A week ago, a new acquaintance was telling me about a friend of his who was showing off his “hypnotic powers.”

He said that his friend was waiting for a woman to deliver a product and decided to use her as a subject for his mind-control methods. He was going to have the woman dress in blue, he said.

The new acquaintance of mine was quite impressed with his friend’s powers and wondered what my opinion was of his deeds.

He continued his story….

After a while, the woman arrived in a blue dress.

“Wow! Can you believe that?” He asked

He went on…

After the woman arrived, the two men told her about the mental signal they had sent her way, to have her come dressed in blue. The woman laughed and said, “That is quite interesting. I did not dress in blue this morning, but as I was driving to meet you, I spilled coffee on my dress and went back home to change. That’s when I put on the blue dress.”

Of course, this confirmed the hypnotist’s powers even more for the guy telling me the story.

He asked me if I believed mental manipulation like that was possible.

I told him I believed his story. And I used the story to bring out a spiritual lesson.

I said, “This kind of story is the very reason you want to defend your thinking everyday from outside mental influence. Your friend messed with this woman’s thinking, and she didn’t know it. Lots of people are trying to influence other people’s thinking everyday, maybe not consciously all the time, but it’s the same idea. You have to defend yourself from it.”

In Christian Science, this kind of mental manipulation is called mental malpractice.

I went onto explain that suppose the hypnotist had a turn of bad will and decided to influence another’s thinking into doing something detrimental, like hurt someone, or get ill, or make a mistake on an important project?

He got the point. He had been so enamored by his friends’ ability to control another’s thought that he didn’t think about the potential downside.

There are many hypnotists who perform on stage and advertise professional services such as to help people stop smoking or lose weight. And many people are attracted to this type of activity. On the surface, their acts appear innocent and even beneficial. But there is a major downside to be understood.

If we yield our thought to a hypnotist in one instance, we are liable to yield in another, and maybe without realizing it. It’s better to stay in control of one’s thoughts and yield only to the divine Mind influence. Then we’re always safe whether consciously aware of another’s mal-intent or not.

Hypnotism is not funny, really. It can be dangerous if actively or passively entertained as having real power.

In Science, hypnotism has no power at all, for there is one Mind governing all and no counter human mind to mess with the divine order. But this truth needs to be understood and lived to be demonstrated. Let’s do it!