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Twelve Powers of Man
Chapter 1
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[Twelve Powers of Man]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Twelve Powers of Man
THE SUBCONSCIOUS realm in man has twelve great centers of
action, with twelve presiding egos or identities. When
Jesus had attained a certain soul development, He called
His twelve apostles to Him. This means that when man is
developing out of mere personal consciousness into
spiritual consciousness, he begins to train deeper and
larger powers; he sends his thought down into the inner
centers of his organism, and through his word quickens them
to life. Where before his powers have worked in the
personal, now they begin to expand and work in the
universal. This is the first and the second coming of
Christ, spoken of in the Scriptures. The first coming is
the receiving of Truth into the conscious mind, and the
Second Coming is the awakening and the regeneration of the
subconscious mind through the superconscious or Christ Mind.
Man expands and grows under divine evolution as an
industrial plant grows. As the business expands, it is
found that system is necessary. Instead of one man's being
able to do the work with the assistance of a few helpers,
he requires many helpers. Instead of a few helpers, he
needs hundreds; and in order to promote efficiency he must
have heads
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for the various departments of the work. Scripture
symbology calls the heads of departments in man's
consciousness the twelve apostles.
Each of these twelve department heads has control of a
certain function in soul or body. Each of these heads works
through an aggregation of cells that physiology calls a
"ganglionic center." Jesus, the I AM or central entity, has
His throne in the top head, where phrenology locates
spirituality. This is the mountain where He so often went
to pray. The following outline gives a list of the Twelve,
the faculties that they represent, and the nerve centers at
which they preside:
Faith--Peter--center of brain.
Strength--Andrew--loins.
Discrimination or Judgment--James, son of Zebedee--pit of
stomach.
Love--John--back of heart.
Power--Philip--root of tongue.
Imagination--Bartholomew--between the eyes.
Understanding--Thomas--front brain.
Will--Matthew--center front brain.
Order--James, son of Alphaeus--navel.
Zeal--Simon the Cananaean--back head, medulla.
Renunciation or Elimination--Thaddaeus--abdominal region.
Life Conserver--Judas--generative function.
The physiological designations of these faculties are not
arbitrary--the names can be expanded or changed to suit a
broader understanding of their full nature. For example,
Philip, at the root of the
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tongue, governs taste; he also controls the action of the
larynx, as well as all vibrations of power throughout the
organism. So the term "power" expresses but a small part of
his official capacity.
The first apostle that Jesus called was Peter. Peter
represents faith in things spiritual, faith in God. We
begin our religious experience, our unity with Divine Mind,
by having faith in that mind as omnipresent, all-wise,
all-loving, all-powerful Spirit.
Faith in the spiritual man quickens spiritual
understanding. Peter believed that Jesus was the Messiah;
his faith opened his spiritual discernment, and he saw the
living Christ back of the personal mask worn by Jesus. When
asked, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" the
apostles, looking upon personality as the real, said: "Some
say John the Baptist; some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah,
or one of the prophets." Then Jesus appealed to their own
inner spiritual understanding and He said: "But who say ye
that I am?" Only Simon Peter answered: "Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered,
"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church,
and the gates of Hades [the grave] shall not prevail
against it. I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven."
Spiritual discernment of the reality of man's origin and
being is the only enduring foundation of character. It was
to this faith in the understanding of the real being of man
that Jesus gave power in earth and heaven. It was not to
the personal Peter that Jesus gave the keys to His kingdom,
but to all
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who through faith apply the binding (affirming) and loosing
(denying) power of Spirit in the earth (substance
consciousness). Right here and now the great work of
character-building is to be done, and whoever neglects
present opportunities, looking forward to a future heaven
for better conditions, is pulling right away from the
kingdom of heaven within himself.
People who live wholly in the intellect deny that man can
know anything about God, because they do not have quickened
faith. The way to bring forth the God presence, to make
oneself conscious of God, is to say: I have faith in God; I
have faith in Spirit; I have faith in things invisible.
Such affirmations of faith, such praise to the invisible
God, the unknown God, will make God visible to the mind and
will strengthen the faith faculty. Thus faith (Peter) is
called and instructed spiritually.
When a center loses its power it should be baptized by the
word of Spirit. We are told in the Scriptures that Philip
went down to Gaza ("the same is desert"), and there
baptized a eunuch. Gaza means a "citadel of strength." It
refers to the nerve center in the loins, where Andrew
(strength) reigns. "Lo now, his strength is in his loins."
Gaza is the physical throne of strength, as Jerusalem is
the throne of love.
The back grows weak under the burden of material thought.
If you are given to pains in your back, if you become
exhausted easily, you may know at once that you need
treatment for freedom from
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material burdens. Eliminate from your mind all thought of
the burdens of the world, the burdens of your life, and all
seeming labors. Take your burdens to Christ. "Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest."
We are pressed upon by ideas of materiality. Thoughts make
things, and the material ideas that are pressing upon us
are just as substantial in the realm of mind as material
things are substantial in the realm of matter. Everything
has origin in thought, and material thoughts will bring
forth material things. So you should baptize and cleanse
with your spiritual word every center, as Philip baptized
the eunuch of Gaza. Baptism is cleansing. It always
represents the erasing power of the mind.
When the baptizing power of the word is poured upon a
center, it cleanses all material thought; impotence is
vitalized with new life, and the whole subconsciousness is
awakened and quickened. The word of the Lord is there sown
in the body, and once the word of the Lord is sown in any
of these centers--the cells of which are like blank
phonograph records--they take the thought that is given
them, and send it through the whole organism. The baptism
of strength goes to the uttermost parts of the body, and
every one of the twelve powers, under the divine law, feels
the new strength.
James, the son of Zebedee, represents discrimination and
good judgment in dealing with substantial things. James is
the faculty in man that wisely chooses and determines. It
may be in the matter of
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food; it may be in the matter of judgment about the
relation of external forces; it may be in the choosing of a
wife or a husband--in a thousand different ways this
faculty is developed in man. The spiritual side of the
James faculty is intuition, quick knowing.
James and John are brothers, and Jesus called them "sons of
thunder." These brothers preside over the great body brain
called the solar plexus, or sun center. James has his
throne at the pit of the stomach; and John, just back of
the heart. They are unified by bundles of nerves and are
metaphysically closely related. Whatever affects the
stomach will sympathetically affect the heart. People with
weak stomachs nearly always think they have heart trouble.
Jesus called those two apostles "sons of thunder."
Tremendous vibrations or emotions that go forth from the
solar plexus. When your sympathies are aroused, you will
find that you begin to breathe deeply and strongly, and if
you are very sympathetic you can feel the vibrations as
they go out to the person or thing to which you are
directing your thoughts. All fervor, all the high energy
that comes from soul, passes through these centers.
Bartholomew represents the imagination. The imagination has
its center of action directly between the eyes. This is the
point of expression for a set of tissues that extend back
into the brain and connect with an imaging or
picture-making function near the root of the optic nerve.
Through this faculty you can project an image of things
that are without, or
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ideas that are within. For instance, you can project the
image of jealousy to any part of your body and, by the
chemistry of thought combined with function, make your
complexion yellow, or you can image and project beauty by
thinking goodness and perfection for everybody. Bartholomew
is connected directly with the soul, and has great power in
the pictures of the mind. Jesus saw him under a fig tree, a
long way off, before he was visible to the natural eye. Do
not imagine anything but good, because under the law of
thought combined with substance it will sooner or later
come into expression, unless you head it off, eliminate it
by denial.
Man has faculties of elimination, as well as of
appropriation. If you know how to handle them you can expel
error from your thought body. The denial apostle is
Thaddaeus, presiding in the abdominal region, the great
renunciator of the mind and the body. All the faculties are
necessary to the perfect expression of the man. None is
despised or unclean. Some have been misunderstood; through
ignorance man has called them mean, until they act in that
way and cause him pain and sorrow. The elimination, by
Thaddaeus, of the waste of the system through the bowels is
a very necessary function.
Thomas represents the understanding power of man. He is
called the doubter because he wants to know about
everything. Thomas is in the front brain, and his
collaborator, Matthew, the will, occupies the same brain
area. These two faculties are jointly in occupation of this
part of the "promised land." Like
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the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, their inheritance in
undivided.
James, the son of Alphaeus, represents divine order. His
center is at the navel.
Simon, the Cananaean, represents zeal; his center is at the
medulla, at the base of the brain. When you burn with zeal
and are anxious to accomplish great things, you generate
heat at the base of your brain. If this condition is not
balanced by the co-operation of the supplying faculties,
you will burn up the cells and impede the growth of the
soul. "For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up."
Judas, who betrayed Jesus, has his throne in the generative
center. Judas governs the life consciousness in the body,
and without his wise co-operation the organism loses its
essential substance, and dies. Judas is selfish; greed is
his "devil." Judas governs the most subtle of the "beasts
of the field"--sensation; but Judas can be redeemed. The
Judas function generates the life of the body. We need
life, but life must be guided in divine ways. There must be
a righteous expression of life. Judas, the betrayer of
Jesus, must in the end be cleansed of the devil,
selfishness; having been cleansed, he will allow the life
force to flow to every part of the organism. Instead of
being a thief (drawing to the sex center the vital forces
necessary to the substance of the whole man) Judas will
become a supplier; he will give his life to every faculty.
In the prevailing race consciousness Judas drains the whole
man, and the body dies as a result of his selfish thievery.
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It is through Judas (the desire to appropriate and to
experience the pleasure of sensation) that the soul (Eve)
is led into sin. Through the sins of the sex life (casting
away of the precious substance), the body is robbed of its
essential fluids and eventually disintegrates. The result
is called death, which is the great and last enemy to be
overcome by man. Immortality in the body is possible to man
only when he has overcome the weaknesses of sensation, and
conserves his life substance. When we awaken to the
realization that all indulgence for pleasure alone is
followed by pain, then we shall know the meaning of eating
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or pleasure
and pain.
If you would build up your faculties under the divine law,
redeem Judas. First have faith in the power of Spirit, and
then speak to Judas the word of purity. Speak to him the
word of unselfishness; baptize him with the whole
Spirit--Holy Spirit. If there is in you a selfish desire to
exercise sensation, to experience the pleasures of sense in
any of its avenues, give that desire to the Lord; in no
other way can you come into eternal life.
These twelve powers are all expressed and developed under
the guidance of Divine Mind. "Not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts." You must keep
the equipoise; you must, in all the bringing forth of the
twelve powers of man, realize that they come from God: that
they are directed by the Word of God, and that man (Jesus)
is their head.
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[Twelve Powers of Man]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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