The Mental Highway
	The Psychology Of Religion <  Previous Contents

Any study of applied psychology would be incomplete without discussing its relation to religion. When Spinoza invented the phase, "the intellectual love of God," he paid tribute to those higher reaches of mind in which we find satisfaction in the idea of a Mind beyond which we cannot go and do not need to go. This is of course but one phase of the idea of God, for God is more than is at once apparent in the idea of mind. Purely mental activity is but one element of psychology evident in our ideas of God.

Experience and philosophy present to us the emotional Love of God in just as convincing a way as they do the intellectual element. In fact in the scriptures, while they nowhere state that God is mind, it does specifically say that "God is love." Emotions more often sway humanity than do purely intellectual processes. Their minds direct a few, but many are moved to action by their emotions.

The evident wisdom in the arrangements of the universe, and the orderly methods of procedure, all show the presence of purpose and the operation of Will so that we are ready to accept the statement that "He governs all things by the counsel of His own Will. "True, all things move according to well-established laws, but these are merely the channels through which His Power flows to the fulfilling of His wise purposes.

These are the elements of personality, so clearly present in any well balanced psychological study of God that even those who deny personality are constantly using the terms and implications of personality. Personality does not involve any idea of form or parts, although human personality does include this factor in personality. But to think and feel and will produce results in their interaction, which we call character. The seers of the ages have realized that God is "wise and just and good." That revelation of God, which has resulted in the highest type of character, always refers to God in the terms of personality, and never in impersonal terms.

It is also true that personality is the one and only channel through which truth has been given to the world. Every great idea which has furnished inspiration and motive to men has been multiplied and projected through personality. In every spoken and printed word the impress of personality is always evident.

Philosophy meets the apparent difficulties involved in personality, and reasonably interprets them in the third great category of mind called Quantity. This includes the truth of Unity, Plurality and Totality. In other words, there is One Being, One Mind, One Consciousness. There are many individual expressions of that One Mind, and the all-inclusive Mind holds these expressions. Theologically, the possibilities of personality are set forth in the doctrine of the Trinity, which represents God as expressing in three forms of personality, but His Unity is undisturbed. If God can express Himself in three forms of personality and His Being remains undivided, then logically He may express Himself in the countless forms of human personality and His Being remains undivided.

The strongest or greatest idea presented to the subconscious holds it. The greatest idea that the human mind can grasp in any psychological process looking toward health, peace, prosperity, or any other form of human welfare is the idea of God.

All possible powers are raised into actual operation when we are in conscious union with the One Mind. We can discount the limiting idea of the independent human mind having all power to do things in favor of oneness in actuality with the Absolute, by which "All power in heaven and earth (mind and body) is given into the hands of men, so that they shall speak and have it done, command and have it stand fast." This constantly reinforces our minds with the idea that while we "work out our welfare, it is God that works in us both to will and to do."

As the idea unfolds in our mind that God has made us in His image, which holds potentially all the powers of the Original, the consciousness arises of being the instrument of divine powers, the channel of divine intelligence and love, and the voice of the divine harmonies. Paul stated the result of this: "Of my own self I can do nothing, but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

The purely psychological value of the idea of religion is thus made clear: We conceive of the presence of unlimited skill backing us, and working with us to produce health. We can handle business projects, or achieve happiness through a harmonious adjustment with our fellows and our surroundings. When we are at the ends of our resources, we instinctively call for help to a power above ourselves. We may immeasurably heighten the effect of this calling by realizing that the God we call on is the Universal Servitor, who is not waiting to be prayed to, but to be worked with, who presents His powers to us in the words, "Concerning My sons and concerning the works of My hands, command ye Me" (Isaiah 45:11).

The sacred records of religion are nothing more nor less than the history of the unfoldment of human consciousness in the knowledge of God. All other matters are incidental. Whatever their value or authority, the psychological element is one infallible element in the Bible. It never trips, from first describing our conception of God as a being of fear, to at last beholding Him as a Being of Love. History bears out the fact that humanity’s progress has been graduated according as our ideas have held God as an object of fear, of reverence, or of love.

The value of these recorded experiences is that they are not just the single experiences of individuals, but the organized experiences of humanity. The Psalmist’s experience,

"I will say of the Lord, He is my strength," is the identical experience of countless people. These people having the same experiences and the same results under similar conditions have established a psychological criterion.

All psychological movement is from within outward. Jesus, the Master psychologist of all time, strictly followed this principle. "The kingdom of heaven is within you" sounds the true note of all his teaching. All our acts arise from inner impulses. All our conditions proceed from states of consciousness. The source of power is in our inner states of mind and feeling. When these are right, "out of his heart flow rivers of living water." We are to be born from above, out of animal and material and limited consciousness into divine, spiritual and absolute consciousness. The secret of the Master’s power lay in his consciousness of oneness with God. From that truth he drew all his wondrous authority over material things. He said that when the same truth made flesh and blood in him was also made flesh and blood in us, that the same life with its limitless power would begin to express in us.

He refused to be bound by time, and said, "before Abraham was I am." "The glory that I had with thee before the world was." He refused to be limited by spatial relations, and speaking of himself, said, "the Son of Man which is in heaven." He refused to be limited by custom. "The Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath." He refused to be bound by the conventional idea of death, "the Son of Man hath life in himself," "power to lay down his life and take it up again," and because he could do this, all might also do it. This is the full psychological significance of his work. Whatever he claimed and achieved for himself, he claimed and declared is possible of achievement for all his disciples.

When his disciples found themselves unable to cast out a devil, which he went on to do, they said, "why couldn’t we cast him out?" He told them they couldn’t because they didn’t believe that they could. He gave them a formula by which they could attain that full confidence in the power potentially within them. The psychological worth of the incident is invaluable. It clarifies why we do not succeed at any task, because we do not clearly understand our inner resources and therefore do not believe that we can. Few people have done what they didn’t believe could be done, and few have failed when they really believed, with a belief based upon a full consciousness of their powers, that they could and would do it.

Paul used the same exact psychological procedure. "Forgetting the things that are behind, I press toward the mark of my high calling, etc." Here is the method by which we can avoid the certain failure that results when we fix our attention on effects rather than on causes. The only true psychology is to forget successes and failures alike. No success is anything more than partial, no failure can be more than temporary. Keep your vision set on the goal. That is the only reality. The moment we begin rejoicing over our successes, or lamenting over our apparent failures, we are like the disciples who "rejoiced that the devils were subject to them rather than that their names were written in heaven."

Paul spoke of the method by which men become fully conscious of the inherent powers and direct them to full maturity of growth and expression: "The mystery which has been hidden for ages is now revealed to us by the apostles and prophets, Christ in you, the hope of glory." This is clearly a state of consciousness, by which we turn our attention from human powers to godlike powers, and he describes it in the terms of growth. It is a state of consciousness that in its beginning answers to birth, then babes, then children, then adults, in the full stature of maturity, finally as a state of consciousness in which "Christ lives in me."

Paul sets forth the psychological value of this idea in the great formula, "For we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a minor, the glory of the Lord are changed from glory to glory, after his image, by the Spirit of the Lord." This declares that realizing that the potential powers of God are within us, we have but to hold clearly before our minds the image of a life that fully expresses these powers and some inner creative process will steadily build us into the same perfect expression. This is the same principle that operates whether the image we hold is that of success, or harmony, or happiness, or health, or any other condition that we wish to express.

The same power that produces one of these effects will produce all of them. It is a quality resident in all life and is therefore divine. It is unconscious in all forms including humanity, and in us is also conscious. We call it the power of mimicry, by which we hold the subconscious focused, to produce in us an imitation of the mental idea that we hold. It never fails.

Religion emphasizes the gifts or graces God bestowed upon us because of our right relationship with Him. Some people believe that His government of the world is similar to a Christmas tree: God bestows these gifts and benefits upon us like ornaments, as a reward for right attitude, because of our prayer or importunity. One has but to view the matter in the light of psychological principles the Master taught to see that the peach tree plan suggests the real principle. The fruits and gifts are the results of the processes of the tree life itself. All our adversities are the result of wrong inward states, and all our blessings accrue as the result of right mental states.

Prayer, in the light of psychological principles, consists in thinking the thoughts of God. His thoughts are only good, health, love, peace, abundance and every right thought. We do not have to inform the One Mind of our needs, since the same high authority teaches us that "He knows what things we need before we ask Him." Nor is praying with the idea of changing His mind necessary, or to get something that we would not otherwise have gotten. The same authority assures us that "He has freely given us all things." Prayer is simply reaching that inner state of mind where we receive that which is already ours. In other words, prayer is a process of becoming conscious of that which is.

Religious worship consists of using certain forms and symbols of truth. This results in order and dignity in a public gathering of people but we lose its value if the symbol replaces the idea for which the symbol stands. Bowing at the cross becomes a species of fetishism if the worshiper sees only the cross and does not discern the spirit of service for which it stands. Repeating prayers and creeds, and singing songs becomes a "tinkling symbol" unless one discerns and reaches the idea for which they stand.

Religion, being the exercise of the higher spiritual side of the mind called the superconscious, we must state its supreme truths in such forms and symbols as the conscious mind can understand. Jesus highlights this fact in his statement that if he had told them the inner truths about earthly things and they were not able to receive them, expecting that they could receive what he might tell them of heavenly things was hopeless. Paul, caught up to the "third heaven" of spiritual illumination, found it impossible to express, even in symbols, the truths of being and activity as he beheld them in spiritual reality.

These only confirm the method of prophets and seers, who use figures and symbols to convey the results of their high visioning. No other method is possible. The conscious mind can grasp the idea of Infinite Mind, or eternity, no better than it can grasp the more material idea of boundless space. At best it can faintly glimpse the reality for which the symbol stands. Psychology reveals the existence of a side to consciousness that is able fully to grasp absolute truth, to think the thoughts of God, and to engage in the highest spiritual activities without the use of symbolism, but when it would bring these ideas and experiences into conscious form, it must resort to symbols.

Psychologically speaking, we can at any moment, for any purpose of good, call into use a power in us that is direct its operation and infallibly certain. The dominion promised us in the beginning is still potentially ours. We were to have "dominion over the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the field and over every living thing that moves on the earth." We have already achieved that, and have moved up to dominion over the material forces of creation, the earth, the air and the sea. These are only the first lessons in learning the mastery of the real powers of Mind and of Spirit. When we have conquered this lesson, we find that in mastering these higher and real powers, all else is ours. The mastery of material forces is like learning the addition and multiplication tables, which leads to understanding the changeless principles of mathematics. The science of Being is the goal. We may know it, and it is therefore a science. We may understand it, and it is therefore a science and a philosophy. We may practice it, and it is therefore and art, and the highest art of living.