Editorial December 5, 1959 ISSUE

MENTAL PRIVACY

Helen Wood Bauman

The ethical and moral rule of Christian Science is that there shall be no mental intrusion, no unsolicited mental treatment. According to all standards set by the Golden Rule of Christianity, to do unto others as one would have others do unto him, the individual is entitled to mental privacy. After quoting the Golden Rule, Mary Baker Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 282 ), "Who of us would have our houses broken open or our locks picked? and much less would we have our minds tampered with." Christ Jesus said (Matt. 10:12 ), "When ye come into an house, salute it." Obeying the Master's command, one is in no danger of being a mental intruder.

One always has the right to keep his thought clear, to attack and destroy his own belief in every form of sin, or ignorance, or disease that confronts him. But a deliberate attempt to change the thinking of others without their knowledge is not Christian, nor is it scientific. It is merely evidence of human will, which blesses no one.

There are only rare exceptions which our Leader makes to the rule of avoiding treating people without their request, one of which is in case of accident where no other help is at hand.

With the discovery of Christian Science, the world moved into an era of mental power hitherto unknown. True, Christ Jesus and his early followers expressed spiritual power and healed through prayer. But the Master left no fixed rules for mental treatment. Now, through Christian Science, the means by which one can give spiritual aid to another are available to all. Untold good has been accomplished through the honest and reverent use of the truths of Christian Science in the healing of suffering humanity.

But to use mental power to manipulate thought, even in the guise of prayer, is the opposite of all that Christianity and Christian Science teach. Mrs. Eddy says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 364 ), "The rule of mental practice in Christian Science is strictly to handle no other mentality but the mind of your patient, and treat this mind to be Christly."

In Christian Science practice, one neither intrudes mentally nor permits himself to be intruded upon. The Scientist knows that evil in any circumstance is illusion and has no identity whatever. In protecting oneself or another from the debilitating effects of mental intrusion, one finds it requisite to impersonalize error, to know that it has no actual identity; for error's chief effort is to claim identity and thus the power to exert the abilities of identity. But these abilities belong to God's ideas alone. Only real identity can have actual consciousness and the power to know and act, which are functions of the reflection of divine Mind, of man in God's image and likeness. Error cannot harm one who realizes the allness of divine Mind and the unreality of the ego which would behave obtrusively, or who maintains a state of purity and excludes carnal beliefs from his thought.

In order to maintain mental privacy and keep out presumptuous intruders, one must remain alert to his mental states and must hold his thinking in peaceful relationship to God. If a disturbed sense creeps in, one should immediately determine whether he has slipped in his own allegiance to God or in defending himself against aggressive mental suggestions.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 71 ), "People unaware of the indications of mental treatment, know not what is affecting them, and thus may be robbed of their individual rights, —freedom of choice and self-government."

By teaching the student to maintain the consciousness of his true identity, which is ever spiritually awake and active in the realization of harmony, Christian Science provides the means of detecting evil action. Mental heaviness, senseless irritability, the impulse to do something that is foreign to one's nature, apathy in regard to the study of Science or to the attending of church services and membership meetings—all are likely to indicate mental intrusion.

Thanks to Christian Science, one need not succumb to any evil influence. The understanding of God's omnipresence and of man's unity with Him acts as a law of privacy to those who are ready to realize the power of spiritual truth and to rule out any belief that man's God-derived consciousness can ever be invaded by error.

Helen Wood Bauman
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LET NOTHING ENTER THAT DEFILETH
December 5, 1959
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