Letter of Transmittal
In Week Twenty-Two you will find that thoughts are spiritual seeds, which, when planted in the subconscious mind, have a tendency to sprout and grow, but unfortunately the fruit is frequently not to our liking.
The various forms of inflammation, paralysis, nervousness, and diseased conditions generally are the manifestation of fear, worry, care, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, and similar thought.
The life processes are carried on by two distinct methods: First, the taking up and making use of nutritive material necessary for constructing cells; second, breaking down and excreting the waste material.
All life is based upon these constructive and destructive activities and as food, water, and air are the only requisites necessary for the construction of cells, it would seem that the problem of prolonging life indefinitely would not be a very difficult one.
However strange it may seem, it is the second or destructive activity that is, with rare exception, the cause of all disease. The waste material accumulates and saturates the tissues, which causes autointoxication. This may be partial or general. In the first case the disturbance will be local; in the second place it will affect the whole system.
The problem, then, before us in the healing of disease is to increase the inflow and distribution of vital energy throughout the system, and this can only be done by eliminating thoughts of fear, worry, care, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, and every other destructive thought, which tend to tear down and destroy the nerves and glands which control the excretion and elimination of poisonous and waste matter.“Nourishing foods and strengthening tonics” cannot bestow life, because these are but secondary manifestations of life. The primary manifestation of life and how you may get in touch with it is explained in the part which I have the privilege of enclosing herewith.
Week Twenty-Two: Spiritual Seeds
- Knowledge is of priceless value, because by applying knowledge we can make our future what we wish it to be. When we realize that our present character, our present environment, our present ability, and our present physical condition are all the result of past methods of thinking, we shall begin to have some conception of the value of knowledge.
- If the state of our health is not all that could be desired, let us examine our method of thinking; let us remember that every thought produces an impression on the mind; every impression is a seed which will sink into the subconscious and form a tendency; the tendency will be to attract other similar thoughts and before we know it we shall have a crop which must be harvested.
- If these thoughts contain disease germs, the harvest will be sickness, decay, weakness, and failure. The question is: What are we thinking, what are we creating, what is the harvest to be?
- If there is any physical condition which it is necessary to change, the law governing visualization will be found effective. Make a mental image of physical perfection, hold it in the mind until it is absorbed by the consciousness. Many have eliminated chronic ailments in a few weeks by this method, and thousands have overcome and destroyed all manner of ordinary physical disturbances by this method in a few days, sometimes in a few minutes.
- It is through the law of vibration that the mind exercises this control over the body. We know that every mental action is a vibration, and we know that all form is simply a mode of motion, a rate of vibration. Therefore, any given vibration immediately modifies every atom in the body, every life cell is affected and an entire chemical change is made in every group of life cells.
- Everything in the Universe is what it is by virtue of its rate of vibration. Change the rate of vibration and you change the nature, quality, and form. The vast panorama of nature, both visible and invisible, is being constantly changed by simply changing the rate of vibration, and as thought is a vibration we can also exercise this power. We can change the vibration and thus produce any condition which we desire to manifest in our bodies.
- We are all using this power every minute. The trouble is most of us are using it unconsciously and thus producing undesirable results. The problem is to use it intelligently and produce only desirable results. This should not be difficult, because we all have had sufficient experience to know what produces pleasant vibrations in the body, and we also know the causes which produce the unpleasant and disagreeable sensations.
- All that is necessary is to consult our own experience. When our thought has been uplifted, progressive, constructive, courageous, noble, kind, or in any other way desirable, we have set in motion vibrations which brought about certain results. When our thought has been filled with envy, hatred, jealousy, criticism, or any of the other thousand and one forms of discord, certain vibrations were set in motion which brought about certain other results of a different nature, and each of these rates of vibration, if kept up, crystallized in form. In the first case the result was mental, moral, and physical health, and in the second case discord, inharmony, and disease.
- We can understand, then, something of the power which the mind possesses over the body.
- The objective mind has certain effects on the body which are readily recognized. Some one says something to you which strikes you as ludicrous and you laugh, possibly until your whole body shakes, which shows that thought has control over the muscles of your body; or some one says something which excites your sympathy and your eyes fill with tears, which shows that thought controls the glands of your body; or some one says something which makes you angry and the blood mounts to your cheek, which shows that thought controls the circulation of your blood. But as these experiences are all the results of the action of your objective mind over the body, the results are of a temporary nature; they soon pass away and leave the situation as it was before.
- Let us see how the action of the subconscious mind over the body differs. You receive a wound; thousands of cells begin the work of healing at once; in a few days or a few weeks the work is complete. You may even break a bone. No surgeon on earth can weld the parts together. He may set the bone for you, but the subjective mind will immediately begin the process of welding the parts together, and in a short time the bone is as solid as it ever was. You may swallow poison; the subjective mind will immediately discover the danger and make violent efforts to eliminate it. You may become infected with a dangerous germ: the subjective will at once commence to build a wall around the infected area and destroy the infection by absorbing it in the white blood corpuscles which it supplies for the purpose.
- These processes of the subconscious mind usually proceed without our personal knowledge or direction, and so long as we do not interfere the result is perfect, but, as these millions of repair cells are all intelligent and respond to our thought, they are often paralyzed and rendered impotent by our thoughts of fear, doubt, and anxiety. They are like an army of workmen, ready to start an important piece of work, but every time they get fairly started on the undertaking a strike is called, or plans changed, until they finally get discouraged and give up.
- The way to health is founded on the law of vibration, which is the basis of all science, and this law is brought into operation by the mind, the “world within.” It is a matter of individual effort and practice. Our world of power is within; if we are wise we shall not waste time and effort in trying to deal with effects as we find them in the “world without,” which is only an external, a reflection.
- We shall always find the cause in the “world within”; by changing the cause, we change the effect.
- Every cell in your body is intelligent and will respond to your direction. The cells are all creators and will create the exact pattern which you give them.
- Therefore, when perfect images are placed before the subjective, the creative energies will build a perfect body.
- Brain cells are constructed in the same way. The quality of the brain is governed by the state of mind, or mental attitude, so that if undesirable mental attitudes are conveyed to the subjective they will in turn be transferred to the body; we can therefore readily see that if we wish the body to manifest health, strength, and vitality this must be the predominant thought.
- We know then that every element of the human body is the result of a rate of vibration.
- We know that mental action is a rate of vibration.
- We know that a higher rate of vibration governs, modifies, controls, changes, or destroys a lower rate of vibration.
- We know that the rate of vibration is governed by the character of brain cells.
- Finally, we know how to create these brain cells.
- Therefore, we know how to make any physical change in the body we desire and having secured a working knowledge of the power of mind to this extent, we have come to know that there is practically no limitation which can be placed upon our ability to place ourselves in harmony with natural law, which is omnipotent.
- This influence or control over the body by the mind is coming to be more and more generally understood, and many physicians are now giving the matter their earnest attention. Dr. Albert T. Shofield, who has written several important books on the subject, says: “The subject of mental therapeutics is still ignored in medical works generally. In our physiologies no reference is made to the central controlling power that rules the body for its good, and the power of the mind over the body is seldom spoken of.”
- No doubt many physicians treat nervous diseases of functional origin wisely and well, but what we contend is that the knowledge they display was taught at no school, was learned from no book, but it is intuitive and empirical.
- This is not as it should be. The power of mental therapeutics should be the subject of careful, special, and scientific teaching in every medical school. We might pursue the subject of maltreatment, or want of treatment, further in detail and describe the disastrous results of neglected cases; but the task is an invidious one.
- There can be no doubt that few patients are aware how much they can do for themselves. What the patient can do for himself, the forces he can set in motion are as yet unknown. We are inclined to believe that they are far greater than most imagine, and will undoubtedly be used more and more. Mental therapeutics may be directed by the patient himself to calming the mind in excitement, by arousing feelings of joy, hope, faith, and love; by suggesting motives for exertion, by regular mental work, by diverting the thoughts from the malady.
- For your exercise this week concentrate on Tennyson’s beautiful lines.
- “Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet, Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”
- Then try to realize that when you do “Speak to Him” you are in touch with Omnipotence.
- This realization and recognition of this Omnipresent power will quickly destroy any and every form of sickness or suffering and substitute harmony and perfection. Then remember there are those who seem to think that sickness and suffering are sent by God; if so, every physician, every surgeon, and every Red Cross nurse is defying the will of God and hospitals and sanitariums are places of rebellion instead of houses of mercy. Of course, this quickly reasons itself into an absurdity, but there are many who still cherish the idea.
- Then let the thought rest on the fact that until recently theology has been trying to teach an impossible Creator, one who created beings capable of sinning and then allowed them to be eternally punished for such sins. Of course the necessary outcome of such extraordinary ignorance was to create fear instead of love, and so, after two thousand years of this kind of propaganda, Theology is now busily engaged in apologizing for Christendom.
- You will then the more readily appreciate the ideal man, the man made in the image and likeness of God, and you will the more readily appreciate the all-originating Mind that forms, upholds, sustains, originates, and creates all there is.
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul.” — Pope
Questions & Answers for Week Twenty-Two
How may sickness be eliminated?
By placing ourselves in harmony with Natural Law which is Omnipotent.
What is the Process?
A realization that man is a spiritual being and that this spirit must necessarily be perfect.
What is the result?
A conscious recognition of this perfection, first intellectually then emotionally brings about a manifestation of this perfection.
Why is this so?
Because thought is spiritual and therefore creative and correlates with its object and brings it into manifestation.
What Natural Law is brought into operation?
The Law of Vibration.
Why does this govern?
Because a higher rate of vibration governs, modifies, controls, changes, or destroys a lower rate of vibration.
Is this system of mental therapeutics generally recognized?
Yes, there are over a million people in this country who make use of it in one form or another.
What is the result of this system of thought?
For the first time in the world’s history every man’s highest reasoning faculty can be satisfied by a demonstrable truth which is now fast flooding the world.
Is this system applicable to other forms of supply?
It will meet every human requirement or necessity.
Is this system scientific or religious?
Both. True science and true religion are twin sisters. Where one goes, the other necessarily follows.
Opportunity follows perception, action follows inspiration, growth follows knowledge, eminence follows progress. Always the spiritual first, then the transformation into the infinite and illimitable possibilities of achievement.