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In the book, “A New
Design For Living,” written by Dr. Holmes and Willis Kinnear,
Dr. Holmes defines 4-Steps of spiritual treatment, or affirmative
prayer. Each step begins a process in mind to shift our
consciousness toward G-d, or the Good.
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Recognition:
I know that there is One
Presence, One Power, One Life, One Intelligence, One Substance. It
is perfect, whole, complete, and harmonious. It is the source of
all things and is in and through all things. There is nothing
separate from It. There is nothing that can limit Its action,
there is nothing that can be separate from Its action. It always
knows what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. It is the
limitless source of every good thing. It is all joy, all
happiness, love, harmony, and perfection in all that It is and
does.
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Identification:
There is One life , that
Life is God, that Life is perfect, that Life is my life, now.
There is nothing in me or in my experience separate from God.
"I am that which Thou art, Thou art that which I am."
What I am is God in me as me. I now rid my mind of any and all
ideas of isolation and separation from God, and know that as I now
turn to Him I permit and Partake of an increased flow and influx
of the Divine nature as what I am. I am one with God--all that is.
My mind is a focal point, an individualization, of the Mind of
God, the One Creative Power. The word I speak, the declaration I
make is the word of God going forth through me into new tangible
creation. In accord with the Law of Mind my word is its own
fulfillment.
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Declaration:
This word I speak is for me,
about me, is the truth of me. There is nothing in my mind, or the
mind of another, that can deny it. Its action and fulfillment
cannot be delayed, deferred, or hindered. I know, affirm, and
declare that Divine Intelligence, the Mind of God, now guides and
directs my every thought, my every action. I know what to do, when
to do it, and how to do it. Every good idea I have carries with it
the knowledge of the ways and means for its achievement. I am
vigorous and whole. I possess the vitality of the Infinite. I am
strong and well. God's Life is my life, now. His strength is my
strength. His power is my power. My whole being is renewed,
invigorated, made alive. There is peace, a Divine harmonious,
dynamic, creative action at the center of my being. Every breath I
draw, every beat of my heart, is the perfect rhythmic action of
Life Itself. The expression of the One Perfect Life in me as me is
now perfectly maintaining every atom, cell, and organ of my body.
My body is a Divine idea in the Mind of God and no thing, no
situation or condition can prevent Its full and complete
expression in and as me. God created my body, knows how to
maintain it, to remove what doesn't belong, and to rebuild it.
This is occurring right now. Without reservation I know I now
manifest and experience in all fullness and completeness God's
perfect idea of me, and in all respects, every action, function,
and structure of my body now conforms to it. There is perfect
assimilation, circulation, and elimination. All that I am is one
with the One Perfect Life. All the joy there is, all the
happiness, all the beauty are now mine. I am born of the Spirit. I
am in the Spirit. I am the Spirit made manifest.
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Acceptance:
I now
accept the creative action of the words I have spoken as the law
and the thing whereunto they are directed. They go forth into
immediate fulfillment. Right now are they fully manifest. There is
no delay, there is nothing that can prevent them from now being
fully and completely fulfilled in my experience. They are words of
power and of good. I accept them, I know they are the truth of
that which I am. In and through them God goes forth anew into
creation. It is now done, it is now complete. For this knowledge,
for this understanding, I am grateful. I give thanks that all this
is so. I know and accept that there is One Life, that Life is God,
that Life is perfect, and that Life is my life now. Right now.
And so it is.
The Dynamics of
Spiritual Mind Treatment / Affirmative Prayer
Spiritual
Mind Treatment - also called "spiritual treatment" or simply
"treatment" - is affirmative prayer. It is effective
prayer.
Affirmative prayer is a definite act of
the conscious mind, setting the Law of Mind in motion for the idea
specified in the prayer. The person stating an affirmative
prayer believes that their word is operated upon by an intelligent,
creative Power which has at Its disposal the ways, the methods, the
means, and the inclination to make manifest their prayer at the level
of their faith in It, creating those circumstances which are the
logical outcome of the ideas embodied in their prayer.
If we wish to demonstrate
supply (money), for example, we would not say, "I am a
millionaire," but we would seek to realize that Infinite
Substance is limitless supply. We would say,
"I
am surrounded by pure Spirit, God, perfect Law, Divine Order, and by
limitless Substance, which intelligently responds to me. It is
not only around me, but it is also in me; it is around and in
everything. It is the essence of perfect action. It is
perfect action in my affairs. Daily I am guided by Divine
Intelligence. I am not allowed to make mistakes. I am
compelled to make the right choice at the right time. There is
no confusion in my mind, no doubt whatsoever. I am certain,
expectant, and receptive."
As a result of statements such as
these we re-educate our mind, re-creating and re-directing the
subjective state of our thought.
CONVICTION:
In giving a spiritual mind treatment, or praying effectively, we
proceed in a definite and scientific manner. It is necessary
that we have as our initial premise an absolute conviction that there
is a spiritual Law of Mind which molds our thought into tangible
form. But back of this intellectual and mental conviction there
needs to be added a spiritual conviction of it - a spiritual
conviction that our world is impulsed by love, governed by reason,
controlled through law, and that it is primarily a unity; that there
is a Divine urge toward self-expression; and that God Himself is
infinite Being, creating by Self-pronouncement. The intellectual
conviction is one of law and order. The spiritual conviction
imbues the world of law and order with warmth and color and emotion.
We start with the intellectual and
emotional conviction that the manifest universe is a thing of law and
order, that it is primarily an expression of Spirit or God-Mind.
Back of the physical world there is a mental or spiritual world.
The physical world is visible ... the spiritual world is
invisible. Whenever any given "cause" is established
in the spiritual world it tends to create a physical correspondent in
the objective world. Thoughts become things. Mental
states, aggregations of mental states, become objective conditions.
INTENTION:
The next aspect after absolute conviction is definite intention.
It is natural for us to have conviction, for us to believe there will
be a result to our prayer or spiritual mind treatment, or else we
would not undertake it to begin with. However, too often a
definite intention is not included because we may feel that what God
wants us to have He will give us. But we would not say:
"What God wants us to have He will give us, therefore we will not
harness electric energy. What God wants us to have He will give
us, therefore we will not cultivate the desert. What God wants
us to have He will give us, therefore we will not bother to invent an
automobile or a steamship or an airplane." Of course not!
We have to have a definite
intention regarding what we are going to do with the Power.
Since the Power tapped by prayer may be used in one instance to heal
someone, ten minutes later we may use it to make someone happy, and
the next time it may help someone secure a job, we must be clear about
what our particular intention is in any given circumstance. It
we give a spiritual mind treatment for the healing of someone's
physical ailment, that treatment is different, although it is founded
on the same principle, form the kind of treatment we would give if we
were treating someone who wished employment.
CONSCIOUS APPLICATION:
If we are going to make definite use of the Principle involved we must
not only have conviction and intention, but we must also use conscious
application - this is the next aspect. For instance, we
capture the energy of the waterfall and we intend that it shall light
a building. But we must consciously apply it to that
purpose. Likewise, with spiritual Energy, even if we believe in
it and have clear intention, it will never produce an actual effect if
it is unused. This is where people often fail to use the
Principle intelligently and scientifically, therefore their results
are haphazard, chaotic, spasmodic. In order to make a scientific
use of this Power, we must first believe that it is, know exactly what
we want to use it for, then state that it is now operating in a
particular place, for a particular purpose or person, at a particular
time.
A TREATMENT IS SPECIFIC:
The process of spiritual mind treatment begins with this
concept: Perfect God, Perfect Man, Perfect Being. That is
the basis of the conviction we must have. The person who needs
our help is a part of this "Perfect God, Perfect Man, Perfect
Being." The only thing "wrong" with that person
or our self, is a certain experience through which they are
passing. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with anyone;
everyone is a Perfect Person. That is the truth about everyone,
and the revelation of this truth through the intellect - definitely
conceived and consciously spoken for specific purposes - demonstrates
the supremacy of spiritual thought over the apparent - and only
apparent - material or physical resistance to a person's innate
Perfection.
In our
endeavors we naturally meet this argument in our thought:
"Maybe God is perfect, maybe your spiritual being is perfect,
maybe the Kingdom of Heaven is perfect, but look about you at the
earth on which you live ... and weep." Remember, however,
that the Master Mind Jesus said: "Judge not according to
the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."
The earth and sky do not
meet, the railroad tracks do not come together, any horizon is merely
the limit or our present vision. And so we must destroy this
argument, recognizing that it arises our of a false belief. We
need to know that there is no lack, no want, no limitation in the
Reality of ourselves, and that Reality is a present experience, right
now. We must recognize that any argument contrary to this is
neither person, place, nor thing. It has no power. It is
not the law of our life.
CONCLUDING A SPIRITUAL MIND
TREATMENT: In concluding a
spiritual mind treatment, after having gone through the stages of
conviction, intention, and conscious application, we must believe that
it is the law unto the thing whereunto it is spoken. A person
who gives a spiritual mind treatment that is based upon conviction,
has a clear intention, and is consciously applied, must then believe
that something has happened, that the result of the treatment is
now making its appearance in the physical world.
So we find the following process necessary in
the actual practice of giving a spiritual mind treatment. We
start with conviction: Perfect God, Perfect Man, Perfect
Being. We move from conviction to definite intention:
"I am now going to use Divine Power for this particular purpose
[and here you name the purpose]." Next we move from
definite intention to conscious application: We make statements
specifying that the Power is now operating for the purpose we
intend. Then we believe and accept that what we intend has
happened and that it will continue to happen, for we have dealt with
actual Reality.
Anyone who can do this can give
successful spiritual mind treatments. This is all a person has
to know about it, though experience will gradually teach one how to
give better and better treatments, how to meet certain arguments, how
to handle certain situations, how to heal certain conditions.
Naturally one's technique will improve with experience just as in any
other science, but one need not wait for some "far-off Divine
event."
There is nothing more real, tangible, or
concrete than a spiritual idea. To be able to work the apparent
miracle of spiritual mind treatment within our own imagination and
thought, and to know that it leads to the creation of an objective
circumstance in our life or in the life of someone else, is the
beginning of the knowledge and the wisdom which shall show each one of
us that Spirit within us is independent of time and space, of
circumstance and condition, that it is not conditioned to anything
whatsoever, that it is eternal, alive, awake, aware, free, and
immortal!
... taken from the writings of Dr. Ernest Holmes
Please contact Rev. Dr. Henry Lee Bates with any questions or comments:
< contact Rev.
Bates >
BLOG: http://livingthesom.blogspot.com
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The most important act we can make is to pray. The activity of prayer is the movement
of Individualized Spirit in our mind. "Prayer
is the heart's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed."
Prayer
is always answered according to our belief. Scientific Prayer also called Affirmative
Prayer, is patterned after the
manner and nature of Jesus' prayers. 
