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Ernest Holmes
HEALING AT A DISTANCE
written by Ernest Holmes for The Uplift Magazine
In the realm of spirit, time and space do not exist. Yesterday, today, and forever
are the Eternal Now. Age cannot be attributed to God, he lives from eternity to
eternity and his "years" are ever the same. So the real man, the ego, the inner life
which bears the divine likeness is ageless, and in the infinite reaches of eternity
will bear no relation to time.
Nor is there the element of distance in the spirit realm.
The Spirit which fills the interspaces of the universe and thrills through all things,
does not cognize space. The thought of God does not begin at one point and pass
hence to another. The thought is immediate. The Spirit has often been symbolized
by a winged dove and the messenger of God, as a flying angel but in truth, the
departure and the arrival of God's thought are always at the same point.
Now in healing, we work entirely through the medium of the spiritual nature. In
the realm of spirit, one mind does not lie at a distance from some other mind.
Entering the realm of the spirit, one lays aside distances. For example, love is as
real and as vital when two friends are far apart as when they are near. "Absent in
the body but present in the spirit," expresses it. Love unites though hearts be far
apart. Or we may find an illustration in prayer. It has been long recognized in the
church that prayer leaps at once from the petitioner to its object. I can pray for
my friend half way around the globe; the effect of the prayer is immediate.
Innumerable instances are on record showing that the time of the prayer and its
answer were identical, although the parties were far apart.
Acting upon this principle, in common with untold others we have healed many
"afar off yet near at hand."
AN ILLUSTRATION
Illustrative of my experience in healing at a distance, is the case of a woman living
some fifty or sixty miles from my home. I received a telephone message one
evening from a mutual friend, who told me about her condition. He said she had
lost control of the voluntary muscles of the throat and was unable to swallow
anything. Her physician declared that he could do nothing for her and commended
that she try this kind of help as a last resort. I enquired her name and other facts
and said, "She will be well in the morning."
The next morning I received another telephone message stating that she had
come down to breakfast and had eaten toast and had drunk her coffee. I
continued treating her for some time and although she is eighty years of age, she
has shown remarkable improvement in general health and mental condition.
unto him, "Sir, come down ere my child die." Jesus said unto him, "Go, thy son
liveth." The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him, and he went his
way. And as he was now going down, his servant met him, saying that his son
lived. So he inquired of them the hour when his son began to mend. They said,
therefore, unto him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." So the
father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth;
and himself believed, and his whole house."
through ether. I do not accept it as based on any real evidence, but I am allowed
the conception of God as an infinite spirit, residing in infinite ether, acting in it,
working through it, ether as really himself, as our bodies are ourselves, converting
it into matter or mind, and controlling it by his will. Thus I may dare to conceive of
ether as in a sense the body of God, and may conjecture that when God made all
things out of ether he made them not out of nothing, as men have been wont to
say, but out of himself; and yet I would conceive of the ether out of which
everything is made, as God only in the lower sense in which I speak of my body as
myself, when it is only the organ by which the I, that is, my mind, reaches its
purpose."
I am sure little comment is necessary. We have here a text from which it is easy
to draw lessons. We perceive the nature of the surrounding medium, we
comprehend the method by which intelligence can or does dominate it. We
understand the process by which thought is projected by the individual and is
transported to any distance. You will recall that in the September number of The
Uplift, under the title of "The Way of Love," we said, "We know that we cannot
project a thought of love into the air, but Love Divine will bear it on swift pinion to
the remotest physical object of our thought." And again, we have taught, "it is
love within setting the waves of Love outside us into motion." Thought, love,
passionate desire, prayer, faith, understanding - divine forces these! How swiftly
they pass through the intervening physical distance and like a messenger angel,
search out the object of our solicitude! So it is that we can comprehend the power
of the compassion and healing thought of Jesus when he said, "Lo thy son liveth" a
truth verified hours later by the father when he found on inquiry that the fever had
left him at the "seventh hour."
Many instances occur to us from our own experience, of which the following is
typical:
CURED OF FEVER
A woman living in a city in Illinois, telegraphed me one day, saying that she was
suffering from malarial fever, with its accompanying aching of limbs, severe pain
in the abdomen and excessive headache, and had been sick for two weeks.
She asked me to undertake her healing. I began treating her at once and in a few
days received a letter saying that the pain had left her immediately and that she
was now in a normal condition. This was most satisfactory as she was usually in
the finest health.
"What I Believe and Why," by William Hayes Ward-Chas. Scribner's Sons, pp 174176.
TELEPATHY
We have casually mentioned the difficulty experienced by science in correlating the
activity of mind and matter. At what point does mind enter a transmissive medium
when thought is dispatched to a distant object? What is the process by which that
medium again converts the message into a thought registered upon the mind of
the recipient? Science designates the phenomenon by the term "telepathy."
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"Telepathy concerns the passage of thought between two distant but living
persons," says Ward, and the two brains may be conceived of as themselves able
to transmit and receive the current of thought." The mystery that seems to shroud
"healing at a distance" would be largely removed if we were better able to
understand how the brain sends forth or receives that message. Underlying the
whole problem is the question of the ultimate constitution and nature of matter
and spirit. Modern chemistry has done much to assist us by resolving matter from
electron to ether. If matter be composed of modifIcations of ether, it is possible to
discern how the brain, which is one composite of ether, can send its vibrations
through the more immaterial ether, which is yet of like substance. Again, if we
may posit, and this as yet cannot be demonstrated, that mind is a "spiritual
segregate" of ether, we may then see how thought passes from mind to mind. It
would be an ethereal wave, originating in ether, transmitted by ether, received by
ether. This theory, for it can only be classed as such at present, would be borne
out by the philosophic assumption, which all science constantly corroborates, that
there is an underlying unity in the whole universe. It is borne out by the testimony
of the philosophic idealist. It seems to me that it need not de-spiritualize the
essential philosophy of him who believes that God is all in all. Whatever be the
ultimate constitution of mind or matter, the nature of that constitution will not
change, call it by any name we will. All, all, belongs to God, all, all responds to the
will of him who works through God to the accomplishment of high and noble ends.
think of the whole infinite ether as the coeternal and co-infinite mystery in and
through which the infinite God lives and works? God's mind and will pervades
ether and has its being in it; and I know of no supposition more probable than that
the human mind in its essence and substance is somehow etheral.
Sir Oliver Lodge hints as much when he says in "The Ether of Space," p. 123:
"We know that matter has a physical significance, since it can constitute brain,
which links together the physical and the psychical worlds. If anyone thinks that
the ether, with all its massiveness and energy, has probably no psychical
significance, I find myself unable to agree with him."
And he quotes Clerk-Maxwell, a chief master of physics, as saying, p. 117:
"Whether this vast homogeneous expanse of isotropic matter (the ether) is fitted
not only to be a medium of physical interaction between distant bodies, and to
fulfill other physical functions of which, perhaps we have as yet no conception, but
also to constitute the material organism of beings exercising functions of life and
mind as high or higher than ours are at present, is a question far transcending the
limit of physical speculation."
This stupendous conception has value not only as a word of cheer from science on
the question of immortality, but also as a rational basis for the believing in and
comprehending the phenomenon of healing at a distance. If thought can pass so
far from mind to mind, any kind of thought can so pass. Loving thought will carry
words of love. Solicitude of prayer will reach its mark. Health thoughts will come
to their goal. You may safely project the healing word and know it will be borne on
swift pinion to another's mind. Once lodged in the mind of another it performs its
wonted task in exactly the same manner as the spoken word, or the auto-thought
of faith, as described in Chapter V.
Several illustrations occur to me in this connection:
STOMACH TROUBLE
In Oakland, California, a certain woman was suffering from severe stomach
disorders. Her mother came to me at my Los Angeles office and in her behalf
asked me to undertake her treatment. I shortly received word that she was
entirely healed.
This woman was herself afflicted with so-called paralysis, and asked me to help
her. She was at that time living in Columbus, Ohio, while I was in California. In a
short time she wrote me of her recovery.
When we think of the fact that there is neither distance or absence in the realms
of spirit we see that to speak of giving an absent treatment means the same thing
as giving a present treatment. For we are all in one spirit and in one God, so to
think of any as absent is to think of that which is not true. Real healing is soulhealing and this takes place only on the mental and spiritual plane where time and
space do not exist. Now as we are "all in one spirit," so we are all in one mind.
And being in one mind it makes no difference whether we are all present in the
body. To think of a person in mind is to be with them in mind.
Now what they need is to have their thoughts turned to the spirit. This then calls
for a spiritual way of thinking. There is in all people this spiritual realm and in all
people it is the same realm, there is no separation in the spirit. To think of a
person as a spiritual being is to be thinking the truth about him and if he is in a
state of mind to receive this thinking, he will get the thought that you think for
him and according to the strength of the thought in truth it will have power to help
and to heal him.
There must be an action on both sides. The healer must know that he is dealing
not with a theory, but with a fact, none the less scientific because it is spiritual. He
must have faith in the power that he believes in and must know that this is law
and that it will have the desired effect. There must also be an action of receiving
the truth on the part of the patient, and if this law is not complied with there will
be no healing. This is the law and no good results can be obtained unless the law
is complied with. Many people make a great mistake in thinking that a healer is all
that is necessary. No greater mistake could be made than to have this idea in
mind. There is no healing without it be received by the one wishing to be healed.
The wind blows against the window but will not come in unless we open the
window and let it come in. I can not make you a gift unless you will take it. So
healing cannot be done unless someone receives the healing. This calls for an
application on the part of the patient just as it calls for an application on the part
of the healer. Healing means a change of our way of thinking, a change in the
inside as well as on the outside.
and some in a longer time, but all will be helped if we will use the law and have
faith in it. Sometimes the healing that takes the longest is in the end the best, for
the ones being healed are at the same time taught and will in time be able
themselves to heal themselves and others. No matter what time it takes, this
healing and this understanding of life is the one thing worth while. So let us press
on, let us endure and by so doing let us again prove to the world the truth of what
we teach.
THE UPLIFT
A Magazine of Truth, Devoted to Health and Faith
Edited by ERNEST SHURTLEFF HOLMES
The very number contains invaluable instruction in health and happiness. By
reading it, you can learn how to heal and help yourself and others, and how to
apply the law of supply.
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