Reality vs. Special Effects

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“The divine Principle of the universe [ — not the carnal mind — ] must interpret the universe. God is the divine Principle of all that represents Him and of all that really exists.” (SH 1)

Mortal mind interpreting — that is, explaining the meaning of — the Creator is more untenable than asking a lump of clay to describe the potter, or enlisting an American toddler who can barely say “mama” to be interpreter of an obscure Arabic dialect on a noisy battlefield in Afghanistan.

The carnal mind — putting itself first, last, and always, intent upon crowding out God — is enmity with Mind (Rom. 8:7). From the self-exaltation that so offhandedly places itself on the level of Deity, that so curiously claims authority to interpret God without the help of God, comes all the manifestations of tyranny on earth, small and great: from manipulative parents attempting to bulldoze the strait and narrow path upon which every child of God must walk alone, insisting on widening it that they may walk beside their child, whispering advice or barking orders, knowingly or unknowingly displacing the presence of God in the life of that child; extending all the way to leaders of nations aspiring to world domination, as H. G. Wells once observed, “The natural political map of the world insists upon itself. It heaves and frets beneath the artificial political map like some misfitted giant.” Thus is the tenacious intentionality and desperation of error to make the unreal real and the real unreal.

Tyranny is insatiable, emerging from the bottomless, insatiable netherworld of personal sense like a great red dragon enthralled in the mesmerism of its own imagined superiority. Yet, as Mrs. Eddy tells us (SH 563), on further examination we find this dragon to be unconvincing, nothing more than make-believe, nothing more than smoke sputtering from an out-of-control special-effects machine befogging the movie-studio-dream-factory of none other than . . . mortal mind itself, dreaming its impossible dream of dominion apart from Almighty God.




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