by Florence Scovel Shinn
Chapter 10 of 10 • 254 min read • Published 1925
One day he met a poor man on the road. He stopped him and said: “My good friend, I will give you this gold nugget, which, if you sell, will make you rich for life.” The mendicant took the nugget, had it valued, and found it was only brass.
So we see, the first man became rich through feeling rich, thinking the nugget was gold. Every man has within himself a gold nugget; _it is his consciousness of gold, of opulence, which brings riches into his life_. In making his demands, man begins at his _journey’s end_, that is, he declares _he has already received_.
“_Before_ ye call I shall answer.” Continually affirming establishes the belief in the subconscious. It would not be necessary to make an affirmation more than once if one had perfect faith! One should not plead or supplicate, but give thanks repeatedly, that he has received.
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“The desert shall _rejoice_ and blossom as the rose.” This rejoicing which is yet in the desert (state of consciousness) opens the way for release. The Lord’s Prayer is in the form of command and demand, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” and ends in praise, “For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, forever.
“Concerning the works of my hands, command ye me.” So prayer is command and demand, praise and thanksgiving. The student’s work is in making himself believe that “with God all things are possible.” This is easy enough to state in the abstract, but a little more difficult when confronted with a problem.
For example: It was necessary for a woman to demonstrate a large sum of money within a stated time. She knew she must _do something_ to get a realization (for realization is manifestation), and she demanded a “lead.” She was walking through a department store, when she saw a very beautiful pink enamel papercutter.
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She felt the “pull” towards it. “I haven’t a paper cutter good enough to open letters containing large cheques.” So she bought the papercutter, which the reasoning mind would have called an extravagance. When she held it in her hand, she had a flash of a picture of herself opening an envelope containing a large cheque, and in a few weeks, she received the money.
The pink papercutter was her bridge of active faith. Many stories are told of the power of the subconscious when directed in faith. For example: A man was spending the night in a farmhouse. The windows of the room had been nailed down, and in the middle of the night he felt suffocated and made his way in the dark to the window.
He could not open it, so he smashed the pane with his fist, drew in draughts of fine fresh air, and had a wonderful night’s sleep. The next morning, he found he had smashed the glass of a bookcase and the window had remained closed during the whole night.
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He had _supplied himself with oxygen, simply by his thought of oxygen_. When a student starts out to demonstrate, he should never turn back. “Let not that man who wavers think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.”
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