Note that this page has a special menu entitled The Essential Charles Fillmore for navigating to other writings which are included in Jim Gaither’s wonderful book.
Page 39
GOD'S MAN is hale, whole, hearty. This is Truth. A spiritual realization is a realization of Truth. A spiritual realization of health is the result of holding in consciousness a statement of health until the logic of the mind is satisfied and man receives the assurance that the fulfillment in the physical must follow. In other words, by realizing a healing prayer man lays hold of the principle of health itself and the whole consciousness is illumined; he perceives principle working out his health problems for him.
However when man lays hold of the principle of wholeness, he finds that he is automatically working with God and that much new power is added. He realizes: "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." After man has applied his mind diligently for a season, he exhausts his resources or powers of realization for the time being and rests from all his work; but his accumulated thought energy is completed or fulfilled in a higher realm, and he has a double assurance that health must become manifest.
Jesus understood and demonstrated this law perfectly. He was so much at one with the principle of health that He needed only to say, "Thy faith hath made thee whole" (Mark 5:34 Luke 8:48 Luke 17:19) or "Lazarus, come forth," (John 11:43)
Page 40
in order to bring into evidence the perfect demonstration.
Realization means at-one-ment, completion, perfection, wholeness, repose, resting in God. A realization of health brings to the consciousness an inner knowing that the divine law has been fulfilled in thought and act. Then as man lays hold of the in-dwelling Christ he is raised out of the Adam or dark consciousness into the Christ consciousness. This at-one-ment with God brings a lasting joy that cannot be taken away.
God-Mind rests in a perpetual realization of health, and that which seems to be sickness does not exist in Truth. When man becomes so much at one with God-Mind that he abides in the consciousness of health he enters the eternal peace in which he knows that "it is finished."
In order to understand God-Mind we need to study our own mind. The more we analyze the processes of the mind the more plainly the mind with its mental "compounds" appears as the source of health and of all other things. In the realms of dense matter intelligence may be so faint as to have lost all contact with Mind. Yet the poet sings about there being "sermons in stones." Again science announces that life is present in and is disintegrating the solid rocks and the whole earth groans and creaks in her struggle with inertia. So if we want to know the secrets of health and how right thinking forms the perfect body, we must go to the mind and trace step by step the movements that transform
Page 41
ideas of health into light, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and finally into the perfect physical organism.
Although there is almost universal skepticism with reference to the mind's ability to know consciously how relative substance is formed, there are those who have made contact with the thought processes and can apply them in transforming the cells and tissues of their own body. The almost insurmountable obstacle to explaining to others how this is accomplished is the paucity of language. The mind functions in ways that are so strange and unbelievable that the pioneers on this frontier of metaphysics choose as a rule to remain silent.
Jesus is the outstanding pioneer in this realm where the health-producing processes of cells are released and imbued with supermind vitality.
He spent years in becoming acquainted with His body and freeing its cells from the material bondage to which the race thought had bound them.
Yet He gave no scientific explanation of the purifying through which He put His body to transform it before Peter, James, and John, as stated in Luke 9:29: "And as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment became white and dazzling." Modern metaphysicians do not excuse their ignorance by claiming that this and many other instances in which Jesus showed mastery over His body were miracles. Scientific Christians regard as mortal superstition the prevalent view that miracles are the abrogation by God of His laws
Page 42
and are performed as a sort of legerdemain to attract and astonish the people. The marvelous things that Jesus did we can do when we understand the law. "The works that I do shall he do also; and greater" still holds good.
Much that is attributed to the subconscious, strictly speaking, springs from the all-knowing or spiritual Mind. When we cannot intellectually account for our knowledge we assume the subconscious to be its source. Yet we should know that the subconscious is the storehouse of past knowledge and past experiences. So it knows only what has filtered through the conscious mind. It cannot therefore be the source of knowledge except through reflection or memory. This memory of what man has passed through in the aeons of his experience is often called intuition; it is the instinct of the animal soul.
The world today looks up to science; that is, it does not accept or believe anything unless it can be demonstrated by well-known universal laws. There are no known laws governing religion that can be scientifically explained; hence it is not acceptable to the scientific mind. But there is a technique for molding thought stuff by means of the mind, and metaphysicians follow it in their scientific thinking and in healing. The metaphysician handles omnipresent Spirit life and substance very much as the electrician handles electricity. Energy is locked up in all this life and substance and its release enables the metaphysician to utilize it in demonstrating health and in achieving success.
Page 43
All the chemical elements adhere to their particular form and endeavor to retain it. Electricity is supposed to be a universal invisible energy whose unity can be broken up by the whirl of a dynamo. The electronic units exert all the force of their nature in a pull to regain their original status. Thus the power generated by a dynamo is gained from the force exerted by the electrical units in their rush to establish their primal equipoise.
Only a certain percentage of this energy is utilized because of the pull of the electrical units to get back home to their mother principle. The dissipation of energy is one of the great problems of the engineer. The loss of electricity in transmission is so great that only a small part of the original current reaches its destination.
We exist right in the midst of forces that would yield us power to do all our work if we knew how to conserve and properly utilize their energies. This is not only true of our use of the many elements in the natural world all about us but especially of our utilization of the energy generated by our minds. If we could utilize this dissipated energy constructively it would restore the body, illumine the mind, and establish us in a lasting consciousness of dominion and mastery.
With every thought there is a radiation of energy. If a person is untrained in thinking and lets his mind express all kinds of thoughts without control, he not only uses up his thought stuff but fails also to accomplish any helpful result.
Page 44
Conservation of thought stuff is essential to right thinking. Right thinking is using the mind to bring about right ends idealized by the thinker. All the elements necessary to the restoration of health exist in the higher dimensions of the mind. Through concentration and conservation of thought force man regains the consciousness of health in his mind, and health then becomes manifest in his body.
Attention and concentration do a strange and wonderful thing for the person who uses them correctly: they do use up a certain amount of energy, but at the same time they generate a lot of new and higher energy. They produce a great deal more than they use up! This is because they are necessary parts of our creative nature, and all creative parts of a person generate more vital energy than they use up.
Ed Rabel - Metaphysics 1, Prayer and Meditation, Attention: The Key
- Ed Rabel
Laws fixed by infinite Mind automatically accomplish whatever man desires when he becomes obedient to the inner guide. Concentration, one-pointed attention, forms a mental magnet in the mind to which thought substance rushes like iron filings to a loadstone. Then follows confidence or faith in one's ability to accomplish the desired end. According to the Scriptures this is the law by which the universe was brought into manifestation. In the 11th chapter of Hebrews it is written: "By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God" (Heb. 11:3).
Modern science by its most daring proponents is launching out into the deeps of the invisible and describing in detail the electrical processes that ultimate in the atom and its aggregations in visible things. In substance they tell us that when points of light gather about a certain nucleus an atom is created, and from this a cell, and cell aggregations make tissues and these merge into the realm of things. Here we have the scientific explanation and the Christian metaphysician's formula for making the
Page 45
invisible visible. The greatest of all physicists cannot tell what electricity is. Even Edison said he was ignorant of its real nature. Some find it sometimes acting very much like mind and have so stated. The head of the General Electric research department was asked by a reporter to give him a definition of electricity. The professor replied that to his mind electricity was like what the Christians describe as faith.
The scientific metaphysician fixes his attention powerfully on the consummation of a certain idea until he has a realization, which means that the idea has nucleated a certain amount of thought substance. When this realization is had the metaphysician rests "from all his work." Through faith and work he has fulfilled the law of mind and he rests in the conviction that his ideal of health will appear in manifestation in due season.
In addition to what he has written here, Charles Fillmore taught that faith has the ability to "clothe ideas with substance." He said that when enough substance has "nucleated" around the idea there will be a "breakthrough" from the invisible potential into the manifested realm. This process is behind the "realization" that Mr. Fillmore writes about here. The greater one's consciousness of faith, the quicker the state of realization can be reached. Jesus is an example of one who was able to "telescope" the time factor of the prayer process into what appeared to be instantaneous manifestation—almost an absence of process. But the process was there. It was only that the time element was shortened. Jesus attained realization in a moment.
Ed Rabel - Metaphysics 1, Prayer and Meditation, Realization
- Ed Rabel
To a metaphysician realization is the conviction that a person gets when he has persistently concentrated his attention on an ideal until he feels assured of the fulfillment of that ideal. Elohim God pronounced His spiritual creation "very good"; then rested from all His work. There was as yet no manifestation, "no herb of the field had yet sprung up," and "there was not a man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5); yet the planning Mind had the realization that the spiritual law had been fulfilled and that it should rest from all its works.
That all things visible are held in place by a force invisible is the conviction of the majority of logical thinkers. In other words, everything is ensouled.
Page 46
When we understand that the soul has consciousness, that it thinks, we have the explanation of many mysterious phenomena. Some 150 years ago Franz Mesmer announced in Germany that under certain conditions he could induce a magnetic sleep in persons and control their minds. His demonstrations attracted the attention of doctors and mental scientists the world over. In this day the system is practiced under the name of hypnotism. It is full of pitfalls for both operator and patient because its tendency is to weaken the positive control that the mind should always exercise over its own brain structure. However it is one of the many proofs that the mind can produce conditions in the mental world that ultimate in the material world. A great physical scientist stated recently that it may be that the gods that determine our fates are our own minds working on our brain cells and through them on the world about us. This is very close to the Truth.
Every Christian metaphysician knows that back of the personal mind there is a great creative Mind that also recreates. This creative Mind has been named and described by men all down the ages. God-Mind not only can restore and heal but can establish us in the consciousness of permanent health. Do not allow your conception of God to be handicapped by what men have said about Him.
"There is a spirit in man, And the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding" (Job 32:8).
Let the Spirit of God in you reveal to you His true
Page 47
character. God was never sick a day; He is the source of life and health and joy. God wills that we express His "image" and "likeness," in which we were created.
The prayer for realization attains its consummation when with concentrated spiritual attention one has affirmed that God Spirit is present, that with all His power He is bringing to pass the perfect health desired, and that all is well. When your thoughts radiate with the speed of spiritual light, they blend with creative Mind (called by Jesus "heaven"), and the thing you have asked for will be done. Jesus told Peter that whatever he bound (affirmed) in earth would be bound in heaven and whatever he loosed (denied) in earth would be loosed in heaven (Matt 16:19 Matt. 18:18). Peter had unbounded faith in Jesus (who represents spiritual man). When any man has unbounded faith in spiritual power his words, uttered in the limitations of matter, are flashed to heaven (creative Mind) and they accomplish whatever he puts into them. The fulfillment of this spoken word in the world of activities may take moments, hours, days, years, centuries; Jesus said that the Father only knew when these things would come to pass. Do not think because you do not get an instant response to your prayers that they are not answered. Every sincere desire and every effectual prayer for health that has ascended to heaven (creative Mind) is fulfilled, and will be made manifest whenever material limitations permit. Shakespeare had an inkling of this law of the relation of thoughts and words when he wrote,
Page 48
"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go." (Hamlet: Act 3 Scene 3)
The kingdom of heaven (the heavens) so often referred to by Jesus and described by Him as very near to us is far more accessible and is more often contacted by us than we imagine. Not only those who pray but those who persistently concentrate their thoughts on mathematics, music, or philosophies based in principle, are often rewarded with the marvelous intuitions of genius. These persons apparently break into a realm where no effort is required to gain the answer to their questions. The mathematical genius is called a prodigy. He solves instantly the most complex mathematical problem, yet cannot explain how he does it. He simply knows the answer, often before the statement of the problem has been completed.
Henri Poincare in his book "Science and Method" says that his discoveries in mathematics came to him in flashes after he had spent long periods of study and concentration on the subject. Concentrated attention of the mind on an idea of any kind is equal to prayer and will make available the spiritual principle that is its source in proportion to the intensity and continuity of the mental effort. Anyone can attain spiritual understanding and become conscious of the light who will persistently pray for it. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Heb. 11:6). The emphasis here is on the word "diligently."
Page 49
The mind is the seat of perfection, not only of health but also of talents like music, art, writing, and the like. The idea of health and the idea of music are interblended, for instance. Music is a great aid to the healing force. Musical and health ideas interblend, and their establishment in order produces this kingdom of the heavens.
Our spiritual realizations produce that silent shuttle of thought which, working in and through cell and nerve, weaves into one harmonious whole mind and body and is expressed as health and wealth and genius.
The musical genius says he hears the music in a flash and is often at his wit's end to transcribe it fast enough. Many an immortal poem and prose work as well has been flashed from the mind of the author without any apparent effort on his part. But if all the prayers and mind efforts of literary geniuses were inquired into, it would be found that there had been heroic mental effort somewhere at some time. So it is with healing. The realization of perfection takes root in the soul and may come forth in a flash as perfect health. We should not confine ourselves to the present life of the individual but go into previous incarnations in which the work was done that made the genius in this incarnation.
Professor Einstein was considered the greatest mathematical genius of our time. The scientific world does not connect his insight into scientific principles with his religious life, but he freely stated that he worshiped God. He said: "The voice of God
Page 50
is from within. Something within me tells me what I must do every day." For him God is as valid as a scientific argument. On the subject of spiritual realization he once said:
"Every man knows that in his work he does best and accomplishes most when he has attained a proficiency that enables him to work intuitively. That is, there are things that we come to know so well that we do not know how we know them. Perhaps we live best and do things best when we are not too conscious of how and why we do them."
The supreme realization of man is his unity with God. Jesus had this realization and proclaimed it before there was any manifestation. When He told His followers, "I and the Father are one" and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," they demanded that He show them the Father. They could not then understand that He had spiritually united with creative Mind. Men in our day are having this realization in a more universal way than ever before in the history of the race, and they are affirming it in the face of ridicule and condemnation. When this inner consciousness is attained by any man the foundation has been laid of the Peter church or temple that is man's immortal body, which will never pass away.
Metaphysically realization is expectancy objectified. The mind conceives a proposition and then marshals all its forces to make that conception a reality in the objective world. All things material are first thought pictures, carved by the imagination
Page 51
from omnipresent thought substance. Shakespeare in "Much Ado about Nothing" brings out the idea as follows:
The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into his study of imagination, And every lovely organ of her life, Shall come appareled in more precious habit, More moving-delicate and full of life Into the eye and prospect of his soul.
This realm of realization is so real to the mind that it requires a trained metaphysician to detect the difference between its creations and the manifest realm of things. We all have a body in the ether that is the counterpart of the physical. It is through this psychic body that we have sensation in the physical. It is possible to think of the psychic body and cultivate its sensations until it appears as real as the physical. Many persons have done this until they have formed a psychic world consciousness and they are often unable to separate it from the physical. They search materially for the treasures they see psychically. To them the realm of thought forms is the finality of creation instead of the mental pictures of that which is about to appear.
The trained metaphysician is no stranger to this picture gallery of the mind and he is not deceived into believing that it is any more than a mental reflection. One who enters the realm of spiritual ideas does not allow his consciousness to become confused with the mind pictures that flash into psychic sight. They are part of the process of making ideas manifest. When a Christian healer realizes that his
Page 52
treatment has firmly formed the picture of health, he relaxes his decrees and statements of Truth and trusts the divine law to make health manifest.
Paul urges in many of his writings that we have the Mind of Christ: that we let Christ be formed in us. This has usually been taken to mean that we are to imitate Christ. This is good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. To follow Jesus Christ in the regeneration or new birth we must fulfill the law of body building, which is a reconstruction of the corrupt cells: "This corruptible must put on in-corruption." To accomplish this and make the body conform to His perfect body we must see Him as He is in His perfect body. This perfect body exists as an ideal body in us all. By mentally concentrating on this perfect body and focusing all our powers on it as the vital life of the physical a transformation will begin that will finally raise the physical to divine stature. Paul points the way in II Cor. 3:18:
"But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit."
