Chapter 8: The Difference Between Working With And Working Against Malicious Mind

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 8.

THE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN
WORKING WITH AND WORKING AGAINST
MALICIOUS MIND

A NUMBER of years ago, a robust black-smith went before a medical clinic, in a city in Europe, to demonstrate that he could, at will, move any muscle in his body and even stop the action of his heart or any designated nerve.
A short time ago a similar demonstration was given over the radio by a man who could, through will power, stop the circulation of first one side of his body and then the other, and start or stop his pulse. An examining physician present testified to the validity of the performance.
In the latter case the man stated he was teaching the power of mind over matter and gave his performance to prove that he was able to con-

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trol his body mentally. The radio announcer said that the man’s age was seventy-five, but that he looked like a man of forty or forty-five.
The question has been asked, why this man dealing entirely with mortal mind, should be able to exhibit such control over his body, while the Christian Scientist frequently seems unable to achieve such success? In fact why should a Christian Scientist, after years of faithful study, ever be tempted to believe that he can express signs of age and decrepitude?
The answer is simple. In the first instance one is dealing with the human mind and working in full accord with it. While he may seem to be accomplishing much that is unusual, nevertheless, his complete accord with that mind arouses no antagonism from it. In fact, that mind is actually enlisted with him to show forth its power and it therefore gives him its full aid and support. Evil promises as it did to Jesus, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”
With the Christian Scientist exactly the opposite is the case. He is dealing with divine Mind which is his one and only aid, so instead of being in accord with the human mind he is at enmity with it, for the human or carnal mind is, as Paul expressed it, “enmity against God: for

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it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Hence there is a deadly warfare between Spirit and malicious mind, or matter. Consequently, by virtue of its being the negation of divine Mind the whole effort of malicious mind must be arrayed against the work of the Christian Scientist, because the Christian Scientist is not proving the power of divine Mind over matter, but is proving divine Mind’s complete destruction of all material belief of which matter is but the crudest phase.
Evil is fighting for its very existence and directing every argument against the power and operation of divine Mind; therefore, the Christian Scientist must meet and destroy the whole array of evil arguments in order to show forth a full manifestation of health and power.
Of course since evil has no ability to think or act, the Christian Scientist really has nothing, except belief, opposed to him. The power of God being all the power there is, it needs no assistance from the human mind.
Through unswerving consecration, the work of the Christian Scientist will be accomplished and finally revealed as permanent. Ultimately the ephemeral power of the human mind to bring about so-called good, will be discerned as merely a temporary phenomenon of malicious

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mind, and that its “good” is not the enduring good of Mind.
Just as Moses’ serpent, which typified divine wisdom, swallowed the magician’s serpent, which typified the human belief of wisdom, so the passing beliefs of mortal mind will be recognized—swallowed up—and destroyed through the understanding of divine Mind and its allness.
The Christian Scientist is building on the rock, Christ, Truth, and while his progress may seem slow he, nevertheless, will finally see, in the words of Malachi, the difference “between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.”

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