Perhaps nothing is more baffling to the human mind than to hear that suffering or sickness isn’t real. How can something we see with our eyes or feel through our physical senses not be actual? An in-depth look at three concepts helps clarify this truth: illusion, delusion, and confusion.
Each of these is an act of observing or perceiving material phenomena. Christian Science explains real perception to be spiritual, and gives this insight into Christ Jesus’ healing works: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 476–477). This true perception, or spiritual sense, detects only what God, Spirit, has created.
A speaker at an eye-opening Museum of Science (Boston) lecture demonstrated examples of these concepts. Starting with illusion (which he defined as seeing something evident to the eyes, yet not real), he apparently cut a box containing a woman in half, saying, “It may be impressive, but we know it’s not real!”
