Editorial June 26, 1965 Issue

The Mental Mechanism

Helen Wood Bauman

The universality of a human belief does not make that belief a fact. For instance, the belief held by some biochemists that man is a physical mechanism, consisting of combinations of chemicals with their actions and reactions operating in a precarious kind of order, does not make this belief factual. But first, let us see how Webster defines mechanism. Here is part of a definition: "Mechanical operation or action," and another part further on is, "a doctrine that holds natural processes (as of life) to be mechanically determined and capable of complete explanation by the laws of physics and chemistry.''

Christian Science takes the stand that the action of the human body, which appears to be controlled mechanically by laws of physics and chemistry, is actually mentally regulated. If this were not true, the vast number of healings brought about by Christian Science through the past century could not have taken place. For every single healing followed a spiritually mental change whereby thought was brought to a harmonious state before the body responded with better health.

Without mental control, the chemicals constituting the body would not assume logical pattern or form. This fact is evident when consciousness deserts the body as death sets in, and form disintegrates. The forces deemed to be laws of physics and chemistry are thereby seen to be forces of human thought and the mechanism of the body to be mental.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

Solving Personality Problems