Article August 9, 1913 Issue

ILLUSIONS

REV. WILLIAM G. SCHOPPE.

Mrs . Eddy says that "mortal mind sees what it believes" (Science and Health, p. 86). Hegel declares that "true progress consists in the removal of illusions." A sense of fear means perversion. It has been the custom of mortal mind to hold distorted images of being. This mind has filled the world with false concepts of Deity and demanded their worship. It has formed in thought erroneous pictures, and then objectified the general mentality, so that even thinkers of each succeeding age have shared the error. The common illusion has seemed reality until Truth has stripped off its disguise. In this respect no age has seemed to learn much from the experience of former ages. Each one thinks that the past cherished falsehood, while the present is filled with light. Each one blindly hugs its own pet illusion and persecutes the revelator who disturbs its dream with the awakening truth.

When Christian Science challenged the mortal contradiction of the ages by boldly declaring that all which seems opposed to the action of infinite Mind is not true, but mortal illusion, it was scorned by the dominant forces whose thinking had been coerced by established systems. The more free and spiritual method, even the vision of God as absolute causation and His manifestation in the spiritual idea, casting out the false sense which claims that evil has real being in the realm of infinite good, is hinted in history and established by sound reason. The thread of illusion that runs through human experience is readily admitted. For thousands of years men believed that the sun circled the earth each twenty-four hours. It seemed so till the science of astronomy corrected it, and persecution was the lot of denial. Galileo, under the rack, was compelled to recant "the abominable heresy that the earth moves." Sport was made of Columbus for believing there was land on the other side of the globe, and people asked, "How could men walk with their heads hanging down?" Emerson says, "We live in illusion."

Confusion, doubt, and the mists of limitation which darken human experience, so border on the normal action that the mortal man touched with doubt is compelled to ask, Am I awake? Is there a sure line of demarcation between the real and the apparent? Are things what they seem? What is the influence that presses on mentality? Is it mesmeric, or real? The rationalism of history has been engaged in a sharp conflict to separate truth from illusion. Often the craft of men has been involved. Entrenched interests have held to the illusion, while the flaming sword of truth has led the deliverance. In the childhood of the human race, childish thought was objectified in wondrous forms. The gods and demigods, which were creations of mortal thought, appeared in forms of men. Their actions were as questionable as the minds that formed them, but until a more rational awakening came there was no one heretical enough to deny their reality. Strong and good men shared the common delusion.

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