Article November 1, 1930 Issue

True Concept of Health

J. LESTER OSBORN

Webster defines "health" in part as a "state of being hale or sound in body, mind or soul; esp., freedom from physical disease or pain." Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 11) that "health is the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else."

Until we were instructed in Christian Science, generally speaking our concept of health was limited to the thought of mere freedom from physical disease and pain. As most of us then thought, the one who enjoyed perfect health was the one athletically strong, free from aches, pains, and disease, regardless of his moral or spiritual status. But such a one cannot be said to possess the true concept of health until he has learned how to protect his thinking and preserve it from beliefs of fear, weakness, disease, and decrepitude—until, in fact, he has gained "the consciousness of the unreality of pain and disease." And this is done, as Christian Science teaches, through the conscious realization that Mind, not matter, is the one source of life, strength, and health.

How seemingly natural it is for one suffering from a belief of ill health to feel, in turning to Christian Science for healing, that his only desire is for physical health! But the gaining of a merely material concept of health and strength is not the healing that Christian Science brings to the sufferer. The great objective in true healing is regeneration of thought, spiritualization of consciousness, transformation of the human concept of man. One of the effects of this regeneration is freedom from physical ills.

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