Article January 20, 1992 Issue

Taking off the blindfold

The Christ is present now to open our eyes—to show us the spiritual reality of our perfection in God's care.

John K. Daniels

How much are we affected by what we believe is happening to us? Even when what we believe is happening to us really isn't?

A group of Oxford students once found out when, as an experiment, they trickled warm water over the arm of a man who was apparently blindfolded and restrained. Convinced that the fluid was his own escaping blood, and fearing that the loss of so much blood was fatal, the man died. It was a cruel experiment carried to extremes. Mrs. Eddy refers to it in Science and Health to drive home the point that uncorrected beliefs, no matter how illusory their basis, can be detrimental, even destructive.

What would you or I have done if we had been a bystander in that room? Motivated more by compassion than by a desire to witness how far the man's mistaken belief would carry him toward death, wouldn't we have felt and obeyed the spiritual impulse to tell him what was really happening? Wouldn't we have told him that there was no reason to fear, that his arm had not been cut, and what felt like blood trickling down his arm was really warm water? Even though the blindfold was still in place and he couldn't see what was happening, wouldn't he have responded to the true information enough to give up his unquestioning acceptance of what his fear and his misinformed senses were telling him? Of course he would. Our information and the sincerity of our concern would shatter his unfounded belief that he was dying. He would have been told what was really happening—that his senses were lying to him and he was not in danger.

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Taking off the blindfold

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