There are a number of statements from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy that point to the mental nature of existence. And for me, these statements are a reminder that the images we hold in thought are integral to how we experience things, what makes us happy, what causes anxiety, how we live our lives. For example, there's this statement: "Close your eyes, and you may dream that you see a flower,—that you touch and smell it. Thus you learn that the flower is a product of the so-called mind, a formation of thought rather than of matter. Close your eyes again, and you may see landscapes, men, and women. Thus you learn that these also are images, which mortal mind holds and evolves and which simulate mind, life, and intelligence" (p. 71).

Each day presents us with any number of mental images, and it's not long before we learn that these images need to be watched carefully. They can sometimes be misleading; they're sometimes even evil or violent. Since our peace of mind, our mental health, and thereby our experience are tied to how and what we think, these images aren't to be taken lightly.

If we see in a movie or on television, for example, a violent scene that seems authentic or captivating, or even if we read graphic details of the world's latest atrocity, it's important— whether we're confronting fiction or actual news accounts—to determine prayerfully that the violent images are incapable of gaining any power to attract us, to harm us, or to hold us hostage. While we don't ignore human suffering, our course of thought must be conscientiously brought into line with the power of God's all-encompassing love and unopposable goodness, which He has for everyone. This is our best defense, and a sure way to help others. The spiritual perfection that God has created is what is absolutely true. To feel and know what is true helps us to arrest thoughts of violence, horror, or even self-destruction.

Is someone a bad person because the allure of violence or anger might appear at the door of his or her thinking? The Bible tells us that Christ Jesus was tempted in many ways— even to cast himself from the pinnacle of a temple. Yet those temptations didn't stain him or become a part of his identity (see Luke 4:1-13). They were seen for what they were: suggestions, and suggestions only. They couldn't actually move Jesus to act on the temptation. They stopped when he firmly rejected them and went on about his Father's business of helping and healing mankind.

Everyone's real identity is the man that God has made. We are all the expression of omnipotent good. No thing, suggestion, or temptation can ever change this fact. Therefore each of us is truly always peaceable and God-governed, always upright. When we stick to the truth of our real, spiritual God-given identity, we have a weapon that arrests and destroys violent thoughts.

But what about the world around us? How often do we hear reports of terrorism, abuse, and violence and feel helpless to do anything at all to stop them? I know I've felt this way. But we're never helpless, because through prayer we have that power of God's all-encompassing love, that goodness that can never be opposed, to challenge such violence. And prayer is effective because it not only transforms our own thinking but it purifies the atmosphere of thought for all humanity. Science and Health points out why it's essential to deal with what's in thought. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Is it not clear that the human mind must move the body to a wicked act? Is not mortal mind the murderer? The hands, without mortal mind to direct them, could not commit a murder," says Science and Health (pp. 104-105).

Ultimately isn't it more effective to manacle and destroy the thoughts that would move someone to commit a wicked act, rather than forcefully to prevent—or even destroy—the person or persons who seem to be a threat? Christ Jesus surely knew this. Once he met a person who was such a threat that people had tried unsuccessfully to bind him with chains. The man also inflicted harm on himself, cutting himself with sharp rocks. When Jesus freed the man from madness, self-destruction, and violence, people then saw him "sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind" (Mark 5:15).

What could arrest such violent thinking? If we look at all that the Bible contains about Jesus, the only answer could be that it was the power of prayer, drawing upon God's universal love and protection for all of His children, and thereby thwarting malicious intentions and deeds. And just as Christ Jesus looked to prayer in this situation, we can do it here and now, both for ourselves and for others.

As an example: When I was in college, I served at night once in a while at a Christian Science Reading Room located in an international airport. One night when there wasn't much going on in the airport, I decided to study prayerfully—and very diligently—some citations from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health. After about twenty minutes had passed, a man ran into the room. He was definitely not in control of himself. He said, "I've just escaped from an asylum, and I'm going to force my way onto a plane and hijack it."

I thought it strange that he would want to tell me this, but then something occurred to me—that the action and love of God might have impelled him to come for the ideas I'd just been praying about. I began talking to him about those ideas, and even though his eyes were flashing all over the room, he began to listen a little bit. I don't think he understood anything of what I was saying at first, but the feeling behind the ideas began to get across. After a while he sat down to listen, and then asked where he could learn more about what I was saying.

A distinct change came over him as we talked for a while longer—it was absolutely clear that he was no longer a threat. I explained how he might contact a Christian Scientist to come visit his institution, and as he left with a copy of The Christian Science Journal containing the information that would help him do that, he said in a very balanced, composed manner, "I am going right back to that asylum and get out of there legally. And this (he held up the Journal) is going to help me do it."

In retrospect, it was certainly the power of prayer that arrested the violent thoughts, which might have harmed others, and probably at the least would have caused the man himself to be arrested. In those minutes before he came in, I'd been praying really to see more of what God is, and to know more of how God has created man. I glimpsed that God, divine Mind, is truly the only power and creator. That everything in God's creation is a manifestation of divine Mind. When these facts were clearly seen and brought to bear upon this potentially violent situation, the power of spiritual truth checked the violent intent and caused the man to think clearly and intelligently. He left that Reading Room calm and composed. It was obvious he wouldn't cause harm to anyone.

To see consistently our true nature—how God is maintaining us as His perfect children, at this moment—is a constant effort. But it is also joyful, and God helps us to do it. "Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb," states Science and Health (p. 248). Responding to God's, immortal Mind's, messages of truth helps you to know your real self, and therefore makes it easier to know how God has made others. Such spiritual self-knowledge and understanding are vital to arresting violent thoughts, to defusing potentially violent situations, and to healing the effects of violence itself.

Mark Swinney

Managing Editor of the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Journal