 Posted Monday, November 08, 2010 2:30 PM
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| Linda---I have been involved with Christian Science all my life and you are so wrong about any kind of punishment! CS is all about LOVE and while I also left the Boston church it had nothing to do with CS and all to do with following Mrs. Eddy's direction instead of church board members. Thank heaven that I found the Plainfield INDEPENDENT Christian Science church in Plainfield, NJ. They have a great web site, hold classes and services on the internet and by phone so that we can interact, learn , and help with wonderful healings. Everything that I always wanted from any church can be found here. Their only requirement is that one is sincerely seeking the truth and I have only been treated with love and respect and have been helped with many healings and I live in another state and have never been inside the church building. Christian Science is healing every day and very much growing and alive and well in Plainfield, NJ. my love to you all---Dale
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Posted Monday, November 08, 2010 2:39 PM
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Dale,
I'm struck by the number of times you used the word, "all". I'm happy that your experience with Christian Science has not included the disasters and tragedy that Linda, other posters, and myself have experienced.
Do Go Be Man
<><
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Posted Friday, December 03, 2010 3:36 PM
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Anonymous (2/16/2003)
Were you afraid of something terrible happening? Of having a car wreck? Sickness? Or other tragedy? And did anything happen?
What about all the guilt and burden of "being responsible for your own thoughts." How did you deal with that?
Thanks. Initially, when I was emancipated from Christian Science, I felt so happy and powerful! I was not going to play by made-up rules anymore. I could take care of myself, and if something bad happened, I didn't have to blame myself for poor understanding. I felt so good knowing that if I encountered sickness or other problems in my life, I wouldn't feel guilty. Instead, I would just identify the problem and deal with it in the most practical way possible. In the past 7 years, I have lived my life as a Christian (NOT CS), and have been blessed with a mostly trouble-free life in terms of health, finances, and relationships. I don't think this has anything to do with my religous status - it's a combination of making good decisions when possible, and a good dose of luck. I know there will be times in my life when I experience pain, loss, and tragedy - everyone does. When those times come, I will get through them because I have a belief system that will help me cope with those things instead of forcing me into denial. I also have a good church family who would lift me up in prayer and help me in any way they can.
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Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2011 12:58 AM
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| What kind of 'practitioners' are you referring to? They sound like terrible people! I'm one who has never forgotten CS and have been welcomed back with open arms; almost the Prodigal Son treatment. I guess that if you don't like it, you'll get treatment in kind. Otherwise, many of us have seen miracles. I hope that everyone else does too.
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Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2011 3:15 PM
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I think the practitioners referred to must be similar to the ones my dear friend had the misfortune of dealing with during her struggle with some undiagnosed vaginal bleeding. After a year of intermittent bleeding and no 'demonstration' her condition deteriorated dramatically and she was so frightened that she felt compelled to seek medical help, even though a lifelong CSer. Her practitioners told her flatly that not only would they stop any prayerful support, she had 'abandoned' God and she was a failure for not having healed herself. After a night of near death, she was emergently operated on and saved. But she never recovered from the guilt and shame of not having healed herself.
The tragedy of practitioners not having the requisite spiritual 'chops' to heal serious illnesses, coupled with their egregious unChristian treatment of patients who look to medicine for help has been a major component of the negative press, the deaths and subsequent legal prosecutions of parents, and the mass exodus from CS.
CSers raised in the faith have an irrational and often humorous fear of doctors and their own bodily functions. I remember a friend who had been raised in CS actually fainting whilst having his blood pressure checked from the fear. Another man I knew did not have any understanding of the term 'menopause' and sheepishly asked my physician father what it meant.
Taken out of the context of both the era S&H was written and the personal history of MBE, it's not surprising how many lifelong CSers get in to trouble. Mrs. Eddy would have had zero patience for the vast numbers of practitioners today who are unable to heal their patients. Further, Mrs. Eddy had an intimate understanding of both the medical practices of her day and the names and symptoms of the ailments. Most lifelong CSers of today have neither. Mrs. Eddy had the intention that patients would consult practitioners like they did doctors. No one goes to the doctor to hear, "well, go ahead and heal YOURSELF" and she certainly did not intend her practitioners to treat that way. But alas, that is where we are.
Clearly, unless our current practitioners are willing to secrete themselves away from society and study nothing but the word of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus for three years, they cannot (and neither should their patients expect them to) heal the way she did.
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Posted Friday, March 18, 2011 12:51 PM
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Guest (3/16/2011)
CSers raised in the faith have an irrational and often humorous fear of doctors and their own bodily functions. I remember a friend who had been raised in CS actually fainting whilst having his blood pressure checked from the fear. Another man I knew did not have any understanding of the term 'menopause' and sheepishly asked my physician father what it meant.
I can assure you that people in my family, who have been class-taught CSers for four generations, are not afraid of doctors, do not faint when having their blood pressure taken, and understand basic medical terms. I'm sorry, but this kind of generalizing always annoys me.
Taken out of the context of both the era S&H was written and the personal history of MBE, it's not surprising how many lifelong CSers get in to trouble. Mrs. Eddy would have had zero patience for the vast numbers of practitioners today who are unable to heal their patients. Further, Mrs. Eddy had an intimate understanding of both the medical practices of her day and the names and symptoms of the ailments. Most lifelong CSers of today have neither. Mrs. Eddy had the intention that patients would consult practitioners like they did doctors. No one goes to the doctor to hear, "well, go ahead and heal YOURSELF" and she certainly did not intend her practitioners to treat that way. But alas, that is where we are.
Please cite references that say Mrs. Eddy expected practitioners to be consulted like doctors, and that CSers aside from practitioners were not expected to heal themselves.
Clearly, unless our current practitioners are willing to secrete themselves away from society and study nothing but the word of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus for three years, they cannot (and neither should their patients expect them to) heal the way she did.
She did not heal. She taught her followers to heal, and they took the patients while she wrote and studied and taught. She did not take patients. Read her biographies.
Ann
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Posted Friday, March 18, 2011 4:37 PM
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Ann wrote:
"Please cite references that say Mrs. Eddy expected practitioners to be consulted like doctors, and that CSers aside from practitioners were not expected to heal themselves."
Here is a statement by Mrs. Eddy:
"I am out of patience at hearing a student ask his patient to work when the patient is up to the ears in the waves. Don't ask anything of your patient. Show him your Science and when he is healed he will work." (Quoted on page 151 of Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer.)
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Posted Friday, March 18, 2011 5:04 PM
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Ann wrote:
"[Mrs. Eddy] did not heal. She taught her followers to heal, and they took the patients while she wrote and studied and taught. She did not take patients. Read her biographies."
A reading of her biographies will actually reveal many accounts of healings in Mrs. Eddy's own practice. It is true that after she started the Massachusetts Metaphysical College she no longer took patients, but she certainly did take them from around late 1866 up to around 1880. Biographies and archival documents also contain accounts of her doing healing work from time to time up to the end of her life. It is just that after around 1880 she did not accept patients from the general public.
It's clear that people did leave first-hand accounts of what they believed to be healings they'd experienced through Mrs. Eddy's practice of Christian Science. Other accounts were written by people who believed they had witnessed these healings.
It's also interesting that none of these accounts of Mrs. Eddy's healing work contain any references to her telling patients that they must pray for themselves, correct their thinking, study references, or that if they don't do their part they won't be healed.
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Posted Sunday, March 20, 2011 5:09 PM
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Guest, post 19112:
I find your last statement to be confusing. MBE clearly taught her followers to practice Christian Science healing in their own lives. I never got the impression she intended the movement to be divided between practitioners and patients, with individuals turning to paid healers for every demonstration. She mentions that IF the student does not readily heal himself he should call on an experienced Christian Scientist for aid (S&H, p. 420.)
She does, indeed, teach in S&H (page 411, vs. 27) that healers begin the treatment by attempting to remove the fear in the patient. You don't consider that to be part of 'correcting their thinking'?
On page 419, vs 1, she states: "A moral question may hinder the recovery of the sick. Lurking error, lust, envy, revenge, malice, or hate will
perpetuate or even create the belief in disease." Does that not imply a bit of correcting of the thinking? Or are you meaning to say that the healer does all of the correcting, and the patient just notices that he suddenly feels no envy or hate? What if the individual is attempting his own healing?
"Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inherited consumption, or disease arising from any circumstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers the body into health." S&H, p.425-426. The essence of CS is in replacing the evidence of the material senses with spiritual truth, and that means in the thinking. One can infer from that passage that the failure to discard those notions leads to a lack of healing.
When you say MBE didn't require her followers to study references in order to gain healing, I would counter that she gave her writings and the Lesson-Sermon to be used as instructional material to accomplish healings in their own lives.
Maybe I misunderstand your point. I do think that MBE believed she accomplished healings. I also believe she failed to heal herself in numerous ways and it is hard for me to understand how today's practicing Christian Scientist can reconcile that fact.
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Posted Monday, March 21, 2011 1:24 PM
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Guest (3/18/2011)
Ann wrote:
"Please cite references that say Mrs. Eddy expected practitioners to be consulted like doctors, and that CSers aside from practitioners were not expected to heal themselves."
Here is a statement by Mrs. Eddy:
"I am out of patience at hearing a student ask his patient to work when the patient is up to the ears in the waves. Don't ask anything of your patient. Show him your Science and when he is healed he will work." (Quoted on page 151 of Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer.)
??? Your quoting of this passage in this context makes no sense. Neither of us is a patient. If you are trying to say that it is up to me to find the references, my response is that you were the one who made the statement, therefore the burden is on you to cite the reference. In my 33 years in CS I never heard that Christian Scientists were not expected to heal themselves unless they were practitioners.
Ann
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