The first chapter of Genesis lays a ground-plan for the entire revelation given in the Holy Scriptures. This chapter, and the first three verses of Chapter 2, are really one section; and this section constitutes a summary of the laws that govern thought. It is therefore a scientific treatise on the psychological and spiritual nature of man, and it explains what we call demonstration, or answer to prayer. It is not intended to be a history of the formation of the solar system or the stellar universe.

As a piece of literature the story is sublime; magnificent in range, in profundity of thought, and in the unparalleled heights of spiritual understanding which it attains. It shows how humanity as a race, and each individual personally, comes to a knowledge of the all-power, all-presence, and all-goodness of God.

The treatise is divided into seven parts, or seven days of creation. This arrangement expresses the seven stages through which thought passes in emerging from error to Truth.

At first there is darkness, or ignorance of those great truths which are really one Truth. Then, gradually, the light dawns, dim at first, but broadening slowly into clearer and clearer realization.

What we call nature is the outpicturing of a part of God’s spiritual creation. It is true that we too often misinterpret what we see, or see it in a distorted way, but, as the light increases more and more, such misconceptions pass steadily away until the real truth is understood. This process is constantly symbolized for us by the dawn of each new morning. First we have darkness, then the first peep of light, and then the dawn comes up faster and faster until we emerge into the full day.

We can see that this is also the history of the coming into the knowledge of spiritual Truth by the individual. He begins with the belief of limitation and separateness, and then, at some time, through some means, the Truth is brought to him; and from a small beginning he gradually evolves into complete understanding.

Again, this is found to be the history of each individual demonstration. When a difficulty is solved, or a lack is satisfactorily filled, by prayer or spiritual treatment, we call it a demonstration, because it demonstrates the law of universal harmony. Well, it will be seen that the same process is gone through here—first the sense of limitation, then the turning to God and the gradual realization of His presence, which realization increases until the trouble disappears.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

The Bible starts by telling us that God is the Creator and beginning of everything. The first four words in the Bible are In the beginning God. A great lesson is given here, because any enterprise which is based on this principle must be successful in all respects.

We all know that God is outside of what we call “time”—whose dwelling place is eternity.1 Therefore, in absolute truth, the universe, including ourselves, is being created afresh all the time. Behold I make all things new.2 Nevertheless, while we are on this earth we all do believe, at least subconsciously, in the reality and power of time; and so, in terms of human thinking, we believe in God as the beginning of things.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

God is the Creator of all things, and, therefore, all things that really exist are His expression; and they must and do reflect his perfection. This is the Truth, but, as we are aware, man does not at first know it. He uses his imagination negatively, to build up all kinds of limitation ideas, to produce all kinds of fears which, though really groundless, have power to cause him any amount of suffering, as long as he does believe them to be true. Good has an independent substantial existence whether we know about it or not, but evil has only the existence that we give it by believing in it. As long as we do believe in it, it seems to be just as real as if it were true. We experience just as much unhappiness as if it were true, just as the child in a nightmare suffers as much for the time being as if the dream were real. God has made man upright but he has sought out many inventions.3

Thus, man lives in ignorance and fear, but one day the Truth of Being begins to dawn upon him—the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters—and his real history begins.

We note here that the Spirit of God moves on the face of the waters. Water, in the Bible, stands for the human mind—the intellect and the feelings—but in practice it is always the feeling nature that is the more important. It is not until the feelings are touched that something happens.

The text says, on the face of the waters. The face stands for the power of recognition. We usually recognize people by their faces, and the coming of light is the recognition of Truth.

First Day

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:3–4)

The first thing that this dawn of understanding does for man is to show him that there is a distinction between Truth and error. He knows now, however vaguely at first, that all experience is not equally authentic. This is one of the two or three greatest steps in his whole history. After this, fear can never again have quite the same power over him. This experience is called elsewhere in the Bible, “the First Resurrection,” because man arises from the grave (tomb) of an existence without the knowledge of God.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Genesis 1:5)

Now that man has grasped the fact that all experience is not equally authentic, he begins to understand, however imperfectly, that good is powerful and error is not. Then, by active right thinking, by using his intuition and his reason, he can separate the wheat from the chaff. The good which is the Truth concerning anything, is here called day and the error and the fear that we attach to it are called night.

Thus, the First Day represents the dawn of spiritual consciousness. In the Bible, evening stands for limitation, fear, trouble, or lack of some needed good, and morning stands for fulfillment. The world usually reverses this, thinking rather of evening as fulfillment, culminating as it does in the unconsciousness of sleep. In the Bible, the dusk of evening leading to the darkness of night, is an erroneous state that must be forsaken. Twilight is only half light, or less. Man must work through it into the glory of the dawn.

Second Day

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8)

The firmament means understanding. Through the enlightenment, however dim, of the First Day, man has attained a beginning in understanding. To be aware, however vaguely, that error is illusion and without power, is his passport to paradise. He knows enough now, to put error outside the pale, so to speak. He will no longer willingly give it place in his scheme of things. He does not think that he knows much of the Truth yet, but he believes that that knowledge can be attained and that it will be found to have nothing to do with evil.

To understand this symbol we need to know that the ancients thought of the sky as being literally a dome—probably made of some kind of metal—and placed over the earth like a great roof; and the Bible writer calls this the firmament, and uses it as a simile for understanding. Thus, the waters above the firmament, or outside the roof (outside the pale) mean error, fear, or false beliefs of any kind. Below, or inside the firmament (under the law) is the human being who has received the first gleams of enlightenment. He knows now, as we have seen, that appearances are not necessarily true, and that they need not be feared. He realizes how prone he is to create illusion for himself, and he understands that these illusions must be put outside the pale.

He knows that he himself is inside the pale, and that all Truth—and Truth only—is inside the pale. So his liberation has begun, his regeneration is under way, and, while he has much work in front of him to prove, by demonstration, the illumination that he has received, still he has received it. He knows that there is a way out, and he never again gives full credence to error. Henceforth, all his mental activity will be focused upon the study of Truth.

The rest of the chapter deals with his steady and increasing realization of Truth; and so the waters outside the firmament disappear from the narrative.

Third Day

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9-10)

Under the firmament, or within the Truth of Being, there are, of course, infinite ideas, and an infinite scope for man’s true self-expression—which will naturally be the expression of God, since man’s real destiny is to express God. “Under the firmament” it should be noted, is a purely figurative expression meaning anything that is true, and therefore real and under the law of harmony. It does not mean closed-in or circumscribed in any way. However big we might suppose the dome to be, it would still seem to enclose a limited area if we took it literally. Under the firmament is the infinite universe of God’s perfect creation.

Obviously, even the most highly developed person has actually demonstrated only a very, very minute portion of available Truth. He knows of the existence of a number of other truths; that is to say, he knows intellectually of their existence as one may know of a country that he has not visited, or of a piece of beautiful music which he has not yet heard. The country that he has visited or the symphony that he has heard, he knows not only intellectually but by experience. The Truth that we have demonstrated we are experiencing, for realization is experience. We all know of many spiritual truths that we have not yet been able to demonstrate. For instance, we know intellectually that our bodies are spiritual and perfect, and most of us have had some remarkable healings resulting from this knowledge, but not one of us has yet realized it completely, or even in a very high degree. We know, intellectually, that we dwell in eternity, but we are all still under the time-belief limitation, and have to respect it for the time being. We all know intellectually that we are one with God, but no one as yet is entirely free from fear and doubt, as he will be when realization comes. All these are truths that we know of but have only partially demonstrated; and of course there are others.

But we all know, too, that in God’s universe there exist infinite spiritual ideas, infinite glories, of which we cannot begin to have the faintest notion at present. To understand more and more of these wondrous truths is our work for eternity.

In the verse which we are considering, “dry land” means the Truth that we have actually demonstrated, and therefore experienced. We saw above that realization and demonstration are one. This means that as soon as one realizes the spiritual truth concerning any difficulty or any lack, that difficulty will certainly be overcome or the lack supplied. Sometimes there is a time lag, or delay, between the realization and the appearance of the solution; but the time lag is never very long. Very often the realization is in the subconscious mind only, and then we are not yet consciously aware that the work has been finished. When we pray or treat we naturally expect that God will act (or otherwise it would be a bogus treatment), but in such a case we have no conscious assurance that the work has been done until the result appears in the outer.

Sometimes the realization reaches into the conscious mind as well as the subconscious, and then we get a wonderful sense of peace and satisfaction—the Dove Alights—and we know that the problem is solved, before the solution appears. It sometimes happens even after the dove has alighted that the condition seems to get worse for a time; but because the dove has come to you, and whispered the Truth, you know that all will be well—and it always is. In such cases it will be found that when the morning dawns everything concerning that situation will be far better than it was before the crisis arose (before evening fell), and then you will be glad, or your patient will be glad, that the difficulty did arise, because of the great advance in understanding that it has enabled you or him to make.

Technically, the change in your consciousness is the “demonstration,” and the change seen in the outer picture is called the “sign,” a word familiar to us in the gospels.

The waters and seas mentioned in the text stand for all Truth or all spiritual ideas that the individual has not yet demonstrated. These words include the ideas he knows of, and also the infinite ideas concerning which he knows nothing yet save that myriads of still unknown glories do exist. More particularly, the word “seas” applies to the spiritual truths that he does know of.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the third day. (Genesis 1:11-13)

At this stage we see that man has begun to pray, because he now knows that God exists, and he has some sense, however feeble, of the power and goodness of God. He has accepted the fact that all that he seems to experience is not true; that the good is true and real, and that the evil is temporary and can be destroyed when one knows how. Even this knowledge, meager as it may seem, revolutionizes his life. It shakes the edifice of error as an earthquake shakes a flimsy building. A tremendous amount of fear and doubt evaporates from his subconscious, and healing begins to make its appearance.

The condition that he is healing begins to improve. This improvement at first seems to be small, but any change means the beginning of the end; and small as it is, it stimulates his faith.

All this is described in the text as the appearance of vegetable life on the dry land. Vegetable life is indeed life, but life in quite a limited form. Growing things can develop where they are planted, but they cannot move over the surface of the earth, they are rooted, tied down; nor have they anything comparable to the degree of consciousness that even the lowest forms of true animal life possess. When the dry land was definitely separated from the water it was all ready to bear life, but was still actually barren; and now vegetable life appears. The Christ within knows that freedom is coming, and rejoices—God sees that it is good.

Fourth Day

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. (Genesis 1:14–19)

As the demonstration grows, with the lessening of fear, man relies more and more clearly on the Truth of Being. He realizes, especially, that he is not doing the work himself as a limited personality, and that he never could do it in that way. He sees that his own efforts (relying upon his own intellect and his own will) cannot accomplish anything for him, that, in fact, he must get outside help. Only a very foolish person would try to pray to himself. That is why, at this stage, the Bible text leaves the earth and goes outside of it to the heavenly bodies.

So man now works to increase his understanding of God. We know that there are Seven Main Aspects of God, knowable by mankind in its present degree of development,and of these, Life, Truth, and Love are primary.4 Life is being or existence in itself, and, for the practical purpose of healing, which after all is but the effort to know Life more correctly, Truth and Love are the more generally important aspects. They are referred to in this text as the greater and the lesser lights. Which is the greater and which the lesser light depends usually upon the individual. Some people have developed the understanding of the Truth or Intelligence side of Life more than the Love side, and for them it is more powerful, and is the greater light. Others have developed the understanding of the Love of God more than the Intelligence or Truth side of His nature, and for them Divine Love is the greater light. Note that Intelligence is especially an expression of Truth, and may be thought of as Truth in action.

As time goes on, we should, of course, seek to develop our understanding of both of these aspects equally, and when we have done so we shall have perfect wisdom, for wisdom is the correct balance of Intelligence and Love, and is therefore a compound quality. Faith (not blind belief, but understanding faith) may be thought of as wisdom in action.

The difference between the greater light and the lesser light sometimes shows itself better in the healing of a particular difficulty. One problem may call for the realization of Truth and Intelligence rather than of Love, irrespective of which the healer himself may have developed more. Where much fear or anger has to be met one should always try to realize Divine Love. Where there seems to be confusion, misunderstanding, or stupidity, Truth and Intelligence should be realized.

“Night” in the Bible, often means what we call today the subconscious mind. We saw above that we need to develop whichever wing of life is weaker in us—Love or Intelligence—until it is as strong as the other wing, and as we progress in this work we shall clear up the subconscious at a tremendous rate, which is to say, we shall rapidly develop wisdom.

Wisdom is the key to harmony in life, because wise thinking, producing wise words and wise deeds, can result only in good; and since, as we have seen, faith may be thought of as dynamic wisdom, or wisdom in action, we can see that faith is the secret of life, because according to your faith is it always done unto you.

This truth that Wisdom and Faith are the static and dynamic aspects of the same thing will repay careful consideration.

He made the stars also. Man views the physical stars with wonder and awe, but even today he knows little about them. Yet, just to see them, as mere points of light, is a matchless source of inspiration and encouragement. So, in the text, the stars stand for those glorious spiritual truths which we have dimly glimpsed, but of which we have little or no understanding so far. We know, in a vague and general way, that such truths exist. We catch some of their beauty, but at present that is all. Their importance to us lies in the wider outlook and the inspirational stimulus which they afford us.

The lights in the firmament thus symbolize the growth in our understanding, for in the Scriptures light is a common symbol for Truth, as darkness is for error.

In the Bible, as a rule, each figure carries several distinct but supplementary meanings. Thus those “lights” not only give us more understanding; they also teach us the definite lesson of order. “Order is heaven’s first law.”5 Our spiritual work as well as our material activities should be conducted in a regular and orderly manner. The seasons, the days, and the years refer to the orderly way in which nature unfolds before our eyes—for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years. The “signs” here referred to are the signs of the Zodiac.6

  The reader is doubtless aware that all through the Bible “the earth” stands for manifestation or expression, and means your body, your home, your business, and your surroundings in general.

Fifth Day

And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. (Genesis 1:20-23)

Here self-conscious moving creatures first make their appearance. The restricted life of the vegetable kingdom gives place to the much freer and more far-reaching existence of fishes and birds—moving creatures, as the text calls them. The lives of these creatures, and the types of experience enjoyed by them, however limited they may seem to us, are a tremendous advance upon those of the trees and plants, as a little thought will show.

Hebrew scholars tell us that a very remarkable word is here used for the first time in the original—the word nephesh. This word implies self-conscious life, and therefore it is not used in connection with the vegetable life which appeared on the third day. Now the word nephesh is complex in meaning, and includes the idea of inspiration, and the idea of fire which we know has always been, from the earliest times, a symbol for spirit—for that which is divine and eternal. The Old Testament people thought of the blood as being the vehicle of nephesh, and for this reason the Bible frequently uses blood as a symbol for nephesh. In the story of the murder of Abel, for instance,7 God is represented as saying “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me.” Again, in the story of the exodus (Chapter 12), the blood is sprinkled upon the lintel and sides of the doors to protect the Israelites from the destroying angel. Elsewhere the Bible says “The blood is the life.” In the New Testament, the blood of Jesus is used to symbolize the spirit and power of the Truth he taught. This implies that it is prayer, or the realization in some degree of spiritual truth, that saves us in the hour of danger. The lintel of the door is, of course, the entrance of the house (the consciousness) where error must be met and excluded.

Fishes and birds have self-consciousness and the power of locomotion. They can move about and change their environment.

All this symbolizes the idea that man’s understanding is becoming really alive and powerful. He has actively changed his thought for the better. The truth is much more vivid to him. This is the result of his having realized that only God can bring about good and that he himself can do nothing without God. As we have seen, it was only after the heavenly bodies or luminaries appeared that nephesh was introduced, and we had the fishes and birds. The treatment is now stirring powerfully and the demonstration moves rapidly forward.

Sixth Day

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-25)

The realization of the Presence of God is the secret of demonstration or salvation. We have to realize that in Truth God is present where the trouble seems to be. It is not enough to know that God in Himself is good. We have to recognize that goodness as being where, at first, we knew fear and disharmony. There is a stage in man’s development, and a corresponding stage in every healing, where the goodness of God as a general fact is realized in some degree, but the error still seems very real also. The final step is to know (in thought, of course, the only place we can know it) the goodness of God where the error seems to be. In other words, in the idiom of the Bible, good must be brought out of the “sea” of the abstract, onto the “dry land” of definite, concrete good.

That, of course, is what all healing and, in fact, every kind of demonstration is; and so moving creatures now appear on the dry land. Fishes and other marine creatures live immersed in the waters more or less remote from us. The birds fly over our heads in the air, also out of our reach—the fifth day stage—but the beasts of the earth, or as we might say, mammals, reptiles, and smaller creeping things, belong to the solid earth, and are easily within our reach. Here is another major advance. Some of these creatures are much higher than others in the scale of life, but in addition to possessing self-consciousness and locomotion they are all firmly established on the dry land too, not fixed to it like the plants, but masters of it. Demonstration now is within reach, and we need only to realize our rights and privileges in order to grasp it.

Creation of Man

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

Now we reach the place in this wonderful allegory where man himself appears. Man has self-consciousness and locomotion, like the lower creatures, but in addition to this he has the divine qualities of intuition and reason, and he conform a concept; and these faculties put him in a class by himself. An animal knows particular things only. An intelligent dog, for instance, knows your house and my house, and various other houses which he has visited; but he cannot conceive of a house in a general sense—only some particular house. A man can think that a house should always have a porch, or that houses in general should have central heating; without having any special house in mind. These faculties—intuition, reason, the ability to form a concept—constitute his “dominion.” They give him power over the lower creations, or power to make his demonstration.

You will notice that three, and only three, acts of creation are mentioned in this treatise:

The first is in verse 1, where the creation of the universe in general is mentioned.

The second is in verse 21, and refers to the coming into action of nephesh on the fifth day.

The third is in verse 27, when man first appears.

These are all capital steps in the unfoldment of Truth.

In your treatment, the creation of man symbolizes your complete realization. Fear has gone. Your consciousness is now clear, and you know that the demonstration is certain to appear, if it has not already done so. Now, for the time being at least, you express your divine nature as nearly as you have ever done; and you know that you have dominion in your life, and that you have nothing to fear. You not only know the Truth, but you feel it. Now, at last, knowledge and feeling are balanced—“male and female created He them.” In the Scriptures, the male always represents intellect and knowledge; and the female stands for the feeling nature.

Here I must explain that in Bible idiom the word “God” does not always stand for God in the sense of the Universal Creator. It may mean your own Indwelling Christ, or True Self, which, of course, is the Presence of God at the point where you are, for in your True Self you are an individualization of God. In like manner, the word “man” as in verse 27 and elsewhere, may stand for manifestation or what is in other verses of the Bible called the “earth.” The divine spark, or the Presence of God in you (your true self) has now made your manifestation into His image and likeness, and the healing is accomplished. All this is equally true when you are healing someone else, for your patient is part of your manifestation, for the time being, since you must be either believing him to be sick or knowing him to be well.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Genesis 1:28)

Here the Bible further stresses the fact that man is to have dominion over his body and conditions. He is to be king in the world of his own manifestation. Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, means just that. To be fruitful, and multiply, is to grow in understanding and spiritual power, constantly to become aware of new ideas and to exploit them for God, and to do it through all eternity.

The universe in which we live is a universe of thought. It seems to be substantial, and to be separate from ourselves; just as the experiences of a dream seem to be; but, nevertheless, students of metaphysics know that it is really nothing but thought. Truly, that which we experience is nothing but our own thoughts and beliefs objectified. In technical language we say that “your own concept is what you see.”

When most people hear this Truth for the first time it is hard for them to believe it, but careful thought and prayerful consideration in the end convinces them. Some people seem to know this Truth intuitively, even when they are very young, without it ever being told to them. Naturally, children never think in this logical manner, nor have they the vocabulary to correspond with it, but some children, in their own way, feel that the events of the outer world are not really what the grownup people pretend they are, but resemble rather one of their own games; or perhaps the Christmas play in which they took part at school—interesting and important in a way, but still not a real thing. When they seek further enlightenment on this subject from their elders, they naturally fail to make themselves understood. They are thought to be too imaginative and precocious, and are discouraged for their own good. In most cases this causes the knowledge finally to be forgotten.

When we learn to control our thinking we shall control our lives. We can have no control over our lives until we do succeed in controlling our thinking. Once more let it be said that we have to train ourselves, first to believe, and then to realize, the Presence of God where any negative condition seems to be. (Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.8)

Different people will accomplish this in different ways, depending upon the temperament and outlook of the individual. In all cases you should claim frequently that God thinks through you, that God is inspiring you to use right methods, and that Divine Wisdom will show you the next step.

Above all, you must avoid being tense. The commonest mistake that people make is to try too hard. Never forget that in all mental working, effort defeats itself. Claim that Divine Spirit is praying through you, and believe it;then you will not feel that desire to press hard, which is really will power. Praying in this way, your prayers will be answered much sooner.

Spiritual consciousness is continually “replenishing” its earth. We must never try to hold on, mentally, to present conditions or particular objects. As long as such things belong to us by right of consciousness they will stay, and nothing can separate them from us. If they go, it is really because we have outgrown them, and something better is coming. Let them go freely and without regret, for until they are gone the better thing cannot make its appearance.

There is no such thing in the spiritual life as reaching a state of finality or completeness, a condition where everything is perfect, finished, and unchangeable. You never can reach a place where you may stop praying and, so to speak, rest upon your laurels. Such a condition would really mean that you had reached a point where you could stop communing with God. The “static” heaven of orthodoxy was often represented as something like this, but such an idea is fundamentally wrong. To cease our communion with God would in itself be to slip out of heaven, and back into limitation. As long as we do maintain our living communion with God our consciousness will grow and grow, and our individual manifestation will naturally be expanded and enriched in proportion. A man said resentfully, “Am I to go on working forever?” That clearly showed a fundamental misunderstanding. Working, in the sense of toil or drudgery, is not spiritual communion at all, and does not lead us into heaven. The prayer or treatment that does bring us into heaven produces a sense of joyous fellowship with God, and is the very reverse of drudgery.

Truth students frequently use the word “working” when they mean praying or treating. They say “I worked for such a thing,” or, “you should work in such a way.” This term is a convenient one, as long as we understand that it does not imply a task or an arduous activity.

The fish, the fowl, and the beasts of the earth represent in detail different qualities and powers that belong to the spiritual man. The human being, as we know him now, possesses all these things, but only in germ, as the oak tree exists potentially in the acorn, and he will gradually develop them as he progresses spiritually. The completion of this development will be his dominion over the fish, the fowl, and the animals on the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. (Genesis 1:29-30)

God works in and through His creation at all times. In truth God is the only power—the only Cause. When God inspires us to do something He, at the same time, furnishes everything that we need with which to do it, and He furnishes the power wherewith it is done. “Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges?”9

Here the vegetable kingdom represents this provision. It stands for everything that we can need in order to do God’s work, which means, of course, to express Him. It includes any material equipment of any kind, any introductions or cooperation that we may need, any financial support, and, above all, any information, new ideas, clearer understanding, guidance or wisdom; as well as the necessary energy to put any enterprise through. Such things may be thought of as the food or “meat” of the undertaking, and it is in that sense the text uses this word in verses 29 and 30.

It is an ancient maxim that everything directly or indirectly comes out of the ground originally, and we see that the Scripture with divine logic begins by stating the existence of God’s unfailing provision in making the vegetable creation appear as soon as the dry earth is available, and before any of the higher and more intricate creations arrive.

It is a universal rule, as we all know, that living things produce offspring after their own kind. Thoughts are living things. Indeed they are particularly vital living things, and so thoughts naturally follow this law. Positive thoughts produce positive, harmonious conditions; and negative thoughts produce fear and limitation. The Bible is never tired of stating this law, and expounding it with example after example, from Genesis to Revelation; and we must never get tired of reminding ourselves of it, in season and out of season. It is interesting to note that the characteristic color of the vegetable kingdom when it is healthy, is green, and that is spiritual symbolism, the color green stands for Intelligence. It is this aspect of God—Intelligence—expressed in the individual as an intelligent understanding of Divine Law—especially this particular law which is of such vital importance for us—that is the basis of all consistent and reliable demonstration, as distinct from occasional and sporadic answers to prayer. Therefore this law already begins to be revealed in the dry land or third day phase, when vegetation makes its appearance.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good, and the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)

In describing each stage of creation the Bible tells us significantly that God sees that His creation is good. No condemnation or regret is expressed anywhere. Creation is revealed as definitely good. Life is good. Life is a blessing. Life is a glorious gift, and a sublime opportunity. That is the Bible teaching about life—that it is good.

The Scriptures recognize the temporary existence of evil and suffering, but they teach that such things are not real in the sense of being substantial and therefore permanent. They teach that we bring these things upon ourselves by our own wrong thinking and false beliefs. This wrong thinking includes not only sin but the harboring of false beliefs of any kind, which means lack of correct knowledge of life. They teach that we become free from suffering and limitation, and attain to glorious happiness, by studying the laws of God and then living in accordance with them.

Thus the religion of the Bible is diametrically opposed to that of some of the Eastern philosophies which are essentially pessimistic. Those philosophies postulate the life of man, self-conscious existence, as an evil in itself. For them life is essentially a misfortune, necessarily filled with suffering and disappointment, and it is for us to get rid of it as soon as we possibly can. Self-conscious existence, they teach, is a curse; and man’s only hope is to kill out all interest in life and ultimately to cease to have conscious being.

Western students who embrace such a philosophy seldom realize its true import. They are attracted to it by the kindly, blameless lives that so many of its votaries lead. The teaching of mercy and brotherhood that accompanies this philosophy must command our sincere admiration; but the fact remains that fundamentally it is pessimism, the advocacy of spiritual suicide (if such a thing were possible). Others adopt it because its great simplicity is restful and soothing to minds and hearts confused and wearied by the complicated and artificial theologies of Christian orthodoxy.

It should be clearly understood that you will never lose your individuality. Ultimately, when you attain full conscious union with God, and know that you are one with Him, you will still know yourself as an individual, and you will maintain that identity through all eternity. You will always be growing and developing, but you will always be you. By that time you will have forgotten the worries and griefs that you will have left behind you in the past, just as an adult forgets most of the griefs and fears of infancy, and even many of the recent past. Complete conscious union with God does not mean absorption and annihilation of individuality.

Man, in his realization of God, is not in the least like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, as one poet thought; for such a drop of water is distributed and lost in the ocean—ceases to exist as that drop. Man may be likened to a spark thrown out by a blazing fire. The spark, from a tiny beginning, develops into a great blaze, a living fire—not indeed one and the same as the parent fire, but utterly one with it, because all fire is fire.

Seventh Day

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made. (Genesis 2:1-3)

You pray or treat about a certain subject until you obtain a vivid realization concerning it. When you have reached this point you do not feel any need or inclination to pray further on that matter. You are satisfied, and with a deep and indescribable satisfaction and certitude. This is the Seventh Day, when you rest, with a feeling of praise and thanksgiving.

It often happens that you do not actually obtain a good realization, and yet you feel that you have done all you can, at least for the time being. To go on working beyond this point would be to use will power, and so you bless the work that you have done, and leave it. You have spoken the Word. You have voiced the Truth. As a witness for God you have testified for His omnipresence unaltered and unalterable; and now comes the rest unto the people of God—having done all to stand. In such a case the demonstration is usually made, and then the sign itself is the Seventh Day.

In the history of a particular demonstration, the “Seven Days” may actually occupy a long or a short time in the calendar or on the clock. One problem may be solved in a week, another in a few hours, or even minutes. Some glorious demonstrations have taken many years as we count time; but in each case these seven stages were gone through. The individual stages were longer or shorter in different cases, and the Seventh Day came sometimes only with the appearance of the sign, as we have seen, and sometimes beforehand. In the beautiful experience that we call an instantaneous demonstration, the seven stages are still traversed, but so rapidly that we are not aware of them. Nevertheless, the work is done in the order explained, for that is the way in which the human mind works out of limitation, under the action of God.

This, then, is the story told by the first chapter of Genesis; simple, yet all-embracing, for these thirty-four verses are nothing less than the life history of humanity, and at the same time they furnish a road map to salvation and to eternity. Wisely does the Bible begin with this revelation, for it is indeed the gateway of Heaven.

1. Isaiah 57:15.

2. Revelation 21:5.

3. Ecclesiastes 7:29.

4. “The Seven Main Aspects of God.”

5. Milton.

6. “The Zodiac and the Bible.”

7. Genesis 4:10.

8. John 7:24.

9. 1 Corinthians 9:7.

EMMET FOX