Editorial December 21, 1981 Issue

Eyes that see... and heal

NATHAN A. TALBOT

I rebelled (quietly) at the implications of my college professor's assessment. The course was a New Testament study. In recounting the healing of the Gadarene,^{See Mark 5 .} he explained that Jesus, with a hypnotic look in his eyes, freed the man.

Christ Jesus was not a mesmerist. His healing works represented the very opposite of control by one mortal mind over another. The Saviour's healing view was empowered by God, the one divine Mind. Later, while studying the spiritual interpretation Mary Baker Eddy gives to the Bible term "eyes," I thought of that healing Jesus had accomplished. She writes: "Eyes. Spiritual discernment,—not material but mental." And she concludes the definition, "Jesus said, thinking of the outward vision, 'Having eyes, see ye not?' (Mark viii. 18.)"^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 586.} Yes, Jesus healed because of his God-impelled vision, his genuine spiritual discernment. He envisioned man's God-given purity, man's unopposed perfectibility. Jesus' spiritually illumined consciousness enabled him to perceive reality while others were seeing from the standpoint of distorted mortal belief.

Actually, Christ Jesus was the only one in that crowd whose view was entirely free of hypnotic influences. He saw the spiritual facts clearly. He pictured man's real being. Others saw the individual from a mesmerized, materialistic perspective. Mrs. Eddy comments on this pure "spiritual discernment" that the Master so consistently exercised: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."^{Ibid., pp. 476-477.}