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Home > Books > The Development of the Christian Science Idea and Practice
The Development of the Christian Science Idea and Practice
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Product Code: 0-85241-092-1
Manufacturer: Kappeler Institute Publishing
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Book, 96 pages
Level:
SUBJECT(s):
The History and Development of the Science of Christian Science
Healing and Christian Science Practice
RELATED RECORDINGS:
M-19, The Development of the Science of Christian Science Since Mary Baker Eddy (3 hours, audio)
M-9, Healing (2 hours, audio)
M-7, Principle and Practice are One (2 hours, audio)
M-35, Healing in the 16 Chapters of the Christian Science Textbook (5 hours, audio)
M-36, Healing on the Levels of absolute Christian Science, divine Science, and Science itself (3 hours, audio)
X-4, "Christian Science Practice": Chapter XI in Science and Health (2 hours, audio)
M-21, The Impact of the Divine Idea on the World (1 hour, audio)
M-2, The Universal Life-principle (1 hour, audio)
SYNOPSIS: A short survey of this subject, this book follows the correlation between a developing understanding of Christian Science and the evolving sense of practice. It follows the emergence of the idea of Christian Science, the steps of Mary Baker Eddy's own spiritual development, and the evolving understanding emerging from the work of pioneering thinkers in Christian Science. For anyone interested in investigating the issue of spiritual healing, this book is invaluable, for it clearly explains the difference between mind/faith healing and healing through the Science of Being.
CONTENTS:
PART I: The Development of the Christian Science Idea
1. From the Bible to Christian Science
2. The developing statement of Christian Science
3. The gradual discovery of the Science of Science and Health
4. The living structure of Science and Health is the structure of man
PART II: The Development of Christian Science Practice
The advantage of a historical survey
1. The formative period
2. The discovery of divine Mind-healing
3. Healing through argument
4. Healing through divine ideas
5. Healing through the oneness of Being
6. Healing through the Science of Being
a) Healing through Christian Science
b) Healing through absolute Christian Science
c) Healing through divine Science
d) Healing through Science itself
EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, The Development of the Christian Science Idea and Practice, Part I: pp. 1–3, Part II: pp. 19–22.
Part I: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IDEA
1. From the Bible to Christian Science
…Principle, God, has order and system; therefore, its successive revelations appear in divine order, unfolding the system and Science of spiritual Being. The Bible, when viewed from Principle’s interpretation of itself, unfolds in the order, the spiritual modus operandi, of divine Principle as symbolized by the Holy City, the four equal sides of which Mrs. Eddy defines as Word, Christ, Christianity, and divine Science (see S&H 575:17–19). Divine Principle precipitated itself on seeking humanity, first as Principle’s interpretation of its own Word, revealing to the patriarchs and prophets the spiritual nature of God. Then the time became ripe for a second phase, for the prophets had caught the meaning of Principle’s Christ as the idea of God that "will overturn, overturn, overturn … until he come whose right it is (Ezekiel 21:27). This phase reached its full expression in the man Christ Jesus. In the third stage, Principle’s Christianity broke on human thought, using the purity of Mary and the Christ mission of Jesus to introduce Christianity, the conscious reflection of the Christ-idea in human affairs, thus demonstrating the human and divine coincidence. Christianity spread widely, but soon its living essence became almost lost because the age was not yet ready for thought to be acquainted intelligently with the fourth side of the Holy City—Science. Religious thought, looking to ritual, belief, and faith as the way to heaven, barred the door of Science, and it is only through this door that we can fully enter into the realm of the real. But as soon as Principle had graciously prepared a mentality willing and pure enough to envisage the wedding of Christianity to Science, Principle had its proper channel through which to interpret itself to mankind as a Science that can be understood spiritually and demonstrated by all. Mrs. Eddy’s mentality was of this nature and, therefore, she could be used for Principle's purpose of explaining itself in its Science and system. She caught the first glorious glimpses of this early in 1866. Though knowing "that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith," she was firmly convinced that her mission was to lift Christianity out of holy faith into "the Science of this healing" (S&H 109:18–20).
2. The developing statement of Christian Science
When a new idea is revealed to human thought, it may come like a flash of light, but this does not mean that it is seen at the outset with such complete identity as to need no further clarification. Saul, for example, on his way to Damascus, was suddenly surrounded by light from heaven and could identify Jesus as the Christ, but it took him seven years of solitude in Arabia and Tarsus to ponder this revelation before staring to expound it to others. So it was with Mrs. Eddy. Though soon gaining the certainty (in the latter part of 1866, see Ret. 24:9) of having discovered the leading factor in Mind-Science "that Mind is All and matter is naught" (S&H 109:1), it took Mrs. Eddy the rest of her life to state in clear unmistakable scientific terminology the constituents of this Science in all their classifications. Nine years elapsed before she could write the first edition of "Science and Health," in which she gave what she then called "the complete statement of Christian Science (Ret. 37:2). From that time on, revision after revision of her treasured Textbook followed in rapid succession. This is indicative of how her thought was constantly expanding and, therefore, she was able to, in increasing measure, define more clearly her revelation in its Science. She urged her students to keep pace with her spiritually by studying the latest editions of her Textbook, stating finally that what she had written some 25 years before, she did "not consider a precedent for a present student of this Science" (My. 237:5)….
Part II: THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTICE
The advantage of an historical survey
When Mrs. Longyear once requested advice regarding a Christian Science practitioner, Mrs. Eddy wrote the following answer: "I cannot advise you regarding a Christian Science practitioner, but I most earnestly request that you select one who knows Christian Science history" (Coll. p. 256). At first glance, this answer may seem surprising. One wonders what a knowledge of Christian Science history has to do with the qualifications of a good practitioner, but on second thought it becomes evident that such knowledge is of great importance. In every subject, it is always extremely useful to know something about past developments, because then one can see the significance of what is happening in the present, and this enables one to sense, in some measure, the direction that future developments will take.
Knowing the developmental history of Christian Science practice, we become aware of the various stages that have been mastered; these stages usually show the general mistakes and difficulties that were afterwards overcome. Equipped with such knowledge, we can protect ourselves against a repetition of past mistakes and, thereby, attain a higher standard. In other fields of human life, it is seen that we usually experience, in an individual way, the same development as in the historic process, though in a much shorter time. The development of Christian Science practice since 1866 has gone through stages, stages that each individual who takes up this practice may also go through in some form. If we are aware of these different stages from the beginning, this knowledge is a great help to us because (1) we know the mistakes of the past and will not repeat them knowingly, and (2) we endeavor constantly to reach a higher standard of practice, so that (3) we can make rapid progress.
When it is shown here that, since 1866, newer and higher methods of Christian Science practice were always crystallizing, and that such periods are connected with the names of special exponents, it is well to state explicitly that the development was not brought about through individual human understanding but was due to the ever-operative Christ-idea. The Christ-idea alone, and not human thinking, is the impulsion behind all spiritual progress. It is the nature of the Christ-idea to demand constant progress and unceasing progression; also the power of this Christ-idea brings about a breakthrough in the human, in spite of the human. "Christian Science and Christian Scientists will, must, have a history" (Mis. 106:3). Those who are ready to open consciousness to the newness of Life are also those who are most likely to be used for Christ’s purpose; but they are only servants, and not originators, of spiritual evolution.
1. The formative period
From early childhood, two distinct components can be recognize in Mrs. Eddy’s life which later were wedded in a harmonious whole, and then brought forth something completely new. These were: (1) true religiousness and (2) scientific research. Both led to the discovery of Christian Science and to divine, scientific healing.
As a child, Mary Baker Eddy already experienced the effect of religious healing. In her autobiography, she tells us that at the age of 12 (in 1833) she was suffering from a high fever as a result of a religious dispute with her father. In prayer, she turned to God. While she was praying, "a soft glow of ineffable joy" came over her. "The fever was gone" and she arose and was "in a normal condition of health … The physician marvelled" (see Ret. 13:1–14:2).
At the age of 25 (in 1846), she became interested in medicine and investigated the various medical methods of her time. Because of her unhealthy constitution, she hoped to find relief through allopathy, but finding no effective help in it she turned to homeopathy. This turned out to be an important step in preparation for her discovery of spiritual healing, for she learned to recognize the mental nature of physical phenomena, such as physical diseases. About her homeopathic practice she writes how, among many other experiments, she had taken common table salt and attenuated it "until there was not a single saline property left … and yet, with one drop of that attenuation in a goblet of water, and a teaspoonful of the water administered at intervals of three hours, she has cured a patient sinking in the last stage of typhoid fever" (S&H 153:5–11).
From this and similar experiments (see S&H 156:5–27; Hea. 13:4–21), she came to the conclusion that it is not the drug as material substance, but human belief in that drug, which bring about such healings….
Mrs. Eddy was very successful with homeopathic treatments and also with unmedicated pellets (placebos), but these successes in healing did not satisfy her, they turned out to be stepping stones to a higher purpose: metaphysics became "the next stately step beyond homoeopathy" (S&H 156:28). While homeopathy is based on the axiom "the less medicine the better," metaphysics adds: "until you arrive at no medicine" (Hea. 11:19–20). Thus, mind, not matter, becomes the factor in healing. Metaphysics bases itself only on that which is above (meta) the physical (physica). In this way, her "medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science" (S&H 152:21).
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