Have you ever glanced through an issue of National Inquirer or Star magazine? If so, did you believe everything you saw on their pages?

If you are a reader outside the US, you may be unfamiliar with these tabloids, but I imagine you have similar publications in your country. They are the type of magazine that frequently get sued by Hollywood stars they write about for falsifying facts, making wild and unsupported claims and drawing exaggerated pictures of reality.

While waiting in a grocery store line to buy food, I noticed the periodicals prominently displayed in a kiosk nearby. The pictures looked tampered with and the headlines were highly sensational.

I thought, “These magazines are an excellent example of why one cannot trust the material senses. They print pictures that are doctored to make a misimpression and they manipulate words that mislead the reader into believing a lie.”

In pondering the message further, I saw lessons for spiritual healing.

Mortal mind frequently tampers with the body to make it look sick and messes with human thought to create sensations of illness. If we are not alert to how mortal mind is mentally tinkering and creating sensations that misguide thought, we might start believing what we’re seeing through the eyes and feeling through the nerves, and thus conclude that we have to be ill when we do not have to suffer.

Like reading magazines of questionable content, from a strictly outward view, the altered pictures look real and the words are undeniably present in print. If you believe everything you see and read you are liable to get duped by misrepresentations. Experience teaches us to be wiser, to question the external evidence and seek out truth.

To succeed in spiritual healing, we cannot believe what the eyes tell us and what sensation reports. The corporeal senses are the agents of mortal mind which often get steered in a dangerous and harmful direction. We must go to Truth, to divine Science, and learn the spiritual facts of being in order to reason wisely and keep our mental defenses from being penetrated by error.

Christian Science explains what Truth is and how to rely upon it for protection. It’s teachings are explained in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, a book that clearly defines Truth and distinguishes it from the errors of sense that lead to wrong conclusions.

Basically, Christian Science explains that we are spiritual beings reflecting a heavenly God that has permanently endowed us with health, harmony and life. As we identify ourselves spiritually,–as God’s ever-present manifestation of health and well being,–we keep ourselves from being duped by mortal mind’s suggestions through the material senses that we are vulnerable, victimized mortals who have to suffer.

We don’t have to suffer. We can stay well, and Truth is our faithful guide to this preserved state of being.

If you’re looking out from a material perspective, don’t believe everything you see! There’s a better view to take in, and Christian Science helps you find it.