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[Home]>[The Man-Made Church]>[19. Have Dominion]

This is the 19. chapter of "The Man-Made Church."

19. Have Dominion

by Frank L. Preuss

I know a man who has a remarkable ability. He could wake up in the morning at a predetermined time - without using an alarm clock. He simply used his will. He simply decided in the evening before to wake up the next morning at a time he wanted to wake up. When I heard about this ability I was quite impressed and thought it to be an extraordinary one. For me it was something miraculous. But it was not too long afterwards that I myself did the same thing and kept on doing so. It became normal and helped me growing. It was a step towards a life that is led by the spirit.

The Bible says in Genesis 1:26, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

God wants us to have dominion over all the earth - over all physical things. And that includes our body. When we have this dominion then we also have dominion over the well-being of the body. We then rule over disease and health, over sickness and strength. We have this dominion. It is our decision to be healthy or to be unwell. We just have to wake up to this fact and act accordingly.

Verse 28: "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth."

We are living things that move. God has provided us with this dominion and we can't get rid of this ability. It just operates automatically. We are creators. That is the real purpose of ours. That is the real purpose of God and of us who are created in his image. We are permanently busy creating. We are permanently creating our lives. All things that happen to us are created by ourselves. The bad things as well as the good things. We can't help it. We can carry on creating bad things for ourselves as long as we like. We can also wake up and stop it. That is why you are reading this. To wake up and stop creating bad things and start creating a life that you like and enjoy.

We can't help not ruling. We either rule in a way that is beneficial or that is bad.

Now our first example, determining the wake-up-time, is just a means to make life easier.

Our second example will be very similar but it goes already further and contains aspects of healthcare, preventing us from getting sick. Also here it is the waking up that we will set as our aim, but this time not the waking up at a predetermined hour, but waking up at a time our body might start to suffer and get sick. It is a summer day and it is still quite warm when we go to bed, and we cover ourselves with some light bedding so that we don't feel uncomfortable, but during the course of the night the temperature drops and our cover becomes insufficient and too light for the coolness that sets in and our body gets cold and we might get ill. So we program our mind, our subconscious, to wake us up when this occurs so that we can cover ourselves with some warmer bedding.

Now this seems to be a little more difficult because it is not something we want to happen within the next couple of hours, but at a point in time which we don't know when it will occur. So we may need to remind ourselves of this aim and practise it.

This getting some warning of the fact that the body, or certain parts of the body, like the feet, are getting cold, is quite important and we should consciously train ourselves to get woken up when it occurs. We might sit, as I am doing now, at the computer not noticing that the environment changes and that the body is not warm enough any more. So we should let our subconscious mind give us a wake up call, even when we are not really sleeping, just when our mind is absorbed with something. And this should not just apply to a drop in temperature but to things like for example a certain warning signal: One who lives in a city is used to all kinds of sirens, but a certain siren might be important for ones special location or functioning. To notice such a warning sign, while sleeping or while being awake, is of course quite helpful for self-preservation.

Now what should I do to activate such an automatic happening? I practise thankfulness. I say - or pray - "Holy Spirit I thank you that you always wake me up when it is getting cold and I am in need of warmer bedding." And when it then happens that I got woken up then I say a prayer of thanks, "I thank you Holy Spirit that you woke me up." Thankfulness is one of the best ways of prayer. It is an attitude that we should practise permanently.

Now let me suggest a way to overcome the common cold. Make it your aim to never again have a cold. We should have the aim to be completely free from any sickness and we should never say, "Yes, that is okay, but to have a cold is just normal, everybody has it." Never allow such an attitude to arise and learn to fight sickness especially with small things. The basic step is to simply avoid that your body or parts of your body get cold. So tell your body to notify you when this happen and then, and this is probably even more important, act on it. Programme yourself to really do something about it. That means that you really stop with whatever you are busy with and do what is required to get warm again. Exercise, run to get warm again, move your body to a warmer location, put on the heater, or whatever. So purpose now, before you get cold, that when you get cold, you will obey this intuition. Remember how often you noticed that you felt that you were getting cold but did not do anything about it and carried on with whatever you were doing, because "it is so highly interesting" or "important." Include situations where you are with people and you realize that you are not dressed warm enough and should actual go and get a jersey but do not do so because you can't say no, you can't say adieu; don't fall into this trap. And don't forget you do not have to give an explanation why you are leaving. It is exactly this that you have to prevent: not taking action. So do not attempt to go on, but stop whatever you are doing and take the right action. Remember that sickness always has a spiritual reason, so get out of any slave mentality however small it may be.

Now when you are starting to apply such a new program in your life you might fail sometimes and get cold and do not do anything about it and soon you feel the initial symptoms of a cold like some feverishness or some funny feeling in your throat or just a general feeling of not being quite well. These are signs that your energy level has sunk too low, an indication of an exhaustion somewhere, that the body has been susceptible; and you should immediately do two things. The first thing is to stop whatever you are doing and give yourself a rest. This includes not only physical activities, but mental ones as well as, because they also draw energy; you are too busy. The second thing is to keep warm, to prevent even more warmth to leave your body. You should go to bed immediately and try to regain the right temperature for the body as fast as possible and to keep it. You could also have a hot bath before you go to bed. And you should make sure the bedding is warmer than it normally is because you should avoid loosing any warmth your body still has. And when you get up to do whatever is necessary then put on some warm clothing and then go back to bed as soon as possible. And when you have to go outside, than put on even warmer things and something against rain and wind as well, and don't think that you can't do this because it is not the right season to do so. Learn not to be influenced by what other people might think, become free of the fear of people; we are not of this world. And stay in bed until you are more than enough back to normal. So program your mind with these intentions and carry them out at the right moment. I repeat that sickness is always a sign of some spiritual shortcoming, so getting a cold body or catching a common cold is an excellent moment to practise some mental overcoming.

So remember to do two things when the symptoms of an approaching cold are appearing: Firstly you stop all activity and secondly you get into a warm bed, a bed that is warmer than normally.

What is the problem when you get the first symptoms of a cold or a flu, or your body or parts thereof get cold, and you don't do anything about it? It means that you are not listening to your body or if you are listening to it, you don't act on the information you are receiving. We should always have a certain detachment to everything connected with the world, a certain distance we keep from things that are not spiritual. There should be a certain delay when we are reacting to physical things. And this is so that the other side, the spiritual side, is not getting sidelined. We must always keep both sides open: from below what the body and the five senses tell us and from above what our higher self, the self indwelled by the spirit, tells us. We always have to practise the presence of the Lord, stay connected and open to the guiding of the higher self. So when we are busy doing something and when we are getting too absorbed with this, and neglect the contact with the real self, then it happens that we do not become aware of what the body tells us or we become somehow aware of it but do not take action, do not stop and get warm. And therefore this whole business of reacting to something like cold feet is an excellent way of learning to increase our consciousness capacity and our capacity to rule and have dominion and to be led by the spiritual self.

Only when all our doing is accompanied and directed by this spiritual side will it make sense and will it have permanent value. If not, it will just remain wood, hay and stubble and the trying fire will consume it.

Our third example will already go further and not deal with just the prevention of illness but directly with healing.

Depression is a big problem with mankind. How do you overcome it? Overcoming depression is simply a matter of choice, of making a decision. You simply decide to stop to be depressed and to start to be happy. Why is it then that so many people are depressed if it is so simply to get out of it? Because they don't know. The professionals don't know either or at least pretend not to know - in order to make money out of it.

My people are destroyed (or cut off) for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6

We are supposed to be kings and priests, people who rule in life, who have dominion, but because we reject knowledge we are depressed and we suffer.

I invite the Holy Spirit to alert me as soon as I wander in the direction of depression. I then decide to stop this wandering off and to reverse the direction.

To become depressed is also a decision I make - as to become un-depressed is one. It is the same with being happy or being unhappy, with deciding to be happy and with deciding to be unhappy. Watch yourself when depression wants to take hold of you. Do you follow the suggestion of depression when it enters your mind? What kind of decision do you make? It is decision time and I decide to reject it.

I wander into the direction of being full of joy, of being content, of being happy. I start to be thankful for all the good things Gods has given me and is giving me. And this whole process takes less than a fraction of a second. It is that easy. That easy for a person who is practising it for some time. For a person who is starting to practise it, it might take a little bit longer. There are things that help. First of all of course there has to be knowledge about the whole process. Then this has to get assimilated and worked out in the mind. I have to become aware of how the whole thing starts and continues, of how to become aware of the existence of the state of depression and of how to then counteract it. When I am new to all of this then I will employ additional measures to support me in my drive to get rid of depression. I will use physiological means. I will use my body to help my mind to straighten out. I will adjust my posture. I will change from a drooping posture and will sit up or stand erect. I will change the expression of my face. I will change the muscles of my face. A sad expression gets changed into a glad one. There is a multitude of muscles in my face and I can make use of all of them, or of some of them, to help me and change the situation. The same applies to action. I can stop an impeding action and adopt a helpful one. Like breathing. I can stop short shallow breathing and start to inhale deeply. Like looking. I can stop gazing and sharpen my focus and take in the details I am looking at. Like thinking. I can stop thinking of the past and of the future and can concentrate on the Now and on the fact that the ability of changing my life and of changing any detail of my life, and any problem, is in the present moment. It is now that I can change everything. I can't change anything in the past. I can't change anything that will take place in the future. But I can change things now - now is the time I can act. I can now change my attitude and see any problem as a challenge, see any problem as an opportunity to live the life of a creator god.

When I say I can't change the past and I can't change the future then I actually should say that I can influence the past or the future only in the Now. Only in the Now can I take an influential measure to adjust a trend so that the future will be different from a future where I would not have done this act that I do now in the Now. And this even applies to the past as well. I can take a measure now that will influence the past. I can do this because the time and space phenomenon is a phenomenon that exists in the physical world, but not in the spiritual world. And my real existence is in the spiritual world and I therefore have influence from there on the physical world. The more I become aware and conscious of a thing that happens now, a thing that was caused by an incident of the past, the more I contribute in helping to cause this incident of the past. Let us say that in January I had the idea to pray for a healing and in May this healing occurred. Now the more I am observing this healing in May and am consciously aware of it, the more I influence and strengthen the occurrence of the idea of praying for that healing in January. Now this is important to know because it will influence my future attitude towards praying for a healing. If I know that this idea I got in January is influenced and strengthened by my observing, monitoring and measuring the healing in May, then I will in future make a point to observe a healing in the Now because this activity of taking note of something, influences the past, actually caused this hunch, or this idea, or this leading of the spirit, to occur. And this is one of the reasons why it is so important to keep singing the song of thanksgiving, keeping praising God for all his goodness, thinking about all the good things that have happened to me, because they will, retroactively, cause me to have such leading of the spirit, have such ideas to pray for a healing, have such hunches.

The leading of the spirit, the occurrence of the act of being led by the spirit, its strength and its frequency, is reflected and made manifest by the amount of conscious observation of the physical happening I am going to do in the future. If I do this in the future then it will improve the leading that takes place now.

Let us take an example that covers a longer time period between the initiation of a healing and an "observing" of it. This time we will use different people, the person that received the intuition is different from the person that does the "observation." The person that receives the intuition is Peter as he approaches the temple gate called Beautiful and the person doing the "observation" is the reader who reads about this story in Acts chapter 3. The greater the number of people becomes who read this story, the stronger becomes this intuition that Peter received. Or the fact that so many people read this story caused the strong urge in Peter to act. Here we have a reason why it is important to be a witness. The more we witness the more the leading of the spirit is fostered.

Let us talk about the practical use of these things. When you get the idea to pray for something then there are two events. The first event is the receiving of the idea and the acting on it. The second event is the observation of the result of the prayer, let us say a healing takes place. Now the time of getting this idea to pray for a healing is the time when you should plan to definitely do the observing in a very conscious and vivid way. Plan to do a good job of observation. Plan to provide for yourselves a lively and repeated feedback of the observation. Do this in full knowledge of the theoretical reasons for this. Do this when event number One takes place. Use the occasion to consciously prove to yourself that this is reality. And then, when you do the observations, when event number Two takes place, then act as you have planned to act. Repeatedly observe the results of your prayer. Let other people observe it as well. Talk about it. Repeat to talk about the course of events. Really make a good job of it. Do it in full conscious knowledge that you do it to strengthen the situation of event number One.

Strengthen your ability to be led by the spirit. Strengthen your ability to feel a striking and forceful certainty that you prayer will be successful. Use such as this as a training ground. Make it a habit to use real-life occasions for this purpose.

When you pray then also act as if it does not really depend on you, but on God, that things are happening. It is a certain passivity that is required. You are just a mediator, your higher self has to do the actual job. You are just a channel. You provide yourself as a channel.

Between event number One and event number Two, and also afterwards, keep away from people who are critical and sceptical, don't tell them what you are doing. Get only people involved that are positive, and keep yourself in a positive mood. Negative people will influence your past, event number One, negatively.

Now we want to have a look at a case where the Bible indicates such a happening: influencing the past. In Acts chapters 13 and 14 we read about the first missionary journey of Paul, and in Acts 15 we see how Paul by talking about it retroactively reinforces the happenings of that journey. The first miracle that Paul caused and that is reported we find in Acts 13:6-12. After having left Antioch Barnabas and Paul sailed to Cyprus and in Paphos they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus. This sorcerer was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, to whom Barnabas and Saul talked, because he desired to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer, for that is what his name means, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Paul filled with the Holy Ghost, rebuked him and caused him to become blind. Now Paul was an expert in making people blind. He knew all about it. He knew what a powerful way it was to crack open the mind of a person. One of the main activities of Christians is to heal people. To be healthy is important. To be physically well is important. However to be spiritually well is more important because it effects eternity. Physical wellness only effects this temporary earth life. So to make somebody blind can change somebody's whole destiny and therefore all aspects of life including physical wellbeing. Paul had experienced how a religious person who had heard the preaching of Stephen (Acts 7:58) had a complete negative reaction to this good news and who then had viciously persecuted the church and began to destroy it (Acts 8:3). Now there is not much difference between a sorcerer and a religious person. Religion's foremost purpose is to keep people away from God. By erecting a smokescreen about the things of God they prevent the people from coming to God. Jesus says in Matthews 23:13, "hypocrites, ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in." The religious hypocrites get the people who are entering, who are coming to them because they proclaim to be the guides to guide them to the kingdom of God, and then make them members of their orthodoxy, their denomination, and thereby causing them not to go in to the kingdom but to become churchy. These hypocrites are the enemies of God and sorcerers are not much different. Sorcerers proclaim to be knowledgeable about supernatural things and to have supernatural powers. The deputy was such a person that was seeking spiritual things and the sorcerer used this interest to get influence, and the appearance of Barnabas and Paul was very much against his aims and therefore he opposed them. Sorcerers and religionists are both against God. They both are hypocrites because they deceive people by posing as spiritual and of having the keys to the good things of life, but in reality they are just after influence and material and monetary gain. They both use black magic, the sorcerer directly and the religionist via theology, unbelief, rites, temples, pomp, robes, liturgy, worldliness. They both turn people away from the faith. So Paul caused the sorcerer to become blind. He knew that preaching would not help, because in Paul's own case preaching, the preaching of Stephen, had not help. The only thing that helped Paul was that Jesus had to come personally and that he was blinded. So he used for the sorcerer the same cure that he had received himself because he knew its impact. But Paul was generous, he said, "thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season." So at least he gave him some hope of recovery, making the blindness to last only for a season. It is not reported if the sorcerer repented like Paul did. But he got his chance. For Paul the blindness was the best thing that could happen to him and for the sorcerer this was likewise a chance to turn from his evil ways. We should remember that Paul was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6), and therefore belonged to a group of people very much rebuked and condemned by Jesus, much more than sorcerers. So this sorcerer on Cyprus and this Pharisee on the road to Damascus had to receive a hard blow to get them out of their position as enemies of God. For Paul it worked very well and for the sorcerer we do not know, but it worked very well for the deputy, because when he saw what was done, he believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord (Acts 13:12). So the doctrine of the Lord is power, a demonstration of the power of the Lord, and not theology. The doctrine of the Lord makes people to wake up and get astonished, amazed. The doctrine of the Lord is not unbelieving theology. Now Paul is reported to have been filled with the Holy Ghost when he commanded the sorcerer to become blind (Acts 13:9). So Paul operated very much in the gifts of the spirit. The spirit showed him exactly what to do. And this praying or acting or speaking with authority was later retroactively strengthened by Paul by him talking about this occurrence. He talked about it and reported it and in so doing again observed the event that had happened in the past. And by doing so he changed the past, he made the power that went out from him even stronger. At the end of this first missionary journey Paul came back to Antioch, the place they had started from, and there they gathered the church together and they rehearsed all that God had done with them (Acts 14:27). So this rehearsing the event had also this purpose of retroactively strengthening what had happened. And then Paul was on his way to Jerusalem and they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren (Acts 15:3). So here we have a second report of this retroactive activity. And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them (Acts 15:4). This is the third time this activity is recorded. And in Acts 15:12 we have a fourth report about this: Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them. So this declaring is reported four times and probably it was done much more often then it is recorded. They declared what miracles and wonders God had wrought by them. Do that as well, declare what miracles and wonders God has wrought by you. It will have a tremendous impact on you operating in the gifts of the spirit and you being led by the spirit. And when you are led by the spirit to cause miracles and wonders then already at that time purpose to declare the outcome. Make plans how to talk about it and see yourself how you describe what happened. This declaring later what happened earlier will retroactively strengthen the whole thing that happened earlier and it will also be a great help to grow in your walk in faith. This retroactive strengthening of the past is therefore another reason why witnessing, talking about the things that God has done by us, is so important.

Actually this retroactive behaviour is the same as setting a faith goal and keeping it. Once something is decided to be done then we simply stick to it and never change. We carry on believing in our goal and even do not change after we have achieved it.

Now all this influencing the past might sound quite strange but it is not really so. It is actually what scientist are saying since quite some time. It is based on quantum physics and experiments have proved it. It is all there to study and read and learn.

Since several decades scientist are busy finding out how the mind influences matter. They did meticulous and fastidious test runs with guessing cards and influencing the fall of dice and throwing coins and influencing the way on which side they fall. These rigorous scientific investigations found very early that the mind can influence matter. These proven experiments actually caused this part of science to become accepted by the scientific world. This was achieved because such test can mathematically be evaluated and the laws of statistics can get applied and so it became a thing that the other scientist could not anymore just brush off. Anybody interested could simply repeat the experiments. Then the throwing of coins was simulated with computers and random event generators and several sets of data were generated and stored. All these results were not influenced by somebody's mind but the machines were doing them without any human influence and nobody examined them. After several months some of these results, not all, were replayed to people who had the ability to influence such outcomes like how a coin might fall. But these people were not told that these data had been previously been generated, they were just asked to influence the computer and the random number generator as it was usually requested. So these people were under the impression that they were influencing things that were done by these machines there and now. And it was found that they could influence them. The results were not as probability theories would predict. An additional prove was given when the results of the data that had never been observed were checked and when it was found that these were exactly as the probability theories said they should be, they did not diverge from chance. So it was proven that men can change the past. Men had changed, by using the mind, things that been done in the past.

I found these scientific discoveries to be the most tangible indication that past, presence and future are not really what they seem to us to be, but that they are more due to our limited conscious capacities and that there is in reality just an eternal Now.

I once read about a woman of a European background that had become a sangoma. A sangoma is something like a medicine man. One of the major observations she made was that the other sangomas always kept on talking about supernatural events that had happened. A person might come for help to one or several sangomas and due to a supernatural revelation this person was helped and delivered from a problem. And when this person had gone the sangomas discussed the happening. This European sangoma's knowledge of the language that the other sangomas spoke was limited and therefore she could not really follow their discussions. So sometimes she asked them what they were discussing and was surprised that after much time had elapsed they were still talking about this supernatural event. For me that was a confirmation that it is important to always remember the miracles and signs that God has done through his servants. It will strengthen our faith. But after I learned about retroactively influencing the past, the implications of this habit of theirs to talk again and again about such events became more clear. They are operating in the gifts of the spirit and by reconsidering these manifestations they consciously or subconsciously strengthen their abilities in using these gift and become spiritually more powerful. Their retelling and replaying and re-saying of such an event makes them stronger and able to give a better service. Retroactively they continue to strengthen the liberating event, their ability to bring liberty and health. And this again makes them stronger for future events.

The spiritual side of life becomes more and more a subject of scientific investigation - of being investigated by natural science. And as it has always been the ageless truth of the teachings of all the wise men of all ages and of all cultures has never changed. Scientific knowledge, the knowledge of natural science, changes all the time but the genuine knowledge of the sciences of the spirit never does.

The truth is always there. We simply have to go after it.

This retroactively influencing the past throws some light on the habit - the bad habit - of talking about present and past circumstances and events - negative circumstances and events. It causes such things to become more stable, more real, and to influence everybody negatively. It is a thing that becomes highly annoying once one has grasped its implications. The impact of newspapers and television can only be assessed when awareness of this is granted. If we would just only talk about what the spirit has done, and cease to talk about everything else, the impact on this world would be quite something. We would very fast be back at the time of the early church; they talked and listened to what the gifts of the spirit had achieved, what God had done through the hands of his servants.

It is possible for us to influence past events. There is the possibility that we can change events that have already happened.

Present action can not only alter the future, it can also alter the past. The outlines between past, present and future are not real, they only seem to exist due to our limited way of becoming conscious of so many things at the same time. It is not actually the limited capacity of the mind but the limited capacity of the brain alone. It is a physical limitation. When our mind gets separated from the body, from the brain, then its capacity increases dramatically.

We can experience this in our dream state, when our mind is more or less free from its attachment to the body. Then for example we have no problems communicating with people who are "dead."

When the mind gets separated from the brain in a accident situation, or in a near-death experience, or at death, then a person often has his whole life appearing in front of him. This is because he experiences this freedom from the body and its limitations. His capacity to be conscious increases dramatically.

Past, present and future exist simultaneously. All divisions are illusions. Our higher self does not operate within time.

So we can influence the past. We can have power over the past. We can change events that have already happened. But we can do this only in the Now. We can't do it in the past.

The more I practice the overcoming of depression the more quickly I will succeed and the less time it will take to do so.

I will have dominion - I will rule.

My aim is to become like Jesus. Jesus was in control of worldly things. He was the Master. My aim is to become a real Christian - a person that imitates Christ, that is like him and acts like him and does the things he does.

Jesus has authority, has power, and he has it unrestricted - unlimited. He lived this and he taught it - he taught it so that we could have it as well.

All his actions were physically and spiritually so executed, that no resistance could arise against them and therefore they all were demonstrations of his authority.

His whole life was highly unusual. People could not believe what they saw - it was too uncommon.

After his resurrection his actions became even more extraordinary. They became so unheard-of that only his disciples - real believers - were allowed to witness them.

Jesus walked through solid walls. He dematerialized his body at one place and then materialized it again somewhere else. He levitated. He levitated so high that he completely disappeared. He "died" without leaving a body behind.

He now has so much extended his consciousness that he can simultaneously be present with thousands of his disciples scattered all over the world.

His expanded consciousness allows him to travel through all realms that exist. When we fall asleep our self-consciousness comes to an end and begins to operate again when we awake. But Jesus now has unbroken self-consciousness. He is Lord of his mind. He has subdued every form of matter. Matter is now the obedient instrument of his spirit. He is in control - no matter controls him.

When he was walking as a normal man here on earth his invincible sovereign power caused shock and amazement, awe and enthusiasm, emotion and offence. People were deeply touched by these completely new and unusual and shocking actions. This person was a sign that something unheard-of and unprecedented was emerging and taking place.

And now imagine what would have happened if these same people would have witnessed all the things his disciples witnessed after his resurrection.

They would have reacted the same way as people today would react - and as most of the so-called Christians would react - they would call it the works of the devil.

Jesus was sovereign. He was superior to all the people who tried to get into his way. He was lord of every situation that arose.

Let us have a look at a fourth example. The more I grow spiritually the more I become aware of my higher self; the more I will try to be guided by my real self, the self that is indwelled by the spirit, the Holy Spirit. I will pay more attention to this guidance. One way to do this is to get the lower self out of the way and to focus more on the real, eternal self. There is a long stretch of time every day, or better every night, when we actually do this. When we sleep our lower self, our consciousness, becomes inactive and the intake of information via our five senses ceases and we start to pay attention to our subconscious. The dream state is a state of consciousness that is relatively free from the influence of the conscious mind. It is a state where the subconscious can get busy, where the higher self can be active and provide us with valuable information. There we can get information about how to improve our growth - our spiritual growth. The value and impact of this information is there in us and acts on its own, but we can improve it by becoming consciously aware of it. When we become consciously aware of this unconscious information we can take conscious action and can have better benefits from it. We can do this by working with our dreams. A good way to do this is to remember our dreams and a good way to remember dreams is to record them.

We could program our body to speak our dreams on a tape recorder. This could take place without us really awakening. We just place a tape recorder before falling asleep next to our bed and have it ready for recording. The rest we tell our body to do. We tell it to speak, after every dream, the contents into the microphone. The switching on and off of the machine it can do as well. The disadvantage of this method is that we have the information as sound available, but not in writing. If we want to have it in writing we would have to transcribe it. In order to have it in writing, without this additional effort, we could write our dreams down directly when we awake. An even better way would be to awake every time we have had a dream. This again is a matter of taking action and telling our body to do this awakening. We program ourselves to do so. It is a matter of telling our subconscious to act accordingly. We speak to our subconscious. We do this audibly or just in our mind. We help the whole process of waking up by adding some physical point of contact. We place pen and paper next to our bed in the evening. We have an appropriate source of light ready. A clock that shows the time is useful so that we can add the time of the night to our record, may be even the day of the week and the date. If we want to do it even more sophisticated we could use a handheld computer with a keyboard. If this thing is then also equipped with a key or a key combination for the date of the month and the time of the day then we could have this information on record as well without us to have to look at a clock and at a calendar. We would just wake up, put on the light, press the start key of the computer, key in the date and the time and the description of our dream and then put out the light and go back to sleep. After the next dream the whole procedure is repeated. We could in this manner record several dreams a night. Every time we have recorded a dream we could actually ask our subconscious to let us remember more parts of the dream or more details and then record these as well. We so could become dream art scientist in a quite simple way. The dreams would get recorded directly after their occurrence - when they are still fresh in our minds, without us to have to move much of our body and thereby causing us to loose dream content. The dream record is immediately and directly placed in the memory of the computer and can get there evaluated and assessed. We do not have to do any transcription work. The dream record can get compared to other dreams. Repetitive dreams can get recognized. Dream patterns can get discovered. Certain words can get searched for - a feature that has a big advantage over a hand written record.

To give an example of how a dream can improve our life situation let us look at the appearance in a dream of a person that we highly respect and to whom we look up and whom we value. We might have a discussion with this person or this person just makes a casual remark or simply is himself. Now this person could be simply our higher self trying to convey a message to our lower self that will help us to overcome a shortcoming. A spiritual being, like our higher self, can adopt any outer form that it finds suitable to be acceptable to our conscious mind.

The whole thing is a result of us starting to take control of our body, of our mind.

So we can tell our mind at what time of the day it shall wake us and we can tell our mind after what kind of situation it should wake us. We, our conscious mind, can control our subconscious.

We learn to take conscious control over normally unconscious processes.

We have already looked at healing from depression. Now let us look at healing of a "physical" disease - of cancer. In this fifth example we will look at how to rule over our attitudes and also over details of our body. A disease can be fought by removing the cause. Every cause of illness is in the spiritual realm. We can only be sick if we allow something to remain wrong in our mind. It can simply be a case of not recognizing a problem as an opportunity for creation - for creating a change - for being a challenge. Often it is a matter of waking us up to the fact that our life is going in the wrong direction in one aspect of it. Like pain, it is a signal to do something. Pain and illness are ways that try to get our attention to a problem, like a warning light or a warning sound of a motor car or of a computer. To switch off the sound or warning light does not solve the problem. Painkiller is not the solution. Even a healing might not be the solution. If the problem, the spiritual problem, remains, then the body will just find another way to express the existence of the problem, by causing another part of the body to get ill. So to find the problem - the spiritual problem - we have to ask. And when we ask we shall find. We might find through the means of a dream or of several dreams. We must just be open to receive the answer. The first thing to do is to always check for unforgivingness. Is there a person we should forgive, or a group, or a system, or a dictatorship, or simply "them"?

One thing that supports cancer is the wrong food we put into our bodies, all the poisons we add to it. We seem to be so stupid, even animals seem to be more intelligent than us in this regard.

It is known since millennia that cancer is often caused by depression, by grief.

Let us read Sirach 38:16-23:

My son, let tears fall down over the dead, and begin to lament, as if thou hadst suffered great harm thyself; and then cover his body according to the custom, and neglect not his burial. Weep bitterly, and make great moan, and use lamentation, as he is worthy, and that a day or two, lest thou be evil spoken of: and then comfort thyself for thy heaviness. For of heaviness cometh death, and the heaviness of the heart breaketh strength. In affliction also sorrow remaineth: and the life of the poor is the curse of the heart. Take no heaviness to heart: drive it away, and member the last end. Forget it not, for there is no turning again: thou shalt not do him good, but hurt thyself. Remember my judgment: for thine also shall be so; yesterday for me, and to day for thee. When the dead is at rest, let his remembrance rest; and be comforted for him, when his Spirit is departed from him.

Never get into the wrong state of mind. Cancer is often associated with a state of mind that is toxic, a mind that is depressed, that grieves. Don't let the death of a person affect you, cause you affliction. Research shows that often cancer patients have lost someone dear to them, a person important to them, a person with whom they had a close relationship, shortly before the disease appeared. Don't get bottled up with despair, don't let a bereavement cause you to loose purpose in life, don't invest too much of your emotions into a person or a situation like a business or a job or into a thing like your own house or farm or motor car.

So recognize these things and stay away from them.

But there are plenty of other reasons. One might simply be the fact that we are not having dominion, that we are not in control.

We should start to recognize our reaction to bodily intakes like food, air, drink, sight, sound, smell. How does the body react, how does he, for example digest certain foods? Are these intakes beneficial? How is waste stuff eliminated from the body? Are we allowing all toxins to easily leave our body or are there obstacles? To find out about such things is very much a matter of being led by the spirit. So may be we should think of an illness as a means to learn to be led by the spirit - to direct us to a more spiritual life. May be it is causing us to slow down, to stay in bed for some time, to have time to reflect on the important things in life.

Grief is most probably the result of not attending to the important things in life. A very important aspect of living is to be aware of dying. If someone is grief-stricken then it is definitely a situation where he is not aware that death is natural. Death should not be considered as being something hostile. He tries to avoid thinking about death, or he thinks that everybody will die but not him. If somebody is not permanently aware of the fact that the end is death then he obviously tries to avoid all the relevant issues of life. His life is spent in ignorance. He avoids finding out who he actually is. He avoids finding out who he is, where he comes from, and where he is going. Fear lets him flee from the thought of death. As long as he is on this way his stupidity will grow. Foolishness is his distinguishing feature.

We can directly influence special inner parts of our body - physical parts of our physical body. The effect of these influences can often get monitored by special machines and this can be called bio-feedback. The advantage of bio-feedback is that the person receiving such information does not need to go on faith to believe that his effort makes a difference, he can see that his practice is successful by simply watching the instrument and its needle moving in the right direction. But such an instrument is not really necessary. Our belief is enough. If we simply rely on our faith then we have the advantage of increasing it and that is one of the best things we can do in life - increasing our faith - ourselves. Can you imagine what impact the experience of a self healing from cancer will have on the faith life of a person? A person that succeeded in getting healed from cancer will have made such a great leap in growth of his faith that he will feel of almost being able to achieve anything by his own faith. Nothing seems anymore to be impossible.

We can direct our attention to specific parts of our body. We can mentally picture cancer cells as being weak and confused, having lost the concept of the wholeness of the body and the will to work for the good of the whole body. They are out of line with the rest of the cells. They have lost direction. We remember the fact that it is normal for the body to destroy cancerous cells. It is just a common occurrence. We imagine our immune system working effectively and happily. This defence system is in perfect order - in a healthy state. We form a picture in our mind how white blood cells are now moving towards the disorientated cells. These white blood cells use the flow of the red blood cells to let themselves get transported to the location of the trouble. They use the blood stream like a public transport system and hop off at the right place, like a policeman would do, and ooze through the walls of the blood vessel and move through the surrounding tissue to exactly the place of the trouble. There they surround the uncooperative cells like several police cars arriving at a trouble spot and surrounding an offender; and then they separate them from the healthy ones. They take them captive by simply flowing around them. And then they eat them and digest them. This might even cause them to die from the effects of the toxic cells they have eaten and the result is pus, a mass of dead white blood cells. White blood cells are always ready for quick action - they are ready because our conscious mind causes them to be alert and prepared for action and for swift movement towards any place inside the body where bacteria have intruded or where there is an infection or where something got injured. They advance to the place of trouble and destroy the hostile matter and effectively eliminate the remains and cause this refuse to leave the body. The white blood cells are just too eager to do this work. There are plenty of them. They are happy in their knowing that they are causing the body to be healthy and free of pain and dis-ease. Their positive attitude makes them strong and resourceful. They really know how to do their job, they are part of your mind, intelligent and smart. They are overcomers, they are used to win. The ill cells have no chance. Their doom is sealed. The dead remains of these cells are just guided out of the body and leave the body as part of the urine, stool, sweat, exhalation. They simply become part of the excretion. Every time you go to the toilet you say good bye to them. Every time you exhale these toxins leave you. Every time you have a shower these remains are flushed into the drain. They are going and are gone. The cancer therefore is shrinking. It is shrinking fast. The cancer is gone. All parts of it have been eliminated, flushed out of the body. All parts have been replaced by healthy and happy cells.

A concentrated simple form of this imagining could be to visualize a miniature vacuum cleaner moving around in the blood vessels sucking up cancerous cells in the bloodstream and disposing them in the urine and stool. Wouldn't that be nice and playful suggestion for a child suffering from some blood disease?

To get children to cure themselves by imagining a miniature vacuum cleaner sucking up the harmful parts of their blood would be an easy thing, but it would probably be not so easy with adults. And that is the reason why Jesus recommends to become as little children.

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3.

A friend of mine came to me and showed me warts he had on his hand and asked me to pray for him. He was about four or five years old at that time. So I prayed for him and he was satisfied. A couple of weeks later I was in his home and his mother said to him, "Go and ask Frank," and he came to me and showed me his hands. All the warts were still there. And he asked me to pray again for him. So I spoke to him and explained to him that he had absorbed already so much of teachings on faith that he had become a real believer and even encouraged adults when they walked in unbelief, and that I thought that he could get rid of the warts by using his own faith and that he should now believe that the warts are gone and whenever he thought of the warts he should just confess accordingly and say something like, "Thank you heavenly Father that the warts are gone, that my skin is perfectly normal and healthy." From his reaction I could see that he understood what I was saying, that he was in agreement and that he would do what I recommended him to do. Some time later, when I was again a guest in his home, his mother again asked him to go to me. He did this and he showed me his hands. There were no warts. His hands were smooth and the skin was healthy. Just some small spots were visible at the places were the warts had been, the colour of these spots was slightly different from the colour of the rest of his skin. He had successfully used his own will and mind and got what he wanted.

So we should be converted and become as little children and we would enter the kingdom of heaven and be saved from all kinds of small and big problems.

It was on one of the first times that I had been in the home of these friends of mine. It was evening and the mother brought her son to me to say good night because she was bringing him to bed. She had him in his arms and as she turned to go out she said that he would get the German measles the next day because she could see all the indications for this. She is a medical professional and knew what she was talking about. Especially this word "German" seemed to indicate a quite nasty kind of illness. I reacted instantly and said something like, "He will get no sickness and he will be perfectly healthy tomorrow, in Jesus' name." I still remember the reaction on their faces as they turned around and looked at me. The expression of the mother was one of complete agreement. She had been a faith person since some time and immediately realized that she had just slipped back into worldly thinking and speaking, into walking by sight instead of walking by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7). And on his face I could see the instant decision that he would not adopt his mother's prophecy but mine. His face clearly expressed his decision to be in full agreement with my words and to instruct his body accordingly - to be perfectly healthy. It was as if somebody had delivered him from going to hell. The next day he was healthy and he stayed that way. He had kept himself healthy. From that day on we were real friends.

Now this story is a good answer to the question, "Why must little children suffer?" May be we look at the input they receive from parents, adults, and everybody around them. We should look at this brainwashing that goes on all the time, how these children get brainwashed and programmed in the direction of suffering. Actually it is not brainwashing as the brain in not really much involved. It is the mind. So we should call it mind washing. And the word washing is also not very appropriate. We should call it mind staining, or mind dirtying, or mind soiling, or mind blotching.

The other day I was standing in a lift when it stopped, the door opened and a woman came in pushing a pram with a little child in it. She said a greeting and was then silent. The child looked up to me and after a short while I smiled at the child and received a beautiful smile in return and we both were happy. Then the woman suddenly said, "The flu is coming." This statement was like receiving a devilish message in a heavenly situation. The woman obviously wanted to contribute to the general mutual acknowledgement and understanding and chose as subject the weather and there the most negative side of it. It was such a demonstration of brain staining, of how children get their mind stained, of how their whole life gets forced in the wrong direction. It was such a demonstration of the way children get brought up with suffering as a normal part of their lives. The grown-ups just speak death, destruction and affliction into the lives of children.

So the proper use of the word brainwashing should be when we have woken up to what was going on all the years of our life and start slowly, one by one, to get rid of all this input into our mind and clean the mind of all the negativity that was put into it by our cultural upbringing.

This young friend of mine was very lucky that this cleaning of his mind started at that young age. He could still change his belief in a fraction of a second. And he did it gladly. And he quickly became an encouragement to the grown-ups. Sometimes he just pointed to heaven and people stopped saying what they were saying.

When somebody has cancer then a certain amount of his cells are out of alignment with the rest of the cells. These cancerous cells are in conflict with the healthy ones. They are not going in the same direction as the rest of the body does. A very similar situation exists when a person is spiritually out of line with the rest of humanity. Such a person is in discord with others and with God. Instead to create healing in his relationships he creates destruction. His relationships are injurious. He is like a cancerous cell in the body of humanity. And that wrong attitude is exactly the reason why he has cancer. So in order to cure his cancer he must first cure his attitude. That must be his main target. He must change his mind regarding his general relationships towards the people around him. His work on the improvement of his immune system will only work when he first of all works on his relationships, starts forgiving people and healing the ties between him and others. That is the main work he has to accomplish.

A similar situation exist when we talk of viruses. Viruses are seen as the cause of certain ailments and epidemics. But viruses are always part of our body and our life and our surroundings. They are not really a danger to us. The body is very well equipped to deal with them and does so all the time. Cancerous cells are always present in the body and the body deals with them continuously. So does the body with viruses. The body can easily resist these viruses. The body is very well equipped to heal itself and repair damage done to it and to produce medicine that might be required. It is not a certain virus that damages our body, it is the lack of efficient management that does the harm. Business undertakings that have long lasting problems are most of the times victims of insufficient management. When things go wrong within a country and there is inner turmoil and civil war then there is a lack of proper leadership. The top politicians are not doing their job properly and might even be consciously or subconsciously in agreement with the wrong mental attitude of the instigators. And so it is with our body when a virus seems to cause a problem. The management of our body is not effectively running the body and the whole person. Our will does not really know what it wants. It somehow agrees with the negative symptoms instead of resisting them. The infection is not caused by physical means but by mental and spiritual means. Whenever you see an awareness campaign for a certain epidemic or illness then just do the following if you want to get it: become aware of it, learn how to pronounce the word the people have given this disease, speak it out, get involved in discussing it, do the things this campaign suggest you should do, go for regular tests, become completely aware of the whole thing and remain completely unaware of your position as a healthy child of God that could grow permanently in health and wellbeing. The belief that illnesses are caused by viruses, by germs, by toxins, by some biological agent, by some mix-up in your chemistry is just a belief. These things are not the cause, they are merely things that use the lack of good management to run wild and disorderly. They are like looters that use an unstable situation to run riot, throw stones, erect barricades and come out on the rampage. And they do this because law and order of the personal system has broken down. Such a person has lost control over his life. His mind is deranged. He behaves in an abnormal way, in a way that is contrary to the Way. And he is imitating the crowds. He has become aware of what the awareness campaign has suggested he should become aware of. He follows the call, "The flu is coming." It is not a physical infection, it is a mental infection. Epidemics are spread by infections, but not by physical ones. Such infections are of the kind that are spread by the word of mouth, by thinking - wrong thinking, by awareness - the wrong kind of awareness, by fear, by psychic contagion. So we are resisting viruses all the time. It is second nature to us. But then, when suddenly the word is spread that the flu is coming, and when we then accept this message and become "aware" of it, then we give the signal to our subconscious that it has to stop normal operation and let the looters come out and let them run riot. We have "managed" to get the flu. And maybe we are even proud of our management achievements. We say, "I knew, I would get it."

You are in a relaxed mood, your imagery is done in a confident peaceful attitude. You believe in divine health. You are confident that your body can produce any medicine that might be required. You are confident that your body can repair anything that might be wrong with it. You are even confident that your higher self can expose anything that might be wrong in your spiritual body and cause your mental body to plan an intelligent measure and cause your physical body to act accordingly. You start to live in divine health. You start to live as if illness does not exist. You start to live knowing that you will be well all your life and that when you die you experience just a change of consciousness and live a better life without your body.

If it is so easy to get rid of physical problems why is it that so many people have them and don't get rid of them? We are living in a so-called Christian society and one should expect that Christian teachings are common knowledge and common practice - with religious, but also with scientific people. But here we have again that religion and science often have the same problem. Actually these teachings are not only the teachings of Christianity, all really spiritual movements have them. They all have the solution to men's problems and they just differ in ways of expressing them. But religion has not really men's well-being as its aim, its aim is rather power and financial gain. And with science it is not much different. Again and again one finds reports that medical scientist reject practices that are aeons old, have been used successfully in all cultures and are well documented. All such rejections just prove one thing, and that is that such people do not have the interest of the suffering at heart.

And the same applies to the religious guys. Both are really hypocrites. In addition to the shortcomings of the scientific people the religious are very much afraid of the Holy Spirit and his works. So are the scientific people who reject the natural methods, but they are not so much aware of it. For the religious clergy this thread is much more real. Because this operating of the gifts of the spirit in the gathering of the believers is the big difference between their meetings and the meetings of the real church. They fear it like hell, because it would make them superfluous. The meeting would not be anymore in their hands, the Holy Spirit would have taken it out of their hands.

This problem exists with all religions. The original moving of the spirit was soon used by the religionists for their aims. The development of rites, of priests, of buildings, of creeds, of begging etc. soon overgrew the spiritual aspects and killed them.

There is something else one can do in getting rid of cancer. One could simply use some natural medicine in cases of skin cancer. Put on some camphorated oil in the morning and castor oil in the evening and do so for some time. It worked for me on a small spot of my skin. With castor oil treatment I also removed a wart that disturbed me when drying myself with a towel after a bath.

The nicest way of getting rid of cancer is a laughing therapy. Just spend much time laughing. Look at movies that cause your mind and body to burst out laughing or even shake with laughter, chuckle, giggle or whatever expresses your happiness. Remember it is the mind that caused the problem of illness and that will also cure it. Be happy and healthy.

And we must not reject or disrespect the help of the medical professionals. It is all part of God's creation. It is just the evil thinking and acting that we have to be careful of.

Evil deeds, like anger by religionist and scientists against the moving of the spirit in respect to healing, is a general reaction that comes from them against whatever is in opposition to their self-will and greed. It is part of the general anger against everything that has to do with the things of God. This general anger exists due to their lack of agape love, their hatred, their opposition to whatever does not support their self-love and their love of worldly things.

What should be our attitude towards people of the medical profession who really care for their customers?

Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the virtue thereof might be known? And he hath given men skill, that he might be honoured in his marvellous works. With such doth he heal [men,] and taketh away their pains. Of such doth the apothecary make a confection; and of his works there is no end; and from him is peace over all the earth, My son, in thy sickness be not negligent: but pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. Leave off from sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour; and make a fat offering, as not being. Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him: let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him. There is a time when in their hands there is good success. For they shall also pray unto the Lord, that he would prosper that, which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life. He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician.

This is from Sirach 38:1-15 and it is good advice. Sirach is also called Ecclesiasticus.

A physician with the right attitude may often operate in the gifts of the spirit without being aware of this supernatural happening in his life and in his work. He might diagnose and prescribe cures that are just the result of his willingness to help suffering people.

Let us have a sixth example and stay with healing and also come back to dreams.

I can direct my dreams. I can influence what I am dreaming. I can cause myself to have certain dreams. To have dreams that help me. Therapeutic dreams. I can also stop to have bad dreams. I can more and more direct my waking thinking in the direction of the things of God and away from fear, anger, unforgivingness, greed, sickness, poverty and hostility. And the activities of my mind during sleep I can influence as well. Before I fall asleep I can purpose in my heart to have a dream that will cause a special physical problem to go away. When I then awake I might be aware of such a dream or might not be aware. That does not really matter. My body, and my subconscious mind, like it when I give such directions. My cells will be very happy because I give them clear direction. I might even simultaneously, as I meditate on the dream I want to have, meditate on the help the cells are giving me and thank them for their co-operation. Every cell of my body is conscious. My mind is not just in my brain only or attached to my brain. Every part of the physical world, as well as the spiritual world, is conscious. Consciousness is the most basic building block. The unity of the thinking and awareness of all parts of my body, of every cell, can be compared to the unity of the members of Christ's church. A cancerous cell is like a member of the church that is acting against the church and against himself. A cancerous cell is a cell that has lost its sense of direction, its sense of unity, its sense of pulling with all the other cells in the right direction. So look after your cells as a shepherd looks after his sheep and as Christ looks after his own.

I can every time the symptoms of a sickness appear purpose to have therapeutic dreams, dreams that cause my body to get healed while I am sleeping.

I can go further and let the Holy Spirit have use for sleep. He can then use dreams. And this will help me when I am awake. I will ask him to do so. So I give sleep over to the Holy Spirit. He will be my teacher while I am sleeping. I will be learning while asleep.

We will now look at a seventh example. We will turn our attention to the way our body eliminates toxins. When we sit down for bowel movements we empty our colon. When we want to empty our bladder we simply do so. We can do that whenever we want to, even if the bladder is almost empty. This is not the case with the bowels. We usually wait until we have the urge to do so. The elimination of particles via exhaling takes place continuously. The same with perspiration. If we are physically active this is increased, we breath quicker and sweat more. The breathing we can increase by using our will, not so the perspiration, at least not normally. Here we come to bodily functions that work automatically and others that do not. The bodily functions that work automatically are controlled by the subconscious mind. The ones that are not are controlled by our conscious mind. Our breathing works automatically. Our subconscious mind adjust the rate of breathing automatically to the demand. We don't have to do anything about it. Sometimes for long periods of time we do not pay any attention to our breathing at all and all happens naturally. But we can, if we want to, if we want to use our will, at any time we want, interrupt this independent action and influence it. We can stop breathing, we can inhale more quickly, or more deeply or we can exhale in every way we choose. We can have complete control over our way of breathing. It is the same with the blinking of our eyelids. The beating of our heart we can normally not influence directly. If we want it to beat slower we have to rest, if we want it to bead quicker we have to stimulate our body or our emotions. Some people exercise their ability to control their body and are able to influence their heartbeat by just using mind power. They might even be able to let the heart stop or beat so slow that it is not detectable. So there is a certain range of conscious control that one can exercise over the body. And there are also many functions of the body that become so common that the conscious mind does not have to make any input. When I get up to close the window or open the door then these activities are so often done that I hardly have to use my conscious mind. By simply doing something often the subconscious mind takes over and does it without the need of the conscious mind to act.

But when there is an activity that has always been activated by the subconscious mind only and that was not introduced to the subconscious mind by the conscious mind, like the beating of the heart, then we think that the conscious mind has no way of influencing this activity. We simply assume that we have to live with such a situation. Let us take an extreme example. When the heart stops beating then we assume that is it. May be a doctor can do something, may even a lay person, but if no such person is around, then it will be the end. But may be even the death of a person, the time of death, is determined by that person. It may be just that we do not know this. There are quite known cases where the death of a certain percentage of people occurred more often after certain events had taken place, like the ninetieth birthday. So our minds influence these things. It might happen consciously or unconsciously.

To sit down for bowel movement is such a case where normally always the subconscious mind has been the activating agent. We felt the need to go to the toilet and acted on it. We seldom went to the toilet when there was no such urge to relieve ourselves. But we can use our conscious mind to cause the colon to empty itself. This has advantages. When I can determine the time and hour of this then I need not to expect that it will happen at a time that does not suit me. How do I do it? May be I schedule times of the day when I want to eliminate the stool from my bowels. Let us say I want to do this at 7 in the morning and at 7 in the evening. I then go to the toilet at these times and bring myself into a relaxed state and visualize what I want to take place. I do not force myself. I do use my conscious will but I do not use my body at all. I do not use physical means like pressing or stressing certain muscles or keeping my breath and using it to cause inside pressure. I simply relax and let the unconscious do the work. I simply use my conscious mind to relax and to transmit my wish to the subconscious to do the work for me. What helps tremendously is to stop the mind from wandering and to turn it inwards. I might watch the process of breathing. Better is to watch the inner vibrations of the body, or of the spiritual body - the life body. Even better than this is to not only watch and monitor these vibrating sensations but to actually control and direct them. When I do not know about these feelings then the knowledge that they exist will be the initiation. I then can simply by activating them get to experiencing them. I might start with my left foot, concentrate my awareness on this foot and start to feel this life force in the foot, I feel this tingling, I feel how my food is vibrating very slightly. When I am quite sure of this feeling then I extend this to the lower left leg and then to the upper and when the whole left leg is felt this way I continue with the right foot and then so on to the whole right leg, to the hands and arms and to the lower torso, to the belly, to the chest, the neck and the head. I do this always for just a few minutes. It is a nice way to create. I turn inside, to the life flow inside of me, to the inside of my body, and let my subconscious create the things I had my conscious informing it about.

Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is inside of us. Now why should the kingdom of God be inside our body? Couldn't it be anywhere in the world. Wouldn't be heaven, up high in the sky, a much more believable place? But all the wisdom teachings of the ages have directed us to our inside. What is so special about our bodies? Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our spiritual self dwells in us. We live in a body, we have a soul and we are spirit. But if we investigate these things more closely then we realize that we are even more complex then that. Our body alone comprises actually three bodies. We have the physical body. And the life of this physical body is activated by a life body, a second body. And the emotions are contained in a third body, a soul body, a third body that has something to do with the soul but is not the soul. And when we come to the actual soul then it consists also of three parts. And when we come to our spirit then again we have three parts there. All these different parts can be seen in the spiritual realm. If the gifts of the spirit are operating then the spirit is in operation. The gift of discerning spirits lets one see these parts of us. And these different parts of ours are also states of consciousness. When I am awake then I operate in my physical body and my conscious mind is active. When I am asleep then my conscious mind has stopped to be active and my senses have ceased to send information to my brain and my unconscious is active and I am in the soul body. My mind has separated from the brain and my soul body has separated from the physical body, just the silver cord keeps the necessary info flowing. When also this silver cord is interrupted then I am completely free from my physical body and on my way to the life hereafter. The physical body has stopped of being used by me, it becomes lifeless and gets buried and my life body disintegrates.

So this is quite a complex me; the spirit of mine is the actual I, this I has a soul, and this soul is in a temporary container, my physical body. And because all this is inside my body I turn to the inside, because there is my real self, my higher self, my spirit. And my spirit is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, by God. God lives in me. And that is why the kingdom of God is in the inside of me. It is all very close. I don't have to search anywhere. It is right there inside of me. And I actually can feel some of this in my body. I can feel this life force vibrating inside of me. And not only can I feel this, I can actually cause it to move from the sole of my feet to the top of my head and again down to the sole of my feet. I direct it and control it. I am in charge. I am ruling. I have dominion.

The kingdom of God is inside me because inside of me is the real me, my spirit. The body and the outside world are only physical and therefore temporal, the eternal thing is my spirit, my real I. And the body and the outside world are created by me and out of my spiritual I. My body is only the physical, temporary self. My real self is spirit and this spirit penetrates my body and is the real self, the self where the kingdom is, where the ruling takes place, where the dominion is exercised.

And I can determine details of my life, like when my colon should discharge its content, and so get rid of much of the human waste that the body had produced by separating the useful parts of the food and drink from the parts it can't use and the parts that are toxic and are channelled down the intestinal channel. Also the cells that have died are guided to the elimination places, like the bowels. Now the longer these excrements remain inside the body the more they become a problem. There can be faecal parts in the colon that are as cakes and this congestion in the colon can cause a problem like migraine. Migraine can come from the abdominal area. So it is desirable to keep the stuff inside the colon and inside the whole alimentary canal moving and prevent blockages and prevent parts to remain inside. A typical cause of lack of bowel movement is stress and too much activity. The subconscious automatically will not initiate bowel movement when we are too active and busy, but wait for a suitable time. And when that time is not made available then we will get set under pressure and will feel the need for bowel movement when we might not want to be disturbed by it. When we are on our way to work or in a meeting or on a car trip, we might not appreciate this activity. So it can become quite handy when we can control it and let it happen at a time that suits us.

Some people sometimes do not evacuate their bowels for several days. So to do so twice a day is a dramatic improvement. All the poisons having much less a chance to cause toxic conditions. We also have to carry less weight around and we have to provide less energy to keep the waste at body temperature.

So training our body to discharge faeces at suitable times can be a nice way to generally learn to control parts of our body. We can pay attention to our feelings that surface when we evacuate our bowels and then imagine them occurring when we want this to happen the next time. And we can do the same with other processes.

We observe the details of a process and then reproduce them in our mind and so cause the process to run again. And we give the whole process a short name. When we then get used to this we imagine what we want to happen and also mention the name and it will happen more or less on its own. After some practice everything just happens automatically. The name we give we can call a macro - it is like a macro in the world of computers, a small program that exists within a larger application such as a word processor. It is used to simplify common tasks. It is a collection of commands which the application then automatically executes one after the other. This execution is started by keying in the name of the macro. Macros are employed where there is a need to use expended commands and when this is to be done more comfortably. The creation of a macro is of course only then economical when this chain of commands gets used quite often. To do this the actions to be done have to get first recorded or programmed. This might happen via a macro recorder or a macro editor. This is, in our example, our mind. We observe and monitor the feelings we have when we do a thing normally, a thing that we want in future to happen at a specific time automatically. When this time then comes, we go, in our example of bowel movement, to the toilet and sit down and "will" it to happen. This action is then the name we give to the whole thing - the macro. Everything else then happens automatically, may be not in the beginning, but later it will. The act of sitting down there in combination with our volition is the signal for the subconscious to do all the things we have observed and monitored. In the beginning we will have to help and imagine them to take place, but soon this will not anymore be necessary, and the act of sitting down will initiate everything - the macro will start to execute all the required details.

Our bodies are very much influenced by electrical processes. The conductivity of the body depends on the salt content and therefore varies; the act of urinating changes sufficiently the chemical balance and therefore influences us.

So the act of removal of human waste changes and influences us and because toxins are involved, it will be beneficial.

When a man wants to urinate but is prevented to do so because the presence of other people in the public toilet makes him tense and self-conscious then it can be helpful to know a way to overcome this problem. He can use his conscious mind to relax his body and to tell the subconscious mind to do the work.

He can do the same when he is at home and goes to the toilet to urinate and finds himself after a while doing nothing bodily but finds his mind very busy working on something; he can then direct his mind to relax the body and let the subconscious simply do what it knows well. The very act of urination is actually a good example of how to use the subconscious mind, because consciously no muscle gets activated and no valve is opened, no such thing is done, but the subconscious is allowed to do something, something we do not really know what it is.

We have achieved what we wanted and we relieved ourselves and also got rid of harmful human waste. We have learned to make contact with the subconscious mind and therefore to direct the functioning of the body. This will work when we want to urinate, or defecate, but it also will work when we want some repair work to be done like healing some part of our body.

So what is it we are looking at?

We learn to gain conscious control over normally unconscious processes.

We learn to bring involuntary body functions under control.

The will decides that something should be done, for example the body should stop smoking. The will gets the conscious mind to do something about it. The conscious mind is wise and turns the task over to the subconscious, asks the subconscious to make the necessary arrangement, asks God to do it, lets God do the thing. Then the conscious mind withdraws from the actual working out of the solution and lets the subconscious do everything necessary. The subconscious knows best. The conscious will just stand back and observes and turns its attention to the inside of the body, observes and directs the vibrations of the life body and therefore prevents the conscious mind from wandering around. The conscious mind stops the world, stops the inner dialog, and when this inner dialog starts again, or when the conscious mind becomes aware that the inner dialog has started again, or when the Holy Spirit has drawn the conscious mind's attention to the fact that the inner dialog has resumed, then the conscious mind gently turns again to the inner self, observes and directs the inner flow of energy and therefore helps the subconscious mind with his work on the task.

I know a man who told me how he stopped smoking. He had asked God to take the smoking habit away from him. One day he walked into a shop in order to buy cigarettes. He approached the counter with the intention to ask the shop assistant for cigarettes but he was shocked when he realized that he was not able to do it. He was able to walk up to the counter but unable to open his mouth and place the order. He told me that the whole thing was very embarrassing to him. At that moment he was quite embarrassed. But then later the whole incident was recognized by him as a great blessing, as a miracle, as a great act of deliverance. He had simply let his subconscious do what it felt necessary to be done. The subconscious simply prevented him to open his mouth - to speak. The subconscious did the right thing and he was delivered from a habit that had been a great problem for him. He was already embarrassed before he got into the shop due to the fact that he as a spiritual person had an area in his life where the devil was in control. But then he really got embarrassed when he looked like a fool coming up to the counter and then not saying anything but just standing there unable to move his lips and finally turning away and leaving. Only later he realized what had happened or what the Holy Spirit caused him to experience. This miracle so changed him around that he never bought and smoked cigarettes again. He was freed from smoking.

So what can we learn from this story? We hand our problem over to God. God is inside of us, he is in direct contact with our subconscious, he is part of it. We then just relax and let our subconscious solve it, and observe the result when it happens - and are happy.

Our eighth example is how the man Edgar Cayce healed himself of the lack of voice. When Edgar was still quite young he sold insurance for his father who was at that time in the insurance business. One day he woke up and could speak only in a whisper. He didn't have a cold. The doctor could not help him. He tried many other doctors, but they all could not help him. He had no control of his voice and for more than a year he could hardly speak, only in a whisper. He could not continue in the insurance business. He felt that there was something amiss in his spiritual life and he made a review of his life. He started to work as a photographer. He was hypnotized and was told that he could speak under hypnosis; but he could not speak afterwards. An exponent of hypnotism felt that Edgar was an auto-hypnotist and suggested to him that he put himself to sleep, letting someone suggest to him, "See yourself, tell us what the trouble is and what to do about it." But this was not done and his condition became worth. Then Edgar got a hypnotist to do it for him. This hypnotist later treated people through suggestive therapeutics. Edgar told the hypnotist that he felt that he could make himself unconscious. The hypnotist suggested that this was why other hypnotists were unable to give Edgar post-hypnotic suggestions, but that if Edgar would put himself in the unconscious condition and one talked with him, Edgar would be able to tell them the trouble and how to get rid of it. This was done. Edgar stretched out on a couch and in a very short while seemed to be asleep and the hypnotist started to talk to him about his throat, and Edgar answered in an audible voice. He described the condition of his throat, giving the cause and suggesting the remedy. The remedy was to increase the circulation to the throat and carry away the congested condition so that the throat would be normal and the vocal box would work. When Edgar was asked if this could be done he answered that it could be done. He told them that it was a psychological condition producing a physical effect so that he was unable to speak in the normal physical state of the body and that it could be removed by increasing the circulation by suggestion while in this unconscious condition. And it was done right there and then. They watched it taking place. They watched him changing the colour of his throat and getting healed. When Edgar woke up he could talk in a normal voice. He was healed.

For quite a number of decades after this Edgar was busy as an auto-hypnotist. He just needed the name and address of a person. In his hypnotic state he then would find this person and find the problem and the remedy for it. He was a great help to many people and many people got healed through this method.

Now the fact that Edgar made a review of his life suggests to me that his subconscious, his higher self, the self that was indwelled by the Holy Spirit, was guiding Edgar towards his ministry - towards his healing ministry. The loss of his voice became the means to find exactly the way he would minister to thousands of people.

Hypnotism can be a very useful thing - seemingly. The circumstances of hypnosis are some sort of point of contact to help the hypnotist, and especially the person getting hypnotised, to believe in it and to receive the healing.

Edgar's spiritual problem was to get going with his purpose in life, to get it started - ministering to sick people. This was a psychological condition producing a physical effect that manifested itself as a partial paralysis of the inferior muscles of the vocal cords. The remedy was to increase the circulation to the affected parts. And this could be done and was done by suggestion. The hypnotist gave instructions accordingly, "The circulation to the affected parts will now increase and the condition will be removed." And then they watched what happened. Slowly the upper part of the chest turned pink. Then the throat. The pink changed into rose. The rose into a vehement red. The whole thing lasted just about a quarter to half an hour. Then Edgar again spoke in an audible voice and said that it is all right now and that the condition is removed and that the suggestion should be made that the circulation returns to normal and that after that the body awakens. This was done. They watched as the red changed back through rose to pink and then the skin returned to its normal colour. Edgar awakened and was a healthy man.

What can we learn from this?

We can make it easier. We can give such instructions ourselves to our subconscious mind. If I can believe that hypnosis can do this then I just go one step further and believe that it can be done directly. I just have to widen the range of my beliefs. Hypnosis just acts as a point of contact, it is a sort of crutch. Let us make the whole thing simple and straightforward. I speak to the thing and command it to change. But we can leave hypnosis for those who are growing in the knowledge of how faith works.

What else can we learn from this?

We can learn that the symptom, the inability to speak, was created be Edgar himself. His subconscious created it. And his subconscious also then healed it. The subconscious did the whole thing, it did both. Edgar was a healed man, but he was now even much more, he had become a healer of many. The whole thing caused him to make a gigantic step forward. So when we get sick we should take this as an opportunity and as a challenge, as a potential for advancement in life. But what we want to bring out here is that we, we with our conscious mind, can cause all these things. We create negative things, in this case physical limitations, and we create positive things, in this case physical healing. If we know about these abilities, we then can start to minimise the creation of negative things and can start putting our energies into creating things we really want and enjoy. That means we start to create consciously - consciously the good things. And we stop, stop consciously, to bring into our lives all the things we do not want and do not enjoy. We can rule, have dominion, be in control. We create. We start to create consciously. We start to know what we are doing. To create is our real purpose.

We rule in our life. We rule over our body. We rule over our circumstances.

But what about ruling over others? And what about being ruled by others?

We can learn something else from this case. Edgar was a very spiritual inclined person. Already as a boy and as a young man he read the Bible many times. He wanted to do the will of his Father. But he was part of man-made churches and therefore of orthodoxy. He therefore was brought up with this strange relationship to the supernatural. On one side they believed in God, a supernatural being, but had problems with every kind of supernatural happening, especially in the meetings of the believers. Their clergy would not like it. It destabilized the cleric's influence and power. Orthodoxy had told the Christians for 2000 years that all supernatural things are evil. It is the devil. The devil is doing it. Edgar had a tremendous problem accepting his gift and therefore using it. It was a big problem in his life. It was so big that God via his subconscious had to let him loose his voice and get a miraculous cure. His knowledge of the Bible was a big help for him. His attachment to the clergy a big drawback.

This attachment to the religionists and their system also prevented him to take off his religious glasses before reading the Bible. This was the reason that he never separated from them and never became really free. But he did one important thing, a thing that speaks very much for him, he did not try to make the big money out of his gift. He was sometimes tempted, but he always went back onto the right way. This is probably the most admirable aspect of this life. When he became aware that others were using him in order to get rich quickly he put a stop to it. And he became open to the fact that other spiritual movements, others than Christianity, were bringing also spiritual truths. His Christianity did not remain narrow minded.

I read a scientific book that dealt with the paranormal. In it the experience with people who had paranormal abilities was expressed. They were quoted that they had the common belief that no one should make money out of their paranormal abilities, that they got these gifts from God and that it would be immoral to use it for making financial gain. They also believed that if they did try to gain financially, then the gift would be removed or that the fortune they had made would turn into disaster and calamity. With this arises the question who is a real follower of Christ, the Christian who operates in the gifts of the spirit and makes money out of it and thinks that godliness is a means to financial gain and who therefore peddles the word of God for profit, and therefore also proves that he acts against the dictates of the Bible, or a "pagan", who is may be not claiming to be a Christian, but who is a person that has "paranormal" abilities and who has received this gift from God and uses it, may be even for the benefit of others, to get them whole, and who does not make money out of this. Who of the two is a real follower of Christ?

The influence of money on the operating of the gifts of the spirit is diverse. There might be for example a medium that performs in public to an audience which pays an entry fee. Now this medium is worried if the gift will be working. A medium that does not charge money has nothing to worry about. If something happens then that is okay and if nothing happens that is also okay. But the medium who makes money out of her gifts might worry about her success, if the gifts will be there when the show begins. Now there might be a heresy hunter in the audience and he observes how the medium comes on stage and after a few explaining words the medium picks out a woman from the audience and asks her if she has a close relative or friend that recently died with the name Josephine and this woman from the audience confirms it and also confirms some more details the medium gives. This heresy hunter now gets an idea and after the performance he approaches this woman from the audience and ask her some questions and finds out that this woman actually came to this medium's performance because she got a complimentary ticket from the medium and that this was the reason she was there. She had been in contact with the medium before. The obvious conclusion that the heresy hunter draws from this information is that the medium and the whole show is a fake, a fraud. He now has a good reason to condemn the whole thing as being fraudulent. But what really happened was that the medium knew from experience that such a show could be a complete failure when the first person she asked did not respond positively to her question and denied any knowledge of what the medium said. The person simply might not want to get involved, might only want to see the show but does not want to be drawn into the limelight. The person might very well know that what the medium says is very much applying to his life, but he has one, or several reason to deny it so that he can stay out of the whole thing. The medium knows from experience that such things happen and that they can cause disaster and found that they could be avoided when the first person approached would be a person who had been known to the medium and would co-operate and therefore the medium sends out complimentary tickets. The medium knows that when the first person approached gives a positive response then the following people will find it much easier to respond positively as well. They now have received permission to also believe that what happens there is possible and they respond accordingly. But the fact that the first try was not genuine, that it was a set-up, and that this was discovered and revealed, casts a bad light on the medium, the whole performance, and also on mediumship as a whole, even on all supernatural things.

So what can we learn from this? The first thing is that we should know that such arrangements, and others with similar aims, are possible and are happening. The main thing however that we can learn from this is that people who make money with their gifts are very much tempted to deceive us and that they often do so. You can never be sure that what such people do is genuine. So whenever you have a "pastor" who operates in the gifts then keep this possibility in mind. A person who does not think that a holy thing is a means to financial gain will have no need for deception.

Edgar's aim was not financial gain, his aim was to help people. He had no need to deceive.

There might be a "pastor" who has a reputation for operating in the gifts of the spirit and is considered by many people, people from "his congregation" and from outsiders as well, as "a mighty man of God" and this ability, supported by his strong and convincing personality, makes "his church" a very successful business for him and he feels that the working of the gifts in "his ministry" is essential for keeping the people coming to "his" services and fears that if they are not working his whole "ministry" might collapse. Such a man will be very tempted to use a trick or two to help the occurring of the gifts or to help the occurring of situations that look like the gifts are operating. He feels this is necessary and probably even might feel that it is in the interest of the people in order for them to maintain a high level of faith. So always keep a lookout for the miraculous appearing together with people who make a profit out of it. Keep the story in your mind of the medium sending out complimentary tickets.

Let us learn from Edgar Cayce how he obtained knowledge of what was wrong with his voice and let us learn to obtain knowledge by asking and then listening. The answer can come to us by various channels. It may be a dream or just an intuitive idea during a quiet moment. And then we ask for a cure. It may come the same way, even at the same time. And then we apply this knowledge and direct for example more circulation to a certain part of our body by verbally and mentally saying, "The circulation to this part of my body will now increase." And then we do something about getting rid of the energy that is not right, of parts that cause congestion by saying, "The congested condition at this part of my body will now be removed and get carried away." And then we conclude by saying, "My body is now normal and everything works just fine."

And this we suggest in a normal condition. We do not need to get into an unconscious condition, no kind of trance is required, nobody has to hypnotise us.

Hypnotism seems to have many positive effects especially then when all involved have the right positive attitude. But it can be the other way round. Once Edgar was in this state of self-hypnosis when some medical people misused the situation and started to make experiments with Edgar and he was physical hurt. They had tried to find out how he would react to pain when his body was injured. It could have been worth.

For a person who has dominion hypnosis should be seen as a possible means to help people in need but that it is actually a crutch and not really necessary but potentially dangerous. It can easily get misused. A normal person should not hypnotise anybody and should never agree that others hypnotize him. We should be in contact with our higher self ourselves. We should not allow others to interfere between what goes on between our conscious mind and our unconscious mind. Our will should decide what our conscious mind thinks and does and we ourselves should give directions to our subconscious. The act of using confessions or suggestions or affirmations is the ideal thing and the best way to give the subconscious a positive direction. We can do this directly and don't have to use hypnosis.

Is there maybe another thing that we can learn from the case of Edgar?

There is something quite interesting. It is the fact that Edgar was not open to post-suggestion, he didn't take it. He healed himself on Sunday afternoon, March 31, 1901. Before that two men had tried to hypnotize him, several times they had tried, and then, when he was hypnotized, they tried to give him post-hypnotic suggestions to the effect that he would be healed after the hypnotic session - that he would then speak in a normal voice. During the hypnotic sessions Edgar could always speak normally, speak in a clear voice, but after that he could only speak again in a whisper. The post-hypnotic suggestions did not work with him. Later Edgar stated that these men did not actually hypnotize him but that he had hypnotized himself. Edgar could only get hynotized when he himself wanted it to happen. If somebody else wanted to hypnotize him then it did not work. So Edgar was not open to post-hypnotic suggestion but he also was not even open to get hypnotized at all. He was a man who lived as God wanted him to live and therefore nobody had any control over him, only he himself. Even when he had given up control over his conscious mind he could not be controlled. Is that not interesting? Even then he had to do the controlling himself. He was protected from any direct or indirect attempt to control him - and therefore from any attempt to harm him. He was immune to witchcraft. He had a spiritual immune system. So this is a confirmation that the only real way to live a protected life is to walk the way Jesus walked - the Way. Nobody will be able to hypnotize a man who walks the Way, only self-hypnosis will work with him. Only his higher self will be able to control him, nobody else. He will be safe.

Edgar was safe. There was only one person who could harm him and that was himself. And he did so several times. He overworked himself. And during World War II, when his help was in great need, he tried to help too many people and this strain caused him harm and he died.

In Edgar Cayce we have an example how important it is to live the right life. Because he walked the Way he could not get hypnotized. So somebody might deduct from this that if he does not really live the right Way then he will be save by simply not allowing anybody to hypnotize him. But this might not be as easy as it seems. He might not know that somebody is hypnotizing him. The hypnotizer does not have to be present. Distance is not really a hindrance. Mental influence over behaviour at a distance is possible. Space and time is not really what it seems to be. Great distance is not a real problem. Even time is not. Keep this fact in mind when you read about reports of witchcraft: Mental influence over behaviour at a distance - space distance and time distance - is possible. But more important is to keep in mind to walk the Way.

So just not letting anybody hypnotize you is not really a protection. You can get hypnotized without you knowing about it. The way to real protection is to walk as Jesus did.

Get into a habit of simply denying that anything not of God can affect you. Do not accept a believe that there is any kind of evil that can harm you. Just deny such suggestions. Such a denial is the most effective protection mechanism.

You create your own world of circumstances. You and I were created to create. To create is our purpose. And we create as God created. We create the good stuff. What is good, and whole, and holy, and nice, that is what we create. We do not create things that are not good and we definitely do not create things that are not good for us - and harm us. There is nothing that can hurt us. We cannot be hurt. Nobody can hurt us.

A very good example of denial is to say, "No weapon formed against me shall prosper."

We only recognize the truth. We deny any error.

When you deny error then you are not hiding anything. Error does not really exist as darkness does not really exist. Both cannot exist when light appears. They just vanish when light is directed at them.

Darkness has no power over us. We cannot be harmed. We are free from the belief that we can be harmed. We do not believe that anybody can harm us and that any kind of sickness can befall us. Another person can do nothing that could hurt us. And we show this belief to others and this again, our complete freedom from the belief that damage can be done to us, will have the effect on the other person, that he is guiltless and that therefore there is also no need to forgive him. We are free and we teach others that they are free. We are whole and holy and so is the other person.

If I can't get hurt, then the other can't harm me, and then there is also no need to be upset about the other person, to be cross with him, to rage against him, to keep a grudge against him, because he can't really do anything against me.

So I can actually check if I really believe that no weapon can harm me. If I still have something against another person, then I don't really belief that I am unassailable. If I would really believe that nothing can do me any harm, then there would be no need for anger, unforgivingness, or fury.

If all these things like rage, accusations, hate, fear, are really gone, then I know that my belief that I am invulnerable has grown to such an extend, that it has become more than belief, that it has become knowledge. This knowledge will be a result of much practice. It will be very practicable knowledge, gained by experience. I will then have used every possible occasion to practise it. Again and again I will have experienced that I was in a dangerous situation but that I got out of it without having received any harm. We should consciously experience these and consciously observe them and always acknowledge that it was a dangerous situation but that no harm was done to us.

Let us always say, "The Lord saves me from all trouble."

We are invulnerable. Invulnerable: incapable of being wounded, injured, or harmed; immune to attack. Invulnerable: that cannot be wounded or hurt, physically or mentally. Invulnerability - a word that we should learn to use and a word that should remind us of Jesus and the way he walked and we should walk. It is a decision we make all the time. We have always this power of decision. Jesus made all the time the decision to be invulnerable. And when he was vulnerable then that was also based on a decision he had made. It was always his decision. He was always in control. He always had dominion. We do not tell others that we are invulnerable, we simply show them that we are.

If I am invulnerable then there is no need for guilt and there is no need for condemnation. I then don't have to feel guilty and I then don't have to condemn. And above all I don't have to find others guilty, and when they are not guilty, then it is unnecessary to condemn. Because the other person has no way to hurt me, he also can't be guilty.

And there is also no need to forgive because nothing wrong has been done. There is also no need to blame; I have to blame nobody for nothing. I walk in perfect freedom - and so do the other people around me.

Hypnosis is often used to obtain information, especially information related to physical or psychological problems. But this information is available by simpler means. The subconscious is a storehouse of all information and we simply have to ask and it will be given to us. This is what it is all about to be led by the spirit of God. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Matthew 7:7.

When we read about people getting regressed in order to find out what has happened in their life, or lives, then we should always see if the hypnotist has done the hypnosis test. The hypnosis test is done by re-hypnotizing the subject and asking him when and how he first heard about the subject he was talking about under hypnosis. The reason being the existence of cryptomnesia, or hidden memory. Our subconscious houses all information or has access to all information, simply because there is only one mind. We have the mind of Christ. Telepathy can best be explained by this fact.

Our mind stores everything that we ever came across. So when the subject is asked about a previous life he can mould his 'past life' upon such particular cryptomnesic source.

Or he can simply create a new life story and act accordingly.

He also can use the expectations of the person who hypnotizes him. When someone gets interviewed he might pick up the expectations of the person interviewing him and simply follows them. He does not even have to be a good actor. The same applies to hypnosis. The hypnotized person simply follows the lead of the hypnotizer.

There exists of course another possibility. When the hypnotist's conscious mind controls the subject's unconscious mind and obtains information from it, we can ask if he really obtains this information from the subject's unconscious mind or does he perhaps obtain it from his own subconscious mind.

Hypnosis sometimes results in the emergence of spirits speaking through the subject. Now this is an occurrence documented since ages in many cultures and can be a source of information. It is a normal happening in church life, in the life of a true church, and is described for example in the gifts of the spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 and called the manifestation of the spirit. The word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, prophecy, discerning of spirits, divers kinds of tongues and the interpretation of tongues are such gifts of the spirit. Now the man-made churches are often very afraid of the operation of these gifts. There is no reason to be afraid of these supernaturally happenings. The key to these gifts is a very simple procedure: judgement. There is a very short and direct description in 1 Corinthians 14:29, "Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge." A more exact translations is, "And prophets two or three let speak, and the others let discern." The others are we. We are to judge, to discern what we hear. The responsibility is mine. The clergy of course wants to be between what the spirit says and what I am allowed to hear and because this being in-between does not really work, the clergy rather does not want the gifts to work in the church. The clergyman wants to tell me what I should read and what I shouldn't read. He wants to decide what is part of the canon and what is not. He wants to tell us what we should have on our bookshelf and what should be thrown out. To fight the Holy Spirit is the main activity of the clergyman.

So our attitude to such spirit speaking or channelling can be quite simple: we listen and judge and discern. We discern the situation, the people involved. But the main thing is to judge the content. Is it useful? Does it help me? Is it good? What the actual message is, is what is important. That is at what we have a good look and that is what we discern and evaluate.

And what about a situation were we, we ourselves, are used in the gifts of the spirit? When we let a spirit speak through us, when we do some channelling? We then let God use us; we let the Holy Spirit use us for the edification of the church. 1 Corinthians 14:26:

How is it then, brethren? when ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.

We probably have asked God to use us and now God is doing exactly this, he speaks to others through us. We have asked God for this and we believe that he is doing it. We believe that he is doing it - not somebody else. God will not give us a stone when we ask for the Holy Spirit. But that does not mean that we are not anymore in control.

And we then believe that God is doing it and not some spirit whom we would not like to speak through us. Even then we are in control. Lets read 1 Corinthians 14:32:

And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

The spirit that speaks through us is subject to us; we are in control.

And even if we come to a situation were we might think that this spirit that speaks through us is not a desirable spirit we are still in control. We remain in control and we have at all times the power to send any spirit away and chase him out of our life. We just have to say the word, speak a command, resist the devil.

And such an evil spirit will also not have the option to come back, or to even bring a host of others with him, because our house is not only clean and emptied from all evil spirits, but it is also filled with all spiritual knowledge and all spiritual goodness and thinking and speaking and doing.

So we are not afraid of being spiritually active, we are not afraid of listening to some supernatural utterance and we also not afraid of giving supernatural utterances ourselves. We do not let some orthodox clergy tell us what is in line with their rules of the elders and their man-made church dogmas.

Beware of them and their limiting views, limiting the world to their anti-Christian teachings and to their antichrist.

Now what actually happens when someone gets hypnotized?

The hypnotist gets the subject under his control. He disconnects the subject's conscious mind from the subject's subconscious mind and then he substitutes his own conscious mind to control the subject's subconscious mind. The hypnotist has the hypnotized person, the subject, under his control. The conscious mind of the hypnotized person is asleep. The hypnotist has the subject under his control - the bodily functions of the subject are completely under the control of the hypnotist's conscious mind.

Let us take an example. The hypnotist tells the body of the hypnotized person that a particular spot on his skin is getting burned and the body of the subject reacts in accordance with this information and develops blisters. Now there was no actual burning, just the suggestion of it. But the blisters are real. Burns have been raised on the skin.

What does this tell us?

The hypnotized person would not believe that he could, under normal circumstances, cause blisters on his skin by simply suggesting that the spot is getting burned. Even the hypnotist might not believe that he could do this to himself. The hypnotist however knows from the history of hypnotism, and from his own experience based on this knowledge, that it is possible to achieve such results under hypnosis.

Now why can we not achieve something like this under normal circumstances? Under conditions when no hypnosis takes place?

Because we do not believe we can. We limit ourselves. Our whole experience of physical life is based on our beliefs. To know one's own beliefs is one of the main aims a person who wants to grow in spiritual things should go for. The key to this is to listen to one's own words. They betray our beliefs. We simply limit ourselves all the time.

When our subconscious can create real burns on our skin without being burned, and when it can let these burns as easily also disappear when so instructed, then it can also cause any kind of sickness and can heal any kind of sickness.

If we know this then we also know where dis-eases come from and we know how to let them disappear. We have created them and we can create them away again. The only problem is if we believe we can. So all we have to do is work on our beliefs.

When you know how to measure your beliefs and when you know how faith works then you have no problems understanding how hypnosis works.

When you can control your tongue, then you can control your thinking and your believing, and you are in control of your creations.

When I say something like this then I of course automatically think of creating positive things.

But all the negative things in a person's life are also created by this person.

We seem to have no problem in creating cancer in our bodies but plenty of problems in replacing this cancer with health.

So I simply have to reduce my creative powers which I use to create negative things and increase my creative powers that produce positive things.

And I have to change my thinking accordingly. My beliefs are my most precious possessions. Or my most dangerous possessions.

So if I can create blisters - make wounds -, and can make them disappear again, under hypnotic conditions, then I also can do so under normal conditions. I simply have to work on my beliefs. And that is the subject of this "Have Dominion."

I don't have to get someone else to "hypnotize" me; I do it myself.

There is scarcely any limit to what the subconscious mind can be made to do, through hypnotism, and also through simply willing and believing.

So if you have spent so much energy in all the years of your life creating illnesses, wants, shortcomings, needs, problems, etc. why don't you now turn around and spend the rest of your life using all this energy to create health and wealth, joy and peace, prosperity and goodness?

Now let us come back to the beliefs of the hypnotist. He probably does not believe that he could create blisters on his own skin, or on somebody else's skin, by just using his conscious mind. But why does he believe that his subject can do it when he has hypnotized him? Because he has heard and read about such things in the history of hypnotism. And his belief in this possibility grew after he had done it himself. One of his colleagues, may be a person who was used not to limit his beliefs too much, one day probably had this great idea and then tried it out on one of his subjects and found that it worked. And it got recorded in the annals of hypnotism. Why did he get such idea? His beliefs were not so limited as the ones of his colleagues.

Where do all our limiting beliefs come from? To limit our beliefs is a big part of our upbringing. All the time, from our earliest days, we are bombarded with them. We are told all the time that we can't do something, that something can't be done, that it is not possible. We learn especially by example and the examples of all the other people around us teach the newcomer that this and the other can't be done.

One example: If a grown-up gets sick, he goes to the doctor. This is an example to the newcomer, so he learns that this is the way to react to sickness. That he could pray and get healed, is not given him as an example. So he does not know it. He has been limited.

We are especially trained to believe that the good things can't be done. And also that the rather bad things can.

And this continues when we are grown up. Illness just happens, you can't do anything about it. Accidents happen, it is just one of those things. Statistics prove it. Fate would have it that I am poor. There are sicknesses that are incurable. Miracles happened at the time of Jesus, not today. A good time to pick up such limiting beliefs is on Sunday morning at "church."

It is one of our purposes in life to realize that this has taken place all the time. And after we have become aware of it we should start to reverse the situation. Adopting limiting beliefs comes naturally, getting rid of them does not seem to come naturally at all. Just to discover limiting beliefs seems a big task. A short cut to find these limiting beliefs is of course to listen to our words - to measure our faith.

Another way to counteract limiting beliefs could be to search and aim for liberating beliefs.

What about believing that there will be not one day of sickness in all the days of the rest of my life? Think about this sentence and see if it suits you. See if you like it. What about adopting it and speaking it out. Confessing it. What about confessing it in the presence of others?

You could adopt the belief that the older you get the healthier you get. The more you get rid of limiting beliefs, especially regarding sickness, the more you are acquiring beliefs that cause you to be healthy. The more you renew your mind the more you obtain liberty and power. The further you get away from the people who helped to install all these limiting beliefs the further you advance towards living in divine health.

So say it, "The older I get the healthier I get."

This is a belief that is based on much logic. As health is completely dependent on the mental and spiritual state of a person, a person that grows spiritually all the time will therefore also grow health-wise all the time.

But this belief also goes much against what people normally believe about old age. The normal belief is that life becomes less healthy the older one gets. We have the tendency to rather adopt negative beliefs - limiting beliefs.

So let us reverse the situation and get wiser and therefore healthier.

I was fortunate enough to hear as a small boy the story of Solomon and how he decided to ask God for wisdom. I thought that was a great idea and decided there and then to go for wisdom. I had observed how grown-up people were worried about old age and I thought that this going for wisdom would solve that problem as well, because if I grow in wisdom then life can only get better all the time and the older I get the wiser I would act and therefore my life would just keep getting better. So there would be no need to worry about old age, on the contrary, I would be able to look forward to getting older and the older I got the more I would enjoy life.

Now this idea of going for wisdom has proved to be an excellent idea. I can highly recommend it. Actually the whole idea to go for the spiritual things in life has proved to be a very good idea. It is a comprehensive thing. Every aspect of it makes sense and all aspects fit nicely together. For example if you take sin then there is the fact that if you stay away from it then you benefit from this very much. Black magic and evil intentions of others cannot harm you. And on the other side if you operate and walk in faith then it becomes easy to stay away from sin. So the whole thing makes sense, works both ways, and the result is just nice. This is just an example; the same applies to the other aspects as well. It is a comprehensive thing.

I have observed my own life and that of other people near to me, and also not so near to me, and I also have observed the rules of life and the laws of the sages and the result is that it all makes sense. The laws of the universe are universal and they are true and they work. I am doing this now already for several decades and the longer I do it the more I am convinced that this living in accordance with these guidelines is the only way to live, to live a happy life. Actually it has become more than conviction, it has become knowledge.

But it is also a compulsive thing. It is compulsory, you can't get away from it. You can delay it. But that is all. You can't delay it forever. There will come a time where you will have to go that way. You are a flame of God and you never can become apart from God. The only thing that can happen is that you can think of being apart from God and you then can act as if you have nothing to do with God. But that is already all. There will come a time when you simply have to be again one with God, also in your thinking. So you can delay the whole thing, and you can suffer while you are delaying. That is your choice. So if you like suffering then you are free to do so. The choice is yours.

Let us look at another belief, a nice one, that could be chosen. What about the belief that I will not die of any illness but that my spirit one day will simply leave my body. The people all around us are so manipulated that most of them believe that somebody must first get sick before he dies. Read about the reason given in reports why a person died. They always seem to have the need to give a bodily cause for death. I can't remember having ever read that the reason for the death of a person was that his spirit left his body.

What about not dying at all? Do we really know that there are no human beings among us who are hundreds of years old and don't make any fuss about it, don't tell the media about it, don't let the authorities keep any record, but go about their business and ministry without us knowing about their ancientness?

Let us read John 21:22-23.

Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?

What about not dying at all but also not carrying on living here on earth in our normal physical body but ascending to heaven? Ascending to heaven with a transformed body? Let us read Genesis 5:21-24:

And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

And also Hebrews 11:5:

By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

He was not found, the Bible says. How many people are not found today. Missing persons; they were not found; the police files contain plenty of such cases. Were some of them translated?

Enoch did not see death. Isn't that a nice possible belief to have? Wouldn't such a believe do something to our faith life? What about faith? Exactly the next verse talks very much about faith. Let us look at the next verse, Hebrews 11:6:

But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Are we pleasing God? Do we have faith?