Declaration of Principles

The Declaration of Principles of Science of Mind was first published in the first issue of Science of Mind Magazine, October, 1927 by Ernest Holmes. It was said that Holmes first wrote these principles down on the back of a napkin in twenty minutes. For some ministers the Declaration of Principles is the basis of all Science of Mind teachings. Of course, every "truth teacher" interprets the Declaration according to his or her consciousness.

Our introductory course entitled Introduction To Science of Mind and the Life of Ernest Holmes contains a detailed interpretation of the Declaration. Here is a brief interpretation that will allow you to obtain a glimpse of the depth of our teaching.

We believe in God, the Living Spirit Almighty; one, indestructible, absolute, and self-existent Cause. There is only One Presence, One Power, One God. This One creates everything out of Itself.

This One manifests itself in and through all creation but is not absorbed by its creation. Everything that exists in manifestation is called the Body of God. Everything has God in it because everything emanates from God. God is immanent in creation but is also transcendent to Its creation. Science of Mind is not pantheism. It is panentheism.

The manifest universe is the body of God; it is the logical and necessary outcome of the infinite self-knowingness of God. In order to know Itself as form, God began the act of creation by self-contemplation. Thus, God put into motion through the process of involution the creation of the universe and all life. Life has its own momentum and through the process of evolution realizes itself as the essence of God.

We believe in the incarnation of Spirit in every person and that all people are incarnations of this One Spirit. If everything is an emanation of God, every person must have the essence of God in them. Therefore, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. In order to fully realize and live as spiritual beings we must wake up.

We believe in the eternality, the immortality, and the continuity of the individual soul, forever and ever expanding. We are triune spiritual beings. We have a physical body which is a result of our psychic body. Our psychic body is the repository of all our beliefs, thoughts and feelings, (our subconscious mind) and the repository of all the ideas and beliefs in universal subjective mind. But we also have a noetic or spiritual body. This body contains our essence, the pure unadulterated part of us. At time of physical death, the physical body is discarded and the psycho-noetic body moves to another dimension, a dimension that vibrates in harmony with the dominant beliefs of the physic body. The number of these dimensions are infinite so the soul is on an infinite journey. It is immortal and continues, forever and ever expanding.

We believe that Heaven is within us and that we experience it to the degree that we become conscious of it. Heaven is a state of consciousness or a level of individual awareness. Heaven exists when the individual begins to live from his essence as a spiritual being and the physical body and the psychological body are used as tools of spiritual expression.

We believe the ultimate goal of life to be a complete emancipation from all discord of every nature, and that. this goal is sure to be attained by all. As we clear erroneous beliefs from our subconscious mind and begin to see our world from the point of view of unity rather than duality, discord of every nature disappears. As we become emancipated, we help all people to become emancipated. Through this process the earth becomes emancipated and peace and freedom prevails on our planet.

We believe in the unity of all life, and that the highest God and the innermost God is one God. All life is interconnected. What happens to one of us has an effect on all of us. Because God is present within us, we access God in the silence of our own soul.

We believe that God is personal to all who feel this Indwelling Presence. God is a warm, vibrant Presence with whom we can commune at the level of our soul. All creation occurs through the impersonal Law of Cause and Effect, but communion is always personal.

We believe in the direct revelation of Truth through the intuitive and spiritual nature of the individual, and that any person may become a revealer of Truth who lives in close contact with the indwelling God. No one person has unique access to God. All people have the capacity for direct and intuitive experience. This teaching was not uniquely revealed to Ernest Holmes. Its depth is available to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

We believe that the Universal Spirit, which is God, operates through a Universal Mind, which is the Law of God; and that we are surrounded by this Creative Mind, which receives the direct impress of our thought and acts upon it. The Universal Presence, who we call God, operates through an impersonal creative medium, which we call the Law of God. Every thought we have is a prayer. We are always praying whether we know it or not. The Law acts upon every thought we have and manifests conditions in our life according to our dominant thoughts.

We believe in the healing of the sick through the power of this Mind. Once we discover that conditions which occur in our life do not have independent significance but are the effect of our thoughts, then we can change the conditions by changing our thoughts. Sickness is a condition which is the result of negative thought. We do have the ability to change this condition in our own life as well as the lives of others.

We believe in the control of conditions through the power of this Mind. We have a right to health, prosperity, loving relationships and creative self-expression. We learn to commune with the Presence of God to receive inspiration and insight and then speak our word into the ever-present Law of Mind to change any condition. The power is here, now.

We believe in the eternal Goodness, the eternal Loving-kindness, and the eternal Givingness of Life to all. God is love and cannot be anything else. Love is the motive force in the universe and makes all things whole. Because we are given free will, we can choose thoughts that are opposed to love and the Impersonal Law will carry out our choices. But ultimately, thoughts opposed to love will wither away and die because they are only sustained by human thought and not the Love of God. The Love of God prevails.

We believe in our own soul, our own spirit, and our own destiny; for we understand that the life of all is God. Every person will find his way back to God. It is possible to become lost and caught up in the material world. But the soul is on an infinite journey and gradually the soul learns to discriminate truth from error. All souls will be found again. As we become clear channels of spirit, we begin to perceive our destiny and we see the oneness of God in all. This process is occurring right now on an individual and group level. In this century the process will begin on the national and then the planetary level. Peace and love will prevail on the planet because peace and already prevails in God.

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