Anyone who studies the Glossary terms in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" will wonder why Dan is representative of animal magnetism. As, however, one studies the subject throughout the Bible it is made clear that these terms in the Glossary are exact definitions, that Dan is indeed a type of animal magnetism. Dan was born of Jacob and of Rachel's maid, Bilhah. Jacob's character, from the mortal point of view, included duplicity and sensuality; the name Bilhah means timidity, also fear and terror. Could there be a soil more favorable to animal magnetism than these qualities of mortal mind: duplicity, sensuality, fear, timidity, and terror? Among Dan's descendants we note Hushim, his son, whose name means "haster," and Bukki, the prince of the tribe, whose name stands for waste. These two points in Dan's history, his immediate progenitors and his descendants, are worthy of study, and we may find in them some helpful lessons. Duplicity, sensuality, timidity, fear, and terror should be known for what they are, namely, elements of animal magnetism, and should be destroyed; otherwise they will furnish the soil in which error can operate. In other words, they admit Dan. To recognize the symptoms of animal magnetism and to dispel them instantly with the truth of being is to make solid progress in the understanding and demonstration of Christian Science.
And what of haste and waste? Can anyone estimate what life would be here and now if this progeny of Dan were eliminated? All sense of pressure from hurry would disappear. The limitations of time would disappear. The belief in time is that which causes hurry. We hurry because we count our time, because we think a night is coming. Hurry impedes our work, makes us irritable and impatient, makes us less efficient and more difficult to live with. Hurry is push and push is mesmerism, the action of mortal will power. It is forever forcing open the buds instead of leaving them to unfold in the right way. It says on entering a friend's home, "I haven't a moment," and so on, and the friend too begins to feel flustered; it speaks sharply over the telephone, curtly to employees or to customers, and is a fit descendant of Dan. The only legitimate haste is the hastening to wake up from this mortal dream. Waste is no better. Waste of time, waste of money, and, above all, waste of spiritual opportunity need to be sharply dealt with. Thinking that is not righteous thinking is waste; all time spent in that which is not real and true is waste, all self-seeking is waste. That only is profitable which acquaints one with God or expresses God. Both haste and waste separate us from God and therefore belong to the breed of sensuality, duplicity, fear, timidity, and terror.
Let us turn now from Dan's parentage and descendants and consider Dan's history. When Jacob blessed his sons with a blessing that was prophetic of the tribes or states of human consciousness which each one typified, he said in part of Dan, "Dan shall judge his people." The word Dan means judge. What sort of judgment can come from Dan, animal magnetism? It can only be destructive criticism, unrighteous judging,—judging on a material basis. We see the name completed in Daniel,—the name meaning "Judge of God." Dan judges on the plane of mortal mind; Daniel judged from the standpoint of divine Mind. The same difference exists between mortal mind reading and divine Mind reading. As for the second part of the blessing, it exactly describes the workings of animal magnetism. "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward." It is a fact that animal magnetism does not get blamed for the havoc it causes, but its tool or the channel through which it operates gets the blame. Thus the adder that bit the horse's heels and made the beast rear so that its rider fell backward would neither be known nor blamed, but the horse would be deemed the culprit, or the fall might even be attributed to the rider's own carelessness.
