Robert Collier – The Life Magnet Volume 5 of 5

1928

 

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 – The Old Man of the Sea

Chapter 2 – Hopeless Tower

The Renewing of the Spirit

Chapter 3 – The Good Samaritan

The Modus Operandi

Princes in the Kingdom

L’Envoi

 

Chapter 1

The Old Man of the Sea

“I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works.

“My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”

—Psalms 139:14-16.

ON THE fifth voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, his vessel was wrecked and he with difficulty made his way to the shores of a fertile isle.

Thankfully he got to his feet and took his way inland, hoping to find some human habitation where he might get help. In a little while he reached the bank of a small stream. Sitting there, very weak and infirm-looking, and apparently unable to cross the stream, was an old, old man.

Sindbad thought him a shipwrecked sailor like himself, so he took him upon his shoulders and carried him across the stream. Once on the other side, however, the old man refused to get down. He wrapped his skinny legs about Sindbad’s chest and with his hands clutched Sindbad’s throat so tightly that, do what he would, the latter could not shake him off.

For days he stayed there and Sindbad was like to perish from exhaustion, but still the old man kicked and pinched and choked him into subjection. It was only when he used the power of his mind to contrive a way out, that Sindbad finally got rid of his awful burden.

You have an Old Man of the Sea who, every little while, perches upon your shoulders—upon yours or those of some member of your family. Usually his hold is insecure. You succeed in shaking him off. But with some, he gets his skinny old legs around their chest, his talons upon their neck, and holds on and on until they give up and die.

That Old Man of the Sea is Sickness.

Has he ever had his clutches upon you? Has he, by chance, a strangle hold on you now? Do you want to know how to shake him off?

Drugs won’t do it. Mankind has been pinning its faith to drugs and nostrums for several thousand years, yet the Old Man of sickness is as rampant today as he ever was. As a matter of fact, examination of mummies shows that the Egyptians of thousands of years ago suffered from fewer diseases than do we. For more than a thousand years, there was no medical profession, there were no physicians among the Jews, and—call it cause or effect, as you like— the Psalmist declares : “There was not one feeble person in all their tribes.”—Psalms 105:37.

Then how shall you get rid of this old devil who is at the bottom of more misery than all other causes together?

Only one person has ever been completely successful in mastering this Old Man of the Sea. That one was Jesus. So our best chance would seem to be to study His methods, to follow the directions He so carefully laid down.

To begin with, we have His assurance that it can be done. We know that He cured all manner of diseases—not by drugs or potions or dieting or exercise— but solely through the power of Mind—of the Father in Him. “It is not me,” He said, “but the Father in me; He doeth the works.” And He assured us again and again that the same Father is in us, and that the works which He (Jesus) did, we too can do. “He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do.”—John 14:12.

Not only have we His definite assurance of this, but He proved it with His own disciples. They were plain working folk, most of them unable even to read or write, yet by dint of much teaching and example, He was able to send them out two and two and have them report signs and wonders second only to His own. “And the seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name.”—Luke 10:17.

That power was not confined to His immediate disciples. Even those who were not direct followers were able to cure in His name, solely through their belief in Him. Remember how the disciples, in their zeal, stopped such a one and Jesus rebuked them for it? “Master,” said John, “we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followed not us; and we forbade him, because he followed not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.”— Mark 9:38-39.

For more than two centuries, the healing power of Jesus abode with the early Christians—right up to the time when Christianity was made the State religion. Then it became so buried in form and ritual, in ceremonial and pomp, that the real spirit of Jesus’ teachings was lost. And physical healings became so rare as to be miracles.

But the power is there, the same power Jesus gave to His followers when He bade them—”Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.”—Mark 16: I6, 17, 18.

Let us then analyze how He did these wonderful works, how His followers were able to do the same.

To begin with, let us remember that His favorite name for Himself was the Way-shower. He came to guide, to lead. He told us that His mission was not to destroy but to save. “I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Life—what is life? Isn’t it the Father in us? The perfect image of God, animated by the Father?

The Father is in us now. We can’t have more of Him—but we can use more. With most of us, the Father in us is asleep —unknown, unused. He is like the electricity all about us— static. He needs to be recognized, to be used, to become dynamic for us. Jesus showed us the way.

For uncounted years, the air has been full of electricity— dormant, static, except when an occasional storm lashed it into a dynamic destruction. For thousands of years, the giant power of steam lay idle, waiting for someone to harness it.

Today, steam and electricity warm and light our homes, move our trains, run huge industries. What makes the difference? The steam and electricity have not changed. They were just as powerful, just as plentiful aforetime. It is simply that someone has shown us how to use them.

Since Adam was first created, the life in man has been the life of the Father in him. But after his fall, man forgot his Divine Sonship, forgot the power of the Father within him. Occasionally some Prophet like Moses or Elisha would glimpse this vast power, but for the most part, mankind remained in a state of lethargy—mentally unawake.

Then came Jesus—His mission to acquaint man with himself, His Gospel that every man is the Son of God, His aim to lead all men into the Kingdom.

That mission He succeeded in as has no religious teacher before or since. But He offered so much, that mankind was reluctant to believe its good fortune. Men had been taught for so many centuries that this earth is a vale of tears, they had been told by so many powerful rulers and well-fed priests that they must expect poverty and suffering here below, but it would all be made right in some vague hereafter, that a Kingdom of Heaven here on earth seemed too good to be true.

You remember the story of the man who stood on London Bridge and offered golden sovereigns to all passers-by free. He couldn’t get anyone to take them. They feared a “catch.” It was too good to be true.

Barnum, after a life-time spent largely in fooling the public, wrote that he had found far more people who had lost out by believing too little than by believing too much.

So it has been with the promises of Jesus. They are so limitless, they solve every problem of life so completely, that people are reluctant to believe them true. They look for some “catch” in them. They make qualifications where Jesus made none. They cannot quite grasp how such a poor, downtrodden worm as they have come to believe man to be, can have unlimited power over himself, over his surroundings—can be, in short, the son of God.

Especially do they find it hard to believe that they can rid themselves of all the ills and ailments which flesh has been heir to for so many years. They are quite willing to believe Jesus meant what He said when He told His disciples to— “Go, preach,” but they think He must have referred to some vague future state when He added—”The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received, freely give.”

Perhaps it would help a little if we went back for a moment to what causes all sickness and disease. I know you remember the story of Jacob and his long courtship of Rebecca. But did you ever notice the shrewd understanding which Jacob had even then of the laws of cause and effect?

Jacob, you remember, was to receive Laban’s daughter for his wife on condition of seven years of service. There followed another seven years before the contract was finally completed. At the end of this time Jacob desired to return to his native land, but was persuaded to remain by his father-in-law’s urgency. A contract was made that for this service he should receive every spotted and ring- streaked calf, kid, or lamb that was born to the flocks or herds. Normally this would have been very poor pay, but Jacob performed a psychological trick. He went to the water courses and stripped the branches and part of the bark from the trees so that they presented a bizarre appearance to the cattle who conceived their young in this place. The Bible tells us that many ring-streaked and spotted calves and kids were born, and that Jacob was made wealthy at

Everyone knows the shiftless habits of the mocking bird. Too lazy to rear and care for its own young, it goes to the nests of other birds which are “setting” in the interval when they are off seeking food, notes the markings on their eggs, then comes back later and lays in their nests eggs of those same exact markings!

One naturalist reports having found mocking bird eggs of forty different markings.

Several saints of mediaeval days were reported to have markings in their hands, their feet and their sides, similar to those on the risen Saviour, acquired through constant cont­emplation of His crucifixion.

And right now, in the village of Konnersreuth in Germany, there is a young woman on whose hands, feet and side periodically appear wounds similar to the stigmata of the crucified Christ. Various persons have testified to the truth of this, among them Dr. Wolfgang von Weisl, whose report in part reads as follows:

“In the middle of the back of each hand I perceive a thin, dark-brown scab, about the size and shape of a thumb nail. The scar is fresh and the wound itself is light red and inflamed. In reply to her visitor’s questions she asserts that these symptoms can only be observed today, Saturday; tomorrow they disappear. She adds that the irregular scab can be washed off though the red stigmata remain. On her palms the same bright red scabs can also be found. At times the patient feels as if these two wounds on the back and surface of her hands touch each other. Her other stigmata I did not ask to see. Only over the wound in her heart did Theresa Neumann say she had the feeling that it was piercing deeper and working right to her heart’s core.”

The cause? Simply the old, well-known law that we reproduce whatever we contemplate. Whatever man looks upon with faith or fear, he will tend to reproduce in his body.

I once heard a traveler telling of a trip through Alaska. Passing through a village, one of his companions espied an Indian he knew. “Sick Man Charley!” he called. And the Indian answered immediately. Asked the reason for such a name, the traveler explained—”Oh, he was sick one time when we wanted him, so after that we called him ‘Sick Man Charley.’ Now they tell me he is sick most of the time.”

We laugh at anyone allowing such a name to be fastened on him, but most men answer to something similar just as readily. With some it is rheumatism. Mention rheumatism, and they immediately have a premonitory twinge. “Runs in the family,” they explain. “Father had it before me. Grand­father before him. Have to expect it.” They ought to be named “Rheumatism.” They answer to it just as surely as to their own names.

With others it is indigestion or cancer, or constipation, or colds, or one of the hundreds of ills that mankind believes itself heir to. Tell them they are no better than Sick Man Charley, and they will be highly indignant. Yet the fact remains they have “Sicknamed” themselves, and they answer to these “Sick-names” even more readily than to their proper ones.

Man thinks he can cure disease by studying it, by spreading the knowledge of it. But what has he done? Multiplied it Instead! Just what happens? He frightens people into the very thing he is warning them against. Those diseases which he has fought with the positive weapons of sunshine and fresh air and pure water and cleanliness, visualizing these instead of the diseases, he has practically eliminated. Those which he has fought with the negative weapons of drugs (of hurting one part to help another) are just about where they were when he started.

“What boots it,” asks Milton, “at one door to make defense and at another to let in the foe?” There is an old Eastern proverb to the effect that if you let a camel get his head under the flap of the tent, the next thing you know he will have his back under it, too. Let the fear of some disease get into your mind, and the first thing you know, the disease will be there, too.

Man is like the mocking bird, laying eggs marked in God’s image or in the image of sickness and disease, depending upon which kind he has looked upon with desire and faith—or fear.

He sees a disease in another. He has been taught that this disease is contagious. And the fear of the disease impresses it so vividly upon his consciousness that he lays the egg of it in his own body.

The ancient Greeks understood this, and surrounded them­selves with statuary depicting the most perfect figures of men and women that their artists could make. What was the result? Their children grew into men and women who for beauty and symmetry were the envy of the world.

In Genesis (1:26, 27,31) we read: “And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after our likeness. . .So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. . . And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

If God were a sculptor, working in marble, what sort of image of man would He carve? Don’t you suppose it would be the most perfect form of man ever conceived—more perfect than any ever made by Greek or Italian sculptors?

If God were a potter, modeling images in clay, what form of man would He model? Don’t you suppose it would be the most beautiful ever molded by hands? When “God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,” don’t you suppose He formed that image in as perfect a mold as Mind could conceive— more perfect than any statue ever formed by the hand of man?

We start then with this—that man as originally conceived by God was perfect. Each organ has a perfect Divine pattern. Each cell a definite end and purpose. As in creating the plants—”The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.”—Genesis 2:4-5.

No machine ever made by human hands is as efficient as this human body which God made. As an organization of distinct cells, each an essential part of the whole, each under a central head, nothing to equal it has ever been conceived. It is so flawless in its functioning under almost every variety of conditions, that no fundamental change in it has been found necessary since first it was formed into the likeness of man. It is the most perfect example of organized control in the world.

And not merely of organized control, but of reproduction. The millions of cells of which it is made have the faculty of renewing themselves indefinitely. As far as its inherent qualities are concerned, it can live forever.

Then why do people die? Why are they sick? Why do they grow old, atrophy and decay? Why do your problems sometimes work out wrongly in mathematics? Because you depart from the rule, because you do something wrongly. It doesn’t matter how good your intent may be, how much you want to work out your problem in the right way. If you don’t follow the proper methods, if you depart from the principles of mathematics, your answer is going to be wrong. And the only way you will ever get it right is to erase the result these wrong methods gave you—start afresh—and work it out along right principles.

2 plus 2 equals 4. If through ignorance or thoughtlessness you put down 2 plus 2 equals 3 or 5 or any number other than 4, your result is going to be wrong and the farther you carry your figuring, the worse it will be. Erase this, go back to your original problem, start right, and you speedily arrive at the correct answer.

So it is with man, Man was first an image in God’s mind. That image was perfect then, is perfect now.

Having created the image in Mind, God then breathed into it the breath of life. Therefore man is the sum of God’s image and God’s life energy—call it electricity, call it what you will.

If 2 plus 2 must always equal 4, must not God’s perfect image and God’s life energy always equal perfection? If the result seems to us imperfect, does it not seem likely that the fault lies somewhere in our conception of it, and that the thing for us to do is to erase this incorrect result and start afresh at our problem until we arrive at the perfect answer?

That is all right for mathematics, perhaps you will say, but my body is something I can see and feel and touch. I didn’t make it. It is just the way I found it. And yet it has this and that and the other thing wrong with it.

True—you didn’t make your real body—but are you so sure you did not make the one you are complaining of? Have you ever glanced in a mirror whose surface was marred, and thought the spots on the mirror were spots on your face? Have you ever looked into a concave or convex glass and seen the distorted images they reflect?

Your conscious mind is such a mirror and the images it reflects are no more to be relied upon than those you see in an imperfect glass. There are mists in it that come between you and the real substance of you—the perfect image which God conceived. There are wrong thoughts which have fastened themselves upon your conscious images like barnacles upon a ship. There are bad dreams of weakness and disease. There are nightmares of accidents and crippling and imperfections. All very real to your conscious mind—just as the dreams and nightmares of sleep seem real and vivid to you then.

Jesus cured the sick and the lame and the halt and the blind. How? By driving out these imperfect images, these devils of wrong thought, that stood between men and God’s perfect image of them. He realized their unreality. He never inquired into the symptoms. He never prescribed physic or exercise. He treated all forms of sickness in the same way—by driving away the demon of wrong thought, by removing the mist that lay between the sick man and God’s perfect image of him. “He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.”—Psalms 107: 20.

Remember, when Jesus healed the mother of Peter, how he first rebuked the fever that possessed her—and it left her? Remember how often, in curing all manner of ills, it is said that “He drove the devils out of them”? “When the evening was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils; and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick.”—Matthew 8:16.

What were these devils? What but wrong thoughts which had fastened themselves upon the minds of these poor people and come between them and the perfect substance of themselves which was the only image God knew. The perfect image of them was always there, but it took the “invisible light” of Jesus’ understanding to make its substance visible to their eyes.

There is but one right idea of your body. That is the perfect image in which God conceived it, His life energy flowing ever-abundantly and ever-renewingly through it. That is the real substance of you, under all the seeming imperfections, the substance which the “invisible light” of understanding alone can make manifest.

You remember the story of the sculptor who asked for a certain block of marble. Other pieces were offered him, but they would not do. Asked why he must have this particular block, he explained —”Because I see an angel in it.” And when the block was delivered to him, he carved from it the most beautiful angel imaginable.

There is just such an angel in you, too. Hold on to the image of him. Chip off the disfiguring barnacles of imper­fect thoughts, of devils of disease, of weakness, of ugliness. Use the “invisible light” of understanding to bring out the real substance under all this seeming, to show to yourself and all men the perfect image of you which is the only one your Father ever conceived, the only one He knows.

The others—the imperfect, diseased images you have heretofore known? Whenever they try to show themselves, remember that “they are of their father the devil and the lusts of their father they will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of It.”— John 8:44.

So deny them. Disclaim them. Tell them they are not yours—you don’t want them—have no place for them. Remember that you are the Son of God, and as His son, you have legions of angels (right thoughts) at your command to drive away any devils (wrong thoughts) that may assail you. So call upon them for help. Command the devils to get out of you—command them in the name of Jesus Christ. “And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils.”—Mark 16:16.

But don’t be content with casting out the bad. Get fast hold of the good, of the perfect image of you that is in the Father’s mind. And so fill your mind with it that there will be no room for the devils of wrong thought. You can’t pour water, you know, into a vessel already full. If you fail to fill his place with the angels of right thought, the devil may come back as in Jesus’ parable: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

“And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.

“Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

—Luke 11:24-26.

It all comes back to this: There is but one creator—God— Good. Everything that He created is like Himself—Good.

But between His perfect image and our everyday conscious selves there frequently arises the mist of wrong thoughts, like the mists that obscure the mountain-top in the morning. The mountain-top is there, though unseen beneath the mist, just as the perfect substance of our bodies is there, though obscured by the mists of imperfection and disease.

The sun comes up and drives the mists from the mountains. And the sunlight of Truth, of Understanding, just as surely drives the mists from between us and the perfect images of us which the Father holds.

We dream in sleep and our thought forms seem to mold our bodies and our surroundings into all manner of grotesque shapes. We dream in waking, and our thought forms seem to mold the body into pitiful wrecks of accident and disease

We wake from the sleeping dream and find our bodies perfect as when we fell asleep. We must wake ourselves from the waking dreams as well, and get back to the perfect images in which the Father made us.

Nothing is established, remember—nothing is permanent, but the one perfect God-idea. Erase any others from your thought as fast as they form. Get back to the 2 plus 2 must equal 4. There is but one right idea of each cell and organ­ism. That is the God-idea. The God-idea of it, plus the Life- energy of the Father in you, MUST EQUAL HIS PERF­ECT IMAGE.

“But now, O Lord, thou art our Father. We are the clay, and thou our Potter. And we all are the work of Thy hand. ”

—Isaiah 64:8.

Chapter 2

Hopeless Tower

“All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of man.”—John 1:3-4.

HE WAS quite the most beautiful Prince that ever was born. Or so the story says. He was round and fat, straight- limbed and long, and his father and mother were exceed­ingly proud of him.

But on his way to the christening, his nurse tripped over her gown and let him fall—just at the foot of the marble stair­case—and after that his legs seemed to have no strength in them. They called it spinal trouble.

Father and mother died, and the people wanted no lame child for King, so his uncle took the throne and the Prince was sent to Hopeless Tower.

For a long time he lay there, very miserable and hopeless. Until one day a little old lady came to visit him. How she got there he couldn’t guess, for his room was at the top of a high tower and no one was ever allowed in it except his nurse. He couldn’t even be sure of her name, for she said that different people called her so many different things. Some said she was “Stuff-and-Nonsense”; some the things that dreams are made of; but her friends called her Faith.

Faith gave to the little lame Prince a traveling cloak, which lifted him out of his bed of sickness, which freed him from Hopeless Tower and which finally brought him to the throne of his fathers.

A pretty story, perhaps you will say, but if our thoughts are the cause of all our sickness, how could a fall have hurt the infant Prince? The Prince was too young to reason, just as are many of the babies who are crippled and sickly today. Why do conditions they can’t think out affect them?

If you have read the chapter on Pathways of the Mind, you know that trains of thought follow accustomed pathways unless we consciously send them by some other route. And that the brain is like a radio set, receiving impressions (thought waves) from those all about us. Most of us are too taken up with our conscious thoughts to pay attention to outside suggestions, but very young children, having no conscious thoughts to distract them, are particularly susceptible to the suggestions of others.”

Let a child fall, or be exposed to contagion, or lie in a draught, and its parents or those around immediately image all manner of terrible consequences. These suggestions coming to the child’s mind from all around him are just as potent as his own thoughts will be when he grows older, with the result that he falls victim to the very diseases his parents fear most. It is another case of “The hand that smites thee is thine own.”

But the power works the other way, too. If we can change our thought and visualize only good for our children, we can bring good into their lives as surely as into our own. “I swear to you,” says Walt Whitman, “that the universe shall be whole to him who is whole. It shall remain jagged and broken to him who is jagged and broken.”

Man thinks—and his thoughts form the mold in which his substance appears to be. If the thought be a true one, the substance forms in the perfect image that God made. If it be a diseased one, it takes the shape in our eyes of a barnacle upon the perfect image of man.

What Jesus proved to us, however, was that this “barnacle,” this seeming imperfection, is not real. It is the “devil” of wrong thought, of an imperfect mold. “Satan hath bound this woman,” He said of one who was brought to Him for healing. And with His word unloosed her bonds.

Jesus came into a world which was more than half dead— dead in disease, dead in poverty and misery. Like the man in California in 1847, who sold his ranch to Colonel Sutter for a few dollars and went off in search of gold, when all the while there was gold to the value of thirty-eight millions right beneath the ground where he stood, Jesus saw men standing by the very fountain of life and not knowing that it existed!

Even after He had showed them this Fountain of Life, even after He had demonstrated its marvelous powers, men could not believe. A few did, of course. But most thought His message too good to be taken literally. Most thought the power in that fountain—if any—died with Him.

“I am come that they might have life,” He said, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Who are “they”? Surely not merely the few who saw Him during His earthly career! But all mankind!

“God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions,” we are told in the Book of Books. Jesus showed us the way to regain that uprightness—showed us, indeed, that we already HAVE it, once we scrape away the barnacles of wrong thought and get down to the substance beneath. “Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.”— Deuteronomy 18:13.

How shall we be perfect?

How do you get started the right way when you find yourself on a narrow road driving in the wrong direction? First, you stop your car or your horse. Then you turn around. When you find yourself headed right, you start slowly, gradually pick up speed and soon find yourself sailing serenely along on the right road.

The first thing you must do, when driving a car or when developing your body, is to stop going in the wrong direction. Drive out the devil of wrong thought. Ailments, you know, are like stray cats. If you take them in, feed them, pet them, pay attention to them, they not only make themselves at home with you but settle down and bring up a family of little ailments. You must drive them out the moment they appear. You must disclaim them, shoo them off, refuse to pay any attention to them or have anything to do with them.

If the devil wants to have a pain, let him. If he insists upon being doubled up with rheumatism, or stomach trouble or cancer, that is his affair. Let him do it. But insist that he go off to do it—not nest anywhere around your premises. Like the young husband whose wife awakened him in the night with the startling news that a burglar was in the pantry at her pies, your only concern need be that he “won’t die in the house.”

What method shall you use to get rid of this devil? Disclaim him—tell him he is not yours and that you refuse to take him in—then order him away, order him off in the name of Jesus Christ who drove him out aforetime. Order him out and claim God’s perfect image for the organ he assailed.

You are God’s child. Would any parent knowingly make his child imperfect? Would any sculptor intentionally turn out an imperfect image? “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? Either a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.”—James 3:11-12. Yet God is the only Creator. So everything real about you must have been made by Him. And having been made by Him, your body must be perfect. It is only your conception of it which is at fault. So stop going in the wrong direction by disclaiming, denying, any wrong or imperfect concept­ion of yourself. “Woe unto him that striveth with His maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to Him that fashioneth it—What makest Thou? Or Thy work, He hath no hands?”—Isaiah 45:9.

Second, it is necessary to turn around and get headed in the right direction. “Ye are the temple of the living God,” says Paul (II Corinthians 6:16). “As God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

Where God is, only good can be. If He is in you, everything in and about you must be good, must be perfect. That knowledge is the spiritual rebirth which Jesus told His disciples all must go through before they could enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

2 plus 2 must equal 4. For God to be in anything must mean that it is perfect. For us to believe—as many do—that 2 plus 2 can equal 5 or 6 or any number other than 4 in no way disturbs the mathematical principle that 2 plus 2 equals 4. That principle can wait serenely for us to discover our error. Our acceptance or rejection of it influences it in no way. The only one to suffer when we misconstrue the principle is ourselves. The truth goes on just the same.

And the only one to suffer when we misconstrue the Principle of Life is ourselves. The Truth goes on just the same. When we find our mistake, erase it and start afresh, the principle is just as ready to work for us as ever.

When sickness or accident seems to lay hold upon you, disclaim it. Erase it from your mind and start at your problem over again. 2 plus 2—God’s perfect image plus God’s life energy—if the result is not perfect, the fault is not with the principle but with your way of applying it.

Jesus showed us the principle. He tried to get us to use it in our lives. Like the Professor of Mathematics, He worked out the examples before us, He left us explicit directions how to apply the principles to our daily problems. But— again like the Professor—He has to leave it to us to apply these principles. He can’t work all our problems for us, else we would never progress. He showed us the way—it is up to us to apply His principles.

“The whole of creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. For they wait for the manifestation of the sons of God.”—Romans 8:22 19.

Realize that the perfect image of you which was in the Father’s mind when He conceived you never perishes, never changes. The marble may be broken. The block may be smashed. But the perfect image lives on—unmarred, unhurt. And if you will go back to the Father for that perfect image, you can get a new block of marble, start afresh and hew from it as perfect an image of yourself as that which is in Divine Mind.

Some people study for years before they are cured or obtain the desire of their hearts. Others get their answer at once, Why? The difference in results measures the length of time it takes each one to get the CONVICTION that Truth is true. When a man gets that consciousness, he HAS his desire.

So let go of the idea that you must wait days or weeks or months to get health or success or anything else you may want. God knows no time but NOW. You will never know any other time but the eternal present. You can’t live or do anything in the future. The only time you do anything is now. “Believe that you RECEIVE”—not next week or next month—but NOW! And as you believe, it will be unto you.

Third, you must keep going in the right direction. When danger threatens, the knowledge that you are God’s child and that He has given His angels charge over you, to lead you and to keep you, will drive away all fear.

When sickness or contagion is around, remember that you are made in the perfect image of the Father, His life-energy animating you; remember that in His Mind there is but one right idea for each cell and organism in your body; and He is the only Creator; therefore that one right idea is the only one you can have, regardless of any mist that may tempo­rarily come between you and it.

When conditions seem discordant, remember that where the Father is, only good can be. And the Father is everywhere. Therefore, claim the good. Seek it out. Recognize only it. Refuse to heed or to regard as real or permanent any other condition. Hold to the good, the true, and the mists will presently clear away and show you that there never was and never is anything but good.

That is the Kingdom of Heaven—the power to see the good and the true, to hold on to them and them alone until all about you has become like them. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But when it is sown, it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.”—Mark 4:31­32.

There may seem no bigger good to lay hold of in the circumstances about you than the tiny mustard seed. Hold on to that tiny bit; refuse to see anything else, and it will grow until it fills your whole life.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”—Matthew 13:33.

A tiny bit of yeast is very small compared to three meas­ures of meal, yet given the chance, it quickly permeates and raises the whole. Just so with the good about you. Give it the chance, and it will quickly permeate all your circum­stances. It asks merely that you recognize only it, that you refuse to accept any less. It asks to be used in order that it may leaven everything about you.

But no man ever discovered the Kingdom through mists of anger, or jealousy, or lust, or hate. It takes the clear glass of a tranquil mind.

Why was it that, in 30 many cases, before healing the sick who were brought to Him, Jesus told them—”Thy sins are forgiven thee”? Wasn’t it because their sickness was the direct result of anger, or lust, or jealousy, or gluttony—of seeing and laying hold of these instead of good—and Jesus, like a merciful Judge, was remitting the penalty and giving them the chance once more to find the Kingdom?

Through pride or anger or some other sin, they brought the devil of wrong thought into their lives and he proceeded to evidence his presence in their bodies. One great surgeon has said that he has been able to trace every case of cancer that has come to him to some bitterness held in the mind of the patient, some grudge, some unforgiven injury. Serene faith is the first essential to the Kingdom of Heaven—in body or in circumstances—and no man can have tranquil and serene faith who hates his neighbor, who is devoured by anger, or envy, or lust, or covetousness.

“As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”—Luke 6:31. Love is the greatest requisite for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of Wholeness, the Kingdom of Harmony and Happiness. Love is the password and Faith is the key. The two together will unlock any door in this world or the next.

Why is it that women like Florence Nightingale, men like Gorgas and many another of his kind, can care for all manner of diseased people and never catch any of their ailments, whereas others who merely look upon or read about them die of their diseases? Because their hearts are filled with thoughts of unselfish service, of love for their fellow man—and “perfect love casteth out fear.”

You cannot pour water into a vessel already full. When your heart is full of love and compassion for your fellows; when your mind is filled with the perfect image of the Father; you need have no fear for the devil of imperfection. Neither consciously nor subconsciously can he reach you. An established conviction is immune to outside suggestion, as has often been shown in hypnosis. A really virtuous man or woman cannot be led astray even when under the influence of a hypnotist. Like Rome_t people fall not bec­ause of assaults from without, but from weakness within.

But sin is much more than the breaking of some moral law. It is not thus that “the just man falleth seven times a day.” Sin is every wrong conception of some perfect idea of the Father’s. That is why to enter the Kingdom of Heaven we must be converted (turned about) and become as little children. We must forget our preconceived ideas of things and circumstances, and accept the perfect ideas of them that are in the Father’s mind as readily as a little child will do. Only thus can we enter the Kingdom of Wholeness and Harmony.

Remember, in Rider Haggard’s “She,” how Ayesha not only renewed her youth and beauty, but so filled every fiber of her being with vibrant life and energy that she lived for a score of lifetimes, growing ever more beautiful with the years, until no man could look upon her without falling desperately in love and wanting her for his own?

Ayesha renewed her youth and beauty and vibrant magnet­ism by bathing in the Fountain of Fire deep in the bowels of the earth—a magnetic, electric flame which was said to be the source of all earth-bound energy.

You can renew yours without any such arduous journey as she was forced to undertake. More, you can renew it every day, so that each day you will rise stronger and richer and more nearly in the perfect mold of the Father than the day before, flow? Through the Divine fire of the Holy Spirit.

Ayesha’s Fountain of Life was an earthly fire, an electric flame which flowed through and through—but instead of consuming, renewed and strengthened every fibre of her body.

The renewing of the Holy Spirit is a Divine Fire which flows through the mind, consuming every sickly or imper­fect image, and leaves only the perfect mold in which the Father imaged us.

Ayesha’s fire could be used but once. Thereafter it destroyed. The Divine Fire can be used a million times. And each time it brings us ever nearer the Perfect Image of the Father, so that, as the Psalmist promised, our youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

What is this Divine Fire? It is the Holy Ghost, the tongue of flame which strengthened and revivified the Apostles, the Spirit of Understanding which will revivify and renew you.

“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.”—Acts 2:1, 4.

How can you bring the Holy Ghost upon you? Through understanding faith. It is not enough to believe. That will work wonders. But to bring the Holy Ghost into your affairs takes more than belief—takes understanding.

The Holy Ghost is the Consciousness of Good. The Holy Ghost is the CONVICTION that you HAVE God’s Perfect Image—and this CONVICTION it is that consumes every vestige of wrong thought, drives out every devil of sickness or imperfection.

To bring the Holy Ghost into your being is to bring the knowledge of perfection, of harmony, of Truth.

How shall you do it? By realizing first, that since the Father is the Source of all life, he must of necessity be the Source of all health as well. For health is the steady inflow of Creative Life coming freely from the Father, just as electric power is the steady flow of current from the generator. Health is wholeness, harmony, perfection of functioning of every organ, strength, vitality. Health is the joy of life.

Second, whatever the Father has given you is yours eternally. He is not an “Indian giver.” He doesn’t give you health and then take it away from you for offending Him. The health and perfection and harmony He has given you are yours for always. He never takes them away. You may lose sight of them at times it is true. Sin or fear may send up such a mist about you that you can no longer see God or any of His gifts. They are there just the same—apparently distorted by the mists through which you are looking, just as your image is distorted in a faulty mirror—but none the less perfect for all that. Get rid of the mist, and its mirages of imperfection vanish with it.

Third, every day is a day of creation. The faculty of every cell in your body is to create two cells, and these in turn to create more. Your body is constantly being remade. It is today what your thinking was yesterday. It is formed now in the mold you were using months ago.

In an experiment in regeneration for histology, Carl Hoffman of Lawrence College took six worms and cut them in two. Within two days the upper parts developed tails, the lower parts heads!

On the front part of each dissected worm, he split the head between the eyes. Each side filled out and each part devel­oped another eye!

You have often heard that if a lobster or a spider loses a leg, it promptly grows a new one to replace it. Why can’t man do the same? Because man puts the power in the organ rather in Mind where it belongs.

Yet every now and again you read of one who has brought the Holy Spirit into his consciousness, refused to accept the evidence of his senses, and thereupon had them reverse themselves.

In the English weekly, Active Service, Major O. S, Fisher of the British Air Forces told of a heavy fall which, according to expert medical testimony, broke his collar bone. But he refused to believe in any break in God’s image, kept on using his arm, felt no pain and the bone quickly knit.

Edward A. Kimball, in his Teachings and Addresses, tells of having cut off the end of a finger when clipping the garden hedge. He wrapped it with a rag, then put the problem of growing back that end of finger up to the Father, feeling that it was His image and His image could not be imperfect. In a few weeks that finger was back in its perfect shape.

Thousands of cases are on record of men and women cured of all manner of disease through the prayer, the faith and understanding of themselves or others. And what these men and women have done, you can do. There is no such thing as an incurable disease. There is no such thing as a necessarily fatal accident. Men have been cured after being given up by a dozen doctors. Men have come back after being pronounced dead for hours. Men have lived with bullets in their brains, cuts in their hearts, holes in their lungs, broken necks, smashed backs, all manner and degree of accidents. Men have withstood 33,000 volts of electricity and lived to tell the tale. Men have fallen from great heights. And what men have done once, men can do again.

The great thing—the one essential thing—is to realize that in Divine Mind all is good, all is harmonious, all is perfect. In It is no accident, no sickness, no imperfection. Therefore these must be unreal—the distorted images of our own thoughts, pictures in the mists that have come between us and the realities in Divine Mind.

To be rid of the imperfection, we need only to dispel the mist. Medicine won’t do that. Diet or exercise won’t do it. What then? Only the “Invisible Light” which shines through the mist and shows the reality beyond.

Where can we find that light? In the understanding pres­ence of the Holy Spirit. And the best way to bring that Holy Spirit into your consciousness is through constant affirmations that you HAVE the perfect image or body which the Father conceived of you—that you LIVE IN the harmonious surroundings which are the only ones He sees.

“This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.”—Titus 3:8.

Emile Coue met with astounding success in treating all manner of disease. How? Through affirmations.

Originally, Coue was a hypnotist. In his little drug store, he found occasional patients whom he could hypnotize. He hypnotized them—put their conscious minds to sleep—and addressed himself directly to their subconscious.

To the subconscious, he said there was nothing wrong with whatever organ the patient had thought diseased, and the subconscious believed him. When the patient came out from under the hypnotic influence, he was well. It remained then only to convince his conscious mind of this, so he would not send through new suggestions of disease, and the patient was cured!

How do you account for it? By the fact that the disease or imperfection is not in your body—but in your subconscious mind. Change the subconscious belief—and the physical manifestations change with it. The substance underneath— the perfect image of the Father—is perfect all the time. It is only your vision of it that changes. Doctors recognize this when they give their patients harmless sugar pills, knowing that these will dispel their fears, and that when the imper­fect images conjured up by fear are gone, the supposed trouble will have gone with them.

But Coue found many patients whom he could not hypno­tize. How treat them? By inducing a sort of self-hypnosis of themselves. It is a well-known fact that constant repetition carries conviction—even to the sub-conscious mind. So Coue had his patients continually repeat to themselves the affirmation that their trouble was passing, that they were getting better and better. And this unreasoning affirmation did a vast amount of good.

If this simple and child-like method could help all manner of diseases, how much more surely the right kind of affir­mations, backed by true understanding!

When sickness assails you, when stomach or eyes or nerves or throat tells you it is ill, don’t answer, like Sick Man Charley—”That’s me!” Instead, disclaim it! Tell that devil of wrong thought—be he named Cold or Rheumatism or Indigestion or What-not—that he has stopped at the wrong door. You haven’t sent for him—don’t want him—won’t let him in. Command him in Jesus’ name to get out! Then bless the organ assailed, baptize it Perfect Throat, Perfect Stomach, Perfect Lungs, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Repeat to yourself—

“There is no reality in any imperfect image of my mind. The only real substance is the Perfect Model of me which Divine Mind imaged. And in Divine Mind there is but one mold for each cell and organism, each organ and function. That mold is perfect. Therefore, since Divine Mind is the only Creator, that is the only image of any cell or organism which I can have.”

Picture God, in your mind’s eye, as a Sculptor. See him, like Pygmalion, modelling a perfect image of you in marble—then breathing into that image the soul of you, part of Himself, part of His Mind. You are His son.

If He were an earthly King and you His son, you would feel that you had power over everything in His Kingdom, would you not? You would consider yourself at perfect liberty to order His servants to do anything that was not wrong, would you not?

You have just as much power to order things in His kingdom as you would were you the son of an earthly king. You can feel at perfect liberty to order His angels to fetch and carry for you, to serve you in any right way. As the Son of God, you can not only order the devil of wrong thought out of you, but you can bid God’s angels come and occupy the place the devil held. When you throw out the devil of imperfect vision, for instance, you can command the Angel of Perfect Sight to occupy the place in your mind vacated by the devil, and thus insure against his return. When Rheumatism or Weak Lungs or Lameness or Cold enters your sanctum, you can call upon the Angel who is the opposite of these to help you throw them out, remove all vestiges of their presence and occupy the place they coveted.

You are the Son of God. You have power to do any of these things. But you must use that power. Every use strengthens it—every surrender to sickness weakens it.

“And I shall put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land.”—Ezekiel 37:14.

But if God is our Father, why does He send us sickness, accidents, imperfections if not send them, permit them? No earthly father would ever inflict such sorrow upon his children. Yet God, we are told, loves us inconceivably more than any earthly father loves his children. Why, then, does He afflict us?

The answer is that He does not. He neither afflicts us nor allows infliction to come upon us. He does not see these sicknesses and sorrows we complain of. “For God is of purer eyes than to behold evil.”—Habukkuk 1:13.

And why doesn’t He see them? Because they are not real. They are no more than figments of the imagination.

If you were suffering from delirium tremens, and saw green dragons and pink elephants about to attack you, no one would expect God to step in and save you from these imaginary beasts, would he?

If your mind were temporarily deranged, and you thought you were covered with feathers like a bird, no one would expect God to remove feathers from your body, would he?

If you look in a mirror and see what appears to be a pimple on the side of your nose, but it later develops that it was merely a flaw in the glass, you will not complain because God failed to take cognizance of and remove the pimple, will you?

And when, through fear or suggestion, you allow your sub­conscious mind to give you a distorted image of some part of your body, you can’t expect God to take cognizance of it, can you, even though it causes you intense anguish? For both the anguish and the image are just as unreal as the green dragon or the feathers or the imaginary pimple.

There is but one right idea of each cell and organism in your body. That is the idea conceived in Divine Mind, imaged in you, the Divine life-energy flowing ever- renewingly through it. That is the only real image of each cell and organism you can know. That is the only actual substance you can have.

“We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. ”

—II Corinthians 3:18

“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which, are not seen are eternal. ”  — II Corinthians 4:16, 18.

Chapter 3

The Good Samaritan

“And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

“And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

“And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

“But a certain Samaritan, as be journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him.

“And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil, and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.”—Luke 10:30,34.

IN THE congregation of a small Church in Philadelphia was a little group of men and women who met each week at the house of one of their number to discuss their personal problems and to try to find a solution to them through united prayer.

Their thought was to prove the efficacy of the words of the Master “that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall he done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”—Matthew 18:19.

Each evening was devoted to the problem of the member whose need seemed most pressing. And in addition, all present agreed to pray for the right solution to his problem at noon each day for the balance of that week.

The first one chosen was a bookbinder who owed quite a large sum of money, and could see no way of meeting his obligations. It was decided that the company should pray for aid in the payment of his debts.

The meeting was on Tuesday night, the first noon prayer on Wednesday. After lunch that day, the binder dropped into the office of a publishing house, as was his long-established custom. There he “happened” to meet a man from Wash­ington, D. C._; who was bemoaning the fact that he had missed his train to New York, where he had intended to place a large order for blank books for the Government, and the next train would throw him too late for another appointment. The binder told him that he made blank books, and within the hour closed a contract that not only paid all his debts, but proved the start of a very profitable business.

The next on the list was a jeweler who was about to call a meeting of his creditors, preliminary to bankruptcy proceedings. Within two weeks, a manufacturer whom the jeweler had never before heard of had taken over his whole business, paid off the debts and formed a partnership with him that resulted in a prosperous trade.

Every member of that prayer circle became prosperous. One young man, a clerk in a big bank, was offered the posi­tion of Assistant Cashier in another bank, and within a few years became its President! And the experience of this little group was to a great extent duplicated by other members of the same Church. For long seasons there was not a single sick person in the thousand and more homes represented by the membership of the Church. Epidemics swept over the city, but, to quote Dr. Haehnlen, “The Angel of Death passed over the congregation, taking none.”

And yet we can all recall catastrophes wherein Churches and those in them were wiped out. The Church in Paris where so many worshippers were killed by the German long-range cannon. Churches shaken down by earthquakes. Churches destroyed by cyclones. And all who had taken refuge in them perishing. Wherein lies the difference between these and that little Philadelphia congregation?

Perhaps the answer is in understanding this—what were each of these groups putting their faith in? A building? A plot of ground deemed so holy that it would be regarded as sanctuary by all the forces of nature? Or in the Father Him­self?

There is no more of God in a Church, you know, than in any other place. To regard it as sanctuary is to go back to the fetiches of the witch doctor. God is just as much in your home, your office or store or factory, as in the finest Church built. It is not the Church that counts—it is what people use it for. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”

What made the prayers of that little circle so resultful?

What brought them success and health and all good things of life? Two or three (or more) gathered together in Jesus’ name (with Him in the midst of them), all concentrated on the one thought—the good of one of their number. Can you wonder that their prayers were efficacious?

“And this is the confidence that we have in Him. that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we HAVE the petition we desired of Him.”

—I John 5:14-15.

Many men think they must be ministers or evangelists or especially called by God before they can help others. On the contrary, Jesus specifically passed over the Priest and the Levite and picked a rank outsider, a Samaritan, to succour the wounded traveler. Not only that, but in choosing His apostles, He passed over the learned Scribes, the proud Pharisees, the Priests and the Levites, and picked common, ordinary men—tax-gatherers and fishermen.

Emerson says in one of his essays that a chemist will tell to a carpenter the secret he would not for a king’s ransom tell to another chemist. It would seem that the world has been made up of carpenters, for Jesus has been telling us these 1900 years how we can win any good thing we may ask— health or ‘happiness, riches or success. Yet how many have availed themselves of that secret?

When Peter and John went up to the temple to pray, and the lame man asked them for alms, do you remember what

“Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, give I thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.”

—Acts 3:6.

The people wondered, and ran to them, thinking another great Prophet had risen. But Peter answered them:

“Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?”—Acts 3:12.

And he explained to them that it was their faith in the power of Jesus’ name which had done the miracle.

You have no power to heal anyone. Neither had Peter or John or any of the Apostles. The power to heal lies not in you, but in the truth that every man is already whole! Your power—like that of the Apostles—lies in your ability to help the patient rid himself of the devils of wrong thought which now assail him, of the distorted images which he sees of that which is perfect in Divine Mind.

“Then He called His twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.”—Luke 9:1.

First drive out the devil of wrong thought, then the disease is cured. For when the distorted image is gone, only the perfect model which the Father made, remains.

The trouble with most, sick people is that they have for so long thought sickness, their pains and discomfort are so real to them, they are so sure of their inability to do anything themselves for the affected organs, that like the lame man, they need some one to take them by the hand and lift them up.

With many, the mere presence of a doctor is so confidence- inspiring that it brings them back to health. Others feel they must have drugs to “cure” them. But all are, looking for something or someone outside themselves on which to lean for help.

The part of the Good Samaritan is to extend that helping hand to lift these poor souls out of the slough of despond to set them back on the road where they can help themselves. You can be such a Samaritan.

How is it done? In the same way that the turning on of a 100 watt electric light drives away the shadows which the fitful glow of a candle had but enhanced.

Your understanding—clear, forceful, penetrating—can drive through the mists and shadows which surround a sick friend, and bring forth the true idea of him which he is too lost in the mists to see. Just two things are required:

1. A clear understanding of the unreality of evil, whether that evil be called lameness or headache or eye strain or in­digestion or fever or what-not.
2. The consciousness of the perfection of God’s image of the organ your patient thinks diseased, and the CONVICTION that he HAS this perfect image—that the REAL organ, the SUBSTANCE under the outer seeming, IS perfect.

You don’t have to work any miracle. You don’t have to cure the sick. When you can fill your consciousness with the sincere and understanding CONVICTION that he HAS God’s perfect image of each cell and organism and that his disease is merely a distorted image of his subconscious mind, your conviction will dispel those shadows in his mind just as surely as the 100 watt light will chase them from a room—and he will be well!

You never heard of Jesus feeling any man’s pulse, or asking how long he had been sick, or what were the symptoms. He leaned on no power but that of Truth—the Truth that God is the only Creator, and that everything He created is good—therefore anything unlike Him must be unreal. And on the basis of that Truth, he cured all manner of diseases. Never once did He fail. His apostles failed at times. Why? “Because of their unbelief.” The sick man was more positive of his ailment than they were of his wholeness. You must “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”—Philippians 2:5.

“I besought Thy disciples to cast the devil out of my son,” said one poor father. “And they could not.” So Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child. Asked then by His disciples why they had not been able to cast it out,

He told them—”Because of your unbelief!” Your CONVICTION of the perfect God-substance in your patient has to be stronger than his faith in his subconscious dream.

To dispel that dream, it is frequently helpful to rebuke the devil of wrong thought, to bid him begone in Jesus’ name. “Thy word shall not come back to thee void, but shall bring that whereunto it was sent.”

But don’t pretend an authority you do not feel. To do that is to strengthen the conviction of disease in the patient. You are the son of God. “Ye are Gods and every one of you is a son of the Most High.” If you were the son of an earthly King, you would feel at liberty to order his servants to serve you in any right way. Do you think that, being the son of God, your privileges are any less in His Kingdom than they would be as the son of an earthly king?

Then order His angels to help you. Command the devil of wrong thought out of your patient, then order the angels of right thought to occupy the place the devil has vacated, to clean out every vestige of wrong thought, to direct the organ aright. SEE THEM DOING IT! See them, in your mind’s eye, casting out the distorted images as Michael cast Satan out of Heaven. See them occupying their place, guiding, directing each cell and organism in the way it should go. See it—and BELIEVE IT!

“Stir up the gift that is within thee,” counselled Paul to Timothy. Stir up the power that is in you—the power of a son of God. It is yours—but it is yours only as you USE if. The unused talent decays. The unused muscle atrophies.

But how if you have not yet succeeded in curing yourself? Should you try to help others before you have fully proved the admonition—”Physician, heal thyself”?

It is by helping others that we most surely help ourselves. Many a man, unsuccessful in fully ridding himself of some long-standing trouble, ‘has found it disappear in trying to realize the unreality of evil in another.

It doesn’t matter who or what you are, you know. It is not as though it were you that was doing the healing. So long as you can help another to realize that his trouble is in the distorted image of his own mind, and not in the perfect mold of the Father, that is all that is required of you. You are merely the X-ray, which penetrates through the mists which have beclouded his brain and shows him the true substance beneath. Forget yourself in the work, and the more thoroughly you forget yourself, the more surely will you act as a channel through which Good will flow from the Father to those around you.

“Strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not, behold, your God will come. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing.”—Isaiah 35:4-6.

The Modus Operandi

Thirty years ago, the belief was common that the way to get rid of a cold was to wish it on someone else. With the result that when a man had a cold, and some friend caught it, the first man felt that he was rid of it—and generally was!

I once heard of a man who, whenever he had a headache, would go to a roomful of people, pick some one of them, and deliberately wish his headache on him. Whether the other man caught it or not I don’t know, but the first always got rid of his headache!

There are billions of people in this world thinking sickness and sorrow and pain and disease. There are billions thinking hatred and malice and fear and sin. Contagion is merely allowing their thoughts to influence yours—their belief to penetrate to your subconscious and thus image themselves upon your body. And the only way to prevent this is to be continually on your guard. “Watch and pray, that ye be not led into temptation.” Watch and pray—not against the bad, but to keep your mind so filled with the good that evil can find no space to enter.

If a man came to you and told you he was bothered by a belief that 2 plus 2 equals 5, and that this belief spoiled all his problems and his business, what would you do? Try to erase the incorrect belief from his mind, would you not, and replace it with the correct one? You wouldn’t try to find where he got the belief, except in so far as that might help you to rub it out at its very root. You wouldn’t look at his tongue or feel his pulse. You would treat him at the seat of his trouble—in his mind, his belief.

If a man came to you and told you he was troubled with a growth of feathers all over his body, you would know such a thing to be so palpably impossible that you would not even bother to look for the feathers—you would simply try to blot the belief from the man’s mind. When you had done that, you would know he was cured.

When a man tells you he is troubled with a growth of boils, or pimples, or smallpox, you must treat his belief in these in the same way you would treat a belief in feathers—by blotting the belief from ‘his mind. When you can do that, they will be gone from his body as well.

For the only place those boils or pimples really exist is in his mind. His subconscious has objectified them for all to see, but if you can, by the X-ray of your understanding, see through them to the perfect reality beneath, your perfect vision communicates itself to his subconscious and erases his distorted image.

Have no fear as to whether you are good enough or holy enough to help another. You don’t bother to clean each speck of dirt off the wires that bring your light and current. You know it will not dim the light, or make the current less powerful. The wire is merely the channel through which the electricity comes. And that is all you need to be to help another—a channel through which the Truth of Being may pass to him. “Let this Mind be in you which was also in

Christ Jesus.” It is Divine Mind which does the healing— not you. All you need to do is to make the connection with the power-house of Divine Mind by dissipating the mists of evil, seeing through them to the real substance beneath and thus making the contact with that underlying reality.

It doesn’t matter whether you have been studying a day, a week or a lifetime. Try your power! You will never develop it until you do.

Suppose a baby were to say—”My legs are so weak and puny it’s no use my starting to kick yet. I’ll wait until they grow big and strong.” What would happen to that baby’s legs? They would stay weak, would they not? They would never grow strong until he used them.

A doctor studies for four or six years because he has to learn all about all manner of disease. You don’t. The less you know about disease, the better off you are. All you need to know is the perfect image of the Father. A doctor studies disease because he expects to see disease manifest. You study perfection because that is all you must ever see.

For that reason, when you want to help another, the first one you must cure is yourself. Not, mind you, of any ailment or imperfection you think you have—but of the ailment the patient seems to have. When you can convince yourself that his ailment is unreal, that he HAS the perfect image of his Maker, your belief will speedily communicate itself to him.

So the first thing to do is to disabuse your mind of the thought that you have to do anything. Relax. And bid your patient relax. You can command the devil of wrong thought to come out of him—yes. Command it as the Son of God— and in Jesus’ name. You can pray the Holy Ghost to enter into him and burn every distorted or imperfect image from his mind. You can command the Angel of Perfection to enter into him, and occupy the place the devil has vacated. Then sit and realize the perfect image in which your patient is made. Realize that—and watch it becoming manifest in him.

Our bodies are just like rubber balls, you know. Squeeze them (hold the wrong thoughts of them), and they show up in distorted shapes. Let go of them and they promptly resume the perfect image in which they were made.

Dr. W. A. Hammond, former Surgeon-General of the U. S., said that the body would live indefinitely if it were not that the eliminating processes become defective. And what most disturbs these eliminative processes is fear, anger, worry, tenseness, strain. Let go! Relax! What is it spoils singers? Trying to sing. What is it spoils pianists? Trying to play. What is it spoils golfers? Tenseness. The first thing the music teacher or the vocal instructor or the golf “pro” teaches is to relax, to let your muscles work in their natural way.

Don’t worry about elimination. Know that the Truth is the law of elimination to anything unlike itself. Then realize the Truth, fill yourself with it, and everything unlike it must g°.

But what of those poor souls who believe this to be a vale of tears, who think God sends each of us a certain amount of sickness and we ought to “bless the hand that smites us”?

There is a saying that “Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn from no other,” and it applies to suffering as well. Suffering is a sure way into trouble, but it is not the way out. More often it is simply the door to more suffering. You never get rid of anything, you know, by calling it yours. The supreme need of humanity is not suffering, but enlightenment. All suffering is caused by someone’s wrong thinking about something which is essentially right in Divine Mind.

In his Teaching and Addresses, Edward A. Kimball tells of a patient whom he found dying. “He was in the extremity of belief, eyes closed and sunken, face pallid. He could not utter a sound; he could not even open his eyes. Something had to be done for that man right away. I said to him, ‘I want you to repeat what I say, and if you cannot utter the words aloud, make your lips go so that I shall know you are thinking it. Now you say, ‘There is one infinite Life.’—now make your lips go. He made them go. ‘And that Life is eternal Life,—and that Life is my Life’; and I kept saying that over and over again. After awhile he began to make a little noise. Then the words would come faintly. Then he began to open his eyes, and finally he got so he could speak plainly enough to ask me to let up on him. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I will not let up on you; you say it,’ and I went after him again. I kept after him until he could say it as plainly as I could.

“His body resumed its natural condition; his eyes were wide open} and that work healed that man, and all he had to do was to manifest the evidence of convalescence. That healed him; in other words, that was Life’s idea.

“Very likely, if I had told him, God is Life, he would not have lived; because there would not have been any marked relationship between God and him. What I said was, ‘There is one Life, and that Life is eternal Life,’ and that broke the sense of a dying life. ‘And that Life is my Life,’ was bringing that Life down into his own experience as an idea, and that conscious idea broke the mesmerism of death.”

Kimball did not stop to ask what was wrong with the man. He did not treat fever or sore throat or heart trouble. He declared the Truth. He thought the Truth. He held on to the Truth—and made his patient hold on to it—until it broke through the outer seeming and manifested itself as life and health.

Every good treatment goes forth with all the power of Truth. And every treatment that has this Truth in it has power. It cannot be wasted or lost. “The words that I speak unto you,” said Jesus, “they are spirit and they are life.” And in the Proverbs (18:21) you read—”Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

Princes in the Kingdom

When James and John went to Jesus and asked Him what places He had in mind for them in His Kingdom, He told them: “Whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”

After the resurrection, when Peter was protesting his love for Him, what task did Jesus set him to prove it: “Feed my lambs!”

And if you would be a Prince in this Kingdom which Jesus came to lead us into, what must you do? Serve—serve your neighbor—help him in whatever way it is given you to help. “For inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me.”

You are the Son of God. “Ye are the sons of the living God.”—Hosea 1:10.

If God were an earthly King, what would that make you? A Prince, of course. But to be treated as a Prince, you have to act like one. You couldn’t go around, shabbily dressed and in poverty and want, and expect anyone to regard you as a Prince. Not even yourself. You would have to act the part, to feel and speak and do as the son of a king should.

You are the Son of God. But to become a Prince in His Kingdom, you must USE your sonship. “Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works. Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee ray faith by my works.” —James 2:18.

Picture yourself at the throne of God. Can’t you see yourself at the Father’s feet, His angels grouped around, ready to do your bidding as His own?

And since the keynote of His Kingdom is Service, what should your bidding be? What but to help you bring some poor, wounded traveler, who has been beset by the robbers of sickness or want, into the Kingdom? To help you bind his hurts, pour into them the oil of understanding, leave for him the pennies of Truth to start him afresh on life’s way.

What is the Oil of Understanding? Isn’t it a knowledge of that which stands under the outer seeming—an ability to peer beneath the surface and bring forth the substance beneath?

When you say a man understands chemistry, you mean that he can take some supposedly simple substance like coal, and resolve it into all its native elements of carbon and ash and sulphur and phosphorus and gas. When you say a man understands the Truth, you mean that he can dig beneath the distorted images of disease and bring forth the perfect mold which is beneath.

Can you think of anything more worthy to make you a Prince of the Kingdom than acting the part of the Good Samaritan to those who are wounded on life’s highway? Can you think of anything that will provide you with better equipment when you finally undertake your journey into the Great Beyond?

You don’t need to obtrude yourself upon strangers. You don’t need to force your views upon your friends. Without their knowledge, without argument or discussion on their part, you can help them. When next you hear that a friend has met with an accident, when some one tells you of another who is sick, instead of fastening his troubles upon him by inquiring into all the symptoms and causes, give five minutes of your time and thought to driving away from him those devils of wrong thought, realizing for him the innate perfection which is his. Picture yourself then as a Prince in God’s Kingdom, and as a Prince, send to your friend the Angel of the Perfect Organ which he thinks diseased, to drive away and replace the devil of wrong thought of that organ which he is entertaining.

It may not always work a cure, for your conviction of perfection may not be as strong as his conviction of imperfection, but it will at least help him. Of course, it is better to have his active cooperation if that can be secured. But even without it, you can help.

“Stir up the gift that is within you!” Use it to help others— only then can you develop and strengthen it, so that when you need it for some loved one, it will be strong for good.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

—Hosea 4:6.

Don’t wait for others to lead—form a little group in your Church, or among your friends, or in your own family—a group of Good Samaritans. Meet together once a week. Pick that one of your number who most needs help and unite your prayers for him.

It matters not what the problem may be—sickness or accident or money or promotion—they are equally susceptible of the right solution through united prayer. Remember—

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

—Matthew 18:19-20.

Make it your rule that each member must try to help some poor traveler into the Kingdom each day. Have some definite reminder for your daily deed. If you are a man, do like the Boy Scouts —wear your tie with the ends outside your vest or shirt until you have done your good deed— tuck them in to mark the good deed done. If a woman, turn the settings of your rings in toward the palm of your hand as a reminder, turn them out when you have done your part. Then “count that day lost whose low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done.”

“Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure Hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls:

“Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”

—Matthew 13:43-46.

L’Envoi

“And He said, So is the Kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

“And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

“For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”

—Mark 4:26-28.

For thousands of years, we have been taught that nothing good can come to us without struggle.

For countless generations, we have been told that this earth is at best a vale of tears, with very little of good in it, and to get any of that good, we must fight for it like hungry dogs over a bone—take it away from others if we want to enjoy it ourselves.

In short, the general belief is that there is not enough good to go around. To make sure of ours, we must build a wall around everything we have, hold on to it with all our might, yet keep ourselves ready to jump out and grab more as opportunity offers.

The others? Well, it is too bad about them, but somebody has to suffer, and, anyway, it will all be made right for them in the next world.

That is the doctrine which Priest and King preached for thousands of years before Christ. That is the doctrine which robber baron and the “hard-boiled” among industrialists have sought to perpetuate ever since. But that is not the doctrine Jesus taught.

As I understand the promises of the Bible, God is our Father. And like any other loving Father, He gives us all of good. It is ours—and there is more than enough for all of us. “What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

“Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

—Matthew 7:9-11.

The reason we do not manifest more is that the walls of fear and pauperism we have erected around ourselves are just as potent to keep further supply out as to keep what we have in.

What we must do is tear down these walls and let the good which is all around reach us.

God is the Creator of the whole universe. He knows where all the gold and silver and diamonds and other precious things are. He put them there.

We are His children. If He were an earthly father, what would we expect of Him? To share His riches, to enjoy His great possessions. Every good earthly father shares with his children. Is God any less loving, any less generous than the best of His creatures?

“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God;

“And if children, then heirs heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.”—Romans 8:16-17.

God has all wealth. We are His children. Therefore we have all wealth. Why then do we not manifest it?

Why? “Because of our unbelief.” We cut ourselves off from God by doubting our sonship. We know He has all things, yet we think He gives them grudgingly, and takes away even more readily than He gives. We build around our­selves high walls of doubt and fear and unbelief, and then rail at Him because His bounty does not flow over these walls to us.

“Consider the ravens; for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them. How much more are ye better than the fowls?”

—Luke 42:24.

All of good is yours. In its substance—in the invisible realm which you cannot reach without understanding—you HAVE it. Claim it—hold on to it—and like the little leaven in the three measures of meal, it will soon leaven your whole loaf.

As things are now, you may seem to be surrounded with want and disease and all manner of evil things. Refuse to accept them as yours. Disclaim them. Never take them in, but send them to seek homes with those who are looking for such.

Pick from among them only the good—no matter how infinitely small that good may seem to be. Then plant it and nourish it and be thankful for it. Soon, like the tiny mustard seed, it will grow into a tree in whose shade you can find shelter and rest all your days.

In Eugene O’Neill’s new play—”Lazarus Laughed” one of the guests tells how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after he had lain for four days in the tomb, tells how frightened all were, how they gazed awe-struck after the departing Master.

“And Lazarus, looking after Him, began to laugh softly like a man in love with God! Such a laugh I had never heard. It made my ears drunk! It was like wine. And though I was half dead with fright, I found myself laughing too!”

Why did Lazarus laugh? He had been for four days on the other side of the Great Divide, and he knew there was nothing to be afraid of over there—nothing fearsome in death! He had seen God—and he knew Him for a God of Love! Why shouldn’t he laugh, at all the fears, at the pretense, at the excuses we contrive just to keep out of the way of God! Lazarus knew—and knowing, he laughed, he exulted in the consciousness of Love’s allness.

At the head of a” band of followers, Lazarus laughs himself through all earthly obstacles. To the Christians, he is almost another Messiah. To the Greeks, the Fire-born son of Zeus. But to the Romans, he is the enemy of empire. For in removing the fear of death, he takes from them the sword with which they fooled all their subject peoples in leash. “What do I fear,” asks Caligula, “if there is no death?”

“Love,” says Lazarus, “Love is man’s hope—love for his life on earth, a noble love above suspicion and distrust. Hitherto, man has always suspected life, and in revenge life has been faithless to him.

“Most men’s lives are long dyings. They evade their fear of death by becoming so sick of life, that by the time death comes they are too lifeless to fear it.

“Oh, if men would interpret that first cry of man fresh from the womb, as the laughter of one who even then says to his heart—’It is my pride as God to become Man. Then let it be my pride as Man to recreate the God in me!’ ”

There is nothing to fear in death. More, there is nothing to fear in life. So let us laugh at the silly pretensions of disease. Let us laugh at such ghostly spectres as poverty or want in such a world of plenty as we know this to be. Let us laugh at the idea of evil having power over us when our Father is Love—and Love is all about us like the air we breathe.

“If God so clothe the grass, which is today In the field, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O ye of little faith?

“And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.

“For all these things do the nations of the world seek after. And your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.

“But rather seek ye the Kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

—Luke 12: 28:31.

 

The End