The grizzly bear delusion

Glenn Williams

Sheila Alioto

On a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana with another couple, my wife and I were looking forward to seeing grizzly bears in the wild. As we approached the park, we stopped next to a construction flagger who shared with us that they were experiencing the most bear sightings in years.

Upon arrival in the park, the first stop was the side of the road where a crowd had gathered—we were informed they were watching a grizzly bear. Once we had parked and joined the crowd, the bear was pointed out as sitting just inside the tree line about 150 feet or more away. The group consisted of people from all over the country, and we were all very excited at finding a bear so soon upon arrival in the park.

After watching with the crowd for 15 minutes or so, a bored tourist began walking across the grassy field toward the bear to get a closer look and a better picture. The crowd was concerned and began to grow frightened and angry with each successive step the man took, yelling at him to stop. But he kept walking.

Fear for his well-being grew palpable and more intense. When the man reached the halfway point, with the crowd pleading for him to return, he raised his camera, looked for a moment, and then started laughing.

He turned to the crowd and said . . . , “It’s just a tree stump.”

Amazingly, when we all looked again, armed with this new information, it was very apparent that we had been looking at a stump. In fact, it was difficult to even understand why we had thought it was a bear at all! The correct knowledge instantly dissipated the fear and replaced it with laughter and good-natured ribbing.

What happened that so drastically changed the scene from one of fear and anger to jovial good-natured conversation? The truth was revealed. Once the truth became apparent, it was inconceivable that any of us could have been so gullible as to mistake a tree stump for a bear. How did a large crowd end up getting fooled so completely?

I think it was because we were so anxiously anticipating seeing a bear that we accepted illusion as fact.

How did a large crowd end up getting fooled so completely?

It was apparent that everyone in the crowd had the same interest and excitement at seeing live grizzlies as we did. So it is likely that a passenger in a car, watching the woods intently as they drove through the park, saw a shadow and cried: “Stop the car! I think we just passed a bear.” And with one person convinced, the scene drew an anxious crowd of other bear watchers who were also ready to believe.

It occurred to me that this is how mortal mind works. Mortal mind has no power to create anything. So it parades illusions before us to see what we might accept as real. Illusion is a deceptive appearance or impression; delusion is self-deception. When we accept a false belief and let it into our thoughts as real, we allow ourselves to be deluded. So in my experience with the stump, the illusion was that the stump appeared to be a bear, and the delusion was my readiness to accept it as one.

Our crowd on the side of the road was not the first to fall for a piece of wood appearing to be a dangerous creature. Moses experienced the same illusion and delusion when God was preparing him for the rescue of the Israelites from Egypt. The rod Moses had in his hand became a serpent from which he fled. But God bade Moses return and “handle” it, and he discovered the illusion. God showed Moses the same was true with disease when He had Moses put his hand in his robe. On pulling his hand out, it appeared that he had leprosy.
That delusion was corrected when Moses reversed the action and again “handled” the fear (see Exodus 4:1–8). And Mary Baker Eddy wrote in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, “Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God’s image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives” (p. 5).

This lesson became relevant on the last morning of our stay in the park, when my friend’s husband said she was already in the car because she wasn’t feeling well and asked if I would pray with her. Seeing this vibrant, engaging, joy-filled friend lying listless in the front seat didn’t in any way appear real to me since that wasn’t the woman I know.

We talked about the earlier experience and how it was lunacy to believe that we would fall for the same illusion twice—we were not going to allow mortal mind to claim again that this “stump” could become a “bear.” This was simply, at its root, the claim that life was in matter, material not spiritual, and that symptoms of sickness and disease were substance and reality. But it wasn’t in our nature as expressions of God to be fooled. I shared other thoughts as they came and then we prayed the Lord’s Prayer. With our spouses joining us, we started the drive home. Within a very short time my friend raised her seat and was quickly freed from illness.

When mortal mind claims something that you know is not true—whether it appears to be sickness, an injury, lack, unemployment, or even a bad day—do not allow it to make a “stump into a bear” by accepting that an illusion has any power, reality, or effect on you. You don’t have to let illusion become delusion. You are the child of God, and you have the power over mortal mind’s claims, so use it!

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