Introduction To Huna Part 1

Max Freedom Long.

INTRODUCTION TO HUNA.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE INVESTIGATION OF HUNA AND HOW IT CAME ABOUT.

During the past century investigations have been made of native magic in Africa, India and other parts of the world. Spiritualistic phenomena have been, certified as genuine and studied painstakingly by over a hundred recognized scientists. Religions have been surveyed and the instant or nearly instant miraculous healing at Lourdes verified.

But from all these studies and efforts there has come nothing faintly resembling a definite basic system, philosophy, theory, or psycho-religious science which would explain, even in the most general terms, the phenomena of the various fields. In fact, investigations in these fields began to arrive at a stalemate several years ago. New discoveries have been conspicuously lacking.

Meanwhile, in the years following 1880, in the little noticed field of Polynesia, there was begun an investigation which, after seventy years, has at last produced a general theory that promises to break the stalemate and provide answers for a host of puzzling questions.

This investigation was begun by Dr. William Tufts Brigham*, long curator of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. In Hawaii there were, up to about 1900, many kahunas, or native priests, who, although outlawed, worked among their fellow Hawaiians as healers of body and purse, or used the dread "death prayers". Some fire-walked over lava overflows which were cooled barely enough to bear their weight. A few demonstrated instant healing, and the young scientist was fortunate enough to be able to observe and study a case in which a lad, dead from drowning for sixteen hours, was brought back to life through a use of native magic.*See Who's Who in America, 1922-23.

After fire-walking himself under the protection of the kahunas, and verifying the healing and other phenomena which they produced, Dr. Brigham came to the conclusion that behind these and similar activities there must be a single basic scientific system, like a string upon which the beads of religion, psychic phenomena, psychology and native magic were strung. He redoubled his effort to discover this system.

The kahunas, (the word means "keeper of the Secret") had a strict cult of secrecy. They would tell him very little about their lore. What little they did tell was so unfamiliar and so muddled, because of the use of unintelligible Hawaiian words, that he could make almost nothing of it. The anaana form of the "death prayer", however, was studied and partly explained in terms of spiritism.

In the year 1919 I went to Dr. Brigham to ask what scientific information might be available concerning the activities of the kahunas, of whom I had heard many wild tales during my three years in the Islands. A friends.h.i.+p developed, and I was invited to make use of all the materials which he had a.s.sembled, and to continue the study if I could.

I was trained in the matter of correct scientific approach to this unfamiliar field and its materials. I had many cases of kahuna healing and other activities described in great detail for my benefit, and discussed these cases with my mentor in the light of what was known in the psycho-sciences at that time - which was very nearly as much as is known in these stalemated days.

Upon one set of conclusions, Dr. Brigham was insistent: 1. That there must be some form, or monad or ent.i.ty of consciousness which was in man or without him, and which the kahunas were able to contact through ceremonial or prayer. 2.:This unidentified consciousness could use an unidentified force in such a way as to control temperature in fire-walking or make changes in physical matter in instant healing.

As these conclusions pointed inevitably to a basic system of a psycho-religious nature, it was necessary to decide that there was much still remaining to be discovered in the new science of Psychology, and much to be explained in the phenomena of Psychic Science.

In the absence of even the slightest clue to what these things might be, I would certainly have refused to take part in such a hopeless investigation had it not been for one outstanding fact. This was the fact that this secret and mysterious basic system was not a matter of empty words and theorizing. IT WORKED. It was alive and kicking, even if in its death struggle. Dr. Brigham had been suspiciously careful in verifying the materials of the investigation. I had already verified some lesser things (and was soon to verify some most important accomplishments of the kahunas).

The thing could not be ignored. There was something right there under our very noses which WORKED, and even though it evaded our grasp, it seemed inconceivable that, with modern science so far advanced, we should not ultimately get to the bottom of the mystery.

A few years later, Dr. Brigham died at a ripe old age, much honored, but still with a burning curiosity unsatisfied. I continued the work, collecting more materials in the field, watching for any new development in the psycho-sciences which might give me a clue to the "Secret" of the kahunas, and going absurdly far afield at times hoping to find a glimmer of light on the baffling problems.

Finally, by 1935, new clues had been discovered which led directly to the basic system. In due time it was possible to explain in fairly general terms a part of the basic theory and its methods of application. It was the ancient "Secret" of Huna, of the kahunas.

The new clues came largely through a study of the meanings of the roots of the Hawaiian words.

By the summer of 1935 sufficient progress had been made toward understanding the ancient lore that a report seemed in order.

I wrote this report and it was published in 1936, in London, by Rider, under the t.i.tle of RECOVERING THE ANCIENT MAGIC. The study and its materials were described and tentative conclusions given. a.s.sistance was asked from any reader of the report who might have knowledge of this or related fields or of similar materials.

One reader was W. R. Stewart, retired newspaper correspondent, living in England. He had been engaged in his youth in an effort to learn native magic from an isolated Berber tribe in the Atlas Mountains in North Africa. There he had studied beliefs and practices which, years later, upon reading the report, he saw stemmed from the same original source. The words used in naming the elements in the Berber version of the system had been said to belong to a secret priestly language, but, upon comparison to similar Hawaiian words, proved to be identical except for slight changes which may be ascribed to the differences in dialect. Such language differences are found among the eleven Polynesian tribal branches in the Pacific. The common language of the Berber tribe was a degraded Turki.

Stewart joined the investigation, which bythattime, 1937, had reached an advanced stage. He added his findings and contributed in many other ways. Unfortunately his death in 1943 robbed the work of his aid, but, when War II ended, the basic system was deemed to have been developed as far as would be possible until it could be put to the acid test of practical use.

Efforts to apply the basic system and duplicate the most valued parts of kahuna practice, are expected to correct errors and to make possible the further perfecting of the system.

To this end experimental groups are forming (late in 1945) in Los Angeles, with other groups to be formed in Australia and England.

While this outline report of the investigation is intended as a partial text for the use of experimental groups, it will also be made available to the public.

A much fuller and more detailed account of the long investigation is planned when the last stage - the experimental stage - has added its quota.

CHAPTER TWO.

FROM FIRE WALKING TO INSTANT HEALING.

Fire-walking (including all fire-immunity) and instant healing make very good starting points for an explanation of the ancient Polynesian orpre-Egyptian lore called "The Secret", or, in Hawaiian, Huna.

There is nothing at all mysterious in bare feet or in glowing coals, hot stones or hot lava flows. There is nothing mysterious in a broken bone or a cancer. Our materials are open to examination. The feet may be examined after contact with the fire in fire-walks. The broken bone or the cancerous tissue which has been instantly healed remains simple bone and tissue.

Let us first consider a few cases of fire-walking, keeping in mind two questions, (1) What G.o.d is prayed to for fire-immunity, and (2) what form of "purification from sin", if any, is necessary before one can fire-walk?

FIRE-WALKING CASES FOR CONSIDERATION.

Kuda Bux fire-walked in 1936 before the University of London Council for Psychical Research. He waTs a native of India, of the Mohammedan faith. Before his demonstration he closed his eyes, raised a hand, and recited a prayer from the Koran.

In Burma, where a gentleman took motion pictures of ma.s.s fire-walking in which some natives were badly burned but many were unscathed, years of fasting and other purifying practices were the preparation for the feat.***PUBLISHER'S NOTE: On Friday, March 7, 1975 Vernon Craig of Booster, Ohio established a world record for fire walking at the Phoenix Psychic Seminar, Phoenix, Arizona. Official temperatures sampled at three locations averaged 1,220 degrees Fahrenheit in a 20 foot pit of glowing wood coals. Better known as KOMAR, Craig holds numerous world records for his feats.

In the Philippines the Igorotes have for centuries done admirable fire-walking. A group of them came to Seattle and performed almost daily at a fair. These people used to be famous for head hunting as well as fire-walking.

In Polynesia, fire-walking is done after offering a ritual prayer to a "native G.o.d". Dr. Hill, of the University of Southern California reports seeing a young white man try to fire-walk on the same hot stones after the natives were finished. He prayed to his G.o.d, concentrated his thoughts, and started across. A dog fight broke out beside the pit and distracted his attention for a moment. In that moment he jerked up a foot, which later showed a large blister, but continued the fire-walk successfully to the end.

A white man who is a professional entertainer eats live coals, drinks down boiling water, grips red-hot iron bars in his teeth and bends the ends up and down, also lets the iron-cutting flame of a welding torch play repeatedly on the inside of his mouth and throat. He says he is conscious of an invisible ent.i.ty or spirit presiding over fire, and that he makes request for protection which is instantly granted.

At Palm Springs a few years ago a desert Indian lad took large coals from a fire and held them in his hands, holding them out to tourists in the audience and challenging them to take the coals offered them.

Little is known of the preparations made by the fire-handlers of Indian tribes, but they also have their prayers, rites and G.o.ds.

In Hawaii, up to the year 1900, fire-walking was done on overflows of molten lava as soon as they were cooled sufficiently to hold the weight of large stones thrown on them. Dr. Brigham fire-walked successfully over such a lava bed under the protection of three native priests or kahunas. He refused to remove his heavy boots and during the pa.s.sage over the lava these were burned from his feet, as were his two pairs of heavy socks. These natives prayed to some G.o.d, but Dr. Brigham could not learn about its nature. Outwardly it was the 'G.o.ddess of the volcanoes, Pele, about whom native legends continue to collect even today.

If instant healing had been known only in Hawaii, no matter how carefully it had been studied and verified there by Dr. Brigham and others, there might be some excuse for those who make a flat denial of such a possibility. But, since another and far better known scientist, Dr. Alexis Carrel, has added his verification in his book, MAN, THE UNKNOWN, there is no longer justification for any denial of the basic fact that instant healing is possible. It was brought about in Hawaii by the kahunas and is still being brought about by mysterious agencies at sacred shrines in various parts of the world.

As all roads once led to Rome, so all indications point to the existence of one basic system behind this phenomenon, and to the undeniable fact that it is a workable system.

Instant healing cannot be repeated over and over on the same broken bone or cancer, therefore the patient has no chance to become practiced in his part, as does the fire-walker for whom the G.o.ds perform a similar magic, over and over, upon request. Instant healing, while similar in its mechanisms, is rare. It is best studied in cases in which a definite part of the body is healed. Casual ills may be suspected of just happening to disappear of their own accord.

CASES OF INSTANT HEALING FOR CONSIDERATION.

The best instances of instant or miraculous healing have been verified and studied at the shrine at Lourdes, France. Typical cases are those of the healing of spinal deformities or cancerous tissues. The healing may be instant or may take up to three days. Prayer has usually been addressed to G.o.d or Christ or the patron saint of the shrine. The person healed may not be praying for his or her own healing at the time, but someone in the vicinity is thought to be always at prayer at the instant of healing. Various preparations by way of "purification from sin" are made by the patients as a rule.

In Hawaii the kahunas healed instantly in some cases. Dr. Brigham observed two cases of instant healing. Broken bones were roughly set and a muttered prayer made. The patient was then declared healed and immediately could use the injured limb. J. A. K. Combs of Honolulu, observed the use of similar methods when his wife's kahuna grandmother healed a compound fracture of the ankle in this way. The patient was a native man, very kindly and well liked, but very drunk at the time of the injury and during the healing, which was accomplished within a few minutes of the accident. (He had stepped from a standing automobile into a ditch filled with very soft sand.) In the Hawaiian cases there was sometimes instant healing accomplished with no preparation of the patient, although in cases of long-standing illness rites of purification were almost always used as a preliminary.

We may sum up by saying that no particular "G.o.d" has to be prayed to. No particular religious beliefs are needed. The ideas of what makes a "sin" may vary, as may the degrees of effort to gain purification. In some instances purification is not necessary. Also, mortal values are a matter of geography as seen in the case of the head hunting fire-walkers.

While we are not ready just yet to go into the matter of "purification from sin", it may be noted that the only "sin" recognized by Huna is that of hurting another unjustly. The kindly Hawaiian had imbibed too freely at the beach party but had hurt no one and was not found in need of purification.

The healings accredited to Jesus are not at all incredible in the light of Huna. Sometimes he forgave the sins of the ones about to be healed and sometimes he did not.

THE THREE THINGS NECESSARY TO INSTANT HEALING.

Three things are involved in the mechanism of instant healing and fire-walking as described in Huna.

1. Some intelligence wise enough to bring about the healing or temperature changes when requested to do so.

2. Some force or power to be used in making the changes.

3. The substances which are changed in the healing process. Also the substances which are involved in the making and offering of the prayer.

The three are the basic triad: Mind-Force-Matter. There are nine elements in man, in the Huna system, with the human physical body to make a tenth. MIND IS DIVIDED INTO A TRIAD OF THREE GRADES OF CONSCIOUSNESS. FORCE IS DIVIDED INTO A TRIAD OF THREE VOLTAGES OF FORCE. MATTER IS DIVIDED INTO A TRIAD OF THREE DENSITIES OF A CERTAIN KIND OF THIN MATTER. The concept is simple and well ordered.

SECTION I. THE ELEMENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

We cannot use an effort of will or even hypnotic suggestion to the subconscious to cause fire-immunity or instant healing, so we must look for a Higher Consciousness which is wiser and more powerful than we are. Immediately we think of G.o.d.

But this answer needs more understanding of the nature of G.o.d than most of us possess. Let us examine the G.o.d-concept of the reconstructed HUNA.

We begin with the idea that our minds are unable to grasp the true nature of G.o.d. The ancient kahunas said He was a triune being and that between Him and man were several grades of Conscious Beings. The grade of beings just a step above man were so difficult to imagine and understand that efforts to understand still higher levels were given up as hopeless. It was thought that, if mankind needed to have contact with the still higher levels, the closer G.o.ds would see to it that the higher G.o.ds were properly approached. That simplifies matters greatly. Now we can consider what has been learned about the beings in the level just above ours. By this we mean beings able to use a form of thinking or mentation next in line of superiority to ours.

SEEING INTO THE FUTURE is something we can try to do hours on end and fail to do. Our hypnotized subjects cannot do it upon order. But often the future is glimpsed by hypnotized subjects, by normal waking persons or in our dreams. Seeing into the future is not our ability; it is an ability of the G.o.d just above us. It has some mysterious way of seeing into the future, and it gives us our premonitions, dreams and visions at unpredictable times, never directly to the conscious mind, but by way of the subconscious. (These two parts of mind are not permanently united but are separate ent.i.ties, as we shall see in due time.) MAKING THE FUTURE is another activity a.s.signed to the Conscious Beings just above our level. The ancients called these Beings the Aumakuas. In psychology we may call them the Superconscious. A good term is Higher Self. Considered as a combined community of spirits or ent.i.ties, they can be our Christ Consciousness or Universal Mind. (Man is a trinity composed of three "selves" or spirits, the subconscious self, the conscious self and the superconscious self.) The FUTURE is seen in Huna to be constructed by the Higher Self. It lays out the main points in the life of the individual of which it is a part. But the day-to-day future is built by taking the thoughts, hopes, fears and plans of the lower two selves, the subconscious and conscious, and using them as figurative "seeds" from which to grow the events of our tomorrows. We have FREE WILL in so far as we are allowed to think what we will, get into trouble, and do quite as we please in furnis.h.i.+ng the materials which go (as if automatically) to make our future conditions and life events. This answers the problem of free will and predestination. Except for the determination of the long-term events of our lives, such as birth and race and place, we exercise free will.

INSTANT HEALING is obtained by deciding that we want a future in which we are not ill but healed. If we ask the High Self to heal a broken bone instantly, and it is done, we can say that the High Self changed the future instantly for us in so far as having a broken bone is concerned. We may say the same of fire-walking. There are other things involved in such matters, of course, but the point to be made here is that we, as FREE AGENTS, must decide what we want, and hold that decision, as the initial step in getting help from the High Self. (This applies to the HEALING OF PURSE AND CIRc.u.mSTANCES ALSO- a branch of healing even more important than bodily healing.) THE FORM OF MENTATION used by the High Self includes ability to see that part of the future WHICH HAS BEEN CRYSTALLIZED OR BUILT for nation or man. There is much of the future of the individual created from day to day and changed from day to day as we change our plans and thoughts, so the UN-CRYSTALLIZED or un-built part of the future cannot be seen. The past can be seen. Things at a distance can be seen. The High Self seems not to be hampered by what we call "reason" or "memory", which are the forms of mentation used by the low and middle selves (subconscious and conscious). We, as middle or conscious-mind selves, cannot understand a form of mentation higher than our own. We can only observe the things the High Self is able to do with its superior form of thinking ability, then draw what conclusions we may. G.o.d is unknowable to us. The High Self can be known in part. It is much like the relation between a man and his dog. The man looks after the dog and plans the "musts" in the dog's life and activities. But the dog can do as he pleases for the most part. He may get into trouble, and then, if he is smart, run to his master for help. The master understands his dog. The dog knows a lot about his master, but because he has only a dog mind, many of the activities and purposes of the master must remain mysteries. This dog-master relation is also a good ill.u.s.tration of the relation of the subconscious self to the conscious self.

SECTION 2. THE ELEMENT OF FORCE.

We have seen that the High Self is the element of consciousness involved in instant healing and fire-immunity. Let us now consider the force it uses.

IN HUNA ALL THINGS ARE TRIUNE. There is always (1) a conscious being using (2) a force or power, to work with (3) some form of matter, be it dense or etheric.

VITAL FORCE IS THE FORCE USED BY THE HIGH SELF. The triune man has three voltages of this electro-vital force. In the laboratory we have measured vital force in the body. It is of the three to four million volt level. Similar force is found in the brain, but its voltage has been stepped up a million volts to the next higher level. The High Self does not live in the body with the low and middle selves and so has not had its voltage of vital force recognized as yet by laboratory men. Huna recognizes three levels, grades, or voltages of vital force, a voltage for each of the three selves or ent.i.ties. The voltage used by the High Self is higher than that used as "hypnotic will" by the middle self, so must fall in the five to six million or "atom smas.h.i.+ng" range.

ATOM SMAs.h.i.+NG voltages of electro-vital force, used by the High Self, are considered to be the answer to how heat is controlled in fire-walking, or both heat and cold are regulated when the material substances in a bone break are DISSOLVED TO ETHERIC FORM AND THEN RE-SOLIDIFIED as an unbroken bone.

APPORTS in spiritualistic seances are produced by thinning out the substance of the object or living thing, then transporting it to some other place and resolidifying the materials. Spirits of the dead are able to get the aid of their High Self to produce apports and the phenomena of "transportation, levitation, materialization", etc. The spirits of the dead are no more able to sense and recognize and understand the High Self than we, the living, are. They have tried to explain the phenomena which they are instrumental in producing, but their guesses do not agree. (In learning to use the Huna system it is to be expected that we, the living, will work with the Higher Self and produce such phenomena without the necessity of depending on the dead.) The VITAL FORCE is made in quant.i.ty on the earth level. Plants have it. Animals and men generate it from the foods they use. The low self in the body generates and uses the LOW VOLTAGE OF VITAL FORCE. This level of force is taken by the middle self and its voltage stepped up to the MIDDLE VOLTAGE OF VITAL FORCE which is used as the "will" to control the low self. The High Self draws vital force from the body and steps its voltages up to the HIGH VOLTAGE OF VITAL FORCE to use in instant healing and other things.

SECTION 3. THE ELEMENT OF MATTER.

We have seen the grade of consciousness and the voltage of vital force involved in fire-immunity and instant healing. Now we come to the third element of the triad, MATTER.

There are two grades of matter or substance to be considered. First there is the substance in a broken bone or a diseased or deformed portion of the body. This is the easily understood matter which is dissolved into invisible etheric form and re-solidified as normal or "healed" bodily portions.

The second grade of matter is that thin etheric substance of which bodies are made for ghosts. Everything has a thin, shadowy body which is a MOLD OF EVERY MICROSCOPIC PART OF IT. Each of the three selves has a shadowy body. Consciousness and vital force cannot work without material, so even the High Self has to have a body, even if it be but an etheric one.

During life the low and middle selves interpenetrate the gross physical body with their shadowy bodies. At death the shadowy bodies are withdrawn and lived in on "the other side". The High Self lives in its shadowy body all the time, never entering the physical body, but often touching it, especially during sleep. The halo above the heads of the saints in old paintings represented the High Self hovering over the saint in its shadowy body.

THE SUBSTANCE OF WHICH THE SHADOWY BODIES ARE MADE is ideal for the storage of supplies of vital force. It also is a perfect conductor. The spirits of the dead can take vital force from the living and store it in their shadowy bodies. With it they produce psychic phenomena of limited kinds, e.g. moving tables.

The SHADOWY BODY OF THE LOW SELF is a mold of every tissue of the physical body. This mold can be withdrawn almost completely from the body for a time without the materials of the tissues beginning to disintegrate. THIS MOLD is not tightly filled. It has no fixed form but can be stretched, elongated or made a different size. IT IS UNBREAKABLE. A bone may break but not the shadowy body part that is the mold of that broken part. Cancerous tissues may invade the shadowy mold but not change it. SO, THE PROCESS OF INSTANT HEALING IS ONE IN WHICH THE MOLD IS EMPTIED OF BROKEN OR DISEASED TISSUES AND IS REFILLED WITH BASIC SUBSTANCES TO CONFORM TO THE UNINJURED MOLD.

It may be added that the High Self can do many other things. It can, either directly or through its a.s.sociates of its high level, exercise control over weather conditions or over animal, insect or plant life. We cannot understand just how this control is exerted, but we can observe results obtained, which is, for practical purposes, fairly satisfactory. The kahuna of the Berber tribe known to W. R. Stewart, stated that, according to tribal history, the Great Pyramid in Egypt had been built by her kahuna an-^ cestors. They got Higher Selves and a.s.sociates of that level to cut the stone and transport it into place in the pyramid structure. Stone of a similar perfect cutting and placing is to be seen in Mexico and places farther south. While we have no way to verify statements such as those of the Berber kahuna, we know from the finding of modern Psychic Science that similar performances on a smaller scale are possible. Parts of stones have been used as apports, the parts being cut off with no seeming difficulty. The cut is not a break but leaves a smooth and sometimes almost polished surface. :

CHAPTER THREE.

HOW THE AID OF THE HIGH SELF IS OBTAINED.

In the psycho-sciences, all of which are new and incomplete, we find no recognition of the High Self, or its voltage of vital force. Naturally, there has been no effort made to find a way of making contact with the High Self or of getting its aid.

In Religion, however, there are remains of a mechanism of prayer. It is to prayer that we must look when we turn back to Huna for a working explanation. This is the very heart of the basic system and it is with the prayer mechanism that experimental groups are to learn to work.

The High Self does not reside in the physical body, but outside of it. We do not know just where. But when we pray to it for aid we must be able to make contact with it and get our prayer considered. For this reason our first question is one of how the two lower selves can communicate with the High Self.

All communication between sentient beings must be done through thoughts, or words representing thoughts, or through thought symbols such as writing. Telepathy is a direct transfer of thoughts, and is the method used in prayer to the High Self.

Everything has its shadowy body, including thoughts.

Thinking is done with the use of vital force, and vital force works only through matter, dense or eth-eric. Each thought, as it is formulated either by the low or middle self, or the two working in cooperation, is impressed on a microscopic portion of the substance of the low self's shadowy body. THIS IS THEN A THOUGHT FORM.

Our thoughts come in trains or cl.u.s.ters and make bunches of thought forms like cl.u.s.ters of grapes. Each cl.u.s.ter is tied to the next by a tiny invisible thread of the same etheric substance. When we finish thinking a thought and it pa.s.ses from the focus of the conscious mind self, it is taken by the subconscious mind self and stored as a memory. The storage place of these memory thought forms is not the physical tissues of the brain, but the shadowy body of the low or subconscious self. When we die the low self leaves the body in its shadowy body and is able to take along our memories because they are stored in the shadowy body and so do not decay with the brain tissues.

When a telepathic message of thought forms is transmitted, the sender does not give up his thought form or "forget" it. He may be said to keep a carbon copy for his memory files. In mind reading the mind reader reaches out and examines the thoughts or memories of another and brings back duplicates of them, otherwise the person whose mind was read would cease to have as a memory the item "read".

The reason telepathy and mind reading are rare is that both must be done by the low self. The middle self can direct the low self to send or receive a message but cannot do it for itself. In hypnosis the operator reaches out silently or makes contact through the use of words, in either case planting thought forms in the low self of the subject. These may or may not be accepted and acted upon.

As Dr. Rhine has pointed out in his work with telepathy, there can be no broadcast of thoughts in purely electric form because the matter of distance makes no appreciable difference, as it certainly would if electric power were sent out as from a station. (We will see soon the Huna explanation of this matter.) COMMUNICATION WITH THE HIGH SELF occurs naturally during sleep. We know that in sleep we frequently get dreams of the future. Remembering that the High Self alone can see into the future, we conclude that in sleep there is a telepathic communication with the High Self. Or there may be intimate contact between the High Self in its shadowy body and our own low self in its shadowy body, in which case our stored thought forms could be inspected on the spot.

It is in this contact at night that most of the thoughts of our days are averaged by the High Self and used in some mysterious mechanism to materialize corresponding events and conditions in our future. If we fear something, that fear may become a part of our future. If we change our plans and desires frequently, our futures become a jumble of conditions. Psychologists have come to believe that perhaps as high as ninety per cent of our ills and accidents can be traced back to thoughts from which they must have originated. If we build a picture of our future with bright plans and high faith, we must take care not to kick over the fragile "seed" structure by allowing ourselves a day of discouragement in which we doubt the efficacy of the practice of "holding the thought".

Our entire lives are predicted by our thoughts. We may say that every thought is a prayer because it eventually is used by the High Self to determine the nature of the future being almost automatically built. This is a hard idea to connect with the belief in a loving G.o.d or High Self. We would expect love to cause the bad to be cast aside and only the good used in making a pleasant future. Experience teaches us that we are served with both good and bad. As free agents we think into form the seeds of our futures. Only when we correct our thinking or ask the High Self to wipe out the bad and materialize a new and good set of thought forms can we get a.s.sistance.

If it were necessary only to "hold" good thoughts to get them eventually accepted by the High Self and materialized into facts in our future, we would have a rather simple mechanism to use. But there are obstacles, THE OBSTACLES TO COMMUNICATION are the complexed ideas or fixations of guilt or unworthiness, sin, doubt, fear and so on. The low self stubbornly holds to all its habits of thought. A habit of thought is partly the result of having very large cl.u.s.ters of strong old thought forms lodged in the memory. The instant we begin an action, mental or physical, which calls up those habit memories, we find a fixed set of ideas which are difficult to break down and replace. For example, those of us who have been reared in Christian beliefs frequently have complexes built in childhood with ideas of "sin" and guilt. We may have had an emotional strain at a time when we decided not to "sell all and give to the poor".