THE newcomer to Christian Science soon learns that to obtain the full benefit of the healing and harmony this religion has to offer he must learn to spiritualize thought, and he might well ask, "But how do I spiritualize thought?"
In the first chapter of Genesis is recorded God's spiritual creation, perfect and complete. We read (verse 31), "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." We also read in an earlier verse that God made man in His image and likeness and gave him dominion. Man, therefore, possesses by reflection the ability to see everything as God made it, "very good." In learning to spiritualize thought, we start from this premise: man is already endowed with the ability to see everything as God made it, that is, perfect.
In her book "Retrospection and Introspection," Mrs. Eddy includes a chapter entitled "The Great Discovery," in which she relates the steps which led her to discern the necessity for spiritualizing thought. She writes (p. 28): "I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, in order to apprehend Spirit. It must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to have the least understanding of God in divine Science. The first must become last. Our reliance upon material things must be transferred to a perception of and dependence on spiritual things. For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power."
