Most of us at the meeting had been caught by some phase of addiction and could understand the view that appetites are evil, as invariably reflected in the writings of the nineteenth century — including those of Mary Baker Eddy. We took time to note however that today appetite is at worst a neutral term — no one wants to lose his appetite; we all want a good appetite when we sit down to dinner and most would extol the value of an appetite for life. It seemed to us that a problem sets in when excesses occur — and we usually know this when we can honestly assess the activity as merely repetitive, joyless and even painful.

Here's a summary of some lines of thought pursued by members during the week and shared at our meeting:

1) Appetite comes from a Latin word "appetere" meaning "to strive, to seek". The root "pet" means "to rush, to fly". These definitions helped us right away open up to a more positive understanding of appetite.

2) We looked at the origins of appetite. From a Freudian and Jungian standpoint, the unfoldment and management of appetites are crucial issues in child development. For one thing, the cellular hunger, transformed into appetite, drives the baby to become aware of an outside world, meeting and/or frustrating its needs. With greater maturity passive waiting to be fed evolves into an active search. This prototype was used by one of our members in finding actual joy in marshalling her resources to secure pleasure rather than waiting hopelessly for something to happen. This more active phase was breaking a long-standing depression. We could also see here the pattern for a mature sense of Science and scientific prayer, as against the passivity of dumb luck and pleading, which pass for much religious experience (see Science and Health, p. 23: 21-31).

3) We talked of our own past and current excessive appetites for food, drink, gambling, sex, and romantic obsessions. Many of us have addressed these through 12-Step programs and had tremendous help from Christian Science in the process. One member pointed out the value of letting the appetites be fully felt and not interfered with by a lot of officious human thought-taking. Others saw this as a method useful to those with a certain degree of stability and spiritual sophistication. No one argued for just acting out, since the belief is that an addiction can only get worse.

4) On the other hand, surprisingly perhaps, no one argued for suppression of appetites. This was seen as particularly dangerous, since the energy is driven underground where it can truly wreak havoc through illness, anti social behavior and probably eventual breakdown and return to the offending behavior. Furthermore, for the student of Christian Science who is knowing the Truth for himself and others, including the world, it's not a good place to come from.

5) So what to do — we shouldn't act out and we shouldn't crush — is there something else? Well, there's the prophesying aspect of Christian Science summarized in the definition of Elias in the Glossary of Science and Health: "the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold," (p. 585:9). We reached the understanding that appetites are not material at all — they are the presence of God, just at hand. They cannot be satisfied by access to matter. Therefor, strong appetites are good — they are effectively strong desires, which need to be understood, transformed and uplifted.  From Psalms 139:13: "For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb," and from Science and Health, p. 1:11: "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."

6) "Appetite" is what human belief terms the divine fact, dimly perceived, that each one of us is infinite, eternal idea.

These healings were reported:

1) One member, keeping his attention on his practice of the divine presence rather than the day to day fluctuations of the stock market, found his portfolio had increased sharply in value during the period.

2) Another member, running to catch a phone call during a very busy day, sprained his ankle. He worked with Science and Health, p. 424: 5-9, about God being unaware of accidents. There was a lessening of fear. Later, the ankle stiffened, swelled and became more painful. He used some ice and massage to lessen the symptoms — but this proved only of temporary assistance. As he prepared for bed, he worked again in Science and this time got a very good realization of God's unerring control of the situation and could see divine substance alone where the problem claimed to be. Then suddenly he realized that in those moments when he was twisting his ankle he was feeling some of the exasperation, anger and self destructiveness that his mother had felt when he was a child and she had to be institutionalized for manic-depression. A bit of her was still stuck in him and he could have great compassion for her plight. He worked to know that their common Mother, God was the being of them both and all. A dream that night included an number of symbols of transcendence and transformation — e.g., pine trees, music from Wagner's opera Parsifal and a group of prisoners, all in white, having the Gospel preached to them. The setting was his childhood home. When he awoke, he placed his foot on the floor, with some trepidation, to find the ankle completely healed. He thanked God for this deep healing of psychic contents apparently still affecting him all these decades later. Incidentally, in relation to out topic, his own compulsive overeating commenced during the period when his mother was unavailable because of this illness.

3) Another member tweezed the eyebrows of a client who requested he do the same for her young daughter — to kind of pump her up into lady-hood. The child was resistant, but the work was begun. Soon the girl became hysterical and our member desisted at once, in spite of the parent's directions to proceed. He comforted her and began to know the Truth in Science about all concerned. The mother's contribution to the child's welfare was to shout from the sidelines that she was a "wuss". Soon things calmed down, the mother and daughter left and our member was able to go on to more age-appropriate clientele.

We'll look at Beauty for next week.