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A bit of advice, at no charge. if you have an allergy toward pollen which comes in the form of a runny nose, don’t forget your handkerchief! I forgot mine this morning and I have to use paper towels, and I’m getting a raw nose. So don’t forget handkerchief and don’t forget comb, and don’t forget the Spirit of Truth, because the Spirit of Truth does not forget us.
Thank you. See? Ask and ye shall receive.
Let’s give our attention now to our Source of inspiration, that beautiful, wonderful Spirit of Truth. I am open and receptive to God’s living Spirit of Truth. Together, “I am open and receptive to God’s living Spirit of Truth.” And Father, we are grateful, amen.
Well friends, yesterday we ended on the idea that Jesus never gives diagnoses of human illnesses or human problems the way modern psychiatry does, and psychoanalysis and “good advice givers,” you know what I mean? Parents always like to pinpoint the negative causes of negative events in a person’s life, and that’s alright under certain circumstances, but under other circumstances, that’s dangerous business. Are you hearing me?
To tell somebody specifically what caused this specific this or that when we don’t really what? We don’t really know for sure. We can make guesses and assumptions, but in general we know that erroneous, undesirable results come from error and undesirable thinking and attitudes. And we don’t have to pinpoint them and give their birthdates and describe their proportions and all that. You can if you want to, if you’re an expert at that, but in general, we just know that it is error and negativity, in general, which does these things to people, and so knowing the Truth is the solution, not analyzing the error.
So Jesus uses one word only in referring to this generalized cause of human affliction. What does He call it? Sin. Now in the earlier and lower stages of evolution –by the way, I’m going to use a term frequently that you will not find in any of our Unity literature, don’t let this bother you and don’t ask me questions about it. It is self-explanatory. I invented a term called ‘life-wave.’ We are all members of this current life-wave on planet Earth.
Some of us are low-on in the wave, some of us are high in the wave, and some of us are in the middle of the wave—doesn’t matter. We’re all part of the same wave and the wave travels the same direction on the same ocean. And the ocean of our life-wave we call ‘the Presence of God,’ Omnipresent.
So I will be using this term ‘life-wave,’ and if you don’t like it, you translate in your own mind, but don’t raise your hand and ask me questions about it or object to it. You translate it into what you like. You may prefer the term ‘human family,’ that’s fine, right? Jesus calls it ‘this flock,’ I call it ‘life-wave.’ Okay, can we go on? Alright.
Now, in our life-wave, at lower stages of evolution, at more primitive periods in our development, most of our sins, and I’m talking about you and me, were sins of commission: we did bad things! Are you hearing me? We were cruel, we were savage, we killed. It was par for the course because our whole purpose in those stages of life was survival, are you hearing me? To stay alive.
And in those days, at that level, to stay alive you often had to do things which now are considered horrible, evil, awful, you see? Alright, we got through that and you’ve lost your expertise at that, but we’re still sinning, we’re still doing our full share of sinning and that’s why we have not regenerated yet.
But now our sins are different, our sins are no longer sins of “wickedness,” of cruelty; they are sins of dumbness: d-u-m-b-n-e-s-s. We get dumb, we forget, we get lazy, we ignore, we try to disguise things. And so our two great sins today, our two greatest sins today that are keeping us from regeneration are not what they used to be.
Today, I would say, and Mr. Fillmore said it before I do, and I back him up completely, [and] Jesus said it before he did, “Our sin is to forget or to fail. We fail to first believe, we fail to forgive. These are the main sins of omission which are causing so much of our unnecessary suffering today.”
Now of course the question is: failure to believe? Failure to believe what? Failure to believe totally in Divine ideas. That’s it. Not failure to believe in your self-image, or to believe in success and all that, but failure to believe, to give your total belief to God’s what? Divine ideas.
God’s Divine ideas are the one thing in human existence that we are always, always right to give total belief to them; absolutely safe, absolutely right. And if we fail to give our belief to any of God’s Divine ideas, we are falling short of our own potential, our own capabilities, and trouble [results??].
Now you might say, “Well what Divine ideas? How many are there? I don’t know how many there are but I know there are twelve!” Jesus knew it, Charles Fillmore knew it, I know it, now you know it. There are twelve main Divine ideas. These are the essentials, these are the disciples of Christ within you. Learn the names of these twelve Divine ideas, which we now call your twelve what? Powers.
When you know these twelve Divine ideas, you know the parents of all other Divine ideas. “And when you know the parents,” Mr. Fillmore said, “the parents will eventually introduce you to all their children.” So learn those twelve, give your total belief to those twelve, and you will have the keys to the kingdom of heaven and regeneration.
Now the next item in our book is, Mr. Fillmore says, “We have been so persistently taught that nature heals, that we do not, as a rule, give the question of the origin of her healing power any serious thought, but we should, because our thought calls into action in our consciousness, the Mind principle to which we give our attention.” Now I would rephrase that to, “the Divine idea to which we give our belief. Do you hear me?
Do you believe in sickness or do you believe in health? Say it. Did someone say sickness? That’s your prerogative, but what you believe in becomes your reality, so believe in Divine ideas! Acknowledge the existence of their opposites, but do not give them your what? Power. How do you give them your power? Believe, see?
Is happiness a Divine idea? What? Happiness is not a Divine idea? What is it [then]? It is a child of some of the twelve, but it is. The children are Divine ideas, friends. Listen to me friends. The twelve are the parents but parents have children, that’s why they’re called “parents.”
And so these twelve parental Divine ideas have offspring, which are not originals but are the results of some combinations among the parents. And so happiness is not one of the parents but it’s a Divine idea, so it’s a child of some combination of the original [parents]. Is beauty a Divine idea or not? Alright, but it’s not one of the twelve, so beauty is the result of some combination among the twelve.
Is peace of mind a Divine idea? Of course it is, but it’s not one of the twelve, but it is a result, an offspring. And so as I told you Mr. Fillmore said, learn the parents’ names, make friends with the parents, then the parents will introduce you – bring their offspring into your life.
Alright now, I interrupted my paragraph here. Oh, “If we center our attention upon nature as the healing principle, that is the source of healing, we stir up natural activities that are secondary, secondary to the one cause of all action, that is Infinite Mind, or God, Spirit. But it is our privilege as creations of Supreme Mind, to bring into action all of its forces—primary and secondary. By our thought and the mighty Mind action back of thought, we can stir into action all the powers of being, and get the results of their concentrated healing currents, instead of the weakened, segregated, seepage from just one, which is nature.” You understand that what we call “nature” is secondary to Spirit?
Spirit is mightier than nature. Okay, now this idea is acted out by Jesus. Jesus teaches in parables and in symbolism, and many of His teachings, He doesn’t give them in word lectures, but He acts them out and incorporates symbolism in His actions, in His involvements, like walking on the water; He’s giving a lesson there, He’s not showing off! He’s teaching something there, but you have to know the symbolism of heat, of water, of waves, of contrary winds, of Peter, of Peter stepping out of the boat – all of that is symbolism acted out as actual events.
How about His crucifixion? The whole crucifixion He is acting out a very important metaphysical teaching for people getting ready for regeneration. You can’t regenerate until you’ve gone through a crucifixion, then you are resurrected, then you regenerate or you ascend. And all of this is deep symbolism which our life-wave is only now ready for, to learn.
Up until recently, we were only interested and ready for the “works” of Jesus, the scpectacularness of His biographies and all that, but He knew the time would come when we would be ready for His higher ministry, which is His teaching ministry, and that’s what we’re tuning into now.
Now, in regard to what I just told you—what Mr. Fillmore just told us – there is an incident in the life of Jesus which perfectly corroborates this. We’re told that there was a healing spa in that part of the world, called Bethesda, and the first thing we’re told about this healing spa, which if you’re taking things literally, is very unimportant –that it had five porches. Who cares? You understand me? Literally, factually, who cares how many porches it had? But metaphysically is it important? Because number five always symbolizes what? The five senses.
Now this is a healing spa, and the most notable thing about it is it is bordered by five porches, which means it is a healing work limited to the five senses. What are we talking about here? Materia medica. Materia medica is a healing process, is it not? What are doctors for? What are hospitals for? What is medicine for? What is surgery for? Come on folks, don’t be afraid of the word: healing!
I’m going home. Materia medica means the medical profession!—doctors, hospitals, nurses, therapists. How does the Materia medica get through to people to help heal them? Say it again. Through the five senses. How else can a doctor treat a patient except through some way—come on folks, be with me! Dealing with the five senses. You have to taste something, you have to be injected with something, you have to hear something, you have to see something; the five senses are the tools of Materia medica to get through to patients.
Now we’re told that this Pool of Bethesda was crowded with patients, get it? And once in a while, nobody knew exactly when, we were told they believed that an angel came down and troubled the pool that was in the middle of this spa. And anybody who could get to that pool while the waters were being troubled by the angel, would get healed, but those who didn’t get there in time, too bad.
So you can see then that—in taking it literally for a moment—that in this spa, many came hoping to get healed, willing to be healed, but because they were depending on a nature phenomenon, some made it but more didn’t. Is this not true of our Materia medica today? Our hospitals are crowded, doctors’ appointment books are filled. Try to get an eye examination on one day’s notice, just try. I tried, it took me a week and a half before I could get to see the eye doctor.
Now, but, isn’t it better than nothing? I mean I’ve been cured many times through Materia medica help and I know many people who have, but not everybody gets healed through Materia medica; some make it, some don’t, and that’s what happened at this pool.
Now, we have that Pool of Bethesda symbolizing Materia medica healing, which is limited to the five senses. Then we have Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the symbol of spiritual consciousness, spiritual healing, spiritual awareness, spiritual power, spiritual light: Jesus Christ. Not just Jesus but Jesus Christ, representing spiritual consciousness, spiritual power, healing – spiritual healing.
Now, many people, at one time, believed that if you wanted to keep your spiritual consciousness pure, you had to avoid all contact with Materia medica, you hearing me? That you stay away from doctors, you don’t get near hospitals, you do not dare take any kind of medicines; stay away!—and you depend completely on Mary Baker Eddy. Okay.
And the funny thing, well, not the funny thing, the marvelous thing was, when this movement first started, it worked! I mean thousands and thousands and thousands of people were cured, miraculously, just by believing what I just told you, which always happens when a new religious movement comes into birth and presents a certain kind of teaching different from the past. There is always a surge of spectacular success; there was in Unity in the early days.
And in the early days of Unity, Silent Unity was so flooded with reports of miraculous answers to prayers, that the filing cabinets could not hold them, same was true in Christian Science, same was true with the Edgar Cayce Movement, same was true with “I’m okay, you’re okay,” crap, and “How to Win Friends and Influence …” – you know, all of these movements, because they’re so different, because they break from the past patterns, and they are serious, they are genuine, they always have a spectacular entrance into, and then things do what? Even out, even out, and in some cases decline; seriously decline.
This has happened, I’m sorry to say, in the Christian Science Organization; they’re going downhill, fast. Because why? One reason only, because they did this to their teachings: when you close the door, you keep out the light, and when you keep out the light, stagnation and staleness sets in. And so they are not getting the spectacular, miraculous healings that they once did, not because they’re wrong or bad, but because they have closed the door.
Unity is not going to do that. We teach our teachings as we now have them, but we always say we keep a what in front of the teachings we now have, we now teach? [Audience: “An open door]. Mr. Fillmore insisted on that, he said, “I reserve the right to change my mind about anything I ever teach, not because what I have taught is wrong, but because there’s something even better, greater, more light,” you see.
Alright now. If it was true that in order to be a spiritual healer and continue to be, you had to stay away from medical involvement, then would not Jesus have detoured around Bethesda? Come on. If that’s the truth, if in order to keep your healing power as a spiritual healer you had to stay away from involvement with Materia medica, then the story would be that Jesus did what? Bypassed it, went around it, but what does He do? Goes smack into it, right into the middle of it.
And He encounters a man by the pool—well, lying there—who had, see, Jesus could read people, did you know this? We are told that nobody needed to tell Him anything of that man because He already knew all that was in man. He could look at you and read your book of life, and you better not try to con Him. He could read and He knew, He knew this woman had five what? Husbands, and that they flopped, and He knew that the one she was now with was not her husband. He did this so many times.
He would look at somebody and He would sometimes ask them a question, sometimes not, but He knew. So He comes and He sees this man, 38 years, and He asks this man only one question. Now you and I would say to him, “How come you’re here this long? What’s wrong with your consciousness?” Come on, I know [Unity??], I know your ill. We would immediately start diagnosing why he failed.”
Jesus never did anything like that. Did you hear me folks? Jesus never made any kind of attempt to place blame [or] diagnose negative. What He did, He asked this man an all-important question: “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6). Are you willing to be well? Wilt, w-i-l-t is an archaic English word, we do not use anymore; the modern equivalent of ‘wilt’ is, are you “willing.” No extra charge for that English grammar lesson.
Okay, now this man, obviously, had been so programmed by his misfortune, that instead of answering Jesus’ question, his lips start blah-blah-blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah-blah, going through a whole rigmarole of justifying the fact that he never had the good luck, he never got to the right doctor at the right time, the right procedure, and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. People are doing that all over the world today.
Instead of just saying, “I’m sick and tired of being sick! I’m willing to resume the responsibility of having good health. It’s going to cost me a lot – not money, but ego—but I’m willing to be healed.” That’s what the answer should have been, but the man’s, “Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah,” and people are doing that.
But Jesus was never fooled by what peoples’ lips were doing; He was too psychologically genius for that. He didn’t hear that guy’s lips, He heard that guy’s mind and heart, deep within him, and that guy must have said only one word, or Jesus would not have said what He said afterward. [Ed responding to audience: Yes, Yes.] And so Jesus looks at Him and because He knew the man could do it, because the man is now willing, He says, “Take up your bed, and walk” (John 5:8).
Now, what does that tell us today? Especially those of you who are going to become active in the healing aspect of the Unity work: Do not ever be reluctant to use your spiritual consciousness to cooperate with existing technology—with scientific, medical, artistic, mathematical, facts. Bring your spiritual consciousness into these factual systems and you will be greatly, greatly effective.
Do not do what one of my fellow ministers once did that kind of shocked me, and I’m glad she did it now, because that enables me to talk like this. She said, “Oh, Ed, I don’t make hospital visitations in my church. I can’t afford to contaminate my consciousness,” I mean, and she meant that, she really meant that! Or, “When I counsel with somebody, I do not let them give me negative details; I cut them short and I won’t listen.” Now that’s wrong friends.
We live in a world in which there is tribulation; “In the world ye [shall] have tribulation” (John 16:33), so you have a commitment to Spirit and a spiritual consciousness. You bring that into the tribulations and you become a channel for miracles of great health. And when you are depending upon God or Divine ideas as the Source of any help, any good you need, you’re dealing with the primary Source: healing.
The Source of healing is the Divine idea of perfect life, in the Mind of God; the Materia medica help that we can share is secondary source. So do we have to reject one of these sources for the other? No! According to Jesus and Mr. Fillmore, we can combine them, you see? We can be instrumental in making the connection and have wonderful results.
You know, I have to tell you – I didn’t plan on this, but I’ll make it as short as possible. Right after I came into Unity, which was in New York City, about a week after I decided to join the Unity Center there, we were asked to donate blood. There was a blood donation drive going on, and many different businesses were asked to organize employees and go down to the blood banks and donate blood, and we did; where I work, we went down.
And about, oh I’d say four or five days after this, I began to feel very uncomfortable in my body, and my eyes and my skin started to turn bright yellow, and I could give you some other details about the eliminatory processes, but they can …
And I was hungry, I would eat, the fruit tasted delicious, and about half an hour after swallowing, my insides were all … So I went to a couple of doctors and they said, “Well you have jaundice,” and I said, “Yeah, but jaundice is a symptom, what is the illness?” And they didn’t know.
You see, in those days, almost nothing was known about hepatitis. Practically nothing was known about it. It was just called ‘yellow jaundice,’ but they found out later that jaundice is just one of the symptoms of hepatitis. They also didn’t realize back then that needles, either drawing blood or transfusing blood, should be sterilized. So obviously, the needle that was thrust into me was contaminated with the virus, which was hepatitis, in those days.
Finally, my landlady’s son diagnosed me correctly. Isn’t that good luck? He used the word hepatitis and he sent me to the hospital, and I was … God is good. I was making a very low salary at that time, but I had a very rare illness, and so my doctor said, “Ed, do you mind if I bring my peers to examine you each day?” And I thought, “Oh well sure, so what.”
Little did I know what I was letting myself in for, I mean, I had the big parade going through my room every day, many, many hours a day. You know, they were curious; this was a rarity in those days. But! –here’s how it paid off. Because I didn’t get angry and object to it, they said, “We’re not going to charge you for your hospital stay,” so I got a free ride.
Anyway, my minister, who was Georgiana Treewest, heard that I was in the hospital, and she didn’t come to visit me but she called me, and I told her what the trouble was and everything. So she said, “Ed, I’m going to send you the Unity Correspondence Course,” which you would have had to do at that time to be ordained. And she said, “While since you’re in the hospital and since you’re in bed all day, get to work on this correspondence course and start to earn credits.”
So she sent the material and as I was reading this material and answering these questions, the thought came to me, “I don’t have to be treated medically to get well. I don’t have to be” – get it? If this stuff is true, and I think it is, then it ought to work for me, especially since I’m such a nice guy. So I began doing what the correspondence course said in regard to healing. Friends, within three days I was completely healed. All my symptoms were gone! All of them.
My eyes became beautiful again, my complexion turned peaches and cream again, the color of my you-know-what got normal again. I could eat, eat, eat like a horse and not go through discomfort. I was completely healed, but, the doctor did not want me to leave because the line still wanted to [observe me]. But what was there to see? I was well! But I didn’t fight.
So while I was there, they brought in a man, an Italian man, obviously the father of a very large family, who was in the last stages of what is now called arterial sclerosis –hardening of the arteries. He was in [the] final stages of that illness, he was in [the] bed near me, in the semi-private room.
And he was in a delirium; people at those final stages often go into delirium, and they rant and they rave and they carry on.
And there was a large number of people outside of the room, that the staff wouldn’t let into the room – his family, I’m sure. So finally, one morning, he had been loud all night, and I couldn’t sleep and nobody could have any peace, so they decided he was to die, and they removed him from the regular room and they took him downstairs to what the nurses talked about—and they weren’t supposed to use this term but I have big ears – the “dying room;” they took him down there to die.
While he was gone, then his family started to come in after he was gone and started to pack his things, and they talked to me. They were so friendly, so nice, so loving, and it got to me. Even though I didn’t know the guy, didn’t know the family, yet this beauty of his family got to me, and I said, “That guy cannot die! I won’t stand for it.” I mean it, I really said this to myself, “I won’t put up with it! It can’t be! He’s not supposed to die! These are his family, they need him, they want him!” you understand? “I don’t care what they call that room they’ve taken him to. It’s not the dying room, it’s the getting well room!”
And I lay in that bed—and I know it’s going to sound like I’m boasting, but I’m not; I’m just repeating—and I affirmed, and I affirmed, and I affirmed, and I shook my fist and kept affirming. But I knew, I knew. You can guess the result.
Now I never saw this man again, I never saw him again, but I did see his wife, because she came up the next day and she went over to his drawer beside his bed, took something out, and she was looking at me with this beautiful expression on her face and she said, “My husband is going to be alright, he’s going to be well, we’re going to take him home.” She said, “But he asked me to tell you something before he leaves.” Now, he never even saw me, really; he was delirious all the while he was in the room with me.
And here she said, “My husband asked me to tell you something,” and I said, “Well what is it?” And I thought it was going to be, “He just wants to say thank you,” but that wasn’t it. She said, “He wants to tell you that he saw Jesus.” That’s all she said, that he saw Jesus, [then] he was gone, they took him home. I think that incident folks, in my life, brought me to Jesus Christ more than anything that I could ever read in any book.
Alright, so now we have Jesus cooperating with Materia medica, which means that you are going to bring your spiritual consciousness into contact with whatever is going on in the material [world]. You aren’t going to be afraid of contaminating your consciousness by making hospital visits; you are going to help purify the hospital consciousness with your dedication to Spirit. Alright.
Mr. Fillmore then says, “Read the whole 24th Chapter of Matthew. In it, Jesus describes in symbols and facts, what is taking place today in all parts of the world. It may be argued that these conditions have been present in every generation, and so they have, but never have so many of the signs stood out so forcibly as now.” Then he says, “All this indicates the end of a world dispensation, a climax in race development.”
In another place in his writings, one of his books, he talks about the end of a ‘religious’ dispensation, here, he uses the term, “This indicates the end of a ‘world’ dispensation,” but nowhere in the book does he explain what that means.
Now he does this a lot, he will come up with certain terms that are rather original with him, and he knows exactly what he means, so he assumes that we all do, but we don’t. And so he doesn’t explain the meaning of many of these terms which he originates in his teaching.
And he was often asked by students and workers, “Well, Mr. Fillmore, you mention the end of a world dispensation, and then in your other book you mentioned the end of a religious dispensation, what do you mean by that?” Well another typical Charles Fillmorism is that he would just walk away, are you hearing me? He hated to stand around answering one-to-one questions and explaining what he felt were self-explanatory terms.
Like I made up a term called “soul secret” in one of my classes, and I said, every human being is entitled to his or her share of soul secrets, assuming everybody [understood that]. Well, one, after a class, which I love, after a class somebody nails me and starts asking me questions, when the last thing you want to do is keep on talking, “Oh, Mr. Rabel, what do you mean by soul secret?!” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “I never heard a word like that before! What does it mean?”
And I got angry, believe it or not, and I said, “Honey, you are an adult human being. You do speak English. Surely you know what the word ‘soul’ means?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what the word ‘secret’ means?”
“Yes.”
“Now put the two together.”
Okay, now he never did explain what he meant by those two terms: the end of a world dispensation or a religious dispensation. So one day, and I never knew Mr. Fillmore, but years later I was working in Silent Unity and this paragraph was read by one of our coworkers. And afterward I went up to our Director of Silent Unity, who was May Rowland in those days. May had very close associations with both Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, and so if you wanted to know anything about Charles or Myrtle Fillmore, go to May and she would give you the answer.
So I said, “May, what did he mean when he talked about ‘end of the race dispensation’ and the ‘religious [dispensation]’?” She said, “He meant what Emmet Fox explained in Emmet Fox’s Little Book, The Zodiac and the Bible—The End of the World, so I’m going to read to you some excerpts from this pamphlet, which will explain, very clearly, what Charles Fillmore meant when he talked about the end of a world dispensation, [or] the end of a religious dispensation.
Now I’m going to read this as though Mr. Fox wrote it in the sequence that I’ll be reading it, but it’s not so; I’ve taken excerpts out, but I’ll read it as though it’s in sequence. He says, “The history of mankind proceeds in no haphazard or casual way, but through the unfoldment of a number of distinct periods or ages. Each of these periods has its own characteristics, its own lessons to be learned, its own work to be done, and each one is quite fundamentally different in every respect from its predecessor, and not a mere improvement or expansion of it. Each of these ages lasts approximately 2,000 years, or to be more precise, each one is usually about 2,150 years long,” well, give and take 150 years, who cares? Do you?
“And the passing from one such age into another is always accompanied by both external and internal storm and stress, such as the world has recently been going through. The last change took place a couple of thousand years ago, and the new world that formed itself from that melting pot was the Western Christian Civilization that we know. This great enterprise, having worked itself out and fulfilled its mission, is now drawing to its close and the new age is coming upon us.”
“This huge circle which is known as the Zodiac, falls into twelve parts or sectors, and each part or sign, as the ancients called it, marks the passage of time that we occupy in working through one of our ages. This Zodiac is one of the most interesting of all the symbols that reveal the destiny of mankind. In fact, the Zodiac, with its twelve signs symbolizes the most fundamental thing in the nature of man. It is nothing less than the key to the history of the human race, of the psychology of the individual man, and of his regeneration, or spiritual salvation.”
“The Bible, which of course is the great fountain of Truth, has the Zodiac running through it from the beginning to the end. The twelve sons of Jacob who become the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles of the New Testament are, apart from this historical identity, special expressions of the twelve signs of the Zodiac.”
Alright, a little further now, “In order to acquire this full understanding of God, that is, the full understanding which will be our complete salvation, man has to learn, piecemeal as it were, to know God in twelve different ways. It takes him a couple of thousand years to learn each of these lessons, and so we can, if we like, think about progress around the Zodiac as a series of twelve lessons which we have to learn about God.”
“We have now finished” – I wish he had said, “We are now finishing,” instead of, we have now finished” – I ain’t finished yet, but I’m finishing, okay.
“We have now finished our last lesson and have already begun our study of the new one. Each of these lessons has a name, which has been allotted to it for convenience. Everything must have a name, but as many of us know, names, when rightly understood, are often found to be symbolical of the things for which they stand.” For example, Jesus, Jesu, means ‘savior’ in Greek. The word ‘Jesus’ in English, ‘Jesu’ in Greek, means savior. Okay.
“And the names of our lessons or signs or no exception to this rule. Now, the name of the last sign, the one we have just left” – really, we’re still in it – “is Pisces.” This is the Piscean Age that we’re in. Okay.
“The one before that, which we left over 2,000 years ago was Aries, or the Ram, and the one before that was Taurus, or the Bull.” You see, Jesus lived [and] functioned in the Aries age, Moses functioned and lived in the Taurus age, but their Teachings were for an age ahead of that in which they lived. Jesus’ teachings are for this age but He lived in the prior age, right, and we are now in the Pisces Age but we are preparing for the Aquarian Age. Alright.
“This new age in which we have now begun is called ‘Aquarius,’ the man with the water pot” – not the water itself anymore. Pisces – water itself, now the water carrier, the water bearer, which is air, Spirit. Jesus talked about “born of water and of Spirit” – Piscean Age existence and regeneration into Aquarius or Spirit. Born of water, born of Spirit; born anew.
“The Aquarian Age is going to be a completely new chapter in the history of mankind. The student should be very clear about this: a new age means everything new, including body cellular structure” – did I make that point? Everything new, including the body’s cellular structure. Don’t judge the new body you’re going to have by the body you now are stuck with; it’s tacky. A new age means everything new.
Not just a polishing up of the old Piscean idea—“Oh, improve your self-image,” no! Don’t improve your self-image; be born anew, become a new person. Don’t increase self-esteem; become more esteemable, you hearing me? Don’t get stuck in these pop-psychology fads that are so easy to tune in on and get hooked on; they are retardation of evolution. Go into the New Age with an open mind, and there’s no extra charge for that. Everything new, okay, now I’ve said enough about that.
We only have a few minutes left. I want to end this class with the last chapter—a statement made by Charles Fillmore in the last chapter, last paragraph of this chapter. This is one of the most important and powerful healing statements made by Charles Fillmore or anybody else. Later on in the book he will give another on, equally pure and important as this one, but this is the first one.
And before I read it to you, I urge you: don’t let its simplicity and clarity fool you; it is power, it is light. And if you can absorb this into your belief system and keep it there, you will experience healing and healing power that you never have before. Let me read it first before I start talking about page numbers.
He says this: “Jesus gave us the consciousness of peace, ‘My peace I give unto you’ (John 14:27)” – now here’s the statement. Eat it, drink it, give your ‘I am’ to it: “The mind of peace precedes bodily healing.” This is one of the most important healing truths ever printed. I told you it was very simple, very clear, don’t let that put you off; believe it, accept it, remember it. “The mind of peace precedes bodily healing.” Now if you accept that, you will never again make the mistake that you and I used to make: the mind of panic precedes seeking healing. That’s false. Seek the mind of what? Peace.
Now I’ll give you, since we have another minute, I’ll give you the second statement, which occurs further on in the book, and I can’t give you the page. He also says this later: “The first step in prayer for healing is to become still.” Not “get agitated,” which will prove that you care, you hearing me? But become what? Still. So when you leave this class today, take these two sentences, these two statements, deep into your consciousness, make them a part of you and you’ll become a great healer: The mind of peace precedes what? “The mind of peace precedes bodily healing,” and, “the first step in prayer for healing is to become still.” Great. God bless you and I’ll see you tomorrow.
Transcribed by Mary Salama on September 12, 2018.
