Sunday, December 1st, 2024 Roundtable
Good Thoughts are an Impervious Armor
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Ancient And Modern Necromancy, Alias Mesmerism And Hypnotism, Denounced
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayer
Abide in Love. Nothing can touch or harm you in Love. Know that you live in Love. Love is God as Life itself. Take this understanding with you and bless others with Love.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 229
When animal magnetism has done its worst, it has done nothing. When animal magnetism has howled and howled, it has done nothing. Truth cannot be reversed; it bears the fruit of health and holiness. Life cannot be reversed; it bears the fruit of immortal harmony. Love cannot be reversed; it destroys all fear and heals the sick and the sinful.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 219
I have told you that evil has no power, yet I have told you to handle evil as though it had power. This is because of your place in growth spiritual. When the Allness of God is seen, the nothingness of evil is evident – hold to that.
from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 197
Daily Watch
215 — WATCH lest you accept and believe stories about our Leader to the effect that she frightened her students unduly over animal magnetism, and was at times herself made fearful over it.
It was exposed to our Leader that animal magnetism is the great deterrent to spiritual growth — the red dragon standing ready to devour the young child. Her first experience was to observe its operation through persons, when it seemed to make them act as the very embodiment of the evil one.
One who declared that Mrs. Eddy painted exaggerated pictures of evil in the early days, or that her exposures of it were fabrications, would thereby exclude some of the most important stones in the building of Christian Science.
Perhaps her efforts might be called the ‘fear of the Lord,’ since the effect of her disclosures of evil was to drive students to a more active and powerful demonstration of good. If a father wanted his child to hurry home at night, he might be justified in declaring that some danger lurked at the child’s heels. His motive would make what he did legitimate.
Think what it cost Mrs. Eddy to step down into the human mass of falsity and sin, in order to probe its hidden workings! She felt at home in the consciousness of good. Like a flower in the sun, she thrived on it. She felt far from at home, however, when the necessity was laid upon her to investigate the claims of sin, and to share this knowledge with her students. Yet she emerged from the experience unharmed, and with a knowledge of the operation of the lie that she knew would bless all mankind for all time.
We must never belittle her experience in the fiery furnace, nor believe that she was fanatical or fanciful, when she gave forth the lurid details of the operation of criminal magnetism. Let us rather thank God that through her stripes we are healed, through her desperate experiences we may learn how to keep awake to the claims of evil, and thus give them their death blow.
Mrs. Eddy encourages us to believe that, if we are awake and alert, we need not pass through the experiences of suffering for sin. She perceived the awfulness of sin; yet she taught the method whereby it can be dealt with, namely, by reducing it to nothingness.
Discussion points
The great red dragon symbolizes a lie, — the belief that substance, life, and intelligence can be material. This dragon stands for the sum total of human error.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 562
Animal magnetism, I acknowledge your claims, but I denounce your power.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 151
“If it’s not good, it’s not from God.” — Doris White Evans
Students love the explanations of Christian Science: God is Love, God is good, God is Mind, etc. This is the crown of Christian Science. But they dislike the cross of Christ — the patient, slow bearing of the cross they shun. They will not handle animal magnetism. All the cross-bearing they leave to me, while they love the crown. Yet this lesson they will learn.
The work of many minds attempted to stop the building of The Mother Church. Now that plan of M. A. M. was defeated. It is up to the students to protect that demonstration — from the enemy within our gates. …
Attacks on the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science are attacks on the Cause itself. When will you see this, and stop these efforts of animal magnetism to destroy us? The students alone will be responsible if these demon schemes are not ended. Yet who will bear this cross? See Matt. 10:33. With love, Mother.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 65 of the Addenda
I have told you that evil has no power, yet I have told you to handle evil as though it had power. This is because of your place in growth spiritual. When the Allness of God is seen, the nothingness of evil is evident — hold to that.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 64 of the Addenda
Mental malpractice is a bland denial of Truth, and is the antipode of Christian Science.
from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 31
Necromancy: Enchantment; conjuration. The art of revealing future events by means of a pretended communication with the dead.
Mesmerism: hypnotic induction held to involve animal magnetism
Hypnotism: Having the quality of producing sleep;
Denounced: to pronounce especially publicly to be blameworthy or evil
from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Rules for overcoming animal magnetism:
1. See what it is trying to do
2. Know that it cannot do it
3. See that it is not done
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 126
Ways That Are Vain by Mary Baker Eddy
Golden Text: Luke 4 : 8
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”
Bible Lessons by F. E. Mason, from the December 1888 issue of the Christian Science Journal
4. Galatians 5 : 16-25
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
II. Such walking in the Spirit conquers the flesh.
We all know it as a familiar experience that the surest way to conquer any strong desire or emotion is to bring some other into operation. To concentrate attention on any overmastering thought or purpose, even if our object is to destroy it, is but too apt to strengthen it. And so to fix our minds on our own desires of the flesh, even though we may be honestly wishing to suppress them, is a sure way to invest them with new force; therefore the wise counsels of sages and moralists are, for the most part, destined to lead those who listen to them astray. Many a man has, in good faith, set himself to conquer his own evil lusts and has found that the net result of his struggles has been to make the lusts more conspicuous and correspondingly more powerful. The Apostle knows a better way, which he has proved to his own experience, and now, with full confidence and triumph, presses upon his hearers. He would have them give up the monotonous and hopeless fight against the flesh and bring another ally into the field. His chief exhortation is a positive, not a negative one. It is vain to try to tie up men with restrictions and prohibitions, which when their desires are stirred will be burst like Samson’s bonds. But if once the positive exhortation here is obeyed, then it will surely make short work of the desires and passions which otherwise men, for the most part, do not wish to get rid of, and never do throw off by any other method.
We have pointed out that in our text to walk in the Spirit means to regulate the practical life by the Spirit of God, and that the ‘desires of the flesh’ mean the desires of the whole human nature apart from God. But even if we take the contrasted terms in their lower and commonly adopted sense, the text is true and useful. A cultivated mind habituated to lofty ideas, and quick to feel the nobility of ‘spiritual’ pursuits and possessions, will have no taste for the gross delights of sense, and will recoil with disgust from the indulgences in which more animal natures wallow. But while this is true, it by no means exhausts the great principle laid down here. We must take the contrasted terms in their fullest meaning if we would arrive at it. The spiritual life derived from Jesus Christ and lodged in the human spirit has to be guarded, cherished and made dominant, and then it will drive out the old. If the Spirit which is life because of righteousness is allowed free course in a human spirit, it will send forth its powers into the body which is ‘dead because of sin,’ will regulate its desires, and if needful will suppress them. And it is wiser and more blessed to rely on this overflowing influence than to attempt the hopeless task of coercing these desires by our own efforts.
McLaren’s Expositions
Final Readings
Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them. It is plain that nothing can be added to the mind already full. There is no door through which evil can enter, and no space for evil to fill in a mind filled with goodness. Good thoughts are an impervious armor; clad therewith you are completely shielded from the attacks of error of every sort. And not only yourselves are safe, but all whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited.
The self-seeking pride of the evil thinker injures him when he would harm others. Goodness involuntarily resists evil. The evil thinker is the proud talker and doer. The right thinker abides under the shadow of the Almighty. His thoughts can only reflect peace, good will towards men, health, and holiness.