Edna Lister on the Golden Silence

  “When you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father, who is in the secret place.”–Matthew 6:6. As the Master says in this verse, you have a prayer room in consciousness, above the clamor of earth. We call this room the Golden Silence: Speech is silver, silence is golden.Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus (1833–34)

The Golden Silence
Edna Lister transcript, January 20, 1933, Tacoma, WA. Clarissa A. Watkins, scribe.

  Before entering the Silence you must have a definite scientific statement of a formula for healing, especially for the laying on of hands. The Silence is not concentration. If you enter the Silence with the statement, “As oil mingles with oil, as water mingles with water, as air mingles with air, so does my life expand and mingle with the Life of God,” it makes you far more God-conscious.
  For the laying on of hands, it is best to place your right hand over (above, not on) the place to be healed. Always analyze or classify this and all other ideas presented to you according to the five categories, the five phases of truth—psychology, metaphysics, science, philosophy, mysticism—and their relation to each other.
  Close your eyes and reach up to the Most High. Hold to the conviction that you are being drawn into the heart of Light. This is the attitude to have: In this heart of Light, we have become one with each other and with all that is, here and now. We are opening our minds to receive great inspiration and illumination, and the Truth of the Universe shall be revealed unto us in this moment, revelation beyond anything previous.
  A Prayer for Silence: O Father of all Light and Glory, let our eyes be opened to see. Let that which is our own good appear. Let our own good be poured out upon us this very hour, and thank Thee that it shall be so. Amen.
  You can get to God only through love. Love is the key, the magic wand, that opens the way, the two-way door that also lets love flow forth. There is as definite a method and technique for entering the Silence, as there is to mathematics, so you must go through a certain process. You have probably tried to make your mind a vacuum and found it impossible to do so. No one can make his mind a vacuum and still have a mind! Your conscious mind is the mediating function of mind that operates between the subconscious and the superconscious facets.
  In the Silence you automatically tune in on the subconscious mind first since it is body-based. This is why you must always remember to give your subconscious mind suggestions immediately preceding sleep and immediately before awakening to full consciousness in the morning. Give it a chance to register its ideas, and to give the superconscious mind a chance to register its instructions on your brain cells. The subconscious mind is the phase that reminds you of things. At night, give it the opportunity to register what it wants you to remember. Try to listen to the subconscious mind—hold back, and hold back to keep that link open as long as you are able to, as though you are exercising a muscle. Listen in, and train it to listen to and reproduce super-conscious thoughts. See what the revelations are in the morning, then listen for the super-conscious. Don’t try to make your mind a blank, or a vacuum. You cannot get into the Silence with tense nerves and muscles, or relax while you are tensing the muscles to concentrate. Yet you can get into the heart of the Silence by complete surrender—it takes relaxation to surrender.
  Both the subconscious and conscious phases of mind are designed to be the servants of the super-conscious mind, the soul’s point of contact with the mind of Christ. When entering the Silence, say, “As oil mingles with oil, as water mingles with water, as air mingles with air, so does my life expand and mingle with the Life of God.” Another good statement is, “The kingdom of heaven is everywhere evenly present and available. I am in the kingdom of heaven now, and the kingdom of heaven is within me.” It took me five years to learn to enter the Silence this way. One of the first inner initiations is to be able to enter the Silence anytime. Through such daily practice, I have reached the place where I can enter the Silence while using my hands to work at something I do not have to think about. So I know that you are able to do this also! The subconscious follows the hands and leaves the mind free. Activity intrigues and lifts it to become one with the superconscious. We cannot get into the Silence if we have any resentment in our minds.
  If, during the Silence, your subconscious urges you to an action or injects some image into your mind, write it down on a pad. The subconscious mind is your personal adversary in consciousness, the resistance you need to improve your skills and abilities. This is why you should “agree with your adversary quickly,” and say, “My subconscious mind is a marvelous servant. I appreciate the ideas it brings me, but I have no time for it now. I shall lay it right here on the altar. I am entering the Silence, and when I am finished with that, it will remind me of it again.”
  You should love your subconscious mind as though it were a toddler and lift it up to a higher degree of controlled awareness. However, do not treat your subconscious as though it is separate from you! It is your servant. The instant any doubt, fear or any urge or impulse that is negative or unlike God arises, lift it up to the Light as you would a fussy infant—lift it to God and agree that it is good! If your stomach hurts, declare that it is a perfect stomach. Declare your brain to be a perfectly marvelous brain, constantly and definitely perfect in its awareness and operation. Let no opportunity to praise God for the perfection of your mind or body escape you—praise God!
  You must take nine steps to enter the Silence:
  1. Speak a statement of surrender, such as, “As oil mingles with oil,” etc., or “The kingdom of heaven is within me,” etc.
  2. Deliberately relax your nerves and muscles.
  3. Take a few deep breaths.
  4. Bring to mind and hold an idea so great that it envelops everything.
  5. Imagine, envision a picture to follow the idea.
  6. Offer praise and devotion until you can think of no more.
  7. Speak the Word for prayer treatments.
  8. Again offer praise and devotion, and wait in quiet gratitude.
  9. Speak the Word given you in the name of the Master.
  To begin, sit, lie down, or stand (shoulders back) comfortably. (I use a straight-backed chair.) Do not put your hands in your lap. Lift them, palms up, to begin with, until they tingle. Then hold your hands, palms slightly cupped, turned inward, level with your ears to form a chalice for Light to fill. When you feel full of Light,
  1. Make a statement such as, “As oil mingles with oil, as water mingles with water, as air mingles with air, so does my life expand and mingle with the Life of God.” Or, “The kingdom of heaven is everywhere evenly present and available. I am in the kingdom of heaven now, and the kingdom of heaven is within me.”
  The Silence exists everywhere as an elevated level of consciousness. You can enter it anytime, or anywhere, since you, your soul, is always in it anyway. As you turn your attention to it, surrender to it. It takes all of your concentration to keep yourself surrendered to it. Keep your spine straight, which is imperative.
  2. As I enter the Silence, I lift everything and everyone who is on my lines of Light and responsibility for lifting. Take three or four deep breaths, then reach out your arms and gather together all burdens for prayer. and lift. Lifting uses or involves the subconscious as it follows the hands, and causes it not to interrupt.
  3. Actively send forth the Power: As you lift your hands in an attitude of surrender (palms slightly cupped, turned inward, level with your ears), it aids you in opening your sense of selflessness and surrender to God.
  Concentration is purely mental, and you can concentrate only through focusing your will. However, any mental force you use or send out on your tone of voice or words you speak, returns to you like a boomerang. One teacher warned his pupils that if they sent out the law, or raw power, to be ready to take it on the chin when it returned, or it would knock them down. Lifting your hands up switches power from will’s seat of control at the solar plexus, to the heart, the seat of control of desire as love. Thus, you doubly harness the subconscious, will directs the gesture of your hands to hold its attention, then you release it as love, from the heart center. This is how you harness the subconscious and hold it under control, and free all the Power you will need to release to send it forth, flowing freely to do its appointed work.
  4. Again take several deep breaths (from three to seven) to connect and surrender to the Light. Say: “I now inhale the illumination of the Almighty, I now inhale the inspiration of the All-wise, of the All-love, I am now inhaling the breath of God.” This is the connecting rod to lift you into the heart of the Silence.
  5. Think of an expansive idea, one so great that it just takes all of your attention, an idea of God, a supreme idea, such as: “The glory of God fills the entire universe and in this glory I am now perfect, whole and complete.”
  6. See your solar plexus as a sphere of fire that is radiating through every part of your body. That idea is great enough to intrigue your subconscious mind and your attention, emotions, and imagination to the point where you will build the picture of your idea. Picture a gorgeous sunset, the Grand Canyon, the Milky Way, or try to see something that is invisible.
  7. Voice your praise and devotion to God: Praise God that He is, that He is all the Mind there is, that He holds the world in the hollow of His hand, that He is the great invisible, irresistible all-glorious One, that He is the repository of all hidden wisdom, that He holds your life in His hands, that He is the Source of all revelations, has held you from the beginning of time and shall do so throughout eternity. And so on and so on. This is how to enter the Heart of God and the Silence through praise and devotion.
  Read Psalms 33 and 34 for inspiration. Praise God because He is the heart of this radiant Light, that He can release His Power through you, can melt and dissolve every imperfection, that you have the Power to hold up any number of people, for the Light and Love that pours out upon them. Praise Him that you can hold the world up to him. See yourself as holding Terra in the palms of your own hand, giving it to Him. Lift and lift and lift! and praise Him all the time. As you praise God, you will find something happening. You have the sense of leaving the earth, the sense of an extended consciousness. Enter the Silence once this way, and you will hunger and thirst for it evermore.
  8. When you have finished praising until you have no more words, you are completely in the Heart of the Silence. Then turn your hands facing outward and begin your treatments. Do not treat yourself—take others, see them standing before you, facing you. Surround them with a sphere of Light, fill their bodies with Light, see a cone of light from their feet to the center of earth, their sphere capped with another cone of Light to their Oversoul star of contact with God. Surround them with pillars of fire, then with a wall of love. See a mother blue light of love permeating everyone and everything. Have a sense of laying your hands over their eyes. Do this until you cannot find any more people to lift, treat and speak the Word for. Speak the Word for them, then send it out, radiate it out over the whole world!
  9. Then discontinue treating, and thank God and praise Him that He has increased your capacity to love and to release power. Thank Him that the power of love has already gone forth. Thank Him that you can be as the lepers named in the Bible, in that you can go your way rejoicing, willing to surrender to His service. Thank Him that you are His mouthpiece, and your words are established forever. Do not ask to be lifted—thank God that you are lifted into the heart of the fire, that He has armored you with light. Praise Him continually because He is perfect, and again tell Him that He is perfect. Then speak the Word, in the name of the Master.
  “These words are the spirit of life” is the closing declaration: “These words are spirit and they are life. These words are now established. These words are now finished in the kingdom and they shall become visible. Let them come to pass. Let them come into manifestation. Let them be established, Let these words go forth and do the work.” The word “let” is the release of the Power. If you remain in the Silence all day, you cannot falter or fail.
  There is no special place to ask God for anything for yourself. You may beforehand ask God specially for what you desire. Then when you enter the Silence, thank Him that His Light has recharged your Oversoul star with power, that He has given to you the charge to release Light as the power of love throughout the world and so on. Repeat your declarations that you have already received what you want, have already received the desires of your heart.
  By taking these steps in their exact order each time you enter the Silence you train your consciousness at every level—subconscious, conscious and super-conscious/impulsive appetitive soul, rational soul and Oversoul—you can remain in the Silence all the time, you no longer will be body-conscious, and you will forget the outer world. Yet you must practice until you become unconscious of using the technique because it will be automatic.

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First Steps in the Silence
Edna Lister, March 1, 1934, Buffalo, NY. Psalm 46:10, Hebrews 13:8.

  “Be still, and know that I am God”–Psalm 46:10.
  1. Surrender and Expansion: Your body is analogous to a seed or bulb. God has planted you in His garden of Spirit and patiently tends your growth as He awaits your blossom time. Spirit is never old, but eternally youthful as it moves and renews all things. God, as Spirit, is deathless, ageless and abiding. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”–Hebrews 13:8.
  As a soul you are an immortal spiritual being of Light, the vehicle of expression, a temple of the living God. To return to God with the fruit of your experiences and the wisdom you have garnered, you must create a large and perfect temple, and to do so, you must surrender to God’s Light as Mind, Substance and Power. You must lift your self up into a consciousness great enough to expand into contact with God.
  2. The Practice of the Presence: Tightened nerves and muscles are body-conscious and grasping. Think of yourself as Light, filling the room you occupy. Let your Light so shine that you lose all consciousness of having a physical body. This is how to be God-consciousness. Hold onto this awareness, and lose yourself in joyous recognition of truth: “The kingdom of heaven is everywhere I look or step. I am in the kingdom now for it is within me. My presence in the world extends to include all whom I meet. The Light of God’s kingdom moves through me to heal everyone I meet.” As you apply these healing statements through the spirit of selflessness, be sure to speak these words of truth, declaring: “Not I, but the Power of my Father flows through me doing the work as I work for Him. Not I, but the Father in me, He doeth the works.”
  3. Start With a Great Idea: God started with an all-encompassing Idea when He created the Universe. You also need an idea so great that it fills your mind until you can think of nothing else—transfiguration of your physical body to our Father in Heaven, for example.
  4. Imagination: A picture must follow the idea; for example, imagine a mental picture of your heart as a sun center radiating Light.
  5. The Great Breath: Deeply inhale seven degrees (grades) of breath in one.
  6. Lifting: As a member of the Elect, you must lift the lines of Light to all outer conflicts into the inner kingdom, into the Heart of God.
  7. Universal Praise: Praise God for the beauty of His Creation.
  8. Treatments: Speak the specific prayer treatments for situations that have been brought to your attention.
  9. Specific Praise: Praise everyone and everything you can think of, aloud.
  10. Let the Power do the work, then surrender to the Power again to expand further.
  “Metaphysics” means “beyond science” and is the study of invisible energies. Of all the disciples, Peter, James and John best understood the need for more love. Only more and more love will fan the fame of your desire to at one with God. Otherwise, inertia and stagnation will be your portion.
  To ascend in the inner dimensions, you must pass tests on your motives and resolutions on the outer. Love is the “open sesame” that opens all gates and doors to progress in the invisible reality; love builds the bridge, it bridges the abyss from the seen to the unseen.

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Navigating the Silence
Edna Lister outline, September 15, 1934, Buffalo, NY.

  The first step in navigating the Golden Silence is to surrender the tightness of self in favor of soul expansion into Christ consciousness. The second step is to focus on a great God-centered idea.

  Where does this happen? In every soul, potentially. Each soul is a Christ Idea and has access to Christed Ideas. My idea of what Christ is expresses itself as the Christ I see in you. This is what I see in each and every soul.
  Every galaxy has a central sun, just as you have a radiant sun center of Light at your solar plexus, the center of your soul’s control of your physical body, the seat of all physical action and power. In the same way, a ship has an engine room and a bridge where the captain stands in charge of all operations. And from this base of command radiate all your soul’s rays of life and Light.
  Take but one step up into the heart center, where the flame of your soul’s desire burns fiercely bright. Now reach for the stars as the Star you are!

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Attaining the Silence
Edna Lister outline, November 7, 1934, Buffalo, NY. John 1:1-14.

  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”–John 1:1-14.
  You are the Word made flesh, the spiritual Word. Tending the Word means growth, expansion and expression. You begin by training the outer mind of intellect to grasp the meaning of outer words, and the inner mind to see through you and as you spiritually, by letting it do so.
  To attain the silence, you must expand your nature or ability to grasp as your means of attainment. The keynote is attainment through silence. This is a personal accomplishment, which begins after you cease outer movement. The silence is cessation of all outer movement. Yet you cannot stop living or make your mind a blank, which really is a form of death. An old adage says that bats always fly into empty belfries.
  People who do not pay attention stop one moment to begin another task, then give that up to begin yet another. Some people pay attention to pain. Rather than giving it up before going to bed at night, they crank it up in the morning. You need to give up the pain before you take it anywhere. Heart trouble, goiter, diabetes, all become worse when you are paying attention to them. At this point, you should be minding your own business, which is not encouraging pain. Mind your own business of ascension.
  Sustained attention to the good means new discovery. Sustained, continuous attention to the good brings revelation, training the outer mind, and the inner spiritual seeing. Sustained and continuous expectancy of revelation means attainment of that revelation in reality. In truth, you have only one sense, seeing. When asked to describe a fragrance, most people say, “I see.” When you tell about some condition, they say, “I see,” never, “I know.”
  The keynote of the silence is attention. The quality of the silence you attain corresponds to your degree of attention. Your degree of interest determines your attention. You must be interested in God while you are in the silence. The silence is the simplest operation of which you are capable, and you can attain it. While the silence is a time when you may not talk, keep your eyes to the front, knowing and remembering who you are. This requires your sustained attention. Make the silence your glorious hour, a time when you receive the divine revelations your soul must know and heed.
  You are a being of Light, but with your wings furled, you cannot fly from crag to crag. Even an eaglet learns to fly, just like any lowly sparrow. In the silence, you strengthen your wings for the wondrous soul flights to come.

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Revelation Comes in the Silence
Edna Lister, November 28, 1934, Buffalo, NY. Psalm 46:10, 1 John 4:8, Malachi 3:10.

  “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”–Psalm 46:10.
  “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”–1 John 4:8.
  “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”–Malachi 3:10.
  Revelation means “to reveal, to make clear.” All revelation comes through the silence. What you see depends upon what you are seeking or asking, and why you want revelations. Do you want to be greater than anyone else? To know more than anyone else? To make more than anyone else? To have more than anyone else? Or to be a greater servant of all the Power? You gain what you seek, so choose your line of progress with care. Some folks grow weak and ill. Some folks grow strong, grand and glorious. Where you are now is the right place.
  Revelation is Light coming through as the answer. Revelation releases Light and Power: The Light brings added things. You can have real revelations only through the silence. Thank God for the small, the faint, and the large revelations. You need only one thing, Light, so be still and receive the answer in the silence.
  The first revelation is about the nature of God, the second is about the nature of man, and the third revelation concerns the relationship of man to God. All revelation deals with this, knowing, silent, powerful, presence of God. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you.”–Matthew 6:33.
  A woman once was required to pay $1000.00 to a man she detested; she paid him, although resentfully. Before taking an ocean voyage, she received a cable from him, reading, “God is love.” She was indignant and kept thinking, “The idea!” What happened then was miraculous indeed: While on the ship in the middle of the ocean, she finally “got it.” The money she paid had released the power of love to fill her.
  Another example is the man who went to a spiritual retreat to study with Masters from Tibet. He was all ready to start, eager to have information imparted to him, like Christmas ornaments hung on a tree from the outside. The first morning, the teacher told him, “Go sit on that little knoll and meditate on the presence of God.” He went to the hill and sat an hour and a half, distressed, but “endured” the rest of day. The next morning, the teacher again said, “Go to the little knoll and meditate on omnipresence of God.” The man refused to be made a fool of while others watched, but he finally went three hours later.
  In the third lesson, the teacher said, “Go up and meditate.” Disgusted, the man went and sat there, wondering why folks even came to the retreat, wondering what they got from it, how they got it, and from where. He became lost in thought and sat on the hill, forgetting everything else for twenty-four hours; he ate no meals, and had no sleep. When he returned from the hill, he was radiant of face and transfigured.
  In the silence, alone, when you are aware of nothing but God, you receive your private lessons with God. Creatures and the primitive children of men are disappearing, and the creator gods are coming. When you believe only in God, the world will be filled with only creator gods. Ponder this in your heart, until you are alive with the life of God. The woman dwelt upon “God is love.” The man pondered the presence, and both received a revelation in the silence.
  Let go of everything else for that one revelation, for it is worth it. “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”–Malachi 3:10.
  Aim not to disprove, but to prove God. Then you will hear, “Come and see.”—“And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.”–Revelation 6:1.

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Silence: The Guardian of Speech
Edna Lister transcript, January 26, 1935, Buffalo, NY. May Wilder, scribe.

  The throat is the guardian, the seat of power for speech and the spoken Word. It also holds the larynx vital center in the desire body and the lotus center in the mental body. The spoken Word is always the carrier of power both to release the idea-substance and to build the form it will eventually take. The idea itself creates a gestating place that protects and sustains its potential, holding it untouchable and inviolate until it gathers enough substance within a womb of nature to manifest the heart of its being. Thus, the Mothering principle of God then nourishes and sustains it. The idea’s center of being takes form (to clairvoyant sight) as a star of Light at the throat center. Later it becomes a spiritual “mechanism” like a machine gun to send out bullets (but in this case words) that open the way to present your unborn ideas to world.
  If you, through fearful unguarded speech, form a monstrosity of sickness, a failing business, etc., only your praise, prayer and thanksgiving can convert it to Light again. When you live by “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord.” (Psalm 19:14), you send forth perfect ideas. Your business will be a perfect business, your hours active and quickened by spirit with people coming in and produce going out. Why? How? Because this is God’s activity, God’s open doors, God’s substance, God’s abundance, and God’s perfect ideas made manifest. You release the substance of all this through your thinking and speech. You must release your own ideas sooner or later or they will backfire, blowout or blow up to God.
  If I can register an idea, it is for me to work out or I wouldn’t have it. Prepare a place for your idea; gestate it by applying the Mother God principle. As you begin to picture the growing idea, it takes on clearer form until it reflects itself as a solid form. As you think, you prepare a mold of the form, a mesh-like fabric of Light, to make it ready to exist in the world. Don’t try to fill the form too soon, or it will leak through any remaining weak places. The form you build must be “heavy” enough to contain the right kind of thinking. Every time you make a cutting remark to someone, you slash the mesh of your own form-mold, and it will leak. “I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”–Matthew 12:36.
  When the idea’s mesh-form is released—at the right time and with guarded words—it goes forth as a circular (spherical) wave form scintillant with light and magnetized to attract all necessary elements to itself. When you have loved enough, praised enough during the day, and faced judgment every night, then you can release enough love to wash your mind and heart clean of doubt and fear. You must not live life by a build-then-destroy plan if you want to advance and succeed. Keep your own counsel. All words have a unique vibration and go out to fulfill that purpose only, so using only the right words is critical. Does a word know you don’t mean it?
  An Idea in God’s mind can be caught only by one who is listening while standing under the Light. Then the clear idea must come forth in the illumination of initiation. In other words, are you ready to bring this idea into fruition? You will face initiations to prove your readiness. Thus, the seer awakens, listens, is illumined, then intuitionally ponders the idea. Ponder it in your heart, but do not think about it mentally. What’s the difference? You ponder intuitionally with your God-given faculties of desire, thinking, and imagination in the silence. When you think mentally, you are noisy and broadcast your ideas into the collective world mind, where the shrewd, keen thinkers, the mental pirates, can pick up your thoughts and use them. Anyone can pick up your idea if you talk about it too soon; then it will be “stillborn.” Gestate your idea in silence, and the substance of your form will appear in the outer world while you ponder and pray for other things. Offer God praise and thanksgiving: “Thank You, Father, for furnishing the substance for this idea.”
  Keep your own counsel until you have completed the gestation and readied the form—then speak the Word. The moment you voice it, you arouse antagonists, people and opposing forces aimed at preventing your success. What are you feeding, the idea or the world? The heart of being for any idea is the gestating center for your “brain children.” When you talk idly you are raising power which should be feeding your idea’s heart of being. When you gossip, you use that power and substance, which should be building your own temple of the living God. Remember the injunction “Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil” (Matthew 5:37), then just smile and say, “Thank You, Father, that this form being built is maturing.”
  Without a goal you can expect no result; you must have something to accomplish and achieve. Praise is the best shortcut to releasing more Light, and persevere by standing under the Light. It will shine on the path to your goal. If you surrender yourself to stand under the Light, Light will go forth to only one path, the one where the Master has walked. Declare, “I now stand under the Light. The Father knows the answers I need, and His Power does the work. Thank You, Father, that it’s already finished. The Power is out there, waiting to work on the right answer to my problem. Thank You, Father, You know the answer. Thank You, Father, that You always say yes. Thank You, Father, that You always move in. Thank You, Father, that You have moved in.”
  You must have an attitude of perseverance, a middle course to follow, laid down in the Light in front of you. Obstacles pose challenges to overcome, but are not something to make you stop and listen. You give failure an excuse when you sit down and wait. “I shook out the fold of my garment and said, So may God shake out each man from his house, and from his property, who does not perform this promise. Even thus may he be shaken out and emptied.”–Nehemiah 5:13. So much for the empty and unfulfilled promises. Meet it, beat it (whatever is left), and keep your trap shut. “Lord, don’t let me miss an opportunity today!” When a reaction returns to you, meet it with a wall of Light. “Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?”–Matthew 26:53. Create a new star necklace, a glowing star surrounded by tiny sparkling stars—a new idea in all its glorious array.

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The Golden Silence
Edna Lister outline, March 9, 16, 1936, Buffalo, NY.

  1. Keep your silence one hour daily. You may divide it into four quarters, but you must keep it.
  2. If you choose to remain in the silence for one straight hour, lie flat on your back, arms outstretched for the first 15 minutes; breathe easily and deeply, preferably with the window open.
  3. Start with your feet, concentrate on perfect feet, perfect leg motion, and move on when you have seen each part of your feet and legs as being perfect. Next, work on all your internal organs—intestines, liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach, lungs, heart, and throat. End with your head, with extra focus on your five senses.
  4. Cup your hands at your sides and raise and spread them wide, gathering and lifting all embodied souls while declaring that all illness is being cleaned from mankind. Declare that they are now healed and held high on a cloud continent of Light, free from all bondage to earth.

  1. Have you kept your Silence? Of Vows? Of interference? Of quiet?
  2. Have you treated your body as a Temple of the living God?
  3. Have you instantly held every thought, emotional desire, imagination up in the Light?
  4. Have you instantly turned on the Light for all darkness?
  5. Have you kept your 40 days, those already passed? Given them to God at night as they were given you in the morning?

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Prayer and the Silence
Edna Lister outline, May 25, 1939, Cleveland, OH.

  The silence is where you go to see and hear God. You can enter the silence anywhere. You cannot hear Him with your ears, but you can listen with your brain cells. In the silence, God is everywhere evenly present and available.
  The silence is the uttermost stillness that earth can conceive. To enter the silence is to enter a state of Heaven-consciousness. You enter the silence to hear the vibration of the Voice of God, and interpret it into symbols to see, or words to hear. You also enter the silence to use the Mystic Eye of God to see what may be revealed to you.
  To enter the silence for prayer, you need awareness of the needs of those who are on your lines of Light, recognition of your responsibility, and surrender of all self in the moment. First you lift yourself to surrender, then lift everything and everyone in your kingdom.
  The second step is visualization followed with the declaration, “Let Thy Power move forth! Let the Light go forth!”
  Finally you praise God and offer gratitude that He has already done it. “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”–Isaiah 65:24. Close with with a declaration such as, “My words shall go forth and accomplish that whereunto they are sent and they shall not return to me void.”
  Prayer is gratitude and praise. Prayer is a powerful treatment for overcoming darkness and changing it into Light.

The Silence
Edna Lister outline, April 12, 1942, Buffalo, NY. Job 22:22-30.

  “Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart. If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up, thou shalt put away iniquity far from thy tabernacles. Then shalt thou lay up gold as dust, and the [gold] of Ophir as the stones of the brooks. Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver. For then shalt thou have thy delight in the Almighty, and shalt lift up thy face unto God. Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows. Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways. When [men] are cast down, then thou shalt say, [There is] lifting up; and he shall save the humble person. He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.”–Job 22:22-30.
  What is the silence? Where do you find it? When may you enter it, and how? These are vital questions, to which you gain the answers in three steps:
  The first step to reach the silence is prayer, in which you prepare to receive the law and to pay your vows. This is how you gain assurance, confidence and trust in your soul’s ability to commune with God.
  The second step is to give prayer treatments and to make your decrees of the spoken Word for perfection.
  Then you enter the silence, where “it shall be established [stand] for you, so light will shine on your ways.”

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The Golden Silence
Edna Lister transcript, June 18, 1954, Buffalo, NY. Edna Catherine Bender, scribe. Ms. Bender was executive secretary to Lewis G. Harriman, president of Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company, headquartered in Buffalo. Her shorthand notes are remarkably complete.

  “When you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father, who is in the secret place.”–Matthew 6:6. The whole process of entering the golden silence is learning how to ascend to your room of Light and close the door on the world. You have five physical senses, and to ascend in consciousness you must deliberately hold them under your conscious direction and control. Then they become your rays of sensitivity, like wearing a belt of radar beams over your solar plexus to protect you from head to toe. Drawing the senses in is the first step in entering the golden silence. The whole process is to enter your private prayer room and close the door—you draw in the body’s five ordinary senses, but not your soul’s radar screen.
  Personality is what the world can see of the soul. The closer you get to God, the more radiant your personality grows until it becomes a vivid glow. To have the Light moving through you in this degree, you must first withdraw your personal reaction to emotional sensitivity, the part of self that gets upset. Focus your attention on the truth in what’s happening to create an impersonal reaction to life, to be immune to the little self’s expressions of blame or condemnation. Freedom from self is the only impersonality you can achieve and it takes hard work!
  As you ascend into the Light—which is pure principle descending as number, color, tone, joy, faith and all soul powers—it intensifies and sharpens your perceptions. The five senses ordinarily gather nothing more than messages that feed the impulsive self of the appetitive soul at the expense of the rational soul’s mental leadership. We call this matter over mind, or letting the body dictate to the soul. However, the soul who has really learned how to enter the golden silence, you become a balance of love and wisdom emanating as compassion in the world. This is how you open the soul faculties of illumination and intuition, acting as apperception.
  Once you have learned how to enter the golden silence by focusing your desire and will on God's desire and will for you, you can easily indraw the senses and synthesize their perceptions into apperception. Under the influence of apperception, you become a balance of intuition and illumination, of mind over matter and body.
  As you raise your hands, palms turned inward, level with your ears and eyes—this action automatically opens the 1,000-petaled lotus {a crown of Light centered on the junction of the skull’s coronal and sagittal sutures}—the brain’s nerve endings and the mental body lotus centers, little lights which whirl above the head like a halo. So, apperception, which is really the soul’s memory, its recollection of its past, enters as Light enfolded within the etheric currents coming through the crown of the head.
  The world vibration, the subconscious composite world mind, whirls up through the magnetic currents that enter your body through your feet. If you live in this low state of body-based consciousness you will pour out sympathy when you hear of a need instead of compassion, which is born of the Christ consciousness. When a soul unconsciously lives life in the magnetic currents, he opens himself to the world mind of the masses, the collective unconscious, not to the glory of the mind that was in Christ Jesus.
  You can use imagination in only one way at a time. You may turn your mind into the abstract by visualizing beauty. The instant you think of something vast—imagine the radiance of a sunrise or sunset, the majesty of a mountain range, the riotous color of a distant hillside in autumn—your subconscious mind becomes so interested in what you picture that you automatically draw in your senses; your five-rayed radar sweeps out and your mind opens to the pure mind of Christ.
  If you wish to concentrate clearly, perhaps to read for retention, this is how to prepare your mind. Move up in consciousness first and imagine yourself in a cloud garden—this is the first step in reaching the silence—go to your garden first then sit still until you feel yourself in this garden. Then you will be there as pure Mind, and can use your faculties with no interference from the subconscious mind. Read anything you like from this state of mind and it will not be mere words—you will read the truth of it from above.
  To work from your garden you must hold an unwavering sense of gratitude and praise for God and what He has given you. Thank the Father that His mercy flows as Light forever and ever and is never turned off. I think of God as both the Father and the Mother whom I worship and praise as personality in form, and as unfailing principle—unfailing because Light is the ultimate principle, which can never fail or be evil. Make yourself sit still in that Light until you can see yourself in the garden. At this second step you are there.
  Your garden is your work space for prayer, praising God and offering healing treatments, and you must be so full of life, love and vitality that you can do the prayer work you came to do. You lift the world by speaking the Word to increase the degree of Light, life, and power glory of God flowing through all souls and their affairs. How can anyone who is weak or drained of vitality offer anything more than just beautiful words in prayer? How can you strenthen your soul and body to increase the Light-as-power and vitality being realeased through you?
  Singing is the highest form of praise and rejoicing known to man because it releases God's power and glory. Someday the Elect shall enter the Silence on music, singing, playing an instrument, listening to a beautiful symphony, or whatever you can do to raise your personal rate of vibration and that of those who are on your lines of Light and responsibility. Singing is one form of rejoicing that lifts you above the puerile physical body that lacks the power to heal a sick mouse!
  When you enter your garden through visualizing beauty and offering lyrical praise, your radar screen is operating at peak efficiency. Speak the names of everyone on your prayer list; include your family and your worst favorites first, for these souls need your prayer the most. The Master said he came to save sinners. Your worst favorites are those you believe have sinned against you, have done you wrong. Blame, criticism, and condemnation are curses that go forth to create after their degree and kind. Your belief that someone has wronged you is blame; you increase the degree by criticizing and/or condemning the sinner. So you need to save your own sinners first! Put them on a cloud continent of Light for healing; see them surrounded by and filled with Light.
  All you can do for healing a person, a group, a situation or an event is to speak the Word, for in every case that needs healing God releases the Light-as-Power to do the work. You cannot make the Power do anything for anyone. Nor can you abandon a sinner by leaving him out of your healing work to wander in a dark alley. God does not requite you to love sin, but you love the soul who sins into the Light because he or she is a son or a daughter of God, just as you are! You do not have to like the ugly things people do but you may not blame or condemn them for their acts or words.
  I can’t make anyone do what I think he should do, nor can I make him perfect, or put him into a grade he has not earned. But I can sit in my garden and see him on a cloud continent of Light and call the divine fire down upon him and declare that Love’s fire cleanses his desires, thinking, and imagination! I can see him as he is, a glorious soul seated on a cloud—and when I have held him there long enough, when I have loved God enough, he will be healed! I have the privilege of sitting in my own garden, in that Golden Silence, lifting everyone I know. Because I have done this myself many, many times, I know that you will have calls for help from people who need it, and you can be as successful in treating them in prayer as I have been, because God’s love never faileth, and it really is God who is doing all the work though you.
  After you move up into your garden, thank the Father and praise Him enough, you then look up and wait upon the Lord. Here you enter the place of seership and prophecy! I assure you, you will have an ecstasy of soul that you may never experience in any other way. You simply move forth from your garden—at first it will still be your living-room, bedroom or wherever you choose to do you work. It will seem just a bit unreal as you begin, but gradually as the substance of your praise for God builds the form of your garden—a little of you stays there with your every visit. We call the result God-consciousness because you are using the mind that was in Christ Jesus to do all this work until you finally have the mind of Christ! The whole process of building your own garden and quickly going there at every call for prayer turns your faculty of imagination upwards instead into glory instead of downward into doubt and fear.
  Move into your garden when you study, when you read, and as you do so you turn lens of your imagination upward to the place of silent contemplation, the source Divine Mind. Your purity of being, your whole capacity to do God’s work depends upon your dedication to turn your kingly faculty of imagination UP to God. God is the source of your strength, and what you call down upon the millions moves through your soul and your body first! When you return to outer consciousness you don’t descend from the silence. You don’t come down from the High Place. You turn your attention outward and remain in the High Place, in contact with God, knowing God is there, knowing His Light is moving through as Power.

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Edna Lister on the Golden Silence

Responsibility never automatically confers authority. It means only that you have the power to lift in silence. If the Silence is broken by word or action, all Power is withdrawn from you.–Edna Lister, July 15, 1938

When you work in Silence and loyalty to the Vows of Silence you do not disturb the balance or faith of others.–Edna Lister, August 19, 1938

Vow of Silence: “O, Father, hear Thou our renewed Vow of Silence. Touch our lips and place there Thy full guard of Light, that no word unlawful shall pass these gates. In silence shall we hold and defend Thy Truth forever. Amen.”
  Loyalty to God is the first Commandment. Live all it teaches: “To love Honor above all things.” Do not drag any empty shell along with you, lest it retard your growth and hamper the expansion of your soul. So, shed Light on all alike. Leave no one out, but your answer shall be “yea, yea” and “nay, nay,” or perfect Silence at need.–Edna Lister, September 6, 1938

Allow no one to speak of darkness in your hearing without lifting it into true Golden Silence. Do not voice corrections; just pour Light on any shadows that surface to make them into Light.–Edna Lister, January 8, 1939

When you, as a group, sit together as one in the Golden Silence, then anything that you desire as one shall be done through you and for you by the Father.–Edna Lister, November 10, 1939

Dwelling in the silence will dispel illusion.–Edna Lister, January 21, 1940

In the Golden Silence you learn to see only the good and use the one name, Good.–Edna Lister, November 27, 1940

If you speak illegally or out of place, you are responsible for the world’s reactions to that truth until the vibration is spent and those reactions cease. Therefore, the rule is to speak softly, walk gently, use wise speech and maintain Golden Silence.–Edna Lister, July 3, 1941

When you become worried, upset or uneasy in your mind, enter the Silence and lift it, place it upon the altar and you will find peace as Power continues to flow. “Let” is controller of Power released, and opens or closes the floodgate. It takes the strongest Elect to know how to lift darkness into Light. Give of your time and remain surrendered to release the Power. Everyone releases the degree of Power under which he can stand.–Edna Lister, February 1, 1942

You earn promotion by maintaining Golden Silence under trying conditions.–Edna Lister, February 10, 1942

Don’t make a big production of entering the Silence. Move up in consciousness! Love God enough! Approaching the Silence as a mere process attracts events and thoughts to distract you and keep your consciousness under your skull. The act of a miracle is to say. “Father, here I am! I love You!” and ride to the Source in your soul’s exaltation.
  All your life you’ve been using words to enter the Silence, to try to commune with God. They have records of all our lengthy prayers in the Hall of Records, prayers we have to listen to over there. You can release enough love by helping others to erase those records. You don’t need a lengthy process of words to take you back to God. Just go in love and kneel at His feet. Praise God in all you do on three levels at once physical, emotional and mental. Go about your business and tell God you are always looking and listening, waiting for the next miracle.–Edna Lister, What Is a Miracle?, May 24, 1960

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