Christian Scientist

The term "Christian Science" was coined by Mary Baker Eddy, its founder, in the late 19th century. It combines "Christian," referencing its roots in Christian theology and the teachings of Jesus, with "Science," implying a systematic, demonstrable understanding of spiritual laws and their application to human experience.

A newly-coined term for denoting the practitioners of an art of iieaiing by will. The name is a misnomer, since Buddhist or Jew, Hindu or Materialist, can practice this new form of Western Yoga, with like success, if he can only guide and control his will with sufticient firmness. The "Mental Scientists" are another rival school. These work by a universal denial of every disease and evil imaginable, and claim syllogistically that since Universal Spirit cannot be subject to the ailings of fiesh, and since every atom is Si)irit and in Spirit, and since finally, they — the healers and the liealed — are all absorbed in this Spirit or Deity, there is not, nor can there be, such a thing as disease. This prevents in no wise botli Christian and Mental Scientists from succumbing to disease, and nursing chronic diseases in their own bodies just like ordinary mortals.

Mary Baker Eddy's articulation of Christian Science in the late 19th century arrived as a potent spiritual counterpoint to the burgeoning materialist philosophies and burgeoning medical sciences of her era. Her foundational text, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," presents a systematic theology that views God not merely as a benevolent creator but as All-in-all, the sole reality. This metaphysical framework leads to the profound assertion that what we perceive as physical suffering—disease, decay, even death—are not inherent attributes of existence but rather products of a flawed, material perception.

The practice of Christian Science, therefore, centers on a form of spiritual healing achieved through prayer and a conscious alignment with this divine Principle. It is not simply wishing away illness, but a rigorous mental and spiritual discipline, akin to what Mircea Eliade might describe as a process of "re-sacralization" of experience, where the mundane world is understood through the lens of the sacred. This approach finds echoes in various esoteric traditions that emphasize the mind's power over matter, or the illusory nature of the phenomenal world. While Blavatsky, in her characteristic style, viewed it with a certain skepticism, her own writings on the power of will and the potential for spiritual advancement through mental discipline reveal a shared, albeit differently expressed, interest in the mind's capacity to transcend material limitations. The emphasis on a singular, divine reality, from which all else flows, also resonates with certain streams of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, where the material world is seen as a shadow or a distortion of the true, spiritual realm. The challenge, then, as with many esoteric paths, lies not in the belief itself, but in the sustained practice required to embody that belief, to truly perceive the spiritual reality that underlies the apparent discord of mortal existence.