Editorial May 8, 1971 Issue

Spiritual Surgery

Carl J. Welz

Among the more sophisticated forms of medical surgery is that involving the use of rays. Fast-moving atomic particles are used to bombard the atoms of the body cells in an effort to eliminate those that are causing trouble.

Healing in Christian Science is based on Spirit as the only substance. This Spirit is infinite Mind, the divine Principle or cause of all that is active or substantial. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the Glossary contains a definition of "creator" that includes these words: "the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself."^{Science and Health, p. 583;}

The spiritual surgery that takes place when a diseased condition is destroyed through Christian Science treatment is the elimination of belief in something the divine Principle did not create. Christ Jesus proved this, healing, for example, a man with a withered hand. The words he spoke were simple, "Stretch forth thine hand,"^{Matt. 12:13;} but the mental activity supporting that command came from Principle itself, from the divine Mind, which was manifested in Jesus' consciousness of man as the offspring or idea of this Mind.