Chapter 3: How Malicious Mental Malpractice Seems To Come Into Being

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 3.

HOW MALICIOUS
MENTAL MALPRACTICE
SEEMS TO COME
INTO BEING

IN ORDER to understand in a practical way the subject of malicious mental malpractice—the negation or suppositional opposite of Christian Science practice—it is necessary to understand its suppositional origin, just as it is essential in order to understand Christian Science to know: firstly, that there is God; secondly, what God is; and thirdly, to know what He is God to and the laws by which He operates. No Christian Scientist would think it possible to intelligently continue his study of Christian Science without first being well grounded on these fundamental points.
In order to think and act with unbounded confidence, the Christian Scientist knows that he must have a reason for the faith that is with-

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in him and that that reason can only be completely satisfied as every step in the process of establishing its structure is taken intelligently. Thus in proving that God is, he starts with that which he knows of himself without any external testimony, namely his own consciously being, and from this he instantly is assured that he could not consciously be if Consciousness were not first the fact. Thus he establishes that Consciousness is and from this isness he goes on to find that Consciousness is All-in-all, since there could be nothing outside of that which is. He further learns that this Consciousness, being all, embraces within itself all being, with all that this term implies.
Thence he goes on to discover that this Consciousness, in order to be Consciousness, must be conscious of something and he names that something that Consciousness is conscious of, idea, man or any term that he chooses whereby to express effect. The term or name is unimportant but whatever term is used it means that whereby Consciousness is made known . Because this Consciousness is necessarily Mind, Intelligence, that which knows, it expresses Itself as law, order and so forth.
The student of Christian Science continues this reasoning until there is not the slightest doubt or question left in his mind that not only

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is there God, but that He must, in order to be God, embody within His own infinity all Life, Truth, Substance, Being, etc., together with that which He is God to, with His accompanying laws. Being All-in-all, His Allness must necessarily include all. This Allness means Oneness and therefore there is nothing apart from Him. He is both noumenon and phenomenon, God and all that God is God to. The Christian Scientist knows he cannot understand God without this sound foundation, which gives him a reason for the faith that is within him.
In exactly the same way, in order to comprehend this subject of malicious mental malpractice, he must see just what it is, how it arises in belief and all that there is to it, or he will not understand it, and be able to handle it, for as Mrs. Eddy states in Miscellany, “. . . we cannot do more than we are nor understand what is not ripening in us.” What man is is always what he understands and that is what he can use and prove is his own.
Then let us look at this subject of malicious mental malpractice simply and intelligently.
First how does it come into seeming being? Given the fact that God is, that Truth is, there instantly arises, by implication, the suppositional opposite of it, just as with the presence of any

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intelligent statement, there arises, by implication the ignorance with regard to that statement. The ignorance is merely the false, in contradistinction to the true, even as the lie is in contradistinction to the fact. A lie is not anything of itself. It is the negation of the truth. No mind is required to suppose a lie. It appears as the result of the law of opposites, coming as the negative accompanying the positive suppositionally, and spontaneously disappearing with the acknowledged presence of the real or positive—in other words being “clothed upon” by the reality.
This supposable condition exists not because of a so-called mind supposing it but by virtue of the law that every truth includes, within itself, by implication the concept of its own opposite. This is the law of opposites. To illustrate this point, is it not obvious that is, being is, because its “seed is in itself,” alone determines itself, and so implies that anything outside itself, outside that which is must necessarily be is not? In other words every truth by virtue of its own isness, hence allness, carries within itself the contradiction of the lie about itself.
Thus we get malicious mind as the suppositional opposite of divine Mind in all its minutiae, and yet without the faintest real existence of

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itself. We call it malicious because that which it negates or is the suppositional opposite of is the Mind that is infinite Life or good. It is necessarily mental because all supposition is mental or mind with a small m. Everything that the one Mind is, in all its infinity of perfection, the suppositional opposite must simulate in exact opposition. The suppositional opposite has no ability independently to declare itself, but by its very nature it automatically falls in line as the negation of that which is and it borrows its entire suppositional presence and action from that which is, even as any lie depends for its existence on the presence of the truth about which it is the lie.
Just as Mind is, and is all that is, hence One, in the realm of the positive, just so malicious mind is suppositionally all that is and is one in the realm of evil or the negation. Further, just as divine Mind, the one Spirit, has that whereby it is shown forth, which we call spiritual being or spirituality, so malicious mind has that whereby, in belief, it is shown forth, viz., material being or materiality, which of course must be and is just as mental as the offspring of supposition would necessarily be. This material being or materiality appears as, and is called, mortal man, place, or thing, but it is never more than the

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erroneous or suppositional opposite concept of that which divine Mind and its divine man, place and thing is, wholly pure and perfect.
By means of this so-called suppositional mortal man, place and thing, malicious mind appears to act and operate and it can never act or operate except as such mortal man, place or thing, since cause, whether genuine or suppositional, must have its effect whereby to proclaim itself.
But does this mean that malicious mind has any power of its own to harm anyone? No, for its entire presence and power being a suppositional presence and power it merely declares the real presence and power of that about which it is the lie and so, when reversed, testifies to the ever-presence of divine Mind. To use Mrs. Eddy’s statement in Unity of Good, “The use of a lie is that it unwittingly confirms Truth, when handled by Christian Science, which reverses false testimony and gains a knowledge of God from opposite facts, or phenomena.”
However, this negation or suppositional mind must by its very suppositional opposite nature, assume in belief all that God is, together with all His power, authority and law whereby to act, etc. It is as such supposition that we must view this lie. It usurps the role of God and claims to be very Mind and therefore to be your mind,

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thinking and acting for you to the minutest details of your daily life. It uses the lie about every law and activity of God as its “law” of activity and does this all with the suggestion that “I am of God for God made me; in fact I am God, Truth.” We have seen, however, that the only sense in which God “made” it is in the sense that God through His isness must imply His suppositional opposite is not. The is not, by its reversal declares is and thus shows forth God’s absolute allness both negatively and positively so that God may truly be All-in-all.
Having now seen just how malicious mind arises as supposition, we can readily go on to following it through in all its seeming complications of evil and yet without giving to it one atom of power or reality of its own, but ever turning all back to the one Mind from which all is.
One point should be consistently borne in mind and that is that the supposed channel or avenue whereby malicious mind seems to appear is never of any moment in the final analysis, that it is but the puppet of the supposition it is expressing, even as the divine man of God is in reality nothing of himself but is that whereby God is seen and known. In handling malicious mental malpractice it is so-called cause that is always dealt with, never so-called effect.

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The foregoing is preliminary or introductory to the pages which follow, where these points will be repeated in many different ways, over and over again. It seems eminently sensible, however, before going thoroughly into the subject of malicious mind and its so-called malicious mental malpractice, to fortify one’s self with the clear understanding as to just how malicious mind originates in belief and what it signifies. Then at no point in its uncovering will it be thought of for one instant as being anything but the suppositional opposite or negation of that which is, of God and His allness, and therefore as that which, when reversed, declares the allness of good.

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