When God called Moses for the great mission of leading the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt [their bondage to material beliefs], the suggestions of fear and doubt immediately came to tempt him: "And Moses said unto God, Who am I...that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" "They will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee." Listening to his own misgivings, in false humility, he lost sight for the moment of the simple fact that all he had to do was to reflect divine intelligence. Thereupon, God opened his eyes to the nature of the evil which was trying to deter him from accomplishing the purposes of good. Moses was instructed to cast his rod upon the ground, and straightway it became a serpent. His first impulse was to flee from it, but God commanded him to take up [handle] the serpent, and then he found it to be a mere illusion. Thereafter in proportion as the understanding of man's dominion over evil was to the children of Israel a constant and visible proof of "God with us," it was a demonstration of the ever present reality of Spirit and the nothingness of matter. In all their experiences, wherever the rod was used,—that is, whenever Moses applied his spiritual understanding to a situation,—God's presence was made manifest, and supreme difficulties were overcome. The rod typifies the omnipresence of good, which alone is reality, and the serpent stands for its supposititious opposite, or evil, unreality. Therefore, when mankind shall grasp the true concept, the serpent will no longer be looked upon with fear, but will be recognized as a blessing in disguise. In the Glossary to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 594), Mary Baker Eddy thus defines the word: "Serpent (ophis, in Greek; nacash, in Hebrew). Subtlety; a lie; the opposite of Truth, named error; the first statement of mythology and idolatry; the belief in more than one God; animal magnetism; the first lie of limitation; finity; the first claim that there is an opposite of Spirit, or good, termed matter, or evil; the first delusion that error exists as fact; the first claim that sin, sickness, and death are the realities of life. The first audible claim that God was not omnipotent and that there was another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God, good." One very significant meaning there given is the term "animal magnetism." It was the talking serpent, in the allegory found in the third chapter of Genesis, that originally suggested the possibility of more than one mind, thereby breaking the First Commandment. Having found a willing listener, it proceeded to masquerade as consciousness, and clothed its lies with the semblance of truth. In her chapter elucidating Genesis Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 529),"Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine love? The serpent enters into the metaphor only as evil." Animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnotism, mental malpractice, and witchcraft of all other sorts are typified by the wily serpent; but a thorough understanding of the great fact that God and His idea is all there is, will reveal the true serpent as a wise, useful, and harmless creature. Since God is good, and He is All-in-all, evil absolutely does not exist, and a subtle, lying serpent has never had a place in God's creation.
This fact, however, does not excuse a man from the necessity of handling that which appears to be a serpent, and proving for himself the unreality of matter, mortal mind, or evil. To close his eyes and flee before it will only make it seem the more real. He must face squarely the suggestions of animal magnetism and recognize them for what they are, denouncing them, even as Jesus did in his scathing rebuke: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." God, good, is the only Mind; therefore, man, in His image, can be conscious only of good, for he thinks only as God thinks. When any evil suggestion, that is, any thought which is not absolutely harmonious, tries to present itself as consciousness, it must be summarily denied admittance. He who is on the alert mentally will quickly detect the source of the temptation, and will refuse to listen to the serpent's promises of power. Mrs. Eddy fully exposes the efforts of evil to perpetuate itself, in the chapter in Science and Health entitled, "Animal Magnetism Unmasked." On page 102 she utters a warning that it were well to heed: "So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires."
Herein lies the seeming power of evil over mankind: that it comes to a man in the guise of his own thoughts; and in just the degree that he accepts this wrong thinking as his very own, in that degree is he the slave of evil. If he be not aware of the serpent's subtlety, if he be not awake to the meaning of the unbidden impulses which he imagines originate within himself, he will obey the promptings of evil and must suffer accordingly.
