A: The only comment that I can make is this. In our work, it has not been found necessary to touch anyone or to make a physical contact of any kind. I presume that you already know that in the beginning of the metaphysical practice that was Mrs. Eddy’s earliest practice, there were physical contacts. They were slightly different than those of today. In those early days, the practitioner and the patient would sit back-to-back, so that their spinal cords touched, and if they did not sit that way, they sat knee to knee, so that their knees touched. And in that way, a contact was established, which was deemed necessary to the healing work.
But, when Mrs. Eddy learned that some of the boys and girls weren’t quite behaving under that system, she decided that it would be better for them to be sick than to be healed that way. And so she undoubtedly experimented and found that healing could take place just as well without that contact. And from then on, she forbade any physical contact in her work.
Now, I am not unmindful of this—that there are people who have become aware that when they touch someone, that there is a power that goes through their hand that results in healing. Now, I have met several of these, and they are very honorable people, and those that I’m speaking about I know do good healing work, and they actually do feel a power course through their hand.
Well, of course, I’m in no position to say that they could do the healing work just as well without it, because they probably couldn’t, unless they themselves came to the realization that physical contact was not necessary. Therefore, I would say this: Everyone has to follow that which is their own inner light, and if there are people led to a place in consciousness where it has been made clear to them that their power runs through their hand instead of through consciousness, I’m sure that it is absolutely right for them to heal in that way.
We do not teach it in the message of The Infinite Way, and we know that it is not necessary from the standpoint of Infinite Way practice. If an individual finds that that is their way of practice, they may not call it Infinite Way healing because it is not Infinite Way healing. It may be spiritual, and undoubtedly is, but it is not in accordance with the Infinite Way practice.
And I will caution you about this also—we are not organized as a religious body; therefore, we are not under the protection of any legal law. For that reason, it may be that if you do any of this laying on of hands, or touching patients, or recommending water or something, that you may find yourself under the legal law of practicing medicine without a license.
The only protection that we have is the protection that is given to us by our own spiritual integrity. That’s our only protection. We have no legal protection; there are no legal laws. But if we continue our ministration purely through prayer, there is no law in the world against us, for no nation has yet created a law forbidding prayer. So therefore, we are inside the range of all law, as long as our ministry is a prayer ministry.
At the very moment that we recommend that someone should take this remedy or that, even as innocent a thing as a vitamin pill, it can be construed that you are practicing medicine. Therefore, if your patient wants to take vitamins, we have nothing against that, the food—not a medicine; it’s not a remedy. That is their business, but don’t you recommend it, because you will be recommending the use of what is known as a remedy, and it could be said that you are practicing medicine, and then you’ll find yourself in trouble with the law.
In the same way, if you touch a patient, it may be construed that that is some form of chiropractic or osteopathy or some other thing that here and there may not be legal. So for our purpose, please remember that ours is a prayer ministry. We do not have to be physically present with our patient. They can be in far-off Australia or Hawaii, or the North or South Pole, and our work would be just as effective if they themselves realized the nature of prayer work.
Now, the entire secret of successful prayer work is, “not by might nor by power, not by words or by thoughts, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.” And so the degree of quiet that you can attain within, the degree of inner peace so that the Spirit of the Lord can flow, will be the degree of your success.
It is for this reason that we do not look for mental causes for physical diseases. In the human picture there may be some mental causes for physical diseases. I’m not quite as much of a believer in it as some are, but probably there are some things in that nature. But that’s not our business. We don’t care what caused it; we care what cures. And we know what cures it—the Spirit of the Lord God—nothing else, because nothing else is the Spirit. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” . . .
So, leave the subject of touching the patient to those who are led to that. And never sit in judgment on it; there is no such thing as a right or a wrong; there’s just a question of—whatever is, is. That’s the way it is.