Healing
July 2, 1998
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath.
We departed from our usual format this week. There were brief readings (although all material brought in to the meeting is set forth above) so we could get right to descriptions of healings we have had and the work in Science associated therewith. Here's how it unfolded.
A member recalled being in a doctor's office for a periodic appointment to treat a prostate problem. Suddenly he decided to reason about the situation from a Christian Science standpoint — he had been a Sunday School student. He said to himself "This is ridiculous. As a spiritual idea I can't possibly have an infection." When the doctor examined him a few minutes later he had been completely healed and was free to go.
This same man described an occasion in his childhood when he was due to appear as soloist in a concert but found himself very ill and feverish just an hour before he was to go on. He called his Sunday School teacher who silently knew the Truth and urged him to go to the concert. Suddenly he was covered with sweat, the fever had broken and he was completely well. Needless to say the concert was a success.
Both these healings are examples of how the specific right thought can immediately heal a problem.
Another member described a long process of work on a tumor which practitioners and teachers he employed to help him said was incurable until he healed his homosexuality. They worked mightily to effect such a result but without success. As a last resort he went for surgery. Some time later the tumor reappeared. This time he decided against expensive malpractice and did his own work. Finally one night the realization came loud and clear "My life and love are my unique way of reflecting the Life and Love that are God." He broke into tears, not just of grief at the years wasted on self-condemnation, but of joy for the new freedom he felt. You guessed it — the next morning the tumor was gone. Mrs. Eddy says, "If Christ, Truth, has come in demonstration, no other commemoration is requisite, for demonstration is Immanual, or God with us;" (Science and Health, pg. 34:5-8).
One attendee read this from Mrs. Eddy's writings: "Through the divine energies alone one must either get out of himself and into God so far that his consciousness is the reflection of the divine, or he must, through argument and the human consciousness of both evil and good, overcome evil." (Miscellaneous Writings, pg. 352:23)
He then gave examples of the two types of work. He and a Christian Scientist friend were the object of a Gay bashing by four very large men. He and his friend immediately declared with conviction the Truth, "This is the Kingdom of Heaven here and now. We are all divine ideas. Perfection alone is present etc." The four gentlemen righted themselves and proceeded on down the street. The two Christian Scientists heard a racket a little later as the men "attacked" a pull down grate.
On the level of a more assiduous working with affirmations and denials, he recalled a healing he had as a very new student of Science. He was visiting his parents in another city when he came down with fever and flu-like symptoms. His mother who was not a Scientist offered to call a doctor, to take his temperature, even to prepare tea — all of which he gracefully refused. But he was so ill he could not read. He lay on the bed, closed his eyes and carefully reviewed all the synonyms for God given us by Mrs. Eddy — Life, Love, Mind, Principle, Soul, Spirit, Truth — he had memorized them earlier, alphabetically — and applied the facts of each to himself while denying any opposite evidence. He went to sleep and awoke an hour later completely well. He was amazed that no convalescence period was needed.
One attendee described a harrowing experience with a fall, medical predictions of incurable nerve damage and retreat to a wheel chair. He then picked up an old copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and started working, particularly with the chapter entitles "Christian Science Practice". He regularly attends our meetings also. Today he is walking without assistance, and is preparing for a European trip.
It was pointed out that we could see the temporary means in the following statement as the eternal means. Certainly the eternal means are the only ones from God's standpoint. "If Christian Scientists ever fail to receive aid from other Scientists,—their brethren upon whom they may call,—God will still guide them into the right use of temporary and eternal means. Step by step will those who trust Him find that "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." (Science and Health, pg. 444:7-12)
Let every healing, however seemingly accomplished be in and of God, so that we do not malpractice our neighbor.
One man remarked how he just refuses to give in to problems based on the following: "Meet the incipient stages of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit." (Science and Health, pg. 390:29)
He described how he was healed of the flu as he refused its existence and went out in the rain to fix a leaky roof.
Another attendee had seen a very complicated problem involving a number of people and institutions move into harmonious action — like a well choreographed ballet — based on her seeing the solution as already established in God.
Other points that emerged in the meeting:
- In other religions healing is miraculous; in ours it is marvelous but completely natural.
- The Christian Science Church is built on healing; demonstration is the heart of Christian Science.
- "You don't give a treatment, you hear a treatment."
- A problem is a mythological representation of the Truth. It just needs deconstruction into its non-dualistic Fact.
- The "bigotry in the name of the Lord," which some religious figures are now practicing, can be seen as the negative side of matter based, dualistic worship which the dedicated Scientist, enlisted to stop crime, will eliminate with the unity of God-man-universe. Let us worship — i.e., BE — the I that is Us.
Now there was at Joppa a certain disciple named Tabitha, which by interpretation is called Dorcas: this woman was full of good works and almsdeeds which she did. And it came to pass in those days, that she was sick, and died: whom when they had washed, they laid her in an upper chamber. And forasmuch as Lydda was nigh to Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there, they sent unto him two men, desiring him that he would not delay to come to them. Then Peter arose and went with them. When he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber: and all the widows stood by him weeping, and shewing the coats and garments which Dorcas made, while she was with them. But Peter put them all forth, and kneeled down, and prayed; and turning him to the body said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes: and when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand, and lifted her up, and when he had called the saints and widows, presented her alive.
I was called to visit Mr. Clark in Lynn, who had been confined to his bed six months with hip-disease, caused by a fall upon a wooden spike when quite a boy. On entering the house I met his physician, who said that the patient was dying. The physician had just probed the ulcer on the hip, and said the bone was carious for several inches. He even showed me the probe, which had on it the evidence of this condition of the bone. The doctor went out. Mr. Clark lay with his eyes fixed and sightless. The dew of death was on his brow. I went to his bedside. In a few moments his face changed; its death-pallor gave place to a natural hue. The eyelids closed gently and the breathing became natural; he was asleep. In about ten minutes he opened his eyes and said: "I feel like a new man. My suffering is all gone." It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon when this took place.
I told him to rise, dress himself, and take supper with his family. He did so. The next day I saw him in the yard. Since then I have not seen him, but am informed that he went to work in two weeks. The discharge from the sore stopped, and the sore was healed. The diseased condition had continued there ever since the injury was received in boyhood.
A CORRECTION
In the last Sentinel [Oct. 12, 1899] was the following question: "If all matter is unreal, why do we deny the existence of disease in the material body and not the body itself?"
We deny first the existence of disease, because we can meet this negation more readily than we can negative all that the material senses affirm. It is written in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "An improved belief is one step out of error, and aids in taking the next step and in understanding the situation in Christian Science" (p. 296).
Thus it is that our great Exemplar, Jesus of Nazareth, first takes up the subject. He does not require the last step to be taken first. He came to the world not to destroy the law of being, but to fulfil it in righteousness. He restored the diseased body to its normal action, functions, and organization, and in explanation of his deeds he said, "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Job said, "In my flesh shall I see God." Neither the Old nor the New Testament furnishes reasons or examples for the destruction of the human body, but for its restoration to life and health as the scientific proof of "God with us." The power and prerogative of Truth are to destroy all disease and to raise the dead—even the self-same Lazarus. The spiritual body, the incorporeal idea, came with the ascension.
Jesus demonstrated the divine Principle of Christian Science when he presented his material body absolved from death and the grave. The introduction of pure abstractions into Christian Science, without their correlatives, leaves the divine Principle of Christian Science unexplained, tends to confuse the mind of the reader, and ultimates in what Jesus denounced, namely, straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
Through the divine energies alone one must either get out of himself and into God so far that his consciousness is the reflection of the divine, or he must, through argument and the human consciousness of both evil and good, overcome evil.
And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake.—LUKE xi. 14.
The meaning of the term "devil" needs yet to be learned. Its definition as an individual is too limited and contradictory. When the Scripture is understood, the spiritual signification of its terms will be understood, and will contradict the interpretations that the senses give them; and these terms will be found to include the inspired meaning.
It could not have been a person that our great Master cast out of another person; therefore the devil herein referred to was an impersonal evil, or whatever worketh ill. In this case it was the evil of dumbness, an error of material sense, cast out by the spiritual truth of being; namely, that speech belongs to Mind instead of matter, and the wrong power, or the lost sense, must yield to the right sense, and exist in Mind.
to make also the following statement: When I have most clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recognizes no disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein.
In the same spiritual condition I have been able to replace dislocated joints and raise the dying to instantaneous health. People are now living who can bear witness to these cures. Herein is my evidence, from on high, that the views here promulgated on this subject are correct.
Certain self-proved propositions pour into my waiting thought in connection with these experiences; and here is one such conviction: that an acknowledgment of the perfection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else can. An incontestable point in divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All-Mind.