THE word "malpractice" came to my attention for the first time when I was attending a Christian Science lecture and overheard a young Sunday School pupil say to a friend, "Don't malpractice me!" The remark made humorously provoked questioning, but it was years before I grasped the implication of that quip.
If Christian Science is to be rightly practiced, it is important to know what is meant by that word "malpractice," since malpractice is the counterfeit of real or right practice. The word is formed by attaching the prefix "mal," denoting ill, bad, evil, to the word "practice," Consequently, "malpractice" means thinking wrongly, giving activity to evil instead of to good. It has to do with wrong practice instead of right practice. Since a rule which the sacred Scriptures state is, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7), how necessary it is to individual well-being and spiritual growth to think good thoughts and to practice rightly, not wrongly!
In the first chapter of Genesis, man is depicted as God's likeness. This man knows only good. In following chapters an allegory depicts a material sense of creation, in which mortal man is forbidden to eat "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (2:17). He is told that if he does, he will die. Yet ignorantly and disobediently mankind partakes of false knowledge and brings upon itself the woes which evil produces.
In Exodus we read that Moses received the Commandments of God, which are designed to lift mankind out of sinning sense. When they are obeyed, they cleanse the senses, and this cleansing reveals the pure in heart, who see God. As we see God, harmony is restored.
In a creation of good, evil is unknown. The First Commandment (Ex. 20:3), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," indicates that we can know only good. The one God, good, cannot create evil; hence it is not created. The very acceptance of evil as something evidences a belief in two creations, two gods or creators. This belief breaks the First Commandment.
Along this line, our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, answers a question in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 45), "If God made all that was made, and it was good, where did evil originate?" She begins her answer by saying: "It never originated or existed as an entity. It is but a false belief; even the belief that God is not what the Scriptures imply Him to be, All-in-all, but that there is an opposite intelligence or mind termed evil. This error of belief is idolatry, having 'other gods before me.' "
There is no evil mind, for there is only one God, good. We erroneously give evil a mind if we take it into our consciousness and think it or fear it. The only possible way it can have existence is to delude us into giving it life through thinking it. If we keep it out of consciousness, it is nonexistent to us. When we actually put it out of consciousness with Truth, we annihilate it. Herein lies the means of exercising man's God-given dominion. Jesus said he came to bear witness to the truth, to good. This is also our reason for existence.
The second commandment forbids our making unto ourselves any graven image. It forbids our accepting evil suggestions and thus engraving, or imaging, them upon consciousness and afterward bowing down to them and serving them as false gods.
It is hard to accept the fact that we are responsible for the evil beliefs we entertain, but we are responsible if we permit evil suggestions to enter our consciousness, think them, and thus give them life. The cause of misery or happiness in human experience is our acceptance or rejection of evil suggestions. Isaiah records the divine pleading of God (48:18): "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." But so-called mortals often love evil instead of good.
How subtle evil claims to be! It suggests that it can do for us what God cannot do: enable us to live materialistically as popular, prosperous, and happy mortals. In this suggestion it would deceive us, for all good flows from God to man. It is not within the power of evil to bring good to us. This is God's domain.
In the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy, a By-Law entitled "Alertness to Duty" reads in part (Art. VIII, Sect. 6): "It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind." Aggressive mental suggestion is a term describing the seeming activity of evil. It is our duty to keep watch and not to permit evil to enter consciousness. We thus are governed only with good. We resist evil as we are steadfast in our faith in God. We stand for God, good, not for evil. As we are alert and keep the door of consciousness closed to anything but good, evil cannot touch us.
How about malpractice projected from another's thought, from another's giving power and existence to evil by thinking it of us? This is what the Sunday School pupil referred to by saying, "Don't malpractice me." Our Leader makes a statement that answers this question (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 83): "No person can accept another's belief, except it be with the consent of his own belief. If the error which knocks at the door of your own thought originated in another's mind, you are a free moral agent to reject or to accept this error; hence, you are the arbiter of your own fate, and sin is the author of sin."
Through the understanding of Science, we become a law unto ourselves; we hold the control. In defending ourselves against malpractice, we are never to return evil for evil, never to attack the malpractitioner or the one thinking evil of us; but we are to know the truth that makes us free. An invariable rule in Christian Science is to overcome evil with good.
A sense of confusion intuitively felt to be malpractice by another can be expelled by the realization that there is only one Mind; that there is no God, or good, in the evil thinking sent out to injure us; no Christ, Truth, in it; and therefore no power in such thinking. We need have no fear of malpractice when we are knowing this truth. Spiritual vision and strength are attributes of God, and we align ourselves with His omnipotence by holding to and expressing His attributes. As we do this, He fights our battles for us by exposing the nothingness of error. When false mental pictures are completely rejected, put out of thought, the error is utterly destroyed.
Disease comes into our experience through false concepts, images, entertained mentally. We destroy these false concepts by rejecting them and replacing them with true concepts. As we thus change the evidence in thought, the disease vanishes. This is what Jesus meant when he said (John 8:32), "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Mental malpractice is using our minds to believe in, to give existence and activity to, evil. Such activity is not in accordance with the rules of Christian Science which, when obeyed, enable one to prove that God, good, has all power.
