Genesis 1...The Creation of Divine Ideas

Genesis 1

(Online: ASV WEB)

The Creation of Divine Ideas

1 In the beginning, God*1 created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.

3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day”, and the darkness he called “night”. There was evening and there was morning, the first day.2

6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 God made the expanse, and divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky”. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.3

9 God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear;” and it was so. 10 God called the dry land “earth”, and the gathering together of the waters he called “seas”. God saw that it was good. 11 God said, “Let the earth yield grass, herbs yielding seeds, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with their seeds in it, on the earth;” and it was so. 12 The earth yielded grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with their seeds in it, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 There was evening and there was morning, a third day.4

14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth;” and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light to the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.5

20 God said, “Let the waters abound with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” 21 God created the large sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.6

24 God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures after their kind, livestock, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind;” and it was so. 25 God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the livestock after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.

26 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 God said, “Behold,† I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.

31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.7

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1. Elohim means God in absolute universality.
2. The first step in creation is the awakening of man to spiritual consciousness, the dawning of light in his mind, his perception of Truth through the quickening of his spirit.
3. The second step in creation is the development of faith or the "firmament." The "waters" represent the unestablished elements of the mind.
4. The third step in creation is the beginning of the formative activity of the mind called imagination.
5. The fourth step in creation is the development of the "two great lights," the will and the understanding, or the sun (the spiritual I AM) and the moon (the intellect).
6. The fifth step in creation is the bringing forth of sensation and discrimination. The "creatures" are thoughts. The "birds ... in the open firmament of heaven" are ideas approaching spiritual understanding.
7. The sixth step in creation is the bringing forth of ideas after their kind. When man approaches the creative level in his thought, he is getting close to God in his consciousness, and then the realization that he is the very image and likeness of his Creator dawns on him. This is the consciousness in man of Christ.

Fillmore Study Bible annotations compiled by Rev. Mark Hicks.

World English Bible Footnotes:

• * 1:1. The Hebrew word rendered “God” is “אֱלֹהִ֑ים” (Elohim).
• † 1:29. “Behold”, from “הִנֵּה”, means look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at. It is often used as an interjection.
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https://www.truthunity.net/web/genesis#1

Step Into The Picture, (Who GOD Really Is)

Step Into The Picture, (Who GOD Really Is)

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We are told: “With God, all things are possible.” I think anyone who believes in God would say “yes”  to that. But then we are told that: “God is Spirit, and the Spirit of God dwells in us.” I think any man  who believes that should make every effort to find out who God really is who “dwells in us.” He is  Spirit, and “the Spirit of God dwells in us.” This God creates all things. “By Him all things were made, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” 

So everything in the world, regardless of what it is, — for we are told: “I form the light, and I create darkness; I make the weal, and I create the woe. I am the Lord who do all these things.” Well surely, we should make every effort to find out who He is. 

I firmly believe, from my own experiences, that this God of whom the Bible speaks is our own wonderful human imagination; that God and the human imagination are one; that all natural effects in the world, though they are created by the Spirit of God, are caused by Spirit. So, every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems; it is a delusion of ours, a fading, I would say, “memory.” (Blake, from “Milton”) For here in this world I can’t quite remember when I imagined that which is now taking place in my world. I do not recall it. I can’t quite remember when I set it in motion. 

But if this is Law, — and a Law that no man can break, — at some time, somewhere, I imagined what I am now encountering; that my present moment is not really receding into the past; it is advancing into the future to confront me, but I forgot it. And I now think it has a natural or physical cause, and it does not have a natural cause. 

“Every natural effect has a spiritual cause,” or the Bible is completely wrong. For we are told: “By Him all things were made,” — without exception; “and without Him was not anything made that was made.” And: “He is Spirit,” and “the Spirit of God dwells in me.” Well, if He dwells in me, I have identified Him with my imagination. Only on this level, I do not remember having imagined it; but along the way, I must have if this is Principle. 

Now let me share with you some of my experiences. We are in this room tonight, and the room — at this moment — is more real to us than anything in the world. It has a cubic reality, because we are in it. Think of your home; you know your home far better than you know this room, but your home — at this moment — is not as real as this room. This room now occupies reality to you, and everything else is shadowy as you think of it. Why is this real? Because you have entered it. You are in it. You occupy it. 

This I know from experience. Sitting in a chair, suddenly I am seeing what reason tells me I should not see. I am seeing what seems to be the interior of a home. Or lying on my bed, I see the interior, — or it seems to be, — of a great hotel, an unoccupied suite ready for occupancy but not occupied. It was just as vivid as any painting of a great artist. An artist would give us the impression of a three-dimensional picture. We know, for reason tells us, that it is on a flat surface; it is simply depicting three dimensions, but it is all on a flat surface. 

Well, while seated in the chair or lying on my bed, my consciousness follows vision, and I entered that room. I actually occupied it. I came back to where I was seated, on one occasion, —to where I was lying on my bed on another; and then I went back, and again it took on a cubic reality. I came back knowing exactly what I am doing, and knowing this whole thing makes no sense whatsoever to the rational mind, but I cannot deny what I am experiencing. Here I have the evidence, — no one to share it with, but I have the evidence. I came back, and then went back into the picture. At the moment I entered the picture, it took on cubic reality; and after doing it maybe a dozen times or more, I said to myself, “I am going to explore. This time I am going to go right into it and remain there and explore,” which I did. 

So I stepped into the picture; and as it closed around me, from my bed it seemed to be thirty by twenty; but when I stepped into it, determined this time to keep going regardless of consequences, it closed around me, a third of what it seemed to be as I looked at it from the bed. So thirty by twenty became ten by seven. I found it to be a dressing room — a dressing room of a huge, wonderful suite ready for occupancy. No one was in it; I am the only occupant now. I came out by opening up a door. I didn’t go through it by some vapor; I actually opened the door, and to myself I was solidly real, just like the man who is talking to you now. 

My hand could open a door, and the door was solid and it was real, and I went through the door. I entered the corridor. It was a nice, wide corridor dimly lit. At the end of the corridor, intersecting it was a brilliantly lit corridor. I walked down to the very end; and when I got to the end, here is this luminous, luminous, wonderful corridor. 

I saw two ladies coming down the corridor. I knew exactly what I was doing. I knew how it began; it began by seeing what seemed to me just a vision, like a painting. I knew that I left my bed, my consciousness following vision, and entered the painting; and the painting took on cubic reality. I knew it: so I call that a “dream.” Knowing it began as a dream, I said to myself, “It has still to be a dream. But I am dreaming now awake. I am not dreaming sleeping; I am fully awake, and it is a dream.” 

And I said to the ladies as they came by, “Ladies, this is all a dream.” They did exactly what any nice ladies would do — a stranger standing in a corridor and saying to them, “This whole thing is a dream.” They thought they were looking at a mad man. So they got as far removed from me as they could, and got right next to the wall. But the wall was as solidly real as that wall (indicating) They couldn’t go through it any more than I could. 

While looking at them, — and they are frightened to death, — they walked quickly by; and then I saw something hanging, like a chandelier. It reminded me of an object that I had seen about six months before in a friend’s home, and he said to me, “You can hardly tell that this thing is suspended. If you look closely, there is an almost invisible thread that connects it to the ceiling.” So I looked, and I did see that very little, thin thread connecting this to the ceiling. Then I was convinced, — “Well, it is a dream. This is a memory image of what I saw in my friend’s home.” 

So again, I said to the ladies, “Look, this must be all gossamer.” But as I held it, it was solidly real. It was just as solid as this (indicating). That surprised me. They kept on moving, and they moved rapidly towards the end; and here I am, holding this thing in my hand. I took my hand off and I said to myself, “Now you know it began as a dream, Neville, and this still has to be a dream. All ends run true to origins, and the origin of this experience of yours was a dream. So this must be a dream.” But it is not a dream. I am just as awake as I am now, talking to you, as I was talking to those ladies. 

When they got to the end, they looked back at this mad person. In their eyes, I was mad, and they simply disappeared by stepping down a few steps into what undoubtedly was the great reception room, the foyer of a huge, big hotel. 

Then I said to myself, “You know, — how are you going to get back? How are you going to get back? There is no road leading back to that bed on which you left a body. You have unfinished business. You have a wife and an uneducated daughter who has the ambition to go to college, and she’s now only in high school; and you have left inadequate funds to take care of your obligations to your wife and daughter. You’ve got to get back.” 

How to get back? I couldn’t go through that door that led from the suite of rooms into the corridor and find any exit from there back to where I lived in Beverly Hills. What on earth am I going to do? I knew — reason told me that if I don’t get back within a very short time, they will find that body on the bed and they will have to examine it, and they will declare it a heart attack or something; but they have got to find a physical cause for it. And here, I am looking at something entirely different. It will “die” all right if I don’t get back. I must get back. Then I remembered a similar experience that happened years before when feeling brought me back. 

Feeling awoke me in a dream. I found myself on a beach. It wasn’t Barbados. It was more like the Pacific Islands. I have not been there, but I had been born in the tropics; so I knew exactly what they must look like. But it was not the West Indies; it was the East Indies. And here, I know I am dreaming. I thought to myself, “1 wonder if I held a physical object and forced myself to wake, if I would wake?” So, I tried it. I held onto a pile driven into the beach there — a solid mass of cement. As I held it, I said, “I am not going to let go; I am going to awake right here.” So I held it; and as I held it, I said, “Come on, awake: You know you are dreaming.” And I felt myself come to, as a person comes to when they are waking in the morning. I awoke and there I am, completely awake, wading in the water, holding onto this object. Then I went towards the beach, and a strange, peculiar animal approached me, and it scared me. I got back through fright, and I awoke in that water through feeling. 

Now, I am not afraid of what I am doing. My only concern is to get back and take care of my obligations in life, which is my wife and my daughter. Now, how to get back? I am not afraid. I said, “I can’t frighten myself, because I am not afraid.” But I thought feeling would do it. So I closed my eyes, and I imagined that my head was on a pillow, and that I could feel the pillow; and then after a little while when I opened my eyes, I am still standing in the corridor. I tried it again; and then by the third time, as I tried it, I could feel something under my head. I allowed that to remain; then suddenly I could feel it. 

I tried to open my eyes, and I couldn’t this time. Instead of standing as I am now, perpendicular, I feel I am lying horizontally. So I felt, “Well, I must be back now,” but I couldn’t move my body. The body was cataleptic and I am frozen like this. Then in about, — oh, maybe, twenty seconds or so, I could move this little finger. I couldn’t open my eyes. In a little while I could move from the elbow down; and then, with tremendous effort, I could move the arm, and I pushed it out to feel the warm body of my wife. Then I knew I was back, but I hadn’t yet been able to open the eyes. 

Then, with a tremendous effort, 1 could open the lid, and see the familiar objects in the room that I had left behind me. Then I knew what makes everything real in this world: “The Spirit of God dwells in me,” and He is my own wonderful human imagination. I walked into a thing that I could only see lying upon my bed. Entering that state, it took on a cubic reality. God made this world real by entering it. As we are told, He is not only translucent — I would say, in a translucent manner; we are told, He is above all. He is also through all, and He is in all. If He is through all, He is Omnipresent. If He is in all, He is immanent. Then I am told, He dwells in me. He is in me, He is in you, He is in everyone. 

Am I now confined to this little place here at the podium? I am not. I proved that that night. I have proved it unnumbered times since. I am not actually confined to where this body is. I dwell in it; and He who dwells in it is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is my imagination. 

I have proven to my own satisfaction that my imagination can travel. I don’t have to stand here and think of my home. I can stand here and penetrate my home, leaving the body here as I did on the bed; and penetrating the home, the home becomes a cubic reality, as it will tonight when I take this body home and enter my door. The house is a cubic reality. But must I wait until I get home tonight in this body to give it that? Can I not now, knowing Who God is, — God is Spirit, and He is now encased in this little garment of flesh; but He is Spirit, and I have discovered He is my own wonderful human imagination. 

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So when man “dies,” he cannot die; only the garment that he “wears” can die. But that Being that he really is, is all imagination. And as He enters, wherever He enters, it takes on cubic reality. That I have proven. The Immortal You cannot die. It did not begin. So when you leave this world, because you are all imagination, — the very moment that you depart, you are in some state; but, you being there, you give it cubic reality. That world is just as real as this world. It’s terrestrial, just as this world is; and no one in this world can “die.” Everything dwells in your own wonderful human imagination. 

The purpose, now, is to awaken that Being in you, so He is fully conscious at all times. That is the purpose of life. He who came down and took upon Himself the weaknesses and the limitations of this garment and confined Himself to it, is destined to awaken while He walks this earth. And by “this earth,” I mean this earth to the senses; but it does not end where my senses cease to register it. It doesn’t terminate at the point called “death,” because the Being in it goes on, and He is still in the world. But His entrance into that state gives it a cubic reality just like this room now because we are in it. 

Now we come down to a practical use of this Law. Because this is so, your dream now is shadowy. You would like to be other than what you are. I think everyone does in this world. It’s a form of growing and growing; and we grow, and we outgrow. So you would like to be it. But to those who are not in their dream, it’s shadowy — a mere possibility. But to those who enter into the dream, it seems the only substance. 

A man who is now poor and embarrassed because of his poverty — he can still dream, and dream of wealth, dream of security; but it’s a shadowy state. It is something that seems to him almost impossible if he is going to use reason. He will say, “How is this thing possible? Because I have no background either intellectually or financially or socially to even hope to achieve that sort of thing.” But if he knows who He really is — the Spirit of God who creates all things dwells in him, and that he can detach that Indwelling Being from the body that he “wears,” and actually enter his dream, — the dream will take on reality. And, if he persists in it, it will objectify itself in this world. 

I know that from many problems that I have had. When I was told that I could not do this or I could not do that; having remembered experiences that were all mystical, I applied them to practical things, and they work just as well in the practical state. I entered into my dream. It was a dream. 

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When I was in the Army, I couldn’t get out; but I wanted to get out, and I wanted to get out honorably. I did not wish to be dishonorably discharged. I wanted to go through this world as a very honest — I would say, clean, wholesome American citizen, and not when asked the question, “Were you ever in the Army?” and then they say, “Were you honorably discharged?” and have to say, “No, I was dishonorably discharged.” I didn’t want that on my record. So, I would not run away from the Army. I wanted out of it, and to get out of it before the end of the war, and to get out of it honorably; so I took the same lesson that I had learned, and I applied it to that. 

So while in the Army, I assumed that I am in my home in New York City two thousand miles away. I was in Camp Pope, Louisiana; and I had an apartment in New York City in Washington Square. So going to bed physically at Camp Pope, I went to bed in imagination in my home in New York City, —  not there on furlough, not there on some little escape, but there honorably discharged. Then I got off my imaginary bed, walked all through my apartment and saw everything that I would see if I were there. It took on cubic reality. 

When I awoke the next morning, I was still in Camp Pope, Louisiana; but that night a strange thing happened to me. It was 4:15 in the morning, and here a sheet came before my eyes, and on this sheet a hand appeared from here down holding a pen, and the pen wrote: “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing.” First of all, the voice said that, but the pen scratched out my disapproval, for I applied for a discharge, and my Colonel disapproved it. He said, “Disallowed,’ and signed it “Colonel Theodore Bilboe, Jr.” That was his name, which is on a record. You can look it up, for he was the one who disallowed my application for discharge. And the hand simply scratched it out, and over that it wrote in: “Approved,” — this hand holding a pen. Then the voice said to me: “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing.” What did he do? He scratched out the Colonel’s disapproval, and he wrote in, “Approved.” And then I awoke. 

Ten days later I was honorably discharged by that same Colonel, and he shook my hand; and as I left that base, he said, “I will see you after the war is over.” 

I said, “All right, Colonel. Thank you very much.” And that very night I was on a train back to my place in New York City. 

That’s how it works. I know from my own personal experience. I am sharing with you what I have experienced, both in the world of Caesar and in the world that is transcendent, something entirely different; so when I speak of being “born from above,” I am not theorizing. I am telling you exactly what happened to me. 

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When I speak of meeting the Son of God who calls me, “Father,” I am telling you exactly what happened to me. When I tell you I ascended into Heaven like a fiery serpent, as told in Scripture, that’s exactly what happened to me, When the dove descended upon my hand, and then smothered me with love, kissing me all over my face, my neck, my head, I know exactly what happened, because it happened to me. So I am only sharing with you, not theory, not speculation, but only what I know from my own experiences. 

So tonight, the most impossible thing in the world — and who is not confronted with it? I am, — an almost impossible thing that I have to actually deny the evidence of my senses and apply my Principle towards that event. I know it could not have happened — nothing happens by natural causes. Nothing in this world happens by a natural cause; it’s all spiritual. And you may say —and the world will say — it happened because you did so-and-so over a period of time and that is the cause of your present physical ailment. It isn’t so at all 

You admire someone intensely, and try to duplicate their every act in this world, and you wish you were just like them; and they depart this world by a similar experience, and never once did the physical things that you are accused of having done that are the cause of what is happening to you. Never for one moment did it ever occur to her, the one she admired, to actually do for one moment what this one, suffering from the identical thing, is now suffering. And the world will say you are suffering from it because of a physical cause. Had you not done for 40 years what you have done, it could not happen; but yet her own loving mother that she worshiped beyond anyone in this world, and tried so much to emulate, never once in her life smoked a cigarette. She would take an occasional little drink — an occasional a little drink, but very sweet, very weak; and died of the very thing that she now is suffering from. There was no one in this world that she worshiped more than her mother. 

That imaginal act in the beginning of time — and the whole thing came forward, and now she is fulfilling completely her ideal to be just like her mother. And the world will tell me that the thing that is happening to her is caused by a physical state. It isn’t so at all. I could duplicate that and multiply it by the unnumbered number, if man only had a memory that could retain the imaginal acts of the past. 

“Every natural effect has a spiritual cause, and not a natural. A natural cause only seems. It is a delusion of the perishing vegetable memory.” (Blake, from “Milton”) 

If man could only bear in mind that every simple little imaginal act sends a quiver through Omniscience, right through Omnipotence, and right through Immanence so the whole thing is like a huge, big computer, — your imaginal act instantly is added to the sum total of it all; and instantly the whole, thing is changed, and the world is reflecting every imaginal act in this world of man, and keeping it all perfectly recorded, so that there is no such thing as a natural cause. It is all a spiritual cause. 

“All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” 

And where does He dwell? He dwells in us, for He is Spirit, and “the Spirit of God dwells in us.” He dwells in us, and I have, by experiment, discovered what that Spirit is; and I tell you from my own experience, the Spirit of God and the human imagination are one. They are not two. 

So when you depart this world, your reality — which is the Spirit of God - is your own wonderful human imagination; and that gives cubic reality to everything in this world if you enter it. Now, the secret is to enter it. Can I enter the state of my wish fulfilled? Those other states were simply experiments. Can I enter the state of the wish fulfilled? I have done it. On several occasions I have. When it seemed essential, I did it. If someone asked of me, I tried my best to do it. And how do I do it? By feeling. 

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As we are told in the 17th chapter of Acts: “Happy is the man that feels after Him and finds Him,” — he is speaking now of God, — “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” 

He has just got through speaking to the Athenians. He said, “Oh, men of Athens, I see that you are very religious; but I notice over your temple an inscription to the Unknown God. Now, the one you worship as unknown, I will reveal to you, for He is not a God afar off. He is near, that you may feel after Him and find Him; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” So the God of Whom I speak is never so far off as even to be near, for nearness implies separation. No matter how near he is, that’s not the God. He can’t be near because I AM He. “Be still and know that I AM God.” That is what you are told in the 46th Psalm, the 10th verse. 

“Be still,” — why? That you may know “I AM He.” I am God. So the fundamental sin of Scripture is the lack of faith in “I AM He.” As you are told, “You will die in your sins,” — that is, you will die missing the mark, — “unless you believe I AM He.” 

“And before that the world was, I AM.” 

“Before Abraham was, I AM.” 

So “I AM” can’t he near; that’s the core of my being. I can say, “I am a man,” and that’s something near. “I have a hand”; that is near. “1 am rich”; that is near. “I am poor”; that is near. But before I can say anything, I must first establish the sense of being, and that is I AM. So I must first be, before I can be anything in this world. And so, the lack of faith in that reality is the fundamental sin. 

So here I share with you what I have discovered. I have discovered that your own wonderful human imagination is the Spirit of God, and that you can enter any state in this world, and on entrance, it ceases to be a flat surface, depicting reality. It is reality. Why? Because you are the reality who dwells in it. Wherever you are, things are real. If you are not in it, then they are not real. They go to their flat surfaces. 

And all things exist in the human imagination. We are called upon to select that state in which we will dwell — the state that we will enter and make real in our world. And I do it by simply feeling. What would the feeling be like, were it true? 

How would I feel, were it true? And how would I see the world, were it true? Then I feel myself into that state, and try to give it all the tones of reality, all the sensory vividness that I can. If I can give it sensory vividness and the tones of reality, even though I do not see it, it will work; but sometimes it becomes so vivid and so intense, you do see it. The whole thing opens. Your eye opens, and the whole thing is real; and then you are in an entirely different world — the world of your dreams, for because you entered it, it is real. 

But whether the eye opens or not, it will still work, may I tell you? This is the Law spoken of in Scripture; and because no Creator in the world exists but God, — He is the only one, — He has to create good and evil. If there is good and evil, God does it. If there is darkness and light, God did it. 

He said, “I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal, and none can deliver out of my hands.” We think a “devil” kills and God makes alive; that the devil wounds and God heals. It’s God who kills and God who wounds, and God who makes alive and God who heals. There is only God. Read it in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy. 

“I, even I, am He, and there is no God beside me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and none can deliver out of my hands.” And the God spoken of in that chapter is seated here in everyone who is seated, for that one in you is the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is your own wonderful human imagination. So blame no one in this world for anything that befalls you. 

It’s too late to share with you an experience of mine last Sunday morning, but I will on Friday. I asked for it. I woke at 1 :30 and thinking of many things concerning my dear wife, I asked for some wonderful experience now, and then fell asleep. And it came in the most glorious manner while I was waking at 6:15. 1 ran straight to my yellow pad and wrote the whole thing down. It was the most vivid experience in answer. Because I wove myself into an experience, it had to take place. What experience it would be, I left it in the depths of my own Being to decide that. But give me some wonderful experience this night in answer to something; and then came the most glorious experience. And then I wrote the whole thing down. It’s too long to tell tonight. I will tell you on Friday if you are here. Or whether you are here or not, I will tell it on Friday. 

Let us go into the Silence. 

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Now, are there any questions, please? 

A Lady: What is the difference in the reality factor between the body on the bed and what they call astral projection? Is there a difference? 

Neville: Well I have had out-of-body experiences of what the world would call astral projection, but they are not anything like this. I am convinced that the Thing-That-You-Really-Are is dreaming what you believe yourself to be. One day you will awake; and you and the dreamer of you will be one. I have seen myself out of this body many times, but it is not that of which I speak today. 

Any other questions, please? 

Another Lady: If you have time, I would like to hear again the story that you told about an experience you had in the past where you tried to get through a wall, and you couldn’t get through it. 

Neville: That was really an astral projection. I was living in my hotel room in New York City; and I felt this peculiar force in my head, and I moved out in a circular motion — or rather, a spiral motion, and I found myself on the beach. I didn’t know anyone, but I knew I had just left a body on the bed in New York City. I was more curious about how that thing happened than about the people on the beach. They meant nothing to me. So I inwardly wished to return and duplicate it, but this time not to go to the beach, but to actually come down in the room and observe the body out of which I had just spun. So I had no sooner wished it then I came back into the body; and I am in the body, and I am not in the body. 

But now the same motion is taking place, the same intensity; but this time, as I whirled out in a spiral motion, I willed myself to come back into that room and not go elsewhere. I wanted to see exactly how this thing works. So I came into the hotel room, and there was the body on the bed. The face is covered with a cloud. There are breaks in the cloud; and through the breaks in the cloud I can see my face, but only through breaks in the cloud. And here I am looking at this “thing,” — I call it a “thing” because the Reality is looking at it. That which I always believed to be my reality, my self that I shave in the morning, that I bathe in the morning and I feed all through the day, — that’s only an envelope.I am the Being looking at it. 

Well I figured: Now, if I am now out, I am Spirit; therefore I could easily go through the wall. And so, I ran towards the wall and ran at it and bumped my head. I came back and was thinking to myself, that’s crazy. Spirit, — there is the thing that should bump its head, not me. I ran again, and I bumped my head again. I came back and this time I said, “Now, there must be some way that it can be done because I am Spirit.” 

I imagined myself out of that room, and instantly I was where I imagined myself. The mere fact that I saw the wall as a barrier, it was a harrier to me; and so, trying to go through it, I was going against my own rational mind, and so I bumped it. But when I stood in the room, not going through any wall or any door, I simply imagined myself elsewhere, and I was elsewhere. 

So that’s how I learned that lesson, — with a good bump. Now that was an involuntary projection. I have had many voluntary ones. But I am not talking of that. That is behind me now. That is like child’s play. I am speaking of God in us, who is called in Scripture “Jesus Christ,” for the divine body of God is your own wonderful human imagination, which is one with God, who is Jesus Christ. That’s the Lord. 

And may I tell you, in the end, although all these bumps and these horrors of the world, in the end, He is Infinite Love. He appears at first as power — destructive violence; but in the end, it was Love behind it all — just sheer Love — nothing but Love in the end. And that is God. 

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Neville Goddard 5-10-1971 

Source

https://archive.org/stream/NevilleGoddard002/step_into_the_picture_djvu.txt

What Did Jesus Teach?

What Did Jesus Teach?

What Did Jesus Teach? 

What did Jesus teach? What did he really wish us to believe and to do? What were the objects that he really had at heart? And how far did he actually succeed in accomplishing these objects in his life and in his death? How far has the religion or movement called Christianity, as it has existed for the last nineteen centuries, really expressed or represented his ideas? How far does the Christianity of today present his message to the world? If he should come back now, what would he say of the self-styled Christian nations in general, and of the Christian churches in particular—of the Anglicans, the Baptists, the Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Salvationists, the Seventh Day Adventists, or the Unitarians; to cite them alphabetically? What did Jesus teach?

This is the question which I have set myself to answer in this book. I propose to show that the message which Jesus brought has a unique value because it is the Truth, and the only perfect statement of the Truth of the nature of God and of man, and of life, and of the world; and of the relationships which exist between them. And far more than this, we shall find that his teaching is not a mere abstract account of the universe, which would be of very little more than academic interest; but that if constitutes a practical method for the development of the soul and for the shaping of our lives and destinies into the things that we really wish them to be.

Jesus explains to us what the nature of God is, and what our own nature is; tells us the meaning of life and of death; shows us why we make mistakes; why we yield to temptation; why we become sick, and impoverished, and old; and, most important of all, he tells us how all these evils may be overcome, and how we may bring health, happiness, and true prosperity into our lives, and into the lives of others, if they really wish for them, too.

The first thing that we have to realize is a fact of fundamental importance, because it means breaking away from all the ordinary prepossessions of orthodoxy. The plain fact is that Jesus taught no theology whatever. His teaching is entirely spiritual or metaphysical. Historical Christianity, unfortunately, has largely concerned itself with theological and doctrinal questions which, strange to say, have no part  whatever in the Gospel teaching. It will startle many good people to learn that all the doctrines and theologies of the churches are human inventions built up by their authors out of their own mentalities, and foisted upon the Bible from the outside; but such is the case. There is absolutely no system of theology of doctrine to be found in the Bible; it simply is not there. Worthy people who felt the need of some intellectual explanation of life, and also believed that the Bible was a revelation of God to man, drew the natural conclusion that the one must be within the other; and then, more or less unconsciously, proceeded to manufacture the thing that they wished to find. They did not have the spiritual or metaphysical key. They were not upon what is called the Spiritual Basis, and consequently they sought a purely intellectual or three-dimensional explanation of life—and there can be no such explanation.

The actual explanation of man's life lies in just the fact that he is essentially spiritual and eternal, and that this world, and the life that we know intellectually, is, so to speak, but a cross section of the full truth concerning him and a cross section of anything—from a machine to a horse—never can furnish even a partial explanation of the whole

Glimpsing one tiny corner of the universe, and that with only half opened eyes, and working from an exclusively anthropocentric and geocentric point of view, men built up absurd and very horrible fables about a limited and man-like God who conducted his universe very much as a rather ignorant and barbarous prince might conduct the affairs of a small Oriental kingdom. All sorts of human weaknesses, such as vanity, fickleness, and spite, were attributed to this being. Then a farfetched and very inconsistent legend was built up concerning original sin, vicarious blood atonement, infinite punishment for finite transgressions; and, in certain cases, an unutterably horrible doctrine of predestination to eternal torment, or eternal bliss, was added. Now, no such theory as this is taught in the Bible. If it were the object of the Bible to teach it, it would be clearly stated in a straightforward manner in some chapter or other; but it is not. 

The "Plan of Salvation" which figured so prominently in the evangelical sermons and divinity books of a past generation is as completely unknown to the Bible as it is to the Koran. There never was any such arrangement in the universe, and the Bible does not teach it at all. What has happened is that certain obscure texts from Genesis, a few phrases taken here and there from Paul's letters, and one or two isolated verses from other parts of the Scriptures, have been taken out and pieced together by divines, to produce the kind of teaching which it seemed to them ought to have been found in the Bible. Jesus knows nothing of all this. He is indeed anything but a Pollyanna, as they say, or cheap optimist. He warns us, not once but often, that obstinacy in sin can bring very, very severe punishment in its train, and that a man who parts with the integrity of his soul—even though he gain the whole world—is a tragic fool. But he teaches that we are only punished for—and actually punished by—our own mistakes; and he teaches that every man or woman, no matter how steeped in evil and uncleanness, has always direct access to an all-loving, all-powerful Father-God, who will forgive him, and supply His own strength to him to enable him to find himself again; and unto seventy times seven, if need be.

Jesus has been sadly misunderstood and misrepresented in other directions too. For instance, there is no warrant whatever in his teaching for the setting up of any form of Ecclesiasticism, of any hierarchy of officials or system or ritual. He did not authorize any such thing, and, in fact, the whole tone of his mentality is definitely anti-ecclesiastical. All through his public life he was at war with the ecclesiastics and other religious officials of his own country. They first hindered, and then persecuted him, with a perfectly sound instinct of self-preservation— they felt instinctively that the Truth, as he taught it, was the beginning of the end for them—and they finally had him put to death. Their pretensions to authority as the representatives of God, he ignored completely; and for their ritual and their ceremonies he evinced only impatience and contempt.

It seems that human nature is very prone to believe what it wants to believe, rather than to incur the labor of really searching the Scriptures with an open mind. Perfectly sincere men, for example, have appointed themselves Christian leaders, with the most imposing and pretentious titles, and then clothed themselves in elaborate and gorgeous vestments the better to impress the people, in spite of the fact that their Master, in the plainest language, strictly charged his followers that they must do nothing of the kind. "But be ye not called Rabbi: for one is your master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren" (Matt. 23:8). And he denounced the Pharisees as hypocrites because "they love the chief seats," and "bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne," with all sorts of rules and regulations.

Jesus, as we shall discover later on, made a special point of discouraging the laying of emphasis upon outer observances; and, indeed, upon hard and-fast rules and regulations of every kind. What he insisted upon was a certain spirit in one's conduct, and he was careful to teach principles only, knowing that when the spirit is right, details will take care of themselves; and that, in fact, "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," as was so obviously seen in the sad example of the Pharisees. Yet, in spite of this, the history of orthodox Christianity is largely made up of attempts to enforce all sorts of external observances upon the people. A striking case in illustration of this is the Puritan attempt to enforce the Old Testament Sabbath upon Christians, although the Sabbath law was a purely Hebrew ordinance, and the ferocious penalties involved in neglecting it applied exclusively to the desecration of Saturday; and in spite of the fact that Jesus particularly discouraged superstitious Sabbath observance, saying that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and making a point of doing anything that he wanted to do upon that day. He clearly indicates throughout his teaching that the time has come when man must make each and every day a spiritual Sabbath by knowing and doing all things in a spiritual light.

It is obvious that even if the Hebrew Sabbath were binding upon Christians, then, since they do not observe it in keeping Sunday, they will still incur all the consequences of Sabbath breaking. 

Many modern Christians do, however, realize that there is no system of theology in the Bible unless one likes to put it there deliberately, and they have practically given up theology altogether; but they still cling to Christianity because they feel intuitively that it is the Truth. There is really no logical justification for their attitude, since they do not possess the Spiritual Key which alone makes the teaching of Jesus intelligible, and so they endeavor to rationalize their attitude in various ways. This is the dilemma of the man who has neither the blind faith of orthodoxy nor the spiritual interpretation of Scientific Christianity to support him. He has not a leg to stand on that does not belong to the old-fashioned Unitarian. If he does not reject miracles altogether, he is at least very uneasy about them. They embarrass him, and he wishes they were not in the Bible at all, and would be glad in his heart to be well rid of them.

 A "Life of Jesus" recently published by a well-known clergyman clearly illustrates how false this position is. In this book he concedes that Jesus may have healed some people, or helped them to heal themselves, but he draws the line there. He explains away into nothingness all the other miracles. They were the usual fantastic legends that center about all great historical figures, he thinks. On the lake, for instance, the disciples were thoroughly frightened, until they thought of Jesus, and the thought of him calmed their fears. This was subsequently exaggerated into an absurd tale that he had come to them in person walking upon the water. Another time, it appears, he reformed a sinner, raising him out of a grave of sin, and this was expanded, years and years afterwards, into a ridiculous legend that he had really revived a dead man. Again, Jesus prayed fervently one night, so that he looked most radiantly happy, and Peter, who had fallen asleep, woke up with a start; and years afterward he told some confused story about believing that he saw Moses there—so much for the Transfiguration. And so forth. And so forth.

Now, one must extend every sympathy to the special pleadings of a man enthralled by the beauty and mystery of the Gospels, but who, in the absence of the Spiritual Key, seems to find his common sense and all the scientific knowledge of mankind flouted by much that these Gospels contain. But this simply will not do. If the miracles did not happen, the rest of the Gospel story loses all real significance. If Jesus did not believe them to be possible, and undertake to perform them—never, it is true, for the sake of display, but still constantly and repeatedly—if he did not believe and teach many things in flat contradiction to eighteenth and nineteenth-century rationalistic philosophy, then the Gospel message is chaotic, contradictory, and devoid of all significance. We cannot ride away from the dilemma by saying that Jesus was not interested in the current beliefs and superstitions of his time; that he took them more or less for granted passively; because what really interested him was character. This is a feeble argument, because character must include both an intelligent and a vital all-round reaction to life. Character must include some definite beliefs and convictions concerning things that really matter. 

But the miracles did happen. All the deeds related of Jesus in the four Gospels did happen, and many others too, "the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." Jesus himself justified what people thought to be a strange and wonderful teaching by the works he was able to do; and he went further and said, referring to those who study and practice his teaching: "The works that I do, ye shall do, and greater works."

Now what, after all, is a miracle? Those who deny the possibility of miracles on the ground that the universe is a perfect system of law and order, to the operation of which there can be no exceptions, are perfectly right. But the explanation is that the world of which we are normally aware, and with whose laws alone most people are acquainted, is only a fragment of the whole universe as it really is; and that there is such a thing as appealing from a lower to a higher law—from a lesser to a greater expression. Now the appeal from the lower to the higher law is not really a breach of law, for the possibility of such an appeal is part of the major constitution of the universe, and, therefore, in the sense of a real breach of law, miracles are impossible. Yet, in the sense that all the ordinary rules and limitations of the physical plane can be set aside or overridden by an understanding which has risen above them, miracles, in the colloquial sense of the word, can and do happen.

Let us suppose, for the sake of example, that on a certain Monday, your affairs are in such a condition that, humanly speaking, certain consequences are sure to follow before the end of the week. These may be legal consequences, perhaps of a very unpleasant nature following upon some decision of the courts; or they may be certain physical consequences in the human body. A competent physician may decide that a perilous operation will be absolutely necessary, or he may even feel it his duty to say that there is no chance for the recovery of the patient. Now, if someone can raise his consciousness above the limitations of the physical plane in connection with the matter—and this is only a scientific description of what is commonly called prayer—then the conditions on that plane will change, and, in some utterly unforeseen and normally impossible manner, the legal tragedy will melt away, and to the advantage, be it noted, of all parties to the case; or the patient will be healed instead of having to undergo the operation, or of having to die. 

In other words, miracles, in the popular sense of the word, can and do happen as the result of prayer. Prayer does change things. Prayer does make things happen quite otherwise than they would have happened had the prayer not been made. It makes no difference at all what sort of difficulty you may be in. It does not matter what the causes may have been that led up to it. Enough prayer will get you out of your difficulty if only you will be persistent enough in your appeal to God.

Prayer, however, is both a science and an art; and it was to the teaching of this science and this art that Jesus devoted the greater part of his ministry. The Gospel miracles happened because Jesus had the spiritual understanding that gave him greater power in prayer than anyone else before or since.

One other attempt to interpret the Gospels must be taken into consideration. Tolstoy endeavored to put forward the Sermon on the Mount as a practical guide to life, taking its precepts literally, at their face value, and ignoring the spiritual interpretation of which he was unaware, and excluding the Plane of Spirit in which he did not believe. Discarding the whole of the Bible except the four Gospels, and discounting all miracles, he made a heroic but futile attempt to combine Christianity and materialism; and, of course, he failed. His real place in history turns out to be not that of the founder of a new religious movement, but that of the man whose practical anarchism, promulgated with all the fire of genius, paved the way for the Bolshevik Revolution, even as Rousseau had cleared the road for the French Revolution. 

It is the Spiritual Key that unlocks the mystery of the Bible teaching in general, and of the Gospels in particular. It is the Spiritual Key that explains the miracles and shows that they were performed in order to prove to us that we too can perform miracles, and thereby overcome sin, sickness, and limitation. With this key we can afford to discard verbal inspiration and all superstitious literalism, and yet understand that the Bible really is the most precious and most authentic of all man's possessions. 

Externally, the Bible is a collection of inspired documents written by men of all kinds, in all sorts of circumstances, and over hundreds of years of time. The documents, as we have them, are seldom originals, but redactions and compilations of older fragments; and the names of the actual writers are seldom known for certain. This, however, does not affect the spiritual purpose of the Bible in the slightest degree; it is in fact quite immaterial. The book, as we have it, is an inexhaustible reservoir, of Spiritual Truth, compiled under Divine inspiration, and the actual route by which it reached its present form does not matter. The name of the writer of any particular chapter is really of no more importance than would be the name of his amanuensis, if he employed one. Divine Wisdom is the author; and that is all that concerns us. What is called the Higher Criticism concerns itself exclusively with externals, completely missing the spiritual content of the Scriptures, and from the spiritual point of view is of no importance. 

History, biography, lyrical and other poetic forms are various mediums through which the spiritual message is given in the Bible; and, above all, the parable is used to convey spiritual and metaphysical truth. In some cases, what was never intended to be more than a parable was, at one time, taken for literal statement of fact; and this often made the Bible seem to teach things which are opposed to common sense. The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is a case in point. Rightly understood, this is perhaps the most wonderful parable of all; it was never intended by its author to be taken for history, but literal-minded people did so take it, with all sorts of absurd consequences. 

The Spiritual Key to the Bible rescues us from all these difficulties, dilemmas, and seeming inconsistencies. It saves us from the false positions of Ritualism, Evangelicalism, and what is called Liberalism alike, because it gives us the Truth. And the Truth turns out to be nothing less than the amazing but undeniable fact that the whole outer world—whether it be the physical body, the common things of life, the winds and the rain, the clouds, the earth itself—is amenable to man's thought, and that he has dominion over it when he knows it. The outer world, far from being the prison of circumstances that it is commonly supposed to be, has actually no character whatsoever of its own, either good or bad. It has only the character that we give to it by our own thinking, it is naturally plastic to our thought, and this is so, whether we know it or not, and whether we wish it or not. 

All day long the thoughts that occupy your mind, your Secret Place, as Jesus calls it, are moulding your destiny for good or evil; in fact, the truth is that the whole of our life's experience is but the outer expression of inner thought. Now we can choose the sort of thoughts that we entertain. It will be a little difficult to break a bad habit of thought, but it can be done. We can choose how we shall think—in point of fact, we always do choose—and therefore our lives are just the result of the kind of thoughts we have chosen to hold; and therefore they are of our own ordering; and therefore there is perfect justice in the universe. No suffering for another man's original sin, but the reaping of a harvest that we ourselves have sown. We have free will, but our free will lies in our choice of thought.

This is in essence what Jesus taught. It is, as we shall see, the underlying message of the whole Bible; but it is not expressed with equal clearness throughout. In the earlier portion of the book it shines through but dimly on the whole, as the light from a heavily shrouded lamp; but, as time goes on, veil after veil is removed, and the light shines ever stronger and stronger, until, in the teaching of Jesus Christ, it pours forth clear and unimpeded. Truth never changes, but what we have to deal with on this plane is man's apprehension of the Truth, and, throughout historical time, this has been steadily and continuously improving. In fact, what we call progress is but the outer expression corresponding to mankind's continuously improving idea of God. 

Jesus Christ summed up this Truth, taught it completely and thoroughly, and, above all, demonstrated it in his own person. Most of us now can glimpse intellectually the idea of what it must mean in its fullness, and much that must inevitably follow from a competent understanding of it. But what we can demonstrate is a very different matter. To accept the Truth is the great first step, but not until we have proved it in doing is it ours. Jesus proved everything that he taught, even to the overcoming of death in what we call the Resurrection. For reasons which I cannot discuss here it happens that every time you overcome a difficulty by prayer, you help the whole of the human race, past, present, and future, in a general way; and you help it to overcome that special kind of difficulty in particular. Jesus, by surmounting every sort of limitation to which mankind is subject, and in particular by overcoming death, performed a work of unique and incalculable value to the race, and is therefore justly entitled the Saviour of the world.

At what he deemed an opportune moment in his public ministry, he decided to sum up the whole reaching in a series of lectures extending probably over several days, and speaking probably two or three times a day. This arrangement has been compared by someone, and not inaptly, to a kind of summer school, as we have such things today. 

He took this opportunity to summarize the message, to dot the i's and cross the t's, so to say. A number of those present naturally took notes, and, later on, these notes were edited into what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. The authors of the four Gospels each selected the material for his monograph in accordance with his own purpose; and it is Matthew who gives us the most complete and carefully arranged version of the address. His setting forth of the Sermon on the Mount is an almost perfect codification of the Jesus Christ religion, and I have therefore chosen it as the text for this book. It covers the essentials. It is practical and personal. It is definite, specific, and yet widely illuminating. Once the true meaning of the instructions has been grasped, it is only necessary to begin putting them faithfully into practice to get immediate results. The magnitude and extent of these results will depend solely upon the sincerity and thoroughness with which they are applied. This is a matter which each individual has to settle for himself. "No man can save his brother's soul, or pay his brother's debt." We can and should help one another on special occasions, but in the long run each must learn to do his own work, and "sin" no more, lest a worse thing befall him.

If you really do wish to alter your life, if you really do wish to change yourself—to become a different person altogether in the sight of God and man—if you really do want health and peace of mind, and spiritual development, then Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, has clearly shown you how it is to be done. The task is not an easy one, but we know that it can be accomplished, because there are those who have done it—but the price must be paid, and the price is the actual carrying out of these principles in every corner of your life, and in every daily transaction, whether you wish to or not, and more particularly where you would much rather not.

If you are prepared to pay that price, to break really and truly with the old man, and start upon the creation of the new one, then the study of the great Sermon will indeed be to you the Mountain of Liberation.

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The Sermon on the Mount,

Emmet Fox

PHINEAS P. QUIMBY AND THE POWERS OF THE MIND

PHINEAS P. QUIMBY AND THE POWERS OF THE MIND

by Dr Ian Ellis-Jones [A precis of the talk] 

Phineas P. Quimby, a Maine clockmaker, inventor, mesmerist and metaphysical healer, is generally recognised as the ‘Father of New Thought.’ His experiences and practices of mental healing were the real beginnings of, and foundation for, New Thought. His system of alternative healing was a metaphysical form of insight-oriented psychotherapy together with autosuggestion. His methods were also the beginning of what became known as the ‘new psychology’ and ‘mental therapeutics.’ 

Even more importantly, Quimby paved the way for the whole field of modern psychosomatic medicine. New Thought understood the nature of functional illness long before depth psychology. Quimby can be said to have ‘discovered’ the subconscious (unconscious) mind. He understood that there were two separate functions of the mind—conscious and subconscious. This was a remarkable discovery at that time. 

Quimby was not religious by orthodox standards. Indeed, he was suspicious of both orthodox medicine and the established churches. Even though he often referred to Christianity in his teachings, he taught that erroneous and unhealthy religious beliefs were at the root of many physical illnesses. At the heart of Quimby’s methods of healing was his belief that ‘the explanation is the cure.’ Disease is an error, the only remedy for which is the truth which is health. ‘Disease is the misery of our belief.’ 

Quimby discovered that the individual has the power of creation, that each person is the cause of one’s experience, and that our reward or punishment in in ourselves. He demonstrated that the human body moves as it is moved upon by the mind, that is, the body acts as it is acted upon, and becomes, in effect, a mirror of one's mind. He developed and used an ‘argumentative method’ of healing in which he would convince the patient and himself that the sickness was due to false beliefs, groundless fears and negative patterns in the subconscious mind. He would explain that the basis of all healing was a change of belief and would build up evidence for the healing power within, finally rendering a verdict in the ‘courthouse’ of the mind in favour of both the patient and himself. 

In the later stage of his healing career Quimby tended to use what was called the ‘absolute method’ of healing. He would mention the name of the patient, silently contemplate the qualities and attributes of God as Infinite Intelligence, Boundless Love, and the source and restorer of perfect health. He would feel and envision the Power and Love of God being focused on the patient. 

In Quimby’s ‘psychoanalytic’ methods of healing he didn’t ask the patient questions nor did he encourage the patient to ‘babble’ about their complaints. Instead, Quimby would tell the patient how they felt and why, ‘reading’ the mental and psychic state of the patient and using his imagination constructively. He taught others how to do the same. He sought to correct and displace self-deception and misbeliefs about illness, religion and God. 

Quimby discovered or rediscovered that our ideas, beliefs and opinions activate our mind and condition us. The mind is simply a medium for ideas and impressions, being both a receiver and a transmitter of impressions. We become an expression of our beliefs. He wrote, ‘Man is belief expressed,’ ‘To believe is to act,’ and 'What we believe, that we create.’ 

Quimby understood the nature and origins of obsessional thinking and addiction. Impressions lead to assumptions and presumptions. Assumptions and presumptions lead to beliefs and misbeliefs. The latter harden into obsessions and other rigid, even fixed, states of mind. All such thinking is a process of fixation ‘attaching one’s senses to an idea.’ 

There is One Mind and that Mind is God. All minds subsist in the One Mind. Quimby developed the concept of ‘mingling minds’. He wrote, ‘Our minds mingle like atmospheres, and each person has his identity in that atmosphere.' 

You can put to good use Quimby’s methods and principles of healing in your own life and in the lives of others.

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Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuGc126nyYk