Article March 8, 1930 Issue

Instantaneous Healing

CLIFFORD A. WOODARD

Instantaneous healing is the goal to which every earnest student of Christian Science longs to attain in his practice. That such healing is possible was proved by Christ Jesus centuries ago, and is again being proved in this age through instances that occur not infrequently in the work of Christian Science practitioners. The pathway to this high goal has been clearly pointed out in the Christian Science textbook; "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. Witness, for example, her words in the chapter on Prayer (p. 16), "Only as we rise above all material sensuousness and sin, can we reach the heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness, which is indicated in the Lord's Prayer and which instantaneously heals the sick."

Instantaneous healing is healing from which the element of time is eliminated. From the very nature of material theories, such healing would hardly be expected in medical practice. If it is necessary for a material remedy to find its way to a particular part of the body and there produce a chemical or physical change before healing can be realized, obviously, a certain amount of time must be required. And if time itself is a healing factor, or if a disease must, as the saying is, "run its course" before it can be checked, then instantaneous healing is impossible. Such material theories have been so long believed that time has come to be generally regarded by mankind as a prerequisite to healing.

The importance of destroying this erroneous belief is illustrated by the experience of a student of Christian Science who asked a practitioner for help in overcoming a so-called contagious disease. Treatment was continued for several days without apparent result. Finally, the patient was led to read in the Bible the various accounts of the healings wrought by Christ Jesus. During the course of this reading, he was impressed by the fact that the requirement of time was not involved in the healing work of Jesus, and that his healings were all accomplished immediately. In fact, as the student observed, some such expression as "immediately" or "straightway" or "in the selfsame hour" is very frequently used in the Scriptural account, indicating the quickness of the healing. As he pondered that fact in connection with his own condition, it suddenly dawned upon him that, although he had not doubted that he would be healed through Christian Science treatment, he had felt, more or less unwittingly, that some little time would be necessary.

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