Speaker: Today there is growing awareness that the atmosphere of thought in which one lives and works is at least as important to health as the air that one breathes. Much effort is devoted to finding ways of purifying the material atmosphere, but often the atmosphere of thought is overlooked. Our guest learned the importance of correcting his thinking. He found freedom from a long-standing condition of asthma when a deeper understanding of God changed his thinking. I'd like to introduce Ray Elliott, of El Paso, Texas.

Tell us about it, if you will, Mr. Elliott.

Mr. Elliott: Over twenty years ago I was suffering from a severe condition of asthma. I had tried practically every remedy that specialists could recommend and was depending upon very frequent shots of adrenalin. But the condition grew worse. Often for weeks at a time I'd be unable to work or even to walk. I had a family to support, and the situation seemed very difficult.

Then one day a business friend called on me when I was suffering from a severe attack. He recommended that I investigate Christian Science, because it had healed him of rheumatism. I didn't know a thing about Christian Science, and, frankly, it didn't sound to me as if it would heal me, because my trouble seemed worse than anything else.

But more or less as a last resort, my wife got a copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and finally we decided to go see a Christian Science practitioner. My wife had to help me walk into the practitioner's house. I sat down in an armchair, and the practitioner talked to me for some time about God; and for the first time both my wife and I had a better understanding of what God is. Then after a little while I felt a sense of peace. I was so relaxed I actually fell asleep and slept for over an hour, right while the practitioner was praying for me. My wife said it was the freest I'd breathed in many weeks.

From then on, we both began a very earnest study of Christian Science. We felt the need of spiritual growth; in fact, we even moved from southern Texas to San Antonio so we could be near a Christian Science church and be active in it.

It took about four years for the complete healing. I traveled all the time, and I always took a copy of the Bible and Science and Health with me. Many a night in the hotels it would be necessary for me to study and pray all night. And when the attacks were severe, I would call a practitioner for help. But there were definite signs of improvement from the first. Not just in the physical condition, but also in many other phases of our living.

For instance, our relations in the home became much more harmonious. To put it mildly, I'd been very irritable with the children, but that all cleared up. We had problems of financial lack, and these were worked out too. I was made free of the smoking habit. The changes in character traits that came with continued spiritual growth were quite a blessing. As I continued to study, my physical condition gradually became entirely normal. And for more than fifteen years now, I've been completely free of asthma.

Looking back on the experience, I realize that one of the things that helped me was our daily study of the Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly. And that's a wonderful way to learn the spiritual meaning of the Bible. I also read Science and Health straight through a number of times. Another thing that was helpful to me was the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Prayer, found in Science and Health (pp. 16, 17). It taught me so many things. The nature of God as ever-present Love, all powerful, and the fact that He cares for us, protects us, delivers, and heals. I know that I have gained much more than a physical healing through the study of Christian Science.

Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Elliott. I'm sure anyone who has felt hopelessly in bondage to a physical condition will be encouraged by the way that you found freedom and healing.

Friends, our guest is one of many, many men and women who have found healing when they gained a clearer understanding of God as divine Love. Those who listen to our programs regularly perhaps have noticed how many times the one testifying to healing has mentioned that he learned that God is divine Love. Perhaps you have wondered why such a simple statement is so important and how it could bring healing.

It's obvious that mere repetition of the words, "God is Love" could have no special power in itself. What is significant, however, is their meaning the great promise and hope and power that they convey. The understanding that God is divine Love is a factor in so many Christian Science healings because it awakens the individual to the infinite goodness and love of God. For when you and I begin to know God as divine Love, then it becomes clear that God, man's eternal Father-Mother, gives good and good alone to man. And since the Bible makes plain that God is supreme, ever present, and the only creator, it follows that there is no power that can prevent man from receiving the good that God, divine Love, constantly imparts.

This understanding of divine Love, infinite Spirit, as the only creator, reveals that man is entirely spiritual, the perfect expression of his perfect, loving, divine source. He is not material and physical. Man cannot express anything unlike God. Man lives eternally in the atmosphere of divine Love, where there is only good.

You heard our guest say that he had to change his thinking. This is an important factor in Christian Science healing, because the state of our thought directly affects our health, our relations with others, and our over-all harmony. We can't harbor irritable, inflamed, or fearful thinking and still expect to experience harmony and good health. The first step in overcoming discord that appears as disease is to begin to rule out the states of thought that open the door to disease.

You may feel that you were born with certain human tendencies or physical weaknesses and that nothing can be done about them. But this is not true. When we prayerfully acknowledge God as man's only true parent, then it is right and natural to claim man's God-given ability to express love and patience and freedom.

The honest desire to bring our lives into closer harmony with God, divine Love, is true prayer. We have the assurance of the Bible that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The Master, Christ Jesus, proved this in his healing works among those in desperate need. Through his holy, prayerful communion with God, the weak were made strong, the sick were restored to normal health, and the sinner was reformed. The same healing and transforming power of God, of divine Love, is available today. And so we may begin immediately to follow this encouraging counsel of Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 393) : "Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man."

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 144 from the Christian Science Hymnal (In atmosphere of Love divine).