Some medical systems now recognize mental causes of physical symptoms and effect cures by correcting mental conditions. Christian Science goes much further. It insists that what are called material symptoms and conditions exist only in the human mind, and are objectified in matter. But God, Spirit, is the only real Mind. The cure for a disease, therefore, is a recognition of the truth, and the truth is neither in matter nor in the mind that seems to entertain the unhealthy mental or physical conditions.
When we begin to practice Christian Science healing, we may be tempted to search for mental causes with the intent of correcting them by humanly mental self-discipline. Finding hatred or resentment or selfishness as the seeming cause of a disease, we might point out the cause to the patient and tell him that when he stops hating, resenting, or being selfish he will be healed. So doing, we show that we have started on the right track but have taken a wrong turn. This procedure often leaves a patient worse off than he was. He does have to get rid of his wrong thoughts, but he doesn't know how. The light of Truth brought to the case by the practitioner can show the patient the unreality of those thoughts and so free him to put them off.
When they brought the adulterous woman to Christ Jesus, there was no question as to the cause of her difficulty. We might say that the prognosis for her was imminent death by stoning; the cause, a broken law. Did Jesus say to her, "Well, if you want to be free, you'll first have to stop being a sinner"? No, he confronted her accusers with their own conscience, so that they left, and he said to her, "Neither do I condemn thee." Then he told her, "Go, and sin no more."John 8:11
