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Help for Today: How to Achieve Security by Using the Power Within You
Help for Today: How to Achieve Security by Using the Power Within You
Help for Today: How to Achieve Security by Using the Power Within You
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Help for Today: How to Achieve Security by Using the Power Within You

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This book by Dr. Ernest Holmes, the Founder of the Religious Science Movement, and Dr. William Hornaday, of the same faith and one of the most popular ministers of our country today, passes the ammunition. It teaches a definite, specific Practice of the Power of God. Here is ammunition for the people of this country and this year, as modern as guided missiles, as far-reaching as rockets to the moon. Founded as all science must be, upon Truth which changes not, it is a new revelation of the God-Power, the Higher-Power that has always been available to man.

“IN this book there is a vital answer to the demand many of us have been making upon the spiritual leadership of our times.

‘Please,” we have been saying, ‘pass the ammunition.’

Because today we are in the midst of the greatest battle mankind has ever known. In this fight for world supremacy, we stand opposed to any power which declares that it is without faith in any God at all.

No longer can a spiritual faith stand without works. We will not settle now, cannot settle now, for uplifting quotations and tenets and creeds that have nothing to do with real life and its present startling advances in material science, its cold wars and constant threats.

We must now use the POWER that is latent in our spiritual science. We must now learn how to make it work.

PASS THE AMMUNITION!
LanguageEnglish
PublisherMuriwai Books
Release dateSep 3, 2018
ISBN9781789122510
Help for Today: How to Achieve Security by Using the Power Within You
Author

Ernest Holmes

Ernest Holmes (1887- 1960) was an influential member of the New Thought movement and in 1927 he founded what would later come to be called The Centers for Spiritual Living. There are currently over 400 CSL churches throughout America.

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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    Reading this book has revealed and confirmed for me, that my life and current situation is the exact mirror image of the quality of thoughts I entertain. That I AM WHAT I THINK... and to benefit from the promises Jesus alluded to, I am to ACKNOWLEDGE the ALMIGHTY DIVINE PRESENCE IN MY LIFE ongoing; and, that God and I are ONE and INSEPARABLE!

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Help for Today - Ernest Holmes

This edition is published by Muriwai Books – www.pp-publishing.com

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Text originally published in 1958 under the same title.

© Muriwai Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HELP FOR TODAY

HOW TO ACHIEVE SECURITY BY USING THE POWER WITHIN YOU

Ernest Holmes

AND

William H. D. Hornaday

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

FOREWORD 4

1 — CREATING A BETTER TOMORROW 6

2 — SPIRITUAL SELF-RELIANCE 14

3 — THE CONTAGION OF FEAR 22

4 — WORDS IN THE SAND 30

5 — HOW OLD ARE YOU? 40

6 — BLESS AND CURSE NOT 51

7 — DON’T LET WORRY DEFEAT YOU 61

8 — YOU ARE ON THE AIR 68

9 — THE POWER OF LOVE IN ACTION 77

10 — YOUR SPIRITUAL BANK ACCOUNT 88

11 — LIFE DEMANDS PARTICIPATION 96

12 — HELP THE ALCOHOLIC HELP HIMSELF 106

13 — HOW TO PRAY EFFECTIVELY 114

14 — THE LAW AND POWER OF FAITH 128

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 142

FOREWORD

IN this book there is a vital answer to the demand many of us have been making upon the spiritual leadership of our times.

Please, we have been saying, "pass the ammunition."

Because today we are in the midst of the greatest battle mankind has ever known. In this fight for world supremacy, we stand opposed to any power which declares that it is without faith in any God at all.

No longer can a spiritual faith stand without works. We will not settle now, cannot settle now, for uplifting quotations and tenets and creeds that have nothing to do with real life and its present startling advances in material science, its cold wars and constant threats.

In the beginning, God—the Bible Says.

In the beginning God created all things and man in his image and likeness. But the universe it says He created is now filled with man-made satellites, rockets and missiles, such as have not been seen before.

One of the world’s greatest scientists, Sir James Jeans, has said of those first words in the Old Testament, The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves and nothing but waves; these are waves of two kinds; bottled up waves which we call matter and unbottled waves which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave energy and letting it fall to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole universe to a world of light, potential and existent, so that the whole story of creation can be told with perfect accuracy and completeness in six words, God said, ‘Let there be light.’"

So a great scientist of today in the new world of nuclear physics confirms and finds confirmation in the story of creation as told in the Bible.

But we must have more than this. We must have a union and a working principle between spiritual science and the world of every day in which we live and move and have our being.

We must now use the POWER that is latent in our spiritual science. We must now learn how to make it work.

PASS THE AMMUNITION!

We must not be left without a sword in our hand. We must put on the whole armor of God.

This book by Dr. Ernest Holmes, the Founder of the Religious Science Movement, and Dr. William Hornaday, of the same faith and one of the most popular ministers of our country today, passes the ammunition. It teaches a definite, specific Practice of the Power of God. Here is ammunition for the people of this country and this year, as modern as guided missiles, as far-reaching as rockets to the moon. Founded as all science must be, upon Truth which changes not, it is a new revelation of the God-Power, the Higher-Power that has always been available to man.

Know that the Spirit of God within you stands willing and ready to accept full responsibility for guiding you safely through any conflict, it says.

And it then shows you, carefully and specifically, how this is accomplished, with as definite instruction as is given in any science in any modern university.

Here is the daily, hourly ammunition to meet the threat of war, the growing nerve tensions, the shattered faith that comes from lack-of-works in an era of speed and science. Here is the ammunition with which to overcome so many of the pains, the poverty of soul and the lack of supply from which so many suffer.

We say PASS THE AMMUNITION—and this book does. I have known and worked with its authors for many years. This ammunition works. I have seen it over and over again, in my own life and that of many others.

ADELA ROGERS ST. JOHNS

1 — CREATING A BETTER TOMORROW

SOME years ago a French scientist by the name of Emile Coué came to this country with a method designed to help us use the hidden Power of the Mind. He explained how we could better our circumstances if we would repeat many times each day these words: DAY BY DAY, IN EVERY WAY, I’M GETTING BETTER AND BETTER.

Coué was unable to do much with his method in this country because, as he said, The Americans think so fast. They do not take time to consider the meaning behind their words.

However, he did bring to America a good idea, and one that is indeed worthy of our consideration.

Coué brought with him a piece of string with twenty knots evenly interspaced throughout its length, and an idea of which the string was but a symbol. His idea was simply for one to run his fingers over the knots, repeating after each one: DAY BY DAY, IN EVERY WAY, I’M GETTING BETTER AND BETTER, with the idea that if one were to do this he would develop an affirmative attitude toward life.

Coué’s piece of string was used as a technique for overcoming the negative thought patterns that are more or less set within our minds.

Before his visit to the United States, he had already experimented at Nancy, France, with several thousand patients and had achieved excellent results. The reason he insisted on the repetition of the affirmation twenty times was that he believed that AN IDEA MUST BECOME A SELF-REALIZATION before it can change our feeling in consciousness. This means that a new idea must be deeply rooted in the mind before it can be effective. IT MUST BECOME AN INNER CONVICTION rather than simply a surface suggestion. It must actually be an inward self-realization. For one to achieve these desired states of consciousness, Coué believed auto-suggestion to be essential.

In his experiments, Coué discovered that when the will and the imagination are in conflict, it is the imagination and not the will that wins. He said, The efforts we make to conquer an idea by exerting the will only serve to make that idea more powerful. This is because imagination is a thing of feeling, while the will is primarily an instrument of the intellect. Not that there is anything wrong with the will, for in a certain sense one uses the will to stimulate the imagination, but it is the imagination that is the real creative factor within us because it flows from emotion.

Furthermore, it was Coué’s belief that many of our physical troubles, as well as our undesirable circumstances, are direct results of negative thought patterns so deeply buried in the mind that they work unconsciously.

Coué’s teaching of Think you are better and you will become so was good. It was a step in the right direction of affirming one’s dominion over undesirable thought patterns. The negative thought patterns we should seek to break down and eliminate are those ideas that would make us believe with conviction that we are isolated, alone, struggling against great odds, and with little hope for success. All these negative ideas are a denial of the good we seek—the good which is rightfully ours.

There was a man in the Middle West whose thinking was certainly distorted by negative thought patterns. For years he had labored to get ahead. It had been a struggle, a battle all the way! In fact, he could not remember a month when all of his bills were paid in full!

But one Sunday while listening to a sermon by a minister, he was truly impressed by a message on the Power of the Mind. I believe what impressed him most was a sudden realization that perhaps his difficulties were an outward expression of negative convictions within himself. He had firmly believed that the dawn of each new day would present more problems and trouble.

The minister presented a spiritual technique based on the subject, Behold, I Make All Things New, and the Truth that it is done unto us as we believe; that the choice to live in fear or without fear is ours to make! That very afternoon he consulted the minister about his problems and resolved then and there to earnestly begin the process of overcoming his negative attitudes by changing his convictions about himself, his affairs, and life itself.

During the ensuing months he did not deviate from the resolutions he made that Sunday afternoon in the minister’s office. Daily he evaluated his every mental activity. Through logic, reason and spiritual awareness he was able to change his negative outlook and affirm for himself a better tomorrow. Slowly his dejected attitude changed to one of optimism, his fear to faith, his pessimism to confidence. Finally he stepped forth from the tomb of his negative habitual thought patterns into a happy, abundant and joyful way of living; one which he had previously considered to be only the dream of poets.

Now, what happened? What did he find within himself that enabled him to change and better his every circumstance? Simply this: he discovered that he had the capacity to choose a desirable idea, and by constantly affirming and believing his thought to be true, it would become a reality. In other words, he used his mind in the way God intended him to use it!

AND WHAT HE DID, YOU CAN DO ALSO!

One thing is certain about all of us! We want to live life in the most effective way—accomplish our innermost desires and be happy. All of us have participated in various avenues of education to achieve this goal. However, although education is good and necessary, it usually proves to be inadequate unless we understand the great potential which is ours to use through the mind God has given us.

To understand our mind, we must realize that learning how to think correctly is like learning how to use a set of tools. In order for them to be advantageous to us, we must learn to use them effectively.

Undoubtedly the majority of people believe their lives are governed only by their conscious thoughts. But it is now known that almost ninety percent of our reactions to life are controlled by habit patterns of thought, deeply embedded in the subconscious.

For instance, when you drive your automobile, if you see a red traffic signal you do not consciously think about applying your brake. The act of your foot applying pressure to the brake pedal is automatic. This action has been repeated so often that you no longer have to consciously think about it. In other words, a mental habit has been formed, and this habit pattern takes control of your actions as though some force or power other than yourself is in operation. The seemingly overwhelming power of the habitual negative thought pattern is illustrated by the following story.

A producer at one of our motion picture studios once asked me to talk to a young actor. The young man had passed his screen test very successfully and had been awarded a contract. However, when playing his first role in a major production, he became frightened, continually forgot his lines and finally ran from the set. The producer said, If he does not overcome his fear at once, we can no longer waste our time with him.

That evening, during my conversation with the young man, I asked, Do you really want to be an actor? Do you feel you have the talent necessary for a successful career?

Yes, I really do, he responded quickly and with sincerity.

Do you have any idea why you were able to successfully pass a screen test, but when you were in actual production you became fearful and ran from the set?

I really don’t know. I wish I did, he answered.

It was not until much later in our conference that I asked, Try to tell me what you consider to be the three most unhappy events in your life.

It was while relating the third negative experience that he caused me to be aware of the source of his unconscious fear command. He had once been in a high school play and during the climactic scene had forgotten his lines. His embarrassment had been so great he could not even hear the cues of the prompter. All he could hear was the laughter from the audience, and so he had run off the stage and out of the building. I can still hear their derisive laughter, he said bitterly.

His embarrassment had been so intense that he feigned sickness for more than a week so he would not have to face his fellow students. In fact, he dropped his course in dramatics and did not start again until his family moved to another city two years later.

The impression of the fearful moment, the embarrassing event, although in the distant past, was still an active influence in the present, defeating his heart’s desire as though some power outside himself was in command.

However, this condition was corrected by bringing forth his embedded fearful impressions and re-evaluating them in their true light. When he did this, he not only achieved dominion over the unfortunate event that had caused his difficulty, but also dominion over the fear that the incident would again repeat itself. His healing was complete and he has since risen to great heights in his profession.

This illustration indicates the possibility of how we can withhold our own good by being consciously unaware of a past circumstance that is still commanding us to be fearful and limited.

The influence of subconscious thought habits relates to every phase of our lives. Therefore, it is only reasonable to assume that we should seek an understanding of what we can do to recognize and overcome negative thought patterns within ourselves.

Crises that occur in the lives of other people often prove most helpful in achieving insight into such studies. For this reason, I would like to relate the following story.

A noted surgeon’s wife phoned me and said, I’ve gone as far as I can! I am ready to get a divorce. I am convinced that to live with someone who is causing not only myself but the children to be nervous and ill is wrong. We had quite a battle this morning and I told my husband if he did not see you at once and straighten himself out, I was going to sue for divorce.

The tone of her voice revealed that she meant every word she said. She told me how unkind her husband was; that his every word was filled with criticism, condemnation and sarcasm; even the children feared him; he had driven away all of her friends because of his rudeness. She even doubted if she loved him anymore!

An hour later, the doctor did telephone me, stating, As I am a doctor of medicine, I am sure you know that I understand the situation at home perfectly. My wife is very neurotic! She thinks I am cruel and deliberately causing her to suffer, which of course is not true. However, this morning she said that she would divorce me at once if I didn’t talk to you about myself. You will agree, I’m sure, this is unnecessary. I’d appreciate it if you would call her and tell her that we have talked about the situation; that in your opinion she is exaggerating the whole problem. I feel you should tell her that she is the one in need of help.

But I can’t say we’ve talked about your situation when we haven’t, I replied. Perhaps you are the one who needs the help. Why don’t you stop by my office so we can adequately discuss the problem?

He rebelled, but finally agreed to a short conference.

It was noon when he came to my office. He was a handsome man and undoubtedly very capable, but was visibly agitated, nervous and unhappy.

I can’t stay long, he said. All that is necessary is for you to call my wife. Tell her that I personally talked to you and that you feel everything will be all right if she will co-operate. You see, I, being a doctor, have much on my mind and am under constant pressure. All I ask is for her and the children to understand this and provide peace and quiet when I’m at home. I do believe she should be told she is wrong about her accusations of me. Her trouble is imaginary.

He had already started to leave when I said, Just a moment! I would like to satisfy myself on a point or two. Your wife told me that practically every word you say is negative and sarcastic. She also stated that this condition exists not only in your home, but in your office, as well. Is it true that your staff is constantly being replaced? They either quit in a few weeks or you fire them?

No one could speak more kindly than I do to my wife and children. As for the office, my wife doesn’t understand that employees these days are only interested in big money and short hours. However, the problems at the office aren’t any of her business!

You really don’t feel you’re at fault in any way, do you? I said, after studying his words and attitude carefully.

I know I’m not! My wife is simply one of those women who loves to complain about everything.

Then I’m sure you won’t mind joining me in an experiment to find out if what you say is really true. First, I want you to buy a package of dried beans. Then, when you return to your office, call in your staff and tell them you’ve heard reports that your words are unkind, that your manner is negative and displeasing. Tell them that for the next few days you’re going to give them a chance to prove these accusations. Tell them that every time they hear you say something unkind or sarcastic, to call it to your attention and you will put a dried bean in a bowl on your desk.

Ridiculous! he retorted. After all, they’re my employees and I must demand their respect. Such an experiment with beans is preposterous—childish!

No, it isn’t! Perhaps the experiment will prove that what you have said about yourself is true. If you are willing to co-operate, I will gladly call your wife.

The doctor was reluctant, but due to his wife’s threat of immediate separation he finally agreed. Upon leaving my office he promised to report the progress of the experiment within the next day or two. But that very afternoon he called me at four o’clock and said, My bean pot’s running over! He was laughing as he said, I can’t even open my mouth without having to put a bean in the pot!

Then he became serious. "Thank you for teaching me a great lesson. I was sincere when I told you that my words were always kind and tolerant. I thought they were, until this afternoon. But the beans speak for themselves! I can

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