Thoughts Are Things & the Real and the Unreal

THERE belongs to every human being a higher self and a lower self‐‐a self or mind of the spirit which has been growing for ages, and a self of the body, which is but a thing of yesterday. The higher self is full of prompting idea, suggestion and aspiration. This it receives of the Supreme Power. All this the lower or animal self regards as wild and visionary. The higher self argues possibilities and power for us greater than men and women now possess and enjoy. The lower self says we can only live and exist as men and women have lived and existed before us. The higher self craves freedom from the cumbrousness, the limitations, the pains and disabilities of the body. The lower self says that we are born to them, born to ill, born to suffer, and must suffer as have so many before us. The higher self wants a standard for right and wrong of its own. The lower self says we must accept a standard made for us by others‐‐by general and long‐held opinion, belief and prejudice. "To thine own self be true" is an oft‐uttered adage. But to which self? The higher or lower? --- from "Thoughts are Things" Jesus said: "Judge not according to appearances but judge righteous judgment." We are often asked: How can we judge between the real and the unreal? This difference, I might say, is sometimes a little difficult to determine. As seekers for the Kingdom of God we find that it is necessary to have a knowledge and understanding that transcends the average knowledge of the world. The one who is wise with the wisdom of the Spirit must know more than the best trained college professor in the land. He must have a better understanding than any of the world's wise ones. He must go deeper, and have a fuller, broader comprehension than any of those who base their knowledge in intellectual ways, because there is a great and mighty difference between the realm of appearances and the realm of realities. I might say that this difference is between matter and spirit, the limited and unlimited, or the relative and the absolute. --- from "The Real and the Unreal" This collection of hard to find New Thought works includes some study questions after each work to provide a path for deeper contemplation of these magical ideas.