Every day Karen went to the barn to watch Dee-Dee, a dark chestnut mare, and Critter, her wobbly-legged foal, in their stall. John, the farm manager, always kept the stall fresh and clean, supplying flakes of sweet-smelling hay for Dee-Dee to nibble. Often after she had scattered out the hay flakes and was ready to enjoy them, Critter would flop down right in the middle to take his nap. Dee-Dee would quietly eat the hay around him—careful not to disturb his rest—and wait until he got up to eat the hay beneath him. Karen loved the peaceful atmosphere and was always careful not to make any sudden moves or noises to disturb this gentle scene.

However, one day when Karen went to watch them, she saw Dee-Dee had a metal cast on her back leg. Karen looked again, closer. Yes, a sheet of galvanized metal ran up the inside of her leg to her knee. The base of the cast covered her foot.

"What's happened?" Karen wondered. "Maybe John had that cast put on to keep her from kicking the stall—or from pacing around in it too much. Maybe it's to keep her from hurting herself or Critter.

"No," Karen reasoned, "Dee-Dee is too sensible and gentle to do anything to harm herself or her foal." Karen continued to watch her closely. Dee-Dee was walking around in her stall with the cast held securely in place by a red metal strap. Step, step, step—klunk. Step, step, step—klunk.

"Maybe she broke off part of her hoof somehow—and John had this metal cast put on so she could keep on using the foot and care for Critter.

Karen was a bit indignant that John hadn't told her about Dee-Dee's mishap and what he'd done about it. But when she asked him to explain, John claimed he knew nothing about the situation. Karen insisted he must know, and John finally said, "Let's go and look."

When Karen and John got to the stall, there was Dee-Dee standing with that metal cast on her back leg. John didn't go into the stall right away. He stood outside and watched—and thought.

Finally he said, "Oh, for goodness' sake!" And he opened the stall door and went in. "She's stepped in the grain scoop!" apparently Critter, in his curiosity, had put his tiny muzzle through the stall grills and had pulled the grain scoop from a nearby ledge—and Dee-Dee had stepped in it. Now, in a few minutes the grain scoop was removed, and Dee-Dee was walking around quite normally—step, step, step, step, instead of step, step, step—klunk!

Karen and John both laughed about Dee-Dee wearing the grain scoop. But later Karen thought about her reactions. "Why couldn't I see that it was a grain scoop and not an injury? Why could John see it so quickly?"

Then she understood. Because John knew it wasn't true. He knew there'd been no injury, and he knew he hadn't put any cast on her leg. He saw Dee-Dee from the standpoint of this knowledge and could readily identify and remove the grain scoop. Karen realized that her concern over the "cast" was needless. It had been brought on by an illusion that there had been an injury or accident. She'd been deceived by her own thinking. And then it dawned on her, "Why, this is the way mesmerism and evil would work!"

As a Christian Scientist, Karen knew about the chapter in Science and Health entitled "Animal Magnetism Unmasked." And in this incident she saw how to do the unmasking. Animal magnetism is the term for any belief that would hide the perfection of God's creations or claim to separate God's creations from their perfection as God's ideas. She realized how animal magnetism would claim to use her own thinking to get itself accepted as real. But she saw clearly that in the presence of truth, animal magnetism is easily identified and unmasked.

Karen thought about a statement Mrs. Eddy makes in Science and Health: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." ^{Science and Health, pp. 476–477;} Doesn't this statement illustrate how Christ Jesus unmasked the beliefs of animal magnetism?

The Gospel of Matthew contains an account of Jesus' healing a man with a withered hand. ^{See Matt. 12:10–13 ;} To those who knew the man, the withered hand looked entirely real. It looked as if it were part of the man himself. Yet Jesus, beholding God's own perfect likeness, unmasked the illusion of imperfection, and the man was healed.

Karen thought about this newfound truth and began applying it each day. She was tempted to be angry when a businessman was dishonest with her. But she recognized that dishonesty was an illusion, a claim of animal magnetism. It was a mistake about man's perfection as the idea of God, of Truth. Karen identified man in his true, spiritual nature, as Truth created and knows him, until she could behold man as absolutely, infinitely truthful. The anger disappeared, and Karen and the businessman arrived at honest and fair solutions.

One morning Karen woke up with a headache. Right away, she recognized the headache as a mistake about the perfection of Spirit's creation. The belief of discomfort was no part of the spiritual likeness of God. And because of the lesson Karen had learned about the nature of animal magnetism, she knew she couldn't be tricked or fooled into believing that a painful physical condition was even in the least a part of her real spiritual being. She applied the truths from "the scientific statement of being" in Science and Health. When Karen realized the truth of the concluding statement, "Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual," ^{Science and Health, p. 468.} she truly saw her spiritual perfection. Soon there was not the slightest reminder of a headache.

When she was tempted to believe in another's rudeness, impatience, or aggressiveness, Karen saw those beliefs as the deceptive claims of animal magnetism—the claims of man's imperfection. But as she conscientiously and consistently identified man as the expression of God—as she "beheld in Science the perfect man"—she realized these false beliefs had no real basis for being.

Karen was grateful to know she could confidently deal with the claims of animal magnetism as mistakes and illusions. And whenever she needed an extra reminder, she remembered the lesson of Dee-Dee and the grain scoop.