What is it that brings about real, transformative healing? The Bible sheds useful light. The book of Luke speaks of a woman who had spent everything she had on doctors, but no material means had been able to help her (see 8:43–48). In humility, she touched the hem of Jesus’ clothes and was healed instantly. The Bible reports that, despite his being thronged by a large crowd, he felt her individual touch, saying, “I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.” When she told him of her healing, he replied, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole.”
This story indicates that what enabled Jesus’ healing works wasn’t a material substance or something that had its source in the brain or body. His healings flowed from something divine—a spiritual power that comes to humanity. This point was crucial for the Discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, who identified that which brings about real healing as Christ, which she defined as “the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 583).
She herself found that it is never something material that enables transformative healing—that is, healing that not only releases us from a problem but uplifts us morally and spiritually as well. A pill can’t make us a new person. Matter cannot make us less material and limited. Similarly, a mentality constrained by matter-based thinking cannot heal, at least not permanently, because of its limits and material basis. Mortal thought or something going on in a brain is not actual Mind or intelligence. It’s just a partial or distorted sense, a limited or matter-based sense, of what’s really going on.
