The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore

are but faint manifestations of an omnipresent element which is thousands of times greater than these weak expressions.

      Radio is opening up a new field of activity in the use of the spoken word. A newspaper article on the wireless telephone says:

      Do You happen to know that a single word spoken in lower Broadway, New York, among the skyscrapers, could break every pane of glass in adjacent buildings and create a disturbance that would be felt for a mile in every direction?

      The human voice, transformed into electrical energy for wireless transmission, develops 270 hp. The power of 10 men equal to 1 hp. The human voice electrified for wireless purposes is equivalent to the power of 2,700 men. in the various processes that stuff up a voice for radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes 135,000 times more powerful than when uttered by a person sending the message.

      Thus, starting with an initial energy of 1/1000 of an electrical watt, the voices boosted by powerful station until it is intensified 100 million times.

      If the spoken word can mean mechanically intensified 100 million times, how much greater will be its power when energized by Spirit! when Jesus said with a loud voice to Lazarus "come forth," He must've had contact with the creative word referred to in the 1st chapter of John, because the results showed its life-giving character. When he healed the centurion's servant by His word sent forth on invisible currents, He said that the work was done through faith. So faith must boost the spoken word even more than 100 million times, as evidenced by its marvelous results. That the word of faith has an inner force, and that this force rushes forth and produces remarkable transformations in the phenomenal world, is the testimony of thousands who have witnessed its results.

      Jesus said: " if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." He knew about the great spiritual machinery that the word of faith sets into action. He illustrated how man spiritually developed could by faith control the elements, quell storms, walk on water, retard or increase the growth of life and substance in grains, trees, animals, and men.

      The ponderous dynamos that generate electricity to light a city are set going by a touch on a button. There is a button in the mind of man that connects him, through faith, with almighty energy. When the word of faith is spoken to large tumors and they melt away, is not the transformation equal to the removal of mountains? When a paralyzed limb, or a lifeless organ, is quickened and restored to natural functioning, is not that quickening a raising of the dead?

      It is not necessary that the one who touches the button of faith shall understand all the intricate machinery with which he makes contact; he knows, like one who turns the electric switch, that the light or power will spring forth. The faith center, the pineal gland, opens the mind of man to spiritual faith. Merely affirming the activity of this superpower will quicken it in consciousness. Jesus said, "I speak not from myself: but the Father [faith] abiding in me doeth his works."

      The transformers of electricity are paralleled by the transforming power of mind. That if a man sanely believes he can do a thing he will eventually find a way to do it is an accepted axiom of psychology. The mind generates an energy that contacts the universal energy, and causes circumstances and events to fall into line for the attainment of the latent ideal. John came crying in the wilderness of mortal thought, "Repent ye"; that is, change your mind. Paul discerned a like necessity, hence his call: "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."

      When people see the possibilities that follow a right change of mind, they will crowd the halls of metaphysical teachers as they now crowd moving-picture shows. When it is clearly understood that doubt, fear, poverty, disease, and death--every thought, good or bad, that men have expressed--have existence through mind we shall see a shifting of consciousness and a radical change in thought and word by everybody of sane mind. Then we shall ask for the true source and find it, as did Paul, who said: "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." It was not Jesus but the mind in Jesus that did the great works. He was the center of faith that transformed the mighty creative forces of Being (which are active in the universe through the mind and brain of man) into a form of force usable in His environment. Tap this inner reservoir of faith, and you can do what Jesus did. That was His promise; its fulfillment is the test of a true follower.

      "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death . . . By faith Noah . . . prepared a ark to the saving of his house . . . By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac . . . By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents . . . By faith the walls of Jericho fell down . . . And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection."

      Chapter III

      Strength, Stability, Steadfastness

       Table of Contents

      WHEN the strong man fully armed guardeth his own court, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him his whole armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils.

      Jesus gave the foregoing illustration of a strong man's being overcome by a stronger. The incident is mentioned in three of the Gospels, those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. It is usually interpreted as illustrating in a general way the overcoming of evil, but the peculiar identification of the strong man in his court (or house), and the necessity of overcoming him, hint at a deeper significance. One who has studied man as an aggregation of personalities readily identifies the "strong man" as one of the twelve foundation powers that make up the manifest man. Among the apostles of Jesus the strong man is designated as Andrew, brother of Peter. The Greek meaning of Andrew is "strong man."

      The development of the natural world from coarser to finer types in vegetable life and in animal life is paralleled in many respects in the unfoldment of man. The source of everything is in the realm of ideas; a knowledge of this fact, coupled with faith in the working power of the unseen, makes man greater than all other expressions of Divine Mind. However, knowledge of the law of mind evolution does not relieve man of the necessity of refining and transmuting the various types of man that he has brought forth, and of which he is the epitome.

      The Jehovah man is constantly making the Adam man and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. The Adam man exists in the subconsciousness as a multitude of men: The wise man and the foolish man, the kind man and the cruel man, the loving man and the hateful man, the stingy man and the generous man, the hungry man and the full man, the happy man and the troubled man, the weak man and the strong man, the good man and the bad man, the live man and the dead man, the poor man and the rich man, the timid man and the courageous man, the sick man and the healthy man, the old man and the young man, the erratic man and the sane man--these, and a thousand other types of man as active personalities, occupy the consciousness of every human being. Every male has within him the female and every female has within her the male. This fact is admitted by physiology, substantiating the Genesis record of the ideal creation of man as "male and female," and his expression in Adam and Eve as the male and female in one man. The fact was corroborated by the Great Teacher when He said, "Have ye not read, that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female?"

      The "strong man fully armed," referred to by Jesus, is the strength and stability in man. In the natural man he is manifest as physical strength, but in the regeneration he is overcome and his possessions are divided or given to the other faculties as a nucleus around which the higher forces gather. The "stronger than he" who takes away the "whole armor" in which the strong man trusted is spiritual strength. The overcoming of Goliath by David illustrates the mastery of the spiritual over the material. Goliath trusted in his armor, which represents the protective power of matter and material conditions. David, spiritual strength, had no armor or material protection. David's power was gained by trust