The Mental Highway
	The Psychology Of Health <  Previous Contents Next  >

We hear of mortal mind and Divine Mind, conscious, subconscious and superconscious, until we are apt to think that there are many minds, when in fact, there is but One Mind, which functions in different ways. Subconscious mind is that vast, uncharted realm of mental activity that plays so great a part in our material, mental and spiritual well being. It is forever busy in the functional operation of our bodies. Countless subconscious mental processes precede one conscious mental operation. It likewise plays a large part in what we term the spiritual activities of our being.

The subconscious was originally part of the undivided Mind of the Universe, that is, before Mind or Being created any individual expressions. When, in the creative process, Life or Mind took individual form of expression, it brought into this limited form all the qualities of the Absolute. It arose by an evolutionary process until life reached the human form, but all the memories and impressions and experiences of all our past had clothed it. These constitute the "mist" through which Mind functions as subconscious, which is referred to in Genesis: "there went up a mist over the whole earth!" An individual subconscious mind, functioning through this mist, does not see clearly, but "sees through a glass darkly," as Paul says. The basic principle of mind as manifested in the subconscious is divine in origin.

Subconscious powers: We read that "man was made in the image of God," and since an image contains all the elements of its original within itself, it follows that humanity is the embodiment of all the principles of Universal Being. Whatever there is in Absolute Mind is potentially present in His human image. Since the Absolute is apart from all spatial and time relationships, we shall expect to find some reflection of that fact in humanity. In the subconscious we find a sense of absolute time, space, mathematics, harmony, etc.

The subconscious always knows the exact time. We can charge the subconscious to awaken at a given time and soon find the power to do so. We can practice imaging the face of a clock with the idea of seeing where the hands stand, and in a short time can look within and know the exact time. If we try to calculate the passage of time by conscious mental methods, it becomes a species of guessing, but when we acquire skill in letting the subconscious register, we have an absolute timepiece within.

This is essentially a reflection or image of the power of Divine Mind with which "a thousand years are as a day, etc." Absolute Mind is an eternal now. There is no yesterday nor tomorrow in the Absolute Mind. Occasionally some seer or prophet will clear away the mists of matter, the Divine Mind within will function on its superconscious or divine plane, and he will see things as present in Absolute Mind that are a thousand years in the future as measured by human experience.

The subconscious holds a sense of absolute space. In Absolute Mind there is only here. Clairvoyants, in their moments of deepest and clearest perception frequently exclaim, "Everywhere is here," meaning that no space exists in mind. When thinking of a friend, you do not need to project your thought across space. You merely call your friend’s name and he is present. This reveals the kinship in all mind, for in Absolute Mind there is no up nor down, in nor out, here or there, only here and now in space and time.

Mathematical prodigies attain a perfect and instantaneous mastery of all mathematical problems without any objective knowledge of the principles of mathematics. Many people have wrestled with a problem in mathematics, and given it up only to have it projected into conscious attention as a dream. They knew the solution instantly in the subconscious, but it could not register what it knew until sleep inhibited the objective activities.

The subconscious has a sense of the absolute science of chemistry. It knows exactly every chemical action and reaction. It carries on the most elaborate chemical processes in the digestive processes daily, and the functional activities of the kidneys, liver and other organs of the body without making a single mistake. In fact, the subconscious holds a perfect knowledge of every principle of being as it applies to human life. This is why Paul said, that we are to "work out our welfare, because it is God that works in us both to will and to do."

Subconscious mind’s work: When mind functions as subconscious, its characteristic task is that of the builder. It has built everybody in which life has been incarnated. When it started with single cell life it had within it the idea of the human form divine, and it continued through all the ages to move upward to at last perfect our complex organism. It never lets any variation of expression turn it from the final completed work.

Through all those ages it preserved the memories of all the structures it had built and repeated them in its successive buildings. Some forty-three vestigial remains of our animal ancestry remain in the human body, such as the tip of the ear and the fan-shaped muscles on the side of the head, none of which have any functional capacity. The Bible recalls to us that we have more than thirty mental characteristics that are purely animal in their origin. Moreover, in the first six weeks of the fetal life of the child, it repeats the six great stages of material creation, and only in the sixth week does it take on the human form divine. We give these facts to show the marvelous fidelity of the subconscious to a plan or an idea.

Therefore, we get the next characteristic of the subconscious. It builds according to plan. It never forgets and changes only when we substitute another plan. It follows a given idea without fail unless we substitute another idea to replace the one with which it is working. It has no power to originate, substitute or change ideas or plans, because it has no power to reason by comparison, and, therefore, it does not question the good, bad, right or wrong of anything it may be doing. It is a builder only.

The conscious functioning of our mind is how we may plan our contacts with the material world. It is the architect that plans our body, health, strength, material conditions, moral character, or whatever else is to enter our experiences. We do this with our thought and speech. Our subconscious accepts whatever we think and speak as the plan for the immediate future, and it goes to work to externalize it in our body and circumstances.

The subconscious always accepts the strongest idea in a sentence, and if that idea is a negative, it works out a negative result. If the conscious thought is about weakness, the great builder will reproduce weakness. If the mind dwells upon pain, pain will increase. If we think of poverty and lack, the builder will see to it that we count pennies instead of dollars, while we keep up the wrong thinking. If we fill the mind with ideas of health, the great builder will marshal all its abilities to bring it into expression. If we think abundance, it will draw like a magnet upon undreamed of resources, and abundance will fill us. If we think health, love, harmony and happiness, we will discover a builder within us who never fails to carry out the idea we submit to it.

These are the general psychological facts that underlie all the health giving processes. The following suggestions will give an idea of how we may employ them to alter every wrong condition of life and bring about ideal conditions for anyone who will intelligently and persistently use them.

Suggestion is an act or process by which we make an idea to penetrate the subconscious to hold its attention to the exclusion of other ideas. A simple direct statement may do it, such as "you are going to sleep." The influence of circumstances may do it, such as when we enter the bedroom, we put on pajamas or nightgown. We take the position of sleep, we relax our muscles, the room is dark, and thoughts of sleep fill our mind. We may do it by steady affirmation of the various steps in going to seep, such as, "you are relaxed, eyes are heavy, mind is quiet, getting drowsy and sleepy, going to sleep." Whatever the method may be, whenever we cause the idea of sleep to penetrate and hold the subconscious attention, sleep follows. We use sleep as an illustration of the principle, but no matter what the idea may be when we cause it to enter and hold the subconscious attention, it at once becomes the dominant thought, and directs the action and operation of the subconscious.

If we hold to the idea of ease instead of pain, until it is the dominant thought, then subconscious action will produce ease. If health is the dominant thought, the subconscious will cease to build sickness in the body and will clothe it with health. If we clearly hold the idea of oneness with the Divine Mind, a sense of power within arises, which excludes all the wrong effects of thinking that we are a broken-off fragment of life, dependent on favor and circumstance, and enables us to manifest the works of God, which are always good.

No matter what the school of teaching, nor what its special methods may be, a strong underlying framework of psychological procedure lies at the base of all its efforts to heal and help. No amount of denial can alter the scientific fact, although it may camouflage it for a time. No dogmatic claim can long stand in the face of investigation by scientific method, for denial of matter and denial of the use of suggestion are forms of suggestion. The recognition of these laws of the mind and the fact that there is a scientific procedure in their use is desirable, instead of the implication that one is "following a cunningly devised fable."

Subconscious action goes on whether you wake or sleep. It keeps the heart beating, the blood circulating, equalizes the temperature of the body, carries on an elaborate chemical process, takes care of the body’s trillions of cells, and completely rebuilds every cell every nine months. Imagine how inconvenient watching your heart all day would be, or to see that it did not stop beating while you sleep.

The subconscious registers and records every conscious thought. It sets every wrong idea, of sickness, failure or poverty, which you permit yourself to think, to work to express in your body or circumstances. Likewise, it at once sets to work every good thought of health, harmony, happiness and prosperity and success. If you do half an hour of right thinking during the day and fifteen and a half hours of wrong thinking, you can see the proportion of results you may surely expect. A single thought may enter the mind with such illumination that we will shed the ills of the body in a moment. Surrendering to the withering effects of a few minutes of the wrong thinking, anger and passion can undo the result of years of right thinking. Right thinking all the time is the only way. Get the habit.

The process of thinking for results is very simple. First determine what you want done. Hold strongly to the fact that the power to do it is within you, and that it will do, just what you direct it to do. Then hold a clear mental image of the completed work before your mind. Know that the idea that you hold is reality.

Your subconscious is a master builder, but it must have an architect’s plan, and your perfected idea is that plan. It is a construction engineer, and that perfect idea is the blueprint by which it carries out the work. The method is as certain as mathematic principles, or those of logic. Two plus two never equal anything but four, and the whole of anything is equal to the sum of all its parts — nothing less and nothing more. You are working now in an exact science. Stick to the known principles and you will get results.

You can rebuild your body into the image of perfect health, abounding energy and radiant beauty, by following this simple but scientific method. You can brighten and strengthen any faculty of mind. A weakening of its functional power will surely follow "I am losing my memory," while a renewed grip of memory power always follows "I have perfect memory, I remember everything that I want to remember." Slow mental processes will quicken under the suggestion of "Cold, keen-edged with wisdom." An imperfect judgment will get in line when you tell it, "I look all the facts squarely in the face," or "I see clearly the outcome in the light of all the facts." A wavering will responds to the idea, "I hold unwaveringly to my purpose. My will has the grip of a bulldog’s jaw."

The exercise of the higher spiritual powers, such as faith, hope and love respond perfectly to these right suggestions. Your affairs, your business, your social, domestic and other relationships gather strength and effectiveness through the power of right suggestion, "Everything is coming my way" will cure the mental habit of "losing" things. "Everybody thinks well of me" will have a strong tendency to cause you to do those things that will bring a fulfillment of the statement.

The only way that you can know these statements to be true is to try them. They are only beliefs if you accept them but do not put them into operation. You can believe anything, even a lie, but you cannot know a lie. You can know only the truth, and the only way you can know the truth is by doing the truth until you have become it. Then it is your very own. You do not need to make a lot of affirmations, or use formulas. You simply know the truth and it makes you free. Affirmations and suggestions are useful in arriving at a knowledge of a given truth, but when it becomes one’s habits of mind to think in a certain way, it has become a matter of his permanent conscious state. He has only to turn his attention to the fact in consciousness and act at once upon it. It ceases to be a series of affirmations and becomes a state of realization.

This lesson is to show you the way to establish a conscious state of health, prosperity, happiness, rightness of thinking and living, so that it becomes the normal thing for you to display these, so that you make no calculation of anything else arising in your life. The power is in you to do this very thing. It does not require any special talents or gifts. Just take the natural endowments you have, whether they are many or few, and work with them in the light of the creative power within you — you can bring them up to the Nth power of expression. You will discover that latent powers, of which you knew nothing, will arise and go into action as you begin to declare for more power to carry out your life purposes.