A well-known military rule says that the best means of defense is attack. There is a mental war going on today involving claims that skilled thought control, mental manipulation, and occult, hypnotic arts can be used for both good and evil purposes. One may ask, "What means of attack can I use to defend myself from this assault on my thinking and my living?"
The commander of a military operation must know the enemy, plan the attack, and be well supplied with weaponry and materials. To command our own lives, we must first know the enemy to be animal magnetism, or hypnotic suggestion, not person or circumstance. Prayer is our means of attack; and spiritual understanding, plus moral living, is the weaponry. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has enhanced her students' armament for this mental war with two By-Laws, entitled "Alertness to Duty" and "Defense against Malpractice," presented in the Manual of The Mother Church.
These By-Laws, understood and practiced daily, give us the defense we need to meet and destroy each assault of evil before it can gain a foothold in our thinking. "Alertness to Duty" reads: "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. By his works he shall be judged,—and justified or condemned." Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 6. The aggressive mental suggestions of animal magnetism often come to us claiming to be our own thought: "I am discouraged, I am sick, I am afraid," and so forth. These suggestions would also come through others: "You don't look well, you are afraid."
