Faith Precipitations

WHEN ASKED what electricity is, a scientist replied that he had often thought of it as an adjunct to faith, judging from the way it acts.

This linking of faith and electricity seems, at first glance, fantastic, but when we observe what takes place when certain substances in solution and an electric current are brought in conjunction, there seems to be a confirmation of the Scripture passage, "Now faith is assurance of things hoped for" (Heb. 11:1).

Just as the electric current precipitates certain metals in solution in acid, so faith stirs into action the electrons of man's brain; and acting concurrently with the spiritual ethers, these electrons hasten nature and produce quickly what ordinarily requires months of seedtime and harvest.

In the time of Elisha, the widow, so distressed with debt that she had even mortgaged into slavery her two children, appealed to the prophet, who said, "What hast thou in the house?" She said, "Thy handmaid hath not anything in the house, save a pot of oil." He told her to borrow all the empty vessels her neighbors had and then to go into the house and shut the door and to pour the oil in the pot into all those vessels, which she did until they were all full. She then paid her debts and had plenty left. (II Kings 4:1-7)

Jesus fed four thousand persons at one time (Matt. 15:32-39, Mark 8:1-7) and five thousand at another (Matt. 14:13-21, Mark 6:32-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-14) by the same means. He also "precipitated" the elements of wholeness many times and healed the multitude. He required co-operation in faith on the part of those He healed in order thus to complete the healing circuit.

Speedy answers to prayer have always been experienced and always will be when the right relations are established

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between the mind of the one who prays and the spiritual realm, which is like an electrical field. The power to perform what seems to be miracles has been relegated to some God-selected ones; but now we are inquiring into the law, since God is no respecter of persons, and we find that the fulfillment of the law rests with man or a group of men, when they quicken by faith the spiritual forces latent within them.

The reason why some prayers are not answered is lack of proper adjustment of the mind of the one who prays to the omnipresent, creative spiritual life.

Jesus was the most successful demonstrator of prayer of whom we have any record and He urged persistence in prayer. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Like Lincoln, Jesus loved to tell stories to illustrate His point and He emphasized the value of persistence in prayer. He told of a woman who demanded justice of a certain judge and importuned him until in sheer desperation he granted her request.

Every Christian healer has had experiences where persistent prayer saved his patient. If he had merely said one prayer, as if giving a prescription for the Lord to fill, he would have fallen far short of demonstrating the law. Elijah prayed persistently until the little cloud appeared or, as we should say, he had a "realization" (I Kings 18:44); then the manifestation followed.

The Bible is treasured as the word of God because it records so many of these apparent miracles; but the fact is that all over this land enough demonstrations of the supermind are taking place every day to fill many books the size of the Bible. Some of them are recorded, and people read about them; but these are few compared with the many that are happening. All of which goes to prove that

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there is a restorative law that, if taken advantage of, will heal the world of all its ills.

Many of the old-school faith healers object to the scientific explanation of the healing process. They have believed in a personal God and that all superworld forces are set in motion by His personal intervention. However, it is much more satisfying to logical minds to know that God is the law and that the Spirit that we have thought of as a projection of Him is, in fact, He Himself in His own spiritual identity. This is the teaching of Jesus, and our men of science are proving it to be true. An understanding of this all-accessible Truth is making seers, prophets, and mighty men of God out of pygmies. On every hand, men of mediocre ability are becoming world leaders through exploiting the supermind qualities that they have merely glimpsed as existing within them.

These ephemeral Caesars have gained an inkling of the disciplined mind's dominion and are using it to control the negative mass thought and, through the hypnotic force of words, they evolve chaos and dark night the world over.

When men accept and understand Jesus' teaching about the mastery of the spiritual man, all the evils that arise from these upstart saviors will disappear. But now in the night of mind's eclipse

"We petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves."
(Julius Caesar: Act 1, Scene 2)

Then the question arises, If this supermind ability is in every man, why is it not more widely understood and used?

There are several answers to this pertinent question, the most plausible being the lack of human initiative. Men prefer to let others do their thinking for them. This is especially true in religious matters. The race thought has been so

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saturated with the belief that spiritual revelation must come through some authorized channel that the man without an ecclesiastical degree is timid about expressing an opinion about God or man's spiritual nature.

Jesus broke this hypnotic spell when, without ecclesiastical authority, He claimed to be the Son of God.

We should remember that Jesus included as sons of God all those who, as He said, are "my sheep," that is, follow Him. He quoted the 82d Psalm, in which it is written,

"I said, Ye are gods,
And all of you sons of the Most High" (Psalms 82:6).

The church elders and the people cried, "Crucify him!" Jesus taught great truths, which were grasped by but a few open-minded followers, and they formed a new church. After doing mighty works for hundreds of years, they, in turn, built an ecclesiastical hierarchy from which the common people were excluded. The Church Fathers gathered and selected certain religious manuscripts and compiled the Bible, which they proclaimed to be the very word of God, to be read and interpreted by those only having the authority of the church.

Here again, we see positive thought submitting to negative thought, thereby keeping the world in darkness for ages.

As Luther started the Protestant Reformation, so we are now at the beginning of another reformation, in which the freedom and power of man spiritually will not only be taught but demonstrated.

The supermind demonstrations that mark this modern religious reformation seem so at variance with nature that they are still looked upon as miracles, notwithstanding the fact that logic and science shout from the housetops the universality of law.

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The literature of Unity teems with testimonials of persons who have been healed and are grateful to God for renewed health, strength, prosperity, and happiness. Thus, it is not necessary to strengthen your faith by reading about the work of God in ages past; you can personally consult your neighbor, who can doubtless tell you of marvels fully as great as any recorded in the Bible.

The majority of cases that come to us belong to the class of the discouraged woman told of in Luke 8:43, "who spent all her living upon physicians, and could not be healed." Doctors have pronounced them incurable, and, as a last resort, they turn to God. The hardest part of the work in their healing is to get out of their minds the verdict of the doctor that their case is incurable. We have discovered that there are no incurables. "With God all things are possible" (Matt. 19:26). Any experienced metaphysical healer will tell you that he has been the instrument through which all the popular diseases have been healed.

I can testify to my own healing of tuberculosis of the hip. When a boy of ten, I was taken with what was at first diagnosed as rheumatism but developed into a very serious case of hip disease. I was in bed over a year and, from that time, an invalid in constant pain for twenty-five years, or until I began the application of the divine law. Two very large tubercular abscesses developed at the head of the hipbone, which, the doctors said, would finally drain away my life. But I managed to get about on crutches, with a four-inch cork-and-steel extension on the right leg. The hipbone was out of the socket and stiff. The leg shriveled and ceased to grow. The whole right side became involved; my right ear was deaf and my right eye weak. From hip to knee, the flesh was a glassy adhesion with but little sensation.

When I began applying the spiritual treatment, there

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was, for a long time, slight response in the leg, but I felt better and I found that I began to hear with the right ear. Then gradually, I noticed that I had more feeling in the leg. Then as the years went by, the ossified joint began to get limber, and the shrunken flesh filled out until the right leg was almost equal to the other. Then I discarded the cork-and-steel extension and wore an ordinary shoe with a double heel about an inch in height. Now the leg is almost as large as the other, the muscles are restored, and although the hipbone is not yet in the socket, I am certain that it soon will be and that I shall be made perfectly whole.

I am giving minute details of my healing because it would be considered a medical impossibility and a miracle from a religious standpoint. However, I have watched the restoration year after year as I applied the power of thought and I know it is under divine law. So I am satisfied that here is proof of a law that the mind builds the body and can restore it.

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Preceding Entry: The Household of Faith 246-250: Overcoming the Poverty Idea
Following Entry: The Household of Faith 257-259: A Scientific Religion