FROM THE EDITORS August 20, 2007 Issue

DEFEAT CONSPIRACY AND MISTRUST IN IRAQ—AND EVERYWHERE

Editor

"THERE ARE TWO MENTALITIES in this region, conspiracy and mistrust," said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki earlier this summer as factions within the Iraqi Parliament continued to block steps toward greater political stability and reconciliation ("Iraqis Are Failing to Meet US Benchmarks," The New York Times, June 13, 2007).

Mary Baker Eddy defined these elements of thought, seen today in the obstinacy that has afflicted Iraqi efforts to unite, as animal magnetism—a specific term that defines all evil. In her writings, she made clear that both conspiracy and distrust, as well as other aspects of evil, are never attached to a particular person, thing, nation, or religion. In their own way, evildoers are actually victims of the delusion that evil acts have power. Their belief that selfishness, pride, and willpower—along with political manipulation—can bring them permanent good, is at best misguided. If anything, such a belief leads merely to an impermanent state that ultimately breaks down and leads to more violence. The problem is that many innocent lives are disrupted or even lost through that process.

In a short article titled "Ways that are vain," Mrs. Eddy wrote: "The malicious aim of perverted mind-power, or animal magnetism, is to paralyze good and give activity to evil. It starts factions and engenders envy and hatred, but as activity is by no means a right of evil and its emissaries, they ought not to be encouraged in it" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 213).

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