I boarded a crowded city bus. At the next stop I noticed a strikingly attractive woman with long red hair. Wow, I thought, and glued my eyes on her. I was in a trance; could I snap out of it?

A couple of years earlier I had increased my commitment to Christian Science. My hours had been freer, which allowed me to spend a sizable portion of each day in prayer and in studying the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings. I had devoted specific time to the subject of "attraction." I had learned that true attraction is wholly spiritual, originating in God.

What happened on the bus? At least temporarily I had allowed myself to be tugged away from the scientific truth of man, who is spiritual, complete. I stooped to typical materialistic thinking. Not that there's anything wrong with appreciating human beauty, for it can echo the divine. But I was indulging in an almost overwhelming focus on mortal personality, a material structure, all very dazzling to me.

Animal magnetism, the supposititious pull of materiality, is always nothing. Its spurious claim to be our thoughts, impulses, feelings, has only one chance of deceiving us: our agreement with its claim.

What about my anxious response to the woman on the bus? Did this originate in my thought? No, this excessive emphasis on physicality was fraudulent, without real force or existence. Why? Because man is wholly spiritual, his thoughts pure emanations from God. Lust, sorrow, fear, counterfeit God's thoughts; therefore they don't have a basis in reality. Joy, unselfishness, love, are derived from the divine Mind, our only Mind. When we express these qualities, the bleak belief of brain-centered, material thought is progressively displaced. We become increasingly convinced of the unreality and emptiness of sheer physical attraction. Mrs. Eddy writes, "There is but one real attraction, that of Spirit." ^{Science and Health, p. 102;}

On the bus I had the opportunity to see myself and the woman—to see all people—as God's reflection. I affirmed that matter and material thinking had no power to distract or lure me. I saw that sensuality was a decoy that would obscure my vision, take my gaze off spiritual perfection, off man as always moving only in the realm of Mind. Sensuality would even spoil my natural appreciation of beauty. I could now say of the glitter of material attractions, "None of these things move me"! ^{Acts 20:24;}

In the evening I thought about Christ Jesus. He had an amazing ability to attract. He drew not just a few to him but multitudes! How? This attraction had nothing to do with personal magnetism. It was the Christ, the divine idea of God that he expressed, which made him so attractive to others. This Christliness lay behind his remarkable success in healing the worst forms of sin and disease and in raising the dead. His goal was not to attract personally but to express the Christ continually and thereby eject materiality. This is the essence of real attraction. "Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power," ^{Science and Health, p. 192.} Mrs. Eddy writes.

So, what is so attractive about your girlfriend or boyfriend, your wife or husband, your neighbor or even a stranger? Certainly we can appreciate outward beauty. But we need to look deeper for the Christly qualities that make a relationship endure and that constitute man's true individuality. These alone truly attract.