Article February 17, 1968 Issue

Where Is Consciousness?

EMMA SIMMONS RADCLIFFE

Are we listening to the voice of Truth that is forever speaking of the living faith in the allness and oneness of God, or are we hiding in the false belief of mind in matter? Speaking of Adam's fear after eating the forbidden fruit, Mrs. Eddy says, "Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind governing man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the beginning, and will hide from the demand, 'Where art thou?'"^{Science and Health, p. 308;}

When we are believing life to be in matter, there is a penalty. In the allegory of Eden it was the fear of penalty that caused Adam to hide from the presence of God. Later, in the account of Moses' experience with the rod and the serpent, this same fear of penalty caused Moses to flee. The story tells how Moses, bidden by God to cast down his rod, saw it become a serpent and "fled from before it."^{Ex. 4:3;} But again, at God's command, "he put forth his hand, and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand."

In solving our own problems, it is never wise either to hide or to run away from error but to see its unreality and overcome it by knowing its nothingness. The rod was no more spiritual than the serpent. Both were material, but the rod typified Moses' spiritual understanding—a glimpse of that immortal consciousness later to be exemplified in Christ Jesus—while the serpent represented the fear or ignorance of a mortal mind or materiality.

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