Mary Baker Eddy wrote about her discovery:
In the year 1866, I
discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and
named my discovery Christian Science. God had been graciously preparing me
during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute
divine Principle of scientific mental healing. (S&H 107)
But she also cautions that the human
mind, as mortal mind, is not a healing agent with power to restore health, which
is in effect the actual patient, so that heart of the mental healing lies
elsewhere. That's not an easy puzzle to resolve. Mary Baker Eddy wrote about her
struggle to solve the puzzle:
For three years after
my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched
the Scriptures and read little else... I knew the Principle of all harmonious
Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian
healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing,
and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason,
and demonstration....
Health is not a
condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable
testimony on the subject of health. The Science of Mind-healing shows it to be
impossible for aught but Mind to testify truly or to exhibit the real status
of man. Therefore the divine Principle of Science, reversing the testimony of
the physical senses, reveals man as harmoniously existent in Truth, which is
the only basis of health; and thus Science denies all disease, heals the sick,
overthrows false evidence, and refutes materialistic logic. (S&H 109, 120)
The apparent paradox that Christian
Science presents is that God does not actually heal anything, since infinite
Mind is incapable of error and cannot entertain nations about a supposed reality
of disease, even to heal it. So, what's the process then?
The simple reality is that the healing
action results from the normal ceaseless action of infinite Mind doing its
natural thing. It is the power of Principle, the harmonizing action of Spirit,
the beauty of Soul that is reflected in everything, the vitality of Life, the
all-embracing glow of Love, the joy in the Truth. God is All, and never ceases
its expression. God can do no more. But we can do more for ourselves by breaking
out of our shell of so many believes about what we are, which we are not, and
thus begin to move with God, to align ourselves with God; bringing ourselves
into the sunshine of infinite Mind that does all things, where good is the
active reality of being. Here the 'music' is harmony, reflecting the harmonizing
quality of Spirit. Here we 'dance' with the divine, and in this atmosphere of
Truth and Love the mortal dream of so many complaints about ourselves and our
lives becomes forgotten. In this dance astonishing events happen. Long standing
diseases vanish as if they never happened, sometimes instantly as is a light is
turned on in a darkened room. The greatest miracle that happens here is that
mortal-mind thought that is convinced of its suffering and its impotence in
overcoming it lets go of its convictions when the mind's eye beholds the reality
of divine Truth, in its dance with the divine.
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