"Where are all the black people tonight?" asked a young Christian Scientist at a branch church membership meeting. The members were seeking to gain a higher understanding of true brotherliness. They sincerely desired to bless their community. The meeting was in the interest of church growth. But the young man's question seemed to fall on deaf ears. Obviously, there were more important things to discuss. Perhaps the members felt that surely theirs was an integrated church.
One who was present at the meeting was disturbed by the episode. "Why, there's no segregation in this church!" she thought. "Although this is an all-white community, any black people living in this area would be welcomed with love." As she pondered the situation further, the student then realized she had been completely mesmerized into self-justification by suggestions of animal magnetism, or evil, presenting themselves as her own thinking. She then saw them for what they were—self-deception, self-satisfaction, and limitation.
What Christian Scientists call animal magnetism, the Apostle Paul designated the carnal mind, or enmity against God. Christian Science reveals the unreality of the carnal mind, hence the powerlessness of its seeming activity, or animal magnetism. The truth that God, good, is infinite and the only Mind, precludes the possibility of the real existence of any other mind. The real man, the true individuality of each of us, is spiritual and knows only the one Mind. But mankind, at their present stage of growth, seem constantly assailed with suggestions of the so-called carnal mind.
