Editorial July 7, 1934 Issue

True Happiness Helpful to Healing

W. Stuart Booth

According to newspaper reports of a recent conference of hospital workers, certain physicians have concluded that some patients suffering from what doctors have diagnosed as organic diseases were brought into that condition because of their disturbed mental state. "The patients were found to have a deep-rooted resentment against the existing social order," one of the speakers said, and it was also found that "medical treatment did not produce the desired results." Therefore, various forms of diversion were recommended by the psychiatrists who were given charge of them, the hope being that a change of thought might prove beneficial to the patients.

While this may be an innovation in medical practice, and may be regarded as an indication of progress therein, it is anything but new in religious experience, as may be seen by a study of the Old Testament, wherein, for instance, it is related that David quieted King Saul by playing before him on a harp; again it is related that Moses had the children of Israel look to a serpent of brass, and they were healed of the sting of vipers. The fact that sickness is mental in origin, and is to be cured by the influence of the truth upon individual human consciousness, was implied, indicated, and proved by Christ Jesus, who was the most successful healer the world has known. Although he must have disapproved of much in the social order and methods of government of his time—for selfishness, injustice, and dishonesty held sway—the Master counseled his followers to be both law-abiding and joyful. Because he looked and pointed beyond the material seeming to the divine reality, cognized through spiritual sense, he said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

It was not blind optimism which caused Christ Jesus to speak reassuringly to those who came to him for healing, allaying their fears and bidding them "be of good cheer." He knew that back of their diseases and other difficulties lay nothing other or more than fear and other false material beliefs, and he also knew that these could be eliminated and their effects corrected by means of the irresistible activity of Truth through its true ideas. The Master knew that God, good, is the only power, and that God's government of man and the universe includes happiness and health, peace and providence. These redeeming facts were demonstrated by him in healing the sick, feeding the hungry, comforting the sorrowing—in meeting all human needs. Quite naturally he urged his disciples to manifest joy, or the healing grace of true happiness.

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