Anything which has a secret method depends for its efficacy on being hidden; for it is graphically true, as declared in Proverbs, that "surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird." Mrs. Eddy declares quite positively what the attitude of the Christian Scientist should be, in that liberating Communion Address delivered June 4, 1899 (Miscellany, p. 130), where she says: "Watch and guard your own thoughts against evil suggestions and against malicious mental malpractice, wholly disloyal to the teachings of Christian Science. This hidden method of committing crime—socially, physically, and morally—will ere long be unearthed and punished as it deserves." Blundering humanity, cautionless and good-natured, has been exploited by secret mental methods, basing their power upon a knowledge of evil. The relief from all fear of occult and mesmeric influence experienced whenever a man comes to an understanding of good through the teaching of Christian Science, is wonderful, and his relief and joy develop into peace—that longed for "peace of God, which passeth all understanding." The psalmist probably had in mind such deliverance when he said: "Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
The hypnotic method is quite simply illustrated in salesmanship of a sort. Young wage earners, on comparing notes after a shopping expedition, will find that they have bought many things they had no intention of buying, and one will laughingly explain to the other that after buying several things not needed, under the influence of the salesman, no money had been left for procuring things which were needed. On the salesman's side was training in silent mental persuasion, and his success was measured, not by the service rendered to customers, but by the amount of money he was able to take away from them. In cases where families are visited, as for example, when it is intended to plant an expensive musical instrument to be paid for on the installment plan, two will go together, one to engage in silent mental aggression so as to dull thought and stupefy resistance, the other to use audible persuasion. What if the victim, a few moments after signing the contract, awakens and demands release, the signature implies a legal obligation. People, ignorant of Christian Science, are kept in unrest and poverty, because through the mesmerism of bargains, the selfish misleading of salesmen, the intentional hypnotism of contract makers, they allow their earnings to be taken from them; but through the understanding of Christian Science multitudes have been delivered from uncertainty and narrow circumstances, because when they became guided by Principle they were intelligently seeking to bring out love, even in their purchases, and became able to pass by alluring bargains and to remain so uninfluenced by persuasion or mesmerism that they could spend wisely the family means so as to meet the real needs of all.
In days gone by it was a wretched thing for a rich man to die. Loving his family and friends, he naturally desired to make provision for them, but there would be the demand from some religious brotherhood or other that he provide for it, too; or his bishop had a cathedral building; or his priest had a plan requiring support. If the man were superstitious and fearful he was made to believe that obedience to his spiritual advisers and the cutting off, to their advantage, of his family would secure for him exemption from future suffering. If he were stubborn, the threat of future torment was a means for subduing him. Nowadays the law of the land guards against death-bed hypnotism, and assurance is necessary that the devising of property to alleged religious uses has been the voluntary act of one mentally clear.
