On page 111 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes, "The Principle of divine metaphysics is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utilization of the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate its Science."
Both the basis and the action of Christian Science treatment are set forth in the above quotation from the Christian Science textbook. As its basis, divine Principle, God, must be understood and obeyed. As to its action, the phrase "utilization of the power of Truth over error" indicates that there is something to be done, a transaction to be undertaken and carried through, a process to be worked out, a consummation to be reached. God must be acknowledged as All-in-all. The power of God must then be allowed to displace error, must operate for an orderly mental regeneration of thought and life. So is this Science practiced.
Christian Science reveals the eternal fact that God is forever maintaining the identity of the real man, His own likeness and image. This true likeness of God is the imperishable reality of everyone. The prayer which exalts the real man and refuses to acknowledge the frail and troubled mortal to be man, is spiritual understanding actively employed or "utilized," and this constitutes Christian Science treatment. Before the consistent devotion to the high purpose of effectual prayer, the belief in evil as real yields to spiritual discernment, and creation is understood as God knows it, including not an element of matter, but only spiritual man and the universe, indestructible and eternal.
Christian Science practice is the maintenance in thought of this true understanding of God as Spirit and of man as spiritual. This true prayer or treatment must be not only maintained in a clear perception of Truth, but expressed in daily life, in deportment, in conduct. And when such understanding and such deportment go so far as to spiritualize a life, bringing healing to the sick and redemption to the sinner, there has been brought about that splendid result which Christian Science calls demonstration. When the Christian Scientist shall maintain that state of prayer and of behavior which constantly exalts God and banishes all evil from thought, he will then be a living exponent of Christian Science practice. No one who seeks his help could fail to experience a diminished fear of evil and a quickened trust in God. Sacred history tells us that some Christians, following the footsteps of Christ Jesus, reached this exalted realization. Christian Science shows us how all may attain to it.
Matter is not true substance; some physicists now aver that it is but the objective expression of mentality. Christian Science shows that mortal mind expressing itself as matter is not divine Mind, but a false mental state directly opposed to divine Mind—a mistaken mental position. A mistaken mental position can be changed; it does change, as the true understanding of existence displaces it. And all the supposed phenomena arising from the mistaken point of view must change with the altered mental state.
That sickness is a mistaken mode of thinking, that one has changed all he needs to change when he ceases to think in a mistaken way, and that this correction of thought will bring about a bodily change, Mrs. Eddy points out in Science and Health, where we read (p. 392), "Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them." All human distress is traceable to aggressive mental suggestion; it can be resolved into the voice of temptation subtly arguing that God is not omnipresent, and that man is something other than His perfect spiritual creation. Christian Science treatment sustains in human consciousness only that which knows man as God knows him, and so erases the mistaken sense and heals the sick.
By experience the student of Christian Science finds that he cannot keep his material ways of thinking and be rid of the sorrowful effects of such thinking. To be delivered from distress by means of spiritual power, he must put on spiritual-mindedness. It may appear that there are countless human grounds for trouble, but in reality, from the spiritual standpoint, there is not one divine reason for trouble of any kind. The divine law ordains only good for man. The divine plan contains nothing less than perfection.
The Christian Scientist, knowing this to be true, strives for spiritual-mindedness. He exalts God in his thoughts and accepts as real only that which comes from God. He knows that however intolerable any material threat or situation may be, it can be made to change and improve or vanish under Christian Science treatment. Through his fidelity to spiritual understanding false mental positions are dissolved, the supposed aggression loses its claim to power, and health which springs from holiness is seen to be man's eternal and indestructible heritage. Individual thought evangelized in these lovely ways of Christian Science prayer comes into a possessive, demonstrable understanding of the power of God and sees human suffering cease.
The student of Christian Science needs to detect intelligently that which would interfere with his steadfast, healing reflection of divine Mind. Selfish, erratic, temperamental tendencies, the lure of materiality in countless ways, would darken and obstruct, if possible, the heaven-seeker. The effort to keep thought reflecting divine Mind acts as discipline to human habits of thought, checks them by the power of spiritual steadfastness, subdues them, and will eventually cleanse the honest thinker's consciousness of them. Through this constant mental discipline the priceless realities of being appear, and Christian healing is accomplished.
A dictionary defines treatment in some of its meanings as "management, handling, usage." As Christian Scientists we place the "management" of our thinking in the ordering of divine Mind, leaning upon the constant activity of spiritual understanding to solve human problems. Christian Science treatment is the activity of accepted Truth erasing from thought the claims of error. And this change of our consciousness goes on as the true ideas of divine Mind displace false human beliefs.
The Christian Scientist's mental bearing toward error is his treatment of it. His manner and mode of discharging and excluding evil suggestions from his thinking, his attitude toward preventing evil suggestions from identifying themselves with and as his thinking, constitute much of his treatment. The God-bestowed spiritual activity which employs divine understanding to extinguish belief in evil is the true practice of Christian Science, and is a treatment ever renewed from its divine source, God, and always operative to uplift and heal.
Thus based upon the allness of God and the spiritual perfection of His creation, Christian Science treatment cannot be bent to any hidden end. It has no part dark. It is as frank as sunlight; it knows no concealments. Universal because truly individual, impartial, divinely purposed through and through, Christian Science treatment brings forward what God wills for man, and confounds and puts to flight what mortals would mistakenly will for themselves.
Treatment is pure prayer, unharnessed to personal interests and unfettered by human desires. It does not pamper nor stimulate any indulgent sense of existence. It cannot gratify materiality. Christian Science lessens materiality; severs from love of the world; frees from the flesh. The demonstration of it does not bring health or success to animality, but removes animality from thought. It helps men to get what they need, not necessarily what they want; it helps them to want and to gain what is right. Right alone can thrive under Christian Science treatment, for spiritual activity fosters only what is fit for heaven. In true treatment the Scientist knows what God is, what man is, what Truth is, and the power of Truth to waken human thought from belief in evil as real. And there treatment rests every case of human need.
Thus it may be seen that Christian Science treatment is not of human origin; that it employs no human methods; that it is not something done by the human mind. Rather is it the presence, the power, the government of God understood and demonstrated. And as this purely spiritual understanding takes its supreme place in human consciousness the material sense retires before it. Christian Science practice can never operate from anything less than this divine foundation.
The human mind is one great longing; it is one universal out-crying question. The divine Mind is the infinite, all-satisfying answer. Therefore at all times men can gather their varying needs under the shining tents of divine Love, finding therein everything that protects and saves and satisfies. The divine answer, truly accepted, will eventually quench all things selfish, fearful, earthly. When this shall have come about, one's very life will exemplify Christian Science treatment—a glowing, healing radiance of the presence of God with men.
The action, the quality, the power, and the healing of Christian Science treatment, purely and rightly given, are indicated in the following beautiful passages from Isaiah: "And the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place. And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand." "And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places."
