CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1 – Cause and Effect
Chapter 2 – The New Dispensation
Chapter 3 – Man’s Dominion
Chapter 4 – The Possibilities of Man
Chapter 5 – Character Building
Chapter 6 – The True and The False
Chapter 7 – Inspiration
Chapter 8 – The Power of Words
Chapter 9 – Materiality, Intellectuality and Spirituality
Chapter 10 – Believing VS. Knowing
Chapter 11 – What is Infidelity
Chapter 12 – Why Are We Sick?
Chapter 13 – Demonstration
Chapter 14 – Unfoldment
Chapter 15 – Impressions
Chapter 16 – Expression
Chapter 17 – Aspiration VS. Ambition
Chapter 18 – Meditation
Chapter 19 – Concentration
Chapter 20 – Evolution
Chapter 21 – Deduction
Appendix – Questions & Answers
FOREWORD
The many readers of the author’s prior work, “Practical Healing for Mind and Body,” will welcome this supplementary volume, the sub-title of which is “The Way Out of Bondage.” It is a most helpful and beautiful blending of science and religion, being largely devoted to the theological aspects of the present metaphysical movement. Mrs. Yarnall’s well-founded contention is that “the good time” is already here for those who are spiritually awakened and are conscious of the eternal principles of being on which human life is based. She shows the futility of relying upon any external power for the attainment of health or happiness, or even worldly prosperity, and proves that the vivid realization, of universal Truth is the only practical remedy for all ills. The development of the Higher Self is shown to be a fundamental requisite to progress on any line. The book contains a half-tone portrait of the author.
Introduction
Something over five years ago we published and offered to the public the book “Practical Healing for Mind and Body,” and during those years there have come to the writer such words of appreciation, and such assurances of the good it has done, and the help it has given, that we feel encouraged to offer another volume with the hope that it may be equally helpful to its readers.
The former book being devoted more to the rudiments of Mental Science and its practical uses, there was necessarily less space given to what may be called the theological side of the question; and notwithstanding the tendency among theologians to be more lenient toward such innovations as have been made by the promulgation of these metaphysical ideas, there is still much room for improvement in that line, and much need for a more thorough acquaintance with the principles we teach.
When we look back upon the practices of bigotry and intolerance, and the persecution every new innovation has had to suffer from such sources, we discover that every worthy movement has quietly triumphed over all such persecution and misrepresentation, and has withstood the assaults of calumny and prejudice, and gradually risen into prominence and usefulness nothing daunted by the efforts made to bring it into disrepute.
So it has been with the growth of this metaphysical movement.
It has been stoned and pelted with filthy innuendoes, and every indignity has been heaped upon it that jealousy, envy and malice could invent; but it grows, and thrives, and its influence for good widens and expands in beauty and utility day by day.
It has been found to serve the needs of mankind as nothing else has ever done; and while it may be said to be still in its infancy, it is opening up new and glorious vistas for the students of truth to profit by continually.
We call this little volume “THE GOOD TIME COMING,” because it has not as yet come to all consciously.
While in the song of the African slave, as he caught a glimpse of the freedom soon to be proclaimed for his race, he sang “The good time coming is almost here,
It was long, long, long on the way,” etc. many of us can rejoice in deliverance from another kind of bondage.
The good time is already here for all who will open the door and let it in.
The good time coming is when the principles we have aimed to set forth in these pages shall be known and acknowledged by every living soul.
The good time consists in the knowledge of eternal principles that are of practical value in the solution of the life problem. Not a solution of the financial problem at all; but when a man understands the truth of his real being, as all may understand it, the financial problem is already solved for such.
The good time consists in the realization of freedom now, which means a liberation from the false ideas and mistaken methods that have kept the human race in bondage to limitation and helplessness on every hand, and to the false belief that such was the common and inevitable lot of all mankind.
The multitudes of people of sound mental caliber who are learning the more excellent way constitutes the best evidence that truth is the power back of the movement.
We, as a people, have great reason for rejoicing that we live in an age of progressive thought; in an age that pushes mankind to investigate; in an age that honest students of truth are not satisfied with the traditions of the past, but rather seek to “prove all things and hold fast to that which is good,” knowing that all truth is good.
The traditions of men, and the popular teachings of creed and dogma, have not been satisfying to the majority of thinking people, because of the errors and discrepancies that completely overshadow the practical good that might be brought out by the teaching.
The nature and character of God, and the law of God, as generally expounded, has been found so at variance with the spirit of godliness that reasoning souls could not remain so clouded by ignorance; could not be satisfied to grovel in the limitations such teachings imposed, however sincerely it may have been taught.
The whole civilized world, as a people, have believed in a God; have talked, written and preached about God, and formed and expressed opinions pro and con about God; and yet with all that has been taught, said, written or preached, comparatively few have fully agreed in their conceptions of God.
We have been taught of a personal God, of an angry God, a God of wrath, a jealous God, a vengeful, vindictive God, etc., and the same teachers have called the same God a God of love, and have said that he was yesterday, today and forever the same.
We cannot deny that such contradictory ideas and opinions constitute much of the teaching called religious, and which teaching treats of the character and laws of God, and our own relation to, and duty toward, Him, as the Supreme Ruler of the universe.
That such teaching has not satisfied the reasoning men and women of today is a well known fact that has been the great incentive for seeking deeper into the problem of man’s being.
The seeking has not been in vain.
It has been discovered by men of great learning and unquestioned scholarship that the choice of words used by the translators of Scripture has not always expressed the true spirit of the word, hence the confusion of ideas as the result.
The personal pronoun He and Him, used so profusely throughout the Scriptures when referring to God, or the Lord, leaves the reader with an impression of a personal God, and a personal Lord, so long and so persistently taught throughout Christendom. This conception of God and the Lord has been so misleading, and has made such deep impressions upon the minds of men, that we are very apt to lose sight of the spirit of the word.
We are apt to forget that “God is Spirit,” and that He must be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth.
By logical reasoning we find that God means the absolute good as a whole.
When we say absolute good, we mean that which cannot be qualified; it is absolute.
The good may be divided and subdivided into various principles and aspects that are eternally the same, that nothing can change, separate or destroy, and between which there can be no disagreement.
The principle of Life, of Love, of Truth, of Wisdom, Power, Health, Strength, Peace, and many more too numerous to mention, all belong in the category of eternal, incomparable principles that constitute God.
These principles are expressed in the law of the good, which in Scripture is called the Lord, and in reality as a combination of eternal principles is Lord over all.
It is to this ever acting law of the good that we are to look for deliverance from the not good, or the negative we call evil; that is, act and live in harmony with it, agree with it, and depend upon it as supreme.
All the civilized world as a people have called upon the God of their conceptions for help or relief, and the fact that so many have made their appeals in vain is the best evidence that their conceptions were false, and therefore their appeals were made to a false God.
It was this law of God (the Lord) that spoke through the prophet Isaiah when he said “Look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth.”
This appeal was made to a people who were worshiping false gods, just as many are doing unconsciously in our day.
We are told that the spirit of wisdom and truth spoke through Isaiah at such times, and that this was a message direct from the author of this law to the children of earth, and that Isaiah was inspired to see that their mistaken ideas of God, and of worship, were the primary cause of the miseries they suffered; and the only way to be saved from such misery was to look to the law that was the natural and inevitable expression of those eternal principles of truth and goodness that tend continually to peace and harmony.
We are not to suppose that the knowledge of this law was confined to the prophets and the holy men of Israel. It is for all to know and understand if only we will open the windows of the souls and be taught of the Spirit to know ourselves.
To pursue the study of man, as the offspring of the great Source of being, and trace the unfoldment from the lowest plane of consciousness to the present status of man (though it has taken ages to reach the present stage) the door begins to open and unnumbered mysteries are revealed; and man begins to find that every mystery is hidden within himself, and only awaits his action to unfold and reveal its true nature, and then he says, “How strange that we never discovered these things before.”
Health, strength and vigor of mind and body are the rightful inheritance of every child of earth, and none are deprived of that inheritance except through ignorance of the law that makes for health and harmony, which is the law we have aimed to set forth in these pages.
We trust the readers of this little volume will be able to solve many a problem by a practical knowledge of the principles herein set forth, and that strength and light will be given to clear away the falsity that has heretofore obscured the mental vision for us all.
To know that even one has found the way out of bondage by the truths we have given in this form will be a pleasure and blessing to the AUTHOR.
Chapter 1 – Cause and Effect
All there is in the universe is cause and effect. It has been the habit of the world for mankind to attach very little importance to what is called trifles; but it is not well to lose sight of the fact that it is the apparent trifles that go to make up the sum of human experience.
That which seems the most trivial of all things sometimes opens the door to the most stupendous events in life.
There is nothing accidental in the law of the universe, and every event that transpires in human experience is due to that universal unvarying law; and no pleading, begging, or beseeching can avail to change the action of the law; we can only change our attitude to the law.
The law of harmony is the inevitable product of a perfect cause, and is the expression of the nature of First Cause, expressed through the image or ideal man.
There are many aspects or qualities in First Cause, every one of which are principles that are eternal and unchangeable; every one of which are unceasingly active, and by their action must produce an expression that corresponds with the nature and character of the cause. That expression is Spiritual Man of the first chapter of Genesis, the image of God, to whom was imparted life, power and dominion over the material world, before the representative man on the Adam plane was formed. Those different aspects expressed in the image are Life, Love, Truth, Wisdom, Power, Intelligence, Health, Strength and many more, all of which stand as eternal verities that nothing can change, destroy or weaken.
This combination of eternal principles constitutes God, and may very properly be called First Cause, which it is; or it may be called Primal Energy as expressive of its ceaseless activity; it may be called Cosmic Force expressive of its universal power; it all means God, because it embraces all good, and we cannot detract one iota from the majesty and glory of God by the use of any name that better expresses the various aspects and powers of the Infinite.
To trace the effect of First Cause we find that Spiritual Man has potential within him – all the qualities, powers, activities and possibilities of First Cause, which fact does not accord with old theology, hence the reluctance with which it is accepted, but truth is true, and only by knowing truth can we be made free from the effects of error.
“Come now, and let us reason together,” said the Lord (the law) through the prophet Isaiah.
First Cause, Primal Energy, or Cosmic Force is the Father; is that ceaseless energy that never slumbers nor sleeps.
The image or Spiritual Man is the Son; and the Son says, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.”
The Father creates; the Son makes that creation manifest in objective form.
The ideal creation is the work of the Father who created all things spiritual and ideal; and the form on the visible plane is the work of the Son, or Lord God. The man of flesh called Adam in the Allegory is the visible representation of that which is Spiritual, and is not a creation in the spiritual sense. Power and dominion were not imparted to the Adam nature, but to the Spiritual nature which the man of flesh represents.
A conscious department of mind was given to the man of flesh, with power to reason and unfold. It was as if the Lord God had said to Adam, “I have given you the power of reason and I leave you to search out the origin, source and cause of all things, and the freedom to choose between the true and the false.”
Understand: The Adam plane represents the infancy of the soul, and on that plane man is ignorant of his origin, ignorant of his powers, ignorant of his inheritance in every particular, and ignorant of anything higher than the fact of his form of flesh and the visible world and objects around him.
This suppositious Adam was placed in conditions and surroundings of perfect harmony which was named the Garden of Eden, expressive of the perfection and harmony that surrounded him, and his experience (whether an actual fact or a myth) is a type of the experience every soul has to go through in one way or another. While we believe that flesh, blood and bones is man, we are conscious of limitation on every hand, and we can never unfold to the Christ within, nor awaken those powers that assure us of dominion over the flesh.
The Adam plane of consciousness is a representation of weakness, ignorance, limitation and inability; hence the saying, “In Adam all die;” while to unfold to a consciousness of the Christ within, and know the truth of Being, is to be made alive. “In Christ ALL are made alive.”
These simple statements of Scripture have rarely been analyzed to any extent, and the real significance has been overlooked in a great measure, although we hear them quoted frequently. There is a great deal involved in those statements that would, if allowed, carry the mind in reason back to an investigation of what is meant by the Adam plane, and why it should end in death; and how to understand why “in Christ all are made alive.”
The Adam plane of consciousness is one of falsity, and all falsity tends to confusion, discord and death. The Christ consciousness is the way out of falsity. It is the way, the truth and the life, in which all are made alive.
The physical ills that overtake us are usually accounted for on the plane of materiality. The average minds have thought so little and reasoned so largely from the standpoint of sense perception that only those who look deeper into principles can comprehend the truth of the matter.
The result of false reasoning can never be harmonious; and whether people are ready to admit the fact of mental causation or not, it makes no difference with the result, or with the truth of the statements regarding it; the proof is in demonstration.
To many (at first especially), it seems a very absurd and arbitrary statement to say “there is no such thing as physical causation,” but in truth we cannot afford to agree with the materialist who reasons from a false basis.
The statement is true. All causation is of the mind PRIMARILY, but we admit that a secondary cause on the physical plane may precipitate the result in sickness and pain where some mental cause has opened the door and prepared the way for a disturbance.
For instance, a person may be perfectly free from any indication or fear of taking cold, and free from any thought or suggestion of it, at the same time that person may have had some perplexing trouble, some worry, anger, fright, or some emotion that disturbed the tranquility and peace of mind.
In that condition he is liable to be seized with every symptom of a bad cold, and he will say he doesn’t know how in the world he came to take such a cold.
That condition, in such a case, is the effect of a mental cause although the patient may not be able to recall any mental inharmony whatever.
In another way one may be attacked with a similar condition that is superinduced by some mental influence from without; but we must understand that we have no business to leave an open door for such influences to enter; we can and should always be fortified against any evil influence by loyalty to – and trust in – the law of harmony.
If at a loss how to keep in line with the law of harmony allow yourself to become as a little child, and seek the teaching that will set your feet in the path of knowledge. Set aside your great learning for the time, and understand that demonstration over the ills and discords in life does not depend upon your fine education.
When first principles are mastered, and the law of your being is apprehended, the unfoldment begins, and you will soon realize how much of that fine education is of use in solving the life problem.
Your unfoldment will be rapid or slow, in proportion to your devotion to principle.
A fine education is very desirable; but a knowledge of first principles – cause and effect, the law of our being – is absolutely essential in the matter of starting right, but has been overlooked in the education of a vast number who are accredited with the most profound scholarship.
No matter how much book learning one has, nor how many degrees one has taken in the great institutions of the world, if one has no conception of the Science of Being, the whole career on this plane is shadowed by that ignorance.
The study of divinity (so called) has not enabled our theologians to live exempt from the ordinary ills of the flesh any more than those who have not studied divinity; nor has it enabled them to heal, or teach the way of health according to divine law.
They are no less alarmed at the approach of an epidemic, or contagion, than the uneducated grave-digger of the parish.
They are, as a rule, more given to anxiety and precaution concerning health than other people are; they sicken and die with no apparent conception of the real cause, and consider it the will of God, or a dispensation of Providence, although they have tried every material means to thwart what they call the will of God.
Now there is no better reason given for the inharmonies on the earth’s plane than the saying of Gautama Buddha, viz.: “Ignorance of truth is the cause of all misery.” So let us consider the study of truth in all its bearings as the summum bonum of all learning.
Truth is God, and God is omnipresent good, so the sooner we recognize only the good as reality, the sooner we shall understand the truth of Being, and with that knowledge we leave behind us the cause, of which misery and discord is but the effect, and we are free.
Chapter 2 – The New Dispensation
Solomon said: “There is nothing new under the sun,” which is true when speaking of principles and things; as principles are eternal, and things are the expression of those eternal principles, thus there is nothing new or old except in human consciousness, and when we speak of a New Dispensation we mean a newer and better conception of the manner of dispensing law and knowledge of things divine.
It is the nature of all principle to express itself.
All principle is divinely perfect, eternally active, unchangeable and mathematically scientific, and nothing can prevent its full expression except man’s perversity, and then only to human consciousness.
We need to understand the working of the law that proceeds from, and expresses those eternal principles we call God.
In other words, we need to understand the law of “First Cause” and its effect in expression.
The story of creation has been understood by most of us as a literal fact of history, and we have overlooked the lesson contained in the allegory, thus losing the more beautiful conception of the origin and nature of man as a direct offspring of the creative power.
We have been taught to consider the account of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis as the actual beginning of all things, and that our planet “Earth” is but six thousand years old, although it is now very well known that this ancient theory has been gradually giving place to a more rational view of the subject, especially among people who reason from cause to effect, which reasoning does not destroy one iota of the veneration and homage due to the creative source of all knowledge and wisdom we call God.
The average minds among men have been afraid to deviate from the old crude conceptions regarding what is called “Holy Writ,” while such conceptions have all the time blinded the eyes, stopped the ears and shut the doors of the soul against the truth, until the hunger for knowledge has pushed the more independent thinkers to an investigation of principles that are eternal, and thus a more rational way of dispensing truth has obained a footing.
The spirit of investigation has of late years become epidemic we might say, and the old ways of thinking in a prescribed groove are fast losing their hold upon the minds of all who are to use their God-given reason and thus prove the truths of creation and being.
As the souls of men unfold to the light and eternal principles become better and more generally understood, there is less tendency to depend upon the traditions of men, and less credulity given to the creeds and dogmas that have so long blinded the eyes of the earnest seeker after the true way.
The story of Adam simply typifies the beginning of man’s experience on the earth plane.
Every soul begins its unfoldment in a similar manner and with similar experiences.
The Adam plane of consciousness is the type of the infancy of the soul, and as every soul must begin its unfoldment on that plane we can realize how easy it was for finite judgment and human error to establish a plan of action, or code of laws, that were lacking in the wisdom and godliness that a higher plane of unfoldment would warrant; therefore we can see how very essential to human progress is the growth of the conscious mind out of the old crude conceptions of law and order into the more God-like practical gospel dispensation which has been called the new.
The old conception of divine law (so lacking in the spirit of love and goodwill) had taken such deep root in the minds of the race that (strange as it may seem) it has taken over eighteen hundred years for the Christian world to even begin to see and appreciate the real spirit of the gospel that came to herald a better way and a more righteous dispensation.
Instead of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” it was a gospel of love; it was “Glad tidings,” the gospel of Good News – good because it was to bring peace in place of dissension and war.
Ever since the days of the Nazarene upon earth, His teaching, His doctrines, and His gospel has been called “The New Dispensation,” in contradistinction to the old or Mosaic dispensation, in which we have the conception of Moses regarding divine law.
Moses dispensed the law as he understood it, and his conception was that of justice and equity, but wholly lacking in the principle of love and compassion.
His conception of God was that of a personal God, who ruled with severity, passion and anger, very much as the human rulers of that age were supposed to rule.
His God was one of power and authority, without the other qualities of loving kindness that we consider essential to perfection, and Moses dispensed justice and law from his standpoint, or according to his conception of divine law.
Clearly Moses had not reached the plane of unfoldment that might have opened his eyes to the real truth of man’s being as the idea of infinite Mind, the child of Wisdom and Love, the offspring of infinite Perfection.
In the light of the present age, as we look back upon the history of man in the days of Moses and the Patriarchs of old, and even later, by reading between the lines we seem to catch glimpses of the way the souls of men aspired to know, and struggled with the problem of man’s being, just as people have done in every age and are doing today, and perhaps with just as much eager desire to know the truth.
A higher conception of what was in store for mankind was reached by the prophets of Israel.
They could foresee how the human race could unfold, and what would be the outcome of the unfoldment, and prophesied the same, but failed to realize what their own possibilities were. They failed to see that the same law that could be made available in the ages yet to come, could be made to serve them as well. They seemed to have no conception of the fact that God is no respecter of persons; and that every child of God is equally endowed with power and dominion. So they postponed the day of unfoldment, and left it for generations yet unborn to discover the powers and possibilities inherent in every soul.
They seemed to have advanced a step higher than Moses had reached, and yet their visions and foretellings were largely on the plane of materiality, and seemed to concern the kingdoms of the world more than any spiritual significance, all of which rendered their prophesies in a measure obscure and meaningless to the average reader, because the average reader does not read between the lines to catch the spirit of what is written.
In the Mosaic dispensation it was considered sufficient to follow the exact letter of the law in the matter of fasting, sacrificing and burnt offerings, regardless of the real spirit of worship, while, several centuries later, Isaiah was inspired to see the fallacy of all such forms and the uselessness of all ceremony that lacked the spirit of godliness. His insight into spiritual law enabled him to rise above the foolish practice of offering sacrifices and burnt offerings of sheep and of goats to appease the God they so foolishly believed must be placated by the shedding of blood, and whose wrath they feared as that of an exacting despot.
Such was their highest conception of duty, and to them the only true form of worship.
According to history those forms of worship had never profited them in the least particular, for they were always in a state of war and confusion, unconsciously hungering and thirsting after the right way, just as all the mistaken souls are in our day, and their dependence upon mistaken traditions blinded their eyes and clouded the judgment just as it does with multitudes today.
The futility of such methods of worship is forcibly set for in Isaiah, 1st chapter, verses 10-15:
“Hear the word of the Lord ye rulers of Sodom, give ear unto the law of our God ye people of Gomorrah.
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.
I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats…
Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I can not away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you; yea when ye make many prayers I will not hear.”
Isaiah stands as a prince among prophets, and is believed in by all Christendom as an inspired prophet.
Notice his denunciation of the practice of fasting, which, as the above quotation does, applies to many of the forms and practices of religious rites in our day, the same as in the past ages.
In the 58th chapter, verses 4-6:
“Behold ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness; ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes unto him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
In these quotations is the evidence that the souls of men were beginning to unfold to the light, and that a better conception of truth and godliness was dawning upon the world, the evidence of improvement upon the old Mosaic dispensation, and that a more correct, consistent and rational faith was promised, although the day of freedom was postponed and only promised for the generations yet to come.
The Ten Commandments accredited to Moses are held by the majority of believers in Scripture as the most sacred injunction to man, and are regarded as the very foundation of righteous doctrine; they do contain the righteous principle, but we must not overlook the fact that the Christ came to show us a more excellent way, and that loyalty to, and trust in the more excellent way rendered the old dispensation unnecessary and superfluous; that by following the more excellent way all things would be adjusted to harmony as the inevitable consequence of obedience to the law of right.
The Christ embodied in the man Jesus was, and is the perfected Soul, the full grown Soul, the only begotten of the Father; that is, the only One who has unfolded ALL the God-like powers and possibilities, and in His teaching He tells us what to do, instead of “Thou shalt not.”
In the new and better way we are to “love the Lord our God with all the soul, mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves.” If we obey this injunction, where is the need of saying: “Thou shalt not steal,” or “Thou shalt not covet or bear false witness”? To love the Lord our God is to love the law that emanates from those eternal principles of good which constitute God. The more excellent way is in loving the good law that would render any tendency to steal, covet, or bear false witness impossible.
The difference between the old dispensation and the new is wholly due to the different planes of consciousness in the minds of Moses and Jesus. People in every age of the world view things, principles and law according to the stage of the Soul’s unfoldment.
Every age and every century reveals more and more of what has been considered the hidden secrets, but which we are proving are designed for man to know.
The wonderful strides that have been made in this nineteenth century is convincing proof that there is no place to stop and say there is nothing more to learn, for we all lack a great deal of knowing it all; even our imaginations fall short of what is to be revealed; and we can say with Paul: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”
Chapter 3 – Man’s Dominion
After considering the established fact of a new and better dispensation than the old, we naturally turn to the contemplation of its benefits to man; and by careful investigation into the spirit of the Gospel we find that the dominion imparted to man in the account of creation, is clearly taught by the Master, although it has not been so understood until this awakening to the truth of man’s being became so general.
The soul had become so general and so intense that thousands have been prompted to seek for a more rational and reasonable interpretation of principles, of divine law and its application to man’s career on this plane of experience. Their seeking was not in vain.
They found that reasoning logically from cause to effect, and from effect to effect, that every aspect of every quality of the “First Cause” we call God is continually imparted to the offspring which constitutes the image.
“In the image of God created he them.”
Reasoning thus it began to dawn upon the consciousness that the intellect of man had virtually rejected that gift of dominion because of the tendency of the race to see all things from the plane of the human intellect, and judge all things by objective evidence alone; ignoring the fact that all objective phenomena is but a visible representation of that which is invisible and ideal; ignoring the fact that all power is of the mind, and has its origin in the one “First Cause” which is ever and always imparting the same to the offspring.
When we say that man has virtually rejected this gift of dominion, we mean that as a race, men have not believed in, nor acknowledged any such gift. They have as a race believed in, and admitted, or rather claimed, weakness and limitation, and in a greater or lesser degree, helplessness, and inability.
In the allegory we read that the Lord God called, “Adam! Where art thou?” and Adam answered “Here I am.” Here in this form of flesh. This is I.
Such was the conception of man on the plane of the Adam consciousness; and such has been the conception of man all through the ages with here and there an exception.
This human form composed of flesh, blood and bones has been considered man.
Even now, with all the light of the 19th century thrown upon it, and all the accumulation of knowledge for ages past, and all the various phases of scientific research, and the more recent spiritual unfoldment (which has become one of the universally accepted phases of progress of the present age), there are still many who are endowed with a high grade of intelligence who look upon the man of flesh, the objective form, as the man, seeming never to consider that which is back of the visible form, and without which there would be no form and no being; and yet in a vague sense they are conscious that all BEING is without form, and invisible, and that all power belongs to, and acts from the unseen and formless substance of which man is created.
The image of God (spiritual man) bears a likeness to God in that he is endowed with like qualities and powers by virtue of his origin, and that vital energy inherent in every child of God must be expressed in those qualities and powers.
We have been too forgetful, or perhaps ignorant, of the fact that the image is in mind, not of the body; and the likeness consists of those God-like dominant qualities of Mind, Intelligence, Wisdom, Courage, Ability, Strength, etc., all of which are active or dormant to man’s conscious realization of them and of his ability to make them of service to him in the daily affairs of life here and now. He may cover them up and never realize the glorious unfoldment that is possible for him if he allows the opinions and traditions of men to guide him. He may fail to unfold those latent powers and dominant qualities of mind by depending upon those false ideas and erroneous opinions that have been thrust upon us for ages. He may choose to stand loyal to the popular dogmas and time-honored traditions of men, rather than seeking to know the truth for himself; but sooner or later he will find that such dependence will never bring freedom. “Ye shall KNOW the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” are the words of Jesus.
The freedom is not promised to those who depend upon what someone else knows or thinks he knows.
Even without a knowledge of our latent powers we have always considered those active, dominant qualities of Mind essential to success in life, and yet we have neglected to seek from within, but rather depended upon the knowledge or conception of someone else.
We need first to know that we inherit all those powers and possibilities; then claim the wisdom that enables us to uncover them, till every faculty unfolds, and we can stand forth in conscious ability to make them serve us to the utmost.
In this way only can we carry out the plan of salvation that insures freedom from the ills we are all so glad to escape.
In this way only can we find this gift of dominion a practical reality.
As there is no limit in the giving, there should be no limit to the use of the gift, so let us cease to believe in limitation.
The beauty of Eden in which Adam and Eve were placed is but a type or symbol of the Paradise we all may enjoy by knowing our powers and obeying the law of our being; and it is only by disobedience to the law of harmony that we are driven out of Paradise into the desert among thorns and thistles, otherwise known to us as sickness, misfortune and poverty, which the children of earth will ever experience till they turn to the within, study the soul, awaken its powers, and set them into action. Then shall we know for ourselves and not depend upon what others think they know; nor upon the traditions that have always been unreliable and misleading.
Every soul should know its own need, and know also its powers to satisfy that need. Those who have arrogated to themselves the privilege of authority are not always able to advise another wisely, no matter how much we may respect that authority. We should consider the necessity of analyzing principles so thoroughly that we could judge all things confidently from an inward conviction that no argument could shake or weaken.
The whole world have tried to be satisfied to think and believe as our parents and elders did, and what is the consequence? The sins or errors (which mean the same) and their effects have been visited upon us to the third and fourth generation, just as Moses declared in his code of laws.
As the mistakes and errors of the race are handed down from generation to generation, so must the effects of those errors be manifest among the children of men till the mistakes are corrected and the minds of the race are liberated from the bondage such falsity imposes.
People of dogmatic tendency are often heard to say: “My father’s and Grandfather’s religion is good enough for me.” We might as reasonably say: “My father pursued his studies by the light of the tallow candle and that is good enough for me.”
The progress of the age is not confined ALONE to the invention or discovery of things of convenience on the objective side of life, and he who scorns to accept the highest and the best will be left to grovel in darkness and limitation till he “comes to himself,” as the prodigal did after he had exhausted all his resources in the “far country” and found himself in want.
The return to the Father’s house is to get down to the very foundation of all being as principle, and reason from cause to effect, very much as you would in any science, and know that according to the character of “First Cause” will the expression be.
If “First Cause” is good it will express goodness as effect. If “First Cause” is power unlimited, it will express that unlimited power through the image, and the image in its turn makes it manifest in the visible form to which is given freedom of mind to choose between the real and true, and the unreal and false, the powerful and powerless.
The mind of the flesh (as Paul denominates it) is prone to judge all things by external evidence, overlooking the admonition of the Master to “Judge not by appearances, but judge righteous judgment.” Righteous judgment comes to the conscious mind by reasoning logically from cause to effect; and thus we educate the conscious mind to know and recognize its oneness with the eternal Source of all being. Then is the time we begin to unfold and realize that our inherited dominion and power is not a myth, as many believe who reason from external evidence alone.
It is recognition of the powers that makes them manifest, and the habit of thinking and talking of weakness and inability only retards the manifestation of power and dominion, and if persisted in, unfits the mind for the realization of any dominant quality.
There must be persistence on the positive side to make manifest those latent powers that will lift us out of those timeworn ruts, beliefs and fears that have always blinded us, and hidden from our consciousness even a hint of our divine inheritance.
The intellect alone will never reveal those latent powers, but let the intellect and intuition be blended in one and the unfoldment is sure.
When you rise to a recognition of your own ability to overcome every obstacle, and unfold to all that is potential within, you have gained a victory that is yours forever, unless you allow the claims of falsity to get the upper hand again.
Chapter 4 – The Possibilities of Man
In the previous chapter we have barely hinted upon what is possible for man to achieve by a cultivation of his mental powers along the lines of truth and equity, and any attempt to explain the possibilities and powers of man must of necessity fall short of a full and complete setting forth of those powers; because no one as yet has realized in full the powers that inheres in every soul; but with an understanding of the law of expression from cause to effect, which is the law of our being, no one of ordinary reasoning powers can fail to see that there is no limit to the powers we may unfold, except the limit placed upon them by the mortal ignorance and perversity of the human intellect.
One of the greatest mistakes of the Christian religion, as popularly taught and understood, has been their blind faith in the creeds and dogmas that place the principal benefits of the Gospel beyond the grave, instead of making it a saving Gospel for the now.
Full salvation applies to man’s whole being, and on every plane of consciousness he is placed in existence. If he gives heed to the spirit of the Gospel, regardless of the popular views of Christendom, he will find that salvation from all discord and misery here and now is no myth, and he need have no concern for the future. “Take no thought for the morrow” is the Gospel injunction. It is found impossible to reconcile the Gospel as it reads with the Gospel as it is taught at the present time, and as it has been taught for ages.
All through the teachings of Jesus there runs an unmistakable proof that His Gospel is founded upon principles in which he totally ignored the traditions of men. Of course the Scribes and Pharisees considered His teaching a blasphemous heresy because He ignored the traditions of the elders; but the powers He manifested in His ministry were the proofs that He needed no authority from without; He taught and ministered by the knowledge of principles that are eternal and unchangeable in their modes of expression. He knew that all principle is Godly and eternal, and that all that disturbs and confuses lacks principle, is ungodly and discordant in its expression.
He said: “All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.” And again, He said: “The works that I do ye shall do also,” which is equivalent to saying that your powers are equal in every way to His, and His principal aim was to teach the people how to unfold and awaken those powers. He promised that unfoldment to all who would “keep His sayings,” and “abide in His words,” because He said His words were “Spirit and Life.” Life is the Father, and He said: “I of myself can do nothing, HE doeth the works,” meaning that the principle of Life worked through Him, and imparted to Him all power in Heaven and earth.
The more closely we scrutinize the statements and sayings of the Christ, the more we shall be impressed with the fact that the truths of the Gospel have never been told, and that which has been taught has not always been clearly understood. We have dealt largely with the letter and ignored the spirit of it.
Too much has been made of the various opinions of men regarding the doctrine of the atonement, and of the Trinity, and of baptism, and many other non-essentials, while the practical truths have been treated as of secondary importance.
There can be no personality in connection with the Trinity in divine principle. The Life, Truth and Love that is God constitutes a Trinity in Unity inseparable and complete in one, comprising the grandest and most glorious combination of active principles, divinely perfect, ever and always orderly and harmonious in expression; but we find no person in such trinity, and the spirit of the teaching forbids any such interpretation.
The almost universal awakening of people who are not in bondage to tradition, is the best evidence of the presence of this ever acting spirit of wisdom and love, and the best evidence that such souls have opened the door to let in the light of wisdom; and with the light comes a realization of power to do as never before. The blindness and darkness of previous experience vanishes, and in their place comes a glorious assurance of peace and power that is not dependent upon the opinions of men.
The leaven of truth is working as never before, and nothing can stay its progress; by it the eyes of the blind are being opened in more ways than one. People are learning to reason with God as Job did, learning that after the way is clearly pointed out they have to take up the problem alone with only the spirit of truth to guide them. In that way alone they reach the point of knowing, instead of believing because someone else seemed to know; and no matter how earnestly we may seek for light it can never be fully realized by the understanding of another.
It is because we have depended upon the supposed knowledge or wisdom of others that we have been ignorant of the powers and possibilities inherent within.
We are not to blame that we did not know of our inherent powers and possibilities, and we need not suffer self-condemnation because of our ignorance, but cease to look back regretfully and simply take up the problem from the present moment, take hold of every idea, every hint or suggestion, and every word or thought that will set the face toward the light, keeping the truth of man’s being ever uppermost in mind, and make every calculation from that as a basis.
We have heard the statement, and read it over and over again, that man was created in the image and likeness of God, but what did it mean to the average reader? Of course the objective form was considered the man.
Let us consider Paul’s conception of the matter. In speaking of the prevailing false ideas and beliefs of the people he said: “Professing themselves to be wise they becamse fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image like unto corruptible man.” That is supposing God to be a personal God, it naturally followed (with their carnal ideas) that the man of flesh was the image and likeness, which error Paul aimed to explain away by the light of the spirit so freely imparted to him at times.
Whatever is God-like in essence or quality is continually imparted to you and to me, else we could not be in His image; but the perfect image is not manifest in the flesh except in proportion to our unfoldment and a realization of our powers, which are always ready to be uncovered. There will be heights to reach through all eternity, and we would not be satisfied to have it otherwise.
Jesus said: “My Father is greater than I.” And that will be the truth through all eternity, and so long as the soul opens to receive, that fountain of wisdom and love will never cease to impart a higher and higher realization of glories unknown and even unimagined on this plane. The very law of life teaches that endless progression which every aspiring soul recognizes as a part of the divine plan; and no matter how long we may dispute it, or ignore it, at some point every soul will acknowledge it and glory in it.
This unfoldment will never be realized while one clings to the old false idols, creeds, dogmas, traditions, priests, forms and fears of an angry God and a personal devil, a literal burning hell, and the power of evil. These are the false ideas that have blocked the wheels of spiritual progress and darkened the souls of men.
To believe in an evil power as a reality is a flat denial of God’s omnipotence, as any one can prove if they will take the pains to analyze the words and apply their true meaning.
The greatest of the apostles said: “There is no power but of God.” If we believe the statement let us hold on to it and not lose sight of it.
That Primal Energy (which is one name for First Cause) acts through every aspect of divinity as law; it is Lord over all, and all power is a product of that Primal Energy – God; so all power is good, but when man uses that power from a human standpoint alone and ignores the source, he often turns the law against him and it brings all sorts of confusion and disaster; but the law is good all the time, and the power is good all the same, and would never produce discord in any case except by the perversion of man in his ignorance or willfulness. There is nothing wrong with the law, nothing wrong with the power, but human passion, human judgment and unholy ambition may pervert it, and the result is evil.
We are often asked why the human family have been so long without a knowledge of these principles, and of all these inherited powers, and we can only repeat what has already been said. Because of his faith in, and dependence upon the traditions of men, otherwise named creeds, dogmas, and priestly rule; also his belief in the flesh as the real man, and his belief in limitation on every hand.
He has claimed more weakness than strength. He has admitted poverty, misfortune, and failure; he has said, “I can’t help it,” more than I will. He has believed the unworthy worm doctrine, and how could he expect to show forth or manifest any dominant God-like qualities with all this load of adverse claims?
The dominant qualities of mind we need to claim, unfold, and utilize, are: Intelligence, Wisdom, Power, Courage, Health, Strength, Vigor, Vitality, Judgment, and many others, all of which are positive, and admit of no qualifications, because they are divinely perfect; while the opposite qualities, ignorance, weakness, fear, sickness, etc., are negative qualities of mind. There may be degrees of ignorance, fear, weakness, etc., and according to the degree of understanding will the soul’s unfoldment reveal the powers and possibilities within. We shall never fully realize those powers without the unfoldment, and the unfoldment will never be complete till we cease the admissions of limitation and inability.
Strive to get beyond any sense of limitation; then speak the word, or send out the thought of universal supply, and claim your own by attraction.
You attract whatever you desire in righteousness, because you believe in it, you acknowledge it, and you agree with it. You know the supply can not be exhausted, nor even diminished, by ministering to your needs.
Give praise and thanksgiving for your ability to accomplish what you desire.
The praise and thanksgiving in advance of realization will hasten the manifestation.
We should be able to control circumstances in every way, and on every occasion as we understand the law, and yet no one so far as we know has consciously reached the plane of infallibility; but if we have not, this is not evidence that we can not.
The law of expression from cause to effect forbids the thought of limitation; so let us be true to the law, and trust it for progress and unfoldment.
The law will not disappoint us, unless by ignorance or willfulness we pervert it.
Chapter 5 – Character Building
Everyone has an ideal in mind of the character he would like to realize, but everyone is not aware of the fact that he has the ability to build his character up to that ideal.
Being ignorant of the law of cause and effect, it is the habit of mankind in general to allow the merest trifles to interfere with his character building. He is not conscious of the fact that every indulgence in anger, petulance, despondency, discouragement or fear, and every propensity to deceive, defraud or indulge in unholy passions or emotions carries him further away from his ideal in character, because his ideal is good, and his human passions are not good.
He may believe in the reality of many things that do not accord with his ideal, and believe them to be as real as the true, and thus put further away the realization of his ideal in character.
He is not aware of his powers, or he would know that we are the arbiters of our own destiny. We mould our own conditions, else we bear no likeness to that primal energy that created us, which likeness by logical reasoning from cause to effect we are bound to accept as man’s inheritance.
The statement that man is the image of God stamps him as related to all creation; and the likeness he bears to the creative power stamps him as the instrument through which the infinite power is manifest on the objective plane; and if man stands as the image of God, he stands as ruler of the world over which he is placed, with dominion over all things in that world, himself included.
The whole economy of creation is designed for man as the crowning glory of creation; the masterpiece of the creative principle; the image of God; the individualized expression of divinity itself; and his dominion over all things is not put off to be expressed after he is through with the earth life, but here on this objective plane is the field in which his dominion must be realized and his powers manifest, and the plane on which he must carry out the purposes and plans of that creative energy, and enjoy and express perfect freedom in the various activities of the human mind.
“Know thyself,” is the wisest injunction to man, and to know and understand the law of our being is as essential in building character as the knowledge of the alphabet is in learning to read and spell. Without this knowledge we build haphazard in every case.
With the realization of these truths man begins to unfold, and as he opens his soul to the light he begins to build his character to accord with his ideal.
He finds himself not only willing, but glad to drop all the old ideas and opinions that do not accord with his highest ideals; he finds there is much to unlearn because of the general misconception regarding the powers of mind.
The world has been too long afraid to investigate, but have rather tried to be satisfied in believing there was a mystery connected with man’s being that we dare not attempt to unravel, even when claiming to pin their faith implicitly to the teaching of the Gospel which so clearly admonishes all to know the truth and not depend upon the traditions of men.
The misconceptions of the Scriptures, the misinterpretations of the Gospel, and the misunderstanding of its spirit, have all combined to render the popular teaching impractical and unreliable; hence the doubt and skepticism that prevails so largely among intelligent thinking people.
It is well known that there has been for years a tendency among intelligent people to reject the commonly accepted doctrines taught as the Gospel of Christ, and to seek for knowledge in various ways with the hope of finding a more satisfactory understanding of the origin and destiny of man.
The various phases of Occultism have seemed to attract the hungering souls, until the ranks of orthodoxy have been perceptibly thinned.
The great parliament of religions held in Chicago during the Columbian Exposition gave a wonderful impetus to the study of truth, and as a natural consequence it has opened the eyes of the people to the fact that all that goes by the name of religion will not bear the scrutiny it is now subject to, without exposing some of its fallacies.
The trend of religious thought is gradually leading to the admission of Metaphysical ideas, and a broadening of the heretofore narrow conceptions of what truth will do for mankind when understood.
Man’s ignorance of his dominion has kept him in bondage to error, and nothing but a knowledge of truth will liberate him.
The freedom promised by the Christ was to be the reward of knowing truth, and that knowledge was promised as a reward for faithful continuance in – and obedience to – His teaching, which is surely simple and practical enough, and should never have been so misunderstood and corrupted as to mislead the earnest souls that seek for knowledge.
He taught very clearly that salvation meant to be saved now, and saved from the errors and mistaken ideas that brought discord and afflictions; He said nothing about a preparation for death, but He said a great deal about life. He came that we might have more abundant life.
The more abundant life means that by building character according to His plan, every thought, word and deed will be of a life-giving quality, instead of the false ideas and fears that tend deathward. All error tends to death, while in truth there is life, health and peace.
Character is the manifestation of the stage of the soul’s growth or unfoldment. Sordid desires and selfish ambition dwarfs the soul, degrades and darkens its conceptions of truth, all of which must be manifest in the character. Every soul in the universe has the power within to unfold to the utmost, but its unfoldment depends upon its righteous desires and aspirations.
We do not endorse nor favor anything of a sanctimonious character in the promulgation of truth. The severe piety so long and so freely paraded before the world as the correct thing in religion has never given satisfaction.
Self-condemnation and morbid humility can never develop the dominant character, but rather promotes a feeble intellect and inferior character.
If I grovel in the belief that I am an “unworthy worm of the dust,” and go about with a solemn air of mock humility, I am sure to build a character to correspond with my ideas, as well as to shed an influence that is depressing and demoralizing to all who come near me. There is nothing elevating nor uplifting in such morbid views of life and duty.
What we all want is something that will cheer and gladden our lives, and make life worth living.
We need to fellowship with joy and gladness, and radiate the same to those who need the uplifting. There is nothing of a godly nature about such morbid humility, because all that is godly is good and tends to make glad the hearts of all who love goodness and truth.
Every one may be said to make his own God in the sense that his conception of God is God to him, and his conception of God has much to do in building character for himself, and much to do with his unfoldment and influence.
Man’s misconception of God and misunderstanding of himself are the two vital errors that have been interwoven into every religion.
We have only to consider the character of those credulous Souls who pinned their faith to the God of Calvanism to realize the tendency such teaching has upon mortals.
No one could possibly love the God of Calvanism, but all were afraid of his wrath. Their ideas of justice were in accord with the angry God they believed in, and the severity with which they dealt with unbelievers corresponded (to the letter) with their dismal faith. In this at least we give them credit for consistency; at the same time we can truly rejoice in the fact that all such dogmatism is dying by the weight of its own falsity; and yet we find isolated cases here and there who are afraid to analyze or question the righteousness of such doctrines lest they commit the unpardonable sin in so doing.
The discontent and dissatisfaction with prevailing religious thought has for years been pushing the more courageous souls to reason upon the question, and the eyes of many have been opened to the fact that God would not be God unless His being embraced every God-like quality equally, and in perfection; then they were forced to the conclusion that as God was responsible for the creation of all things, and God was equally wise, powerful, loving, and good, He could not have created His children totally wicked and depraved because they were created in His own image, and after His likeness, and the only thing to do was to reject such ideas and claim our inheritance, which consists of like powers and possibilities, with dominion over the objective world; and with this conclusion came the realization of those powers and the ability to build the character wisely, and the courage to reject the falsity that had so long blinded the eyes and darkened the judgement; then were the souls open to receive the light, and the unfoldment began.
Every year there are thousands added to the ranks in the study of man and the “SCIENCE OF BEING,” and were all faithful to the best they know, falsity and superstition would soon be a thing of the past, and all would know truth from the least to the greatest, as promised and foretold by the inspired prophet.
The study of man, and the truth of man’s being, is the beginning of wisdom; and without the knowledge thus gained man walks in darkness and stumbles through life on the earth plane unconscious of the strength and dominion that is his by inheritance, ignorant of his powers, and in bondage to fear and weakness, and beset with limitation on every hand; while to know the truth of his being he rises superior to all fear and all weakness, he defies adversity and claims his inheritance with confident assurance that he can draw from the great storehouse of wisdom and power for all his needs, and that as long as he is true to the best he knows, no good thing will be withheld; and as the light of truth illuminates the soul, freedom is manifest, and in fulfillment of prophecy, his “covenant with death is disannulled, and his agreement with hell cannot stand” in the light of truth.
He finds that the spirit of truth that was promised to lead into all truth is a reality, and each day greater, higher, and mightier truths dawn upon the consciousness, and each truth when discovered is found to apply to some problem at hand; harmony begins to reign in all his environments, and the peace of mind is soon externalized in health of body. Strength takes the place of weakness, and weariness is known no more.
Health and strength are essentially among the dominant qualities of a God-like character. There is no power in a feeble sickly condition, therefore nothing of a dominant character.
Every one desires ability and efficiency in the control of circumstances, and the way is laid down so plain that we ought never to have misunderstood it.
The word of the Lord was supposed to speak through the prophet, saying: “Acknowledge me in ALL thy ways, and I will direct thy paths.” We do not acknowledge the Lord (the law of the good) when we complain of sickness, weakness, unworthiness, or any other ungodly thing or condition, so by our words we must be condemned to suffer that which we claim, or if we claim and acknowledge only that which is good we are justified by our words of righteousness.
We admonish every student of truth to analyze these sayings of the Christ, thereby establishing a character that tends to harmony in life.
Chapter 6 – The True and The False
The promulgation of various contradictory theories, some true and some false, makes it necessary for the student of truth to be constantly on the alert, else he becomes confused or entangled in error.
There is but one sure way to avoid being misled, which is to reject every theory, and every statement or argument that does not accord with those eternal principles we call God, and which we study as First Cause.
We must know that any deviation from those eternal truths would be of mortal error, therefore the result would be inharmonious.
To believe that it is a part of the divine plan that man should suffer in sickness, poverty and misfortune, is an error that is liable to result in those very conditions.
Why have we believed such falsity? Simply because of those contradictory theories, and because our parents and elders accepted the false theories, and we believed them because they did, but not because of any inward conviction that they were true.
No one would ever have believed the doctrine of total depravity, from any inward conviction that it was true, and if our elders had studied divine law scientifically from cause to effect, and never conceived that foolish idea and fear of an angry God, they would never have taught us that it was God’s will to afflict us.
There is no rational basis for such doctrine.
Did we ever see a time that men and women were not eager to seize upon whatever remedy promised relief from those ills and misfortunes, even when claiming to believe that it was God’s will to afflict them? If it was really the will of God that we should suffer such ills it would be the height of presumption to even try to remedy the matter.
Jesus came to do the will of the Father, and His mission consisted in relieving suffering of every kind and in teaching the people the way of life, knowing as He did that ignorance of the true way was the cause of all the miseries they suffered, and who will say that such is not the cause of all misery today as much as then?
“Ignorance of Truth is the cause of misery,” is a statement made by Gautama Buddha five hundred years before Jesus said: “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
Freedom consists in being liberated from all fear, and all limitation, all weakness and all that is undesirable, and in the full realization of our powers and dominion. As before stated we have as a race virtually rejected this gift of dominion; we have claimed limitation instead.
We have acknowledged more weakness than strength; we have said we were unworthy worms of the dust, instead of saying we are Sons of God; we have said we inherited disease, and that we were born to die, at the same time claiming to believe the sayings of the Master; and He said, “The gift of God is eternal life” – not will be, but is now; and when we have had the courage to admit that eternal life was the gift of God we have not dared to claim it for the now, but placed it beyond the grave, and even then believed it was only for the few.
We have also claimed poverty and misfortune, and named it as an unavoidable circumstance, and lo, it stares us in the face as a thing of reality, and bears witness to the fact that our words do bear fruit.
“By their fruits ye may know them.”
We find that truly our words do bear fruit after their kind.
Our words come forth from the convictions of the conscious mind, and those convictions are true or false according to the plane of consciousness on which we dwell.
From the lower or Adam plane we look out upon the objective world and see nothing but limitation on every hand; we are never sure in our judgment because we have no reliable standpoint from which to judge. Our foundation is of the shifting sands, we have no sure and abiding basis on which to build; hence the disappointments, failures, confusion, poverty, and misfortune, and finally the culmination in disease and death.
The intellectual plane mentioned in a former chapter is but a step higher than what we call the Adam plane, but is a plane of greater responsibility; and when once awakened to a realization of a still higher plane of consciousness (as many of the giant intellects of the world have been), the pride of intellect gives place to the leading of the spirit, and an intuitive perception of truth renders deception impossible. The intellect, which is masculine, and the intuition, which is feminine, are united in one. It is what God has joined together, and no man can put it asunder.
Then is when the inward monitor speaks from the point of knowing; we no longer believe what we hear because we hear it from good and reliable authority, but we know by intuition what is true. We reach that point of knowing by our hunger and thirst after the right way, and by opening the windows of the soul to the light.
When the masculine and feminine principles are consciously united in one, all the powers and possibilities begin to unfold, and we can readily understand what the Master meant when He said, “The works that I do shall ye do also.”
It was by the full knowledge and realization of those powers that He proved His dominion over all materiality; He met every difficulty by demonstrating over it, as in the case of producing wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee; and in feeding the hungry multitudes upon a few barley loaves and fishes, and in many other cases of emergency; and it remains for all to do the same or similar works if only the powers of the soul are allowed to unfold; but let us understand that power and dominion will never be manifest in us so long as we persist in claiming weakness and limitation.
How can we expect to show forth or manifest the best while we are continually admitting and even claiming the worst?
We only make the claim for the real true self, which works through the objective self, and we want to make it so positive and so definite that the objective self will never hear the promptings of the carnal nature. We should make it so positive that our circumstances and environments would tell the story of perfect dominion over the objective world.
Did we not know that the perfect law works to that end by logical sequence we should not dare to make these statements; but when we realize how ignorance of these vital principles has been, and is so forcibly manifest in the helpless ways of humanity, the wonder is why we are not more earnest in proclaiming the better way; and we wonder still more at the apathy and indifference of the many suffering souls we see who need the awakening as well as to be made whole.
We build our own environments, and if built on a false foundation we suffer the consequences in some discordant condition of mind, body or circumstances.
If our circumstances and surroundings are harmonious, congenial and satisfactory, they of themselves proclaim the wisdom of our thoughts, opinions and beliefs; but if discordant they betray our ignorance of the true way.
“There is nothing hid that shall not be revealed” in some way, and we are never satisfied to manifest the foolishness and ignorance that are sure to be pictured forth in some way as a result of our mistaken ideas.
The only sure protection against discord is in knowing the true way, and walking fearlessly in it by thought, word and deed.
On the money plane it is said, “If we take care of the pennies the dollars will take care of themselves.” On the Metaphysical plane, “If we take good care of our thoughts the words and deeds will take care of themselves.”
“According to thy word be it unto thee,” is the saying of the Master; so we ought to see clearly that words or admissions of evil are very apt to be manifest in some way. If we complain of weakness we can never hope to realize strength. Health will never be manifest as a result of saying “I am sick.”
To say “I am poor and unfortunate” is to attract the influences that are manifest in poverty and misfortune.
The one who confidently realizes and claims his inheritance will not allow circumstances to control him; but he will by his knowledge of law control circumstances; he will know better than to admit any limitation; he will rise superior to sickness, poverty and death; he will attract those dominant qualities of mind that defy adversity.
The admission of weakness or limitation hides from our consciousness the dominion that is ours by birthright, even when ignorant of it.
Let us understand that we attract that which we fellowship with, and if our conversations and thoughts dwell continually upon the miseries we would like to avoid we attract the miseries, while to keep the mind stayed upon that which strengthens and dominates, we attract strength and dominion.
Now! with an understanding of the laws of our being, we are free to say, There is no situation, circumstance or condition in life that may not be mastered or controlled for good; and no matter what vocation one pursues, if honorable and right, a knowledge of cause and effect with a steadfast loyalty to principle will bring success.
As before stated we build our world around us as we will, and innocence or ignorance is no protection against the penalty of a wrong course, therefore knowledge of truth is essential to peace and harmony.
To quote from the wise man: “Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore, get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.”
Chapter 7 – Inspiration
That which we consider inspiration is an influence sacred and holy, which prompts us to a realization and expression of higher and loftier truths than we can ever realize by groveling on the material plane alone.
It is the conscious inbreathing of the spirit of wholeness.
In reality that which we call empty space is permeated and filled with the spirit of wholeness, and we cannot inhale one single breath that is not holy, but human error and perversity blinds us to the fact, therefore the consciousness of that ever present spirit that illuminates the soul is only spasmodic in most individuals.
The false idea that the day for divine inspiration is of the past is giving way to a more rational conception of the divine order of things.
We are learning that divine law is never inoperative and that it is always the same, yesterday, today and forever, that whosoever will open the soul to let in the spirit of wisdom and light, will be inspired by the same.
Every essential quality of divine perfection is inherent in man, and only waits for human ignorance and perversity to give way to the leading of the spirit, that it may be manifest.
We once supposed that the inspired writers of the Scriptures were inspired at all times and under all circumstances, and that no one dare claim inspiration in this age; but we are beginning to know that all men are created equal in every sense, and that all depends upon his knowing and realizing his powers.
High and lofty aspirations attract high and lofty influences.
King Solomon, when very young, aspired to and prayed for wisdom, and no doubt his innocent child prayer was very sincere, and his lofty aspiration attracted the wisdom he desired in the administration of his office; at least he is accredited with greater wisdom than any other character of Scripture, and we cannot deny that his Proverbs are replete with wisdom of a very high order.
We make a magnet of ourselves to attract that to which we aspire; and we should be careful to not allow our grosser ambitions to gain the ascendency, else we vitiate our aspirations, and disappoint our expectations, as is so often the case where selfish ambition rules.
The tendency of the age is more and more toward Spirituality on a rational basis, and as the age is eminently practical, the subject of inspiration has been shorn of its solemn, awesome superstition, that has heretofore given it that repellant solemnity that is but little better than the mysterious and uncanny phase some have named inspiration.
All such false conceptions may be laid at the doors of priestcraft, false theologies, and spurious prophets.
We notice that those prophets of Scripture who impress us as being most at one with divine principle are very severe in their denunciation of the great number of false prophets and lying priests that had arisen, as well as foretelling that false prophets and priests would still arise in the ages yet to come; and are we not witness of innumerable false prophets and priests in our day?
Have we not been deceived into believing that our afflictions are sent by God? And that our burdens are of the Lord? And that we should submit to bear them with patience?
We couldn’t imagine why it should please God to afflict us; nor why the Lord should delight in placing burdens upon us; but supposed in our ignorance it was because God made us so wicked. When we asked why God made us so wicked we were told that we had no right to ask why.
Did such answers quench us?
Not at all; they only made us think and study the harder and search all the more diligently for evidence that savored of better counsel, and we were pleased to find it in the very prophecies that are so revered (as well as misunderstood) by the teachers of false theologies.
Listen to the scathing denunciation of the lying prophets and priests by Jeremiah, 23rd chapter, in the problem of the “burden of the Lord”: “Am I a God at hand saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.
I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name… Yea they are prophets of the deceit of their own hearts, which think to cause my people to forget my name…
And when this people or the prophet, or a priest shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? then shalt thou say unto them WHAT BURDEN? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord.
And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house…
And the burden of the Lord shall ye mention no more; for every man’s word shall be his burden: for ye perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.
Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the Lord answered thee? and, What hath the Lord spoken?
But since ye say the burden of the Lord; therefore thus saith the Lord; Because ye say this word, the burden of the Lord, and I have sent unto you saying, Ye shall NOT say, The burden of the Lord;
Therefore, behold I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence.
And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten. The above quotation is only one of the many fearless rebukes recorded in the prophecies.
Falsehood and priestcraft have been for ages the stumbling blocks of humanity to overcome, and in this particular those prophecies have been literally verified.
So also has the promise that the spirit of truth should come and teach us all truth; and all who are willing to be taught of the spirit of truth, are proof against deception.
In the teaching we have had, no one has ever told us that the ‘Lord in the Scriptures’ stands for – or means – ‘the law of God in action’, or the law of righteousness in operation, which is Lord over all.
When we either ignorantly or willfully pervert the law we turn it against us and the burden is the result, but the burden is of our own making.
All we see and every experience with the ideas and beliefs of the race goes to prove that Jeremiah was inspired, or prompted, by the spirit of the Christ within.
He was inspired to foresee just how the carnal nature in man would pervert the law of righteousness, and thus turn it against harmony of action, which is now so clearly manifest in the confusion of the world.
The nations of the world are in confusion and tumult.
The politics of the world is in a state of confusion and distrust.
The business interests of the world are in a state of almost intolerable confusion.
The religions of Christendom are in dire distress because of the severe chemicalization that tears and rends sectarian principles into shreds.
And “What will the harvest be?” Let us trust that the end will be unity and peace, and that ere long the whole world will understand that true religion is not sectarian, and that no sect ever sprang into existence through divine inspiration. The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of man so clearly taught by the Christ forbids it. The severe piety and sanctimonious character of the strictest sectarianism, patterns too closely after the Scribes and Pharisees, so scathingly denounced by the Christ.
The church of which the Master taught was ideal, and not in any sense sectarian. It embraced all humanity and was built upon the evidence of inspiration.
The first instance recorded of divine revelation among the disciples was when Peter caught a glimpse of the truth regarding the identity of the Master. When Jesus asked the question: “Whom say ye that I am?” Peter breaks forth in his impetuous fashion, saying: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Then came the answer from Jesus: “Thou art Peter and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
Revelation is the rock upon which the ideal church is built.
Jesus said, furthermore: “Flesh and blood did not reveal this unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven.”
That which comes to us from an interior perception of truth, without the aid of human intelligence, is revelation, inspiration or illumination, and upon that rock is the ideal church, the church of the Chirst, built; and it does not consist of a magnificent edifice of brick, stone and mortar, nor of a list of pew holders at so much per annum, but is composed of the souls of men and women whose aspirations attract divine inspiration to the realization that we are sons of God and brothers of Christ.
Peter did not hold those inspired moments unbroken, but lapsed into mortal error time and again; still he was afterwards so illumined by divine inspiration that he wrought many marvelous cures. He seemed inspired to see the exact needs of each case, as he was inspired to see that Jesus was the Christ.
Paul also was marvelously inspired at times, but did not retain that high realization at all times.
That which is a revelation to one is not a revelation to another. Peter’s revelation came to him alone because his soul was open to receive that special message at that special time.
The Spirit that inspired a Mozart to such grand conceptions of harmony, and enabled him to express it in such tones of sweetness, did not find every mind attuned to receive such inspiration. It came to him alone because it was that to which he aspired; and yet we are none of us confined to one gift.
There is a diversity of gifts according to Paul, and he said “Choose ye the best gifts,” one or many as we please.
The law of the Spirit that inspires a prophet, a Peter, or a Mozart, is the same law that prompts you or me to any good deed.
All promptings that urge us to deeds of charity and love are God promptings.
In silent meditation, when we shut out the world of sense, is the time and place best suited to receive those promptings, and realize our oneness with Divinity.
There is not a rational mind in existence that cannot penetrate in some degree beyond the physical senses.
In fact, we are always trying to lift the veil that hides that which is not visible to sight, or tangible to sense, and we cannot ignore the fact that all that is visible or tangible to sense, is dependent for existence and perpetuation upon some power or force that is invisible; and with the aspiration to know, and the desire to live, and work, and be, and do in harmony with those invisible forces that we know are divinely good, we should be able to set those invisible forces to work for us, just as Moses, Joshua, and Daniel did, and just as Peter, John, and Paul did.
Many who read these lines will say, “Oh, no! that is too presumptuous;” but why not? Infinite Wisdom did not make one law for Joshua and Daniel and Peter and John, and another for us; and that we do not is no proof that we can not use the same law; and so far as we have apprehended the truth, we find that just in proportion to our faithful loyalty to the best we know do we prove our power to demonstrate, as well as to catch glimpses and revelations of truths that in the first stages of our progress we could not have comprehended at all, and in each stage of progress we find more and more practical good.
While reasoning on the sense plane alone, no matter how lofty the intellect may be on that plane, we come to a point where the line is so sharply defined between sense perception and what is beyond, that we can go no further by seeing with the eyes or hearing with the ears; and yet we know there are heights to reach, and something within us urges us to find the path that leads higher, and we find it in the silence alone with the great spirit of Intelligence, and like Peter we would know that flesh and blood did not reveal it to us, and though we might explain it in every detail to others, it would not be a revelation to them; and whether we call it inspiration, revelation, or whatever it matters not, all we have to do is to open the door and let it in, and then obey its promptings.
Chapter 8 – The Power of Words
We have all our lives been in the habit of thinking and speaking without any conception of the fact that our words bear fruit.
One of the prophets speaks of the “Fruit of the lips,” and our words and thoughts, which come forth from our beliefs and opinions, must and do bear fruit that accords with their character. How little we have realized the literal truth of the statement that every idle word or thought must be accounted for.
In the study of mind and its powers we find those statements are literally true.
The words we speak attract invisible forces that are of their kind, and are apt to return to us, but do not return void; they bring a blessing or a curse, according to the words we have spoken.
If people think ill of us it is very likely our own opinion of someone else thrust back upon us.
If we love our neighbor, the neighbor almost invariably loves us; but if we send out scorn and hatred we get the same in return.
We are responsible for our thoughts and words, therefore responsible for the conditions we suffer.
The great Teacher said: “According to thy word be it unto thee.” And if we continue to acknowledge weakness we can never realize strength; if we say, “I am sick,” we have made a statement adverse to health or wholeness, and we attract the forces that are opposed to health; in other words we make a covenant with death, and the life-giving powers are shut out or turned away “according to our word.”
If I say I am poor or unfortunate, I shut the door upon the prosperity I desire. Success and prosperity never find a congenial home with one who is always complaining of poverty, bad luck and adversity.
Health and strength never come to the one who loves to talk continually about his miserable health and terrible weakness. Health is health and it cannot be qualified. Health is God and there is no such thing as miserable health or poor health, as so many claim.
Now we want to understand that we attract that which we believe in, and think and talk about most. If our conversation and our minds are continually calling up the miseries we would like to avoid, we attract the miseries and will attract them as long as we fellowship with them, believe in them, and fear them.
In the Gospel of Christ we read, “By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.”
To talk and dwell upon the adverse side of things we shall be condemned to suffer adversity, and if we claim the very highest and best understandingly, we are justified and blessed with that which satisfies.
A great mistake that is accepted and endorsed by popular sentiment is the fear of presumption.
We are afraid to claim so much, even when it is offered as a divine gift. It seems like presumption.
Such spurious humility is the offspring of the ‘unworthy worm’ doctrine, and we want to consign it to the shades of oblivion if we ever expect to rise above that basest of all human weaknesses, fear, and thus let the dominant God-like qualities have control.
We are afraid of the opinions of men, afraid of the disapproval of friends, afraid of being thought queer, and afraid of presuming.
How many times Jesus said to his followers and disciples “Fear not,” “be not afraid.” We find the only remedy for fear is to convince the conscious mind that there is no power but the good, therefore there is nothing to fear, and as soon as we realize the truth of the matter we are no longer afraid.
We should be ashamed to profess to believe in the teaching of the Christ, and then be afraid to follow it.
It is by His teaching more than any other external means that we get the clearest evidence of our powers, as well as the clearest instruction for making them practical.
He gave us to understand that our inherited powers were in every way equal to His, and that we should do greater works than He did. Of course He referred to such as would be sufficiently consistent and faithful as to reach that state of consciousness He had reached.
When He said, “Where I am there ye may be also,” He did not mean a place or locality, but a state of conscious understanding of those divine possibilities; and the “many mansions” evidently means the many and various planes of consciousness; and when we reach the exalted plane of understanding that He had reached, “There we may be also.”
He made the terms by which we should reach that plane. He said, “If a man keep My sayings,” and, He that believeth on Me,” and, “If ye abide in My word;” and various promises were given to such as would comply with the terms He offered.
To understand the spirit of His teaching is to clear away the darkness and doubt that has hung so long over the would-be followers of the Gospel because of the tendency to sectarianism.
Each sect that springs up must plant some dogma that demands a following, and the dogma must be watered and nourished by the credulous followers.
All have their followers, some more, some less, and the more closely they follow sectarian lines, the further they go from the real eassence of the Gospel, and the less attention is given to the practical saving truths of the Christ teaching.
Where do we find a sect that accomplishes the works that true followers were to be known by?
Read the last four verses of the Gospel of Mark, beginning with “And these signs shall follow them that believe.”
Now, if we believe the Gospel of Christ to be true, let us be consistent, and let all that conflicts with the teaching be cast aside as worthless.
Even among the more progressive clergymen, formerly of strictly sectarian sentiments, many have foreseen and acknowledged as a firm conviction the belief that sectarian lines must very soon be wiped out. The signs of the times point clearly that way, all of which agrees with prophecy.
The Prophet of Nazareth said, “Every plant that My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”
Every creed that constitutes and embraces the tenets of any sect of Christendom is a production of human judgment, based upon an intellectual conception of Scripture, and often prompted by pride of intellect and an ambition to stand at the head of some great movement. The very fact that the various creeds differ so widely and yet claim to follow the same Gospel is the best evidence we could have of their unrighteous character.
Truths never disagree. No two statements of truth can by any possibility conflict, so of course where there is a disagreement there is something wrong.
The various sects that spring up from time to time are not the result of a revelation of some great principle to some favored soul, as their followers vainly suppose, but rather an outgrowth of contentions, discussions and human ambition to rule, as before stated, and whoever unites with any sect must of necessity endorse the tenets established by the sect, thus submitting to the guidance of human judgment.
The Christ said: “In vain do they worship Me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
The Christ said: “In vain do they worship Me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
No matter how old and apparently respectable a sect or creed may be in the judgment of men, if it is not born of righteousness and truth it cannot stand, and must be rooted up sooner or later according to the decree, because it stands in the way, obstructs the true light, and is a hindrance to spiritual growth with all concerned.
No matter how much learning our clergyman may have acquired in the great institutions of the world, no matter how many degrees he may have taken, nor with how much pride he may feel that he towers high above the average scholar intellectually, the most he knows is bought at second hand, while deep down in his own soul he may be starving for the very bread of life, which can never be found by studying the opinions of men.
He believes a great many things because they have been written by great men, but he KNOWS absolutely nothing of his own inherent powers and possibilities. He would not dare to even believe he possessed them because those great men said nothing about them, and they stood very high as authority.
Such are the men that Paul speaks of. He said: “They are ever learning but never come to a knowledge of the truth.”
We have no intention of speaking unkindly nor in the spirit of condemnation, but hoping to help those creed-bound souls to see the way out of bondage, we aim to treat the subject with honest candor and not cover up the errors we would hope to correct.
It is well known that while thousands of good people are perfectly oblivious of this spiritual wave that is so clearly expressed in the soul’s growth in individual cases, the leaven is working and spreading and eventually all, who are not so coated over by some ironclad creed that is impervious to any impression, will catch the ideas with which the very atmosphere is already vibrating, and will find themselves unable to resist the prompting to embark in a cause that confidently claims Eternal Truth for its cornerstone, and Wisdom and Love for its foundation.
The words of truth (spoken and written) that have been promulgated by the various workers in the Metaphysical field have not been sent forth in vain, as many have testified.
It is well known by thousands of honest earnest souls that our thoughts, beliefs and opinions go out in vibrations that carry an influence corresponding to their character, thus proving the importance of correct mental training.
When we speak of the powers and possibilities of man we wish to be understood that all power is of the mind, hence the need of mental discipline by which the soul powers unfold and are revealed to the consciousness; whereas, without the discipline, we are rarely conscious of anything higher than what we acquire through the five physical senses, and we grovel in ignorance and limitation, unsatisfied and discontented, subject to misfortune, sickness, poverty and death; while one who understands why he need not succumb to sickness and adversity will hold the reins with a steady hand, confident of his powers to solve every problem.
He will never say “I can’t.” He will attract health and prosperity by his confident trust in the Law that he knows will respond to his word.
There are too many assurances of these powers (both by ancient and modern writers) for even those who depend solely upon such authority to doubt; and how much more satisfactory to be able to prove it by demonstration.
In praise and thanksgiving the Psalmist said: “Thou gavest him dominion over ALL things, and hast put all things under his feet.
Chapter 9 – Materiality, Intellectuality and Spirituality
Every one stands on one of those three planes of consciousness.
What we mean by materiality is the tendency of men to live solely on the plane of sense, who see or realize nothing higher than the objective world around them, and care for nothing that does not minister to the lusts of the flesh, and can see neither reason nor logic in anything of a higher nature, but willing to grovel on the animal plane to the end.
With such everything is accounted for from the material basis, and viewed from the standpoint of materiality; men on that plane are slow to believe or admit anything they cannot see with the eyes or handle with their hands.
We are all familiar with cases of this character, which we place on the animal plane or Adam consciousness.
One step higher on the scale of conscious growth is the intellectual or mental plane, the plane on which we reason, calculate and speculate as to the why and wherefore of things we see and hear, the plane on which the human intellect holds the reins, and assumes to know because it can see, where egotism and pride of intellect arrogate to themselves supreme authority, and make so many blunders and meet with so many disappointments and failures, where pride and ambition blinds and clouds the judgment, and where human smartness presumes to outweigh Divine wisdom, the plane from which one judges of the ability and measures the capacity of his neighbor, and judges his motives, criticizes his methods and condemns his failures.
From the intellectual plane the judgment sees no reform for the wrong doer, except in fines, in punishments and prisons, or in working out the penalty of his wrongdoing under the lash of cruelty, disgrace and ostracism that stings and smarts till every spark of manhood is turned to bitterness and hatred, and all confidence in human sympathy is destroyed.
This is no exaggerated picture, but is true to the letter, and all because of the mighty intellects that enact laws to accord with their short-sighted conceptions of righteous judgment – laws that say “Thou shalt not.”
Such are the fruits of intellectual superiority (so called), where no recognition is given, no acknowledgment and no appeal made to a higher source of wisdom and intelligence, but a host of arguments offered to prove the wisdom of man superior to any such transcendental ideas as making divine law to work in the government of men.
In this way of dispensing justice there is no loosing the bands of wickedness; no letting the oppressed go free, nor breaking the yoke of bondage; but rather a forging of heavier chains and tightening the band of wickedness.
Clearly, this intellectual plane is not the ideal plane of power and peace combined.
The intellect of man is a great blessing or a great curse, just as he sees fit to make it.
One who is endowed with what is called a superior mind has greater responsibilities than the one who never rises above the animal plane; and if he perverts his powers of mind, abuses his talent, and neglects to recognize the source of his powers, he sooner or later suffers a greater and more grievous penalty for that neglect than the one who claims or realizes less intelligence.
It is said in the Gospel of Christ that whosoever would become as a little child, would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Of course it means to be child-like, innocent and teachable; drop all pride of intellect and seek unfoldment from within, and be taught of the spirit.
Then is the kingdom of heaven established in that soul.
It is a great mistake to suppose that intellectual superiority and pride of intellect alone will establish peace and satisfaction; but let the intellectual powers be acknowledged as the gift of God, and used as a sacred trust that must not be degraded by sordid ambition, and it can be made a power for good, and a blessing to the one so gifted.
It can be made a stepping stone to the higher spiritual plane if divine wisdom is allowed to guide it.
The plane of Spirituality is the one so clearly taught by the Master, and so clearly designed to establish the reign of peace on earth and good will to men.
The Gospel dispensation has been supposed to be in force for more than eighteen hundred years, but how has it been dispensed?
Has there been peace on earth and good will to men among those who claim to follow the Gospel teaching?
How easily the reputed followers of the Gospel dispensation have fallen into the ways and practices of the old, and how eagerly they take refuge from criticism and condemnation by quoting from “Holy Writ” the old Mosaic law.
How many and grievous have been the wars by which it was expected to establish the new order of things, and how inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel.
What tortures and terrors the seekers for truth have endured at the hands of those who claim to follow the Christ, and how many have suffered scorn and ostracism because they were not willing to endorse the creeds and dogmas that have been misnamed Christianity; and while the traditions of men are given supreme authority in matters of religion it will ever be so.
The Master said: “In vain do ye worship me while teaching for doctrine the commandments of men.”
How strange that it should have taken the Christian world over eighteen hundred years of study and experience to discover the inconsistency of preaching a Gospel of peace, and then trying to perpetuate it by the sword; or demanding that divisions and sectarian lines should separate what might otherwise have been a harmonious flock.
The endeavor of the Master was clearly to unite all in one body.
In the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John He says: “Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: THEM also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.”
Sectarian lines must be broken before this can be accomplished and before peace and good will can be established.
Happily for the lovers of truth, popular opinion is rapidly turning toward a higher and more consistent view of the Gospel, and a higher plane of consciousness is dawning upon many souls who have heretofore stumbled in darkness.
We should consider it a great privilege to have lived in this wonderful nineteenth century, in which the most marvelous spiritual unfoldment has come to many, and is only waiting for the windows of the soul to be opened in every individual case.
The creeds and dogmas that darken the soul, must give place to the spirit of truth, before any conscious illumination can be manifest or experienced.
The false idea of wickedness and depravity has made us afraid to claim the inheritance we most desire, and we have tried to believe that humility consisted of self-condemnation and admissions of depravity, while deep down in our hearts we didn’t believe any such thing, but we thought we were serving God by obeying the traditions of men, and yet never satisfied with the idea.
Still we allowed those mistaken ideas to bind us to the practical side of the gospel of peace.
We allowed ourselves to accept the dogmas that placed the benefits of the Gospel beyond the grave, thus overlooking the most explicit instruction of the Master, regarding the NOW, overlooking the fact that every lesson He taught was to apply to the life here and now, and not a word about dying or preparing to die.
The whole mission of Jesus is briefly stated in His answer to Pilate when questioned regarding His intention to become king of the Jews.
He said: “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witness to the truth.”
A great deal is embraced in that answer to Pilate.
To bear witness of truth as He bore witness, must embrace all that could by any possibility rank as divine principle, and the practical manner of making it serve us.
It embraced the truth of man’s being, the truth regarding the powers of mind, and the righteous exercise of those powers.
He recognized no kingdom but the kingdom of God; and He said that kingdom was within every soul.
“Say not lo here, or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you.”
“Say not lo here, or lo there, for behold the kingdom of God is within you.”
When man discovers and fully realizes his sonship, he knows that in the very essence of his being he is ruler in his kingdom; he does not have to depend upon human counsel from without; he is born of the Spirit, and he knows that if he keeps the peace within that all will be harmony in his kingdom; he will recognize nothing less – no wars, no dissensions, but a fearless bearing aloft the banner of peace and good will.
In this kingdom of peace Paul said, “The weapons of our warfare are not CARNAL, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.”
Truth, either thought or spoken, is the mighty weapon, and the only weapon that will pull down the strongholds of error.
The Gospel dispensation is clearly intended to establish confidence in the fact that every soul has latent within it, the same powers and possibilities that were so marvelously manifest in the Nazarene, and that every soul bears the same relation to the Father that He did, that we are all sons of God, and equal heirs with the Christ.
With a conscious recognition of this fact, and the full realization of its import, every faculty of the soul begins to unfold. Grander, higher and mightier truths dawn upon the consciousness daily.
To realize what being is, is to set the powers of mind to work as none can do without that realization.
Man is spiritual, because he is the offspring of pure spirit. Every power he receives from the Father is spiritual, and every power imparted to him from the Father is spiritual, and by those powers he makes manifest the gifts that may be externalized according to his decree, whether of the mind or in objective form.
The man of flesh is but the representative of the real man, and as God is the Father of the real, the spiritual man, we can readily understand what Jesus meant when He said: “Call no man upon earth your Father.”
He did not say God is my Father and not yours, but He said, “OUR Father,” and it is in the oneness which He taught so clearly that we are helped to realize more fully what true being is.
In this one very important point we have always missed the mark of our high calling; it has been the one great stumbling stone and rock of offense.
We have been told so much about our sinfulness and depravity that we have not dared to think of being sons of God.
We have often failed in our doing, because we have always attempted to do from a wrong standpoint of being.
With a pure foundation in being we are conscious of our powers, and can succeed in our doing because we go about it with confidence and certainty of results.
How long and how strangely the world has gone on trying to follow the Gospel dispensation blindly, neither understanding the principle of life nor the way of life, yet vaguely conscious of its glory, its grandeur and its power.
We have overlooked the very essence of the Gospel; overlooked the very thing that made it a saving Gospel; but in this nineteenth century awakening to the spirit of it we are made conscious of our divinity, and with a permanent unbroken realization of our inherited powers and dominion, we shall rejoice in the freedom continually and also radiate, give forth and dispense the same to others.
As sons of God we are to express those divine and changeless principles, Life, Love, Truth, Wisdom, Power, etc., that radiate continually from the Father, and that we in our turn must give forth.
The supply can never be exhausted, and the more we give out the more we receive.
The Master said, “I come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
The more abundant life consists in knowing what true being is, and knowing that the source of life never ceases to flow abundantly.
His teaching was of the spiritual law, and the way of making it available in every condition of life here and now, and also of our ability to know what He knew, and do the works He did.
There is a life-giving quality in the very contemplation of this law of our being when comprehended, and it is the knowledge of this truth that makes us free.
We have been in bondage to falsity all our lives, or as long as we followed the ways of ignorance and darkness, and now let us rejoice in the freedom that comes of knowing what is true.
It is of far greater value than all the learning of the schools, because it quickens the judgment and makes learning an easy matter.
Chapter 10 – Believing VS. Knowing
Among the many wise admonitions of Solomon he said: “Wisdom is the principle thing, therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting, get understanding.”
To understand the truth of BEING is the beginning of wisdom, and is comparatively a new study, but is found to be the most important thing to know, in order to reach a harmonious and satisfactory solution of the life problem.
We find there are mighty principles and powers involved in the study of Life and Being as a science.
There is also much to remember, and much repetition is required to establish a firm and lasting comprehension of those principles which have been so long neglected in the education of the human intellect, and the unfoldment of the soul.
Our latent powers and possibilities are not even hinted at in the popular methods of education (religious or otherwise), much less explained or understood.
So much dependence has been placed in the opinions of men, and in the time honored traditions of the past, that there is, to the average student, such a wholesale demolishing of old false ideas that have sometimes been very tenderly cherished and believed in as truth, that great firmness and decision of character is needed to enable one to turn the divine law to account in the solution of the life problem.
It must be understood that every sentiment, and every statement of truth in the “Science of Mind,” should be based upon the statement of Being, which admits of nothing evil in the realm of reality, and only recognizes the omnipresent good as reality.
The good which is God is omnipotent, which statement is in itself a denial of any power other than the God power, which is good; therefore the rejection or denial of any power of evil is recommended as a means of self-discipline, and to obliterate such false ideas and impressions from the conscious mind as have been held as truth for ages.
As all evil in appearance has its root in some false idea, it must by its very nature be false and ungodly in itself; therefore we consider that all evil and its effects may be made null and void by understanding its powerlessness and unreal character.
Paul’s advice to Timothy is just as good for us as it was for Timothy. He said: “Deny all ungodliness,” and we consider it a very important first step in mental discipline to convince the mind of the truth of Being, and then reject all that does not accord with that truth, which is a process of correction, cleansing, making chaste on the plane of conscious thinking; driving out the false and impure ideas that false education, prejudice and the opinions of the world have made.
It is a well known fact that the whole world is laboring and struggling under the belief in limitation on every hand, and we are all conscious of the fact that false ideas of religion, of morality, and of philanthropy, have been thrust upon us all our lives, and these are what we desire to correct.
Every false idea or statement we have believed in is a seed planted for evil fruiting, but when convinced of its falsity we begin the rooting up process by rejecting the falsity.
“Every plant that my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up,” said the Master; so we want to root out all the false impressions and ideas that have been planted in the mind while we were ignorant of what is true.
It has not been our habit in the past to study or know anything, or very little, of the relation between mind and body, or the effect of conscious thinking upon circumstances and environments.
Our ideas, opinions and beliefs find expression in words and deeds that correspond to our beliefs and opinions. Even the unspoken word or thought tends to make itself manifest according to its character – as Solomon said of man, “As he thinketh in his heart so is he.”
This saying applies equally to mind or body, as the body is but the external expression of the states of mind, and in a great degree changes its expression with every emotion of the mind.
We have never been taught that the delicate structure of our anatomy is constantly played upon by the varying emotions and moods of the mind, and that every organ and function is at the mercy of our moods and tempers; nor that our moods and tempers are harmonious or discordant according to our opinions and beliefs; but such are the facts, and it is time for the world to profit by the scientific experiments that prove these statements true.
When we consider that every nerve, every vein, artery, gland, muscle or organ, in fact every fiber of the human structure represents some principle of divinity, we should be able to see how essential it is that we live, think and act in harmony with divine law. Every false idea, word or belief starts a vibration that jars and disturbs the harmony of every function just in proportion to its character. To be thoroughly consistent we should never voice a word or sentiment that is not in harmony with divine perfection. Our words and our thoughts are our weapons, and it is for us to see that they are not carnal weapons.
In speaking to the early Christians, before the teaching of the Christ had become corrupted, and all were earnest, sincere, and efficient in the work of healing and demonstrating over evil, Paul said, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty, to the pulling down of strongholds.”
It is the strongholds of error we are to pull down by righteous thinking, speaking and doing.
We should never give expression to anticipations of adversity, misfortune, or evil happenings, lest we attract the forces that make such conditions manifest. Every such thought, word, or fear is a seed planted for evil fruiting.
We should understand that the law of harmony tends always to harmonious conditions, and will never disappoint us unless by perversion we turn it against us, or rather we cross the path of the righteous law and it brings disaster, but the fault is not in the law, it is ignorance or perversity, or both combined, that is the cause of all evil happenings.
Suspicion and distrust toward a neighbor or servant tends to suggest the very thing you fear. People are made dishonest in many instances by the suspicion held over them, which amounts to a continual mental suggestion, till they finally yield to the suggestion, all the time ignorant of its source.
The ways of the world and the habits of the times have seemed to make it necessary for us to lock our doors, and keep our valuables under double lock and key sometimes, and even then wonder if our effects are safe from the cupidity of some cunning thief, all the time ignorant of the effect or tendency of such suspicion, and yet all the time noting the increase of dishonesty, and the increased need of precaution, until honesty is scarcely believed in as a possible thing, even among our supposed friends.
An amusing incident in our own experience serves as an apt illustration of the effect of habitual distrust.
Not long since we were invited to spend an evening where the daughter of a retired missionary was one of the guests. She was born and lived about twenty-five years in Zululand, where her father was located as missionary to the Zulu heathen.
By request she sang some of the Zulu songs in their native language, playing her own accompaniments on the piano; after which she gave an account of her life, and some of their experiences among the natives, in which she very innocently said that they had been among the natives ten or twelve years’ before they found it necessary to lock their doors, or keep their store-house of supplies under lock and key; but finally the natives began to steal and they found it necessary to lock things up, while previous to the advent of a missionary among them such a thing as theft was unknown.
Of course the recital produced a general laugh from the company, in which she joined good-naturedly, although somewhat confused as the inference dawned upon her.
We are ALL guilty of similar errors in one way or another; no one can say “It isn’t I.” No, not one, but we are learning a better way, and even with the knowledge we have, if faithful to it, we can, and should set the seal of protection over our homes, and over our property and personal effects, and know that by so doing we can trust the law. “The Lord (the Law) is my refuge, protector and defense,” then of whom or of what shall I be afraid?
Suspicion and worry blinds us to the rich blessings at our very doors, which are ignorantly closed against them.
The same principle applies to the question of health. To be continually anticipating a disastrous result from what we eat, and from what we drink, and from the supposed unwholesome atmosphere in which we live, and from the prevailing epidemic or contagion, is to open the door, let it in, and give it control.
It has seemed to be the right thing to do, to be on the lookout for such calamities and then use the precaution.
Solomon said, “There is a way that seemeth right to man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.”
He knew that the ways of the mortal were disappointing, and that by those mistaken ideas they produce the very thing they wish to avoid, and then call it a dispensation of Providence.
Carnal ways and sordid desires have always seemed to men the way to gain satisfaction, but they always find death at the end.
That which is called death is simply a culmination of all the errors of the world of sense. All error tends downward, and death is the ultimate, the last act in the drama of falsity.
On the other hand, the ways of knowledge and of understanding tend to life, and “more abundant life,” according to the Gospel of Christ, meaning that by living consistent with the teaching of that Gospel, the life-giving principle would be more consciously and more continually realized, and there would be no tendency deathward. He even said “If a man keep my sayings he shall never see death.”
He said, “My words are Spirit, and they are life.” So, if we keep His sayings and His words with understanding, our words are Spirit and life also.
Do we believe His words and His admonitions, or are we afraid to follow them?
From all accounts we are bound to consider the Christ as the only One who was always and on all occasions in a state of illumination and oneness with divine principle; hence always ready for every emergency, and always able to demonstrate over every difficulty, as no other prophet has done.
Those prophets who foretold His coming (although they were called the “Holy men of Israel”) were not always inspired; their greatest illumination seemed to be confined to the gift of seeing and foretelling what was to come at some future time, and the powers that would be manifest in the coming Messiah; but seemed to have no conception of the unchangeable laws of God, that are yesterday, today and forever the same, and that could and would have given them the same unbroken and constant illumination and power that was so marvelously manifest in the Messiah, had they only known it; and yet in moments of great illumination, inspired words of great power poured forth bearing an eloquence, influence and potency second to none, and we find those inspired sayings when understood just as potent in the demonstration of truth as the words of Jesus, because they are inspired by the same deathless principle, and have the same life-giving quality.
Many of the songs of David contain the same wonderful healing potency, because they are inspired by the same spirit.
The 23rd Psalm when deliberately analyzed, and the affirmative statements realized in Spirit, makes a beautiful, powerful and harmonizing subject for meditation; and the 91st Psalm, to one who can read between the lines understandingly, contains the very essence of scientific demonstration by divine law.
Many of the other Psalms have the same quality in a degree only; while those of a complaining condemnatory character were evidently the production of a sourced state of mind, and lacked the inspiration that characterizes those more spiritual ones.
We have been too prone to think of those writers of Scriptures as being altogether so different from ordinary mortals, that we have read the Bible with our reason steeled against the very thought of using our judgment, because we have been taught that criticism of the sacred Scriptures was infamous, and almost or quite unpardonable; but we find that the spirit of the times demands the investigation of things that have heretofore been veiled by superstition and priestcraft; and now, even the orthodox clergy are taking liberties with the Bible.
All these innovations are tending rapidly to break down sectarian lines and establish a unity of faith, but as long as dogmatism reigns, and people persist in declaring, “My ‘doxy is orthodox, and your ‘doxy is heterodox,” it will not be accomplished. However, the leaven is working, but how long it will take to establish the desired unity no one can tell.
As long as sectarian lines are drawn so close the unfoldment to the Christ within can never be accomplished except in individual cases, while the aim and hope of this metaphysical movement is that all may know truth from the least to the greatest, and that the kingdom of heaven, that the Master taught us to pray for, may be actually established on the earth, and the millennial kingdom cease to be considered a myth, and be proved an actual reality.
Could some earnest, luminous soul pierce the veil that hides the secret of delay from ordinary mortals, and cast out the devil of selfish ambition that urges so many to seek leadership regardless of their fitness either morally, intellectually or spiritually, we might hope for a more speedy union of forces that would hasten the day of peace and good will; but with here a clique and there a clique and each one saying we are right and you are wrong, the day of salvation from error is still put off, and many hungry souls are afraid to enter the ranks because they see no better evidence, notwithstanding the claims that are made by each faction.
So many who think they have solved the problem of health (and HAVE, for a time at least), seem to think they have the whole of truth, while in reality that is only the first step; a very important step, we admit, and absolutely essential as a beginning, but not by any means the place to stop and say: “I have it all.”
There are higher problems to solve than the health problem; indeed there will be heights to reach through all eternity.
Let no one be deceived by the conceit that he knows it all.
It is true that perfect health is the manifestation of the divinity within, even when the subject is unconscious of that divinity. The sickly individual is always lacking in the dominant qualities that are God-like.
The students of divinity are today as helpless and despairing when bodily afflictions overtake them as the most ignorant man that lives, and have no more trust in the law of God as a healing power than the most pronounced atheist; and yet many such are already beginning to seek for higher knowledge, and reinforcements are daily added to the ranks of earnest “Students of Truth,” which name embraces all who love truth over and above dogmatism, knowing that all truth is Godly.”
Chapter 11 – What is Infidelity
Infidelity is defined to mean a disbelief in the Scriptures, in divine revelation, and in Christianity as a divine institution.
Any skeptic, freethinker, or unbeliever, is classed as an infidel by the average orthodox churchman.
Agnostics also are placed in the same category, but unjustly so.
The agnostic is honest in the admission that he doesn’t know, and he will neither affirm nor deny the existence of a Supreme Being; nor will he accept the dogmatic assertion of any one who claims to know, whether it be a religionist or atheist.
Every shade of disloyalty to orthodoxy has been labeled Infidelity. We often hear it said: “Oh, so-and-so doesn’t believe anything; he is an infidel.” He may be a man of acknowledged integrity and moral excellence; he may have all the virtues and a spotless character; it apparently all goes for nothing if he is an unbeliever.
Freethinking is the crime of all crimes in the eyes of so-called orthodoxy; but the views of thinking people are broadening, and the world is fast becoming a freethinking world. Creeds and dogmas have had their day.
The eyes of society are being opened to see why Infidelity, so called, has become so general among the soundest reasoning minds in nearly every community where people are educated to keep in touch with the progressive thought of the age.
The time has passed that intelligent men and women will submit to dictation in the matter of religious belief and opinion; and it is just and right for every one to claim the freedom to reason and think for himself, and do so in a way that will command respect and silence the senseless condemnation and criticism so freely heaped upon those who dare to deviate from the traditional ruts established by priestcraft.
This is a progressive age, and the spirit of progress is apparent in almost every phase of human experience, and in every line of human endeavor, unless we may accept the strictly sectarian religious bodies, where the minds are fettered by tradition, and held in bondage by priestly authority.
All observing people are convinced by unmistakable evidence that nine-tenths of those submissive souls, if honest, would admit the dissatisfaction existing among them; and also that the interest in the churches could never be maintained but for the tact, policy, and constant hard work of the credulous women who seem willing to be fettered, and willing to submit to the decress of the church.
They seem oblivious to the fact that spiritual growth is as necessary to the welfare of the soul as nourishment is to the body; and that there can be no growth nor unfoldment where men submit to a veto being placed upon freedom of thought. Without this freedom there is sure degeneracy of the intellectual powers, just as there is loss of strength to the muscles of the arm when deprived of the freedom to use it.
Another fruitful cause for skepticism is in the spasmodic character of modern Christianity.
The sober, reasoning classes lose confidence in the religious teaching because it lacks permanence in its results.
That emotional, spasmodic religion bears fruit after its kind; and the good it seems to do for a time lacks the sturdy quality that a more scientific study of principles would give.
Were the Gospel of Christ taught in its simplicity and purity, there should be more visible and permanent manifestation of its influence for good.
The effort and money expended for its promulgation is out of all promotion to the results obtains.
[Were the Gospel of Christ taught in its simplicity and purity, there should be more visible and permanent manifestation of its influence for good.
The effort and money expended for its promulgation is out of all proportion to the results obtained.]
There are many sides of the question, all of which go to prove the decay of what has been named orthodoxy, and the increase in skepticism, which they are pleased to label Infidelity.
We are indebted to a Protestant clergyman of New York for some very significant statistics on the subject of what he terms “the failure of Protestantism in America.” He says:
“In one of the Methodist conferences in New York, including several suburban churches, was a recent report (November, 1896), of 17,000 members in the 86 churches belonging to that conference which gave yearly $550,000 on an invested capital of $4,100,000, and there was a gain of only 241 members in the year in all of the 86 churches combined.”
With these items before us, it seems like a very slow and expensive process for the accomplishment of so little.
The money is given because it is demanded by the society, and because the fine churches must be built, and the clergy must be supported regardless of the outcome.
These items are mentioned not so much in the spirit of condemnation as to give the reasons for the growth of skepticism, and the lack of confidence in church methods.
All these facts loom up as proof that the signs do not follow; and if men of sound judgment give it a thought at all, it is to the effect that modern Christianity is a failure; and they earn the reputation of being infidels – while they may be as hungry for a more consistent faith as any one, and as willing to contribute to its support. Such men would rather be considered infidels than hypocrites.
Fifty years ago it required more courage than the average man possessed to openly declare his honest convictions if they happened to disagree with the dogmas then so universally considered orthodox.
To be orthodox was looked upon as a sufficient passport into heaven – the orthodox heaven – where the streets were supposed to be paved with gold, and the gates were studded with diamonds and precious gems, and the angelic bands were playing on real golden harps, etc.
Such has been the orthodox conception of heaven, and it was considered the correct thing to be orthodox.
Orthodoxy is defined to mean that which is correct, or sound in doctrine.
Have those ideas ever been proved correct, or their soundness demonstrated?
To prove any ideas or statements sound or correct, we have to go back to first principles and study the law of expression.
Cause and its effect must agree; but in those dogmas they do not harmonize, therefore cannot be proved correct. Reason is a divine gift, and when so acknowledged we need not be misled by false arguments.
Knowledge of true principles, and the law of expression, silences all controversy, which is always unprofitable and rarely ends in harmony. The old couplet says: “To be convinced against his will,
He’s of the same opinion still.” The unsatisfied longing of souls to know the truth of Being is the very thing that gave much impetus to the study of life and its laws along metaphysical lines; and whether we call it religion, philosophy, or science, it makes no difference; it is truth we are after, and since we have learned that truth is God, we find God to be impersonal principle.
Every reasoning mind is naturally endowed with three phases or means of enlightenment: the philosophical, the scientific and the religious.
The philosophical is that phase of conscious mind that reasons wholly from an intellectual standpoint, before any intuitive perception of truth is reached, and yet may have a clear intellectual perception as to how principles work, and by pursuing a correct line of reasoning he finds he can prove things in such logical manner as to call it scientific, and he has reached the scientific stage by philosophical reasons based upon truth, and as truth is God, and religion is what unites us consciously with God, he finds philosophy, science and religion inseparable.
It is the very nature of the human soul to be religious; not as religion has been taught and understood perhaps, but the aspiration to know the way of life, and the reaching out for that which will satisfy the aspiration, is common to every soul; but the satisfaction is never realized while we follow the mistaken ways that are marked out by superstition and false theologies, which have too long been allowed to check and smother our highest aspirations.
The man who is called an infidel has the same desires and aspirations that others have; and while his conceptions of God and eternity may not be the same, he believes in life, truth, love, wisdom, etc., and in so believing he believes in God, whether he knows it or not. He loves peace, joy, power, intelligence, etc., and in so doing he loves God, whether he knows it or not.
And now we have destroyed the infidel and given him his place as the son of God, which we all are, whether we know it or not.
A few words regarding Agnosticism and we will turn our attention to a more profitable and harmonious theme.
The Gnostic is one who KNOWS, and the Agnostic is one who doesn’t know.
We are proving daily the possibility of knowing the truth of man’s being while still in the flesh, and on this visible plane of existence; and also confident of the ability to go on and on, higher and higher in knowledge of things divinely true. But that knowing depends.
It is not those who make the loudest claims, and the most ostentatious display of egotism, who have the genuine knowledge. Not by any means, but the quiet, unpretentious soul that is given to much silent meditation is the one who woos the spirit of wisdom that imparts the actual knowledge that cannot be mistaken.
The genuine hunger and thirst for righteous knowledge is what opens the door to the full blaze of glory which reveals the things that are hidden from the more sordid souls, who live too largely in externals.
Formality and ostentation have never satisfied the hunger for knowledge, nor opened the way for any one to realize the truth of being; and until that problem is solved, genuine satisfaction and real peace of mind will not come to any reasoning soul.
The agnostic is blamed, condemned and often ostracized among religous people because he refuses to accept what they believe, even when he sees no evidence of a satisfied mind among them; nor any manifestation of peace and harmony even with those who presume to teach the way of truth; and it is but natural for reasoning minds to conclude that such have not yet found the righteous way.
It is written “By their fruits ye shall know them,” which is equivalent to saying: Judge for yourself by the evidence you have of the quality or result of any fruit bearing system of ethics or religion.
The fruit is the outcome or result of the influence of that system; and you are to judge the character of the system by the quality of the fruits, and lo, you become a free-thinker.
Now charity and brotherly love are the fruits of the spirit; and a full acknowledgment of the Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man by all Christendom would do away with skepticism and divisions, and inaugurate a reign of peace and good will, and the brotherly love that constitutes the true religion that is acceptable to all, when there will be no Jew, no Greek, no pagan and no infidel or agnostic – but all one in the knowledge and spirit of truth.
Chapter 12 – Why Are We Sick?
The question of health and healing still holds its place among the various inquiring souls who want to know the why and wherefore of disease, and the way to avoid it.
No one wants to be sick, and if there is a way that health can be assured it must be right, because health is Godly, and sickness is in the highest degree ungodly.
While we consider this a most important phase of the life problem, we cannot refrain from warning the reader against the continued depending upon someone else to heal them. To have permanent health one needs to know the law of health for himself, and then be true to the law. One who continues to scorn the teaching because of the popular sentiment against it, or any other reason, will find that sooner or later he cannot be healed by another; and only by embracing the truth can the truth be made to serve him.
Truth is a “jealous God,” and will not divide honors with error. Or rather, truth is inexorable and cannot divide honors, else it would not be truth.
We consider it wise to first know why the laws of mind can be made manifest in physical conditions, and what effect the emotions of the mind have upon the functions of the body. Let us understand that in the matter of health we are dealing with divine law, which is Lord over all.
It never turns to the right, nor to the left, to oblige those who entertain false ideas concerning it.
It never slumbers nor sleeps.
It is both inexorable and infallible; and by its infallibility the character of every mental state is mirrored in some way upon the body; sometimes it is quickly manifest, and sometimes the manifestation is tardy.
Because we do not see the effects of those mental states at once, they are forgotten, and no account is taken of them, and with many, even the suggestion of such mental cause in case of illness is treated with ridicule, simply because, to them, the physical cause is the only way to account for the physical condition, while we know that every bodily condition is due to some previous condition of the mind, PRIMARILY; even when the mental influence comes from other minds, it finds an open door; otherwise it would have no effect to disturb us.
Such mental influences that are the result of ages of falsity are handed down from generation to generation, producing many and varied discordant conditions, that have been accounted for in various ways, but always on the material plane.
It requires no great stretch of the imagination to realize (in a degree, at least) that the thousands of years of selfishness, sinfulness, jealousies, animosities, and the innumerable and varied morbid mental states that have been common among men for ages, should produce as varied and complicated physical conditions.
It has been demonstrated that one of the most prolific causes of very painful maladies is the deep impression produced by the belief (that once prevailed so generally) in the angry God and the burning hell.
The fear and terror that accompanies such belief has been stamped upon every soul born into the world for ages, and as long as those ideas are not obliterated, the physical body carries that impression, which is liable to crop out in some distressing and painful malady whenever circumstances seem to open the way for its manifestation.
Every false belief regarding God, Origin, First Cause, or whatever name we may give to Deity, involves a false belief regarding ourselves, our relation to God, and a false conception of the law of our being; all of which combined makes a false impression and builds bodily conditions that accord with those false ideas, and our ignorance of the matter makes no difference whatever with the result.
We may be (and have been generally) unconscious of any such causes for the ills that overtake us, but we are beginning to know more of the laws that govern conditions, and it is well for all to seek such knowledge; otherwise we have no conception of the way to avoid the various evil influences that beset us on the mortal side of life, as no one is exempt unless he does know.
False theologies, false theories and the various sophistries, build bodily conditions, as before stated, to correspond; and their unwholesome influence is felt in every nerve and tissue of the human body in proportion to the state of receptivity.
Wonderful experiments have been made, and are now being made, to discover the exact nature and character of the mental influences that many intelligent people are interested in of recent years, and those experiments have revealed many marvelous facts that will ere long be made public.
It was our privilege during the summer of 1897 to enjoy a long and very profitable conversation with an eminent scientist, Professor Elmer Gates of Washington, D.C., who took us through his extensive laboratory and explained the process by which he obtained the most positive and minute details in analyzing the breath, saliva, perspiration, and other emanations from different individuals in which he discovered a uniform color produced by anger in every experiment, and also another uniform color in different individuals produced by sorrow, another color produced by fear, etc., and each color when analyzed was found to contain a different poison.
In short, he has demonstrated the possibility of detecting the exact mental state of a patient by these experiments, and who shall say that we shall not some day detect them as accurately without any chemical aparatus?
Now it requires no argument to understand that those poisons, however minute in quantity, must be absorbed and distributed through the circulation to every organ and every part of the system, and its effects must be manifest sooner or later according to circumstances.
Think of the various complications that produce the various conditions mankind has to suffer!
We have mentioned but a few of the emotions that play upon the human anatomy continually – jealousy, envy, suspicion, malice, revenge, and many others; but those who know the law and are loyal to it have nothing to fear.
You may ask, “Is it any help to the mental healer to know the effect of all those emotions?”
No, not in detail; but it is well for the mental healer to know that any case he is called upon to treat may be healed more quickly by voicing a statement that would neutralize any such poisons.
To be closely associated with people whose emanations are of such character is not wholesome.
The avaricious nature, the sordid, grasping nature, the close, penurious, miserly nature, and many other characters emit a poisonous presence unconsciously.
Such are the unwholesome influences that we are continually exposed to, and if we allow it we may be sorely afflicted by them, and the physicians and friends would call it by various high sounding names, and have various theories regarding causes without the shadow of a hint of the real cause.
The question at the head of this chapter, “Why are we sick?” may be answered in a thousand ways; and in every way we should consider ourselves responsible.
As “ignorance of truth is the cause of all misery,” knowledge of truth is the remedy; therefore get knowledge.
We should know that the worries we indulge in are a fruitful cause of many ills; and as worry has never helped one out of difficulties let us cease to worry.
We cross the bridge before we get to it many times.
We meet the unpleasant duties more than half way.
We weary ourselves in advance, over some dreaded task, performing it mentally many times before the actual trial comes, and thus fritter away our strength and vitality as well as to dwarf the faculties of the soul and retard its unfoldment; all of which is expressed in some way physically. Spenser expressed the same in saying: For of the soul the body form doth take;
For soul is form, and doth the body make. Every function of the body is dependent upon the states of the mind, and every organ is dependent upon those functions, thus we see if the mind is tranquil, and at peace, the functions act harmoniously, and every organ will manifest health; always providing for outside influences by being fortified against anything of a disturbing nature.
We should be masters of every situation, and by understanding the law of our being and using the powers of mind wisely, we make null and void every mortal law that would otherwise master us.
Fear of any of those things opens the door and lets them in, thus proving a lack of understanding or lack of firmness and decision.
Any state of mind that lacks peace and harmony opens the door to some condition you do not want, and the body registers that condition.
You may be continually fortified and assured of peace and harmony by claiming your rightful inheritance. Be careful what you fellowship with. You are a magnet to attract whatever you believe in, and fellowship with most.
Chapter 13 – Demonstration
The subject of health is one which concerns every living soul, and that concern has been the cause of much speculation, and has prompted an endless variety of theories, schemes, inventions and systems for the restoration and perpetuation of health among the children of mortality.
Each scheme, plan or system has its advocates and followers, and all have to be tried by those who languish in ignorance of the true way of life and health. All have been found wanting; none are perfect.
The restless desire for something more satisfactory and practical has opened the way for many new innovations during the past century, and most of those innovations have been an improvement upon the older systems, notwithstanding the fact that the older the system, the more tenaciously it claims supremacy and holds the fort (to a certain extent) against anything that seems to threaten its overthrow.
Each system is built upon a foundation that cannot stand in the light of the present age, and many of the brightest lights among them are conscious of it, and honestly admit it.
The intelligence of the age and the spirit of investigation is rapidly turning the tide in the direction of metaphysical lines, and the powers of mind (heretofore scarcely dreamed of by the majority), are beginning to be appreciated.
The most progressive minds of the age are becoming interested in the study of man, with the understanding that man is something superior to flesh, blood and bones; and that the flesh, blood and bones simply serve as a means of expressing that which is within.
Now we all desire to express perfection as near as possible in externals, and the question is: How can it be done?
This body is clay in the hands of the potter. We are the potter, and we don’t want to put forth an unsightly vessel; and as previously stated, all depends upon our conscious states of mind.
Harmony is the law of the universe, and harmony of mind may be established in any case by the study of divine law, and when established is sure to be manifest in harmony of body.
Understand that harmony means perfect adjustment, perfect equilibrium; no friction, no discord, no conflict, and when that state of mind is reached the body will express it.
One of the disciples is reported in the Apocrypha of the New Testament to have asked the Master when the kingdom of heaven would appear. He answered: “When the without shall be as the within.”
When the external agrees in expression with the highest aspirations and desires of the heart, then is the kingdom of heaven come “upon earth” to that soul.
There has been an almost endless amount of instruction given on the subject of healing. Some of it has been excellent and practical, and some has been of very little value as a help in demonstration.
In the early days of this metaphysical movement various formulas were given for demonstration, which were doubtless a help to beginners in practice and yet had a tendency to make a student depend upon words the real spirit of which was not always realized; but latterly this method of teaching finds less favor, and the necessity of realizing principles is found to be far more important than the use of a formula.
The nature of thought is diffusive and it goes out with greater power when full conviction of the truth fills the mind that sends it forth than it possibly can when words are used that come at second-hand.
The realization that springs spontaneously to the mind that understands the truth of being carries a powerful influence for harmony, especially when directed to some specific case.
You reach the consciousness of a patient through the soul. You appeal to the subjective self; and if your patient is in a condition to receive, and you are in full realization of the truth you want to give, the patient will become conscious of the change you have produced by your message of truth. If one effort does not bring the manifestation you are expecting, repeat it with a prolonged effort the next day, and continue it daily until you succeed.
If you are impressed that some obstacle stands in the way as a hindrance to the demonstration you desire, try and realize that nothing can stand between you and the accomplishment of any righteous end.
Make your patient feel your earnestness, and then make the mental suggestion very strong that he has the ability to rise above every conceivable appearance of weakness or limitation.
It is well known by those who practice mental healing, and should be known by those who come for healing, that we do not apply our treatment to the diseased part, but to the false ideas that produced the disease; and when the impression is made sufficiently deep and strong the diseased condition vanishes. Remember all the time, the disease is in the mind, but is manifest upon the body.
Strip the mind of its error and the body is all right.
Sometimes a patient is held in disease because of hatred or malice toward some one he considers an enemy. In such case he must be filled with love till his animosity is conquered; then he will get well at once. You see the disease was in the mind, but the effect was upon the body.
Whoever entertains an ill feeling toward another is liable to suffer some painful physical infirmity as long as he entertains the animosity.
It seems unnecessary to prolong the remarks on a theme that should in this age be generally understood, but ideas on the subject of demonstration are so eagerly sought for that we trust some needy soul will find the needed light in this brief chapter.
For more explicit directions on demonstration I would refer the reader to my book, “Practical Healing for Mind and Body,” written and published some five years ago.
A few words on the demonstration over poverty and misfortune, and we will leave the reader to the contemplation of the mighty law that “heals all our diseases, and delivers us out of our distresses.”
There is very little to be said on this subject, but a great deal to be thought and realized.
That which we put in words (especially in print), is so often garbled and misunderstood that we feel that every one should work out the problem for himself.
The law that tends always to harmony is not hampered nor restrained as to what benefits it shall bestow. It ministers alike to every need of the human family, when the human family places itself in its rightful relation to it.
The law of supply is forever equal to the demand, and if people are careful to not run counter to the law they can never suffer want.
To first know that you are a child of the Great Providing Power, and that your claim is always good, you can trust the law for whatever you need. A thankful attitude attracts the supply, while the complaining one repels it.
Chapter 14 – Unfoldment
Progress on the mental plane corresponds to unfoldment on the soul plane, and we find the progressive thinker most likely to discover the soul powers, and when discovered the unfoldment begins.
To consider the subject systematically we must begin on the lowest plane of consciousness, just as we begin our experience in life, on the Adam plane; first considering the origin of all being, and man its highest expression.
Spiritual man, the image of God, is the immediate offspring of the creative power named – Primal Energy, First Cause, or God, and in this spiritual man is all the fullness of the God-head.
Spiritual man embraces all mankind. It is not a man, but MAN as the idea and image of pure spirit.
The offspring of this spiritual man is individualized, objective, representative man to whom is given a conscious department of mind with power to think, and freedom to choose its own line of action. In other words, he is a free moral agent; and when he begins to apprehend the nature and character of what he sees with the eyes, and reflects upon what he hears with the ears, and begins to penetrate even in a small degree the mysteries of nature, he is making progress toward unfoldment.
All progress proceeds from within; and every evidence of progress on the external side of life is but the outward expression of that which is within.
Experience in the school that enables the student to expand and outgrow the limitations that before have seemed to hedge him in on every hand.
The mistakes we make today may be put under our feet and made stepping stones to lift us above the folly of repeating the same tomorrow.
As the intellect expands it sees a broader field, and new beauties that were previously unnoticed dawn upon the consciousness daily, our perceptions grow clearer and we are better able to see the reasons for things that were once so obscure that we found no interest in them.
Many are in the habit of seeing everything from the standpoint of ancestry.
Our fathers and grandfathers may have been very good, and worthy of all respect; but we must understand that as generation succeeds generation, many of the crude and imperfect ideas are discovered to be false and misleading; and in such discovery we note the progress made in correcting false ideas, just as we notice the progress made in the various inventions of the age.
What we all want is to be rounded out in due proportions on every side, and on every plane of activity.
To spend our enthusiasm and delight solely upon the strides made in the various inventions that minister to our convenience, and remain indifferent to the growth of the soul, is to grow one-sided, while to obtain perfect equilibrium we must unfold on every plane, as all may do if they will.
There are three planes of consciousness waiting unfoldment: the physical or animal plane, the mental or intellectual plane, and the soul plane.
It is well to consider the various sensitive powers of being on each of these planes.
On the physical or lowest plane we have seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. On the mental or intellectual plane, a step higher, we have finer corresponding powers, apprehension, reflection, penetration, judgment, and discretion.
Still higher is the soul plane, on which we have Comprehension, Imagination, Intuition, Perception and Discrimination.
These fifteen sensitive powers of being all spring from the one first cause through the spiritual Ego to the soul plane, and from the soul to the intellectual, and from that to the physical which is the first in man’s consciousness, and from which man has to rise and find his way back to the Father.
To the Adam plane or physical belongs the five sensitive powers before mentioned, seeing, hearing feeling, etc., every one of which may be made to serve us in our progress toward a higher plane.
No powers are bestowed upon us for naught, and it remains for us to turn them to account.
The seeing on the physical plane is an aid to apprehension on the mental plane.
The hearing is an aid to reflection; the feeling is an aid to penetration, and the smelling to discretion.
Apprehension on the mental plane is an aid to comprehension on the soul plane; reflection is an aid to imagination or image building; penetration aids the intuition, judgment aids perception and discretion aids discrimination.
Such is the orderly process of unfoldment when allowed to proceed in the order assigned by the great Spirit, of whose plan it is said, “Order is the first law of Heaven.”
As Heaven means harmony, Order is the first law of harmony.
When the mind of man begins to apprehend the process of growth from one stage to another, he discovers the need of mental discipline and concentration; and in his endeavor to secure it he finds it necessary to be much alone; he realizes that meditation in the silence alone is an aid to concentration.
His reflections on the mental plane have aroused his imaginations, and he begins to see with the eyes of the soul (comprehension) that imagination is a power.
People have rarely considered the imagination other than a weakness, and have turned upon it in ridicule, simply because they have not understood it, while we now consider it one of the grandest God-given powers we possess; but like all other powers and gifts, it must be used wisely.
In silent meditation is the time for unfoldment. Even in the wilderness the Master sought solitude, and the early prophets heard the voice only in solitude.
Only in the silence can we find the soul; and not until we know our own soul can we even hope for a counselor and advisor at all times, because only the soul does the prompting of the highest dawn upon our consciousness.
Only through the soul’s comprehension of law can the intuition be awakened and perception cleared, till discrimination between the true and the false is perfect.
In the faculties mentioned there is no antagonism, nothing conflicting; each one is an aid to the others, and each one fills a place that nothing else can fill as an aid to unfoldment.
Each one is essential in training the mind to control the thoughts and keep them attuned to harmony.
The contemplation and study of the principles we have aimed to set forth in this little volume have been a solace and comfort as well as a healing balm to thousands who had once despaired of ever seeing a bright ray to lighten the life or gladden the hours of anguish and pain so long endured, but who now rejoice in the freedom obtained by trusting the law that is as free to all who need the healing.
Chapter 15 – Impressions
It has been repeated over and again various ways that all phenomena, in fact everything external, is the expression of some hidden source or cause.
People who believe in the law of heredity are often very assiduous in tracing peculiar traits or idiosyncrasies in individuals to the ancestry, with the idea that every such inherited tendency (so called) is the result of physical relationship, while in reality the physical has nothing whatever to do with it.
We admit that mental impressions are stronger and more liable to be manifest in the offspring when such impressions are made by constant association in the home, and under parental authority, than the impressions made from other sources.
The peculiar traits of character, the moral tendencies, religious views, and the talents and tastes of the parents are impressed upon the children mentally, not physically; and yet the physical expresses a degree of every characteristic.
The adopted child that is reared and cared for where no physical relationship exists will often manifest the same propensities, traits, and tendencies that are most noticeable in the foster parents, and sometimes the resemblance to the foster parents is very marked in form and feature, which is the best evidence possible and enduring than those produced by mere blood relationship.
We do not claim that the resemblance in form and feature of adopted children to the foster parents is always manifest; in fact, much less likely to be manifest than where the real parents have them in charge, because the physical impressions were made before the adopted child was transplanted into another home, and yet when very young the physical form is exceedingly plastic and will bend in a great measure to the mental influence to which it is subject.
We are all subject to impressions from without, and at no age are we exempt.
We get our earliest impressions in infancy and childhood from our environments; and later we add to those impressions by the schooling we get in whatever way it is obtained; and later still by association and contact with the world and with individuals.
Those early impressions have much to do in forming character, and it is character that makes the man.
The growth of the soul depends wholly upon the character we build, and the character is sure to be manifest in externals, and often in more ways than one.
Impressions made upon children that are harmful, demoralizing and debasing are sure to be expressed externally by some corresponding state or condition, if not wisely dealt with by a mental discipline that would serve to obliterate the demoralizing tendency.
We are all helping to make impressions, one way or another, whether conscious of it or not.
We are all helping to build character for others by the influence we exert, and by the impressions we make.
By the very law of our being we are each one in a measure responsible for the error, the weakness, or the downfall of our neighbor.
No one can truly say: “My neighbor’s sickness, poverty or misfortune is not in the slightest degree due to any influence or impression from me.”
We are too often unconscious of the influence we exert, therefore too careless of its character.
People in humbler walks of life think, and feel, that they have no influence whatever; but no matter how humble or obscure, they leave an impression in some way – somewhere – and our admonition to all is: Get knowledge; get understanding of the law of your being. In doing so you are making impressions for good that are imperishable; both for yourself and your neighbor.
Chapter 16 – Expression
Everything on the objective plane exists as the expression of things from the subjective plane. First, let us understand terms.
Sub means under. Substance is that which underlies the principle we are dealing with.
Sub- ject is that which may be, or is expressed in object.
We are now dealing with expression.
The objective world is the expression of the hidden forces back of it. In other words, the objective world is the effect or expression of the unseen cause.
As before stated, all there is in the universe is cause and effect, or substance and expression.
In our ignorance of the law of expression we have been in the habit of dealing altogether with effects or expression, and paid no attention whatever to cause as the essential thing to deal with, or if we did consider causes at all it was rarely, if ever, considered from the standpoint of reality; but generally from an intellectual conception of things judged by sense evidence alone, and always on the plane of the physical without reference to any mental cause.
Effects on the objective plane have always been accounted for in every conceivable way but the true way.
Theories without number have been advanced to account for the various diseases, deformities and abnormal conditions we see expressed on the objective plane; and until this law of expression is understood from its very foundation it will ever be so, and the human family will ever be struggling with the problem of life, health and satisfaction with no adequate method of solving it.
As long as we attempt to account for the discords we suffer by the false theories regarding physical causation we shall never solve the problem.
We must know that any condition of sickness, weakness or disability is but an expression that corresponds with some falsity in the mind that we may be totally unconscious of.
Ignorance or innocence of such cause is no protection against such undesirable expressions of discord; the only preventive or remedy is in knowing the truth and maintaining a consistent attitude toward it.
All false ideas and opinions are first manifest in the liability to outward expression, by which we mean, if you have become united in thought and belief with all the erroneous opinions so universally accepted, such as the necessity of great care regarding exposure to the cold, the heat, the malaria, contagious or whatever, and also as to what you should eat or drink, and the constant watchfulness over your interests for fear of being wronged, you will find these erroneous beliefs and opinions manifest in the liability to suffer the very thing you fear; and while you consider all those things inevitable and unavoidable as causes, your fears and erroneous beliefs will most likely be expressed in those conditions, which ought to convince any reasoning mind that the primary cause lies back of all physical causation which is only secondary, and would never exist but for the primary cause back of it.
The error in human conception must be expressed in discord some way, and the expression will always correspond in character with the primary cause which is in mind.
The only way to deal successfully with it is to lay the ax at the root of the trouble and obliterate from the conscious mind all the false opinions and ideas that produce the liability, which acts as a secondary cause, and is finally expressed in outward manifestation.
Chapter 17 – Aspiration VS. Ambition
There can be no soul growth, no unfoldment of the divine nature to the Christ within, without aspiration.
We must not confound aspiration with ambition.
Ambition is the offspring of a sordid nature.
One who is not satisfied to be equally successful with his prosperous friends and neighbors, one who bends every energy to excel in whatever he chooses to engage in, and pushes every faculty to its utmost to outdo his neighbor, stands high in the estimation of mankind as a man of great ambition.
He wears himself out physically, morally and mentally in his jealous eagerness to out-strip his fellows, and his envy and jealousy ripen into hatred and malice if he fails in the gratification of his ambition; then he is liable to become a perfect wreck physically, his blood has been poisoned little by little until the physical structure can stand up under it no longer and he sinks.
The one who does succeed in his grasp for wealth and power is buoyed up longer, but sooner or later the end will come, with no greater satisfaction to him, than to the one who sank under failure.
Such is the usual experience of all who look no higher than what sordid ambition craves.
Aspiration is a faculty of the soul, and the soul that aspires to know in full its powers and possibilities will open the windows, and let in the light that will give daily glimpses of higher and grander realization of those possibilities that are latent in every soul and are only waiting recognition to come forth and serve the righteous end to which they are ordained.
It is written “Out of the heart of man are the issues of life.”
In this statement the heart means the inmost consciousness of being, the center from which every faculty springs, and from that center come the issues of life to every soul.
We make or mar it as we choose; and according to our aspirations which spring from that center will we expand and unfold to higher and higher perception of truth.
The higher and purer the aspirations, the more we attract that which is lofty, pure and elevating.
Our aspirations should always be as high as our ideals, that we may attract that which corresponds with our ideals; and surely with an understanding of this law of our being we can see the necessity of holding only high ideals in mind, that we may see the external evidence of the power of attraction by aspiration.
It is a very common expresion that “like attracts like”; and whatever we believe in most, think about most, and fellowship with most, we are most likely to see manifest or externalized in some corresponding circumstance or condition, whether it is what we desire or not.
It is well to ask ourselves: To what height do I aspire? Self examination is good for the soul, and if candidly practiced will reveal the needs, and thus stimulate the will to higher aspirations, and the mind to higher conceptions.
In the silence and in secret is the place and the way to find out what will satisfy the desire of the heart; and if you have purified your desire of sordid selfishness by proper and wise self discipline, you will attract the very thing or condition that will be satisfactory.
Every individual should be a magnet to attract whatever he needs; which everyone can be by high and lofty aspiration and by placing himself in proper relation to the thing he needs.
Chapter 18 – Meditation
In the prayer, or petition, of the Psalmist David he said: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be of thee continually.”
This appeal was made to the Lord, which we understand to mean the law of God in operation; and the desire of David to meditate continually upon the majesty of that law indicates a growing comprehension and conscious delight in the contemplation of its excellence; knowing as he must have known, and as we all may know, that it is Lord over all, and by meditation and acknowledgement he put himself in harmonious relation to it, as we all may do by the same process.
In the silence and in secret is the place and the way to appeal to this ever-acting law of harmony.
Another appeal from David to that ceaseless creative power was, “Create within me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.”
David at one time was doubtless as much given to impure and unrighteous thoughts and desires as people ordinarily are, and in his meditations he discovered better things and began to realize that purity of life, thought and action were more satisfying, and his higher aspirations began to attract the things and conditions that satisfied his higher nature.
With proper self-discipline we purify our desires and awaken aspirations that attract the very thing or condition that will satisfy our desires.
Every individual may become a magnet to attract whatever he needs by putting himself in proper relation to the law that provides.
We know that meditation alone in the silence in earnest unselfish desire for inspiration, for leading and uplifting, attracts the spirit of wisdom and love, and we are better and wiser for the discipline; we are clearer in our conceptions, stronger in our convictions, and abler in our demonstrations.
To neglect a season (however short), for silent devotion and meditation daily, is to let a discordant element into our environment, and we are sure to miss some blessed privilege or experience that would otherwise have ministered to our needs and proved the law that never ceases to bless.
In the silence is the place to get inspiration for whatever we are called upon to do; it is the time to unfold; it is there and then we banish all that hinders and remove all obstacles that otherwise darken our pathway and dull our perceptions.
It is the secret place of the most high in which so much is promised to one who dwells there.
The Lord (or law) speaks through the inspired prophet and says, “Call upon me and I will answer.”
That law represents every principle of divinity in action, and whatever you need that is divinely good you are to call upon the law for it.
Wisdom is God, therefore divinely good, and if you desire wisdom call upon Wisdom in the secret silent place of your highest conception of good, and the law responds by bestowing wisdom.
If you desire peace, call upon Peace in the same manner, and lo! Peace comes to your aid.
It is only by a false attitude toward the law that we get inharmonious experiences; the law is always harmonious, and when, by silent and devout endeavor, we learn to vibrate in harmony with the law, we shall realize the promise, that “no evil shall befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling, for He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways, they shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.”
Chapter 19 – Concentration
Concentration of mind and thought is in the highest degree essential for the accomplishment of any important work.
There must be a center around which our ideas, plans and aims may cluster and gather force.
The one who flies from one line of action to another indiscriminately will never accomplish any great work.
One thing at a time, with every thought centered upon the one object for the time being, is the magnet that attracts. It is not so much the lack of ability as the lack of steadfast concentrated purpose that causes failure.
Establish an ideal in mind, and then bend every energy to externalize that ideal, or make manifest that which accords with the ideal. It is never the labor of hands that accomplishes the desired end in any case, but the hands are the worthy instrument by which the mind accomplishes its purpose; and, when the mind is centered upon a worthy object, not only the hands obey the direction of the mind, but every organ or member of the physical body moves to the accomplishment of that end, whether on the material, the mental or spiritual plane.
One who constantly looks forward to failure, expects failure, and fears it, is not centered upon anything better than failure, and will be very liable to get what he expects.
We see people who set out to accomplish a certain work who begin by doubting their ability to carry it through, and repeatedly express the fear of failure, declaring it is just their luck to have something turn up to defeat their plans.
They don’t seem to know that they are making a law that works according to their word.
They attract the forces that revel in failure.
If you desire success, but expect adversity, you will realize whichever your thought is centered upon with greatest confidence.
If you desire to be well, don’t be continually planning for sickness and preparing for emergencies. “There is a way that SEEMETH right to man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.”
It has seemed to man the right thing to do to plan for misfortune and death.
It is true that the desire of the heart may be satisfied in every case, but not always as you may think you want it.
You may have any desire satisfied providing you do not scatter your forces, nor allow your desire to infringe upon another’s rights.
Make yourself consciously at one with the righteous law, and cease to make a false law by admissions of weakness, limitation, inability and depravity. We get no inspiration by such admissions, and the highest knowledge and grandest realization never come to the morbid soul whose thought is centered upon negations.
We do not need to go into the wilderness, nor into the mountain solitudes for concentration, as the early prophets were apt to do, and as the Monks and Adepts continue to do; but we can have some little nook or corner where each day we can seek the solitudes, where we can always find the help we need, and there claim illumination, ability and power to overcome every obstacle.
There we can call upon wisdom and love, and wisdom and love will answer. There we can fortify ourselves against the evil influences that otherwise destroy our peace.
Chapter 20 – Evolution
We do not wish to touch upon that phase of evolution that teaches of man’s evolution physically from the lower animals up to his present condition.
To us, man has always been man, and if there was ever a time that he was a monkey he had not at such time become a man; therefore we persist in saying that man has always been as he now is in physical form, with the variations common to every age.
What we desire to speak of is the subject of man’s conscious growth from the lowest state of ignorance on the Adam plane to the present plane of intelligence.
God created man in His own image, and that perfect image has never been lost; but man in his perverse human nature has been slow to perceive the divinity within.
The image is still there waiting to be brought forth in conscious reality; and as every quality of divine perfection is inherent in man, or involved in his real being, it must be evolved and made manifest before man can stand as the manifest image of his Creator.
When we speak of man in this connection we do not speak of the invisible form or personality at all. We mean man as a spiritual entity, endowed with powers and possibilities that constitute the likeness.
The image is what he is, and the likeness is what he has. Both image and likeness are involved in his real being, and must be evolved before he can manifest what he is potentially.
Think of the plane from which man’s conscious evolution began – from Adam as the type. Then trace the evidence of growth and unfoldment up through the ages, and see to what heights man has attained.
From the plane of total ignorance he has gradually unfolded and brought forth little by little the intelligence that bears the likeness of divinity, and the conscious ability to reason; though often misled by sophistries and false reasoning, still gaining in wisdom and profiting by experience, till now in this nineteenth century he stands in conscious realization of his divinity, and is beginning to see the absurdity of that basest of all dogmas – man’s depravity.
With many who make more rapid progress than their fellows there has come a more wonderful conception of what is involved in man’s being as the image of God. Power to see beyond the confines of the objective world has been evolved by many.
The veil is being lifted, and what has seemed a profound mystery is made clear in many ways.
The fact that God is no respecter of persons is sufficient for us to know that all may unfold the same powers and in greater degree than has yet been experienced.
In no age of the world’s history has there been such unveiling of wonders, such uncovering of powers and such acquirements of knowledge.
The prophecies have foretold it all. They have said that knowledge should cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Every invention of utility to man is an evolution from within.
Principles have never changed, and never can change, and all that has been discovered by man is simply an unfoldment, an evolving and bringing forth that which is within.
Every day reveals something we did not know yesterday.
Study along these metaphysical lines enables one the sooner to comprehend the powers within, and to discriminate between truth and dogma.
To realize that Heaven is a state of the within is the beginning of its actual manifestation upon earth.
Chapter 21 – Deduction
It is well known that much of the Scripture was written in language that only symbolizes the ideas and sentiments of the writer – without expressing it in clear language as if applied to any definite object – but is sometimes so worded as to make its meaning (to one who catches the true spirit of it) equally applicable to many situations or conditions without in the least weakening its application to any one case.
The greatest obstacle to a clear conception of the spirit of the word is the manner in which it is generally read. We need to analyze it as we read, and read between the lines deliberately.
When we consider the ancient manner of expression on one hand, and, on the other, the many translations the Bible has been through before it was reduced to plain English, we cannot wonder that much of the real spirit of it is lost to the average reader.
No one claims that the translators were inspired men, and their conceptions are expressed in the translations. But, at the same time, it was impossible for the spirit to be wholly lost.
Eternal truths can never be lost, and whether the translators caught the translators caught the true spirit it matters not; it can be found by searching – as the Master admonished all to do.
What we want is to find corroborative evidence of the truth of things and principles we cherish; and if we can find it in what is so universally revered as Holy Writ, so much the better, so much more acceptable. The law that we have aimed to set forth in these pages is so clearly expressed in the 91st Psalm that we feel moved to give our analysis of the Psalm in full. In fact, the whole law of life may be said to be embraced in that wonderful Psalm, which I quote in full for convenience.
Read and Analyze
1. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
2. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God; in Him will I trust.
3. Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
4. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.
5. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
6. Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.
7. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.
8. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.
9. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation.
10. There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.
11. For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
12. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13. Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
14. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.
16. With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.
After considering the Psalm as a whole, let us consider each statement analytically, from which we make our deductions.
Notice that all the beautiful promises in this Psalm are only for those who dwell in “the secret place of the most High”; and the first thing to consider is: what is meant by the “secret place of the most High”?
Every one has a sacred secret temple for contemplation, in which no one has a share, not even the dearest friend or companion, and no one can invade that sacred precinct, because it belongs to you alone; and if your meditations, your desires and aspirations are on the plane of divine wisdom, and you faithfully abide in the contemplation of the highest and best, acknowledging nothing true that does not accord with the highest good, you are dwelling in that which is to you the secret place of the most High – and you are entitled to all those promises.
Your conceptions, aspirations and desires may not be as lofty as others may have, and they may be higher than is ordinary, but if they are your highest, and are in accord with divine wisdom and love and you abide in them, you have nothing to fear.
Not that you have to wear a solemn countenance, or deprive yourself of any rational pleasure or recreation in order to abide under the shadow of the Almighty, not at all. We are not required to neglect any duties that fall to our lot in our legitimate vocation, but rather make what we have called a duty a pleasure, and by doing so the very law of our being brings a profitable result in which we realize the promised blessing.
We dwell in the secret place of the most High when we shut our eyes from seeing evil.
We must unfold in conscious intuitive realization that the divine law works only on the divine plan, and not by human wisdom.
In the second statement, the Psalmist speaks of the Lord, using the personal pronoun ‘He’ as it is in our translation of the Scriptures.
The use of the personal pronoun has always tended to establish the belief in a personal Lord, which does not agree with the spirit of the word, but when we interpret the word ‘Lord’ in its true sense, it means the law of God in action; so let us read it that way in this connection.
The law of the good is my refuge and my fortress; my God in fact, and in that law will I trust, and that law will work for my good so long as I am true to it.
When I deviate from the law or pervert it, I turn it against me; therefore I suffer the consequence. And just in proportion to my disloyalty to that law, will I suffer the consequence.
The law continues working all the same. “It neither slumbers nor sleeps,” but if I am true to the law I have nothing to fear.
In the third verse the snare of the fowler evidently represents the temptations that beset us on every hand, which are very fitly likened to a snare, and from which the law will deliver us if we abide in conscious security “under the shadow of the Almighty,” which means under the protecting influence of this majestic law of love, without which there would be no deliverance from evil, nor from bondage to false opinions and beliefs.
It will also deliver us from the noisome pestilence. In this is the promise of deliverance from the ills that come in epidemics and contagions.
The law of the universe is harmony, and the time has come that every one of even ordinary intelligence should understand that every function and every organ of the human body is subject and servant to the mind; so if the mind is at one with this divine law of harmony, every function of the body will work so harmoniously that we shall never be reminded that we have a heart to beat, or a stomach to act, and we may rest in fearless security against such ills as are commonly feared and believed in as the lot of all mankind.
In the fourth verse this law of righteousness is compared to the bird who shelters her dependent offspring under her wings, still using the personal pronoun he and his. “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. The truth embraced in this law of good shall be our shield and buckler; our refuge and defense.
The terror by night in the fifth verse means the fear that arises from the belief in limitation; we are afraid in the darkness of night because our eyes of flesh cannot penetrate the darkness, and we do not know what terror may lurk in the darkness. This represents the darkened state of the mind that is ignorant of its powers, and tortured with the belief in limitation.
The arrow that flieth by day represents the evil and malicious mental influences that are afloat continually, and enter wherever they find an open door.
The pestilence that walketh in darkness means the disease-producing influences that only reach those who are ignorant of the truth that is found in the secret place of the most High.
The destruction that wasteth at noonday applies only to those who reject the light they have, and depend upon their own human ideas regardless of the divine plan; while a trust in the noonday light of the spirit would be salvation from the destroyer (which is ignorance), and a thousand might fall at their side and ten thousand at the right hand; but it should not come nigh the one who dwelt in continual realization of the majesty of the law that is always ready to serve the one who trusts it.
In the eighth verse is the statement: “Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” Only with the physical eyes, and with human judgment shall you even observe the evil conditions that appear as a result of a wicked neglect to serve the righteous law. There is no reality in the reward of wickedness except to mortal sense; hence the saying, “Only with thine eyes.” We learn by this righteous law that we must correct and convince the conscious mind that what we see with the eyes, and hear with the ears, is only true so far as it accords with the unchangeable law of harmony; all else is mortal delusion.
In the ninth verse, to those who have made this law their refuge and habitation, the Psalmist says, “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling,” which means your state of harmony, your realization of – and your loyalty to – that wonderful law that protects, defends and provides, will always be a shield and defense to you and your children, your household, and your friends, and also to whomsoever may dwell under your roof.
Your friends are bound to appreciate your immunity from the ills so common to mankind, and perhaps comment upon it with admiration, approval and commendation, which helps to stengthen you; every good word or thought is an angel that helps to “keep thee in all thy ways,” and the approval of friends “bears thee up” – we are uplifted by them, and our feet carry us along without effort and we do not stumble, nor dash our feet against a stone, when we are uplifted by a conscious trust in the law that protects from all evil happenings.
The lion in the thirteenth verse represents the strongest appearance of evil, and in this assured state of mind you tread upon it and trample it under your feet, as you do the poisonous adder.
In the fourteenth verse the law is represented as speaking in recognition of your faithful loyalty and love for the truth, and says: “Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.”
This divine law will give you a still higher and higher realization of eternal verities, because of your recognition, and your knowledge that the name of the Lord stands for the law that you trust, and your admission that it is Lord over all, and there is no other power.
In the fifteenth verse, “He shall call upon me and I will answer him.”
We call upon this law with full assurance that it is divine intelligence, wisdom and love in operation, and it will answer according to our needs if the call is made according to the righteous law.
There is no occasion for begging and pleading for what we want, but simply to put ourselves in proper relation to the good law, and then claim our inheritance of all good by acknowledgment, praise and thanksgiving.
If you have for a time lost sight of this refuge, and trouble has overtaken you in consequence, get back to your realization of the highest as soon as possible, and make your claim according to the promise, “I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him.”
If we have made a mistake, and brought upon ourselves some undesirable result, we are honored in getting back to a realization that the law is our refuge, and it will deliver us out of our trouble.
Finally, to complete the whole problem it says, “With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
Long life on the earth plane has always been considered a matter of great favor with the ruling spirit of the universe, and in this long life would be shown many phases of the salvation wrought by the law of harmony.
Who is there in the whole wide world that would not wish to have a rightful claim to all these beautiful promises?
There is one important thing to remember. A certain condition precedes every promise, and the condition must be met. Paul’s plan is a good one. Knowing the power of thought he said: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
In this way we dwell in the secret place of the most High.
Appendix – Questions & Answers
Question: What is meant by the TRUTH OF BEING so often referred to in the metaphysical teaching?
Answer: By the truth of being we mean a true and clear conception of what being is.
The reality of existence, in contradistinction to the general misconception of what man is.
It has been the habit of mankind in general (as a result of the popular teaching) to consider that man as a visible conscious being HAS a spirit; while, with a better understanding of what being is, we find that man is spiritual, and that the spiritual entity HAS a visible form by which he is to express what his conceptions are regarding principles and things, both seen and unseen, as well as his conceptions regarding himself, his origin, his powers and possibilities.
While man believes that his visible form of flesh, blood and bones is himself, he will express more or less of those negations that tend to death, and he will continually look forward with fear and dread to the final end of all things on the objective plane, not realizing that his anticipations and dread always hasten the event he fears; while to make himself acquainted with the truth of being he will learn that he is already the perfect offspring of the eternal spirit of good; always free, perfect and immortal; and that every power, and every aspect of that perfect origin, Father, God Almighty, is continually imparted to him as the spiritual offspring and heir to perfection.
He will learn that it is for him (in his perfect spiritual nature) to express the same perfection upon the flesh, blood and bone that man represents him on the objective plane.
Now you will ask why he does not so express perfection, when, as it is, we so often see him sick, lame, blind and generally miserable?
Understand, the representative individual does express innocence, purity and perfection as a rule, when first ushered into the world of infancy, and as it is, in its tender years of babyhood and childhood subject to the mental influences that tend to vibrate that innocence and purity, it gradually loses the beautiful expression of perfection we so much love and admire in children and youth.
What better evidence need we want of the effect of mental influences than what we see in our daily experience as we see the infant grow to childhood, and the childhood to youth, and the youth to manhood?
The individual is always the same, but the person has changed, and the change is due to the mental influences to which it has been subject, quite as much, if not more, than the example set before it.
Do not lose sight of the fact that the visible man only represents the perfect spiritual entity in proportion to his conscious recognition and loyalty to the perfect law of being.
What is meant by conscious recognition?
To the man of flesh is given (by the spiritual entity, or real self) a conscious department of mind, which is left free to choose between the true and false in reference to what it really is in its essential nature.
If (after arriving at the age of maturity) he persists in the idea that his form of flesh is himself, he will find himself so given over to the objective world that he will not as readily see the orderly process of reasoning from cause to effect (which is the only rational way to solve the problem of man’s being), therefore he will manifest or express more of the grossness of materiality.
All that we suffer, and all the discords manifest on the objective plane, are due to ignorance or perversity of the conscious mind of man, even when the conscious mind is unconscious of its ignorance.
All that is manifest of harmony and Godliness is due to unfoldment on the plane of conscious thinking, which unfoldment follows closely upon the understanding that all being and all powers are spiritual.
Question: Why are some so long in comprehending what others grasp so quickly?
Answer: The reasons are various, and vary in different individuals.
There is a tendency with many to take great pride in their intellectual attainments, and rather to look down upon the less favored ones in the matter of advantages.
Such an attitude of mind is not receptive to the highest conception of truth.
That which may seem highest to them is far below the plane they desire to reach, and they are generally totally unconscious that pride of intellect is the obstacle that stands between them and the clear conception that others have reached, and that they can see is a most desirable attainment.
We do not mean that a fine education is a detriment, not at all, but the pride of superior advantages, and the sole dependence upon the human intellect (which judges everything from the standpoint of scholarship and outside authority) will never open the windows of the soul for the higher spiritual truths to enter; hence the tardy unfoldment with so many.
With one who begins to unfold from within, the value of what has been acquired in a fine education is measured by the degree of truth it contains, judging from the standpoint of divine principle.
The student who begins to unfold from within soon discovers that nothing is essentially true that does not accord with divine principle.
Another very common obstacle to a clear conception of these principles is the persistent determination of many to stand by the old threadbare dogmas that are outgrown by the advanced thought of the age, and that are entitled to no confidence or respect unless for their antiquity.
People who want the benefits of the law of harmony and are not willing to abide by it, or are wavering between the fear of departing from the old and a desire to profit by the new, will be a long time in getting a clear understanding of the truth.
We read in the Epistle of James, that, “He that wavereth is like the waves of the sea, driven with the winds and tossed… Let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord.” (The law.)
The law will not bestow what you desire, when you do not trust it.
To trust the law of harmony, and still trust and honor the traditions of men, is out of the question – it is an attempt to serve two masters and it will not work for harmony.
The obstacles that arise to retard the growth and discourage the student are numerous and varied; sometimes it is the opposition of friends, sometimes the misrepresentations of ignorance and prejudice, and sometimes the secret sins and passions of the student himself, but none are insurmountable.
Every obstacle can be overcome if the will is equal to the aspiration, and one with righteous law.
“To him that overcometh I will give a crown of life,” not death.
To him that overcometh I will give power over Nations.”
Question: Is this Metaphysical movement a matter of science or religion?
Answer: It has been the habit of religious people in general to place a barrier between science and religion, or at least to draw a sharp line of distinction between the two, and candidly believe that one was antagonistic to the other, and that science was an enemy of religion.
Science must by its very nature stand opposed to whatever is false, but never antagonizes that which is true.
All such mistaken ideas come of ignorance and only betray the superficial character of the reasoning.
Science means to know, and one cannot know what is not true.
One may believe that which is false, and THINK he knows it to be true, but that is not knowing.
There is an infallible rule by which we need never be deceived or misled.
Whatever is true must accord with those eternal principles that constitute God, and this is your scientific basis, or infallible rule.
Science is not science unless it has its basis in truth, and truth is God, therefore no religion can be a true religion that will not bear the scrutiny of science. The basis of true religion must agree with all that is true and Godly, and the result, influence or outcome must accord with the basis.
A true premise and sound reasoning cannot produce results that are false. Any religion that is based upon a false conception of God is not, and cannot be, a true religion.
Religion is the rebinding of the soul consciousness to God, and as God is truth, there can be no union or oneness with God that is not born of truth, and the process of establishing a conscious oneness with God is as much a science as the solving of any problem.
In the Scripture it is compared to the line and plummet – so exact, so scientific, is the process of passing from ignorance of truth to knowledge of the same.
“Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet.”
Conscious knowledge of truth is what establishes the oneness, and that knowledge is what stamps it as scientific.
It is the lack of knowledge, and the blind faith in what others think they know, that renders much of the popular religion so worthless for anything except to build up sectarian lines and put off the day of deliverance from priestcraft and superstition.
We shall never outgrow the race beliefs in so much falsity as long as we are afraid to investigate; nor if we indolently settle down to the belief that some one else can understand for us.
It is knowledge of truth that makes us free, not what some one else knows.
This knowledge is not for one more than another; it depends wholly upon each individual, and whatever we will to do, or know, in line with righteous judgment, we may accomplish.
“Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray believe ye have them.” If it be knowledge of truth, believe it is yours to realize.
Question: What is meant by ‘unfoldment’?
Answer: Every soul begins its career in perfect ignorance, so far as conscious knowledge of principle is concerned; at the same time it has, latent within its real being, the power to learn, and day by day it unfolds more and more to the realization of its powers. According to the soul’s experience in its contact with other souls – and its willingness to see that every visible effect is due (primarily) to an invisible cause – will its unfoldment be rapid or slow.
At first, or on the ‘Adam plane’, we are all unconscious of our latent powers, and we discover them little by little, and that discovery we call ‘unfoldment’. It is not what we learn from books, or from teachers, but what we bring forth from within. The teachers and books are valuable as an aid, but even the best and truest can only show us the way to draw upon our own resources.
True education is the drawing forth of that which is latent within; it is the awakening of the intuition to perceive the truth of a matter for yourself, regardless of any outside authority.
The realization of that which is potential within is ‘unfoldment’, and the truth we fully realize becomes a part of our very being, and is manifest in outward expression more and more according to our faithful loyalty to it.
When we discover that any one desirable or useful faculty predominates – and we find it reliable – it can be made more and more useful by fostering it, by trusting it. We unfold or uncover it, and it develops as naturally as things in nature grow from the seeds we plant.
The first development from an acorn is not a full grown tree, but a tiny sprout which is the manifestation of its first visible unfoldment, then comes a pair of green leaves, then other leaves and branches appear, and if we note each stage of growth from the tiny sprout to the grand oak tree we have witnessed its unfoldment.
We also know that the whole grand oak tree was potential in the acorn; but if the acorn had been deprived of the conditions necessary to unfoldment it would never have reached that stage of perfection.
When we are deprived of opportunities, or of freedom to expand, the unfoldment is slow.
We have been (as a race) fettered by prejudice, and in bondage to superstition, and have not been free to develop the highest and best within us until these past few years, and now we find that to let the imaging power and the aspiration have full sway, we unfold in proportion to our loyalty to principle.
Question: What is meant by the Adam Plane?
Answer: The Adam plane represents the beginning of conscious experience, the infancy of the soul; and as set forth in Genesis, the Adam experience was gained without the aid of books or teachers, and the growth from the Adam consciousness up was necessarily slow, if we take it in a literal sense; but most people at the present stage of understanding consider the Story of Creation an allegory which represents or typifies the experience we all have to go through in a manner; and each individual (no matter how brief his career may be), goes through every stage and degree of Egyptian bondage, plagues, Red Sea and the wilderness, before he reaches the goal of his hopes and aspirations, named in Genesis as the Promised Land.
What we mean by the Adam plane is where we all being; and with the light of the nineteenth century we have very little excuse for lingering long in Egyptian darkness and bondage or allowing the plagues to torment us, or drowning in the Red Sea, or starving in the wilderness.
The Egyptian darkness typifies the ignorant stage, when we don’t know what is before us, our perceptions are limited, and we are in bondage because we know of no way out of it, and in that state of ignorance every imaginable plague torments us till a deliverer comes and leads us out of bondage.
In the Story of Creation or in the allegory, Moses was the deliverer.
In our case, knowledge of Truth is our deliverer, and in place of the Moses who never got nearer than in sight of the promised land, we accept the Christ who said, “Now are ye made clean through the words I have spoken to you.”
We have never truly accepted the Christ teaching until we comprehend the truth as He taught it; then we are free; we have risen, gradually perhaps, but risen out of the bondage of error that characterizes the Adam plane of consciousness into the light and glory of the Gospel dispensation of the Christ.
It is written, “In Adam all die, but in Christ all are made alive,” which means in the Adam consciousness, or on the Adam plane, all are going deathward – while by the Christ truth all are made alive.
Not will be made alive, but are now made alive.
Anything less than the Christ dispensation lacks the full life-giving quality.
When the disciples of John were asked by Paul “Unto whose baptism were ye baptized? If unto John’s then ye have hope; but if unto Christ’s then are ye saved now.”
The baptism of John was a baptism of water, while the baptism of the Christ was the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which means imbuement with the whole spirit of Divine truth.
Question: What is the moral tendency as taught by these principles?
Answer: The moral tendency of this teaching is a vast improvement upon every method heretofore offered to the race since the days of the Nazarene.
In the ethical, philosophical, philanthropic and religious sense, it is in the highest degree elevating, equalizing and harmonizing on every plane of activity.
The student learns (if he will) that he elevates himself whenever he helps by righteous means to elevate the race, either individually or as a whole; and also that he lowers his own standard by every attempt at oppression.
The Fatherhood of God so universally acknowledged necessitates an acknowledgment of the brotherhood of man; and that brotherhood makes every soul an equal heir to all the Father is in Being.
The whole aim of the teaching is to elevate the race and establish a universal knowledge of the powers and possibilities that are imparted equally to all.
These principles are emphasized in the teaching, and the harmonizing influence is never fully realized till they are taken into our daily lives and made a conscious and practical reality, rather than a beautiful theory, that is only to talk about and admire.
In short, the teaching tends to purity of character and the development of all that is high and ennobling.
Question: Why do women comprehend this teaching so much more quickly than men?
Answer: Men, as a rule, are more given to judge all things from the intellectual standpoint alone, regardless of any power or source back of, or greater than, that fine intellect.
With them nothing is true that cannot be reasoned out intellectually from the standpoint of sense evidence; and every argument that is based upon the action of principles that are intangible or not provable by the senses, and on the physical plane, is superstition to them.
The men have had the floor (as it were) so long, and stood superior to women ostensibly in point of ability for so many ages, that until of late years women have kept silent, and sat in the background taking notes mentally, and gradually unfolded that intuitive faculty that generations ago she did not know she possessed at all; and as it unfolded more and more she discovered an infallible guide which enabled her to see into the depth of things and principles that were unknown and unimagined on the plane of intellect alone.
It became clear to her that the intellect alone was so limited to what it could see, hear and handle, that there could be no growth or unfoldment to such as had no higher conceptions than what was revealed through a tangible sense perception, without a recognition of something superior back of the intellect.
There must be a recognized union of forces and powers in order to secure a whole and rounded out soul growth.
The intellect and intuition, as well as other faculties, must be considered and acknowledged to be equally imparted to all, else we deny the law of harmony.
Women cannot afford to ignore the intellectual powers that have been given prominence with men, and toss them aside as valueless; nor can the men afford to ignore the higher intuitive powers that have been allowed to predominate with women; but there must be an acknowledgment of equality.
The one-sided way things have been made to appear has given over the intellectual powers largely to men, instead of equalizing them, while in fact the intellect is no larger in man than in woman unless we allow it.
With women it has in a measure become dwarfed in many cases, because of the popular error regarding man’s superiority, but it is not a fact in nature.
God said: “Let us make man (not a man, but mankind) in our image and after our likeness, and let THEM have dominion,” etc., “Male and female created He them.”
No distinction; no favoritism.
As previously stated, the intellect has been given over largely to man by human error, and the intuition has been attributed more to women by the same error, hence the acknowledged fact that women comprehend the law of mind with greater facility than men have done, but not necessarily so.
Now let us unite the masculine intellect with the feminine intuition in holy wedlock. Holy means godly, and what God has joined together let no man put asunder.
The End