Spiritual Man

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All through the scriptures we are taught about a spiritual man. A man who differs from the everyday man. The man that takes cognizance of the world and the affairs of daily life. This spiritual man seems to be a little difficult to comprehend, understand, or come in direct touch with. Those who live in what we call the natural consciousness have been inclined to consider those who live in the spiritual consciousness as in some way abnormal. Not discerning, or understanding the thoughts or the realm in which the spiritually quickened function. This has only in recent years been understood in an all-round character. That is, people are just now beginning to see the whole man; and as they comprehend this whole man they find that the scripture is true. But we cannot see all of the man when we look at him as a thing of flesh and blood. We must get at the mental man, and the spiritual man as well as the physical man.

Now this study has in the last forty years opened up two realms in which man functions, and those realms are becoming part of the race consciousness as facts. Heretofore they have been looked upon as something abstruse; too far away to in any way take into practical affairs. Now we speak of the spiritual man and we tell of his characteristics. We say that the spiritual man is the man who comprehends the absolute. He knows about ideas, that they are in their character without beginning or end. He knows nothing about time or space, or any of those limitations that come in the world of matter. That man, we say, is the spiritual man. That man is the man of God. Then those abstruse ideas of mind take on certain character, and that man is the mental man. Then the next step is that these ideas get right down into matter, and all at once we see. And that is the natural man that Paul speaks of. That is the man of flesh.

Many are asking us the difference between cur system of healing and that of various other schools, especially Christian Science, and Mental Science. We call ourselves, the “Practical Christians.” A society following the teachings of Jesus Christ. In offering an explanation of the difference between our system and that for instance of Christian Science, we would say that the difference is only in detail. All spiritual healing systems have the same origin. They all start from the one, and that is God, but our understanding of what Spirit is, and our thought about it in applying, makes the difference. That is what builds up the different schools. The definition of the one principle.

We might give an illustration like this. Here is a liniment. I remember they used to tell of a certain liniment that was a pain killer. Now that pain killer was recommended for all kinds of diseases, inside and out. If you had the stomach ache you would take a dose internally, and if you had rheumatism you would rub it on. It was a universal remedy. Now this whole healing system is one, but it makes a difference in how you apply it.

We apply this healing principle to the spiritual man, but we start with the spiritual man as the power. He is the origin of everything and he is the son of God, the Christ of God, and he is the image-making power. He must be the man who does the work in its original, so that all healing begins right there. Then we recognize that there is a mental man, a man of conscience, or the one who comes forth from the spiritual man. That is consciousness: that in every one of us which says I go, I do, I am. That is the man of action. And then there is the body, man. Now the body is but the form of the spiritual man.

In our healing we take these three men into consideration. We recognize them all as part of the perfect man. Spirit, soul and body, and when a good healer rightly understands the relation of these three men—do not say three separate men, but three identities in the one—or when these three are rightly grouped in the mind of a good healer, they express through all three and a right relation of ideas, that perfect man can he brought into just the right relation with the universal mind. That is our system of healing.

Of course there are a great many related ideas which must be brought into harmony. Christian Science would tell you that the recognizing of soul and body is not consistent with the body. In other words, they recognize only the spiritual, saying that the body is error. But the object of their healing is to heal the body. We cannot reconcile these opposing statements. Then there are other points on which we differ. We hold that the one infinite mind is always open to aid people who look for it, who search for it, believe in it, and pray for it. Christian Science limits the inspiration of that divine mind to Mrs. Eddy, and their authority is her book on Science and Health. In our science, we never quarrel with other people. I am allied with the universal, and so I do not wish to limit myself to other people’s idea, and yet I do not condemn them. We are indebted in a great measure to Mrs. Eddy’s inspiration. Her inspiration leaves an impress for the good. If their source is good, they must bring forth good. But I do not wish to tie or bind myself to anyone. We must all be free. If God is leading and teaching his people, he must be leading and teaching them now. It is not wise or consistent for any of us to select some great teacher or leader and give them authority. It might be illustrated as a slide in the lantern of consciousness between your God and yourself. Be original. Be your own interpreter. Look to God yourself and let all other sources of knowledge be secondary.

In the application of practical Christianity, nearly all of the so-called new thought people have slight differences. They do not all use the same methods, and many people who notice this are looking for some certain definite information are confused, and they think that the safe way is to get back into the church where the minister will tell them just exactly what to do.

Our teaching is that people must be free and when they get that freedom they find they do not know what to do with it. They have not yet learned that there is a God, and that God is the God of every individual; that we are in that day told about in Job, where every man should be taught of God. It is not that we shall ask anyone else what the truth is, because God alone shall tell us the truth.

Now this power to know exists potentially in every man and every woman. We are created in the image and likeness of God. Why do we not know then? Why do we not naturally have this spiritual understanding? There comes again the question of development, and we find that it is possible to spiritually quicken the Divine in man. It is possible to treat people for spiritual understanding. To say to this Christ consciousness, “arise, shine, the glory of the Lord is come upon you”. It is a fact that we all, without exception, develop the qualities of the spirit exactly as we develop the qualities of the mind. You could not be a good mathematician or musician unless you applied yourself to them. The faculties within you must be developed, and there is no limit to that development. There is no limit whatever to spiritual healing power in man through God.

Our mathematicians have thought that they were at the extreme limit of mathematical demonstration and yet here comes a boy eleven years of age, a young Jew, and he demonstrates before the professors at Harvard, the problems in mathematics that they are completely lost in. They cannot understand because he goes so far beyond them.

In spiritual demonstration and spiritual understanding Jesus Christ went way beyond the race. Two thousand years ago he demonstrated propositions of this power of the spirit we are just now catching up with, and we are only in the beginning of our understanding of the wonderful possibilities of the spiritual man. The mind cannot comprehend the ideas that have no limitation.

Probably the man who heals with drugs will tell you that there is action and reaction between the body and the drug that he gives. The one who heals by hypnotism or mental suggestion, will tell you that you can replace a diseased thought by a health thought, and that all that is necessary is to suggest to the patient, the truth. Every state of mind has its effect, and all that is necessary is to change these states of mind.

Now the spiritual healer goes a step further than this. He says that man is naturally perfect, that these inherent principles that build and sustain the body can be called into expression and the healing is done. That all that is necessary is to get out of the man’s mind, his wrong idea and open the way for the spiritual man. Then the body itself expresses what the spiritual man is imparting to the mental man. That the body itself has no error. It is not responsible for anything. Jesus Christ said flesh is and when we put away our errors of mind, all at once the body begins to be healed. Why? Because the spiritual man is coming into manifestation, and the physical body reflects whatever we put into our minds.

We know how there is great healing power in nature. If you break a bone it would begin very quickly to heal and if you cut your finger, it would begin at once to heal. All the applications of antiseptics, etc. would not help the healing. The healing must come from the one sustaining power, and that is the spirit. God is one God. God is perfect, and this body is a perfect body. The only imperfection in it is in the mind; the thinking mind; and that thinking mind or makes wrong cells, wrong pigments in the blood, wrong tissues, and it finally becomes disorganized.

What is responsible? This realm of thought called by Paul carnal mind. It is the mere body, having no life of itself, borrowing all of its life from the spirit. But it has a consciousness and it can do as it desires. It can crucify its spiritual man, or it can lift him up.

So in its ultimate all healing you can see is characteristic. Every practitioner should be so imbued with spiritual understanding that he shall become a soul saver. “What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and loose his own soul.”

You have people who come saying I, I, I, but if you talk to them they cannot answer you. What is man without understanding himself. All understanding comes from the spirit, and spiritual healing is the application of this wonderful law. Jesus so clearly pointed out that man must be spiritually quickened. It is the spirit that quickeneth. Everyone of us must enter into this law of the absolute.

I do not mean to jump out of a four story building. I recognize the various steps in that absolute law. So we who become wise in the spirit, do not do unwise things but we do the things of manifest life. We recognize them in their true relation. The stronger your spiritual grip, the more powerful you become in the world. Then after we become spiritually alive, our bodies respond very rapidly to the healing thought.

We can exercise every function of our bodies by acknowledging, spiritualizing, saying to it “you are no longer under the law of limitations of the flesh, but you are spirit” and all at once it is quickened. The understanding you are limited will leave, and you will realize that you are no longer bound by the flesh. The understanding of the flesh has no power over you. You will be surprised how that thought will quicken all of your faculties.

If you are weak or sick, think about yourself as spirit. If you will only believe. Believe what? Believe the absolute. Those things which seem so far away. So ridiculous at times.

We are here to take possession of the earth, to trim it, and to keep it and make it alive with men and spirit.

We need not have any sick people right now if we would believe in the absolute. Say to ourselves, “I am spirit, I believe in the realities of the spirit”. I believe and I am willing to follow the law of God” and then stand by it until you can get some realities of the ideas.