Updated November 2021, click here for sixth edition of 21st Century Science and Health
Preface to 5th edition of 21st Century Science and Health
Burned into my foster mothering psyche are two pictures: I see a 2-year old foster child, unable to communicate his confusion. And, I see a 9-year old, who thinks being unwanted is normal. In both cases (though different children), I felt them asking me the age-old questions, Why am I here? Why be good? What future?
Sometimes in life, we don’t know how to communicate the gut feeling that there must be something more to life than what meets the eye.
In my search for cohesive answers, I’ve found the knowledge of truth and love to be vital.
Truth and love help us communicate.
Identifying with Truth and Love also helps to ease the conflict between the fortunate and the unfortunate, the good and the bad, the yin and the yang.
We can learn from unfortunate situations, but we don’t have to allow their pushing and pulling to control our experience.
Stretching our mental barriers further, we learn that Truth and Love have control and that Truth and Love is God. This definition of God wipes out the common collective notion that God is a humanlike superman, or a contradictory force to reckon with, or a façade.
In reality, God is willing and able to give us a reason to live. The ideas in this book help us learn that we are wanted by God, not to do God’s job, but to express life, soul, and a holy purpose.
The methodology read in Science and Health is timeless, first penned in the 19th century by Mary Baker Eddy and termed divine Science.
This modern version is not a revisionist divine Science, because the Principle of the rules in Science are constant. But the words and references in Science and Health have been updated to show how divine Science, as presented by Mary Baker Eddy, is applicable to today’s situations.
The driving factor in 21st Century Science and Health encourages progress in religion, science, family, society, and medicine. The book discusses a Mind-healing system.
The theme in Science and Health administers the potency of Spirit as the only substance and power, completely good. You can read the scientific statement of spiritual being, “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is divine Truth; matter is human error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and we are Spirit’s image and likeness. Therefore person is not mortal, but is immortal.”
The rhythmic prose in 21st Century Science and Health appeals to our tradition of inhaling the new, while exhaling the old on a regular basis. You can begin reading wherever you want in the book. Each fresh breathe is infused with the spiritual reality that, “God is Mind, and God is infinite; and so all is Mind.”
The vocabulary in 21st Century Science and Health has been tagged with accessible terms. God is dignified as infinite Mind. “Person” is idea, image. The term “error” is used to denote anything unlike truth and love.
We read, “Remove error from thought, and it will not appear in effect.”
For clarification, error is defined in Science and Health, as, “the theory that pleasure, pain, intelligence, substance, and life, are existent in human mind/body…Error is the contradiction of Truth. Error is a belief without understanding. Error is unreal because untrue. Error is that which seems to be and is not. If error were true, its truth would be error, and we should have a self-evident absurdity—namely, erroneous truth. If an erroneous truth were real, there would be no such thing as Truth.”
After putting aside error, we read that through, “Spiritual reasoning and free thought…” do we discover trustworthy truth and love.
We also read that, “Spirituality is the basis of true healing. Whatever holds human thought in line with selfless love, receives directly the divine power.
“Systematic teaching and the student’s spiritual growth and experience in practice are requisite for a thorough comprehension of the Science of Mind-healing. Some individuals realize truth more readily than others, but any student, who remains true to the divine rules of spiritual Science and becomes one with the spirit of Christ, can demonstrate Science, overcome error, heal the sick, and add continually to their supply of spiritual understanding, power, enlightenment, and success.”
Please bear in mind, the above mentioned “divine rules” are not the same thing as the rules of a church organization. History shows that anytime the divine rules are placed secondary to church rules, spiritual success becomes dim and diminished. But we can wipe off the tarnish of human rules and respond to the gleam and shine of spiritual rules.
I’ve experienced profound spiritual healing in my life, including the healing of 2nd degree burns on half of my face. I attribute the healings to divine Science.
As a freelance writer, when writing, I often choose my subjects. But, I’ve found that the subject of divine Science chooses me; and it’s ever unfolding spiritual ideas continue to be communicated. Now in its 5th edition, the vital components of 21st Century Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures are:
- Use of the latest research made in technical, Biblical, religious, and medical study
- New vocabulary from the expanding English language and today’s idiom
- Footnotes
- The use of modern English versions of the Bible
- Treatment of today’s social issues
- Gender-inclusive language
All first person references are Mrs. Eddy speaking.
Cheryl Petersen
November, 2021: Click here for link to 6th edition of 21st Century Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: A modern version of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health
Tagged: communicate love, fostering children, heal burns
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