Chapter 22: A Particularly Subtle Operation Of Malicious Mental Malpractice

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 22.

A PARTICULARLY
SUBTLE OPERATION
OF
MALICIOUS MENTAL MALPRACTICE

IT IS difficult to conceive a more subtle and disastrous way for malicious mental malpractice to operate in order to confuse and obscure, if not entirely obliterate the light of Truth for a Christian Scientist, than by the perpetual argument that Mrs. Eddy was not the discoverer of Christian Science; that it had been discovered before and that Mrs. Eddy had stolen the discovery and claimed the glory.
Is it such an easy thing to steal Christian Science, and so demonstrate it that one acquires all the glory? The works of Christian Science in healing every manner of sin, sickness and death, are, of course, its glory and these are what Mrs.

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Eddy demonstrated in establishing Christian Science.
Why should a Christian Scientist question the truth of Mrs. Eddy’s discovery or accept so patent a suggestion of devilishness? If he entertains the question it is because he is unaware of what is operating as his mind. Otherwise he would instantly reject it and free himself from its malign influence.
If one wished to destroy another’s interest in any subject, would he not begin by casting reflections on the authority back of the subject? If successful in planting doubts as to the honor and integrity of that authority, would he not very quickly succeed in killing all further interest? This is exactly evil’s purpose in making such suggestions to one beginning the study of Christian Science. It is a deadly purpose, and its result is inevitable if the malicious intent is not discerned and repudiated.
No Christian Scientist can afford to doubt this. His days as a Christian Scientist are numbered if he is not instant in season and out of season in casting out these vicious suggestions of malicious mental malpractice. He cannot play with evil suggestions. Their poison is far reaching. I have yet to see a Christian Scientist who allows his thought to be darkened by evil sug-

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gestions about Mrs. Eddy, or her discovery, or her demonstration of Christian Science, make a success of Christian Science. It is impossible. The discoverer and the discovery, the revelator and the revelation, invariably combine as one and the victim of malicious mental malpractice, alone, questions this truism.
Further, if he can be made to doubt or question the fact that the “little book” of Revelation, Science and Health, completely and finally reveals the translation of the negation back to Mind, he will be equally “lost.” He will be looking for some further “revelation” to excuse his present lack of demonstration of his oneness with God. “Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practised,” as Science and Health points out. No one can afford to harbor evil suggestions.
Can a sane Christian Scientist doubt for a moment that this is true? Let the one who is allowing his thought to be tampered with in this way, intelligently examine his thinking. If honest, he will see that Christian Science has lost its joy and inspiration for him and that he is looking at it as cold philosophy or an abstraction, instead of as the loving, quickening presence of God. His light has gone and as Jesus said, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

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A short time ago I received a letter from a friend saying he had been distressed to find that earlier writers had discovered Christian Science, and that Mrs. Eddy knew of what they had written, and had gleaned her ideas from them without giving them credit.
This friend is usually a clear thinker, but he had utterly failed to ask himself whether it is conceivable that the discoverer of Christian Science, whoever that discoverer might be, could under any imaginable circumstances keep his discovery from the world? Would not the mind that made that discovery spontaneously show forth the fruits of it by healing the sick, the sinning and the dying? No discoverer could have done otherwise than did Mrs. Eddy. But did anyone else show forth such fruits?
What is the discovery of Christian Science? Is it not as Mrs. Eddy states in Rudimental Divine Science, “the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony”? Then how could anyone, discovering that law, fail to express it? Christian Science is not the discovery of a matter-law but of Mind-law and the mind that discovers it would have to be in accord with the Mind it discovered, otherwise the discovery could not be made. Christian Science is a spirit-

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ual discovery, not a material one. It is of Mind, not of matter.
How absurd to imagine that anyone could discover Christian Science and not use it in such a manner that the whole world could see it. Inevitably it would be his very Mind and would have to be expressed.

Because God, as Science and Health says, “is not separate from the wisdom He bestows,” He could not have failed to bestow upon the one near enough to Him to discover His allness, the ability to prove that allness in doing the works which Jesus did.
Who has ever scientifically done this except Mrs. Eddy? Even Mrs. Eddy’s followers are but slowly discerning the path she so clearly and carefully pioneered. The slowness of this progress is almost a disgrace to the discovery. Why this slowness? Fundamentally it is due to lack of real spiritual consecration, together with ignorance of that which causes the slowness. It is because malicious mental malpractice with its insidious suggestions is accepted, instead of being rejected the instant it raises its voice. Until this is done, the progress must be slow.
The consecrated Christian Scientist understands that Christian Science was the Mind of Mrs. Eddy, just as God was the Mind of Jesus.

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Mrs. Eddy could not be less than one with her Mind. To love God as divine Mind and leave Mrs. Eddy out of that love is not possible and must inevitably end in failure and disillusionment.
The Pharisees thought they could love God and hate Jesus and the prophets who had shown God forth. But could they succeed in this attempt? No, it was a dismal failure and their cup of bitterness was full to the brim. God and His idea cannot be separated, consequently sorrow comes to the one who tries to separate them. Noumenon and phenomenon are forever one.
The Christian Scientist should guard against the subtle malicious argument intended to poison him, no matter how small a degree against Mrs. Eddy, and thus against Christian Science.

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