Spiritual Center of Graham, NC

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.”

“Never limit your view of life by any past experience.”

“I live in the faith that there is a Presence and Power greater than I am that nurtures and supports me in ways I could not even imagine. I know that this Presence is All knowing and All Power and is Always right where I am”

“True imagination is not fanciful daydreaming; it is fire from heaven. ”

“Prepare your mind to recieve the best that life has to offer.”

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it”

“Life is not just something to be endured. It is to be lived in joy, in a fullness without limit.”

“Electricity was a reality in the universe when Moses led the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. This is true of all natural laws; they have always existed but only when understood may they be used.”

“There is one power in the Universe and we can all use it.”

“Life is infinite energy coupled with limitless creative imagination. It is the invisible essence and substance of every visible form. Its nature is goodness, truth, wisdom and beauty, as well as energy and imagination. Our highest satisfaction comes from a sense of conscious union with this invisible Life. All human endeavor is an attempt to get back to first principles, to find such an inward wholeness that all sense of fear, doubt and uncertainty vanishes.”

“We are all thinking, willing, knowing, conscious centers of Life. We are surrounded by, immersed in, and there is flowing through us a creative something… call it what you will.”

“Does this thing I wish to do express more life, more happiness, more peace to myself, and at the same time harm no one? If it does, it is right. It is not selfish.”

“If the philosophy of Christianity were lived, wars would cease, unhappiness would cease, economic problems would be solved, poverty would be wiped from the face of the earth, and man’s inhumanity to man would be transmuted into a spirit of mutual helpfulness.”

“The more power one gives to his thought–the more completely he believes that his thought has power–the more power will it have.”

“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.”

“As he learns the Truth, the Truth will automatically free him.”

“Let us waste no further time looking for the secret of success or the key to happiness. Already the door is open and whosoever will may enter.”

“If one sees only unloveliness in others, it is because unloveliness is a strong element in himself. The light he throws on others is generated in his own soul and sees them as he chooses to see them.”

“The road to freedom lies, not through mysteries or occult performances, but through the intelligent use of Nature’s forces and laws. The Law of Mind is a natural law in the spiritual world.”

“As I go forth today and embark on the wonderful experience of living, I am on a journey of self-discovery and also of the discovery of the self hidden in everyone and the Power in back of everything.”

“There should not be any sense of hurry or worry about this, just a calm, peaceful sense of reality. Let the Law work though, and express Itself in, the experience.”

“We need to know with scientific certainty that there is a Consciousness and a Power in the Universe that responds to us definitely, directly, and dynamically. Each individual must arrive at a place in his own consciousness where this contact is so immediate and so dynamic that if every other living soul denied it, he would still know.”

“Man, by thinking, can bring into his experience whatsoever he desires–if he thinks correctly, and becomes a living embodiment of his thoughts. This is not done by holding thoughts but by knowing the Truth.”

“What we need to do is to eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive. In doing this, we gradually acquire the habit of affirmative thinking.”

“It should be considered right to live and enjoy living. To be well, happy, and to express freedom, is to be in accord with Divine Law and Wisdom.”

“Jesus was not the great exception; he was the great example.”

“Anything that will enable us to express greater life, greater happiness, greater power–so long as it does not harm anyone–must be the Will of God for us.”

~ Ernest Holmes

Frequently Asked Questions

All these questions and answers are taken from the book “How to Speak Science of Mind: A Seeker’s Guide to the Basic Concepts and Terms That Define this Practical Spiritual Lifestyle” by Dennis Merritt Jones.

God is known by many different names such as Atman, Brahman, Allah, Baha’u’llah, The Christ, The Buddha Nature, Wakan Tanka, The Creator, The Great Maker, Jehovah, vah, Elohim, Yahweh, The Father, The Great Spirit, The Beloved, Source, The Infinite One, Being, Presence, Self, The Whole, Divine Mind, Life, Spirit, Universal Intelligence, and even, It. In Science of Mind God is referred to by many names as well: The First Cause, the Great I Am, the One and Only, Love, Law, Wisdom, Intelligence, Power, Substance, and Mind. God is the Truth that is real-a universal Principle that is consistent and reliable. God is Spirit or Creative Energy that is the cause of all visible things. God is the Alpha and the Omega and everything between those two points because God is all that we see and do not see. Regardless of what name we may give God to personalize our spiritual relationship, the more we can recognize and realize the presence of God in us, and as us, the more we experience wholeness in our lives.

What purpose do they serve? In The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes states, “To affirm anything is to state that it is so, and to maintain this as being true in the face of all evidence to the contrary.” In the practice of Spiritual Mind Treatment, also known as Affirmative Prayer, affirmations are used to build a consciousness of receptivity and expectation of good. When we use positive affirmations such as, “The perfect health and vitality of God flow through my entire being,” we are stating a fact we know is true, even if appearances may not support that statement. We know it is the truth because we know we are one with God. Stating affirmations is a good practice; however, it is important that we also embody the feeling behind the words we use.

Heaven is an inner state of happiness (joy, deep state of grace, bliss). We do not consider it a place located “up there” with pearly gates and streets of gold at which we shall one day arrive by a certain code of behavior. Because Heaven is a state of being and a state of mind, and not a location, it may be experienced in the present moment. Being within, the Kingdom of Heaven can be fully experienced when we consciously unify with and as the presence of God at the center of our very being, every day through meditation, mindfulness, awareness of our thoughts. Every thought we have that helps us heal a sense of separation from God can bring us closer to a Heavenly state of being. Likewise, Hell too is a state of mind, based on our awareness lack of awareness of the presence of God within us. Hell is also not a location with fiery pits. It is a discordant state of being, where our thinking leads us to believe we are separate from God. It is founded in a belief of duality, or a believe in two powers. Many people are filled with negative thoughts, and therefore experience a ‘living hell’ every day…

In traditional theology atonement is the doctrine concerning the reconciliation of God and humankind. We do not believe that God could be or would be separate from us because we are always one with God. However, there may be times we may need to reconcile ourselves with God because we have wrongly believed that we are separate from God. Metaphysically, when we practice atonement we are affirming our “at-one-ment” with God. Atonement happens when we heal any sense of apartness from God when we return to our original awareness of our unity with the Divine Whole.

Ernest Holmes, the author of The Science of Mind, was greatly influenced by the Bible and it is a cornerstone of his teachings. However, he made it clear that it is important to understand the metaphysical meaning of the Bible and that not all of it can be taken literally. The Bible was written 2,000 to 3,000 years ago by the Semitic people, for the Semitic people. The Bible is a valuable able and valid source of Truth when read and understood according to the authors’ consciousness and heritage. Truth is Truth, and the Bible must be read with an open mind, looking for the higher meaning in the stories, metaphors, and parables. To fully understand the Bible, one must understand idioms and the psychology used by the men who wrote the book. Yes, God did write the Bible, through the consciousness of human beings; therefore, we must understand humankind to understand the book.

It’s important to understand that Christ was not Jesus’ last name; it is a title that acknowledges the fact that he fully understood and demonstrated his divine nature and his oneness with God. The word “Christ” comes from the Greek word Christos, which means, “anointed” or “enlightened one”. In The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes states, “Christ is a universal idea, and each one `puts on the Christ’ to the degree that he surrenders a limited sense of life to the Divine Realization of wholeness and unity with Good, Spirit, God”.

A “Christian” by definition is one who: 1. Believes in Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior; and, 2. Follows his teachings. In the traditional sense, we do not consider ourselves Christian because we do not claim the man Jesus as our “Lord and Savior”. However, we do believe in his teachings upon which the Science of Mind textbook is largely based. We believe that the teacher Jesus came to show us each the way of the Christ. [see Christ] Therefore, it is up to all individuals to analyze their own life to decide if they are “Christian” or not. The message of the Christ is unconditional love, nonjudgment, forgiveness, brotherhood, peace and oneness with God. Perhaps true Christianity is more of a lifestyle than it is any one particular religion.

According to the dictionary, a cult is a group that studies a system of religious worship in admiration of, or devotion to, a person or thing. In the teachings of Science of Mind we worship no one, nor any thing. To do so would be idolatry. We believe we need no one to intercede between ourselves and God. Unlike some teachings that have begun to teach the worship of the messenger instead of teaching the message, Science of Mind is the furthest thing from being a cult. Our teaching is universal, “in the open,” and places no one above or below ourselves. We believe God is available to one and all equally.

The divine principle of Life is an eternally unfolding, upward-spiraling movement. The spirit of God is the spirit of life, and it is both birthless and deathless. The principle of life cannot know death. Life itself cannot be destroyed, only the form it occupies can be altered. In The Science of Mind, Ernest Holmes states, “The human experience of dying is but the laying off of an old garment and the donning of a new one.”

Our destiny is that which we decree by what we think and embody today, producing our reality tomorrow. Our destiny is the perfect out-picturing of our individualized use of the Law of Cause and Effect.