Daily Watch for the week of November 23rd, 2025 — November 30th, 2025
171 — WATCH lest, when you think of one as handled by animal magnetism, you accept the notion that perhaps an hour before, he was not handled, because then he showed no sign of it.
Being handled by animal magnetism means that one has not made a successful effort to be governed by God. Man is, seemingly, a channel for error whenever he is not a channel for God. One is handled by animal magnetism whenever he is controlled by human thinking; yet he may be unconscious of the error until something happens which calls his attention to it.
It may seem harsh to declare that mortals are handled by animal magnetism, but logic proves that indulgence in human thinking, no matter how harmless it may seem, makes one a channel for error, a condition which shuts out divine Mind.
If you declare someone to be handled by animal magnetism because he says or does something that is out of keeping with what you feel is good, while you believe that perhaps an hour ago he was not handled, because then his speech and action were apparently all right, this shows that you misunderstand what Mrs. Eddy intended to convey by the term.
Error is negative — never positive. The correct way to detect the claim of animal magnetism is not so much by what mortal man does, as by what he does not do. If he is not striving to reflect divine Mind, he is handled by animal magnetism, no matter if his outward actions and speech seem angelic.
Click here to listen to the unabridged Watching Point:
To The Watchers
from Watches, Prayers, and Arguments, as given by Mary Baker Eddy, page 49
“Hear, O Israel, for the Lord, our God, is one God.”
You are not to come in your own name to pray.
You are not to control any mind.
You are to come only in the divine strength, and know that God will rule and does, and that hypnotism and evil minds cannot, and do not, control men or governments.
All power is God, good.
This is my only formula to Christian Scientists for prayer, and God will give you faith that will remove mountains.