a.k.a The Twelve Disciples.  

"And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease." Matt.10:1.

The twelve disciples represent the twelve qualities of mind which can be controlled and disciplined by man. If disciplined they will at all times obey the command of the one who has disciplined them.

These twelve qualities in man are potentials of every mind. Undisciplined their actions resemble more the actions of a mob than they do of a trained and disciplined army. All the storms and confusions that engulf man can be traced directly to these twelve ill-related characteristics of the human mind in its present slumbering state. Until they are awakened and disciplined they will permit every rumor and sensuous emotion to move them.

When these twelve are disciplined and brought under control the one who accomplishes this control will say to them, "Hereafter I call you not slaves but friends." He knows that from that moment on each acquired disciplined attribute of mind will befriend and protect him.

The names of the twelve qualities reveal their natures. These names are not given to them until they are called to discipleship. They are: Simon, who was later surnamed Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Canaanite, and Judas.

The first quality to be called and disciplined is Simon or the attribute of hearing. This faculty, when lifted to the level of a disciple, permits only such impressions to reach consciousness as those which his hearing has commanded him to let enter. No matter what the wisdom of man might suggest or the evidence of his senses convey, if such suggestions and ideas are not in keeping with that which he hears, he remains unmoved. This one has been instructed by his Lord and made to understand that every suggestion he permits to pass his gate will, on reaching his Lord and Master (his consciousness), leave its impression there, which impression must in time become an expression.

The instruction to Simon is that he should permit only dignified and honorable visitors or impressions to enter the house (consciousness) of his Lord. No mistake can be covered up or hidden from his Master, for every expression of life tells his Lord whom he consciously or unconsciously entertained.

When Simon by his works proves himself to be a true and faithful disciple then he receives the surname of Peter or the rock, the unmoved disciple, the one who cannot be bribed or coerced by any visitor. He is called by his Lord Simon Peter, the one who faithfully hears the commands of his Lord and besides which commands he hears not.

It is this Simon Peter who discovers the I AM to be Christ, and for his discovery is given the keys to heaven, and is made the foundation stone upon which the Temple of God rests. Buildings must have firm foundations and only the disciplined hearing can, on learning that the I AM is Christ, remain firm and unmoved in the knowledge that I AM Christ and beside ME there is no savior.

The second quality to be called to discipleship is Andrew or courage. As the first quality, faith in oneself, is developed it automatically calls into being its brother, courage. Faith in oneself, which asks no man's help, but quietly and alone appropriates the consciousness of the quality desired, and in spite of reason, or the evidence of his senses to the contrary, continues faithfully and patiently waiting in the knowledge that his unseen claim, if sustained; must be realized. Such faith develops a courage and strength of character, that are beyond the wildest dreams of the undisciplined man; whose faith is in things seen.

The faith of the undisciplined man cannot really be called faith. For if the armies, medicines or wisdom of man in which his faith is placed be taken from him, his faith and courage go with it. But from the disciplined one the whole world could be taken and yet he would remain faithful in the knowledge that the state of consciousness in which he abides must in due season embody itself. This courage is Peter's brother Andrew, the disciple, who knows what it is to dare, to do and to be silent.

The next two who are called are also related. These are the brothers, James and John, James the just, the righteous judge, and his brother John, the beloved. Justice to be wise must be administered with love, ever turning the other cheek and at all times returning good for evil, love for hate, nonviolence for violence.

The disciple James, symbol of a disciplined judgment, must when raised to the high office of a supreme judge be blindfolded that he may not be influenced by the flesh nor judge after the appearances of being. Disciplined judgment is administered by one who is not influenced by appearances. The one who has called these brothers to discipleship continues faithful to his command to hear only that which he has been commanded to hear, namely, the Good. The man who has this quality of his mind disciplined is incapable of hearing and accepting as true anything either of himself or another which does not on the hearing fill his heart with love.

These two disciples or aspects of the mind are one and inseparable when awakened. Such a disciplined one forgives all men for being that which they are. He knows as a wise judge that every man perfectly expresses that which he is, as man, conscious of being. He knows that upon the changeless foundation of consciousness all manifestation rests, that changes of expression can be brought about only through changes of consciousness.

With neither condemnation nor criticism these disciplined qualities of the mind permit everyone to be that which he is. However, although allowing this perfect freedom of choice to all, they are nevertheless ever watchful to see that they themselves prophesy and do both for others and themselves only such things which when expressed glorify, dignify and give joy to the expresser.

The fifth quality called to discipleship is Philip. This one asked to be shown the Father. The awakened man knows that the Father is the state of consciousness in which man dwells, and that this state or Father can be seen only as it is expressed. He knows himself to be the perfect likeness or image of that consciousness with which he is identified. So he declares, "No man has at any time seen my Father, but I, the son, who dwelleth in his bosom have revealed him; therefore, when you see me, the son, you see my Father, for I come to bear witness of my Father." I and my Father, consciousness and its expression, God and man, are one.

This aspect of the mind when disciplined persists until ideas, ambitions and desires become embodied realities. This is the quality which states "Yet in my flesh shall I see God." It knows how to make the word flesh, how to give form to the formless.

The sixth disciple is called Bartholomew. This quality is the imaginative faculty, which quality of the mind when once awake distinguishes one from the masses. An awakened imagination places the one so awakened head and shoulders above the average man, giving him the appearance of a beacon light in a world of darkness. No quality so separates man from man as does the disciplined imagination. This I is the separation of the wheat from the chaff. Those ~ who have given most to society are our artists, scientists, inventors and others with vivid imaginations.

Should a survey be made to determine the reason why so many seemingly educated men and women fail in their after-college years or should it be made to determine the reason for the different earning powers of the masses, there would be no doubt but that imagination played the important part. Such a survey would show that it is imagination which makes one a leader while the lack of it makes one a follower.

Instead of developing the imagination of man, our educational system oftentimes stifles it by attempting to put into the mind of man the wisdom he seeks. It forces him to memorize a number of text books which, all too soon, are disproved by later text books. Education is not accomplished by putting something into man; its purpose is to draw out of man the wisdom which is latent within him. May the reader call Bartholomew to discipleship, for only as this quality is raised to discipleship will you have the capacity to conceive ideas that will lift you beyond the limitations of man.

The seventh is called Thomas. This disciplined quality doubts or denies every rumor and suggestion that are not in harmony with that which Simon Peter has been commanded to let enter. The man who is conscious of being healthy (not because of inherited health, diets or climate, but because he is awakened and knows the state of consciousness in which he lives) will, in spite of the conditions of the world, continue to express health. He could hear through the press, radio and wise men of the world that a plague was sweeping the earth and yet he would remain unmoved and unimpressed. Thomas, the doubter when disciplined would deny that sickness or anything else which was not in sympathy with the consciousness to which he belonged had any power to affect him.

This quality of denial when disciplined protects man from receiving impressions that are not in harmony with his nature. He adopts an attitude of total indifference to all suggestions that are foreign to that which he desires to express. Disciplined denial is not a fight or a struggle but total indifference.

Matthew, the eighth, is the gift of God. This quality of the mind reveals man's desires as gifts of God. The man who has called this disciple into being knows that every desire of his heart is a gift from heaven and that it contains both the power and the plan of its self-expression. Such a man never questions the manner of its expression. He knows that the plan of expression is never revealed to man for God's ways are past finding out. He fully accepts his desires as gifts already received and goes his way in peace confident that they shall appear.

The ninth disciple is called James the son of Alphaeus. This is the quality of discernment. A clear and ordered mind is the voice which calls this disciple into being. This faculty perceives that which is not revealed to the eye of man. This disciple judges not from appearances for it has the capacity to function in the realm of causes and so is never misled by appearances.

Clairvoyance is the faculty which is awakened when this quality is developed and disciplined, not the clairvoyance of the mediumistic seance rooms, but the true clairvoyance or clear seeing of the mystic. That is, this aspect of the mind has the capacity to interpret that which is seen. Discernment or the capacity to diagnose is the quality of James the son of Alphaeus.

Thaddaeus, the tenth, is the disciple of praise, a quality in which the undisciplined man is woefully lacking. When this quality of praise and thanksgiving is awake within man, he walks with the words, "Thank you, Father," ever on his lips. He knows that his thanks for things not seen opens the windows of heaven and permits gifts beyond his capacity to receive to be poured upon him.

The man who is not thankful for things received is not likely to be the recipient of many gifts from the same source. Until this quality of the mind is disciplined, man will not see the desert blossom as the rose. Praise and thanksgiving are to the invisible gifts of God (one's desires) what rain and sun are to the unseen seeds in the bosom of the earth.

The eleventh quality called is Simon of Canaan. A good key phrase for this disciple is "Hearing good news." Simon of Canaan, or Simon from the land of milk and honey, when called to discipleship, is proof that the one who calls this faculty into being has become conscious of the abundant life. He can say with the Psalmist David, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over." This disciplined aspect of the mind is incapable of hearing anything other than good news and so is well qualified to preach the Gospel or Good-spell.

The twelfth and last of the disciplined qualities of the mind is called Judas. When this quality is awake man knows that he must die to that which he is before he can become that which he desires to be. So it is said of this disciple that he committed suicide, which is the mystic's way of telling the initiated that Judas ; the disciplined aspect of detachment. This one knows that his I AM or consciousness is his savior, so he lets all other saviors go. This quality when disciplined gives one the strength to let go.

The man who has called Judas into being has learned how to take his attention away from problems or limitations and to place it upon that which is the solution or savior. "Except ye be born again you cannot in anywise enter the Kingdom of Heaven." "No greater love hath man than this, that he give his life for a friend." When man realizes that the quality desired, if realized, would save and befriend him, he willingly gives up his life (present conception of himself) for his friend by detaching his consciousness from that which he is conscious of being and assuming the consciousness of that which he desires to be.

Judas, the one whom the world in its ignorance has blackened, will when man awakes from his undisciplined state, be placed on high for God is love and no greater love has a man than this that he lay down his life for a friend. Until man lets go of that which he is now conscious of being, he will not become that which he desires to be; and Judas is the one who accomplishes this through suicide or detachment.

These are the twelve qualities which were given to man in the foundation of the world. Man's duty is to raise them to the level of discipleship. When this is accomplished man will say, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. I have glorified thee on earth and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine Own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

THE BODY BUILT THE BRAIN: BUT NOW THE BRAIN IS LEARNING HOW TO BUILD THE BODY: THE ACTION BETWEEN BRAIN AND BODY IS GOING TO BE ONE OF RECIPROCAL INTERCHANGE.

 

DESIRE is the infusing principle of individual growth. It is the factor by which our bodies have been built; first of all the lower or inferior parts of our bodies have attained form and power, and finally other and higher parts; and last the brain, which is the machine that investigates the desires and generates the thought that assists in executing them.

The importance of desire can never be overestimated. As the brain strengthens we get a better idea of desire, and our respect, yes, our veneration for it increases constantly. It is the propelling power within the man, and the brain is its interpreter; and thought is its means of communication with the external world.

Man is the culmination of all the lives that existed before him: he is the sum-total of all the previous growth on the planet, whether impressed in mineral, vegetable or animal forms of life. He is the complete compendium of all the lives that ever existed; and he has reached his high position through the medium of that impelling impulse which underlies every manifestation of life; that impulse we think of so seldom, analyze so little, look at so critically when we attempt to give it a partial analysis, and in many instances condemn as unnecessary and even unholy.

"Crush out your desires," says the voice of ignorance that runs through every class of society; not knowing that to crush out desire is to crush out life.

But desire has never been crushed out. It has advanced steadily toward its own fulfillment, in spite of the misguided intelligence that could not comprehend its mission. Desire instead of being crushed by the half-formed intelligence of past times, has gone on in its efforts and developed the intellect until the time has arrived when the intellect perceives the mighty mission of desire and begins to attach the valuation to it that it deserves.

This investigation of desire is the beginning of man's conscious or reasoning life. It marks his ascension from the animal or physical to the mental plane; the plane where we shall soon perceive that all things are mental, and from which we shall speak a new tongue never spoken before in all the world; a language from which all helplessness and all disposition to lean has disappeared; a language so full of strength that its every word is creative; a language which endows desire with the power that belongs to it; and which proclaims this power abroad, until the entire race feels that it is no longer weak and helpless, but that the force within itself as expressed in desire is a sufficient guarantee, that what it wants to be it will be, and that what it wants to do it will do.

Desire gratified has all along built the brain, and the brain has built the body; so that at this time the body is the brain's tool; its medium of communication with that which is outside of itself; it is the one necessity without which neither desire nor thought has any need of existence.

The body is one; it comprises the desire, and the intelligence that recognizes the desire. It is complete in its oneness. It is not only the home of the "I," but it is the "I" itself.

Once it was believed that the soul or spirit was some intangible thing that permeated the body, but could do even better without the body than with it. Mental Science proclaims a different thing from this. It teaches that man on his present plane has no use for any kind of power but that which the body generates, and which is first expressed in thought, and afterward in action. It does not deny the existence of a spirit that lives after the visible body dies; it has a theory of its own concerning this matter which will be explained in a later section. But while not denying the existence of soul or spirit, it does deny the use of yielding up the body, ignoring our present lives, for the sake of magnifying the spirit.

Mental Science, which is another name for common-sense, centers its hope on the body because the body is ours now, and its uses are manifested to us every hour of the present time.

In the face of the whole world's belief to the contrary, I am going to state as the most potent fact of the age that the body is all there is of man. If he has a spirit that lives after him, it is a part of his body here on earth, and the seeming two are really one; they are both body. All there is of a man is body. If there is a spirit—which I believe though I cannot prove— then it has been created by the body and is detached from the body at death, because it is a substance so fine and volatile that it cannot help but ascend; the grave cannot hold it, for it is thought. It is the complete thought-life of the man or woman; the record of all the thought his or her brain ever created.

The reason I attach so much importance to the body, and so comparatively little importance to the soul or spirit, is because I know if there is a soul or spirit that survives the body, that we shall find it all right when we come to the need of an acquaintance with it. In the meantime it is proving a ruinous thing to the body to attempt to live in the spirit until we can no longer live in the body.

We must get better acquainted with our bodies; greater knowledge of them and their wonderful, though undeveloped, powers is all we need in order to come into the thought that will conquer disease, old age and death. We have been traveling death-ward because we imagined that we had to.

We thought the body was a weak, destructible thing, that could not aid us in our effort to attain everlasting life; but, on the contrary, that it retarded us, and that our only hope lay in the power of our soul or spirit to escape from it.

It is this undervaluation of the body that has destroyed it; it is the postponement of the life force—desire; the putting it off to some future time, ahead of our present lives, that has impoverished these present lives and that is responsible for all the weakness they exhibit. Man has attempted to live two lives at once, and has thereby virtually lost both. I am quite sure that the heaven of the future he has built for himself in his imagination has done his soul or spirit no good, while it has done his body great harm.

It surely seems to be the proper thing for a man to live one life at a time; and it also seems a sensible thing that the life he ought to lead is his present life. To one acquainted with the mighty power of concentration there can be no doubt about this, and I state boldly that the effort made for the salvation of the soul is ruinous to the welfare of the body.

Again, I say that so far as we are concerned while in this world, the body is of infinitely greater importance than the soul. There is nothing of which we can form an idea that will compare with its value. Its uses are legion, and its power to work out happiness for us is far beyond our present ability to conceive of.

And the world knows this, in a way, at this time, though it does not know that it knows it. "The body is of little worth," it says, and then it goes ahead and builds magnificent palaces for it to live in, while thousands of workshops are devoted to the manufacture of clothing and adornments for it. Here is nature speaking above the world's accepted beliefs, and making itself heard through the din of ignorance, as it howls out its reproaches and threats. The world's uneducated beliefs keep crying out "Soul!" "Soul!" but the world itself holds fast to the body, and cares not one fig for the soul. The body carries the stamp of the world's wisdom; the world in which the principle of desire has manifested itself the whole length of its chain of growth, from the atom to man.

This idea of the soul and a future life may be called a recent invention of man's brain. So far as I can ascertain, the history of the very early men shows nothing of it. They did not talk of their souls. All their consideration was of their bodies, and all their hopes and desires, pointed to bodily salvation. It was only as the ages passed away, and bodily salvation was not achieved, that men began to talk of the body being dual, and making an unseen part to it that survived the death of the body, and passed on to a new condition, where it was claimed that immortal life was a fixed fact.

The race came to this conclusion in the natural process of its growth. The animal man was verging into the reasoning man; the man was becoming more brain and less body; his body was weakening as his brain strengthened, and life began to grow shorter with him. This seems strange, but it is easily accounted for. The body builds the brain; the time is coming when the brain will be intelligent enough to reciprocate by building a better body; but in the earlier part of this transaction, the brain, while it absorbed the forces heretofore given to the body, required ages of growth before it became intelligent enough to understand the situation. It was growing and increasing in power, unconsciously to itself; and unconsciously to the body. All that was known about it was that life grew shorter and weaker as the brain grew stronger and more forceful; diseases multiplied, and the surrounding conditions of man became more distasteful. Instead of becoming happier and healthier, he became more unhappy and discontented.

From the foregoing a glimpse of nature's way of doing things may be observed. The man was nearly all animal at first. He became less animal as his brain developed, and his brain kept developing more and more in proportion as he thought more. He grew to be less animal and more mental, and his body registered the fact. This change has been constantly going on, and is still going on. The brain is being built at the expense of the body. But this need not continue any longer, and why?

Because the brain is now sufficiently intelligent to know that, no matter how much of the bodily forces it may consume, it can generate a power that will return to the body all the force it draws from it, and more. And this power it gives back to the body in the form of intelligent thought. And here is the origin of Mental Science—the science of mind unfoldment.

All things come in the line of growth. Man's brain was being built without his knowing what was going on within him; the coming era will be marked chiefly by the fact that man will have achieved this knowledge concerning the relation of his brain to his body, or his thought to his body; for it is thought generated by the brain that will eventually make the explanation that will unite the two—brain and body—in an endless circuit, from which the life forces will cease to trail off and be lost, as they now trail off and are lost; and when this condition comes, disease, old age and death will cease upon our planet.

I have said that the idea of a soul and an existence after this life is over seems to have been of somewhat recent date. We find no reference to it in the Old Testament. We have accounts in the Old Testament of men who lived for hundreds of years, and who evidently looked forward to the time when death should be conquered in this world. They did not die, because their lives were broken by the mental division of themselves that separated them into body and soul. And yet they would not have conquered death upon the earth, even if they never made this separation. Something more was needed to achieve the conquest of death than the continuance of the animal lives which they represented.

I NOW leave it to the reader to say whether death is a necessity of our organization, or a desirable thing, since spirit and matter are not two separate substances; and I will return to again consider what seems to be the spirit forms described so frequently by Spiritualists, and seen by thousands of people.

Our bodies are the condensed forms of our thoughts, or our beliefs. Thought and belief are in some degree synonymous; both are forms of recognition; both are mental expressions. A thought seems not to have the fixed character of a belief; but it may become a belief, and in doing so it will take its place among other fixed beliefs, and be a part of the visible body. Belief is simply thought that becomes fixed.

The body is thought, but it is thought that is fixed; thought whose correctness is not questioned, and (on the mental plane, where we do really exist, whether we are aware of it or not,) becomes visible. Fixed thought is belief; and belief is visible thought expressed in a thousand different forms, each form being its own individual recognition of the possibilities contained in the Law of Being.

Thought—before it becomes fixed in belief—is invisible to our undeveloped perceptions; it is a reality, though intangible, just as the perfume of flowers and many other ethereal substances, which we are not able to perceive except by their effects. And yet the power to see these fine substances is latent among the undiscovered possibilities that will some time awaken within us.

Even now we get occasional evidences of their existence, when we are off our guard against everything but the commonplace and orthodox attainments of the present. We sometimes forget that we believe in nothing but what we call "established facts," and in these moments of forgetfulness, it may be that some mighty power within us steals a march on us, and shows itself in something unexpected to, and even unacceptable by, our "sober senses."

Then it is not impossible that the thought which has so far mastered us as to render us in a measure unconscious of what we are thinking, and watchful of the action of our mind, should suddenly appear before us in the objective.

It is a living thing; each atom of its frail being is transfused by the Law. For the time being, it actually has an individuality of its own; an individuality quite negative, however, to that of its creator, myself, for instance, and holding its objective form in ready obedience to my caprice.

This is the real condition: I have been in a reverie, a careless state of mind, when my thoughts were shaping themselves uncontrolled by my will. My will, which is my ego, being off guard, there is a tendency to disintegration in my body—the sum of my fixed beliefs. Then, stray thoughts, beliefs which are not fixed, may start up from the careless or indolent brain, and actually become sufficiently fixed to be visible. In becoming thus partially fixed, they draw upon the fixed beliefs (my body), which for a time are in a measure unfixed.

And here we have the double presence, the second party, which may either be an exact resemblance of ourselves, or the resemblance of some picture that exists, or has existed, at some previous time in the mind.

That thoughts are things is a fact that cannot be disputed. We might as well say that ether did not exist, because it is invisible, as to say that thought is nothing because it is not seen under ordinary conditions.

There is no nothing. Wherever the Law of Attraction is recognized, even in the feeblest manner, there, though unseen, exists the form of that recognition. Recognition is form. Recognition is the making visible of the Law. The Law is the only thing that can be recognized. It may be recognized in weakness or in strength; but wherever it is recognized, no matter whether the recognition is weak or strong, a manifestation of it is inevitable.

Whether this explanation will apply to every phase of spirit materialization or not, I cannot say. Nor have I given it in the hope that it will do so; for there is no pleasanter thought to me than that our loved and dead do really live after they have left this sphere, and can return to us again.

Nor does the fact that our thoughts may take shapes which— under certain conditions— become objective to us, invalidate the claim of Spiritualism, that the spirits of the dead can return and take form.

My real object in saying what I have said is to prove to the reader what I know to be true; that there is no nothing; and that thoughts are things. I also wish to establish the fact that the human mind is an unprospected field, and that no one has even the faintest idea of its latent powers.

In the matter of being lifted from the floor, to which I alluded a few pages back, in connection with other Spiritualistic phenomena, I wish to say that this, too, may be, and is, a power that belongs to man; one that he can exercise at will when he comes to know more of himself and his relation to the Law of his being.

IN proportion as we become self-centered by a recognition of the great importance of the "I," we come under the principle of attraction where our own comes to us. What is our own? Everything that we desire or aspire to in the process of true advancement. We often think we desire things that we do not really desire. What we do truly desire is happiness. Happiness is the ultimate of our every aspiration; it is the constant craving of the spirit of growth within us; it is the reaching out of the spirit of growth for a better recognition of its own power.

Suppose we desire that someone may die, who stands between us and an inheritance. This intermediate desire has nothing to do with the spirit of life within us; this spirit simply points to happiness; it does not suggest methods for attaining it; this suggestion comes from the intelligence of the person, and is liable to make mistakes—does often make mistakes—and has no other way of learning how to conform itself to the Principle of Attraction that holds the universe together than by making mistakes.

The true desire, that is always pushing its way into the observation of the individual, is really the very essence of love, always seeking greater expression and always aggregating to itself greater power.

Understanding at last that desire is the infusing spirit in man, it is plain to see that it is of greater importance than we ever before imagined, and that, instead of attempting to crush it out of our organizations, where it is really the breath of our lives, we must learn to direct it properly.

I wish to emphasize this point of holding for self. I wish to do so because the race has been filled full of false ideas regarding the virtue of self-abnegation.

Self-abnegation, or self-denial, is the most deadly and paralyzing mistake ever made. It is the letting go of one's hold on the Life Principle, abandoning all one has gained in his previous growth through the ages, and drifting backward, as nearly as one can do so, into nothingness; and every bit of undue or unconsidered concession to the opinions of others partakes of the nature of self-abnegation, and should be promptly stopped. A man should ask himself if he has not as much right to his self-hood as another, and when he answers this question affirmatively, as he cannot help doing, then he should stand for himself boldly and manfully.

It may at first thought seem that men do, even now, hold for themselves with great firmness, but this is not so. The very opposite is so marked among the people that Emerson speaks of society as "a mush of concession." There is so little of true self-holding in the world that, where one meets a really individualized man or woman, it is an event never to be forgotten.

The opinion of the world is worthless. The majority of the people have no opinions of their own, but have simply accepted those that have been thrust upon them. In this way we are saddled with the beliefs of men ages dead, whose opportunity of knowing truth was a thousand times inferior to our own. Is it any wonder that such utterly negative creatures die? They ought to die. Life and its tremendous mission, involving such thought and such effort as they have never imagined, are not for them. The grappling hook of divine purpose passes through them as if they were made of jelly. They afford not the slightest obstruction to it. It is all self-abnegation with them, though partly of an unconscious character.

Unconscious self-abnegation, or the lack of intelligent self-assertion, is the bane of humanity at this time.

The belief in self-abnegation comes from the awakening intelligence that, in looking back, sees only the horrors of animal selfishness, and does not look forward to where this same selfishness is modified by justice, and through this modification can become the very essence of true manhood and womanhood.

The child is not polite. It grabs its toys and holds them firmly away from the little friend who has come to visit it. Later on it will value the happiness of its little friend more than it values the toys, and then it will give them up gladly. Nor will this giving be in the spirit of self-abnegation. It will be because the giving yields more happiness to self than the withholding. Self is forever at the bottom of all things, as it should be, for self is the individual center, and the change from selfishness to self-hood, which is selfishness lifted to a higher plane, will come through a growing infusion of the love principle in the race—an infusion that makes the happiness of others our dearest happiness.

All of this comes under the head of evolution, and there is no logical interpretation of humanity except by the evolutionary theory; but even the most timid sticklers for Biblical authority need not be afraid of it. Darwin never taught the evolutionary theory half so strongly as the Bible teaches it.

I have now shown the selfishness of the animal as changed to self-hood in the man, by man's constantly increasing recognition of the Principle of Attraction within him. It must be remembered that this Principle of Attraction, in its true essence, is pure love. As he recognizes more of the Principle of Attraction, his power to love increases. Love always comes from a more thorough recognition of the  infusing  Life  Principle, and will keep on increasing as this recognition keeps on growing. All this growth of the recognition of the Principle of Attraction is tending in the direction of universal brotherhood, which means a state of the sweetest harmony among the people, a condition of high and mighty and living restfulness, in which the seeds of new faculties, now lying dormant in the human brain, will take root and grow into undreamed power.

As all our past unconscious growing has been from the basis of self, so will our future growing be from the same basis, for there is no other basis of growth.

Harmony, universal intelligence, is not achieved by individual concession or self-abnegation, but by the assertion of self under the influence of the ever-growing idea that he who asserts self asserts the divinest of all possible power in humanity. To deny self is to deny this power in humanity, and thus to make as nothing—so far as such a thing is possible the work of organization—that work which men have called the creation. Therefore, I say, stand by self, for in so doing you are standing for the Life Principle; you are standing for just as much of the Life Principle as you can recognize; and by holding firmly to this position, you will recognize more, until it will fill you and overflow in one broad and deep stream of life, that will embrace every living soul. And this will be your true self flowing forth. The same self that flowed forth in the animal in getting the most good will, by reason of your increased intelligence, now flow forth in doing the most good; but the doing shall also be the getting.

And thus the competitive systems of business, which are all animal in their origin, and all aim at getting the most good, are even now in process of becoming emulative systems, wherein each will try to excel the other in doing the most good.

On its own plane, competition is right. It is the unchecked development of individuality, and individuality is the one jewel above all price. When competition has ripened into emulation, heaven will be here, and that, too, without one particle of concession from any soul.

Concession, self-denial, self-abnegation, is ruinous. It is the denial of our own individuality; it is the direct road to nothingness; it is the resignation of that which alone makes the man or gives him, as a factor of any worth, to the world. An ignorant man, standing firmly on his self-hood, uneducated as yet in a true sense of justice, may be a very disagreeable member of society; but his position denotes strength, and there is hope of his learning; but the man who has entirely dropped down from the claims of self, who has resigned his individuality—who is he? A mere vagabond—listless, hopeless—a drifting scum, awaiting removal from human sight.

I have made the foregoing points with a purpose, and a strong purpose. The person who is afraid to stand for himself and to declare himself will always be looked upon as weak.

Looking within, you may perceive the self there, and you may conclude that it is a very selfish thing, a thing to be thrown overboard, while on bended knees you beg for a nobler self. This nobler self you are begging for is the very self you are misjudging.

There is nothing the matter with you, except that your dull intelligence fails to recognize this beautiful vitality which is individualized within you. This fact explains why all religions are made to hang on the one word "believe," and why Jesus said, "When you pray, believe that you receive, and you shall have"—showing that all truth is within, and that all a man has to do is to believe it.

Prayer is merely desire, or aspiration. We are asking or praying with every breath we draw. "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, unuttered or expressed." It is a tentacle of the Life Principle within us going out in search of what it wants. And prayer is answered from within.

I am now treating of the growth of the man, and not of the conditions he shall inaugurate afterwards. A man once builded in the knowledge of himself and of the power within him, conditions then build themselves about him; conditions become responsive to his own strength, even as they are now responsive to his own weakness.

To build institutions is not the first thing to be thought of. Institutions will seem to build themselves, after true men and women are built, and all by a natural law—the Principle of Attraction.

Every thought or belief in this Principle carries us more fully within the power of it; and in this condition our own comes to us. Everything that is related to our peculiar faculty, whether near or far, will come to us in acknowledgement of our ownership.

In man's operations from the central point or a basis of self, he is entitled to what he wants. And he need not beg for what he wants; it is his own under the Law of Attraction by inalienable right, and unless he take it as his own, he will never build his life up in the strength of true manhood.

All through the period of his unconscious growth, he took; he did not beg. He did this regardless of his fellows. What he took represented to him his highest ideal of happiness. Now his ideal is enlarged; it is so greatly enlarged that it raises him quite out of the physical realm into the intellectual one, and what he demands as essential to his happiness is the knowledge that will secure him health, strength and beauty.

Of these things he may demand what he will, and no one will be robbed; for he is now in the high place where the supply is equal to the demand, and where he is getting more and more into harmony with the Principle of Attraction, where his own comes to him because it is related to his needs. Therefore, men need not beg. A true analysis of things past and present will show us that there never was a beggar on earth until man came, and that beggars were never needed, neither were meant to have existence.

To get the things he needs in the present transitional stage from animal to human, each human being is forced to become as aggressive as any warrior. Everything he attempts to take out of the mental world, the world of unorganized intelligence, is denied him, and and its very existence disputed by a thousand race beliefs that rise up before him and threaten him with destruction.

This fight for mastery, being at this time entirely in the realm of the intellect, we must begin, not by begging our way, but by claiming it. Discard every thought of humility; make a statement of what you want, and hold it as your due. Take this one fact into consideration, that man has no God-given place in the universe, and no natural sphere, except that which he has wrested from the universe by his own intelligent demands.

 

 

Individuality is of such tremendous importance that we are not trying to lose it in God. We are trying to bring God forth and establish Him in these personalities. I speak the word "God" as if I accepted it in its present meaning, which I do not, although it is sometimes very convenient to use.

Mental Science, unlike Christian Science, believes in the present and in the personal, the visible and audible. It believes in the evolution of the Life Principle into the personal and the present, through the intelligent recognition of men and women, and it is in this way we will banish disease and death and establish heaven on earth—for the more of the Life Principle a man recognizes in himself, the stronger and more positive he is; and thus will disease and death be overcome, for they are simply the negations or denial of man's power to conquer. They are nothing in themselves, and have no power, except the power men confer upon them by believing in them; and as men believe in their own self-hood more and recognize the God-hood of self-hood, the fear of disease and death will be effaced, and life, with health and happiness, will become the heritage of the race instead.

I say to every human being—assert your desires and prove your noble nature. The desire, which is the voice of life in you, does not include any methods your brain may suggest as being the right way to attain the desire. The desire is the essence of your being, and it asks for happiness, and nothing less. It will be your individual mistake, and not the mistake of the vital principle, if you seek happiness by methods that will wrong others. Therefore, as we are still so ignorant, the proper thing to do is to ask for happiness simply, or rather to claim happiness as our right.

Of course, every idea of happiness includes ideas of health, strength and beauty, and it is these things that make the real man. After man is established in such glorious health, strength and beauty as makes every moment of his life a joy to him, he may then turn his thoughts outward towards the building of new and better conditions for himself and fellows; for man is the Builder, and when he has built himself, he will begin to build externally in a stronger way—yes, in a thousand stronger ways, for man's sphere is here on earth, and he will build outward from the earth, until the space between the planets will show forth the wonders of his inventions and discoveries.

Once more I say—stand by self. Self is not a sinful or dreadful thing. It is the glorious basis of everything that is visible in the universe. In each individual thing, whether crystal, tree, animal or man, it is the wresting from negative by more positive expression that brings the mastery. Therefore, let no one be horrified because I have rescued self-hood from the mistakes that have so long overlain it.

The truth seeker is the image breaker, and no one need be grieved to see his pet hobbies fall before him. It is time they all fell. It is time for us to turn our backs on the past and accept the instruction given to Lot's wife, never to look behind; for now that the dreadful old charnel houses where we have been entombed alive for such a long time are falling, we must escape from them forthwith.

From now on, I ask every seeker after the truth to keep up the investigation of self; and when by much thinking, he learns to stand up for it, and to hold it sacredly above the old-time beliefs that have made a devil out of it and prepared a hell for its future reception, he will begin to realize a strength he had never dreamed of before. Therefore, I say—stand by self. Magnify it if possible; but, indeed, no one can magnify it, for no one's conception of it can do it justice. But a person can magnify his ideas of it, and thus conquer the race beliefs concerning it.

And this is the battle that will have to be fought by the truth seeker. The battle is between the new truth that Mental Science brings and the old crucifying belief born of an age of rankest ignorance, that has so long held the people in darkness concerning their own strength and worth. No one can stand too strongly for the right. Each one of us should make his or her own statement of personal goodness and power, and reiterate it in the face of every old-world belief as rapidly as it shall confront them. He or she should say, "I am here for myself, to build myself up in health, strength and beauty, by claiming my own. Nothing is too good for me. I claim the best and I shall get it."

 

A FEW men have cherished life-long visions of cheating death, though without that belief in their hopes that would prompt them to search for a continuance of life in a way likely to lead to the desired result. There have been many Ponce de Leons in the  world. History is strewed thick with them. Writers have embodied their hopes, half disguised, in many writings. Bulwer-Lytton, Hawthorne and others I can recall. Elixirs have been concocted as life protractors, and have sold readily until found to be failures. There has been more than one Brown Sequard who deceived others by being honestly deceived himself.

But before all these comparatively modern searchers for the fountain of perpetual youth, there existed in the long past many men, who believed with all their minds that the time would come when the race would conquer death. The thought was the goal to all their hopes. They did not seem to expect this conquest to happen in their time, but they believed that the race was gradually growing toward a period when it could be done.

Has the Bible student observed that the Old Testament does not treat of the soul of man?

If it does, I have not found it out, either from my own reading or from my talk with other Bible students. From one end of it to the other it seems to consider man in the light of a bodily creature, as if his life were purely external, and related to the external world alone; in other words, as if man had no soul, but looked forward to the time when he would conquer death in the body. If this is true, it seems astonishing, in the light of present knowledge, that these prophets of the old time should have so correctly predicted the course that future events would take. But they were natural men; they were at one with the law of growth—the Principle of Attraction—as it manifested itself in them. They were simply a part of Nature, like the trees and animals; and it was Nature itself that shone through their sayings, and prophesied its own power when men should have ripened to an understanding of them.

This is the true explanation concerning the power of those old seers to predict coming events. They were in the direct line of growth, and the growth principle made utterance through them. They did not talk of their souls; at least, it is my belief that they did not. They seemed to be unconscious of their souls, even if they possessed them. They did not project their thoughts and hopes into another sphere beyond and outside of the present world; the full force of their entire being was centered in the world in which they lived; and what was the result?

 

Why this—they lived hundreds of years here in strength and health.

I know how the claim to longevity as related of these men in the Old Testament is now scouted and rejected by persons who consider themselves thinkers; but if these thinkers would think farther on the subject, they would see no folly in accepting the statement as recorded.

For my part, I perceive the probability that these accounts are true; and I perceive it—not because the Bible has recorded it, but because the study of evolution shows the possibility of it, and, indeed, confirms the fact that this strange phenomenon was one of the natural periods of growth through which the race would necessarily pass.

It   begins   to   be  seen   that  there  are  two distinctly marked periods in the hist

ory of Man. One of these periods I call the period of his unconscious growth, and the other period that of his conscious growth.

Man has ascended from the forms of life that lie below him, and, though he stands at the head of them, he is nevertheless composed of the same material that they are, and partakes of their nature.

The animals and plants all belong to the unconscious plane of life; and man, so long as he remains in his condition of animal-hood, belongs to this plane also. It is only recently that man is beginning to emerge from this plane, and step forth into the plane of conscious existence, where his deviation from his previous condition of animal-hood is showing forth in an increased intelligence, so marked as to change the entire basis of his life from physical to mental.

The difference between conscious life, and life on the unconscious plane, is in the use of the reasoning powers. On the unconscious plane men do not reason to any great extent. It is this fact that gives us the right to call them unconscious; and the word "unconscious," as I use it, only relates to their power, or lack of power, to examine the operation of their own minds as the law of growth operates in them.

In one sense all life is conscious; but in the sense I speak of there is a growth which proceeds without being observed by the person or persons in whom it is going on. This is what I call growth on the unconscious plane.

This conscious plane is that plane where the man no longer lives the vegetable life of his predecessors, but uses his reasoning powers to the extent of their development, and from the animal stage of life on to the thinking, reasoning stage; and this ascent may not only be called an ascent from unconscious to conscious life, but from a condition of ignorance to one of intelligence; from animal to human; from physical to mental.

It is true that even on this plane a man has advanced a long way above the vegetable, but he is still under what he calls the law of heredity, which holds him in the path his fathers trod, and which he accepts as an inevitable necessity, just as the vegetable does. This feature of growth marks the unconscious plane—the unreasoning or ignorant plane; the plane where men accept things as they find them, without examining themselves to discover whether they have not the power within themselves to project entirely new conditions, which shall forever obliterate the old ones.

On the unconscious or comparatively unthinking plane, man is stationary and helpless as compared with man when he has ascended to the conscious or reasoning plane. On the former plane he accepts his condition as final, or nearly so. It is true that he sees some chance of improvement now and then, and tries to develop this chance. In this way there has been a slow but sure upward movement, from the unconscious or ignorant plane to the conscious or intelligent plane; so that, as the ages have passed, the race has kept slowly becoming more intelligent, until there comes to be among its numbers a few who perceive that the source of all power lies embodied in man himself, and that the great study by which race advancement may be quickened a hundred-fold is the study of man.

The study of man has begun, and as it proceeds the change from unconscious to conscious life proceeds. The condition of the animal man is no longer such a compact and formidable state of ignorance as it once was; it is being broken into by the new thought of the few independent thinkers, who are investigating themselves and their wonderful powers, and whose freshly acquired knowledge is filtering down among the masses, where it promises to make great changes in the thoughts and beliefs of the unconscious multitude.

And all nature, everything, is on its way upward from the unconscious or animal plane to the conscious or mental plane.

In strict truth, the animal or unconscious plane is mental also, the same as the conscious plane; but it is a more ignorant form of mentality than the high, reasoning, or conscious plane. The word "mental" is as applicable to one plane as the other. All the expressions of life from low to high are mental, as I have constantly endeavored to prove to the reader; and the difference I am attempting to explain exists only in the quality of the mentality, as manifested by different creatures on different planes of development.

The transposition from what is called the physical forms of life to the mental forms of life is in the different degrees of intelligence that the creatures on the different planes are capable of showing forth. It is on this account that Mental Science makes the statement that "all is mind"; mind in a state of unconsciousness with regard to itself, and mind with sufficient knowledge to be conscious of itself and the faculties it possesses.

Therefore, the difference between conscious life and unconscious life is a difference in the degrees of intelligence manifested between different classes of beings.

Man in his early stages of growth makes a closer approach to the conscious state than the animals below him in development. Thus the human being, even in his most savage state, is more conscious of himself and his power than the monkeys or other animals.

All is mind, of which every creature and plant from the lowest form of life up to the most gifted human being is a mental expression, and the form that each creature or plant shows forth marks the degree of its mentality.

Each creature or plant, no matter how small and inferior, has aspirations or desires that reach higher than its present conditions. These aspirations or desires ascend higher than the environment of its life will permit it to realize in the undeveloped state of its intelligence; so the mere fact of the existence of these aspirations or desires calls for a higher grade of creatures in which to become embodied. They form a basis of life, as it were, or serve as a demand upon nature for the next higher type, which shall show forth more intelligence than the former one; and thus the chain of being is preserved, even though the forms of being are always changing. And so evolution proceeds.

I will repeat this idea, which I consider very important, as showing the march of mind as expressed in desire.

Every sane desire of every creature is finally attained. If this attainment fails to show forth in the creature itself, it goes on to development in some other ego. In the scale of evolution it is the un-gratified desire of the lower creature that produces another grade of creature higher than itself—so mighty is desire, and so unerring is the fulfillment.

It is the desire for food in the first jelly-like forms of life that prompts their development on a higher plane. These little forms of translucent jelly, having neither hands nor feet nor mouth nor eyes, are nevertheless attracted to some tiny bit of food floating in the water, about which they put forth parts of themselves until the object is enveloped within their bodies. After the nutriment in the food has been absorbed, the body unfolds and lets the residue pass out. Here is the beginning of hands and feet and eyes and ears and a brain and a digestive system. This development was by desire; desire for food.

The desire for food being gratified led to a thousand other desires; the number and greatness of desires kept increasing, and the higher grades of life increased in consequence until man came. The increase of desires in the creature added link after link to the chain of being from the atom to the man.

And what is man but a bundle of desires? His desires are much more numerous and far reaching than those of any of his predecessors. And as he is the culmination of all the desires of all his predecessors, not one single desire of which has failed to be gratified, he has a perfect right to believe that his own desires, great as they are getting to be, will be gratified also.

It is evident that desire is the mainspring of all growth. It is also evident that no desire can exist that cannot be met by the object desired; and thus a new marriage is formed; new desires are begotten, and growth proceeds.

I

...........and life goes on.