Editorial February 3, 1923 Issue

True Healing and Its Counterfeits

Albert F. Gilmore

ON page 57 of "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy tersely states, "By the law of opposites, after the truth of man had been demonstrated, the postulate of error must appear." Apparently the attempt of evil is to simulate good, claiming recognition in its place, and to accompany the progressive steps in human experience. The carnally minded observers of the spiritual healing performed by Christ Jesus and his disciples attempted to imitate their works, even seeking to purchase what they thought to be a secret. When Simon the sorcerer witnessed spiritual healing, he desired to acquire the power, offering money. But Peter replied, "Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money."

The imitation, or counterfeit, which mistaken mortal mind frequently attempts to put forward in place of the genuine, with the assurance that it is "just as good," would greatly wrong the innocent through misleading them. The effort of evil is to urge its acceptance as good; and the more nearly the falsity simulates the truth, the more subtle and apparently dangerous it becomes. Sacred history, no less than secular, repeats itself; and to-day we find the spiritual healing imitated, and the spurious seeking to have itself accepted as the genuine.

In the more than half century since Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science, this method of divine healing has had many imitators, comprising those desiring to commercialize it for selfish gain; those who would receive its rewards without having earned them; and, likewise, those who, mistakenly, have believed they could do its works without undergoing the preliminary spiritual preparation. All these would-be imitators have failed; but mortal mind is ever prolific in its inventions, and persistent in its revival of old attempts to counterfeit the truth.

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