One day a student of Christian Science had a physical difficulty. At an earlier date a dentist had told her she had a tooth that must be extracted at once. He had suggested that she would experience a great deal of suffering if it were not removed immediately. Now, six months later, what the dentist had predicted appeared to be coming true.
As the woman sat prayerfully working in Christian Science on this problem, other members of her family were watching a television program. At first the woman felt that this program was a noisy intrusion into her own painful picture. She resented the commercials depicting individuals who were struggling with pain in different parts of their bodies, pain which was supposed to be cleared up as the remedies reached certain parts of the human system.
A sentence from page 259 of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy came to the student, "Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms its offspring after human illusions." The dentist had explained that certain physical conditions were causing the pain in her jaw. She now saw that she was mentally picking up and reproducing a picture from general human belief, sponsored in this instance by so-called laws laid down by the dentist. What a relief it was to her when she understood that this condition was not caused by anything within the tooth or gum, but was only the result of mesmeric suggestion, the same kind of suggestion that was projected on the television screen in the commercials that advertised cure-alls!
