Following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria several months ago, I found a new reason to be grateful for having been brought up in Christian Science. I remember the guidance my mother gave me when we went to the movies at the time of the Korean War. Before the film started, there were newsreels showing the devastation in Korea. When this came on the screen, my mother had me lower my head so that I didn’t take in these intense images. This wasn’t to shield me from the news itself, since I was aware that there was war in the world. In fact, my father had recently returned home from serving in World War II. But I understood that the reason for my mother’s request was to not let such jarring images fill my thought, so I was obedient.

Fast forward to the earthquake. All television channels in Turkey, where I live, were inundated with nonstop live broadcasting from ten provinces. All had scenes showing destruction. After receiving word of the earthquake, I started watching TV at home before going to work, and then on my computer at the office, forgetting to “stand porter at the door of thought” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 392), in order to shut out images arguing for the reality and power of death and destruction.

After dinner that night, my stomach felt uncomfortable, and I started having intense pain in my back. The thought came that if I would lie down, this would go away. So I lay down, but the pain didn’t go away. Then I heard a clear thought from God, and I realized what the problem was. I had been attributing power to evil when I watched those scenes on TV. Mrs. Eddy’s writings use the term animal magnetism for this mesmerizing belief that evil is a power that can contradict God.