HEALING SUGGESTIONS

(A Letter to a Patient)

BY EDWABD A. PENNOCK
[Mr. Pennock was a Quaker minister, also a New Thought writer, and was formerly president of the Metaphysical Club, of Boston]

From
The Spirit of the New Thought: Essays and Addresses by Representative Authors and Leaders
~ By Horatio Willis Dresser~
~ 1917~

Your continued anxiety about physical troubles only serves to intensify and increase them. Can you not trust yourself fully to the great Love and Power which makes itself felt through all the universe in perfect order and harmony? Try to give yourself over as to results completely to God and the silent-spoken words of Truth. Your present attitude is not different from that of many another. The race has trusted so long in material things that it is willing to put faith in a pill or a potion to help God along in His work. Does not this seem ridiculous? The power that makes for wholeness is resident within ourselves, and we can help or hinder according to the use we make of our thought-forces You need to become totally indifferent to results, by cultivating the belief that if you keep poised and comfortable and joyful within, results will take care of themselves. Cultivate constantly the attitude of health, courage and prosperity. These are yours if you will but claim them. Assert constantly your mastery over your thoughts, your body and your environment. Believe and assert that nothing can stop your progress, because Divine Power is working through you for your unfoldment. When the seeming is opposed to this, do not be discouraged, but accept it as a proving time for which you will be the stronger after you have overcome. All things are promised to him that overcometh. Do not fight and struggle, but
simply reach out in the confident assumption that all things are yours. Keep the ideal Self constantly in mind- that Self which is spirit and which is master over the body and over environment.

Cultivate the quiet attitude of universal love. This is the solvent which removes all difficulties, all fears, all apparently hostile conditions. Drummond's Greatest Thing in the World contains some of the highest lessons we need to learn, I would make love even more universal and comprehensive than he does, by making it include every thing - every state, condition and
environment. They are all parts of the universal plan which is being worked out by Love, through Love and in Love. It is only by taking such an attitude as this that we can remove all the friction from life and have that perfect harmony which is the kingdom of heaven. If you love everything, this will of course include your food. It is a symbol of love and life. Take it always in this way, and do it for love's sake. Dieting can never cure dyspepsia, for the cause of the disease is not in food of any description, but very often in the fear of food. I have no desire to prescribe what you shall or shall not eat, but I do want you to attain that freedom wherein you may eat whatever you wish. You should have that perfect unconcern about the whole matter which will enable you to sit down to any table and eat in moderation whatever your taste calls for. You have the right to include in your diet anything, that may properly be called food, which you like. We may admit that some foods contain chemically more of nutrition than others. But in reality
the chief nourishment comes from the thought and spirit with which the food is taken. Any food taken with doubt, fear or disrelish, will fail to nourish ; and almost anything in the lists of food will nourish, if the natural taste is followed and the right mental conditions are observed. Our appetites should be strictly heeded as to quantity and kind. As we come into the consciousness that we are spirit, immortal, not subject to disease or weakness, all these matters of taste and appetite become adjusted to this great fact, and it will work out that we will choose naturally those things which will best minister to the ideal we hold in mind, a body that is the perfect instrument of the immortal self. As long as you admit that some kinds of food have the power to hurt you, you are still believing in the power of evil, and this is a belief that ought to be eradicated.

We must firmly hold to the belief that good is the only power, the only reality. Of course, if you choose you can limit yourself to certain kinds of food and still be happy ; but you will not thus attain the high degree of health, happiness and mastery which will come from the belief in and demonstration of the principle that you are spirit, and that spirit is supreme over all material conditions. This is the ideal condition and if you hold to it, I believe that your fears will be gradually dissipated, and you will feel free to trust your own desires. Until you prove by your actions that you have laid aside this anxiety about food which is all the time accentuating your condition, you will not manifest the perfect health which is your birthright.

Yes, I think your experiences have been necessary to you as a schoolmaster, and they have all been working beneficently to bring you to a knowledge of your true self. When one comes to that full knowledge and consciousness, then the soul is completely dominant. But, there are varying degrees of consciousness and dominance, and you may attain what you would now call perfect health long before you attain all knowledge. The soul awakens gradually to its possibilities of spiritual dominion and to power before undreamed of. All your improvement must come through a changed attitude of mind, and the attitude which you need to cultivate toward your physical disease is that it is not an evil in itself which is to be removed for its own sake. On the other hand, you should know that it is the greatest possible blessing to you, in that it shows you that there is a mental and spiritual in-harmony within which needs to be remedied. Cultivate indifference as to the physical expression, and ignore the claims of pain as much as possible, and give your thought to the holding of the spiritually perfect ideal within, to the consciousness that you are a regnant soul, receiving a constant influx of love, wisdom and power from on high. This will lead to just the results that you need and desire. It will lead to a consciousness of your supreme superiority over all external conditions. It will lead you to realize that the cause of all your in-harmony and unhappiness is in yourself, and not in external things.