THE SICKLE BY William W. WalterPREFACE ‘This book was written for the thinker, and not the triffer it was not written to benefit the writer, but to enlighten the honest searcher for ‘Truth. ‘The price was placed at twenty-five dollars to prevent its fall into the hands of the trifler, for the trifler takes paper and binding and size into con- sideration in determining the value of a book,— the thinker scans the contents, ‘To the trifler it would be dear at any price and to the actual thinker it would be cheap at any price. ‘That large sales or financial gain were not the intent of the writer, should be evident. Were this true, the book would have been put on the market at the usual price. This is a metaphysical work, and therefore, the determination of its price was based upon the meta- physical (mental) viewpoint,—that the human mind values cheaply that which it estimates as cheap, but craves that which it @nds difficulty in obtaining.INTRODUCTION That a misconception is responsible for ninety, if not one hundred, percent of all the ills, troubles, suffering, ete., of this life can be logically proved. ‘That a misconception could be handed down for thousands of years and only occasionally pereeived as a misconception seems incredible, but such is a fact, for a misconception has been handed down from father to son, as actual truth, for the past nineteen centuries, and not until the last fifty years has the magnitude of this misconception been fully revealed. Those who have had the courage previously to dispute this age-long mistake, have been called unbelievers, lost sheep, ete. ‘The misconception of which I speak, is that regarding God.and man, and their true relation to each other. To state merely that there is a misconception without pointing it out clearly so that all may understand, is to but partially do the good of which one is capable. 78 INTRODUCTION Had not this misconception been hidden under the cloak of religion, thinkers, no doubt, would have unearthed this father of all lies and destroyed it, with self-evident trath; but whenever a thinker, in his search for truth, intruded upon the so-called confines of church or religion, he was subtly made to understand that his research must be abandoned insofar as it assailed the religious tenets of the church, Progress in all other lines of endeavor, was per- missible, but religious doctrines must ever be those of our forefathers, regardless of erudity or errors. A few, possessing the courage born of convietion, made known their discovery of the Truth, only to meet with ridicule. Nevertheless, the advanced ideas promulgated by these few, are today bring- ing forth their fruition in a higher understanding of Cause and effect, God and man. No doubt these sincere thinkers were greatly handicapped in tell- ing plainly what they had discovered because of the ridicule heaped upon them, and because they feared they would be misunderstood. ‘This book is written for the express purpose of destroying the age-long misconception regarding God and man, and I claim no special mission fromINTRODUCTION 9 a personal God, neither do I claim to have been especially inspired by such a God, ‘This book is the outcome or fruit of years of study of the most advanced thought of this and past ages. Nearly all of the various students and writers, who wrote of the primal Cause or God, have contributed to my enlightenment to the point that this book became possible, Every system and theory advocated by these various writers promising help or enlightenment regarding the power of Mind or thought was con- scientiously tested in actual application. The wheat in each instance was slowly sifted from the chaff by actual demonstration and carefully gar- nered, the chaff discarded. T have experimented in this metaphysical work with as much care as any chemist ever exercised in his most painstaking tests. ‘Every experiment in my work has been carefully watched and noted and, after years of conscientious study and practice, a sure foundation has been acquired, and also ability to present the facts on which this foundation rests, so clearly that anyone willing to apply himself as diligently to this study as he would to the study of music or mathematics, can gain an-understanding of the Science of Life.10 INTRODUCTION He can demonstrate what he has learned of this Science only so far as he has progressed in his knowledge, the same as would be true of music or mathematics. In the Science of music, the fruit or effect of one’s musical knowledge is shown in the harmony that flows from pen, voice or instrument; and in the Science of Life, the fruit or effect of one’s under- standing is shown in the harmony, health and love that one can bring into one’s life through the appli- cation of right thought. : ‘You are not asked to blindly believe or accept what I have written in this book. In fact, to blindly accept or believe is a detriment to the be- liever. ‘You are asked to use your reasoning powers, and to put into actual application the much or little understanding that you may gain by reading and studying this book. The results or blessings re- ceived from a conscientious study and right appli- cation of the Truth (true thought). herein con- tained will he sufficient proof to convinee the most skeptical, if he approaches the work with an honest determination to prove the truth or error of what is herein written. _‘CHAPTER IL uO Iv vit ‘VIIL Ix xI XII xur xIV XVII xIx CONTENTS PAGE Preface... 2 eee ee B Introduction. 2 2... 1 Emptying Out . . 2 . . . 2B God. + 36 Man . 46 You . + 68 Thought . se 64 Understanding Versus Belief | | | 71 The Holy Trinity 4 ‘Metaphysics = 101 Nature . 7 Sin +151 Disease... = 162 Self Healing . - 113 Healing Others . oe MO Experiments and Experiences . 218 ‘Metaphysical Diagnosis = 288 ‘Methods. . - + 286 - ‘The Unholy Trinity = 804 Application ae - 316 Instantaneous Healing . . - 860 Conclusion . se 85 Revelation and Prophecy. - +319 nTHE SICKLE CHAPTER 1 EMPTYING OUT ‘You cannot add to a vessel already full. First you must empty the contents, then there will be room for the new. ‘This statement applies equally as well to the mentality of the individual as to a vessel. It is illustrative of the fact that an individual who be- lieves that what he knows is the truth, even though it be error, will not accept the actual Truth when presented to his mentality. Therefore I have found in my metaphysical work that it is first necessary to show the ‘individual that that which he believes to be truth, is in reality error, before the actual. ‘Truth can be accepted or understood by him. The individual mentality having been emptied of the error that filled it, is ready to have Trath take the place of the error. A Jesus of Nazareth was the greatest metaphysi- cian of all time, and the same error in the men- 34 THE: SICKLE tality of the people in the time of Jesus, and which filled it so completely that there was no room for actual Truth, is in the mentality of the people today. As this error pertains. to Life, God, and man (the reflection or image of God), it is the Girect reason for the inability of humanity, even to this day, to understand the actual truth of Life when it is presented. ‘Truth is slways mental, It is the knowing of actuality or fact. Error is always mental. It is delusion or self- deception. ‘The way to become free from an illusion or delu- sion is to become aware of the facts regarding it, and then the delusion, or self-deception, vanishes and the corresponding fact takes its place in the mentality. ‘To disillusion mankind of an error that has been viewed as truth since the world began, seems almost an impossible task. Nevertheless, one universal de- lusion that had stood for centuries as truth, has_ Deen destroyed through the light of reason and experience, namely, that the earth is flat; so’ why may not another universal delusion be banished through the same means? It is the desire of the writer to prove to theEMPTYING OUT 15 reader of this book that the beliefs which are re- sponsible for the ills and poverty in this world are but delusions. To do this it will be necessary to gain and retain the interest of the reader that he may be induced to read carefully and thoughtfully the matter pre- sented. This will tend to clear a vessel hitherto filled with erring human beliefs. Another factor in proving that ills and poverty are but delusions rests upon the consent or refusal of the reader to accept the facts presented,— whether he is so blinded by old beliefs and super- stitions as to be unwilling or unable to think for himself and is satisfied to abide by what his father believed before him, or is open to conviction. It will also depend upon the ability of the writer to state clearly the truths which he wishes to im- part, in order that the student may grasp an under- standing readily. The vital error of mankind is the belief regard- ing their God and man. ‘The almost universal belief is that the Creator and ruler of heaven and earth is a personal God, presumably sitting upon a throne, reigning much as would a humen king. For thousands of years those who have found16 THE SICKLE themselves in trouble or ill health have prayed and pleaded, and some have virtually groveled at the feet of a so-called Almighty, personal God, beg- ging for merey, though unaware how this terrible God had been offended. Some, never having received an answer, have tried to console themselves with the thought that it was God’s will that they must suffer. Others have claimed positive answers to their prayers and have maintained this despite the Bible teaching that God is no respector of persons, and despite the manifest fact that if what they claim is true, this personal God respects the prayers of a certain few of His children and disregards others. Either the Bible teaching is wrong or these friends are self-deceived. Is the Bible teaching at fault? Is there truth or reason in the assertion that one receives an answer to his prayers and another - does not? Can we dismiss this by saying that one did not pray aright? . ‘This personal God is said to have power to read the human heart. Ought not sincerity and honesty of purpose to prove as effective in one case as in the other?EMPTYING OUT ww ‘We might contend that dishonest intent in the one ease may be responsible for the lack of re- sponse, but suppose the case is that of a mother praying for the recovery of her only child? Surely in such a case there can be only honest intent and yet no answer consoles this mother’s breaking heart, Let us examine into this human belief in a per- sonal God (for belief it is), and see if we cannot get at the truth of the matter. ‘There is as much common sense in pleading with a personal God to help you as there is in your look- ing up to the heavens when you pray, for both are nonsensical. The Scriptural teaching is that the real God is a changeless God and that He governs all wisely and well. When you pray and beseech this personal God to help you, are you not in reality trying to make a changeless God change His mind, or decree, in your favor? I you are sick or in trouble by the decree of God, then God must become a changeable God to grant your prayers for relief. If, on the other hand, you claim that God did not decree or make you sick, then you are asserting that God is not the all-power or sole Creator, for you charge that some other has made or created your sickness. A minister, a very good and devout man, came to18 THE SICKLE my house. Every time he mentioned the word “God,” he rolled his eyes upward and looked at the ceiling. I asked him, “Do you believe that God is up in heaven??? ‘He answered, ‘God is everywhere, but His throne is up in heaven.”” I asked, ‘‘Is this why you look up toward the sky when you mention his name?” He answered, ‘Yes, I always look up to God and His throne when I speak His name or pray.”” I asked, ‘‘You also believe that the devil is below!’” ‘He answered, ‘‘He must be, for there is no place for him above.” I remarked, “You also know that the earth re- volves each twenty-four hours, therefore how can you be sure that you are not looking toward the devil when you look up and pray, for it is self- evident, because of the turning of the ‘earth, that the devil would be up at least twelve hours of each aay.” ‘As the common sense of my statement gradually reached the reason of this good man, the confusion and fear on his face were pitiable to behold. His, further comment on the subject was a feeble at-EMPTYING OUT 19 tempt to quote Scripture in support of the theory that God was up and the devil down, ‘True it is that God is up and the devil down but not up in space or the reverse. Like every- thing else in the Bible, the words “up” and “down”? must be understood in their mental, i. e, spiritual sense, God is up, but this “up”? is not up in the blue sky, but up in the seale of Being—up toward perfect intelligeneé, while the devil is down, toward ignorance. Ignorance is hell, and in ignor- ance (in hell), in erring human belief, we will surely find the only devil there is, Sheol, Hades, Hell are words that have been as much misunderstood and misinterpreted as have God, man and heaven, The error in inter- pretation arose from the attempt to make the defini- tion of these words fit a place, when they pertain toa mental state. Hell or Hades is not a place, it is @ state of mind. Hades is a Greek word and means “not to be seen,” but the mental meaning of the word ‘‘seen’* must be used to arrive at the true meaning. Webster defines the word “seen” as “‘understood.”” ‘The word ‘“‘secing”” is also defined as “‘understanding.” ‘Thus we see that the mental or metaphysical meaning of the word Hades is that which is, ‘‘iiot to be understood.”” In other20 THE SICKLE words, a state of mind that lacks foundation in fact, an illusion. ‘We kmow that there is no death, that death is but a passing from one state of mind to another, and not to a place of everlasting harp-playing, called heaven, or the still more preposterous place of eternal punishment, called hell. ‘Theology is fast letting go of the idea of a place called hell, and with more enlightenment, theologians will also relinquish the idea of heaven as a place and will realize that heaven is a perfected and harmonious state of in- dividual Mind, ‘The word Hades literally means ‘‘that which is in darkness,” in other words, a mental darkness in which ignorance (erring belief), has been given the place which should have been given to understand- ing, which is mental light. : Hell, as commonly understood, has nothing to do with death or the transition. Hell is a concrete mental state of not knowing, of supposition be- lieved to be truth. Heaven is a concrete or settled mental state of knowing the facts of existence with their resultant harmony. Therefore, actual knowl- edge of facts, Intelligence, Mind, True Conscious- ness, Truth, is God, and the resulting mental har-- mony and health is heaven,EMPTYING OUT 21 Let us take another view of this personal God or personal Ruler belief. Human belief says that if we have been good Christians on this earth we shall be rewarded by being allowed to go to heaven where God is sup- posed to be seated upon a throne, and seated upon His right side is Jesus, His only son. At least, the Bible states that God said, “This is my only be- gotten Son.” This statement does not say that “This is my only son,’ as all Christians have been led to believe, for John denies this when he says, “Now are we the sons of God.”” If Jesus were God's only son, we would not be sons also. ‘Jesus was the first and only individual mentality on the earth to be wholly mentally conceived, and this mental work was accomplished by the virgin Mary. Jesus was wholly begotten by Mind, under- standing,—the remainder of humanity by the method which human belief erringly deems neces- sary. So Jesus was not the only son, but was the only son (individual) conceived (begotten) through (God) right understanding alone. If there is an all-powerful personal God, who made me and made me imperfect, so that I fell by the wayside, the fault is His, not mine, it will uot do to say that He made me in this way to test22 THE SICKLE my merits or worthlessness. He had the power to make and should have made me perfect enough to stand the test, At any rate, if this personal God is all-knowing, ‘8 our religious teachers inform us, He must have Known at the time that He made me whether I could stand the test or would fall by the wayside, and why did He not perfect the works of His handst In mentally viewing this personal God seated upon His throne, we might also mentally view the vast multitude of those who have gone before, crowding, to be near God and Jesus. ‘This world, we know for a certainty, has endured. six thousand years. How many more years matters little. ‘Think of the millions of people who have passed to the so-called other side. It would only be reasonable to assume that at least one half of ‘these millions have reached the promised land, even if the other half have not. Now imagine the throne of God, surrounded by this throng, and that your time to pass to the Great Beyond had come. How far in the distance o you suppose you would be with these millions, -who have passed on before you, between you and the throne of Godt? Do you imagine that underEMPTYING OUT 28 these conditions you would have an opportunity to get near enough to God to see Him? I think I should much prefer a powerful telescope to the proverbial harp if that old theory were right. Friends, where has our reasoning ability been all these many years? ‘Methinks I hear some ask, “Do you believe there is no Godt”? Oh yes, there is a God, a very good God. I will tell you of Him later. ‘You will remember, we are now merely emptying the mentality of the human error and will later fill this empty space with ‘Truth, the veritable God. You know Jesus said that God. is Truth, ‘Human belief says that the church is the house ‘of God. Human belief also contends that God governs the lightning and the wind, as is evidenced by the prayers offered to a personal God for safety from the lightning and the devastating wind. Is it not rather remarkable that this personal God should so forget Himself as to permit His lightning to strike His own house and destroy it, or so careless as to allow His tornado to wreck it? ‘That God was displeased with some of the mem- bers of that particular church, and for that reason Permitted its destruction is not believable.2 THE SICKLE ‘When an entire city is destroyed by fire, are the homes, stores and factories alone’ burned, and are the so-called houses of God unharmed? Why is not your own home as much the house of God as any other building? In speaking to a very devout man regarding a crippled and helpless child, I asked him whether in his opinion that innocent little child could have done anything to merit such a punishment from an almighty God? He replied earnestly that it was his belief that the child was not erippled because of anything it had done, but that it was God’s method of inflicting punishment upon the parents. Now in what respect does this so-called en- lightened man’s conception of his God differ from that of his heathen brother? ‘Would a God, who, the Bible teaches, is kinder than any earthly parent, avenge himself for wrongs committed by the parents, by inflicting lifelong torture upon their innocent child? Such theories have outlived their time, and the mind of mankind must be cleared to make room for the true and good God. T have either read, or heard a story told of two little orphan boys who were making their living by selling papers, running errands, ete. Jim and TimEMPTYING OUT 25 were their names, I believe, and they had been chums and companions in misery for a number of years. ‘One day as ‘Tim was returning to the attic which they called home, he saw a large crowd at a near- by corner. Tim elbowed his way to the center of the throng end there on the ground lay the mangled and dead form of little Jim, his chum. A clergyman among the bystanders walked over and lifted the sobbing boy who had thrown himself beside his chum, Endeavoring to console him, he said, ‘Remember, my boy, that it is God’s will that your little friend depart this life, for God governs all!”” ‘The tears ceased flowing and looking up at the friendly minister, the little street waif asked, “Do you mean that it was God’s will that my chum be killed t”” ‘The minister answered: ‘‘All things are done by the will of God.”” Little Tim gazed at the form of his chum lying still in death, and looking up quickly exclaimed, “If God killed little Jim, then I say Damn Him, even if He kills me too!’” ‘Was the minister right when he intimated that26 THE SICKLE the crushed and dead form of little Jim was the result of the will of God! If so, little Tim was right when he damned Him, ‘The minister was wrong. Jesus said that “God is Life,” and Life is the opposite of death and has nothing whatever to do with death. God is not a personal Ruler, but is the primal element. ‘Thus far I may not have succeeded in emptying your mentslity of the erring belief in a personal God, but I feel certain that what I have written has caused you to think as you never thought be- fore, and it may have eaused you to doubt the cor- reatness of your belief in a personal God. I know that some will say, ‘But I am sure that I know the true God, for I have had answers to my prayers, thus proving that I know Him.”? In the Bible we read about a woman who had been ill for many years, and who said, ‘‘If I can but so much as touch the hem of his garment I know that I shall be healed.’? Note the wonderful and intense faith of this woman. She was absolutely certain in her own mind that if she could but touch the garment of Jesus she would be healed. , By much endeavor and crowding, this womanEMPTYING OUT 27 came near enough to Jesus to touch his garment and she was mstantly healed. Did Jesus turn to this woman and say, ‘‘I saw your efforts to get near me and because of your faith in me I have healed yout’” No, he did not say anything of the kind, although this is the impression that nearly all humanity has gained from the reading of this incident of healing. On the contrary he said, ‘Woman, thy faith hath made thee whole.”” In plain words this means: “Woman, do not thank me, I had nothing to do with your healing. It was your own faith that healed you.”” Jesus did not say, that because this woman had faith ‘‘in me,” He healed her. Not at all, but He did say in substance, ‘Your own faith that you would be healed by touching my garment found fulfillment in manifestation when you were able to touch it,”” and this explains the answers, said to have been received, by those who have prayed to a personal God. ‘They received according to their own faith and also because of this faith; and the man who re- ceives no answers from a personal God, fails be- eause he does not expect to receive them (has no faith in receiving).28 THE SICKLE Faith, pure and simple, with no personal God in it at all, is what produces these answers. That is why the same person may at one time pray to a personal God and apparently get an answer, and the next time find that this personal God tums a deaf ear to-his prayer. ‘The second time there was not enough faith in the expectancy to change the thought conditions in his mentality, hence there was no change in external conditions, but he thought that for some inscrutable reason that whereas God answeréd the first prayer, He did not wish to answer. the second. If you are beginning to doubt and are in fear of losing your personal God, do not worry but keep on reading. It is not my intent to leave you God- less, but on the contrary I wish to acquaint you with the true God; a God that has nothing to do with sickness, poverty-or death; a God that is ever present; a God that is Love;.a God who will prove your greatest helper in times of stress. Further on in the book I shall point out to you the true God and I shall endeavor to prove to you that He is the only real God. At present, we must not forget that we are still engaged in our empty- ing-out process so that later there may be room for the acceptance of the true God.EMPTYING OUT 29 Having so far dealt almost entirely with the error of belief in a personal God, I shall now point out some of the delusions under which nearly all are laboring in regard to man. ‘To begin with let me ask, ‘Are you a physical or a mental being”? Human belief says that you are a physical being with a soul inside, which soul, at the point called death, deserts the physicality and thereafter the physicality or body is dead. ‘Human belief says that brain formulates thought, —that you think with your brain, Human belief says that you see with your eyes, that you hear, with your ears, that you speak with your vocal organs, ete. ‘Let us first examine the belief that you are a physical being with a soul inside. ‘Which is the “‘you”” in this case. Are you the body or are you the soul inside? According to human belief, the soul deserts the body at the point called death. ‘Toillustrate: Here is John Doe, well and happy. A few days later John Doe becomes ill and so-called death ensues. The soul is said to have deserted the body and to have passed away or over to the other side, Do we now say that John Doe is still with30 THE SICKLE us, but that his soul has passed to the other sidet No. On the contrary we say that John Doe is gone but that his body is still with us. ‘Now which was John Doe—the body or the soult Human belief says that it is the brain that formulates thought. In the body that the soul left behind, the brain still remains. If it can formulate thought, why does it not now continue to think and show the effects of consciousness? . ‘With the body or physicality that the soul left behind, it also left its eyes and its ears and its so-called organs of speech. Therefore, if the brain ean think, the eye see, the ear hear and the vocal organs talk, why do not these organs still perform their duties? If the belief that it is the brain that can think the eye see, the ear hear, the organs of speech talk, is correct, then poor John Doe must enter heaven, deaf, dumb, blind and mindless, for according to human belief he has left the organs that can see, hear, talk and think, behind. ‘Which is John Doe, the soul or the body, and which died? If the life of John Doe was in and of the body,EMPTYING OUT 31 and the body died, then John Doe is dead, and must remain dead, for the body disintegrates. If the life of John Doe is the soul, and the soul died, then also is John Doe dead. Did anything diet I will answer this later. ‘We are still emptying out. ‘When John Doe became ill, was it his body, or his soul, or John Doe himself, that became ill If it was John Doe’s body that was ill, how did John Doe find it out? Did his brain discover the illness and announce it tohim? Ifo, since it is now left behind, on what is he to rely for information regarding his arrival in heaven? If it was John Doe's soul that was ill, then why did the physicians doctor his body? If it was John Doe himself who was ill and died, then John Doe is dead. ‘The Bible teaches that the true God is the God of the living, not of the dead. +If it was John Doe himself who died, and the body has life of its own, why did his body seem to die at the same time? ‘Was it John Doe who had life and gave it to the body Are there three distinct individualities, namely John Dos, his soul, and his body? Or is John Do,32. THE SICKLE only the name given to a particular soul and body? IE 50, did both the soul and the body die, ofa is generally believed, did the body, only, die and the soul live ont If the body of John Dee died and his soul lived on, then John Doe is only half dead. If John Doe’s body had life of its own, and sub- sequently lost it, then part of God is lost; for Jesus said. that God is Life; and therefore Life must be God. If part of Life can be lost, part of God must be lost, and this, reason tells us‘is impos- sible. If, on the other hand, John Doe’s soul is his life, then he loses his soul when he loses his life. ‘What is the trouble here? It seems that the further we go with this line of reasoning, the deeper is the confusion. The answer is plain. Error has no basis, no foundation. Therefore, the more we'reason from an erring viewpoint the deeper the mystification and the greater ‘our confusion, and it is.a basic ertor to suppose that a personal God created a body and breathed a soul ‘inside of it. In reading, critically, the second chapter of Gen. esié, it will be discovered that in this chapter the writer 6f Genesis has edrefully depicted'the erringEMPTYING OUT 33 human belief of God and creation, in contradis- tinction to the true God and true creation, as care- fully set forth in the first chapter of Genesis. ‘The student whose attention is called to this point will see plainly that two distinct creations are chronicled in Genesis, The first creation is nar- rated in the first chapter, closing in the introdue- tion of the second chapter. It is plain that those who arranged the chapters of the Bible did not understand what was written there, or they would not have included the end of the first in the begin- ning of the second. Having ended the narrative of the true creation, the writer of Genesis plainly states that a mist arose and watered the whole face of the ground. ‘This mist is a mystification or self-mesmerism, and this self-delusion affected the whole human race, for the Bible states that it ‘watered the whole face of the ground.” Genesis, chapter 2: verse 6. Next, the writer proceeds to state the nature of this delusion, namely, that mankind is laboring un- der the belief (mental mist) that a personal God took ground (matter) and moulded the form of a man and then breathed into the nostrils of this mud-man the breath of life, This is exactly the de-34 THE SICKLE lusion under which mankind is laboring to this day. It is this error which is mainly responsible for all the ills and troubles of the human race. It is surprising that our learned theologians did not discover long ago that this second creation, made of ground, contradicted the first creation wherein it is stated that God made'man in His image and likeness. ‘That the image and likeness of Spirit could not be its opposite, ground or mat- ter, is self-evident. I would recommend all seekers to refer to the Bible, and see for themselves the line of demarea- tion at the point of the “mist” between the true and erring creation. It will be well to note that the true creation consisted of good only, for God pronounced all that He made ‘“‘very good””; Genesis, chapter 1; verse 31. In the very next verse it is plainly stated, “Thus the heavens and the earth were fin- ished, and all the host of them,”” whereas shortly after the beginning of the second or false narra- tive He is supposed to have cursed the very ground from which He made His mud-man, and He con- demned this mud-man to till this soil, and to live by the sweat of his brow. ‘This shows plainly that the mud-man was not the work of His hands, forEMPTYING OUT 35 God would not curse that which He had really made. To the present day this supposed curse holds sway, for all mankind, clinging to the sense of mat- ter as substance, condemns itself through this illu- sion to cultivate this accursed matter (ground) to maintain life. Hoping that what I have thus far pointed out has sufficiently cleared your mentality so that ac- tual Truth may be placed, I will now endeavor to point out the reality of Life, God.CHAPTER 2 GoD ‘Who or what is Godt Is it possible to definitely determine who or what is the primal Cause or Creator of all? I shall give you the results of my years of rea- soning on the subject, and leave the question to you, whether my decision is correct and conclusive as to who or what the primal Cause or Creator is. According to reason, revelation and the Serip- tures, that which was first must have been the primal Cause or Creator. I think there is no ques- tion of this in the mind of any Christian. ‘Then, if we cati discover the substance and na- ture of the first cause, we shall have fathomed the mystery,—have found the God or Creator of all. ‘Will you now cast your thought back into the past as far as your reason will allow you to go, and see if you can possibly discover anything which tould have existed before consciousness?GoD 87 If there was anything before consciousness, what was there to recognize it? Without consciousness there can be no sense, and without sense, every- thing is blank. I think you will admit that there could have been nothing prior to consciousness, Ié you still retain the idea that God is a person or a personal God, and that He existed prior to consciousness, then, I ask, ‘‘Did He exist prior to His own consciousness?” If so then there must have been a time when God was unconscious or lifeless (dead). If you maintain that God is a person and pos- sesses consciousness, then, I ask, “(How much of this personal God would remain if you dispos- sessed Him of His consciousness 1”? Suppose that it, were possible to destroy all conseiousness, would anything but a blank remain? Even your personal God would be a nonentity without consciousness. Jesus of Nazareth knew more of God, more of Life, than any individual who ever trod this sphere, and he taught that God is Life, that God is Truth. He did not say that the Father of all is a person, or a personal God, but that Life itself is God and38 THE SICKLE therefore the primal Cause or Creator of all, and Life and consciousness are one. Life, Existence, Consciousness, Being, are one and the same, as can readily be proved. No Life, no Existence. No Life, no Being. No Life, no Consciousness. Where there is Consciousness, there is Life, Existence, Being. Destroy all Being and you would at the same time destroy all Life, Existence and Consciousness. But, rightly understood, Life is deathless and can not be destroyed, and so with all true Being, Ex- istence and Consciousness. Life, Being, Existence, Consciousness, may go through a transformation or transfiguration (un- foldment), which is erringly called death but in reality this is not death, for there is no death. Perhaps you still believe there is death. To make this matter more clear I ask, What dies? Does the body die? No, the body cannot die, for the body never had any life of its own to lose. Does the ‘soul die? No, else the grave would end all. Does the mentality die? No, for without men- tality there would be no mind, and without mind there would be no consciousness, and without con- sciousness there would be nothing, and so the death of the mentality would be extinction.GoD 39 That so-called death does not end our Being, was the substance of that supreme demonstration of Jesus, who endured the cross, the most public so-ealled death, to prove to a doubting world that Life is deathless and continues on after passing through a transformation, or so-called death. ‘That he had passed through a transformation of some kind can be seen in the Scripture state- ment that he walked with two of his disciples on the way to Emmaus and that they did not recognize him. Later they did recognize him but not be- cause of his form, but because of the things he said to them. ‘The Scriptures state that God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and Jesus said, “God is Life.” So Life is the beginning and the end of all. If the beginning of all is Life, and the end of all is Life, then Life is without end. There- fore, we have the Seriptural statement that God is the God of the living and not of the dead (of those who believe in death). Tt cannot be stated’too often nor urged upon your thought too strongly that God is Life, and that Life and consciousness are one and the same, ‘This is true regarding Being and Existence, for, no Consciousness, no Life, no Being, no Existence40 THE SICKLE ‘The Bible, when correctly understood, is a com- pilation of the writings of various individuals who were attempting to explain the truth of Existence to the extent of their understanding of it. Ocea- sionally, one of these writers sought to make mat- ters more clear by using another word to denote the primal or first Cause. Abraham used the word ‘‘Almighty”’ to express his conception of the primal Cause. He used this word because his understanding of Existence en- abled him to see that the creative first Cause was the all and only power. He realized that all that existed was because of this first Cause, hence he named it the Almighty. Abraham makes no mention of its being a per- sonal Creator or God. It was only natural that the pronoun ‘‘He” rather than ‘‘She’? was used to designate the all-power after It was personalized, for in those early days, the female was little less than a slave, and the male always the master, thus to speak of God as “He” seemed more fitting to his thought of the Creator. ‘The primal Cause is as much “She”? as it is “He,” and in fact as much “It” as He or She. ‘Moses realized this, as is shown in the first chapter of Genesis, where he wrote, ‘And God said: Let Us@opD 41 make man in our image.” Here it is an “Us” which makes or creates the image,-and the state- ment is, ‘‘in Our image,”” and not ‘*in my image,”” as a purely personal God would have said. ‘The word Spirit is frequently used to designate God, or the primal Cause. Often during the time when I was under the theological belief in a per- sonal God I wondered how God could be a person and Spirit also, for this always seemed incredible to me, but, like millions of others, I was told that ‘there were many things about God which I was not supposed to understand. ‘Thus the truth that was seeking expression through my reasoning men- tality was pushed aside by me, and I again er- ingly accepted the idea that God was a person. In fact, the mental picture of God which I carried in my mind when I thought of Him or prayed to Him, was the picture of a beautiful human countenance. ‘This picture I gained as a child from seeing a beautiful fresco (presumably of Jesus) in a church, and though I never saw this picture after I was nine years old, I can still vividly recall every detail. ‘We frequently say of those who have departed, “His spirit has left him and ascended to God.” ‘We note that when his spirit left him, his life left him. Was his spirit his life?’ Are they two, or42 THE SICKLE one? If they are one, then we said in substance, “His life left him,” and as life is God, it is as though we had said, “His God left him.” Rather shocking, is it not, to have your God leave you at the point of death, just when you need Him most and most expected to meet Him? ‘« "is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profit- eth nothing.” "Tis the spirit that is the animating substance, the Life of the individual, and if the Spirit ever really left the individual, that individ- ual would be annihilated ; but the truth is that the individual and his Life can never be separated, for they are one and the same. Paul said, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”” The mind of Jesus was his consciousness, so Pavl’s words really mean, “Let the same true consciousness be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”” ‘Thus Paul practically introduced the word Mind as another name for the primal Cause. It will be remembered that it was shown that Consciousness, Life, Being and Existence were one and the same, for to remove one removes all. ‘The Mind which was in Jesus was the true Mind, the true Consciousness, the true Life, the true God, the spiritual sense of Life; not the erring humanGoD 43 sense of life that mankind believes to be life, not the life that believes it can die, but the true sense of Life in which there is no sense of its opposite, death, Jesus obtained or became possessed of this cor- rect understanding of Life, because from very childhood his mother, the Virgin Mary, had taught him the real truth about Life; namely, that the mental clement or consciousness is the creator of all, and also explained to him the erring sense of life that all mankind possessed.” With this correct viewpoint regarding Life, given him as a child, Jesus, through many years, reasoned and applied his reasoning to the problems of Life, and thus proved to himself conclusively that Mind (the men- tal element) through its right thought was the veritable Creator, and was and is the primal and only Canse; and he then demonstrated the Truth that Mind is Life and is deathless, in the cruci- fixion, ‘The mother of Jesus, through much study of the Scriptures and aided by the discoveries of her cousin Elizabeth and her husband Zacharias, the high priest, became convinced that the veritable God or Creator of the Scriptures was Mind (the44 THE SICKLE mental element), and she proved her convictions to be correct when she mentally conceived and gave birth to Jesus. Some may not agree with what I have written, and may say that God gives us life and supplies us with life, and that this is all that He does. If this theory is correct, then our lives do not at all depend upon ourselves, and we have nothing what- ever to do with our lives. Therefore when God ceases to supply us with life, He virtually kills us, for according to Webster the word kill means ‘‘to deprive of life.” Such theories are fast finding their place in the waste basket together with the assumption of an ever burning and eternal hell. Life itself is God, and to remove all Life would be to remove all Mind, all Consciousness, all Being, all Existence, proving conclusively that Mind is Life, Consciousness; and we have seen that Conscious- ness was and is the beginning, the Alpha, and also that Consciousness must be the end, the Omega, for as long as there is existence or Life, Conscious- ness will be found, therefore Life ends in Life and not in death. In other words, when once the in- Aividual consciousness has become self-conscious, or conscious of self, this conscious knowing neverGoD 45 ceases, though through erring belief it may bring on a mesmeric semblance to death. ‘This will be found to be only temporary and will last only as long as the mesmeric belief lasts. Life is endless.CHAPTER 8 MAN ‘What is man? ‘The Bible states that God made man in his image and likeness. If this is correct, man is the image of God. In the preceding chapter we determined that God is Consciousness, Life, Mind. Therefore man is the image of Consciousness, of Life, of Mind. ‘Man is the image of Mind, or a mental image. ‘Webster defines a mental image as ‘“‘an idea; a rep- resentation of any thing to the mind; a concep- tion,” Then man is presumably a mental concep- tion, ‘To state that man is idea would also be correct. ‘Webster defines ‘‘idea”’ as ‘‘that which is seen: hence, form, image, model of any thing in the- mind; that which is held or comprehended by the understanding.” ‘Man is God’s idea of Himself. Man is Mind’s idea of Itself. Man is God’s expression of Him- “46MAN aT self. Man is Life’s expression of Itself. God is entity or Being. Man is identity, or that by which Being is identified. Man is the visible effect of the invisible Cause or God. The word man used in the general sense is the identity of conscious being; ‘thus man is body in a general sense, and is the objective state of Mind or Life—is the likeness of the image or thought held in the Mind. ‘When the word man is used to denote genera or in a generic sense, then man is the highest type of Mind or Life. ‘The highest type of Mind is the reasoning, rational mentality; the mentality which is capable of subjective thinking; the mentality capable of forming subjective images of thought and arriving at mental convictions through con- scious reasoning; thus externalizing these thought images in the objective state as objective things. It is the conscious identity of Being, or the mental- ity capable of consciously understanding that It Itself is Mind, Life or Being. Some writers of metaphysics use the word “man” in both these senses and make the mistake of not fully pointing out the particular sense in which they have used it, and the result has been confusion to the minds of studonts. ‘When “man”? is used in its generic sense, it is48 THE SICKLE used to denote a particular genera. .Just as the generic term “canine” is used to designate the dog family, so man, in the generic sense, denotes all humankind or mentalities capable of thinking rea- sonably, rationally, and deduetively, from cause to. effect, and not in an inductive way, as does the- dog or horse, which are of a lower order of life or mentality. ‘The use of the word man in the generic sense per- tains to that part of Being which we name the Soul or Spirit, ; In this generic man we have the conscious iden- tity of Being, the highest type of individual men- tality, or Mind or intelligence. ‘The use of the word ‘‘man,”’ in a general sense, pertains to the objective state of Being (the body or effect), in contradistinction to Soul (the Cause), the mentality of the individuality, which mentality is the conscious individuality of Being, while the body or embodiment of this individual mentality is the visible likeness or identity of the conscious Being or mentality. And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’?; Gen. 1:26, Millions have read this statement but how many have stopped to rea- son it outtMAN 49 The very seeming incorigruity of this statement should have attracted attention. Image, in a general sense, means likeness; and likeness, in a general sense, means image. ‘Thus in a general sense the statement would read, ‘God made man in his image and image, or likeness and likeness.” Expressed in this way, the true sense of the statement is not clear. ‘Webster defines image as ‘‘an idea; a concep- tion.”” If Mind is God, the Creator of all, then we can perhaps fathom the meaning of the statement in Genesis. ‘Mind, the primal substance, thinks. Its thought culminates in an idea and an idea is an image in the Mind itself. This image in the Mind is the subject of its thinking, and is, at the point of the Mind’s conviction, externalized, embodied or ob- Jectified ; and so we have an internal image and an external image or likeness of the thoughts of Mind. Therefore, God made man in His image and like- ness. Jesus used the word Life to denote God and you will have much less confusion of thought if you will supply the word Life where the word God is used, if the meaning seems obscure.50 THE SICKLE God, Life, manifests Itself first, as thought in the ‘Mind, and next as idea or object, that is, the idea is objectified or embodied. ‘The objects of Life have no separate life of their own. All Life is from the universal Life, or primal element. The objects of Life are the objective state of Life, but have no initiative of their own. The action, feel- ing, and form that we seemingly see in any ob- ject, including the body of so-called human be- ings, is not in or of these bodies, but is the result or effect of the conscious part outside the body which is properly named Mind, Soul or Life. ‘The use of the word Life instead of God to de- note the Creator makes many statements plain which are otherwise obscure. For instance, ‘Man is the name of a certain genera of Life, in fact the name of the highest or most perfect genera of Life.” The name canine is also a generic term and denotes a lower order of Life. If I had used the word God instead of Life, the statement would read, ‘Man is the name of a cer- tain genera of God, the name canine is also a gen- erie term and denotes a lower order of God,”” and this would be correct although confusing to the beginner, as it seems to give the sense of God’s many.MAN 51 I think now the generic use of the word “man” can readily be understood, and also how there can be a genera in God or Life. Man, the highest type of Mind or Life, is not merely an idea. He, or She, is Life or Mentality individualized, organized and classified ; each being one complete intelligent consciousness, or individ- ual Life. I did not say separate or personal Life, I said individual Life. You cannot separate Life. It is indivisible. The word individual does not mean personal, but indivisible or inseparable.CHAPTER 4 you ‘What aie yout So far in this work I have given an explanation of the primal Cause or God, and also of man, in both the generic and general sense, but the most vital question is, What are you? Are you a soul and body after the human sense? IE so, are you primarily a soul or a body? That is, does your soul govern your body and is the body the servant of the soul, or is the soul the servant of, the body? At so-called death does the body leave the soul, or does the soul leave the body? According to human belief, the soul leaves the body. Are you the body or the soul? ‘When the soul leaves the body, is the individual still here? I am sure you will agree that when the soul leaves the body at the point called death, the individual is gone. Does not this prove that the individual is soul, and not a bodily being? 52you 53 ‘When the soul leaves the body, the life leaves it also, thus proving that the soul is the life of the body. Then you, the soul, are the life of your body. Now, I ask, at so-called death, what diedt ‘The Soul, the you, the Life, must be one and the same, for when one departs they all depart. ‘The Soul, you, did not die, Whyt Because it is Life itself, ‘The body did not die. Why? Because it never was alive. The life that appeared to be in the body belonged to Soul, and is the Soul, and is you. Webster defines soul as, “Spirit; essence, li animating principle or part.” Some metaphysical writers use the word Soul as a synonym for God, or Life, or Spirit, and this is its correct use. ‘The Soul is the Life, the Cause. ‘The body is the embodiment or effect. ‘The Bible teaches that God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, in other words, the all; therefore, the statement that God is all is correct. Do you agree with the statement that God is allt ‘Think carefully, for an admission may lead you deeper than you care to go, yet the statement is absolutely true. Jesus said that God is Life, Then Life is all. Can there be more than GU? .Does not ‘all’? include everything?5a THE SICKLE Now then if God is all, and ‘‘all’? includes every real thing, then you are God or nothing. Which are yout : Startling? Rather. Blasphemy? No, It’s the ‘Truth, and I shall proceed to prove it so conclu. sively that you will not be able to gainsay it. One of the accusations against Jesus was, ‘“be- cause that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”* In other words, he claims to be God. ‘Most Christians are willing to admit that Jesus was God, or that he was the son of God, at least. Jesus was born of a so-called human mother, the same as we all are. What changed the order of Nature that he alone should be born God, and the rest of us only human beings? : ‘We read in John, chapter 10, verse 83: ‘The Jews answered him, saying: For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou being a man, makest thyself God.”” ‘This verse carries the fundamental error of the entire human race, “because that thou, being a man.” ‘This supposition that each of us is a man, the servant of God, is thé root of all our lack of do- minion and helplessness. It is your body which is man, and the servant of you, the Mind,7 You 55 ‘What authority in Scripture is there for the sup- position that you are man? In Genesis we read: ‘And God made man in his imagévand likeness.” It does not say: “And you are that man.’” Neither does it say that God made you, aman, in his image and likeness. ‘That man, the image and likeness spoken of in Genesis, is You, rather than your body, is purely conjecture. Now let us consider the answer that Jesus gave to the Jews who accused him of making himself God. John 10, 84th verse, Jesus answered them, “Ie it not written in your law, I said, ‘Ye are gods.’ ’’ Here is the plain statement of the Master that the Hebrew law stated that all are gods. ‘he statement ‘Ye are gods”” does not mean that we belong to a God, a personal God, as some try to teach. It'means just what Jesus said it, meant, and that is why he reminded them that it, was written in their Jewish law. The words of Jesus (‘If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came;’? John 10, verse 35) have the same meaning as the words written by one of the AnteNicene Fathers, one of the early students and healers, immediately fol- lowing the crucifixion. He said, “When once thou hast gained the crown of righteousness (right56 THE SICKLE mindedness) thou hast become God.” The words in braket appear in the original writing and were not arbitrarily supplied by me. This early writer gives us the true meaning of the word rightéous- ness as rightmindedness or understanding, having nothing to do with the sanctimonious significance the word usually carries, Only the understander of Life is righteous or right-minded. St. John, the divine, also expressed the same thought as shown in this quotation : “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.”? In other words, John said that at present we con- sidered ourselves the sons of Goa or of the family of God, but that we did not yet understand our ultimate. However, of this one thing we might be certain, that when we arrived at the correct under- standing of God, we would find ourselves identical with God, or actually God. ‘The word “like,”? according: to Webster, means -You 87 equal in quantity, quality or degree, not merely the image, form or likeness, but identical. ‘The statements of all three of these metaphys- ical teachers imply the same thing, that when we actually come to understand what God or Life is, we shall find that we are that Life or God. Some Bible students may assert that in the very next verse Jesus does not claim to be God, but merely states, ‘‘I am the Son of God.” We know that throughout all Life that which in infaney is a son, may become a father at maturity. It is true that I am my father’s son. It is equally true that I ami the father of my son. While at one time Jesus merely said, ““I am the Son of God,” at an- other, when Philip questioned him, he virtually claimed to be the Father, for he said, ‘He that, hath seen me hath seen the Father;”” and again he stated that, ‘I and the Father are one.”” As this question of the Father and the Son will be fully taken up in another chapfer of this book we will now continue trying to ascertain who and what you are. I made the statement that God is all, and cau- tioned you about admitting this, unless you were willing to admit all that it implied. If God is all, then you are God, for there cannot be all, and you58 THE SICKLE besides. If you are not God, and yet are some- thing, then God is not all, is not Alpha and Omega as the Bible teaches, If I had no further proof to offer that you— your mentality—are God, you might well say that T left the issue much in doubt, but I have further proof. Do you believe that Jesus taught that “God is Lifet” If you are a Christian, I believe you do. God is Life and therefore Life is God. Can anything but Life live? You must see that only Life can live. Now ask yourself the question, “Do T live??? To answer truthfully you will need to answer, ‘‘Yes.’” Having admitted that Life is God, that nothing but Life lives, and being convinced that you live, you must be Life or God, for that which lives is Life, and Life is God. Need we any further proof than this? Do not mistake that which you see of Life, for Life. That which we see in the objective is the expression or objective state of Life. Life itself is the invisible mental or conscious part of the thing which we see. One great metaphysical teacher understood the thought of the great Paul in his reference to the mind that was in Christ Jesus. This teacher said,You 59 “Hither all is Mind or all is matter. Which is itt” It is evident that matter, as matter, is not con- scious and cannot think and it is also evident that mind is conscious and does think. If there be but ‘one creative element, that creative clement must be Mind and not matter, for without the ability to think there could be no ability to create. It is evident then that if there is but one element, either mind or matter, that one must be mental. ‘The primal element is Mind. This clement is the Cause or Creator of all and is that which we have been ‘pleased to call God. ‘Mind is God,” said this great metaphysical teacher and the state- ment is correct, Admitting that Mind is God, T ask you, ean any- thing but Mind think? Do you or can you think? If so, does not this prove conclusively that you are Mind, Godt I am sure that you will soon have to admit that you are God and not man as you formerly supposed. You cannot avoid the issue by saying that you merely reflect thought, or think God’s thoughts after Him, for you would need to think to do even this, and as nothing but Mind can think, this would prove that you are Mind. In the preceding chapters I have said that if wé discover that which was first, we discover God. It60 THE SICKLE ‘was found that there could have been nothing prior to consciousness, for, no Consciousness, no Life, no thing. ‘Then Consciousness is yet another name for God. Let us see where this will lead us. Are you a conscious being? You must be or you could not be conscious of what you are now reading, Can anything but consciousness be conscious? If Consciousness was first, and therefore is the primal Cause or God, and you find yourself con- seious, and nothing but Consciousness ean be‘eon- scious, then it is evident that you are Conscious- ness, or God. From all of this, you must, if you draw a correct deduction, conclude that you are God and not merely man, the image of God, as you formerly ‘supposed. ‘Man is the image of God, the embodiment, the body of God; but the mentality, the real you, is the God or Cause of which the body is the image or embodiment. Ignorance of this has made of the so-called hu- man race, a race of the most abject and helpless slaves imaginable. ‘All humanity has two relentless masters, neither of which actually exist, namely, 2 personal GodYou 61 and @ personal devil. The’ first is‘ supposed to bless, but more often is said to have cursed. The second is supposed to furnish the fire and brim- stone for those whom the first has cursed. If this were true, we would have God and the Devil in partnership. If a so-called good man loses his life or his money, it is supposed to be the will of God. If a so-called bad man loses his life or money, the devil is said to have led him astray and is supposed to be responsible. According to this blind theory, the first or per- sonal God is a more inhuman ruler than the sec- ond, for he punishes and kills the good; while the seeond, or devil, punishes or kills the evil, or those only who actually deserve to be punished, thus making the devil more just than God. It must not be presumed that each individual is a separate God, for this is not correct. God is one and all. God ié all Life, and it takes all of Life to make all of Life. Your Life, the conscious part of you, the You, is not a separate and distinct Life b» itself. It is an inseparable part of a. completc whole. Sod is individuality (not separable) and because62 THE SICKLE God or Life is individuality, the image or objective state of Life is individualized, but each individual- ized thing has its Cause and source in the one indi- visible Life, in the primal and only element, Mind, To clear up this important matter, we will use another word, namely, understanding. To under- stand is to know, to comprehend. ‘To have under- standing implies intelligence and enables one to distinguish between right and wrong, the true and the false. ‘Two times two are four. This is Fact, it is Wisdom, it is Understanding. It is universal, yet each individual may be in possession of this same understanding which does not diminish or become separated because all partake of it, nor yet does it grow larger because more become possessed of it, for it still remains four. Each mentality seems to possess it separately, yet it cannot be divided into parts and it is one with the universal under- standing. Thus it is with Life. It is a fact, it is Truth, it is Wisdom or Knowing, it is Understanding. It cannot be divided, though all may possess it. One may even possess all of Life, all of Wisdom, yet this does not deprive anyone else from possessing all of it at the same time. Life is mental, LikeYou 63 the multiplication table, any one may possess it, in part, but this does not separate this part from the remainder. One may possess the whole of the multiplication table, yet this does not in any man- ner deprive any one else from possessing the whole of the table also, The table is mental, it is Spirit, it is true consciousness, it is true thought, and true thought is Truth. John said, “And the Word is God,’” meaning that Truth, the true thought (Word), is mental, is Mind or God. ‘The question of who or what you are is an- swered as follows: You (your substance): is the primal element, or elemental Mind, God, Life, Consciousness. ‘Webster defines the word substance to mean, that which is real, in distinction from that which is apparent. ‘You (your thought) is the subjective state of Spirit, Mind, God, Life, Consciousness. ‘You (the body of you) is the visible or objective state of Spirit, Mind, God, Life, Consciousness. ‘Thus you see, you ave composed of, and are, the Holy ‘Trinity, for God is all, and there is nothing else,CHAPTER 5 THOUGHT ‘What is thought? St. John, the divine, was the most metaphysical or spiritual of all the apostles, and he began his gospel writing with these words: ‘In the begin- ning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made, In him was life and: the life was the light of men.” ‘To get at the meaning of this declaration we must first diseover, if possible, what John meant by the word ‘‘Word,”” for without his interpretation of it, we cannot grasp the purport of his statement. ‘To do this let us examine the remainder of the New Testament and see whether this same term is used. In Matthew and Luke in the incident of the heal- ing of the Centurion’s servant, we find that the otTHOUGHT 65 Centurion implies that if Jesus will only speal the healing word, the servant will be healed. It is implied ‘that Jesus sent the healing word to the Centurion’s servant, and that the servant recov- eréd. ‘We also'find it used in this.sentence, ‘And he sent his word and healed them’’; Psalm 107 :20. ‘What could Jesus have sent but his thought? Can you do anything to help an absent one but think of him? John capitalized the ‘‘Word’’ to denote that it was right thought (Truth), that was God, in contradistinction to human belief, or erring ‘thought. ‘We can now see that when John opened his Gospel by saying, ‘In the beginning was the ‘Wotd,”” he meant that the first or primal power was right thought. His next statement is, “And the Word was with God.” In other words, the ‘Word’? or right thought is in and from Mind. ‘Then he says, ‘‘And the Word was God.” In other words, right thought and Mind are one and the.same. Again I quote, “The same was in the beginning with God.” In other words, right66 THE SICKLE thought and: Mind coexisted at all times, past, present and future, ‘His next statement is, “All things were made by him.” Every objective thing is an externalized or objectified idea or thought, so John meant that all things that really exist are the objective of right thought. Following this he writes, “And without him was not any thing made that was made.”” Here is a statement, which until correctly understood, seems unintelligible, but of-all things. that John said, it is most essential that we understand this before we can gain a true insight of the metaphysical, so that we can determine the real from the unreal. John meant that without him (right thought) was no real thing made, He knew that in our present state there are many things that have the semblance of being real but which are, accord- ing to Truth, merely the objectification of erring imagination (erring thought), with no foundation in fact. These were not made by ‘‘him” (right thought) and consequently are not real, even though they have an appearance of reality. John knew that. all thought convictions haveTHOUGHT 67 their objective state. He knew that erring thought convietionis as well as right thought convictions objectify themselves, the difference ‘being that the objectification of right thought is resl, having a foundation in fact, or Truth, or God; whereas the objectification of erring thought, having no such foundation, must be untrue or unreal, because it is based solely on untrath or illusion, ‘That is why Jesus spoke of evil or error’as he did. He said, ‘‘He was a murderer from the be- ginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is not truth in him.’” Therefore the objective of erring thought (all evil of every nature), though plainly visible or having an objectified state, is never real, and is at best but a phenomenon of the erring human sense and thought. All that is made or objectified by right or true thought is the ob- jective of Truth. Therefore, everything in your present existence that is right and good is real, and made by ‘‘Him”’ (right thought) ; and all that is evil is but the objectified state of erring haman sense and thought, and is illusion, though it may hhave the appearance of reality to self-mesmerized humanity. John’s next statement is, “In him was_life;””68 THE SICKLE that is, right thought and eternal Life are one and the same, He then writes, “And the life was the light of men."” Here John tells us plainly that God, the ‘Word, right thought, right consciousness, is noth- ing else than our own right consciousness, for our consciousness is our life or mental light. It might be well to add John’s last statement on this subject. He says, ‘‘And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not.” He means that even though this Truth is true, namely, that your own right consciousness is your Life and the true God, yet you in your mental darkness (ignorance) do not comprehend it. ‘At the beginning of this chapter the question is asked, ‘‘What is thought?’”” Has it been an- swered? ‘We have ascertained that the “Word” and right thought are one and the same. Now let us see if we can uncover more regarding thought. ‘Where did thought originate? If it was created, who or what created it? John said that the “Word” (right thought) was from the beginning. Was there anything before thought? Could the Creator or Creative element have made‘or’ formed any thing without thinking? Was the Creator be-THOUGHT 69 fore his own thought? If s0, the Creator at that time did not know Himself or any thing else, for one cannot know without thinking. The solution of this whole matter is that Mind and thought co-exist ‘from the beginning”? (for- ever) as the primal element and its activity or power. There was nothing before Mind and thought, as there could be nothing after Mind and thought. It is the Alpha and Omega of all Life. ‘Thought is not made, it is the activity or conscious power of the primal element which element con- tinues to unfold forever because it is inexhaustible Nature, Mind and thought is Life Itself, and Life cannot make anything foreign to Itself. In fact, Life makes nothing. It continues to unfold Itself, to organize and systématize Itself. Life is intan; ble in Itself, but as it continues to unfold, it con- tinues to analyze, organize and express or objectify Itself, and it is the objective state only that we see, or is tangible. Life and thought are one, and are the primal element and its activity. Life, Mind, Consciousness, through thought activity continue to rise ever higher and higher until the ultimate of Life, namely, perfection or complete selfunder- standing, is reached. ‘The true nature of Life, Mind or Thought is,70 THE SICKLE that it is ever perfect and good, and our life work is to find this out and prove it. ‘The infantile, or immature individual Life, which thinks otherwise, fornié the evil which it thinks, thus giving appear- ance or expression to its own erring thought, and then experiences these evils as though they were real, through further self-deception. ‘Thus evil will continue to be a thorn in the flesh of the evil or erring thinker until he returns to the thinking of the good alone, as the rea! and all of Life, which is Fact, or the Truth about Nature, God. Life or God is one Intelligence of which all are an inseparable part, and all are unfolding perfec- tion, the ultimate of all Being. This is done through right thought. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is per- feet’”; Mat. 6:48.CHAPTER 6 UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF ‘The warfare to gain heaven—perfect mental har- mony—is a battle between God and devil. ‘That is, the warfare to gain continuous harmony, perfect understanding and eternal happiness, is a battle between understanding and belief. Old theology gave us the idea that we were the helpless victims of either God or devil. The plan, as outlined to us, is as follows: We are placed be- tween two great powers, God and devil. On our right hand is God who wishes to lead us to eternal bliss; on the left hand is the devil who wishes to ruin us and.cast us into hell. “We are told that God is all-powerful and is con- stantly striving to save us. Just why He does not exact obedience to His laws if He is all-powerful is not clear. ‘Again, we are taught that God made all that was made, and why He made a devil to corrupt His awn noP THE SICKLE children, if He wishes to save them, is not clear either. Again, suppose we accept the idea ad- vanced by some that the devil is a fallen angel. If God is truly sincere in wishing to save all His children, why did He not destroy this fallen angel, this devil who is leading his children astray? This thin theory of old theology might be ac- cepted without criticism in kindergarten work, but that intelligent adults will believe such nonsense is remarkable, According to the plan laid down by old theology, you are a helpless victim, for they teach that God, and the devil also, possesses more power than you, and a greater power cannot be overcome by a lesser one. ‘You are not a helpless, conscious observer of this, warfare to save you. You, the individual mental- ity, are the battle ground in which the fight takes place. Man is the body upon, and in which, is re- corded the gain or loss of the battle between Un- derstanding and belief, God and devil. This war- fare is wholly mental, although its progress and register appears in the body, or so-called physical being. Understanding (God) and belief (devil) are continually at war with each other in the men-UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 73 tality, and will and must continue thus, until all belief is destroyed by understanding. It is a war- fare of ideas, a mental debate with one’s self, with the individual mentality as judge. ‘The subject for debate in this war of ideas “Resolved that all is Mind, there is no matter; that all is good, there is no evil; that all is Life, there is no death.”” Understanding takes the affirmative, and belief the negative side of the debate, both in the indi- vidual consciousness, ‘There was no chance for debate before erring supposition (belief) made its appearance, so we will have belief open up the debate by saying, “According to the Scriptures, man is made of mat- ter, for it is written: ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground’ (namely, matter) ‘and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” From this it is evident that there is matter, otherwise there would have been no dust or ground from which the Lord God could have formed man.” ‘Understanding replies; ‘You are citing from the second chapter of Genesis, which is mainly a setting forth of that which mankind erringly believes true. ‘The actual creation by the true God is chronicled14 THE SICKLE in Scripture as having been finished previous to this, and seen to be very good (contained no evil). In the’ first verse of the second chapter of Genesis it is written: ‘Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them:’ ‘This isan unqualified statement that the true Mind, God, had finished (mentally comprehended) His work, and at no time previous to this does it state that the true God made or used ‘any matter (evil) in the creation of man or anything else, but Mind, Good, merely spake (thought) and the thing thought, forthwith appeared.”” Belief says, ‘There is no proof that tlie second chapter of Genesis is a record of mankind’s belief regarding creation. ‘The man that was made of ust was made by the same God who made all other ‘things.”” Uniderstanding replies, “There is a decided effort in Scriptures to make it appear that the creation, as chronicled in the second cliapter of Genesis, re- sults from the exercise of belief and is not fact. T call your attention to the sixth verse of chapter two, where you may read, ‘But thére-went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.” This verse is the one just preceding that which relates that the Lord God made man ofUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 75 the dust of the ground. Without this ‘mist that went up,’ the verse which states that ran is made of dust would never have been written.” Belief says, “But even mist and water and ground are matter. Understanding replies, “The Bible, rightly un- derstood, is a mental or spiritual treatise, and therefore to get at the true meaning of what is written therein, you must learn the metaphysical or spiritual significance of the various words used before you can gain the right conception of what is written. ‘The heaven and carth that the truc God made, and the waters that He divided from the waters, are of mental origin and are wholly mental. The earth signifies understanding, or right thought con- vietions; and heavens signify harmony, the men- tal harmony, which only understanding can make possible. ‘The waters that were divided from the waters so that the earth or dry land (understand- ing) appeared, is métaphorie of thought in solu- tion, the mental ‘element previous to systematiza- tion and organization. God or Mind, the true Ore- ator, divided or systematized thought so that the ary land (understanding) made its appearance. ‘The mist that arose from the earth was a mentalcc THE SICKLE mist and was misunderstanding, mystification or belief; and this is your Lord God who made your dust man. That this misunderstanding was uni- ‘versal is shown in that the mist watered the whole face of the ground, that is, the misunderstanding, through wrong thought (the water), affected all of immature consciousness in this plane of existence.” Belief “asks, “But why does it state that Goa made man of the dust of the ground? Was God also subject to this mystification or misunderstand ing?” Understanding replies, ‘‘No, the true God can not misunderstand nor be mystified, for He is per- fect Understanding Himself (Itself). If you will look closely you will find that it was not God, the universal and all perfect Understanding, who made this dust man. It was the Lord God who did it.” Belief asks, ‘Are not these one and the same!” ‘Understanding replies, ‘They ought to be and would be the same, were it not for the fact that this Lord God becomes careless and does not al- ‘ways prove his thinking to be the truth before he accepts it as truth. This Lord God is the imma- ture or infantile mentality, the child mind, the unfolding Mind; and it is this infantile mentalityUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 77 which misunderstands and creates, or gives form, to its erring imaginations, whereas it ought always to conform its thinking and expressing to universal Understanding. From this we see that the so- called dust man was not made by the true Creator (perfect Understanding), but by misunderstand. ing (erring mentality), namely, belief, and not ‘Troth.” Human belief says, “I believe in one God only and you seem to imply that there are two, namely, God, and Lord God, therefore you have departed from holy writ.’’ ‘Understanding replies, ‘‘You claim to believe in only one God, but the fact is you not only believe in two Gods or Creators, but two hundred. You believe that the wind can make or create a cold, thus you believe the wind to be a Creator. You believe that what you eat can make you sick thus making a Creator or God of that which you eat. You believe that drugs can make you well, thus making e Creator or God of medicine. Verily, Itell you that instead of having one God you have two hundred. Nevertheless, I do not advocate that there are two Gods, namely, God and the Lord God. There is only one God, namely, perfect Un- derstanding, or Mind. He is the true Creator ofB THE SICKLE all that is real or fact. ‘The infantile or’ unper- fected (yet unfolding) individual understanding or mentality, it has pleased the writer of the Serip- tures to designate in the second chapter of Genesis as Lord God, the same as we call a child, ‘Master James, to distinguish him from the head of the house. Master James is of the same household and of the identical substance as the head of the house, but he has not yet matured to the Father position. Mind or Understanding is one as to substance or quality, but many as to individuality. If you will turn to the Scriptures, you will find where it is written, ‘And he sent his ‘‘word’’ and healed him,’ thus proving the oneness of Mind or Understand- ing, for if there were minds many, the sick man would not have received the thought that was in the Mind of Jesus.’” Human belief says, ‘Nevertheless, I maintain that we are all separate and distinet human beings, for if we were all one, all would die if one died.”” Understanding replies, “Jesus used the wind to typify Spirit, Mind or Understanding, and we cap do no better than use the air or wind ‘to illustrate the trath of the oneness of Mind. Is the wind, air or atmosphere about us separate from that in other lands? Are we not all in, and-do we not allUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 79 breathe this same wind or airt Is the air in this room or in my Inngs, separated from that which is outside? Is that which is in my lungs my own personal possession? Can I forcibly retain it? ‘When I use it, do I destroy itt No, must be the answer to ‘all these questions, for although I may use it individually, yet it is not mine to retain, neither can I permanently destroy it, for it is self- purifying, So with Spirit or Mind. All may par- take of It, all may possess It, none can retain It as his own, although all are in touch with It and through It, therefore all’ are inseparably linked to- gether through and by Spirit, although all seem separate human beings. Though all are of the one Spirit or Life, it does not follow that because one individual for the time being ceases to consciously partake of this Life (think Life), that all Life must cease, Even the one who has temporarily ceased to-consciously partake of Life (think Life), because of his human belief of death, will at some time awaken from his self-mesmerism, from his belief in the reality of death, and again consciously partaking of the Life that is universal, he will again be consciously living.” Human belief says, ‘The human body is eom-80 THE SICKLE posed ‘of ‘blood, bones and flesh; surely these are matter.’” Understanding replies, ‘Man, the body; is image and likeness, the expressed shadow of something else, and that something else is the mentality. The image and likeness of mentality could not be its opposite, matter. That which belief has named blood, bones and flesh, is the objective state of mentality, the objective state of thought, erringly called matter. The great Paul understood this, as can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was imprisoned within brick walls and placed in the stocks, but, knowing that brick is but the ob- jective state of thought and therefore subject to Mind, he with his right thought convictions crumbled the prison walls which surrounded him. ‘The bricks, by responding to his thought, proved that they were the objective of Mind and subject to Mind, though they were supposed to be so-called ‘matter.’” ° ‘Human belief says, ‘If it is true that the body is merely the image or shadow of the mentality, another limb should appear in place of one re- moved from the image, for the mentality, which you say casts the shadow, would not have been changed or touched.”UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 81 Understanding replies, ‘“The body is a mental image, the image of the thought convictions, the image of what the mentality thinks itself to be, and corresponds at all times to these thought convic- tions.. You are in error if you think that you could remove a limb from the image of mentality without the knowledge of the mentality, and if it becomes aware of it, then you have touched the mentality. “The erring mentality, being self-deceived as to its body, also believes that the body is matter and subject to dismemberment; and as it sees this be- lief taking place, there is a change produced in the thought of itself held by the mentality ; for whereas the mentality formerly thought that it had all its limbs and shadowed them forth, it now believes (has the thought conviction), that it has been de- prived of one of them, and so casts the image of itself minus the limb which it erringly believes has been removed. Had a limb been removed from the body of Jesus, he could have instantly reproduced it, That he had the understanding and ability to do this is evident in that he could make his entire body disappear and reappear at will. Having command of his entire image or body he certainly could have reproduced any part of it at will. The disappearing and reappearing of the body of Jesus82 THE SICKLE is added pioof that the image or body is mental and of mental origin, else he could not by the meré exercise of his thought have made. it appear or disappear.” Human belief says, “But if the body is shadow, it would not be ponderable and it would have no solidity as we see the human body have,”” Understanding replies, ‘The ponderosity and the solidity which the image or body seems to have, it obtains from the individual mentality’s erring beliefs in this direction, ‘The individual mentality, seeing its image or body, erringly supposes that it must have weight and solidity and holding this thought about its image or body, it can do nothing less than express or exhibit these qualities. Rightly understood, the body has neither weight nor ‘solidity. This was proved in regard to the ponderosity of the body, when Jesus walked on the surface of the water; and the non-solidity of the body. was proved when Jesus passed through closed doors and.walls, and showed to his disciples the self-same body which had hung on the cross, with the spear-thrust in its side and the imprint of the eruel nails through the hands and feet. Had there been any real solidity in the body, as we sense solidity; this feat would have, been impossible.””UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 83 ‘Human belief says, “Admitting that Jesus did these things, it does not follow that we can do them, for Jesus was the Son of God.” Understanding replies, “Listen to the words of the apostle John, the most beloved disciple “of Jesus: ‘Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of Géd' * * * Beloved, now are we the sons of God.’ “Here John plainly states that we are the sons of God now, not hereafter, thus we are the very same as Jesus. The only difference is, that Jesus understood Life as it really is while we are still groping after the light.” Human belief says, ‘I will not admit that there is no matter and that all is Mind. However, let us consider the statement that the good alone is all, or that there is no evil. That there is evil, I am sure is easily proved, for one need but to look around him to see all manner of evil.’” Understanding replies, ‘‘It is evident that evil Gould not'have made good, because of their oppo- site natures, therefore good existed prior to evil or else was made by something other than evil. We Know that God was first. We also know that God is good. If God is good, then good is also God,84 THE SICKLE and therefore good was prior to evil. The Saxon term for God is ‘‘good.’? The primal cause being good, if it made anything at all it necessarily made it of its own self or substance, for there was noth- ing else in the beginning but God, good. If good made all that was made and made it out of its own good substance, then all remains good to this day, and evil is a myth, even though this myth may have an appearance of reality.”” Human belief says, ‘Evil is not a myth. Evil ig as real as good.” ‘Understanding replies, ‘Intelligence is good and therefore ignorance, its opposite, must be evil, for evil is the opposite of good. I am sure you will not contradict this. Intelligence goes to the black- board and illustrates a problem, namely, that two times two equals four. This is truth, is a fact, is real and is good. Ignorance goes to the black- board and illustrates the same problem, two times two, giving the result, however, as five, six or eight. This is not truth, is not fact, is not real. From this it can be seen that intelligence being true, its expression is real and capable of being proved; while the expression of ignorance is neither true, good nor real, having no foundation in actuel fact,UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 85 and being incapable of proof, although you may see the erring expression on the black-board.”” Human belief says, ‘What you say may be true regarding mathematics, but take something more tangible, a pain in the knee, for instance, Surely you will not contend that the pain which a sick man actually feels in his knee is not realt’’ Understanding replies, “Can the knee of the sick man think? If not, how can it feel? "Without the ability to think, there can be no ability to feel, and without ability to feel there can be no pain. I claim that that which cannot think or feel cannot possibly have a pain, so if there is a claim of pain where there is no feeling, it must be pure illusion.’” Human belief says, ‘But the pain seems to be in the kmee.”* : Understanding replies, “Seems to be is correct. It is solely a seeming and not an actuality. ‘The image, body or shadow of the so-called sick man has no feeling, and if he seems to have a pain in the knee, it is but a self-deception, not a real pain.” Human belief says, ‘But the sick man has sense of pain and if it is not in the knee, where is, itt At any rate, it must be real or he could not sense it.”” Understanding replies, ‘You have said it. The86 THE SICKLE so-called sick man has a sense of pain and that is all that he ean have, for pain'is but a sense and an erring sense. He senses the pain as in his knee and that is why it appears to be there, but if he would change his sense and sense it in his hand, in due time it would appear there, and if he would sense the pain as leaving or gone, it would cease, proving that'the pain was but a sense in the mentality and not in the body, and never a real thing. So it is with all sickness. It is never real, it is but a false sense, An individual takes on or accepts a sense of sickness and his image or body records this sence. If he changes the mental sense of sickness to a sense of health and maintains this harmonious sense, the image or body will change and record a sense of health. Thus we see that sickness is never an actuality, and is but the imaging forth of an erring meittal sense called sickness, The bod- ily appearance of sickness is never the appearance of .a-real condition but merely the externalized appearance of an erring thought or sense held in the individual mentality. If it were real or a fact, it could not be changed, for facts are changeless, so it must at best be belief.’” Human belief says, “If it is true that sicknessUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 87 is but a sense or seeming, why employ a physician or even a metaphysiciant”” Understanding replies, ‘The sick do not know that they are suffering from an erring sense of sickness instead of real sickness. Not knowing the facts, they are’in much fear and incapacitated for self help. A physician is calléd and he examines the image (the body), and because the mentality of the patient thinks that the physician will prob- ably help it, it loses some of its fear. This in itself tends to change the patient’s sense from sick- ness to health. If the visit of the physician or the medicine he leaves succeeds in changing the pa- tient’s thought from a sense that he is sick to a sense that he is recovering, the body will exhibit this change. “I the patient’s sense could be instantly changed from sickness to health, through change of belief, or faith or actual understanding, his body would show instantaneous healing. “The trouble with blind faith healing is that it is not permanent for there has been nothing done to enlighten the so-called sick man as to the real condition of affairs, On the morrow he may again entertain a sense or belief of sickness,—if not the yme sickness, then some other.88 THE SICKLE “If a metaphysician be called, one who under- stands thought and its effeet upon the body, he will give no materiel medicine but will appeal to the intelligence of his patient and will endeavor through mental enlightenment to change the pa- tient’s thought from a sense of sickness to a sense of health. ‘The real metaphysician will also in the meantime explain to the patient the cause of the sick condition, namely, that it was sick thought indulged, and that a change from this erring thought or sense to a true or correct sense of him- self as always well is what healed him. The pa- tient, now understanding the effect of right and wrong thought upon the body, will in the future strive to keep from sensing (thinking) sickness, and will not be so likely to become sick, but even if he should, he will never again be filled with the same amount of fear of sickness that he formerly had, for he now knows that he has a sure remedy in his own right thought.”” Human belief says, ‘I still maintain that if evil has an appearance the same as good then it must be as real as good, and the appearance of evil must also be as necessary as the appearance of , good or we could not know evil from good.”” Understanding replies, ““The knowledge of evilUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 89 is not necessary, neither is the appearance of evil necessary to enable us to recognize the good. When the mentality actually knows what a thing is, it at the same time knows all that it is not. For in- stance, to know that two times two are four enables ‘one at the same time to know that it is not any- thing else. Evil means only a mental mistake, misconception, misunderstanding, erring belief, and all its appearances are but expressions or ex- ternalizations of the misconceptions of erring in- fantile mentality. Being misconceptions, they are lies, and no lie is real. Every lie returns to its native nothingness when the truth pertaining to that lie becomes known. When a lie ceases to be accounted true by the individual mentality, the mentality also ceases to give expression to the lie; therefore, when a lie is destroyed in the mentality by truth, its embodiment or expression fades into nothingness, neither having been real at any time. The lie merely having been accounted real or the truth, for the time being, it therefore was given a temporary expression only, by the individual men- tality.”” ‘Human belief says, “At least death is real, for all humankind die.”* Understanding replies, “If death is real, some-90 THE SICKLE thing must really die. Does the so-called human soul die? Even human belief says that the soul lives on. ‘Then it does not die. Does the body die? No, for the body has no life of its own to lose. The soul is the life of the body, and human belief ad- mits that the soul continues to live after so-called death. If the soul is the life of the so-called human being and it dies not, then there is nothing else to die. The body having no life other than the soul, and that living on, even according to human belief, there can be no real death, and therefore death is not real.’” Human belief says, ‘But something must have died, for the body, which at one time manifested life, exhibits none now.”” ‘Understanding replies, ‘That a certain image or body does no longer manifest life is not proof that the individual mentality to whom this body be- longed is dead. That individual mentality, through self-mesmerism, induced what might properly be called a cataleptic state, and the inanimate body is the exhibition or expression of this state, but there is no real death, for nothing that was alive died.” ‘Human belief says, “Death must, be more than that, else when’ thé -eataleptié state wore away theUNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 91 individual would again take possession of the body, reanimate it and be with us again.”” ‘Understanding replies, ‘That is just what Jesus did. He knew that so-called death is but a cata- leptie state in which the mentality ceases for a time to animate the body, and so, at will, he reanimated or took possession of his body, after the crucifixion. Jesus produced this cataleptic condition, or sus- pended animation, consciously, and dispelled it con- sciously, while those who think they die bring on this eataleptie condition unwittingly. Those who think they die have the further belief that they are going to a different plane of existence, ‘This belief of having departed works itself ont as does any other belief, and the so-called dead awaken from their self-induced catalepsy in what some are pleased to call the next plane of life. Their be lief conviction that they have departed and our belief conviction that they have gone, is all that separates us from them. So-called death is a meré transition from one state of mind to another state and not a change from one place to another place.”* ‘Human belief says, “Even though you call death but a transition, yet every one must pass through death to get to the next plane of existence.”” Understanding replies, “This is not true. it is92 THE SICKLE not necessary that we pass through so-called death to be translated to the highest (purely mental) plane of Life. ‘Enoch walked with God and was not.’ Enoch gained the necessary understanding (walked with God) and then translated himself from this sphere (‘was not” here any more). “Elijah rode to heaven in a chariot of fire. Elijah accomplished the transition consciously through a fervent sense of Love. Jesus ascended slowly to heaven, with his disciples watching him until he disappeared in the clouds. Jesus, for the Denefit of his disciples, accomplished the transi- tion consciously and did it slowly, so that they might gain the understanding of it, but as the transition progressed, their human belief beclouded their reason, so that they did not grasp or see (understand) the last part of it (‘he arose in a eloud’).”” “To the individual mentelity which believes that death is necessary to the transition, death will be necessary to fulfill his belief; but to another indi- vidual mentality, with sufficient understanding of Life to actually know that Life is eternal, no death is needed to accomplish the transition, for with this better and true understanding of Life, he will be able to accomplish the transition consciously.UNDERSTANDING VERSUS BELIEF 93 ‘Thus we see that in reality there is no death, for nothing dies. Furthermore, there is really no necessity for death, for the transition should be accomplished understandingly (consciously), for on such as these ‘the second death hath no power,’ they already having overcome the first death (proved that in reality there is no death at all).””CHAPTER 7 THE HOLY TRINITY ‘Who or what is the Holy Trinity? ‘The Scriptural names for the Holy Trinity are the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, as all Bible readers know. Are these three persons in one God, or are they three Gods in one person? ‘The Holy Trinity has nothing at all to do with person. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are Scriptural names given to certain qualities or states of Mind (the one and only God). Mind and consciousness are one and the same and are the primal Cause or only creative element. ‘When speaking of Consciousness as the funda- mental or primal element, the name ‘Father’? was given it, because all desire originates in the primal element and desire is ever the father of the cor- responding thought. Consciousness is Life and the source from which all Life unfolds. ‘When speaking of the activity or mental force onTHE HOLY TRINITY 95 of the primal clement or consciousness, namely, its thought or thinking, the name ‘Son’ was given to this activity, for although thought is one with consciousness, yet it originates (is the activity) in and through consciousness. ‘This thinking or thought is not another consciousness but it is the same element in the active or subjective position. Consciousness, the primal clement, generates thoughis of itself, and passes these very thoughts Defore itself, thus viewing the subject of its own thinking. In fact, thought is Consciousness in the subjective state, and as Consciousness creates, or gives birth to its thoughts, thought therefore is the Son (offspring), and also the sun or light of the Mind, or, conscious Consciousness. In speaking of the activity of Consciousness in relation to the ele- mental Consciousness, Jesus said: ‘“The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.’? The elemental mind substance called Consciousness, does no judging, for all judg- ment of the Mind or Consciousness ‘is done’ by and through thinking, or thought, or reason (thie Son). All conscious thinking, reasoning, judging, takes place in the subjective state of Consciousness. ‘We now have the primal element or Life itself96 THE SICKLE as the first state (not person) of Consciousness and the Bible term for this primal state of Mind is the “‘Pather.”” ‘There is also the conscious activity of the primal element in which a subjective state is formed out of itself, and this second state is called the “‘Son.”” It must not be supposed that there is any lapse of time or space between the first and second states. ‘They are simultaneous. ‘When the subject of thought held in the second or subjective state arrives at the point of mental conviction, be it understanding or belief, it be- comes a concrete thought and passes from the second or subjective state into the third or objective state. In this third state, the subject or thought held in the Mind or Consciousness becomes objecti- fied, is expressed or embodied. In the Bible this third state is termed the “Holy Ghost,” a term as, expressive as are the names ‘‘Father” and “‘Son”” to the first and second state. ‘The word “Holy” is a corruption of the word “whole,” meaning complete or perfect, and the word “Ghost”? is easily understood as shadow. ‘Thus the third or Holy Ghost state of Conscious- ness.is but the whole shadow or image of the ‘Mind’s thinking, namely, its convictions of thoughtTHE HOLY TRINITY 97 objectified or expressed, either as action, feeling or form, according to whether the thought held in mind is one-of action, feeling or form. It is always the image and likeness of Consciousness and its activity. It is the understanding (right or wrong) or fixed position at which the mental clement ar- rives through its process of reason. It is the resi- due of all that the mental element thinks. It is the body of the mental element, or, the mental ele- ment’s understanding, expressed as action, feeling and form; or if in error, its belief, expressed as action, feeling or form. Webster defines body as that which is set or fixed. It is the Mind’s under- standing of itself. It is the understanding of Un- derstanding. When correct, it is the Soul’s convie- tion of truth, in the expressed state. ‘That is why the great Peul said that salvation or adoption is ‘to wit: the redemption of our body,” in other words, salvation consists of redeem- ing or regaining the proper understanding (re- deeming the body) of Life as it really is. The human body with all its frailty which we see today, is rather an unholy Ghost, for it is as much the image and likeness of misunderstanding (belief) as of understanding. As we gradually gain the true understanding of98 THE SICKLE Life as purely mental, the body or the whole shadow of the Mind’s convictions will change from its present so-called material or imperfect state to a more mental, spiritual or true state, Paul said: “I die daily,” meaning that each day he was losing some of his erring sense of life as matter, and gaining a corresponding amount of understanding or spirituality. The body is the residue of the ‘Mind's thinking. It is that part of the Mind’s thought which it has sifted from all the rest of its thinking and which it believes true, and therefore the body is the express image, not of the fleeting thoughts of the mentality but of its convictions and conclusions of understanding. If the mentality has based its conclusions on mis- apprehension or misunderstanding, then its con- clusions can be but mere belief, and this belief is externalized and is unholy (not the truth). If its conclusions are based upon truth (the facts of Be- ing), the embodiment is necessarily trath in the embodied state or the Holy Ghost. Some metaphysical writers have used the words, Life, Truth and Love, to designate the Holy Trinity, John gives us some light on Love. He wrote, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.””THE HOLY TRINITY 99 ‘The law is always the right thought and this right thinking or right desiring: is fulfilled—ex- pressed or imaged forth at the point of Love, at the point of the Mind’s feeling of conviction. ‘That is why faith has its reward in external ex pression. Faith is the Soul’s conviction or feeling of certainty without actual knowing and as the Soul or Mind objectifies itself at the point of con- viction, the sound convictions of faith are external- ized, and humanity erringly thanks a personal God for the blessings which it obtains through the op- eration or cbjectifications made possible through its own faith. ‘This is illustrated in the case of the woman who touched the hem of the garment of Jesus as has been previously pointed out. Her faith was such that she thought if she could only touch the hem of his garment she would be healed. When she accomplished this, the culmination of her faith was reached and she was healed. ‘That Jesus did not heal the woman, but that she healed herself by her own faith, is seen in the words which Jesus spoke to her, for he turned and said, “Woman, thy faith hath made thee whole.”” Humankind has been taught that Jesus meant that her faith in God or in Jesus was the reason100 THE SICKLE for the healing wrought, but Jesus meant nothing of the kind, He said, in substance, “Your own faith that you would be healed is what healed you.’’ Blind faith of this nature will often change the mental convictions of an individual, and as the bodily condition is contingent upon the mental convietions, the body changes when these convic- tions are changed. The only drawback to faith healing is that blind faith fluctuates. Not resting on an understood principle, the thing or thought that one has faith in today, one may have no faith in tomorrow. Faith, born or induced through actual under- standing, is not blind faith but is the right kind of faith, It is a feeling of certainty engendered through what we understand, and does not change with every wind that blows. This feeling of ce tainty, engendered through our actually under- standing that there is but the good side to all Life, is what John meant by the word Love, and this feeling of certainty that the good is all is what gives the Soul its conviction in the good, and there- fore externalizes the good in the objective, thus fulfilling the law or right thought or right desire of the individual mentality in health apd blessed- ness.CHAPTER 8 METAPHYSICS Webster defines metaphysies as ‘the science of mind or intelligence.” It might well be stated that, Physies is the science or study of the visible uni- verse, while metaphysics is the science or study of the invisible universe. The former is the study of effect, the latter is the study of Cause. ‘Theology is defined by Webster as ‘the science of God and divine things.” If Mind is God, as I maintain, then metaphysics is true theology, for the science of Mind would be the science of God. ‘The difference is that old theology deals with a personal God, a Creator who is a person or personal ruler, while the new or true theology or meta- physies deals with a God or Creator that is imper- sonal, a primal Cause or element. ‘With those who wish to follow the old theology and who are satisfied with their present sense of God, I have no quarrel, as all should be allowed to 101102 THE SICKLE work out their own salvation; but this is certain, that sooner or later, here or hereafter, these honest people will be compelled to desert the old theology for the new, for the old does not lead to perfec- tion, perfect harmony or actual understanding, which is Life’s ultimate. ‘That Life is progressive, and that there are many states or planes of consciousness through which some will need to pass before they will let go their erring beliefs and arrive at ultimate.per- fection, can be gleaned from these words of Jesus, “In my Father's house are many mansions.” This means that in the universal consciousness there are many states of consciousness progressing ever up- ward toward perfection. I, for one, do not care to pass through any more infantile states of consciousness such as the present with their trials and tribulations and therefore, I am making every effort to gain sufficient under- standing at the present time to insure a higher, and not a continuation of the same state after my transition, which transition I hope to accomplish consciously. Whether I shall succeed or not de- pends solely upon the depth of my understanding of Life and Its laws. ‘There is only one door to heaven (perfect har-METAPHYSICS 108 mony) and that door is understanding. Those who think to enter heaven by some other door or con- venient window will be sadly disappointed. At the present writing metaphysical science is experiencing that which is metaphorically stated regarding the garments of Jesus, namely, ‘“‘and they parted his raiment.”” The spiritual raiment of ‘Jesus was his teaching, his understanding of Life, and the “parting” of his raiment or clothing is symbolieal of the division of his science or theology. If old theology is the science of God, then cer- tainly has the raiment, the understanding or teach- ing of Jesus, been thoroughly parted, for the hun- dreds of different denominations each have but a part, whereas it would take all that all have and much more to make the complete seience. Each denomination accepts one or more parts of the Master’s raiment (teaching) and discards the rest. Each of these many denominations makes the part that it has selected the requisite of salvation. Each denomination has some good in its theology but all fall far short of the undivided raiment (in- divisible science of God, Life) which Jesus taught and demonstrated. About fifty years ago a science of Mind was started and the actual promulgation of the seamless104 THE SICKLE robe of Christ begun. ‘The valiant leader, who was at the head of this movement, had understood the Master aright, and for a time great strides were made in acquainting the world with the Christ teachings in their purity, simplicity and entirety. ‘The movement grew and great good was being accomplished, but a little later the first false step, according to my way of thinking, was made, In the first few editions of the so-called text-book of this movement, the basic or fundamental prineiples that one must know to gain an actual understand- ing of the Science of Life (the science that Jesus tanght his disciples), were quite plainly stated, but gradually the plain facts were veiled. The gen- eral opinion is that this was done to hide the plain truth regarding the mental power from evil eyes, and prevent its misuse. ‘The veil is now so complete that even the faith- fol cannot see through it and instead of the en- lightened mind along metaphysical lines which they should have, there is great confusion as to what really constitutes the actual science of metaphysics: I cannot reconcile my thought to the idea that it is right or wise to hide truth from the many honest seekers and sufferers, merely because a few might use thought in an adverse or evil way.METAPHYSICS 105 I. think this veiling of truth has been done through a misunderstanding of the Master's method of teaching. Jesus neither hid the truth nor veiled it, On the contrary he made every ef- fort to lead the multitude to understand the ab- stract truth of Life, often, in order to do so, using parables concerning the things with which the peo- ple were most familiar. Some of those who came after him thought the parables were used to hide the truth, but a close study of the words from the viewpoint of the metaphysical does not bear out this opinion, but on the contrary shows that he used the parables to make his teaching plain. ‘Therefore, those who veil the truth, thinking they have a precedent in the Master’s teaching, might better give this matter more careful thought. ‘At the present time there is being poured on the market a deluge of books which minutely desoribe the use of thought power from the erring or human standpoint. It is time that some one placed on the market a plain exposition of the right use of the mental or spiritual power. ' Mental Suggestion, Hypnotism, concentration of thought, so-called Mental Science, ete, are fully described. Then why endeavor to hide the right106 THE SICKLE use of the mental power from the honest seeker for truth? ‘Through this veiling of the truth, misunder- standing has crept into the Seld of metaphysics and once again the parting of the Master’s raiment has begun in this wonderful movement. Even at the present time the one-time pure, white and seam- Jess robe of the science of Life, which Jesus wore (understood) and which was re-discovered in this, age, is being dyed and discolored with the many hues of fear, superstition, mysticism, church organ- ization and ignorance. Many patches that have no rightful place there have been added to the seamless robe through ecclesiastical by-laws and it is no longer a seamless or undivided science but according to my thought, simply @ church organ- ization based upon faith cure. Truth is too broad and too all-inclusive to be confined in the narrow Jimite of any chureh or creed. ‘What occurrence or stress of circumstances at the beginning of this movement induced Mrs. Eddy, the re-discoverer of the Christ method of heal- ing, to change her thought and organize a church after deorying the need of church organization in purely spiritual teaching, I ean not say positively. I know that many who are zealous church workMETAPHYSICS 107 ers, and who think that a chureh and its organi: tion must be given implicit obedience will be sur- prised by the following statements of Mrs. Eady, and it is because I see plainly that this church worship is holding the honest individual in bond- age, just as any other material error holds the individual mentality in its bondage as long as ob- served, that I have decided to quote a few state- ments from the first edition of “Science and Health,” and leave the matter to the judgment of the reader. In the first edition of “Science and Health,” page 118, line 25, Mrs. Bddy wrote, ‘Jesus paid no homage to diplomas, to forms of church worship, or the theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved by Spirit, the principle of being.”” ‘The comment I have to make on this statement is that it is absolutely correct, and we would do well not to pay homage to diplomas, to the letters ©. 8. or C. 8. B. or C. 8. D. or to any form of chureh worship whatever. On page 166, line 9, of this same edition, Mrs, Eddy wrote, ‘‘We have no needs of creeds and church organization to sustain or explain » demon- strable platform, that defines itself in healing the sick, and casting out error.””108 THE SICKLE ‘Would it not be practically saying the same thing to say that we have no need of by-laws, church manuals and churches? On the same page Mrs, Eddy wrote, ‘‘The mistake the disciples of Jesus made to found religious organizations and church rites, if indeed they did this, was one the Master did not make; * * * the temple for the wor- shippers of Truth is Spirit, and not matter.” If the Master did not make any mistake in not founding religious organizations and church rites, what must we say of Mrs. Eddy’s founding of her church with its elaborate church organization and its church rites (the by-laws), and the lesson ser- mon observed by all these churches? Again on the same page Mra. Eddy wrote, “No time was lost by our Master in organizations, rites, and ceremonies, or in proselyting for certain forms of belief: members of his church must answer to themselves, in the secret sanctuary of Soul, ques- tions of the most solemn import,’” ‘This statement is so concise and plain that those who have more zeal for church organization and church attendance than actual understanding stand self-convicted. On page 167 of the same edition ‘of “Science and Health,” Mrs. Eddy wrote, ‘We have noMETAPHYSICS 109 record that forms of church worship were instituted by our great spiritual teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, and we learn the improbability of this, in the sci- ence of God that he taught and demonstrated. Said he, ‘The time now is when they that worship the Father should worship him in Spirit and no longer in Jerusalem’ (the wealth and learning), ‘of our ‘templés’; a magnificent edifice was not the sign of Christ’s Church.”? How wonderfully pure and clear Mrs. Eddy’s thought was in those early days of the movement when she counseled only with her own clear thought of truth and before the days that material success brought human counselors many. One could hardly write a more stinging disapproval of the Christian Science church and its wealthy and intellectually learned organization and its beautiful edifices of today. Comments as to the right conduct of the true seekers for Truth would be superfluous. ‘Some have said that Mrs. Eddy changed her con- vietions as she gained more understanding of Truth. I ask, “Did Jesus also change his convictions and start churches, governed by a set of by-laws?” No, There is no record of his starting a material church organization to promulgate his spiritualn0 THE SICKLE veaching. ‘Then Mrs, Eddy was right in what she wrote in the first edition, I have passed through the churchy vale of tears. I have been a member of the Mother Church. I have been a Sunday School teacher. I have been a director. I have been a First Reader. I have worked early and late to establish harmony in our local and other church organizations, and wondered at the little permanent success that attended my best efforts. I have since learned that Truth can not be made of error. Error must be cast out, de- stroyed, to get rid of it. You cannot build a per- manent and safe spiritual teaching upon a material church organization or creed foundation, ‘The error that is in the foundation makes the whole building unsafe, and not until the error in the foundation (material church organization) is de- stroyed (cast out of one’s own consciousness) can you hope for universal harmony, and an individual loving thought toward all other individuals. We need but to expose the error of material church or- ganization in promulgating a purely spiritual teaching, then leave it entirely alone and progress ° will do the rest, On page 168 of this first edition of ‘Science and Health,” Mrs, Eddy wrote: “In centuries past,METAPHYSICS m1 Jesus founded Christianity on the spiritual basis, that neither ritualism, doctrine nor belief, but Wis- dom, Truth and Love make Christians and cast out error and heal the sick, but today church forms are held responsible for Christianity.” In other words, it is not the observance of by-laws or church Man- uals or other beliefs, but understanding and the right application of thoughts of Truth and thoughts of Love to the casting out of error and the healing of the sick that determines a Christian, a follower of the Christ teaching; but today the error of thought in Mrs. Eddy’s church is such that if you are not a member of the Christian Science church, a loyal believer in the by-laws and Manual and a constant attendant at the church services, you are not accounted a true follower of the Christ Truth and Mrs. Eddy’s teaching. Nothing is more hypocritical than this erring thought, for Mrs. Eddy herself wrote in substance that Jesus knew that an individual might’ make Jong prayers and be an observer of church laws and a constant attendant at church and still be any- thing but an honest individual. Truly, religious zeal is spiritual blindness, but each must be allowed to work out his own salva- tion. Only I feel sorry for the beginner who is12 THE SICKLE asking"for the living bread and is given a stone under the guise of bread. ‘We will now return to the consideration of other metaphysical sciences. ‘Among the most widely known metaphysical seiences are some which hardly deserve to be called such. ‘Hindu Philosophy is supposed to be a science, but as the various writers of this philosophy (at | least those whose works I have read) do not agree among themselves, it apparently has no sure foun- dation. While there is much good in this teaching, it Incks the quality of stability, to make it the seam- less robe of the Master. So varied and contradictory are the many books written upon this subject that the reader eventually arrives at the starting point, making a complete circle but finding little in the circle that is stable or fundamental, thqugh this may be the fault of - the translators and not the fault of the philosophy. ‘Mesmerism or hypnotism as it is now generally Known, is the exercise of the human will to the subjugation of another’s mentality. It is not a remedial or curative agent as some suppose. It derives its supposed power from humankind’s fear of thie mysterious, and humanity’s belief in it.METAPHYSICS 3 It is not the power of right thought. It does not proceed from Undeistanding, Mind, God, but from the mist of understanding, from misunderstanding or human belief. It does not enlighten the men- tality of its subject to the truth of Being, namely, that each individual mentality has full and com- plete domination over itself and its embodiment. On the contrary, it induces a sense of subjugation of the individual mentality through fear of some greater power than itself, and therefore makes’ of that thing, which in reality possesses the all-power (the mentality), a slave, ‘Thus it dispossesses the individual mentality of its only recuperating power, namely, its own self-confidence. Hypnotism does not enlighten and liberate the enslaved individual’s mentality from the erring beliefs, but on the contrary enslaves and weakens it more and more through the belief of the stronger will-power overcoming the weaker, Reason (right thought), on the other hand, con- stantly tends to enlighten and liberate the indi- vidual mentality from its confusion and erring be- liefs, thereby strengthening and supplying the nee- essary self-confidence needed to bring out the harmonious unfoldment of individual being. ‘Mesmerism or hypnotism weakens rather thanie THE SICKLE strengthens the patient and it is also true that long continued mesmerism leads to imbecility or entire lack of mental self-control, Let us now consider that phase of hypnotism known as suggestion. Anyone who understands mind will admit that suggestion is a form of hyp- notism. In suggestive healing, suggestions that the pa- tient is well, are given the patient, Some operators send these thoughts vigorously and they are catapulted to the mentality of the patient with strong mental persistence. If the patient is so mentally constituted that he can be overawed or frightened into believing the suggestion given and deserting his own thought on the subject of being ill, he accepts the new belief that he is being helped, and through his faith in the method employed, he may recover. ‘This again is hypnotic and it is a surrender of the patient’s will to the will of the operator. It is not good practice, for, instead of making him mentally self-reliant, it makes him dependent upon another’s mentality. This practice certainly has nothing in common with either theology, the science of God, or true metaphysics, the science of Mind, whose true foundation is the liberation of. the in-METAPHYSICS 115 dividual mentality through mental enlightenment. New Thought is a name given to another branch of so-called metaphysics. New Thought in itself has many divisions, its exponents not having found a certain and common ground upon which to base their theories. New Thought is doing much good for its many adherents, but it is not based upon the immovable rock of understanding. It is on the way to true metaphysies, but stops short of the goal. It has awakened many to know that they have minds which think instead of brains that formulate thought. Some New Thought exponents are realizing the fact that there is no matter, but the great ma- jority still believe in matter as a reality, while they also rightly believe that thinking has much to do with the ills and joys of life. New Thought is leagues ahead of suggestion, though some New Thought supporters mix a little suggestive mental action with their thought, New ‘Thought is producing a class of.thinking beings and this means much, for soon these thinkers will be ready for the real substance of Life, namely, actual understanding. All that I care to say to the ‘New ‘Thought exponents is to ask: ‘Why not take116 THE SICKLE the last step out of matter and material thought, and gain the purely mental view of Life and its greater blessings”? So-called Mental Science, is also supposed to be metaphysics, and has many followers. It differs from New Thought in that it is supposed to be founded upon an absolute understandable and demonstrable science. I said Mental Science so- called, I mean by this, that it is called mental science by its adherents but that it is not a purely mental science. Mental science exponents range from the extreme idealists of the German schools, to those who divide the science into two distinct substances, mind and matter, and they have done much analytical work, or work which they regard as an analysis of the mentality. Most exponents of mental science have called to their aid self-made theories, some of which have a foundation only in the minds of those who advance these theories as science. Much of this so-called mental science is based upon what its writers have been pleased to call the subconscious mind. This is a grave mistake. The very name, subconscious, is a misnomer when used in connection with metaphysics. The prefix sub means under or below, and there is not, and cannotMETAPHYSICS uz be such a condition of consciousness as under or below. Either consciousness is consciousness, or it, is not, There is no under or below consciousness. ‘There is a condition of consciousness which might properly be termed, latent consciousness, but latent consciousness would not be capable of that which these theorists ascribe to the subconscious mind, Latent consciousness may be defined as the stor- age in memory, of that which is not or cannot be readily recalled, ‘The consciousness or knowing is there, but cannot be recalled at the moment. But the mental scientists have, in theory, manu- factured a consciousness which is below or under the conscious consciousness, and some suppose that mental impressions given to the under or subcon- scious stratum of mind are carried along by this substratum to wherever sent, and then express themselves. They need some such subterfuge to give their theories the semblance of working, but fortunately or otherwise there is no such sub- stratum in Mind. ‘The theory no doubt arose from the observance of a hypnotized subject given the suggestion to do something at a stated time. Noting that the sub- ject acted upon the suggestion given, the mental seientists conceived the theory that there must be18 THE SICKLE a sub or under consciousness that takes a mental impression, and at the given time manifests itself, and from this the supposition was no doubt gained that this was the way mental healing took place, namely, that the operator gave mental impressions of health to the patient’s subconscious mind, and these were later materialized in the consciousness of the patient, Nothing could be farther from the truth of true mental healing. These investigators seem to have forgotten that they were dealing with a conscious mentality, which is a trinity in unity. When they hypnotized their subject they supposed that they had, through their hypnotic suggestions, brought the entire mentality under the hypnotic influence, but this was not the fact. In hypnotism, only the perceptive and apprehending faculties of the men- tality are controlled. ‘The comprehending faculty is not under the influence, and the suggestions given are taken’up and stored by the comprehend- ing faculty; and then at the determined time the comprehending faculty brings these. suggestions forward, much as the mind recalls anything from memory, and’ presents it to the apprehending faculty, when we again sense what has been stored in memory. When the comprehending facultyMETAPHYSICS 119 brings forth and presents to the apprehending faculty, the suggestions given while the perceptive and apprehending faculties are under hypuosis, the apprehending faculty or meditative consciousness proéeeds to work out the suggestion the same as this faculty works out any thought that is presented to it from memory by the comprehending faculty. ‘There is no need of a subconscious stratum of mind to explain this phenomena of mind. Thus we can see that the theory, that there is o substratum of consciousness upon which the operator impresses his suggestions and which carries the impressions to the patient, is mere theory and not science. Another great error that many exponents of s0- called mental science make, is that they believe matter to be matter, but that it is subject to mind. A science which admits that half of the universe is matter and the other half, mind, can not rightly de entitled to the name ‘“‘mental science,” for to be a true mental science it should treat everything in the universe as mental. Mental science, so-called, hardly rises beyond the viewpoint of the mortal or human state of mind. It rarely reaches the Mind or Understanding which is uncontaminated by human hypotheses. It deals mainly with the misunderstanding or belief regard-120 THE SICKLE ing Life, and is therefore fluctuating and never stable because, rising no higher in the scale of mind than the mistaken human viewpoint which is always belief and never understanding, it is therefore subject to so-called human belief laws. ‘True, it is on the way and if its thinkers would cease investigating from the material or belief side, and put the weight of their thoughts solely on the fact that they have only to deal with one clement, namely, the mental element, and not two, mind and matter, much time would be saved, and more accomplished toward unraveling the so-called mys- tery of the universe. Investigators have already driven so-called mat- ter to its last analysis, namely, the ion, which they admit is a force rather than a material substance; and as all force, power or activity is mental, they have virtually driven matter, as matter, out of existence; in fact, they have truly found that in reality all is mind, though some mental conditions have mistakenly been named matter. There are other so-called metaphysical sciences, all offshoots from those already mentioned. Eman- uel Swedendorg, with his extensive writings and ‘theory of a law of correspondence, when under- stood, comes nearer the real, but he did not reachMETAPHYSICS 1a far enough nor give an understandable sure foun- dation from which to-begin reasoning. Material science, so-called, has reduced matter to the atom, and the atom to the electron, and the electron has been found to be not matter, but energy. ‘That which we see in the objective is not matter, though called that, It is the effect of energy, and energy is the unseen cause. This energy is Mind, Consciousness, or Life, and is the primal Cause or Creator of all. About fifty years ago, Mary Baker Eddy, a very careful thinker, in her observance of life and its effect, came to the conclusion that all effect was traceable to a mental cause. In other words, she discovered that all causation is mental, and at once set out to prove this conclusively to herself and later, to a scoffing world. She first called her discovery the ‘Science of Man” and wrote a book and gave that title to the book. Later, she changed the name of her discov- ery. As she searched and experimented, she be- came aware of the fact that this was the same science of Life that Jesus of Nazareth, nearly two thousand years previously, had taught his dis ciples. Because this science was good and helpful122 THE SICKLE and had been promulgated by Jesus, the Christ, she called it Christian. As she realized that the Mas- ter’s teaching was an actual, demonstrable science, she changed the name from the “Science of Man’”” to ‘Christian Science.” ‘The selection of this name, while perhaps appro- priate enough, was yet, as I view it now, an un- fortunate one, for it antagonized the whole Chris- tian church-going world. reeds properly belong in churches for they are all beliefs, while a science properly belongs in a school of college. Just because a science is good, or Christian, is no reason for an organized promulgation under church government. Every true science is good and Christian. Mathematics, music, metaphysics, or any exact science should be taught, not merely believed. ‘Churches are houses of belief. Schools are houses of enlightenment. To place anything under church organization or government at once suggests to the human mind something to be believed, rather than understood; while to place anything in a school or college at once suggests something that must be studied to be understood, and exemplified and illustrated before one can hope to apply cor- , \METAPHYSICS "198 rectly what one has learned, and reap the benefits. “The Seience of Metaphysics” is the proper name for that which Mrs. Eddy rediscovered, and which Jesus taught before her, and its proper method of promulgation is in schools and colleges under competent teachers, ‘This would make un- derstanders of its followers, while the church idea tends to make blind believers. ‘While the Christian Science organization has what they call a Metaphysical College, it is never- theless under church management and governed by by-laws, which practically obliterate this college as a source of enlightenment to the masses of Chri: tian Science students. If I am rightly informed, there are less than forty-eight hours of teaching done in this college each year, and this only to a select few. Metaphysics, as taught by Mrs, Eddy and origi- nally taught by Jesus, is wholly mental, and deals only with the mental. The true mental is the spiritual of the Bible, just as Mind is the Spirit of the Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy states, page 45, “Unity of Good,”” that ‘Spirit is spiritual consciousness alone.”” Spiritual means truly mental, and consciousness is mentality; so Spirit, is pure or true Consciousness,124 THE SICKLE and true Consciousness is the Understanding of Fact, or Truth, in contra-distinetion to human be- lieving. The one is based upon reality or actuality, and the other is based upon human conjecture or supposition. ‘The so-called’ human mind or under- standing is made up of conjectural-and supposi- tional thoughts. In substance, it is human belief. ‘The divine Mind or real Mind, the true God, is made up or composed of the thought of all reality and all actuality. ‘Whichever one of these is animating and energiz- ing your thought, is the mentality that is you and in you. If you, the mentality, have risen no higher in the scale of being than the erring human view- point, then you are still the child of Adam or belief. If, on the other hand, the mentality has unfolded to the point where you begin to understand actu- ality, and think in conformity with actuality, then you have risen out of belief into understanding, out of belief that matter is substance, to the under- standing that Mind is the all and only substance. ‘You have then entered the higher state and are no longer a so-called human being, although still welling on this preparatory plane of existence, but you are now a God-being or a Child of God, and when your understanding is complete, you are noMETAPHYSICS 125 longer a child but have risen to the full stature of Christ or God. One of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, one of the early healers, states it in these words— “When once thou hast gained the crown’ of right- eousness (right mindedness) thou hast become God.” Mrs. Eddy states that Jesus rose in his God-being and overcame all that was not good, not actual. This book will be read and studied by thousands upon thousands of differing though conscientious searchers for Truth, and because I know this, and also know how tenaciously each differing mentality holds to its accepted text-book, whatever it may be, as the book of Truth, I have decided to give the re- sults of my search for actual Truth, As nearly all Christian Scientists know, the Christian Science text-book has gone through many editions and has had many revisions, I have read, studied and critically compared every edition in which I found any revision worthy of note. In my search I discovered that Mrs. Eddy wrote a book which was practically a text-book, before she wrote ‘Science and Health,” The title was “The Science of Man.” Next she wréte ‘Science and Health,” and the chapter under the title of ‘“Recapitulation’” is126 THE SICKLE much the same as the book entitled, “The Science of Man.”” I traced Mrs. Eddy’s thought through the first edition, then the second, third, sixth, seventh, eighth and so on up to the very last edi- tion supposed to have been revised by her. ‘The promulgation of true mental (spiritual) science continues through all the early editions, with perhaps a slight though constant embellish- ment of the thought, a slight though constant veil- ing of the more startling truths—supposedly to hide them from evil eyes—until the editions of 1908-4, From this time her editions, in my opinion, emphasized more and more the thought of faith rather than of the absolute necessity of under- standing. The change seems to have been from actual understanding to a faith basis. Whether ‘Mrs. Eddy, at the above date, intrusted the fur- ther promulgation of Science to hands other than her own, future enlightenment may show. The result, according to my findings and under- standing, has been that through this gradual devia- tion from a former straight line, the text-book of Christian Science has lost much of its power to heal (to enlighten the self-deceived mentality) and has become the text-book of a beautiful religious faith cure, instead of actual science.METAPHYSICS 127 ‘The many letters which’ I constantly receive from all over the science field piteously asking, “Where am It” are no small part of the reason for writing this book. In substantiation of what I have said, I shall give a number of statements from Mrs, Eddy’s early editions of ‘Science and Health,”” and shall also give citations from some of her writings other than the present edition of the text-book, to show that although the text-book seems to have drifted from understanding to faith as a basis, the other works of Mrs. Eddy still remain substantially in full accord with even the first edition of “Science and Health,” although written years later. Some of these statements will no doubt startle many of the believers in the present text-book, who think that they have understood Mrs. Eddy’s teach- ings, but I ask them to bear in mind that these statements are Mrs. Eddy’s and not mine, and assI shall cite edition and page of “Science and Health’? where the statements can be found, such readers may readily verify what I have cited and note that no wrong meaning has been given them by lifting them from their context. Recently there has arisen a misunderstanding among the students of Christian Science, regarding128 THE SICKLE the correctness of the early editions of “Science and Health, with key to the Seriptures.’* Some maintain that merely reading the early editions once gave them a much greater depth of understanding, and consequently greater healing power than years of study spent upon the later editions. Others maintain that Christian Science, in its complete purity, is not to be found in the early editions, and further state that Mrs. Eddy later repudiated these early editions as being incorrect in Principle. Mrs. Eddy’s own words ought to be the best authority on this question. She wrote, page 55, “Retrospection and Introspection,”” under the chapter heading of ‘The Precious Volume”’—'‘The first edition of my most important work, Scrnce anv Hairs, containing the complete statement of Christian Science,—the term employed by me to express the Divine, or spiritual Science of Mind- healing was published in 1875.”” The statement, ‘the first edition of my most im- portant work, Science ap Heaurs, containing the complete statement of Christian Science’? was undoubtedly written in 1891, or sixteen years after the publishing of the first edition. ‘Thus we seeMETAPHYSICS 129. that after sixteen years of teaching, writing and practice Mrs. Eddy still maintained that the first edition was ‘The precious volume”’ and the one that contained ‘‘the complete statement of Chris- tian Science.”” It Mrs. Eddy repudiated the teachings given the world as proven truth in her first edition of ‘Sei- ence and Health,’ then she had a mere theory instead of understanding, at the time she wrote her first text-book. How then can we be sure that the present text-book is correct Science, for if she had not passed on she might, in another twenty-five years, repudiated the present text-book as incorrect. Mrs. Eddy had a correct understanding of meta- physical healing when she wrote the first edition of ience and Health,” and she at no time repudi- ated any editions of that work. Numerous articles written by Mrs, Eddy. before and during the time that she was searching for. Truth, and in which she merely gave her then un- proved opinion to others, had gained wide cireula- tion, and it is these early lispings which Mrs. Eddy repudiated as complete Science. Having now plainly shown that Mrs, Eddy re- ferred to the first edition of “Science and Health’?130 THE SICKLE as ‘The Precious Volume’? and that she plainly stated that the first edition contained the complete statement of Christian Science, I will give a few citations from it for comparison and comment. Capitalization in the following citation taken from the first edition should be carefully noted and meditated upon. First edition ‘“Seience and Health,” Page 10: “Opinions and beliefs regarding God and man, or Soul and body, are the foundations of all error.” Note carefully that Mrs. Eddy calls this the foun- dation of all error. You will also note that in this statement Mrs. Eddy points out that Soul is only another name for God and that man is only another name for body. You cannot gain actual under standing until you change your thought convi tions regarding the basic error that you are man when in reality you are God, and your body is man. First edition S. & H, page 11: ‘We learn from science mind is universal, the first and only cause of all that really is."” There is no veiling of the plain facts in this statément that the mentality or mental element is the first and only cause of all that is real, for the word mind is not capitalized ; so the erring impression that the firstMETAPHYSICS 181 cause or God is a far away Mind, does not, in this statement, confuse your thought. First edition 8. & H., page 11: “All is mind, and mind produces mind only, nature, reason and revelation decide, that like produces like.’’ No cap- itals in this statement to confuse the mentality. So from beginning to end, Mind produces Mind, or God produces or unfolds more God. God is all, therefore there is nothing else to produce or un- fold, hence you must be God or nothing. First edition S. & HL, page 13: “Spirit is the understanding and possession of Truth, Life and Intelligence.” In other words, Spirit, God and ac- tual understanding, true consciousness, are one and the same, You possess God when you possess ac- tual understanding and as you become an under- stander of truth or Life you become God. First edition 8. & H., page 14: ‘We are Spirit, Soul, and not body.” Note the capitals. If we are Spirit, Soul and not body as this statement implies, then we are primarily God and our body is man, the image and likeness. This is the founda- tion of Mrs. Eddy’s teaching, when she is under- stood. First edition 8. & H., page 39: “To know we are Soul and not body is starting right.”” In other132 THE SICKLE words, we have never started right in Christian Science unless we first know that we are Soul or God, for to start to reason from any other foun- dation is to base our reasoning on a false founda- tion. First edition 8. & H., page 54: ‘Therefore to be the recipient of Truth, we must begin to recog- nize ourselves Soul, and not body.” In other words, you cannot gain actual understanding, or the truth of Being until you recognize yourself God and not body or man. First edition S. & H., page 77: ‘To admit one’s self Soul instead of body sets us free to master the infinite idea; it shuts the door on death and opens it wide on immortality.”” The reader will please note that the word Soul is capitalized, de- noting God. Therefore the statement means that to admit one’s self, God, instead of man, or Soul, instead of body, is the correct view of Life which needs to be gained to shut the door on the belief of death. It may be an easy matter to say, “I am God,” but it takes much careful thought and depth of understanding before the individual can conscien- tiously admit to himself that he is God.METAPHYSICS 133 ‘This cannot be accomplished so long as there is the least belief of God as a person, for while this belief remains, one has the sense that he is trying to usurp the throne of God when he attempts to declare himself God, even to himself. Not until it, is thoroughly fixed in the thought that God is an clement, the primal clement, and that all that is proceeds from this primal element and is of it because there is nothing else, can one consistently admit to himself that he might be God because he is of this Life element. First edition S. & HL, page 77: ‘The final un- derstanding that we are Spirit must come.’? Please note again that the word Spirit is capitalized, de- noting God, therefore the meaning is plain that we must finally understand ourselves God, now or hereafter, before the truth of Life is grasped. First edition 8. & H., page 155: ‘That we are Spirit, and Spirit is God, is undeniably true.”” ‘Why not state plainly that, we are God. A science must be stated plainly to be clearly understood. If it shocks the believer, it may also awaken him. First edition 8. & H., page 169: ‘We are Soul, Spirit, and not matter.” I£ we are Soul or Spirit as this statement plainly states, then we are God, therefore why evade the plain statement that we184 THE SICKLE are God. There should be no evasion of o vital a question. Even this statement that ‘We are Soul, Spirit” is better and more enlightening than the veiled one that “God is All,’ which now appears in the latest edition of S. & HL, though it means that we are God or nothing. First edition 8. & H., page 218: ‘To be out of an imaginary existence in matter, and realize one’s self not body but Soul, is the ultimatum of being.’” Life is progression, and the ultimatum or highest mental, i. e., spiritual point to be attained is ‘to fully realize that we are God and not man, that is, Soul, and not body. The belief that we are phys- ical beings with a God above us is an erring human or infantile opinion regarding Life, and this error of thought is responsible for all our present trou- bles and misery. First edition 8. & H., page 222: ‘The compound idea named man is unintelligent; it is a lifeless image and reflection of Principle, or Soul, which is the Life, Intelligence and Substance of this idea.” ‘This statement is the rock which divides the un- derstander from the believer. In my estimation ‘@ great error was committed when this statement,METAPHYSICS 185 so vital to understanding, was veiled or removed from the Christian Science text-book. Because this statement does not plainly appear in the present edition of ‘Science and Health,” practically the whole student field has gained an erroneous understanding of Mrs. Eddy’s teaching. Frequently in testing the depth of understanding of a Christian Science student, practitioner or teacher, I have said, ‘As I understand Mrs. Eddy, she teaches that your mind is God and that your body is man.’” I am sorry to say that I have not found one who agreed with my statement, each ad- vancing the idea that he was man, the reflection or image of God, but not God. . This is the belief hela by all Christians in other churches, therefore what need of a new movement? ‘The idea that you, the individual mentality, are man and but the reflection of God, is thoroughly destroyed by this last statement of Mrs. Eddy’s, for she says that the ‘compound idea named man’”’ (the body) is the lifeless image and reflection of God or Mind, and that man, the body, is unintel- ligent; therefore, it is certain that you, the individ- ual mentality, are not man, as nearly all Christian Scientists suppose, for the individual is conscious or intelligent. ‘The previous statement is, that to136 THE SICKLE realize that we are Soul or God is the ultimatum of being, therefore all who have gained the idea from the present Christian Science text-book that they are man, the body or ‘lifeless image and reflection of Principle,” never reach the ultimate of being, or perfect understanding, while they hold to this delusion. On page 301, line 5, of the latest edition of “Sci- ence and Health,” Mrs. Eady wrote: ‘Few per- sons comprehend what Christian Science means by the word reflection.”” ‘This no doubt is true. According to Webster, the word reflection means “to consider attentively,’’ “‘to revolve in the mind,” “to-contemplate.” In other words to sub- jectively think about anything. Webster also de- fines the word reflection to mean “‘the expression of thought.”” If God is Mind, then for Mind to think is for Mind to reflect, and the reflection of Mind would be the visible expression of Mind’s thinking or thought. If God, or Mind, or Soul is all, then you are God, or Mind, or Soul. Your mentality is Soul, and when you think or consider attentively or contem- plate or reflect, the thoughts which you indulge to the point of mental conviction are given objectiveMETAPHYSICS 137 expreision, or are the reflection of your own mind and thought. Your body is the embodiment of your thought convictions, your thought objectively expressed; in other words, your body is the visible objective expression or mental reflection of what you the Soul actually think, in regard to action, feeling and form, as pertaining to self. First edition 8, & H., page 225: ‘We are Spirit, but, knowing this not, we go on to vainly suppose ourself body, and not Soul.”? Christian Scientists, awake! For when you think or teach that you are God’s idea, or man, you are on the wrong trail. Cease believing that you are man and realize that you are God. You will never gain this most necessary understanding while read- ing and following those who promulgate the idea that you are man, the reflection of God, instead of teaching you the truth as Mrs. Eddy taught it, namely, that you, your mentality, are God, and which must be correct if Mrs. Eddy is correct, for God is all. ‘Need I give further citations from the first edi- tion of ‘Science and Health” to prove that when you understand correctly you will find that you, the individual mentality, are God and that the body is man, whereas you now suppose God to be some-138 THE SICKLE thing other than your mentality, and yourself to be but the image or reflection of God. Mrs. Eddy positively teaches that the unintelligent and life- Jess body is man, is idea, and is the image, likeness or reflection of the mental or spiritual part, which mental part is Life or the real God. ‘There are many more statements in the first edition of the same import, so there is no mistaking Mrs. Eddy’s real meaning. ‘Was she mistaken when she wrote the first edi- «tion? Did she later change this basic principle of all her teaching? No, for she carried this same import through all subsequent revisions, although the statements are gradually veiled more and more until in the pres- ent edition, fow if any who do not already under- stand can see it. The statement in the latest edi- tion that all is Mind, or that God is all, means that you are Mind or God, for there cannot be more than all. ‘The third edition of “Science and Health” was published in 1882, six years after the first, or about fourteen years after her first discovery. If one were to think Mrs. Eady’s thought not fully ma- tured when she wrote the first edition, it should have matured through six years of writing, teach-METAPHYSICS 139 ing, and healing, and therefore what she wrote in the third edition, six years after the first edition, should be substantial. I will give a few citations from the third edition. ‘Third edition S, & H., page 28: “Soul and body are God and man, Prineiple and its idea.’” If this means anything at all it means that your Soul or mentality is God and your body is man. Third edition 8. & H., page 66: ‘He maketh himself as God, was the justification by Christ, Truth—for there is no other self with the Chris- tian.”” Here Mrs, Eddy plainly states that one is not a Christian (a follower of the Christ teaching) who does not claim himself to be God. In other words, anyone who does not assert that his real self, his Soul or mentality is God, is not making the same claim as Jesus, for he said, ‘I and the Father are one.” ‘The I, of course, is always the mentality, for the body cannot say I. Then the words of Jesus meant that the mentality or mental clement and the creative cause are one and the same. ‘Jesus also said, “The Father is greater than I.’” ‘This means that Jesus realized that his own indi- vidual mentality was not the all of the I or mental140 THE SICKLE clement, but that the Father embraced all men- tality or mind. On page 183, line 15, “Miscellaneous Writings,”” by Mary Baker Eddy, we find this statement: “‘As- serting a selfhood apart from God, is a denial of man’s spiritual sonship; for it claims another father.’” This statement certainly means that those who assert that their selfhood (themselves) is not God, claim another creator or animating substance or Father than Mind, the real God. It certainly ought to be clear that one’s selfhood is one’s per- manent or real self, and this selfhood (according to the statement appearing in Mise. Writ.) must be understood as the real God, or we are in error. Third edition S. & H., page 97: “The unfolding of being should be a painless development; we far- nish our own sorrow by struggling to be wrong.’” ‘This statement implies that the unfoldment of the individual mentality should be a harmonious devel- opment or growth in the understanding of Life; but we, by persistently insisting we are not God but are merely the helpless reflection of God with no power of our own, are thus struggling to main- tain the old erring Adam dream, and thus furnish our own sorrows and troubles. ‘Third edition, vol. 2, page 57: ‘To admit one’sMETAPHYSICS uw. self Soul instead of body sets us free to master the infinite idea, shuts the door on death, and opens it wide on immortality.”? This same basic state- ment appears in the first edition and is carried through to the present or latest edition, but in- the latest edition, in the attempt to veil its signif- cance, this vital statement has been so distorted that no one who has not seen the original statement could possibly gain the correct understanding from it. Ishall unveil this statement later. Same volume, page 58: ‘At present we know not what we are; but this is certain, that we shall be Love, Life, and Truth, when we understand them.’? You will note the capitals, and that the statement means that when we find our true selves, we shall find that we are God. Same vol., page 106: ‘‘Every object in the uni- yerse resolved into thoughts, whose substance is ‘Mind, instead of matter, is included in the generic term man, of which woman is the highest species.’” ‘The objective state or expression or manifestation is man, The embodiments or unintelligent bodies that we see are man, and the conscious part of these bodies is mentality or God. ‘Those Christian Scientists who think or believe that the conscious part of themselves is man should42 THE SICKLE read this statement of Mrs. Eddy a few times and learn therefrom that she taught that every object in the universe, when viewed from the mental view- point and sensed not as matter or material but as the objective state of thought, is man, ‘The tree, not its life, but its form or body; the horse, not its life, but its body; the child, not its life, but its form or body, is man. The Life of all is the conscious part and is consciousness or God. Have you arrived at this correct understanding from your present text-book? I doubt it, Yet, until you do gain this correct understanding, your understanding is but human belief, though you may erringly call it Christian Science or under- standing. ‘The seventh edition of ‘Science and Health” was published in 1884, eight years after the first edition, or about sixteen years after the discovery of Christian Science, and yet, after sixteen years of experience, Mrs. Eddy wrote, 7th Ed, 8. & H., ‘vol. 1, page 28: ‘Soul and body are God and man, Prineiple and its idea.”” Seventh edition, ‘‘Science and Health,” vol. 2, page 2: ‘When we become Spirit we shall have but one mind, for there is no room for more if that One is infinite.”METAPHYSICS 143 ‘The statement, ‘To admit one’s self Soul instead of body,” ete., appears in the seventh edition, page 11, vol. 2; also the statement that ‘‘we shall be Love, Life and Truth, when’ we understand them.” ‘The fourteenth edition of ‘Science and Health” was published in 1885, or nine years after the first edition, and after about seventeen years of expe- rience and thought by Mrs. Eddy, and still we see the same fundamental statements contained therein that we pointed out in the first and other editions. Fourteenth edition, “‘Science and Health,” page 22, vol. 1: ‘The body of Soul is man, the idea of this Principle and his conscious Life and intelli- gence is‘Soul and not body.” Here is the plain statement that the conscious part of the individual, namely, his mentality, is Soul or God and the body is man. Fourteenth edition, vol. 1, page 23: ‘Soul and body are God and man, Principle and its idea.” As I said before, this statement is fundamental; in fact, without knowing this, one cannot gain an actual understanding of the Christ Science or meta- physics. ‘The thirty-seventh edition, revised, was published in 1888, twelve years after the first edition made its appearance, and about twenty-five years after146 THE SICKLE Mrs, Eddy’s discovery of this science, In the thirty-seventh edition, revised, page 246, she wrote: “At present we know not fully what we are; but this is certain, that we shall be Love, Life, and ‘Trath, when we understand them.” The words Love, Life, and Truth are capitalized denoting the triune God. Thus, according to her teachings, she at that time taught that we become God, or find that we are God, as we understand that we are the triune God, or Life, Truth and Love. ‘Why were these statements veiled in the later editions, for they ave vital to an understanding of the seience of Lifet Was it because these plain statements of truth are so startling to the blind believer? I hope there was a better reason, but at any rate, I think it was wrong to veil truth for any yeason whatsoever in this progressive age. The general impression that practically all students of the present edition get from their study of their text-book, as I have determined by careful inguiry, is that they are man and not God; and Mrs. Eady, in the first edition, states that this is the very fundamental error which brought to humanity all the troubles of our present existence. It is not enough to state that this veiling was done to hide truth from evil eyes, for the veil is soMETAPHYSICS 145 heavy that even the faithful cannot see and many have lost the true way. I did not gain my understanding of Life, God, from the present edition of ‘Science and Health,” although I studied it faithfully the first few years after I learned of Christian Science. After study- ing and searching to a point where my mentality was almost frantic in its endeavor to harmonize the various statements with each other and still keep them within the bounds of reason, I decided to go back and trace Mrs. Eddy’s footsteps from the very beginning. My idea in doing this was simply that I might not stray from her conception of God. I had no idea that I would find that Truth had been veiled from the honest searcher’s view. ‘Think of the many hours of suffering which have been endured by the faithful and which a clear understanding might have destroyed. Think of the father or mother or sister or babe who might still be on this plane, if the plain facts had not been veiled. Think of the broken families following the loss of father or mother who might have been saved through an understanding of the application of the all-powerful right thought.146 THE SICKLE ‘Think of the homes in which strife has entered because those of a reasoning mind could not agree with the confused blind faith of those who only partly understood the veiled truth. After thinking of all these things, do you believe I am wrong or right in my attempt to unveil the plain Truth, hewing straight to the line, letting the chips fall where they will? It is to again show these thousands of honest seckers for Truth the true way that this comment on Christian Science has been added to this book. Those who are wise will investigate carefully and profit by what they find. It would not surprise me if many, with more religious zeal than understanding, reviled me for having added these comments to this book. Mrs. Eddy has written something in this connection which I will quote. Third edition, S. & H., page 122: “If you have revelations and discoveries that others have not, and venture them upon the quiet surface of thought, they disturb the waters; and if you have stripped error of its disguise, your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up, it wins the crown and wears it. Pil- grim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger here, thou are the guest of God.”NATURE 149 ment that, rightly understood, Nature and God are one, but that nature is really mental instead of material. On page 119, line 17, S. & H., Mrs. Eddy wrote: cet one sense God is identical with nature, but this nature is spiritual and is not expressed in matter.”” ‘When nature is understood to be mental (spiritual), ‘ana the expressions or objectifications of nature dare understood to be mental (the objective state tf thought),'instead of material, then in this mental sonse is Nature identical with God. “What you see with the eye is not Nature itself, ‘put the expressions or forms which Nature assumes. Nature is the unseen Cause of trees and grass and all that is in the universe, including the so-called ruman body, but these objects are only the effect of Nature, God. Tt ean not be successfully denied that the nature of a thing makes it what it is. Therefore if a thing fe what it is because of its nature, and nature changes not, then nature ia the maker or cause of the thing made and also the cause of its changeless continuity. Nature is the invisible mentality or conscious: ness of which the objects that we see are but the Gbjective states. ‘These objective states are mental150 THE SICKLE in their nature, for their nature or substance is mentality, therefore subject to the ‘Power of men- tality, which power is thought. ‘Thus all that is, both in the invisible and the visible universe, is mental. Nature, the primal element, is mental, and, being mentality, its thinking or thought is mental. ‘The thought is the mentality in the subjeetive state and the objects that we see are the objectification of mentality, or mentality (thought) in the objective state.CHAPTER 10 SIN ‘What is sin? Perhaps wrong-doing expresses the general con- cept of sin better than any other word. Webster defines sin as, “The voluntary departure of a moral ngent from @ known role of rectitude or duty, Pemectbad by Goa.’ ‘Webntec’s defimiian 42 5000 vifar as it goes, but in life’s experience the Gnvoluntary departure from right, brings the same punishment as the voluntary departure. ‘In the broadest metaphysical sense, sin is ‘‘men- tal mistake.”” Any violation of nature’s law is ¢ mistake, be it voluntary or involuntary. ‘That is vahy we must know God, ““Nature,”” and its law, if we wrish to escape the seeming ills of our present existence. There are three procuring eauses of sin, namely, fear, ignorance and intentional wrong doing. Of the threo, gear is the grentest conse of sin. Next ‘4g our ignorance of mental Nature (God) ast152 THE SICKLE and its laws, and last and least, are the sins com- mitted intentionally. ‘In many cases of sin, fear and ignorance combine as the procuring cause, but there is also a class of sins (mental errors) that are directly caused by one or the other of these evils. When you make a mathematical mistake, you have violated the law of mathematics, that is, you have sinned against mathematics, ‘Your punish- ment exactly fits the crime, for you get a wrong answer to the problem you are trying to solve. This wrong answer is the objectification or effect of vour mental mistake. ‘When a musician makes a mistake in the music he is rendering, he violates the law of musical harmony. He has sinned against the law of musical harmony. The false or inharmonious sound that is Produced is the objectification or effect of the men- tal mistake he has made and the punishment ex- actly fits the crime. If he strikes one false note, he produces only one false sound, while if he strikes two false notes he produces two false sounds. In this connection it can readily be seen that these mental mistakes originate or are made in the three procuring causes enumerated. The mistakeSIN 158 may be the result of fear, ignorance, or the mistake may be intentional. In each instance, whether the mistake is from fear, ignorance, or intention, the false note, the penalty is produced just the same. ‘There is this difference in the punishment that we receive from intentional and unintentional vio- lations of law. If the false note arises from fear, it is corrected by allaying the fear, if from ignor- anee, by gaining a proper understanding. In both instances the player is willing and ready to change to the right when shown his mistake, but when it comes to intentional wrong doing, the individual is not so ready to cease his mistakes, for in nearly all intentional wrong doing the doer does the wrong because he thinks he has pleasure in it or profits from it, and so he is not ready and willing to cease the wrong doing when shown the wrong, thus he suffers longer. Many honest natures stop at once when shown the penalty for intentional wrong doing, but others will go their way for a time, or until the suffering occasioned by this intentional wrong doing be- comes so great that they feel that the pleasure or profit they derive therefrom does not counterbal- ance the ills they suffer, and even then they turn aside reluctantly.154 THE SICKLE ‘When you violate the laws of right living (right thinking and aeting), the law of Life, through fear, ignorance or intention, you invariably receive the exact punishment which this violation merits, for the very thoughts you used, when thinking wrongly, externalize themselves and you experience them in daily life. This is what the Scriptures call divine justice. It is the working out of natural law. It is the working out of inevitable mental Nature, the primal cause of all. ‘The Scriptural statement, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” is the stating of a law of God, a law of Nature. ‘The thoughts you mentally entertain to the point of conviction, express themselves in your daily life experiences. This is justice. For instance, if you think more of evil than good, you experience more evil than good. Why should you not? If you think so much more of evil than of good, you have the mental conviction that evil is more real than good and you ought to be rewarded by that which you think most of. This is one of the fundamental laws of Life, of Nature, and no one can violate this law without receiving his just deserts. ‘While it is true that the good alone is real and the evil unreal, this does not change the penalty,SIN 155 for when you think of evil, you think of it as real and therefore you experietice the evil effects pro- duced as though they were real, although they are not. It is a scientific fact, or unalterable Truth, that all Life or Nature is perfect, harmonious and good. If you think or believe otherwise, you violate the law of Truth, and thinking otherwise, namely, that there is imperfection, discord and evil in Life, you receive the very discord (the evil), that you think so much of. Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect ;’” Math. 5:48. In other words, the primal element, or Life, of which you are a part, is absolutely perfect and harmonious, and therefore you have no right to think of yourself as otherwise than perfect and harmonious. ‘You cannot violate the law of right thinking and escape the consequences. While there is no personal God who judges and sends you to ever- lasting punishment, there is a power that is ever with you and observes not only all that you do and say, but also takes note of even your most hidden and secret thought, and rewards you justly. ‘That power is your Nature, your own mentality.158 THE SICKLE do not actually know what is real and what is unreal, what is Truth and what is error, what is fact and what is fancy, what is understanding: and what is belief, what is good and what is evil, what is God and what is Devil. Nevertheless none of this ignorance can be laid at the door of Wisdom, God, for God, Mental Na- ture, made you out of the same substance as Him- self, namely, Mind, and gave you His (Its) own Wisdom. The actual Wisdom which you possess is not different from the Wisdom that is God. Human belief is not Wisdom. ‘The mentality that you are, possesses every quslity and faculty that God possesses. You can reason, you ean think, you can remember, you can understand, you ean judge. Having all that Wisdom is or can bestow, if you still remain in ignorance, this ignorance cannot rightly be laid at the door of Wisdom, God. ‘Humankind does not consider it too large a task to spend one or five years in constant application and study to master a trade or profession, but when it comes to the mastery of right thought and its application to all of Life’s problems, it seems that one or five months of study and application becomes a burden. ‘When the invitation to the spiritual marriageSIN 159 feast (the atonement (at-one-ment) with God) is received, all have excuses. One has his farm or business to attend to, another has no time at present, ete,, ete. Humankind does not consider that from one to five thousand dollars is too much to pay for a college education, the attempt to gain this educa- tion often ending in the human belief of overstudy and a life of nervousness and misery; but when it comes to paying one or five hundred dollars to gain. an understanding of Nature, God, and the life- long health and blessings which this understanding makes possible, then the price is called excessive, ‘Much of this error in thought is due to the fact that until the present time there has been no per- fect system evolved for teaching metaphysics so that the student could get a tangible and reason- able understanding of this Science. Until the pres- ent, this Science was always represented as being Science linked in some mysterious way to a mys- terious God. Metaphysical healing, as taught by me, is as practical, reasonable, and understandable as mathematics. The student is not asked to blindly believe, he is made to understand, “Seek and yo shall find, knock and it shall be160 THE SICKLE opened unto you.”’ This statement was never more fitting than now, for surely the portals to the Wisdom of Life are being flung open wide, and you have but to appropriate what others have searched for and found. It has been discovered and proved that Mind, Consciousness, is the primal element or Cause of all, and that a personal God is not the Creator of all. It has been discovered and proved that Life is wholly mental, that Spirit is true mentality and the Nature that makes all things what they are. It has been discovered and proved that Life is God and is one complete whole, embracing all true Consciousness or Life and that each individual consciousness or mentelity is an inseparable and indivisible part which goes to make up the whole. ‘Mrs. Eddy wrote, ‘Unity of Good,” page 5, ‘God is all true consciousness.’”” Tt has been discovered and proved that there is but the good side to Life; that the evil which we see is of the same nature as a lie, it being but the product of supposition or erring belief with no reality or foundation in fact, and that all evil, like any lie, returns to its native nothingness when the trath about it is known and demonstrated (con- clusively proved).SIN 161 It has been discovered and proved that we ex- perience in daily life all our thought conclusions and convictions, be they good or bad. Tt has been discovered and proved that you are mentality, part and pareel of the one and only Cause, namely, Consciousness; that you are not man, the cringing servant of a personal God, but that you are God yourself, and that only your body is man and is the image and likeness and the servant of you, the mentality, which is God. ‘It has been discovered and proved that wrong thinking is the source and cause of disease, as well as of all other ills to which the flesh is heir, and that a change in thought, from wrong convictions to right convictions, produces a corrésponding change in the conditions of the body and the environment. It has been diseovered and proved that the only real curative agent is right thought, understanding, Mind; that to enlighten the individual mentality to the point of understanding, with the actual Truth about any disease, is to make whole, or permanently heal, that individual.166 THE SICKL contract many diseases which they are investigat- ing or studying. In some cases, the student has been forced to stop his medical researches entirely, because of his sympathetic nature. ‘You may sympathize with the sick, not because they are really sick, but because of their ignorance of actual Truth, Always view all sickness as the externalized exhibit or visible expression of some one’s foolish erring belief in sickness, and never as reality, then you will be immune from all the ills that you see or hear about. ‘Many of the worst types of disease that we suffer from are caused by our errors of disposition. Love is the natural and most harmonious of all feeling, and being natural it is right feeling, and therefore any violation of right or good feeling is a violation of the law of love, and brings just punishment in illness and suffering. Fear and hate are the opposites of Love, and if ‘a sense of love brings a’sense of harmony and joy to the mentality, it can readily be seen what a terribly disturbing element we introduce into our ‘mental homes when we allow ourselves to fear and hate. Intense hate or fear can and does temporarilyDISEASE 167 disarrange the entire harmony of the mentality, and in this way can disarrange the harmonious action of the entire body. ‘The remedy is plain. If fearful, strive to quiet and overcome your fear through sound reasoning. Know the truth that disease is not conscious (cannot think) and therefore has no power to reproduce itself. Calmly reassure yourself that you possess the almighty power in your own right thinking. If these directions are followed persistently you will observe that in the same ratio that you estab- lish self-confidence, your fear will subside and when the fear is gone, all danger is past. Ig you are hateful, your remedy lies in the per- sistent exercise of patience and loving kindness. Our mental moods and feelings hold within them- selves the possibility of constant health, joy and success, or continuous disease, pain and poverty. ‘That the individual can govern his mental moods and feelings we all know to be certain. ‘True, it may take quite an effort at times, but it can be and should be done. There is nothing that compels you to become angry. You believe some incident to be the cause of your anger, but it is not the incident but your168 THE SICKLE own thought about the incident that makes you angry, and you know that you can control your own thinking if you wish to make the effort. The sense of hate that you entertain for some other individual or thing—where does it come from? Surely not from the other individual or thing. You must make it yourself with your thoughts of hate. If the other individual has hate for you, it is of his own making and he gets the punishment for his hateful sense just as surely as you get your punishment for the sense of hate that you entertain. ‘The objectification on the body of long con- tinued hate, envy, malice, impatience, dishonesty, unreasonableness, stubbornness, immorality, ete., are as easily read by the trained understanding of the metaphysician as an open book. I have often surprised patients whom I have never seen or heard of before, by writing them a complete description of their mental moods, dispo- sitions and habitual thoughts, merely from their written description of symptoms of their ills. Of course I am more certain when I have both the symptoms and the individual before me. ‘This is rightly called metaphysical diagnosis. I have met very few who even knew of this part of the scienceDISEASE 169 of Life. Ihave spent many years in its mastery. ‘The greatest healer of her age, Mrs. Eddy, wrote in “Christian Healing,” page12, line7: “The meta- physician goes to the fount to govern the streams; he diagnoses disease as mind, the basis of all action.”” Nature, God, is not mocked. You cannot violate the laws of your own mental nature without reap- ing the punishment which fits the violation. You may think that you have been wise enough to dodge the penalty for some wrong thought or act, merely because punishment is delayed, but your mentality has a way of storing up your misdeeds against a day of judgment, therefore do not flatter yourself that beeause punishment for wrong doing of whatever nature, is not immediate, that you will escape the penalty. Later, when some very little wrong thought or act swings the balance com- pletely to the wrong side, and you reap the reward of years of wrong doing, you ery out against divine justice and say that the penalty is much greater than the crime. You have forgotten the many times that you seemingly escaped the penalty for wrong thinking or doing. Scientific test has shown that if a drop of blood taken from a normally healthy person, in a har- monious mental mood, is analyzed, the analysis will170 THE SICKLE show little or no bile, ‘Take this same individual and let him mentally entertain a sense of intense hate for even a short time, then make another test of his blood. You will find bile present in notice- able quantities. ‘This shows that a normal body can be contam- ed in a short time through a sense of hate. If this evil sense be kept up for years, or is indulged intermittently nearly every hour of the day, what can be expected but a diseased body. Specific habitual evil moods and evil thinking do externalize themselves in specific chronic diseases, and that is why the metaphysical diegnostician can read, from the specific chronic disease, the mental mood or disposition which needs correction to effect a lasting healing. It must not be supposed that I advocate the belief that all the bodily ills of the individual are caused by the disposition or evil moods of the mentality. Not at all, but I do assert that certain evil moods of the mind, habitually indulged, are responsible for certain specific chronic diseases. I refer to the diseases which are caused by actual sin or intentional wrong thinking and wrong doing. ‘The very same type of disease may be objectified in the body, either by the fear of it, or through .DISEASE m wrong thought caused by ignorance of the source of disease. To illustrate this point I will give you the result of a little research along this line. Every habitual or inveterate liar will have and does have kidney trouble. ‘This does not mean that every individual who suffers from kidney trouble is a liar. Not at all, but merely that every habitual liar will have kidney trouble. Habitual lying is only one of the causes of kidney trouble. There are two other causes, namely, fear and ignorance, either one of which might be re- sponsible for any certain case of kidney’ disease. However, the metaphysician who understands the mentality can readily determine which of these three causes is responsible for the particular case in hand. Just as habitual lying will inevitably be em- bodied as kidney disease, so also the habitual exercise of other evil: thoughts will externalize as specific chronic diseases in certain organs of the body, and for a very scientific reason, Some teach that this is not true metaphysies, but these teachers will no doubt change their statements after more careful study and observation. No doubt, many base their thought to the contrary because they view the physical organs as material,172 THE SICKLE and knowing that Mrs. Eddy teaches that there is no matter, they come to the false conclusion that there is no organism at all. The bodily organs, as matter, do not exist, but as spiritual, the mani- festation of Spirit, they do exist. ‘On page 27, line 27, ‘Miscellaneous Writings,’” ‘Mrs. Eddy wrote, “But, say you, is a stone spir- itual?”” She answers this query with these words: “To erring material sense, no! but to unerring spiritual sense it is a small manifestation of Mind, a type of spiritual Substance.”” From this it can be seen that the body and its organs according to spiritual sense must also be spiritual, though according to erring belief they seem material. Rightly understood they are the objective state of Mind. ‘There is nothing more certain than that all mental discord which is long continued, will show forth in bodily disease. ‘You cannot escape the sure results of your own thinking, hence the necessity of learning the trath about existence in order to realize the blessings which come from thinking in conformity with ‘Truth. This is what is meant by the Bible state- ment, Job 22, verse 21: ‘‘Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace.””CHAPTER 12 SELF HEALING ‘There aré millions of honest, conscientious indi- ‘viduals who still believe in God as a personal ruler and who also believe that this personal ruler is responsible for the troubles and blessings which they experience. Often we hear it said, even by the clergy, referring to some occurrence or death, “Tt is the will of God.”” ‘The commonly accepted explanation is that God gives the sickness as a punishmeut for wrong doing, but often one apparently living a blameless life is stricken, and then it is laid to the inserutable will of God. Nothing could be further from the Trath than that a personal, far away God causes the ills and troubles of this life. Calm reasoning alorg this line will readily eon- vince the reasoner. Jesus healed all manner of sickness. If sickness was God-made, then Jesus was guilty of destroying the works of God when M3m4 = THE SICKLE he became a healer. Also all individuals who endeavored to regain health, or who tried to heal themselves, would be guilty of trying to destroy the works of God. ‘The idea that Jesus came to destroy sickness, as though sickness were something real, is a mistake. Jesus said, ‘I did not come to destroy, but to ful- fill.’” If Jesus had thought that sickness was really but a physical disorder, he would not have been able to heal it simply through the exercise of his right thought as he did. With the belief in his consciousness that sickness was real he could not have sent his Word and healed him. Jesus knew that sickness was not real, but that the bodily effects, called disease, were the direct ‘outcome or expressed form of erring thought re- garding Life and its manifestation. Jesus knew that all so-called bodily ills were the direct ex- ternalization of erring mental images held in the individual mentality, Jesus knew that to be able to effect a change in the thought convictions of the individual mentality, would be to produce a corre- sponding change in the image or body of that indi- vidual. Jesus knew that the mental state must be changed before the bodily state could be. ‘The Master knew that sickness was but an erringSELF HEALING 15 mental sense, of which the bodily condition was the objectification, and that if he could by any means change the discordant mental sense, to a correct sense, the body would record the change unerringly. ‘Mrs. Eddy also discovered this Truth, for in her book, “Unity of Good,”’ page 11, line 8, she states, “Destroy the mental sense of the disease, and the disease itself disappears.” ‘The Master knew that the absolutely scientific way in which to accomplish this, was to aequaint the individual mentality with the Truth (the truth about existence), for this would destroy the erring mortal sense. His mission was to show forth, in a practical way, that all of the promises of the Bible were possible of fulfillment. Not that a personal God would fulfill these promises, but that each indi- vidual could, if-he knew the truth of existence, fulfil them for himself; for he said in substance that whatsoever ye desire, believe that ye shall receive and ye shall receive. In other words, you can fulfill your own desires through and with your own thought convictions. Jesus also knew the wonderful part which blind faith (blind belief) could play in the bringing176 THE SICKLE about of a change in the thought of the individual, and he used this knowledge to change the previous erring convictions of the many ignorant but honest ones, he lacking time to teach them the actuality of Life. Jesus did not come to destroy actual sickness. ‘He knew that there is none in actuality, but that sickness, so-called, is but the shadow of sick thought east upon the body, or the individual beliefs of the mentality externalized in and on the body. Jesus could not do ‘many mighty works in his home town’? where the townspeople knew him as a carpenter. Why? Because they would not aceept his teaching as truth and because they thought he knew no more of Life than they did, consequently he could not readily change their thought convietions regarding their ills, hence no healing resulted. Because of their lack of confidence in the car- penter’s son, blind faith could not effect a change of conviction for the better in the people of his own town. ‘True, a few with minor ailments had some faith, perhaps because of what they had heard of his healing work, and these he healed, but the masses ‘were not influenced.SELF HEALING 11 So-called bodily illness is but the objectification or externalization of a sense of sickness held in the mentality. The type of sickness is determined entirely by the particular sense of sickness held before the consciousness. The intensity of the dis- ease is governed by the amount of fear of the disease. In a minor number of cases and especially in so-called organic disease, the cause will be found to lie in erring mental moods and dispositions. ‘To remove the bodily externalization of sickness, it is first necessary that the particular erring mental sense responsible for the bodily distress, be destroyed. If by any means the sense of sickness, held in the mentality, changes from the sense of one sickness to another, the bodily sickness will change to corre- spond; and if by any means the mental sense can be changed from, ‘I have this illness” to the sense conviction that, “It is leaving,” the body will slowly show the change which is taking place in the mentality. If the mental sense (thought convie- tion) that “I am sick”? can be instantly changed to the thought conviction, “I am well,”” instan- taneous healing will be recorded on the body. ‘Where an illness is the direct result of an118 THE SICKLE habitual erring mental mood ‘or disposition, this erring mood or disposition must be corrected before permanent healing will result. This is not theory, it is demonstrable fact. Any- one ean prove it for himself and upon himself. ‘The trouble is that many who have attempted self- healing through’a purely mental means, did not mow just what they were trying to do, and their sense that an outside God or power was needed to produce healing, handicapped their own mentali- ties so that they had only partial or no success in self-healing. ‘The main point to work for in self-healing is the point of self-correction and self-conviction, for self- healing is the process by which the mentality con- vinces itself that it is not sick and that it cannot be sick or imperfect; this becomes easier as the mentality grasps the true idea of Life, namely, that the mentality is God and is absolutely and change. lessly perfect and well at all times, that it can no more be sick than that God ean be sick, for in real- ity the mentality is an indivisible part of the whole of God or Nature, or Natural Good. Every particle of understanding of the truth of existence that the individual is aware of should, through’a deductive reasoning process, be broughtSELF HEALING 179 to bear on the belief of the reality of sickness, in order to make the sickness appear what it is, namely, an illusion or erring mental sense instead of reality. Scientific reasoning must be employed to help gain the conviction that health is the natural, normal and the legitimate or real condition of all being, and that sickness is abnormal, unnatural, henee unreal. It must not be supposed that all that is neces- sary to produce self-healing is to repeat some state- ment of Truth, or some formula, for this is not trae. You must work to gain a positive mental conviction that the statement of truth you are mak- ing is true, and as far as possible expect to receive benefit from your mental work. Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” In other words, you must know (understand) the truth to be truth and keep knowing it: Keep sensing the fact until you are free from the opposite erring sense. He did not say, “Ye shall state or declare the truth and ye will be healed,” as some think. No matter how much reasoning or thinking you do, if you do not gain a change of conviction thereby, you will see no bodily change. ‘The bodily.180 THE SICKLE condition changes only at the point of the men- tality’s change of conviction, A slight change of convietion will be shown as a slight improvement, and a complete change will be expressed as a com- plete change in the bodily condition. Ig this change of conviction is wrought through right reasoning and understanding, then is the healing absolutely scientific and it will become permanent, If the change in conviction is wrought through blind faith in the method employed, or faith in the formula used, and healing ensues, the healing is not scientific, and is likely to a recur- renee, for this is but blind faith-healing, and blind faith is ever fluctuating, and not the rock (under- standing) upon which one should build. Faith gained through your own understanding of actuality, or faith in your own ability to cast out the erring sense through your own understanding, is scientific faith and is the only kind worth having, and is extremely powerful in producing harmony (health). ‘The problem which confronts you, if you wish to heal yourself, is twofold. ‘First, you should gain a reasonable amount of actual understanding regard- ing Life and its manifestations; mentality and its subjective and objective states. Second, you shouldSELF HEALING 181 acquaint yourself, as far as possible, with the na- ture of sickness, how induced, and with the best process of disabusing your mentality of the erring mental sense of sickness of which the bodily sick- ness is the expressed manifestation or shadowing forth. ‘The first ean be obtained through reasoning prac- tically on the improbability of the real God being a personal ruler, as we have been erringly taught from childhood. The improbable and ridiculous things which are ascribed to the reign of such a ruler should awaken us, ‘If you will reason calmly about these things you will be convinced of the improbability of the uni- verse being governed by a personal God. ‘The very logic of the thought which Jesus ex- pressed as to God being Life itself, and the idea that all Life is from the primal element which is Life itself, should lead you to change your thought regarding a personal God. ‘The fact that Jesus brought to the remembrance of the Jews the Scripture statement, “Ye are gods,’ and said that this Seripture could not be broken, that is, that it was correct, ought to show you that you are part of the causative element or God. A little more thought will convince you thar182 THE SICKLE your conseiousness or mentality is your Life and is you. ‘When the mentality departs, your Life departs and you also depart, showing them to be one and the same, Having arrived at the point where you can at least dimily see that Life, Consciousness, must havo been first, or the primal Cause, because previous to consciousness all would be blank, and knowing that you are conscious, you now will understand that your consciousness must be the azimating ele- ment and your very self. Realizing that consciousness can do but one thing, namely, think, you are now ready to obey the Serip- tural injunction Phil, 2:12, “‘work out your own salvation” through right thinking. You are an individual consciousness, and your individual salvation depends solely upon your own thinking ; therefore use the power of God, the power of Mind, the almighty power of your own right thought, and harmoniously unfold your own men- tality to the ultimate of all being, namely, perfect intelligence, or harmonious eternal Being. Salvation is the freeing of your mentality from erring human belief convictions of the reality of sin,, sickness and death, through overcoming andSELF HEALING 183 casting them out of your consciousness by the aid of sound reason and understanding. In this work you must have constant recourse to the Savior or Christ,-which Christ is Right Reason. ‘The second can be obtained through the under- standing that sickness is but sick thought external- ized. You must take the opposing side to any complaint that may seem to come from the body and strive, through right thought and sane reason- ing, to convince yourself of the truth that the body, being unable to think, cannot feel. Being unable to feel, the pain or discord which seems to be in the body, must be an illusion, and above all, mentally insist that there is only one side to Life, the perfect and good side. ‘You must remember that it takes the directly opposite thought or sense to heal any ailment when using either the argumentative or the sensing method. All ills are the result of erring thought, erring mental moods or evil disposition, and so the directly opposite thought, mood or disposition would be the right or healing Truth. Do not forget that Jesus said: ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."” John 8:32. This knowing of the truth does not mean that by making-a true statement once, you would be healed.184 THE SICKLE It means that you should know (keep knowing) the truth about the matter of the very error in hand un- til this right sense has overcome your previous oppo- site or erring sense; then you will, of course, be free. ‘When treating yourself or others, do not fall into the common error of spending two-thirds of your time in denying the error or sickness which you claim to be unreal; learn to make your treat- ment affirmations of Truth, and not mere denials of error, To illustrate: ‘The opposite thought of “Tam sick,” is not, “I am not sick.” ‘The directly opposite thought is the affirmation that ‘I am perfectly well.”” Healing through denial is the work of the human mind. God or Divine Mind oes not know sickness, so never denies. Divine Mind heals by affirming Truth. ‘The science of right thinking is a science indeed and, like mathematics and music, a teacher can show you how and what to do, but you must do the practicing and make the applications yourself to be- come proficient in the work. ‘Many musicians study from ten to thirty years, and practice many hours daily to become master of a certain instrument, Is it too much to ask you to practice daily the application of right thought to the mastery of your erring beliefs and the seemingSELF HEALING 185 evil conditions that may surround you, the reward of which mastery is your salvation from every ill thereafter? ‘This science can not be learned in a day, but you can solve the lesser problems with very little prac- tice, and as you gain results in these, and continue in your application of right thought, you will soon prove to yourself that all things are possible to the power of God (right thought). Suppose that you have a sense of stomach ache which you attribute to something that you have eaten, a pickle, or some meat, perhaps, or both. ‘If you desire to heal this mentally, you should summon to your aid your ability to think and reason, and reason and think Truth after this manner: “Is there more than one cause? No, there is but one cause. What is that cause? It is God, Mind, right consciousness, mentality, right thought. ‘Then this pickle and meat which I have eaten are not cause? No, the pickle and meat are dead. ‘They can not make any evil condition for me. But the pickle seems to have stopped the digestion. The pickle is dead and is not cause. It can not make any condition whatever. But the meat seems to have fermented and created a gas and this gas is causing pain ‘in my stomach.186 THE SICKLE “The stomach 6f itself has neither feeling nor the ability to digest food. My mentality is the only cause and it is that which can and does digest all food that I put into my stomach. That the meat can ferment or make any condition of its own is not true, having no ability to think, it eannot make. All that I have been experiencing is the result of an illusion, the result of an erring sense or belief, and the-truth is thet my mentality governs every action and feeling of my body, that my body is the servant, and my mentality the master.’ I there- fore insist that all that I have eaten must at my command digest harmoniously and I insist that this is taking place now, for T know that there is nothing but perfection and good to all life.”” ‘Will you succeed? ‘Try it dear friend, but make sure that you work ever toward the conviction that there can be no such thing as a discordant condition in the body or in life, that the truth of existence is that the good alone is all and that in reality there is no such thing as disease. Continue your mental work until you gain the conviction that what you are thinking is Truth and place a radical reliance on the truth you think and you will have fall proof in your healing. ‘As you gain the mental sense that the food isSELF HEALING 187 digesting, it will follow this sense and digest, just as at the moment it is following your sense that it is not digesting, because you are at the moment entertaining that sense. In regard to the gas and pain, get rid of the mental sense of gas and pain, by affirming their non-existence, and you will not find them in the body. ‘Whenever it is possible to trace the error to the supposed cause, deny that it is cause and em- phatically insist that you know that nothing has power to create but Mind, right thought, God, and ‘then mentally affirm that every supposed bodily symptom is mere illusion, Remember, always, the truth that Mind is the only true cause, and that there is but one side to Life, namely, the good side. Be sure to exclude, as far as possible, all thought of the wrong sense and keep mowing (sensing) the truth of existence, that all is good and perfect. As you, through your affirming and reasoning, gradually gain a conviction of the reality of the good side-of Life, the body will respond to this right conviction. If the trouble is an acute attack, and not of long standing, you will perhaps be able to gain a conviction of the reverse, or truth, in a short time, often instantly, after you become able to handle your thought as you should.188 THE SICKLE If the trouble is a so-called chronic ailment, you must keep at it every day with vim and insistence, and in due time it will yield. It is harder to con- vince your own mind of the nothingness of a belief which you for years have believed to be real, than it is to get rid of a belief that has not yet made any deep or lasting. mental impression. If the trouble is from evil disposition or inten. tional wrong thinking or doing, it is evident that you can not heal the bodily effect of such wrong thought until you cease from such wrong doing or evil disposition; for the continued wrong thinking will rebuild the error as fast as you tear it down with your right thinking, and this is a house, (mentality) divided against itself, and cannot stand, cannot win. Ifyou fear the disease, or imagine that you will not be able to conquer it, then this fear of the dis- ease and fear of non-suecess in healing it must be treated first. In treating your fear, use your thought after this manner: ‘I am absolutely fearless, for I know that in reality I am indestructibly perfect and well. T have absolute faith in my understanding that my own right thought will destroy this illusion. . I know that this seeming bodily discord is only theSELF HEALING 189 externalization of e wrong sense, held in my men- tality. I am not obliged to change the body, I need but to effect a change in my thought or sense, and the body, which is the embodiment of my thought convictions, will change to correspond. I know that I ean change my thought, and therefore, all that I need to do is to reason rightly to gain a conviction of the true facts, and this will auto- matically destroy this seeming trouble.”” ‘You should reason to gain confidence in your own ability. You should reason to reassure yourself of your ability to bring out the condition you desire. Have more faith in good than in evil, more faith in God than in Devil, more faith in the power of your right thought than in your erring thought; for you know that right is mightier than wrong, and by dwelling on your perfection with unfinch- ing persisteney you will actually accomplish the change in mental conviction in the very face of the supposed opposite conditions of the body, and then the body will change to conform. If you sue- ceed in gaining a slight conviction you will notice but a slight change for the better. If the mental conviction is positive, the healing will be complete. It is not necessary to illustrate how to handle every ailment. They are all of the same nature, namely, an externalization of erring mental aetion190 THE SICKLE or erring mental sense, held in the mentality, and all are healed in the same way by working for a mental conviction of perfection, and holding to this perfect sense to the destruction of the erring sense. At no time do you treat your body. It does no good, for the body is not conscious and cannot recognize your treatment. When trying to heal yourself you treat your own wrong thought or err ing beliefs about the body, either casting them out of mind entirely or changing them to conform to perfection, and the body automatically records the mentel change. If treating soine one else, you treat (strive to correct) their thought, not their bodies. It is folly for you, to say that you do not believe this method will succeed when the proof is so readily obtainable and in your own hands. Take some slight ailment to begin with, and follow direo- tions given, carefully and persistently, and in less time than you think possible you will be able to prove all to your own satisfaction. ‘When you have demonstrated to yourself the truth of this mental system of healing, in the heal- ing of the lesser ills, you will gain the necessary confidence or conviction of thought to heal so-called greater ills, They are greater only because you fear them more and your fear magnifies them to your frightened sense.CHAPTER 13 HEALING OTHERS That one individual can heal another through @ purely mental method is certain. That this can be accomplished through the oral or spoken method, and also throngh silent thought is likewise certain, ‘That healing through right thought can be accom- Plished in the presence of the patient or at any dis- tance has also been fully proved. Among students of metaphysies there is a wide divergence of opinion as to how this mental work is accomplished. Many metaphysicians, who have much mental healing to their credit, do not under- stand in the least the scientific reason why it is Possible to heal another through right thought, but give credit for the healing they actually accom. Plished through their right thinking to a power other than their own right thought and outside their own mental power, which unknown power they are pleased to call God. . A very large number of metaphysical students 11192 THE SICKLE have an idea that healing is wrought through the aid of a God who takes the case and heals it after the healers have partially prepared the way by doing “their work,”” as they express it. Thave often heard the remark: ‘I do my work, and Divine Love does the rest.”” Mrs. Eddy noted that some of her followers were inclined to treat a case and then consign it to God’s hands, as they expressed it, and knowing that this was a great error, she wrote: ‘‘Long prayers, in which God is told that the case is hopeless, and asked to take the patient to himself, are the prayers that do not heal the sick. Zhe condition of mind determines the case, and is improved or injured in proportion to the Truth or error that is influencing its con- clusions.” 8. & H., 7th Ed., page 187. It is plain to be seen from this statement of Mrs. Eddy’s, that those who treat a case for a time and then let Divine Love take the case for healing have not understood Mrs. Bady’s teachings, for she plainly. says that “