It is clear from the foregoing that it is extremely difficult to characterise the therapeutic experience so that it shall seem real to one who has not already participated in it. Nearly always when such descriptions are given there are those who say that for them there is much that is intangible. Thus must it be until one has put the principle to the test and verified the method. The missing element is the empirical factor, the peculiar quality of the experience. One should not expect to have this imparted. The description is of the letter; it is the experience that is spiritual. All that a description can hope to achieve is to convey hints, as one might poetically set forth one’s inmost sentiment respecting “the everlasting realities of religion.” Those realities may possess great intellectual value, and to this extent be subject to the most precise analysis. But their spiritual values are essentially matters of experience: one must enter the holy of holies and adore in order to know them. Probably in the majority of cases the method is first acquired by the aid of a mental process; that is, the experimenter carries on a sort of argument, or series of affirmations, with the general ideal of health in view.
Here,
for example, is an outline statement of such a method, from the lecture notes
already referred to in Chapter V.
After a few preliminary explanations, the exposition begins
with the supposition that the healer is seated by the patient, the latter
receptive, the former filled with the consciousness of “the truth of the
patient’s being”; and continues as follows: “Now suppose you realise that God
is everywhere, therefore that He fills this room, surrounds the patient, even
fills him without his knowing it. Then go on from that point to realise what
God would be and feel in the patient’s place—calm, without fear. Therefore,
think of the patient as losing his fear, serene and at peace....God is perfect
health, therefore the patient is feeling the healing effect of His presence in
every part of his being. God is perfect wisdom and action in every way,
therefore the patient is yielding to the better way, to the wisdom that is
coming in as a part of himself. Regard the patient as seeing for himself
wherein he is weak and unwise. See him realising the better way of perfect
wisdom, now coming into consciousness as his own thought of improvement. See
this especially in so far as you may have learned wherein the patient has
caused his trouble by unwisdom“
Another way of thinking:
