SPEAKER: Those who rely on the power of God for healing, who actually recognize that Christianity and spiritual healing are inseparable, probably have much more in common than they realize. After all, such healing follows the example of the Master. Christ Jesus, and it is based on the power and grace of the one God. So this in itself gives all who would heal on that basis a common goal and actually a common basis to a great extent.

QUESTIONER: But in Christian Science reliance on the power of God for healing rules out use of medicine.

SPEAKER: Spiritual healing in Christian Science, and as it's practiced in other Christian denominations, begins with the same Christian basis. But the Christian Scientist finds that he obtains far better results from his prayer when he places complete trust in the power and grace of God and does not lean even in a small degree on a lesser power. Now, relying completely on God is important to the Christian Scientist. But we're not questioning the right of our fellow Christians to work out their approach to healing—including spiritual healing in whatever ways seem best to them. We're delighted with their interest in the healing power of prayer. But for the Christian Scientist, there are reasons for his full reliance on spiritual means alone which to him are overriding.

QUESTIONER: I'm not sure I understand completely why medicine is apparently something to be so assiduously avoided by the Christian Scientist.

SPEAKER: The Christian Scientist's method of prayer simply doesn't mix with medicine. The basis of each is entirely different. To the Christian Scientist, it is a matter of opening his thinking to the underlying Science contained in Jesus' teachings lie relies with confidence on this divine power because it is a demonstrable power, not a miraculous or occasional power.

Mary Baker Eddy discovered the Science contained in Jesus' teachings, divine Science. This Science reveals the unchanging laws of God, which were the basis of the Master's healing ministry. Mrs. Eddy explains this in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Pref., p xi): "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural."

In Christian Science we know that the power that makes prayer effective is divine, not human. The laws which enabled Jesus and his followers to heal were entirely spiritual, that is they took into account the unchanging relation of God and man. This relationship is eternal. Hence the facts about it constitute scientific law. You might say that such law reveals what man is as the spiritual image and likeness of God —the expression of perfect Love, perfect Mind. To put it another way, spiritual healing doesn't consist of psychological or physiological probing and trying to see what's wrong with man. It consists of understanding what's right about man as the likeness of God.

QUESTIONER: But many people wonder how righteous thought, or prayer, can change a physical condition.

SPEAKER: I think there is growing recognition that thought and body combine in a single entity. Prayer based on spiritual understanding of the laws of God brings both thought and body under the control of God. It removes the conflicts, traumas, fears; it purifies deep desires; it wipes out emotional scars; it brings to the body the pure light of Truth; it brings us into closer harmony with God. To put it another way, prayer brings thoughts, and hence the body, under the control of God's law of purity, peace, wholeness.

Paul said (Col. 3:9): "Put oil the old man with his deeds," and (Eph. 4:24), "Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." But he also spoke of "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Cor. 10:5—to follow the Christ, the Way in other words.

Now, this is precisely what the Christian Scientist endeavors to do lie yields his thought, brings, his life into conformity, to the Christ, and thereby arrives at the spiritual facts of creation, which have a profound effect on his physical body—healing him. This is why in Christian Science we rely entirely on God for healing. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 167), "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."

Let me tell you of a healing experience which a woman in California had. She had learned of Christian Science through her husband: but for the first five or six years of their married life, she had no desire to learn more of it or to rely on it for herself.

However, shortly after the birth of their second son a series of physical problems began to develop which were very frightening. She decided to call a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer. There was a serious stomach condition and, later, a kidney disorder.

QUESTIONER: Why, at that point, did she begin to rely on Christian Science?

SPEAKER: She had seen her husband and her first son healed through Christian Science. And she remembered a very quick healing she had had shortly before this of a congested lung, even though she had been very reluctant to call a Christian Science practitioner. So now in her extreme fear, it was natural that her thought would turn again to Christian Science. The practitioner prayed daily for her, and she herself began an earnest study of the Bible and Science and Health.

As she studied, she began to learn a little of what this means: man is made in God's likeness. And she sincerely tried to put into practice in her daily life what she was learning. She found much in her thinking that needed to be corrected. But as she filled her consciousness with the truth of God and man many bad traits of character began to yield—bad temperament, disposition, and a tendency to be critical.

Many passages from the Bible and Science and Health were very helpful to her and she came to see that regardless of how serious the condition appeared, it had no power to affect God's child. Step by step the healings came, and a! the end of six months there was a complete physical healing, as well as a decided transformation of character.

So, you see it is not so strange that the Christian Scientist relies on prayer alone for healing, because he is looking for much more than just ease in matter or a return to well-being in matter. He knows that what is demanded of him is the regeneration, the reformation, of the whole person, which can come to him only through the spiritualization of his thought. And as he desires and works at accomplishing this, he knows that he is not just doing something for the time being but that in effect he is building for eternity.