Editorial February 7, 1959 Issue

SUBJECTIVE ASPECTS OF EXISTENCE

Harold Molter

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.

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