THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 JULIUS DOERNER, Chicago 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/modernpracticenaOOpost 
 
“ Within ten days thou wilt seem a god, to those to whom thou art 
 now a beast and an ape, if thou wilt return to thy principles and the 
 worship of reason.” — Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , Emperor of Rome. 
 
 The Modern practice. 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 OR, 
 
 SCIENTIA VILE 
 
 Science (L., Scientia) — The orderly arrangement 
 of ascertained facts. Vitte — of Life. 
 
 By C. W. POST. 
 
 (, WORDED FOR PLAIN PEOPLE .) 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 LA VITA INN COMPANY, 
 Battle Creek, Mich. 
 
 ( 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1894, 
 
 By LA VITA INN COMPANY, 
 
 Battle Creek, Mich. 
 
13 1 
 
 "p?4 "m 
 
 Dedicated 
 
 to 
 
 the Principle of Life, the 
 
 Divine Part of Man, 
 by 
 
 the Author. 
 
 488560 
 
“All great reforms have been instigated by the untiring 
 efforts of a few independent thinkers. Each century has had 
 its leaders, and those leaders have ever been men of thought. 
 
 Superficial minds are apt without thought to adopt certain 
 opinions as their own, and to adhere to those ideas with a 
 tenacity born of ignorance. The broad, thoughtful mind 
 weighs the arguments on both sides of a question, and is ever 
 open to conviction, while the narrow-minded bigot reiterates 
 his opinions with on obstinacy which can bear no opposition.” 
 — Anon. 
 
 Sickness, Sin, and Disease are creations of the human 
 intellect, and exist only in a mesmeric or abnormal state. 
 These unieal conditions disappear under the white light of 
 the higher intelligence. The lower mind or animal intellect 
 will sturdily contest the truth of this because that mind is 
 conscious only of the physical plane compassed by the five 
 senses. It is only when the ignorance of intellect is displaced 
 by the higher intelligence, the psychic sense, Soul, Life, or Di- 
 vine Mind, whichever term seems best, that the being gains a 
 knowledge of the plane of eternal principles and of man’s con- 
 nection with his cause. This knowledge unfolds the new man 
 and brings with it, according to law, an endowment of the 
 ponderous power of Life, dismissing the unreal, breaking the 
 mesmeric spell, and returning man to a natural, normal state, 
 from the world of illusion to the world of eternal realities. 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
KNOW FACTS, FOUNDATION 
 PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Such Knowledge Carries with it Power to Free the 
 Slave Bound in Mental Illusion and 
 Physical Ails. 
 
 This book has as little need of a preface as a 
 first-class surgeon has of a formal introduction to a 
 patient whose severed artery he has been called to 
 tie ; it is his business to go straight at the work he is 
 called to do. So with us (reader and writer) ; let us 
 proceed at once to the work of healing, and after the 
 patient is well, we can discuss the theories more at 
 our leisure. 
 
 Now you who are well and surround the bedside 
 with anxious doubts, fears, and scoffs at treatment 
 you know nothing of, will be kind enough to stand 
 one side for the time and let the writer talk alone 
 with the patient. 
 
 I have a word to say to you, friends and well ones, 
 on page 24. Step right over to that page, therefore, 
 and get an introduction to the subject and to the 
 author, if you care to. 
 
 Now a word to the sick one. I come to your side 
 with the deep compassion of a mother for her helpless 
 child. I have been through the seven times heated 
 furnace (seven years) of physical disease and mental 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 distress. When man is thus ripened and then comes 
 into the knowledge of Eternal Life, being quickly and 
 effectually healed by that power, the most tender 
 sympathy goes out to a brother or sister who is 
 still struggling in the mire of materiality. It produces 
 a feeling of great quiet and comfort within, to be 
 the pen by which our Father conveys to you his great 
 truths which will make you free from pain and dis- 
 ease. “ Freely ye have received, freely give.” 
 
 A quiet word in your ear, my brother or sister. You 
 are reading these words with one sole object in view , 
 — to be well. You do not care to pose as a specially 
 acute critic. You do not care to feel that you must 
 criticise any of the statements during the time you 
 are getting well. Kill off the old man (self) and let 
 the new Being come up. Know yourself as Spirit, 
 Mind, and not body. For your own sake be entirely 
 humble and passive during treatment, and let these 
 words, as the instrument of Divine Mind, guide you as 
 a little child is guided. When you read the written 
 thoughts, fall into the same strain, join me fully, 
 heart and soul. You thereby get at once into the 
 state of Health and Harmony. 
 
 “ The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ” ; it is 
 right here now, and you can enter it at once by put- 
 ting yourself in possession of the Higher Mind and 
 letting that mind guide you, denying any power but 
 one, and that one, Divine Life, the Father of all. 
 
 To put yourself in possession of the Higher Mind, 
 you will still all voices from intellect which will object 
 to the teachings herein. Let your mind be passive 
 and receive all of the instruction as truth revealed to 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 7 
 
 man from the Father of all Truth. Do this carefully, 
 thoughtfully, drive out doubt, and you will receive 
 your reward daily. 
 
 But , we are so wonderfully constructed that if any 
 individual decides to doubt or ignore the voice of Truth 
 as expressed through a man who has passed through 
 the experience necessary to gain the knowledge he 
 teaches, such an individual can close his shell and the 
 healing thoughts, which are winged angels, silently 
 pass him by,, until later on. 
 
 You may depend upon it, the time comes to every 
 one when they know the Truth as to who they are, 
 and their power. It will come to some here and on this 
 plane, much to their benefit ; but to many, after they 
 have dismissed this body. “Every knee shall bow.” 
 Be humble, content to receive instruction as it is 
 given, and just so sure as you let these words sink into 
 you as Truth , you will be made free. 
 
 After you are conscious of Health, you are 
 welcome to read the book again and tear the state- 
 ments to pieces as much as you like. But while 
 ailing and seeking to get into Health, I beg of you, 
 for your own welfare, take it all and kill every doubt. 
 
 Especially destroy the first voice of the devil : “I 
 know this will cure many, but my case is a real case 
 of structural disease and cannot be reached by these 
 methods.” That is the first thrust of evil, kill it. 
 
 The writer of these pages desires to say noth- 
 ing of himself other than as a simple instrument 
 through which Divine Principle chooses to manifest 
 itself by precept and example. Placed at the head of 
 an institution for healing by the practice of Natural 
 
8 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Suggestion, the opportunity for study and the daily 
 experience in practice, put him in possession of many 
 facts and truths that would require just such experi- 
 ence for any one to gain. Skill in mental practice is 
 gained in the same way as skill in any department of 
 science, — by observation, study, experience, and the 
 ability to evolve correct conclusions. 
 
 Read carefully, thoughtfully, not more than twenty 
 pages daily. Afterward, seek an easy position, where 
 you will not be disturbed, relax every muscle, close 
 your eyes, and go into the silence , where mind is 
 plastic to the breathings of Spirit, and where God 
 talks to the Son. The thoughts from Divine Univer- 
 sal Mind come as winged angels and endow you with 
 their healing power. If you go into the silence, 
 humble and trusting, you will come out enriched and 
 greatly strengthened in body, by contact, even for a 
 short time, with the Father of all Life and all power, 
 you will feel refreshed in every way, and food taken 
 will digest readily, as stomach works smoothly when 
 under the influence of the Higher Power. Every 
 nerve and every muscle will at times feel the thrill of 
 health and power coming from the unseen plane of 
 Life. You may know that your body is healing, and 
 healing fast. The true Being is perfect at all times, 
 let the mortal body manifest its natural condition. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 9 
 
 “God gives us always strength enough and sense enough 
 for what he wants us to do ; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle 
 ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, 
 whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing him if 
 we are not happy ourselves.” — Ruskin. 
 
 You do not live in body. — The dissecting 
 knife of the surgeon never has found, and never will 
 find, the vacant space supposed to have been occupied 
 by the real man or soul. The body of man is com- 
 plete in every part, weighs as much, and in every way 
 is as perfect the moment after that critical point 
 called death, as it was before ; but the place occupied 
 by the living man cannot be found. The most minute 
 examination by microscope will not discover it. When 
 that thing called Life was present, and the body act- 
 ive, it seemed to be a perfectly operating, and even 
 an intelligent piece of machinery. 
 
 Shall we say the man has lost his life ? This would 
 infer that we considered the body to be the man, and 
 that he had an unseen power which he was capable 
 of losing ; or, shall we say the man has dismissed his 
 body ? Both positions cannot be maintained. 
 
 The body, we know, is made up of earth and water, 
 is shifting and changing continually, but the real man, 
 that operates the eyes, the tongue, feet, and hands, 
 lives,. and he does not live in the body. He is the 
 manager of body, and manages it either poorly or well 
 until the time comes, when, according to law, he must 
 dismiss his body and pass by what naturalists of the 
 present day term a critical point. The real man 
 
10 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 never dies, and all sickness or disease is an illusion of 
 the lower mind or intellect. 
 
 The Unseen, Real Man is Never Sick. — 
 Body, which is made of material that belongs to one 
 plane or kingdom, is subject more or less to the laws 
 existing upon that plane ; but the real man, the un- 
 seen manager, lives upon a plane above the plane of 
 material, and on his true plane there is no such thing 
 as sickness, disease, distress, woe, discord, or death. 
 Remember this, you live now : That which lives will 
 never die, but will exist eternally. 
 
 You are living just the moment while you are read- 
 ing these words. 
 
 What has passed even five minutes ago is gone, 
 and is therefore dead to you. Live in the present. 
 Make it pleasant. Deny the right of the body to 
 make any laws of discord or sickness which you are 
 subject to. 
 
 The New Testament says, “Know the Truth and 
 the Truth shall make you free.” This is the “Truth” 
 referred to. 
 
 God is the life of man. — That peculiar unseen 
 force, which moves over the nervous system of all 
 animals and operates their mechanism, is called Life. 
 It is in reality God ; not an attribute of God, which 
 he has sent down to his creations from his far-off 
 home, and gives them for their use. This is by no 
 means the case, but God is the Life right here now, 
 and continually with us. We dwell in life, and life 
 moves our bodies, being the active principle which 
 permits the motion of each member, the internal or 
 vital organs, which seem semi-automatic, as well as 
 the external members, which are moved wholly and 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITM. 
 
 I I 
 
 solely by our own will, so-called. This active prin- 
 ciple, Life, is the true man, which has a body. It is 
 one, and we are one with the eternal, everlasting 
 God, the Supreme Energy of the universe, and we 
 never die. When the time of so-called death comes, 
 we may dismiss this body, made of earth and water, 
 and take unto ourselves a new creation of a form of 
 material not now visible to the eye of the earthly 
 body. If the patient will close the eyes and retire 
 into absolute silence for a time, with the mind in- 
 tently dwelling upon who he is, and the fact that he is 
 now in a Presence, consciously dwelling with a kindly, 
 generous, perfect Father, who is at all times and 
 under all circumstances, with us, whether we are 
 conscious of this presence or not, he will feel the 
 freshening and strengthening effect at once. It is 
 the eternal principle of Life, Soul, with which we are 
 one, and it is the dearest, warmest friend we can 
 possibly conceive of. It has made all things good 
 and perfect for our enjoyment, and when we fail to 
 see that this is true, it does not change the fact, nor 
 drive the Father away from us, nor we from life, 
 one jot or tittle, except to our false knowledge or 
 consciousness. 
 
 We do not live a life that is apart from the one 
 Life, or God, but Life is God manifesting himself 
 through these oodies. Know this perfectly, and as 
 you know it, and as you think it, as you hold it stead- 
 fastly in your mind, you get a thrill of power from the 
 everlasting Source of all power, and you become con- 
 scious of increased strength and vitality. 
 
 You perhaps need some drilling to get out of the 
 animal mind into the one universal Mind, which is the 
 
1 2 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 same as Life, and the same as God. If you cannot 
 get up out of the rut of the animal quickly, repeat to 
 yourself many times, hundreds of times, if you will: 
 ‘ ‘ God is my life. God moves these hands, legs, eyes, 
 lungs, stomach, heart. I am moved by the eternal, 
 divine Energy and Force of the universe, and that 
 power is my real self and is* unlimited. I am one 
 with God, dwelling in Him, and He in me. The 
 effort of the animal intellect to drag me down is the 
 effort of a false claimant. I am Soul, Life, Energy 
 now and forever, and I have the right to command 
 body to do whatever it is harmonious for body to do.” 
 Go over J:his steadily whenever you can get a few 
 moments to yourself, and as you do so, you will find 
 you grow in strength, vitality, and health, because 
 you, at such times, dwell on the plane of, and in the 
 presence of, our eternal Father, Divine Energy, God. 
 
 You do not live a life separate from the 
 one universal life. — Professor Shaler, the geolo- 
 gist of Harvard University, says the discovery of the 
 unity of life is the grandest discovery of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Man feels that he has a little pinch of life which is 
 his own, and which he must take great care that he 
 does not lose. He believes that he lives a life sepa- 
 rate and apart from God, the one life. 
 
 This is not true. 
 
 The life current, which is the real man, is the same 
 that manifests through all so-called living things, from 
 the blade of grass up, manifesting in different degrees. 
 When you once fully realize that ‘ ‘ in Him you live, 
 move, and have your being,” and that it is God who 
 moves your legs, .arms, tongue, and stomach — all 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 13 
 
 the organs of the body — and that it is the great 
 unlimited, tireless energy of the universe, you will 
 feel the power of life glowing and thrilling your 
 entire make-up. 
 
 Thinking upon this line steadfastly is the “ drinking 
 at the fountain of life,” and the recuperating, vitaliz- 
 ing current is sent from one end of your being to the 
 other. 
 
 Is your stomach troublesome ? Realize who you 
 are, living one with the Father of all life and partak- 
 ing of his power. 
 
 Go to the table and eat a fair, reasonable meal 
 without fear, knowing and never doubting your power 
 to make stomach perform its necessary functions, and 
 in a satisfactory way, so long as it is ruled by the God 
 power. 
 
 The worst cases of stomach troubles are healed, and 
 in many cases healed instantly. We have the divine 
 birthright to a perfect body, and we can manifest our 
 rights by sticking to the fact that we have them. 
 
 You have been fanatical, perhaps, on the subject of 
 how terribly you have been ruled by the body. “My 
 stomach won’t do this, my liver won’t do that, and 
 my bowels are never working rightly, ” etc. 
 
 The wonderful being, man , a part of the God 
 power, can make conditions. 
 
 He soften makes them of sickness, or distress, and 
 holds those facts uppermost in his mind. He has 
 endowed the body with power to give trouble, and 
 this is the only power the body has. 
 
 Body is constructed wholly of dead mate- 
 rial, and has no life or intelligence what- 
 ever.- — It is a scientific fact that the body, which we 
 
14 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 have always esteemed to be a living organism, never 
 was, and never can be, anything more than a mere 
 mud doll. 
 
 It is beautifully constructed, and operated in a way 
 to challenge the deepest admiration of the niost 
 profound philosopher. But let us see what the 
 facts are. 
 
 The elements of the ground, which are taken up 
 by the wheat, •the oats, the corn, and the grass, are 
 by these specimens of plant life, chemically changed 
 and combined with water and heat until we know 
 them as kernels of wheat and ears of corn, etc. 
 
 No intelligence, no life has been given to* the dead 
 matter thus far. 
 
 Man uses the grains directly for food, or has them 
 fed to the domestic animals, which he devours. In 
 either case there is another chemical change or crit- 
 ical point passed, which rearranges the original earth 
 and water, so that man, according to a beautiful law, 
 takes up this material and builds it into his body. 
 
 He makes it into muscles, eyeballs, parts of the 
 heart, bones, nerves, blood, hair, etc., but has this 
 earth and water taken upon itself any intelligence, 
 any life, any power ? Certainly not. It is merely 
 used as beautiful material, by the sculptor, the un- 
 seen sculptor, who is back of, and living above, the 
 image, but is daily moulding and putting in new, here 
 and there, where it is necessary. 
 
 After this material has been used a little, then, ac- 
 cording to the perfect laws of the Father, the blood 
 passing through the veins, having been charged with 
 oxygen from the lungs, oxidizes, burns up, tears 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT JE 
 
 5 
 
 down this material, throws it into the little river of 1 
 blood and carries it off to the intestinal canal, the 
 kidneys, or the several million pores of the body, 
 from which sewers our old bits of earth and water 
 are dismissed from body, and gradually, according 
 to the beautiful law still, are returned again to their 
 original state, earth or water. 
 
 This material never had any intelligence, never had 
 any power during all the time we used* it. Now, do 
 you call this you ? 
 
 Is this the great being which thinks, manages, 
 operates, and controls all ? 
 
 You may get dust upon your polished shoe that, 
 if you could trace it back, was at one time a part of 
 the valves of your heart. Would you say that dust 
 on the shoe is you ? 
 
 Try and get this clearly. You are an invisible 
 being, using elements and dismissing them, but your 
 body is not you, it does not control you, and never 
 shall, unless you mentally endow it with the power 
 to do so. 
 
 Treatment. — Read this over enough to commit it. 
 
 The kingdom of God is within me. 
 
 Heaven is content and peace. 
 
 I have content and peace with me now. I dwell 
 in that state ; for I know that Life, Soul, which is 
 the real me, is a part of and one with the Father, 
 and is therefore perfect and not subject to any of the 
 annoyances which the mortal intellect pictures for me 
 on the earth plane. 
 
 I am like my Father, Universal Good. 
 
 I am like my Father, Universal Power. 
 
i6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 I am like my Father, Universal Harmony and Health. 
 
 I know the great intelligence dwells in me, and is 
 one with me. 
 
 I know Good only, and have shut out all mental 
 pictures of anything but good ; for Good is Harmony, 
 and Harmony is God, and God and I are one. 
 
 When I take up with evil or inharmony, I have left 
 my great partner, and therefore I am liable to all 
 sorts of distress, in the mortal sense of distress. 
 
 I am free, for God is my Life. 
 
 The Sensitizing Element of Body is the 
 human intellect. 
 
 Physiology- carefully describes many of the beauti- 
 ful parts and movements of the human body, and of 
 their needs one for the other, and of the beautiful 
 nervous system, but when it comes to explaining that 
 marvelous power or energy which passes over the 
 nerve envelopes, and gives or seems to give, what is 
 called life to the body, physiologists admit that it is 
 not fully understood what that unseen thing is. 
 
 When the human body is in conscious possession 
 by the intellect, all things are at work more or less 
 correctly, but, under the influence of a mesmerist or 
 a hypnotist, who is able to take possession of the 
 intellect of the patient, we find that all of the five 
 physical senses have passed under the control of the 
 operator, who has temporarily obtained possession. 
 We find that steel needles can be thrust through the- 
 cheeks and tongue without any feeling of pain what- 
 ever. The patient is made to see any sort of object 
 that the operator chooses. He is made to eat saw- 
 dust and experience all the pleasure of eating ice 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 *7 
 
 cream. He hears whatever the operator chooses he 
 shall hear. So we find that the entire sensation of 
 the body comes under the head of human intellect. 
 
 We also must not fail to observe that while the 
 patient is in this mesmeric state, his lower powers 
 seeming to have been captured, the life current is 
 going on perfectly, without check or hindrance ; and 
 as surely as the human intellect is the lower mind, 
 just so surely the life current is the operation of the 
 higher mind, which is the soul, spirit, life of the man, 
 one with the Father of all life ; and this element can- 
 not be reached or affected by the human. It is per- 
 fect and always will be. 
 
 Treatment. — Use one treatment each day, and 
 only one. Read over three or four times and let the 
 thought sink in. 
 
 I cnn God at work. God is the only power, and 
 that power is being shown through me in just the 
 amount and degree that I manifest. That which 
 moves the body and all its parts is not a power sepa- 
 rate and distinct from Life or God. It is Life. It 
 is God, and it is my true self. My body is dead 
 earth and water ; that is not I. The only real 
 part of me is the God part, Mind, or Life. I have 
 a shifting bit of soil moulded into a body. It is 
 beautiful enough, but it is not I. Knowing that I am 
 part of all Harmony, all Health, and all Power, I 
 refuse to allow the dictates of the lower mind to force 
 sickness and evil on my mentality. I am well, for 
 the Life is God, and God is never sick. 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher, in his last sermon, said : “So out of 
 that state of mind which was implied when Christ wrought heal- 
 ing, came the spiritual power that took on a physical result. We 
 do not know what the hidden power of the soul is as yet. 
 There are all around the world, breaking out in irregular ways, 
 instances of the power of certain states of the mind.” 
 
 Amelia Barr, in “ A Sister of Esau,” says : “For who takes 
 cold or receives injury while the spirit has the upper hand? 
 Men and women, driven by great enthusiasms, go through fire 
 and water and compass impossibilities. All our limitations are 
 of the body, but in our diviner moments, when the soul takes 
 command, it makes but small account of them.” 
 
 The highest method in mental treatment. 
 
 — It has been discovered by a number of mental 
 practitioners, as well as by the author in daily prac- 
 tice, that the most direct form of treatment, which 
 brings the quickest and surest result of health and 
 comfort, is where the mind is fixed upon the fact 
 that both practitioner and patient are in reality, 
 simply and wholly, Mind, Life, Soul, and the thought 
 that there is any such thing as body is entirely 
 dismissed. 
 
 If the shape of the body, or any of its aches or ails, 
 t come before the mind during treatment, quickly shut 
 out the picture, and deny that there is any such thing 
 as body. 
 
 Assert that all is mind, and mind is sufficient. 
 Hold that thought steadily. 
 
 It seems, perhaps, a curious position to take, and a 
 false one, that there is no body, but we find, upon 
 analysis, that when we desire to dwell completely and 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT JE. 
 
 19 
 
 wholly upon the plane of Spirit or Soul, we must not, 
 and cannot take the body with us, and if we do enter 
 that plane wholly , we must dismiss body. 
 
 We cannot hold in mind, material body and imma- 
 terial soul at one and the same time, and get the 
 purifying, vitalizing effect of divine energy ; therefore, 
 in your treatment, you will find great success * will 
 follow, when you are able to pass body totally out 
 of your consciousness, and hold in your mind the 
 spiritual consciousness of Power, Life, Energy, God 
 one with yourself, and having the right to manifest 
 yourself perfectly. 
 
 It may require some little practice to attain the 
 power to so handle the mind, but it will certainly 
 come with practice, and when it comes, you will, 
 without fail, find marvelous power comes with it. 
 
 Cease enmity, adverse criticism, and evil 
 thoughts of all kinds. 
 
 A bitter critic is most universally a poor specimen 
 of physical manhood, for the reason that no one can 
 continue to hold adverse thoughts regarding his 
 fellow-man without its manifesting such inharmony 
 in the body. There are many women who are 
 known as good housekeepers, but who must have 
 the chairs and furniture in their house in just such a 
 position. They are so over particular and fussy that 
 domestic servants will not remain in their employ. 
 When the husband comes home at night, perhaps 
 somewhat weary from the day’s work, he is met with 
 a tale of woe, how this went wrong and how that was 
 out of fix, and the wife complains of rheumatism, 
 headache, or some other bodily ail, which makes the 
 
20 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 husband feel as though he would rather be somewhere 
 else than in that sort of home. 
 
 It is seeing evil in our daily surroundings and inci- 
 dents that causes worry, and that worry causes sick- 
 ness of various sorts. 
 
 It is a common fallacy to suppose that the sort of 
 woman we have just described is fussy and particular 
 because she is not well. You might as well call this 
 by its right name. It is a lie. The woman is sick 
 because she grinds evil into herself continually, and 
 she always will manifest sickness in spite of the 
 doctors, and all the potions her husband can buy, 
 until the God-life, which is lying dormant within her 
 is roused, and she comes up out of the mud of materi- 
 ality into a knowledge that there is no fret, no worry, 
 no annoyance to Spirit, and that is, in reality, all 
 there is of her. 
 
 If you seek continually to find that your neighbor 
 has done you some little injury, or your employer is 
 not treating you just right, or this one or that one is 
 “down on you,” as the common saying goes, you are 
 producing children of your mind called evil thoughts, 
 that will come back to you with redoubled force, and 
 you will feel the result. 
 
 If you will turn on the other tack, and continually 
 train your mind to think that all is good — that all 
 people are your friends, no matter if they look cross 
 and say ugly things, look right through such manifes- 
 tations of the lower mind and see the life back of it, 
 which is perfect, you will feel good from the tips of 
 your ears to your toes. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 21 
 
 You must hold charitable, loving thoughts toward 
 everything which manifests life, because it is one with 
 you ; perhaps manifesting in a lower or higher degree, 
 but the power which does the manifesting, which 
 operates the molded animals, is the God power of 
 which you are a part, and as you hold charitable, 
 loving thoughts toward all living things, you will get 
 the reflex action in the same kind of coin, but greatly 
 increased. 
 
 It will make your body fat and healthy and put your 
 whole nervous system in perfect balance. 
 
 Try it. It is like a draught of pure, cold water to 
 the thirsty man. 
 
 The New Testament repeats over and over again 
 the fact that love for your fellow-man and God is the 
 end of the whole commandment. 
 
 Happiness, peace continually, is the grand object 
 of the entire universe, so hold your mentality in check 
 against ugly thoughts — any thought that is inhar- 
 monious. 
 
 See no evil, but see good in all things. 
 
 The pay for this is most generous, as any one can 
 quickly discover by trying it. Let us analyze adverse 
 criticism to discover, if we can, what motive pro- 
 duces it. 
 
 Think it over carefully, and you will find that it is 
 always based upon an effort of the critic to show to 
 others the fact that he is wiser, knows more, and is 
 more perfect than the one whom he criticises, therefore, 
 it is based wholly on the pride of self, and that self does 
 not mean the higher being, but it is the lower, human 
 
22 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 consciousness ; and the more one tries to build this 
 up, making it an idol, the more of a little hell he 
 creates and dwells in. 
 
 You are no better than any one else in reality. 
 
 If you are able to manifest a little more of the God- 
 life and mind than your neighbor, be content to let 
 your actions speak, and do not puff up the lower self 
 with wordy arguments and adverse criticisms. 
 
 Let us quote Emerson again, “ Be y and not seem" 
 
 God made all things good. There is no such thing 
 as evil (which is simply the opposite of good), except 
 that which the lower consciousness takes into itself 
 and admits as evil. 
 
 Evil seems to be a negative condition, without any 
 basis of reality, but its very negation makes us hurry 
 to return to the one harmony, where we may appre- 
 ciate the comfort and peace there seems to be in the 
 ranks of Good or God. 
 
 When you wish to feel particularly comfortable, 
 stand mentally on the mountain above the clouds, 
 where all of the turmoil and seeming evil of the mor- 
 tal is shut out. 
 
 Making laws. — It is impossible for the average 
 person, until he becomes skilled somewhat in mental 
 science, to understand how absolutely he is governed 
 by laws that have been made for him by others. If 
 he is a Turk, he believes that the Koran is the in- 
 spired writing of God. This is a fixed law, fact, a 
 foundation-stone for his very being. 
 
 It would be like tearing out a part of his foundation 
 to undertake to tear this law down and convince him 
 that it is not law, and is not a reality ; that he 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 23 
 
 simply accepted the statement as a fact from a source 
 which he deemed authority, and when the statement 
 comes up before the bar of judgment of the inner 
 man and is either rejected as false, or accepted as 
 real, the law is thereupon fixed until further enlight- 
 enment either more firmly fixes the fact as a law, or 
 tears it down altogether. 
 
 A doctor, in whom you have absolute . confidence, 
 and whom you deem authority, tells you your stom- 
 ach is badly out of order, but instead of showing 
 directly in the stomach, it manifests in your nervous 
 system, and that later on it will show directly in the 
 stomach in the way of pain and general disturbance ; 
 that you must discontinue eating at noon, and only 
 eat lightly in the morning, and once again, say at five 
 o’clock, but if you dare eat at noon, your stomach will 
 quickly feel the ill effects of it. Now, if this passes 
 judgment at your bar as a fact , and is enfolded in 
 your being as a law, if you dare to eat at noon, you 
 will surely bring on the condition described, or one 
 closely allied to it. 
 
 On the other hand, if you know the higher truth 
 that you are Spirit and have power to control the 
 body, and deny the right of any man to make laws 
 for you, which are not in accord with the freedom of 
 Spirit, you can eat when you like, and snap your 
 fingers at all the doctors on earth, for under this sort 
 of knowledge your stomach will get better and better 
 the longer you live. 
 
 This practice of admitting hearsay, what you read, 
 and what you are told, as facts , deserves the closest 
 attention, therefore investigate carefully, before you 
 
24 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 seal away in your innermost chambers any one's state- 
 ment, or the writings of any book. Ponder carefully 
 the statements which interest you. 
 
 Put them to the test of Eternal harmony. See if 
 they are in accord with Divine Principle, the law of 
 the Father. If so, build them into your character, 
 if not, throw them out, and know yourself to be free 
 from any law of man’s, but subject only to the law of 
 the Father. 
 
 In this connection it may be well to observe that 
 many of the laws which man has adopted as the best 
 for his government, according to the teaching of the 
 experience of man during the past centuries, are wise 
 and beneficent, and seem to be in accordance with 
 the intention of the Father. For instance, the civil 
 laws of government, the man-made laws of mar- 
 riage seem, on the whole, to be wise. 
 
 “ They that be whole need not a physician, but 
 they that are sick.” To the healthy ones who read 
 this book and therefore come under this treatment, 
 let it be said, Take the mental medicine in large or 
 small doses and spit it out or swallow it just as 
 you please, criticise as rough shod as suits your 
 pleasure. 
 
 A stupid, clumsy intellect is always loud in de- 
 nouncing that which it does not understand. 
 
 The mark of the wise man, the skilled and culti- 
 vated intellect, is to hear patiently, and, if the 
 statements made are too deep for immediate solution, 
 ask time for careful consideration before they are 
 accepted as facts, or rejected as untrue. 
 
 If you are so unfortunately constituted as to be 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 25 
 
 superstitious, bigoted, and therefore ignorant, you 
 will very quickly discover that the contents of this 
 book is utter nonsense. It will be completely unin- 
 telligible to you ; for such people are possessed only 
 of the human intellect (so far as they are conscious 
 of), and the facts relating to the plane of forces, the 
 unseen plane, as treated of herein, can only be 
 recognized by the higher mind. The truths of the 
 great unseen plane present only blank nothingness to 
 the lower mind. 
 
 The duty of the writer does not include anxiety that 
 the healthy readers digest and assimilate these truths. 
 
 ‘ ‘ They that be whole need not a physician, but they 
 that are sick.” 
 
 Do not understand from this that only the wise in 
 earthly wisdom can grasp the healing truths of the 
 Father. The simple-hearted person who has been 
 softened and ripened by sickness and adversity until 
 hope is gone and trouble seems to have crushed, 
 is the one who sees clearest and quickest when the 
 heart cries out for help and all earthly aid has proven 
 fruitless, when the poor tottering child seems to be 
 in total darkness and going down to the blackness of 
 the grave with no way to turn for help ; in the depths 
 of despair and in the clutch of disease the human 
 intellect is ripened by the hot sun of discord. 
 
 Then come the words, ‘ ‘ God is my Life. The only 
 power this body has, Soul or Life, is the real man, 
 and in him I live, move, and have my being.” The 
 clearer you know this, the more you take of the 
 eternal power to drive 'out weakness and evil. Know- 
 ing this is the inspiring drink of the water of Life. 
 
2 6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Treatment. — Spiritual Harmony produces 
 an easy, perfect condition of harmony in all we have 
 to deal with. 
 
 “ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from 
 the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from 
 the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his 
 Spirit that dwelleth in you.” 
 
 “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God 
 (Life) they are the Sons of God.” 
 
 “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our Spirit 
 that we are the Children of God.” 
 
 “And if Children, then heirs, heirs of God, and 
 joint heirs with Christ.” 
 
 ‘ ‘ And we know that all things work together for 
 good to them that love God.” Romans 8. 
 
 My life is God, I love my life and know of my high 
 birthright as one with the Father ; knowing this 
 brings the power of the great law, making all things 
 to “work together for good.” There is no other real 
 power, and there is no devil or evil to fight. I know 
 all is good , and I am therefore happy and content, 
 for the “ spirit quickens.” 
 
 The many wonderful incidents recorded in the 
 legends of the Old Testament, of Moses on the 
 mount with God, of the burning bush, of the sun 
 standing still for Joshua, etc., etc., must have had 
 some basis of reality, or they would not have obtained 
 the credence they have commanded for many ages, 
 but there is no fact in all the universe more solidly 
 fixed than the fact that the great universal Mind, 
 supreme Energy, God, never performs any tricks of 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 27 
 
 legerdemain, and never did and never will do the 
 acts that he is credited with in such legends. 
 
 We must look to some other source for their origin, 
 and with this object in view, I desire to bring to the 
 reader’s notice and attention equally marvelous things 
 that are done in this day, by people of our present 
 age and generation. 
 
 It will be remembered that the people of the 
 Orient, for many thousand years, had been given to 
 the study of occult philosophy, and at the time the 
 Old Testament was written, some of the marvelous 
 acts were known of, and performed by children of the 
 Aryan race. I beg to quote from Dr. Heinrich 
 Hensoldt, who has spent something like ten years 
 in India in archaeological researches. His article 
 entitled, “The Wonders of Hindoo Magic,” which 
 appeared in the Arena magazine of December, 
 1 893, will be read with interest by many thoughtful 
 persons. 
 
 The main facts are by no means new, as it has 
 been well known for years that the miracles worked 
 by the Hindoo magicians were almost certainly of a 
 supernatural character as far as the intelligence of 
 man could determine. 
 
 There are two orders of priests or teachers in India, 
 known respectively, as Yoghis and Rishis. They are 
 what might be termed traveling missionaries, and are 
 to an extent, hermits, as they live in solitary huts and 
 caverns in the hill country, which they quit compara- 
 tively seldom, to carry some mysterious message to 
 the outer world. These quiet, unobtrusive men, with 
 
28 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 their fine intelligent faces and foreheads, which reflect 
 the wisdom of a thousand years, go about, seeking 
 only to do good and educate their fellow-men in the 
 peaceful teachings of life here and beyond. 
 
 They will not accept money under any circum- 
 stances. They perform their marvelous acts, showing 
 great control over material, and over the intellect of 
 their audience, for the purpose of demonstrating to 
 the senses of ordinary individuals that they are operat- 
 ing a power that is vastly greater than, and above the 
 conception of, the ordinary mortal. One of their prin- 
 cipal feats is the growing of the mango tree, and it 
 may be concisely described as follows, although the 
 details given in the article mentioned are of para- 
 mount interest : — 
 
 The prophet dug a hole in the ground in the center 
 of one of the largest squares in the city, while sur- 
 rounded by three or four hundred people. A mango 
 is a tropical fruit about the size of a large pear, and 
 grows on a tree which reaches a height of from forty 
 to one hundred and twenty feet. The hole dug by 
 the Yoghi was about six inches deep, in which he 
 covered the mango. To quote the doctor’s exact 
 words, ‘ ‘ I expected to behold the tiny shoot of a 
 mango creeping slowly out of the soil, unfolding its 
 leaves and reaching a height of perhaps six or eight 
 inches. Instead of this I was startled to see, in the 
 air, above the spot where the mango had been buried, 
 the form of a large tree, — at first rather indistinct, 
 presenting, as it were, mere hazy outlines ; but be- 
 coming visibly more distinct, until at length there 
 stood as natural a tree as ever I had seen in my life 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 29 
 
 — a mango tree about fifty feet high, and in full foli- 
 age, with mangoes on it. 
 
 “All this happened within five minutes of the bury- 
 ing of the fruit. It may have been three minutes till 
 I saw the tree, but as I had been at first looking in- 
 tently at the spot where the mango was planted, the 
 apparition may have been there even sooner. I was 
 so intensely surprised at what I beheld that I could 
 hardly realize the fact that I was not dreaming. 
 There stood a tree, to all intents and purposes as 
 natural as any tree could have appeared to human 
 eyes — a huge tree, with a stem at least two feet in 
 thickness at its base. And yet there was something 
 strange about this tree, — something unearthly, some- 
 thing grewsome. There was a weird rigidness about 
 it, not one leaf moving in the breeze ; it stood there 
 as if carved out of some hard solid, like the obelisk in 
 Central Park. Another curious feature I noticed — 
 the leaves seemed to obscure the sun’s rays, and yet 
 I could not detect a particle of shade ; it was a tree 
 without a shadow. 
 
 ‘ ‘ But the most amazing thing of all was this : 
 After having gazed at it for about two or three min- 
 utes, I slowly approached it, wishing to make a closer 
 examination of the stem, and, if possible, to secure 
 some of the leaves. Now, in proportion as I drew 
 near, the tree seemed to lose its distinctness ; its 
 outlines became blurred and faded, so that I had to 
 strain my eyes to retain the impression of its form, 
 until, when about ten yards from the supposed stem, 
 the apparition had completely vanished. Only the 
 Yoghi stood there, and he smiled as he caught my 
 
30 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 eye, but his look was such as I shall not easily forget. 
 And my surprise did not end here, for no sooner had 
 I commenced retracing my steps, than the outlines 
 of the tree appeared once more, growing more dis- 
 tinct with every step, till, at last, when reaching the 
 spot where I had originally stood, it had resumed 
 the same marvelous reality. Precisely the same 
 ching happened when, instead of approaching the 
 tree, I went further away from it. It faded and 
 finally disappeared completely when I had about doub- 
 led the distance ; then came back again and appeared 
 as distinct as ever when I got to my original position. 
 And it was evident that all the rest of the on-lookers 
 underwent the same experience; viz., each individ- 
 ual saw the tree only from the place where he stood. 
 Two English officers, who happened to be very close 
 to me, saw nothing at all, as I could notice from 
 their remarks ; they appeared to be highly amused, 
 and were wondering what we were gazing at, but 
 they had not witnessed the performance from the 
 commencement. 
 
 “The mango tree had now been in view fully twenty 
 minutes, during which a large concourse of people had 
 gathered. The Yoghi, who until then, had not opened 
 his lips, now placed a small mat of cocoanut fibre on 
 the ground and squatted down on it, Eastern fashion, 
 with his legs crossed, which was at once interpreted 
 by the people as a sign that he wanted to address 
 them. The Hindoos squatted down likewise, and 
 most of them came around to the side where they 
 could face him. It was a beautiful and impressive 
 sight — this silent multitude of dark-eyed Orientals, 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 31 
 
 assembled as it were by accident, on the great square 
 in Agra, listening to the voice of the teacher. There 
 was a sincerity, repose, and attention such as few, if 
 any, speakers would find in a Western audience. 
 
 ‘ ‘ It was easy to perceive that the listeners were 
 profoundly impressed with the Yoghi’s preaching, and 
 as for myself, I had become so absorbed in it that I 
 seemed to forget time and space. I certainly did not 
 notice what afterward startled me more than anything ; 
 viz., the disappearance of the tree. When the Yoghi 
 had finished his discourse, the tree was gone ; it must 
 have vanished suddenly, and yet the precise moment 
 of its disappearance nobody could tell. The Yoghi 
 quietly arose, folded up his mat, then went to the 
 spot where the tree had stood and kneeled down, 
 taking from a small bundle, which he held under his 
 arm, a short stick. With this he stirred up the earth, 
 and in a few moments brought out again the fruit 
 which he had planted. I was very close to him at the 
 time, and he allowed me to take it in my hand. It 
 was an ordinary mango, an unripe one apparently, 
 for it felt rather hard. I expressed my surprise at his 
 wonderful powers, and complimented him on his elo- 
 quence, but he merely smiled. I then offered him 
 two rupees, and tried to engage him in conversation, 
 but he refused the present on the ground that a Sakhya 
 was -not in need of money, and he begged to be ex- 
 cused, as he had a great way to go. So he walked 
 off rapidly, and I saw him disappear among the crowd, 
 leaving me utterly bewildered and more than ever 
 conscious of the truth of that saying which Shake- 
 spear puts into the mouth of Hamlet, that there are 
 
3 ^ 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of 
 in our philosophy.” 
 
 Another feat spoken of, and which is also familiar 
 to travelers in India, was performed by one of the 
 prophets, after having preached a most impressive 
 sermon. “He took a rope about fifteen feet long, 
 and perhaps an inch thick, throwing one end up into 
 the air and retaining hold of the other end. The 
 rope, instead of coming down again, remained sus- 
 pended, even after the Yoghi had removed his other 
 hand. Then the Yoghi seized it with both hands and 
 climbed up this rope, suspended all the time in defi- 
 ance of gravity, with the lower end at least five feet 
 from the ground, and in proportion as he climbed up 
 it seemed as if the rope was lengthening out indefinitely 
 above him and disappearing beneath him, for he kept 
 on climbing until he was fairly out of sight, and the 
 last I could distinguish was his white turban and a 
 piece of this never ending rope. Then my eyes could 
 endure the glare of the sky no longer, and when I 
 looked again, he was gone.” 
 
 Another writer, in speaking of this feat with the 
 rope, mentions the fact that when the Yoghi had sus- 
 pended the rope in the air, a youth suddenly appeared 
 by his side who sprang up the rope and began climb- 
 ing away toward the clouds. The Yoghi bade him 
 good-by, and extended his hand upward toward Jiim. 
 The lad was watched by the multitude until he en- 
 tirely disappeared in the air above. A thoughtful wit- 
 ness of this wonderful scene felt that all were under 
 an influence. No living man could doubt the testi- 
 mony of his eyesight any more than Moses could doubt 
 
OR SCIENTIA VH\E. 
 
 33 
 
 that he saw God on the mountain, but the next time 
 this thoughtful individual had an opportunity of wit- 
 nessing this miracle, he brought along a little instru- 
 ment that could not be hypnotized, and at the time 
 when the whole audience were intent on witnessing 
 the departure of the lad up the rope, and the fare- 
 well of the priest with arm extended, he touched the 
 button of the little photographic camera and then 
 waited until he could see the lad no longer, having 
 disappeared as a faint speck in the sky. When he de- 
 veloped the plate, there was nothing about the Hindoo 
 except that he stood with his arm extended skyward. 
 Rope and lad were myths of the human intellect, 
 under control of a more powerful force, and if Moses 
 had been possessed of a camera on the mountain at 
 the time of his celebrated interview, the faithful little 
 recorder would have shown him that no form of 
 molded material existed there except himself. 
 
 But the marvelous power of the intellect to mold 
 forms plainly visible to the eye, as in spiritual seances, 
 is thus far but little understood. They are, from be- 
 ginning to end, creatures and creations of the molder’s 
 mentality, and when that mind assumes its natural 
 condition, all of these illusions disappear. 
 
 I bring this subject up that it may gradually dawn 
 upon the mind of the reader that he or she is under 
 hypnotic influence more or less every day, often self- 
 induced, at other times brought on by the combined 
 mental forces of others. Sickness of all kinds is most 
 emphatically an unnatural, unreal, hypnotic condition, 
 which patients will be rid of as soon as they can break 
 the spell that is over them ; but in their ignorance they 
 3 
 
34 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 are like the man who thoroughly believes what his eye 
 tells him about the rope feat ; that the boy is there ; 
 the rope is there, and he would take his oath that 
 what he sees is solid, substantial material and is not a 
 creation of the mind ; just so long as the individual 
 stands by the testimony of his eyes in sickness and in 
 such illusive feats as have been described, just so long 
 will he remain under hypnotic influence. There is a 
 natural, normal condition of perfect health that we all 
 dwell in continually, so far as the real man is con- 
 cerned, and we can be conscious of this state of 
 harmony whenever we come to know, as an eternal 
 truth, that there is no reality in any inharmony, sin, 
 sickness, or death. 
 
 Pain is a Distorted Creature of the Human 
 Intellect. — You say you have a pain in your knee, 
 yet no one else feels it. It you were to dig after the 
 pain with a dissecting-knife, it would be impossible to 
 find it, yet you say you know it is in the knee. 
 
 Suppose something rivets your entire attention for 
 a moment on some other subject, — the pain is im- 
 mediately gone from the knee. The knee, and the 
 nerves of the knee know nothing of the new subject 
 you are interested in, therefore they cannot dismiss 
 the pain. 
 
 The fact is, the pain exists wholly and entirely in 
 the intellect, which has admitted it as real, and by 
 peculiar and complex process, fixed it in some point 
 in the body. 
 
 Pain is not real, but is an illusion of the human 
 senses, and the patient will find that it can be dis- 
 missed by denying its reality. 
 
 Talk to it as you would to a trespasser on your 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT,E. 
 
 35 
 
 property. ‘ ‘ Get right out of here, you have no right 
 here. You are nothing. Body cannot complain ex- 
 cept by my permission. Nerves have no sensation in 
 themselves except as they are sensitized by the in- 
 tellect.” 
 
 It is a false statement for the body to send up a 
 claim of pain or distress, and this can be dismissed 
 providing one will stand fast in that knowledge. 
 
 When any ache or ail comes up from body, get 
 right after it with a sharp stick. Hustle it out as 
 roughly as you please. 
 
 Set your teeth, if necessary, and affirm your right 
 to rule, and that the body cannot, and shall not, 
 make laws of imaginary suffering for you. 
 
 The effect of this is to so deaden the sensation that 
 the natural recuperative forces will go to work and 
 heal whatever seems to be the difficulty. 
 
 In case one has a cut or bruise, the sensation of 
 pain can be withdrawn and kept away from the in- 
 jured part, if not wholly in all cases, at least partially, 
 so that inflammation and swelling do not result, 
 but the natural forces of the body rush to the work of 
 repairing the injury. 
 
 It is done quickly, and oftentimes to the surprise of 
 the doubting patient. 
 
 For the sake of your own well-being, look upon 
 pain, distress, sickness, sin and death as unreal illu- 
 sions of the human intellect. 
 
 Do not undertake to argue that they are real, but 
 simply shut them out of your world. 
 
 The world to you, is made up of what you know of, 
 and admit as realities. 
 
 Suppose that you had never heard of the city of 
 
36 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 San Francisco. You never saw it, and the fact of its 
 existence was never brought to your notice in any 
 way. You would live along your natural life, and no 
 such thing as San Francisco would exist in your world 
 either for good, bad, or indifferent. 
 
 Now it is not necessary to turn right around and 
 argue that it does exist anyhow , we are discussing 
 what your world is made up of. Suppose it were pos- 
 sible for you to thoroughly eliminate from your mind 
 all pain, disease, and sin. 
 
 Your world would certainly be free from it, and the 
 way to assist yourself is to mentally negate or deny all 
 pictures of evil as fast as they are forced upon your 
 mentality. 
 
 Do not argue that they are real , but argue that they 
 are unreal and belong to the negative world. 
 
 Health is something real. Disease is merely its 
 apparent absence. 
 
 Light is something positive, real ; darkness is its 
 absence, and darkness cannot be termed anything. 
 
 “ Life is real, life is earnest.” It is the great posi- 
 tive element of the universe, and it knows no such 
 thing as death. 
 
 The very body that you say is dead is reduced to its 
 native elements by means of small manifestations of 
 life in the way of germs and worms which disintegrate 
 the mud doll and return it back where it came from. 
 
 The master builder, man, having used it as long as 
 he should, according to law, is then engaged with 
 some other form of material. 
 
 Jesus Christ said, “The first shall be the last and 
 the last shall be first.” When you come to put down 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 37 
 
 the body, which you have considered yourself, and 
 know yourself as soul, which is your real being, you 
 will have carried out the law to a degree, and will 
 receive the benefit directly in a most undeniable 
 manner. 
 
 “ She is such a dear Christian woman, and 
 yet she is sick all the time.” 
 
 There is some mistake in this statement. The 
 burly prize-fighter, who knows nothing of spirit, but 
 who lives in harmony with life as a healthy animal, 
 more nearly manifests the will of the Father than the 
 most saintly professing Christian who is sick all the 
 time. 
 
 Before you assert yourself to be a Christian let us 
 apply the test to see whether the truth is told or not. 
 
 There is one test given by Jesus Christ. “These 
 signs shall follow them that believe. They shall heal 
 the sick, cleanse the leper, and raise the dead,” and he 
 meant just what he said ; that by the applying of this 
 knowledge that we are spirit, soul, now, and that the 
 body has no right to dictate, we can drive away sick- 
 ness and evil. 
 
 When you get this teaching thoroughly enough in 
 your consciousness to firmly deny the claims of body, 
 and heal yourself and others by that knowledge, you 
 will have the right to claim the appellation of Chris- 
 tian. Until you can do this, do not claim it, for the 
 test is like the acid applied to false gold, and the fals- 
 ity is quickly shown. 
 
 You have prided yourself in your own goodness. 
 Many people who are said to be of a retiring disposi- 
 tion, very modest and all that, are so wrapped up in 
 
38 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 their own ideas of how good they are, and how modest 
 they are, and how Christlike they are, that they have 
 built up a bodily image of themselves that they bow 
 down to and worship. 
 
 Tear yourself down. Get off from the pedestal 
 upon which you have elevated yourself. You have 
 been trying to conduct yourself so that people would 
 praise and give you homage. Break this down. Get 
 just as flat and humble as you can. Know yourself to 
 be simply a manifestation of the Father, He doing his 
 work, you being the pencil, then perhaps you will be 
 able “ to be , and not seem,” as Emerson puts it. 
 
 Physicians have recognized in their practice 
 the marvelous force of mind over their remedies, but 
 have been very slow to use this force to assist in 
 healing. 
 
 Any medical practitioner will admit that in admin- 
 istering certain remedies he will obtain nearly the 
 result desired for perhaps four or five days ; then if 
 anything arises which breaks the faith of the patient 
 in either the practitioner or in the medicine, from 
 that time on the medicine is of no more power than 
 so much water, and a change must be made. 
 
 It is shown that medicine is endowed with power, 
 of varying degrees, to affect the physical structure of 
 the human body, but that the greater power, by far, 
 is the governor of the human body, the intellect, so 
 let us apply ourselves to the use of that power, con- 
 trolled by the higher mind. 
 
 There are two minds connected with man, the 
 human intellect being the lower, and subject at all 
 times to the control and direction of the higher mind, 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 39 
 
 which is the mind of the Father and of the Son com- 
 bined, and is the same as is spoken of in the New 
 Testament as “the mind of Christ.” 
 
 A woman perishing with consumption was 
 given a book on mental healing. She read along in it 
 until the words roused the spirit to a knowledge of 
 itself*; thereupon she began to deny the claims of 
 sickness and of body and to assert the right of soul 
 to manage. 
 
 Hers was, to mortal sense, a desperate case, but 
 she began to feel the need of more food, and in a few 
 days determined to get out of bed. The attendants 
 thought she was losing her mind. 
 
 Her clothes were brought and she asked them to 
 leave the room, as she was going to try to dress her- 
 self, and did not want any help. She put on one 
 article of apparel and then dropped back on the bed 
 from exhaustion, but quickly turning her thought to 
 her birthright, that she had life, and life was unlim- 
 ited power, she felt the vivifying current, and got up 
 again and went at it. 
 
 It took her most of the forenoon to get her clothes 
 on, but she accomplished it, and the next day she 
 dressed easier. It was but a short time until she was 
 about the house, gradually getting better, and she 
 continued to improve under the control of the soul, 
 her true self, until to-day she is a round, healthy 
 woman, a perfect specimen of the race. 
 
 The structural change in the lungs and throughout 
 the body required something more than a year to be 
 brought into a normal state, and it was almost a year 
 before the last cough was heard. 
 
40 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 This is not an isolated case of cure of consumption 
 by mental process. There are hundreds and thou- 
 sands of them throughout the country that can be well 
 authenticated. 
 
 Know you this and know it well, that the body is 
 built of material according to the general plan that 
 you are holding mentally, either of harmony or dis- 
 cord, and the lines of thinking may not all show in the 
 body for eight or ten months, but you may depend 
 that they will appear sometime. 
 
 The question of heredity is, to-day, perhaps 
 the foremost one among naturalists and biologists. 
 
 Man’s body is torn down and wholly dismissed back 
 to the earth every three or four years, depending on 
 whether much or little oxygen is consumed. 
 
 As the body is used actively, the elements are con- 
 sumed and new must be built in at a more rapid rate. 
 There are cases where the body is not entirely dis- 
 missed under seven years. 
 
 We are told of cases of hereditary consumption 
 that does not appear in the children until they are 
 twenty-five or thirty years old. We know that their 
 bodies have been made over new, perhaps six or eight 
 times, and yet it has been the commonly accepted 
 idea that the germs of disease continue from the old 
 body and are carried over into the new. This is not 
 true, except as it is held by us, or for us mentally, 
 that we must build our bodies with the fixed ideas of 
 hereditary taint. 
 
 These hereditary diseases are transmitted mentally. 
 
 When the child is born, it is the thought of the 
 mother moulded into material. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 4 
 
 It also embodies many thought motives of the 
 father, and of the ancestors running back sometimes 
 hundreds of years, but these motives are not wrapped 
 up in the mud of the ground ; they are living, actual 
 things which exist on the unseen plane of intellect, 
 and for a better word we term them motives. 
 
 The new-born child is guided in his actions by 
 these motives, in fact, he is simply a bundle of 
 motives made up of the experience of his ancestors 
 for many generations back. 
 
 Now, if among these motives exists thav of heredi- 
 tary disease, the little one is affected by this motive. 
 
 When he gets older and comes to know of the facts 
 as herein related, and that he has power to deny and 
 break off those motives of hereditary taint, he will 
 find that he can manifest that power and be free 
 from the uncanny inheritance. 
 
 Fix this as a fact : hereditary motives, either good 
 or bad, do not exist in material, which is but mud 
 and water. 
 
 They do exist on the unseen plane, and we have 
 power to arrange and control them for our better- 
 ment. 
 
 Treatment. — Statements of Truth repeated over 
 and over produce an army of ideas for good, and they 
 quickly put to rout any mass of thought which is 
 holding the patient down. 
 
 Repeat to yourself, not like an automaton or pho- 
 nograph, but realize, feel, know, that what you are 
 saying is eternal truth. 
 
 “ My Life is one with God.” 
 
 God is never ill. 
 
42 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 I am therefore never sick in truth. 
 
 Any other appearance is a false picture shown to 
 the human intellect, and does not affect our real 
 selves. 
 
 Body is nothing but an aggregation of the leavings 
 of some gases, and so I dismiss it altogether from my 
 mind during the time I wish to dwell on the higher 
 plane ; for on the Soul plane there is no body of this 
 material ; hence for the purpose of dwelling on that 
 plane for a few moments, I deny that I have any body, 
 dismiss it altogether, and let the Mind dwell upon the 
 thought of my eternal union with God, Life, and 
 Power. Having gained this position of Power, I 
 now deny any other power. All ideas of inharmony, 
 disease, and sin are gone, and I am now free to show 
 my Father’s perfect harmony when I return to my 
 earthly tabernacle. 
 
 That tabernacle has no laws of its own building, 
 and the laws of discord which man has produced I 
 refuse to accept any longer. 
 
 I am well , and am in fact one with eternal life. 
 
 There is a world of comfort, content, and har- 
 mony. You have a right to live in such a world if 
 you desire. It is the real condition intended for us by 
 the Father of life. A little child runs about, is happy 
 and contented with the little things of the universe. 
 
 They live naturally in the world of harmony, peace, 
 and health. 
 
 If you will deny the admittance of any thoughts of 
 evil, of sickness, of distress or sin to enter into your 
 little world by refusing to admit them as real, you will 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT-ffi. 
 
 43 
 
 find the truth of that which is spoken of by Jesus 
 Christ ; when asked where the kingdom of Heaven was, 
 he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” 
 
 Seek this first and all things shall be added unto 
 you. Can you see how literally true the statement is ? 
 But once get yourself right, and in hook with the great 
 Harmony of the universe so that all things are, with 
 you, comfortable, peaceful, and you are in a contented 
 frame of mind, at once this condition, of itself, sets up 
 a perfect circulation where it had been abnormal here- 
 tofore. 
 
 With a perfect condition of the ^stomach, followed 
 with all the complex functions of digestion and assimi- 
 lation, a feeling of natural health begins to follow, 
 and with health of body and of mind comes the power 
 to better your worldly condition, to make your home 
 happy and those around you. 
 
 Put your mind right, in harmony with the harmony 
 of the Father, and all good will draw toward you as 
 naturally as the particles of iron toward a magnet. 
 Do not permit yourself to dwell in the other world of 
 misery, woe, sickness, etc. If they undertake to force 
 their ugly forms upon you, deny them, shut them out, 
 whip them out, and stand fast for your birthright. 
 
 Know you this, that thoughts are things, absolute 
 realities. 
 
 We have been accustomed to believe that a 
 simple thought is a sort of thin gas, or something 
 even less, that emanates fror^i vibrations of the grey 
 matter of the brain, but as you come to know of the 
 plane of forces, which is the kingdom of the real, you 
 
44 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION. 
 
 will know that every idea produced, born, brought 
 forth as a child of your mentality, is something. It 
 lives, moves, joins its associates of the same character. 
 
 Now when you want to be depressed, ridden down, 
 and wade in the depths of hell itself, start your mind 
 to producing a train of evil thoughts, and see how 
 quickly the little devils will accumulate into an army, 
 aided and abetted by outside fellows produced by 
 other minds, that will give you all you want to do, to 
 be rid of. 
 
 Your safeguard is to permit only children of health 
 to be born in your mind — children of harmony, hap- 
 piness. These are the stronger of the two, and as 
 you produce them, you find you are greatly helped by 
 the addition of a little army of the same sort. 
 
 The reader may not concur in the statement that 
 thoughts are things, but as they become skilled in the 
 higher facts of life in this universe, and are able to 
 grasp the laws of the unseen plane, even slightly, they 
 will be forced to admit the statement to be true. 
 
 All force, all potency, steam, electricity, wind, life, 
 mind, dwells on the unseen plane, above the plane 
 of dead effect, which is the plane of material. There 
 is nothing the eye sees which has any power, force, 
 or intelligence. The finite eye is made upon the 
 finite plane, and can know of only the beautiful forms 
 moulded of dead material by an unseen power, and 
 managed and moved by that unseen force. 
 
 A knowledge of the position which man 
 occupies in this world can be arrived at by an 
 understanding of the following statements : There are 
 three kingdoms into which the material of the earth 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. 
 
 45 
 
 is moulded. First, the inorganic, or the lowest king- 
 dom, earth, the minerals, rocks, water. 
 
 The highest species of this kingdom is merged into 
 the next higher, that of the vegetable, so deftly that 
 no human can detect the line of demarkation between 
 the two. 
 
 Here we have the various forms of the vegetable 
 kingdom which are used for the purpose, largely, of 
 producing the proper chemical changes in the ele- 
 ments of the earth to make them edible for the mem- 
 bers of the animal kingdom, and the highest species 
 of the vegetable kingdom, as the anemone, amoeba, 
 and one or two other specimens are so merged into 
 the animal kingdom that they are pronounced both 
 animal and vegetable, no line having been discovered v 
 where one leaves off and the other begins. 
 
 We now run along through the animal kingdom 
 rom one species to another until we reach the high- 
 est species of that kingdom, the animal man. 
 
 We find the same laws exist here ; that he is a 
 composite of the animal kingdom and of the kingdom 
 above it, which is the kingdom of the unseen, the 
 kingdom of force, of life, intelligence, power. 
 
 Man is but slowly beginning to know his higher self. 
 
 He has always looked upon himself as body, and 
 with a possible soul sometime, but the facts are that 
 he is a soul now, living right along in eternity, and 
 that he unfolds and progresses steadily, according to 
 the beautiful law of unfoldment, or evolution, as laid 
 down by the Father. 
 
 On this new plane of life we find a new law, that 
 the produced and the producer are not separate, but 
 
4 6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 are one. A strange law, you will say, but we are be- 
 ginning to roam in what would seem a strange 
 country. 
 
 The Father of all life, and we as children, are one. 
 There is no separateness. All Life is one. 
 
 At the same time the Son preserves an individuality. 
 
 He lives, moves, and has his being in the Father, 
 and yet is an individual. 
 
 He partakes of the power of the Father as he be- 
 comes conscious of that power, and that consciousness 
 is the most powerful healing potion that man ever 
 imbibed. 
 
 It is the draught from the everlasting Fountain of 
 life, and to such a one there is no more death. 
 
 You have no knowledge of even the slightest details 
 of your birth except by hearsay. 
 
 You will have no knowledge of the simple change 
 that you will make, that man calls*death. With you 
 it is a consciousness of life eternal. 
 
 You have been dismissing body unconsciously, daily. 
 
 When in obedience to natural law you dismiss it in 
 a lump, you will do so entirely unconscious of the act. 
 God arranges these things. 
 
 Fear is an element of the devil, or one 
 evil. — When you fear sickness, or any other thing, 
 it is the result of doubt in your mind of perfect 
 safety. 
 
 You cannot be killed, you cannot lose your life. 
 
 It is true it is the duty of each individual to pre- 
 serve the form and manifestation of life, as intended 
 by the Father, until that manifestation grows to what 
 you call ripe old age, and drops off the tree naturally, 
 but you must have no fear. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT JE. 
 
 47 
 
 Fear begets a disordered circulation and trouble 
 or discord in many parts of the body. Dismiss it 
 quickly. 
 
 Assert your oneness with the Father of all life. 
 Jesus, the Christ, spoke of Christ as the life, and he 
 warned against the denial of Christ. If you deny the 
 Christ, the Christ will deny you. Have a care how 
 you do this. 
 
 Always assert your oneness with Life. 
 
 That life is you and your life, and no harm can 
 come nigh you. 
 
 As your mind produces ideas as children, 
 
 so the one Mind, the Father of us all, produces us as 
 children. 
 
 We are, therefore, each of us, the divine idea of 
 the great divine Mind, and we are perfect, as the 
 great Mind produces no imperfection. As your idea 
 or thought is one with your mind, so we are one with 
 our Father, the great Mind. 
 
 There is no object you see but what has its primary 
 existence in mind. 
 
 Look at a chair, and you will readily understand 
 that every lineament and line about it was first pro- 
 duced in the mind of the maker, and the idea or 
 child of his mind is worked out in the material so 
 that the finite eye can see it, and the finite body use 
 it, but the original conception and plan is entirely 
 mental. 
 
 There is absolutely nothing that the eye rests upon 
 but what is produced after this general plan ; oft- 
 times a man is so closely allied to a monkey that he 
 has no logical line of thought which would lead him 
 up to this understanding, and he is inclined to say, 
 
48 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 “ O, give me the things that are substantial; that 
 are something. I cannot believe in the thin gas 
 called mind.” 
 
 When he gets far enough away from the animal, 
 and steps along in his unfoldment, these things will 
 slowly become plain to him, but he is a dreadfully 
 thick-headed fellow at present. 
 
 The three elements necessary for the sustenance of 
 the body are food, water, and air. Apply his own 
 reasoning and see how long he would last. Food, 
 which he esteems to be the great substance because 
 he can see it, and it feels hard, man’s body can get 
 along without for about forty days. Water, which 
 is partly invisible, it must have every few hours, but 
 air, which is entirely invisible, and unknown to the 
 eyes or any of the physical senses, is the element 
 necessary for continual use. As you withdraw force 
 from an element, you leave what seems to us the 
 solid matter, but when in the shape of force they are 
 invisible to us. 
 
 Treatment. — When you seem a little ailing, 
 draw off to yourself, go into the silence, close your 
 eyes, relax all the muscles, breathe from the ab- 
 domen rather slowly. Now put your mind into this 
 attitude, I am the perfect idea of the perfect Mind, 
 God. The Father and I are one, having power and 
 potency. There is no such thing as sickness, pain, 
 or distress. It is an illusion of the human intellect. 
 
 The body has no more sensation than so much 
 dead clay. 
 
 I am well, and no harm shall come near me. 
 
 The claim of body and of human intellect to put 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 49 
 
 me in discord is a lie. It has no foundation in fact. 
 It is a claim of evil. 
 
 I know of harmony in life, and I am life, sweet, 
 clear, and pure, and I will manifest it perfectly, as 
 was intended by the Father. 
 
 If you run this over in deep, earnest thought, and 
 know it to be true — -know it right down to the bot- 
 tom of your heart, you will feel a flow of eternal 
 energy that will vivify you from one end to the other. 
 We find that the human dynamo is enabled to draw 
 that beautiful current of life from the great field of 
 life in much the same way as the ordinary electric 
 dynamo is enabled to draw the current of electricity 
 from the great field of electricity. 
 
 No one skilled in electricity will claim that a 
 dynamo makes electricity. Electricity is all about us 
 in what is termed the great field, and the dynamo is 
 a method of accumulating and concentrating so that 
 the current can be used. 
 
 Now man is of a much higher order than the cop- 
 per, brass, and carbon dynamo that handles the 
 electric current, and he has the power to concentrate 
 and draw to himself the powerful current of Life for 
 his use and the use of his fellows. 
 
 Any one can be quickly convinced of this fact when 
 he sees the curative effect upon patients when a 
 mental practitioner is operating. 
 
 No drugs are given, but the silent force current 
 passes through the operator to the patient, and they 
 are made conscious of its healing, vitalizing effect. 
 
 A common remark one hears is, “I believe 
 the mind has considerable to do with the body.” 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 This statement indicates the lack of observation 
 and experience in mental control that will come later 
 on. It indicates that they are just awakening to the 
 fact that mind has some sort of power over body, 
 but the direct and powerful effects are but little 
 understood. 
 
 Physicians can recall many cases where their pa- 
 tients, when at the point of death, have risen up 
 with the power of the spirit, and walked right out of 
 their trouble. The power of the spirit of the individ- 
 ual is noticeable in times of war. 
 
 Many men who are shot practically all to pieces, 
 pull through and get well by what is called their 
 indomitable will, which is no more nor less than the 
 demand of the spirit that they have a right to live, 
 while others, in whom the soul-power does not take 
 possession, will die from faint scratches not ordinarily 
 considered even a wound. 
 
 A case is on record of a young Hungarian girl, 
 who, while under hypnotic suggestion, had a pair of 
 cold scissors laid on her bare arm, and was told that 
 they were red hot, and would burn her. 
 
 An inflamed and blistered spot appeared, taking the 
 exact shape of the scissors, burned so deeply into the 
 flesh that it took months to heal. A record of the 
 case is given by Dr. Von Krafft in a small volume on 
 the subject. 
 
 Stigmatization means the appearance of wounds 
 like those of Jesus. About ninety instances are on 
 record, of which eighteen are males and seventy-two 
 females. 
 
 The affliction appeared in the majority of cases in 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT\E. 5 I 
 
 \ 
 
 the order of the crucifixion, that is, the first token 
 being a bloody sweat, followed by the imprint of 
 thorns on the head, afterwards the hand and foot 
 wounds appear, showing the nail marks, the wound 
 on the side being the last. 
 
 These peculiar brands on the body appeared gener- 
 ally among residents in religious houses, and take 
 place after the austerities of Lent, usually on Good 
 Friday, when the mind was intently fixed on our 
 Lord’s passion. The marks on the body of Jesus 
 were constantly before their eyes and thoughts at this 
 time, and manifested on their own bodies. 
 
 The last case recorded is that of Louise Lateau, a 
 peasant girl at Bois de Haine Hainault, upon whom 
 the stigmata appeared April 24th, 1868. In her case 
 there was a periodic bleeding of the stigmata every 
 Friday. 
 
 This case was carefully investigated by Prof. Le- 
 febvre, of Louvain, a skilled physician. Her biog- 
 raphy was written by Lefebvre and published in 
 1870. 
 
 Parallel cases of physical effects due to mental sug- 
 gestion are well authenticated. Beaunis vouches for 
 blistering as produced by suggestion in the hypnotic 
 state, and Bourru and Burot describe a case, still un- 
 der observation, of bloody sweat, and red letters 
 marked on the arm by simple tracing with the finger. 
 We know so little of the trophic (nourishing) action 
 of the higher nerve centers that we cannot say how 
 far tissue nutrition can be controlled in spots. 
 
 That the nerve centers have a direct influence on 
 local nutrition is in some cases capable of experi- 
 
52 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 mental demonstration, and, in another sphere, the 
 many authenticated instances of connection between 
 maternal impression and congenital deformity seem to 
 indicate that this trophic influence has wider limits 
 and a more specific capacity of localization than at 
 first sight seems possible. There is no known patho- 
 logical condition in which blood transudation can take 
 place through an unbroken skin . 1 
 
 Treatment. — That which moves finger, tongue, 
 eye, or heart is the unseen current Life or Mind. 
 
 I am Mind. 
 
 Mind is manager. 
 
 Body shall be servant and obey Mind promptly and 
 perfectly. 
 
 Who manages body but myself ? 
 
 I know that the real self is unseen. It is Mind, 
 and there is but one Mind that is real and eternal, 
 that is God, and I am part thereof. 
 
 I can so handle body (my servant) that it obeys the 
 dictation. 
 
 There is no evil except in the perspective of the 
 shifting human intellect. I weave into myself what I 
 see and know, therefore I sort out evil and never see 
 or know it. 
 
 1 See “Encyclopedia Brittanica,” article “Stigmatization.” 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 53 
 
 THE CREED TO BE. 
 
 BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. 
 
 Our thoughts are moulding unseen spheres, 
 And like a blessing or a curse, 
 
 They thunder down the formless years 
 And ring throughout the universe. 
 
 We build our future by the shape 
 Of our desires and not by acts. 
 
 There is no pathway of escape, 
 
 No priest-made creed can alter facts. 
 
 Salvation is not begged or bought ; 
 
 Too long this selfish hope sufficed, 
 
 Too long men reeked with lawless thought 
 And leaned upon a tortured Christ. 
 
 Like shrivelled leaves these worn-out creeds 
 Are dropping from religion’s tree ; 
 
 The world begins to know its needs, 
 
 And souls are crying to be free. — 
 
 Free from the load of fear and grief, 
 
 Man fashioned in an ignorant age 
 
 Free from the ache of unbelief 
 He fled to in rebellious rage. 
 
 No church can bind him to the things 
 That fed the first crude souls evolved, 
 
 But mounting up on daring wings, 
 
 He questions mysteries long unsolved. 
 
 Above the chant of priests, above 
 The blatant tongue of braying Doubt 
 
 He hears the still small voice of Love, 
 Which sends its simple message out, 
 
54 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 And dearer, sweeter, day by day 
 Its mandate echoes from the skies, 
 
 “ Go roll the stone of self away 
 
 And let the Christ within thee rise.” 
 
 God. — The question of what God is, who he is, 
 and where he is, is one that is quite unsettled in the 
 minds of most people, and it is entirely according to 
 the higher law that the human should not be able 
 fully to interpret the Divine. 
 
 Children form a mental image of God as a great 
 person, larger than any man, and more or less uncer- 
 tain in shape, but very powerful, living off somewhere 
 in the sky, and whom they try to love, as they are 
 instructed, but imagination will make him seem more 
 or less of a giant that they have to beware of, lest 
 they make some little mistake, and he will take out 
 his indignation on their little bodies. 
 
 This same general concept is held by all ignorant and 
 narrow minds. This was the mental image held by 
 the crude men who were just evolving from animals, 
 who wrote what they thought of God and these ideas 
 form the early part of the Old Testament. This child- 
 like idea is outgrown as the intellect of man becomes 
 cultivated and skillful, so that he can grasp a knowl- 
 edge of the higher laws that exist, but do not exist to 
 the ignorant, because they are not capable of under- 
 standing them. 
 
 To a cultivated Intellect, the idea of Supreme 
 Energy wrapping itself up in mud and making a clay 
 doll, so as to appear to Moses, when he was mesmer- 
 ized on the mountain, is of too ridiculous a nature to 
 receive a moment’s consideration, but, when one is in 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 55 
 
 a mesmeric state, such as all people are in who see 
 visions and wonders, they see things just as plainly as 
 if they were in their normal condition, and would take 
 their oath as to the accuracy of the occurrences. 
 Many of them would even die for the truth, as they 
 know it to be, but they are simply illusions of the hu- 
 man intellect, just the same as the sawdust is to the 
 mesmerized individual, who would take his oath he 
 was eating the most delicious ice cream. 
 
 The average educated man of the day, with a clean- 
 cut, analytical mind, has solved the God problem to 
 his own satisfaction much after the following plan : 
 “Well, I am told in the Bible, in one place, that 
 ‘ God is too pure to behold iniquity,’ in another place, 
 that ‘ God is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the 
 fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
 generation. ’ In one place God is pictured as a war- 
 rior, with hot breath, hunting down and annihilating 
 one tribe in favor of another. In another place he is 
 spoken of as the loving Father of all his creatures. 
 It is plain enough from the ten thousand contrary 
 statements that there is a lie out sowewhere, so I 
 judge that the old fellows who wrote about him, per- 
 haps did not know as much as they supposed they 
 did. Now I know this within myself, without any 
 instruction from Moses or David, or preachers or 
 teachers of the present day, I know that I have a 
 something invisible, but all-powerful, within me, and 
 that something has a source. It comes from some- 
 where, some wonderful supreme energy. Divine 
 power produces it, and has fixed things beautifully 
 for me, if I will but run my lines parallel with the 
 
56 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 lines of universal law. I feel, therefore, that this 
 eternal energy which produced me without my voli- 
 tion, and without one chance on my part to accept or 
 reject the proposition, will care for me most perfectly, 
 and I can trust this Divine Potency with the simplest 
 and most childlike trust, knowing that all is well, and 
 that all ivill be well eternally ; therefore, I will pur- 
 sue the even tenor of my way, doing what seems to 
 me right, and when the time comes for me to die, I 
 will resign myself unto the keeping of my Father, 
 whoever and wherever He may be.” 
 
 This is a philosophical and sensible conclusion for 
 man to come to. Get your head up above the drift- 
 wood of creeds, dogmas, and orthodox statements that 
 God is this, and God is that, and he will do this, and 
 he will do that. 
 
 An unnatural idea of God, mixed up with a 
 constant fear that you are going to displease him, is 
 the foundation of many hundreds of cases of sickness 
 and invalidism. Now let us get up out of the lower 
 strata of imagery of the human intellect ; of the tales 
 told by man, and see if we can get even a little real 
 view of the Father of us all. 
 
 We are the product of Life, the one universal, ever 
 present, never beginning and never ending, eternal 
 energy called Life. We are the child of Life. Life 
 is our producer and our father. It is dearer to us 
 than all else. We love It, and It loves us with a 
 depth and warmth unknown from our side. 
 
 It is not separate from us, and we do not exist 
 separate from It. We are Life and Life is us, and 
 there is no such thing as existence apart from it. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 57 
 
 It is Life which takes hold upon the clay and water 
 of the material universe, and moulds it into the million 
 and one different shapes of grass, trees, leaves, flow- 
 ers, animals, and the human body of man. 
 
 Now let us realize what is the thing above or su- 
 perior to these shaped creations. Is it not mind, and 
 are not mind and life identical ? 
 
 We do not mean by mind, in this connection, the 
 intellect of the animal man, but we mean the deeper, 
 higher Mind, which controls the intellect. 
 
 This is God , and it is the fountain-head of all love, 
 the warm, tender charity and love that is the power 
 which moves the world. It is the fountain-head of all 
 that is good — of all harmony, music, power, life. 
 This is God , and of this we are part, knit into, linked 
 with, merged into in such a way that there is no such 
 thing as separateness. 
 
 Therefore, God is with us continually. “In him 
 we live, move, and have our being.” There is no 
 such thing as a personal image of God located way off 
 somewhere in the sky. That is simply the product of 
 ignorant, superstitious, human intellect. 
 
 We are not required to go upon our knees and peti- 
 tion the real God, divine Love or Principle, which is 
 ourselves, to help us to this, and preserve us from 
 that, and bless us in the other thing. This is vain 
 repetition, which Jesus Christ warned his hearers 
 against. We have all these things now. 
 
 The true prayer “ without ceasing ” is to aspire 
 continually to live a life of harmony with the beautiful 
 law of the Father, and thereby express the love and 
 peace of the universal law, by a perfect body, a per- 
 
5 » 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 feet intellect, and a perfect higher mind — the grand 
 trinity — the new man. 
 
 Jesus Christ wisely said, “And when thou prayest 
 thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, but when thou 
 prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast 
 shut thy door, pray to thy Father, which is in secret, 
 and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward 
 thee openly.” 
 
 This means, when you pray, draw into yourself. 
 That is your closet. Close the door of your mind 
 against all things material, which are mud and water, 
 and are not to be allowed on the plane of spirit, then 
 pray to thy Father in secret, that is, put your mind 
 on the fact of your oneness with Life, and therefore 
 your power, and the further fact that all things are 
 given for your use, and that you have the right — 
 the divine birthright — to manifest perfect harmony 
 throughout mind and body, and your Father, with 
 whom you are consciously dwelling, will reward you 
 openly, that is, by making his beautiful law manifest 
 in your body, which is the only “open ” way to the 
 finite eyes of the world. 
 
 This is pure communion with the Father, and the 
 benefits to be derived are so great and so certain as to 
 prove the truthfulness of the statement. Let there 
 be no mawkishness, or hypocrisy, or nonsense, but 
 this little, simple, easy way commends itself to any 
 man, and the more sturdy and powerful he may be 
 intellectually, the more perfect does it appear to his 
 good, native manliness and common sense. 
 
 Away with all your religious creeds. Kick them 
 out. They are a lot of rubbish from one end to the 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 59 
 
 other, and all the tales of predestination, vicarious 
 atonement, foreordination, and all the rest of that 
 most infernal lot of nonsense that man’s mind has 
 been filled with. Sweep them out of the house, and 
 give your spirit room for a breath from God, and 
 good, plain, substantial mental food from this time 
 on. 
 
 Are you man enough to do it ? Rise up in your 
 might and do this thing. You will feel a flow of free- 
 dom, of exhilaration that comes from the glad cry of 
 a long imprisoned, but now free soul. 
 
 If you have been one of those who have prayed 
 earnestly and daily to God for relief from your phys- 
 ical ails, or for other blessings that you felt justified 
 in asking a father for, and have never been conscious 
 of any answer to your prayer, you may be satisfied 
 now that you have addressed your supplications to a 
 mere nothing — a myth. 
 
 It makes no difference how dear you have held this 
 image, it is nothing but a mental image constructed 
 out of your own intellect, therefore you can get noth- 
 ing from it, and your time is spent in vain. 
 
 You can, however, dismiss that idol and know the 
 true God, divine Principle, Energy, Life, existing 
 upon a plane where no creations of the poor material 
 of this planet are needed or required. Put your mind 
 one with that Father, knowing your right to manifest 
 the harmony of that plane, and that you are one with 
 Life and have the power of Life , with a steady denial 
 of the power of body over spirit, and you will get an 
 inflowing of divine strength, love, and peace that is 
 sufficient proof that you have been dwelling with the 
 
6o 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 real Father, and have finally dismissed the counterfeit 
 that has so long been uppermost in your mind. 
 
 Take no one’s assertion for truth, but get your truth 
 within yourself, directly from the fountain-head of all 
 truth and health, the uncreated God. 
 
 The Holy Bible. — We hear of the “Holy Ro- 
 man Catholic Church,” the “Holy Church of St. 
 Peter,” the “ Holy Shin-bone of St. Anthony,” and 
 many other “holy” things. Whence comes the au- 
 thority for their being called “ holy ” ? 
 
 God never said they were holy, and man’s authority 
 to so proclaim them is certainly open to question. 
 
 If the reader is one of the weak-minded sort, who 
 has been evolved but a short distance from his mon- 
 key-like ancestors, and is afraid to stand out in God’s 
 clear sunlight and hear facts stated, he would better 
 not read this chapter. If he is one of those driveling, 
 weak-minded objects of pity who do not like to hear 
 the truth, plain and unvarnished, because it hurts his 
 feelings, and there are some pet theories that he is 
 afraid to hear anything against, for fear that which is 
 said may be mighty in the truth and tear down the 
 pasteboard houses, let him skip this chapter, for it is 
 written for the clear-minded man or woman who is 
 Godlike enough to stand out and hear and accept the 
 truth from whatever source it may come. 
 
 All others would better stand to one side, for there 
 is meat in the chapter solid enough to give them a 
 tremendous case of mental dyspepsia. Let that sort 
 wait until the undeviating, steady tread of God’s eter- 
 nal evolution slowly opens and unfolds them from 
 the animal intellect into the wisdom of the God man. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 6l 
 
 The Bible is in places divinely inspired, for wher- 
 ever you find good, you may depend that it proceeds 
 from but one source, the fountain-head of all good, 
 or God. 
 
 The Bible is not inspired by God, in all of its parts. 
 Divine Wisdom, the Principle of all life, knows noth- 
 ing of evil, never did and never will. The Godhead of 
 all love never instructed man to write the tales of blood- 
 shed, woe, hate, misery, and disease ; nor did God 
 ever inspire his self-styled son, David, to write the 
 one hundred and ninth Psalm, or anything like it, 
 wherein he prays that his enemy’s prayers may be 
 turned to sin, and his innocent children condemned 
 to eternal woe. Weak, ignorant man may have said 
 that God inspired him to write this, but he was either 
 mesmerized or a tremendous liar, you can take your 
 choice of the two. 
 
 6 Set thou a wicked man over him ; and let Satan stand at 
 his right hand. 
 
 7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and 
 let his prayer become sin. 
 
 8 Let his days be few ; and let another take his office. 
 
 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 
 
 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let 
 them seek their bread, also out of their desolate places. 
 
 11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the 
 strangers spoil his labor. 
 
 12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him : neither let 
 there be any to favor his fatherless children. Ps. 109 : 6-12. 
 
62 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 It almost makes the heart sick to know that there 
 are, even at this day, thousands of well-meaning, thick- 
 headed animals who will vehemently assert that the 
 eternal God and Father of Life wrote the preceding. 
 
 The tender teaching of the lowly Nazarene of the 
 brotherhood of us all, and our eternal and lasting son- 
 ship, will slowly come to be understood ; when that 
 time comes the Father will not stand charged with 
 such utterances of human hate. 
 
 The lily grows up and out of the mud and slime 
 until safe beyond reach of the blackening touch of its 
 former bed, then its pure white face is opened to the 
 blue above, and the dewdrop makes it smile and 
 whisper to us, “I am but a dimple in the happy face 
 of our Father, who knows no hate or evil.” 
 
 We find, upon investigation, that the early 
 man existed simply as an animal, wandering among 
 the animals, and who, with them, lived in caverns 
 and caves, and was covered with a natural coat of 
 hair. Man existed in this sort of way for perhaps 
 twenty thousand years, possibly very much longer. 
 
 Gradually, and in conformity with the never ceas- 
 ing law of unfoldment, or evolution, man slowly pro- 
 gressed until his intellect began to question how he 
 came here, what all these beautiful surroundings are 
 for, and in answer to his own questioning, he realized 
 that there was some power higher and greater than 
 himself. 
 
 This power he named Good, for it seemed that it 
 provided all things good for his needs. This word 
 has gradually been changed, by the broad Anglo- 
 Saxon tongue, into the word God. 
 
OR SCIENTIA WTM. 
 
 63 
 
 As man progressed slowly, he originated legends 
 and stories, which were told to his children, and 
 these were told again to their children down through 
 many, many generations, until their legends, espe- 
 cially a few pertaining to Good, or God, and the 
 legend of creation as given in Genesis, became fixed, 
 tribal facts. 
 
 After this time, man began to express his thoughts 
 by hieroglyphics scratched upon tablets of stone, or 
 upon the bark of trees, and a little farther along we 
 find that there was an accumulation made of some 
 of these ancient writings. Later came Ezra, the 
 prophet and scribe, who made it a business to as- 
 semble, so far as was possible, all of the ancient 
 writings of the Jews and of the principal legends of 
 the tribes. 
 
 These were put together in as good shape as was 
 possible at that early day, and the most of the writings 
 were ascribed to Moses. This was the beginning 
 of the Old Testament ; and the whole Bible, as 
 we now know it, was originally a mass of separate 
 books that were finally arranged much as we would put 
 them together in a library, and up to about two hun- 
 dred years ago this library contained some very well 
 written books, by Solomon and others, that were 
 thrown out by a committee of men, leaving the Bible 
 bound, as we now know it, the product of man from 
 one end to the other. 
 
 Divine Energy, the uncreated God, the Life of the 
 universe, never had anything more to do with the 
 making of the Bible than it had to do with the mak- 
 ing of any other book. Wherever the writers of the 
 
6 4 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Bible give utterance to good, inspiring, lofty thoughts, 
 such are inspired by the Father of all love and 
 strength. 
 
 Now look at the Bible cleanly, clearly, just as it is, 
 and you will find many beautiful things in it, and will 
 be able to clear your spirit of the fear that some of the 
 old writers would spread over you. If you have 
 held the Bible as a fetich, as a charm, as some- 
 thing supernatural, the sooner you rid yourself of all 
 such superstition, the sooner you clean yourself of the 
 debris that holds you down. 
 
 You may argue that God did many wonderful things 
 to show himself to the ancients. These tales simply 
 illustrate the complex, wonderful thing, called the 
 human mind, that can make many, many things ap- 
 pear real that have absolutely no foundation of fact. 
 According to the tales of the old writers, the sun stood 
 still for Joshua, and when a great king, called God, 
 waved his wand and produced this earth, according to 
 the idea of the writers, he hung up a few stars, and a 
 sun and moon, in lieu of good-sized lanterns, to light 
 up this wonderful earth, whereas, the facts are, with- 
 out regard to the supposition of the ancient writers, 
 that this little planet called earth can hardly be called 
 the faintest fly-speck on a ceiling too mammoth for 
 human comprehension. It is but one of the little 
 drops of a grand whole, and not the principal feature 
 of the universe, as a cow, or a monkey, or an animal 
 man would naturally think it to be. 
 
 It is now a well-known fact that 5000 years before 
 the Hebrew Bible was written, and while the ancient 
 Hebrews were common animals, the Aryan race was 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT M. 
 
 65 
 
 living in a high state of cultivation and culture. Once 
 realize in your mind who, and what God is, and it 
 clears you at once and forever of any foolish belief 
 that the great principle of Life, Energy, the life of 
 the entire universe, would ever find it necessary to 
 clothe himself or itself in mud and water (flesh), and 
 stand on a particular mountain telling people to take 
 off their shoes because he was there. Moses was mes- 
 merized, and simply saw the picturing of his own in- 
 tellect just as the audience see the fifty-foot trees of 
 the Hindoo magicians grow in three or four minutes. 
 
 The Principle of all love performs no acrobatic 
 feats or spectacular shows of this sort ; contrary asser- 
 tions of all the men on this planet notwithstanding. 
 Those who believe such inane nonsense as this, know 
 absolutely nothing of the true God, and they must 
 bide their time until eternal Principle unfolds them 
 into the higher understanding. 
 
 Do not attempt to crack an egg-shell before the 
 chicken within cracks it himself. The eternal law 
 of evolution is at work wisely, perfectly. Let not the 
 apprentice undertake to hurry the job. If you are 
 the chicken within the egg-shell, and have not yet 
 consumed the amount of material necessary for your 
 growth in that condition, stay right where you are 
 until divine Principle, God, unfolds you. The time 
 will come when the spirit will beat the bars for more 
 air and purer draughts. Then your time will come to 
 step out onto a higher plane. 
 
 The Sanskrit, and many of the writings of the an- 
 cient Aryan race, are much older than the Bible, and 
 the beautiful God-inspiring thoughts expressed in 
 5 
 
66 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 them come just as surely from the source of all divine 
 inspiration as the good thoughts contained in any 
 other book. 
 
 Buddha, Mahomet, Confucius, Moses, David, 
 Jesus Christ, and all other teachers of the higher life 
 were manifestations of the higher and purer thought, 
 climaxed. 
 
 This is also true of our later-day teachers, whose 
 names are now almost legion. 
 
 The later-day ones are even more divinely inspired 
 than some of the ancients, because they are endowed 
 with the refined and advanced thought forces of a 
 period ripe with the progress and experience of evo- 
 lution. 
 
 Speaking of “ signs and wonders,” which are 
 recorded in the Bible, a couple of illustrations may 
 give the reader some idea of how these things come 
 about. 
 
 A woman explained to the writer that formerly she 
 was not a believer in religion, but that she became 
 interested in some meetings held by the Seventh-day 
 Adventists, and attended perhaps four or five, when 
 one night, in the middle of the night, God appeared 
 to her in shining garments and told her that the entire 
 Bible was inspired by him, and that every word in it 
 was true, that she must believe it and join the Seventh- 
 day Adventists ; also, that they were the chosen peo- 
 ple of God, and were the only ones who would be 
 saved. 
 
 She was wide awake and knew that God appeared 
 in person. She was in an ecstatic state of happiness, 
 and felt that she was redeemed. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT M. 
 
 67 
 
 The writer told her that as long as she had had this 
 experience, she might as well dismiss her rheumatism ; 
 that a rheumatic body did not manifest the will of the 
 Father, and that she must deny the right of the rheu- 
 matism to be about her, as it was simply a manifesta- 
 tion of evil. 
 
 She followed the advice, and was quickly and per- 
 manently cured. 
 
 Not long after, another lady explained that after 
 attending several meetings at an Episcopal church she 
 had a visitation from God, in shining raiments, and he 
 explained to her that she must join the Episcopal 
 Church , as they were the chosen people, and that was 
 the only way for her to be saved. 
 
 She was just as sure that she had seen God as 
 the other woman, and they were both just as sure as 
 Moses was, and they did see God just as much as 
 Moses did ; but to any student of psychology it is a 
 self-evident fact that the combined thought forces, 
 into the current of which these people had been 
 drawn, seemed to climax upon them, and so impress 
 their human intellect that they became to a degree 
 mesmerized and saw these illusions as realities. 
 
 Sickness and disease are induced very largely in the 
 same manner and are just as much of an illusion as 
 these mesmerized pictures heretofore spoken of. 
 
 When man is sick, he is away from and apart from 
 his natural, normal condition. He is in an entirely 
 unnatural state, and the more he looks upon it as an 
 illusion and an unreality, the quicker he will be rid of 
 the trouble; but let him continue to argue to himself 
 that it is all real, and that a man who tells him it is 
 
68 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 unreal is a fool, he is liable to stick right where he is 
 for a much longer time than is altogether pleasant for 
 him, while his neighbor, who looks upon such a 
 condition as an unreality , will get out of it in short 
 order. 
 
 You do not believe this statement ? Try it, not 
 like a vacillating calf, but with the magnificent power 
 and energy of your divine selfhood, assert your right 
 to be natural and normal, without any regard what- 
 ever to what the body claims, and you will see the 
 effect of force, healthful energy and harmony mani- 
 fested in your body, if you will handle yourself in line 
 with the power of the Father that is with you. 
 
 The Guidance of Divine Principle, Life. — 
 As the higher mind of man comes into a knowledge of, 
 and dwells, with the one universal Mind, the Over- 
 soul, the great Life, the Father of us all, at that time 
 the individual, as he follows the work and manifesta- 
 tions of the divine mind, takes upon himself the po- 
 tency, strength, and health of the higher mind. 
 
 So sure as this is a truth, it is also a truth that the 
 person who is conscious of his oneness with the Supreme 
 Source of all strength, Power, Life, at once passes 
 into that plane where the Father dwells, and the Son 
 becomes clothed with, or merged into, power, or Life 
 which is not subject to accident or hurt from the laws 
 of the material plane. Such a one is protected and 
 guarded at every point by the invisible guidance and 
 protection of the only power there is, which we are one 
 with, and which has created no machinery for its own 
 hurt. This law is, but dimly seen by many, but it 
 has been recognized by writers in the Old and the New 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 69 
 
 Testament as well as many other writings, ancient 
 and modern. | 
 
 There is a delicate tracery, but it is the tracing of 
 law of the profoundest sort. 
 
 In this connection it must be understood that the 
 proper condition for the individual to be in is that of 
 perfect trust in the care of the Father, so that all 
 things that occur, work together for good, as spoken 
 of by a writer in the Scriptures. To sum up: A be- 
 ing who is in conscious connection mentally with the 
 Father, and who dismisses all care regarding change 
 of environment in body, is protected at every point, 
 and is blessed with power, strength, health, harmony, 
 safety, and peace. This is a law as unchangeable 
 as any law, and can be read aright by any one who 
 has unfolded far enough. 
 
 Loss of God. — It has been urged by a few people 
 who were in the process of unfoldment, that when 
 they lost their mental image of a created, formed, 
 and individual God, which was really no God at all, 
 they lost the sense of Fatherhood and security, and 
 felt that they were without anything in its place 
 except what they chose to term “a cold principle.” 
 But look sharp right here. 
 
 The Principle of life, the unseen Power of the uni- 
 verse, that which man has just come to know slightly 
 of, is the center and Godhead of all love , of all truth , 
 of all health , harmony , peace , and all that is good , 
 these positive principles can emanate from no other 
 source, and you have, therefore, a more watchful and 
 loving Father than ever could-have existed in the old 
 imaginary one. * 
 
7 o 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 The ultimate object of all the great machinery of 
 life, and its manifestations in material, the grand 
 rhythm and swing of the planets, is not for the puffing 
 up and elevation and special glory of some individual, 
 personal king, so that all mortals shall bow down and 
 worship him. 
 
 What would all such bombast as that amount to, 
 except to make the heart of even man, sick ? The 
 object of all this is certainly not to make money, 
 which seems one of the primary objects of man. 
 
 There is but one object — one aim of it all, and 
 that is for the perfect content , peace , and happiness of 
 life in all its manifestations , from the lowest form up 
 through them all, to man, the highest. 
 
 Everything — that we yet know of — and all envi- 
 ronment, is made perfect for us, providing we do not 
 use our marvelous power to disarrange and make con- 
 ditions that are unreal, of inharmony, illusion, disease. 
 
 The common house-dog who sleeps peacefully half 
 the day, in a warm spot, is living a perfect life of com- 
 fort, in a heaven, better than which he is not con- 
 scious of. Man can live the same easy life, and in 
 the heaven made for him right here , if he will but be 
 easy and content with his lot, knowing that all is good, 
 and no harm is ever intended, or is ever worked out 
 in reality by Nature, the Father of us all. 
 
 The Mail Jesus, the Christ. — The exact facts 
 about this marvelous man are not generally under- 
 stood. A story has got abroad, how old we do not 
 know, that this man was the great God of the uni- 
 verse, who had taken the body of man in order to 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 71 
 
 meet man on his own level, as though he did not 
 know him before. 
 
 There is another preposterous tale about these little 
 men on earth, who were created without any choice 
 of their own and who acted thoroughly natural, just 
 as if every move was expected of them, but who in 
 some way brought upon themselves the wrath of the 
 great God of the universe, who got so furiously angry 
 that nothing would appease him except that his son, 
 Jesus, would slip down to earth and go through the 
 tortures of the damned, and finally die, to try and 
 pacify his father, the king, and this scheme was car- 
 ried out, according to this fearful and wonderful tale. 
 
 These tales lack one ingredient, quite an important 
 one, and that is truth. They are simply tales of the 
 simple minded folks, what is called “folk-lore,” and 
 no such thing ever existed except in the imagination 
 of the story-teller. 
 
 Among the many grand teachers of the 
 
 higher life that have arisen from time to time since 
 man has been evolved from the animal stage, this 
 man Jesus was perhaps the most remarkable, and 
 really the most spiritual of them all. He embodied 
 more of the force of the Soul-plane of Mind, which 
 controls material, than any other. 
 
 He was able to make a brazier of coals, with food, 
 appear upon the shore, without any manipulation of 
 hands. He was able to increase the fishes and loaves, 
 to what would seem to be a marvelous extent. He 
 had great control over the bodies of men, and the 
 power to dismiss their ails. 
 
72 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Those of an investigating turn of mind would natu- 
 rally inquire why, of all the teachers, this one seemed 
 endowed with so much greater potency. 
 
 Knowing somewhat of the law of thought, of the 
 plane of mind and its power, we have that potency to 
 follow back for an explanation of the phenomenon. 
 
 No one who was ever born on this planet had so many 
 thousand individuals thinking of his coming for ages 
 and generations prior to his advent, as did the man, 
 Jesus. From the time of David on down to his birth, 
 prophets were prophesying, and people were thinking 
 of the coming of a great king in the line of David. 
 Their thoughts took a high current or channel, and 
 when finally these combined thought forces climaxed 
 and were manifested in the flesh (as all children are 
 the manifest moulded thought of the mother, and of 
 the generation back woven in), so we find this little 
 one endowed with the marvelous potency and power of 
 a tremendous thought-line back of him. His motives 
 or influences were therefore different from those of 
 any other man who was ever born on this planet. 
 Each individual has mental power to shape and con- 
 trol material to an extent — more with some than 
 others. One great man can mould and guide the move- 
 ments of thousands or millions of men, and no man 
 exists, however weak mentally, but can quickly shape 
 his face (material) by varying conditions of mind. All 
 grades of mental power are represented, from the weak 
 to the strong. 
 
 The individual thought-line of one high-minded 
 woman, if skillfully directed, may be powerful enough 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 73 
 
 to produce a refined, high-spirited, and noble child 
 in spite of the evil thought force of ancestry. 
 
 If one individual mind, or a unit, can exert such 
 power, a thousand or one hundred thousand, intent on 
 one object, can produce an endowment of the individ- 
 ual on whom their thoughts are centered, that gives 
 us such a one as Jesus the Christ. Thoughts are 
 things, much more so than volts of electricity. There 
 is one primal energy, and that is mind. All formed 
 things are thoughts of mind worked ont in 
 material. 
 
 It is recorded that as a little boy Jesus exhibited 
 great power over material, and before he knew how 
 to handle it wisely. It is stated that some of his 
 playmates who incurred his displeasure were in- 
 stantly paralyzed. We find in the history of this 
 time, apart from the history as recorded in the New 
 Testament, that such a man did exist as a teacher, 
 and his works were marvelous ; ‘ ‘ that many miracles 
 were performed by him, and that his rebuke was some- 
 thing terrible.” The record, as given in the New Tes- 
 tament, is generally considered by the best scholars of 
 the day to be practically an authentic record of the 
 events as they occurred at that time, with some of 
 the details perhaps a little hazy, but in the main 
 correct. 
 
 His teaching is not understood by the people 
 of the churches to-day, who are thoroughly drilled in 
 body and all of its laws, but who know practically 
 nothing of the power of soul, spirit, that is the real 
 man here and now. 
 
74 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 The churches preach soul and good things to come, 
 when you die and become immortal. They do not rec- 
 ognize the fact that man is immortal now, living in 
 eternity now, living in heaven now, if he will but per- 
 mit himself to dwell there, and look upon the body as 
 practically nothing, as merely the residue after the 
 forces have left, and this residue, called material, is 
 gathered together and shaped by the real man, 
 mind, soul, life. But the churches look upon evil 
 as something. They practically admit the existence 
 of two great powers, one warring against the other, — 
 Evil as a power, and Good as a power. For this 
 reason they are unable to heal either themselves or 
 their friends, by mental or spiritual healing, and are 
 therefore unable to follow the Master’s commands. 
 Whenever they come to know that which the Great 
 Teacher taught, that there is but one Force, one 
 Power, one Life, and that is good, and that man is 
 a part of it, and has no part in evil ; that evil does 
 not exist as a reality, neither does disease, sickness, 
 or pain, — when they know that these are simply 
 the illusions. of the human intellect, and have no ex- 
 istence in fact, then they will be able to handle the 
 marvelous healing current of the Father. 
 
 One of tlie most beautiful lessons given by 
 Jesus, the Great Teacher, is that of the prodigal son. 
 In effect it is as follows : We are endowed with our 
 
 portion, that is, the body. We dwell originally with 
 the Father, the great Mind, the Oversoul. When this 
 soul is endowed with the material body (its portion), 
 it wanders off to have a good time and enjoy things 
 on this material plane, until after a time, the son is 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. 
 
 75 
 
 found with the swine-feeders, and living upon husks — 
 a sad condition for the true son of the noble Father. 
 The son finally realizes that back in the Father’s house 
 there is comfort, peace, plenty, and he determines to 
 go there. As the son approaches the Father’s house, 
 that is, as the mind of man turns back to the great 
 Mind, the Father of us all, as the parable goes, the 
 Father comes out to meet the son. 
 
 This is a beautiful thought, showing us that it does 
 not require skilled mental power to penetrate clear 
 into the Father’s house before we get recognition, but 
 if we turn in a simple way back to our birthright, to 
 the fact that the mind, which is ourself, is one with 
 the great Mind, and that we have, all of the rights fol- 
 lowing, then the Father comes out of the house part 
 way to meet us, and all is forgotten and forgiven, and 
 the son is taken back into the old place with power 
 and happiness. 
 
 When one understands the teachings of Jesus, the 
 Christ, or Jesus, the Life, he can read the New Testa- 
 ment as a new book. 
 
 There is another saying that we should always hold 
 before us. If you deny the Christ, which is the Life, 
 which is you, which is also the Father, which has all 
 power over the body, and the body has no power over 
 it, — if you deny this power of life, or the Christ, and 
 admit the power of the body over it, you will suffer 
 in proportion ; for the Christ will deny you. There- 
 fore, stand fast in the knowledge that you are ruler 
 now , and at all times, and that body has absolutely 
 no right to send up claims of distress or trouble; for it 
 is made of dead matter and sensitized by your human 
 
j6 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 intellect, so that any pain that you think comes from 
 body is a creation of your intellect, and is the lower 
 mind, subject at all times to the higher. 
 
 Treatment.— I am that power which is manifest- 
 ing itself on the earthly plane by means of a body 
 built of earth and water. 
 
 I am superior at all times to that body as it is 
 wholly the product of the Father and myself as one. 
 
 Pain never comes from body directly ; for it is a 
 dreature of intellect or lower mind. 
 
 I bid the lower mind cease its efforts to force inhar- 
 mony on my notice. It is a lie of intellect. There is 
 but one power, and that is God, Life, one with me. 
 
 “Know ye not that to whom ye yielded yourselves 
 servants, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” I 
 may have apparently smirched myself heretofore, by 
 thinking hate , prejudice , envy , and enlisted under such 
 leadership, have been compelled to serve ; but now I 
 know I am part of the God power. 
 
 I purpose to dwell in the line of harmony, not hate ; 
 perfect equality and justice, not prejudice ; love and 
 not envy. I know only the positive principles and 
 none of the negative. 
 
 In this way I live in a world of Peace and Health. 
 The principles in the world where I have chosen to 
 live (and I have the power to choose) are as follows : — 
 
 POSITIVE PRINCIPLES. 
 
 Life, there is no Death. 
 
 Light, there is no Darkness. 
 
 Abundance, there is no Lack. 
 
 Peace, there is no Discord. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 77 
 
 Freedom, there is no Slavery. 
 
 Health, there is no Sickness. 
 
 Pleasure, there is no Pain. 
 
 Goodness, there is no Evil. 
 
 Harmony, there is no Inharmony. 
 
 Right, there is no Wrong. 
 
 Comfort, there is no Discomfort. 
 
 Ease, there is no Worry. 
 
 Progress, there is no Congestion. 
 
 Love, there is no Hate. 
 
 Justice, there is no Prejudice. 
 
 It was originally intended to avoid refer- 
 ence to “The Inn” in these pages. But it seems 
 almost obligatory to give a few words by way of 
 explanation, and cite a few cases as evidence of 
 the correctness of the teachings herein contained. 
 Therefore with the reader’s permission we will inject 
 a little personality with the sincere request that the 
 reader join us in the knowledge that we work for, 
 and endeavor to demonstrate the Eternal Principle 
 of Life. If the dominant motive was the elevation 
 of poor, cheap, bodily self, we should fail. But 
 when one knows they are but the plate glass pane, 
 which God’s light shines through to light up the ones 
 in darkness, then the being becomes the method of 
 transmission of the Eternal, and you have no thought 
 of pride of selfhood. With a fair understanding, 
 then, we submit the following : — 
 
 La Vita Inn Co. was chartered by the State of 
 Michigan for the treatment and education of guests 
 in Scientia Vitae. With a paid capital of $50,000, 
 
78 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 an old homestead in Battle Creek, surrounded 
 with pine trees, ample pear and apple orchards, 
 gardens, lawns, a natural oak grove, etc. , etc. , 
 was purchased. The grounds in the city are 
 
 about ten acres in extent, and are undulating and 
 picturesque. An electric car line furnishes transpor- 
 tation to the business center in about eight minutes. 
 
 All the advantage is obtained of a cool, restful spot 
 among the trees, and seemingly in the country. 
 
 In no sense does The Inn resemble a hospital. 
 While it is conducted as a hotel, the guests have the 
 freedom of the house, and are looked upon as mem- 
 bers of a large family, sojourning at a country seat, 
 the daily life being a round of such occupations as 
 tend to the most perfect ideal of content and happi- 
 ness, with Health as the constant and eternal verity. 
 
 The present manager of The Inn was brought up 
 from the edge of the grave through Scientia Vitae but 
 partially understood, after having exhausted all 
 known remedies that seemed applicable. All cli- 
 mates of America were tried ; sea voyages, summer 
 resorts, ranching in Texas, mountain resorts, mineral 
 springs, Swedish movements, special massage, gym- 
 nastics, dieting, will power, special treatment and 
 scientific selection of foods, special tests of the 
 strength of gastric juices, and the application of food 
 of a character that the gastric juices in their peculiar 
 condition would best handle, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 The case baffled some of the most eminent physi- 
 cians in America. When thought to be dying, the 
 patient was put under Scientia Vitae of a somewhat 
 crude form and gained two pounds per day for a time. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT M. 
 
 79 
 
 going from 120 pounds to 185 pounds in sixty days. 
 Constipation, of so obstinate a character that enemas 
 had ceased to have any effect, was entirely corrected. 
 The patient had been ill about seven years, and deter- 
 mined, upon recovery, to devote his time and energies 
 to securing a more perfect understanding of the 
 methods of handling the life forces, which up to this 
 time seems to have been dimly recognized. 
 
 The many new discoveries, and the logical arrange- 
 ment of some old, have resulted in a line of practice 
 which can be absolutely depended upon to produce 
 the desired results. 
 
 A short description of one case, a sample of 
 a large class met in our practice, may convey to the 
 reader some idea of conditions and results. 
 
 A lady brought her daughter, of perhaps twenty- 
 four, to us from a prominent sanitarium, where she 
 had been confined to her room or a wheel chair about 
 eleven months, and had not put her foot on the 
 ground for about fifteen months. She had been an 
 invalid some fourteen years, and had received the best 
 care and most skillful medical attention that money 
 would procure. Before being brought to The Inn, the 
 patient laid with eyes covered, and ears plugged with 
 cotton, any undue noise or prolonged use of eyes pro- 
 ducing spasms. The stomach refused to handle food 
 in sufficient quantity, or of any but the simplest sort ; 
 the rectal muscles were drawn so taut day and night 
 that a natural operation of the bowels was impossible, 
 and peaceful sleep unknown. It was thought by her 
 attendants that she could not last more than a few 
 days longer at best, and as a last and desperate resort 
 
8o 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 they concluded to put the patient under treatment in 
 the new practice. 
 
 The day after her arrival the mother was requested 
 to prepare the daughter for a little walk in the yard 
 and to the hammocks among the trees. This created 
 consternation ; but it was quickly discovered that the 
 daughter seemed to have an acquisition of unseen 
 power and a right healthy desire to go out doors. She 
 walked down-stairs with finger-tips on the shoulders of 
 the physician ahead. At the side piazza a little rest 
 was taken, and a spasm started, which was killed in less 
 than thirty seconds ; it could not get fairly started. 
 Slowly strolling, looking at green leaves, blue sky, 
 fleecy clouds, and the many signs of life, the patient 
 drank in new life and comfort. When a hammock was 
 reached, a spasm started again, and was at once and 
 effectually nipped in the bud. 
 
 The patient lost fear when she discovered that 
 she was in the hands of a practitioner who could abso- 
 lutely and without fail, dismiss her spasms, or pains. 
 She began at once to eat anything and everything her 
 palate called for, with never a pain or any attempt 
 on the part of stomach to refuse to do its full duty. 
 The rectal muscles relaxed to a normal condition, and 
 the proper peristaltic action of the bowels set up at 
 once. She found, as all other patients do, that she 
 could do whatever she chose that she would do in per- 
 fect health, and that she was absolutely protected from 
 bad results of any kind. In ten days she was playing 
 in the tennis court, growing round and fat and enjoying 
 life hugely. She remained with us a few months to 
 complete an extended study. The grateful letters 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 8l 
 
 of her mother and herself certainly evidence a desire to 
 express their feelings. , 
 
 When the patient has once seen the effect of a 
 power thrown around him , which dismisses his 
 aches and ails, it produces a feeling of safety, peace, 
 rest ; then courage, hope, and assurance of speedy 
 return to health. When the recuperative forces of 
 life are set to work properly, there is but one result , 
 Perfect Health. 
 
 Under treatment, the patient is enabled to eat 
 freely and abundantly at once. The food is as- 
 similated and proceeds to make flesh and blood. 
 The bowels quickly begin their natural work. Peace- 
 ful sleep is obtained. The ugly symptoms disappear, 
 and all parts return to their natural harmonious con- 
 dition. * 
 
 When patients desire it, they are instructed 
 each day in the line of treatment, in order that they 
 may be able to return to their various duties and 
 know how to remain well. Tennis, croquet, quoits, 
 shooting, driving, rowing, fishing, together with a little 
 work in orchard, garden, or flower beds, indoor games 
 and -music, are accessories to the treatment. In- 
 structed in a way to thoroughly leave care and worry 
 behind, and with the ability to do duty at a liberally 
 furnished table and digest and assimilate the food, the 
 recovery is rapid. This is the unvarying result where 
 patients will follow the simple instructions. 
 
 In the beginning, the patient is treated and his 
 disorder dismissed, but it is our purpose to instruct 
 in such a way that in a short time (occasionally in 
 two or three days) the patient learns enough of Scien- 
 6 
 
8 2 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 tia Vitas to at least partially manage himself, dis- 
 missing any little pain or headache, nervousness, 
 insomnia, or whatnot that might arise and doing the 
 work so thoroughly and quickly as to excite his own 
 surprise and admiration. 
 
 Our patients invariably get round, fat, 
 and rosy, and when they secure the understanding, 
 they can leave with the full assurance that they will 
 remain in that condition. They can go through 
 business cares and domestic worry with a perfect self- 
 poise and command that acts as a shield which 
 cannot be punctured, and which insures immunity 
 from worry, or sickness of any sort. 
 
 This statement will seem impossible of realization 
 to many. It is nevertheless a statement of absolute 
 fact, the undeniable truth of which is demonstrable to 
 any one who chooses to come under treatment. 
 
 The universal experience of patients is to 
 recognize a quick improvement and the old-time swing 
 of bounding health running through their veins. Then 
 comes the fixed desire to know for themselves, some- 
 thing of the wonderful power. The daily lectures and 
 private instruction produce the desired result. 
 
 It is a common confession of patients who, before 
 coming, have put it off from day to day, fearing that 
 we could not reach their particular case. 
 
 Seeing and knowing of many (to them) wonderful 
 cures, yet they feel sure there are complications in 
 their individual case that cannot be reached. This 
 feeling, so universal, is afterward the cause of frequent 
 pleasantries among patients. 
 
OR SCIENTIA Vn\E. 
 
 83 
 
 After instruction enough to grasp the facts, the 
 highest intellects of the day recognize the ponderous 
 truths uncovered by Scientia Vitae to be the most 
 exact sort of common sense. In parallel lines with 
 the principle which governs mathematics, astronomy, 
 or any other fixed science, but of a higher grade, mak- 
 ing plain the powers of that acme of all created things, 
 the being called man, and the undeniable principle 
 fairly, honestly, and intelligently demonstrated in the 
 skillful management of the human body. 
 
 No higher proof could be demanded than the work 
 done upon their own bodies by patients after short 
 teaching. 
 
 A young man applied for help who was suf- 
 fering severely from erysipelas of the face. The face 
 presented a badly swollen surface, with a purplish 
 tinge, and the acute suffering was so great that he 
 would quickly change from one foot to the other, 
 and was unable to stand or sit still. The instant the 
 practitioner’s attention was called to him, and the 
 picture of disease was thrust forward, there was a 
 quick mental negation of its power, or its reality — a 
 sharp wiping of the picture off from the mentality, 
 a looking through the plane of evil, and mentally 
 picturing the perfect life, manifest behind the false 
 picture. The healing was instantaneous, and the 
 man left in less than five minutes, but the swollen 
 condition of the face probably did not disappear until 
 the next day, or perhaps the day following. 
 
 About two weeks after this occurrence, the same 
 man drove up with his mother, stating that she had 
 
8 4 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 been awake all night with an ulcerated tooth, and 
 could get no relief. Her face showed a puffed-out 
 bunch almost the size of a hickory-nut, confined 
 to one particular spot. It required considerable per- 
 suasion from her son to induce her to take mental 
 treatment for so acute an attack of suffering. The 
 pain was totally dismissed in about fifteen minutes. 
 
 The healing of these acute and comparatively 
 light attacks does not demand the attention and so 
 deep investigation as the cases of old chronic diseases 
 of long standing. A business man from Omaha, Neb., 
 came under the writer’s care, direct from a sanitarium, 
 where he was considered in a very critical condition. 
 The lightest sort of food distressed him to such a degree 
 that his physician had been pumping each meal from 
 his stomach a short time after digestion should have 
 begun. He had practically no power of digestion or 
 assimilation, and was sinking rapidly. He stated 
 that for about twenty-five years he had been a sufferer 
 from stomach trouble. 
 
 He was put under mental treatment, and a good, 
 rich, heavy diet. Within a day or two his bowels 
 began to move quite freely, passing off green and 
 yellow material, and during one day he ejected almost 
 a pint of yellow, bilious matter through the mouth. 
 He was asked to name any sort of food that pleased 
 his fancy, and upon the statement that it seemed to 
 him almost forty years since he had been able to eat 
 pork and beans, with vinegar, this dish was served 
 to him that day for dinner, together with a substan- 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 85 
 
 tial meal of other articles. No distress ever was 
 shown as a result of the heavy feeding, and he fat- 
 tened up quite rapidly. 
 
 He was so happy over his recovery that word was 
 sent his sister, who inherited the same stomach weak- 
 ness. She came at once and experienced a rapid 
 return to health. 
 
 Her special dish, which she had been unable to 
 partake of for a great many years, was chicken-pie. 
 It has been my custom to feed patients on any sort 
 of edible food that they like, and while under treat- 
 ment, the food will digest and not create disturbance, 
 even should it happen to be of the sort generally 
 considered very indigestible. 
 
 Common sense would suggest to any one who is un- 
 dertaking to treat themselves, that the load may not 
 seem so heavy if they will eat plentifully of good food 
 that is ordinarily accepted as nourishing and proper 
 from the sensible point of view, leaving out the over- 
 indulgence in excessively rich pastries and articles of 
 food that may be partaken of sparingly and at infre- 
 quent times. 
 
 A young gentleman of good family, in Chris- 
 tiana, Norway, a university graduate, who had come 
 over to America for a few years’ residence, and who 
 became infatuated with our possibilities of rapid 
 money making, was finally compelled to go to a 
 prominent sanitarium for treatment for insomnia. 
 After several months’ treatment and getting no better, 
 he was put in charge of the writer. He had been un- 
 
86 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 able to sleep for a number of nights previous, and 
 was worn out and almost demented. He was advised 
 to go to bed early in the evening, and with my finger 
 on his pulse, was snoring heavily in about five min- 
 utes. He did not awaken until the breakfast bell 
 roused him. Hope, life, and comfort were within his 
 grasp, he stayed about two weeks to learn how to care 
 for himself. A letter from him, some time afterward, 
 expressed the most heartfelt gratitude for the substan- 
 tial, enduring comfort he had gained by the knowl- 
 edge of the new life. 
 
 A man of about thirty-eight years applied for 
 treatment, his trouble being one of the nervous system. 
 His stomach was partly affected, but the feeling of 
 fear, apprehension, and the sinking away sensation 
 that comes over such cases was quite marked in his. 
 These troubles were quickly dismissed, and it seemed 
 that along with them went the whisky habit and the 
 desire for tobacco. He said nothing of either one of the 
 latter, but it came to the writer’s ears from a dentist, 
 to whom the young man stated that he hardly under- 
 stood what had come over him, but he had lost all 
 taste for tobacco. After the patient had left the Inn, 
 a few warm days came, when the snow went off 
 quickly, exposing a handsome whisky bottle under 
 his window, which had been dropped out with half 
 the whiskey unused, mutely telling its own tale. 
 
 An attorney, from Kentucky, who had been occupied 
 about four years in trying to regain his lost health, 
 came to us after quite a varied experience. He had 
 been six weeks in a prominent hospital in Cincinnati, 
 four months in a well known sanitarium, later under 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 87 
 
 the care of a prominent physician in New York City, 
 and finally, just before coming to us, he had been 
 placed in charge of one of the two best-known physi- 
 cians in America. The location of this physician is not 
 given, as it points directly to his name, and it is not our 
 purpose to cast the slightest reproach on any physi- 
 cian, hospital, or sanitarium, who, while they fail in 
 a great many cases, do honestly what they can for the 
 alleviation of human distress. The attorney spoken 
 of was one of the living skeletons — stomach, liver, 
 bowels, spinal-cord, and the right ankle and heel be- 
 ing involved. He was a university man, liberally 
 educated, with a horror of all things which do not 
 have a basis of demonstrable truth. He sharply con- 
 tested every inch of the ground in the instruction in 
 mental healing, so that his progress was retarded con- 
 siderably. It required about four months to put him 
 in first-class condition. He is, at this present writ- 
 ing (about a year later), attending to his own matters 
 skillfully, and a late letter indicates a perfect condi- 
 tion of health. 
 
 A lady about sixty years old, from Kansas 
 City, Mo., was under treatment at a sanitarium for a 
 number of months for pronounced nervous prostration 
 and acute inflammation of the neck of the bladder. 
 Getting no better, but rather worse, her son went to 
 the institution to ascertain his mother’s condition, and 
 was told by the medical director that she could live 
 but a short time. He thought that no effort should 
 be spared to ‘ ‘ save his mother’s life, ” and while he was 
 not sufficiently informed in the higher line of thought 
 to know anything of our form of practice, he had 
 
88 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 heard of the cures and brought his mother to us. She 
 remained about three weeks. Her cure was complete 
 and permanent. A letter from her, eight months later, 
 stated that we would not recognize her, she was so fat 
 and well. 
 
 A near neighbor, knowing of the case, sent a daugh- 
 ter to us who was in the second stage of ovarian^ trouble, 
 and in a distressed condition nervously. She had 
 been unable to eat properly, as the food seemed to 
 bring on violent vomiting. It had been necessary for 
 several months to administer heavy anaesthetics thor- 
 oughly during her monthly periods. Her physician 
 advised the family to send her to us, and when she 
 returned with a round, healthy body, the comments 
 of the physician and friends, as reported to us, were 
 quite flattering. 
 
 A number of cases of female disease and ovarian 
 troubles have come under treatment. In some cases 
 where the ovaries are swollen and a sac of matter 
 accumulates, the suppuration is generally dismissed 
 through the natural outlet, without pain or special 
 interference, and most certainly without the use of 
 the knife or drugs of any sort. Such cases are healed 
 and healed quickly. The names and addresses can 
 be given upon application. It does not seem best to 
 publish names of patients, for cultivated people hesi- 
 tate to assume the notoriety thu^ gained, although, in 
 a semi-priVate way, our patients are always glad to 
 explain and help others to understand. In many 
 cases they turn out to be practitioners of no mean 
 order. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 89 
 
 In order to gain an understanding of some of 
 the permanent laws governing the bodies of all ani- 
 mals, man included, it may be well to give a super- 
 ficial explanation of how and why these bodies assume 
 their present form. No effort will be made to go into 
 the minute details of the formation of the earth, and 
 of the theory of evolution, which would require a vo- 
 luminous book of itself, but those who wish to investi- 
 gate these subjects carefully, can do so by consulting 
 modern works upon the subject, to the great advan- 
 tage of the thoughtful investigator. The best thought 
 of the day is a unit on the nebular theory for an ex- 
 planation of the creation of all planets or worlds. 
 Masses of nebulous matter, which are created from 
 time to time in the ether, when of sufficient volume, 
 join themselves together around one center, and the 
 laws of gravitation are set up, as well as all of 
 the laws pertaining to the movement of a planet. 
 These laws exist in the one Divine Energy, and 
 are merely made use of for each planet as a manifesta- 
 tion of this power. 
 
 After the original ball is started in this sort of way, 
 it is gradually added to by accumulations of matter 
 from the ether surrounding, and the balls or planets 
 grow for ofttimes millions of years. It is a well under- 
 stood fact in geology that this earth has existed for, 
 at least, one hundred million years, probably very 
 much longer. 
 
 In, or connected with, the nebulous matter that is 
 massed up together, is found what are termed pri- 
 mordial germs, which were, up to within the past few 
 
90 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 years, supposed to be the origin of what is known as 
 life, but it is now understood that these primordial 
 germs are simply the original manifestation of life on 
 the plane of material of which this earth is constructed. 
 These germs of material do not produce Life, but 
 Life moulds them. 
 
 Life chooses to manifest itself in a slow progression, 
 that is it seems slow to the human mind, requiring 
 thousands upon thousands of years to develop and step 
 forward from one step to another. It is a well-known 
 fact that it requires about twenty-eight thousand years 
 to evolve or produce one species of the animal king- 
 dom, and yet twenty-eight thousand years is but a 
 faint speck upon the great time-table of eternal 
 life. 
 
 The primordial germ on this planet existed in 
 water, as the larger part of the surface of the earth, 
 if not all of it, was covered with water, a product 
 of the gases. This is proven by tracing all animal 
 formations back to their water-inhabiting ancestors. 
 
 Gradually, as the water receded, and land appeared, 
 after the original manfestation of life had evolved from 
 one step to another, there appeared species of fish and 
 water forms. Some forms were, like the snail, 
 thrown up on land from time to time, and gradually 
 evolved species, or perhaps several species, that were 
 part land and part water creatures. From these 
 gradually evolved those who breathed the air, con- 
 taining mostly oxygen, and lived upon land alone. 
 Their previous water experience, gone through with 
 by their ancestors for thousands of years back, was 
 gradually forgotten. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. 
 
 91 
 
 Now these principal and primary laws running all 
 through these manifestations worked changes as the 
 newly formed bodies came into new environments or 
 surroundings, and required new shapes, fingers instead 
 of fins, for instance, and feet instead of a fin-like tail. 
 
 We find that as the demand for new bodily parts 
 came, the supply was given ; slowly, remember, re- 
 quiring hundreds and thousands of years. 
 
 This law is firmly fixed, and can be read by any 
 one (skillful and patient enough), in the various 
 forms of manifested life. This great subject of “Evo- 
 lution” is but touched upon in these pages. The 
 reader is referred first to the writings of Aristotle, 
 Harvey, Malpighi, Leibuitz, Bonnet, Haller, Buffon, 
 and finally Caspar F. Wolff in “Theoria Genera- 
 tionis, ” published in 1759, all previous to the present 
 century. Then follows Prevost and Dumas in France, 
 and Dollinger, Pander, Von Bar, Rathke, and Remak, 
 of Germany, thinkers and writers of this century. 
 
 Nearer to our present day we have Darwin in 
 “Theory of Natural Selection,” “ Origin of Species,” 
 and other works. Herbert Spencer’s “Principles of 
 Biology ” and especially his work “ Principles of Psy- 
 chology.” A. R. Wallace (who was associated with 
 Darwin), as well as Prof. Haekel, were careful inves- 
 tigators of this profound subject. 
 
 A study of the writings of these philosophers about 
 in the order given, will show how far in advance of 
 their associates these writers were, and we find that, 
 according to the Principle of the very law they are 
 and have been trying to learn the truth of, the facts 
 are unfolded slowly but surely from one to another, 
 
92 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 each successive one winning a little more from the 
 great kingdom of the unknown, until just at this time 
 the facts are coming to many thinkers, thick, fast, 
 and new. 
 
 All Truth is a fixed and unchanging Prin- 
 ciple, but our knowledge of Truth is ever progress- 
 ive, and we win fact after fact. 
 
 When a fact is first won, or in other words, 
 when a new ray of light from Truth is discovered, it 
 is universally cried down by the masses, who have 
 not been evolved far enough to be able to digest it. 
 Then after five, ten, or perhaps fifty years, people 
 (the masses) ripen and step forward a little to a 
 higher plane of understanding, where they all accept 
 as an every-day fact, the “heresies” and “free 
 thought ” of the profound thinker who uttered the 
 truth years ago, but is always in advance of his age. 
 
 Mark a difference between the wild imaginings of 
 some erratic human intellect, and the grand truths 
 uttered by those who make their investigations along 
 the line of law, never leaving one law until its thor- 
 ough understanding permits, and leads up to the 
 knowledge of another, yet higher. 
 
 Any one who is unaccustomed to seeing the 
 human skeleton, is almost struck dumb with amaze- 
 ment at the sight of a perfect stub of a tail at the end 
 of the spinal column, and with the further discovery 
 at post-mortem examinations, of the muscles required 
 to move that tail, the tail having been so lately dis- 
 missed in the species called man. 
 
 It was dismissed because it was not used. If a man 
 refuses to use his right arm at all, nature will produce 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT-®. 
 
 93 
 
 a condition of atrophy, and the arm becomes useless. 
 If many generations of men would persist in this 
 course, the right arm would finally disappear alto- 
 gether. As we need special members for our good 
 and our advancement, according to the eternal law of 
 progression, they are gradually supplied to the species, 
 Nature slowly dropping off that which is not needed 
 and adding new as new is called for. 
 
 It is well for persons to remember this 
 law for their own well-being. When inclined to be 
 sick, or to feel that they cannot use one arm, or one 
 leg, or head or stomach, let him put himself in har- 
 mony with this fixed law of the Father, that as you 
 demand of the body your right to use it, for good, for 
 your advancement, for your well-being, you draw 
 upon universal law for your right to do so , and body 
 must and does respond to your demands ; but if you 
 set back and say that stomach cannot handle food, 
 and that it does master you, and you must obey its 
 tyrannous mandates, you will find yourself a most 
 abject slave to a ruthless master, and if this condition 
 continues long enough, the end will be disaster, ac- 
 cording to mortal sense. 
 
 Start a young man in a blacksmith shop as a helper 
 to the smith. He is expected to swing a sixteen- 
 pound sledge, perhaps, whenever he is called upon. 
 After the first day’s work he feels as though his arms 
 were dead, and he was a total wreck physically. If 
 he sits down and says he cannot do the work, body 
 has ruled and he cannot, but if he continues day by 
 day, with the fixed determination that the work is 
 good and right, that it is harmonious, and he has a 
 
94 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 right to compel body to do this work, he will find that 
 the muscles increase in size, the inside of the hands 
 harden up, the lungs increase their capacity to fur- 
 nish the required amount of breath, and within a week 
 or two, perhaps a month, the man finds that he is 
 doing the work required, and his body feels, so far 
 as he accepts its testimony, much better and more 
 comfortable than it did before he commenced the 
 task. 
 
 This is according to one of the greatest laws that 
 surround man’s body, and let man never lose sight 
 of this law, because, by remembering it, and adjusting 
 himself to it, it will assist in the preservation of the 
 health of the body. Beware of one mistake in this 
 connection, if you persist in calling upon the body to 
 do something which is unnatural, you will suffer the 
 consequences, or if you persist in calling upon the 
 body to do work that is entirely natural, but you hold 
 the thought uppermost mentally that you cannot stand 
 it, and you are out of harmony yourself, you will likely 
 experience exhaustion as well. 
 
 You must make your demands of body un- 
 der the fixed knowledge that you have the undeni- 
 able right to use body as a servant for all tasks that 
 are good and natural. You, thereupon, obtain your 
 rights, under the law, but it must not be done under 
 the condemnation that many hold. 
 
 This is especially applicable to stomach cases. 
 They have some trouble with the stomach because 
 of some mental inharmony, and they thereupon think 
 that the various articles of food, for some reason, are 
 not properly handled by the stomach, and that the 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT,E. 
 
 95 
 
 stomach is at fault and must be pampered. They 
 start in for a course of dieting, hot water, Graham 
 bread, bran mash, and the various forms of nonsense 
 that often go under the name of hygiene. 
 
 The longer this is followed, and the more the 
 rule of the stomach is obeyed, the worse the patient 
 usually gets 'until some motive or influence comes over 
 the mind of the individual, which influences him to 
 branch out and partake of natural food in sufficient 
 quantities. 
 
 The quickest way out of the difficulty is to realize 
 fully, and at once, that you are spirit and not body, 
 and that spirit controls. Now, feed the stomach on 
 any edible food and command it to do its work, 
 knowing that you have the God power to manage. 
 The mortal mind may hesitate and cause the stomach 
 to cry, but continue your steady, natural method of 
 feeding. Put down the laws of the lower mind and 
 assert the law of the upper. You will find, shortly, 
 that stomach begins to work , and the body begins to 
 round out. The nerve cells begin to fill up with 
 grey matter, and the whole machinery of the body 
 takes upon itself new life and a much more perfect 
 line of work. 
 
 This subject has been touched upon in order to get 
 an understanding of some of the causes which lead 
 to man’s material destruction. Man has much to do 
 with the making of the laws which govern and control 
 his own body. Life has changed the shape of the 
 animal from time to time as new surroundings came, 
 and has had all of the making of the form of the 
 human body by the demand for the various members 
 
9 6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 through thousands and thousands of years back ; so 
 that the human being now represents the sum total of 
 all the experiences of manifest Life since the earth 
 was formed. 
 
 Now, as man makes the law, whether things 
 are for his need, or not, his body is affected to a 
 degree thereby. Many of the articles of food and the 
 methods of living, protection by clothing, houses, 
 etc., have so long been accepted by man as good, 
 and for his well-being, that they have become fixed 
 laws. It is an old saying that “custom makes laws,” 
 and this is true, to an extent but little realized. 
 When man gets into habits that do not conform to 
 the higher law, as laid down by the Father, he suffers 
 therefrom, and his suffering- is increased as he be- 
 comes conscious of the fact that he is acting in a 
 manner that does not conform to the universal law 
 of harmony. This is especially noticeable in the use 
 of stimulants, such as whisky, and the various forms 
 of alcoholic drinks, morphine, tobacco, and even 
 coffee (the latter belongs to the same company, al- 
 though it does not rank in power with the others). 
 
 These articles were all created by universal law, 
 and for a specific purpose. When man began to use 
 liquors, the harm to his material organs did not ap- 
 proach what it does to-day. Even fifty or one hun- 
 dred years ago, when good, healthy men used a little 
 liquor daily and had their pipe, they did not manifest 
 the physical disturbance to anything like the degree 
 that the use of these articles produces to-day. 
 
 This is largely attributable to the thought force 
 surrounding these articles, which has condemned 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. 
 
 97 
 
 them for the use of man, and man, although he 
 knows nothing of the opinion of others, is subject 
 to this condemnation, because it exists as a certainty 
 on the unseen plane of power, that is, of thought. 
 But man, with his marvelous power, and seeming 
 desire of the lower mind to force him away from a 
 natural, harmonious life, has surrounded these arti- 
 cles with such tremendous power, that when he once 
 gets into the habit (which is mental entirely) of using 
 any one. of these articles, it seems next to impossible 
 for him to break away from the enslavement. 
 
 Whisky is considered by many as an upright 
 gentleman compared with tobacco. Whisky will 
 stand up open and above board, and quickly intoxi- 
 cate and degrade the taker, so that if he has but little 
 mental control, he is likely to discontinue the use of 
 the article, but tobacco is one of the most insidious 
 enemies of the human frame. Its special mission 
 seems to be to tear down and neutralize all efforts of 
 nature toward a sturdy and healthful manifestation in 
 the body. Its effect is very peculiar, differing a little 
 with every individual, because each individual human 
 mind differs somewhat. To the ordinary person, the 
 result of tobacco is to steadily poison the nerve cen- 
 ters, first producing the effect of a stimulant, and if 
 the chewing or smoking is kept up a sufficient time, 
 the stimulant effect changes to what is known as 
 the drug effect upon the nerve centers. 
 
 When this has gone on far enough, the user will 
 throw out the tobacco, and often feel a lassitude for 
 a short time, until nature succeeds in throwing off 
 part of the sedative effect, whereupon intellect calls 
 7 
 
98 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 for another dose. It is a suave, politic, and persuasive 
 enemy, dangerous in the highest degree. Its effect 
 takes from man his power to advance as he could, 
 were the neutralizing drug withheld, the tobacco mo- 
 tive seeming to exist as a negative. 
 
 The noble animal, man, would progress faster than 
 the law of evolution fixes, if it were not for the neu- 
 tralizing elements or motives ; namely, whisky, mor- 
 phine, tobacco, coffee, excessive animal passions, and 
 other unnatural conditions. 
 
 These destructive motives seem to exist solely to 
 kill off the surplus of mankind. As a rule among men, 
 the keenest, quickest intellects seem to demand the 
 neutralizing effect of some one of these tearing down 
 elements. 
 
 All these agents act directly upon the nervous sys- 
 tem, and the lower mind or Intellect, when once 
 accustomed to them, uses the most eloquent plead- 
 ings for their continuance. Arguments of all kinds 
 are set up by Intellect, whenever the Real Man en- 
 deavors to shake them off. 
 
 Good resolutions are often made each day, and the 
 efforts made by the individual to be free, are many 
 times heart-rending to mortal sense, and it is sad to 
 observe that in the majority of cases, the lower mind 
 succeeds, with persuasive argument, in breaking down 
 the good resolutions day by day, until finally the 
 stored-up abuse of the beautiful machinery, calls for 
 immediate settlement. 
 
 Some slight attack of disorder, and the bodily vital- 
 ity being gone, the patient cannot rally and the man 
 dismisses this body to try Life upon another plane. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 99 
 
 Every individual is an individual, and their 
 decision as to what is best for them must be respected. 
 If a man chooses to steaddy employ some foreign agent 
 like whisky, tobacco, or their kind, for the neutraliz- 
 ing of his healthy growth, he must be allowed to 
 do so. 
 
 He is governed by motives which will wipe away 
 the physical body and make room for another, if he 
 continues to permit their control. But thank God, 
 Man, when he wakes from his sleep of sense control, 
 and knows himself as Soul, Mind, Spirit, and one 
 with God, assumes control, becomes quickly con- 
 scious of Power over all inharmonious thought forces, 
 and that he is free. 
 
 By living a life in harmony with Divine Love and 
 Law he will continue to manifest Life on this plane 
 until fully ripe, 90 or perhaps 100 years old, at which 
 time Life endows him with the motive rather to hope 
 for a change, as he is ripe and ready to simply become 
 conscious of his possession of the new body, which to 
 him is a glorious Life renewed ; while the animal 
 senses of his brothers call it death or annihilation. 
 
 Every now and then a newspaper item re- 
 counts the death of some old man at from 90 to 100 
 years, who had used tobacco and whisky all his life. 
 Whereupon a great many men and youths who read 
 the article take unto themselves new hope and say, 
 “There, that is proof that there is no harm in these 
 things except as people think so. It is my infernal 
 stomach (or head or heart or bowels etc. , etc. ) which 
 is radically wrong and cuts up these occasional rows, 
 and they would do it whether I use a little whisky 
 
IOO 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 and tobacco or not ; really a little of these now and 
 then helps me stand the disorders.” Poor fool! let 
 him alone until principle mellows him. He will some- 
 time know that a nervous system disarranged by even 
 slight doses of these poisons, and at intervals wide 
 apart, will let the body go on in fair style for a time, 
 but all the while the abuse is being stored up, and 
 suddenly it breaks out in stomach, weak heart, weak 
 lungs, kidney disease, rheumatism, or some one of the 
 thousand and one disorders, all of which exist because 
 of a weakened, nervous system, and cannot exist when 
 that system is in perfect balance. 
 
 The occasional man, who has the constitution of a 
 pine knot, and can withstand the depressing effects of 
 these poisons for years, does more harm in letting it 
 be known than can be computed. For the many 
 hundreds of would-be imitators are endowed with no 
 such powers, and are physically much inferior ; there- 
 fore the effect of the poisons is much more quickly 
 and plainly apparent, and the law of the “ survival of 
 the fittest ” becomes manifest. 
 
 Tobacco and whisky are active agents in the 
 work they have in hand. No man should be denied 
 his privilege as a free individual to use them as much 
 and as hard as he cares to. There are many cases 
 where he works much misery and distress to the inno- 
 cent ones dependent on him, and the sweet little prat- 
 tling child given into his custody for a time is grievously 
 wronged by the thief. But, thank God, in spite of the 
 atrocities and stealing from the little ones, the with- 
 holding of tender affection that is their due, no whisky- 
 loaded or tobacco-drunken parent can harm or smirch 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT,E. 
 
 IOI 
 
 the God-life. The higher mind is the true being of 
 the child, and it is the life that the earthly father neither 
 has the power to given or to take away, or permanently 
 to harm. The human intellect shrinks and hides its face 
 in terror from the scenes of distress, injustice, and 
 human woe forced upon the innocent one by the mes- 
 merized fools who permit themselves to be used as 
 tools to demonstrate the seeming force of evil as 
 massed under the heads of the two great negatives, 
 levelers, destroyers, whisky and tobacco. 
 
 The principle of individual liberty is a principle 
 which exists as one of the foundation laws. Therefore 
 whenever a man is so circumstanced that he can yield 
 himself over to these tearing-down influences without 
 working a harm to others dependent on him, he should 
 be permitted to stuff his mortal body full and wipe it 
 out of physical manifestation as soon as he chooses. 
 
 It is quite certain that if he elects to use them 
 even “very moderately,” they will exact pay of some 
 sort, — weak stomach, heart failure, bowel troubles, 
 consumption, paralysis, tumors, cancer, etc., etc., are 
 directly traceable to a depleted system, kept in a 
 weakened condition from day to day by small doses 
 of poison, and the mesmerized fool will argue with 
 himself each day that “ it is not tobacco that hurts 
 my stomach (or heart or head, etc., etc., etc.), but 
 the stomach itself is wrong, and I must take a good 
 tonic to build it up (so it can be knocked down 
 again). 
 
 This process of logic is almost universal among 
 the mesmerized persons who are under the spell. They 
 are constantly telling themselves and their friends 
 
102 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 that they “use very little,” and “can leave it off any 
 time they choose,” etc., etc. ; but when they make the 
 effort they find they are under hypnotic influence and 
 cannot break away from the control, except when 
 they rise up in their -might and know that the influ- 
 ence is caused by the lower or mesmeric intellect, 
 aided by the floating thought forces of others in an 
 effort to rule the higher mind. 
 
 Once man knows that the pleading desire, and cun- 
 ning mental arguments are all claims of evil, demand- 
 ing his recognition, he will quickly kill them off, and 
 decide to follow the natural law of life, and stay here 
 on earth until he ripens in the way intended. 
 
 Heaven is right here, when we live according to 
 the simple laws of nature ; but the counterfeit of 
 peace, gained by tobacco and whisky, is uncovered 
 sooner than we expect, and the expose is a clever 
 taste of hell. 
 
 It is ail incontrovertible fact that natural liv- 
 ing brings Heaven. Unnatural living brings hell, sure 
 and unfailing. 
 
 You cannot change this law but you have the right 
 to choose your own way. Put yourself in a mesmeric 
 condition and play the fool and traitor, or be free and 
 with the wisdom of the unconsciously guided animal, 
 be happy, be really happy each day, in the full pos- 
 session of unbounded health, feeling so good that you 
 “could jump over a house.” The man who will trade 
 that condition off for the temporary deadening effect 
 of a little poison is not himself ; he is under a spell, 
 but must be allowed to use his own will to stay there, 
 or break it and be free. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT M* 10$ 
 
 It is the keen ones, the bright, active fellows who 
 must keep their hand on the lever of the higher 
 power, to kill off the oft-repeated attacks of the 
 lower mind in its effort to nullify, to- check their 
 progress. 
 
 When any great progressive step is accomplished 
 by an individual, corporation, or nation, close attend- 
 ing is some negative influence which will surely de- 
 stroy and tear down, unless special provision be made 
 to store away energy and power during the prosper- 
 ous times of health and well-being sufficient to hold 
 the advanced position gained. 
 
 Many a brilliant man frills out of the ranks 
 all too soon, when the smiles of fortune seem turned 
 toward him from every direction. The little mice 
 called whisky, tobacco, and excessive sexuality have 
 gnawed too many holes in the bottom of the wheat 
 bin, and they cannot be stopped up in time to save 
 a collapse. 
 
 Thank God that our bright ones will reach a plane 
 sometime, where the hellions cannot find them, and 
 after the tremendous fire test they have gone 
 through with on the mortal plane, they will come 
 to themselves finally, having earned their knowledge 
 by the heavy blows of the tempering hammer of ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The law of unfoldment permits a grand physical and 
 mental state. When man will use his endowment of 
 the higher mind to guide him free from the destructive 
 motives, a few generations wherein these motives are 
 avoided will result in magnificent specimens set well 
 along to the front in the eternal pathway of progress. 
 
104 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Divine Principle, Life, is universal law, and is your 
 closest friend. Stand with it always. It is in no 
 sense vindictive, but you must run your lines parallel 
 to receive the bounties, and they are health, content, 
 peace and prosperity. 
 
 General Laws of Health. — There are many 
 hundred laws of health, so called, that are arranged 
 and dictated by man. The great mass of these are 
 the most arrant sort of nonsense ; but it was said 
 many years ago in Scripture, that “as a man think- 
 eth, so is he ” and that, “ When you know the Truth, 
 the Truth will make you free.” 
 
 You will find that as a man listens to the laws of 
 health laid down by many physicians, and others, and 
 accepts them as authority, .to him they become real , 
 and he is from that time more or less subject to these 
 laws until he breaks them, and dismisses them from his 
 consciousness. 
 
 There are a few laws, however, that are laid down 
 by the Father, but they are very simple and easily 
 understood. If one will observe the daily habits of 
 our domestic animals, they can gather much knowl- 
 edge in the way of the plain laws laid down by the 
 Father. 
 
 For instance, a dyspeptic may find that the cow 
 seems to have no thought or fear for the morrow, or 
 where its food will come from. She eats at any time, 
 during daylight, that she feels so disposed. She has 
 never one thought of fear but that her stomach will 
 care for what she puts there. She unconsciously 
 leaves that work to Life, or God, with the easy as- 
 surance that all is well, and will be well. When 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT\E. 
 
 05 
 
 night comes, she understands that the darkness is 
 intended as an indication of the time for her species 
 to sleep. In contrast to this natural condition, we 
 find that man, with his marvelous power to create 
 conditions, has first permitted his mind to make pict- 
 ures of worry; that he has only a limited time to live ; 
 that he must work mentally and physically under a 
 strain, that unless he does such a stint of work, and 
 makes about so much money, he is liable to come to 
 want and distress. 
 
 He therefore works under pressure, and sees many 
 evil things in his pathway that fret and annoy him. 
 From these mental causes, the natural, perfect balance 
 of the nervous system is disturbed, and the stomach 
 lacks its perfect rhythm, ‘failing to do its work. He 
 thereupon concludes that the stomach is at fault, and 
 he must eat less. Then some vegetarian crank tells 
 him he must live on oatmeal and Graham bread ; 
 that he has been abusing his stomach with meat and 
 other edibles. 
 
 Finally some sanitarium physician, or some 
 publication on health, warns him. that man should 
 eat but twice a day, and if he drinks milk, should 
 work his jaws so that the gastric juices will run down 
 into the stomach and digest the milk. Here he is 
 surrounded with a web. Man makes laws which are 
 false from beginning to end, but are actual facts to 
 every man or woman who believe in them. 
 
 Dyspeptics, as well as all other invalids, must 
 first correct the cause of his trouble, which in nearly 
 all cases originates in a disturbed, unnatural condition 
 of the nervous system, and this is directly controlled 
 
io 6 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 by the animal intellect, or as many call it, the mortal 
 mind. When this mortal mind is controlled by the 
 higher mind, and put into a condition of ease and 
 peace, and its many laws of disorder, distress, disease 
 are thrown down and destroyed, so that the real man 
 may be free, then a condition of ease, comfort, and 
 harmony is set up mentally, which is at once taken 
 up by the nervous system, and as this system begins 
 to beat in perfect rhythm, all parts of the body gradu- 
 ally wheel round into a condition of perfect health. 
 “Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 
 
 Some of the real laws of the Father are nearly 
 as follows : Your body requires a sufficient amount of 
 
 nourishing food, taken at such times as it seems to be 
 needed. It should not be taken in great loads, and 
 then allow a long time to intervene before you take 
 in another load, but if the body has been in a condi- 
 tion of so-called dyspepsia, it should be fed fairly 
 upon rising in the morning, then a small quantity of 
 some sort of food at say half past ten or eleven 
 o’clock. A medium-sized dinner at half past twelve, 
 perhaps, then a little food at half past four or five, 
 and a medium supper at the usual time, six or seven, 
 as the case may be. 
 
 These moderate-sized quantities of food, taken at 
 frequent intervals, will sustain and build up the tissues 
 of the body in spite of the fact that the stomach may 
 complain in many ways, but we find as we demand 
 natural, harmonious work of any part of the body, 
 because we know the higher law , that gradually the 
 body, or its immediate governor, the human intellect, 
 gives up the fight, and accepts the situation. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 107 
 
 After your meals, do not sit down by your- 
 self and begin to roll your thought into the body, 
 for just so sure as you do this, the lower mind will 
 begin to question and make up laws of distress and 
 inharmony. Go right out, after your meal, and busy 
 yourself about something physically. When you feel 
 like sitting down, look out for your enemy, mortal 
 mind. Take this book and read a few facts, so as to 
 keep your true self up out of the lower self. 
 
 You will find that as long as you can be conscious 
 that you are Soul, Spirit, and not body, all will go 
 well. Keep busy. The teaching of nature is that all 
 the manifestations of God are doing some sort of work 
 physically, from the blades of grass up, and the teach- 
 ing also is of a natural desire for variety ; therefore, 
 after you have been busy on one line for a time, 
 change your occupation so as to give your mentality a 
 variety. 
 
 Do not confine yourself to physical work, nor to 
 mental work, but indulge in both freely. As the 
 mind demands use of the physical members of 
 the body, they gradually respond more and more 
 freely to that demand. This is true of the brain. As 
 the mind which dwells outside of, and above, the 
 brain, demands exercise of that organ and use of it, 
 under the law of harmony, it will respond and grow 
 steadily in power and strength. 
 
 Do not ever believe you are losing your mind. To 
 lose the higher mind* is an impossibility, because 
 that is you, and that is one with Life, the Father, 
 those who seem to have “lost their minds,” as the 
 the common saying is, have simply lived so far apart 
 
io8 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 from the beautiful law of harmony and health, that 
 parts of their physical structure, for instance, certain 
 lobes of the brain, may have broken down, and 
 have lost enough of the grey matter to be in an im- 
 perfect state. Thereupon, according to the law of 
 the Father, the mortal mind declines to act harmo- 
 niously or naturally upon that sort of brain, and the 
 result we see in the people whose condition is known 
 as non compos mentis. 
 
 Mind is never lost or impaired ; but it is fur- 
 ther true that a person whose brain is reduced in power 
 can be put in harmony so that the machinery of the 
 body works as it should, the grey matter is built into 
 the brain just as quickly and just as perfectly as into 
 any part of the body ; and when this result is reached, 
 a condition of perfect mental power becomes mani- 
 fest. 
 
 Water should be taken many times a day. Do not 
 gorge the stomach with fluid at the meals. Let a 
 little be taken, if needed ; but who ever saw a natural 
 animal take a mouthful of food, then rush to " the 
 stream and drink a large quantity of water, then back 
 to the food again, then back to the water repeatedly. 
 The drinking of water should be distributed along 
 through the day, and it is unnecessary to state that 
 the drinking of extremely cold water, or unusually hot 
 water, is not according to the law of harmony. Man 
 was expected to drink water as it was prepared for 
 him by the Father, about the temperature of the run- 
 ning stream, or such as we get from the well. 
 
 The drinking of coffee is forbidden to pa- 
 tients under treatment in this line, for the reason that 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 iog 
 
 it is an unnatural stimulant. This fact can be ascer- 
 tained by any competent person who will examine 
 the heart’s action after one or two cups of coffee 
 have been taken. 
 
 It is true that many healthy people drink coffee to 
 a good old age, and are able to withstand the unnatu- 
 ral effect, but the patient who is not in perfect har- 
 mony, is warned against this indulgence. 
 
 Man being a composite of carniverous, or flesh-eat- 
 ing, and of the vegetarian animal, is expected to 
 follow their habits more or less. We find the cat spe- 
 cies, dog, lion, leopards, and other animals, that eat 
 both meat and vegetables, are inclined to sleep more 
 or less during the day, and to remain awake a portion 
 of the night. This law, which is a natural one to that 
 sort of species, permits man to use a part of the night 
 in a wakeful condition, and remain in harmony, but 
 it should not be forgotten that if he is able, a little 
 sleep in the daytime is entirely in the line of nature ; 
 and while the habit of more sleep, or little, can be 
 cultivated, the ones who take about seven or eight 
 hours sleep in the twenty-four, seem to strike the 
 happy medium. 
 
 Above all things, realize that you are a free Spirit 
 to do as you wish , so long as you stick to the general 
 law of. harmony. Never admit that you cannot eat 
 this or that when the article spoken of is edible food 
 and suitable for mankind. You can go without food, 
 water, or sleep for a considerable length of time, if 
 necessary, when you are consciously dwelling in the 
 power of the Spirit. If you are caught in a rain, or 
 subjected to unexpected cold, heat, or draughts, you 
 
IO 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 can make your body, to a great degree, impervious to 
 their effects, having the right and power to rule over 
 the body and keep it in perfect condition, even when 
 the natural laws of health seem to be broken for the 
 time ; but if you attempt to do unnatural things will- 
 fully, taking tobacco, whisky, coffee, etc., feeling that 
 you have the power to rule over them, you will finally 
 discover that they are hurtful ; and a continued break- 
 ing of the peaceful laws made by the Father will 
 bring you to a consciousness of trouble. 
 
 The recuperative power of the Father, 
 as manifested in the human body, is so great that 
 although the patient knows nothing of the higher 
 law, if by chance he lives a natural life, the evils of 
 heredity, even blood poisoning of the most virulent 
 character, will be finally eliminated by the natural 
 action and cleansing operations of the machinery of 
 the body when working in harmony. This result is 
 attained in a vastly less space of time when the 
 machine is set in motion and controlled by a con- 
 scious knowledge of power of Spirit, which is the 
 real man. Drop all fear ; it is an element of the 
 one evil, the lower mind, when out of harmony. 
 
 Real Sickness vs. Imagination. — Nearly all 
 persons, when they come under mental treatment 
 for their troubles, feel a certain amount of pride 
 about what people will say. This is about the 
 way their thought runs : “If I take possession of 
 myself according to this line of practice, and dismiss 
 my troubles so that I get well, people will say that I 
 was not really sick, but just imagined I was sick. 
 I do n’t want them to feel that I lack will power, 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 I I I 
 
 and was weak enough to just imagine myself into a 
 condition of sickness. I want them to know that / 
 really was sick , and I am very much afraid that if I 
 should get well by this method, I will always be looked 
 upon as a person who was deceived, both by the 
 sickness and the recovery.” This is the voice of the 
 weak, lower mind of the animal. Let it be known, 
 once for all, that all cases of disease in man, whether 
 of so-called stomach trouble, bowel trouble, consump- 
 tion, cancer, heart-disease, rheumatism, or what not, 
 are the result of mental conditions of inharmony. 
 The dead material of which the body is made, can 
 originate and produce nothing. They all, each and 
 every one, come from one source. They cannot ex- 
 ist when the mortal mind is put in an easy, perfect 
 condition, so that its immediate servant, the nervous 
 system, follows the same law. 
 
 All of ‘these things disappear under a condition of 
 harmony. They exist and do their work only under 
 a condition of mental inharmony, so that the patient 
 may rest assured that no invalid has the best of him on 
 the theory of imagination. They are in a mesmeric 
 condition from one end to the other, and this fact is 
 demonstrable in a most thoroughly scientific manner. 
 
 The writer has in mind a case of a person lifted 
 from a death bed through <f Scientia Vitae,” and who 
 became round, fat, and rosy, quickly. When he met 
 the old associates on the street and told them of his 
 sudden cure through mental science, they looked 
 embarrassed, as much as to say, ‘ ‘ Poor fellow, you 
 were fooled.” Reading their thoughts, as any one 
 can much more readily do after a study of mental 
 
I 12 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 science, his customary expression was, “ My dear fel- 
 low, I know what you are thinking of, but let me 
 tell you one thing earnestly, and as a fact, — I at 
 one time was just as crazy as you are now, but I 
 have learned some facts that put me above the con- 
 dition of animal mesmerism that you are in. When 
 you know as much, these things will be plain to you.” 
 
 Treatment. — “As a man thinketh in his heart, so 
 is he. ” 
 
 If I have been mistakenly taught to look upon my- 
 self as a “poor, weak sinner,” I know better now. 
 
 The Son of God never was and never is a “ poor, 
 weak sinner. ” 
 
 The fleeting shadow on the lower plane may get 
 into many conditions of intellect that seem sinful, but 
 I am a Prince of the Kingdom of eternal Life ; and 
 knowing this, I never permit tales of the lower sense 
 world (where the animal man and intellect dwells) 
 to force mental pictures of evil on my mentality. 
 When I still the will and voice of self, and know my- 
 self as one with God, then from out the silence comes 
 the soft breathings of the Supreme, which I drink in 
 eagerly, but quietly, gaining thereby Intelligence, 
 Peace, and Health. 
 
 My communion with my Father is plain and inex- 
 pressibly sweet to me, but is not of the earth, and 
 therefore could not well be explained to earthly men ; 
 for, “The Natural man receiveth not the things of 
 the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto him, 
 neither can he know them, because they are spirit- 
 ually discerned.” i Cor. 2:14. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. 
 
 I 13 
 
 Be Content. — Do not chafe and fret because you 
 do not make money faster, advance quicker socially, 
 or fail to force events to your special liking. Realize 
 that your body is one of God’s manifestations of the 
 Divine Power and Energy and, while you do quietly 
 and peacefully just what seems best for you to do, 
 without fear or anxiety, you are carrying out the law 
 in harmony, and the great Good and good things will 
 flow to you. 
 
 Let the nervous, anxious man or woman but real- 
 ize this, and further, that all laws are finished ; the 
 great Universe is complete, and he or she might as 
 well take things easy, as we are living right along in 
 eternity now ; the real man never dies ; and harm or 
 evil is only harm and evil to the distorted view of the 
 human intellect. Let us take the change of events 
 philosophically, they are simply steps from one men- 
 tal state of understanding or knowledge to another. 
 
 When we fret and worry, we “deny the Christ” 
 or the Life, — that is, we lose sight of our true place, 
 our true Being. We are one with God, even though 
 but dimly conscious of it. Therefore we are in real- 
 ity always safe, and have not one thing to fret or 
 worry over. 
 
 It is impossible to worry unless we have, for the 
 time being, fallen from our true estate of conscious 
 mental union with Divine Good. 
 
 When dwelling in the lower mind, and admitting 
 that things are wrong and will harm us, and that we 
 must worry, etc. , etc. , we make a definite denial of the 
 Christ principle. 
 
 8 
 
NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 114 
 
 Jesus the Christ, who was the most perfect repre- 
 sentative of the Life Principle, which is God the 
 Father, was and is the greatest teacher we have ever 
 known. He says that if you deny Christ, Christ will 
 also deny you. 
 
 The statement is easily proven true. When you 
 worry, fret, and lose sight of your true self, and 
 take up with the lower self, you suffer in proportion. 
 When such times come, quickly acknowledge God as 
 your Life, and your worry and illness will float away. 
 Try it. 
 
 If we remember that the Father made all things 
 for our good, and has arranged the kindliest laws for 
 protection and comfort ; and that we are wholly depend- 
 ent on beneficent Life for every movement of even our 
 little finger, then, we will not doubt or deny the Christ 
 (Life) (which is our true selfhood), and its power to 
 protect us fully and never to fail under any circum- 
 stances or happening. 
 
 “Yes,” you say, “ But we do receive harm, people 
 do get killed,” etc., etc. 
 
 You show that you view things from a low, animal 
 stage, which esteems death or hurt to the mud doll 
 (body) as a thing to be greatly dreaded, the dread 
 being based upon the supposition that death to body 
 means annihilation of the individual ; that you ‘ ‘ have 
 but this one life,” and when it is gone, you have lost 
 all, etc., etc. 
 
 Mind exists on a separate plane from body, and 
 cannot be harmed or hurt in any way by any happen- 
 ing to compositions of mud and water or any other 
 material. You , the real man, exist now and here, as 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 1 1 5 
 
 mind; you temporarily are managing a material body, 
 much as a trainer drives and trains a horse. 
 
 You cannot be hurt or injured in any way, 
 so be at peace and dismiss all fear. 
 
 If the author were a theologian, he would say that 
 fear was the strongest weapon of the Devil. 
 
 Fear that things won’t go right, that we or our 
 friends will be hurt, produces worry and anxiety, 
 which is inharmony, and throws the nervous system 
 out of balance. The results are shown in many ways. 
 
 Henry Wood, in the Arena says : — 
 
 “Mental causation is abundantly proved by the 
 well-known effects of fear, anger, envy, anxiety, and 
 other passions and emotions upon the physical organ- 
 ism. Acute fear will paralyze the nerve centers and 
 sometimes turn the hair white in a single night. A 
 mother’s milk can be poisoned by a fit of anger. An 
 eminent writer, Dr. Tuke, enumerates among the 
 direct products of fear, insanity, idiocy, paralysis of 
 various muscles and organs, profuse perspiration, 
 cholerina, jaundice, sudden decay of teeth, fatal ec- 
 zema, skin disease, erysipelas and eczema. By infal- 
 lible law, mental states are mirrored upon the body, 
 but because the process is complex and gradual, we 
 fail to observe the connection. Mind translates itself 
 into flesh and blood. What must be the physical re- 
 sult upon humanity of thousands of years of chronic 
 fearing, sinning, selfishness, anxiety, and unnumbered 
 other morbid conditions ? These are all the time pull- 
 ing down the cells and tissues, which only divine, 
 harmonious and wholesome thought can build up. Is 
 it surprising that no one is perfectly healthy ? If man 
 
NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 I 16 
 
 were not linked to God, and unconsciously receiving 
 an inflow of recuperative vital force, the multitudinous 
 destroyers would soon disintegrate his physical organ- 
 ism. Can the building forces be strengthened, stimu- 
 lated, and made more harmonious and divine? — Yes, 
 through mind. The mind surely but unconsciously 
 pervades every physical tissue with its vital influence, 
 and is present in every function, throbbing in the 
 heart, breathing in the lungs, and weaving its own 
 quality into nutrition, assimilation, sensation, and 
 motion.” 
 
 “Know the Truth, and the Truth shall make 
 
 you free.” 
 
 God placed us here in a perfect Heaven. It is often 
 made a seeming hell by human intellect, but it is a 
 most delightful Heaven, nevertheless, to all who live 
 in full harmony and accord with the easy and wise 
 law of the Father. 
 
 We were not consulted in the selection of anything 
 connected with our appearance here. We are here , 
 and have had no way to avoid it. We are surrounded 
 on all sides with the most beautiful and perfect ar- 
 rangements for our pleasure and happiness. 
 
 God’s law says we must eat food. Is it arranged 
 by Divine Energy that it will be an irksome, disa- 
 greeable task to comply with its mandates ? Is it not 
 rather a fact that all the operations surrounding the 
 act of eating are so delicately and lovingly arranged 
 that man gladly obeys the law ? He wants to ; he 
 will manage in every way possible to comply with the 
 law. 
 
 Does he hate this law fixed by the Father ? When 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITiE. I I 7 
 
 hungry, there comes mental expectancy, a delight. 
 The delicious sensations to tongue and palate caused 
 by the taste of food, are not mere happenings ; they 
 are ordained by the great Wisdom that man may be 
 happy in following the law. 
 
 So with other laws pertaining to man’s exist- 
 ence on the present plane. He must drink water, the 
 law says so. Do you have to drive him to obey God’s 
 law that a thirsty man shall drink water ? Prevent 
 him if you can, when, after a long tramp on a hot 
 day he comes to one of God’s springs of sparkling 
 water hidden in a leaf-sheltered nook by the roadside. 
 Leaning over he sees the clear fluid, mirror-like and 
 cold in its bed of shining pebbles, while as it trickles 
 over the rocky, narrow outlet, it seems to whisper 
 in its low liquid chatter, “ I am a love gift sent to 
 make you happy and to help teach that the sole object 
 which inspires the One who sent me is the peace, 
 content and happiness of his children.” 
 
 A man in describing his feeling on the plains while 
 hunting, said, “In the morning I rolled out of my 
 blanket early and standing on my feet, drew in the 
 pure air time and again until my whole body felt the 
 slight thrills of pleasure, and I felt it was glorious 
 enough to be simply conscious that I was alive . ” 
 Did that man feel that it was an ugly and hated task 
 to follow the dictates of Universal Law, when that 
 law dictated that man must breathe ? — No. All laivs 
 laid down by Divine Creative Mind, our producer and 
 Father, are a delight and pleasure to follow. It is 
 only Man’s laws which are irksome, because such laws 
 are always a departure from principle. 
 
I I 8 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Remember this : Every law which is intended for 
 us to exist under, is a delight, a comfort, and blessing 
 to us. 
 
 The animal, who knows nothing of Divine Life, 
 the Father, loves to follow the law ; he is made that 
 way, and man is not required to screw himself all 
 out of shape by trying to follow a lot of ridiculous 
 laws which Moses and some other mesmerized indi- 
 viduals declare were made by God. All God’s laws are 
 natural and are sweet to all creation. Every creat- 
 ure, man included, loves God more than all else, be- 
 cause God is Life and Life is God. 
 
 il There is no death — 
 
 What seems so is transition; 
 
 This life of mortal breath 
 
 Is but a suburb of the life Elysian, 
 
 Whose portal we call Death.” 
 
 — Longfellow. 
 
 THE HORIZON LINE. 
 
 “I watched a sail until it dropped from sight 
 Over the rounding sea, a gleam of white, 
 
 A last, far-flashed farewell — and, like a thought 
 Slipped out of mind, it vanished and was not ; 
 
 Yet to the helmsman standing at the helm 
 Broad seas still stretched before the gliding keel. 
 Disaster? Change? He felt no slightest sign 
 Nor dreamed he of that horizon line. 
 
 So may it be, perchance, when down the tide 
 Our dear ones vanish, peacefully they glide 
 On level seas, nor mark the unknown bound. 
 
 We call it Death ! To them ’t is Life Beyond.” 
 
 — James Buckman . 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 9 
 
 Let us try to get a clear view of the situation. 
 We know that the real part of man does not die ; it 
 is simply the mud and water image that is resolved 
 back to its original state. As we have been so per- 
 fectly provided for in this Heaven which we now oc- 
 cupy, would it be according to any law we know of 
 for us to find in the next higher stage of manifestation 
 of Life, our next plane of consciousness, that we were 
 imperfectly, or poorly cared for ? 
 
 If God teaches us any one thing clearly, it is the 
 law of eternal unfoldment or evolution from lower to 
 higher and more perfect states ; gaining more power 
 and greater possibilities of happiness as we progress 
 from step to step. 
 
 It is quite surely a fact, that if people knew the 
 delightful comfort of our next manifestation, they 
 would wipe out this body, in order quickly to get the 
 new one. But they would discover their mistake. 
 You cannot unnaturally hurry the sturdy steps of 
 unfoldment. You can only come into the conscious 
 possession of the perfect body, when you are ripened 
 in a natural way and have done patiently what your 
 hand found to do. 
 
 By reference to the perfect body, is meant the body 
 we are now forming, of a material which is of another 
 plane than the material of which this earth is formed. 
 We are building this new body daily, and it may be a 
 mistake to call it a perfect body ; for it will surely be 
 built either in harmony, or not so perfect, just in cor- 
 respondence with the mental life, whether of harmony 
 and good, or inharmony and so-called evil. 
 
 It is believed that a gain will be made even in 
 the worst cases, as experience in evil here always 
 
120 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 teaches us some bitter lessons and heads us back to our 
 natural state. 
 
 So it seems that even hardened criminals will pos- 
 sess a better body and better mental state after they 
 drop off this body, as the sure trend is finally always 
 toward the Great Principle of Good. 
 
 Paul refers to this new body in i Cor. 15:44: 
 “There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual 
 body.” Theosophists term the spiritual body the 
 “Astral.” 
 
 When that change called death takes place, we 
 simply become conscious of possession of a new body, 
 but the time of change you will never know of. 
 You know nothing of birth or coming into possession 
 of the present body, so you will know nothing of the 
 dismissal of this body. 
 
 This sort of change comes to us right here while in 
 possession of the so-called natural body. When man 
 becomes clearly conscious that he is Soul, Life, Mind, 
 and not body, he feels a change come over him, a 
 happy, easy feeling and often a feeling of exhilaration. 
 The joy of freedom is his ; old things and old beliefs 
 have passed away, he has thrown off the “ old man,” 
 and the new man has been born. Paul says in 1 Cor. 
 1 5 : 45 (and very interesting reading it is when un- 
 derstood) : ‘ ‘ And so it is written, the first man Adam 
 was made a living Soul ; the last man Adam was made 
 a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which 
 is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward 
 that which is spiritual. 
 
 “The first man is of the earth, earthy. The second 
 man is the Lord from Heaven.” 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 21 
 
 “True as gospel.” The man first thinks of him- 
 self. as body which is of the eq.rth, earthy. When the 
 second man is born, or to put it another way, when 
 the man comes to know himself as he really is, Spirit 
 and not body , that man is really the Lord (ruler) from 
 Heaven (Harmony). Know this , and power flows to 
 and from you in a way that will make you stand in awe 
 of yourself. It is the new condition that man is just 
 being brought forward to occupy by the never-ceasing 
 law of progress. 
 
 It is the new life. 
 
 Some one lias said that the steps of progress 
 made in religion are each one marked by a heretic, and 
 the reason is plain enough, for in all progress, not only 
 of religion, but in the arts and sciences, in medicine, 
 surgery, letters, and the spiritual progress of man, it 
 is universally the case that the advanced facts become 
 plain to one, or perhaps a few individuals, months and 
 sometimes years before they are plain to the masses, 
 and when the individual dares to advance his progress- 
 ive ideas, ponderous truths although they may be, he is 
 denounced, and oftentimes reviled and abused by the 
 thicker-headed ones, who are still wrapped in their vail, 
 and cannot see beyond the condition and position that 
 has been earned for them by their parents and an- 
 cestors. 
 
 The trials for heresy seem necessary to many people 
 who consider the dogmatic statements of a creed as of 
 primary importance to the salvation of a soul, while 
 the individual who has been sufficiently ripened by the 
 divine Father, so that he stands on the mountain-top 
 above the clouds of beliefs, doubts, ecclesiasticism, 
 
122 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 and creeds, knows that the same divine Father has 
 no knowledge whatever of, nor does he care for, the 
 complex religious teachings of men. It is of no im- 
 portance to divine Principle, Life, whether man 
 makes a law that his brother must be baptized in order 
 that his soul may be saved, or not. Life never dies, 
 and knows no such thing as the opposite called death. 
 Soul is never lost , because it is eternal Life. The in- 
 dividual Intellect may go through a mental hell, and 
 perhaps many of them, in the process of refinement, 
 but if Nature and Nature’s God teaches any one thing 
 absolutely, it is that nothing which is , is ever lost — 
 not one breath of gas, vapor, light, spirit, soul, or 
 even material of any sort or kind. There is no such 
 thing as loss. 
 
 To the person who is aware of the higher facts, it is 
 a most laughable spectacle to see a lot of solemn- 
 faced men, who are merely educated animals, evolved 
 monkeys, if you please, who have discarded their tails, 
 meet together, look wise, and propose to try a brother 
 who claims to have been opened to a little broader ray 
 of the eternal sunlight of Truth, God. Their proceed- 
 ings are of no more moment than the acts of a lot of 
 chattering monkeys in tjie bottom of a great cage, 
 where they nervously paw over the straw. They peek 
 in curiously to see if they may find some nuts, then 
 look up with the most solemn faces shining full of their 
 own monkey wisdom, scratch themselves, meet to- 
 gether in a lfttle caucus, chatter some more, then paw 
 the straw over some more, and finally decide that the 
 young monkey who claims to have secured an abun- 
 dance of nut-kernels from some source, does not know 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 123 
 
 what he is talking about, and is a presuming fellow 
 whom the devil has got hold of, and he must be ejected 
 from the community. At this time, the aforesaid 
 young monkey may be perched on a shelf higher up, 
 where he is fed on the richest nuts he can possibly di- 
 gest, from a hand vastly superior to his own 
 
 The demand made by certain supposed wise men 
 that each individual must believe in all the theories of 
 atonement, incarnation, the Trinity, etc., etc., as in- 
 terpreted by these wise men, is a great wrong, they 
 are totally unnecessary to the unfoldment, the happi- 
 ness, and progression of the soul toward a conscious 
 union with the Father. 
 
 The one who has passed beyond the plane of 
 understanding which the ordinary people have, should 
 not, however, condemn those who are yet enveloped 
 in clouds of the animal intellect and materialism. Be 
 content to let Divine Principle, God, ripen each and 
 every one according to his divine law. You cannot 
 hurry the process. They must go through experience 
 and ripen naturally, as the fruit of the tree. Beilhart 
 says, “You must permit the young chick to remain 
 in the egg-shell until it has made use of all the ma- 
 terial within, at which time it is sufficiently grown to 
 occupy a new world, and the shell is picked open, the 
 chick becomes a chicken, demanding new food, breath- 
 ing fresh air, and with its entire environment different, 
 but the chicken must not sneer at, nor deride his 
 brother and sister chicks, who are on the lower plane 
 of unfoldment and still existing upon the meat within 
 the egg-shell. That is a necessary state in the 
 growth.” 
 
24 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 The boards of examiners who try heretics, are gen- 
 erally composed of chicks living upon the meat within 
 the egg-shell, while the heretic, if thoughful, honest, 
 and sticking to Principle is the evolved chicken, exist- 
 ing upon a higher plane which cannot be understood 
 now by the chicks. 
 
 The progressive power of man. — It is a very 
 interesting study to observe how Divine Principle has 
 gradually, from time to time, endowed man with 
 more and more power to handle material, until at 
 the present age, the tremendous forces that are 
 handled by man, would have been deemed only 
 possible of God, by our ancestors of four or five thou- 
 sand years ago. 
 
 We know many exact facts of man as he existed in 
 what is known as the stone age, when all of his im- 
 plements were of stone. He knew nothing of any of 
 the operations which would require tools different 
 from those which he was enabled to make from stone. 
 They supplied his wants and needs at that time. 
 Gradually he stepped along, his wants increasing 
 somewhat, and finally we know of man in the bronze 
 age, and a little later in the iron age, while at this 
 writing, we are in the age of steel, and it is supposed 
 that the next will be the aluminum age. Beyond 
 that, of course, we are unable to see. 
 
 We find man of the present day has captured, har- 
 nessed, and driven the lightning at his pleasure — 
 not full controller yet, remember, but with sufficient 
 power to handle the mighty current in many ways, 
 for his pleasure and betterment. We also find him 
 using the power of wind, and the likely apprentice 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 125 
 
 seems now to be managing the clouds — to demand 
 and obtain rain at his pleasure. 
 
 He has put his hand upon the stored-up energy from 
 the sun in the shape of coal, and uses it to return 
 water to its condition of power, namely, vapor or steam 
 — to harness that vapor and use it. 
 
 We find he works as a co-partner with the divine 
 Father, and yet the junior partner is all too uncon- 
 scious of his powerful connection and standing as a 
 member of the wonderful firm. 
 
 The mind of man, even the lower mind, or the 
 so-called intellect, has great control over material. 
 This mind is able to shape, mould, and determine the 
 character and quality of various structures, for instance, 
 apples, pears, pumpkins, potatoes, corn, wheat, and 
 perhaps all of the edible fruits, vegetables, and grains. 
 
 Within the memory of many readers of this book, 
 there existed a small, round, red berry, called a love 
 apple. This, of course, we know was the original to- 
 mato. Man took this insignificant product, and by 
 cultivation, care, and the expenditure of work (con- 
 trolled wholly by his intellect), he gradually, from 
 year to year, produced a better quality of tomato, 
 until at the present day, we have the large, fine, firm 
 vegetable, often larger than a man’s fist, delicious in 
 taste, beautiful to the eye, and nourishing to the 
 body. 
 
 This result was not produced by the action alone 
 of a separate power, or, if you please, the senior of 
 the firm. It is the result of the power inherited by 
 the junior, acting upon the original start given by the 
 Father. Father and Son work together, not as sep- 
 
126 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 arate individuals, but as one. This result can be 
 seen in the improved vegetables, fruit, and grain of 
 the present day, but the intellect of man is seldom 
 conscious of the possession of so much God-power 
 from the Father. The intellect acts as a servant 
 until ripened and evolved far enough to know of the 
 higher mind ; that mind thereupon becomes conscious 
 of the God principle, the element of eternal life and 
 eternal power. When the individual is in posses- 
 sion of that higher mind, it is impossible for his body 
 to be sick or out of harmony, because the power and 
 force of that mind for harmony, for health, for a per- 
 fect condition, is such that the opposite is a total 
 impossibility. It is true, it seems a difficult matter 
 sometimes to dwell in the higher mind at your pleas- 
 ure, and as long as you wish, but to dwell there even 
 a short time, is a bath in the waters of everlasting 
 life. 
 
 The power to create our own Heaven or 
 
 Hell. — It is too profound a truth for ordinary mor- 
 tals to gain ; it lies at our feet unseen, and we stum- 
 ble along without knowledge that we are endowed by 
 law with the marvelous power of dwelling each day in 
 either Heaven or Hell, as we choose. 
 
 We start out in the morning a little ugly, perhaps. 
 The first person we pass is greeted with a defiant 
 look. A school-boy heedlessly stumbles against us 
 in his efforts to catch a ball. He, happy, care-free, 
 healthy, and ruddy, dwelling just then in a perfect 
 Heaven of comfort and peace, while we can only see 
 evil ; so the boy is treated to some cross talk or a 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJ2. 
 
 127 
 
 curse or two, and we pass along. The boy, nearer 
 to nature, is but temporarily disturbed from his bliss- 
 ful position ; he soon forgets the manifestation of 
 evil and goes on with his play, while we roll it over 
 and over for an hour or two, thinking how we had 
 been run into and ‘ ‘ disturbed by a brat, and gave 
 him the cursing he deserved,” etc., etc. We have 
 simply descended into Hell, and can see no good ; 
 all is evil because we see things as they exist at that 
 time in us. 
 
 We meet a man with a scarred face from burn 
 or wound, the features distorted and drawn in an un- 
 natural way. We see only an ugly, distressed look- 
 ing face, and mentally say to ourselves, “That man 
 ought to have died when he was injured instead of 
 living and forcing such a picture on people’s notice.” 
 Ugly within ourselves, all is ugly without. Soon we 
 may feel stomach, eyes, heart, kidneys, or some 
 other members of our body complain, and we say, 
 
 ‘ ‘ There, I am not well this morning, that ’s what 
 ails me.” But the reasoning is incorrect. 
 
 The ails of body are much more sure to be the 
 result of the inharmony of mind. Mind moulds and 
 controls body, and what can one expect from a dis- 
 cordant mind but a similar result in body. 
 
 My dear reader, you will get that result in body 
 whether you expect it or not. 
 
 Now, suppose the person of whom we have been 
 writing had, in starting out, ‘ ‘ pulled himself to- 
 gether, ” and with some knowledge of his God-power, 
 said, ‘ ‘ Here, I seem to be dwelling on the plane of 
 
128 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 evil this morning, and not in harmony. I will not 
 permit this. All things were made good, and I will 
 admit no evil into my tabernacle.” 
 
 To him, in that condition, the stumbling school-boy 
 would have caused no irritation. He would have 
 kindly steadied the lad, squared him on his feet, and 
 sent him off with a quiet smile, if no word, and run 
 over in mind that God, the same Life that operated 
 his own body, was manifesting itself through the 
 boy’s body, and that we are all one. ‘ ‘ At that day 
 ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
 and I in you.” John 14 : 20. 
 
 The boy would feel a touch of pleasure at the 
 smile, and although he would likely say nothing, the 
 kindly curve of the man’s mouth would add a sprinkle 
 of happiness to his thoughts, perhaps for years there- 
 after. 
 
 By the peculiar law of harmony, the good 
 thoughts produced by the mentality of the man and 
 sent out toward another, return heavy-laden with 
 healing balm and comfort to their parent or producer. 
 (Try it, and prove the correctness of the statement, 
 and what the beautiful law of God will do for you.) 
 
 When you see what mortal sense tells you is an 
 ugly face, or an ugly action, decline to receive the 
 impression of evil ; quickly look past the exterior, and 
 know that back of this outward vail of seeming inhar- 
 mony, God, the Life, is operating silently, perfectly, 
 in Harmony, and that is the real, the enduring, and 
 eternal, while the little squints of so-called evil are 
 simply products of the temporary human intellect in 
 the play on the stage here, and you decline to receive 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 129 
 
 such as real. In this way you demonstrate you*r power 
 and privilege to sail serenely over all rough seas of dis- 
 cord and to dwell in a Heaven of peace and content 
 right here and now. Attend to the now and the 
 Father will surely attend to the future, wisely and for 
 your well-being. 
 
 “Now is the day of salvation,” as Jesus Christ 
 often said, and it does not mean that you must hurry 
 and beliefe a lot of ideas you do not understand, 
 simply that you may “ save your Soul.” It means, 
 Be harmonious now. Send out words and thoughts of 
 Comfort now. See no evil now. See good in all 
 things and everywhere now. Get into heaven now , 
 and just so surely as you get right now, according to 
 the law of the Father, your happy and healthy future 
 is assured. We exist only in the present moment, let 
 that be right. 
 
 Charity or Love. — Whenever anything which 
 manifest Life attracts your attention, quickly send 
 out to it a mental telegram of Love or Charity. 
 Warm toward it as a part of yourself, and get a 
 warm message back as you always will. 
 
 When inclined to despise some human being, try to 
 mentally stand in that one’s shoes awhile and be him 
 or her. You will then discover that they are plodding 
 along through this plane, looking at things from their 
 standpoint, and generally trying to do as well as they 
 can, as they understand it. One may be born a little 
 slow of wit, but sturdy. Be not impatient with such 
 a brother, because you happen to be just now en- 
 dowed with a little more nimble brains. He is doing 
 his share as a unit in the diversified manifestations of 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 God, and he is one with God and one with you, per- 
 haps not showing some of the higher developments 
 that you do ; but remember he, the real man , has all 
 the powers, even if latent and unseen. 
 
 The fact that he is a part of the great Universal 
 Life, God, assures him Power, the power of God, de- 
 veloping more and higher as time runs on into 
 eternity. 
 
 You must hold all living things in your mentality in 
 a loving grasp. The Divine law of Love is the fire 
 that warms you into Health and comfort. 
 
 A person may quietly practice this, receiving great 
 good therefrom, and endeavor to explain it to friends 
 only after it has been proven often enough to be well 
 understood by the practitioner. 
 
 Peace: the Comforter come. — “For he is 
 our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken 
 down the middle wall of partition between us. Hav- 
 ing abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of 
 commandments contained in ordinances ; for to make 
 in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace. ” 
 Eph. 2:14, 15. 
 
 How difficult the work of Jesus Christ to try by 
 parable, example, and in all ways to show man that 
 he, the real man , is one with the Father ! They are 
 not “twain,” but one. Rise, then, in your true 
 Majesty and take possession of yourself. 
 
 You are a Prince of Life. Come to your senses, 
 and do not let the laws of evil, inharmony, sickness, 
 sin, or any other thing which is not natural, rule you 
 any longer. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 131 
 
 They have bluffed you, and made you believe they 
 were something. They vanish into thin air when 
 you take away their only life. How ? Refuse to 
 think of them. If you strictly do not think of them, 
 where are they ? 
 
 You will find they were totally without existence to 
 you, until you took them into your household, and 
 gave them the only power they have, that is, recog- 
 nition. 
 
 God made all. 
 
 God made all things good. 
 
 In the world of realities there is nothing but good, 
 and all is in harmony. 
 
 Evil, therefore, is a morbid product of hu- 
 man intellect, and is nothing more than a thin illusion. 
 That thing called evil is only brought about by some 
 unnatural condition of man, and the effect of it is only 
 seen on the plane of the lower life, while man has the 
 power to destroy it (Sin, sickness, and disease) at once, 
 if he choose, by asserting his Divine power to mani- 
 fest good or harmony only, and to efface all pictures 
 from his mind that do not partake of Peace, Power, 
 Harmony, Health, Love, and Happiness. “But 
 when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto 
 you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth, which 
 proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,” 
 “And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have 
 been with me from the beginning. ” John 1 5 : 26, 27. 
 
 When you know that you are Soul, or Life, and 
 not body, then the Comforter comes, which is the 
 “Spirit of Truth,” and then you will be able to 
 
132 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 understand that the great Teacher, Jesus, sought 
 always to teach that fact (“He shall testify of me”) ; 
 and “ye also shall bear witness,” because you, Life 
 Mind, came to an understanding of yourself, and then 
 know that you are a part of Life as Jesus was and is 
 now. And, further, that we have been together 
 always ; for Life always has and always will exist ; 
 and as we become conscious of this fact, and our 
 union with Life, we know how true it is that we exist 
 eternally, and that our conscious knowledge of one 
 another will continue from plane to plane through all 
 eternity. 
 
 This is a statement of facts which any deep student 
 of natural law is compelled to admit as his investiga- 
 tions carry him from step to step. 
 
 A Clinical Talk with Physicians. — The pa- 
 tient, steady toil of the deep investigator into causes for 
 human illness, and the scientific research for remedial 
 agents, together with the deep wells of human sym- 
 pathy, which is often the impetus that nerves the true 
 physician to face the dark and cold, and inspires him 
 with the high sense of duty and personal bravery to 
 encounter disease, infection, and death in its worst 
 forms, has won from man the admission that the 
 sturdy honest workers in this profession are probably 
 more deserving of human gratitude than those of any 
 other calling. 
 
 Chemists can expect a definite result from the con- 
 junction of the particular power of one organic substance 
 with the special power of another organic substance, 
 and theirs is therefore a fixed science in which the 
 laws are plainly understood as progress is made. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT^E. 
 
 133 
 
 This is true of surgery, but the practice of Materia 
 Medica is ?iot, and never can become a science. 
 
 It cannot be rescued from the realm of uncertainty 
 and guess-work. The exact effect on the human body, 
 of any sort of medicine can never be predetermined. 
 Why? — Because the human mind has -not been con- 
 sulted in the experiment, and is always at hand to dictate 
 whether the material of body shall respond to the 
 force with which the medicine is endorsed, or not. 
 
 A remedy may be serving its purpose very nicely 
 until the patient “loses faith” in the doctor or the 
 medicine, and from that moment the power of the 
 remedy is nullified ; hence a new one must be sup- 
 plied. 
 
 You here come in contact with a power great 
 enough to rob the pills and pellets of their power. 
 Would it not be the part of wisdom to study well this 
 element and learn how to harness it into service for 
 healing ? 
 
 Let us bring forward the testimony of many of 
 nature’s noblemen in the profession and see how they 
 deplore the unavailing efforts to establish a fixed 
 science by the employment of material remedies 
 alone : — 
 
 Prof. S. M. Gross, of the Medical College, Louis- 
 ville, Ky. : “Of the essence of disease very little is 
 
 known — indeed, nothing at all .” 
 
 Prof. Valentine Mott: “Of all sciences, medicine 
 is the most uncertain.” 
 
 Dr. Marshall Hall, F. R. S. : “ Thousands are an- 
 nually slaughtered in the quiet sick room.” 
 
 Sir Astley Cooper, F. R. S. : “ The science of 
 
34 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 medicine is founded on conjecture, improved by 
 murder.” 
 
 Dr. Adam Smith : “The chief cause of quackery 
 outside the profession is the real quackery in the pro- 
 fession. ” 
 
 Dr. Ramage, F. R. S. , of London : ‘ ‘ The popular 
 medical system has neither philosophy nor common 
 sense to commend it to confidence.” 
 
 Prof. Gilman : ‘ ‘ The things that are administered 
 for the cure of scarlet fever and measles , kill far more 
 than those diseases do.” 
 
 Prof. Barker, of the N. Y. Medical College : “The 
 drugs that are administered for the cure of scarlet 
 fever kill far more patients than disease does.” 
 
 Dr. James Johnson, F. R. S. , editor of the Chir- 
 urgical Review : “I declare it is my conscientious 
 
 conviction, founded on long experience and observa- 
 tion, if there were not a single physician, surgeon, man- 
 midwife, chemist, apothecary, druggist or drug on the 
 face of the earth, there would be less mortality and less 
 sickness than now prevails.” 
 
 Dr. Coggswell, of Boston : “It is my firm belief 
 that the prevailing mode of practice is productive of 
 vastly more evil than good ; and were it abosolutely 
 abolished, mankind would be infinitely the gainer.” 
 
 R. R. Noyes, M. D., in his “History of Medicine,” 
 says : “A drug or substance can never be called a 
 healer of disease ; there is no reason, justice, or neces- 
 sity in the use of drugs in diseases. I believe that this 
 profession, this art, this misnamed knowledge of medi- 
 cine, is none other than a practice of fundamentally 
 fallacious principles, impotent of good, morally wrong, 
 and bodily hurtful.” 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 135 
 
 Dr. Benj. Rush, the famous Philadelphia physician 
 and instructor, says : “ It is impossible to calculate the 
 mischief which Hippocrates has done, by first mark- 
 ing nature with his name, and afterward letting her 
 loose upon sick people.” 
 
 Dr. Chapman, Professor of the Institutes and Prac- 
 tice of Physic in the University of Pennsylvania, says : 
 “Consulting the records of our science, we cannot 
 help being disgusted with the multitude of hypotheses 
 obtruded upon us at different times. Nowhere is the 
 imagination displayed to a greater extent ; and perhaps 
 so ample an exhibition of human invention might 
 gratify our vanity, if it were not more than compensated 
 by the humiliating view of so much absurdity, con- 
 tradiction, and falsehood. To harmonize the con- 
 trarieties of medical doctrines is indeed a task as 
 impracticable as to arrange the fleeting vapors around 
 us, or to reconcile the fixed and repulsive antipathies 
 of nature. Dark and perplexed, our devious career 
 resembles the groping of Homer’s Cyclops around his 
 cave.” 
 
 Dr. Mason Good, a learned professor of London, 
 says : “The effects of medicine on the human system 
 are in the highest degree uncertain ; except, indeed, 
 that it has already destroyed more lives than war, 
 pestilence, and famine all combined.” 
 
 Sir John Forbes, M. D., Fellow of the royal College 
 of Physicians, London says : “ No systematic or theo- 
 retical classification of diseases or of therapeutic agents, 
 ever promulgated, is true or anything like the truth, 
 and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in 
 practice.” 
 
 The above are the honest utterances of honest men. 
 
I 36 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 They have all tried to make the cart push and direct 
 the horse. 
 
 The entire practice of medicine is based on the 
 hypothesis that brain movement (self-induced) pro- 
 duces mind ; hence bodily conditions affect mind, and 
 therefore body is the ruler , and mind the servant. 
 
 This conclusion is natural, for the most casual 
 observer will affirm that certain abnormal conditions 
 of body do affect the mind, and in so pronounced a 
 manner at times, as to make a human being ‘ ‘ lose his 
 mind ’ ’ altogether. 
 
 This universally accepted theory is the exact opposite 
 of the truth. 
 
 Body is built wholly of inorganic sub- 
 stance obtained form earth, water, and the floating 
 particles of inorganic matter in air. Wheat, oats, 
 corn, etc., are members of the intermediate kingdom 
 (vegetable),, whose duty it is to select particles of iron, 
 soda, lime, potash, and other suitable ingredients from 
 earth, which with heat, air, and water produce a chem- 
 ical change in these elements, fitting them for the use 
 of the animal kingdom. The animal takes up the 
 product, and in its consumption, a number of new 
 chemical changes take place as these elements are 
 deftly moulded into bone, sinew, and flesh of the 
 human form. 
 
 At no period during the manipulation of this dead 
 material has it gained any intelligence, power, or life. 
 It was primarily dead, inert matter, and so it has 
 remained, and always will remain. 
 
 The body of man is a dead body, built wholly of 
 earth and water. It seems alive? — Yes, when un- 
 
OR SCIENTIA VITJE. 
 
 137 
 
 der the management of that which does not dwell 
 therein. 
 
 Physiology gives a careful and technical description 
 of the human machine, beautifully built and ready for 
 motion, but physiology treats only of the clay image, 
 confessing itself ignorant of the source of motion or 
 life, dismissing the subject with the statement that 
 the body is sensitized by that current of nerve 
 energy which passes over or through the nervous 
 system. 
 
 All ordinary students of physiology are still 
 
 in the blind hypothesis of Matter producing motion , 
 power and life. They believe that the convolutions of 
 the brain (made of mud and water) produce vibrations 
 of air, which have some peculiar properties, and call 
 these mind. This theory, therefore, demands that 
 body (the clay doll) originates all pain and pleasure, 
 sickness, or health. Such a theory will do for man 
 in one stage of evolution, but will quickly go down to 
 join the great army of dead theories, under the white 
 search-light of advanced understanding. 
 
 Any educated medical practitioner will explain to a 
 patient that ‘ ‘ drugs will heal nothing. They can 
 only assist nature ; but nature must do the work or the 
 patient is lost. ” Who rules the forces of nature in 
 the body ? — the clay ? or that God-given governor 
 called mind ? 
 
 Tlie studies of physicians in years past led them 
 only through physical pathology, and the search for 
 material remedies, ignoring the ruling power of mind. 
 This is the reason for the preceding statements from 
 such eminent practitioners. They all recognize that 
 
138 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 they have been dealing with servants, and the master 
 of the household (mind) frequently steps in and upsets 
 all calculations. 
 
 The newer and higher practice is to deal directly 
 with the master, and the servants (arms, legs, stom- 
 ach, bowels, kidneys, etc., etc.) go about their work 
 perfectly. 
 
 The physical body of the child is the moulded clay 
 image, expressing the mother’s thought, joined with 
 the race motives (mental), and directly influenced by 
 the living motives or thoughts of ancestry which have 
 passed from the physical plane (dead, so-called). 
 These thought forces express themselves by the 
 moulded form of dead material, brought to expression 
 on the plane of the human eye and the physical 
 senses. 
 
 The process of building so beautiful a structure is 
 most complex. 
 
 It is not given over to the mother to have unlimited 
 control of the new compound thought expression. 
 
 There is a higher force, or law, of which the 
 average human mother knows but little. She is the 
 active agent, or executive, for the enforcement of the 
 law, and is endowed with vastly more power than she 
 is conscious of. The wriggling snake may so imprint 
 its image on her mentality as to show on the body of 
 the child. The body is a reflection in the mirror, out- 
 lining the soul or mind substance, which is the real 
 entity. 
 
 As a baby, the little one is singularly subject to the 
 mental condition of the mother. Fear in mother 
 brings many ails to baby. A fretful, complaining 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 139 
 
 mother will see her inharmony reflected in some way 
 on the physical child. 
 
 From the time the child is born, is kept up the 
 continuing process of building in new material, and 
 tearing down the old. This process is quite well 
 understood by all well-informed physicians, and the 
 details need not be taken up here, except to say that 
 the blood is freighted with the refined product of the 
 digestive laboratory, and this material is distributed 
 along its route as needed. 
 
 This current also carries the element needed (oxy- 
 gen) to reduce the worn tissue to a suitable condition 
 for elimination from the body. When the old tissue 
 is reduced, it is carried by the blood to the sewers of 
 the body, — pores, kidneys, and intestinal canal, where 
 the once beautiful eye, lips, tongue, and even the 
 valves of the heart are thrown out, piece at a time, 
 sent back to clay, lime, potash, soda, iron, etc., — 
 back to the great field of material, to be taken up 
 again by Life and built into grass, or grain, and then 
 into cattle, sheep, etc. , back again to man. 
 
 Many of the particles which once were in man’s 
 body become rebuilt into trees, and if put into lumber, 
 perhaps remain in that shape for some hundreds of 
 years. It is quite certain that parts of your house, 
 lumber, iron, or paint, contain parts of material which 
 once was moulded into the superb physique of the 
 native Indian. Would you say this material ever had 
 intelligence, power, Life ? 
 
 It is not possible. Life, which is identical with 
 mind, is the energy or power which does the mould- 
 ing, but never inhabits the statuary. 
 
140 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 Physicians will agree thfet a well-poised mental con- 
 dition is necessary to perfect assimilation of food, and 
 that good digestion and assimilation is an absolute 
 requisite to a normal condition of body. 
 
 Ignorance has taught that, primarily, some- 
 thing has disagreed with the stomach, the articles of 
 food were not of a proper character to agree with the 
 individual’s digestive apparatus, hence , mal-nutrition 
 and a failure to properly feed the nerve centers, result- 
 ing in the many forms of disease under this head, 
 including a certain effect on the mind. 
 
 Deep scientific research and observation has demon- 
 strated that certain mental states quickly and surely 
 reflect on the stomach, and that stomach is not the 
 primary offender at all. 
 
 If stomach receives a blow from too great a load, 
 it recovers as quickly as any part of the body, and 
 goes cleanly and naturally to work again, provided 
 the governor, mind , is not ignorantly mismanaging. 
 
 Certain mental conditions, surely and always , pro- 
 duce a nervous, congested state of stomach, when no 
 food can be properly digested. 
 
 The sensitive, delicate, and beautiful structure of the 
 digestive organs is absolutely dependent upon a per- 
 fect condition of the nervous system, and the nervous 
 system in turn is absolutely dependent, for its perfect 
 condition, upon a perfect mental state, as every vary- 
 ing condition of mind reflects directly upon the nerv- 
 ous system, manifesting in the flesh, either discord or 
 concord. 
 
 When the delicate cells of stomach become gorged 
 with blood (a congested condition) because the free 
 and perfect circulation has been interfered with, it 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 141 
 
 directly points to a disordered nervous condition, the 
 same condition which often produces cold extremities, 
 or a peculiar feeling in the head from lack of blood, 
 i. e., poor circulation. Instead of the full, steady swing 
 of perfect harmony in all parts, we find but little 
 blood in the feet, hands, and head, while the excess 
 is gorged in the vitals, stomach , liver, and, with 
 ladies, often in the womb and ovaries. The more 
 delicately adjusted the organ, the more easily thrown 
 out of adjustment by such disturbing causes. 
 
 Stomach is generally the first to be attacked 
 by the slightest mental disturbance or unpleasant 
 thought, and quickly gets out of order. 
 
 If one is a sufficiently skillful mental operator, it 
 can be put right at once and the unpleasant and often 
 fatal results averted. 
 
 But the usual way (being ignorant of how to man- 
 age skillfully) is to continue the conditions which first 
 induced the discordant state of stomach ; and then 
 liver, spleen, intestines, etc., become involved, and 
 these parts of the manufactory, doing their work in an 
 imperfect way, fail to furnish proper nourishment to 
 the nerve centers, which produces a failure in all parts 
 of the body, and general disaster, as any educated 
 physician can explain. 
 
 It is found possible to desensitize the human body 
 to a degree and often wholly. Every patient can 
 withdraw sensation enough to prevent acute pain 
 from the nerves. This done, inflammation cannot 
 set up its law, and suppuration does not follow. The 
 phathological sequences are estopped by reason of the 
 withdrawal of the active agent. 
 
 The effect of partial desensitization of body is to 
 
142 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 permit the free swing of the recuperative forces of 
 nature, and all practitioners are aware of the wonders 
 performed by that agent when the destructive causes 
 are quickly and thoroughly removed. In cases of 
 fever, the writer has seen the temperature of the patient 
 go down to normal in a very few minutes after mental 
 treatment has been applied. 
 
 In stomach troubles, the patient will eat any sort 
 of edible food freely and digest it with ease and free 
 from discomfort. An abundance of well authenticated 
 cases are known to all practitioners who keep informed 
 on the progress of the day. 
 
 Given the ability to set the digestive organs prop- 
 erly to work, almost any form of disease must yield 
 to the powerful effect of good blood. New and good 
 tissue is built quickly, and good rich blood is a better 
 germicide than bichloride of mercury. Let us, there- 
 fore, instruct our patients how to get out of the des- 
 perate states produced by an ugly, evil, and depressing 
 state of mind, dwelling in the lower intellect, and 
 seeking their good only from the plane of material. 
 
 You ask how to proceed in withdrawing sensation 
 from body ? — A mental operator can produce this con- 
 dition in a patient ; but to handle the subject skill- 
 fully, requires instruction more in detail than is 
 possible in this book. 
 
 To withdraw sensation from yonr own 
 body when in pain or sickness, fix your mind as fol- 
 lows, “ throw your soul into it,” and let not one single 
 do.ubt arise. Know you can. ‘ ‘ I am eternal, one with 
 God, Life, Power, Energy. I am mind, not body. 
 Body is nothing. I am Soul, and have no material 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 43 
 
 body just now. I leave the dream of the material 
 plane, and am now dwelling with Life, the Father, 
 and, by the law, I take upon myself the power of the 
 Father as I merge mentally into him. When I return 
 to body, it must obey as a good servant. Intellect, the 
 Butler of the household, must also recognize a master, 
 a kindly master, but one whose dictation is eternal 
 law, and there is no power but One , That One , I am 
 one with.” In other words, be soul, and not body, for 
 a time. 
 
 You will, upon return to body, find it quite easy 
 and on the high road to recovery. It will not take up 
 the pain again except when you admit it. Body 
 makes no pain, which is wholly a mental picture ; and 
 when you are asleep, or have “treated ” yourself by 
 thinking only with the higher mind, the mental picture 
 is wiped out forever unless you make a new one. 
 
 Gradually, as one becomes skilled in the 
 new art, they will learn to cast out all pictures of evil, 
 sin, envy, hate, and all forms of negative character, 
 and hold up to their mental mirror ideals of universal 
 Love. Know no evil or sin, no envy or hate. Know 
 no death. You are eternal, and the peace of the 
 Father comes when we know this. “ My Peace I 
 give unto you,” — not the peace of the world of ma- 
 teriality ; for we get no real peace when we think we 
 will finally die, and therefore must hurry, hurry to do 
 our life work. Peace, peace to you. You are simply 
 doing things in eternity, and there is no such thing as 
 end. Time is a principle, never-ending and never 
 having a beginning, but belonging to principles which 
 always existed. The human intellect demands a be- 
 
144 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 ginning and an end for all things. The higher mind 
 reaches over on to the higher plane, and reads there a 
 law not known on the plane of material or intellect, 
 that law teaches of ever-existing principles, requir- 
 ing no creation or beginning, but existing' on the plane 
 of eternal Life, God ; and all sub-principles take their 
 being there. Health, Life, Good, Love are some of 
 these, and they have no opposites except in the in- 
 verted mirror of a mesmerized human intellect. 
 
 Mind manages brain, and from brain radiate 
 the wires to carry orders to the various parts. If you 
 know how to meet the intellect of another on its unseen 
 plane, and overpower it, you can usurp its place and 
 direct the brain of the individual just as he did formerly. 
 This is Hypnotism or Mesmerism. When you know 
 how to do this, and set up before the individual, 
 ideals of perfection, harmony, health of mind and 
 body, you have left the practice of mesmerism, and 
 merged over into the practice of Scientia Vitae — left 
 the plane of intellect and operate by and with the 
 One mind , the great universal Life Principle. 
 
 Each moment awake, the individual is guided 
 by some mental influence, and his body works it 
 out, or rather he shows the quality and character 
 of his line of thought, by his body. Now if the 
 operator can improve the patient’s harmonious motives 
 and dismiss his inharmonious influences, the principle 
 of this line of therapeutics is at least partly under- 
 stood. 
 
 You will agree that a patient in “high spirits” is 
 practically a case won. To put them there and give 
 them an understanding old how to keep there is a 
 key-note. 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 145 
 
 Material remedies can be dismissed when 
 you get your patient in this condition ; for the ma- 
 chinery is at work in fine rhythm, and Nature is the 
 only remedial agent after all. 
 
 I find that cases where (as in erysipelas and rheu- 
 matism) acute pain attends, the pain may by dismissed 
 instantly ifi many cases. In other cases it requires 
 from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, while in some 
 cases the best that can be done is partially to desen- 
 sitize them, and the pain gradually leaves. In all cases' 
 where there be structural change, such as swollen face, 
 or members, the swelling disappears gradually and 
 quite according to law. 
 
 The active disease having been killed, nature sets 
 up its rebuilt structure quickly and perfectly. 
 
 Knowing that no action has been taken by the 
 operator, to use inward or outward material remedies, 
 but that the me7ital pictures of disease and pain have 
 been wiped out and a new set of motives of health 
 and harmony put in their place, — while the patient 
 is in a mild way in possession of the operator ; it is 
 prima-facie evidence of the fact that disease is en- 
 tirely a mental picture , which may be wiped out by 
 some mental change almost any time in the history 
 of the cause, and various cases may bring about the 
 destruction of the imprint on the sensitized photo- 
 graphic plate. 
 
 The surest way to thoroughly to destroy the picture 
 of disease, is to instruct the patient in the unreality of 
 sin and disease , and in the power and reality of Life’s 
 harmony. 
 
 We are so constructed that a happy thought places 
 the individual in a perfect haven of peace just at that 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 NATURAL SUGGESTION, 
 
 moment — no pain, no evil, no disease, no deatfg 
 nothing but harmony and content. Scientia Vitae 
 undertakes to instruct one how to continue the happy, 
 peaceful line of thinking, and under its influence, 
 Life builds a physique, “ fit residence for the gods.’’ 
 Remove the depressing influences and nature per- 
 forms miracles. • 
 
 These facts lie at our feet, but have been stumbled 
 over, unheeded. Gather them into your understanding 
 and you have acquired the Science of all sciences, and 
 unlocked the mystery of life. “Man, Know thyself." 
 
 Physician, you have studied well the form, structure, 
 and texture of the shadow. In these times of rapid 
 unfoldment and occupancy of entirely new territory 
 in the progress of mankind, you are urged to the study 
 and analysis of the real being who casts the, shadow. 
 Take up your investigations now in the realm of cause, 
 force, Mind, and Life. 
 
 You have plodded long 1 enough in the mud 
 
 of Material. You know the statue well ; hasten to 
 form the intimate acquaintance of the sculptor. 
 
 It will be readily perceived that when the operator is 
 treating a patient by natural suggestion (given that the 
 patient is skillfully put in the proper condition), it is 
 an absolute essential that the mentality of the operator 
 hold only the perfect model, as intended by Supreme 
 Cause. Details need not be outlined and in some 
 cases better not, or the crude work of the apprentice 
 will be shown instead of the perfect work of the 
 Master. Dare to hold the laws of pathology before 
 you, or a diseased condition as real, and what could 
 you expect the dry plate (your patient) to print ? Nat- 
 
OR SCIENTIA VIT.E. 
 
 147 
 
 ural Suggestion means what the words indicate. 
 Hold the model of perfect peace and harmony in your 
 own mentality and your patient will print it The 
 process will also destroy any abnormal symptoms 
 which may exist in your own case, in which event the 
 saying, “ It is more blessed to give than to receive,” 
 will be more plainly understood. 
 
OUR KIND OF MAN 
 
 Not an Apollo with snow-white hand, 
 
 A trifle austere, nor yet too bland, 
 
 But a heart of gold all through and through, 
 And tender, and sympathetic, too — 
 
 Our kind of man. 
 
 Ah, one who, walking the world’s broad ways, 
 Sees little to blame, and much to praise, 
 
 Has cheer and smile for the weary throng, 
 And bold contempt for the bitter wrong — 
 Our kind of man. 
 
 Yea, one who, ignoring baser ends, 
 
 Liveth for home and the good of friends, 
 Where, self forgotten, broad manhood lies, 
 
 A star in the glory of the skies — 
 
 Our kind of man. 
 
 Who not for theories but for deeds, 
 
 Christ’s own apostle, without love for creeds, 
 The world’s brave prophet, after God’s plan, 
 In healing and teaching he leads the van — 
 Our kind of man. I* ’ 
 
 — Anon.