Editorial March 12, 1960 Issue

SCIENTIFIC DIAGNOSIS

Helen Wood Bauman

Christian Science has its own method of diagnosing the condition of patients, but this method is not based upon matter. A fundamental proposition of this Science is that disease is mental, the outward expression of a disturbed state of thought, and that the mind alone needs healing. Once one is fully convinced that a so-called physical condition is a mental one, he no longer wishes to be medically examined or to learn what a physician would call his trouble. The Scientist knows that his real need is to become Christly, to manifest the divine nature, and thus to bring to light his real selfhood made in God's likeness.

Anatomy plays a large part in medical diagnosis. And Mary Baker Eddy describes the kind of anatomy that is indispensable in ridding oneself of error through Christian Science. She says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 462): "The anatomy of Christian Science teaches when and how to probe the self-inflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate. It teaches the control of mad ambition. It unfolds the hallowed influences of unselfishness, philanthropy, spiritual love." And a little later she says: "The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause of disease. The material physician gropes among phenomena, which fluctuate every instant under influences not embraced in his diagnosis, and so he may stumble and fall in the darkness."

If one unwisely returns to mortal mind methods and obtains a medical diagnosis, he may well be worse off than if he had not submitted to it because he has ignored the purely mental method of scientific diagnosis and is aligning himself with the notion that matter can induce material conditions.

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