Article May 27, 1916 Issue

Enlightenment Born of Experience

PETER V. ROSS

Healing in Christian Science means vastly more than simply the alleviation of physical or mental suffering, however much to be desired that may be. It brings, among other things, that quickening of the understanding which makes possible the discernment of the process whereby truth is made to operate in human affairs and establish harmony where before discord had reigned. It also brings to light the method by which truth is utilized in order to maintain an already existing harmonious state against the attacks of evil in the various forms of sin and sickness which it attempts to assume. The writer has seen this illustrated in the experience of one who when he began the study of Christian Science was suffering from an eye difficulty for which glasses had been worn and treatment received from oculists for years without bringing more than partial relief. Through the application of Christian Science, however, the glasses were discarded and the sense of sight became normal.

A gentleman who had been told of this experience, called on the one who had been thus relieved, for confirmation of what he had heard, and in the course of the conversation he remarked that he could understand how Christian Science could cure some disorders, but that he could not see how its processes, which are purely mental, could reach a condition due to malformation of the eye, to faulty curvature of the cornea. How, he asked, could the shape or form of a physical organ be changed by a metaphysical process. It then began to dawn upon the one whose sight had been restored that the physical eye, like the rest of the body, is simply the product of the human mind, that it is merely what human thought makes it. Hence the eye and the sense of sight will incline toward perfection or imperfection according as the human mind and its thoughts are perfect or imperfect. Wrong thinking is externalized in imperfectly developed organs and disordered functions, while right thinking manifests itself in human conditions which approach perfection, as we learn in Christian Science.

Obviously, therefore, if any structural defect or functional derangement exists to mortal sense, the thing to be done, in order to bring about a right condition, is not to treat the human body, but to correct that thought which controls the body and all its organs. In Science and Health (p. 228) Mrs. Eddy tells us that "mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science." This is clearly a mental process, whereby the human mind with its erroneous and eccentric thoughts is brought under the compelling rod of the divine Mind and made to think healthful thoughts, a process which naturally brings about healthy bodies, for divine Mind knows and produces perfection only. As human sense is instructed by and brought under the control of the divine Mind, it takes on more and more the qualities of that Mind, and thus enlightened and governed it presents a more harmonious concept of man.

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