Editorial October 9, 1976 Issue

The Mind That Heals

Peter J. Henniker-Heaton

Mind-healing today is a scientific possibility; it is also a Christian demand. This Christian Mind-healing isn't just the work of a personal mentality however enlightened and spiritualized. Scientific Christian Mind-healing certainly spiritualizes thought and fortifies morality; but its effects are accomplished through the one infinite Mind, God. The Christianly scientific Mind-healer says with Christ Jesus, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."^{John 5:17;} He heals only as he reflects the healing action of man's eternal origin, divine Mind.

Various mental or semimental systems of therapy are currently offered the public. They draw on different combinations of psychological, religious, and physical treatment. Their language often infiltrates daily speech; here it acts as a Trojan horse, introducing unobserved first the thought-patterns of those other systems, then their practices. In word, thought, and action the Christian Scientist needs to keep absolutely clear his line of demarcation between Christian Science and all other mental methods. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy firmly draws the line like this: "The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God's man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness."^{Science and Health, p. 151;}

The newcomer to Christian Science usually knows or thinks he knows his personal human mind fairly well. He knows or thinks he knows how it operates, how to make it work for him. But how does he start to work with the divine Mind? How does he become so familiar with divine Mind that he can turn to it instantly and feel confident of its healing action? How can he really rely on it?

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