I was sitting in church, turning my thoughts toward God before the service, when I began doing mental math problems with the hymn numbers posted at the front of the church. What is it that pulls our focus off the spiritual and onto lesser subjects? What is it that distracts us from feeling our natural love for God and the goodness of His creation? The answer is a pivotal term used in the practice of Christian Science: animal magnetism.
Even if we seldom use this term in everyday language, we are all familiar with its pull. Whenever we feel inclined to substitute a lesser thought or action for a greater thought or action, whenever we find ourselves caught up in fear or physicality, we are experiencing animal magnetism.
For instance, if you sit down to pray about a troubled relationship, do you find yourself diverted by thinking of the details of the problem rather than feeling God’s present supply of harmony? Do you start recalling past difficulties in the relationship and anxiously speculate about the future? Then, before you know it, does thought wander on to some unfinished task at home or at work? Step by step, without noticing it, you are distracted from your original purpose—to align thought prayerfully with infinite, divine Mind and to seek guidance from that standpoint.
