spirit and matter, or the impossible task of serving "God and mammon."
To gain an understanding of the basic law of spiritual healing, no better foundation can be laid than the Scriptural statement that all things were made by God, "and without him was not any thing made that was made." From this premise, which is the underlying basis of all real existence, including spiritual man in the image and likeness of God, we reason deductively from cause to effect, that because God is infinite good, He cannot manifest Himself otherwise. It is obvious, then, that neither sin, sickness, suffering, nor any phase of evil can possibly correspond to the perfect standard herein set up. God's infinitude does not embrace evil or its consequences.
Christian Science insists upon this obvious appeal to divine reason, and demonstrates the fact that evil is not the product of infinite good; that it is altogether unreal, abnormal, and, as evil thought, its false claim to reality is only the supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are material and mortal. Paul exposed the mythical nature of evil by resolving its illusive elements into the false beliefs of an unreal carnal mind; and long before Paul, the prophet declared, "Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good;" and again, we have the prophetic assurance of Habakkuk, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." No more vital statement of truth occurs in the teachings of Christian Science than the insistent declaration of the reality of good and the unreality of supposititious evil.
To admit the reality of evil is to admit the reality of sickness, opening wide the door of mortal consciousness to fear. Therefore, not only a theoretical denial of all evil, but a practical demonstration of this denial, is the means of liberating human thought from false beliefs. Fear is the direct product of sin; and both are conspirators against the peace of mankind and predisposing causes of disease and death, the mortal belief in death being nothing but the belief in disease carried to its ultimate conclusion. A belief in evil, whether manifested in sickness or in sin, is fundamentally the conscious or unconscious error of believing in a power apart from God,—a denial of the allness of omnipotent Mind.
Fear and its evil effects are arrested and eliminated by the scientific understanding of God as infinite Love and of man's relation to God as His image and likeness,—the manifestation of Love. To mankind, so deeply submerged in material beliefs, the ever-presence of infinite Love is the light that "shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Divine Love was the healer in Jesus' time; and it must be reflected in all our demonstrations of scientific healing to-day. Without the reflection of Love, no healing would be possible; for, as Paul said, "love is the fulfilling of the law."
Just how, and why, negative error—mortal ignorance—is thrust upon, and reacts on, mortal consciousness is not important to know, except as it may be helpful in casting it out, in the cleansing of the temple by the healing Christ. This cleansing process means more than merely getting rid of something. The process of the metaphysics of Christian Science consists in discerning"the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold," as Mrs. Eddy expresses it in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 585). In this analysis the Scientist realizes the reality of the spiritual idea in the divine Mind, to the destruction of the unreal concept in the so-called mortal mind.
The action of Jesus in driving the money changers out of the temple is typical of the necessity for the Christian Science practitioner to maintain his spiritual integrity, his purity of consciousness, and therefore its healing quality. When the structure had been purified, we are told by Matthew, "the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them."
When we learn in Science that man is spiritual,—a divinely mental creation, the image and likeness of God, conscious of good,—we come to see that man is never in need of healing, because he is already whole in his expression of the divine nature. But a definite distinction must be established in thought between God's man and a mortal; otherwise we flounder in a vain effort to harmonize the spiritual with the material. The spiritual truth about man removes the process of scientific healing from personality; and although treatment may, in a certain sense, be said to be both personal and impersonal in its application, the practitioner is careful not to let the shadow of personality dim the transparency of his own consciousness in reflecting the healing truth for those who come to him for help. In his work he is constantly watchful not to usurp the prerogative of the patient to turn directly to God for guidance, holding continually in thought the charge of Paul to Timothy, that "there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus."
If one has the least understanding of Christian Science, and turns with an honest and receptive thought to it for relief, that moment his healing begins. It is not to be expected, however, that such a one can reach the summit of complete demonstration in a single bound, any more than success in any line of human endeavor is attained without effort or application. One cannot always say why some particular phase of error clings with greater tenacity in the consciousness of one individual than in that of another. Indeed, every mortal is mentally bound by the graveclothes of materiality and its beliefs, until the voice of the Christ is heard and the importunate clamor of mortal mind is hushed by the command, "Loose him, and let him go."
Demonstration will follow understanding and the scientific application of the truth of man's divine sonship. The knowledge of man as God created him will heal wherever this understanding is permitted to enter; for, as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 152 of Science and Health, "Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood."
