Lesson 9
IMAGINATION
Charles Fillmore
Christian Healing
1. The teachings about the things of Spirit are said to be mystical. We have
thought them so because we have not come into consciousness of the many
faculties necessary to comprehend Spirit. Victor Hugo said: "There are no occult
or hidden truths; everything is luminous with mind." So we find in the study of
Truth that what is called mysterious and occult is simply a range of facts that
man has not yet explored. When he expands his mind and takes in a larger
horizon, he sees the interrelation of a multitude of hitherto unknown laws
which, from his former viewpoint, seemed mysterious.
2. Mind manifests through faculties; if mind is to comprehend increasingly,
there must be an increase of these avenues. That man has latent possibilities
goes without argument; that there is a limit to the ability of the mind is
unthinkable. What a man imagines he can do, that he can do. The doing is a
question of adopting the right way. To allow the imagination to drift in
daydreams never brings anything to pass. Ideas must be worked up into living,
breathing, thinking things. Man can compress his vagrant ideas into visibility
as the chemist liquefies and makes visible the invisible atmosphere; but to do
this he must, like the chemist, have the necessary machinery.
3. Physiology says that, in order to think, man must have brains. However,
thinking is not limited to material brain cells but, like everything else in the
universe, has a wide range of expression. There are brains within brains, and
cells within cells. All through the body are brain centers, whose offices have
not yet been determined. Psychology shows that these nerve centers are acted
upon by invisible forces; it teaches that man has what is called a subconscious
mind, which transcends the conscious mind in knowledge and in ability. Jesus
gives us this still higher teaching concerning our mental powers: Man has a mind
called the Lord, transcending both the conscious and the subconscious minds. Yet
the harmonious working together of these three seemingly separate minds is
necessary to the bringing forth of the latent possibilities of the man.
4. In truth there is but one Mind; in it all things exist. Accurately
speaking, man does not have three minds, nor does he have even one mind; but he
expresses the one Mind in a multitude of ways. To believe in the possession of
an individual mind, and that it is necessary to store up knowledge in it, makes
living burdensome. This is why very intellectual people are often impractical
and unsuccessful; they have accumulated more knowledge than they have wisdom and
power to apply. Like the miser who starves surrounded by his gold, they perish
for lack of real understanding. Through thinking of their stored-up knowledge as
a personal possession, they have insulated it from the original fount of wisdom
and life, and it has consequently become stale and forceless.
5. There is in man that which, when opened, will place him in direct contact
with universal knowledge and enable him instantly and continuously to draw forth
anything that he may wish to know. God is our fount of wisdom, even as He is our
source of supply. The understanding of the Christ Mind reveals that man of
himself knows nothing. Jesus, who developed this higher consciousness, claimed
that all His knowledge and power came direct from the Father: "I can of myself
do nothing." "The Father abiding in me doeth his works."
6. All that man really needs is the quickening and rounding out of the
thinking centers in his consciousness; that having been done, Divine Mind will
think through him. This supreme Mind holds man at its center, a perfect
instrument through which to express its possibilities. The writer of the first
chapter of Genesis says that man is formed in the image and after the likeness
of God. He is the I-am-age, or the identical I AM of God-Mind in expression. God
looks into the mirror of the universe and sees Himself as man; He gives Himself
to man, and man in his highest is God manifest. "He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father." Thus God gives to His image the power to express all that He is.
This not only includes man's ability to think, but also the power to shape and
form thought. This formative power of thought requires a distinctive faculty,
which is called the "imagination." The mind makes its forms in a way similar to
that in which cooks make biscuits. First is the gathering of the materials, then
the mixing, then the biscuit cutting, which gives shape to the substance. In
thinking, man accumulates a mass of ideas about substance and life, and with his
imagination he makes them into forms.
7. Whatever we mirror in our minds becomes a living, active thing, and
through it we are connected with the world about us. Through the work of the
imaging faculty, every thought makes a form, and multitudes of thoughts make
multitudes of forms. These crowd in upon one another around the central
I-am-age, and appear in what is called the body. Physiology says that all the
organs of the body are made up of cells, and that every cell contains the
essential elements of its particular organ. The liver is made of a multitude of
liver elements, the heart of heart elements, and so forth. The starting point is
an idea, and through the mechanism of the mind (often erroneously called the
mechanism of the body) man forms his organism. With this key anyone can unlock
the door of his temple and in mind visit all its various rooms and set the
furniture in order.
8. The imagination has its center of action in the front brain; it uses what
phrenology calls the perceptive faculties. It is really the author of these
faculties; size, weight, form, color, and the like are its children. When it
flashes its light into the cells that make up the organs, they at once respond
to the thought, and out of substance visible and invisible make forms that
correspond to the idea held in imagination. If the idea originates in Spirit,
the creation is harmonious and according to law. The nerve centers are so
sensitive and receptive to thought that they take impressions from without and
make in the ether the forms that correspond to the impressions received. This is
an inversion of the creative law, which is that all creations shall have their
patterns in the mind. When man allows his imagination to run on in a lawless
way, he brings about such discord in mind and body that the flood of error
thought submerges his understanding and he is drowned in it. "And Jehovah saw
that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." "And I, behold, I do bring
the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh."
9. All things, including the mind, work from center to circumference. A
knowledge of this fact puts man on his guard and causes him to direct that his
imagination shall not create things in his mind that have been impressed upon
him from without. This does not imply that the outer world is all error, or that
all appearance is the creation of finite mind; it means that the outer is not a
safe pattern from which to make the members of the body. When Moses was
instructed by the Lord to furnish the tabernacle, the command was, "See . . .
that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the
mount." "The mount" is the place of high understanding in mind, which Jesus
called the kingdom of God within us. The wise metaphysician resolves into ideas
each mental picture, each form and shape seen in visions, dreams, and the like.
The idea is the foundation, the real; when understood and molded by the power of
the word, it creates or recreates the form at the direction of the individual I
AM. By working with this simple law, man may become an adept or master. By
handling the cause of things he attains mastery over things, and instead of
giving up to his emotions and feelings, he controls them. Instead of letting his
imagination run riot, conjuring up all sorts of situations, he holds it steadily
to a certain set of ideas that he wants brought forth. "Thou wilt keep him in
perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on thee." (Is. 26:3, margin.)
10. As man develops in understanding, his imagination is the first of his
latent faculties to quicken. Esau represents the natural man. Jacob represents
the intellectual man supplanting Esau; hence Jacob is called the "supplanter."
Historically, he seems a trickster, taking advantage of those of less wisdom,
but this incident merely shows how the higher principle appropriates the good
everywhere. Imagination was the leading faculty in Jacob's mind. He dreamed of a
ladder reaching from earth to heaven, the angels of God ascending and descending
upon it. This is prophecy of union between the ideal and its manifestations,
between Spirit and body; the union is made by pure thoughts of the absolute--the
angels of Jacob's dream. Farther along in his development Jacob awakened all his
faculties, represented by his twelve sons. Joseph was a dreamer and an
interpreter of dreams. He was the favorite son of Jacob, the I AM, who gave him
a coat of many colors. This is all representative of the imaging faculty, which
Joseph typifies.
11. The history of Joseph is the history of man's imagination developed under
the divine law. His dreams were messages from God, and God interpreted them for
him; his life is one of the most interesting and fascinating romances in the
Bible. For a time the way of Joseph was thorny, but through his obedience to
Spirit he reached the highest place in the king's domain. This shows that man
begins the development of the imagination in the darkness of materiality and in
the depths of ignorance, represented by Joseph's being cast into the pit and
sold into Egypt. Through spiritual understanding, the "dreamer" becomes the most
practical son of the family; by following his dream interpretations, multitudes
are saved from starvation. The individual application of this is: Having our
attention fixed on Spirit, we discern the ebb and flow of the forces in the
organism, and we know how to conserve and husband our resources.
12. Instead of treating the visions of the night as idle dreams, we should
inquire into them, seeking to know the cause and the meaning of every mental
picture. Every dream has origin in thought, and every thought makes a mind
picture. The study of dreams and visions is an important one, because it is
through these mental pictures that the Lord communicates with man in a certain
stage of his unfoldment. Solomon was instructed in dreams. "In Gibeon Jehovah
appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, Ask what I shall give
thee." In Job 33:15, 16, we read, "In a dream, in a vision of the night, when
deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the
ears of men, and sealeth their instruction." "Then was the secret revealed unto
Daniel in a vision of the night." Joseph, the husband of Mary, was told in a
dream to take the young child Jesus and go down into Egypt. Peter was shown his
intolerance in a vision, and Paul was obedient to the "heavenly vision." God has
instructed all the great and wise in every age in dreams and visions. "Where
there is no vision, the people cast off restraint."
13. Every form and thing, whether in the ether or on the earth, represents
some idea or mental attitude. The idea is first projected into mind substance,
and afterward formed in consciousness. The mind of man sees all things through
thought forms made by the imagination. The lover idealizes the object of his
affection, and is often disappointed on close acquaintance. We are always
creating ideals that have existence in our minds alone. A true story is told of
a sailor who went on a long voyage and left his affianced behind. He thought of
her continuously, and often saw her in his dreams. Finally he began to see and
talk to her in his waking state, and she told him many remarkable things. She
said that it was her soul that visited him; that her body was in her English
home, awaiting his return. After some twenty years he arrived at home, expecting
a welcome from his loved one. He was dumfounded to learn that she was married,
had a family, and had forgotten him. Out of his own mind substance he had
created the object of his affection, which had faithfully reflected all his
thoughts about her.
14. Through the power of the imagination we impress upon the body the
concepts of the mind. Here are stories of actual occurrences: a woman watched
her little daughter pass through a heavy iron gate. The gate swung shut and the
mother imagined that it had caught and crushed the little one's fingers. But the
child had withdrawn her fingers before the gate struck. The mother felt pain in
her own hand, and the next day she found a dark streak across her fingers, in
the place where she had imagined that the child's had been crushed. In a
secret-society initiation, the candidate was told that the word "coward" was to
be branded upon his back with a red-hot iron. A piece of ice was used instead,
but the promised brand arose in blistered letters.
15. We could cite cases without number to prove the power of the imagination
in forming and transforming the body. Also, one mind can suggest to another and
produce any desired condition, if there be mental receptivity. This can be done
most effectively through the hypnotic state, but hypnosis is not always
necessary. Experiments prove that we are constantly suggesting all sorts of
things to one another, and getting results according to the intensity of the
imagination. Thus disease is reflected into susceptible minds by people's merely
talking about disease as an awful reality.
16. A man can imagine that he has some evil condition in body or affairs, and
through the imaging law build it up until it becomes manifest. On the other
hand, he can use the same power to make good appear on every side. The marks of
old age can be erased from the body by one's mentally seeing the body as
youthful. If you want to be healthy, do not imagine so vain a thing as
decrepitude. Make your body perfect by seeing perfection in it. Transient
patching up with lotions and external applications is foolish; the work must be
an inner transformation. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
17. The highest and best work of the imagination is the marvelous
transformation that it works in character. Imagine that you are one with the
Principle of good, and you will become truly good. To imagine oneself perfect
fixes the idea of perfection in the invisible mind substance, and the mind
forces at once begin the work of bringing forth perfection.
18. Paul saw this wonderful law at work in character-forming through
imitating Christ: "But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory, to glory,
even as from the Lord the Spirit."
Lesson Nine
Perfection In Form Established
(To be used in connection with Lesson Nine)
1. I see my countenance in its divine perfection.
2. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on
thee."
3. I see perfection in all forms and shapes.
4. His Son is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His
person.
5. I see the light of the Christ consciousness always.
6. I am formed anew every day in my mind and my body.
7. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
8. My spirit is quickened in Christ.
9. "In a dream, in a vision of the night . . . he openeth the ears of men,
and sealeth their instruction."
10. I know the reality back of the shadows.
