Facing Down Animal Magnetism

Learning how to handle animal magnetism was a tough one for me for a long time. As I look back at the training I received here at the Plainfield Church, one of the primary reasons it was so tough for me was because I arrived as, I guess you could say, a coward. I was really unwilling to acknowledge we were in a battle; a battle between good and evil.

After I moved to Plainfield, the practitioner and teacher, Mrs. Evans, would often remind us that we are in a battle. I remember bristling at first. I was under the mistaken belief that you are supposed to go through life peacefully, be diplomatic, and expect things to resolve themselves. The idea of being in a battle was not something I wanted to accept.

However, for quite some time I had difficulty with relationships, business and personal, and especially confrontation. I did not like it, I did not know how to deal with it, and I ran from it often. It caused many problems for me; it affected my health. Dear Mrs. Evans continued to remind us that we were in a battle and we had better be fighting on the right side.

One morning I woke up, and it just clicked for me. I realized, “Yes. We are in a battle here. It is a battle between good and evil, and the battle is the Lord’s.” This means that God, which is omnipotent good, destroys the false belief that evil has power or reality. The battle is not personal because evil is neither person, place, nor thing; but, rather, only a false belief. My reluctance to accept that we were in a battle was that I was concerned about hurting people’s feelings. I had personalized the battle. When I was able to impersonalize it, everything in my life changed. I started to speak up when I felt things were wrong. I was less concerned about hurting other people’s feelings and much more concerned about the right thing being done or said. If anyone had their feelings hurt, that was alright. I knew it was the best thing for them to wake them up and to let them see that it wasn’t personal; because what is right for one is right for all, and what is good for one is good for all.

That awakening changed my life. Since then I have gained much greater confidence that God is in control of my life. I am so grateful to Mrs. Evans for teaching us this important lesson, for Mary Baker Eddy for fighting the battle before us, and showing us how to win with God.