There is a significant difference, an infinite gulf, between ideas and illusions.

The ascendancy of one or the other in our thought has everything to do with our level of health and joy.

Spiritual ideas are of God. Illusions have no actual cause. To be undiscriminating between the former and the latter is to be more or less confused and unfulfilled. Christian Science shows us how to filter out illusions, and to recognize ideas and apply them in our lives.

Whatever is destructive and restrictive is illusion. Illusions represent the lie that consciousness can be mortal. Ideas confirm the omnipresence of divine Mind, God. Misconceptions and truths cannot live side by side nor coexist in the same universe. And the only actual universe is the universe constituted of Mind's allness. And it teems with spiritual ideas.

Illusions belong to a supposed universe of matter and material consciousness, and this claimed universe is itself an illusion. Illusions and ideas cannot have the same origin. "Mind is not the author of matter," Mary Baker Eddy explains, "and the creator of ideas is not the creator of illusions. Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power." ^{Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 249:}

The understanding of such points as these is the basis for a scientific approach to thinking and living. It brings order and purpose to our experience. It brings concord to our lives, steadiness and confidence to our outlook.

That illusions can be present in consciousness and deleterious to health and being is itself an illusion. That there exists a state of consciousness or a material condition subject to illusion, or that can be the source of illusion, is—metaphysically viewed—a myth. Spiritual growth involves not so much battering illusions with spiritual truths as recognizing that no truth or spiritual reality can ever be inverted or distorted and so deceive.

As we direct our mental traffic according to the teachings of Christian Science, we channel the illusions back down the road to nothingness where they came from—and relate the ideas to whatever problems may face us. We can cultivate the spiritual perception that makes the needed separation. "How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions?" Mrs. Eddy asks. "By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal." ^{ibid., p. 88:}

That all ideas arise in divine Mind and represent the omnipotence of Mind is a spiritual idea in itself. And it heals. It exposes as falsity the claim that there is a finite, personal consciousness which can entertain misconceptions and disease and outline these on a mental image called a physical body. Such a miserable scene is wholly unreal. The reality is that spiritual consciousness comprises true health; and there is no other consciousness but that which is spiritual. Health, then, is the immovable reality wherever sickness seems to be entrenched or threatening. Because ideas come from immutable Mind they are eternal and cannot be dislodged by illusions.

Sound human notions are not spiritual ideas, though they may echo such ideas. Spiritual ideas are those that fully reveal and evidence the presence and goodness of God. They carry with them the power of God, for they never leave God. They are not somewhere else, because God is not somewhere else. Spiritual ideas, like God, are here and everywhere. So we can't be hindered in responding to Mrs. Eddy's counsel: "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not." ^{ibid., p. 495;}

Christ Jesus was a man preeminently free of illusions and imbued with spiritual ideas. He knew that ideas sustain and nourish us, confirm us in infinite Life. The Christ, the divine idea of God, reveals to us the ideas of substance and Truth. Knowing this, Christ Jesus could state with utter unquestioning conviction: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." ^{John 6:47-51.}

The life and teachings of the master Metaphysician, pondered, assure us that spiritual ideas are potent when understood. The degree of his dominion over claims of matter and alienation from God is unique—so far, unequaled. But his demonstrations hold before us an ideal and an example that restore our inspiration and enhance our capacity to heal. The time will come when the potency of spiritual ideas will be generally admitted by mankind. The possibilities are limitless. Even only a glimpse of these possibilities can begin pulling us out of the molasses of illusion and lift us to the realization of infinite good as the all and only substance of being.

Geoffrey J. Barratt