As reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic aren't the all of secular schooling, so receptivity, retention, and removal do not constitute the full method for learning the healing truths of Christian Science and how to apply them. But they are basic to it. "The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love," ^{Science and Health, p. 201;} writes Mrs. Eddy. And her books are replete with healing truths gleaned from her God-inspired Bible study and her spiritually oriented thinking and living which prepared her to receive the revelation of divine Science. As we search the Bible and her books, we find these truths; as we live them, we understand them more fully and they heal and transform our lives.

It may seem to us the truth is coming from our reading, but more is involved. Christ Jesus said, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." ^{Mark 11:24;} To "believe that [we] receive them" calls for spiritual understanding. As we understand that true consciousness includes the truths of being, and claim this consciousness to be our own, we find ourselves responding to and corresponding with spiritual unfoldment.

When we receive these spiritual truths, they serve to dislodge anything unlike them—fears, guilts, sins, other beliefs in evil— from thought. It is Christ speaking to human consciousness, regenerating and reforming. Listening and responding to the Christ within, one finds his true selfhood to be the child of God, pure and whole, and discovers the grandeur of this being, the perfection of its substance, the harmony of its functioning.

"Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints," ^{Science and Health, p. 14;} writes Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science textbook. Those moments when consciousness is spiritualized are precious in themselves; the physical healing is an added blessing.

Even as one continues to follow Truth for its own sake, as well as seeking healing, he or she finds that the most humble perception of spiritual truths dislodges some error, provided these truths are retained and loved. And as Christly truth continues to unfold, it will grow in consciousness and crowd out such illegitimate elements as anger, envy, fear—whatever is unlike God. Regeneration and healing continue naturally.

One may find it useful to recognize that just as important as the gaining of a knowledge of God and true being is the willing discarding of material beliefs. Receiving spiritual truths, and understanding retaining and loving them, one begins to discredit material theories, eliminating them along with the feelings of helplessness and fear that they engender.

This not only ensures better health but increases longevity and actually tackles that "last enemy." The Christian Science textbook states: "One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity. This exalted view, obtained and retained when the Science of being is understood, would bridge over with life discerned spiritually the interval of death, and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown." ^{ibid., p. 598.}

Receiving truths and retaining them, through understanding the Science of being, and allowing errors to be removed, is obviously a mental, albeit spiritually mental, process. In Christian Science it is recognized that the mental state is the condition that must be dealt with, and when the mental state is uplifted and healed by Christ, there are changed physical conditions. An example of this occurred when a practitioner gave Christian Science treatment and an opening appeared in the body, releasing a foreign element, along with a quantity of unnatural fluids. Such mental surgery is not uncommon when metaphysical truths are received and allowed to transform our thinking and living.

While we are immensely grateful that there is a divine process that can take from people's lives those things which would interrupt their health and progress, we can rejoice even more that in true being there is nothing impure or unnecessary that needs to be removed. And in reality spiritual truths are never outside man's consciousness; they are unfolding from within.

Poring over the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings, pouring in the spiritual truths, is a restorative activity; it is a definite, sure step to take when something appears wrong. Inspired truths flow from, and eventually lead to, the grand realization that there is nothing wrong in true being. In the process they remove whatever says there is.

Christian Science healing is a deeply spiritual experience. It is Christ healing, such as the Master accomplished and told his followers to carry on. It honors God, proving Him to be Life itself, all powerful and eternal. As we continue in this holy healing activity of receiving and retaining spiritual truths, and removing material untruths, we find we have gained an understanding of God that has become the very fabric of our lives. And each day finds us ever more aware of our oneness with the greatest "R" of all—divine revelation.

BEULAH M. ROEGGE