"Animal Magnetism Unmasked" is the title of chapter V of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. At the commencement of this chapter she tells us that "Mesmerism or animal magnetism was first brought into notice by Mesmer in Germany in 1775," and on page x of the Preface to the textbook we read, "The first edition of Science and Health was published in 1875." A whole century thus elapsed between what may be styled the introduction and the exposure of mesmerism, or animal magnetism, now called hypnotism. The world at large is still being swayed in many quarters by hypnotic control and is restless and troubled in its search for better conditions. There are many signs, however, that, in striving for liberty, the masses are struggling for recourse to the only possible antidote for mesmerism and will find it in that divine control ever emanating from Spirit, God.
The radical cause of war and all human unrest and suffering is the prevalent false belief that life and intelligence exist in matter, whereas Christian Science is daily and hourly revealing to mankind that the exact reverse is the absolute truth, and that life and intelligence are purely spiritual and exist altogether outside of matter, or the flesh. This fundamental statement of truth is being quietly demonstrated in many unexpected quarters of the globe, notwithstanding the adverse and untrue testimony of the five physical senses that matter appears to contain life and mind, and these works are being accomplished through the operation of spiritual understanding and application of divine wisdom in the daily experience of many people.
A remarkable statement made by Mrs. Eddy appears on page 313 of Science and Health, where she says, "Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe," and in the very next sentence gives us the reason: "He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause." Because of his perfect understanding of spiritual cause and divine control the Master unmasked animal magnetism in all its forms and phases, for he walked on the water, fed the multitudes, stilled the wind and the waves, directed shoals of fish into the net, healed sickness and disease in his presence and at a distance, produced the required tax money from a fish's mouth, passed through space unseen, cast out devils of various kinds, propelled a ship halfway across the lake in a moment of time, and raised the dead to life. He admonished us to be perfect and declared that we are to do the same works and even greater, and these same signs will assuredly follow in the exact proportion in which we strive to prove divine control through the power of spiritual understanding in demonstration of Truth as taught in the Christian Science textbook.
