Spiritual Mind Treatment as a Method

Religious Science, founded on Ernest Holmes's 1926 book The Science of Mind, practises what it calls spiritual mind treatment, an affirmative form of prayer with recognisable steps addressed to the condition itself rather than framed as a request submitted to a separate divine person who might grant or refuse it. Holmes's own text sets the method out as a discipline to be learned rather than a spontaneous form of address, moving through stages of recognising a universal creative Mind, identifying the one praying with that Mind's goodness, stating clearly the outcome sought, giving thanks as though it were already accomplished, and releasing the treatment from further anxious attention. Catherine Albanese's history situates this structured method within the wider New Thought current's confidence that thought, held rightly and worked with method rather than mere hope, has a direct bearing on circumstance, a claim spiritual mind treatment turns into a repeatable practice rather than leaving as an abstract metaphysical assertion. The Encyclopedia of American Religions notes that practitioners are trained, and in Religious Science's later Centers for Spiritual Living form specifically certified, to offer treatment for others as well as for themselves, giving the practice a professional structure closer to pastoral counselling than to congregational prayer.