The psychology of Christ

Author's Preface

As the world of Literature is full of Physiological Psychologies — that is, Psychology built upon Physiology — or conclusions reached from physiological causes ; it is my purpose in this little volume to present a Science of the Soul, from the light of psychic phenomena.

Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel drank from the well of truth for themselves and the world.

Aristotle, Leibnitz and Froebel all psychologists — ^yet Froebel is the first to throw the search-light of mental noumena upon the teachings of Christ — the one great Master Teacher of the soul. " I came that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly," the abundant life — is the life of the soul — the soul in light, or the knowing, — or science of the soul.

Lansdowne, Pa.

Contents

CHAPTER page:

I. The Wii.1. and Its DeveIvOpment - 7

III. Soul; What it is and How Known or

Chapter I. Thb Will And Its Dbvblopmbnt

♦f^ NOW thyself. " Behold a sower went forth to ll\ sow; some seeds fell upon good ground and brought forth fruit ; some an hundred-fold, some sixtyfold, some thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear let him hear."

The will of man is the seed of God, the great gift of God to His children, the Divine inheritance — the gift that is wholly ours; giving us fullness of separateness yet, seed of the Father God; the germ of individual creativity and at the same time personal power. When the little child for the first time says, '' I will," or " I will not," that seed has germinated in him. I, as willf stands a separate entity upon the earth. I as will, am an actor, a creator, a doer. I (as will) am — live^ — ^have my being. I, as will, touch or can touch or act upon Divinity as well as a physical organism and physical world. I must (in order to be will) attend, choose and act; that is, I, as will, must concentrate or focus^ — must discriminate and create.

Can the little child do this ? is the question asked again and again. I answer, " Watch the child who is wisely let grow;" and the meaning of Christ's words will be clear to all, " Except ye become as a little child, ye cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." Who hath faith like that of the Httle child? Faith is will; directed will — the attention of will and the concentration as well as the choice.

In the healing of lepers, only one will returned to give glory, and to that one Christ said, " Thy faith hath made thee whole." It was his will in its three-fold activity that made for wholeness, and this perfect action of will is found more readily in the little unperverted child, than in the adult. To every one is given a talent. That talent is his will — to wrap in a napkin, to fold away in self -inactivity by being dominated by another's will, or blindly and idly following the lead of another fellowbeing ; or, to be set forth in fullest self-activity ; to be invested, flashed out into the world and into Heaven by the self; thereby increasing the talent or will a hundred-fold.

" By their fruits ye shall know them, the fruits grown by the use of will — ^and recognized elsewhere by the name of their quality of being.

Our Psychologists to-day, tell us that self underlies mental phenomena, in fact, causes them that the self which creates an idea is subject, but the self that perceives itself rejoicing, is object.

The self then is both subject and object. The I, looks without and gains a knowledge of the outside world — and the I, looks within, gaining a knowledge of self. What is the I? What is the self that does thus and so? And while it is easy to understand the look without — where do we look within, and by what can we as readily understand the within or self as subject?

I, as will, am the cause of mental phenomena — " Be ye therefore a doer of the word, and not a hearer only." If by mental phenomena is understood acts

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of mind as projected by will, then we know that will in that sense, is the cause, as will is a doer and not only a hearer. The will that intends and puts forth is the subject, and that power which called upon its servants of the body or its physical allies to do the act, is object. We can readily see by this process how will looks out from self as put forth into the world through and by physical activities. The whole weight of Christ's teachings rested upon two of the smallest words in the English language — "do " and " be ;" yet they are the two words that stand most emphatically for the definition or explanation of Will. In all fullness he. To the fullest extent do. The I, or will, looks within also. Within what? — Body? No. Within where? — Brain? No. Heart? No. Soul? No — for man hath not yet found his soul, where it is, or what it is. Where then does the self-look, when it looks within, and from whence does it get that from which it chooses, and acts or puts forth from itself into the world? Christ tells us — by His every act of introspection, by every prayer, by every miracle, by every lesson taught. Within the kingdom of heaven or only within the gate of memory; back into the avenues of past time, or forward into the kingdom of God. If by looking within the gate or avenues of memory we will be enabled to create a psychology, it will only be a psychology that stands for self as object, and not soul self, or self as subject.

Knowledge of will in its fullest operation is, therefore, a key to Divine nature, as well as all nature, human and physical ; but to know will is to develop it, to increase that talent, to multiply it an hundred fold. And even then, we will only begin to create psychology-

We are told by many educators that youth is the

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time to explore the self world. Yet, if we know anything about the child, we have been led day by day into the depths and heights of psychologic problems by the questions, wonder and investigations of the little one only two years of age. " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength."

Because the precious springtime of life has been wasted; because darkness has been allowed to cover the face of the deep ; because adult man has refused to look with the eyes of the little child's soul into the kingdom, the great majority of us know no will but the objective will, no self but the intellectual self, no soul but that created by the objective life and activity of body.

The third year in high school, second year in the normal school, and second year in college, are the years given to the study of elementary psychology. If all the precious flashlights of soul are lost sight of up to this period, how great indeed is the darkness through which their wills must grope to find themselves. The student looks at his text-book and exclaims : " I, self, mind, soul are easy terms, and I will soon absorb this subject." Ah, yes, well for him that he uses the term "absorb;" he may be able to absorb the thoughts of another as the written word of his text-book, but ask him from his whole life experience from infancy to define the I, self, mind, and soul. And how many will be ready to lift the veil of the temple and show the clear vision beyond it? The child is supposed to study material things while the youth studies self.

In truth, the cases are generally reversed. The child is studying objective things that he may understand them by his subjectivity. "Suffer the children to come unto me" — the little children. " Suffer, (that is allow) them and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." We adults with our superior knowledge do forbid them continually to go to the within of Christ's kingdom. We forbid them in the home, in the school, yes, even in the Sunday-school.

When Christ was asked who He was. His answer was purely psychologic — " I am that, I am." " I am the will of my Father. " I and my Father are one — I in Him and He in me, " was His oft-repeated psychologic truth.

Pure psychology states that the will is the developed self, rather let us consider it the developer of self or soul. It is the one point of departure for all education, all that is psychic is the true development of will; yet, how universal is the belief that the only development of will is in animal force, or subordination to the brute force of another will.

A short time ago, a father took his little three year old daughter to a kindergarten. In leaving her to the care of a wise kindergartner, he said : " If you break my child's will, that will be all I want you to do." This is only one instance with the great majority of parents, whose sole responsibility in parenthood rests in the training of their children to blind dark obedience, to their darker commands of will — will that has come through blind obedience to the powers of darkness.

The perversion, misuse, misdirection and positive disuse of the great God-given talent is the whole cause of all the evil that is rife in the world to-day. The innumerable prisons filled with criminals, almshouses, asylums both for the insane and the destitute. Talents folded away in darkness.

If such disuse of our great Divine inheritance brings about such dire results, why not proclaim the truth

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from the very housetops, if need be. Send the flashlight of the gospel of Christ, the psychology of Christ's teaching, into the homes, schools, institutions of all kinds, even into the churches. Yet you say, " The physician, teacher, and minister study medicine, pedagogy, and theology in the light of and side by side with psychology." True, but is it the psychology of the individual, or of the personal v^riH? The developing will, or the stagnant will?

How shall we bring about this great evolutionary revolution? Christ said: "Ye are the sons of God, and if sons, then heirs, joint heir with Christ." But we have not Avilled it so; that is, we have accepted it in a far-off sense of appropriation, as of something showered upon us. But have we willed it so, have we by action of will so intended, so chosen, so acted upon it that our wills can do even greater things than Christ did? Not greater ,thmgs than Christ could do, but greater than He did ; because in the darkness of the wills of men at that time Christ co\ild only do what they could understand.

Development, will, evolution must be our means of procedure if we would bring into the world the men and women who will make for psychologic truth — " the truth that shall make us free," free from the chains of darkness, ignorance, spiritual inactivity, sin.

Wise kindergartners are working in the light of this truth with the little ones, whose wills are divine messengers, who come to them in the light and truth of the Christ Child. But there are those even in the child-garden world who are, to themselves and to the child, trainers, teachers, commanders of little physical armies, that are marched and drilled, by orders and commands, from the great program regime, until the wills, the God-ordained priests of the earth, are shrivelled and dwarfed into nothingness by the incessant drumming of the letter of the law, upon the true self, until there is nothing left but many stereotyped repeats of the pattern set before them.

The world is thus filled with chaff, little wonder that God seems so far ofif that men must lift up their voices and shout to Him.

" The veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." Ah, yes, rent, but how few saw then its meaning or behind the veil, and how few there are to-day who see behind the veil which is the flesh, the material, the physical world.

It is behind and beyond the veil that we find Christ in His miracles, in His sermons, His prayers, blessings, and crucifixion. The whole life of Christ's will was beyond the veil of the flesh, into the kingdom of the Father. Because it was so, the Mother Mary questioned, wondered, and pondered all His acts in her heart, even when He was a tiny child. At the age of twelve. His will was in action behind the veil when in the Temple He astonished the learned doctors and elders. It was behind the veil that made the multitudes marvel at His wonderful miracles, and for the same reason made the disciples say : " Why speakest thou to us in parables and speakest not plainly?"

Christ's will was the developed self. Can we then truly say, as some of our psychologists of to-day say, "The youth and man is the developed self?" No, not until man as will is grown into the image of Christ into the likeness of the heavenly; then we will have selfhood, or the developed will.

The inner world of God as known by the terms mental powers, intellect, feelings, and will are tools, machinery, doers through which mind works ; or is set at liberty in matter world, these three cog-wheels are

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so interlocked in connective activity as to be really one action — making order or means for mind activity.

Mental power, intellect, feeling and will are commonly separated into groups, as perception, representative thought, sensation and emotions, attention, choice and action. In reality, all three are one effort making capability ; will enters into it all, is the motive of all, and the motor of all. " I can do all things through and by the same power that strengthened the will of Christ." The Old Testament adumbrates the psychology of Christ. All through the books of the Bible are types of the coming will of Christ.

Attention, choice and action may be objective, may be put out upon material or physical, and develop intellect, feeling and sense-will, while intention, choice and action will be subjective and develop wisdom, emotion and psychic will or self. Our psychologic development, our intellectual growth, depends entirely upon us (as will, subjected or projected).

" I and my Father are one," " I come to do Thy will, oh, my God." " Not my will, but Thine be done." " And I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." What is judgment but intention and wise discrimination? And this is obtained only in His kingdom, at His table. You remember where Christ said, " I have meat and drink that ye know not of." And again, " Settle it, therefore, in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer [that is, do not manufacture in thought], for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to gainsay nor resist." For the kingdom of God is in power. " If any man lack wisdom let him intend his will to God, that giveth liberally to all who ask without wavering — " That is, the whole will concentrated within the veil of the temple. In every case where Christ healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk and the deaf hear. He said first to them, "What is thy will?" What wilt thou have me to do? And because the whole self, the whole will, was intent, was subjective, was centered within the kingdom or power of Christ.

The answer came, the immediate result was restoration, a fulfilling of the will, therefore, a growth and development of will. " All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will, in no wise cast out" " And this is the will of the Father, that every one that believeth on the Son may have everlasting life and, I will raise him up at the last day." " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all else shall be added unto you, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."

We, as will, must seek, must direct toward the holy of holies. This is the first requirement of will — we must enter into communion, to receive food from the kingdom; then we accept or choose it and this is the second place of will. Finally, we co-operate or do His will. We have individually put this personal will into action and have then done the will of the Father. " Except ye do my will, ye have no inheritance of eternal life." This do, and ye shall live. '' My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and do it."

Where do we hear the word or will of God? From the teacher, the pulpit, the Bible? Yes, indirectly; but primarily we hear it within the temple of God, where God indeed dwells, and that is within every will-power to enter into — within the immediate reach

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of each co-operative will. Not my will as separated from Thine, but my will as operated by and co-operative with Thy will, oh, my Father. Henley has most beautifully said :

" It matters not how straight the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll ; I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul."

I as will, my will, is the master of my fate. My will is the captain, the motorman, the creator of my soul. The machinery or loom of life weaves the fabric of soul, as Mary Vaughan has so beautifully expressed it:

" In the loom of life we weave each day On the warp of circumstance The colors grave, and the colors gay. However the threads may chance.

" But the web is ours to make or mar, And the pattern we may choose; We may make the fabric strong and fair And blend as we will, the hues.

" The glint of gold from our happy days, May shine through the sombre shades And love's warm gleams like the morning rays Add beauty that never fades.

" When the Master Workman judges at last. May He find our weaving good, The texture fine and the colors fast, And His purpose understood."

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This is one of the most perfect pictures of the true action of will, with its color scheme so perfectly blended — will drawn upon a canvas, as it were, we may choose the pattern, we may weave as we please; in this choice, in this individuality, we see the Fatherhood of God; but to make the fabric perfect, lasting, beautiful and fit for His kingdom through all the warp and woof of it, His purpose fnust be understood. Think, if you can, of the power within you to make or create mothers, sisters, and brothers of Christ. He saith, ''Whosoever shall do the will of the Father, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother." In every act we will find the light of truth ; we will then in deed magnify the Lord, not in words, for that is lip service; but magnify Him in deeds, in creations, in souls, that He will gather as jewels for His kingdom.

The action of will in its three-fold power giveth us mastery, possession, power to surmount, to rise or fall. Concentrate the self upon any point until choice is made and activity put upon that choice, then you have mastered ; all things are yours in this mastery — your will has gained the victory. By my will I can possess heaven or hell. I can be heaven or hell. I can create heaven or hell. All depends upon my choice, upon the determination of the self as will. Not the self determination of soul, but will ; choice is an act of will, not soul. This, then, is the one point of departure for education, for educational psychology, and for theology, as applied to the education of man. So soon as the child finds the I, so soon as he recognizes himself as an individual entity, then for him his education or self-evolution begins. We can prepare the way before him. We can be as St. John, as a voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare

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ye the way of the Lord," or we can be workers of iniquity, creating an easy path for his choice to fall upon.

When the little child first finds himself as will, that self knows the good from the evil, it does not have to be explained to him, he is fully a conscious entity; he has access to two worlds — the world of mind and of matter, or the realms of the positive and negative. The positive is the good, the negative its opposite. After the foundation of the child's life is laid — after his conception, birth and first three years — yes, after his first twelve months — no one can be his will. He may be dominated, coerced into this or that action, his will remains in the same condition : the only action that is evolutionary must be voluntary. By voluntary action of the arm, eye, any member, it becomes stronger in action. So with will; only self-activity alone is of any value.

The office of a teacher is supposed to be that of leader — to lead the child, and to instruct him. Christ reverses this thought, and says, " A little child shall lead them." Much of the leading and instruction is perversion, coercion, obstruction, and construction of such architecture as we will never find in God's kingdom. We are told by many of our psychologists of sense that " the child is led, but man is a leader." True, but the child that is led will not lead himself.

Can we, dare we, say, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ His Son, and in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life," and also confess and accept what is printed in many of our textbooks, that the child is largely a thing of sense until the teacher makes him a thing of self? Man, then, is the life-giver of will ? Ah, no, the psychology of Christ gives an entirely different version. " The little child

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is greatest in the kingdom." The unperverted, unspoiled child is greatest in the possession of the kingdom of heaven. He draws his life, his food, his inner or will sight from heaven itself. " Yes," you say, " but the teacher and preacher can instil into the child high ideals." Never! to be an ideal for him it must be created by him; that is, it must be born of his will, otherwise, it is only an idea.

By education of choice is meant the development of the power of will discrimination ; to separate this from that, to fix upon and make its own, what will has placed itself into or upon as attention, or intention. This repeated self-discrimination is recognized as self-control, self-mastery (mastery by self), decision, positivity. The will, cultured by choice, becomes more and more active, and this activity builds character, is the character-growing process. Self as will or will as self has for its servants the entire mechanism of the body, which includes brain and the marvelous neurological system, as well as command of that which is beyond the veil of the flesh and material universe. " In all thy getting, get wisdom." If the will utilized only the body, and that which is material for its determinations or discriminating choices, it would then get only knowledge; but to compare, analyze, to weigh and unify the material with the spiritual will bring the wisdom which nothing can gainsay.

Self-determination in the light of reason alone will never bring wisdom. Subject feeling to reason and the kingdom of heaven is lost. This is what is done ninety-nine times out of every hundred to the little child, by arbitrary rule, adult interference, corporal punishment, discipline (laws enforced by others), and school regime.

Who then shall determine? Each individual will.

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We confess this necessity every time the will of each individual utters the psychologic clause of the Lord's prayer. " Thy kingdom come." We say it, confess it with the lips, but will it not; and unless we will it, we do not believe it. So called faith without works is dead. We must choose that which is the kingdom of Christ and of God. Choose, and act upon it, otherwise there is death. Our wills are of the earth, earthy. Wrapped in materialism is our talent, hidden away from the light of truth, inactive in the true sense in the abundant life, the life that Christ came to give, to teach and to live.

Some of our teachers tell us that, before choice is cultured in the child, he is hesitating, vacillating, unreliable. What has made the child such a seedling of criminality? For such he must be, if all these weeds have grown in the place where truth, beauty, and goodness should shine forth, perpetuating the lie from year to year, from generation to generation ; Christians in word, but not in deed and in truth.

The conclusion is that education of the will makes for truth and righteousness. Non-education of each seed of God, each talent given to the world, each expression of the Father, each individual and personal will not unfolded in true unity — these make for sin.

Is there sin in the world? Is there evidence all about us that Christ is risen, in each heart of man? Does the culture of reason — or will by reason — make Christ in evidence everywhere? The growth of choice makes character, but what quality of character? Choice can be , grown on the physical and material plane alone, and this grows characters, such as we find the reflex of in prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, in cheats, thieves, liars, misers, and every

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phase of darkness that is glaring at us from society and the world of business.

What other than this culture of will was practised by the money changer in the Temple whom Christ drove out with whip-cords? Such wills cannot even enter the kingdom. " Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven — but, he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Professor Baldwin tells us that purposes reach into eternity. Christ says, " Acts alone reach into the eternal, except ye do the will." To purpose is to attend ; much of will rests in the attention or intention, and is never determined upon and put into action ; and the purposes thus acted upon make for character up or down,, for the rise or fall of the soul.

Christ's mission upon earth was to show by living, by action, by example, the education of will in truth and light; and in leaving the physical presence of men to send the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, to all who believed in truth, that is, to all who entered into action with His life ; and them He would draw unto Himself, " that where he was, there they should be also." Two thousand years since this psychologic truth was given to the world ; and to-day the paramount thought and understanding of education is the culture of the intellect or development of brain power, and the accumulation of knowledge.

The cry goes forth to-day as it was wrung from the lips of Christ so long ago. " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered thy children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not!" Let us begin again — be born again. Christ said, " Ye must be born again, born of the spirit, becoming in will as a little child who is not per-

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verted." A true child of the kingdom entering into the holy of holies, with all intention; choosing and assimilating from that world the things of self and acting upon such determination. We will then magnify the Lord ; we will increase the talent an hundred-fold; we will keep in action the Commandments. We will pray the Lord's prayer; we will be wise; we will live and have the abundant life; and we will begin to know what self as soul will be, because we know what self as will is — the Divine inheritance, the gift from and of God the Father. The talent for our use. The means of communion with heaven. This is self as will and will as self.