Your Power to Demonstrate

What Is It That Heals

The Power of Thought

Let There Be

The Thing That Sinneth It Shall Die

Come, Let Us Reason Together

The Father Within

Your I Am

Right Thinking

The House of Darkening Shadows

 

Your Power to Demonstrate

If in a fit of insanity a ship's captain should de­stroy or cut loose the rudder of his boat while in mid ocean at what port would he finally land? At the port of chance. And who can say what that port would be.

Perhaps it would be the harbor of his dreams. Pos­sibly by some wild fate the wind and waves might carry him, rudderless, into the desired haven, but the odds would be so great against him that no one would care to take such a hazard. For a ship without a rudder, though it might have on board minds of the most trained excellence and the most perfect instruments of nautical science, would fittingly resemble many a man whose mind is full of practical truth, and is yet being ship­wrecked on the shoals of indecision and "waiting."

It is certainly true that the rudderless ship in mid­ ocean meets with no opposition as to the direction of its course. All ways are open to it. Any port is available. It may turn about in any direction, without hindrance, and yet be making no real progress, because it has lost its rudder. With all the power in the world stored in its mighty hull it will yet get nowhere and will at last run on a reef, going down to shipwreck and disaster.

Just such will be the fate of hundreds of honest Truth Seekers. They have the letter, but not the spirit' to direct, and because of this are all their lives counted among the Listless Waiters, lacking the guidance of the Unseen Hand, which is but hazily formulated in their minds, and the lack of which leaves them derelicts on the world's trackless ocean. They are lacking in that essential innate power which, when used aright, enables a man to accomplish almost what he will. One ship, as we all know, is able to sail west, and another to take its course eastward, both carried onward by taking advan tage of the same favoring wind. But it is the knowing how to use this power and the ability to subject it to our needs that carries us to the desired port and enables us to make life's journey a success.

Just as all will concede that no ship ever starts on a voyage without having a destination definitely in view, so it should be with us. None of us should start in to demonstrate an indefinite truth. We follow too much the careless habit of letting Truth do the work of guiding . us; which is like tearing off the rudder of our ship and trusting to a favorable wind to blow us into a satisfac­tory port.

Every one should have before him the chart of what he expects to accomplish. He should cleave to the line and stand as captain at the wheel, not for one moment doubting that he will reach the high goal of his ambition and desire.

No evil can come from a well-formulated plan or outline, and these will be found necessary and advan­tageous in all lines of life. What would we think of a railway company that would start out to build its tracks without having decided upon a destination and with no fixed end in view other than building from town to town. Yet this is just exactly what you do when you set out on a demonstration that has no definite end in view.

Here is, for instance, a man whose demonstration is along the line of health. He knows exactly what he wants. His aim is to possess that well feeling that snaps with vitality, and he goes after it mentally. His end and aim are clearly defined, and he realizes that he has but to apply the principle in the right way to get results. But if it is wealth that he wants he does not set about it so definitely. You find him saying: "What is right for me to have will come." He fails to realize that unless he in some measure shapes his desires, he cannot receive, and when the oil starts running he will have no measure in which to receive because he has not formed the cup of his desire.

A haphazard, aimless, waiting state of mind is pre­cisely what kept the man at the Pool of Bethesda from getting his health. Instead of placing himself in the pool, and thereby stirring the waters into healthful activity, he waited until the waters were first stirred, with the result that some active mind always rushed off with the prize.

When man makes his contact with God, the infinite sea of substance which surrounds him-that whole sea of substance-starts to move in the direction of that mind, as when a small hole is made in a dam all the water of a river or lake moves towards that opening, ready and willing to pour out floods.

Man, then, in contact with God must feel the inex­haustible urge of substance which is pressing towards him, desiring to be expressed. "Prove me, and see if I will not pour out a blessing so large that ye will not be able to receive it."

But just how to put this rudder into action is what puzzles the minds of the masses. They are burdened with Metaphysical Fat, that is, of reasoning and pon­dering truth without practical results, but knowing not how to put it into good use in demonstration. If a statement is not demonstrable to you, you have either come upon a false statement, or else have not grown to it and are not ready for its fruitage.

First, then, when you desire to demonstrate the prin­ciple of truth a cleansing process must go on in the mind. Gently brush from your mind by denial all that which is clogging the way. Deny, forget and forgive, and presently you come to a wholly mental realm. It is almost a state of mind which is typified by children when they say, "play-like." You take for granted, accept and acknowledge the desired state, which is not as yet manifest in the flesh, or in your affairs.      Once in this recep­tive state of mind, you are ready for the second state.

Next you press out further than the narrow confines of your mind and find God everywhere present. You meditate for a moment on what God is and where He is, and now that you are in contact with Him, the whole sea or substance of love is moving towards you, as the water moves towards the small opening in the dam.

Further you realize that the Father is just as eager to be expressed bountifully in your life as the water is to force its way through the opening in the dam.      We feel the great urge of spirit upon us fulfilling our desires (filling full our desires) which arc very much like balloons uninflated. Now the inrush of this substance fills them until they are lifted completely off the earth or material base, and people say it is a miracle or a demonstration has taken place, for it is materially impossible.

When you have your contact with God, the infinite power, the next step is set forth in the Scriptures: "Ask." We are told to "ask," and there is no doubt but the translation of the work which appears so often is correct.          Suppose a child stood by a table loaded with food, hungry and desiring nutriment, but afraid to ask, would he not more than likely wait long and perhaps in vain for that which he desired? How many of us have not heard some grandmother say, "Why didn't you ask for it, child, long ago; you could have had all you wanted." So it is with demonstration, we are told to literally ask, and like the child who wanted cake, he would probably make a specific demand for it rather than asking for the ingredients which go to making it up. So we must ask direct. This is the difference in having an aim, a dest­ination, or a well-formed desire in mind when demon­strating. You might have placed in your hands all the materials which go to make a loaf of bread, and yet be as helpless as if you had not asked, and almost starve because you failed to make your desire known.

When you need bread, wheat, yeast, water and sugar do not suffice. You want the finished product. So when you need money, an indefinite asking for supply and substance makes a disturbance on the sea of sub­stance, but the cup of your desire not being formed your demonstration is very much like dipping water with your hands-most of it gets away from you.

When Jesus demonstrated sight for the blind he did not ask for the indefinite thing called healing. Yet sight is contained in health.  He said: "Receive thy sight." So we must learn to use the cup of our desire, and ask, knowing what we desire.

When you have asked-when you-have "spoken the word"-your next step is to "believe" just accept the thing and cling steadfastly to the completed work, meet­ing all objections with the firm assertion: "It is done."

From this state of mind follows a natural state, that of gratitude and thanksgiving, which is the first and last step in your demonstration.  You give thanks that the "Word" is made flesh and is now in your possession.

But you say: "Perhaps I might be asking for a thing that is not good for me." "Perhaps I maybe uncon­sciously taking that which belongs to another." You .begin your demonstration with your one-ness with God. When this is established, when you forget, forgive and bless all mankind, then you innately know whether or not you are trying to put God's power into a material, selfish desire.

Gradually, as you hold conscious communion with the Father which is within you, you 'will learn to recog­nize whether the desire is from beneath or above, and instantly you will either destroy or fulfill.

"Thanks be to God for His Unspeakable Gift."

What is the unspeakable gift which Paul refers to in the above quotation? Is it not for grace, for con­tinuing we read:

"And God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that ye having always a sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work."

It is plain that the "Gift," of which so much is said, is the coming into possession of unlimited supply, whether it be money, health, contentment or love. There is no limitation in the thought: "God is able to make all grace abound unto you." It does not say that He is able to make a part of the whole, or a limited amount; but all. The Bible is full of promises that great riches shall be bestowed upon us; that great riches are already ours.

      "And I will give thee the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places."

"Thou openest Thy hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."

"Delight thyself also in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart."

How many times have you read these promises over and over and then wondered why it is that you should have to struggle along in the most limited sense of things? Perhaps your barest needs are met, but always with the strictest economy. Something is wrong with the way we apply the rule, for the rule is correct. The whole trouble lies with ourselves in the application of the laws laid down for us in the demonstration of pros­perity.

Let us examine the nature of the thing called thought. We have already come to a place where we recognize that thought is productive of its own kind; that when we think a kind thought it is accompanied by a gentle word or deed, or vice versa; that when we think of action, the body moves; and when we think "I can" it pro­duces an entirely different state of feeling and action from "I can't." And soon through the whole category of thoughts we find them productive of their own kind. If you plant a radish seed you expect a radish, not a turnip; and here we see a conscious or unconscious faith set into operation. We never plant seeds knowing that they will not grow and that our whole garden will be a failure. We see, then, that one of the elements of growth is Faith.

Of course, you already know all this, and when you are asked what it is that demonstrates prosperity, you reply, " Divine Mind," or God, and you have already learned that Divine Mind is Right Thinking, and that God is no longer afar off in the heavens, but close at hand. You have learned that you now have a conscious unity with Him, that you and the Father are one, and you begin your operations from the center of your being instead of trying to work a mystic chain by saying, "There is no lack; God is everywhere," and then "wait­ing" for something from without to happen. True, certain conditions external to us do operate and act, but only because we place ourselves in the way of these conditions. We place a seed in the ground when we are ready for it to start growth. In another place, in a sack ^-for instance, it manifests no growth. This is also true of us; when we get the inside right we auto­matically find the exterior conditions such that we can­not fail to grow.

Thought, then, is the formless substance out of which things are molded.    The cup of our desire is that which shapes it. A child at the seaside with molds fills them over and over again with sand. All about us is the unformed substance, and when we get into consciousness with the Father within, and realize that the Divine Self and the Father is one we begin molding and shaping this formless substance into the formed.

Try this, dear reader. Go within and unify your­self with the Father, and start to decree and declare mentally without the physical or material counterpart entering into it. Satisfy yourself mentally that you possess all good; that you are now bringing into ex­istence that which you need. "Ye shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass." "Decree" does not mean that ye shall wish a thing or desire a thing, but shall declare it as a thing which is inevitable. How many times have you done this? Not many. You have thought what is right for me to have I will have, and sledded along under a burden of poverty and limitation which was very painful and altogether dis­tressing. There is no virtue in poverty. It does not help in a single way and is as much a sin as anything else, for it is a belief in a limited, selfish and personal God, who deals bounteously with some and is sparing with others. Some have declared they have all sub­stance without the slightest concept of the mentality of a hundred dollars. They have spoken in terms of millions and held in mind at the same time a few dollars. Now to become conscious of substance is to let go and give up and take for granted, as it were, that you pos­sessed all. You have no fear or thought when you get in your bath that you will remain dry. It has long since passed the stage when you would think of that, and likewise the demonstration of substance must come. When you know that you are one with the Father with­in, and are speaking out this new authority, you learn that you can actually "Decree a thing and it shall come to pass." So must you get yourself in a mentality that refuses, for a single moment, to acknowledge de­feat or limitation of any sort.  Assume a mentality which is rich and abundantly prospered. Place yourself in your desired mental surroundings and bring out the vision which is shown to you on the mount. Remem­ber that your very desires, insofar as they are good, are of God, and 'do not originate in you.

Praise the first appearance of the operation of this new law, however small it may seem; praise every bit of substance which comes your way-your health, your contentment, your happiness; praise and bless it all, and pass it along. Get very busy giving out joy. Be a giver. See how many happy people you can make during the day. Never let the evil thought of limitation crowd you out into the cold. You have returned to your Father's house, and "All that I have is thine."

Try it for one day. Refuse to let the least limiting thought enter your mind. When the appearances of limitation come to you, say, "I shall not judge from appearances. I shall judge righteous judgment."

It may help you to take a check on your treasures at the present time.       Take a pencil and paper and list the wonderful things you have to give thanks for.      They will increase and increase until they will become more numerous than the sands of the sea, and you will have a glorious praise-giving, and even the ground you are standing on will become so holy you will thrill with a new life.

When you come to recognize that all about you is a living, vibrating substance out of which things are cre­ated, you begin to feel the unspeakable peace which comes from true understanding. Now in order to have abundance, you must talk abundance. Never let your conversation get shabby and poor, any more than you would think of indulging in discourses on disease. Keep your thought rich and your conversation rich. Someone has said: "Talk abundance, have abundance." Not that the mere talking will bring you .money any more than it does health, but it will mirror forth the thought, and gradually the mind will become so saturated with abun­dance that it will speak it forth in that which it desires.

Be very consistent in this matter. Be willing to start anew with the rule. If you were to decide to write a letter, you would not put down "Dear Sir," and then say, " Well, I have done my work and the letter will be written." No, you would continue writing letter upon letter, word after word, line after line until it was complete. So it is with demonstration of Prosperity. We must keep right after it consistently, and not let down until it is made. Refuse to accept lack as a reality; it is only a belief that there is a place where Mind is not, and this, you know, is an utter impossibility. What a man can conceive, he can bring to light if he be con­sistent and persistent in his thought world.

Rejoice at every evidence of wealth, whether it be yours or your neighbor's. When another gets it, it only makes your opportunity that much greater, and should make you seek a closer knowledge of the law of prosperity. "Be not envious one of another." Be glad-be glad and rejoice. All about you is the inex­haustible source of supply.

Do not fix the channel through which substance can be made manifest to you. There are infinite ways and means. All you have to do is to get hold of the idea of limitless substance, and press it forth into expression. Let no limited or selfish idea enter in. Use this wonderful substance like you do the air and sunshine. You never think of wasting it.                                                                       Yet you use it in any quantity and without encroaching on the rights of others. It is abundant and is yours. Think it into your life. Make it your very own. Claim it as an heir. Decree it as a master. Dwell in the thought until it becomes as much a part of you as health does.

Remember, that every visible idea of wealth which now exists-be it house or lands or jewels-can be di­rectly traced to the mental. "Every good and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of light, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

What Is It That Heals

What heals and is healed is a question that often starts discussion. What actually is Mortal Mind-error, carnal thought; and what is Immortal Mind-God, Good, as understood in meta­physics?

When you say you "know the truth" what do you actually do? Many times have you pondered this sub­ject, and perhaps have dismissed it all with a feeling that you could not give a clear statement of just what knowing the truth is.

Now it is true that when you think health, your body manifests health, as it does happiness, etc., and since all right thinking originates in and is of God, and since thought is the modus operandi of God, the current or point of communication, we find that Immortal Mind, to which we attribute our healing, is composed of Right Thinking. Then Immortal Mind is really Right Think­ing; and it follows, inversely, that evil thinking is mortal mind or error. It further follows that since evil thinking constitutes the mortal mind, which you fear, this very mortal mind is not, as you supposed, a universal instru­ment which attacks you from the outside, but a recording disk of wrong thinking, so to speak, which is in sympathy with all other minds of the same standard, and is uni­versally susceptible and impressionable by the cross currents of mortal thought.

Knowing the truth, then, resolves itself into one thing, that of thinking right. When you are thinking right about a thing, you are knowing the Truth about it. How simple, then, to know the Truth. The mo­ment we change our thought about a thing and place it in the right, we are at that moment "knowing the Truth" of that thing, and as soon as our mind becomes thoroughly saturated with that idea, the demonstration comes out into the flesh. For "you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."      The truth of the whole matter is that you are already free, and have only to put on the practice of freedom to acquire it in the flesh.

No more will you have to reach for God, to strain and feel after a thing called Divine Mind which is some­where outside yourself, but immediately you start thinking right you are in the presence of the Most High, of the Father within, and your seed of demonstration is lacing planted. "He is a very present help." We understand why accidents are unknown to this under­standing, since we have the guidance right with us- all the while, the power which never slumbers, and which is striving to make itself manifest in our lives.

Instantly, then, we can start thinking right. If you are ill you can begin thinking right about yourself, and that moment you tap the reservoir of all healing, and it, figuratively, starts moving towards you. As you make this opening larger, more and more of it pours in upon you, and you have the completed demonstra­tion. But the keynote is that you are instantly brought into the source of all health when you begin thinking right about the situation.

Now be not discouraged or overcome if the first good thought you put out does not instantly put to flight the "armies of the aliens." "Stand fast and see the salvation of the Lord," for it is bound to come. It is inevitable and cannot be withheld. The simplicity of it all at first is too great to be comprehended, but as you try this rule you will find that the reaching after God has ceased, that the straining and worrying to become spiritually minded has been actually replaced by a knowledge that right thinking is spiritual thinking and is knowing the Truth.

Furthermore, you turn your affirmations within. You address the Father within and immediately you feel a nearness of this living principle, and feel consciously at-one with it.

All with years you have been reading the Scripture: "Behold I stand at the door and knock," wondering how you could let the Savior of mankind into your life, never dreaming that He was already within your life, waiting for an opportunity to be brought out, to be "let loose in your Garden," as it were, to be acknowl­edged as the Master of the Temple, and that now, when you say "Father," directing your thought within, the response "Son" completes the perfect union or contact.

As the word is the thought clothed, and is the seed which is planted, gradually there dawns upon you the importance of guarding your words. These are the little stones that go into or spiritual building, and if they are weak and selfish, they crumble soon and fall into the dust, thereby weakening our whole structure and mak­ing our existence shaky and uncertain.

The Power of Thought

Which was first: the egg or the birds? the flower or the seed? You have but to resolve the whole thing into thought to find that first of all, before either flower or seed, bird or egg, was the idea, which rested in the mind of God. For we know that these .things were formed and created out of the invisible "substance of things hoped for."

All about us is this invisible unformed substance Mind from which Jesus drew that which He needed, by first forming the desire into an$ idea and impressing this or pressing this out, to expression in the flesh. He knew that it was inexhaustible and unlimited; that as long as He drew from the unseen substance he would be supplied.

But the injunction comes, "Judge not from appear­ances." In holding an acorn in your hand, if you say, "This little seed has no strength," and "Such a small thing could never in any way aid the wheels of progress" you are passing similar judgment to that which is passed by the world at large on right thinking. People say, "Yes, it is all right if you want to delve in pretty theories and thoughts, they perhaps tend to make your life sweeter and more harmonious, but as far as actually producing results they are nil." But you know that this is judging from appearances, and that when the seed, thought or acorn is properly planted and cared for, before long these very people find themselves dependent upon the sturdy oak tree to assist them in some way either to furnish shelter or to give light and heat.

So with your desire: it is the seed thought which must be planted, with all the faith that you plant your garden. It must be cared for with the same confidence that you have in the future of your garden. A lady who each year planted flowers always said: "Flowers never grow for-me; they get spindly and die." They followed in results her lack of faith in them. In the same yard another member of the family reaped a plentiful harvest of whatever she planted. But she had loved her flowers, and had long before won the odd comment: "If you were to plant a stick of wood it would grow and flourish."

So with our mental gardens. We look out and see gardeners all about us who are planting with differing results. We often hear the remark: "I do my work; I know the truth; and yet when it comes to actual results, I must confess they are disappointing." And uncon­sciously this very gardener, when he plants his mental garden, had watered it with the thought: "It always turns out this way.  "What could such a one hope for?

Suppose you undertook to instruct a child and always after giving the lesson, you would say: "You will never play well, but you can go on through these tiresome exercises." How far would such a one get? And with what results?

So we come to a place in our thinking when we must add to our work an absolute faith. A positive applica­tion of cause and effect must be the principle with which we are guided, and let no doubt or fear overshadow the results. Do not water the ground with tears of doubt. Tears are salt and will kill life.

"That which is born of the spirit is spirit." First and foremost in your mind is the fact that the work must all be done on a mental plane. You must disre­gard absolutely the material. Do your work from a mental plane. If necessary, call in that undeveloped faculty, imagination, for your first work must be abso­lutely mental. If you are working upon a case of sick­ness, you must first defeat the thing in your own mind and on a purely mental plane; then bring it out into the flesh and sec it manifested. If you are desiring a home first form it perfectly mentally, and cling to it like Jesus did. He stood there and said in the case of Lazarus: "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me," before the slightest manifestation of demonstra­tion was made. He finished his work mentally; then he added, "Lazarus, come forth."

When you are using your Power of Thought, when you recognize this tremendous power, which operated in every direction for Jesus, even to the control of the elements, then you will begin to awake, and arise from the dead to a glorious at-one-ment with the Father within. You will begin to speak out to the storm-tossed sea of affairs, and immediately a calm will come which will prove to you beyond a doubt that the Right Power is at last working.        " I and My Father are one, and the Father being in the Kingdom, the Kingdom within me, I have but to turn and connect or contact this wondrous source of power with myself to "move mountains" and "still tempests."

Jesus said: "Who touched me" when he perceived that virtue had gone out of him in healing. We all know that merely touching the physical Jesus would no more heal .than it would to touch a tree. But He was so closely allied with the Father "within" that he was actually one with Him in power, and the contact with this power set right any wrong condition that came near it, just as surely as a thing thrown into the sea gets wet and partakes of the conditions of the water into which it was thrown. It is inevitable.

To further show his one-ness with the Father, and to give us an idea of what a tremendous power is ours, he said: "I am the Resurrection and the Light." So closely allying himself again with the Father within that he used the " I Am" in speaking about himself without reference to the Father.

"There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." There is within you that Spirit which shall suddenly break through your limited thinking, and accomplish in a minute what you have worked months on in the old way of reaching for a power outside yourself.

But some have declared that God is not within you, and with the same breath declared that He is infinite and everywhere present. What hopeless reasoning this, when you view it directly and see that the statements are contrary. Either God is infinite and within you or else there is a place where He is not. Yet Jesus made .no hesitancy in saying where the Father was. He plainly defined Him as dwelling within man.

"All things are possible to him who believes." What does this mean? Are we going on from year to year accepting certain conditions as real and others as unreal and unnatural, and wait? Nothing is so stupefying, nothing more harassing, nothing more destroying to real life than waiting, when we see nothing coming our way. Hundreds there be who are daily praying this unknown principle to bring something to pass "which will be best for them." Are you one of these who study, read and wait? Then let it be told you that your re­sults will be exactly the same as if you sat yonder at the well and prayed the bucket to dip down and bring you up some water.

It is all there, your supply and the means of getting it, but the power which is resident in you, the Father within, must be brought into active service, and then the results are sure and certain.

Way back there in the recesses of the most humble and weakened mind is a dream of dominion. In day dreams they mount up the conqueror of every situation, the master of every condition. A triumph and success in every line. This is, dear reader, more than a day dream, after all. It is the spirit of the real You which is speaking and trying to gain admittance into your visible life. Where did these glorious thoughts of do­minion originate? In the mind of another? No, they were born within you. It is your birthright which has remained all these years wrapped in the swaddling clothes of ignorance. Yonder in that gorgeous palace sits a master of three hundred slaves. He is weak and puny, and there is not a man among his slaves but could break him with the greatest ease. Yet, unconscious of their power, raised in slavery, they cringe and slink away from his very approach. So with us, this mortal slave master is in reality a weakling, and he has stood there with whip in hand, tyrannizing over us, while resident in us is that magnificent power which could break him into pieces without a conscious effort, if we would but use this power.

Dominion, Dominion, that is the song of your soul, it is the song of your life-it is the teaching of the Master.

When you come to ally yourself with this Father within, a great unselfishness comes to you; a feeling that all the world is your home, and you would no more think of hoarding this precious knowledge and keeping it in selfish reserve than you would desire to preserve for your own personal use- a certain quantity of air. If you did this you would soon sicken and die; you would stifle in your selfishness, for your power would again be sent back into chains of material making and the air would become poisonous with repeated use. Selfishness must be flung to the wind. The great doors of your mind must be opened to the world so that mankind may come and go at pleasure. Love must radiate through you in such a way that it will magnetize your very life for good.  "You shall draw all men unto you." Not for personal, selfish ends, but for the glorification of God.

No longer do you insist on My this and that; you detach all this and dwell in the. absolute. You guard your words as you would select your seeds.      You can either grow roses or thistles by choice in the same piece of ground. You can always begin anew, and though the ground be tilled to weeds they can be uprooted and new seeds dropped in at once. Such is the glorious pro­gression of man, forever flowing upward and outward, and gathering new and fresh impetus as it moves along.