When I was a young boy, my grandmother used to speak about how important it is for Christian Scientists to catch the vision of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. That vision undoubtedly referred to the spiritual insight the Founder of Christian Science had gained through her study of the Bible and her prayer to discover a spiritual method of healing.
For many years Mrs. Eddy had been searching for healing of chronic, debilitating illness. During this search she encountered "alternative" healing practices, including one based on mind cure, or human thought control. Ever since childhood, however, she had held the conviction that God's power to heal, as revealed in the Bible, was still a possibility It was no surprise, then, that when she experienced a particularly bad fall expected to be fatal, she turned to the Bible for support. She explains the experience in her book Miscellaneous Writings: "On the third day thereafter, I called for my Bible, and opened it at Matthew ix. 2. As I read, the healing Truth dawned upon my sense; and the result was that I rose, dressed myself, and ever after was in better health than I had before enjoyed. That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence." Mis., p. 24
She goes on to explain an implication which followed that vision—that matter is but the subjective state of mortal thought (that is, determined by the collective thought of humanity). Her insights into the allness of Spirit and the consequent nothingness of matter gain all the more significance when we realize that they are entirely consistent with the spiritual meaning of what the Bible teaches. The prophet in the book of Isaiah speaks of God's revealing to him: "I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." Isa. 65:17 This prophecy was repeated by John in Revelation when he saw "a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Rev. 21:1
