Christian Science Index – How to treat including retroactive treatment

The Scientific 'Now'. To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of knowledge to recoil from fear of difficulty, or adverse criticism is to bring reproach on Science. There is nothing for the investigator to do but to keep straight on, to explore up and down, inch by inch, with the taper of his reason'; to follow the light wherever it may lead, even should it at times resemble a will-o'-the-wisp (Sir William Crookes, F.R.S.).

All this is now easily explained, and it is possible to prove by direct experiment that what we call time is merely limited human perception.  Out of a total of at least five hundred cases, of all kinds, my first  result proving this may be given as an instance (fn 1).  Ages ago it was discovered and taught that there was no such thing as time. Everything, as far as it can be said to be happening, is happening at the same time, and the only reason why one cannot see a thing at any given time, is because of this supposed human material limitation. Thinking over this, one sees that, if it is true, it ought to be provable by direct experiment. We ought to be able to pray now, and the effect of that prayer should have been as efficacious in the past as it has been generally admitted to be in the future (fn 2). 

It is obvious that to the material senses we cannot alter what has (to those senses) already happened. We can at best only wipe out all recollection and all traces of it in the present and future. Again, if praying to produce an effect in the past, all we can do will be to prevent that past having been as bad as it would otherwise have been without the prayer. 

Recognising that there is nothing impossible to God, a resolve was made to try the effect as soon as possible.  The next day a letter was received from a sister-in-law written the day before, on a Monday, and asking for help through the recently discovered method of scientific prayer, the deep, systematic, right thinking which follows upon a right understanding of God and man. On receipt of this letter on Tuesday morning, recognising that there is no such thing as time, and that, therefore, practically the letter had only just been written, and knowing that now and always man is a perfect spiritual being, made in God's image and likeness, I denied the reality of the physical trouble, and realised as clearly as possible the perfect God and perfect man, thus praying in the way that Jesus told us.  By the next post a letter came saying that a wonderful thing had happened, and how directly the letter had been written she was perfectly well.  Thus were these logical deductions proved correct, as they have been many times since, by the best of all proofs, experimental tuition. Isaiah, speaking of the last days, says: And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer (Isa. 65:24). This time has now come; the thoughts on the subject that have always been there are now being recognised and understood.

1. Since the first edition of Life Understood was published, students of it have found that they have been able to obtain similar results by working in the way shown. Results are the only proof and the only value of a theory.

2. You may also ask how belief can effect a result which precedes the development of that belief. It can only be replied, that Christian Science reveals what * eye hath not seen’  (Science and Health, p. 553).Show all