Editorial May 9, 1959 Issue

ROOTING OUT SELF-DECEPTION

Helen Wood Bauman

All will agree that there is no element of self-deception in God, who is Truth. Self-deception belongs to the untrue consciousness, which the Scriptures term the carnal mind, that mind which is "enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7) and which is called mortal mind in Christian Science.

This Science shows that the sick are self-deceived as long as they believe that sickness controls their bodies. The fact is that the sick produce their own ills through their beliefs and fears or through ignorance of their mental states. And an undeceived, spiritualized state of consciousness restores health.

Science also shows that sinners are self-deceived as long as they believe that sensation and pleasure are in matter. For matter has no sensation, and its seeming sensations are mesmerically self-produced. As a matter of fact, the sinner is mesmerized or self-deceived even before he seeks a sinful sensation or commits a disobedient act. But the humble recognition that God, Truth, is the only Mind breaks the mesmerism of the carnal mind, and the impulse to sin is destroyed. The lie is silenced, and error's determination to produce false sensations or to lead men into byways of disobedience to God is rooted out.

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