Talks on Truth, by Charles Fillmore, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
Talks on Truth, by Charles Fillmore, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
Lesson I--Reform Your God Thought
1. Why is this the age of reforms?
2. Upon what do the majority of reformers insist?
3. What is a natural law?
4. What is the supreme dictator?
5. How is thought generated?
6. Why is silence important?
7. How do reforms begin?
8. What is love?
9. Great men received their inspiration from what source?
10. Explain the origin of every act of man.
11. In what two directions can the conscious I look?
12. What does a belief in separateness lead to?
13. Explain why God is accessible.
14. What is your higher self?
15. Explain God's willingness to help solve all our problems.
16. Can one go to the Father with trivial problems as well as larger ones?
17. Is it possible to hide oneself from omnipresent intelligence?
18. How does God want you to reverence Him?
19. What will you be in His kingdom?
20. Describe God's kingdom of love and unity.
Lesson II--Microorganisms
1. What is Being? Explain.
2. What place has Adam in creation? Are Adam and man identical?
3. What gives character to one's conditions and surroundings?
4. What does the historical symbology of the Bible teach us?
5. Who gives character to all the ideas that exist? How is it done?
6. Explain some of the factors that enter into the process termed "thinking."
7. What is the origin of disease microbes? of health microbes? How are they formed?
8. What is the remedy for disease germs and for all destructive microbes?
9. Is the intellect of itself able to set up a standard of good and evil? To whom should this office be relegated?
10. What is the intellect, and whence does it draw its substance and intelligence?
11. Is Adam a part of the divine plan? What must we do with him?
12. What is the fount of wisdom? Where and how shall we attain true wisdom? Explain.
13. Why do we love to name or give character to the ideas of Jehovah God? How can the ideas in Being be made manifest?
14. If men would consult God before passing judgment upon His creations, and would think only God thoughts, what would be the result?
15. Are microbes and disease germs a part of the law of unfoldment in Being?
16. How can the problems of life easily be made orderly and divine?
17. How may man become conscious of the dominion that is his by divine right? How may he be delivered from the wilderness of ignorance?
18. How can one's personal I be led up into the consciousness of the I AM? What is the star to which one's I AM should be hitched?
19. How are the real and enduring things of God brought into visibility?
20. Does anyone outside of ourselves make us suffer? What is the one and only enduring power?
Lesson III--The I AM In Its Kingdom
1. What kind of ideas has the greatest power? How do ideas lose their identity as limited things and take on the unlimited?
2. When does an idea go forth in strength and harmony?
3. With what must we ballast our mental ships if they are to return to us laden with good?
4. Explain the I AM in its relation to the I Will.
5. Is the I AM in itself power, wisdom, and love? Explain.
6. In its right relation to Being, does the I AM ever own anything? Explain.
7. What is the I AM? Where is its home?
8. What is the mission of the I AM? How did it ever become separated from its sphere of wisdom?
9. Where is heaven?
10. Should we think of heaven as a condition only, or should we in our thoughts give it a definite place?
11. What produces forms or things?
12. Where is the source of the intelligence and life of every form?
13. How may the human body be compared to a system of planets?
14. What and where is the undiscovered country that we all are seeking?
15. What takes place in regeneration, the redemption of man from sin?
16. Is the "inner kingdom" material? What did Jesus call this place of wisdom?
17. Do we evolve this inner kingdom through thinking? How do we realize its presence?
18. Can the real man be lost or held in condemnation? What is it in man that has wandered away from God and needs to return to the Father's house?
19. Can we get into the kingdom through such means as mesmerism, hypnotism, and mediumship? Has man more than one ego or I?
20. Why may the road back to the Father's house within seem hard at the start?
Lesson IV--How Shall The Dead Be Raised?
1. Is Webster's definition of death complete? Explain.
2. Can we learn to be healthy by studying disease? Explain.
3. Is it well to study about evil in order to know good?
4. How can we know all that we need to know about death?
5. That life may express itself wisely, what is needed besides life? Why do many people fail to exercise wisdom in their living?
6. What is life?
7. What governs the life in man's body?
8. What are our methods of creating energy? Is it necessary to do more than merely perceive the omnipresence of life in order to manifest fullness of life?
9. In order to get desired results, what factor must be considered in addition to perceiving Truth and speaking words of life?
10. How does man waste the substance of his organism? Why should he not do it?
11. How did Jesus become the Word of God incarnate? Has anyone else this privilege?
12. Where must we always go in order to know the origin of an effect?
13. Can we have fullness of life and health apart from an acquaintance with God? Explain.
14. What above all else do men need in this day? What would more life without wisdom do for man?
15. How did death come into our world? How can it be put out?
16. Explain the process of demonstrating over death.
17. Explain sleep in its relation to death.
18. What is the "carnal mind"? What is sin?
19. Where do we first do our "raising of the dead"?
20. By what power is our consciousness resurrected from all error and death thoughts?
21. How do beliefs affect our organisms?
22. Besides holding right mental images, what must one do that one's whole being may be resurrected from the dead?
Lesson V--The Development Of Divine Love
1. How may we feel and know the love of God?
2. Is there more than one love? Explain something of the faculty through which man receives love from Being.
3. Will love apart from right thoughts build up a harmonious consciousness? Explain the Peter faculty in connection with thinking.
4. Can love in its fullness be safe in the life of man apart from judgment, discrimination-the disciple James?
5. What four faculties, evenly balanced, form the foundation of a harmonious consciousness?
6. What, besides right thinking, must help to open the way for one into the kingdom of health and harmony?
7. What has error thought done to love in its expression in and through man?
8. What is the secret of demonstrating supply?
9. Explain the sentence "Love . . . taketh not account of evil." Has love of itself the power to discriminate?
10. How can we change into good that which seems evil?
11. Explain love as the great magnet of God. What is the result of focusing one's love upon anything less than the All-Good?
12. Explain the sentence "Love suffereth long, and is kind." How may one control turbulent multitudes, and bring about peace and harmony?
13. What is meant by "the power of love"?
14. What is the result of associating power with intellect? Why cannot power be used successfully through intellect?
15. Why should power in its expression always be associated with love?
16. Is anything too hard for love when it is put to practical test? Explain some of the things that love will do for one.
17. Explain the sentences "Love . . . envieth not" and "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."
18. Does love ever seek its own? Explain.
19. What will be the result when love is brought into action in the consciousness of the race? When will this condition begin to be manifest for each one of us?
20. Is the present seemingly unloving condition of the world a bar to our individual expression of love?
21. Explain the true body in its relation to the body of flesh.
22. How may we develop the love center and become able to exercise love toward everybody?
23. Can the great love of Being be known truly on any plane except its own? Who only may know the depths of the Father's love?
24. Has man really the capacity to feel and express the Father's love? Explain.
Lesson VI--The Ministry Of The Word
1. To whom has the statement made by John at the opening of his Gospel always been a stumbling block? How can this statement be understood?
2. Wherein has theology wandered away from the Truth of omnipresent Spirit, and wherein lies the greatest virtue of pure metaphysical doctrine?
3. To whom are we indebted for the clearest presentation of spiritual science that has ever been given to the world? Explain how this is true.
4. Are theories always to be trusted? What evidence is needed to prove a theory?
5. Explain the Word of God in its relation to the three steps necessary in the working out of any process.
6. Explain the statement "The light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not."
7. Explain the sentence "There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John."
8. What does "light" always mean in the Scriptures?
9. What is meant by "pure metaphysics"?
10. What is implied in the sentence "Without him was not anything made that hath been made"?
11. Is there more than one creation? Explain.
12. How does creation proceed? What part has man in bringing forth the formless into visibility?
13. How does man make states and conditions that are transitory? How may man form his consciousness in harmony and consequently in permanency?
14. What is Mind? What is the result of cultivating pure knowing?
15. Where is the working field of pure knowing? How may man be inspired by Spirit to say and do things that are extraordinary in the sight of the world?
16. Can the secret of this superior magic be bought with money? How can it be obtained?
17. Should we forbid anyone to do works in the name of Jesus? Give reasons for your answer.
18. What is indicated by the fact that in the Scriptures the Word of God is usually personified?
19. What is the Word of God to man?
20. What are the privileges of the sons of God? Who become in fact the sons of God?
Lesson VII--Ye Must Be Born Again
1. To whom and what was Jesus referring when He said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit"? What is man?
2. What is meant by the statement "Know thyself"? How may one know oneself? What does one know when one knows oneself?
3. What is your I AM? Is there more than one I AM?
4. What is it that is born of flesh and born of Spirit? Explain.
5. Why were we born into the flesh? What is the "flesh," and what is the "Spirit"?
6. What is the moving factor of the I AM?
7. Can the ego have any experience that it chooses? What must take place before one can leave the realm of sensation and its experiences and enter into the spiritual birth?
8. What is it in us that says "I AM"? Why can it not be described? What is it in the flesh consciousness? What is it in the spiritual consciousness?
9. What will open the door in Spirit?
10. What is the flesh and what does it express? How can we cause it to show forth the conditions of Spirit?
11. What is it to be born into the Spirit?
12. Explain some things that must be dropped by the I AM that desires to function on the spiritual plane.
13. Of what are the five senses avenues of expression? When is sensation an evil?
14. How can we gain freedom from bondage to the flesh?
15. What is the difference between sensation expressed in the flesh, and sensation expressed in Spirit?
16. Why must a person be sincere in his conformity to the conditions of Spirit after claiming his unity with Spirit?
17. What attitude should one take after having agreed with the Father to do His will and to be born of Spirit?
18. How may we know that we are being to be born of Spirit?
19. Why is it that many Truth students fall short in their demonstrations even though they are faithful to their hours of meditation, have denied and affirmed for years, and so forth?
20. In the new birth, what must follow spiritual thinking?
21. Can a man be born again and expect the help of Spirit in his affairs as long as he believes in securing his rights through the courts? Who is our judge?
22. What is required of one who seeks the new birth?
23. Can any real reformation of the world be brought about by magnifying error? What is it in one that sees evil?
24. How is it possible to obey the injunction to "see clearly to cast the mote out of the eye of thy brother"?
25. Who is the "Son of God and Son of man" referred to in the next to the last paragraph of this lesson? Where does man belong?
Lesson VIII--Obedience
1. What is thinking?
2. What is the power to think? What is it that brings about a world of illusion?
3. How may man build his body temple in wisdom? What is the meaning of the name "Simon"? Explain the symbology of his name's being changed to Peter.
4. When do we begin to gather our disciples (faculties of mind) and how do we proceed?
5. What was Jesus' highest aim? Explain His seemingly contradictory attitudes of mind that are suggested by His statements: "I can of myself do nothing" and "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth."
6. Explain how the relation between God and man is similar to that existing between a co-operative colony and its members.
7. Does man really possess any powers, or even his body? Explain.
8. How have some of the most miraculous cures been made?
9. What is the short cut into the kingdom of heaven and wholeness?
10. What are man's burdens? Have we ever a right to take any burdens upon ourselves?
11. How do burdens arise? How may we relinquish them? What should be our attitude toward persons who seem to be dependent upon us?
12. Are dispensers of charity really friends to the race? Give reasons for your answer.
13. What is one of the most prolific burden producers of man?
14. What is necessary in order that we may really trust Spirit? Should this always be a blind trust? Explain.
15. What is Spirit? Explain something about its character.
16. How do we get into the presence of Spirit? What is the flaming sword that turns every way to guard the tree of life?
17. What is disobedience to Spirit? Why do people seek healing and help in outer miraculous ways apart from any real change of mind on their own part?
18. What is the second step in the working out of one's salvation? What is essential to one's building a spiritual body?
19. What law is operative in bringing forth the God man? Explain something of this law.
20. How may we live as Jesus of Nazareth lived-one with the Father? What does this oneness with God mean?
21. Where must we look for power and wisdom? Where shall we find the well of living water, and what will be the result?
22. What is our mission? What should be our standard of achievement?
Lesson IX--The Church Of Christ
1. Is what is called Christianity the doctrine of Jesus Christ? Has it ever been? How did it come about?
2. Who is the builder and head of the Christ church? Did Jesus give any authority for organizing this church with creeds and dogmas? Explain.
3. What is the one guide and source of inspiration? How do we know that "this promise" was not restricted to Jesus' immediate disciples?
4. What is the rock upon which the one and only church of Jesus Christ is built? Give reasons for your answers.
5. Are Jesus' words in John 5:39 a command to search the Scriptures in order to find the saving Truth? Explain.
6. What keeps men in bondage to the "lower world"? What occurs when one's mind becomes open and free to search out the higher truths for oneself?
7. Where and how does the mind of man become corrupted or distorted?
8. When does a person become an obstruction to his soul's progress? Why does man make such mistakes?
9. What is the true church of Christ? Where and what is its temple? Explain.
10. Whence comes most of the opposition to the church of Christ? Explain.
11. Explain the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, and why it cannot be forgiven. What is its result?
12. Should we pronounce every experience good? Why?
13. Explain something of the process of reconstructing your organism. How is the new organism grown?
14. What is the result of this reconstruction of man's organism?
15. What is the result of man's organizing his religion?
16. Can the church of Jesus Christ be confined to any external organization? Where must it be set up?
17. In his search for God, what does man find when he unreservedly gives himself up to the Spirit that is his one leader?
18. Does the church of Christ refer to things abstract, or does it refer to things concrete? Explain.
19. Does God perform miracles? Explain.
20. How may we do the works that Jesus did?
21. What is meant by the "organic church"? What is the result of its construction?
22. What is the promised city, the New Jerusalem? Explain.
23. Wherein are many metaphysicians "not wise in their methods of attaining the ultimate organic building"?
24. What does Spirit want in us above all things else?
25. Can we claim our good conduct as a merit card to give us any preference in the regeneration? When does the personal mentality lose its center? What is the result?
Lesson X--The Lord's Body
1. Explain the teaching of Christianity regarding the human race.
2. What did Jesus come to show us? Why have not all His promises been fulfilled?
3. Is there any reason why our body should be destroyed? Explain.
4. When can it be said that we have availed ourselves of the Jesus Christ redemption and have our abiding place in the Lord's body?
5. Why have men seemingly failed for two thousand years to avail themselves of the Jesus Christ redemption?
6. Of what is our body the fruit? What is the key to the resurrecting of our body?
7. If creation seems to fall short of the divine perfection in any way, what is the cause?
8. What is the truth about the body of man?
9. How can one discern the "Lord's body," and what is the result of not discerning it?
10. What is "pure reason"? Why do many people wander away from it?
11. Who is responsible for bringing forth the divine perfection? Explain.
12. What is the real secret of metaphysical healing?
13. What gives importance to the body beyond the usual estimate?
14. Can we save our body from death? How?
15. When does "the Lord's body" begin to appear?
16. Is there any limit to healing? Then where does the continued thought and demonstration of health naturally lead?
17. Can "the real body of God" be weak, sick, or imperfect? Give reasons for your answer.
18. Is disease natural? Why do people experience disease? How can they let go of it?
19. Do drugs ever heal the body? By what means may the body be restored to health?
20. How can our seemingly material body be the temple of the living God? How may the Word become flesh in us?
Lesson XI--The Restoration Of God's Kingdom
1. What is the prophecy of our Bible and of the bibles of other peoples concerning the earth? Name a special point of difference between these prophecies and the teaching of modern science.
2. How and when will this condition of peace and happiness be brought about?
3. Explain something of the great change that has taken place in late years in the scientific world.
4. Are changes also going on in the mental realm and in the religious world? Explain.
5. What is the beginning of every state of consciousness? Who planted the seed thoughts that are now springing up in so many forms and shapes? Explain.
6. To whom are the keys that open the gates of the New Jerusalem presented?
7. What more than mere possession of this key is necessary?
8. Can we perpetuate present conditions, in God's kingdom upon earth? Should we seek to do so? Explain.
9. What is needed that we may choose wisely between that which is transient and that which is enduring?
10. What is the standpoint from which our ideal world must be formed and built?
11. When will the Christ kingdom be ready? Who may enter into it?
12. Does this kingdom already exist, or do we have to prepare it by righting the conditions of the world?
13. What is the way into this kingdom? What opens its doors?
14. Did Jesus give the location of the "kingdom of heaven"? What do His parables about it teach?
15. Upon what are founded man's theories about a place called "heaven"? Where was this city that John saw? What does his vision really mean?
16. Why has the sense man ignored the fact that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and is within man?
17. Is the kingdom an ideal realm only, or has it an external side? Explain.
18. What must we do in order to make the kingdom manifest? Must one understand the law thoroughly in order to do this? Explain.
19. What in man represents the mechanical device through which the All-principle is made manifest? What sets the machinery in motion?
20. How can we understand what the kingdom of heaven is like? By what must we be guided in defining it?
Lesson XII--The Holy Spirit
1. What is meant by the "gospel"?
2. What was the origin of the creeds and dogmas of the churches and their teaching concerning salvation?
3. Did Jesus Christ establish, or authorize the establishment of, the "Christian church" as we know it today?
4. How can we know the doctrine of Jesus Christ? Who is its only authorized interpreter?
5. How may we understand the relation and office of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Why is this true?
6. What is the Holy Spirit? What is His relation to the Father and to the Son?
7. What was the mission of Jesus?
8. What does the function of the Holy Spirit imply? What does the Holy Spirit do for man?
9. How did the Hebrews get their concept of the personal, tribal God, Jehovah?
10. According to the Bible, how was the word of the Holy Spirit communicated to the people after man had severed the conscious connection between his mind and the Spirit?
11. What is the normal condition of man?
12. What is the Holy Spirit's mission to man?
13. What is the one factor that the disciples and immediate followers of Jesus Christ counted absolutely necessary to their success? Explain.
14. Did the mission of the Holy Spirit end with the inspiration imparted to the writers of the New Testament? Is the Spirit in the world today with the same power and wisdom that He had in Bible times?
15. From what is the soul of man to be saved? How and when do we learn the way to bring this salvation about?
16. What is the first step in unraveling the gospel? Why is there no attempt made in the Scriptures to describe the Holy Spirit?
17. By what means may man come to know the Holy Ghost?
18. Can we separate the doctrine of Jesus Christ from the Holy Spirit? How are they related?
19. Does one meet the requirements of salvation by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of one's soul, and by believing this until one passes out of the body? Explain.
20. Was Jesus the only Son of God? What is His teaching in regard to all who believe on Him?
21. What is the true and full import of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
22. Can one fulfill the requirements of the gospel by living uprightly and believing on Jesus Christ as one's Saviour? Explain.
23. Should we claim our sonship now, when we are not fully expressing it, just as we claim health when appearances belie it? Explain.
24. What is the power through which we make our belief manifest?
25. When you have convinced yourself that you are a son of God, what is your next step?
26. If we do not manifest our spiritual powers as we should, how can we be guided to the needed revelation?
Lesson XIII--Attaining Eternal Life
1. Describe Adam as originally created.
2. How does man get away from sense consciousness?
3. How are we transformed?
4. What must we do to escape the second death?
5. How do we realize eternal life?
6. What is man's salvation?
7. Explain the law of life and how it is revealed to man.
8. Explain the effect of the cells of the body on health.
9. What is a universal solvent?
10. How can man cleanse his thought?
11. What is the wisdom of Spirit?
12. What is the secret of the demonstration of Christ?
13. How do we become really alive?
14. How does Jesus describe the states of consciousness of one who passes through the change called death?
15. What is the effect of material selfishness?
16. How is man affected when he loses the material avenues of expression?
17. Define man; Spirit.
18. What is the soul? the body?
19. What is the goal of man?
20. What replaces the physical body?
Lesson XIV--Jesus Christ's Atonement
1. What is symbolically described as the Edenic stage?
2. How does man get away from sense consciousness?
3. Describe the results of disorder in man's relation to creation.
4. Can man thwart the divine plan?
5. Explain God's idea of man.
6. What are we seeking?
7. What is the root of the church's teaching? What part does Jesus play?
8. How can we understand the atonement?
9. Explain Jesus' opening the way for all who will follow Him.
10. How do we receive the benefits of Jesus' work?
11. Explain the higher and the lower consciousness of Jesus Christ.
12. Why is thought co-operation advantageous?
13. What factor made Jesus God incarnate?
14. Why can't we separate Jesus Christ from God?
15. What was the process of Jesus' evolving?
16. What words of Jesus have rung through the ages?
17. Explain universal belief in the power of the sacred word.
18. What does Jesus tell us to do?
19. Define personal consciousness.
20. How can you be yourself?