CHAPTER 10

The Fear of Poverty

I have something to say on the above subject which I hope may be of value to my readers by way of a practical illustration of the truths for which I stand sponsor. What I am going to say is the result of a correspondence with a dear friend whom I am treating for several diseases. She asked me to put my price down, and I did it; but I did it under great compunction.

Why did I have any compunction in giving her a reduction in my terms for treatment? You will say, it was because I wanted all the money I could obtain. But you would not touch the mark in this assertion; though it is a fact that I do want every cent for which I give a fair equivalent. It is a further fact that I love money; and the reason I love it is because money has another name and that other name is freedom.

In giving this friend a reduction in the price of treatments I compromised a very great principle; in fact I arrayed myself against it, and brought not only myself but her into negative relations with the Great Law of Opulence that runs absolutely unchecked—except by man’s ignorance—through the universe.

I heal disease by refusing to recognize that disease is anything more than an ignorant belief, arising from non-recognition of the fact that all is Life, and that no individual opinion can possibly invalidate this fixed, unalterable and uncompromising truth. For me to admit that the belief in disease has any fixed foundation in absolute reality, would be to temporize with what I know to be false; and the result would be that every one of my patients who is strictly conjoined with me in thought, in accordance with my instructions, would become worse in less than an hour. My fear of disease (for any compromise with absolute truth, is caused by fear) would communicate itself to them, and show forth in a weakened condition of their bodies.

Now a part of this great Law that all is life is the further fact that all is opulence, and that there is not one particle of poverty in the universe. A belief in poverty, like a belief in disease, is ignorance of the Law of Opulence. Poverty is as much a disease as disease itself. Both are beliefs which are utterly false, but which take effect in individuals who believe in them, for the simple reason that every person and thing is all mind, and, as such, is representative of what it believes.

I heal because I do not believe in disease. I absolutely know that it is a false belief; and the patient, who, following my instructions, becomes conjoined with my thought, realizes the truth in this matter as I realize it, and he shows forth health. He cannot help but do so. He comes into my belief. I do not go into his belief, as would be the case if I sympathize with him and say, “Poor fellow, how he suffers.” If I felt this I would take on his condition; and, instead of my curing him, he would make me sick. But I hold firmly for the ubiquity of the health or life principle; I deny that there is any power in disease; I hold in unshaken strength, to my highest convictions on this point; I will not compromise one inch by a recognition of his misconception of truth. And thus, holding in the might of a high understanding of absolute Law, I gradually lift him into its light, and his errors fall from him.

Now poverty is but one form of disease. It comes under the same head; it is ignorance of the Law of Opulence, which is a part of the Law of Life, just the same as disease is. So when my friend and patient asked me to put down the price for her, I did it; but I felt that I was wronging her, and myself too. I felt that I was recognizing poverty as a power that could possibly injure her and me also, because we were, for the time being, one in thought.

Having acceded to her request and reduced the price, I wrote a sort of protest, in which I tried to explain that it was the wrong thing to do. But she did not understand my explanation, and it seemed to hurt her. So I wrote her again as follows:

“I am sorry my letter hurt you. I only wished you to know the Law on the point, because it is generally unknown, and I have only learned something of it myself lately. My learning it has been the result of much thought on the subject, and of long experience in healing people. In treating for disease I do not recognize that there is any disease, and so that condition of thought called disease disappears from the patient. In treating for poverty, I do it by not recognizing that there is any poverty; and I notice that the least disposition on my part to recognize poverty; or even the desire to curtail expenses—which in reality is a recognition that poverty is stronger than opulence—always has a bad effect on the financial circumstances of the patient, and on my own financial circumstances as well. The fact is—believing as I do in absolute opulence—I have no excuse for not recognizing it. I do recognize it as an unfailing supply to every demand—opulence of health; opulence of youth; opulence of strength; opulence of money, and opulence of houses and lands, and all things desirable. And now, how can I hold true to my recognition of this supreme, never failing opulence, and yet keep trimming my sails to meet some possible contingency arising from fear that this opulence will fail? The position is absolutely contradictory, and it produces confusion, inharmony, and loss of mental power. With this loss of mental power, every patient I have relapses from the high position to which my previous fidelity to absolute truth has held him.”

And now for a little illustration in proof of the facts I am trying to make plain here. Although I had known, in a small way, everything I have said about the mistake of recognizing poverty, yet I had gone steadily on recognizing it in my actions by giving such reductions as I have spoken of, even while denying it in my thought. But after writing to my friend as I did, the whole thing opened up to my view in a wonderful way. I saw that I had wronged her and jeopardized her financial condition. I had been weak in making any concession to her fear of caution. I should positively have held to my fixed charges. This firmness on my part based on a knowledge of the Law of Opulence—the Law that proclaims every moment that the supply is equal to the demand—would have put in operation the occult forces lying back of the scene, and she would far more readily have obtained the higher price I charged her, than the lower one to which I reduced it.

I am just as sure of this as that I live. But I disobeyed my higher convictions, and the occult power lying back of the scene was not set in action; but instead, it was rendered more obscure, and my friend’s chances for wealth were positively injured. And now for the result as it affected me. My receipts vary only a trifle week by week. But the week after this letter was written they went down fully one-half. And I am sure it was because I compromised with the widespread fear of poverty that exists in the world.

“But,” you say, “you have done the same thing before without taking the consequences in a falling off of your receipts, why did you happen to take the consequences of this one particular delinquency so suddenly?”

To which I reply; nothing happens. It all came by Law. I had not been fully conscious of the Law until the writing of that letter revealed it to me. The moment I was fully alive to a knowledge of the Law, its inexorable demand was upon me. I had to obey it or take the consequences of willful disobedience. I disobeyed, and took the consequences.

Again you say, “Why, here you have been for many years arguing for man’s perfect mastery over all conditions, and now you virtually give the thing away by making him subject to a fixed Law. How is this?” I answer:

The Law exists; has always existed. Man cannot change it. It is absolutely perfect in its action. Man is a creator; but after he has learned the Law, he only creates in conformity with it. Previous to his understanding the Law, when he is on the unconscious plane of life, his creations are the most ephemeral beliefs; he creates disease and poverty, old age and death, and all manner of inharmony, the total result of which is chaos, or hell, such as finds representation in present race conditions.

But a knowledge of the Law of Life is absolutely essential to man’s high and enduring creativeness. That which he creates after he comes into a knowledge of the Law alone endures. These creations alone are infused with the saving power of the Law. They alone are in consonance or harmony with it. That which is not in harmony with the Law passes away.

I do not deny man’s power to create while he is in ignorance of the Law; but his creations are the representations of his ignorance. He is held by the Law unconsciously to himself, and he recognizes a power to create, without recognizing the perfection of that power. Therefore he creates by the best light his knowledge yields him. Disease, poverty, old age and death are creations in ignorance of the full power of the Law. Those who recognize a power in the Law that utterly ignores disease, poverty, old age and death, come into a state of unity or oneness with the Law, and they cease to be held by the race beliefs in disease, poverty, old age and death. They are virtually resurrected from the dead; they have become creators of new conditions, and are indeed the owners of the world.

They have ceased to fear the race beliefs in evil; and, because they are all mind, these race beliefs can never affect them again. But here is a continuation of my letter to this patient.

“If I reduce my price I shall be recognizing the possibility that you may become poor, and this will do you harm. If you go into a store with the intention of buying a dress for thirty dollars, and begin in your mind to say, ‘I can’t afford to spend this money, I do not dare spend it; money is scarce and I must economize,’ you put yourself and your financial condition in the hands of that gaunt, bloodless and merciless skeleton, Poverty, and you will pay for it in loss.”

This is the Law, and those who know it to be the Law will take the consequences of disobeying it. But those who do not understand it are literally beneath the reach of the Law, and its operation is not for them. They are in the bondage of fear; and until they learn positively that there is nothing on earth to fear, until they learn from irrefutable logic that they are masters of all conditions, the caution they exhibit is the proper thing. It belongs to the plane on which they live, and no amount of reckless daring will overcome the need of their conforming to it. Nothing but an understanding of the situation will overcome the necessity of their trimming their sails to meet the condition in which they live. They are living in the element of fear because they have not learned the great fact that they are masters and creators of conditions, and, therefore, do not have to fear; and so long as they are living in this element they are compelled to adapt their conduct to its requirements. It is only after they have ceased to live in this element, after they have risen above it by a course of reasoning proving them to be masters and creators, that they dare snap their fingers in the face of poverty, and act as if they possessed the whole world by spending money as lavishly as their desires prompt.