Protection From Witchcraft
WITCHCRAFT claims that cooperation with evil, or the devil, gives supernatural power to those who exercise its so-called authority. But through Christ, the truth of God, divine Love, we are able to recognize the erroneous nature of this belief and protect ourselves from it.
Belief in witchcraft works through fear and hate. It appears in various guises. Where I live in Africa, for example, one of the beliefs associated with witchcraft is a belief in the divinity of one's parents. But whatever specific form witchcraft takes, a right understanding of God exposes the illusory nature of its so-called origins and shows us that because God, good, is the only power, evil has no real origin or power.
God, Mind, is the only Principle of man, His spiritual idea. In reality, man is the son of God, created in His image and likeness. The image of God is neither a personal creator nor a god. God is our Father-Mother. To believe, then, that one's elders are gods is to break the First Commandment, found in Exodus, ``Thou shalt have no other gods before me'' (20:3).
Man has no personal power of his own, but expresses his creator with-out limit. ``In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry'' writes Mary Baker Eddy in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science goes on to say: ``Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being'' (p. 63).
Witchcraft would have us believe that evil is another power, set in opposition to God, omnipotent good. To guard against witchcraft, then, we must first of all realize that neither witchcraft nor the supposed witch has intelligence or power. God, divine Mind, has all power, and God is the source of all reality. Through a spiritual perception of God as divine Love, we are able to nullify fear and hate, and without these, witchcraft has no door through which to enter our lives.
Love, God, is All-in-all. It protects all through its unlimited goodness. The shield of Love covers and protects man and excludes all danger. Thus, as we read in I John, ``Perfect love casteth out fear'' (4:18).
Man, the image of Love, reflects his creator. He is, therefore, incapable of evil. God-created man--our genuine selfhood--is neither the victim nor the author of evil. He can neither be a witch nor be bewitched. And divine Love protects him from hatred.
To believe that someone hates us is to entertain a belief in hatred. We must understand that man has no personal power to love or to hate. From God we reflect the infinite power to love, and it is impossible for us not to love. God never made hatred. Therefore, hatred has no reality and no one can truly hate us, any more than we can hate anyone else.
This realization disarms the belief in witchcraft and enables us to demonstrate its nothingness, and thus to protect ourselves from it. No matter what the appearance, witchcraft is nothing but a belief, fed by fear and hatred. Its claims to power and authority are false because God, good, is the only source of genu-ine power. Through divine Love we can and we should cast out fear and rise above the belief in hatred. In this way we prove that neither we nor our would-be assailant can be separated from our Father-Mother God's infinite love, expressed through His Christ.
