Trails, Mt. Diablo near Walnut Creek, California, US
© Patrick Smith/Visuals Unlimited/Getty Images
Bob and his wife, Judy, have a lovely townhouse on top of a hill looking over Walnut Creek, California. In the near distance is beautiful Mount Diablo, which towers above everything. Right next to this townhouse community, there’s an open space with trails that go for miles. They attend First Church of Christ, Scientist, Danville. Bob has been a teacher of Christian Science since 1985.
While we were talking earlier, Bob, you mentioned a pivotal moment when you were a young boy that set your course for healing.
I was raised in a suburb of New York City. Our teachers, once in a while, would take us into the city to see a museum, a play, or something like that. When I was in seventh grade, and I was 12 years old, we went to see the movie Joan of Arc. I was very touched by this movie, and afterward, when the 30 of us kids came out of the theater, most were running around and letting off steam. I wanted to be quiet because I had been so moved by the film.
I went to a calmer place in the lobby, and I prayed, silently, “God, make my life have a meaning—a purpose—like Joan of Arc’s.” I didn’t want to be burned at the stake or anything like that, but it was a very deep, sincere prayer. Then I went back to the rest of the kids. I’ve cherished that listening to God to know what to do with my life ever since, and I’ve made my decisions in life to coincide with that desire. A day or two after that prayer in the theater, the thought came very, very strongly, “You want to be a Christian Science healer, a practitioner.”
How did that experience guide your spiritual development?
At that point I knew what I was going to do with my life, and it’s a real privilege to know that at such a young age. I consciously made decisions as I went forward, toward fulfilling that role. Mary Baker Eddy says, “All Science is a revelation” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 28), and she also says, “Truth is a revelation” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 117). That’s what happened to me there in the theater—it was a revelation, and I held fast to it.
So how did you fulfill your aspiration to go into the practice?
I had been in the Air Force and was offered a job with Lockheed Corporation in Sunnyvale, California. I was all set to move there when I was invited to apply for a job in The Mother Church’s College Organization Division.
At this point I’d been praying daily to know what to do further with my life. I looked up every citation that Mrs. Eddy and the Bible had on “direction“ and “guidance.” I wrote down the citations that meant the most to me, and every day I would go over one of those citations, and seek a greater understanding of how it applied to me.
I was offered and accepted the job with The Mother Church, and after five years, as I continued to pray, I felt it was time for me to go into the full-time practice. It wasn’t an intellectual decision. I was just listening to God.
What were your first years in the practice like?
My wife and I had just moved to San Francisco. I hardly knew anyone in the city, and I wasn’t listed in the Journal. I felt it was important to have a downtown office, so I got one.
Judith M. Stranathan
Five days a week I would go to this office and I would be there, I guess it was 9:00 to 5:00. I would look up things in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings that would be appropriate for healing different problems, like broken bones, or sin, or something like that. I kept notes on appropriate citations that I thought would be helpful. I had only one patient the first month, and one person the second month, and it seemed that something was wrong. I had absolutely no thought that I would leave the practice, but I had to regroup and get on a better track.
So I reached out to God. “What do I need to do?” And the thought came that I had been very faithful. I’d been praying from 9:00 to 5:00. I was really working to learn how to heal. But the thought came: “You’ve had class instruction. You know how to heal. Heal!”
So I got a little notebook called “A Day at a Glance,” which breaks the day down into 20-minute intervals. Every morning I would do one of two things—I’d either fill out every 20-minute slot for that day with a “patient” that I thought of through reading an article in The Christian Science Monitor or watching television news the night before, or I’d fill those slots up as the day progressed. So that would be about 21 to 24 treatments I would give every day.
You were giving treatment to a local or a world situation?
Yes. I did that very conscientiously, and after about two weeks, people started calling me, and that was wonderful.
Part of the experience you had with the Joan of Arc movie was a sense of revelation. Did this insight help you as you went forward with your practice?
I knew I needed to get a better sense of trust in God. I don’t mean a “grit your teeth” kind of trust, or “clench your fists” kind of trust—but a joyful trust. So I looked up what Mrs. Eddy and the Bible have to say on “joy,” “joyful,” “joyous,” and so forth, and wrote down the citations that meant the most to me. Then I did the same thing with “trust,” “trustfulness,” “trusting,” and so forth. I had them on two sheets of paper, and every day for 14 years, I looked up, in an orderly way, one of those citations on joy, and one of the ones on trust, and demanded of myself a greater sense of what trust and joy meant.
Healing the patient isn’t an intellectual process. To me, healing is listening. Healing is an inspirational thing.
–– Bob Stranathan
Sometimes I didn’t feel like I was making much progress. Once in a while, the light would come on at the end of the tunnel, and I would think, “Oh, I’m starting to grasp these ideas.” Then the light would go out! But I stuck with this spiritual discipline, and after 14 years of studying these two concepts, I felt led to put aside this phase of the work.
Is there something in those early days in the practice that you think will help somebody who’s thinking about going into the spiritual healing practice now?
Yes, there is. Mrs. Eddy asks Christian Scientists to pray every day for themselves, for mankind, for world peace. I had class instruction when I was about a year out of college. One of the things I learned in class instruction was the daily discipline of prayer along this line. I took that seriously, and I did it every day. I think this daily discipline has done more for me than any other one thing, establishing my healing practice and establishing the direction for my life.
What other thoughts have you found helpful to your work?
The practice has shown me the importance of acknowledging Christ Jesus for what he was, and Mrs. Eddy for what she was. Christ Jesus, of course, fulfilled biblical prophecy as the Messiah—the promised Christ. Also, Jesus stated specifically: “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:16–18).
I think it is imperative, if one is going to be a healer, that one acknowledges the Comforter, and what it is—Christian Science—and that it was discovered by Mary Baker Eddy. If one acknowledges Jesus Christ and Mrs. Eddy, one has a tremendous foundation on which to build.
You’re not talking about worshipping their personalities, but more about what they represent in terms of the truth, right?
Very definitely. Mrs. Eddy was very clear about that. She didn’t want people to look to her as a person. She says, “Follow your Leader, only so far as she follows Christ” (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 4).
It doesn’t take much thought to realize that what made Jesus accepted by the people as the promised Messiah, was his healing ability. If Jesus hadn’t healed, if he’d just been a good talker, we wouldn’t be thinking of Jesus the way we are now.
Speaking of healing, what approaches to healing are effective?
Mrs. Eddy makes a pertinent statement in her writings that healing can be done through argument, just like when somebody argues who’s a lawyer in a court, except you argue mentally for the patient. For example, Christian Scientists start by knowing that the patient is a spiritual, perfect idea of God, and they build the case for the patient, and his purity, uprightness, freedom, and joy. They insist on his health and wholeness.
Next, they see that the claim that the patient is sick, and so forth, obviously isn’t true. When this work has been done, the practitioner trusts what he has declared, realizing that the situation is under God’s perfect control.
That’s the way argument is used in metaphysical healing, but that’s not the highest way to pray. The highest way to pray is through Love alone, and Mrs. Eddy makes it clear: “If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit . . .” (Science and Health, p. 365). I feel that most healing today in Christian Science is done by mental argument, but there is some done by reaching the patient through Love alone. I’ve healed people both ways.
Sometimes people think it’s their emotional love that heals, but Mrs. Eddy speaks of man (meaning both men and women) as the expression of divine Love. Would you elaborate on the difference between a personal sense of love, and divine Love?
That’s an extremely important point. Love is God, and God can’t just be a thought without a manifestation. God has to express Himself. If He didn’t express Himself, He would be, as Mrs. Eddy says, “Mind unexpressed” (Science and Health, p. 303). God’s expression is you, and me, and the next person, and cats and dogs, and beautiful mountains, and so forth, as spiritual ideas.
God, being Love, is revealed when we are loving toward one another; in being loving toward your wife or husband, and that has elements of physicality in it, but its underlying basis is spiritual. As we grow spiritually, the physical aspects of existence become less and less important, and the spiritual ones become more and more important.
What about times when the patient is expecting the practitioner to have a kind of “magic bullet” that will bring about the healing?
First of all, I think it’s very important, when we pray for ourselves or others, not to pray from a sense of trying to get something. Jesus was always giving. That’s one of the ways I like to think of God—as giving. God’s got everything. He doesn’t have to get anything. He is just expressing good. So when we’re ill, or the patient is ill, the practitioner should think about sharing—not getting the patient to be better, but just sharing the good we know about the patient.
If three people come into my office in one day, and they all have broken bones, I can’t pray just one prayer for all of them, because they probably all have different reasons why they have broken bones. One might have been in an accident, another person might be suffering from belief in a hereditary condition that led to weak bones, and another may have been malnourished when he or she was a child. And so you’d have to treat each case individually. There are no magic bullets. There’s not a particular prayer that’s going to work for everybody in a particular situation. You have to listen to God to know what to heal.
Inspiration plays a big part, then?
Healing the patient isn’t an intellectual process. To me, healing is listening. Healing is an inspirational thing. As Mrs. Eddy’s poem says, “I will listen for Thy voice . . .” (Poems, p. 14). And the practice involves listening for God’s guidance each step of the way.
Mrs. Eddy advises healers to always address the patient’s fear (see Science and Health, p. 411). Do you have any guidance to offer on how or when to do this? If the patient is certain he or she is not afraid, do you handle fear anyway?
One thing I do is to maintain a healing and loving mental atmosphere in my office. This is a comforting influence for the patient. I ask the individual what the problem seems to be, all the while recognizing that divine Love is ever present. Since the Bible makes clear that “perfect love casteth out fear” (I John 4:18), the healing atmosphere and my recognition of Love’s presence are actively but silently addressing fear from the start.
The basis of the patient’s fear is often the misconception that the problem is a material condition over which the patient has no control. To dissolve this fear, I’ll ask directly what the problem is and if there are any mental issues—such as antagonism toward a neighbor—associated with it. I then address the specific issues in Christian Science treatment, as I’ve described it earlier.
I focus on realizing why man is already perfect, instead of attempting to make man perfect.
–– Bob Stranathan
When the specific fear, ignorance, or sin causing the physical problem is not evident, I know in treatment that God will reveal the error in thought and show its nothingness. This results in healing.
Also, the confident conviction of the practitioner in the truth of what he or she declares is very important. I know that what I declare in treatment is true! As valuable as statements of truth are, the most important element in healing is the spiritual love the practitioner has for the patient. True Christly love is a powerful healer, as both Jesus’ ministry and Mrs. Eddy’s teachings make clear.
Sometimes the patient’s thought may be so gripped by fear and by the physical or mental condition, that the individual may not be able to see the situation from a spiritual standpoint or to recognize that what he is thinking determines his health. In such cases, I offer spiritual truths that will help turn the patient away from the mesmeric illusion of sickness or other trouble, and awaken him to the realization he can and does think in accord with the thoughts God is giving him. He does express dominion over the physical problem and also is free from the unease in his thought. This approach enables the patient to gain mental freedom and restores health.
Mrs. Eddy comments that sometimes a patient’s fear is “so excessive that it amounts to fortitude,” hiding the fear (Science and Health, p. 375). Therefore I handle fear even if there doesn’t appear to be any. Another way I handle fear in a patient is to share a similar healing I or someone else has had.
What about a case that seems to resist healing? Do you have some thoughts that will encourage someone who is striving for healing to stay the course?
I share experiences I’ve had myself that took some time before they were healed. I also tell a patient that eventually he is going to have to heal everything in his experience, as Jesus did for himself, and that the easiest time to have the healing is now.
Are there particular points of treatment that you cover when someone asks you for help?
When I pray, I start by acknowledging that there is one infinite God, Spirit, who is perfect now, that He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. I accept that God has to express Himself, and that this expression is spiritual man, the “image of God” (Genesis 1:27). Thus man is perfect now. My metaphysical treatment rejoices in these spiritual facts, and rejects as a fallacious assertion the claim that man is material or flawed. I focus on realizing why man is already perfect, instead of attempting to make man perfect. I reject opposite assertions, labeling them as aggressive mental suggestions.
I realize this prayer is the Word of God, thus all-powerful, not only in the spiritual realm of the real, but also all-powerful in the suppositional material realm. If this fact were not true, there would be a place where God was not all-powerful. That is impossible given the spiritual fact that God is omnipresent. Realizing this has genuine healing power.
Here’s an example of what I mean.
Nearly ten years ago, a father and his adult son were cycling together and were going down a big descent. Toward the bottom, a woman unexpectedly turned her car into the son’s lane. The car and the son’s bicycle collided at a great speed.
The bike went one way, as the son literally cart-wheeled down the pavement. When his father reached him, the situation looked grim. On her own initiative, a woman who saw the accident called 911 for an ambulance. Under California law, once 911 is called, the injured person is required to go in the ambulance to a hospital. As the father followed the ambulance, he called me for Christian Science treatment for his son.
In prayer, I reasoned first that since God controls the entire universe harmoniously, there couldn’t be an accident or imperfection. There couldn’t be someone who caused an accident, or someone injured in an accident. Second, the absolute fact is that since God is perfect, His universe is perfect. As an accident is a supposition that perfection is not the rule of reality, the accident was an untrue imposition and did not have an effect. The thought came to me that the sooner the son could be released from the hospital the better. This intuition also came to the parents, and subsequent events showed that making this choice helped them and their son to keep the focus on spiritual healing.
While he was at the hospital, the son was given a CAT scan, many other tests, and his injuries were bandaged. An orthopedic surgeon put a dislocated elbow back into place. Other than that, no medical treatment was given. The hospital nurse in charge understood that the family was addressing the young man’s injuries through prayer. She told the father that the son should be released to go home, and she and an understanding doctor assisted in his release. Later that night another doctor from the hospital called, asking the son to come back because they were alarmed by the test results, which had just come in. The son chose not to go back, and he and his mother spent the night in prayer.
The parents called a Christian Science nurse, who came to their home. She patiently and lovingly showed them how to change the bandages, as well as how not to be shocked at what they saw. My work supported this home care so that no one would be overcome by the material picture presented by the injuries or assume that healing had to be prolonged because of their severity.
One important point in the son’s progress was his decision to forgive the driver of the car. Forgiveness is often essential in healings of this kind because anything evil that lingers in thought tends to delay healing. In its own way, it argues that an event happened that interrupted the divine harmony and thus keeps it “alive” in thought. Anything that turns thought away from a so-called material cause of inharmony will forward the healing by freeing the patient from dwelling on the past and moving forward as divine Truth is leading him or her.
In the time of emergency, the father called me to pray for his son, but as the son improved, he felt he wanted to make his own choice for the continuing help he needed. Not too long after that, he was totally healed of his injuries, which left only a small, almost imperceptible scar.
You’ve been teaching many years now. What do you see as the most important part of class instruction—the one thing you really want your pupils to take away with them?
That Christian Science is the same as the teaching of Christ Jesus, the Word of God that is all-powerful; that God is infinite good, which man expresses; that the students’ mission is to be healers; that they cannot work out their own salvation simply by praying for themselves, but must also pray for others.
So after the two weeks of class instruction, do you charge your pupils to go out to be healers?
I tell them, probably the first day, that the reason we’re all together in class is because they’re going to be taught how to be a healer. That’s what Mrs. Eddy felt class instruction was for. I don’t try to browbeat them into doing that, of course—you can’t. They have to listen to God for their next steps, but that’s what class instruction is for—to teach them how to be healers, wherever they are, no matter what they are doing.
Do you have any final thoughts on the practice to share?
Yes, I do. Being a scientific Christian healer is the most magnificent occupation there is. You are daily given the privilege of loving your fellow man in the highest way possible, by seeing him as God made him, thus glorifying God and man, and in the process of healing, lifting lives above all limitation and freeing the patient to be what he actually already is, always and ever will be—the whole, loving and lovable child of God.
