Chapter 12
HEALTH
Charles Fillmore
Dynamics For Living
MAN, the apex of God's creation, was created in His image and after His
likeness. Man is God's supreme creation. He may know God and become the vehicle
and expression of God, the unlimited fount of life, health, light, and love. God
is the health of His people.
The God Imprint
When Elohim God created man in His likeness, He imprinted upon man's
supermind two body pictures: first the picture of a natural body, and second the
picture of a spiritual body. In the primal cell He then enclosed the elements
necessary to the building of the natural and the spiritual body.
To man was given dominion and authority over these living atoms and cells out
of which he must build mind and body into visibility. As God created man, His
image and likeness, by the power of His word, so man, God's image and likeness,
projects his body by the same power.
Our physical body is carried in our mind as thought and it obediently
reflects every mental attitude. When in the course of our evolution we discern
that an all-wise Creator must have designed perfection for all His creation and
we begin to affirm that perfection, then the transformation from the natural to
the spiritual body begins. It continues until our body is wholly regenerated and
appears objectively in its divine perfection.
Object of Existence
The object of man's existence is to demonstrate the Truth of Being. This
demonstration takes place through experience. There are two ways of working out
experience. The first is by knowing the law of every process, and the second is
by blindly testing the process without understanding the law. All experience
develops personal identity--the consciousness of the power of Being in the self.
This is the bringing forth of free will, which is inherent in all. In the course
of his demonstrations of Being, man arrives at the place where he feels his own
ability. He knows that he can exercise it without restraint.
The Human Body
Through man, God is forming or manifesting outwardly that which exists in the
ideal. Every idea projects form. The physical body is the projection of man's
consciousness. He carries the body in the mind. The body is the fruit of the
tree of life which grows in the midst of the garden of mind. If the body-idea is
grounded and rooted in Divine Mind, the body will be filled with a perpetual
life flow.
The human organism has a world of latent energies waiting to be brought into
manifestation. The human body is undoubtedly the most powerful dynamo in
existence for the carrying on of life. By thought, speech, and deed the Christ
Mind is brought into manifestation.
The body is made up of cells. The presiding ego of I AM in each organism
determines the particular kind of impulse that the cells shall radiate. Some are
in a radiant state. Some are in a crystallized form. The field of dynamic energy
is limitless.
Crystallizing of these radiant thought forms is the result of affirmations in
man's mind that his body is material instead of spiritual. The affirmative state
of mind is a binding, holding process. It involves all thoughts and all thought
manifestations that come within its scope. If man affirms his unity with the
life, substance, and intelligence of God, he lays hold of these spiritual
qualities. If he affirms the reality of matter and of the physical body he forms
a material picture that works itself out in flesh.
Thought Builds
Thought is the builder of the body. The body is moved by thought. Thought not
only moves the external members of the body, but it controls the fluids flowing
within the body. Man's body has power to replace worn parts. When it is in
harmony it never wears out. The harmony referred to is self-adjustment to the
law of Being, to the law of divine nature, to the law of God. It does not matter
what you call this fundamental principle underlying all life. The important
thing is to understand it, and to put yourself in harmony with it. Nature is not
a blind force working in darkness and ignorance. All her works indicate
intelligence--mind in action.
Jesus is the outstanding pioneer in the realm where the health-producing
processes of cells are released and imbued with supermind vitality. He spent
years in becoming acquainted with His body, freeing its cells from the material
bondage to which the race thought had bound them.
Birthright
Health is fundamental in Being and is man's divine birthright. To be healthy
is natural. Health is the normal condition of man and of all creation. It is the
orderly state of existence. It is a state of being sound or whole in mind, body,
and soul. God's man is hale, whole, hearty.
Health, real health, is from within and does not have to be manufactured in
the without. Health is the very essence of Being. It is as universal and
enduring as God.
There is in man a capacity for knowing God consciously and communing with
Him. Man must learn to use the knowledge of Truth to sustain his consciousness
of health. This alone insures health, joy, and satisfaction.
To heal is to bring forth the perfect Christ man that exists within each of
us. Christ in us is the little seed through which is brought forth the strong,
healthy Christ man.
To know God as health one must take up the study of the healthy mind. When he
lays hold of the principle of wholeness, he finds that he is automatically
working with God and that much new power is added. He perceives principle
working out his health problems for him.
By realizing a healing prayer man lays hold of the principle of health itself
and the whole consciousness is illumined. When man becomes so much at one with
God-Mind that he abides in the consciousness of health, he enters eternal peace
in which he knows that "it is finished."
Illness
There is but one body-idea. The conditions in body express the character of
thought. The spiritual body of man is the conception of Divine Mind, the
creation of Spirit for us. Our work is to make this spiritual body manifest.
A majority of the ills that afflict the body have their origin in erroneous
thoughts about life. Man thinks his body into disease. Instead of basing his
thought on what is true in the absolute of Being, he bases it on conditions as
they appear in the formed realm about him. The result is bodily discord in
multitudinous shapes. Pervading all nature is a universal thought substance.
Thought substance transcribes the slightest vibration of thought. The message is
transcribed and carried into action.
Sin
Jesus always connected sin and sickness as cause and effect. All the ills of
humanity are the effect of broken law, of sin. That word sin covers more ground
than we have usually granted it. There are sins of omission and commission. If
we fail to cultivate the consciousness of the indwelling spiritual life, we
commit a sin of omission that eventually devitalizes the organism. To be
continuously healthy we must draw on the one and only source of life, God. God
is Spirit. Spirit pours its quickening life into mind and body when we turn our
attention to it and make ourself receptive by trusting Spirit to restore us to
harmony and health. The more enlightened man becomes, the greater his desire for
health.
Sin is a missing the mark, a falling short of divine perfection. Sin is man's
failure to express the attributes of Being. Sin (error) is first in mind and is
redeemed by a mental process, or by going into the silence. Error is brought
into the light of Spirit and then transformed into a constructive force.
Through the Christ Mind, our sins (wrong thinking) are forgiven or pardoned
(erased from consciousness). When we have cast all sin (error thought) out of
our mind, our body will be so pure that it cannot come under any supposed law of
death or corruption.
Indulgence
Like a child who refuses to take the advice of one who knows, man falls into
indulgence of the sense of pleasure and excess. The reaction of sense indulgence
is pain. Through these experiences man comes into a consciousness of an opposite
to the good. The dual mentality naturally sets up positive and negative forces
in his mind. These opposing forces are reflected into the body.
Sin is the result of desire manifesting itself in erroneous ways. When the
error is discovered and there is a willingness to correct it, under the law of
forgiveness man erases it easily.
In spiritual understanding, the I AM of man forgives or "gives" Truth "for"
error; then the mind is set in order and the body is healed.
Do not hold anyone in bondage to the thought of sin. If you do, it will pile
up and increase in power according to the laws of mental action.
Right images become active through the power of thought. Man has unlimited
power through thought. He can give his power to things or withhold it. If he
thinks about the power of sin, he builds up and gives force to that belief until
it engulfs him in its whirlpool of thought substance. He forgets his spiritual
origin and sees only the human. Thus he thinks of himself as a sinner.
The way out of this maze of ignorance, sin, and sickness is through man's
understanding of his real being, and then the forgiving or the giving up of all
thoughts of the reality of sin and its effects in the body.
If anyone tries to free himself while holding others in the thought of sin,
he will not demonstrate his freedom. You must build upon faith in the reality of
the spiritual. Put your selfishness away. There cannot be two in this kingdom.
It is the kingdom of God, and man must give up. The kingdom is for the larger
man. The personal man must be eliminated.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness really means the giving up of something. When you forgive
yourself, you cease doing the thing that you ought not to do. Man has power to
forgive sin. Sin is a falling short of the divine law. Repentance and
forgiveness are the only means that man has of getting out of sin and its effect
and coming into harmony with the law. All sin is first in the mind; the
forgiveness is a change of mind or repentance. We forgive sin in ourself every
time we resolve to think and act according to the divine law. The mind must
change from a material to a spiritual base. Change must all be on the part of
man and within him. The moment man changes his thoughts of sickness to thoughts
of health the divine law rushes in and begins the healing work.
The law is Truth. The Truth is that all is good. There is no power and no
reality in sin. If sin were real and enduring (like goodness and Truth), it
could not be forgiven but would hold its victim forever.
Duty
Lack of health is not prevalent in God's universe. If such lack appears
anywhere it is the work of man. It is our duty to do away with it. There is
something wrong in a world where suffering and sorrow prevail. We would not
create such a world. We all want to see these things blotted out in this world.
This is the index pointing the way to the possibility of doing so. Just accept
the promises of Scripture. Proceed to carry them out in faith. Act as if they
were true. Trust God in all things. Whatever we see as wrong is for us to right.
The new Christianity elevates man to a realm in which seeming miracles of
healing become possible to those who train their mind to think spiritually.
Presence of Health
God is never absent from His creations. His creations are never absent from
their habiliments. Wherever you see the evidences of life, there you may know
that God is.
Health has a source that is perpetually giving itself forth. A perpetual
giving forth implies a perpetual presence.
There is no absence or separation in God. His omnipresence is your
omnipresence. There can be no absence in Mind. If God were for one instant
separated from His creations, they would immediately fall into dissolution. In
spirit and in truth you can never for one instant be separated from the life
activity of God.
God lives in you. You depend on Him for every breath you draw. You could not
think a thought or speak a word or make a movement were He not in it. Your body
is the soil in which God's life is planted. Your mind is the light for which He
supplies the oil.
Draw upon the omnipresent God for every need.
A good healing drill is to deny the mental cause first. Then deny the
physical appearance. The mental condition should first be healed. Then the
secondary state, which it has produced in the body, must be wiped out and the
perfect state affirmed.
Nature and Health
We have been so persistently taught that nature heals that we do not as a
rule give the question of the origin of her healing power any serious thought.
If we center our attention on nature as the healing principle, we stir up
natural activities that are secondary to the one cause of all action, that is,
infinite Mind. It is our privilege as creations of supreme Mind to bring into
action all its forces, primary and secondary. By our thought and the mighty mind
energy back of thought we can stir to action all the power of Being and get the
results of their concentrated healing currents instead of the weakened,
segregated seepage from one.
Spiritual Healing
Nearly everyone needs both mind and body healing. Those who give faithful
attention to the law as it operates in man are rewarded by demonstrations of
healing.
Man and the universe are under the creative direction of a supreme being. Man
needs but to conform to the laws of creative Mind in order to be healthy, happy,
and wise. All healing methods consist in establishing the unity of the
individual and the universal consciousness. No man heals himself or another. The
supreme Mind does the work.
The first step in all spiritual healing is to believe. The next step is
openness and receptivity to the stream of healing life. Through the exercise of
faith and our words, our spiritual quality is fused into unity with the power of
Christ and the work is marvelously accomplished.
All healing is based on mental cleansing. When the mind is free from error
thoughts, harmony in the body ensues. Permanent healing is never accomplished
until the mental cause of the disease, the error thought, is removed. The true
way to heal is to find the mental cause and destroy it forever.
Consciousness and Health
Man's consciousness is formed of mind and its ideas. These determine whether
he is healthy or sick. Mind is the common meeting ground of God and man. Only
through its study and the observation of all the conditions and factors that
enter into its operation can we come into the realization of God as abiding
health and sustenance.
You are mind. Your consciousness is formed of thoughts. Thoughts form
barriers about the thinker. You are compassed about with thought barriers, your
heredity, your education, your own thinking. Your degree of health is determined
by your thoughts, past and present. These thoughts may be true or false,
depending on your understanding and use of divine law.
God created man in His image, in the image of perfect health. We make living
cells through the imaging power of thought. We nourish a good thing by thinking
how good it is. Suppose we take the negative side, shall we then get results
also? Yes, absolutely! We get just what we think about. The thought of
nourishing is a very good thought, because it shows us just what we do. Either
we tear down our bodies or we build them up. Withdraw the error; then build in
the good.
Processes of Mind
There is a definite relation between the thoughts of man and the conditions
in his body. The body is moved by the mind. All the conditions of the body are
brought about by the mind.
Jesus was the great teacher and example of obedience to the law of
constructive thinking. The reform of Jesus is an inner transformation. If we
follow Him we shall give our strength and substance and thought force to
constructive activity. The movement of every mind in bringing forth the simplest
thought is a key to the great creative process of universal Mind. In every act
is involved mind, idea, and manifestation. The mind is neither seen nor felt;
the idea is not seen, but it is felt; and the manifestation appears.
The mind functions in ways that are strange and unbelievable. In order to
understand God-Mind we need to study our own mind. The more we analyze the
processes of the mind the more plainly the mind with its mental "compounds"
appears as the source of health and of all other things. If we want to know the
secrets of health and how right thinking forms the perfect body, we must go to
the mind and trace step by step the movements that transform ideas of health
into light, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and finally into the
perfect physical organism.
We exist right in the midst of forces that would yield us power to do all our
work if we knew how to utilize properly their energies. This is not only true of
our use of the many elements in the natural world all about us but especially of
our utilization of the energy generated by our mind. With every thought there is
a radiation of energy. If a person is untrained in thinking and lets his mind
express all kinds of thoughts without control, he not only used up thought stuff
but fails also to accomplish any helpful result. Right thinking is using the
mind to bring about right ends idealized by the thinker. Through concentration
and conservation of thought force man regains consciousness of health in his
mind, and health then becomes manifest in his body. Concentration, one pointed
attention, forms a mental magnet in the mind to which thought substance rushes.
Then follows confidence or faith in one's ability to accomplish the desired end.
This is the law by which the universe was brought into manifestation.
To think is to express.
There is a chain of mind action connecting cause and effect in all the
activities of life. This chain is forged by man, and its links are thoughts and
words.
If I can conceive a truth, it follows that there is a way by which I can make
it manifest. If I can conceive of omnipresent life as existing in the
omnipresent substance, there is a way by which I can make that life appear in my
body. No one ever fully sees the steps he is to take in reaching a goal. He may
see in a general way that he is to go on from one point to another. The details
are not definitely clear to him unless he has gone over the ground before. In
demonstration of the spiritual powers that are ready to find expression through
man he must be willing to follow the directions of one who has proved his
efficiency by demonstration.
Faith
The blessing of health comes through the exercise of faith on the part of the
man who seeks it. Faith opens the mind to the influx of power from on high. The
power of the Highest heals all diseases both of soul and of body. When faith is
sufficiently strong to dissolve all adverse conditions and to open the mind
fully to the power of God, healing is instantaneous.
Through faith in the reality of things spiritual we begin soul evolution. We
must have faith in Spirit and through our thinking build it into our
consciousness. Then our body will be restored to harmony and health. In order to
create as God creates, man must have undoubting faith in God-Mind and the
obedience of the creative electrons hidden in the atoms of all substance.
Although we all get definite results in body and affairs from the words we
utter, those results would be infinitely greater if we understood the power of
words and had undoubting faith in their creative power.
Imagination
Through the power of the imagination we impress upon the body the concepts of
the mind. A man can imagine that he has some evil condition in body, and through
the imaging law build it up until it becomes manifest. On the other hand, he can
use the same power to make good appear.
Order
If we desire to demonstrate health when we receive more spiritual life, we
must order this life rightly. If it is not so ordered, mental and physical
discord will ensue. This applies to all that we think and do. Everything must be
brought in order. There must be order in the spiritual life as well as the
material life.
How can you order your life by the divine plan? By accepting it as a truth
that there is such a plan and by making this plan yours through affirming your
oneness with the omnipresent Mind in which this plan exists in its
righteousness.
Ask for wisdom; then affirm divine order. Put yourself in unity with Spirit.
Then you will come into the consciousness of a new world of thought and act and
find yourself doing many things differently because the orderly Mind that
directs the universe is working through you. A harmonious relation will be
established in all your ways.
Holding some disorganizing thought will produce inharmony and discord in body
and affairs. Lack of orderly arrangement of thoughts is responsible for many
delayed demonstrations of healing.
The bringing forth of man even in the material sense is an orderly process.
So long as we believe in the slow processes of what we call nature we shall
place ourselves under a law of slowness.
Let us begin anew and lay down the law of order in all that we do. If there
is a tendency to hurry, let us stop and affirm divine order and rest ourself in
its poise. There is no need to hurry. You live in eternity now. This thought of
omnipresent eternity will alleviate nervous tension. Put every thought and act
under the divine law.
Healing Words
The usual conversation among people creates ill health instead of good
health, because of wrong words. If the words speak of disease as a reality,
disintegrating forces are set in action. These in the end shatter the strongest
organism if not counteracted by constructive forces. The word of one in
authority carries weight and produces far-reaching effects. Man has the power to
deny and dissolve all disintegrating, discordant, and disease-forming words.
Knowledge of this fact is the greatest discovery of all ages. You can make
yourself a new creature.
Every word has within it the power to make manifest whatever man decrees.
Spiritual words have this power. When one understands the power of words spoken
in spiritual consciousness the results are in fulfillment of divine law. The
quick and lawful way to attain health is to put your creative words to work and
bring into swift action the superman Christ.
To understand the new life in Christ we must give attention to that mystical
Word, or Logos. In it are wrapped the principles that, planted in our mind, will
spring into new life in mind and body. Next to Spirit the Word of Spirit is the
most powerful thing in existence. Man is the incarnate Word of God.
Our words bring forth whatever we put into them. Words are quickened by those
who speak them. They pick up and carry the viewpoints of the speaker, weak or
strong, ignorant or wise, good or ill.
One who heals by the power of the Word should become familiar with the inner
meaning of all words and use those that appeal to him as possessing the greatest
healing potency.
Every word we speak goes forth from our mouth charged with atomic energies.
Our mind determines the character of our words. What the mind determines the
mouth obediently utters. Its words are loaded with constructive or destructive
electrons all mathematically arranged to build up or blow up ourself, our aims,
and our ideals.
Some persons are overzealous. They consume their vitality by talking and
acting without wisdom. They would find a much-coveted and needed poise by
linking their minds with the Christ. Such persons are so enthusiastic in
externals that they lose contact with the source of things. They destroy the
body. However, these are the minority. The great majority lack zeal in doing
even the most ordinary things.
When the mind of man is set on high, he never gives up or allows defeat to
thwart his righteous ambitions. A failure state of mind throws the whole
organism into a panic. Its functions are weakened in their life action. To one
in spiritual understanding there is no loss. The going and coming of material
and intellectual things are but changes in the panorama of life.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving will keep the heart fresh. True thanksgiving may be likened to
rain falling upon ready soil, refreshing it and increasing its productiveness.
All things have their cause. Every cause is mental. Whoever comes in daily
contact with a higher order of thinking cannot help but take on some of it.
Ideas are catching. No man can live where true ideas of wholeness are being
without becoming infected with them.
Words which express thanks, gratitude, and praise release energy of mind and
soul. Their use is usually followed by effects so pronounced that they are
quickly identified with the words that provoke them.
Let your words of praise and thanksgiving be of Spirit. The increase will be
even greater than when they are addressed to man. The resources of Spirit are
beyond our highest flight of imagination. You can praise a weak body into
strength, a fearful heart into peace and trust, shattered nerves into poise and
power.
It is an easy matter to give thanks for what we have already received. It is
not so easy to give thanks for what we hope to receive. Giving thanks in advance
brings to pass a present expectation. Pray believing that you have received, and
you shall receive.
Praising and giving thanks liberate the finer essence of soul and body when
we center our attention upon Spirit. Spirit is the dynamic force that releases
the pent-up energies within man. The energies have been imprisoned in the cells
and when released are again restored to action in the body by the chemistry of
creative Mind. The perfection of this restoration is in proportion to the
understanding and industry of the individual.
Every thought we loose in our mind carries with it a certain substance, life,
and intelligence. Whenever praise is bestowed it is carried to every part of the
body and through a large area of our soul aura, and our whole consciousness and
everything about us is tinctured with praise. Praise and thanksgiving divinely
directed tap the mighty reservoirs of infinite Mind.
Joy
Nearly all persons have some pet fear. They give up to it without trying to
find its source. There are various methods of erasing fear from the mind and
preventing its congestions in the body. One of the most direct and effective
shatterers of fear is laughter. Laugh your fears away. See how ridiculous they
are when traced to their source.
We should cultivate those mind activities which stimulate naturally the
currents of life in the body. Joy is a very important one. There is an intimate
relation between happiness and health. When you feel good you sing, either
audibly or silently. Singing promotes health because it increases the
circulation. A good circulation is a sign and promoter of health. Nearly anyone
can sing a little song. It is a marvelous health restorer. Singing restores
harmony to tense nerves. Its vibrations stir them to action, thus making it
possible for the ever-waiting healing Spirit to get in.
Back of every true song is a thought of joy. It is the thought that counts.
It is the thought that invites the healing Spirit. We should sing with the
thought that the Lord is right with us and that His joy is giving our words the
healing unction.
When men think a great deal about spiritual things and especially about God
as an indwelling spiritual presence, both mind and body are thrilled with joy, a
feeling of satisfaction, and a tendency to break out in songs of gladness.
Everybody can sing. Cultivate the singing soul. Through the vibrations of the
voice joined with high thinking every cell in the body is set into action, and
not only in the body but out into the environing thought atmosphere the
vibrations go and break up all crystallized conditions. The whole universe is in
vibration. Vibration is under law. Each particular thing has its rate of
vibration. What causes vibration? We answer: Mind.
Sing in your soul. You can sing 'way down inside yourself. Soon you will be
singing with your voice. Persons everywhere, in every age, have told of an inner
glory and happiness when they got into the habit of concentrating the mind on
God.
Will
Every organ of the body is affected by the action of the will. Willfulness
makes tenseness. A tense mind ties knots in the nerves, muscles, and tendons of
the whole organism. Contrariness is another name for perverted will. Persons who
are contentious for their personal rights place themselves in bondage to
material conditions and stop spiritual growth. The will is not to be broken, but
disciplined.
Peace
The Mind of Spirit is harmonious and peaceful. It must have a like manner of
expression in man's consciousness. If we are not anchored to supreme and
immovable reality, we shall be exposed to the storms of mortal thought and
shipwrecked on the rocks of materiality. The mind may be compared to the sea,
which is calm or stormy according to the wind that moves it. Thought utilizes
the substance of the mind and forms that which man ideates. A restful state of
mind is greatly to be desired because of its constructive character. When the
mind is lashed by a brainstorm the cells of the whole organism are shattered and
exhaustion ensues.
When a body of water is choppy with fitful currents of air it cannot reflect
objects clearly. Neither can man reflect the steady strong glow of Omnipotence
when his mind is disturbed by anxious, fearful, or angry thoughts.
Steadfast affirmations of peace harmonize the whole body structure and open
the way to attainment of health conditions in mind and body. Cast out enmity and
anger and affirm peace, and your healing will be swift and sure. Be at peace,
and your conscious unity with God-Mind will bring you health and happiness.
Love
The word is the mind seed from which springs every condition. It is the most
enduring thing in existence. Words make cells, and these cells are adjusted one
to the other through associated ideas. When divine love enters into man's
thought process, every cell is poised and balanced. Love overcomes hate,
resistance, opposition, obstinacy, anger, jealousy, and all states of
consciousness where there is mental or physical friction.
Through the joining of the creative forces of Spirit by souls attuned in
love, the new body in Christ is speedily formed. The work can be done through
individual effort. There must always be continuous constructive action between
the faculties of soul and body. If in quietness and confidence the presence and
the power of divine love are affirmed, the law will be fulfilled.
Some of the most terrible ills are brought upon the body by the misuse of
love.
Love wins when everything else fails. Nearly all sick people lack vital
force, hence the life treatment is good for all. Hate, anger, jealousy, malice,
and the like are almost universal in human consciousness, and a treatment for
love will prove a healing balm for all.
Old Age
The marks of old age can be erased from the body by one's mentally seeing the
body as youthful. If you want to be healthy, do not imagine so vain a thing as
decrepitude. Make your body perfect by seeing perfection in it. The work must be
an inner transformation. Actually old age is a false belief deeply embedded in
the race mind. It accepts biological law as the ultimate for man instead of the
law of God which is eternal life in the body.
Vitalization
We all need vitalizing. How shall we get life? What is the source of life?
The life source is spiritual energy. It is composed of ideas. Man can turn on
its current by making mental contact with it.
God is life and they who worship Him must worship Him in the life
consciousness, that is, in Spirit. When we worship God in this way, we are
vitalized all at once. There is no other way to get real, permanent life. We
cannot get life from the outer man or from anything external. We must touch the
inner current.
We turn on the life current by means of thoughts and words. We can have
fullness of life by realizing that we live in a sea of abundant, omnipresent,
eternal life, and by refusing to allow any thought to come in that stops the
consciousness of the universal life flow. We live and move and have our being in
Mind life.
You can think of your life as mental; every faculty will begin to buzz with
new life. Your life will never wane if you keep in the consciousness of it as
Mind or Spirit; it will increase and attain full expression in your body. If you
have faith in the life idea in your consciousness, your body will never be run
down but will become more and more alive with spiritual life.
We must think life, talk life, and see ourself filled with the fullness of
life. When we are not manifesting life as we desire, it is because our thoughts
and our conversation are not in accord with the life idea. Every time we think
life, speak life, rejoice in life, we are setting free, and bringing into
expression in ourself, more and more of the life idea. Here is the place of
abundant life, and we can fill both mind and body, both our surroundings and our
affairs, with glad, free, buoyant life by exercising faith in it.
Truth
Many have learned how to hold the truth about health steadily in faith even
in the midst of the most adverse appearances. They clearly understand that they
are not telling falsehoods when they deny sickness right in the face of the
appearance of it. Persons who are quickened spiritually can do very much greater
works through the law of faith than those who are still in the material
consciousness. Once having discerned the power of Spirit, we should be on our
guard and send forth on every occasion exalted ideas of the spiritual.
The one and only reason that we do not always succeed in our demonstrations
is that we do not persist in our mental work. We must begin to discipline our
mind and raise our thoughts to the point where they abandon the slow inertia of
the natural man for the speed and spring of the spiritual man. This is
accomplished by prayer, meditation, and the repetition of true words.
It is not the vain repetition of words over and over, parrotlike. It is the
quiet realization that there is a listening Mind and a ready host of great ideas
at all times waiting for us.
Praying for Others
One who prays for the health of another should understand that it is not the
fault of the healing principle that his patient is not instantly restored. The
fault may be in his own lack of persistency or understanding; or it may be due
to the patient's dogged clinging to discordant thoughts. In any case the one who
prays must persist in this prayer until the walls of resistance are broken down
and the healing currents are tuned in. In treating others see patients as
perfect.
Miracles
The universe was not created through illogical assumptions of law. Law is its
foundation. There are no miracles in science. Jesus did no miracles. All His
marvelous works were done under the laws that we may learn and use as He did. As
the body is moved by mind, so the mind is moved by ideas. Right here in the mind
we find the secret of the universe.
In reality miracles are events that take place as a result of the operation
of a higher, unknown law. All true action is governed by law. Nothing just
happens. All happenings are the result of cause and can be explained under the
law of cause and effect.
Mighty things have been wrought in the past by those who had mere blind faith
to guide them. To faith we now add understanding of the law.
Jesus Christ
Quite a few Truth students ask why we emphasize Jesus Christ so strongly in
our writings and statements of Truth. Spiritual psychology proves that the name
of a great character carries his mind potency. Wherever his name is repeated
silently or audibly his attributes become manifest.
We are all, in our personality, wearing the mask that conceals the real, the
spiritual, I AM Any declaration man may make in which the name Jesus Christ is
used reverently will contact the Christ I AM and will open the mind and body to
the inflow of spiritual healing rays. When man thinks or says "I am" he is
potentially giving freedom to the seed ideas that contain in their spiritual
capacity all of Being. The natural man in his narrowed mental comprehension
barely touches the seed ideas that expand in the Christ man to infinite power.
The more we dwell upon and expand our I AM the greater looms its originating
capacity before us. The Christ substance and the Christ life are accessible at
all times and in all places to the one who awakens his I AM to spiritual
omnipresence.
Proofs
We find as we study and apply the doctrine of Jesus that our body must be
included. Faith in the omnipresent pure substance precipitates the substance in
the body and we are transformed.
Proofs may be found in profusion that the divine law of body restoration is
in action in a large way right here in our midst. The literature of Unity teems
with testimonials of persons who have been healed and are grateful to God for
renewed health, strength, prosperity, and happiness. Thus it is not necessary to
strengthen your faith by reading about the work of God in ages past; you can
personally consult your neighbor, who can doubtless tell you of marvels fully as
great as any recorded in the Bible.
The majority of cases that come to us belong to the class of the discouraged
woman told of in Luke 8:43 (A.S.V.), "who spent all her living upon physicians,
and could not be healed." Doctors have pronounced them incurable, and as a last
resort they turn to God. The hardest part of the work in their healing is to get
out of mind the verdict of doctors that their cases are incurable. We have
discovered that there are no incurables. Any experienced metaphysical healer
will tell you that he has been the instrument through which all the "popular"
diseases have been healed.
Personal Testimony
When a boy of ten I was taken with what was at first diagnosed as rheumatism
but developed into a very serious case of hip disease. I was in bed over a year,
and from that time an invalid in constant pain for twenty-five years, or until I
began the application of the divine law.
Two very large tubercular abscesses developed at the head of the hip bone,
which the doctors said would finally drain away my life. But I managed to get
about on crutches, with a four-inch cork-and-steel extension on the right leg.
The hip bone was out of the socket and stiff. The leg shriveled and ceased to
grow. The whole right side became involved; my right ear was deaf and my right
eye weak. From hip to knee the flesh was a glassy adhesion with but little
sensation.
When I began applying the spiritual treatment there was for a long time
slight response in the leg, but I felt better, and I found that I began to hear
with the right ear. Then gradually I noticed that I had more feeling in the leg.
Then as the years went by the ossified joint began to get limber, and the
shrunken flesh filled out until the right leg was almost equal to the other.
Then I discarded the cork-and-steel extension and wore an ordinary shoe with
a double heel about an inch in height. The leg became almost as large as the
other, the muscles were restored.
I am giving minute details of my healing because it would be considered a
medical impossibility and a miracle from a religious standpoint. However I have
watched the restoration year after year as I applied the power of thought, and I
know it is under divine law. So I am satisfied that here is proof of a law that
the mind builds the body and can restore it.
