AS hopeless as the task of attempting to lift ourselves by our own boot straps is the effort to lift ourselves out of error without an understanding of God—to try to dispel the darkness of error without the light of Truth. Yet how often we try to do this very thing!
Animal magnetism is the fraudulent attraction of materiality; and this fraudulent attraction, if yielded to, tends to mislead us as Christian Scientists into dwelling with material sense, thinking about it, accepting its suggestions unchallenged, taking them for granted, and building up bit by bit, detail by detail, what we may call a mountainous false claim. Then, after blindly following the subtle beliefs of error, we set to work to "handle the claim." We perhaps spend much time vigorously denying it in its every phase, but succeed only in fixing these phases more firmly in thought, becoming increasingly afraid of them. We are thinking of little else but the claim. The Adam-dream is vainly talking to itself about itself, seeking to lift itself by its own boot straps, but only sinking deeper into the dream. The false and fraudulent attraction is apparently having things all its own way in the troubled consciousness.
To begin wrongly is of course to end wrongly; and this state of confusion is the inevitable result of beginning our work at the wrong end, starting with error to destroy error, looking for the solution of a so-called problem in the problem itself—trying to see in the dark! No one enters a dark room with the intent to adjust and arrange its contents. He first provides some sort of light to enable him to see clearly what needs to be done. A child entering a darkened room may see terrifying objects; articles of furniture may assume fantastic shapes and threatening aspects. Indeed, all things may become invested with the alarming qualities of his frightened imaginings, and growing more and more panic-stricken he stumbles blindly against first one thing and then another. Nothing but the clear light of Truth can uncover error, reveal it as error, handle and destroy it as nothing. Our need, therefore, is always to begin with God. We should therefore light the lamp of Truth and let its rays penetrate the recesses of the darkened room of consciousness.
