Journal article from February 1904

Our little town was quarantined, school closed, and rooms on either side of ours were placarded "Small-pox."

In one of these homes there had been for a few weeks a copy of Science and Health, and the father called to me from the rear door, "Are you afraid to help my daughter?" The reply was, "God will heal your child; I am not afraid to do my part." 

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Christian Science healing continues to respond to any and all situations

This morning, before I logged on to TMC Sunday church service, I glanced up at my bookshelf and saw the book, Freedom and Responsibility. While it was published in 1989, and speaking to the reader concerning Christian Science healing for children, much of it seems relevant to the current climate, and how Christian Science healing continues to respond to any and all situations. I was grateful I took it off the bookshelf this afternoon. The opening “Statement for Atlanta Centers for Disease Control” seems just as applicable today as it was when it appeared in our Sentinel in 1986.

“Christian Scientists do not share the antagonism toward public health officials and doctors that is characteristic of some faith healing groups. While taking a different approach to healing, they feel genuine appreciation for the humanitarian efforts of physicians to relieve suffering. It’s in this spirit that Christian Scientists have a long history of cooperation with public health officials – reporting suspected communicable diseases, it has been said, more consistently than many who rely on medical care. They generally request exemptions from vaccinations when the law provides for it, but at the same time they willingly comply with mandatory immunizations, quarantines, and emergency health procedures.…While relying on a method of healing that is basic to their practice of religion, Christian Scientists strive not to ignore the health concerns of others. They work to understand the needs of others and cooperate with them; and they appreciate similar consideration for their approach to healing.”

Truth sends a report of health over the body…

Since the news cycle regarding the current threat of a worldwide pandemic has been dominating public attention, I have had the opportunity to reflect on several distinct healings of so-called contagious diseases in our family.

As parents of three children, we were very aware of the health issues raised when there was fear of communicable diseases in our community. On one occasion when there was fear of a named virus making the rounds, and one of our children was exhibiting the outlined symptoms ascribed by medical theory, I distinctly recall sitting in the stairwell of our home, thinking, “Oh, no!” I reached out prayerfully to God in order to quiet the fear that we’d be “holed-up” for a long time getting through this belief in a contagious disease.

To my surprise, part of a familiar Bible verse came to mind, “God requireth that which is past.” Somewhat puzzled, I looked up the context from Eccl 3:14, “I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.” Suddenly, the angel message made ultimate sense. I was to love God and accept that what He does is all that is ever done, forever good; and that nothing can be added to that complete perfection of God’s fashioning of His ideas, nor was I to be led astray thinking something had to be taken away!

I remembered our Leader’s passage: “Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God’s image, His idea, coexistent with Him – God giving all and man having all that God gives.” (My 5:7-10) Without man’s acceptance and approval of disease thoughts and their claims of pattern, cause, or law, man can experience complete exemption from humanly sanctioned physical “laws'“ of health. I drew great assurance, knowing that this angel message was sent to me to correct a set of false beliefs; and as our Leader assures us, “When one’s false belief is corrected, Truth sends a report of health over the body.” (SH 194:8). I was so grateful that I could trust Truth to do its job; the child quickly recovered, and the siblings were never affected.

Healing experiences like this one increased our sense of harmony as a family and brought about great reassurance that “health is indeed, a consciousness of harmony, and of nothing else.” (Rud 11:13- 15). And that all mankind has a right to this consciousness of harmony for God’s children all abide “under the shadow of the Almighty.” (Ps 91:1)

False Evidence Appearing Real

Thank you for your email concerning the pandemic of fear that besets the material world today.  I remember years ago a friend impressed on me the translation of fear – False Evidence Appearing Real.  That translation is ever present in my thinking as the noise from the worldview that is mesmerized by this material picture reaches a crescendo of panic.  Amazing how the media is focused on statistics of those who have contracted the virus and those who have died of it…in such dramatic tones, as though designed to attract all the moths that are pulled toward the heat and light.

I woke up this morning feeling very warm.  Particularly fearful, what will we do if I, or my husband, contract this false belief.  We are living in the beautiful space of the countryside.  Medical help is not an easy option, neither are masks available.

My thought lifts as I realize again that Christian Science was discovered when medical practice was very limited and people tended to be fatalistic.  Christian Science offered the promise of healing as an oasis offers water in the desert.   In Mrs. Eddy’s time, churches filled with the many whose faith grew quickly or slowly, permitting their emerging understanding to open the way for Truth, Spirit, and Soul to heal them.  It was the strong conviction of Mary Baker Eddy of the Truth of being expressed in Science and Health and her other writings that healed so many even when and where healing workers were few.

Amidst the noise of warnings and dangers proliferating today, as pundits and press, portend sickness and death from a mysterious and incurable cause, the fog of fear seems omnipresent.  But my work and challenge is to discipline recurrent mortal thoughts by reaching for the source that reminds me of the Truth that is God and is the only cause and creator…not some poor bats in a live market in a crowded city of China. God, Soul, Life, Spirit, Mind, Love will prevail over any suggestion of false evidence. And the terror will cease. I will think and read until the noise of error finally ceases.

It is in writing to you just now that I feel peace despite the noise that is trying to drown out the joy of living.  Thank you again for your letter.

Animal magnetism is starting a belief and getting others to fear it…

Working on the belief of the coronavirus pandemic: One of Mary Baker Eddy’s definitions of animal magnetism, from a collection of her notes: “Animal magnetism is starting a belief and getting others to fear it, until evil is done to those that hold the belief and law is made, and the error goes on gaining ground until the serpent becomes a dragon.” Then in Science and Health, page 567, in the chapter “The Apocalypse”: “That false claim – that ancient belief, that old serpent whose name is devil (evil), claiming that there is intelligence in matter either to benefit or injure men – is pure delusion, the red dragon; and it is cast out by Christ, Truth, the spiritual idea, and so proved to be powerless. The words ‘cast unto the earth’ show the dragon to be nothingness, dust to dust; and therefore, in his pretense of being a talker, he must be a lie from the beginning. His angels, or messages, are cast out with their author.”

…my wholeness, my health, my well-being…maintained by God, not matter

Some years ago, when the disease du jour was Swine Flu or as it was clinically called, H1N1, was sweeping through the world’s collective consciousness, I found myself initially unprepared to defend myself mentally against the aggressive mental suggestion. I had an employee whose child was suddenly hospitalized for pancreatic issues and out of kindness I brought warm clothes and a sleeping bag to her at the hospital. As I walked through the hospital I saw signs with warnings about H1N1. The following day I found myself with flu symptoms, which, to be honest, I didn’t think much about it.  I just wanted to “sleep it off” – not at all what our Leader recommends.

A few days in, when symptoms of typical flu were not fading on their own, it finally struck me that I actually should be working about the problem as a Christian Scientist. I began slowly by going through the motions of what I thought a Christian Scientist should be doing – read the Lesson, repeat the Lords’s Prayer, listened to hymns, and called a practitioner.

Things seemed to go from unpleasant to worse. After several days I still wasn’t able to hold any food down, and so I wasn’t even trying to eat, and I was only drinking a little bit of water. I lost over 40lbs that week. And now family members were trying to hide the concern on their face when they saw me. I asked the practitioner to come visit me at my home, which he kindly did the next day. He spoke to me in terms that I’m not sure I understood well then, but I do now. He was trying to remind me that it wasn’t about thinking just the right thoughts to accomplish a healing, but that Truth was already true – namely, that my wholeness, my health, my well-being were established and maintained by God, not matter.

The help from the practitioner snapped me out of the mesmerism of the disease to the point that I no longer felt an overwhelming desire to sleep. I could sit up, I could read with purpose, and I could pray. And so I did. I had been raised in Christian Science, I was grateful for past demonstrations, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand how the words in the textbook could cause a change in our life’s experience. I remember reading the entire chapter on Christian Science Practice in one sitting and drinking it in in ways that I never had before. What I know is that the reading, studying, and praying that I was doing was moving thought.

With the mesmerism broken from the desire to sleep, and with the uplift I was getting from the studying I was doing, I then heard the sound of preparations for dinner downstairs. I was hungry, and for the first time in a week I wanted to eat. I joined my family for the meal much to their astonishment and joy. Both my mother and the practitioner pointed out to me the comment Mrs. Eddy made to Joseph Mann, “You have been thrown out of the house, see that you don’t go back in,” meaning that there had been an almost violent shift from a sense of life in matter to a new higher view of life in Spirit, and this new view brings a sense of life that is as large as all outdoors.

In a day or two I returned to work, and several co-workers were very interested in how it was that I had been so quickly and dramatically restored to health given what they thought of the situation. It gave me the opportunity to share with them what I felt like I had newly learned in Christian Science. It was one of those healings we might think of as a milestone in our progress as a Christian Scientist, and I am continually grateful for the new views of Life that the experience brought me.

True contagion

About a month ago when this latest virus wasn’t the tempest it is now, I had a realization about contagion. My branch church only holds Wednesday meetings once a month.  On an “off” Wednesday, my son wanted to go to church, so we went to another one nearby.  The readings were very straightforward on contagion, and at first I wasn’t that interested. But as I listened, determined to be touched by the Word, I realized a few things about the way we tend to use the word contagion:

1. We tend to think about it as the passing around of harmful, if erroneous, thoughts.

2. In other words, we’re really talking about it in terms of what it isn’t.

Suddenly, I realized the power of what it IS – the powerful and infectious spread of GOOD.  You might remember that my son was bitten by a rattlesnake at a summer camp for Christian Scientists and their families. One of the senior counselors was on the scene and instrumental in our son’s healing. I was also “on the case” when I became aware of it. Then, I learned of a wonderful practitioner whose powerful and clear prayers were also present. (I wrote this up in the Dec 2018 Journal). Whose prayers were “the ones?”  All of them!

What happened that day was the purposeful and unassailable contagion of Truth, lighting the way for all of us who were witnesses in that moment. In my son’s affidavit for the testimony he says while he initially felt panic that gave way to the calm of the group. Truth and Love were on the scene and infectious that day, spreading through every thought striving to acknowledge the truth.

No contagious effect

Several weeks ago my daughter had a play date with two other girls for several hours. They had a good time as usual, but afterwards one of the other moms texted and said she was so sorry – she just found out that her daughter had strep throat. The implication was she wouldn’t have let them get together had she known earlier. 

My wife asked me to pray. I was glad for the opportunity and started with the textbook approach: calm fear; plead God’s Allness and the power of Truth, Life, Love; generally work on parental thought more than kids. 

After one work/prayer session, I forgot about the issue until a few weeks later when I asked my wife about the issue. There had been no contagious effect, and it was a non-event. 

I’m deeply indebted to Mrs. Eddy’s articles on contagion and her teachings on casting out fear, both of which I’m looking forward to demonstrating more.

Watch God work, not man

With the announcement of the coronavirus, I remembered a beautiful experience my son and I had many years ago. He was four years old and not feeling well. I worked and prayed diligently for days. It was a rule in our house, established by my husband who was not a Christian Scientist, that after five days the children would have to see the pediatrician, if the healing was not complete. The fifth day came and went. So my husband insisted we call the pediatrician describing the symptoms.

The pediatrician told us to take our son to the hospital. I was disheartened. This was the first time a spiritual healing had not come about within the time frame set by my husband. So I called my dear grandmother who was greatly instrumental in my spiritual education through Christian Science. She reminded me that God, divine Love, was not left at the door of the hospital. In fact, Love was everywhere caring for everyone. She remarked, “Watch God work, not man.”

Now, my thought was uplifted and the expectance of healing was clear. Immediately after we arrived at the hospital, clinical tests were run. The pediatrician returned saddened. This pediatrician was very much like Mrs. Eddy describes kind-hearted physicians in Science and Health. “Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of the higher class of physicians. “ The doctor said my son had a virus for which medicine had no vaccine or treatment. There was nothing more he could do. The boy would have to fight it on his own. Then the most wonderful words came from his lips, “All we can do is pray!”

My husband had his hands on his head looking at the floor. He was distraught. On the other hand, I looked up with such joy. I knew God had taken this case out of the medical’s hands. Science was on the scene delivering us even if others didn’t see it. There was no question in my mind that healing was imminent. Within an hour, the fever broke.

The medical personnel wanted to keep on observing my son. But he grew strong enough that they released him within a few days. We continued to pray with a spiritual conviction like never before. He was completely healed by month’s-end. This passage from Science and Health still illumines this experience for me: “The facts of divine Science should be admitted, — although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense, — because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God’s reflection.”