Book Description
Résumé is the practice book for High Mysticism. This book has been out of print and will be most welcome by students of Emma Curtis Hopkins works of Truth. These practice guidelines were first offered in 1892 to her advanced students. at Chicago Theological Seminary and were modified over the years until their final presentation in 1918 with the publishing of her last book, High Mysticism.

About the Author
Emma Curtis Hopkins was the teacher of teachers, who taught the founders of Unity, Divine Science, Church of Truth, and Religious Science - the woman who invented the term Science of Mind back in the 1890's. She healed hundreds and taught thousands, empowered by her own line of reasoning and upper vision.

1. REPENTANCE

The High and Lofty One inhabiting Eternity has been understood by His lovers to be forever inviting mankind to look unto His Countenance shining as the sun with healing strength.

The Deity looketh upon us; let us look to the Deity. This is the way of salvation from sin, sickness, misfortune and death. Isaiah under-stood it as a Soundless Mandate: "Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth" (Is. 45:22). Ezekiel understood it as the law of repentance, or returning: "Repent, and turn away your faces from all your abominations" (Ezek. 14:6). Jesus called it The Watch: "What I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch" (Mark 13:37). Plato understood the Watch as a priv­ilege: "It is time to lift the eye of the soul above the outlandish slough in which it is buried, and set it toward the Elysian Fields."

It has been found that what we vision steadily causes our thinking. Even Hegel noticed this law in his Introduction to Logic, where he avers that we secretly perceive toward an object before thinking it.

If we exhibit in this posit we call our "me" according to the direction we oftenest set this visional sense, which can see toward God or toward the workings of our own brain, it is high time we set the important and all-achieving sense def­initely toward that objective calculated to build us to the best advantage.

If back over the Tao, or Track, of this wonderful sense can come infinitesimal pictures of the objective it views toward, we will choose the "Great, the Mighty God, great in counsel and mighty in work" (Jer. 32:19), for our objective. This is the way of being God-taught. "I will instruct thee and teach thee" (Ps. 82:8), It is the way of being divinely guided. "I will guide thee with mine eye" (Ps. 32:8).

John the Revelator was God-taught. He saw all truth in symbols, or pictures. He called the great lessons he learned, "Angels," or messages. He divided them into seven. The seventh he repeats over and over, like Joshua sounding one tone with rams' horns on the seventh day of his circling of Jericho. The tone John sounds is, "I looked," and, "I beheld."

With obedience to the mandate, "Look unto me," John saw hail and fire mingled with blood falling upon the earth (Rev. 8). "Hail" is new fresh truth. How can we help having new truth if we set our eye in a new direction? It is the resistless truth of the eternal Heights. "Fire" is the emblem of heavenly fervor. The heart flames up with new zeal, new ardour, new love, if the vision is upward.

"Blood" is the emblem of new life. Men can appear who were not born of the will of man but of the will of God. Such an one walked along with Tobias. Such an one appeared to Jacob. Such an one sometimes appears in our own age. Two were seen by a highway robber to be walking along with a missionary at midnight when the missionary supposed himself to be alone. The robber hurried away from the three of them.

This is the new life we cannot help encountering as we seek our highest Good at the highest Source. The disciples felt their hearts burn while such an one talked with them as they walked toward Emmaus. Their oftime gaze had been heav­enward where on the right hand of God Omnipotent they had visioned their Lord and Master, Jesus the Christ.

As a result of their upward watch, the empowering Angel of God's presence was tangible to them. Such appearances are the blood of obedience.

John the Revelator sees a third of the trees disappear. He sees all the green grass burn up (Rev. 8). "Trees" are the emblems of flourishing practices. One-third of these practices cease, even in the life of the individual, as the flaming zeal for God kindles. Competitive examina­tions, competitive trades, competitive plat-forms, which constitute the ginger and glow of unvisioning life, cease for such as know that their true provisions and their true positions come straight from above, and nothing and nobody can take them from them.

All strenuousness on every line must cease. The laborers and anarchists, the pole hunters and the gold grabbers must calm down, for the Countenance that shineth hot with healing tenderness and rich giving is of more value than all that can possibly come by the clash of endeav­or.

"Grass" is emblem of the seasons of human life, childhood, youth, middle age, old age, such as the new people know not. Did the Son of God, seen in the fiery furnace by the King of Babylon, know anything of childhood and old age? (Dan. 3). The upward watch of the King must once have been true and steady to have found in the fiery furnace the man with eternity stamped upon his brow. The robber who beheld the two guards­men of the missionary must have at some moment of his life looked upward, whence the daysprings fall, and some of the pris­ons where he was shut in must have sometimes been unaccountably opened for him. For the High and Lofty Majesty inhabiting Eternity is the "bad man's deliverer," said Lao-tze the God-taught.

The visional sense that seeks the Vast Countenance ever shining hitherward, can bring back news of any objective it sets itself toward, from the rocks of the gorges to the midnight stars. Did not untaught Bramahaupto find out the names and the motions of the suns and constellations by gazing toward them even in his dreams? Can you not feel that a starry radiance must have shone forth from Bramahaupto's eyes, since, "that thou seest man that too become thou must?"

Obeying the sublime mandate, "Look unto me," we sense the mystery of re­demptive energy. John tells us that the Redeemed are given two songs (Rev. 15). Perpetually recurring names are songs. Job was the song of his scornful neigh­bors. "I AM that I AM" was the song of Moses. ''Jesus Christ'' was the song of the first Christians. These names are full of the meaning of life and the transports of Eternal Truth.

Zoroaster was told that the name "I AM that I AM" is the name of kingly might and majesty. He repeated it often and stepped out of the rank and file of men into rulership of the nation.

"The Lord is high above all nations and his glory above the heavens.

"Who is like unto the Lord our God who exalteth himself to dwell on high?

"He raiseth the poor up out of the dust that He may set him with princes" (Ps. 113).

With that Name, which means that no one knows the nature and character of Him that bears it, Moses led two million slaves to triumphant liberty: "That led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name" (Is. 63).

With the Song of the Lamb in his heart, Peter converted three thousand people to Christianity by one transcend­ent sermon. "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," he said (Acts 4:12).

Let us take Monday to repent, or turn away our faces from all the things, events and people that call our attention. Let us often look upward toward the Deity ever beholding us. Let us tell that "Ain Soph Great Countenance of the Absolute above thinking and above being," as the Kabala avers, that we know His Name of up­lifting might; His Name of majesty and grandeur. It is, I AM that I AM. Let us tell Him that we know His Name of manifestation in the flesh; His embody­ing Name, His Name of our own mani­fested health and undefeatable free Spirit. It is, Jesus Christ.

It is on the principle of doing things in order, as Paul enjoined. (I Cor. 14-40), that we begin the week days with obe­dience to the heavenly ordinance, "Look unto Me," which is preaching repen-tance, beginning at Jerusalem, or the Self (Luke 24-47).

 

2. REMISSION

On the principle that what we oftenest view with the inner eye, that we show forth outwardly, we can easily under­stand why the poor cripple near the tem­ple gate (Acts 3), with vision in the dust, had never felt the dissolving of the man­acles of impotence till Peter and John bade him look up.

Something then fell down over his upward visioning and undid his chains of mind and body."Preach remission, said Jesus. Preach the dissolving Grace.

"When men are cast down thou shalt say, There is lifting up, and God shall save him that hath low eyes said Eliphaz (Job 22:29). There are shouts of freedom handed down from antiquity that represent the experiences of remis­sion or liberation of the upward watchers throughout the ages. They declare the disappearings of foolishness and ignorance. They are recognitions that foolish vir-gins or objectives, with no oil of heal­ing and no oil of illuminating in their say­ings, are shut out.

There is no oil of healing and no oil of illuminating in descriptions of evil in any way. Description of evil is a foolish vir­gin. The description of evil doubles evil. It does not lessen it. See then how foolish to describe evil and thereby double it. If we see an army of locusts alighting on the green vegetation we mourn because the people must starve. This is our foolish­ness. We increase starvation by such mourning. According to Jesus the risen and triumphant man of God, we are to look up to the shining face of our Father looking tenderly down upon us, and declare, "Steadfastly facing Thee, There is no evil on my pathway." For only abundance and gentle kindness fall from the Vast Countenance shining hither-ward.

According  to  the experiences of the men of light, the locusts must

vanish in all directions if we exalt our vision above them—dissolved like the Amorites Moabites, and Seirs, from Jehoshaphat s pathway, when he said "Oh, our God, our eyes are upon Thee" (II Chron. 20). St Augustine found that God sees no evil. So also did Habakkuk (1:13). We catch the view point of those with whom we associate. Let us catch the High God s view point and go free from sight of evil. Zephaniah cried, "Shout, O Zion: thou shalt not see evil any more!" (Zeph. 3). He saw for a short period as his God was seeing.

Matter also has been found to have no health in its operations.  No descriptions of matter quicken the pulses with heal­ing blood, or   fill the stomach with strengthening energy. No study of mat­ter illuminates the spiritual wisdoms that wait like unlighted candles just above our heads. Only the kindling fires of God's hot glance   can illuminate our waiting intelligence. And we must rec­ognize the glance, acting under obe­dience to the order, "Behold Me" (Is. 65). Matter moves aside for indestructible free grace to act, when by upward view­ing we shout, "Facing Thee, There is no matter with its laws."

Neither is there any oil of healing in descriptions of lack and deprivation. This is the foolish virgin that woman is said to hug to herself. "No wine," she says. "Not enough—not enough of this or of that good thing." She must let go that foolish saying, and look up to him who saith, "They shall want for no good thing" (Ps. 34:10). She must preach to the heavens that facing the Father there is neither lack nor deprivation.

There is no acting free grace visible to one who describes hurts and pains. Peter sank into the raging waters when he took his gaze off the powerful Jesus (Matt. 14). But with his eye uplifted he walked above the waves, side by side with Omnipotence. There is a shout of liberty any one can give when hurts come grinding and burning upon him: "Facing Thee, There is nothing to fear, for nothing shall by any means hurt me" (Luke 10:19). All hurting power is darkness. The dayspring from on high gives light to them that sit in darkness, to guide their feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:79).

Sinfulness with its sickness and death is only the description of what is encount­ered by men with aberrated vision, or downward gaze. It is downward gazing to describe a child's bad temper or a friend's unkindness. Not only they, but we who describe, must get warped and ill by reason of the excitement their ill be­havior causes us. It is the one foolish virgin that works with surprising haste. See how quickly you have cramps, or influenza, or something else, when you are excited by the wilfulness or deception of your wife, or husband, or friend.

The shout of the free must be given before we feel the freedom, as the Sons of Judah at the watch tower in the wilder­ness shouted liberty before they came into it (II Chron. 20). Did not Jesus shout, "It is finished," before it was finished? But see how quickly the an­guish left him when he shouted with a loud voice, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Let us take Tuesday to shout liberty — free grace — remission — unburdening, as we look upward. Free grace comes softly stealing over the Tao, or Track, of the upward watch. Take the shouts in order. Look up to the Vast Countenance with its beaming and kindling free grace, its dissolving alkahest, ever hitherward streaming, and with joyous heart pro­claim:

1. Facing Thee, there is no evil on my pathway—

2. There is no matter with its laws—

3. There is no loss, no lack, no depriva­tion—

4. There is nothing to fear for there shall be no power to hurt—

5. There is neither sin, nor sickness, nor death.

Because Thou Art The Unconditioned and The Absolute, I also am Uncondition­ed and Absolute. '

Because Thou Art Omnipotent Free Spirit, I also am Omnipotent Free Spirit.