An immanent, eternal Science

In 2020, I reached out to a practitioner for help with a physical problem. The claim – a growth coupled with discoloration on my stomach – was something I’d been noticing for six years, but had worked on only sporadically, since it caused me no pain. The growth (according to the stupor of mortal mind) seemed to be something I could live with. But more than three months into the pandemic restrictions, I was determined to do all I could for Science.

In my first call, the practitioner told me to establish my oneness with God. Within that unity, nothing mortal could touch me. Two key points that we would revisit in the many months ahead were 1) my unity with God; and 2) the illegitimacy of mortal mind. These points are the solid ground on which healing is built, but I had a long way to go.

In addition to my daily study, I had two weekly calls with the practitioner. Often it felt like I was flailing. Leaning on familiar truths or trying to speak something without understanding did not satisfy the practitioner. In short, it was hard.

Less than a month into the work, the practitioner pointed to two passages in Science and Health that would become the anchors of our work. One passage is Science and Health, page 297, line 12: “Erroneous belief is destroyed by truth. Change the evidence, and that disappears which before seemed real to this false belief, and the human consciousness rises higher. Thus the reality of being is attained and man found to be immortal. The only fact concerning any material concept is, that is it neither scientific nor eternal, but subject to change and dissolution.”

The other passage is Science and Health page 425, lines 6-28, which begins: “If the case to be mentally treated is consumption, take up the leading points included (according to belief) in this disease. Show that it is not inherited; that inflammation, tubercules, hemorrhage, and decomposition are beliefs, images of mortal thought superimposed upon the body; that they are not the truth of man; that they should be treated as error and put out of thought. Then these ills will disappear.”

The second passage is about consumption, which at first glance did not seem helpful in addressing a growth. But the practitioner instructed me to classify the leading points about the claim as beliefs, not matter, and the growth as a dark image of mortal thought. The work was to destroy this image of thought with the light of the Christ, Truth.

Seeing my true substance as coming from Spirit was a continuing theme of my work. I knew I had to “unthink” the material issue and come into more of my God-given identity. I learned that my whole being is one with the one good, God, and nothing can interfere with that. I learned not to temporize with error, not to accept it. In doing so, I stood for God’s perfection and my reflection of that perfection.

As the work progressed, I was learning that the Christ was already within me. I learned that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5). This light includes the consciousness of absolute law, where there is no lawlessness that can objectify itself as a growth. This helped change my focus from seeming mental darkness objectified as a growth to what God had already created – man (me) as innocent, spotless, and pure.

Then, over a year after the work with the practitioner commenced, I had a spiritual breakthrough. I heard a talk with a staff member of The Christian Science Monitor, who said that the key to one of her healings was this sentence by Mrs. Eddy: “Here is the emphatic declaration that God creates all through Mind, not through matter, – that the plant grows, not because of seed or soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind” (Science and Health, p. 520:23-26). I knew this sentence would be key to my own healing. I was no longer concerned with a material growth; my sole focus was on my spiritual growth, the “eternal mandate of Mind.”

About this time, the practitioner stepped back from my case for personal reasons. Although this felt like a loss, in retrospect I see this as wisdom on her part. One thing that became increasingly clear was that my spiritual work was not just for myself. It was for the world and the whole Christian Science movement.

As I continued my prayerful work without the practitioner, the days became very difficult. I had to live what Mrs. Eddy’s biographer Robert Peel called “the battleground of daily living” (MBE: The Years of Authority, p. 59). When I reached what seemed to be a breaking point, my prayer was Dear Lord, help me grow in grace.

About six months after the practitioner stopped her daily work for me, she called and told me, “You don’t know when the fruits will come, but they can’t be taken.”

After working independently for about a year, I noticed that there was no longer a growth on my stomach. What had seemed to exist for about eight years was gone.

When I called the practitioner to let her know, she was not surprised. The components of healing were there: sincerity, consistency in the work, and absolute trust in God. I am grateful for this demonstration of the healing power of Truth, which Mrs. Eddy calls “an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition” (Science and Health, p. 150:5-6).