Article December 7, 1974 Issue

Who Cracks the Whip?

GEORGIA D. ADAMSON

When a cattleman wants to move a recalcitrant steer, he often cracks a whip to startle it into obedience. Imagine how astonished he would be if the steer were to crack the whip at him instead! It's too absurd to contemplate. Yet isn't this, figuratively speaking, what happens when we surrender our thoughts and actions to mortal mind's apparent control?

We do not have to yield to any unreal influence. According to Christian Science, mortal mind is a totally false view of God and man—it is error, material sense. We do not have to accept mortal mind's domination. In fact, we have a divine mandate to refuse to do so. Mrs. Eddy explains in Science and Health: "Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God's man."^{Science and Health, p. 151;}

Why, then, do we sometimes find ourselves relinquishing our self-control under God's government to mortal mind? Perhaps we drift into this state gradually, unaware that we are doing so, by becoming complacent and relaxing our guard. Our affairs may be proceeding so smoothly that we forget the necessity to protect our thoughts from unwelcome intruders. Instead of acknowledging that things are going well because under God's government they cannot do otherwise, we may tend to take for granted a smooth-flowing state of affairs.

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