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For two thousand years, our Western European
culture has developed in the context of the works and teachings of
Yshua ben Yosef of Nazareth, called by most, Jesus Christ. For most Europeans and
Americans today, the miraculous healings ascribed to Jesus are
considered either mythical impossibilities arising out of the
biographers’ ignorance and adoration, or the result of powers unique
to Jesus as the One God, incarnate.
For a few hundred thousand people around the
world, though, the words “these things and greater shall you do,”
ascribed to Jesus in the New Testament, have been taken
literally. For this
group of people, the Gospel is more than the story of Jesus’ life;
it is a manual for living—and healing.
This is the story of the founders and leaders
of that movement, the people who have dared to heal themselves and
others, living and teaching a New Thought about who we really are
and what we are capable of doing.
More, this is an exploration of what they did
and how they did it. It
is an attempt to understand why hundreds of thousands of people
experienced healing and relief from troubling symptoms in their
presence. Recent scientific studies and theories shed useful insight
on the processes and ideas that these people have used and taught
over the last 150 years—insight that may provide a model for therapy
in the future.
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