Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/281

Rh individual. There is, in fact, no secret doctrine. But they have said that Mrs. Eddy steadfastly from the beginning of her teaching to the close instructed her students never to seek to injure another mentally.

Mrs. Eddy says in “Miscellaneous Writings,” “I have no skill in occultism; and I could not if I would, and would not if I could, harm any one through the mental method of Mind-healing, or in any other manner.” Indeed, Mrs. Eddy would have had to go back on everything she had ever taught or written of the working of divine love in the consciousness of the individual had she suggested that destructive thought be used against those who were opposing her work. The idea is utterly inharmonious with the fundamental tenets of her faith.

However, it is not possible to state whether that early group of pioneer students did or did not meet to concentrate their thoughts against individuals with the idea of destroying their harmful influence. Certainly they did not have Mrs. Eddy’s inspiration for such an endeavor, and in doing so must have departed from her teachings. But Mrs. Eddy had propounded not only the doctrine of Divine Mind governing all reality, she had indicated the rival force of illusion in the theory of mesmerism or animal magnetism and in the second edition of her book, the so-called Volume II, she had further indicated the working of this hypnotic force. She had come to see that manipulation is not the only method of hypnotism, but that the mind acts independently