THE RELIGION OF HEALTHY-MINDEDNESS
83
Their notion of man’s higher nature is hardly less divergent, being
decidedly pantheistic. The spiritual in man appears in the mind-
cure philosophy as partly conscious, but chiefly subconscious; and
through the subconscious part of it we are already one with the
Divine without any miracle of grace, or abrupt creation of a new
inner man. As this view is variously expressed by different writers,
we find in it traces of Christian mysticism, of transcendental idealism,
of vedantism, and of the modern psychology of the subliminal self.
A quotation or two will put us at the central point of view: —
“The great central fact of the universe is that spirit of infinite life and
power that is back of all, that manifests itself in and through all. This
spirit of infinite life and power that is back of all is what I call God. I care
not what term you may use, be it Kindly Light, Providence, the Over-
Soul, Omnipotence, or whatever term may be most convenient, so long as
we are agreed in regard to the great central fact itself. God then fills the
universe alone, so that all is from Him and in Him, and there is nothing
that is outside. He is the life of our life, our very life itself. We are
partakers of the life of God; and though we differ from Him in that we are
individualized spirits, while He is the Infinite Spirit, including us, as well
as all else beside, yet in essence the life of God and the life of man are
identically the same, and so are one. They differ not in essence or quality;
they differ in degree.
“The great central fact in human life is the coming into a conscious
vital realization of our oneness with this Infinite Life, and the opening of
ourselves fully to this divine inflow. In just the degree that we come into
a conscious realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life, and open
ourselves to this divine inflow, do we actualize in ourselves the qualities
and powers of the Infinite Life, do we make ourselves channels through
which the Infinite Intelligence and Power can work. In just the degree in
which you realize your oneness with the Infinite Spirit, you will exchange
dis-ease for ease, inharmony for harmony, suffering and pain for abound-
ing health and strength. To recognize our own divinity, and our intimate
relation to the Universal, is to attach the belts of our machinery to the
powerhouse of the Universe. One need remain in hell no longer than one
chooses to; we can rise to any heaven we ourselves choose; and when we
choose so to rise, all the higher powers of the Universe combine to help
us heavenward.”
1
1
R. W. T
RINE
: In Tune with the Infinite, 26th thousand, N. Y., 1899. I have strung
scattered passages together.
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THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE
Let me now pass from these abstracter statements to some more
concrete accounts of experience with the mind-cure religion. I have
many answers from correspondents — the only difficulty is to choose.
The first two whom I shall quote are my personal friends. One of
them, a woman, writing as follows, expresses well the feeling of
continuity with the Infinite Power, by which all mind-cure disciples
are inspired.
“The first underlying cause of all sickness, weakness, or depression is
the human sense of separateness from that Divine Energy which we call
God. The soul which can feel and affirm in serene but jubilant confid-
ence, as did the Nazarene: ‘I and my Father are one,’ has no further need
of healer, or of healing. This is the whole truth in a nutshell, and other
foundation for wholeness can no man lay than this fact of impregnable
divine union. Disease can no longer attack one whose feet are planted on
this rock, who feels hourly, momently, the influx of the Deific Breath. If
one with Omnipotence, how can weariness enter the consciousness, how
illness assail that indomitable spark?
“This possibility of annulling forever the law of fatigue has been abund-
antly proven in my own case; for my earlier life bears a record of many,
many years of bedridden invalidism, with spine and lower limbs paralyzed.
My thoughts were no more impure than they are to-day, although my
belief in the necessity of illness was dense and unenlightened; but since
my resurrection in the flesh, I have worked as a healer unceasingly for
fourteen years without a vacation, and can truthfully assert that I have
never known a moment of fatigue or pain, although coming in touch
constantly with excessive weakness, illness, and disease of all kinds. For
how can a conscious part of Deity be sick? — since ‘Greater is he that is
with us than all that can strive against us.’ ”
MY second correspondent, also a woman, sends me the follow-
ing statement: —
“Life seemed difficult to me at one time. I was always breaking down,
and had several attacks of what is called nervous prostration, with terrible
insomnia, being on the verge of insanity; besides having many other troubles,
especially of the digestive organs. I had been sent away from home in
charge of doctors, had taken all the narcotics, stopped all work, been fed
up, and in fact knew all the doctors within reach. But I never recovered
permanently till this New Thought took possession of me.
“I think that the one thing which impressed me most was learning the
fact that we must be in absolutely constant relation or mental touch (this
word is to me very expressive) with that essence of life which permeates