Book Description and Excerpts
There is a law of healing so plain that even a child can understand it, so fundamental that the ablest mind has never yet thought through all the facts and phenomena of life that rest upon it. It is the purpose of this book to make this law plain. This book is written to teach the one simple law of mind–The Law–which anyone can understand and use, and which if used will give freedom, joy, health, supply, and peace to the one who uses it. This is a big claim, but it is supported by the Bible, by the Great Teacher, and by the experience of thousands now living.

The greatest power in the world is the power of thought, for it is Creative Mind in action. Nothing exists that did not first exist in thought from the first sun that blazed only in the Mind of the Creator, to the last doll-dress fashioned by a childish hand. Science supports the fact that the first movement in nature can have come only from the application of an immaterial force or Will to the primary etheric particles otherwise in a perfect state of equilibrium. It must leave to metaphysics not only an explanation of the Will that moves but also the substance that is moved. This, then, it is the province of this book to show with all that it entails. Since an act of Will is an act of mind, we concern ourselves with the activity of a Creative Mind. Again since Mind acts creatively, there is a way in which it acts. We must also, therefore, teach the way. It is to teach this way that the Bible was written, that Jesus lived and taught. This way has been known for many centuries but has always been taught in terms of the understanding of the day in which the teacher lived. The Great Metaphysician taught largely in parables and oriental figures of speech. But He taught “the Way” and his followers were called the People of the Way.

The “way” is the law and today the understanding of it as law enables us to put, in a few simple statements which all can understand, the principles of the law, which, if learned and used, will enable anyone to control the conditions of his body, mind, and environment. Anyone can learn how to use it.

It is clear to us that it is natural to use the power of Mind and that the greatest happiness results from its exercise.

Mind is so constituted that it must act, it must express that which it feels itself to be. All nature points to the tact that wherever action ceases, death, or negation, begins. Mind is the very spirit of the life in nature and therefore is eternally active. Yet it is also infinite repose for it is that out of which all activity springs and by which it is sustained. In this book we are not dealing so much with that great potential of activity which we call being as with the law by which it acts. We are concerned not so much with the contemplation of the Life, Love, and Wisdom, which is God or Being, as with the way Spirit manifests. How life becomes health, how love becomes happiness, and how wisdom becomes wealth, we desire to know. As these are all qualities of mind, and in their pure state are undifferentiated into form, we realize that when they begin to pass out into individual expression, it must be by the process of thinking. That is the only way mind can act. So that the Creative process is simply Mind in action, or Mind thinking its Life, Love and Wisdom into form. Mind in action is always creative, but it is also thought. Thought acts in Mind to create. Or mind first produces thought and then reacts to it to become that which it has thought. This is the whole law of creation. Mind creates what it thinks. The many forms pass out of the one Mind, but each form has a corresponding thought which produces and sustains it.

Mind in action is, therefore, also the law. We call it the law of cause and effect. Law is the principle on which mind works. For every primary cause is in the mind and the effect is simply the form which thought has taken. Thought is first cause, in any created series, and form is effect.

Thought acts upon mind to produce things. Since things are made out of mind they are simply thought in form, but they maintain form and reality only so long as they are sustained by the thought.

The Law, therefore, may be defined as mind in action producing the many out of the one by the power of thought, and this book is written to furnish a daily meditation on the highest of all themes–man’s control of his own body, happiness, circumstances and environment by the thoughts which he thinks. The knowledge and use of thought and the law of mind in action is the knowledge of which Jesus spoke when he said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” May these pages free many to the glorious wisdom of Mind in Action.

FENWICKE L. HOLMES.

METAPHYSICS–WHAT IT IS DOES

Our study of applied metaphysics is designed to make clear these facts: In the beginning there is only Mind or Spirit. Whatever is made, therefore, must be made out of Mind. Mind can act only by thinking; therefore it is thought that takes the substance called mind and moulds it into form.  God makes a world out of himself. As everything in the cosmos starts in thought and manifests in form, creation is the process by which the activity takes place. We may call it evolution or we may call it law. By law we mean the method Spirit follows in making things. This is the law of cause and effect whether it be in the making of a planet or a man; the thought is the cause and the manifestation is the effect. Even the so-called laws of the physical universe are simply the activity of this one law in some form.

WHAT IT DOES

Metaphysics, therefore, teaches us how we may govern our bodies, our world, and our happiness by the thoughts we think; for it declares that man reproduces the creative method and that what is true in the macrocosm or universe is true in the microcosm or individual, that thoughts become things. And it claims that by acquiring the knowledge of the law, and by working in harmony with it, man can be freed from limitations of all kinds.

Our subsequent studies will reveal that the creative mind in man, and the creative mind in the universe are not two, but rather essentially one. The value of this understanding is that we may use universal creative forces to secure the good we desire, without feeling that we have to create. We do not make the law, we use it, and it does our work for us.

All healing accordingly, is divine. “It is done unto us even as we will,” it is not done by us. Human will originates its own ideas but Divine Mind creates. The healer is not the source, but the channel; not the light, but the window; not the electricity, but the wire. He is the teacher who will guide to the truth until the patient learns the way for himself.

So all metaphysical healing is based on the principle, that the body of man and his affairs are created by the mind which can either build or destroy, and that this mind is controlled by thought. Jesus was the Supreme Metaphysician because He could speak the word of authority to mind so positively that when He said, “Rise and take up thy bed,” the paralytic did as was commanded him to do.

It is evident that Jesus used a law that is open to the use of everybody. The constitution of man has not changed nor his essential nature, and so today men are demonstrating this power. I count it as the greatest work that today engages the attention of mankind–not the mere healing, but the advancement of the knowledge of these things in a world of need.
 

For it is a knowledge, or as we say, a science or philosophy. And it takes a real mind to understand it. Metaphysics engages the mind. We must think, and rich and fruitful are the results of logical thinking. By it we move back along the path of history and science and logical deduction into the realm of Original Causation. We find ourselves entering into the field where all is Spirit in the beginning of things. We see the Spirit or Cosmic Mind taking the initial step in the creation of the universe. We are at a period before Substance or matter is in existence so that we know that the All-Originating Mind could have but one mode of activity–that of thought. By the process of thought Spirit projects a substance as universal as itself which we call ether. By Acting upon Ether the Creative Mind brings into being planetary systems, earth and all its myriad forms and life.

To test this we may reverse the process of our thought and begin with science. We take so-called matter and analyze it into its constituent elements, to the molecule, then to the atom, then to the aeon, then to the electron, and finally to primary ether, which science declares to be the ultimate source of matter. Now science cannot tell whence came this ultimate substance, nor how it received its energy. That is the task of metaphysics and metaphysics meets the problem squarely by declaring energy to be the thought of the Creative Mind. 


So that whatsoever way we approach our subject we find an underlying unity to all things–ether, from the material standpoint; mind, from the mental. Back of all things then is the Divine Mind or Spirit through whose concept the world springs into existence. We thus find ourself living in an idealistic universe, a universe which in its essential nature is purely spiritual and therefore subject to the Control of Thought Alone. This is the underlying unity which relates all parts to the great whole–man and nature to the Divine Mind which brought all into existence. It was the great achievement of Moses to discover this underlying unity, or rather to learn it from the Ancient Egyptian priesthood and reveal it to the Israelitish people. It is the greatest fact or precept of the Old Testament, which led Jesus when asked which was the greatest commandment to quote these words, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one.”
It is the work of metaphysics to show that man can put himself into harmony with this One Originating Source and work in unison with the Creative Purpose, and thus be able to accomplish all things.
 

I am now entered into the consideration of the greatest theme that ever engaged the intellect of man for I am making no less a study than the Way of God with men. I therefore claim from the Divine Intelligence that makes and sustains the universe, the necessary mental capacity and intuition to perceive the great truths of metaphysics. I hold that only the truth will appeal to me and that no error of false judgment will be able to enter my mind to stay there. No previous thought or prejudice shall be allowed to influence me against reason in my study of the new order. I dare to go all the way with truth for Truth is God and God is all. So far as I see the light, I will follow it, and I shall not think that the traditions of men are of more value than my own logical conclusions. I commit my ways and my thoughts to God, I trust in the divine illumination which can come to my own soul and I venture out in faith on the new pathways of understanding. I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me. I now claim the near and dear presence of Divine Love and Wisdom. I rejoice in the Heart of the World and in my share in the activities of the Divine Creative Mind. Thou, O Lord, art with me alway even unto the ends of the earth. I worship and bow down, I kneel before the Lord my God. I am at one with Infinite Life, Love, and Wisdom and I give thanks for the light that now begins to illumine my pathway.