Robert Leighton - "Olaf the Glorious"

James Otis - "Neal, the Miller"

Gustave Droz - "Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, v3"

Samuel Johnson - "Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, etc."

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Nature Cure

H >> Henry Lindlahr >> Nature Cure





The Three-fold Constitution of Man


The following diagram and accompanying explanations will serve to
illustrate "Three Planes of Being," the corresponding "Three-fold
Constitution of man," and their analogy tothe artist and his
instrument.

The Three-fold Constitution of Man

~Planes of Being~

~Three-fold Constitution of Man~

~Analogy~

Psychical or Moral

Soul

Music, Laws of Harmony

Mental

Mind

Player

Material

Bodies

(Physical and Spiritual)

Violin

Man lives and functions on three distinct planes of being: the
physical-material and spiritual-material, the mental and the soul
(psychical or moral) planes.

He may be diseased upon any one or more of these planes. The true
physician must look for causes of disease and for methods of
treatment upon all three planes of being.

The purely materialistic physician concentrates all his study and
effort upon the physical-material plane of being. To him, mental,
spiritual, psychical, and moral phenomena are merely chemical and
physiological actions and reactions of brain and nerve substance. He
has nothing but contempt and derision for the man who believes in or
knows of a spiritual body or a soul.

He is like an artist who says: "My violin is all there is to music.
The musician's art consists in keeping his instrument in good
condition. Technique and the laws of harmony are a matter of
imagination and of superstitious belief."

On the other hand, mental healers, Christian Scientists and faith
healers concentrate all their efforts upon either the mental or the
soul plane, frequently making no distinction between the two. In the
treatment of disease, they ignore the conditions and needs of the
physical body, and some of them even deny its existence.

These metaphysicians are like the artist who devotes all his time
and energy to the study and practice of technique, counterpoint and
harmony, neglecting his instrument and taking no heed whether its
mechanism is out of order or its interior filled with rubbish. His
knowledge of the laws of harmonics and his execution may be ever so
perfect; but with his instrument out of tune and out of order he
will produce discords instead of harmony.

The true artist realizes that MIND, the player, must study SOUL, the
harmonics; and that the mind must also have its instrument, the
BODY, in perfect condition in order to interpret perfectly and
artistically the harmonies of the symphony of life. Likewise, the
Nature Cure physician will look for causes of disease and for means
of cure upon the material, mental and psychical planes of being.

Thus will higher civilization and greater knowledge lead back to the
natural simplicity of primitive races, where physician and priest
are one.

After all, physical health is the best possible basis for the
attainment of mental, moral and spiritual health. All building
begins with the foundation. We do not first suspend the steeple in
the air and then build the church under it. So also, the building of
the temple of human character should begin by laying the foundation
in physical health.

We have known people who had attained high intellectual, moral and
spiritual development and then suffered utter shipwreck physically,
mentally and in every other way, because ignorantly they had
violated the laws of their physical nature.

There are others who believe that the possession of occult knowledge
and the achievement of mastership confer absolute control over
Nature's forces and phenomena on the physical plane. These people
believe that a man is not a master if he does not miraculously heal
all manner of disease and raise the dead.

If such things were possible, they would overthrow the Laws of Cause
and Effect and of Compensation. They would abolish the basic
principles of morality and constructive spirituality. If it is
possible in one case to heal disease and to overcome death through
the fiat of the will of a master, then it must be possible in all
cases. If so, then we can ignore the existence of Nature's laws,
indulge our appetites and passions to the fullest extent, and when
the natural results of our transgressions overtake us, we can go to
a healer or master and have our diseases instantly and painlessly
removed, like a bad tooth.

I say this with all due reverence for, and faith in, the efficacy of
true prayer and with full knowledge of the healing power of
therapeutic faith, but I do not believe that God, or Nature, or a
master or metaphysical formulas can or will make good in a
miraculous way for the inevitable results of our transgressions of
the natural laws that govern our being.

If such miraculous healing were possible and of common occurrence,
what occasion would there be for the exercise of reason, will and
self-control? What would become of the scientific basis of morality
and constructive spirituality?

All this leads us to the following conclusions:

"If there is in operation a constructive principle of Nature on the
ethical, moral and spiritual planes of being, with which we must
align ourselves and to which we must conform our conscious and
voluntary activities in order to achieve self-completion,
self-content, individual completion and happiness, then this
constructive principle must be in operation also in our physical
bodies and in their corelated physical, mental and emotional
activities. If the constructive principle is active in the physical
as well as in the moral and spiritual realms, then the established
harmonic relationship of the physical to the constructive law of its
being must constitute the morality of the physical; and from this it
follows that the achievement of health on the physical plane is as
much under our conscious and voluntary control as the working out of
our individual salvation on the higher planes of life."

To recapitulate:

First, our well-being on all planes and in all relationships of life
depends upon the existence, recognition and practical application of
the great fundamental laws and principles just explained.

Second: Physical health, as well as moral health, is of our own
making. We are personally responsible not only for our own physical
and mental health, but we are also morally responsible for the
hereditary tendencies of our offspring toward health or disease.

Third: The attainment of physical health through compliance with
Nature's laws is just as much a part of the Great Work as our
ethical, moral and psychical development.

The Unity and Continuity of the Law

That which we call God, Nature, the Creator or the Universal
Intelligence is the great central cause of all things and the
vibratory activities produced by or proceeding from this central or
primary cause continue through all spheres of life, in like manner
as the light waves of the sun, moon and fixed stars penetrate
through the intervening spheres of life to our plane of earth.
Therefore all powers, forces, laws and principles which manifest on
our plane proceed and continue from the innermost Divine to the most
external plane in physical nature. This explains the continuity,
stability and correspondence on all planes of being of that which we
call Natural Law. In other words, "Natural Law is the established
harmonic relationship of effects and phenomena to their causes and
of all particular causes to the one great primary cause of all
things."



Chapter XXXVIII


Mental Therapeutics


The new psychology and the science of mental and spiritual healing
teach us that the lower principles in Man stand or should stand
under the dominion of the higher. The physical body, with its
material elements, is dominated and guided by the mind. The mind is
inspired through the inner consciousness, which is an attribute of
the soul. The soul of man is in communion with the Oversoul, which
is the Source of all life and all intelligence animating the
universe.

Wherever this natural order is reversed, there is discord or
disease. Too many people think and act as though the physical body
is all in all, as though it is the only thing worth caring for and
thinking about. They exaggerate the importance of the physical and
become its abject slaves.

The physical body is the lowest and least intelligent of the
different principles making up the human entity. Yet people allow
their minds and their souls to become dominated and terrified by the
sensations of the physical body.

When the servants in the house control and terrify the master, when
the master becomes their slave and they can do with him as they
please, there cannot be order and harmony in that house.

We must expect the same results when the lower principles in Man
lord it over the higher. When physical weakness, illness and pain
fill the mind with fear and dismay, reason becomes clouded, the will
atrophied and self-control is lost.

Every thought and every emotion has its direct effect upon the
physical constituents of the body. The mental and emotional
vibrations become physical vibrations and structures. Discord in the
mind is translated into physical disease in the body, while the
harmonies of hope, faith, cheerfulness, happiness, love and altruism
create in the organism the corresponding health vibrations.

Have you ever noticed how the written or printed notes of a tone
piece or the perforations on the paper music roll of an automatic
player are arranged in symmetrical and geometrical figures and
groups? Dry sand strewn on the top of a piano on which harmonious
tone combinations are produced shows a tendency to arrange itself in
symmetrical patterns.

In this you have a visual illustration of the translation of
harmonious sound vibrations, which express the harmonics of the
soul's emotions, into correspondingly harmonious arrangements and
configurations in the physical material of the paper roll.

A jumble of discords of sound, if reproduced on a music roll, would
present a chaotic jumble of perforations.

Thus the purely mental and emotional is translated into its
corresponding discords or harmonies in the physical.

As the perforations on the paper music roll arrange themselves
either symmetrically or without symmetry and order, in strict
accordance with the harmonies or discords of the composition, so the
atoms, molecules and cells in the physical body group themselves in
normal or abnormal structures of health or of disease in exact
correspondence with the harmonious or the discordant vibrations
conveyed to them from the mental and emotional planes.

Another Illustration: Two violins, as they leave the shop of the
maker, are exactly alike in material, structure and quality of tone.
One of the two instruments is constantly used by beginners and
persons incapable of producing pure notes. The other passes into the
hands of an artist who understands how to use the instrument to the
best advantage and who draws from it only musical tones that are
true in pitch and quality.

After a few years, compare the two violins again. You will find that
the one used by the tyros in music has deteriorated in its musical
qualities, while the one in the hands of the artist has greatly
improved in quality and purity of tone. What is the reason? The
atoms and molecules in the wood of the two instruments have grouped
themselves according to the discords or the harmonies that have been
produced from them.

If this rearrangement of atoms is possible in dead wood, how much
easier must be this adjustment of atoms, molecules and cells to
discordant or harmonious vibratory influence in the living, plastic
and fluidic human organism!

What harmony is to music, hope, faith, cheerfulness, happiness,
sympathy, love and altruism are to the vibratory conditions of the
human entity. These emotions are in alignment with the constructive
principle in Nature. They harmonize the physical vibrations, relax
the tissues and open them wide to the inflow of the life force.

Swedenborg truly says: "The warmth of life is the heat of the divine
love permeating and animating the universe." The more we possess of
hope, faith, love and their kindred emotions, the more we open
ourselves to the inflow and action of the vital energies. The
good-natured, cheerful, sympathetic person is more alive than the
crabbed, morose or selfish individual.

It has been proved over and over again by everyday experience that
mental and emotional conditions positively affect the chemical
composition of the tissues and secretions of the body. The
destructive emotions of fear, worry, anger, jealousy,
revengefulness, envy, etc., actually poison the fluids and tissues
of the body. The bite of an angry man may cause blood-poisoning and
prove as fatal as the bite of a mad dog. Sudden fear, anger or any
other destructive emotion in the nursing mother may cause illness or
even death of the infant.

In psychological laboratories it has been found by scientifically
conducted experiments that under the influence of destructive mental
and emotional conditions, the secretions and excretions of the body
show an increase of morbid and poisonous elements.

Selfishness, fear and worry contract and congeal the blood vessels,
the nerve fibers, and the other channels through which the life
forces are conveyed from the innermost source of life to different
parts and organs of the physical body. The flow of the life currents
is impeded and diminished. Such are the actual physiological effects
of fear, anxiety and egotism on the physical organism.

A man under the influence of great fear and one exposed to freezing
present the same outward appearance. In both cases death may result
through the congealing of the tissues and the shutting out of the
life currents. The person afflicted with the worry habit may not die
suddenly like the one overcome by great and sudden fear.
Nevertheless, the fear and worry vibrations maintained constantly
will surely obstruct and diminish the inflow of the life force,
lower the vitality and therewith the resistance to the encroachment
of influences inimical to the health of the organism.

The cells in the body are negative, or, at least, they should be
negative to the positive mind. The relationship of the mind to the
cell should be like that of hypnotist to subject. If the mind could
not exert such absolute control over the cells and cell groups, it
would be impossible for us to walk, talk, write, dodge danger, etc.,
with almost automatic ease.

The cells are not able to reason upon the truth or untruth of the
suggestions conveyed to them from the mind. They accept its
promptings unqualifiedly and act accordingly.

Thus, if the mind constantly thinks of, say, the stomach as being in
a badly diseased condition, unable to do its work properly, the
mental images of weakness and disease with their accompanying fear
vibrations are telegraphed over the efferent nerves to the cells of
the stomach and these become more and more weakened and diseased
through the destructive vibrations sent to them from the mind.

I often advise my patients to procure a book on anatomy and
physiology and to study and keep constantly before their mind's eye
the normal structure and functions of a healthy stomach or liver or
whatever organ may be involved in any particular case.

Positive Affirmations

This explains why affirmations of health are justified in the face
of disease. The health conditions must be first established in the
mind before they can be conveyed to and impressed upon the cells.

The well-being of the human body as a whole depends upon the health
of the billions of minute cells which compose it. These cells are so
small that they have to be magnified several hundred times under a
powerful microscope before we can see them. Yet they are independent
living beings which grow, assimilate food, multiply and die like the
big cell, Man.

These little cells are congregated in communities which form the
organs and tissues of the body and in these communities they carry
on the complicated activities of citizens living in a large city.
Some are carriers, bringing food materials to the tissues and organs
or conveying waste and morbid matter to the excretory channels of
the body. Other cells manufacture chemical substances, such as
sugar, fats, ferments, hormones etc., for the production of which
man requires complicated factories. Still others act as policemen
and soldiers which protect the commonwealth against bacteria,
parasites and other hostile invaders.

The marvelous work performed by these little organisms, as well as
observations made in the dissecting room and under the microscope,
strongly indicate that these cells are endowed with some sort of
individual intelligence. They do their work without our aid or
conscious volition. But, nevertheless, they are greatly influenced
by the varying conditions of the mind. While their activities seem
to be controlled through the sympathetic nervous system, they stand
in direct telegraphic communication with headquarters in the brain
and every impulse of the mind is conveyed to them.

If there be dismay and confusion in the mind, this condition is
telegraphically conveyed over the nerve trunks and filaments to
every cell in the body, and as a result these little workers and
soldiers become panic-stricken and incapable of rightly performing
their manifold duties.

The cell system of the body resembles a vast army. The mind is the
general at the head of it. The cells are the soldiers, divided into
groups for special work.

Much of the work of an army is carried on through different
well-established departments, as the commissariat, the hospital
service, the scouts and pickets, etc. Though the life and the
activities of the army are so well regulated that they seem
automatic, nevertheless much depends upon the commander.

The vital processes of the human organism, digestion, assimilation,
elimination, respiration, the circulation of the blood, etc., are
going on without our volition, whether we be awake or asleep. These
involuntary activities are impelled by the sympathetic nervous
system, while the voluntary functions of the body are controlled
through the motor [voluntary] nervous system. This division,
however, is not a sharp one, and the two departments frequently
overlap one another.

The sympathetic nervous system resembles the commissarial department
of the army, which attends to the material welfare of the soldiers,
while the motor nervous system, with headquarters in the brain,
corresponds to the commander with his executive staff, the nerve
centers in the spinal cord and other parts of the body being the
subordinate officers in the field.

While the physical well-being of the army depends upon the almost
automatic work of its different departments, its mind and soul is
the man commanding it. He determines the spirit, the energy and the
efficiency of the vast organization.

If the commander-in-chief lacks insight, force and determination,
the discipline of the army will be lax and its efficiency greatly
impaired. If he is a craven, without faith in himself and in the
cause he represents, his lack of courage, his doubt and indecision
will communicate themselves to the whole army, resulting in
discouragement and defeat.

The most successful commanders have been those who were possessed of
absolute confidence in themselves and in the efficiency of their
army, who in the face of gravest danger and discouraging situations
pressed on to the predetermined goal with dogged courage and
resolution. Determination and pertinacity of this kind create the
magnetic power which imparts itself to every individual soldier in
the army and makes him a willing subject, even unto death, to the
will of his commander.

When the plague was invading Napoleon's army, that great general
entered the hospitals where the victims of the plague were lying,
took them by the hand and conversed with them. He did this to
overcome the fear in the hearts of his soldiers, and thus to protect
them against the dread disease. He said: "A man whose will can
conquer the world, can conquer the plague."

To my mind, this was one of the greatest deeds of the Corsican. At a
time when "New Thought" was practically unknown, the genius of this
man had grasped its principles and was making them factors in his
apparent success. "Apparent" because, while we admire his genius, we
deplore the ends to which he applied his wonderful powers.

At times when the battle seemed lost, Napoleon would go to the front
where the danger was greatest; and by the mere sight of him the
hard-pressed soldiers under his command were inspired to super-human
effort and final victory.

As long as the glamour of invincibility surrounded him, Napoleon was
invincible, because he infused into his soldiers a faith and courage
which nothing could withstand. But when the cunning of the Russian
broke his power and decimated his ranks on the ice-bound steppes,
the hypnotic spell was broken also. Friends and enemies alike
recognized that, after all, he was but a man, subject to chance and
circumstance; and from that time on he was vulnerable and suffered
defeat after defeat.

The power of the mind over the physical body and its involuntary
functions (the functions which are regulated and controlled through
the sympathetic nervous system) may be illustrated by the
demonstrated facts of hypnotism. Through the exertion of his own
imagination and his will-power, the hypnotist can so dominate the
brain and through the brain the physical body of his subject, as to
influence not only the sensory functions, but also heart action and
respiration. By the power of his will the hypnotist is able to
retard or accelerate pulse and respiration, and even to subdue the
heart beat so that it becomes hardly perceptible.

If it is possible thus to control by the power of will the vital
functions in the body of another person, it must be possible also to
control these functions in our own bodies. Many a Hindu fakir and
yogi have developed this power of the mind over the physical body to
a marvelous extent.

Here lies the true domain of mental therapeutics. We can learn to
dominate and regulate the vital activities and the life currents in
our bodies so that they will do their work intelligently and
serenely even under the stress of illness or of danger. We can, by
the power of will, direct the vital currents to those parts and
organs which need them most and we can relieve congested areas by
equalizing the circulation, by drawing from the surplus of blood and
nerve currents and distributing the vital fluids over other parts of
the body.

We must be careful, however, to use our higher powers in conformity
with Nature's intent; that is, we must not endeavor to suppress
Nature's cleansing and healing efforts. It is possible to do this by
the power of will as well as with ice bags and drugs.

Mentally and emotionally, as well as physically, we must work with
Nature, not against her. When we understand the fundamental laws of
disease and cure, we cannot well do otherwise.


Chapter XXXIX


HOW SHALL WE PRAY?


Shall we say: "Father, give me this Father, do for me that!"? Or
shall we say: "Behold, I am perfect! Imperfection, sin and suffering
are only errors of mortal mind!"?

Or shall we pray: "Father, give me of Thy strength that I may live
in harmony with Thy law, for thus only will all good come to me!"?

The first way is to beg, the second, to steal, the third, to earn by
honest effort.

"Father, give me this!"--"Father do for me that!" Thus prayed our
fathers, not understanding the great law of compensation, the law of
giving and receiving, which demands that we give an equivalent for
everything we receive. To receive without giving is to beg.

The lily, in return for the nourishment it receives from the soil
and the sun, gives its beauty and fragrance. The birds of the air
give a return for their sustenance by their songs, their beauty of
plumage, and by destroying worms and insects, the enemies of plants
and men. Every living thing gives an equivalent for its existence in
some way or other.

With Man, the fulfillment of the law of service and of compensation
becomes conscious and voluntary, and his self-respect refuses to
take without giving.

"Behold, I am perfect! Imperfection, sin, and suffering are only
errors of mortal mind!" Such is the prayer of certain metaphysical
healers.

To assume the possession of goodness and perfection without an
earnest effort to develop and to deserve these qualities, means to
steal the glory of the only Perfect One. The assumption of present
perfection precludes the necessity of striving and laboring for its
attainment. If I am already all goodness, all love, all wisdom, and
all power, what remains for me to strive for?

Herein lies the danger of metaphysical idealism. While it may dispel
pessimism, fear, and anxiety, it inevitably weakens the will power
and the capacity for self-help and personal effort.

The ideal of the metaphysician is the ideal of the animal. The
animal does not worry about right or wrong, nor, with few
exceptions, does it make provision for the future. Its care and
forethought extend only to the next meal. But this perfect, ideal,
passive trust in Nature's bounty causes the animal to remain animal
and prevents its rising above the narrow limitations of habit and
instinct.