Article April 6, 1981 Issue

"Obstacle" illusions

GLORIA ELAINE MARLATT

While teaching four-year-olds in a Christian Science Sunday School, I asked what the word "illusion" meant. "Actually it's called an obstacle illusion," one bright youngster told the class, and then he went on to explain how our eyes can trick us. The youngster's use of "obstacle" for "optical" amused me.

Many times I have thought back to those marvelously descriptive words "obstacle illusion." Any improper view of our true existence as the harmonious reflection of God is an illusion. "Error," Mrs. Eddy explains, "is false, mortal belief; it is illusion, without spiritual identity or foundation, and it has no real existence."^{Science and Health, p. 287.} How often do we allow a mortal illusion to become an obstacle?

The error of believing that sickness or any evil condition is real makes discord seem a fact. False belief produces what we might call an "obstacle illusion." But sin and disease are always without foundation in Truth and, consequently, can never exist in or interfere with spiritual reality. Man is the reflection of God; he possesses all health, harmony, and happiness continuously. The man of God is not imperfect; he is perfect now, expressing the absolute dominion of his Father-Mother God. In reality, we are this man, and any suggestion to the contrary is error, an illusion of mortal mind with no reality.

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