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This is a selection from a rare book on self healing.
If you download it from the table of contents, 
it will be a lot easier to read.

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DIRECT HEALING

chapter 1

THE MAGICAL WORD


	Among an infinite multiplicity of teachers, preachers, healers, doctors, and 
reformers, how shall the seeker, weary of failure, of plausible theories which refuse to 
work, of entanglements and contradictions which the wisdom of the intellect cannot solve 
- how shall the seeker after truth find that truth which indeed brings freedom, and 
serene joy, and the highest success?  Not by looking without, dear friend, and of that be 
assured.  For, "There is a spirit in man; and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him 
understanding."  And it is only as the things I write are susceptible of demonstration by 
each individual who will give them an honest trial that I claim for them any authority. 
	Within yourself lies all that you desire and need.  You were created whole and 
complete; and it is only because you have been satisfied to live a fractional life that 
you have ever experienced lack of any good thing.  Your belief in the necessity or the 
desirability of deprivation and suffering, which you may have accepted from your 
neighbors or from your ancestors - this, unless you have worked faithfully at erasing it, 
is still with you.  Perhaps you don't recognize it now, but the time will come as you go 
deeper and deeper into that storehouse of resources of every kind which lies within you, 
when you will suddenly stop and say:
	"But all this means that I can be what I choose!  That I make my own life, and 
need not be limited in any way!  It does away with the discipline of suffering and the 
virtue of patience!  It does away with God's overshadowing providence in my life - if I 
can choose whatsoever things I desire and really obtain them, what becomes of 'Thy will 
be done?'"
	Some of the objections to that new way of living which is vaguely comprehended 
under "New Thought" are so plausible and subtle that I am not going to say much about 
them just now.  "New thought" is not altogether a matter of thinking, you will find.  It 
is a way of living, and as you advance in it, many of the theoretical objections will 
attend to themselves.  Saladin found it impossible to believe that the surface of a river 
could ever furnish substantial footing to a horseman; but if he had himself crosse a 
river over the ice, it would not have been necessary to explain to him that a higher law 
often does away with a lower without violating it.  And so I am going to ask you to take 
this book as a sort of working basis, and its statements as formulae which are to be 
tested by living them rather than by arguing about them.  If you do this, you will find 
that many things which perhaps I have not succeeded in conveying to you just as I 
intended to will adjust themselves; you will work out your individual formula; and you 
will know, past the possibility of argument, that nothing is "too good to be true."
	There is a spirit in man, latent usually, but which may be quickened and made 
positive and dominant in the life.  When this quickening takes place, the individual 
ceases to be an insulated unit, at variance with every other unit, and becomes one with 
that Universal Spirit which permeates and controls all things.  Such a man becomes truly 
a wonder-worker, for he is filled with wisdom and power, and with that broad and tolerant 
sympathy which brings him into harmony with the soul of things.
	This regenerated life is not one of abnegation or poverty.  The twice-born 
consciousness does not cling to things, because it does not need to.  It is creative, 
with the power of molding and transforming matter.  Physical things are merely the clay 
with which it  works, and are seen in their true light.  To such a one, physical 
substance comes as it is needed, in abundant measure; and there is no need for hoarding.  
He does not work for material wage, but because he and the Father are so truly one that 
it is easy and normal and the most joyous thing in the world for him to create, to do the 
things which spiritually he sees the Father doing.
	Poverty and sickness and squalor, all lack of beauty and perfection, come from 
looking away from the life which is hid with God to that barren existence which clings, 
barnacle-like, to the shells and husks of reality.  The man who lives to eat and to 
acquire property which he may put a fence around and call his own, is not really living.  
Life is masterful, creative, free from all encumbrance and limitation.  Do you fear to 
strike off into the unknown, without the staff of a bank account to catch you when you 
slip?  Yet the life which you are came to you without effort on your part, and will come 
until your tensions and fears and materiality have finally choked it.  Life comes, and 
with it the wisdom and power to use it according to the Father's perfect plan.  Only 
relax your little personal will, which now is set so fearfully on the "problems" of the 
day or of the future.  Take time to be still, to listen.  Ears have you, but they have 
been so long unused that it will take time for you to learn to hear the voice of the 
Spirit, of your own glorified self.  Yet be firm, and declare that you will not endure 
longer the treadmill, but will live for some better reason than simply to gain the means 
of living.  You are a creator, a master, not a beggar.  Let those who will wrestle with 
the "problems of existence."  Do you cast aside the old garment of sackcloth, and stand 
forth in your real character as the child of God.  There will always be "roblems" for 
those who seek them; and there will always be life, and an abundance of all good, for 
those who seek the higher things.
	Don't worry that in living this regenerated life you are neglecting your duty to 
your neighbor.  If he insisted on living in a box in his own back yard, would you 
likewise move into a box in your yard?  You might feel sorry for his cramped mind, which 
led him into such a cramped way of living; but I think you would continue to dwell in 
your house.  ANd in the end you would help him more by furnishing him a standard of wise 
living with which to contrast his own squalor than you would by following his example.  
Society is living in a hovel, when it might dwell in a palace.  If you are looking for a 
duty to perform, choose this consistent one: learn to live so grandly, so perfectly, that 
all with whom you come in contact shall acquire an incurable dissatisfaction with 
anything less than the best.  Demonstrate, and you will not need to argue.
	Scientists and mystics alike, all through the ages, have been whispering of the 
wonderful things which lay just over the threshold of today.  There have been many "ages 
of gold," but the Age of Crystal, of the white light of Spirit, is still to come.  That 
is the mystical interpretation of "Thy Kingdome come!"  The kingdom of God, which has so 
long been germinating in the hearts of men!  And even now the dawn of this new day is 
breaking in the east, and we who are light sleepers may arise and behold its coming.
	"Thy Kingdome come!"  The kingdom of peace, of plenty, of good will from all 
living creatures to all living creatures!  Have you ever stopped to realize just what 
this kingdom and its coming would mean?  The old idea was of golden harps, and of 
milleniums of psalm singing and idleness.  Some of us would not care for that kind of a 
kingdom.  And I am afraid that this idea, so jealously defended by many well meaning but 
theoretical people, has done much to turn away from the real Kingdom some of the men and 
women who would have made its best citizens; active, creative people, who would sooner 
build office buildings or paint pictures or perhaps even darn stockings than sit playing 
hymns on a harp.  But the Kingdom which is coming will be one from which no doer need 
turn back.
	Now is the time.  Unrest and unsettlement of all established things are abroad, 
throughout the world.  Men are seeking for something "practical"; something that will 
enable them to master the great game of life.  Look back into the centuries that lie 
behind us, and you will realize that the achievements of society have neen made possible 
by the suffering of the many.  The pyramids were builded on the broken bodies of 
countless thousands of human draught animals.  The temples and cathedrals, the public 
buildings and works of art of the middle ages, were created by depriving the "masses of 
all but the barest necessities of life.
	These conditions have passed, never to return.  The founding of a few meager 
public schools led to the Mexican revolution.  Ignorance is a necessary ingredient of 
barbaric splendor, and ignorance is passing.  The advance of mankind, from this time on, 
will have to be made by the voluntary action and interaction of all of those isolated 
individuals who, in times past, could be fused into a "peasantry."
	"Thy Kingdome come!"  The kingdom of peace and good will, but also of masterful 
accomplishment and perfected activity!  Multiply the producing, creating power of the 
leaders of the past by the number of the individual citizens of this New State; add to 
this the almost inconceivable saving which will be effected by the elimination of the 
destructive activities of war, pestilence, unnecessary competition; the possibilities, 
with all mankind working together under perfect conditions of training and intellectual 
education, are startling, are they not?  But we haven't touched the surface, in such a 
survey.  For the Kingdom of God, for which we have so long been praying, is one differing 
from this old order in kind rather than in degree; and to all this saving which right 
arrangement and wise management on the physical and intellectual plane will bring about, 
it will add that infinitely greater increment produced by the regeneration of the 
individual.
	"Thy Kingdom come!"  Not a kingdom of idleness or lotus-eating, but one of 
perfected accomplishment in every line; of new and glorified architecture; of science, 
transcending the dreams of alchemist; of a new art and a new literature.  And all this 
will come about - how?  By the regeneration, the new birth, the awakening to true self 
consciousness, of many individuals.  I do not mean to say that all of the socalled 
"reforms" with which society is so busily engaged are useless; in so far as they are 
unselfishly executed, they will at least benefit their exponents.  But it is impossible 
to regulate selfishness.  Regulation and suppression are alike ineffectual in the long 
run.  Regeneration of the individual, by which the dross of selfishness and sensuality is 
changed, under the transforming magic of Spirit, into love and comprehension - this alone 
effects true re-form.
	But until this day which is dawning is fully come, is it possible for the seeker 
after truth to live in the world but not be of it, in so far as it is following after 
strange gods?  Indeed it is.  You can live your own life, wherever you may be, and no 
power of the carnal world can touch you.  The invisible but all-potent mantle of the 
Spirit will surround you, and you will not need to raise a hand to protect your "rights."  
It is your duty, indeed, to live in the world and to conquer the obstacles to spirituaal 
living, both within and without.  This does not mean that you are to do away with all 
desire, but that you are to learn the true meaning of unselfishness.  Many things which 
the world calls "good" really are so; but they must not be made first, must not be sought 
at the cost of suffering to others or of a loss of self-respect to ourselves.
	In concluding this chapter, which perhaps has seemed to dwell upon theory rather 
than practice, I want to leave with you four very practical things.  Two of these have to 
do with tendencies against which you will need to be on your guard; one is a formula for 
attaining self-realization; the fourth is a word, the Magic Word, which unlocks the 
treasure house of the Infinite.
	The first tendency is that toward strained and anxious effort.  Spiritual growth 
is growth.  And this means that it is not instantaneous, and that it cannot be forced.  
Don't try to "push on the lines," and don't dig yourself up to see whether roots are 
forming.  Remember that your Father created you for growth, that all the requirements are 
provided for, and that your part is imply to live from day to day as it is given you to 
live.  The time has come for you to open out into the full self-consciousness  of the 
regeneration, or you would not desire it; but this will come about by an orderly and 
entirely natural process.  you don't need to go to India, or to study under a "master."  
All that you need lies within, and God will teach you to unlock these resources as fast 
as you can use them.  Be serene.
	The second tendency is an entirely different one.  It may even seem to contradict 
the first, but in relity it does not.  Perhaps I can state it best in the form of a 
warning.
	Don't be satisfied with mere intellectual perception.  It isn't enough to see that 
a thing is possible.  Many of us know that sickness is unnecessary; but if we keep on 
"taking cold" or having "hay fever," our perception is not doing as much for us as it 
should.  Intellectual perception, the perception that a thing is "reasonable," precedes 
demonstration that it is practicable.  But don't let it stop here.  I shall have more to 
say about this later, but let me call your attention now th the necessity for making your 
theories work.  I have had a chance to observe many reformers and teachers who remained 
satisfied, year after year, to preach doctrines which they were absolutely unable to 
"make work."  Check up!  Don't bother to carry dead-wood along with you, in the shape of 
half-realized possibilities!
	The formula for attaining self-realization is one of the most valuable things in 
the world.  In my life, in fact, it has proved without exception the most valuable.  It 
is an universal formula, applicable to anything from a prosperity demonstration to the 
rebuilding of a pair of faulty eyes.
	It is based on the fundamental conditions and nature of self-realization.  What 
self is it you are trying to "realize," to make real?  Not the external, fugitive, and 
ineffectual personality which is usually called "i."  He has his place, and he is all 
right in it; but you who know him so well know that limitations are his principal 
characteristic.  The list of things he can't do vastly transcends the things he can do.  
You know enough of him to kno that he can't help you. 
	Below and above and around this superficial or surface self lies the great "I," 
which is one with the Father.  This at-one-ment is not theoretical; and as long as you 
allow it to remain so, it will be no value to you.  But the moment you make up your mind 
to demonstrate, you have it in your power to do so.
	How?  As Christ did.  By contemplating, by recognizing and accepting and claiming, 
interiorly and serenely, this reality.  And the formula, which is a very old one, is 
this: "I am in the Father, and the Father in me!"
	As you repeat this statement, silently and with that serene inner attention which 
makes it vibrate in the farthest recesses of your consciousness and subsconciousness, you 
are not claiming any specific good, but all good.  You are accepting your full heritage 
as the child of God.  And you will not have to direct your Father's attention to any of 
the details. 
	"I and my Father are one!"  The same idea in slightly different words.
	"It is not I, but the Father in me that doeth the work!"
	Again, the same dynamic idea.  With the right understanding and comprehension of 
this idea, you could stand before the raging artillery of the world and be unharmed.  You 
could smile, with gentle compassion, at the malice and murderous desires of a multitude 
of cannibals.  With it you can dissolve every limitation of disease and lack, and can 
create all that the hearts of men desire.  The potency of Infinite Wisdom and Power are 
latent in this formula, and you can release them by serene contemplation and acceptance 
of your own nature, as here stated.
	And now for the Magic Word.  It is comprehended in the formula we have just been 
considering, and is, in fact, a condensed statement of it.  But, lest you miss it, I will 
state it directly.  The magical word is - LOVE!  Love that is without guile, or fear, or 
any consideration of self.  Love that giveth freely of all its treasures; that smiles 
with gentle pity at the so-called "prudence" and "common sense " of the world.  COmmon 
sense never saved any man who really needed saving, whether his need was physical or 
financial or moral.  And Love - that impersonal and all-perfecting Love of the Spirit - 
has at its command sense that is not common but exalted; the white light of spiritual 
comprehension.
	Love - you will not get very far along the path without that.  And the more fully 
you open yourself to its perfect inflowing and regeneration, the more swiftly will you 
advance.  Such love as this is the most practical thing in the world.  It is the compass 
of the Spirit, which will enable you to reach your port without danger of running upon 
the reefs.  There are always two ways of doing such a thing: the way of the lower self, 
and the way of love.  But love alone is practical.  And so I am going to ask you to begin 
to study and to practice love; to study and practise it just as you would music or French 
or painting.  For love is an art, and no matter how proficient you may be in it 
naturally, you can continue to grow more proficient.  Sometimes the development of this 
practical faculty, which indeed is the key to all other development and acquirement, has 
to be undertaken in a very prosaic and mechanical way.  Sometimes the love-faculty has 
become buried under so much dross and rubbish that it must almost literally be "dug out."  
It may be necessary for you to take counsel with yourself seriously to discover just 
where you are not making the most of your opportunities to express love.  But remember 
that suppressed love lies at the bottom of many an apparently incurable disease and that, 
conversely, that broad and fearless love which goes forth without stint to every living 
creature is one of the surest safeguards against sickness, and accident, and every 
misfortune.
	"Perfect love casteth out fear."  And fear is at the root of ninety-nine percent 
of disease.  So, you see, love is really one of the most practical things in the world.

chapter 2

A SCIENCE OF PRAYER: THE KEY

	Prayer is a natural force, and is subject to definite laws and conditions, just as 
are all other natural forces.  If you shove a book off your desk, gravity does not take 
time to think the matter over and decide whether there are unusual circumstances in the 
case which may make it advisable for it to work at right angles or in an opposite 
direction to its usual course, or perhaps not to work at all.  Certain conditions have 
been fulfilled, and gravity automatically does its part.  So it is with prayer.  if the 
conditions of prevailing prayer are fulfilled, it will do its part unfailingly, seven 
times out of seven.  The "vilest sinner" has at times chanced to satisfy these conditions 
under which prayer works, and at these times he has worked "miracles" - has brought into 
action direct spiritual energy - just as certainly as any "saint" could have done.  On 
the other hand, very good people often fail most miserably to find the secret of 
prevailing prayer, in which case they usually decide that a personal God has looked into 
the matter and decided to turn down their requests.
	I would not willingly make prayer any less sacred or any less of a refuge to any 
living creature.  If you prefer to look upon your prayers as personal appeals from a 
child to its Father, you are perfectly right, and you also have a right to decide that 
the mattter is too sacred to be farther discussed.  On the other hand, you may agree with 
me that prevailing prayer is too mighty and too holy a thing to be used merely as a balm 
to woundded feelings, or as a last resort in cases where everything else has failed.
	Most of the facts of physical science have been discovered by men who have assumed 
that certain ideas were true, and have reduced these ideas to formulas or direct 
statements which they and like-minded explorers tested in a multitude of ways.  I have 
tried to do something of this kind with prayer-force.  Long ago, it seemed to me merely a 
something which probably existed, but which was too vague and uncertain in its results to 
be of use in every-day life.  Then trouble came - it always comes, when we need it - and 
this prayer-force was the only thing which did not put up a "no-thoroughfare" sign.  I 
prayed, as the Nazarene prayed, with an agony of supplication; and gradually light formed 
itself in the darkness, and something delivered me from the seemingly all-potent evil 
that had closed down.
	I am going to state some of my conclusions in regard to prevailing prayer, not 
because I think that I have solved the problem and have learned all that there is to be 
known about it, nor because I think that all I have to say is settled beyond possible 
correction or change; but because, following this science of prayer which has been 
revealed to me, I have come into possession of a feeling of mastery and serenity which I 
never had before, and because one other than myself has done all that I have done.  
Together we have been through the dark valley, and our prayer has routed death itself.
	I believe that prayer has two poles, just as have many other forces.  Receptive 
prayer, the negative element, is that exercise of the spiritual faculties which draws 
from the Infinite source currents of Wisdom, or Power, or Love.  Formative prayer, the 
positive element, is the expression, or putting into use, of these currents.  Any 
philosophy which limits prayer to certain formulas of affirmations seems to me to fall 
short for this reason - it is striving to use a force which it does not always possess, 
and which it takes no means of obtaining; it seeks to be always positive.  We must have 
received spiritual energy from some source before we can utilize it to control the 
physical world about us, and in the tension of every-day lif this receptive process means 
a definite and regular letting-go of all self-will and desire, for sufficient intervals 
each day, that the channels between us and the Father may be flushed out and quickened. 
	In considering quickening or receptive prayer, it may be well to look upon the 
process as divided into three steps:
	First, a direct and serene appeal to the Father within, definitely formulated in 
the consciousness.  In your inner chamber or your darkened study, or your crowded office, 
make your body as easy as you can.  Relieve it for the time of all necessity of holding 
or supporting itself; you may lie down or sit in a chair, but be sure you can relax 
without having an uneasy feeling of being about to fall.  Then turn your thoughts inward 
to that chapel of the consciousness where God is, although you may not see Him or hear 
Him.  Everything is quieted within and without, and if you are sincere, if you are making 
no conditions, and if you sincerely and silently pray directly to your Father, he hears 
you as plainly as you can ever hear any spoken voice.  you may say, "Dear Father, I ask 
that Thou wilt quicken me with Thy Spirit of Communion, so that I shall show forth Love 
and Wisdom and Power.  Teach me to radiate life and kindliness, to be broad and tolerant 
and serene and fearless.  And grant that at this time Thy quickening Spirit may permeate 
me in body and consciousness, and that I may be regenerated."  Pray simply and directly, 
for that which you especially need in the way of spiritual energy - for Love or Wisdom or 
Power.
	This first step is easy of accomplishment, but that which follows is probably one 
of the most difficult things which you will ever have to learn to do.  You have heard of 
the wonderful things accomplished by "going into the silence."  Well, the silence is the 
second room which you must enter in receptive prayer.  you have made your body 
comfortable and have turned your attention inward; you have called to the Father within 
to quicken you with that tide of spiritual energy which you need.  Now, you must remain 
silent and passive, and you must neither suggest nor affirm to the energy which fills 
you, nor must you let your attention wander outward to the things of the material world.  
You are just to rest, to be conscious and awake, but passive and receptive.  Don't even 
"try to feel" the energy which is working within you, for your imagination has nothing to 
do with the process; this is not auto-suggestion, nor is it always a process which makes 
an impression upon your feelings.  You may feel nothing, or you may be so shaken that you 
will be terrified.  You are in the hands of the Great One who formed you out of His own 
spiritual substance, and who best knows how to perfect you in body, consciousness, and 
estate.
	There is no certain time which you must remain in the silence.  At first it will 
perhaps be an unsatisfactory experience; but if you are faithful, you will come to 
recognize these periods when you are conscious but without formulated thought, and when 
every cell and fiber of your physical body is being cleansed and re-created, as times of 
wonderful blessing.  At the right time, each withdrawal into the silence will terminate 
itself.  Body and mind will awake with an unmistakable demand to be allowed to go to 
work.  You may then shake yourself, physically and mentally, and pass from the chapel of 
prayer by way of the third room, that of realization.  Do not hurry away to your regular 
employment, but pause a few minutes and silently examine the thoughts that come to you.  
Perhaps the wisdom which you particularly need will be revealed to you at this time.  If 
not, you may pass on, knowing that you are going forth regenerated.
	If you find that your attention keeps wandering to things of the outer world, when 
you are in the place of silence, it will be a help to you to use a "key thought" to bring 
it back and hold it receptive to the Spirit of Communion.  You may take, for instance, 
the words "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high."  Hold them for a 
moment, realizing that you are now in the secret place of the most high.  Or you can use 
those verses from Christ's prayer, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done."  Realize what 
they mean; not that you are to give up everything worth while in you life, but that you 
are serenely and gladly calling in the Spirit which quickens and perfects to fill all of 
your life, instead of merely a little corner of it.  But do not fill this time of silence 
with affirmations or worded prayers; these are wonderfully potent in their places, but 
this is a time of passivity on your part; simply bring your attention back, if it proves 
unruly, and keep your receiving apparatus in tune with the spiritual vibrations by a 
brief consideration of the nature of the process that is taking place, then rest and 
receive.  
	And one other thing: the receptive attitude is one of surrender, absolute and 
complete, of your will and desire, to the Spirit of Communion; for the time, you are 
absolutely open to whatever light comes, no matter how greatly it may revolutionize your 
life.  You needn't be startled or frightened by this idea, for you will never be required 
to relinquish any real desire of your whole being.  If you want to be a painte or a poet 
or a carpenter or a farmer, your salvation, the perfection and regeneration of your 
being, will be worked out by making you perfect in the thing you desire, not by forcing 
you to give up this desire and become a preacher or a missionary.  But you must let the 
greater wisdom of the regenerating spirit direct you at times, until your own vision 
shall have been perfected.  You may be traveling in a circle right now, in your efforts 
to do the things you long to do.  When you enter the silence, don't shut out the light by 
any mental reservations and don't be afraid; you are not dealing with a trickster, who 
will try to get the best of you, but with the Father who created you, who is part of you, 
and who is also the Father and Creator of all your desires.  
	Formative prayer, the positive pole, is the science of making or drawing things by 
the direct use of spiritual energy.  Back of every physical shadow is the psychical germ 
or cause, which forms and reforms substance, and through which substance may be 
controlled.  Every human being has some power to influence this cause germ, but receptive 
prayer opens the consciousness to that full tide of Wisdom and Love and Power which is 
master absolute in the cause world.  All the automatic or subconscious forces of nature, 
including the physical life or vitality of your body, follow a pattern which is stamped 
upon them from the cause world.  This pattern is usually formed at random, and is marred 
by thoughts and beliefs of sickness, poverty, misfortune, and of the existence of evil as 
a positive force.  Disease does not exist.  The man who "dies of tuberculosis" has 
failed, probably through ignorance, to stamp the right pattern into the invisible but 
potent world of automatic forces; the so-called "disease germs," which are without 
consciousness, are more closely knit by this very lack to the cause world, and when their 
progress is not stopped by the interposition of a higher form of life, they do their work 
perfectly.  No "disease germ" ever disputed ground with spiritual energy, but tissues 
which are quickened with but a modicum of real life force, and which are continually 
warped into wrong forms and combinations by wrong ideals and patterns cast into the 
controlling plane of automatic life energy, are simply so much raw material with which 
they may work.
	Poverty does not exist. The lack of any physical thing which you may have 
experienced is due to your having failed to use or having used in the wrong direction the 
force of formative prayer.
	Receptive prayer demanded that you put your physical body in an easy position, so 
that you could forget it.  This is the first step in formative prayer.  Lie or sit so 
that you can relax without falling or slipping.  Close your eyes, and let your 
consciousness travel over your physical body, for tension is a matter of habit and your 
muscles may persist in tying themselves into knots even after you have removed the 
necessity.  Begin with your feet, and let your attention travel slowly upward, loosening 
contraction wherever it exists.  Note especially the bands of muscles across the abdomen, 
for fear and worry and strain are often expressed in these abdominal muscles and in the 
nervous centers under them.  Drop the knots and tensions out of them, then travel upward 
and finish this journey of inspection by loosening any frown or wrinkles from your face.
	Now, with your muscles easy and your body relaxed, consider that which, for the 
time, is of greatest importance in your life.  Perhaps it is your business.  You want 
more money, more physical resources.  Consider, then that you are not about to beg the 
unseen to give you something which you desire, but that you are using a spiritual faculty 
which was created within you for the very purpose of bringing into your life that which 
you need.  You may direct this spiritual controlling and creative faculty in any one of 
many ways; for instance, you may form a definite and vivid picture of money, drafts, 
paper money, gold and silver, being heaped upon your desk or table, coming toward you in 
invisible currents which are made visible when they reach you, their object.  If you take 
this means, remember that you are neither trying to steal from anybody, nor to short 
change the universe, but that you are utilizing a faculty which is normal to fully 
developed man and whose office it is to attract and create things.  Remember that when a 
man rises from the ranks of muscle workers to those of skilled mechanics, he works less 
and receives more; when he becomes an executive, his work is still lighter and his pay is 
increased; and when he becomes a director, a creator through mental training and a broad 
understanding of conditions, he has the shortest hours and the biggest money reward.  In 
this same line, when you rise above the ranks of those who labor solely through intellect 
and body and decide to use the spiritual controlling and directing faculties of your 
being, you are still farther emancipated from the conditions which have bound you.  This 
is not robbery or witchcraft, and you will never secure results which will satisfy you 
until you have cleansed your consciousness of these old ideas.  Remember that the All-
Father did not put us here ot be servants or laborers; He could have done directly and 
instantly all the physical work His children have accomplished in centuries; but He did 
surround us with physical conditions which should quicken within us the desire to rule, 
and so bring us to the realization of our own true being.
	It is essential in securing results through formative prayer that you form a 
definite picture of that which you want and that you hold it serenely; and you will not 
be able to do this unless you realize that you are not calling upon luck or magic to aid 
you, but that you are using faculties which were created for the very purpose you are 
turning them to.  If you are not able to visualize the thing you want as it will appear, 
if you can't form a picture, you may stamp your ideal or pattern into the world of causes 
in another way: choose words which express to you all that you desire.  These may be in 
the form of a statement or sentence; instead of picturing money, you may state, "I am 
wealth; the spirit of Infinite Wisdom and Power and Love flows into me and through me, 
and at all times I bring forth those physical things which I need to fulfill my highest 
desires."  Or you may form a list of unconnected words, which, as you slowly and silently 
consider them, will fill your consciousness with thoughts of that which you desire.  
Again, as in the case of receptive prayer, you are able to bring yourself into harmony of 
vibration with the unseen, but this time it is that you may send forth vibrations of 
wealth or health or love or peace; you are not receptive now, but formative, synthetic, 
creative.  Your silent thought is to be concentrated and focused upon the inner plane of 
patterns and ideals until it stamps that which you desire to be brought forth upon the 
receptive psychical substance, the world of causes and patterns.
	Let me repeat that I do not think I have anything final to say on the subject of 
prayer.  In investigating physical science, it has been found of advantage to state 
certain theories or formulae as if they were fully established, so that many 
experimenters could put them to many tests.  Following this method, I have tried to state 
as if fully proven some theories in regard to the use of Prayer-force which have come to 
me.  Whether or not I or others shall modify them greatly in the future, I know that the 
methods I have described are capable of producing wonderful results.  By them physical 
substance becomes nascent and responsive to the direction of creative thought, and man 
begins to awaken to his real nature;begins, for before that which is perfect can come he 
must build for himself a perfect physical mechanism, a regenerated body through which the 
Spirit of Communion may work.  And this, too, is possible.

CHAPTER iii
direct healing

	What and why is sickness?  Why is man, who was created in the image of God, 
subject to physical imperfections?  Because, having separated himself in consciousness 
from Infinite Life, he has become one of a multitude of warring elements.  His passions 
and desires are more intense than those of the animals below him in the scale of 
evolution, and in addition, he is subject to fear, self-condemnation, and remorse.  
Except for this, animal man would be as are the lower animals, with great power of 
resistance to disease and disintegrative processes until he had reached the down slope of 
his arc of growth, when he would pass into the condition known as "old age," vitality 
would withdraw from his tissues, and he would pass away probably in sleep.
	This applies to animal man - the highest type in the scale of physical evolution.  
Above him comes regenerate man, in whom the physical processes are directed and quickened 
by the Spirit.  In him there appears a higher type of organism, but it is not a result of 
physical evolution, which is subconscious, but of direct spiritual interposition.
	From this it is evident that in the manifestations of life which constitute health 
or sickness, we have to deal with two phases of life power: first, that which is 
controlled subconsciously in its work of building up or tearing down the organism; 
second, that which is the direct expression of spiritual wisdom and power.  "Vitality" is 
subconsciously controlled life; being a phase of your existence and expression, it is mre 
directly influenced by your thoughts, emotions, desires and convictions than by any other 
means.
	Before trying to formulate a direct method of healing, let us examine for a moment 
some of those other systems of cure, which may be called "indirect."  We will consider 
all systems of drug administrations together, without reference to the various "schools" 
of medicine.  To begin with, does medicine ever help to bring about a cure?  Apparently 
it does; but let us go deeper.  Cure is a term which covers two distinct processes: one 
is a quckening of vital action in the diseased parts, resulting in the rebuilding of 
tissue; in acute troubles there is a tendency for this process to occur spontaneously - 
colds, influenza, etc., "run their course" and health returns because of the reaction of 
subconscious life.  This spontaneous return of normal activity is 
usually called "cure," but in reality it is only a partial cure.  Unless the ultimate 
cause of the acute attack is found and remedied, there will be other acute attacks of one 
sort or another and finally a lowering of vital tone and a settled disturbance of organic 
function which is called "chronic disease."   Either an acute or a chronic trouble may 
produce changes in some of the organs of the body, and organic disease will have become 
established.
	Now, what part can medicine play in all this?  it can act in one or two ways: 
first, as a direct irritant, it may hasten the vital reaction which results in subduing 
an acute attack; second, a remedy may act chemically in the tissues and may neutralize 
some of the poisons which have been formed during sickness.
	This last phase we will dispose of first, as it is manifestly irrational.  Simply 
to counteract or neutralize systematic poisons, wihtout reaching that disturbed function 
which is throwing them into the blood, is not only useless but positively harmful.  The 
human body is not a test tube.
	Why do New Thought healers and metaphysicians generally object to the use of 
medicine in its other phase - as a chemical stimulant to vital reaction?  For a multitude 
of reasons, but one will suffice; the only cause of disease is abnormal thought or 
emotion - back of every attack, acute or chronic, lies a false belief or an intense and 
wrongly directed desire or emotion.  As long as these corrosive vibrations are turned 
into the organism it is impossible for permanent health to exist; and on the other hand, 
as soon as they are reversed, the life power which originally built the body is perfectly 
capable of rebuilding and setting it to rights.  To strive to force it to do so by the 
use of chemical irritants, while at the same time destructive thought is allowed to 
continue its work, is absurd.
	"Natural methods" of healing have come into great favor during the past twenty 
years.  Eating, working, and breathing - these are necessary to the normal man, and like 
every other act, they may be performed in a right or wrong way.  In this fact lies the 
strength of natural methods of cure, for if thephysical details can be adjusted to meet 
the needs of the individual, the natural tendency of subconscious life toward health and 
beauty will have a chance to assert itself.  But here again there is a flaw in theory and 
application - in spite of the most perfect regimen, the basic cause of physical 
imperfection may not be touched - fear or impurity or hate, or any deviation from the 
serene wholeness of Infinite Mind, will tear down the organism eventually in spite of all 
the physical circumspection in the world.  This accounts for those cases so common to all 
methods of physical healing, whether by the administration of drugs or by the use of 
"natural methods," where apparently physical requirement of healing is met - and disease 
conquers.  The reason is obviously that these methods do not reach the cause of disease.
	I have tried to be fair in stating the shortcomings of any system of cure which is 
not founded on the metaphysical conception of man - on a conception of him as something 
infinitely greater than a physical automaton.  Real healing is a growth, initiated and 
maintained by the gradual assimilation of certain basic truths.
	These truths may be state something in this way: Man is a three-fold or three-
strataed being.  That stratum of consciousness, the every-day "I," which he vaguely calls 
"myself," lies between two other strata: the subconscious below, a phase of life energy 
exhibiting intelligence and power, but destitute of consciousness; and the superconscious 
above, the latter merging without boundary into Infinite Mind.  The every-day 
consciousness is prone to regard the "vitality" or subconscious life of the body as a 
mysterious, foreign principle, permeating and manipulating the tissue and organs 
according to its own caprices; and to look upon the superconsciousness as a mysterious 
realm, also separate from the man himself, and only to be reached by prayers of humble 
supplication, which may or may not be granted.
	The body is part of the subconsciousness; the soul of the superconsciousness.  
Consciousness holds the key to the possible merging of these three phases of life, for 
the only method of growth lies through its drawing from the superconsciousness wisdom and 
love and power and passing these down into the body and its subconscious life.
	All metaphysical healers aim to do this in one way or another.  They proceed, 
however, along two lines which at first seem contradictory.  One phase of spiritual 
healing depends upon the statement of wholeness and the denial of evil as actually now 
present.  "There is no such thing as sin, sickness or death," it states boldly.  This 
seems absured to the man suffering with chills and fever or a broken bone, but while it 
is not a complete statement of truth, it is far more logical than his alternative 
statement - "I am sick."  The healer stated the truth in regard to the 
superconsciousness; in it there is no such thing as imperfection.  The sufferer stated 
the truth in regard to the conscious and subconscious departments of his being, but as 
these are result and not cause, he has stated merely a relative truth.
	Dogmatic faith has cured many a serious disorder.  There have been many cases in 
which the sufferer was able to grasp only a part of the truth, but that much sufficed.  
He knew that while he appeared to be sick, such a thing as sickness had no right to 
exist; and he met this condition by doggedly refusing to admit that his symptoms were 
anything but a hallucination.
	My first experience with spiritual healing was along this line - as the result of 
abnormal thinking and its consequent abnormal living, I had developed a chronic 
derangement which under the best physical methods grew rapidly worse.  My trouble was not 
one of those nervous disturbances which the doctors admit may be cured by psychological 
methods, but was a serious organic trouble, always treated by the most heroic use of 
drugs and surgery.  The trouble in my case was that I didn't respond to treatment, but 
progressed from one serious complication to another.  Within two months I had reached a 
condition where any doctor would have been glad to have rid himself of me, for the simple 
reason that I seemed to be making a flying trip toward the undertaker's.
	I woke to this fact one day, and clutched desperately at the only straw floating 
in my tempestuous seas - a sort of prayer or statement of truth, whose logic I only dimly 
comprehended.  This statement was, "I thank Thee, O my Father, that I am perfect, even as 
Thou art perfect."  I said "goodbye" to the doctor, dumped the medicine I had been taking 
into the garbage, and, as far as possible, went back to a normal way of living.  When 
symptoms asserted themselves so strongly that I couldn't ignore them, I closed my eyes 
and repeated my formula over and over again - and in the end, dogmatic and unreasoning 
faith won the day. Without physical treatment, the progress of disease was stayed and I 
began to mend.
	For a long time after this I was puzzled as to the way of using another element of 
spiritual healing - the direct manipulation of subconscious life in the tissues by the 
illumined consciousness.  If the every-day mind which I call "myself" is able to receive 
from the higher strata of my being wisdom and power, it should be possible for me to turn 
this power directly into the subconsciousness and correct what was imperfect there.  This 
would be the rational method of accomplishing that which the physical school attempted to 
do indirectly, through drugs and manipulations and applications.  If I am the life of 
this body and the former and renewer of its tissues, it should be possible for me to 
direct and correct the vital processes by the exercise of my will and attention.
	Two things stood in the way: in the first place, how was it possible to recognize 
disease and imperfection at one moment while at the next I was claiming perfection?  How 
could I treat ailing parts, while at the same time thanking the Infinite Spirit that I 
was at that moment all that I should be?
	The second difficulty lay in the application rather than in theory:  I found that 
when I directed my attention to parts of my body which were not properly behaving 
themselves, the result was just the opposite of what I wanted it to be - "Symptoms" 
became instantly more menacing and troublesome.
	I found the answer to these contradictions, as we must eventually find all truth, 
by retreating to the Wise Silence, and then working out slowly and observantly the 
principles which I discovered there.  Gradully I came to see it was perfectly logical to 
say, "I am whole," even though I might be laid up with a broken leg - because the master 
element of that personality I called "I" was whole.  I, the superconscious I, was always 
serene and perfect.  And by putting the emphasis on this phase of my being, I restored to 
it that hamonizing power which it was intended to exhibit.
	And I found that there was at least one sufficient reasoning for the quickening of 
disease - or its "symptoms" - in those parts to which I directed my attention.   It was 
that I was still in bondage to fear, and that the healing vibrations which I directed to 
the tissues in question were always more or less vitiated by this admixture of fear.  And 
fear is disintegrative and destructive - it tears down.  Other destructive thoughts and 
emotions may act in the same way: with the attention directed to a part of the body which 
is negative and non-resistant because of its lowered vitality, they find a direct channel 
through which they may flow, with disastrous results.  For this reason it has been the 
experience of many healers that treatment directed to localized areas of the body are 
more apt to do harm than good.
	Because of this danger, I am going to conclude this first chapter on direct 
healing by outlining some exercises which should be practised before any attmept is made 
to direct the healing vibrations into various parts of the body.
	Fear, worry, anger, sensualism - these are the destructive vibrations which 
sometimes flow down the path of consciousness, alon with healing vibrations.  Now, one of 
the peculiar things about these destructive thoughts is that you cannot fight them 
directly.  For instance, suppose that you have been manifesting symptoms which the 
doctors dignify with the name of "rheumatism."  You have grasped the fact that it is your 
own misuse of that life force which is a part of you which has made this condition 
possible, but when a twinge of pain comes, all of your new-found philosophy has a 
tendency to desert you, and in its place comes fear - sickening fear.  And you can't kick 
fear out directly - you can't say "Get out - I am not afraid!"  Sometimes that helps, but 
it will not restore the poise necessary to the perfect manipulation of vital force.  As a 
matter of fact, this poise is not to be found in the personal will or attitude, but must 
be entered into by replacing personality with impersonality - you must learn to drop your 
concern in that physical mechanism which you have been in the habit of calling you, and 
must turn your attention to that other and greater phase of your being - your oneness 
with God.
	For the time, drop all thoughts of healing; you must restore harmony in your 
consciousness before you can hope to do so in your body.  You might take this statement: 
"Perfect love casteth out fear."  Repeat it a dozen times, slowly and thoughtfully.  Then 
take another statement - "I and my Father are one."  As you repeat it, let your inner 
vision broaden, taking in the earth as you would see it from a great height - and 
consider that you are one with all this space and life, one with the wind and the rain, 
with the sun and the planets.  "I an my Father are one" - that interior and all-
perfecting life force which I am is one with the life force working in and through all 
things; and as this realization settles down upon you, you will find the little worries 
and fears slipping away - you will learn to regard from the impersonal standpoint, the 
physical imperfections of that body which you have formed.  That does not mean that you 
will learn to be resigned to sickness or pain - on the contrary, you will see that all 
imperfection is unnecessary and undesireable; but you will learn to slip off the old 
garment of fear.
	There is a wonderful healing tendency in this impersonal attitude - imperfections 
of body, like those of mind, will begin to slip from you as you loosen the hold of your 
fear upon them.  Just as error thoughts in regard to your real nature have made disease 
possible, so a serene contemplation of the truth will spread into your subconsciousness 
and will lay the foundation for the only real healing - that which results from a direct 
regeneration of the tissues by the life energy, controlled by illumined consciousness.  
Of that we will speak in another chapter.

CHAPTER iv
direct healing (cont'd)

	That there is a direct method of healing physical ills is implied by the very 
failures of the ancient schools of physic.  Instinctively mankind presses forward, 
searching for that which it knows must exist.  That the search has not been more 
uniformly successful is due to the fact that effort has been made to find without that 
which exists within.  In the last analysis, man is complete - he is all that he requires.  
It is useless to seek for health or wealth or happiness outside, for it is only as you 
realize your unity with these things that you can appropriate them.  And when you do 
realize that you are one with all good, you will not search the external world for cures 
or specifics.
	In the last chapter I described some exercises which help to free the 
consciousness and subconsciousness from fear, and from those other disintegrative 
thoughts and emotions which lie at the root of all disease.  When the real self begins to 
realize its freedom from these encumbering thoughts, there is a natural tendency towards 
health.  When the fear of disease is conquered the ego begins to realize that it is the 
key to health and prosperity and all happiness.   But this process of cure is apt to be 
slow.  The universal cry is, "Show me how to heal my diseases quickly."
	And there is a method of hastening the return to perfect health - a method, 
however, which can be used successfully only by those who are expressing to the limit of 
their ability and understanding their unity with the spirit.  There seems to be an 
inherent tendency in carnal mind to throw over its allegiance to God as soon as it finds 
itself in possession of even a measure of direct power over physical things.  This is the 
danger in direct healing - that it will stimulate the carnal consciousness to say in 
effect, "All right, God, now I can look after myself; you won't need to bother about me 
any longer."  Remember that in healing, as in all other things, only the consciousness of 
unity with spirit can quicken within the personal will that serene mastery which says, 
"Let ther be health," and it is so.  Never allow yourself to drift into the belief, no 
matter how successful you may be in mastering your body, that you are now independent of 
Infinite Love and Wisdom and Power.  For it is only as these work in and through you, 
only as you become one with these spiritual elements, that your word can continue to go 
forth with power.
	Now for a brief description of this direct method of healing.  Three times daily 
go into a quiet, darkened room, and lie or sit in such a position that your body can be 
forgotten.  Now take any one of the statements of absolute truth in regard to life and 
health and power which appeals to you.  "I am the resurrection and the life," is one of 
the best.  Repeat it thoughtfully, considering that you are now stating the truth in 
regard to your real self - you are life, resurrection, regeneration.  "He who believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live."  So powerful is this real life, which you 
are, that if you put the emphasis of your attention and desire and belief here rather 
than on the physical, you will manifest physical perfection.  After your mind has become 
keyed to this spiritual plane, you may take up any direct prayer of thanksgiving for 
perfect life which may best express your joy.  "I thank Thee, dear Father, that Thy 
spirit of communion filleth me, and that I am strong, and clean, and gentle - I thank 
Thee that Thy perfect life is expressed perfectly in and through me, and that I radiate 
joy, and serenity, and power."
	Pause a few minutes - as long as the mood of introspection and thanksgiving holds 
you naturally.  Now turn your attention to your hands.  Don't try to "visually" them, but 
force yourself to notice that gentle, warming vibration which fills them at all times.  
You will find after you have practiced this art of attention for a short time, that you 
are able noticeably to increase the vibration in your hands by this method.  Next, turn 
your attention to your feet and practice in the same way.  You are learning to extend 
your consciousness - to realize that oneness of life which exists between your thoughts 
and the life in your tissues.
	The reason for directing the attention to the hands and feet, at first, rather 
than to those parts of the body which may need vitalizing, is that you will be dealing 
with normal tissues and there will be no "symptoms" or sensations of pain to arouse that 
instinctive fear which is so easily stirred.  Gradually you will learn to identify your 
consciousness, desire and belief so thoroughly with the subconscious life that you will 
be able instantly to increase the flow of blood and the vital activity in any part.  When 
this time comes, you can begin to talk directly to the organs and tissues of your body - 
first quicken the vibration in the parts; then, identifying yourself with this quickened 
life, say, "I am strong and clean and vigorous - I permeate and perfect these tissues, 
and they are renewed and regenerated - are made wholesome, perfect in structure and 
function.  I make and maintain them perfect, in every cell and fiber."
	This direct method of healing depends upon the fact that there is but one life, 
and that whether this life is expressed in your body as health or disease, as pain and 
disintegration, or as a radiant energy, it is your life - is you, working in the flesh.  
The subconsciousness, which directs these processes in your body even as it directs the 
forces of tide and rain and wind in the external world, is a specialized form of the life 
which you are - it possesses automatic intelligence, a power which is limited only by the 
suggestions which it accepts from your mind or from the minds about you, and in addition 
it exhibits a tendency to continuous movement in a given direction which might be called 
"momentum."  Because of this latter quality, which fits it to serve as a sort of governor 
or fly wheel and so to equalize and give stability to the constantly changing activities 
of the conscious mind, its dependence upon the latter is often doubted.
	"If I am this life, which so often manifests itself in my body as sickness and 
pain, why can't I stop these undesirable activities and substitute for them continuous 
health and happiness?" the sufferer asks.
	You can.  The first requirement is that you begin persistently to live in that 
greater personality which directly expresses the qualities of spirit.  The second is that 
you persist in carrying this consciousness of your real identity into those material 
parts of your subconsciousness which constitute your body.
	Don't imagine that because I have called this method "direct," it will be 
instantaneous.  There will come a time, if you persist in getting acquainted with this 
inner life and vitality, when you will be able to direct the processes in the various 
parts of your body in a way that will seem miraculous to those who have never given any 
attention to such things.  But you must remember that for a great many generations the 
human race has been turning its attention outward, and that the highways of the soul 
leading in have become blocked with rubbish of false belief.  It will take time and 
effort to clean out these highways, but you will soon come into a realization that you 
are dealing with a direct power, your power, and that through it you can make of your 
body what you will.  From this time on your faith will be built on a rock that no 
"symptoms" can shake, and your progress will be accordingly swift and unfaltering.
	The question of how to deal with pain is sometimes a puzzling one.  There is 
something so unsettling to faith and steadfastness in these sudden twinges and gripes 
that many healers have advised their followers to meetthem by absolute denial and by 
steadfastly turning the mind from them to spiritual thoughts.  This is almost impossible 
of execution at times; and as you grow in power of control over the inner life force, you 
will have available a more direct and effective method of conquering pain.  Instead of 
trying to ignore or forget it, turn your attention full upon it.  At first, every 
paroxysm of pain will seem to you to be a broad and vaguely outlined something, gripping 
extensive areas of your flesh; but, as you turn your attention steadily and unswervingly 
upon it, you will find that there is a more or less clearly defined "storm center" - a 
sort of nucleus, from which the pulsation spreads.  Now, if fear is striving to master 
you, stop long enough to realize - to make real - through prayer or affirmation, your 
unity with All-Life and Power, and so to re-establish yourself in that serene 
impersonalness which is above fear.  Next, focus your attention without faltering upon 
the pain center; here is a direct and unmistakable manifestation of life in your tissues, 
and it is your life - is your very self.  You are this pain, and if you will regard it 
unfalteringly with this realization, will say to it, "I am one with you in purpose and 
power - I am your life, and through you I do my work of purification and regeneration 
perfectly -" you will find that the paroxysms suddenly lose their force.  Pain is the 
result of instinctive fear and misunderstanding.  You have built up a belief in the 
existence of a foreign power, working within your body; you have called it "life," or 
"vitality," and have assumed that it was a mysterious something distinct from you.  Pain 
is the logical outworking of this false belief, and the cure of pain is through getting 
back to the truth.  You are the life and the resurrection, and when you have made this 
fact real and potent by uniting your consciousness with the manifestations of life 
throughout your body, whether they assert themselves as health or "disease," you will 
cease to manifest so foolish a thing as pain.
	Will it work?  Absolutely and without question.  After you have reached a certain 
point in the development of this direct vital control, you will be able to stop pain 
almost instantly.  Regeneration is a matter of growth, and for that reason minor 
disturbances will arise within your body for some time after you have begun to leave the 
old false beliefs behind.  But by remembering this principle of impersonal and fearless 
unification with the so-called "symptoms," you will soon be able to control them 
marvelously.  And with your regenerated consciousness, you will cease calling them by the 
foolish names of "symptoms of disease," and will call them by their right name - 
"symptoms of life and health."  You are the master, and it is for you to say in which 
guise they shall appear.
	Although at another time I am going to write at greater length about the most 
common hindrances to effective, direct healing, there is one stumbling-block to which I 
want to call your attention now.  Disease and sickness are always the outworking of some 
false belief and its resultant action.  For this reason, it is important that you look 
unflinchingly into your heart and search out that hidden root of suffering that is 
concealed there.  And the most dangerous thing about this matter is that it is very often 
our "darling sin" which forms the crux of the situation, and we are prone to deal with 
our darling sin as a mother deals with a wayward son.  We make excuses and evasions.  
Very often we call this sin a virtue; that is why so many painfully virtuous people are 
weak and diseased.  Their so=called "virtues" are in reality spiritual abominations and 
points of infection, and they will never be whole until they have burned them out of 
their souls with the caustic of the spirit.  So if you are meeting with unconquerable 
discouragement in your journey toward that perfect health which the Father ordained for 
you, be very sure you are trying to grasp regeneration with one hand while holding fast 
to sin with the other.  There can be no halfway measures here; sin is not necessary, and 
you must look it firmly in the face and say, "I am dead to you.  You shall never again, 
in all the eons of eternity, be a part of my life."  And then steadfastly you must open 
your inner consciousness to the cleansing ministrations of the Spirit of Communion, which 
alone can cleanse you.  Your part is let go, to open yourself without reservation to this 
cleansing process; it will not be instantaneous, probably, and you may slip and waver; 
but if you will always bring yourself back, serenely and joyfully, the mycelium of this 
sin-fungus will be dissolved from the tissues of your soul and body, and you will come 
into that real regeneration which is founded on righteousness.
	In concluding this article, I want to describe the direct method of healing as 
applied to a few common disorders.  As you persist in getting acquainted with your real 
self, you will know better how to direct your forces than anyone else can possibly know, 
and will be able to modify the methods I am describing to meet your individual 
requirements; but there are certain broad tendencies that exist in us all.
	A physician was speaking recently of what he called "the  American disease."  
"Inactivity of the bowels - constipation," he explained, "is perhaps not a disease in 
itself, but it is an abnormal condition which leads to an unlimited number of diseases."  
He went on to explain that the puzzling thing about constipation was that usually there 
was no very good reason for its existence - while certain classes of bulky foods had a 
tendency to correct it, they did not always do so; and on the other hand, many people who 
lived on a concentrated diet were never troubled with constipation.  "The real cause 
seems to lie in a lack of stimulation of the intestines by their controlling nerves," he 
concluded.
	Of course this is merely a negative cause - back of it lies the reason for that 
short circuit of the nervous force which should stimulate the bowels to work normally.  
And at the very beginning of the treatment of constipation by direct spiritual methods, 
you will need to seek this reason.  Perhaps it will be hiding in the guise of one of 
those "darling sins" of which we have just spoken.  Morbidly conscientious people, who 
consider their over-anxiety a virtue, are very apt to be troubled in this way.  Other 
sins, - worry, fear, hate, lust - may be accountable, and all of these energy destroyers 
have a thousand tricks of disguise.  You will have to depend upon the wisdom of the 
silence to point out to you just where your short circuit lies.  When you have found it 
and have brought yourself into that receptive attitude which insures its eradication, you 
may go to direct measures for quickening the life in the bowels.
	Proceed in this way: lying or sitting as you do during your times of spiritual 
communion, with nerves and muscles relaxed, turn your attention to a point in your 
abdomen a little to the right of center, and about level with the navel.  At first there 
will seem to be no sensation there, but as you persist, you will find that there is a 
subtle vibration - an unnoticed thrill of life.  You won't need to deny or affirm 
anything; just give attention to this stirring of the life force which you are.  After a 
few moments, shift your attention to a point an inch or two above the navel; here you 
will probably find the life vibrations more noticeable.  Consider them for a short time, 
then turn you focused attention to the left side, corresponding to the point on the right 
side, which you first explored.
	It may take you a few days to get acquainted with these tissues, but it is not all 
difficult process to bring the bowel functions under the direct control of the will.  It 
will be best to establish a regular time for this practice - soon after the first meal of 
the day is a good time, if you can depend upon utilizing it regularly.  As the function 
of the bowels becomes established and regular, you will find that a moment's direction of 
the thought force toward these centers will be all that will be necessary.
	"Stomach trouble" has the same cause as constipation, and is apt to be associated 
with it.  Get at the root first and begin to eradicate it.  If you are a chronic worrier, 
learn the secret of practical, every-day working faith, which does away with all 
necessity for worry.  If you are in the habit of going into "tantrums," whether you call 
your mental infirmity "nerves," or just plain "meanness," quit it.  In reality, you are 
serene and gentle, just as your Father is.  And it is only through identifying yourself 
with this real self, and insisting on manifesting its virtues, that you can let go of the 
old Adam, with his limitations.  And so throughout the length and breadth of those sins 
which lie at the root of stomach trouble, and every other physical infirmity, take time 
to discover your shortcoming and to begin to remedy it.  Then you can go on to the direct 
treatment of the stomach, assured that you are building health on a foundation that 
cannot be moved, though the sun and stars should cease to be.
	The optician tells us that the human eye was not designed for the kind of work we 
force it to do - books and magazines, close work and moving pictures, these things are 
sometimes blamed for failing eyesight.  The human eye, however, was constructed by the 
inner life, guided by the Father's wisdom; and this same life power and wisdom is 
perfectly capable of reconstructing it and adapting it to any work it is desirable for 
man to do.  "Poor circulation" in the eye tissues is also given as a cause of eye 
trouble, but poor circulation is a result, not a cause.  The live power which you are, 
will do its work perfectly if it is not interfered with and short-circuited in all manner 
of ways.  Look into your heart and listen to the voice of the silence until you find the 
real cause of your eye trouble.  Correct it.  Then fix regular periods daily, for 
speaking directly to the life in these tissues.  Lie quietly and note the quickening of 
the life vibration in them.  When this quickening is established - when you feel it, 
however slightly - speak silently and serenely to it.  Say, "You are strong and clean and 
vigorous of this body, fill you and permeate you, and even now you are being cleansed and 
regenerated, made perfect in every cell and fiber."  Perhaps you will get better results 
by putting your statement of truth into the form of a prayer.  "I thank Thee, dear 
Father, that Thou art the life of my life, that I am one with Thee; and I thank Thee that 
even now Thou dost quicken and perfect these tissues, so that they are regenerated and 
made perfect in every cell and fiber, perfect in structure and function."  As you pray or 
affirm, hold your attention to the quickened vibration in the eyes.
	Wherever in your body you have built up false conditions, through false beliefs, 
it is your duty and privilege to tear down the old and build up the new.  Having opened 
yourself to the full regeneration of the spirit, in consciousness, belief, desire, and 
action, sin and sickness no longer have a place or reason for existence in your being.  
Day by day the consciousness of your divine nature, as the son of God, will become more 
full and abiding, and you will speak the work of healing and regeneration with growing 
power.
	How long will healing take?  My friend, that depends absolutely upon you.  Do not 
long for instantaneous healing, for although that is sometimes possible, it is rarely 
desirable.  Sickness and disease came to you because of your failure to live as God wants 
you to live - that life of regeneration which is more perfect than anything you can 
conceive at present.  It came as a part of the discipline which shall enable you to leave 
forever behind you and your imperfections.  That real healing which brings with it the 
assurance of abiding and all-conquering health is a matter of growth.  And as surely as 
God's sun shines in the sky, you will soon look back to what you now regard as a terrible 
misfortune and will say, "It was one of the greatest blessings of my life - it brought me 
wisdom and the power of self-knowledge."
	And so you may now look upon your sickness or disease as a gentle but unyielding 
schoolmaster, guiding you with the rod where smiles and coaxing would never take you.  
Cooperate with it.  Abiding in your unity with Infinite Love and Wisdom and Power, you 
may be very sure that it cannot hurt you.  Only as you waver and turn to the false gods 
of carnal mind can any hurt come to you.
	
CHAPTER V
healing others

	Hardly second to the cry of self-healing, comes that for the means and methods of 
healing others.  Christ healed the sick, and the love and unselfishness of the Christ 
Spirit in his followers longs to do the work that he did.  but how?
	Sometimes the most satisfactory way of telling a man how to do a particular thing 
is to tell him how not to do it; and following somewhat the same reasoning, I am going to 
speak first of the principal difficulty in healing others - extrinsic healing - which 
does not appear in self-healing.  The root of this difficulty can be indicated in a few 
words: the right of self government.  Until your friend desires at least to try to be 
healed by spiritual methods, it will be impossible for you to do much for him.  Frankly, 
I do not believe it is advisable to try to force healing upon any one, or to treat any 
individual without his or her knowledge.
	We will suppose, however, that you desire to heal a friend who knows of your 
intention, and is willing to cooperate with you.  What can you do?
	Well, you can do nothing "of yourself."  It must be, first, last, and all the 
time, the Christ Spirit working in and through you that does the work.  And this Christ 
Spirit will work principally by the process of education.  In a very real sense, all 
healing is self healing.  But this does not mean that you can do nothing.  It simply 
means that you are to be the channel through which the regenerating wisdom reaches your 
friend.  Sickness results from a lack of righteous adjustment, and with your help the 
sufferer must learn to readjust the activities of his mind and body.
	Before going farther, it will perhaps be well to answer an objection which is 
certain to occur to some of my readers.
	"Christ healed the sick," I am told.  "He didn't give them lessons in right 
thinking - he said, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole,' and it was so."
	It is impossible for the partial to comprehend the complete, and we cannot analyze 
all of the Christ's actions and reach the motives back of them.  But in this case a 
little thought will show that his mission was rather that of a teacher, a sower of the 
seed of a new way of thinking and living, than of a reformer of individual men.  Even his 
disciples were to serve principally as the husk of this spiritual germ which he was 
planting.  None of them attained to anything of the spiritual perfection of the Master.  
But in those who came to Jesus for healing, he recognized nascent faith - faith, aroused 
by suffering and desire.  The man who is whole in body and pocketbook usually considers 
himself amply able to look out for himself, without anything more than a formal 
assistance from his religion; but let sickness strike him down, or financial reverses 
come, and he begins to cry for light, for healing.  So, in those who came to Jesus for 
help, he found that conditions of openness which he needed for planting the truth.  His 
time was limited and his work broad, and he could not do more than plant the seed.  But 
he always did this, for with his healing he gave the warning, "Go and sin no more!"  Sin, 
or lack of adjustment, was intimately connected with the evil state of the sufferer.  
When next he came into tribulation, as he surely must come, he could hardly avoid 
thinking of this intimate connection which the Christ had forced upon his attention.
	The Nazarene was a world-teacher.  He dwelt with masses of men, and the 
individuals whom he trained personally were merely the leaven for carrying his teachings 
to the nations.  Healing was incidental, but he never made it a positive hindrance to the 
growth of the one he healed as he would have done had he simply removed the physical 
symptoms, without calling attention to the spiritual cause.  Extrinsic healing, even when 
it seems to occur, merely helps men to cheat themselves into the belief that they can 
"beat the game"; that they can obtain the fruits of righteousness without its regenerate 
living.  And when it occurs, it is brought about by forces outside of the sufferer's 
understanding, outside of himself, and is therefore accidental.  The man who takes 
medicine for "stomach trouble" may be helped, apparently, at first; but the time will 
come when the same remedy will only aggravate his misery.  He has not dealt with a cause, 
and he cannot be sure of repeating the results.  
	So much for the negative side of healing others.  The first positive step is in 
the direction of reviewing the theory of spiritual healing, both for your own 
encouragement and for that of your "patient."  Spiritual healing is not local or partial, 
but complete.  That is, it depends for its efficacy upon a realization, a making real, of 
that truth in regard to the constitution of man which frees from all limitation.  It 
depends upon the eternal fact that each human being is a child of the spirit, and is 
potentially perfect.  Apparent imperfection in any form comes from leading an unbalanced 
life, usually one in which physical phenomena are allowed to usurp the attention.  
Healing, or a return to the perfection which is normal, does not have to be forced; it 
follows naturally and inevitably when the proper balance of spiritual and physical is 
restored.  And this restoration depends upon choice - it can be accomplished as soon as 
the individual is willing to return to the Father-Consciousness from which, also through 
choice, it has separated itself.  
	This return is accomplished through a serene and persistent beholding of the 
truth.  As the molecules of iron are permeated by the radiations from an electro-magnet 
and are so changed in their rate and manner of vibration that they, too, possess 
magnetism; as this is accomplished simply by bringing the iron near the magnet and 
leaving it there for a time; so the human consciousness which brings itself to the 
consideration of spiritual truth is regenerated, until it, too, becomes spiritual, with 
the all-perfection and all-potencies of spirit.  The iron does not make itself magnetic.  
It possesses an inherent capacity for magnetism; and by being brought into contact with 
magnetic vibrations it is changed, without effort, naturally and unfailingly.
	For your spiritual magnet take the statement, "I am the resurrection and the 
life," or  "I and the Father are one."  With your physical senses stilled and your body 
at ease, repeat your formulation of truth again and again, slowly, pausing to consider 
all that it connotes or carries with it.  "I and the Father are one."  This is 
potentially true, and becomes positively and dynamically so just as soon as you accept it 
and begin to live it.  You - the real, inner you - are one with the Father Spirit which 
permeates all things.  You can be less than this only by conscious or unconscious choice.  
And being one or identical with the Father, you are perfect - serene, dynamic, with the 
broad and impersonal compassion which goes forth freely and fearlessly to every living 
creature; you are wisdom and power and love incarnate.  And, again, you can be less than 
this only by choice, conscious or unconscious.  you are potentially complete, perfect, 
but you can for a time put the emphasis on a part of yourself and so manifest distortion 
of one part or another: poverty, sickness, unhappiness.  But all the time, you and the 
Father are one, and no matter where you are or what your condition seems to be, you can 
at any moment turn from the partial to the complete.  You don't need to fight the 
symptoms of inharmony, but simply to accept and manifest that wholeness and perfection 
which is eternally yours.
	If you desire to come under the spiritual law, which perfects the physical shadow, 
simply turn your attention from the external world to that inner chamber of the 
consciousness where the Father abides, although in your flurry and bluster you have not 
been conscious of his indwelling; and giver yourself, serenely and lovingly, to a 
consideration of the truth: "I and the Father are one."  "I am the resurrection and the 
life."  Don't bother about symptoms; if you make the cause right, the effect must follow 
in good time.  This is ABSOLUTE AND INEVITABLE.  Remember, a symptom or physical 
manifestation is simply the showing forth of a spiritual condition or cause, and you can 
absolutely control this manifestation by making perfect the cause, or by realizing its 
perfection and allying yourself, your conscious effort, desire and attention, with it.  
After you have made this adjustment in consciousness, you can and should ignore symptoms.  
Serenely deny that they are good, bad or indifferent.  They are nothing but shadows, and 
you are now living in harmony with the cause, the reality, back of them.  "I and the 
Father are one."
	If the friend whom you are treating is new to New Thought, do not, to begin with, 
go farther than this treatment for the realization of unity with the Father.  Direct 
control by the will of the subconscious life in the tissues must come later.  It can be 
successfully established only on a foundation of self-recognition.  Until the seeker 
after truth begins to glimpse in a practical, usable way his or her real nature as the 
child of God, any attempt at this direct conrol is certain to be made from a standpoint 
of an external attempt to influence an internal and capricious and mysterious force 
called "vitality."
	So, in the beginning at any rate, you will do well to confine your own and your 
friend's attention to the great underlying principle upon which all enduring 
accomplishment is founded.  Remember that simply this realization of unity with God has 
cured all of the so-called "incurable" diseases.  But it means a complete break with the 
old ways of thinking, and with many of the old ways of living, and it cannot be fully 
established in a moment.
	In this ministry of healing, you are but the channel for the life of God.  
Remember this always.  If, in your earnest and unselfish desire to be of assistance, you 
allow your connection with the central power-house to be broken, if you strive to become 
something in yourself, you will fail.  "Severed from me, ye can do nothing."  And so, as 
the first requisites for your equipment as a healer, you will need a humble spirit, 
constant openness to the light, and absolute unselfishness.  In this latter detail the 
nature of your task will help you.  You are seeking nothing for yourself, and you will 
not need to worry about your motives.
	But what are you to do?  In the first place, you are to help your friend to grasp 
the working principles of spiritual healing, as we have considered them.  Next you are to 
help him find those points of conflict and friction in his manner of thinking or living 
which have externalized as disease.  Perhaps this conflict lies in the matter of personal 
"rights," or even "righteous indignation" at some of the evils of society or of the 
people about him.  Help him to see that these things are in God's keeping, and that the 
most practical reform which he can influence is to re-form his way of thinking; to learn 
to be humble and tolerant and kindly, even toward the "sot" in the gutter.  And help him 
to realize that the old, theological "pity,"  which looked  upon all who did not measure 
up to its little foot rule of sinlessness as billed straight through to a hell of 
sizzling brimstone, will not answer here.  He must learn to see in the drunkard his own 
vices masquerading under a different guise.  I have known as many "beefsteak drunks," and 
as many "bread and butter and potato fiends," as I have alcoholics or drug fiends; and I 
am stating that very moderately.  Toleration and sympathy; the earnest, humble, kindly 
desire to help others out of the same bog of sensualism and ignorance in which we have 
wallowed - your patient will not get far until he learns this lesson. 
	But whatever his basic errors, you must hold yourself so open to the light of 
God's wisdom that you will glimpse these unmistakably.  And you must farther claim your 
birthright of wisdom in the matter of "speaking out," for it is not always best to call 
your friend's attention to his shortcomings.  Sometimes he will need to gain spiritual 
perspective, to deal with the constructive side of spiritual healing for a time, before 
he has his attention turned toward these hindrances to his farther advance.  And don't 
forget, in the meantime, to practice that toleration to which you are going to help him 
attain.  Look upon his shortcomings as those of the child in the kindergarten.  Sin is 
always the result of a lack of wisdom.
	And when you do feel that the time has come to speak frankly, do it without any 
assumption of self-righteousness.  The "I am better than thou" spirit always antagonizes 
its recipient.  Be kindly and simple, and don't argue.  If your friend does not see the 
matter as you do, if he thinks you are mistaking a virtue for a vice, simply remind him 
of the way in which he must settle everything that comes into his life: by going direct 
to Spirit for understanding, and persisting until he receives it.
	Probably your greatest opportunity for serving will be in the matter of steadfast 
and unwavering faith.  When the times of discouragement come, when perhaps everything 
which has been gained seems to be swept-away, explain the law of rhythm; of high and low 
tides in all life and energy.  Now is the time to use dogmatic faith.  Don't try to 
advance, but stick, doggedly if necessary, to your ground.  And you, whom your position 
on the outside of the turmoil places at an advantage, you must tbe the main anchor at 
this time, if at no other.  Stick, serene and unwavering, to your ideal.  You are to 
help, not by tears and sympathy with imperfection, but by that radiant faith which turns 
neither to the right hand nor to the left, but which beholds, through all the mists and 
fogs, the perfection established by the Father for each of his children.  "God wills it!"  
Make that your watchword - and stick!
	And remember always to make your own spiritual life all that it should be.  Read 
for inspiration, for the purpose of "keying yourself up" to the spiritual vibrations.  
And pray; not the prayer of supplication and separation, but the prayer of thanksgiving, 
of joyous acceptance of the Christ life which is yours.
	What shall you do when your friends backslide?  Do nothing.  Realize the truth, 
that there is no permanent going back.  In one of the Oriental bibles I can remember 
reading that thwen the soul has once truned toward the path of seeking, it can never go 
back to the old way of living and stay there.  It may seem to have done so; but suddenly, 
swiftly, with terrible unexpectedness sometimes, it will be torn from its moorings in the 
carnal world and turned back toward the light.  And that this is an absolute fact, you 
will soon discover.  The early history of many an exalted career is marked by reactions; 
but when the sould has tasted the fruits of righteousness, however meagerly, it can never 
go back permanently to the husks of the flesh.  So don't worry about backsliders.  Insist 
on seeing them always as you know them to be, intrinsically perfect and righteous.  And 
let the Spirit do the rest.
	Sometimes you will be asked to decide what your patient shall eat, or whether he 
shall continue to take medicine.  It is usually best not to decide these things for 
anyone.  Teach the inquirer that they are negative; that as long as he has faith in the 
efficacy of medicine, the mere doing without it is nothing.  Tell him to use it if he 
cares to, but not to let that hinder him from doing the positive things.  If he will go 
forward in the life of the spirit, medicine will soon take care of itself.  He will learn 
to discard the symbol and to choose the reality which lies beyond it.  
	In the matter of healing children, you will find that you have not to deal with 
the same conditions and limitations which confronted you in healing grown people, or in 
helping them to heal themselves.  Right in the beginning, you will almost invariably find 
near the little invalid one or more mature people who are responsible, very innocently of 
course, for his condition.  Children are a hundred times more sensitive to the thought 
forces of those about them than are adults.  And the more highly organized a child is, 
the more easily is he affected by the tantrums, the false beliefs, the "nerves" of his 
elders.
	And so before you can do much with the child, you must do something for his 
parents.  If possible, get them to co-operate with you both in the matter of direct 
healing and also in that more important matter of healing their own imperfections.  
Sometimes you will have to deal with one or another parent who is more or less frankly 
skeptical about spiritual healing.  Don't argue, but if this individual is at all open to 
reason, give him or her a little lecture on the effects of the emotions, as evidenced in 
every-day life: the sick feeling in the stomach during grief or extreme excitement; the 
flushed face of rage, etc.  Then call attention to the greater sensitiveness of children.  
These things are not at all mystical, and along this line you can often secure at least a 
negative co-operation.
	Sometimes your greatest obstacle will be a parent who believes implicityly in the 
principles of spiritual healing, but who is so lacking in self-control that he or she 
cannot cease scolding, nagging worrying, or whatever his or her mental taint is.  The 
only available measure in such cases is to ask this carrier of mental infection to stay 
away from the child as much as possible, and to get down to business in his or her own 
soul garden.  The noxious weeds growing there will occasion much suffering if they are 
not rooted up.
	After you have attended to these basic details, explain directly to the little 
patient just what you intend to do.  Explain that God gave him a perfect little body; 
that God is his Father, always close to him and trying to keep him strong and well.  Then 
explain how the clouds have drifted between him and God, and how he must for a while talk 
through the clouds and tell God just what he wants; and that when he has done this, he 
must remember that God hears, in spite of the clouds, and that from this moment on his 
loving Father is building him a new little body, strong and perfect in every part.
	Faith is a natural attribute of children.  Even where it seems to have been buried 
under a mass of flase teaching, it can be swiftly reached and made effective.  And the 
prayers of children are as dear to God as they were to the Nazarene.
	Your third step will lie in co-operating directly with the child and its parents 
in forming a dynamic ideal, a spiritual pattern, of the child as you desire him to 
appear.  Remember that this is also God's ideal: that nothing short of perfection 
satisfies Him in any of his children.  And when you have agreed on this ideal, refuse 
longer to consider physical appearances.  Remember that the life force which built the 
little body is still in it, that it is natural and easy for it to build perfectly, and 
that by doing away with negative thinking and substituting for it the dynamic and 
constructive faith in Spirit, you are fulfilling every requirement.
	Here is a prayer which you can use, with our without modification, as 
circumstances suggest:

"Dear Father, we thank Thee that this, Thy little child, is perfect in every cell and 
fiber, in every organ and tissue.  We thank Thee that even now Thy regenerating life 
permeates him and rebuilds him and perfects him, in structure and function.  And we thank 
Thee for Thy infinite love, which fills and perfects all of us; which casts out all fear, 
and makes us to realize every instant that Thy healing is perfect and complete."

	Jesus' love for little children indicates something of their unique value in the 
kingdom.  If they are voyagers, newly embarked on the ocean of objective living after a 
sojourn in the rest of unconsciousness; if they have lived before and shall live again, 
as those who accept the doctrine of reincarnation believe; then we can perceive that they 
are at least in a more receptive condition during this morning of each new voyage than 
they are later in its course.  That is both their weakness and their strength, for if 
they are prone to absorb the evil influences of the more mature minds about them, they 
are also easily affected for good by the same minds.  Children do not resist spiritual 
treatment, as mature people often unconsciously do.  And the sins which affect them are 
oftenest those of their elders.  This makes healing, in the case of little children, 
particularly direct and certain.  And remember that it is never "God's will" for any of 
these little ones to be sick.


CHAPTER VI:
THE LAW OF RHYTHM IN GROWTH

	A very common experience in spiritual healing might be described something in this 
way:  A sufferer from physical or mental ills, usually of long standing, glimpses the 
truth in regard to his or her real identity as the child of God, and in an ectasy of 
thanksgiving opens mind and body to receive the healing vibrations of the spirit.  A 
wonderful transformation seems to have come about; there is a new joy in life, a newly 
vibrant health in the body.  For a while the former invalid is transformed, and looks 
upon the old ways of living and the old physical and mental shortcomings as evil dreams 
that have passed, never to return.  
	Then there comes a terrible moment when all this new-found joy and peace is gone, 
and the old things seem to have returned, perhaps in greater force than formerly.  
Perhaps this relapse lasts but a short time, and again the way of regeneration is found 
and followed.  Very often, however, the sufferer becomes discouraged, returns to drugs 
and a dependence upon physical methods, and henceforth thinks bitterly of the "deception" 
of New Thought.
	Why should these times of bitter discouragement come?  Why should not the growth 
toward the perfect health and mastery of the spirit be rapid and unwavering?  There are 
many reasons, and some of these are so commonly met with that they are worth considering.
	One of the principal causes of discouragement lies in what may be called the law 
of "swings," or rhythmic growth.  This law prevails throughout nature.  Men are born, 
grow to maturity, pass into the afternoon of life, and finally quit the world, not by 
direct and unvaried progression, but rather by a sort of undulating advance.  In the 
spiritual life, this phenomenon of quickening and diminishing vitality and inspiration is 
always met with.  We advance splendidly only to slip and lose ground; but the crest of 
every peak is higher than the one before it, or may be if we recognize the law and work 
with it.  So, when you have made a big gain, spiritually or physically, and then seem to 
have lost it all, you must learn to look upon this time of negative energy as a resting 
point, preparing you for a greater gain in the future.  
	"Darling sins," moral spots and taints which have fastened themselves deep down in 
the very matrix of our souls, I have already spoken of; but as in these sheltered and 
protected soul cankers lies the root of much of the disappointment and failure met with 
in spiritual healing, it will not come amiss to call attention to them again.  If you are 
having trouble, look for the cause of it; not the "physical cause," for the physical is 
not the realm of cause, but of effect.  Perhaps you are clinging to what you call your 
"rights."  You must learn that when you have made a covenant with God to live by the 
spirit, you have no personal rights - all is yours that comes easily and natrually to 
you, and all will come that you can possibly use; but you must leave to the All-Wisdom 
the task of choosing the details.  No man can take from you what is yours, in honor or 
property or in any other respect - no man but yourself; you can easily keep the good you 
desire out of your life by surrounding yourself with an atmosphere of tense distrust, 
which you probably think applies only to your fellow men, but which in reality applies 
first and always to the Infinite Spirit.  At the very beginning of any new life that is 
to be vital and satisfactory, you will have to get rid of this old burden of personal 
rights.  Make a covenant with God to tdo the work that comes to you for doing, to do it 
as thoroughly and joyously as you can do it, and to send it freely out into the world 
without stipulation or condition.  Say, "Dear Father, I am going to do my work, the work 
Thou givest me to do, as perfectly as Thy Infinite wisdom and love and power, working 
through me, can do it; I am going to be serene and gentle; I know that Thou art my 
providence, in life and estate, and I accept the wondrous riches of Thy love as they come 
to me, day by day."  Make this covenant with God so definite and positive that there 
shall be no room for "hedging," trying afterward to reserve this and that little cause of 
grievance with your fellow-men.  If you are living by the spirit, there is no such thing 
as chance or accident in your life.  All comes to you that you need, when you need it; 
and when anything goes it is because, for the time at least, its usefulness to you has 
passed.  And you must live either by the spirit or by the flesh - must live either in the 
Kingdom or in the world, where you shall surely have tribulation.  The only way to get 
away from tribulation is to give up personal rights and accepts the rights that are yours 
as the child of God.
	So, if you are having repeated failures in your efforts to come into regeneration, 
be sure that you are not holding on to something - condemnation, or envy or impatience or 
fear or sensualism - which is incompatible with the greater life.  Through your service 
either to God or to man you ally yourself with a corresponding order of experience.
	Distantly related to this hindrance is that of two-mindedness.  The trouble with 
the man whose darling sin holds him back is that there is some one definite thing which 
he so desires that he is unwilling to give it up; the double-minded man, on the other 
hand, has never taken the trouble to put definitely before himself the essential 
differences between spiritual living and living by the laws of the flesh; he wants 
something better than the usual experiences of life, but he hasn't yet reached the point 
where he can say, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" to a score of the empty pleasures of 
carnal living.  A definite and heart-to-heart talk with himself is what he needs; he must 
consider the matter honestly, and choose the kind of life for which he really is willing 
to pay the price.
	An entirely different hindrance is the fear of sacrilege.  "How can I say that I 
and my Father are one?" some ask.  "I am so imperfect, so prone to sins of ignorance and 
intention - am I not sinning against the Holy Ghost to claim identity with God?"  This 
trouble arises, in good part, from a misunderstanding of the teachings of Christ.  He 
continually spoke, after the spirit of wisdom was fully quickened within Him, in the 
impersonal sense.  "I am the resurrection and the life," he said, and much more to the 
same effect.  But the "I" he referred to was not the personal Jesus of Nazareth, but the 
Christ-Man, latent even in the thief on the cross.  And in that sense you may say all 
that He said; within you, too, is this Christ-Man, who truly says that "All that the 
Father hath is mine," and "I and my Father are one" - one in purpose and in power, for 
the Christ-Man is a full and perfect expression in one place of all that the Father is 
throughout the Universe. It is simply a matter of where you desire to put the emphasis.  
You are spirit, which includes life, body, higher consciousness, subconsciousness, all of 
you; but if you desire to say, "I am a physical man, possessing five senses and an 
intellect, generated by brain power," you can limit your expression to this part of 
yourself.  Sacrilege, however, lies in this limitation of your divine nature, rather than 
in claiming your birthright through allying yourself with God.  Never believe that 
anything is too good or too big to be true.  Only limitation is untrue.
	Fear is merely faith turned wrong side out; and, like faith, it has attractive 
power.  You have probably read of many cases where fear of disease produced symptoms of 
that very disease.  And why should it not?  When you fear anything, you are merely using 
your creative power backward, and if the fear is one of those which grips you and stays 
with you until it has become an obsession, it will surely produce disastrous results.  
The same fire with which you warm your house and cook your dinner, will consume the house 
and your body, too, if you use it in the wrong way.  Fear is the misuse of faith.  Cancer 
and hydrophobia are only two of the myriads of diseases which are produced often solely 
by the corrosive action of fear.
	The cure I have already suggested.  "Perfect love casteth out fear."  To realize 
your unity with Infinite Love and Wisdom and Power - to realize that you are indeed one 
with the Father - is to lose fear of all things and conditions.  And as a help toward 
realizing this essential unity, it is often advisable to drop all thought of healing for 
the time.  Concentrate your consciousness and desire on the expression of the great 
fundamentals - love, and purity, and wisdom and unselfish mastery; and such little things 
as physical health will attend to themselves.  You will gradually come to see that 
physical health is a little thing - that it is a result, capable of coming swiftly into 
existence when the foundation of it has been built in the cause or spiritual realm.  So 
drop your striving after health and wealth for a while, and learn to be quietly serene 
and to give the creative and regenerating spirit a free channel through you.  So will you 
come, by a seemingly indirect route, to the realization of that which you desire.
	Argument is another menace to spiritual growth.  Many an earnest beginner in truth 
has started out to convert a sneering friend, only to be himself discomfited and perhaps 
filled with doubts.  Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, and it is impossible to 
preach the doctrine of nonresistance and love to a "hard-headed business man," who 
proclaims his doctrine to be, "Do the other fellow or he'll do you."  Now, this does not 
mean that you must be hypocritical or untrue to your principles.  But it does mean that 
you must avoid argument about the higher things; sometimes it even means that you must 
remain silent and hear things proclaimed which you know to be untrue.  If you must speak, 
speak the truth as you see it, absolutely and uncompromisingly; but you will find that it 
is seldom possible to "convert" those about you by talking; learn to live the life 
yourself, to be serene and kindly and do the work that comes to you with the swift 
mastery of the spirit.  Insist on manifesting the perfection of spirit in your body.  
Then you will have little need to labor with your friends - if the time has come for them 
to see the spiritual things that are all about them, they will see this transformation in 
your life and will begin to understand; and if the time has not come, for them, all the 
sermons and good advice in the world will avail nothing.  For in the spiritual, as in the 
physical world, there is a time for being born; and the first indication of the approach 
of that time is the awakening interest and desire of the individual himself.  So speak 
the truth as it is given to you to speak it, when some one earnestly and sincerely asks 
you for advice; but do not go about seeking to make converts, for your vision of truth is 
as yet but a partial one.  When that which is perfect is come, you will know when to 
speak and when to remain silent.
	Contradictory statements by those who are supposed to know, by New Thought and 
metaphysical writers, are often an occasion for stumbling to those who are a little 
insecure on their spiritual feet.  Sometimes the same writer, in different places, seems 
to make contradictory statements.  This fault is oftenest seen in writings extending over 
a period of years, when very often a theory that has been advanced will be retracted  or 
so modified as to be practically a different statement.  If the written words and 
thoughts of others are used as they should be, however, these flaws need cause no 
uneasiness; for even the reported words of Jesus must be accepted subject to the 
interpretation of the spirit, working through your own consciousness.  Never accept the 
authority of any teacher of prophet as an absolute and infallible statement of truth.  
Accept all that is good, all that agrees with the vision as it comes to you in the 
silence, and don't bother about the things that to you seem false.  Remember that both 
your comprehension and that of the writer whose thoughts you are following is partial as 
yet, that neither of you are perfect lenses for the transmission of spiritual light.  
Read for inspiration; key yourself to the spiritual vibrations by considering the 
thoughts of like-minded searchers after the way; but remember that God, speaking directly 
to you in you inner consciousness, is the only absolute authority in your life.  And so 
this matter of contradictory writings will come to give you no concern.
	One difficulty connected with the direct control of the vitality, or subconscious 
life in the tissues, is often met with.  "I can feel the vibration in my hands and feet 
very easily," I am often told, "but when it comes to feeling them in other parts of my 
body - in my throat, or in my lungs or head, for instance, where I may most need to 
direct them, I fail."  The reason for this is that the hands and feet have so long been 
accustomed to the direct control of the conscious mind that they are in a measure 
prepared for an extension of this control.  The work done in most other parts of your 
body you have always considered distinctly the business of a mysterious "life force" or 
vitality, over which you have no control, and so you have not tried to control it.  And 
now that you are beginning to experiment, you find that it takes time.  That is all there 
is to it.  Time and patience and persistence will do this thing, as they will do all 
else.  The Yogi comes to exercise a wonderful control over his body through this method 
of introspection, and you can certainly attain to the lesser control needed for 
perfecting the work of the subjective mind within your tissues, if you are sufficiently 
in earnest.  Have a regular time and place for this exercise, if possible; fifteen 
minutes morning and night is enough, though more time may profitably be given to the 
attainment of a power which will be worth much more to you than the possession of Greek 
or Latin or French, which you would not expect to master with less work.  Learn to relax, 
and don't try to "push on the lines."  Growth is a matter of receptivity; the Spirit will 
permeate you and work through you if you let it.  Strain and anxiety are out of place.  
	One more comment is necessary concerning this matter of vibration: all parts of 
the body are not equally supplied with nerve channels, and will not therefore give you 
the same sensation of tingling or vibration.  But the sensation is not necessary, except 
as an indication that you have accomplished that quickening and increase in the life of 
the tissues which you desired.  The regenerating life force often works without sensation 
of any kind, and it is only as an index to your success at directing this power that 
vibration is desirable.
	While I have emphasized the necessity of giving sufficient time, regularly, to 
formative and receptive prayer, it is possible in a way to give too much time to these 
things.  You will find that your power of attention or concentration is like the muscles 
of a man who has never exercised; your mind will soon waver, and if you persist after the 
symptoms of fatigue have become peremptory, you will gain nothing.  One of the secrets of 
successful muscle building is to exercise whole-heartedly while you are at it, and then 
to quit.  Likewise, in building up the power of concentration, which is the key to all 
mental and spiritual growth, you should attend unreservedly to the task at hand, and when 
your attention begins to waver and weaken, stop at once and turn to totally different 
work.
	Especially in dealing with the manifestations of disordered life called 
"symptoms," you will need to pay careful attention to this warning.  Don't get into the 
habit of trying to do the Spirit's work; it is your part to open your whole being to the 
reception of quickened life, regularly and earnestly; but it is not desireable that you 
should supervise the working of the spirit within you between times.  For this reason it 
is often advisable for one who is annoyed or perhaps terrified by "symptoms" to busy 
himself with some engrossing work between the periods set aside for communion.  Gradually 
you will learn to take the spirit of prayer with you wherever you go, and so will come to 
"pray without ceasing."  And you will work all the more effectively because of this 
quickening spirit of love and regeneration.
	"How long will it take me to get the results I want by spiritual methods?" some 
one asks.  This is a question no one can answer; and to speak frankly, it is not your 
business.  You will get results in any line more quickly by spiritual methods than any 
other - in fact, the only permanent and thoroughly satisfactory results must be obtained 
in this way.  But the times and seasons are not in your keeping; and the less you worry 
about them, the better.  Somewhat depends upon your earnestness and faithfulness; but the 
whole matter is one of growth, and much of this growth is in the subconscious realm, 
where you cannot see it.  This is one reason for the oft-repeated exhortation to ignore 
physical indication, symptoms, etc.  The work is being done first in the invisible, cause 
world, and when the foundation is laid there, the physical superstructure will be swiftly 
raised.  Your part it is to learn to walk with God, to live in that impersonal serenity 
which begets and conserves power.  The Spirit, working in and through you, will do the 
rest perfectly; so that looking back from the mountain top, you will see that this time 
of tribulation through which you have passed was like the finger exercises which the 
young musician practices.  All life advances fearlessly and perfectly if we live in 
harmony with the law of love and serenity.  Do not strive to force the future's hand, for 
you have covenanted to live day by day as God leads you to live; and one day you will 
wake up to realize that the regeneration is already far advanced within you.


CHAPTER vii
How to Realize Abundance

	Before any man can come into that life of self-mastery and of kinship of the world 
about him which eventually he must be born into, he has to free himself from a 
subconscious taint which, in one form or another, touches nearly every human being.  This 
is the idea that misfortune, poverty, sickness and death are natural to man, and that 
continued serenity of mind, health of body and opulence of all good things are "too good 
to be true."
	Poverty, which includes lack of wealth, health and love, is rooted in the 
subconsciousness.  It consists of a race idea, built into the very matrix of every man's 
soul, that he is a creation instead of a creator.  As long as you believe that you were 
formed by an exterior power and that your live is directed and surrounded by 
manifestations of that power, even if you call it "god," or the "Infinite Spirit," you 
are going to express in all that you do and all that you are this false idea.  Poverty is 
the logical working out of a lie, which you accepted before you were born, from the men 
and women whose lives preceded yours.  Perhaps - personally, I should say, "probably" - 
you yourself have lived in previous bodies and have helped create this bogy which now 
terrifies you.
	It is a long stride from the mental attitude of the children of Israel, who looked 
upon God as a personal champion of their particular race, a terrible being utterly beyond 
and above even themselves, His "chosen people," to the final realization of Christ that 
"I and the Father are one."  And yet this gap is the one which lies between you, when you 
believe in the possibility of poverty, and your ultimate and ideal condition when you 
know that you are a manifestation of creative force, that you are love, wealth, health 
and wisdom.  You can as easily be separated from yourself as you can from the opulence of 
Infinite Life.
	"But poverty exists; in city and country, here and across the seas, the poor we 
have always with us," some one says.  Apparently this is true, but in reality it is not.  
About us are people who are closing themselves, unconsciously, of course, to that inflow 
and outflow of spirit which is typified by breathing.  Spiritually they are "shallow 
breathers," but when the disagreeable consequences of the lack which this brings with it 
have permeated their inner consciousness, they will relax from the tension of fear or 
avarice or dislike which now grips them and will draw in freely the infinite substance.  
you would hardly pity the poverty of a man who lived in a great storehouse wherein were 
all the good things of life, but who kept his fists tight shut and refused to use any of 
the riches about him.
	So the problem of the cure of poverty, with which all the civilized world is 
wrestling in one form or another, reduces itself to the question, "How shall a man 
express and make manifest the abundance which is now and always has been his?"  And the 
answer is simple: First, by realizing intellectually that he desires to express this 
perfect life and that it is natural and easy for him to do so; second, by permeating and 
transforming the subconsciousness with this realization; third, by practicing the science 
of dynamic and formative spiritual thought, which is possible only to the man who has 
purged his conscious and subconscious mind of fear and hate and ignorance.  
	Let us consider these three steps individually.  First.  "By realizing 
intelectually that he desires to express this perfect life, and that it is natural and 
easy for him to do so."  After a man has lived long enough at the mercy of events, after 
he has been buffeted and harassed by fear and accident and misfortune, there comes to him 
a dawning consciousness of the fact that he is not living the life he should live.  
Usually this comes first as a question: "What is the meaning of all this suffering?  What 
am I here for, anyhow?"  Then the mocking thought arises, "This would be a pretty fair 
world if I could make it over - I would be a king and a master of events.  I would have 
abundance, and there would be no troubles waiting around the corner."  At this point, 
race beliefs usually inhibit for a while any farther advance.  The spirit of truth is 
trying to drive through misfortune what he will not learn by any other method.  And 
eventually there awakens within him the transforming realization, "I am a king, a master 
of the events of my own life."  Intellectually he begins to see that the spirit of 
Infinite Love, which is working in and through him, has nothing to gain by his suffering, 
and that except as he himself creates it, suffering has no place in his life.  He is 
beginning to realize that not only does he desire to express perfect life, but that it is 
the most natural thing in the world for him to do.
	As long as this realization remains on the surface and is confined to the 
conscious mind, it is almost without effect.  The great flywheel of subjective thought 
keeps on driving the machinery in the same direction in which it has been driving it so 
long, and until the subconsciousness is permeated by truth and regenerated, it will 
continue to manifest imperfections of various kinds.  Here is where a great many who have 
turned toward the light fail, for having conceived intellectually the possibility of the 
perfect life they fail to understand why it should not at once become manifest.  "I no 
longer believe in nor desire the old imperfect conditions, so why can't I drop them out 
of my existence?"  Because your intellect is only the little lever by which you can 
eventually but slowly turn the great subconscious forces in the direction you would have 
them take.  For a time you must battle against the momentum gathered during generations 
of "evil" or ignorant minded men.  The change will be slow at first - consciously you 
will realize and will declare that you are master of the forces and things about you, but 
ingrained fear and doubt will inhibit your perfect demonstration.  When you would do 
good, evil is present within you; you are done with lack and limitation, but they are not 
done with you, and will not be until you have conquered them.  But the fight is worth 
winning.
	The terms, "auto-suggestion," "affirmation," and "denial" have been somewhat 
abused of late years.  Great things have been claimed for them; and when used 
intelligently there is no limit to their usefulness.  But there are affirmations and 
affirmations, and not all of them are quickened with power.  In the first place, when you 
realize that your subconscious mind must be cleansed from error and permeated with truth, 
you will probably begin by attacking error as if it were a positive thing, instead of 
being merely a lack.  It is all right enough to deny various undesirable appearances, but 
it is better to put the emphasis on building up that which you want to express.  "To 
replace is to conquer," and you will not have to bother about destroying evil if you will 
permeate the place where it has seemed to exist with good.  The great affirmations of the 
Christ were of this positive and creative order.  "I am - the resurrection and the life."  
"I and the Father are one."  "I am the light."  He did not say, "I am not death," but "I 
am life."  Make your statements to the subconsciousness positive and emphatic.  Build up 
truth always, and the darkness of error and imperfection will disappear of itself. 
	The subconsciousness is the realm of emotions, of "feelings."  The vibrations of 
love, hate, courage, rise into the physical and the mental from this great, unseen 
reservoir.  And the way back to the subconsciousness leads along the same track - you 
must "feel" your affirmations.  Those which are simply recognized and considered 
intellectually are practically barren.  You must state that condition which you desire to 
create so clearly and positively and convincingly and must hold to it so persistently 
that you live it, for the time.  When you repeat, "I am the resurrection and the life," 
do it slowly and dynamically, holding your attention upon the fact that this is the 
profoundest truth; see yourself as a luminous and quickening presence, vibrating through 
and through the grosser mechanism of the flesh.  When you say, "I am one with infinite 
and primal abundance," hold in your mind the idea of yourself as a perfect channel, 
through which flows at its proper time everything needful.
	You will find that in arousing the emotions or feelings, certain phrases are much 
more potent than others.  The simple and vibrant words of the Christ are singularly 
powerful in this respect - and you may use them wherever they fit your needs.  They will 
arouse that quickened conviction which is the sure forerunner of success, and they are as 
true of you as they were of Jesus of Nazareth.  They are true of every man, when he comes 
out from the house of bondage.
	In formulating your own affirmations, be simple and direct and positive.  You 
cannot state the truth too emphatically.  Nothing is too good to be true, and your only 
error will be in falling short of the full vision of perfection.
	And you may find that a statement which profoundly thrilled you when you first 
considered and pondered it, gradually loses its power over your emotions and convictions.  
Then you must state the same thing in a different way, experimenting day by day until you 
re-establish the current.
	In utilizing the power of affirmations, you will find that your magnet has two 
poles: one is faith; the other is fear.  Much has been said and written about faith.  
Unless you have faith, you will accomplish little on any plane of life.  If you doubt 
your ability to do physical things by the ordinary physical methods, you will not 
accomplish them or will do so but imperfectly.  If, however, you have faith in your power 
to attract an abundance of all good things through purely spiritual dynamics, you will 
succeed to the uttermost.
	And what is this all-potent and prevailing thing or principle called "faith?"  It 
is merely an intuitive or spiritual perception of the great law that cause and effect are 
inseparable, and that when any man furnishes the one, he is bound to receive the other.  
Faith does away with the bugaboo of an unwilling God and of a favored people.  It does 
more than this.  By assuring the man who permeates that when he has complied with the law 
of spiritual sowing the harvest is assured and can no more fail than can the universe 
itself, it holds him steadfast and receptive until the unseen but mighty currents of 
spiritual energy have brought him that which he desires.  The law of faith is: "Thou 
shalt not consider physical appearances, which are but the shadow and outgrowth of 
spiritual changes; but shalt remember that when thou hast decreed a thing, it shall be 
established unto thee - and sooner than this shall fail, shall the universe itself be 
destroyed."  So, when your faith is established, you will breathe out your demand for all 
things which you desire and will wait, serene and unswerving and masterful, until the 
spiritual quickening is accomplished and unseen things become seen.  Faith, like all 
other faculties, grows by use.   At first you will have to be dogmatic, will have to 
refuse absolutely to consider the doubts which will arise while you are waiting; but as 
you persist, the habit of looking through the physical shadow to the spiritual reality 
working back of it will become natural and inevitable, and prevailing faith will be 
yours.
	So far we have considered those emotions and beliefs of the individual which might 
hinder or help him in his first efforts to utilize the higher forces.  We have seen that 
a man must decide definitely that he desires to cast off the old limitations of fear and 
ignorance, and that he must realize intellectually the reasonableness and possibility of 
so doing; that he must extend this conscious decision and belief into the subjective 
realm, or subconsciousness; and that he must do this by the use of dynamic thought 
formulae or auto-suggestions, quickened by faith; and we have decided that faith is but 
another name for spiritual or real perception of truth, which naturally and inevitably 
frees its possessor from fear and doubt and all mistaken ideas.  Now it is necessary to 
go a step farther, and to consider the laws which govern the use of spiritual forces 
outside of the man himself; after he has in a measure regenerated his beliefs and so has 
come into the mastery of himself, it is time for him to learn to rule the objective and 
physical kingdom about him.
	It is manifestly impossible by auto-suggestion, or affirmations to the individual 
subconsciousness, to control the external world.  But affirmations, nevertheless, are the 
key to this new kingdom.  The subconsciousness of each individual is continued until it 
becomes one with the great subconscious mind of nature or the universe, and here, as 
within the limits of the ego, a dynamic statement, an ideal perfectly formed and 
faithfully projected, is the quickening and formative life germ which draws to itself 
whatever it needs of material and blends and harmonizes and perfects, according to the 
pattern which it embodies.  The visible universe was created by the "word" of God, and 
you, as a perfect expression of all that God is, can create in the same way.  If you 
choose to create by the sweat of your brow and the agony of brain and body, you may do 
so; but it isn't necessary.  This is the indirect and imperfect way of doing things.  The 
other way is for you to come into your kingship, to awake to the fact that you are a 
ruler and a creator, a director, whose duty it is to mold and perfect the physical by the 
utilization of spiritual forces.  The constant desire of the Father Spirit within you is 
that you may become perfect even as He is perfect, that you may become so regenerated in 
consciousness that you will do things directly and easily, instead of imperfectly and 
with agony of mind and body.  The old belief in the sacredness of toil and suffering and 
disappointment was not logical, there is virtue in pain - just to the extent that it 
arouses the individual to rebel against it and all other limitations, and to claim his 
birthright of freedom and power and love and abundance.
	In forming those ideals with which you purpose to create and bring into visibility 
the wonderful things which you have perceived or desired, but which are as yet invisible, 
there are a few suggestions which may prove useful.  One is, that you will find it much 
more simple to accomplish something which appeals to you personally than to do something 
because it will bring you money or fame. 
	How does this apply to the cure of poverty?  Very directly; that man who seeks 
abundance by working at a calling which he does not hold in the highest esteem, is 
working against his own best interests, no matter how much he may seem to accomplish.  
Don't say, "I would like to be a musician, or a painter, or an architect, or master-
builder, but I must be something entirely different because I can make a living at my 
present calling while I probably have not the ability to succeed in the one I fancy."  
Remember, you are a creator, a master, and can do anything that can be done; not at once, 
perhaps - again applies the law of seed-time and harvest; but eventually you can bring 
forth faculties which will make you a success in that line which you desire to follow.  
Never mind appearances; if you desire to do any work in the universe, and desire it 
because it satisfies the creative impulse within you, not merely for sentimental reasons, 
you can do it and do it perfectly.  Perhaps the phrenologist will tell you that you lack 
this or that necessary faculty.  Never mind.  An intelligent "faculty" is merely and 
instrument, and if you lack it, you have that which is of infinitely greater importance: 
THE POWER TO CREATE FACULTIES AT WILL.
	Have you ever studied the way in which a child learns to do the things he wants to 
do?  His first efforts are crude, and he casts aside the results with that supreme wisdom 
of babes which looks not upon the thing done but upon the doing of it as the important 
thing.  He tries again and again, a thousand times; and gradually his chubby fist grows 
skillful, and the weird lines and angles begin to take form and meaning.  He began 
without the faculty, but he didn't know it and didn't care.  He created the ability to do 
by knowing that he desired to do and by persistently trying.
	But you are no longer a child?  True, and you have gradually laid aside some of 
the wisdom of childhood and have acquired the false ideas of your neighbors; among them, 
that venerable lie that you cannot now learn as easily as you could when you were a 
youngster.  You must discard that old notion about the brain of a child being wax, upon 
which were easily impressed new ideas and abilities.  The physical matrix of the child is 
not greatly differen from yours, but he knows that he can learn to do what he wants to 
do, and you have decided that you can't.  There is nothing that you could do as a child 
which you can't do better now, for your powers of concentration and clear thinking are 
better developed.  So, if you are not in the right business, get into it.  Look within 
yourself, study your desires and choose accordingly.  Abundance of all good things will 
come to you when you resolve to live your own life as the inner wisdom bids you lead it, 
and your real desires are the only voice of this wisdom.
	When you have chosen or confirmed you life work, you will begin to discover that 
your success in utilizing the spiritual forces varies greatly at different times.  
Occasionally, perhaps often at first, you will feel that your faith and power have died 
silently within you, and that you are like a "dead" battery.  Never mind.  This is simply 
ebb-tide, and the best thing for you to do is to rest, serenely conscious that your power 
is not dead, but that it will soon quicken you with a new vigor.  So when your word seems 
to return to you without effect, merely rest and wait till the next time of quickening 
and again formulate it and breathe it out into the universal ether.
	When you pray or suggest or affirm - when you utilize that power of dynamic 
thinking and ideal building which is your most potent faculty in ruling both yourself and 
the external world - you must remember that in all things there is an active and a 
passive part.  Real prayer is not all spoken; it is receptive as well as formative, and 
when you have projected your serene and dynamic desire into the ether, you must relax and 
let yourself become neutral, poised and serene but receptive instead of positive.  There 
is no fixed time relation between these two parts of prayer or affirmation; no formula 
which will tell you how long to be positive and how long passive.  you will know without 
this; follow your desire, you "instinct," and you will adjust one to the other perfectly.  
But do not try to remain dominant and positive all the time; formulate your desires 
definitely and vibrantly and hold to this ideal as long as you feel yourself thrilled 
with it; then relax and rest.  This is the place of the Silence, and in it you are 
quickened with power to do and to attract, although you may feel nothing. 
	Perhaps I have seemed to speak of many things which did not concern the 
realization of abundance.  But abundance is more than a possession of physical means or 
objects.  Its opposite, poverty, is a spiritual condition, in which the individual is 
closed, through ignorance, to the permeating consciousness of abundance.  Infinite wealth 
and health and love surround him, but he is too tense to receive.  He cannot be cured of 
this spiritual malady by the infusion of any patent medicine.  Stereotyped formulae may 
help, but his ultimate cure must come through his perception of the principles which 
govern life, and his personal reconciliation with these principles.  He must learn that 
"I and the Father are one," and that no human being except himself can deprive him of 
anything which he desires.
	

CHAPTER VIII
Financial Healing

	Since the preceding chapter on financial healing was published in The Nautilus, I 
have received many letters asking for advice upon points which I had either failed to 
mention or upon which I had not, perhaps, put sufficient emphasis.  The universal cry is 
for something "practical," something which a man can begin to use wherever he is, and 
which will enable him to go where he wants to go.
	New Thought is founded on the Golden Rule, on the spirit of universal and 
impersonal love, and is for this reason the most practical thing in the world.  
Selfishness implies isolation, and no man who is isolated from the great Soul of Things 
can be truly prosperous.  If he seems to be so, it is because he has succeeded in 
isolating, along with himself, a certain quantity of "property," which in itself is 
merely lifeless matter.  But there is a law which decrees that only as a man can permeate 
and master and so use wisely and grandly any material thing can he really "own" it, or 
save it and himself from corruption.
	You will find illustrations of the working of this law everywhere: The artist, 
creating in his youth for the love of his art, to which even his appetites and passions 
must bow; prosperity comes, and for a time he employs it to farther his work, his labor 
of love.  He masters matter, and uses it for its decreed ends.  He is adding to his own 
joy, and to that of the universe.  Then, very gradually, he begins to look at physical 
things as ends in themselves.  He begins to pity himself for his life of "abnegation," of 
simple living and high thinking.  Other men are enjoying "the good things of life."  So 
he begins to look upon his material property as a bulwark between himself and the 
necessity for labor.  He begins to live as he sees the purposeless people around him 
living.  And the spirit that transfused and perfected his art vanishes swiftly, leaving 
him with a cold technique which he sells for so many pieces of silver.  Material has 
become an end in itself or a means to an unworthy end, and swiftly the spirit of 
corruption claims it and its "owner."  To the superficial observer the artist may seem to 
be living a fuller and more pleasurable life than before, but in his heart he knows that 
when the joy of creation departed, life was finished; this that comes after is merely the 
swift descent toward the grave.
	In the lives of the second and third generations of rich men's sons you will 
often, though not always, find illustrations of the working of this law.  Inheriting 
"property" without the desire or ability to use if for the good of mankind, they have 
inherited the means of their own undoing.  The point is not that they have not "earned" 
this property, for some who inherit wealth do master it, and make it serve.  But "it is 
the spirit that quickeneth," and Spirit cannot be left by a man who has done things to 
his son, who desires to have them done for him.
	No, you will be able to dind nothing in the lives of the rich or the poor to 
confute the laws of prosperity, as embodied in New Thought and in all wise metaphysical 
teaching.  And the key-note of all this teaching is Love; impersonal and unwavering love, 
for anything else is not love at all.  You must learn to express this impersonal love, 
which is a part of you at this very moment.  It is impersonal because it goes forth 
freely toward every living thing, without respect to family or race relations, color, 
beliefs, or material conditions.
	"But will not such love make me give all that I have and need to someone else?" I 
am asked.
	Certainly not.  You are to love your neighbor as yourself.  When the white light 
of spiritual wisdom shows you that  he can use something which you "possess" to better 
advantage, for himself and for the rest of the world, than you can, you will give it 
freely.  You don't need to scrimp.  And these cases of your giving material things to 
other people will be fewer than you think.  You will come to realize that the thing most 
worth giving is tolerance and kindliness, and sometimes a word of cheer or advice, when 
you know it will be acceptable.  Every man has within himself a magnet for drawing from 
the universal storehouse all that he desires, and usually it will not be best for you to 
encourage him to look to someone or somehting outside of himself by giving it to him.
	And so at the very gateway of prosperity a man must change his conceptions as to 
the nature of abundance and of the means provided to bring it into his life.  He must do 
this before he is ready to begin to demonstrate prosperity.  Prosperity is not merely the 
possession of property.  I have known so-called "rich" people who needed help toward true 
riches fully as much as any beggar on the street.  I have seen them pinch themselves and 
others, have heard them talk of poverty, and of hard times, and of sickness and 
misfortune until I felt like hurrying home and taking a moral disinfectant.  Prosperity 
is poise, adjustment between the activities of the individual and those of the Universal