Along with the present resurgence of belief in many forms of the occult, one may hear the terms "religion" and "magic" used as if they were almost interchangeable. It is even sometimes suggested that both ways of looking at the world are based only on beliefs about how a material man struggles to control his material world.
But Christian Science differs radically from other systems of religion and from magic, as well as from systems of human philosophy and psychology. It insists that the biblical "miracles," including those of Christ Jesus and his apostles, were in fact demonstrations of divinely scientific truth. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states: "Miracles are impossible in Science, and here Science takes issue with popular religions. The scientific manifestation of power is from the divine nature and is not supernatural, since Science is an explication of nature." And on the same page she continues, "Between Christian Science and all forms of superstition a great gulf is fixed, as impassable as that between Dives and Lazarus." Science and Health, p. 83;
To mistake matter-oriented beliefs for true religion—which must be based on unerring divine Principle—is at least as old as the Old Testament. The prophet Elijah encountered this type of ignorance. The scriptural narrative states that four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal gathered together and waited and made offerings and called upon their gods from morning until evening, but "there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any that regarded." I Kings 18:29;
