Chapter 9
HEALING THROUGH PRAISE AND THANKSGIVING
Charles Fillmore
Jesus Christ Heals
I PRAISE and give thanks that the strength and power of Thy Spirit now
restores me to harmony and health.
"Always praise the cooking of the cook" is the instruction of the veteran
hobo to the novice. Experience has taught the gentlemen of the road that praise
and thanks melt the hardest heart and often open the door to amazing
hospitality. Tradespeople have found that "Thank you" has commercial value.
Metaphysicians have discovered that words which express thanks, gratitude,
and praise release mind energy of mind and Soul; and 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 to Spirit, and 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.
I give thanks for the Christ life now apparent in my mind and body.
It is an easy matter to give thanks for what we have already received, but it
is not so easy to give thanks for what we hope to receive. However giving thanks
in advance brings to pass a present expectation. Remember what Jesus said about
one's mental attitude in demonstrating spirituality: "All things, whatsoever ye
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." This may be rephrased in this
wise: Pray believing that you have received, and you shall receive.
Christians who have discovered the hidden laws of the mind make it a practice
to give thanks for health, for peace of mind, for all things that they desire,
believing that God has given in Spirit that which is to appear in the visible.
I daily praise and thank the Spirit of life and health for constantly
restoring me to perfection of body.
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. So we might call our thoughts our "thought people." Whenever
praise is bestowed on these thought people, who are intelligent, it is carried
to every part of the body and through the ether to a large area of our soul
aura, and our whole consciousness and everything about us is tinctured with
praise. Thus we prove what Jesus proclaimed, that when we seek His kingdom and
His righteousness all things are added to us.
The prophets of old knew the power of increase inherent in thanksgiving.
"Praise ye Jehovah" is repeated again and again in the Psalms, because the
Psalmist knew that praise and thanksgiving divinely directed tap the mighty
reservoirs of infinite Mind.
Jehovah-shalom gives me peace of mind, and I am harmonized and healed.
The Bible contains more high mysticism than all other books. But it requires
study of certain fundamental spiritual principles to discern it. Spiritual
things are spiritually discerned. Unless you call on your own innate spiritual
light you cannot appreciate spiritual insight of those who wrote the books of
the Bible.
The idea that all the Bible writers were equally inspired is fallacious. They
were from every walk of life, and their inspirations were modified by their own
mental bias as well as their surroundings. Moreover some of the most important
revelations of fundamental principles are undoubtedly the result of borrowing.
Although Moses was a trained mystic and inspirational writer, he did not
originate all the allegories found in the books that bear his name. It is
obvious from the testimony of religious records antedating the Hebrew Scriptures
by thousands of years that Moses complied and edited for the benefit of the
Israelites.
This discovery does not detract from the truth or importance of the writings
but greatly enhances them. The very fact that these sacred writings have been
preserved for untold ages points to them as possessing unusual value and as
conservers of worthwhile knowledge.
Studying the Bible in the light of the discoveries of modern science, we are
amazed at the scientific accuracy of the statements in the early chapters of
Genesis. Have men in past ages been wiser than those of the present or were they
inspired beyond their understanding? For example, in the 3d verse of the 1st
chapter of Genesis, God created the light on the first day, yet the sun, the
supposed source of light, was not created until the fourth day. This supposed
error in the orderly creative process often has been cited as evidence of
crudity by Bible critics. But the very modern scientific discovery that the sun
is not the source of light, that the sun merely radiates the light that
originates in universal etheric waves proves that Moses was right. So what we
call light is not the real light, but a luminous effect produced in our earthly
atmosphere. So also all life originates in the ether, and not in the earth,
where scientists have vainly sought it. When science admits, as it eventually
will, that the ether is moved by omnipresent Mind, we shall have in the Bible a
complete spiritual cosmogony.
The Bible is a perpetual revelation to Truth seekers on account of its
allegorical character. This is especially outstanding in Genesis, which veils in
names and ordinary incidents some of the great truths of creation. The names of
the Divinity are not all the same in the Hebrew. Elohim God represents the
original Mind in creative action. El means the strong and ever-sustaining one,
and alah, to swear or formulate by the power of the word. Here also is implied
plurality of attributes in addition to masculine and feminine qualities. Elohim
thus represents the universal principle of Being designing all of creation. In
the 2d chapter another name for God is used--Jehovah--God--metaphysically
representing the executive power Elohim. This name is also rich in occult
significance. Yahweh is the original form, and its meaning is "the self-existent
one" at work or becoming known or revealing Himself to His creation and through
His creation. Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses as "I AM THAT I AM." He reveals
Himself to every one of us according to our needs when we call upon Him. He
revealed Himself to Jesus as the Father within.
The Hebrew teachers gave compound names to Jehovah to meet every situation.
That is, they invoked His I AM presence as a creative factor in producing the
thing needed. When they needed supply, they invoked Jehovah-jireh, "Jehovah will
provide." Jehovah-rapha is "the Lord that healeth thee." Jehovah--shalom is
"Jehovah is peace" or "the Lord send peace." The whole world needs peace today
as never before, and peace will not be ushered in until men call on the name of
Jehovah.
It may sound foolish in the sight of men for a small group of people to call
on Jehovah-shalom to make peace in the midst of war, but great miracles have
resulted from such action. Jehovah-shalom will save us from personal worry and
fear of future ills. It was the Jehovah-shalom in Jesus that proclaimed, "My
peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your
heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful."
I am a tower of strength and stability in the realization that God is my
health."
It is the conclusion of the followers of Jesus that a new and original
interpretation of His teaching has sprung up in the last half century. The
adherents of this new religion, for such it seems to be, claim that they have a
revelation of Christianity that far transcends the old in spiritual
understanding and power. The new religion makes Jesus a demonstrator of
scientific mind laws that any industrious student can understand and apply as
Jesus applied them. In addition to this 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, carrying out the admonition of Paul "Be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind."
As all the physical science books have to be re-written since the discovery
that electricity is the mother of matter, so all books of religion that ignore
psychology will have to be rewritten.
The new Christianity claims that Jesus Christ understood the real character
of space and ether as taught by science and that it is the home of a great and
mighty life and intelligence that brought man and the universe into
manifestation.
Instead of fighting modern science the new Christianity welcomes its
discoveries as proofs of the veritable existence of the kingdom of the heavens
that Jesus taught so persistently.
Instead of a heaven after death the new Christianity teaches a kingdom of the
heavens existing now as a righteous state of mind. It teaches that man makes his
heaven here and now by the formative power of his thought.
It is by way of this emphatic and constant emphasis on the formative power of
thought that the new Christianity launches out into the deep. Instead of God's
creating man with a mighty word fiat and arbitrarily following it up with
vengeance and punishments, God is discerned to be a mind principle that requires
the co-operation of its creations, because they are formed of it and in it and
are so like it that there is virtual action and reaction between Creator and
creation. This places the responsibility for conditions on both God and man.
When we think and work in unity with the Father the results are universally
good. When we work without reference to the inspiring Mind within our work is
usually unsatisfactory. "My Father worketh even until now, and I work," said
Jesus.
Then the carping critic cries, "Your religion is psychology instead of
Christianity." Our answer is that the new Christianity includes an understanding
of psychology but does not stop with an analysis of the mind. It goes on to the
highest phase of mind's possibilities, unity with Spirit.
When it dawns upon man that he has within him the primal spiritual spark of
God, the living Word or Logos, and that through the Word he is identified with
the original Mind, he has the key to infinite soul unfoldment.
Even though a person does not at first have this higher revelation of his
sonship and unity with creative Mind, the assumption helps him to bring it to
realization. Jesus developed in faith and power as He used His word. According
to the text, He did not know that He could do absent healing by the power of His
word before the centurion suggested it.
Never dampen your faith or the faith of another in you. Jesus exalted faith
to first place in His healing work. "Be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee
whole." "When they cast thee down, thou shalt say, There is lifting up," said
Eliphaz to Job. If there is appearance of sickness or weakness, affirm with all
your faith the healing thought.
Through the Spirit of truth I now partake of Christ substance and Christ life
in holy communion, and I am made whole.
At the Last Supper Jesus taught that the bread and wine that He consecrated
were His body and His blood, and He told His followers to partake of them in
remembrance of Him. He did not say that these elements were symbols of His blood
and body but that they were essentially the same substance and life as His body.
This also has been the teaching of the church, as interpreted by the Council of
Trent: "Under each species and under each particle of each species Christ is
contained whole and entire." This is the doctrine of transubstantiation, that
the consecration by the minister of bread and wine changes the material elements
to Christ elements, without affecting their appearance.
This doctrine has been attacked both within and without the church, the
majority of ministers and laymen accepting it on faith as in some way related to
the miraculous. But the discoveries of the elemental character of matter by
modern science are revealing the universal unity of substance and the
possibility of its transformation from one thing to another by changing the
number and arrangement of the electrons in the atom.
According to modern science this whole universe of forms can be dissolved
into energy, from which it may again be formed. Science does not say that the
directive and formative power is man, but the Bible so teaches and especially
Jesus. Jesus said that all power was given unto Him in heaven and in earth. He
manifested His power in a small way by multiplying a few loaves and fishes to
feed more than five thousand persons. In various other instances He demonstrated
that He had an understanding of the transmutation of substance. He raised His
flesh body to an energy level far higher in potential life and substance than
any reached before.
As a race we have for ages been deprived in our consciousness of union with
our creative source, and the result has been a gradual decrease in vitality
until the body has lost the ability to hold its atoms together and consequently
has disintegrated. Thus death has come to be accepted as in some mysterious way
a part of the divine plan. Here again certain biological experiments with cells
prove them to be possessed of an ability to reproduce themselves, which at least
hints at physical immortality.
There are in the world today men and women who have followed the teaching of
Jesus and have developed in their bodies a superenergy or life that not only
permeates the physical structure but envelops it in a luminous aura that can be
and is felt by both themselves and others. Spirit reveals that spiritual
thinking breaks open the physical cells and atoms and releases their imprisoned
life, which originally came from Divine Mind. Jesus carried this process so far
that His whole body was transformed and became a conscious part of the Father
life and intelligence.
In this way the substance and life of Jesus' body became a connecting link
between our bodies and the body of God. Jesus merged His consciousness with the
race consciousness and made Himself subject to our shortcomings in order to lift
us up to spiritual life. This is the secret of His great sacrifice and sin
offering.
When we understand that man has the power to release the divine life
imprisoned in the cells of his body and project it as spiritual energy, we have
the key that unlocks many mysteries of personal influence. The vast difference
between mediocre and great speakers and singers is not in voice and words but in
invisible soul energies. We feel the presence before a word is uttered. For
example, a music critic says of Toscanini, the great orchestra leader: "He
brings a charge of electricity into the hall that cannot and does not enter in
at any other time. If only certain persons felt this galvanization of the
atmosphere one might be accused of romanticism or hero worship for mentioning
it. But everybody feels it."
Thousands of great and near-great religious leaders have developed this "soul
body," for that is what it is, but none has reached the high development of
Jesus, who made it possible for us all to take advantage of His achievement and
through Him attain eternal life.
All things and all conditions of body and affairs have their origin in mind,
and it is in our minds that we make contact with the Christ Mind. The mind of
Jesus Christ penetrates and permeates our race consciousness like the etheric
waves from a mighty broadcasting station, and we can tune in at any time by
simply concentrating mentally on the Christ life and Christ substance.
God and man, heaven and earth, and all the healing powers that be now unite
in healing me.
Socrates, the wise man of Athens, once prayed that "Jove and all the gods
that be" hear his prayer.
His idea was to invoke all the higher forces, counting them all worth while.
All great men recognize the breadth, height, and depth of Being, that it is not
comprehended in one name, but may be expressed in many. Paul preaching to the
Athenians on Mars' Hill did not disdain their many shrines, said to be two
thousand in number, but complimented them on their piety, at the same time
proclaiming that he came as the representative of the "UNKNOWN GOD" to whom they
had erected an altar.
So we recognize that there is but one source of Being but that He is
expressed in His Son Christ and manifest in His personal representative, Holy
Spirit. The ancient Israelites had several outstanding names for Jehovah, each
representing some special agency, as supplier, peace giver, guide, and the like.
Some sects in our day pray to saints to execute the will of God in their behalf.
These all point to the fact that God is made manifest in a universe of
executive powers, upon whom man can call as principle or as some form of
personal agency.
This healing statement is recommended particularly to those who have depended
upon temporal remedies or persons for their healing. It will amplify and
energize the healing idea to the point of omnipotence, because it recognizes all
the healing potencies that faith has made substantial in the past and brings
them all to a focal center in wholeness.
It is universally recognized that the whole human family has broken loose
from the usual stabilized thoughts, that we are afloat in an atmosphere of
doubt, that we are walking question marks asking one another at every turn: What
next? What will be the outcome?
The world of materiality is ending. Science says that what we thought was a
material atom was really the shadow of an amazing aggregation of protons and
electrons pulsating with potential life, energy, and power. We have been
perpetuating the world of materiality by our material thoughts. Now our dominant
thinkers are letting go, and they are telling us that matter is merely the smoke
screen of a universe of energy. As an eminent scientist says, "We live in a
universe of waves, and nothing but waves."
Christian metaphysicians see the truth that our minds have been jarred loose
from their material concepts and that they have not yet laid hold of the true
concepts. We are mentally afloat in the cosmic ether, waiting for someone to
show us how to lay hold of real, stable ideas. When men's minds lose their
stability, chaos reigns in their affairs. Emerson said that when a man of ideas
is born into the world kings totter on their thrones.
Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets; that is, to
demonstrate that natural and spiritual law are one. He foresaw this very period
when the "powers of the heavens shall be shaken" --that is, the mental realms be
broken up--and He attributed this phenomenon to the coming of the Christ as
"lightning."
The 24th chapter of Matthew describes in symbols what is taking place in this
century. Christ Mind is quickening the cosmic light, which science is
interpreting as natural law. Those who see spiritually announce that the next
great revelation will be that of the "prophets," those who discern spiritually
that the cosmic ether and the Christ Mind are one and that the character and the
manner of the coming of the Christ--as a mighty, all-infolding, spiritually
quickening mind--is referred to in the very modern metaphor of lightning: "For
as the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so
shall be the coming of the Son of man."
Jesus answers the flood of queries as to what we shall do when we are caught
in a whirlpool of thought: "Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you."
The present panaceas for the ills of the world are all lacking in principle
and will eventually be discarded, to be followed by the Christ plan, which will
make all the products of the earth directly available to all the people of the
earth. Before this Christ plan can be established governments must petition God
for His intervention in their affairs; then the divine plan will be revealed.
I press forward with courage and boldness in the power of God, and I am
healed.
In the 6th chapter of Revelation it is written: "And I saw when the Lamb
opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures
saying as with a voice of thunder, Come. And I saw, and behold, a white horse,
and he that sat thereon had a bow; and there was given unto him a crown: and he
came forth conquering, and to conquer."
The "four living creatures" represent the four dominant factors in manifest
life, which has its original source in the Lamb, which represents the pure,
nonresistant life of Being.
The four horses and their riders are, first, "a white horse," representing
the power of the Christ; secondly, "a red horse [war]: and to him that sat
thereon it was given to take peace from the earth"; thirdly, "a black horse"
(commercialism): "a measure of wheat for a shilling, and three measures of
barely for a shilling"; and fourthly, "a pale horse: and he that sat upon him,
his name was Death."
At no time in the history of the world has there ever been such activity in
the riders of the three dark horses as right now. The prodigious preparations
for war by nations, incited by the greed for gain will soon lead them to "let
slip the dogs of war" unless the rider of the white horse comes forth
"conquering, and to conquer."
Although all Truth students are praying for harmony in the settlement of
earth's tribulations, they cannot help seeing the effect of thoughts of
selfishness. The last section of this chapter in Revelation gives a symbolic
description of the chaos to come among those who are not seeking to conquer
under the banner of the rider of the white horse, Christ.
We hold that those who have had revealed to them the peace-giving power of
the Christ mind should be unusually energetic in declaring it to be the dominant
quality in the minds of men everywhere. Do not argue or contend with error but
silently (and aloud if the occasion seems propitious) declare the presence and
power of the Christ.
In the 7th chapter of Revelation is a symbolical description of four angels
protecting the earth until the servants of God are sealed on their foreheads.
The forehead is the center of consciousness, which the understanding of Truth
seals; that is, it secretly unites the consciousness with Christ. The number
sealed is twelve thousand out of the twelve tribes. This is all symbolical and
should not be taken literally. Man has twelve faculties, represented by the
twelve tribes of Israel. When the consciousness in the forehead is illumined by
Spirit, all twelve centers in the body automatically respond. "These are they
that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb."
The "blood of the Lamb" represents the primal life of Being, which Jesus made
accessible to all those who believe in Him as the revealer of the pure life of
God the Father. This consciousness of spiritual life is mentioned in the 22d
chapter: "And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."
The concluding verses of the 7th chapter of Revelation reveal the joys of the
faithful. Every member of Unity should study chapters 6 and 7.
It will require more than mortal fortitude and courage to cope successfully
with the conditions that are imminent in human affairs, and we shall all need
the help of a higher power. This higher power we shall find in the Christ Mind.
Cast out fear as far as the tribulations of the world are concerned. Affirm:
"I press forward with courage and boldness in the power of God, and I am
healed."
