Chapter 2

Thought is the beginning of every constructive process, and things are the ends of the same. Humanity was a thought before we became thinkers. The material universe was a thought in the Mind of God before it became a thing of perfect mechanical adjustment.

In the span between thought and thing rises a constructive process called growth. Growth is a process by which the Creative Impulse in all life moves forever upward to full expression. As life grows, it meets material obstacles, whose tendency is to retard and crystallize movement into certain definite forms, which is the law known as conformity to type.

The life energies refuse to be bound by these fixed types of expression, and are constantly finding new variations of expression that produce new species. Botanists have produced the thornless cactus and other varieties by taking advantage of this law. The same principle is effective in producing better varieties of the human plant.

The introduction of some new qualities in a given type of life has caused every movement up from savagery to civilization. Those movements are mostly by chance in plant life, but they are largely by choice in human improvement. The natural energies can furnish life, but the body’s growth, strength and beauty will depend largely upon an intelligent choice of diet, exercise, rest and climate.

The growing life in us can furnish us with an embryonic mind. Yet our choice of thought material, our application of mind in solving the problems of truth determines whether we remain a mental child, or gradually put away childish things and think as an adult. The savage is concerned primarily with food, clothing, and reproduction, all of which are elements of the law of self preservation. A culture can develop the arts and sciences only after it passes this stage of growth. As we move from egoism as life’s supreme motive to altruism, our regard for others’ welfare develops such spiritual qualities as love, sympathy, hope, and faith.

The altruistic spirit leads to the discovery of those principles of cooperation and of compensation from which the Kingdom of Heaven or harmony develops. When love begins to reach these higher forms of expression, the impulses that started in the Divine Mind, before the material creation was begun, bear fruit. The life of God in nature moves forward in blind obedience to its laws of unfoldment, but God endowed the life in us with the power of intelligent choice. These distinctions reveal something of the Divine Purpose in us.

As nature is the organism through which we understand the qualities of the Absolute Being, we are the instruments that will make known the character of the Absolute Reality. In nature is passive obedience to the law of life, in humanity, active cooperation in applying those laws to higher ends. What nature adjusts by unconscious obedience to life impulse and vast periods, we must adjust by intelligent choice in a short period.

When the psalmist asked, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him," he answered his own question by saying "Thou hast made him a little less than God, and crowned him with glory and honor." In that moment he had a vision of humanity made in the image of God, partaker of His nature. The psalmist understood that God had given us the honor of working with Him to bring our individual lives to their highest possible expression. It is our province to discover the laws of nature, and to find new variations in applying them to reach an ever higher mastery over them.

The primitive mind, discovering that wood is lighter than water, used wood to build ships. Studying the law of displacement and other variations of the law of flotation, we began to make iron float, although it was heavier than water. Knowing nothing of the law of construction, primitive proto-humans dwelt in a cave or in the branches of trees. Yet we, finding new methods of applying such laws as gravity, cohesion, and resistance, dwell in palaces.

Everything that belongs to life begins in thought and ends in things. Thought arises from the state of consciousness, and the mind cannot go beyond the state of Absolute Consciousness, nor does it need to. The ideas of life, love, goodness, order, harmony, and beauty that arise in the Absolute Consciousness, move outward to create an environment and an instrument through which to find expression.

All that we know as the world of relative reality was a state of consciousness in the Absolute Mind before it became a thing. Therefore we, being made in the image of God and partaking of His nature, follow the same law and order of expression. All of our wonderful achievements were thoughts before they were things. The artist’s landscape is a state of consciousness, whose lines of perspective and harmony he clearly perceived from within before he objectively expressed them. Music is not in the organ, but in the soul of the player. All of our wonderful works are ideas growing from our state of consciousness.

Everything that happens in our complex life, which results into a tangible effect, was first a state of consciousness, and this rule applies to our material condition, mental states, and character. The human body was an idea in the Divine Mind before it became a temple for God’s indwelling.

The mind is not a function of our body as some materialists suggest. The mind is our real soul’s faculty, whose instrument the body is, who built the body, repairs it and maintains it.

Our subconscious builder within has never forgotten the ideal with which it started from the Mind of God. Yet the influence of our experiences in building bodies during our various progressive enfoldments has influenced, dimmed, and often changed that ideal pattern. While it faithfully reproduces some memories as fragmentary parts, which have no known functional duty in the body, the great Divine Ideal has driven it forward, constantly finding new variations of form and function and embodying them in the building called the Temple of the Spirit.

The subconscious builder, which we call the subsoul, follows largely the plan of the past until birth, although it is true that the mother’s state of consciousness has much to do in determining many new variations and betterments from the original type. Yet the subconscious tendency is to conform strictly to type and reproduce it faithfully.

At birth, a new activity of the mind, called objective consciousness, begins to develop, a mental functioning by which the self can act upon the objective world and be affected through the channels of the six senses. This development of the consciousness brings powers of perception, reflection, reproduction and classification of experiences and of their values. New elements enter the materials for the body: Soul perfects new plans for body building, creates ideals of consciousness for living, and introduces new ideals of efficiency to enhance the health, utility and durability of the Temple of the Spirit.

In this twofold mental activity of consciousness called conscious and subconscious, the relative function is that of both architect and builder. The conscious mental life’s function is to form ideals, to discover the laws of construction, to find new variations in their application, to discover new materials, to detect their food values, chemical affinities, mechanical preparation, and to gauge their proper proportions. The subconscious function is to carry these through the various mechanical and chemical changes incident to digestion and assimilation, to make them into blood and to feed the cells individually and the body as a whole.

The architect’s plan must include not only the foundation, which determine largely the building’s form and capacity, but also the character of the material entering it. The architect must carefully work out every detail, or it is left to the builder’s chance whim. Just as the material in a house determines its appearance, utility, durability, and general value, so does the material used as food for body building determine the texture and quality of the flesh and the beauty, strength and endurance of the body.

The conscious architect must furnish the subconscious builder with the right amount and proper combination of food compounds to insure the health of the cells, and renew their energy. The conscious architect must give the ratio of food compounds (fats, protein and carbohydrates) proven to furnish a safe basis for health. Likewise the architect must give the builder the right amount of food, whose known energy will replace that used in functional activity, and the ceaseless demands of our daily work. This calls for about twenty-five hundred calories or units of food energy for one of sedentary habits, and thirty-five hundred or more calories for one doing manual labor.

No "accident," but an overuse of sweets overloads the body with heat energy and covers the skin with acne or rashes. It is not an "obsession of the devil" when one eats twenty or thirty percent of his food allowance in proteins (meats, etc.), and finds his liver and kidneys diseased, his body filled with rheumatic twinges. It is not a mysterious "dispensation of providence" that one who fills his body with fats, finds his body cushioned with layers of useless, disfiguring blubber.

It is not an "error of mortal mind" when we take in 1500 calories of food energy and use up 2500, and thus deplete the body energies, weaken its resistive powers, destructive processes get a foothold, and make headway. These are all legitimate results of a lack of intelligent thought application growing from a state of consciousness that is out of harmony with the consciousness of the Absolute, and so their building ideals and processes do not obey His Laws of Expression.

We can trust the fidelity of the body’s subconscious builder and of character more intelligently when we study the results produced in nature by the great principle of mimicry. Innumerable illustrations are apparent, such as the polar bear, which is white to correspond to its surroundings, the arctic fox, which is white in winter and brown in summer, adjusting to the change in seasons, the striped tiger, which adjusts to the jungle shadows. Countless insects, animals and birds have the power of assuming the form and color of the leaves, bark, and other objects of their natural environments.

Two people, by constant association and similarity of ideals and interests, will become so much alike that one does not see one of them without thinking of the other. A curious example of this principle of mimicry is found in Jacob determining the color of the next season’s calves by the color of the rods placed before the eyes of the cattle at the water troughs. Confidence in this power of mimicry to influence the constructive processes in body and character building has caused thousands of prospective mothers to surround themselves with objects of beauty, fill their minds with beautiful thoughts, listen to exquisite music, and kindred visioning toward high ideals with the very purpose of endowing the unborn child with gifts and graces that he might not otherwise have. We carry the same principle into the highest realm of spiritual activities, where we sum the entire process up in clearly perceiving the Divine One, and being unconsciously assimilated into His Likeness.

We may firmly hold and steadily insist upon any ideal for the body or mind or the spiritual life until it becomes a material reality. We must first attain the state of conscious oneness with the Absolute Life. Let us accept fully and without question, the corollary that whatever belongs to the Divine Nature is inherently in us, ready to move up to full expression just when we attain full Divine Consciousness. We cannot think of God as being sick, neither should we think that God in us is sick, but inversely, God is perfect health, therefore God in me is perfect health. God is perfect love, not fear, therefore God in me is perfect love that casts out fear. God is perfect peace. Therefore, God in me is perfect peace, relieving me of all worry and anxious care. God is absolute abundance, in whom is no lack, therefore God is abundance in me. These are ideals to hold, steadily insist upon, think about as if they were now realities. Declare them with all certainty, and slowly and surely the laws of growth will make them take expression in us.

Practice daily one or more times, relaxing, slowly repeating this thought: "I behold myself as one in the mind and heart and purposes of the Absolute. God’s Divine Life Energies are steadily building up in me the Divine Ideal of a perfect physical body, a perfectly poised mind, and a spirit filled with love, making me whole and complete."

The Master said, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Truth is the power to emancipate the sons of men from every form of material bondage. Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and life." In Scripture it is said, "He sent His word and healed them." Emancipation through the truth is a cardinal teaching that applies not only to spiritual states, but to physical conditions as well.

We immediately ask, "What is the truth that holds so great a power?" We must find the answer in the Master’s own statement, "the Father and I are One." "The words that I speak are His." "The Father in me does the works." This "truth as it was in Jesus," offered to humanity, is the beginning from which all the privileges of the sons of God proceed.

Every field of research suggests the unity of all life. We naturally ask, "What is the difference in the life of the vegetable, the animal, and human kinds?" The life in them seems to manifest in the same general way, grows to maturity, fruits, and declines. They bear the same marks of cell life and growth. The same food compounds, proteins, fats and carbohydrates feed them. We discover the difference in the simple fact that any given life form’s ability to obey the laws of life is the measure of its volume, experience and expression of life. The clod can obey the one law of inertia, and it has rest. God endows all living things with three powers.

First is the power of nutrition, the ability to respond to stimulus, and the power of reproduction. These three endowments vary. A plant obeys the three and little more. A worm adds motion to its expression. Birds obey still other laws and add flight, song, vision, hearing, maternal instinct, nest building, migration and other experiences. The rule arises into sight that the more complex the organism and so the greater number of laws of life expression it can obey, the richer and fuller its experience and expression of life will be. Humanity is the most complex of all organisms, and we can obey more laws of life expression than all other forms. So we rise into those experiences of life about which the lower forms know nothing, or only in the most elementary way.

If we should ask, "How much better is a man than a sheep?" We find the answer here, through our superior equipment for obeying the laws of life expression. Then we rise into the dignity of personality, which is the fixed form of being, embracing within itself the independent power to know, to feel, to choose, and to know itself as a rational being, and to realize character from this functioning. The sheep, having no such complex equipment, is unable to rise to personality, and therefore to permanence of individual expression of life. When a sheep dies, its life drops back into the great volume of cosmic life, while we at death carry our personality intact as a spiritual being with all capabilities of activity and unfoldment.

We find the thought of unity in the world of physics, the truth that every material form is reducible to molecules, then to atoms, to electrons, to particles. Beyond this, matter is reducible to such ethereally fine substance as to be more akin to Spirit than matter. In the world of chemistry all material forms are reducible to some ninety-two simple elements whose various combinations give us all the varieties of material forms of expression. These simple elements are apparently no longer reducible, and to account for them we hypothesize that they have come about through some process of condensation of an ultimate ethereal substance, the stuff from which God has made all things. We are prepared, therefore, for John’s statement (Greek text), "That which hath been made was life in Him," and for Paul’s statement that "the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

No matter in what direction we seek life’s origins, we eventually see that all life proceeds from a common Source, is endowed with the same nature, and can develop all the attributes of the Universal Life. Every individual expression of this life is an inseparable part of the whole, just as the bay is a part of the ocean, filled with its volume, its living forms, its heartbeat, whose value is measured by the amount of the ocean’s volume that it can contain. While the life that is in us is the life of God, yet we can express only in a limited way all that belongs to the life of God. We can no more contain and express the full volume of the Infinite than a gallon bucket can contain the ocean. Great as is the dignity of a human soul, its partaking of the divine nature and image of God, no soul, nor the synthesis of all living souls can express all of the Absolute. God is more than the sum of His parts.

Being individual expressions of the Life of God, and having in us potentially all the qualities of the Divine Life and character is one thing, but to become conscious of that is another thing. Every person is a child of God when he or she comes into the world. He is a Son of God. She is one with the Life is of God. Yet our soul’s supreme necessity is to become conscious of the fact of our relationship to God, to realize our oneness with the Father, to know that we dwell in God and God in us.

The Master called this rising into consciousness being "born from above." Paul called it the mystery hidden from ages, but now made known to us through the Apostles and Prophets, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Religions have called this act of entering into conscious relationship with God, by various names in the church’s history, and defined it in various dogmatic statements.

The purpose of all religious ministries in sacraments and teaching and prayer, is to bring humanity to conscious unity with God, then to develop that consciousness to the form of perfection that it reached in the Master’s life. Scripture calls it the Christing, or Anointing, which a progressive development follows, first as a babe, then as a child, then as an adult in full stature, and finally to that stage of conscious oneness where one can say "I live and yet not I live, but Christ lives in me." Living this Christ life, we are ever aware that while we work out our salvation, it is God that "works in him, both to will and to do."

The thought of God’s Immanence in human life tends to draw our attention from the other truth of the Absolute Life, which is the Transcendence of God. We have lived centuries under the dogma and almost exclusive emphasis on the Transcendent thought of God, forfeiting the more immediate and effective thought of the Immanence. Modern thought tends to forget that "God is over all, through all, and in all." The two ideas are essential to a correct understanding of what God is and may be to us.

The pressure of the air from without exactly balances the pressure from within. We must remember the life of God outside us and keep it clearly in mind when we think of God dwelling in us. The outward movements of the Divine Life, which we call Providence, will be unavailable unless the movements of the Divine Life within us respond and cooperate with that Providence. Thus we may practically apply the truth of unity with God, which will make us free from the dominion of material things.

As we accept the truth of the oneness of our lives with Him, we pass from the consciousness of death into the assurance of life in Him, which carries with it the logical sequence that we have passed into all that His life means. God is Perfect Being, in whom is no sickness nor weakness nor worry nor fear. He is perfect health in us, perfect peace in us, perfect love in us. These are potential facts that become operative realities in our experience as the transcendent God outside us multiplies these divine qualities in us, who works in us both to will and to do. We multiply the truth in us though prayer, meditation upon the truth, and other spiritual exercises.

Faith in the Father sets into motion unlimited energies, which an intelligent will, in harmony with His will, directs to produce any state or condition that we may desire. For it is a specific promise that "You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done." The unity of life involves the fact that every experience of life, every function of mind and body, is a part of a Divine Life. As Paul said, "Whether we or drink or sleep or work or play, do all to the Glory God." To get the full benefit of this truth, we must accept the fact that oneness with the Father involves obedience to His laws of expression. In other words, doing His will in our business life, our social obligations, our family and personal relationships, and in the proper care of our bodies, the diversion of our minds as essential factors in a great spiritual ideal.

We sum this up in the words: My life is part of His Life as my finger is part of my hand. Because of my oneness with Him, His Love is ever expressing itself in my mind and spirit, keeping me in perfect mental poise. His Health is ever expressing itself in my body making me perfectly well and my body whole. His Abundance is ever expressing itself in me so that I have all that I can wisely use. He works in me, exceeding abundantly above all that I ask or think.

In dealing with every vital question of living, such as health, happiness and hope, we naturally turn for authority and sanction to the great Master Healer. No movement, cult, fad or organization of any kind can find so great excuse or honor for itself as to claim that he was its charter member. Such was his cosmopolitan character that institutions nearly always find some word or act of his by which to justify such a claim.

We must never lose sight of the thought that Almighty God, the Infinite Spirit is the ultimate Source and final authority on all things concerning life, health and salvation. Not for a moment is the healer or patient allowed to forget that no matter what may be used, back of these stand the changeless fact, "I am the Lord who heals thee." Exodus 15:26.

When the Master, Jesus of Nazareth, began his public ministry of showing men the Kingdom of Heaven and inducting them into its experiences, he announced that his mission was to minister to humanity’s physical miseries, as well as to preach. Luke 4:18.

He claimed to heal "with the finger of God" and "by the Spirit of God." Luke 11:20.

He clearly stated that the works he did and the words he spoke were not his, but the Father’s, and that the Father in him did the works. John 14:10.

Basing his work on this conscious oneness with the Father, he undertook and "healed all manner of sickness and disease." Matthew 9:35.

Since he used different methods with different people, and under varying circumstances, a study of his methods is illuminating.

Jesus asked questions of the people he healed. He took a blind man apart from the crowd, and after he had spit on his eyes and touched them, asked him if he saw. When he saw only dimly, he placed his hand on his eyes the second time and he saw clearly. Mark 8:23, 25. His question sought to learn just what the treatment’s effect was, and if he needed further attention.

With the demoniac child, he heard all the symptoms and asked how long he had thus suffered. Mark 9:16, 23. In this instance, he discovered the severity and duration of the case.

For the man possessed with a devil, he asked his name. Luke 8:30. By this question he learned the seriousness of the split in the stream of his patient’s consciousness.

In various recorded cases he asked the patient what he desired or expected him to do for him. Luke 18:40; Mark 10:51. These questions took on the nature of a diagnosis and furnished the ground for an intelligent prognosis and treatment.

Jesus prescribed in various ways for those whom he healed. In cases that suggested undernourishment, he ordered food for the patient. Mark 5:43; Luke 9:55.

Jesus required or assumed faith of those whom he healed. He said to the father of the epileptic, "If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Mark 9:2.

He said to the blind man of Jericho, "Receive thy sight, thy faith hath made thee whole." Luke 18.42. He had first asked him what he should do for him to call out his faith.

To "the woman with an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse," he said "Thy faith hath saved thee."

Four friends brought the palsied man and let him down through the roof. Mark records that when he saw their faith, he said to the palsied, "Thy sins are forgiven thee . . . take up thy bed and walk." Mark 2:5, 11.

He told the Syro-Phoenician woman that her daughter was healed because the mother had faith that she could be, and willed that she should be. Matthew 15:25.

These are a few of many recorded cases in which Jesus emphasized faith as essential to the cure. Not that faith in itself was the healing power, but it aroused and set in motion the spiritual energies, which alone can heal. Sometimes it was the patient’s faith, in others it was the faith of parents or friends, or the congregation’s faith. In some places he could do no mighty works because the people had no faith.

Jesus used material means in some cases. He spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the blind man’s eyes and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. He did, and came back seeing. John 9:6, 7. Whether the clay or spittle had any specific virtue, they were a powerful suggestion to his faith. By the time he got the sticky ointment scrubbed off his eyes, it renewed circulation and nerve action.

He took Simon’s mother-in-law by the hand and lifted her up. Mark 1:31. He touched the leper. Mark 1:41. He put his fingers in the deaf man’s ears, opened them, and touched his dumb tongue. Mark 7:53. He touched the blind man’s eyes. Matthew 20:32-4. He cured a surgical case by touching the wound. Luke 23:51.

In these typical cases he not only sought information and aroused faith, but he touched and used ointment on the seat of the trouble. Whether his material means had some virtue in them, or his hand some magnetism or vibration, or served to center their attention on the spot for healing, or were merely aids to arousing their confidence and cooperation, each must judge for himself.

Jesus healed by the laying on of hands. He laid hands on Jairus’ daughter and raised her from the dead. Mark 5:23. He laid hands on the sick and healed them. Mark 6:5. He laid hands on the crooked woman and healed her. Luke 13:3. They brought to him all who were afflicted with divers diseases and "he laid hands on every one of them, and healed them." Luke 4:10.

He gave the Apostles and their successors the authority to heal. He plainly stated that they should do the work that he did and even greater works should they do. John 15:12. He specified the scope of their healing work. He gave them "power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manners of disease." "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the read, cast out devils." Matthew 10:1, 8.

Some methods he taught them are made clear in their practice. They laid hands on the sick. Mark 16:18. They anointed with oil and healed the sick. Mark 6:13. They looked the patient in the eye and had him look them in the eye, and commanded in the name of the Lord to be well. Acts 3:2.

They learned these methods from the Master. He clearly taught that forgiveness of sins and body healing goes together and is inseparable. Mark 2:5, 11.

He gave them the same Spirit of Power to forgive sins and diseases that he had. "Receive ye the Holy Spirit whose so ever sins ye remit, they are remitted; and whose so ever sins ye retain, they are retained." John 20:23.

Forgiveness of sin and healing went hand in hand. If they had spiritual perception to see people’s sins dissolved in his mighty Love, they also had the vision power to behold the spiritual health and command it to clothe the body. If they had power to do one, they had power to do the other. The fact that they could heal disease was the final test of their authority to forgive sins in the name of Christ. If they couldn’t do one, it was a sign that they could not do the other.

The Apostles and believers accepted the full commission. The sacred record tells that they healed sickness, forgave sins, cast out devils and exercised power over life and death.

Peter healed Aeneas of palsy. Acts 9:33. He raised Dorcas from the dead. Acts 9:40. At his word, death fell on Ananias and Sapphira. Acts 5:1, 11. Even the shadow of Peter fell on people and healed them. Acts 5:15. He and John healed a lame man at the beautiful gate. Acts 3:2, 11.

Ananias restored sight to Saul of Tarsus by laying and of hands. Acts 9:17, 18. James healed by anointing of oil and laying on of hands. James 5:14.

Paul healed a girl of a malicious spirit of divination. Acts 16:18. He brought to life a young man killed by a fall. Acts 20:9, 10. He healed Epaphroditus by prayer. Philippians 2:26. Elymas the sorcerer was stricken with blindness at his word. Handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched his body were carried to the sick a d they were healed thereby. Acts 19:12.

Documents of record by the great post-Apostolic leaders tell of the Church’s therapeutic triumphs. Tertullian (A.D. 197) devotes two chapters of his great "Apology" (Defense of the Christian Religion) to the Roman Emperor, to a discussion of the evil powers, telling how they inflict on the body disease and many grievous mishaps, and how they were healed through Christian believers.

Justin, Martyr (A.D. 138-150) gives the formula used by the Christian healers of his day. "Many of our Christian people have healed a large number of demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your own city (Rome), exorcizing them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate: yet all other exorcists, magicians and dealers in drugs failed to heal such people." (Part of his letter to the Roman Emperor.)

Cyprian, Origen, Athanasius, Augustine of Hippo, and other great Bishops and leaders of the first three centuries give the formulas of healing: "In the name of the Lord." "In the name of Jesus Christ," and testify to the things done in the name of Christ of which they were eye witnesses.

This is the briefest possible sketch of the Master’s healing work and that of his disciples for three centuries. Certain things are evident:

(1) A fundamental and changeless principle every time is that the ultimate healing Power is Spiritual and Divine.

(2) Every formula and method is secondary to this ultimate Spiritual Power.

(3) The application of the healing Power to different cases called on a variety of methods.

(4) The ever present influence of moral and mental states is recognized, showing a reciprocal relation between sin and disease. The healing of the disease followed naturally the spiritual uplift to mind and emotions, caused by restoring the patient to harmony with God.

(5) The Master, his disciples and their successors practiced such exercises as fasting, prayer, spiritual communion in quiet places, and these enabled them to maintain conscious oneness with the Father, giving them poise of spirit, peace of mind and a resistless authority over disease.

(6) The outgoing of some subtle energy was evident in the touch of the Master and his disciples. "I perceive that Power is gone out of me." "Come ye apart into a desert place (into the mountain, across the sea), and rest awhile." These all suggest that in the physical touch and in the impact of one personality upon another, a Power moves from the healer that tends to deplete his vital energies.

(7) They healed some cases at a distance. Sometimes the patient received more than one treatment. In the parable of the healed demoniac, he suffered a relapse because he did not fill his mind and heart with right thoughts and his hands with useful service.

From this analysis of the Master’s healing works we may conclude: First, there are no limitations as to the kind of diseases we may treat and cure by the Power of spiritual energies. Second, we need to have a clear grasp of the changeless principles of health and well being, which are spiritual, absolute and impartial, working the moment we meet their conditions. Third, we must have methods adaptable to the variations in the patients’ personalities and the different manifestations of the disease. Finally, we must apply the remedy with a clear view as to the cause of the problem and the source of the cure.

Healing appears among the enumerated gifts of the Spirit. The only one of these gifts that is universal is the gift of tongues. The church has never suffered from the lack of this gift, but rather from the wrong use of it.

Everyone has in him or her the power to soothe and help and heal someone. This power is more marked in some than in others. Their very presence is soothing. They seem to exhale cheerfulness. Their faces shine from a state of inner radiance and serenity. Their words vibrate with hope and optimism, and their touch seems magnetic with healing virtues. These are mainly natural endowments and we say such a person has the "gift of healing."

Whether the gift is great or small, we must heed the injunction to "stir up the gift that is in thee." The failure of most people is not the meagerness of their endowment, but the lack of diligence in using what they have to the best advantage always. The world’s need waits for the one-talent person as surely as for the ten-talent one. The ungifted plodder arrives with results while the genius is admiring himself or his meteoric pathway. Take your gift, be it great or small, and offer it to God in the service of humanity, and you will be in line to hear the words, "Come, ye blessed."

First, the healer must know himself or herself. The ancient oracle said, "Know thyself," and the Bible says, "Know the Lord." The two are inclusive. We must know our self if we would know the Lord, for a good person is the latest information concerning God. We must know God before we can fully know our self, for it is only when we know the character, the motive and the purpose of the Absolute Being that we can fully grasp the purpose of our own life and destiny, and lend our self to the unfolding of that purpose.

We must see God as the Being of Absolute Life, love, beauty, power, health, and all that we can think life to mean. We must understand that the supreme motive for creation is that of finding expression for these qualities, which God knows Himself to be, and that the only way He can do it is to bring Himself from the general into the particular. In this process of expression, God finds His highest results in humanity, which is capable of intelligent cooperation with Him.

To be healers we must, therefore, see our self as the embodiment of the Universal Principles of Being, and must develop the consciousness of these principles until it is always present to us as a fact, without having to think about it, or declare it. Only this truth, clearly apprehended, will enable us to say "take up thy bed and walk," or "arise and go in peace, thy faith hath saved thee."

We develop this consciousness by prayer, by fasting, by meditation, in the silence, until we learn to contact the Absolute steadily. When we first begin, we are apt to ask, "What can I do?" Yet as we constantly use these means and answer every call for service, we will come to the place where we will ask, "What can’t I do?" The cultivation of God Consciousness can alone give us the sense of authority over disease and sickness, and all kinds of devils. Only this vital sense of Oneness in nature, spirit, and purpose with God can give us ground for faith that we can.

Only the realization that it is "the Father in me that does the works" can give us clear vision of the Source of Power, and clear understanding how we can achieve such marvelous results from causes that at first sight seem so inadequate. For to know God as He was known by Jesus Christ, whom He sent, brings us to see that the real powers are spiritual, the Source of power is not found in nor measured by material forms and standards, and the supply is spiritual and limitless.

As healers, we must learn that the growth in power is rather a growth in our capacity to express, than an increase in the volume of power itself. That never increases or diminishes. Our power and capacity to express ought to be ever increasing.

Here the Law of Growth waits on the application of three principles inherent in all growing things – Nutrition, Sensitivity and Reproduction. There can be no growth without food. We must feed daily on the bread of God, the truth found in the Bible, in nature, in all good books, and the experiences of good people. We cannot grow without the power to respond to stimuli from outside and from within. We must cultivate sensitiveness to every intimation of the Divine Spirit. Only this can enable us to say, "This day is salvation come to thy house," or "in three days," or "go wash," or whatever the Spirit "who knows all things" will tell us if we learn to hear and understand. This will bring a steady increase of power that will enable us to undertake still more difficult things and know that they shall be done.

As healers, we must believe not only in God, but must believe in our self as God’s agent, otherwise we cannot inspire the faith of others, and without which our work will be very limited.

We can learn by studying the Apostles’ examples. They received the commission to "heal the sick." They went and did so because they believed they could. They believed it because they had seen him do so, and had learned his methods. They had caught his spirit of going about it as the Father’s work, and learned his secret of power in constant communion with him. They had seen it done, they had his command with its implied promise, they went and tried it and it worked. As their perception of the Almighty Source grew through prayer, fasting and the exercise of their faith, they came at last to receive "all power in heaven and earth."

We must approach our task understandingly. We are dealing with beings made in the image of God. They are people with "like passions as Himself." The reason for their being here is the same as our own. They are here to achieve and express godlikeness, which their task and ours. We are to help them but not do it for them. We are not to call in upon them some external power to do it for them, but to call out some inherent power within them that will actually make them do it themselves by the power working within them.

Nothing can so impoverish a person as to give him something that he does not feel he has earned. As healers, we must not pauperize a person.

We must know, and make the person in need know that God in him is going to do the work, just as soon as he cooperates with God. We must lead him to see that the essential, dynamic capacity that dwells in him by virtue of his being the child of the Most High, whose nature and likeness he bears. We must lead him to know and keep the laws of his own being, which leads to health and wholeness.

In this way he will be healed, know how he has been healed, and how to keep well. He will not be constantly returning for further help, but will know how to go direct to "headquarters." A person who is permanently attached to a healer is but one degree removed from being permanently attached to a bottle of pills. As a healer, we have failed unless we have started the person in the method and habit of going directly to the Source of all healing potencies, without relying upon any material or human intermediary.

The healer must discover some motive that makes the person’s recovery a worthy incentive. Many fail to recover their health because nothing appeals to them as worth the effort. The healer and the one in need may lose months of work because they have not discovered an adequate motive. Whatever the motive for recovery is — some place in the family, social, or business life, some service to humanity — it must be greater than his state before he became sick. The more altruistic this motive is, the greater will be its power.

Allow the one who is in need to "tell it all," by going intimately into the details of his physical ills. Then forbid him to repeat it. Make a brief memorandum of his case so that he will not think you have forgotten what is the matter with him. Let him discuss every mental vagary, and note the distinctions between the things founded on fact and those that are fanciful. Discover the character of ideas that dominate him, whether he has any fixed ideas as to his own condition or the attitude of others or their acts. Discover whether he is open-minded to the truth, whether it is new or old.

A history of his educational advantages, his reading and thinking, and his present mental habits is valuable in determining his mental atmosphere. Find out his spiritual state, his early religious training, his present beliefs, and whether he is really getting anything from his religion or not. Wrong ideas of God, or of sin and forgiveness, or punishment, or fancied unforgivable sins, and a fixed form of faith, paralyze the power of initiative, more than anything else.

Occasionally it requires skill and a little time to drag forth the hidden trouble, but you can make no headway until it is done. Half the cases of illness from all causes and nearly all those of mental or spiritual origin begin to recover with a full confession of them to someone who has the wisdom to deal with them aright.

As a rule, the person’s tendency to want to talk about his symptoms characterizes those cases called "nervous" cases. Sometimes it takes him hours to get it all out of his system. Let him talk or write, whichever he may elect, but always with the proviso that he must not repeat it.

Most "nervous" people suffer from fatty enlargement of the Ego. They believe their case is different from all others, and delight in the fact that their doctor doesn’t know what is the matter with them. They will suggest that you don’t know either. If you don’t, they will easily discern that fact. If you hesitate, your case is lost.

Dealing with ultimate energies, you must have no questions. You must see the crooked arm straight, the blind eyes opened, the diseased flesh healed, and in fact you must clearly see always the essential health of the spiritual being in the person who is in need.

The healer must challenge the power of initiative in the subject. "I’ve tried everything and failed" is a common report, and "I have lost the power really to try again." Meet this with the fact that all success comes in cans, but the failure comes in can’ts. Discover what the patient can start and carry out; show him that the same initiative can and must be applied to his case.

You must show him that his thought of being unable to get well does more to keep him sick than anything that may be really the matter with him. You must show him that he can choose his thoughts and acts. You must show him the moral responsibility of continuing to be sick when by right thinking and acting he can as easily be well.

As a healer, your bearing must be optimistic, authoritative, cheerful and poised. You must be free from indecision or confusion in an unexpected situation. This can be true only when you know the fields that you are undertaking to cover.

You must know the human body thoroughly both in action and in repose. You must know the laws of diet and hygiene. You must know the centers for nerve stimulation both by mechanical and emotional means. You must know psychology in a very thorough and practical way, to recognize at a glance the secret of much of the trouble.

The healer must know how to direct the needy one’s thinking in a positive, constructive form of activity, according to the working of his spiritual nature. You must understand the effect of mental and emotional states on the body and the mind and how to alter them to suit each case. You may know much of this by intuition, but you must study, to prove yourself a worker who needs not to be ashamed, rightly divining the word of truth so that the resident spiritual energies, multiplied by conscious contact with God, may be set to work to produce health in the one in need.

As healers, we must have breadth and depth of mind. You must recognize both Absolute and relative reality, and must know that whatever power for healing available in either is of God. You must recognize that the energy in a grain of wheat is no more divine than that in the Cinchona tree bark. One person can renew his energy by using cod liver oil, while another can get it by going direct to the maker of the codfish. One person can find health by the anointing with oil and prayer or by prayer alone, while another will get better results if a healer lays hands on him, wisely and well.

The healer therefore cannot be a bigot. You must be glad to use any and all means to cooperate with all agencies "being all things to all men if thereby he may heal" them.

Work with the physician who is trained in anatomy, physiology, pathology, and in the use of material potencies. Join hands with the adjuster of the spine and manipulator of the flesh, for this is often useful and frequently indispensable. Be in hearty accord with the psychologist who knows how to apply the laws of the mind in healing a distempered mind. Be glad for the work of any who any means help to relieve the world’s ills, but never fail to keep forever uppermost in mind the fact that whatever system practiced or means used, the remains the changeless fact, "I am the Lord who heals thee."

"What wilt thou that I should do for thee?" The Master directed this and other questions to those who came seeking healing at his hands. His questions served to get the patient’s mind and talk away from his symptoms and sensations and down to his actual need.

Their answers showed whether their mind functioned properly, and its ability or otherwise to come to the real issue at once. Their answers gave the healer ground for an intelligent diagnosis, of the problem’s nature and gravity, the particular form of treatment to be administered, and to give a reasonable prognosis or forecast as to the progress of the cure.

The Master’s questions during his healing work were like a confessional, and constituted in fact a self-revelation, essential to his healing work, and for that matter indispensable in all rational healing procedure. It resolved itself into a sort of primitive psychoanalysis, without which healing becomes, usually, a mere chance, with the chances largely against success.

Nervousness, under its various designations, has become a national disease. We can usually trace the various functional and nervous disorders to wrong mental habits, to shock, to strain of long, continued application without proper diversion, to prenatal influences, to repressed impulses and other similar causes.

These all leave a deep impression on the subconscious mind, and eventually, under conditions favoring them, they rise into an expression whose strangeness of form makes them unrecognizable, whose origin we forget. They assume large proportion and power through the very mystery with which the subconscious clothes them. Fixed ideas attend many cases, illusions, hallucinations of the senses, phobias of various sorts, chief of which is the fear of "going crazy."

To search deeply into the mental and emotional life, to discover the cause, sweep away the mystery, to show a rational scheme of cause and effect, relieving the sufferer of the common delusion and heresy that the Almighty is punishing him, will usually result in an immediate mental readjustment and he will start on the way to Wellville. If we can give a reasonable explanation, then it is easy to make him face the facts and adjust his thinking to the facts instead of the vagaries that have held him a prisoner. The healer can challenge his faith and initiative to cooperate, and his recovery is certain. The following are brief but exact histories of some cases.

A woman of forty-plus was in a highly nervous state, weeping and terrified with the fear that she was "going crazy." She thought so because she had the idea of a knife in her mind almost continually, and at times could visualize it so that it seemed to hang in the air before her. Her physician had examined her and pronounced her in perfect physical health. She was keeping a good sized business going in the face of considerable odds, was getting more than the usual help from the conventional religious observance, was happily married and thought the world of her husband, who had been exceptionally considerate and kind to her. She lived a normal life with about the right amount of diversion. Still, there was that knife, and the constant fear that she would go crazy and kill her husband.

By questioning, we found that she had never seen anyone attacked with a knife, had never seen any movies, read any stories involving that mental picture, or never seen any animals butchered. Then we asked about operations. Yes she had a kidney removed, the gall bladder, the appendix and most of the pelvic organs, and finally, the tonsils. The same surgeon had done all the knife work. He apparently had been unaware that the subconscious is peculiarly susceptible to suggestion during the state of anesthesia. She remembered that in her last operation, two years earlier, as she passed from consciousness, she heard him say, "I have operated on this poor woman," etc. Questioning the nurse present at the operation brought out the fact that the surgeon had dwelt upon the severity and shock of the frequent use of the knife.

Here then was the hallucination’s real source, which became so vivid that she saw the knife in a handsome frame hanging on the wall. The deep impression of the many operations, the surgeon’s talk during the anesthetic, and frequent reference to her operations afterward, all taken together furnished the stuff from which the subconscious formed and projected the "knife" image into her consciousness. With the complete explanation of its origin, freeing her mind of the fear of insanity, the hallucination disappeared, and she returned to normal mental and emotional states.

It seems easy, but in fact required several interviews to get all the facts from which to construct a convincing hypothesis. The mind will hide the real cause of the trouble as skillfully as a burglar hides his loot, although the cause in itself has no grounds for self condemnation. To get the facts, we must often approach what we suspect by an indirect route. We must often eliminate every other possible factor, and then surprise the person into a confession.

One person could not swallow water, and often spent hours to eat even a small portion of food. A solid hour of questioning failed to discover any adequate cause for the trouble, which her doctors said was purely functional. We finally asked her if she had ever screamed. She said, "no." We asked, "Did you ever see anyone killed?" She said, "I saw a man jump from the twelfth story of the Call building." We asked, "Did you scream?"

She answered, "No; I wanted to, but could not, and hit the ground before he did." Later she was riding in a street car and was in a wreck in which she wanted to scream again, but was knocked senseless before she could get it out. Very soon after this, she began to have difficulty in swallowing.

Her emotions had inhibited the reflexes in her throat, and she was suffering from repression of her natural impulse to scream. We gave her detailed instruction about how the mind automatically begins to readjust itself when the mystery is swept aside, and that nothing was the matter except the shadow of a suppressed emotion, which had long since passed. We gave her a glass of water, saying that she could swallow noprmal. This she did and began to eat and enjoy her food.

Some cases successfully hide the cause of the trouble, and we resort to the use of a blood pressure instrument to get a clue. Nothing will so surely affect the blood pressure as the person’s mental and emotional life. The fear family steadily lowers the pressure while the anger family sends it upward.

The nervous system controls the three great factors in maintaining a normal blood pressure, the medium through which the mental and emotional energies act upon the body. Any serious disturbance of the emotional life will register through the sympathetic system upon the heart and other organs, and its effect will alter the blood pressure. Thus the blood pressure cuff may reveal one’s past emotional habits and we may decide a correct future direction of their activities.

One woman had a blood pressure of 60, a pulse of 44, and a speaking rate of about ten words per minute. Her bodily machine had about reached the stopping place. The physician’s verdict was that no organic trouble was present. We found the cause of such a destructive emotional habit, then redirected her emotional life, leaving out all sedatives and putting in all the strong, positive, arousing truths. This course resulted in two months in a blood pressure of 90 with a pulse of 66, and a speaking rate of twenty-five words per minute.

A man had a blood pressure of 250, a pulse of 120, and an incredible speaking rate, also serious disturbance of the heart action. A history of his emotional life revealed the cause. We put him on a course of reading and study that laid emphasis on the emotional sedatives and in three months’ time his pressure was down to 160, his pulse to 88, and his talking rate about normal, also a normal heart action.

Often a patient will be unwilling to accept the stigma of a "worrier." Then it becomes necessary to show him. A banker, troubled by frequent urination, declared that he didn’t worry, and even an analysis of his daily life failed to convince him. We had him bring a sample of urine, and analyzed it in his presence, telling what result to expect from the analysis in case he had been worrying. The presence of a heavy cloud of phosphates convinced him, and he consented to a month’s camping trip, out of touch with all business, at the end of which his trouble had disappeared.

You may often use word association to find out what ideas have most profoundly influenced the person. You read a list of words and time the person’s response with whatever idea the word arouses in him. If he responds within from three-fifths of a second to a second and a half, the idea suggested by the word has made no deep impression on his emotional life. Yet if it runs into two or more seconds, then you may be sure that it has deeply impressed his emotional life.

Even innocent name-calling can strike a "solar plexus" blow. In such cases, an analysis of the facts show that the person detests such an epithet. The word "trouble" brought a parson to a mental standstill. He had been a great student of the problem of evil as set forth by the book of Job, as well as by his own share of it.

A man of strong personality answered promptly every test word but two. The words "system" and "wreck" stopped him mentally. He was in a responsible position where system was an essential factor and where "wrecks" gave him great concern. He was the traffic manager of a large street railway system. This, emotional acts and states do leave a record that may be read and that profoundly affect the person’s well-being.

We can apply scientific method to the work of spiritual healing in many ways. Yet the spiritual healer, to succeed, must "study to show himself approved unto God a worker who needs not to be ashamed," etc.

Healing is both a science and an art, and no one should undertake it without having first taken a thorough course of instruction in physiology, anatomy, and psychology with their special reference to health. Further, the healer must fully understand theodicy, which is the vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.

The above cases are all from that large category of ills classed as functional, but we do not mean to imply that these methods cure only that class of diseases. In fact, almost every disease will yield to spiritual agencies, either alone or with material means.

Most failures by any system of healing are due to ignorance of the disease’s real nature and its causes rather than to the efficacy of the remedy. This ignorance leads to the use of methods and remedies that do not fit the case. So we return to the Master’s wise method of asking, "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?"

We have been concerned with the questions of being, and with the methods of realizing within us the full significance of living and being. We have discovered that the supreme motive of all movement’ whether conscious or otherwise, is that of expression, and that motive itself is carried back into a state of consciousness where need is the supreme cry.

We have analyzed this need and found it to contain a worthwhile end, the means to reach that end, then the movement out to expression. Our actions, our words, our achievements, are all forms of a state of being coming into a form of material expression. The question of whether we have to "be in order to do" or to "do in order to be," is still open for argument.

The same Master who said, "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit," also said, "This do, and thou shalt live." We have been concerned in this teaching with the thought that we must hold the right ideas of life and be prompted by right motives in life before we can hope for our life to find perfect expression. Let us concern ourselves with some necessary things to do if we would express the truth that is within us.

The first of these exercises is concentration, which needs no definition, because everyone practices it consciously or otherwise. It consists in bringing to bear the combined spiritual, mental and physical energies within us, or available to us, upon any task. People unconsciously reach for the effects of concentration by purely physical means.

Comparatively few people can put their physical and mental energies into operation without starting the day with a cup of coffee or another liquid stimulant. Many brilliant lecturers and preachers use the first ten minutes in swinging arms, beating the pulpit and exercising the "voice" in a high key before their thoughts begin to flow smoothly.

A woman, physically unable to lift a hundred pounds, has, under the influence of danger to her children or other interests, so called out her latent physical energies as to be able to thrash a den of wildcats. These are familiar illustrations of how people call into action latent energies by physical, mental and even spiritual stimuli. They can exercise concentration, a purely mental activity, to call out every latent capacity without using any of these agencies.

The mind’s highest motive arises in spiritual ideals and values, which kindles the emotions that in turn call every mental and physical capacity into action. It follows that fixing the attention upon the Supreme Being will furnish the soul with unlimited available Power for whatever it may need. The supreme challenge to this attention is, "Look unto me and be ye saved."

"Be still and know that I am God." As one practices this supreme form of concentration, the sense of power arises within to speak and have it done, to command and have it stand fast, to have authority over disease pain, sickness, obsessions and every other ill. It is the condition upon which one may realize the statement, "All power is given me in heaven and in earth." For it amounts at last to opening the channels of one’s personality through which the Infinite projects and multiplies truth, life, health and prosperity.

A "simple" method of practicing concentration is to lay the hand upon the knee, palm upward, and very slowly close and open first the thumb, then every finger in succession, keeping the others perfectly fixed. Another method is to look steadily without winking for half a minute or more at some uninteresting object, like a button or small coin. Or fix the eye upon some distant object and bring all attention to that, so that you do not hear the sounds around him, so likewise with all the senses.

These are merely the first steps in concentration, whose higher activities are concerned with being able to see and work and live in that "path which no fowl knows, the vulture’s eye hath not seen it, the young lion had not trodden upon it nor the fierce lion passed it by." We do not apprehend it by instincts, but by concentrating the perceiving self’s vision upon that Being, whom alone the pure in heart can see, and "whom no man can see and live" after his former estate.

The practice of concentration leads past the habit of looking at things, to looking into them and looking through them, until we have a vision of the spiritual reality of which they are but an outward form. It enables us to see a perfectly well arm where the physical eye reports a palsied one. It enables us to see a spiritual body of perfect health where the physical senses are reporting pain and disease. As we develop concentration and can hold this perceiving power unwaveringly upon these spiritual realities, it calls into operation an initiative, constructive capacity that begins to build the body into the likeness and realization of what one sees.

The next step is called relaxation. It means to let down, take off all the tension of muscle and mind, to open the channels of receptivity. It is an exercise of being passive, poised and calm, which opens the channels so that Divine Power flows through us.

Metaphorically, relaxation is getting out of the Almighty’s way, the waiting attitude that says, "What wilt thou have me to do?" Relaxation is being ready for service or sacrifice, to smile when things go dead wrong, to be patient while providence seems slow, to be cheerful when the heart feels like lead. Relax and cease firing when the enemy surrenders, cease talking about the operation after you get home from the hospital. Stop blaming yourself for past failures. Cast fear and doubt and worry about the future out into the deep, along with other devils that torment you. Quit working when the task is finished, and let the chair hold you up.

Practice relaxation often, for Divine Power moves in when we are relaxed and moves out when we are contracted or concentrated. Find occasion often to take a deep breath, and then as you exhale, release the tension from every muscle.

When you lie down at night, shake out the muscles of the arms and legs, be sure that you perfectly relax the muscles of the body and neck, and let the bed hold you up. By similar exercises, let the mind relax by turning its attention to other things. Read or tell a good story. Do not take life so seriously.

Even the most exalted spiritual states must be relieved by taking refuge in the desert, the mountains, on the seaside or in a boat across the lake. Take time to give thanks, and above all, be patient if you are kept in a desert place until your "showing unto Israel."

People have wrought great achievements by boldness, aggressiveness and audacity, but others have accomplished equally great things by "standing still" and seeing the glory of God. Sometimes our very earnestness and anxiety to accomplish a task will defeat our purpose, because we do not give the operation of Divine Energies their proper place. It is well, therefore, to practice relaxation and receptivity before we go forth with concentrated effort.

The third step is accommodation, and its warrant is a paraphrase of the Master’s words, "Sufficient unto the task is the energy thereof." It means adjusting the outlay of energy to the task at hand.

It requires more energy and attention to make a cake than it does to bake a potato, and this simile points the way to the conservation of our energies. One person will program his day clearly before him, go through it calmly and accomplish everything with poise and effectiveness. Another will work at all the tasks at once, using an equal outlay of energy on each, and come worn out and cross to the close, if he ever reaches it.

Some people use up all of their vital energy in rehearsing and are unable to perform. A woman, engaged in litigation, rehearsed her troubles and vented her anger and bitterness in private, until she was unable to appear in court. She finally wore herself out and died without having a legal hearing.

This illustrates the necessity of husbanding one’s strength by the outlay of only as much energy as the case requires. We may do the ordinary duties of life with very little outlays of energy, especially if we eliminate anxiety, worry and hurry. Occasionally the task calls for all of our powers, and if we have used the principle of accommodation, we can respond. Nothing is quite as embarrassing as to be called upon to produce and be unable to do it, especially if we realize that our inability comes from a prodigal waste of energy.

Certain accessories are awaiting our use in attaining the highest efficiency of body, mind or spirit, and they are at the pleasure of whosoever will use them. The simple act of blessing and praising sets up a state of harmonious feeling in the soul, which is the forerunner to the realization of what we desire. Blessing and praising magnifies the good that we have in mind, all other good that may be our portion, and multiply the power to attract still greater good to us.

Blessing ourselves, our homes, our clothes, our environment, carries us a long way on the road to demonstration, because it sets in motion the creative energies to produce and attract. Blessing the mentality steadily quickens it into keenness and truer activity, deepens the understanding and increases our sense of the Spirit of Wisdom. The word of praise and blessing is a stimulant, arousing all the body’s activities and functions into new life. Nothing will harmonize the discordant conditions of mind, body and affairs quite so quickly as the habit of blessing.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His Holy Name" unlocks powerful energies and sets them to work in our consciousness to produce light, peace, health and joy. Following this law, five loaves and three fishes fed a multitude when multiplied by the Master’s blessing. Bless every dollar as it comes, bless it as it goes. Bless every idea you receive, and bless it when you give it out. Make blessing a habit of your life. It multiplies all that it touches.

Another valuable exercise is cheerfulness. A smiling face pays dividends every day. A cheerful spirit illuminates the face until it radiates blessing and hope to all around us. However, the face will not shine if we cloud the spirit within.

One cheerful spirit and glad countenance clears the atmosphere in the home, in business and in the social circle, and does good like a medicine. One nagging, faultfinding individual can chill like a fog. The book agent who sold large orders because his book contained facsimiles of Abraham Lincoln and other notables, found out that although he had misread the Latin words, cheerfulness had a market value.

If you have suspicions of your neighbor, criticism of your friends, or faultfinding of those near to you, do not let them get out. Forget them; see the good, the Divine, in yourself, and then see it in others. Gently but firmly turn negative conversation into other channels, and eventually that person will return to bless you. Enough good, enough joy, enough brightness exists in the world to occupy all one’s time and attention, without giving space to the other things.

Another exercise is to obey strictly the law of compensation. Do not give without providing in some way for the recipient to make compensation. Otherwise, you are merely contributing to his impoverished state. Do not receive without finding some way to compensate either to the giver or to another person.

If someone shows you a truth, pass it along, and more will be given you. If you have a talent, use every occasion to let it shine, rather than to keep it "hidden under a bushel." Obeying this law of compensation, you can have what you want when you want it, as long as you want it, and then pass it on. Yet be sure not to forget that last part.

Another valuable quality is that of confidence, first in God, who is the Source of all that belongs to life and being. Second, in yourself for being one with Him in nature, life and purpose. Third, in your fellows as children of the same Father. Fourth, in the things of life and the energies operating through them, because they are the movements of a Providence that is at once wise and just and good.

You can walk in consciousness and calm confidence along the pathway of expression, illumined by past experience, and by the future’s well-grounded hopes. This is the way of realization for health of body, peace of mind, harmony of spirit and abundance of possessions.

God is all that there is, and humanity is the embodiment of the Universal Principles of Being. The healing process will await an arising of consciousness into this fact. Many devices may give temporary relief. However, this alone will make us well and whole, and make us to walk filled with the untouchable health of God.

We must accept the truth that every outward condition is the expression of an inward state. Every spiritual state within has a material counterpart in the outside material world. If this inner state is one of harmony, it will move toward material harmony. In answer to its Creative Impulse, health will rise into expression instead of disease, plenty will crowd out poverty, peace will hold the outward mind in its calm, and the whole material environment will feel its soothing touch. Love will make an end to all fear, and the kingdom of heaven within will create an outer material expression of itself.

We must realize that we are not playing tricks on ourselves, but just using the Laws of Divine Being as they have waited all the ages to be used. We must know that with our objective mind we touch the material world while with our subjective mind we touch the spiritual world. When we know and obey the laws of our mind, all the energies of Divine Being move through us to visible form. We are the instruments of materialization.

We must grasp the full significance of the Immanent. A limitless capacity is here for every need of our life. It has two directions of movement, outward and inward. When we are quiet, relaxed and passive, Power moves inward. When we are active, concentrated and aggressive, Power moves outward from us. God moves into us when we are still, and through us when we are in action. We work out our salvation while God works in us, both to will and to do.

We must realize that for every movement within there is an answering outer movement. On the spiritual side, the eternal energies of God move to cooperate with us and to multiply our energy. On the material side, all things move to conform to the creative demands of Divine Being, which works forever more. Every outer movement of the Divine Providence, must evoke an answering movement of the Spirit within, and every demand of the Spirit within, must evoke an answering movement of the limitless energies outside. These in turn move into material form, and light replaces darkness, order replaces chaos, harmony banishes discord, power replaces weakness, health and ease rout sickness and pain.

This is another way of saying that action and reaction are forever equal in a life filled with the consciousness of its divine birthright. All that our consciousness includes in our heritage begins to move to outward expression. As God promised the people of Israel all the land their feet trod upon, so do we today have the promise to realize, in our own experience, everything that we include in our divine birthright. If we live for a heaven in the "sweet by and by," we will probably reach it, having lived in a small edition of Hades while we are about it. If we include the end and motive of living in the "sweet now and now," we will live heaven while we go to heaven.

Whatever we leave out of our consciousness of God will work as an enemy. Whatever we include in that consciousness will work together for good. We will be at peace about everything we fully trust to this Divine Consciousness, and everything that we leave out of it will sit up nights looking for a chance to make trouble. If we leave the body out, then we will "enjoy poor health." If we leave our worldly affairs out, we will find it as difficult to annex them permanently as Pharaoh did to absorb and hold the ancient Israelites.

How do we realize these things for our self? Probably the most important first step is to "be still and know that I am God." Get still enough to hear what the Spirit is saying.

God is talking to us always, but we make such a racket that we never hear the message. Therefore, get still, physically still. Sit and get quiet in your body. Arrange not to be disturbed for fifteen minutes, and see just how near you can come to being physically still for that time. Repeat it daily. Pay no attention to what your mind is thinking about, just get busy with keeping your body still. The last thing that you can keep still will be your tongue, but you must master it.

When you have practiced this exercise for a week, you can take the next step. Get your mind still. Close up the avenues of sense, shut the eyes so that they do not see, and the ears that they hear not. Close up touch, taste and smell. When you can abstract your attention away from all these, you are ready to enter the secret place of prayer and of power.

Now let your mind move out to a universe filled with nothing but God. Idealize Him as Omnipotent or all power, as Omniscient or all knowing, as Omnipresent or equally present everywhere. Let your mind see Him as Immanent in all that is. See Him move out into material expression, making all things that are His. Idealize Him as the one life in whom every individual expression is inseparably bound, so that whatever is in His life is potentially in every form of life.

Now begin to visualize His perfect life as it dwells in you. Think that in Him you live and move and have your being, and that in you He lives, moves and has His being. Your life is bound up in Him, and you have no life that can be apart from Him.

You do not have to tell Him what you need since He already knows. You do not have to ask Him to give, since He, Himself, has given you all that is. It is potentially yours now. But you must claim it as yours, and hold to it as already yours.

Visualize yourself as in full possession of what you want. Picture your body, or any part of it, just as you want it to be. Clothe yourself in thought with all the virility and magnetism that perfect health gives. If you desire another expression of the divine energies, use the same method whether it be for peace, power of thought memory, efficiency, leadership or any other desired excellence.

The same method works in purely spiritual attainment. Hold steady before you the perfect image of moral perfection as it was in Jesus of Nazareth. Then see yourself in the likeness of that same image. You will find the meaning of a formula used by the early Christians, "for we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory after his image by the Spirit." This is the law, and it works in mental, physical and spiritual realms with unvarying certainty.

Shake off that supreme error — that you must depend on something or somebody outside yourself to do something for you or to give you something. The spring and power of all achievement are within you. Just apply the law and get yourself into proper attitude for this Power to express itself through you. For when you have sought everywhere and depended upon every outside agency, you must return to the center within yourself.

Various tried and proven methods are valuable, for since individuals vary, it follows that one will find one method more effective than another. Some leading healers have tried and proved the methods given here. Use them faithfully and you will find the one that will help you most, and eventually you will develop a method that is essentially your own.

The method used by Mr. Rawson of London has been a blessing to thousands, both of those whom he has treated, and those who have used it for themselves. First become quiet, passive and receptive. Then fill the mind with the thought of heaven. Think of it as a place, or as a state of spiritual activity and growth, but let its central thought of peace and harmony get into your mind. The exercise closes by the mind holding this picture of the perfect spiritual state of harmony, which includes you and all that you are in its scope and benefits. People have tried the method often with gratifying results.

Another method is putting oneself into the right attitude so that the Divine Mind does the work. One goes into the silence, and filling the thought with the visualization of the Indwelling Mind, declares, "I am health, I am strength, I am power, I am understanding, I am abundance, I am truth, etc." Following and combining these with the declaration, "The Indwelling Mind in me does the work." This has proved efficacious with many people.

One method is to be seated or recline, get relaxed, turn your thoughts to the unity of all life. Dwell for a moment on the Universal Principles of Being, which you embody. Think that " All that potentially belongs to Being is now within me." Then let your mind follow this formula: "God, of whose Life I am part, as my finger is part of my band, dwells in every part of my body, filling it with His perfect health. God permeates every faculty of my mind, filling it with His perfect peace. God pervades every outgoing of my spirit, filling it with His perfect love. I am complete in Him." Then go forth in the purpose to express what you have held in the Silence. This works for both those present and absent. You may send it by thought over great distances and it does the work.

Another effective method is to fill the mind with a mental picture of Christ stilling the storm of Galilee. Then take up the meditation, "Every believer has the Christed consciousness on board. I now manifest Christ consciousness of perfect ease. I now manifest Christ consciousness of perfect peace, etc." For acute pain, for worry, mental anxiety, and for those active troubles that send the waves of trouble high on the soul, this exercise will bring one to hear the words, "Peace, be still." Ease and quiet and sleep will follow.

Eventually, by the practice of one or more of these methods, you will realize their effectiveness. You will have a method that is essentially your own. Besides working to heal yourself, work to help others. You will find that every positive helpful suggestion will react upon you.

Many successful healers have been people who had not fully healed themselves. Some of the best prosperity lessons I have read or heard were given by people who were dead broke. Yet they kept on until the barrier that held them back was swept away. They helped themselves by trying to help others.

We begin the body’s movements in studied effort and steadily progress into automatic and habitual action. We reach the habit of correct breathing usually by painstaking attention at first.

The body’s normal functioning is automatic, and needs little attention. The pinna or tip of the ear is the healthiest part of the body, and the one to which we give the least concern. Some disturbance of its functioning follows anxiety about any part of the body. Hence the words, "Don’t worry about what ye shall eat or drink or wear."

Physical, mental and spiritual well-being all depends upon clearly perceiving the truth that normal living proceeds from within, while abnormal living arises from giving undue prominence to outward things. Religion, health, peace, happiness or anything else, when conceived as arising and proceeding from outside, inevitably develops into a system of mechanical bondage, and life’s real freedom and joy is lost in the tyranny of things.

If we perceive these phases of life as rising from within, as states of consciousness moving into thought and then into expression, we can master every circumstance of life. Here alone we can find the answer to the question why we are what we are. We find that everything proceeds from an inner Kingdom, and if we can discover the keys to unlock and set in motion its potential energies we can fulfill the ends of being as we want and ought.

The Master Key to this Inner Kingdom is Understanding. It is that trained insight that perceives that the spirit of a thing is the thing itself, the vital part, the real substance. It is the power to discern the value of Principle as compared with things, the real back of the seeming, the spiritual nature of the Kingdom.

Any phase of this understanding is a key. However, understanding is the master key, which includes all the others and alone enables us to perceive and use them to unlock the Kingdom. We cannot find any better definition of the Kingdom and its keys than that of the great Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, who first taught us the Kingdom and gave to humanity its keys.

The first key is "The Kingdom is within you." It is, therefore, a spiritual kingdom, administered by and subject to spiritual laws. Certain truths estimate the spiritual kingdom’s nature and resources, the first being unity of being. You may call it Intelligence, Power, Mind, Spirit or God, but it is the all-inclusive, to which nothing can be added and of which there is no surplus.

Being is undivided. Countless personal expressions of Being may exist, but Being is indivisible, just as the physical body is one, yet it has many members, such as hundreds of muscles, and bones. Being also has many individual points of expression, such as ten fingers, two hands, each maintaining its individual character, but taken together, making one body-unity.

The second key is the essential divinity of all men. Everything that lives has the potential elements of its source in it. A bucket of water dipped from the ocean has in it every quality of its source, save volume. It is not the ocean, but is all ocean, plus the bucket.

We are part of Universal Being as our finger is part of our hand. The finger’s capacity limits the amount of the bodily energy entering into it. Individuality’s limitations give us the measure of our expression of the Divine, but to recognize that essential divinity is our first step toward freedom and power.

The third key is "The Father and I are One." Whatever quality, principle or character that we can conceive as belonging to the Universal Being finds its embodiment in every intelligence. The life, power, health, harmony, abundance of the Absolute is potentially in each of us. We need but to get in line with the laws to make them operative and produce whatever we desire. Just as the knowledge of the laws and qualities of gases gives us the power to convert water to vapor or ice, and back again to water or vapor at will.

The fourth key is "Thy Kingdom come as Thou wilt." Every advance in the physical, mental or spiritual has come from knowing His Laws and applying them. By studying the laws of displacement, we make iron float. By studying the laws of resistance, we make heavy bodies fly in the air. By studying the laws of attraction and repulsion, we make power flow through a wire. By studying the law of growth, new civilization has been born. We leave old customs, creeds and precedents for or new vision and service, based on a better understanding of things.

Similarly, by studying the spiritual Laws of the Inner Kingdom, we obtain abundance, health, leadership, efficiency and all that we want life to express. Knowing and keeping the Law causes the Kingdom to come, according to His Will.

Thus it is that scientific understanding of the truth makes us free from every limitation of ignorance, and ignorance is the cardinal sin. What we term "consciousness" in its varying activities, enables us to understand these laws and obey them. Consciousness, or the knowing, feeling and choosing self, functions or acts on three planes. First, when we came from the bosom of the Absolute Being, we were pure Spirit. Second, our experience in the long process of evolution has added certain contents, where we function as the subconscious soul, in instinct, intuition and dreams. Third, with our emergence into human life, we function as mind in a new and objective way.

Consciousness acts in an objective way upon material things. As we look out through the eye, and vibrations of color and form ride back, which the mind calls the mental image of a landscape. We may largely inhibit objective thinking and produce subjective or soul activity. We may hold both in turn almost in abeyance so that we exalt the basic spiritual principle of the ego or self into an action called superconsciousness.

The outer or conscious mind takes all the experiences of life and the facts of nature, and by its power of inductive thinking, leads into certain laws or principles. Thus we make iron float, heavy bodies fly in the air, power moves through a wire or through space. In subconscious mind, or soul activity, we tap the limitless store of memories and experiences, and by its power of deductive thinking carries us forward by great strides into the world of wisdom.

When understanding enables the ego’s spiritual side to function as a perceiving entity, the nature of the Kingdom within is revealed to us. This Kingdom is that Universal Spiritual Substance called Mind, or Spirit, or God.

Many particles make an atom. Many atoms go to make the molecule. Molecules are combined into what we call matter. This illustrates the creative process. It begins in consciousness, becomes a thought idea, attracts its own kind of particles, and by that process moves into material expression.

Everything arising in the human life has its beginning in our consciousness of what the content of life is. Our state of consciousness assumes the form of a mental ideal or image and as such we project it into the Universal Substance, from which God has created all things, where it attracts the material for its realization. A happy thought attracts all the elements of happiness to the thinker, but a happy thought cannot exist in an unhappy consciousness.

We call the law by which we achieve this creative work the Law of Attraction, which brings us to the fifth key: "Thou shalt Love." The Law of Attraction is composed of thought and love. Love gives the power to correlate with its object and bring, forth into material expression the thing that started in consciousness. Love gives thought the dynamic power to move into the universal mind that is intelligence, power, harmony, substance and all that is, and to attract to it itself those elements of the Universal Substance that clothes the thought and ideal with material expression.

Scientific understanding reveals God as the fundamental reality, recognizes the individual as part of the whole, the same in kind and quality as the whole. The use of this key of spiritual perception is the "iota’s difference" between success and failure.

The sixth key is "Make the truth of the Kingdom flesh and blood in you as I have." A scientific understanding teaches us that back of every effect is a cause, and that, if we follow the trail far enough, we shall find the great Creative Cause in Universal Mind and Substance, and that the shorter the line of transmission of Power, the less the waste of energy. Therefore, we must know the power and privilege of the Inner Kingdom itself, after which, said the great Teacher, "All things shall be added."

Thought is creative, and its power to create depends upon its continuity. In other words, the power to create depends upon our concentration of thought upon what we desire, and our refusal to allow to enter our thinking any adverse, depressing or disturbing thoughts. We must practice mental good housekeeping as carefully and as regularly as we do physically.

We can never say that the kingdom has came fully into our consciousness until it harmonizes every discordant factor of life, for harmony is one essential principle of the Inner Kingdom. To illustrate how to do this, use the following method:

Be perfectly still, physically, then mentally. Next, use a positive declaration, "In harmony or Heaven there is perfect being; in Heaven there is perfect health; in Heaven there is perfect life; in Heaven there is perfect power; in Heaven there is perfect harmony." Then let your mind rest upon the fact that Heaven is the Inner Kingdom.

Scientific understanding unlocks the secrets of the Kingdom, for here, especially, the great law of action and reaction is operative. Every thought we hold, be it good or bad, reacts upon us of its kind. The law is universal. Steadily holding the thought of health reacts upon its holder. The thought of lack and want reacts as a state of poverty.

One nation, holding the thought of dominion, without regard to the rights of others, forgot this law, and one day the moral and physical universal God reacted upon them and crushed them. One nation of free men, believed in the inherent right of self-expression and self-determination, kept on thinking and writing until the moral universe of God reacted upon that nation and thrust it before the world as the champion of human rights.

These six keys — and there may be others — are subject to the use of every living being. Failure to use them, or to use them rightly, comes from lack of understanding. Therefore a wise man said, "With all thy getting, get understanding."

Understanding lifts consciousness up to that plane of knowing where it sees the absolute and the relative, the real and the seeming, and functions on a plane where we perceive "the substance of things hoped for" as real. Seeing every person’s inherent right to these ultimate realities, understanding reveals to us that spiritual reality moves out into material expression by laws, as certain in their action as that of gravitation. Understanding reveals to us the method by which we can unlock every resource of the kingdom.

Its first step is idealization, which is the construction of a mental idea of what we want, until it is clearly in the mind.

The second step is visualization, by which we transfer that ideal to ourselves. The great law of attraction comes into operation here, that principle recognized in all nature as mimicry, or imitation, which gathers the like elements from the unseen and moves it into physical expression.

The third step is realization, by which what exists in absolute reality, comes into relative reality, assumes material form, which we can see, taste, and handle.

Three qualities are necessary to do this: The understanding to perceive the thing hoped for. The courage to command and dare. The faith and persistency to stick to it until it is done. With these three qualities one learns to speak and have it done, to command and have it stand fast and true.

All Being, Life, Intelligence is One. God is all there is — the totality. This One is God, Mind, or Spirit. He is the Absolute Reality. Because He is, all else is. Because He is the One life, everything that lives is a partaker of His life. Every rational living thing embodies the Principles of Universal Being.

Because we are made in the image of God, every nature and character in the Infinite is potentially in us. Because He is life, health, harmony, power and abundance, and because He lives out His life in man, therefore life, health and all else dwells in us.

The motif for all Creation is expression. The method of expression is growth. Growth results from the exercise of three principles of action — nutrition, response to stimulus, and procreation. All expression arises in consciousness, then becomes thought, form or ideal that attracts from the Universal its own kindred elements, and by a divinely implanted mimicry, fashions it after the ideal.

Because there is but one Mind, and every intelligence is a partaker of that Mind, it follows that the ego is inherently in possession of all the wisdom therein, and may draw upon it for whatever we may desire to express.

Thought is the Creative Power in God or humanity. Thought, allied with the desire to serve, is clothed with dynamic power to correlate to itself the elements of its own kind. Hence "as a man thinks in his heart so is he."

Every state and condition of life, whether it is good or not, is the result of thought. The way to change conditions is to change the thinking. When the thought ideal is perfect, the material expression will readjust to it. The thought of life, health, harmony, love, abundance held and fully realized in consciousness will replace death, sickness, discord, fear and poverty, with the results of right thinking.

Look within and know that the "I" is the central dynamic. In its relation to the Absolute, "I" is the secret of genius for any kind of material expression or for self-mastery. The Ego, as well as the Absolute, which expresses itself through the ego, does so by laws as definite as the law of gravitation.

All expression, whether it is material, mental or spiritual, follows laws that we may learn and keep. The greatest thing in the world is law. It never fails.

Study the law of expression, know it, and keep it and it will work with you — fail to keep it, and it will work against you. Learn to live with the law and you will learn to love the law, and you will prove that "love is the fulfilling of the law."

The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to every attainment. Bondage is ignorance of the law, while freedom is in keeping with the law.

The law’s highest achievement is when, as a schoolmaster, it brings us to Christ. For "the law of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death."

The law of life in him was daily living in conscious oneness with the Father. Thus he did His will, spoke His words and lived in His spirit of service. And he had power over all things.

If we know the law of the Absolute and keep it, we shall be able to know the laws of the relative and keep them. We shall have the spiritual mastery over all our affairs. We shall find the end of the quest within ourselves.

Because God is, I am.

The Father and I are one.

Love is the fulfilling of the law.

I am complete in Him.

Thy kingdom come according to Thy will.

I am among you as one who serves.

I believe in Love Almighty, maker of heaven on earth.

There is spirit in me and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth me understanding.

Perfect love casts out fear.

As thy days so shall thy strength be.

The Father of lights in whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.

I love because the divine image in me is love.

I love the image of God in my fellows, therefore I shall not fear others.

I love the image of God in myself, therefore I shall not fear myself.

I am giving that image full expression in my life.

Because God lives in my life, I am now perfect health, and love, and peace, and abundance.

All things work together for me because I love God.

The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus makes me free from the Law of Sin and Death.

I trust Him whatever befalls me.

Give me this day my daily bread, clothing, work, rest, true communion, sleep and refreshment.

Perfect trust brings perfect peace.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.

He opens all ways in which I should walk.

He closes all doors through which I should not pass. I will walk confidently in the open road.

Thy rod and staff comfort me.

I will trust when I am afraid.

I will fix my eyes on Him.

I look unto Him for health, prosperity, salvation.

His goodness never fails.

All power is given me in heaven and earth.

I will tell what wondrous things the Lord has done. The Spirit of the Lord goes before me, making easy my way.

Determine first whether you will have your thinking done for you, whether you will think only the thought you will to think, or if you will think in harmony with the Divine Mind in you. Determine whether you will depend on your own unaided powers, or if you will get in line with the Divine Laws and let the Absolute work through you.

Only those who will know and keep the law, then let the Indwelling Mind do the work, can carry out this method. This is the secret of all great attainment.

Keep the sentence written at the top of each following section in the back of your mind not only while you read the declarations, but at all times when you sleep or wake. Read slowly and carefully the appropriate section before you leave your room in the morning, and the last thing before you sleep at night. Do it at other times, but never miss these two seasons even if you have to wake up ten minutes sooner to find the time.

It is like medicine, it will not have much effect unless you take it according to directions. Do this daily for a month and you will have results. No one can hand you these things. They arise from within. The industry to apply them, the faith to believe in them, and the courage to command these divine energies will make the "impossible" both possible and actual.

Remember that the possession of these powers is bedded in obedience, and in the purpose to use them aright. Desire earnestly and steadily. Desire gives form to your ideal. Know that the thing desired is real. It arouses and sets all the creative energies in motion. Declare the reality of the thing desired. It calls the will into action to direct the creative powers to bring the unseen into expression.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire perfect, abounding, virile, contagious health.

I desire a body that is strong, vigorous, magnetic, active,

I desire organs that function normally and effectively,

I desire a brain that is always clear, keen, alert, active,

I desire nerves that are quiet, calm, effective, dependable.

I desire a splendid reserve capacity of physical energy.

I know that the elements of health abound in me.

I am one with the incorruptible health of the Absolute,

God’s health fills every cell of my body.

God’s perfect health is expressing itself in my body.

God’s constructive healing energies are at work in me.

I am being made into the image of perfect health.

Every weakness is giving place to strength and vigor.

Depression is put to flight by cheerfulness.

I am now on the open road to health and happiness.

I declare my oneness with the absolute, perfect health.

I am identified with God’s life and all life.

I am made in the image of perfect health.

I clearly hold that perfect image as my right.

My inner creative energies are building after that image.

Every day finds me stronger, healthier, and happier.

God’s Infinite Intelligence in me works every moment.

I think, talk and act perfect abounding health.

I am now health, strength, and abundant energy.

"The Indwelling Mind does the Work."

I desire to have perfect self-knowledge.

I desire to know all the sources of power.

I desire to know the channels of power in me.

I desire to realize the unlimited resources.

I desire to reach the highest note of efficiency.

I desire to acquire the habit of leadership.

I desire to know the laws of success for me.

I desire to be a master that I may serve.

I know that my life is one with the Absolute.

Every element of completeness is in me.

All power of Light is available to me.

All power of Light is potentially within me, awaiting only my command.

The thing I hope for is reality now.

My thought is creative and dynamic.

I am complete in the power of Light.

I declare that every thought is affirmative and constructive.

I believe in the world, life, growth, in love.

My aim is definite, clear and perfect.

Because I AM, I can and I do.

The Absolute energies of the universe work me.

The motive of my life is to serve.

My success helps others to succeed, and to this end I hold for all fulfillment.

I am poised calm, restful, and confident.

I am independent, courageous, and positive.

I know that I am Supreme.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire to fully understand myself.

I desire to know the cause of troubling thoughts.

I desire to find the reason for unpleasant dreams.

I desire to know the origin of fears and anxieties.

I desire to understand the cause of my failures.

I desire to expose the ground of my doubts.

I desire to eradicate the causes of worry.

I desire to root out all hesitation and timidity.

I desire to develop a wholesome consciousness.

I desire to have a consciousness filled with Light and hope.

I desire to have high ideals and definite aims.

I desire to be positive, harmonious, cheerful.

I desire to realize and give forth health and success.

I know that all things arise in my state of consciousness.

Wrong thinking is the root of all ills.

Fear cannot exist where love reigns.

Doubt cannot abide where faith is at home.

Worry and anxiety are incompatible with trust.

The Spirit in me must rule the body.

Attention to the senses gives them dominance.

Recognition of the Spirit gives it mastery.

I can direct all states of consciousness.

I declare my belief in the unconditioned Absolute.

I am inherently one with that Absolute, in nature, purpose and spirit.

I contact the Absolute in my superconsciousness.

I utilize the powers of the Absolute in my subconsciousness.

I direct the movements of the Absolute in my consciousness.

I dwell in conscious harmony with the Absolute.

I hold perfect ideals clearly in mind.

I visualize myself as perfect in the Absolute.

All my thoughts are positive and constructive.

All my mental states are restful and healthful.

I am poised, calm, optimistic, cheerful.

I am health, peace, and abundance, as the normal state of my consciousness.

"The Indwelling Mind does the Work."

I desire to be a self-master.

I desire to rule and direct my self.

I desire to control my thoughts.

I desire to direct the functions of my body.

I desire to hold my spiritual aspirations on the highest plane.

I desire to have absolute freedom to express the highest.

I desire to inspire the best and finest in my friends.

I desire to attract those who have self-control.

I desire to be immune to all that is undesirable.

I know that I am the embodiment of the principles of Divine Being.

I know that whatever is in Him is potentially in me.

I know that every cell in my body is divinely filled, divinely contented, divinely satisfied, divinely peaceful.

I know that my heart’s desire comes from the Divine.

I know that I am doing His will.

I know that my highest purpose is to serve.

I declare that I am thoroughly normal.

I am consciously filled with health and strength.

I radiate health and happiness.

I am perfect harmony within and outside.

I think only the highest and best thoughts.

I never borrow trouble, or other ills.

I am known as a self-controlled person.

I am temperate in all things.

I am master over myself and all my conditions.

I am master over every obstacle.

I can do anything I start to do.

I can realize all my desires.

I am filled with absolute divine determination.

I am a self master.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire a perfect memory that never forgets.

I desire a perfect memory that never hesitates, and that is always ready with the needed fact.

I desire a perfect memory that recalls faces, and never forgets a name.

I desire a perfect memory that will hold securely and produce promptly any desired fact.

I know that my memory is naturally perfect.

My memory it never forgets any fact.

I can depend on my memory always.

My memory it holds ready all experiences, and it will bring them forth promptly on demand.

I declare that I remember everything.

My memory records are perfect, always ready to produce on demand.

I have perfect memory.

I can remember anything that I want to remember and can recall it any moment I need it.

The secret of memory is attention.

I note carefully anything that I want to remember.

Every experience that I have ever had is at my call whenever I want it.

Every memory record is bound by association.

My memory holds the key of recall.

I now have a perfect memory.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire to be one hundred per cent efficient.

I desire to express splendid ability and power.

I desire to have a keen, clear, wide awake, open mind.

I desire to think clearly, reason logically, constructively.

I desire to discriminate clearly between essentials and nonessentials.

I desire to be unimpeachable integrity and fidelity.

I desire to be magnanimous towards others and their achievements.

I desire to perceive and be guided by true values.

I desire to be able to speak and write clearly, convincingly, effectively.

I desire to have splendid analytical powers, clear judgment, sound common’ sense.

I desire to have a strong, prompt, exact, retentive, dependable memory.

I desire to be able to marshal all my energies at a moment’s notice.

I know that all these qualities are inherent in me.

I can command them into action whenever I will to do so.

I have the ability to market this dynamic efficiency.

I can inspire others with this power, effectiveness and ability.

I am a good mixer, harmonizer, a joy-bringer, an optimist.

I declare that I have the potential elements of dynamic efficiency.

I can call forth all the energies I need for any task.

I am fidelity incarnate, and integrity in action.

I am accurate, dependable, correct in my judgment.

I have poise, reserve capacity, levelheadedness.

I have a keen sense of proportion and relative values.

I have absolute confidence to produce what I desire.

I have a deep powerful, abiding confidence in myself.

I can obtain and retain a correct perspective of any problem.

I am now dynamic efficiency, success, abundance.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire to realize all the abundance of good things.

I desire to call out in myself all the elements of success.

I desire to manifest outwardly what is potentially in me.

I desire to manifest outwardly all of which I am conscious.

I desire to know and keep the laws of prosperity.

I desire to make prosperity the normal expression of my life.

I desire to have abundance, so that I may use it abundantly.

I know that abundance is primarily a state of consciousness.

As I realize abundance within, it becomes real.

Because I am at one with all abundance, I have only to find and keep the laws of expression.

I am the embodiment of the Principles of Absolute Being.

Because Absolute Being is, I am.

Because He is abundance, I am prosperity.

Because He is health, I am health.

Because He is supreme, I am supreme in God.

I declare that all abundance is now in me.

The power to call into expression is mine.

I can command prosperity and have it come to pass.

My every conscious thought is prosperous.

My outward appearance is prosperity.

My dress and manner are prosperous.

I am a magnet to draw prosperity to me.

I am centrifugal, exhaling prosperity.

I am prosperity incarnated and active.

Prosperity is the dominant note of my consciousness.

I am prosperity, abundance, plenty.

"The Indwelling Spirit does the Work."

I desire to realize perfect health.

I desire to realize the Unity of all life.

I desire to see myself in the image of Perfect Being.

I desire to realize that I am a partaker of the divine nature.

I desire to contact the Absolute in conscious oneness.

I desire to manifest the character of the Absolute.

I desire to materialize the perfect health of the Absolute.

I desire to express divine harmony, health, peace and abundance.

I know that I am one with the Absolute.

I live my life in the Absolute, and the Absolute lives His life in me.

My life is part of His life as my finger is part of my hand.

His health is in every part of my body.

His peace keeps my mind poised, calm and serene.

I am well, whole and complete in Him.

I declare that I hold the vision of His completeness steadily.

The creative energies in me build my body to His Plan.

Whether I wake or sleep, the Indwelling Mind works.

The Absolute is busy every moment making me well.

I will not strive, but perfectly trust the Absolute.

His perfect health fills every part of my body.

His perfect peace fills every part of my mind, making me calm, serene, poised, cheerful, joyous and hopeful.

His perfect love fills every avenue of my spirit, setting me free from fear, worry, anxiety and other ills.

I am now whole and complete in Him.

I shall act, think and talk as one filled with all the fullness of God.

Turn your thoughts from material things to God and His perfect manifestation. Realize that God is all that there is, with no lack and nothing left over. God is the totality. "The seen things are temporal, the unseen things are eternal." Realize that matter is temporary and passing, that spirit is changeless and eternal.

All that is, is the result of the action of God. It arose in Infinite Consciousness, took on thought form and by the action of God became manifestation.

The order of the whole Creative Process is: God thought, called His idea by name, it came into form, and it was good. It is the nature of the Eternal Being to become what He thinks, and calls by name.

Humanity is an idea in Divine Mind, which God called by name, and humanity came forth, made in the image of God, to partake of the divine nature. We are the embodiments of the Principles of Universal Being. Whatever is in God is potentially in us.

If we think the thoughts of God, all the creative powers of God are directed to become what we think. This is true prayer, the realization of God by right thinking, and following it we shall ask what we will, and it shall be done.

If we think God’s thoughts such as truth, peace, health and abundance, then we become the reflection of these. If we think fear thoughts, worry, sick, pain, poverty or other imperfect thoughts, then we become the expression of them. We can change any condition if we will change our thinking. Let us think the thoughts of God that we may perfectly reflect God.

Having refreshed your mind with this meditation on the Law and Order of Divine Action, be still and know God.

Use the following forms until the spirit of them becomes your own. Add to the declarations. You will soon develop a system of your own.

Use only the particular treatments that apply to the case you are treating. Picture in your mind every declaration as being real now.

The following is a table of correspondences between the body and its organs and those spiritual qualities that are perfect in Divine Mind.

For instance, blindness arises from lack of exercising spiritual perception. The eye reflecting God as perception, the light in whom is no darkness at all. Deafness arises from the lack of spiritual understanding, that quality of Divine Mind by which all things are naked and open before him.

This is merely a hint of the principle. It explains many of the statements used in the sample treatments that follow.

Begin the treatment by reading the following general statements of truth aloud: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."

To those who are leaning on the sustaining arm of the Infinite, "Today is big with blessings to all those with whom we come in contact."

Treatment for fear: Name has absolute trust in God, trust in good. Name knows there is nothing but good. Name is absolutely fearless, confident, courageous, for Name is God’s consciousness, as infinite as God, by means of which God thinks and knows, reflecting Infinite Life, Infinite Love, Infinite Truth, Infinite Wisdom. Name is spiritual, perfect and holy.

The body cannot be sick: Name’s body is the temple of God in which God dwells, filling it with His perfect health, keeping it clean and well and whole. Name is spiritual and divine, reflecting God, individualizing the Infinite Power of Infinite Love. Name is made in the image and likeness of God and is partaker of the divine nature, therefore Name expresses Infinite Life, Infinite Love, Infinite Truth, Infinite Health.

No organ of the body can be diseased: Every organ and part of Name’s body is the expression of a divine idea in consciousness, through which God expresses His perfect thought. Every organ therefore functions actively, perfectly, spiritually and divinely.

(Now take up any organ or part of the body, and follow the suggested form of treatment. Always close your treatment with the closing form on the last page.)

Treatment for sickness or pain in the head: Name’s head represents the capacity to know God–the Christ consciousness by which Name knows instantly everything that he/she ought to know, and Name knows that all his/her thoughts are God’s thoughts and they are perfect, spiritual and divine. Name’s head is filled with divine ease and comfort.

Treatment for mental unbalance or insanity: Name’s brain is the capacity of thinking, by which Name thinks the truth, knows the truth, rejoices in the truth and is made free by the truth. Name has perfect perception of the value of ideas, perfect understanding of the balance of truth, perfect knowledge of the interrelation of ideas, therefore Name has perfect initiative, power to start and carry out mental actions and to discriminate between the errors of mortal mind and the ideas of Divine Mind.

Treatment for disease of the face: Name’s face is the capacity of spiritual discernment, registering all joy, illumination and hope. Name’s face is filled with ease, comfort and control giving Name divine joy and satisfaction.

Treatment for weakness of the eyes: Name’s eyes are the capacity of spiritual discernment, representing spiritual activities in perception by which Infinite Mind perceives all form and color, all harmony and perspective, giving Name clear, definite images, and functioning perfectly, spiritually and divinely.

Catarrh or other discharges: All the mucous surfaces of Name’s body are part of God’s loving protection, functioning actively, spiritually and divinely, governed by law and by order, filling Name with all purity and holiness and satisfaction.

Treatment for a lung ailment: Name’s lungs are the expression of divine activities in inspiration, breathing into Name the Spirit of Life and Power, filling Name with divine health, giving him/her immunity from all contamination, contagion or infection, filling him/her with the perfect health of God.

Treatment for disease or weakness of the heart: Name’s heart is the expression of spiritual activities, as Love, ever passing on God’s ideas, causes the joy stream (blood) to radiate through the body, giving Name infinite joy and satisfaction.

Treatment for inactivity or disease of the liver: Name’s liver is the expression of spiritual activities in understanding, by which Name knows the truth, and is filled with all comfort and freedom by the truth. Name’s liver is always active, purifying the blood and filling the body with warmth and energy and comfort, functioning actively, spiritually and divinely.

Treatment for indigestion: Name’s food is the ideas of God that unfold to Name. These ideas are spiritual, perfect and divine. Name assimilates these ideas and groups them into glorious combinations that radiate out in Infinite Mind, giving infinite joy and happiness.

Treatment for constipation: Name’s bowels are the expression of God’s activities as soul, by which all God’s ideas move in perfect sequence and order, passing on all God’s ideas with ease and comfort and satisfaction. Name’s bowels move freely, easily and perfectly.

Treatment for kidney disease: Name’s kidneys are the expression of spiritual activities in purification and cleansing, giving all purity to the joy stream, and filling Name with infinite ease and comfort. Name’s kidneys function actively, spiritually and divinely.

Treatment for nervousness: Name’s nerves are the channels of divine activity, through which divine ideas radiate, through Infinite Being. Name’s nerves are spiritual, giving Name joy and satisfaction, for all is spiritual perfect and divine.

Treatment for bones: Name’s bones are the expression of divine activities as substance, giving Name strength and permanency, and all of God’s ideas are perfect, so that Name’s bones are well, and strong, and in perfect form and order.

Treatment for muscles: Name’s muscles are God’s thought energies, always in perfect place and order, having absolute power and strength to heal any sprain, tear, hernia or rupture.

Treatment for eczema: Name’s skin is God’s loving protection for the individual, functioning actively, spiritually, divinely, always clean, pure, wholesome, giving Name glorious comfort, ease and satisfaction.

Treatment for prolapses: All Name’s organs are the reflection of God’s ideas, and God’s ideas are perfect, spiritual and divine, governed by law and order. All God’s ideas are always in perfect order and position expressing perfect ease and divine satisfaction.

Treatment for epilepsy: Name’s body is the temple of God, pure, and holy, filled with God’s perfect health. Name’s muscles are God’s thought energies, always under divine control. Name’s consciousness is God’s consciousness, by means of which God thinks and knows, giving Name perfect knowledge and perfect divine control of thoughts and movements.

Treatment for false growth: Only growth in grace, growth in the knowledge of the truth, and Truth is God. Name is made in the image of God, and reflects God, reflecting Infinite Power of infinite Love.

Treatment for cancer: Name’s body is the temple of God, pure and holy. No matter, all is Spirit, the principle of all purity and holiness. Everything works perfectly, divinely, with unfailing regularity.

Treatment for paralysis: Name’s muscles are God’s thought energies. God’s thoughts move in perfect divine order and sequence; all are under the control of mind. Name’s mind is God’s mind, by means of which God thinks and knows. Name has perfect control of all the movements of God’s ideas.

Treatment for rheumatism: All the secretions of Name’s body and the blood, the joy streams, are pure, clean and wholesome, radiating throughout Name’s being, filling him with glorious freedom and ease and satisfaction.

Treatment for depression: God is the principle of all joy and gladness, in whom is no variableness or shadow of turning. Every good and perfect gift surrounds Name, filling him/her with joy and gladness. The sons and daughters of God shout for joy.

Treatment for injustice: God is the principle of all justice. Name reflects God, reflecting justice, loves fair play, rejoices in the square deal, and manifests perfect divine justice.

Treatment for disharmony: God is the principle of all harmony and Name reflects God. Name loves harmony, rejoices in harmony and makes all concessions for harmony, and Name expresses all harmony in business, in social and domestic life.

Treatment for deceit: All is truth and honesty.

Treatment for hatred: All is love.

Treatment for malice or revenge: All is Charity.

Treatment for sin: All is holiness.

Treatment for sickness or disease: All is health and ease.

Treatment for death: All is life eternal, for Name is spiritual, perfect and divine.

Treatment for poverty: God is the principle of all abundance. "The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the round world and they that dwell therein." "My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus", and "Hath blest us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ," "able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." God’s ideas are always in the right place. Man has everything he needs instantly, for everything is always in the right place in Mind.

Treatment for idle ideas: All God’s ideas are ministering to Name so that Name always has everything he/she needs. God is the principle of all knowledge and Name has all knowledge. When Name needs an idea he/she knows where to get it, for God is the principle of all law and order. Name is always passing on God’s ideas for Name knows where to pass them and there is perfect interchange of ideas.

Treatment for loss: God’s ideas are always in the right place, and Name has instantly everything he/she needs. Nothing is ever out of place. Everything is always in the right place in Mind.

Treatment for delay: There are no empty spaces in God. All is spiritual and perfect, and there is perfect intercommunication between supply and demand, for God governs by law and order.

Treatment for lack of spiritual discernment: Name reflects God and has spiritual perception, spiritual discernment, spiritual understanding, and knows Truth, always thinking rightly, reflecting Divine Wisdom and Divine Intelligence. Name knows instantly everything that he/she needs. The demonstrations of Truth and Love are instantaneous because God works and not Name.

Treatment for falsehood or deceit: Only ideas of Truth can be passed on by Name, for is God’s consciousness, by means of which God thinks and knows. Name is spiritual and divine, doing perfect work, for when Name works, God works by means of Name. Name is spiritual and perfect, for there is none but God, and His infinite manifestation.

Treatment for mental malpractice: Name is surrounded by Divine Love; the only thoughts are God’s thoughts, which are good and true and holy.

Treatment for hypnotism: God alone acts.

Treatment for deceitful thoughts: All is truth.

Treatment for tyrannical thoughts: All is love.

Treatment for animal magnetism: All is spiritual, the principle of good, the principle of all truth and holiness.

Treatment for mental assassination: All is life eternal.

Treatment for malice against the truth: Name loves Truth and knows Truth and rejoices in the Truth, for God is Truth; there is nothing but God, nothing but Truth, for God is Truth; God is Love and Love is ever active, and Name is loving toward all.

Treatment for self-justification: All is Spirit. There is nothing to justify, for all is spiritual; God rules and God governs.

Treatment for evil beliefs: God’s thoughts are the only thoughts. Name is the compound idea of God, and God’s thoughts are all around.

Treatment for passions and appetites: All is purity.

Treatment for depraved will: The only will is God’s Will.

Treatment for selfishness: Name thinks only of God and God’s ideas.

Treatment for envy: All is peace and empathy.

Treatment for pride: All is humility, meekness and the knowledge of God. Name never thinks evil. Name thinks only of God and God’s ideas.

(Use this closing form after every treatment and then sit in the silence for a short time.)

These are statements founded in truth, and they cannot be reversed. We cannot retrograde, for we are divine, a perfect being in a perfect world, governed by a perfect God. There is nothing but God, in whom we live and move and have our being.

Revised Edition 2003