The Wayfarer in Divine Science

“Let error kill itself. It comes to you for life and you give it the only life it has — in belief.” — Mary Baker Eddy ^*

Extrapolating on that eye-opening concept it becomes clear that as error can only ever be “in belief” that means error can only ever be believed through mesmerism. The lie has to fool us into giving evil or error life and power since it comes to us with nothing but a claim, and without the divine power, substance, and authority of Spirit, God.

Therefore, we could just as easily say any of the following:

1. Let evil spirits kill themselves. They come to you for life and you give them the only life they have — when you are mesmerized to believe in them, and fear them or try to humanly control or prevent them.
2. Let false gods kill themselves. They come to you for life and you give them the only life they have — when you are mesmerized to believe in them, and honor and glorify them with your time and money and efforts.
3. Let matter, or the erroneous sense of substance, kill itself. It comes to you for life and you give it the only life it has — when you are mesmerized to believe in it, and fooled into seeing it and feeling it and treating it humanly.
4. Let false, material powers kill themselves. They come to you for life and you give them the only life they have — when you are mesmerized to believe in them, and start feeling Christ Jesus' words “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19 : 11) are either naive, or mean that the Christ that Jesus embodied is not the same Christ we have access to through Christian Science.
5. Let false, human attempts at government kill themselves. They come to you for life and you give them the only life they have — when you are mesmerized to believe in them, and feel they have power to circumvent or annul God's will for mankind.
6. Let human predictions and measurements of weather systems kill themselves. They come to you for life and you give them the only life they have — when you are mesmerized to believe in them, and see them as unstoppable dangers with names and personalities.

I am certain there are other ways to restate and refine Mrs. Eddy's original statement, but you see the point, I'm sure.

On page 59 of the Addenda of the book Collectanea, it says: “Mrs. Eddy told Miss Robertson that animal magnetism can always be detected in thought by (1) a confusion. (2) forgetting. (3) refusal to do one's duty. (4) moral illness. The declaration of one Mind — and no power or presence beside God will destroy these effects. Mind is all action.”

We can see how important it is that we have the full armor of the Christ as we go about our daily life and to know who we are in God's reality, otherwise we are opening ourselves up to be confused by the lies of the world and take them as reality, and then we will forget to dwell “in the secret place of the most High [and] abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91 : 1) and refuse to go about our duty to be the image and likeness of God and “the expression of Soul” (S&H, p. 477) until we are left physically, spiritually, mentally, and morally ill.

Thank God that Christian Science shows us that there is no power apart from God, and no separation between God and ourselves!