Article January 3, 1994 Issue

How can prayer affect the body?

Spirituality is not an abstract theory about life, and Christian healing shows just how practical spiritual truth is.

Diane Benedict-Gill

On a cross-country flight I sat next to a surgeon who wanted to know how spiritual healing is accomplished in Christian Science. He wondered how prayer, which is mental, could affect the physical functions and condition of the body in a way that reliably results in healing.

I noted that if we were going to talk seriously about spiritual healing, we'd need to reexamine the view that a remedial method must proceed primarily from the basis of physical evidence and diagnosis. If the physical evidence of disease and its causes is the only thing one is willing to take into account, then one might well feel locked into a traditional medical view of how a cure can take place.

A first step in understanding Christian Science healing is to consider the possibility that what is labeled physical evidence has itself a mental quality, and that healing can result from yielding to God's way of looking at our identity and condition. One might say that it is a change in the underlying point of view that results in health. But something different from, and much more than, a sunny human attitude toward health is required.

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