Realizing her personal and spiritual wellbeing was at stake, Mary Baker Eddy redefined her life experience. Like many of her 19th century contemporaries, Eddy was motivated to look past time-honored traditions and rid herself of a life submissive to religious authorities and the male-dominated society. Unsatisfied by human theologies and organizations, and appalled by the crude medical practices of the 19th century, Eddy juxtaposed enlightenment and logic to discover divine Science—the spiritual law of God, infiltrating science, religion, and medicine with love and truth.

Eddy discovered God’s healing power of mind/body/spirit, unhindered by human authorities, superstition, or emotions. She wrote a book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, articulating to each reader their own ability to access and experience enlightenment and logic.

Although Eddy apparently respected mainstream religions, her personal favorite was Christianity. Therefore, Science and Health depicts divine Science through the theme of faith in the example of Christ Jesus. The text however warns against extremes. Readers are encouraged to guard against running away from stifling and unhappy situations only later to have to swallow their own dreams for the ambitions of admired spiritual leaders. Many people seeking for meaning in life, imagine a human personality or mind as a healing mediator whereas Eddy wrote in her Preface, “this mind is not a factor in the Principle of Christian [divine] Science.” God is.

From 21st Century Science and Health, “Not materially, but spiritually we know God as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We become more respectful and caring as we get to know the divine nature better and love Soul understandingly. The struggle over physicality will be replaced by a rejoicing in the affluence of our God. Religion will then be of the heart and not of the head.

“People are more than a material shell with a mind stuck inside. Spirituality is more than a soul trying to escape a human experience in order to be immortal. We reflect infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God.

“Spiritual selfhood is infinitely being expressed, broadening and ascending from a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in the infinitude of Truth. The only way we will know our true divine image and likeness, is to know God properly.”

Long overdue, 21st Century Science and Health is a revision of seminal Science and Health. I revised Science and Health, not as a correction, but as a process of discovery for the spiritual seeker and reader today. The revision 21st Century Science and Health is now in its 4th edition, adapting to the posterity of divine Science and our ability to know God and apply spiritual rules to everyday situations, with Christlike confidence.

 

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