Chapter IX W. John Murray
THE SCIENCE OF IMPARTATION
Mental Medicine
Divine Science Publishing Assoc.
New York, 1923.
[151] It might be well to state just what we mean by impartation before we say anything on this subject, for when this word is understood, it will make it easier for us to appreciate the fact that, in the science of mental therapeutics, it has a spiritual as well as a mental aspect. It is this spiritual aspect which we reach last but which is the most enduring and the most instantaneous in its results.
We have given due credit to suggestion, auto and otherwise, but it has its limitations just as the mathematician has his limitations, until he masters those phases of higher mathematics which enable him to solve problems which he could never solve without this higher knowledge, for there are degrees in everything.
[152] We think we have said everything we can about impartation when we say that it means “to give off” or to make another a “sharer of,” as when the teacher imparts information to a child who profits by the information without lessening the teacher’s fund of it; or, as when we say, “the sun imparts light and heat,” and this without any diminution of its own energy; but this word Impartation is now receiving through the new psychology, a significance which elucidates some of the miracles of the Master, which, when they are explained, cease to be miracles and reveal themselves as natural consequences.
It is not a miracle that fire should produce heat or that a flower should diffuse perfume, and one day we shall see that it was not a miracle that a woman was healed, or that Jesus should say, “I perceive that virtue hath gone out of me,” when that healing took place. The latter was just as much the outworking of natural law as the former, but we must understand the quality of what Ian Maclaren calls “The Mind of The Master” [153] before we can appreciate what is meant by the saying, “virtue hath gone out of me.”
When the sun’s rays are utilized for any purpose whatsoever, it does not mean that the sun has lost any of its energy; when electricity is drawn upon by any means whatsoever, it does not mean that electricity has become to that extent devitalized; when a happy person radiates happiness it does not signify that he becomes less happy in consequence; and so, when virtue went out of Jesus, it was simply that He imparted or radiated the healing energy of the Holy Spirit without any sense of personal exhaustion no matter how conscious He was of the occurrence.
The Mind of the Master was so persistently attuned to the Mind of All that health and healing flowed through it as light streams through a window-pane when the shade is raised, and this with no more sense of debilitation than is occasioned in the window-pane when the light streams through it. Notwithstanding this, and believing that [154] it is the human mind which works these changes, many suggestionists, speaking of their work for humanity, say, “It takes a great deal out of me.” It is for this reason, then, that we must,–would we do the “greater things” He said we should do,–rise higher than the mere intellectual perception of the supremacy of mind over matter, to the realization of Spirit over mind and matter alike.
Rejoicing over the steps we have taken in the science of mind, we must not too readily conclude that we have arrived at our destination when as yet we are merely at the halfway house. In addition to “thinking the truth” we must “live the Life,” for thus we shall become “endued with power from on high.” Without this spiritual equipment we can do little, if anything, for “The Son can do nothing of Himself.” If this were true of Jesus, how much more so is it to us?
Speaking of the healing art of Jesus, Evans says: “He identified Himself with God, and co-operated with this Divine healing [155] conatus in the human body, and thus greatly intensified its therapeutic action. In raising the patient from disease to health, He lifted Him in the same direction, and in concert with God. He plainly asseverates that He did nothing but that which was the will of His Father.” Why may not a sincere disciple of Jesus become in this, a copy of the Master, and do the same? By acting in unison with the Divine power in nature, which is perceived already at work in the case, we may be empowered to restore the sufferer to his normal state of soundness in both mind and body. This is effected not by a miracle, but by an accelerated process of nature, as in the case of the cures wrought by Jesus. All the wonderful achievements of modern science and the useful arts, as telegraphy, photography, and ten thousand results of machinery, are effected in the same way. In all human endeavor, conformity to nature is union with God. But there is a higher realm of nature than that whose laws we generally recognize in [156] our superficial sciences and shallow philosophies,–an almost unexplored region of law in relation to the action of Spirit on matter, and of the soul upon its body. If, in the effort to cure disease, I can find out how God is doing it, and conform my healing endeavor to the Divine method, I come into line with Him, and march behind the veiled God-head to the desired result. I can conform my effort to the creative Thought here, as I can act in accordance with the Divine law of gravitation in bringing the water from a spring on the mountain side into my habitation.
It is now the opinion of the most advanced students of the New Psychology that he who lives most nearly the life of Christ will do the best healing work. If the spiritualized human consciousness is the channel through which Divine Mind functions as health and healing, it follows as a natural consequence, that sin in the healer will be like specks on a window-pane, which, to the extent of their size and solidity, will obscure that Light, [157] which can alone dissipate the darkness of a mind diseased.
Suggestion without spirituality may succeed for a time but its limitations will be exposed at moments of great crisis just as the sorcerers of Egypt failed in the presence of Aaron’s exhibition of Divine power.
There are degrees of power, but the highest degree is that which is closest to the Source of power, which is God, the Universal Mind.
* * * * *
Mental Medicine
Table of Contents