PRACTICUM
"Except what we recognize subjectively has its counterpart objectively, we have not consummated our convictions. Inward conviction is not alive till it demonstrates on the human and manifest blackboard of daily experience." (HM 180-181.)
"The mind is still until the angel of Truth stirs it." (SCMP 233.)
1. What is your concept of chemicalization?
"When a physical or mental disturbance arises, as the effect of opposing Truth, it is called chemicalization. It is always met by keeping right on with the Truth. It is always the sign that Truth is working fast. It shows that we are to welcome the Spirit." (SCMP 214.)
"When you feel grieved or frightened at what is said or done in your world...you may be interested to know that chemicalization means that things are coming out in a better state of affairs. It never means anything else. It is like alkali and acid in chemistry. When they mix they form a new base. So, when Truth goes singing over the thoughts of men, they have to begin to think in a new way. There is nothing to fear, there is no pain in chemicalization. There is no sorrow, if you do not believe in such things." (SCMP 216.)
"Calamity will never overtake you. Probably the most prominent practitioners have had the very hardest troubles to encounter, but they never go under. They are always lifted safely over. A ship on the ocean dips low, and rides high. So you are built, if you have these lessons in your mind. They have gone out, like angels, to prepare your way for you. They have taken deep, eternal hold on your mind and body. Jesus said, 'Fear not, little flock,' and so I say to you, be faithful to the lessons. Be faithful to this last lesson, which goes down into your deep nature, and takes hold of your disposition to make it divine." (SCMP 260.)
"If you have thought seriously of some great point in (spiritual) Science for a long time, you will be faced up with its mighty effects. All the opposition of your lot, your human nature, everything in your disposition, will meet your statement somewhere.
"Take your premise that the Holy Ghost will teach you all things. Treat your own self for freedom from stupidity and ignorance. Commence at the very day of your birth in the flesh. Deny that any cause, or result of any kind, leading to folly, or sickness, or trouble, has existed in your life. Pronounce yourself a spiritual being, with spiritual powers, untrammeled, unhindered, unrestrained, sealed from the beginning to preach the gospel, and to demonstrate it through the universe." (SCMP 212.)
2. ECH said that "In all of metaphysics there is but one don't: Don't complain!" Compare this with her expressed attitude on personal or group taboos, and your own attitude in this regard.
"An old lady said she thought it very wrong to drink tea at church suppers. She did not drink tea, she hated it. Many people hate tobacco, until their hatred is far worse than chewing or smoking, for their own health and the happiness of their families. Sometimes people hate the wrongdoing of others so that they cannot possibly see their virtues. It makes an acid in the blood and eats up the strong gray particles of the brain. Hate is the premise we have to let fall entirely. Hate nothing. God sees everything good.... When we have a notion to which we would like to tie all the world, we are tied to that notion. It is as much bondage to be tied to an idea as to a stake." (SCMP 251-252.)
"Even objects of Nature, trees, plants, winds, waters, have been ruffianly accused of hurting powers they hold not in themselves. 'The waters drown, the winds devastate, the plants poison,' we are told. Not in themselves. Have they not all been pronounced good from the beginning? Did the waters drown Peter while his eye was on the Lord mighty to save? Did the winds overturn the ship while the sailors looked to the Master's face? Can tea make the Angel of God's Presence nervous? Or coffee cause Divine Intelligence to degenerate? Can rum spoil the beauty of God? It is ruffianly to speak of man or item of Nature as having the power to hurt. Look at them as glowing with the face of One ever watching from every infinitesimal point of the universe. 'Wheresoever thou lookest there I am.' Take off the world's estimates from that face, and lo, Beneficence only!" (HM 229-231.)
"We are told that if we eat meat or drink coffee we are hot tempered or selfish; and temper or selfishness, they say, makes havoc with our health of mind and body and character; and character and health being broken, we are wrecks. They say these are the laws of God, and they urge us to strive to alter our material conduct in order to be saved. They speak of our being weak-minded to be saved if we lie in bed too late in the morning or too easily discouraged to be saved if we get up too early in the morning. They hang our immortal destiny upon the peg of our conduct of life." (CA 13.)
3. State the three phases of the healing practice of the High Watch.
"It is our business to translate the spiritual Truth within into visible manifestation. We do this first by thinking the absolute Truth, then speaking it, then fixing it into everything around us." (SCMP 250.)
4. What is the value of "writing to the angel" of one you desire to help, and what guidelines are useful in this practice?
"Always the angel does wondrously, flies swiftly, mighty in strength, ministering life to the faint, help to the defeated, comfort to the despairing.
"But we must notice the angel. Attention is the secret of the success of the combination. We combine with what we notice. We produce something worth while by combining with the Angel of God's Presence." (HM 164.)
5. Can you teach Truth which is beyond your own demonstration of Truth?
"'Lo, my sheaf... stood upright,' praised Joseph, visioning ahead when the Jews of all ages should owe their daily bread to his fidelity to praise of his own Self, maintaining his own vision of himself, even while in prison, as one instinct with majesty and virile with omnipotence. He had once had his ordinary senses entranced as in a dream, while his sense of God-ness rose like an incense, and, remembering this, he told his fellow prisoners the import of their dreams, while yet his own dream was unfulfilled. He knew that truth is truth whether we are as yet embodiments of it or not." (HM 106.)
6. Of what value is praise in practical mysticism?
"Recognition is a form of praise. Description is a form of praise. Even to describe what we do not like magnifies its importance and spreads forth its capabilities." (HM 174.)
"'Praise is comely for the upright,1 sang the...Hebrew choirs; for the 'I,' the Soul-Self, the God-self, is one with praise as with command, ready to demonstrate all excellence for which It is praised, as all accomplishings to which It is commanded. The voice of inspiration teaches us to praise Soul, the upright Self charging ourself like a Shekinah pillar of fire by night, and a straight cloud of glory by day." (HM 105-106.)
"Praise and command of the divine Self of ourself always wakes the consciousness of our own superiority to environing disadvantages and ignorances." (HM 110.)
'"You cannot praise Me so highly that I am not more than you praise, you cannot command Me so greatly that I cannot work by you still more greatly,' ever whispers our secret Self." (HM 111.)
