Editorial August 7, 1978 Issue

The fantasy fallacy

Nathan A. Talbot

What a marvel to begin realizing there is only one true consciousness! And that consciousness is Mind, God. In God's allness there is no whim. There is no hazy drifting. All ideas in the realm of Mind are pure and exact. What God knows—and that includes all—is genuine fact. There is no fiction in the presence of divine consciousness.

Man represents Mind. He does not represent a dreamy, changing state of thought. He expresses the clear, undistracted nature of his source. He does not wish and want. He has. The human mind is a misconception of the only Mind that actually exists. Mind is one and is complete. Man gives individual evidence of this truth. The human mind would pervert this truth. It would define existence as a mixture of good and bad—truth and error. Its counterfeit nature includes the inclination to fantasize. Divine Mind maintains eternal spiritual facts. The human mind tends to drift into fantasy because its very roots are in dreams rather than in Truth. Undisciplined thought wanders in the maze of material beliefs.

Some current theories encourage what is thought to be harmless fantasizing about other people. Christ Jesus thoroughly squelched the legitimacy of adulterating the lives of others—especially in thought. His words held far broader implications than an obvious moral point when he stated, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."^{Matt. 5:27, 28;} Couldn't we take the spirit of his admonition as a challenge to the whole concept of picturing and daydreaming or fantasizing over personality? Material sense would dwell on person. Spiritual sense drinks in the joy and purity of Soul. These senses—the only valid senses—find satisfaction and completeness through spirituality, never through material personality.