Editorial November 15, 1930 Issue

What Are We Fostering?

Violet Ker Seymer

On page 169 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says that "faith in rules of health or in drugs begets and fosters disease by attracting the mind to the subject of sickness, by exciting fear of disease, and by dosing the body in order to avoid it." In other words, mankind in general fosters the belief that disease has a physical cause and a physical cure, or, in some cases, no cure. Generally speaking, material methods of healing require dosing, dieting, operating, and various forms of manipulation. This gives one a sense of subordination to the body, which is detrimental to self-respect and efficiency. What, for instance, of an individual's natural desire to express his talents and to be of the utmost service to mankind? Can one who is spiritually and mentally enlightened be at the same time physically disabled? Not according to the law of God, "the law which overcomes material conditions and puts matter under the feet of Mind" (ibid., p. 182). Material methods of healing attempt to put omnipotent Mind under the feet of impotent matter.

In Christian Science the sufferer learns that what he needs is a radical mental change, and, in addition, a transfer of his faith from matter to Spirit. This Science of true being teaches him to realize that man in God's likeness is born, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Since that which is born of God is good, this fact shows him how he may purge and permeate his thoughts with spiritual perfection and harmony, in order that the mental picture of imperfection and inharmony shall cease to impress itself on his body. It takes him by the hand just where he stands, and leads his thought to higher regions.

Usually, one of the first results of Christian Science treatment or study is the cessation of pain and inflammation. Why? Because these phenomena are the result of fear, anxiety, or some other mental discord; and in Christian Science these are dealt with through the potency of divine Love, which neither knows nor inflicts fear or pain on anyone. God cannot impart to man what He Himself is not experiencing. Human thought is relieved of its despair, its strain, its pain, its sorrow, in proportion as it grasps the fact that sickness and mental suffering are no more a part of God's will or His law than is sin. As this scientific and comforting conviction is fostered, and fear thereby reversed, abnormal mental and physical conditions gradually vanish from the individual's experience.

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