March 31 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

GENERAL SUMMARY ~ Ernest Holmes

"No form is permanent.  All forms return into the Formless.  The Formless is Eternal.  All form is temporary.  There is an eternal play of Life upon Itself.  This is necessary in order that Mind may be expressed.  Man is an expression of Original Mind and he can call temporary forms into being if he wills to.  Indeed he cannot stop doing this and thereby hangs the tale of good and evil.

Through our own individualized subjective mind we contact the Law of the Universe and make use of the Mind of God.  Our conscious mind is limited, but the Subjective part of us, being Universal, is without limit.  This Limitless Medium we may use for whatsoever purpose we will.  If we use It for destructive purposes we shall bring destruction upon ourselves.  The Universe is fool proof.  But there is no liability in using any creative power if we use it constructively.

We can tap the reservoirs of the Universal Mind through the use of our own thought.  We can use this power for the healing of the physical body or for the changing and the control of conditions around us, the reason being that both body and affairs are fluent.  They are Mind held in form.

Man's mind is the Mind of God functioning at the level of man's understanding of his place in the Universe.  Man contacts the Mind of God at the center of his own being.  It is useless to seek elsewhere.  "The Highest God and the innermost God is One God."  Through the medium of Mind man unifies with the Universe and contacts a Power that can do anything for him that he is able to conceive of Its doing. Of course, this Power will never deny Its own Nature.

This Law of Mind is man's access to the Original Creative Genius of the Universe, and has no intention for us other than the intention that we give It.  The Will of Spirit is already imposed upon It to do all those things which we call the automatic processes of nature, whether in our physical bodies or in the physical body of the Universe.

The Spirit has already ordained that nature shall be perfect.  It would be impossible for Spirit to ordain anything else since, in order to be at all, It must be perfect in Its nature.  God is Will and Representation.  A perfect cause must produce a perfect effect.  The normal functions of life are harmonious but we interfere with these in our ignorance and thus bring discord into temporary being.  In the life process of automatic functioning both in our bodies and throughout the universe as a whole the laws of being are set and immutable.  While in the use that we make of the Law of cause and effect in our individual experience we are responsible.  We are given, or by the necessity of our nature have, the power and the necessity of using the Law as though It existed solely for us.  It goes in the direction - in our mental affairs - that we give It. It can have no other direction for us and know no other. But, of course, in the Great Whole, the Universe is not run on the scale of man's ignorance.  Knowledge alone can free man from an ignorant and self-imposed bondage.

But so far as man is concerned, outside of the automatic and necessary functions of Universal Mind, man is free to do as he wills and the Universal Mind, as Law, can know about the individual only what he knows about himself.  The cosmic engine is started but man guides it in his own life.  It goes for him in the direction in which it is driven. This driving is not by force but by agreement, unification and acquiescence.  We must believe.  On this hangs all the law and the prophets.  Heaven and hell are tied up in man's beliefs.  It is the law of his life."

March 29 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Personal Convictions of Life Eternal ~ Ernest Holmes

I believe in the continuation of the personal life beyond the grave, in the continuity of the individual stream of consciousness with a full recollection of itself and the ability to know and to make itself known.  I wish to feel, when the experience of physical death shall occur, that that which I really am will continue to live beyond the grave.  I wish to feel that I shall again meet those friends whose lives and influences have made my life happy while on earth.  If I could not believe this, I would believe nothing in life; life would have no meaning and death could not be untimely, unless it were long delayed.  If personality does not persist beyond the grave, then death would be an event to be devoutly long for and sought after.

I believe that certain experiences have given us ample evidence to substantiate the claim of immortality.  I know that my own experience justifies a complete acceptance in my mind of my own and other people's immortality.  Is there any one who, standing at the bier of a loved one, can possibly feel that the real end has come?  It is useless to say that their influence lives after them.  That is true, of course, but we hope for more than this; WE WISH TO FEEL THAT THEY STILL LIVE!  How anyone can feel otherwise seems unthinkable. I want to live and keep on living and to know that I am I; and unless immortality means this, death means the cutting off of all conscious life, contact or recognition, and it could then be truly said of the personality that it dies with the grave.

Poets have sung of the eternality of the soul, while the saints and sages of the ages have assured us that man is an immortal being.  It is recorded that Jesus rose from the dead and made Himself known to his immediate followers.  The faith of countless millions of the Christian Religion has been based, to a great extent, on its teachings of immortality.  The philosophy of Christianity can be traced largely to Greek thought and ideals, but the Christian Religion itself rests its greatest hope on the assurance that a man rose from the dead and passed from this plane to the next, retaining and carrying with him into the beyond those qualities and attributes which constitute that personal stream of consciousness known as an individual.

But I cannot base my hopes of immortality on the revelation of anyone but myself.  So far as I am concerned, nothing can exist to me unless I am aware of it.  While I believe in other men's revelations, I am sure only of my own.  I look upon the belief in immortality neither as a vague dream, nor a forlorn hope, but as a proven fact.  One cannot doubt that which he knows to be so, and why should he deny the evidence of his senses, his reason and his personal experiences, in one field more than in another?  Immortality, or the continuation of personal existence beyond this life, has been so completely demonstrated to me that it would be unthinkable for me to assume an opposite position, even for the purpose of debate.  Here, within myself, is something that knows.  Here is something knows that it IS, and knows that life itself moves with a tide as irresistible as the recurring seasons.

I do not believe in the return of the soul to another life on this plane.  The spiral of life is upward.  Evolution carries us forward, not backward.  Eternal and progressive expansion is its law and there are no breaks in its continuity.  It seems to me that our evolution is the result of an unfolding consciousness of that which already is, and needs but to be realized to become a fact of everyday life.  I can believe in planes beyond this one without number, in eternal progress.  I cannot believe that nature is limited to one sphere of action.

The average man desires to live beyond the grave.  In most instances where this desire is lacking, we find those whose experiences in this world have been so negative that their greatest hope is for utter oblivion, a complete nothingness.  The average man desires an eternal progress, an everlasting expansion, a complete reconciliation between this life, the grave and everlasting existence. Even the best men feel that their lives here have been marred by incompleteness.  Nine out of ten people believe in some type of immortality, which demonstrates that people not only wish to believe, but that - in the face of all difficulties, disappointments and disillusionments - THEY ACTUALLY DO BELIEVE!

It is human to grieve over the loss of dear ones.  We love them and cannot help missing them, but a true realization of our immortality and continuity of the individual soul, will rob our grief of hopelessness.  We shall realize that they are in God's keeping and they are safe.  We shall know that loving friends have met them, and that their life still flows on with the currents of eternity. We shall feel that we have not lost them, they have only gone before.  So we shall view eternity from the higher standpoint, as a continuity of time, forever and ever expanding, until time, as we now experience it, shall be no more.  Realizing this, we shall see in everyone a budding genius, a becoming God, an unfolding soul, an eternal destiny.

Time heals all wounds, adjust conditions, explains facts; and time alone satisfies the expanding soul, reconciling the visible with the invisible.  We are born of eternal day, and the Spiritual Sun shall never set upon the glory of the soul, for it is the coming forth of God into self-expression.  We must give ourselves time to work out all problems.  If we do not work them out here, we shall hereafter.  There will be time enough in eternity to prove everything.  Every man is an incarnation of eternity, a manifestation in the finite, of that Infinite which, Emerson tells us, "lies stretched in smiling repose."

With all these facts confronting us, we should learn to trust life.  There is no power in the universe which wishes anyone ill. Life is good and God is Good.  Why not accept this and begin to live?  No man need prepare to meet his God, he is meeting Him every day and each hour in the day.  He meets Him in the rising sun, in the flowing stream, in the budding rose, in the joy of friendship and love, and in the silence of his own soul.

When we meet each other, do we not feel that subtle Presence which flows through all things and gives light and color to our everyday experiences?  In our own souls, in the silent processes of our thought and understanding, do we not sense another Presence?  There is something Divine about us which we have overlooked. There is more to us than we realize.  Man is an eternal destiny, a forever-expanding principle of conscious intelligence...the ocean in the drop of water, the sun in its rays.  Man, the real man, is birthless, deathless, changeless; and God, as man, in man, IS man!  The highest God and the innermost God is One and the same God.

And so we prepare not to die, but to live.  The thought of death should slip from our consciousness altogether; and when this great event of the soul takes place, it should be beautiful, sublime...a glorious experience.  As the eagle, freed from its cage, soars to its native heights, so the soul, freed from the home of heavy flesh, will rise and return unto its Father's house, naked and unafraid."

When death shall come

And the spirit, freed, shall mount the air, 

And wander afar in that great no-where,

It shall go as it came,

Freed from sorrow, sin and shame;

And naked and bare, through the upper air

Shall go alone to that great no-where.

Hinder not its onward way, 

Grieve not o'er its form of clay,

For the spirit, freed now from clod,

Shall go alone to meet its God.

March 28 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Shall We Rest in the Hereafter? ~ Ernest Holmes

"The questions might arise in our minds, "Where shall we go when we die?"  Shall we engage in activity or shall we be inactive?"  These are natural questions.  Where shall we take this marvelous mind and subtle body?  If today is the logical continuance of yesterday, then all of the tomorrows which stretch down the vista of eternity, will be a continuity of experiences and remembrance.  We shall keep on keeping on.  We shall continue in our own individual stream of consciousness but forever and ever expanding.  Not less but ever more:  More and still more ourselves.

Our place hereafter will be what we have made it.  We certainly cannot take anything with us but our character.  If we have lived in accordance with the law of harmony, we shall continue to live after this Divine Law.  If we have lived any other way, we shall continue to live that way until we wake up to the facts of Being.

When we came into this life, we were met by loving friends who cared for use until we were able to care for ourselves.  Judging the future by the past, we can believe that when we enter the larger life, there will be loving hands to greet us and loving friends to care for us until we become accustomed to our new surroundings.  Nature provides for herself there as well as here.  We confidently expect to meet friends who are on the other side, and to know and be known.  We cannot believe otherwise.  We should not look forward to a hereafter without activity; but to a place where our work will be done in greater harmony with the Divine Law, because of greater understanding.  A place where there was nothing to do, would be eternal boredom.

With this understanding of eternity, should we not be able to view our passing in a different light?  The experience loses its sting, the grave its victory, when we realize the eternity of our own being.  Nature will not let us stay in any one place too long.  She will let us stay just long enough to gather the experience necessary to the unfolding and advancement of the soul.  This is a wise provision, for should we stay here too long, we would become too set, too rigid, too inflexible.  Nature demands the change in order that we may advance.  When the change comes, we should welcome it with a smile on the lips and a song in the heart."

March 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

What of Reward and Punishment? ~ Ernest Holmes

"What of reward and punishment? Shall we be rewarded for our virtues  and punished for our short-comings?  Can we think of reward and punishment from any other viewpoint than that sin is a mistake and punishment a consequence, that virtue and righteousness must find their corresponding effects in our experience?  God neither punishes nor rewards. Such a concept of God would create an anthropomorphic dualism, a house divided against itself.  Such a house cannot stand.  Life is a blessing or a curse, according to the use we make of it.  In the long run, no one judges us but ourselves and no one condemns us but ourselves.  We believe in a law that governs all things and all people.  If we make mistakes, we suffer.  We are our own reward and our own punishment.

Some suffer, some are happy, some unhappy, according to the way they contact life.  No one judges us but ourselves.  No one gives to us but ourselves and no one robs us but ourselves.  We need not fear either God or the devil.  There is no devil, and God is Love.  The problem of good and evil will never enter the mind which is at peace with itself.  When we make mistakes we suffer the consequences.  When by reason of enlightenment and understanding, we correct such mistakes, we no longer suffer from them.  Understanding alone constitutes true salvation, either here or hereafter.

We need fear nothing in the Universe.  We need not be afraid of God.  We may be certain that all will arrive at the final goal, that not one will be missing. Every man is an incarnation of God.  The soul can no more be lost than God could be lost.  We should neither be disturbed by the wailing of prophets, nor the anathemas of theology.  We cannot believe that because we have subscribed to some creed, we have thereby purchased a seat in heaven, nor can we believe in any vindictive or malicious power in the universe, which damns us because we have erred through human ignorance.  We believe in God and that He is Good. What more can life demand of us than that we do the best that we can and try to improve?  If we have done this, we have done well and all will be right with our souls both here and hereafter.  This leaves us free to work out our own salvation - not with fear or even with trembling - but with peace and in quiet confidence."

March 30 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Immortal Clothing (II Cor. 5:1-10) ~ Ernest Holmes

"This body, in which we seem to live, is not the eternal body.  We have a body not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  As our thought reaches up and on to that greater truth, we are clothed upon from heaven.  That is, we more perfectly pattern the Divine and consequently more completely manifest the Eternal.

We do not wish to be unclothed but clothed upon.  This is an interesting concept, for it implies that immortality clothes itself in definite forms, more beautiful than those which now appear.

We are to know no man after the flesh, but even Christ after the Spirit. Thus we are swallowed up of life.  Death is overcome, not by dwelling upon it, but by contemplating eternal life.  It is the belief of the writer that should one become completely unconscious of death and all fear of it, one would never know that he died, even though he went through the experience of passing from this life to the next.  Death would be swallowed up of life.

It seems probable that when the last enemy is overcome, we shall pass from one experience to another at will; that the soul will clothe itself in a body on whatever plane it finds itself - a body which will express the soul on that plane. We are to know no man after the flesh but the Spirit.

The Inner Man (Eph. 3:16)

"To be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man."  The inner man is Christ, and Christ is the son of God.  The inner man is revealed by what he does.  As we do not see God, so we do not see the real man.  We never see causes, only effects; but the effect loudly affirms the nature of its cause.

The Spirit of God dwells in the inner man with power and might.  The outer man reflects this Spirit in so far as the intellect allows it to come forth into expression.

When Christ dwells in us in love, which is unity, we are able to understand the things that the saints have understood.  Saint simply means an unusually wise and good man - all saints have been human beings just as we are for God makes all people alike.  The universe plays no favorites.

To be filled with the fullness of God is to manifest our true nature, which is Christ, the Son of God - "the power that worketh in us." This power is the power of God, and if we admitted no other, we should ever be satisfied, happy, prosperous, well and complete.

The Endless Creation (Eph. 3:20,21)

"World without end."  This refers to the endless creation of the Almighty.  Particular worlds will always begin and end, as do cabagges and kings; but creation itself - the necessity of God's manifesting Himself in time and in space - will never end.  If creation could end, then God would end.  As this is unthinkable, it follows that "world without end," or worlds without end, are necessary to the expression of Spirit."

March 26 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Is There Spirit Communication? ~ Ernest Holmes

"It would be interesting to know whether the spirits of the supposed dead, cause certain physical manifestations experienced by many people. One thing is certain, these manifestations are either caused by those who are supposed to be dead, or they are produced b those now in the flesh.  This is self-evident.  since they occur, something must make them happen. Whether the manifestations are caused by the so-called dead or by the living, the agency used is either a mental body or the direct power of thought operating upon objects.

More than forty years ago (and but little new has been discovered since in this field) Hudson, in his "Law of Psychic Phenomena," carefully goes through an elaborate process of reasoning - the result of years of painstaking investigation - and completely proves that all of the manifestations do take place.  He then goes through and extensive, and to his conclusive, argument to show that the ARE NOT CAUSED BY SPIRITS, declaring that we have no reason to supposed the presence of an UNKNOWN agency when we know there is one present who could be producing the phenomena.

Scientific research in the realm of the psyche, the subjective soul life, has taught us many valuable lessons; and has demonstrated beyond question of doubt that there are people who, while in a certain state of consciousness, are able to see without the agency of the physical eye, hear without the agency of the physical ear, and communicate without the tongue.  Indeed, every faculty of the sense has been duplicated in the mind alone.  It would take volumes to enumerate the data compiled by able and scientific minds in furnishing evidence for these facts, and they may be accepted as authentic.  This evidence leads us to suppose that the soul can operate independently of the physical instrument.  A careful examination of these facts, together with years of personal and immediate experience, will remove all doubts.  Those who have carefully investigated do no question this evidence.

Why has Nature provided us with such subtle powers unless She foreknew our need of them sometime, somewhere?  Nature is not foolish; She does nothing without an ample reason, leaves no gaps and provides for all emergencies.  In everyday living, the etheric and subtle qualities of the soul are not needed.  It seems logical to infer that in providing for the continuity of life and the triumphant progression of the soul, Nature has endowed us with duplicate senses that we may be able to reproduce our entire life, with all its action and reaction, on another plane.

Now, if our reasoning power is correct, and it is provided that physical manifestations take place through some power which is mental, and if it is provided that those who have passed on might still be near us, then we cannot see where the argument against spirit agencies could be considered perfect.  We are inclined to feel that the very facts in the case prove that at least come of these manifestations could be produced by either the living or the so-called dead; and such we believe to be the case.

There are thousands of cases on record where people have penetrated the veil of flesh and seen into the beyond.  If we cannot believe the experiences of so many, how can we believe in any experience at all?  Of course, there is a large field for deception, and it is not probable that all alleged communications are real, but to state positively that they are all illusions is to throw the lie in the face of human thought and say that it never sees clearly.  There is certainly more argument and evidence in favor of the theory of the possibility of spirit communication than against it, and so far as we are concerned, we are entirely convinced of the reality of this evidence.

If spirits really exist, and if we all live in one Mind; and if mentality can communicate with mentality without the aid of the physical instrument, then spirit communication must be possible!  Since we know that the above stated facts are true, we have no alternative other than to accept the conclusive evidence and to realize that, while it may be difficult to communicate with the departed, yet it has been done.

It is evident that any such communication MUST BE MENTAL.  It would be thought-transference, or mental telepathy, at best.  Now, if the supposed entity knows that we wish to communicate with it, and if it is consciously present trying to communicate with us, then it must - by the power of its thought - cause its message to come up through our subjectivity to an objective state of recognition.  Consequently, how very difficult to receive a coherent message!  For instance, suppose one tries to think a lecture to an audience, how much would that audience be likely to receive?  Yet this is exactly what would happen, UNDER THE VERY BEST CONDITIONS, if the departed were trying to impress our thought, and we knew that they might do so and we were trying to receive it!  I believe that they do seek to communicate with us and that they often succeed - perhaps more often than we realize - but I repeat, "How difficult it must be!"

Whether or not th espirits are present is uncertain.  Just because a psychic sees the picture of a certain person around or near us, does not mean the person is actually there; for the pictures of all our friends are always in our mental atmospheres. It is imperative that we make this distinction, as people sometimes become unbalanced, fromaccepting as real and actual that which is only a picture...only a mental impression.  It is quite absured to suppose that at any time we wish, we can call anyone whom we ever knew and have him talk with us.  We are unable to doso here, and the psychological and metaphysical laws are the same on every plane.  TO SUPPOSE THAT WE CAN COMPEL THE ATTENTION OF ANYONE OUT OF THE FLESH, ANY MORE THAN ONE IN IT, IS AN ABSURDITY, and if we could, what would we hope to gain?  People out of the flesh know no more than athey did when in the body.

However, I believe that we often do communciate with the subjectivity of those who are departed, whether they know we are doing so or not; but the messages that come in our present state of evolution are very incoherent.  I believe that an unconscious communication goes on, more or less, all the time and that those people whom we have greatly loved are still conscious of us.  We might feel only a vagues sense of their presence, much as did the niece in "The Return of Peter Grimm."  She felt, you will recall a vague sense of her uncle; that he was trying to impress her with his tought and desire; she felt a blind groping and that is probably as clearly as we should be able to receive most messages.

We all have psychic capacities but they should never be forced, for it is only when the subjective comes to the surface while we are in a perfectly normal state, that a normal psychic power is produced.  To lose the self-consciousness, in order to let the subjective come through, is never good or right and furthermore is likely to be destructive.  The psychic capacity is normal oonly to the extent that it can be used while in a self-conscious state.  Many people are annoyed by their psychic powers - constatntly seeing things the average person does not see, continually getting impressions.  These people are very near to the subjectivity and it bothers them.  They can easily be healed and should be.

There is, however, a normal psychic capacity, and some are able to discern mental causes with perfect ease.  Jesus was such a one.  He was able to tell the woman she had been married five times, aand that the man with whom she was then living was not her husband.  He read that out of her thought, but he didi it while in an objective state, for he was able to consciously and objectively exercise his subjective faculties.  This is perfectly normal, but to let go of the volitional and choosing faculties - which alone constitute individuality - and become immersed in subjectivity, is very dangerous.

It is a crime against individuality to allow the conscious faculties to bcome submerged.  We should control the subjective and not let it control us.  The teaching of the illusion of mind sprang up because men ofwisdom perceived that people might mistake the shadow for the reality; the form for real substance; the hollow voice for revelation, and thereby be misled.  This is why they warned against these things, and against having familiar spirits, and they were right.  Never let any voices speak to you unless you are in control of th esituaiton.  NEVER ADMIT ANY MENTAL IMPRESSIONS ORIMAGES THAT YOU DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE, OR THAT YOU CANNOT RECEIVE CONSCIOUSLY.  Say: "There is no power, in the flesh or out of it, but the One, which can enter my consciousness.  Anything that obes the One, confirms to the One, believes only in the One, and comes only through the consciousness of the One, is perfectly welcome but ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT CANNOT COME."

The only value that an understanding of psychic phenomena can have - and the only reason for introducing any discussion of it in this book - is that without a comprehension of it, we do not understand the complete workings of the mind.  We do not understand the experiences which people often have, and in a consistent philosophy which deals with Mind, the lack ofan understanding of psychic phenomena would be inexcusable!  For anyone in this day to say that power of clairvoyance, telepathy, etc. are not exercised is to admit his own ignorance.

Thesse things do happen, and are continually happening in more and more instances.  The thing to do is not to deny what happens, but to find a logical and scientific explanation of it.  It is our business to explain all mental action -- in so far as at present it is explainable - and so we must find an answer which will cover the law of psychic phenomena.  MIND, wiht th elaws governing It, is the whole answer, foreach plane repreduces the one next to it; and psychic phenomena are but reproductions of man's physical capacities on the mental plane.  "what is true on one plane, is true on all.""

March 25 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

The Ether of Science ~ Ernest Holmes

"Science is rapidly proving that there is much more in the Universe than we can see with the naked eye. We are now being taught that ether is more solid than matter.  We know that the ether penetrates everything; it is in our bodies, at the center of the earth, and throughout all space.  This means that within our present bodies there is a substance more solid than the body which we see.  This idea is very far-reaching, for it shows that we might have a body within the physical one, which could be as real as the one of which we are accustomed to think.  If Instinctive Man has molded the outer body in form, why should It not mold the inner one into definite form?  There is every reason to suppose that It does and no reason to suppose the opposite.  In all probability, there is a body within a body to infinity.

We do not depart from reason when we assume this, for while we say that two bodies cannot occupy the same space simultaneously, we must remember that we are talking about only one plane of expression; and the plane upon which we are now living with its form of matter is probably but one of innumerable planes, each having its own matter with its corresponding form.  The new idea of matter and ether has proved that form can lie within form without interference, for it has been shown conclusively that there is a substance which can occupy the same space which our body does.  Once this theory is accepted, it enables us to better understand the saying, "There are celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial."..."There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body."  No doubt, as time goes on, it will be proved that there is something still finer than the ether.  This may go on to infinity.  There is every reason to suppose that we have a body within a body to infinity, and it is our belief that we do have.

The "resurrection body," then, will not be snatched from some Cosmic Shelf, as the soul soars aloft.  It is already within and we may be certain that it will be a fit instrument for the future unfoldment of the soul. If this is true, and if remembrance links events together, in a continuous stream of consciousness and form, then the future body will resemble this one, except that it will be free from disease, old age, or whatever hinders a more complete flow of the Spirit.

It would seem then, that we have a spiritual body now, and need not die to receive one.  We now remember the past, and have outlived many physical bodies during this life.  So it looks as if we were already immortal and need not die to take on immortality. If there are many planes of Life and consciousness as we firmly believe, perhaps we only die from one plane to another.  This thought makes a strong appeal and seems reasonable.

Some think that death robs us of the objective faculties, and that we pass out in a purely subjective state, but personally we are unable to follow the logic of such an assumption.  To suppose that the objective faculties die with the brain, is to suppose that the brain thinks and reasons.  This is provided to be false through the  experience of death itself, for if the brain could think, it would think on and on forever.  No, it is not the brain that thinks.  The thinker thinks through the brain perhaps, but of itself the physical brain has no power to think or feel.  Detach the brain and it will not formulate ideas nor work out plans.  THE THINKER ALONE CAN THINK!

It is not merely pleasing and satisfactory to suppose that we pass from this life to the next, in full and complete retention of our faculties: it is logical.  Jesus revealed himself to his followers after his resurrection, to show them that death is but a passing to a higher sphere of life and action.  TO KNOW THAT WE MAINTAIN AN IDENTITY INDEPENDENT OF THE PHYSICAL BODY IS PROOF ENOUGH OF IMMORTALITY.  This, together with the fact that remembrance maintains a constant stream of recollection; and the realization that mentality can operate independently of the body - performing all of its normal functions without the aid of the body - and that the new theory of matter and ether furnishes proof of the possibility of a body within a body to infinity and that the inner man is constantly forming matter into the shape of a body; all of these evidences should prove to us that we are not going to attain immortality, but that WE ARE NOW IMMORTAL!  Our contention is not that dead men live again, but that a living man never dies."