Editorial December 4, 1971 Issue

Eliminating Fear and Its Effects

Naomi Price

Among the rocky mountains of Colorado National Monument is a well-known promontory known as "Cold Shivers Point." Jutting out from the regular mass, this point is capped by a rock that appears ready to fall hundreds of feet into Red Canyon below, though, in fact, it is very firmly lodged.

While there is no danger for the normally careful visitor, it is hard for many people to step out onto this precarious viewpoint, so great is their discomfort brought on by fear of falling. For some, it is hard even to look at a picture of this rock without being seized with cold shivers and weakness of the knees.

Physical sensations of this kind, brought on merely by looking at a picture, show how distinct is the influence that a mortal's mind exerts over his body, and how illusive are both his fear and its physical effects. Clearly the cold shivers are no more than the manifestation of deluded thought. He is actually not in any danger, yet, nevertheless, for the moment he is fearful and, as a consequence of the baseless apprehension, he feels bodily discomfort that seems very real to his material sense. And he will continue to feel ill at ease until his thought changes—until either he stops contemplating the picture and thinks of something else, or realizes through revelation or through the human faculty of reason that he is not, in fact, in any position of danger at all, and never was.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

I have been a member of The Mother Church for forty years