Increased attention is being given by both religious and secular researchers to the interconnectedness of mind and body. There is a growing feeling that, in certain sense, the human mind creates its own reality and therefore has considerable control over its own conditions and functions. Many medical doctors are recognizing the need to consider mental factors as well as physical in the treatment of disease.
On the surface, the linkage of mental factors to physical well-being in popular psychology and in certain fields of medicine may appear to resemble the Christian Science teaching that the body is essentially a manifestation of thought. The agreement between Christian Science and these trends is in the recognition that physical factors can't be treated in isolation from a patient's state of mind. A big difference is that these other systems are trying to control bodily responses through the human mind, while Christian Science understands the healer to be divine Mind, or God.
Referring to various theories and systems of so-called "mind-cure." which were discussed in books circulated prior to the publication of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes: "They have their birth in mortal mind, which puts forth a human conception in the name of Science to match the divine Science of immortal Mind, even as the necromancers of Egypt strove to emulate the wonders wrought by Moses. Such theories have no relationship to Christian Science, which rests on the conception of God as the only Life, substance, and intelligence, and excludes the human mind as a spiritual factor in the healing work." Science and Health, p. 185.
