Christian Science teaches that there is one Mind only, the divine Mind, which is God. Therefore the so-called mortal or carnal mind, which St. Paul tells us "is enmity against God," has no real existence. Commenting on mental malpractice, an activity of the counterfeit so-called mind, Mary Baker Eddy writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 213): "Unless one's eyes are opened to the modes of mental malpractice, working so subtly that we mistake its suggestions for the impulses of our own thought, the victim will allow himself to drift in the wrong direction without knowing it. Be ever on guard against this enemy." These instructions are unequivocal and stress the necessity of metaphysical work which acknowledges the allness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil.
Christ Jesus, exposing the falsity of the deceiving carnal mind, said (John 8:44): "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." In these words our Master succinctly uncovers and denounces the delusive, unreal existence and activity of the carnal mind, or animal magnetism. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 103): "The maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all. Evil is a suppositional lie."
Typified in the allegory of Genesis as a talking serpent, this illusive mental influence would counterfeit God's spiritual, perfect creation and vaunt itself against the omnipotence and omniaction of the infinite divine Mind. By its very nature error would appear to concentrate its assaults against the highest types of good, against all that is real and beautiful. Often when we have taken a strong and open stand for divine Principle, the jealousy and envy of mortal mind would claim to make a personal attack on us. Immediately after his baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus himself was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
