Nobody can get rid of the human sense. Nobody can settle into the Spiritual, unless they have the Grace of God to assist them. Just as if we are taught that I do not know how to pray. I do not know what to pray for. The Spirit bears intercession, bears witness with my spirit. The Spirit makes intercession with my spirit.

And so it is, we do not know how to pray nor do we know really how to treat. We don’t know really how to give a treatment. These treatments that we have outlined in the writings represent our highest concept of what a treatment should be and at times they have really worked and worked beautifully in lifting us to a higher state of consciousness. But the truth actually is that none of us knows any more about giving a treatment than we know how to pray. If we did, and we ever gave a successful treatment for cancer or consumption, then we go back to that treatment every time thereafter, and the first thing you know we’d be cancer and consumption specialists. But you see, even those who have been successful in bringing out a healing of cancer, or consumption, or anything else can’t be sure that the next case comes along that they can heal it, even though they know what the treatment was used before. And the reason is this. A treatment doesn’t heal. A treatment is an effect. A treatment isn’t a cause. A treatment is an effect.

Now, if you can go back to the Source that gave you that treatment, you will receive another treatment that will heal, but you must go back to the Source that gave you the treatment. The treatment itself is an effect, and the only reason it worked in one case is that behind the treatment was the cause of the treatment, which was divine Consciousness. Now that treatment’s no good anymore, but the same divine Consciousness that gave you that treatment is still good, so if you can go back to that same state of divine Consciousness, you will receive another treatment, and it will produce the healing and its effect.

Always remember this. Thoughts, things, treatments, prayers, affirmations, denials—these are effects. They are not healing agencies. They don’t heal anyone of anything. Go back to the Cause to that which produced the prayer or the treatment in you, and it will again produce some kind of an effect in you that will appear outwardly as healing or harmony. But don’t you see that in every case, you cannot rest up here in the mind with a treatment, or with a good thought, or holding onto a good thought.

You are never as close to Heaven as when you can’t remember a thing to think about. You are never as close to Heaven as when you’re a complete blank on how to pray or how to give a treatment. The more barren you feel, the closer you are to the kingdom of Heaven, because the further you are away from any of selfhood’s power, and the more barren you become, the greater, the greater the Holy Ghost can come upon thee and the Power of the highest can overshadow thee. “Therefore, also, that holy thing, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” You see, it shall be born of thee, but it isn’t conceived by you, it is the Holy Ghost that comes upon you, and it is the overshadowing of the highest that comes upon you. That is the Creator, and then the Son of God is the created, and you’re the instrument through which it comes.

And so it is, whether it’s Mary giving birth to a Jesus, or whether it is Jesus giving birth to that holy healing Spirit, or whether it is we who receive in consciousness the measure of that Christ, we are but the instruments through which the overshadowing Power of the most High is made manifest.

Now, if we ever depend on a thought, or a treatment, or a statement of Truth that is already out in the world of effect, we are completely ignoring God, the Cause, and then we’re wondering why we don’t get an answer to our prayer. We didn’t really pray. We just used an old prayer. We just used some old effect, some old statement of Truth and thought that we were turning to God. We weren’t. We were turning to an effect of God.

Now each day, each day, start your day not with some made-up prayer, affirmation, denial. Don’t start your day with an effect, but go right behind all of these to the Cause. Go right back to the Silence within yourself, and let It impart Itself. Then, when it does, then you can know that the Holy Ghost has come upon thee, the power of the highest has overshadowed thee, and then everything that takes place during the day will be an activity of the Son of God, rather than the activity of man whose breath is in his nostril.

Do you see the purpose of this lesson? Do you see how you must divorce yourself from the belief that any effect is power, even when that effect is a good thought or a good treatment? Do you see that? Do you see that you cannot use yesterday’s manna in this work? You cannot use yesterday’s treatment. You cannot use yesterday’s thought. In every instance, you have to go for fresh inspiration to the Source, and why, if God is Infinite, why can’t we have a brand-new unfoldment every day of the week? Why can’t we have a brand-new Source and feel of power?

And we can, but very often, like the Master, we may have to go away for forty days to reestablish the contact that the world breaks in on. We have to break away, even from our practice, even from our student body, because with all of the goodwill in the world, the students and the patients will draw on us, and if we let them, they will draw on us for yesterday’s manna. And thereby, we cheat ourselves and them, whereas by taking a firm stand and saying “no,” there are going to be so many hours in the day when no one can intrude into my room, or my office, or my prayer place, and there are going to be so many days in a month when I’m going to be available to nobody. I’m going in here to have the Holy Ghost descend upon me and the Power of the highest overshadow me, so that when I return from the Mountaintop and go to the valley, then it can be said, and “he healed the multitudes.”

Yes, he healed the multitudes every time that he came down from the Mountain, every time he went to the Source, every time he received fresh meat, wine, water, illumination, divine Grace. Then he came down and the power of the Spirit was upon him as he read from Isaiah in the temple, “the spirit of the Lord is upon me, and I am given power to comfort the mourner, to heal the sick, to preach the gospel, to raise the dead.” But those are not words out of a man’s mouth. That is an illumination out of his Soul, and it can only come when he has learned to live in the secret place of the most High. Secret, very secret, where he’s learned to live secretly and sacredly within himself. Then, when he comes out of his room, after these hours of meditation, then, oh yes, then the Spirit flows, and the effects are made visible.

Then you can see what our Lord hath done, but in and of ourselves, we are nothing. In and of our stored-up memories, of passages of Truth, we are nothing. Even in the books we have written, we are nothing. We are only something in proportion to that inner contact, that inner realization of Truth, that inner Union and Oneness with the divine Source.

Now, don’t be fooled. Don’t ever be fooled by an effect. Don’t look to an effect for healing. Don’t even look to your concept of God for a healing. Go directly to God Itself. And how do you know when you’re going to God Itself? When you have no preconceived opinions as to what you’re going to meet when you get there, or who, or how it’s going to appear. When you can go in utter and complete silence and say, “Father, I know absolutely nothing, but I’m open. Fill me. Fill me, fulfill thyself in me.”

Pretty soon you’ll hear, “as I was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as I was with Moses, so I am with you.”

And so it is. Thank you.