Moral Idiocy

The trick of the antichrist these days is not so much attack, in its attempt to vanquish, but provocation — to provoke us out of at-one-ment with God, separate us from Soul, and thus render us powerless. It would incite us into a sense of human contention with moral idiocy — fooling us into a sense of things wherein unprincipled beliefs seem firmly entrenched, appearing and reappearing, receding and advancing, never letting up, bringing confusion, disorder, humiliation, frustration, and making us feel we are “getting nowhere.”

The hatred of animal magnetism seems to send a claim of moral idiocy into our affairs which, in some way, we feel duty bound to respond humanly. Not recognizing it as evil’s ‘bait,’ we take the claim into consciousness, listen to it, reason with it, try to figure it out, reform it, live with it, get along in spite of it, instead of seeing it as a decoy and turning at once to deal with the impersonal hatred itself (motivated by revenge, envy, jealousy, etc.) and casting it out by refusing to be fooled and diverted by its ‘medium’ — the deluded individual who apparently seems to feel nothing.

Through so-called ‘good’ qualities — personal responsibility, compassion, righteousness, integrity, human love — we feel obligated to listen to its arguments, put up with it. Too late do we begin to see what it is doing to us. A kind of higher type of human nature — such as Job — has difficulty, in getting past this duty stage. Job believed that his health, happiness and peace depended on his ability to heal — convince and convert — the moral idiocy around him. When he found his own humility and saw that it was infinite, the duty sense fell naturally away, and he was healed.

So we, too, seem to play into the hands of hatred, falling into and perpetuating this claim of everlasting warfare. The antichrist sets up its phantasma of moral idiocy, and we retaliate. Thus we keep it going and seem to take on suffering of all kinds, as did Job — nervousness, worry, fear, loss, fatigue, inflammation, animosity, and separation. This is just what evil’s hatred has been working for. It defies us to turn away instantly and completely from the false picture and cast out these immoral, perverted beliefs and so relax and be at peace. And, of course, personal sense, which cannot rise high enough to discern and uncover the real culprit, can never do so. The hatred claims to operate in this way because it is inert — nothing — unless there is conflict through the belief of duality. Why? Because, in the realm of belief, conflict is necessary to generate all forms of energy, destructive forces, power, heat, etc. Evil’s hatred is generated by using moral idiocy suggestions as a means by which it can provoke, incense, challenge, that human sense of astuteness and moral responsibility which sees it, but does not have the unselfishness or humility to refuse to deal with it and cast it out.

Evil’s only hope for life and power then, in belief, is to keep the moral idiocy constantly in view by causing conflict. But does it keep it in view, or do we? In the world today, and in our own affairs, we must remember it is not so much the issue involved; it is the disruption that animal magnetism is striving for. Its whole game is to separate at-one-ment — Principle and idea, reasoning and discernment, noumenon and phenomenon, unfoldment and manifestation — and to keep us fighting. To do this it uses moral idiocy, directing it specifically towards the belief of human integrity and duty.

The human sense of ego has not discerned the fact that human good is able to destroy evil only insofar as it recognizes itself to be phenomenon, the unfoldment in thought and action of the one cause, Soul — which has already created everything perfect, whole, faultless, and which forever operates from the standpoint of dominion. The belief of human integrity never emerges from the sense of struggle, and so chafes, frets, contends, staying in the realm of conflict and duality, never seeming to get out. Thus, the antichrist is perpetuated, in belief, as personal sense argues, debates, and tries to heal the moral idiocy — or tries to ignore it.

So what is it that conflicts with the hatred-directed beliefs of moral idiocy? Not humility, but some moral integrity which has not yet been raised to the level of divine Science — divine Love — and so feels maligned, persecuted, restricted, opposed. All moral idiocy has to do then, is to see to it that we believe some personal, virtuous “I am” belief about ourselves, one that is not yet raised to the level of the divine quality and power of humility. Then evil claims to send the specific moral idiotic belief that will conflict with it, for moral idiocy can find an opponent in personal sense, but not in humility. It can set up its field of duality only in a sense of self vs. self. For example, personal intelligence as opposed to unreasonableness; personal accomplishment as opposed to laziness; personal purity as opposed to corruption; personal righteousness as opposed to moral blindness; personal integrity as opposed to dishonesty; human will (as good) as opposed to evil intention, indifference, scorn; and personal wealth, beauty and human joy as opposed to lack, ugliness, depression.

Then are we going to fall into the trap? Let us recognize what the hatred is trying to do. Its whole game is to make us feel we are the victims of circumstances, to keep us fighting, to wear us out, by making us believe that the moral idiocy is doing something, is a terrible thing, is fooling everybody, is governing our lives, is destroying our happiness, giving us a bad time, etc. In this way, evil keeps us involved through our human, moral, personal inability to let go, and so we never get to the root of the matter. Consequently, we never rise into the pure Christ-consciousness of at-one-ment, and demonstrate it completely right where we are.

Mrs. Eddy says to “save the victim of the mental assassin.” Who is the victim? The moral idiot? Or are we through the so-called moral idiot? If we save ourselves (that is, our pure, unadulterated, spiritual sense of ourselves) and so preserve divine Science, by knowing that hatred cannot touch us in any way through any tool of moral idiocy, the so-called idiot will learn the Truth in his own way, at the proper time for all concerned — whether he is a relative, employer, friend — and we do not want to spare him or deprive him of any of the lessons he is to learn according to how long he has let himself be used. Humility sees that this is up to God. Also, that the idea and its affairs can only be blessed. The important thing to remember is that the antichrist is trying to disturb us — the loyal ones, the obedient ones; to get us to harbor a belief of something else besides good; to take on a false sense of responsibility for others to the extent of our own downfall, if it can. It would cast us down from humility or at-one-ment, and so render us powerless.

So we must refuse to be goaded, on the human level, taking only such footsteps as unfold through humility, leaving error to destroy itself, while the idea remains untouched, by reason of there being no battle, no opposite, no negative side. This consciousness is the only weapon with which to destroy hatred, and animal magnetism knows this, or seems to.

Humility takes us off the battlefield. Translating selfhood, personal joys, human volition, into Soul, and seeing that our human selfhood is only objectification of divine ideas manifested, this removes the target. From this standpoint, impersonal humility comfortably uncovers and casts out the demon of moral idiocy from the divine level, taking it out of our experience.

If we seem to be moved, incensed, irritated, affected in any way, by the seeming idiocy of someone, the hatred has accomplished the first step in its campaign. It has made us leave home ground, forget our real self — the one spiritual, infinite selfhood — and see another self somewhere. The minute we do this, we come down from at-one-ment, humility, our perfect Christ-consciousness, and dwell in a ‘something else besides’ state of thought.

So what must we do? Endeavor to see the other person as God’s man? Consciously try to love him? Think about him at all? No. This is just what the antichrist hopes we will do. For this proves to it that it has gone unrecognized. Instead we should turn all the more to our own true selfhood and work for it. We should “gather ourselves up in God,” and scientifically prove that our own true selfhood — our own infinite Christ-consciousness — is all the man there is, the only manifestation, in our affairs. From here, we are able to see the whole claim as impersonal moral idiocy coming from hatred of the Truth, which we must not argue with, but must cut off, turn away from and cast out. For it is all hatred — hatred and its decoy as one and the same — the unpardonable sin to be cast out and not healed. Then we must “gather ourselves up in God,” in our own humility, our own peace, our own perfection and its infinity, rejoicing in the divine fact that hatred has never touched us or our affairs, has never done a thing, was never person, place or thing, and we have always been and always will be at the standpoint of perfection.

To the extent that we do this, we find and prove that God alone handles animal magnetism in His own way, in His own time; and we see immediate harmony manifested in our own universe. And for the sake of the so-called moral idiot — if we have not been doing this — we should begin doing it now. This sends the moral idiocy out of our affairs, one way or the other — more or less painfully, seemingly according to how long we have allowed it to go on in our affairs. This is the pure and final meaning of healing our friends. This is the real meaning of loving our neighbor.

The whole trick of animal magnetism today, then, is to make us think that healing others — especially those under the claim of moral idiocy — is to think about them. It would make us turn away from purifying our own sense of self and do something about someone else — help him, heal him, get rid of him. And if we see through moral idiocy and do not do this, it nags at us that we are neglectful, selfish, bigoted, isolationists, reactionary. Then it claims to work on a sense of personal integrity that it attaches to us, and uses as a tool to work on us, to bring us down from our pure sense of humility. Thinking about moral idiocy and reacting to it is not unselfishness. We are allowing ourselves to be mesmerized by moral idiocy. When we do so, animal magnetism has us doing exactly what it wanted in the first place, and we are now at its level seemingly doing just what the moral idiocy is doing.