Editorial September 21, 1963 Issue

Daily Defense

Carl J. Welz

The practice of Christian Science is preventive as well as curative. To prevent disease, we must understand its supposed cause, and we must know how to deal with that cause. The cause is mental, not physical. By attacking the cause and destroying it, we heal the disease. By attacking and destroying the cause before a disease appears, we prevent the disease.

In Christian Science we learn that the source of enmity against health and harmony is mortal mind. The supposititious activity of mortal mind we call animal magnetism. On page 484 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says, "Animal magnetism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error in all its forms; it is the human antipode of divine Science." We learn further that this "voluntary or involuntary action of error" is an illusion, which has an effect on individual human consciousness in the degree that it succeeds in convincing the individual that the illusion is a reality.

We learn that God is the only Mind and that man is the image and likeness of Mind. Man is in no way subject to the influence of mortal mind or animal magnetism. In the degree that we are conscious of our true selfhood in Mind's image, we are immune from the false claims of animal magnetism. But in the degree that we believe ourselves to be mortal, material beings with minds separate from the immortal Mind, we are subject to animal magnetism, which this belief includes.

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