Introduction
HEALING
Mental healing means mind healing. The possibility of healing physical diseases through the power of right thinking rests entirely on the theory that we are surrounded by an Infinite Mind which reacts to our thought.
That people have been healed through prayer and by faith in all ages, there is no question. But we live in a Universe of Law and Order, and at no time can that Law or Order be broken; therefore, if people have been healed through prayer and faith, it is because they have somewhere contacted a Law which really exists. To suppose that God would heal one man any more readily than another, would be to suppose that God is human and subject to the changing emotions that we ascribe to the human mind. To believe that the Divine Power would operate for one man simply because he asked It to, but would not operate for all, would be to believe in a God more human than man himself. It is very evident, however, that many times people have been healed through prayer; and either God has especially answered them, while He left others to suffer, or else by the act of prayer they have complied with some law. Again, many people have prayed and their prayers have not been answered; yet they have prayed to the best of their ability. Why have some been heard and others not heard? The only possible answer is that some reached a place in their mentality where they believed, while others fell short of this mental attitude. After all, prayer is a certain mental attitude, a certain way of thinking, a certain way of believing. All prayer is mental; some prayers reach a state of belief, while others fall short of that state. This leads us to suppose that the answer to prayer is in the prayer when it is prayed. True prayer stimulates a belief in Good which nothing else can, and often causes
the one who prays to rise to a point in mentality where the healing work may be done according to the Law of the Universe, which is a Law of Mind.
We have no objection to any form of healing. Anything that will help to overcome suffering must be good, whether it takes the form of a pill or of a prayer. We do not oppose doctors nor medical practitioners, but gratefully acknowledge the wonderful work that they have done and are doing. We hold no controversy with any one on the subject of healing. We are glad when any one is healed, or helped, by any method. We believe in any and all methods, and know that each has its place in the whole. We know that man’s life is a drama which takes place on three planes;—the physical, the mental and the spiritual. We know that each needs to be taken into account. We believe in proper food, proper exercise, proper clothing, proper sanitation and in everything that is real and sensible. We include all and exclude none.
But, while we do not hold arguments with any one, neither will we allow any one to hold controversies with us. We know that man’s life, in reality, is spiritual and mental; and that until the thought is healed, no form of cure will be permanent. We will gladly coöperate with any and all; but we will not accept the judgment of any and all. We know that there is a Law higher than the physical, and we seek to use It. We, perhaps, shall not always succeed, but we shall not become discouraged or confused over the issue, but will continue until we arrive.
We hold no arguments over any form of theology. We believe in any and every church and in all forms of worship. Above all, we certainly believe in God. But we will not allow any one to tell us how to worship God, nor compel us to worship in any way other than the way we choose.
We reject the theory that the Truth has been once and for all time given and that It cannot be added to nor taken from. We know this to be true about the Truth; but we also know that no one, so far, has arrived at a complete understanding of Truth. We expect more light all along the line, and we repudiate any belief that says that all truth has been given.
We know that the authority of man is, in most cases, an assumption and not a reality, and we refuse to be hypnotized into believing in any man- made mandate.
WHAT WE UNDERSTAND ABOUT HEALING
We understand that health is a mental and not a physical state. We seek to heal men’s mentalities, knowing that to the degree in which we are successful we shall also be healing their bodies. We know that to the degree in which we are able to see a perfect man he will appear. We feel that man is really perfect, no matter how he appears; and we seek to uncover that perfection which is within every man’s life, for this is healing.
We realize that mental healing must also be spiritual healing, for the two cannot be divorced. We know that a belief in duality has made man sick and that the understanding of Unity alone will heal him. We seek to realize that Unity with God in all our healing work. Every treatment must carry with it a realization of God if it is to be a good treatment.
We are not superstitious about this, but understand that it is necessary since all Life is One. God stands to us for the One Life in which we all live.
THOUGHTS ARE THINGS
We know that thoughts are things. We know that thought is intelligent and has power within itself to objectify itself. We know that belief makes thought very powerful. We know that our thought lays hold of Causation and manipulates real Substance. We know that the word of man is the law of his life, under the One Great Law of all Life. We know that thoughts of sickness make man sick, and that thoughts of health and perfection will heal him. We know that a realization of the Presence of God is the most powerful healing agency known to the mind of man. We do not argue over the issue, nor seek to convince any one of its merits. We have passed the stage of doubt and uncertainty; for we KNOW. We also know that we can heal only to the degree that we can think from the higher motive; and we know that we should be constantly on the alert, seeking to embody higher thoughts.
Meanwhile, we will use the best thought that we have and will expect to heal and help all who ask our aid.
Thought is the conscious activity of the one thinking, and works as he directs; it works through Law, but that Law is consciously set in motion. We know that Law will operate for us to the fullest extent of our belief in, and understanding of, it.
We realize that since our understanding is not yet complete, it is legitimate to use any and all methods that will help humanity; but we do look forward to the day when Truth alone will answer every need. That day will come to the degree that we know it is already here. The mental healer will do all of his work in Mind and will give his whole time and attention to correct knowing; but he will leave his patient free to use any method that will help him. In this way he will get the best results, for everything is good so far as it goes; but a consciousness of Truth alone can really and permanently heal.
Lesson Three: Metaphysical Meaning of Words
Used in Chart No. III
Universal Spirit.—Means the universe of conscious mind and self- determination. The Universal Subjectivity means the Creative Medium of the Spirit, or the Subjective law of the Universe. Particularization means the world of matter and forms. Read again the explanation to Chart Number One. The descent of Spirit means the passing of Spirit into form;—the particularization of Spirit into many things. The point, drawn from the top of the chart to the bottom section, symbolizes the Unity of all Life. Spirit passes through Law into Form. Multiplicity comes from Unity, but never contradicts Oneness. The many are within the One.
Man’s life partakes of the Divine Nature, and this chart may be used in the Individual or the Universal sense. Our conscious mind is some part of the One Conscious Mind of the Whole. The Complete Nature of God is reflected in man, and he uses the same law that God uses; for there is but One Law, as there is but One Spirit. Both God and man use the same Creative Medium or the Universal Subjectivity. It is the law of all thought and all action. Things come from One Source through One Common Law and One Common Creative Medium. We think of our lives as One with the Whole on all three planes of expression. We are one with the Conscious Mind, one with the Creative Law, and in our bodies we are one with all matter.
No matter what we are treating or for what purpose, the Medium of all thought is the Universal Law. It particularizes Itself through the power of the word that is spoken into It. The word alone is conscious. The Law is Automatic and the form is without self-determination.
UNIVERSAL
CONSCIOUS MIND OR SPIRIT
UNIVERSAL SUBJECTIVITY
SUBJECTIVE MIND
UNFORMED MATTER
CONTEMPLATOR REFLECTOR
MIRROR OF MIND OR SOUL
PARTICULARIZATION UNCONSCIOUS FORM MIRROR OF MATTER
Lesson Three: Metaphysical Chart No. III.
The upper section of this chart shows how the conscious mind, or spirit of man, reflects or contemplates itself, through the medium of soul or subjectivity, into form or matter. The middle section represents the World-Soul or Subjectivity; the Mirror of Mind and unformed matter; the Servant of the Spirit; the lowest section shows the result of self-contemplation as it takes form in the world of matter. Read and carefully study the metaphysical meanings of the words used in the Individual Chart.
Conscious Mind or Spirit.—Means the Self-Knowing Mind of the Universe. Con-templator, or Reflector, means the conscious thought of the Conscious Mind.
Subjective Mind and Unformed Matter.—Mean the Substance and the Soul of the Universe.
Mirror of Mind, or Soul.—Means that the Subjective side of life acts like a mirror; that is, It reflects the forms of thought that are given It.
Unconscious Form or Mirror of Matter.—Means that the material world reflects the forms of thought which the Soul holds before it.
This depicts the Creative process and sequence:—first in the chain of Causation is the Word, and this Word is conscious of Itself; next comes the action of Law, reflecting the Word. (This Law is subjective and obeys the Word, reflecting It into form or matter; matter, being at first unformed, or a Universal unformed stuff.) It then takes form, through the power of the word acting upon It, on the subjective side of life.
Soul and Substance are both subjective to the Spirit; and form, or matter in form, has no volition.
In the Trinity of Unity, one attribute alone is really self- conscious, namely, the Spirit, or the Word.
This chart may be used in either the individual or the universal sense, for the individual reënacts the Universal on all three planes.
The manifest Universe is the result of the self-contemplation of Spirit or God. This self-contemplation, through law, reflects its images into the world of form or manifestation.
Man’s world of affairs and his body are the result of his inner self-knowingness. He is the result of his self-contemplation.
Lesson Three: Mental Healing
Whatever exists at all must be the result of a definite image of thought held in the Mind of God or the Absolute, Who is the cause of all. Whether we think of man as a projection of God, an emanation of God, a manifestation or a reflection of God, we must realize that God, or the First Cause, holds man in His Consciousness as a Perfect Being, since the Perfect Mind could not conceive of an imperfect idea. If, on the other hand, we think of man as a part of God, which some schools of thought teach, we should then have to realize that man, as a part of the Divine Being, must inherently be perfect. This is a conclusion which is unavoidable. But man does not appear to be perfect; he certainly appears to have many experiences which are far from ideal. There can be no question but the human man suffers, is sick and has pain and eventually dies. To doubt this would be to doubt the evidence of the only quality we possess whereby we may consider ourselves conscious beings at all. We must, then, reconcile our conclusion of perfection with an experience which is apparently not perfect.
INDIVIDUALITY
While man must be, and is, a Divine Image or a Perfect Idea, yet he suffers and is sick. The answer to this is the same answer which can be given, philosophically, to the whole problem of evil—that man is an individual and does with himself what he wills. The Scriptures say, “God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Individuality cannot be automatically produced but must be spontaneous. It could not be real individuality unless it had the ability to think as it chose; and it could not be individuality unless its ability to think as it chose were backed by a power to produce this choice; because, if nothing ever happened as the result of man’s choice, he would live in a dream world, and his dreams would never come to objectification. This would be a world of illusion. But man has the ability to choose and is unified with a Law which automatically produces his choice; whereas he does not have the ability to destroy the idea of himself, he does have the ability to deface it, to make it appear discordant; but he cannot destroy the Divine Image.
We live in a Universe of Love as well as in a Universe of Law. One is the complement of the other—the Universe of Love pulsating with feeling, with emotion; and the Universe of Law, the Executor of all feeling and all emotion.
In taking up this lesson on healing, then, let us remember that back of the man which we see is the Divine Image. There is a Perfect Concept, held in the Mind of the Universe as an already accomplished fact, but man is subject to the law of his own individuality.
Let us turn to the Law, and find what It says, in Chart No. III, viz., that man is conscious mind or spirit; this stands for his objective faculty. The objective mind of man is his recognition of life in a conscious state; it is the only attribute of man that is volitional, or self-choosing; consequently, it is the spiritual man. The conscious mind of man is the contemplator, the reflector. The Universe is the result of the Contemplation of the Divine Mind, or the Holy Spirit, which is God. God creates by contemplating His own I-AM-NESS; and this contemplation, through law, becomes the objectification of the Self-Realization of the Infinite Mind.
MAN REËNACTS GOD
The Divine nature is reënacted in man; he is conscious mind and spirit; and, as he contemplates, he reflects his thought into the Universal Subjectivity; it is received and acted upon.
As Mind, or Soul, accepts these images of thought, It operates upon unformed substance and causes it to take definite form as body, which is unconscious form. It becomes definite form, but the form itself is unconscious, because it is made of immaterial substance. Body of itself, without Mind, has no consciousness nor volition. Devoid of mentality, the body neither thinks, sees, hears, feels, touches nor tastes. Take the mentality away from the body and it becomes a corpse. Having no conscious intelligence, it at once begins to disintegrate and to resolve again into the Universal Substance, or unformed matter, from which it came.
Conscious thought or contemplation is a reflector, reflecting through mentality into matter, the forms which consciousness entertains. Although man is inherently a perfect idea, his individuality covers this idea with the forms of thought which he images. Of course, these forms of thought may, or may not, be conscious. Man comes into this life subjective to the race consciousness and with a belief in his own environment; and as he unfolds his own personality he begins to create new subjective thought. He thinks and observes, draws certain conclusions and deductions, and incorporates them within his mentality, until, at last, they also become a part of the relative cause of his objective existence.
Healing is accomplished by uncovering, neutralizing and erasing false images of thought, and letting the perfect idea, or ideal, reflect itself through subjective mind into the body.
When one realizes that everything is Mind and that nothing moves but Mind, and that the only instrument of Mind is thought (which is contemplation in some form or other), he will see that nothing can permanently heal but right thinking. It is the only permanent form of healing that is known, i.e., mental and spiritual healing.
NOT LIMITED BY PRINCIPLE
Realizing that conscious thought operates through a Power which is Infinite, we see that there can be no limit to the power to heal, other than the limit of our ability to conceive that Power as healing. We are limited, not by Principle, but by our ability to conceive perfection. Our thought can bring out a condition as perfect as we can conceive; therefore, the man whose thought is the most God-like will be the best healer. That is why we cannot divorce true mental healing from true spiritual work. The man whose thought is the most God-like,
i.e., the truest, the highest, the most noble, the most complete, the most peaceful, will be the best healer because his thought reflects a greater perfection. When thought reaches a higher degree of perfection, it will bring out a still greater development, i.e., as the race consciousness unfolds and evolves.
MENTAL TREATMENT IS REAL
Never forget that the Conscious Mind is the only Actor in the Universe and in man; that the unconscious or subjective mind is compelled, by reason of its nature, to accept; and that it can never reject; that the body is an effect, with no intelligence of its own. We can now see that a mental treatment is a real, tangible, specific operation, working in perfect accord with scientific Law.
When a practitioner treats any one, he does not just hope that his patient will get well; he does not ask that he may be healed; he does not simply desire that he may be healed; he is busy doing a definite piece of mental work, bringing out in his own consciousness (in his own self- contemplative, conscious mind) an understanding that the patient is healed and is perfect.
Treatment is the act, the art and the science of inducing thought within the mentality of the one treating, which thought shall perceive that the body of the patient is a Divine, Spiritual and Perfect Idea. Treatment does not necessarily treat every organ of the body specifically, but it does declare the body to be harmonious and that every specific idea within it is harmonious. It then pays especial attention to what appears to be the physical disorder.
As the result of this treatment which the practitioner gives, Subjective Mind (which is Universal and Omnipresent) accepts the images of his thinking and reflects them in the direction that he specifies.
He is not trying to send out a thought, hold a thought, or suggest a thought. Be sure that you differentiate between suggestion (which is all right, so far as it goes, but is limited) and real metaphysical healing. In metaphysical healing we are conscious that we are dealing with a Universal Principle, or Law, which takes the impress of our thought and acts upon it. Nothing can stop It. Some day we shall know that not even the thought of the patient can stop It, and then that argument will be ended! We are dealing with Something that cannot and does not answer back nor argue. We are directing It for definite purposes, telling It to do certain things which It does. This is what happens when we give a treatment.
Since the Law is Infinite, there is no incurable disease, as opposed to a curable one. The Law knows nothing about disease. It only acts. The practitioner says: “My word is the presence, power and activity of the Truth which is within me, which is Almighty, which is God. There is none other.” This word then is the law of the thing whereunto it is spoken and has within itself the ability, the power, and the intelligence to execute itself through the great Law of all Life. This word, being the spontaneous recognition of Living Spirit—Infinite, Ever-Present, and Active—is now completely manifested in and through this person, or thing, about which the practitioner is thinking.
MAN COMES THROUGH SUBJECTIVITY
When man is born, he is born from pure subjectivity into objectivity. He is born from a subjective state of consciousness into an objective state, and he gradually grows into intelligent, self-conscious, objective understanding.
When a baby is born into this world, it is purely subjective; it does not know enough to feed itself; it has no objective faculties, no judgment, no thought processes. But the minute it is born it begins to develop an objectivity through observation; however, it takes a baby longer than it does any other animal, as it is more helpless. A child does not always gain its objective faculties quickly—sometimes it never does during this lifetime. Irresponsible people never become completely objectified on this plane; they are still instinctively subjective.
BORN PERFECT
Since babies are born from subjectivity, they are born, generally speaking, from a perfect condition. You will find that practically everything, when it comes into the world, is perfect; it then takes on objectivity; but it brings with it, subjectively, certain tendencies. Very seldom does it bring disease. Very few diseases are inherited, in spite of all the claims that people make that they inherit heart trouble, tuberculosis, etc. They do not! What they do, however, is to inherit a subjective receptivity toward, and a belief in, those things.
At first, children are happy, free, spontaneous. That is why we like them; they live instinctively. As they grow older and their emotions become more complex and they hear people talk about death, trouble, divorce, love and marriage, and everything else that is good, bad or indifferent, they begin to react to these emotions subjectively.
Everything that opposes harmony and Spontaneous Unity will prove disastrous to the child’s health, sooner or later. The inherited part is simply an inherited subjective tendency.
RACE-SUGGESTION
Another prolific source of disease is race-suggestion. RACE- SUGGESTION MEANS THE ACCUMULATED SUBJECTIVE TENDENCIES OF THE HUMAN RACE; these tendencies are operative through any person who is receptive to them.
These, then, are the sources from which most diseases come—conscious observations, suppressed emotions, subjective inherited tendencies, and, perhaps three-fourths of them, from race-suggestion.
DISEASE IS IMPERSONAL
Disease is an impersonal thought force operating through people, which does not belong to them at all. Recognize that it is neither person, place, nor thing; that there is no law to support it; that it is a coward, fleeing before the Truth; that there is nothing but the Truth. There is no limitation imposed upon man anywhere. You must know that the Power you are using is definite, scientific, dynamic, Spiritual, Absolute and complete, and that It will work. Let no fear come into your thought.
Remember that nothing can come through consciousness into objectivity but such thoughts as you claim. The person who has clearly and subjectively realized the Unity of Mind, the Unity of Good, the Presence of God, the Absoluteness of his own Being, the totality of things existing at the point of his own personality, is immune from mental suggestion. He can surround himself with an armor of protection so that false suggestion cannot enter.
As a matter of fact, practically all the world is hypnotized through race concept, and what we need to do is to de-hypnotize it.
HOW TO HEAL
Disease is mentally contagious through suggestion; so we must surround our patients with an aura, or atmosphere, of protection. This is nothing less than the realization of the presence and the power of God, or Spirit, as their Life, as the only Life there Is, as Complete and Perfect in them.
First recognize your own perfection; then build up the same recognition for your patient; then directly attack the thought that binds him, recognizing that your word destroys it, stating that it does, taking into account and specifically mentioning everything that needs to be changed, every so-called broken law or false thought. Then finish your treatment with a great realization of peace, sitting there a few moments in silent recognition that it is done, complete and perfect.
The work must not be thought of as hard; and when we know that there is but One Mind, we shall realize that it could not be hard. Mental treatment is a direct statement in Mind of what we wish to have done and a complete realization that it is done.
MIND IS THE ACTOR
We recognize that everything is in Mind and that nothing moves but Mind; that Intelligence is back of everything, acting through a thought force which is concrete, definite and real. The reason people do not realize that mental healing is possible is that they do not understand the meaning of Causation; they do not realize that Intelligence is back of all things; that there is but One Fundamental Intelligence in the Universe, One Common Mind or One Mind, Common to all people. That which we appear to be is simply the point where this Mind manifests through us. (Man is an Individualized Center of God-Consciousness. Remember, all Law is Mind in Action.)
Every disease that we have must come through Mind in order to operate through us. There is but One Subjective Mind in the Universe. Upon this understanding alone is mental treatment possible (whether it be present or absent); if there were more than One, it would be impossible, for then there would be no Common Medium through which to work, think or act.
There is but One, and we are always thinking into It; so whether a patient is present or absent makes no difference. The only advantage in having him present is that you may talk to him and teach him, and, by analyzing his thought, remove any mental complex or conflict.
The question is often asked: “Is this Subjective Mind, or Law, all that there is to the Divine Nature?” No, of course not. There is the Spirit and the Soul of the Universe, a dual aspect of that which is One; but when you are practicing mental healing, you are dealing with Law, just as definitely as a physicist deals with law.
DISEASE IS NOT ALWAYS DUE TO CONSCIOUS THOUGHT
Any disease, in order to operate through the body, must first be a mental picture in the inner mentality; it must first be subjective, if it is to become objectified. “Disease is an image of thought held in Mind until it appears in the body.” This is all there is to it. While every disease is an effect and must first have a subjective cause, the subjective cause, nine times out of ten, is not conscious in the thought of the person who has it; but is, perhaps, largely the result of certain combinations of thinking, which, gathering together around and through the individual who thought and received them, becomes operative through him. Certain combinations of thought, coalescing, produce a definite manifestation.
So, while it is true that every disease has a direct prototype in subjective mind, it is also true that the individual who suffers from the disease, nine times out of ten, never thought he was going to have that particular kind of trouble.
WE DEAL WITH IDEAS
You are dealing with ideas only. Let the physicians deal with bodies, if necessary. There is nothing wrong with medicine or manipulation, provided it relieves suffering, but lest the suffering come again, the mental cause must be removed. Never say to patients: “Don’t take medicine, because if you do, the treatments will do you no good”; for this is untrue. Say, instead, “If you feel like taking medicine or going to the doctor, do so.” If you follow this method, the time will generally come when your patient will realize that he no longer needs the medicine; he will have unfolded out of the disease, rather than have broken away from it.
Actually speaking, no one needs to be healed; that is, health is an omnipresent reality, and when the obstructions that hinder healing are removed, it will be found that health was there all the time. So, in your work, do not feel that you must heal any one. In fact, assume no responsibility for any one’s recovery.
HAVE NO DOUBTS
Suppose, when you treat a patient, you begin to feel a terrible sense of respon-sibility—what should you do? You should begin at once to treat yourself against that thought, for as long as you have it there is a barrier to healing. Why? Because when you sift that sense of responsibility down to its last analysis, it is a belief that you cannot heal. Do not give in to that belief, because it is nothing but a thought which says that you cannot heal. Nothing but a thought is saying, or could be saying, it. A chair could not say it, and since it is only a thought that says it, it is only a thought that can unsay it.
Declare: “My word has the power to heal,” and you will find that doubt has gone.
THINKING IN TREATMENT
When you are giving a treatment, you are thinking; you are meeting, opposing, neutralizing, erasing and obliterating all suppression, fear, doubt, failure, morbid emotion and sense of loss—whatever the trouble may be. Every time your thought hits fairly and squarely, it erases just as definitely as one would erase a chalk line. Such is the mystery of appearance and disappearance.
Why doesn’t God heal us? Because we are independent. We have made ourselves sick and we must heal ourselves. In the great world war ten or fifteen million people suffered agony, pain, sorrow and grief—it staggers the imagination to conceive of it. But water was just as wet and the birds sang just as sweetly through it all. Nothing happened, except in man’s thought and act; he fought until he tired of fighting; then he stopped. We will be sick until we tire of it; then we will inquire into the cause, eliminate it and be healed.
DO NOT TRY TO GO BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING
Our understanding is not sufficient to enable us to set bones, and, since we cannot walk on the water, we take a boat. We can go only as far as we know. Principle is Infinite, but we can demonstrate only at the level of our own concept.
If a man struggles against a habit, he is building up a mental resistance, but if he does not resist it while you treat him, he will soon find himself liberated.
People say: “I can’t take off my glasses.” Then wear them; but begin to make the declaration that there is One Perfect Vision seeing through you. This is the Truth. When this statement shall have become a subjective realization, you will be healed and will no longer need glasses.
If a plaster will relieve, use it. If a pill does any good, take it; but gradually lead thought from where it is into the higher realms of consciousness where neither plasters nor pills are needed.
WHAT A PRACTITIONER MUST KNOW
A practitioner knows that disease is mental. He not only knows this; he knows that disease is simply an impersonal thought force, operating through whatever channel it may find. He knows that it is a direct thought force; that there is nothing but Mind in the Universe; nothing to move but Intelligence. He is not dealing with a physical body, nor trying to heal a physical condition.
Right here, let me mention that many people think they must put their hands on their patients to heal them—that there is a certain magnetism, potent in healing. This has nothing to do with the power of which we are talking. Magnetic healing is the transmission of vital energy from one body to another and soon exhausts itself.
We treat man, not as a patient, not as a physical body, not as a diseased condition; neither do we treat the disease as belonging to him, the reason being that if we do, we will fasten the disease to him. We must not think of the disease as being connected with him or as a part of him. The practitioner realizes that man is born of Spirit and not of matter. Spirit is Changeless, Perfect, Complete, and in every respect Pure, Undefiled and Uncontaminated. He realizes this until he sees his patient as a living embodiment of Perfection.
A practitioner, then, is one who, recognizing that there is nothing but Mind to move, definitely, specifically, concretely and consciously speaks from his objective mind into subjectivity and gives direction to Law, which is the Actor.
HEALING IS CLEAR THINKING
Healing is the result of clear thinking and logical reasoning, which presents itself to consciousness and is acted upon by it. It is a systematic process of reasoning which unearths the mental cause or idea underlying disease, and presents the Truth about man’s Being, thereby healing him.
For instance, say to yourself: “God is All there is. There is only One Life.” When you are treating, if there is any little point that is not clear, stop at once and go back to the last analysis of Ultimate Reality and Absoluteness and build your whole argument upon It, in order to get a clear consciousness.
Repeat: “God is All. There is only One Power, Intelligence and Consciousness in the Universe, only One Presence. Now, that One Presence cannot change. There is nothing for It to change into but Itself. It is Changeless and It is My Life now. It is in me now.” Claim that no form of race-suggestion, belief in limitation, subjective idea of limitation, thought of Karma, fatalism, theology or hell, horoscope, or any such beliefs have power. Accept none of them. If you have ever believed in them; if you have ever believed that the stars govern you, or that your environment governs you, or that your opportunities govern you, if you have ever been led to believe by any one that any of these things govern you, recognize that it is a hypnotic condition into which you have fallen, and deny every one of them, until there is no longer anything in you that believes in them.
This is the way to get your consciousness clear. You see what it does; it induces a clear concept of Reality which must reproduce Itself. This process of clear thinking, if carried out every day, would heal any disease, because it would bring a complete recognition of Life.
ONLY ONE LAW
The thing that makes you sick can heal you. You do not need to look for a law of health as opposed to a law of disease; for there is only One Law. This will give a great sense of relief, since it means that there is no power to oppose a correct mental treatment.
People often say to a practitioner: “I want you to hold a strong thought for me.” This is a misconception; for there are no strong and weak thoughts in this sense. The most powerful thought is the one that carries the greatest conviction with it. We do not hold thoughts; we simply think them and let Mind operate upon them.
People often say: “It must be a drain to treat so many people; I should think that your will power would become exhausted.” This also is a misconception; for will power has nothing whatever to do with real mental healing; its use would imply that the practitioner exercises a personal thought force over his patient. This is false suggestion, which is always some form of hypnotism.
NO SENSATION IN TREATMENTS
It is sometimes thought that in giving or receiving a treatment one must experience some physical sensation. A patient sometimes says, after having received a treatment: “I felt nothing during the treatment.” It is not necessary that the patient should feel anything during the treatment, neither is it necessary that the practitioner should feel anything, other than the truth about the words that he speaks.
When we plant a seed in the ground, we do not have a great sensation, and it is not probable that the soil has any sensation. But the seed, planted in the creative soil, will, nevertheless, produce a plant. “What is true on one plane is true on all.” Know that you are doing things just as definitely as the gardener. It is the person who knows what he is doing who gets results.
HOW TO REMOVE DOUBT
All thoughts of doubt concerning one’s ability to heal come from the belief that it is the personality which does the healing, and not the Law. Never say: “I am not good enough to heal,” or “I do not know enough to heal,” or “I haven’t understanding enough to heal.” Know that you are dealing with Law and that It is the
Actor. Recognize all such arguments as some form of suggestion and refuse to let them operate through you. You can heal; but you must know that you can.
The day will come when the entire world will believe the Truth, because of the great neutralizing power which It is exercising upon the race consciousness.
THE TRUTH DEMONSTRATES ITSELF
The reason people do not get better results is that they do not understand that principle works independently; the Truth demonstrates Itself. At the root of every one’s personality there is One Common Mind. There is but One Subjectivity in the Universe, and all use It. Think of yourself as being in Mind as a sponge is in the water; you are in It and It is in you.
DISEASE IS MENTAL
Every disease that comes up through subjectivity, or appears in the body, must come up through Mind. Bodies, of themselves, do not get sick. For instance, when the Life Principle deserts the body, it is what we call a corpse—a lifeless and inanimate thing; it no longer becomes sick; we understand that it could not get sick unless there were intelligence there to cognize the trouble.
Since the body, of itself, cannot become ill, or hurt, or contract disease, unless there is intelligence there to recognize and feel it, disease is primarily a mental thing. Without mentality it is not; and yet with mentality it appears to be.
For instance, a contagious disease is physically contagious between two living people; but it is not contagious between two dead people. There must be intelligence, even in a contagious disease, for the body to contract it. The dead body cannot catch it from the living because the intelligence has departed.
THE MEDIUM OF HEALING
The thing to remember always is, that there is just One Subjective Mind in the Universe. This is a point that people often do not realize, and because they do not, they cannot see how a person may be treated without touching him; or that a person can be healed at a distance through absent treatment.
If there is but One Subjective Mind in the Universe (and we all remember the meaning of Subjective Mind; It is Deductive, Receptive, Plastic, Neutral, Impersonal and Creative; It is the Stuff from which all things are formed)—you can impress upon It a certain image of thought, or a certain process of realization, and you will get a result; for it is the Actor.
DEPEND ON PRINCIPLE
Through the proper use of this great Subjective Law you can impress upon It a definite idea; and if you, yourself, do not withdraw that idea, or neutralize it by an opposite one, the law will bring it into manifestation.
What we need, then, is to learn the law governing this Principle. When you give a treatment, you are definitely setting in motion a Universal law which must not only accept what you say, but the way in which you say it. If your treatment is given with a sense of struggle, it will manifest that way; if it is given with a sense of peace, then it will manifest in that manner.
Remember that you need assume no personal responsibility for the recovery of your patient. All that you have to do is to make certain statements which Mind is going to carry into effect through him.
One who understands the use of Divine Principle never tries to suggest, hypnotize nor personally influence any one; he is always impersonal in his work; he is stating in Mind directly what he wishes to have done.
When you have occasion to treat yourself, call your own name and then proceed with the treatment, as though you were treating some one else.
Disease will be healed, provided you get at its cause and remove it, and provided the one for whom you are working is willing to surrender that cause. You cannot heal any one of his trouble if it is the result of some mental attitude which he will not surrender. In this case, find out what the mental
attitude is and remove it. It is a practitioner’s duty to uncover false ideas of Life and replace them with the Truth. If this can be done before the disease destroys the body, a healing will always follow.
DEFINITE WORK IN HEALING
Principle is the Power that made everything; it is Absolute; It will not and cannot be denied. The only thing that can deny God is yourself.
Do not think of disease as an entity, but as an impersonal thought- force. In healing, you are separating the false from the true; the work is definite and dynamic, and is consciously done with a clear purpose always in mind.
If your own thought is clear, and you are able to completely realize the presence of Spirit in your patient, all the power on earth cannot hinder you from healing.
REPEATING TREATMENTS
Always come to a complete conclusion while giving a treatment; always feel that is it is done, complete and perfect. In the intervals between treatments, do not carry the thought of the patient around with you; to do so is to doubt, and this mental attitude must be completely overcome. Each treatment is a complete statement of the Reality of Being. The treatment should be repeated daily until a healing takes place. If it takes five minutes, five hours, five days or five years, the treatment must be kept up until a healing is accomplished. This is the only method that we know. It is not enough to say that everything is all right; this is true in principle, but in fact, it is only as true as we make it. Treat until you get results. A healing takes place when the patient is no longer sick, and until that time mental work must be done.
REMOVE THE COMPLEX
Suppose one is constantly saying: “Everything is all wrong in the world; people are wrong; things are wrong; conditions are wrong; every one is sick; every one is unhappy; nothing is worth while.” You, as a practitioner, must remove this complex; for these inner emotions create outer conditions in and through the body and are what cause a great deal of the sickness in the world.
Treatment straightens out consciousness by clear thinking. When the inner consciousness agrees with the Truth, when there is no longer anything within which denies the outer word of Truth, then, and not until then, a demonstration takes place. Specifically go over the thoughts that are wrong and use the power of your word to heal them.
HEALING PAIN
Use the thought of peace and the realization of a Perfect Presence; know that in this Presence there is no tension, there is no struggle, there is no fear, there is no sense of conflict. Know this until there comes to your own consciousness a deep, calm sense of peace and ease, and until every thought of pain is eliminated.
Do the same in the case of fever; treat until it is gone; usually it will go like heat off a stove.
HEADACHE
Suppose that every little while you have a headache. A physician may say that it is caused by some nerve strain; a chiropractor may say that it is something out of joint; the osteopath may say that it is something else; and some other practitioner may say that it is something else; for each has found some twist in the body to fit his theory. All of these twists may be there; but the body could not twist unless you were there to twist it. The metaphysician goes to the twister and untwists his thought, thus freeing the twists in the body. We recognize all the good that doctors are doing, but we insist that the mentality must also be taken into account.
Back of nearly every disorder there is some complex, or mental knot, that needs to be untied; generally, some suppressed emotion which, perhaps, is centered around the affections— the likes and dislikes, the loves and passions, and everything that goes with them. All these knots must be untied and it is the business of the practitioner to untie them.
WHAT RIGHT THOUGHT DOES
Right thought, constantly poured into consciousness, will eventually purify it. Disease is like a bottle of impure water; healing might be likened to the process of dropping pure water into the bottle, a drop at a time, until the whole is clean and pure. Some one might ask why the bottle could not be turned upside down and at once drain out all the impurities. Sometimes this happens, but not often; meanwhile, a drop at a time will finally eliminate the impurities and produce a healing.
In treating, go beyond the disease and supply a spiritual consciousness; never leave a person without the Great Realization of Life and Love, of God and Perfection, of Truth and Wisdom, of Power and Reality. Sense the Divine Presence in and through the patient at all times.
HOW HABITS ARE HEALED
What is a habit? A habit is the form that desire takes; it is a desire for something that will give satisfaction. At the root of all habit is one basic thing, the desire to express life. There is an urge to express in all people, and this urge, operating through the channels of Creative Mind, looses energy into action and compels the individual to do something.
Back of all desire is the impulse of Spirit to express. In man, this impulse must express at the level of his consciousness:
“For each, for the joy of the working and each in his separate star,
Shall paint the thing as he sees It for the God of things as they are.”
Some express constructively and some destructively.
Suppose a man who has the liquor habit comes to you to be healed. You would not pray that he be healed, for you would know that you are dealing with a man who has the desire to express life and who thinks that he must express it in terms of intoxication. He once thought this expressed reality to him; he now knows that it does not, but he has not the will power to stop; for the habit has appeared to take complete possession of him. (It is well to remember that unless we control thought, it will control us.)
In giving the treatment, first recognize who and what he is, saying something like this: “He is the full and complete expression of the Truth, and, as such, he is free from any sense of limitation. He is free from any delusion or fear of delusion. He knows that the Spirit of Truth within him is complete and always satisfied. That thing which calls itself the liquor habit has no power over him and cannot operate through him. By the power of this word, it is now completely destroyed and forever obliterated.” Then see him free and satisfied. Wait until you, yourself, are sure of the statements made, realizing that the work is done. This is the treatment.
THE SEED OF THOUGHT
Whether we say our thought goes out, or whether we say it is operated upon by Principle, makes no difference; it is very evident that until a thought is created there is no operation. For instance, a person is sick and he remains sick until some one knows that he is well. It is very evident, then, that as the result of some one’s thinking he is healed. We know that the thinking sets in motion some law.
Whether the word used heals, or whether it simply sets the Law in motion, really makes no difference. The practitioner is in the same Mind in which his patient lives; consequently, since each is in One Mind, the patient is sick in the same Medium and, in a certain sense, in the same Mind in which the practitioner lives; and because this Mind is Indivisible, the practitioner can, in his own mentality, reach the thought which causes the patient to be sick. Whether we say he sends out a thought, or whether he simply thinks a thought, makes no difference. The simplest way is to say that the practitioner realizes within himself upon the One Mind, through the One Medium, in the One Law.
The practitioner realizes a certain truth for his patient—within himself. Therefore he sets the Law in motion for his patient. (The operation of this Law may be thought of as the same as that of the law whereby water reaches its own level by its own weight.) The practitioner knows within himself; and that self-knowing-ness rises into the consciousness of his patient. So we do not have to worry about sending out thoughts. It is just like planting a seed in the ground; the practitioner sows the seed and the Creative Mind produces the plant. Does the ground operate on the seed, or does the seed operate upon the soil? We do not know, but we do know that when a seed is put into the ground, something operates upon it and a plant is produced; and that unless a seed is put into the ground, no plant will be produced.
WHAT CAN BE HEALED
What should we try to heal mentally? If we were dealing only with the power of our own thought, our limited concept, we could not heal anything mentally; but if we realize that we are dealing with Universal Principle, how can we set any limit to Its Power?
People are sick because they cover a perfect idea with imperfect thoughts; for sickness is the result of subjectified thinking. Everything which the objective mind has consciously thought has fallen into the subjective. All suggestions received have also fallen into the subjective thought; these suggestions may or may not have been consciously received. This will explain why people may be taken sick with diseases of which they never heard; somewhere, on the subjective side of thought, certain forces have been set in motion which, when objectified, produced certain conditions.
WHY PEOPLE GET TIRED
Let a person say to himself; “I have overworked,” and at once there will come up through his consciousness a belief in weariness. People who are constantly complaining of being tired are simply hypnotized into this belief through the law of race-suggestion.
Suppose one had dropped complexes into his subjective thought; suppose desires had torn him, and conflicts had entered into his life; what would have happened? He would have been continually dropping opposing thoughts and concepts into his mentality; and as the mental action took place, they might produce a twisted body; and if over-chaotic, they might produce what is called nervous prostration. It would not, however, be the body that was sick but would be a condition brought about through wrong thought.
Now, if subjective thought were a thing apart from us, if we did not have conscious access to it, we could not change it; but being the result of the way thought has worked, we can consciously change it. If this were not true mental healing would be impossible.
THE IDEA MUST TAKE FORM
Healing, then, takes place to the degree that we send down the right kind of thoughts into subjectivity. This does not mean that we must sit around holding thoughts. We do not hold a seed in our hand when we wish to plant it, and it is the same in healing; we do not hold the thought but seek to realize it and let it work. By thinking consciously and with deep feeling, we implant the right idea in Mind, and Mind reproduces this idea as effect in the body. We must realize that we are using a power compared to which the united intelligence of the human race is as nothing. This should not seem strange; for we know that the united intelligence of the entire race cannot produce a single rosebud, yet any gardener may produce as many roses as he wishes, if he goes about it in the right way. We must remember that what is true on one plane is true on all. Involution and evolution are the law, cause and effect. The practitioner involves an idea in Mind; it is Law and must operate.
If one wishes to treat a patient, he must first treat himself; as he treats himself, that is, as he treats his own mentality, which is simply a point in Mind, he reaches the mentality of his patient. The practitioner cannot erase the thought in the patient’s mentality until he has first neutralized the idea in his own thought.
RESOLVE THINGS INTO THOUGHTS
A treatment is a specific thing. If you are treating some one against the belief in scarlet fever, you are making your word operate in such a way as to neutralize a belief in this disease. Each treatment must have, in itself, everything necessary to cover the case. When you treat, resolve things into thoughts; bodies, people, objects and all things. Having resolved everything into thoughts, know that disease is neither person, place nor thing; it has no location, does not belong to any one, cannot operate through any one, is not believed in by any one. Know that it is a false belief, a false image, with no power. Know that the whole thing is mental; then mentally dissolve it.
HEALING INSANITY
In treating some one whose mind appears to be deranged, realize that there is but One Mind, which Mind is God, and is Perfect. This is the only Mind that is; It is the Mind of your patient; It is your own Mind. This Mind, being a Complete, Perfect and Indivisible Whole, cannot labor under a delusion, cannot, for one moment, lose Its Self-Consciousness. After you have realized this Truth about Life, realize that it is also true about the one you are treating; his thought is perfect. If you have this realization in your own mentality, knowing there is just the One Mind, there will be no doubts or confusions; and the mentality of the patient will cease to be deranged.
WHAT A PRACTITIONER DOES
What a practitioner really does is to take his patient, the disease and everything that appears to be wrong right into his own mentality, and here he dissolves all false appearances and all erroneous conclusions. He takes the condition, not as a reality, but as a belief; and right at the center of his own being he neutralizes the whole false thought, thus healing the condition.
The more completely the practitioner is convinced of the power of his own word, the more power his word will have. There must be a complete realization that the power of the word, operating as the Truth and the Reality of Being, can do all things. Therefore, the person whose consciousness is the clearest, who has the most complete idea of Life, will be the best healer.
BACK OF THE APPEARANCE IS THE REALITY
HEALING IS NOT CREATING A PERFECT BODY OR A PERFECT IDEA; IT IS REVEALING AN IDEA WHICH IS ALREADY PERFECT. HEALING IS NOT A PROCESS. IT IS A REVELATION, through the thought of the practitioner to the thought of the patient. There may be a process in healing but not a process of healing. The process in healing is the mental work and the time it takes the practitioner to convince himself of the perfectness of his patient; and the length of time it takes the patient to realize this perfectness.
It is necessary that the practitioner realize a perfect body; he cannot realize this unless he has already become convinced that the perfect body is there. If he has come to this conclusion, he must not deny it. There is a perfect heart and a perfect idea of heart; there is a perfect head and a perfect idea of head; perfect lungs and a perfect idea of lungs. The practitioner must realize that back of the appearance is the Reality, and it is his business to uncover this Reality. He does this through a process of obliterating false thought; he must deny false conclusions, bring out the evidence of perfection, and produce the healing. Disease is a fact but not a truth; it is an experience but not a reality.
SEEING PERFECTION
When Jesus said to the man, “Stretch forth thine hand,” He undoubtedly saw a perfect hand. Did he see the without or the within as being perfect? If everything is mental, and if he saw an imperfect hand instead of a perfect one, no good result could have come through His seeing, according to the law of cause and effect. This is true of all demonstration in healing. A practitioner does not treat a sick man; if he does, he not only will not heal him, but he might become sick himself. The reason for this is simple; he will have entered into the vibration of the patient’s thought, and will, himself, experience the results of that vibration. This is an experience that many have when they first begin to practice; they take on the conditions of their patients. So, from what we know, Jesus must have seen only the perfect hand. Even though He might have recognized the false condition, as far as His word of healing was concerned it must have been a recognition of perfection, else it could not have healed.
We must think of the subjective state of our thought as our atmosphere in the Universal Mind; for we cannot separate ourselves from the Universe. There is but One Mind and we are in It; we are in It as intelligence; It accepts our thought and acts upon it. Destructive emotions, desires or ideas, unless they are neutralized, will grow into some bodily condition, and may produce disease. Disease is
thought manifested, no matter what the disease may be. We are surrounded by a Receptive Intelligence which receives the impress of our thought and acts upon it.
HEALING LUNG TROUBLE
Suppose a person comes to a practitioner and says: “I am dying of tuberculosis.” What is tuberculosis? It is a belief in lung trouble; but lung itself is a universal idea, a perfect idea; and nothing has ever happened to it. It was, is, and will be; but man, through the creative medium of his thought, has caused an appearance of disorder and disease in the lung. Back of all such trouble is a consuming passion, an unexpressed emotion, a strong desire. Healing will take place to the degree that the practitioner neutralizes this belief and perceives the presence of a perfect lung. He realizes that there is a perfect body, perfect lung, perfect being, perfect God, perfect man, perfect expression; he must bring his own thought up to this perception. The word he speaks is law; it is power; it knows itself to be what it is. It is the law unto the case. He is now conscious that the word he speaks will neutralize and entirely destroy the false thought and condition. He says: “There is one body; this body is the Body of God; and it is Perfect; it is never depleted; its vitality is never lowered. There is no wasting away of substance or burning up of substance; for substance is eternal, changeless and perfect.” He goes on until he covers what in his own thought appears to be the cause of the false condition. If he does this day after day, the patient begins to get better; though the practitioner never thinks of his patient, other than that his word is being spoken for him; and he never wonders whether his word is taking effect, because he speaks into Intelligence and lets It act. Perhaps, if it is a case that requires a great deal of attention, he treats morning, afternoon, and evening, each time for a few moments; otherwise ten or fifteen minutes each day should be sufficient.
Never think that a sick person is one who simply has a sick body. If you do you will find yourself treating the body. Why shouldn’t we treat the body? Because the cause of the disease is not in the body. The body is an effect and not a cause. KNOW THAT BODIES AND CONDITIONS NEVER MOVE; THEY ARE ALWAYS MOVED UPON. A sick person is one who has a sick thought.
What about accidents? It is part of our belief that as soon as, and to the degree that, our minds become adjusted harmoniously to the Universe, we will be less likely to have accidents.
WE DO NOT SEND OUT THOUGHTS
In practice, we do not try to send thoughts to our patients; for there is but One Mind in the universe. We will say “A” represents a man who is sick; “B” represents a practitioner. “B” thinks into Mind; and whether we say he is thinking within himself or somewhere else does not matter; he is always thinking into Mind, because he is in Mind. “But,” one might say, “the patient thinks into his own subjective mind”; yes, but his subjective mind is only his atmosphere in the One Mind. We must get this very clearly, else some day there will be a wall between our thought and its ability to heal some condition, or some person who is at a physical distance.
Both the patient and the practitioner think into One Common Mind; therefore when a patient comes to a practitioner for healing the practitioner does not try to hypnotize him or suggest anything to him; he declares the Truth about him. And to the degree that he brings his own consciousness to a true recognition of perfection—provided there is a receptivity in the thought of the patient—that man will be healed; nothing can hinder it. The practitioner does not try to hold a thought or send out a thought; he simply tries to convince himself of the perfection of his patient. He does not try to make his word operate through his patient but only attempts to know the Truth of what he states. The patient must be receptive to the Truth, and then the Truth will heal him. The practitioner is dealing with Universal Law, backed by Omnipotent Power, which is Divine Principle. This is what Jesus meant when He said: “Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free.”
Every time we think, we are thinking into a receptive, plastic Substance, which receives the impress of our thought. When we stop to realize how subtle thoughts are, how unconsciously we think negation, how easy it is to get down and out, we will see that each is perpetuating his own condition. This is why people go from bad to worse, or from success to a greater success.
VISION
Eye trouble is a belief in limited vision; it is a belief in a separated vision. God sees, and His is the Only Mind there is. It is our Mind; consequently, man sees, whether he knows it or not. Do not fear to claim this; because it is the truth. There is no obstruction to vision; there is no near vision nor far vision; there is no false vision; there is no weak vision nor blurred vision. There is One Perfect Seeing, which is Now seeing through and in me.
HEALING CONSTIPATION
Constipation is due to a belief in limitation or burden and is healed by knowing that there is no restriction, no inaction, no limited action, no bondage, no fear, no congestion. Make the thought realize that there is nothing but freedom; that all action is normal, harmonious and perfect.
Very often the word of healing is spoken and does not appear to operate because some obstruction hinders it. Some people are obstinate, resistant, stubborn; and they must be healed of these beliefs. There is no resistance to Truth, no thought anywhere which can hinder consciousness from perceiving the Truth. Whatever the false condition is, ARRAY MENTAL ARGUMENT AGAINST IT IN AN OPPOSITE MANNER. Turn the thought over and over, until, either by reason or by chance, you hit upon the thing that is wrong. Any one can heal if he will do this, just as any one, if he goes into the garden and drops seed into the ground, will cause plants to grow. Any one can heal who can get away from the effect long enough to perceive a different cause.
In every treatment the thought of fear must always be handled. One should realize that there is no fear, nothing to be afraid of; and that fear cannot operate through man.
DISEASE NOT AN ENTITY
Man is fundamentally perfect; this is our whole premise; Perfect God, Perfect Man, Perfect Being; this is the whole basis of the argument. Always separate disease from the person suffering with it. Declare very frequently that disease is neither person, place nor thing; that it has no location, no avenue through which to express itself, no expression, no one through whom to express. Never locate disease, because thoughts are things, and if located they will operate. Always separate the belief from the believer, for nothing ails the real man; nothing ever did or ever will.
THROAT TROUBLE
In treating throat trouble the thought to handle is sensitiveness. No one would ever have throat trouble if his feelings were never hurt. You heal a person of sensitiveness by teaching him that no one desires to hurt him, and that no one could if he did so desire. When one becomes really individualized his feelings cannot be hurt; for he will feel complete within himself.
CONGESTION
In colds, congestion and like conditions, the thought to heal is confusion. There should be a consciousness of poise, a recognition of peace; and when this comes into the individual’s experience he will no longer have colds.
PARALYSIS
People could be healed of all forms of paralysis through the elimination of the belief in bondage. Use the thought that Life cannot become paralyzed or inactive. As in constipation, there is a thought of restriction back of the thought of paralysis; and often there is a very emotional nature to deal with; and often, though not always, a lot of stubbornness and resistance to heal.
GROWTHS
If the thought of false growths can be erased the manifestation can be healed. Declare, “Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.” The Heavenly Father is the Reality of Man and is Eternal Presence and Perfection. Dissolve the idea of false growths by knowing that there is nothing for them to feed upon. Erase the belief in your own mentality and you will remove it from the mentality of your patient, and thereby heal his body.
TREATING CHILDREN
In the case of children, remember that the thoughts of the parents influence the child. We will suppose the child’s mother is constantly saying: “The poor thing; the poor, little, sick thing!” From the human standpoint this is natural, but it makes the child sick just the same, no matter how loving it may be. This is called unconscious, or innocent, malpractice. It is malpractice, because it is the wrong use of thought; innocent, because it is not intended to harm; unconscious, because she doesn’t know what she is doing; ignorant, because she doesn’t know the results of such mental action. In such a case the practitioner must realize that there is no mental influence operating through the child, except a belief in perfection.
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ERNEST S. HOLMES
THE SCIENCE OF MIND
POWER OF THE WORD
Be specific in treating, be definite and direct in your mental work. You are dealing with Intelligence, so deal with It intelligently. The treatment must realize the patient as perfect; must recognize the word as power; must know that it breaks down every man-made law and casts it out; that it is the law of harmony and the recognition of the Presence of Good; that within itself it is unbounded, and equipped with the power to execute itself; and it must know that it does this. It must know that there is nothing that can change it; that there is no belief which can hinder it; that it cannot be reversed, mislaid, misplaced, neutralized or destroyed by any opposing force; but that it does the thing that it is supposed to do. And it must know that it is continuous and will operate until it does all that it is supposed to do.
Jesus said: “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.” Isaiah understood something of this when he said: “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void.”
NO AGE
There are certain thoughts that should always be handled, such as thoughts of race-suggestion, inherited tendencies, prenatal conditions, environment, and mental influences and suggestion. A treatment must be so formulated as to recognize that there is but One Mind; consequently, no thought can flow through It of depression, fear, or suggestion of imperfection. Man is Birthless, Deathless, Ageless Spirit; and this should be the consciousness of our work. This leaves nothing to be born, mature, decay and die. When this thought shall be made clear in the consciousness of the race, people will no longer grow old. Life cannot grow old; It is always the same.
MEMORY
Locke, in “Human Understanding,” defines memory as: “The power to revive again in our minds those ideas which, after imprinting, have disappeared, or have been, as it were, laid aside out of sight.” Memory is the ability to remember things that have happened; therefore, if something happened two years ago, of which we are not at present thinking, we can remember it, because it is in our subjective thought. We say that we are getting absent-minded, which means that we cannot recall thoughts. A person may be healed of this belief by knowing that the One Mind never forgets Itself. This Mind is our Mind now.
GUIDANCE IN TREATING
If, in treating, it seems impossible to know just what thought to handle, it is well to be still and know that Intelligence within will tell you what to say and how to say it. By doing this some idea will come and you will find that, by using it, you will reach the case.
HOW TO HEAL
Never say: “Here is a patient whom I must heal”; for, if you see him from this angle, how are you going to heal him?
If you see a sick man he will remain sick, so far as you are concerned; you cannot heal while you see sickness. Disease is neither person, place nor thing; nobody believes in it; it has no action or reaction; it is neither cause nor effect; it has no law to support it and no one to operate through; there is no one to talk about it or believe in it.
You have nothing to do with the patient’s thought as a personality, for as your own thought clears it will heal him. When you give a treatment, first eliminate all doubt and fear from your own thought. Realize that you are a Divine Idea and that your word is the law unto the thing unto which it is spoken. This is what gave Jesus his power; “For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”
REMOVE DOUBT
Suppose a practitioner is not able to convince himself of the Truth of the statements which he makes; how is he going to bring himself to the point of belief? By repeating the affirmation, dwelling on its meaning, meditating upon the spiritual significance of it until the subjective state of his thinking becomes clarified. This is the only reason for repeating treatments; for one treatment would heal anything if there were no doubts. Repeated treatments induce within consciousness a definite concept of an already established fact, even though the fact may not already have become objectified; this is why mental healing is a science. There is no room for doubt in a treatment.
Realize that you treat with your understanding through the Law. Never say: “I am not good enough to treat.” There are no good, better and best; this is a delusion; for one is as good as another in the Truth.
Do not allow yourself to become superstitious; for you are dealing with a normal, natural law in the mental and spiritual world. This law is just as real as any other known law. Don’t say: “I am not sure that I have enough power to treat”; you cannot heal with this mental attitude. Say, “As I let fall the forms of my thought they are operated upon by Principles I believe. This is the Law of God, the law of man and the Law of the Universe.” Never say: “This disease is hard to heal while another is easy.” If you find yourself saying this, at once heal yourself. This comes from a belief that we are dealing with a limited power.
NO FEAR
Suppose when you begin to treat, a great surge of fear comes over you and attempts to tell you that you cannot give a good treatment. The thing to do is to treat this fear as a suggestion which has no power and which cannot convince you that you lack the power to heal. Say: “There is nothing in me which can doubt my ability to heal.” This will neutralize the fear and free the effort to accomplish.
How do we know when we have treated a patient long enough? When he is well he will need no more treatments; until this time comes treat every day for a realization of perfection.
Does it make any difference whether or not the patient is taking medicine? Not a bit. If this form of healing gives him any relief, let him have it. We all need all the relief we can get. The patient is healed when he no longer needs medicine. Forget the medicine and heal him mentally and he will no longer take pills.
Some think that they dishonor God when they take a pill. God knows nothing about pills; this is superstition, pure and simple; mostly simple. Discard all such thoughts and give your entire attention to realizing perfection for your patient.
Healing is not accomplished through will power but by knowing the Truth; this Truth is that man is already Perfect, no matter what the appearance may be. Holding thoughts has nothing to do with treatment. If you find, when you begin to give treatments, that the process gives you a headache, know that you are doing your work on the mental plane and not through spiritual realization. A treatment should leave the practitioner in a better condition than before he gave it; otherwise it is not a good one.
One might ask: “Is all disease a thought held in the conscious mind of the patient?” No, not necessarily; it may be a subconscious thought; or it may be the result of many thoughts which, gathered together, produce a definite result.
PSYCHO-ANALYSIS
It may be necessary for the practitioner to diagnose the thought of his patient; in fact this is one of the main points in healing. This is psycho- analysis (from psyche or soul). Psycho-analysis is the analysis of the soul or subjective mind. Its teaching is, that within the soul, or subjective mind, all the seeds of our thought fall; and that most of man’s physical troubles are caused by some conflict of the emotions and the will. The conscious mind, desiring certain things which it cannot have, sends into the subjective thought opposing desires, which conflict with each other and mentally tear or bind; and as they manifest in the body, they produce disease. It is claimed that seventy percent of all diseases are the results of suppressed emotions; these emotions are not necessarily sex emotions, but may be any suppressed desires. These suppressed emotions cause what are called complexes.
It is probable that when Jesus forgave the man his sins, He realized that the man had a complex of condemnation within himself. The sense of condemnation which the race holds about itself weights it down, and it must be removed. This explains why Jesus said: “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” It is feeling that hurts. The thinking man thinks things out, resolves everything into its normal parts and so avoids complexes. It has been said: “Life is a comedy to him who thinks, a tragedy to him who feels.”
The practitioner talks to his patient, shows him the Law of Mind, teaches him the way, diagnoses his thought, points out to him that certain mental attitudes produce certain physical results, teaches him how to be harmonious in his thinking, how to be at peace, how to trust and believe in the Good, lifts him up mentally and spiritually and supports his thought until he can stand alone.
A practitioner must be filled with a spirit of Divine Compassion; he must have a deep, underlying sense of unity and sympathy, else he will do but little good; but he must not have sympathy with the disease. The only guarantee of our Divinity is in its expression through our Humanity. Consequently an enlightened soul understands the meaning of sympathy and exercises it, but not morbidly.
DEAL ONLY WITH THOUGHTS
In mental treatment, the practitioner deals with thoughts and does not treat bodies or conditions. He never manipulates, nor need he lay his hands on his patients. He does not hypnotize them; he does not care where they are when he is
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ERNEST S. HOLMES
THE SCIENCE OF MIND
treating them, or what they are doing; for this would be a limited concept. The practitioner’s work begins and ends within his own consciousness.
NERVOUSNESS
The thoughts to cover in nervousness are ones of peace, poise and power. There is no twitching of the nerves; there is no strain or struggle in the universe. Things move harmoniously, quietly and normally; and this action, which is the action of Life, is the truth about the one you are treating. A treatment lasts until the one treating is convinced of the truth which he states; it might last one minute or one hour, or longer.
STAMMERING
The treatment for stammering is one that covers the idea of correct speech. Speech is the Word of God and cannot become impaired, but must be a flow from that One Life which knows Itself to be what it is. Speech is perfect.
ARGUMENT IN TREATMENT
Just a word about argument in treatment; we do not argue to make principle work but to convince our own thought that it already is operating.
To sum up the idea of treating, then:—you are conscious mind: your patient is conscious mind; he has thought, or is thinking, or there has been thought through him, consciously or unconsciously, an idea of imperfection. You, as conscious mind, remove this something which says that he is imperfect. The treatment begins and ends within your own mentality; it must cover the case and leave nothing to be sick, sin or die; then it will be effective. Meditation in treatment; an uplifted receptivity to Spirit will always produce good results. A deep inner sense of the unity of all life enables one to feel that the Great Conscious Mind and Spirit of the Universe, flowing through his mentality, is the Presence and the Power of an Infinite Life, Truth and Love. We should sense that back of the word which we speak is the Power of the Universe surging to express Itself. Then speak the word consciously, knowing that it is Law.
Note: Read and carefully study “Teaching and Addresses,” Edward S. Kimball; “The Law of Mind in Action,” F. L. Holmes; “The Faith That Heals,” F. L. Holmes; “Christian Healing,” Fillmore; “Lessons in Truth,” Cady; “Primary Lessons,” Mil-itz; “Outwitting Our Nerves,” Jackson.
Lesson Three: Recapitulation
Sickness is an experience but not an Ultimate Reality; it is an effect and not a cause. The body, devoid of mentality, could neither know nor have sensation; it is entirely an effect. The body is made of the same unthinking stuff from which all Creation is formed.
Instinctive Man is Perfect, but his individual use of Life and Law enables him to cover a perfect idea with an apparently imperfect cloak.
Man comes into objectivity with the tendency of the race already subjectified within him, through race-suggestion. The race believes in sickness and limitation, and this suggestion is more or less operative through all people. This suggestion works through the field of the subjective state of the race thought, and will operate through any individual who is receptive to it.
As man becomes individualized, he consciously thinks and continuously pours suggestions into his subjective thought which is the silent builder of the physical body. Through the field of subjectivity thought always works out to a logical conclusion.
Man does not, necessarily, consciously think that he is to have a certain type of physical trouble, but the physical correspondent is a logical outcome of what he thinks.
Disease, of itself, is neither person, place nor thing; it is an image of thought, consciously or unconsciously held somewhere in Mind and will externalize wherever it finds an avenue of operation.
Disease is entirely mental in its origin, since no person could be sick unless he had intelligence; it is the result of thinking about, and believing in duality, or a power apart from God.
Disease can be healed through reversing the thought and turning to the Spiritual Realization of Life. It is impossible to divorce real mental healing from true Spiritual Realization, since God is ALL.
The use of mental argument in healing rests upon the theory that we are surrounded by a Universal Mind which reacts to our thought.
Right mental practice is the constructive use of Mind, i.e., a mental argument given for the purpose of presenting the Spiritual Truth about man. Wrong mental practice is the destructive use of Mind, i.e., a mental argument given for the purpose of presenting a false claim about man.
Right mental practice is called the Spirit of Christ. Wrong mental practice is called the spirit of Antichrist; it is malpractice and may or may not be consciously used. To think of any one in a negative way is some form of malpractice and is harmful. Malpractice may be ignorant, innocent or malicious. It is always some form of suggestion.
Man is known in Mind by the name he bears, and any statement made in Mind about his name will cause some action to take place through Law towards him. This is the basis of all mental healing.
A practitioner is one who recognizes Man as a spiritual reality. Since there is but One Mind, the practitioner does this within himself. Through the medium of the One Mind these statements rise to objective conditions in his patient, according to the practitioner’s belief and according to the ability of his patient to receive the Truth. Healing is accomplished through the act of setting Subjective Law in motion. The more Spiritual or Godlike the mentality of the practitioner, the more powerful the treatment.
A mental treatment begins and ends within the thought of the practitioner because he is in the same Mind in which his patient lives. Treatment is inducing right concepts within the subjective side of life.
Absent and present treatments are the same; for there is no absence in the One Presence.
One disease would be as easily healed as another if the thought were as sure of itself in one case as another.
There is no personal responsibility in healing; the practitioner directs the Power and lets It work. One does not hold thoughts in mental healing; he looses thought. A practitioner does not try to suggest, hypnotize or mentally influence; he simply knows that man is now a spiritual being and holds to that belief,—no matter what the appearance may be. Right mental treatment does not tire the one giving it.
Personal magnetism has nothing to do with mental healing. The whole basis of the possibility of mental healing rests upon the premise that we all live in One Creative Mind which reacts to our belief. It is as though there were a Universal Ear listening to, and hearing, everything that we say, feel or think, and reacting to it.
Healing is not a process, but a revelation; for the revealing of the perfect man always heals. The process is the time and thought that it takes to arrive at the correct understanding of man’s perfect state in Spirit.
Any one can heal who believes that he can, and who will take the time to put that belief in motion through the Law.
To daily see the perfect man and to daily declare for his objective appearance is correct mental practice and will heal.
A treatment recognizes that all is Mind and that everything is mental; it resolves all disease into thought; neutralizes the false thought and recognizes the true. Nothing can stop it from operating except a lack of faith in the reality of the Truth and man’s ability to use It.
In giving mental treatment the practitioner first realizes his own being as spiritual; he then recognizes the perfect state of his patient’s being; then he attacks the false claim and brings the evidence of Truth to bear against it, thinking in such a manner as to completely destroy the false claim and to realize the Truth.
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