The Words of the Sheftick Family
|
|
The Words of the Sheftick Family |
This article is the first in a three-part series on healing. The contents were given by Dr. Joseph Sheftick in a talk to the 120-day training session in the World Mission Center in the spring of 1984. The first segment deals with the power of the mind to influence our physical bodies and our state of health.
The second segment deals with the foundation of faith, the foundation of substance, and the power of imaging as they relate to the healing process.
The third and final segment will discuss psychic research in the United States and the Soviet Union, the phenomenon of psychic warfare, the power of symbols, and the importance of Principle as the basis for understanding and solving life's problems.
Tonight I am going to speak about the mind and its relationship to healing. As you are aware, the mind is the most powerful force in the universe. The essence of mind is that it contains truth and love, and it was with His Mind that God created the entire universe. It is very important for us to understand the mind and how to use it properly.
Just before I joined the church I studied spiritual healing for about nine months. I could see the effects of healing with spiritual energy, as well as working physically with the body directly. When I returned to chiropractic practice in 1980, I became more and more interested in the effects of the mind. I have tried to bring the two methods of healing together. I incline toward the use of the mind and working with the spiritual aspect.
What is the mind? It is the most powerful force in the world, even more powerful than the atomic bomb or the neutron bomb. It's invisible: you can't smell it; you can't taste it; you can't touch it; you can't feel it; you can't weigh it. Can you put five pounds of mind in your hand?
Where is the mind? Is it in your head? In your hands? Marxists would have us believe that it is interaction between chemicals that produces thought. That's mind! When you die the chemicals disintegrate, and there is no more mind, no more thought. That's their concept basically. But do you know that they are forerunners in research on psychic phenomena? They have more interest in the mind and in the psychic aspect of man than we do in the free world.
The essence of mind is that it contains inner attributes of intellect (cognition), emotion (love) and will (decision) and outer attributes of ideas, concepts, original law and mathematical principles. All of these existed prior to the beginning of creation, and are manifested in various in all the different entities that make up the creation. We can see them in energy, atoms, molecules, minerals, plants, animals and the greatest manifestation in the mind of man.
The mind has a unique capacity: you can live in the past, in the present and in the future in your mind. Each of you has at one point moved to the past while you were sitting here for lecture. Some of you stayed in the present and some of you went to the future, thinking about what was coming ahead or what you were going to have for dinner. Also in your mind you can go anywhere: other planets, other solar systems, even into somebody else's body. Did you know that you can visit somebody's body, in your mind? You can go to somebody's stomach, into his heart or foot or even into his brain. That's what I'm hoping to do more in the future. I've already had some experience doing that. I think the future of healing is going to be fantastic because I believe the doctor of the future is going to be able to see psychically into the patient's body and, with the cooperation of the patient, be able to change the energy patterns and create new cells, tissues and organs.
Every seven years your body recreates every cell, completely brand new. Look at your hands: if you are 21 years old, your cells have been replaced three times; if you are 42 years old, your cells have been changed six times, made completely new! So, how come we still have this same sick stomach, or backache, or cancer for so many years? The reason is that the cells reproduce according to the influence of the mind, our consciousness.
Think about the fall for a moment. Principle teaches us how our blood became stained. How do you think it happened? What did Lucifer and Eve change? They changed their hearts, their minds. According to my understanding, the unprincipled consciousness of Adam and Eve was impressed upon the cells -- the DNA and the RNA of the cell I think that's how the effects of sin (separation from God) are transmitted from generation to generation.
Thus the state of our consciousness is most important. How do you think you're going to change your fallen nature to a heavenly nature? Your consciousness has to change. Then your heart changes and your personality changes. Your understanding of the truth is what brings about restoration of health and well-being.
The basic cause of disease is separation from God. God did not program disease into the life-pattern or lifestyle of His children. So disease is a product of the fall. Besides the original sin, we also have ancestral (inherited), collective (race), and personal (misuse/abuse of principle) causes of disease. Medical science has indicated that 80-90 percent of disease affecting humans are mental/emotional or psychological in origin. "Stress" is now considered a major underlying factor in the disease process.
The mind never sleeps. You don't fall out of bed when you sleep, do you? That's because the mind is not asleep. Typically people change their posture constantly during the night. Because the body changes so many times, you might wonder how anybody can get any rest while they sleep. What this indicates is that the mind doesn't fall asleep. If your biological mind went to sleep, how would you be? You would be dead. So the biological mind is continuously awake. Also your spiritual mind is continuously aware.
Truly, your mind does not fall asleep. It stays awake and maintains everything that's within your experience both your internal environment and your external environment.
The biological mind is responsible for the maintenance, reproduction, health and well-being of your physical body. There are some people who have the capacity to control the various functions of the body by the power of mind. I'm sure you've heard of them: Zen masters, Buddhist monks, and various kinds of mystics. I heard one interesting case which helps me to appreciate the Principle. One particular master had gained such control over his heartbeat that he could actually start and stop it whenever he wanted to. One day he stopped it and couldn't get it started again. He was really frightened but he didn't die; he finally got it started. But do you know v. by that happened? The heart mind said, "Then, if you want to take over the complete function of controlling the heartbeat, take it! I'm not going to do my job anymore!" The heart has its own mind to function, when it should function, under the control of the biological mind. God didn't create us to control our heartbeat continuously, but only under exceptional circumstances -- for example, if you have to slow down bleeding, you could do that by controlling the blood flow from your heart. However, you don't want to have to think about it every moment. Only for emergencies and special situations should you be able to exercise that kind of conscious authority over your body processes.
Doesn't the cell have a mind? What part of the cell has the mind? The nucleus! Sung sang! That's where the mind is. Every molecule, every cell, every atom, every particle of energy has mind! If not, then God could not have created the universe. If not, then our spiritual mind and biological mind would not be able to deal with the thousands of chemical processes that go on in this body.
Can you imagine the vast and complex forces that impinge upon our bodies and minds from the external environment and your own internal environment? Right now in this room you are getting bombarded by microwaves coming from the Empire State Building, X-rays, gamma rays, radio waves, television waves, sound waves -- all impinging upon your mind and your nervous system. Your nervous system is your antenna, and your biological mind and your spirit mind must contend with those energy influences so that you can exist and function according to Principle.
I have often wondered why different methods of healing work: chiropractic works, nutrition works, homeopathy works, Shiatsu works, Alexander's movement works, psychoanalysis works, hypnosis works. There are all kinds of healing systems that can help people to get well, although different people respond to different types of healing. I wondered why.
The only common denominator I could find so far was the mind. The mind is what actually does the healing. With your mind you can make yourself sick, or you can yourself better and better.
Imagine this scenario, however. You've got hemorrhoids, constipation; your back is aching, and you've got a headache. Someone asks, "How do you feel?" You answer, "I feel great!" Then your biological mind will say, "What kind of dummy have I got here? We've got hemorrhoids, constipation, headache, backache, and he says, 'I feel great.' Is that the standard for feeling great -- hemorrhoids, constipation, headaches and what not?" You should not try to fool the biological mind: it has a very important function. It tells your spiritual mind what's going on in your physical body. So you should respond to it properly.
Have you ever had to really go to the bathroom? What do you do when you can't go? Your biological mind says, "You have to go to the bathroom!" And your spiritual mind says, "I can't go to the bathroom right now!" Which is in subject position? For the moment the spiritual mind is. Then subject and object can have a give and take relationship and change positions. Neither one is always in the subject or object position. You can direct your biological mind to withhold certain functions, but only for a period of time. When the time comes, as you know from your own experience, the biological mind becomes subject: you do what you have to do and you feel better.
The mind has the responsibility of healing your body. That's the common denominator operating when people become well through different systems of healing. Placebos work sometimes. If you give people sugar pills or a glass of wine, and tell them, "This will cure your high blood pressure," they will be cured, as long as they believe and accept it.
How do I know this? Father indicated this in a speech he had given about his life in prison. He said he had a whole bowl of rice and he decided to give half to the prisoners and exist on half of the portion. He made his determination, but when did he know he was going to be able to fulfill it? When his mind accepted it as a fact. When his mind was convinced that he could exist on half a bowl of rice a day, he could do it.
On the other hand, you can eat the most nutritious natural food and turn it into poison by your attitude. What Jesus said 2,000 years ago is true: "Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth...." This indicates the state of the man's heart. Many people in our family pray externally over the food they receive, but internally they have a complaining attitude and may even complain while they eat. If you do this, you are cheating yourself. You are making yourself sick! Do you know why? Because that food has a mind: that peanut butter has its own mind. All that food has sung sang, and by complaining, you are cursing it. Look at what happened to the fig tree when Jesus cursed it!
In prayer you're dealing with mind and you're dealing with energy; you are dealing with a very powerful force. When you pray over a substance you are influencing the sung sang of that substance. It may not be the most nutritious food, but through prayer its sung sang will become very excited and grateful to come into your body. And your biological mind will be grateful to get that loved energy into its system so that you can use it to maintain your health.
It's a fact: energy comes out of your hands and out of your eyes into that food. You must ask God to bless it. How is God blessing it? Just take a moment and f your mind, your heart on God. Be grateful, appreciative, loving, and the energy of God will flow from His Mind through your mind into the mind (sung sang) of the substance you are blessing.
Dr. Joseph Sheftick has served in almost every leadership capacity in our movement. He's been an IOWC commander, travelled as an evangelist throughout America, and worked as the head of the Freedom Leadership Foundation in Washington D.C. He served in the 1970s as one of the vital foundation people in the building of our movement. He is now a Reiki master/teacher/therapist and chiropractor in New York City. He is pioneering a new path of holistic healing, incorporating the system of Reiki, which is a method for restoring and balancing universal life force energy, and chiropractic.