In “Science and Health,” thirty-sixth edition, published in 1888, Mrs. Eddy says, on page 220:
“It is hoped that eventually our laws will take cognizance of mental crime.”
On page 515, she says:
“This malicious animal-power (of which the Dragon is the type) seeks to kill his fellow-mortals, morally and physically, and then to charge the innocent with his crimes.”
On page 516, she says:
“The highest degree of human depravity, which is to be found in this propulsive will power, or Animal Magnetism.”
In “Miscellaneous Writings,” published in 1897, on page 222, Mrs. Eddy says:
“The crimes committed under this new regime of mind-power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known.”
In a long article entitled “Malicious Animal Magnetism,” written by Mrs. Eddy and published as hers in the Christian Science Journal for February, 1889, when the Journal was her property, she lays down her inspired teaching on that subject with unwonted clearness. She says:
“One of the greatest crimes practiced in, or known to, the ages is mental assassination. A mind liberated from the beliefs of sense, to do good, by perverting its power becomes warped into the lines of evil without let or hindrance. A mind taught its power to touch other minds by the transference of thought, for the ends of restoration from sickness, or, grandest of all, the reformation and almost transformation into the living image and likeness of God—this mind, by misusing its freedom, reaches the degree of total moral depravity.
“Does the community know this criminal? He sits at the friendly board and fireside; he goes to their places of worship; he takes his victim by the hand, and all the time claims the power and carries the will to stab to the heart, to take character and life from this friend who gives him his hand in full trust, and has, perhaps, toiled and suffered to benefit and bless him.…
“It is no longer possible to keep still concerning these things—nay, it is criminal to hold silence and to cover crime that grows bolder and picks off its victims as sharpshooters pick off the officers of an attacking force.
“These secret, heaven-defying enormities must be proclaimed, or we become guilty before God as accessory after the fact. If a friend were fallen upon and maltreated or murdered before our eyes, should we hold ourselves guiltless, should we count ourselves men and women, if we buried the secret of the violence and our knowledge of the assassins?
“Are we such cowards, knowing the facts that we do know, as to turn and run? Shall we see the evil, the deadly danger that threatens our brother, and, to hide ourselves, flee away not warning him?
“The Science of mind uncovers to Scientists secret sin, even more distinctly than so-called physical crimes are visible to the personal senses; crime is always veiled in obscurity, but Science fastens guilt upon its author through mind, with the certainty and directness of the eye of God Himself.
“Human laws will eventually be framed for these criminals that now go unwhipped of human justice. Human law even now recognizes crime as mental, for it seeks always the motive. Rude counterfeit as it is of Divine Justice, it metes out punishment or pardons according as it finds, or finds not, the evil intent, the mental element. The time has come for instructing human justice so that these secret criminals shall tremble before the omnipotent finger that points them out to the human executioner.”