[315] If I do not talk enough
about disease in these lessons, it is
because I am rapidly losing sight of
such a negative condition. It seems
to me to be so weak a negation of the
power vested in man--his will
power--that it is scarcely necessary
to give it even a passing word.
Nevertheless these lessons before
they are complete will make the
treatment of disease fully understood
by the student. The whole matter
could be summed up in a single
sentence; namely, self-mastery is the
cure of all disease in self and
others. It would not seem strange
that self-mastery should cure self,
but that it can cure others appears
to be an assertion that needs a good
deal of proof. But it can be done,
and on this principle: The man who is
master of his own forces is also
master of the same forces in other
persons. In other words, the persons
who have not mastered the forces of
their own lives are negative to the
persons who have, and can be healed
by them. All men are masters of all
forces that they know to be negative
to them.
And what are the negative forces?
All unorganized substance is negative
to organized substance. All lower
forms of organization are negative to
man, the highest form. Lightning,
clouds, and the elements generally
are what I call unorganized forces.
The animal, vegetable, and mineral
kingdoms are organized substance, but
their organization is vastly inferior
to that of man, and he is therefore
master of them all.
“Peace; be still,”
said Jesus to the storm, and
everything quieted down. “What
manner of man is this,” asked
one, “that even the wind and
waves obey him?” This question
was asked nearly two thousand years
ago, and I now answer it for the
first time. Jesus knew his own
mastery, and this is all that is
necessary in order to check the
storms or quell the waves; to stop
the African simoon and to forbid the
approach of the wild animals. It is
all that is necessary for any
man’s perfect protection.
Organization confers power. Even
the lower forms of organized life
possess wonderful power in warding
off danger, though unconsciously to
themselves. The mere fact of
organization puts a certain
compulsion on the unorganized
elements. Organization, no matter how
unconscious it may be, is a certain
form of protest against dissolution,
and this protest is its protection to
a very considerable degree.
No form of protest against
dissolution, however, is perfect
except that which emanates from an
organization that has come into a
highly conscious perception of its
own rights and its own power. This
high form of organization is then
proof against every negative form of
organization and against the
unorganized elements.
Now, it is plain to be seen that
as [316] we grow more and more into a
knowledge of our own power, we become
more and more free from fear. Just as
soon as we see that the Law of the
universe is not our foe, but that all
things are waiting the development of
our intelligence in order to serve
us, we are at once lifted out of
fear.
From my own experience I know that
it is not possible to come into this
position suddenly. For years I seemed
to be held just in the turn of the
tide where the thought was swerving
round into the new. It was all I
could do to hold my own against the
downward current of the world’s
long-established opinions. I seemed
to gain nothing nor to lose anything;
or, more truly, there were times when
I seemed to gain rapidly, and then I
would lose it all and find myself in
the same old tracks. Another
strenuous effort to hold my own would
keep me from drifting quite away from
my stronghold, which was always self;
and standing on self I would breast
the waves once more for the sake of
truth and manhood.
The effort is not precisely that
of bull-dog determination. Such an
attitude becomes exceedingly tiresome
in time; the effort is of the
intellect; it is the unflagging
endeavor to recognize that the
bull-dog determination is within you
every moment whether you hear a bark
or not. You want to keep constantly
in view the knowledge that your will
is equal to any emergency, whether
great or small. One can lose sight of
his will power entirely by habits of
postponement. Do not postpone any
prompting to action, nor defer doing
what you really wish to do. The habit
of tying up your will is like tying
up an arm or a leg; you lose the use
of it in time. The great necessity
for death in the world is to remove
paralyzed wills; inactive and
inoperative wills; crippled and
weak-kneed wills. Death has small
power over vital wills, and when the
vital will comes into consciousness
of its own strength death cannot
touch it at all.
Now, every form of disease you may
have is simply a negation of your
will, or a non-comprehension on the
part of your intelligence of the
strength of your will.
“But who is it that
negatives my will?” you
ask.
You do, yourself. Your will exists
in tremendous power. It cannot
possibly be diseased, or maimed, or
crippled in any way; it cannot be
deaf, or blind, or weak. It would not
be your will if it were any of these;
it would be your
“won’t,” or your
“don’t want to,” or
something other than your will, and
something not belonging to you at
all. But your intelligence does not
recognize this fact, and therefore
everything in the shape of weakness
or disease is the non-recognition of
the truth concerning your will, or
spirit. So you see from this that
disease is unreal; it is a false
belief that you will surely cease to
believe as soon as you know the
truth. “The truth shall make
you free.”
“But,” you answer,
“the truth is here. The
intelligences of many people have
accepted it just as you state it; and
yet their bodies show forth very
slight results; how is
this?”
This is the question the present
lesson intends to answer.
Why are our bodies not showing
forth the truth, now that our
intelligences have accepted it?
We are just emerging from a world
of unconscious thought. The thought
of, or the belief in, sin, sickness,
and death into which we were born
forms the thick, heavy, miasmic
mental atmosphere, that every one of
us breathes. It is dense as a fog,
and no living will or soul can beat
it back entirely and at once. For my
part I can clear the space about me
for a time, and then the heavy vapors
of a world’s ignorant belief
close in on me again and paralyze my
efforts. Then I rest a day or two,
realizing fully each hour that
“they also serve who only stand
and wait”; for in these spells
of rest I hold fast to my faith that
I shall overcome, and when the [317]
time for action arrives I am stronger
than I was before.
And what is the time of action,
and what kind of action do you
mean?
I mean mental action: times when I
close my whole organization to the
old-world beliefs in sin, sickness,
and death, and hold myself closed
against these beliefs with a mental
concentration that makes me feel
invulnerable. In this I isolate my
entire organism from its
surroundings, and my own new and
revised thought has a chance then to
work out the redemption of my body.
And in each of these spells of
isolation I do gain a little. But the
holding is hard work, and the least
relaxation gives admission to the
old, deadly beliefs, and I find
myself slipping backward
again--backward to a place where I
must take another rest, but always
holding firmly to my faith in myself
and in the truth as I see it, and in
the firm conviction of ultimate
victory.
To describe this very important
thing more fully, so that the student
may not fail to understand it
perfectly, I shall relate a bit of my
experience just as it occurred. Last
summer my hair began to turn darker,
and kept it up for three months,
until from almost pure white it had
changed to a lovely golden, and was
very nearly as dark as it had been in
my youth. I was then, as now, giving
my entire thought to the science, and
I immediately believed I had found
the true road to eternal youth. There
were other peculiarities in my case
pointing to this conclusion. I
certainly looked younger and fresher
than I had looked for years. During
all this time I was putting up fruit,
and was deeply interested in having
it beautiful and good, so that my
work was a pleasure that rather
facilitated than retarded my thought
upon my one subject of Mental
Science. When the fruit was all
up--although my thoughts about the
science still ran in the same
groove--my hair lost its color and
became very gray again. This was
certainly puzzling.
Yes, it was puzzling, and it
caused me a whole year’s
thought. Indeed I have just found the
solution of it.
Our very best and true and noblest
thought is worthless unless it is led
forth into activities. The whole
tendency of the will--which is the
soul of things--is to
externalization. The whole meaning of
the universal spirit of Life is to
show forth in uses. Therefore, the
personal condition of man is
the condition to aspire to. It is the
condition toward which all will--the
universal as well as the
individual--tends. To make the will
manifest in acts is all a man exists
for. To refuse to act will soon
render a man worthless. All that is
worthless dies.
My theory was all right, but so
long as I sat still and never led it
forth into use it availed me nothing.
My temperament being lymphatic I am
not fond of action, and had therefore
done no work but desk work, from
which I rested by lying down
occasionally. But when the fruit
tempted me to action, and I engaged
in work that I loved to do, my whole
organization was brought out under
the Law of Attraction and I
immediately showed forth the
benefit.
The average tendency of the world
is to grow in the right directions.
It is now, and always has been,
tending more and more to the
externalization of the spirit, or
will. Active, outdoor sports are now
more popular than ever’ and
woman is being drawn from the
seclusion where the ignorance of past
ages had placed her to take her share
in them.
Dress reform begins to mitigate
the rigor of her utterly defenseless
costume--the costume of the
slave--and a few more disciples of
Delsarte and Jenness Miller will
liberate her to such splendid
activities as just to hint at would
make the world smile derisively.
But I shall hint at them
nevertheless, regretting that it is
only a hint I can give, since a full
revelation is locked up from me and
from us all in [318] the unopened
store-house of the latent brain.
But the hint; yes, the hint shall
be given. If the
“bumblebee”--you see I
prefer the children’s version
of the name: the sweet, observant
little one’s, who knew his
“bumbling come tumbling,”
and otherwise reckless and
irresponsible manner, and named him
accordingly--if, then, the
“bumblebee” can set the
laws of causation at defiance and
lift himself through the air on wings
that have been incontestably proven
to be a laughable failure, then the
people are soon going to fly without
wings. The will is all the wings that
any one needs. The will is being
developed more and more into
activities even without the knowledge
of its still latent possibilities.
When these possibilities become
generally known, then bolder
activities will be projected, and
still bolder ones, all leading up to
a degree of muscular activity that
will enable one to hold himself in
the air and to float in it at
ease.
I have spoken of muscular
activity, but muscular activity is
mental activity, for body is mind;
and when it is once perceived to be a
fact that there is no limit to the
power of mind, the feat of flying
will no longer be considered
impossible, and the one and only
impediment to its realization will be
removed.
Even in this stage and generation,
material as it is, we do not live by
sight. Every particle of life we show
forth is by faith. With more
faith--faith in ourselves, in the
power within us--we will recognize
more life in ourselves, a
thousandfold, than we now do. And
this extra life will be expressed in
undreamed-of activities. Why, our
present condition, as compared with
what it will be, is dull and heavy as
that of the old saurian monsters
contrasted with the fleetest horses
of our time.
If, with our growing recognition
of the will power within us, we felt
ourselves less inclined to activity
it would be a clear indication that
the will was not to be expressed in
activities, for the inclination is
the best guide we have. But you will
find by examining yourselves that
with every fresh accession of will
power (or fresh recognition of it)
you are prompted to some new action.
It is the constant effort of the will
to externalize itself. But persons of
leaden temperament like myself may
resist this effort of the will so
much and so continuously as to almost
lose sight of it. I feel the presence
of the will moving me to action, but
I postpone the action and thus lose
sight of the will that prompted it. I
am not indisposed to intellectual
activity. My patience rarely flags in
working out my thought.
Does your will appear to be
inactive? Then you must “lay
for it,” as the hunters say. It
is there, and you must develop it.
You must bring it into view by
watching for it. The will has been so
systematically crushed out of sight
through a mistaken system of
education that it is going to take a
great deal of effort to make the
people see that in crushing the will
the man is crushed.
A man said to me, “I am
going to break the will of my boy if
it takes me a year to do
it.”
“And when you have done
it,” I said, “you would
better finish your work by cutting
his throat.”
“What do you mean?” he
asked.
“I mean that the world has
no need of things; it needs
men,” I answered.
How often I have had my heart torn
by seeing mothers and fathers
“breaking the wills” of
the sweet little souls whose
“shoe latchets they were not
worthy to unloose” is past
computation.
You who have lost sight of your
wills must surely find them, and when
found, you must stand by them and
affirm their value. Let your
intelligence reason on your will from
the basic principles set forth in
these lessons until you know that it
is not evil but good, and that it
desires nothing but good.
Will is but one of the factors of
thought; or, perhaps thought is one
[319] of the factors of will. Indeed
all the words that represent the
external man run into each other in a
way that makes them difficult to
handle. Will and desire and thought
are all factors in the building of
the body. It really seems as if the
will were the union of thought with
desire; as if thought, by its
recognition of desire, became one
with desire, and the two thus merged
into one, become the will. The will
is the crown of the man; it is the
man in fullest development. But we
have not reached this point yet, this
marriage of thought to desire wherein
the will comes forward to clear away
all obstructions and make us
conquerors right now. For here are
these old bodies of ours, misbuilt,
shaped in the form of the
world’s beliefs, and not in
accordance with our desires; they are
held in the atmosphere of the
world’s negative beliefs, and
as yet there is no more positive, or
more true, or purer atmosphere for
them to inhale. What are we going to
do about it?
We are going to clear a space
about us by denials, and then plant
the seed of the new life by
affirmations.
First of all, if I know anything
at all, I know that the world’s
belittling, limiting, and hampering
beliefs, so inimical to progression,
are all wrong. I say I know this.
Then, as a matter of course, I refuse
to be held by them. I hold myself on
guard against them every hour I live.
Oh, students, “perpetual
vigilance is the price of
liberty,” in this case as in
many others, and I fear there are
some of you who will say, as some of
the disciples said to Jesus,
“This is a hard saying,”
and turn back. But I can assure you
that the hardest of the fight is now.
After conquest the way is easier. But
now we have the whole downward
current of the world’s ignorant
thought to meet and turn aside.
Therefore there is nothing to do but
to hold the fort sternly and
gallantly against the beliefs that
are now and have always been sending
the generations down to death. We do
not have to accept those old beliefs,
and we do not believe them. As fast
as they arrive before us we will deny
their right to existence until we
have cleared a space about ourselves
where they cannot live.
Thoughts are things. They are
tangible as the nerve-centers in your
bodies, and they can act on your
nerves as the nerves act on the blood
vessels or the muscles, etc.
The will is the man. The real man.
It is the function of thought to
develop the will and to establish it
in personalities, thus bringing forth
the real man into the activities of
this busy world.
Thought, having denied all the
wretched old race beliefs until each
one has partly lost its hold, now
begins to formulate what it conceives
to be better and nobler beliefs. The
time will come when, through a true
conjunction of thought with desire,
the will will be more developed, and
then thought will discard belief
altogether; it will have nothing to
do with the beliefs that have ruled
us so long. It will be creative, and
the entire realm of belief will be
beneath its feet. But we have not yet
come to that. We are still where the
old beliefs encompass us, and we must
get out of them the best way we can.
All thought can do at a certain stage
of growth is to take an affirmative
position in conquering race beliefs.
In doing this it finally conquers
fear, and when fear is conquered a
mighty ascent has been made from
negative to positive. It is at this
place that thought, for the first
time, begins to be consciously, or
intelligently, creative. The desire
which has always been crying out to
the intelligence against disease and
death, now has a response from the
intelligence. “At last I
perceive that there is no disease and
no death,” answers the thought.
No sooner are these words spoken with
the keenness of conviction than the
nerves thrill with the news, and rush
to tell it to the blood vessels
which, in their turn, leave the
message at the door of every atom in
the body.
As powerful as thought is known to
be, and as numberless as the
incidents [320] of its accidental
cures, so great is the stupidity of
the age that its functions in the
human system have not yet been
discovered. Or, perhaps I should not
say this. A good many Mental
Scientists know it. Prentis Mulford
hints at it. Dr. Holcombe, of New
Orleans, a long-established physician
of the old school, understands it as
well as any one living, and makes use
of it in his practice. But that the
great body of medical men should know
nothing about it with all the
experience they have had with it,
would indicate either the most
inexplicable stupidity or the most
persistent avoidance of it.
Dr. Holcombe says, “When one
has grasped the idea that by creative
laws mind (thought) is dormant in all
things of the body, the minutest
changes of which are in reality
organic manifestations or showings
forth of mental conditions, many
things before incomprehensible become
clear. From the standpoint of this
grand truth we see how emotions
(which are produced by thought)
determine the most rapid changes in
the secretions of the body; how
fright turns the hair gray; how
terror poisons the mother’s
milk; how great mental excitements or
the slow torture of mental anxiety
write their baneful effects upon the
tissues of the brain; how the images
made upon the mother’s brain
are transferred and photographed upon
the body of the unborn child; how
epidemics spread by the contagion of
fear and the transference of thought;
the thing feared in the mind being
reproduced in the physical
system.
“Of the idealistic theory,
which is the basis of mind cure,
physical appearances are only the
external forms or natural embodiments
of spiritual causes (human wills)
which are the real motor powers.
Effects are produced not by the
apparent external means, but by
internal and corresponding spiritual
means.
“When these internal and
spiritual forces (the will) can be
evoked and set in action from within,
the external means may be entirely
dispensed with.” [Which is
equivalent to saying that the will,
as a healer, is so far superior to
medicine and all other external
appliances as to make nothing of
them.] “It is therefore the
maxim of the metaphysician that the
cause and cure of disease is always
mental.”
“The part which the mind has
always played in the cure has been
ignored, or not recognized, because
of the prevalent and dominant spirit
of materialism. The mind (thought)
has been all the time counted out,
while in reality it may have been the
chief and perhaps the only factor in
the case. When we are confronted with
cures of the most remarkable
character, cures entirely beyond the
reach of our best medication, we
attribute them to imagination, faith,
hope, expectation. And we do rightly;
for imagination, faith, hope,
expectation are states of the mind,
are the mind itself in substantial
activity and creative energy, and
when these vital forces can be evoked
and directed there is no limit to the
possibilities that lie in store for
us.”
These are the writings of an
honest physician and thinker. In the
quotations I interpolated the words
that appear in brackets, and my
interpolations go a little beyond Dr.
Holcombe’s thought; but I am
sure he will forgive me if I have
made his language stand out a little
further in the light as I myself see
it. I have only done as I will to be
done by.
In another place the doctor says,
“Thoughts are things; ideas are
forces; and the spiritual life is a
transcendent, organized sphere.
Nothing stands alone; no thought, no
mind, no faintest trace of an idea.
All are associated and linked
together by innumerable laws.”
[In my opinion there is but one law;
it is the adaptation of this law to
innumerable needs that gives it the
appearance of many laws.]
“Every thought we think is a
ray of mind which radiates from us,
[321] and is reflected from all other
minds associated with us. The
transference of thought is as simple
a thing in the mental sphere as the
radiation and reflection of light are
in the physical sphere.” [There
is no physical sphere; and light and
heat are not the reflection of
love and intelligence, but love and
intelligence themselves.] “The
mental solidarity of the race is
perfect. All the states of mind
represented by faith, hope,
imagination, fixed opinion,
expectation, etc., may be exercised
by the physician or friends and
projected with more or less force and
power upon the interior and
unconscious minds of all who are
supposed to be incapable of
exercising mental powers of their
own. This is the keynote to the
sickness of children, and also to the
secret of their cure.”
Dr. Holcombe’s testimony to
the fact that thought can make sick
and make well is all the more
valuable because of his long study
and practical experience in the
schools of medicine. I recognize his
valuable contributions to the
literature of the day on this subject
even while I fail to endorse all his
conclusions.
That thought can make sick is the
inevitable consequence of an
ignorance of the fact that it acts
through the whole organization. And
if it can make sick, it can also make
well by the same process. But thought
can be educated in a knowledge of
truth until it becomes, not only a
curative agent, but a perfectly
irresistible factor in the
reconstruction of the whole human
body. And now I want to tell in as
concise a manner as possible how it
can be made to do it.
All sickness and weakness,
deformity and old age, are but
denials of the individual. They are
denials of the power of the will by
the mistaken intelligence. Let the
intelligence once come to recognize
the standing and importance of the
will, and to feel a measure of its
strength, if no more, and the person
is then ready to heal his own
infirmities and those of other
people. His thought becomes charged
with the truth; for, remember this,
that as the will pervades every part
of the body it also pervades every
part of the thought. The thought then
being infilled with the fire of the
will creates an atmosphere of
positiveness about the person which
is drawn into the body. It carries
its own strength there and builds a
new foundation for the new temple of
strength and beauty that is to be
erected there. It infuses every atom
of the organization with a fresh
sense of power, and thus makes it
ready to hold fast to the new truths
that will be planted farther on. It
actually tells the nerves, as it
were, of their own latent health and
strength and awakens them to a
knowledge of the fact. The nerves are
the connecting link between the
thought and the more external parts
of the body. And through this link
you can impart your best thought,
accompanied by the strongest possible
recognition of your will. But this is
only the beginning. It is the
breaking up of old conditions for the
separation of the true from the
false.
For self-treatment, sit alone and
draw your thoughts home. Let them
dwell on the power involved in the
creature man. Let them see him in his
greatest possible strength as the
master of all things. Let them also
consider that his true individuality
is out of sight and is his will. Let
them then know that the will was
built up by desire, and that there is
nothing in it that it does not
desire; that indeed it is the
representative of the best it has
ever known--the image of its own
highest ideal. When the thought
reaches this point it will see how
greatly the body misrepresents the
will, and it is then ready to correct
the errors of the body. At this
juncture permit the thought to sink
down into your body. It will do this
if you will hold it firmly from
wandering. As it sinks into the body
you will feel a quivering of the
nerves in every part not too dead to
be aroused by it. The will which the
thought carries [322] into the
diseased body meets and arouses the
will in the diseased part, which has
become inoperative from lack of
recognition by the intelligence.
Being thus aroused it arouses the
intelligence of that part and the old
fossilized conditions begin to break
up.
It very often happens that the
effect of a strong and continuous
recognition of the will, and the
holding to it firmly as being the
real and true man, makes one sore and
lame and miserable, discouraged and
ill-natured. This condition is the
resistance of the old, consolidated
mistakes that have been built in your
body by race beliefs. Christian
Science calls this breaking up of old
conditions
“chemicalization.” You
are to take no notice of it when it
comes--that is, no more than you can
help. You are to hold on to a belief
that the will is the real you, and to
ignore as far as possible the
kickings and squealings of the old
mistakes. They have to go, and if it
is any consolation to them to make a
fuss about it let them make it--that
is, if your recognition of your will
is not sufficient to quiet them.
But keep your will in view
mentally. Do not lose sight of it.
Grasp it more firmly with your
perceptions. Concentrate your
power of thought upon it. Hold it
mentally with a strong
grip.
Observe the emphasized words in
the previous paragraph. There is a
wide distinction between the
recognition of the will and that
muscular tension that many people
think to be will. The true
recognition of the will does not
produce muscular tension. On the
contrary its effect is to relax the
muscles. Muscular tension in such a
case would be the result of fear; and
fear is no evidence of the existence
of the will, but the reverse. To
recognize the will is purely a mental
power. It is the calm, reposeful
perception of the fact that the will
is the governing power of the body,
and that nothing can resist it. The
recognition of the will and its
crowning position among the faculties
have been the result of all this
previous study of Mental Science
whereby the “I” has been
evolved and placed upon the throne,
and all things subdued to its
control. The will is the voice of the
I, whose mandates are not to be
disobeyed. Keep as much as possible
in a state of recognition of your own
will; for, no matter what the
character of the thoughts you hold,
you cannot prevent them from entering
the domain of your nervous
organization and imparting their
quality to your entire body. They
form an atmosphere about you that you
live in, and if you keep them always
true to your highest conception of
truth, by which I mean, if you keep
them charged with a consciousness of
power of your unconquerable will they
will cure you of all beliefs or
conditions of disease, whether you
ever sit for silent treatment or not.
But there is a higher position to
attain than the mere temporary cure
of disease, as you already begin to
understand.
You already know how essential it
is for you to keep a hopeful state of
mind. It requires firmness and a
reposeful recognition of the will to
do this. A firm mind is a firm body,
for body and mind are one. A firm
body is a healthy body. And so this
lesson hinges tight on this point.
The recognition of the will is the
evolution of the will in the body.
There is nothing in life so firm and
powerful as the will. Learn to know
this, that your will may become
established in your body and show
forth in just what you
desire--health, strength, beauty,
opulence, etc.
Thought and thought alone has
power to develop the will. And
thought must be persistent in its
effort to search for the evidence of
the will within the body, for in no
other way can the old race errors be
driven out and the true man and woman
established in each
personality.
