"The study of Heredity, _spiritual_ anatomy and physiology is
highest of all. The key to this study is your own soul. Study
yourself; gain possession and mastery of your own spirit and you
hold the key not only to the heights of liberty, but the key that
unlocks imprisoned souls."--_Mary Weeks Burnett M. D._
"MARLOW, October----.
"My dear husband: Gradually the vision broadens and we become more
accustomed to the light. It is as though we were put into a beautiful
room filled with all manner of lovely forms and dainty colors, flowers
and perfumes, where we have groped blindfolded from one thing to
another, trying to form some conception of the surpassing loveliness,
when gradually the bandage is removed, layer by layer until the whole
enchanting scene, radiant with light is revealed to our wondering gaze,
showing the vast difference between supposition and reality.
"The light grew clearer than ever to-day, for we had our first practical
hint on healing, inasmuch as we were told how to take up a case for
treatment.
"We must never forget that we are, and wish to remain as little
children, in our desire to apprehend and understand Truth. The natural
attitude of the child-mind is one of receptivity and eager interest.
Under the guidance of wise parents he will always be willing and anxious
to learn more and more, continually growing in wisdom and love.
"Back to the zeal and innocence of childhood we go then, to learn the
ever mysterious but ever charming alphabet of Truth, which leads us into
the kingdom.
"As we present ourselves in the great school room of life, and take or
recognize our appointed place beside the ever present School-master, we
learn the letters of the grand knowledge that shall teach us how to read
the most learned books, understand the deepest philosophy, the
profoundest science, the divinest religion. We would learn the ministry
of healing, that will set free the 'spirits in prison;' we would be glad
messengers of the gospel of peace. The door to great attainments is
faithfulness in small ones.
"There are three kinds or modes of healing. The first or lowest, is the
intellectual; the second or next higher, the intuitional; the third and
highest, the spiritual. The first only can be taught, the other two are
attained by individual development. The first comes by reason, the
second by faith, the third by understanding. The first is by argument or
a system of reasoning, the second by implicit trust or confidence in the
Principle, the third by the realization of Truth and the speaking of the
word or perchance, by one's very presence.
"But there is nothing arbitrary about this. The person who never heard
of Christ's teaching till yesterday may have so caught the fire of Truth
that to-day he stands at the altar a priest instead of communicant, a
teacher instead of pupil.
"Many just beginning their study of this method of healing require
explicit directions and explanations of details, in order to apply the
principle, feeling that they have no intuitional leadings and can not
depend upon the invisible power because they know so little about it.
"Wait; be patient; trust. Remember that 'he who is faithful in little,
shall be made ruler over much.' You need not learn the rule if you learn
the principle, and only so long as you are ignorant of the principle
will you need the rule. To use the rule, as the child uses the chair in
learning to walk, is to grow strong, and able to dispense with it; to
use it as spectacles are used, is to make it indispensable.
"If we can not yet learn through divine ways, let us learn through human
ways. The human is inadequate to express the divine, but many nameless
hints and light-gleams and sudden illuminations will flash upon the
faithful worker all along the way. Words are signs of ideas and ideas
are signs of God. When we think or speak true words, we have begun our
mission of healing or helpfulness, and from words we go on to the
inexpressible thrill of realization.
"We can not tell when we may thus change from the letter to the spirit,
can not tell when we come into the exalted condition of a spiritual
understanding, and having received the illumination, we are not to feel
that we have grown above the use of argument, for it may be necessary to
go back to the rule with the very next treatment.
"Above all else must the student of this Truth guard against what may be
called spiritual pride. No thought of supremacy or greater advancement
should be harbored for a moment. All such things are clouds that obscure
the light as much as other material beliefs.
"To gauge ourselves by that inimitable thirteenth chapter of I.
Corinthians is to maintain the perfect equilibrium of a loving,
charitable heart, that can heal and bless all human-kind, for 'love
never faileth.'
"We become, as it were, the cleansed window pane, through which shines
the divine light of Truth. Could we always be the cleansed pane, Truth
would melt away all error, just as the sun melts the frostwork, but
being still in the current of human thought we must wait patiently for
further power to reveal the God-likeness.
"Wrong thought as the real cause of disease, opens new avenues of
information; but we continue to explore and discover. Any kind of
thought opposite the good is sure to break forth into some form of
disease-pictures, and the question is, what kind of thought is it which
thus reflects itself upon the patient's body? All error will produce
pictures of error. The world's naming of the belief in heredity is the
naming of its greatest error, or belief in sin, because that implies all
sins of the flesh as manifested in the body.
"Back of all effect is a cause; the disease is the effect, the wrong
thought is the cause. One of the great causes of disease is sensual
beliefs, the appetites and passions of the carnal man.
"It is error to suppose he is subject to conditions unlike God, the
Source. 'He that is born of God, can not sin, because his seed remaineth
in him.' Being in and controlled by the universal thought current, the
error of supposition, he manifests it in his condition. Supposing
consumption hereditary, he suffers from the supposition; supposing
impurities of the blood transmitted through the flesh, he finds it even
so. Supposition, false thinking, being at the bottom of all erroneous
conditions, we proceed to deal with them as we do with any other errors
or lies.
"When we seek for anything with a desire to gain happiness, it is
because we hope to gain what our previous efforts have failed to bring
us, so the one who comes to be healed by Christian Truth, comes with a
hope at least that this will bring the health he has sought in vain from
other sources. He has turned in all directions in response to the advice
received from this or that one of the friendly advisers, so ready to
constitute themselves the body guard of the world. He has tried doctors
of every school; he has traveled east, west, north and south; he has
plunged into healing waters of all kinds and had all kinds of healing
waters plunged into him; he has been burned and steamed and pounded and
starved, till he is finally disgusted enough to want something that will
not harm if it will not cure, so he drags himself before us with
possibly a gleam of hope, possibly the faithlessness of despair, and
asks for a treatment.
"And now you wish to know in what a treatment consists; simply in
silently telling the patient the truth about himself as God's child, in
giving him the principles we have learned concerning God and man, and
with earnest gladness assuring him of his freedom. For the benefit of
the young practitioner, we will give a few directions or suggestive
treatments.
"We ask the patient for a statement of his belief, which he is only too
glad to give with elaborate and vivid details. We meet every statement
with an emphatic mental denial.
"The faithful student who has fasted and prayed (denied and affirmed),
is now the embodiment of one vast negative that should wipe out the
positive belief of any inharmony. The patient, being in the belief of
false conditions, is of one mind with the world, and so reflects the
beliefs of mankind. That we may be sure of meeting all classes of false
beliefs, we deny for him the reflection of any false conceptions of
himself from the race, his parents and ancestors, his friends and
associates, himself and ourself, for we are still one with humanity.
"Everybody has a conscious or unconscious belief in heredity, and since
it is one of, if not _the_ most formidable of human beliefs, we deal
with it first as the possible cause of our patient's belief in
suffering.
"After he has finished the statement of his condition, we say to him
mentally: 'James Martin! Hear what I say, for I tell you absolute truth.
Not one word of all this you have told me about dyspepsia is true,
because the carnal mind, to which you have been listening, is not
subject to the law of God, and _you_, the spiritual, immortal you, are
subject to the mind of the spirit which recognizes the spiritual
creation, therefore your spiritual self can not be sick or suffer from
any inharmony.
"'This carnal mind belief named dyspepsia is not a condition of your
real self. The belief of the race, ancestors, daily associates, yourself
or myself in heredity and the sensual appetites can not be pictured
forth by your body in the form of dyspepsia, because the real you is
spiritual and not subject to material beliefs. It is utterly impossible
for you, who are spiritual, to be influenced by any thought that is
opposite the spiritual, as it is impossible for the light to coalesce
with darkness.
"'_You_ are God's child, made in His image and likeness, and must be
perfect like Him, for His conditions are changeless and eternal. Listen
to this glad message that tells you absolute Truth. Realize that as
God's child you can not suffer, for spirit knows no suffering. You can
not be weak, for God is your strength; you can not fear anything, for
God is your refuge and fortress. 'God hath not given us the spirit of
fear, but of love and of power and of sound mind.'
"'Listen to me!--The 'Truth sets free.'--_Now, you are free_. You gladly
acknowledge the truth, and prove it in every thought, word and deed.
Like the Master, I say unto you, 'Lazarus, come forth!' Come out of the
errors in which you have been so long entombed, throw off the grave
clothes of mortal thought, and rise to new thoughts, new conditions, a
new life! Rejoice that you are whole, and let the world rejoice with
you.... It is finished. In the hands of omnipresent Good, in the name of
immaculate Truth, I leave you.
"'So may this be established, yea, it _is already_ established. I thank
Thee, Father, that thou hast heard me.'
* * * * *
"This lesson, John, is very hard to report. I find so many questions
suggested to my mind, and so many if's and but's.
"Mrs. Pearl desired us each to take up a case for absent treatment, some
one we would like to help, and from whom we could hear every day or so,
or who would be under our personal notice. I am going to treat a little
boy in the house where I board. It is quite a severe case of catarrh.
"I wish you would take a case, too. Just try this form of treatment that
I have given. It may not seem clear to you at first, but it is not the
words you are to remember so much as the ideas. Get the thought firmly
fixed in your mind, and the words will come of themselves.
"You readily see it is using the same principle with the patient that
has been applied in self training. First, the denial of all error, and
then the affirmation of truth. This treatment is for any chronic
condition, and is given twice a day, in the morning and at night.
"Now, I must say good-night. It is nearly eleven, and I really ought to
say my denials and affirmations some more, besides giving my patient the
treatment.
"With many kisses to the dear ones,
"I am your loving MARION."