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//section Title Page

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Jesus Christ Heals

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//section Foreword

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Much has been written and said about the healing methods
that Jesus used in His very striking cures of physical
ills. The generally accepted theory is that they were
miracles, but to this there have been many objections,
among them Jesus' promise "He that believeth on me, the
works that I do shall he do also." So many millions have
claimed that they believed on Jesus, yet not only have they
failed to heal others but they have gloried in sickness and
finally death under the assumption that it was the will of
God.

Few have dared even to suggest that Jesus applied universal
law in His restorative methods; for on the one hand it
would annul the miracle theory and on the other it would be
sacrilegious to inquire into the miracles of God. So it has
been generally accepted that Jesus' great works were
miracles and that the power to do miracles was delegated to
His immediate followers only. But in recent years a
considerable number of Jesus' followers have had the
temerity to inquire into His healing methods, and they have
found that they were based on universal mental and
spiritual laws that anyone can utilize who will comply with
the conditions involved in these laws. This inquiry has led
to the conclusion that man and the universe are founded on
mind and that all

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changes for good or ill are changes of mind.

Ages of thought upon the reality and solidarity of things
have evolved a mental atmosphere that has produced the
present material universe. These and millions of other
concepts are the work of men and not God, as is popularly
supposed. However they all rest on the original God-Mind
and can be restored to the perfect law and order of that
Mind by those who free themselves from their mental
entanglements with materiality and identify their thinking
with that of the Mind that is Spirit. "Ye shall know the
truth, and the truth shall make you free."

It is taught in the Bible that Jesus was born into the
human family to save its people from extinction; that,
according to Paul, as in Adam all died so in Christ shall
all be made alive. A psychological study of the whole
situation proves this to be virtually true. Millions have
accepted Christianity on faith and have found peace of mind
and spiritual satisfaction without understanding the
fundamental mind principles on which the redemptive system
rests. This is proof that there is more to Christianity
than the surface acceptation of Jesus as mediator between
God and man.

We are all in mind related to a great creative Spirit that
infuses its very life into our minds and bodies when we
turn our attention to it. We have mentally wandered away
from this creative Spirit or Father-Mind and lost contact
with its life-giving currents. Jesus made connection for
us, and through Him we again begin to draw vitality from
the great fountainhead.

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Ability to pick up the life current and through it
perpetually to vitalize the body is based on the right
relation of ideas, thoughts, and words. These mental
impulses start currents of energy that form and also
stimulate molecules and cells already formed, producing
life, strength, and animation where inertia and impotence
was the dominant appearance. This was and is the healing
method of Jesus.

Although the Bible repeatedly refers to the creative power
of the Word, men have not dared to think that the creative
law is universal and could be taught to any man who would
discipline his thoughts and words and center them on
God-Mind. Jesus gave His whole attention to God, so much so
that He claimed He did not even originate the words that He
spoke: they came from the Father. By careful thinking and
wholehearted concentration on God, Jesus made such complete
union with creative Mind that His body was transformed in
the presence of His disciples. He taught that men would
eventually reap the reward of every word they uttered. "For
by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou
shalt be condemned."

Perfect health is natural, and the work of the spiritual
healer is to restore this perfect health, which is innate
and can be spoken into expression. Our ills are the result
of our sins or failure to adjust our minds to Divine Mind.
"Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins." When the
sinning state of mind is forgiven and the right state of
mind established, man is restored to his primal and natural
wholeness. This is wholly a mental process, and so all
conditions of

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man are the result of his thinking. "As he [man] thinketh
in his heart, so is he."

No book, not even the Bible, covers all phases of human
thought. Therefore the mental panacea for every ill is
beyond the description of words, but Jesus Christ
epitomized in His own consciousness all the thought
processes necessary to man's complete restoration. So it is
taught that Jesus Christ is the Word or Divine Logos in
which is contained all the original creative essence.

The truth that divine man is manifest God is the great
mystery hid for ages and generations and now revealed in
Jesus Christ.

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//section Contents

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Foreword ... 3

I Be Thou Made Whole ... 9

II God Presence ... 22

III Realization Precedes Manifestation ... 39

IV Producing Results ... 53

V The Omnipotence of Prayer ... 67

VI God Said, and It Was So ... 87

VII Indispensable Assurance ... 100

VIII The Fullness of Time ... 117

IX Healing through Praise and Thanksgiving ... 137

X "I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life" ... 154

XI Healing Power of Joy ... 168

XII Holy Spirit Fulfills the Law ... 182

Question Helps ... 197

Index ... 207

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//section Chapter 1

Chapter I

Be Thou Made Whole

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JESUS SAW in Himself the perfect pattern of the God-Mind.
He lived so close to that pattern that He became its
perfect expression. As He continued to live closer and ever
closer to God He beheld all men as living inventions of
God, and through His spiritualized mentality awakened the
image of the perfect pattern of the God-Mind in those who
came to Him for help. Thus by arousing their souls' energy
to such an extent that the physical became immersed in the
healing life He enabled the perfect man to come into
manifestation.

For example, when Jesus said in a loud voice to the
spiritual man in the sleeping Lazarus who had been in the
tomb four days, "Lazarus, come forth," the power of the
Word in His voice aroused the spiritual man in Lazarus, who
in turn awakened his soul to activity. Then the soul life
in Lazarus resurrected and restored the seeming dead body,
and Lazarus arose and walked out of the tomb.

The more enlightened man becomes the greater is his desire
for perfect health. This is logical, for to be healthy is
natural. It is a state of being sound or whole in mind,
body, and soul. To heal then is to bring forth the perfect
Christ man that exists within each of us.

There is quite a bit of misunderstanding on the

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part of both Christians and non-Christians with regard to
the meaning of the words Christ and Jesus, and their use as
applied to Jesus of Nazareth. Christ, meaning "messiah" or
"anointed," designates one who had received a spiritual
quickening from God, while Jesus is the name of the
personality. To the metaphysical Christian--that is, to him
who studies the spiritual man--Christ is the name of the
supermind and Jesus is the name of the personal
consciousness. The spiritual man is God's Son; the personal
man is man's son. In the unregenerate God's Son is a mere
potentiality. But in those who have begun the regenerative
process Jesus, the Son of man, is in a state of becoming
the Son of God; that is, man is being born again. At the
time Jesus told Nicodemus, "Except one be born anew, he
cannot see the kingdom of God," He Himself was undergoing
that mysterious unfoldment of the soul called the "new
birth." He promised great power to those who followed Him
in soul development. "Ye who have followed me, in the
regeneration . . . shall sit upon twelve thrones."

The Christ or Son-of-God evolution of man's soul is plainly
taught in the New Testament as the supreme attainment of
every man. "For the earnest expectation of the creation
waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God."

Without some evidence in us of the Christ man we are little
better than animals. When through faith in the reality of
things spiritual we begin soul evolution there is great
rejoicing; "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."

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Christ existed long before Jesus. It was the Christ Mind in
Jesus that exclaimed, "And now, Father, glorify thou me
with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was."

We should clearly understand that the Christ, the spiritual
man, spoke often through Jesus, the natural man; and then
again the natural man, Jesus, spoke on His own account.
Spiritual understanding reveals to us when it was that
Christ spoke and when it was that Jesus spoke. We know that
Christ, the spiritual man, could not have experienced
death, burial, and resurrection. The experiences were
possible only to the mortal man, who was passing from the
natural to the spiritual plane of consciousness. The Christ
was present with Jesus, quickening and healing His body and
finally raising it to the ethereal realm, where He exists
to this day.

As Christ the Son of God became manifest in Jesus so He
becomes manifest in us when we follow Him in the
regeneration. "The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from
the dead . . . shall give life also to your mortal bodies."

But we must have faith in Spirit and through our thinking
build it into our consciousness; then our bodies will be
restored to harmony, health, and eternal life.

Jesus still lives in the spiritual ethers of this world and
is in constant contact with those who raise their thoughts
to Him in prayer. The promise was not an idle one that He
would be with those who have faith in Him. "Let not your
heart be troubled, neither

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let it be fearful. Ye heard how I said to you, I go away,
and I come unto you."

His body disappeared from our fleshly eyes because He
raised it to its true place in the ether; but He can make
His presence felt to anyone who looks to Him for help. "For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
am I in the midst of them."

If but two persons agree in their prayers and thoughts
about Jesus Christ and His power to help, by sympathetic
soul unity He instantly responds. "Again I say unto you,
that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of
my Father who is in heaven."

Jesus did not go to a faraway heaven, there to abide to the
great day of His "Second Coming." He explained again and
again, in language that anyone who has even a slight
understanding of the interrelation of spirit, soul, and
body may comprehend, that He would continue to exist in the
etheric realm that He called "the heavens." He appeared
after His crucifixion to five hundred at one time, and to
many others: notably Paul, whom He converted by talking to
him out of the ether. This all confirms His promise "Lo, I
am with you always, even unto the end of the world."

Paul says that we are all dead or asleep in trespasses and
sins and that Jesus was the "firstfruits of them that are
asleep." Physiology teaches that the body is alive to the
degree that the cells are alive;

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that we are carrying around many dead cells. Jesus knew how
to quicken with new life the cells of His organism, and He
promised that all who follow Him will do likewise.

So both Scripture and science agree that there must be a
resurrection of the body from the dead; that is, the dead
substance that our minds have organized into cells,
tissues, flesh, and blood. The all-important task for
everyone is how to get the mastery of the negative life or
microbe that is reducing our bodies to corruption and final
dissolution.

Paul says, "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and
this mortal must put on immortality." Here is a concise
statement of where resurrection is to take place. Other
writings of Paul's have seemingly prophesied a great day on
which all the dead are to come forth from their graves, but
this would involve situations complex and contradictory
beyond reconciliation. That we have all lived hundreds,
even thousands, of times and have left our bodies in many
lands is being accepted by logical persons everywhere. If
our old bodies are to be resurrected, which of these
discarded ones shall we repossess? Chemistry says that our
flesh becomes again the dust of the ground:

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."

Jesus spent whole nights in prayer according to the
Gospels, and it is quite evident that He was resurrecting
His body by realizing, as we do in our prayers, that God
was His indwelling life. His affirmation for more life was
"I am the resurrection, and the life."

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I AM is the spiritual name of Jehovah, the everliving one.
When we affirm, "I am," with our thoughts centered on
Spirit, we quicken the life flow in the body and awaken the
sleepy cells. Such affirmations clear up congested areas of
the organism and restore the circulation to its normal
state, health.

A prominent scientist recently stated that man's body is
composed of trillions of cells, every one an electric
battery. A battery emits electrical impulses of various
kinds, transformable into light, power, heat. The human
body is undoubtedly the most powerful dynamo in existence
for the carrying on of life. The presiding ego or I AM in
each organism determines the particular kind of impulse
that the cells shall radiate. The field of dynamic energy
is limitless. God is Spirit, and Spirit is the very essence
of the ether in which we live, move, and have our being.

Affirmations of health by Christian healers right in the
face of sickness often result in marvelous restorations
that are sometimes called miracles of healing. But when one
understands the power of words spoken in spiritual
consciousness the results are in fulfillment of divine law.
Jesus stated the essence of this law when He said,
"Whosoever . . . shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have
it."

Every word has within it the power to make manifest
whatever man decrees, but especially spiritual words have
this power. God creates by the power of the word. "God
said, Let there be light: and there was light." Every act
of creation was preceded by

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"God said." Man, the apex of God's creation, was created in
His image and likeness; that is, exactly like Him in the
power of his word to bring forth what he says.

In order to create as God creates man must have undoubting
faith in God-Mind and the obedience of the creative
electrons hidden in the atoms of all substance. In Hebrews
it is written, "By faith we understand that the worlds have
been framed by the word of God." In the 1st chapter of John
the Word or Logos is given as the source of all things, and
this Word is said to become flesh and be glorified as the
only-begotten from the Father. "As many as received him, to
them gave he the right to become children of God, even to
them that believe on his name." Jesus said that every man
would be justified or condemned by his word. He
demonstrated the power of the word of faith in His mastery
of natural laws and in His many marvelous healings.

Although we all get definite results in body and affairs
from the words we utter, those results would be infinitely
greater if we understood the power of words and had
undoubting faith in their creative power. Jesus said, "The
words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."

We all want to be like Jesus, and millions have made and
are making Him the pattern for their life. So among His
faithful followers of the past twenty centuries we should
expect to find a world of glorified men and women. Why have
we not brought forth more of the fruits of Spirit that He
so generously

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promised? The answer is that we have emphasized the
negative qualities as portrayed by the human side of His
character. We have sought to imitate Him in our acts
instead of our thoughts and words.

We are now realizing that as a man "thinketh within
himself, so is he." The outer acts are secondary; the
primal world of causes is within, and it is to this inner
realm that we must look for the transforming power of man
and of the world about him as well. "Be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind." Hence the quick and lawful way
to attain health is to put your creative words to work and
bring into swift action the superman Christ.

There can be no logical doubt that an all-wise and
all-powerful Creator would plan perfection for His
creations and also endow them with the ability to bring His
plan into manifestation. That is the status of the world
and its people. We are God's ideal conception of His
perfect man, and He has given us the power of thought and
word through which to make that ideal manifest.

It is written in John 5:21 (King James Version): "For as
the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even
so the Son quickeneth whom he will."

The American Standard Version says that the Father raises
up the dead and gives them life, and that even so the Son
gives life to whom He will. To quicken means to vivify,
vitalize, energize, hence to make alive.

Jesus made this assertion of the life-giving power of the
Son of God immediately after He had healed

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a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been infirm and
helpless for thirty-eight years. Jesus said to him,
"Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse
thing befall thee."

Here Jesus again emphasizes sin as the cause of infirmity.
All the ills of humanity are the effect of broken law, of
sin. That word "sin" covers more ground than we have
usually granted it. There are sins of omission and
commission. If we fail to cultivate the consciousness of
the indwelling spiritual life, we commit a sin of omission
that eventually devitalizes the organism. To be
continuously healthy we must draw on the one and only
source of life, God. God is Spirit, and Spirit pours its
quickening life into mind and body when we turn our
attention to it and make ourself receptive by trusting
Spirit to restore us to harmony and health.

As for all the marvelous works that Jesus did, He never
claimed His personality as their author. "The Son can do
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for
what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in
like manner." We all have access to the Son of God (the
Christ) implanted in us by the Father-Mind if we will give
it a chance to quicken us with creative ideas.

Let us remember that in declaring Jesus to be present with
us we are placing ourselves in a thought atmosphere that
will help us to quicken our own supermind or Christ Mind.
Jesus raised His mind and body to His supermind level,
permitting a life radiation without crosscurrents or
discords of any kind.

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He preceded us, and as He said, He had prepared a "place"
for us. This "place" is a spiritual current in the cosmic
ether, in which we live, and we can feel it when we direct
our attention to Christ in prayer and meditation. "The
kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."

Jesus called attention to the fact that the creative Mind,
which He lovingly called Father, had provided for the
subsistence of the birds and flowers, and that man was of
more value than these; and would it not be reasonable, He
argued, that the Father would also provide for man? His
logic is unanswerable, and we must all admit that judging
from our human ideas about providing for our children, we
should expect God to have done even better for His progeny.

When we understand the nature of the creative Mind--that it
is Spirit-mind, that all things come out of ideas, and that
there are unlimited ideas right at the door of the mind--it
dawns on us that God has provided for us beyond our fondest
dreams.

We have been so persistently taught that nature heals that
we do not as a rule give the question of the origin of her
healing power any serious thought. But we should, because
our thought calls into action in our consciousness the mind
principle to which we give our attention. If we center our
attention on nature as the healing principle, we stir up
natural activities that are secondary to the one cause of
all action, that is, infinite Mind. But it is our privilege
as creations of supreme Mind to bring into action all its
forces, primary and secondary. By our thought and

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the mighty mind energy back of thought we can stir to
action all the powers of Being and get the results of their
concentrated healing currents instead of the weakened,
segregated seepage from one.

Just here is a good opportunity to urge Truth students to
shape their spiritual unfoldment on one system of
development instead of chasing after every spectacular
scheme that pops up. All signs both spiritual and secular
point to Jesus Christ as the appointed head of our race.
Through Him we have received a philosophy of life that has
been tested in the past, that is now being tested as never
before, and that is proving to have no peer as a revealer
of Truth and as a remedy for all the ills of humanity.

This being obvious and so many of us having received
special revelations confirming it, why should we feel the
lack of another or listen to the many "Lo, there! Lo,
here!" proclamations of those who discern superficial
things only? Concentrate your I AM attention on God as the
one and only supreme Spirit and Jesus Christ as the Son of
God through whom we all have access to the Father. Then you
will lift your consciousness into a sphere of spiritual
clarity and power superior to anything in the heavens above
or the earth beneath.

Certain persons called "masters" have forged ahead of the
race in their understanding and use of some of the powers
of mind and have in personal egotism set up little kingdoms
and put themselves on thrones.

These so-called "masters" and members of occult

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brotherhoods are attracting susceptible minds away from the
"straight and narrow path" and leading them to believe that
there is a short cut into the kingdom. Jesus described the
situation forcibly and clearly in Matthew 24:24:

"For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets,
and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead
astray, if possible, even the elect."

Read the whole 24th chapter of Matthew. In it Jesus
describes in symbols and facts what is taking place today
in all parts of the world. It may be argued that these
conditions have been present in every generation, and so
they have; but never have so many of the signs stood out so
forcibly as now. All this indicates the end of a world
dispensation, a climax in race development. The end of the
world of matter came with the discovery that the atom is
electrical, and all the things that revolved about that
material supposition are coming to an end with it. This
means the end of our old ideas that God is a big man
sitting on a throne in a heaven with streets of shining
gold, with Jesus at His right hand writing in the book of
life, as well as the end also of our ideas of Satan and his
fiery hell, of the divine right of kings and the prestige
of royalty and other established institutions. These crude
ideas about God and man having lost the sustaining thoughts
of the race, old religions and governments dissolve and the
world seems a chaos. However the wise see in all this the
passing away of old ideas and old things to make room for
the new. "Behold, I make all things new."

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The only safety from chaos is unity with God and His Son
Jesus Christ, the head of every man. If we are not anchored
to this supreme and immovable reality, we shall be exposed
to the storms of mortal thought and shipwrecked on the
rocks of materiality. "Have this mind in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus."

Jesus taught that His mission was to establish the kingdom
of heaven on earth. The first step in His great work was
the awakening of men to certain fundamental truths of
being. He taught the power of mind, thoughts, words. He
cast out the demons (errors) and healed the sick with a
word. He planted the seed thoughts in our race mind that
will, when properly used, grow into the kingdom of the
heavens here on earth. But peace, harmony, and love must
first be planted in the minds of men.

Jesus gave us the consciousness of peace. "My peace I give
unto you." The mind of peace precedes bodily healing. Cast
out enmity and anger and affirm the peace of Jesus Christ,
and your healing will be swift and sure.

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//section Chapter 2

Chapter II

God Presence

//text

I AM NOW in the presence of pure Being and immersed in the
Holy Spirit of life, love, and wisdom.

I acknowledge Thy presence and power, O blessed Spirit. In
Thy divine wisdom now erase my mortal limitations, and from
Thy pure substance of love bring into manifestation my
world, according to Thy perfect law.

Man knows intuitively that he is God's supreme creation and
that dominion and power are his, though he does not
understand fully. The I AM of him ever recognizes the one
divine source from which he sprang, and he turns to it
endeavoring to fathom its wonderful secrets. Even children
grope after the truths of Being.

No man knows the beginning of the query, Who, what, and
where is God? It is dropped from the lips of the little
child when he first begins to lisp the name of father and
of mother, and it is repeated throughout the years.

Who made you? Who made me? Who made the earth, the moon,
and the sun? God.

Then who made God?

Thus back to the cause beyond the cause ever runs the
questioning mind of man. He would understand the
omnipresence that caused him to be.

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Does an answer ever come to these questionings? Does man
ever receive satisfactory returns from this mental delving
in the unfathomable? Each man and each woman must answer
individually; for only the mind of God can know God. If you
have found God in your own mind you have found the source
of health, of freedom, and of the wisdom that answers all
questions.

Language is the limitation of mind; therefore do not expect
the unlimited to leap forth into full expression through
the limited.

Words never express that which God is. To the inner ear of
the mind awakened to its depths words may carry the
impulses of divine energy and health that make it conscious
of what God is, but in their formulations such words can
never bind the unbindable.

So let us remember that by describing God with words in our
human way we are but stating in the lisping syllables of
the child that which in its maturity the mind still only
faintly grasps. Yet man may know God and become the vehicle
and expression of God, the unlimited fount of life, health,
light, and love.

God is the health of His people.

Man recognizes that health is fundamental in Being and that
health is his own divine birthright. It is the orderly
state of existence, but man must learn to use the knowledge
of this truth to sustain the consciousness of health.

Health is from the Anglo-Saxon word meaning

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"whole," "hale," "well." The one who uses the word really
implies that he has an understanding of the law of the
perfect harmony of Being. Health is the normal condition of
man and of all creation. We find that there is an
omnipresent principle of health pervading all living
things. Health, real health, is from within and does not
have to be manufactured in the without. Health is the very
essence of Being. It is as universal and enduring as God.

Being is the consciousness of the one Presence and the one
Power, of the one intelligence, and man stands in the
Godhead as I will. When man perceives his place in the
great scheme of creation and recognizes his I AM power, he
declares, "I discern that I will be that which I will to
be."

Man is the vessel of God and expresses God. But there is a
mighty difference between the inanimate marble, chiseled by
the sculptor into a prancing steed, and the living,
breathing horse consciously willing to be guided by the
master's rein.

So there is a wide gap between the intelligence that moves
to an appointed end under the impulse of divine energy and
that which knows the thoughts and desires of Divine Mind
and co-operates with it in bringing about the ends of a
perfect and healthy creation.

"No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth
not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for
all things that I have heard from my Father I have made
known unto you."

It must be true that there is in man a capacity

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for knowing God consciously and communing with Him. This
alone insures health and joy and satisfaction. It is
unthinkable that the Creator could cause anything to be
that is so inferior to Himself as to remove it beyond the
pale of fellowship with Him.

It is our exalted ideas of God and our little ideas of
ourselves that built the mental wall that separates us from
Him. We have been taught that God is a mighty monarch with
certain domineering characteristics, who wills us to be
sick or healthy; that He is of such majesty that man cannot
conceive of Him.

Even in metaphysical concepts of God the impression left us
is of a Creator great in power, wisdom, and love. In one
sense this is true, but the standard by which man compares
and judges these qualities in his mind determines his
concept of God.

If I say that God is the almighty power of the universe and
have in mind power as we see it expressed in physical
energy and force, I have not set up the right standard of
comparison. It is true that all power comes from God, but
it does not follow that the character of the thing we term
power is the same in the unexpressed as in the expressed.

God is power; man is powerful. God is that indescribable
reservoir of stored-up energy that manifests no potency
whatever until set in motion through the consciousness of
man yet possesses an inexhaustible capacity that is beyond
words to express. When that power is manifested by man it
becomes conditioned. It is described as powerful, more
powerful, most powerful, and it has its various degrees of
expansion,

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pressure, velocity, force, and the like.

This power is used by men to oppress one another, and there
has come to be a belief that God is power in the sense of
great oppressing capacity. It is an ancient belief that He
can and does exercise His power in punishing His creations,
pouring out upon them His vengeance.

But this is not the character of divine power. If by power
we mean force, energy, action, oppression, then we should
say that God has no power, that God is powerless; because
His power is not like the so-called power that is
represented by these human activities.

God is wisdom--intelligence--but if we mean by this that
God is "intelligent," that His knowledge consists of the
judgments and inferences that are made in a universe of
things, then we should say that God is nonintelligent.

God is substance; but if we mean by this that God is
matter, a thing of time, space, condition, we should say
that God is substanceless.

God is love; but if we mean by this that God is the love
that loves a particular child better than all children, or
that loves some particular father or mother better than all
fathers and mothers, or that loves one person better than
some other person, or that has a chosen people whom He
loves better than some other people who are not chosen,
then we should say that God is unloving.

God does not exercise power. God is that all-present and
all-quiet powerlessness from which man

//page 27

"generates" that which he calls power.

God does not manifest intelligence. God is that unobtrusive
knowing in everyone which, when acknowledged, flashes forth
into intelligence.

God is not matter nor confined in any way to the idea of
substance termed matter. God is that intangible essence
which man has "formed" and called matter. Thus matter is a
limitation of the divine substance whose vital and inherent
character is above all else limitless.

God is not loving. God is love, the great heart of the
universe and of man, from which is drawn forth all feeling,
sympathy, emotion, and all that goes to make up the joys of
existence.

Yet God does not love anybody or anything. God is the love
in everybody and everything. God is love; man becomes
loving by permitting that which God is to find expression
in word and act.

The point to be clearly established is that God exercises
none of His attributes except through the inner
consciousness of the universe and man.

God is the "still small voice" in every soul that heals and
blesses and uplifts, and it is only through the soul that
He is made manifest as perfect wholeness.

Drop from your mind the idea that God is a being of majesty
and power in the sense that you now interpret majesty and
power.

Drop from your mind the belief that God is in any way
separated from you or that He can be manifested

//page 28

to you in any way except through your own consciousness.

We look at the universe with its myriad forms and
stupendous evidences of wisdom and power and we say: All
this must be the work of one mighty in strength and
understanding; I should stand in awe of such a one and
realize my own insignificance in His presence. Yet when we
behold the towering oak with its wide-spreading branches,
we say it grew from a tiny acorn. A little stream of life
and intelligence flowed into that small seed and gradually
formed the giant tree. It was not created in the sense that
it was made full-orbed by a single fiat of will, but it
grew from the tiny slip into the towering tree through the
inherent potentialities of the little seed, the acorn.

So God is in us the little seed through which is brought
forth the strong, healthy Christ man.

That "still small voice" at the center of our being does
not command what we shall be or what we shall do or not do.
It is so gentle and still in its work that in the
hurly-burly of life we overlook it entirely. We look out,
and beholding the largeness of the world of things, we
begin to cast about for a god corresponding in character
with this world.

But we do not find such a god on the outside. We must drop
the complex and find the simplicity of "the most simple
One" before we can know God. We must become as a little
child.

Jesus said, "God is Spirit," not "a Spirit," as in the King
James Version. According to Webster, the

//page 29

word spirit means life or living substance considered
independently of corporeal existence; an intelligence
conceived of apart from any physical organization or
embodiment; vital essence, force, or energy as distinct
from matter; the intelligent, immaterial, and immortal part
of man; the spirit, in distinction from the body in which
it resides.

Paul says, "In him we live, and move, and have our being."
If we accept Scripture as our source of information there
can be no higher authority than that of Jesus and Paul.
They say that God is Spirit.

Spirit is not matter, and Spirit is not person. In order to
perceive the essence of Being we must drop from mind the
idea that God is circumscribed in any way or has any of the
limitations usually ascribed to persons, things, or
anything having form or shape. "Thou shalt not make unto
thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath."

God is life. Life is a principle that is made manifest in
the living. Life cannot be analyzed by the senses. It is
beyond their grasp, hence it must be cognized by Spirit.

God is substance; but this does not mean matter, because
matter is formed while God is the formless. This substance
which God is lies back of all matter and all forms. It is
that which is the basis of all form yet enters not into any
form as finality. It cannot be seen, tasted, or touched.
Yet it is the only "substantial" substance in the universe.

God is love: that from which all loving springs.

//page 30

God is Truth: the eternal verity of the universe and man.

God is mind. Here we touch the connecting link between God
and man. The essential being of God as principle cannot be
comprehended by any of the senses or faculties, but the
mind of man is limitless, and through it he may come in
touch with divine Principle.

It is the study of mind that reveals God. God may be
inferentially known by studying the creations that spring
from Him, but to speak to God face to face and mouth to
mouth, to know Him as a child knows his father, man must
come consciously into the place in mind that is common to
both man and God.

Men have sought to find God by studying nature, but they
have always fallen short. This seeking to know God by
analyzing things made is especially noticeable in this age.
Materialistic science has sought to know the cause of
things by dissecting them. By this mode they have come to
say: We must admit that there is a cause, but we have not
found it; so we assume that God is unknowable.

To know God as health one must take up the study of the
healthy mind and make it and not physical appearance the
basis of every calculation. To study mind and its ideas as
health is a departure so unusual that the world, both
religious and secular, looks upon it as somehow
impracticable. The man who lives in his senses cannot
comprehend how anything can be got out of the study of
something apparently so intangible.

//page 31

The man of affairs cannot see what mind or its study has to
do with matters pertaining to his department of life, and
the religionist who worships God in forms and ceremonies
makes no connection between the study of mind and finding
out the real nature of God.

//quote

Behold, I go forward, but he is not there;

And backward, but I cannot perceive him;

On the left hand, when he doth work, but I cannot behold
him;

He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.

//text

Thus ever cries the man who looks for God in the external;
for health from an outside source.

In mathematics the unit enters into every problem; and in
existence mind is common to all, above and below, within
and without. The secret of existence will never be
disclosed before man takes up and masters the science of
his own mind.

Man's consciousness is formed of mind and its ideas, and
these determine whether he is healthy or sick. Thus to know
the mysteries of his own being he must study mind and its
laws.

Many people in every age have come into partial
consciousness of God in their souls and have communed with
Him in that inner sanctuary until their faces shone with
heavenly light; yet the mysteries of creative law were not
revealed to them, because they did not get an understanding
of its key, which is mind.

Mind is the common meeting ground of God and

//page 32

man, and only through its study and the observation of all
the conditions and factors that enter into its operation
can we come into the realization of God as abiding health
and sustenance.

God is mind; and we cannot describe God with human
language, so we cannot describe mind. To describe is to
limit, to circumscribe. To describe mind is to limit it to
the meanings of sense. In our talk about mind we are thus
forced to leave the plane of things formed and enter the
realm of pure knowing.

We can only say: I am mind; I know. God is mind; He knows.
Thus knowing is the language I use in my intercourse with
God.

If you ask me about the language I use in communicating
with God, I am not able to tell you; because you are
talking from the standpoint of using words to convey ideas,
while in the language of God ideas in their original purity
are the vehicles of communication.

But ideas are the original and natural agents of
communication; and everyone is in possession of this easy
way of speaking to God and man. Thus we may learn to use
this divine and only true way consciously if we will but
recognize it and use it on the plane of mind.

But we must recognize it. This is the one truth that we
have to reveal to you: How to recognize this divine
language in your own consciousness and how through
recognition to bring it forth into visibility. It is a
truth however that we cannot reveal to you

//page 33

by a series of eloquent essays on the majesty, power, and
wisdom of God and on the everlasting joy that follows when
you have found Him; but only by showing you in the simplest
way how to come into conscious relations with the source of
omnipresent wisdom, life, and love, by taking with you in
the silent inner realms the first steps in the language of
the soul.

Compared with audible language, communion in mind can be
said to be without sound. It is the "still small voice,"
the voice that is not a voice, the voice using words that
are not words. Yet its language is more definite and
certain than that of words and sounds, because it has none
of their limitations. Words and sounds are attempts to
convey a description of emotions and feelings, while by the
language of mind emotions and feelings are conveyed direct.
But again you must transcend what you understand as emotion
and feeling in order to interpret the language of God. This
is not hard. It is your natural language, and you need only
return to your pristine state of purity to achieve it
entirely.

You are mind. Your consciousness is formed of thoughts.
Thoughts form barriers about the thinker, and when
contended for as true they are impregnable to other
thoughts. So you are compassed about with thought barriers,
the result of your heredity, your education, and your own
thinking. Likewise your degree of health is determined by
your thoughts, past and present.

These thoughts may be true or false, depending

//page 34

on your understanding and use of divine law. You must open
the walls of your mental house by a willingness to receive
and weigh these thoughts in the balance of good judgment
and to drop out of your mind everything except the one idea:

I want to know Truth, I am willing to learn. I want to
express radiant health.

If there is not in your consciousness a demonstration that
mind has a language on its own silent plane and that it can
manifest itself in your mind, body, and affairs, then you
can go back to your old convictions.

The fundamental basis and starting point of practical
Christianity is that God is principle. By principle is
meant definite, exact, and unchangeable rules of action.
That the word principle is used by materialistic schools of
thought to describe what they term the "blind forces of
nature" is no reason why it should convey to our minds the
idea of an unloving and unfeeling God. It is used because
it best describes the unchangeableness that is an inherent
law of Being.

From the teaching that the Deity is a person we have come
to believe that God is changeable; that He gets angry with
His people and condemns them; that some are chosen or
favored above others; that in His sight good and evil are
verities, and that He defends the one and deplores the
other. We must relieve our minds of these ideas of a
personal God ruling over us in an arbitrary, manlike manner.

God is mind. Mind evolves ideas. These ideas

//page 35

are evolved in an orderly way. The laws of mind are just as
exact and undeviating as the laws of mathematics or music.
To recognize this is the starting point in finding God.

God loves spiritual man, and that love is expressed
according to exact law. It is not emotional or variable,
nor is there any taint of partiality in it. You are
primarily a spiritual being, the expression of God's
perfection, the receptacle of His love; and when you think
and act in the consciousness of perfection and love, you
cannot help being open to the influx of God's love and to
the fulfillment of His divine purpose. This is the exact
and undeviating law that inheres in the principle that God
is.

God is wisdom; and wisdom is made manifest in an orderly
manner through your consciousness.

God is substance--unchangeable incorruptible,
imperishable--to the spiritual mind and body of man.

This substance of mind--faith--does not happen to be here
today and there tomorrow, but it is moved upon by ideas
which are as unchanging as Spirit.

In Spirit you never had a beginning, and your I AM will
never have an ending. The world never had a beginning and
will never have an ending. All things that are always were
and always will be, yesterday, today, and forever the same.

But things formed have a beginning and may have an ending.

But God does not form things. God calls from the depths of
His own being the ideas that are

//page 36

already there, and they move forth and clothe themselves
with the habiliments of time and circumstance in man's
consciousness. We must have firmly fixed in our
understanding the verity that we shall have to square all
the acts of life.

God is never absent from His creations, and His creations
are never absent from their habiliments; hence wherever you
see the evidences of life, there you may know that God is.

If you are manifesting health, that health has a source
that is perpetually giving itself forth. A perpetual giving
forth implies a perpetual presence.

There is no absence or separation in God. His omnipresence
is your omnipresence, because there can be no absence in
Mind. If God were for one instant separated from His
creations, they would immediately fall into dissolution.
But absence in Mind is unthinkable. Mind is far removed
from the realm where time and distance prevail. Mind is
without metes or bounds; it is within all metes and bounds;
it does not exist but inheres in all that is. Hence in
spirit and in truth you can never for one instant be
separated from the life activity of God even though you may
not externally feel or know of His presence.

God lives in you, and you depend on Him for every breath
you draw. The understanding you have, be it ever so meager,
is from Him, and you could not think a thought or speak a
word or make a movement were He not in it. Your body is the
soil in which God's life is planted. Your mind is the light
for which He supplies the oil. "I am the light of the

//page 37

world," said Jesus. "Ye are the light of the world."

Intelligence is the light of the world. "Let your light
shine." How? By increasing the supply of oil, by increasing
your consciousness of life, and by learning how to draw
upon the omnipresent God for every need.

A good healing drill is to deny the mental cause first,
then the physical appearance. The mental condition should
first be healed. Then the secondary state, which it has
produced in the body, must be wiped out and the perfect
state affirmed.

Deny:

I deny that I inherit any belief that in any way limits me
in health, virtue, intelligence, or power to do good.

Those with whom I associate can no longer make me believe
that I am a poor worm of the dust. The race belief that
"nature dominates man" no longer holds me in bondage, and I
am now free from every belief that might in any way
interfere with my perfect expression of health, wealth,
peace, prosperity, and perfect satisfaction in every
department of life.

By my all-powerful word, in the sight and presence of
almighty God, I now unformulate and destroy every foolish
and ignorant assumption that might impede my march to
perfection. My word is the measure of my power. I have
spoken, and it shall be so.

Affirm:

I am unlimited in my power, and I have increasing health,
strength, life, love, wisdom, boldness,

//page 38

freedom, charity, and meekhess, now and forever.

I am now in harmony with the Father, and stronger than any
mortal law. I know my birthright in pure Being, and I
boldly assert my perfect freedom. In this knowledge I am
enduring, pure, peaceful, and happy.

I am dignified and definite, yet meek and lowly, in all
that I think and do.

I am one with and I now fully manifest vigorous life,
wisdom, and spiritual understanding.

I am one with and I now fully manifest love, charity,
justice, kindness, and generosity.

I am one with and I now fully manifest infinite goodness
and mercy.

Peace floweth like a river through my mind, and I thank
Thee, O God, that I am one with Thee!

//page 39

//section Chapter 3

Chapter III

Realization Precedes Manifestation

//text

GOD'S MAN is hale, whole, hearty. This is Truth. A
spiritual realization is a realization of Truth. A
spiritual realization of health is the result of holding in
consciousness a statement of health until the logic of the
mind is satisfied and man receives the assurance that the
fulfillment in the physical must follow. In other words, by
realizing a healing prayer man lays hold of the principle
of health itself and the whole consciousness is illumined;
he perceives principle working out his health problems for
him.

However when man lays hold of the principle of wholeness,
he finds that he is automatically working with God and that
much new power is added. He realizes: "My Father worketh
even until now, and I work." After man has applied his mind
diligently for a season, he exhausts his resources or
powers of realization for the time being and rests from all
his work; but his accumulated thought energy is completed
or fulfilled in a higher realm, and he has a double
assurance that health must become manifest.

Jesus understood and demonstrated this law perfectly. He
was so much at one with the principle of health that He
needed only to say, "Thy faith hath made thee whole" or
"Lazarus, come forth,"

//page 40

in order to bring into evidence the perfect demonstration.

Realization means at-one-ment, completion, perfection,
wholeness, repose, resting in God. A realization of health
brings to the consciousness an inner knowing that the
divine law has been fulfilled in thought and act. Then as
man lays hold of the in-dwelling Christ he is raised out of
the Adam or dark consciousness into the Christ
consciousness. This at-one-ment with God brings a lasting
joy that cannot be taken away.

God-Mind rests in a perpetual realization of health, and
that which seems to be sickness does not exist in Truth.
When man becomes so much at one with God-Mind that he
abides in the consciousness of health he enters the eternal
peace in which he knows that "it is finished."

In order to understand God-Mind we need to study our own
mind. The more we analyze the processes of the mind the
more plainly the mind with its mental "compounds" appears
as the source of health and of all other things. In the
realms of dense matter intelligence may be so faint as to
have lost all contact with Mind. Yet the poet sings about
there being "sermons in stones." Again science announces
that life is present in and is disintegrating the solid
rocks and the whole earth groans and creaks in her struggle
with inertia. So if we want to know the secrets of health
and how right thinking forms the perfect body, we must go
to the mind and trace step by step the movements that
transform

//page 41

ideas of health into light, electrons, atoms, molecules,
cells, tissues, and finally into the perfect physical
organism.

Although there is almost universal skepticism with
reference to the mind's ability to know consciously how
relative substance is formed, there are those who have made
contact with the thought processes and can apply them in
transforming the cells and tissues of their own body. The
almost insurmountable obstacle to explaining to others how
this is accomplished is the paucity of language. The mind
functions in ways that are so strange and unbelievable that
the pioneers on this frontier of metaphysics choose as a
rule to remain silent.

Jesus is the outstanding pioneer in this realm where the
health-producing processes of cells are released and imbued
with supermind vitality.

He spent years in becoming acquainted with His body and
freeing its cells from the material bondage to which the
race thought had bound them.

Yet He gave no scientific explanation of the purifying
through which He put His body to transform it before Peter,
James, and John, as stated in Luke 9:29: "And as he was
praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and
his raiment became white and dazzling." Modern
metaphysicians do not excuse their ignorance by claiming
that this and many other instances in which Jesus showed
mastery over His body were miracles. Scientific Christians
regard as mortal superstition the prevalent view that
miracles are the abrogation by God of His laws

//page 42

and are performed as a sort of legerdemain to attract and
astonish the people. The marvelous things that Jesus did we
can do when we understand the law. "The works that I do
shall he do also; and greater" still holds good.

Much that is attributed to the subconscious, strictly
speaking, springs from the all-knowing or spiritual Mind.
When we cannot intellectually account for our knowledge we
assume the subconscious to be its source. Yet we should
know that the subconscious is the storehouse of past
knowledge and past experiences. So it knows only what has
filtered through the conscious mind. It cannot therefore be
the source of knowledge except through reflection or
memory. This memory of what man has passed through in the
aeons of his experience is often called intuition; it is
the instinct of the animal soul.

The world today looks up to science; that is, it does not
accept or believe anything unless it can be demonstrated by
well-known universal laws. There are no known laws
governing religion that can be scientifically explained;
hence it is not acceptable to the scientific mind. But
there is a technique for molding thought stuff by means of
the mind, and metaphysicians follow it in their scientific
thinking and in healing. The metaphysician handles
omnipresent Spirit life and substance very much as the
electrician handles electricity. Energy is locked up in all
this life and substance and its release enables the
metaphysician to utilize it in demonstrating health and in
achieving success.

//page 43

All the chemical elements adhere to their particular form
and endeavor to retain it. Electricity is supposed to be a
universal invisible energy whose unity can be broken up by
the whirl of a dynamo. The electronic units exert all the
force of their nature in a pull to regain their original
status. Thus the power generated by a dynamo is gained from
the force exerted by the electrical units in their rush to
establish their primal equipoise.

Only a certain percentage of this energy is utilized
because of the pull of the electrical units to get back
home to their mother principle. The dissipation of energy
is one of the great problems of the engineer. The loss of
electricity in transmission is so great that only a small
part of the original current reaches its destination.

We exist right in the midst of forces that would yield us
power to do all our work if we knew how to conserve and
properly utilize their energies. This is not only true of
our use of the many elements in the natural world all about
us but especially of our utilization of the energy
generated by our minds. If we could utilize this dissipated
energy constructively it would restore the body, illumine
the mind, and establish us in a lasting consciousness of
dominion and mastery.

With every thought there is a radiation of energy. If a
person is untrained in thinking and lets his mind express
all kinds of thoughts without control, he not only uses up
his thought stuff but fails also to accomplish any helpful
result.

//page 44

Conservation of thought stuff is essential to right
thinking. Right thinking is using the mind to bring about
right ends idealized by the thinker. All the elements
necessary to the restoration of health exist in the higher
dimensions of the mind. Through concentration and
conservation of thought force man regains the consciousness
of health in his mind, and health then becomes manifest in
his body.

Laws fixed by infinite Mind automatically accomplish
whatever man desires when he becomes obedient to the inner
guide. Concentration, one-pointed attention, forms a mental
magnet in the mind to which thought substance rushes like
iron filings to a loadstone. Then follows confidence or
faith in one's ability to accomplish the desired end.
According to the Scriptures this is the law by which the
universe was brought into manifestation. In the 11th
chapter of Hebrews it is written: "By faith we understand
that the worlds have been framed by the word of God."

Modern science by its most daring proponents is launching
out into the deeps of the invisible and describing in
detail the electrical processes that ultimate in the atom
and its aggregations in visible things. In substance they
tell us that when points of light gather about a certain
nucleus an atom is created, and from this a cell, and cell
aggregations make tissues and these merge into the realm of
things.

Here we have the scientific explanation and the Christian
metaphysician's formula for making the

//page 45

invisible visible. The greatest of all physicists cannot
tell what electricity is. Even Edison said he was ignorant
of its real nature. Some find it sometimes acting very much
like mind and have so stated. The head of the General
Electric research department was asked by a reporter to
give him a definition of electricity. The professor replied
that to his mind electricity was like what the Christians
describe as faith.

The scientific metaphysician fixes his attention powerfully
on the consummation of a certain idea until he has a
realization, which means that the idea has nucleated a
certain amount of thought substance. When this realization
is had the metaphysician rests "from all his work." Through
faith and work he has fulfilled the law of mind and he
rests in the conviction that his ideal of health will
appear in manifestation in due season.

To a metaphysician realization is the conviction that a
person gets when he has persistently concentrated his
attention on an ideal until he feels assured of the
fulfillment of that ideal. Elohim God pronounced His
spiritual creation "very good"; then rested from all His
work. There was as yet no manifestation, "no herb of the
field had yet sprung up," and "there was not a man to till
the ground"; yet the planning Mind had the realization that
the spiritual law had been fulfilled and that it should
rest from all its works.

That all things visible are held in place by a force
invisible is the conviction of the majority of logical
thinkers. In other words, everything is ensouled.

//page 46

When we understand that the soul has consciousness, that it
thinks, we have the explanation of many mysterious
phenomena. Some 150 years ago Franz Mesmer announced in
Germany that under certain conditions he could induce a
magnetic sleep in persons and control their minds. His
demonstrations attracted the attention of doctors and
mental scientists the world over. In this day the system is
practiced under the name of hypnotism. It is full of
pitfalls for both operator and patient because its tendency
is to weaken the positive control that the mind should
always exercise over its own brain structure. However it is
one of the many proofs that the mind can produce conditions
in the mental world that ultimate in the material world. A
great physical scientist stated recently that it may be
that the gods that determine our fates are our own minds
working on our brain cells and through them on the world
about us. This is very close to the Truth.

Every Christian metaphysician knows that back of the
personal mind there is a great creative Mind that also
recreates. This creative Mind has been named and described
by men all down the ages. God-Mind not only can restore and
heal but can establish us in the consciousness of permanent
health. Do not allow your conception of God to be
handicapped by what men have said about Him.

"There is a spirit in man,

And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding."

Let the Spirit of God in you reveal to you His true

//page 47

character. God was never sick a day; He is the source of
life and health and joy. God wills that we express His
"image" and "likeness," in which we were created.

The prayer for realization attains its consummation when
with concentrated spiritual attention one has affirmed that
God Spirit is present, that with all His power He is
bringing to pass the perfect health desired, and that all
is well. When your thoughts radiate with the speed of
spiritual light, they blend with creative Mind (called by
Jesus "heaven"), and the thing you have asked for will be
done. Jesus told Peter that whatever he bound (affirmed) in
earth would be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed
(denied) in earth would be loosed in heaven. Peter had
unbounded faith in Jesus (who represents spiritual man).
When any man has unbounded faith in spiritual power his
words, uttered in the limitations of matter, are flashed to
heaven (creative Mind) and they accomplish whatever he puts
into them. The fulfillment of this spoken word in the world
of activities may take moments, hours, days, years,
centuries; Jesus said that the Father only knew when these
things would come to pass. Do not think because you do not
get an instant response to your prayers that they are not
answered. Every sincere desire and every effectual prayer
for health that has ascended to heaven (creative Mind) is
fulfilled, and will be made manifest whenever material
limitations permit. Shakespeare had an inkling of this law
of the relation

//page 48

of thoughts and words when he wrote,

"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

The kingdom of heaven (the heavens) so often referred to by
Jesus and described by Him as very near to us is far more
accessible and is more often contacted by us than we
imagine. Not only those who pray but those who persistently
concentrate their thoughts on mathematics, music, or
philosophies based in principle, are often rewarded with
the marvelous intuitions of genius. These persons
apparently break into a realm where no effort is required
to gain the answer to their questions. The mathematical
genius is called a prodigy. He solves instantly the most
complex mathematical problem, yet cannot explain how he
does it. He simply knows the answer, often before the
statement of the problem has been completed.

Henri Poincare in his book "Science and Method" says that
his discoveries in mathematics came to him in flashes after
he had spent long periods of study and concentration on the
subject. Concentrated attention of the mind on an idea of
any kind is equal to prayer and will make available the
spiritual principle that is its source in proportion to the
intensity and continuity of the mental effort. Anyone can
attain spiritual understanding and become conscious of the
light who will persistently pray for it. "He that cometh to
God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him." The emphasis here is on the
word "diligently."

//page 49

The mind is the seat of perfection, not only of health but
also of talents like music, art, writing, and the like. The
idea of health and the idea of music are interblended, for
instance. Music is a great aid to the healing force.
Musical and health ideas interblend, and their
establishment in order produces this kingdom of the heavens.

Our spiritual realizations produce that silent shuttle of
thought which, working in and through cell and nerve,
weaves into one harmonious whole mind and body and is
expressed as health and wealth and genius.

The musical genius says he hears the music in a flash and
is often at his wit's end to transcribe it fast enough.
Many an immortal poem and prose work as well has been
flashed from the mind of the author without any apparent
effort on his part. But if all the prayers and mind efforts
of literary geniuses were inquired into, it would be found
that there had been heroic mental effort somewhere at some
time. So it is with healing. The realization of perfection
takes root in the soul and may come forth in a flash as
perfect health. We should not confine ourselves to the
present life of the individual but go into previous
incarnations in which the work was done that made the
genius in this incarnation.

Professor Einstein was considered the greatest mathematical
genius of our time. The scientific world does not connect
his insight into scientific principles with his religious
life, but he freely stated that he worshiped God. He said:
"The voice of God

//page 50

is from within. Something within me tells me what I must do
every day." For him God is as valid as a scientific
argument. On the subject of spiritual realization he once
said:

"Every man knows that in his work he does best and
accomplishes most when he has attained a proficiency that
enables him to work intuitively. That is, there are things
that we come to know so well that we do not know how we
know them. Perhaps we live best and do things best when we
are not too conscious of how and why we do them."

The supreme realization of man is his unity with God. Jesus
had this realization and proclaimed it before there was any
manifestation. When He told His followers, "I and the
Father are one" and "He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father," they demanded that He show them the Father. They
could not then understand that He had spiritually united
with creative Mind. Men in our day are having this
realization in a more universal way than ever before in the
history of the race, and they are affirming it in the face
of ridicule and condemnation. When this inner consciousness
is attained by any man the foundation has been laid of the
Peter church or temple that is man's immortal body, which
will never pass away.

Metaphysically realization is expectancy objectified. The
mind conceives a proposition and then marshals all its
forces to make that conception a reality in the objective
world. All things material are first thought pictures,
carved by the imagination

//page 51

from omnipresent thought substance. Shakespeare in "Much
Ado about Nothing" brings out the idea as follows:

//quote

The idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,

And every lovely organ of her life,

Shall come appareled in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate and full of life

Into the eye and prospect of his soul.

//text

This realm of realization is so real to the mind that it
requires a trained metaphysician to detect the difference
between its creations and the manifest realm of things. We
all have a body in the ether that is the counterpart of the
physical. It is through this psychic body that we have
sensation in the physical. It is possible to think of the
psychic body and cultivate its sensations until it appears
as real as the physical. Many persons have done this until
they have formed a psychic world consciousness and they are
often unable to separate it from the physical. They search
materially for the treasures they see psychically. To them
the realm of thought forms is the finality of creation
instead of the mental pictures of that which is about to
appear.

The trained metaphysician is no stranger to this picture
gallery of the mind and he is not deceived into believing
that it is any more than a mental reflection. One who
enters the realm of spiritual ideas does not allow his
consciousness to become confused with the mind pictures
that flash into psychic sight. They are part of the process
of making ideas manifest. When a Christian healer realizes
that his

//page 52

treatment has firmly formed the picture of health, he
relaxes his decrees and statements of Truth and trusts the
divine law to make health manifest.

Paul urges in many of his writings that we have the Mind of
Christ: that we let Christ be formed in us. This has
usually been taken to mean that we are to imitate Christ.
This is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough. To follow Jesus Christ in the regeneration or new
birth we must fulfill the law of body building, which is a
reconstruction of the corrupt cells: "This corruptible must
put on in-corruption." To accomplish this and make the body
conform to His perfect body we must see Him as He is in His
perfect body. This perfect body exists as an ideal body in
us all. By mentally concentrating on this perfect body and
focusing all our powers on it as the vital life of the
physical a transformation will begin that will finally
raise the physical to divine stature. Paul points the way
in II Corinthians:

"But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image
from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit."

//page 53

//section Chapter 4

Chapter IV

Producing Results

//text

IT IS A striking fact that even back in the time of Moses
the health of the people was considered of great importance
and was always mentioned in connection with their spiritual
welfare. If they were obedient to the law, they kept in
health; if disobedient, they fell sick. The same law that
brought about these results has always been operative and
is active in our midst today. Faith in God as the health of
His people and obedience to the law of Being bring health.
Distrust and disobedience produce ill-health.

It has been proved again and again that there is a definite
relation between the thoughts of man and the conditions in
his body. Scientists of the world are experimenting with
mental processes and are discovering that the old Scripture
writers knew whereof they spoke when they taught that sin
produces sickness and righteousness health. It is known
that infants have been poisoned by the milk from the
breasts of angry mothers. Persons under the stress of fear
suffer a loss of appetite. Many other illustrations of the
effect of discordant mental states come to those who study
mind and its manifestations. Job understood the relation
between a mental concept and its result. He said: "The
thing which I fear cometh upon me."

//page 54

In the past century there has been a general awakening
among people to the realization of the relation between
righteousness and health, and men everywhere are seeking
the knowledge of God and His healing power. God becomes to
them their "all-sufficiency in everything." This
all-sufficiency manifests itself to them according to their
needs. To one it is health, to another it is freedom from
bondage to some habit, to a third person it is illumination.

Jesus was the great teacher and example of obedience to the
law of constructive thinking. All His commandments and
sayings tend toward the enhancement of life and health and
harmony. The reforms that man in mortal consciousness tries
to make are all based on destructive ideas set to work in
the external. The reform of Jesus is an inner
transformation: "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."
He came not to tear down but to build up. If we follow Him
we shall give our strength and substance and thought force
to constructive activity.

In order to understand the Scriptures and especially the
portion of them that gives the life and experiences of
Jesus it is necessary to study the action of the mind. The
movement of every mind in bringing forth the simplest
thought is a key to the great creative process of universal
Mind. In every act is involved mind, idea, and
manifestation. The mind is neither seen nor felt; the idea
is not seen, but it is felt; and the manifestation appears.

The history of mankind in the majority of its aspects shows
a steady growth or ascent from a lower

//page 55

to a higher estate. In the forms of nature external to man
the same law of development is seen. Jesus' statement that
"the earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then
the ear, then the full grain in the ear" is a recognition
of the truth that evolution in the earth is universal.

The progress of man through the aid of uplifting influences
has been especially marked in the education of the mind. In
the field of mathematics alone almost unbelievable increase
in the understanding of abstract truth has been gained over
a period that began with the crude though systematic work
of the Egyptians, about 2500 B.C., and extended to include
the seventeenth-century research of Leibnitz, who developed
the branch of higher mathematics known as the infinitesimal
calculus.

Steady progress has been the rule also in that phase of
life which deals with a man's relations to his fellow men.
The various activities of social service have led to
improved working conditions, better homes, and more helpful
environments for those whose condition of life has called
for the help of their brothers. Sociology has thus resulted
in many movements for the uplift of mankind.

In the field of religion the upward march has been
especially remarkable. There is a wide range of religious
experience between the blindly groping faith that caused
men to pass their children through the fire as sacrifices
to their deities and the divine consciousness of Jesus
Christ, who submitted His body to the purifying fire of the
Spirit and came

//page 56

forth alive with a life that never dies.

The healing of the body of man must follow the law of
evolution, in common with the education of his mind and the
adjustment of his social relations. Jesus did His healing
spiritually. When He was told of the "great fever" of
Simon's mother-in-law, He administered no drug to reduce
her temperature. Instead He "stood over her, and rebuked
the fever; and it left her." Jesus knew the law that
"without any dispute the less is blessed by the better." He
knew that the blessing of health comes through the exercise
of faith on the part of the man who seeks it, that faith
opens the mind to the influx of power from on high, and
that the power of the Highest heals all diseases both of
soul and of body.

When faith is sufficiently strong to dissolve all adverse
conditions and to open the mind fully to the power of God,
healing is instantaneous. In the natural course of events
the patient who survives a fever goes through a long, slow
convalescence; hence perhaps the name "patient." Jesus had
no "patients" although He healed many who were "sick with
divers diseases." Simon's mother-in-law rose up immediately
and went about her work when Jesus denied the power of the
fever to hold her.

After a busy day of teaching in the synagogue in the course
of which Jesus restored to his right mind a man who "had a
spirit of an unclean demon," He ended the evening by
healing, without exception, "every one of them" that were
brought to Him. He had spent no time in the study of
pathology prior to

//page 57

this work. Shortly before that time He had spent forty days
in the wilderness in communion with God and in setting His
own purposes in order by the light of the divine
understanding that He had gained there. After each season
of healing and intensive teaching He again withdrew into a
desert place or to a mountain, either alone or in company
with His apostles, and there obtained a new influx of power
from the Father. So the healing work went on. There is no
record of incurables.

Further there is no record that Jesus took any precautions
to avoid infection when He was engaged in healing the sick.
He was without fear of evil because He acknowledged only
the power of the Highest, which is good. He put His hand on
the leper to prove to him that He was fearless and
confident. He spoke six short, decisive words, "I will; be
thou made clean"; and we are told that "straightway his
leprosy was cleansed" although the Scripture shows that he
was in the last stage of the disease ("full of leprosy").
There were no long explanations, no instructions given.
Jesus simply turned His super-will upon the leper, and the
power of the Highest flowed through Him instantly to do its
perfect work. Then only did an instruction follow. The
leper was told to offer the usual praise and sacrifice to
God and to ascribe his healing to the Highest rather than
to the power of personality.

Jesus always connected sin and sickness as cause and
effect. When the man sick of the palsy was let down through
the roof of a house that he might be

//page 58

brought before Jesus for healing, there were those present
who expected the healing to be done in some mysterious way;
and when Jesus spoke of forgiving the man's sins in order
to heal him they said: "Who is this that speaketh
blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" These
men lived in a material world and saw everything from a
material viewpoint. They did not understand that the man's
sins caused his palsy. As a proof of man's power to forgive
sin and thus heal the effects of sin Jesus said when the
man was brought for healing:

"But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on
earth to forgive sins (he said unto him that was palsied),
I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto
thy house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took
up that whereon he lay, and departed to his house,
glorifying God."

Jesus taught plainly that the mind was the place of origin
of every act. He said that if there was lust in the heart,
it was sin even though no overt act were committed. All
thinking people in this day accept without question the
fact that the body is moved by the mind; and those who have
made a study of mental processes have found that all the
conditions of the body are brought about by the mind; also
that there is a law of right thought and that a departure
from that law is sin or "missing one's aim," which is the
original Hebrew conception of sin.

Forgiveness really means the giving up of something. When
you forgive yourself, you cease doing

//page 59

the thing that you ought not to do. Jesus was correct in
assuming that man has power to forgive sin. Sin is a
falling short of the divine law, and repentance and
forgiveness are the only means that man has of getting out
of sin and its effect and coming into harmony with the law.
But who can tell what the law is? Only those who study man
as a spiritual and mental being. Study of manifestation
alone is futile; it leads nowhere. We must get at it from
the cause side. All sin is first in the mind; and the
forgiveness is a change of mind or repentance. Some mental
attitude, some train of mental energy, must be transformed.
We forgive sin in ourselves every time we resolve to think
and act according to the divine law. The mind must change
from a material to a spiritual base. The law is already
fixed; there is nothing in it to be changed, because God is
the lawgiver and does not change. The change must all be on
the part of man and within him. The moment man changes his
thoughts of sickness to thoughts of health the divine law
rushes in and begins the healing work.

The law is Truth, and the Truth is that all is good. There
is no power and no reality in sin. If sin were real and
enduring, like goodness and Truth, it could not be forgiven
but would hold its victim forever. When we enter into the
understanding of the real and the unreal, a great light
dawns upon us and we see what Jesus meant when He said,
"The Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins."
The Son of man is that in us which discerns the difference
between Truth and error. When we get this

//page 60

understanding, we are in a position to free our soul from
sin and our body from disease, which is the effect of sin.
Sin is the result of desire manifesting itself in erroneous
ways and may be compared to the errors of the child working
a problem in mathematics. When the error is discovered and
there is a willingness to correct it, under the law of
forgiveness man erases it as easily as the child rubs out
the false figures in his exercise. Thus in spiritual
understanding, the I AM of man forgives or "gives" Truth
"for" error; the mind is set in order and the body healed.
The moment man realizes this he puts himself in harmony
with the Truth of Being, and the law wipes out all his
transgressions.

In denying the reality of sin send out your freeing thought
to others as well as to yourself. Do not hold anyone in
bondage to the thought of sin. If you do, it will pile up
and increase in power according to the laws of mental
action.

No one can understand how forgiveness sets free the
sin-bound soul and the sick body unless he studies mind and
has some understanding of its laws. There is a universal
thought substance in which thought builds whatever man
wills.

The right images become active through the power of
thought. Man has unlimited power through thought, and he
can give his power to things or withhold it. If he thinks
about the power of sin, he builds up and gives force to
that belief until it engulfs him in its whirlpool of
thought substance. He forgets his spiritual origin and sees
only the human.

//page 61

He thinks of himself as a sinner "born in sin and conceived
in iniquity" rather than as the image and likeness of God.

Man also sees the law of sowing and reaping, and he fears
his sins and their results. Then fear of the divine law is
added to his burdens. The way out of this maze of
ignorance, sin, and sickness is through man's understanding
of his real being, and then the forgiving or the giving up
of all thoughts of the reality of sin and its effects in
the body.

But we must recognize the unity of the race in Christ and
include all people in our forgiving. A good freeing
statement is:

"I do not believe in the power of sin in myself or in
others."

If anyone tries to free himself while holding others in the
thought of sin, he will not demonstrate his freedom. No man
can rise except as he lifts the race with him in his
thought: "and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will
draw all men unto myself." As by one man sin came into the
world so by one man it is taken away. As all were included
in the sin of one so all are included in the righteousness
of one, and every man stands sinless before God in Christ.
Recognition of this will make men free, and the greater the
number of men that recognize and declare the Truth the
sooner will all men know that they are free from sin in
Christ.

You must build upon faith in the reality of the spiritual.
The next step is to put your selfishness away. There cannot
be two in this kingdom. It is the

//page 62

kingdom of God, and man must give up. The John the Baptist
must recognize the Son of God that is in you and that this
Son must be always active in you in love, life, and power.
The kingdom is for the larger man. The personal man must be
eliminated.

The next step is love, universal love: not the love of
earthly possessions but the love of spiritual things. We
must give up the flesh man and all his possessions and at
the same time lay hold of the spiritual man. Then we have
everything although apparently we may have nothing. This is
a difficult proposition to those who think in terms of
material ideas. You must be able to get away from all
thought of material things. "Love . . . seeketh not its
own"; "is not puffed up." Love is not selfish. We cannot
have selfishness and love at the same time. We cannot have
this universal brotherhood unless we love everybody. We
must love all because we are all one. There must be in our
consciousness a recognition of the universal right of all
to all the possessions of the world.

Then there must be this inner growth that is a fuller
consciousness of the new life which comes with the entering
into this kingdom of Christ.

The fact is that there is a foundation for this world-wide
movement in behalf of purer men and better things for all.
There is something back of it all, and the old conditions,
diseases, and limitations must pass away; and the time is
now ripe for entering into this kingdom, this attainment of
the spiritual side of life, this growing of a new body; and

//page 63

every one of us can enter in if we only will to do so.

True, in all actual transformation of mind and body a
dissolving, breaking-up process necessarily takes place,
because thought force and substance have been built into
the errors that appear. In each individual these errors
have the power that man has given to them by his thought
concerning them. These thought structures must be broken up
and eliminated from consciousness. The simplest, most
direct, and most effective method is to withdraw from them
the life and substance that have been going to feed them,
and to let them shrivel away into their own nothingness.
This withdrawal is best accomplished by denial of the power
and reality of evil and affirmation of the allness of
Spirit. Nothing is destroyed, because "nothing" can't be
destroyed. The change that takes place is merely a
transference of power from an error belief to faith in the
Truth, through the recognition that God is good and is all
that in reality exists.

The doctrine of the Trinity is often a stumbling block,
because we find it difficult to understand how three
persons can be one. Three persons cannot be one, and
theology will always be a mystery until theologians become
metaphysicians. It is necessary to understand the Trinity
in order to be healed in soul and body.

God is the name of the all-encompassing Mind. Christ is the
name of the all-loving Mind. Holy Spirit is the all-active
manifestation. These three are one fundamental Mind in its
three creative aspects.

We have to be healed physically, mentally, and

//page 64

spiritually. Often people think they are sick physically
when they are just sick in soul. It is easy to understand
how the idea of perfect health may exist in the great
Father-Mind; also how that idea may become active in the
individual and manifest in his life. This simple comparison
clears up the mystery of the Trinity. Here are the
Scripture symbols compared with modern metaphysical terms:

God--Christ--man.

Mind--idea--manifestation.

Father--Son--Holy Spirit.

Thinker--thought--action.

Spirit--soul--body.

I AM--I AM conscious--I appear.

We want the actual overcoming power of Christ. To get this
we must appreciate life and enter into it thankfully and
heartily. "I came that they may have life, and may have it
abundantly." This abundant life is always present. When we
recognize it and open our consciousness to it, it comes
flowing into mind and body with its mighty quickening,
healing power, and they are renewed and transformed.

The following affirmations are for the purpose of
establishing the whole man in the consciousness of unity
and health. They are given as they came into mind without
any attempt at classification:

My body does not starve for my love and appreciation of it.
I recognize it, honor it, and love it as the body temple of
the living God.

I have now the only body I ever had. Though I were
reincarnated a thousand times, yet is my body

//page 65

the same. It is I. Its appearance depends on my beliefs and
thoughts and changes accordingly, but it is always the same
body, even as my soul and spirit are always the same. My
body is as much a part of my individuality as my soul. It
is eternal, like any other part of my I. It is I, even as
my soul is I.

I cannot disown my body and say that I borrowed it from my
parents. This is not the truth. I may have taken up some of
my parents' error beliefs and built them into my body; but
my body came from no one but God. It came from Him with my
spirit and soul and has ever coexisted with them. These
three are one, inseparable. It is the belief in man that
his body is separate from him and is something that he
merely owns that makes the appearance of separation. I do
not own my body: I am body. I do not own my soul: I am
soul. I do not own my spirit: I am spirit. And these three
are one.

The redemption of the body depends on my having the right
idea of body. It must be the divine idea, and there must be
no other. The eye must be single.

My body (or I manifested as body) is not filled with error,
sin, discord. Beholding myself free from these keeps me
manifesting thus. The law of growth is in beholding. While
I behold the body as anything else but its divine idea I
hold it there. It can never change before the belief of it
changes.

I am. I am in every cell of my body. I am every cell of my
body. I do not disown my body. I do not withdraw my I, but
I take possession--full possession--of every part in the
name of the Lord.

//page 66

I now fully identify myself with my body even as with my
soul and spirit, thus making the at-one-ment.

Since my body is I, if there appears resistance in it, that
resistance is my own; it comes only from me. It comes from
my failure properly to identify myself with my body. The
way to get control is to take it. This I do, not by will
power, by personal force, or by anything that recognizes my
body as separate from me, but by my consciousness of
oneness with it. This unifies all of me and stops all
resistance.

My body is life, purity, wholeness, sinlessness. In my
flesh I see God. What I see, what I behold, becomes
manifest.

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits,
whether they are of God; because many false prophets are
gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in
the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not
Jesus is not of God."

I confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, even in
my flesh.

"Not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be
clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of
life."

The idea of the body as an earthly house is now dissolved,
and I am now clothed upon with the heavenly house, even the
divine idea of man complete. In this idea I am one with the
immortal, incorruptible flesh of Jesus Christ, and I have
eternal life. I do confess that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh.

//page 67

//section Chapter 5

Chapter V

The Omnipotence of Prayer

//text

TO A PERSON in the understanding of Truth prayer should be
an affirmation of that which is in Being.

What is the necessity of the prayer of affirmation if Being
already is? In order that the creative law of the Word may
be fulfilled. All things are in God as potentialities. It
is man's office under the divine law to bring into
manifestation that which has been created or planned by the
unmanifest. Everybody should pray. Through prayer we
develop the highest phase of character. Prayer softens and
refines the whole man. A prominent skeptic once said that
the most unattractive thing in existence was a prayerless
woman.

Prayer is not supplication or begging but a simple asking
for that which we know is waiting for us at the hands of
our Father and an affirmation of its existence. The prayer
that Jesus gave as a model is simplicity itself. There is
none of that awe-inspiring "O Thou" that ministers often
affect in public prayer but only the ordinary informal
request of a son to his Father for things needed.

"Father . . . Hallowed be thy name." Here in the Lord's
Prayer is a recognition of the all-inclusiveness and
completeness of Divine Mind. Everything has its sustenance
from this one source; therefore "the

//page 68

earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

We need supplies for the day only. Hoarding for future
necessity breeds selfishness. The Children of Israel tried
to save the manna, but it spoiled on their hands.

The law "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"
is here shorn of its terrors. If we forgive others we shall
be forgiven, and the penalty of suffering for sins will be
eliminated.

It does not seem possible that God would lead us into
temptation. The statement about temptation follows closely
that regarding the forgiveness of sin, and it is evidently
a part of it. "Let not temptation lead us" is a permissible
interpretation.

Jesus advised asking for what we want and being persistent
in our demands. People ignorant of the relation in which
man stands to God wonder why we should ask and even
importune a Father who has provided all things for us. This
is explained when we perceive that God is a great mind
reservoir that has to be tapped by man's mind and poured
into visibility through man's thought or word. If the mind
of man is clogged with doubt, lethargy, or fear, he must
open the way by persistent knocking and asking. "Pray
without ceasing," "continuing instant in prayer." Acquire
in prayer a facility in asking equal to the mathematician's
expertness in handling numbers and you will get responses
in proportion.

We give our children what we consider good gifts from our
limited and transitory store, but when the gifts of God are
put into our minds we have possessions

//page 69

that are eternal and will go on being productive for all
time.

Undoubtedly the one thing that stands out prominently in
the teaching of Jesus is the necessity of prayer. He prayed
on the slightest pretext, or in some such manner invoked
the presence of God. He prayed over situations that most
men would deal with without the intervention of God. If He
was verily God incarnate, the skeptic often asks, why did
He so often appeal to an apparently higher God. To answer
this doubt intelligently and truly one must understand the
constitution of man.

There are always two men in each individual. The man
without is the picture that the man within paints with his
mind. This mind is the open door to the unlimited principle
of Being. When Jesus prayed He was setting into action the
various powers of His individuality in order to bring about
certain results. Within His identity was of God; without He
was human personality.

The various mental attitudes denoted by the word prayer are
not comprehended by those unfamiliar with the spiritual
constitution of man. When the trained metaphysician speaks
of his demonstrations through prayer, he does not explain
all the movements of his spirit and mind, because the outer
consciousness has not the capacity to receive it.

When we read of Jesus spending whole nights in prayer, the
first thought is that He was asking and begging God for
something. But we find prayer to be many-sided; it is not
only asking but receiving

//page 70

also. We must pray believing that we shall receive. Prayer
is both invocation and affirmation. Meditation,
concentration, denial, and affirmation in the silence are
all forms of what is loosely termed prayer.

Thus Jesus was demonstrating at night over the error
thoughts of mind. He was lifting the mortal mind up to the
plane of Spirit through some prayerful thought. The Son of
man must be lifted up, and there is no way to do this
except through prayer.

One who exercises his thought powers discovers that there
is a steady growth with proper use. The powers of the mind
are developed in much the same way that the muscles of the
body are. Persistent affirmation of a certain desire in the
silence concentrates the mental energies and beats down all
barriers.

Jesus illustrates the power of such affirmative prayer, of
repeated silent demands for justice, for instance, by the
case of the widow bereft of worldly protection and power.
To the widow's persistence even the ungodly judge succumbs.
The unceasing prayer of faith is commanded in the
Scriptures in various places.

If a man's prayers are based on the thought of his own
righteousness and the sinfulness of others, he does not
fulfill the law of true prayer. Self-righteousness is an
exclusory thought and closes the door to the great Father
love that we all want. We are not to justify ourselves in
the sight of God but let the Spirit of justice and
righteousness do its perfect work through us.

That God and angels and heaven exist is accepted

//page 71

by all who believe the Scriptures, but there is wide
diversity of thought about their character and abode. Those
who read the Bible after the letter have invented all kinds
of imaginary notions as to the conditions under which God
and His angels live and as to the location of heaven. Their
minds being fixed on things, they have not conceived of the
realm of ideas, and they are therefore totally ignorant of
the true teaching of the Scriptures. To understand the
Bible one must know about the constitution of man. This is
the key to all mysteries, the knowledge of man's true self.
"Know thyself."

Man is spirit, soul, body. These are coexistent. God is the
principle of being as an axiom is a principle of
mathematics. God is not confined to locality. Is a
mathematical principle confined to a particular place and
not found elsewhere? "The kingdom of God is within you."
God is the real of man's being. It follows that all the
powers that are attributed to God may become operative in
man. Then we live right in the presence of God and angels
and heaven. What seems a desert place is filled with
angelic messengers, and like Jacob we know it not.

Man sets into action any of the three realms of his being,
spirit, soul, and body, by concentrating his thought on
them. If he thinks only of the body, the physical senses
encompass all his existence. If mind and emotion are
cultivated he adds soul to his consciousness. If he rises
to the Absolute and comprehends Spirit, he rounds out the
God-man.

Spirit is the source of soul and body, hence the

//page 72

ruling power. Its works are so swift and so transcend the
limitations of matter that the natural man cannot
comprehend them and hence calls them "miracles." But all
things are done under law. "Prayer was made earnestly of
the church unto God for him," and Peter was delivered from
prison by an angel. The earnest prayers of the devout
believers in the power of supreme Spirit brought about the
result. The history of Christianity is full of instances of
so-called miracles wrought through prayer. The hour-long
prayer of Luther by what was supposed to be the deathbed of
his friend Melanchthon is a famous instance of importunate
pleadings. It was Luther's firm belief that Melanchthon's
years of continued life were the direct answer to his
prayers.

Mighty things have been wrought in the past by those who
had mere blind faith to guide them. To faith we now add
understanding of the law, and our achievements will be a
fulfillment of the promise of Jesus "He that believeth on
me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do." The prayer of Luther and its
results are now being duplicated every day. As we go on in
the exercise of the spiritual faculties we shall strengthen
them and understand them better, and we shall cease to talk
about anything miraculous. All things are possible to man
when he exercises his spiritual power under the divine law.

When man directs the power of exalted ideas into his body,
he exalts the cells, releases their innate spiritual
energy, and causes them finally to disappear

//page 73

from physical sight into the omnipresent luminous ether.
This is what Jesus accomplished at His ascension. The
promise was that all who follow Him in the regeneration of
the body would do likewise. It is true that even the
followers of Jesus have not always understood the
scientific import of His doctrine. They have mentally
absorbed His exalted ideas and looked to their fulfillment
in a faraway heaven in the skies. By thus projecting their
ideas toward a fulfillment outside of the body they have
separated their soul or mind consciousness from its
companion, the body, and the deserted cells have been
resolved into their mother principle, the earth.

The mind of man is constantly projecting thought energies
or waves through brain cells into the ether or space
element in which we live. Every person lives in an
environment of radiant energy that circulates through the
cells of his organism like bees in a hive. Ordinarily we
cannot see the radiations of the mind, but we almost
universally feel them. When a discordant mind impinges upon
our mind radiations we instinctively shrink away. But we
are radiantly happy in the presence of an exalted mind.

"No man hath beheld God at any time." Seers, prophets,
preachers, and holy men and women in all ages are a unit in
saying that they have become acquainted with God through
prayer, expressed in the spirit of their minds.

This testimony to God's spiritual presence is so unanimous
that no one seeks His help in any way other than through
the spirit of the mind; and the

//page 74

fact that we know God with our minds and not with our
senses proves that God is Spirit.

In its higher functioning the mind of man deals with
spiritual ideas, and we can truthfully say that man is a
spiritual being. This fact explains the almost universal
worship of God by men and makes possible the conjunction of
the heaven and the earth by those who understand the
underlying laws of prayer. Jesus stated this emphatically
in John 4:24 (margin): "God is Spirit; and they that
worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

Then the real foundation of all effective prayer is the
understanding that God is Spirit and that man, His
offspring, is His image and likeness, hence spiritual.

Such a concept of God gives man a point of contact that is
never absent; in all places and under all conditions he has
the assurance of the attention and help of God when he
realizes the Father's spiritual presence and comradeship.

When it has a spiritually poised mind to work through,
Spirit is not limited in its power by any material
environment. "With God all things are possible." To make
this strong statement of Jesus come true we must study the
laws of God and strive to carry them out through a
quickened consciousness.

The Bible is replete with situations where men and women
seemed beyond any material help, but through faith and
prayer they triumphed right in the face of seemingly
insurmountable obstacles. The author of the 11th chapter of
Hebrews builds pyramids

//page 75

of faith demonstrations. Hear the climax:

"And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I
tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and
Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms,
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed
mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens."

Paul might have added to his pyramid of faith the long list
of miraculous healings of diseases and many superhuman
works recorded in the Bible, among which are the
restoration of the leper Naaman and the resurrection of the
Shunammite's son by Elisha; the control of the elements by
Elijah; the overcoming of gravity in the floating of the
workman's axhead from the bottom of the Jordan by Elisha,
and Moses' causing the water to gush from the rock.

The majority of people think that great spiritual faith is
necessary to get marvelous results. But Jesus taught
differently. "The apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our
faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou
rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would
obey you."

The mustard is among the smallest of seeds, and the
comparison would indicate what a tiny bit of real faith is
necessary to cause motion in material things. Paul and
Silas in the Roman jail prayed and sang until their bonds
fell off, the doors flew open,

//page 76

and they walked out, both free men. On the day of Pentecost
the followers of Jesus prayed and sang until the ethers
were so accelerated that tongues of fire flashed from the
bodies of the worshipers, and they were miraculously
quickened in mental ability.

Prayer liberates the energies pent up in mind and body.
Those who pray much create a spiritual aura that eventually
envelops the whole body. The bands of light painted by
artists around the heads of saints are not imaginary; they
actually exist and are visible to the sharp eye of the
painter. The Scriptures testify in Luke 9:29 that when
Jesus was praying "his countenance was altered, and his
raiment became white and dazzling." After Moses had been
praying on the mountain his face shone so brightly that the
people could not look on it, and he had to wear a veil.

Thus prayer is obviously dynamic and actuates the spiritual
ethers that interpenetrate all substance. Prayer is related
directly to the creative laws of God, and when man adjusts
his mind and body in harmony with those laws, his prayers
will always be effective and far-reaching. The activity of
the mind that is named the understanding is essential in
righteous prayer. Spirit is omnipresent, but the individual
consciousness gives it a local habitation and a name.

If in thinking about God we locate Him in a faraway heaven
and direct our thoughts outward in the hope of reaching
Him, all our force will be driven from us to that imaginary
place and we shall become devitalized.

"The kingdom of God is within you." The

//page 77

pivotal point around which Spirit creates is within the
structure of consciousness. This is true of the primal cell
as well as of the most complex organ. The throne on which
the divine will sits is within man's consciousness, and it
is to this inner center that he should direct his attention
when praying or meditating. David called this spiritual
center of the soul "the secret place of the Most High," and
all the defense and power of the 91st Psalm is promised to
the one who dwells in the consciousness of the Almighty
within. Paul says, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

In the 6th chapter of Matthew, in giving His disciples
directions for prayer, Jesus called attention to the God
center in man in these words: "But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut the door,
pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who
seeth in secret shall recompense thee." He also told them
not to use vain repetitions: "For your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

If Divine Mind knows our needs, why should we have to ask
to have them supplied? We do not ask expecting God to hand
us the things we want, but we realize that He has made
provision in the very nature of things for our every need
to be fulfilled. When we realize this and go about our work
in perfect confidence, the fulfillment of the divine law of
support and supply is often demonstrated in ways we had not
dreamed of.

Do not supplicate or beg God to give you what

//page 78

you need, but get still and think about the inexhaustible
resources of infinite Mind, its presence in all its
fullness, and its constant readiness to manifest itself
when its laws are complied with. This is what Jesus meant
when He said, "Seek ye first his kingdom, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto
you."

We all need a better understanding of the nature of God if
we are to comply with the laws under which He creates. We
must begin by knowing that "God is Spirit." Spirit is not
located in a big man called God but is everywhere the
breath of life and the knowing quality of mind active in
and through all bodies, "over all, and through all, and in
all." The highest form of prayer is to open our minds and
quietly realize that the one omnipresent intelligence knows
our thoughts and instantly answers, even before we have
audibly expressed our desires.

This being true, we should ask and at the same time give
thanks that we have already received. Jesus expressed this
idea in Mark 11:24: "Therefore I say unto you, All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them." Before He broke the
miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes and fed the five
thousand He looked up to heaven and gave thanks. When He
raised Lazarus He first said: "Father, I thank thee that
thou heardest me. And I knew that thou hearest me always."
Then He commanded Lazarus to come forth.

We observe that all things come out of the formless, but
our knowledge of the formless is so limited

//page 79

that we do not conceive of its infinite possibilities. When
we think or silently speak in the all-potential ethers of
Spirit, there is always an unfailing effect. "Whatsoever ye
have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light; and
what ye have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall
be proclaimed upon the housetops."

Silent prayer is more effective than audible, because by
silent prayer the mind comes into closer touch with the
creative Spirit. James says, "The prayer of faith shall
save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."
Countless thousands are applying this faith prayer today
and are being healed as men were in the time of Jesus.

The strange thing is that this very important proof of the
Spirit's work in Christian healing should have been
neglected for so many hundred years when Jesus gave it as
one of the signs of a believer: "These signs shall
accompany them that believe; in my name shall they cast out
demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take
up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover."

The history of the Christian church records that during its
first three hundred years the followers of Jesus healed the
sick by prayer and that healing was gradually dropped as
the church became prosperous and worldly. A layman from a
rural district was being shown, by a bishop, the riches of
a cathedral. The bishop said, "The church can no longer say,

//page 80

'Silver and gold have I none.'" "No," said the layman.
"Neither can it say, 'Take up thy bed, and walk.'"

It is found by those who have faith in the power of God
that the prayer for health is the most quickly answered.
The reason for this is that the natural laws that create
and sustain the body are really divine laws, and when man
silently asks for the intervention of God in restoring
health, he is calling into action the natural forces of his
being. Doctors agree that the object of using their
remedies is to quicken the natural functions of the body.
But medicine does not appeal to the intelligent principle
that directs all the activities of the organism, hence it
fails to give permanent healing.

However a conscious union with the natural life forces
lying within and back of all the complex activities of man
gets right to the fountainhead, and the results are
unfailing if the proper connection has been made.

The first step in prayer for health is to get still. "Be
still, and know that I am God." To get still the body must
be relaxed and the mind quieted. Center the attention
within. There is a quiet place within us all, and by
silently saying over and over, "Peace, be still," we shall
enter that quiet place and a great stillness will pervade
our whole being. Jesus Christ said, "Peace be unto you. . .
. Receive ye the Holy Spirit." That is, He spoke to the
within. He said also, "whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son."

//page 81

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and
my thoughts than your thoughts." This verse from Isaiah
gives us an insight into the difference between the mortal
thinker and the divine. Divine Mind is serene, orderly,
placid, while sense mind is turbulent, discordant, and
violent. We can readily understand from this comparison why
we do not get divine guidance even though we strive ever so
hard for it. The best of us are subject to crosscurrents of
worry that interfere with the even flow of God's thoughts
into our consciousness. Jesus warned His followers not to
be anxious about what they should eat, drink, or wear. In
all literature there is no finer comparison than that given
by Jesus when He pointed to the flowers and said: "Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."

If God so clothes the lilies, shall He not much more clothe
His children? This argument holds good with reference to
all human needs. There is a natural law whose chief purpose
is to take care of the human family. But the divine order
of creative Mind must be observed by man before he can
receive the benefits of his natural inheritance.

Metaphysicians, who study the mind and its many modes of
action, find that when they refuse to let thoughts of
worry, anxiety, or other distraction act in

//page 82

their minds, they gradually establish an inner quietness
that finally merges into a great peace. This is the "peace
of God, which passeth all understanding." When this peace
is attained, the individual gets inspirations and
revelations direct from infinite Mind.

Any method that will hush the external thought clamor will
achieve unity with the inner peace. When we are in peaceful
sleep, the outer clamor of thought is stilled and the great
Spirit of the universe communicates its higher vision to
the inner consciousness of man.

The ancient peoples seem to have been more open than
moderns to revelations in sleep. Long ago Job wrote in the
33d chapter of his book:

//quote

"In a dream, in a vision of the night,

When deep sleep falleth upon men,

In slumberings upon the bed;

Then he openeth the ears of men,

And sealeth their instruction."

//text

It is written in I Kings, chapter 3, that the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream and said, "Ask what I shall give
thee." Solomon did not ask for riches, for honor, or for
the glory that kings usually seek, but in meekness he asked
the Lord to give him an "understanding heart" so that he
might discriminate between good and evil and be a wise
judge of his people. Riches and honor followed of course,
as they always do when a man is earnestly striving to be
honest and just in all ways.

We get our most vivid revelations when in a meditative
state of mind. This proves that when we

//page 83

make the mind trustful and confident, we put it in harmony
with creative Mind; then its force flows to us in
accordance with the law of like attracting like.

The agonizing, supplicating, begging prayer is not
answered, because the thoughts are so turbulent that Divine
Mind cannot reach the pleader. Jesus prayed with a
confident assurance that what He wanted would be granted,
and He established a mode of prayer for His followers that
never fails when the same conditions and relations are
attained and maintained with reference to the Father-Mind.

Through His spiritual attainments Jesus formed a spiritual
zone in the earth's mental atmosphere; His followers make
connection with that zone when they pray in His "name." He
stated this fact in John 14:2: "I go to prepare a place for
you." Simon Peter said, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus
answered him, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now;
but thou shalt follow afterwards."

When Jesus had purified His body sufficiently, He ascended
into this "place" in the spiritual ethers of our planet. In
our high spiritual realizations we make temporary contact
with Him and His spiritual character, represented by His
"name." But we, like the apostles, are not yet able to go
there and abide, because we have not overcome earthly
attachments. We shall however attain the same freedom and
spiritual power that He attained if we follow Him in the
regeneration. But we should clearly understand that we
cannot go to Jesus' "place" through death. We must overcome
death as He did before we can

//page 84

be glorified with Him in the "heavens," the higher realms
of the mind.

We should not cease to pray to the Father in the name of
Christ Jesus; He said that man should "pray always." Prayer
lifts our thoughts on high and sets us free from the narrow
limits of matter, just as the electromagnetic impulse is
lifted and carried by the ether and caught by any receptive
station. Spiritual-minded people are being united today, as
in the past, by zones of spiritual force that will
eventually become the permanent thought atmosphere of the
planet. In Revelation this is typified as the New Jerusalem
descending out of the heavens into the earth.

Jesus said we could ask whatsoever we wished in His name
and it should be done unto us: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give
it you in my name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my
name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made
full."

Jesus taught in parables because the people did not
understand that spiritual forces, acting through mind, make
race conditions. But He told them: "The hour cometh, when I
shall no more speak unto you in dark sayings, but shall
tell you plainly of the Father."

The time prophesied by Jesus--when we should plainly
understand the character of the Father--is now at hand, and
it behooves all Christians to come out of parables and to
realize that scientific laws govern the material, mental,
and spiritual realms of Being.

//page 85

"Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks," wrote
Paul to the Thessalonians. The idea is that we should be
persistent in prayer. We know it is always the will of the
air to give us all that we can breathe into our lungs.
Jesus compared the Spirit to the air in describing the new
birth to Nicodemus. It requires lung capacity to breathe
deeply of the oceans of air; so it requires spiritual
capacity to realize how accessible and ready omnipresent
Spirit is to fill us full of itself. The lack is in us. God
is more willing to give than we are to receive.

To acquire the mind that is always open to Spirit we must
be persistent in prayer. It is written in the 18th chapter
of Luke: "And he spake a parable unto them to the end that
they ought always to pray, and not to faint." He then told
of the judge who feared not God nor man yet who was worn
out by the persistency of a woman who demanded justice.

By experimentation modern metaphysical healers have
discovered a large number of laws that rule in the realm of
mind, and they all agree that no two cases are exactly
alike. Therefore one who prays for the health of another
should understand that it is not the fault of the healing
principle that his patient is not instantly restored. The
fault may be in his own lack of persistency or
understanding; or it may be due to the patient's dogged
clinging to discordant thoughts. In any case the one who
prays must persist in this prayer until the walls of
resistance are broken down and the healing currents are
tuned in. Metaphysicians often pray over a critical case
all night,

//page 86

as history says Luther prayed for the dying Melanchthon and
brought about his recovery.

Persistency in prayer awakens the spiritual consciousness
and sets into perpetual glow the core of the soul. When
this has been accomplished, one is in a constant state of
thanksgiving and praising, and the joy of a conscious union
with creative Mind is realized.

//page 87

//section Chapter 6

Chapter VI

God Said, and It Was So

//text

EMERSON said that the utterance of true ideas by one with a
mission causes kings to totter on their thrones. Words of
Truth from a zealous man possess dynamic power to heal and
bless because the spiritual man enters into them. This is
why they move multitudes and are not stayed by conditions
or time. When the zone of Spirit, from which healing words
emanate, is unobstructed, they feed the souls of men and
are creative as well as re-creative. This is why the
sayings of the prophets and mystics have such enduring
qualities. They are attached by invisible currents of life
to the one Great Spirit, and they have within them the germ
of perfect wholeness that keeps them perpetually increasing.

The scriptures of the different races are examples of the
outward expression of this inner germ. The Book of Job is a
dateless work that has been preserved through great
changes, including the rise and fall of nations. Who wrote
it no one knows, but it was not lost with the loss of its
custodians. They were wiped out, their lands taken from
them, and they are no longer known among the nations of the
earth, but the mystic word of Job was not consumed. If they
had applied in their own lives the power of the germ word,
the fate of these people would have

//page 88

been very different. But the history of the Book of Job is
that of nearly all the sacred writings of all peoples.
Secular histories and records of the exploits of men and
the affairs of nations have disappeared and been forgotten
because they told the tale of the passing world of flesh;
but the records of those who had to do with the spiritual
are preserved, and they are living today as they have lived
ever since they were given forth: through the power derived
from Spirit. The true prophet of God does not even have to
write his words down. He may speak them to the ethers, and
through their own inherent power of perpetuation and growth
they will find their way into the minds of men to uplift
and to heal. Jesus did not write a line except in the sand,
yet His words are treasured today as the most precious that
we have.

We know by these many examples that the word of Truth has
life in it, that it has power to restore and make whole,
and that it cannot perish or grow less with the changes
that come with the fleeting years. The more spiritual the
individual is who gives forth the words the more enduring
they are, and the more powerfully the words move men the
more surely they awaken them to their divine nature.

The words of Jesus Christ were given to common
people--according to the world's standard--by a carpenter
in a remote corner of the earth. Yet these words have moved
men for more than nineteen hundred years to realize, to
dare, and to do as no other words that were ever uttered.

//page 89

When Jesus said, "The words that I have spoken unto you are
spirit, and are life," He was speaking in terms of that
inner Word which creates all things. He knew that His words
were vivified with a life essence and a moving power that
would demonstrate the truth of His statement.

These words have rung through the souls of men and set them
afire with God's Spirit throughout the ages. This is
because they are spiritual words, words that have within
them the seeds of a divine life, of a perfect wholeness.
They grow in the minds of all who give them place, just as
a beautiful flower or a great tree grows from the seed germ
planted in the ground.

Jesus knew that the consciousness of man was submerged in
the things of sense, that it could not perceive Truth in
the abstract, and that it must, under these conditions, be
stirred into activity through some stimulating force
dropped into it from without. Hence He sent forth His
powerful words of Truth to the thirsty men, and said unto
them, "Keep my word."

To "keep" a word is to resolve it in the mind, to go over
it in all its aspects, to believe in it as a truth, and to
treasure it as a saving, healing balm in time of need.

All peoples have in all ages known about the saving power
of words and have used them to the best of their
understanding to cast out demons and to heal the sick. The
Hebrews bound upon their foreheads and wrists parchments
with words of Scripture

//page 90

written upon them. The Hindus, Japanese, Chinese, and
nearly all other nations have their various methods for
applying sacred words to the alleviation of their ills, and
for invoking the invisible powers to aid them in both their
material and their spiritual needs. Although these methods
are faulty in that they tend to use the letter of the word
instead of its spirit, they are significant as indicators
of the universal belief in the power of the sacred word.

We know that words express ideas, and to get at their
substantial part we must move into the realm of ideas.
Ideas are in the mind, and it is there we must go if we
want to get the force of our words. The Hebrew's
phylacteries and the Buddhist's prayer wheels are
suggestive of the wordy prayers of the Christian; but this
is not keeping the words of Jesus, nor reading the inner
substance of the mystical words. This can be done only by
those who believe in the omnipresent Spirit of God and in
faith keep in mind the words that express His goodness,
wisdom, power, and wholeness.

Jesus voiced this nearness of God to man more fully than
any of the prophets, and His words are correspondingly
vivified with the divine inner fire and life and wholeness.
He said that those who keep His words will even escape
death, so potent is the energy attached to them. This is a
startling promise, but when we understand that it was not
the personal man Jesus making it but the Father speaking
through Him, then we know that it was not an idle one; for
He said, "The word which ye hear is not mine, but

//page 91

the Father's who sent me." This is why these words of Jesus
endure and why more and more they are attracting the
attention of men as the years go by. That is the reason why
Jesus' words heal.

Whoever takes Jesus' words into his mind should first
consecrate himself to the Truth that they represent. That
Truth is not the formulated doctrine of any church nor the
creed of any sect; not even of Christianity. That truth is
written in the inner sanctuary of every heart, and all men
know it without external formulas. It is the intuitive
perception of what is right in the sight of God and man. It
is this Truth and justice which every man recognizes as the
foundation of true living. Whoever consecrates himself to
follow the inner monitor, the Spirit of truth, and lives up
to its promptings regardless of social or commercial
customs has consecrated himself to do God's will, and he is
fitted to take Jesus' words and make them his own. His
words are then spirit and life.

It is no idle experiment, this keeping in the mind the
words of Jesus. It is a very momentous undertaking, which
may mark the most important period in the life of the
individual. There must be sincerity and earnestness and
right motive, and withal a determination to understand its
spiritual import. This requires attention, time, and
patience in the application of the mind to solving the
deeper meanings of the sayings that we are urged to "keep."

People have a way of dealing with sacred words that is too
superficial to bring results. They juggle

//page 92

words. They toss them into the air with the heavenly tone
or the oratorical ring and count that a compliance with
divine requirements. But this is only another form of the
prayer wheel and the phylactery. It is that lip service
which Jesus condemned, because the purpose is to be "heard
of men."

To keep the words of Jesus means much more than this. It
has peculiar significance for the inner life, and it is
only after this inner life is awakened that the true sense
of the spiritual word is understood. But through his
devotions the sincere keeper of Jesus' sayings will awaken
this inner life or Spirit, and the Lord will come to him
and minister to him as carefully as to the adept mystic.

Jesus said, "The words that I have spoken unto you are
spirit, and are life." Spirit is that indescribable
invisible cause that produces all reality. He who lives in
the consciousness of effects alone can know nothing about
Spirit, because he has not made himself acquainted with the
realm in which it operates. But no one is barred from
becoming acquainted with Spirit and residing in its domain.
It is just as accessible as the material and far more
attractive. If you want to know about Spirit, you will have
to take up spiritual ways. You cannot go to the realm of
Spirit by traveling the lower road. The road to the realm
of Spirit does not lie on the map of the earth, and no man
has found it in his physical geography. That spiritual
things "are spiritually discerned" was the discovery of
someone long ago, but he had no copyright on it. To him it
was a revelation, just as it

//page 93

will be to you and to everyone when it dawns on the
consciousness. It is a great advantage to the spiritual
seeker to make this discovery. Millions of persons in every
age have tried to find Spirit through matter and material
ways, but they have returned unsuccessful to the dust. "For
verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men
desired to see the things which ye see, and saw them not;
and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not."
They did not fulfill the promise of Jesus, because they saw
death and succumbed to its dissolving hand. They missed the
goal because they did not keep the words of Jesus. They
kept the letter instead of the spirit. They applied in an
abstract way what was intended for everyday practical use.

Jesus tells us that His words are spirit, and then says to
keep them. How can we keep a thing that we know nothing
about? How can we keep the words and sayings of Jesus
unless we get right where He was and grasp them with our
minds?

Surely there is no other way to keep His words. Those who
are trying to do so from any other standpoint are missing
the mark. They may be honest and they may be good, sincere
people, living what the world calls a pure Christian life,
but they are not going to get the fruits of Jesus' words
unless they comply with the requirements.

"There's no getting blood out of a turnip" is a trite
saying. Neither can you get Spirit and life out of matter
and death. Unless you perceive that there is something more
in the doctrine of Jesus than keeping

//page 94

up a worldly moral standard as preparation for salvation
after death, you will fall far short of being a real
Christian.

Jesus did not depreciate moral living; neither did He
promise that it would fulfill the law of God. Very negative
persons are frequently trustworthy and moral. But that does
not make them Christians after the Jesus Christ plan.
Jesus' Christianity had a living God in it, a God that
lived in Him and spoke through Him. It was a religion of
fire and water, of life as well as purity. Men are to be
alive: not merely exist in a half-dead way for a few years
and then go out with a splutter like a ta