A few months ago I was experiencing flu symptoms, and accompanying the physical discomfort was a deep depression. Apparently, symptoms of depression are not unusual when someone comes down with the flu. At first I tried declaring some truths of Christian Science, but I found I couldn’t articulate any even mentally, much less out loud. It was as if I were beating my head against a wall of granite.

Then I tried to feel grateful, starting with the most simple of things, such as the beauty of the grass and the warmth of the sun. The effort this took seemed almost beyond me, yet I started to feel a little glimmer of light. I sat back in my bed and asked God to show me what I needed. My eyes fell on a Christian Science pamphlet on my bedside table entitled “Handling Animal Magnetism in Healing” by E. Vera Gorringe Plimmer (reprinted from The Christian Science Journal, October 1969). 

That’s when I woke up. I recognized that it was only animal magnetism, the belief in a power apart from God, that was frightening me, and not the reality of being. In the pamphlet, the author, a Christian Science practitioner, explains the need to recognize any impression of an opposite to God as nothingness, through Christian Science prayer and treatment. And she explains how she did this herself while praying for a patient and not seeing healing.