Article September 14, 1987 Issue

About whales and spiritual healers

Virginia T. Guffin

A Year or so ago, Humphrey, a forty-five-ton humpback whale, captured the interest of people all over the United States, and perhaps in other countries, when he left his home in the Pacific Ocean and swam through San Francisco Bay into the fresh water of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers seventy miles inland.

Tourists and local whale watchers in boats and on land cheered scientists in their efforts to drive Humphrey out of fresh water into the more congenial salt water of the ocean. But their expertise (which included the use of clanging pipes) failed until they devised a plan to lure the whale back by towing ahead of him a recording of the flutelike sounds of whales feeding. That did the trick. Humphrey followed downstream the high-pitched "social sounds" broadcast over a submerged loudspeaker until he splashed through the Golden Gate into his natural habitat.

What does the saga of Humphrey the whale have to do with going into the healing ministry, the public practice, of Christian Science? Just as Humphrey had to be willing to head in the right direction, even so, when one feels led to go into the practice of Christian Science, one has to be willing—in fact want—to follow.

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