Article February 8, 1982 Issue

Reject the package deal

IDA K. SHAKESPEARE

We are confronted by package deals many times in daily experience. An advertisement may promise that if we take a particular trip or buy a certain thing, various other advantages will be included. But another, less happy kind of package deal also presents itself for acceptance. This is the physical claim that a certain symptom indicates a particular disease and will bring with it many other unpleasantnesses. Then each added discomfort confirms the diagnosis, whatever it may be, until one has at last accepted the whole set of symptoms that make up the disease. But do we really have to accept sickness—in any or all of its phases?

Christian Scientists are learning to recognize abnormal states of the body as aggressive mental suggestions only, to be dealt with by prayer, by turning to God and the truth of His perfect creation. In the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Disease has no intelligence to declare itself something and announce its name." A few lines further on she declares, "Mentally contradict every complaint from the body, and rise to the true consciousness of Life as Love,—as all that is pure, and bearing the fruits of Spirit."^{Science and Health, p. 391.} At the outset we can refuse to accept the belief that a symptom must necessarily be part of a larger problem. We can treat each phase or symptom as an unrelated error, having no part, cause, or effect.

Some years ago an experience I had helped me to see that error need have no continuity or complications. After falling very heavily I instantly claimed my true identity as spiritual and affirmed that matter had no power to communicate pain and shock, as it was seeming to do. Seeing the event as a mental suggestion that could be denied and rejected, I was able to continue on to the lecture room, my destination. Then, as I sat making notes, pain swept in again, suggesting that serious damage had been done. However, minute by minute I had been affirming the reality and presence of God, and with a sense of joyful conviction I realized that this pain was only a problem of that immediate moment and had no past cause or place. By the end of the class session I walked out entirely free. There was no further evidence of the incident.

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