PRACTICAL ADVICE TO STUDENTS, HEALERS AND PATIENTS,

AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE APPLICATION OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE

TO ALL THE AVOCATIONS OF DAILY LIFE

 

            ONE of the most misleading errors and yet a very common one into which people fall, concerning Spiritual Science, is that it is to be studied and practiced exclusively for the driving out of physical ailments and therefore that its study should be almost entirely confined to those who are seeking to identify themselves with a new therapeutic school, or are seeking to rid themselves of some physical ailment. Then again, there is a prevailing impression that the practice of healing is extraordinary, that it consists in the mental utterance of prescribed formulas, and that to heal it is necessary to withdraw from the world and relinquish all hold upon common obligations. These statements are all founded on fact and are in a limited sense correct, as they apply to special cases, but taken as a whole they are exceedingly misleading, as a very brief study of the science will prove to any intelligent inquirer. From the earliest clays of which there is any written record, the healing art has been practiced by persons pursuing every imaginable avocation, though in ancient times the power to heal seemed especially to inhere in those who had devoted themselves particularly

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to the service of religion. The elders of the church alluded to in the Epistle of James, were the wisest and most experienced persons in an early Christian association. Elders were chosen because of their spiritual endowments of a practical character, and while some pursued the work of teachers and healers exclusively, others performed even menial labor, and in many instances the most successful healers have been those utterly destitute of worldly means; who have followed a laborious occupation and in its pursuit discovered their spiritual ability through grateful recognition on the part of those whom they have been instrumental in relieving. As Felix Adler has said that .teachers of ethics will be successors of the clergy, so we may state that mental healers will succeed to the practice of medical men and women. Put can not a clergyman widen his views and become a teacher of ethics, enlarging his sphere of usefulness, instead of abandoning his field of effort, provided his knowledge and convictions keep pace with the progressive tendencies of the time? So may the professors and doctors of medicine outgrow their physical limitations and do far more for the relief of suffering humanity as their methods become more spiritual than they could ever accomplish when limited by external scholasticisms.

 

            Esculapius was a divinity of the old world, a god of healing, and while it is customary to call physicians Esculapians, every one acquainted with mythology must be quite well aware that the name is derived not from a study and practice, such as the medical profession usually confines itself to to-day, but from a recognition among ancient peoples of a healing force in nature

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pointed out and directed by invincible intelligence. No one of any experience, be he physician, surgeon, nurse or attendant, will endeavor to deny that by far the largest percentage of diseases and accidents proceed directly from vice and folly. Subtract from the total sum of painful and distressing maladies those caused by crimes and indiscretions and you would so shorten the list that the few remaining would be resolved into the category of simple weaknesses, while accidents, proceeding as they do from drunkenness and nervous disorders, in almost all instances, are most intimately connected with vice. It is useless and absurd, indeed, it is far worse, it is positively mischievous to turn into ridicule the old doctrine of suffering as a consequence of sin, for nothing is more positively emphasized by modern experience and an ever increasing familiarity with the law of heredity. Sin is so broad a word, it covers so much both of commission and omission that many take exception to it as they confound it altogether with crime, which is an intense and more malignant form of offense. You can sin against yourselves ignorantly, you can also sin against others ignorantly, but to commit crime one must act deliberately for the injury of another. Now under the head of sin may be classed all weak errors, all mistakes, all violence clone to sense of right and all opposition to the law of being. Please observe, we do not talk about laws but only law, as laws are of human device and are therefore constantly changing and in no sense binding. Law is eternal and can never be put aside. Laws of mortal enactment and variable belief are called laws of mortal mind because they are

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mutable expressions of mutable will, these are often more honored in the breach than in the observance and they prove themselves mortal because man can make, repeal, break, alter and destroy them.

 

            Divine law is universal. The law of nature is no respecter of persons and can not be tampered with or evaded by human ingenuity under any circumstances whatsoever, therefore, if it were a law of God or nature that you should become ill through being in a malarial district, there could not be a single healthy inhabitant in such a place. Were it a decree of God through nature that you should catch cold by sitting in a draught or getting your feet wet, under no circumstances could you escape this penalty. Were it due to the action of universal law that you should suffer from small-pox, cholera or diphtheria, because it was in the air, no one at certain times in certain cities could possibly escape. Now, if medical precautions can be taken, if doctors and sanitary commissioners advocate antidotes, they must at once see that to succumb to such pestilences is totally unnecessary, and that those who fall victims do so be-cause of a weakness and through a predisposition which is vanquishable. Spiritual Science steps in and traces the weakness of the physical body to a prior defect in mental and moral condition, and therefore its advocates and interpreters claim that it is utterly useless to seek to overcome physical disability without first ousting the demon of error possessing the mind. How more than useless it must be to torment an almost heart-broken widow or bereaved mother with pills and powders, lotions and bandages, when every one knows as well as she that her health was excellent before the

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departure of her loved one to the invisible state. How ridiculous to seek to assuage results of an accusing conscience or a perturbed mind with physical appliances, for how, in the name of reason or common-sense, can any of you suppose that an effect will cease while its cause continues in active operation? If you are treating one whose sickness originated with bereavement, argue immortality to the mind of the sufferer silently at first, then as your patient becomes composed, sleeps better, and manifests a visible attachment for you, introduce the subject cautiously in conversation, chiefly in inviting and answering questions. Never force a doctrine or religious proposition verbally, upon any one, but direct the thought silently until the patient feels its influence and wishes to talk about it. The best times for giving treatment in cities are early morning and late evening; in the country, where the atmosphere is perpetually quiet, midday is as favorable as midnight, unless you have active occupation which absorbs your attention.

 

            In seeking a healer, continue your search until you find a person in natural electric sympathy with yourself, one in whom you instinctively believe, and to whom you are irresistibly drawn. Be guided far more by instinctive and intuitive recognition of a power to bless than by any outward credentials, all of which may be misleading. The only faith in a healer necessary on the part of a patient is confidence born of appreciation. Whenever you encounter any one who can help you, you feel drawn to such an one, and such drawing is your instinctive response to good already received. Never tax the credulity of a patient, but when giving a

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treatment adapt your methods as far as you conscientiously can to individual requirement and demand. Persons who are fond of music can be reached musically. If you are a musician of any kind, and discover a spiritual relationship or adaptability between yourself and any sufferer, play the organ, piano, violin or cornet, as the case may be, either with or without the accompaniment of song, and cause the notes you strike to vibrate to your own consciousness, as echoes of the sentiment you wish to convey, mentally if not orally, to your patient. You can give this treatment from any distance and find it successful, provided you choose a time when both you and your patient can be undisturbed. In doing general housework, cooking and chamber work in particular, treatments can be successfully given, as you can impart your psychic influence to food you prepare, and leave your mental aura in any room you have swept or dusted. If your outward engagements are those of the clerk, you can reach those who are attracted to you, and whom you wish to benefit, by simply conveying to them, mentally, while handing them goods, the same thought you would utter in words were they to seek a conversation on the subject. In dealing with troublesome children, you must invariably hold them in mind as the very opposite of what they appear, for by so doing you appeal to and stimulate their dormant higher proclivities. Never repeat a mistake or call attention to an error; counteract and destroy it by affirming and exhibiting its direct opposite. Never seek to diagnose disease physically, so to become acquainted with physical defects or derangements, but always insist upon seeing every part of the

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body perfectly whole, for by holding before the mind a perfect picture you induce an outward manifestation corresponding thereto. Do not use silly or incomprehensible phrases, such as, “You have no head, therefore it can not ache,” but hold before your own and your patient’s mind a perfect head, and as all form is essentially perfect in spirit, and outward symmetry is a result of inward harmony, by discarding pathology while retaining anatomy and physiology, you never allow an image to present itself to thought which you do not desire to see reflected or ultimated in externals.

 

            When seeking for success in legitimate worldly enterprises, always remember that you can bring to pass whatever you steadfastly adhere to in thought; but your success will never be to some one else’s detriment, but always in a manner conducive to the general good. If you are dissatisfied with your present position, but have no other situation to go to, stay where you are, and faithfully and unrepiningly discharge the duties of your state, but perpetually see yourself in mind where you desire to be. If you keep a hotel or lodging house, see your rooms filled with just the kind of people you desire to occupy them, and by persistently so doing you will throw out a wave of mental influence which will attract to your house the very persons who need what you have to offer as much as you need what they have to give in return. If you are a teacher in search of pupils, a professional person desiring an engagement, an artist with pictures to dispose of, a lawyer needing clients, a lecturer in want of hearers, in a word, whatever your necessities may be, do not content yourself

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with advertising them in public print, or talking of them to your friends, but bring into requisition that perfectly legitimate occult force with which every one is by nature supplied in some degree, and which can be cultivated by all by a simple use of judicious concentrative methods.

 

            If any timid souls are afraid of black magic or malicious mesmerism let them silence their doubts once for all by remembering two important facts, one is that in order to be influenced by evil there must be a weakness in your own condition, which it is the special province of metaphysical treatment to overcome, and the other that ignorance is no safeguard, but on the contrary knowledge alone is power, and to be forewarned is to be in a position to get forearmed. Spiritual methods are never competitive, but invariably co-operative. No one can link himself in spirit with celestial spheres who does not banish from the circle of his immediate thought and desire all uncharitable, envious and selfish ambitions. The spiritual view of the universe and of the earth is that there is enough and to spare for all. No one needs to go hungry because another is well fed, none need be paupers because of the opulence of others. Competition anti monopoly are gigantic evils, and even the entire wage system is a relic of feudalism and will soon be peacefully outgrown as spiritual principles are universally taught and applied. Whenever you seek to accomplish anything by mental methods, first assure yourself by submitting the project to conscience that it is right, then proceed at once to claim your inheritance. Why should you be deprived of light and air when there is abundance for you without depriving

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a living creature of any? Why remain victims of disease when you can recover without injuring a living thing by your recovery? Why not enter into the realm of truth consciously and enjoy that fuller measure of health and ampler supply of all vigour which can only conduce to the betterment of the condition of all your brethren? Discard utterly all false notions of contracting disease, render yourselves positive against disorder by boldly affirming that nothing can possibly affect you to your detriment, because you are immortal spirit and as such proof against all contamination.

 

            Taking this firm, strong mental attitude will produce a radical change in the state of the body, affirming positively in thought with firm conviction will send an electric thrill through your entire frame. If the extremities have been cold, the lips blue, the cheeks colourless, pulse feeble and heart action weak and uncertain, you will find any one of these symptoms changed so that any medical man would instantly report a change in the pulse and bodily temperature, as all outward conditions are results of mental or affectional emotions. Though you may not diagnose a case or know or say anything’ about physical conditions, mental asseverations and denials change the physical state by processes identical with those which male the blood boil or turn it to ice, to use common expressions on receipt of terrifying or distressing news or under provocation of a slight or insult. The body unwittingly responds to the mental condition, thus it is not necessary to know the physical difficulty in order to remove it. Diagnosis is a subject which needs very careful handling is from a retrospective point of view

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it is often valuable in convincing a patient that some knowledge derivable only by mental processes is in the possession of the healer. This evidence conduces to confidence, and provokes therefore a favourable bearing to the system presented. Prognosis is often highly objectionable, because while it is founded upon a recognition of the accuracy of prophetic prediction, it is usually utterly estranged from the true idea of prediction, which is not to the effect that certain persons must of necessity suffer certain pains in future, but only that there is a discoverable law of sequence, which can never be set aside, which necessitates certain definite effects springing from certain defined causes.

 

            True prediction is prophetic in that it is a statement of universal law with which the majority are unacquainted. Very few people have any idea of the extent to which their lives are influenced prejudicially by courses of thought and action, they have been accustomed to pursue unthinkingly from servile devotion to custom, fashion, or habit; therefore it becomes the prime duty of an intelligent mental practitioner to give salutary advice of a strictly practical nature, in accordance with ascertained knowledge concerning the inevitable results of thought and conduct. For instance, it is very common for people to live together in the closest relationship, and yet mentally antagonize each other and that perpetually. The most prevalent source of sickness is unexpressed discord, for we must never forget that spiritual science teaches the eradication, not the repression of cantankerous feelings. No greater mistake can possibly be made than to endeavour to secure a simulation of good

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will not felt, for though an open enemy may be sometimes dangerous to encounter, the secret foe is always the deadliest. Open animosity can be rebutted, and the very expression of erroneous feeling is usually followed by a better state of mind, as volcanic eruptions are followed by periods when the mountain is in comparative repose. Under no circumstances permit the little foxes of secret animosities to grow to maturity and multiply to the destruction of the fruits of your domestic vineyards. Remember the sage request, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” needs to be ever held in remembrance, for nothing is so pernicious as to fall asleep in a state of discordant feeling, and have one’s dreams broken in upon by hideous nightmares and delirious fears. When you are bodily asleep, your minds are intensely active on the psychic plane, while less amenable to outward influences, such as words and acts of those about you, you are far more sensitive than when awake to the thought emanations which are around you, and which are sent to you from those any where who seek to influence you either for good or ill. In treating for nervous affections, general debility and chronic ailments of all kinds, you will soon learn that secret fears, inharmonious and objectionable desires are at the root of the malady. To endeavour to repress words and actions is more than useless, as the mind turned in upon itself seeks gratification in lustful and revengeful feelings, which owing to the psychic law of attraction and repulsion, bring

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those who indulge them into the circle of those who live in the domain of such foul influence.

 

            Whenever you have a difficulty or grievance meet it boldly, bravely encounter your adversary in open com-bat. If it. is in your power to argue a matter out with any one who annoys you and who is apt to be violent and unreasonable when you are alone together procure at least one wise truth-loving third party to act as audience, then demand explanation in a calm judicial spirit of inquiry. If such opportunities are denied you, write to the parties between whom and yourself misunderstandings have arisen, assuring them of your utter repudiation of all malicious feelings. Never accredit any one with evil motive, attribute sin to ignorance, and after fully and freely stating your determination to bear no grudge and never to retaliate, dismiss the whole matter from your mind. Cremate your grievances in the fire of universal charity, and from that day forward refuse to remember that you ever had a quarrel. When you rise to that state of feeling, you are like a granite rock, immovable, no matter what breakers of ill-feeling from other minds may be directed against you. “Forget and forgive” is an imperative command, for the mortal memory of error must be destroyed, that the immortal perception of truth may assert its supremacy at all times, and enable us, whenever we desire it, to have for use all the treasures of knowledge we have accumulated in our varied experiences. We complain of defective memory because we allow ourselves to remember what we ought to forget, and by retaining in our minds the recollections of what we should forcibly expel we clog our channels of communication with our

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higher or interior selves, wherein are deposited all the wisdom we have accumulated.

 

            In dealing with lack of adaptability between persons who are compelled to live or do business together, the infallible recipe is to carefully look out for some one or more traits of character in those who are in many ways uncongenial to you. Fix your gaze steadily upon their good points and pleasant features to the exclusion of regard for all others and not only will you protect yourselves from annoyance, but you will be benefactors of priceless value to those whom you thus regard, for it is an inevitable certainty that whatever you acknowledge in those with whom you associate, you tend to develop in them and also in yourself. Failure to reform and heal springs from dealing with the imperfection you desire to exterminate. To obliterate drunkenness and love of improper pleasure in any one who frequents places of evil resort, never try to follow the delinquent mentally into dens of vice, but hold steadfastly in your own mind the picture of such an one where he should be, and doing his duty faithfully. Thus the wife of a gambler, or a man who is always at his club when he had better be at home, must, ere she can reform him, picture him constantly happy in her society at his own fireside. She must ever welcome him without reproaches or expressions of surprise and by constantly holding him in thought as already where he should be she will draw him to righteousness by the Superior attractions of “home, sweet home.” A school teacher can correct naughty children by ignoring their naughtiness and placing them in thought as already tractable and just. In a word, the universal rule is

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reverse the portrait of evil, and by persistently holding in mind the image of what you rightly desire to see actualized you form mental union with powerful invisible force which accomplishes its externalization.