We learn in this book that thoughts are seeds. We learn in this chapter how we all ready take our thoughts and plant them, enabling them to grow. We find out that we have been doing this all of our lives whether we plant thoughts that will produce chaos or peace in our own lives. For surely we are the creators of our own conditions here on earth. A suggestion is to practice planting our positive "seeds" of thought purposefully, instead of letting them fall here or there without any specific direction.
Although our thoughts are mortal, they can join together with the source of life - the female aspect of the great creative principle of Almighty God. When thoughts, the male aspect of creativity become one with the female aspect of creativity, there is assurance, substance and evidence of things unseen. As you read this chapter -thoughts will surely take form within your mind, but it is when those thoughts are FELT that the quickening of faith will begin within your soul.
It is true that thoughts are seeds. Each is a living entity of vibrating life, but every thought is not planted, or will not grow any more than every grain of wheat that comes forth will produce. No seed will grow unless it is planted.
Grain comes forth only after it has been planted in the earth. There it germinates, breaking its outer shell, and gathering from the elements the strength and power of fulfillment, which it holds locked in the vision within itself, it comes forth multiplied.
In the same way thoughts will only produce after they have been planted. This planting is done by holding to the thoughts with deep intensity until they are dropped into the realm of the emotions. This is conception. You have heard the expression, "he conceived the idea." This is an absolute fact. When thought and emotion mingle the thought is conceived and will come forth. When they connect with the feeling, or emotions they become living, vibrations, generated into growth and power, expanding into life and will as surely grow into their full stature of fulfillment as a kernel of wheat will grow if planted and given the necessary conditions to produce.
A thought must be harbored as an emotion, such as a fear, or a deep desire, which find lodgment in the vibrating essence of life, then only is it liberated into the forces of creation. This point where thought and emotion meet is also the place where vibration is released, AND VIBRATION IS LIFE. Thus the life force is generated in the thought or seed and it reaches out to gather to itself its own, be it good or bad.
The place of vibration is the center of life in each human being -- when that life center and the conscious mind become united, with complete understanding, the body and the spirit blend in the power of the "at-one-meant," and the mortal and the spiritual become completely united -- the material seed, or thought, is released into the emotions, or source of life, to produce and grow. The word "father" in its earliest meaning was known as "first cause" or "first mover." Thus the mind is the first mover, or the cause, and has the power to plant the seeds of thought into the emotions, which is the female counter-part and contains all that is necessary to bring the seed forth to complete fulfillment. Thus the great creative-principle of Almighty God is complete in every child of earth. Yea, "all that the Father has, is yours." This is the complete power of the imagination -- the power to "image in" to the spiritual realm the living seed of thought that it might generate and come forth multiplied into tangible reality.
The great magic switch that I had hoped the scientists would develop for us is already ours. It is the point where thought contacts the emotions. At the center point, where intelligence contacts that inner point of feeling, is where the eternal source of power is released. This is that magic switch or contact of unlimited Faith. It is the contact with ALL power -- the very keys of creation. And each man already has that magical switch or power of contact right within himself. No scientist could possibly perfect it for us. It has always been ours to use. It always will be.
Yea, all that the Father has is ours -- the power to create and to bring forth -- each thought after its kind, each seed after its kind -- such is the law. Unlimited power lies within the soul of man, and God is no respecter of persons.
That is why the First and great commandment was given in the following words of power, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." If that was fulfilled in the being of every man, with this background of pure, unselfish, understanding, devoted love released to the very Highest of all, nothing would be impossible in the life of the individual. That is truly the greatest law, the most perfect of all commandments, and the most beneficial to man. It contains all power, and all fulfillment right within itself.
Since the powers of creation, the power to bring forth any condition of happiness, misery, glory, or death is in the being of man, it is quite necessary to understand just what this power and privilege contains, and what man's responsibility is. This very power makes apparent the reason why depressing thoughts must be "overcome," for they are instantly connected with the emotions, hence they grow like weeds, speedily and swift -- a crop of destruction, or at least ills, woes and earthly miseries.
Any negative thought instantly sprouts into growth. Why? Because our emotions have been trained to harbor fears, hates, jealousies, discords and confusion. These are weeds, and they grow as swiftly, as rank and as destructive. They destroy completely any crop of hope, wasting the power of the soil, contaminating the body and the mind, even as weeds can destroy the true fertility of the soil. On the wings of the wind these weeds rush forth to multiply their burdens, the varied ills and miseries of mortal life.
These are not just words. They are truths as eternal as unchanging and positive as the laws of sunrise and sunset, seed time and harvest, life and growth.
This perfect law of production will produce just as readily all the glorious gifts of joy, peace, happiness, abundance, health and vitality as the negative crops of sickness, poverty, distress and death. "There is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven, before the foundations of the earth, upon which all blessings are predicated; and if we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law." Many fulfill this perfect law unknowingly, hence they receive the blessings of life. Many more break it, unknowingly, and they suffer the consequences. This law is exact, unfailing, eternal.
Understanding this glorious law and working with it is power unspeakable. It is a law that belongs to the children of Almighty God, for we are heirs of the kingdom of godhood.
We ourselves create every condition on earth. To cultivate the habit of cheer will prepare the soil for any harvest. To keep out all despair, or fear, fulfills the law of faith and gives one the power to take hold of that intangible substance out of which all things are formed. To send out only love and kindness from the thoughts and emotions will bring a harvest of utter glory. Even if one has no intense ambitions, but only desires to live a peaceful life with mental and temporal security, it can only be guaranteed by watching that every vibration that is released is in tune with the great laws of the universe, which are always peace. Any contrary vibration is against the highest laws of creation and will bring discord and confusion into one's life. To have a life that is at all worth living, it is quite necessary to understand these great powers, and this law of production -- this law that reaches into the intangible elements and brings forth into tangible form the desires of our hearts glorified, or our fears and worries multiplied.
God's promises to us will never fail -- the law is irrevocable. It is eternal. It cannot err. It is power beyond the full comprehension of man -- it is truly the very power of creation, and the law of it. Therefore we can thank Him for the things which we desire when we pray, and believing, they will be fulfilled unto us. Thus we learn "to walk with Him" in the power and majesty of creatorship, glorifying light, overcoming darkness, despair, fear, confusion and eventually death.
"And it shall come to pass that he that asketh in Spirit shall receive in Spirit.
"He that asketh in Spirit asketh according to the will of God, wherefore it is done even as he asketh.
"And again, I say unto you, all things must be done in the name of Christ, whatsoever you do in the Spirit (in order to give them perfect light and pure conception).
"And ye must give thanks unto God in the Spirit for whatsoever blessings ye are blessed with."
True gratitude is the song of the soul. It is the true sunlight of perfect production. It gives light and energy to the soil of the soul.
"Then, having done all stand!" (Eph. 6:13).
The present holds the future enfolded in its embrace as surely as the acorn holds the oak or the seed holds the flower. The thoughts and desires of today are the realities of tomorrow. So is given the command: "Take no thought of tomorrow." Today is the planting time. Live today perfectly in every thought, with true gratitude singing in the soul, and tomorrow will unfold as beautifully perfect as today is.
Cultivate the joy of ecstasy and your life will become filled with light. Live each moment to its fullest glory, filled with divine anticipation, vibrating with an inner song of high devotion and gladness, and the world will lay its choice treasures at your feet -- and heaven will unfold its glory. These higher realms of light are man's true heritage.
The rule of the "Alcoholics Anonymous" is that each day is to be lived with this thought, "I will keep sober for this day." They claim that any person can refrain from drinking for one whole day -- so they concentrate on the one day -- the day at hand. And that day "at hand" is always present -- and thus it can grow into weeks, and into months, and into ultimate achievement and happiness.
The law of perfection is much the same, only it requires a little more careful living. It is: "This moment I shall give out only love and light and joy for the glory of God, and the benefit of man." Any individual can fulfill that law for an hour no matter how impossible his life may seem. Then if he can fulfill it for one complete hour he can for another hour -- and another -- and soon the hours reach into days -- the days into weeks -- the weeks into months -- and the months into a life of glorious fulfillment.
Root up the weeds that have been planted within you -- either by your parents, ancestors, associates or by yourself. Never again let disgruntled, fearsome thoughts feed on the strength of your soul But even more important, never again as long as you exist, use your power of creation to plant seeds that will destroy your life, your happiness and joy, and the lives of others.
Here it will be necessary to handle briefly the topic of hypnotism in order to reveal the great, hidden powers of the mind. For many years the subject was ridiculed and considered more or less of a fraud. Now, however, under the extensive research of psychology and science it has been proved a very real and often dangerous power, for it is being used upon men to destroy their moral fibre, to change their characters and to overcome their wills.
In a recent current magazine appeared an article entitled "Hypnosis," written by Doctor G. H. Estabrooks, who is chairman of the department of psychology at Colgate University. He has pioneered in developing hypnotism for wartime uses in this country, and has written several books on the subject.
Modern psychology has completely shattered the old beliefs about hypnotism. It has proved it to be a definite reality -- and a very deadly weapon.
The old belief of no one being able to hypnotize another against his will has been disproved. A person need only be taken when he is completely relaxed and off guard, or when he is too weary to realize what is happening, to be placed under a hypnotic spell. Also the idea that no one can be forced to do anything while in an hypnotic state which he would not do when he is awake is entirely false. It is a known fact now, that he can not only be compelled to do things in an hypnotic state that his former morals would not permit, but he can be compelled to fulfill such suggestions even after he is awakened and in a complete state of consciousness. This can be accomplished by working on the emotions, by changing thought-reactions.
It takes time to break down those "taboos" of the mind and character that have been embedded into one's being through a lifetime of living, but it can be done. Sometimes many treatments must be given, in which the hypnotist reaches into those productive realms of the subconscious, those unfathomable realms where the record of all past experiences are archived, where all the reactions to those happenings are stored -- in fact, he must delve into the very source of the emotions. By planting new thoughts and new reactions, the subject will slowly respond to the treatment of the hypnotist and after he is fully awakened will obey and fulfill those hypnotic suggestions -- even to the point of turning traitor to his country or murdering his best friend.
Thoughts planted deep into the subconscious mind of a child are as much a part of him, as his hands or his feet. It is an eternal reality that if one can be given a child until it is eight years old, and use those eight years to plant ideas into the fibre of its very being it is almost impossible to ever uproot them, be they good or bad. If they are good they are almost never uprooted. If they are bad the only way they can be uprooted is by a slow, patient teaching process of proved logic that gradually takes the place or error. This is a slow, painful process unless the individual has learned to think. To an adult mind that has been sealed since childhood into a certain way of thinking it is almost necessary for the individual himself to "jack up" his skull to permit more truth to enter. While an elderly person will find the changing of the mind an almost impossible task. That is why Christ said, "New wine must be put in new bottles." If new wine is put into old bottles, or elderly people, with hard, set minds the great truths cannot be absorbed and thus the bottles and the wine will be lost.
The only possible way to grow into all truth is to be willing to unseal the mind -- to open wide the doors of the heart and soul and let eternal truth come forth and gradually fill the conscious mind. Truth belongs to every individual -- it is every man's heritage. It was born with him -- only the conscious mind has blocked the way to it by having been sealed by ideas hypnotized by the negative, or vague, shadowy, half-truths planted in the mind, often in childhood. We carry a race consciousness of "taboos" while our great latent powers are left completely undeveloped. We live entirely on the surface while within each man is the power to move mountains. We have been hypnotized from infancy into a mediocre condition with inferior abilities. We have gone on in our shadowy march, groveling, crawling through sordid conditions of life with inferior achievements. We have continued to heap more self-hypnotism upon ourselves, and our lives have become completely orthodox, stinted and unworthy as we have continued to plod down the darkened, misguided highway of ills, sorrows, disappointments and endless strivings. The very mechanical achievements have put to shame our own lack of advancement. With heads crammed with knowledge, yet with no personal powers developed beyond our predecessors of many generations, we stand personally impotent, relying wholly upon the mechanical inventions for our strength and power. Until man himself gets the full vision of his own possibilities he will continue to plod slowly down the dark road of decay -- to the grave.
This is not the way Christ brought. "I came that you might have life -- and have it more abundantly!" "He who believes on me need never die!"1
It is time we arise from our grave clothes and hypnotize ourselves, jack up our skulls, unseal our minds, and step out into life -- life that is ever-present, unending, glorious, eternal. And there is only one possible way for this new light to find place in the hearts and minds of men and that is for them to humble themselves so completely to the Divine Spirit of Almighty God, that they might become new -- or as Christ gave it -- "be renewed." Then only can they accept it.
Nothing is impossible to the mind that will open wide to His Spirit. And to the mind that has put on the humble, pliable, teachable condition of a child's all Truth can and will come. It is the minds sealed with the importance of their own position and learning that will fail to grasp truth or any part of it.
Insanity, morbid mindedness, inferiority complexes and innumerable other tragic mental ailments have been inflicted entirely by self-hypnotism, or by our own thoughts of fear, injustice, hates, distrusts, discords, jealousies and confusion. It is much easier to hypnotize one's self than to be hypnotized by another. Most of us are self-hypnotized at least one or more points of our make-up, eccentricities and even our characters. When we understand this power of self-hypnotism it will be a simple thing to eradicate all our foibles and follies, our weaknesses and sins. We will then need no psychiatrists, but will use freely and intelligently our own God-given power of correct thinking.
From the Science Digest, September 1948, is an article entitled "Time Slowed by Hypnotism."
"Time can be slowed so that incredible tasks can be accomplished in the mind, in the course of only a few seconds.
"This is done by suggestion during the hypnotic trance, Dr. Linn F. Cooper, Georgetown University physician reported in the Bulletin of the University's Medical Center at Washington."
A young lady of the Georgetown University was hypnotized by Dr. Cooper, and told to count the cotton bolls in a patch near her home. She counted for what she declared afterward, was about eighty minutes. She told of doing it very carefully looking under the leaves so that she would not miss any. She took her time, without hurry. When finished she snapped into consciousness and reported that there were 862 bolls. Later this was verified. In actual time, the young woman had only been hypnotized for just three seconds. It is utterly impossible for a conscious person to even count to 862, let alone walk along cotton rows checking cotton bolls, in three seconds of time.
This experience may be interesting to show that there is a part of our inner minds that is surely in direct contact with the realm where time and space do not exist.
This information on hypnotism has been included in this work for a very definite purpose. If there is such power stored within us then it is our right to use it. It belongs to us to make use of. And if it is possible for a soldier or an officer to be seized by an enemy country and have thoughts planted in his sub-conscious mind that will bring forth whatever is planted, even after he is completely awakened from the hypnotic trance, then it is possible for us to do that planting within ourselves. This divine right belongs to us, and to us alone, each individual who has a mind. Hypnotism is a wicked thing, no matter how it is used. No one has the right to use his conscious mind to plant the seeds of thought into the emotions of another. This system could be classified under no other name than mental rape.
If each human being understood the power of his own mind, the strength of his own creative powers and of his soul, and the great loving power of God, to the extent that he would learn to use the powers within his own being for the good and the glory of a world, for progress, for understanding, for perfection, letting in the power and light of God, no one would ever be able to touch his mind, or his emotions, nor to trespass upon his divine rights. Understanding his own power and using it man can always be master of himself and every condition.
As we begin to comprehend the great powers stored within our minds and to use that power for the happiness and advancement of not only ourselves, but the human race, no one will be able to turn us into stool-pigeons or traitors, for we will be walking completely in the light, and in perfect control of every corner and recess of our minds, and every faculty and attribute of our beings. Our inner minds will be opened wide, those subterranean caverns, to the sunlight of the Holy Spirit of God, to its love and its light, and none will have the power to trespass nor destroy. Those sacred realms within us will be ours to rule -- and the things we plant in harmony with the law, will come forth a hundred-fold to glorify our lives.
The mind is like an iceberg, nine-tenths of its strength and bulk is submerged -- only the one-tenth of our mental capacities is contained in the conscious mind, yet it is all ours to understand, to use and to rejoice in.
Below is given a passage from the New Testament Apocrypha, II. Clement V:1. Clement was a disciple of Peter, and afterwards Bishop of Rome. Clemens Alexandrius called him an apostle, as did many of the ancient historians.
L. ". . . For the Lord himself, being asked by a certain person, when his kingdom should come? answered, When two shall be one, and that which is without as that which is within; and the male with the female, neither male nor female."
There is a verification of this passage from the Orient, bearing witness that Christ testified that His Kingdom would come when the outside of man became like the inside, with the spiritual taking over -- thus is the kingdom brought forth. When the conscious mind and the inner-mind of emotional and spiritual power of creation become united with complete understanding the "at-one-meant" will have been accomplished -- and all things will be possible.
1. John 11:26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? return to paragraph →