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Animal Magnetism—Unmasked
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Product Code: 0-85241-097-2
Manufacturer: Kappeler Institute Publishing
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Max Kappeler
Paperback, 192 pages
Level:
SUBJECT(s):
Handling Evil/Mortal Consciousness
RELATED RECORDINGS:
C-1 AN, CH. V, Animal Magnetism Unmasked, The Structure of the Christian Science Textbook—Our Way of Life (8 hours, audio)
C-2 AN, CH. V, Animal Magnetism Unmasked, The Christian Science Textbook: A workshop on text-interpretation (9 hours, audio & video)
M-14, The Development of Handling Animal Magnetism in Science and Health (3 hours, audio)
SYNOPSIS: "Animal magnetism" is a 19th century term that Mary Baker Eddy used to indicate the character and working of finite, mortal mind—what psychology calls the human psyche and consciousness. This complete exposition of the concept of "animal magnetism" is presented in three distinct parts. Part I begins with an in-depth history of mesmerism (hypnotism), psychology, and consciousness. Part II reviews the development and history of handling animal magnetism through studying the seven "Main Editions" of Science and Health. Part III reviews the scientific method of handling animal magnetism in Science and Health, the Bible (the Book of Joel), and through understanding spiritually scientific laws.
CONTENTS:
PART I
Introduction
Chapter 1: The History of Animal Magnetism
Franz Anton Mesmer
Later Developments in Mesmerism
From Mesmerism to Christian Science
PART II
Chapter 2: The Evolution of the Chapter on Animal Magnetism in the Main Editions of Science and Health
First Main Edition (1875): Mind
Second Main Edition (1878): Spirit
Third Main Edition (1881–82): Soul
Fourth Main Edition (1883–85): Principle
Fifth Main Edition (1886–90): Life
Sixth Main Edition (1891–1901): Truth
Seventh Main Edition (1902–1910): Love
PART III
Chapter 3: Analysis of the Chapter "Animal Magnetism Unmasked" [Ch. V Science and Health]
Chapter 4: The Prophet Joel's Method of Handling Animal Magnetism
Chapter 5: "Christian Scientists, be a law to yourselves."
Need for divine laws
Today's problems cannot be handled by yesterday's methods
Animal magnetism must now be handled through self-operating laws
- The law of Mind
- The law of Spirit
- The law of Soul
- The law of Principle
- The law of Life
- The law of Truth
- The law of Love
Chapter 6: The Science of divine Mind as the Answer to Animal Magnetism
EXCERPT:
From Max Kappeler, Animal Magnetism—Unmasked, pp. 114–118
The Place Value of the Chapter “Animal Magnetism Unmasked in the Christian Science Textbook
The structure of the Textbook. Within the framework of 16 chapters of the Textbook ("Prayer" to "The Apocalypse") the chapter on animal magnetism occupies a specific position. Its place value in the structural arrangement of the Textbook is most significant. The climax of the Bible is the symbol of the city foursquare, New Jerusalem, coming "down from God, out of heaven." Mrs. Eddy interprets the four sides of this holy city as (l) Word, (2) Christ, (3) Christianity, (4) divine Science (S&H 575). Each of the four sides, being spiritual, must reflect the other three, so that the Word does not only reflect itself (Word as Word), but it also reflects Christ (Word as Christ), Christianity (Word as Christianity) and Science (Word as Science). The same applies to the second side of the holy city, Christ; here we have Christ as Word, Christ as Christ, Christ as Christianity, and Christ as Science. Christianity has a similar four-fold reflection, and likewise Science. Thus there are, in all, sixteen different fundamental aspects of divine Being. We know that the 16 chapters of the Textbook "Prayer" to "The Apocalypse") correspond with these sixteen aspects.
The standpoint of the Word of God. The first four chapters trace the ordered approach to the Word of God. They describe, in four steps or stages, the Christian Science student's right inward attitude for finding and realizing oneness with God. The first chapter, "Prayer" (Word as Word), presents this right attitude as one in which the seeker turns to the Principle of being with a consciousness of perfection. Only "God in us" can know God. The second chapter, "Atonement and Eucharist" (Word as Christ), demands a willingness to renounce the ungodlike for the God-like in every experience and thus to accept at-one-ment with God. The third chapter, "Marriage" (Word as Christianity), then shows that, in proportion as we accept this atonement with God, our whole attitude more and more expresses true humanhood in the place of mortal, human qualities. And finally, the fourth chapter "Christian Science Versus Spiritualism" (Word as Science), shows that we can succeed in our approach to God, Spirit, only through a spiritually scientific understanding of God, whereas blind faith and beliefs are inadequate. Spiritualism is thus the opposite of the Science of pure Spirit.
The standpoint of Christ. The second four chapters portray the one Being from the Christ standpoint. Christ is God's idea. The standpoint of Christ is: "out from God." To go out from God, however, we must first attain the standpoint of God. The student can find the approach to God, and thereby gain the standpoint of God, through the four Word chapters. But unless the seeker embodies that attitude which the first four chapters have shown him, he remains in the realm of beliefs, where the spiritually scientific approach is mixed with material beliefs (spiritualism). He cannot then experience the Christ-operation either in his consciousness or in harmonious demonstration. And so he remains a prey to animal magnetism, experiencing in his world of beliefs the falsehood that Mind is both good and evil, and that evil can control good.
Christ presupposes Word. If we do not reach the standpoint of the Word of God, we experience only anti-Christ, the influence and power of mortal mind, of erroneous beliefs that manifest themselves solely as evil. Without the Word chapters we should have no notion of how to find the right (and only) standpoint from which to start; we could not free ourselves from evil's grasp. That is why the first of the four Christ chapters is "Animal Magnetism Unmasked" (Christ as Word), which bids us divest ourselves of everything that would prevent us from taking the Word of God as our only standpoint in every situation. But the standpoint of the Word is: Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. When we go out solely from this standpoint, the false beliefs of animal magnetism are unmasked as nothingness and cannot harm us.
The handling of error therefore does not consist of struggling against it with all our might. As error is nothing. It does not need to be struggled against; otherwise we go down into a hell of our own making, building up in our own minds the belief of a kingdom of evil which in reality does not exist. The handling of evil consists in handling our own belief, which would view the whole universe and its events from a different standpoint from that of the Word of God. Whoever accepts in his consciousness the standpoint of Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love as the only scientific standpoint is aware only of "God and His idea, the All-in-all" (ibid.); he has then adopted the attitude of "Christ as Word," in which animal magnetism is unmasked as nothingness.
The question of evil. The fundamental error of animal magnetism lies in the claim that evil exists and that it has power. The Textbook does not declare from the very beginning that there is no evil. The seeking thought of the student is led to this absolute declaration only by degrees. If we study all the references to the term "evil" in each chapter of the Textbook, we learn the following: The chapter "Prayer" does no more than awaken the desire to be freed from evil; thus there is still an implied belief in the existence of evil. In "Atonement and Eucharist," we are constantly instructed to cast out evil; so again it is tacitly assumed that evil exists. In the chapter "Marriage," we are called upon to let good predominate over evil in our lives; thus some importance is still attached to evil. Not until the last of the Word chapters, "Christian Science Versus Spiritualism," do we come to the scientific elucidation of the problem of evil: "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense" (S&H 71). Only in the strength of this declaration can the first of the four Christ chapters, "Animal Magnetism Unmasked," dispossess evil of any existence: evil has no power, no action, no influence, no law: "evil is a suppositional lie" (ibid.). Again we see that the Christian Scientist must first succeed in discerning spiritually—not merely intellectually—the unreality of evil (chapters 1–4) before he can prove the powerlessness of evil in his own experience. It is not enough to mentally supplant the belief that evil has power with the new belief that error is powerless. To replace one belief with another is not scientific; a belief must yield to spiritual understanding. How many declare that evil has no power and does not exist, and yet in their innermost hearts are terrified of it?
God the only power. Similarly the question, "What is the only power—God or God's opposite?" is not answered at the very beginning. A study of the references to "power" in the various chapters of the Textbook gives the following insight: The chapter "Prayer" indicates that only that which is directed to the divine possesses power. Then the chapter "Atonement and Eucharist" shows that Jesus exerted divine power over the power of sin, sickness, and death, over matter and the body. The chapter "Marriage" points out that the lack of spiritual power in popular Christianity cannot be taken as a counter-evidence of the actuality of divine power. The chapter "Christian Science Versus Spiritualism" then explains that on the human plane mortal thought has power until the spiritual is understood. If God is not understood to be the only power, we experience God's unlikeness as power. Not until the chapter "Animal Magnetism Unmasked" do we find the declaration that the power of God, divine Mind, is "all-embracing" and the clear statement that animal magnetism has no power. Up to this point the reader of the first four chapters retains the belief that evil also has power—even though it may be less than God's.
As we study the chapter on animal magnetism, we see how Christian Science deals with animal magnetism as a world belief. The world believes in the power of mortal mind, of magic (vs. Mind), of animal and human qualities (vs. Spirit), of despotism (vs. Soul), of human sciences and pseudo-sciences (vs. Principle), in the power to destroy, persecute, and do harm (vs. Life), in the power of injustice and in the lack of power against wrong (vs. Truth), in the power which excludes us from redemption (vs. Love).
So, too, Quimby's therapy was based on a mortal belief—on the power of right thoughts, or arguments of "truth." But in Christian Science, the power of healing lies in divine Mind, not in "right thinking." To be able to heal through the power of Mind, the Christian Scientist's first requirement is to be at one with God in his whole inner attitude. This oneness is not only a new mental outlook—it is also a new spiritual outlook. Mrs. Eddy's great problem in teaching her students Christian Science was how to advance the process of their spiritualization. This seemed to her, at first, to be a hopeless task. She saw the great danger of her students' supposing that they could carry out their healing and redeeming work through mental power—the power of thought and will-power—instead of through spiritual power. For this reason she first called her discovery "Moral Science," not "Mental Science."
How then could the student's thought be spiritualized? The answer lay in recognizing the unfolding process of spiritualization that had taken place in Mrs. Eddy herself.
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