The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the greatest parable in the Bible. It is supremely important because it explains the real nature of our life here on earth. It tells us about ourselves and how we bring about the conditions in which we live. It is the textbook on spiritual and psychological anatomy. When you thoroughly understand the Garden of Eden story you will understand human nature, and when you understand human nature, you will have dominion over it. This parable is placed almost at the beginning of the Bible because it is the foundation upon which the whole of the Bible is built; and all the rest of the Bible, to the end of Revelation, assumes an understanding of the Garden of Eden parable. Indeed, there is only one Bible section in front of it, and that is the basic first chapter which gives the fundamentals of spiritual demonstration.

The Bible is not primarily intended to teach history, or biography, or natural science. It is intended to teach psychology and metaphysics. It deals primarily with states of mind and the laws of mental activity; and anything else is only incidental. Each of the principal characters in the Bible represents a state of mind that any of us may experience; and the events that happen to the various characters illustrate the consequences to us of entertaining such states of mind, either good or bad.

Some of the Bible characters, such as Moses, Elijah, and Paul, are historical figures. They were real men who lived on earth and did the deeds attributed to them; nonetheless they represent states of mind also, and, of course, they outpictured different states of mind at different times as their lives unfolded. Other Bible characters, such as Adam and Eve, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, 1 or the Scarlet Woman 2 are, of course, fictional and never had an actual existence; but they express states of mind too, and always in a remarkably simple and graphic manner.

Now a state of mind cannot be viewed or pictured directly as can a material object. It can only be described indirectly, by a figure of speech, an allegory, or a parable, but, unfortunately, thoughtless people have always tended to take the figure of speech or the allegory literally, at its face value, thus missing the real meaning, because it lies hidden beneath. The veil of Isis comes to be worshipped while Isis herself is forgotten. Another evil that follows from this course is that, since many parables obviously cannot be literally true, such people, unable to accept the authenticity of the story, proceed to reject the Bible altogether as a collection of falsehoods. This was the attitude of Ingersoll in America, Bradlaugh in England, and many others. The fundamentalist, on the other hand, does violence to his common sense in trying to make himself believe that these parables are literally true, while at the bottom of his heart—which is the place that matters—he cannot really believe them, and so a dangerous conflict is set up within his subconscious.

You cannot take a pencil and draw a picture of fear for instance; but you can draw a picture of a human being, and depict terror on his countenance. You cannot take a brush and paint remorse, or envy, or sensuality as such; but you can take a pen and write about a great fire, and about a soul suffering torment in the flames, and then you will have an excellent description of the suffering brought about by these evils. Yet, many people are certain to think that you mean an actual human body being burned in a physical fire. You cannot picture a soul experiencing a sense of perfect peace and harmony, but you can speak of an expert musician playing beautiful music upon a perfectly tuned harp; and again many people will think that the redeemed soul is to spend eternity literally playing a harp. Justice is an abstract quality that cannot be drawn or sculptured, but you can draw or sculpture a woman, blindfolded, and holding a balance in her hand; and when you do that we all know that you mean justice. So the Bible uses this method to impart its teaching. It uses outer concrete things to express inner, subjective or abstract ideas. As Paul says, these things are an allegory.

In the Garden of Eden story many people seem to think that Eve symbolizes woman as a sex and that Adam somehow stands for man as a sex, but this is absurd. Adam and Eve represent one person. They represent Everyman. They represent you and me and every other man and woman on the globe. They stand for the human being as we know him. Adam means the body, and Eve means the soul or human mind, which consists of the intellect and the feeling nature. In the Bible, woman always means the soul.

The story says that Eve ate a certain fruit, and that as a result of eating it she and Adam were turned out of Paradise, and incurred all the pains and sorrows that human nature knows. This is the great parable because it lays down the Great Law at one stroke. The fact is that the body cannot experience anything that does not first appear in the mind; and the mind cannot entertain any conviction without its effect appearing upon the body or embodiment. So it is not by chance that the fatal fruit was first eaten by Eve and not by Adam. The body cannot do anything to the soul because the body is effect and not cause. The body is a shadow cast by the mind, and the shadow cannot do anything to affect the object by which it is cast.

At this point you should note carefully that the word “body” means the complete embodiment of the subject, and includes not only his physical body but all his material surroundings of every kind. The Great Law of human nature is that one’s surroundings at any time are but the outer expression or outpicturing of his conscious (and subconscious) mind at the moment. States of mind never result from outer conditions (although, of course, they seem to do so until we analyze the situation thoroughly), but it is always the outer picture which is produced by the mental state. Eve can bring trouble upon Adam or she can present him with harmony; but Adam cannot do anything to Eve. Unless the soul first eats the forbidden fruit of fear, anger, greed, etc., the embodiment will be harmonious and free; but anything that the soul does consume or entertain must and will appear on the body.

This is the essential significance of the Garden of Eden parable, and we will now consider the details in logical order, at some length. Every one of these details is extremely important and instructive. Each one of them gives us an important clue to our own nature, but they are still secondary to the great central theme that this is a mental universe, and that it is the mind that produces all phenomena.

I recommend that the reader carefully reread the Book of Genesis, Chapters 2 and 3, beginning at Chapter 2, Verse 4, and using the Authorized or King James Version, which is the one in general use. It will be noticed that the first three verses of Chapter 2 as printed in our Bible, really belong to Chapter 1, and are not part of the Adam and Eve parable. The Bible was not divided into chapters and verses until late in the Christian era. The original authors knew nothing of this arrangement, but it is a very convenient one although in certain cases the divisions have not been made in the right place.

The first point that we have to note is the nature of the fruit that Eve ate. It is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). Note this very carefully. What kind of tree is specified? It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and so the meaning is obviously allegorical. No such tree grows literally on the earth. This point proves beyond question that the story is an allegory and is meant to be taken as such. There seems to be a popular belief that it was an apple that Eve ate, but the Bible knows nothing about this. What she ate was the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. How people could ever have taken this wonderful allegory for historical fact it is hard to see, but such has happened, and all the orthodox theologies are founded upon a supposed “fall of man” caused by literally eating the fruit of an actual tree in an authentic geographical location, at a definite date in the past—yet the whole thing is clearly pure allegory, like the story of the Good Samaritan, or one of Aesop’s fables, except that it teaches far greater and deeper lessons. A very little thought will show that to create an adult human pair, totally inexperienced through having no youth or childhood behind them, and then punish them for a transgression, the nature of which they could not possibly understand, would not be intelligent; and how much more unintelligent and unjust to mete out disabilities and punishments to their distant posterity for an event which took place centuries before they were born, and for which they were in no way responsible.

The account says:

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)

This clearly means that if we indulge in the knowledge of both good and evil we will suffer; that is to say, if we entertain both good and evil thoughts, trouble will come to us. It does not say that this will happen if we eat fruit which is entirely evil, which means holding thoughts that are entirely negative, for no one in his senses would do that. The trouble lies in the mixed fruit. It is the mixture of good and evil in our thinking that brings about our downfall. When people think evil, the carnal mind always furnishes what seems to be a good reason for it. When people criticize others, when they entertain thoughts of resentment and condemnation, when they fill their minds with thoughts of sickness, lack, and so forth, they are very apt to invent seemingly good reasons for so doing and thereby deceive themselves, thus eating mixed fruit. The law is that we must not think evil under any circumstances or we will suffer the consequences.

Man has free will to think good or evil and he constantly chooses to think evil, and it is this evil thinking that is the “fall of man.” Thus the fall of man is going on all the time, whenever we allow ourselves to think wrongly. It is not an event in the past but a constant occurrence, and it is to be overcome by training ourselves to think rightly at all times.

In the Adam and Eve story the male makes his appearance first, because the human being is always aware of his body long before he discovers his soul. This is true of mankind as a race, and is also true of the individual in babyhood.

“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

“And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.” (Genesis 3:1-4)

The serpent represents the lower nature. It stands for the carnal mind. The carnal mind, an expression which we owe to Paul, is the belief that we are separate from God, whereas in reality we are one with Him. It is the belief that inner things are subservient to outer things, instead of the reverse, or that there is power in matter. This mistaken belief is well called the “fall of man,” for it is the cause of all our problems and difficulties. That belief is an extremely subtle one. We all know only too well how easily it creeps into our thinking, without our being aware of it. We accept the Jesus Christ teaching; we think we understand it; and yet we constantly catch ourselves forgetting it at important times. Such error is therefore very well depicted as a serpent or snake, which, with its silent, subtle movement, strikes its victim without warning.

The world thinks that by analyzing evil, studying it, filling our minds with it, we shall obtain power over it. It says, with the serpent:

“For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5)

Of course, the opposite is the truth. The only way to overcome evil is to refuse to touch it mentally—or, if we have already done so, to un-know it.

The great parable goes on to say that when the couple had eaten this fruit they realized that they were naked and they were afraid. As soon as we allow evil to obtain a hold on our minds, fear grips us and we feel unprotected or “naked” in that sense, and we look about for some material thing to save us—whereas our only salvation is to know that evil is not real. Before eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve were not conscious of being unprotected or naked.

The parable goes on to explain that in the cool of the day they heard the voice of God challenging them. This means that after the harm has been done, when we have entertained negative thoughts and begun to suffer the consequences we have time to reflect, and then we turn to God and wonder what He will think or do about it.

Of course, Eve tempts Adam, and Adam blames Eve because, as we have seen, nothing can happen to the body that does not first find itself in the soul. You may say that something has happened to your body that you knew nothing about previously, but there must have been a corresponding thought or mental equivalent in your mind or the thing itself could not have happened to you. The explanation is that it was in the unconscious part of your mind and so you knew nothing about it, but nevertheless it was there.

“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” (Genesis 3:23)

Our belief in the reality of evil and limitation is the cause of all our troubles. It is the cause of sickness. It is the cause of quarrels and inharmony. It is the cause of poverty, for when we know the Truth of Being instead of only believing it, we shall not have to toil and drudge for a living, but our thought will be creative, and we shall demonstrate what we need. In the meantime, because Eve has eaten the forbidden fruit—because the race believes in limitation—we have to toil for a living. The earth has to be tilled with labor, and when the crops come up they seem to be subject to all kinds of pests and other dangers. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” (Genesis 3:19)

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Genesis 3:16)

As a result of the Fall—the belief in limitation—the soul produces new ideas with much labor and trouble. Artistic creations and new inventions come to the race slowly and with difficulty. The Egyptians could have had the telephone; the Romans could have had the automobile; if only they had known how, for nature was as ready to furnish them in those days as now. Even a century from today mankind will enjoy many blessings that we have to go without, because we have not yet discovered or invented them. The real, spiritual man, can have anything he needs at any moment by speaking the creative Word.

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” (Genesis 3:24)

Eating the forbidden fruit—believing in limitation—is the fall of man, and by it we are driven out of Paradise and must remain outside until the false belief is relinquished. The law of harmony prevents the holder of a false belief from getting into Paradise, no matter from what direction he may try. For instance, as long as you believe that your body is material and limited and therefore subject to sickness and accident, you cannot have perfect health. When you know that your true body is spiritual and eternal, perfect health will come.

Adam and Eve represent the human being as we know him. This is not the real spiritual man who is perfect and eternal, but the person that we know here on this plane. Now, what is the human being? What is your human personality, for instance? It is your sincere opinion about yourself, or, to put it philosophically, it is your concept of yourself, that and nothing more. You are what you really believe yourself to be. You experience what you really believe in. All there is to any phenomenon is our belief in it. There is no difference between the thing and the thought of the thing. We often hear it said that thoughts are things, but the actual truth is that things are thoughts. From this it follows that when you “un-think” a thing it disappears. The world you live in is the world of your own beliefs. You created it by thinking it, and you can destroy it at any moment by un-thinking it. This is the meaning of the startling statement, “dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.” (Genesis 3:19)

Again I would impress upon the reader not to forget the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind (usually called in medical books, the unconscious) is that part of your mentality of which you are not aware. You may be unaware that you have been holding a certain thought or a certain belief, and yet it may be in your subconscious, and if so it will affect your life, in spite of the fact that you did not consciously know of its existence. You probably picked it up in childhood.

The importance of prayer lies in the fact that prayer, and prayer alone, can and does redeem and re-educate the subconscious.

Human belief is a temporary thing, always changing, falling into dust. Your real spiritual self understands; your temporary human self only believes. Understanding is of Truth and is therefore permanent. It is the “firmament” of Genesis 1:6. The first chapter of Genesis deals with the spiritual man and eternal Truth. This section, the second and third chapters, deals with man as we know him, or think we know him, for the time being.

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

The enmity between the human soul and the serpent is easily understood, and here is a prophecy that mankind will ultimately overcome limitation and fear; that it shall bruise the head of the serpent. Meanwhile, until this happens, the serpent will continue to give man a good deal of trouble. The “heel” refers to whatever is the most vulnerable spot—this may be a love of money, a tendency to criticism and condemnation, it may be sensuality, or anything else. The heel has always been a symbol of man’s weak spot, for it is the place where he contacts the ground. The heel of Achilles naturally comes to mind in this connection, and see also Jacob’s dying prophecy concerning Dan. 3

When the Bible speaks of the “Lord,” or as it does in this section, of the “Lord God,” it means your concept or idea of God, and not necessarily God as He really is. For instance, we are told elsewhere that the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, 4 and this means that Pharaoh’s own (mistaken) idea of God hardened his heart, not that the true God did this. We are sadly aware how often throughout Christian history the name of God has been invoked by perfectly sincere people to justify religious persecution. Again, it was their false concept of God that led them to do these cruel things and not, of course, the true God Himself. When the true God is meant, the Bible uses simply the word “God” or “Elohim,” and of course the words Life and Truth and Love are Aspects of God. 5 John said “God is Love,” and Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

In the Adam and Eve parable we find the term “Lord God” employed, and so we are dealing with man’s concept of God—which is the God he worships—and therefore the God which governs his life. It was Pharaoh’s idea of God, a despotic oriental sultan like himself, which hardened his heart.

In the dialogue between the Lord God and Adam and Eve, it is man’s own consciousness that carries on a dialogue with itself, in exploring and analyzing the events that have happened. Who is there who has not carried on such a debate with himself, such an argument between the higher and the lower nature, in weighing the pros and cons of a particular temptation or a particular problem?

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21)

Adam and Eve, having accepted the belief in limitation as a real thing to be grappled with, proceed to make themselves “coats of skins” thus endeavoring to correct one limitation belief with another limitation belief, and so getting deeper into confusion.

“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” (Genesis 3:22)

They finally reach a condition of discouragement and doubt when they feel that there is no way out, that “what cannot be cured must be endured,” and that sin, sickness, old age, and death are inevitable. This belief shuts them away from the tree of life. Otherwise they would have put forth their hands—they would have treated and overcome their negative thoughts—and taken of the fruit of the tree of life, eaten and lived forever. The tree of life is the understanding that we are one with God and that our true selves are spiritual and eternal. Such understanding is not mere intellectual doctrine, for it actually heals the body and ultimately regenerates it.

Jesus came to teach us about the tree of life and how to eat of its fruit, and thus overcome the fall of man. He said: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all things shall be added unto you.” 6 And he said: “The kingdom of God is within you.” 7 In the Bible the word “within” signifies thought, as distinct from the outer world of things.

“And a river went out of Eden to water the Garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

“The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

“And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

“And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

“And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.” (Genesis 2:10-14)

In connection with the parable of Adam and Eve, we are told of a remarkable river that had its source in Eden, but on flowing out of the garden divided itself into four branches. This is a profound expression of the nature of man. Man is one, a spiritual being, the expression of God, perfect and eternal; but owing to his belief in limitation he seems for the time being to be divided up into four parts, and this division only appears after the river leaves Eden. We shall become very familiar with these four divisions as the Bible goes on. They are spoken of as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” as the “Four Beasts around the throne,” in the same Book of Revelation, and are mentioned in other parts of the Bible. 8

There is no need to discuss them in detail here, and it will suffice to say that the river Pison stands for man’s spiritual nature—the White Horse. The land of Havilah “where there is gold” is spiritual consciousness. Gold always stands for the truth that the power of God is present everywhere. Man often thinks that there is power and safety in money or material so-called security. He worships the golden calf, making a God of money, and thereby confusing the symbol with the truth that lies behind it. All religious movements have been in danger of mistaking the symbols of God for God Himself, and thus drifting into unconscious idolatry. The gold of Havilah is good, that is to say, it is the recognition of God Himself as the only power, and this recognition is the one thing that can never fail us. Pison in a special sense stands for God as Life, and bdellium and the onyx stone represent Truth and Love; the spiritual consciousness being essentially composed of Life, Truth, and Love. Pison is a reference to the river Indus which for the people of the Bible lay far to the east, and the East we know means inspiration and the Presence of God. 9

The river Gihon represents the feeling nature or the Red Horse. It is a reference to the Nile and to Egypt which later became the land of bondage. Ethiopia was adjacent to ancient Egypt, and many people do in practice bring about most of their troubles or bondage through being unable to control the emotional nature.

The river Hiddekel stands for the intellect or the Black Horse. It is a reference to the Tigris and goes toward Assyria, which means will power; and we know that pure intellect has nothing but will power with which to express itself, and that will power always fails us in the end.

The fourth river, Euphrates, here stands for the body or matter, the Pale Horse. It is a remarkable fact that the Euphrates has constantly shifted its course even during historical times. Several different beds of the Euphrates, formed during the last 2,000 years, have been traced out by geologists. 10 The instability of matter is known to every student of metaphysics, and is implied in this reference.

Notice that inside the Garden of Eden the river is one, and that it is only after leaving Paradise that it divides into four branches. When man regains his realization of his oneness with God, only his spiritual consciousness will remain, the lesser things having disappeared.

“And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” (Genesis 2:19)

We know that in the Bible the name of anything means its nature or character, and here we see that Adam’s own beliefs and convictions led him to stamp each animal with a certain nature or opinion and that, having done so, the animal bore that character so far as he was concerned. We are affected, not by the real nature of things but by what we think is their real nature. What you have to live with is not really people and things in themselves but your idea of people and things. As we have said, in technical language, your own concept is what you see. You do not know the real Jones—all that you know is your idea of Jones, which may or may not be fairly correct. This is equally true of things. We know, for instance, that some people delight in very cold weather. It makes them feel well and happy, whereas others feel ill when the temperature is too low, and are mentally paralyzed by it. Also it should be carefully noticed that nothing can affect us unless it gets into our mentalities. A European in the middle of Africa is not injured by a local superstition that almost kills a native with fear, because the white man does not happen to believe in it. Of course, the white man has many superstitions of his own by which he is duly punished, and the African, who has never heard of them, is immune. This is the meaning of the saying in metaphysics that if you keep a thought out of your mentality it cannot affect you; but, as usual, you must remember that it can be in your subconscious without your knowing it. We have all received many negative suggestions in our childhood from well meaning people who said that we must avoid drafts, or we could not digest a certain dish, or that our lungs were very delicate, and so forth.

It is also true that good thoughts, such as thoughts of Divine Love, of health, and of success, cannot affect us if we keep them out of our mentalities; and so we ought to build in such thoughts industriously by daily prayer and meditation.

Sickness cannot affect you if your mentality contains a strong belief in health; and if you do not have such a belief, all the diets and exercises in the world cannot make you well or keep you alive.

If someone hates you it cannot have the slightest effect upon you as long as it is his hatred and not yours. But if there is hatred in your heart, that can do you unlimited harm according to its intensity. If you have what we call a prosperity consciousness you cannot experience poverty no matter what happens in the outer world; all the supply you need will come from somewhere; and if you have a poverty consciousness, prosperity will not stay with you, no matter what happens. It is notorious that people who gain large sums of money through gambling—whether by winning a sweepstake or through having broken the bank in a casino—lose their winnings before long, and do not get any happiness or permanent good from them. In the end we always express our consciousness, and the only way to improve things is to make the consciousness better.

“And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

“And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

“And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:21-23)

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” (Genesis 3:20)

A deep sleep fell upon Adam and there is no mention in the Bible of his having reawakened, and indeed, our material lives are very little more than a dream of limitation, fear, and separation from God. “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” 11

It is very interesting and significant to note that the word woman really means “one with” or “a part of man, and emphasizes the fact that body and mind are one—that in fact the body is only the embodiment or outpicturing of the mind. Many philosophers have spoken of the body as a garment which the soul assumes, or a vehicle in which it travels, or as a vessel which contains it as a vase may contain water; but these similes are totally false. The body is no garment or independent vessel. It is the true picture of the soul or mentality. The body, if you like, is a shadow cast by the mind, copying it in every detail. Adam feels intuitively that he and the woman are one, and he calls her Eve because she is the mother of all that is—the mind is the sole creator.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24)

In the Bible, one’s parents usually mean one’s own past, because it is the common belief that our conditions today are caused by past events and that in this sense yesterday is the parent of today. When Jesus told the man not to go back to bury his father he was not, of course, suggesting that the duties and decencies of life should be neglected. He meant that that man was to stop thinking that he was limited by past mistakes. The man in question was probably burdened by some remorse or resentment concerning his past and was keeping himself out of the Kingdom in consequence. The lesson here is that the only thought we have to deal with is the present one, and that if we heal that we shall experience harmony; for yesterday has no power over today, unless we think it has.

Today’s experience is caused only by today’s thoughts and beliefs, and not by the thoughts or by the events or conditions of yesterday—appearances notwithstanding.

You are positively not in bondage to yesterday. Any bondage today can only come from today’s bondage thoughts. Change today’s thought and today’s conditions must change to correspond, for Adam and Eve are one.

Just as Adam represents the human being who is deceived by the serpent, so Jesus represents the Christ power which is the understanding of Truth that ultimately sets Adam free. When we suffer from a false belief it is the recognition of the Truth that liberates us. If you supposed yourself to be suffering from a serious malady you would experience all the fear and worry that could arise from such a condition, but then if someone in whose judgment you had confidence—say a physician of standing—told you that you were mistaken and that you did not have any such complaint, all your fear and worry would immediately go. Note that the physician would not have cured the malady; he could not because you did not have it; but he healed you of a false belief. The Christ Truth does this.

“But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

“For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

“FOR AS IN ADAM ALL DIE, EVEN SO IN CHRIST SHALL ALL BE MADE ALIVE.

“But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.

“Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom of God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

“For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-26)

You now understand that you are not a physical body but a mentality, and as such you have certain beliefs and a certain amount of understanding, and that what you do is to outpicture the net result of all these beliefs and that understanding. Such outpicturing constitutes your body, your outer environment, and, in fact, all your experience. As time goes on your mentality improves or declines according to the way you think, and the outer picture of your life changes in accordance with it.

Only prayer, the Christ power, can change things for the better because nothing else really changes you. As long as you remain the person that you are you must have the same sort of life that you have now. But as soon as you change you have become a different person and so your conditions must change too. This is being born again. This is the raising up of the Christ power. And if Christ be not risen, then is all our activity vain. But when the Christ power is raised up it gradually overcomes all obstacles, putting down all rule and all authority and all power of the separation belief. Finally, when the last shred of limitation belief has gone, death will be overcome too, and you will be a pillar in the temple of God and need go out no more. 12

Adam and Eve drove themselves out of Paradise through accepting fear and doubt, but Christ reopens that eastern gate and restores them.

1. Luke 10:33.

2. Revelation 17:3-4.

3. Genesis 49:17, and chapter, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

4. Exodus 10:1.

5. See chapter, “The Seven Main Aspects of God.”

6. Matthew 6:33; Luke 12:31.

7. Luke 17:21.

8. See chapter, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

9. See chapter, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

10. The Field Museum, Chicago, has an interesting relief map showing this.

11. Ephesians 5:14.

12. Revelation 3:12.

EMMET FOX