Testimony of Healing May 12, 1980 Issue

While I was growing up, I had early and regular contact with...

CHARLES GAVIN GOLDSMITH

While I was growing up, I had early and regular contact with pornographic material. Although I was raised in a home of Christian Scientists, at the time I saw no harm in such activity.

During college I began to realize the inconsistency of reading and viewing pornography and also studying Christian Science. I made a concerted effort to rid myself of the habit and felt I had been successful. After my graduation, however, the tendency resurfaced in a more intense form. At that time I realized that this was more than just a habit; it had become a mode of thought. I knew that what was needed to counteract it was regeneration and purification of consciousness.

Experience had shown that the more deeply I became engrossed in pornography, the less I was able to perceive my true identity as a child of God. Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 550), "The continual contemplation of existence as material and corporeal—as beginning and ending, and with birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages—hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust."

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