Article August 21, 1978 Issue

Does matter really matter?

JULIUS EVANS

Of course matter very definitely seems to matter to those who let it matter. This statement may seem a mere play on words, but it goes much deeper than that. Matter cannot speak for itself. It corresponds to what we think about it. Our acceptance of its claims is the only thing that seems to give it substance or life.

For example, many of the fakirs in India can walk on hot coals without singeing their feet or lie on a nail-studded board without shedding blood. To some extent they have defied certain claims of matter. While it might be foolhardy for most to attempt such feats, these instances do show that the human consciousness can exercise control over matter far beyond what is normally practiced.

Christian Science teaches a wholly different way of mastering matter—mastery of the belief in a mind separate from God. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy advises, "Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action." And farther along on the same page she writes: "Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, were it not for mortal mind." Science and Health, p. 393;

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