IN a terse sentence concluding the chapter on Christian Science Practice in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy admonishes (p. 442), "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves that mental malpractice cannot harm you either when asleep or when awake." Again in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 236) our Leader requests Christian Scientists to give attention to this admonition, which she considers of great importance to their individual progress.
What is mental malpractice? Mal is derived from the Latin malus, meaning bad. Mental malpractice then is bad mental practice, erroneous thinking arising from the belief of life, intelligence, and substance in matter. It is hatred, animality, envy, fear, greed; it is Satan, the carnal mind, which in the words of the apostle is "enmity against God" (Rom. 8:7). Defense against this enemy is found in the moral qualities of goodness, honesty, unselfed love, which merge into the spiritual understanding of God and man made in His image and likeness, as revealed in the Bible and Science and Health.
To ensure defense against evil we must put on the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5). The Master was ever conscious of the presence and power of God, whom he knew as Father; and his awareness of the perfection and unity of God and man ruled the claims of evil out of his consciousness.
