God is the infinite Mind of man. Thoughts that proceed from Him have the qualities of this Mind. They are healthy, harmonious, pure thoughts. And they are the only thoughts that we can identify as belonging to man.
As we come to understand the one God, one Mind, we can recognize our spiritual identity and reject as false any thoughts that are not healthy, harmonious, or pure. In fact, we can realize that material thoughts are not our own, for we are, in reality, children, or ideas, of Mind. Ungodlike thoughts are impositions from a so-called mind—a false, unreal mind—outside our own.
Such mental impositions seem real only when we do not understand that there is actually but one Mind. They appear to have power to oppress us hypnotically through the five physical senses because we do not clearly understand that all power and all faculties belong to the one Mind. Material personality itself is an illusion that seems very real unless we recognize it as the product of animal magnetism—the term Christian Science uses to designate the error of false, material belief.
