Article November 29, 1930 Issue

Our Protection from Evil

ETHEL MUNRO GOSS

When the understanding of God as omnipotent good is revealed to us through Christian Science, the false belief in a personal devil, which is always obstructing one's efforts towards well-doing, is seen as an ignorant superstition. But sometimes there may be a danger of substituting for the former belief in a personal devil a belief in an evil power called mental malpractice. One may have progressed beyond the belief in a personal devil, and yet sometimes may yield to the temptation of believing that there is an evil power called animal magnetism which is ready to strike whenever a forward step in one's spiritual progress is taken.

There is no warrant anywhere in the Bible or in Mrs. Eddy's writings for believing that disaster should follow obedience to the truth in taking forward steps. If any evil results follow advancing steps, the cause of them is probably to be found in the student's belief in the reality of evil. The fear of evil is the great enemy of mankind. Our Leader did not introduce a new evil when she classed all evil as animal magnetism, but she was aware, from her knowledge of the so-called human mind, that the belief of evil assumes new forms in different ages, that the belief in a power opposed to God assumes new forms to tempt mankind to believe in evil as real. Mrs. Eddy uncovered error's method, and so gave us the means of protecting ourselves and others from its seeming power.

But as evil is unreal, one may ask, why should one need any protection from unreality? We know that our Leader has given us specific instructions regarding our protection from evil, in the Manual of The Mother Church and in many passages in her other writings. She has taught us that protecting ourselves from evil means displacing the belief in the reality of evil with the understanding of the omnipotence of God, good. We have to meet the claim that evil is real in our own thinking. It is in our own thinking that we falsely ascribe to evil the power which seems to have. Whether the belief of evil claims to operate through our own or another's thought, it is in our own thinking that we accept or reject its claim to power.

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