1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Revealing Word," Charles Fillmore presents a profound exploration of metaphysical interpretation of Biblical scripture, illuminating the spiritual significance hidden within familiar religious texts. This groundbreaking work merges poetic language with a scholarly approach, enabling readers to uncover a deeper understanding of language and symbolism in the Bible. Fillmore not only decodes the textual nuances but also interweaves philosophical insights, drawing upon the New Thought movement's principles, which emphasize the power of thought and the interconnectedness of all creation. Charles Fillmore, co-founder of the Unity movement, dedicated his life to exploring the transformative potential of spiritual knowledge. His rich background in spirituality, coupled with a keen interest in Christianity's esoteric aspects, fuels the insights presented in this book. He believed that understanding the symbolic meanings of scripture could lead individuals toward spiritual awakening and empowerment, reflecting his personal journey and commitment to fostering a deeper connection with the divine. This book is highly recommended for anyone seeking to cultivate a richer spiritual practice and to engage with the Bible not merely as a historical document but as a living text filled with wisdom. Fillmore's unique interpretations resonate with readers looking to enhance their understanding of metaphysical principles and apply them to their daily lives. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Ähnliche
The Revealing Word
Table of Contents
Introduction
Language becomes a living instrument that shapes awareness and opens a path to practical spirituality. The Revealing Word by Charles Fillmore introduces readers to a disciplined, contemplative approach to meaning, asking them to consider how the words they use reflect and guide states of mind. Rather than presenting a narrative, the work functions as a focused companion for seekers who want clarity in spiritual terminology. It sets the tone for a reflective reading experience, inviting careful attention to definitions that are intended to be used, not merely admired. In doing so, it positions vocabulary as a catalyst for inner transformation.
A foundational figure in the New Thought movement and cofounder of Unity, Charles Fillmore offers a reference text that sits at the crossroads of theology, metaphysics, and devotional practice. The Revealing Word is best understood as a metaphysical dictionary, compiled to support Unity’s emphasis on practical Christianity and the disciplined use of thought and prayer. First appearing in the mid-twentieth century within the Unity tradition, it reflects a period when many spiritual readers sought concise, applicable guidance rather than theoretical abstraction. Its publication context aligns with Unity’s broader effort to make spiritual ideas accessible and practicable in everyday life.
The premise is straightforward: words commonly encountered in spiritual study are presented with clear, metaphysically oriented definitions to aid understanding and application. Organized as a reference work, it invites slow browsing as much as purposeful consultation, enabling readers to follow threads of meaning across related terms. The style is compact and instructional, avoiding polemics in favor of steady, clarifying guidance. The mood is contemplative, sometimes gently exhortative, with an emphasis on personal integration rather than debate. Readers can expect a calm, structured voice that makes abstract concepts feel approachable, practical, and ready for incorporation into daily reflection.
At its core, the book explores how thought and language interact in the shaping of consciousness. It treats terms not just as labels but as symbols pointing to inner realities, encouraging readers to examine their habitual speech and assumptions. Themes include the formative power of mind, the harmonizing aim of spiritual practice, and a metaphysical reading of biblical and devotional vocabulary. In place of strict dogma, the entries suggest a way of seeing that consistently turns inward for verification. The result is a resource that promotes attentiveness, coherence, and responsibility in the use of words that carry spiritual weight.
Readers will notice the book’s distinctive balance of precision and invitation. Each entry aims to be exact without becoming rigid, leaving room for meditation and personal insight. By mapping everyday and scriptural terms to inner processes, it bridges scholarship and devotion, offering a framework that supports prayer, study, and ethical living. The pedagogical method is cumulative: as one consults multiple entries, connections form and deepen understanding. This structure rewards rereading and cross-referencing, helping students of Unity and the broader New Thought tradition cultivate a nuanced, workable vocabulary for practice and teaching.
For contemporary audiences, its relevance lies in the renewed attention to mindfulness, intentional speech, and the integration of spiritual insight with daily conduct. The book’s focus on clarity of meaning resonates with readers navigating an information-rich culture, where careful language can steady reflection and decision-making. It also speaks to interfaith curiosity, offering interpretations that many can explore without abandoning their own backgrounds. By encouraging readers to align words with constructive intention, it provides tools for personal growth, community dialogue, and ethical leadership, emphasizing that spiritual maturity begins with how we name and frame our experience.
Taken together, The Revealing Word offers a disciplined approach to inner life that is both accessible and quietly demanding. It invites readers to turn a reference book into a practice—returning to key terms, testing them in reflection, and allowing their meanings to inform action. As an enduring expression of Charles Fillmore’s Unity perspective, it preserves a clear, practical voice that can complement scripture study, meditation, and service. Those seeking a concise, reliable guide to metaphysical vocabulary will find a resource that sharpens understanding, steadies intent, and honors the transformative potential of language used with care.
Synopsis
The Revealing Word, by Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore, is a concise metaphysical dictionary intended to clarify spiritual terms used in Bible study and practical prayer. Arranged alphabetically, it offers brief definitions that link commonplace words with their inner, psychological, and spiritual connotations. Fillmore outlines a method that treats language as a vehicle of creative mind action, insisting that correct naming aligns thought with divine law. The book serves as a reference for students seeking a consistent vocabulary for Unity teachings, emphasizing the role of ideas, the power of the word, and the possibility of regeneration through disciplined thinking and affirmative prayer.
Early entries establish foundational concepts. God is presented as Principle, Mind, and omnipresent Substance, not limited to anthropomorphic form. Christ signifies the divine idea of humanity's true identity, the spiritual pattern available to all. The Holy Spirit denotes the executive activity of Divine Mind, the law by which ideas move into expression. Fillmore frames creation as mind, idea, and manifestation working in orderly sequence. The 'word' names and shapes ideas, imprinting them upon consciousness and life. Through precise definition, the book connects traditional theological terms with a practical metaphysics that centers on law, order, and the dependable action of thought.
The volume defines the structure of mind and the nature of the self. Consciousness is described in three broad phases: subconscious memory and habit, conscious reasoning and choice, and superconscious intuition and spiritual knowing. The 'I AM' names the spiritual identity that directs the faculties and aligns the person with Christ within. Through entries on thought, belief, and imagination, the book explains how mental patterns congeal into experience according to spiritual law. Denials clear error beliefs, while affirmations establish divine ideas as ruling patterns. Regeneration arises as the mind is purified, and the body responds to renewed life and order.
A recurring framework is the twelve spiritual faculties, sometimes called the twelve powers of man. Definitions outline faith as perceiving power, strength as stability, judgment as wisdom and discrimination, love as harmonizing unity, power as mastery of expression, imagination as formative capacity, understanding as spiritual illumination, will as executive choice, order as right arrangement, zeal as enthusiastic propulsion, renunciation as cleansing elimination, and life as vital energy. The book links each faculty to practical function in thought and conduct, suggesting that balanced development produces wholeness. By naming faculties precisely, entries help readers locate specific mental functions for prayer and practice.
Prayer is defined as conscious communion with Divine Mind, employing the silence, denial, and affirmation to align thought with truth. Denial rejects the reality of error at the level of belief, loosening its hold in the subconscious. Affirmation affirms divine ideas as present, effective, and governing. The silence refers to receptive stillness in which guidance and power are realized. The book emphasizes right use of the word, encouraging statements grounded in spiritual principle rather than personal will. By clarifying these techniques and their rationale, the entries outline a method of practical spirituality intended for daily use in health, guidance, and character.
Entries on healing and supply present health and prosperity as natural outcomes of established spiritual order. Disease is treated as disorder in thought, corrected by aligning with life, intelligence, and love. Substance is defined as the primal, invisible reality that underlies all form, available to faith as enduring support. Prosperity denotes sufficiency and right circulation rather than accumulation. The body is seen as plastic to mind, enriched by pure ideas and obedient to spiritual law. Terms such as blood, nerves, and organs receive symbolic meanings that connect physiology with states of consciousness, illustrating a holistic view of regeneration and equilibrium.
The book applies a consistent symbolism to biblical narratives and names, interpreting places, people, and events as phases of inner development. Eden represents a primal harmony of thought, the serpent sense reasoning, and Adam and Eve foundational tendencies in consciousness. Jordan stands for transition, Jerusalem for peace and order, and Israel for the striving of spiritual aspiration. Jesus and Christ are distinguished as historical teacher and indwelling pattern. Parables and miracles are treated as illustrations of law at work in mind. Such entries do not retell stories but assign metaphysical equivalences, making scripture a map of states, faculties, and processes.
Definitions address ethical and emotional themes central to personal transformation. Sin is defined as missing the mark, an error in thought rather than an ineradicable stain. Forgiveness releases error from memory and restores harmony. Righteousness denotes right relation to divine law, while grace names the free activity of Spirit that supports growth. Peace, protection, guidance, and courage are grounded in the order of Mind rather than external circumstances. The entries present fear, anger, and condemnation as habits to be dissolved by understanding and love. Throughout, the tone remains instructional, linking character formation to clear thinking and the steady practice of truth.
Because it is organized as a dictionary, the book is designed for study, meditation, and quick consultation rather than linear reading. Its entries gradually assemble a comprehensive metaphysical system in which God as Principle, humanity as spiritual identity, and the creative word interlock. The overall message is that ideas govern experience, and that alignment with divine law brings order, health, and abundance. By clarifying terms and their relations, the work equips readers to interpret scripture, pray effectively, and cultivate the inner faculties. The synopsis thus reflects a reference manual whose purpose is to reveal meanings that guide practical spiritual living.
Historical Context
Charles Fillmore’s The Revealing Word is not a narrative set in a fictional time or place; rather, it is a metaphysical dictionary shaped by the intellectual and religious climate of the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Compiled through decades of teaching at the Unity School of Christianity in Kansas City, Missouri, and at Unity Farm (later Unity Village) near Lee’s Summit, it coalesced in the mid-1940s. The book’s definitions reflect an era of rapid urbanization, mass printing, and radio broadcasting, in which popular religious movements reached national audiences. Its vocabulary emerges from a Midwestern center that balanced pragmatic American culture with experimental religious ideas.
The formative current behind The Revealing Word was the New Thought movement, a broad religious and social phenomenon emphasizing mind, health, and practical spirituality. Its roots trace to the healing experiments of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866) in New England, whose ideas about the mind’s influence on the body inspired later teachers. Charles (1854–1948) and Myrtle Fillmore (1845–1931) encountered New Thought chiefly through Emma Curtis Hopkins (1853–1925) in Chicago during the late 1880s, where she taught metaphysical healing and affirmative prayer. In 1889 the Fillmores founded the Unity movement in Kansas City, Missouri, launching Unity magazine the same year and formally organizing ongoing classes and publications. This institutional base allowed the Fillmores to refine a systematic metaphysical vocabulary—terms such as denial, affirmation, substance, life, faith, and imagination—later distilled in The Revealing Word. The book mirrors New Thought’s social complexion: urban, entrepreneurial, and educational, oriented to lay readers rather than a clerical elite. It also reflects Unity’s distinctive approach to the Bible: spiritual, non-creedal, and psychological, culminating in earlier reference works like the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary (1931), which provided a precedent for lexicographic treatment of sacred concepts. As New Thought expanded nationally between the 1890s and 1920s—through lecture circuits, magazines, correspondence courses, and healing circles—Unity became one of its most stable institutions. The Revealing Word stands as a mid-century codification of this movement’s language, crafted to be portable for prayer circles, study groups, and home readers. Its concise entries crystallize decades of practice in Silent Unity’s prayer ministry and classroom teaching, translating a half-century of American metaphysical experimentation into accessible definitions anchored in Unity’s Kansas City milieu.
Unity’s institutional milestones supply key historical anchors. The Society of Silent Help (soon called Silent Unity) began in 1890 in Kansas City, coordinating prayer by mail and telegraph for the sick and distressed. Unity magazine (founded 1889) and later Daily Word (first issued in 1924) spread concise affirmations nationwide. The Unity School of Christianity was incorporated in Missouri in 1914, signaling organizational maturity. In 1919 the Fillmores purchased land southeast of Kansas City for Unity Farm, a campus that consolidated publishing, education, and prayer operations. These developments created the infrastructure from which The Revealing Word emerged, grounding its definitions in a living practice of outreach and education.
World War I (1914–1918), with U.S. entry in 1917, and the influenza pandemic of 1918–1920 reshaped American religious life, heightening demand for spiritual healing and consolation. Casualty lists, rapid mobilization, and public-health crises drew ordinary people to prayer ministries outside denominational lines. Silent Unity’s growing correspondence work during these years reinforced ideas of omnipresent life, protection, and the mind’s role in recovery. The Revealing Word captures this legacy by defining health, life, protection, and prayer as immediate, practical powers rather than abstractions. Its entries echo a period when metaphysical interpretations spoke to grief, fear, and the search for meaning amid mass suffering.
The communications revolution of the 1920s amplified Unity’s message through inexpensive print, national mail service, and burgeoning radio culture centered in cities like Kansas City. Daily Word (1924) offered succinct, dated affirmations, a format that trained readers in a shared vocabulary later codified in The Revealing Word. The popularity of correspondence courses and public lectures standardized terms across a dispersed movement. As mass media normalized self-help discourse and popular psychology, Unity’s lexicon met listeners where they were, providing brief, repeatable definitions. The dictionary format of The Revealing Word thus mirrors the decade’s emphasis on portability, brevity, and broadcast-friendly language.
The Great Depression (1929–1939) tested every American institution. Unemployment, bank failures, and dislocation drove seekers to low-cost forms of education and spiritual support. Unity’s campus at Unity Farm continued expanding its press and training programs, while Silent Unity’s prayer requests surged, reinforcing the need for clear, consistent terms around prosperity, supply, and faith. National New Deal efforts reframed social hope, but many Americans also turned to metaphysical interpretations of abundance and order. The Revealing Word reflects this milieu by rearticulating substance, prosperity, and order as spiritual realities accessible regardless of economic status, offering a stable lexicon amid financial volatility and social uncertainty.
World War II (1939–1945) and the immediate postwar transition shaped the final form and timing of the book, first issued in the mid-1940s by the Unity School of Christianity. Wartime rationing, separation, and loss renewed interest in inner resources and collective prayer. The dictionary’s treatments of judgment, love, forgiveness, and peace resonated with readers processing global conflict and reconstruction in 1945. The boom in veterans’ education and suburbanization then widened its audience through study groups and church bookstores. By codifying Unity’s terms at the war’s end, The Revealing Word served as a portable guide for seekers navigating personal reintegration and a reconfigured world order.
The Revealing Word functions as a subtle social critique by challenging deterministic, class-bound, and sectarian assumptions prevalent in its era. Its definitions democratize religious authority, asserting that spiritual understanding—through affirmative prayer and disciplined thought—is available to laypeople irrespective of education or status. By reframing health, prosperity, and power as inner, universal capacities, it contests materialism and fatalism intensified by industrial capitalism, depression, and war. The work’s non-creedal, inclusive approach implicitly critiques sectarian divisions and the privatization of hope. In affirming women’s leadership within Unity’s ministries and publications, it mirrors and supports broader social shifts toward expanded civic and spiritual agency.
The Revealing Word
Foreword
The Revealing Word offers Truth students the metaphysical meanings and uses of words and phrases that frequently appear in Unity publications, and many that appear in the Bible. Whereas Unity's Metaphysical Bible Dictionary explains the esoteric meanings of scriptural proper names, The Revealing Word is devoted mostly to common names. In addition to words that have religious significance, hundreds of words that are in everyday use appear in this book. Thus the reader is given inner meanings that he or she can apply to daily living. All things in life are expressed in words. Equipped with the inner meanings of words, a person can control all the issues of his or her life, from the insignificant to the great.
A
abate--To lessen; to moderate. In making a demonstration, when we reach the point where the mind changes from the negative to the positive state the troubled thoughts begin to abate. A certain set of negative ideas has run its course, and the restorative thought forces are in evidence.
Abba[1]--A word of endearment signifying father. It is only as we come to know our sonship, our true relation to God, that we enter into the consciousness of love and tender affiliation with Spirit, signified by the word Abba. (see Mark 14:36)
abdicate--To let go; to relinquish; to renounce. The ability to abdicate is twofold in action: it eliminates the error, and it expands the good. When the ego consciously lets go and willingly gives up its personal ideas and loves, it has fulfilled the law of denial and is restored to the Father's house.
abide--To continue in a fixed thought of God, the All-Good; to dwell in the Christ consciousness. "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you" (John 15:7).
Abiding--A conscious centering of the mind in divine Principle within us by means of repeated affirmations of our faith and trust in Principle.
abiding Presence--Christ, the presence of light, peace, joy, love, life, and substance that is ever within, about, before, and beside man. (see presence of God)
absolute, the--Divine Mind; unlimited Principle; the almighty One; the all-pervading Spirit; the Infinite; the Eternal; the Supreme Being. The one ultimate creative Mind; the Source of all things. That which is unconditioned, unlimited, unrestricted, and free from all limitations. The self-existent God.
Absolute, to place judgment in the--The metaphysician finds it necessary to place his judgment in the Absolute in order to demonstrate His supreme power. This is accomplished by first declaring that one's judgment is spiritual and not material, that its origin is in God, that all its conclusions are based on Truth, and that they are absolutely free from prejudice, false sympathy, or personal ignorance.
Absolute, treating in the--Treating in the consciousness of the Spirit of God; affirming the absolute Truth of Being for man.
Absolute, unification of man with the--Man unifies himself with the Absolute through recognition that he is the son and heir of the Father, in whose image and likeness he was created. By realizing the Mind of Christ, he becomes one with the Absolute.
abstract, the--The realm of pure ideas such as goodness, purity, wisdom, and love.
abundance, spiritual--Ideas in consciousness of the omnipresent supply and support of the one Mind; invisible substance, with infinite capacity of expansion when held in mind, affirmed, and praised. "All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine" (John 16:15).
abundance, steps in demonstrating--First, we must recognize abundance as an idea that is real and has the power to expand. Then, we must talk abundance--choose words representing abundance--and thus build up an invisible world of substance. In this way, we build or form in our mind that which draws to us an abundance of every good thing. "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given" (Luke 8:18).
accident--An unfortunate event that takes place without our conscious foreknowledge.
accidents, cause and cure of--The cause of all accidents lies in sense consciousness. To be free from all accidents, we must raise our consciousness,[1q] so that it is spiritually positive and Christlike. Then we shall attract only good.
accuser--Opposer; hater; an enemy. (see Devil and Satan) The accuser is overcome by casting him down in the name of Jesus Christ.
achievement, universal desire for--The craving for accomplishment, innate in every man. The universal desire for worth-while achievement, giving a mighty impulse to all things, is divinely good.
acquisitiveness--The desire to acquire. It is a legitimate faculty of mind, but covetousness is the Judas trait. When a man seeks to acquire from God only, acquisitiveness builds up his consciousness, but when he oversteps the law and seeks that which belongs to another his acquisitiveness becomes a destroyer. (see covetousness)
activity, spiritual--Thoughts in relation to spiritual Principle. Mind movement in accordance with the activity of Divine Mind.
Adam--Red; reddish. The first movement of mind in its contact with life and substance. Adam was created from the "dust of the ground" (Gen. 2:7). Dust represents the radiant earth or substance. When spiritual man (I AM) enters into this substance and makes use of the God ideas inherent in him, he brings forth the ideal body in its elemental perfection. Adam was first perfect as an idea in elemental divinity.
Adam man[2]--Unregenerate sense man; antichrist: the man who has fallen away from spirituality. Originally Adam was the spiritually illumined man of God. The Adam man was primitively identified with an infinite capacity for expansion. When he recognizes his identity as spiritual he expands in divine order and brings forth only good.
Adam man, ills of--The many ills of the Adam man grew out of his belief that he could satisfy and nourish himself with material food and drink alone. To feed the body is not enough. The spiritual man hungers for the bread of life and thirsts for living water, even the Word of God.
Adam man, transformation of--We are not to erase Adam, but we are to transform him by the renewing of our mind. "And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Rom. 12:2).
adjustment--The rearrangement of thoughts according to the divine order of the Christ Mind; a bringing of man's consciousness into exact correspondence with God's perfect harmony, or heaven. "And the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways smooth" (Luke 3:5).
adultery--Mixed thoughts, errors that have their existence in the unregenerated feelings; thoughts that have not come under the dominion of the I AM.
Adversary, the--The vain imagination that there could, in reality, be anything opposed to Divine Mind, or could be any separation of man from it, led to the forming of a state of mind that is described in the Bible as the "adversary." We find that the various names--Satan; Devil; Adversary; accuser; carnal mind; old man; man of sin; and personality--all refer to the consciousness that man has built up in his ignorance of his true estate.
affirm--To hold steadfast in mind or to speak aloud a statement of Truth.
affirm the salvation of the Lord--To realize silently and to declare audibly that the Christ within us is taking charge of all our affairs.
affirmation--A positive statement of Truth. By the use of affirmations we claim and appropriate that which is ours in Truth. (see denial)
affirmation, act of--The "yes" action of the mind; the act of affirming; the declaring of Truth; the mental movement that asserts confidently and persistently the Truth of Being in the face of all appearances to the contrary.
affirmation and denial--Two movements of the mind that express power to accept or to reject, to lay hold of or to let go. (see denial)
affirmation, how made--Affirmations do not have to be made only in set terms such as, "I affirm my body to be spiritual." The sum total of thought in all its positive aspects composes the affirmations that bring ideas into form.
affirmation, purpose of--To establish in consciousness a broad understanding of the divine principles on which all life and existence depend. By affirming Truth we are lifted out of false thinking into the consciousness of Spirit.
affirmation, remedial effects of--All unrighteous conditions may be adjusted through affirming the power of the great universal Spirit of justice. Affirm: "The infinite Spirit of love and justice is now operating in all my affairs, and all is well."
age--A cycle or a dispensation. Jesus was acquainted with cycles or ages of spiritual development of which the natural man knew nothing. Jesus came at the end of an age. Age to mortal man is the measurement of the life or existence of a person or thing. It is based on the false concept of time as reality. "What is the signal of Your presence, and the completion of this age?" (Matt. 24:3, Fenton.)
air--The deific breath of God. It symbolizes a purifying, vitalizing power that revives and makes alive.
alchemy, divine--Transmutation; changing in action and in character from the mortal into the spiritual. It has been said that the mind is the crucible in which the ideal is transmuted into the real.
alcoholism--A diseased condition brought about by one who, thirsting for the true stimulation of Spirit, resorts to the excessive use of false stimulants, such as alcoholic beverages. The way to demonstrate over this condition is to turn wholeheartedly to Spirit and to realize and to affirm that the desire for false stimulants is dissolved and dissipated and that the pure spiritual life of Christ satisfies and uplifts.
allegiance to the Father--The consciousness that divine wisdom is guiding the universe and man, which gives man a feeling of security. Allegiance to the Father signifies a constant devotion to and trust in the Father.
allegory--A symbolical representation of Truth. "Which things contain an allegory" (Gal. 4:24).
All-Good--Divine Mind; God; the principle of divine benevolence that permeates the universe.
almighty--All-powerful; having all power or force to accomplish anything. All things are possible with God, because He is infinitely all-mighty. All the power, all the force, all the might of the universe are God's; He is, in truth, almighty God. "Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am God Almighty" (Gen. 17:1).
Alpha and Omega--The beginning and the end; the Son of God; all in all. "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (Rev. 22:13).
altar--Stabilized place of worship. A fixed, definite center in consciousness; the place in consciousness where we meet the Lord and are willing to give up our sins, to give up the lower for the higher, the personal for the impersonal.
The altar mentioned in Rev. 11:1 symbolizes the consciousness of full consecration that takes place first in the temple of worship within: "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service" (Rom. 12:1).
altar, brazen, of temple worship--Represents the generative life.
altar, golden, of incense--Symbolizes the establishing of permanent resolutions of purity and covenants with the higher law of obedience, although it may entail daily sacrifice. (This applies to the altar of the burnt offerings also.)
altar, to an unknown God--A yearning to know the unrevealed Spirit and a reaching out for a fuller realization of its source.
alternate between good and evil--To swing the mind from good to evil and vice versa, with consequent variation in the application of Truth principles. Alternation is fatal to realization. "For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (James 1:7,8).
ambition--A subtle mental force that drives men toward their goals. If it is dedicated wholly to Spirit and acts from Principle, it will work for good. If its motto is, "The end justifies the means," it is a menace.
ancestors--Forefathers. Those who think of themselves as descended from human ancestors are in bondage to all the limitations of those ancestors, regardless of their claims to the contrary. It is a falling short of the full stature of man to regard himself as descending from the human family. This is the sin that keeps the majority of men in bondage to sense consciousness.
angel--A messenger of God; the projection into consciousness of a spiritual idea direct from the Fountainhead, Jehovah. "And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar" (Luke 1:11). The word of Truth, in which is centered the power of God to overcome all limited beliefs and conditions.
angel, of Jehovah--The quickening thought of God appearing in the form of light or divine intelligence, intuition, and understanding.
angels, ascending and descending--The imaging power of the mind receiving divine ideas and reflecting them into the consciousness.
angels, office of--To guard, to direct, and to redeem the natural forces of the body and mind, which have in them the future of the whole man.
anointed of God, the--One who is conscious of the real spiritual outpouring from the source of his being; a consecrated person, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me" (Luke 4:18).
anointing--A symbolical expression of the pouring out of the spirit of love on one who has faith in God. Rubbing with oil; consecrating the body with the living Spirit of Christ. "But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face" (Matt. 6:17).
antichrist--That which denies or opposes the idea that the Christ dwells in and is the true self of each individual. The active effort in the world to exalt death and to delude men into believing that death is the way to eternal life is an instance of work that is antichrist. Such a thought is opposed to Christ. Jesus came to deliver the human race from death and to fulfill in man God's perfect will, abundant life. The antichrist thoughts must be persistently denied. The perfect will of God for all men is abundant life, not death.
anxiety--A form of fear; a negative mental attitude that keeps God's good from man.
apostles--Those sent forth; messengers; ambassadors; active spiritual thoughts. Jesus conferred this title on the Twelve whom He sent forth to teach and to heal.
In order to command our powers and to bring them into unity of action, we must know what they are and their respective places on the staff of Being. The Grand Man, Christ, has twelve powers of fundamental ideas, represented in the history of Jesus by the Twelve Apostles. So each of us has twelve faculties or fundamental ideas to make manifest, to bring out, and to use in the attainment of his ideals. There are innumerable other ideas, but each one stems from some one of these fundamental ideas.
Jesus' twelve apostles were: Peter (faith); Andrew (strength); James, son of Zebedee (wisdom or judgment); John (love); Philip (power); Bartholomew (imagination); Thomas (understanding); Matthew (will); James (order); Simon the Cananaean (zeal); Thaddaeus (renunciation or elimination); and Judas (life conserver). (see disciple, calling of)
appetite--Either the craving of the sense man for fulfillment of his fleshly desires or the hunger and thirst of the spirit for its divine inheritance. "But he awaketh . . . and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite" (Isa. 29:8).
appetite, carnal or sensual--A hunger and thirst for sensual pleasures; misdirected effort to obtain satisfaction through feeding the insatiable sense man. All indulgence of such appetite must be denied out of man's consciousness before Christ can be manifested.
appreciation--The act of appreciating; esteeming. Spiritually, man's mind esteems to a great measure the loveliness and power of omnipresent God, All-Good. "I will give thee thanks with my whole heart" (Psalms 138:1).
appropriation--The act of taking possession of something. To appropriate the word of Truth is to take the substance of the word into one's mind and heart.
ark--A holy place; a sanctuary; a tabernacle; the Christ center within wherein man is one with pure Being.
ark, Noah's--Symbolizes the spiritual part of oneself, built in the midst of the flood of error. One builds one's ark on the scientific understanding of the wisdom, presence, and power of God and on the affirmations of what one is in Spirit.
The only refuge from the Flood (see Gen. 6:18) was the ark of Jehovah. The ark represents a positive, saving state of consciousness, which agrees with or forms a covenant with the principle of Being, with subconscious inspiration, with Christ. This ark is the product of "rest" (Noah) in the spiritual part of us, right in the midst of the flood of error.
Ark of the Covenant--Represents the original spark of divinity in man's being, which is a sacred and holy thing. On its development depends man's immortality. The original spark (Ark of the Covenant) occupies the most holy place in the body temple and must be cared for with great devotion; otherwise, the spiritual forces are scattered.
No human hand is allowed to touch this ark of the covenant. No human thought can enter the sacred precincts, which are kept veiled from all eyes.
armor of God--The robe of righteousness. Error cannot enter the consciousness that is strongly fortified with the light, life, power, and substance of Spirit.
ascension--The ascending or progressive unfoldment of man from the animal to the spiritual. It is measured by three degrees or states of consciousness: first, the animal; second, the mental or psychical; and third, the spiritual. Jesus first manifested Himself as the man on the physical plane, from which He was resurrected to the mental or psychical; from thence He ascended to the spiritual.
asceticism--The practice of severe self-denial; the attempt to deny the body itself as an evil thing instead of beholding it as the sacred temple of the living God to be revered, respected, and loved.
aspirations--The deep longing of man for union with his source, with his Father-Mother, God.
"As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God"
(Psalms 42:1, 2).
ass--In Oriental countries in Bible times kings and rulers rode the ass, and it was the accepted bearer of royalty. The animal part of the human consciousness is typified by the ass, and the purpose of Jesus' riding an ass into Jerusalem was to portray the mastery by the I AM of the animal nature and its manifestation (colt). Jerusalem is the city of peace or spiritual consciousness. The characteristics of the ass are stubbornness, persistency, and endurance. To ride these is to make them obedient to one's will.
association, spiritual--Living in an uninterrupted relationship with ideas that come into consciousness from God.
astrology--"The pseudo science which treats of the influence of the stars upon human affairs, and of foretelling terrestrial events by their position and aspects" (Webster). Astrology represents the belief in man that his good depends wholly on something outside himself--his ruling star, fate, providence--instead of depending on the power of his own thoughts to establish within himself and his world what he wills.
It is true that we are in sympathy with all nature, which includes the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. These are all ensouled, and their actions can affect us when we do not believe in a higher power. But there is a higher power in everyone: Spirit. In Genesis it is stated that spiritual man, the image-and-likeness man, was given dominion over all creation.
