WHAT is power? Where does it come from? How may one receive and use it? We will try to answer these three questions and lift some of the haze that surrounds the subject of power.

What is power? It is a force that when we connect with and control it enables us to do things. It is potential capacity. It is not only in man but is all about him available for his use.

It therefore comes from within man, and likewise from the air around him. We have evidence of the latter fact in electricity generated from the air. We know also of the power developed from steam which of course comes from water which in turn comes from the air. But we would speak especially in this article of the power that comes from within man, and of wherein or from what part of man it comes.

Every man has power just as he has life—even if he does not realize it. Power is an actual expression of life and without it man would be almost the same as dead—witness one who is paralyzed, which is but the result of the loss or impairment of one’s power to control physical action or movement. Therefore power, being a property of life, must be as free to man as is life itself.

How does man call forth power and use it? Just as easily and naturally as he lifts a hand or moves a finger. In fact in every thought he thinks, every word he speaks, everything he does, he calls forth and uses the power that is within him, even if he uses it unconsciously and does not know how he does it.

But we intend herein to show you how consciously to use the power that is in you awaiting your use. First know that there is a power center within you to which you always unconsciously turn and from which you draw as much as you need to use.

As a proof of this we will use the same illustration used in the Editorial on “The Will” in the May 1937 issue, and which we urge that you reread. If you are now seated in a chair, lay aside this Magazine and get quiet and in readiness. Now we ask you to stand up, by rising from your chair. Before doing this prepare yourself by noting carefully just what you do mentally the moment you start to get up.

First you find your mind automatically turning to a region in your back just behind the abdomen and above the kidneys, to what is known as the suprarenal glands, within which Browne Landone claims is located the “Brain of the Spirit.” When the mind thus turns there with the purpose of standing up it seems to call upon and release a power that as he starts to rise from the chair actually lifts him upright.

Likewise you will find that when you intend to do any thing, and immediately before you make the necessary effort, you unconsciously turn within to that center and there call forth the power which does or empowers you to do what you essay to do. In ordinary things or those to which you have become accustomed, you release and use this power automatically and unconsciously. But only to the extent that you have become acquainted with it and know its efficacy, does it respond and enable you to do perfectly whatever you wish to do.

Read again that last statement. Are you acquainted with this power, so much so that you can consciously call upon it and it will respond and enable you always to do what you start to do? Think what this means!

This power is within you, exactly as life is within you. There is a point of contact within as we have shown that needs only to be turned to consciously, and power is released exactly as when you turn a lever or push a button, and whatever you wish to do the power will do it for you, even as it lifts your body off a chair.

Think, you could not rise an inch from the chair without that power, any more than a machine could run of itself—the power in you does it all. You, however, must intelligently call upon and direct the use of power, or it may harm or even destroy you.

What we are trying to impress upon you is the importance of—studying this power in you and the method of consciously calling upon it in your need, and then of KNOWING that it will do whatever you wish it to do. All you need to do is to see clearly what you want to do, see yourself doing it, then start, and call upon the power, and let it do what you have pictured. Just as surely as you start and keep going, BELIEVING in the power within you accomplishing it for you, will it so result.

This means of course that no doubt, fear or concern must be allowed to enter your mind and interfere with your belief. You must just keep on going, seeing only the goal set, knowing you will reach it, letting the power in you get you there; and it will no more fail you than a machine will fail to do what it was built to do, when the power keeps it running.

As we have stated, power is only a phase of the life in you. Even as intelligence is a phase. But whose life is it, whose power, and whose intelligence? You know they are not yours exclusively, but are yours only for use—under some wise and directing In- telligence that seemingly is seeking thus to express through you.

Our purpose in calling your attention to the power phase of this life in you is not only to get you well acquainted with that phase and its possibilities, but to get you better acquainted also with the One whose life, intelligence and power is all that you are and who sooner or later will make Himself wholly known to you. For that one is your own Christ Self, the Real You, who plans to do all things through the outer you, when He can bring your mind to a clear and full understanding of His Presence and Power, and it will consciously turn within to Him and let Him have His unhindered way in all things.

—o—

I STAND upon the threshold, And most eagerly await The longed for welcome summons. “Enter!” Open swings the gate. Breathless with rapture, Eyes opened wide to see, New ecstacy I capture As Angel Beings come to me. Each with a joyous greeting— No stranger, I to them; A tranquil, happy meeting— This one of SOULS OF MEN. And as I gaze into the face Of each beloved One, To my surprise, I therein trace Resemblance to—GOD’S SON!

And then—THE GREAT REVELAMENT! The glorious miracle I see. No need for more concealment— IN EACH FACE IS MIRRORED—ME!!!

I AM THAT I AM! I ALONE AM! THERE IS NONE ELSE BESIDE ME! I HAVE EYES THAT SEE! I HAVE EARS THAT HEAR! I PRAISE GOD THAT HE (GOOD) IS EVERYWHERE, and THAT I AM THAT I AM!

—Edith L. Putnam.

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