The story goes that some years ago two people had an interesting experience while they were visiting in India. They met a fakir—an Indian wonderworker—who invited them to his home to see a beautiful rose he had cultivated. When they arrived, he took them out to his garden. There was no rosebush in sight. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a bush appeared, covered with roses in full bloom.
He cut one of the blossoms and gave it to them to take back to their hotel. The rose was not artificial; it was real. When they arrived back home, still much amazed, they shared the incident with a friend. She was not amazed. Instead, she put back her head and laughed. "Don't you see how that fakir fooled you? He hypnotized you so that you didn't see the rosebush. Then he broke the mesmerism, and you saw what had been there all the time—a beautiful rosebush!"
In Christian Science we can see how this tale illustrates the deceptiveness of the material senses. We can know that there's no mesmerism of these senses to make a present spiritual fact appear to be absent, no hypnotism to make us lose sight of our spiritual identity and individuality, or to think that these can come and go. God, Mind, and His eternal manifestation are everywhere, and there is no counter mind to reverse or veil this presence. Our true individuality with its spiritual seeing and knowing is maintained by Mind. It cannot be nibbled away or gobbled up by the pressures of everyday living or by the drag-down pull of the carnal mind, which Mrs. Eddy has named animal magnetism.
