Neville Goddard Books

Elizabeth Towne – Joy Philosophy

CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. A Good Morning In Two Worlds

3. The Present Tense

4. A Mush Or A Man—Which?

5. The Center Of Light

6. The Law Of Being

7. How It Works

8. Good Circulation

9. Low Living

10. The Limitless Self

11. Ideals

12. “I Can And I Will”

13. Desire The Creator

14. Desire And Duty

15. God And Devil

16. Let Us Play

17. The Old-Clothes Man

1. Introduction

I know that there is, if not a “higher intelligence,” at least a fuller intelligence than this personal one I call my own. Many a time in my life I have been absolutely certain that some particular thing was the only right thing,—that if it did not come to pass just that particular way the loss would be infinite and the harm deep as hell itself, and utterly irreparable.

Well, it did not come to pass as I thought it must in order to keep the earth from wobbling on its axis.

And do you know, it wasn’t very long before I was fervently glad it did not come around as I thought it must and ought to. The way I thought utterly wrong was absolutely right and beneficent.

Many a time I have had such experiences, in little things and big.

I know there is a fuller intelligence than mine; and I know that when my intelligence goes awry from lack of far-seeing, that this fuller intelligence overrules mine. I am glad to believe this —glad to know that when I get in a quandary there is Something to bring things out right in spite of me.

And do you know—I believe this fuller intelligence is after all my own intelligence. It is I who am doing it all the time. Intelligence is not confined in bodies or brains,—no. It fills the universe. All this space between you and me is pure intelligence in which we live and move, and through which we think. But we are conscious only of that small portion of our intelligence represented by our bodies. This great sea of intelligence is infinitely the larger part of us, but it acts subconsciously, or super-consciously.

But it does act, and for my individual good, as well as for the good of all others. I am glad to be over-ruled by it. It makes me feel safe to know that if I make a mistake in judgment I shall be over-ruled by this fuller intelligence which is over us all.

This book is written to help awaken your faith in the fuller intelligence which works sub-consciously in us all; and to help arouse within you the joy of living in consciousness with your Limitless Self, which is my Self, too. Health, happiness and success to you, my readers.

Elizabeth Towne

2. A Good Morning In Two Worlds

Good morning! Isn’t it a glorious sunrise? Just see!—not alone one sun is showing its golden rim above the world’s edge, but ten million suns are rising upon ten million waiting hearts, and shadows flee to find a place of rest. Truly, a good morning to you of the NEW THOUGHT, whose hearts have turned to smile straight at the sun of life.

I AM the sun of God. Just as this dear, old green earth is turning its face to the sun so you and I are turning our attention to the I AM sun.

“The worlds in which we live are two, The world I AM and the world I DO.”

Too long have we faced the world I DO. Too long have we judged ourselves and others by the dim light of what hath already appeared. We have been discouraged with comparing the already accomplished with itself. We said, “I can do no more than has been done; there can be nothing new under the sun.” So we have journeyed, and gazed, and regretted that it was all done. Everywhere we looked it was all done. “Every art and science and business is overdone,” we said, “there is no chance to do anything except what Tom, Dick and Harry have already done to death. There is no chance here for me.”

I AM the ideal world. Ah, that is where the sun shines and youth plays eternal and almighty. In the world of ideals I AM omnipotent, omniscient, all-pervading. In the world of Doing I AM lost among the many and the already-accomplished.

I have just read a letter from one who has been for 22 years a bookkeeper for one firm. For 22 years he plodded mechanically up one column of figures and down another, and drew his little salary. Now the firm has passed out with its head, and this man is left at 45 without a salary. He is “worn out” and nobody wants the remnants—I had almost said the remains.

This man is a sucked orange and is meeting the natural fate of such. But unlike the orange, he was a free-will offering to the world I DO. His young ideals were choked off and crushed out. He said, “A salary in the hand now is worth two fortunes I might develop if I followed my ideals. I think I might in time work into something great if I worked along another line for myself, but I know I can draw a salary if I work for this man. I fear to trust ‘the world I AM.’ And, anyway, life is short and what’s the use of trying so hard? So I’ll add up columns, draw my salary and eat, drink and be merry.” So his ideals for lack of expression went into winter quarters, and are still hibernating—awaiting a new incarnation in the world I DO.

But it is never too late to turn to the sun I AM. One’s muscles may be weak and his joints stiff; his brain cells may cry out for a little more slumber, a few more columns and then a long sleep; but still one can turn over if he will. It is never too late to begin putting what I AM into what I DO. Even if one is 45 and a sucked orange, with not time to accomplish much in this incarnation, he can at least get ready for a better start in the next. So it is never too late to consider and express what I AM—the ideal.

Do you know that your ideals and desires are really YOU?— the I AM of you? Your body and your doings and even your education are but white caps on the surface of YOU. They are but an infinitely small and evanescent portion of your resources. They are what you have already realized of your infinite resources.

The giraffe used to have a short neck. That was all he had expressed of himself. But his pasturage ran short and he began to reach up after the palm leaves. He reached and looked and reached again. This unwonted exercise stretched his neck until it is now long enough to easily reach the palm tops. So it has ceased to grow longer. As long as he kept reaching out his neck kept growing.

What are you reaching out after? Do you see in the world I AM something that is worthwhile? Do you reach after it in the world I DO? Do you keep on reaching, and looking, and reaching again?

Between reachings do you retire into the world I AM for inspiration and power for further reaching?

This alternation from Being to Doing—from I AM to I DO —is the secret of power and progress and success. It is the soul’s breathing. You inhale in the world I AM; you exhale in the world I DO. The more easily and regularly you vibrate between these two the more complete is your realization of health and success.

When you have that tired and unsuccessful feeling due to too much exhaling in the world I DO, just rise into the realm I AM and by imagination and affirmation pump yourself full of— I AM power.

I AM wisdom. I AM love.

I AM what I desire to be. ALL Things work together for the manifestation of what l AM.

Then rise again and express your regenerated self in Doing.

There was one man who talked back at me for that “Good Morning” article. I received from him an unsigned note which began by acquainting me with his opinion that he is “a very old man” and therefore entitled to assume authority and correct pert, little, young and conceited things like me, for the good of their souls; and it closed with calling my attention to a small attached card bearing in a little black frame this admonition:

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

In my Bible, which is well thumbed by the way, and copiously underlined and annotated, these lines are underscored with red ink. If the sender of that card had dug the verses out of his own Bible instead of finding them where somebody else had put them, his eyes might have traveled down another line where they would have rested upon this:

“Be not wise in thine own eyes.”

And he would not have found after that any clause to the effect that he is entitled to become wise in his own eyes when he shall have become “a very old man.” The “aged” do not necessarily “understand judgment.”

But there! I am reminding myself of old Dr. Driver, “the only man who ever downed Ingersoll.” But when a man fires Bible verses at me I enjoy dodging ‘em and firing the whole Bible back at him. And when a man fails to sign his name to his communication it takes some effort to think of him as anything but an impersonal sort of target that sets itself up and dares you to hit it. Now if there is anything I do enjoy it is hitting the bull’s-eye. But if I thought the bull’s-eye had any tender feelings to be hurt I’d fire the other way.

But seriously, I do not mean to lay myself liable to be hit with that particular saying of David’s. I have lived with it, and tried to let it live with me, for at least 15 years. And I thought everybody knew that I AM is what the Bible calls God, or the Lord.

When I say, I AM power, I lean to God, the only power. When I say, I AM wisdom, I call God. When I say, I AM love, I reckon myself nothing and God ALL, for God is love. When I say, I AM what I desire to be, I count myself as God’s manifestation, with his desires written on my heart. The desires of my heart are God’s desires. He worketh in me both to desire and to think, as well as to will and to do his good pleasure.

‘When I tell you to rise into the ideal and pump yourself full of I AM consciousness I bid you identify yourself with God, the one soul of all people and things; I bid you realize your oneness with all power, wisdom, love; I bid you in ALL your ways and thoughts and desires and deeds acknowledge HIM, the One-Power, One-Wisdom, One-Love, as the director of your every way.

When you are disturbed, unhappy, unsuccessful, agitated, you are breaking the connection between God and yourself, by not taking him into your thoughts and desires. You are counting him OUT. So I say, stop and pump yourself full of I AM God. Power and Wisdom and Love are only names of God. Whenever you reckon yourself Power or Wisdom or Love you take in God. When you say, I am weak, or ignorant, or unloving and unloved, you deny God and force him out of your thought. Or at least you try to. Then let him in. In all thy ways acknowledge him. In all thy desires acknowledge him.

And verily he shall direct thy paths, and they shall be paths of peace and pleasantness and plenty.

3. The Present Tense

To think or not to think—that is the question raised by different exponents of the new thought. Most of our teachers have been telling us that by thought we are created and by thought we are saved from death. But Sydney Flower says thought is killing us all. We are clogging up with Brain-Ash. And now I come to think of it, Jesus of Nazareth said, “Take NO thought.”

Evidently thought and its results are decidedly important to us who mean to Live and let who will do the dying.

But I fancy the thought advocates are not so far off as might appear. Truth is ever paradoxical.

And it is her paradoxes which MAKE us think, and do it in spite of ourselves. Truly, it were vain to say, Stop thinking.

It is useless to say, Forget.

And after all comes my own little suspicion that it is not thinking and remembering, but the kind of thinking and remembering we do, which chokes us with Brain-Ash.

The child thinks, and I suspect him of thinking harder and more nearly true than does the grown-up. But a child thinks new thoughts; or rather he thinks the same old thoughts with variations. And all his thoughts are made light and bright by vivid and hope-full imagination. It is as if his thoughts by some divine alchemy of imagination are transmuted into gas or electricity before his brain is stoked with them. There is no Brain-Ash in a child; there is only glow and white light of electricity.

But we grown-ups are stingy with our fuel. We put out the alchemic fires of imagination and burn our Facts direct.

Our consciousness is like a little bird in a wooden hogshead.

It flies around and around, and bruises its poor little wings against the sides; it soars three feet and bumps its head; it falls three feet and—thinks. “Life is only a wooden hogshead of a treadmill,” it says, and willingly gives up its little ghost.

In a child’s mind, even stone is endowed with life; to the grown-up everything is dead. So the child’s thoughts are alive and the grown-up’s are dead. The child’s thoughts being alive have power to move him—truly, “he is full of life.” But the grown-up is full of death and Brain-Ash.

Because the child’s thoughts are alive he is so interested in the Now that it is easy to forget the past and ignore the future. The grown-up’s thoughts being dead, he takes refuge from the stench—he seeks again the live thoughts of his youth.

The cure of Age is interest, enthusiasm and their consequent activity of mind and body.

“Assume a virtue if you have it not,” and thus re-call it. Play with your work. Wipe out the past, forget the future, and play. Live now. Be a child now. Endow with life all things you touch. Permit nothing to remain cut and dried. Cut it by another pattern, your own brand new one. Talk to it, smile at it, imagine things to it, and of it. Quit being serious. “Dignity is a peculiar carriage invented to cover up the defects of the mind.” Quit covering up anything. Be a child, smiling.

Oh, but you can’t feel so? Nobody asked you to feel it. Just Do it, DO it, DO IT!— and never mind feeling. Practice makes perfect and feeling follows. Go in to win and keep at it, until you are the happiest kid in the bunch.

*****

Mr. Flower says you cannot have youth and wisdom. He intimates that wisdom goes with Age. Dearie, don’t you believe it. The wisdom which goes with Age is a dirty little wooden hogshead counterfeit. Only in proportion as one stays young is he wise. Real wisdom is in The Limitless. It is in the electric atmosphere which is breathed by children and fools. In the hogshead it is deadened by the heavy effluvia of dead things. All true wisdom, all poetry, all art, all invention, comes to the child-brain in The Limitless. Only as poets, artists, inventors get out of the hogshead do they find that which lives, and stirs the dead things within.

4. A Mush Or A Man—Which?

Man in the natural and unregenerate state is an unprincipled being. He is moved by every shadow of feeling. These shadows being cast by people, things and events without, his mental and physical activities represent but a conglomerate of other people. He is a jelly-fish, receiving for the moment the impression of any finger which pokes him. Whether he wants to be or not, he is nothing but a “mush of concession” to every passing person or circumstance. He is constantly affected from without. He lives and changes his being according to what is thrust upon him by other things. He has no principle for individual living, except that of stinging the hand which touches him.

The fate of the unprincipled jelly-fish is ever the same. His own power of initiative is so primitive that he is propelled by every current of wind or wave. Everything stands aside for even the sucker, who knows where he is going. But the jelly-fish has no destination. His one object in life is to keep from being hurt, and to this end he floats with any current. He effaces himself as much as possible to keep from being seen and eaten. And I suspect he is often indignant and tries to sting because he has succeeded in his attempt not to be noticed. But when he happens to be noticed by too large a fish he is gobbled up in a jiffy. If he escapes being eaten he is cast on the beach to lament away his feeble life in a too-ardent day.

Poor little unprincipled jelly-fish! But occasionally a jellyfish gets tired of being a more or less unwilling mush with a red pepper sting. He grows a shell to protect him, and becomes a clam. He shuts himself up with his own opinion of the selfish world outside. He loses his red pepper sting, but if you get too close to him he nips your impertinent fingers and shuts the door in your face. He has his opinion of you and he wants to be let alone.

But after a time he gets tired of himself and his opinions— deadly tired. He begins to think even the jelly-fish stage of life is preferable to the clam’s. At least the former had a change once in a while, and he saw something of life. He wishes he were a child again—he means a jelly-fish.

But even a clam cannot grow backward. So he becomes a crawfish and goes sidewise. He evolves some ugly legs, shoulders his shell and his opinions and goes sliding forth to see the world again. Really, he is growing a glimmer of a principle to live by. He has builded him a shell which makes him impervious to most outside forces; he has grown tired of trying to enjoy himself; and he has actually made a start at doing something on his own account, uninfluenced by the without.

Good little crawfish! He is on a fair road to growing quite a backbone of his own. By and by, as exercise hardens his muscles and stiffens his backbone and limbers his little legs he will discard his ugly shell and walk out straight ahead, instead of crawfishing. He is growing a Principle to live by—the principle of self-expression. He is growing Wits as well as a backbone and well muscled legs, to take him out of harm’s way and to enable him to gratify his own individual desires.

A man in the jelly-fish stage is sensitive on the outside. And he is so absorbed in these outer sensations that he is conscious of nothing within himself. His soul-center is as unsensitive as his circumference is sensitive. He has shrunk into himself so persistently that he has deadened and dammed the power which is meant to flow outward from his soul-center. He is therefore utterly unconscious of the law or principle of his own being.

His solar plexus is a hard knot and he is so used to it that he does not know it. He has cringed and cowered and shrunk into himself until his solar center, his soul-center, is in danger of petrification. Life is a dull ache, and the harder the ache the tighter he shrinks inward.

Poor little man, he would better brace up and be a clam; or a crawfish; or better still, a man with a backbone that holds him up straight and leaves his solar center free to expand and fill him with vim and gumption to stand other men’s buffets and carve a path of his own out into the Free Country where he can do as he pleases. He would better consult his soul-center than his “feelings.” He would better grow sensitive on the inside and give his thin skin a rest.

The principle of all being is to EXPRESS, to press outward. The jelly-fish, the clam and the crawfish of the human race press inward instead of outward. If one of them by any chance does happen to unbend and make a move to express himself he is turned backward again by the first little show of an obstacle or the adverse opinion of some other clam or crawfish. There is no principle in him—he is worked from without. He is attracted by this thing and repelled by that, moved back and forth and in and out, galvanized or paralyzed, all from outside. And he throws out innumerable little antenna for sensing these outside influences. He is so absorbed in them that he has no consciousness left for the soul-center within himself, where his principle of being is trying to manifest. His soul’s influence is the last influence he looks for or responds to. Such a being is unhappy, unhealthy, unsuccessful; and he grows more so until he gets desperate and quits. Then he begins to withdraw consciousness from the outside and wake up on the inside. He begins to consult himself and do as he desires. Hitherto he has been so absorbed in outside things that he was unaware he had any desires on his own account. Now he begins to explore himself. He expands and grows sensitive on the inside. When he senses a little desire there he pushes out and acts upon it—even if he does run against a snag or two, or a dozen. He has got hold of one end of the principle of his own being and is acting upon it. Henceforth, his way is straight ahead, instead of crawfishy or clammy.

Now a strange thing begins to manifest. In the old days the man was always getting into somebody’s way and getting hurt. He spent his time tacking and backing and scudding to keep from being hurt. But now that he has turned himself right side out and started ahead, he discovers everybody else hurrying to get out of his way, and even to help him along. Things seem to loom as obstacles, but lo, as he keeps straight ahead they melt away and he goes onward.

In every man’s soul is a course mapped out, a chart and compass for his guidance. If he consults his own chart and follows it he finds there are no collisions. His course is a true orbit, where all intruding matter is dissipated before it reaches him. His atmosphere burns it up, and renders it harmless. It is the crawfish who in his attempt to keep out of one orbit slides into another and meets the comet’s fate— disintegration and absorption.

This is a wonderful universe—a one-verse. There is an orbit for every being and a being for every orbit. Every orbit is written on a heart, a soul, and may be found only by consulting that soul.

Look up at the stars—just a conglomerate of bright spots. Surely if they moved a little there would be collisions. But look closer. They do move, at infinite pace, and there are no catastrophes. There is an order among them so perfect that it takes long study to appreciate it.

Now look at people—a conglomeration of wriggling worms of the dust. But look more closely, dear. It will repay you, for human orbits are no less true than starry ones. The closer you get to human hearts the better you will understand their orbits. The closer you get to your own heart the nearer you will approach the hearts of others.

The more faithfully you follow the orbit written on your heart the surer you are to escape disaster.

Grow sensitive on the soul-side and know that your course is sure.

In Harper’s for November there is an interesting and significant article by Carl Snyder, upon “The Newest Conceptions of Life.” He says: “Physiology’s present answer to the old riddle is, very simply: Life is a series of fermentations.”

He also says there is a destructive ferment, and, likewise, a constructive ferment, conditions alone governing, “When starch, or dextrine, is submitted to fermentation by the malt enzyme, it is hydrolized—that is to say, split—by taking up water into one of the simpler sugars, glucose. But if the resulting product is not removed, the action soon comes to a standstill. Add more starch, it will begin again; but add to the quantity of sugar, and the reverse process is begun; the glucose is converted into starch. The enzyme, then, is able to rebuild the molecule it has pulled apart.

“For every vital function, a ferment.”

“Naturally, the very first question is, what are these ferments, these enzymes? That is the biochemical problem of the hour. Their activity seems bound up rather with the peculiarities of their atomic structure, of their chemical architecture, so to speak, than with any mystery of ingredients. They are compounded of the simple elements of water, air and carbon. It is how these are put together that is so puzzling.”

Then he goes on to say: “But this close pressing of the most intimate secrets of life has another implication of far more interest to men and women of today. It is, in brief, that perhaps all the processes of life are reversible—growth even; that under given conditions the oak might become an acorn, the grown man a child, the adult organism, led back through the successive stages of its development to the primitive germ from whence it sprang.” And he gives a real illustration of the process of growing young again: “A plant-like little affair, Campanularia, living and developing normally in the water, undergoes an amazing transformation simply upon being brought into contact with some solid substance.” Then he describes the process by which it returns again to its original state.

The italics in these quotations are my own.

*****

Life is a series of ferments which may be reversed. When we stir up a sponge for bread we put in a little yeast and a little flour for it to work upon. All night long the yeast particles are busy separating the solid wheat particles and filling them with yeast-life. In the morning the entire mass is beautifully “light.”

Everywhere in creation life and light are synonymous terms. Even the “lightness” of bread sponge is its aliveness.

Now, what do you do with a light sponge? You use it to leaven a loaf. You stir it down, and stir in more flour, and knead and knead it until there is a big, solid loaf— within which is the germ of life. Again the yeast-life works, until the whole mass is “light” again—until all that wheat flour you worked in has been separated and made light or alive. Perhaps you repeat the process several times, before you finally kill your bread by baking it.

If you let your dough rise too long, you know what happens—it gets “too light”; the yeasty principle has nothing more to work upon; the loaf is now all yeast; it begins to get sour, and then bitter; it grows porous, gaseous; its surface becomes wrinkled and its once round, smooth cheek falls in; it shrivels; and in due time, if let alone, it will dry up and blow away.

Good, live dough is not the result of a fermentation, but of a series of fermentations, each arrested at the proper moment, and more flour added.

Human life is like unto it. The human being who works and works on one line becomes sour and wrinkled. In order to make good human beings they should be allowed to work on one line until they are full of lightness, of the joy of life. Then there should be kneading down and a new beginning.

*****

Now, this is all in your mind. Fermentation is a mental process. The “ferments or enzymes” are the life or mind principles drawn, not from air or water or carbon, but through them. They are “spirit,” love, life. The “wheat flour” consists in the facts which are worked into your mind, and upon which your soul-stuff works, digesting, assimilating it. The same identical process takes place in a loaf of bread that takes place in your mind. All is life. ALL IS MIND.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, but the moment the whole lump is “light” there must be another working down.

If we do not know enough to work down our own minds Mother Nature does it for us. As soon as we get comfortably past the light point; as soon as we begin to settle and wrinkle and die; as soon as life grows monotonous; there is a jolting and a working over. We “lose” our property and our ease. We are detached from the sides of our environment and friends. We are buffeted and soundly thumped, and we find ourselves set down in new conditions to begin all over again. Good old Mother Nature has set us to rise again.

If we are really wise and willing we go at the task with a will and quickly rise. Having risen once we ought to know we can do it again, and do it more quickly than before. You know that is the way with our dough—every time we knead it down it comes up more easily.

Unless we are careless and put it in a cold place, it is a cold day when the bread won’t rise. But it would be a cold day, indeed, when a human being couldn’t rise. No matter how much he has been detached from, nor how much he has been worked down, he can rise if he will.

That is the only difference between the loaf of bread and the man. The loaf of bread has to be raised in spite of itself—it has to be kept at just the right temperature from the outside. But a man has in himself the power to make his own temperature. He can work himself up to the rising point.

He can shut the door of his heart against the immanent Love and Will of the universe—shut in and stay down in the dark. He can open the door of his heart to Love, the “enzyme” of all life, which creates its own warmth.

The only reason a man does not open his heart to Love and Will, and begin straightway to rise again, is because he does not yet understand that the buffetings of “fate” are no more “against” him than are the kneadings of the housewife against the success of her bread.

Life must be a series of beginnings and workings-up. Eternal life must be an eternal series of workings-down and risings up. A single day’s life must be a series of “fermentations.”

Notice a child. See how readily he enters into every change. He is worked down and even sat on, many times a day, and yet he rises quickly and with joy. He never passes that just-right point of lightness where his cheek is round and his flesh moist—where he can be readily detached from his surroundings. He never shrivels and falls in and cakes to the pan, like his elders. He forgets, quickly, the working-down, and enters heart and soul into the business of rising NOW. He is so absorbed in his work, the work of growing light, that he heeds little the workings-down which are but for a moment.

Out of sight is out of mind. He forgets what others do to him. He LIVES Now—he rises.

5. The Center Of Light

In ancient days the priests of the Hebrews wore upon their breastplates over their hearts certain jewels called “Urim and Thummim,” meaning “Lights and Perfection,” by which they received answers from God. When their people were beset on every hand by enemies, and at their wits’ ends to know which way to turn, the priests turned to God. After purifying themselves and praying they asked God, “Shall we do thus?” and they watched the Urim and Thummim jewels for the answer. If the jewels appeared dark and opaque the answer was, No. But if they lighted up, as a human face lights when it hears good news, then the answer was, Yes. And the people grew lighter too, and went and did as God had indicated.

Now, right along beside this story of ancient people I will tell you another—tell it just as ‘twas told to me, by a woman of today, whose name you have doubtless heard. She writes: “I was washing my breakfast dishes one morning and the thought came to me that I would go and see a friend who lived several miles away. I finished my work and started to dress for my journey, when there came over me such a feeling of depression, or despondency, or gloom, that I was startled. I kept on getting ready, at the same time trying to reason away the feeling. But it would not go. Finally, having donned my hat and one glove I started for the door, when such a wave of heaviness came over me that I went back into my room and sat down, and I said ‘God, I want to know the meaning of all this.’ And the answer came loud, strong, firm, ‘Stay at home.’ I staid, and as I took off my coat and hat such a feeling of lightness and relief came over me that I seemed to walk on air. At the time I supposed the voice (I call it a voice for want of a more definite term) had told me to stay at home because someone was coming who needed my help. But no one came that day or night, and several times the thought flitted through my mind that perhaps it was all nonsense after all, and that I might as well have gone. Well, the outcome was that the train I would have taken, had I gone, met with a fearful accident wherein many were killed or badly wounded. This is only one of many such experiences I have had.” And I could tell you still others on my own account.

The One Great Intelligence has built in every human heart a “Urim and Thummim,” which, as a guide, transcends any human brain that ever existed, or ever will.

In fact, every great brain is the result of enlightenment from this very center.

At one’s wits’ ends there is infinite light, only waiting to be used. And if only one’s inward eye is single toward this light his whole wits shall be full of light.

In olden times people were too dull and material to consult the Light until they had groped into all sorts of trouble in the dark. They supposed it necessary for man to get to his utmost extremity before the Light would shine upon his way. They nosed in the dust and darkness, believing that their natural source and habitat. Then in their hours of extreme need they washed off the dust and went in bare-footed to consult the center of Light upon the breastplate of rightness, over the heart of one consecrated to God.

And they never knew that every man in the multitude carried a center of light in his own breast—a center which only needed washing off the dirt and letting out the kinks in their nerves and muscles to reveal a center of Light in every breast in that multitude—centers so light and so true that the jewels on the High Priest’s breastplate cast only their composite shadow.

“There is a light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world.” And it is not the light of reason, but the light that lighteneth reason.

It is not located at the center of anybody’s breastplate, to be seen of every Tom, Dick and Harry who runs and reads. It is located under the center of his breastplate, at the solar center of his being. Here his center of Light shines out bright and clear when he is doing the right thing; and when he is doing the wrong, or unwise thing, the clouds of dull feeling roll over and darken his center of Light, and say No to him.

And if he goes heedlessly on acting against the admonitions of his center of Light, the clouds keep piling up, and his heart sinks down and down under the leaden weight, and he rarely ever catches even a glimpse of his center of Light. He is “gloomy,” we say. And he grows reckless and defiant and rushes on blindly to “a bad end.”

He never understood himself. He never knew that the center of Light within him is his most precious possession, the star alone which could guide him into all good. So he hid it with clouds of doubt, and fear, and distrust—with clouds of ignorance, of NON-RECOGNITION. He “paid no attention” to it.

And so used was he to living in clouds of distrust that he never realized that there could be a lighter heart than his. He laughed loudly, and tossed off sparkling wine, and thought he was having a “good time.”

Until the crash came, having obscured his center of Light, there was nothing but his brain to guide his actions. He made mistakes. Then came the crash and a standstill; and he found himself and his heavy heart and the dark clouds, and the bottom dropped out of everything.

But in the midst of despair he found the priceless jewel—the Urim and Thummim—his own center of Light. And behold, the crash was a Good Thing—the best business investment he ever made. He has through it realized the Way, the Truth, the Light of his own soul. Now, he will walk softly in the Light and there will come no more crashes.

I wonder if you think this is a fanciful bit of symbology. It is not. It is plain fact described in the plainest language I have at command.

You have a light at your center, in the region called the solar (or light) plexus. When you feel depressed you feel the effects of literal clouds, caused by doubt, distrust, fear, anger, resentment, grief, etc.

Back of those clouds shines the eternal Light, at your center—the light meant to guide you and no other, on your way.

Shall I tell you what to do? Get still. Quit running around after somebody to tell you what to do. Quit thinking around and around in an endless circle. Quit thinking at all. Be still. Keep whispering “Peace” to the troubled elements of your atmosphere.

After a bit the winds and waves of emotion will obey you and subside. The clouds will roll away and your center of Light shine out in all its glory. Then you will know what to do.

When you are still then you can ask, “Shall I do thus?” and the lighting or the darkening of your heart will give you the correct answer.

6. The Law Of Being

“God is Love.”

God, or love, is the law of every being. By love every being was created; by love he is held together; by love he grows.

Through lack of love man is weak; through lack of love he is ignorant; through the waning of love he dies.

Love is the emotive power of every being; the power which proceeds forth from the central sun of himself, giving life to his body and environment; just as the sun-power proceeds forth and gives life to the planets. As the sun is the source of life, light, power, in the planets, so is the soul-center the source of life, light, power, to the members of the human body.

Love is soul-radiance, the only power for accomplishment.

Love makes worlds go round; it keeps hearts throbbing and children growing.

Love is wisdom. Love is will.

Wisdom and will are twined, like two strands in a cable,

Wisdom and will, twined in One, issue forth from the soul-center as rays from the sun.

The soul-center of being manifests as the “solar plexus” a great ganglion back of the stomach; from which nerves radiate to even the backwoods neighborhoods of the body. The solar plexus is the power house of the individuals. God, or love, is the power.

The brain is the central station where the individual sits and controls the power. He rings it off, or on, little or much, with a single thought. The individual at the brain controls the power house and all its workings, in a general way, just as Uncle Sam at Washington controls in a general way the power of the United States.

But the individual’s brain is not the only brain he has, any more than Washington is the only directing center Uncle Sam has. Every city, little or big, is a directing center; it draws its own appropriation of power and uses it as it pleases—within its limits—which are set by the intelligence at Washington.

Every ganglion in the body is a little brain which governs in a measure the use of its own appropriation of power from the soul-center, the solar-plexus; but always with the consent of the central intelligence, the brain—the Washington, D. C., of the body.

Money represents power, the will-strand of love. Whenever a city needs more money than it can draw by its own wisdom, it calls on Washington to send a special appropriation. Washington may pass a law enabling the needy city, or state, to draw more money; or it may appropriate the amount direct from the government source; or, when these processes are too red-tapey, it might make a general call to all hands to dispense with routine and send the money anyhow. This was what happened when Roosevelt called for help for the Mt. Pelee refugees. Money was poured in from all directions, instead of being sent through regular channels.

Whenever one of the lesser brains of the body, one of the ganglia, records a condition of want among its cells it tries to draw power to overcome the difficulty. If it cannot do this on its own account it sets up a cry that is heard at the central station of consciousness and government—the brain. When that cry comes we say we feel pain in the region of that particular ganglion. If we give our stomach more than it can do we hear a loud call for power—we feel a dull or painful sensation there.

When that call comes it draws special attention from the seat of general government—the brain.

Now, if the individual whose seat of government is in that brain happens to be wise enough and “strenuous” enough, he will do just what Roosevelt did; he will call for POWER from any and all directions, to relieve the want of power in the stomach. And he will call in perfect faith that the demands will be met with an overflowing abundance.

This is the method of self-healing.

Of course, if the individual whose seat of government is in that brain happens to be a weakling fraidie-cat, he will do nothing but groan over the conditions in his stomach; he will lament and ache with it, instead of bracing up and demanding power to change those conditions.

Wherever the individual’s ATTENTION goes his power goes too. All the individual needs to do is to say the word for his power to pitch in and make things straight. Until he does that his power stands around and waits, just as all the pocketbooks in the United States just waited until Roosevelt pulled himself together and called resolutely for money. That call set up an electric thrill which ran through all the little pocketbooks and set them to pouring out the help called for.

When the individual takes that same positive, resolute, commanding and full-offaith. attitude, he may ask what he will and it shall be done unto him. He may say the word which will send through his body an electric thrill of health, with a concentration of power in any desired spot.

He may open up every one of those ganglionic centers of power and send their surplus of energy to any given point, for any given purpose. In his own domain he may arise a greater than Roosevelt.

Every ganglion in the body is a storage battery of both wisdom and will, drawn originally through the central battery of the solar plexus.

The solar plexus draws its power from the Great Unseen. The intangible becomes tangible at the solar center; the hitherto undirected power of space and eternity here begins to be directed; the uncontrolled here comes under control; the unexpressed begins here to express.

You can readily see that great power depends primarily upon a free solar plexus. Great power can never be expressed under a tight corset, which binds and packs the solar plexus.

Great power, of mind or body, can never be expressed under either a binding corset or binding thoughts.

Fear thoughts are the only binding thoughts there are. Every little fear gives a pucker to the solar plexus, and shuts out just that much power. A starved and distressed body is the direct result of shutting off the solar radiance by fear thoughts—or cinches.

Get rid of fear as fast as you can, and your expanding solar plexus will burst every band, mental or physical.

The first step toward getting rid of fear is to know that your source of power and wisdom is the same great and limitless source from which all men must draw; and that your point of contact with this boundless supply is within you, not on the outside of you. When you remember this you are not scared by the outside appearance of anything or anybody. You do not look to money or a “pull” for power to accomplish; you are not afraid the money or “pull” of another will be stronger than your pull on the infinite source of all things. You know that his money and pull came by way of his own private pull on the universal, and instead of growing scared and kicking and threshing around in a desperate attempt to grab some of the results of his pull, you just quietly get down to business and your own pull on the universal.

When you look at the results of other people’s pulls on the infinite source, comparing them with your own, you are sure to grow discouraged, or desperate and fearful. One reason is that you belittle your own results; another is that you cannot see what the other man FAILED to get. You see the results of his successful pulls on the infinite, but you compare them with your own unsuccessful attempts, instead of comparing with your successes. You are unfair to yourself, and you exaggerate what he has accomplished.

Desire governs what one draws from the uncreate. Your desire and his were not alike; so his outward appearances will not stand judgment from your standpoint.

Let him alone and find yourself. You are unique. You cannot be compared with anything under heaven. Your pull on the infinite is infinite. But it’s different. Tend to it strictly, and see what the results are. Quit looking at the other fellow and generating fear thoughts—fear that he will get ahead of you. Look at your own ideals and desires, and rejoice in your own pull on the universal.

When you remember your source, and your different-ness, you are not afraid. When you go about your own work in your own way you rejoice in it all, and your solar plexus expands and power flows in and radiates to every corner of your body and on out to the outermost edge of your atmosphere; and away beyond-who knows how far beyond? Ah, then you enjoy what you do; you enjoy yourself; you LOVE; you are radiating love; and love, you know, is God, the only power and the only wisdom. And the chief end of you is to enjoy God, or love, forever.

7. How It Works

Do you know that a plant will not grow without leaves? And it will not bear fruit, and will die early, if it has too many leaves? The plant suckles moisture from the earth and the sun draws that moisture away again, through the tiny and innumerable pores of its leaves. So the healthy existence of a plant depends upon the living stream of moisture which must continually flow through the plant. Simply to flow into it is not enough; and when the stem is severed we quickly see the results of too much flowing out, with nothing flowing in. Death is the inevitable result of any continued disturbance of that steady flow of sap up from the earth, through the plant, and on out again into the atmosphere.

Of course, a sterile earth can give little sap to the plant and it soon dies; and the more fervently the sun kisses it and draws upon it the more quickly the plant expires. On the other hand, if the leaves are plucked, so that there are not pores enough for the sun to suck the sap through, the plant must die.

But plants are wonderfully intelligent little things, and full of ingenious contrivances for regulating supply and demand in such a way as to maintain the equilibrium which means health. The little wild things are wiser than we tame beings, in looking out well for number one. The cactus grows thick, fleshy leaves where it stores up moisture for use in the long, hot seasons when supply is small and demand great. And it glazes its leaves so that the sun cannot draw from it all the moisture it would. Many plants and trees glaze the entire upper sides of their leaves, so that the sun may draw from the shaded side only, where he cannot kiss so fervently. Some trees turn only the edges of their leaves toward the sun. And a great many refuse to grow wide. leaves, and the drier the soil the narrower the leaves, even in trees of the same family. All plants show this intelligence.

We human beings are built by the same Intelligence and after the same manner as plants. Our healthy and continued existence depends upon the same law. We, too, draw our sustenance from the earth and give it all off again through our pores and lungs. To glaze our skin pores would kill us. To shut off our breath would kill us. In either case our giving off would be curtailed beyond our limit of endurance. And, of course, to cut ourselves entirely loose from earth (at present)—to cut off our supply of food and water, would end our existence. So we try to maintain a poise of receiving and giving, to the end that we keep on living. Eternal life depends upon eternal poise of receiving and giving. It depends upon our ability to LET life flow through us, unimpeded and freely. This is the law of being.

Law is omnipresent. Not a crack nor cranny in all the universe, in all time and space, which is not filled with Law. No place so tiny that the Law is crowded out. No place so large that the Law is dissipated into nothingness . Law is the all-pervading “fourth dimension” of matter, as well as of spirit.

Two and two make four. This is Law. It works just the same whether it expresses through worlds or atoms, or through ideas only. Two worlds and two worlds are four worlds; two ideas and two ideas are four ideas.

The law of perpetual flow is the law of continued existence of any form, whether it be “physical,” “mental” or “spiritual.”

A physical body which refuses to give off as much as it receives quickly dies; if it persists in giving off more than it receives it quickly dissipates itself. A mind which refuses to receive as much as it gives, soon grows weak; if it refuses to give it stagnates and decays.

Do you see that the law of life is a good circulation? And that it works in body, mind, and money?

A plant. draws its stream of life from the earth. Man has loosed himself from the earth and is learning to depend less and less upon it as his source of supply. He is learning to live not by bread alone, but by the word. He is drawing his supply more and more fully and consciously from the unseen.

But this does not free him from the law of good circulation. Plants receive carbonicide and give off oxygen. Man receives oxygen and gives off carbonicide. Plants receive from the coarser and more tangible forms of ‘matter” and give it out. again in finer essence. Man does the same.

But man has likewise thrown out roots in the Great Unseen, through which he receives an ever increasing portion of his sustenance; which is brought down and given out in coarser form to earth and plant. Man’s veins and arteries carry the transmutations of earth matter, which he invisibly gives out; while his nerves reverse the order, and throb with wisdom and love, which come down from “spirit” into “matter” and are given off in coarse and concrete form.

Just as man must receive food and give out to the atmosphere, so he must receive from the spiritual atmosphere and give downward to earth. He must express wisdom and love, inspired from above earth; express it in terms of earth. Thus it is true that “The worlds in which we live are two,

The world I AM and the world I do.”

Human and divine life are One, and the individual continues to exist as long as there is good circulation between the ideal and the real.

Some time in past ages man’s feet were simple roots, fast to earth. He learned by centuries of effort to pick his roots out of the ground and walk off on them—in search of more food. This is a great advantage to him. But if he should now go up in a balloon and stay there for some days, breaking all connections with earth, he would melt into thin air.

In childhood the imagination is firmly rooted in the ideal world, and his feet are at the same time firmly set upon the earth. So he grows fast, mentally and physically, and increases in wisdom, love and power.

But by and by he begins to detach himself from the ideal. He detaches one rootlet after another and all the other earth folks pat him on the back and congratulate him because he is “growing up” and becoming “sensible.” So he goes on detaching himself from the world of spirit, whilst he plants himself more firmly in earth. By and by he is altogether detached from heaven. He scoffs at such silly, childish visions of glory. He has got both feet loose from the ideal.

About this time he reminds me of Pat’s horse, which up and died just as Pat had got him well trained to live on sawdust.

Man dies for no reason except that he educates himself to live on earth instead of in heaven, with babes and idealistic fools.

Of course, every man has a right to make his choice of associates and places. But by and by, we are all going to be wise enough to choose childhood and a good circulation.

8. Good Circulation