How To Get What You Want
	Faith And Drugs <  Previous Contents Next  >

“I am the Lord thy God that healeth thee.”

“I dress the wound, but God heals it.”—Written by Ambrose Pare on the walls of the School of Medicine in Paris.

The potencies in the drug-stores are weaklings in comparison with the mighty life-giving, life-inspiring potencies which live in the great within of ourselves. It is here we make connection with the vital, creative, restorative power which first created us, and which re-creates us, restores, repairs, and heals us.

To nothing else touching his life can the aphorism “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” be more fittingly applied than to a man’s health.

Health can be established only by thinking health, just as disease is established by thinking disease. Just as you must think success, expect it, visualize it, make your mind a huge success magnet to attract it if you are to attain it, so if you want to be healthy, you must think health, you must expect it, you must visualize it, you must attract it by making your mind a huge health magnet to attract more health, abundant health. As long as physical defects, weaknesses, or diseased conditions exist in the imagination, as long as the mind is filled with visions of ill health the body must correspond, because our bodies are but an extension of our thoughts, our minds objectified.

Health is based upon the ideal of the body’s perfection and the absolute denial of disease, the denial of everything but the ideal condition; upon the idea that only that which is good for us can be real in the highest sense of the word; that all physical discords are only the absence of harmony, not the reality of our being, the truth of us. Health is the everlasting reality; disease is the absence of reality. It is only seeming.

In proportion to the Physician’s ability to suggest perfect soundness of body to his patient, to visualize him as physically perfect; in proportion to his power to see and to impress upon the mind of his patient the image of the ideal, instead of that of the diseased, discordant, suffering individual, will he be able to help him.

In 1866 Sir James Paget, who was then the most famous physician in England, in speaking of a case which had baffled him for a long time, told another physician that some day his patient would disgrace the profession “by being juggled out of her malady by some bold quack, who by mere force of assertion will give her the will to heal or forget or suppress all the turbulences of her marvelous system.”

Many physicians admit that “quacks” often heal patients when the regular physicians can do nothing for them. But they do not realize the principle underneath this sort of healing by the “quacks,” as they call them; that is, the power of assertion, the establishing in the mind of the patient the idea of his health, the wholeness of his body.

Whether we call him a quack, a healer, or a regular physician, he will help his patient best by acting on this principle, because the creative forces in the patient will all the time be building into the tissue of his body the reality of the perfect image, the image of the sound, robust being which the physician projects into his mind.

A great surgeon has told me that time and again he has performed make-believe surgical operations upon patients who had dwelt so long on the probability of disease in certain organs that they had become obsessed with fear and developed some of the symptoms of the disease.

In such cases as this the surgeon goes through all the forms of a regular operation. He puts the patient on the operating table, puts him under an anesthetic, and will sometimes scratch the skin so as to leave a little semblance of a trace of an operation. Then he will put a surgical bandage on the part and keep the patient in bed the usual time, at the end of which he is quite well again and perfectly normal.

Without exception, he says, all the patients he has treated in this way, whether for appendicitis or trouble in some other organ, have been entirely cured of their obsession. Even in cases where the patient had insisted that he had had persistent pain for many months have entire cures been made by a make-believe operation.

Nor has this surgeon ever told his patients of the deception he practiced, which he claims was perfectly justifiable, because his great object was to help them get well with the least possible risk or harm.

Another surgeon in a large hospital says he has performed many such mock operations on hysterical women, who imagined they had some malignant growth or other cause for operation, after all other efforts to convince them that there was really nothing the matter with them had failed.

Among other cases be cured in this way was that of a woman who was convinced she had an internal tumor. She had been operated upon four times previously and had a tumor removed. Having received a severe shock from upsetting a lighted lamp, she became hysterical, and possessed with the illusion that she was again suffering from tumors and that the only thing that would save her life was an operation. Not being able to pacify her in any other way, the physician decided to perform a mock operation.

The patient was put on the operating table and given just enough anesthetic to put her in a state of semi-consciousness. She could bear and feel, but could not see. The surgeons and nurses moved about the room quietly, gave hurried orders to the attendants, and acted as though they were working on a grave operation. They let ice water drip from a considerable height upon the affected part for four or five minutes to give the patient the idea of being swathed in bandages. Later, she was taken home in an ambulance, and on awaking found two trained nurses creeping about her room. When asked if she could take a little sip of weak tea, she told the nurse that she felt frightfully weak and languid. But on being urged to make an effort, she succeeded in swallowing a little of the tea. The patient remained in bed ten days, after which her friends were allowed to see her and she gradually recovered strength.

Although there was no cutting whatever by the surgeon’s knife, no real operation, this woman believed there had been, and the conviction of the relief it had afforded neutralized or destroyed the previous conviction that she was in a dangerous condition, and that nothing but an operation could possibly save her life.

A still more interesting case reported by the same surgeon was that of a young woman who kept moving her head from side to side constantly, telling her physician that there was a string in her head, pulling it this way and that. He could not persuade her that this was only a delusion, and finally sent her to a surgeon.

The surgeon decided to pretend to operate upon her, and when he told her that an operation was necessary, she clapped her hands for joy. She told him that other physicians and surgeons she had consulted only laughed at her and called her foolish while all the time she knew there was a string in her head and that she must be operated upon for its removal. The surgeon put her under an anesthetic, cut off some of her beautiful brown hair, and made a small skin incision, so she would think that the operation had been performed.

Then he took a section from an E string of a violin, soaked it until it looked like a cord or tissue, and when the patient recovered consciousness showed her this cord, saying he had removed it from her head, and that the operation was very successful. The girl immediately recovered. Nothing else could have convinced her, the surgeon said, that her head was not pulled constantly this way and that by a string, and she could get no relief until she believed that the string had been removed.

Now this make-believe surgical treatment is based on the same principle as the bread pill treatment, which has affected so many cures. It is wholly mental, and the cure is a matter of faith on the part of the patient, his belief in the efficacy of the remedy.

We all know that the benefits received from physicians and medicines or drugs depend upon faith, the patient’s expectancy of relief, his belief that he is going to be cured. Destroy this faith and you kill the virtue of the remedy. Physicians well know that when a sick man’s faith and hope are gone there is very little chance for his recovery. This is why they refrain as long as possible from telling a patient that there is no chance for him, because they know that this affects him as the death sentence affects a condemned criminal. It takes away hope, and thus destroys the only rallying force which can possibly tide the patient over a crisis. Every physician knows that courage, hope and expectation of a cure are powerful aids to healing. He counts upon these to supplement his specific treatment.

Expectancy of relief is literally of itself a powerful remedy. I have in mind the case of a man who had been suffering for years with a peculiar disease which no hospital treatment seemed able to reach. His hope of recovery was beginning to weaken when he heard of a foreign physician visiting this country who had built up a great reputation in the successful treatment of cases like his own. He read over and over in medical journals and newspapers of the marvelous cures affected by this physician until he had worked himself up into a perfect frenzy of belief that he also would be cured if he could only be treated by this wonder worker. Although comparatively poor, the cost meant nothing to him if he could only get relief from the torture he suffered. So great was his confidence that he was going to get relief that he mortgaged his home for every dollar he could get, and sold nearly everything else he had in the world in order to go to this great specialist.

When he reached the town where the specialist was he was obliged to remain some little time before he could meet him. But so profound was the man’s faith in him that he was practically cured before he saw him or began to take his treatment. After an examination the specialist told him he was sure to get well, and even before the man had his prescription filled he felt complete relief from his trouble.

Just think of the tremendous psychological advantage in this case. The patient’s mind was in perfect condition for receiving help from the doctor’s treatment. He didn’t have a doubt but that he was going to be cured, and he was cured—by his faith.

Many people have undoubtedly been cured of disease by their great faith in some worthless patent medicine. For a long time, perhaps, they believed that if they could only get that particular remedy they would be cured. Their expectancy was so great, their hope so large, and their faith so powerful, that when they realized the conditions which they believed would make them well they got the benefit of their optimistic thought.

For example, I know a very poor man who suffered tortures for many years with rheumatism. His joints and many parts of his body were so fearfully swollen that he was not only badly disfigured, but actually crippled. He had used all sorts of cheap remedies recommended by friends, but without any great hope or expectation of relief. But one day he read a very graphic account of the near-miracles which had been performed by some all-powerful patent remedy for rheumatism. It was quite expensive; however, something like two dollars a bottle, and two dollars was a small fortune to this poor man who could not work. There was no one to help him out but his wife, who earned their support by taking in washing, going out cleaning occasionally and picking up a little money in any way she could earn it. By dint of extra hard work she managed to save the price of a bottle of the wonderful remedy. For months the man had been dreaming about what it would do for him. He pictured himself as growing stronger and better after every spoonful from the precious bottle. When at last his wife succeeded in getting the medicine for him, it had precisely the effect he had pictured. What he expected, what he had anticipated, actually happened. Just think of a dead, inert drug which couldn’t move itself even in a thousand years moving man, the mightiest power in the universe!

The virtue is not in the inert drug. The curative quality comes from the person’s faith in it. Destroy faith in it and you destroy the virtue of the remedy. There must be faith in the physician or the sick person will get no benefit from his treatment. Faith must accompany the drug, the prescription, or it will be powerless and the cure will be in proportion to the faith. If the patient’s mind is prejudiced in the very least against the physician, or if he fights against the remedy, this will counteract the influence that otherwise might be beneficial. The diseased cells in any part of the body can only be repaired by the creative energy, the life force in the cells themselves, and this must be stimulated by hope, faith, and expectancy of relief. It is powerfully reinforced by faith in a certain physician or a certain remedy.

We have proof of this in the fact that the same remedy may have a wonderful curative effect upon one patient who possesses great faith in the physician and the remedy, while the same thing will have no effect whatever upon another lacking faith but having a similar constitution and temperament, and suffering from exactly the same malady. In other words, under exactly the same circumstances, the same remedy will have a powerful affect when animated by faith while it will have no affect whatever without faith.

While there is no denying the fact that the majority of people fill their medicine closets with all sorts of concoctions that work havoc in mind and body, it would be suicidal to condemn entirely the practice of medicine and the use of drugs and other physical remedies as long as the vast mass of the people believe in them, because their faith will help them. If the fixed belief of the race is that certain remedies will cure certain diseases, corresponding results will temporarily follow their use, for the body conforms to our faiths, our beliefs. But look back over medical history and see what ridiculous remedies the race has believed in. They had their day and perhaps served their purpose, but because the progress of the world has taken us far away from them, how superstitious and absurd they seem to us today.

It is not so long ago since thousands of men carried horse-chestnuts in their pockets, or wore iron rings to rid themselves of rheumatism. There have been hundreds of remedies for rheumatism, each one of which had its vogue and then passed away. The horse-chestnut and the iron ring enjoyed great popularity in their day and furnished relief to many rheumatic sufferers. Thousands of such devices which were once standard remedies for certain diseases seem ridiculous today even to the most ignorant. But when the faith of the people was fixed upon the idea that the particular charm carried on the person, or the inert drug put into the living organism, would re-create a diseased cell, or restore lost tissue, certain advantages naturally followed their faith.

The history of medicine is largely a history of the rise and decline of people’s faith in different remedies. Tens of thousands of such remedies which have been used with good results in medical practice in the past are now obsolete because the faith of the physicians, the faith of the public have gone out of them. They were effective while people’s faith in them continued, but when the faith they had inspired evaporated their virtue also evaporated. Everything depended upon the reputation of the remedy, upon the belief in its power.

A similar thing is true of popular physicians. Sick people want one of great reputation, one in whom everybody believes, and it is almost a universal experience that patients feel much better after the visit of such a physician, even before he has written a prescription or they have taken any of the medicine he advises. And every physician knows how common it is for ignorant patients to feel very much better just after taking a dose of prescribed medicine, long before it could possibly have gotten into the circulation or physically affected them. Physicians really owe their success largely to people’s faith in them and their remedies.

Faith is at the bottom of all cures, at the bottom of all achievements, physical or mental.

Religious history is full of examples of people who have been cured of all sorts of diseases by going to famed miraculous springs, by bathing in sacred waters, or streams supposed to have great curative qualities.

A friend of mine when traveling in India went to the Ganges during a great pilgrimage, when multitudes of believers had gathered on the banks of the sacred river to bathe in its healing waters. He saw tens of thousands of these people, afflicted with different diseases and some with open sores, bathing at one time, and so close together that they could scarcely move. The water was absolutely filthy, and dead bodies were floating about in it, close to the bathers, and the bathers were actually drinking the sacred water!

Many of these poor wretches had come long distances on their hands and knees, from which the skin was worn off. They had looked forward so long to bathing in these sacred waters, had undergone such terrible sufferings and privation in order to reach them that they had built up a tremendous faith in their efficacy. So profound was their belief in their healing power that a great many of them were actually cured by the very waters which carried in them the germs of disease and death. Those waters which would have killed people who lacked faith in their virtue cured many of these poor ignorant, deluded pilgrims.

Our great watering-places, famous health resorts, and healing springs all have a similar history. The faith of the sufferers in all such instances works the apparent miracles.

I have witnessed the healing of numbers of sick people at the church of St. Jean Baptiste, in New York, at the annual novena of St. Anne. Here the agency which wrought the miracle was supposed to be part of the wrist-bone of St. Anne. This relic was brought from a Canadian church in 1892, and every year since a novena in honor of St. Anne, which lasts for nine days, is celebrated at the church of St. Jean Baptiste. Throngs attend this novena, to receive the healing touch of the sacred bone, which is encased in silver and glass. All along the altar rails, inside of which is the shrine of St. Anne, people crowd together kneeling, while a priest, carrying the sacred relic, passes along and touches with it the afflicted part of each one of the faithful as indicated by the sufferer. This may be the head, the arm, the hand, the eye, the ear, but, whatever the part, the priest touches it quickly with the relic, at the same time uttering appropriate prayers. Marvelous cures are seemingly affected by contact with the relic, because this is the climax of the victims’ faith.

It is well known that the incantations of the savages, the ceremonies of the Indian medicine men, and all of the many superstitious rites practiced by various peoples, have resulted in quite a large percentage of cures.

All of these things show that it is not the superstition, it is not the ceremony, it is not the relic, it is not the medicine, it is not the sacred water, but the faith that does the cure. This is the principle in all methods of healing, from those practiced by the lowest savage tribes to the highest civilization. The faith of the sufferer is the chief thing. Christ never said my faith, but thy faith hath made thee whole.

Faith in the shrine, faith in the remedy, in the superstition, in the physician, in the surgeon; faith in the hospital, faith in any and all methods of healing,—this is their potent virtue.

The Indian medicine man with all his grotesque and ridiculous incantations cures perhaps quite as large a percentage of diseases as does the average physician. Vast multitudes of people whom no medicine or material remedy could help have been cured at the various shrines which they sought at tremendous sacrifice to themselves, because of their profound faith, their absolute conviction that in this way and in this way only, could they be cured.

Faith is the sovereign remedy of the race. Faith is the builder, the creator, the restorer of life. Without faith we can do nothing. The Christ Himself constantly reminded His followers that without faith they could do nothing. Even He could do nothing for those who lacked faith. Does not the Bible tell us that in His own country, “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief”?

The benefit received by those who appealed to Him was always in proportion to their faith. It was always “According to thy faith be it unto thee.” His words to the afflicted who came to Him for relief were “Believe ye that I can do this?” And when He had healed He claimed nothing for Himself, it was always “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” In other words, He was always trying to arouse the faith of the people, trying to impress them with the tremendous power of faith, faith in God and in themselves, assuring them that faith, even as a grain of mustard seed would enable them to do marvels.

Christ never once referred to His own faith as to the quality which would enable Him to perform His supposed miracles. It was the faith of the people in His power to heal them that He emphasized. And just think what Christ’s reputation for healing meant to the simple people of Galilee, the reputation of the Man who was performing such wonderful miracles—opening the eyes of the blind, making the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, curing the leper of his supposedly incurable disease, and even raising the dead to life! Think of what the rumors of such mighty doings would mean to such simple folk! Why, their faith in Him was unbounded.

Think of the mighty faith that moved people to let the sick down through the roof of houses in order to get them near this marvelous character? Is it any wonder that their diseases fled at His touch, nay, at His word? In view of all this does it seem strange, or unscientific that Christian Scientists, Mental Scientists, Divine Scientists, and others, believing in the power of God working through man, should perform such miracles of healing and of ability increasing by pure faith? And if the curative qualities of the remedies used by physicians are so largely due to faith in them, which physicians themselves acknowledge, why not leave out the drug and apply only the healing faith? Why not depend wholly upon faith, as Christ did, and as the mental healers do?

The homeopaths made one jump from enormous doses to almost nothing, with apparently the same results. The mental healers have simply taken one more step. They are depending wholly upon faith, and they seem to perform about as large a percentage of cures as the regular medical profession. And, as a rule, their cures are very much more permanent, because truth eradicates the roots of the disease, which many physicians now believe to be entirely mental.

Christ never once referred to any other healing principle than faith. It was always faith, and this is the principle on which all mental healing is based. The success of the mental healer depends upon his own faith and the faith which he is able to arouse in the patient. If there is no faith there is no cure. Some will say that many people are cured without faith, even against their will; but the very fact that these people seek treatment is proof that they do have faith or they wouldn’t go to the healer. Of course the healer’s faith has much to do with healing, but a real permanent cure can only be affected through the faith of the sufferer.

The healing principle is in the patient himself. The mental healer does not heal his patient. ‘He merely arouses the divinity, the healing principle in the sufferer. Whether it is an allopath, a homeopath, or a mental healer who treats you when you are sick, it is always the God force in you that heals. It is the same force that created you and sustains you, the force that comes to your rescue in all your troubles, that same force which rushes to unite the broken bone, to heal the cut or wound, to repair the crushed tissue, to make you whole again. There is only one healing force and that is the creative force.

We hear a great deal about the healing principle of the divine mind, but it is the divine mind in you, and not outside of you, it is the divine principle inherent in your divine nature that does the healing. It is the creative principle which is everywhere in the great cosmic intelligence that heals all your hurts and restores you to health. This is the same creative principle which develops the germ in the acorn and carries it up to the giant oak; that develops a tiny germ into a beautiful full blown rose. It is this creative principle which is everywhere present in the universe, which inheres in every atom, which is, in fact, the reality of every atom in the universe, for the reality of everything is God.

The reality of ourselves, the truth of our being is God, otherwise we could not exist. It is no outside power which comes to our rescue, sustains us, holds us up, and guides us. It is the creative God power within us. This creative power is inherent in every cell of your body, in every particle of matter. This is the reality of us, the truth of our being. We literally live and move and have our being in God.

A realization of this truth, an ever-increasing consciousness of our oneness with the Supreme Power will bring ever-increasing peace and serenity of mind and health of body. An ever-increasing sense of our cosmic consciousness will increase our mental sense of well being, of security, of safety from all that would injure us or destroy our happiness.

Someone has said that “to think of the presence and power of God as a healing life force, is to come in actual mental contact with that presence. To continue this thought by sturdy affirmation of healing truth will attune the mind to harmony with that beneficent power, lifting it out of the darkness and heaviness of mortal thinking into the brightness and joy that is the result of thinking God’s thought after Him.”

We do not realize the power of thought, because we do not appreciate the fact that we actually come in contact with whatever we think about or contemplate. This contact is no less real because it is mental; and it has power to influence the body, as well as the mind.

Never think of yourself as weak, diseased, sick, and deficient in any faculty, in any function. Think of yourself as perfect and immortal and your mind and body will tend to respond to this demand for wholeness and completeness.

The images of unfortunate symptoms, every sick or weak suggestion harbored in the mind are fatal to the realization of the ideal. Sick thoughts, weak, deficient thoughts, make a weak, deficient body and a crippled mentality. Think wholeness, think completeness regarding yourself. If you really believe that you are made in your Maker’s image you cannot think too magnificently of yourself.

No matter how your body may seem to contradict this ideal of yourself, persist in holding it, and the weaknesses, the deficiencies and the discords which hinder your progress will gradually give way to the dominance of the divine image in you. The life processes within you will build the outward manifestation of this sublime image of yourself, and you will become normal, Godlike.

Many people who do not understand the science of mental healing think it is affirming what we know to be untrue, to persist that we are all right, when our bodies are racked with pain and we are really unable to work.

But when we say we are well, even though we are suffering pain, we mean that the reality of us is well, that the truth of our being cannot be sick, cannot suffer, cannot know any discord, because that is divine.

You should always affirm the truth of your being, not its untruth, its error. Affirming your spiritual ideal always and everywhere will help you to grow into His likeness, into the likeness of perfection, while the contemplation of disease, the habit of looking at it as a reality, of regarding it as a truth, will tear down all of your physical building, will keep you constantly susceptible to disease.

You cannot build up a strong resisting body when you are constantly thinking of disease, concentrating on it, listening to its affirmation. Deny everything that is wrong, everything that is false, deny everything that is not God created and you will be all right.

But remember that merely denying is not destroying. You must not, as many do, deny in such a way as to make a stronger impression upon your mind of the thing you wish to get rid of. While denying the reality of sickness you must keep in mind the truth of its opposite, the spiritual ideal, and the spiritual man, which is never sick and never can be. Cling to the perfection ideal, the God ideal of yourself, no matter how loudly the opposite may scream, how busy it may be in asserting itself. The intelligence inherent in every cell in the body builds according to the model presented to it, and there is everything in holding up before the mind the perfect pattern, the health pattern, the health ideal.

Holding the ideal of health in the mind is the most scientific way of healing any physical discord or disease in any of the bodily organs, because the community cells themselves in any organ through their collective intelligence are powerfully influenced by the messages which come from the central station of the brain. These cells are very susceptible to encouragement or discouragement. They respond quickly to hope or despair, hence the tragedy of treating the body with discouragement.

All forms of mental healing are based upon suggestion of the divine ideal, and the healing is effective just in proportion as the mind of the sufferer is kept saturated, whether by autosuggestion or by daily help of the healer’s mind, with the divine ideal, with the health principle of the divine mind.

The suggestion that health is the everlasting fact, and that disease, sickness are counterfeits, the absence of reality, is a healing force. Whatever form the mental healing process takes it is holding the ideal of wholeness, completeness, the thought that the sufferer is the child of divinity and that his birthright is health and wholeness that does the work.

When I hold the ideal of perfect health I do not picture or visualize the human side of myself. This may be a mere apology of the divine side of myself. I hold the ideal of the divine self, the perfect self, that part of me which was never born and which will never die, that part of me which was never sick or diseased, and which will never suffer defeat or disaster. This is the triumphant side of my life, the divine side, and this is the ideal which I shall always cling to. I shall cling to it because this is the pattern which I wish to build into my life, and I know that by holding this divine pattern, tins divine ideal in my mind it will be reproduced in my body.

On the other hand, if I hold the ideal which corresponds to the seemingly weak, defective or diseased part of myself, this inferior ideal will be built into my life, and all my standards will correspond to my lower ideal. If I constantly think and say to myself “I am physically weak, I have inherited unfortunate disease tendencies from my ancestors, who died with consumption, with cancer, with stomach trouble, with liver trouble or heart disease,” I shall tend to realize these conditions.

You can never establish health except by thinking and affirming health principles. You must hold the health ideal. You must constantly and vigorously assert, “I am health; I am vigor; I have a robust constitution; I am power; I am perfect physically; the Creator never handicapped me by passing along to me the inherited weakness or disease tendency without putting in me a force which is more than a match for it, without giving me the ability to overcome my handicap. My health is based upon the consciousness of the truth of my being, the reality of me, the divine of me. It is based upon what I have inherited from my Maker; and this knows no disease, no weakness, no sickness, no deterioration, and no death. What I have inherited from my Maker is immortal, as He is immortal.”

The famous Dr. Richard C. Cabot, of the Harvard Medical School says that the medical environment is most unfavorable to a patient’s recovery. Sick people, who are steeped in the medical atmosphere, where they constantly hear the talk of disease symptoms, find it very difficult to get away from the sick thought. They are saturated with it when the mind ought to be filled with just the opposite. They should be in an atmosphere where everything around them will suggest health, instead of sickness and disease.

Some people unconsciously keep the body in a diseased condition by dwelling on disease. I recently heard of a woman who had been ill for a long time and who went to a mental healer for advice. She said she wanted to tell him frankly that although she had suffered a great deal, she didn’t know whether or not it was God’s will that she should get well, and she didn’t know whether it would be quite right for her to take the chances of displeasing God by taking steps to get well!

Among other troubles, this woman had a tumor on her neck, and she insisted that the healer should see how very bad it was, for she said he couldn’t possibly help her unless he knew all about it, her symptoms and all the details concerning the tumor. She had dwelt upon her troubles and defects so long that she was obsessed with them. She couldn’t see or think of anything else.

When she came for her first treatment the healer had ready a large vase of beautiful California roses, which were about the color of a natural, healthy pink skin. He told her to sit down and look at them, to drink in beauty, and to think about their perfection. To put her mind in a better condition to receive a treatment he made her look at the roses for a half hour. He told her that he didn’t want to hear anything about her troubles, because a healer must see only the person God made, the perfect, whole, complete being, with strong, robust health, otherwise he could not help anyone. He instructed her to hold the same thought; to hold in mind only the ideal which her Creator had of her, not to think of any blemish, weakness or disease.

The woman obeyed instructions, and under the influence of this dominant health thought, through the persistent holding of the health ideal, her tumor gradually grew smaller, shriveled up and all her troubles disappeared.

Such healings support the fact that the body is but objectified thought, and that when the thought is changed the body also must change. The habit of always thinking of ourselves, of every faculty and function, as complete, whole, as sublime, glorious, would gradually revolutionize our lives.

The time is rapidly coming when disease, sickness, will not be mentioned in the home; When all physical defects and weaknesses will be tabooed; when, instead of being saturated with illness and disease thoughts, children’s lives will be permeated with the health thought, the thought of wholeness, of completeness, physical and mental vigor, beauty, grace; when joy, gladness, optimism will take the place of the old discouraged, sickness and disease thought and conversation in the home.

In the future we shall live up to the health ideal our Maker designed for us, because we shall hold the right thought about ourselves. Merely stopping our aches and pains and curing disease is not enough. To be merely well is not achieving the real health ideal. The man that God planned was intended for a very different quality of health.

It is the overflowing fountain, not the one that is half full or just full, that makes the valley below green and glad. It is abounding health, health that is bubbling over, superabundant energy that counts. This is the health that makes mere living a joy.

If you charge your whole nature with the health ideal, if you think health, dream health, talk health; if you believe that you are going to be strong and healthy, because this is your birthright, your very magnetism will be healing to others. You will be a living illustration of the power of divine mind over all sickness and disease.