Article February 17, 1923 Issue

It is a mistake to class Christian Science with the various...

Charles W. Hale, Committee on Publication for the State of Indiana,—Centerville

Old Trails Echo

It is a mistake to class Christian Science with the various phases of occultism and so-called mental healing mentioned in the article under discussion, and to intimate that it is what is commonly termed an "Oriental" doctrine. Christian Science is a pure, spiritual religion, based exclusively upon the Scriptures and the teachings and demonstrations of Christ Jesus. It does not include any phase or practice of hypnotism, mesmerism, or any other action or use of what is generally called the human will; nor is its work based upon the alleged power or influence of one human or mortal mind over another. The basis of Christian Science is spiritual; and it demonstrates the power of God—infinite Mind—in overcoming sin and in healing sickness. Here lies the greatest difference between the teachings referred to and Christian Science. Most, if not all, of those so-called mental systems confine their work primarily to healing sickness. In this they admit the presence and power of physical sickness or discord as though it were an entity, created and permitted to exist, by some sovereign power; and then they proceed to at tempt its eradication or cure by the power of the so-called human mind. The primary purpose of Christian Science is the overcoming of evil and sin; and it demonstrates that sickness is healed by thus overcoming the idolatrous, material beliefs in an alleged power apart from God. Christian Science demonstrates that all discord, sin, and sickness are the products of the erroneous thinking of the mortal or carnal mind, and that they are corrected and healed by the power, presence, and availability of the divine Mind, God.

It is denied that the healing of sickness in Christian Science is accomplished by one human mind controlling or manipulating another. The real teaching of Christian Science is that it is the power of infinite Mind, God, reaching the consciousness of the patient that heals disease. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, explains the process in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" and a correction of the misstatements mentioned above is epitomized in the following citation from page 251 of that book: "We must learn how mankind govern the body,—whether through faith in hygiene, in drugs, or in will-power. We should learn whether they govern the body through a belief in the necessity of sickness and death, sin and pardon, or govern it from the higher understanding that the divine Mind makes perfect, acts upon the so-called human mind through truth, leads the human mind to relinquish all error, to find the divine Mind to be the only Mind, and the healer of sin, disease, death. This process of higher spiritual understanding improves mankind until error disappears, and nothing is left which deserves to perish or to be punished."

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