The word "subjective" is generally considered to relate to that which is perceived by or is within the consciousness of the individual; and the word "external" to that which appears to be outside one's consciousness. To the material senses, creation seems to consist of material things, persons, places, and activities outside the individual. But Christian Science reveals that these so-called material phenomena exist as such only in that which is called in the Bible the carnal mind, or, as it is designated in Christian Science, mortal mind.

In "Miscellaneous Writings," Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 286), "Human procreation, birth, life, and death are subjective states of the human erring mind; they are the phenomena of mortality, nothingness, that illustrate mortal mind and body as one, and neither real nor eternal."

The subjective condition of mortal existence is illustrated in the nature of dreams. An individual, while asleep, may dream that he is in a foreign land, seeing many interesting things and meeting many people. The whole dream experience is subjective, within the dreamer's own consciousness, yet it seems to be external—outside him. A friend in the same room with him would not be aware of this dream illusion until the individual awoke and told him of it.

Mrs. Eddy tells us in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 109): "Matter is but the subjective state of mortal mind. Matter has no more substance and reality in our daydreams than it has in our nightdreams. All the way mortals are experiencing the Adam-dream of mind in matter, the dream which is mortal and God-condemned and which is not the spiritual fact of being."

Just as a person adjacent to a dreamer cannot experience or enter into his dream, so one individual cannot experience the sickness or discord of another. In the case of contagion, the sickness is experienced only by those who have accepted it in consciousness as a reality and have yielded mentally to the suggestion of disease.

Because of the subjective or mental nature of all human existence, it is important that the individual gain a clear sense of his true nature as revealed in Christian Science. This Science reveals that God is Spirit, the cause or Principle of all true existence. The conclusion must be, then, that all creation is spiritual and that true existence is subjective, existing always in the realm of Spirit, or in divine Mind.

This perfect Mind, being the only Mind, is therefore the Mind of everything that actually exists, and all creation includes the sum total of the ideas dwelling in eternal Mind. There is in reality no such thing as a mortal or carnal mind to conceive of matter or a material creation.

It is evident from these basic facts that every mortal condition, every so-called material object, is but a counterfeit belief, a dream image without existence in divine Mind and appearing only in the dreamworld of mortality, or nothingness.

As human consciousness becomes educated through the acceptance of the revelations of Christian Science, it will surrender its false beliefs of existence and be reformed; that is, it will acknowledge and adopt the spiritual concept of existence—the truth of spiritual identity in divine Mind -and the individual will gain improved concepts of body, health, success, security, and well-being.

The experience of the revelation of God's nature to Moses in the wilderness is an interesting illustration of the subjective nature of human existence. After Moses had fled from Egypt, he dwelt for some time in the wilderness, learning some lessons of human experience.

When his thought was finally purified to the point of spiritual receptivity, he stood before the burning bush. Then he received the revelation of God as the great I AM and at the divine command decided to return to his people in Egypt and lead them out of slavery.

Throughout these mental experiences, the inner voice of wisdom was speaking to Moses. The Word of Truth, or the Christ, speaks to human consciousness and guides every receptive individual in his journey from material sense to the understanding and demonstration of life in Spirit, in divine Mind.

The master Christian, Christ Jesus, rejected entirely the false belief of life as existent in matter, that is, as existing apart from the mentality of the individual. He said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

Through spiritually enlightened thought, the Master's beloved disciple John gained some understanding of the subjective nature of all existence while sojourning on the Isle of Patmos. He saw a new heaven and a new earth, in a subjective experience, in which he lost all sense of the counterfeit, the socalled material creation.

Let us maintain that the material universe is but the false concept of the illusive mortal, or carnal, mind. Then let us pray for that spiritually enlightened state of consciousness in which the new heaven and earth appear as God's ever-present universe of spiritual ideas dwelling eternally in the security of Spirit, divine Mind.

Harold Molter