How much can we pray for other people without their request and without interfering with their thought?
A1 Mary Baker Eddy addressed the issue this way: "As a rule, one has no more right to enter the mind of a person, stir, upset, and adjust his thoughts without his knowledge or consent, than one has to enter a house, unlock the desk, displace the furniture, and suit one's self in the arrangement and management of another man's property" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 283). This is why l like to ask myself, "What do I think about the situation?" That way, if it's only my thoughts that I'm addressing, I know I'm not interfering with anyone else's.
And Mrs. Eddy's life of healing others is a testament to the fact that one does not in fact need to "enter the mind of a person" in order to heal them. There were times when she would just see someone on the street, and although the individual had not specifically asked her to pray, her altitude of thought brought healing. This account is found in one of her biographies: "One day when Mrs. Eddy was taking her daily drive, she passed an old acquaintance on the street. He could scarcely walk with a cane, but her sense of God and perfect man was so strong that he was healed" (Yvonne Cache von Fettwels and Robert Townsend Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer [Boston: The Christian Science Publishing Society, 1998], p. 278).
