Unity Metaphysics: 11 The Word

11A POWER OF THE WORD:

"Perfect health is natural, and the work of the spiritual healer is to restore this perfect health, which is innate and can be spoken into expression. Our ills are the result of our sins or failure to adjust our minds to Divine Mind. 'Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins.’ When the sinning state of mind is forgiven and the right state of mind is established, man is restored to his primal and natural wholeness. This is wholly a mental process, and so all conditions of man are the result of his thinking. 'As he (man) thinketh in his heart, so is he.” (Jesus Christ Heals 5)

"As man is quickened with spiritual faith, his word is endowed with power. It becomes so charged with spiritual energy that he is enabled to heal all manner of diseases, even at a distance." (Revealing Word/Word)

The power of the word does not originate with the word itself. It comes from the divine idea which the word expresses, and it also comes from the sense of I Am of the person who speaks the word. A consciously spoken word which has good intentions behind it carries great power. A mechanically spoken word with not much intention behind it carries little or no power. If a word is consciously spoken with the sole intention of expressing a divine idea, it is called affirmation, and it carries the greatest power of all.

11B THE WORD OF GOD:

"The Word of God is immanent in man and all the universe. All creation is carried forward by and through man's conscious recognition of this mighty One. Man is the consummation of the Word. His spirit has within it the concentration of all that is contained within the Word. God being perfect, His idea, thought, and Word must be perfect. Jesus expresses this perfect Word of God as spiritual man. 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.' (John 1:14)" (Revealing Word/Word)

"The 'seed’ is the creative idea inherent in the word, the nature that it inherits from its parent source--God." (Charles Fillmore Christian Healing 65)

The Word of God is creative Principle in action. This idea is first presented in the book of Genesis. The symbolic imagery is that of a gigantic “person” who literally speak words which instantly “come true.” This makes an “interesting story, but it raises a number of unanswerable questions on the strictly literal level. Taken as allegory, however, it illustrates the action of the creative Principle of God in the form of the Word (or Logos). This is the metaphysical meaning of “And God said. . .”

11C THE LOGOS:

"The meaning of the word Logos is speech based upon reason. If the reasonable premise that God is omnipresent God is well grounded in you, you cannot speak anything but healing and uplifting words. Your words must be for the healing of the nations, because they are true words flowing forth from a source which in Truth has no opposite." (Teach Us to Pray 172)

"An understanding of the Logos reveals to us the law under which all things are brought forth, the law of mind action. Divine Mind creates by thought, through ideas." (Revealing Word/Logos)

Logos is a Greek word translated into English as Word with a capital W. There seems to be no clear single definition or interpretation of this Greek word. The definitions seem to point in a direction, but come to no real conclusion. This is probably not a defect, since the metaphysical meaning of Logos is not something concrete, literal, and finished. The general consensus seems to be that Logos denotes creative Principle in action as it relates to the universe. Logos originates in God. Logos reaches its later stage in us, where it is expressed through us as conscious speech.

11D JESUS' HEALING METHOD:

"Whatever these various theories of Jesus' remarkable healing power may be, no one disputes one point: He used words as the vehicle of the healing potency. He always spoke to the patient "as one having authority." He had a certain assurance, an inner conviction, that He was speaking the truth when He said, 'Thou art made whole;' and the result of His understanding carried conviction to the mind of the patient and opened the way for the 'virtue' that went forth from the speaker." (Teach Us To Pray 165)

"Jesus laid great stress on the power of the word. The word has two activities: One is that of the still small voice in the silence, and the other is that of the 'loud voice' that was used by Jesus when He raised Lazarus from the dead. In the beginning 'God said, let there be'. . . and there was. We are the offspring of God, and our words have power proportionate to our realization of our indwelling spiritual kingdom." (Atom-Smashing Power of Mind 148)

Jesus is the prime example of Logos reaching its final stage as conscious speech. Jesus exemplified this to such an extent that He is sometimes referred to as "the Word become flesh." We must not overlook the fact that the words of Jesus came from a consciousness which we probably cannot even as yet comprehend. It was this consciousness which went into His words and caused them to have the overwhelming power they had. Jesus Himself constantly called attention to the importance of His words. His words are one form of His presence with us today. This is one meaning of the "second coming of Jesus Christ," and it is happening now.

11E WHAT ARE WORDS?

"Words—The vehicles through which ideas make themselves manifest. Words that have in them the realization of perfect, everywhere-present, always present divine life, and our oneness with this life, are dominant in the restoration of life and health. When spiritual words abide in man's consciousness, the word or thought formed in intellectual and sense mind must give way to the higher principles of Being. The whole consciousness is then raised to a more spiritual plane. Affirmations of words of Truth realized in consciousness bring the mind into just the right attitude to receive light, and power and guidance from Spirit." (Revealing Word/Word)

Realization of the power of words will not come to one who thinks of them only as being sounds or as combinations of letters on a printed page. Words are really expressions of consciousness and in our world, consciousness is the ruling factor. Words carry the power and authority of their originating consciousness, just as certain ambassadors have the mandate to carry the power and authority of their government.

11F THE SPOKEN WORD:

"The spoken word carries vibrations through the universal ether, and also moves the intelligence inherent in every form, animate or inanimate. It has been discovered that even rocks and all minerals have life. This is proof of the omnipresence of the one animating substance. Man, being the highest emanation of Divine Mind, has great directive power and is really co-operator with God in forming the universe." (Charles Fillmore Christian Healing 68)

Again, when Mr. Fillmore writes of the spoken word he means much more than just the audible sound of the word. He includes the consciousness of that person who speaks it. This means that what a person's consciousness is able to do, his words are able to do. When words of Truth are consciously spoken, the Truth consciousness is IN THOSE WORDS, and mighty things are accomplished. The most powerful of all spoken words are affirmations of Truth.

11G SPEAKING THE WORD:

"Every time we speak we cause the atoms of the body to tremble and change their places. Not only do we cause the atoms of our body to change their position, but we raise or lower the rate of vibration and otherwise affect the bodies of others with whom we come in contact." (Charles Fillmore Christian Healing 65)

"Thus he who realizes most thoroughly that God is the supreme perfection and that in Him can be no imperfection, and speaks forth that realization with conviction, will cause all things to arrange themselves in divine order." (Teach Us To Pray 172)

Since words express states of consciousness there is a very close relationship between the words we speak and our various physiological states. Mr. Fillmore relates this idea to the very atoms and vibratory rates of the human body. Our spoken words also have an effect on other persons' bodies, to the degree that a person makes himself subjective to the words of others. In the second paragraph Mr. Fillmore carries this idea one step further. He extends the influence of the spoken word into the arrangement of "things." This would probably include circumstances and events. It is helpful to remember that when Charles Fillmore makes these kinds of statements about the power of the spoken word, he is not referring to just any kind of spoken word. He means only the consciously spoken word that has spiritual motivation behind it. The other kind of spoken words are of little or no creative value. Jesus calls these "vain repetitions." In metaphysics we call this "mechanical talking."

Transcribed by Phyllis Banhan on June 23, 2016.