SENTINEL WATCH November 21, 2005 Issue

TIRED OF BEING GOOD?

ELAINE FOLLIS

I SAW A TALK SHOW last summer on the topic of extreme teenage behavior, including binge drinking, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Asked why she was pursuing a collision course with disaster, one emaciated young woman said, "Because I'm tired of being good."

Where did she get the idea that being good is tiresome? It probably came to her, as it comes to most of us, as a suggestion masquerading as her own thought. But in reality, it was a product of evil — what traditional Christianity personifies as Satan, and what Christian Science refers to as animal magnetism.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "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. This belief has not one quality of Truth" (Science and Health, p. 103).