mmediate results often causes
disappointment, and leads to an abandonment of the treatment before
the seed has had time to take root. The healer is the sower, and the
patient's unconscious mind is the soil. Often rubbish must be cleared
away before any fertile spot is found. The cure must come from within.
Sometimes the patient is cherishing some secret sin, or giving place
to trains of thought colored with envy, jealousy, avarice, or
selfishness. These are all positive obstacles to both mental and
physical improvement, for thoughts are real things. The patient must
actively co-operate with the healer, and make himself transparent to
the truth. That which is misshapen has to grow symmetrical. Even if
the mind could be instantly permeated with the belief of health, the
body will need a little time to completely change its expression.
Should these limitations discourage anyone? Not in the least, but
rather the reverse. The fact that the cure is in the nature of a
growth, is evidence that it is normal and permanent, rather than
magical or capricious. Limitations are present, but they can be
surmounted.

The phenomenon of pain, so commonly regarded as an evil, is only a
warning voice to summon our consciousness from its resting-place in
the damp, morgue-like basement of our being, to the higher apartments,
where sunshine and harmony are ever present. It is beneficent when its
message is heeded, for it is thereby transformed into blessing. Our
resistance to it, and misunderstanding of its significance, prevent
that possible transformation. The process of cure through mind, though
in itself a steady growth, often appears to the consciousness of the
patient as vibratory and uneven.

Many could heal themselves without the aid of another, if they
appreciated the tremendous power for good of concentrated mental
delineation of the ideal. By such exercises of mind, a wholesome
environment can be built up, even if at first the process seems almost
mechanical. But instead of such self-building, out of an infinitude of
divine material, the average man is inclined to vacate the control of
his being, put his body into the keeping of his doctor, and his soul
[himself] into the care of his priest or pastor.

Efficiency for self-treatment is increased as the power of abstraction
is cultivated. Hold a firm consciousness of the spiritual self, and of
the fact that the material form is only expression made visible.
Firmly deny the validit