"… spiritual immune system is in place and active"

“Before they call, I will answer,” (Isa: 64) is the tag line I would place on this year’s Association assignment. I suspect we can agree that the reading of the book, A Century of Christian Science Healing, has been important and effective preparation for dealing with this claim of a global pandemic. It has helped me view it as a claim only, with its accompanied mass mesmerism. Reading this book before and during this crisis has rooted me on higher ground above the mesmerism, and it has insulated me from the fear of this illusory disease. Realizing all this, does not mean that specific work to counter this global attack has not been required, but the work has had its own “wings,” so to speak. The work has had more impulsion, more traction as you once wrote in an article. This is due to the utter conviction and proof of the efficacy of Christian Science healing contained in Century.

One healing early in the book that stood out to me was of the woman who had been taken captive in the conflict of the times between Native Americans and most likely European American settlers. The language and concepts of the times can be a bit jarring to the sensibilities of someone from the 21st century, but the healing and lessons learned are nonetheless profound. The testifier describes being held in an Indian camp and subjected to cruel treatment for a long period of time. Then upon her deliverance from that predicament, the woman endured 14 years of illness – another form of captivity stemming from the aftereffects of her experience. However, after having turned to Christian Science, the testifier was able to find both physical healing and freedom from the trauma experienced from having witnessed a massacre. The amazing part of the story is that Love insisted on a complete healing and follow through of the lessons learned, into daily life. The woman was asked, without her knowledge, to give Christian Science treatment to Native Americans. Through her healing work she was able to meet, forgive, and create Christly bonds of affection between herself and her former captors. Love would not let the woman harbor fear, resentment, or hatred toward those who by human analysis justified such treatment. Like in the Biblical account of the feeding of the multitude, in which the loaves and fishes can be seen as the healing of the multitude’s hunger, and the leftover twelve basketsful are the follow through of the healing into daily life. We are always required to continue the lessons of healing into future thought and action so that the blessing grows, and we continue our spiritual progress.

The other healing testimony that struck me for very different reasons was that of the chemistry professor at Principia, Dr. Ernest H. Lyons. In his account he describes being accidentally poisoned by potassium cyanide while preparing a chemical compound. He continues explaining in rather brief terms an astonishing healing of the poisoning and accompanied severe wound in only three days’ time. In most circumstance such an accident would have been fatal. The intriguing aspect of the account is the put down and rebellion of mortal mind by a fellow chemist. In his protest the colleague blatantly accuses Dr. Lyons of an irresponsible dissemination of false information to the public regarding this normally lethal chemical. The testifier is accused of endangering an ignorant public. The chemist also implies that Dr. Lyons was incompetent in conducting his preparations, as well as self-deceived in his interpretation of the incident and its healing. The colleague concludes by stating that Dr. Lyons is in effect unraveling the establishment of scientific law won through hundreds of years of effort. It was a seemingly personal attack, which in reality constituted mortal mind’s hatred of Spirit. This arises simply because the Christ disannuls matter’s claim to superiority, which in turn argues for its exclusive right to exist! The account concludes with Dr. Lyons’ employing the most rigorous professional scrutiny to consider all possible explanations for his healing. Then he concludes thus: “Cyanide was absorbed but rendered harmless by the higher law of life…The existence of a higher law, which can save life and relieve suffering in even the most hopeless circumstances, is so important that I am constrained to bring my experience to public notice.” (p. 171) Thus, the accusation of Dr. Lyons’ blatant irresponsibility toward the public, is thoroughly disproved. It is evident that this healing account is in fact urgently crucial to fostering public health and welfare.

I have been thinking quite a lot about a testimony I submitted already handling the claim of contagion. It was a healing of TB which was uncovered through the mandatory testing required for working in the public schools. As I mentioned previously, the test returned positive much to my surprise as I had not been aware of any symptoms. After being required to take chest X-rays, I was told that I had scars on my lungs indicating that I had contracted TB, but it was now healed. What was leftover was latent TB, an inactive form which could become active at any time. If I experienced no symptoms, I could enter the schools, as I was no longer contagious.

The conclusion of this account came a few years later when I wanted to train as a Christian Science nurse. It seemed wise to handle this unfinished business by ensuring I was still free of any possible infection that could be transmitted to those in a nursing facility. I took another TB test which came back negative, absolutely no TB either latent or otherwise!  

I recount this healing because, in reviewing it, I have seen another important spiritual aspect particularly applicable to the current challenge of contagion. I have come to see that God’s creation already has in place a built-in immune system; but it is not the physical one we constantly hear about. It is, in fact, the spiritual immune system which healed me of TB without my even knowing it! This spiritual immune system is God Himself – the spiritual substance from which His creation is made. This system also governs the environment lovingly created by God to foster beauty, happiness, health, safety, and wellbeing in behalf of His creation. This spiritual substance in both the creation and its environment is maintained and protected by divine law governing that creation. And finally, God Himself as Love and Principle actively cares for His creation while also enforcing His laws of health, peace, goodness, security, and so on. Then this, in effect, results in what we call healing. God’s creation including the environment it lives in, outlaws any dangerous or unhealthy element whatsoever. We would expect nothing less from an infinitely wise, intelligent, good and loving God. This spiritual immune system is in place and active in every citizen of the world, now. It is impervious to anything unlike God, absolute Love! It is impervious to Covid-19 in all its forms because it does not exist, it has no sanction to exist, and is outlawed by Omnipotence itself! End of story!

Other healings I’ve experienced since I’ve been a Christian Scientist include being healed of burns, poison oak, a severe swelling in my neck which threatened to cut off my breathing, depression and suicidal thoughts, severe leg cramps, the fear and trauma of the murder of a family member, the lifting out of a longstanding mentally abusive marriage, and, of course common colds and flu. Pets have been healed of severe and constant vomiting to the point of extreme weakness, a large cyst, and a large ball of flesh which opened and drained on its own. Obviously, there are many more healings to be accounted of!

The entry of another member of our Association reads, “It brought home the fact that healing is the essence of Christian Science, and I need to heal if I am going to call myself a Christian Scientist.” This expresses quite accurately the objective for my own progress in Christian Science. For me the imperative to heal brings with it the need to eliminate as much as possible the human selfhood “always… found arguing for itself – its habits, tastes and indulgences.” (Mis. 119) Eliminating a tendency to be distracted by the world in whatever form it may present itself, subtle or otherwise. It is also the constant need to eradicate the “you must do it” mentality. YOU must be responsible, YOU must do the work, YOU must heal, YOU must keep up with YOUR schedule, and on and on…! The point of healing, in fact the point of all Christian Science, is what GOD is doing, what GOD has always done, and what GOD will continue to do into infinity. My “work” is to pray and/or study to see, know, follow, and participate in his work. I think of His work as His constant activity in caring for His creation, as well as the benevolent power He exerts over the world. This objective is easy to state, but much harder to be obedient with the discipline to follow through with this inspiration. Reading a Century of Christian Science Healing helped in a significant way to move me along on this journey.

" … even when I wasn’t ready to fully embrace it …"

I am very grateful for all that modern technology has done to enable access to all we need for our study of Christian Science – wherever we are. But as I continue to read the book, it has struck me that none of these tools were available for all the people who were healed at the time, and yet awe-inspiring healings happened. Some had the Bible, some may have had Science and Health, others just a Christian Science Journal, in other instances, a Christian Scientist may have prayed or shared a few words of encouragement. Healings happened – when the healing Christ message was allowed in, sometimes reluctantly, often as a desperate “last” measure. 

To sum it up: What I most need is to enter into that closet and shut the door, be still, and silence the material senses (distractions, doubts, and fear.) “In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, … deny sin and plead God’s allness.” Healing happens!

What has stayed with me from many of the testimonies in the book is the change in thought, accepting of Christ-healing, and child-like confident trust in God, that led to awe-inspiring physical healings. 

Here are few quotes from testimonies that have touched me deeply:

• Healing of a 10-months old child with bronchial pneumonia and spinal meningitis. Medical treatment was to no avail. Christian Science treatment was sought, and the child was healed. Mother writes: “It is needless to say that we are more than grateful for all this good that is ours just for the accepting.” pp. 62-63

• Man suffering from heart trouble and consumption of both lungs, writes: “Up till that moment the many kind doctors who’d attended me had gone to my body and done what they could for that, but had paid no attention to my thought, which directly controlled my body. Now the Christian Scientist did exactly the reverse: she took no notice of my body but went straight to my thought and set that right with the truth of being as taught in Christian Science – …”

• Testimony of a Christian Science Sunday School student, 14 years of age. When their canoe with six children capsized, they hung on, the 10 year old suggesting they “know the truth.” Some repeated the “Scientific Statement of Being,” and the little ones said the prayer by Mary Baker Eddy for little children. The oldest swam (as he later learned, a distance of 4 miles) to get help. All were eventually rescued. After they were settled home, the little 4 year old was asked what she had thought all the long while she was waiting for the older boy to return. She said, “Well, I knew that the water was over father’s head, and I knew that it wasn’t over God’s head.” pp.110-111

• A man from Japan suffered from great depression and mental struggle during the war years. He wrote that Christian Science pulled him through, because it is so logical … He continued that the biggest problem of his life was a false sense of nationalism. The first step in his healing came when he heard of a testimony which a Japanese friend had given in America shortly after the outbreak of war. In it she said: “I do not have to think American thoughts. I do not have to think Japanese thoughts. I have only to think God’s thoughts.” He began to see himself as God’s idea, in the light of divine Principle and not of nationality. pp. 128-129

• Peter Henniker–Heaton’s testimony of being paralyzed for ten years in London during the war. His persistent reliance on Christian Science through all those years led him to a full recovery and an active life again. He says: “All the good of those years has remained with me; all the loss and evil are as though they had never been.” pp.156-157

This is a healing that happened many years ago. I haven’t thought of it for a very long time. It came to mind a few days ago, just as I was going to say I didn’t have anything worth writing in answer to question 3!

• When our son was 3 years old, and it was a few years before I began to earnestly study Christian Science, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. I was asked to make him swallow one tablet a day. It was a large one, and it was a daily struggle to get him to swallow it. A few months earlier I had been given a copy of Science and Health. I wasn’t interested in ‘religion.’ I wasn’t interested in what it had to offer. But as I got frustrated and anxious that he wasn’t taking the medication, I decided to flip through the pages of Science and Health, thinking what had I to lose? I recall reading the preface and the first chapter Prayer, and something must have clicked. I decided that chasing my son around the room to get him to swallow the pills wasn’t helping, so I just stopped trying to make him take them. He seemed fine anyway. Well, a few months later I took him to a pediatrician for a routine visit. I was told his heart and lungs were healthy. So all was well. Some years later when we were emigrating, we had to take a complete physical including X-rays, in order to be allowed into the country we were coming to (USA). By then I was a student of Christian Science and a member of The Mother Church. Looking at the test results, a doctor asked whether our son – by then a teenager, had had a serious lung infection. But whatever it was, the doctor said, it had been completely healed, and there was just a scar that had prompted the question. With gratitude I acknowledged that what had occurred 14 years earlier, had been a healing in Christian Science, even when I wasn’t ready to fully embrace it at the time.

"…no offense has been given, and no one is guilty"

The healings in the Century of Christian Science Healing are filled with the spirit of faith in God and love for our fellow man. There is a steadfastness, an unwavering quality of thought, no matter what the circumstances appear to be. Often everyone involved is touched by the truth. These healings have strengthened my conviction that all things are possible to God.

Mrs. Eddy’s beautiful healing of the severely crippled man on Boston Common (page 9) is a perfect example of the steadfastness of her profound understanding of God and her love for a stranger. The student who related this healing said that the first time Mrs. Eddy saw the man she stopped and briefly spoke to him. She told him that man is God’s perfect child. Days later he saw her again and called out to her. She repeated this truth to him, and “he was healed and made perfect, – every whit whole.”

The healing on page 110 by Samuel H. Meeks, a 14-year old boy “and a pupil in a Christian Science Sunday School” is especially meaningful to me. Five small children were in a canoe with him when it capsized. They were about three miles from shore. He swam for help to a fishing boat. He said that “(a)s I went along I thought of all that I had learned in the Sunday School.” He said that it was “the understanding of Christian Science which (he) gained in the Sunday School” that enabled him to swim the four miles to reach the fishing boat. The children hung on to the canoe and said the Scientific Statement of Being and the prayer for little children by Mrs. Eddy. He was gone for 2 hours, and a younger 10-year old boy helped “keep up the children’s courage” while he was gone. When the fishing boat picked them up, the 4-year old girl was floating on the water. Later she said that while she was waiting and floating, she knew the water was over her father’s and mother’s heads, “but I knew that it wasn’t over God’s head.”

As superintendent of our branch church Sunday School, this healing has inspired me to know that our students are gaining an understanding of God that is immediately relevant to everything in their daily lives. God is everywhere and everpresent, and no matter where they are, they are secure and safe in God’s loving care. We can learn from them. Jesus said we must humble ourselves as a little child to enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt.18:4)

In late November 2019, PBS showed a documentary about fascism in Europe in the 1930s and ‘40s.  It included a film segment of a crowd of German women and children in 1945 enthusiastically waving Nazi flags at a rally. The narrator said that it was a “hypnotism” or mesmerism controlling people at the time. I had just read again the testimony beginning on page 136 by (Mrs.) L. Adrienne Vinciguerra about her experience in WWII. She found Christian Science and was able to walk out of a prisoner-of-war camp. She continued to study and was protected and able to help others throughout the war. I realize that through her study of Christian Science, she was not hypnotized by her situation or the war going on around her – (nor were other Scientists that she met during the war.)

The news of disease and corruption today can seem hypnotic, and I see how important it is to stay alert and awake to God and the truth of being.

The testifier was steadfast. She meekly and willingly gave every thought to God, listened for God to speak, and then obeyed. For example, as the war was ending, she was in Austria and a friend came to take her to safety in Switzerland.  She started to get ready to go, and then she said: “I had constantly been confronted with such big decisions. I was so used to turning to God before anything I ever did, that I stopped in the hallway and said spontaneously: “What shall I do?” And the answer came as fast as the question had been asked: “Whom are you running away from? There are no enemies.” I saw that in God’s creation there are no enemies, and there is no need to run.” Her home became an oasis when the Russians came into the city. Not only was she safe, but it was a place of peace and joy for the Russians. She says, “I was completely without fear. I was so convinced of the truth that there is only one man, the man made in God’s image.”

This week an offense and a misunderstanding happened in our family. We seemed to be invaded and overcome by sorrow, hurt feelings, and anger that spread quickly to four households. I went back to working on this Association assignment and I read the words above again, “…the truth that there is only one man, the man made in God’s image.” My thought turned and I began to see everyone in this light. At a recent Zoom Wednesday meeting at our branch church, a testifier who is an attorney with a career in mediation cases, said that the most important element in resolving all cases is forgiveness. I held to the truth that “there are no enemies,” therefore no offense has been given, and no one is guilty. The evil and error began to dissolve and disappear in my thought, and gently, within a few hours, peace and love tenderly filled our homes with kindness, thoughtfulness, and an appreciation of good for each other. This loving communication continues between all of us.

Thank you for this assignment to read this book.

I am going to hold more steadfastly to the truth that God, good, is governing all mankind. God is the only authority and is supreme. “God is our judge, our lawgiver, and our king. He will save us. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.” (Isa. 33:22, 24) This law of God cannot be denied, reversed, or annulled. In the allness of God, good, there is no sickness of any kind, no sinful thinking or acting, and no dying.

We are all the beloved of Love, and we express goodness, kindness, harmony, purity, peace, health, and well-being. As Paul said, “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ…” (Rom 8:14- 17)

“…healing is the essence of Christian Science”

I’ve really appreciated the Association assignment this year. I had read A Century of Christian Science Healing years ago, but reading it with our Association and my own healing practice in mind was a different experience. After our son, Adam, passed on in 2017, I never experienced a crisis of faith, anger toward God, doubt about the effectiveness of Christian Science healing, or other reactions I’ve heard some express. I just thought, well, I guess I’m just not a very good healer. As a result of that thinking, I really haven’t had too many healing experiences in the past couple of years. I’ve never stopped studying, participating in church, or being inspired though.

When I reread this book, I was impressed by the great variety of testifiers in terms of their backgrounds, circumstances, problems, feelings toward God, religion, Christian Science – if they’d even heard of Christian Science in many cases. It reminded me that there is no hierarchy in Christian Science, no special proficiency required, and no barrier to healing. It brought home the fact that healing is the essence of Christian Science, and I need to heal if I am going to call myself a Christian Scientist. I found myself praying to be shown the way and the opportunity.

Recently, I was having dinner with a group of Christian Scientist lady friends from the various branch churches in my area who dine together once a month. The last time we were together, one of them suggested that we choose something to pray about collectively. Another suggested our branch churches. We all got to work. I started with the definition of Church in Science and Health. I remember years ago hearing a talk in which the speaker said when you spell “church,” UR is in the middle of it, suggesting to me that “you are” enveloped in the structure of Truth and Love, and that you really can’t fully participate in church without showing forth the proof of church’s utility: without demonstrating divine Science by healing. I’m well aware that the only reason Christianity spread was through healing, and it’s why Christian Science gains momentum whenever healing works happen now, wherever that may be in the world.

I was so inspired by reading the assignment that during the welfare part of my church’s January business meeting, I recommended that we as a church read A Century… not as a book club, but just individually for inspiration and to understand the importance of the individual’s part in this Movement. I had a chance to talk with one of the members who wasn’t there that night because she was struggling with a physical problem and asked her if she’d read the book recently, and she reread it and gained inspiration and is back in church. Others have said they’re reading it, too, and have cited particular stories that mean a lot to them.

I’m serving as Second Reader now and was blown away when I walked out to the desk the very week after our little dinner group had taken up the work to see more congregants than I’d seen in a very long time. This trend has continued with new people and members we haven’t seen for some time. There were about 25 kids in the Sunday school, up from the usual 12 or so. My daughter who teaches the youngest class said she had a new child who has begun to come regularly and now has 2-3 as opposed to 0-1. I reported back to the friends in the dinner group, and they said they were seeing the same thing in their respective churches. This past Wednesday looked more like a Sunday service. I know it’s not numbers we’re looking for but solid workers and healers and those who want to, or know they can, be healed and seek it.

I’ve been examining my own thinking and weeding out anything that isn’t part of the structure of Truth and Love – such as unloving thoughts like “why does so-and-so only come to church when he has usher duty” or fearful thoughts like “I’d love to go to another branch church this Wednesday to hear a friend read, but I’d better not because my own church needs me to be there” as though I’m personally responsible for the viability of my particular branch church. Am I going to church to worship God and heal, or am I just attending church?

Then my own healing practice: I so wanted to give a testimony of true, definitive healing and to be part of the “structure.” I had my opportunity. On a Wednesday night at church I began to have a runny nose, and the next day I went though a couple of boxes of tissues and was feeling other symptoms of cold. I thought: “Are you just going to ride this out or are you a Christian Scientist?!” Mrs. Eddy says in “Christian Science Practice” that she “has healed hopeless organic disease, and raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the only Life.” A couple of sentences later she says, “We must begin, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we begin the better.” (p. 428) This spoke so kindly to my heart over my regret at not healing my son while telling me firmly to get on with healing now in this simple demonstration over cold. I felt, too, that I owed it to the world that seems so focused on the latest virus and fear of its spread to heal this version of so-called contagion.

I remembered these words from the Lesson on Truth, “the sword of Truth gleams afar and indicates the infinite distance between Truth and error, between the material and the spiritual, – the unreal and the real.” (p. 538) This idea of the infinite distance between Truth and error had really stood out to me in neon at the time. I thought, error is nowhere near me, not even knocking on the door for admission, it’s not even light-years away; it’s infinitely separated from me because I live, move, and have my being in Truth. Also in that Lesson was the idea of the two-edged sword, covering both affirmation of the truth and denial of the erroneous. I spent a lot of time with the Scientific Statement of Being, which seems like the ultimate two-edged sword. I also had in mind that it was right to be at my post on Sunday as Second Reader and to be totally well as evidence of Truth’s effectiveness. By practice Saturday morning I was ready to go and free of all symptoms.

So to answer the questions from the assignment this year:

I know healing is for everyone to experience; no one is barred. To be part of this Movement, we must be proving its effectiveness. I want the world to know Christian Science because it’s what heals. Healing is what spreads the Gospel.

My very favorite story is on p. 217 by Velma Lewis Ingraham, who was living in a poverty-stricken area – in the Middle East perhaps? (She called it the Near East.) She experienced a revelation about how Jesus healed. She kept running across a young boy who was indescribably dirty and had sores but who had “lovely brown eyes and a quick warm smile.” The testifier realized that Jesus must have been in many crowds of people just like this, and she knew that he didn’t spend any time listing all the human problems that needed to be fixed, but he turned away completely from the material picture to see the creation of God, perfect and whole. She says, “He sought God, accepted only the presence of God, and the ‘things’ necessary to the change of the scene were added.” The woman prayed that her eyes would be opened in a like experience and was flooded with “the light of spiritual reality,” so that she was unaware of the boy or her surroundings and didn’t even see him for a few days, but when she did, he was changed, clean, with no sores. He told her that “I” had told him what to do as he pointed up to the heavens. The woman knew he had been spoken to directly by God. His life improved dramatically after that, as did the testifier’s.

To me, this represents the essence of Christian healing – praying for revelation, not for matter to be changed. She left it all to God, and God did what God does – speaks to the heart of the one who needs it, revealing the truth to all who witness it and thereby elevating everyone.

If I had to pick only one more story, it’s the one on p. 84 of the British woman, Sarah Walker, who was alcoholic along with her husband who also abused her. Everyone and everything had left her – husband, friends, neighbors, money, her health. She literally had nothing when a Christian Science practitioner knocked on her door who knew nothing about her but gave her an on-the-spot verbal treatment of Love and then food and clothing. She had her instantaneous healing of alcoholism as did her husband who was 20 miles away and came home the next day, and their lives, friendships, and family were restored to them. This healing shows the truth of “whatever blesses one blesses all” as the husband was simultaneously healed, and also that there is never a situation that is too extreme for healing.

When our daughter was a little girl, one day she was having a stomach issue that caused her to throw up repeatedly. That evening I gave her a bath and wrapped her up in a blanket and sat with her in a rocking chair. I told her that as much as I loved her, God loved her even more. I said I would never want anything bad to happen to her, because I’m her mother and love her, but God’s love is all-powerful and guarantees that no error can be in her experience. I sang Hymn 208, Mother’s Evening Prayer, to her and put her in her bed. She told me later that she was thinking about what I’d said to her and then drifted off to sleep thinking those thoughts. She woke up totally well in the morning. It’s always stayed with her, and she’s told of the experience on a Wednesday evening.

Since reading the book I feel more alive to the possibility of healing and more committed to participate actively in the Movement of Christian Science. I’ve been more diligent in doing my daily work and striving not to be impressed by the suggestions of materialism, selfishness, and division that seem to circulate in the news. There is so much good going on, and it’s a waste of time to get sucked down into a mire of despair. That’s focusing in the wrong direction. Each one of the healings in this book is an example of overcoming suggestions of material obstacles, illness, hopelessness. [If I could cite one more account from the book that had great impact on me, because it’s an example of overcoming all odds, it’s the one on p. 136 by Adrienne Vinciguerra, the woman in the prisoner of war camp in Austria in 1942. I heard one time that all healing is one of sight in one way or another – seeing the truth about something. It was impressive to me that she must have been healed of poor eyesight, but her account doesn’t even focus on that. She does say she was reading the Bible and Science and Health (given to her by the eye specialist!) by a single bulb in the ceiling. Also she was protected from being seen by the guards as she walked out of the camp and went undetected as she traveled around with no identity papers. It reminds me of the story of Elisha and the blinded soldiers from the Lesson on Love a couple weeks ago.] To wrap up, my strongest take-away is to know God better as each of these testifiers did, and so I’m now reading Science and Health through.