[continued...]
These conclusions are pretty sure to
be faulty at first, but they are
yours; they are a part of you. They
are the first effort of growth in the
native soil of your own mentality,
and as such they are exceedingly
valuable, since they demonstrate the
productiveness of your own soil.
Having demonstrated this one fact, of
which you were almost unconscious
before, you have established a
certain amount of respect for
yourself. You have found out that you
are as capable of thought as others,
and, therefore, do not have to hire
someone to do your thinking for you.
And so the mere fact that you have
established in your mental organism
the self-conscious power of original
thought has lifted you a long way out
of the negatives that surround you.
You are mentally stronger; and as the
mental is the physical, you are
stronger all over; your vitality is
greater and your health is
better.
Having now reached a point of
greater self-conscious power, go back
and read the lessons over. Read them
slowly, thoughtfully and critically.
Do not accept them because I have
proven them true. They are not your
being--until you also have proven
them true for yourself by the most
solid kind of reasoning. By the time
the light of your own intelligence
breaks over the mighty fact that
desire is the spirit of all life, the
great and only prompter to action,
you may begin to apply the denials
and affirmations to it. You may deny
that desire is a sinful [123] thing.
You may affirm your respect for it
and your confidence in it.
These denials and affirmations are
wonderful in their effect, and the
student should go alone many times a
day to make them. They need not be
spoken aloud. They can be made in the
thought and be just as effective.
In the lower orders of life,
desire is trusted with implicit
confidence; and the result of
trusting the desire is growth in the
individual and evolution in all
nature.
In the lower orders of life, the
perception that desire is the
legitimate impulse of all growth, is
merely instinctive, or intuitional;
instinct or intuition is natural
knowledge; that knowledge of truth,
of Life, which has never questioned
itself, and, therefore, never thrown
doubt upon itself.
As instinct or intuition has
ripened into reason in the man--by a
process of growth, through which he
has called every faculty of his being
into question--his doubts have
awakened, and they have challenged
each separate faculty he possesses to
give a strict account of itself. From
this point has ensued the gradual
unfoldment of intuition into
self-conscious reasoning power. The
natural intelligence, which is
instinct, or intuition, must be
understood and endorsed by the
man’s riper perceptions, or
else it will not be trusted. These
riper perceptions in their gradual
unfoldment have passed through ages
of infidelity to the natural
intelligence expressed by the words
instinct and intuition; but now they
are coming into a recognition of the
value. And this personal recognition
of the value of natural intelligence
marks the line between growth on the
animal plane, which I call
unconscious growth, and growth on the
higher plane, which I call conscious
growth. Conscious growth is that high
order of growth that understands the
whole matter and can intelligently
co-operate with natural or
instinctive growth.
Looking within ourselves we find
what all admit to be the intuitional
nature; that peculiar faculty which
takes it for granted--independent of
any reasoning on the subject--that
desire is the spirit of all life, and
acts accordingly. This intuitional
faculty is the undeveloped
understanding. It is unbroken in its
allegiance to the spirit of itself,
which is desire, and by its
unfaltering recognition of desire, it
clothes desire in flesh and blood,
and the desire becomes manifest or
visible, on the external plane.
Intuition is that faculty in man
by which he becomes aware of, or
feels, the presence of an unerring
power within himself that in some
mysterious way answers questions for
him; or, at least, inclines him in
directions where he will find his
questions answered.
And though so little is known of
intuition; yet it is a notable fact
that the faculty does command the
most unbounded respect from persons
who have made the study of mental
phenomena a specialty.
And no wonder, because the
beginning of all growth is in
it--both of unconscious growth and
conscious growth--as I will show
further along.
Intuition is the laboratory
through which the latent Life
Principle becomes visible in tangible
substance. The unfolding of the
intuitive perceptions suggests to us
the fact that in them there is a well
of unfailing vitality to be drawn
upon by the cultured intellect, and
to be used in the upbuilding of the
race; or in man’s farther
process at self-creation. It is the
door opening into the hidden power of
a realm of infinite possibilities.
The question, then, is this: Is faith
something related to intuition, or is
it something apart and separate from
it?
As a coming light dispels the
darkness in front of it, so does
intuition send forth in more or less
brightness, according as the
intuitional nature is more or less
developed in the individual, a long
stream of light, leading upward
forever, and pointing always to
shining heights ahead which is
possible for us to attain, through
that effort [124] which rests on a
secure belief in the omnipresence of
good. This stream of light is faith,
and it is a clear stream that takes
its rise in intuition.
Faith lights up the whole interior
man; and this light keeps brightening
all along the road that leads to his
clear understanding. It points to the
time when the full-fledged reasoning
powers of the man shall have so
developed as to confirm its hopes,
desires and aspirations, all of which
are the spirit of intuition, and its
own spirit also.
Faith is not reason in its full
sense. It is the trustfulness of
intuition that longs for confirmation
by the full-fledged reasoning
faculties of the highly developed
man. It is intuition in aspiration
for something beyond and above its
present reach. And when reason has
confirmed faith, the individual has
stepped up to a very high place
indeed--to the place of
understanding.
Faith is a guide to understanding,
and until we reach understanding, the
best thing we can do is to trust it.
It is the light of our otherwise
darkened lives.
The opponent to faith is doubt.
Now, doubt is of the reasoning
faculties, while faith is of
intuition--the natural knowing, or
the implanted knowing that comes from
the earth life.
“But,” the student
asks, “is not the reasoning
power the same thing as intuition? Is
it not intuition developed to a
self-conscious plane?”
Yes, it is; but at the point where
self-conscious thought begins in man,
there doubt is born. Self-conscious
thought doubts first, because it
accepts the evidence of the natural
knowing--the intuitional
perceptions.
With this doubt, it becomes aware
of the existence of the positive pole
of doubt, which is faith. At this
juncture the investigating thought
perceives the necessity of choosing
which it shall rely upon in its
farther search for truth. It may rely
upon doubt, or it may rely upon hope,
or faith. It soon finds that doubt
leads nowhere and ends in absolute
darkness, while faith is itself a
light, and leads in the direction of
more light.
Therefore, the growing intellect
follows faith. And yet faith has been
followed in so wavering and unsteady
a manner that the race has been many
thousands of years in crossing the
line from that condition of natural
or animal knowing, called intuition,
to the higher condition or
self-conscious knowing called the
understanding.
And now, as these lessons are
meant for practical instruction in
the manner of evolving the
self-conscious thought that shows man
that he is master of all conditions,
and can do his own growing, I will
give the student something to do
right here. He must deny doubt and
affirm faith.
But, suppose the question
confronting him is one in which it
seems more plausible to doubt than to
believe? It makes no difference; he
is learning a lesson now, and it is a
lesson where his mistakes will teach
him as much as correct results.
Let us suppose the question is
presented to his mind, and doubt,
jumping up, says, “I
don’t believe it.” What
then? Why, nothing. The matter is
ended. Investigation is crushed. The
result is so much deadness. But
suppose he says to doubt:
“There is a plausible side to
this (it is not a question unless it
has a plausible side) and I will
bring faith to bear on it. Now faith
is alive and leads to more life,
while doubt is dead and leads
nowhere. So the student calls faith
into requisition and follows after
it. Now the leading characteristic of
faith is to glow and burn with
constantly increasing brightness the
more it is trusted, for it travels in
but one direction, and that is toward
understanding. Well, let us suppose
that the inquirer follows faith. In
doing so he will be sure to find the
answer to his question either in the
negative or the affirmative. The
answer may not be what he wanted, nor
what he expected, and--by the light
of still higher truth--it [125] may
not even be correct. But whatever it
is, it holds the seed germ of another
question, which, by following in
faith, will lead him nearer the
truth, and finally he will reach it.
To honestly follow faith in the
pursuit of truth, will lead to its
acquisition. I say in the pursuit of
truth, and not in the pursuit of
theories or creeds. See that your
mind is unfettered by past beliefs
when you search for truth, and deny
unceasingly the power of
prejudice.
Remember that doubt is a blight
upon every effort you make in search
of truth, and refuse to follow it.
The person who trusts his doubts is
always looking on the gloomy side of
life, and never achieves anything. He
is wretched from morning until night,
and is subject to every disease that
he hears of.
But faith is the light of our
growing lives. It starts from the
fountain-head of intuition within,
and gleams in long, straight lines
leading upward forever, always toward
the realm of the beautiful, the true
and good. And if we walk in its
pathway we reach resting places in
new altitudes of understanding,
where--looking back--each step is
seen to stand out in strong light,
though we may have passed over it
hesitatingly, and with but
half-hearted conviction as to its
being the true way. And we know that
we have done well in trusting the
gentle messenger sent out by
intuition--the native-born intellect
within us.
Now, in going out face to face
with what the world calls the evils
of life, I ask you to exercise your
faith for a few days or weeks until
the foundation for it shall have
become so organized in your mind that
understanding will be certain. I do
not ask you to trust even faith
blindly. If I should do so, and you
should comply with my request, you
would simply be setting aside your
reason and permitting me to
psychologize you. To be psychologized
is to have your judgment held in
abeyance by the judgment of another
person. Indeed, your judgment may be
held in abeyance by yourself. Your
prejudices may so hold you that your
reasoning powers are inoperative, in
which case you are
self-psychologized. This condition is
called “statuevolence.”
But even blind, unquestioning faith
is better than the deadness of no
faith.
Encourage the growth of faith
within yourself, but question it and
try it by the light of the science
that you are learning; also try the
science by the light of your faith.
In this way you can determine the
intelligence of each. As I said
before, there is life in faith; for
the blindest faith in the world gets
organs of vision after a time, and
becomes a guide that leads to
understanding. If, after you first
study the lessons, there should be a
reaction from the conviction they
have planted within you, do not be
discouraged. This reaction is the old
mode of thought, or habit, of your
former life, reasserting itself. At
such a time, reports of so-called
evil encompass and confuse you;
sickness and death will alarm you;
the influence of all the negative
forces will sweep over you again;
again you will doubt the truth of
omnipresent good. Right here is the
great need of faith. Right here is
the place to make the supreme effort
to be faithful. Remember that the
endeavor of your life is to cross
over from negative to positive
beliefs. A belief in evil, or any
form of evil, is negative. A belief
in omnipresent good is positive and
will in time, and by slow degrees,
lift the student into an
understanding of the science.
Therefore, I say, let faith reach out
as it is ever trying to do toward
understanding; encourage it; stand by
this inner guide as you would stand
by your life.
The conditions of the race are
embryonic. It is in the process of
being born into higher spiritual
life--in the process of passing from
the negative to the positive pole of
being. This is the process in which
Mental Science is assisting so
gloriously now. Therefore, when you
become discouraged with [126] the
study, as students sometimes do, and
the wretched habit of your old-time
thought returns to you, as you look
about and see that which appears to
be evil looming up on every side, you
must call up faith and say,
“All these apparent evils are
unripe conditions of our embryonic
race. They are conditions of
negation, full of misunderstanding of
truth; full of errors born of clouded
minds, not yet strong enough to bear
the full light of understanding and
to claim the good.” Say to
yourself, “I will wait for
confirmation of what I have received,
not because someone has directed me
to do so, but because it must be that
the absolute truth I have
received--the truth that all is
good--will vindicate itself to my
perfect comprehension in the fullness
of time.”
I now introduce the student to
another statement in Mental Science,
so great, so forcible, that it will
be many a long day before its full
weight can be measured. The statement
is this: In a universe of omnipresent
good the supply is always equal to
the demand. This is a law as unerring
as the law of cause and effect. The
existence of the Life Principle is
the cause; man is the effect. Man,
the effect, then, becomes a standing
demand upon the cause and the source
of supply, and all that he demands is
his for the taking. The supply is
always equal to the demand.
“Ask and ye shall receive;
knock and it shall be opened unto
you.” But you must knock
understandingly. The law is
inoperative to him who knocks
blindly. An intelligent perception of
the principle embodied is necessary
to insure a return. Ask, knowing the
law that the supply is equal to the
demand, and why it is so, and you
will surely receive. Thus, when you
have pressed past your denials, made
your affirmations understandingly,
and established yourself in conscious
relation with Life, or good, treat
every patient who comes to you,
knowing that by the mere fact of your
recognition of the all-pervading
presence of Life, and your belief in
its power to become apparent on your
intelligent demand that you can heal
him. To heal a patient is simply to
make the truth that all is Life
apparent to him in his own person. If
your patient is very ill do not be
frightened, but call up faith in the
basic Life statement of this
science--viz., that all is Life and
that the supply of life is equal to
the demand you make upon it, if you
make the demand understandingly. Know
forever that all Life is yours for
the recognition; that in proportion
as you recognize it will be your
power to heal.
More about this principle will be
mentioned further on. But in any
case, your duty is clear. Study the
lessons again. Go down again and
again into the silence of your
intuitional life, and watch and wait
for the truth welling up from that
source. This will bring you
understanding. It will fortify your
faith in yourself, and double your
ability as a healer and a teacher. Do
not at any time hesitate, in view of
your own powerlessness, to take a
patient who comes to you of his own
volition. He was drawn to you by the
Law of Attraction, and you can give
him that for which he came, for the
supply is equal to the demand, and
for this very reason you will not
fail, if you have intelligent faith.
You are the supply to the patient;
the patient is the demand upon you.
The patient would not have come to
you for treatment if your supply had
not been equal to his demand; for
such is the Law. If you fail to heal
the patient, it will not be because
you had not the actual power at hand
to do so--for the supply is equal to
the demand--but because you had not
faith enough in the omnipresent Life
as manifested in you, or sufficient
understanding of the Law, and so fell
into a condition of negation, in
which you are drawn into the
patient’s error, or negative
beliefs in sickness and fear; for
always, in treating as in teaching,
does the measure of your
understanding of the science of mind
determine the measure of your
success.
This is the Law of Mental Science
as of mathematics. You would not
expect to use the science of
mathematics unless you understood the
principles.
Students have devoted years and
years to the understanding of the
principles of mathematics before they
could demonstrate the problems that
were of such vital importance to
them. But the trouble with the Mental
Scientist is that he expects to
demonstrate long before he
understands the principles. You know
that your understanding of the
principles of mathematics determines
the success with which you use
figures. So in healing; the
understanding of the law of mind and
the invisible process by which it is
made to govern so-called matter--or
negative mind--is essential to
success in performing cures.
Jesus said, “Ask, and ye
shall receive.” In this
sentence he foreshadowed the entire
result of that great Law “the
supply is equal to the demand.”
But it is recorded of him in another
place, where he qualified this
remark, and said: “Ask, and if
ye ask not amiss, ye shall
receive.” Have faith, and if it
is not unintelligent faith, ignorant
faith, that which you have faith in
will come to pass. We could not by
any possibility whatever have
intelligent faith in a thing unless
there was a supply of that faith. The
faith implies and includes the
demand. The demand implies and
includes the supply. The reason we
have faith at all, and the only
reason we could have it, is because
there is a supply to it. How often I
have spoken this idea in other words.
Long before I came into the science,
my observation and experience induced
me to formulate the same thought in
these words: “Every intelligent
hope is the sure prophecy of its own
fulfillment.” Jesus constantly
enjoined faith. Faith discerns
spiritual gifts, even if it be at
first blind faith.
Blind faith is a simple trust in
something better than we know,
without any special evidence of its
existence. Faith takes no notice of
physical facts. Because it is a
refined and positive agent, born of
intuition, the original, natural
intelligence within us, its action is
far above the negatives. It forever
gives evidence in accordance with its
origin. It is the ever-present
witness to the unfolding and unfolded
power within us. It has been a saving
power all down the ages, and it is
pledged to see our establishment in
ever higher truths.
