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Talks on Truth
Lesson 2
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Lesson II
Microorganisms
And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the
field, and every bird of the heavens; and brought them unto
the man to see what he would call them: and whatsoever the
man called every living creature, that was the name
thereof.--Gen. 2:19.
THE AUTHOR of Genesis was evidently a great metaphysician.
He described Being as God, Jehovah God, and Adam. We would
express the same truth in the terms Mind, idea, and
manifestation. The manifestation is always the
self-conscious, hence the limited; this is Adam. But Mind,
idea, and manifestation are one. Manifestation rests upon
and is sustained by the idea, and the idea is encompassed
by the Mind that conceives it; therefore the real Adam is
Jehovah God, and the omnipresent fount of Jehovah God is
Elohim God. This being true, man has no permanent existence
while he is wholly in the consciousness of the personal
estate. The Adam condition is not all of his being; it is
merely a part. His being is summed up in a consciousness
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of God, Jehovah God, and Adam. These three are not
separated, but are present in everyone. The only walls of
separation are those built by consciousness of separation.
When wisdom is found and its conditions are complied with,
the consciousness of the omnipresence of the three in one
is proclaimed: "Believest thou not that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me? the words that I say unto you I speak
not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his
works."
2. Adam is perfectly legitimate in his right place, and
that place is the consciousness of the omnipresence of the
Father; here he is back again in the Garden of Eden. Adam
has a very important place in creation, in that he is the
factor in the manifestation of Being that names or gives
character to its potentialities. Man is more than Adam;
Adam is a part of man's consciousness. Adam is your
intellect, but you transcend the intellect. You form your
intellect--Adam--from the "dust of the ground"; that is,
from the omnipresent substance, and through it as a kind of
reflecting lens, you give character to your surroundings.
3. Those familiar with the operations of the intellect,
tell us that it is constantly making images of the ideas
that float into its surroundings. It is when we know this
that we are astonished at the metaphysical depth of
Genesis. Jehovah God is described as bringing "every beast
of the field, and every bird of the heavens" to Adam "to
see what he would call them."
4. The beasts of the field are the ideas in Being
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pertaining to organized life, and the birds of the heavens
are ideas of spiritual life. It is our intellect or Adam
that gives character to both ideal conditions; it is
through him that man makes his heaven or his hell. Among
the disciples of Jesus, Peter represented one aspect of the
I AM. He had been in a measure opened to the light of
Spirit, and his power over ideas had been recognized. "I
will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be
loosed in heaven." This is a repetition on a higher plane
of the allegory of Jehovah God's bringing to Adam the
beasts of the field and the fowls of the heavens to see
what he would call them.
5. He who studies Mind may know how to "discern the signs
of the times." He becomes familiar with certain underlying
principles and he recognizes them in their different masks
in "the whirligig of time." Under the veil of historical
symbology the Scriptures portray the movements of Mind in
its different cycles of progress. These cycles repeat
themselves over and over again, but each time on a higher
plane. Thus the sphere or circle is a type of the complete
Mind, but in manifestation the circles are piled one on top
of another in an infinite spiral.
6. We today are repeating the mental circle of two thousand
years ago. The descent of Spirit into the earth
consciousness, as symbolized by the life and the death of
Jesus, is being re-enacted in our age. The idea of a
personal Messiah has been raised to include Messiahship for
all who will drink of the
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waters of life that are now being poured out upon mankind;
it includes all who will dwell in the fadeless, immanent
light, the Christ of God.
7. But principles do not change; man makes his heaven or
his hell, just as he did two thousand or two million years
ago. In the days of Moses the Egyptians refused to give
freedom to the Israelites (their spiritual ideas), and they
saw frogs, lice, locusts, and blood in earth, air, and
water. Today those who contend for the Egyptian darkness of
the intellect see disease germs, death microbes, and
destructive animalcules in the same earth, air, and water.
8. It is now almost universally accepted by physicians that
the majority of diseases are caused by minute forms of life
commonly called microorganisms. Each disease--cancer,
consumption, diphtheria, croup, and so forth--has its
specific microbe. These microbes may be seen with very
strong microscopes, and the form and the character of the
different varieties are described by such experts as
Pasteur and Koch, whose antidotes for these destructive
little germs have been widely advertised. Their remedy
consists in destroying the microbe--they do not attempt to
explain his origin. They find the little worker busy in the
bodies of mankind, and they seek to put him out of action,
not asking whence he came nor whither he may go.
9. The reflective mind is not satisfied with this
superficial way of dealing with such destructive agents. It
asks their cause, but no answer is vouch-safed on the part
of those who study microbes. Only
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the students of mind can answer the question of the origin
of disease germs, and only in terms of mind can there be
given a rational explanation of these minute life forms.
10. The Adam man, the intellect, is responsible for all the
microbes. He gives character to all the ideas that
exist--he "names" them. This process is intricate, and it
may be explained and understood in its details only by
metaphysicians of the deepest mental insight, but it is
summed up in what is commonly called thinking. Many factors
enter into the process of thinking. The capacity of the
thinker to form thoughts, to give them substance and force,
is the great factor. The understanding of right and wrong,
truth and error, substance and shadow, is also important.
Many other significant conditions enter into that mental
process loosely termed thinking.
11. But we should not be ignorant of the fact that every
mental process is generative, that from thinking is evolved
what is called living. Thinking is formative--every thought
clothes itself in a life form according to the character
given it by the thinker. This being true, it must follow
that thoughts of health will produce microbes whose office
is to build up healthy organisms, that thoughts of disease
will produce microbes of disorder and destruction. Here we
have the connecting link between materia medica and
metaphysics. The physician observes the ravages of the
disease microbe, but is at a loss to account for its
source; the metaphysician stands in the factory of Mind and
sees thoughts
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poured into visibility as microbes. This opens up a field
of causes unlimited in extent. Every thought that flits
through the mind of every man, woman, and child in the
universe, produces a living organism, a microbe of a
character like its producing thought. There is no escape
from this conclusion, no escape from the mighty
possibilities of good and ill that rest with the thinker.
12. Take an illustration by observing the various stages of
the law in the case of diphtheria. A child is attacked, the
doctor is called, and from symptoms he detects the disease.
He communicates his fears to the family, and in addition to
the diphtheria microbe, another of more deadly character
begins its inroads upon the nerve centers of the whole
family, including the weakened and therefore doubly
susceptible patient; this is the microbe of fear, which
paralyzes life throughout the body. When these microbes
have done their work up to a certain point, still another
is created to complete it--the microbe of death.
13. This may seem an exaggeration, but we have the
authority of Dr. Parker, a physician of New York, who
states that he has discovered the microbe of death and
experimented with it. A newspaper article, describing his
discovery, says:
Death is caused by a certain specific microbe that can be
recognized and bred, just as the microbes of various
diseases have been discovered and propagated by Koch,
Pasteur, and other bacteriologists. The labors of these
great men have made further discovery possible, and it was
through the study of their achievements that Dr. Parker
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conceived the idea that, inasmuch as disease was caused by
these infinitesimal derangers of the human system, the
culmination of disease must have its own specific microbe
to put the finish to the work of dissolution, without which
the various organs of the body, distempered and degraded
from their pristine purity and vital activity, would remain
a purulent mass of living corruption, unable to resolve
itself into its primal elements and to form other
combinations, a process which we see taking place every day
as defunct animal matter sinks into the earth, or vanishes
into the air to afford food for new and active organisms.
14. This is not at all improbable, but the discovery might
properly have been anticipated by the metaphysician. If
thought is creative, it must cover every phase of life;
every thought must form its microbe; every life expression
must have originated in some thought. These propositions
are axiomatic, and when one familiar with mind discovers a
microbe he should know just what idea in the Adam
consciousness, or intellect, gave it form and name.
15. Anger, jealousy, malice, avarice, lust, ambition,
selfishness, and in fact all of the detestable ideas that
mankind harbors, produce living organisms after their kind.
If we had microscopes strong enough, we should find our
body to be composed of living microbes, doing to the best
of their ability the tasks which intellect has set before
them.
16. If you have said, "I hate you," there have been created
in your atmosphere hate germs that will do the work for
which you created them. If one's enemies alone were
attacked by these microbes of thought, the law would not be
so severe, but they have no respect for anyone, and are
likely to
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turn upon the body of their creator and tear it down.
Doctors are especially industrious in suggesting microbes
in their particular line. They make a new disease, or
rename an old one; each is indued with its specific microbe
that gives it standing among the people who believe in such
things, and its inventor goes down in medical history as a
benefactor of the race.
17. So the fears, the doubts, the poverty, the sin, the
sickness, the thousand erroneous states of consciousness
have their microbes. These organisms whose office it is to
make men miserable do their work to the very best of their
ability. They are not responsible for their existence; they
are the formed vehicles of thought, and are the servants of
those who gave them life. So it is not to the microbes that
the wise regulator of affairs should look, but to those who
are creating them and thereby bringing into existence
discord and disease.
18. Remedies beyond number are advertised for microbes, but
they are guaranteed to kill the germ only. What is needed
is a medicine that will prevent its appearance. To apply
the remedy to the poor little microbe is like trying to
stop the manufacture of counterfeit money by destroying all
that is found in circulation.
19. All counterfeit thought comes from the intellect, which
alone originates the disease germ and the destructive
microbe. We need go no farther than this disobedient Adam
to find the cause of all the ills to which humanity has
become slave. Wisdom is not an attribute of the intellect.
The assumption
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that its observations are a source of wisdom is the one
thing against which the Lord God especially warned Adam.
"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die." This very clearly indicates
the inability of the intellect, on its own account, to set
up a standard of knowledge of good and evil; it also
declares the end to which Adam will come if he disregards
the prohibition specified.
20. That there is something wrong in the present standard
of good is evidence by the variety of opinions in the world
as to what is good and what is evil. There should be no
question on such vitally important points, and there would
not be if the intellect would relinquish its claim to a
knowledge of good and evil, and would relegate to Spirit
the offices of wisdom and understanding.
21. The intellect is the formative, character-giving
mechanism in the man; it draws its substance and
intelligence from Spirit. Like the prism through which the
ray of white light is passed, it shows the potentialities
of Spirit. If it looks within and seeks the guidance of
Spirit, it reflects divine ideas upon the screen of
visibility. This is the plan that the Lord has for it, and
it is building according to that plan only when it admits
that there is a higher source of wisdom than itself, when
it submits to wisdom, for approval or disapproval, the
ideas that it conceives.
22. The manifestation of life is through the Adam
consciousness, which is, in a way, attached to and
responsible for the forms thus made visible.
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Hence the reform--the transformation--of existing
conditions must be made from the standpoint of Adam as an
important factor. To ignore Adam is to slight one of the
established creations of Jehovah God. If Adam was not a
part of the divine plan, why was he formed from the dust of
the earth, the breath of life breathed into him, and a
living soul capacity given to him?
23. No, we are not to erase Adam, but we are to transform
him. He is not a safe guide in anything; his conclusions
are derived from observation of conditions as he sees them
in the external world. He judges according to appearance,
which is but one side of the whole. Appearances say that
microbes are dangerous and destructive, but one who is
familiar with their origin is not alarmed, because he knows
that there is a power and wisdom stronger and wiser than
the ignorant intellect. It is to this power that we are
compelled to go before we can right the wrongs that now
dominate the minds of men. There is but one fount of
wisdom, and that is Wisdom itself.
24. The belief that wisdom is attained through the study of
things is an error prevalent in this age. They who wait
upon the Lord shall be wise. That the wisdom of health can
be evolved from the study of disease microbes is a concept
of the intellect in its tendency to look without instead of
within. The without, the universe of things formed, is not
and never can be a source of wisdom. The things formed are
the result of efforts to combine wisdom and love, and their
character indicates the success or
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the failure of the undertaking. When wisdom and love have
been invoked, and their harmony has been made manifest in
the thing formed, God is manifest.
25. We love to name or give character to the ideas of
Jehovah God, because it is our office in the grand plan of
creation to do so. The glory of the Father is thus made
manifest through the Son. In no other way can the ideas in
Being be made manifest, and man should rise to the dignity
of his office and formulate them according to the plans of
Divine Mind.
26. Disease germs and microbes would quickly disappear from
the earth if men would consult God before passing judgment
upon His creations. It is not man's province to give form
to anything but what will be a pleasure in God's eye. If he
makes microbes, it is because he thinks microbe thoughts.
When he thinks God thoughts he will form only the beauties
of nature and mankind, and there will no longer be anything
in all his world that will cause a fear or a moment of
pain. God is not the author of this condition of so-called
"progress from matter to mind"; God is the one source from
which and of which man makes his existence.
27. There is a law of unfoldment in Being, a law as exact
as the progressive steps in a mathematical problem in which
no error is made, a law as harmonious as that which governs
a musical production where discord has found no place. But
microbes and disease germs are not a part of this divine
law. They are as far removed from it as would be error in
the steady, careful steps in the progressive
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unfoldment of numbers, or false notes in symphony or song.
28. It does not require labored arguments or hard thinking
to see how easily the problems of life would be made
orderly and divine if men would let the Lord into their
mind. Jesus said that the yoke was easy and the burden
light. He was victor over all the hard conditions to which
men and women think themselves yoked, and He made light of
sin, disease, and poverty, by annulling them and preaching
boldly in the face of an adverse theology that it was the
prerogative of the Son of man to blot these errors from the
world of mankind.
29. There is a royal road for every man--a road in which he
will be conscious of the dominion that is his by divine
right. That road, Jesus said, leads out from the I AM. As
Moses delivered the Children of Israel from the Egyptian
darkness of their ignorance by affirming in their ears the
power of the I AM, so Jesus gives us a series of
affirmations that will deliver us from the wilderness of
ignorance. His command is "Keep my word." Then His words
are set before us: "I am the way, and the truth, and the
life." "I am the resurrection, and the life." "I am the
light of the world." "I am meek and lowly in heart."
"Before Abraham was born, I am."
30. I AM is the polar star around which all the thoughts of
man revolve. Even the little, narrow concept of the
personal "I am" may be led out into the consciousness of
the great and only I AM by filling its thought sphere with
ideas of infinite wisdom, life, and love.
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31. "Hitch your wagon to a star," said Emerson. Your wagon
is that which carries you along. Your I AM is that which
carries you up or down, to heaven or to hell, according to
the idea to which you have attached it. Then hitch it to a
star and let it carry you to the broad expanse of heaven.
There is room aplenty--you will not knock elbows with
anyone if you get out of the surging crowd and hitch your I
AM to the star of spiritual understanding.
32. Cease making disease microbes, and turn your attention
to higher things. Make love alive by thinking love. Make
wisdom the light of the world by affirming God's
omnipresent intelligence. See in mind the pure substance of
God, and it will surely appear. This is the way to destroy
microbes--that is the antidote for disease germs. The real,
the enduring things of God are to be brought into
visibility in just this simple way. This is the way in
which the I AM makes itself manifest. The method is so easy
that the man of great intellect passes it by; it is so
plain that a simpleton may understand it; a college
education is not necessary. One does not have to know about
anything whatsoever except God. How easy it is, how light
the burden! No long, tedious years of study; no delving
into depths of intricate theories and speculations about
molecules, atoms, and ethers, but just a simple, childlike
attention directed to the everywhere present Spirit, and a
heart filled with love and goodness for everything. "I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou
didst hide these things from the wise and understanding,
and didst reveal them unto babes."
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33. "The soul of things is sweet, the heart of Being is
celestial rest; stronger than woe is will; that which was
good doth pass to better, best.
34. "Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels, none
other holds you that ye live and die, and whirl upon the
wheel, and hug and kiss its spokes of agony, its tire of
tears, its nave of nothingness. Behold, I show you truth!
Lower than hell, higher than heaven, outside the utmost
stars, farther than Brahm doth dwell, before beginning and
without an end, as space eternal and as surety sure, is
fixed a power divine which moves to good. Only its laws
endure."
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