Over the last decade I've attended a variety of discussions about spiritual healing in both general public and medical audiences. More and more this discussion is moving beyond questions about the legitimacy of spiritual healing to questions about the how of it—What is the relationship between mind and body; and How do spiritual and changed mental states translate into physiological effects? Obviously, the answers to these questions will determine how one practices spiritual healing.
The same kinds of questions came to Mary Baker Eddy after a penetrating spiritual insight healed her of internal injuries caused by an accident. It was a mountaintop experience for her. She described this inspired glimpse of the spiritual nature of creation as ". . . a new world of light and Life, a fresh universe . . . ." Retrospection and Introspection, p. 27. But she didn't know how she got to that "new world," neither did she know how she was healed.
The "how" of spiritual healing took some time for her to work out. There were profound discoveries along the way, but the tangible reality of spiritual creation was always her North Star. It gave her a fixed point to get her bearings—a changeless reality to compare and contrast with what she was learning about the workings of the human mind on the body.
