Article February 1, 2014

Scientific healing

John F. Linscott

Originally published in the December 1, 1890 issue of the Christian Science Series (Vol. 2, No. 15)

The nature of Divine healing is conveyed in three words: Sin, Grace, Glory. It is the almost universal belief of the world, that the testimony of the present consciousness of things seen, is of God; while instead, it is belief in a manifestation of a life, substance and intelligence apart from Him. This is the abstract of sin. Its concrete is expressed in the many manifestations of the flesh enumerated by Paul. Whatever the manifestation of error in the person, whatever the so-called disease of the flesh, the fundamental cause is sin, i.e.: had all mankind continuously lived in obedience to the first commandment, there never would have been the beliefs of sickness and death now manifest. Thus, we always proceed to destroy the sin instead of the effect of sin; to remove the cause, and the effect disappears.

Our power to heal is always proportionate first, to our scientific understanding of the statement of the letter; second, to the degree in which we have imbibed the Spirit—which is Love. Without the letter, or statement, scientifically understood, by practitioner or preacher, the healing will not be scientific or divine in its character; because language is the vehicle that conveys to the concrete thought (to the sinner) the idea of the “fulness of the Godhead,” consciousness of the mind, purpose, and power of the Life Truth and Love that is God. At the outset, the patient’s faith rarely goes beyond the point of willingness to try the Science. He does not understand it, does not believe in it, but desires to be healed of disease. The fact of his asking for this, gives to the scientific preacher of the letter in Science, the light to declare in silence to the sinner the Truth as taught by Jesus—as explained in the vernacular of the present day by Science and Health.

How is the healing accomplished? The Scientist knows that the “physical” testimony before him is the result of believing a lie; of believing in God in a vague, undefined manner, perhaps, but also believing in a life and power apart from Him. This mental conviction makes of the patient a “house divided against itself,” and leaves him open to the various beliefs of the “world, the flesh and the devil.” Our term in Science to express this is “animal magnetism,” i.e.: the magnetism that prevents mortals from taking conscious possession of their rightful heritage of knowing and obeying God, Truth. We know from our statement, in logic, that if God is all—if He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-active—His only quality love, harmony,—all which does not express Him must be of mortal origin; must be a belief of mortal mind, therefore temporal; and because temporal, unreal to God, Truth, and unknown to Science. Thus to the Scientist the patient is never sick, but is laboring under a belief of sickness that to himself seems real, but to the Scientist is the opposite. The belief, whatever its type, has manifested itself in the unconscious thought through unconscious fear, without which it would be impossible for disease to enter and manifest itself. The fact that error has been able to enter through this door into the consciousness of the patient, assures us that Christ, Truth, can also enter there. The error entered unannounced and made its impression, and the Truth can as silently enter and do its work of destruction to the error.

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