Various teachers have used a movie theater analogy to describe the subject-object relationship. I recently discovered a new example from Emmet Fox with a slightly different frame:
Too often you try to change outer things instead of changing the inner. You are firing at the screen instead of the projector. So nothing happens. But when you start to change your consciousness you are firing at the projector, and then things happen. If you don't like the picture on the screen, change the reel. If you don't like the picture you are seeing, and would like to see some other, you wouldn't get a cloth and rub it off as if from a blackboard. You would take out that reel and put in the reel you want.1
The movie screen is object. That which observes the screen, the observing self, is subject. We are often caught up with objects—wiping the screen, trying to change outer things. Practical solutions, when available, should be pursued. But in many cases, changing the reel is a far better option.
Many thanks to the Reverend Karren Scapple, Ph.D., with the Unity Archives, for providing me with an archival copy of this important essay.
- Emmet Fox. Life Is Consciousness. Unity [Magazine]. 1936;85(4):2–12 [October]. Emphasis (highlight) added ↩︎