God's Perfect Child : Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church

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Summary: Challenge your assumptions
Review: Caroline Fraser has rendered an invaluable public service by writing this exposé of one of the world's most dangerous pseudo-religions: Christian Science. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who, like myself or Ms. Fraser, was unlucky enough to grow up in a stultifying C.S. family. Others who may be curious about the reality of Mary Baker Eddy's insane philosophy owe it to theselves to read this book. It will open your eyes to the real Truth, aka reality, not the so-called "Truth" of Mrs. Eddy. No, Mrs. Eddy's sick cult kills, quite literally. Yes, there is what one might call an "escape clause" in Christian Science fine print that allows its members to seek medical help if they have doubts about the strength of their faith to cure them. However, 99.999% of all Christian Science literature is obsessed with denigrating medical science, spreading maudlin anecdotal tales of people "healed" by faith and promulgating an absolute denial of our physical existence. Its underlying message to Christian Scientists is crystal clear: you cannot be a real Christian Scientist if you do not rely 100% on C.S. to cure disease. To do otherwise infers that you are not among God's chosen. Peer pressure can be a horrible thing, and many religions, including Christian Science, use it both subtly and ruthlessly. It's no wonder so many Christian Scientists elect to forego medical help when they need it and suffer the tragic consequences, despite the escape clause.

Buy this book. Read it. Recommend it to others. It could save your life or the life of someone you love.

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Summary: A misleading book--Very different from my experience
Review: Caroline Fraser's acidic take on Mary Baker Eddy, her discovery, and her Church, is sometimes interesting but largely inaccurate and one-sided.

Ms. Fraser's upbringing in Christian Science was negative, which is unfortunate and sad. She understandably begins with the premise that Mary Baker Eddy and her theology are at fault for the odd practices of her father. She doesn't consider the possibility that her father's interpretations of the theology may have been off the mark.

For instance, Mr. Fraser refused to wear a seat belt in the car or provide a radio on his boat, believing that to do so would be tantamount to admitting that an accident might happen. To me, this is a view that rejects the practical, common sense teachings of Christian Science for an abstract, impractical one. I have rarely met a Scientist who shares such views.

My experience as a parent raising children in Christian Science is, I'm grateful to say, very different than Ms. Fraser's experiences growing up in a Christian Science household. Unlike Ms. Fraser's description of the teachings she received at home and in Sunday school, I do not teach my children that tables and chairs are unreal nor do I ask them to believe they are not sick when they are sick. I try to help them see, using words they can easily understand, that the original cause for all illness is a limited, untrue concept of the nature of God. From that misconception arises disease. Healing comes when the truth of God's being replaces the misconception.

This method of treatment, contrary to Ms. Fraser's strong statements, is not faith healing, although faith is certainly an element of all healing practices, including medicine. Faith healing, as I understand it, is the practice of petitioning God to take away disease. Christian Science treatment is an affirmation of God's omnipotence and omnipresence, which "stirs the human mind to a change of base," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health."

Christian Science does not teach that these misconceptions belong to or originate in the thought of the patient or in the parents of a sick child. (There is no "blame-the-victim" mentality in the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy.)

As a public Christian Science healer, I have never advised a patient on how to handle their physical problems. If they choose to go to a physician or other health-care provider, I have never tried to persuade them not to. Nor have I ever said or implied that doing so would prevent them from having Christian Science healings in the future. In fact, I have visited with patients in hospitals and health-care facilities, and successfully treated a newborn baby for a potentially life-threatening problem while he was being cared for, but not treated medically, in a hospital.

The attending physician, upon discovering the child was completely well, asked the mother if she had been praying. When she answered that she had indeed been praying, the physician said, "It's the only explanation for his recovery."

I can't recall conveying anything but love and support in such cases, even when I had the ethical charge to remove myself from the case, avoiding problems that arise from conflicting treatments.

It seems ludicrous to me that any Christian Science practitioner would say or imply, as Ms. Fraser has them saying in her book, that it would be better for a patient to die rather than choose conventional medicine over Christian Science treatment. There is absolutely nothing in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy or the Bible to warrant such a statement.

In Parts I and II of her book, Fraser writes a mini-biography of Mrs. Eddy, citing source materials that have been proved to be biased against Mrs. Eddy. In fact, when the University of Nebraska Press reissued the notorious Cather/Milmine biography, one of Ms. Fraser's sources, a disclaimer from the publisher read in part:

"...new materials have come to light which suggest that Ms. Eddy's enemies may have played a significant role in organizing the materials for the 'Milmine' biography. New information about Georgine Milmine, moreover, suggests that she would have welcomed biased opinion for its sensational and commercial value."

It would appear that when inaccurate sources are used for research, unfair conclusions are reached. Many of Ms. Fraser's conclusions about Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science contradict those of Gillian Gill in her exhaustive study of Mrs. Eddy, published last year. Ms. Gill had no ties to Christian Science and hers is an excellent objective biography.

As an example of the unfair treatment Christian Science is given, Ms. Fraser brings up many instances where Christian Science treatment allegedly failed to produce healing, with virtually no detailed examples of the thousands of healings that have occurred.

Ms. Fraser implies that many of those failures would have been prevented had the patients (and parents of sick children) turned to conventional medicine. Ms. Fraser makes no mention of the growing body of criticism being published about the practice of medicine, such as Stephen Fried's exhaustive book on adverse drug reactions called "Bitter Pills."

Fried quotes a nationally known pharmacologist as saying, "Doctors are caught in a double bind. They swear to a Hippocratic oath, 'Do no harm.' And every time they write a prescription they're [taking a chance of] breaking that oath."

Ms. Fraser also dismisses the growing number of physicians who recognize the large number of randomized, prospective, double blind studies that show the positive benefits of prayer and religious practice on health. It would seem hard to argue with the experience of patients who have experienced healings through prayer.

There is no doubt that the Christian Science Church has been through extremely trying circumstances throughout its relatively short history and that there is room for improvement in many areas. But the basic facts of Mrs. Eddy's life, of her theology, and of her church are there for any unbiased thinker to explore and discover. Many who have explored Christian Science have found healing.

Rating:
Summary: Gripping! Read this to better understand your CS friends
Review: Having met many kind, intelligent and delightful Christian Scientists, I always wondered how to reconcile their fine characters with what I considered to be their illogical and dangerous beliefs. This book has been extremely illuminating. The religion is an amazingly powerful force, posing a tremendous barrier to common sense and reason even in the finest minds.
The book is ground-breaking in revealing Eddy's personal history and discovery of "healing;" the 19th-century philosophies and beliefs that influenced her thinking; the growth of her religion and her own wealth, prestige, and paranoia; and the many internal power struggles and scandals that have corrupted and fragmented her church. It was particularly illuminating to read how any discussion of beliefs and doctrines -- even asking questions -- is forcefully condemned by the church's leaders and teachers. (In comparison, my Catholic education was free-thinking and wildly liberal.)
I now see that my CS friends are not permitted to question their faith in any way. It is too dangerous for them; they risk the censure of their community and the loss of their whole way of life.
Fraser offers a thoughful consideration of some of the more "unusual" concepts of CS: the belief that nothing material actually exists; that diseases and all bad things are imaginary (while "cures" are somehow real); why dentists and obstreticians are acceptable, but other forms of medicine are not; how "MAM -- "malicious animal magnetism" can magically cause bad things to happen; and how parents can watch their children slowly die of terrible diseases that have simple medical cures. Naturally, none of this makes sense to a non-believer, but Fraser opens a window onto how believers can justify all this, and more.
A few decades ago, this book would have been quickly suppressed -- censored -- by the church, who for most of its history had tremendous influence with publishers and booksellers. Since it has lost that power, we now have the opportunity to read some of the fiercely negative reviews of this book on this site by Scientists. Their frothing, desperate attempts to discredit the book perfectly illustrate what Fraser says about the rabid defensiveness and dishonesty of the church. While they accuse her of exaggerating and lying, they pretty much prove a lot of her story. You can almost feel the "MAM" they are directing her way. (Oddly, it seems to affect their ability to spell correctly....)
Surely they realize that their religious leaders, and "Science and Health" itself, forbid them to read critical books like this one! Let's all pray that they don't get sick from having done so.

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Summary: Accurate and nuanced emperor-has-no-clothes portrayal
Review: I grew up in a Christian Science family and tried for years attempting to confirm in my own life that its principles of "healing demonstration" actually worked, before giving it up when I began to actually start thinking for myself partway through college. Based on my own childhood, it was obvious from the lengthy preface's emotionally nuanced, on-target portrayals of the characteristic inner life and other features of a Christian Science upbringing that this was going to be an insightful book.

Many have focused on the corruption, backstabbing, and stonewalling in the Mother Church as documented in Perfect Child, or have argued about the book's portrayal of Mary Baker Eddy. But for me its thematic core lies in its rich storehouse of insight and examples about how the psychology of denial inherent in the practice of C.S. gives rise to the "shadow" side of the movement, both in the individual lives of adherents as well as how this shadow has been collectively woven through-and-through the movement's history from the beginning. As anyone knows from Psychology 101, any time a part of the psyche is suppressed or regarded as unreal, it merely expresses itself in distorted and unconscious ways, and much of this book is about just this fascinating side of Christian Science.

This includes not just the toll taken in terms of wrongful deaths as discussed in the central sections about the "child cases." As tragic as they are, these cases and/or those of permanently disabling untreated illnesses or accidents probably only involve a modicum of Scientist families. The underlying tragedy which affects almost all is the deeply buried, warping, psychological split it creates in adherents who must live in the material world while fantasizing it doesn't have the power or the reality that it does.

The insidious psychological distortions and pretend-games this introduces into individual Christian Scientists' lives (numerous examples of which are heart-wrenchingly and at times farcically documented in Perfect Child) certainly are not what the Church will say it officially sanctions. But overall, a movement is inevitably going to be, has to be, judged by the real people who practice it and the effects it has on them in real life, not the ivory-tower theory behind it, as this book amply demonstrates.

Looking back, I never saw a verifiable instance that Christian Science could "heal" any physical problem of significance that wasn't a typical self-limiting illness such as flu, fever, or cold that wasn't going get better on its own anyway. It amazes me it took me so long to accept the obvious, even if I was just a kid then.

To this day, I remember the kindly little old ladies in church crutching around with canes or looking at you only half-seeingly through cataracts. I remember the nice, sincere guy several classes ahead of me in Sunday school with the withered, palsied arm and hand, clenched claw-like against his side that never got better; the daughter of one of my own Sunday school teachers with a serious case of psoriasis or eczema on her face that never went away; myself, one of the first in grade school to have to get eyeglasses starting at age 7 due to progressive nearsightedness; my own father who put off treatment of life-threatening kidney disease till he very nearly died before finally accepting medical treatment in his last years before dying an early death. And my own dear mother who continues to believe in the efficacy of Christian Science to this day even as arthritis encroaches, and while on high-blood-pressure medication and estrogen.

I was personally fortunate in that my own parents eventually came to ignore, not only in their lives but in their children's, the Church's stricture against "mixing" C.S. and medical treatments. However, that they nonetheless continued to believe in the efficacy of C.S. is demoralizing for a child and remains incomprehensible but is, alas, typical, and a recurring element of the episodic tragedies that unfold in this book. Such is the mesmeric power C.S. can have. And as Fraser points out, to put the onus on followers for not being able to "practice" or "understand" the religion "correctly" is just the same old blame-the-victim game played on people since time immemorial.

If you are a former Christian Scientist, the book will answer a lot of questions you may have had about what's beyond the images that even followers are fed: what exactly were those controversial "Kerry letters" of the 1970s that were only whispered about; why was "class instruction" kept so secret; what was the big deal about "malicious animal magnetism"; what are the quote-unquote "documented cases" of C.S. healing the official Church cites in the Journal and Sentinel really worth, and what do the few studies out there in actual peer-reviewed scientific journals reveal; how long ago did the movement peak, really, and how far along is its decline; and the pivot-point of the book--the "child cases" of wrongful death and child neglect against which the Mother Church has worked to legislate immunity, through the use of unscrupulous tactics hidden from the rank-and-file.

For those of you who aren't Christian Scientists, you'll get interesting insights into classic traits of Christian Scientists such as the passive-aggressiveness, bland denials, reaffirmations of untruth and fantasy, and the double talk that often typify their response to things they don't like but are supposed to try to be nice about. Just like some of the reviews you'll read on this page from current adherents and higher-ups within the Church. Don't let those deter you--read the book and decide for yourself.

Rating:
Summary: A profoundly disturbing yet important book.
Review: I read this book about a year ago. I found it immensly disturbing. Yet, at the same time, it is a fascinating and important book. I've not known many Christian Scientists, but I have read Science & Health and am well acquainted with many of the ideas of Mary Baker Eddy.

Among the contributions of Mary Baker Eddy has been to highlight the relationship between faith and health. However, I do believe that one should not negate medical science. The world in which Mary Baker Eddy lived and our world today are vastly different. Seeking healing through prayer might have very well been prudent in the 19th century. Medical care was not what it is today. I count myself as a religious person, but I don't see the need for abandoning medical care.

While highlighting the good of Christian Science, Carolyn Fraser also lets us see another side. It is a profoundly disturbing picture.

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Summary: Essential Reading on Christian Science
Review: Like Caroline Fraser, I too am a former Christian Scientist. I was raised in Christian Science, joined the Mother Church in my teens, graduated from Principia College (for Christian Scientists only), was president of a college "Org" while in grad school, and attended church services until I was in my early 30's. So I can testify to the spot-on accuracy and fairness of Fraser's portrayal of Christian Science in this book.

Hostile reviewers have claimed that Fraser's father, described in the prologue, is some sort of "oddball" Christian Scientist for habits such as not using the seatbelts in his car. In fact, if you truly believe that "accidents are impossible in God's kingdom," as Scientists are taught, then there is no logical reason to use your seatbelts. Christian Scientists who do use seatbelts, like previous reviewer Richard Biever, are tacitly acknowledging that at least some teachings of Christian Science are ridiculous.

After the brief personal account which opens the book, Fraser devotes about the first third of the book to a review of the life and career of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Her primary source, contrary to hostile reviewers, is the church-approved biography by Robert Peel. Fraser does not set out to write a full biography; rather, her focus is on clearing away the mythology Scientists have constricted about their "beloved Leader." For example, Fraser demolishes one of the central Christian Science myths, that of Eddy's "fall on the ice" in 1866, which supposedly led to the epiphanic moment when she "discovered" Christian Science.

Fraser also describes the CS Church's efforts to suppress any unfavorable treatments of Eddy in print. For example, a publisher recently reissued Willa Cather's well-regarded biography in 1993. Unable to prevent publication, the Church coerced the publisher into issuing a vaguely worded "disclaimer" with the book, which the church has used to try to delegitimatize it.

The remainder of the book deals with several issues that the Christian Science Church has had to deal with over the 20th century, such as controversies over church governance and the church's media activities. The section that has stirred the greatest hostility among Christian Scientists is Fraser's segment entitled "Christian Science goes to Court." Here Fraser recounts many of the legal challenges to Christian Science over the years. Her emphasis is on the responsibilities of Christian Science parents to properly care for their children. In 1974, the church lobbied the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare to issue a regulation which effectively coerced states into passing laws shielding Christian Scientists from prosecution for withholding medical care from their children.

The consequences were tragic. Fraser recounts several wrenching accounts of Christian Scientist's children dying, often in extreme pain, from diseases that were easily curable if medical care had been obtained in time (these are what Biever calls "alleged failures"). Attempts to prosecute parents for negligence failed for the most part, thanks to the laws obtained by the church's effective lobbying.

But what of the successes of Christian Science, say its adherents, such as Richard Biever, who refers vaguely to "thousands of healings." You wouldn't know it from hostile reviewers, but Fraser deals with this issue thoroughly. She notes that in fact there is NO credible evidence of the "healing power of prayer" to heal anything other than psychosomatic illness. Fraser analyzes and debunks church propaganda claiming the contrary. She also notes research by William Simpson, which demonstrates that Christian Scientists have significantly lower life expectancies than do comparable groups who accept medical care. Simpson's findings are hardly what you would expect if Christian Science were truly an effective "healing method."

Why, then, do Christian Scientists believe so strongly in the effectiveness of their "treatments." I would attribute it to three reasons. First, as Fraser makes clear, Christian Scientists deliberately shield themselves from learning how the human body works. (For example, like most Scientists, I was excused from health education in school, and I was well past 30 before I even opened a book that had anything to do with human biology). As a consequence, Christian Scientists are ignorant of how effective the body's defenses are against disease.

Second, like many people, Christian Scientists commit the post hoc fallacy: A Christian Scientist feels ill, so they "know the truth" about their situation. After some time, the cold/flu/headache/fever/ankle sprain/etc. goes away, and the Christian Scientist concludes "I've had a healing." Not understanding that such "healings" can be attributed to the human immune system throwing off the cold virus or whatever, the Christian Scientist reaches an invalid conclusion.

Third, Christian Scientists simply ignore or rationalize away their failures (as do the fans of psychics). Fraser describes two chilling examples of this tendency. She cites a deposition given by a practitioner, Thomas Black, in a court case related to a child's death. Black stated "Whenever Christian Science is properly applied, it heals." He explained that the child's death came because "Christian Science was misapplied" by the parents. Even more callousness is shown by Ruth Brewster, another practitioner, in a "testimony of healing" in a church publication. Brewster described rearing four children, claiming that none of them ever had "an activity missed because of illness." However, Brewster had once had a fifth child, a daughter who died at 7 years old of an untreated illness, who she simply pretended had never lived.

The inability of Christian Scientists to address their failures is the most important issue raised by Fraser (though not the only important one). Christian Scientists are often dishonest with themselves and others. If the Christian Science movement is ever going to regain the vitality it had early in this century, Christian Scientists are going to have to start being more honest. Reading this book and confronting what Fraser has to say would be a good start.

In sum, I think that every Christian Scientist should read this book with an open mind. Non-Scientists with an interest in the church or its activities will also find it fascinating.

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Summary: Thanks, Carolyn!
Review: This book is a revelation, and it is liberating. Anyone born into the Christian Science faith who either grew to wonder, doubt, rebel - or mainly found it impossible to reach a "perfect child" state - needs to read this book! It is, as Spaulding Gray writes on the jacket, an excellent deprogramming map. I, too, have watched loyal Christian Scientists die from lack of medical attention - usually in a twisted combination of agony and guilt that they couldn't "understand the truth" well enough to escape the sickness that claimed them. Among these people were my parents, as well as a number of Sunday School teachers. As a former class-taught "scientist" and Sunday school teacher, I began to have serious conflicts about a perfection I could never reach, and sought the help of psychological counseling. Children are taught in Sunday school to see other people like Christ did - purely, as God's "perfect child." To think of someone, or some situation, as unfair, or awful or terrible, is to be un-Christlike. In this manner, one grows up to smile in the midst of pain, learns not to speak up to the dirt that might be done to him, takes upon himself the responsibility of an evil act, cannot call a spade a spade. In this manner, one trusts an ideal mind rather than his own mind, and thereby doubts himself at every turn. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how psychologically damaging this might be. I told the counselor we had been taught to, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus..." (the 6th tenet of Christian Science). "What are you doing to yourself?" said the psychologist. "There is only one Christ. He's perfect. You're not! It's o.k. to be human!" After receiving swift medical attention for a potentially serious condition, I received a call from a church member who said, "Dear, you will see one day that this never really happened." My other friends, meanwhile, were bringing me soup and flowers and cheering me on. This was a clarion call for me to get away from this church. Such twisting of reality is very harsh on children who have grown up in a faith foisted on them by their parents. As a child, I suffered numerous earaches that ultimated in my losing a lot of hearing. I always believed (because I was told) I was saved from total deafness by Christian Science, and the faith of my mother, who took me to a practitioner instead of a school for the deaf. Imagine what it felt like when, at the age of 54, I was told that my fever-induced earaches might well have been assuaged by a simple aspirin! The horrific part of this story is not about dealing with hardness of hearing - I've adjusted well with the use of a hearing aid - it is about being so programmed as to reinvent reality, or to believe a reinvented reality, to this extent. Nietszche wrote much about the horrors of religion being shoved down the throats of children - and anyone subjected to such programming could do well to check out what he says. I agree with the previous reader who commented how liberating it is to take an aspirin for a headache rather than consider it an enormous moral issue. There are Christian Scientists who do not dare leave their house each day until they've studied the "Lesson-Sermon" - and sometimes that will be about noon. Is the constant prayer espoused in Christian Science a form of extreme fear? The day I realized I didn't have to pester God every day with prayers was a great day. It was a great day, too, when I realized I felt perfectly happy and safe taking my chances with the rest of the world, that I didn't have to have the mind of Christ. It is great to just be a normal human being with faults and warts and passions - to say what one really feels deep down. I thank Carolyn Fraser for writing this book!

Rating:
Summary: Challenge your assumptions
Review: To those who believe, no proof is necessary; to those who don't believe, no proof is possible. Isn't religion grand? Having read the book several years ago, and recommended this to many, I am astonished at the unsophisticated name-calling, "yelling" and general attempts at discrediting a thoroughly researched and backed-up tome by so many of the reviewers. Perhaps they doth protest too much?

I didn't think it was humorous, but generally a rather sad comment on human nature that this belief system ever matured at all. I never sensed this work was just Ms. Fraser's opinions, well-intentioned or otherwise. Her detailed references removed that doubt.

I was most fascinated by the idea that "mainstream" medicine at the time shared much of the culpability. Today this is still not much different - CS is alive and well in my hometown, and as a practitioner of holistic allopathic medicine, I remain disgusted at my own colleagues and quacks in general who clamor to have the absolute answer to anything that ails us, with a general undercurrent of blame.

Though having several ex-CS friends, the politics of CS were new to me, and completely verifiable. What remains most enigmatic to me, well beyond CS, is that spiritual healing of any sort could ever come at a monetary price. Oh nevermind CS, the Catholic Church perfected that long ago.

Shortly after I read this book, I was asked to see a man with widespread prostate cancer, clearly suffering. On his hospital bedside table, was a copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. I was shocked to ever see this in my practice, and he was clearly shocked that I knew what it was, much less that I could have any understanding of it. I am thankful that this book allowed me to understand his perspective with an open mind, and helped me take much better care of him. So I thank her immensely for teaching me yet more about human nature and "medicine", CS or otherwise. I unreservedly recommend this book for healthcare providers in general.

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Summary: Helpful insider's view of an unusual belief system
Review: Under the impression that there was a companion web site to this book, I performed a web search on "God's Perfect Child." Imagine my surprise when the second site listed by the search engine was none other than the Christian Science Mother Church's own web site-- specifically, an article from the "Christian Science Journal," crediting the religion with the healing of a child's hyperactivity without the aid of Ritalin.

Caroline Fraser could not have orchestrated a better illustration of the surprisingly pervasive influence of this tiny sect. (I use the term not in a pejorative sense, but in a technical one). Granted, the phrase is taken directly from Eddy's writing, so it is appropriate that a CS site should appear in a web search for the phrase, but I could not help noting the irony.

I purchased this book in an attempt to understand more about former fiancé, the only Christian Scientist I had ever known. Reading it, many puzzling things about my fiancé became clearer. Traits I had seen in him-- ignorance of medical or biological facts generally known to non-CS schoolchildren, a heated refusal to consider that we are part of nature rather than outside it, acceptance of anecdotes as evidence-- turn out to be integral parts of church teaching. I always wondered why he seemed so cranky when he was sick or troubled by something. Now I realize it was because he saw himself as a bad (or at least ineffective) Scientist. Being imperfect was agonizing for him.

In an earlier effort to understand more about his beliefs, I attended a couple of his church services. Fraser's descriptions of the Christian Scientist world meshed nicely with my own experiences there. Three things stood out to me: first, how few people were present in this, the largest Christian Science church in our city; second, how young my 45-year-old fiancé suddenly seemed, compared to the rest of those gathered there; and third, how "nice" everyone seemed, in a stepford-wife sort of way, unwilling as they all were to speak of anything disturbing or unpleasant.

This last trait, combined with a terminal passive aggressiveness (those disturbing things have to be expressed one way or another!), turned my fiancé into my ex-fiancé. At first I felt a little guilty about the breakup, thinking perhaps that I simply wasn't tolerant enough of his unusual religion. As Fraser helps illustrate, however, the religion trains its followers to embrace these relationship-killing characteristics.

This insight alone was worth the cost of the book. I recommend it for anyone trying to understand where a Scientist is coming from, or for a glimpse of how personality-driven sects first prosper and then (inevitably) decline after the charismatic person is gone from the scene.

Rating:
Summary: Lack of understanding...
Review: Unfortunately Ms. Fraser does not have a thorough understanding of Christian Science and neither have most of the people who have reviewed the book, here or elsewhere.

Again, unfortunately, you can't NORMALY get an understanding of CS from the perspective of the human senses.

However, if one were to try then I would suggest reading "The Self-Aware Universe" by Amit Goswami. Mr. Goswami is not a CS neither does he seem to even know what Christian Science is. However, he hits the nail on the head and all from the starting point of Quantum Physics.

To Ms. Fraser and to James L. Dickerson who reviews this book elsewhere. Question... How many children have "died" at the hands of physicians? You sanctimonious, illogical twits.

Christian Science doesn't try to heal anything per se. Christian Science tries to teach an understanding that consciousness is primary in the universe and that being part of this universal consciousness we can not be separated from it. When we come to a complete understanding of this then our material "display" TENDS to come into line with this understanding.

That's the basics of Christian Science. No more hokie-pokie than saying that there is a God, period!