When Ferdinand Magellan set sail in 1519, his objective was not to make the earth round. He was simply demonstrating what he knew to be true—that the earth was already round. And so it is with prayer in Christian Science. The objective of Christian Science treatment—which is to say the application of prayer to any circumstance in need of healing—is not to make man perfect but to gain a clearer understanding that man’s perfection is already an established fact, and to prove this fact through healing.
Even the most earnest metaphysician, faced with seeming adversity, can sometimes be tempted to think, “This is a real problem, and I’m going to have to work and pray really hard to make it unreal.” Or, “I’ve lapsed from harmony, and I’m going to have to struggle to regain harmony.” As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, makes clear in her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, such thoughts are based on a thoroughly incorrect premise.
“It is mental quackery,” she writes, “to make disease a reality—to hold it as something seen and felt—and then to attempt its cure through Mind” (p. 395).
