Editorial August 27, 1966 Issue

What Is Unreal Can Be Changed

Carl. J. Welz

Describing someone as a rock, or as a mouse, or as a walking dictionary, is using untruths to convey specific impressions which may or may not be true. We call them metaphors, and, as such, they are useful. But because metaphors are not facts, we have complete control over them. If we find they do not represent the truth, we can change them.

This illustrates the control Christian Science gives us over what are called material conditions. Such conditions may or may not represent truth. Science teaches that because God, Spirit, is All, matter is unreal. But this does not mean we disregard everything we see. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes: "To mortal mind, the universe is liquid, solid, and aëriform. Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand for solid and grand ideas. Animals and mortals metaphorically present the gradation of mortal thought, rising in the scale of intelligence, taking form in masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal and divine Principle, Love."^{ Science and Health, pp. 51 1, 512;}

Whatever the material picture, it can be seen as a presentation of real or unreal thought. The picture of a healthy body tells us something very different from the impression we get from a seemingly sick body. Since perfect God is the Principle of all true being and man is God's reflection, man cannot be sick. A sick body, therefore, presents a lie about man. A normally healthy body, on the other hand, represents a truth. Mrs. Eddy says: "Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental facts of being. Then the question inevitably arises: Is a man sick if the material senses indicate that he is in good health? No! for matter can make no conditions for man. And is he well if the senses say he is sick? Yes, he is well in Science in which health is normal and disease is abnormal." And she continues, "Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health."^{ p. 120;}

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