September
1, 1935
Buffalo, New York
Early
in the 2oth Century, metaphysics and psychology had one point in
common, the subjects of denial and affirmation.
Both schools of
thought used a similar approach: If one were to be healed of disease,
he must first “deny” the ailment or condition, followed
by a statement called an “affirmation” of what he wanted.
Consequently, some were instantaneously healed, others worked for
years (instead of days, weeks or months) for healing, and some were
never healed. Great controversies over the reason for these discrepancies
arose among healers, teachers and students who tried first one method
then another.
The explanation was exceedingly simple and fell in its proper category,
the great Principle governing the mental phase of life: Mind. The
final and true explanation lies under the Principle of Mind, classified
under the subdivision called psychology.
Psychology is the science of the nature, functions and phenomena
of the human soul or mind. Mystically stated, psychology is the Personality
of God expressing as man, the Mind of God as man in three phases – subconscious,
conscious and superconscious. All things are made of and by this
One Mind, which must account for and enfold all expressions of Mind
before a Day of Manifestation ends.
Metaphysics is defined as the branch of philosophy that examines
the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and
matter, substance and attribute, fact and value. It studies the theoretical
or first principles of a particular discipline, the metaphysics of
law for instance. Metaphysics, as the study of the first principles
of things, includes such concepts as being, essence, cause, identity,
etc. Metaphysicians modify Principle into livable Laws and statements
of truth suitable for finite consciousness.
When “popular” psychology first appeared, practically
no one understood what seemed a wild theory about each of us having
a subconscious mind. Some schools of thought believed we must fight
the subconscious, cast it off and leave it behind. Others regarded
it as an entity with its own power over the individual. Some even
seized this theory, so blissfully taught without reference to Foundation
Principles, as a first-class excuse to do exactly as they pleased. “I
cannot help it” or “it’s my subconscious mind” were
common statements heard everywhere.
Finally, psychologists found ways to experiment and analyze and cleared
much rubbish from the atmosphere of psychological thinking. Yet those
making denials and affirmations went their way, surprisingly getting
results despite the obviously contradictory nature of denials and
affirmations.
We know only two alternatives exist for any vibration, increase or
decrease. Denials and affirmations, being opposite poles of the same
expression, naturally and automatically align at the opposite poles
of any vibration. Thus, they must pull against and not for each other.
One or the other is always winning, for both cannot win simultaneously.
Denial aligns itself with the negative pole of any vibration or action.
The negative pole always lowers an existing vibration or condition
and condenses substance into a mass more solid, crystallized.
Affirmation aligns itself with the positive pole of any vibration,
action or condition and raises the rate of vibration or activity.
Thus, affirmation expands substance, makes it lighter both in appearance
(light or dark, day or night) and in relation to weight (heavy or
light).
Affirmations and denials are a pair of simultaneous opposite approaches
or actions about one situation or idea.
Today we still produce the same sort of stalemate in our lives by
part-time right thinking and part-time wrong thinking. Sometimes
we swing to the positive pole, self-confident and assured of perfection.
At other times we swing to the negative pole, insecure, doubting
and fearful.
The Mind, Substance and Power available to us are perfect. The problem
lies in how we apply what we know to what we do. Alternating between
positive and negative, we pull apart our perfect creations, work
on an old pattern, realize what we are doing, hastily tear that apart
and again begin to build the perfect.
How then can we expect a miracle of the Lord? How can we expect any
results at all under Law? It is like ripping out five days’ knitting
stitches, trying another pattern for five days, ripping that out
only to start on the first pattern again. Could we ever finish a
garment if we did this year after year?
Unless we continue in steadfast determination to work on one design
until it is finished, we can expect no results. The knitted yarn
would finally wear out under the continued strain of change. Often
the physical body finally wears out under the continued strain of
alternating between two poles of Thinking or Desire, each pulling
against the other.
Some days we live with high thoughts, other days with low thoughts– sometimes
up, sometimes down, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, until
the body just wears out. This can happen to a “saint” who
desires with all his heart to be perfect.
The Law to apply is: “If your eye is single, your whole body
shall be full of light” means we keep our eye on the high mark
of perfection.
Subconscious mind contains the animal-like consciousness that lifesparks
gained during evolution, including instincts, habits, ideas, thoughts,
pictures and desires. These memories lie dormant until some outside
event or person arouses subconscious mind to action. Then the subconscious
usurps the conscious mind and causes the person to do things that
are impossible at other times.
Sometimes these actions are good [tremendous strength under crisis],
sometimes not good. Subconscious mind holds memory impressions of
old ideas and forms. We carry these from generation to generation,
so each new generation duplicates the old in mentality and form,
which is the basis for some theories about heredity.
Many psychological theories treat the subconscious as separate from
the conscious mind. Some facts seem to support such theories. All
theories about the subconscious mind contain some truth, yet there
must be more than this, for none of them relate the subconscious
to the One Mind.
We must consider subconscious mind as part of a whole to answer any
number of questions: Where does subconscious mind originate? Where
will it go when we are finished with it? Of what use is it, since
it always seems the greatest source of our troubles?
Since our study of Principle informs us that we have only One Mind,
then our personal subconscious mind must be part of that One Mind.
Our quest therefore resolves into one of relationship. We must find
out exactly what part of One Mind the subconscious is and why we
have it as a phase of mind or consciousness.
The subconscious-subsoul works, even while we sleep. It works on
our bodies and affairs twenty-four hours a day. We direct and control
its work through all our Thinking, Imagination and Desire. What orders
do we give the subconscious as our statements of truth? Our desires?
Our declarations for mind, heart, body and affairs?
Our knowledge of pure psychology enables us to act on our subconscious
mind instead of reacting through it. We can give it new ideas, new
commands to carry out in our affairs, new patterns for its building.
Positively or negatively, rightly or wrongly, we either let Divine
Mind use us, or use Divine Mind every day. Power works through us
and as us twenty-four hours a day. We use Substance to build our
body into the form our consciousness dictates as the ideas and patterns
we use for our business affairs.
To remain poised for twenty-four precious, golden hours every day,
we must hold our center of balance. We must live in the Creator-servant’s
High Place of Destiny, never dropping back to that creature stage
we occupied as victims of fate and circumstance. At the center of
God-consciousness only can we know that Law is working in us, through
us and as us, both to will and to do, even when we see no outer proof.
We have one task, to command and discipline ourselves to ignore all
outer appearances. At first this task seems hard, though later we
wear our ability to perform it as a Crown of Glory. We ignore outer
appearances of illness and pain, congestion or stagnation in personal
affairs, losses instead of material gains.
No matter how physically apparent or obvious it seems, we look into
the face of eternal reality where all is now possible, where all
is now perfect. This is becoming.
Unconquerable Faith gives us the unquestioning strength of heart
to do this. Unquenchable Love enables us to withstand anything earth
can present. Surrender to be possessed by the three God-Principles
of Mind, Substance and Power bring perfection to pass.
Mind, Substance and Power are perfect first, last and always when
we do not try to use them in our finite, stumbling way. If we want
perfection, we must let these Principles use us as their instrument.
God did not create us to use Law. God created us for Law to use.
Let is forever our magic Creative Word, our password to all perfection.
When we stop interfering and let the master hand of God to play His
eternal, all-harmonious symphonies of joy and beauty upon us, the
perfect instruments of Law, we shall become the magic Creative Word
made flesh.
Affirmations and declarations are metaphysical. “I AM” statements
combine philosophy and mysticism.
The physical cells enfold both the desire body (seat of all emotional
activity) and the mental body (seat of subconscious mind). The desire
and mental bodies, with subconscious mind, form the seat of subsoul.
Subsoul has gathered, for future assimilation, memories of all experience
since the Living Soul left its heavenly eminence. Subconscious mind
is the servant, not the master.
We may truly say we are complete now in One Substance as far as we
express Mind and Power but we do not express their totality. We can
express these Principles limitlessly if we lift our minds above the
subconscious level.
We cannot leave the subsoul-subconscious mind behind in our ascent.
We cannot discard the ideas or emotional memories it projects on
conscious mind. This would be throwing away our own precious soul
substance.
We hold the memory of all experiences in the subconscious and they
register on conscious mind whenever an opportunity presents itself.
Subsoul-subconscious mind must rid itself of the old, negative idea
or pattern before it can use the new, positive pattern.
We cannot throw away or leave behind our old emotional patterns or
ideas. We can give them up, and lift them to be dissolved and erased
in Light.
Since subconscious mind is already full of the old, denial always
places full emphasis on past patterns of miscreation. Therefore,
denial adds to old patterns of limitation or ideas of illness. Denials
emphasize what is wrong. Denial is a waste of precious time, Mind,
Substance and Power, a complete misuse of Principle.
Our affirmations must be strong enough to impress the subconscious
mind to the exclusion of all old patterns or ideas. Instantaneous
healing consists of wiping out all old ideas and patterns concerning
a condition. We fill the emptied mental space simultaneously with
a complete set of new ideas and patterns. This lends strength to
hold only the new and not return to the “flesh pots of Egypt.”
What will always give us instant perfection? What is already the
only perfection? Light! The fundamental Light, all Principle, Substance,
Power of the Godhead, which is the original primary substance of
which all is made.
How do we become perfect as Light? We do as Jesus did when he raised
Lazarus from the dead. He stood before the tomb (as we stand before
outer conditions) ignoring the appearance of death. We do not deny
the condition but turn our attention, as he did, to the glory of
the Light. We allow Light to move through us as a river flowing,
cleansing and purifying.
We forget “those things behind,” press forward and reach
higher in greater strength. Unconquerable faith brings perfection
according to our faith and our ability to be filled completely with
the new idea, the new pattern!
We have learned that God composes the whole manifest universe of
One Substance, called lifesparks, which are infinitely variable in
their combinations. These combinations determine the different forms
that Substance takes in this material world of form.
To discover why Substance has assumed some alien physical form, we
must look for the answer in Mind and its operation within the individual
consciousness. We cannot find the answer in the conscious mind of
one who is determined to be healed, who prays night and day for that
healing, who in all ways follows Law. So our search forces us further
back, into the involuntary, unconscious realm of subconscious mind,
into the subsoul portion of the Living Soul.
Not until we discovered this vast, still largely unexplored realm
of subconscious mind could we understand the origin of disease, why
one person would have an instantaneous miracle of healing while another
continued for years in the same old state of mind or body. The answer
could not be found on the outer, since both individuals seemingly
prayed just as hard, had desires just as determined and led lives
just as pure.
We store every thought, everything seen or heard, all the pictures
an unguided, unbridled imagination can build in this realm of subconscious
mind. It all lays waiting for something outside to knock at the door,
for subsoul to push it open and come trooping out, much to the unsuspecting,
unprepared individual’s surprise.
As students of the Master Psychologist, Jesus the Christ, and followers
of the Law he taught, we know that subsoul must be freed of its burden.
Light must penetrate this darkened corner of mind so the whole Living
Soul may ascend to its Maker, taking back every part of itself.
We learn that this process is natural: Vagrant thoughts swarm into
consciousness, often shocking the self-satisfied person. The subconscious
also holds many records of matters we have only seen or heard and
in which we have not actively participated.
Subsoul has only one method of releasing itself, which is exactly
as a seed or bulb opens and sends shoots to the surface for light.
The doors of memory open (dreams being the most common “door-openers”)
and out and up shoots that which needs release – old repressions,
old memory impressions of thought, emotions or imagination.
In the “good old past,” when such thoughts finally reached
our surface consciousness, we probably repressed them, immediately
disowned them and closed the door to their release without asking
to whom they did belong, if not to us. We hide such thoughts again
because we do not like them, they embarrass us, we fear them.
Someone who is very sweet and good may suddenly find his or her conscious
mind full of thoughts of darkness and limitation, often hate-full
thoughts about a loved one or friend. A happy, joyous person may
suddenly see a “black” picture of something terrible
happening, which is common.
Usually, people are heartily shocked the first few times. Then, growing
more accustomed to such thoughts, they move to the next step – fear.
Unresolved, such fears will grow until they finally take possession
of a previously happy, joyous-natured person.
An individual may become preoccupied with a single dark idea, obsessed
to the exclusion of every other idea or form of living. This can
happen because subsoul is always trying to jettison the past. This
happens because through lack of understanding, we do not lift such
ideas into Light when they appear to ruffle the surface of conscious
mind. Such thoughts are nothing more than a dirty, musty corner we
must air and make ready for the bridegroom.
Our conscious mind hastily shoves such “dark” thoughts
back into the subconscious-unconscious realm of mind and slams the
door shut on them. Then, subsoul’s only alternative is to pop
them up again at the first opportunity. For the Law in this unconscious
realm is to seek the Light.
We may play this little involuntary game of pushing negative thoughts
down again into the subconscious until we develop what we call a “dual” or “split” personality,
first one and then the other using the conscious mind. “A double-minded
man is unstable in all his ways.”
Anything that “touches” us or “moves” us, “bothers” us
or “gets to” us belongs to us. It comes from the unconscious
for us to lift. When we feel that something of this nature does not
belong to us now, we are right in one sense: It is just part of our
past. We do not want to give it any more power in our lives today.
Yet ignoring, denying and pushing such thoughts back and down gives
the past power over us today.
Denial infuses dark thoughts with new life. Constant denial feeds
and sustains them with new Substance. Denial is a form of fear. Yesterday
has no part in our present activities, unless we renew yesterday’s
power. Yet each past impression must be sublimated and remade into
Light.
Consciously lift the unconscious. Any memory impression of darkness
that we unconsciously hold in the subconscious realm of subsoul must
obey the same law of nature that guides plants, birds and animals
in evolution – to seek the Light. So memory impressions must
and do resurface until we work them out.
We must seek new methods to lift and erase them from the records
of our past lives. Erasing them may take time. If the memory impression
is deep, then it will take time to erase it fully from subconscious
memory. Deep memory impressions include thoughts of family, heritage,
disease, lack of success or old fears held often or for a long period.
How will we know when we erase a memory record? When it is gone forever,
when we no longer remember it, when it never enters our conscious
mind again. This is our sign that we have overcome this cloud of
darkness, completely melted by the heat of our burning Desire and
changed into Light.
Every denial adds another dark thought to the pile already in the
subconscious mind. One affirmation crosses out or overcomes just
one dark thought. Since we always begin with a subconscious full
of memory impressions to overcome, we may go on for years, seemingly
standing still. Yet this apparent standstill is not real, for only
a small ray of the Christ Light will ultimately melt any barrier
of utter blackness. All Light needs is plenty of time!
While we deny disease or another negative, we are not free from the
blackness, whether it is an idea of illness or a critical thought
about a loved one or an enemy. Denial is proof-positive that we definitely
accept a disease or negative is still there.
If we believed, consciously or unconsciously, when we asked God to
heal us, then we could not still remember we had the darkness. So
what we really need to cure is the idea.
The Substance involved, no matter its present form, will instantly
snap back to unalterable perfection, no matter how un-Godlike it
appears. Substance is perfect now, even when we do not like its present
form, because the One Substance can never become imperfect. We can
only send Substance into an imperfect mold built from our own dark,
negative thoughts, pictures and desires, our doubts and fears.
Some individuals can cure an idea with one statement, and the body
shows a miracle. Other individuals may take years to cure an old
idea.
Many people have a “hospital” idea ingrained so deeply
that only an illness requiring hospitalization will cure it. Sometimes,
only surgery will cure the fear of an “operation” idea.
After we work out the idea, after we have dramatized and played it,
prayer steps in and completes the work. Nevertheless, the Substance
removed in the operation was already perfect and exactly like the
new-grown Substance we use in physical healing.
Unless we have cut out the idea as well, it will grow again, perhaps
in another form. An idea that determines the mold causes any disease
or “growth” into which we pour substance. Doctors and
hospitals are only agents the Father uses to rid subconscious mind
of fear ideas so great that nothing else can erase them.
When we have a change of heart or reconsider old ideas, the One Power
can finish the healing. Only we can cure ourselves of disease ideas.
God’s Healing Power cannot work until our desire for Light
or a cure is strong enough to reach the Light. Until we fan the spark
of Desire into a flame, the same old game of “up and down” will
continue.
The flame of Desire in the heart consumes old ideas, and reaching
ever higher, soon contacts the down-pouring white Light of the Christ.
In an instant, Light makes all old things new.
“
Forgetting those things behind” is turning from the dark to
the Light, which is “getting” Light from above “for” healing
instead of more darkness of confusion. When we never again consider
the past, we forget it.
To get the new for the old seems simple, doesn’t it? When we “let
go and let God,” we find ourselves suddenly so filled with
life that we forget any old weakness, we are cured. Waiting for God
to heal us, asking God to heal us is not enough.
We must so desire healing that it means more to us than our need
for air, food or drink. “You shall love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” This
means loving with the whole Living Soul, the combined subsoul, egoic
soul and Oversoul acting as the Three-as-One. Not with part of our
mind part of the time but all our mind harnessed in twenty-four-hour-a-day
service with strong, continued, determined effort to lift all emotional
Desires, Imagination and Thinking.
Then Power expresses as activity in the physical cells. Our metabolism
speeds its functioning. As our bodies tear down old cells, it builds
new cells in their place. This rebuilding works as a lengthy earth
process or by a quick heavenly process called instantaneous healing.
We make the body whole and perfect after the original design in God’s
image and likeness.
Power is Divine Action, Divine Activity and all the passive waiting
in the world will not take its place. We “wait upon the Lord” in
the sense that we know, even when we cannot see that Divine Law is
working in us and through us, both to will and to do.
Ignore the outer “seeming” of appearance according to
earth understanding and allow faith to wait upon the Lord in the
High Place. Establish soul consciousness in the Oversoul’s
heart center of poise while your lips form words of praise.
Send prayers of ever more love in ever-increasing gratitude. Believe
you now have what you desire and have asked for or decreed as God’s
Will for you. This is letting Power act as you.
Mind-Substance used as thinking and planning begins its perfect work
at once under Divine Law. Power-Substance begets action, faith as
the “substance of things hoped for” that the cells themselves
use to build or rebuild into the body or affairs. We operate under
the trinity of fundamental Principles and apply just One Substance
of healing to all life and its forms.
Two actions only are possible to Substance – we may raise or
lower its rate of vibration. When we raise the rate of vibration,
Substance expands until it passes beyond visibility (from ice to
steam). When we lower the rate of vibration, Substance condenses
and absolutely crystallizes into form (from steam to ice). The only
alternatives possible in any healing are raising or lowering the
rate of vibration of Substance.
A clear distinction lies between the inner and the outer. Any illness
or unlikeness to God is an altogether lowered rate of vibration we
cause by closing our “outer” body to the great “inner” River
of Life. We form our physical body of the One Substance vibrating
at a lower rate than Mind, therefore we must consider the physical
in any healing.
Fever is an outer vibration of some cells vibrating too rapidly for
the rest of the body, which registers as confusion, congestion, irritation,
inflammation or some sort of eruption. In all cases of mental confusion,
fevers and congestion of cells, the inner vibration must be physically
lowered to outer stillness. Simultaneously, the white Light of the
Christ lifts the whole body’s rate of vibration.
For instance, an imbalance of Love and Wisdom manifests as an imbalance
of alkalies (bases) and acids in the physical glands and their secretions.
So, we regain a normal body balance (60 percent alkaline and 40 percent
acid) by rightly using the food substances provided by the One Mind.
Life consists of taking that which is not self and using physical
processes to convert it into the physical body in the renewing, rebuilding
processes of cells. This is our perfect share in working out our
own salvation while we wait upon the Lord in the High Place. We must
breathe the Holy Ghost to renew the spiritual activity in every cell
or we have no life. Our bodies use everything we eat and drink as
energy and substance for rebuilding the body temple.
All quickening, vitalizing Power comes from above. When we separate
the inner from the outer, we lower the rate of vibration of our body,
affairs or consciousness into the static ice stage. When we refuse
to accept the outer physical as the divine process for creative life
on earth, when we want to leave it all to God, we most surely lower
the rate of vibration of our substance, physical-material body or
affairs, toward lifelessness.
The Neophyte’s vow is to make the body a fitting dwelling place
for the soul. Many lesser vows, including breathing, drinking water
(two quarts a day, besides other liquids and what we use in bathing),
resting, including diversions, re-creation and sleep and exercise
come under this. When we fail to observe lesser Neophyte vows, then
the body automatically responds to the physical trinity of emergence,
maturity and decline (a trinity of earth urges). Condensation of
substance in the cells is why elderly people shrink in size.
Lowering the rate of vibration and condensing Substance causes the
process of “from him who has not shall be taken away even what
he has.” If it is too much trouble to live in proper obedience
to Neophyte vows, our body will automatically respond, the rate of
vibration will lower, the cells condense and the ice stage inevitably
descends. This lowers the rate of vibration of the brain cells and
memory, thinking and other processes slow. This creates a debt to
Law.
We do not need descension. All we need do at any place along the
Path is to become aware that being healed is possible.
Healing is “letting” the Mind of God operate as our thinking
and planning. Healing is “letting” the Power of God quicken
us into a Divine Desire for activity. Healing is “letting” the
Substance of the Spirit vitalize the very cells into the ability
to change.
Letting is the cleansing, purifying process of Spirit. The thinking
and planning phase of “letting” changes subconscious
habits of illness, lack or any limitation into a flaming Desire to
be whole. “Letting” in turn opens the physical cells
or affairs to the Power-full recreation of their Substance into perfection.
Once we free subsoul or subconscious mind of all old memory impressions
of falseness, darkness and repressions, nothing earthly can penetrate
our barrier of Light to touch us or move us. Then we may say with
the full soul-conviction of all truth “none of these things
move me,” for we no longer have any affinity for them. Light
attracts only Light.
If old thoughts and fears arise for lifting while we are praying,
we instantly stop and lift them. The secret of freedom is to never
again try to close these old ideas into the subconscious “dark
room.” Lift the old into the Light and continue lifting while
such thoughts come into the conscious mind. Until we completely erase
them from memory, we will remember them. We forget old thoughts and
fears when we completely erase them.
What pays our spiritual debts? Sublimation, cleansing and lifting
subsoul, making right all our old records. We make (transmute) all
past darkness into Light while lifting our subsoul to become One
with our egoic soul. Thus, we become a Creator-servant of the One
Mind, One Power and One Substance.
Mind, Power and Substance are perfect. We shall become so when we
let them use us.
Free the past. Let it come up. Lift it up. Let God use you in the
present. Praise up. Then shall your future be as bright as all your
highest dreams of glory!
