Chapter 6: Thou Shalt Decree a Thing

Chapter 6: Thou Shalt Decree a Thing

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As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
     — SHAKESPEARE

TO DECREE with assurance is to establish and fix an ideal in substance. The force behind the decree is invisible, like a promise to be fulfilled at a future time; but it binds with its invisible chains the one who makes it. We have only a slight conception of the strength of the intangible. We compare and measure strength by some strong element in nature. We say "strong as steel." But a very little thought will convince us that mental affirmations are far stronger than the strongest visible thing in the world. The reason for this is that visible things lack livingness. They are not linked with energy and intelligence as are words. Words charged with power and intelligence increase with use, while material things decrease.

It is not necessary to call the attention of metaphysicians to the fact that all visible things had their origin in the invisible. The visible is what remains of an idea that has gradually lost its energy. Scientists say that this so-called solid earth under our feet was once radiant substance. Nothing is really "solid"

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but the atomic energy latent in everything. They tell us that it takes some six billion years for uranium to disintegrate and become lead, and this rate of disintegration has helped scientists determine the age of the earth as about two billion years.

Since nothing is lost in the many transformations that occur in nature, what becomes of the energy that is being released in the disintegration that is going on in our earth? The answer is that a new earth is being formed in which matter will be replaced by atomic energy. This process of refining matter into radiant substance is taking place not only in the natural world but in our bodies also. In fact the speed with which the transformation takes place depends on the character of the thoughts that we project into our brains and through them into our bodies and the world about us. This is why we should spiritualize our thoughts and refine the food we eat to correspond. The press announces a great shortage of meat all over the world, with alarming predictions of malnutrition and race deterioration. Instead of a calamity this meat shortage will prove a blessing. New and better foods will be found to replace the corrupt flesh with which people have been stuffing their stomachs. The call for stimulants that the fermenting mess produces in digestion will diminish, and a purer, sweeter body and saner mind will follow. The peoples of Europe, forced by the economic conditions brought about by wars, are adopting a

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simpler diet, with better health; so says the public press. Thus what seems calamity turns out to be a source of joy.

At the present writing there is a housing shortage everywhere and the lack of materials and competent labor indicate that several years will elapse before the need is met. This is counted a calamity; but is it? The inventive genius of man is planning houses of glass and other materials that will be much less expensive — more durable and in every respect superior to the present homes. When man gets his ingenious mind into action he always meets every emergency with something better. These many examples of the power of man's mind should make us pause when we are tempted to consider any situation disastrous or nearly so. Every adverse situation can be used as a spur to urge one to greater exertion and the ultimate attainment of some ideal that has lain dormant in the subconsciousness. The pessimist moans, "I could make a better world than this." The optimist sings, "Go to it; that's what God put you here for."

People everywhere on earth are now realizing as never before that the well-being of this world rests with its inhabitants. It is no longer a religious dogma or a philosophical theory that the destiny of the race is in the hands of man. God has given all things to us to use as we shall determine. We can use the atomic energy to destroy or construct as we decree. "Behold, I set before you the way of life and the

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way of death."

The dominion and authority God gave to His image-and-likeness man has assumed such reality that even the most trivial person can understand it and tremble at the prospect of what might come to pass if that dominion were used by vicious men.

Those who have recklessly gone on living without seeking the wisdom of the source of life are now asking what shall be done to save us from the insanity that would destroy our world.

The one and only answer, of course, is that the moral and spiritual standard of the race must be raised the world over as the one and only ultimate source of safety. This means that every person must begin on himself and, as it dawns, let the light shine by imparting it to others. If this method were followed universally the millennium would be upon us in a marvelously short time.

This is not a religious question but a matter of life or death; not a question of hell after death but of survival here and now of everybody and everything one holds dear. There are Hitlers still alive and others reincarnating. They must all be educated morally and taught the nearness of the spiritual man and the necessity of his incorporation into the consciousness of the natural man before permanent life can be established in the individual. This work is to be done for our race right here on this planet, and for this reason we who love the Lord and greatly

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desire that His law be fulfilled are calling on all people to make haste and accept the abundant life and light that He so freely offers.

The Bible records many instances where marvelous results followed the observance of religious rites in which trumpets took a leading part. The priests under Moses were ordered to blow trumpets before the Ark; Gideon and his three hundred overcame a large army of Midianites by flashing lights, shouting, and blowing trumpets; the walls of Jericho fell as the result of trumpet and voice vibrations. Isaiah says: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were ready to perish in the land of Assyria [the psychic realm], and they that were outcasts in the land of Egypt [materialism]; aud they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain in Jerusalem [spirituality]."

The trumpet sets up sharp vibrations in the ether, which cause disintegration when they impinge upon an object in the mental or material realms. These realms Isaiah symbolically refers to as Assyria and Egypt. Trained metaphysicians produce like results through the spiritual word, uttered audibly or silently or both. It is in this field of Spirit that Unity people are destined to do a great work in helping to educate people everywhere. By declaring and decreeing spiritually the words of Jesus and Jehovah we send into the ether a spiritual force that shatters

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the fixed states of consciousness holding millions in evil ways. In this way the doors of mental prisons will be opened to multitudes of sin-bound souls. Anyone who has faith in Spirit and the power of the word spoken in faith can send it forth, and like the radio oscillation, it will be picked up by receptive minds everywhere. "Let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."