Excerpts from

The Life Magnet Vol. 5
by Robert Collier




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The Old Man of the Sea

   "I will praise Thee; for I am fear­fully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Thy works.

   "My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

   "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

—Psalms 139:14-16.

ON THE fifth voyage of Sindbad the Sailor, his vessel was wrecked and he with difficulty made his way to the shores of a fertile isle.

Thankfully he got to his feet and took his way inland, hoping to find some human habitation where he might get help. In a little while he reached the bank of a small stream. Sitting there, very weak and infirm-looking, and apparently unable to cross the stream, was an old, old man.

Sindbad thought him a shipwrecked sailor like himself, so he took him upon his shoulders and carried him across the stream. Once on the other side, how­ever, the old man refused to get down. He wrapped his skinny legs about Sindbad's chest and with his hands clutched Sindbad's throat so tightly that, do what he would, the latter could not shake him off.

For days he stayed there and Sindbad was like to perish from exhaustion, but still the old man kicked and pinched and choked him into subjection. It was only when he used the power of his mind to contrive a way out, that Sindbad finally got rid of his awful burden.

You have an Old Man of the Sea who, every little while, perches upon your shoulders—upon yours or those of some member of your family. Usually his hold is insecure. You succeed in shaking him off. But with some, he gets his skinny old legs around their chest, his talons upon their neck, and holds on and on until they give up and die.

That Old Man of the Sea is Sickness.

Has he ever had his clutches upon you? Has he, by chance, a strangle hold on you now? Do you want to know how to shake him off?

Drugs won't do it. Mankind has been pinning its faith to drugs and nostrums for several thousand years, yet the Old Man of sickness is as rampant today as he ever was. As a matter of fact, examina­tion of mummies shows that the Egyp­tians of thousands of years ago suffered from fewer diseases than do we. For more than a thousand years, there was no medical profession, there were no physi­cians among the Jews, and—call it cause or effect, as you like—the Psalmist de­clares : "There was not one feeble person in all their tribes."—Psalms 105:37.

Then how shall you get rid of this old devil who is at the bottom of more misery than all other causes together?

Only one person has ever been com­pletely successful in mastering this Old Man of the Sea. That one was Jesus. So our best chance would seem to be to study His methods, to follow the direc­tions He so carefully laid down.

To begin with, we have His assurance that it can be done. We know that He cured all manner of diseases—not by drugs or potions or dieting or exercise— but solely through the power of Mind—of the Father in Him. "It is not me," He said, "but the Father in me; He doeth the works." And He assured us again and again that the same Father is in us, and that the works which He (Jesus) did, we too can do. "He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also. And greater works than these shall he do."—John 14:12.

Not only have we His definite assur­ance of this, but He proved it with His own disciples. They were plain work­ing folk, most of them unable even to read or write, yet by dint of much teaching and example, He was able to send them out two and two and have them report signs and wonders second only to His own. "And the seventy returned with joy, say­ing, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name."—Luke 10:17.

That power was not confined to His immediate disciples. Even those who were not direct followers were able to cure in His name, solely through their belief in Him. Remember how the dis­ciples, in their zeal, stopped such a one and Jesus rebuked them for it? "Mas­ter," said John, "we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followed not us; and we forbade him, because he fol­lowed not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not, for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me."—Mark 9:38-39.

For more than two centuries, the heal­ing power of Jesus abode with the early Christians—right up to the time when Christianity was made the State religion. Then it became so buried in form and rit­ual, in ceremonial and pomp, that the real spirit of Jesus' teachings was lost. And physical healings became so rare as to be miracles.

But the power is there, the same power Jesus gave to His followers when He bade them—"Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. And these signs shall follow them that be­lieve; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover."—Mark 16: I6, 17, 18.

Let us then analyze how He did these wonderful works, how His followers were able to do the same.

To begin with, let us remember that His favorite name for Himself was the Way-shower. He came to guide, to lead. He told us that His mission was not to destroy but to save. "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."—John 10:10.

Life—what is life? Isn't it the Father in us? The perfect image of God, ani­mated by the Father?

The Father is in us now. We can't have more of Him—but we can use more. With most of us, the Father in us is asleep —unknown, unused. He is like the elec­tricity all about us—static. He needs to be recognized, to be used, to become dynamic for us. Jesus showed us the way.

For uncounted years, the air has been full of electricity—dormant, static, ex­cept when an occasional storm lashed it into a dynamic destruction. For thou­sands of years, the giant power of steam lay idle, waiting for someone to harness it.

Today, steam and electricity warm and light our homes, move our trains, run huge industries. What makes the difference? The steam and electricity have not changed. They were just as power­ful, just as plentiful aforetime. It is simply that someone has shown us how to use them.

Since Adam was first created, the life in man has been the life of the Father in him. But after his fall, man forgot his Divine Sonship, forgot the power of the Father within him. Occasionally some Prophet like Moses or Elisha would glimpse this vast power, but for the most part, mankind remained in a state of leth­argy—mentally unawake.

Then came Jesus—His mission to ac­quaint man with himself, His Gospel that every man is the Son of God, His aim to lead all men into the Kingdom.

That mission He succeeded in as has no religious teacher before or since. But He offered so much, that mankind was reluctant to believe its good fortune. Men had been taught for so many centuries that this earth is a vale of tears, they had been told by so many powerful rulers and well-fed priests that they must expect pov­erty and suffering here below, but it would all be made right in some vague hereafter, that a Kingdom of Heaven here on earth seemed too good to be true.

You remember the story of the man who stood on London Bridge and offered golden sovereigns to all passers-by free. He couldn't get anyone to take them. They feared a "catch." It was too good to be true.

Barnum, after a life-time spent largely in fooling the public, wrote that he had found far more people who had lost out by believing too little than by believing too much.

So it has been with the promises of Jesus. They are so limitless, they solve every problem of life so completely, that people are reluctant to believe them true. They look for some "catch" in them. They make qualifications where Jesus made none. They cannot quite grasp how such a poor, downtrodden worm as they have come to believe man to be, can have unlimited power over himself, over his surroundings—can be, in short, the son of God.

Especially do they find it hard to believe that they can rid themselves of all the ills and ailments which flesh has been heir to for so many years. They are quite will­ing to believe Jesus meant what He said when He told His disciples to—"Go, preach," but they think He must have re­ferred to some vague future state when He added—"The kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils. Freely ye have received, freely give."

Perhaps it would help a little if we went back for a moment to what causes all sickness and disease. I know you remember the story of Jacob and his long courtship of Rebecca. But did you ever notice the shrewd understanding which Jacob had even then of the laws of cause and effect?

Jacob, you remember, was to receive Laban's daughter for his wife on condi­tion of seven years of service. There followed another seven years before the contract was finally completed. At the end of this time Jacob desired to return to his native land, but was persuaded to re­main by his father-in-law's urgency. A contract was made that for this service he should receive every spotted and ring-streaked calf, kid, or lamb that was born to the flocks or herds. Normally this would have been very poor pay, but Jacob performed a psychological trick. He went to the water courses and stripped the branches and part of the bark from the trees so that they presented a bizarre ap­pearance to the cattle who conceived their young in this place. The Bible tells us that many ring-streaked and spotted calves and kids were born, and that Jacob was made wealthy at the expense of his father-in-law.

Everyone knows the shiftless habits of the mocking bird. Too lazy to rear and care for its own young, it goes to the nests of other birds which are "setting" in the interval when they are off seeking food, notes the markings on their eggs, then comes back later and lays in their nests eggs of those same exact markings!

One naturalist reports having found mocking bird eggs of forty different markings.

Several saints of mediaeval days were reported to have markings in their hands, their feet and their sides, similar to those on the risen Saviour, acquired through constant contemplation of His crucifix­ion.

And right now, in the village of Konnersreuth in Germany, there is a young woman on whose hands, feet and side periodically appear wounds similar to the stigmata of the crucified Christ. Various persons have testified to the truth of this, among them Dr. Wolfgang von Weisl, whose report in part reads as follows:

"In the middle of the back of each hand I perceive a thin, dark-brown scab, about the size and shape of a thumb nail. The scar is fresh and the wound itself is light red and inflamed. In reply to her visitor's questions she asserts that these symptoms can only be observed today, Saturday; tomorrow they disappear. She adds that the irregular scab can be washed off though the red stigmata re­main. On her palms the same bright red scabs can also be found. At times the pa­tient feels as if these two wounds on the back and surface of her hands touch each other. Her other stigmata I did not ask to see. Only over the wound in her heart did Theresa Neumann say she had the feeling that it was piercing deeper and working right to her heart's core."

The cause? Simply the old, well-known law that we reproduce whatever we contemplate. Whatever man looks upon with faith or fear, he will tend to reproduce in his body.

I once heard a traveler telling of a trip through Alaska. Passing through a village, one of his companions espied an In­dian he knew. "Sick Man Charley!" he called. And the Indian answered imme­diately. Asked the reason for such a name, the traveler explained—"Oh, he was sick one time when we wanted him, so after that we called him 'Sick Man Charley.' Now they tell me he is sick most of the time."

We laugh at anyone allowing such a name to be fastened on him, but most men answer to something similar just as read­ily. With some it is rheumatism. Men­tion rheumatism, and they immediately have a premonitory twinge. "Runs in the family," they explain. "Father had it before me. Grand-father before him. Have to expect it." They ought to be named "Rheumatism." They answer to it just as surely as to their own names.

With others it is indigestion or cancer, or constipation, or colds, or one of the hundreds of ills that mankind believes itself heir to. Tell them they are no bet­ter than Sick Man Charley, and they will be highly indignant. Yet the fact remains they have "Sicknamed" them­selves, and they answer to these "Sick-names" even more readily than to their proper ones.

Man thinks he can cure disease by studying it, by spreading the knowledge of it. But what has he done? Multi­plied it Instead! Just what happens? He frightens people into the very thing he is warning them against. Those dis­eases which he has fought with the posi­tive weapons of sunshine and fresh air and pure water and cleanliness, visualiz­ing these instead of the diseases, he has practically eliminated. Those which he has fought with the negative weapons of drugs (of hurting one part to help an­other) are just about where they were when he started.

"What boots it," asks Milton, "at one door to make defense and at another to let in the foe?" There is an old Eastern proverb to the effect that if you let a camel get his head under the flap of the tent, the next thing you know he will have his back under it, too. Let the fear of some disease get into your mind, and the first thing you know, the disease will be there, too.

Man is like the mocking bird, laying eggs marked in God's image or in the image of sickness and disease, depending upon which kind he has looked upon with desire and faith—or fear.

He sees a disease in another. He has been taught that this disease is contagious. And the fear of the disease impresses it so vividly upon his consciousness that he lays the egg of it in his own body.

The ancient Greeks understood this, and surrounded themselves with statuary depicting the most perfect figures of men and women that their artists could make. What was the result? Their children grew into men and women who for beauty and symmetry were the envy of the world.

In Genesis (1:26, 27,31) we read: "And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after our likeness. . .So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. . . And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good."

If God were a sculptor, working in marble, what sort of image of man would He carve? Don't you suppose it would be the most perfect form of man ever conceived—more perfect than any ever made by Greek or Italian sculptors?

If God were a potter, modeling images in clay, what form of man would He model? Don't you suppose it would be the most beautiful ever molded by hands? When "God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," don't you suppose He formed that image in as perfect a mold as Mind could conceive—more perfect than any statue ever formed by the hand of man?

We start then with this—that man as originally conceived by God was perfect. Each organ has a perfect Divine pattern. Each cell a definite end and purpose. As in creating the plants—"The Lord God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew."—Genesis 2:4-5.

No machine ever made by human hands is as efficient as this human body which God made. As an organization of distinct cells, each an essential part of the whole, each under a central head, nothing to equal it has ever been conceived. It is so flawless in its functioning under almost every variety of conditions, that no funda­mental change in it has been found neces­sary since first it was formed into the like­ness of man. It is the most perfect exam­ple of organized control in the world.

And not merely of organized control, but of reproduction. The millions of cells of which it is made have the faculty of renewing themselves indefinitely. As far as its inherent qualities are concerned, it can live forever.

Then why do people die? Why are they sick?  Why do they grow old, atrophy and decay? Why do your problems sometimes work out wrongly in mathematics? Be­cause you depart from the rule, because you do something wrongly. It doesn't matter how good your intent may be, how much you want to work out your problem in the right way. If you don't follow the proper methods, if you depart from the principles of mathematics, your answer is going to be wrong. And the only way you will ever get it right is to erase the result these wrong methods gave you—start afresh—and work it out along right principles.

2 plus 2 equals 4. If through ignor­ance or thoughtlessness you put down 2 plus 2 equals 3 or 5 or any number other than 4, your result is going to be wrong and the farther you carry your figuring, the worse it will be. Erase this, go back to your original problem, start right, and you speedily arrive at the correct answer.

So it is with man, Man was first an image in God's mind. That image was perfect then, is perfect now.

Having created the image in Mind, God then breathed into it the breath of life. Therefore man is the sum of God's image and God's life energy—call it elec­tricity, call it what you will.

If 2 plus 2 must always equal 4, must not God's perfect image and God's life energy always equal perfection? If the result seems to us imperfect, does it not seem likely that the fault lies somewhere in our conception of it, and that the thing for us to do is to erase this incorrect result and start afresh at our problem until we arrive at the perfect answer?

That is all right for mathematics, perhaps you will say, but my body is some­thing I can see and feel and touch. I didn't make it. It is just the way I found it. And yet it has this and that and the other thing wrong with it.

True—you didn't make your real body—but are you so sure you did not make the one you are complaining of? Have you ever glanced in a mirror whose sur­face was marred, and thought the spots on the mirror were spots on your face? Have you ever looked into a concave or convex glass and seen the distorted images they reflect?

Your conscious mind is such a mirror and the images it reflects are no more to be relied upon than those you see in an imperfect glass. There are mists in it that come between you and the real sub­stance of you—the perfect image which God conceived. There are wrong thoughts which have fastened themselves upon your conscious images like barnacles upon a ship. There are bad dreams of weakness and disease. There are nightmares of accidents and crippling and imperfections. All very real to your conscious mind—just as the dreams and nightmares of sleep seem real and vivid to you then.

Jesus cured the sick and the lame and the halt and the blind. How? By driving out these imperfect images, these devils of wrong thought, that stood be­tween men and God's perfect image of them. He realized their unreality. He never inquired into the symptoms. He never prescribed physic or exercise. He treated all forms of sickness in the same way—by driving away the demon of wrong thought, by removing the mist that lay between the sick man and God's perfect image of him. "He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions."—Psalms 107: 20.

Remember, when Jesus healed the mother of Peter, how he first rebuked the fever that possessed her—and it left her? Remember how often, in curing all man­ner of ills, it is said that "He drove the devils out of them"? "When the eve­ning was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils; and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick."—Matthew 8:16.

What were these devils? What but wrong thoughts which had fastened themselves upon the minds of these poor people and come between them and the perfect substance of themselves which was the only image God knew. The perfect image of them was always there, but it took the "invisible light" of Jesus' un­derstanding to make its substance visible to their eyes.

There is but one right idea of your body. That is the perfect image in which God conceived it, His life energy flowing ever-abundantly and ever-renewingly through it. That is the real sub­stance of you, under all the seeming im­perfections, the substance which the "in­visible light" of understanding alone can make manifest.

You remember the story of the sculp­tor who asked for a certain block of mar­ble. Other pieces were offered him, but they would not do. Asked why he must have this particular block, he explained —"Because I see an angel in it." And when the block was delivered to him, he carved from it the most beautiful angel imaginable.

There is just such an angel in you, too. Hold on to the image of him. Chip off the disfiguring barnacles of imperfect thoughts, of devils of disease, of weak­ness, of ugliness. Use the "invisible light" of understanding to bring out the real substance under all this seeming, to show to yourself and all men the perfect image of you which is the only one your Father ever conceived, the only one He knows.

The others—the imperfect, diseased images you have heretofore known? Whenever they try to show themselves, remember that "they are of their father the devil and the lusts of their father they will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and the father of It."— John 8:44.

So deny them. Disclaim them. Tell them they are not yours—you don't want them—have no place for them. Remember that you are the Son of God, and as His son, you have legions of angels (right thoughts) at your command to drive away any devils (wrong thoughts) that may assail you. So call upon them for help. Command the devils to get out of you—command them in the name of Jesus Christ. "And these signs shall fol­low them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils."—Mark 16:16.

But don't be content with casting out the bad. Get fast hold of the good, of the perfect image of you that is in the Father's mind. And so fill your mind with it that there will be no room for the devils of wrong thought. You can't pour water, you know, into a vessel al­ready full. If you fail to fill his place with the angels of right thought, the devil may come back as in Jesus' parable:

"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

"And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.

"Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than him­self; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first."

—Luke 11:24-26.

It all comes back to this: There is but one creator—God—Good. Everything that He created is like Himself—Good.

But between His perfect image and our everyday conscious selves there fre­quently arises the mist of wrong thoughts, like the mists that obscure the mountain-top in the morning. The mountain-top is there, though unseen beneath the mist, just as the perfect substance of our bodies is there, though obscured by the mists of imperfection and disease.

The sun comes up and drives the mists from the mountains. And the sunlight of Truth, of Understanding, just as surely drives the mists from between us and the perfect images of us which the Father holds.

We dream in sleep and our thought forms seem to mold our bodies and our surroundings into all manner of grotesque shapes. We dream in waking, and our thought forms seem to mold the body into pitiful wrecks of accident and disease

We wake from the sleeping dream and find our bodies perfect as when we fell asleep. We must wake ourselves from the waking dreams as well, and get back to the perfect images in which the Father made us.

Nothing is established, remember—nothing is permanent, but the one perfect God-idea. Erase any others from your thought as fast as they form. Get back to the 2 plus 2 must equal 4. There is but one right idea of each cell and organ­ism. That is the God-idea. The God-idea of it, plus the Life-energy of the Father in you, MUST EQUAL HIS PERFECT IMAGE.

"But now, O Lord, thou art our Father. We are the clay, and thou our Potter. And we all are the work of Thy hand."

 —Isaiah 64:8.

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