Editorial February 17, 1968 Issue

Sickness Is Mental

Helen Wood Bauman

One reason that sickness at times seems difficult to cope with is that people do not realize that it is a state of thought, not of matter. They try to remedy the wrong thing. When a physical disorder appears, it is always the thought of sickness that must be eradicated. Christian Science makes it clear that the disease will disappear if the thought of it is gone.

Christ Jesus, who healed with superb authority, who even healed multitudes, made it plain that it is thought rather than flesh that needs attention. He warned a man whom he healed, "Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."^{John 5:14;} And it was over "unclean spirits" that he gave power to his disciples "to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."^{Matt. 10:1;}

Christian Science, using modern terminology, explains that matter and its conditions are subjective states of the material senses, or mortal mind, and are not something external to that mind. By its revelation of the spiritual perfection of man, the man made in God's likeness, this Science routs the fearful images held in the mind of a mortal, separates identity from the tyranny of general beliefs and leaves the human being mentally clear of them. The body has to respond to such spiritual cleansing because it has no ability to defy thought. So a clean mind, a mind free of fear and sin and ignorant beliefs, can experience only health. In Science we find that disease is error—something not created—and that health is the truth—something God-created.

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