The Science of Being Well-Chapter I

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The Principle of Health

In the personal application of the Science of Being Well, as in that of the Science of Getting Rich, certain fundamental truths must be known in the beginning, and accepted without question. Some of these truths we state here: The perfectly natural performance of function constitutes health, and the perfectly natural performance of function results from the natural action of the Principle of Life.

There is a Principle of Life in the universe, and it is the One Living Substance from which all things are made. This Living Substance permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. It is in and through all things, like a very refined and diffusible ether. All life comes from its life is all the life there is.

A human being is a form of this Living Substance, and has within him a Principle of Health. (The word Principle is used as meaning source.) The Principle of Health in a person, when in full constructive activity, causes all the voluntary functions of his life to be perfectly performed. It is the Principle of Health in a person which really works all healing, no matter what system.

Or remedy is employed, and this Principle of Health is brought into Constructive Activity by thinking in a Certain Way.

I proceed now to prove this last statement. We all know that cures are wrought by all the different, and often opposite, methods employed in the various branches of the healing art. The allopath, who gives a strong dose of a counter-poison, cures his patient. And the homeopath, who gives a diminutive dose of the poison most similar to that of the disease, also cures it. If allopathy ever cured any given disease, it is certain that homeopathy never cured that disease. And if homeopathy ever cured an ailment, allopathy could not possibly cure that ailment.

The two systems are radically opposite in theory and practice, and yet both cure most diseases. And even the remedies used by physicians in any one school are not the same.

Go with a case of indigestion to half a dozen doctors, and compare their prescriptions. It is more than likely that none of the ingredients of any one of them will also be in the others. Must we not conclude that their patients are healed by a Principle of Health within themselves, and not by something in the varying remedies?

Not only this, but we find the same ailments cured by the osteopath with manipulations of the spine, by the faith healer with prayer, by the food scientist with bills of fare, by the Christian Scientist with a formulated creed statement, by the mental scientist with affirmation, and by the hygienists with differing plans of living.

What conclusion can we come to in the face of all these facts but that there is a Principle of Health which is the same in all people, and which really accomplishes all the cures; and that there is something in all the systems. which, under favorable conditions, arouses the Principle of Health to action?

That is, medicines, manipulations, prayers, bills of fare, affirmations, and hygienic practices cure whenever they cause the Principle of Health to become active, and fail whenever they do not cause it to become active. Does not all this indicate that the results depend upon the way the patient thinks about the remedy, rather than upon the ingredients in the prescription?

There is an old story that furnishes so good an illustration on this point that I will give it here. It is said that in the middle ages, the bones of a saint, kept in one of the monasteries, were working miracles of healing. On certain days a great crowd of the afflicted gathered to touch the relics, and all who did so were healed.

On the eve of one of these occasions, some sacrilegious rascal gained access to the case in which the wonder-working relics were kept and stole the bones, and in the morning, with the usual crowd of sufferers waiting at the gates, the fathers found themselves shorn of the source of the miracle-working power.

They resolved to keep the matter quiet, hoping that by doing so they might find the thief and recover their treasures, and hastening to the cellar of the convent they dug up the bones of a murderer, who had been buried there many years before. These they placed in the case, intending to make some plausible excuse for the failure of the saint to perform his usual miracles on that day; and then they let in the waiting assemblage of the sick and infirm.

To the intense astonishment of those in on the secret, the bones of the male factor proved as effective as those of the saint, and the healing went on as before. One of the fathers is said to have left a history of the occurrence, in which he confessed that, in his judgment, the healing power had been in the people themselves all the time, and never in the bones at all.

Whether the story is true or not, the conclusion applies to all the cures wrought by all the systems. The Power that Heals is in the patient himself, and whether it shall become active or not does not depend upon the physical or mental means used, but upon the way the patient thinks about these means. There is a Universal Principle of Life, as Jesus taught a great spiritual Healing Power and there is a Principle of Health in every human being which is related to this Healing Power. This is dormant or active, according to the way a person thinks. He can always quicken it into activity by thinking in a Certain Way. Your getting well does not depend upon the adoption of some system, or the finding of some remedy; people with your identical ailments have been healed by all systems and all remedies. It does not depend upon climate; some people are well and others are sick in all climates. It does not depend upon avocation, unless in case of those who work under poisonous conditions; people are well in all trades and professions.

YYour getting well depends upon your beginning to think and act in a Certain Way.

The way a person thinks about things is determined by what he believes about them. His thoughts are determined by his faith, and the results depend upon his making a personal application of his faith.

If a person has faith in the efficacy of a medicine, and is able to apply that faith to himself, that medicine will certainly cause him to be cured. But though his faith be great, he will not be cured unless he applies it to himself. Many sick people have faith for others but none for themselves. So, if he has faith in a system of diet, and can personally apply that faith, it will cure him. And if he has faith in prayers and affirmations and personally applies his faith, prayers and affirmations will cure him.

Faith, personally applied, cures. And no matter how great the faith or how persistent the thought, it will not cure without personal application. The Science of Being Well, then, includes the two fields of thought and action.

To be well it is not enough that a person should merely think in a Certain Way. He must apply his thought to himself, and he must express and externalise it in his outward life by acting in the same way that he thinks.

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The Science of Being Well-Chapter II

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The Foundations of Faith

Therefore a person can think in the Certain Way which will cause his diseases to be healed, he must believe in certain truths which are here stated: All things are made from one Living Substance, which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. While all visible things are made from It, yet this Substance in its first formless condition is in and through all the visible forms that It has made. Its life is in All, and its intelligence is in All.

This Substance creates by thought, and its method is by taking the form of that which it thinks about. The thought of a form held by this substance causes it to assume that form; the thought of a motion causes it to institute that motion. Forms are created by this substance in moving itself into certain orientations or positions.

When original Substance wishes to create a given form, it thinks of the motions that will produce that form. When it wishes to create a world, it thinks of the motions, perhaps extending through ages, which will result in its coming into the attitude and form of the world and these motions are made.

When it wishes to create an oak tree, it thinks of the sequences of movement, perhaps extending through ages, which will result in the form of an oak tree and these motions are made. The particular sequences of motion by which differing forms should be produced were established in the beginning; they are changeless. Certain motions instituted in the Formless Substance will forever produce certain forms.

The human body is formed from the Original Substance, and is the result of certain motions, which first existed as thoughts of Original Substance. The motions which produce, renew, and repair the body are called functions, and these functions are of two classes: voluntary and involuntary.

The involuntary functions are under the control of the Principle of Health in a person, and are performed in a perfectly healthy manner so long as a person thinks in a certain way. The voluntary functions of life are eating, drinking, breathing, and sleeping. These, entirely or in part, are under the direction of a persons conscious mind, and he can perform them in a perfectly healthy way if he will. If he does not perform them in a healthy way, he cannot long be well.

So we see that if a person thinks in a certain way, and eats, drinks, breathes, and sleeps in a corresponding way, he will be well. The involuntary functions of a persons life are under the direct control of the Principle of Health, and so long as a person thinks in a perfectly healthy way, these functions are perfectly performed, for the action of the Principle of Health is largely directed by a persons conscious thought, affecting his subconscious mind.

A person is a thinking center, capable of originating thought, and as he does not know everything, he makes mistakes and thinks error. Not knowing everything, he believes things to be true which are not true. A person holds in his thought the idea of diseased and abnormal functioning and conditions, and so perverts the action of the Principle of Health, causing diseased and abnormal functioning and conditions within his own body.

In the Original Substance there are held only the thoughts of perfect motion, perfect and healthy function, complete life. God never thinks disease or imperfection. But for countless ages people have held thoughts of disease, abnormality, old age, and death. And the perverted functioning resulting from these thoughts has become a part of the inheritance of the human race.

Our ancestors have, for many generations, held imperfect ideas concerning human form and functioning, and we begin life with racial sub-conscious impressions of imperfection and disease. This is not natural, not a part of the plan of nature. The purpose of nature can be nothing else than the perfection of life. This we see from the very nature of life itself. It is the nature of life to continually advance toward more perfect living; advancement is the inevitable result of the very act of living. Increase is always the result of active living; whatever lives must live more and more.

The seed, lying in the granary, has life, but it is not living. Put it into the soil and it becomes active, and at once begins to gather to itself from the surrounding substance, and to build a plant form. It will so cause increase that a seed head will be produced containing 30, 60, or a hundred seeds, each having as much life as the first.

Life, by living, increases. Life cannot live without increasing, and the fundamental impulse of life is to live. It is in response to this fundamental impulse that Original Substance works, and creates. God must live, and God cannot live except as God creates and increases. In multiplying forms, God is moving on to live more. The universe is a Great Advancing Life, and the purpose of nature is the advancement of life toward perfection, toward perfect functioning. The purpose of nature is perfect health.

The purpose of Nature, so far as a human being is concerned, is that he should be continuously advancing into more life, and progressing toward perfect life; He is referring to the human race and to our collective consciousness, sometimes called race thought, and that he should live the most complete life possible in his present sphere of action. This must be so, because That which lives in a person is seeking more life.

Give a little child a pencil and paper, and he begins to draw crude figures. That which lives in him is trying to express Itself in art. Give him a set of blocks, and he will try to build something. That which lives in him is seeking expression in architecture. Seat him at a piano, and he will try to draw harmony from the keys. That which lives in him is trying to express Itself in music.

That which lives in a person is always seeking to live more, and since a person lives most when he is well, the Principle of Nature in him can seek only health. The natural state of a human being is a state of perfect health, and everything in him and in nature tends toward health.

Sickness can have no place in the thought of Original Substance, for it is by its own nature continually impelled toward the fullest and most perfect life therefore, toward health. A human being, as he exists in the thought of the Formless Substance, has perfect health. Disease, which is abnormal or perverted function motion imperfectly made, or made in the direction of imperfect life, has no place in the thought of the Thinking Stuff. The Supreme Mind never thinks of disease. Disease was not created or ordained by God, or sent forth from God. It is wholly a product of separate consciousness, of the individual thought of a person. God, the Formless Substance, does not see disease, think disease, know disease, or recognize disease. Disease is recognized only by the thought of humanity; God thinks nothing but health.

From all the foregoing, we see that health is a fact or TRUTH in the Original Substance from which we are all formed, and that disease is imperfect functioning, resulting from the imperfect thoughts of people, past and present. If a person’s thoughts of himself had always been those of perfect health, a person could not possibly now be otherwise than perfectly healthy. A human being in perfect health is the thought of Original Substance, and a human being in imperfect health is the result of his own failure to think perfect health, and to perform the voluntary functions of life in a healthy way. We will here arrange in a syllabus the basic truths of the Science of Being Well: There is a Thinking Substance from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. It is the life of All.

The thought of a form in this Substance causes the form; the thought of a motion produces the motion. In relation to humanity, the thoughts of this Substance are always of perfect functioning and perfect health. A person is a thinking center, capable of original thought; and his thought has power over his own functioning. By thinking imperfect thoughts he has caused imperfect and perverted functioning; and by performing the voluntary functions of life in a perverted manner, he has assisted in causing disease.

If a person will think only thoughts of perfect health, he can cause within himself the functioning of perfect health; all the Power of Life will be exerted to assist him. But this healthy functioning will not continue unless a person performs the external, or voluntary, functions of living in a healthy manner.

A persons first step must be to learn how to think perfect health; and his second step to learn how to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep in a perfectly healthy way. If a person takes these two steps, he will certainly become well, and remain so.

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The Science of Being Well-Chapter III

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Life and Its Organisms

The human body is the abiding place of an energy which renews it when worn, which eliminates waste or poisonous matter, and which repairs the body when broken or injured. This energy we call life. Life is not generated or produced within the body; it produces the body.

The seed which has been kept in the storehouse for years will grow when planted in the soil; it will produce a plant. But the life in the plant is not generated by its growing; it is the life which makes the plant grow. The performance of function does not cause life; it is life that causes function to be performed. Life is first; function afterward. It is life that distinguishes organic from inorganic matter, but it is not produced after the organization of matter.

Life is the principle or force that causes organization; it builds organisms. It is a principle or force inherent in Original Substance; all life is One. This Life Principle of the All is the Principle of Health in a person, and becomes constructively active whenever a person thinks in a Certain Way.

Who-ever, therefore, thinks in this Certain Way will surely have perfect health if his external functioning is in conformity with his thought. But the external functioning must conform to the thought; a person cannot hope to be well by thinking health, if he eats, drinks, breathes, and sleeps like a sick person.

The universal Life Principle, then, is the Principle of Health in a human being. It is one with original substance. There is one Original Substance from which all things are made; this substance is alive, and its life is the Principle of Life of the universe. This Substance has created from itself all the forms of organic life by thinking them, or by thinking the motions and functions which produce them.

Original Substance thinks only health, because It knows all truth. There is no truth which is not known in the Formless, which is All, and in all. It not only knows all truth, but it has all power. Its vital power is the source of all the energy there is. A conscious life which knows all truth and which has all power cannot go wrong or perform function imperfectly. Knowing all, it knows too much to go wrong, and so the Formless cannot be diseased or think disease. A human being is a form of this Original Substance, and has a separate consciousness of his own, but his consciousness is limited, and therefore imperfect. By reason of his limited knowledge a person can and does think wrongly, and so he causes perverted and imperfect functioning in his own body. A human being has not yet known enough not to go wrong. The diseased or imperfect functioning may not instantly result from an imperfect thought, but it is bound to come if the thought becomes habitual.

Any thought continuously held by a person tends to the establishment of the corresponding condition in his body. Also, the human being has failed to learn how to perform the voluntary functions of his life in a healthy way. He does not know when, what, and how to eat. He knows little about breathing and less about sleep. He does all these things in a wrong way, and under wrong conditions, and this because he has neglected to follow the only sure guide to the knowledge of life. He has tried to live by logic rather than by instinct. He has made living a matter of art, and not of nature. And he has gone wrong.

His only remedy is to begin to go right, and this he can surely do. It is the work of this book to teach the whole truth, so that the person who reads it shall know too much to go wrong.

The thoughts of disease produce the forms of disease. A person must learn to think health; and being Original Substance which takes the form of its thoughts, he will become the form of health and manifest perfect health in all his functioning. The people who were healed by touching the bones of the saint were really healed by thinking in a Certain Way, and not by any power emanating from the relics. There is no healing power in the bones of dead men, whether they be those of saint or sinner. The people who were healed by the doses of either the allopath or the homeopath were also really healed by thinking in a Certain Way; there is no drug which has within itself the power to heal disease.

The people who have been healed by prayers and affirmations were also healed by thinking in a certain way; there is no curative power in strings of words.

All the sick who have been healed, by whatsoever system, have thought in a Certain Way; and a little examination will show us what this way is. The two essentials of the Way are Faith and a Personal Application of the Faith.

The people who touched the saints bones had faith, and so great was their faith that in the instant they touched the relics they SEVERED ALL MENTAL RELATIONS WITH DISEASE, AND MENTALLY UNIFIED THEMSELVES WITH HEALTH.

This change of mind was accompanied by an intense devotional FEELING which penetrated to the deepest recesses of their souls, and so aroused the Principle of Health to powerful action. By faith they claimed that they were healed, or appropriated health to themselves, and in full faith they ceased to think of themselves in connection with disease and thought of themselves only in connection with health.

These are the two essentials to thinking in the Certain Way that will make you well: first, claim or appropriate health by faith, and, second, sever all mental relations with disease and enter into mental relations with health.

That which we make ourselves, mentally, we become physically, and that with which we unite ourselves mentally we become unified with physically. If your thought always relates you to disease, then your thought becomes a fixed power to cause disease within you. And if your thought always relates you to health, then your thought becomes a fixed power exerted to keep you well.

In the case of the people who are healed by medicines, the result is obtained in the same way. They have, consciously or unconsciously, sufficient faith in the means used that they sever mental relations with disease and enter into mental relations with health. Faith may be unconscious. It is possible for us to have a sub-conscious or inbred faith in things like medicine, in which we do not believe to any extent objectively, and this sub-conscious faith may be quite sufficient to quicken the Principle of Health into constructive activity. Many who have little conscious faith are healed in this way, while many others who have great faith in the means are not healed because they do not make the personal application to themselves. Their faith is general, but not specific for their own cases.

In the Science of Being Well we have two main points to consider: first, how to think with faith, and, second, how to so apply the thought to ourselves as to quicken the Principle of Health into constructive activity.

We begin by learning What to Think.

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The Science of Being Well-Chapter IV

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What To Think

In order to sever all mental relations with disease, you must enter into mental relations with health, making the process positive, not negative one of assumption, not of rejection. You are to receive or appropriate health rather than to reject and deny disease. Denying disease accomplishes next to nothing; it does little good to cast out the devil and leave the house vacant, for he will presently return with others worse than himself. When you enter into full and constant mental relations with health, you must of necessity cease all relationship with disease.

The first step in the Science of Being Well, then, is to enter into complete thought connection with health. The best way to do this is to form a mental image or picture of yourself as being well, imagining a perfectly strong and healthy body, and to spend sufficient time in contemplating this image to make it your habitual thought of yourself.

This is not so easy as it sounds. It necessitates the taking of considerable time for meditation, and not all persons have the imaging faculty well enough developed to form a distinct mental picture of themselves in a perfect or idealized body. It is much easier, as in The Science of Getting Rich, to form a mental image of the things one wants to have, for we have seen these things or their counterparts and know how they look. We can picture them very easily from memory. But if we have never seen ourselves in a perfect body, a clear mental image is hard to form.

It is not necessary or essential, however, to have a clear mental image of yourself as you wish to be; it is only essential to form a CONCEPTION of perfect health, and to relate yourself to it. This Conception of Health is not a mental picture of a particular thing. It is an understanding of health, and carries with it the idea of perfect functioning in every part and organ. You may TRY to picture yourself as perfect in physique that helps and you MUST think of yourself as doing everything in the manner of a perfectly strong and healthy person. You can picture yourself as walking down the street with an erect body and a vigorous stride. You can picture yourself as doing your days work easily and with surplus vigor, never tired or weak. You can picture in your mind how all things would be done by a person full of health and power, and you can make yourself the central figure in the picture, doing things in just that way.

Never think of the ways in which weak or sickly people do things; always think of the way strong people do things. Spend your leisure time in thinking about the Strong Way, until you have a good conception of it, and always think of yourself in connection with the Strong Way of Doing Things. That is what I mean by having a Conception of Health. In order to establish perfect functioning in every part, a person does not have to study anatomy or physiology so that he can form a mental image of each separate organ and address himself to it. He does not have to treat his liver, his kidneys, his stomach, or his heart. There is one Principle of Health in a human being, which has control over all the involuntary functions of his life, and the thought of perfect health, impressed upon this Principle, will reach each part and organ. A persons liver is not controlled by a liver-principle, his stomach by a digestive principle, and so on. The Principle of Health is One. The less you go into the detailed study of physiology, the better for you. Our knowledge of this science is very imperfect, and leads to imperfect thought. Imperfect thought causes imperfect functioning, which is disease.

Let me illustrate: Until quite recently, physiology fixed ten days as the extreme limit of a human beings endurance without food. It was considered that only in exceptional cases could a person survive a longer fast. So the impression became universally disseminated that one who was deprived of food must die in from five to ten days. And numbers of people, when cut off from food by shipwreck, accident, or famine, did die within this period. But the performances of Dr. Tanner, the 40-day faster, and the writings of Dr. Dewey and others on the fasting cure, together with the experiments of numberless people who have fasted from 40 to 60 days, have shown that a humans ability to live without food is vastly greater than had been supposed.

Any person, properly educated, can fast from 20 to 40 days with little loss in weight, and often with no apparent loss of strength at all. The people who starved to death in ten days or less did so because they believed that death was inevitable. An erroneous physiology had given them a wrong thought about themselves. When a person is deprived of food he will die in from 10 to 50 days, according to the way he has been taught, or, in other words, according to the way he thinks about it. So you see that an erroneous physiology can work very mischievous results.

No Science of Being Well can be founded on current physiology; it is not sufficiently exact in its knowledge. With all its pretensions, comparatively little is really known as to the interior workings and processes of the body. It is not known just how food is digested. It is not known just what part food plays, if any, in the generation of force. It is not known exactly what the liver, spleen, and pancreas are for, or what part their secretions play in the chemistry of assimilation. On all these and most other points we theorize, but we do not really know.

When a person begins to study physiology, he enters the domain of theory and disputation. He comes among conflicting opinions, and he is bound to form mistaken ideas concerning himself. These mistaken ideas lead to the thinking of wrong thoughts, and this leads to perverted functioning and disease.

All that the most perfect knowledge of physiology could do for a person would be to enable him to think only thoughts of perfect health, and to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep in a perfectly healthy way. And this, as we shall show, he can do without studying physiology at all.

This, for the most part, is true of all hygiene. There are certain fundamental propositions which we should know, and these will be explained in later chapters, but aside from these propositions, ignore physiology and hygiene. They tend to fill your mind with thoughts of imperfect conditions, and these thoughts will produce the imperfect conditions in your own body. You cannot study any science which recognizes disease, if you are to think nothing but health.

Drop all investigation as to your present condition, its causes, or possible results, and set yourself to the work of forming a conception of health. Think about health and the possibilities of health, of the work that may be done and the pleasures that may be enjoyed in a condition of perfect health.

Then make this conception your guide in thinking of yourself. Refuse to entertain for an instant any thought of yourself which is not in harmony with it. When any idea of disease or imperfect functioning enters your mind, cast it out instantly by calling up a thought which is in harmony with the Conception of Health.

Think of yourself at all times as realizing this conception, as being a strong and perfectly healthy personage, and do not harbor a contrary thought. KNOW that as you think of yourself in unity with this conception, the Original Substance which permeates and fills the tissues of your body is taking form according to the thought, and know that this Intelligent Substance or mind stuff will cause function to be performed in such a way that your body will be rebuilt with perfectly healthy cells.

The Intelligent Substance, from which all things are made, permeates and penetrates all things; and so it is in and through your body. It moves according to its thoughts, and so if you hold only the thoughts of perfectly healthy function, it will cause the movements of perfectly healthy function within you. Hold with persistence to the thought of perfect health in relation to yourself. Do not permit yourself to think in any other way. Hold this thought with perfect faith that it is the fact, the truth. It is the truth so far as your mental body is concerned.

You have a mind-body and a physical body. The mind-body takes form just as you think of yourself, and any thought which you hold continuously is made visible by the transformation of the physical body into its image. Implanting the thought of perfect functioning in the mind-body will, in due time, cause perfect functioning in the physical body.

The transformation of the physical body into the image of the ideal held by the mind-body is not accomplished instantaneously. We cannot transfigure our physical bodies at will as Jesus did. In the creation and recreation of forms, Substance moves along the fixed lines of growth it has established, and the impression upon it of the health thought causes the healthy body to be built cell by cell.

Holding only thoughts of perfect health will ultimately cause perfect functioning, and perfect functioning will in due time produce a perfectly healthy body. It may be as well to condense this chapter into a syllabus: Your physical body is permeated and filled with an Intelligent Substance, which forms a body of mind-stuff. This mind-stuff controls the functioning of your physical body. A thought of disease or of imperfect function, impressed upon the mind-stuff, causes disease or imperfect functioning in the physical body.

If you are diseased, it is because wrong thoughts have made impressions on this mind-stuff. These may have been either your own thoughts or those of your parents; we begin life with many sub-conscious impressions, both right and wrong. But the natural tendency of all mind is toward health, and if no thoughts are held in the conscious mind save those of health, all internal functioning will come to be performed in a perfectly healthy manner. The Power of Nature within you is sufficient to overcome all hereditary impressions, and if you will learn to control your thoughts, so that you shall think only those of health, and if you will perform the voluntary functions of life in a perfectly healthy way, you can certainly be well.

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The Science of Being Well-Chapter V

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Faith

The Principe of Health is moved by Faith. Nothing else can call it into action, and only faith can enable you to relate yourself to health, and sever your relation with disease, in your thoughts. You will continue to think of disease unless you have faith in health. If you do not have faith, you will doubt. If you doubt, you will fear. And if you fear, you will relate yourself in mind to that which you fear. If you fear disease, you will think of yourself in connection with disease, and that will produce within yourself the form and motions of disease. Just as Original Substance creates from itself the forms of its thoughts, so your mind-body, which is original substance, takes the form and motion of whatever you think about. If you fear disease, dread disease, have doubts about your safety from disease, or if you even contemplate disease, you will connect yourself with it and create its forms and motions within you. Let me enlarge somewhat upon this point. The potency, or creative power, of a thought is given to it by the faith that is in it. Thoughts which contain no faith create no forms. The Formless Substance, which knows all truth and therefore thinks only truth, has perfect faith in every thought, because it thinks only truth, and so all its thoughts create. But if you will imagine a thought in Formless Substance in which there was no faith, you will see that such a thought could not cause the Substance to move or take form. Keep in mind the fact that only those thoughts which are conceived in faith have creative energy. Only those thoughts which have faith with them are able to change function, or to quicken the Principle of Health into activity. If you do not have faith in health, you will certainly have faith in disease. If you do not have faith in health, it will do you no good to think about health, for your thoughts will have no potency, and will cause no change for the better in your conditions. If you do not have faith in health, I repeat, you will have faith in disease. And if, under such conditions, you think about health for ten hours a day and think about disease for only a few minutes, the disease thought will control your condition because it will have the potency of faith, while the health thought will not. Your mind-body will take on the form and motions of disease and retain them, because your health thought will not have sufficient dynamic force to change form or motion. In order to practice the Science of Being Well, you must have complete faith in health. Faith begins in belief; and we now come to the question: What must you believe in order to have faith in health? You must believe that there is more health-power than disease-power in both yourself and your environment; and you cannot help believing this if you consider the facts. These are the facts: There is a Thinking Substance from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. The thought of a form, in this Substance, produces the form; the thought of a motion institutes the motion. In relation to the human being, the thoughts of Original Substance are always of perfect health and perfect functioning. This Substance, within and without a human being, always exerts its power toward health.

A person is a thinking center, capable of original thought. He has a mind-body of Original Substance permeating a physical body, and the functioning of his physical body is determined by the FAITH of his mind-body. If a person thinks with faith of the functioning of health, he will cause his internal functions to be performed in a healthy manner, provided that he performs the external functions in a corresponding manner. But if a person thinks, with faith, of disease, or of the power of disease, he will cause his internal functioning to be the functioning of disease.

The Original Intelligent Substance is in a human being, moving toward health and it is pressing upon him from every side. The human being lives, moves, and has his being in a limitless ocean of health-power, and he uses this power according to his faith. If he appropriates it and applies it to himself it is all his, and if he unifies himself with it by unquestioning faith, he cannot fail to attain health, for the power of this Substance is all the power there is.

A belief in the above statements is a foundation for faith in health. If you believe them, you believe that health is the natural state of humanity, and that a human being lives in the midst of Universal Health that all the power of nature makes for health, and that health is possible to all, and can surely be attained by all.

You will believe that the power of health in the universe is 10,000 times greater than that of disease, in fact, that disease has no power whatever, being only the result of perverted thought and faith. And if you believe that health is possible to you, and that it may surely be attained by you, and that you know exactly what to do in order to attain it, you will have faith in health. You will have this faith and knowledge if you read this book through with care and determine to believe in and practice its teachings.

It is not merely the possession of faith, but the personal application of faith which works healing. You must claim health in the beginning, and form a conception of health, and, as far as may be, of yourself as a perfectly healthy person. And then, by faith, you must claim that you ARE REALIZING this conception. Do not assert with faith that you are going to get well; assert with faith that you ARE well. Having faith in health, and applying it to yourself, means having faith that you are healthy. And the first step in this is to claim that it is the truth.

Mentally take the attitude of being well, and do not say anything or do anything which contradicts this attitude. Never speak a word or assume a physical attitude which does not harmonize with the claim: I am perfectly well..

When you walk, go with a brisk step, and with your chest thrown out and your head held up. Watch that at all times your physical actions and attitudes are those of a healthy person.

When you find that you have relapsed into the attitude of weakness or disease, change instantly: straighten up, and think of health and power. Refuse to consider yourself as other than a perfectly healthy person. One great aid perhaps the greatest aid in applying your faith you will find in the exercise of gratitude. Whenever you think of yourself, or of your advancing condition, give thanks to the Great Intelligent Substance for the perfect health you are enjoying. Remember that there is a continual inflow of life from the Supreme, which is received by all created things according to their forms, and by every person according to his faith. Health from God is continually being urged upon you, and when you think of this, lift up your mind reverently, and give thanks that you have been led to the Truth and into perfect health of mind and body. Be, all the time, in a grateful frame of mind, and let gratitude be evident in your speech. Gratitude will help you to own and control your own field of thought. Whenever the thought of disease is presented to you, instantly claim health, and thank God for the perfect health you have. Do this so that there shall be no room in your mind for a thought of ill. Every thought connected in any way with ill health is unwelcome, and you can close the door of your mind in its face by asserting that you are well, and by reverently thanking God that it is so.

Soon the old thoughts will return no more. Gratitude has a twofold effect: it strengthens your own faith, and it brings you into close and harmonious relations with the Supreme. You believe that there is one Intelligent Substance from which all life and all power come, you believe that you receive your own life from this substance, and you relate yourself closely to It by feeling continuous gratitude.

It is easy to see that the more closely you relate yourself to the Source of Life the more readily you may receive life from it. And it is easy also to see that your relation to It is a matter of mental attitude. We cannot come into physical relationship with God, for God is mind-stuff and we also are mind-stuff. Our relation with God must therefore be a mind relation. It is plain, then, that the person who feels deep and hearty gratitude will live in closer touch with God than the person who never looks up to God in thankfulness. The ungrateful or unthankful mind really denies that it receives at all, and so cuts its connection with the Supreme. The grateful mind is always looking toward the Supreme, is always open to receive from it, and it will receive continually.

The Principle of Health in a human being receives its vital power from the Principle of Life in the universe, and a person relates himself to the Principle of Life by faith in health, and by gratitude for the health he receives. A person may cultivate both faith and gratitude by the proper use of his will.

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