As our meeting ended last week ([#topic=20001123#]) we were discussing Christian Science healing as against faith healing and decided that would be our topic for further investigation this week.

After readings from the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy's books, Science and Health and Retrospection And Introspection, our facilitator read from an article entitled "Principle and Practice", written by Mrs. Eddy in September 1910 and published in The Christian Science Sentinel of September 1, 1917. (It can also be found in an appendix to volume III of Robert Peel's biography of Mrs. Eddy.)

To us it appeared she was struggling without total success to explain the difference between true Christian Science healing and that based on mere faith. What she calls here and elsewhere "understanding"brought up some elucidative remarks from members, summarized as follows:

1) In true Christian Science healing there needs to be a sharp break away from the flow of mortal mind, which is awash in mesmerism. This break is illustrated in Science and Health by the shift from the Court of Error to the Court of Spirit in the trial of Mortal Man suffering from liver disease (p. 434: 8-14).

2) Arguing a case is valueless and even dangerous if it consists of mortal mind trying to convince itself of the Truth. At best the human understanding of Truth will result in a faith healing. On the other hand argument can be helpful in pecking open one's shell of belief in the quest for Truth. And, of course, once a vibrant realization of Truth is in place, argument can flow from there, based on what actually is — reducing all counterclaims to nothing.

3) A member came up with a novel idea that the terms "mortal mind"and "divine Mind"describe what is essentially the same consciousness, with the former merely a cramped, cut off belief about the latter. He said that if he lives himself and others as individuals with minds, he is living a fictional situation which will constantly run up against reality. The wounds resulting from the collisions are sustained by the belief about himself. They serve to awaken him and will cease once reality is allowed to kick in.

This was perhaps a touch abstract, so he gave us a healing testimony based on the principles he had discovered. One day during the week he became sore, stiff and feverish. Here was that flu everyone was talking about. He determined to have a true Christian Science healing, not one based on faith. He became quiet. Immediately he saw the constricted view of himself as a caricature of his true status as divine idea. He was in fact divine idea including all right ideas. This Truth then proceeded to uncover and dissolve the various beliefs about catching a virus from people — they too were divine ideas including all right ideas. The final belief to be struck down was the seeming need to be influenced by God! Yes, a poor, constricted mortal would need this desperately, but in reality the Mind that is God is the Mind that is he and all. The need was to blow out the walls he assumed surrounded his and others' consciousnesses. Without walls the value of influence sank to zero and he was rapidly restored to health.

Another member described his own recovery from a cold based on the same process of expanding consciousness from the level of human belief to that of divine idea. He gave us a brief review of a book he'd been reading: "Saving the Appearances", by Owen Barfield. It traces the development of human consciousness from the mythological stage, through the advent and dominance of Cartesian physics to all the new possibilities today of spiritual insight. The author's fascination with Jesus' parables got us interested in how we could read our own daily interactions as parables for deeper ideas unfolding beneath the surface. Accessing these ideas and living life from their level rather than that of their gross material representation might be one way of seeing the prophylactic aspect of Christian Science. Examples offered were these:

1) Body as a fluctuating material entity is a parable for man. It alerts us to the existence of a divine idea. Ah, yes — the presence and power of God, also known as man. So we can live our body from the underlying divine level.

2) Companionship is a parable for Love. We can live it as from Love, or if we'd rather from the belief in matter, with all the hate, fear and "love"we've trained ourselves to put up with.

Mrs. Eddy felt that a faith healing was basically the same as one based on medical procedures. Both depend on faith. A really interesting question in this regard was, "If a Christian Scientist has a so called medical healing or knows someone who has such a healing, what should he think of it?"Traditionally, the Scientist would not accord it the same status as a spiritual healing — after all there is no assurance that the patient had undergone transformation in the process. We need to be careful here — are we really capable of judging healing by material standards. The better way, it seems to us, is simply to go to the root of healing — take the medical interventions as parables, to use the language from a few moments back, and live the healing from its divine level, where it is certainly a manifestation of divine Life.

We couldn't resist talking about the election situation. One member said he was frustrated and afraid. Another helped him out by enthusiastically embracing the unfolding process. He has been singing a hymn, "God is working His purpose out"(number 82 from the Christian Science Hymnal). He recommended praying with the following citation from the Textbook: "Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love"(Science and Health, p. 66: 14-16).

One member who joined us for dinner has been very much involved lately in reading about Gay Seniors, their needs, all the infrastructure now building to cater to this segment of the population and so forth. He wants us to take this as our topic for next week and we agreed.