[347] The directions for patients
in lesson nineteen would seem very
difficult to follow, and they are
difficult. No patient ever follows
them to any degree of perfectness at
first, but by frequent readings, or
by oral instruction to the same
effect, he will by degrees begin to
drop the burning consciousness of his
disease that he has carried so long
and so laboriously. The treatments
help the patient to a comprehension
of the directions. They shape his
mind in conformity with them, and
presently he is able to do a good
deal for himself simply by following
the directions. He will find his
disease less frequently in his
thought. He will find himself
entering into the thoughts of others
more, and will begin to be
enlightened of the awful load of
himself that he has carried so long.
And so by degrees all thoughts of the
disease will slip from his mind, and
when they have slipped from his mind
they have slipped from his body also,
for body and mind are one.
On the subject of thought-lifting
I want to say a few more words. I
must make this matter plainer, for I
am sure that few persons have ever
thought much about it. I must give
some illustrations that will make it
clear. A woman is troubled, let us
say, and she retires to her chamber
and prays. After praying most
earnestly for a time she comes into
the belief that God has heard her
prayer and granted her request. Then
she is happy and contented, and goes
about her business again in perfect
rest and trustfulness.
Let us examine her attitude of
thought during the prayer. Let us
observe, first of all, that her eyes
are raised and her face turned
upward. This attitude indicates the
lifting of her thoughts above the
position ordinarily occupied by them.
They have ascended into a clear place
above her head--it seems to her--but
in reality they have only ascended
into that upper chamber of the brain
that I call the ideal. Here in this
upper chamber the atmosphere is very
clear, and she loses sight of the
trouble that invaded the lower realm
of her mentality. Up here there is a
sense of power that impresses her
greatly and destroys her fear. She
believes in it, and is reassured and
happy.
This is all there is to prayer.
Prayer is aspiration, or desire. When
aspiration, or desire, becomes strong
enough it ascends by virtue of its
nature, or by natural law, just as
cream ascends to the top of milk. It
comes up to the air; to the free
space above; to a more unconfined
realm. This is part of the law of
evolution. The finer comes up through
the coarser to take its place in the
more unconfined space in the higher
realm.
Thus aspiration ascended from the
everyday brain of the woman to the
idealistic brain, where it saw that
there was no hindrance to its
actualization. This seeing was the
spoken word, or the statement of its
creation. Now, the woman would not
have clothed her aspiration with
belief but for the fact that she had
been taught [348] that God was all
powerful. Her faith was firmly
established in this belief. It was
not to be shaken, and it actually did
clothe her aspiration, or prayer, and
make it a tangible reality that
brought her the comfort and rest she
was seeking.
It was her belief in the power
that did this. It would have made no
difference if her belief had been
placed upon some wooden god of
heathendom, or on the crucifix which
plays so important a part in the
Catholic religion. It was her belief
in the power that wrought the change
in her feelings which she called an
answer to her prayer, and which
really was an answer to her
prayer.
The power was there. She had
ascended in her own intelligence to
the abode of power; namely, the
idealistic faculties--those faculties
that have been evolved from our
everyday faculties according to the
nature of the law, by which the
finest, the most unfettered
substances arise to the top.
The power was her own. But if one
had attempted to make her believe
this, the whole effect would have
been lost. She had been brought up in
the belief of her own helplessness;
in the belief that all the strength
she could have was through the grace
of the God in whose power she had the
most unswerving confidence. And so an
apparent miracle was wrought. The
great God had stooped from his throne
to answer the cry of one of his
helpless children.
That the power-house from which
the woman drew the answer to her
prayer, or demand, was in her own
brain is proved by daily occurrences
of the same kind in heathen countries
where similar miracles are performed
by wooden gods. The belief in the
power, no matter where the power
comes from, is all that is necessary
to clothe the aspiration, or demand.
Belief is the clothing power of
desire. As the desire is of the
individual, so is the power that
gratifies it. The power lies in the
strata of unfettered thought which
belongs to the idealistic brain.
Here is another instance of
ascending into this upper brain. I
knew a woman who was very sickly and
suffered intensely. She bought
medicine when she could, and with it
deadened her pain. At times she could
not get the medicine, and her pain
was unendurable until she discovered
that there was a realm of thought
into which she could ascend where she
ceased to be conscious of the pain.
She told me that night after night
she lifted her thoughts into this
high place entirely out of reach of
the pain in her body. This was before
I had ever heard of Mental
Science.
Another woman in childbirth had
been in hard labor for nearly two
days, when it was discovered that the
presentation was wrong. A second
doctor had to be sent for, and as he
was away from home it soon became
known that he would not come for
twenty-four hours. This announcement
was enough to kill the patient, and
would probably have done so, only in
the shock of her despair her spirit,
that poised itself for escape from
the tortured body, was suddenly
arrested in this high place in the
brain, and instantly became conscious
that there was rest there and freedom
from suffering. She assured me that
while abiding in this high place in
her thought--which she did for one
whole day and night until the doctor
came and promptly relieved her--she
was perfectly conscious of the
immense muscular power exerted in the
effort of her body to bring the child
into the world, and knew that the
pains were going on with terrific
force, but she did not feel them. She
was above the region of thought where
there is any consciousness of pain,
and yet she was in her own body all
the time.
I have told of these instances to
show the student that this high place
of human intelligence exists, and
that by ascension into it we are able
to speak the word that clothes with
power. It needs thought and study to
enable us to get a full understanding
of this fact, but when we do get an
understanding [349] of it there comes
to us the self-trust that makes gods
of every one of us.
One more point on the subject of
practical healing, and I will pass on
toward the conclusion of the
twentieth lesson, which completes the
regular course.
It has been considered necessary
in absent healing for the healer and
patient to set a certain hour for the
treatment, in which they may meet
each other in thought. In order to do
this there must be a consideration of
difference in time, owing to
difference in locality. Of course in
this arrangement there is a chance
for mistakes to occur, and mistakes
have occurred; so many of them, in
fact, as to prove that there is no
need of fixing a certain time in
which to meet each other in thought,
because whether the time is fixed or
not the healing goes steadily on just
the same. This led me to learn all I
know about the wonderful
possibilities of thought. I found
that if I sent a thought to a patient
and the patient was not listening for
it, it would wait until such time as
she chanced to turn her thought
toward me, when it would enter her
sphere of thought and make its
impression; the impression I intended
it should make.
At other times I have occasionally
forgotten to treat a patient at the
hour agreed upon, when a strange
unrest would take possession of me;
just as one in trying to think of
something else is disturbed by the
babble, babble, babble of a child,
and wishes it would hush; and all of
a sudden the name of my patient, whom
I was neglecting, would flash into my
mind, and I would know that the
disturbing influence had been the
patient’s thought that was
coming to me at that hour. Now, I did
not understand a word of the
patient’s thought, but I felt
its presence distinctly, and knew
what it meant. The thought was
present with me waiting to claim my
attention. If the patient’s
thought could do this with me, then
my thought would do the same with
her. I made a long series of
experiments with this thing, from
which I learned the palpable
character of thought when charged
with a purpose, and the tenacity with
which it held to the purpose and
performed it, even to the most minute
particulars.
I permit a patient to tell me all
the particulars of her disease, and I
would rather she would do this than
not, because it is a relief to her
mind. It is virtually giving her
disease away, or freeing herself from
it.
Self-trust, based upon
self-knowledge, is the basis of all
healing power. The more you know
yourself the more you will trust
yourself, for the more you will
become acquainted with your own
greatness, your own power to
create.
The more you know and trust
yourself, and the more you prize your
own power, the stronger the magnet
you will become, and the more will
you be able to draw from the external
world the things and conditions
related to your desires, through the
unerring process of the Law.
The man who possesses the most
powerful self-hood attracts to
himself the most good. And his power
to attract good is not limited to
those elements by which his character
is built up in such force and
strength, but he also attracts from
the world of visible things just what
he desires.
It is only in proportion as his
character is built in strength that
he has the power to attract things to
himself, such as friends, wealth, and
honors.
As a man can only increase in real
power by increasing in goodness, or a
belief in good, it is therefore
impossible for him to become a
dangerous person in this way, as
seems to be the general idea. No man
gains in strength by believing in
so-called evil influence. The reason
for this ought to be apparent to
every student who has accompanied me
thus far in these lessons. All
beliefs in evil influences, and in
every form of disease, are simply so
many negations of good. Now, to deny
good does not nullify [350] good, but
only blinds the person who denies it
to the sight of it; this is all.
To illustrate: People may believe
in evil as much as they please, and
may attempt to heap what they term an
evil influence on me. Suppose that I
too believe in evil influences and
thus make a mental admission of their
power over me. I then take the
consequences of my belief in evil and
begin to show it forth, for a man
shows forth, for the time being, just
what he believes whether truth or
error.
But suppose, on the other hand,
that I know the law; I then laugh at
the futility of their attempts, and
go on believing in good and showing
forth its power. All beliefs in evil
and disease are based on fear, and
their effects are psychological on
people; that is, the belief being
thrown on a person, and then not
standing in the stronghold of self,
is like a mirror that reflects or
shows forth the beliefs thrown upon
it; and so for the time being he
appears to be diseased, or evil.
It has occurred to me that the
student may think I am saying very
little about disease and its cure in
these lessons.
It is because I know to a
certainty that--in the light of
absolute truth--there is no disease,
that I do not say more about it. It
is merely a false belief. If you have
the belief, then the cure for you is
to convince you that your belief is
not true. This is the only cure there
is for you. You are purely, so far as
your exterior is concerned, an
intellectual statement. You have
accepted the statement of yourself
almost unquestioningly from others.
You are dissatisfied with the
statement and want a better one. You
cannot have a better one until you
see wherein your present statement is
mistaken. As soon as you see this you
will be well. Disease is ignorance of
your own power. If you can remain on
the everyday plane of your
development and perceive your
mistake, well and good. If you cannot
do this, and there are very few who
can, then you must raise your
thoughts to the ideal sphere, and
from this high place correct your
statement, denying the existence of
evil and affirming the good, and
recognizing your own individuality as
an exponent of the good only; and
thus strengthen yourself as a human
magnet until you feel yourself
invulnerable in power.
You have never thought of yourself
as a magnet, and have probably
connected the idea of magnetism with
mesmerism and have been frightened by
the bare thought of it. But you are a
magnet; and when I say this I mean
that you have a something within
yourself that is forever true to you.
It is always with you, and always
holding the fort against foreign
invasion. And yet this inner
stronghold you have been taught to
look upon with suspicion, and have
tried to lay it down or yield it up
as a sacrifice to your mis-educated
conscience.
Now, the steadfastness with which
you stand true to this inner fort,
this something that is always with
you, this spirit, or will, marks your
power as a magnet. And the more you
recognize this inner power, this
magnetic force or will, the more you
come within the line of the Law of
Attraction and the more you are able
to draw to yourself such good as you
may desire.
Right being is right seeing. It is
the seeing from the highest point of
our intellects, and this is the
idealistic point. In this lofty place
you do not demand health, it is
already yours. All things desirable
are yours, and all you ask for is
greater faith in yourself; greater
self-trust. It is from this place
that you will see how all things you
desire can come to you. Your words
will be like these: “I am under
the Law of Attraction, for there is
no other law. I am a magnet, and it
is the nature of a magnet to attract.
Under a consciousness of the Law it
can do nothing else. But what do I
want to attract? That which will
build me up in a greater knowledge of
my own strength; this is what I want
[351] to attract every hour. Perhaps
my ignorance is so great that I
cannot name what I want. It makes no
difference; I want just that which
shall make me more and still more
conscious of my own strength.
Whatever this may be, it is
correlated to my desire, or will, and
my intelligence standing shoulder to
shoulder with my desire makes me a
perfect unit, and therefore an
irresistible magnet. I will get what
I want.”
Take your position as a citizen of
the universe with latent powers that
correlate you to every external
thing--including the thousand
unexplored atmospheric forces--and
make your demand for that which will
develop you to much greater strength
and power than you have ever
known.
Nature teaches us of powers not
yet recognized in ourselves. The grub
develops into a butterfly; but a man
whose growth embraces both grub and
butterfly has so far failed to
recognize any such power in himself.
Many of the flying insects transgress
every known law of physics in their
flying. The “bumblebee”
is too heavy for his small wings to
bear up his weight in the air; the
law of physics has demonstrated this
fact; and yet he flies. And the
reason of his flying is because he is
destitute of reason. He flies because
he wants to, and does not know that
he cannot. Thus he disproves the law
of physics and establishes the fact
that desire and faith are supreme
over them. He is ignorant of the
so-called laws of physical
causation--a belief in which has kept
us slaves to the “has
been” for so many ages.
We can never make much advancement
in the new road we are now traveling
until we cease to believe in what is
termed the impossible. So long as we
believe that there is anything
impossible that our desires project
we will stand right where we are;
right in these same old tracks where
our forefathers have stood since the
dawn of reason. We must pull up
stakes and away. Nature has been
trying to give us hints on this
subject always. She calls to us
constantly by all her myriad voices:
“Go on, go on, or else
die.” She will not permit us to
stand still. The whole tendency of
life is to still further development
into still greater uses than the
generations behind us knew anything
about. “Learn a thing and leave
it,” cries this stern and busy
old mother. “Do not stand to
con over the lesson you know, but
hasten on to the studying of the next
one. There shall be no standing still
in my world. Hurry up or hurry
out.”
The reason we die is because there
is no use of living after we know all
we mean to learn; and as there is no
use of anything in life but
use, the law of life itself
hangs on this principle. Do not
imagine that this sentence excludes
the idea of beauty. In the refinement
of the race the expression or
manifestation of beauty through every
form of art is going to be the
highest of all uses. Our lives are
here in the world of effects; and the
whole intention of existence is to
establish ourselves firmly here by
bringing our wills forward and upward
into our ideal personalities. Then
these personalities will become
living human wills; and that will
grow in strength through use and
intelligent recognition of their
power until we shall be such
wonderful creatures as we can form no
present conception of.
Do you imagine that these lessons
are for no other purpose than to
patch up your decaying bodies and
make them a little more comfortable
until death shall release you from
them? They are not written for this
purpose at all, though no doubt very
many students who purchase them will
be satisfied with this result, and
leave the greater and nobler results
to be accomplished by that earnest
few who are content with nothing but
the very highest and best. They will
be to each student just as much or as
little as he demands; but my
intention in writing them is to have
them meet the highest possible
demand. As the highest includes all
below it, the lessons are [352]
therefore adapted to the needs of
each student.
I, for one, am not satisfied to
let “well enough” alone.
This time-honored synonym of
mediocrity will never content me. I
must get out of the old ruts of
thought and action and strike a blow
for the emancipation of myself and
others; emancipation from the deadly
ignorance that holds us to the
negative pole of being, where we are
the slaves of our own fear, and where
life is a burden and a terror instead
of the unfettered and beautiful thing
it ought to be.
Disease and poverty and all those
conditions you dislike so much are
founded on fear. Every condition to
be found in the negative pole of life
is based on fear, and without fear it
could not possibly exist.
To be fearless is to be where no
adverse thing can touch you; where
disease cannot affect you, nor
poverty cast a shadow over you.
To cross from the negative to the
positive pole of life is to pass from
beliefs in disease and death to a
knowledge of the fact that there is
no disease nor death; and this can
only be done by getting rid of fear.
And we shall never get rid of fear
until we do stand erect and alone in
conscious enjoyment of the
situation.
To be able to stand alone with the
consciousness of the power involved
in so doing, will be the crowning act
of the magnet man. He will then be
born into the positive pole of life
where his career of self-ownership
will begin, and where he can send out
his thoughts and they will bring him
what he wants. He will be a magnet
revolving about other magnets as
powerful as he is; for many men and
women must come into this strength
and knowledge before the ideal
society is here; and the ideal
society is one of man’s
indispensable necessities. “Ye
are the temple of the living
God.” Not the temples, but the
temple. Society must be composed of
units, each of which is a perfect
whole, else there will be no true
reciprocal interchange.
By the expression”perfect
whole” I do not mean that man
in coming into the position I have
described will cease growing. I mean
that he will then be individualized.
He will be a true individual standing
in the mastership of his own
faculties, and in this respect drawn
apart from the influence of other
men, and capable of living the life
indicated by his peculiar genius. He
will no longer be in that indefinite
frame of mind where he and thousands
of others can be pressed into the
same mold, thus helping to swell that
“mush of concession,” the
great bulk of humanity, but not
adding to the number of real men in
the world. Once individualized in the
way I have described in the foregoing
pages he will only be perfect in the
sense of being in the right condition
to begin his endless career of
development all through the ages of
eternity. He will be perfect as a
magnet, and will thus have power to
acquire whatever his desires or will
may call for.
Hoping that each of my students
will keep firmly and hopefully at the
work of unfolding his own faculties,
and trusting that these lessons may
assist him in becoming a tower of
strength in the world. I close, with
loving faith in the genius and
patient endeavor of every one of
them.
END OF LESSONS
