WE ALL want peace of mind and happiness, and we attain our greatest happiness by making others happy. The material world unfortunately is seemingly so terrible that it is more correct to say that we attain our greatest happiness by relieving those around us and ourselves from the sin, misery, want and limitations that are so very, very real to all of us.

We can do this only by true prayer, scientific right thinking—thinking rightly in a scientific manner. Right doing, right activity, and happiness is then bound to follow. We gain this happiness also by teaching people the truth, the truth that makes them free, as thereby they not only gain freedom for themselves and for those they love, but they pass on the secret to others.

Today there are about fifty or sixty sects of mental workers, such as Christian Scientists, Divine Scientists, and the International New Thought Alliance. There are also about one hundred schools of psychology. There is only one thing in which they all agree, that if you think evil you get evil, if you think good you get good. As Shakespeare said, “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” This is the teaching of the Bible. As the prophet Jeremiah said: “I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their own thoughts” (Jer. 6:19). And we read in Proverbs: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Pro. 23:7).

What we have to do is to think rightly; then the evil will disappear, and, indeed, it must disappear, as it is only caused by wrong thinking, not always by conscious wrong thinking but by what is called the action of thoughts on the sub-conscious mind. The wrong thoughts and the evil are one and the same thing.

The disappearance of the evil may, perhaps, in some cases, be slow, but it will be more and more rapid as time goes on and the mind of the worker improves. Fortunately, the human mind never gets worse; we cannot increase evil. All the so-called evil was there in the so-called material world at the so-called start of the material world, which was over a million, million years ago.

All that takes place in the so-called material world is the steady disappearance of the evil, as the imaginary mist of matter—which hides heaven from us and makes this the only hell we shall ever be in—thins and disappears.

No evil can touch us if we keep out the evil thoughts by right thinking. Then the so-called mind is improved, and “the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” (John 14:30.) In other words, the evil thoughts which a man thinks, the only evil which can ever be, are destroyed and have no effect. “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.” (Job 22:21.)

When you think good, however, you must not think lies, and think you are well when you are ill. Nor must you think of the so-called good of the material world, as there is nothing really good in the material world. Jesus pointed this out when he said: “Why callest thou Me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.” (Matt. 19:17.)

The evil is relative, some so little evil that we call it good. God is absolute. What we have to do, therefore, is to learn to think of absolute good. The religious man calls this God and heaven, the scientific man calls it cause and its manifestation, and the metaphysician calls it Mind and its ideas. Whatever you might like to call it, it is an absolutely perfect ideal mental world, in which we exist now, have always existed and will always exist.

Treatment consists of actively thinking of God and heaven, called by scientific men the world of reality. In treatment one must never think of the material world, but think only of the real world, heaven. One method of doing this is to think of God as a vast, infinite Mind; then think of the consciousness, by means of which that Mind thinks, and is called “man” specifically, and consists of all the spiritual beings in heaven, which Paul calls the Christ. Then think of the infinite Love, Life, Wisdom, Joy, Knowledge, Beauty, etc., in that perfect world.

While thinking of this wonderful world, you deal one after the other, with the troubles against which you are working. Give one sharp, emphatic denial of the existence of the first trouble, in that perfect world, and then realize as clearly as possible the perfection of the opposite. For instance, “There is no anger, all is Love and the manifestation of Love.” Take up each of the troubles one after another, separately and always follow the denial with an affirmation.

You should also work against mortal mind, false medical beliefs and fear, and for love, spiritual perception and wisdom, in every treatment.

From the First Monthly Lesson and Bulletin —by F. L. Rawson.