Article July 9, 1979 Issue

Mastering fear

MICHAEL D. RISSLER

After moving into a new house, I discovered several large spiders on the front porch and decided to spray the area with some powerful poison. Actually, it was my fear of their poison that prompted me to take the offensive. As I sprayed, a gust of wind blew the chemical back into my face, and a few hours later physical distress began.

A common approach to fear is to feel it but plunge ahead with whatever one has to do just the same. In fact, a football coach once told me the essence of manhood is being afraid and then going ahead in spite of one's fears. Yet Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "When fear disappears, the foundation of disease is gone."^{ Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 368;} We also read in the same book, "We should master fear, instead of cultivating it."^{ ibid., p. 197;}

Christian Science declares that fear is never a good thing, never a necessity. It explains that to master fear one must become more spiritually-minded. That means knowing God better, exercising spiritual intuition, understanding what is truly good, and desiring such good more than anything else. This spiritualization of thought not only overcomes fear but saves the individual from the thing he feared.

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