I have always been fascinated by Mary Baker Eddy’s use of the word alterative. Her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which is the textbook of Christian Science, states that “Truth is an alterative in the entire system, and can make it ‘every whit whole’ ” (p. 371). An experience I had several years ago helps illustrate the healing power behind a spiritual understanding of this concept.

I am a Christian Science nurse, and in that capacity I’d promised a friend, who is also a Christian Science nurse, that I would take care of her patient while my friend was on vacation. But when the time actually came, I was ill myself. I didn’t have the stamina to go to my own mailbox or walk the dog, let alone take care of someone else. My husband even rescheduled his annual “boys’ getaway weekend” to stay home and help me.

As a Christian Scientist, I am used to relying on prayer for healing. I have had many healings over the years, including those of financial issues, relationship problems, mononucleosis, strep throat, and pneumonia. In each of these experiences, I’d had to let go mentally of what the material senses were presenting and understand more fully that I was spiritual and perfect, made in the image and likeness of God, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis (see verses 26, 27). And I’d recognized that as the spiritual likeness of God, I was not subject to the shortcomings of a material sense of life—a limited, mortal body or any discord that the physical senses would present.

At this time, I found myself in bed, resting and reading the weekly Bible Lesson, given in the Christian Science Quarterly, and Christian Science periodicals that I had piled on my nightstand. As I immersed myself in the ideas I was reading, I was better able to turn my thought away from the suggestions of discomfort and illness, and focus on the fact of the harmony of man as made in God’s likeness. 

It was late spring, and, as I read, my husband was in the backyard, opening our swimming pool for the season. The pool was a brilliant green, so he began to “shock” the pool with chemicals, adding in a large dose of chlorine to kill off the algae so the water would return to its natural state and color. In this process, chlorine acts as an alterative of sorts; it causes a purifying change in the pool water, cleansing it of algae. 

As the weekend progressed, though, it seemed as if nothing was happening. I wasn’t feeling better, nor was the pool any clearer. I was, however, able to go and be with my friend’s patient. She was feeling discouraged and able to do less than she usually did on her own. As I read to her from the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson and some of her favorite Christian Science articles, a thought occurred to me.

Although it seemed to the naked eye as if nothing was happening in our backyard pool, I knew that quietly beneath the surface, the chemicals were hard at work and would soon rid the water of the algae that didn’t belong. I was confident that in the near future, I would look out our back window and see a beautiful, clear blue pool. Why? Because I had seen it happen before, year after year, and knew that was the natural effect of introducing that quantity of chlorine.

As the spiritual likeness of God, I was not subject to the shortcomings of a material sense of life.

Well, this got me thinking more deeply about the alterative effect spiritual Truth has on the human mind and body. Speaking of God as the divine Mind, in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: “The Christian Scientist, understanding scientifically that all is Mind, commences with mental causation, the truth of being, to destroy the error. This corrective is an alterative, reaching to every part of the human system. According to Scripture, it searches ‘the joints and marrow,’ and it restores the harmony of man” (p. 423). I knew that as we further understand, accept, and yield to the spiritual truth of God and man, healing is naturally realized in tangible ways. We can expect impurities to be eliminated from our body when they are eliminated from our thought, for we have a divine right to be free.

I shared this analogy with the patient. Furthermore, we reasoned together that when a pool is dirty, you don’t try to extract each alga individually. You shock the pool with chlorine, and this purifies the water in the entire pool. 

There’s a lesson in there for us, too. Science and Health states, “Truth makes a new creature, in whom old things pass away and ‘all things are become new’ ” (p. 201), and later on that same page, “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love.” So, instead of trying to pick out what might be wrong in our thinking or with our bodies, the patient and I had an invigorating conversation sharing ideas from our study of the Bible Lesson earlier that day. We talked about our true spiritual nature as created by God. Our conversation was uplifting, and we both felt cherished, nurtured, and embraced in “flood-tides of Love.” When I left the patient’s home, we were both buoyed by our time of sharing together, as well as being freer physically.

The next day, I was able to walk the dog with my husband, a sign of progress. I was seeing firsthand that an understanding of the true nature of God and man and of His all-embracing love for us clears away whatever does not belong to any of His offspring as His reflection. Science and Health explains: “Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth.… The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind” (p. 162). Our growing understanding of divine Truth acts as an alterative to effect change. With this alterative activity of Truth purifying our thinking, false, limiting beliefs pass away. 

And that is exactly what occurred that weekend. By the end of the weekend, I was able to resume all of my normal activities. The healing was so complete that two days later, I was able to bike 28 miles with my son. My friend was much better, too.

And, of course, our family had a clear blue pool.