I Felt Terrible. I was sick. I was mentally flat on the ground. I was apathetic, lethargic. I didn't want to move. Somehow I got dressed and got to my office. My job is helping others as a Christian Science practitioner, but that day I didn't want to help anyone. I didn't even want to help myself. I just stared out the window, feeling bad. But even while I was in that mental fog, I knew this was not a natural or right condition for me. So I reached out to God for help. I tried to think about some of the ideas from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, a book by Mary Baker Eddy that I always find helpful. One concept that is quite important in her book is something she calls animal magnetism. This is really another term for evil, and the book explains effectively how to deal with it.
Science and Health makes clear that everything going on relative to my health and bodily functions develops from how I'm thinking. For example, if I cry, you would know that my tears are caused by sad thoughts. So you wouldn't come over and try to repair my eyes in order to make me stop crying. You would comfort me. And that change of thought would stop the tears.
Science and Health explains that underlying every function of the body is a mental cause. It says, "Many a hopeless case of disease is induced by a single post mortem examination,—not from infection nor from contact with material virus, but from the fear of the disease and from the image brought before the mind; it is a mental state, which is afterwards outlined on the body." Science and Health, p. 196.
