Charles Fillmore - Prosper

It is perfectly logical to assume that a wise and competentCreator would provide for the needs of His creatures in theirvarious stages of growth. The supply would be given as requiredand as the necessary effort for its appropriation was made bythe creature. Temporal needs would be met by temporal things,mental needs by things of like character, and spiritual needs byspiritual elements. For simplification of distribution all would becomposed of one primal spiritual substance, which under properdirection could be transformed into all products at the will of theoperator. This is a crude yet true illustration of the underlyingprinciples on which the human family is supplied on this earth.The Father has provided a universal seed substance thatresponds with magical power to the active mind of man. Faith inthe increasing capacity of this seed substance, whether wrappedin visible husks or latent in invisible electrical units, alwaysrewards man with the fruits of his labor.

The farmer may seem to get his supply from the seeds heplants, but he would never plant a seed unless he had faith in itsinnate capacity to increase, and that seed would never multiplywithout the quickening life of Spirit. Thus we see that allincrease of substance depends on the quickening life of Spirit,and this fact gives us the key to mental processes that whenused spiritually will greatly increase and at the same timesimplify our appropriation of that inexhaustible substance whichcreative Mind has so generously provided.

In the following lessons we have attempted to explainman's lawful appropriation of the supplies spiritually andelectrically provided by God. When we understand and adjustour mind to the realm or kingdom where these rich ideas andtheir electrical thought forms exist we shall experience in ourtemporal affairs what is called "prosperity."

We said "their electrical thought forms." Let us explain thatall creative processes involve a realm of ideas and a realm ofpatterns or expressions of those ideas. The patterns arrest or"bottle up" the free electric units that sustain the visible thing.Thus creation is in its processes a trinity, and back of the visibleuniverse are both the original creative idea and the cosmic raysthat crystallize into earthly things. When we understand thistrinity in its various activities we shall be able to reconcile thediscoveries of modern science with the fundamentals of religion.

Modern science teaches us that space is heavily chargedwith energies that would transform the earth if they could becontrolled. Sir Oliver Lodge says that a single cubic inch of theether contains energy enough to run a forty-horse-power engineforty million years. The divergence of opinion among physicistsas to the reality of the ether does not nullify the existence inspace of tremendous potentialities. Sir Arthur Eddington saysthat about half the leading physicists assert that the ether existsand the other half deny its existence, but, in his words, "bothparties mean exactly the same thing, and are divided only bywords."

Spiritual understanding says that the ether exists as anemanation of mind and should not be confused in its limitationswith matter. Mathematical measurements applied to the etherwork it out of existence because its reality is in the Mind thatconceived it and its being is governed and sustained by ideas,and ideas have no physical dimensions. So the ether will haveexistence and deposit matter only so long as Mind has use for it.When infinite Mind has completed the cycles of creation, boththe invisible and the visible universes will be rolled up as a scrolland disappear and only Mind remain. "And all the host of heavenshall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as ascroll; and all their host shall fade away."

It adds greatly to the stability of a Christian's faith to knowthat Jesus anticipated the discoveries of modern science of theexistence of that kingdom called "the ether." He named it thekingdom of the heavens, and His illustrations of its possibilitiesare unsurpassed. He did not say it was a place the good wouldinherit after death but an estate we could have here and now. "Itis your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

Jesus taught that we can incorporate life-giving rays intoour mind, body, and affairs through faith. Where physicistsmerely describe the mechanical presence of life as energy,Jesus taught man how by the exercise of his mind he can makethat life obey him. Instead of a universe of blind mechanicalforces Jesus showed the universe to be persuaded and directedby intelligence.

What we need to realize above all else is that God hasprovided for the most minute needs of our daily life and that if welack anything it is because we have not used our mind in makingthe right contact with the supermind and the cosmic ray thatautomatically flows from it.

Spiritual Substance, the Fundamental Basis of the Universe

DIVINE MIND is the one and only reality. When weincorporate the ideas that form this Mind into our mind andpersevere in those ideas, a mighty strength wells up within us.Then we have a foundation for the spiritual body, the body notmade with hands, eternal in the heavens. When the spiritualbody is established in consciousness, its strength and power istransmitted to the visible body and to all the things that we touchin the world about us.

Spiritual discernment reveals that we are now in the dawnof a new era, that the old methods of supply and support are fastpassing away, and that new methods are waiting to be broughtforth. In the coming commerce man will not be a slave to money.

Humanity's daily needs will be met in ways that are not nowthought practical. We shall serve for the joy of serving, andprosperity will flow to us and through us in streams of plenty.The supply and support that love and zeal will set in motion arenot as yet largely used by man, but those who have tested theirproviding power are loud in their praise.

The dynamic power of the supermind in man has beensporadically displayed by men and women of every nation. It isusually connected with some religious rite in which mystery andpriestly authority prevail. The so-called "common herd" are keptin darkness with respect to the source of the superhuman powerof occult adepts and holy men. But we have seen a "great light"in the discovery by physical scientists that the atom concealselectronic energies whose mathematical arrangementdetermines the character of all the fundamental elements ofnature. This discovery has disrupted the science based on theold mechanical atomic theory, but has also given Christianmetaphysicians a new understanding of the dynamics back ofSpirit.

Science now postulates space rather than matter as thesource of life. It says that the very air is alive with dynamic forcesthat await man's grasp and utilization and that these invisible,omnipresent energies possess potentialities far beyond our mostexalted conception. What we have been taught about the gloriesof heaven pales into insignificance compared with the glories ofthe radiant rayspopularly referred to as the "ether." We are toldby science that we have utilized very meagerly this mighty oceanof ether in producing from it the light and power of electricity.The seemingly tremendous force generated by the whirl of ourdynamos is but a weak dribble from a universe of energy. Theinvisible waves that carry radio programs everywhere are but amere hint of an intelligent power that penetrates and permeatesevery germ of life, visible and invisible. Scientific minds theworld over have been tremendously moved by theserevolutionary discoveries, and they have not found languageadequate to explain their magnitude. Although a number ofbooks have been written by scientists, setting forth guardedly thefar-reaching effects that will inevitably follow man's appropriationof the easily accessible ether, none has dared to tell the wholestory. The fact is that the greatest discovery of all ages is that ofphysical science that all things apparently have their source inthe invisible, intangible ether. What Jesus taught so profoundlyin symbols about the riches of the kingdom of the heavens hasnow been proved true.