No Enchantment

     “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel” (Num. 23:23) 

“I shall overturn and overturn until he comes whose place it is to rule.”

     This is the day when much is said about enchantment and divination — sometimes openly under these names, but more often referred to only, or spoken of by a new modern name.  The mad enchantment of a bird and a serpent is only equaled by the enchantment that exists between man and the serpent of human thinking.  The only way for the bird to break the spell is to takes its eyes away from the fearsome thing upon which it is gazing, and the only way for man to break the spell of disease, hate, fear, sin, and lack is to take his attention away from appearances, “Being absent from the body and present with the Lord” and “Judging not from appearances, but judging righteous judgment” — the scriptural means of breaking the enchantment.  But few people want to follow these commands.  They way their problem clearly stated and set forth, and then they want the remedy.  They want to attack the evil and destroy it — and so they are destroyed by the very thing they desire to destroy.

     “But,” says one, “that is the very reason I took up the study of Truth — I want to destroy the evil in my life.”  “There is nothing in My Kingdom that can or shall be destroyed,” and the appearance you are attempting to destroy is the out-picturing of your own belief.  You are attempting to destroy it while you are constantly creating it by gazing at and handling it, and examining the nature of it.  Many people who are seeking God are turned awry over the appearances of a few leaves in a teacup or a few lines on the hand or other outside things.  They will ask anyone to forecast the future, and are much more willing to believe those prognostications than to accept the fact that “God is in His Heaven (state of consciousness), all is well with the world.”

     In spite of the statement, “No man knoweth what a day brings forth,” in spite of all the eloquent declarations that God is the only power, just let the idea of “fortune” be mentioned and they are all ears — being much more willing to take the word of a person who is prostituting the sacred gifts of Life than to have the revelation of their inner soul made manifest to them.  “The way is broad that leadeth to destruction.”  The flowerewn way of hearing good things that are about to happen by chance leads them on; they wade knee-deep in glorious flower-covered fields, snatching a posy here and there, thinking how wonderful it is that their “fortune” is so fine, perfectly unaware of the poisonous serpent that suddenly makes itself manifest in the form of a horrid prediction.  Then they want to escape it all and fly back into the idea of Truth, and loudly proclaim that “God is All”; but the enchantment has done its work.

     The flowers of the spurious joy of delving into the future have withered in their hands or turned to thistles.  They shriek, “Save me.”  The terror of seeking those things which are an abomination to the Lord is their portion, yet even in this time of terror, even in this time of desolation, there is always the way of escape.

     Why it is that people who profess God as the only power wish to hear of other forces which they seem to think are actually more powerful than God?  What is the insane curiosity of looking ahead, and trying to see if something good is going to happen, but the hypnotism of the human mind, and the failure to awaken to the glorious NOW of life?  Anyone who has awakened to the Christ-consciousness is not looking for the good that is to come; he is revelling in the glorious present of the NOW, and he does not doubt the future.  He is not wondering if things will be taken care of.  He knows that as long as he stays at the point of the NOW of God, he will not need to prepare to destroy the Devil.

     If you are looking for good to come in the future, you are still where you were before you heard the Truth; do not the Gentiles do that?  What difference if you have let go of the old idea of heaven, with angels, if you still hold on to the false idea of evil being more powerful than God?  What is this belief of a power opposed to God?  Why is it that, because someone has prophesied truly for then thousand people who were under the enchantment of human doctrine, you, the son of the Living God, newly awakened to the powers and the gifts of the Spirit, should come under the sway of this lie?  Did not the magicians, soothsayers, and wise men produce a serpent after the prophet had produced it as a sign, and did not the appearances show clearly that the power used by the magicians was the same as that used by the Man of God?  Yea, it was terrific proof, enough to make the stoutest heart faint for fear of the power of evil, but did not the serpent of the Man of God suddenly devour all the serpents of the magicians, and is there not hidden in this glorious proof that God is supreme to the belief of any man or any teaching or any idea, however hoary with age and respect they may be?  “There is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.”

     “Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.”  Awake from the hypnotism of human belief, and break the spell it has cast over you.  Realize once for all time that “He watching over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps”; that the I AM consciousness watching over you neither slumbers nor sleeps, and you are eternally in His care.  You are the son of the Living God, and this glorious recognition causes the laws of the human belief, however powerful they may have seemed, to give way before the new dawn.  Awake, awake, awake.  It is well with you!

     Are you true to your own word?  Then the whole world (your Universe) will be true to its word.  “My words are Spirit and they are Truth, and they shall not (positively not) return unto me void, but shall accomplish whereunto they are sent.”

     You may be under the enchantment of money.  “How hardly can a rich man enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Not that money is bad; it is the love of money that is spoken of as the root of all (not some) evil.  It is the enchantment again of looking upon the outside and imagining that there is power there.  There is no buying-power in the symbol of money; it is what is back of it, for, even while you hold the symbol in your hand, it may decrease in value to a point where it is not worth the paper it is printed upon.  The enchantment of money is due to the fact that we have placed power in the symbol instead of placing it where it belongs.  And hence the saying, “Money is power” — but what of a dying man who has exhausted the finest arts and crafts that money can buy?  What about friendship?  What about love?  What about anything that really matters in life?  Looking on the symbol, people become enchanted by it, then think to possess it, but end by being possessed by it; they are destroyed by the serpent just as surely as the bird is.

     Trying to demonstrate symbols of money has not proven successful.  Perhaps in a few remote cases it has been done; a handful of gold has been forthcoming, and then the terrible lapse that has followed and the wonder how it happened, and why it does not happen again.  Keeping your attention fixed on things will keep them from you.  As you pursue them, they flee before you as the mirage in the desert that seems so real and true.

     Power is not in the symbol, the substance of money is not in the dollar bill.  The golden idol with feet of clay will crash upon your own head.  The worship of the golden calf seems to be in accord with the masses of humanity, but it brings the sharp rebuke, “Thou shalt have no (not any) other gods before Me.”  Where is this Me, and what is the Me that comes before all else, except the I AM consciousness within you, which is your point of contact with the Universal Whole?

     “To him that hath shall be given” does not seem fair, and is not fair from the human standard of things, but it is true.  To him that hath the consciousness shall be added symbols of that consciousness, not because he needs them, nor because he is receiving a special favor, but because he is automatically functioning a law of God.  “With all thy getting, get understanding.”  But most people say, “With all thy getting, get gold, then you will be able to go into the world and take possession.”

     “There is no enchantment against Jacob.”  There is no law of poverty that is fixed over you, through which you are obliged to function.  No, not if ten thousand wise men say as much.  You are the son of the Living God — the All Power — and when you recognize this then will you understand how there can be no enchantment against Jacob.

     “If ye seek me after the loaves and fishes ye shall not find me” is recorded as the saying of the Master.  If you are seeking the things, then you will come under the enchantment of things, and you will reap the result of this divided allegiance.

     “Who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?”  You may answer the question yourself — and look over that which follows, and perhaps through the crannies you will see the light, and hear the command, “consider the lilies and the ravens and the sparrows,” and many more things, and see that you, as the Son of the Living God, are not dependent upon the divination of the human mind.

     Neither shall you be under the enchantment of disease, for the Son of the Living God is a being of pure Spirit, and is made of the substance which comes under the direct control of God, who is of “too pure eyes to behold iniquity.”  Pause a moment and ask yourself whether there possibly could be an actual law of sickness and misery, and, if so, why have you, of all people, been singled out to manifest it?  You can only answer that it is because of your acceptance of this law as a power beside which God Himself is powerless.  The more you look at the loathsome manifestation the more real it becomes, and the more you realize the utter impossibility of escaping it.  Who can gaze at disease in its various forms and even imagine how it could be relieved?  Yet in turning away from the appearance lies a sudden and sure escape — just as you know that the bird and two strong wings has an instantaneous means of escape from the serpent, yet so long as it stands gazing at the object of its fear, just so long will it be in the grip of that thing.  Take your attention away from the appearance and place it on the All God and you will find wings to escape any difficulty to which your human thinking has brought you.  Awake, thou that sleepest — Christ is risen.  The Christ-consciousness within you has risen out of the tomb of your own making, and he come with all power.  Turn your attention away from appearances and the enchantment will be broken.

   “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.”

Either God is all-powerful, and able to do all things, or else our teaching is in vain.

     “There is NOW, therefore, no condemnation to those which are in Christ Jesus.”  When we begin to read the words of light and see the inner meaning, we see that the enchantment of the human mind is broken and that the condemnation of the evil of our beliefs is cancelled, and we are freed into the Spirit of the sons of the Living God.  When we forsake the evil in our consciousness, then it is forgiven and released; the condemnation goes with it, and we are freed.  Awake, thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light.

     Are you looking for a lucky charm, a sign, or a miracle?  Miracles happen only to the human belief.  The operation of the Divine Mind, producing health where the human mind sees sickness, and prosperity where the human mind sees poverty, is a natural process.  It is only unnatural to the relative world.  The statement, “Signs shall follow, they shall not precede,” does not mean anything to the person who is always looking for things.  He wonders why, after years and years of serving God, he has never experienced a miracle or a revelation.  Awake, thou that sleepest; the signs follow, they do not precede.  Do not seek me after the loaves and fishes, because as soon as the loaves and fishes are consumed you will be without them, and be the creature of chance again.  There can be no chance in the law of God, else the very harmony of the Universe would be destroyed.  “There is no power opposed to God.”

     In Nigeria, all sorts of black magic is practiced, with the most terrible results.  But in every instance the person who is to receive the baneful effects of this so-called power must be informed that it is being used against him, and this alone tells the tale.  “Not that which goeth into a man defileth him, but that which cometh out.”  It is not what you take in that counts, but that which comes out.  If you hear evil and accept it, it comes out in the form of evil in your universe; therefore, it is that which defileth you.  If disease is real, then it must come into manifestation.

   “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.”

     The only enchantment in any of the evil lies in the fact that your attention is fixed upon it, and so it becomes real to you; but as soon as you take your attention away from it, and place your consciousness on God, the enchantment is broken.

     We look out upon a universe of our own making.  “To the pure all things are pure” — “Let the filthy be filthy still” — “What thou be’st, that thou seest.”  The one who is perpetually looking for the clay feet of others stands on crumpling feet, and falls in his own dust.  “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves” — “Occupy till I come.”  “I come quickly” — it is well.  A newer courage suddenly comes into being, a fearless Believing, a Divine indifference.

 

Walter C. Lanyon