Mastery of Self
by
Frank Channing Haddock
Part 2 out of 2
inevitably. Let us stand for the larger liberty which is joyously
free to take advantage of everything Nature may offer for true
well-being. There is a partial liberty which tries to realize
itself by denying various realities as real; there is a higher
liberty which really realizes itself by conceding such realities
as real and by using or disusing them as occasion may require in
the interest of the self at its best. I hold this to be true
wisdom: to take advantage of everything which evidently promises
good to the self, without regard to this or that theory, and
freely to use all things, material or immaterial, reasonable or
spiritual. I embrace your science or your method; but I beg to
ignore your bondage to philosophy or to consistency. So I say that
to normal health the weary-sense is a rational command to
replenish exhausted nerves and muscles.
It is not liberty, it is not healthful, to declare, "There is no
pain!" Pain does exist, whatever you affirm, and your affirmation
that it does not is proof that it does exist, for why (and HOW)
declare the non-existence of that which actually is non-existent?
But if you say, "As a matter of fact I have pain, but I am
earnestly striving to ignore it, and to cultivate thought-health
so that the cause of pain may be removed," that is sane and
beautiful. This is the commendable attitude of the Bible character
who cried: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." To
undertake swamping pain with a cloud of psychological fog--that is
to turn anarchist against the good government of Nature. By pain
Nature informs the individual that he is somewhere out of order.
This warning is normal. The feeling becomes abnormal in the mind
when imagination twangs the nerves with reiterated irritation, and
Will, confused by the discord and the psychic chaos, cowers and
shivers with fear.
I do not say there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But
it exists in your life by your permission only, not because it is
needful as a warning against "evil."
Fear is induced by unduly magnifying actual danger, or by
conjuring up fictitious dangers through excessive and misdirected
psychical reactions. This also may be taken as a signal of danger,
but it is a falsely-intentioned witness, for it is not needed, is
hostile to the individual because it threatens self-control and it
absorbs life's forces in useless and destructive work when they
ought to be engaged in creating values. Hence we state
THE FIRST GREAT PRINCIPLE OF FEAR-CONQUEST.
Timidity, apprehension, fear, alarm, fright, consternation,
terror, panic, desperation, are all false imitations of reason's
interpretation of the warning signals of Nature, to be displaced
by reason itself, which may then determine whether the occasion be
real or unreal, and always to be disregarded and overcome if
evidently refering to causes which do not actually exist.
This principle is adduced in the interest of three things: peace,
health, power. You are invited to note how vital these interests
really are.
The truest peace, of which courage is a sublime bloom, is a growth
solely of honorable living and robust self-respect.
Health is of the following realities: body, mind, soul--the deeper
self. Health is soundness. A sound human is a triune wholeness.
Physical soundness with weak intellect is often the athletic field
of superstitions innumerable. Intellectual greed in an unsound
body may breed the direst fears of life. A decayed soul is always
a House of Fear. The ideal of human existence is--The white life
in the sound mind in the vibrantly whole body.
It is because there are so many people who are in some sense sick,
that fears abound in every direction. But--it is because so many
fears are permitted and actually nursed as boons that so many sick
people abound in every direction. If all our fears could be
removed absolutely, we should no longer require physicians. This
world would be a paradise in every respect. I do not know anything
wrong with it that cannot be traced to a fear.
The causes of fear are weak reason, uncontrolled imagination, want
of self-control, and ill-health. And the first three items are
really phases of the last.
The ability to master and destroy fear depends, it would now seem,
upon the following factors of our life:
The General Tone of the Individual; The Soul's Power of Will; The
Development and Balance of the Reason.
Reason is demanded to distinguish between right and wrong causes
for personal effort in self-protection, and to utterly ignore all
wrong causes.
Will-power is demanded to banish fears and to utilize reason's
dictates.
But the sway of reason and the force of action are always
immensely assisted by a vigorous general tone of the personal
life. Now appear, in view of these considerations,
THREE GREAT LAWS.
FIRST LAW: The warnings of reason are based in the nature of
things within us, and are universal benefactors.
SECOND LAW: Fear is contrary to the ground-plan of life. It is no
primary part of the nature of things; it is an alien in the world-
system.
THIRD LAW: The destruction of fear always follows the growth of
general courage in the individual. The fear-brood will not depart
until the soul has acquired a fixed habit of courage. Whatever
establishes that habit, or spirit, secures the service of reason-
instinct, and so undermines and finally destroys the power of
every variety of fear. These laws formulate a great
PRIMARY INJUNCTION.
Let your soul be saturated, with the sure conviction that fear is
an alien in the world-system of life, having no proper place nor
legitimate rights therein, and meanwhile resolutely set about the
task of cultivating in every possible way the permanent habit-
spirit of courageous living.
This book was written for the sole purpose of suggesting definite
methods by which such courage-habit may be developed. In order
that our practical methods may be understood, it is now necessary
to analyze the subject of fear in its general outlines.
It is important to remember that the warnings of reason, sometimes
called normal fears, may have actual causes outside the mind and
are rightly proportioned thereto and to possible consequences,
while real fear is due to causes not based in reality, or, if so
based, is permitted to agitate the mind in a way not warranted by
possible consequences viewed by a rational, well-balanced life.
Our analysis, then, exhibits fear where reason ought to appear, in
A GENERAL ENUMERATION OF FEAR-CAUSES.
Fear of hurt of self by self (fear of self): substitute reason,
thus--just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.
Fear of hurt of self by outer things (fear for self): substitute
reason, thus--just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.
Fear of threat by things: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no
cause; cause magnified.
Threat by others: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause;
cause magnified.
Threat to others: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause;
cause magnified.
Threat by events: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no cause;
cause magnified.
Threat by the future: substitute reason, thus--right cause; no
cause; cause magnified.
You are invited to work out the particulars of this analysis, and
to examine them with reference to your self and life. You will
make some important discoveries. One of the many questions
suggested is this: Is the cause of anticipated possible
consequences justly estimated in your thought--is it a right
cause--is it really as you suppose? The idea is that you think of
any one of your fears and then ask the question in the form just
indicated. Thus we may have the following statement of
KINDS OF FEARS.
Fear of Self: timidity, lack of confidence, possible unaccountable
states.
Fear for Self: weakness, anticipated failure, imagined disgrace.
Fear of Things: animals, inanimate objects, physical forces.
Fear of Others: human beings, apparitions, devils, Deity.
Fear for Others: children, parents, husband, wife, relatives,
friends, strangers.
Fear of Events: present, future, imaginary, possible, probable,
contingent.
Fear of the Future: in life; beyond the present life.
Instinct and reason strive to place us in right relations with all
these causes. The existence in us of fear shows that we already
are, either in mind or in fact, in wrong relations therewith.
The mastery of fear involves the discovery of right relations,
mental or concrete, and the placing of self in those right
conditions which are determined and provided for by the ground-
plan of our nature.
And the first thing thus provided for is health. All treatment for
the conquest of our universal enemy must begin with development of
individual tone: tone of body, tone of mind, tone of the deeper
self.
I am not writing for those who are constitutionally fearless, but
I have in mind all who do yield to the feeling of fear. Our ideal,
however, is not a mere animal courage, not the courage of
insensibility. It is rather the courage of the whole man or woman
making for the WHITE LIFE. If you are only partially yourself, you
cannot possess the highest courage. Such courage may be yours,
infallibly, if you will but resolve for the goal and go on into
the great ideals of the harmonic personality. This you can do--
anyone can do. And to come thereto is the greatest thing in the
world.
You are invited, then, to begin by substituting in your thought
the idea of self-preserving reason for any kind of fear (even the
so-called normal) as your perpetual guard and guide. Make it a
profound conviction of your deepest self that no real harm can
come to that self because you have entered the highway of the
WHITE LIFE--THE LIFE OF PURITY, REASON, HONOR, GOOD-WILL, AND
CONFIDENT ASSURANCE. Swing your life into the unfolding and
infolding of the Infinite White Life of Worlds. Courage will
become to you the very breath of your lungs.
I send you this sure message: Fear is dead
In all the pure, by reason's wisdom led,
Who wear white honor and evince good-will,
And trust the self to Love's unfailing skill.
I send you this sure message: Courage lives
When man to Courage all assurance gives.
THE SOUL OF THE CELL.
This crystal of Quartz,--the queen of its tribe,
Amethyst, Onyx, Chalcedony, Heliotrope, Agate,--
Some toiler of old Japan, the Artist fantastic,
Has polished to likeness of ice,
Ruining form to reveal it Fleche d'Amour
That the marvelous, delicate, hairlike inclosures
Of crystallizations foreign might please the beholder.
Herein worked the Infinite well,
And, let us say, too, the artisan patient,
To one limit--significant boundary!
HEALTH!
I request you to define it--configure the wonder
Of this dust-common, beneficent Gift.
Who lacks it, he knows quite precisely his want;
Who has it divulges precisely the thing.
Yet never man--scientist, poet, physician--
In words can portray it--the Soul of the Cell,
THAT lurks only in spheres of the Substance of Life;
Fares past the quartz and hides in the throat of the wearer.
Shuns diamond glory for greater of flesh;
Builds higher and higher to balance unstable
In beauty of male and in exquisite female,
And sends through the intricate meshwork of cells--
Sheer matter, kin of this quartz--
Its evidence: light-hue, radiance crimson,
Eye-gleam, pulse-throb, vigor and nerve-thrill
Of just that common, miraculous Gift,
HEALTH of a body wherein dwells soul.
THERE, say I, the Infinite worked well!
Come now to YOU the artisan's skill for this marvel,
Physical man: to refine and ennoble;
To reveal the inclosure of spirit unmarred,
And grow in the mobile, responsive flesh
Mind perfect, held fast in OUR Crystal superb,
The Universe complete.
--THE AUTHOR.
CHAPTER III.
PHYSICAL TONE.
"In the healthy body every cell is polarized in subjection to the
Central Will. Perfect health, therefore, is orderly obedience,
government and harmony. Every cell is a living entity, whether of
vegetable or animal potency, and wherever disease is, there are
disunion, error, rebellion and insubordination; and the deeper the
seat of the confusion, the more dangerous the malady and the
harder to quell it."--J. C. Street.
The thought of the above quotation does not mean that the
insubordination is necessarily conscious to the diseased
individual, but that it surely obtains within the physical arena
of his life. Because it is not the outcome of his deliberate
choice, the case is not hopeless in the nature of things, but is
open to better conditions. The deeper self which has intended no
rebellion against the laws of bodily well-being may now distinctly
intend harmony, and so lift the body to a higher plane.
And the last sentence in the quotation does not mean that you are
to undertake a vast amount of hard work, assuming that you are not
in perfect physical condition. You are, rather, just to begin and
go on thinking yourself in a real way as in harmony with the
Central Will, which is our White Life, and to hold steadfastly in
the deeper self the ideas, Affirmation and Realization of Splendid
Personal Tone.
Some of the meanings of these powerful words will be unfolded
later, In the meantime, as all things are subject to law, let us
observe a number of the general conditions to three-fold health,
that of body, mind and the inner self, regarding their totality as
the atmosphere, so to speak, in which courage most easily and
perfectly thrives.
Fear in man is a result of repeated suggestion, to which low
health-tone is a natural invitation. Health is the primary tonic
against fear. Perfect physical health is mere strength. Perfect
mental health is mere brain sanity. Perfect soul-health is the
whole of the man at his best. When the body is buoyant, the mind
clear and inspired, the soul harmonic with all existence rightly
in the universe, then is the impulse of fear easily mastered and
the habit of fear finds no encouragement. There are, indeed,
courageous invalids who have not come into the secret of right
thought so far as health is concerned, and fearing atheltes and
scholars who have neglected the secret of courage, and timorous
saints who have failed to possess themselves of the confidence of
goodness. Nevertheless, the eternal law is evident that the one
great enemy of fear is
The White Life in Harmonic Mind in Buoyant Body.
A person who affirms and realizes these conditions must, in the
nature of things, be possessed of perfect health. In the tone of
such health courage is inevitable.
That you may come to this ideal, you are invited to observe the
following instructions. Health is a trinity, and we may begin our
studies with its natural basis:
THE GENERAL TONE OP HEALTH.
The word "tone" means, "sound in relation to volume, quality,
duration and pitch," then, "peculiar characteristic sound as of a
voice or instrument," then, "characteristic style or tendency,
predominating aim or character, tenor, strain, spirit."
Hence, in the sense of health, tone signifies "the state of
tension or firmness proper to the tissues of the body; the state
in which all the parts and organs have due tension or are well
strung; the strength and activity of the organs on which healthy
functions depend; that state of the body in which all the normal
functions are performed with healthy vigor."
We thus see that health-tone involves the whole personality,
physical, mental and moral.
But the truth of the matter hides in a deeper region than that of
mere material flesh or organ. Matter is a form of the Universal
Ether, so far as science seems to declare, or, at least, matter
presupposes the ether in a state of vibration. Your body is a
"field" in which etheric vibrations are constantly taking place.
All its reality and all its activities involve such vibrations.
The brain, regarded as the organ of conscious life, of thought and
feeling, and the entire nervous system, involve such vibrations.
And as your thought and feeling constitute the foundation of your
moral character, the latter also becomes a matter of movements in
the ether.
In the case of heat, light, electricity, etc., differing kinds of
such vibrations determine the kinds of phenomena. We may say,
then, that there is one general kind of ether-movement for matter,
and another for thought and feeling, and another for the moral
life. Each individual, however, presents variations of these
general kinds of vibrations,--a particular variation for his body,
and for his mental person, and for his right or wrong self-spirit.
We individualize the ether, Or, we are individualized as we use
the ether.
The tone of a person's health is determined by the state of the
etheric movements characteristic to himself.
If the vibrations underlying the body life are full and harmonious
according to their individual character for a person, his organs
are all sound and active. He possesses physical tone. If there is
a similar fullness and harmony within his mental life, he must
exhibit health of mind. If a corresponding condition obtains in
the moral personality, the highest health of the deeper self
prevails.
These three individualized varieties of ether-movement in man
mutually interact and determine one another's character. I know
that this law does not always seem to operate. Poor minds and
wrong morals are sometimes found in apparently healthy bodies, and
great minds and noble spirits in feeble bodies. But the bodies of
the one class do NOT represent the finest physical health,
involving coarseness, flabbiness, susceptibility to disorder,
etc., etc., and are not contradictions of the law. Moreover, the
inner life is not always fully expressed by apparent departures
from right living: as you may frequently see in some sudden burst
of nobility, generosity, tenderness, heroism, in those who possess
sound bodies but are outwardly not particularly refined. The rough
exterior may hide a splendid germ of true spiritual manhood or
womanhood. Could we look deeply into the physical nature, we
should always find the law holding good that our three-fold ether-
movements do influence and in the long run determine one another
for weal or ill. Where the inner self is right yet the physical
tone weak or disturbed, we should perceive, if we had the "spirit
of discernment," that the better life within has surely influenced
and ennobled the essential nature of the body. It should be
remembered that two confusing factors prevail where a fine spirit
dwells in a diseased body: first, the thought-life of centuries
has, so to speak, warped the character of the inherited body and
its vibrations to such an extent that they may not, perhaps (I do
not know), be altogether reformed within a human lifetime;
secondly, the thought-life of the individual, however nearly right
in many respects, is wrong in one particular, the belief, feeling,
conviction--an inheritance of ages--that disease of the body must
necessarily obtain in some cases at least, no matter what the
inner life may be. This conviction is a tremendous force for harm.
Invalids accept it as true, and try to be reconciled. But it is
not true. The belief prevails, and so prevents the real truth from
appearing: that PERFECT HEALTH IS THE PRIMARY INTENTION OF THE
NATURE OF THINGS FOR ALL. When we can believe this magnificent
truth, we shall be able to see that right vibrations underlying
the mental and moral personality must tend to reform wrong
vibrations underlying the body. So long as the former conviction
prevails, that disease is somehow a part of Nature, the better
life contends with a double difficulty, the existing physical
conditions and the false suggestion that the individual must
continue to be ill in the nature of things or as the will of
Deity. The false suggestion should be displaced by the affirmation
and realization of physical health. Such a reforming suggestion,
made effective by mental realization and proper regimes, tends to
counteract the existing effects of previous wrong suggestions and
positively to change conditions of ill-health, because fullness
and harmony of the three kinds of ether-movements are the designed
ideals of our lives and the laws of perfect well-being (what other
design can we possibly imagine?), and the good suggestion operates
to bring about that ideal.
Let us be rid of the notion that anyone is ill because a Divine
Being wants him to be ill.
But we must remember that while these principles cannot be
otherwise than true, every individual has behind him, at any
present moment, two great forces--the past of his ancestors and
the past of his own life. Let us be sensible, even while we insist
upon truths which are among the most beautiful in the world. The
past means much to all of us. Such is law. We cannot get away from
law, whatever our theories or religious belief. To me all Nature's
laws are of the White Life and untellably beneficent. The idea
that law is something hard and disagreeable is itself a false
suggestion and a wrong thought. Law is good. The law that life is
determined more or less by the past is a fine example of this
goodness. If it seems to go against us in some cases, it surely
goes for us in assisting a right past to make for a right future.
When it seems to work hardship, the fact is the law is trying to
face us about for a right time to come. That is the meaning of
experience: it is law talking, to us out of our past. The law that
our past and that of our ancestors must be reckoned with in all
our efforts to reform the etheric vibrations in our personal
fields involves the element of time, which element may be greater
than we can control in the material life. This element of time is
important because there is another law, that great real reforms in
the individual require effort continued more or less in order that
all laws involved may properly and fully operate. If the person
who is a noble self in a weak body could add to his thought-life
the sufficiently powerful affirming realization of physical health
for himself and live long enough, I certainly believe the
suggestion would ultimately prevail. For I do not for a moment
accept disease as a necessary part of human life. Is disorder in
your machinery a part of the machine? I cannot see how a
continuously perfect self, starting with a sound body, could ever
come to possess a diseased body. I must believe that the self,
growing to the ideal, may bring into harmony a diseased body,
provided its health-suggestion is strong enough and sufficient
time is afforded for the full working of the law. The law does
not, of course, cover such cases as broken bones, because
treatment then calls for mechanical operations, which involve laws
altogether distinct from those that govern harmony among the
functions and organs of the body as underfounded by etheric
vibrations within the physical, mental and moral fields.
The limits set to self-healing power we do not know for any
individual case. The splendid general law is not overwhelmed, is
not contradicted, by such limits, whatever they may be, because
the limits are not set by the original intention of the nature of
things, but by wrong living and false ideas running through
centuries. As we may not know the limits in any case, and as the
great law shines ever before us and is equally for all so far as
it may be claimed, and not for a favored few of some particular
religious or semi-religious belief, it is ours to seize all
advantages afforded by the best medical science together with
every atom of power in the white life affirming and realizing
physical health at its best. You do not know your own limits;
therefore lay hold upon the law, the universal, age-long law, for
all you can derive from its beneficence. You are not required to
turn your back upon any other advantage, but only to swing the law
into harmony with that advantage.
Health-tone, then, is really a triune series of full and
harmonious ether-movements within the personal field working
together for a buoyant right self in a sane and truth-loving mind
in a spiritually expressing physical organism. By so much as it is
yours, by so much, in the nature of the case, must fear be an
alien and courage the breath of your life.
We may now go on to the general consideration of
PHYSICAL TONE.
It would seem almost unnecessary to suggest the ordinary regimes
for health of body. Nevertheless, I shall refer to these regimes
because, first, their importance cannot be overestimated, and
secondly because they involve certain laws of laws in relation to
health which are seldom worked out in hygienic instruction.
What may be called the laws of laws of health would seem to be as
follows:
1. Scrupulous Cleanliness of the Body, Without and Within, Makes
for Royal Health-Tone. The law should be given rational, not
slavish, obedience. Your body and your deeper self are in a
constant state of interaction. Material uncleanness consented to
contaminates that self. Uncleanness of the self also contaminates
the body. The white life requires the clean dress of honored
flesh. You are invited, therefore, to affirm always and
practically,
This robe I wear of unsoiled flesh
Keeps mind and spirit ever fresh.
2. Sweet, Sound and Early Sleep Gives the Universal Forces their
Perfect Opportunity for Good. During sleep the Universal Thought
strives to restore, as our conditions permit, harmony of
vibrations between its manifests in matter within the body and its
manifests in the non-material self. The degree of harmony is made
less in all cases by centuries of wrong living, the effects of
which are more or less accumulated by inheritance in every man and
woman (right living, however, promising in the future perfect
freedom there-from on earth), and by the disturbing power of
individual wrong living. In order, then, to secure the best
results of sleep, our waking thought should be kept in attune, by
all practical as well as by all idealizing methods, with reality,
truth, beauty and goodness. You are invited, for the reason
suggested, to live during the day in such a manner that your last
fearless thought at night may be,
"Let my soul walk softly in me,
Like a saint in heaven unshod,
For to be alone with Silence
Is to be alone with God."
3. The Utility of Nourishment Issues From Conformity to the Plan
of the Universal Forces for Each Individual. For every human body
there is a plan on which it is intended to be evolved and
maintained. The individual plan is merely a variation of the
general plan of our common human nature. That general plan
provides for certain foods and kinds of drink, for the manner in
which they are to be taken and digested, and for their utilization
in building and sustaining the body. This general plan is varied
for different persons in the primary intention of the nature of
things. Your food and drink, therefore, should depend upon your
own peculiar needs. The science of the matter investigates the
kinds of nourishment which you in particular require and advises
all items furnishing the material elements you demand. But some
individual variations, in respect to questions of taste,
usefulness and harmfulness, digestibility and adaptation, are
undoubtedly results of restrained liberty and wrong thought-life
in the past, either of your ancestors or of yourself. That degree
of liberty, therefore, which ought to be yours, has perhaps, come
to be more or less limited. It is possible for you to secure a
desirable enlargement of freedom with regard to food and drink. Of
course you have no liberty in the way of natural poisons and
beverages which dethrone common sense. Aside from the limits set
by Nature, you may acquire the largest measure of personal freedom
in the matter if you will determine therefor in the exercise of
sound reason. I have had my experience with things not liked and
things harmful--apricots, chickens, salmon---and today I eat all
that's eatable by civilized man, and I drink whatever I choose to
drink--alcohol tabooed because I want and need all the brains I
possess. It is for you to bring yourself more nearly to the
original plan for human bodies in this respect, if you will begin
with your inner thought-life and proceed more or less in the
following manner:
(a). By insisting upon a LARGER FREEDOM, not in the way of
demanding one thing or another, but in the way of realizing in
your deeper self the idea of power therefor;
(b). By endeavoring constantly to bring your thought-life more and
more into HARMONY WITH THE WHITE LIFE IN NATURE;
(c). By affirming that the food and drink of which you partake
will surely MAKE FOR HEALTH and buoyancy of the body; not merely
stating the proposition, but, while so partaking, believing the
truth and assuming it to be true--actual for you;
(d). By manifesting at all times the mood of blended COURAGE,
HOPE, CONFIDENCE, HAPPINESS;
4. THE VALUE OF WORK AND PLAY IS THE OUTCOME OF BALANCING
REACTIONS OR RESTORATIONS AMONG OUR PERSONAL ACTIVITIES. If we
conceive of any individual as a "field" of vibrations in matter
and the ether, induced by muscular and nervous action and by
feeling and thought, we see at once that there ought to be an
ideal "field" in which all such vibrations are in a state of
harmony. The state indicated would be a condition of balance. When
activities in one direction are over intense and unduly prolonged,
all vibrations tend to a strain in that direction. Such strain--
all in one direction--is not normal, because it signifies
disturbance of balance. If harmony in the "field" is to be
restored, the one direction-strain must be released so that all
right activities may recur and all vibrations proper to the
"field" may again take place. Always the ideal is general harmony
throughout the personal field. Now, some of the activities of our
life are normally those of work, inducing corresponding vibrations
in the individual "field," and some of them are normally those of
recreation, which is a true word because it means recreation, that
is, action or rest inducing corresponding vibration differing from
those of work, running, so to speak, in different directions, and
so restoring harmony. Work and recreation are, therefore, equally
essential to the normal life. We have, however, built up wrong
ideas of each of these important functions, so that most of us
distinguish work as essentially different in its basic nature from
recreation, and more or less an evil, and distinguish recreation
as altogether and in itself a good. Both ideas are surely
erroneous. I know that too much work, and work under certain
conditions, cannot be regarded as a good in itself. Precisely the
same is true of recreation. Neither, then, is to be valued or
condemned because of the kind of activities involved or vibrations
induced, but always and solely with reference to the state of
balance or harmony represented in the field of the personal self.
The limit of permitted work should be determined by that question
alone; work should always be offset, so to speak, by recreation.
The limit of recreation permitted should be determined by the same
question. It should always be offset by work. In other words, the
value of either work or play consists in change of activities
restoring balance in the personal field.
But work and recreation are not essentially different in their
true nature. In both cases we have activities and vibrations. In
all cases some portion of the body is involved. In all cases some
features of the mind are active. Action in either case is called
work or recreation according to the idea entertained regarding it.
If the idea is that of TASK, the thing is work. If the idea is
RELAXATION, the thing is recreation. I have taken the task-idea
into recreation, and soon wearied. I have taken the recreation-
idea into work, and have been obliged to call self to account
under that law of balance or harmony. A boy, for example, is
sawing wood alone: this is work. Neighboring boys join him, and
soon invest the whole place with imagination, all busy sawing,
splitting,--playing. It is the idea--that is, the real thought,
which determines the names we give the two general sets of
activities. Nature will check work-vibrations and restore
recreation-vibrations, FOR A TIME, until harmony of the field is
comparatively restored, if only suggestion use the magic word.
You are now invited to maintain, IN ALL YOUR WORK, THE IDEA OF
HARMONY WITH THE UNIVERSAL FORCES OF NATURE, and the inspiration
of the idea that your WORK IS GOOD and is building your self to
better.
You are invited also to maintain, IN ALL YOUR RECREATION, THE IDEA
OF HARMONY WITH THE UNIVERSAL FORCES and the inspiration of the
thought that YOUR RECREATION IS GOOD and is building your self to
better.
5. PURITY IN THE SEX-LIFE CHARGES THE PERSONAL FIELD WITH THE
MAGNETIC POWER OF THE UNIVERSAL FORCES. In this respect the
individual should be as a god. The human body is designed for
Temple-Presence of the Infinite White Life. Epicurus regarded it
as a husk, but Aristotle defined the soul as the "perfect
expression of the body," meaning, not that the soul is a product
of physiological conditions, but that it is the TRUTH of body, the
idea, purpose, in which only do the bodily conditions gain their
real meaning. To this great Greek the chief of human virtues was
HIGH-MINDEDNESS, a crowning Self-Respect. This attitude of the
self toward the house in which it lives recognizes the perfect
interaction of self and body, the one being influenced by the
other, and so it insists that no injury shall come to the body
from the inner sex-life, or from the sex-life to the inner self,
but that both shall be maintained in harmony with the absolute
whiteness of Eternal Being.
You are invited, then, to maintain purity under the law of
liberty, and to adopt this thought as a permanent law: MY PERSONAL
DIGNITY STOOPS NOT TO PHYSICAL DEGRADATION.
6. THE LIBERTY OF CONSCIOUS HARMONY WITH THE UNIVERSAL FORCES
EMBRACES THE INTELLIGENT USE OF THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE. The
science of medicine is fairly indicated for our present purpose in
the following quotation--from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"What is the honest truth about the medical art? That by far the
largest number of diseases which physicians are called upon to
treat will get well at any rate, even in spite of reasonably bad
treatment. That of the other fraction, a certain number will
certainly die, whatever is done. That there remains a small number
of cases where the life of the patient depends on the skill of the
physician. That drugs now and then save life; that they often
shorten disease and remove symptoms; but that they are second in
importance to food, air, temperature, and the other hygienic
influences. Throw out opium; throw out wine, and the vapors which
produce the miracle of anesthesia, and I firmly believe that if
the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom
of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind."
"It is a mistake to suppose that the normal state of health is
represented by a straight horizontal line, Independently of the
well-known causes which raise or depress the standard of vitality,
there seems to be--I think I may venture to say there is--a
rhythmic undulation in the flow of the vital force. The 'dynamo'
which furnishes the working powers of consciousness and action has
its annual, its monthly, its diurnal waves, even its temporary
ripples, in the current it furnishes. There are greater and lesser
curves in the movement of every day's life,--a series of ascending
and descending movements, a periodicity depending on the very
nature of the force at work in the living organism."
There is also in our life a periodicity of the deeper self--a
curve of the soul's condition, which varies from time to time.
When the curve is downward in both the physical and the spiritual
case, drugs are of no more value than stones. When the curve is
upward in both cases, drugs may be totally gratuitous, and they
may actually retard the combined movements. When the health-curve
is downward, the psychic curve may follow suit, but it need not
necessarily do so. When the psychic curve is downward, the health-
curve tends in the same direction. When the health-curve is
upward, the psychic curve usually follows. When the psychic curve
is upward, we have the best condition for the cure of disease. But
Nature always does the curing. The physician never cures any
disease; he merely assists Nature.
It is the function of medical science to arrest downward curves by
any tried methods, to take advantage of upward curves, and to know
what the curves are in any given case. I call my physician because
I may want him when I cannot help myself in these important
respects. I will have in my hands the greatest number of the best
forces when I am subject to abnormal conditions. I believe that is
common sense, and I know it is perfectly permissible to the most
exalted faith in the Soul of our Universe.
I am ready to concede that in a sublime state of ultimate
evolution there is nothing which a drug or a doctor can do except
surgery that may not better be accomplished by the power of
harmonic WHITE-LIFE THOUGHT claiming health. But in such a future
state disease will long since have vanished. Nevertheless, we do
now certainly know a great law of mental power over the body. I do
not concede any limits, except as above indicated, to the
operation of that law if we could get it fully under control. Its
scope, even as matters are, is immense. The law is real, and it
belongs to no particular age or body of people. It is as long as
time and as wide as earth. Any human being may claim the benefit
in total disregard of any philosophy or form of religious belief,
provided the WHITE LIFE and the health-claim are with him, under
the sole limitations imposed by thousands of years of wrong
thought-life in ancestry and similar error in personal past
decreasing ability to affirm and realize in a way to secure the
full benefits of the law. It is for every human being,
nevertheless, to strive for the inner harmony, to invoke the law
of spiritual mastery over the body, and to put forth all possessed
and obtainable power of thought and realization for health, in
good cheer, with valiant heart, and inspired by the truth that,
whatever betide, nought can really harm the abiding self. "Be not
faithless; but believing."
And so I think that our great Nature-Universe bids us hear these
words from the Infinite White Life: "Sons and daughters of the
All-Good, the power of thought and harmony are surely for you. If
you realize your highest liberty and its greatest efficiency as
you now are, you will use, not deny, those instrumentalities which
are provided in my ministers, Science and Faith. Must you be a
slave either to the material or to the immaterial? Can you not
employ both for your welfare? May not the king call in whomsoever
he will? All things are yours."
Let us not fall into the old-time religious error of assuming that
some particular philosophy or faith which we have discovered
embraces all truth and value. Let us not label this or that with
our little words, and say: "This is law--this only." The law of
thought-power in the physical realm is older than any present
civilization. The law of harmony as the supreme health-restorer
and health-builder is not a law created by the Infinite during
the last twenty-five years. I uncover my heart to every soul who
is trying for the best things and believes he has found a true
way; but I must not believe that this world has been left in stark
ignorance of the most fundamental law of our earth-life--that
health in its triune wholeness comes of the WHITE LIFE and the
realizing claim--to await the birth and word of any man or woman
in these times. It is a little too late. Therefore I say to you
who may read these pages: "Stand free! Use every means and all
methods, material and spiritual (for the material is but a phase
of the spiritual), for health and happiness."
7. THE SECRET OF THOUGHT IN RELATION TO HEALTH IS THE CLAIM OF THE
WHITE LIFE CONSCIOUSLY PUT FORTH FOR PHYSICAL WELL-BEING. In
explanation of this principle, let us try to obtain certain true
conceptions concerning the material and pyschic nature of man.
All existences come to being through the activity of one Infinite
and Eternal Reality.
The medium in which all material existences exhibit is the
universal ether of science, vibrations in this medium constituting
light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc., etc.
So far as we can think, the ether is a manifest, perhaps a primary
manifest, of Infinite and Eternal Reality.
It is coming to be scientific to hold that matter reduces in its
last analysis to electricity and is a complex form of vibrations
of the ether within the ether. Matter is not merely pervaded by
the ether; it is a state of the ether.
Matter, then, is a manifest of Infinite and Eternal Reality.
Life is a phase of the activity of matter. If we think of matter
in its grossest form, nearest to us in the process of evolution,
life may be regarded as an entity different from that matter. We
do somehow feel that matter and life are distinct realities. But
if we think of matter as a complex form of etheric vibrations,
nothing forbids our saying that life also is a form of vibration
of the ether within the ether. With this view in mind, we shall
think of matter and life as comparatively simultaneous manifests
of the ether, life, however, appearing only when the state of
etheric vibrations resulting in matter has reached a stage in
which vibrations resulting in life can be possible. We should then
say that life is a product of etheric vibrations emerging through
those that have resulted in matter; that is, life is a product of
material activities. This view cannot justly be called materialism
because Life is, then, also a manifest of Infinite and Eternal
Reality.
We do not scientifically know any sort of mind that is not
exhibited through matter. The human mind always exhibits through a
human body. What we call mind is a complex of states of
consciousness engaged in various activities. Consciousness
involves certain physical activities within us. If nothing were
acting within, we should not be conscious. This has always been
true. The first dawn of consciousness in Nature involved
activities within the organism. If we think of that first faintly
conscious existence as a mass of crude matter, then the self and
its body will appear to be distinctly separated in reality. But if
we think of that body as a manifest of etheric vibrations in which
life-vibrations also obtained, there is nothing to forbid our
saying that consciousness was equally a product of such
vibrations. If so, the psychic factor was a form of vibrations of
the ether within the ether--and so, when it appeared, had evolved
to higher forms, was consciousness.
Matter is an evolution, and out of it hare evolved life, the
psychic factor, consciousness. But consciousness is, then, for the
reasons above indicated, a manifest of Infinite and Eternal
Reality.
Consciousness is the condition of personality. When the former
first appeared, it was a product. Thenceforth, because personality
was a psychic factor in consciousness, it became a creator. That
is to say, it was capable of enlargement and enrichment, and so,
began to unfold its powers, to enrich its own contents by
appropriation, and to organize itself in various ways depending
upon its nature in each case and the influence of environment. In
seeking to realize itself, as it must do in the nature of things,
and in adjusting to environment, which was a second necessity of
its being, it began to direct the activities of matter comprising
its own body, to select matter from without needful for its kind
of body, and to build this material up into a kind of body best
adapted to its existence, and thus, by its own character, to
determine the character of the organism which it inhabited.
All this work seems entirely independent until we remember that
ether, matter, life, the psychic factor, are manifests of Infinite
and Eternal Reality. But when we so remember, we see that
personality consisting of a conscious self and a body is similarly
a manifest of that Reality.
This conclusion will appear to identify man and Deity unless we
discriminate a little. Every object in Nature is a manifest of
Infinite and Eternal Reality, but the latter transcends the former
simply because the object is such a manifest, A thing which is a
manifest or expression of something superior cannot be identified
with the superior something. I am not the words which I write,
although they manifest me and could not exist without me. Every
object in Nature is precisely what it is as a manifest of Reality.
There is scant freedom in the natural world apart from man.
Nothing in Nature could be other than it is. Man, on the other
hand, is a manifest of Infinite and Eternal Reality in the sense
that he has a body, and must have one, and is a personality and
must be one (if he is man); but in the man psychic factor has come
to consciousness, and consciousness, as we have seen, always
reveals itself in SELF-DIRECTION AND SELF-ORGANIZATION ACCORDING
TO ITS DEVELOPED POWER TO THINK OF ITSELF AS SELF-CONSCIOUS
EXISTENCE. Were it unable to so think of itself, it could not be
self-directive in the fullest sense. And were it unable to self-
direct its own activities, it could not be conscious in the
fullest sense of the word. Our existence manifests Infinite and
Eternal Reality, but the power to USE that existence is determined
by the fact that we are psychic factors in the highest sense
exhibited in the earth, and the use we make thereof is determined
by our exercise of the power of self-direction and self-
organization. We cannot help being human beings, but what KIND of
human beings we are, within the limits of personal endowments,
depends solely upon ourselves.
We may see, then, that the psychic factor within us builds the
bodies we live in, so that our physical character is largely an
expression of our personal character. Ages of wrong thought-life
are behind us, yet even so, it is within our power to improve
physical character very greatly indeed.
Now, the power of personal right thinking and harmony with the
White Life of Infinite and Eternal Reality may be explained in the
following way (you will understand, of course, that the outline is
designed merely to be suggestive):
ALL MATTER IN THE REALM OF NATURE BEING A MANIFEST OF INFINITE AND
ETERNAL REALITY, NATURE AND HER SUBSTANCES ARE PHASES OF ETERNAL
THOUGHT. The study of Nature is just the study of that Thought,
conducted in various ways and for various purposes. The Thought,
in all its existences and relations, is a vast and complex whole,
and yet, from the point of view of its highest value to man, a
great Word, comparatively simple and open to every earnest and
sincere seeker throughout all the ages. If you will ask yourself,
What are the main and abiding thoughts which are embodied in
Nature? your conclusion, I think, need not be elaborate and
confusing. The question, however, must be asked in a receptive and
unprejudiced mood, and not merely by the matter-of-fact intellect.
"Every inch of earth, of water, of fire, and of air contains the
fundamental principles of the universe, and man is the connecting
link between dust and Deity, and can bridge the gulf through the
illumination of his mind. The most powerful telescope known to man
is mind's eye." "He who has cultivated and learned to open his
heart to the touch of outward Nature illuminates his inner being
by the elevation and refinement of his emotional and imaginative
nature. This is the first principle in the objective world of the
higher education of mind and soul. The first lesson of Mother
Earth is to instruct her children to be softened and sympathetic
toward the moods of outward Nature. Thus mankind softens,
broadens, and grows, becoming more susceptible to impressions,
taking in the glory of the Divine Architect, which is in the world
revealed, and the golden gates of the soul are opened."
Seeking with such a spirit, then, the main Thoughts which Nature
embodies, I venture to say that Infinite and Eternal Reality has
there expressed itself in these great Words:
Reality, Truth, Law,
Beauty, Goodness, Harmony,
Power, Development, Happiness,
Love, Service, LIFE.
These are the Thoughts expressed in Nature which are manifest of
the White Life. For such the nature of things always declares,
when free to do so. By so much as any object of existence fully
realizes itself, by so much are these Thoughts, so far as such
realization requires, made concrete if only we have the seeing
mind and the feeling heart. With these powers of perception, the
seeing mind and the feeling heart, we come to know that all in
Nature is good and means good to every man and woman and child in
this world. There is no evil in Nature. All so-called evil in
Nature is due either to some phase of her existence wrongly used
or to some false interpretation in human thinking. Nature is REAL,
TRUE, LAW-FULL, BEAUTIFUL, GOOD, HARMONIOUS, FULL OF POWER, A
GROWING ORGANISM, A MINISTER OF SERVICE AND WELL-BEING, A LIVING
THING, A LITERATURE OF LOVE. If you refer to microbes, poisons,
deadly serpents, and the like, I reply that the perfect WHITE LIFE
in man, together with the knowledge of science, would teach him to
avoid wrong relations and develop within him physical, mental and
moral tone (tonus, in the language of the schools). Thus would he
be rendered immune from all so-called evils.
If your inner life contains nothing alien to these great Nature-
Thoughts, if you see to it that their character is given your
personal character, you will secure in the body a degree of the
power of harmony which they possess, and your health will
infallibly correspond. Do no mistake this sentence. Will you
kindly read it--again until you see what it really means? The only
limit to your health will be the limit of your ability to realize
in yourself the mighty Thoughts which make Nature what she is. I
do not mean that splendid results must immediately issue from the
course indicated. Patience and time are important factors. I do
not mean that a dying man can inevitably realize these Thoughts
sufficiently to recover health. There are limits, not to the law,
but to one's ability to use the law. In spiritual effort, effort
of the inner self to lay hold upon the Universal Forces, you can
make your own personal discoveries. I may not say a greater word.
Above all, I do not mean that merely thinking the Thoughts will be
enough, in any case. The method is one of realization as well as
affirmation. But by so much as you become that which the Nature-
Thoughts suggest, by so much will your physical and psychic health
come to buoyancy, joy and power. You are now invited, then, to
adopt the following as the permanent law of your thought-life:
I am, in every function of my body and every activity of my deeper
self, entirely GENUINE, representing TRUTH, obeying LAW, loving
BEAUTY, striving for GOODNESS, coming to HARMONY, possessed of
POWER, GROWING to better things, full of HAPPINESS, eager to
SERVE, a LIVING white life, and a Lover of all that is good.
If you will thoughtfully and believingly repeat this law twice a
day say, for one hundred days, you will find life unfolding new
meanings, fears fading and dying, and courage growing to real
greatness.
8. IN THE MYSTERY OF THE SILENCE THE POWER OF REALIZATION BECOMES
GREATEST AND MOST EFFECTIVE BECAUSE IN SUCH A STATE THE SELF MAKES
ITS HIGH THOUGHTS A CONSCIOUS CLAIM ON ALL GOOD THINGS. The direct
utility of the right thought-life is nowhere doubted. By this the
psychic factor largely molds the body and influences its
functions. Preceding methods or laws have all referred to the
truth involved. But the law of direct realization is needed in
order to complete the workings of the truth. By direct realization
the self consciously claims the present benefit of the spirit or
attitude of harmony. You may think of yourself as splendidly well
and fearless: that is one thing-you REGARD yourself as in such
conditions. And you may claim yourself NOW to be well and
courageous: that is another thing--you TREAT yourself for health
and fearlessness. When you think of your arm as moving, it does
not necessarily move; you have merely entertained the idea. When
you will your arm to move, you have claimed your power to move it
and have realized the power--realized in actual thought that
power. The difference would obtain if your arm were bound: you
could still realize in thought the sense of movement. Realization
of the Eternal Thoughts is a conscious claim in spirit and
appropriation in spirit of the Thoughts as actual within yourself.
Realization of benefits for health is a conscious holding of them
in mind as present in you. One may in time acquire the fixed mood
of realization, but it will assist you to bring about that mood if
you will occasionally, say once a day, shut out all disturbances
and alien thoughts and feelings, and try to come into communion
with the White Life--go into the silence and, by quiet
affirmation and sincere, trustful realization, claim the Universal
Forces as your helpers in building up your physical tone and the
spirit of courage. A sentence like the following may be used:
"Conscious of psychic uprightness in the white life, and of the
beauty, utility and wonder of my physical being in its nature, and
function, I now claim, and without doubt am receiving, the
Universal Forces for my best tone and courage-spirit in all-
improving health."
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