I had gone out to gather eggs from the henhouse. When I came back, my older brother went to check on my work, and it was he who discovered the rattlesnake. Our father warned us of the danger and explained how we could be prepared for such things in the future.
Most of us probably have little need to be on guard against rattlesnakes, as I had to living on a farm in the southwestern United States. Yet we do need to be alert to the serpentine arguments of what St. Paul called the carnal mind. This is especially important in relation to the challenges facing Christian healing. Although such healing continues to be successfully practiced today, we need to be awake to influences in the mental environment that, if accepted, would try to stem or even stop the tide of healing.
Animal magnetism is the term used in Christian Science for error, or evil—for the carnal mind. Because God is All, as the Scriptures inform us, and is the source of good alone, anything unlike Him—any element of evil—has no true basis, no legitimacy. From an absolute spiritual standpoint, evil is nothing and absolutely unreal. Yet no one would deny that evil certainly seems to be a formidable power that can wend its way into our thought, dispute the fact that God, good, actually is All, and thereby affect our experience.
