New Thought Healing Made Plain
Kate Atkinson Boehme
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS ?
NEW THOUGHT HEALING
IF you are at all observant of life and its happenings,
you will admit the fact that your
thought affects your body for good or ill. You
have discovered that worry, fear and anxiety
lower your heart action, deaden your circulation,
give you indigestion, headache, neuralgia and
other ailments. It is said that a reiteration of
worried thought beating on the same brain cells
wears the cellular tissue so thin that finally it
breaks, usually resulting in death. Even if the
result is not so serious, a long siege of worry
usually ends in a spell of sickness, which, by the
way, is a preservative effort of Nature, as it
turns worry into a new channel, so that it beats
on a different set of brain cells, or, better still,
stops worry altogether, for when one is very sick,
the usual causes of worry do not matter much;
in fact, nothing matters but the physical suffering
and how to get rid of it.This is a mere hint at the many ill effects of thought upon the body. We will not dwell upon them, but turn to the good effects of the health-giving thought, and more especially of New Thought.
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This brings us to the question — What is New
Thought? I can think of no more perfect, full
and complete definition of it than we find in those
wonderful words of Schopenhauer — "Clear Vision
of the World."
New Thought stands for a tremendous movement of the human mind toward the understanding of things as they really are. From the beginning of human life on this planet, from our earliest savage ancestors, it has been a long, hard voyage of exploration and discovery, without a chart to guide, except that of pain or pleasure.
I believe that Man has always instinctively sought the Truth, but has encountered it veiled; hence his false beliefs regarding it. In the evolution of a germ of Truth existing in each false belief lies the advance to "Clear Vision of the World."
We cannot imagine what this earth appeared to primal Man, but we know that it seemed under the dominion of grim, cruel forces, always arrayed against him in the struggle for existence.
Now, in his clear vision he sees those forces as beneficent, all working toward his highest evolution, all tending toward ultimate health, joy and general well being. These states of mind and body cannot be laid on Man from the outside; they must be worked out from within, as a spider weaves its web out of its own substance. God does not confer Joy as an unearned gift upon Man. He brings it forth from him by means of the Divine Urge.
As Man's enlarging intelligence compasses more
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New Thought stands for a tremendous movement of the human mind toward the understanding of things as they really are. From the beginning of human life on this planet, from our earliest savage ancestors, it has been a long, hard voyage of exploration and discovery, without a chart to guide, except that of pain or pleasure.
I believe that Man has always instinctively sought the Truth, but has encountered it veiled; hence his false beliefs regarding it. In the evolution of a germ of Truth existing in each false belief lies the advance to "Clear Vision of the World."
We cannot imagine what this earth appeared to primal Man, but we know that it seemed under the dominion of grim, cruel forces, always arrayed against him in the struggle for existence.
Now, in his clear vision he sees those forces as beneficent, all working toward his highest evolution, all tending toward ultimate health, joy and general well being. These states of mind and body cannot be laid on Man from the outside; they must be worked out from within, as a spider weaves its web out of its own substance. God does not confer Joy as an unearned gift upon Man. He brings it forth from him by means of the Divine Urge.
As Man's enlarging intelligence compasses more
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and more of creation he has discovered Thought
to be a mighty though hidden Force. For that
matter all Force is hidden, but in some instances
the material means are evident, while in the
working of Thought the mechanism is invisible
and intangible.
How is it that Thought acts upon the nerves and muscles of your body, causing motion? Who ever saw a Thought when it so acted on nerve and muscle? No one has ever explained this mystery, and yet we accept it as a fact, not wholly because physiologists tell us it is so, but because we know it through our own experience.
I see a book on the table. I think I would like to examine it. I am conscious of that thought.
Then I think I will take it up. I am conscious of that thought also. Then I do take it up and I am conscious that in some mysterious way my thought has caused my hand to reach out to the table and draw the book toward me. Hundreds of nerves and muscles have been brought into play, and yet I do not know how it was accomplished. I may have it explained to me how muscles respond to nervous stimulus, how they contract and expand in obedience to it, and I may see that the entire network of nerves and muscles throughout the body is controlled by thought; but that is not seeing how it is done.
That, it seems, must remain a mystery. But for that reason do we deny it? Not at all. I know of no one who does not acknowledge that thought controls the body, that is, that his thought controls his own body.
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How is it that Thought acts upon the nerves and muscles of your body, causing motion? Who ever saw a Thought when it so acted on nerve and muscle? No one has ever explained this mystery, and yet we accept it as a fact, not wholly because physiologists tell us it is so, but because we know it through our own experience.
I see a book on the table. I think I would like to examine it. I am conscious of that thought.
Then I think I will take it up. I am conscious of that thought also. Then I do take it up and I am conscious that in some mysterious way my thought has caused my hand to reach out to the table and draw the book toward me. Hundreds of nerves and muscles have been brought into play, and yet I do not know how it was accomplished. I may have it explained to me how muscles respond to nervous stimulus, how they contract and expand in obedience to it, and I may see that the entire network of nerves and muscles throughout the body is controlled by thought; but that is not seeing how it is done.
That, it seems, must remain a mystery. But for that reason do we deny it? Not at all. I know of no one who does not acknowledge that thought controls the body, that is, that his thought controls his own body.
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I may, therefore, take it for granted that you
acknowledge so much, although I cannot expect
you at this juncture to go so far as to acknowledge
that the thought of another person can act
upon your body or upon your mind. Of course
we know that the audible speech or written word
of another will affect your mind and, secondarily,
your body, but that an unspoken thought should
produce such an effect is beyond your credence.
The law of Telepathy or Thought Transmission is now accepted by scientists the world over. Such men as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes and Alfred Russell Wallace have tested this law and proved it to be a fact.
Or, if you seek proof nearer home, you can find it in the following simple experiment. Get together a few of your friends. Blindfold one and place him in the middle of the room, after having shown him a key or some other object which you intend he shall find. Surround this person by the rest of your friends, standing in a closed circle with joined hands, while all of you think steadily of the key in the place where it is deposited. After some hesitation the blindfolded person, with slow and uncertain steps, will move toward the key and will ultimately find it.
I will describe the sensation of the person blindfolded as I experienced it. First my mind felt utterly vacuous. All thought seemed to vanish. Then in a few seconds I felt pushed by unseen hands in a certain direction, although no hands were touching me. So strong was the inclination of my body in that direction that
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The law of Telepathy or Thought Transmission is now accepted by scientists the world over. Such men as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes and Alfred Russell Wallace have tested this law and proved it to be a fact.
Or, if you seek proof nearer home, you can find it in the following simple experiment. Get together a few of your friends. Blindfold one and place him in the middle of the room, after having shown him a key or some other object which you intend he shall find. Surround this person by the rest of your friends, standing in a closed circle with joined hands, while all of you think steadily of the key in the place where it is deposited. After some hesitation the blindfolded person, with slow and uncertain steps, will move toward the key and will ultimately find it.
I will describe the sensation of the person blindfolded as I experienced it. First my mind felt utterly vacuous. All thought seemed to vanish. Then in a few seconds I felt pushed by unseen hands in a certain direction, although no hands were touching me. So strong was the inclination of my body in that direction that
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I would have fallen had I not put out one foot
to balance myself. Then another push and
another step, and so I gradually approached a
chair on which the key had been placed. When
I reached the chair my whole body relaxed,
and I drooped over it with arms listlessly hanging
until one hand touched the key. On another
occasion the key was hung upon the wall, and
when I touched the wall I felt a desire to stretch
upward with one arm. I did so and grasped the
key where it hung upon a nail.
Now, had the force of those minds been directed to my mind I might have had a definite idea of the position of the key. I would probably have thought — The key is on the chair, or, The key hangs on the wall, but I had no such definite thought, nothing but a vague blind movement for which I could not account. I was impelled to move, I knew not why. It therefore seemed that the thought of the minds concentrating upon me acted directly upon my body without passing through the medium of my mind. To me this was conclusive proof that the thought of one person can act directly upon the body of another person.
There is a large hospital in France called La Salpetriere. It is one of the oldest and largest hospitals in the world, covering an area of seventy four acres, and consisting of forty-five large blocks. In that hospital the patients are treated almost entirely by the power of Thought, but it is used as hypnotic suggestion. They do some strange things there which you would hardly
Now, had the force of those minds been directed to my mind I might have had a definite idea of the position of the key. I would probably have thought — The key is on the chair, or, The key hangs on the wall, but I had no such definite thought, nothing but a vague blind movement for which I could not account. I was impelled to move, I knew not why. It therefore seemed that the thought of the minds concentrating upon me acted directly upon my body without passing through the medium of my mind. To me this was conclusive proof that the thought of one person can act directly upon the body of another person.
There is a large hospital in France called La Salpetriere. It is one of the oldest and largest hospitals in the world, covering an area of seventy four acres, and consisting of forty-five large blocks. In that hospital the patients are treated almost entirely by the power of Thought, but it is used as hypnotic suggestion. They do some strange things there which you would hardly
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credit, did not the reputation of the physicians
in charge and the standing of the hospital back
up the statements.
Let me tell you what is done to those patients while in a state of hypnosis. A drop of cold water is placed on the flesh, and the patient is told that it is boiling oil. It then draws a blister. Now, how do you suppose this effect is produced? Quite a mystery, is it not? But being done and testified to by reputable physicians in a reputable hospital you cannot very well doubt it.
They also take a fly-blister and divide it into three equal parts, 1, 2, and 3. Number 1 theyplace upon a patient's right arm, Number 2 uponthe left arm, and Number 3 upon the arm of a person who is not hypnotized. This done, the doctor says of number 1 that it will not draw a blister, and says nothing of numbers 2 and 3.
The result is that number 1 does not draw a blister. They call that negative suggestion, which means that the blistering power is taken out of the number 1 piece of fly-blister, while it remains in the other two pieces, numbers 2 and 3. I say the blistering power is removed from number 1, but perhaps it is more correct to say that the skin of the patient is made positive against it. The fly-blister becomes negative, therefore, to the skin of the patient, and produces no effect upon it, although it is a good, strong blister, as may be seen by the effects of numbers 2 and 3, of which it was originally a part, the one fly-blister having been cut into three parts for the experiment.
Let me tell you what is done to those patients while in a state of hypnosis. A drop of cold water is placed on the flesh, and the patient is told that it is boiling oil. It then draws a blister. Now, how do you suppose this effect is produced? Quite a mystery, is it not? But being done and testified to by reputable physicians in a reputable hospital you cannot very well doubt it.
They also take a fly-blister and divide it into three equal parts, 1, 2, and 3. Number 1 theyplace upon a patient's right arm, Number 2 uponthe left arm, and Number 3 upon the arm of a person who is not hypnotized. This done, the doctor says of number 1 that it will not draw a blister, and says nothing of numbers 2 and 3.
The result is that number 1 does not draw a blister. They call that negative suggestion, which means that the blistering power is taken out of the number 1 piece of fly-blister, while it remains in the other two pieces, numbers 2 and 3. I say the blistering power is removed from number 1, but perhaps it is more correct to say that the skin of the patient is made positive against it. The fly-blister becomes negative, therefore, to the skin of the patient, and produces no effect upon it, although it is a good, strong blister, as may be seen by the effects of numbers 2 and 3, of which it was originally a part, the one fly-blister having been cut into three parts for the experiment.
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This, then, is the power of Thought. It can
turn a drop of cold water into a violent irritant,
or a fly-blister into something as harmless as a
bit of paper.
When you realize that cold water when used with suggestion can draw a blister, can you doubt the power of Thought over the secretions of the body? Moreover, the drop of water is not actually necessary in the experiment, for Thought without material aid has caused a blister, in the tests just quoted, and Thought alone has prevented a blister.
New Thought Healing is not Hypnotic Suggestion. I am only quoting the latter to prove the power of Thought.
The late Professor William James of Harvard said that tumefaction can be produced by Thought in any part of the body. On the same principle, applied in the opposite manner, tumefaction can be removed by Thought.
Dr. Elmer Gates of Washington proved to me conclusively that blood can be sent here and there through the body by simply turning the thought upon it and directing its current. This he showed me by actual experiment. Other men of science are giving out quite as remarkable statements, and their word must go for something. You accept a great deal on the evidence of chemists, astronomers and naturalists, and the evidence in favor of the power of Thought is just as convincing. No one who investigates thoroughly can doubt it.
I think perhaps the greatest obstacle to our
When you realize that cold water when used with suggestion can draw a blister, can you doubt the power of Thought over the secretions of the body? Moreover, the drop of water is not actually necessary in the experiment, for Thought without material aid has caused a blister, in the tests just quoted, and Thought alone has prevented a blister.
New Thought Healing is not Hypnotic Suggestion. I am only quoting the latter to prove the power of Thought.
The late Professor William James of Harvard said that tumefaction can be produced by Thought in any part of the body. On the same principle, applied in the opposite manner, tumefaction can be removed by Thought.
Dr. Elmer Gates of Washington proved to me conclusively that blood can be sent here and there through the body by simply turning the thought upon it and directing its current. This he showed me by actual experiment. Other men of science are giving out quite as remarkable statements, and their word must go for something. You accept a great deal on the evidence of chemists, astronomers and naturalists, and the evidence in favor of the power of Thought is just as convincing. No one who investigates thoroughly can doubt it.
I think perhaps the greatest obstacle to our
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believing that Thought can pass from one mind
to another is that there seems to be no material
agent of transmission, no vehicle for travel.
But there is. It is a refined matter in the form
of ether, and on this ether Thought travels.
There are things we may not detect with our senses
which nevertheless exist, and this ether is one of
them.
Who would have supposed, some years ago, that today we should be telegraphing without wires? A transmitter is set up in New York and a receiver in Boston, or any other two points, and the message goes straight from one to the other. Why then may not a message travel on the ether from healer to patient? The healer is the transmitter and the patient the receiver, the message going straight and true from one to the other no matter how great the separation between the two. A telepathic message goes from here to England, Finland, Australia, South Africa, or wherever the receiver, in the form of a patient, is located. It takes weeks and months for letters to go to those distant points, but Thought goes in an instant, like an electric flash. We have an electrical Thought Power, and we live in an electrical age. Greater wonders still are to be revealed in the coming years.
It is not the message sent from healer to patient that heals. It is not the thought of the healer that heals. What is it, then? It is the Spirit of God dwelling within the patient himself.
And why does it not heal without the intervention of a healer? Sometimes it does, and again
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Who would have supposed, some years ago, that today we should be telegraphing without wires? A transmitter is set up in New York and a receiver in Boston, or any other two points, and the message goes straight from one to the other. Why then may not a message travel on the ether from healer to patient? The healer is the transmitter and the patient the receiver, the message going straight and true from one to the other no matter how great the separation between the two. A telepathic message goes from here to England, Finland, Australia, South Africa, or wherever the receiver, in the form of a patient, is located. It takes weeks and months for letters to go to those distant points, but Thought goes in an instant, like an electric flash. We have an electrical Thought Power, and we live in an electrical age. Greater wonders still are to be revealed in the coming years.
It is not the message sent from healer to patient that heals. It is not the thought of the healer that heals. What is it, then? It is the Spirit of God dwelling within the patient himself.
And why does it not heal without the intervention of a healer? Sometimes it does, and again
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it needs to be called into expression by the faith
and realization of another mind, such as the mind
of the healer, one that has super abounding
faith in the power of spiritual healing.
While the Spirit of God is all-powerful, it must
flow through certain channels in order to do its
work, and those channels are mental processes.
For that reason we formerly used the term "Mental
Healing," but have discarded it, as it does not
suggest the spiritual principle at work. Mental
processes are dead and automatic unless infused
by the life of the Spirit, as I shall show you in
the next chapter.
Spirit is formless, but it takes upon itself form when it creates a tree, a flower, a planet, a man or an insect, yes, or a thought, for thoughts have form, although invisible to the physical eye, as are myriads of other forms in the universe, being of finer matter than the retina of the eye can register.
Thought-Forms are ensouled with life and intelligence and they perform a wonderful work in healing disease and unhappiness. When I said that the thought of the healer does not heal the patient, I should have added that it has an influence for good upon the patient in that it calls forth its correspondence in the mind of the patient, as, for instance, thoughts of courage and hope call into being thoughts of courage and hope in the patient, and these thoughts are conducive to health and happiness. Thoughts of faith going from healer to patient arouse faith in the patient, and that is instrumental in healing, so
Spirit is formless, but it takes upon itself form when it creates a tree, a flower, a planet, a man or an insect, yes, or a thought, for thoughts have form, although invisible to the physical eye, as are myriads of other forms in the universe, being of finer matter than the retina of the eye can register.
Thought-Forms are ensouled with life and intelligence and they perform a wonderful work in healing disease and unhappiness. When I said that the thought of the healer does not heal the patient, I should have added that it has an influence for good upon the patient in that it calls forth its correspondence in the mind of the patient, as, for instance, thoughts of courage and hope call into being thoughts of courage and hope in the patient, and these thoughts are conducive to health and happiness. Thoughts of faith going from healer to patient arouse faith in the patient, and that is instrumental in healing, so
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in that way the healer is an agent in the cure,
but what I wish to impress upon your mind is
the fact that you are as close to the Divine Healing
Power as the healer, and that when you learn
to open the channels of your thought to its influx,
it flows straight from God through you.
The true healer is, therefore, a teacher, both
consciously and subconsciously, teaching consciously
by means of lessons and subconsciously
by means of thought transmission, by the sending
out of thoughts of Truth and Love.
Suggestion is not hypnotic control of necessity, but is merely thought transmission. The Medical Summary of Philadelphia says editorially: "Suggestion is the moving power in the treatment of disease. Experienced practitioners habitually employ it to advantage of the patient. Prudent friends and callers at the bedside practice suggestion by taking with them the assurance of better things to come. A word of cheer, the reassuring smile, inspire hope — this, too, is suggestion. Rheumatic rings, magnetic healing and divine healing all have their tap-root in suggestion. If, with ability to diagnose disease, and without the aid from coal-tar sedatives and opiates, the physician can relieve such maladies as headache, lumbago, sciatica or the anguish of rheumatic joint, duty imposes the obligation to do so." This shows the trend of the more advanced and liberal in the medical fraternity. They, with us, are coming into a "Clear Vision of the World" which involves the seeing of finer curatives than we find in drugs.
Suggestion is not hypnotic control of necessity, but is merely thought transmission. The Medical Summary of Philadelphia says editorially: "Suggestion is the moving power in the treatment of disease. Experienced practitioners habitually employ it to advantage of the patient. Prudent friends and callers at the bedside practice suggestion by taking with them the assurance of better things to come. A word of cheer, the reassuring smile, inspire hope — this, too, is suggestion. Rheumatic rings, magnetic healing and divine healing all have their tap-root in suggestion. If, with ability to diagnose disease, and without the aid from coal-tar sedatives and opiates, the physician can relieve such maladies as headache, lumbago, sciatica or the anguish of rheumatic joint, duty imposes the obligation to do so." This shows the trend of the more advanced and liberal in the medical fraternity. They, with us, are coming into a "Clear Vision of the World" which involves the seeing of finer curatives than we find in drugs.
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You see the world keeps moving on, and no conservatism
can stop it. One system gives place
to another. Different schools of medicine have
put in their claims, had their day, and vanished
to give place to more effective ones.
New Thought Healing is here now and is
having its day. If it proves to be what the
world is seeking, it will keep its hold. If not,
it will give place to something better. That,
however, does not concern us, for, while we have
a power for relieving the sickness and sorrow of
humanity, it is best to use it to the uttermost
instead of vaguely seeking what may possibly
follow. When it is on the wane will be time
enough to look for something better. It is not
now waning but steadily rising toward the
Zenith.
Before passing on to the next chapter think over what I have said about the power of Thought, and the proofs of its transmission from mind to mind. These two points admitted, you will not be long in conceding to Thought the function of either creating or healing disease, and later you will see how it is that New Thought heals disease.
New Thought heals because it, in its clear vision of the world, sees the Universe to be governed by Love and Intelligence, and therefore knows that nothing can go really wrong in these lives of ours. It sees in sickness, unhappiness and adversity angels in the night to be wrestled with until the dawn, when they will depart, leaving a blessing with the wrestler.
Before passing on to the next chapter think over what I have said about the power of Thought, and the proofs of its transmission from mind to mind. These two points admitted, you will not be long in conceding to Thought the function of either creating or healing disease, and later you will see how it is that New Thought heals disease.
New Thought heals because it, in its clear vision of the world, sees the Universe to be governed by Love and Intelligence, and therefore knows that nothing can go really wrong in these lives of ours. It sees in sickness, unhappiness and adversity angels in the night to be wrestled with until the dawn, when they will depart, leaving a blessing with the wrestler.
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New Thought shows us that our power is
WITHIN, that we are the temples in which the
Holy Spirit dwells. It teaches us that God is
not apart from us, sitting on high, and an avenging
Deity, holding us under a curse and frowning
upon our joys. We have said in the past that
God is Love, but we have not had a clear vision
of that Love, else we could not attribute to it
cruelties that a loving human father could not
inflict upon his children.
No mind can be at peace and no body can be healthy when dominated by a God of Love who is practically a God of Hate. As well might a growing plant strive to reach the light and air when held down by a huge block of granite. The block must be lifted or blown to fragments before the struggle for life and growth will count for anything with the plant.
New Thought is lifting this crushing weight from the human soul, hence its great beneficence and its healing power. No man can be really healthy who is oppressed by fear, or who thinks himself a weakling in a world of antagonistic Giant Forces. He must know himself to be the Giant, and the Conqueror, because of the God WITHIN.
New Thought teaches that since God is omnipresent He must be within Man, in continual touch with his soul, in fact one with it; one in spiritual substance, even as the ray of light is one with the sun, so that it has been truly said, "Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."
No mind can be at peace and no body can be healthy when dominated by a God of Love who is practically a God of Hate. As well might a growing plant strive to reach the light and air when held down by a huge block of granite. The block must be lifted or blown to fragments before the struggle for life and growth will count for anything with the plant.
New Thought is lifting this crushing weight from the human soul, hence its great beneficence and its healing power. No man can be really healthy who is oppressed by fear, or who thinks himself a weakling in a world of antagonistic Giant Forces. He must know himself to be the Giant, and the Conqueror, because of the God WITHIN.
New Thought teaches that since God is omnipresent He must be within Man, in continual touch with his soul, in fact one with it; one in spiritual substance, even as the ray of light is one with the sun, so that it has been truly said, "Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet."
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Outside and inside, everywhere God and a God
of Love, like the vision of the poet ---
"Oh! the little birds sang East, and the little birds sang
West,
And I smiled to think God's greatness
Flowed around our incompleteness
Round our restlessness, His rest!"
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CHAPTER TWO
THOUGHT IS A FORCE
THE Force or Energy that upholds, sustains
and moves the Universe is silent and
hidden. We only know of it through its expressions,
which are many, and Thought is one of
the finest and most powerful of these expressions,
but Thought itself, although an expression of
World Energy, is not sufficiently expressed (expressed
or out-pressed) to become visible to the
natural eye. It has form, but that form is
invisible. It is unseen and unheard until it has
ex-pressed or out-pressed itself in writing, printing
or speech.
The fact before us is this — Thought is a Force,
even when it has not found expression in written
or spoken word, and Thought is an outflow from
God or the Infinite and Eternal Energy. Thought
is the essence of all things, that is, every living
thing is an embodied thought, a Thought-Form
clothed in matter. It may be said that Thought-Forms
clothe themselves in matter.
Shall we then think lightly of Thought? Shall
it be vaporous and unreal to us? Not if we have
clear vision of the world, for we shall then see
Thought as something more real than those
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material things we know as houses, clothes, food
and drink. We who desire to work in Thought
Substance must know something of its nature
and possibilities, as the artist must know something
about the mixing of colors and laying them
upon the canvas.
If you wish to run a locomotive you must acquaint
yourself with all its parts and learn their
relation to each other. You must practice running
your engine until you are expert in its management,
before you are prepared to take out a
train without accident.
On the contrary we have attempted to run a
human engine of which we knew little or nothing,
and naturally we have had our mishaps which we
called diseases, and our engines have been in the
repair shop far too much of the time. If the
Master Engineer, the Universal Mind, had not
occasionally given us a command or word of
advice, there might not have been anything left
of our engines to take to the repair shop.
The human engine is more complicated and
difficult to understand than its iron brother,
but it is possible to learn all about it and to
keep it under perfect control. It takes time and
study and perseverance, of course, but it is time
and study and perseverance well spent. In fact
it could not be better spent.
Is there any study that can compare with it?
I should say not. Indeed it may well be made
the first of all studies, for without health, peace
of mind, and the ability to master circumstances,
what can we accomplish in any direction? Our
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un-evolved powers are greater than we can imagine,
and to evolve those powers the acme of the
New Thought ideal.
We are like the man who desires to run an
engine and seeks to gain the requisite knowledge
for his work. He must experiment, and so
must we. He must find the motive power and
learn to use it and so must we. He must be able
to increase that motive power and so must we.
But here the analogy ends, for while the power
of an engine has a limit, the human engine has
no limit.
We are veritable giants when our powers are
brought to the surface. They lie within us like
seed germs awaiting the touch of life, as in the
tiny acorn lies concealed the mighty oak.
I once saw a slender, delicate little fellow, who
had been without food for a week, perform a
feat that would have tested a Samson. He had
been thrown into a hypnotic sleep in a public
hall and kept under the strictest surveillance
during the seven days of his fast. At the end
of the week he was placed in a chair and held
down in it by six strong policemen. Then the
man who held him in hypnotic control gave a
signal and the little, frail creature sprang up and
threw off those powerful men as though they had
been insects. Where did his strength come from?
It was certainly not resident in his flabby muscles.
I have seen many exhibitions of this kind,
but the one just quoted occurred in a small town
and reputable citizens, among them several
physicians, testified to its genuineness, while the
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policemen who figured in the test were the regular
officers of the town, so there was little or no chance
for fraud.
When I was a member of the Society for Psychical
Research in Boston I saw two hypnotized
subjects impersonate Bill Nye and a political
orator. Dr. Pfeiffer was the hypnotic operator
and he simply suggested to the one that he was
Bill Nye and to the other that he was on the
stump in the interests of his candidate. The
speeches began and continued simultaneously,
and it was difficult for us to follow each speaker,
but we heard enough to know that the pseudo
Bill Nye was irresistibly droll and very original,
his witty eloquence flowing in a steady stream to
the end of his long address. The stump speaker
was just as good in his role, and it seemed remarkable
to me that each should excel in his own
adopted style of oratory. Both men in their
natural state of mind were very ordinary, hardly
up to the mediocre in their degree of intelligence,
and yet when under hypnotic control each excelled
in his line, each differing diametrically
from the other.
The operator could not have given more than
a mere suggestion to each, for to have given to one
speaker his discourse word for word, he must have
been an unusually fine orator, while to have given
the two addresses simultaneously would have
been a feat to be undertaken only by an East
Indian adept.
What, then, was the inference? Each speaker
must have tapped for himself the source of his
25
inspiration. In some inscrutable manner the
suggestion to the one that he was Bill Nye must
have brought him in contact with Bill Nye's
current of thought; he must have tapped it, as
it were, while the stump speaker must have tapped
the current of stump oratory.
These instances and many others that have
come under my observation have led me to think
that under certain conditions we come in touch
with other minds, and also with a great reservoir
of Life and Mind containing all that we desire
to express of strength, vitality, health, harmony,
opulence and beauty, of even more that we cannot
now imagine. We have but to open the
channel and it will flow through us.
I would not advise the channel opened by
Hypnotism, for that calls for an injurious negative
state, and brings many evils in its train. I quote
Hypnotism for the purpose of illustration, but
do not indorse its use.
To return to the simile of the engine. We see
it on the track, a motionless, lifeless thing, awaiting
the touch of the engineer's governing hand.
He opens the throttle and away she springs,
a creature of life and power. Is it a miracle?
No, an everyday occurrence, and yet a matter of
law, a matter of adjustment, a matter of scientific
certainty.
Power and life are let loose in us in very much
the same way, as a matter of law, of adjustment,
of scientific certainty. Complicated the human
machinery surely is, but it is not impossible to
understand and control it with a master's hand.
26
The engineer uses steam or electricity to run
his engine. The human engine is run by Thought,
the amount of energy put into it being regulated
by the character of the Thought. There is a
current of Thought generated in Illusion that is
weak and inefficient. There is another, based
on Truth, that is strong and all-sufficient. As
a man thinketh, so is he. If he thinks himself
strong he becomes so, as did the hypnotized
subject who threw off the six strong policemen.
Although physically weak he had been made to
think himself strong; strength was suggested to
him by the hypnotizer, and he became as a giant.
The suggestion opened the way to the Universal
Energy, which flowed through him and made him
strong in spite of his feeble body.
And the truth is — Strength is not in muscle
and nerve but in the spiritual force that in fills
them, else how is it that flabby muscle can perform
the work of a Hercules? Also, how was it
that Jeffries lost the fight with Johnson? His
trainer said he was physically fit, but he began
to doubt his power several days before the fight
and so he lost it, because, although really a giant,
he was bound in mental chains of weakness.
Again, As a man thinketh, so is he.
You may think it is demeaning to spiritual
force to assert that it gives strength to the prizefighter
But why not? God is no respecter
of persons. He gives of His Power to all who
know how to get it. He sendeth rain on the
just and on the unjust. God gives energy but
does not stipulate how it shall be used, because
27
Man's will is free. He can use or abuse Power
as he sees fit, but of course he has to bear the
penalty if he misuses Power. That is a part of
his education in the mysteries of life and the laws
of his being.
But to return to the subject — Thought is a
Force, and whatever you think of yourself, that
do you become, for Thought is not only a Force,
but a Creative Force. If you think persistently
that you have a disease you contract it; and on
the contrary, if you have contracted the disease
and can be made to think strongly enough that
you are in perfect health, you rid yourself of the
disease. Two subjects in hypnotic sleep, one
with a cough and the other without, can be so
treated by suggestion that when they awake
from the sleep, the one who had the cough is
free from it, while the other subject has contracted it.
This is a singular fact but full of
meaning, showing you how illusory are the
diseases of the body and why New Thought can
heal them.
You may have some internal trouble and you
may think it is a cancer. If you think so persistently
it will turn out to be a cancer, no matter
what it was originally. Or, on the other hand,
you may actually have a cancer, but if you can
be made to think strongly enough that you have
not one the cancer will disappear, on the same
principle that the fly-blister, when subjected to
negative suggestion, loses its power to affect the
skin.
But how can you be persuaded that you have not
28
a cancer when you know by every indication that
you have one? Ah, but have you? That is
the point. It depends upon what you regard as
you. If you are your physical body, why then
you have the cancer. I shall not dispute that
evident fact. What I do deny is that you are
your physical body, and instead I declare that
you are a birthless, deathless, spiritual identity,
having the power to put on and throw off your
physical envelope. In the course of your evolution
you have had many of these physical
envelopes, vegetable, animal, and, perhaps, human.
One after another you have cast them off, like
the chambered nautilus, leaving your outgrown
shell by life's unresting sea. Your present shell
is constantly changing, and if it has a cancer
now, it need not have one if you gain sufficient
control over your body to cast it out.
When I say — If you gain sufficient control
over your body — I suggest that you are something
above and superior to your body. Else
how can you control it? As long as you
think of yourself as your body, or your body
as yourself, you cannot establish any claim of
superiority or command over any of its states
or activities.
When you deny that you have a cancer you are
speaking of the real self that is you, the self that
is in the image of God or the externalization of
God; for an image is an externalization of a thing.
This real self has no cancer nor any other defect
or disease. As you realize this your thought
becomes exalted, becomes positive in character,
29
and easily controls the body. Thought, when
exalted, increases in force, because it holds more
of the Divine Energy. It can then heal your
body.
And what is true of healing disease of a physical
nature is also true of healing disease of the mind.
All worry, fear, apprehension, grief, weariness,
mental trouble of any sort, is a disease of the
mind, and subject to the control of divinely
energized Thought.
I can feel within myself how it is true that the
real self is not touched or deeply hurt by sorrow,
trouble or adversity. As Emerson says: "What
opium is instilled into all disaster — the only
thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow
it is."
While I was thinking how best to explain this
great truth to other minds I was led by the
Spirit to read an article by M. E. Carter in The
Humanitarian, a part of which read as follows:
"Some years ago, while at Greenacre, I saw a
picture that impressed me deeply. It was painted
by an idealist, a girl only nineteen years of age.
The picture represented a beautiful head, the
face being perfect in outline and color; but the
large, dark eyes seemed to be looking far away,
seeking with a hungry, unsatisfied expression
something apparently unattainable. The face
was inexpressibly sad with its beauty and earnestness.
Close beside this head, with a cheek
almost pressed against it, was another head
the face perfect in serenity and a study in its
calmness and peace. Both were beautiful; but
30
one left on the beholder a sense of hunger and
anxiety, while in the other there was nothing to
desire. The picture interpreted itself as one
looked upon it. There in graphic outline was
the oft-repeated story of the human being not
yet awake to its Divine Self — hungry, anxious,
sad, yearning for it knows not what; and all the
time the Divine Self, the Real Self, the True
Being, close at hand, waiting for recognition.
It is this True Self of each one of us with whom,
sooner or later, we must get acquainted, and whose
presence we must learn to realize every moment
of our lives thereafter."
It will help you greatly to see in mind the two
selves so well portrayed. One restless, sad,
unsatisfied, hungry, anxious and longing for it
knows not what; the other perfect in its serenity,
and a study in calmness and peace. And
remember the other Self, the True Self, is very
very close to you, fairly touching you.
Seek this Real Self and you will find it. Then
will your troubles melt in air and your diseases
fall away from you like the old plumage of a
bird in moulting time. You accomplish this
with that Force called Thought, which is Spiritual
Energy expressing itself in terms of Mind. As
Emerson said: "When the spiritual Energy is
directed OUTWARD, then is it a THOUGHT."
There you have the subject of this chapter on
the authority of a poet, philosopher and idealist
who stands high in the teachings of the New
Thought.
Believe me the Real You is a Great Self, as
31
glorious as an angel, as radiant as the sun. Some
one has called it the Shining One, a beautiful
and fitting name.
In your hours of exaltation, when you feel
yourself moved to great and wonderful achievement,
and no height seems too high to scale, it
is the Shining One irradiating your being. It
is then actually speaking through you, and
stirring you to endeavor. But the hour passes
and you fall again into your negative, everyday
self. Darkness and limitation shut you in while
the Shining One withdraws behind the environing
clouds.
But, you know, the natural sun is often obscured
by clouds, yet it will come forth again, and while
obscured it is still shining, though its rays do not
reach you. Take courage, for your Shining One
is near you, though hidden, and it will surely
illumine your life again.
There is a state of consciousness that corresponds
to the earth in shadow, and that is your
present state, except for your occasional glimpses
of the Shining One. In course of time the illumination
will become permanent. Then you and the
Shining One will have made your at-one-ment.
Your evolution consists in learning and applying
the laws of Thought that shall clear your
mind of clouds and darkness, due to the false
beliefs descending to you from your ancestors
and their primitive animal beginnings in the faraway
past.
I do not wonder that the Apostle said, "For
now we see through a glass darkly, but then,
32
face to face." He thus prophesied the clear
vision of the world that shall see things as they
are, or face to face.
Thought is the Force that shall heal you of
mental and physical disease and bring you health
and peace.
33
CHAPTER THREE
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND
VARIOUS writers use the term "Subconscious"
in different ways. With some it describes
what I should call instead the Superconscious,
or what Emerson called the Over-Soul.
That is not what I mean by the Subconscious,
for I use it to denote a product or result of the
Conscious. Taken in a large and general sense,
the Subconscious might be made to stand for all
that is not Conscious, but I consider that it makes
the study of Mind and its processes more understandable
if we divide it and its functions into
Superconscious, Conscious and Subconscious, the
Superconscious standing for that vast storehouse
from which we draw our thoughts, and of which
we know very little, the Conscious standing for
what we perceive to be the form of mental activity
which we recognize as the human mind, and the
Subconscious, standing for automatic mental
processes or habits, initiated, in the first instance,
by the Conscious Mind.
It is of the Subconscious Mind that I will speak
in this chapter. To begin with, let us consider
its office in controlling the involuntary action of
the body, such as the beating of the heart, the
circulation of the blood, digestion, etc., any process
34
in fact not immediately set in motion by the will.
The act of walking is largely subconscious, but
the direction in which one walks is generally
dependent on the will, although it often happens
that when one goes in the same direction daily
the feet will turn certain corners while the Conscious
Mind is occupied with other subjects of
thought.
The Subconscious Mind is a bundle of habits,
and its habits are of long duration. The Subconscious
contracts habits of disease; that is,
a part of it gets to running irregularly, and keeps
on so moving to the disturbance of the general
physical harmony, until something happens to
set it right, or all the other parts adjust themselves
to the erratic action, compromising, as it were,
for the sake of temporary peace.
It is well known that the different parts of
the body will change position to make room for
an organ that is out of place, and though they
could perform their work much better in their
own proper places, still, after a little grumbling
(pain), they settle down to business in their new
quarters, and get on quite amicably, though
there is always an element of discontent. They
do not break out in open riot, but make the
owner of the body in which they are ensconced
feel somewhat uncomfortable. He knows that
something is wrong with the servants in his house,
but does not discover what it is.
We have discerned the fact that the physical
economy is regulated by intelligence, but have
not learned that this regulating intelligence
35
dwells within the organism itself. That it does
is one of the strongest points in our healing
philosophy.
Long ago, in the early beginnings of life on this
planet, that little protoplasmic form, the amoeba,
had a natural desire for food. Impelled by
this desire, it floated here and there, until it came
in contact with the object of its desire, when
it folded itself about that object, absorbed from
it what it could assimilate, and released the
balance. As time went on its desire grew stronger
and its need for more varied food greater, so that
instead of letting its prey go quickly it held on
to it longer, so as to extract from it more sustenance.
This resulted finally in a settled, permanent
contraction which converted the flat
surface of the amoeba into a tube-like formation,
the first nucleus of a stomach.
But this stomach could not digest all that it
had captured and held, for now it did not give
up its prey, and how to get rid of the unused
unavailable matter was the question in the
amoebic mind. It did not think out the matter
as we would do, but set to work to form ducts
or channels that served as primitive bowels and
kidneys. Later to supply its growing needs
it formed the eyes, heart, lungs and other organs.
Note that these organs owe their origin and
growth to conscious action on the part of the
creature projecting them. No matter how low
the form of life, if it has any knowledge of external
objects that knowledge may be termed consciousness,
for to be conscious means simply to
36
know, the word "conscious" coming from the
Latin "conscius," from "con" and "scire,"
to know. The amoeba was conscious because
it knew of the presence of its prey, and it knew
enough to grasp that prey. It also had will,
for it willed to grasp its prey.
But, as its desires grew apace, it dropped the
conscious control of the first established activities,
because it could do so by virtue of mechanical
law which converts conscious activity into a
habit, that becomes automatic, and practically
conducts itself without conscious direction or
supervision. If you set a ball rolling it is
carried forward by the momentum given by
your hand, which is the agent of your conscious
volition, and the ball rolls on until the force
transmitted to it is spent. By the same law the
mechanical action set up at first in the body
by conscious volition continues until the force
imparted to it is exhausted.
In this way our bodies are running on the motive
power given to them by conscious volition in the
long ago. As we pass from childhood to old age
we get farther and farther away from the original
impelling force and we finally run down, as in
death, just as a clock would that needed winding.
But, just so surely as the clock can renew its
action when a new impulse is given it, just so
surely can the human body do the same, and in so
doing conquer old age and death.
In winding the clock that its action may be
renewed you are dealing with a merely mechanical
object. In renewing the bodily mechanism you
37
are dealing with living tissues, animated by
mind and spirit; therefore, in the latter instance,
your tools must be of mind substance because
you cannot regulate a thing of mind with a
steel tool. You cannot adjust mind substance
with a screw driver and hammer. The body
is really mind substance, you know, solidified
into material atoms and molecules.
Schopenhauer reduced this world to two factors
Will and Idea. Will stands for the Eternal
Energy and Idea for the form it assumes.
I believe this to be true, and as the individual
is the Microcosm, or epitome, or microscopic
edition of the Macrocosm or Universe, I consider
that the motive power of the individual is made
up of Will and Idea. Thought is the form that
Will resolves itself into; therefore Thought is
a Force, and it is the Force with which we adjust
and regulate the living tissues of the body.
If you mentally tell a sick person that he is
well, no matter how sick he may apparently be,
the affirmation falls into his Subconscious Mind,
which takes the suggestion and acts upon it, for
the Subconscious Mind is sensitive, vibrating
mind substance and when it is touched by a
living word it moves in accordance with that
word.
Living words are words of health, words of
success, words of good cheer, and the Subconscious
Mind responds to them by setting up better circulation,
steadier heart-beats, better muscular
and nerve action, better sight, better hearing and
better digestion.
38
On the other hand, dead words, such as I
am sick, miserable, poor, unfortunate and hopeless
— all have a disastrous effect upon the Subconscious
Mind, lowering the tone of the whole
system and producing the exact opposite of the
effect of the live words.
Not once only in the history of the world was
the Word made Flesh, but every day, every hour
and every moment is it occurring. The Word is
continually made Flesh, and happy he who chooses
the living Word for his utterance.
If you are told that you are well when you are
as sick as you can possibly be and live, it will
seem to you like a baseless and false assertion, but
it is not, and why?
It is not baseless and false for the reason that
your sickness refers to a passing physical state
which does not belong to the real you. If I see
you in a rage at a certain time, and yet know you
to be really a person of equable and sweet temper,
shall I pronounce you a savage brute? That
is what you seem to be at the moment of observation,
but I take into consideration that this
passing brain storm does not represent you as
I know you to be.
Your bodily sickness is just as much a passing
mood of the body, so the New Thought healer
takes a firm stand and asserts that you are in
reality perfectly well, sound and whole. This is
true of the spiritual substance which is really you.
This spiritual you is a Creator. It is an
Emanation from the God-Centre of all Being and
brings with it Divine Power, Creative Power.
39
Its words are living words and are externalized
in beautiful, healthy, bodily substance.
Try the effect upon the Subconscious Mind
of vigorous, positive, living words. When you
are weak affirm that you are strong. Remember
the hypnotized subject, who, through suggestion,
acquired such tremendous power, though his
muscles were flabby and his body puny. The
only difference between hypnotic suggestion and
auto-suggestion is that in the former the conscious
mind of the subject is made quiescent, and
is thus unable to foist its doubts on the Subconscious
Mind, so that the latter, not being
handicapped by doubt, can accept the suggestion
and act upon it without hindrance. In auto-suggestion
you will have doubt to contend with,
so it will take longer to get results, but if you
persist, you will finally cast out doubt and thus
obtain a clear channel for Infinite Power to flow
through you from centre to circumference.
Even though you are overwhelmed by poverty,
sickness and sorrow, affirm the opposite. Say
with all the earnestness you can muster: I am
rich, I am well, I am happy. Say it again and
again, day after day, though all things conspire
to give the lie to your words. If you do this
faithfully you will at last enable the Subconscious
Mind to make your words come true.
If you throw bicarbonate of soda into an acid,
you correct its acidity. By a law certain and
unvarying you can sweeten by affirmation the
sourest states of body and environment.
I have proved this in my own life, and knowing
40
what auto-suggestion has done for me, I entreat
you to see what it will do for you. It calls for
persistent effort, but that effort in itself and aside
from results is beneficial. You have nothing
to lose in the attempt. You risk nothing and
you have so much, so very much to gain.
We are too apt to think of the Conscious Mind
as the whole of Mind, not understanding that there
are mental activities of which we are not aware,
but the reasoning, philosophical person accepts
on good proof much more in the world than the
small part of it that comes under his immediate
observation. He believes in suns, stars, planets
and worlds that are beyond his cognizance. We
have equally good proof of the existence of Mind
that is beyond our cognizance. There certainly
are mental activities that are carried on without
direct volition from the Conscious Mind, and
without our knowledge.
When you were a little child, just learning to
walk, you had to balance yourself very carefully
on one foot while you lifted the other and took
a step forward, often losing your balance and
falling. After many trials you managed to keep
your balance and were then able to walk; but
even then you could not run and leap. Those
were later efforts. The first attempt to walk
led gradually to the later accomplishment. In
the meantime the first effort at balance had
become a habit, a something automatic that did
not call for constant care and attention.
Now you can walk and think about something
else all the time. If every day you go to your
41
place of business or to some other destination
by the same route, after a while you will not need
to think about your course, for you will turn
corners unconsciously, and finally arrive at your
office or other point, hardly knowing how you
reached it. Your walking as mere muscular
activity was subconscious, and that which sent
your steps in one direction was also subconscious.
Life is made up of these subconscious activities.
Without them achievement of a high order would
be impossible. At first you learned your letters
with difficulty, then words of one syllable, then
longer words. Then you learned the various
parts of speech — nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives,
pronouns, etc. For a long time reading
was a matter of slowly spelling out words, but
today you grasp whole sentences at a glance.
You spell words no longer. All that work is
done subconsciously, and with lightning rapidity.
The late Professor James of Harvard, in his
"Psychology," stated that art would be impossible
were it not for subconscious processes.
You can see that this is so, for if the mind had
always to busy itself with every detail in art
which at first it apprehends with care and precision,
there would never be free bold strokes of
the brush. All would be cramped and labored
like the writing of a child. The free sweep
comes from the care given to the earlier detail
which falls as a habit into the Subconscious Mind,
and is thereafter executed by it.
In my early study of the piano I was an impatient
pupil. I could not understand why I
42
was kept on scale and arpeggio, when I thought
I could learn to execute them just as well by
taking them as they occurred in a piece of music.
My music master knew better, and he said,
"You must make your technique a habit, so that
you can execute runs, etc., unconsciously, for
later you will have other things to consider and
cannot give your thought at the same time to
technique in detail." Some time afterward I
saw this to be true, but could not understand it
at the moment.
The same rule applies to the study of bettering
our physical and mental states. We must hold
certain thoughts in the Conscious Mind day after
day, possibly month after month, and in some
cases even year after year, until they become an
essential part of us, until they fall into the Subconscious
Mind and set up there an activity.
If you wish to be healthy and carry about with
you the magnetic aura of sweetness, goodness and
power in other words, if you wish to be a radiant
success in life, shining with the joy of accomplishment
— you must hold in mind the thoughts that
make such attainment possible, and you must
go on holding them until they bring results.
A fleeting thought will have little or no effect in
bringing you the ideal states that you are seeking,
but a thought held day after day becomes a
tremendous Force in your life. If the thought
be true and noble the Subconscious Mind moves
to the measure of truth and nobility. If the
thought be crafty and mean, the Subconscious
moves to that measure. As it moves it registers
43
its processes in the glance of your eye, the turn
of your head, the tone of your voice, the movement
of your hand, and in many another form of
your expression. Your inner self, which you
fancy is hidden from observation, is thus constantly
revealing itself to others and attracting
or repelling their confidence and affection as the
case may be, and the confidence and affection
of the world around you are two strong factors
in winning success. If you are not liked and your
life is not a success, look to your inner life and see
what is wrong with it. The trouble lies doubtless
within yourself instead of in the world outside.
The Subconscious Mind is also creating your
physical conditions to the measure of your thought.
It does this so silently, so secretly, that you
have no idea of its work in affecting the conditions
of your body.
You will understand better how you can be
unconscious of the activity of the Subconscious,
when you notice that you can pursue a long
train of thought, and be so absorbed in it that
you are not conscious of yourself as thinking,
and will not be until you "come to yourself "
at the end of your train of thought. Your mind
has been working intensely all the while, but you
were not conscious of it.
It is certain that the Subconscious Mind pursues
a very active course without our cognizance.
It is also far-reaching and extends beyond the
bounds of our immediate surroundings. It reaches
out and works for our good or ill, according to
the nature of our thought.
44
Our best thoughts and purposes come from the
Superconscious Mind into the Conscious, and
thence proceed into the Subconscious in the
form of Habits of Thought. They pass from the
immense, illimitable tract of the Superconscious
into the comparatively small channel of the
Conscious, thence to pass on to that other immense,
illimitable tract of the Subconscious, where
they become living factors for our weal or woe.
45
CHAPTER FOUR
THE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND
THE SUPERCONSCIOUS MIND
THERE is a vast storehouse from which we draw our thoughts.
It is great and wonderful beyond our imagination, and it is open to
every one of us. This storehouse was called
by Emerson "The Over-Soul," and perhaps no
better name could be given it, but for the purpose
of distinguishing it from the Conscious and
Subconscious, I shall call it the Superconscious
Mind.
No one knows exactly what the Superconscious
Mind is; for that matter we know very little
of the Conscious and Subconscious Mind; but
we are learning more through observation and
experience, and I believe we are close to a greater
knowledge of the Superconscious Mind. We
believe it to be the home of the potential or the
unexpressed instead of the actual (act-ual), or
expressed.
What the Unexpressed is I shall not attempt to
define, because I cannot. If I could define it, it
would cease to be the Unexpressed and become
the Expressed.
All we need to know is this --- Is there a Superconscious
Mind? If so, how are we related
46
to it? If it be a storehouse, and we can draw
from it, what can we draw and how can we
draw it?
A thought comes into my mind. Where does
it come from? Some other mind? Yes, possibly.
But where did it come from in the very
beginning? How did it get into that other mind
from whence it comes to mine? A coin may
pass from hand to hand in the course of its circulation,
but originally it came from the mint.
Still farther back it came from a mine, and
earlier still it may have been in the form of
ether, so in the first place it was not a coin in
circulation. It is passed to me by another hand,
but that hand did not make it. It simply passed
it on. Our thoughts are transmitted from one
to another, but that does not account for their
origin. Where do they come from in the beginning?
They come from the Superconscious Mind.
What they are like before they are born into the
Conscious Mind we know not, and it matters not.
What does matter is that we get the thoughts and
that they are the right thoughts to work out our
health and happiness.
We want something that shall move the machinery
of mind and body, making it speed on merrily,
singing as it does, instead of creaking, groaning
and finally stopping entirely. Can we get it?
Yes.
We have reached a place in intelligence where
we know what we want from the storehouse,
but doubt if we can get it. The doubt paralyzes
47
our effort and we do not try to get what we I
want. Moreover, we would not know how to
get it if we had courage to make the attempt.
When we want anything in the material world
we reach out the hand for it. This we cannot
do in the mental world. There we reach out
with the mental hand of our desire. Knock
and it shall be opened unto you. Desire is the
hand that knocks at the door of the Superconscious,
and the door is opened.
Thought comes into the mind, but it seems to
come in hit-or-miss fashion. It, however, does
nothing of the kind. It is regulated in its coming
by law. Every thought that comes to us is
drawn as unerringly as one chemical atom is
drawn to another. It is drawn by the nature of
our desire and by its kinship to the other thoughts
present in the mind.
If our thought is concerned with Art, then we
draw what relates to Art. If it is concerned with
Music, then we draw what relates to Music,
and so on. Whatever we elect to do and let our
thought dwell upon, to that do we draw fresh
stores from the Superconscious, and so do we
grow in our endeavor, whatever it may be.
The old thought of the world was that each
person had a certain amount of talent or genius
conferred upon him, and beyond that limit he
could not go. The New Thought teaches that
there is no such grudging limit placed upon
Man; that he stands at the door of Infinite
Supply.
If you desire intensely to do anything in the
48
way of high achievement, know that you can do
it, no matter what your drawbacks or your age.
I know a modiste who turns out the most exquisite
creations in gowns and both hands are deformed
so that she cannot wear a thimble, the
first and second fingers on both hands having
but one joint. Her deformity has lifted her from
an ordinary seamstress to the plane of Art, where
she works out beautiful designs which subordinates
carry into execution.
I know also a woman who, at the age of fifty,
began the study of painting and at the age of
sixty became a very fine artist, so you see,
obstacles such as deformity and age vanish
before the determined effort to realize one's
desires.
If your desire is to heal the sick, it shows that
hidden within you is the power to do it. Open
your mind to the Superconscious, letting the
thought that is related to your desire flow into
your mind, and you will develop the power to
heal.
We are at all times open to the Superconscious,
but we can increase our receptivity by desiring
to be receptive. We can also exclude from our
minds all that is extraneous or foreign to our
purpose, as one would remove the weeds from a
flower-bed.
The Healing Thought comes down from the
Superconscious, hence the beautiful words of
Carpenter: "Lo, the healing power descending
from within, calming the enfevered brain and
spreading peace among the grieving nerves."
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If you are suffering pain, either of mind or body,
repeat these lines, and desire intensely that the
healing power shall descend. Then wait and
fully expect that it will. When it comes it will
feel like a fine, cooling shower falling gently upon
your heated brain, while little rivulets of peace
course along the suffering nerves and still their
grieving.
I know this to be so from actual and repeated
experience. You have only to prove it for yourself.
The Superconscious is the realm of the Divine.
How then does it happen that thoughts of worry,
of hatred, of dishonesty and even of murder
come to us from that source, if it indeed is the
source of all thought?
They do not. When a bright new coin comes
from the mint, it is quite different from the same
coin after being long in circulation and becoming
worn and tarnished.
But the analogy is imperfect and I will not
follow it farther. No material illustration can
convey to you what it means to open the mind
to the influx of the Superconscious. It means
freshness, richness and fullness of thought. It
means a rush of new purpose and a great tide of
invigoration. It means everything good and delightful,
my friends.
You cannot remain sick if you are thus renewed
and regenerated. You cannot remain poor if
you are open to the flow of Opulence. You
cannot remain unhappy if you receive the inrush
of Love and Joy.
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Concentrate all your power on the one effort
to draw from this Source of Supply. Pray if
you will. Why not? Prayer is "the soul's sincere
desire, uttered or unexpressed."
You desire only good. If you desire anything
less it is only a mistake of your growing intelligence
which will soon be corrected. You desire
only good and that exists for you in the Superconscious,
awaiting your call. How can you
think yourself sick and miserable with all life's
richest treasures at your very door?
The New Thought is helping you on because it
does not deal in the old hackneyed thought of
passed ages, that is like old, long-used coin worn
so thin as to be nearly valueless. It is giving
out to you fresh coin from the mint, showing you
new truth, for although truth is as old as the hills,
and older, there is now a new presentation of it.
It is telling you of laws hitherto undiscovered,
by which you can improve and idealize your
life in every particular. It is showing you how
to apply those laws, and demonstrate results
from their application every day. It is giving
you clear vision of the world, and showing you
that you have everything to live for. It is proving
old age and death to be spectres of false belief,
without a shadow of reality. It is removing,
one by one, all the bugbears of life that have
filled your soul with terror and chilled the blood
in your veins. It is proving that you have unlimited
power of achievement. It is doing all
this, and more.
The New Thought is swinging the door leading
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into the Superconscious wide open, so that all
who will may enter.
Do not then lie down at the portal like a beggar
and whine. Get up and put on your purple and
fine linen, for all are princes who enter the Kingdom
of the Superconscious.
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CHAPTER FIVE
HOW TO HEAL YOURSELF AND OTHERS
HOW TO HEAL YOURSELF AND OTHERS
IN my search for the secret of New Thought
Healing I studied Faith Cure, Mental Suggestion,
Hypnotism, Christian Healing, Divine
Science and Christian Science. All seemed good
and helpful with the exception of Hypnotism,
which I consider injurious, but I failed to find
just what I was seeking, and the door to the
Superconscious stood merely ajar, not wide
open. Then I turned to Theosophy, not because
of its therapeutic value but because of its exposition
of occult laws. I thus learned much of the
mobility of Matter and its obedience to Spirit.
During this time of study I felt like an embryotic
germ, blind and groping for sustenance, ever
seeking something, but blindfolded so that I
could not see and grasp what I sought. Afterward,
as I looked back on this experience I could
see that I had been growing and moving toward
the light.
Finally came an illumination in which I saw
all spiritual substance as one and indivisible,
from which I argued that I must be one with this
indivisible spiritual substance or else I must be
NOTHING, and since Emerson said, "When the
53
spiritual energy is directed on something outward
then is it a thought," a statement which I
believed, then, since I could think, I must be of
spiritual substance, possessing spiritual energy.
Then I turned to Spinoza and read, "If God
be Infinite Substance, there can be no substance
outside of God, and Man is therefore no substance,
or he is God." This corroborated my
thought as to the oneness of substance.
Substance, according to Spinoza, is not a material
apart or distinct from God, which he manipulates
in the formation of worlds. He teaches
instead, "Extension is an attribute of God, or
God is an extended thing."
If God or Substance be an extended thing,
then no point of extension can be other than
intelligent Substance, for unintelligent Substance
could not be God-Substance.
If God creates by the extension of Himself, then
Man is formed by the pushing forth into externals
of God-Substance, hence Man is either no
Substance or he is God-Substance. But while
Man is formed by the extension of Substance,
he is also formed by the limitation of Substance,
for were he not limited he would have no form.
God is limitless in extension and also limited
in extension. This sounds contradictory, but
it is as though Infinite and Unlimited Substance
should set up within itself limits. Indeed the
very conception of infinite extension implies
infinite limits; for when the mind attempts to
think of extension infinitely extended, it reaches
out into space, until it is forced to set up a limit;
54
but just as surely is it forced to look beyond that
limit, only to set up another, and so on through
infinity. Therefore the limitations of Man do
not prove that he is not of God-Substance, but
rather that he is, for God-Substance sets up limits
within itself, but they are limits like the horizon
that vanishes as we advance upon it. So do
Man's limitations vanish before the advance of
the intrepid and adventurous soul.
Then I turned to Nature and there I saw all
living, growing things unfolding from a centre.
I saw Life ever pushing forth from a centre to a
circumference, and finally it came to me as a
sort of revelation that God is at the Centre of
Being, and from that Centre is continually
extending His Substance into Creation as the
sun extends itself in its ray. I saw that God is
the Living Soul of Creation, everywhere present
in it and yet focusing in dynamic vibrations
at the centre of every seed and at the soul centre
of every human being.
Then, for the first time did I have a satisfactory
explanation of the manner in which
God acts in our activities, and I understood why
Fenelon said:
"All that exists, exists only by the communication
of God's Infinite Being; all that has
intelligence, has it only by derivation from His
Sovereign Reason; and all that acts, acts only
from the impulse of His Supreme Activity. It
is He who does all IN ALL; it is He who at each
instant of our life is the beating of our heart,
the movement of our limbs, the light of our
55
eyes, the intelligence of our spirit, the Soul of 1,
our soul."
That is exactly my conception of God. I
believe that He is in the very beating of our heart,
in the movement of our limbs, in the light of our
eyes, and in the intelligence of our spirit, and that
He is the Soul of our soul.
This places God within, does it not? Still,
because God is immanent He is none the less
transcendent. He is the great, living spiritual
Presence within each one of us, and yet at the
same time He is omnipresent. Electricity may
be everywhere existent in the atmosphere, and
yet come to a focus in certain places. This may
seem an irreverent illustration to apply to God,
but no natural fact can be irreverent, for God
ensouls all Nature.
In order to heal yourself or others you must
hold the right conception of God and of yourself,
else you will not induce the flow of the healing
current, or, I should say, increase its flow,
for there is a natural power in all organisms that
works for their betterment. It is called the Vis
Medicatrix Nature and it often heals the sick
without aid from drugs or other curatives. In
many cases, however, it needs help, and nothing
helps so effectually as mental and spiritual reinforcement,
for it is an intelligent power, and
accepts suggestion. It can be intensified by
affirmation or suggestion as to what it shall do
for the organism.
As Thought is a Force, or, as Emerson calls it,
"Spiritual energy turned outward," therefore
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the healing Word is mighty with spiritual vibrations.
The power of the Word is great or small
according to the state of the mind projecting
it. There are comparatively "dead words"
and there are "live words." All depends upon
the amount of Spirit that is in them.
To speak the Word, then, is of no more avail
than a passing breeze unless that Word be alive
with spiritual energy, and the way to fill it with
spiritual energy is to first produce within yourself
the mental state that calls forth the spiritual
current from your centre in God.
You can do this because of the very nature of
Mind, for it is by nature FORMATIVE, that is,
it forms receptacles that the Spirit fills with life.
These receptacles are called Thought-Forms.
To illustrate — Let us suppose that before you
is a spring of water from which you would drink.
To do so you must have a receptacle to catch
the water and convey it to your mouth. You
shape a leaf, or curve your hands into the needed
receptacle, for one of some kind you must have
to make use of the water. Or you bend down
and place your mouth to the stream, in which
event your mouth becomes the receptacle.
Not in so mechanical a manner does the mind
shape its Thought-Forms for the receiving of
Spirit, but nevertheless it does shape actual forms,
and those forms are THOUGHTS that are images
or pictures of Truth, and the deeper, broader
and more capacious those Thought-Forms, the
more Spirit do they hold.
You need, therefore, to examine your mind to
57
see what your thoughts really are. I mean,
you should see what you think concerning God,
concerning yourself and concerning the world
in general. If your thoughts are shaped according
to REALITY, or what REALLY is, then you
have good mental forms for the receiving of
Spirit. Otherwise you have not.
When I speak of the receiving of Spirit I do
not mean that Spirit is a Something separate and
apart from you. Spirit is at the Centre of Being,
and as it flows outward into externals it produces
YOU, first in your inner self and then in your
outer self. This outer self is an outer part of
your mind, and it is this which is formative.
It is this that shapes thoughts for the receiving
of Spirit.
Let me illustrate more fully — Suppose a liquid,
plastic substance should solidify at its boundary
lines, thus forming cells or receptacles into which
the liquid part of the substance continued to flow.
This would describe, as well as any material
terms could, your actual oneness with, but apparent
separateness from, Spirit. At the centre
is Spirit, liquid, plastic, flowing, so to speak,
although this does not really define it, and as it
flows outward to the circumference of your
mind and body, it solidifies into form, making
thus receptacles for itself to flow into, first becoming
Thought-Forms, and later, Body-Cells.
In itself Spirit is formless, but it evolves forms
out of itself in which to hold itself. It builds
forms as the spider weaves its web out of its own
substance, and then dwells in the web, made out
58
of itself. Water is one with the ice that is formed
on the surface, and thus is your mind, with its
Thought-Forms, one with the Spirit. Your body,
with its tissue-cells, being an output from your
mind, is also one with the Spirit.
You cannot think at all without making some
kind of a Thought-Form, and that Thought-Form
is either receptive or non-receptive to Spirit.
If all your Thought-Forms were receptive you
would always think LIVE thoughts and be
full of health, joy, and all the good things that
come from Spirit. Your evolution consists in
consciously creating new and better Thought-Forms.
Had you started in life with the right
beliefs you would have been an automaton instead
of a living, growing creature, so do not
deplore your mistaken beliefs, but set yourself
gladly to correct, revise and remodel them.
The process of thinking is largely mental picturing.
What you think you picture mentally,
and what you picture mentally is the FORM
your thought assumes, for, as I have said before
Mind is FORMATIVE. It is always creating
Thought-Forms that the Spirit fills with life,
according to the nature and capacity of those
Thought-Forms.
If you hold a mental picture of God as a Great
Person, or large type of Man, seated on a throne,
in some remote region above the clouds, you
are not thinking in accord with Truth, in accord
with what God really is, and therefore your
Thought-Form is a dead form, and not a fit
receptacle for the Spirit.
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This conception of God is proved to be untrue
by "reductio ad absurdum," for if God be over
your head he must be under the feet of the people
on the opposite side of the globe.
I assume that you have outgrown this childish
conception of God, formed when the human race
was in its childhood, and knew so little of science
as to suppose this earth to be a flat surface,
instead of a sphere. Then, too, the natural
tendency of the mind is to look up to that which
it reveres, hence the conception of a God above
the clouds.
But while you have rid yourself of this conception
in a measure, the sense of separateness
from God still lingers with you, as a last vestige
of a mistaken race belief, somewhat as the vermiform
appendix lingers in the body, though now outgrown
as to use, and often aggressive and harmful.
To get rid of this vestige of false belief you must
picture God as Omnipresent, Formless, Spiritual
Substance, and see this Substance as TAKING ON
FORM and pushing outward from a hidden centre
into the outer world, yourself included. Then
think of this FLOWING SPIRIT as feeding you with
LIFE, LOVE, ENERGY, and INTELLIGENCE continually,
your mind and body receiving this living
current.
The stream of Life flows through you to a degree
without your conscious cooperation, else
you could not live one instant, because your
life supply would be cut off. By cooperating
consciously you increase the flow of Spirit and
receive more abundant Life.
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It is the lack of a fuller flow of this living
current, shut of partially as it is by our false
beliefs or dead Thought-Forms, that is the cause
of our weakness, disease, old age and death.
To have the true idea of God and of ourselves is
to open wider the channel through which Spirit
flows, and receive a fuller stream of renewing
Life to counteract the material tendency of the
body toward disintegration and death.
If you did nothing else in treating yourself or
others but hold the true conception of Man's
oneness with God, the healing would be accomplished,
were it not that the mind wearies of
holding one idea for a length of time without
change, and as it thus wearies it fails to hold
the thought clearly and strongly enough to
produce the desired effect. For this reason it
is necessary to add to the fundamental idea of
oneness other ideas based upon it and in harmony
with it.
For example, having pictured Spirit as flowing
from the Centre outward through you, then
direct it in thought, or picture it as going, to that
part of mind or body that is weak or diseased.
If any function or faculty seems to be failing,
then picture the spirit as flowing into and vitalizing
that function or faculty.
Growths in any part of the body are due to
a lack of proper activity or functioning. When
any vital function becomes inert or deranged so
that it fails to perform its office, effete matter is
not thrown out of the system, as it should be,
the circulation is impeded here and there, and
the points of restriction become stopping places
for particles of broken-down tissue in the blood.
You know what would happen if a stream of
water were arrested in its course. The water
would become stagnant, and there would be a
precipitation of whatever sediment the stream
contained. Then, if the current sought outlet
and made a detour in order to get it, the sediment
would remain where it was deposited,
for the motion of the turning current would
be sluggish, slow and without sufficient force to
flush away the deposit. Surgeons have many
technical terms that they use in describing the
origin of tumors and malignant growths, but
when given in simple language it amounts to
what I have just stated.
In treating a growth or congestion, picture the
stream of Spirit as playing upon it and dispersing
it. Hold also the thought — IT IS MELTING
AWAY. Say this many times daily, and as you
fall asleep at night. Keep this affirmation in
mind day after day, and night after night. The
same treatment applies to goitre.
In Diabetes, — picture the Spirit as a living,
electrical fire, such as appeared to the Apostles.
See this fire as searching the kidneys and bladder
and burning up the sugar in the urine. I know
of a case in which an elderly man with a long-standing
case of Sugar Diabetes was healed by
this treatment in one month, so that upon examination
of the urine not a trace of sugar was found,
and it never returned. I have also proof of a case
of kidney trouble of forty years' duration that
62
was healed in a few months by this treatment.
The same method destroys the uric acid that
causes rheumatism.
Should there be weakness in sight or hearing,
a simple, easy, and most effective treatment is to
picture the Spirit as flowing to the eyes or
ears and revitalizing them.
Treatments are like inventions. What we want
in them is a lack of superfluous detail, simplicity
and adaptation to an end. In these days when
we are learning to economize motion we must
also learn to economize words. The Spirit does
not hear through "much speaking." It acts upon
the merest suggestion.
I am sometimes asked if the "Word of Healing"
is some special word. It is not. It is any statement
of health and wellbeing. If you formulate
words in your own way they will be quite as
effective as the set phrase or formula given you
by a teacher. It is well enough to accept and
use such formula until you are able to frame one
of your own, but no longer. The sooner a stated
formula takes a new form in your own mind,
the greater its vibratory power, and the more
Spirit it calls forth.
I am also asked if the Word must be spoken
aloud in order to be the spoken word. Not of
necessity, for to formulate a thought in the
mind is equivalent to speaking it, and a word
spoken "In the Silence" is surely not the audible
word.
There are occultists who contend that the
audible word stirs vibrations not possible to the
63
inner or thought word, but I cannot testify to
the truth of this, as I have never experimented
with the audible word, the silent word having
been sufficient for my purpose and wonderfully
powerful.
To mentally affirm that Spirit can renew any
function of mind or body is to speak the Word
that shall be made flesh, or in other words externalized
in mind, body and environment.
That which creates any function can re-create
or repair the same. The English surgeon, Sir
William Gull, goes on record with these words:
"What shall the doctors do? Rest and be still.
The workman that made the machine can repair
it."
A material machine sometimes gets beyond
repair because it is made of matter that wears
out, but the human machine never gets beyond
repair, for it is made of living tissue, which,
according to Dr. Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute,
never wears out if it is properly fed and
cleansed, getting stronger instead of weaker as
it grows older. Dr. Carrel pronounces the animal
cell immortal because of its power to renew
itself, and we of the New Thought believe that
Spirit can vastly increase that power.
God is the Divine Workman who constructed
the human machine and He can repair and
renew it, for with the Power of the Spirit all
things that can be imagined are possible.
Keep therefore before your mind this thought
GOD WHO MADE ME CAN ALSO RE-MAKE ME.
When you fully believe that God can and will
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re-make you, you will have a Thought-Form
receptive to the renewing, recreating current of
Life, and the effect will soon be evident in both
mind and body.
Bodily disease is usually attributable to an
excess of dead material in the system, through
having the mind clogged with dead thoughts,
and thus causing their correspondence in the
body. Children often inherit this state from the
thought of some ancestor who has transmitted to
them the diseased mental state causing physical
disease. Such an inheritance can be annulled by
the action of New Thought upon the diseased one.
In such a case one should picture the stream of
Spirit as flowing through the diseased body
cleansing it of all useless and dead atoms.
In treating mental faculties, memory for instance,
as you cannot form a picture of it, you
will either have to designate it by name, or
you can say — "I now picture Spirit as flowing
toward that faculty and vitalizing it so that it
may do perfect work."
In paralysis of mind or body, THINK SPIRIT
strongly into the paralyzed parts, giving life
where there is now deadness.
That dread disease tuberculosis, and others,
whatever their nature, call for the same treatment
that I have outlined in the few instances given.
Specific details vary according to the case, of
course, but the New Thought Healer must possess
enough intelligence to apply the principle
in varied forms to varied cases. The method is
always about the same, very simple, directly
65
to the point, and couched in as few words as
possible.
If you find yourself lacking in ability to reach
your ideals along any line of endeavor, it shows
that your mind needs a greater flow of Spirit.
Form a picture in your mind of what you wish
to do, or state it in words, and then hold the
thought that Spirit is flowing in the direction
of your desire.
Spirit is not only Life, but all that constitutes
Life, so that it contains the very essence of Art,
Music, Literature, Philosophy, Invention, Mechanics,
Manufacture, Commerce, Metaphysics,
or any of the myriad forms of human activity.
You can take from the stream of Life what you
want very much as a tree on the bank of a river
can absorb through its roots the chemicals in
the water that enable it to grow and branch out.
Your ability, in like manner, grows and branches
through what you receive from the stream of
Life.
Do not get tense or excited in trying to help
yourself or others, for that tends to pinch the
channel and restrict the flow of Life. The
more you realize that God's inexhaustible Power
is yours, because of your oneness with God-Substance,
the more you will see that there is
nothing for you to fear or be anxious about.
You need not even fear holding the wrong mental
picture in giving treatments, for since you
fervently desire the right one, the Infinite Power,
working through you, will help you to form it.
The wrong picture of today will change its outlines
66
and become the right picture of tomorrow.
You cannot go far amiss if you bear in mind the
image of the sun and its ray or the ocean and its
bay as symbolizing your oneness with God.
You can use the following statement of oneness
and will find it helpful — "I am open on my
inner or spiritual side to the inexhaustible ocean
of Divine Power. I flow forth from it and am
one with it as a bay is one with the ocean, or as
a ray of light is one with the sun."
In treating others begin as you would in treating
yourself, with a realization of your oneness
in substance with God, for through this realization
will come your power. Then substitute this
other person for yourself, calling mentally his or
her name, for this secures the attention of the
Subconscious Mind to which your suggestion is
to be given.
Tell the patient mentally that he is one in
substance with God and that the healing current
is waiting his call to flow through him to bring
him into perfect health. Then picture the healing
current as flowing through the patient from
his centre in God. Later picture it as going
specially to the diseased point and acting upon it,
according to the nature of the disease. Should
it be a fever, picture it as a cooling flood. Should
it be great weakness, with coldness of the parts,
picture the current as warming and vivifying.
Be filled with loving sympathy for your patient,
for Love is the highest healing vibration.
The patient need not be in your presence, for
Thought goes to any distance and there is really
67
no separation in the omnipresent realm of Mind
and Spirit. I know of cases of healing where
healer and patient were separated from each
other by thousands of miles. I know of other
cases where a patient wrote to a healer and
before the letter reached its destination the
patient was healed, in which event the appeal
from the patient instantly touched the Subconscious
Mind of the healer and brought an
immediate response. In such a case as this
there is a strong sympathetic vibration and similarity
of thought between healer and patient,
so that appeal and response do not require the
medium of ordinary communication.
The mere process of giving treatment to yourself
or others is quite simple. The difficulty
lies, not in the treatment itself, but in the previous
training of the mind to the needed state of power,
by the eliminating of false beliefs and the establishing
of true ones.
A skilled and efficient healer can give a treatment
in from ten to fifteen minutes. When a
longer time is needed it is because the mind has
not been able to concentrate upon the healing
thought. Sometimes it takes a beginner an
hour or longer to get in condition for giving a
treatment.
To go into the Silence does not mean to banish
all thought from the mind, for that is impossible.
To stare at a spot on the wall and attempt utter
vacuity of mind either brings on self-hypnotism
or reduces to idiocy. To go into the Silence
does mean to free the mind from certain thoughts
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connected with cares, worries, anxieties, and all
false beliefs of that nature, but you must not
leave their place vacant, or like the unclean spirit
recorded in St. Matthew, 12-44, they will return
bringing seven more unclean spirits with them,
and the last state shall be worse than the first.
When you sweep and garnish your mind you
must not leave it empty of occupants, but fill
it at once with thoughts of truth, lest the unclean
spirits return. In the Silence your thought
should dwell upon your immortal eternal being
(The Shining One), and its oneness with God. This
it is to be in the Silence, to still the turmoil of
mortal life and be ALONE with God. The external,
mortal life implies activity, noise and bustle;
hence the life of the inner self, alone with God,
is called "In the Silence."
In the Silence the mind is uplifted to that
higher plane where it sees Man to be as diseaseless
and deathless as God Himself, for Man, being
of God-Substance, has the attributes of that
Substance.
From this high viewpoint of spiritual realization
only can one heal the sick mind or the sick
body, and indeed the sicknesses of the mind are
quite as many and as serious as those of the body.
False beliefs have the power conferred upon
them by heredity and habit, but they can be
cast out by the power of the Spirit. The truth
shall make us free.
Do not be disheartened if you do not get
immediate results from your treatments. Sometimes
results are long delayed, but they come at
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last if you are faithful and persistent. Think
of Jacob who wrestled all through the night
with God and in the morning won his blessing.
Think of Job and his long-continued sorrows and
trials, but by faith and patience he came into
peace and prosperity. Bossuet says, "God does
not always refuse when He delays. He loves
perseverance and grants it everything."
And why? Because perseverance is a God
attribute and by manifesting it we come into
rapport with God, making the passage of his
blessing clear and easy. God's perseverance is
shown in the persistence of the Eternal Energy,
which could not be eternal did it not persist.
If you have relapses and setbacks in your
progress toward health, do not be disheartened,
for there is a rhythmic swing in growth which
I will now explain to you.
Professor Bose of the University of Calcutta,
in studying the law of growth in plants, invented
an ingenious instrument by which he could
measure their growth, a growth that was imperceptible
to the natural eye. He discovered that
plants grow upward for five seconds, then shrink
downward for five seconds, then remain stationary
for ten seconds, after which they start
upward again and repeat the same round. In
shrinking downward the motion is slower than
in pushing upward, hence the five seconds of
shrinkage do not carry the plant completely
back to its starting point, so that, on the whole,
it gains in stature. But note that the five seconds
of shrinkage and the ten seconds of remaining
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stationary are as three to one to the upward
push. This is practically three steps backward
to one step forward. (I will enlarge upon this in
Chapter Eleven.)
If your progress is something like that do not
complain that you are not getting ahead, for you
are.
Every time you treat yourself or others you
become stronger and your Word is more effective,
and in time you will be so ensouled by the healing
power that it will emanate even from your very
garments. You will then heal unconsciously, and
in some instances, where the faith of the patient
is very great, you will heal instantaneously.
To have faith in the invisible, intangible
healing power is at first like stepping into SEEMING
VOID, but you will find in that void the SOLID
ROCK under your feet.
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CHAPTER SIX
THE HELPING HAND
THE HELPING HAND
DO not think you stand alone in sickness,
weakness, poverty and misery, for you
are encircled by Love and you lie in the lap of
Wisdom. You are a child in your mother's
arms, nourished at her breast, the breast of kind
Nature, who though she sometimes punishes, is
ever ready with her reward. She only punishes
to drive you back into the path leading to your
greatest happiness. When entreaty and advice
both fail, then she applies the lash to save you
from the destroyer.
There is a natural healing power called the
Vis Medicatrix Naturae. It is generally known
only as a function working for the good and
preservation of the physical organism, but the
New Thought practitioner views this physical
functioning as only one phase of an infinite, universal
Power, working to bring the IDEAL into
manifestation. The single phase known as the
Vis Medicatrix Naturae is wonderful, while the
entire Principle, at work through all creation, is
great and marvellous beyond our present comprehension.
We may well study this Principle and learn
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all that is revealed of it at the present time, for
such knowledge will increase, and we shall finally
see that the entire universe is moving toward
ideal states, and that Man's dream of Heaven
may be realized here on earth.
The universe could not reach perfection until
its parts are perfect. A perfect fabric must be
made of perfect warp and woof. If threads are
uneven and defective the whole fabric will be
uneven and defective. The perfection of a whole
presupposes the perfection of all its parts; therefore,
when the universe reaches the ideal state,
its every part must be equally ideal.
This involves perfection for you, for me, and
for all humanity. It means a steady growing
into better and better states, which are naturally
happier and happier states.
Vis Medicatrix Naturae is a Latin term for the
Healing Power in Nature. If Love did not govern
Nature then no such healing power would
be vested in it. This power heals wounds, knits
broken bones, throws out poisons, renews vigor,
and by devious ways restores the body to health,
even when such restoration may seem utterly
impossible.
This healing power does not stop with the body,
but is operative in healing mental wounds and
mental suffering of all kinds.
It also extends itself to circumstances and
environment, because circumstances and environment
are an extension of the individual, as the
odor of a flower is an extension in fine particles
of ether of the flower. As an odor corresponds
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exactly to the nature of the flower, so does the
extension of the individual, as represented by
circumstances and environment, correspond exactly
to the life and thought of the individual.
There are states and conditions of environment
that correspond to the ailments of the body.
There are wounds, lesions and broken bones of
environment, as exemplified by the breaking of
settled states by means of separation, bereavement
and alienation. There are neuralgias of
environment, or the sharp pains caused by
violent antipathies and quarrels. There are indigestions,
or the mal-assimilation of relatives
and friends, resulting in fermentation and discomfort.
There are catarrhs, congestions, fevers
and other diseases of environment quite as actual
as those of the body, and the Healing Power of
Nature is fortunately as effective in its action
upon diseases of environment as upon those of
the body.
What bearing has this upon your life? Why,
it is a Helping Hand outstretched to uplift
and relieve you. It is at work every moment
to bring the chaos and disease of body, mind and
environment into harmonious and beautiful order.
It is helping you out of present states into more
beautiful ones that shall make glad your soul.
Out of chaos into order is the process of Creation,
and it is also the process of RE-creation,
which is RE-pair, or in other words, it is the repairing
or new pairing or new adjustment of
mental and physical atoms.
By a mysterious action of the One Mind upon
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Matter this planet came into existence, and
every form of life upon it had the same origin.
Biologists tell us that in watching the forming
of a. bird in an egg the yolk appears to be pinched
in here and there as by an invisible hand, until
the form of the bird is vaguely outlined. Day
by day this form grows more clearly defined
until the living bird escapes from the shell. This
illustrates the mode of CREATING in every instance.
It is always the drawing together of
indeterminate atoms into definite form.
The One Mind, arranging and rearranging atoms
in you, is continually re-creating you, from
moment to moment, from hour to hour, from day
to day, and from year to year.
Whether you wake or whether you sleep, the
re-creation is accomplishing itself in you. The
healing, idealizing, curative influence is working
in and through you to bring you into the Heaven
of your heart's desire. This is the Helping Hand.
You can hinder results or you can advance
them according to your failure to recognize or
your readiness to cooperate with this Power.
The best, simplest and most natural mode of
cooperation is to think many times daily of the
existence and continuous activity of this Healing
Power, for creative action is intensified by conscious
thought.
The healing of a scratch is actual evidence
bearing witness to the Vis Medicatrix Nat urw,
but not so apparent is its functioning in the
inner, invisible mechanism of the body, and even
less apparent is it when acting upon your mind
75
or environment. Where evidence is lacking your
wisest course is to accept the Healing Power on
faith and await results. When you get those
results then will your faith be justified.
I know of no more uplifting and hopeful outlook
than to see that my life is being continually
shaped into more ideal form, that it may become
a perfect expression of Divine Order, Health,
Beauty, Opulence and Joy. Thus and thus only
can I express the Divine.
Just as surely as the yolk of the egg, so vague
and shapeless, is the nucleus of the bird that is
to be, so am I now the nucleus of a higher, happier
being. So are you. The law is universal
and applies to all.
I can endure an unhappy hour if I know it
ushers in a happier one, and especially if I know
the former holds within itself the germ of the
latter, and without the former the latter could
not have existence. As the seed generates the
future entity, so is the evolution of a human
life, each new phase of it evolving from the
preceding.
Lacking this knowledge we have in the past
hindered the good to come, for in dark hours of
sickness, sorrow, bereavement and trouble, we
have not consciously recognized the Power that
was even at that very moment striving to bring
us into better states; and the law is — If we do
not consciously recognize this Power we handicap
its endeavor, by reason of the fact that our
conscious thought influences for better or worse
all that concerns us.
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Fortunately for us this Healing Power stands
ever at hand awaiting our oft-belated recognition,
and it is never too late for us to begin to
cooperate with it, for even after death it helps
us in the life beyond.
We are apt to think of the Subconscious which
is Unconscious or Non-Conscious as being inactive
because we are not cognizant of its action. That
is the great mistake of our lives. When we understand
that the Subconscious never sleeps but
acts continuously, for our weal or woe, we shall
know that we control our destiny, and do so
through moving the Subconscious to the measure
of our Conscious Thought.
Do not mistake my meaning and think that
Superconscious, Conscious and Subconscious are
three separate and distinct Minds. They are
all One Mind, but One Mind differentiated in
functioning as a tree might be differentiated into
root, trunk and branch.
Subconscious Mind is as intelligent as Conscious
Mind, if not more so, as its activity indicates
a very high order of intelligence. The Vis
Medicatrix Nature is an intelligent activity of
the Subconscious, and therefore we are not
conscious of its operation, noting only the results,
and by virtue of them assuming that it
is operative.
Having satisfied ourselves of its operation
toward beneficent ends, we cooperate with it or
intensify it by dwelling in thought upon it, and
by suggesting to it certain channels for its forces
to move in. When Conscious and Subconscious
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have a united purpose the former does not pull
against the latter to hinder its action. But if,
on the other hand, the Conscious Mind is filled
with doubts and misgivings as to the ultimate
victory of good, with its attendant joy and
health, then the Conscious Mind pulls against
instead of with the Subconscious, and hinders its
accomplishment.
It devolves upon you, then, no matter what
your present state may be, nor how disheartening
it may seem, to see it mentally as HOLDING THE
GERM Of FUTURE BETTERMENT.
That great scientist Sir Oliver Lodge has arrived
at the following conclusion:
"No existing universe can tend on the whole
toward contraction and decay, because that
would foster annihilation, and so any incipient
attempt would not have survived. Consequently,
an actually existing and flowing universe must
on the whole cherish development, expansion,
growth, and so tend toward infinity rather than
toward zero. Given existence of a non-stagnant
kind and ultimate development must be its
law."
Note how that term "flowing universe" coincides
with the Radiant Centre idea that Life
flows outward into expression from a Centre
which is God.
The universe is on its way to higher and
better states. That which tends toward infinity
tends toward perfection. One cannot think of
the Infinite as Imperfect, as subject to bondage
or unhappy conditions. Development, expansion,
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growth, all lead to increasing freedom from all
that restricts and binds.
Bonds, however, have their use for a time,
for Power is not gained without overcoming the
limits set by opposition, restraint, resistance,
obstacle and hindrance. That is why I say
The unpleasantness of the present hour holds
within itself the undeveloped germ of future joy.
The fairest lily has its inception in the bondage
of downpressing earth and darkness, from which,
and by means of which it pushes upward into
freedom and light.
Bear constantly in mind that the Vis Medicatrix
Naturae is always working for the good of
your mind, the good of your body, and the good
of your life in its every detail.
If appearances contradict this statement, let
me remind you that appearances are like the
horizon, only an appearance, and the horizon no
longer deceives you, since you have learned that
it does not mark the end of the earth. Neither
do your apparent limitations mark the end of
your endeavor, for the horizon line symbolizes
another illusion that has long held the world
in bondage to disease and weakness, namely, the
MENTAL HORIZON LINE that limits your powers to
the finite, when the truth is they extend beyond
this illusive line and stretch far and away into
the Infinite.
Not the least of your Infinite Powers is the
Vis Medicatrix Naturae, the Healing Power, the
Helping Hand, that is working unceasingly for
your betterment, and for a higher type of wellbeing
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than you can now imagine, for, in your
present state, at its best, when compared to your
coming state, you are as the grub to the butterfly,
or the atom to the archangel.
Goaded, driven, coaxed and carried, you go
on your way to better things, in spite of your
mistakes and shortcomings. You could not stop
your progress entirely if you tried, but you could
hinder it for a time by not cooperating with the
law.
Be at peace with your surroundings for they
are an indispensable part of your unfoldment.
They are in your life by law, and they will go
out of your life by law, as the ripe apple drops
from the tree. Some day you will look back
and see it so. Then you will know that without
certain unpleasant experiences your mind could
never have gained its subsequent buoyancy and
joy.
Wine in the stage of fermentation is cloudy,
but give it time and the dregs will settle, leaving
the wine clear and bright. So shall your life
separate itself from its dregs and become a sparkling,
radiant heaven of hope and joy.
Keep the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, the Helping
Hand, before your mental vision and affirm
over and over again that the Law of Love which
is also the Law of Evolution is bringing you out
of the confined, dark, seed period to the time of
blossoming. Trust the Infinite Love that has
you in its keeping and REST IN PEACE.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
ENSOULING THOUGHT—FORMS
ENSOULING THOUGHT—FORMS
WILL now tell you something about the
1 creating or ensouling of Thought-Forms. To
do that I must define briefly several terms with
which you may not be familiar, or, if you are,
a definition will not be out of place, as it will
show more clearly what I intend to say.
Dating far back to the beginning of language
we find our present word "Man" had its root in
an ancient Sanscrit word "Manas," which means
"Thinker." This word has come down through
the long ages with but little change, until now,
instead of "Manas" it reads "Man" and it still
means "Thinker."
Man in his real essence is a THINKING PRINCIPLE,
and that Principle, the true Ego, is called
by Occultists "Maims," because the term characterizes
the Ego as a Thinker. The Ego is
known as "Manas," and its plane of activity is
known as the "Manasic Plane."
There is also a plane of Feeling, Emotion and
Desire on which the Manas or Thinker functions,
and that is called the Kamic Plane. (Not Karmic
but Kamic, for Karma and Kama are two
distinct terms.)
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I use these occult terms for the reason that I
get my knowledge of the creation of Thought-Forms
from Vedantic Philosophy and wish to
give credit to the same, also because I know of
no better terms with which to define the planes
of Thought and Feeling.
Manasic activity and Kamic activity must
combine to produce the vibration that builds
Form and moulds Matter.
How is this building of Form accomplished?
The process is difficult to put in words; nevertheless,
I shall try to describe it. The creation
of Form is a subtle and fine process and cannot
be detected by the physical senses. We should
know nothing of Thought and its transmission
did our knowledge depend upon a conscious
perception of it as it passes from out the mind
to perform its various activities. Telepathy or
thought transference is known only by its results.
That is to say, — when two people agree to send
each other thought messages, and those messages
are received, word for word, as clearly as though
spoken audibly to the listening ear, or through
a mental perception as distinct as though written
upon paper, why then there can be no doubt
that Thought has been actually transmitted from
mind to mind. We neither see, hear nor feel such
thoughts in their coming or going, and yet it is
demonstrated in hundreds of instances, by scientific
experiment, that they do come and go. They
often present themselves to our minds something
as our own thoughts do, coming from we know
not where. Whenever we have a thought for
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which we cannot account by the law of association,
a thought so unrelated to our other
thoughts as to be actually startling, we may
safely assume that it comes to us either straight
from the Universal Mind, or is transmitted to us
from some other human mind. Experimental
tests have demonstrated the law of thought
transmission over and over again, until the fact
of Telepathy is no longer questioned among scientific
men or intelligent people.
The mode of ensouling Thought-Forms, so far
as it can be described, is as follows:
The Manas or Thinking Principle forms a mental
image by drawing into definite shape the
diffused and highly etherealized matter of the
Manasic Plane. The mental image thus formed
is an ethereal creation, a thing without form,
color or weight, and it is drawn down into the
Mamie Plane of Feeling or Emotion where it is ensouled
and then becomes a substantial Thought-Form,
a living entity, possessing form, color and
weight and having the power of moving from
place to place in accordance with its desire. It
obeys the law of life and moves outward from
the centre to the circumference of the individual,
even going beyond that circumference into the
surrounding world.
A collection of these Thought-Forms round
about us create what is called a Thought. Aura,
and it impresses other people either pleasantly
or unpleasantly according to the nature of the
Thoughts composing it. The person with a pleasing
Aura is liked and attracts success, while the
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person with the unpleasing Aura is disliked and
repels success.
You, in your inner essence are a Thought emanating
from the Divine Mind, and your thoughts,
in their turn, are secondary entities, emanating
from your mind.
As you have independent action and can go
here and there at will, so your thoughts, being
microcosmic editions of yourself, acquire independent
action and move out into space, doing
many things of which you are not aware. Your
thought is capable of going of its own accord to
places and people utterly unknown to you, and
to this you owe much that seems unaccountable.
Congenial friends are drawn together in this way
from remote parts of the world, and so are people
who can benefit each other. It is thus that
Desire and Aspiration find their fulfilment, and
it is thus that Success is gained by THINKING.
Some thoughts are weak and short lived.
Others are strong and able bodied. You feed
and nourish a thought into strength and vitality
by THINKING IT day after day and year after
year. If you think a thought of health in this
persistent way you finally make the thought so
strong that it dominates the diseased conditions
and drives them out of your body.
Your physical organism may be described as
a collection or assemblage of Thought-Forms.
The thoughts you think, going out from your
centre embody themselves in your nerves, muscles,
flesh, bone, blood and secretions. These are
actually made and re-made by your Thought-Forms,
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the "stay-at-home " ones that do not get
out of your body into your environment, and
since every part of you is composed of embodied
Thought, every atom of your body must
have its soul or intelligent principle that responds
to every thought you think and every emotion
you feel, for the intelligent central principle or
soul of the atoms is highly sensitive to all influences.
Were this not true there could be no
possible relation between the healing thought
and the diseased atoms it would affect and
control.
Sometimes the intelligent principle in the
atom is lethargic and slow to respond, and in
such cases healing is slow. This lethargic state
of the atom is not always due to the patient's
mind but dates back to ancestors who held certain
mental states and transmitted them by
heredity to their descendants. Time and effort
will disintegrate the inherited thought, even as
the rocks of the earth are ground to powder
by the continued action of the elements.
Your body of today is the sum of your past
thoughts and the thoughts of your ancestors.
This would seem a difficult or even impossible
proposition were it not that the Law of Life is
working with you to produce that which you are
destined to be, a PERFECT INDIVIDUAL. This is
the end and aim of Evolution, and therefore I
say — The Law of Life is with you in your seeking
for perfect health of mind and body.
Do not think of your atoms as fixed, for they
are not. There is a temporary fixity, without.
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which the preservation of Form would be impossible,
but this temporary fixity is always subject
to the action of Spirit, to that stream of
spiritual life that is continually flowing forth from
the Centre of Being and becoming you.
You always generate more Thought than you
can utilize in your body, and this surplus of
Thought constitutes the current that travels
outward into your Aura and beyond it. You
produce your Thought Aura, and it may be as
sweet and delightful as the perfume of a flower,
or as noxious and repellent as the stench of
putrefaction. Your Aura is an emanation of
your Thought and corresponds to its quality
in every particular.
No one can harm you if your thoughts are
continually good, for each good thought is a
positive force, forming part of your Aura, and
helping to build around you a protective
environment. As you go on making good
Thought-Forms they become a veritable army
of protectors, and this is the occult meaning of
the text — "He shall give His angels charge over
thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."
When Stradella sang holy songs before the
altar his protective Aura was so strong that
the assassins, stealing upon him, were powerless.
They could not strike his death blow.
We can readily believe such things possible
when we reflect that Thought-Forms are ensouled
with intelligence and energy, and that they can
therefore mass themselves together as a protective
army around the person projecting them.
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To be convinced of this is to become absolutely
fearless in all conditions and circumstances.
Fear thoughts produce unwholesome, diseased,
weak atoms, so it is necessary to eliminate fear
from your mind, and you can do this if you realize
that you are one with God-Substance and have
nothing to fear.
Anxious, worried and sad thoughts come under
the head of fear thoughts, and they can be dispelled
by the knowledge that you are of indestructible
spiritual Substance that cannot be
harmed.
God's Infinite Power is our power, therefore
we have nothing to fear, nothing to be anxious
about, nothing to worry over, and no real cause
to be sad. When we perceive all this then our
troubles fall away from us and a vast peace pervades
the mind, registering itself also in the
body.
But why is it that fear thoughts gain such
control over us before we know the truth of our
being? I will tell you why. We trace our inheritance
of mind clear back to the savage, the fetich
worshipper, who feared an unknown and undiscovered
world, in which he fancied an enemy
ambushed behind every tree. Psychologists, like
Dr. Stanley Hall, have shown us how we have
inherited our fears from the early savage, but
fail to show us how to get rid of them. It remains
for the New Thought to show us that.
Remember that your future body is to be made
up of your present Thought-Forms, or ensouled
atoms. Even the materialist Haeckel in his
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work on Evolution is obliged to accord souls to
atoms to account for their intelligence and activity.
You can address Thought-Forms as you would
human beings, telling them what you wish them
to do. Thus, from day to day you will grow into
better conditions by creating new and vibrant
Thought-Forms that shall bring you Health,
Prosperity and Happiness.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
THE QUICKENING
THE QUICKENING
IN the forming of an organism there is a moment
1 when the Quickening comes, and from that
moment the organism becomes a creature of new
life and action. Before the Quickening it has
life in a certain sense; that is, it grows and has
some functional activities, but after the Quickening
it has a new power, that of independent
or volitional movement, of acting upon impulses
of its own. From being a negative being that
is acted upon, it becomes an acting entity, an
individual with a will of its own.
Take the embryo of a bird in the egg, for instance.
The yolk of the egg gradually assumes
the form of the bird. Little by little it develops
a spinal column, heart, lungs, etc., and all the
while it is being nourished in its growth by the
albumen in the surrounding white of the egg.
When the form of the bird is nearly complete
and it is ready to break forth from the shell,
the Quickening comes, and with it the instinct
to work its way out of the shell. The bird was
alive before the Quickening, but negative and
acted upon rather than acting. With the Quickening
comes a higher, more positive life, and the
power to move and achieve for itself.
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So is it with the human embryo on a larger
scale and to a higher degree. From the instant
of Quickening the foetus becomes something dynamic,
and finally assists in its own delivery at
the time of its birth.
There is an all-pervasive analogy between
things physical and things metaphysical, and so
I infer that there is a Quickening in the mind
of Man for which preparation is made. For a
long time the mind is vague and negative in
its action, but all the while it is growing, developing,
forming for the Quickening. In other words,
we are not fully individualized, and we must prepare
to take a step upward into a higher individualization.
We must make ready for the mental
Quickening.
All our vague and desultory thinking is really
working to an end in which it shall take on orderly
arrangement around a central thought and become
organic, for what is true of the embryo is equally
true of the embryotic individual, the human
being.
And after the Quickening comes the birth into
a higher life. All along the line of Evolution
things are being born again upon the next higher
plane. The one-celled organism is born again
as the two-celled, the three-celled, the many-celled
organism, and so Life sweeps on in its upward
trend.
The sadness, the questioning, the dull monotony,
the drawbacks, the heart sickness, are all
phenomena of the embryotic life and must be
lived through patiently and hopefully if we would
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reach the Quickening which is close at hand.
Grief, pain and trouble are the pangs of gestation
and pass away when the embryo attains its
growth.
In the forming of the embryo the yolk of the
egg in which it dwells is fed by the albumen in
the surrounding white of the egg. The germ of
the future life lies in the yolk and the yolk is
in the centre, surrounded by the white. So does
Man lie in the centre of his environment, and
that which the environment contains in the way
of event and circumstance is necessary to the
forming of his mind while it is preparing for the
Quickening.
You are now organizing your mind, making of
yourself an organic being mentally. You are
already organized physically, but the present
organization is imperfect and is being unsettled
preparatory to a reorganization of a more perfect
character. Old habits of body are being disturbed
for the purpose of forming new habits.
It is the same with the mind, only the mind has
never been organized like the body, and not having
been organized, it is the more easily made to
conform to a new order of thought. There are,
of course, many old habits of thought to break
up, and new habits to form, but the old habits
are not crystallized in organic formation, so they
are plastic and yield readily to formative influences.
If your mind feels peculiarly chaotic and
unsettled, it merely shows that a new order is
about to form, for chaos always precedes a new
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order. It did in the Creation, according to the
account of it in Genesis, and we have the same
process now in creating. In chaos, atoms are
lying about in disorder, and the creative act consists
in drawing those atoms that are related to
each other together into an organic form of life.
In the creation of these organic forms there always
comes the Quickening.
I am reiterating the term "Quickening" so
that you may have it written indelibly in your
mind. I want it to fill your consciousness full
for a time, until you are permeated with the
conviction that a Quickening is to come to you.
I want you also to know that you are now working
to make it come, working with Creative Law,
working with God.
Work that has no happy, pleasurable end in
view is a treadmill, and as such it is a torture
to a sensitive mind, so I point out to you the
end toward which you are moving, as the Apostles
of old moved toward the Pentecostal Fire,
the Quickening of the Spirit.
As they moved toward the Great Event, so did
it move toward them, until there came the Exaltation.
Spirit dwells in us continually. Without it
we could not draw the breath of life. It does
not descend upon us from the outside, but from
the inside. Spirit expresses itself through us,
but it has lower and higher phases of expression.
We have passed through many of the lower forms
of this expression and are now being prepared
for a higher. When our new mental form is
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finished the Spirit will flow into it, and lo, the
Quickening and later the new birth.
When you feel inclined to lament your apparent
failure to make your life what you wish it to be,
take comfort in the blessed truth that you are
preparing for your Quickening, that no matter
how dull and wretched the outlook, how sharp
the pain of conflict, how deep the grief, how heavy
the trouble, all are factors in producing the great
result. All are formative influences, shaping you
into the perfect form that shall be a fit dwelling
for the Spirit. All things have to be shaped
for their Apotheosis and Man is not exempt from
the universal law.
If the embryo of a bird had mind or consciousness
it would feel joy as it grows more definite
in shape, more like the bird that is to be, but the
probability is that the intelligence of the embryo
is not equal to this cognizance. However, the
larger mind of the biologist, watching through
his glass the gradual formation of the bird, sees
what it heralds, knows the ultimate of the unfoldment,
is sure of the result.
There is in Man a larger mind, a higher consciousness,
that sees and waits for the Quickening,
the finished product, the perfect individual,
but this larger mind is not always in evidence,
and when it is not, the smaller, everyday mind
is appalled by difficulties, troubled by fear, disturbed
by doubt, worn by monotony, and anguished
by pain, but under the Creative Hand
the difficulties, the fear, the doubt, the monotony
and the pain are all worked in as building material
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for the growing form that is to be quickened
when it is complete.
I know a number of honest, reliable people
who have related to me their experience of the
Quickening, and while differing somewhat in
details all the experiences were very much alike.
One in particular appealed to me so strongly
that I will give it to you for your encouragement.
The individual saw and touched a three-tongued
spiritual flame, such as came to the Apostles at
Pentecost. It was not a hallucination or a vision,
but the experience of a perfectly wide-awake
normal person, one not given to trances or psychic
states. When this flame touched her on the
temple she heard a voice saying — " This is the
Healing Power." She mentally recognized it
as such before she was told so by the Spirit,
for when the flame touched her, electric waves
quivered through her body, and she was filled
with vitality as never before. For days afterward
she walked as on air, so great was her sense
of exhilaration and lightness of body. She
seemed to herself to be all Spirit, and believed
that she could have walked on water or floated
in the air. In course of time this exhilaration
became less intense but she never fell back to
the old level of heaviness and stolidity, neither
did her mind ever go back to its old plane which
was haunted by doubts, anxieties, worries and
fears. By nature she had a sad, morbid temperament,
apprehensive of the future and given
to brooding over sorrows of the past. The
Quickening made of her a new creature, completely
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metamorphosing her former self into a new
and powerful being who had lost all her fear of
what Life held for her, and who seemed to have
power to mould circumstances to her will.
She told me that her quickening was long in
coming, that for years she had struggled on,
faithful to the Truth as it had been revealed to
her and trying to express it in every detail of
her life, but often dismayed and disheartened
at her failures and her inability to bring health
to her body. After the Quickening her diseases
seemed to drop from her, and all things became
new. She began to live in a higher consciousness
so that she understood what is meant by being
"born again."
Others have had the same experience, so I
feel justified in asserting that a Quickening and
a new birth is in store for all who live the Truth.
Will you not then yield your hearty cooperation
to this work of growing toward the Quickening,
and dare to feel courage and hope?
You can trust the universal law and the Quickening
beckons you on.
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CHAPTER NINE
THE ONE WILL
THE ONE WILL
THERE is but One Will in the Universe
and that Will is good, therefore your
will being an output of the One Will cannot be
bad. In itself it is good, but according to the
direction it takes it SEEMS bad. An automobile
spinning along on the boulevard seems good,
but wrecked in the ditch it seems to be bad,
or at least a derelict. The human derelict is
styled a sinner, the mechanical one, an irresponsible
wreck. But in either case the poor derelict
has missed the road and fallen into the ditch.
Your will is an output of the One Will, bearing
the same relation to it that the wave of the
ocean bears to the entire ocean, or the branch of
the tree bears to the entire tree. The wave is
essentially one with the whole ocean, the branch
is essentially one with the whole tree, and your
will is essentially one with the whole Will. You
can easily understand this to be true of the ocean
or the tree, but it is not so apparent with the
Will.
This is because the individual is a sort of storage
battery, appropriating a certain amount of force,
storing and using that amount until it is exhausted,
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and then appropriating, storing and using more,
so that while busied with its limited store it is
not conscious of the whole, of which its store is
but a fraction.
With the physical eye we see the entire tree
and its connection with the branch, and we see
enough of the ocean to imagine its entirety and
connect it with the wave, but with the inner eye
we do not at first perceive the whole of that
hidden force, the Will, and therefore we do not
realize its connection with the individual will.
But when it is brought to our attention that
such a Wholeness or Unity of Will exists, then,
while looking at a portion of the One Will, which
we recognize as our individual portion, the mind
sees dimly, symbolically, the Whole Will, something
as the physical eye, when gazing directly
at some object, sees dimly and indirectly the
surrounding objects that impinge upon the fringe
of vision.
There is an abnormal state of the physical
eye in which the sight narrows and can see only
the point where it centres its vision, all else
being excluded, and this same abnormal state
of the inner eye prevails when that portion of
the Will which you call your will is only present
to your perception. The more abnormal your
inner sight, the smaller your will seems.
At such times your inner eye is sick, weak
and imperfect, so that it cannot see what really
is, that which is present with you, and there for
you to see, but shut away from your vision because
you are afflicted with mental astigmatism.
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There is one very curious thing about this
inner seeing and that is it is transmissible. There
is a transference of sight from mind to mind.
For instance, if I see something clearly I can
transmit my seeing to your mind so that you can
see what I see with my inner eye. If I see the
Whole Will, and see my will or your will as one
with it, and invested with its power, I can impress
that picture upon your mind and you will see
what I see. If I give my impression to you in
writing, you will at once look through and beyond
the writing to my thought-picture, which will
then stand out vividly in your consciousness.
I can convey to you the vision that is mine.
It is not mine to secrete but to pass on to other
minds as a part of the sacred Flame of Truth.
This is the secret of New Thought Healing,
the transference of spiritual vision. The healer
transmits to the patient's mind a mental picture
of spiritual Truth, and that mental picture is
a receptacle into which the healing current flows
straight from its God-Fountain. As I have said
before it is not the healer who really heals the
patient — he but opens the way — and -yet his
mediation is essential where the patient is unable
to open the way for himself.
If you would increase the power of your will
you must see it as one with the Whole Will, and
as continually flowing from it, through you, as
an outlet of universal force. You may imprison
it for a time within yourself, but if you do not
ultimately send it out, it ceases to be power,
and like a drop of the ocean, left alone on the
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beach, it passes into the ether and is no more.
If you hoard it as you would a small store of
something that you feared to lose, it will ooze
away from you and leave you weak in purpose
and action.
If you get the idea that your will is bad and
its exercise a sin, that the personal will is something
to be crushed, then your inner sight is
diseased and defective, and your inference illogical,
for to crush the will involves an exercise of
will to do the crushing, and the spectacle of will
crushing itself out of existence, and remaining
a victor in the field after it has crushed itself,
is an unthinkable proposition. It is equivalent
to saying that you have destroyed yourself and
yet still exist.
The very impossibility of the conception proves
that Will is an Essential to Life and Being, and
being an Essential, its destruction is inconceivable.
Herbert Spencer's argument for the indestructibility
of Matter is that you cannot think
it out of existence. You can think of it as passing
into other forms, but you cannot think of it as
utterly destroyed. The same argument would
hold good concerning the Will.
Schopenhauer held that the entire Universe is
projected into space by Will and Idea, which
I suppose is equivalent to saying it is projected
by Energy and Thought, Will standing for the
Energy that projects and Idea for the shape or
Thought-Form assumed by the projective Energy.
Every object in Creation is put forth into existence
by effort of this One Will and the will of the
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individual is never separated from the One
Will.
There are apparently separate wills because
objects are externally separated from each other,
but the Will is not subject to the laws that measure
material substance and divide it into parts.
On the vast ocean of Will you rise as a wave on
one part of its surface while I rise as another
wave on another part of its surface. You may
be in London and I in Washington, but the omnipresent
Will joins us as one. Your wave may
move to the North and mine to the South, or yours
to the East and mine to the West, but we both
are one with the ocean of Will.
The whole force of the Universe is conserved
in the One Will. Its energy as a whole is never
increased, never diminished, always the same in
its entirety, though its individual demonstrations
differ, now manifesting great power, now little,
as the case may be.
The Will is constructive except at times when
it destroys for the purpose of building a better
structure. Nature's effort in Evolution is to
bring all beings to the highest expression possible,
and the energy that backs and sustains this effort
is the Universal Will; hence it is good and we
can trust it to work out our highest ideals and
aspirations.
Weakness and disease mark a falling away
from the Ideal, but in this falling away we
are led to a knowledge of the laws of health,
and learn the possibility of repair and reconstruction.
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The wisdom, the breadth of experience and the
depth of sympathy that should come with the
passing of the years are wonderful and beautiful
marks of age. Not so are the broken-down
tissues, the sickness and decrepitude. It is possible,
so the New Thought teaches, to acquire the
beautiful marks and to obliterate the unlovely
ones by a proper direction of the Will.
I may know what is ideal, and yet not will to
express it in my life. In that case my knowledge
does not tend to beauty of expression in my
mind and body. I may know that certain thoughts
are corrosive and generate poison in my body,
and yet I may will to hold such thoughts as the
years roll over me, in which event my will is
my destroyer. With all the knowledge of Truth
that it is possible to gain, one cannot renew or
re-create himself to the ideal without using his
will. It is either his Savior or his Destroyer.
You can use the will to good effect with very
little knowledge, because there is within you an
intuitive perception of what is good for you and
what is not. You know by the effect of certain
thoughts and feelings that they are injurious to
you. You know it is not well for you to indulge
in spells of depression, of resentment, of envy,
anger, anxiety, fear, etc., and you may prefer
not to have such thoughts, yet it seems you
cannot arouse will enough to expel them. You
try once, twice or three times to put out the noxious
intruders, and perhaps you succeed for the
instant, but back they come trooping, and more
"devils" with them, like the unclean spirit of
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old. Then you are quite discouraged and struggle
no more.
You would not thus succumb if you knew what
a mighty power is at your back, even the whole
Will of the Universe, every bit of it. It is the
old mistaken idea of the separate will that paralyzes
your effort and makes you think you have
used up all your force when you have not.
Think about your oneness with the Universal
Will, the Moving Power of the Universe, the next
time you get discouraged, and see how quickly
your own will springs up refreshed and reinforced.
It will amaze you with what it can do.
Have you reached the place where you reach
out for something that will renew your mind, your
health and your life in general? If so that
reaching out is a movement of the will. It is at
work for you. Keep it moving. Keep your
automobile on the highway. Charge it with
more power. When one charge is used up put
in another and push ahead. Use your intelligence
to keep it out of the ditch and you will
happily proceed to the place where you would
go.
The exercise of will is a pleasure in itself, even
when it moves to difficult accomplishment. The
finest and best endeavor of the will lies not in
the subjugation of others, but in the control of
self and of circumstances. The will unifies,
adjusts, and regulates many conflicting elements
into one harmonious, beautiful whole, obedient
to a high, dominant idea.
No man can serve two masters and no organism
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can be harmonious and perfect until all its parts
serve ONE DOMINANT IDEA.
In perfecting the human organism, both in
mind and body, this law is regnant. There
must be a ruling Ideal, and the office of the Will
is to bring all thoughts, desires and purposes
under this dominant Ideal. Until this is accomplished
the house is divided against itself, there
is contention and discord in the organism, lack
of peace in the mind, and in consequence, pain
and disease in the flesh.
While the Will cannot crush itself out of existence,
it can use one part of itself against another
part, one part desiring to follow one course and
the other part desiring to follow the opposite
course. One of these two courses is in accord
with the Ideal, and the other is not. The better
course does not look attractive at the start,
and it requires a decided effort of the Will to
follow it. This is good for the individual, for
with the exercise of the Will force is called forth,
intensifying the life.
To have more life is to move upward and away
from weakness and disease. Therefore to understand
the use of the will and to see its oneness
with the Universal Will, to set it in operation in
obedience to the highest and best that we know,
is to find renewal of Life, Health, Youth and
general Happiness.
In nervous prostration one loses interest in
all things, desiring nothing, caring for nothing,
doing nothing, and all this indicates a lessening
in the activity of the will. But underneath this
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non-caring, non-desiring, non-doing state, there
is really a desire to be lifted out of a condition
that may well be defined as a living death. This
desire is a faint stirring of the will, and should
be encouraged in every way possible. If the
sufferer can be induced to use the will a little
every day in the effort to banish from the mind
depressing thoughts and also to overcome the
tendency to rehearse his troubles to every sympathetic
ear, he will take the first step from darkness
into light.
All troubles, whether mental or physical, grow
and increase as you dwell upon them in thought,
for you thus create a mental atmosphere in which
diseased conditions thrive like noxious weeds.
The only safe course is to uproot and cast out
diseased thoughts, so as to give healthy thoughts
a chance in the mental soil.
Have you not many times found your fears
groundless and your apprehensions worse than
the thing apprehended, when it came to pass?
And then, did it not seem foolish to have lain
awake nights worrying about the future, and
tearing down tissue cells with your gloomy fears
and forebodings?
And are you going to keep up this useless and
harmful habit until your bodily health is undermined,
your thought Aura unwholesome and
repellent, and your face deeply lined with ugly
furrows of anxiety? Are you going to do this?
Or are you going to stop it now, and begin to use
your will as a saving factor?
Why not say to yourself "My will is one with
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the Universal Will, the Energy that upholds
the world. By this Will all things are created;
therefore I can use it to get rid of the conditions
I deplore, and replace them with Health, Beauty,
Intelligence, Genius, Prosperity and unlimited
Achievement. I will use my will to these ends,
and to the educated and active Will all things
beautiful and glorious are possible. I will never
forget that my will is backed by the Universal
Will, that reservoir of Inexhaustible Energy.
"I will waste no more time in vain complaints
and regrets, but instead use the Creative Will
to give me what I desire."
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CHAPTER TEN
TAPPING HIGHER LEVELS OF ENERGY
TAPPING HIGHER LEVELS OF ENERGY
ONE year ago I was greatly impressed
by an article written by Professor William
James of Harvard University in which he made
some astonishing statements regarding the possible
renewal of Energy. In the article he used
the term " Second Wind " to denote a phenomenon
in Psychology, indicating a psychic law.
You may know that it often happens in athletic
sports that a contestant will be prostrated
by fatigue, even to the point of acute distress.
The breath will come in short, painful gasps and
the physical state be one of utter exhaustion,
but let a sudden excitement occur, such for instance
as the cheering given to another contestant,
and a strange thing sometimes happens.
The exhausted man will get his second wind, and
this second wind will be better than the first,
for it is a great spurt of energy and usually
means victory.
After due observation of this phenomenon
Professor James came to the conclusion that not
only is a second wind possible, but a third, a
fourth, or even more.
Now to me this is very inspiring, for it confirms
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what
I have long believed, that Man is the
possessor of unlimited power. Beyond the fatigue
where one seems completely spent, there
higher levels of energy waiting to be tapped,
what is needed to tap them is the sharply
pressing edge of a persistent purpose, the MENTAL
act of PUSHING ON
Right here let me enter a word of caution.
I would not advise you to push beyond the
fatigue point physically until you are prepared
for it mentally, for if you do there is danger of
collapse or even death. You must first
me fully convinced that you can tap higher
levels of Energy. There must first be the MENTAL
ACT of PUSHING ON, and it must be made
a habit before you can safely try the PHYSICAL
PUSH beyond the fatigue point. You must establish
within yourself a steady, unconquerable
purpose to PUSH ON.
Professor James enumerates the various excitements
that produce the second wind, and I notice
they are in the ultimate either thoughts or emotions.
He also explains that there need be no
external excitement, that the determination to
PUSH ON is often quite sufficient. I will quote his
words in this connection:
On usual occasions we make a practice of
stopping an occupation as soon as we meet the
effective layer, so to call it, of fatigue. We
have then walked, played or worked enough,
so we desist. That amount of fatigue is an
efficacious obstruction on this side of which our
life is cast. But if an unusual necessity
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forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs.
The fatigue gets worse up to a certain, critical
point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away
and we are fresher than before. We have evidently
tapped a level of new energy, masked
until then by the fatigue obstacle usually obeyed.
There may be layer after layer of this experience.
A third or fourth wind may supervene. Mental
activity shows this phenomenon as well as physical,
and in exceptional cases we may find beyond
the very extremity of fatigue distress, amounts
of ease and power that we never dreamed ourselves
to own, sources of strength habitually
not taxed at all, because habitually we never
push through the obstruction, never pass those
early critical points."
The fact is, we use up one layer of energy and
think that is all we have at command. We
believe ourselves exhausted because we do not
know of the other layers to be tapped by us at
will.
Whatever goal we have in view, whether it be
health, or some other ultimate of human endeavor,
we are too apt to let the fatigue obstacle "knock us
out," though level upon level of higher energy
be waiting to be tapped when we push MENTALLY
beyond the fatigue point. Note that I say MENTALLY,
not PHYSICALLY until you are prepared MENTALLY.
To be prepared mentally is to be absolutely sure
of your one-ness with Universal Energy, or God Substance.
To be equally sure that you are
flowing forth as a stream of life from that Substance
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into the outer world continually. To be
also sure that you can tap, or release within
yourself more energy when one store of it is
exhausted.
You may be so exhausted physically that to
move a muscle seems impossible, or you may be
exhausted mentally and in the bitter pangs of
despair, but the persistent WILL to PUSH ON will
tap the higher level of energy, yielding the glorious
" Second Wind " and turning life into a song
of triumph.
If you are sick the energy to combat disease
has run low and you need to tap a higher spiritual
level. Then the disease will be routed and the
machinery of your body will run smoothly, without
clog or hindrance.
If your trouble be a matter of adversity, of
disappointment, of what we call hard luck, the
same rule holds good. You have merely reached
your fatigue obstacle, and the more distress you
feel, the nearer you are to your "Second Wind."
Now is the time of all times for you to achieve
success by tapping a higher level of energy.
Now is your GREAT OPPORTUNITY. Do not
give up on the eve of victory. PUSH ON.
The physiologist will tell you that the body
is bound by certain laws, that its strength cannot
exceed the quality of its muscle and the nerve
stimulus. Why is it then that a small puny
hypnotic subject can perform Herculean feats
of strength when under the power of hypnotic
suggestion? The same physiologist will tell you
that while a second, third or fourth wind may be
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possible, still there is a final fatigue limit beyond
which bodily effort cannot pass. I deny this on
general principles for it is not borne out by facts
and living experience, and because I see with the
the eye of the Psychologist, which sees powers unknown
to the Physiologist. Psychology is sweeping
away the old limits of Physiology, and this
is shown by experiments in Hypnotism. I do
not indorse Hypnotism as a curative agent, but
I credit it with adding greatly to our knowledge
of many hitherto undiscovered powers, and
with showing the horizon of the Impossible as
ever receding when we advance upon it. Let
your limit line of belief, separating the possible
from the impossible, be to you like the horizon
line, which is really no line at all. It is merely
where your sight stops, and depends upon the
point where you stand. Advance and your
horizon moves with you, showing a BEYOND not
before visible.
Some one else may tell you that your ideals
are impossible to realize. This I also deny, for
I know beyond all doubt that nothing is impossible
that your mind can fashion or your heart
long for. The impossible is only that which you
fail to reach by stopping at the fatigue point
because your mind is weary of waiting and hoping
and stops short of the "Second Wind."
Simply to know that higher levels of energy
exist and can be tapped will stimulate you to go
on and tap them. That has been my experience,
and from what I know of universal human characteristics
I judge it will be your experience also.
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Physical pain is sometimes the means whereby
we are pushed on to tap higher energy levels.
Evolution, though always kind, is often apparently
cruel, driving us out of certain conditions
with the lash, as horses are driven from a burning
stable, administering the lesser pain that the
greater pain may be escaped.
A physician in Washington told me of a patient
of his who was confined to her bed and seemingly
unable to leave it, though for no organic disability
that he could discover. Every organ
was normal and functioning properly, but still
the patient was bedridden. After exhausting all
remedial measures at his command the doctor
determined on a psychological treatment, and
a severe one at that the setting fire to her bed.
The woman did not stir until a leaping tongue
of flame scorched her hand, when, with a shriek
of terror, she sprang from her bed and fled from
the room. The cure was not only for the moment,
but was permanent.
We all, more or less, fall into lethargic states
where ideals fail to rouse us to action, and it is
then that pain, with stinging lash, drives us from
our lethargy, the lethargy that leads to death.
We flee our burning beds in the anguish of fear,
but in that fleeing we find renewal of life, of energy,
of hope and of joy.
We of the New Thought can tap higher levels
of energy by putting into practice the principles
in which we believe. We know we are actually
one with the Eternal Energy, even as the ray is
one with the sun. Therefore the Eternal Energy
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is ours to manifest. It could not be otherwise.
The ray is of sun substance and manifests the
sun.
Naturally we cannot use the whole of the
Eternal Energy at once, for that would be out of
proportion to our needs. We do not want an
avalanche of power, but just enough for our purpose
at the moment.
To use a homely illustration — We are like
pipes or channels that convey Energy from its
Divine Centre to its Human Circumference.
Pipes limit or narrow Energy to their own capacity,
but in so narrowing they focus it to definite
use. Electricity floating freely in space cannot
light our houses, run our cars, or turn the wheels
of the world's activity. To do this it must be
narrowed, focussed or confined to the limits of
a tiny wire.
In our inner, spiritual selves we are this very
Energy itself, and like the electricity floating
freely in space, while our outer, functioning
selves may be compared to pipes or wires or
conductors of Energy.
Remember this distinction, for it is very important.
It is as though the ray said to the sun
"I am with you at the Centre of Substance,
but I go forth from that Substance into the
activities of light and heat."
At first we tap Energy at a low level, then at
higher and higher levels, as we rise to higher planes
of thinking and living. It is, therefore, true
that at present we cannot form an adequate
conception of the great and wonderful achievement
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we shall make as we ascend the scale of
Being. It is an endless progression to better
states.
A Second Wind may come to you in various
ways, but never without the push or endeavor
of your own mind, backed by the Spirit. That
push is never so effective as when you press
against an obstruction, against ill health, adversity
and unhappy environment. Right there you meet
your fatigue obstacle which is really the source
of the Second Wind, for it is only by means of
overcoming great obstacles that you get the
Second Wind.
As I have just said, a Second Wind may come
to you in various ways. It may, for instance,
come in a sudden, inexplicable betterment in
your affairs, or in your health, or in your peace
of mind, or in your energy of accomplishment.
Your world may have been upside down and in
chaos, when suddenly everything will be righted,
and just as you have desired it to be. This is
an exact result of your mental push, instead
of the streak of good luck you are inclined to
call it. That mental push has tapped an energy
level and in consequence a Second Wind
has blown over your world, turning it right side
up. I mention this because otherwise you might
not recognize the event as attributable to a Second
Wind. You will understand better how this
can be when you realize that a Second Wind is
a spiritual power or influence, acting intelligently
for Humanity, when Humanity obeys its law.
So I find that you are really a Giant in chains.
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A Giant in your Godhood, but bound by chains
of mistaken belief. You are self-hypnotized into
ideas of limitation. You are self-hypnotized into
a belief in your separateness from God. Your
state may be compared to a dream in which
you try to move and cannot; a waking dream,
similar to those you have in sleep. The giant
Gulliver, when bound by the fragile cords of the
Lilliputians, could easily have broken his bonds,
but imagining himself held by them he made
no effort to free himself. That is exactly your
state.
Do you realize what it means to be a Ray
flowing forth from the Divine Energy? No,
of course you do not, for if you did you would
know you could break your chains, and would
no longer be held by them.
You will never be entirely healed of your
disease and weakness until you learn your power.
When I say you are self-hypnotized into ideas
of limitation, I will explain what I mean by
calling your attention to the state of one who is
hypnotized by another mind to think he cannot
open his eyes when they are closed, or move hand
or foot. He is practically paralyzed by the
effect of the other mind acting upon him, so that
he really cannot open his eyes or move hand or
foot. Until the impression is removed from his
mind he remains paralyzed although his nerves
and muscles are capable of perfect action.
In something such a manner do the false beliefs
of the world impress the individual mind, and
New Thought Healing is the removing of the
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false impression or belief, thus setting free the
Giant who is enchained.
It will be a helpful thought for you to picture
yourself as a Giant in chains, for that is what you
are in reality, and your apparently heavy chains
are but cobwebs compared with your strength
to break them when the Giant within you comes
into a knowledge of itself and its God-Power.
You may clothe the thought, if you will, in the
following simple words:
I am a Giant in chains, but my chains are only
cobwebs. All power is mine because of my Godhood.
I flow forth from God continually as the ray
flows forth from the sun, and as the ray carries
with it the Sun-Energy, so do I carry with me
the God-Energy.
Your tired muscles are tired because of your
false belief concerning yourself, a belief that just
so much energy and no more is given you, whereas,
in very truth there is a continual flow of energy
through your muscles, did you but realize the
truth about yourself. You cannot realize this
truth at once, and until you do so, sleep and rest
are essentials in your life, as periods for gathering
and storing new energy. The reason you find
sleep reinvigorating is because then the Conscious
Mind releases its grip on the Subconscious and
allows it to follow its natural bent, which is to
open itself to the God-Energy and let it flow
in without clog or hindrance.
As we grow more and more into the Truth of
Being we do not tire as formerly and we require
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less sleep. We do not step into new and better
conditions on the instant, but grow toward them
imperceptibly, until, all at once, comes the Quickening,
as is the case with all embryonic growth,
and the Quickening is followed by the New
Birth into a higher, stronger life on this earth
and in this body.
Sometimes a release of power comes suddenly,
as in the case of a man who was so crippled
by rheumatism that he was practically helpless.
He had to be dressed and undressed, and even
fed, for he could not use his hands. One Sunday
evening the entire family went to church, after
undressing and putting to bed this apparently
helpless man. The house caught fire during their
absence, and no one responded to his cries for
help. Higher and higher crept the flames, and
more intense became the terror of the poor man,
until, with a sudden influx of power, he leaped
from the bed, dragged everything out of the
bureau drawers, and filling a sheet with his belongings,
he shouldered the great bundle and ran
downstairs into the street.
His muscles had been held in the belief of
rheumatism, but when his mind was filled to
overflowing with fear of the fire, the belief in
rheumatism was crowded out and found not a
nook or a corner to lurk in. The chains of belief
were broken and the Giant set free. The chains
were essentially mental, as you see, and they
were broken by THOUGHT. The man thought he
would be burned to death unless he managed to
get out of the burning house, and the thought
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of escape flooded his muscles with the energy to
act.
I gave a similar incident earlier in this chapter,
but the two cases differed in that the first was
a mental paralysis, while the second was a physical
affection, but both yielded to the power of
thought.
Evolution is working with you to unchain the
Giant within. The chains are weakening in
places, and will finally give way.
Is it harder to believe that you have a Giant
within you than to believe that in a tiny acorn
lies hidden the mighty oak, giant of the forest?
Given the right conditions and the oak breaks
through its bonds, the Giant breaks its chains.
The real, spiritual Man that is made in the
Image of God is the Giant within. It is Man
before his fall into Matter and the illusions
attendant upon Matter. The processes of Involution
and Evolution demand that this Giant
Man shall become entangled in the illusions of
Matter, even as the oak is imprisoned in the
acorn. The Giant must be bound hand and
foot by its chains up to a certain time, and shall
then set to work to free itself. This is for some
reason a necessary experience. The why and
wherefore is still largely unknown to us. We
only know such to be the process. We do not
know why a seed has to germinate under the
burden of the dark earth, instead of in the light
and air, but our lack of knowledge in this respect
does not hinder or alter the fact.
What we do know is that such is the law, and
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we act in conformity with it, placing our seeds
in the ground with faith that it is the right thing
to do, and getting our results.
All manifestations of unusual strength or of
hitherto unknown powers such as healing the
sick, great genius in literature, art or invention,
come from the Giant within, who has for the
moment slipped his bonds and is extending his
fore-arm into the world as a prophecy of fuller
manifestation in the future.
Trials and difficulties in your path are not lions
seeking to devour you, but kindly angels coming
to wrestle with you in order to leave you a blessing.
They bear a friendly challenge to the Giant
within to come forth and try his strength.
The Second Wind is the breath of the Giant
within, the BREATH of the Spirit.
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
FIRST AIDS TO HEALING
FIRST AIDS TO HEALING
YOU cannot learn to heal by the use of set
rule or formula, for the healing power only
comes to those who lift the thought to a higher
state of consciousness. One of the first aids is
a realization of
The Mobility of Matter.
You must convince yourself that Matter is
mobile and plastic to the motion of Spirit. Occultists
have always believed in the mobility of
Matter, and now Physical Science is confirming
that belief. It has shown us that Matter when
reduced to its ultimate is an aggregation or
assemblage of "electrons" or "ions" that are
particles so small, so electric as to be infinitely
plastic. These "electrons" or "ions" combine
to form atoms or molecules, and are always in
a whirl of vorticular motion.
A mass of stone, though apparently fixed and
solid, is really in constant agitation within itself,
this agitation being caused by the vorticular
whirl of its constituent particles. Not perceiving
this motion we think of the stone as a solid mass
of inanimate Matter.
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There never was a greater misconception.
Dr. Paul Gibier, of the Pasteur Institute, very
truly says: "We are unceasingly deceived by
general appearances. And thus, knowing as we
do the imperfection and unreliability of our
senses, we may advance as a manner of axiom
that the strongest illusion is what we call
reality."
Dr. Gibier, of course, does not mean Reality
itself, but what is called reality and which depends
upon the testimony of the senses. If,
instead of the sensory illusion, we could see the
actual state of the stone, the constant agitation,
the vorticular whirl, we should know that its
electrons in their activity are closely related to
the vibrations of Mind in their fineness and
subtlety of motion, and we should not feel it
impossible to affect even a stone by the action
upon it of Mind. Then, seeing this truth concerning
Matter and Mind, we should know for
a certainty that Mind can change the electrons
of the body, even to its bone structure, for bone
has greater plasticity than a stone.
God manifests His Spirit on this earth through
Matter, and is only knowable to us in terms of
TIME and SPACE. Thoughts have form and are
therefore Matter, for Spirit itself has no form,
though it ensouls forms. Spirit organizes Matter
in forms both high and low. Thoughts are high
forms of Matter and dominate the lower forms.
As we call more Spirit into manifestation in
our thoughts the greater becomes our control
over material things. It was thus that Jesus
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walked upon the water, healed the sick, raised
the dead, turned water into wine and stilled
the tempest. It was thus he performed all his
miracles.
Man has learned how to cause Matter to act
upon Matter by mechanical means, but he is now
learning a higher law by which Spirit acts through
Mind directly upon Matter without mechanical
intervention, changing its shape, annulling its
destructiveness, increasing its constructiveness,
and making it altogether obedient to spiritual
mandate.
Many strange things are happening to revolutionize
our false beliefs regarding Matter.
Some time ago a young machinist in Massachusetts
attracted the notice of scientific men, among
them the late Professor James of Harvard University,
by some remarkable feats such as bathing
his face, hands and arms in blazing alcohol,
without raising a blister or suffering the least
discomfort.
He also dematerialized his body and became
invisible to those in the room with him for about
forty seconds. Those who watched him said he
seemed to dissolve in air until entirely invisible,
afterward returning to his natural form. These
tests were made under the strictest conditions
so as to guard against mistake or fraud. The
young man seemed to be in a _passive state and
said he thought of nothing in particular. This
would indicate that he used no conscious control
over Matter, and the probability is that a Subconscious
Power came to the surface and asserted
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itself, independently of conscious volition, for
the purpose of challenging the attention of the
world and stirring it to learn the law regulating
the phenomenon, which, if true, and it is well
vouched for, opens to us a wide range of perspective.
Matter, thus viewed, does not present the impregnable
front that too often dismays the New
Thought healer, for, like the walls of Jericho
it is ready to crumble at the trumpet call of the
New Thought Prophet — Always is Matter plastic
and Spirit compelling.
Another aid to healing is
The Magical Power of Sleep.
Magic is not an uncanny or unnatural thing.
It is but an activity based on a law not generally
understood. The magical power of sleep is due
to a law of the Subconscious Mind, by which it
works out the suggestions given to it by the
Conscious Mind, and does this most effectually
during sleep, for reasons which I will explain
later.
A great engine can be set moving by a finger
touch on a controlling lever. The Subconscious
is like the engine and the Conscious is like the
finger touch on the lever, giving impulse to action.
This impulse in itself seems slight and insignificant,
but it is most important, and even actually
necessary to start the desired motion, whether
in the engine or in the Subconscious, and it is
the direct cause of the motion and its results.
This is a fairly good illustration of what occurs
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in sleep, due to the impulse given by the Conscious
to the Subconscious. It is a fact known to
Psychology that suggestions can be so given to
the Subconscious as to be executed by it in
minutest detail. Suggestions for health, suggestions
for success and prosperity, and suggestions
for happiness, can all be made to the Subconscious,
and by it be actualized in the life of the
person for whom they are made. You can,
in this way, help yourself and others to actualize
what you desire for yourself or for them.
In giving these suggestions to yourself, a process
which is called auto-suggestion, you should make
them just before sleep, and even if you fall asleep
before finishing your suggestion, so much the
better, for the Subconscious can pick up half
a suggestion and act upon it, so great is its intelligence.
The reason that the Subconscious acts more
powerfully while you sleep is because it is not
then hampered and hindered by the doubts of
the Conscious Mind, for DOUBT is the ARCH
ENEMY TO SUCCESS in REALIZATION.
A very good suggestion to make to the Subconscious
is the following:
I desire to be convinced of my oneness with
God-Substance, and to know that I continually
proceed from it in a stream of life, and knowing
this, I desire to be free from fear, free from worry,
free from anxiety, free from depression, that my
days may be serene and happy. I desire an ever
increasing realization of STRENGTH and MASTERY, so
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that whatever trials come to me, I may LOOK DOWN
upon them from spiritual heights, knowing that I
have power to control or alter them.
Any other desires you may have, put them in
your own simple words and give them to the Subconscious
to work out for you, as you would place
a seed in the ground and leave it to Nature to
germinate. You can only place it in the ground.
You cannot cause the seed to open and push
upward. That is beyond your personal effort.
So is it with the suggestion seeds which you
plant in the Subconscious.
Another first aid to healing lies in the understanding
of
Imperceptible Motion.
Students and patients are often discouraged
because they do not for a time perceive any
good effects from study or treatment. They
should then be encouraged by learning a few
facts connected with imperceptible motion.
They should be reminded of the constant motion
in our bodies of which we are unaware.
What, for instance, do we know of the swift
coursing of the blood through veins and arteries?
What do we know of the constant activity
in building bodily tissues? Cells are being
torn down and new ones built, but this is imperceptible
to us. What do we know of the
digestive process? except for the unpleasant sensation
of slow digestion, and that is not so much
an activity as its cessation. Many of the bodily
motions might be completely revolutionized without
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our knowledge, until later when we noted
an improvement in health.
Patients sometimes stop treatment while all
this wonderful recuperative activity is going
on within imperceptibly, and when the treatment
is thus stopped the outer result is never made
manifest, and the patient mistakenly thinks the
treatment has had no effect, whereas it has had
an effect, but only interiorly.
The action of thought is imperceptible; hence
it is hard for us to realize it to be a force. In
the immense tract of the Subconscious there is
always motion that is imperceptible. We do not
see and feel THOUGHT when it goes forth to bring
to us our own, or perform its mission of healing,
and there are great powers working within us of
which the Conscious Mind is unaware.
We stand upon an apparently quiet and stationary
earth, and yet we are flying through
space with incredible speed, turning somersaults
the while, but this motion is to us imperceptible.
Do you then find it difficult to believe that other
motion may be equally imperceptible, and that
the appearance of inaction may be as illusive as
that of the earth appearing stationary?
When you are inclined to feel discouraged,
remember that your conscious thought controls
the imperceptible motion in your body. Depression
and discouragement have a bad effect
upon this motion, while hope and courage have
a good effect and stimulate recuperation.
I will repeat here for your encouragement something
that I alluded to in a previous chapter.
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Professor Bose of the University of Calcutta,
in experimenting in plant life, constructed an
ingenious instrument by which he could measure
their growth, though the process, as you know,
is imperceptible to the eye. We notice that a
plant has grown, but we do not see it in the act
of growing, because the extension is so infinitesimal
at the instant as to be beyond our perception.
But, as I said, Professor Bose succeeded in getting
a measurement by means of the instrument
he made for the purpose, and this is what he
discovered.
A plant grows upward for five seconds, and
then shrinks downward for five seconds. Then
it remains motionless for ten seconds, after which
it starts upward again and repeats the process
just described.
In shrinking downward its motion is slower
than in pushing upward, and therefore in the five
seconds of shrinkage it does not go clear down to
the point it started from. If it did, of course,
there would be no increase in height. At each
upward push it gains something over the amount
of shrinkage, and this gain constitutes the exact
measure of its growth at the end of twenty seconds
given to pushing upward, shrinking downward
and remaining motionless. All of this motion
is imperceptible to us, and yet, after a time we
say, "How that plant has grown! "
We have always supposed that plants grew
right on upward, never dreaming that they shrank
downward and even stopped growing entirely, for
a while, and yet we might have known the truth
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about their manner of growth had we reasoned
on the line of general principles, for we know the
Law of Rhythm regulates all motion, therefore
the motion of growth cannot escape it.
I discovered long ago the operation of this law
in mental and spiritual growth, and mentioned it
in my writings, saying that the healing thought
drew the atoms of a patient's body into a new
adjustment, and then the inertia of atoms drew
them back into their former unhealthy adjustment.
Then, if the treatment were continued, the healing
thought pulled the atoms back again into the
position of health, and again the inertia drew
them into the state of degeneration and disease.
But, finally, if the treatment went on, the swing
toward health became so compelling and strong
that it conquered the tendency to pull back into
negative conditions. I knew this to be true,
and now I find confirmation in the research of
physical science.
Please observe that the effortless period with
the plant lasts as long as its upward push and
downward pull taken together. Also notice that
the plant spends three times the number of seconds
in shrinking downward and remaining stationary
that it gives to upward pushing. In
all twenty seconds are given to one round and
only five seconds of that time are given to the
upward push. If your time of slipping back
and of inaction should seem long to you, the
plant has the same, and yet, in spite of this it
grows upward and so will you.
When I say, " You will grow upward," I
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mean you will push your way mentally up into
planes of Being that are high and positive to
weakness and disease, and in that way you will
outgrow them; that is, you will grow above them.
The plant does not know enough to reason and
doubt and worry about its manner of growing.
It simply obeys the law unconsciously, and in
so doing it gains and grows in the face of setbacks
and stoppages.
Man is now in the era of conscious growth and
can promote or hinder his advance by the nature
and manner of his thought. He is fast learning
the law of growth, and beginning to use it to
accelerate his progress.
As he learns more of this law he will see that
shrinking downward from accomplishment does
not mean that he will not reach his aim ultimately.
Neither does a long spell of "doing
nothing" or "getting nowhere" invalidate the
final beneficent outcome. If, instead of converting
such times into spells of depression and discouragement,
he will regard them as times of
"storing energy," he will know them for what
they really are, and increase his receptivity to
the influx of energy, and be able to do all the
more because of the motionless period.
Another first aid to healing is:
The Mighty Logos.
This stands for the Spoken Word. The Creative
Vibration which the New Thought teaches
you is a wonderful Power, making for your advancement
in health, happiness and wellbeing.
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By means of the Word, God creates. Long
before the human race came into existence God
spoke through the Elohim who were high spiritual
beings, saying, "Let there be light! " and light
sprang into existence. The Elohim acted as the
Logos, speaking the Word directly to primeval
Matter and the Word was creative. It acted
on Matter and produced light. So, today, is
your Word creative. Matter is now as it was of
old, obedient to the Word, even as plastic wax
to its vibrations.
Be assured of this when speaking the Word
of Health to atoms that are out of adjustment
in the body, and know that because of their
law-enforced obedience to the Logos, they must assume
new polarization at your command.
Do you think this a mystery? Let us then
compare it to another mystery, that of the voice
in singing. How do you produce a tone? Suppose
you wish to sing middle C. This tone is
made by disturbing the air at the rate of 128
vibrations to a second of time. Or will you have
middle D? This calls for 144 vibrations to a
second of time. Middle E calls for 160 vibrations
to the second, and so on up the scale. But
when you sing these tones you have nothing to
do with the number of vibrations you set in
motion, and you need not know of them, any
more than a bird does in its song.
'What is necessary then in order to produce
these and other tones? You need simply to think
and will to produce a tone and this impulse
speeds to the vocal organs and sets them vibrating,
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disturbing the air in the exact ratio demanded
for the tone.
These intricate changes in the vocal organs in
the production of various tones take place in
response to a command of your THOUGHT and
WILL. You utter the command and the Universal
Mind sees that it is executed.
You have the same power over the molecular
motion in your body. You have only to speak
the Word and it will be fulfilled as it is in the
production of tone.
Remember how a musical tone is made, and
then, on the same principle THINK and WILL
that the molecules of the body shall whirl to
the pattern of health, and they will obey your
Word which is God's Word.
Speak the Logos and the molecules will obey.
Also speak the Word to circumstances and they
too will obey. God SINGS through YOU. He
will also SPEAK through YOU.
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CHAPTER TWELVE
NEW THOUGHT LEADS TO THE BLESSED LIFE
NEW THOUGHT LEADS TO THE BLESSED LIFE
IN their effort to get away from too vivid
a consciousness of material things, some New
Thought writers are inclined to depreciate or
totally ignore the office of the external world in
the evolution of spiritual life. They forget that
were it not for external stimulus, intelligent
expression would be impossible. Shut a child
away from all that acts on his senses and his
life on this plane becomes extinct. Shut him
away partially, and in proportion to his seclusion
does he lack expression. We need this touching
or impact from the outside to call forth that
which is within us.
As Emerson says: "We stand before the secret
of the world, there where Being passes into
Appearance and Unity into Variety."
That is the place where the secret unfolds itself
to us, the place where Being is passing into
Appearance, and Unity is passing into Variety.
To stand where we see Being and Unity only,
or Appearance and Variety only, is to stand afar,
and not be present at the revealing of the secret.
We who know the secret see all Being as One,
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but we also see that One as the Continent or
Container of the Many, the Source of the Many,
the Projector of the Many.
This is really the primal or basic truth upon
which all other truths rest as upon a sure foundation.
When the mind holds this truth it is
prepared to build upon it. It can see a Perfect
Whole, a Perfect Good, no matter how imperfect,
incomplete and apparently evil the Appearance.
You are asked as a student of New Thought
to acknowledge that All is Good, but you say:
"How can I, when I plainly see that a part of
the All is Evil? "
Now you are looking at the Appearance and
not at Being itself. Can you not imagine a state
of pure, white light in which there is no shadow?
That is Being, the "light that never shone on
land or sea." When it does shine on land or
sea, it becomes Appearance, and is then divided
into light and darkness, and the darkness is Evil,
or the appearance of it. Often the light seems
almost swallowed up in inky blackness, but the
light shineth ever more and more unto the perfect
day. From darkness to light is the evolution
of the individual; from the darkness of ignorance
to the light of intelligence, from the darkness of
hate to the light of love, from the darkness of
despair to the light of hope, from the darkness
of sorrow to the light of joy.
This evolution of light from darkness follows
the plan of creation when God said, "Let there
be light." Those words come ringing down the
ages and the command still is, "Let there be
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light." In the True Life there is no poverty,
disease or unhappiness. They are only shadows
of the "apparent life," and when the True Life
appears these shadows flee away.
The Vedanta has a beautiful teaching that the
Central Consciousness or Being is Pure Bliss,
and I believe that to be absolutely true.
The Swami Abhedananda says: "True Life,
or Being or Blessedness is beyond time and
space and is not bound by conditions of any
kind." He also says: "Unblessedness consists
in the idea of the separateness of the part from
the whole, and in the bondages of other imperfections,
arising from this mistaken notion of
individual isolation. To be united to the Whole,
to be free from the bondages of these imperfections,
and to be perfect, is Blessedness."
The New Thought is proving to Man that he
is not separated from the Whole of Being, but
that he is one with it and inherits its power and
perfection.
Hold up your hand with the fingers extended
and the palm toward you, and you will see what
is meant by being one with the Whole. Let
the palm stand for Being and the fingers stand
for external expressions of that Being. From
out the palm extend the fingers and their life
proceeds from the palm. Sever the connection
and the fingers die because cut off from the
source of their life. You are a finger on the
Palm of Being and you are one with it. The
Living Whole is the sum of its living parts so
you are one with the Whole.
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The day is coming, if not now, when you will
see yourself as continually proceeding from the
Father, and being born again from moment to
moment, as new life flows through you. It. is
in this sense that you are a child of God, and not
in the sense of a child separated from the parent
body. The ocean is father to the outlet that
flows forth from it, and the sun is father to the
ray of light. The ocean gives of itself to its outlet
and the sun gives of itself to its ray. It is
thus that God, the Father, gives of Himself by
continual influx to His children. The only cutting
of or shutting off of this influx that can be
is in the non-recognition of this truth. We are
only partially awake concerning ourselves, but
a fuller awakening is at hand, with which shall
come a greater influx of life.
God gives Himself to His children without loss
to His own Substance because that is infinite
and inexhaustible, and, moreover, since God
and Man are of one Substance, that Substance
merely passes from Centre (God) to Circumference
(Man), and is not lost in the passing.
God gives Himself in Opulence to His Children
Since God is the Container of all that is expressed
in the Universe He must be Opulence
itself, and may truly say: "Mine are the cattle
upon a thousand hills," for " The world is mine
and the fulness thereof." The Creative Power
which has made and is making you continually
also placed vast stores of gold in the mines for the
use of his children, and gave each of them an
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Aladdin's lamp, which is really the POWER OF
DEMAND. The rubbing of this lamp, which brings
one's desires to pass, is the action of the mind
in affirming the DEMAND. Then, too, each child
has the ability to cooperate with the lamp by
using hand and brain to give to the world a
fair equivalent for its share of gold from the
mine. This would be a poor world indeed,
a world of beggars, if things we desire could be
had for the asking, for as Channing wisely said:
"If Man could live on acorns alone he would
gather his store, lie down under a tree until his
store was exhausted, when he would gather more
acorns and lie down again." The Universal Intelligence
knows that Man requires a stimulus
to effort, and it fills him with multitudinous
desires, making him work to actualize them.
But often the very best work does not bring
its equivalent in gold, and that is where the
New Thought Aladdin's lamp helps to bring to
us our just reward. To know that we are one
with God and therefore the world is ours and the
fulness thereof, is to rub the lamp so that OUR
OWN MAY COME TO US, IF WE WORK FOR IT.
God gives Himself in Health to His Children
You cannot think of God as diseased or weak,
can you? The Infinite cannot be bound by weakness
or disease, else would it not be infinite.
In "The Wisdom of Solomon" it is written:
"For God made not death, neither hath He
pleasure in the destruction of the living.
"For He created all things that they might
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have their being; and the generations of the
world were healthful; and there is no poison of
destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death
upon the earth.
"For righteousness is immortal; but ungodly
men, with their works and words, called death
to them."
Thus spoke that wise man Solomon. He knew
that God did not make death, and that He had
no pleasure in the destruction of the living.
All things that God made are living realities,
and the things He did not make have no real
existence, though they may seem to have it.
They are myths, chimeras, figments of the brain,
illusions of a sick mind. Therefore the sane man
must brush them aside in order to see the clear
vision of the world.
Why did God make men? Not that they might
glorify Him, for He needed no added glory,
being Perfection and having glory in its fulness.
No, He made men and all things, simply that they
might have their being. To this end He made
them healthful, or in His image; and He placed
in them no poison of destruction that would produce
sickness, nor did He institute death in the
order of creation. As Solomon said — men have
called death to them, or brought it upon themselves.
God gave of His own Substance to make
man, and that Substance being righteousness is
immortal.
God made you and me that we might have
being that is without the poison of destruction.
Then away with the miasmic unbelief that declares
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for disease and death as a part of God's
great plan.
God is Living, Spiritual Substance, the only
Substance in the world, the Substance that substands,
or stands under sun, earth, moon, stars,
men and all living things, and that is their Source
of Life.
God, or Living Substance is eternal, immortal,
and because you and I are of that Substance we,
too, are eternal, immortal, and therefore have no
poison of destruction in us, no disease or cause of
death.
God gives Himself in Happiness to His Children
Since God gives His Substance to Man, He
must give Happiness, for we cannot conceive
of God as being unhappy; if so He could not be
Perfect and Infinite. God is Pure Bliss, and in
so far as we fall short of this state we fail to
receive the constant flow of God-Substance.
New Thought, in its clear vision of the world,
shows us that God is Wisdom, Power, Love, Perfection,
Wholeness, Harmony, Opulence, Beauty,
Joy, and even more than our present ideals can
compass. We sight but dimly the glory that
is to be revealed in our lives, but the full vision
may come sooner than we think. The World
Illusion is holding our eyes that we cannot see,
holding our feet that we cannot walk, holding
our hands that we cannot do. We are self-hypnotized
by this Illusion, but the Truth stands
waiting to set us free.
Let us then bend all our powers to the realization
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of the one great truth that God flows from
His Centre of Being to the Circumference, and
therefore All is God.
Man, if you will, is the Circumference of God,
but Man's true being reaches back to the Centre.
Poverty, disease and unhappiness are not in
God's Being; therefore they are unreal, evanescent,
fleeting clouds hanging over the life of Man
for a purpose not yet revealed, and going when
their work is done. Then shall we know
THE BLESSED LIFE.
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CHAPTER XIII
AFFIRMATIONS FOR ACHIEVEMENT
AFFIRMATIONS FOR ACHIEVEMENT
IN walking the path to achievement you must
be equipped, and the equipment must be
mental. You will not undertake the journey
unless you are spurred on by courage and hope,
and that courage and hope can only come to you
through a knowledge of your one-ness with the
Unconquerable World Energy, which in other
phrase is God.
If you lack courage and hope, I would advise
you to go in training by use of the following
formulae:
PART ONE
I am open on my inner or spiritual side to the
inexhaustible ocean of Divine Power. I flow
from it and am one with it as a bay is one with
the ocean or a ray of light is one with the sun.
All achievement is mine through the working of
this Power. I shall succeed in all my under-takings.
PART Two
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their
strength; they shall mount up with wings as
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eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they
shall walk and not faint.
PART THREE
Power is within. I am a generating center of
Power, therefore my Power is within myself and
not outside of me. I need not wait for circumstances
to improve through some outside influence,
for I can change them myself by the Power that
is within me. Power is within.
PART FOUR
Having learned that I am one with God, the
Infinite and Eternal Energy, and having also
learned to look for a radiating center of that
Energy within my own spiritual being, I now
declare that I will radiate Power, even to the ends
of the earth, if need be, TO BRING TO ME
MY OWN, by which I mean that which is related
to me, that which will help me to express my
higher self, to do the most good in the world and
ensure my greatest happiness. With concentration
of all my being:
I NOW CALL TO ME MY OWN
AND
IT SHALL COME TO ME.
PART FIVE
Faith steps out on seeming void and finds the solid rock.
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PART SIX
The World is my Keyboard and I can play upon it now.
PART SEVEN
I drink at the Fountain of Eternal Joy.
Commit the above to memory, part by part,
and meditate upon it at night, just before you
sleep. It is during sleep that the Subconscious
Mind is most receptive to suggestions from the
Conscious, and is ready to act upon them in order
to bring to you your own in various forms.
The foregoing formula for achievement is an
outcome of my own life and experience and leads
to success in any line of endeavor. If you understand
and use it aright it will help you to heal
yourself and others and succeed in anything you
undertake. It gives the principles by which
health is attained, happiness established, and
financial abundance secured.
SELAH
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