Article November 20, 1909 Issue

Christian Science strongly opposes every effort to influence...

J. R. Mosley

Savannah (Ga.) News

Christian Science strongly opposes every effort to influence another mentally against his highest good, whether this is done under the name of hypnotism, mesmerism, animal magnetism, or any other name, or under no name at all. But while Christian Science rightly insists that all wrong thoughts and efforts must be corrected and overcome, it overcomes what is called animal magnetism, or what the psychologists call pernicious mental evil, on the same basis that it overcomes other phases of evil. It teaches that the Christ way of overcoming evil with good is not only the best way, but the only way by which it can be destroyed, and thus made unreal to human experience.

It does not teach that animal magnetism or wrong mental influence and action is real and that sickness is merely imaginary, but it teaches that every phase of error, whether it be sickness, or death, or sin, is unreal in the sense that it is not of God, and is therefore not real in the sense that all that God made, constitutes, and governs is real. In other words, in Christian Science the real, the good, and the Godlike mean one and the same thing. But, as previously indicated, whatever is less than good and healthy and wholesome must be grappled with and overcome, that God and His perfect will, ways, and works may be All-in-all.

While a lie is unreal in the sense that it is untrue, the way to destroy falsehood is through knowing and voicing the truth. While sickness is unreal in the sense that it is not of God, not eternal, not natural, and that it can be overcome, to make it unreal to human experience requires right thinking and right living. In like manner, Christian Science says that while wrong mental influence and action are unreal for similar reasons, it nevertheless insists that they must be resisted and overcome in order to make them unreal on the human plane. In this connection it is only right to recognize that Christian Science, in common with all forms of pure Christianity, teaches that those who put their trust in God and will to do good and only good, are protected against every phase of evil. Only those can be hypnotized by evil who yield to it rather than resist it. No one can be mesmerized against his will.

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