In setting forth the nature of scientific Christian demonstration, Mary Baker Eddy has explained with precision the increased resistance that Truth often stirs up before error finally yields to its authority. This phenomenon she calls chemicalization, and in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures she writes of it very simply, "What I term chemicalization is the upheaval produced when immortal Truth is destroying erroneous mortal belief." Science and Health, p. 401;
Every metaphysician knows how important it is to understand the true significance of this process and not be misled by what it appears to be. As Science and Health further explains, "In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin." ibid., p. 540;
In her experience as Founder of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy soon discovered that periods of great chemicalization in her Church were sure signs that Truth was preparing the way for a higher demonstration of the spiritual purpose for which she had founded the Church. At the time, some people both within and without the movement misread the signs and took them as indications of decline. Some make the same mistake today, when our movement, like the world at large, is passing through a period of extraordinary chemicalization.
