Like every worthwhile objective, human goals for healing and being healed in Christian Science are possible of attainment. God, who is all good, creates only perfection and never knows a single shortcoming. Therefore, whatever might seem to prevent anyone from reaching for and attaining his cherished healing goals implies a false sense of both God and man. Christian Science impugns this first liar and all its lies under the collective name, animal magnetism.
The term "animal magnetism" alerts us to the suggestion of danger implicit in all false knowledge and action, all ungodliness. But naming and defining animal magnetism for the purpose of denouncing and disarming its claims does not and cannot endow evil with entity or power. Nothing can make real what the allness of God, good, forever consigns to the impossible. Because God's allness is, animal magnetism isn't.
However, what we believe seems to act as authority and law in our lives. To base decisions concerning healing and the healing work upon material sense testimony, mortally mental influences, or human opinion indicates unquestionably a disbelief in God's ever-present control over all. Therefore to ignore or avoid healing for ourselves and benevolent sharing with others amounts to belief in animal magnetism. Belief in something apart from God predicates belief in animal magnetism, which can only arise from ignorance of God's allness. Thus, belief in animal magnetism is rank idolatry, the direct opposite of divine service and worship.
