Discover the Power Within You—Eric Butterworth's 12-Week Course for Unity Centers

Text Reference: Chapter 13

Supplementary Reading:

1. DYNAMICS FOR LIVING (Fillmore), p. 135
2. LIFE IS FOR LIVING (Butterworth), p. 126

1. It is important to explain why spiritual healing has not been a fundamental of the Christian Church — when Jesus devoted so much of his attention to healing. If Jesus. miracles of healing could be duplicated, this would weaken the divinity of Jesus concept, P. 160.
2. Emphasize the fallacy of the “certainty of death.” Jesus taught and practiced and lived the “life principle”: “I know that his commandment is life eternal.” You will find much scientific corroboration on this, leading to a new concept of agelessness and life eternal in the flesh.
3. Jesus did not originate spiritual healing. Healing is possible through spiritual means simply because man is a spiritual being. Man can be healed, oecause innately he is whole.
4. Some interesting discussion can come from relating the healing idea to the concepts of “the Lord’s body”, the whole man, the “electro-dynamic Dody”, etc. Even the concept of the “astral body” seems to fit in here — the perfect man in God Mind and its healing activity right where you are.
5. God’s will in healing — the built-in capacity for health and wholeness. Life is always biased on the side of health and renewal. Healing is an evolution of that which is involved. P. 169, 170
6. The place of will in healihg. Do you want to be healed badly enough to give up self-pity and the habit of dwelling on weaknesses? When you are sick of being sick you will get well.
7. Role of faith in healing. Faith is the key to the 4th dimension of living, the bridge to the world of the whole man. Faith is not just the belief that health is possible. It is an actual perception of wholeness, the intuitive sense of being whole even in the midst of sickness.
8. Stretch forth your hand — fellow the leading of the Spirit as to the next logical step for you to take. The healing principle will guide you in what you should do to make the ideal of healing real for you. As the Quakers say, “When you pray, move your feet.”

Plato: “So neither ought you to attempt to cure the body without the soul. And this is the reason why the cure of many diseases is unknown to the physicians of Hellas, because they are ignorant of the whole, which ought also to be studied. For this is the great error of our day in the treatment of human bodies that the physician separates the soul from the body.”

It is like a breath of fresh air in a smog-laden atmosphere to hear words like those spoken by Dr. Richard G. Cabot, for many years dean of Harvard ISedical School. He used to tell his students: “What is this powerful force in man? It is God — the healing power on which all of us depend in order to be here today. I earnestly recommend to the medical profession to let the patient know of this Great Force that is working within him, working on the patient’s side, on the doctor’s side ... It does the medical profession no good to avoid the word, ‘God’. Why not teach the people the Truth?”

“Be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” This is Jesus’ healing word to a paralytic. (Matt. 9:2-8) Jesus, thus, clearly emphasizes sin as the cause of disease and the overcoming of sin through salvation of the soul as the means of physical redemption. Unfortunately, “sin” and “salvation” have become sheltered theological terms far removed from the idea of spiritual healing. Jesus indicated that forgiveness was the foundation of His healing work: “Thy sins are forgiven” ... “Arise, and walk” ... “go ... sin no more.”

The Anglo-Saxon root of our word sin is “syne” (pronounced the same). It is a term borrowed from archery practice. When the archer missed the target completely with his arrow it was a “syne”. Thus, the true meaning of sin is “missing the mark,” the mark of perfection.

Sin is the mental process by which man comes to a separation in consciousness from God, from his own divinity — thus coming to live at the circumference of his life. This separation, which is only in his thinking, causes decay, disease, inharmony, and death. It has been said, “Nothing separated from its source, whether it be fruit or vegetable or man — is sound.” If we are sick or weak, we can do sure that we have in some way drawn away from the Spirit,from the sense of wholeness, from the source of life.

Paul says, “Not discerning the Lord’s body, many among you are weak and sickly.” In other words, “Because you do not understand your wholeness, because you are not conscious of your divinity, you are not letting the power that indwells you flow freely through you.” Because this is all a matter of wrong thinking, salvation comes aoout by “repentance,” or by turning away from the harmful negative states of mind. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

In the previous chapter we emphasized that there is “instant forgiveness” for sin, simply because there is no unforgiveness in God. The moment we step up out of the consciousness of limitation, we step into the light of wholeness. This may not be all that easy to accept by some who are laboring under feelings of guilt.

Often someone will say, “If only I were worthy of the healing I desire.” Worthiness is not something you have to earn — it is something you must accept. Remember God sees nothing to forgive. You are always God’s great possibility. But you must accept His love which is ceaseless. You are worthy of all of the Infinite that you can embrace.

Think of a lighting circuit that is equipped with a rheostat for increasing and decreasing the brilliance of the light. Suppose the light is turned down low. What if the individual bulb were to cry out, “Oh, if only I were worthy of more light!” Actually, the bulb is worthy of all the light that it will accept in the form of electrical energy.

Jesus said, “God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship in Spirit and in Truth.” God is Spirit — breath, essence, wholeness, the the life principle. To worship God does not mean to bow down or invoke or plead. The word “worship” comes from the root word “worth.” “Worship” is “worthship”, recognition of your worth, awareness of your divinity, of the unity of the whole. To worship God means to know the Truth and to accept His essence or wholeness.

Worship is a declaration of your unity with God. It is an attempt to heal the break or separation in consciousness, to know your unity with God. It is the Prodigal son saying, “I will arise and go unto the Father.” The word “prayer” comes from a Sanskrit word which literally translates, “judging oneself to be wondrously made.” Prayer and worship are the same — the process of lifting your thoughts to realize how wonderful you are in spirit. Seeing the whole of you and rejoicing in it. Thus the more you “worship God in Spirit and in Truth,” the more you feel worthy of His healing, the more you are freed from any sense of sin or guilt, and the more you experience healing or wholeness.

We can see how far we have strayed from Jesus’ concept when we pray “Have mercy upon us poor sinners.” Praying in the consciousness of guilt and sin is completely self-defeating. It is like begging for light while insisting on keeping the shades drawn or the switch turned off. Prayer must be man’s attempt to step out of the shadows into the light. God loves you with an everlasting love and it is His “good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” “Come ye blessed inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” And you are worthy of this “kingdom” if you can bring yourself to accept it. Jesus assures us, “Your sins are already forgiven and you are free, if you will just accept it and get mack into the light and stay there.”

We are told “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee.” This is the greatest healing treatment known to man. You will have perfect balance of all the natural healing functions of your body if your mind is stayed on God in a consciousness of love and faith and peace. When you worry or become tense, anxious, bitter, jealous, or angry, you sin; you miss the mark of keeping your mind stayed on God. The result is an emotional disturbance that is quickly reflected in every vital function of your body. Restore the break, forgive the sin, get the mind stayed on God, and “arise and walk”.

“Fear not; only believe.” Jairus came to Jesus with the urgent plea to help in the case of his desperately ill daughter. Jesus spoke this word of assurance. It was the affirmation of fearlessness. Today we are finding that in the majority of supposed illnesses, the great cause is fear — and the effect is a symptomatic disturbance, an “emotionally-induced illness” (Eli). We hear much about the contagion of disease. What we do not always realize is that contagion is basically of the mind. Fear is the problem. Dr. Meerloo talks about “mental epidemics” as the greatest problem of Public Health.

In a legend of the Middle East the Black Plague is journeying to Arabia. He is asked where he is going. “I am on my way to Arabia to kill 5,000 people.” A few days later on his return he is asked, “You said you would only kill 5,000 people. Hew is it that you killed 50,000?” The Plague replied, “I killed only 5,000. The rest were killed by fear.”

Someone has pointed out that the letters FEAR could very well symbolize “False Evidences Appearing Real”. It is certainly true that fear is the human quality that goes mountain climbing over the molehills of appearances. The need is to rise to the consciousness of faith that it is the “evidence of things not seen.”

Above the mantel of the ancient Hind’s Head Inn at Bray, England, is this legend: “Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there.”