Testimony of Healing April 26, 1975 Issue

Eight years ago I was in despair due to belief in black magic

Agust S. Praptohartono

Eight years ago I was in despair due to belief in black magic. I believed that people were using black magic against me and my business. Often I fell unconscious for no apparent reason, I smelled incense when no one else did, and I made absurd business decisions as though I wasn't controlling my own thinking. I tried to pray but didn't know how to pray successfully. Finally I felt so hopeless that I almost killed myself.

The morning after I decided to do away with myself, my wife gave me a copy of Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, in Indonesian translation as well as English, which I later found she had gotten from her brother-in-law, a Christian Scientist.

I started reading the book and was especially attracted by the question (p. 1) "Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death?" and by Mrs. Eddy's answer. This was just what I needed, for I was obsessed with the thought of sin and death. I had made mistakes in my business under what I believed was the influence of black magic, which is rather widespread in Indonesia. I felt this made me a terrible sinner, and that I must die as a consequence. Therefore Mrs. Eddy's answer to that question was like a drink of cold water. After speaking of the need to realize the power, presence, and love of God, and describing the healing effect of this realization, she writes (p. 2): "Then follows this, as the finale in Science: The sinner loses his sense of sin, and gains a higher sense of God, in whom there is no sin."

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