Article October 27, 1980 Issue

Victory through surrender

SUZANNE FARES

Surrender is victory when the One we are surrendering to is God. Often when we feel we're fighting the world, what we're really confronting is our resistance to Spirit—our need to surrender to the simple and mighty truth that "there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter,"^{Science and Health, p. 468;} as our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, states in Science and Health.

What keeps us from surrendering to what God knows—and being healed? The Apostle Paul called the source of our troubles the carnal mind, which is "enmity against God." Mrs. Eddy's term "animal magnetism" tells us something of how this so-called mind claims to work. She writes: "As named in Christian Science, animal magnetism or hypnotism is the specific term for error, or mortal mind. It is the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful." And she immediately asserts: "This belief has not one quality of Truth."^{ibid., p. 103;}

Identifying mortal mind as hypnotism enables us to see through its mesmeric pictures and claims, no matter how aggressive, horrifying, or delectable they may seem. We should be alert not to be taken in by evil's delicious or dangerous scenes; but if we do find ourselves beguiled by them, we can always break their mesmeric hold by immediate, wholehearted surrender to good—by ascribing all power to God and not a shred to evil.

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