The contagion of evil is one of mortal mind's inventions. While its phases are varied, each one is entirely false and needs to be exposed as nothingness by immortal Truth's radiant, inextinguishable light. The Bible teaches that God made all, and that all He made is good; therefore the contagion of evil cannot be engendered by God or transmitted through His perfect creation.
Evil, being erroneous and fallacious in premise and conclusion, is self-condemned. Because it is not from God, it lacks reality or power and is condemned to nothingness, to nonexistence. When this is understood, no phase, form, subterfuge, or invention of error can terrorize us or cause us to be afraid of its seeming. A clear sense of God's supremacy empowers us to choose and hold fast to spiritual reality—the allness and omnipresence of God, which prove the somethingness and the onliness of good, and the consequent impotence and nothingness of evil.
Lacking divine origin or cause, the contagion of evil is not conveyed or supported by divine law. Being lawless, it is worthless. A realization of God's impeccable government of man arrests contagion, strips it of its ominous threat or menace, refutes its legality or validity, and exposes its fatuity.
In order to detach or isolate himself from the transmission of evil, one may attempt to establish material barriers or bury himself deeper in materiality with its inadequate means for security and prevention. But do these flimsy precautions immunize one against the belief in the reality of contagion? Utilizing error as an escape from error magnifies it and belittles Deity. As through an understanding of God's allness one perceives the falsity and nonexistence of contagion, he finds ever at hand Love's refuge from "the terror by night" and "the arrow that flieth by day" (Ps. 91:5).
Fear is one of the accomplices of mortal mind's claim that evil, including disease, is contagious. It is a foe to confidence, trust, assurance, reliance, and courage. Fear may wedge its way into consciousness through personal concern, doubt, distrust, or anxiety, and spread confusion, instability, and insecurity. All these errors are false witnesses against God's bounty of health, wholeness, and perfection.
The Scriptures are replete with assuring statements that we need not be afraid. The Psalmist repeatedly exhorts men not to fear, but to place their entire confidence and trust in God, the strong deliverer from the plagues of mortal mind. The unfailing remedy for fear was concisely described by John, Jesus' beloved disciple, when he wrote (I John 4:18), "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear." He also stated the reason for casting it out, namely, "because fear hath torment." Then he boldly declared, "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." Earlier he had said, "God is love."
Christian Science reiterates that God is Love, filling all space; that God is All-in-all, and that in His allness there is no room for anything that is unlike Himself. Fear, then, has no space or condition in which to exist. Christian Science points out that in belief fear is a cause of sickness, as of contagion. Science demands that fear be destroyed, cast out of consciousness, and that it be replaced with the peace and freedom which come from the understanding of the supremacy of God, Love.
Jesus was awake to mortal mind's illicit assumption and pretense that contagious diseases could engulf and oppress mankind. His awareness and loving compassion enabled him not alone to put forth his hand, but fearlessly to touch the leprous man. Jesus thus disproved the validity of any so-called law of contagion. At the same time he instantaneously healed the leprosy, thus also proving the nothingness of lawless, godless disease. There is no record that Jesus ever segregated diseases into various categories, chronic, acute, contagious, noncontagious, or incurable. To him inharmony— disease of any character, name, or degree —was a mortal mind invention, which he repudiated and opposed, and to which he refused both presence and power. It was not the human touch of Jesus, but the ever-present divinity of the Christ which cleansed and healed the lepers, and which evidenced the perfection of the Father's kingdom.
Jesus was not endangered or contaminated by the touch of physical bodies. Purity counteracts error and reduces evil to nothingness. Since evil and its contagion are nonentities, they cannot attach themselves to man, God's idea. Devoid of intelligence to choose a victim, and of power to afflict man, contagion is seen to be a bald imposition. Jesus exposed and refuted this and every other claim of evil, or of the carnal mind, by obeying and upholding the law of God, good.
So long as one believes in contagion's power to affect others injuriously, he himself may become a victim of it and subject to its despotic ruling. If contagion were true, it would affect and include all, and, conversely, if untrue it is powerless and includes none. There is no compromise. The universality of Love includes God's impartiality to all His ideas. One is not immune merely because he is a Christian Scientist, but rather because as a Christian Scientist he knows that the truth about God and man is the truth about all of God's children. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 192): "We are Christian Scientists, only as we quit our reliance upon that which is false and grasp the true. We are not Christian Scientists until we leave all for Christ."
Acquiescence is necessary to give effect to error's cunning pleas, suggestions, or inducements. To believe that one catches disease is mentally to sanction contagion's encroachment and accept its pseudo authorization. Then, and only then, can mortal mind delineate its illusions upon matter.
But what about other phases of deceptive contagion, some of which are so artfully disguised that they would "deceive the very elect"? Sorrow, despondency, depression, lack, or fear may become epidemical unless alertness and instant rejection come to the rescue before one is ensnared in contagion's web.
Criticism, another of error's inventions, may beset one if he does not defend himself against its contagion. One whose position was jeopardized complained bitterly to his family and criticized his superiors severely because he thought they unduly criticized his work and unfairly judged and condemned him on account of what he termed their jealousy and personal animosity. Totally oblivious of criticism's contagion, he had caught their mental state. In turn he expressed and manifested the same negative thoughts as those whom he had accused. He was critical of them because they criticized him, condemned them for condemning him, and judged them for judging him.
When this feverish outburst was spent, the chilliness of moroseness, self-pity, and self-justification followed. The atmosphere became permeated with unresponsiveness, and shortly the entire household expressed the ungracious malady of joyless taciturnity. Suddenly one member, realizing the ludicrousness of contagion's mesmerism, dispelled the somber clouds by asking himself, "Why are we accepting this nothingness?" The ever-present, ever-available, ever-effective remedy for error's mesmeric contagion is Love's impartation of spiritual understanding, wherein dwell justice, mercy, purity, unselfishness, and forgiveness. These antidotes neutralize error and restore harmony, redeem us from error's suggestions, and check the spread of insidious evils.
In "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy cautions us to be on guard, for she writes (p. 228): "Whatever man sees, feels, or in any way takes cognizance of, must be caught through mind; inasmuch as perception, sensation, and consciousness belong to mind and not to matter. Floating with the popular current of mortal thought without questioning the reliability of its conclusions, we do what others do, believe what others believe, and say what others say. Common consent is contagious, and it makes disease catching." She then goes on to say on the next page, "A calm, Christian state of mind is a better preventive of contagion than a drug, or than any other possible sanative method; and the 'perfect Love' that 'casteth out fear' is a sure defense."
