Article June 27, 1908 Issue

THE PURSUIT OF A SHADOW

FRANK H. SPRAGUE.

In Science and Health (p. 403) Mrs. Eddy declares that "mortal existence is a state of self-deception and not the truth of being." Let us imagine a person standing with his back towards the sun. Noticing the shadow which his body casts in front of him, he reaches out to lay hold of it, but it eludes his grasp. As he advances towards it, it too advances. He watches its movements and observes its changing aspects; but the more he studies its peculiarities the more perplexed he grows, until at length it occurs to him that the thing he is investigating is not after all a substantial entity which is there on its own account, but merely a phenomenal effect dependent on some unperceived cause. Yet, from his present outlook, he is unable either to discover this cause or to find an intelligible explanation of the manner in which the effect is produced. He concludes, therefore, that these questions must be involved in unfathomable mystery.

Pausing for a moment, his attention is diverted from the shadow on which his gaze has been riveted. His eye is attracted by a gleam of sunlight. As he follows its rays in the direction from which they seem to proceed, he glances backward over his shoulder, and in so doing catches a glimpse of the sun. The situation becomes plain to him at once. His recognition of the sunlight and his realization that the sun casts no shadows clear up the mystery. He sees that the shadow is only an intangible, unsubstantial, distorted image of his own figure—a darkened area occasioned by the obstruction his body offers to the rays of light.

This sketch illustrates, in some respects, the experiences which befall mortal mind engrossed in the pursuit of material knowledge, and the subsequent dawn of spiritual understanding in human consciousness. Regarding matter as an objective reality or entity, conceding the legitimacy of material claims, mortal mind seeks to solve the problem of being on the basis of its observations in the realm of materiality, until thought, turning away from the contemplation of material phenomena,—the dark images or shadows of material beliefs,—catches the reflection of Truth in Christian Science, and is led to turn to divine Mind, in whose light the true or spiritual phenomena of being appear to spiritual sense.

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