AT a vaudeville performance which the writer attended, a professional hypnotist induced a boy who consented to be his subject to believe he was eating ice cream and had spilled some on his coat. He took out his handkerchief and to the amusement of the audience went through the motions of removing the sticky substance. Was the boy's predicament due to the ice cream being on his coat? No, but to believing it was there, to having yielded to the suggestions of the hypnotist. He could not and did not remove the ice cream, for it was not on his coat. Only the mesmerism needed to be broken. When the boy was freed from the hypnotic suggestion, he no longer believed he saw what had never been present.
The recollection of this performance has often helped the writer to see the illusory nature of sin, sickness, and lack. Material systems regard sickness as a reality and attempt to heal it with drugs. But to admit the reality of sickness and then attempt without drugs to cure it is equally fallacious. Furthermore, it is far removed from Jesus' method of healing as practiced today in Christian Science.
Discussing this important point, Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 230), "If sickness is real, it belongs to immortality; if true, it is a part of Truth." Then she asks this pertinent question: "Would you attempt with drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or condition of Truth?" She then continues: "But if sickness and sin are illusions, the awakening from this mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us into health, holiness, and immortality. This awakening is the forever coming of Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth, which casts out error and heals the sick." Our beloved Leader here shows that there is in reality no disease. That which appears as disease is an externalized suggestion of mortal mind that is dispelled and replaced with harmony when one awakens to Christ, Truth.
