Faith is the incentive to work; works are faith made manifest.

Faith is in reality nothing less than subconscious desire. It is the thought of the innermost mental being. To have faith is to believe, to believe is to be without doubt, to take it for granted.

The work we willingly, aye, are anxious to, undertake is that in which we have most faith. When we are engaged in the non-good, we thereby publish to the world our innermost inclinations and desires. We indicate by our works what we feel and believe will bring us the most pleasure or the greatest profit. Each and every one daily demonstrates his faith by the things he does.

We watch men in their planning and building and see them manifest their inward thought by constructing according to their faith. Faith is not concerned alone with things of a religious nature, but with everything that is of possible interest to man.

No man, unless compelled to do so, ever did an act or engaged in an effort unless he believed (had faith) that he would in some way profit or benefit thereby, that it would be of advantage to him, either immediately or in the future.

It is written that Paul said: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." The substance of the Soul is faith; it is the thing hoped for. The greater our faith in all that is good, the more sublime will be the Soul and all we build.

When we hope, plan and build for peace we thereby indicate to all that we have faith in our belief that peace is for the ultimate good not only of ourselves but of all mankind.

If we believe (belief is faith) that health is desirable and to our greatest benefit, we will hold thoughts of health, desire for health and work in harmony with the laws of health. We have faith that it is possible for us to eliminate disease and weakness and establish health, strength and vitality, the sum total of physical manhood.

We may have faith in men and believe them worthy and true; this proves we have faith in an ideal. They may deceive and betray us and cause loss of faith in them, but if we ourselves are not of like nature, we continue to hold to the ideal. Those who betray and deceive us will cause a loss or wound us, but this loss is temporary. They, not we, will ultimately be made to pay the debt of unworthiness and betrayal, and our faith will be compensated.

Every one with an idea will become a creator according to the strength of his faith in the ideal, will ultimately manifest it in some form or another.

It is not possible to be imbued with a thought for any length of time without its personification in one form or another. Thoughts make an impression upon both the thinker and the universal whole and according to the strength of the thought will be the result.

The man who does not manifest something of his own is inert of thoughts of his own. He cannot succeed for himself. He is a failure as a creator. He is the servant of someone. To some degree he is constantly imposed upon. He is thrust aside by the more energetic, active, virile individuals who think, desire and have faith in themselves and the idea created by thought.

The man who is a failure never attempts to think for himself. He lacks concentration. Thoughts flit through his mind as water pours through a sieve. Thoughts enter but find no resting place in the mind. They make no impression on his mentality. They lack the power of concentration. Such a man is therefore unable to "hold on" to any idea that comes to his mind and there is no inner urge to manifest.

The thinker manifests thought potency by the energy he displays in his efforts. He thinks. He plans according to his thoughts. He has certain ideals and he has sufficient faith in these to induce him to make the effort necessary to bring them into manifestation. He does as he thinks. This is faith made manifest; it is a hope for realization.

On the contrary, the individual who is willing to stand aside at the behest of another, who fails to push ahead despite all obstacles and in the face of all odds, displays a lack of faith in his ideas, a lack of potency in his ideals. He is impotent in the true sense of the term. He fails to think constructively. He lacks virility. He does not direct his energy. He is not possessed of full manhood. If he labors for another he is denied freedom of thought and action; he again demonstrates the manner of his faith - a lack of faith in himself. After he awakens to the undesirability of his position as the servant of another, he "bestirs" himself, as the great Tolstoi said. He begins to think for himself; thinking develops faith in his capabilities and possibilities; he will seek a better position with greater freedom and gradually begin to demonstrate that he, like others, is not merely a servant but also a creator.

Faith is never something outside of ourselves; it is within ourselves; in a sense, it is ourselves. We are faith or we are weaklings. Faith is a thought, an idea, an ideal. When the ideal is born out of desire, faith is born with it. Faith is not of the passions. The passions are born out of desire; or, to be more precise, desire is the result of passion. Faith, on the contrary, is of the emotions. It is the ideal of an idea. It is in the heart, not the brain. The Nazarene understood all this. He defined the power of faith in a few well chosen words: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye could remove mountains."

A mustard seed is small compared to the mountain of unbelief which must be removed, but if we have that much faith to begin with and work accordingly, then it is certain to grow and develop until it encompasses all things and overcomes all things that stand in its way.

The Nazarene did not say: "If you have faith in me as a grain of mustard seed." The subject was "faith," not the Teacher who annunciated the Law. He made a clear, positive, unqualified statement, one indicating that the faith must be in ourselves, in the possibility of accomplishing the thing we want to do, that which we want to create, that which we want to attain. If our faith is only as that of a mustard seed and if we "carry through" accordingly, then and then only, will the "mountain," that which stands in our way, be removed. We will remove it because we act in accordance with our faith and the Law.

Faith in its relation to ourselves is much the same as that between a bar of steel and an electric current. If we properly prepare the steel and then send a charge of electricity through it, it becomes a magnet; the steel and the electricity have become one; the electricity has given life to the steel.

Thus it is with us; if we prepare ourselves, if we open ourselves to faith, then there will be an influx of power and we become energized, electrified into life with the power to bring about, into manifestation, the ideal which the awakened mind has visualized.

As the grain of mustard seed may ultimately so increase or duplicate itself as to fill a large granary, so may our thoughts and ideas, many times strengthened by faith, become an all-powerful source of energy, a generator of power so great that nothing can withstand it. A little faith to begin with may grow, develop into a potential force sufficiently strong to heal the sick and raise the dead.

Many thoughts may come to our mind, yet none of them may be strong enough to actually impress themselves on the mentality to awaken faith in them. Such thoughts may appear as mere fancies, and such they are until we begin to concentrate on them and analyze them. To us may come the thought of a great accomplishment, but we set it aside as a daydream. We have no faith in the possibility of accomplishment. Another may have the same thought, have faith in its possibilities, set about to bring it into manifestation and accomplish a seeming miracle. The only difference between the two is that one closed the door to the opportunity while the other opened it wide and gave it an enthusiastic welcome.

There have been many an Edison in embryo who thought as deeply and along the same line as did Edison, but discarded new ideas as being "castles in the air," a dreamer's fancy. Edison had sufficient faith in the possibility of the ideas that came to him to work and experiment in an effort to find out whether they were fancy or fact. Faith in the thoughts in his mind, the ideas emanating from his inner self and the willingness to work made of Edison a miracle worker and the entire human family has benefitted as a result; while on the contrary, the entire human race has suffered because of the abuse or misuse of some of his inventions.

Faith is superficial or it is deep and abiding. Faith in others is necessarily superficial, because these others may have feet of clay and when we find them guilty of a mistake we lose faith in them. Faith that is born within oneself and acted upon becomes deep and abiding. It is the mainspring that leads us to success and accomplishment in the world of matter and the Immortalization of the Soul in the world of spirit.

Faith that is weak soon dies for lack of effort to increase it by making full use of the little faith we possess. Faith, though small as a grain of mustard seed, if wisely directed or applied, will increase until it becomes mighty with power.

The Nazarene demonstrated the possession of faith by the works He did. He demonstrated His faith by living according to it. His instructions were according to the faith that had helped Him to become the leader and teacher He was. His faith was absolute. He demonstrated this by His willingness to die in order to prove His faith to humanity. So will all men do who possess the proper faith.

The faith of the Nazarene in God was in full harmony with the Laws of God and He made no effort to change these Laws or to evade them. He lived to demonstrate the Law and succeeded in becoming the Law. He became the Law personified.

The Nazarene manifested His thoughts, His desires and His ideals through faith in the works He did. He became the exemplar of the possibility of all men becoming like Him and as He Himself recommended that others do the works that He did. Can man ask for greater proof than this? Is there greater proof than He gave men? Why then do so few believe, act and attain as He did? Because they are unwilling to give up the ever-present "flesh pots of Egypt" for the things for which these "flesh pots" must be exchanged.

As the Nazarene exemplified unto men the loftiness of His desires and the sincerity of His faith by the constructiveness of His efforts in humanity's behalf, so, on the other hand, Judas Iscariot demonstrated his cunning and deceitful nature by his treacherous act. Here we have an apt illustration of the two opposite poles that sway humanity. These are, admittedly, extreme examples; on the one hand, purity, loftiness, benevolence, exaltedness predominating; on the other hand, avariciousness, jealousy, envy and treachery in complete control of mind and heart.

In the vast majority of men and women the two natures are inherent and in constant conflict. At one moment the good is in control, and at another, the good is dethroned and evil is in control. Almost every human house has two tenants: A Nazarene and a Judas Iscariot. The Christos within must ultimately become the Master.

In these two men we find, as nowhere else, illustrated in action the two opposite poles that sway humanity. On the one side the constructive, on the other side the destructive.

Judas, though correctly taught in the Law, nevertheless chose the path of degradation because he saw profit in it and a means to vent his own spleen. His innermost Soul was in harmony with his thoughts and desires, urging him to act as he did. Many, unthinkingly, consider that Judas assisted the Nazarene to demonstrate truth and eternal life. These forget one of the sayings by the Nazarene: "Evil must come but woe unto him through whom it cometh."

Judas was as well versed in the Law as were the other disciples. To him had been demonstrated the power of truth and the Light. The office and power of thought had been made plain to him as it had to others, but Judas chose to give evil a place in his heart rather than the good and his final act in the drama of the Soul's attainment proved this.

The Soul of Judas was avaricious and critical. This is illustrated by his judgment of the poor woman who in the kindness of her heart anointed the Nazarene with ointment. Judas asked: "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence and given to the poor?" To Judas three hundred pence was far more desirable than the demonstration of love and goodwill by the poor woman. He did not actually care one iota for the poor; all he had in mind was the money that might have been obtained in the sale of the ointment. There are countless others just like him. In their opinion men never perform unselfish deeds; in the noblest acts of men they find cause for criticism. They judge the acts of others by the reason that would induce them to do the same things. Kindness and generosity for the sake of kindness and generosity is unknown to them.

Judas like many others of then and now was a betrayer at heart. He was avaricious by nature because he was unable to comprehend that the doing of good deeds and kindly acts could bring a return. To him and to these, the sale of honor or the betrayal of a Soul meant nothing if it resulted in quick remuneration.

Betrayers are not God-sent. The Creator of all can make manifest the desirability of goodness without employing such evil principles and forces. He need not make use of the non-good to illustrate the desirability of the Godly emotions.

Those who are evil at heart are directed in their destructive ministry by the malignant thoughts of their own minds and the evil desires of the heart within. Righteousness is not betrayable by evil, because, like pure gold, it is indestructible, even though cast into the fiery caldron; neither is it necessary for goodness to have the help of the non-good in the manifestation of itself. To claim otherwise would be like placing evil on a pedestal and saying: "Lo, since evil is necessary to bring good into manifestation, it is good under another name": - "Evil must come but woe to him through whom it cometh."

No evil thought ever helped a human Soul to advance or come into the Light. An evil deed may be the means of helping us to recognize good, in the same sense that darkness enables us to comprehend the light; but never did and never will evil help goodness to come into its own - righteousness.

It is not necessary for man to grovel in the dust - be a "worm of the dust." The filth of the gross passions are powerless to help the mind become conscious of the desirability of goodness and the Soul's awakening. The Soul is not necessarily awakened as a result of passing through an endless number of incarnations and life in evil environments.

If man begins his journey on earth with a mind filled with erroneous conceptions, and as a result continues to cling to the non-good, it will naturally take him many incarnations to awaken to the truth. He will be forced to return time and again to pass through experience after experience until finally the mind is awakened to the fact that something is amiss and induces him to seek the cause.

Man does not awaken by continually committing wrong acts. It is possible however that the suffering which is the reaction of these errors will arouse him to the fact that his life is far from what it should or could be.

Evil deeds bring about losses and suffering to the physical-mental man, but there is no suffering to the Soul until after the conscience has been awakened. There may be much pain of the body, physical ills and bodily aches, but the abused Soul does not begin to question the reason until after it has become at least partially conscious. The man who is thoroughly evil cares nothing at all for the sorrows and miseries of others so long as these do not bring him loss or inconvenience. He is selfishness personified. His Soul is asleep. The conscience is so thoroughly buried under debris that its voice cannot make itself heard.

Once intense desire for knowledge, for something better and nobler than that which has been a part of life up to the present, begins to arouse the Soul from its slumber, irrespective of the evils that have been committed and for which it has been made responsible, it will have no rest until it has gained full Consciousness.

When the desire for good overshadows the desire for continuance in evil, then, and then only, does the Soul begin to suffer for the sins of the personality that is holding it imprisoned and in which it has its present abiding place.

Judas symbolizes the "betrayer." It was his incarnated viciousness that betrayed his Master and Teacher. Not all Judases are dead. There are innumerably many living today. The profiteers of that day whose business, profession or vocation were affected by the Nazarene's teachings were only too willing to buy Judas with silver, nor was he the first and will not be the last to barter Souls for the love or possession of money. Today this is being done as never before and this will continue until men learn by bitter experience that there is but one Law: "As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

Judas sought to destroy. He did destroy; not another, but himself. This "digging a grave for another and then falling in oneself" was not true alone in his case, but is always true. The sower reaps; there is no evasion. After Judas had betrayed his Master-Teacher, his conscience became active, but the deed was done and in remorse "he went out and hanged himself." He at last paid to "the utmost farthing" as will all who do evil, though they may not become aware of it until after the evil deed is done.

Evil does not suffer; good is not made to suffer. It is the Soul of man that pays the penalty to the "utmost farthing" for each and every attempt to evade the Law.

The body is made to suffer for the evils of the mind; it is material and upon it is impressed every destructive thought, desire and act, and in turn this impression is recorded upon the Soul.

The body is being made weak and filled with disease from the moment of the first disobedience to the governing Law, and from then on the physical man manifests all the evils that are a part of the mind.

The Soul begins to suffer only when it awakens to its responsibility. After the Soul attains Conscious Individuality and freely accepts its responsibility, it will begin to free itself from all the evils that the mental and physical man seeks to foster upon it.

The Nazarene suffered no more after He had arisen from the tomb and had thrown off the burden of the flesh. With the passing away of all that is earthly He had attained supremacy over the weaknesses of the flesh and with the overcoming came freedom. This is always true.

Soul development, the unfolding of the God-born entity within, is the one and only way to attain Conscious Individuality. Neither creed nor dogma, nor "faith without works" can help the Soul, unless such creed, dogma or faith acts as an incentive to nobler thinking, more exalted desires and greater effort to become Cosmic Conscious as the Father had planned we should.

Man may incarnate ten thousand times and yet be no nearer the saving truths at his last incarnation than at the first. The Soul's unfoldment, which ends in Illumination, is the only saving power. There is no other way.

The world is to become enlightened, not as a result of evolution, because that deals only with the physical self, but through self-efforts, deliberate efforts well planned, for spiritual development, the growth of the Soul.

A thought is an embryonic desire; thoughts of evil given recognition become desires for carnal pleasure or for profit at the expense of loss or suffering to others. No man may think evil thoughts for any length of time and not desire to do the things the evil thoughts suggest, while thoughts of good coming to the mind frequently will result in desires for that which is constructive. No man can often think aspiringly without shortly feeling a desire to attain to a higher station than is his portion at present.

Faith in the possibility of obtaining benefits and profits through other than individual righteous efforts usually includes evil actions. Faith in the fact that good is a desirable quality to possess will finally urge the mind to constructive action.

We believe as we inwardly think. A superficial, fleeting thought has no influence to action. Its impression is superficial and is quickly erased. Such a thought is not impressed upon the Soul because it lacks the potency to reach it. Ninety-nine percent of men's thoughts are of this nature.

The man who has not learned to think for himself may live through many stages of evolution and as many incarnations without having awakened to godly desires or the thought of becoming a real man capable of attaining Godhood.

Another, having attained freedom from the mental bondage of accepting the ideas of another as law, may quickly learn much of the mystery of life and develop great Soul power within a comparatively short period of time. Due to this fact, the old Soul, the Soul that has been reincarnated many times before, is not always the most advanced, ennobled Soul. It is truly written: " the last shall be first and the first shall be [among] the last."

Many of the old Souls, having lived for centuries in the "old world" with its degradation and hatreds, are filled with the corroding evil of hate; with these the many rebirths count for naught. These live entirely in the flesh and: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; while [only] that which is born of the spirit remains spirit." On the contrary, the newer, or those who came more direct from Egypt to America, the land overshadowed with wings, are far more free from malice, hatred and jealousy than those of old Europe.

Though the Soul be reincarnated time and again in a house of flesh, these rebirths count for nothing until such time as the "saving truth" leading to effort for the attainment of Soul Consciousness awakens the mind into action.

It is written: "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."

Man's Soul came direct from the Godhead, the Cosmic Soul itself. It did not arise, as a result of evolution, from the rocks of the sea, the things that grow, or from animals. "No man ascended but he that comes down from heaven." All Souls primarily came "down" from heaven. They were not born from any material substance and were not the result of evolution as is the case with the body. The Souls incarnated into physical bodies so that they might have the services of the human body as a vehicle through which to experience and express. Unfortunately, all too many of these Souls, instead of lifting the body up, permitted themselves to actually fall to the level of the body and became almost as low as the body they took up as a habitation.

Few men are so materialistically minded as to claim that the body of man was created, or had its beginning, in heaven. The beginning and process of the development of man's body is of little importance to us at the moment, our problem being the awakening and bringing into Consciousness of the Soul.

Man's Soul is composed of the elements of Fire, of the Cosmic Soul, the Divinity. It is a Spark from the Universal Creator; of He who Himself said He was a Fire. "God, or that part of man which is a Fire, became flesh and dwelt among us [the earth]." The evils inherent in the minds of men and the passions of the flesh "put this Divine Spark asleep by burying it in a `tomb' under tons of debris." Now that same mind, conscious of this error, must roll away the "stone before the tomb" and awaken and then build the Soul into the image, a prototype, of its Maker.

To commence this work requires a certain amount of faith in the fact that this is possible and that man is capable of using the proper methods to bring about this possibility. To have faith is to trust; to trust is to attempt the attainment of that which is promised in return for the effort made.

The Soul, as part of the Cosmic, entered, took up or was "born into" the material human form and through this action has learned to know joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, peace and sorrow. Having descended, it may, by effort, again ascend. This requires the re-creation of its entire being because as a result of the "fall" the Soul took upon itself that which has always been gross. This dense, gross form must be transmuted, must be taken through the fire; must become spiritualized.

He who has made the proper effort as a result of desire and gained the necessary knowledge has the power to create and re-create; and he who begins the work of re-creation will gain the wisdom of the governing Laws and be able to do the work of the Soul.

He who has faith believes. He trusts. His thoughts and desires are then patterned in harmony with the "music of the spheres" as taught by Plato, the great philosopher. That is faith. His faith will lead to works. His work will finally bring him unto salvation. That salvation is Soul Consciousness, Illumination.

So long as man erroneously believes that evolution alone has the power to save he will make no serious effort to awaken the Divinity which is within himself because he believes that this power is outside of himself, above or beyond himself. His efforts will build up, evolve the personality, but the Soul, the Individuality, will continue asleep as it has been for ages past.

In many respects humanity is no farther advanced today than it was thousands of years ago and in this year of 1943 humanity is guilty of and is repeating the same errors it did two thousand years ago. Man has gained much external knowledge and is using that knowledge to destroy. Man has developed his mental powers; mind has made many discoveries that have added ease and pleasure; but these minds are not one iota more ennobled, nor are the Souls more Divine, than they were ages ago.

This mundane plane is no better for being crowded with mental giants and inventive geniuses who use their knowledge in the production of material for the destruction of great numbers of their fellow men, or invent methods to enslave the masses by developing in them a desire for ease and pleasure. Sickness, misery, degradation, mass enslavement to vicious gangsters over whom the government itself appears to have no control, are as rampant today as at any time in the history of man, and in proportion to numbers, far more destructive and degrading than nineteen hundred years ago when the Nazarene taught: "As ye sow, so shall ye [all men] reap," and again "Faith without works [acting accordingly] is dead."

Man has made but little real progress during all these centuries, although he has had every opportunity to become as "one of the gods."

Figuratively speaking, God weeps upon His throne as, in fact, the weak and innocent are the easy prey for the strong and wicked, of those in power who sit in high places. The only bright spot in the heavens is the star of hope casting its shadow before men and pointing out to them the way to freedom, teaching them the power of the mind to build up a personality capable of overcoming and overthrowing all forms of slavery, whether of self or others, and the way to attain Soul Consciousness and Individualization akin to Godhood.

God could not have become flesh, as He tells us He did, had He desired to immortalize the mind. God is Soul. He labors with men so that they may become conscious Souls, thus fulfilling the purpose for which they came to earth. In this work mind and body must be employed, first in the awakening, and second in building the Illuminated Soul, the Individualized Consciousness.

Mental science, when once properly used, will demonstrate to the human family great signs and wonders, by manifesting the full power of an awakened mind. It will attain its zenith in the not distant future, but before it reaches its ultimate, it will demonstrate that its greatest effort and highest art is in bringing the Soul into Consciousness. Mental science is the light-bearer, the John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, the guide of the Soul that must be brought to Conscious Individualization.

The mind's work is limited; it dies when the body enters the sleep that knows no awakening and returns "ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

Only the Conscious Soul, as the result of the work of the mind, continues to live.

The Science of the Soul, with its knowledge for building and bringing the Soul into Illumination and Consciousness, will shortly foreshadow a power undreamed of by millions now living.

The mind of man may build an evil image, a house of corruption, and entities and machines potent for destruction; or it may build a Soul, a Soul that can be built only for good.

This is the doctrine of the consuming Fire; it is the Comforter spoken of by the Nazarene; it is the Holy Ghost come upon man so that he may be "saved" in truth.

The philosophy of the Soul opens the Spiritual Age. It is here to foreshadow the coming of the Individualized Christos to all who will accept him. It is the Christ that must be resurrected in all men. It is he who will baptize with Fire unto salvation and eternal life, or destroy with utter destruction. Woe to him upon whom falls the descending Fire and who is unprepared for it!

According to their faith will men work. "By their fruits shall ye know them."
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