IT is because of the infinite and accurate responsiveness of law that we are told by all metaphysicians the value of forming our concept or image of reality. Many teachers tell us to visualize or mentally picture the thing we desire. 1/ But it is not so much a necessity to form the image as it is to have the expectancy. The inner mind of us will often mold the pattern, for "there is a Spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty gives him understanding." The major necessity is really not so much to picture the thing; as it is to present the idea to the creative mind. "Before they call, I will answer them. — For the Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask them." On many occasions I have made demonstrations in prosperity where the result seemed quite different from the anticipation — but better. Why was this? It was because in all honesty we were seeking the best. We did not know the absolute best; but creative mind did. We presented to creative mind the idea we wanted worked out according to the best pattern we could make. And as the artist sketches the idea which he wishes to embody in a picture, and then paints it with a skill beyond his first vision, so the Master Architect, the Law, paints for us, or brings into objective manifestation for us the idea which we held up as the "image" or "word" to it. This explains many cases where the spirit of healer and patient is right, even though their concept or image is apparently faulty. The great creative mind reflects back to us our coveted good — with its universal plus added to it. Just as Jesus said of those who give generously, "Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure pressed down and running over shall men give into your bosom."n5546 ¶1
How to Use the Imagination for Creation.n5546 ¶2
It now becomes necessary to make even clearer the principle of ideation of which we have been speaking. We must learn to distinguish the activity of creative law through ideation as opposed to concentration. We must learn the infinite superiority of the one over the other, if we are to become successful in the work of healing and helping humanity. It is through the principle of ideation or image formation that the Spirit creates or passes itself into, manifestation. Being is becoming manifest through the creative faculty acting on the pure image which Spirit projects. When Spirit begins to create a universe, it has at first no pattern by which to guide its creation. It has no rose uttering its sweetness on the air; no bird a-twitter in its leafy nest ; no star gleaming in the crystal blue. It cannot have these as a pattern for they do not exist as yet. It must therefore use its imagination ; it must imagine a rose ; it must picture a star. And so it does. In the vast chamber of Originating Spirit, the divine canvas is unrolled; and the Great Artist dreams forth the beau\y of the spheres. Celestial visionings ! Glorified concepts ! Spirit sketching-in a world! But whatever God Thinks must become. Being at once begins its becoming; and the great Law of Mind, which is its method of activity, takes up the image and bodies forth a world. This is the meaning of Genesis, "The Spirit of God moved upon the waters." "Waters" is the esoteric term for the Law, or Creative Mind. The divine idea impresses itself on the Creative Mind; and a world passes out of spirit into manifestation.n5546 ¶3
Man repeats the creative process. As spirit acts, so he. He dreams a dream, and the creative forces body it forth. He says, "Let this thing be;" and it becomes. He does not make it; he accepts it. See how it is all lifted out of the region of struggle ! He does not have to say his beads, nor "do" his affirmations, nor concentrate desperately upon it. We have had people enter our office, with their will "all screwed up to the sticking point," muscles tense, teeth set, determined to see the thing through. — If will can work, it surely will ! They have got hold of a thought and are clinging to it like grim death.n5546 ¶4
Not Will But Faith.n5546 ¶5
This form of concentration is to say the least, unwise, whether practiced on oneself or another. It acts on the supposition that the mind or will of the individual is creating something rather than controlling its creation. Indeed the will does have some power ; but the minute the thought is diverted, everything flies apart. Many become discouraged after practicing this method for a time. Their thoughts fly away from them; and they despair of ever catching them again. They find a "good thought," corner it, grab it by a wing — and it slips out of their hands ! Away it goes ; and they after it over the fence and through a hundred backyards! Finally it is again captured but only to escape, until the wearied mind gives up the pursuit and says, "I haven't will enough to do it. Yet healing on this basis, that of the human will rather than the Divine Mind, has been the only kind generally accepted by organized religion.n5546 ¶6
This fact is easily proven by reference to literature on the subject. The world has been slow to learn the lesson the Master taught: "Take my yoke — the yoke of the Spirit — upon you, and learn of me; — for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The way of the Spirit is a better way. Concentration is not your curative agent! "Of mine own self, I can do nothing. The creative mind within you, and the creative mind in which you live, move and have your being, does your work for you. Your part is to formulate your idea and let the Law do the rest. Suppose your mind does wander. If you have formed a clear image of your desire and turned it over to the law, and really believe the law is working on it, and that you will get results, your work is done..n5546 ¶7
"Commit thy ways unto the Lord (or Law), trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass. I have healed ^patients while they were telling me their troubles ovfef the telephone or passing out of a crowded room ITter a lecture. How? Simply by believing the words* of the Master. "Ye shall know the Truth ; and the Truth shall set you free. And as the Father hath inherent life in himself, so hath he given it to the son to have inherent life in himself. "The Truth" is the law of spirit's activity. Know that the creative mind is on your job ; and "it shall be done unto you, even as ye will." # #n5546 ¶8
Concentration vs. Ideation.n5546 ¶9
The difference between the method of "concentration" as an effort of will and "ideation" is that in the former you feel you have something to do; in • the latter you have something to be. For, the moment you realize a thing to be true already in Spirit, that moment it is. "Before they call, I will answer them." This, too, is the meaning of • the Great Teacher, "When ye pray, believe ye have received; and ye shall receive." Believe that the creative mind has taken up your case, believe that in the absolute of being your desire is already realized, believe that the perfect image or immaculate conception of your mind has registered on the Divine Mind, believe that the spiritual reality or prototype now is, believe that if your vision were keen enough you could now see the health of the body or wealth of estate you crave. If it is a house, that house now is, either on an objective plane or in the finer ether, soon to manifest. "Hast thou faith: only believe," these are the words of the Teacher. Then because ye believe that your good is yours, and that spirit has set it aside for you already, "ye shall receive." Your good is on the way! Being is becoming! Spirit is passing through !n5546 ¶10
And now some one could object, I suppose, to all this on the ground that it thrusts too much responsibility upon the individual. Are we not in danger of making wrong choices and thus causing the law to operate continuously upon our misshapen images? Will we not constantly be setting forces in motion which we cannot control and thus bring upon ourselves the very evils which we would avoid? And one must answer, "Yes," though I would not admit it as a flaw in the divine order. It is the very token of the sublimity of my own soul that I can choose even hell if I want to. If heaven is to be thrust upon me, who is to thrust it? Your kind of heaven might be hell for me. A certain minister said that it would be heaven for him to recline on a couch through all eternity and have his wife ruffle his hair. "But," he added, "it would be hell for her." And so it might. No, I must be able to choose; and it is no choice at all unless I can choose that which may not be at all for my best good but rather for my worst.n5546 ¶11
It must be remembered that choice consists in selecting for ourselves those combinations of things and ideas which fit our own particular interest. If we were without choice, we would also be without individuality. Your individuality is different from mine in just this respect, that you select a different set of interests from mine. You prefer a different type of friend; you enjoy games that I do not enjoy ; you read different books ; you select cake instead of cookies; and you would not perhaps think it fun to bathe in the ocean in winter. The things that interest each of us constitute a set of ideas that are individual. Even were we to eat the same food, breathe the same air, and drink from the same well, we wrould not be alike. If Jack Spratt and his wife had both eaten fat and both eaten lean, Jack might have been fat while Mrs. Spratt remained lean all of her life, because he thought big jolly thoughts while she worried about everything. She might have been a very thin thinker.n5546 ¶12
So, of course, we may make mistakes in the selection of our interests and the combination of our ideas. In which case we would get into trouble, for fear and faith amount to the same thing in the end, in that each is an attitude of mind, an idea which will bring to us manifest, just what we have uttered into Creative Mind. The one we call evil, because we do not like it; the other we call good because we do.n5546 ¶13
But if we bring upon ourselves some deplorable evil, what then? Why it comes; and we do not like it; and we change our way of thinking. Expectancy and wrong choice brought it. Expectancy and changed choice will remove it.n5546 ¶14
Theory of Denials.n5546 ¶15
Just here we may well consider the theory of denials which play so much a part in the teaching of some systems of thought. The theory is builded upon the obvious fact that there is something in experience which we do not like, which we call evil. But as God is the All-Good, and there cannot be anything outside of Him, then there cannot be any real evil. It is only apparent. It is an illusion of the mortal mind.n5546 ¶16
What is wrong in this argument? We have already seen that there can be only one mind and to admit of any other mind that can experience anything at all, is to admit a dual universe, even if we go way round the bush and call it "mortal" orn5546 ¶17
"human," "carnal," erroneous thought, cinema picture, illusion, lie, and all those other synonyms for a second mind. And to say that the evil itself is an illusion, is to say that we can experience an illusion. In fact, to deny a thing is to Confess it, for if we did not experience it, we would not know anything about it. But if we can experience an illusion of pain and evil, is that not just the same thing as saying that we experience the pain and evil? "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" and evil by the name of illusion feels as bad.n5546 ¶18
We have already seen, however, that whatever we experience is the physical expression erf a superphysical idea; that is, we bring forth in form just what we conceive in thought. Our partial view of things, our mistaken choices, have brought forth the monstrosity at which we shudder. Clothed in flesh, we perceive how wrong or vile was our thought. But here it is in flesh or in circumstance ! What are we to do ? Forget what we do not want and declare what we da want.n5546 ¶19
In cases where the thought cannot conceive the perfectly rounded idea of health or prosperity on account of the immediate circumstances of pain or lack, it may sometimes help to state, "I do no longer allow it. It shall not be." In this you do not deny the (experience ; but you refuse any longer to recognize it. I have a great friend, a powerful healer, who tells me how she acted in her own case.n5546 ¶20
Being resolved to be free of her sickness, she felt impelled to a vocal declaration, but lived in an apartment where she could not make all the noise she wanted to. So she cast herself on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, drew another over her to stifle the sound and yelled at the top of her lungs, somewhat like this, "I won't be sick. I won't be sick. I will not have it." These may not have been her exact words ; but it was her thought ; and it healed her.n5546 ¶21
The purpose is to get rid of the feeling one has of suffering and sorrow and unhappiness and want, and make way for the influx of health and all other forms of good. This enables us to hold up the clear image or feeling of the thing we desire, and Creative Mind then has a clear pattern to work upon to bring forth our idea into physical expression.n5546 ¶22
Thus we see that in this system of teaching there is no room for denials at. all.1n5546 ¶23
For to state that we will not be sick or unhappy is really an affirmation. To say that we will not yield to the fear or danger in which we find ourselves is not to deny that what is so# plainly evident to us is an experience, but to affirm that it cannot "get us." So the Ninety-First Psalm does not state that no one ever falls or suffers from plague, but it does say, "It shall not come nighn5546 ¶24
1See also pages 66-68, How to Develop Faith That Heals, by the author.n5546 ¶25
thee. Only with thine eyes [not in your own personal experience] shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him." Deliver him from what ? Certainly not from an illusion, but a real peril. "I will set him on high because he hath known my name."n5546 ¶26
It thus becomes clear that the determining factor of our lives, whether for good or ill, is the concept or idea which we hold. If our thought is ever upward in expectancy, we shall ever draw to us the finest and the best. If we picture the lovely and true, and expect it, verily our faith shall have its reward.n5546 ¶27
Note what we have said: "If we select our good, and paint it in living colors of faith, it will come to us!y Many there are who think good thoughts and wish for the best to happen. Once in a while there rises a man who commands it to appear; and it does appear because he believes that it will come.n5546 ¶28