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“Mind is the Master-power that moulds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and, shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills:—

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass:

Environment is but his looking glass.”

—JAMES ALLEN

In the beginning God created the heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said . .

In the beginning was Mind, Energy, without form, without direction . . . like so much static electricity. Then came the Word, the mental image, to make all that power dynamic, to give it form and direction. What matters it the form it took first, so long as it had definite direction? It required an Intelligence to give it shape. That is the first great fact of the Scriptures. NOT that the heavens and earth were created, or light brought forth, but that any form presupposes a Directing Intelligence!

You cannot have dynamic electricity without a generator—an intelligence to conceive and direct it. No more can you have an earth or a flower, without an Intelligence to give them form from the static energy all about.

In the beginning, not merely was the earth without form and void, but the whole universe was the same way. Just as the interspaces of the universe are today. Everything was static—energy in flux. But “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light.”

St. John puts it—“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” And what is the “Word” ? As often mentioned before, a word is not a mere sound issuing from the lips, or so many letters written by hand. A word is a mental concept, an idea, an image.

In the beginning was the mental image! Read over that first chapter of Genesis, and you will see that in everything God created, the “Word” came first—then the material form. The “Word” had to come first—you cannot build a house without first having a clear image of the house you are going to build. You cannot make anything, without first conceiving a mental image of the thing to be created. Not even God could do that!

So when God said—“Let the earth bring forth grass,” He had in mind a clear mental picture of what grass was like. As the Scriptures put it—“The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herd of the field before it grew” First the “Word,” the mental image—then the creation.

It requires intelligence to form a mental concept. The animals cannot do it. They can recall images of things they have seen. They cannot conceive concepts from pure ideas. So, as stated above, creation pre-supposes a mental image, and a mental image means a directing Intelligence behind it.

That is the first conclusion that a reading of the Scriptures forces upon us. And the second is that like reproduces like.

Go over that first chapter again, and you will find that no less than six different times is the assertion repeated that “everything reproduces after its kind . . “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself. . . . Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind.”

Then God made man in His own image, after His likeness. Notice that! After telling us repeatedly that everything reproduced after its own kind, the Scriptures go on to say that God made man in His own image. That can mean only one thing—that man, too, is a God! For throughout all nature, hybrids are sterile. Nothing can breed out of its own kind. Different races, different strains of the same species, can interbreed, but all must be of the same kind.

So when God made man in His own image, and bade him be fruitful and multiply, He thereby showed that man was no hybrid, but of the true breed of God. And to prove it, he gave man dominion over the “fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” And He bade man replenish the earth, and subdue it and have dominion.

Simple instructions, and easily carried out—in part— but as for subduing the earth, and having dominion over it, mankind is still in the primer class. Yet if man is a God —and he is—then he can do it. And anything so worthwhile as that is worth all our effort to learn how to do.

For if we are gods and true sons of God—as the Scriptures frequently assure us—then we must possess all the properties of God. We must be creators. Then why don’t we create happier conditions ? Why don’t we do away with poverty and disease and all unhappiness?

Why? Because it takes understanding and faith to use our powers, and so few have the patience to work for them. Men will study for years to become doctors, or lawyers, or engineers. And they will start the practice of their professions in fear and trembling, realizing that it will be years before they will have gained enough practical knowledge from experience to be really competent in their work.

Yet they will read a book or two on psychology or some of the mental sciences, and if they cannot put the principles into practice next day, they give up in disgust and condemn the principles as tommyrot!

Of all fields of study, none offers such possibilities as the study of the inner powers of man. None offers such sure rewards to the persevering, sincere student. Yet there is no field so neglected by the average man. Nine men out of ten—yes, ninety-nine out of a hundred—merely drift through life. With generators inside them capable of producing power enough to accomplish any purpose, they get nowhere.

They use their generators, of course, but to what purpose? To sigh over some movie idol—or thrill over the exploits of some notorious racketeer—or wax indignant at the thieving of a fat city grafter. Vicarious emotions, all of them—yet because it is so much easier to enjoy one’s thrills vicariously, most people go through life experiencing few others.

They speed up their generators, but with no resultant good to themselves. Their experiences are all dream pictures. When they leave the movies, or put down their paper or book, they wake up! They never make the effort necessary to bring those thrills into their own lives.

Suppose the envelope of air that surrounds the globe were a great storage battery of electrical energy. Every thought, every fervent desire, every emotion, adds to the energy there. Every time you run your generator—with feelings of love or hate or fear or envy or hope or faith— you put additional energy into that storage battery.

But to draw energy out of this storage battery, you must have good conductors, good wires, the wires of a definite purpose, strongly held. And to keep the energy from dissipating requires the insulation of faith.

You cannot get much current from a storage battery by merely touching your wires to its posts, letting them slip on and off continuously. You have to twist them securely around the posts, fasten them there firmly with the screw cap, to get a constant current.

And you cannot use plain wires, or the current will run off into the first conductor that comes in contact with it. Your wires must be insulated, so the current will go directly from the battery to the appliance you wish it to run.

It is the same with the storage battery of power all around you. You can draw upon it at will, you can get flashes of power from it at the touch of fervent prayer or under the stress of any other high emotion, but if you want a continuous flow of power, you must have first a firmly held purpose, then the insulation of serene faith. Given these, there is no limit to the power you can draw, or the purposes to which it can be put.

Now how would this help if you were out of a job, had a wife and children waiting for something to eat, a home that was about to be taken away from you—and you had been praying and trying in every way you knew to raise the necessary money? How could you use the idea? What would you need to do?

Remember, in the Bible, how it is told that the apostles labored all night long, and caught nothing, yet when Jesus bade them cast their nets on the right side, and they did so, their nets were filled to overflowing?

You have been praying and trying, and you have caught nothing. Now it is your turn to cast your nets on the right side. And casting them there means to disregard the material world around you for a moment, and do your fishing in the world of energy!

All around you is energy—unappropriated energy that you can turn into any form you wish. The same flux out of which God created the world! And you are a god, a creator, a true son of the Father. You have the same power to make of your world what you like that He has. It requires only the same method He used.

First, the “Word,” the mental image. What is it you want? Position, power, love, riches, success? Make your mold. The best flux in the world will not make a usable shape unless you have a mold to pour it in. So make your mold, your mental image. See it clearly in your mind’s eye. Don’t make it the home or position or riches that belong to someone else. Use them as a model, if you like, but make your own out of virgin material.

Second, the flux. “The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.” Throw your net, your spirit, around as much of the unappropriated energy about as you need to fill your mold. Then hold to it with the dogged grip of the bulldog. It is yours. You have filed your claim upon it, and no one can take it away from you unless you weaken and let go. Hold to that knowledge with grim, unshakable purpose, and there is nothing you cannot get.

“Whatsoever you ask for when you pray, believe that you receive it, and you shall have it.” Whatever you want, make your mental hold, then throw your net around the flux necessary to fill it, and hold on to it until that flux has hardened. It is yours. You have it. You have only to believe, to know that you have it, in order to give that flux time to harden so that all can see it.

But to lose faith is to pull away the mold while your flux is still liquid. It will run like quicksilver in all directions, and you have to start all over again, making a new mold, casting your net around new energy, starting again to give it time to harden and become manifest.

In every man there is a Seed of Life, with infinite power to draw to itself whatever it conceives to be necessary to its expression. It doesn’t matter who you are, what your environment or education or advantages, the Seed of Life in you has the same power for good.

What is it makes a poor immigrant boy like Edward Bok, overcome every handicap of language and education, to become one of the greatest editors the country has known?

What is it accounts for the fact that, as before-mentioned, of 4043 multimillionaires in this country a few years before the first World War, all but 69 started so poor that they had not even a high school education?

Isn’t it that the more circumstances conspire to repress it, the stronger becomes the urge of the Life in you for expression? The more it lacks channels through which to expand, the more inclined it is to burst its shell and flow forth in all directions?

It is the old case of the river that is dammed, generating the most power. Most of us are so placed that some opportunity for expression is made easy for us. And that little opportunity serves like a safety valve to a boiler— it leaves us steam enough to do something worth while, yet keeps us from getting up enough power to burst the shell about us, and sweep away every barrier that holds us down.

Yet it is only such an irresistible head of steam as that which makes great successes. That is why the blow which knocks all the props from under us is often the turning point in our whole career. Take the case of a man I know who, five years after losing his job, reached his goal as head of a rival company and the greatest authority on his product in the country. Do you suppose he would ever have won these rewards had he continued as salesman for his original company?

No, indeed! He was getting along too well. He had a comfortable home, a fine family, a good income and congenial working conditions. Why should he disturb them? The old fable of the dog with the bone looking at his reflection in the water, keeps many a man from taking a chance at a better opportunity when he has a reasonably good one within his grasp. He’s afraid he may be giving up the real for the chimera.

Yet playing safe is probably the most unsafe thing in the world. You cannot stand still. You must go forward— or see the world slide past you. This was well illustrated by figures worked out by one of the big Economic Services. Of all those who have money at 35, 87% lose it by the time they are 60.

Why?—Because the fortunes they have take away the need for initiative on their part. Their money gives to them easy means of expressing the urge in them, without effort on their part. It gives them dozens of safety valves, through which their steam continually escapes.

The result is that they not only accomplish nothing worth while, but they soon dissipate the fortunes that were left them. They are like kettles, the urge of life keeping the water at boiling point, but the open spout of ease letting the steam escape as fast as it forms, until presently there is not even any water left.

Why do the sons of rich men so seldom accomplish anything worth while? Because they don’t have to. Every opportunity is given them to express the urge in them through pleasant channels, and they dissipate through these the energies that might carry them to any height. The result? They never have a strong enough “head of steam” left to carry through any real job.

With us ordinary mortals, however, sooner or later comes a crisis in our affairs, and how we meet it determines our future happiness and success. Since the beginning of time, every form of life has been called upon to meet such crises. So the goal of life has always been DOMINION—a means of overcoming all obstacles, of winning dominion over circumstances.

In “Weekly Unity” Magazine, some years ago, there was the story of a couple who wanted to dispose of their house and move to another town. But the so-called “Depression” was on at that time, and houses were a drug on the market. Real Estate Agents held out no hope, so “Why not try prayer?”—a friend asked. “What can we lose?” they asked each other. So they sat down together and tried to realize—

1 That there is only one Mind, that they were parts of that Mind, and that those to whom they must sell were also parts of it.

2 That this God-Mind is working for the good of all—for their good and for that of those who were seeking just such a home as theirs.

3 That this God-Mind was glad to help them, glad to help those seeking such a home, so all they had to do was to put their home in His hands, and leave the working out of the problem confidently and serenely to Him.

Within a short time, they sold the house for a good price for CASH. In another issue, “Unity” told about a dealer who had bought a number of pianos on credit, and borrowed some of the money from the bank to pay for them. The pinch came, and the bank notified him that his note must be paid by a certain date. He went home worried and miserable. With the help of his wife, however, he was able to throw off the worry and put it up to the God Inside Him to find the necessary funds.

That afternoon, one of the clerks came to him and said there was a man cursing and swearing about something he had bought from him the day before. He went over to the man and found him ranting and raging about an inexpensive article he had purchased for his son, on which some of the strings had broken. The shopkeeper promptly gave him a better article to replace it. That took all the wind out of the complaining customer’s sails, and he became so apologetic that he felt he had to buy something else to make up for his boorish behavior. It developed that he was planning to get a fine piano for his daughter’s birthday, and the money he promptly paid for this proved to be more than enough to take care of the dealer’s note at the bank.

The goal of life since the beginning of time has been DOMINION over just such circumstances as these, and only through the God in you can you win it. “My soul, wait thou only upon God,” bade the prophet of old, “for my expectation is from Him.”

But don’t limit the channels through which His help can come to you. Don’t insist that it should be through a legacy from some rich uncle, or a raise in your pay or the winning of some prize or order. Develop any channel that looks promising, but leave ALL the channels open. And then act as though you already possessed the thing you want.

Don’t say—“When this bill is paid—or this crisis past —I shall feel so relieved.” Instead, say—“I AM relieved, I feel so content and peaceful now that this load is off my shoulders.”

How will you act when you get the thing you want? Well, act that way now, think that way—and before you know it, you will BE that way. Remember the lines by Ella Wheeler Wilcox—

“Thought is a magnet; and the longed-for pleasure

Or boon or aim or object is the steel;

And its attainment hangs but on the measure

Of what thy soul can feel.”

How would you conduct yourself if you fully realized your one-ness with God, if you could truly believe that He is constantly offering you life, love and every good thing your heart can desire? Well, that is exactly what He is doing!

So act as if you already had the thing you want. Visualize it as yours. See the picture clearly in every detail in your mind’s eye. Then LET GOD make it manifest. Do what you can, of course, with what you have, where you are, but put your dependence upon God, and LET His good gifts come to you.

Look at the first chapter of the Scriptures. When God wanted light, did He strive and struggle, trying to make light? No, He said—“Let there be light.”

When you want something very much, instead of trying to MAKE it come your way, suppose you try asking for it and then LETTING it come. Suppose you just relax, and let God work through you instead of trying to make Him do something for you. Suppose you say to yourself —“I will do whatever is given me to do. I will follow every lead to the best of my ability, but for the rest, it is all up to the God in me. God in me knows what my right work is, where it is, and just what I should do to get it. I put myself and my affairs lovingly in His hands, secure that whatever is for my highest good, He will bring to me.”

Emerson used to say that when we discern Truth, we do nothing of ourselves but allow a passage for its beams. They express the same thought in electricity through the equation—C=E-^-R: The current delivered at any given point is equal to the voltage divided by the resistance. With too much resistance, no current is delivered, no matter how much may be available.

When we worry and are tense and fearful, we set up so great resistance that God finds it difficult to get through to us. We have to LET GO before we can become good conductors. Like John Burroughs, we must be able to say—“Serene I fold my hands and wait, nor care for wind or tide or sea. No more I strive against time or fate, for lo! Mine own shall come to me.”

Unity has a favorite Prayer of Faith, written by Hannah More Kohaus, which all of us might well use when we are worried or sick or in need. If you will relax and repeat it slowly aloud, it is calculated to help you in any crisis:

“God IS MY help in every need;

God does my every hunger feed;

God walks beside me, guides my way

Through every moment of the day.

“I now am wise, I now am true,

Patient, kind, and loving, too.

All things I am, can do, and be,

Through Christ the Truth that is in me.

“God is my health, I can’t be sick;

God is my strength, unfailing, quick;

God is my all; I know no fear,

Since God and love and Truth are here.”