Article April 12, 1947 Issue

The Healing Power of Uplifted Thought

EDWIN V. GREENLEAF

On one occasion when the disciples inquired the reason for their failure to perform a certain healing, their Master said, among other things (Matt. 17:21), "This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." Not only did he prove by his works the correctness of his diagnosis when he healed the epileptic boy whom his disciples had failed to heal, but, he also proved that he himself was already strongly fortified by prayer and fasting, endued with the healing power of thought uplifted to God.

Jesus knew, and Christian Science teaches, that prayer includes the exercise of the mental qualities of holiness, purity, consecration, watchfulness, devout obedience, unselfishness, humility, and love, and that fasting is a complete abstaining in thought as well as in deed from worldliness impurity, sin, disobedience, selfishness, arrogance, and hate. When, therefore, Jesus recommended "prayer and fasting" to his disciples as a means and method of healing, he was not referring to any material action, but was pointing to an activity above the physical, above the plane of material sense, to spiritual understanding as that which heals.

In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 400) Mary Baker Eddy sets forth this rule: "By lifting thought above error, or disease, and contending persistently for truth, you destroy error." This statement might be considered a parallel to that of the Master regarding "prayer and fasting," for it too points to the necessity of lifting thought above the physical to the truth that heals and saves.

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