A woman telephoned a Christian Science practitioner one night to report that she had terrible pain in her body; that she was unable to retain any food; that she couldn't even think because she felt so bad. She asked for treatment in Christian Science. Certainly she wanted to be rid of the debilitating pain. But she also wanted to feel God's healing presence, His all-embracing love, in which there is no pain and no fear. As a result of the treatment, or prayer, the woman soon fell into a restful sleep, and in the morning she woke up perfectly well. Her body was functioning normally, her appetite returned, and she was completely free of pain. Her family rejoiced with her over this decisive healing.
How would a practitioner pray in such a case? Not by trying to manipulate the patient mentally to get rid of physical pain; not by admitting disease to be a solid, material condition. Instead the healer would realize that the trouble confronting the patient was a misconception of the nature of man, not a fact. A practitioner firmly holds to the true nature of God and man, understanding that because pain and disease are no part of the one, perfect God, they are no part of His creation. The practitioner turns completely away from the material scene and reaches out to God in prayer to see things from a higher standpoint, in accord with how God, Spirit, sees His creation—wholly spiritual and unflawed. This exposes disease as illusion. The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, states: "Citizens of the world, accept the 'glorious liberty of the children of God,' and be free! This is your divine right. The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being." Science and Health, p. 227
In God's presence
there is no pain,
no fear, no sickness.
It is the nature of an illusion to distort. What we see and feel of disease or any other error isn't an accurate picture of God's idea, man, at all. When we understand the illusion of disease to be a mental distortion, we are able to dismiss it as a false sense of things; we see that it is not a real happening or condition. An illusion doesn't alter the object apparently affected. So it is in Christian Science healing. Man, God's spiritual likeness, is untouched by the illusion of pain or disease.
Because the spiritual reality of creator and creation is unchanged and forever intact, the diseased condition is the exact opposite of what God is revealing as substantial and real right then. The clear perception of spiritual truth dissolves the underlying fear that man is a mere mortal who has become separated from God and is subject to disease. God's love is the only real power, and God-given spiritual harmony reigns in man—nothing else does. Coming to feel these truths as truth brings healing to the body.
Christian Science treatment acknowledges God's allness and oneness. It involves a conscious recognition of His unchanging love and the all-presence of that love, excluding evil as real or powerful. It nullifies the claim of evil to be able to act up or to challenge God's supremacy.
Our prayer, then, is not a request for a far-off God to look in our direction and bestow a sought-after change in the human body. It is not a pleading but a knowing—an acknowledgment and recognition of what is eternally true. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The lens of Science magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we then see the supremacy of Spirit and the nothingness of matter." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 194
In the situation related above, there had been no need to call for medical assistance, because the patient and her family were not intimidated by what they understood to be false mental images of disease. They held to "the supremacy of Spirit and the nothingness of matter." Through many years Christian Science healing had proved reliable in their lives, and this was the only method of healing they had used.
Christian Science practitioners pray with the understanding that in absolute truth—in the reality of being established by God— there is no matter and therefore no disease. They are proving through their healing practice that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, that He is everywhere present, that He is all the power and presence there is. He is unchanging Love that never hates, and His law never punishes anything but sin. God never sends or sanctions disease or disaster. So when a case comes for healing, the practitioner recognizes it as a mental challenge suggesting that God is less than All; it's an illusion, which can be seen through and eliminated by prayer.
Christian Scientists do not close their eyes to the world around them. They have simply learned to look at things in a different way, to recognize that appearances don't tell the whole story. They base their conclusions on what they understand of God and His spiritual idea, man.
Christ is the saving influence of God, which dissolves the illusion of evil in human thought. Through the power of Christ, fully demonstrated by Jesus, human beliefs and fears yield to spiritual insight, and divine Truth reigns in individual consciousness. Healing of the body is the natural result. Science and Health states, "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness." Science and Health, p. 332 Christ sets the record straight, revealing what really is, what's spiritually true, and so destroys the illusion of disease and suffering. Christ shows us that we've never been separated from God's love and protection. Through the activity of Christ, the whole lie of diseased physicality gives place to the unchanging fact that man is God's precious child, and that God is, right at this moment, preserving man in His own likeness, whole, joyful, and freeborn of Spirit.
Each of us is actually
God's precious child
at this moment.
A physical diagnosis would not forward the work of practitioner and patient, since they are striving to prove the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter. Science and Health affirms: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all." Ibid., p. 468 This is the truth on which healing in Christian Science is based.
The practitioner sees that true substance is not matter but Mind, and that man's perfection is established in Mind, dependent on what God knows and is causing man to be, not on physicality. If a condition isn't going on in God, in the one divine consciousness, it isn't going on, because there's no outside to God's allness.
Again, the practitioner isn't striving through prayer—as opposed to medical means—to change matter. He or she is realizing that the only state of man's being is spiritual perfection. "To the Christian Science healer," Science and Health explains, "sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened." Ibid., p. 417 When an individual sees the truth about something more clearly, he often says, "Oh, I see!" Whatever he was believing before simply fades out before the obvious fact. The same thing happens in healing when the truth of man's perfection touches thought through the power of God and His Christ.
In so many subtle as well as blatant ways, the world is being confronted with the suggestion that matter is everything and that Spirit is merely a weak belief. But God is infinitely more than a belief. He is the only creative power and intelligence. He is a loving Father-Mother, a gentle guide, an ever-present friend, our Shepherd, the great Physician. Because "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation," there really is no matter, no mortal mind, no material man. Instead, there is God's universe of spiritual ideas, governed in perfect harmony by the one Mind. Proof of these facts is being offered daily in the lives of those who practice Christian healing.
