Chapter 1
SPIRITUAL
SUBSTANCE, THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF
THE UNIVERSE
Charles Fillmore
Prosperity
DIVINE MIND is the one
and only reality. When we incorporate
the ideas that form this Mind into our
mind and persevere in those ideas, a
mighty strength wells up within us.
Then we have a foundation for the
spiritual body, the body not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens. When the
spiritual body is established in
consciousness, its strength and power
is transmitted to the visible body and
to all the things that we touch in the
world about us.
Spiritual discernment
reveals that we are now in the dawn of
a new era, that the old methods of
supply and support are fast passing
away, and that new methods are waiting
to be brought forth. In the coming
commerce man will not be a slave to
money. Humanity's daily needs will be
met in ways that are not now thought
practical. We shall serve for the joy
of serving, and prosperity will flow to
us and through us in streams of plenty.
The supply and support that love and
zeal will set in motion are not as yet
largely used by man, but those who have
tested their providing power are loud
in their praise.
The dynamic power of the
supermind in man has been sporadically
displayed by men and women of every
nation. It is usually connected with
some religious rite in which mystery
and priestly authority prevail. The
so-called "common herd" are kept in
darkness with respect to the source of
the superhuman power of occult adepts
and holy men. But we have seen a "great
light" in the discovery by physical
scientists that the atom conceals
electronic energies whose mathematical
arrangement determines the character of
all the fundamental elements of nature.
This discovery has disrupted the
science based on the old mechanical
atomic theory, but has also given
Christian metaphysicians a new
understanding of the dynamics back of
Spirit.
Science now postulates
space rather than matter as the source
of life. It says that the very air is
alive with dynamic forces that await
man's grasp and utilization and that
these invisible, omnipresent energies
possess potentialities far beyond our
most exalted conception. What we have
been taught about the glories of heaven
pales into insignificance compared with
the glories of the radiant
rays--popularly referred to as the
"ether." We are told by science that we
have utilized very meagerly this mighty
ocean of ether in producing from it the
light and power of electricity. The
seemingly tremendous force generated by
the whirl of our dynamos is but a weak
dribble from a universe of energy. The
invisible waves that carry radio
programs everywhere are but a mere hint
of an intelligent power that penetrates
and permeates every germ of life,
visible and invisible. Scientific minds
the world over have been tremendously
moved by these revolutionary
discoveries, and they have not found
language adequate to explain their
magnitude. Although a number of books
have been written by scientists,
setting forth guardedly the
far-reaching effects that will
inevitably follow man's appropriation
of the easily accessible ether, none
has dared to tell the whole story. The
fact is that the greatest discovery of
all ages is that of physical science
that all things apparently have their
source in the invisible, intangible
ether. What Jesus taught so profoundly
in symbols about the riches of the
kingdom of the heavens has now been
proved true.
According to the Greek,
the language in which the New Testament
has come down to us, Jesus did not use
the word heaven but the word heavens in
His teaching. He was not telling us of
the glories of some faraway place
called "heaven" but was revealing the
properties of the "heavens" all around
us, called both "space" and "ether" by
physicists. He taught not only its
dynamic but also its intelligent
character, and said that the entity
that rules it is within man: "The
kingdom of God is within you." He not
only described this kingdom of the
heavens in numerous parables but made
its attainment by man the greatest
object of human existence. He not only
set this as man's goal but attained it
Himself, thereby demonstrating that His
teaching is practical as well as
true.
The scientists tell us
that the ether is charged with
electricity, magnetism, light rays, X
rays, cosmic rays, and other dynamic
radiations; that it is the source of
all life, light, heat, energy,
gravitation, attraction, repulsion; in
short, that it is the interpenetrating
essence of everything that exists on
the earth. In other words, science
gives to the ether all the attractions
of heaven without directly saying so.
Jesus epitomized the subject when He
told His followers that it was the
kingdom from which God clothed and fed
all His children. "Seek ye first his
kingdom, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you."
Science says that the electrical
particles that break into light in our
earth's atmosphere are also a source of
all substance and matter. Jesus said
that He was the substance and bread
that came from the heavens. When will
our civilization begin really to
appropriate and use this mighty ocean
of substance and life spiritually as
well as physically?
This inexhaustible mind
substance is available at all times and
in all places to those who have learned
to lay hold of it in consciousness. The
simplest, shortest, and most direct way
of doing this was explained when Jesus
said, "Whosoever ... shall not doubt in
his heart, but shall believe that what
he saith cometh to pass, he shall have
it." When we know that certain potent
ideas exist in the invisible mind
expressions, named by science both
"ether" and "space" and that we have
been provided with the mind to lay hold
of them, it is easy to put the law into
action through thought and word and
deed.
"There is a tide in the
affairs of men,
Which, taken at the
flood, leads on to fortune," said
Shakespeare. That flood tide awaits us
in the cosmic spaces, the paradise of
God.
The spiritual substance
from which comes all visible wealth is
never depleted. It is right with you
all the time and responds to your faith
in it and your demands on it. It is not
affected by our ignorant talk of hard
times, though we are affected because
our thoughts and words govern our
demonstration. The unfailing resource
is always ready to give. It has no
choice in the matter; it must give, for
that is its nature. Pour your living
words of faith into the omnipresent
substance, and you will be prospered
though all the banks in the world close
their doors. Turn the great energy of
your thinking toward "plenty" ideas,
and you will have plenty regardless of
what men about you are saying or
doing.
God is substance, but if
by this statement we mean that God is
matter, a thing of time or condition,
then we should say that God is
substanceless. God is not confined to
that form of substance which we term
matter. God is the intangible essence
of that which man has formed into and
named matter. Matter is a mental
limitation of that divine substance
whose vital and inherent character is
manifest in all life
expression.
God substance may be
conceived as God energy, or Spirit
light, and "God said, let there be
light, and there was light." This is in
harmony with the conclusions of some of
the most advanced physicists. Sir James
Jeans says, in "The Mysterious
Universe," "The tendency of modern
physics is to resolve the whole
material universe into waves, and
nothing but waves. These waves are of
two kinds: bottled-up waves, which we
call matter, and unbottled waves, which
we call radiation, or light. The
process of annihilation of matter is
merely unbottling imprisoned wave
energy, and setting it free to travel
through space."
Spirit is not matter.
Spirit is not person. In order to
perceive the essence of Being we must
drop from our mind all thought that God
is in any way circumscribed or has any
of the limitations that we associate
with things or persons having form or
shape. "Thou shalt not make unto thee a
graven image, nor any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath."
God is substance, not
matter, because matter is formed, while
God is the formless. God substance lies
back of matter and form. It is the
basis of all form yet does not enter
into any form as a finality. Substance
cannot be seen, touched, tasted, or
smelled, yet it is more substantial
than matter, for it is the only
substantiality in the universe. Its
nature is to "sub-stand" or "stand
under" or behind matter as its support
and only reality.
Job says, "The Almighty
shall be thy defence, and thou shalt
have plenty of silver." This refers to
universal substance, for silver and
gold are manifestations of an
everywhere present substance and are
used as symbols for it. Lew Wallace, in
"Ben-Hur," refers to the kingdom as
"beaten gold." You have doubtless in
your own experience caught sight of
this everywhere present substance in
your silence, when it seemed like
golden snowflakes falling all about
you. This was the first manifestation
from the overflow of the universal
substance in your
consciousness.
Substance is first given
form in the mind, and as it becomes
manifest it goes through a threefold
activity. In laying hold of substance
in the mind and bringing it into
manifestation, we play a most important
part. We do it according to our decree.
"Thou shalt decree a thing, and it
shall be established unto thee." We are
always decreeing, sometimes
consciously, often unconsciously, and
with every thought and word we are
increasing or diminishing the threefold
activity of substance. The resulting
manifestation conforms to our thought,
"As he thinketh within himself, so is
he."
There is no scarcity of
the air you breathe. There is plenty of
air, all you will ever need, but if you
close your lungs and refuse to breathe,
you will not get it and may suffocate
for lack of air. When you recognize the
presence of abundance of air and open
your lungs to breathe it deeply, you
get a larger inspiration. This is
exactly what you should do with your
mind in regard to substance. There is
an all-sufficiency of all things, just
as there is an all-sufficiency of air.
The only lack is our own lack of
appropriation. We must seek the kingdom
of God and appropriate it aright before
things will be added to us in
fullness.
There is a kingdom of
abundance of all things, and it may be
found by those who seek it and are
willing to comply with its laws. Jesus
said that it is hard for a rich man to
enter into the kingdom of heaven. This
does not mean that it is hard because
of his wealth, for the poor man gets in
no faster and no easier. It is not
money but the thoughts men hold about
money, its source, its ownership, and
its use, that keep them out of the
kingdom. Men's thoughts about money are
like their thoughts about all
possessions; they believe that things
coming out of the earth are theirs to
claim and control as individual
property, and may be hoarded away and
depended on, regardless of how much
other men may be in need of them. The
same belief is prevalent among both
rich and poor, and even if the two
classes were suddenly to change places,
the inequalities of wealth would not be
remedied. Only a fundamental change in
the thoughts of wealth could do
that.
Before there is any
fundamental social or economic change
men must begin to understand their
relationship to God and to one another
as common heirs to the universal
resource that is sufficient for all.
They must give up some of their
erroneous ideas about their "rights."
They must learn that they cannot
possess and lock up that which belongs
to God without themselves suffering the
effects of that sequestration. The poor
man is not the greatest sufferer in
this concentration of wealth, for he
has not concentrated his faith in
material things and chained his soul to
them. Those who are rich in the things
of this world are by their dependence
on those things binding themselves to
material things and are in material
darkness.
Every thought of
personal possession must be dropped out
of mind before men can come into the
realization of the invisible supply.
They cannot possess money, houses, or
land selfishly, because they cannot
possess the universal ideas for which
these symbols stand. No man can possess
any idea as his own permanently. He may
possess its material symbol for a
little time on the plane of phenomena,
but it is such riches that "moth and
rust consume, and where thieves break
through and steal."
Men possess as valuables
their education, trade, ability, or
intellectual talent. Ministers of the
gospel possess scholarship or
eloquence, and take pride in these
spiritual possessions. Yet even these
are burdens that must be unloaded
before they may enter the kingdom of
the heavens. The saint who is puffed up
with his saintly goodness must unload
his vanity before he gets in. Whoever
is ambitious to do good, to excel his
fellow men in righteousness, must lose
his ambition and desire before he
beholds the face of the all-providing
Father.
The realm of causes may
be compared to steam in a glass boiler.
If the glass is clear one may look
right at it and see nothing at all. Yet
when an escape valve is touched the
steam rushes out, condenses and becomes
visible. But in this process it has
also lost its power. Substance exists
in a realm of ideas and is powerful
when handled by one who is familiar
with its characteristics. The ignorant
open the valves of the mind and let
ideas flow out into a realm with which
they have nothing in common. The
powerful ideas of substance are
condensed into thoughts of time and
space, which ignorance conceives as
being necessary to their fruition. Thus
their power is lost, and a weary round
of seedtime and harvest is inaugurated
to fulfill the demands of the
world.
It is the mind that
believes in personal possessions that
limits the full idea. God's world is a
world of results that sequentially
follow demands. It is in this kingdom
that man finds his true home. Labor has
ceased for him who has found this inner
kingdom. Divine supply is brought forth
without laborious struggle: to desire
is to have fulfillment.
This is the second step
in demonstration for the one who has
fully dedicated himself to the divine
guidance. He immediately enters into
easier experiences and more happiness
than the world affords, when he
covenants to follow only the good.
There is an advanced degree along the
same line of initiation into the
mysteries of the divine. Before this
step may be taken, a deeper and more
thorough mental cleansing must be
undergone. A higher set of faculties is
then awakened within the body, and new
avenues of expression are opened for
the powers of the Spirit, not only in
the body but also in the affairs of the
individual. As he proceeds to exercise
these faculties he may find some of
them clogged by the crystals of dead
thought that some selfish ideas have
deposited, which makes him go through a
fresh cleansing. If he is obedient to
the Spirit and willing to follow
without cavil or protest, the way is
easy for him. If however he questions
and argues, as did Job, he will meet
many obstructions and his journey will
be long and tedious.
Again, he who seeks the
kingdom of substance for the sake of
the loaves and fishes he may get out of
it will surely be disappointed in the
end. He may get the loaves and fishes,
that is quite possible; but if there
remains in his soul any desire to use
them for selfish ends, the ultimate
result will be disastrous.
Many people are seeking
the aid of Spirit to heal them of their
physical ills. They have no desire for
the higher life, but having found their
lusts and passions curtailed by
physical infirmities, they want these
erased in order that they may continue
in their fleshly way. It is the
experience of all who have dealt with
Spirit that it is a vigorous bodily
stimulant. It restores the vitality of
the body until it is even more
sensitive to pleasure or pain than it
was before the spiritual quickening.
This supersensitiveness makes it more
susceptible and liable to more rapid
waste if further indulgence is
gratified. That is why those who
receive spiritual treatment should be
fully instructed in the Truth of Being.
They should be shown that the
indulgence of bodily passions is a sin
against their success in every walk of
life and especially in the way of
finances and prosperity. If substance
is dissipated, every kind of lack
begins to be felt. Retribution always
follows the indulgence of appetite and
passion for mere sensation. Both
sinners and saints suffer in this
valley of folly. The alternative is to
dedicate yourself to the Father's
business. Make a definite and detailed
covenant with the Father, lay your
desires, appetites, and passions at His
feet and agree to use all your
substance in the most exalted way. Then
you are seeking the kingdom, and all
things else shall be added unto
you.
We want to make this
substance that faith has brought to our
mind enduring and abiding, so that we
do not lose it when banks fail or men
talk of "hard times." We must have in
our finances a consciousness of the
permanency of the omnipresent substance
as it abides in us. Some wealthy
families succeed in holding their
wealth while others dissipate it in one
generation because they do not have the
consciousness of abiding substance. For
many of us there is either a feast or a
famine in the matter of money and we
need the abiding consciousness. There
is no reason why we should not have a
continuous even flow of substance both
in income and outgo. If we have freely
received we must also freely give and
keep substance going, confident in our
understanding that our supply is
unlimited and that it is always right
at hand in the omnipresent Mind of
God.
In this understanding we
can stand "the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune," depressions,
losses, and financial failures and
still see God as abundant substance
waiting to come into manifestation.
That is what Paul meant by taking up
"the whole armor of God that ye may be
able to withstand in the evil day." The
substance that has in the past been
manifest in our affairs is still here.
It is the same substance and it cannot
be taken away. Even though there seems
to be material lack, there is plenty of
substance for all. We are standing in
the very midst of it. Like the fish we
might ask, "Where is the water," when
we live and move and have our being in
it. It is in the water, in the air
everywhere, abounding, glorious
spiritual substance. Take that thought
and hold it. Refuse to be shaken from
your spiritual stand in the very midst
of God's prosperity and plenty, and
supply will begin to come forth from
the ether and plenty will become more
and more manifest in your
affairs.
Jesus was so charged
with spiritual substance that when the
woman touched His garment the healing
virtue went out from it and she was
healed. There were thousands of people
in the crowd, but only the woman who
had faith in that substance got it. It
was already established in her
consciousness, and she knew that her
needs would be met if she could make
the contact. In this there is a lesson
for us. We know that strength is
manifest everywhere, for we see it in
the mechanical world. A great
locomotive starts from the depot,
moving slowly at first, but when it
gains momentum it speeds down the track
like a streak. Thus it is with
spiritual strength. Beginning sometimes
with a very small thought, it takes on
momentum and eventually becomes a
powerful idea. Every one of us can
strengthen his hold on the thought of
divine substance until it becomes a
powerful idea, filling the
consciousness and manifesting itself as
plenty in all our affairs.
As you lay hold of
substance with your mind, make it
permanent and enduring. Realize your
oneness with it. You are unified with
the one living substance, which is God,
your all-sufficiency. From this
substance you were created; in it you
live and move and have your being; by
it you are fed and
prospered.
The spiritual substance
is steadfast and immovable, enduring.
It does not fluctuate with market
reports. It does not decrease in "hard
times" nor increase in "good times." It
cannot be hoarded away to cause a
deficiency in supply and a higher
price. It cannot be exhausted in doles
to meet the needs of privation. It is
ever the same, constant, abundant,
freely circulating and
available.
The spiritual substance
is a living thing, not an inanimate
accumulation of bread that does not
satisfy hunger nor water that fails to
quench thirst. It is living bread and
living water, and he that feeds on
God's substance shall never hunger and
never thirst. The substance is an
abiding thing, not a bank deposit that
can be withdrawn nor a fortune that can
be lost. It is an unfailing principle
that is as sure in its workings as the
laws of mathematics. Man can no more be
separated from his supply of substance
than life can be separated from its
source. As God permeates the universe
and life permeates every cell of the
body, so does substance flow freely
through man, free from all limit or
qualification.
In the new era that is
even now at its dawn we shall have a
spirit of prosperity. This principle of
the universal substance will be known
and acted on, and there will be no
place for lack. Supply will be more
equalized. There will not be millions
of bushels of wheat stored in musty
warehouses while people go hungry.
There will be no overproduction or
underconsumption or other inequalities
of supply, for God's substance will be
recognized and used by all people. Men
will not pile up fortunes one day and
lose them the next, for they will no
longer fear the integrity of their
neighbors nor try to keep their
neighbor's share from him.
Is this an impractical
utopia? The answer depends on you. Just
as soon as you individually recognize
the omnipresent substance and put your
faith in it, you can look for others
around you to do the same. "A little
leaven leaveneth the whole lump," and
even one life that bears witness to the
truth of the prosperity law will
quicken the consciousness of the whole
community.
Whoever you are and
whatever your immediate need, you can
demonstrate the law. If your thoughts
are confused, become still and know. Be
still and know that you are one with
the substance and with the law of its
manifestation. Say with
conviction:
I am strong, immovable
Spirit substance.
This will open the door
of your mind to an inflow of
substance-filled ideas. As they come,
use them freely. Do not hesitate or
doubt that they will bring results.
They are God's ideas given to you in
answer to your prayer and in order to
supply your needs. They are substance,
intelligent, loving, eager to manifest
themselves to meet your
need.
God is the source of a
mighty stream of substance, and you are
a tributary of that stream, a channel
of expression. Blessing the substance
increases its flow. If your money
supply is low or your purse seems
empty, take it in your hands and bless
it. See it filled with the living
substance ready to become manifest. As
you prepare your meals bless the food
with the thought of spiritual
substance. When you dress, bless your
garments and realize that you are being
constantly clothed with God's
substance. Do not center your thought
on yourself, your interests, your gains
or losses, but realize the universal
nature of substance. The more conscious
you become of the presence of the
living substance the more it will
manifest itself for you and the richer
will be the common good of
all.
Do not take anyone's
word for it, but try the law for
yourself. The other fellow's
realization of substance will not
guarantee your supply. You must become
conscious of it for yourself. Identify
yourself with substance until you make
it yours; it will change your finances,
destroy your fears, stop your worries,
and you will soon begin to rejoice in
the ever-present bounty of
God.
Be still and turn within
to the great source. See with the eye
of faith that the whole world is filled
with substance. See it falling all
about you as snowflakes of gold and
silver and affirm with
assurance:
Jesus Christ is now here
raising me to His consciousness of the
omnipresent, all-providing God
substance, and my prosperity is
assured.
I have unbounded faith
in the all-present spiritual substance
increasing and multiplying at my
word.
