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What Is Healing?

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated May 17, 1960, Cleveland, Ohio. Scribes: Ruth Johnson, Irene White, and Virginia Whitehead.

What is healing? To some, healing pertains to the physical body only, to others, healing also applies to their affairs, and to a few, healing includes harmony of body, mind, and soul. So, we may consider healing in many aspects, all of which are true and equally important. Yet the seemingly varied aspects of healing, the ways in which people view healing, ultimately resolve into a single unity that we recognize as God, the Source of all Light and life. You must start at the Source to understand the true nature of healing and how it works in the world.

Before you can understand healing, you must first grasp the idea of fundamental principle, which is the absolute, unchangeable, undeviating, and immutable foundation upon which all universes are based and established. That principle is the unitary ideal composed of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the One God as All Light.

What is the depth, breadth, and height of your soul's conviction regarding the immutability of God the One as divine principle? When your conception encompasses everything and reaches the Source of All Light, you will be able to say, "My conviction is unshakable because I know that all is One, and nothing can change God's principle."


“All is One, and nothing can change God's principles.”


Write this on a card, repeat it until you memorize it, and live by it with hesitation or lapse. For this is your life's foundation of truth — all is One, and nothing can change principle, certainly not man's puny ego-centered will or his selfish desires, fractured and splintered as they are. Healing cannot coexist with the enslavement of bondage to self-rule. Self refuses to let the healing Light enter. God rules healing and to be healed, you must let God rule you — your desires, your imagination, and your thinking. Self has no power over you other than what you give it.

The essence of healing is the Power of God applied as divine Light and love, which is greater than any lesser mundane power that can be inverted or used as evil. Every would-be dictator or worldly ruler flourishes briefly, then fades because self seeks to rule in the place of God's Light, which is impossible. If a tyrant or evil-doer refuses to be healed while in a body of flesh, he must be removed and his influence absorbed in Light. Pray for Light to permeate the world's dictators so that the effects of everything they do shall be withdrawn, lifted from earth, and healed.

"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace." – Psalm 37:35-37.

If enough Light moves through you, it will heal you, but the source of healing is founded in divine principle. When you arise in the morning, consciously breathe into your body and let the River of Life flow through you. When it does, its Light heals you perfectly and makes you strong.

One of the basic truths of integrity is that healing is the direct result of being able to move from a lower to a higher rate of vibration of substance in form, and from a lower to a correspondingly higher state of consciousness. As members of the Elect, we have chosen God and He has chosen us to heal life itself of all phases of darkness, to satisfy Him. Your Father's desire for you is all good, and His will for you is to live in absolute perfection. Have you gained that fine point of realization of this as eternal truth? Perfection is your natural estate. Anything short of perfection is a lesser creation, an unnatural state.


“Your Father's desire for you is all good.”


Just an ordinary state is a circumstance or condition. An estate can be an inheritance. Your natural estate includes your heritage as a son or daughter of the Supreme Father. The prefixes, e- and ex-, indicate "out, away, out of" or "outside." Perfection is the state of being of the Godhead, the Source. Your natural estate is to be as nearly like the Father, in the image and likeness of His supreme perfection, as is possible right now.

The greatest gift you can bring the Father is the perfect, unwavering consciousness that He wishes you to have all good things now, and to walk before Him in perfection. Then you can easily and steadily work toward creating all good for yourself and others through the one Mind, the one Substance, and the one Power of God. Daily He pours out this wealth as manna, as your daily bread, your sustenance and nourishment for growth in every dimension.

God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son are personalized expressions of the One God of absolute principle. God is absolute principle first, foremost and always. However, we personalize God in order to better understand how we relate to Him and how we can apply His principles and laws to our own lives. This fulfills our need for a personality to whom we can relate.

Wisdom, Love and the Logos are the absolute principles that become the supreme personalities of the Father, the Mother, and the Son. They also become the supreme principles of Mind, Substance, and Power, the fundamental foundation principles of the manifest or physical universe. God is the essence of both principle and personality; this is not a duality but a statement of the unity of truth.

Knowing how principle differs from law is essential to healing. Principle governs, regulates, and controls the universe as created by the Supreme Father wielding supreme principles. He then derives laws from those principles to govern, regulate, and control the actions of individual creators. Laws vary in their degrees from the unqualified absolute to the uttermost qualified relative, and in their kinds of governance, named for the realm in which they operate. You are most familiar with the common physical laws, such as gravity, but you and your life are also ruled by laws of body, mind, and soul, emotions, thinking, morality, and ethics.


“All healing results from how you apply principles and laws.”


All healing results from how thoroughly you apply these principles and laws, which are the only tools or ingredients you have or need to use for all healing. Further, they are available in whatever phase you need: Mind to think and plan to reach your goal, Power to direct and control your plan to success, and Substance to become form according to the blueprint you create with the flame of your desire. Let these verses, which are spiritual laws, form the basis of your understanding of the laws of mind for healing:

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." – Philippians 2:5.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." – Philippians 4:13.

"Your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." – 1 Corinthians 2:5.

"The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ." – 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.

Expansion and Contraction

You can learn to discern the truth of healing in all its phases. Start with this truth: In all the universes, you can do only two things to universal substance — you can either raise or lower its rate of vibration. Thus, substance is amenable to only these two laws, which you can and must apply in both the physical and metaphysical realms of being. The law of expansion permits you to raise the rate of vibration of substance, physical or spiritual, and substance expands. The law of contraction permits you to lower the rate of vibration to contract or condense substance. These two laws are completely scientific in their nature and no one may alter or change them to suit any individual whim.

Expansion and contraction begin as absolute universal principles, inevitable and invariable in their action. You cannot change universal substance, but you can lower its rate of vibration to condense it, or raise its rate of vibration to expand it. Therefore, you can see that any physical illness is due to the metaphysical operation of the law of contraction, lowering the rate of vibration and crystallizing substance. A low, condensed rate of vibration in substance or consciousness results in crystallization and finally illness. A raised, expanded rate of vibration results in good health.


“A raised, expanded rate of vibration results in good health.”


These facts dictate that physical healing is simply a matter of inflating the atomic mental body with more Light, more Power, and more soul substance by using the metaphysical heat of joy consciousness. A natural illustration of this principle is raising the temperature of ice to steam. All substance expresses some degree of consciousness. Physically, ice and steam are both water, the same substance in different states of unconsciousness, in different phases of being or expression, in different rates of vibration The following statements express this concept in Mind at various levels:

The scientist would say, "Principle manifests as different rates of vibration."

The metaphysician would say, "Principle manifests as different states of consciousness."

The philosopher would say, "Principle manifests as different phases of being or expression."

The pure white Light of the Christ is the high, positive pole of healing action. The white heat of joy is the one Mind, Substance, and Power as the River of Life flowing throughout creation. To precipitate the white Light of the Christ from its highest inner to its lowest outer activity, you must lower its rate of vibration to condense substance into visible form. When you lower substance's rate of vibration to its lowest outer form, it becomes "ice" in form (sclerosis in the physical body). Crystallization into solid ice is the opposite, negative pole of healing action. Though hard and lifeless, ice is still composed of Mind, Substance, and Power, the ingredients that underlie all creation. The healing alternative then is raising the lowest rate of vibration and expanding substance until it becomes invisible to the physical eye.

This is the basis for all healing: The white Light of the Christ can always melt anything reduced to a state of crystallized ice, and can by raising the rate of vibration, cause it to vibrate and throb with the fullness of life.


“The white Light of the Christ can always melt anything.”


Expansion overcoming contraction, on so simple a basis does the concept of healing rest. Intellect cannot alter this truth, but you can apply it to all outer conditions and circumstances. You can err and lower substance's rate of vibration two ways, by wrong, intellectually negative thinking and planning or by letting the negative "little self" of appetitive soul direct and control your thoughts. You can contract and condense substance's state of being until it reaches the ice stage, expressing as a complete paralysis of mind, body, or affairs. Conversely, you can thaw substance reduced to ice and recreate it into a perfect physical body or organ. All it takes is positive right thinking and planning while the appetitive soul "lets" the rational mind do the positive and right directing and controlling. Thus, you may revitalize and quicken your affairs into renewed life.

We believe in God as being everywhere evenly present and available in all His parts, qualities, potentialities, attributes, and substance. If God is everywhere evenly present and available in all His perfect substance, how can you have an illness, a malformation or a malignant growth? No ice state of substance in outer form, or state of consciousness is too crystallized to be hopeless. God has given substance, the primordial essence of Light as the life sparks of which all things are made, the power to become. God has given the living soul the power of conscious direction and control.

The Soul's Phases of the Mind that Was in Christ Jesus

All healing springs from the desire to be whole. Man, in desiring to be healed, must first and always apply his mind to think and plan for the perfect result in every department of life. Every living soul has three phases of the one Divine Mind. Psychology calls them the subconscious, conscious and super-conscious aspects of mind. The subconscious mind is the most primitive, animal-like level of instinctive intelligence and desire. The urges of eating, sleeping and procreating rule it.

The conscious mind begins with the creature state of conscious intelligence and conscious desire. Conscious mind is not a creative thinker, although memory and comparison are among its functions. It is the evolving creature mind, which soul develops into true rational intelligence through gaining experience over time.

The super-conscious mind is the creative mind that has never been touched by matter. It is divine intelligence as Wisdom and divine desire as Love expressing as the I AM consciousness of the Oversoul. Super-conscious mind functions as the faculties of apperception, intuition, and illumination.

Man is also three phases of soul expressing as personality, the synthesis of emotional experience with unfolded, developed intellect. Appetitive soul refers to what you express as plausible instinctive intelligence and instinctive desire. Appetitive soul has evolved upward from many lives and myriad experiences. It uses physical cells and desire body molecules as its vehicle.

The rational soul correlates the conscious choices of intellectual intelligence and personality, which you exercise through your mental faculties. The rational soul uses the desire body molecules and mental body atoms as its vehicle. Notice the overlap on either side of the rational soul's function: appetitive soul can influence the rational soul's function in a regressive way as a contraction in consciousness. Conversely, the Oversoul can affect the rational soul's function in an expansive and progressive way as an ascension of consciousness.

The Oversoul expresses the Love and the Wisdom principles as the soul qualities of intuition and illumination, which are also soul faculties. Oversoul uses mental body atoms for comprehension and creative thinking, applying all mental faculties, including logic, reason, discernment, discrimination, and discretion, which function from the frontal lobes of the brain.

By accomplishing the highest degrees of soul conquering of self, you may earn a fourth phase of soul, known as the Supreme Oversoul, but only under the Christos Degree. When you ascend to the Supreme Oversoul, it expresses as apperception, cosmic consciousness, which we also call Christed consciousness.

The Psychosomatic Dimension of Healing

Psychosomatic is a term fabricated in the 19th Century from two Greek words, psyche or soul, and soma, or body; its meaning has shifted since then to describe the interaction of mind and body. So the world defines psychosomatic as "of, relating to, concerned with, or involving both mind and body; of, relating to, involving, or concerned with bodily symptoms caused by mental or emotional disturbance." In the psychosomatic realm of study you learn the action, reaction, and interaction of the phases of mind, and the relationship between the soul as mind and the body. You cannot understand yourself without some knowledge of these dimensions of consciousness. Unless you understand yourself, you cannot heal yourself or help anyone else to find healing.


“You must speak the Word for healing to occur.”


A pioneering Mystic bases all healing primarily on the great principle of the spoken Word, the third Emanation, the Holy Spirit, the Son. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." – John 1:1. No healing can occur without the use of this principle of the spoken Word, which includes hypnotism and the power of suggestion. On the lowest level, the power of suggestion includes mass hypnotism as propaganda slogans, and mantras of evil such as "Heil Hitler." Hitler, as all who are greedy for power, relied upon mass hypnotism to extract money and obedience from the population. The constant synchronized parades and goose-step marching were all adjuncts to hypnotism.

You may make suggestions for healing, but only with no hint of personality entering the spoken Word vibration. Suggestions are words spoken as Light from a high state of consciousness. The power of suggestion includes hypnotism, which in its purest form is good. Every word printed or spoken, whether in person, on television or radio, forms a picture that creates desire for the good. When good words are repeated, they hypnotize the self to follow only the Light, and to listen only to the soul's dictates.

Speak the Word! Declare, "This is good. I am loves you into perfect strength. You are healed." Such declarations as these are the most positive applications of the power of suggestion, which is perfect expression when it is completely impersonal and not interfering. We who walk the Via Christa practice dynamic nonresistance, which requires restraint. The laws of restraint are familiar to us all: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." – Matthew 25:40. If you love God enough, you cannot hurt anyone.

Healing Your Mind

"Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." – Matthew 5:19. The "least in the kingdom" is mindless.

Consciousness regresses through eight stages before it loses intelligence. Within these stages lay all subconscious fears and limitations. Remember this law of mind: You can give away a "piece of your mind" until nothing remains but impressions, repressions, suppressions, complexes, illusions, delusions, hallucinations and obsessions.

Impression: The effect which objects produce on the mind. Thus we say, the truths of the gospel make an impression on the mind; they make no impression or a deep and lasting impression. The heart is impressed with love or gratitude. We lie open to the impressions of flattery. An image in the mind; idea. A slight, indistinct remembrance.

An impression is a vague idea, consciousness, or belief. Impressions, prenatal and postnatal, are the results of influences passively received on the senses or mind. You can have an impression of what you think the other fellow means by his tone of voice, facial expression, and posture. Examine you impression carefully and in the clear light of day to determine whether they are valid, false, or a mere association lacking substance.

Repression: The act of subduing; a check; restraint.

Repression is the use of force, the mechanism by which you restrict and control feelings, ideas, impulses, etc. By controlling emotional reactions and burying them from the conscious mind, you cause the feeling you are repressing to grow in the darkness of the unconscious. Repression especially applies to relationships where you fear expressing your feelings, thus burying fear, resentment, hatred, and similar psychic states.

Suppression: The act of suppressing, crushing or destroying; the act of retaining from utterance, vent or disclosure; concealment; as the suppression of truth; in grammar or composition, omission; as the suppression of a word.

Suppression is the mechanism by which you seek to control what you or society considers to be unacceptable ideas or impulses. Suppression is much more forceful control or keeping secret your personal appetites and desires, caused by doubt or fear of being laughed at, or of being punished. Suppression leads to addiction to the thing you fear. All addictions are aimed at banishing the fear and conflict.

Complex: Composed of two or more parts or things; composite; assemblage; collection; complication.

A complex is a group of interrelated ideas that form, or are viewed as forming, a single whole; an integration of impulses, ideas, and emotions related to a particular object, activity, etc., largely unconscious, but strongly influencing the individual's attitudes and behavior. Complexes are born of self-pity arising from envy, jealousy or the desire to possess. A complex multiplies fear until fear becomes the individual's response to life.

Illusion: Deceptive appearance; false show, by which a person is or may be deceived, or his expectations disappointed; mockery.

An illusion is a false idea or belief, something that appears to exist or be a particular thing but does not actually exist or is in reality something else; a belief or opinion not in accord with the facts; an unreal, deceptive, or misleading appearance or image; a false perception, conception, or interpretation of what one sees, where one is, etc.; the misleading image resulting in such a false impression. Illusions are usually misapprehensions involving the spoken Word. More subtle is the illusion born of being unable to discern a particular phase of truth at all.

Delusion: The act of deluding; deception; a misleading of the mind. False representation; illusion; error or mistake proceeding from false views.

A delusion begins as a false, persistent belief maintained in spite of evidence to the contrary, ranging to a belief held in the face of evidence to the contrary, that is resistant to all reason. Delusions are self-deceptions, the heaviest of which are delusions of grandeur and greatness where you deceive yourself into believing everything you hear, whether flattery or criticism.

Hallucination: Error; blunder; mistake. In medicine, faulty sense [dysaesthesia], or erroneous imagination. Hallucinations of the senses, arise from some defect in the organs of sense, or from some unusual circumstances attending the object, as when it is seen by moonlight; and they are sometimes symptoms of general disease, as in fevers. Maniacal hallucinations arise from some imaginary or mistaken idea. Similar hallucinations occur in revery.

An hallucination is the experience of seeing something that is not really there because you are ill or have taken a drug; the apparent perception of sights, sounds, etc. that are not actually present, which may occur in certain mental disorders. Hallucinations, while generally regarded as seeing or hearing what is not there, are born of some fact then exaggerated out of proportion by a concatenation of fears, hatreds, revenge motives, and all manners of underlying emotional distortions that end in psychoses.

Obsession: The act of besieging; the first attack of Satan antecedent to possession.

Obsession is the fact or state of being obsessed with an idea, desire, or emotion; a persistent idea, desire, emotion, especially one that cannot be gotten rid of by reasoning; such a persistent idea or impulse that continually forces its way into consciousness, often associated with anxiety and mental illness; the act of an evil spirit in possessing or ruling a person. A state of obsession holds all negative emotions, where nothing else enters. It is the door to the final stage of no mind. Obsessions include manias and phobias.

Mania: excitement manifested by mental and physical hyperactivity, disorganization of behavior, and elevation of mood: the manic phase of bipolar disorder; excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm.

Phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation; exaggerated fear of or intolerance or aversion for.

Cleansing Your Subconscious Mind

Your self projects all illness from the subconscious mind, which is the garbage dump of buried feelings, emotions, thoughts, ideas and every negative reaction you have ever experienced then pushed away. You must cleanse the subconscious level of mind because not only do these old fears project themselves into the conscious mind, they will eventually burn out the body if you ignore their symptoms.

How do you cleanse the subconscious mind? The first step is to "Ask anything in my name." Do you believe this? Make up your conscious mind, backed by your super-conscious mind, and Oversoul. "In the name of Jesus the Christ, I AM now cleanses me as Light. This is good. Let there be Light."


“Faith is the pipeline for healing Light.”


What determines who is healed? The soul's faith. "Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you." – Matthew 9:29. The soul who can respond to that appeal can seek God in devotion and faith. Believe in God as personality and as your faith. Your soul confidence must be born of faith, which is the substance of life sparks for healing and renewing. Faith is enough when backed by the Love of God and your confidence about what must be healed and how to do it. Eventually, you shall hear, "According to your faith, let it be done to you."

Unconsciously you can slip into old patterns. The noblest thoughts can run along the surface while the subconscious runs on a subway of its own fears, using imagination for its picture-building, which proves that you can live on two levels at once. Be like a ship's captain: He stays in the pilot house but he also must inspect the hold and cargo. He still carries on at the bridge, either by locking the wheel in place or by placing a responsible officer in charge. Lock the wheel of your ship to the Love of God. The officer in charge is your faith of God steering while you inspect the ship's hold.

Usually healing is a process, and sometimes healing is an instantaneous act. You must form new habits — it's as simple as that. You must recondition your appetitive soul. The treatment is sublimation. When lesser suggestions arise from the subconscious, just use these higher suggestions to redirect your consciousness — "I am conquering self. I am overcoming all obstacles of self. I am resurrecting the little self." Use powerful suggestions day and night until your perfect Love of God lifts you and casts out all fear!

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884 –1971
The original Pioneering Mystic
minister, teacher, and author

Edna Lister


References

The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary: 2 volumes. E.S.C. Weiner, editor. Oxford University Press, 1971.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV). This work is in the public domain.


Healing Disclaimer

Good health and healing, which is the return to good health, is a matter is common sense.

All information on this site is provided for informational purposes only and in no way is intended as medical counseling or medical advice. By no means is any information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice and/or treatment provided to you by your own physician or a health care provider. Do not use any information contained on this site to self-diagnose or personally treat any medical condition or disease or prescribe any medication. If you have or suspect you have a medical condition, you are urged to contact your personal health care provider or a qualified medical professional.


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