“We must give up the spectral at all points. ” (SH 353.)
“Spectral” is the adjective form of the noun “specter”, or “spectre”.
Words related to spectral are spectrum, spectrometer, spectator, spectacular, spectacles, etc.
A specter is a visible ghost or apparition that induces dread, an extreme, incapacitating form of fear, something quite different from hidden or unconscious dread.
The Greek word for “idolatry” is eidolon, which means “thing that is seen.”
The Bible is constantly admonishing me to place my trust in the invisible God, and not to be moved or influenced by outward appearances.
Carpenter’s WATCHING POINT 153 –
“Watch lest you accept the common notion that the small power represented by David’s little stone, overthrew a great power, called Goliath. David, as the visible representative and manifestation of the omnipotence of divine Mind, was the invincible giant, equipped with infinite power that overthrew Goliath, whose power lay wholly in deception through size.
“The trick of the mesmerism of sense testimony, is to reverse everything, magnifying the nothingness of error so that it seems like a giant, and belittling the power and presence of Spirit.
“Thus, when we come to a problem that seems gigantic, we should not ask God for more power; we should handle animal magnetism, that our eyes may be opened to see things in their proper relationship and size.. Then we will recognize ourselves as representatives of God equipped with omnipotence, going forth to meet a foe no more to be feared than a sparrow.
“Christian Science does not equip man with greater and greater power, so that he may go forth to meet the gigantic forces of evil; but it takes from his eyes the magnifying glasses of sense testimony, which cause error to loom up as real, swollen in size and power.
“Once a boy was told that the high-stepping horses of the gay nineties were trained to step high, by putting magnifying glasses on them, so that small stones would appear as boulders in their path. In this way they would lift their feet much higher than was necessary, to step over them, and thus become high-steppers.
“Whether this story is true or not, it does illustrate the fact that the belief of matter birth puts mortal mind’s ‚glasses‛ of material vision on mortals, so that the pigmy of human powerlessness and nothingness is swollen to appear as a Goliath of power and vengeance. When spiritual understanding takes away this distortion, and enables man to have a clear vision, he beholds the utter nothingness of nothing, and the great fact of God’s allness. In this way the Goliath of mortal mind is vanquished.” [Emphasis added.]