Scientific Spiritual Healing

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BY

WILLIAM T. WALSH

FOREWORD BY
RT. REV. ARTHUR SELDEN LLOYD, DD.

BISHOP SUFFRAGAN, DIOCESE OF NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK* LONDON* MCMXXVI

COPYWGHT, 1926 , BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

PBDfTHD IK THE UNITED STATES 07 AM31PC4

TO

BERTHA

PRISCILLA

JOAN

SUZANNE

FOREWORD

Many will welcome the appearance of this
book. Men's minds are turning more and more
towards the subject the author discusses. The
calmness and sanity of what he says adds to the
value of his work.

The Church is becoming aware that perhaps
unconsciously it has laid upon those who are called
to the practice of medicine the whole responsi-
bility for the care of the sick. At the same time
the greatest physicians seem to be coming to the
conclusion that there is a factor in their problem
which has been overlooked or left in abeyance.

There is nothing more inspiring in the develop-
ment of medicine than what seems to be a growing
consciousness that in ministering to a man's body
those forces which are spiritual must be taken into
account along with the laws of his physical frame.
It is obvious that we are approaching the time
when the priest and the physician must collabo-
rate, and perhaps there is no more difficult prob-

viii FOREWORD

lem to be solved than to find out how this can be
done. It may have to wait until each has learned
that to the other has been intrusted truth which
must be shared before either can do his work as
it should be done.

"Scientific Spiritual Healing" should help to-
wards a consummation ardently to be desired. At
any rate it will tempt the priests of the Church
to question again why the command to heal the
sick has been treated as though this command had
been abrogated. For the present, every man may
have his own theory as to how the principles which
the Author discusses, should be applied, but all
must confess that the end he strives after can be
attained. The matter of importance is that those
who suffer shall not be defrauded of the blessing
which is theirs of right through the negligence of
those whose duty it is to bring this to them.

This book will be read with the greater confi-
dence not only because the writer is a man who
has devoted long time to his subject, but because
he is one who, moved by the distresses with which
he constantly comes in contact as a faithful pas-
tor, has had the courage to accept what has been
shown in the Revelation of the Incarnate One and

FOREWORD he

has dared to take our Lord at His word. The re-
sults that Mr. Walsh has attained give pause to
the most skeptical, while they enlarge the hope of
all those who are sure that the gift which the
Christ bestowed upon His friends is theirs to-day
as it was at the beginning if they are willing to pay
the price involved in being co-workers with Him.

A. S. LLOYD,
Bishop Suffragan of New York.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD vii

PART ONE

THE PRACTICE OF SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL
HEALING

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE MEANING OF SPIRITUAL HEALING 3
II. TECHNIQUE IN SPIRITUAL HEALING . . 7

III. SPIRITUAL HEALING IN PRACTICE . . 29

The Healing of an Epileptic . 30

Healing a Man Possessed of Fear . . 36

Spiritual Healing in the Crisis of a Dis-
ease 41

IV. SPIRITUAL HEALING FOR THE DYING . . 49

V. THE PLACE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING IN

CHRISTIANITY 56

PART TWO
THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING

VI. SPIRITUAL HEALING AND MODERN SCI-
ENCE 67

VII. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITUAL HEALING 84

xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

VIIL THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL HEALING 97

IX. APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY IN* SPIRITUAL

HEALING 120

X. DAILY HEALING STUDIES: MEDITATION

AND PRAYER 138

APPENDIX 157

INDEX , 177

PART I

THE PRACTICE OF
SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

CHAPTER I

THE MEANING OF SPIRITUAL HEALING

THE word spirit is about as hazy a word as
the average man has in his vocabulary. A little
thought, however, will make its meaning suffi-
ciently clear for our present purpose. Let us
start our thinking with this short definition : Spirit
is something that is real but not material.

We know pretty well what is popularly meant
by matter. It is anything that occupies space or
takes up room. Matter has length, breadth,
thickness, weight, and other physical properties.
This book is material and so is your hand that
holds it.

But how about mind? Your mind is real, but
it has no dimensions. It does not occupy space
or take up room, and it does not weigh anything.
The mind, therefore, is a reality but not material.
Your will is also very real but it is not material.
The same is true of life. It is the realest thing

3

4 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

you possess, yet it is not material* But the su-
preme reality for you and me now is conscious-
ness. To be aware of myself, to know that I have
an existence as an individual separate and distinct
from others is the reality called consciousness. It
is the direct opposite to matter. That which is
material does not know itself. Whatever is
aware of itself and other realities is not material
but spiritual. This reality which is not material
has its original and highest expression in what we
name God.

Charles P. Steinmetz, chief consulting engineer
of the General Electric Company, thought about
the real things that man can know and wrote that
the fundamental reality in the universe is a myste-
rious thing, which, for lack of a better word, he
would call energy. It is an invisible, nonmate-
rial substance, according to his description of it.
This is what I call spirit. Add consciousness to
Steinmetz's fundamental reality and you have
what I mean by God.

When man organizes glass, copper, brass and
a few other materials and makes them into an
incandescent lamp, that mysterious energy called
electricity can manifest itself therein as heat and

MEANING 5

light. If he puts the copper and the brass to-
gether in a certain other highly organized way
called a dynamo, electricity can manifest itself
there as motion. So when "nature" puts water,
iron, lime, salts and a few other things together
to make the human body, that mysterious energy
called spirit can manifest itself in the body as life,
mind, feeling, will and consciousness.

The word healing is used throughout this book
in the broad sense in which it is used in the Bible,
namely, to express any beneficent effect produced
by spiritual means, for example, on the land, the
soul, the body, the feelings, a city, the under-
standing. A few quotations will illustrate how
comprehensive this word Is. We read: "I will
forgive them their sins, and heal their land;"
"Heal my soul for I have sinned against
Thee;" "Yet would He not heal you nor cure
you;" "He hath sent me to heal the broken-
hearted;" "He would have healed Babylon but
she would not;" "It may be to the healing of thy
error." Thus quotations from the Bible might be
multiplied to show that the word is used, as I
use it, to mean any beneficent effect produced by
spiritual means.

6 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

A system of healing that is truly scientific will
of course recognize its limitations and will not be
tempted to go beyond them. It will insist upon
the closest cooperation with other sciences and
agencies of help in ministering to human needs.
I believe in spiritual healing, properly understood,
but I have a good family physician. My advice
is that on the way from the physician of the body
it will always help to consult with the physician
of the soul. And when all human aid fails, as
some time it must for every one, when the body
gives warning that life is not going to dwell in
it always, even then doubts and fears can be healed
and an assurance generated that death is only a
change from a less perfect to a more perfect
manifestation of spirit.

CHAPTER II

TECHNIQUE IN SPIRITUAL HEALING

A QUESTION naturally arises in connection with
this presentation of spiritual healing. People are
sure to say, "Is not this practically Christian
Science, or New Thought?"

The answer is that since scientific spiritual heal-
ing deals with healing through spiritual means,
it must to some extent be like other systems of
spiritual healing. But there are essential differ-
ences between what I advocate and other systems,
notably the difference in the conceptions of God,
the reality of the material universe, and the
knowledge and use of technique.

All the healing movements take from the Bible
the truth that God is the ultimate reality in the
universe and that God is spirit. But the move-
ments in question deny that God is a personal
being and claim that personality is a limitation.

Scientific spiritual healing affirms that God is
the ultimate reality in the universe an4 that God
is spirit. ^But it differs from others and also

7

8 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

affirms that God is personal and that personality
is not a limitation. The difference is clear-cut
and fundamental.^'

These other systems confuse personality with
individuality, a person with an individual. Yet
these are two quite different concepts and unless
their difference is recognized hopeless confusion
results.

The essence of personality is consciousness of
self and what is not self. A tree has individu-
ality. That is why we can recognize one tree
as being different from another. Individuality
means that which divides and separates one thing
from another. But the tree is not a personality
because it is not conscious that it is a tree sepa-
rate and distinct from other trees.

A man is an individual in so far as he is sepa-
rate and distinct from other men. He is a person-
ality in so far as he is conscious of what he
really is.

An idiot is an individual easily distinguished
from other men or other idiots. But he is not
yet aware of what personality is, neither is he
conscious of possessing it. Consequently he is
not treated as a person, that is, as one conscious

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 9

of rights and obligations such as normal persons
are conscious of.

A normal infant is an individual, but only a
potential personality. It has not yet reached the
maturity of consciousness. It is a person only
in so far as it is conscious of what it truly is.
Hence an infant is treated as a person in the
making.

Consciousness, the essence of personality, is not
a limitation. Consciousness is that which broad-
ens our horizon of being. The man who is aware
of his true nature is rapidly leaving limitations
behind. Jesus in making men aware of the truth
that they are sons of God was not limiting them.
He was setting them free of a host of limitations
caused by the lack of this consciousness of son-
ship.

Needless to say scientific spiritual healing does
not deny the reality of the material universe of
which our body is a part. Science is demonstrat-
ing more and more that matter is not what it
seems to be to the unscientific mind. A lump of
steel is not a solid, inert mass. We know now
that it is made up of incredibly small structures
called atoms, which are constantly moving at great

10 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

speed, and that in a block of steel a foot square
there is, strange to say, more space than solid
matter. So with all material things. They are
much more mysterious than people generally sup-
pose and we have been in error about their nature.
But our errors have not destroyed the reality of
material things. They are what they are whether
we understand them or not. Our present under-
standing is that material things are manifestations
of energy, as is everything else that we know any-
thing about.

Our senses react to certain stimuli, for ex-
ample, to vibrations. We reason about the sen-
sations these reactions have caused or occasioned.
People come to all sorts of conclusions as the
result of that reasoning. Some conclude that the
material world, including our body, is a delusion,
an error in our reasoning. Such persons confuse
an error in a judgment of their mind with some-
thing that exists quite independently of their
mind, as they confuse personality with individu-
ality.

Scientific spiritual healing differs from other
systems in the essential place it gives the knowl-
edge and use of technique in healing.

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 11

In all the vast range of Christian literature,
so far as I know, there is no extant study of the
technique of the healing practiced by Jesus and
His disciples.

It is true that attention has been called to some
of the things done and to some of the words
uttered by Jesus and His disciples in studies of
their healing work. But so far as I know no one
heretofore has written to show that Jesus and the
disciples used a highly developed technique. No
one has described this technique and analyzed it.
No one has designedly experimented with it and
made a report showing the connection between the
technique and the results achieved. Do not un-
derstand me to mean that the technique alone ac-
counts for the results. I mean only what I have
stated.

This matter of technique is rather a large sub-
ject. A whole book might well be devoted to it.
But so clearly does the technique appear in the
accounts of healing in the New Testament that
the task of giving a good idea of it is not so dif-
ficult as it might at first seem.

It is popularly believed that when Our Lord
or the disciples healed people they merely put

12 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

their hands on them, or touched them with some
object, saying, "Be thou healed," or similar
words. And if the sufferer had faith he was
healed. The procedure, however, was not quite
so simple.

Let us turn to the account of the healing of
the paralyzed man in the third chapter of the Book,
of the Acts of the Apostles and observe what
really took place. Considering that this is not
a modern scientific report of a clinical treatment*,
the details here given are amazing.

Every day, according to the account in the Acts
of the Apostles, a man who had been born "lame"
or paralyzed, was carried to the temple at Jerusa-
lem. He was placed at the gate called Beautiful
so that he might beg from the large number of
persons who passed close to him on their way to
the temple services.

One afternoon at three o'clock, Peter and John,
the Apostles, on their way to the temple to attend
a prayer service, were just about to pass him,
when their attention was attracted by his plea for
alms. Would you have a picture of what they
beheld? You have only to recall the sight pre-
sented by any cripple sitting on a landing of the

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 13

subway or elevated railway stairs engaged in the
same occupation.

You will recall that the cripple is far from
alert. He has been monotonously making the
same plea for alms day after day. People have
been passing in a monotonous stream. Some
persons put themselves to sleep by monotonously
picturing and counting sheep going over a fence.
It is the monotony that induces sleep. It is the
'monotony of what the beggar says and sees that
gives a down cast to his eyes and head and makes
him listless or drowsy.

In all probability such was the condition of
the man seen by Peter and John. They stopped
before him. Both fastened their eyes upon him.
We shall return to this detail later. Peter says,
"Look on us," for as we surmised the man's eyes
'Were downcast. The man obeyed. He gave
heed, "expecting" something of them, money of
^course. Then Peter startled him with the words,
"Silver and gold have I none." A new speech
undoubtedly to a beggar, and disappointing. But
quickly comes a different emotion, expectancy
again. "But such as I have I give thee : In the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up, and

14 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

walk. And he took him by the right hand and
lifted him up, and he, leaping up, stood and
walked."

I have called attention to several bits of tech-
nique to prepare the way for a fuller description
and analysis of the account.

The cripple was in a subjective state, that is,
his mind was not fixed on anything in particular.
It was free to receive the unencumbered idea from
another, and to be possessed by it. To accom-
plish this Peter fastened his eyes upon him, taking
him by the eyes, as it were, to hold his attention
so that his words could convey the idea. Peter's
attitude is intensely personal. "Such as I have
I give," he declares. The words "Rise up and
walk" are a short, emphatic command. Just what
modern psychology says should be done. Such a
command is scientifically known as a "shock"
which releases dormant, or latent energy, or per-
haps imparts it, or makes a person susceptible to
receive it from Him in whom we live and move
and have our being. There is a "power that
worketh in us" by which God is able to do ex-
ceedingly above what we can ask or hope for.
I am not here saying just where the power to

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 15

arise and walk came from. Technique in healing
is a method of making power available, not a
theory that accounts for its origin.

Finally, to use a psychological term, there was
an accompanying suggestion, as emphatic as the
command. Peter did not touch him, he "took"
him by the right hand. He did not merely assist
the cripple, he "lifted him up." In a word, here
was a drowsy, paralyzed beggar who could not
stand alone and the first thing he knew he was
not only on his feet, but walking.

It is a simple matter for any one versed even
a little in the laws of the mind to understand the
condition of the lame man from the point of
view of psychology. But perhaps it will take a
little more thought to appreciate Peter's mental
or spiritual state.

I hold that what we call life is the spiritual
in our make-up. It is the prime, underlying real-
ity. All that we think or do or feel is a manifes-
tation of the life conditioned by the instrument
through which it manifests itself, namely, through
the body. If the very life in me has the knowl-
edge, gained from experience, that it can cooper-
ate in the healing of others, that knowledge is

16 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

power. The words spoken at such a time are
charged with power. The look in the eyes mani-
fests it. The grasp of the hand lifting manifests
it. The whole body is the instrument through
which a spiritual force, which I call the life, mani-
fests itself. This is what I understand Peter
offered when he said "such as I have I give." He
gave it all confidently. There was no reserve.
He knew that he could feel and act confidently
because he did so in the name of Jesus of Naza-
reth. For an Oriental to do something in the
name of another was to identify himself with
that other person for the time being. After all,
Peter looked upon himself as the instrument of
the Lord. And he therefore spoke with a con-
fidence and authority and power well-nigh impos-
sible to one who has not had his experiences in
the manifestations of the life.

Of course I do not imply that Our Lord and
the disciples acted explicitly and consciously on
what we would to-day call the laws of psychology.
But when we study what they said and did and
felt, and also study the conditions under which
they healed, we find that they acted on what we
call the principles of psychology and according

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 17

to its laws. They used centuries ago a technique
and they expressed principles which scientists to-
day have discovered, by independent research, to
be scientifically true. Which is only to say that
scientists are discovering truths in our generation
which Jesus and the disciples actually practiced
two thousand years ago. Perhaps it was hidden
as science then. But there is nothing hidden which
shall not be revealed.

When a patient is in a very receptive condition
we say that he is in a subjective state. This state
has, of course, many degrees. We read that be-
fore Paul healed a cripple he gazed steadfastly
upon him and saw that he had faith to be healed.
If you would really understand what Paul did
and what happened to the cripple you must put
yourself in Paul's place. With great sympathy
for the sufferer, great desire to help him, and
great belief in the power of the spirit, place a
patient before you. Gaze upon him steadfastly.
Do not merely look, but gaze. Be a man of in-
tuition as Paul was. Know something of "the
power that worketh in us." Can you imagine
what will be revealed in your eyes, and what will
be reflected in the eyes of the other? Can you

18 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

imagine what will be the effect on the patient
when the spirit, the life within you both, becomes
en rapport? "If two of you agree as touching
anything you shall ask," is one of the conditions
of healing. There can be such agreement at
times that the patient's attention is quite absorbed
by you. He accepts what you say in a quite dif-
ferent manner than if you were merely talking or
praying for him. It affects him quite differently.

I have sat thus with a patient whose heart
missed two full beats in every fifteen and who
had just come from a specialist who said she was
on the verge of valvular heart trouble. After
several minutes spent in making her subjective, I
said, among other things, "Now your heart beats
regularly, regularly, regularly. It will not miss
a beat." And for five minutes while I spoke the
heart did not miss a beat. Then I told the patient
what had happened and gradually changed the
subject to other matters. And gradually the heart
got back to its skipping. I of course told the
patient to report to the specialist. I assumed
no responsibility in such a case. I regret to say
that she did not follow my advice. This is a
danger in spiritual healing to be guarded against.

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 19

But when she came back the next week and re-
ceived a scolding for not seeing a specialist, I
was glad to learn that her heart-beat now was
absolutely normal, and I may add it has so con-
tinued up to the present, which is five years since
I treated her. The patient was merely in a re-
laxed condition, a receptive condition, barely suf-
ficient to call it subjective. I do not know how
long Paul treated his patient, but the statement
that he gazed steadfastly would imply that it
was of some duration. Enough surely to be
classed as a bit of technique.

Those who use the laying on of hands for spir-
itual healing in a church first conduct a religious
service. This service is really part of the tech-
nique of healing even though the "healer" be un-
conscious of it to the extent that he would deny
that he used any technique. The expectancy
aroused by the fame of the "healer," the hymns,
the prayers, the associations of the place, the lay-
ing on of hands, the command "Depart thou spirit
of infirmity," are all elements of technique. The
technique is good although the theology of the
command be bad. And when such persons are
healed or helped, though false theology be used,

20 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

but good psychology, does it not prove that tech-
nique is indeed most important? Supplemented
by correct theology even greater results would be
obtained.

It is a fact that physical healing can at times
be accomplished by accommodating one's tech-
nique to the superstition of the patient. But the
ultimate aim of spiritual healing is not merely
physical healing. The healing that leaves one in
his superstition is not far removed from the heal-
ing of the medicine men of savage tribes. The
ultimate aim of spiritual healing includes teaching
the patient the whole truth as far as we under-
stand it and he can receive it. For it is the
whole truth that makes one wholly free.

Dr. Grenfell, the missionary surgeon in Labra-
dor, tells about a semi-savage who had a badly
ulcerated tooth and who came to him seeking re-
lief. Dr. Grenfell proceeded to treat him as a
scientific surgeon should. But the sufferer refused
such treatment, saying, "You are a wise man, you
know the word. Speak it and I will be cured,"
or words to this effect. Being unable to persuade
the man to accept surgical treatment, Dr. Grenfell
asked what the man wanted him ta do. The man

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 21

said, "Touch my tooth and say the word." Dr.
Grenfell put his finger on the tooth and pro-
nounced some words. A pleased expression came
over the man. He seemed instantly relieved of
his intense pain. And we have the word of Dr.
Grenfell that the next day he examined the man
and found no trace of ulceration. I might add
that Dr. Grenfell does not practice mental or
spiritual healing. He is one of those who seems
to find the highest expression of his religious in-
stincts in serving his fellow man in the wilds of
Labrador through the practice of the science of
surgery. But we can be sure that the spirit of
such a devoted man brings much to the patients
that could not be brought to them by surgery
alone.

The point I am making here is that the right
technique is highly efficacious in spiritual healing.
Suppose that Dr. Grenfell had used a prayer
of intercession as his method of healing that
man, that is, as his technique. Suppose he had
knelt and prayed. The man's physical condi-
tion, in all probability, would have remained un-
changed. It would not have been the most effica-
cious method of healing that man. So we should

22 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

adapt our technique to the condition of the patient
and when possible so instruct him that we shall
be able to use a technique that is in keeping
with all the truths of religion and modern science.

Technique includes such things as the place
where the sufferer is treated, the personality of
the person treating him, the ability to beget such
confidence as renders the sufferer receptive, the
understanding of the sufferer's personality as well
as his infirmity, the method of procedure, the con-
fidence of the one giving the treatment, his knowl-
edge of the laws of mind and spirit, and his
knowledge of the conditions highly favorable to
the successful operation of these laws. This sum-
mary of qualifications by no means exhausts the
list of what is required. For spirit is a reality,
an energy. If great technical knowledge is re-
quired in the use of that energy called electricity
is it not reasonable to suppose that considerable
technical knowledge is required to use successfully
for healing that energy called spirit or mind?

When the technique I have described is ap-
plied to a person it is called a healing treatment
I place the patient in an easy posture, sitting or
reclining, and speak to him in some such words as

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 23

are given in the account of healing a man at the
time of the crisis of pneumonia. 1

Sometimes, especially in extreme cases, I use
my hands more than in the account just referred
to. For the hands can be the outward sign of
the inward power. And when the patient feels
the reality of the force of hands on his brow or
body it helps him to experience the reality of a
force within accomplishing what I describe.

I can easily light an ordinary gas jet, on a dry
cold night, with the electric sparks that snap from
my finger tips, generated merely by walking natur-
ally over a carpeted floor to the center of the room
where the chandelier hangs. Perhaps this quality
of my make-up, or as I prefer to say, of the life
manifesting in me, accounts for the experience
that many have when I lay my hands upon them*
Some say they experience a tingling sensation like
that produced by an electric current. Others say
their experience is that of a soothing warmth that
greatly diminishes, and frequently banishes pain.

One of my parishioners, a young man of whom
I was especially fond, had an unusually painful
cancer located internally in the lower front of the
abdomen. For many weeks I visited him every

1 Pp. 43 to 48.

24 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

night and I found, from my extended experience
in treating him, that when everything else failed,
I was able to soothe the pain and put him to sleep
by keeping my hands for a long time over the
place where he supposed the pain to be.

I say where he supposed the pain to be, because
the pain was not where the cancer was located.
Matter cannot feel. Only life can feel. The ma-
terial, that is, the water, the lime, the salts, the
iron, and all the other material things that make
the human body, cannot feel. Much more than
fifty per cent of your body is water, just like the
water that flows from the pipes in your house.
The water in those pipes cannot feel, the water
that composes such a large percentage of your
body cannot feel, nor can any other material
thing that composes your body feel. It is per-
fectly self-evident that lime, when used in the
construction of a brick wall, cannot feel. Is it
not equally self-evident that lime used in the con-
struction of your body cannot feel? It is the life
manifesting itself as consciousness 2 that feels and
suffers so intensely when the materials that corri-

2 Consciousness has degrees. Life in animals rises to con-
sciousness of pain and to higher experiences, but not to the
degree of consciousness required for personality.

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 25

pose a part of the body get into that condition
that we name cancer. Hence to get the sufferer
intensely conscious of something other than the
pain is to relieve him of the pain. Relieved of
the pain the patient soon slept, that is, he ceased
to be conscious of everything during the period
of this natural sleep that I here refer to.

When people come for healing to the Healing
Service in the church they do not receive what I
call a healing treatment. What is done in the
Service is too general to merit that term. At the
proper time I place my hands upon the head of the
person. This is an ancient practice but the
psychology of it is good, if, as I hold, pain is
really an experience of the conscious mind so in-
timately associated with the brain, therefore with
the head.

When I use my hands to greater extent, as now
to be described, I employ some such form of medi-
tation as the following:

"'Be still and know that I am God.' God
speaks these words to you, to you his child. God
speaks to your body and says: Be still, body,
and know that I am God. You will know it by
the peace, the calm, the tranquillity, the feeling

26 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

of well-being that now begins to come to your
body. For I am come that you might have peace.
This peace is the proof that I am with you.

"Now I place my hand gently on your brow,
and my hand now passes over the top of your
head, and down the back of your neck. A feeling
of ease, relaxation, and peace follow my hand.
Now every muscle is relaxed on your brow, your
forehead, your neck.

"I pass my hands along your arms and hands
even to the finger tips. Every muscle lets go and
your hands and arms are at rest.

"Over your chest I pass my hands and relaxa-
tion, peace, rest flows over your chest/

"I pass my hand over your body. Ejvery
muscle, every organ, every cell relaxes, lets go and
there is peace, perfect peace, in all your body
and you know it comes from God. Let your
body smile and be glad in thanksgiving.

"God speaks to your mind and says : 'Be still,
mind, and know thy God, and have peace, perfect
peace, quiet and tranquillity.' Now peace comes
as your mind relaxes and lets go.

"It lets go of the past. There is nothing to
worry about. The past is gone. See, like a cloud

TECHNIQUE IN HEALING 27

past fears and doubts float so quietly away.
Everything that might interfere with the well-
being of your body is floating away and your mind
smiles and is happy. It rests in the present peace.
For God is with you and will be always and with
God you can do all things.

"Beyond body and mind is the life, the soul,
the spirit. God says, 'Be still, soul, and know
that I am God.' Your soul is like God, made in
His image. The Scripture says that you are a
partaker of the divine nature. You are your
soul.

u You are immortal because you partake of the
life of God. God shares His immortal life with
you.

u God is peace. You partake of the peace of
God. At the center of your being there is a
source of peace. Now up from that source as
from a spring comes peace, a peace that the world
cannot give nor take away.

"It manifests itself in your heart and your heart
beats peacefully.

"God is all strength. You partake of the
strength of God. Deep within you is a source
of strength. It comes forth. You feel it in your

28 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

heart. Strength goes out with your blood to all
parts of the body. Your heart says as it beats,
peace and strength, peace and strength.

"God is all courage. You partake of the cour-
age of God. Within is a source of courage. It
now manifests itself in your heart. It beats cour-
ageously. You breathe in peace, strength,
courage.

"Every organ in your body is now aware of
courage, peace, and strength. They move with
a new life, the life of God that He shares with
you. You know God. You have peace that
passeth understanding. Look for it to remain.
Rejoice and thank God."

This is a most inadequate description of a treat-
ment for spiritual healing. When one is treating
a patient successfully he must be in the mood to
speak as the spirit gives him utterance. Call this
mood inspiration, or intuition, if you will. It is
a mystic experience in which one is conscious of
the working of the divine spirit. It is the realiza-
tion of the truth of the words of Jesus, "where
two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew
18:20).

CHAPTER III

SPIRITUAL HEALING IN PRACTICE

ALL truth, all goodness, all health are from
God, from whom, as the Book of Common Prayer
puts it, "comes every good and perfect gift." The
physician who sets a broken limb does not heal
that limb. It is a spiritual force, that is, some-
thing real but not material, manifesting itself in
the individual that heals it. The physician co-
operates with that spiritual force which we call
God, and whether he realizes it or not, he is
God's minister to the extent of that cooperation.
So it is with all the good work of surgeons, physi-
cians, nurses, and all others who minister to the
afflicted. This cooperation with God can be
through physical means, as in setting a bone;
through mental means, as in suggestion or instruc-
tion; through spiritual means, of which I am to
write at length ; or, best of all, by combining these
three means.

In the course of my pastoral work I was called
to visit the sick and the afflicted, the burdened and

29

30 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

heavy-laden, the discouraged and the failures. I
found, as all clergymen find, great faith among
many in God's power to keep the Scriptural prom-
ises. Of course, one always prays with such per-
sons, but occasionally I felt moved to lay my
hands on them as Jesus and His disciples had
done.

These ventures of faith, plus a knowledge of
certain mental and spiritual laws which I had
gained from much study and some experimenting,
became so numerous and successful that I an-
nounced a service of spiritual healing to be held
in the church every Thursday morning after the
celebration of the Holy Communion.

The following report of the healing of a few
of the many persons who have been healed should
bring home to us Christians the great need that
there is for the revival of this ministry among
us, and the fact that the gracious promises of the
Lord can be realized to-day as they were of old.

THE HEALING OF AN EPILEPTIC

Among the several hundred afflicted who at-
tended the first service of spiritual healing which

IN PRACTICE 31

I conducted, was a boy twelve years old accom-
panied by his mother. They were both unknown
to me at that time, but later both called on me to
tell of the great blessing they had received. Dur-
ing several subsequent talks with them I gathered
the facts of the case as here set down.

The boy was the only living child of a physi-
cian, a younger sister having died in infancy. The
parents were normal, as were also their children.
At the age of ten the boy while playing with a
companion was hit on the head with a heavy piece
of wood, and was rendered unconscious by the
blow. In a short time convulsions appeared. Dur-
ing these attacks he frothed at the mouth, bit his
tongue and at times set his jaws so hard that it
was only with great effort they could be pried
apart.

At the time of the accident his father was in
France with the American Expeditionary Force
and the boy was attended by the family physi-
cian. As his malady increased he was placed
under the care of a specialist. In the meantime
the armistice having been signed, his father re-
turned home and the specialist continued to treat
the little sufferer.

32 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

About a year and a half had elapsed since the
blow had been struck when the mother asked
the specialist when she might hope for some in-
dications of a cure. At this stage of his affliction
the boy was having sometimes as many as four
to six attacks a day. The specialist replied that
the mother must be prepared for an unfavorable
report as the malady would probably increase
rather than abate, for the boy was epileptic. This
being the verdict the treatment of the specialist
was discontinued, the attacks continuing as pre-
dicted. Hearing of a service at a Roman Cath-
olic church where a relic of St. Anne was applied
to sufferers, the mother brought her son there
and the relic was applied at intervals over a period
of six months, but without any apparent benefit
to him.

The boy had been suffering from his affliction
for two years when the mother read the announce-
ment of the first service I was to conduct.
Despite previous failures to secure relief they
both came in hope.

At that service I spoke of God's power mani-
fested through Jesus and His disciples. I tried
to make that power real and reasonable to my

IN PRACTICE 33

hearers, using as illustrations the working of in-
visible natural forces. One example will illustrate
the truth I reiterated. God may be likened to
the sun. It is always shining. If you do not see
its light that is because something is between you
and the sun. When you desire the sunlight to
enter the room of the sick you have only to
raise the shade and the light streams in. It is
of the nature of light to be present instantly
when the obstacle is removed. So with God's
power. When you come to the communion rail
and receive the laying on of hands with prayer,
the obstacles will be removed and you will feel
the power and the love of God healing you.
Jesus could do no mighty works until the people
believed that God was able to heal them through
Him. So you must believe that God can heal
you now through me.

With such words uttered as the Spirit gave
them to me to speak, and becoming bolder, in
the apostles' sense of the word, I continued to
exhort, appealing always to the reason rather
than to the emotions, until I felt that the time
had arrived for me to bid all who had faith to
be healed to come forth in Jesus' name. Some

34 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

two hundred and fifty persons, representing many
nationalities and creeds, arose in a body and
surged into the spacious choir of the church, the
boy and his mother being among the first to
come*

The mother later said that when I laid my
hands on her son's head and prayed he began to
get rigid as if he were going to have an attack.
She was about to gather him in her arms and take
him aside. A slight tremor went from his head
down his body. Then his body relaxed, becoming
normal, and a look of exaltation and peace ap-
peared on his countenance. The mother was
favorably impressed and after a prayer of thanks-
giving they departed.

This happened on Thursday morning. That
day and the next and the following days passed
and the boy had no attack. On the evening of
the tenth day, which was Sunday, while at supper,
a bit of cracker caught in the boy's throat and
caused excessive coughing. A mild attack in the
nature of a faint followed. These mild attacks
continued until the following Thursday, when
both come again to the healing service. After
the instruction and exhortation which always pro-

IN PRACTICE 35

duced a very decided atmosphere, and after the
laying on of hands with prayer, the attacks again
ceased.

Six weeks later the boy was playing rather
roughly in his home with a companion. The
mother heard her son say to his playfellow "Don't
push me so hard. You might knock me over and
make me faint." The mother on hearing this
entered the room to moderate their play. But
just as she entered her son was pushed and fell
heavily on the floor. A slight attack followed.
The next Thursday they came to the healing serv-
ice, and as usual the attacks ceased. When I
last spoke to the mother four years had elapsed
since they attended the first healing service, and
she assured me that her son was healed. Imagine,
if you can, the sorrow of this mother when she
heard her son pronounced epileptic by a compe-
tent authority. Contrast that sorrow with her
joy to-day as she looks upon her only son healed
of his affliction.

To the deeper student of spiritual healing the
boy's interpretation of his experience at the first
service is very suggestive, and indicates that in
addition to faith a knowledge of how to use many

36 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

of the forces involved in our complex nature is
required for the successful practice of this min-
istry. Said the boy, "When I started to come
to you, I did not see you at all but only a light.
And when I knelt Jesus put His hands on me out
of the light." Whoever can bring about such an
experience; whoever can make another so con-
scious of God that He is felt in the body, mind,
or soul, such an one has what is called the "gift
of healing." Judged by this standard the "gift
of healing" is not a rare possession.

HEALING A MAN POSSESSED OF FEAR

His story runneth thus :

"When I was seventeen I was giving instruc-
tions on the violin to several pupils. When I
was nineteen I played one night at a concert given
under the auspices of my former college class.
The audience was made up largely of students,
their families, and their friends. I was playing
a rather ambitious concerto, but had practiced it
faithfully and felt that it was going exceptionally
well.

"However, some in the audience did not enjoy

IN PRACTICE 37

it or appreciate it. They showed their disap-
proval. I became confused and don't remember
whether I finished the piece or not. For days I
was inconsolable and from that time I began to
lose my grip on myself. I lost ambition. I prac-
ticed intermittently. My efforts to earn a liveli-
hood as a musician were never heartily endorsed
by my family. They were manual workers. Be-
cause I did not follow in their way they said I
was lazy. The class of music I loved and prac-
ticed they did not at all relish and often made
fun of it.

"Well, I drifted, working a little and loafing
a great deal. Occasionally I went back to my
music, but it is now a couple of years since I have
opened my violin box. I married and have two
children but can't get up enough energy to do
anything."

I listened sympathetically. Feeling that he had
something more to tell, I urged him to unburden
his mind to me completely.

"Now I hope you won't think me crazy, as
others do, when I tell you this," he continued.
"Have you ever known of some evil force or
fate that follows a man and that he can't get

38 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

rid of? I know that there is somebody, or some
group, that is hounding me, urged to it by this
power, and determined that I shall not succeed.
In times past when I did get a job 1 could hold
it for only a short time. A few days after I
started to work I would notice the other men eye-
ing me, I knew they were talking about me when
they got together in little groups. I couldn't work
under such conditions and either I left or got
fired. So it has been for some years. I tell you
it is a terrible thing to live conscious of this evil
power always around you and with no way to
escape it. Have you really ever come across any-
thing like this before? I am of Irish descent
and know the old superstitious stories they tell.
I never believed them. But this thing, whatever
it is, has got me going. I am not out of my mind
yet, but I will be if this keeps up. I can't stand
it longer. More and more I find myself despair-
ing, and thoughts of self-destruction have been
very much in my mind. I heard of you and your
healing work. Do you suppose you can do any-
thing for me?"

I assured him that I understood his case and
that under the circumstances it was almost to be

IN PRACTICE 39

expected that he felt as he did. I told him that
God could heal him and instructed him briefly as
to how God's help would be brought into his
life. All this took place as we walked the streets,
for I had found him at night standing before
the church. He appeared so dejected that I had
spoken to him, and later had suggested that we
walk about as we talked.

Some days later I had him bring his violin and
after the healing service he played for me in the
church. Then I asked him to come into the rec-
tory. We knelt, confessing our sins to God, using
the prayer book form of General Confession,
after which I pronounced the absolution. I had
him play in the fine old drawing-room of the rec-
tory where Alexander Hamilton had lived. After
a while I told him to play as long as he wished
and I went to my study, assuring him that his
music would be a help to me as I worked on a ser-
mon, that I would carry something of what he
was expressing into the pulpit with me, and that
thus he would be ministering to others. He
played a couple of hours and went away quite
buoyant. Our arrangement was that he was to
come to see me almost any time that he felt so

40 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

inclined, but especially when his trials were
hardest.

On his succeeding visits, I prayed with him and
then laid my hands upon his head while he knelt.
My part at such moments was to get the realiza-
tion that God was healing and guiding us and to
let that realization come to expression in the form
of vocal, affirmative prayer. He always departed
with a renewal of spirit and power.

Soon he had a few pupils at a very modest fee.
It was a hard winter and almost brought him to
despair. But I assured him that if he continued
to come to me and persevered in the attitude
toward God and the world in which I instructed
him that success must come. Then just when
times were hardest it came. And as usual, in spir-
itual healing, it was above what he had hoped or
asked for. He was given a position as leader
in a small orchestra. This position made it neces-
sary for him to leave the city and his uncongenial
home surroundings. He left me with health,
spirit, faith, and ambition quite restored, and at
the time I write he is a teacher in his college. He
had come to a knowledge of the truth and the
truth had set him free.

IN PRACTICE 41

SPIRITUAL HEALING IN THE CRISIS OF A DISEASE

A lawyer was stricken by a severe attack of
pneumonia. In due course came the crisis and
while it was pending his wife sent for me.

Upon arriving at their home I asked, "What
does the physician say?" The answer showed
that it was a typical case. The physician had said
that the crisis might come any time within the
next twenty-four hours, and that while he hoped
for the best the balance might turn this way or
that but no one could tell which way it would turn.
Everything depended now upon the patient's
heart and his courage and his fighting spirit.

Usually this is the time when everybody, save
nurse and physician, is rigorously excluded from
the patient. But if success in the crisis depends
largely upon such spiritual qualities as courage
and fighting spirit, then some means might be
taken to enhance these qualities or to beget them
if need be in the patient. Here if ever is the
opportunity and the demand for spiritual treat-
ment. But, alas, in the typical case the patient
is usually left alone.

When in any phase of life a supreme effort is

42 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

called for, demanding courage and fighting spirit,
we know how the enthusiasm and the confidence,
and above all the example of others, help the
struggler. If it be possible thus to help a man
weakened by disease, yet called upon to make a
last supreme effort to save his life, surely we
desert him if we leave him alone at such a time.
But often with loving relatives and friends in the
next room, relatives and friends who would put
themselves in the place of the sufferer, he is left
spiritually unaided through their ignorance of
what might be done.

When I was shown to the patient's room I
found him very weak and only partly conscious.
At least, so it seemed, but I found out from him
later that he was conscious but so weak that he
could not give evidence of it. I sat on the bed
beside him and gently stroked his forehead. He
was restless, so I began to meditate aloud some-
what as follows:

"God says, 'Be still and know that I am God.'
Look at me and when I tell you to close your
eyes they will close and a feeling of comfort and
ease and peace will come about them. To be
still means to relax. Now the muscles about your

IN PRACTICE 43

eyes relax and your eyelids close and already there
is a feeling of ease and comfort and peace around
your eyes.

"That feeling of ease and comfort and peace
and well-being is going to spread all over the
body. Now the muscles of your face and neck
relax and your head sinks easily and comfortably
on the pillow."

Here I passed my hands over his chest, gently
touching him as I continued : "Now the muscles
about the chest relax and there is a feeling of
ease and comfort and well-being all about your
chest and around your back.

"There is such ease that you are not conscious
of any effort in breathing. [The patient had been
breathing with some difficulty when I arrived, but
this gradually subsided.] The air is all about you
and gently enters your lungs so smoothly and
peacefully that it is now a pleasure to breathe.

"God speaks to your mind and says, c Be still,
mind, and know that I am God.' So now your
mind relaxes and is still. To relax means to let
go. Your mind lets go of the past. Any doubts
or fears that might in any wise interfere with the
well-being of your body now depart. Your mind

44 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

is still. It lets go of them and they are gone.
Anything that you have heard or thought about
your condition that might interfere with your
peace or health likewise departs. There is
nothing in the past to worry you. On the con-
trary, out of the past come only words of cheer
and confidence, absolute confidence. 3 *

It will be noticed that in this treatment the
same thought and often the same words are re-
peated. This is a matter of technique and is based
upon the laws of suggestion. And just as a pa-
tient is susceptible to helpful thoughts through
suggestion, so he is equally susceptible to harmful
thoughts. It is, therefore, very important to
know that although a patient might not be able
to speak or to move his body, he is not necessarily
unconscious. He may be in a very suggestible
condition. This is true of the person who is just
losing or just regaining consciousness. What he
hears makes a very decided impression upon him.
Consequently many surgeons are most careful that
no unfavorable word about the patient's condi-
tion be spoken in the presence of the patient all
during the time he is under an anaesthetic. A
surgeon once told me of a patient upon whom

IN PRACTICE 45

he operated who was thought by everybody pres-
ent to be unconscious, yet who remembered every-
thing that was said during the operation.

Continuing the treatment I said, "Now your
mind lets go of any thought about the future that
might in any wise interfere with your well-being.
There is nothing to fear in the future, for it
stretches out before you like a pleasant way and
you pass through it confidently, easily and
securely. Your mind is now entirely relaxed. It
makes no effort. Without any effort you are
going to hear and to understand everything I say
and no other sound will disturb you.

"God speaks now to the very soul of you, and
says, 'Be still and know. 5 The Scripture says we
are partakers of the divine nature. We partake
of the life of God. God is the infinite life in all
the world. He shares that life with you. God's
life is immortal, and you are immortal because
you partake of the immortal life of God.

"God is the infinite power in all the world.
You partake of that power. Deep within you,
beneath body and mind, is the life which conies
from God. It brings with it the power of God.
You partake of His strength. Now the divine

46 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

power manifests itself in the depths of your na-
ture. It communicates itself to your heart and
your heart beats easily, smoothly, regularly, and
irresistibly. Your heart feels such power that it
knows that nothing can stop it, for the power of
God manifests itself there.

"God is infinite vitality. You partake of that
divine vitality. God shares it with you. It com-
municates itself to your heart and your heart beats
with its power. The divine vitality communicates
itself to your blood. And now as the blood flows
through your body the divine vitality is mani-
fested in every cell and tissue and organ of your
body. It takes away all feeling of congestion.
It manifests itself in and through your lungs, re-
lieving and strengthening. Every cell and tissue
is now conscious of power and vitality and health
and well-being from the infinite source.

"God is all courage. There is no fear in God.
He shares that courage with you. You are par-
taking of courage from the infinite source of all
courage. Your heart beats courageously. The
blood flows along bringing the message of cour-
age to every cell and organ. Gladly they receive
it. Courageously they do their work, eliminating

IN PRACTICE 47

and upbuilding. You are surrounded by courage
as by the air you breathe, for in the divine cour-
age, in God, we live and move and have our being*

"Even while you sleep you will be breathing
in, as it were, life, power, vitality, courage, health
and strength and peace. When you awake you
will be quite renewed." I then laid my hands
upon his head and chest, repeating the words of
the Scripture, "They that believe shall lay hands
on the sick and they shall recover," and the
following prayers : "Almighty Father, according
to Thy word we lay hands on this Thy servant.
May he even at this time be conscious of Thy
power manifesting itself to the healing of his
body, mind, and soul" "Now unto Him that is
able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we
ask or think, according to the power that worketh
in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ
Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
Amen." (Ephesians 3:21.)

The next day I was informed that after I left
the sick man he had his first real rest in some
days. I continued to treat him daily for about
a week, and in due time he was quite restored to
health. Toward the end of the time I treated

48 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

him, he said, "I have a wonderful physician, but
I know who saved my life. When you first came
to me I felt that I was gradually slipping away.
I was too weak and tired to resist. But as you
treated me I experienced what you were describ-
ing. You brought just what I needed and at the
time when I needed it most."

CHAPTER IV

SPIRITUAL HEALING FOR THE DYING

IT was Easter-Even.

In a hospital bed lay a woman of forty-three,
suffering from a disease that as yet human
skill has been unable to cure. The light of the
bodily life was burning very low. It seemed ready
to go out at any moment Her family had been
sent for and were gathered at her side. With
closed eyes, and hands folded high on her bosom,
she lay motionless and silent. Save for an occa-
sional whisper, her husband, mother, and son sat
about her in silence, pictures of that helplessness
which droops us when we cannot aid our loved
ones in their greatest need. The attending physi-
cian said nothing more could be done for her
but to keep her as comfortable as possible until
the end came.

She was not a church woman, and had seen no
clergyman during her recent illness. Once she
had attended the healing service and when asked

49

SO SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

if she would not like to have a clergyman call
she asked for me. How often we of the clergy
step in upon a scene like this when the patient
has had little or no preparation for our minis-
tration, when it is evident no human power can
avail, and when one must work in a hurry.

In a few words her husband explained that her
affliction had so weakened her heart and she had
suffered such pain that the end would be a blessed
relief to her. She did not move or show any indi-
cation that she was conscious of what was
going on.

I at once placed both my hands upon her fore-
head, looked intently at her closed eyelids, and let
the consciousness of God as the source of all life
possess me. Beginning with the Lord's Prayer,
I then prayed and meditated in some such words
as are given below, and continued for some con-
siderable time to reiterate the same thoughts in
more positive and affirmative form. For example,
when moved thereto, instead of saying, "May we
be conscious that the divine life of God is now
supporting and comforting her," I would say,
"And now we are conscious that the divine life
of Gpd is supporting and comforting her." When

HEALING FOR THE DYING 51

one can say such words honestly and sincerely
without forcing himself to do so, but naturally,
moved to speak thus by some inner urge (he
knows not exactly just what), there are always
surprising results.

THE PRAYER

Almighty God, the only source of health and
healing, may we and this Thy servant be con-
scious at this moment of Thy healing, saving
power manifesting itself in her life.

May we with the eyes of faith behold the hand
of Thy Son Jesus resting upon her, and believe
that in His touch is the ancient power to heal.

May we be conscious that the divine life of
God is now supporting and comforting her, even
that immortal life which always manifests itself
according to Thy will.

Graciously we trust in Thy love, knowing that
this Thy servant ever partakes of Thy life which
shall remain with her forever. Complete, good
Lord, this work begun in Jesus' name. Amen.

As I concluded my prayer the patient opened
her eyes and looked into mine. It was a look
of complete understanding. It produced the same

52 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

effect as if she had smilingly nodded and said,
u Yes, it is all true, I am conscious of the divine
life supporting and comforting me. And it is
sweet very sweet, very sweet." The same light
and peace that shone from her eyes now shone on
her whole countenance. Gently her eyelids
closed, but the glow on her countenance remained.
It is thus the soul speaks and smiles. Spiritual
healing is brought about by one realizing himself
as a soul, holding communion with another soul,
and thereby bringing to the other soul what he
himself realizes, namely, the truth of God as the
source of all that is good health, peace, power,
plenty, life.

The other person is spiritually healed when he
has thus apprehended God. Whether the life
continues to manifest itself through this present
body on the earth, or whether it in God's own
way develops or assumes another body or instru-
ment through which to express itself in that nearer
approach to, or that more intimate experience of
God, called heaven, is not at such times the upper-
most concern. Without saying Paul's words the
patient and the minister have something like Paul's
experience when he said, "Though our outward

HEALING FOR THE DYING S3

man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by
day," II Corinthians 4:16. To be more conscious
of God is the experience most desired. The ques-
tion of the place of that experience, here or here-
after, does not arise. One is completely at God's
disposal. He is leading and guiding. One does
not think at such times where God is going to con-
tinue to lead or guide because of the joy in ex-
periencing that guidance.

After some minutes of silent prayer again I
placed my hands on her brow and head and spoke
to her soul. I left her in peace with a formal
blessing and a promise to return.

The next day her husband came for me and
reported that she was wonderfully improved.

Almost daily for two weeks I continued my
visits to her and once administered the Holy Com-
munion. Every visit brought results similar to
the first. Reports of improvement came to the
superintendent of the hospital, who became very
much interested in the case. She assured me that
the spiritual ministrations the patient was receiv-
ing were having unusual results, and she was keen
to know what principles were involved.
- The patient had by this time improved suffi-

54 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

ciently to be taken home. It was on this occasion
that the husband asked me if I thought his wife
would recover. I told him that my attitude of
mind in such cases was simply to be conscious of
God, or the power of God, manifesting itself in
the patient's life. I explained to him that we
must not think of God's power being separate
from Him. Wherever we see a manifestation of
God's power life, love, goodness, comfort,
peace there is God, if we have the eyes to see,
or the ears to hear, or the heart to understand.
The procedure in spiritual healing is to get the
patient to be conscious, to become really aware
of the life of God manifesting itself in the depths
of his being. One becomes conscious by experi-
encing. I know that this manifestation of God's
power, interest or love will be best, absolutely
best, for the patient and all others. "This is
eternal life to know the one true God and Jesus
Christ, whom He has sent." Let us be conscious
of God manifesting Himself in our lives and we
shall understand His ways and have peace. In
such words I instructed the husband, who seemed
to share readily in this belief.

For three weeks after being taken home the

HEALING FOR THE DYING 55

patient continued to experience the power of God
with her. Her family were greatly impressed and
helped by her experience. Then with unearthly
calm and quiet consciousness of possessing the
eternal life she entered upon it. She too had
come to know the truth and the truth had set her
free.

CHAPTER V

THE PLACE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING
IN CHRISTIANITY

THE first summary of the ministry of Jesus
is given in the Gospel according to Matthew.
There we read, "Jesus went about in all Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, preaching the
Gospel of the Kingdom and healing all manner
of sickness and all manner of disease among the
people." Thus the ministry of Jesus is seen by
the Apostle Matthew to be threefold, and he
sums it up in three words teaching, preaching,
healing.

The Christian Church has devoted itself
largely to following its Master in two of these
departments of His ministry. The Church has
proclaimed the word throughout the world.
Wherever His name is known, there the Gospel
has been preached. And to preaching has been
added teaching. The ancient seats of learning,
as well as many great schools and universities

56

HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 57

of more modern times, were founded by men
whose prime purpose was to teach the Christian
way of life. To-day the Church is occupied as
never before in perfecting its organization in
order that the Gospel shall be taught and pro-
claimed with ever increasing scope and power.

But how fares it with that other department
of the Master's work, the healing ministry? It
is true that the Church has always led the af-
flicted to God. In the Book of Common Prayer,
which continues ancient forms of Christian wor-
ship and prayer, it is provided that at every
morning service the following intercession shall
be made. "We commend to thy fatherly good-
ness all those who are any ways afflicted or dis-
tressed in mind, body or estate; (especially those
for whom our prayers are desired;) that it may
please thee to comfort and relieve them, accord-
ing to their several necessities; giving them pa-
tience under their suffering, and a happy issue
put of all their afflictions."

When bishops are consecrated according to the
form set forth in this same book, the presiding
bishop solemnly charges the newly consecrated
bishop, "Hold up the weak, heal the sick, bind

58 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

up the broken, bring again the outcasts, seek the
lost." It will be a surprise to many to know that
the Episcopal Church so clearly commands all
her bishops to practice the ministry of spiritual
healing. And surely the Church has kept before
us the healing ministry by ordering to be read
at public services many passages of the Scrip-
tures which recount this phase of the Master's
work.

But when all has been said, and when even a
most favorable interpretation is accorded it, the
fact remains that there has been no such insistence
upon the healing ministry, as has been placed upon
the ministry of teaching and preaching. While
the Church has believed in healing through spirit*
ual means it has not emphasized this belief in
practice. We hear frequently of the minister
or priest as preacher, teacher, confessor, pastor,
administrator, but seldom if ever as healer.

The Gospels tell us not only that Jesus prac-
ticed spiritual healing but they leave not the least
doubt as to the relative importance of this de-
partment of His ministry. The Christians who
wrote the Gospels collected the sayings and do-
ings of Jesus as, recorded by other men, or recol-

HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 59

lected what they themselves had seen and heard
as they companied with Jesus. What depart-
ment of His ministry impressed them most?
What was it that they recollected and wrote most
about ?

A cursory reading of the Gospels will show
that they wrote more about spiritual healing than
any other subject. The Gospels, considered as
lives of Jesus, are very brief. In fact they are
little more than memoirs. Of his public ministry
of three years they account for only some ninety
days scattered throughout that period. Sermons
and discourses that we of to-day would consider
of the greatest value, are reported in barest out*
line or condensed into a verse. Important events
are often mentioned rather than described. But
when the writers come to the subject of spiritual
healing they go into considerable detail. They
describe so carefully the attitude of the healer,
his look, voice, words, and actions, that I have
been able to reconstruct the methods or technique
they employed, and from these I have attempted
to formulate laws according to which the power of
the Spirit operates. There can be no doubt that
here was a matter of such vital importance that

60 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

the writers of the Gospels felt it should be written
largely on almost every page of their books.

The Gospels were written not merely to pre-
serve for posterity the sayings and doings of
Jesus. They were written for purposes of im-
mediate propaganda. They were written to con-
vince men and women in a sinful and burdened
world that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God,
the Saviour, the revealer of God's ways with man,
in order that all might come through Him to the
Father and find forgiveness, peace, and eternal
life. And in choosing their material for this
purpose they gave more space to the ministry of
spiritual healing than to any other department of
His work.

They were wise in so doing. Frequently we
read such words as these : "And the fame of him
went out straightway into all the regions about
Galilee;" "And there followed him great multi-
tudes from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem
and Judea and from beyond the Jordan;" "And
they glorified God who had given such power to
men;" "And a great multitude followed him be-
cause they beheld the signs which he did on them
that were sick."

HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 61

It was just after Jesus had healed a paralyzed
man that Matthew, who wrote the first Gospel,
followed Him. And it is worthy of remark that
Paul's conversion was consummated just after he
was healed of his blindness. While the compas-
sionate heart of Jesus prompted Him to heal the
afflicted for their own sakes yet it is abundantly
shown that this ministry was also a sign of the
power of God, which influenced multitudes to be-
come His disciples. It should be clear from what
we have thus far seen how important a place
spiritual healing had in the minds of the Gospel
writers as a means toward accomplishing the
purpose for which Jesus lived and died.

The testimony of Harnack, the foremost liv-
ing authority on the history of early Christianity,
should settle the question of the important place
spiritual healing had in the Master's ministry.

"The gospel, as preached by Jesus, is a religion
of redemption, but it is a religion of redemp-
tion in a secret sense. Jesus proclaimed a new
message (the near approach of God's kingdom,
God as the Father, as his Father,) and also a
new law, but he did his work as a Saviour or
healer, and it was amid work of this kind that he

62 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

was crucified. Paul, too, preached the gospel as
a religion of redemption.

"Jesus appeared among his people as a phy-
sician. 'The healthy need not a physician, but
the sick' (Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31). The first
three gospels depict him as the physician of soul
and body, as the Saviour or healer of men. Jesus
says very little about sickness; he cures it. He
does not explain that sickness is health; he calls
it by its proper name, and is sorry for the sick
person. There is nothing sentimental or subtle
about Jesus ; he draws no fine distinctions, he ut-
ters no sophistries about healthy people being
really sick and sick people really healthy. He
sees himself surrounded by crowds of sick folk;
he attracts them, and his one impulse is to help
them. Jesus does not distinguish rigidly between
sicknesses of the body and of the soul; he takes
them both as different expressions of the one su-
preme ailment in humanity. But he knows their
sources. He knows it is easier to say 'Rise up
and walk/ than to say, 'Thy sins are forgiven
thee' (Mark 2:9). And he acts accordingly. No
sickness of the soul repels him; he is constantly
surrounded by sinful women and tax-gatherers.

HEALING IN CHRISTIANITY 63

Nor is any bodily disease too loathsome for
Jesus. In this world of wailing, misery, filth and
profligacy, which pressed upon him every day, he
kept himself invariably vital, pure, and busy.

"In this way he won men and women to be
his disciples. The circle by which he was sur-
rounded was a circle of people who had been
healed. They were healed because they had be-
lieved on him, i.e., because they had gained health
from his character and words. To know God
meant a sound soul. This was the rock on which
Jesus had rescued them from the shipwreck of
their life. They knew they were healed, just be-
cause they had recognized God as the Father in
his Son. Henceforth they drew health and real
life as from a never-failing stream." x

While Harnack's testimony demands that we
accord a foremost place in the ministry of Jesus
to spiritual healing, some might say that it does
not follow that spiritual healing should have a
place of like importance in the ministry of the
Church to-day. The express commands of the
Master should completely banish any such

1 Harnack, Mission and Expansion of Christianity, Vol. I,
pp. 101, 102.

64 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

thought. Not only did Jesus exercise this min-
istry Himself but He included it in the ministry
to which He so solemnly called His disciples.
As often as He commissioned them to teach and
preach so often He commissioned them to heal
the sick. Here is one such commission. "And
it came to pass in those days that he went out
into the mountain to pray; and he continued all
night in prayer to God. And when it was day
he called unto him his disciples and gave them
authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out,
and to heal all manner of sickness. . . .These
twelve Jesus sent forth, and charged them say-
ing: ... As ye go, preach, saying The King-
dom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
Freely ye have received, freely give." The
Church has just as much authority and power
to heal the sick as it has to proclaim that the
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And I believe
that one of the reasons why the Christian Church
has failed at times to convince many of the near-
ness to them personally of the Kingdom is the
fact that it has not sufficiently emphasized heal-
ing through spiritual means.

PART n
THE SCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL HEALING

CHAPTER VI

SPIRITUAL HEALING AND MODERN
SCIENCE

SPIRITUAL healing might be presented from
other points of view than the scientific. It might
be presented simply as faith or trust in God heal-
ing us in answer to prayers of petition. "Give
us this day our daily bread" is a petition. "For-
give us our trespasses as we forgive those who
trespass against us" is also a petition. With
these forms of prayer we are all very familiar,
and they should have a place m our mental,
spiritual, and devotional life. But there are
many persons who have petitioned yes, who
have begged and pleaded and who have not been
relieved of their distress. Heaven has seemed
deaf to their cry. They have stretched forth
their hands but have brought them back empty.
They have tried to open their hearts to receive
the divine comfort, but it has not come. They
have sought divine guidance in difficulties, but
the way has remained dark or uncertain. They

67

68 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

have asked for the cure of some bodily disorder
or disease, but they have not been made whole or
given strength to go gloriously on. They have
asked and received not. Why? The Apostle
James gives one answer to this question. He
writes : "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask

amiss."

The purpose of scientific spiritual healing is
also to answer this question by instructing us so
that we shall proceed with knowledge as well as
faith. We shall not ask amiss when properly
instructed, and we shall receive. Scientific spirit-
ual healing will also teach us that in the process
of being healed for healing is a process the
most important element is not the mere asking.
There are many vigorous-minded men and
women who do not take prayer seriously, because
ft seems to them to consist chiefly of asking. It
seems more like wishing than doing. They hear
that the spiritual life is the highest kind of life,
but they cannot see how being the passive recip-
ient of blessings is the highest form of existence.
They feel that God helps those who help them-
selves.

Scientific spiritual healing purposes to tell us of

MODERN SCIENCE 69

certain forces or graces that are at our disposal,
and the laws and conditions according to which
those forces operate. It teaches us how to co-
operate with the divine power to produce benefi-
cent results, as we cooperate with the so-called
natural forces in the world's work.

A man who manufactures paper cooperates
with many natural forces. If it were not for the
forces that produce wood, and the water power
or steam power that grinds the wood into pulp,
and the power that turns the rollers to press
it into sheets, and the other various forces that
enable his workmen to operate, if it were not for
these, he could not manufacture paper. But he
cooperates, he works with these various forces
intelligently, and he gets results. "My father
worketh until now, and I work," said Jesus. "We
are fellow-workers together with Christ," said
Paul. "And all things work together for good
to those who love the Lord." Scientific spiritual
healing teaches us how to work together with all
things, including the divine, in order to produce
good, good in every department of life, good
to others and to ourselves, good in this life and
In the life to come.

70 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

It is to be expected that when some people
first hear of spiritual healing they naturally think
of healing the body of some physical deformity
or disease. Spiritual healing does include heal-
ing the physical ills of the body, but it is by no
means limited to this. Nor is physical healing its
chief C&r?cern. What, then, are we to understand
by spirit^ healing? What is its meaning and
scope ?

At Morning Prayer, in the Episcopal service,
there is a prayer to God to "comfort and relieve
all those who are any ways afflicted or distressed
in mind, body, or estate."

This is a most comprehensive petition. Ponder
its terms. All those any ways afflicted or dis-
tressed in mind, in body or estate. Such is the
Church's prayer for spiritual healing.

We may therefore define spiritual healing in
the official words of that liturgy, as that process
by which God comforts and relieves those who
are any ways afflicted or distressed in mind, body
or estate, according to their several necessities.

For example, one conscious of sin is spiritually
healed when the love of God becomes so real to
him that he is aware of that love forgiving his sin.

MODERN SCIENCE 71

Another, who is perplexed in mind, is spiritually
healed when the wisdom of God becomes so real to
him that he is confident of that wisdom guiding
him. Yet another, who is physically weak or
crippled or sick, is spiritually healed when the
power of God becomes so real to him that he
is aware of the divine power, or energy, or life,
renewing the strength or health of his body.
Spiritual healing therefore extends to everything
that can be accomplished through spiritual means.
It is as comprehensive as religion itself. It is
of the essence of the religion of Jesus.

Prayer is not merely asking something of God
but rather it is the means of getting yourself into
the state where you can receive of God. For
God knows your needs before you ask Him, and
is always trying to make you conscious of His
wisdom, love, and power. Prayer makes you
aware of these as factors in your life.

The essence of Christianity, and of spiritual
healing, is to become conscious of the truth that
we may be, as the Apostle Peter expresses it,
"partakers of the divine nature.' 1 Once grasp
this truth, including what it implies, and you have
the essence of the religion of Jesus. You will

72 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

know what is right. You will do what is right.
And in the doing of it you will be happy.

The final triumph of spiritual healing, and
of religion, is to make you so aware of God's
love, wisdom, and power, that when your body is
being put aside, you shall know that in Him you
still live and move and have your being. You
will continue to be aware of God directing, com-
forting, strengthening. You will know that there
is no death for you, but only a change from a
less perfect to a more perfect participation in,
and manifestation of, the divine life.

Scientific spiritual healing is not merely a pious
belief, or a last resort when everything else has
failed. It appeals to us to-day because it is a
science.

The word science is taken from the Latin word
scientia, and means knowledge. It embraces all
that we can by any means know. Hence it em-
braces all that we can know about our mental
and spiritual life, as well as about our moral,
political, social, or industrial life. Science is so
far-reaching in its scope that it includes all that we
do whenever consciously or unconsciously we use
our knowledge. It is not only a vast store of

MODERN SCIENCE 73

truth, but it is truth applied to all that concerns
man. This word, which originally meant simply
knowledge, is now applied not only to knowledge
but to a certain method. In fact, the word science
is applied to the method as much as to the truth
discovered or proved by this method. But instead
of saying scientific method it is customary to con-
dense it to the one word science.

What is this method of discovering or testing
truth which is called science? It begins with ob-
servation. The scientist searches for facts wher-
ever they may be found. In the inner life, in the
outer life, in the moral life, in the spiritual life,
and in the material universe in fact, everywhere
that anything can be observed, or felt, there the
scientist has his- proper field. The scientist ac-
cepts all the facts that concern the subject he is
studying. He has no prejudices. He believes in
the truth and pursues it with an open mind. For
him it is the pearl of great price.

Having gathered his facts he analyzes them.
He notes how and where they agree or differ. If
he finds something that is true about all the facts,
he writes a brief description of it. This brief
description is called a law. For example: A

74 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

man experiments with water and carefully notes
what happens. He finds that he can separate
it into two gases known as oxygen and hydrogen,
and that the water thus separated is composed
of twice as much hydrogen as oxygen. He then
takes these two gases and finds that they can be
put together under certain conditions, and that
they always unite to* form water. He then writes
a brief description as to how water is produced.
This brief description is the law for the pro-
duction of water.

As with water, so it is with everything else.
There is a law according to which everything is
produced or evolved. There is a law, or laws,
according to which everything lives, or moves,
or has its being. The purpose of science is to
find out or to confirm these laws in order that all
things might work together for good.

In the Bible we find many laws, that is, brief
descriptions or statements as to the conditions
requisite for the working of certain spiritual
forces. The Bible is not made up chiefly of these
laws, however. It is not a book, it is a library.
Many men contributed to it over a space of a
thousand years. Some of its books were written

MODERN SCIENCE 75

in Palestine, some in Asia Minor, some in Italy,
It was written by herdsmen, statesmen, lawyers,
moralists, poets, historians, physicians, philoso-
phers, preachers, pastors, evangelists. Conse-
quently it contains history, narratives, legends,
moral precepts, philosophy, poetry, drama, re-
ligion, and science. But in almost every book
of it you can find the statement of some spiritual
law, some statement regarding how God works
and how we can cooperate with Him.

Spiritual healing therefore is not the result
merely of asking, but the result of using certain
forces according to known laws. It is something
we can experiment with, and when our experi-
ments are successful we have a demonstration
of the truth of the laws in question, Hence,
spiritual healing as a science should appeal to all
intelligent persons who claim to possess open
minds.

But some one might ask: "How do I know
that there are these certain forces, or energies,
or graces that can be used in accordance with
definite laws?" As an indication of how a new
attitude of mind is showing itself in unexpected
places I shall quote from the late Dr. Charles P.

76 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

Steinmetz, chief consulting engineer of the Gen-
eral Electric Company, and a noted physicist. In
a recent article he said that energy, or force, is
the realest of all entities. There are vast stores
of it in space, and our senses are our means of
knowing and using it. What we call matter
wood, book, flesh, bone is what we clothe this
energy with.

In the words of Dr. Steinmetz :

"All that we know of the world is derived from
our senses.. They are the only real facts ; every-
thing else is conclusioned from them. All sense
perceptions are due to energy; they are ex-
clusively energy effects. In other words, energy
is the only real existing entity. It is the primary
conception, a conception which exists for us only
because our senses respond to it. All other con-
ceptions are secondary conclusions, derived from
the energy perceptions of our senses. Thus space
and time and motion and matter are secondary
conceptions with which our mind clothes the
events of nature." *

Religion similarly teaches us that there is an

1 "A new Conception of Energy." By Dr. Charles . Stein-
metz (Popular Radio Magazine, July, 1922).

MODERN SCIENCE 77

infinite, eternal, omnipotent energy or force. It
is endowed with intelligence, goodness, justice,
It is a force that expresses itself as life, love,
beauty, harmony. Wherever we see or feel any-
thing that is good, true, or beautiful, we have
come into contact with that infinite energy, or
force, or life. The particular form it takes is
what "clothes" it. The underlying reality of
the good, the true, the beautiful, is this energy,
or force, or life. And the name we give this most
real of all .things is God.

The energy that Steinmetz speaks of is not
material or physical. It is a nonmaterial thing
that expresses itself in ways that can affect our
senses.

So God is not material or physical. He is non-
material, that is, spiritual, and can express Him-
self in ways that affect our mind, soul, and body,
and in consequence all our affairs.

Science not only discovers laws unknown be-
fore, or truths already known to us, but it dem-
onstrates certain characteristics of all laws. One
such characteristic of all laws, which it is impor-
tant to grasp clearly in scientific spiritual heal-
ing, is that they always operate when all the

78 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

conditions are fulfilled. They are self-operative,
or automatic. For example, touch a lighted
match to dry powder in free atmosphere and it
^explodes, because all the conditions are fulfilled.
It is not true to say that if you touch a match
to powder it will explode. It must be a lighted
match and the powder must be dry and in free
air before you have all the conditions required
by the law for exploding powder.

If you pour water into a tumbler, what hap-
pens? As the tumbler rests on the table it is
filled with air. But the water is heavier than the
air and sinks through it, forcing it out. You do
not first have to remove the air. Under such
conditions the heavier liquid will always remove
the lighter air.

If you remove your hands from under a stone
held in them the stone always falls. The earth
is attracting it. The law of gravitation will op-
erate successfully as soon as you fulfill the nec-
essary condition of removing the obstacle, namely,
your hands that support it. At least such was the
explanation until very recently, when Steinmetz
offered a new one. He says that the earth does
not attract the stone, but that there is a field of

MODERN SCIENCE 79

energy about the earth and the stone which tends
to force them together. But whether we accept
the new explanation or the old, the fact remains
that it is a characteristic of all laws that they
operate as soon as all the conditions are fulfilled.

The Bible expresses this same truth, which is
confirmed by science, when it says, "God is no
respecter of persons." His laws work for any-
body at any time or in any place when the requisite
conditions are fulfilled. His laws operate now
as in the days when Jesus walked among men
just as they did before Jesus came. Jesus is the
way, the truth, and the life, because He taught
people what conditions of mind and heart and
will are necessary to the working of His Father's
laws. And He not only taught what conditions
are necessary but He demonstrated them in His
own life, and gathered about Him a group of men
and women who demonstrated them in their lives,
and handed on this knowledge and power to
others.

The Church is this group of His followers, en-
larged and continued even to the present day,
and destined to last until the end of time. The-
ology attempts to present intelligently an account

80 - SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

of our knowledge concerning God. This is what
all churches profess to teach. When they teach
what Jesus taught, and express it in words the
people can understand, and above all when they
practice it, then they are in truth and power the
Church of the Christ. Hence, when the Book of
Common Prayer teaches that God comforts and
relieves all those any ways afflicted in mind, body,
or estate, we should draw near to learn what the
requisite conditions might be, and ask for a sample
of the demonstrations that the Church has suc-
ceeded in producing*

While it is true that the Church possesses the
knowledge of God unto salvation, which means
health of body, mind, and soul, both for this
life and the next, it is equally true that some
generations of the Church have failed to empha-
size it and apply it to all the varying conditions
of life. There have been generations of Chris-
tians that have not emphasized the goodness of
God as regards this life. They have tended to
place the fullness of His goodness and power
hereafter. But God changes not. James taught
that with Him there is no variableness or shadow

MODERN SCIENCE 81

of turning. He is the same yesterday, to-day,
and forever. God is like all law, or rather all
law is like God, for all laws come from Him.
A law is nothing else but our way of stating how
God. does things.

God is good. He wills only what is good for
us. It is not the will of God that we should
be diseased, or unhappy, or depressed, or nervous,
or discouraged, or unsuccessful There is noth-
ing that Jesus emphasizes, more than the good-
ness of God and our ability to cooperate with
God in bringing that goodness into our mental,
moral, and physical life. "If ye, being evil, know
how to give good things to your children, how
much more shall your heavenly father give the
Holy Spirit to those that ask Him." The Holy
Spirit, that nonmaterial energy and power that
manifests itself in our life as wisdom, joy, peace,
patience, strength, endurance, courage, health,
abundance, happiness, eternal life.

How are we to cooperate with God to receive
of His Holy Spirit? What are the requisite
conditions, and how are we to fulfill them so that
the Holy Spirit can manifest Himself in us ac-
cording to His laws?

82 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

To answer this question in full will be the pur-
pose of the remaining chapters. At this time I
shall make a few suggestions to help you during
the coming days. The requisite conditions are
brought about through prayer and service. By
prayer we put ourselves in condition to cooperate
with God. If you desire the sunlight to enter
a room you raise the shade and the light streams
in. It is of the nature of light to be present
whenever the obstacles are removed. You do
not have to beg it to corne in. So it is of the
nature of God's power and wisdom and love
and health to be with you. You do not have to
beg it. That is why I have said that prayer is
not chiefly asking or petitioning. Hence, begin
your prayer by asserting some spiritual truth.
For example, say to yourself, aloud if necessary
(for all this is something you must experiment
with just as you experiment with a golf club or
with materials for making a cake), "God wills
only that which is good for me, and for all man-
kind." Say it many times, until as you go about
your work, or recreation, that thought comes
unbidden to your mind. Say it as you are falling
to sleep. Say it on awakening. In a few days

MODERN SCIENCE 83

you will not be saying it. That truth will be
repeating itself in your mind. It will become part
of your life. "God wills only that which is good
for me, and for all mankind."

That is prayer. Now for service. Service
means simply for you to manifest that good
toward others; or better, to let the goodness of
God manifest itself through you. Jesus said in
effect, The words that I speak are not mine, they
are the Father's; The works that I do are not
mine, the Father doeth the works.

Let goodness manifest itself in your eyes, in
your words, in your hands, in your thoughts, in
your general attitude. Of course there will be
difficulties, and failures, for a while. But perse-
vere and you shall be saved. * And remember that
the word saved comes from the same root as the
Latin word salus, which means health. >i And
since God is willing only what is good for you,
He is healing you now, and will continue to heal
to-night and to-morrow, waking or sleeping. So
to your prayer add this, "God is healing me now."

CHAPTER VII

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITUAL
HEALING

THERE are two basic elements in spiritual heal-
ing. The first is to know certain truths expressed
as laws. The second is to know how to apply
them to your individual needs. Spiritual heal-
ing is a science, and like any other science con-
sists of knowledge and application, or, in a word,
applied knowledge. This knowledge includes a
knowledge of the forces at work. It includes our
attitude toward those forces for example, faith
in them and it includes the conditions under
which these forces operate through us.

Since God is the prime energy at work, spirit-
ual healing requires that we first have the truth
about God. There are two classic terms that
have been used to express two widely different
ideas about God. The first is ''transcendence,"
which means that God is outside and apart from
this world and its inhabitants. He has been

84

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 85

pictured as somewhere off in the heavens, send-
ing His blessings to us from without. This view
sees God as starting the universe, and then leav-
ing it to itself until it got into difficulties. He
then mercifully interposed in a miraculous way
to save it. People who held this belief did so
because God seemed to them too majestic, holy,
and pure, to associate intimately with the weak,
sinful creatures He had made. The ancient Jews
did not even dare to mention God's proper name,
Jaweh. They called Him Jehovah, meaning "The
eternal one." They thought that no one could
look upon God and live. This brief description
does not do justice to much that is noble in the
idea of transcendence.

The other term is called c 'Immanence, " and it
means that God is within His universe and works
from within it, through it, and with it. This idea
of God being immanent does not deny the idea
of God being transcendent, properly understood.

The idea of God within us is not new. It is
the most characteristic part of the teaching of
Jesus. He taught that He was in the Father and
the Father in Him, and that we were called to
experience this same fact in whatever degree we

86 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

might be able to appropriate it. "Truly I am
full of power by the spirit of the Lord and
of judgment, and of might" (Micah 3:8).
"That ye might be partakers of the divine na-
ture 5 * (2 Peter i .-4) . "Now unto him that is able
to do, exceeding abundantly, above all that we can
ask or think, according to the power that worketh
in us" (Ephesians 4:21).

After the apostles, who lived at the same time
as Jesus, came the leaders known as the Fathers,
or great teachers, in the Christian Church.
Justin, a convert to Christianity, who was put to
death as a martyr for the Christian faith under
Marcus Aurelius, in the year 166, taught that
what he worshiped was the eternal wisdom be-
come incarnate, the indwelling God by whom the
worlds were fashioned, whose existence is recog-
nized in human souls, who mingles with humanity
"as the perfume with the flower, as the salt with
the waters of the sea." 1

Clement of Alexandria (died 220), who may
be called the father of Greek theology, and who
was attracted to Christianity by its lofty ethical
teaching, has expounded the idea of the imma-

1 A. V. G. Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, p. 33.

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 87

nence of God very freely. He teaches that be-
cause the deity dwelt in humanity the human
reason partook by its very nature of that which
was divine. He made no distinction between
natural and revealed religion, between what man
discovers and God reveals. 2 "The world is sa-
cred as a divine creation, the abode of indwelling
deity ; the human body is the temple of the Holy
Spirit and becomes a very sanctuary by conse-
cration to the will of God." 3

Photinus wrote: "I am striving to bring the
God which is in me into harmony with the God
which is in the universe."

Athanasius was born in Alexandria in the year
296. He wrote thus : "The all powerful and per-
fect reason of the Father, penetrating the uni-
verse, developing everywhere its forces ... al-
lowing nothing to escape his powerful action,
vivifying and preserving all beings in themselves
and in the harmony of creation," "The divine
logos, a being incorporeal, expands himself in the
universe, as light expands in air, penetrating all
and all, entire, everywhere. And with him is the
Father who made all things, and the Spirit who

2 Ibid., p. 47. 8 Ibid., p. 65.

88 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

is his energy." "For the world itself may be
thought of as one great body in which God in-
dwells, and if He is the whole He is also in the
parts." 4

Leaving the great teachers of the Greek Chris-
tians and coming to the Fathers of the Latin
Church we find Augustine, who died in the begin-
ning of the fifth century, teaching as follows:
"For God is diffused through all things. He
saith by His prophet C I will fill the earth.' Be-
cause God is substantially diffused everywhere." 5

The greatest teacher in the Latin Church,
whose authority is greater to-day than any other,
is called Thomas of Aquin, or Thomas Aquinas.
He lived in the thirteenth century and wrote:
". . . God is in all things by His power.
. . . God is in all things by His presence . . .
and He is in all things by His essence." 6 Pas-
sages like these are gleams of a higher thought
flashing forth at exceptional moments, when the
religious heart speaks out, or reason forgets its
trammels." 7 What an array of testimony prov-
ing the Christian teaching that God is an energy

* Allen, op. cit. Q Allen, op. cit.

5 Allen, op. cit. 7 Allen, op. cit.

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 89

manifesting Himself in us and in all things! Fol-
lowers of Jesus the Saviour, the apostles, the
evangelists, and the Fathers of the Greek and
Latin forms of Christianity, all unite in pro-
claiming this conception of God.

But it is not enough that we should listen to
their testimony. We must learn how to experi-
ence the truth of what they teach. We must actu-
ally experience God as a healing force within in
order to be healed. We must apply the truth to
our needs in order to be made free.

There are conditions requisite to the working
of the divine power in us. I shall mention some
very obvious, but, nevertheless, some very nec-
essary ones. As a first condition there must be
willingness to try. "Prove me now herewith,
saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you
the windows of heaven, and pour you out a
blessing that there shall not be room enough to
receive it" (Malachi 3:10).

"Try me now," saith the Lord. There is never
a more favorable time to start than at the pres-
ent moment. The past is past. The future is
not yet. The great reality is the present. God
says, "I am," not I was or I will be. He is the

90 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

eternal present. Now is the acceptable time.
Now is the day of salvation, that is, health of
body, mind, and soul.

In addition to willingness to try there must be
sincerity. Sincerity comes from two words, sine
and cere, meaning without wax. In ancient Rome,
as now, some dealers in second-hand furniture
were dishonest. They filled up the holes or made
missing edges with wax, varnished it over, and
sold it as solid wood. Honest dealers had a
sign with the words "sine cere/ 9 which meant
that the furniture was genuine. It was not
"make-believe" furniture. Let us be sincere with-
out any wax of pretense. When a certain man
sought Our Lord to heal his son of epilepsy,
Jesus said: "Canst thou believe? All things are
possible to him that believeth." This man gave
a very sincere answer. He replied: "I believe,
Lord. Help thou my unbelief." I think we
can all at least be sincere in stating our belief
as this man did.

A third condition is unselfishness. The power
of God in you is the same that is in others. If
it manifests itself in them as beauty, talent, or
success, do not be envious. Rather see in their

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 91

success the proof that God manifests His power
in them. He is trying to manifest it likewise
in you. Bless them for their success as an ob-
ject lesson of God's power in man.

Confidence may be mentioned as a fourth con-
dition requisite to the working of the divine en-
ergy that heals. The divine power that made
the universe so vast in its dimensions that the
imagination is baffled in its attempts to picture it;
the divine power that evolved you from so tiny
a human life cell that it takes twenty-three thou-
sand of them side by side to measure an inch,
and from that cell made your body, and is re-
making parts of it every day surely that power
is doing enough to give you absolute confidence
that it can manifest itself in you as wisdom, peace,
comfort, confidence, patience, health and im-
mortal life.

Then, there must be knowledge, for spiritual
healing is a science, a system of demonstrated
knowledge expressed in laws. It is not necessary
that one should know all that is to be known,
about the system, but one should have a work-
ing knowledge of it. Be willing to begin at the
beginning, as in any other branch of knowledge.

92 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

If it humbles us to make such a start it will
not hurt us to be humble. A teacher in Israel
came to Jesus one night for instruction, and was
told that to enter the Kingdom of Heaven it
is necessary to be born again, to start all over
again, with new points of view, new enthusiasms,
new dispositions, new hopes, ideals, and powers.
Possessing these, one is so different from what
he was before that he can be called a new creature.

Finally, we are to be doers of the word, not
hearers only. We are to apply what we have
learned to our particular needs.

Instead of describing this application, I am
going to sit with you now and practice It in the
form of a meditation.

"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
make you free/' I am willing to try to believe
that I can know the truth and it shall set me
free.

If I am any ways distressed m mind, body, or
estate, and if I do not find comfort or relief,
it is because I do not know the truth, or know-
ing it I do not practice it consistently. God does
not afflict me, for God is good. Rather I am

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 93

afflicting myself by my ignorance. I have only
to find the truth and I am free.

Jesus tells me to seek and I shall find; to ask
and I shall receive the knowledge I seek. Paul
says that among men many contend in a race, but
only one wins. With God all are successful I
shall succeed in knowing the truth that frees.

That truth and power are within me, and a
part of me, "as the perfume is with the flower
and the salt with the waters of the sea." There
is healing in this thought.

Everything is a symbol, a sign of Thee. The
heavens show forth Thy glory and the firmament
Thy power. So breathing is a symbol, a sign of
Thee. As my body breathes Thy air, and it is
with me, cooperating to heal and sustain, so my
mind and soul open to receive Thee and Thou art
with me.

My body reacts, it feels Thy life. I feel like
sitting upright in an active, positive position. I
hasten to obey.

I am so thankful for this manifestation of
Thy power in producing this sense of well-being
that I smile; my smile is a prayer of thanks-
giving.

94 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

That smile reacts on my whole body. The
sense of well-being gently extends all through
my being. It extends to my mind. My mind
smiles. It has a sense of well-being. It feels
relieved of its problems, for Thou art cooperat-
ing to solve them, Thou, the infinite mind, dif-
fused as light in the world. That sense of well-
being extends to whatever part of me is ailing.
It gently soothes the pain. As I let the thought
of Thee possess me, the thought of life, health,
and strength, I am possessed of well-being, health,
strength, wisdom, power, and peace. Let these
thoughts thoroughly possess us.

Thy life in me is manifesting itself as a purify-
ing force, purifying blood and mind. It mani-
fests itself as force, strengthening me.

Thou hast made us in Thy likeness, we possess
Thy nature, we are spiritual, manifesting through
this body, which is an instrument Because we
are like Thee we are immortal. We shall never
die. We shall outgrow this instrument, the body.
We partake of Thy life and shall manifest it for-
ever. The soul of us never grows old. It is like
God, from whom it came. God does not grow
old. The spirit is never diseased any more than

PHILOSOPHY OF HEALING 95

God is diseased. It is of the nature of God. The
spirit is our source of life, health, strength, wis-
dom, joy, and energy. We have only to be will-
ing to experiment with that source of life and let
its blessings appear in us.

To-night on retiring I shall go to sleep with
these as my last thoughts. If alarmed by any-
thing that distresses I shall think, "The divine
in me and the divine in the universe are working
in harmony and manifesting only for good."
Your body sleeps but not the spirit. It never
sleeps. It is infinite energy. It is at work build-
ing up your body during the night.

In the morning find a few minutes to be quiet
and impress upon yourself the truth that the in-
visible divine force works in you as truly as gravi-
tation. Let all natural forces be reminders of the
infinite Father, whose wisdom, love, and power
are also working in you and for you. Assert the
fact that they are. Assert the fact that God is
guiding and healing and giving peace to your
body, mind, and soul.

Persevere in this and you will be healed.
You will receive more than you can ask or hope
for.

96 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we can ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us, unto
him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus
throughout all ages world without end. Amen"
(Ephesians 3:21).

CHAPTER VIII

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPIRITUAL
HEALING

SPIRITUAL healing is a science based on cer-
tain fundamental truths called principles. These
principles give rise to brief exact statements
called laws. Many of these laws are to be found
already formulated in the Scriptures.

These laws have to do with a force or energy-
called by the Apostle Paul, "the power that
worketh in us." This power is described in
the same Scriptures as infinite, that is, without
limitation. It Is moral, which means that it has
for its object only that which is good. It is
spiritual, by which is meant that it is real but not
material. And it is conscious, or aware of itself
and of what is not itself. This awareness or
consciousness constitutes what is called person-
ality or a person. In other words, this infinite,
moral, spiritual, and conscious power that
worketh within is what we mean by God. God

97

98 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

as a power that worketh within man is, of course,
only one phase of His manifestations.

When we know with considerable exactness,
through the revelations of others or through our
own experience and study, how God manifests
Himself, and when we express that exact knowl-
edge in brief form, we have what is called a law.
A law, then, is a brief description of how God
does things, or how we can cooperate with God
in what He accomplishes. For when we know
the laws involved we can cooperate with God in
accomplishing "that which passeth understand-
ing."

There are conditions necessary or highly favor-
able to the working of all energy according
to its laws. So it is with the working of the
divine personal energy, which we name God.
These conditions are also found in part in the
Scriptures and can be supplemented by study and
experience.

One of these conditions is called faith, a much
misunderstood word in this connection. In an
account of the Apostle Paul healing a cripple,
we read, "And Paul beholding him steadfastly
saw that he had faith to be healed." Now what

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 99

did Paul see in that man's eyes? Surely not the
assent of the intellect to certain theological doc-
trines or dogmas. What Paul saw was the
agreement referred to in the text, which reads,
"If two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven" (Mat-
hew 18:19). I have beheld steadfastly hundreds
of persons who have come to me for healing, and
I know by experience that at times there is a
consciousness of such agreement, such readiness
on the part of the afflicted to believe that what
he is told is to come true, in a word, such ex-
pectancy that I have spoken with an authority
and boldness and such assurance of results as are
impossible to have honestly at other times. This
state of being completely en rapport is what
Paul experienced when he saw that the cripple had
faith to be healed. This fusing of the power
within two or more persons is a condition nec-
essary or highly favorable to the working of that
power in spiritual healing, but it is only one of
such necessary or highly favorable conditions.

A method is employed to beget these conditions
favorable or necessary to the working of the

100 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

divine power in healing. When the method is
considerably developed it becomes technique, and
there is abundant evidence in the Scriptures of a
highly developed technique and of its constant
employment by Jesus and His disciples in their
healing ministrations.

Prayer is one of the elements in the method
or technique of scientific spiritual healing. But it
is only one of the elements in begetting the
requisite conditions. To limit spiritual healing
to the use of prayer only, or to imagine that
prayers of intercession, that is, asking God for
healing, are the chief element is to have a very
limited understanding of this science. "Ye shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you
free," said Jesus. And the truth in spiritual
healing, as a science at all worthy the name, must
include principles, laws, necessary and highly
favorable conditions, and a method or technique
in applying all these to the person who is to be
healed.

Of prime importance is the person, called for
lack of a better term the healer, who is instru-
mental, and only instrumental, in bringing about
the healing. But there are degrees in which he

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 101

can be instrumental. This is determined by his
knowledge of this science, his practical experience
in applying it, his intuition, his confidence of
success based on actual successes, his faith, the
quality of his sympathy with the sufferer, his
knowledge of kindred sciences, his own experi-
ence with the divine power working within his
own life, and his knowledge of the limitations of
the science of spiritual healing,

Of course, such a person will cooperate to the
utmost with medical science. He will reestablish
the confidence of the patient in the science of
medicine where that confidence has been lost. He
will know that spiritual healing can be so min-
istered that, irrespective of the physical results,
the faith of the patient will never be diminished
but always increased, for the patient will be ac-
quiring the truth about God. The patient is
promised a blessing, and a blessing always comes
even if it does not come in the particular form the
patient at first expected.

One evening a woman was so worried in mind
and nervous of body that she was unable to at-
tend a party to which her family had been in-
vited. But after the other members had de-

102 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

parted her nervousness increased to such a
degree that she was unable to remain indoors and
went out for a walk. By chance she passed a
chapel and, recalling that there was a lecture
being given on spiritual healing, went in. Shortly
the lecture came to a close and the healing medi-
tation began. She followed the directions of the
lecturer. She thus describes what happened:
"Almost immediately I felt my body, which had
been very nervous, gently relax and a sense of
great peace went all through my body. It spread
to my mind. The worry which had caused the
nervousness completely left me. It was almost
uncanny. I could have gone to sleep in the chapel.
I was so happy I could hardly wait to get home.
On arriving home I went to bed and had a won-
derful rest, the first in several nights. I have
been sleeping unusually well ever since and feel
quite fit."

Only a little thing, some might say. But just
as the little incandescent light on a toy Christ-
mas tree proves the existence and power of elec-
tricity as much as a great searchlight on a bat-
tleship, so the quieting of a nervous mind and
body by spiritual means proves the existence and

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 103

power of what I call the divine energy to manifest
itself as peace and well-being.

Spiritual healing implies a knowledge of the
truth expressed as laws and a knowledge of how
to apply them to particular needs.

Laws, conditions requisite to their working, and
application these are the three elements in the
science of spiritual healing.

It is only natural in the beginning that you
should think it necessary to make great efforts
of will power in order to be healed. In the using
of spiritual forces the temptation is to exert our-
selves as when using physical force. If you were
on the ground with a heavy load on your chest
you would have to strive and struggle to get rid
of it. So in using spiritual means to get rid of
anything that weighs you down, or incapacitates
you, the temptation is to think that you must
strive and struggle to force the divine energy to
work. The temptation is to try by will power
to force yourself to be calm, to force your inca-
pacitated hand to move, to force words of
guidance to come, to force yourself to hope, and
so on.

When you wish an electric bell to ring you push

104 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

the button. By pushing the button you bring the
separated ends of two wires together, thus com-
pleting the circuit, and the electric force rings
the bell. You do not actually ring the bell. You
merely supply a requisite condition. You com-
plete the circuit.

If, when you push the button, the bell does not
ring, it will avail nothing to labor and exert all
the power you can get behind your thumb to push
on the button. A gentle pressure completes the
circuit just as much as the exertion of great
power. If the bell does not ring something along
the wire or in the battery is out of order, and
all your exertion of effort at the button will not
set it right. The electricity rings the bell, not
your force. Your effort only creates the requisite
conditions.

So it is with the divine power of God. You
have only to supply the requisite conditions and
the divine power acts- You do not heal yourself.
It is the life-giving energy of God which does
that.

A surgeon does not heal a broken leg. He
merely supplies the conditions requisite for heal-
ing. He brings the ends of the bones together.

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 105

He puts on a plaster cast to keep them together.
We say that nature heals the broken bone. But
what is nature? Only a name that we give to
some mysterious force. What we call nature
is but one manifestation of the divine power. The
surgeon, necessary though he be to the setting
of the bone, does not heal it any more than you
ring the bell.

And as with surgery so with medicine in gen-
eral. The physician knows that if he can ar-
range the requisite conditions life will continue
to manifest itself in his patient. Now, as you
know, I am in no wise belittling the noble pro-
fession of surgery and medicine. I believe in
spiritual healing but I have a good family phy-
sician. I believe in cooperating with him in the
use of all our combined knowledge in order to get
the conditions requisite to the working of the
divine power. We have found by study of the
Scriptures, and by experiment, that certain con-
ditions are required for the working of the di-
vine energy. Our part in the healing is to ar-
range those conditions. In arranging those
conditions you have to act, of course, but you
do not have to stress and strive and labor and

106 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

exhaust yourself as if your power were doing the
healing. Spiritual healing teaches how to re-
ceive something, to be conscious of possessing
something, to be aware of something working in
you, rather than to expend something or give
something out of your own mental or physical
reserve of power.

Jesus said: "My father worketh until now and
I work." He was conscious that it was the
Father's power that was working in and through
Him. He cooperated with that power. In that
sense He worked with it.

In order to understand the first law of spiritual
healing it is necessary to grasp the foregoing
clearly. It is the divine power in you that heals,
comforts, guides, gives immortality. You can
cooperate with it. Your cooperation is necessary.

But to cooperate you do not have to force and
strive. To do so interferes with the divine work-
ing. And the reason it interferes with the divine
working is that it shows you have not yet learned
to trust the divine power. You do not practically
believe in what it can do. You feel that it needs
considerable of your effort. If you realized that

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 107

you were dealing with infinite power you would
not strive to assist.

When you get on a train it never enters your
mind that you must get out and put your shoulder
to the rear car and help to start the train. You
do not do this because you have perfect confidence
in the power of the engine.

The same practical, perfect confidence in the
divine power is necessary in spiritual healing. For
you to strive unduly is evidence you do not trust
to the omnipotence of God in you.

The engine will not take you any place you
may desire to go. It will take you only over
the rails already laid down. If you do not know
where the rails lead, you will not know where
the engine is- taking you* It is likewise with
God. He has His plans for the whole universe.
He has laid down certain rails on which He de-
sires you to travel. He has a certain destina-
tion for you and His power will inevitably get
you there if you learn how to trust Him and how
to cooperate with Him.

Jesus is the wdy, the truth, and the life. He
is the way because He tells you what God has
in store for you. It may not be what you desire.

108 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

If not it is because what He has in store is better
by far for you than what you desire. You must
first learn to trust God, to believe that what
He has in store for you is absolutely the best,
and that His divine power will bring that to pass
with your earnest cooperation.

Or it may be that what God has in mind for
you is what you do desire, but it is not best for
you that it should come to pass in the way you
desire it to come. You must learn to trust God
absolutely, both as to the end and as to the way
it is to be accomplished.

But how are you to proceed to know what God
has in store for you and to know how He wishes
to accomplish it?

The way God wishes to accomplish anything is
called a law. In the teaching of Jesus and in
the Bible we can find some of those laws, and
by experimenting we can discover others for our-
selves. And Jesus and the Bible generally teach
us what the end is that God hopes to accomplish
through the working of His laws. But how are
we to proceed, both as regards the end and the
means to it?

There is an account to the effect that King

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 109

Solomon heard a voice represented as the voice
of God. It said to Solomon, "Ask what I shall
give thee," which means, after the Hebrew man-
ner of speech, whatsoever you ask I will give it.
And Solomon is reported to have answered:
Wisdom that I might rule this so great people.
And the story goes on to say that the voice re-
plied: Because you have not asked riches nor
length of days, nor the death of your enemies,
but rather wisdom to rule this so great people,
you shall receive wisdom, and riches and honor
and glory, and power such as no man has received
before thee and no man shall receive after thee (I
Kings 3:5-12), The teaching of this account,
which is the all-important part of it, is perfectly
clear. Solomon was a ruler. He asked for wis-
dom to do his duty. He received that wisdom
and it brought more than he had ever dared
hope for.

Consequently, the first thing to do in order
to know what God has in store for you, and the
way to accomplish it, is to pray for wisdom. Pray
that the divine power manifest itself in you as
wisdom to do your duty. It matters not what
your condition of body, mind, or affairs may be.

110 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

In order to be spiritually healed, which means
in order to have the divine power manifest itself
in your life as health, peace, abundance, or im-
mortality, you should first pray for wisdom to
know and to do your duty.

Pray that the divine wisdom may manifest itself
in your life, and then trust it perfectly. Show
your trust by the prayer of affirmation. During
the healing meditation we shall employ that
method of prayer. And we shall get a demon-
stration of its truth. That will help us to trust
it even more than we do at the time of our first
attempt.

The method of spiritual healing in which we
trust to a power working in us and do not de-
pend so much upon the force of our will power,
or physical striving to heal us, is quite scientific,
and has been demonstrated daily in scientific
clinics.

It is called the method of reversed effort.
This phrase implies that the more you use your
will power and physical power in mental and
spiritual healing the less you succeed. Whereas
if you diminish the effort of your will, and the
effort of your body, the greater is your success

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 111

in healing bodily and mental disorders. For the
healing is brought about by a state of conscious-
ness during which you are aware of the power
acting within. In such a state you are supremely
happy.

It has been found that when the will and the
imagination are in conflict, the imagination usu-
ally prevails. It wins out because it is the
stronger force. For example, a person has been
worrying. He decides to stop worrying. But
the imagination keeps bringing up the thing he
was worrying about. It presents it from all pos-
sible points of view. He wills to stop worrying
but he does not The imagination overcomes
his will power to resist it He is really thinking
about the object of his worry but saying that he
will not at some future time. But at the present
moment he is. The effort of his will is being
used to keep it before his mind. He might suc-
ceed by this method, but there is a better way.
And that way is to depend not so much upon his
own will power as upon the divine power within.

And so it is with everything else you wish to
accomplish. Start in to use the divine power
first You will have abundant opportunity to

112 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

use your own will power cooperating with the
divine. The mistake and error is to begin con-
scious only of our own little power. For you are
not alone. To act as if you were is to deny
your nature and to remain ignorant of the truth
which can set you free.

It has been demonstrated by experiment in
clinics that every thought tends to manifest itself
subconsciously in the body. There is a law ac-
cording to which thought, be it desire, wish, hope,
or ambition, always seeks to realize itself. Con-
sider carefully the words of this law. Every
thought does not actually manifest itself in the
body. The law says it tends to manifest itself.
Sometimes we say that it is a law that water
always runs downhill. But that is not the law.
If it always runs downhill then how did it get
up there? The law is that water always tends
to seek its level, or, as we say, tends to run down-
hill. So every thought does not manifest itself
in the body, but it tends to, it tries to. It is of the
nature of thought to tend to manifest itself in the
body as it is of the nature of water to tend to run
downhill.

The law states that every thought tends to

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 113

realize itself subconsciously, that is, in the sub-
conscious part of our being. "Ye shall know the
truth and the truth shall make you free" (John
8:32). Hence it is important to know the truth
about the subconscious element in our make-up,
which is commonly called the subconscious or the
unconscious mind.

The mind that we are using now is called the
conscious objective mind. We are aware or con-
scious that we are using it. I am using it to
express my ideas. You are using it to understand
and judge what I have written. The conscious
mind apprehends, compares ideas, comes to a
conclusion about them, and gives a command.
Let us for our present purpose say that the func-
tion of the conscious mind is to reason, decide,
command.

The subconscious part of us is called the sub-
jective mind, because it does not decide and com-
mand. It is a subject rather than a ruler. Its
nature is to do what it is told, or what really in
your heart of hearts you desire. The subcon-
scious mind directs all the vital processes of our
body. You do not have to think consciously
about breathing. Every time you take a breath

114 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

you do not have to reason, decide, and command.
The subconscious mind sees to that. You have
not been at all conscious that you have been
breathing while you have read this page.

So it is with the mind and the circulation of
blood. The heart is a muscle like the muscle of
your arm. It has no power to move of itself or
to direct its action. Only mind, only something
that can think, can direct our muscles, includ-
ing the heart. You are not conscious that you
are deciding when your heart should beat. You
are not conscious that you are commanding it to
beat. The subconscious mind attends to that.

And so it is with digestion of food, the as-
similation of food, and the building and repair-
ing of the body. In fact all the vital processes
are looked after by the subconscious mind. At
once you see how important to one's health is
this mind which is called subconscious.

I have said the subconscious mind is called sub-
jective for its nature is to take orders. And in
executing those orders wonderful is its power. It
is always at work during the night as during the
day, when you are sleeping or when you are

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 115

awake. It is elemental, and therefore it is tire-
less.

Now to our law once more. Every thought
tends to realize itself in the body subconsciously.
Hence our problem is how to get our healing
thoughts into the subconscious part of us so that
they may be realized in the body, in the mind,
in our whole life. For spiritual healing aims
to heal not merely the body but the whole man.

Do not think that while I place great impor-
tance on the subconscious mind I am forgetting
'God and his divine energy. The subconscious
mind is God's way of utilizing His energy. God
evolved the subconscious mind. It is His gift to
us like all else that we possess. And because it is
from Him we should give thanks and learn how
to use it intelligently.

How to get thoughts into the subconscious
mind is the purpose of the healing meditation.
The woman who received such wholesome and
lasting results, as described in a previous chapter,
said that it was during the healing meditation she
felt the first effects. She had followed my direc-
tions and relaxed. To relax completely means to

116 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

stop using the conscious mind and to stop using
the voluntary muscles of the body. It means
merely to let go and become passive and receptive.
When in this state, you give the subconscious mind
a chance to receive the idea and the command to
realize it.

It is said that idleness is the devil's opportu-
nity and it is perfectly true. When you are
absolutely idle in mind and body you are re-
laxed. The subconscious, which is always ready
to receive ideas and commands, takes whatever
you allow it to have. If you are idle and allow
evil thoughts to remain they are received by the
subconscious, which tends to realize them in the
body just as much as though they were good,
wholesome, health-giving, spiritual thoughts. For
remember the subconscious does not reason and
judge. It only receives and obeys. It is God's
gift to us and we are responsible as to how we
use it.

What I have written thus far is merely enough
to introduce you to the law for realizing your
desires in the body through God's divine gift
which is called the subconscious or subjective
mind. Do not think that there are two minds in

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 117

us, but rather one mind with two quite different
functions.

I have said that in proceeding to be healed
we need wisdom as to what God has in store
for us that is the end and wisdom as to the
means for accomplishing that end. All that I
have said about the subconscious mind refers to
the means we are to use to reach the desired
end.

It is equally important to have wisdom as to
what we should desire. "God wills only that
which is good for me and for all mankind/' was
our first affirmative prayer. Good as used here
means the best. So we can formulate our prayer
thus: "God wills only the best for me and for
all mankind. Consequently I am always to seek
the higher good. That is God's will for me."

I have said that the divine power is trying
to manifest itself in your life to realize the high-
est good. Perhaps that is not what you are
seeking. Or, if you are seeking the highest pos-
sible good perhaps you are not seeking it in the
best way.

I cannot tell in advance how the divine powef
will manifest itself in your body. I know only

118 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

that it will work to accomplish what is your
highest good.

A minister's wife had been in a wheel chair
for years. After attending a service for healing
she said, "I came seeking bodily healing but I
have found that what I need is spiritual enlighten-
ment." Knowledge of the truth became for her
a higher good than immediate physical healing.
Rejoicing in that truth and allowing it to possess
her had its good effect on the body. She has
been coming to the healing service every Thurs-
day morning, her face hopeful, expectant, and
smiling in the joy of finding the truth about life
and God. Formerly it was a puzzle which she
could not solve. Now she knows that in any
condition of body or affairs God can manifest
Himself in us as love, wisdom, peace, joy,
immortality.

Another woman came using a cane and went
away using it but she thus describes her con-
dition: "As I walked along my body was sing-
ing, I felt so good all over I never thought that
I was using a cane, I was so happy from within."

I am sure that woman passed many persons
on the street not needing a cane to walk with,

PSYCHOLOGY OF HEALING 119

but how few of them were as happy as she. How
few were happy from within! How few could
say that their bodies were singing! I do not
know in advance how the divine power and wis-
dom will manifest themselves in spiritually heal-
ing you. I have seen it bring peace and life to
some by healing bodily ills. I have seen it bring
peace and life to others without removing bodily
ills.

What we seek in the last resort is not the
removal of bodily ills, but peace, knowledge, and
assurance of immortality. These are the higher
good. A man might have rheumatism and be
healed of it but does that make him more wise
or spiritual or moral? Does absence of rheu-
matism bring peace, happiness, and success? By
no means 1

So seek the higher good. Seek wisdom to do
your duty. Find out what your duty is* Be
assured the divine power is fitting you to do it.
And in thus seeking the way will gradually operi
for the next step. Trust God. u Keep Thou
my feet; I do not ask to see the distant scene; one
step enough for me."

CHAPTER IX

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY IN SPIRITUAL
HEALING

JESUS is the way, the truth, and the life be-
cause He teaches the truth as to the way we can
cooperate with the divine power within in order
that it may manifest itself in our life as wisdom,
love, peace, health, strength, abundance, immor-
tality.

Prayer is that exercise which puts us in con-
dition for the divine power to operate in us.
There are several kinds of prayer such as praise,
thanksgiving, petition, and affirmation. The
prayer of affirmation consists in asserting spirit-
ual truths and is most powerful in spiritual heal-
ing. For example: "God wills only that which
is best for me and for all mankind." "God wills
that I should be well and strong and at peace."
"God is healing me now." These are examples
of affirmative prayer. They are statements of
spiritual truth based on good psychology.

120

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 121

Service should always follow prayer, and by
service is meant sharing the good with others,
or letting the good in you manifest itself.

Following the teaching of Jesus, the apostles,
evangelists, and Fathers of the early Christian
Church conceived of God as a divine personal
energy in us and in all the world "as the perfume
with the flower, as the salt with the waters of the
sea," and we learned to call this conception of
God by the name "immanence," which means in-
dwelling, as contrasted with "transcendence," by
which it is understood that God is above and
greater than all creation.

In the preceding chapter we reasoned thus : if
we believe that God is an energy of infinite wis-
dom, love, and power within us, we should learn
to cooperate with Him. God has so fashioned
us that we do not have to give conscious attention
to the vital processes. He has given us what is
called the subconscious mind, which directs respi-
ration, circulation, assimilation of food, the up-
building and repair of the body in a word, that
part of our mind which operates without our
conscious attention and which looks after all the
vital functions.

122 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

This mind can receive commands from us and
has wonderful ability to carry them out, for it is
a law that every idea tends to realize itself sub-
consciously in the body.

Since God gave us this device we are bound
to study it to know the laws according to which
it operates, and to apply those laws to the heal-
ing of body, mind, and soul, and to the glory of
God, "the giver of every good and perfect gift."

We found it of capital importance not to strive
as if by force of will or physical effort to heal
ourselves, but to remember that a divine infinite
power is at work within, and to learn to give our-
selves to that power and to trust it to accomplish
God's beneficent purposes in us. To do this we
were to relax body and mind and assert spiritual
truths until they produced a state of conscious-
ness in which we experienced the divine power
working in us.

In preceding chapters which I have just out-
lined, we were laying the foundations of the sci-
ence of spiritual healing, and it was necessary
to handle the big foundation stones, which in this
instance were principles, laws, conceptions of God,
prayer, requisite conditions, and the meaning and

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 123

scope of the healing I advocate. We peeped at
philosophy, theology, psychology, science, prayer,
and service.

We must now put the emphasis on the appli-
cation of the truths or laws we have learned,
particularly as concerns our individual needs.
But we shall now and again recall our principles
and laws and conceptions of God and His good
will, for these are the dynamo from which comes
the power to lighten and strengthen and vivify.

I have said that we are now to apply the sci-
ence of spiritual healing to our own particular
individual needs. Since we are going to deal with
our needs let us call them all together before us,
to see what they look like as a whole, before we
deal with them in particular. It will be a con-
venient time to ask of them a few questions about
their origin, their purpose, their value.

If you examine a watch on the outside you
see hands moving. Look within and you find
moving wheels; and further within you find the
mainspring, the source of the movements of the
various parts.

Examine yourself and you will find that all
your various physical actions, which appear on

124 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

the outside, can be traced to the movement of
muscles within, and beneath muscles to the influ-
ence of nerves. But is there in you any main-
spring which causes not only physical action but
also those mental actions we call thought, or those
intense experiences called hopes, desires and
ambitions? Yes, there is one in whom we live
and move and have our being, namely, God.
All power and movement, and life are manifesta-
tions of God, the divine energy, the mainspring
of our every action.

Several things that release this energy in us
might be mentioned, one of the greatest of which
is need. The newly born child needs air. He
struggles to get it and then needs more air and
strains for that. And in the struggle and strain
he develops the forces to meet that need until in
a short time he meets it without any apparent
effort, and is then free to begin to meet other
needs and to be developed in meeting them.

This first experience of the newly born child
is an indication of all that is to follow. Needs
of the body, needs of the reasoning part of us,
needs of the affections, needs of justice, goodness,
beauty, truth, the moral needs, the aesthetic needs,

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 125

the social needs, the spiritual needs these, like
the need of air, are what release the mainspring
of action in us.

Study any personal life and you will find that
the inner cause of its endeavors was to meet
certain needs, and that in the meeting of those
needs successfully the person advanced in life.

But the needs may not be successfully met.
Through ignorance of the' meaning of life,
through sloth, through lack of instruction,
through discouragement, or what not, a person
may fail to meet his great needs. Just as the
child gradually and naturally supplied his need
of air, first with great effort then without ever
giving a thought to it, so the grown child can
gradually and naturally neglect to supply certain
needs. This neglect may cost an effort at first
but soon one can neglect these needs without
a thought.

Recall the first mean or unjust thing we did
consciously. We felt miserable because the need
of justice in us was denied* But if we kept on
doing this deed the sense of justice in us regard-
ing this particular matter would have become well-

126 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

nigh extinct, and we might violate it without a
thought of remorse.

Hence to deny needs means to deteriorate. To
fulfill them successfully is to grow "in wisdom and
stature and grace before God and man."

It is a fact that as civilization advances life
becomes more complex and our needs are in-
creased. We make progress only by having new
needs to struggle with, and finally by being able
to meet them unconsciously. We shall never be
free of them in this life, for they release the
energy that pushes us on.

We read of Jesus that He had compassion on
the multitude for they were as sheep without a
shepherd. The needs of their life, of their soul,
mind, and body, were crying out for satisfaction,
for fulfillment, for expression, but they were
without a teacher to lead them to the truth that
would make them free.

The purpose of the religion of Jesus is to
teach mankind and to demonstrate to them both
how their needs are to be met in this life and
in the next, and how in the meeting of them they
grow more and more like God. "It doth not
yet appear what we shall be but we know that

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 127

when He shall appear we shall be like Him," is
St. John's way of stating this truth. Paul tells
us that he has learned a great secret about meet-
ing his needs. He says, "Rejoice in the Lord,
and again I say rejoice" (Philippians 4 14) . "And
the peace of God, which passeth all under-
standing, shall keep your hearts and minds
through Christ Jesus" (Ibid 4 17) . "I know both
how to be abased and I know how to abound;
everywhere and in all things I am instructed both
to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to
suffer need" (Ibid 4:12). "But my God shall
supply all your need according to His riches in
glory by Christ Jesus" (Ibid 5:19).

And so I might quote passage after passage
to prove that the purpose of religion is to assure
'us that all our needs can be gloriously met, to
teach us how they are to be met with God's
power, and that in the process of meeting them
we grow in the stature of Christ.

The modern sciences of psychology and biology
have very emphatic words to say about our needs.
Biology, which is the science of life, finds that
the most important factor in evolution is not the
outer environment but the inner needs of the liv%

128 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

ing being. To satisfy its need of sustenance,
defense, reproduction, and social life the living
thing evolves the organs and instruments which
are the means to that end. The inner urge, the
elan vital of Bergson is, in simple language, noth-
ing other than the needs of our nature implanted
in us by the Creator. In fulfilling his nature, in
satisfying his needs, bodily needs, mental needs,
social needs, spiritual needs, man evolves or
grows according to the divine plan.

And psychology, the science of the nature and
function of the mind, teaches that the instincts
are the great driving forces of life. They can-
not be successfully suppressed. If the attempt is
made they may be repressed for a time but not
overcome. They reappear in other forms.
Nervous disorders are often due to the suppres-
sion of instincts, and diseases that follow nervous
disorders are traced finally to what disordered
the nervous system, namely, repressed instincts,
emotions, and desires.

The psychological law of healing in such cases
is the same as the spiritual law. Know the truth
about the cause of your disorders, says the psy-
chologist, and the truth will set you free of them.

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 129

Know that they come from repressed needs; let
those needs find expression or satisfaction and
you will be healed.

Expression and satisfaction do not mean in-
dulgence and gratification but sublimation. Subli-
mation is a technical term which means directing
our emotions or instincts to higher ends, that is,
to moral and social objects. It means to find
the outlet and satisfaction of the suppressed need,
or desire, in some worthy way, some ennobling
way, and such ways are always both moral and
social.

For example, instead of suppressing the mother
or the father instinct or indulging it immorally,
if one be unmarried, one should adopt a child or
take children into one's life by teaching children,
or by taking active part in any of the great child
welfare movements. The instinct is then directed
to a high moral and social end, that is, subli-
mated. In this case half a loaf is a thousand
times better than no bread. If the need is for a
child and you haven't one, then adopt or work
for children.

All our instincts can be thus sublimated. In
fact all advance in civilization and culture and

130 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

religion is brought about by thus directing the
primitive in us to lofty social aims.

Modern science tells us of the supreme Im-
portance of giving expression and satisfaction
to our instinctive needs, emotions, and desires by
sublimating them. And religion, in a wealth of
inspiring promises unequaled in any other litera-
ture, assures us that God will assist us in this
sublimation with His infinite wisdom and power.

There is no limit to the satisfaction God has
for His children. It is not confined to time, and
this life in the flesh. It reaches beyond time, even
unto the immortal life. The great declaration of
Jesus is: "I am come that they might have life
and that they might have it more abundantly."
Life, the expressing of what is within, the bring-
ing out into the conscious reality of that which
shows itself within by our needs. And in this
expression and satisfaction of need we grow, im-
prove, tend to become perfect as the Father is
also perfect.

The psalmist and the scientist express the same
truth. Edwin Grant Conklin, professor of biology
in Princeton University, writes in his excellent vol-
ume on The Direction of Human Evolution:

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 131

"Science contributes to society knowledge and
power ; government establishes order and justice ;
religion cultivates faith, hope and love. The
appeal of science is chiefly to reason, of govern-
ment to action, of religion to emotion. The in-
stincts and emotions of men are older and more
powerful than their reason, and correspondingly
the appeal to emotion is more potent than the
appeal to reason. Indeed, reason itself can be
appealed to only through intellectual feeling or
desire for truth. The highest types of religion
appeal to love of truth, of beauty and of good-
ness, that is, to the noblest emotion in human
nature." x

I continue to quote. Ryland says: "Thought-
ful people get too much in the habit of thinking
that intellect is everything, yet the world is not
governed by thought but by emotion." And
on this subject Ribot, the French psychologist,
says: "What is fundamental in character is the
instincts, impulses, desires, feelings, all these and
nothing else." "Men are not governed by ab-
stract principles," says Leslie Stephen, "but by

1 Edwin Grant Conklin, The Direction of Human Evolution,
pp. 161, 163.

132 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

passions and emotions." Herbert Spencer wrote :
"Mind is not wholly, or even mainly intelligence;
it consists largely, and in one sense entirely, of
feelings." And Auguste Comte said: "Affections,
propensities, passions, are the great springs of
human life."

"This is the great truth which religion has ever
emphasized: Out of the heart, that is, the emo-
tions are the issues of life" (Proverbs 4:23).
"As a man thinketh in his heart so is he n (Ibid.

23:7).

Here is the fundamental and the highest need

of man expressed in language as beautiful as the
need is imperative: "As the hart panteth after
the water brooks, so longeth my soul after thee,
O God." Augustine has given classic expression
to the same truth in the words : "Thou hast made
us for thyself O God, and our hearts can have
no rest until they rest in thee."

Let us then bless God for our needs, our mental,
moral, aesthetic, and spiritual needs, for without
them we should never have got a start in this
romance of life; and, being once started, without
them we should degenerate and stagnate.

Now for the practical method of giving ex-

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 133

pression and satisfaction to* our needs in order
to continue our evolution as God desires after
the example of the Saviour.

Each one must decide for himself what is his
greatest need, the realization of which will bring
the greatest and most lasting happiness. In de-
ciding this question let us remember that we are
not alone. The divine wisdom is with you to
guide you. To consult the divine wisdom requires
that you relax, body and mind. "Be still and
know that I arn God" is the divine command. To
relax is to wait patiently upon the Lord, for as
He knows, so is He ever willing to speak. He
speaks to us personally and through great inspired
souls. He tells us through them, and we feel it
within, that we have the capacity, hence the need,
for unending, everlasting, immortal life. There
is a natural desire that every good thing should
continue. When we applaud, when we say encore,
we mean again, more, continue, it is good, let it (
go on. So the life in us desires to go on, for it
is good, supremely good, the greatest, most fun-
damental good we possess.

There is, then, the need of immortality. Rec-
ognize that need. Give expression to it. Say

134 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

in the words of the creed, "I believe in the life
everlasting." The recognition of a need and the
expressed belief in its fulfillment are the first
steps to that fulfillment. The clearer your rec-
ognition, the clearer your expression and the more
expectant your belief, the more certain will be
your satisfaction.

"This is eternal life to know the one true God
and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." To know
God as one who is sharing His infinite life with
you ; to know yourself as a manifestation of that
infinite life; to know that in Him you live and
move and have your being, and that as He shares
His life with you now, He will continue to share
it with you forever: this is to know God. This
is to find expression for and satisfaction of the
desire to live forever.

We desire to live forever because life is good.
Therefore let it express its goodness. In ex-
pressing its goodness life becomes satisfied. Your
life becomes satisfied. There is a need in you
which can be gratified only by your expressing
in thought, word, and deed that which is good.
You have the desire and the need of expressing
that which is good in your body. Your body

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 135

needs good health, just as your life needs immor-
tality. Recognize its need and express it. Ex-
press your belief in it as you do in immortality.
Make it a part of your creed. As you say, "I
believe in the life everlasting," and every time
you say it devoutly it makes your belief the
stronger, so assert your belief in good health. As
God is sharing His life with you so is He sharing
His health or well-being with you. Assert your
belief in this truth. Say, "God is sharing His
well-being with me now," and frequently repeat
that truth. Believe it. Assume that it is true.
Inwardly smile in gladness that it is so. A smile
is the expression of well-being. Be conscious of
that smile spreading quietly and gently from your
face all through your body. Pain is absent from
the face that smiles. And as the smile radiates
through your body pain will be absent. Picture
and feel that smile, the expression of well-being,
reaching even diseased parts or afflicted parts.
Let it range through the mind, soothing, caress-
ing, soothing, caressing. Doubt, fears, anxieties
flee before it. Let it penetrate the depths of your
being until it possesses the very soul of you. That
smiling sense of well-being becomes the center of

136 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

you. Now it radiates outward all through your
members. Now it returns again to the depths
within. And in rhythmic radiations it ebbs and
flows, refreshing, vivifying, strengthening, heal-
ing.

Be this your prayer and act of devotion. Wor-
ship God thus manifesting His well-being in you.
In joy thank Him. In gratitude use what you
now possess by imparting it to others. Share with
them your knowledge, your interest, your enthu-
siasm, your means that they too may have dem-
onstrated in them the satisfaction of their needs
through the intelligent understanding and use of
the divine source of all well-being.

The good is trying to express itself in you just
. as naturally as the seed in the ground tries to
burst its shell and grow. The tiny seed in try-
ing to grow lifts three hundred times its own
weight of earth which covers it. It seems that
the earth presses it down and prevents it from
coming forth to the light. But we know that
it is from the pressing earth that it gets its
strength to achieve. So your very needs that
seem at times to oppress you are the challenges
to stir up faith and confidence and determination.

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 137

The winds that sway the oak tree stir it to its
roots, and the roots bestirred gather in new
strength and impart it to the whole tree. So your
needs take you back to the roots of your life.
Back to God in whom you are grounded and
rooted. Realizing this, you gather in strength
anew and your whole being, body, soul, mind, par-
takes of it in ever increasing abundance. "I am
come," said Jesus, "that they might have life and
that they might have It more abundantly" (John
10:10).

CHAPTER X

DAILY HEALING STUDIES
MEDITATION AND PRAYER

"Ask, and it shall be given unto you ; seek, and ye
shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

First Week

Sunday. Prayer, the spiritual preparation for
healing. Matthew 6:5-15. Memorize verses 9
to 13.

Monday. Loving judgments, the moral prep-
aration. Matthew 7 :i-i2. Memorize verse i.

Tuesday. Jesus heals sin and sickness. Mark
2:1-12. Memorize verses 5 and n.

Wednesday. A father's faith saves his son.
Mark 9 :i4-2y. Memorize verse 23.

Thursday. Two men going to church heal a
lame man. Acts 3:1-16. Memorize verse 6.

Friday. Healing a dying boy at a distance,
John 4:43-53. Memorize verse 50.

Saturday. Comfort and power through union
with God. John 14:1-14. Memorize verse i.

138

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 139
Second Week

Sunday. The supreme value of wisdom.
Proverbs 16. Memorize verses 3 and 20.

Monday. Some divine laws of peace and pros-
perity. Psalm 37. Memorize verses 5 and 8.

Tuesday. God's infinite energy or power to
renew us. Isaiah 40. Memorize verses 29
and 31.

Wednesday. We are partakers of the divine
nature, II Peter i. Memorize verse 4.

Thursday. The healing of a cripple. Acts
14:8-19. Memorize verses 9 and 10.

Friday. The law of forgiveness. Luke 7:
36-50. Memorize verse 47.

Saturday. The divine power heals many
through Jesus. Matthew 8:1-17. Memorize
verse 13.

Third Week

Sunday. David's prayer of praise, petition,
thanks, and affirmation. I Chronicles 29:10-20.
Memorize verse 12.

Monday. All prayers are heard and an-
swered, Luke 11:1-13* Memorize verses 10
and 13.

140 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

Tuesday. Affirmative prayer of Jesus. John
17:4-26. Memorize verse 21.

Wednesday. Jesus teaches that God is in us.
John 14:15-31. Memorize verse 23.

Thursday. The power of God within accom-
plishes above what we can hope for. Ephesians
3. Memorize verses 20 and 21.

Friday. God's power in some men can be
communicated to others and heal them. It is the
same power that manifests itself in producing
rain, harvests, and gladness. Acts 14:8-19,
Memorize verse 17.

Saturday. God's life remains with us making
us immortal. John 16:17 to 17:3. Memorize
verse 3 of chapter 17.

Fourth Week

Sunday. A song of prayer for a confident
mind. Isaiah 26:1-10, Memorize verse 4.

Monday. Life and peace result from a spir-
itual mind. Romans 8:1-21. Memorize verse 6.

Tuesday. How to renew the mind and be
transformed. Romans 12. Memorize verses 2
and 21.

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 141

Wednesday, The power of the will in healing.
Luke 5:12-26. Memorize verse 13.

Thursday. How the inner thought is mani-
fested in the outer life. Proverbs 4. Memorize
verses 7 and 23.

Friday. Turning from the fountain of living
waters is the explanation of man's troubles. Jere-
miah 2:1-13. Memorize verses 5 and 13.

Saturday. The power of the spirit in us to
abolish fear and death, II Timothy 1 16-14.
Memorize verses 7 and 10.

A HEALING MEDITATION

When you desire the sunlight to cheer a room
you raise the shade and the light pours in. It
is the nature of light to be present when the
obstacles are removed. So, too, it is the nature
of God to fill your life with His presence when-
ever you open your mind and heart to Him.

To receive this blessing, quietly meditate on
such words as these : "I now open my mind and
heart to God. He has promised to make His
abode with me. ... I have opened my inner-
most heart to Him . * . and He is present with

me."

142 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

Pause a few moments, simply conscious of
God's presence. Then say quietly: "Since God
is infinite wisdom, I must follow His direction.
Since God is infinite power, I can do all that He
directs me to do. Since He is the God of peace,
I shall henceforth proceed with serene confidence."

Again pause, simply conscious of God's pres-
ence. After a moment or two continue: "God
is now directing me. I arise confident in His
leading." Suit your action to your word. Rise
with confidence. Start your work or affairs, what-
ever they may be, with this thought:

"To go about my daily tasks in this frame of
mind is my supreme blessing and duty. I thank
Thee, my Father, for this feeling of hope which
is the proof that Thou art with me. To radiate
this spirit to others by doing everything with con-
fidence, always conscious of Thy power working
with me, is now my firm resolve/'

THE PRAYER

Almighty God, the only source of health and
healing, may we and this Thy servant be conscious
at this moment of Thy healing, saving power man-
ifesting itself in his life.

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 143

May we with the eyes of faith behold the hand
of Thy Son Jesus resting upon him and believe
that in His touch is the ancient power to heal.

May we be conscious that the divine life of
God is now supporting and comforting him, even
that immortal life which always manifests itself
according to Thy will.

Graciously we trust in Thy love, knowing that
this Thy servant ever partakes of Thy life which
shall remain with him forever. Complete, good
Lord, the work begun in Jesus' name. Amen.

THE ORDER FOR THE SERVICE OF
SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

A s Conducted at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, New York
Rev. William T. Walsh, Rector

*The Altar shall have upon it the Cross and
two lighted candles. The Minister shall be vested
and, kneeling upon the lowest step before the
Altar, he shall pray aloud the Lord's Prayer.

Oufc Father, who art m heaven, hallowed be
thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done
on earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As
we forgive those who trespass against us. And
lead us not into temptation ; But deliver us from
evil. Amen.

144 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

The Collect

ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts are open,
all desires known, and from whom no secrets are
hid; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the
inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may per-
fectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy
Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

*Then turning to the people, shall the Minister

say:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.

TnoiT shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself. On these two command-
ments hang all the Law and the Prophets,
Matthew XXII, 37-40,

Again Jesus saith:

If two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for
them of my Father which is in heaven* Matthew
XVIII, 19.

And again Jesus saith:

And these signs shall follow them that believe;

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 145

they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover. Mark XVI, 17-18.

*Here shall be said:

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us*
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Let us pray.

O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God,
vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and
govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways
of thy laws, and in the works of thy command-
ments; that, through thy most mighty protection,
both here and ever, we may be preserved in body
and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Amen. Book of Common Prayer.

*Then shall the Minister read the following
Epistle, first saying, The Epistle is written in the
fourteenth chapter of the book of The Acts of the
Apostles, beginning at the 8th verse. The Epistle
ended, he shall say, Here endeth the Epistle.

The Epistle. Acts XIV, 8-18

AND there sat a certain man at Lystra, impo-
tent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's
womb, who never had walked. The same heard

146 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

Paul speak: who steadfastly beholding him, and
perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said
with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And
he leaped and walked.

And when the people saw what Paul had done,
they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech
of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in
the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas,
Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the
chief speaker.

Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before
their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the
gates, and would have done sacrifice with the
people. Which when the apostles, Barnabas and
Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran
among the people, crying out, Sirs, why do ye these
things? We also are men of like passions with
you, and preach unto you that you should turn
from these vanities unto the living God, which
made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all
things that are therein ; who in times past suffered
all nations to walk in their own ways. Neverthe-
less he left not himself without witness, in that
he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and
fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and
gladness.

And with these sayings scarce restrained they
the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto
them.

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 147

*Then, all the people standing, the Minister
shall read the following Gospel, first saying, The
Holy Gospel is written in the Eighth Chapter of
the Gospel according to St. Matthew, beginning
at the First Verse.

*Here shall be said, Glory be to thee, O Lord.

*And after the Gospel shall be said, Praise be
to thee, O Christ.

The Gospel St. Matthew VIII, 1-17

WHEN Jesus was come down from the moun-
tain, great multitudes followed him. And behold,
there came a leper and worshipped him, saying,
Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him,
saying I WILL; BE THOU CLEAN. And immedi-
ately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said
unto him, See thou tell no man ; but go thy way,
show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that
Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,
there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick
of the palsy, grievously tormented.

And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal
him.

148 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am
not worthy that thou shouldest come under my
roof: but speak the word only, and my servant
shall be healed. For I am a man under authority,
having soldiers under me : and I say to this man,
Go, and he goeth ; and to another, Come, and he
cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he
doeth it.

When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to
them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I
have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
And I say unto you, That many shall come from
the east and west, and shall sit down with Abra-
ham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of
heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall
be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And Jesus said to the centurion, Go thy way;
and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.
And his servant was healed in the selfsame
hour.

And when Jesus was come into Peter's house,
he saw his wife's mother laid, and sick of a fever.
And he touched her hand, and the fever left her :
and she arose, and ministered unto them.

When evening was come, they brought unto him
many that were possessed with devils: and he
cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all
that were sick : That it might be fulfilled which

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 149

was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Him-
self took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

*Here shall be said the Creed commonly called
the Nicene.

I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things vis-
ible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten
Son of God; Begotten of his Father before all
worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God
of Very God; Begotten not made, Being of one
substance with the Father; By whom all things
were made : Who for us men and for our salva-
tion came down from heaven, And was incarnate
by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was
made man: And was crucified also for us under
Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried: And
the third day he rose again according to the Scrip-
tures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on
the right hand of the Father : And he shall come
again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the
dead; Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord,
and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the
Father and the Son; Who with the Father and
the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
Who spake by the Prophets : And I believe in one

ISO SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

Catholic and Apostolic Church; I acknowledge
one Baptism for the remission of sins: And I
look for the Resurrection of the dead: And the
Life of the world to come. Amen.

*The Minister shall then go to the Lectern or
to the Chancel steps to give the Notices, the In-
struction and the Exhortation. The Notices
should be brief and somewhat as follows :

The Service of Spiritual Healing is held every
Thursday morning at 10:30 o'clock. After the
announcements, which I shall now make, there
will be a brief Instruction followed by an Exhort-
ation* Then there will be a hymn or a solo while
those who seek healing come to the Communion
Rail for the Laying on of Hands with the Prayer
of Faith. The Service ends with a prayer for
those who are absent and the Benediction.

I wish to call your attention to the books, pam-
phlets and Prayer Leaflets to be found in the ves^
tibule, which you can procure after the Service.
You will be greatly helped by such prayer and
reading during the week between the Healing
Services.

Finally, there are expenses connected with these
Services including the cost of heating, lighting,
advertising and printing the Prayer Leaflets. No
offering is taken. Freely we have received and

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 151

freely we give as saith the Scripture. Our Lord
commanded those who had been healed to make
the offering required by the ancient Law. Those
who wish to make a thank offering will find the
plate in the center aisle near the entrance and are
asked to place their offering there.

I shall be glad to greet you as you are leaving
the Service and to hear from you of the blessing
you have received. So kindly wait, when conveni-
ent, until I return from the vesting room.

*If the notices have been given at the Lectern
the Minister should then go to the Chancel steps
for the Instruction and Exhortation so that there
will be a distinction between the Notices and the
Instruction and Exhortation and that nothing in
the former might detract from the latter.

The Instruction should be based on the Epis-
tle or the Gospel already read in the Service.
Thoughts developed the preceding week should be
referred to the succeeding week and a new thought
developed. One truth, or one phase of a truth,
is sufficient for one Instruction, which should not
take over ten minutes to deliver.

The Instruction should begin with a brief para-
phrase of the Scriptural account of some one
healed. The meaning and scope of spiritual heal-
ing, for example, as given elsewhere in this book,.

1S2 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

should come next and then the Scriptural account
of the case of healing, with which the Instruction
began, should be recalled as an illustration of the
meaning and scope of spiritual healing.

A word should be said in praise of the service
rendered by medical science and all should be
urged to keep close to their family physician and
pray to God's blessing upon him, while seeking
healing from the Divine Physician of mankind.

The disposition of heart and mind, necessary
to spiritual healing, will then be explained, always
remembering that Jesus took men as he found
them, as in the case of the half-believing but
honest father who said, "Lord I believe, help thou
my unbelief."

It should be stated at every Service that a bless-
ing can be expected, but that the form the
blessing will take must be left finally to the wisdom
of God. The blessing we receive might be the
blessing that we prayed for, but it might not be
sent in the form we prayed it would come. Or
the blessing might not be what we asked for be-
cause God in His wisdom has a greater one for
us. Or again it might be with us, as with others
every week, that the blessing which comes is just
what we did pray for. But the blessed assurance
is that a blessing always is received.

The Exhortation must bring a picture of
Jesus to the imagination of those to be healed,

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 153

making Him so really present that they become
unmindful of everything else. Affirm confidently
that Jesus is present, for when two or three are
gathered together in His Name He is in the
midst. Where Jesus is, there is His love and His
power ever actively at work. It will be true and
it should be stated that already, at this time in
the Service, some have felt His power forgiving
them of their sins. Others feel His power sooth-
ing their minds so that now they have no fears,
or soothing their bodies so that now they have
no pain. I can make such statements confidently
and with authority, for after the Services I always
hear that several persons have had such experi-
ences. Others feel His power strengthening their
minds and bodies as the woman felt Jesus' power
coming to her when she touched the hem of His
garment. So I assure people that they are sur-
rounded by and bathed in His power and feel
it as really as one who is surrounded and bathed
in sunlight feels its warmth and cheer.

Jesus, though here present in spirit and power,
uses others to manifest that power. Jesus, though
here present, has no physical tongue with which
to speak words aloud, nor hands to place upon
your head with healing power, but He will use
us to do His will if we believe.

You know and feel that the one who speaks
to you words of truth in Jesus' name is going to

154 SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUAL HEALING

help you with Jesus' power. So now let your
body and mind relax, as if in the arms of Jesus,
and let this belief be in your minds, thinking it
quietly but deeply with me in these words : The
one who speaks to me now in Jesus' name is going
to help me now with Jesus' power.

Now in God's Holy Name, and with faith in
God's power to heal, and with full confidence
that you will receive that blessing which is best
for you, come forth for the Laying on of Hands
with the Prayer of Faith. For they that believe
shall lay hands on the sick and they shall be
healed.

*Organ, Hymn or Solo.

There is music while those who seek healing
are directed to the Communion Rail where they
stand. The Minister, in the meantime, has en-
tered the sanctuary, where he stands before the
altar and experiences for himself the power of
God in his own heart, mind and body. He must
be responsive, intuitive and genuinely sympathetic
(without being sentimental), feeling that he is a
channel of God's power, and then he is ready to
lay his hands upon the heads of those now kneel-
ing at the Communion Rail and to accompany this
action with such words as are given him to utter.

DAILY HEALING STUDIES 155

He must pay no attention to any fleeting doubt
or distraction, for he will learn by experience that
the greatest blessings come to those he thought
were receiving the least from his ministration.

*Then shall the Minister offer a prayer and
pronounce a Benediction.

APPENDIX

THE greatest of all man's possessions is that
God-given gift his life. There is no other gift
or possession in the world that can be compared
to it in value.

This life that He has given you is instinctive,
intelligent, free, self-conscious, and immortal. It
is not limited like the life in plants and animals.
Being like unto God it has wonderful possibilities.

Our Lord came calling out to men the good
news he had for them concerning this life from
God. We all like to hear good news. It stirs
up that life within us. We say when we hear it
that -we feel better and in reality we are better.
Good news even about the little things changes
us. The news that our children behaved well
in school; that they did well in their studies; good
news about the health of a member of our family;
good news about the success of any of their ven-
tures : does not any one of these stir up life within
us so that we live more than before we heard
it? So Jesus comes to tell us some good news
about this venture that God has made in giving
life to you and to all men.

And the good news is this, like some one whis-
157

158 APPENDIX

pering in your ear, "Yes, I know, and I under-
stand, but still all is well. God has provided
for all the needs of life, for all the dangers to
which the gift of life would be subjected." "But
suppose I have been neglecting the gift of life,"
you answer; "suppose I have been abusing it, or
not understanding it; suppose that I have wasted
it and all but lost it, that I am so confused I know
not where to turn to find a way or a meaning in
life?" "Even so," comes the assuring good news,
"God has provided for every need. For after all
it is His life and He is not going to lose it. God
has promised us a time in which we shall know
the meaning of life and how best to use it. Jesus
comes to tell us that the blessed time is now. The
kingdom you would enter is at hand. Now, at
this moment, not to-morrow, or next week or
some other time, but actually here and now."

Let us enter this blessed kingdom together, be-
fore whose portals we now all stand. To the
question, "What shall we do?" comes the answer,
"You have the key. It is called desire. Say from
the depth of your heart, 'Lord, I desire. The life
that is in me is yearning with desire to know that
fulness of life which Thou hast promised to give.
I desire with heart and mind and soul and
strength. I long for something better than I now
know and experience. Lord show me the way to
abundant life.' "

APPENDIX 159

I imagine that such were the thoughts and
feelings of the people who listened to the "good
news" as it came from the lips of our Lord. They
were filled with wonder and admiration, we are
told, at His teaching. But I am sure they were
also filled with desire.

Now comes the test of desire. What are you
willing to leave behind? The door of the new
life opens for a moment. We glimpse therein
peace, joy, success, honor, and a company of noble
souls. There is an impulse to rush in and live.
But we are bidden to look at ourselves. And
behold, we are laden. There are many things
about us that have destroyed peace, or joy, or suc-
cess here. They would do the same there. We
must part with them or lose abundant life. This
is the meaning of repent. It is a stern word It
sums up all the hard sayings of Jesus. If thine
eye offend thee, or thy foot or thy hand, tear
them off and cast them away. Who could bear
such a saying but for the blessed word of the
good news that follows? For always after repent
comes the word, "Believe the good news." Be
assured that you can here and now leave all im-
pediments behind whatever they may be. "He
that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh
a city." When a city is attacked the defender
sends out his forces to deny entrance to the foe.
There is no parley, no compromise. It is life or

160 APPENDIX

death to the one or the other. But with us it
is not a question of something coming from with-
out to force itself upon us. God sees to that.
Our fight is to keep our desires from going out to
seek what is contrary to our life.

Repent means practically to deny. As man has
journeyed on he has brought with him much of
his past. The ages of fear, and lust, and greed,
and superstition through which the race has lived
have left their memories with him. Sometimes
these memories become so real that they are like
a part of us. We call them our lower nature.
Paul refers to these when he says, "The first man
is of the earth, earthy." To repent means to
deny the desires of this lower nature. Deny that
your better self desires to be attached to a thing
that interferes with your peace or joy or success.
One by one as lower desires rise before you put
them aside with the firm thought, "That is left
behind I enter the Kingdom." And if many rise
at once in your mind answer, "All are behind, I
enter the Kingdom."

And have perfect confidence in your ability to
do all this, for the promise of confidence is part
of the good news. And the reason for your con-
fidence is this, "It is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

When you have the desire it is the spirit of
God in you urging you to desire with Him. When

APPENDIX 161

you are prompted to act and have the will to do,
it is the will of God working in you, and urging
you to make your will one with His. You are
not left alone in anything good that you attempt.
It is God that worketh with you and with God
all things are possible.

We meet others casually, in a business way, or
as friends or relations. But have you ever met
their souls? Have you ever met that real self in
them that is yearning for something better that
has not yet been attained? You have only to re-
member your own struggle to know what they are
going through. Remembering this you could not
now do anything to burden them or make their
way more difficult. On the contrary, to help them
is the surest way to make your own pathway
straight and sure. 'The more you stop to help
the faster you proceed. Whereas if you think
only of your own progress you never move for-
ward. He that would save his life must lose it;

God has peace and joy and success just ahead
for all His children. He leads them on through
others. A smile, a kindness, a forgiving word,
a compliment, the offer of help, these are the mes-
sengers that tell of His goodness in us*

In a great paper mill that is run by water
power there is a little instrument not much larger
than a quart measure which regulates the speed
of the machinery. So delicately is it set that if a

162 APPENDIX

thread got into it every wheel and roller in that
great mill would stop. The mighty force of water
that runs the mill would be turned away. So, too,
with God which worketh both to will and to do
in us. Do not allow anything, however small it
may seem, to deter you from possessing the abun-
dant life with which God wills now to bless you.

To hearten you on your way, it will help to
read the following letters.

Albany Crescent, New York,
Oct. 5, 1921.
REV. MR. WALSH,
DEAR SIR:

I wish to thank you for all you have done for
my wife Mrs. J .

She was seriously sick when through a friend
she heard of your Healing Services at St. Luke's
church which she attended for several months.

Later she was operated on at the Presbyterian
Hospital and after a second operation which was
followed by a severe hemorrhage she was given up
as hopeless by the doctors in attendance. She
asked me to ask you to call which you did so
promptly and she says the moment you blessed
her and put your hand on her she felt a wonder-
ful change come over her and from that moment
she began to improve and is now at home and
mending rapidly.

APPENDIX 163

There is no doubt in my mind that your prayers
and her faith have saved her life.

May God bless you and your good work.
Gratefully yours,

C B. J.

West 143 Street,
MY PEAR MR. WALSH

Mrs, B M West 135 St., says that nothing has
helped her so much as her talk with you and treat-
ment the other day, and certainly she shows it

I thought you would like to know. I don't
know how to thank you for your kindness and
interest.

Very sincerely yours,

M. L. B.
November 9, 1919.

New York,
May 24th, 1920.
REV. W. T. WALSH,
DEAR SIR:

I am writing to tell you that the treatment I
received from you last Thursday has helped me
wonderfully. I have not forgotten to thank our
Heavenly Father for the health He has sent me
through you*

164 APPENDIX

I also ask His blessing upon you and your work
and all other Healing missions.
Sincerely,

R. H.
W. 142 Street,

East 222 St.,
Bronx N. Y. June 7/20
DEAR REV. W. T. WALSH,

Just a line to thank you for the treatment you
have given my granddaughter Charlotte.

She was suffering with large intestines and at
times could not walk.

I have attended your meetings three times with
her and she can now walk and is very happy.
Yours respectfully,

J. B.

Haleside, Long Island, Jan. 30.
MY DEAR DR. WALSH

Two years ago I attended one of your healing
services. Long ago, out of gratitude to you, this
letter should have been written and my testimony
sent.

My intention was to call and speak to you in
person, but circumstances compelled us to leave
New York and ensuing conditions have prevented

APPENDIX 165

me from returning. For four years, as a result
of severe eye-strain, I had been suffering from a
form of nerve pain in my heart which no remedy
and no physician seemed able to cure only for
a short period each morning was I free from
pain, and by night it was intolerable.

T began to realize that rny mind was no longer
sound, my health was broken and at a time -when
all my strength of mind and body was needed
I was useless. At that time I heard of your
work. Went to your service on Thursday morn-
ing; received one treatment. At four o'clock in
the afternoon, when the pain was generally at
its worst and the dreadful hysteria beginning to
rise suddenly all pain ceased, and from that
hour, although T have been under constant strains,
I have never suffered again. It was your faith
and your power which healed me. I could not
for many weeks grasp the truth really believe
the pain was gone and could not lose the old
fear. Perhaps it is unnecessary to give you this
detailed account; forgive me if this is too long.
When you placed your hands upon my head,
instantly n wave of tingling heat passed through
nmy entire body the flesh in my scalp seemed to
lift and move I felt as though I were charged
with electricity,

I returned to my place and knelt and must have
gone instantly to sleep, for the friend who was

166 APPENDIX

with me had to awaken me when the service was
over.

Now I am writing not only to give you this
testimony but to ask your help for someone else,
who is in great trouble to ask your advice, for
I believe you can help her. . . .

With sincerest gratitude,

F. R.

New York City,
January 28th, 1921.
THE REV. WM. T. WALSH,
MY DEAR MR. WALSH

Last Sunday I received Communion and later
"The Laying on of Hands' 7 at your church.

All my life I have been a communicant 'of the
Episcopal Church, but taught the old theology in
regard to God and sickness.

Through the past year I have been through
very "deep waters," but on Thursday I received
so much spiritual help that I know a physical
healing must follow.

I earnestly hope and pray that your ministry
of healing will be continually blessed and that
many others will be benefited as I have.
Faithfully yours,

A.

APPENDIX 167

Manhattan Ave.,
New York, January 25, 1920.

Rev. William T. Walsh,

Convent Avenue, 141 Street.

MY DEAR MR. WALSH

I have a friend who is troubled with deafness,
and she is of the belief, as well as the writer,
that she can be helped somewhat by a treatment
at the Mission.

I persuaded a friend to go up last spring, and
she was helped in fact her nervous condition
was much improved.

Faithfully yours,

E. I-L C

Englewood, New Jersey.
DEAR MR. WALSH

Because of your loving help to my precious
boy, in the time of his greatest need, I send you
this gift from him. And how can I thank you
sufficiently for coming to us yesterday morning
with a beacon light?

It helped more than words can tell you Our
hearts are aching nigh to breaking to-day, but

168 APPENDIX

you have given us, all three, much strength to
bear the load, to carry on.

In loving gratitude,

M. C. C

553 West 187 St.,
New York, 5/20/20.
DEAR REV. WALSH

Have attended both your spiritual healing serv-
ices, and I wish to say how much good it has done
me, and trust in God to cure me of this chronic
catarrh and pain in head. I will always remem-
ber you in my prayers and may the Almighty God
give you strength to carry on your great work.

M. S.

REV. WILLIAM T. WALSH,

Rector of St. Luke's Episcopal Church :
I wish to announce the great benefit I have
received in the treatment I have had in the prayer
for healing my nervousness; it has been a great
help to me.

Thanks be to God for this blessed help.
I remain, very respectfully,

R. B.
West 1 2 8th St., City,

APPENDIX 169

1435 West 57 St.,
West Philadelphia, Pa.,
November 8, 1921.
The Rev. Wm. T. Walsh,

New York City.
DEAR SIR

I find words are inadequate to express my grati-
tude to you for what you did for Mrs. J. The
physical demonstration was marvelous, but the
interest you inspired in tilings spiritual was still
more wonderful in both Mr. and Mrs. J.
Gratefully yours,

S. J. T.

Clinton Ave.,
Jersey City.
MY DEAR MR, WALSH

I was present at your service last night and
would have been glad to have talked with you
afterward, but there were too many people
waiting.

As your address was particularly on mental
healing, you will be gratified to learn of the great
improvement, if not cure, of a certain young
woman of this city, whom my sister took over to
one of your regular healing services. Mrs.

$ had had a major operation which had

left her in a very bad mental state. Her physi-

170 APPENDIX

cian called her trouble hallucinations, but it
amounted pretty nearly to insanity. She thought
she harmed all people who came near her, so
that their heads caved in, also their temples, and
their eyes became abnormal. She thought she
was responsible for many deaths of such people,
and would cry and wring her hands and at times
tear her clothes.

After the service was over she said it was
very beautiful, but it was too late for her to be
benefited. About two weeks ago my sister re-
ceived a postal from her stating that all her fear
had left her, she was doing the work of her apart-
ment and now loved her home, having formerly
hated it and threatened to take her life. She
says her husband says it is like a second honey-
moon, as she recently joined him in New York
for dinner and went to the theater afterward*

It was about four or five weeks ago that she
attended your service; possibly you may recollect
her, as you kept her afterward with a few others,
and she asked you what you would do if you had
made many mistakes in your life (meaning the
people she thought she had harmed). I feel you
will be pleased to know of the result of your
work.

Very truly yours,

E. H. C.

REPORT OF THE JOINT COMMISSION
ON CHRISTIAN HEALING

"Religion and medicine must go hand in hand
in the ministry to the sick, 11 according to the Joint
Commission on Christian Healing, which, after
an exhaustive investigation of the subject of re-
ligious therapeutics, made public yesterday part
of its report to be submitted to the General Con-
vention of the Episcopal Church at New Orleans.

The fuller recognition of the Church's ability
to deal with disease by spiritual means is urged
by the report, with a warning that neglect of
what the commission considers a function of the
Episcopal Church might be made the basis for a
separatist movement.

The following principles were put forward in
the report as the basis for the ecclesiastical treat-
ment of the sick:

By creation man is an inseparable unity of soul
and body.

By endowment we arc copartners with God
in every act of life, whether spiritual or physical.

All spiritual gifts, whether of spiritual or intel-
lectual faculties or of physical powers, are com-
ponent parts of the one man*

171

172 APPENDIX

Sin is personal, and it affects the physical as
well as the spiritual nature of man. Disease is
physical; but it, too, has its reaction on the soul
and the intellect.

The care of souls must include that of bodies
if "cure" be expected in the fullest sense. The
cure of bodies must include the cure of souls.

Religion and medicine must go hand in hand in
ministering to the sick.

The power of mind over matter is an axiom ;
so also is the influence of the body upon the soul.

The cooperation of man and God is a neces-
sary part of the process of healing.

Faith finds its appropriate place in cooperation
with the laws of life.

The commission's report said:

"The commission finds a rapidly increasing de-
sire that the Church confirm the belief that there
is therapeutic value in the Christian religion.
Christian healing is the inclusive term for healing
ministrations, and comprehends all means whereby
is fulfilled our Lord's purpose that man should
be made 'every whit whole' : because by creation
man in this life is an inseparable unity of soul
and body. Those who declare that healing comes
by faith, and those who are equally sure that heal-
ing comes by medicine, do not contradict one an-

APPENDIX 173

other. Each is emphasizing a means of healing
which is consistent with the other.

"Spiritual healing is an outstanding fact of
contemporary religious life. We are challenged
as to whether we shall allow this essentially Chris-
tian ministry to be sought outside, or whether we
are to make it a normal part of the Church's life.
We must see to it that we do not afford a basis
for another separatist movement, but should real-
ize that the healing ministry is normal to the life
of the Church. In this way we continue the min-
istry of Christ, who revealed Himself as healer
of soul and body. By endowment we are co-part-
ners with God in every act of life, whether spir-
itual or physical. To ignore either partner in
dealing with any concern of life, to forget that
God is an active participant in the cure of any ill,
or that man is also a partner, is to violate the
very conditions under which life is lived.

"Religious and material means for cure must go
hand in hand in ministry to the sick. It is often
difficult to tell where the one leaves off and the
other begins. Faith in God and faith in phy-
sician must be blended for best results. In his
practice the physician relics upon the dealing
power of nature.* The Christian minister de-
clares this power to be God, who is 'giver of life 1
and its restorer. Both minister and physician

174 APPENDIX

know that the power of healing is something apart
from themselves; that their function in healing
is to assist by restoring the conditions physical,
moral and spiritual under which this power may
best operate. It is a fact of creation that life
and every operation of life are governed by God
through law. A fundamental principle is that
God works and man works. Experience teaches
that God does not do for man what man is
capable of doing for himself; that man's failure
can thwart the accomplishment of God's pur-
poses. Thus faith finds its appropriate place in
cooperation with the law of God."

The report said that "the relationship between
spirit and body should be reverently studied not
by the Christian ministry alone, nor by the phy-
sician alone, but by them all together,"

Religious healing, according to the report, must
justify its practice by experiment and experience,
just as secular medicine does. After emphasizing
the possibility of using faith and religion to pre-
vent sickness, the report continued:

"In view of the specific commission given to
the Bishop at his consecration to 'hold up the
weak, heal the sick, bind the broken/ etc., the fol-
lowing agencies naturally fall under his supervis-
ion : Healing services, the sacraments of the church

APPENDIX 175

as channels of healing, prayer groups conducted
by clergy or laity under clerical supervision,
anointing, classes for instruction in the principles
of Christian healing, the dissemination of wisely
selected literature and the introduction of affirma-
tions of truth and ideals of health into our sys-
tems of Christian child nurture,"

Included in the membership of the commission
making the report are Bishop Brent of Western
New York, Bishop Sessums of Louisiana, Bishop
Guerry of South Carolina, Bishop Page of Mich-
igan, the Bishop Coadjutor of Southern Ohio,
the Right Rev* Theodore Irving Reese, D.D.;
the Rev. Dr. J. Wilmer Gresham of San Fran-
cisco, the Rev. Dr. George F. Weld of Los An-
geles, Secretary; the Rev. F. C. Sherman of
Cleveland, the Rev. P. F. Sturges, D.D., of
Providence ; the Rev. Dr. H* P. Almon Abbott of
Baltimore, the Rev. Dr. Joseph P. Dunn of Rich-
mond, Dr. Winford H. Smith of Johns Hopkins
University, and Dr. Edward S. Cowles of New
York.

INDEX

Aquinas, Thomas, 88

Affirmations, 82, 83

Allen A. V. G., footnote,
86

Apostle's healing commis-
sion, 64

Athanasius, 87

Augustine, 88

Bible, 74

Biology, 127

Biologist, Conklin, 130 et

$eq.

Blessing, 101
Bodily ills, 120
Body, 1 6

Christian Science, 7 ct seq.
Christianity, essence of, 71
Church and healing, 58, 71,

80, 171

Clement of Alexandria, 86
Comtc, August, 132
Confidence, 91, 153
Conklin, biologist, 130 et

scq.

Conscious mind, 1x3
Consciousness, 4, 9, 50, X 1 1

Courage, 46
Creed, 135 et seq.
Crisis of disease, 41

Divine nature, partakers of,

Divine power, its operation,

89, 104
Duty, no
Dying, The, 49

Energy, 4, 76

nonmaterial, 77
Epileptic, 30
Eternal life, 134
Exhortation at Healing
Service, 152

Fear, 36
Fundamental reality, 4

God, 4, 27, 28, 121
an energy, 77
goodness of, 80
personality of, 8
power of, 45 et $eq.

177

I 7 8

INDEX

Gospels and healing, 59
Grenfell, 20

Harnack, 61
Healer, 100

Healing Service, 25, 143
meaning of spiritual, 5,

52
Heart, 18, 114

Immanence, 85
Individuality, contrasted

with personality, 8
Instruction, 151

Jesus, 56 et seq.
Justin, 86

Law, 73, 77
Laying on of hands, 33
Life of God, 27
its nature, 3, 4, *5> 24,
134, 157

Matter, 3, 9, 10, 24, 76
Medical science, xoi, 105
Meditation healing, 141
Mind, 3

subconscious, 113, 121
Mystic experience, 28, 35,
36, 40

Nature, 105
Needs, 125 et seq.
Nervous disorders, 102, 128
New Thought, 7 et seq.
Nonmaterial, 77

Pain, 24, 25
Paralytic, 12
Paul, i?

beholding steadfastly, 99
Person, personality, 8, 98
Philosophy, 84
Photinus, 87
Physician's part in healing,

29
Prayer, 51, 67, 68, 71, 100,

J2O

affirmative, 40, 83
a prayer, 142
Psychology, 16, 20
of healing, 97, 128

Relaxation, 26, 42 et seq.,

102, 115, 122
Religion, natural, revealed,

87

Reversed effort, no
Ribot, 131
Ryhmd, 131

Salvation, meaning of, 80
Science, 67
Scientific method, 73
Service, 121

INDEX

179

Shock, 14
Solomon, 109
Spencer, Herbert, 132
Spirit, meaning of, 3, 4, 70

et scq.
Spiritual healing defined,

70

final triumph of, 72
Steinmetz, 4, 76, 77
Stephen, Leslie, 131
Subconscious, 113, 121
Subjective, 14, 37
Sublimation, 129
Suggestion, 1 5, 44

Surgery, 105

Technique, IO
Thought, 112
Transcendence, 84
Treatment for healing, 22,

25 > 42
Trust in God, 108

Vital processes, 113

Will of God, 8 1

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