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Jesus Christ Heals
Chapter 9
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[Jesus Christ Heals]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Chapter IX
Healing through Praise and Thanksgiving
I PRAISE and give thanks that the strength and power of Thy
Spirit now restores me to harmony and health.
"Always praise the cooking of the cook" is the instruction
of the veteran hobo to the novice. Experience has taught
the gentlemen of the road that praise and thanks melt the
hardest heart and often open the door to amazing
hospitality. Tradespeople have found that "Thank you" has
commercial value.
Metaphysicians have discovered that words which express
thanks, gratitude, and praise release mind energy of mind
and Soul; and their use is usually followed by effects so
pronounced that they are quickly identified with the words
that provoke them.
Let your words of praise and thanksgiving be to Spirit, and
the increase will be even greater than when they are
addressed to man. The resources of Spirit are beyond our
highest flight of imagination. You can praise a weak body
into strength, a fearful heart into peace and trust,
shattered nerves into poise and power.
I give thanks for the Christ life now apparent in my mind
and body.
It is an easy matter to give thanks for what we
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have already received, but it is not so easy to give thanks
for what we hope to receive. However giving thanks in
advance brings to pass a present expectation. Remember what
Jesus said about one's mental attitude in demonstrating
spirituality: "All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in
prayer, believing, ye shall receive." This may be rephrased
in this wise: Pray believing that you have received, and
you shall receive.
Christians who have discovered the hidden laws of the mind
make it a practice to give thanks for health, for peace of
mind, for all things that they desire, believing that God
has given in Spirit that which is to appear in the visible.
I daily praise and thank the Spirit of life and health for
constantly restoring me to perfection of body.
Praising and giving thanks liberate the finer essence of
soul and body when we center our attention upon Spirit.
Spirit is the dynamic force that releases the pent-up
energies within man. The energies have been imprisoned in
the cells, and when released are again restored to action
in the body by the chemistry of creative Mind. The
perfection of this restoration is in proportion to the
understanding and industry of the individual.
Every thought we loose in our mind carries with it a
certain substance, life, and intelligence. So we might call
our thoughts our "thought people." Whenever praise is
bestowed on these thought people, who are intelligent, it
is carried to every part
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of the body and through the ether to a large area of our
soul aura, and our whole consciousness and everything about
us is tinctured with praise. Thus we prove what Jesus
proclaimed, that when we seek His kingdom and His
righteousness all things are added to us.
The prophets of old knew the power of increase inherent in
thanksgiving. "Praise ye Jehovah" is repeated again and
again in the Psalms, because the Psalmist knew that praise
and thanksgiving divinely directed tap the mighty
reservoirs of infinite Mind.
Jehovah-shalom gives me peace of mind, and I am harmonized
and healed.
The Bible contains more high mysticism than all other
books. But it requires study of certain fundamental
spiritual principles to discern it. Spiritual things are
spiritually discerned. Unless you call on your own innate
spiritual light you cannot appreciate spiritual insight of
those who wrote the books of the Bible.
The idea that all the Bible writers were equally inspired
is fallacious. They were from every walk of life, and their
inspirations were modified by their own mental bias as well
as their surroundings. Moreover some of the most important
revelations of fundamental principles are undoubtedly the
result of borrowing. Although Moses was a trained mystic
and inspirational writer, he did not originate all the
allegories found in the books that bear his name. It is
obvious from the testimony of religious records antedating
the Hebrew Scriptures by thousands of
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years that Moses complied and edited for the benefit of the
Israelites.
This discovery does not detract from the truth or
importance of the writings but greatly enhances them. The
very fact that these sacred writings have been preserved
for untold ages points to them as possessing unusual value
and as conservers of worthwhile knowledge.
Studying the Bible in the light of the discoveries of
modern science, we are amazed at the scientific accuracy of
the statements in the early chapters of Genesis. Have men
in past ages been wiser than those of the present or were
they inspired beyond their understanding? For example, in
the 3d verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis, God created the
light on the first day, yet the sun, the supposed source of
light, was not created until the fourth day. This supposed
error in the orderly creative process often has been cited
as evidence of crudity by Bible critics. But the very
modern scientific discovery that the sun is not the source
of light, that the sun merely radiates the light that
originates in universal etheric waves proves that Moses was
right. So what we call light is not the real light, but a
luminous effect produced in our earthly atmosphere. So also
all life originates in the ether, and not in the earth,
where scientists have vainly sought it. When science
admits, as it eventually will, that the ether is moved by
omnipresent Mind, we shall have in the Bible a complete
spiritual cosmogony.
The Bible is a perpetual revelation to Truth seekers
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on account of its allegorical character. This is especially
outstanding in Genesis, which veils in names and ordinary
incidents some of the great truths of creation. The names
of the Divinity are not all the same in the Hebrew. Elohim
God represents the original Mind in creative action. El
means the strong and ever-sustaining one, and alah, to
swear or formulate by the power of the word. Here also is
implied plurality of attributes in addition to masculine
and feminine qualities. Elohim thus represents the
universal principle of Being designing all of creation. In
the 2d chapter another name for God is
used--Jehovah--God--metaphysically representing the
executive power Elohim. This name is also rich in occult
significance. Yahweh is the original form, and its meaning
is "the self-existent one" at work or becoming known or
revealing Himself to His creation and through His creation.
Yahweh revealed Himself to Moses as "I AM THAT I AM." He
reveals Himself to every one of us according to our needs
when we call upon Him. He revealed Himself to Jesus as the
Father within.
The Hebrew teachers gave compound names to Jehovah to meet
every situation. That is, they invoked His I AM presence as
a creative factor in producing the thing needed. When they
needed supply, they invoked Jehovah-jireh, "Jehovah will
provide." Jehovah-rapha is "the Lord that healeth thee."
Jehovah--shalom is "Jehovah is peace" or "the Lord send
peace." The whole world needs peace today as never before,
and peace will not be ushered in until
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men call on the name of Jehovah.
It may sound foolish in the sight of men for a small group
of people to call on Jehovah-shalom to make peace in the
midst of war, but great miracles have resulted from such
action. Jehovah-shalom will save us from personal worry and
fear of future ills. It was the Jehovah-shalom in Jesus
that proclaimed, "My peace I give unto you: not as the
world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be
troubled, neither let it be fearful."
I am a tower of strength and stability in the realization
that God is my health."
It is the conclusion of the followers of Jesus that a new
and original interpretation of His teaching has sprung up
in the last half century. The adherents of this new
religion, for such it seems to be, claim that they have a
revelation of Christianity that far transcends the old in
spiritual understanding and power. The new religion makes
Jesus a demonstrator of scientific mind laws that any
industrious student can understand and apply as Jesus
applied them. In addition to this the new Christianity
elevates man to a realm in which seeming miracles of
healing become possible to those who train their mind to
think spiritually, carrying out the admonition of Paul "Be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."
As all the physical science books have to be re-written
since the discovery that electricity is the mother of
matter, so all books of religion that ignore psychology
will have to be rewritten.
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The new Christianity claims that Jesus Christ understood
the real character of space and ether as taught by science
and that it is the home of a great and mighty life and
intelligence that brought man and the universe into
manifestation.
Instead of fighting modern science the new Christianity
welcomes its discoveries as proofs of the veritable
existence of the kingdom of the heavens that Jesus taught
so persistently.
Instead of a heaven after death the new Christianity
teaches a kingdom of the heavens existing now as a
righteous state of mind. It teaches that man makes his
heaven here and now by the formative power of his thought.
It is by way of this emphatic and constant emphasis on the
formative power of thought that the new Christianity
launches out into the deep. Instead of God's creating man
with a mighty word fiat and arbitrarily following it up
with vengeance and punishments, God is discerned to be a
mind principle that requires the co-operation of its
creations, because they are formed of it and in it and are
so like it that there is virtual action and reaction
between Creator and creation. This places the
responsibility for conditions on both God and man. When we
think and work in unity with the Father the results are
universally good. When we work without reference to the
inspiring Mind within our work is usually unsatisfactory.
"My Father worketh even until now, and I work," said Jesus.
Then the carping critic cries, "Your religion is
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psychology instead of Christianity." Our answer is that the
new Christianity includes an understanding of psychology
but does not stop with an analysis of the mind. It goes on
to the highest phase of mind's possibilities, unity with
Spirit.
When it dawns upon man that he has within him the primal
spiritual spark of God, the living Word or Logos, and that
through the Word he is identified with the original Mind,
he has the key to infinite soul unfoldment.
Even though a person does not at first have this higher
revelation of his sonship and unity with creative Mind, the
assumption helps him to bring it to realization. Jesus
developed in faith and power as He used His word. According
to the text, He did not know that He could do absent
healing by the power of His word before the centurion
suggested it.
Never dampen your faith or the faith of another in you.
Jesus exalted faith to first place in His healing work. "Be
of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole." "When they
cast thee down, thou shalt say, There is lifting up," said
Eliphaz to Job. If there is appearance of sickness or
weakness, affirm with all your faith the healing thought.
Through the Spirit of truth I now partake of Christ
substance and Christ life in holy communion, and I am made
whole.
At the Last Supper Jesus taught that the bread and wine
that He consecrated were His body and His blood, and He
told His followers to partake of them in remembrance of
Him. He did not say
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that these elements were symbols of His blood and body but
that they were essentially the same substance and life as
His body. This also has been the teaching of the church, as
interpreted by the Council of Trent: "Under each species
and under each particle of each species Christ is contained
whole and entire." This is the doctrine of
transubstantiation, that the consecration by the minister
of bread and wine changes the material elements to Christ
elements, without affecting their appearance.
This doctrine has been attacked both within and without the
church, the majority of ministers and laymen accepting it
on faith as in some way related to the miraculous. But the
discoveries of the elemental character of matter by modern
science are revealing the universal unity of substance and
the possibility of its transformation from one thing to
another by changing the number and arrangement of the
electrons in the atom.
According to modern science this whole universe of forms
can be dissolved into energy, from which it may again be
formed. Science does not say that the directive and
formative power is man, but the Bible so teaches and
especially Jesus. Jesus said that all power was given unto
Him in heaven and in earth. He manifested His power in a
small way by multiplying a few loaves and fishes to feed
more than five thousand persons. In various other instances
He demonstrated that He had an understanding of the
transmutation of substance. He raised His flesh body to an
energy level far higher in
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potential life and substance than any reached before.
As a race we have for ages been deprived in our
consciousness of union with our creative source, and the
result has been a gradual decrease in vitality until the
body has lost the ability to hold its atoms together and
consequently has disintegrated. Thus death has come to be
accepted as in some mysterious way a part of the divine
plan. Here again certain biological experiments with cells
prove them to be possessed of an ability to reproduce
themselves, which at least hints at physical immortality.
There are in the world today men and women who have
followed the teaching of Jesus and have developed in their
bodies a superenergy or life that not only permeates the
physical structure but envelops it in a luminous aura that
can be and is felt by both themselves and others. Spirit
reveals that spiritual thinking breaks open the physical
cells and atoms and releases their imprisoned life, which
originally came from Divine Mind. Jesus carried this
process so far that His whole body was transformed and
became a conscious part of the Father life and intelligence.
In this way the substance and life of Jesus' body became a
connecting link between our bodies and the body of God.
Jesus merged His consciousness with the race consciousness
and made Himself subject to our shortcomings in order to
lift us up to spiritual life. This is the secret of His
great sacrifice and sin offering.
When we understand that man has the power to
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release the divine life imprisoned in the cells of his body
and project it as spiritual energy, we have the key that
unlocks many mysteries of personal influence. The vast
difference between mediocre and great speakers and singers
is not in voice and words but in invisible soul energies.
We feel the presence before a word is uttered. For example,
a music critic says of Toscanini, the great orchestra
leader: "He brings a charge of electricity into the hall
that cannot and does not enter in at any other time. If
only certain persons felt this galvanization of the
atmosphere one might be accused of romanticism or hero
worship for mentioning it. But everybody feels it."
Thousands of great and near-great religious leaders have
developed this "soul body," for that is what it is, but
none has reached the high development of Jesus, who made it
possible for us all to take advantage of His achievement
and through Him attain eternal life.
All things and all conditions of body and affairs have
their origin in mind, and it is in our minds that we make
contact with the Christ Mind. The mind of Jesus Christ
penetrates and permeates our race consciousness like the
etheric waves from a mighty broadcasting station, and we
can tune in at any time by simply concentrating mentally on
the Christ life and Christ substance.
God and man, heaven and earth, and all the healing powers
that be now unite in healing me.
Socrates, the wise man of Athens, once prayed that "Jove
and all the gods that be" hear his prayer.
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His idea was to invoke all the higher forces, counting them
all worth while. All great men recognize the breadth,
height, and depth of Being, that it is not comprehended in
one name, but may be expressed in many. Paul preaching to
the Athenians on Mars' Hill did not disdain their many
shrines, said to be two thousand in number, but
complimented them on their piety, at the same time
proclaiming that he came as the representative of the
"UNKNOWN GOD" to whom they had erected an altar.
So we recognize that there is but one source of Being but
that He is expressed in His Son Christ and manifest in His
personal representative, Holy Spirit. The ancient
Israelites had several outstanding names for Jehovah, each
representing some special agency, as supplier, peace giver,
guide, and the like. Some sects in our day pray to saints
to execute the will of God in their behalf.
These all point to the fact that God is made manifest in a
universe of executive powers, upon whom man can call as
principle or as some form of personal agency.
This healing statement is recommended particularly to those
who have depended upon temporal remedies or persons for
their healing. It will amplify and energize the healing
idea to the point of omnipotence, because it recognizes all
the healing potencies that faith has made substantial in
the past and brings them all to a focal center in wholeness.
It is universally recognized that the whole human family
has broken loose from the usual stabilized
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thoughts, that we are afloat in an atmosphere of doubt,
that we are walking question marks asking one another at
every turn: What next? What will be the outcome?
The world of materiality is ending. Science says that what
we thought was a material atom was really the shadow of an
amazing aggregation of protons and electrons pulsating with
potential life, energy, and power. We have been
perpetuating the world of materiality by our material
thoughts. Now our dominant thinkers are letting go, and
they are telling us that matter is merely the smoke screen
of a universe of energy. As an eminent scientist says, "We
live in a universe of waves, and nothing but waves."
Christian metaphysicians see the truth that our minds have
been jarred loose from their material concepts and that
they have not yet laid hold of the true concepts. We are
mentally afloat in the cosmic ether, waiting for someone to
show us how to lay hold of real, stable ideas. When men's
minds lose their stability, chaos reigns in their affairs.
Emerson said that when a man of ideas is born into the
world kings totter on their thrones.
Jesus said that He came to fulfill the Law and the
Prophets; that is, to demonstrate that natural and
spiritual law are one. He foresaw this very period when the
"powers of the heavens shall be shaken" --that is, the
mental realms be broken up--and He attributed this
phenomenon to the coming of the Christ as "lightning."
The 24th chapter of Matthew describes in symbols
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what is taking place in this century. Christ Mind is
quickening the cosmic light, which science is interpreting
as natural law. Those who see spiritually announce that the
next great revelation will be that of the "prophets," those
who discern spiritually that the cosmic ether and the
Christ Mind are one and that the character and the manner
of the coming of the Christ--as a mighty, all-infolding,
spiritually quickening mind--is referred to in the very
modern metaphor of lightning: "For as the lightning cometh
forth from the east, and is seen even unto the west; so
shall be the coming of the Son of man."
Jesus answers the flood of queries as to what we shall do
when we are caught in a whirlpool of thought: "Seek ye
first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you."
The present panceas for the ills of the world are all
lacking in principle and will eventually be discarded, to
be followed by the Christ plan, which will make all the
products of the earth directly available to all the people
of the earth. Before this Christ plan can be established
governments must petition God for His intervention in their
affairs; then the divine plan will be revealed.
I press forward with courage and boldness in the power of
God, and I am healed.
In the 6th chapter of Revelation it is written: "And I saw
when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard
one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of
thunder, Come. And I saw,
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and behold, a white horse, and he that sat thereon had a
bow; and there was given unto him a crown: and he came
forth conquering, and to conquer."
The "four living creatures" represent the four dominant
factors in manifest life, which has its original source in
the Lamb, which represents the pure, nonresistant life of
Being.
The four horses and their riders are, first, "a white
horse," representing the power of the Christ; secondly, "a
red horse [war]: and to him that sat thereon it was given
to take peace from the earth"; thirdly, "a black horse"
(commercialism): "a measure of wheat for a shilling, and
three measures of barely for a shilling"; and fourthly, "a
pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death."
At no time in the history of the world has there ever been
such activity in the riders of the three dark horses as
right now. The prodigious preparations for war by nations,
incited by the greed for gain will soon lead them to "let
slip the dogs of war" unless the rider of the white horse
comes forth "conquering, and to conquer."
Although all Truth students are praying for harmony in the
settlement of earth's tribulations, they cannot help seeing
the effect of thoughts of selfishness. The last section of
this chapter in Revelation gives a symbolic description of
the chaos to come among those who are not seeking to
conquer under the banner of the rider of the white horse,
Christ.
We hold that those who have had revealed to them the
peace-giving power of the Christ mind
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should be unusually energetic in declaring it to be the
dominant quality in the minds of men everywhere. Do not
argue or contend with error but silently (and aloud if the
occasion seems propitious) declare the presence and power
of the Christ.
In the 7th chapter of Revelation is a symbolical
description of four angels protecting the earth until the
servants of God are sealed on their foreheads.
The forehead is the center of consciousness, which the
understanding of Truth seals; that is, it secretly unites
the consciousness with Christ. The number sealed is twelve
thousand out of the twelve tribes. This is all symbolical
and should not be taken literally. Man has twelve
faculties, represented by the twelve tribes of Israel. When
the consciousness in the forehead is illumined by Spirit,
all twelve centers in the body automatically respond.
"These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and
they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood
of the Lamb."
The "blood of the Lamb" represents the primal life of
Being, which Jesus made accessible to all those who believe
in Him as the revealer of the pure life of God the Father.
This consciousness of spiritual life is mentioned in the
22d chapter: "And he showed me a river of water of life,
bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb."
The concluding verses of the 7th chapter of Revelation
reveal the joys of the faithful. Every member of Unity
should study chapters 6 and 7.
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It will require more than mortal fortitude and courage to
cope successfully with the conditions that are imminent in
human affairs, and we shall all need the help of a higher
power. This higher power we shall find in the Christ Mind.
Cast out fear as far as the tribulations of the world are
concerned. Affirm:
"I press forward with courage and boldness in the power of
God, and I am healed."
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[Jesus Christ Heals]
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