The hydraulic valves with their huge pistons moved in and out at the command of a computer program. They tossed the seat up and down and to and fro in concert with a sound-and-color movie playing in the adventurer's headset. What a marvelous example of the ability of illusions to fool the physical senses, even when the participant is conscious of the intent! This virtual reality machine taught me a useful lesson.

An intriguing question came to thought as I watched another eager participant getting strapped into a chair that would soon be gyrating in all directions. The question was, "Is there a reality that is wholly dependable, completely devoid of danger, totally satisfying and health-giving as well as eternal?"

The answer is yes! Spiritual insight replaces human illusion with reality. This reality is spiritual and eternal. It is the one true reality—God's creation. And there is no other.

The Bible says, "Since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him" (Isa. 64:4). So, here's the key! Choosing spiritual reality according to God, Spirit—rather than the unreal or material scene that the senses present. It is a refreshing concept to many that reality's source and its expression are eternal.

"Theology and physics teach that both Spirit and matter are real and good, whereas the fact is that Spirit is good and real, and matter is Spirit's opposite," writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health. "The question, What is Truth, is answered by demonstration,—by healing both disease and sin; and this demonstration shows that Christian healing confers the most health and makes the best men" (p. viii).

Once I had an unsightly and painful boil on my face. As I prayed to God for help, a passage from Mrs. Eddy's writings on Christian Science came as an answer to my prayer: "The cycle of good obliterates the epicycle of evil" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 270).

To me this passage spoke of the healing power of God's reality, the cycle of good, as opposed to evil's epicycle. I found that the definition of epicycle in my dictionary was a large wheel with a much smaller wheel going round and round within the larger one.

This seemed to depict very aptly the actions of a hamster on an exercise wheel in a cage, going round and round but getting nowhere. But "the cycle of good" seemed to me more like a spiral staircase, going up and up toward heaven.

My clear perception of the reality of Spirit and of the unreality of matter brought quick healing. Within twenty-four hours all evidence of swelling and discoloration had disappeared. My skin was entirely smooth and perfect. What a joy to realize that we can approach suffering or sin as deception and overcome it with the truth that man, as God's image and likeness, is spiritual and perfect now.

Like the huge "virtual reality" machine in the amusement park, everyday circumstances may give the illusion of events taking place that actually aren't. And sometimes one is so bombarded by this false data that the distinction between the real and unreal seems blurred. But here is a totally reliable standpoint: to be in accord with God, Spirit, is to be real. The refreshing concept that Spirit, not matter, is the source of all reality greatly aids our healing efforts. For Science and Health declares, "Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being" (p. 494).

Understanding scientific being is indeed the key to healing. Understanding our true being as God's idea reveals that matter-based assertions have no power before the Love that is God and that meets every need.

Christ Jesus instructed, "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8). Christian Science shows how to do this. Only what God makes is real. As we grow in appreciation and understanding of this reality, healing is the God-sent result.

I THESSALONIANS

Ye are all the children of light, and
the children of the day: we are
not of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do
others; but let us watch and be sober.

I Thessalonians 5:5, 6