"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me." (Job 3: 25). "…God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (II Timothy 1: 7, King James Bible Version). "And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:" (II Corinthians 9: 8). "…Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee."
(Matthew 8:13, King James Bible Version).
'Self-fulfilling prophecy' is a term used to describe the way we can mentally project our own thoughts into material form and activity. It is how our human fears can often become manifested and projected into the human experience, by taking material form or seeming action outside ourselves. (The term 'human experience' is used to mean that our very being seems to be a mixture of material and spiritual elements.) Self-fulfilling prophecies have everything to do with the ability of individual beliefs to manifest into material form. Whether for good or evil, this ability exists because we are the children of Creative Mind, and what we hold to be true of the erroneous worldly beliefs about material existence, we have the innate ability to project into form. In other words, whatever material beliefs of physical being (rather than spiritual being) we accept from the collective, world consciousness can be manifested into some type of form, whenever physical conditions seem 'right' or possible to our own accepted belief system. Yet, none of the manifestations of evil which are produced in this human experience ever touch the realm of Spirit, God; therefore, they never truly touch any of us. There is no such thing as spiritual evil. Evil is not something; it is a material manifestation of the belief in the absence of some spiritual good. In this human experience, we encounter these material forms of evil just about everywhere—in our bodies, relationships, supply, environment, you name it! And without any spiritualization of thought to protect us, we seem to be helpless victims of what we believe to be physical laws, and all that life in matter presents to us. Yet, God is purely Spirit. There is no material god governing a universe of matter. Matter is the collective manifestation, (or form being mentally projected by each and every one of us) not the essence, of anything or anyone in the divine creation. The invisible creation of Spirit, underlying the physical form of things, is really an eternal, harmonious place called 'heaven' right where the material projection seems to be reality. Thus, we are not mortal, material beings trying to get back to our heavenly home; we are immortal, spiritual beings, still at one with God, living in our eternal, spiritual creation, but experiencing the illusion of materiality. Individually, we each add our beliefs to the collective illusion. The divine Intelligence and Creator is purely spiritual. So, there is no physical 'truth'. The carnal mentality which believes in materiality and humanhood (as opposed to the pure spirituality of our immortal being) is the culprit of all we experience in the way of discord, disharmony, and lack of health, lack of abundance, or lack of love, within our life experiences on this material plane of thought or shared illusion of physics. Life in God is meta-physical, not physical. The human sense of existence is what we are here to overcome. It is what we are to out-grow. We only learn to out-grow it in tiny steps, but with each spiritual enlightenment we, individually, experience, more discord leaves us. Christ Jesus once said to his followers, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16: 33). This 'I' that he was referring to was the spiritual identity of himself and all humanity—not the human persona of Jesus, but the Christ of him…the universal spiritual identity of all of us. He was telling us that our true, spiritual identity is the savior from the faulty, human sense of ourselves, and all the ills of the flesh this false sense projects upon us. Actually, every ill of the flesh we suffer in this human realm of thought is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We cannot suffer from what we do not accept, individually, from this world's beliefs of sick, poor, and unloving conditions. We project all our beliefs, whether for good or bad. For instance, the material, carnal-mind consciousness convinces many that it is good to influence people to fear disease, and then sell them a material substance to rid them, (usually and only temporarily) of the symptoms. We see tons of these 'public service' commercials every day on our TVs. Yet, the real affliction is the fear that is trying to take hold of the viewers, telling them to buy the product advertised. "It could happen to you" is the message of every fear-producing, buy-this-chemical-product commercial. Once viewers are convinced that they are truly vulnerable to some ill-health condition, symptoms of the feared disease often appear, without their realization of the fearful, mental influence that preceded it. Thankfully, the realization that we are each God's own spiritual child, is the 'I' that Christ Jesus said to proclaim, in order to deliver us from these material beliefs in evil that could become manifested, if taken into consciousness and accepted as true. By claiming our Christ identity and Christ Consciousness, we are making sure that we understand, and thereby know, that it cannot happen to us in reality; for the truth of our eternal, spiritual wholeness and health becomes the right self-fulfilling prophecy that will soon make the fear, and even symptoms disappear, should the symptoms ever show up at a later date. I've recently had an episode with a self-fulfilling prophecy produced by my acceptance of the current world belief that 'times are becoming very bad for everyone.' Subtle fear was developing in my unguarded thinking about inflation, bank failures wiping out savings, job losses for my children, etc. These aggressive suggestions have been flooding the media for months, and I wasn't guarding my thoughts by realizing that our kingdom is not of this world, and that in God's ever-present spiritual creation, all is well. So, one immediate result was that, just to save money during 'tough times', my husband and I have been doing many home remodeling jobs ourselves. We not only completely remodeled a basement with paneling, water-proofing, and ceiling replacements, but we picked up and hauled all the materials ourselves. In the midst of all this, I began to suffer injuries, almost every day. Every finger on my right hand was damaged, one finger at a time over a period of two weeks. Next, a heavy object was dropped on my foot. I'm in my mid-sixties, and I thought I was probably manifesting the belief of clumsiness due to aging. So, with each healing of my injuries, I resorted to my invulnerable, non-aging Christly selfhood, forever safe in God's loving care and spiritual substance. I knew that Spirit can't be hurt, and I was Spirit's own daughter—not a material creature of my own projecting. So, my physical injuries healed. But then I backed my car against one side of the garage door. It cost $1300 to fix it. Next, I had what I call several "mean" days, where the wind slammed a door against me, some insect bit me on the shoulder, leaving a hard, red lump, and three of our trees blew down in a storm, all incidents in a few days' time. (I loved those trees, and now we have no more of the shade in the front yard that had taken them twelve years to produce.) Next, the Social Security agency made a mistake on my benefit and demanded that $3300 be paid back to them, due to their own error. For two or three weeks, I was experiencing 'bad times' from differing directions, every few days. Even my husband mentioned the "black cloud" I appeared to be under. Bad luck seemed to have found me. All my woes and seeming attacks from the world 'out there', thus, produced another subtle fear: It felt as though I had an invisible enemy, who had failed to harm me sufficiently with injuries, so now my finances were under attack. (Actually, I've battled this suggestion of invisible evil more than once in my life, but now it had crept back into my thinking.) Finally, I'd had enough! I faced the fact that my own acceptance of worldly beliefs had to be at the core of it all. I took time off from our busy work schedule to pray, by asking the Christ Consciousness within to reveal what precise, mental errors were afoot in my thinking, producing all these threatening things coming at me so fast and often. What came to my thought was to first handle the world belief of superstition, and really SEE that there are no dark entities in God's creation to invisibly wish me harm. Try to vanquish this belief, once and for all. Next, it came to thought that, even if someone, due to envy or hatred of my spiritual stance, wanted me harmed in some way, I was to realize that no one, and no thing, could separate me from the love of God, and all the good that is forever mine as a daughter of God. In short, God's flowing provision for all Its children cannot be taken out of God's hands—our Christly health, divine provision, harmony is always safe in God's loving care. I was also to realize that Spirit is all-in-all to each Christ identity. God is the Source of all our good, and there is no reason to strain ourselves with so much hard work, which, with God's infinite supply, we could afford to pay for. God, the Creator of all, has infinite resources to bless all creation forever. Even the concept of money (as symbol of universal exchange) emanates eternally from Spirit to Its children. What money, or help, we needed to complete our remodeling would be supplied by Spirit. Next, I was to realize that financial institutions, like banks and those paying out pension funds, are not our source of supply; and they are never our only channel through which money can flow to us. Lastly, I was to recognize that we don't live in this world's economy. We live in God's economy, all the time, despite the appearances of lack in this material world. My husband and I talked about this unfoldment, and he happily accepted the directive to stop working so hard by ourselves, just to save money. So, we quickly completed the task at hand and stopped all future tasks. We've already hired out the three remaining remodeling jobs to others. In each case, we found the way to pay, without borrowing. What was so rewarding about this episode of injuries, accidents and raids on my funds was that not one, but two issues were uncovered in my own thinking (acceptance of world fears of not enough money in today's economy, and superstitious beliefs about invisible evil spirits attacking me). My beliefs in fearful spending in today's economy had been projected into our need to do all the physical labor ourselves in remodeling, which had resulted in fatigue and clumsiness that caused injuries. Concern over money had also made me react, fearfully, when people made mistakes in handing my Social Security account and when I had to pay for an expensive car repair. So, thankfully I accepted what the Christ Consciousness was revealing to me—that these fears had produced nothing that was lasting. Since God is the real Source and channel of all supply, no organization or agency could reduce my ever-present provision from God. When we trust in God's ever-lasting supply, if one channel dries up, another will make its appearance My superstitious belief of some dark, unseen force 'out there' attacking me physically (with 'mean days' and bad luck) was really erroneous. It had been projected in a belief that somehow nature was being used to harm me, when it wasn't, and even blaming this imaginary, unseen force with my own accident of backing into the garage door, which was most likely due to my own inattentiveness at the time. Realizing this, the 'mean days' stopped. What also left was the false, depressing sense of foreboding that I'd been mentally carrying about, as I finally saw that in God's kingdom, good is always present with us, and we take it with us wherever we go. As I write this, my husband and I are getting ready to leave the burdens of hard work and money worries behind and go on vacation instead. Whatever material beliefs we accept and curse ourselves with, they all disappear in the light of our spiritual realization of God's loving control of all in creation—all people, all places, all things. In whatever manner that self-fulfilling prophecies are being collectively projected physically, it's wise to remember that our kingdom is not of this world (material projection). Our true kingdom is still the Kingdom of God, Spirit. We are all safe and sound within this kingdom forever, wherever else we seem to be; and since this kingdom is within our own divine consciousness, it is safely within us, wherever we go. [As I've often stated in my writings, many of these spiritual principles can be found in a few world religions today, such as Christian Science, Unity, and the Infinite Way, all of which teach of the Christ Selfhood within. Please see recommended reading list on bottom of Library page.]
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