Once we have seen that hypnotism is the basis of this world, then you can say that “paper” is this basic substance, and so if I make a picture of a cat and a dog and a man, I still have nothing but paper. Have I? Now what is the quality of the cat and the dog and the man? The quality of paper. How eternal is the life of the cat and the dog and the man? As long as the life of the paper. When there is no longer paper, there’s no longer cat, dog, or man is there? But as long as there’s paper, there’s cat, dog, and man, isn’t there?

Now in reality, God is the substance of all form, therefore, the nature and character of all form: cat, dog, or man, tree, bird, or beast, is God, therefore, they’re eternal. But the substance of this world is hypnotism, and therefore, you can’t get rid of the errors of this world, or the limitations of this world, until you get rid of the hypnotism. Do you see that? When you’re rid of the paper, you’re rid of the cat, dog, and man. When you’re rid of hypnotism, you’re rid of sin, disease, death, and all forms of limitation.

How do you get rid of hypnotism? By recognizing it. That’s the only way. The only way! If somebody presents to you the picture of sick or sinning mortal man, cat, dog, bird, beast, whatnot, and you can say to yourself: “Bosh!—hypnotism!” that picture disappears, and you get a call, “Oh, that was wonderful.” See? What was wonderful? Did you heal them of anything? Did you have a gift from God that enabled you to do something for them? No, you knew the truth. And knowing the truth means knowing the nature of God and His creation, which is “My kingdom,” and knowing the nature of “this world” which is hypnotism. Know this truth and this truth will make you free.

The longer you work with this truth, the more a miracle happens in your life. At first you accept it intellectually. You feel it must be so; it must be right, and you work with it and you begin to get results. Those results are not entirely miracles, but they’re good results. Enough to show you that you’re on the right track. As you continue to work with them, your consciousness changes from a state of hypnotized consciousness to dehypnotization, and all of a sudden you say, “Whereas before I was blind, now I see. This is the kingdom of God! You don’t go any place to get the kingdom of God. You don’t die to get there. You don’t go to Jerusalem or to Rome or to somewhere else. This is the kingdom of God. This hell has become heaven, but that’s only when you’re awakened out of the state of hypnotism.

Remember, you do not get rid of hypnotism any more than you get rid of rheumatism. You do not overcome hypnotism. You do not struggle with it. You do not look for a God power to do something to it. You merely recognize that the substance, the fabric, of this world is hypnotism, and then drop it—just as if you were to see two times two as five on a paper or a blackboard, you wouldn’t struggle around to overcome it. You’d merely substitute two times two is four and that’s that, or you’d say, “That’s a mistake—two times two is five,” but you wouldn’t do anything after you said it was a mistake, because nothing to be done. That’s all you can do—once you’ve known it’s a mistake it doesn’t fool you anymore, does it?

All right. If somebody tells you a lie and you think it’s the truth, you can get in trouble, but if somebody tells you a lie and you know it’s a lie, do you have to do anything then? You don’t even have to correct the liar do you? Because you don’t care what they’re doing. That’s their business what they’re doing. All you have to do is, “That’s a lie. I can’t be fooled.” Right?

Well, then if a claim is presented to you of any nature and you recognize, “Uh-uh. That’s neither person, place, nor thing; that’s a state of hypnotism.” That’s all you have to do. You’re not fooled by it. You recognize it as a lie. It’s lost its power. And the one who has come to you for help, because there is only one consciousness, they’ve united themselves with you, they all of a sudden wake up, and say, “Oh, it was a lie.”

So the healing process is not complicated. The healing truth is not complicated. It just consists of those two parts. But attaining the actual awareness that this is true, that’s the difficult part, and that’s what you struggle with is yourself until you can reach a state of consciousness that can recognize a lie. Until you can reach a state of consciousness that doesn’t get frightened at the name of atomic bomb, cancer, consumption, polio, mongoloid baby, paralysis, blindness, deafness—when you can arrive at that state where those words do not frighten you, and you say, “Oh, that’s a lie,” then you are in the healing consciousness. But as long as these names or appearances still make you want to do something—you’re hypnotized. You’re accepting a lie as if it were a fact.

Therefore, the whole of the spiritual path is an internal struggle that takes place within our own consciousness. It isn’t what’s wrong with the world. There’s nothing wrong with the world. What is wrong with my concept of the world? How am I beholding the world? Am I seeing Jesus as a resurrected Hebrew Prophet, or am I seeing Jesus as Peter saw him as the Christ? Am I seeing man as a mortal, or am I recognizing Christ incarnate? Do you see the difference? And, it’s as simple as this, and it’s as difficult as this. The simplicity is that there are only two important parts: The nature of God and His creation, the nature of error and its creation—and that’s all. We build our entire life on those two points.

You must remember that error can appear in as infinite amount of forms as God’s grace can appear. When you sit here and one letter is marital discord, and the next letter is parental and filial discord, and the next one is financial discord, the next one is physical, the next one’s moral, and the next one relationships, and the next one’s business, and the next one’s employment, and the next one’s age. Oh, you go on here. You can’t believe all the different forms of error that come to this desk. Well, if you were going to treat them, you’d not only have to be an MD, you’d have to be a mental specialist, physical, moral. You’d have to be a financial counselor; you’d have to be a marriage counselor. You’d have to be about every—oh yes, and then we have actors coming who want better parts, and musicians who want this, and—you see what I mean? It’s infinite what comes in this mail. But remember it isn’t true. Only one thing comes in this mail—a state of hypnotism—that’s all. It’s a state of hypnotism appearing in infinite form and variety.

And so I must write to many people that I’m not an employment agency, and to others that I’m not a marriage counselor, and to others that I’m not a psychologist, and to others I’m not a minister who reforms the sinners or saves souls, because most of them believe that that’s what we are. But I say to you that we are only one thing: We are those who have received the revelation of the nature of God and the nature of error.

God is what I am, and My kingdom is the projection, the manifestation or expression of the Consciousness which I am, and it’s all beautiful, and all of the appearances that do not bear witness to that—they’re a lie. Why? There’s no substance to them, no law to them. All they are are pictures produced by hypnotism.

So, if you see a whole city burning, don’t run for water to put out the flames. Just recognize it to be hypnotism. If you see a tidal wave on the way to wipe out a city, don’t run around looking for barriers to keep it out. Just stand still and recognize it as a state of hypnotism. If you hear of an infection or contagion or a fire up in the Hollywood Hills, don’t run looking for firemen. Recognize it as a state of hypnotism. And then watch what happens to that hypnotic picture.