A OF Pag > DE Gouag 1926 Cy <2) OcicaL sew Division << ./ Section AVA A Pi SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING een: in a QA VE Pha? , DEC 13 1926 Ge & ociea, sew - SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALI BY A WILLIAM T. WALSH FOREWORD BY RT. REV. ARTHUR SELDEN LLOYD, D.D. BISHOP SUFFRAGAN, DIOCESE OF NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK # LONDON & MCMXXVI COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 BERTHA PRISCILLA JOAN SUZANNE FOREWORD Many will welcome the appearance of this book. Men’s minds are turning more and more towards the subject the author discusses. ‘The calmness and sanity of what he says adds to the value of his work. The Church is becoming aware that perhaps unconsciously it has laid upon those who are called to the practice of medicine the whole responsi- bility for the care of the sick. At the same time the greatest physicians seem to be coming to the conclusion that there is a factor in their problem which has been overlooked or left in abeyance. There is nothing more inspiring in the develop- ment of medicine than what seems to be a growing consciousness that in ministering to a man’s body those forces which are spiritual must be taken into account along with the laws of his physical frame. It is obvious that we are approaching the time when the priest and the physician must collabo- rate, and perhaps there is no more difficult prob- Vil Vill FOREWORD lem to be solved than to find out how this can be done. It may have to wait until each has learned that to the other has been intrusted truth which must be shared before either can do his work as it should be done. } “Scientific Spiritual Healing” should help to- wards a consummation ardently to be desired. At any rate it will tempt the priests of the Church to question again why the command to heal the sick has been treated as though this command had been abrogated. For the present, every man may have his own theory as to how the principles which the Author discusses should be applied, but all must confess that the end he strives after can be attained. he matter of importance is that those who suffer shall not be defrauded of the blessing which is theirs of right through the negligence of those whose duty it is to bring this to them. This book will be read with the greater confi- dence not only because the writer is a man who has devoted long time to his subject, but because he is one who, moved by the distresses with which he constantly comes in contact as a faithful pas- tor, has had the courage to accept what has been shown in the Revelation of the Incarnate One and FOREWORD ix has dared to take our Lord at His word. The re- sults that Mr. Walsh has attained give pause to the most skeptical, while they enlarge the hope of all those who are sure that the gift which the Christ bestowed upon His friends is theirs to-day as it was at the beginning if they are willing to pay the price involved in being co-workers with Him. AOSMETOYD: Bishop Suffragan of New York. CONTENTS FOREWORD iret ren ol laale belie eu oa tak nan te Vil PART ONE THE PRACTICE OF SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING CHAPTER _ PAGE I. THe MEANING OF SPIRITUAL HEALING 3 Il. TECHNIQUE IN SPIRITUAL HEALING. . a III. SprriruaL HEALING IN PRACTICE . . 29 The Healing-of, an Epileptic 2.65. 230 Healing a Man Possessed of Fear . . 36 Spiritual Healing in the Crisis of a Dis- RESCUN Nia atte s\n Pied raisin a mT abe IV. SprriruaAL HEALING FoR THE DyING. . 49 V. Tue Piace oF SpiriruAL HEALING IN PERRISTIAN TEV gion (aie) ace Piatt eyes aee 50 PART TWO THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING VI. SprriruaL HEALING AND Mopern Sci- ACen ar wenn he riggs ele Cee Lior cee VII. THe PuHILosopuy oF SpirIrUAL HEALING 84 xi xil CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII. THE Psycuotocy or SPIRITUAL HEALING IX. Appitiep PsycHoLocy IN SPIRITUAL TLEALING? hoe X. Dairy Heattine Stupies: MeEpITATION AND PRAYER inet RUE RIN Wira ene A let. Ih). APPENDIX 8) Us fo a TEE Se eee face TENDER ie AORN ao DRO eae ri ee PAGE 97 120 138 157 177 red a THE PRACTICE OF SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING a eh gS a AEM ae AS Swe ey i” 4 : ‘ 7 ; ve i 2 } 7 ‘ - ‘ : , Wy i } rs . , ar a iv os 4 ” s ») @ 5 wT wos fs ify j a” ' “*~; , j . a ake a UE eaians CHAPTER I THE MEANING OF SPIRITUAL HEALING THE word spirit is about as hazy a word as the average man has in his vocabulary. A little thought, however, will make its meaning sufh- ciently clear for our present purpose. Let us start our thinking with this short definition: Spirit is something that is real but not material. We know pretty well what is popularly meant by matter. It is anything that occupies space or takes. up room. Matter has length, breadth, thickness, weight, and other physical properties. This book is material and so is your hand that holds it. But how about mind? Your mind is real, but it has no dimensions. It does not occupy space or take up room, and it does not weigh anything. The mind, therefore, is a reality but not material. Your will is also very real but it is not material. The same is true of life. It is the realest thing 3 4 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING you possess, yet it is not material. But the su- preme reality for you and me now is conscious- ness. ‘To be aware of myself, to know that I have an existence as an individual separate and distinct from others is the reality called consciousness. It is the direct opposite to matter. That which is material does not know itself. Whatever is aware of itself and other realities is not material but spiritual. ‘This reality which is not material has its original and highest expression in what we name God. Charles P. Steinmetz, chief consulting engineer of the General Electric Company, thought about the real things that man can know and wrote that the fundamental reality in the universe is a myste- rious thing, which, for lack of a better word, he would call energy. It is an invisible, nonmate- rial substance, according to his description of it. This is what I call spirit. Add consciousness to Steinmetz’s fundamental reality and you have what I mean by God. When man organizes glass, copper, brass and a few other materials and makes them into an incandescent lamp, that mysterious energy called electricity can manifest itself therein as heat and MEANING 5 light. If he puts the copper and the brass to- gether in a certain other highly organized way called a dynamo, electricity can manifest itself there as motion. So when “nature” puts water, iron, lime, salts and a few other things together to make the human body, that mysterious energy called spirit can manifest itself in the body as life, mind, feeling, will and consciousness. The word healing is used throughout this book in the broad sense in which it is used in the Bible, namely, to express any beneficent effect produced by spiritual means, for example, on the land, the soul, the body, the feelings, a city, the under- standing. A few quotations will illustrate how comprehensive this word is. We read: “I will forgive them their sins, and heal their land;” “Heal my soul for I have sinned against Thee;” “Yet would He not heal you nor cure you; “He hath sent me to heal the broken- hearted;” “He would have healed Babylon but she would not;” “It may be to the healing of thy error.” Thus quotations from the Bible might be multiplied to show that the word is used, as I use it, to mean any beneficent effect produced by spiritual means. 6. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING A system of healing that is truly scientific will of course recognize its limitations and will not be tempted to go beyond them. It will insist upon the closest codperation with other sciences and agencies of help in ministering to human needs. I believe in spiritual healing, properly understood, but I have a good family physician. My advice is that on the way from the physician of the body it will always help to consult with the physician of the soul. And when all human aid fails, as some time it must for every one, when the body gives warning that life is not going to dwell in it always, even then doubts and fears can be healed and an assurance generated that death is only a change from a less perfect to a more perfect manifestation of spirit. CHARTER I TECHNIQUE IN SPIRITUAL HEALING A QUESTION naturally arises in connection with this presentation of spiritual healing. People are sure to say, “Is not this practically Christian Science, or New Thought?” The answer is that since scientific spiritual heal- ing deals with healing through spiritual means, it must to some extent be like other systems of spiritual healing. But there are essential differ- ences between what I advocate and other systems, notably the difference in the conceptions of God, the reality of the material universe, and the knowledge and use of technique. All the healing movements take from the Bible the truth that God is the ultimate reality in the universe and that God is spirit. But the move- ments in question deny that God is a personal being and claim that personality is a limitation. Scientific spiritual healing afirms that God is the ultimate reality in the universe and that God is spirit. But it differs from others and also 7 8 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING affirms that God is personal and that personality is not a limitation. ‘The difference is clear-cut and fundamental. These other systems confuse personality with individuality, a person with an individual. Yet these are two quite different concepts and unless their difference is recognized hopeless confusion results. The essence of personality is consciousness of self and what is not self. A tree has individu- ality. [hat is why we can recognize one tree as being different from another. Individuality means that which divides and separates one thing from another. But the tree is not a personality because it is not conscious that it is a tree sepa- rate and distinct from other trees. A man is an individual in so far as he is sepa- rate and distinct from other men. He is a person- ality in so far as he is conscious of what he really is. An idiot is an individual easily distinguished from other men or other idiots. But he is not yet aware of what personality is, neither is he conscious of possessing it. Consequently he is not treated as a person, that is, as one conscious TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 9 of rights and obligations such as normal persons are conscious of. A normal infant is an individual, but only a potential personality. It has not yet reached the maturity of consciousness. It is a person only in so far as it is conscious of what it truly is. Hence an infant is treated as a person in the making. Consciousness, the essence of personality, is not a limitation. Consciousness is that which broad- ens our horizon of being. The man who is aware of his true nature is rapidly leaving limitations behind. Jesus in making men aware of the truth that they are sons of God was not limiting them. He was setting them free of a host of limitations caused by the lack of this consciousness of son- ship. Needless to say scientific spiritual healing does not deny the reality of the material universe of which our body is a part. Science is demonstrat- ing more and more that matter is not what it seems to be to the unscientific mind. A lump of steel is not a solid, inert mass. We know now that it is made up of incredibly small structures called atoms, which are constantly moving at great 10 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING speed, and that in a block of steel a foot square there is, strange to say, more space than solid matter. So with all material things. They are much more mysterious than people generally sup- pose and we have been in error about their nature. But our errors have not destroyed the reality of material things. “Chey are what they are whether we understand them or not. Our present under- standing is that material things are manifestations of energy, as is everything else that we know any- thing about. Our senses react to certain stimuli, for ex- ample, to vibrations. We reason about the sen- sations these reactions have caused or occasioned. People come to all sorts of conclusions as the result of that reasoning. Some conclude that the material world, including our body, is a delusion, an error in our reasoning. Such persons confuse an error in a judgment of their mind with some- thing that exists quite independently of their mind, as they confuse personality with individu- ality. Scientific spiritual healing differs from other systems in the essential place it gives the knowl- edge and use of technique in healing. TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 11 In all the vast range of Christian literature, so far as I know, there is no extant study of the technique of the healing practiced by Jesus and His disciples. - It is true that attention has been called to some of the things done and to some of the words uttered by Jesus and His disciples in studies of their healing work. But so far as I know no one heretofore has written to show that Jesus and the disciples used a highly developed technique. No one has described this technique and analyzed it. No one has designedly experimented with it and made a report showing the connection between the technique and the results achieved. Do not un- derstand me to mean that the technique alone ac- counts for the results. I mean only what I have stated. This matter of technique is rather a large sub- ject. A whole book might well be devoted to it. But so clearly does the technique appear in the accounts of healing in the New Testament that the task of giving a good idea of it is not so dif- ficult as it might at first seem. It is popularly believed that when Our Lord or the disciples healed people they merely put 12 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING their hands on them, or touched them with some object, saying, “Be thou healed,” or similar words. And if the sufferer had faith he was healed. ‘The procedure, however, was not quite so simple. 3 Let us turn to the account of the healing of the paralyzed man in the third chapter of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and observe what really took place. Considering that this is not a modern scientific report of a clinical treatment, the details here given are amazing. Every day, according to the account in the Acts of the Apostles, a man who had been born “‘lame”’ or paralyzed, was carried to the temple at Jerusa- lem. He was placed at the gate called Beautiful so that he might beg from the large number of persons who passed close to him on their way to the temple services. One afternoon at three o’clock, Peter and John, the Apostles, on their way to the temple to attend a prayer service, were just about to pass him, when their attention was attracted by his plea for alms. Would you have a picture of what they beheld? You have only to recall the sight pre- sented by any cripple sitting on a landing of the TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 13 subway or elevated railway stairs engaged in the same occupation. You will recall that the cripple is far from alert. He has been monotonously making the same plea for alms day after day. People have been passing in a monotonous stream. Some persons put themselves to sleep by monotonously picturing and counting sheep going over a fence. It is the monotony that induces sleep. It is the monotony of what the beggar says and sees that gives a down cast to his eyes and head and makes him listless or drowsy. In all probability such was the condition of the man seen by Peter and John. They stopped before him. Both fastened their eyes upon him. We shall return to this detail later. Peter says, ‘Look on us,” for as we surmised the man’s eyes were downcast. [he man obeyed. MHe gave heed, “‘expecting’’ something of them, money of course. ‘Then Peter startled him with the words, “Silver and gold have I none.”’ A new speech undoubtedly to a beggar, and disappointing. But quickly comes a different emotion, expectancy again. “But such as I have I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up, and 14 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and he, leaping up, stood and walked.” I have called attention to several bits of tech- nique to prepare the way for a fuller description and analysis of the account. The cripple was in a subjective state, that is, his mind was not fixed on anything in particular. It was free to receive the unencumbered idea from another, and to be possessed by it. “To accom- plish this Peter fastened his eyes upon him, taking him by the eyes, as it were, to hold his attention so that his words could convey the idea. Peter’s attitude is intensely personal. ‘Such as I have I give,” he declares. The words “Rise up and walk” are a short, emphatic command. Just what modern psychology says should be done. Such a command is scientifically known as a ‘‘shock” which releases dormant, or latent energy, or per- haps imparts it, or makes a person susceptible to receive it from Him in whom we live and move and have our being. ‘There is a “power that worketh in us” by which God is able to do ex- ceedingly above what we can ask or hope for. I am not here saying just where the power to TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 15 arise and walk came from. ‘Technique in healing is'a method of making power available, not a theory that accounts for its origin. Finally, to use a psychological term, there was an accompanying suggestion, as emphatic as the command. Peter did not touch him, he ‘‘took”’ him by the right hand. He did not merely assist the cripple, he “lifted him up.” In a word, here was a drowsy, paralyzed beggar who could not stand alone and the first thing he knew he was not only on his feet, but walking. It is a simple matter for any one versed even a little in the laws of the mind to understand the condition of the lame man from the point of view of psychology. But perhaps it will take a little more thought to appreciate Peter’s mental or spiritual state. I hold that what we call life is the spiritual in our make-up. It is the prime, underlying real- ity. All that we think or do or feel is a manifes- tation of the life conditioned by the instrument through which it manifests itself, namely, through the body. If the very life in me has the knowl- edge, gained from experience, that it can codper- ate in the healing of others, that knowledge is 16 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING power. The words spoken at such a time are charged with power. The look in the eyes mani- fests it. The grasp of the hand lifting manifests it. The whole body is the instrument through which a spiritual force, which I call the life, mant- fests itself. This is what I understand Peter offered when he said “‘such as I have I give.”’ He gave it all confidently. ‘There was no reserve. He knew that he could feel and act confidently because he did so in the name of Jesus of Naza- reth. For an Oriental to do something in the name of another was to identify himself with that other person for the time being. After all, Peter looked upon himself as the instrument of the Lord. And he therefore spoke with a con- fidence and authority and power well-nigh impos- sible to one who has not had his experiences in the manifestations of the life. Of course I do not imply that Our Lord and the disciples acted explicitly and consciously on what we would to-day call the laws of psychology. But when we study what they said and did and felt, and also study the conditions under which they healed, we find that they acted on what we call the principles of psychology and according TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 17 to its laws. They used centuries ago a technique and they expressed principles which scientists to- day have discovered, by independent research, to be scientifically true. Which is only to say that scientists are discovering truths in our generation which Jesus and the disciples actually practiced two thousand years ago. Perhaps it was hidden as science then. But there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed. When a patient is in a very receptive condition we say that he is in a subjective state. ‘This state has, of course, many degrees. We read that be- fore Paul healed a cripple he gazed steadfastly upon him and saw that he had faith to be healed. If you would really understand what Paul did and what happened to the cripple you must put yourself in Paul’s place. With great sympathy for the sufferer, great desire to help him, and great belief in the power of the spirit, place a patient before you. Gaze upon him steadfastly. Do not merely look, but gaze. Be a man of in- tuition as Paul was. Know something of ‘“‘the power that worketh in us.’ Can you imagine what will be revealed in your eyes, and what will be reflected in the eyes of the other? Can you 18 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING imagine what will be the effect on the patient when the spirit, the life within you both, becomes en rapport? “If two of you agree as touching anything you shall ask,” is one of the conditions of healing. ‘There can be such agreement at times that the patient’s attention is quite absorbed by you. He accepts what you say in a quite dif- ferent manner than if you were merely talking or praying for him. It affects him quite differently. I have sat thus with a patient whose heart missed two full beats in every fifteen and who had just come from a specialist who said she was on the verge of valvular heart trouble. After several minutes spent in making her subjective, I said, among other things, ‘“Now your heart beats regularly, regularly, regularly. It will not miss a beat.’ And for five minutes while I spoke the heart did not miss a beat. Then I told the patient what had happened and gradually changed the subject to other matters. And gradually the heart got back to its skipping. I of course told the patient to report to the specialist. I assumed no responsibility in such a case. I regret to say that she did not follow my advice. ‘This is a danger in spiritual healing to be guarded against. TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 19 But when she came back the next week and re- ceived a scolding for not seeing a specialist, I was glad to learn that her heart-beat now was absolutely normal, and I may add it has so con- tinued up to the present, which is five years since I treated her. ‘The patient was merely in a re- laxed condition, a receptive condition, barely suf- ficient to call it subjective. I do not know how long Paul treated his patient, but the statement that he gazed steadfastly would imply that it was of some duration. Enough surely to be classed as a bit of technique. Those who use the laying on of hands for spir- itual healing in a church first conduct a religious service. [his service is really part of the tech- nique of healing even though the “healer” be un- conscious of it to the extent that he would deny that he used any technique. The expectancy aroused by the fame of the “‘healer,’”’ the hymns, the prayers, the associations of the place, the lay- ing on of hands, the command “Depart thou spirit of infirmity,” are all elements of technique. The technique is good although the theology of the command be bad. And when such persons are healed or helped, though false theology be used, 20. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING but good psychology, does it not prove that tech- nique is indeed most important? Supplemented by correct theology even greater results would be obtained. It is a fact that physical healing can at times be accomplished by accommodating one’s tech- nique to the superstition of the patient. But the ultimate aim of spiritual healing is not merely physical healing. ‘The healing that leaves one in his superstition is not far removed from the heal- ing of the medicine men of savage tribes. The ultimate aim of spiritual healing includes teaching the patient the whole truth as far as we under- stand it and he can receive it. For it is the whole truth that makes one wholly free. Dr. Grenfell, the missionary surgeon in Labra- dor, tells about a semi-savage who had a badly ulcerated tooth and who came to him seeking re- lief. Dr. Grenfell proceeded to treat him as a scientific surgeon should. But the sufferer refused such treatment, saying, “You are a wise man, you know the word. Speak it and I will be cured,” or words to this effect. Being unable to persuade the man to accept surgical treatment, Dr. Grenfell asked what the man wanted him ta do. The man TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 21 said, ““Touch my tooth and say the word.” Dr. Grenfell put his finger on the tooth and pro- nounced some words. A pleased expression came over the man. He seemed instantly relieved of his intense pain. And we have the word of Dr. Grenfell that the next day he examined the man and found no trace of ulceration. I might add that Dr. Grenfell does not practice mental or spiritual healing. He is one of those who seems to find the highest expression of his religious in- stincts in serving his fellow man in the wilds of Labrador through the practice of the science of surgery. But we can be sure that the spirit of such a devoted man brings much to the patients that could not be brought to them by surgery alone. The point I am making here is that the right technique is highly efficacious in spiritual healing. Suppose that Dr. Grenfell had used a prayer of intercession as his method of healing that man, that is, as his technique. Suppose he had knelt and prayed. ‘The man’s physical condi- tion, in all probability, would have remained un- changed. It would not have been the most effica- cious method of healing that man. So we should 22 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING adapt our technique to the condition of the patient and when possible so instruct him that we shall be able to use a technique that is in keeping with all the truths of religion and modern science. Technique includes such things as the place where the sufferer is treated, the personality of the person treating him, the ability to beget such confidence as renders the sufferer receptive, the understanding of the sufferer’s personality as well as his infirmity, the method of procedure, the con- fidence of the one giving the treatment, his knowl- edge of the laws of mind and spirit, and his knowledge of the conditions highly favorable to the successful operation of these laws. This sum- mary of qualifications by no means exhausts the list of what is required. For spirit is a reality, an energy. If great technical knowledge is re- quired in the use of that energy called electricity is it not reasonable to suppose that considerable technical knowledge is required to use successfully for healing that energy called spirit or mind? When the technique I have described is ap- plied to a person it is called a healing treatment. I place the patient in an easy posture, sitting or reclining, and speak to him in some such words as TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 23 are given in the account of healing a man at the time of the crisis of pneumonia." Sometimes, especially in extreme cases, I use my hands more than in the account just referred to. For the hands can be the outward sign of the inward power. And when the patient feels the reality of the force of hands on his brow or body it helps him to experience the reality of a force within accomplishing what I describe. I can easily light an ordinary gas jet, on a dry cold night, with the electric sparks that snap from my finger tips, generated merely by walking natur- ally over a carpeted floor to the center of the room where the chandelier hangs. Perhaps this quality of my make-up, or as I prefer to say, of the life manifesting in me, accounts for the experience that many have when [ lay my hands upon them. Some say they experience a tingling sensation like that produced by an electric current. Others say their experience is that of a soothing warmth that greatly diminishes, and frequently banishes pain. One of my parishioners, a young man of whom I was especially fond, had an unusually painful cancer located internally in the lower front of the abdomen. For many weeks I visited him every 1 Pp. 42 to 48. 24 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING night and I found, from my extended experience in treating him, that when everything else failed, I was able to soothe the pain and put him to sleep by keeping my hands for a long time over the place where he supposed the pain to be. I say where he supposed the pain to be, because the pain was not where the cancer was located. Matter cannot feel. Only life can feel. “The ma- terial, that is, the water, the lime, the salts, the iron, and all the other material things that make the human body, cannot feel. Much more than fifty per cent of your body is water, just like the water that flows from the pipes in your house. The water in those pipes cannot feel, the water that composes such a large percentage of your body cannot feel, nor can any other material thing that composes your body feel. It is per- fectly self-evident that lime, when used in the construction of a brick wall, cannot feel. Is it not equally self-evident that lime used in the con- struction of your body cannot feel? It is the life manifesting itself as consciousness ? that feels and suffers so intensely when the materials that com- 2 Consciousness has degrees. Life in animals rises to con- sciousness of pain and to higher experiences, but not to the degree of consciousness required for personality. a TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 25 pose a part of the body get into that condition that we name cancer. Hence to get the sufferer intensely conscious of something other than the pain is to relieve him of the pain. Relieved of the pain the patient soon slept, that is, he ceased to be conscious of everything during the period of this natural sleep that I here refer to. When people come for healing to the Healing Service in the church they do not receive what I call a healing treatment. What is done in the Service is too general to merit that term. At the proper time I place my hands upon the head of the person. This is an ancient practice but the psychology of it is good, if, as I hold, pain is really an experience of the conscious mind so in- timately associated with the brain, therefore with the head. When I use my hands to greater extent, as now to be described, I employ some such form of medi- tation as the following: ‘““*Be still and know that I am God.’ God speaks these words to you, to you his child. God speaks to your body and says: Be still, body, and know that I am God. You will know it by the peace, the calm, the tranquillity, the feeling 26 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING of well-being that now begins to come to your body. For I am come that you might have peace. This peace is the proof that I am with you. “Now I place my hand gently on your brow, and my hand now passes over the top of your head, and down the back of your neck. A feeling of ease, relaxation, and peace follow my hand. Now every muscle is relaxed on your brow, your forehead, your neck. ‘I pass my hands along your arms and hands even to the finger tips. Every muscle lets go and your hands and arms are at rest. “Over your chest I pass my hands and relaxa- tion, peace, rest flows over your chest. “I pass my hand over your body. Every muscle, every organ, every cell relaxes, lets go and there is peace, perfect peace, in all your body and you know it comes from God. Let your body smile and be glad in thanksgiving. ‘God speaks to your mind and says: ‘Be still, mind, and know thy God, and have peace, perfect peace, quiet and tranquillity.’ Now peace comes as your mind relaxes and lets go. “It lets go of the past. There is nothing to worry about. The past is gone. See, like a cloud TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 27 past fears and doubts float so quietly away. Everything that might interfere with the well- being of your body is floating away and your mind smiles and is happy. It rests in the present peace. For God is with you and will be always and with God you can do all things. “Beyond body and mind is the life, the soul, the spirit. God says, ‘Be still, soul, and know that | am God.’ Your soul is like God, made in His image. ‘The Scripture says that you are a partaker of the divine nature. You are your soul. ‘You are immortal because you partake of the life of God. God shares His immortal life with you. “God is peace. You partake of the peace of God. At the center of your being there is a source of peace. Now up from that source as from a spring comes peace, a peace that the world cannot give nor take away. ‘It manifests itself in your heart and your heart beats peacefully. “God is all strength. You partake of the strength of God. Deep within you is a source of strength. It comes forth. You feel it in your 28 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING heart. Strength goes out with your blood to all parts of the body. Your heart says as it beats, peace and strength, peace and strength. “God is all courage. You partake of the cour- age of God. Within is a source of courage. It now manifests itself in your heart. It beats cour- ageously. You breathe in peace, strength, courage. “Every organ in your body is now aware of courage, peace, and strength. They move with a new life, the life of God that He shares with you. You know God. You have peace that passeth understanding. Look for it to remain. Rejoice and thank God.” This is a most inadequate description of a treat- ment for spiritual healing. When one is treating a patient successfully he must be in the mood to speak as the spirit gives him utterance. Call this mood inspiration, or intuition, if you will. It is a mystic experience in which one is conscious of the working of the divine spirit. It is the realiza- tion of the truth of the words of Jesus, ‘‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). CHAPTER III SPIRITUAL HEALING IN PRACTICE ALL truth, all goodness, all health are from God, from whom, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it, “comes every good and perfect gift.’”’ The physician who sets a broken limb does not heal that limb. It is a spiritual force, that is, some- thing real but not material, manifesting itself in the individual that heals it. The physician co- operates with that spiritual force which we call God, and whether he realizes it or not, he is God’s minister to the extent of that codperation. So it is with all the good work of surgeons, physi- cians, nurses, and all others who minister to the afflicted. This codperation with God can be through physical means, as in setting a bone; through mental means, as in suggestion or instruc- tion; through spiritual means, of which I am to write at length; or, best of all, by combining these three means. In the course of my pastoral work I was called to visit the sick and the afflicted, the burdened and 29 30. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING heavy-laden, the discouraged and the failures. I found, as all clergymen find, great faith among many in God’s power to keep the Scriptural prom- ises. Of course, one always prays with such per- sons, but occasionally I felt moved to lay my hands on them as Jesus and His disciples had done. These ventures of faith, plus a knowledge of certain mental and spiritual laws which I had gained from much study and some experimenting, became so numerous and successful that I an- nounced a service of spiritual healing to be held in the church every Thursday morning after the celebration of the Holy Communion. The following report of the healing of a few of the many persons who have been healed should bring home to us Christians the great need that there is for the revival of this ministry among us, and the fact that the gracious promises of the Lord can be realized to-day as they were of old. THE HEALING OF AN EPILEPTIC Among the several hundred afflicted who at- tended the first service of spiritual healing which IN PRACTICE 31 I conducted, was a boy twelve years old accom- panied by his mother. They were both unknown to me at that time, but later both called on me to tell of the great blessing they had received. Dur- ing several subsequent talks with them I gathered the facts of the case as here set down. The boy was the only living child of a physi- cian, a younger sister having died in infancy. ‘The parents were normal, as were also their children. At the age of ten the boy while playing with a companion was hit on the head with a heavy piece of wood, and was rendered unconscious by the blow. Ina short time convulsions appeared. Dur- ing these attacks he frothed at the mouth, bit his tongue and at times set his jaws so hard that it was only with great effort they could be pried apart. At the time of the accident his father was in France with the American Expeditionary Force and the boy was attended by the family physi- cian. As his malady increased he was placed under the care of a specialist. In the meantime the armistice having been signed, his father re- turned home and the specialist continued to treat the little sufferer. 32. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING About a year and a half had elapsed since the blow had been struck when the mother asked the specialist when she might hope for some in- dications of a cure. At this stage of his affliction the boy was having sometimes as many as four to six attacks a day. The specialist replied that the mother must be prepared for an unfavorable report as the malady would probably increase rather than abate, for the boy was epileptic. This being the verdict the treatment of the specialist was discontinued, the attacks continuing as pre- dicted. Hearing of a service at a Roman Cath- olic church where a relic of St. Anne was applied to sufferers, the mother brought her son there and the relic was applied at intervals over a period of six months, but without any apparent benefit to him. The boy had been suffering from his affliction for two years when the mother read the announce- ment of the first service I was to conduct. Despite previous failures to secure relief they both came in hope. At that service I spoke of God’s power mani- fested through Jesus and His disciples. I tried to make that power real and reasonable to my IN PRACTICE a9 hearers, using as illustrations the working of in- visible natural forces. One example will illustrate the truth I reiterated. God may be likened to the sun. It is always shining. If you do not see its light that is because something is between you and the sun. When you desire the sunlight to enter the room of the sick you have only to raise the shade and the light streams in. It is of the nature of light to be present instantly when the obstacle is removed. So with God’s power. When you come to the communion rail and receive the laying on of hands with prayer, the obstacles will be removed and you will feel the power and the love of God healing you. Jesus could do no mighty works until the people believed that God was able to heal them through Him. So you must believe that God can heal you now through me. With such words uttered as the Spirit gave them to me to speak, and becoming bolder, in the apostles’ sense of the word, I continued to exhort, appealing always to the reason rather than to the emotions, until I felt that the time had arrived for me to bid all who had faith to be healed to come forth in Jesus’ name. Some 34 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING two hundred and fifty persons, representing many nationalities and creeds, arose in a body and surged into the spacious choir of the church, the boy and his mother being among the first to come. | The mother later said that when I laid my hands on her son’s head and prayed he began to get rigid as if he were going to have an attack. She was about to gather him in her arms and take him aside. A slight tremor went from his head down his body. Then his body relaxed, becoming normal, and a look of exaltation and peace ap- peared on his countenance. he mother was favorably impressed and after a prayer of thanks- giving they departed. This happened on Thursday morning. ‘That day and the next and the following days passed and the boy had no attack. On the evening of the tenth day, which was Sunday, while at supper, a bit of cracker caught in the boy’s throat and caused excessive coughing. A mild attack in the nature of a faint followed. These mild attacks continued until the following Thursday, when both come again to the healing service. After the instruction and exhortation which always pro- IN. PRACTICE 35 duced a very decided atmosphere, and after the laying on of hands with prayer, the attacks again ceased. Six weeks later the boy was playing rather roughly in his home with a companion. The mother heard her son say to his playfellow ‘Don’t push me so hard. You might knock me over and make me faint.’ The mother on hearing this entered the room to moderate their play. But just as she entered her son was pushed and fell heavily on the floor. A slight attack followed. The next Thursday they came to the healing serv- ice, and as usual the attacks ceased. When I last spoke to the mother four years had elapsed since they attended the first healing service, and she assured me that her son was healed. Imagine, if you can, the sorrow of this mother when she heard her son pronounced epileptic by a compe- tent authority. Contrast that sorrow with her joy to-day as she looks upon her only son healed of his affliction. To the deeper student of spiritual healing the boy’s interpretation of his experience at the first service is very suggestive, and indicates that in addition to faith a knowledge of how to use many 36 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING of the forces involved in our complex nature is required for the successful practice of this min- istry. Said the boy, “When I started to come to you, I did not see you at all but only a light. And when I knelt Jesus put His hands on me out of the light.” Whoever can bring about such an experience; whoever can make another so con- scious of God that He is felt in the body, mind, or soul, such an one has what is called the “gift of healing.’’ Judged by this standard the “gift of healing” is not a rare possession. HEALING A MAN POSSESSED OF FEAR His story runneth thus: “When I was seventeen I was giving instruc- tions on the violin to several pupils. When I was nineteen I played one night at a concert given under the auspices of my former college class. The audience was made up largely of students, their families, and their friends. I was playing a rather ambitious concerto, but had practiced it faithfully and felt that it was going exceptionally well. ‘“‘Flowever, some in the audience did not enjoy IN PRACTICE 37 it or appreciate it. They showed their disap- proval. I became confused and don’t remember whether I finished the piece or not. For days I was inconsolable and from that time I began to lose my grip on myself. I lost ambition. I prac-. ticed intermittently. My efforts to earn a liveli- hood as a musician were never heartily endorsed by my family. They were manual workers. Be-. cause I did not follow in their way they said I was lazy. The class of music I loved and prac- ticed they did not at all relish and often made fun of it. “Well, I drifted, working a little and loafing a great deal. Occasionally | went back to my music, but it is now a couple of years since I have: opened my violin box. I married and have two children but can’t get up enough energy to do anything.” I listened sympathetically. Feeling that he had something more to tell, I urged him to unburden his mind to me completely. “Now I hope you won’t think me crazy, as others do, when I tell you this,” he continued. “Have you ever known of some evil force or fate that follows a man and that he can’t get 38 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING rid of? I know that there is somebody, or some group, that is hounding me, urged to it by this power, and determined that I shall not succeed. In times past when I did get a job I could hold it for only a short time. A few days after I started to work I would notice the other men eye- ing me. I knew they were talking about me when they got together in little groups. I couldn’t work under such conditions and either I left or got fired. So it has been for some years. I tell you it is a terrible thing to live conscious of this evil power always around you and with no way to escape it. Have you really ever come across any- thing like this before? JI am of Irish descent and know the old superstitious stories they tell. I never believed them. But this thing, whatever it is, has got me going. I am not out of my mind yet, but I will be if this keeps up. I can’t stand it longer. More and more I find myself despair- ing, and thoughts of self-destruction have been very much in my mind. [ heard of you and your healing work. Do you suppose you can do any- thing for me?” I assured him that I understood his case and that under the circumstances it was almost to be IN PRACTICE 39 expected that he felt as he did. I told him that God could heal him and instructed him briefly as to how God’s help would be brought into his life. All this took place as we walked the streets, for I had found him at night standing before the church. He appeared so dejected that I had spoken to him, and later had suggested that we walk about as we talked. Some days later I had him bring his violin and after the healing service he played for me in the church. ‘Then I asked him to come into the rec- tory. We knelt, confessing our sins to God, using the prayer book form of General Confession, after which I pronounced the absolution. I had him play in the fine old drawing-room of the rec- tory where Alexander Hamilton had lived. After a while I told him to play as long as he wished and I went to my study, assuring him that his music would be a help to me as I worked on a ser- mon, that I would carry something of what he was expressing into the pulpit with me, and that thus he would be ministering to others. He played a couple of hours and went away quite buoyant. Our arrangement was that he was to come to see me almost any time that he felt so 40 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING inclined, but especially when his trials were hardest. On his succeeding visits, I prayed with him and then laid my hands upon his head while he knelt. My part at such moments was to get the realiza- tion that God was healing and guiding us and to let that realization come to expression in the form of vocal, afirmative prayer. He always departed with a renewal of spirit and power. Soon he had a few pupils at a very modest fee. It was a hard winter and almost brought him to despair. But I assured him that if he continued to come to me and persevered in the attitude toward God and the world in which I instructed him that success must come. ‘Then just when times were hardest it came. And as usual, in spir- itual healing, it was above what he had hoped or asked for. He was given a position as leader in a small orchestra. This position made it neces- sary for him to leave the city and his uncongenial home surroundings. He left me with health, spirit, faith, and ambition quite restored, and at the time I write he is a teacher in his college. He had come to a knowledge of the truth and the truth had set him free. IN PRACTICE 4t SPIRITUAL HEALING IN THE CRISIS OF A DISEASE A lawyer was stricken by a severe attack of pneumonia. In due course came the crisis and while it was pending his wife sent for me. Upon arriving at their home I asked, ‘‘What does the physician say?’ The answer showed that it was a typical case. The physician had said that the crisis might come any time within the next twenty-four hours, and that while he hoped for the best the balance might turn this way or that but no one could tell which way it would turn. Everything depended now upon the patient’s heart and his courage and his fighting spirit. Usually this is the time when everybody, save nurse and physician, is rigorously excluded from the patient. But if success in the crisis depends largely upon such spiritual qualities as courage and fighting spirit, then some means might be taken to enhance these qualities or to beget them if need be in the patient. Here if ever is the opportunity and the demand for spiritual treat- ment. But, alas, in the typical case the patient is usually left alone. When in any phase of life a supreme effort is 42 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING called for, demanding courage and fighting spirit, we know how the enthusiasm and the confidence, and above all the example of others, help the struggler. If it be possible thus to help a man weakened by disease, yet called upon to make a last supreme effort to save his life, surely we desert him if we leave him alone at such a time. Rut often with loving relatives and friends in the next room, relatives and friends who would put themselves in the place of the sufferer, he is left spiritually unaided through their ignorance of what might be done. When I was shown to the patient’s room I found him very weak and only partly conscious. At least, so it seemed, but I found out from him later that he was conscious but so weak that he could not give evidence of it. I sat on the bed beside him and gently stroked his forehead. He was restless, so I began to meditate aloud some- what as follows: ‘God says, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ Look at me and when I tell you to close your eyes they will close and a feeling of comfort and ease and peace will come about them. To be still means to relax. Now the muscles about your IN PRACTICE 43 eyes relax and your eyelids close and already there is a feeling of ease and comfort and peace around your eyes. ‘That feeling of ease and comfort and peace and well-being is going to spread all over the body. Now the muscles of your face and neck relax and your head sinks easily and comfortably on the pillow.” Here I passed my hands over his chest, gently touching him as I continued: ‘‘Now the muscles about the chest relax and there is a feeling of ease and comfort and well-being all about your chest and around your back. “There is such ease that you are not conscious of any effort in breathing. [The patient had been breathing with some difficulty when I arrived, but this gradually subsided.] ‘The air is all about you and gently enters your lungs so smoothly and peacefully that it is now a pleasure to breathe. ‘God speaks to your mind and says, ‘Be still, mind, and know that I am God.’ So now your mind relaxes and is still. ‘To relax means to let go. Your mind lets go of the past. Any doubts or fears that might in any wise interfere with the well-being of your body now depart. Your mind 44 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING is still. It lets go of them and they are gone. Anything that you have heard or thought about your condition that might interfere with your peace or health likewise departs. ‘There is nothing in the past to worry you. On the con- trary, out of the past come only words of cheer and confidence, absolute confidence.” It will be noticed that in this treatment the same thought and often the same words are re- peated. This is a matter of technique and is based upon the laws of suggestion. And just as a pa- tient is susceptible to helpful thoughts through suggestion, so he is equally susceptible to harmful thoughts. It is, therefore, very important to know that although a patient might not be able to speak or to move his body, he is not necessarily unconscious. He may be in a very suggestible condition. ‘This is true of the person who is just losing or just regaining consciousness. What he hears makes a very decided impression upon him. Consequently many surgeons are most careful that no unfavorable word about the patient’s condi- tion be spoken in the presence of the patient all during the time he is under an anesthetic. A surgeon once told me of a patient upon whom IN PRACTICE 45 he operated who was thought by everybody pres- ent to be unconscious, yet who remembered every- thing that was said during the operation. Continuing the treatment I said, “Now your mind lets go of any thought about the future that might in any wise interfere with your well-being. There is nothing to fear in the future, for it stretches out before you like a pleasant way and you pass through it confidently, easily and securely. Your mind is now entirely relaxed. It makes no effort. Without any effort you are going to hear and to understand everything I say and no other sound will disturb you. “God speaks now to the very soul of you, and says, ‘Be still and know.’ The Scripture says we are partakers of the divine nature. We partake of the life of God. God is the infinite life in all the world. He shares that life with you. God's life is immortal, and you are immortal because you partake of the immortal life of God. “God is the infinite power in all the world. You partake of that power. Deep within you, beneath body and mind, is the life which comes from God. It brings with it the power of God. You partake of His strength. Now the divine 46 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING power manifests itself in the depths of your na- ture. It communicates itself to your heart and your heart beats easily, smoothly, regularly, and irresistibly. Your heart feels such power that it knows that nothing can stop it, for the power of God manifests itself there. “God is infinite vitality. You partake of that divine vitality. God shares it with you. It com- municates itself to your heart and your heart beats with its power. ‘The divine vitality communicates itself to your blood. And now as the blood flows through your body the divine vitality is mani- fested in every cell and tissue and organ of your body. It takes away all feeling of congestion. It manifests itself in and through your lungs, re- lieving and strengthening. Every cell and tissue is now conscious of power and vitality and health and well-being from the infinite source. ‘God is all courage. ‘There is no fear in God. He shares that courage with you. You are par- taking of courage from the infinite source of all courage. Your heart beats courageously. The blood flows along bringing the message of cour- age to every cell and organ. Gladly they receive it. Courageously they do their work, eliminating IN PRACTICE 47 and upbuilding. You are surrounded by courage as by the air you breathe, for in the divine cour- age, in God, we live and move and have our being. “Even while you sleep you will be breathing in, as it were, life, power, vitality, courage, health and strength and peace. When you awake you will be quite renewed.” I then laid my hands upon his head and chest, repeating the words of the Scripture, ‘““They that believe shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover,’’ and the following prayers: ‘Almighty Father, according to Thy word we lay hands on this Thy servant. May he even at this time be conscious of Thy power manifesting itself to the healing of his body, mind, and soul.” “Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:21.) The next day I was informed that after I left the sick man he had his first real rest in some days. I continued to treat him daily for about a week, and in due time he was quite restored to health. Toward the end of the time I treated 48 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING him, he said, “I have a wonderful physician, but I know who saved my life. When you first came to me I felt that I was gradually slipping away. I was too weak and tired to resist. But as you treated me I experienced what you were describ- ing. You brought just what I needed and at the time when I needed it most.”’ CHAPTER IV SPIRITUAL HEALING FOR THE DYING Ir was Easter-Even. In a hospital bed lay a woman of forty-three, suffering from a disease that as yet human skill has been unable to cure. ‘The light of the bodily life was burning very low. It seemed ready to go out at any moment. Her family had been sent for and were gathered at her side. With closed eyes, and hands folded high on her bosom, she lay motionless and silent. Save for an occa- sional whisper, her husband, mother, and son sat about her in silence, pictures of that helplessness which droops us when we cannot aid our loved ones in their greatest need. ‘The attending physi- cian said nothing more could be done for her but to keep her as comfortable as possible until the end came. She was not a church woman, and had seen no clergyman during her recent illness. Once she had attended the healing service and when asked 49 50 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING if she would not like to have a clergyman call she asked for me. How often we of the clergy step in upon a scene like this when the patient has had little or no preparation for our minis- tration, when it is evident no human power can avail, and when one must work in a hurry. In a few words her husband explained that her affliction had so weakened her heart and she had suffered such pain that the end would be a blessed relief to her. She did not move or show any indi- cation that she was conscious of what was going on. I at once placed both my hands upon her fore- head, looked intently at her closed eyelids, and let the consciousness of God as the source of all life possess me. Beginning with the Lord’s Prayer, I then prayed and meditated in some such words as are given below, and continued for some con- siderable time to reiterate the same thoughts in more positive and afirmative form. For example, when moved thereto, instead of saying, ‘“‘May we be conscious that the divine life of God is now supporting and comforting her,’ I would say, ‘‘And now we are conscious that the divine life of God is supporting and comforting her.’’ When HEALING FOR THE DYING ol one can say such words honestly and sincerely without forcing himself to do so, but naturally, moved to speak thus by some inner urge (he knows not exactly just what), there are always surprising results. THE PRAYER Almighty God, the only source of health and healing, may we and this Thy servant be con- scious at this moment of Thy healing, saving power manifesting itself in her life. May we with the eyes of faith behold the hand of Thy Son Jesus resting upon her, and believe that in His touch is the ancient power to heal. May we be conscious that the divine life of God is now supporting and comforting her, even that immortal life which always manifests itself according to Thy will. Graciously we trust in Thy love, knowing that this Thy servant ever partakes of Thy life which shall remain with her forever. Complete, good Lord, this work begun in Jesus’ name. Amen. As I concluded my prayer the patient opened her eyes and looked into mine. It was a look of complete understanding. It produced the same 52. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING effect as if she had smilingly nodded and said, “Yes, it is all true, I am conscious of the divine life supporting and comforting me. And it is sweet—very sweet, very sweet.”’ The same light and peace that shone from her eyes now shone on her whole countenance. Gently her eyelids closed, but the glow on her countenance remained. It is thus the soul speaks and smiles. Spiritual healing is brought about by one realizing himself as a soul, holding communion with another soul, and thereby bringing to the other soul what he himself realizes, namely, the truth of God as the source of all that is good—health, peace, power, plenty, life. The other person is spiritually healed when he has thus apprehended God. Whether the life continues to manifest itself through this present body on the earth, or whether it in God’s own way develops or assumes another body or instru- ment through which to express itself in that nearer approach to, or that more intimate experience of God, called heaven, 1s not at such times the upper- most concern. Without saying Paul’s words the patient and the minister have something like Paul’s experience when he said, ““Though our outward HEALING FOR THE DYING 53 man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” II Corinthians 4:16. To be more conscious of God is the experience most desired. The ques- tion of the place of that experience, here or here- after, does not arise. One is completely at God’s disposal. He is leading and guiding. - One does not think at such times where God is going to con- tinue to lead or guide because of the joy in ex- periencing that guidance. After some minutes of silent prayer again I placed my hands on her brow and head and spoke to her soul. I left her in peace with a formal blessing and a promise to return. The next day her husband came for me and reported that she was wonderfully improved. Almost daily for two weeks I continued my visits to her and once administered the Holy Com- munion. Every visit brought results similar to the first. Reports of improvement came to the superintendent of the hospital, who became very much interested in the case. She assured me that the spiritual ministrations the patient was recely- ing were having unusual results, and she was keen to know what principles were involved. The patient had by this time improved sufli- 54 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING ciently to be taken home. It was on this occasion that the husband asked me if I thought his wife would recover. I told him that my attitude of mind in such cases was simply to be conscious of God, or the power of God, manifesting itself in the patient’s life. I explained to him that we must not think of God’s power being separate from Him. Wherever we see a manifestation of God’s power—life, love, goodness, comfort, peace—there is God, if we have the eyes to see, or the ears to hear, or the heart to understand. The procedure in spiritual healing is to get the patient to be conscious, to become really aware of the life of God manifesting itself in the depths of his being. One becomes conscious by experi- encing. I know that this manifestation of God’s power, interest or love will be best, absolutely best, for the patient and all others. ‘This is eternal life to know the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent.”’ Let us be conscious of God manifesting Himself in our lives and we shall understand His ways and have peace. In such words I instructed the husband, who seemed to share readily in this belief. For three weeks after being taken home the HEALING FOR THE DYING 55 patient continued to experience the power of God with her. Her family were greatly impressed and helped by her experience. ‘Then with unearthly calm and quiet consciousness of possessing the eternal life she entered upon it. She too had come to know the truth and the truth had set her free. CHAPTER V THE PLACE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY THE first summary of the ministry of Jesus is given in the Gospel according to Matthew. There we read, ‘‘Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” Thus the ministry of Jesus is seen by the Apostle Matthew to be threefold, and he sums it up in three words—teaching, preaching, healing. The Christian Church has devoted itself largely to following its Master in two of these departments of His ministry. The Church has proclaimed the word throughout the world. Wherever His name is known, there the Gospel has been preached. And to preaching has been added teaching. ‘The ancient seats of learning, as well as many great schools and universities 56 HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 57 of more modern times, were founded by men whose prime purpose was to teach the Christian way of life. To-day the Church is occupied as never before in perfecting its organization in order that the Gospel shall be taught and pro- claimed with ever increasing scope and power. But how fares it with that other department of the Master’s work, the healing ministry? It is true that the Church has always led the af- flicted to God. In the Book of Common Prayer, which continues ancient forms of Christian wor- ship and prayer, it is provided that at every morning service the following intercession shall be made. ‘‘We commend to thy fatherly good- ness all those who are any ways afflicted or dis- tressed in mind, body or estate; (especially those for whom our prayers are desired;) that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them, accord- ing to their several necessities; giving them pa- tience under their suffering, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions.” When bishops are consecrated according to the form set forth in this same book, the presiding bishop solemnly charges the newly consecrated bishop, ‘‘Hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind 58 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING » up the broken, bring again the outcasts, seek the lost.” It will be a surprise to many to know that the Episcopal Church so clearly commands all her bishops to practice the ministry of spiritual healing. And surely the Church has kept before us the healing ministry by ordering to be read at public services many passages of the Scrip- tures which recount this phase of the Master’s work. But when all has been said, and when even a most favorable interpretation is accorded it, the fact remains that there has been no such insistence upon the healing ministry, as has been placed upon the ministry of teaching and preaching. While the Church has believed in healing through spirit- ual means it has not emphasized this belief in practice. We hear frequently of the minister or priest as preacher, teacher, confessor, pastor, administrator, but seldom if ever as healer. The Gospels tell us not only that Jesus prac- ticed spiritual healing but they leave not the least doubt as to the relative importance of this de- partment of His ministry. The Christians who wrote the Gospels collected the sayings and do- ings of Jesus as recorded by other men, or recol- HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 59 lected what they themselves had seen and heard as they companied with Jesus. What depart- ment of His ministry impressed them most? What was it that they recollected and wrote most about ? A cursory reading of the Gospels will show that they wrote more about spiritual healing than any Other subject. [he Gospels, considered as lives of Jesus, are very brief. In fact they are little more than memoirs. Of his public ministry of three years they account for only some ninety days scattered throughout that period. Sermons and discourses that we of to-day would consider of the greatest value, are reported in barest out- line or condensed into a verse. Important events are often mentioned rather than described. But when the writers come to the subject of spiritual healing they go into considerable detail. They describe so carefully the attitude of the healer, his look, voice, words, and actions, that I have been able to reconstruct the methods or technique they employed, and from these I have attempted to formulate laws according to which the power of the Spirit operates. ‘here can be no doubt that here was a matter of such vital importance that 60 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING the writers of the Gospels felt it should be written largely on almost every page of their books. The Gospels were written not merely to pre- serve for posterity the sayings and doings of Jesus. They were written for purposes of im- mediate propaganda. ‘They were written to con- vince men and women in a sinful and burdened world that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour, the revealer of God’s ways with man, in order that all might come through Him to the Father and find forgiveness, peace, and eternal life. And in choosing their material for this purpose they gave more space to the ministry of spiritual healing than to any other department of His work. They were wise in so doing. Frequently we read such words as these: “And the fame of him went out straightway into all the regions about Galilee;’’ “And there followed him great multi- tudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan;” “And they glorified God who had given such power to men; “And a great multitude followed him be- cause they beheld the signs which he did on them that were sick.”’ HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 61 It was just after Jesus had healed a paralyzed man that Matthew, who wrote the first Gospel, followed Him. And it is worthy of remark that Paul’s conversion was consummated just after he was healed of his blindness. While the compas- sionate heart of Jesus prompted Him to heal the afflicted for their own sakes yet it is abundantly shown that this ministry was also a sign of the power of God, which influenced multitudes to be- come His disciples. It should be clear from what we have thus far seen how important a place spiritual healing had in the minds of the Gospel writers as a means toward accomplishing the purpose for which Jesus lived and died. The testimony of Harnack, the foremost liv- ing authority on the history of early Christianity, should settle the question of the important place spiritual healing had in the Master’s ministry. ‘The gospel, as preached by Jesus, is a religion of redemption, but it is a religion of redemp- tion in a secret sense. Jesus proclaimed a new message (the near approach of God’s kingdom, God as the Father, as his Father,) and also a new law, but he did his work as a Saviour or healer, and it was amid work of this kind that he 62 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING was crucified. Paul, too, preached the gospel as a religion of redemption. ‘Jesus appeared among his people as a phy- sician. ‘The healthy need not a physician, but the sick”) (Mark (2:19 "nuke Jorg yo Gl been three gospels depict him as the physician of soul and body, as the Saviour or healer of men. Jesus says very little about sickness; he cures it. He does not explain that sickness is health; he calls it by its proper name, and is sorry for the sick person. ‘There is nothing sentimental or subtle about Jesus; he draws no fine distinctions, he ut- ters no sophistries about healthy people being really sick and sick people really healthy. He sees himself surrounded by crowds of sick folk; he attracts them, and his one impulse is to help them. Jesus does not distinguish rigidly between sicknesses of the body and of the soul; he takes them both as different expressions of the one su- preme ailment in humanity. But he knows their sources. He knows it is easier to say ‘Rise up and walk,’ than to say, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee’ (Mark 2:9). And he acts accordingly. No sickness of the soul repels him; he is constantly surrounded by sinful women and tax-gatherers. HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 63 Nor is any bodily disease too loathsome for Jesus. In this world of wailing, misery, filth and profligacy, which pressed upon him every day, he kept himself invariably vital, pure, and busy. “In this way he won men and women to be his disciples. ‘The circle by which he was sur- rounded was a circle of people who had been healed. They were healed because they had be- lieved on him, 7.e., because they had gained health from his character and words. To know God meant a sound soul. This was the rock on which Jesus had rescued them from the shipwreck of their life. They knew they were healed, just be- cause they had recognized God as the Father in his Son. Henceforth they drew health and real life as from a never-failing stream.” + While Harnack’s testimony demands that we accord a foremost place in the ministry of Jesus to spiritual healing, some might say that it does not follow that spiritual healing should have a place of like importance in the ministry of the Church to-day. The express commands of the Master should completely banish any such 1Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. I, Ppp. 101, 102. 64 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING thought. Not only did Jesus exercise this min- istry Himself but He included it in the ministry to which He so solemnly called His disciples. As often as He commissioned them to teach and preach so often He commissioned them to heal the sick. Here is one such commission. ‘And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day he called unto him his disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness. . . .These twelve Jesus sent forth, and charged them say- ing: ... As ye go, preach, saying The King- dom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely ye have received, freely give.’’ The Church has just as much authority and power to heal the sick as it has to proclaim that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And I believe that one of the reasons why the Christian Church has failed at times to convince many of the near- ness to them personally of the Kingdom is the fact that it has not sufficiently emphasized heal- ing through spiritual means. PART II THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING es si ie CHAPTER VI SPIRITUAL HEALING AND MODERN SCIENCE SPIRITUAL healing might be presented from other points of view than the scientific. It might be presented simply as faith or trust in God heal- ing us in answer to prayers of petition. ‘‘Give us this day our daily bread”’ is a petition. ‘‘For- give us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’ is also a petition. With these forms of prayer we are all very familiar, and they should have a place in our mental, spiritual, and devotional life. But there are many persons who have petitioned—yes, who have begged and pleaded—and who have not been relieved of their distress. Heaven has seemed deaf to their cry. They have stretched forth their hands but have brought them back empty. They have tried to open their hearts to receive the divine comfort, but it has not come. They have sought divine guidance in difficulties, but the way has remained dark or uncertain. ‘They 67 68 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING have asked for the cure of some bodily disorder or disease, but they have not been made whole or given strength to go gloriously on. They have asked and received not. Why? ‘The Apostle James gives one answer to this question. He writes: “‘Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” The purpose of scientific spiritual healing is also to answer this question by instructing us so that we shall proceed with knowledge as well as faith. We shall not ask amiss when properly instructed, and we shall receive. Scientific spirit- ual healing will also teach us that in the process of being healed—for healing is a process—the most important element is not the mere asking. There are many vigorous-minded men and women who do not take prayer seriously, because it seems to them to consist chiefly of asking. It seems more like wishing than doing. ‘They hear that the spiritual life is the highest kind of life, but they cannot see how being the passive recip- ient of blessings is the highest form of existence. They feel that God helps those who help them- selves. Scientific spiritual healing purposes to tell us of MODERN SCIENCE 69 certain forces or graces that are at our disposal, and the laws and conditions according to which those forces operate. It teaches us how to co- operate with the divine power to produce benefi- cent results, as we codperate with the so-called natural forces in the world’s work. A man who manufactures paper codperates with many natural forces. If it were not for the forces that produce wood, and the water power or steam power that grinds the wood into pulp, and the power that turns the rollers to press it into sheets, and the other various forces that enable his workmen to operate, if it were not for these, he could not manufacture paper. But he codperates, he works with these various forces intelligently, and he gets results. ‘“‘My father worketh until now, and I work,” said Jesus. “We are fellow-workers together with Christ,” said Paul. “And all things work together for good to those who love the Lord.” Scientific spiritual healing teaches us how to work together with all things, including the divine, in order to produce good, good in every department of life, good to others and to ourselves, good in this life and in the life to come. 70 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING It is to be expected that when some people first hear of spiritual healing they naturally think of healing the body of some physical deformity or disease. Spiritual healing does include heal- ing the physical ills of the body, but it is by no means limited to this. Nor is physical healing its chief concern. What, then, are we to understand by spiritual healing? What is its meaning and scope? At Morning Prayer, in the Episcopal service, there is a prayer to God to “comfort and relieve all those who are any ways afflicted or distressed in mind, body, or estate.”’ This is a most comprehensive petition. Ponder its terms. All those any ways afflicted or dis- tressed in mind, in body or estate. Such is the Church’s prayer for spiritual healing. We may therefore define spiritual healing in the official words of that liturgy, as that process by which God comforts and relieves those who - are any ways afflicted or distressed in mind, body or estate, according to their several necessities. For example, one conscious of sin is spiritually healed when the love of God becomes so real to him that he is aware of that love forgiving his sin. MODERN SCIENCE 71 Another, who is perplexed in mind, is spiritually healed when the wisdom of God becomes so real to him that he is confident of that wisdom guiding him. Yet another, who is physically weak or crippled or sick, is spiritually healed when the power of God becomes so real to him that he is aware of the divine power, or energy, or life, renewing the strength or health of his body. Spiritual healing therefore extends to everything that can be accomplished through spiritual means. It is as comprehensive as religion itself. It is of the essence of the religion of Jesus. Prayer is not merely asking something of God but rather it is the means of getting yourself into the state where you can receive of God. For God knows your needs before you ask Him, and is always trying to make you conscious of His wisdom, love, and power. Prayer makes you aware of these as factors in your life. The essence of Christianity, and of spiritual healing, is to become conscious of the truth that we may be, as the Apostle Peter expresses it, “partakers of the divine nature.’ Once grasp this truth, including what it implies, and you have the essence of the religion of Jesus. You will 72. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING know what is right. You will do what is right. And in the doing of it you will be happy. The final triumph of spiritual healing, and of religion, is to make you so aware of God’s love, wisdom, and power, that when your body is being put aside, you shall know that in Him you still live and move and have your being. You will continue to be aware of God directing, com- forting, strengthening. You will know that there is no death for you, but only a change from a less perfect to a more perfect participation in, and manifestation of, the divine life. Scientific spiritual healing is not merely a pious belief, or a last resort when everything else has failed. It appeals to us to-day because it is a science. The word science is taken from the Latin word scientia, and means knowledge. It embraces all that we can by any means know. Hence it em- braces all that we can know about our mental and spiritual life, as well as about our moral, political, social, or industrial life. Science is so far-reaching in its scope that it includes all that we do whenever consciously or unconsciously we use our knowledge. It is not only a vast store of MODERN SCIENCE 73 truth, but it is truth applied to all that concerns man. This word, which originally meant simply knowledge, is now applied not only to knowledge but to a certain method. In fact, the word science is applied to the method as much as to the truth discovered or proved by this method. But instead of saying scientific method it is customary to con- dense it to the one word science. What is this method of discovering or testing truth which is called science? It begins with ob- servation. ‘The scientist searches for facts wher- ever they may be found. In the inner life, in the outer life, in the moral life, in the spiritual life, and in the material universe—in fact, everywhere that anything can be observed, or felt, there the scientist has his proper field. ‘The scientist ac- cepts all the facts that concern the subject he is studying. He has no prejudices. He believes in the truth and pursues it with an open mind. Yor him it is the pearl of great price. Having gathered his facts he analyzes them. He notes how and where they agree or differ. If he finds something that is true about all the facts, he writes a brief description of it. This brief description is called a law. For example: A 74 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING man experiments with water and carefully notes what happens. He finds that he can separate it into two gases known as oxygen and hydrogen, and that the water thus separated is composed of twice as much hydrogen as oxygen. He then takes these two gases and finds that they can be put together under certain conditions, and that they always unite to form water. He then writes a brief description as to how water is produced. This brief description is the law for the pro- duction of water. As with water, so it is with everything else. There is a law according to which everything is produced or evolved. ‘There is a law, or laws, according to which everything lives, or moves, or has its being. ‘The purpose of science is to find out or to confirm these laws in order that all things might work together for good. In the Bible we find many laws, that is, brief descriptions or statements as to the conditions requisite for the working of certain spiritual forces. ‘The Bible is not made up chiefly of these laws, however. It is not a book, it is a library. Many men contributed to it over a space of a thousand years. Some of its books were written MODERN SCIENCE 75 in Palestine, some in Asia Minor, some in Italy. It was written by herdsmen, statesmen, lawyers, moralists, poets, historians, physicians, philoso- phers, preachers, pastors, evangelists. Conse- quently it contains history, narratives, legends, moral precepts, philosophy, poetry, drama, re- ligion, and science. But in almost every book of it you can find the statement of some spiritual law, some statement regarding how God works and how we can codperate with Him. Spiritual healing therefore is not the result merely of asking, but the result of using certain forces according to known laws. It is something we can experiment with, and when our experi- ments are successful we have a demonstration of the truth of the laws in question. Hence, spiritual healing as a science should appeal to all intelligent persons who claim to possess open minds. But some one might ask: “‘How do I know that there are these certain forces, or energies, or graces that can be used in accordance with definite laws?” As an indication of how a new attitude of mind is showing itself in unexpected places I shall quote from the late Dr. Charles P. 76 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING Steinmetz, chief consulting engineer of the Gen- eral Electric Company, and a noted physicist. In a recent article he said that energy, or force, is the realest of all entities. There are vast stores of it in space, and our senses are our means. of knowing and using it. What we call matter— wood, book, flesh, bone—is what we clothe this energy with. In the words of Dr. Steinmetz: ‘All that we know of the world is derived from our senses. They are the only real facts; every- thing else is conclusioned from them. All sense perceptions are due to energy; they are ex- clusively energy effects. In other words, energy is the only real existing entity. It is the primary conception, a conception which exists for us only because our senses respond to it. All other con- ceptions are secondary conclusions, derived from the energy perceptions of our senses. ‘Thus space and time and motion and matter are secondary conceptions with which our mind clothes the events of nature.”’ + Religion similarly teaches us that there is an 1“A new Conception of Energy.” By Dr. Charles P. Stein- metz (Popular Radio Magazine, July, 1922). MODERN SCIENCE 77 infinite, eternal, omnipotent energy or force. It is endowed with intelligence, goodness, justice, It is a force that expresses itself as life, love, beauty, harmony. Wherever we see or feel any- thing that is good, true, or beautiful, we have come into contact with that infinite energy, or force, or life. The particular form it takes is what “clothes” it. ‘The underlying reality of the good, the true, the beautiful, is this energy, or force, or life. And the name we give this most real of all.things is God. The energy that Steinmetz speaks of is not material or physical. It is a nonmaterial thing that expresses itself in ways that can affect our senses. So God is not material or physical. He is non. material, that is, spiritual, and can express Him- self in ways that affect our mind, soul, and body, and in consequence all our affairs. Science not only discovers laws unknown be- fore, or truths already known to us, but it dem- onstrates certain characteristics of all laws. One such characteristic of all laws, which it is impor- tant to grasp clearly in scientific spiritual heal- ing, is that they always operate when all the 78 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING conditions are fulfilled. They are self-operative, or automatic. For example, touch a lighted match to dry powder in free atmosphere and it explodes, because all the conditions are fulfilled. It is not true to say that if you touch a match to powder it will explode. It must be a lighted match and the powder must be dry and in free air before you have all the conditions required by the law for exploding powder. If you pour water into a tumbler, what hap- pens? As the tumbler rests on the table it is filled with air. But the water is heavier than the air and sinks through it, forcing it out. You do not first have to remove the air. Under such conditions the heavier liquid will always remove the lighter air. If you remove your hands from under a stone held in them the stone always falls. ‘The earth is attracting it. ‘The law of gravitation will op- erate successfully as soon as you fulfill the nec- essary condition of removing the obstacle, namely, your hands that support it. At least such was the explanation until very recently, when Steinmetz offered a new one. He says that the earth does not attract the stone, but that there is a field of MODERN SCIENCE 79 energy about the earth and the stone which tends to force them together. But whether we accept the new explanation or the old, the fact remains that it is a characteristic of all laws that they operate as soon as all the conditions are fulfilled. The Bible expresses this same truth, which is confirmed by science, when it says, ‘God is no respecter of persons.”’ His laws work for any- body at any time or in any place when the requisite conditions are fulfilled. His laws operate now as in the days when Jesus walked among men just as they did before Jesus came. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, because He taught people what conditions of mind and heart and will are necessary to the working of His Father’s laws. And He not only taught what conditions are necessary but He demonstrated them in His own life, and gathered about Him a group of men and women who demonstrated them in their lives, and handed on this knowledge and power to others. The Church is this group of His followers, en- larged and continued even to the present day, and destined to last until the end of time. ‘The- ology attempts to present intelligently an account 80 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING of our knowledge concerning God. ‘This is what all churches profess to teach. When they teach what Jesus taught, and express it in words the people can understand, and above all when they practice it, then they are in truth and power the Church of the Christ. Hence, when the Book of Common Prayer teaches that God comforts and relieves all those any ways afflicted in mind, body, or estate, we should draw near to learn what the requisite conditions might be, and ask for a sample of the demonstrations that the Church has suc- ceeded in producing. While it is true that the Church possesses the knowledge of God unto salvation, which means health of body, mind, and soul, both for this life and the next, it is equally true that some generations of the Church have failed to empha- size it and apply it to all the varying conditions of life. ‘There have been generations of Chris- tians that have not emphasized the goodness of God as regards this life. They have tended to place the fullness of His goodness and power hereafter. But God changes not. James taught that with Him there is no variableness or shadow MODERN SCIENCE 81 of turning. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. God is like all law, or rather all law is like God, for all laws come from Him. A law is nothing else but our way of stating how God does things. God is good. He wills only what is good for us. It is not the will of God that we should be diseased, or unhappy, or depressed, or nervous, or discouraged, or unsuccessful. ‘There is noth- ing that Jesus emphasizes more than the good- ness of God and our ability to codperate with God in bringing that goodness into our mental, moral, and physical life. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him.” The Holy Spirit, that nonmaterial energy and power that manifests itself in our life as wisdom, joy, peace, patience, strength, endurance, courage, health, abundance, happiness, eternal life. How are we to cooperate with God to receive of His Holy Spirit? What are the requisite conditions, and how are we to fulfill them so that the Holy Spirit can manifest Himself in us ac- cording to His laws? 82. SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING To answer this question in full will be the pur- pose of the remaining chapters. At this time I shall make a few suggestions to help you during the coming days. ‘The requisite conditions are brought about through prayer and service. By prayer we put ourselves in condition to codperate with God. If you desire the sunlight to enter a room you raise the shade and the light streams in. It is of the nature of light to be present whenever the obstacles are removed. You do not have to beg it to come in. So it is of the nature of God’s power and wisdom and love and health to be with you. You do not have to beg it. That is why I have said that prayer is not chiefly asking or petitioning. Hence, begin your prayer by asserting some spiritual truth. For example, say to yourself, aloud if necessary (for all this is something you must experiment with just as you experiment with a golf club or with materials for making a cake), ‘God wills only that which is good for me, and for all man- kind.” Say it many times, until as you go about your work, or recreation, that thought comes unbidden to your mind. Say it as you are falling to sleep. Say it on awakening. In a few days MODERN SCIENCE 83 you will not be saying it. That truth will be repeating itself in your mind. It will become part of your life. ‘God wills only that which is good for me, and for all mankind.” That is prayer. Now for service. Service means simply for you to manifest that good toward others; or better, to let the goodness of God manifest itself through you. Jesus said in effect, The words that I speak are not mine, they are the Father’s; The works that I do are not mine, the Father doeth the works. Let goodness manifest itself in your eyes, in your words, in your hands, in your thoughts, in your general attitude. Of course there will be difficulties, and failures, for a while. But perse- vere and you shall be saved. And remember that the word saved comes from the same root as the Latin word salus, which means health. And since God is willing only what is good for you, He is healing you now, and will continue to heal to-night and to-morrow, waking or sleeping. So to your prayer add this, “‘God is healing me now.” CHAPTER VII THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITUAL HEALING THERE are two basic elements in spiritual heal- ing. The first is to know certain truths expressed as laws. The second is to know how to apply them to your individual needs. Spiritual heal- ing is a science, and like any other science con- sists of knowledge and application, or, in a word, applied knowledge. ‘This knowledge includes a knowledge of the forces at work. It includes our attitude toward those forces—for example, faith in them—and it includes the conditions under which these forces operate through us. Since God is the prime energy at work, spirit- ual healing requires that we first have the truth about God. ‘There are two classic terms that have been used to express two widely different ideas about God. The first is ‘‘transcendence,”’ which means that God is outside and apart from this world and its inhabitants. He has been 84 PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 85 pictured as somewhere off in the heavens, send- ing His blessings to us from without. ‘This view sees God as starting the universe, and then leay- ing it to itself until it got into difficulties. He then mercifully interposed in a miraculous way to save it. People who held this belief did so because God seemed to them too majestic, holy, and pure, to associate intimately with the weak, sinful creatures He had made. The ancient Jews did not even dare to mention God’s proper name, Jaweh. They called Him Jehovah, meaning ‘The eternal one.” They thought that no one could look upon God and live. This brief description does not do justice to much that is noble in the idea of transcendence. The other term is called ‘‘SImmanence,” and it means that God is within His universe and works from within it, through it, and with it. This idea of God being immanent does not deny the idea of God being transcendent, properly understood. The idea of God within us is not new. It is the most characteristic part of the teaching of Jesus. He taught that He was in the Father and the Father in Him, and that we were called to experience this same fact in whatever degree we 86 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING might be able to appropriate it. “Truly I am full of power by the spirit of the Lord and of judgment, and of might” (Micah 3:8). “That ye might be partakers of the divine na- ture’ (2 Peter 1:4). “Now unto him that is able to do, exceeding abundantly, above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us’? (Ephesians 4:21). After the apostles, who lived at the same time as Jesus, came the leaders known as the Fathers, or great teachers, in the Christian Church. Justin, a convert to Christianity, who was put to death as a martyr for the Christian faith under Marcus Aurelius, in the year 166, taught that what he worshiped was the eternal wisdom be- come incarnate, the indwelling God by whom the worlds were fashioned, whose existence is recog- nized in human souls, who mingles with humanity ‘‘as the perfume with the flower, as the salt with the waters of the sea.’”* Clement of Alexandria (died 220), who may be called the father of Greek theology, and who was attracted to Christianity by its lofty ethical teaching, has expounded the idea of the imma- 1A, V. G. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 32. PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 87 nence of God very freely. He teaches that be- cause the deity dwelt in humanity the human reason partook by its very nature of that which was divine. He made no distinction between natural and revealed religion, between what man discovers and God reveals.?. ‘“The world is sa- cred as a divine creation, the abode of indwelling deity; the human body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and becomes a very sanctuary by conse- cration to the will of God.” ® Photinus wrote: “I am striving to bring the God which is in me into harmony with the God which is in the universe.” Athanasius was born in Alexandria in the year 296. He wrote thus: ‘“The all powerful and per- fect reason of the Father, penetrating the uni- verse, developing everywhere its forces ... al- lowing nothing to escape his powerful action, vivifying and preserving all beings in themselves and in the harmony of creation.” “The divine logos, a being incorporeal, expands himself in the universe, as light expands in air, penetrating all and all, entire, everywhere. And with him is the Father who made all things, and the Spirit who 2 Tbid., p. 47. 3 Ibid., p. 65. 88 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING is his energy.” “For the world itself may be thought of as one great body in which God in- dwells, and if He is the whole He is also in the parts.’ * Leaving the great teachers of the Greek Chris- tians and coming to the Fathers of the Latin Church we find Augustine, who died in the begin- ning of the fifth century, teaching as follows: “For God is diffused through all things. He saith by His prophet ‘I will fill the earth.’ Be- cause God is substantially diffused everywhere.” ® The greatest teacher in the Latin Church, whose authority is greater to-day than any other, is called Thomas of Aquin, or Thomas Aquinas. He lived in the thirteenth century and wrote: ‘. . God is in all things by His power. . . . God is in all things by His presencte.ie and He is in all things by His essence.” * Pas- sages like these are gleams of a higher thought flashing forth at exceptional moments, when the religious heart speaks out, or reason forgets its 9-7 trammels. What an array of testimony prov- ing the Christian teaching that God is an energy 4 Allen, of. cit. 68 Allen, op. cit. 5 Allen, op. cit. T Allen, op. cit. PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 89 manifesting Himself in us and in all things! Fol- lowers of Jesus the Saviour, the apostles, the evangelists, and the Fathers of the Greek and Latin forms of Christianity, all unite in pro- claiming this conception of God. But it is not enough that we should listen to their testimony. We must learn how to experi- ence the truth of what they teach. We must actu- ally experience God as a healing force within in order to be healed. We must apply the truth to our needs in order to be made free. There are conditions requisite to the working of the divine power in us. I shall mention some very obvious, but, nevertheless, some very nec- essary ones. As a first condition there must be willingness to try. ‘Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). | ‘“Try me now,” saith the Lord. There is never a more favorable time to start than at the pres- ent moment. The past is past. ‘The future is not yet. The great reality is the present. God says, ‘I am,’ not I was or I will be. He is the 90 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING eternal present. Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation, that is, health of body, mind, and soul. In addition to willingness to try there must be sincerity. Sincerity comes from two words, sine and cere, meaning without wax. In ancient Rome, as now, some dealers in second-hand furniture were dishonest. ‘They filled up the holes or made missing edges with wax, varnished it over, and sold it as solid wood. Honest dealers had a sign with the words “sine cere,’ which meant that the furniture was genuine. It was not ‘‘make-believe”’ furniture. Let us be sincere with- out any wax of pretense. When a certain man sought Our Lord to heal his son of epilepsy, Jesus said: ‘‘Canst thou believe? All things are possible to him that believeth.” This man gave a very sincere answer. He replied: “I believe, Lord. Help thou my unbelief.” I think we can all at least be sincere in stating our belief as this man did. A third condition is unselfishness. The power of God in you is the same that is in others. If it manifests itself in them as beauty, talent, or success, do not be envious. Rather see in their PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 91 success the proof that God manifests His power in them. He is trying to manifest it likewise in you. Bless them for their success as an ob- ject lesson of God’s power in man. Confidence may be mentioned as a fourth con- dition requisite to the working of the divine en- ergy that heals. The divine power that made the universe so vast in its dimensions that the imagination is baffled in its attempts to picture it; the divine power that evolved you from so tiny a human life cell that it takes twenty-three thou- sand of them side by side to measure an inch, and from that cell made your body, and is re- making parts of it every day—surely that power is doing enough to give you absolute confidence that it can manifest itself in you as wisdom, peace, comfort, confidence, patience, health and im- mortal life. Then, there must be knowledge, for spiritual healing is a science, a system of demonstrated knowledge expressed in laws. It is not necessary that one should know all that is to be known, about the system, but one should have a work- ing knowledge of it. Be willing to begin at the beginning, as in any other branch of knowledge. 92 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING If it humbles us to make such a start it will not hurt us to be humble. A teacher in Israel came to Jesus one night for instruction, and was told that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven it is necessary to be born again, to start all over again, with new points of view, new enthusiasms, new dispositions, new hopes, ideals, and powers. Possessing these, one is so different from what he was before that he can be called a new creature. Finally, we are to be doers of the word, not hearers only. We are to apply what we have learned to our particular needs. Instead of describing this application, I am going to sit with you now and practice it in the form of a meditation. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.’ I am willing to try to believe that I can know the truth and it shall set me free. If I am any ways distressed in mind, body, or estate, and if I do not find comfort or relief, it is because I do not know the truth, or know- ing it I do not practice it consistently. God does not afflict me, for God is good. Rather I am PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 93 afflicting myself by my ignorance. I have only to find the truth and I am free. Jesus tells me to seek and I shall find; to ask and I shall receive the knowledge I seek. Paul says that among men many contend in a race, but only one wins. With God all are successful. I shall succeed in knowing the truth that frees. That truth and power: are within me, and a part of me, “as the perfume is with the flower and the salt with the waters of the sea.’”’ ‘There is healing in this thought. Everything is a symbol, a sign of Thee. The heavens show forth Thy glory and the firmament Thy power. So breathing is a symbol, a sign of Thee. As my body breathes Thy air, and it is with me, codperating to heal and sustain, so my mind and soul open to receive Thee and [hou art with me. My body reacts, it feels Thy life. I feel like sitting upright in an active, positive position. I hasten to obey. I am so thankful for this manifestation of Thy power in producing this sense of well-being that I smile; my smile is a prayer of thanks- giving. 94 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING That smile reacts on my whole body. ‘The sense of well-being gently extends all through my being. It extends to my mind. My mind smiles. It has a sense of well-being. It feels relieved of its problems, for Thou art codperat- ing to solve them, Thou, the infinite mind, dif- fused as light in the world. That sense of well- being extends to whatever part of me is ailing. It gently soothes the pain. As I let the thought of Thee possess me, the thought of life, health, and strength, I am possessed of well-being, health, strength, wisdom, power, and peace. Let these thoughts thoroughly possess us. Thy life in me is manifesting itself as a purify- ing force, purifying blood and mind. It mani- fests itself as force, strengthening me. Thou hast made us in Thy likeness, we possess Thy nature, we are spiritual, manifesting through this body, which is an instrument. Because we are like Thee we are immortal. We shall never die. We shall outgrow this instrument, the body. We partake of Thy life and shall manifest it for- ever. The soul of us never grows old. It is like God, from whom it came. God does not grow old. The spirit is never diseased any more than PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 95 God is diseased. It is of the nature of God. The spirit is our source of life, health, strength, wis- dom, joy, and energy. We have only to be will- ing to experiment with that source of life and let its blessings appear in us. To-night on retiring I shall go to sleep with these as my last thoughts. If alarmed by any- thing that distresses I shall think, ‘The divine in me and the divine in the universe are working in harmony and manifesting only for good.” Your body sleeps but not the spirit. It never sleeps. It is infinite energy. It is at work build- ing up your body during the night. In the morning find a few minutes to be quiet and impress upon yourself the truth that the in- visible divine force works in you as truly as gravi- tation. Let all natural forces be reminders of the infinite Father, whose wisdom, love, and power are also working in you and for you. Assert the fact that they are. Assert the fact that God is guiding and healing and giving peace to your body, mind, and soul. Persevere in this and you will be healed. You will receive more than you can ask or hope for. 96 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING ‘‘Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages world without end. Amen”’ (Ephesians 3:21). CHAPTER VIII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL HEALING SPIRITUAL healing is a science based on cer- tain fundamental truths called principles. These principles give rise to brief exact statements called laws. Many of these laws are to be found already formulated in the Scriptures. These laws have to do with a force or energy called by the Apostle Paul, “the power that worketh in us.” ‘This power is described in the same Scriptures as infinite, that is, without limitation. It is moral, which means that it has for its object only that which is good. It is spiritual, by which is meant that it is real but not material. And it is conscious, or aware of itself and of what is not itself. This awareness or consciousness constitutes what is called person- ality or a person. In other words, this infinite, moral, spiritual, and conscious power that worketh within is what we mean by God. God 97 98 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING as a power that worketh within man is, of course, only one phase of His manifestations. When we know with considerable exactness, through the revelations of others or through our Own experience and study, how God manifests Himself, and when we express that exact knowl- edge in brief form, we have what is called a law. A law, then, is a brief description of how God does things, or how we can cooperate with God in what He accomplishes. For when we know the laws involved we can codperate with God in accomplishing ‘“‘that which passeth understand- ing.” There are conditions necessary or highly favor- able to the working of all energy according to its laws. So it is with the working of the divine personal energy, which we name God. These conditions are also found in part in the Scriptures and can be supplemented by study and experience. One of these conditions is called faith, a much misunderstood word in this connection. In an account of the Apostle Paul healing a cripple, we read, “And Paul beholding him steadfastly saw that he had faith to be healed.’”’ Now what PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 99 did Paul see in that man’s eyes? Surely not the assent of the intellect to certain theological doc- trines or dogmas. What Paul saw was the agreement referred to in the text, which reads, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven”’ ( Mat- hew 18:19). I have beheld steadfastly hundreds of persons who have come to me for healing, and I know by experience that at times there is a consciousness of such agreement, such readiness on the part of the afflicted to believe that what he is told is to come true, in a word, such ex- pectancy that I have spoken with an authority and boldness and such assurance of results as are impossible to have honestly at other times. ‘This state of being completely en rapport is what Paul experienced when he saw that the cripple had faith to be healed. This fusing of the power within two or more persons is a condition nec- essary or highly favorable to the working of that power in spiritual healing, but it is only one of such necessary or highly favorable conditions. A method is employed to beget these conditions favorable or necessary to the working of the 100 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING divine power in healing. When the method is considerably developed it becomes technique, and there is abundant evidence in the Scriptures of a highly developed technique and of its constant employment by Jesus and His disciples in their healing ministrations. Prayer is one of the elements in the method or technique of scientific spiritual healing. But it is only one of the elements in begetting the requisite conditions. ‘To limit spiritual healing to the use of prayer only, or to imagine that prayers of intercession, that is, asking God for healing, are the chief element is to have a very limited understanding of this science. ‘Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,’ said Jesus. And the truth in spiritual healing, as a science at all worthy the name, must include principles, laws, necessary and highly favorable conditions, and a method or technique in applying all these to the person who is to be healed. Of prime importance is the person, called for lack of a better term the healer, who is instru- mental, and only instrumental, in bringing about the healing. But there are degrees in which he PSYCHOLOGY OR HEALING: (101 can be instrumental. This is determined by his knowledge of this science, his practical experience in applying it, his intuition, his confidence of success based on actual successes, his faith, the quality of his sympathy with the sufferer, his knowledge of kindred sciences, his own experi- ence with the divine power working within his own life, and his knowledge of the limitations of the science of spiritual healing. Of course, such a person will codperate to the utmost with medical science. He will reéstablish the confidence of the patient in the science of medicine where that confidence has been lost. He will know that spiritual healing can be so min- istered that, irrespective of the physical results, the faith of the patient will never be diminished but always increased, for the patient will be ac- quiring the truth about God. The patient is promised a blessing, and a blessing always comes even if it does not come in the particular form the patient at first expected. One evening a woman was so worried in mind and nervous of body that she was unable to at- tend a party to which her family had been in- vited. But after the other members had de- 102 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING parted her nervousness increased to such a degree that she was unable to remain indoors and went out for a walk. By chance she passed a chapel and, recalling that there was a lecture being given on spiritual healing, went in. Shortly the lecture came to a close and the healing medi- tation began. She followed the directions of the lecturer. She thus describes what happened: ‘Almost immediately I felt my body, which had been very nervous, gently relax and a sense of great peace went all through my body. It spread to my mind. The worry which had caused the nervousness completely left me. It was almost uncanny. I could have gone to sleep in the chapel. I was so happy I could hardly wait to get home. On arriving home I went to bed and had a won- derful rest, the first in several nights. I have © been sleeping unusually well ever since and feel quite fit.” Only a little thing, some might say. But just as the little incandescent light on a toy Christ- mas tree proves the existence and power of elec- tricity as much as a great searchlight on a bat- tleship, so the quieting of a nervous mind and body by spiritual means proves the existence and PSYCHOLOGY’ OF HEALING 103 power of what I call the divine energy to manifest itself as peace and well-being. Spiritual healing implies a knowledge of the truth expressed as laws and a knowledge of how to apply them to particular needs. Laws, conditions requisite to their working, and application—these are the three elements in the science of spiritual healing. It is only natural in the beginning that you should think it necessary to make great efforts of will power in order to be healed. In the using of spiritual forces the temptation is to exert our- selves as when using physical force. If you were on the ground with a heavy load on your chest you would have to strive and struggle to get rid of it. So in using spiritual means to get rid of anything that weighs you down, or incapacitates you, the temptation is to think that you must strive and struggle to force the divine energy to work. ‘The temptation is to try by will power to force yourself to be calm, to force your inca- pacitated hand to move, to force words of guidance to come, to force yourself to hope, and so on. When you wish an electric bell to ring you push 104 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING the button. By pushing'the button you bring the separated ends of two wires together, thus com- pleting the circuit, and the electric force rings the bell. You do not actually ring the bell. You merely supply a requisite condition. You com- plete the circuit. If, when you push the button, the bell does not ring, it will avail nothing to labor and exert all the power you can get behind your thumb to push on the button. A gentle pressure completes the circuit just as much as the exertion of great power. If the bell does not ring something along the wire or in the battery is out of order, and all your exertion of effort at the button will not set it right. The electricity rings the bell, not your force. Your effort only creates the requisite conditions. So it is with the divine power of God. You have only to supply the requisite conditions and the divine power acts. You do not heal yourself. It is the life-giving energy of God which does that. A surgeon does not heal a broken leg. He merely supplies the conditions requisite for heal- ing. He brings the ends of the bones together. PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING | 105 He puts on a plaster cast to keep them together. We say that nature heals the broken bone. But what is nature? Only a name that we give to some mysterious force. What we call nature is but one manifestation of the divine power. ‘The surgeon, necessary though he be to the setting of the bone, does not heal it any more than you ring the bell. And as with surgery so with medicine in gen- eral. The physician knows that if he can ar- range the requisite conditions life will continue to manifest itself in his patient. Now, as you know, I am in no wise belittling the noble pro- fession of surgery and medicine. I believe in spiritual healing but I have a good family phy- sician. I believe in codperating with him in the use of all our combined knowledge in order to get the conditions requisite to the working of the divine power. We have found by study of the Scriptures, and by experiment, that certain con- ditions are required for the working of the di- vine energy. Our part in the healing is to ar- range those conditions. In arranging those conditions you have to act, of course, but you do not have to stress and strive and labor and 106 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING exhaust yourself as if your power were doing the healing. Spiritual healing teaches how to re- ceive something, to be conscious of possessing something, to be aware of something working in you, rather than to expend something or give something out of your own mental or physical reserve of power. Jesus said: ‘‘My father worketh until now and I work.’’ He was conscious that it was the Father’s power that was working in and through Him. He coéperated with that power. In that sense He worked with it. In order to understand the first law of spiritual healing it is necessary to grasp the foregoing clearly. It is the divine power in you that heals, comforts, guides, gives immortality. You can cooperate with it. Your codperation is necessary. But to codperate you do not have to force and strive. To do so interferes with the divine work- ing. And the reason it interferes with the divine working is that it shows you have not yet learned to trust the divine power. You do not practically believe in what it can do. You feel that it needs considerable of your effort. If you realized that Poy CGHOLOGY On bE ADING +") (107 you were dealing with infinite Roe you would not strive to assist. When you get on a train it never enters your mind that you must get out and put your shoulder to the rear car and help to start the train. You do not do this because you have perfect confidence in the power of the engine. The same practical, perfect confidence in the divine power is necessary in spiritual healing. For you to strive unduly is evidence you do not trust to the omnipotence of God in you. The engine will not take you any place you may desire to go. It will take you only over the rails already laid down. If you do not know where the rails lead, you will not know where the engine is taking you. It is likewise with God. He has His plans for the whole universe. He has laid down certain rails on which He de- sires you to travel. He has a certain destina- tion for you and His power will inevitably get you there if you learn how to trust Him and how to codperate with Him. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the way because He tells you what God has in store for you. It may not be what you desire. 108 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING If not it is because what He has in store is better by far for you than what you desire. You must first learn to trust God, to believe that what He has in store for you is absolutely the best, and that His divine power will bring that to pass with your earnest codperation. Or it may be that what God has in mind for you is what you do desire, but it is not best for you that it should come to pass in the way you desire it to come. You must learn to trust God absolutely, both as to the end and as to the way it is to be accomplished. But how are you to proceed to know what God has in store for you and to know how He wishes to accomplish it? ‘The way God wishes to accomplish anything is called a law. In the teaching of Jesus and in the Bible we can find some of those laws, and by experimenting we can discover others for our- selves. And Jesus and the Bible generally teach us what the end is that God hopes to accomplish through the working of His laws. But how are we to proceed, both as regards the end and the means to it? There is an account to the effect that King PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 109 Solomon heard a voice represented as the voice of God. It said to Solomon, ‘“‘Ask what I shall give thee,’ which means, after the Hebrew man- ner of speech, whatsoever you ask I will give it. And Solomon is reported to have answered: Wisdom that I might rule this so great people. And the story goes on to say that the voice re- plied: Because you have not asked riches nor length of days, nor the death of your enemies, but rather wisdom to rule this so great people, you shall receive wisdom, and riches and honor and glory, and power such as no man has received before thee and no man shall receive after thee (I Kings 3:5-12). Ihe teaching of this account, which is the all-important part of it, is perfectly clear. Solomon was a ruler. He asked for wis- dom to do his duty. He received that wisdom and it brought more than he had ever dared hope for. Consequently, the first thing to do in order to know what God has in store for you, and the way to accomplish it, is to pray for wisdom. Pray that the divine power manifest itself in you as wisdom to do your duty. It matters not what your condition of body, mind, or affairs may be. 110 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING In order to be spiritually healed, which means in order to have the divine power manifest itself in your life as health, peace, abundance, or im- mortality, you should first pray for wisdom to know and to do your duty. Pray that the divine wisdom may manifest itself in your life, and then trust it perfectly. Show your trust by the prayer of affirmation. During the healing meditation we shall employ that method of prayer. And we shall get a demon- stration of its truth. That will help us to trust it even more than we do at the time of our first attempt. The method of spiritual healing in which we trust to a power working in us and do not de- pend so much upon the force of our will power, or physical striving to heal us, is quite scientific, and has been demonstrated daily in scientific clinics. It is called the method of reversed effort. This phrase implies that the more you use your will power and physical power in mental and spiritual healing the less you succeed. Whereas if you diminish the effort of your will, and the effort of your body, the greater is your success PevCHOLOGY OF UTMHALING:) V111 in healing bodily and mental disorders. For the healing is brought about by a state of conscious- ness during which you are aware of the power acting within. In such a state you are supremely happy. It has been found that when the will and the imagination are in conflict, the imagination usu- ally prevails. It wins out because it is the stronger force. For example, a person has been worrying. He decides to stop worrying. But the imagination keeps bringing up the thing he was worrying about. It presents it from all pos- sible points of view. He wills to stop worrying but he does not. ‘The imagination overcomes his will power to resist it. He is really thinking about the object of his worry but saying that he will not at some future time. But at the present moment he is. ‘The effort of his will is being used to keep it before his mind. He might suc- ceed by this method, but there is a better way. And that way is to depend not so much upon his own will power as upon the divine power within. And so it is with everything else you wish to accomplish. Start in to use the divine power first. You will have abundant opportunity to 112 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING use your own will power cooperating with the divine. The mistake and error is to begin con- scious only of our own little power. For you are not alone. To act as if you were is to deny your nature and to remain ignorant of the truth which can set you free. It has been demonstrated by experiment in clinics that every thought tends to manifest itself subconsciously in the body. There is a law ac- cording to which thought, be it desire, wish, hope, or ambition, always seeks to realize itself. Con- sider carefully the words of this law. Every thought does not actually manifest itself in the body. ‘The law says it tends to manifest itself. Sometimes we say that it is a law that water always runs downhill. But that is not the law. If it always runs downhill then how did it get up there? The law is that water always tends to seek its level, or, as we say, tends to run down- hill. So every thought does not manifest itself in the body, but it tends to, it tries to. It is of the nature of thought to tend to manifest itself in the body as it is of the nature of water to tend to run downhill. The law states that every thought tends to PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING © 113 realize itself subconsciously, that is, in the sub- conscious part of our being. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Hence it is important to know the truth about the subconscious element in our make-up, which is commonly called the subconscious or the unconscious mind. The mind that we are using now is called the conscious objective mind. We are aware or con- scious that we are using it. I am using it to express my ideas. You are using it to understand and judge what I have written. The conscious mind apprehends, compares ideas, comes to a conclusion about them, and gives a command. Let us for our present purpose say that the func- tion of the conscious mind is to reason, decide, command. The subconscious part of us is called the sub- jective mind, because it does not decide and com- mand. It is a subject rather than a ruler. Its nature is to do what it is told, or what really in your heart of hearts you desire. ‘The subcon- scious mind directs all the vital processes of our body. You do not have to think consciously about breathing. Every time you take a breath 114 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING you do not have to reason, decide, and command. The subconscious mind sees to that. You have not been at all conscious that you have been breathing while you have read this page. So it is with the mind and the circulation of blood. ‘The heart is a muscle like the muscle of your arm. It has no power to move of itself or to direct its action. Only mind, only something that can think, can direct our muscles, includ- ing the heart. You are not conscious that you are deciding when your heart should beat. You are not conscious that you are commanding it to beat. The subconscious mind attends to that. And so it is with digestion of food, the as- similation of food, and the building and repair- ing of the body. In fact all the vital processes are looked after by the subconscious mind. At once you see how important to one’s health is this mind which is called subconscious. I have said the subconscious mind is called sub- jective for its nature is to take orders. And in executing those orders wonderful is its power. It is always at work during the night as during the day, when you are sleeping or when you are PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 115 awake. It is elemental, and therefore it is tire- less. Now to our law once more. Every thought tends to realize itself in the body subconsciously. Hence our problem is how to get our healing thoughts into the subconscious part of us so that they may be realized in the body, in the mind, in our whole life. For spiritual healing aims to heal not merely the body but the whole man. Do not think that while I place great impor- tance on the subconscious mind I am forgetting God and his divine energy. The subconscious mind is God’s way of utilizing His energy. God evolved the subconscious mind. It is His gift to us like all else that we possess. And because it is from Him we should give thanks and learn how to use it intelligently. How to get thoughts into the subconscious mind is the purpose of the healing meditation. The woman who received such wholesome and lasting results, as described in a previous chapter, said that it was during the healing meditation she felt the first effects. She had followed my direc- tions and relaxed. ‘To relax completely means to 116 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING stop using the conscious mind and to stop using the voluntary muscles of the body. It means merely to let go and become passive and receptive. When in this state, you give the subconscious mind a chance to receive the idea and the command to realize it. It is said that idleness is the devil’s opportu- nity and it is perfectly true. When you are absolutely idle in mind and body you are re- laxed. The subconscious, which is always ready to receive ideas and commands, takes whatever you allow it to have. If you are idle and allow evil thoughts to remain they are received by the subconscious, which tends to realize them in the body just as much as though they were good, wholesome, health-giving, spiritual thoughts. For remember the subconscious does not reason and judge. It only receives and obeys. It is God’s gift to us and we are responsible as to how we use it. What I have written thus far is merely enough to introduce you to the law for realizing your desires in the body through God’s divine gift which is called the subconscious or subjective mind. Do not think that there are two minds in PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 117 us, but rather one mind with two quite different functions. I have said that in proceeding to be healed we need wisdom as to what God has in store for us—that is the end—and wisdom as to the means for accomplishing that end. All that I have said about the subconscious mind refers to the means we are to use to reach the desired end. } It is equally important to have wisdom as to what we should desire. “God wills only that which is good for me and for all mankind,” was our first afirmative prayer. Good as used here means the best. So we can formulate our prayer thus: “God wills only the best for me and for all mankind. Consequently I am always to seek the higher good. ‘That is God’s will for me.” I have said that the divine power is trying to manifest itself in your life to realize the high- est good. Perhaps that is not what you are seeking. Or, if you are seeking the highest pos- sible good perhaps you are not seeking it in the best way. I cannot tell in advance how the divine power will manifest itself in your body. I know only 118 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING that it will work to accomplish what is your highest good. A minister’s wife had been in a wheel chair for years. After attending a service for healing she said, “I came seeking bodily healing but I have found that what I need is spiritual enlighten- ment.’ Knowledge of the truth became for her a higher good than immediate physical healing. Rejoicing in that truth and allowing it to possess her had its good effect on the body. She has been coming to the healing service every Thurs- day morning, her face hopeful, expectant, and smiling in the joy of finding the truth about life and God. Formerly it was a puzzle which she could not solve. Now she knows that in any condition of body or affairs God can manifest Himself in us as love, wisdom, peace, joy, immortality. Another woman came using a cane and went away using it but she thus describes her con- dition: “As I walked along my body was sing- ing, I felt so good all over I never thought that I was using a cane, I was so happy from within.” I am sure that woman passed many persons on the street not needing a cane to walk with, PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING _ 119 but how few of them were as happy as she. How few were happy from within! How few could say that their bodies were singing! I do not know in advance how the divine power and wis- dom will manifest themselves in spiritually heal- ing you. I have seen it bring peace and life to some by healing bodily ills. I have seen it bring peace and life to others without removing bodily ills. What we seek in the last resort is not the removal of bodily ills, but peace, knowledge, and assurance of immortality. These are the higher good. A man might have rheumatism and be healed of it but does that make him more wise or spiritual or moral? Does absence of rheu- matism bring peace, happiness, and success? By no means! So seek the higher good. Seek wisdom to do your duty. Find out what your duty is. Be assured the divine power is fitting you to do it. _ And in thus seeking the way will gradually open for the next step. Trust God. “Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.” CHAPTER IX APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY IN SPIRITUAL HEALING Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life be- cause He teaches the truth as to the way we can cooperate with the divine power within in order that it may manifest itself in our life as wisdom, love, peace, health, strength, abundance, immor- tality. Prayer is that exercise which puts us in con- dition for the divine power to operate in us. There are several kinds of prayer such as praise, thanksgiving, petition, and affirmation. The prayer of affirmation consists in asserting spirit- ual truths and is most powerful in spiritual heal- ing. For example: ‘God wills only that which is best for me and for all mankind.” ‘God wills that I should be well and strong and at peace.” ‘God is healing me now.”’ ‘These are examples of affirmative prayer. They are statements of spiritual truth based on good psychology. 120 APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 121 Service should always follow prayer, and by service is meant sharing the good with others, or letting the good in you manifest itself. Following the teaching of Jesus, the apostles, evangelists, and Fathers of the early Christian Church conceived of God as a divine personal energy in us and in all the world “as the perfume with the flower, as the salt with the waters of the sea,’ and we learned to call this conception of God by the name “immanence,” which means in- dwelling, as contrasted with “transcendence,” by which it is understood that God is above and greater than all creation. In the preceding chapter we reasoned thus: if we believe that God is an energy of infinite wis- dom, love, and power within us, we should learn to codperate with Him. God has so fashioned us that we do not have to give conscious attention to the vital processes. He has given us what is called the subconscious mind, which directs respi- ration, circulation, assimilation of food, the up- building and repair of the body—in a word, that part of our mind which operates without our conscious attention and which looks after all the vital functions. 122 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING This mind can receive commands from us and has wonderful ability to carry them out, for it is a law that every idea tends to realize itself sub- consciously in the body. Since God gave us this device we are bound to study it to know the laws according to which it operates, and to apply those laws to the heal- ing of body, mind, and soul, and to the glory of God, “the giver of every good and perfect gift.” We found it of capital importance not to strive as if by force of will or physical effort to heal ourselves, but to remember that a divine infinite power is at work within, and to learn to give our- selves to that power and to trust it to accomplish God’s beneficent purposes in us. To do this we were to relax body and mind and assert spiritual truths until they produced a state of conscious- ness in which we experienced the divine power working in us. In preceding chapters which I have just out- lined, we were laying the foundations of the sci- ence of spiritual healing, and it was necessary to handle the big foundation stones, which in this instance were principles, laws, conceptions of God, prayer, requisite conditions, and the meaning and APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 123 scope of the healing I advocate. We peeped at philosophy, theology, psychology, science, prayer, and service. We must now put the emphasis on the appli- cation of the truths or laws we have learned, particularly as concerns our individual needs. But we shall now and again recall our principles and laws and conceptions of God and His good will, for these are the dynamo from which comes the power to lighten and strengthen and vivify. I have said that we are now to apply the sci- ence of spiritual healing to our own particular individual needs. Since we are going to deal with our needs let us call them all together before us, to see what they look like as a whole, before we deal with them in particular. It will be a con- venient time to ask of them a few questions about their origin, their purpose, their value. If you examine a watch on the outside you see hands moving. Look within and you find moving wheels; and further within you find the mainspring, the source of the movements of the various parts. Examine yourself and you will find that all your various physical actions, which appear on 124 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING the outside, can be traced to the movement of muscles within, and beneath muscles to the influ- ence of nerves. But is there in you any main- spring which causes not only physical action but also those mental actions we call thought, or those intense experiences called hopes, desires and ambitions? Yes, there is one in whom we live and move and have our being, namely, God. All power and movement, and life are manifesta- tions of God, the divine energy, the mainspring of our every action. Several things that release this energy in us might be mentioned, one of the greatest of which is need. The newly born child needs air. He struggles to get it and then needs more air and strains for that. And in the struggle and strain he develops the forces to meet that need until in a short time he meets it without any apparent effort, and is then free to begin to meet other needs and to be developed in meeting them. This first experience of the newly born child is an indication of all that is to follow. Needs of the body, needs of the reasoning part of us, needs of the affections, needs of justice, goodness, beauty, truth, the moral needs, the esthetic needs, APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 125 the social needs, the spiritual needs—these, like the need of air, are what release the mainspring of action in us. Study any personal life and you will find that the inner cause of its endeavors was to meet certain needs, and that in the meeting of those needs successfully the person advanced in life. But the needs may not be successfully met. Through ignorance of the meaning of life, through sloth, through lack of instruction, through discouragement, or what not, a person may fail to meet his great needs. Just as the child gradually and naturally supplied his need of air, first with great effort then without ever giving a thought to it, so the grown child can gradually and naturally neglect to supply certain needs. ‘This neglect may cost an effort at first but soon one can neglect these needs without a thought. Recall the first mean or unjust thing we did consciously. We felt miserable because the need of justice in us was denied. But if we kept on doing this deed the sense of justice in us regard- ing this particular matter would have become well- 126 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING nigh extinct, and we might violate it without a thought of remorse. Hence to deny needs means to deteriorate. To fulfill them successfully is to grow “in wisdom and stature and grace before God and man.” It is a fact that as civilization advances life becomes more complex and our needs are in- creased. We make progress only by having new needs to struggle with, and finally by being able to meet them unconsciously. We shall never be free of them in this life, for they release the energy that pushes us on. We read of Jesus that He had compassion on the multitude for they were as sheep without a shepherd. The needs of their life, of their soul, mind, and body, were crying out for satisfaction, for fulfillment, for expression, but they were without a teacher to lead them to the truth that would make them ‘free. The purpose of the religion of Jesus is to teach mankind and to demonstrate to them both how their needs are to be met in this life and in the next, and how in the meeting of them they grow more and more like God. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 127 when He shall appear we shall be like Him,” is St. John’s way of stating this truth. Paul tells us that he has learned a great secret about meet- ing his needs. He says, ‘‘Rejoice in the Lord, and again | say rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). ‘And the peace of God, which passeth all under- standing, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Ibid 4:7). “I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound; everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need” (Ibid 4:12). “But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Ibid 5:19). And so I might quote passage after passage to prove that the purpose of religion is to assure us that all our needs can be gloriously met, to teach us how they are to be met with God’s power, and that in the process of meeting them we grow in the stature of Christ. The modern sciences of psychology and biology have very emphatic words to say about our needs. Biology, which is the science of life, finds that the most important factor in evolution is not the outer environment but the inner needs of the liv. 128 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING ing being. To satisfy its need of sustenance, defense, reproduction, and social life the living thing evolves the organs and instruments which are the means to that end. ‘The inner urge, the élan vital of Bergson is, in simple language, noth- ing other than the needs of our nature implanted in us by the Creator. In fulfilling his nature, in satisfying his needs, bodily needs, mental needs, social needs, spiritual needs, man evolves or grows according to the divine plan. And psychology, the science of the nature and function of the mind, teaches that the instincts are the great driving forces of life. They can- not be successfully suppressed. If the attempt is made they may be repressed for a time but not overcome. They reappear in other forms. Nervous disorders are often due to the suppres- sion of instincts, and diseases that follow nervous disorders are traced finally to what disordered the nervous system, namely, repressed instincts, emotions, and desires. The psychological law of healing in such cases is the same as the spiritual law. Know the truth about the cause of your disorders, says the psy- chologist, and the truth will set you free of them. APPLIED) PSYCHOLOGY 129 Know that they come from repressed needs; let those needs find expression or satisfaction and you will be healed. Expression and satisfaction do not mean in- dulgence and gratification but sublimation. Subli- mation is a technical term which means directing our emotions or instincts to higher ends, that is, to moral and social objects. It means to find the outlet and satisfaction of the suppressed need, or desire, in some worthy way, some ennobling way, and such ways are always both moral and social. For example, instead of suppressing the mother or the father instinct or indulging it immorally, if one be unmarried, one should adopt a child or take children into one’s life by teaching children, or by taking active part in any of the great child welfare movements. ‘The instinct is then directed to a high moral and social end, that is, subli- mated. In this case half a loaf is a thousand times better than no bread. If the need is for a child and you haven’t one, then adopt or work for children. All our instincts can be thus sublimated. In fact all advance in civilization and culture and 130 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING religion is brought about by thus directing the primitive in us to lofty social aims. Modern science tells us of the supreme im- portance of giving expression and satisfaction to our instinctive needs, emotions, and desires by sublimating them. And religion, in a wealth of inspiring promises unequaled in any other litera- ture, assures us that God will assist us in this sublimation with His infinite wisdom and power. There is no limit to the satisfaction God has for His children. It is not confined to time, and this life in the flesh. It reaches beyond time, even unto the immortal life. The great declaration of Jesus is: “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.” Life, the expressing of what is within, the bring- ing out into the conscious reality of that which shows itself within by our needs. And in this expression and satisfaction of need we grow, im- prove, tend to become perfect as the Father is also perfect. The psalmist and the scientist express the same truth. Edwin Grant Conklin, professor of biology in Princeton University, writes in his excellent vol- ume on The Direction of Human Evolution: DEE LARD PSYCHOLOGY 2557131 ‘Science contributes to society knowledge and power; government establishes order and Justice; religion cultivates faith, hope and love. The appeal of science is chiefly to reason, of govern- ment to action, of religion to emotion. The in- stincts and emotions of men are older and more powerful than their reason, and correspondingly the appeal to emotion is more potent than the appeal to reason. Indeed, reason itself can be appealed to only through intellectual feeling or desire for truth. The highest types of religion appeal to love of truth, of beauty and of good- ness, that is, to the noblest emotion in human nature, + I continue to quote. Ryland says: ‘“Thought- ful people get too much in the habit of thinking that intellect is everything, yet the world is not governed by thought but by emotion.” And on this subject Ribot, the French psychologist, says: ‘What is fundamental in character is the instincts, impulses, desires, feelings, all these and nothing else.’ ‘‘Men are not governed by ab- stract principles,” says Leslie Stephen, “but by 1 Edwin Grant Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution, pp. 161, 162. 132 SCIENTIFIC, SPIRITUAL HEALING passions and emotions.” Herbert Spencer wrote: ‘‘Mind is not wholly, or even mainly intelligence; it consists largely, and in one sense entirely, of feelings.” And Auguste Comte said: “‘Affections, propensities, passions, are the great springs of human life.” | ‘This is the great truth which religion has ever emphasized: Out of the heart, that is, the emo- tions are the issues of life’ (Proverbs 4:23). ‘‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” (Ibid. DIRT Here is the fundamental and the highest need of man expressed in language as beautiful as the need is imperative: ‘“‘As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God.” Augustine has given classic expression to the same truth in the words: “Thou hast made us for thyself O God, and our hearts can have no rest until they rest in thee.” Let us then bless God for our needs, our mental, moral, esthetic, and spiritual needs, for without them we should never have got a start in this romance of life; and, being once started, without them we should degenerate and stagnate. Now for the practical method of giving ex- APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 133 pression and satisfaction to: our needs in order to continue our evolution as God desires after the example of the Saviour. Each one must decide for himself what is his greatest need, the realization of which will bring the greatest and most lasting happiness. In de- ciding this question let us remember that we are not alone. The divine wisdom is with you to guide you. To consult the divine wisdom requires that you relax, body and mind. “Be still and know that [ am God” is the divine command. To relax is to wait patiently upon the Lord, for as He knows, so is He ever willing to speak. He speaks to us personally and through great inspired souls. He tells us through them, and we feel it within, that we have the capacity, hence the need, for unending, everlasting, immortal life. There is a natural desire that every good thing should continue. When we applaud, when we say encore, we mean again, more, continue, it is good, let it go on. So the life in us desires to go on, for it is good, supremely good, the greatest, most fun- damental good we possess. There is, then, the need of immortality. Rec- ognize that need. Give expression to it. Say 134 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING in the words of the creed, ‘‘I believe in the life everlasting.” ‘The recognition of a need and the expressed belief in its fulfillment are the first steps to that fulfillment. The clearer your rec- ognition, the clearer your expression and the more expectant your belief, the moze certain will be your satisfaction. ‘“This is eternal life to know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.”’ To know God as one who is sharing His infinite life with you; to know yourself as a manifestation of that infinite life; to know that in Him you live and move and have your being, and that as He shares His life with you now, He will continue to share it with you forever: this is to know God. This is to find expression for and satisfaction of the desire to live forever. We desire to live forever because life is good. Therefore let it express its goodness. In ex- pressing its goodness life becomes satisfied. Your life becomes satisfied. “There is a need in you which can be gratified only by your expressing in thought, word, and deed that which is good. You have the desire and the need of expressing that which is good in your body. Your body APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY ee) needs good health, just as your life needs immor- tality. Recognize its need and express it. Ex- press your belief in it as you do in immortality. Make it a part of your creed. As you say, “I believe in the life everlasting,” and every time you say it devoutly it makes your belief the stronger, so assert your belief in good health. As God is sharing His life with you so is He sharing His health or well-being with you. Assert your belief in this truth. Say, “God is sharing His well-being with me now,” and frequently repeat that truth. Believe it. Assume that it is true. Inwardly smile in gladness that it is so. A smile is the expression of well-being. Be conscious of that smile spreading quietly and gently from your face all through your body. Pain is absent from the face that smiles. And as the smile radiates through your body pain will be absent. Picture and feel that smile, the expression of well-being, reaching even diseased parts or afflicted parts. Let it range through the mind, soothing, caress- ing, soothing, caressing. Doubt, fears, anxieties flee before it. Let it penetrate the depths of your being until it possesses the very soul of you. That smiling sense of well-being becomes the center of 136 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING you. Now it radiates outward all through your members. Now it returns again to the depths within. And in rhythmic radiations it ebbs and flows, refreshing, vivifying, strengthening, heal- ing. Be this your prayer and act of devotion. Wor- ship God thus manifesting His well-being in you. In joy thank Him. In gratitude use what you now possess by imparting it to others. Share with them your knowledge, your interest, your enthu- siasm, your means that they too may have dem- onstrated in them the satisfaction of their needs through the intelligent understanding and use of the divine source of all well-being. The good is trying to express itself in you just as naturally as the seed in the ground tries to burst its shell and grow. ‘The tiny seed in try- ing to grow lifts three hundred times its own weight of earth which covers it. It seems that the earth presses it down and prevents it from coming forth to the light. But we know that it is from the pressing earth that it gets its strength to achieve. So your very needs that seem at times to oppress you are the challenges to stir up faith and confidence and determination. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 137 The winds that sway the oak tree stir it to its roots, and the roots bestirred gather in new strength and impart it to the whole tree. So your needs take you back to the roots of your life. Back to God in whom you are grounded and rooted. Realizing this, you gather in strength anew and your whole being, body, soul, mind, par- takes of it in ever increasing abundance. “I am come,’ said Jesus, “that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly” (John TOO,):, CHAPTER X DAILY HEALING STUDIES MEDITATION AND PRAYER “Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” First Week Sunday.—Prayer, the spiritual preparation for healing. Matthew 6:5-15. Memorize verses 9 CO RLS M onday.—Loving judgments, the moral prep- aration. Matthew 7:1-12. Memorize verse I. Tuesday.—Jesus heals sin and sickness. Mark 2:1-12. Memorize verses 5 and II. Wednesday.—A father’s faith saves his son. Mark 9:14-27. Memorize verse 23. Thursday.— Iwo men going to church heal a lame man. Acts 3:1-16. Memorize verse 6. Friday.—Healing a dying boy at a distance. John 4:43-53. Memorize verse 50. Saturday.—Comfort and power through union with God. John 14:1-14. Memorize verse I. 138 DAILY HEALING STUDIES 139 Second Week Sunday.—The supreme value of wisdom. Proverbs 16. Memorize verses 3 and 20. Monday.—Some divine laws of peace and pros- perity. Psalm 37. Memorize verses 5 and 8. Tuesday.—God’s infinite energy or power to renew us. Isaiah 40. Memorize verses 29 and 31. W ednesday.—We are partakers of the divine nature. II Peter 1. Memorize verse 4. Thursday—The healing of a cripple. Acts 14:8-19. Memorize verses 9 and 10. Friday—The law of forgiveness. Luke 7: 36-50. Memorize verse 47. Saturday.—The divine power heals many through Jesus. Matthew 8:1-17. Memorize verse 13. Third Week Sunday.—David’s prayer of praise, petition, thanks, and affirmation. I Chronicles 29:10-20. Memorize verse 12. Monday.—All prayers are heard and an- swered. Luke 11:1-13. Memorize verses 10 and 13. 140 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING Tuesday.—Afhrmative prayer of Jesus. John 17:4-26. Memorize verse 21. W ednesday.—Jesus teaches that God is in us. John 14:15-31. Memorize verse 23. Thursday.—The power of God within accom- plishes above what we can hope for. Ephesians 3. Memorize verses 20 and 21. Friday —God’s power in some men can be communicated to others and heal them. It is the same power that manifests itself in producing rain, harvests, and gladness. Acts 14:8-19. Memorize verse 17. Saturday.—God’s life remains with us making us immortal. John 16:17 to 17:3. Memorize verse 3 of chapter 17. Fourth Week Sunday.—A song of prayer for a confident mind. Isaiah 26:1-10. Memorize verse 4. Monday.—Life and peace result from a spir- itual mind. Romans 8:1-21. Memorize verse 6. Tuesday—How to renew the mind and be transformed. Romans 12. Memorize verses 2 and 21. DAILY HEALING STUDIES 141 W ednesday.—The power of the will in healing. Luke 5:12-26. Memorize verse 13. Thursday—How the inner thought is mani- fested in the outer life. Proverbs 4. Memorize verses 7 and 23. Friday.— Turning from the fountain of living waters is the explanation of man’s troubles. Jere- miah 2:1-13. Memorize verses 5 and 13. Saturday.—The power of the spirit in us to abolish fear and death. II Timothy 1:6-14. Memorize verses 7 and 10. A Heartinc MEDITATION When you desire the sunlight to cheer a room you raise the shade and the light pours in. It is the nature of light to be present when the obstacles are removed. So, too, it is the nature of God to fill your life with His presence when- ever you open your mind and heart to Him. To receive this blessing, quietly meditate on such words as these: ‘I now open my mind and heart to God. He has promised to make His abode with me. ... I have opened my inner- most heart to Him . . . and He is present with 9 me. 142 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING Pause a few moments, simply conscious of God’s presence. Then say quietly: “Since God is infinite wisdom, I must follow His direction. Since God is infinite power, I can do all that He directs me to do. Since He is the God of peace, I shall henceforth proceed with serene confidence.” Again pause, simply conscious of God’s pres- ence. After a moment or two continue: “God is now directing me. I arise confident in His leading.”’ Suit your action to your word. Rise with confidence. Start your work or affairs, what- ever they may be, with this thought: “To go about my daily tasks in this frame of mind is my supreme blessing and duty. I thank Thee, my Father, for this feeling of hope which is the proof that Thou art with me. To radiate this spirit to others by doing everything with con- fidence, always conscious of Thy power working with me, is now my firm resolve.” THE PRAYER Almighty God, the only source of health and healing, may we and this Thy servant be conscious at this moment of Thy healing, saving power man- ifesting itself in his life. DAILY HEALING STUDIES 143 May we with the eyes of faith behold the hand of Thy Son Jesus resting upon him and believe that in His touch is the ancient power to heal. May we be conscious that the divine life of God is now supporting and comforting him, even that immortal life which always manifests itself according to Thy will. Graciously we trust in Thy love, knowing that this Thy servant ever partakes of Thy life which shall remain with him forever. Complete, good Lord, the work begun in Jesus’ name. Amen. THE ORDER FOR THE SERVICE OF SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING As Conducted at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, New York Rev. William T. Walsh, Rector *The Altar shall have upon it the Cross and two lighted candles. ‘The Minister shall be vested and, kneeling upon the lowest step before the Altar, he shall pray aloud the Lord’s Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. Amen. 144 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING The Collect ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may per- fectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. *Then turning to the people, shall the Minister say: Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith. Tuovu shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. ‘This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two command- ments hang all the Law and the Prophets. Matthew XXII, 37-40. Again Jesus saith: If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. Matthew XVIII, 19. And again Jesus saith: And these signs shall follow them that believe; DAILY HEALING STUDIES 145 they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mark XVI, 17-18. *Here shall be said: Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. Lord, have mercy upon us. Let us pray. O AtmicuHty Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy command- ments; that, through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. Book of Common Prayer. *Then shall the Minister read the following Epistle, first saying, The Epistle is written in the fourteenth chapter of the book of The Acts of the Apostles, beginning at the 8th verse. ‘The Epistle ended, he shall say, Here endeth the Epistle. The Epistle. Acts XIV, 8-18 AND there sat a certain man at Lystra, impo- tent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked. The same heard 146 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING Paul speak: who steadfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people. Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran among the people, crying out, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein; who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Neverthe-— less he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them. DATELY HEALING SFUDIES 147 *Then, all the people standing, the Minister shall read the following Gospel, first saying, The Holy Gospel is written in the Eighth Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, beginning at the First Verse. *Fere shall be said, Glory be to thee, O Lord. *And after the Gospel shall be said, Praise be to thee, O Christ. The Gospel. St. Matthew VIII, 1-17 WHEN Jesus was come down from the moun- tain, great multitudes followed him. And behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying I WILL; BE THOU CLEAN. And immedi- ately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. 148 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For Iam aman under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abra- ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. When evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: ‘That it might be fulfilled which DAILY HEALING STUDIES 149 was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Him- self took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. *Ffere shall be said the Creed commonly called the Nicene. I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things vis- ible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father; By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salva- tion came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man: And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried: And the third day he rose again according to the Scrip- tures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father: And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; Who spake by the Prophets: And I believe in one 150 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins: And I look for the Resurrection of the dead: And the Life of the world to come. Amen. *The Minister shall then go to the Lectern or to the Chancel steps to give the Notices, the In- struction and the Exhortation. ‘The Notices should be brief and somewhat as follows: The Service of Spiritual Healing is held every Thursday morning at 10:30 o’clock. After the announcements, which I shall now make, there will be a brief Instruction followed by an Exhort- ation. Then there will be a hymn or a solo while those who seek healing come to the Communion Rail for the Laying on of Hands with the Prayer of Faith. The Service ends with a prayer for those who are absent and the Benediction. I wish to call your attention to the books, pam- phlets and Prayer Leaflets to be found in the ves- tibule, which you can procure after the Service. You will be greatly helped by such prayer and reading during the week between the Healing Services. Finally, there are expenses connected with these Services including the cost of heating, lighting, advertising and printing the Prayer Leaflets. No offering is taken. Freely we have received and DAILY HEALING STUDIES 151 freely we give as saith the Scripture. Our Lord commanded those who had been healed to make the offering required by the ancient Law. Those who wish to make a thank offering will find the plate in the center aisle near the entrance and are asked to place their offering there. I shall be glad to greet you as you are leaving the Service and to hear from you of the blessing you have received. So kindly wait, when conveni- ent, until I return from the vesting room. *If the notices have been given at the Lectern the Minister should then go to the Chancel steps for the Instruction and Exhortation so that there will be a distinction between the Notices and the Instruction and Exhortation and that nothing in the former might detract from the latter. The Instruction should be based on the Epis- tle or the Gospel already read in the Service. Thoughts developed the preceding week should be referred to the succeeding week and a new thought developed. One truth, or one phase of a truth, is sufficient for one Instruction, which should not take over ten minutes to deliver. The Instruction should begin with a brief para- phrase of the Scriptural account of some one healed. ‘The meaning and scope of spiritual heal- ing, for example, as given elsewhere in this book, 152 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING should come next and then the Scriptural account — of the case of healing, with which the Instruction began, should be recalled as an illustration of the meaning and scope of spiritual healing. A word should be said in praise of the service rendered by medical science and all should be urged to keep close to their family physician and pray to God’s blessing upon him, while seeking healing from the Divine Physician of mankind. The disposition of heart and mind, necessary to spiritual healing, will then be explained, always remembering that Jesus took men as he found them, as in the case of the half-believing but honest father who said, ‘‘Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.” It should be stated at every Service that a bless- ing can be expected, but that the form the blessing will take must be left finally to the wisdom of God. The blessing we receive might be the blessing that we prayed for, but it might not be sent in the form we prayed it would come. Or the blessing might not be what we asked for be- cause God in His wisdom has a greater one for us. Or again it might be with us, as with others every week, that the blessing which comes is just what we did pray for. But the blessed assurance is that a blessing always is received. The Exhortation must bring a picture of Jesus to the imagination of those to be healed, DAILY HEALING STUDIES 153 making Him so really present that they become unmindful of everything else. Afirm confidently that Jesus is present, for when two or three are gathered together in His Name He is in the midst. Where Jesus is, there is His love and His power ever actively at work. It will be true and it should be stated that already, at this time in the Service, some have felt His power forgiving them of their sins. Others feel His power sooth- ing their minds so that now they have no fears, or soothing their bodies so that now they have no pain. I can make such statements confidently and with authority, for after the Services I always hear that several persons have had such experi- ences. Others feel His power strengthening their minds and bodies as the woman felt Jesus’ power coming to her when she touched the hem of His garment. So I assure people that they are sur- rounded by and bathed in His power and feel it as really as one who is surrounded and bathed in sunlight feels its warmth and cheer. Jesus, though here present in spirit and power, uses others to manifest that power. Jesus, though here present, has no physical tongue with which to speak words aloud, nor hands to place upon your head with healing power, but He will use us to do His will if we believe. You know and feel that the one who speaks to you words of truth in Jesus’ name is going to 154 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING help you with Jesus’ power. So now let your body and mind relax, as if in the arms of Jesus, and let this belief be in your minds, thinking it quietly but deeply with me in these words: ‘The one who speaks to me now in Jesus’ name is going to help me now with Jesus’ power. Now in God’s Holy Name, and with faith in God’s power to heal, and with full confidence that you will receive that blessing which is best for you, come forth for the Laying on of Hands with the Prayer of Faith. For they that believe shall lay hands on the sick and they shall be healed. *Organ, Hymn or Solo. There is music while those who seek healing are directed to the Communion Rail where they stand. The Minister, in the meantime, has en- tered the sanctuary, where he stands before the altar and experiences for himself the power of God in his own heart, mind and body. He must be responsive, intuitive and genuinely sympathetic (without being sentimental), feeling that he is a channel of God’s power, and then he is ready to lay his hands upon the heads of those now kneel- ing at the Communion Rail and to accompany this action with such words as are given him to utter. DAILY HEALING STUDIES 15 He must pay no attention to any fleeting doubt or distraction, for he will learn by experience that the greatest blessings come to those he thought were receiving the least from his ministration. *Then shall the Minister offer a prayer and pronounce a Benediction. APPENDIX THE greatest of all man’s possessions is that God-given gift—his life. ‘There is no other gift or possession in the world that can be compared to it in value. This life that He has given you is instinctive, intelligent, free, self-conscious, and immortal. It is not limited like the life in plants and animals. Being like unto God it has wonderful possibilities. Our Lord came calling out to men the good news he had for them concerning this life from God. We all like to hear good news. It stirs up that life within us. We say when we hear it that we feel better and in reality we are better. Good news even about the little things changes us. The news that our children behaved well in school; that they did well in their studies; good news about the health of a member of our family; good news about the success of any of their ven- tures: does not any one of these stir up life within us so that we live more than before we heard it? So Jesus comes to tell us some good news about this venture that God has made in giving life to you and to all men. And the good news is this, like some one whis- LOZ, 188. APPENDIX pering in your ear, ‘‘Yes, I know, and I under- stand, but still all is well. God has provided for all the needs of life, for all the dangers to which the gift of life would be subjected.” “But suppose I have been neglecting the gift of life,” you answer; ‘‘suppose I have been abusing it, or not understanding it; suppose that I have wasted it and all but lost it, that I am so confused I know not where to turn to find a way or a meaning in lifer’ “Even so,”’ comes the assuring good news, ‘God has provided for every need. For after all it is His life and He is not going to lose it. God has promised us a time in which we shall know the meaning of life and how best to use it. Jesus comes to tell us that the blessed time is now. The kingdom you would enter is at hand. Now, at this moment, not to-morrow, or next week or some other time, but actually here and now.” Let us enter this blessed kingdom together, be- fore whose portals we now all stand. ‘To the question, ‘‘What shall we do?” comes the answer, ‘You have the key. It is called desire. Say from the depth of your heart, ‘Lord, I desire. The life that is in me is yearning with desire to know that fulness of life which Thou hast promised to give. I desire with heart and mind and soul and strength. I long for something better than I now know and experience. Lord show me the way to abundant life.’ ”’ APPENDIX 159 I imagine that such were the thoughts and feelings of the people who listened to the “good news’’ as it came from the lips of our Lord. They were filled with wonder and admiration, we are told, at His teaching. But IJ am sure they were also filled with desire. Now comes the test of desire. What are you willing to leave behind? ‘The door of the new life opens for a moment. We glimpse therein peace, joy, success, honor, and a company of noble souls. [here is an impulse to rush in and live. But we are bidden to look at ourselves. And behold, we are laden. There are many things about us that have destroyed peace, or joy, or suc- cess here. They would do the same there. We must part with them or lose abundant life. This is the meaning of repent. It is a stern word. It sums up all the hard sayings of Jesus. If thine eye offend thee, or thy foot or thy hand, tear them off and cast them away. Who could bear such a saying but for the blessed word of the good news that follows? For always after repent comes the word, ‘‘Believe the good news.” Be assured that you can here and now leave all im- pediments behind whatever they may be. “He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.” When a city is attacked the defender sends out his forces to deny entrance to the foe. There is no parley, no compromise. It is life or 160 APPENDIX death to the one or the other. But with us it is not a question of something coming from with- out to force itself upon us. God sees to that. Our fight is to keep our desires from going out to seek what is contrary to our life. Repent means practically to deny. As man has journeyed on he has brought with him much of his past. ‘The ages of fear, and lust, and greed, and superstition through which the race has lived have left their memories with him. Sometimes these memories become so real that they are like a part of us. We call them our lower nature. Paul refers to these when he says, ‘“The first man is of the earth, earthy.”’ ‘To repent means to deny the desires of this lower nature. Deny that your better self desires to be attached to a thing that interferes with your peace or joy or success. One by one as lower desires rise before you put them aside with the firm thought, ‘“That is left behind—I enter the Kingdom.”’ And if many rise at once in your mind answer, “‘All are behind, I enter the Kingdom.” And have perfect confidence in your ability to do all this, for the promise of confidence is part of the good news. And the reason for your con- fidence is this, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” When you have the desire it is the spirit of God in you urging you to desire with Him. When APPENDIX 161 you are prompted to act and have the will to do, it is the will of God working in you, and urging you to make your will one with His. You are not left alone in anything good that you attempt. It is God that worketh with you and with God all things are possible. We meet others casually, in a business way, or as friends or relations. But have you ever met their souls? Have you ever met that real self in them that is yearning for something better that has not yet been attained? You have only to re- member your own struggle to know what they are going through. Remembering this you could not now do anything to burden them or make their way more difficult. On the contrary, to help them is the surest way to make your own pathway straight and sure. ‘The more you stop to help the faster you proceed. Whereas if you think only of your own progress you never move for- ward. He that would save his life must lose it. God has peace and joy and success just ahead for all His children. He leads them on through others. A smile, a kindness, a forgiving word, a compliment, the offer of help, these are the mes- sengers that tell of His goodness in us. In a great paper mill that is run by water power there is a little instrument not much larger than a quart measure which regulates the speed of the machinery. So delicately is it set that if a 162 APPENDIX thread got into it every wheel and roller in that great mill would stop. The mighty force of water that runs the mill would be turned away. So, too, with God which worketh both to will and to do in us. Do not allow anything, however small it may seem, to deter you from possessing the abun- dant life with which God wills now to bless you. To hearten you on your way, it will help to read the following letters. Albany Crescent, New York, Octe stots Rev. Mr. WALSH, DEAR SIR: I wish to thank you for all you have done for my wife Mrs. J ; She was seriously sick when through a friend she heard of your Healing Services at St. Luke’s church which she attended for several months. Later she was operated on at the Presbyterian Hospital and after a second operation which was followed by a severe hemorrhage she was given up as hopeless by the doctors in attendance. She asked me to ask you to call which you did so promptly and she says the moment you blessed her and put your hand on her she felt a wonder- ful change come over her and from that moment she began to improve and is now at home and mending rapidly. APPENDIX 163 There is no doubt in my mind that your prayers and her faith have saved her life. May God bless you and your good work. Gratefully yours, Coy Baaijs West 143 Street, My DEAR Mr. WALsH— Mrs. B., West 135 St., says that nothing has helped her so much as her talk with you and treat- ment the other day, and certainly she shows it. I thought you would like to know. I don't know how to thank you for your kindness and interest. Very sincerely yours, Vicw Leg: November 9, I919. New York, May 24th, 1920. Rev. W. T. WALSH, DEAR SIR: I am writing to tell you that the treatment I received from you last Thursday has helped me wonderfully. I have not forgotten to thank our Heavenly Father for the health He has sent me through you. 164 APPENDIX I also ask His blessing upon you and your work and all other Healing missions. Sincerely, Riogkn W. 142 Street. East 222 St., Bronx N. Y. June 7/20 Dear Rev. W. T. WALSH, Just a line to thank you for the treatment you have given my granddaughter Charlotte. She was suffering with large intestines and at times could not walk. I have attended your meetings three times with her and she can now walk and is very happy. Yours respectfully, aE: Haleside, Long Island, Jan. 30. My Dear Dr. WaLtsH— Two years ago I attended one of your healing services. Long ago, out of gratitude to you, this letter should have been written and my testimony sent. My intention was to call and speak to you in person, but circumstances compelled us to leave New York and ensuing conditions have prevented APPENDIX 165 me from returning. For four years, as a result of severe eye-strain, I had been suffering from a form of nerve pain in my heart—which no remedy and no physician seemed able to cure—only for a short period each morning was I free from pain, and by night it was intolerable. I began to realize that my mind was no longer sound, my health was broken and at a time when all my strength of mind and body was needed I was useless. At that time I heard of your work. Went to your service on Thursday morn- ing; received one treatment. At four o’clock in the afternoon, when the pain was generally at its worst and the dreadful hysteria beginning to rise—suddenly all pain ceased, and from that hour, although I have been under constant strains, I have never suffered again. It was your faith and your power which healed me. I could not for many weeks grasp the truth—really believe the pain was gone—and could not lose the old fear. Perhaps it is unnecessary to give you this detailed account; forgive me if this is too long. When you placed your hands upon my head, instantly a wave of tingling heat passed through my entire body—the flesh in my scalp seemed to lift and move—lI felt as though I were charged with electricity. I returned to my place and knelt and must have gone instantly to sleep, for the friend who was 166 APPENDIX with me had to awaken me when the service was over. Now I am writing not only to give you this testimony but to ask your help for someone else, who is in great trouble—to ask your advice, for I ‘believe you tan help shen. 4 With sincerest gratitude, Foot New York City, January 28th, 1921. THE Rev. Wn. T. WALSH, My Dear Mr. WALsH— Last Sunday I received Communion and later ‘The Laying on of Hands” at your church. All my life I have been a communicant of the Episcopal Church, but taught the old theology in regard to God and sickness. Through the past year I have been through very “deep waters,” but on Thursday I received so much spiritual help that I know a physical healing must follow. I earnestly hope and pray that your ministry of healing will be continually blessed and that many others will be benefited as I have. Faithfully yours, AAS APPENDIX 167 Manhattan Ave., New York, January 25, 1920. Rey. William T. Walsh, Convent Avenue, 141 Street. My Dear Mr. WaLsH— I have a friend who is troubled with deafness, and she is of the belief, as well as the writer, that she can be helped somewhat by a treatment at the Mission. I persuaded a friend to go up last spring, and she was helped—in fact her nervous condition was much improved. Faithfully yours, | eiph bal Oy Englewood, New Jersey. Dear Mr. WaLtsH— Because of your loving help to my precious boy, in the time of his greatest need, I send you this gift from him. And how can I thank you sufficiently for coming to us yesterday morning with a beacon light? It helped more than words can tell you—Our hearts are aching nigh to breaking to-day, but 168 APPENDIX you have given us, all three, much strength to bear the load, to carry on. In loving gratitude, | WE Cae. §53 West 187 St. New York, 5/20/20. DEAR Rev. WALsH— Have attended both your spiritual healing serv- ices, and I wish to say how much good it has done me, and trust in God to cure me of this chronic catarrh and pain in head. I will always remem- ber you in my prayers and may the Almighty God give you strength to carry on your great work. M. 38. Rev. WILLIAM T. WALSH, Rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church: I wish to announce the great benefit I have received in the treatment I have had in the prayer for healing my nervousness; it has been a great help to me. Thanks be to God for this blessed help. I remain, very respectfully, RB: West 128th St., City. APPENDIX 169 1435 West 57 St., West Philadelphia, Pa., November 8, 1921. The Rev. Wm. T. Walsh, New York City. DEAR SIR— I find words are inadequate to express my grati- tude to you for what you did for Mrs. J. The physical demonstration was marvelous, but the interest you inspired in things spiritual was still more wonderful in both Mr. and Mrs. J. Gratefully yours, odie bel Be Clinton Ave., Jersey City. My Dear Mr. WaAtsH— I was present at your service last night and would have been glad to have talked with you afterward, but there were too many people waiting. As your address was particularly on mental healing, you will be gratified to learn of the great improvement, if not cure, of a certain young woman of this city, whom my sister took over to one of your regular healing services. Mrs. S———— had had a major operation which had left her in a very bad mental state. Her physi- 170 APPENDIX cian called her trouble hallucinations, but it amounted pretty nearly to insanity. She thought she harmed all people who came near her, so that their heads caved in, also their temples, and their eyes became abnormal. She thought she was responsible for many deaths of such people, and would cry and wring her hands and at times tear her clothes. After the service was over she said it was very beautiful, but it was too late for her to be benefited. About two weeks ago my sister re- ceived a postal from her stating that all her fear had left her, she was doing the work of her apart- ment and now loved her home, having formerly hated it and threatened to take her life. She says her husband says it is like a second honey- moon, as she recently joined him in New York for dinner and went to the theater afterward. It was about four or five weeks ago that she attended your service; possibly you may recollect her, as you kept her afterward with a few others, and she asked you what you would do if you had made many mistakes in your life (meaning the people she thought she had harmed). I feel you will be pleased to know of the result of your work. Very truly yours, Beck ae REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMISSION ON CHRISTIAN HEALING “Religion and medicine must go hand in hand in the ministry to the sick,” according to the Joint Commission on Christian Healing, which, after an exhaustive investigation of the subject of re- ligious therapeutics, made public yesterday part of its report to be submitted to the General Con- vention of the Episcopal Church at New Orleans. The fuller recognition of the Church’s ability to deal with disease by spiritual means is urged by the report, with a warning that neglect of what the commission considers a function of the Episcopal Church might be made the basis for a separatist movement. The following principles were put forward in the report as the basis for the ecclesiastical treat- ment of the sick: By creation man is an inseparable unity of soul and body. By endowment we are copartners with God in every act of life, whether spiritual or physical. All spiritual gifts, whether of spiritual or intel- lectual faculties or of physical powers, are com- ponent parts of the one man, 171 172 APPENDIX Sin is personal, and it affects the physical as well as the spiritual nature of man. Disease is physical; but it, too, has its reaction on the soul and the intellect. The care of souls must include that of bodies if ‘cure’? be expected in the fullest sense. The cure of bodies must include the cure of souls. Religion and medicine must go hand in hand in ministering to the sick. The power of mind over matter is an axiom; so also is the influence of the body upon the soul. The codperation of man and God is a neces- sary part of the process of healing. Faith finds its appropriate place in codperation with the laws of life. The commission’s report said: ‘“The commission finds a rapidly increasing de- sire that the Church confirm the belief that there is therapeutic value in the Christian religion. Christian healing is the inclusive term for healing ministrations, and comprehends all means whereby is fulfilled our Lord’s purpose that man should be made ‘every whit whole’: because by creation man in this life is an inseparable unity of soul and body. Those who declare that healing comes by faith, and those who are equally sure that heal- ing comes by medicine, do not contradict one an- APPENDIX 173 other. Each is emphasizing a means of healing which is consistent with the other. “Spiritual healing is an outstanding fact of contemporary religious life. We are challenged as to whether we shall allow this essentially Chris- tian ministry to be sought outside, or whether we are to make it a normal part of the Church’s life. We must see to it that we do not afford a basis for another separatist movement, but should real- ize that the healing ministry is normal to the life of the Church. In this way we continue the min- istry of Christ, who revealed Himself as healer of soul and body. By endowment we are co-part- ners with God in every act of life, whether spir- itual or physical. To ignore either partner in dealing with any concern of life, to forget that God is an active participant in the cure of any ill, or that man is also a partner, is to violate the very conditions under which life is lived. ‘Religious and material means for cure must go hand in hand in ministry to the sick. It is often dificult to tell where the one leaves off and the other begins. Faith in God and faith in phy- sician must be blended for best results. In his practice the physician relies upon the ‘healing power of nature.’ The Christian minister de- clares this power to be God, who is ‘giver of life’ and its restorer. Both minister and physician 174 APPENDIX know that the power of healing is something apart from themselves; that their function in healing is to assist by restoring the conditions—physical, moral and spiritual—under which this power may best operate. It is a fact of creation that life and every operation of life are governed by God through law. A fundamental principle is that God works and man works. Experience teaches that God does not do for man what man is capable of doing for himself; that man’s failure can thwart the accomplishment of God’s pur- poses. Thus faith finds its appropriate place in codperation with the law of God.” The report said that “the relationship between spirit and body should be reverently studied not by the Christian ministry alone, nor by the phy- sician alone, but by them all together.”’ Religious healing, according to the report, must justify its practice by experiment and experience, just as secular medicine does. After emphasizing the possibility of using faith and religion to pre- vent sickness, the report continued: “In view of the specific commission given to the Bishop at his consecration to ‘hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind the broken,’ etc., the fol- lowing agencies naturally fall under his supervis- ion: Healing services, the sacraments of the church APPENDIX 175 as channels of healing, prayer groups conducted by clergy or laity under clerical supervision, anointing, classes for instruction in the principles of Christian healing, the dissemination of wisely selected literature and the introduction of afirma- tions of truth and ideals of health into our sys- tems of Christian child nurture.” Included in the membership of the commission making the report are Bishop Brent of Western New York, Bishop Sessums of Louisiana, Bishop Guerry of South Carolina, Bishop Page of Mich- igan, the Bishop Coadjutor of Southern Ohio, the Right Rev. Theodore Irving Reese, D.D.; the Rev. Dr. J. Wilmer Gresham of San Fran- cisco, the Rev. Dr. George F. Weld of Los An- Beles, secretary: the Rey.) f.\.C.) Sherman of Wieveland. the Rey, °P...P.. Sturges, D.D:;) of Providence; the Rev. Dr. H. P. Almon Abbott of Baltimore, the Rev. Dr. Joseph P. Dunn of Rich- mond, Dr. Winford H. Smith of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Edward S. Cowles of New York. INDEX Aquinas, Thomas, 88 Affirmations, 82, 83 Allen A. V. G., footnote, 86 Apostle’s healing commis- sion, 64 Athanasius, 87 Augustine, 88 Bible, 74 Biology, 127 Biologist, Conklin, 130 et seq. Blessing, 101 Bodily ills, 120 Body, 16 Christian Science, 7 et seq. Christianity, essence of, 71 Church and healing, 58, 71, 80, I71 Clement of Alexandria, 86 Comte, August, 132 Confidence, 91, 153 Conklin, biologist, 130 ez seq. Conscious mind, 113 Consciousness, 4, 9, 50, III Courage, 46 Creed, 135 et seq. Crisis of disease, 41 Divine nature, partakers of, 71 Divine power, its operation, 89, 104 Duty, 110 Dying, The, 49 Energy, 4, 76 nonmaterial, 77 Epileptic, 30 Eternal life, 134 Exhortation at Service, 152 Healing Fear, 36 Fundamental reality, 4 God; 4, 27, 28, 12% an energy, 77 goodness of, 80 personality of, 8 power of, 45 et seq. 177 178 Gospels and healing, 59 Grenfell, 20 Harnack, 61 Healer, 100 Healing Service, 25, 143 meaning of spiritual, 5, 52 Heart, 18, 114 Immanence, 85 Individuality, | contrasted with personality, 8 Instruction, 151 Jesus, 56 et seq. Justin, 86 Law, 73, 77 Laying on of hands, 33 Life of God, 27 its nature, 3, 4, 15, 24, 134, 157 Matter, 3, 9, 10, 24, 76 Medical science, 101, 105 Meditation healing, 141 Mind, 3 subconscious, 113, 121 Mystic experience, 28, 35, 36, 40 INDEX Nature, 105 Needs, 125 et seq. Nervous disorders, 102, 128 New Thought, 7 e¢ seq. Nonmaterial, 77 Pain, 24, 125 Paralytic, 12 Paul; 17 beholding steadfastly, 99 Person, personality, 8, 98 Philosophy, 84 Photinus, 87 Physician’s part in healing, 29 Prayer, 51, 67, 68, 71, 100, 120 affirmative, 40, 83 a prayer, 142 Psychology, 16, 20 of healing, 97, 128 Relaxation, 26, 42 et seq., 102, 115, 122 Religion, natural, revealed, 87 Reversed effort, 110 Ribot, 131 Ryland, 131 Salvation, meaning of, 80 Science, 67 Scientific method, 73 Service, I21 INDEX Shock, 14 Solomon, 109 Spencer, Herbert, 132 Spirit, meaning of, 3, 4, 70 €t- seq. Spiritual healing defined, 70. final triumph of, 72 Steinmetz, 4, 76, 77 Stephen, Leslie, 131 Subconscious, 113, 121 Subjective, 14, 17 Sublimation, 129 Suggestion, 15, 44 179 Surgery, 105 Technique, 10 Thought, 112 Transcendence, 84 ‘Treatment for healing, 22, aw) ‘Trust in God, 108 Vital processes, I13 Will of God, 81 (1) 9 ahy « * Date Due fi ii , eyo gave Va ve ” Ms "i 4 sey t BM BGrdn th a Rah — as {? wage lee ste <. —- on a hae w , we Lean 4 ahe SA 4 rio . vee iy mi a hee ae bie “a +2 | : hon Ane ao iy) | “4 ‘ my i] Pil 1A y aL. a iS { vi frig Wy te eat dad A Atel */hete i ’ : , Scientific spiritual healing, N N = isa] oO so oO oe Speer Library UT 1 1012 00028 5785 Princeton Theological Seminary Mn