Teach Us to Pray: Thoughts Are Things

I am no longer like Lot's wife, preserving evil in mind and
body by remembering it. I relax and willingly let go of all
effete substance, that the new, pure radiance of God may be
made manifest in me.
My mind no longer clings to the complexity of mortal
finances. I am open to the splendor of the kingdom of God
within, and a flood of plenty follows.

ONE OF the axiomatic truths of metaphysics is that "thoughts are things." That the mind of man marshals its faculties and literally makes into living entities the ideas that it entertains is also a foregone conclusion.

The word "things" expresses poorly the active and very vital character of the thoughts to which the mind gives life, substance, and intelligence.

We see so many inanimate "things" around us in the material world, and we compare our creative thoughts with them and thereby get a very inferior

Shakespeare says, "The poet's pen . . . gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." At the same time the poet's mind forms in the ether a replica of his idea, and that replica takes up its habitation in his thought atmosphere and henceforth injects into it a tincture of the sentiments that the poets originally had.

This ability of the Adamic man to "name" or give character, form, and shape to ideas is symbolically described in the 2d chapter of Genesis, where Jehovah God brought before Adam the elemental ideas or "beasts" of the Garden of Eden (called by metaphysicians the "ether"). "And whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof."

We often refer in Unity literature to the discoveries by modern science of the ether and its stupendous properties as confirming in scientific terms what Jesus taught in symbols concerning the properties of the ether, which He named the kingdom of the heavens. The Garden of Eden is a symbolic description of that elemental realm which modern science has named the ether. Science says that this ether fills all space, is not molecular, and possesses an amount of energy beyond comparison with anything material; that all the complex phenomena of nature may be reduced to different kinds of waves of energy in the ether. Professor James Jeans says, "We live in a universe of waves, and

nothing but waves." He also says that it may be that our mind lays hold of the atoms of our body and so forms the world about us.

Here we see how very near to the teaching of religion scientific minds are approaching. They are virtually proclaiming the one life as the source of everything. Their next great proclamation will be that one directive intelligence is an essential cause of the harmonious universe.

Every experienced metaphysician knows that man's mind molds from an omnipresent element whatever takes form, shape, and intelligence and becomes part of his thought world. That science in a measure confirms this is a source of gratification and a stabilizer of faith. Knowing that our world is composed of what we have idealized should make us more watchful of the activities of our mind. Are we still harboring thought forms that are impeding our soul's progress? Are we preserving our evil thoughts by thinking about them with fear in our mind? Or it may be that we yearn for the pleasures of the past and like Lot's wife look back, thereby subjecting ourselves to the things of the past or with the salt of the mind preserving them. There are always better things just ahead for those who build in mind the living thought entities that go before and open the way.

Man lives in two worlds, the world of cause and the world of effect. The world of effect is at present in a complex tangle. Panaceas without number are offered. There is but one panacea and that is the installation of an economic system in which human greed will be eliminated. To institute such a system will require men and women who have overcome greed in themselves.

If you would help the world, and incidentally yourself, to better economic conditions, begin to deny your selfishness and greed and affirm,

"I am open to the splendor of the kingdom of God within, and a flood of plenty follows."

I join with all the hosts of heaven in declaring that only the good is true, and that good health everywhere is made manifest.

The rich substance of the kingdom of God is pouring its plenty perpetually into my mind and affairs, and I am in all ways prospered.

THAT MAN in his spiritual nature is leagued with supermind realms is taught freely in the Scriptures and can be proved to the satisfaction of anyone who will submit to the required mental discipline. That these supermind forces are not always used to bring about good is no argument against their existence. Anyone who develops spiritually in any way breaks into realms of thought energy superior to the intellectual and can incite to action subtle causes that mystify the average on-looker. For this reason every Christian metaphysician should acquaintance with these facts about the supermind, which occupies so great a place in Truth demonstrations.

The question is often asked if the Indian medicine man or the African witch doctor uses the same force that the Christian healer does. The answer is yes. There is but one primal life in which we all exist and which we use as we will. The way in which we project this force determines whether we are Christian or pagan. If our thought is to destroy, we are pagan. If our thought is for peace, we are Christian. This law is operative not only in the nations but in every individual. As we are taught in our Bible, God originally guided man to think good only; but man was tempted and chose to be free and think for himself. This freedom threw the whole race into a mental vortex of "good" and "evil," hate and love, war and peace. Christ is the Prince of Peace and Satan is the devil of destruction.

These good and evil states of consciousness form the heavens and the hells of the race, and we go in mind to heaven or hell every time we mentally project the thoughts that "chord" with that particular state. Only a supermastermind can overcome this law of mental affinity and set up in our earthly discordant thought atmosphere a consciousness of peace and love. Jesus was able to do this, and when we think of Him, the Christ in us "tunes in" to the Christ in Him and we are saved from the destructive forces that tear soul and body asunder.

The mental harmony of Jesus not only radiates throughout the earth but reaches into the heavens, where it taps the glory of the Son of God. When we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ or

decree His presence and power in our spiritual work, we effect a reunion with His supermind and its tremendous ramifications in heaven and earth, and our own meager spiritual ability is augmented a thousandfold. Jesus understood and used this law of thought affinity when He claimed that the works He did were not His but the Father's within Him. It was in this consciousness that He proclaimed, "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." He also affirmed a like spiritual unity for His disciples and for all those who proclaim Him as their spiritual leader. His last promise was "And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." This is found in the 16th chapter of Mark, where it is also written, "And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed."

Peter and John developed marvelous healing power when they spoke the magic words to the lame man at the gate Beautiful: "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." "And immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received strength. And leaping up, he stood, and began to walk."

For two thousand years those who have had faith in Jesus and proclaimed their faith in His name have had proof that He is present as a dynamic

life-giving force. Men and women with no previous healing power have suddenly become healers of marvelous ability. They do not claim to understand how the healing is done. They know only that through the exercise of faith and their word the spiritual quality in them is fused into unity with the power of Christ and the work is marvelously accomplished.