Money and Wealth

Preface by Linda Mihalic

Webster's 1828 Dictionary defines wealth as "prosperity; external happiness; riches; large possessions of money, goods or land; that abundance of worldly estate which exceeds the estate of the greater part of the community; affluence; opulence."

The world today defines money as a "commodity, such as gold, or an officially issued coin or paper note that is legally established as an exchangeable equivalent of all other commodities, such as goods and services, and is used as a measure of their comparative values on the market; assets and property considered in terms of monetary value; wealth." Synonyms for money include wealth, riches, fortune, affluence, assets, resources, substance, and prosperity.


“Wealth is a snare to the senses.”


The value of money and other material possessions denoting wealth is chiefly symbolic, respected and coveted in this world, but not in the world to come. The trappings of wealth generally are a snare to the senses and to the pride and ego of the soul who believes that riches confer great power, or gain the respect of others. God will not be impressed with how much money you inherited, made, or left in your estate, but by what you did with your assets. Thus, money is an initiation, whether you have plenty or lack financial security.

Understanding the context of Edna Lister's early teachings about money is essential. The Great Depression, which began with the U.S. stock market crash of October 29, 1929, grew to be worldwide and lasted until the beginning of WWII in 1939. Wages were cut, businesses went bankrupt, and unemployment peaked at 25 percent in 1933. In 1936, $15.00 had the same buying power as $252.00 today. Annually, this is $13,104, below poverty level. In 1936, $100.00 had the same buying power as $1683.00 today. Annually, this is $87,516.00. Source: CPI inflation calculator.

Thus, the decade of the 30s was a grim and difficult time for most Americans. Millions of people were without work or income. Poverty and physical needs dominated their thinking. After the panic, the fear remained, then grew into a dragging weighty hopelessness. Families were broken apart and many never came together again.

Edna Lister lived through the Great Depression as a single mother with two sons to raise. She understood all the problems attendant to that situation in life, and at a time when no social safety net programs existed — no welfare programs, no Social Security. Then, as in Jesus' time, people came to hear the good news, and equally important, they came for the promise of loaves and fishes. "Many are called, but few are chosen." – Matthew 22:14.

Many souls came to hear her speak the Father's message of love embodied in His Son Jesus Christ. She struggled and created a legacy of faith, love, and hope. She knew from the beginning that her mission was to teach the Master's Path as the ascension of consciousness, yet she learned first hand how hard it is to move human consciousness from the material effects in the world to the spiritual source of the problems. Stated simply, what you perceive as reality is nothing more or less than a construct of your individual consciousness.

Life expresses in waves of expansion and contraction, just as the heart beats. Edna Lister calls this the Creative Impulse. Two lecture transcripts contain the essence of her seminal thinking on these issues — The Gold Standard and God as Consciousness Appears as Form.

Ours is not a "prosperity ministry." We are not a "megachurch." You may think you need more money, security, abundance, prosperity, security, success, or supply, but these states are merely the symptoms of your true lack, which is enough God consciousness to supply all your needs. Finally, you cannot fully comprehend the idea of wealth, which becomes the form of wealth in the world, unless you first understand the nature of your desires, thinking, and imagination. This idea integrates two key Scriptures:

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." – Matthew 6:33.

"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." – 1 Timothy 6:10.





























Edna Lister on Money and Wealth

"And I, If I am lifted up, shall draw all to me." – John 12:32. I am now complete success because I am lifted up.

"He who trusts in the Lord will be prospered." – Proverbs 28:25. I am now seeing my business as a complete success. I am now seeing my children as a complete success. I am now surrendered to this new idea of complete success. I am now filled to overflowing with ideas, which I can bring into outer forms of success. I am now a complete success and tomorrow I shall be a more complete success. I am now successful through my deep understanding of law. I am now filled with God's Wisdom, which makes me a complete success. I am now completely abandoned to this idea of success. I am now faithful to this idea of success. I am now praising God that I am a deep success. – Edna Lister, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1931.


I desire to realize all the abundance of good things. I desire to call out in myself all the elements of success. I desire to manifest outwardly what is potentially in me. I desire to manifest outwardly all of which I am conscious. I desire to know and keep the laws of prosperity. I desire to make prosperity the normal expression of my life. I desire to have abundance, so that I may use it abundantly.

I know that abundance is primarily a state of consciousness. As I realize abundance within, it becomes real. Because I am at one with all abundance, I have only to find and keep the laws of expression.

I am the embodiment of the principles of absolute Being. Because absolute Being is, I am. Because God is abundance, I am prosperity. Because He is health, I am health. Because He is supreme, I am supreme in God. I declare that all abundance is now in me. The power to call miracles and form into expression is mine.

I can command prosperity and have it come to pass. My every conscious thought is prosperous. My outward appearance is prosperity. My dress and manner are prosperous. I am a magnet to draw prosperity to me. I am centrifugal, exhaling prosperity. I am prosperity incarnated and active. Prosperity is the dominant note of my consciousness. I am prosperity, abundance, plenty. – Edna Lister, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1931.


"I am now ready to accept my own inheritance. I am now ready to create my own abundant wealth. I am now ready to surrender to this Light that works through me. I am now ready to release all that Love that belongs to me. I am now accepting everything that comes to me as fire to make me perfect. I am now being made into perfect and pure gold of Spirit." – Edna Lister, January 1933.


Visualization relates to the process of visioning. Vision deals with the unseen realms, and is a spiritual thing, invisible. People have all sorts of visions. The Tower of Babel was only 300 feet high. After you write about a vision on paper and build it in its objective form, then you can reproduce it. You are no longer seeing a vision, but reproducing an object. You envision with the spirit, but when it has taken form in your mind, you reproduce it, and it is no longer a vision.

You have to see the thing you want. You cannot have objective things in your life if your mind is blank about them. See yourself in new clothes before you get them. When you ask for God's abundance to be poured out upon you, and for the power of love to go forth, you must give the equivalent in love for every desire of your heart. – Edna Lister, January 16, 1933.


No one can take your money because money is not money. Money is your consciousness of divine supply, externalized. – Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.


Those who lose money lose it for just one reason. They have not learned that money is not money. They have not learned that money is not something separate and apart from God. – Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.


If God is infinite, the idea of money must be a part of infinity. If God is your consciousness, then money is part of your consciousness. Neither time nor space can take it from you, for it exists not as a material form separate and apart from consciousness, but as consciousness itself appearing as individual form. – Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1933.


People have been taught to visualize money. Instead, visualize yourself paying bills or doing whatever you want to do with money. See yourself with the symbol of wealth to do it with. – Edna Lister, January 16, 1933.


If someone owes you money, see his wallet overflowing with money, more clothes and more prosperity than he can handle, because what you give to him in thought and imagination will return to you. What you give the most time and attention to, is what will be made and return to you. See a perfect picture of what you want, but give it to someone else, see someone else having it. – Edna Lister, January 26, 1933.


"If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." – Matthew 5:40. If you lose your coat, you did not pour out enough love. If you are living by the law and pouring out enough love, no one can go beyond a certain point to take advantage of you. Pour out love twenty-four hours a day to melt the world's hardness of heart. The love you pour forth is your protection, not the love you demand, but the love you give is what prospers you. Although no one can take your coat, remember, you must be willing to let him have it. Be willing to do anything God asks of you, to pour forth enough love, so you will not have to strip yourself. – Edna Lister, January 31, 1933.


Mind is the interpretive medium between the life of God and its manifestation. No matter how lofty the ideal, you must have a method to attain it. The answer is a mental plan of action, and acting on it. – Edna Lister, January 1934.


Earthly savings, money, houses, land, are all things that you leave behind when you pass from this life. Yet your main responsibility is to save treasures in heaven — friends, love, service, hard work, giving, education, joy, peace, happiness, confidence, and trust. The divine substance for all these things is available for your use, yet what is it, where is it, and how do you find it? Trees, flowers, vegetables, and fruit all have a seed of desire to grow toward the Light. Desire is your seed also. You fill your invisible mold with your thoughts, emotions, and pictures of imagination. – Edna Lister, February 16, 1934.


Law is exact and just. "Give and ye shall receive." When you give, you always receive something in return: Experience, health, new ideas, love, understanding. Treat all debts owed and to be paid. Put each on the altar, and see the altar as loaded with money. Ideas are your initiators and have outside agents to clothe them, waiting to put them into expression. The idea trains you and makes you unfold. – Edna Lister, February 23, 1934.


Money is no more or less important than anything else. Freely give. – Edna Lister, March 9, 1934.


In each realm, phase or technique, you must use everything you know on a higher plane to "bring to pass" from the invisible. The Eastern teachers taught people to concentrate, which is the mental use of the law, or force. We teach lifting into the kingdom first, building form on the lower plane or every good thought-picture in desire-substance now. You do not need force. Call the form of your desire into visibility with love and praise. The only way to succeed is by looking up to heaven. When Jesus blessed the bread and broke it, twelve baskets were left to share. – Edna Lister, March 16, 1934.


When making declarations, it helps to write your desires on paper, since this clears up the subconscious and conscious mind. Do you use some particular tone of voice that offends others? Automatically you strike your own keynote for success or failure. Every word is the spoken Word. Idle words are the "I won'ts" and "I can'ts" that return to you as form. You must melt and dissolve all the negative forms you have created by your spoken Word to open the way to abundance. – Edna Lister, March 23, 1934.


"All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." – Matthew 21:22. Success requires your love, praise, desire, imagination and the spoken Word. To gain the desires of your heart and soul, you must ask. Ask once, then act as if you have it. A lily bulb draws, appropriates substance from soil, water and Light. You also draw in substance from around you. Build plenty of pictures in imagination, and fill them in with substance. – Edna Lister, March 30, 1934.


When you concentrate on mere supply, you must demonstrate your ability to produce it. Concentration is the act of forcing the mental faculty of thinking. Since you can concentrate on only one thing at a time, it does not pay enough dividends. Instead, surrender to Light, which is working now. Lift the physical, and subconscious mental into the spiritual. Part time surrender is like wind that blows from every quarter. Lift your idle words about your own affairs. Let them follow your heart's conviction. – Edna Lister, April 15, 1934.


"There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself." – Proverbs 11:24-25. You must let go of all fear and doubts in your mind. Prosperity requires the willingness to be used, led, and lifted until each hour pays you dividends. – Edna Lister, April 20, 1934.


Declare, "I am now receiving abundance." If all is now, then now is the time, and here is the place where you can see it. – Edna Lister, May 4, 1934.


The perfect attitudes of success and prosperity include joy, love, completeness, and surrender. To make room for these, surrender the negative attitudes of posing, writing or behaving affectedly. Choose a calmly serene behavior to show your opinion and feelings. – Edna Lister, May 11, 1934.


Abundance is money. How do you manifest or produce abundance? By practicing high visualization. All children play the "imagine" game. Girls play dolls at a tea party, giving imaginary tea and cookies. You give to others and to yourself from above. By giving the invisible, you open the door to receiving the visible. – Edna Lister, May 18, 1934.


What must I do to find a position? Begin with prayer treatments to release substance for three months from now. The substance available is not the same every day, and yours is already waiting. How do I get into the right place? Serve 1,000 percent where you are now. How can you achieve emancipation through self-mastery? By practicing two hours per day, four hours per day, ten hours per day until you are perfect. How do I know this is the right place? Do next thing next. – Edna Lister, May 25, 1934.


You are a strong daughter of God now! His strength fills you to overflowing and shall continue to do so. The times when you lose contact with knowing this will finally disappear altogether, and you will be God-conscious every second of your days and nights. You will find ways and means of doing things to bring in the money that will not lead you to hard physical work.

Until you let go of possessions as belonging to your self, you must toil and earn by the sweat of your brow. When you accept this as the truth, then that law is superseded by "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." – Matthew 6:33. – Edna Lister, August 1934.


The first Beatitude reads "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." — "Blessed are the poor in possessions for theirs is all the kingdom of heaven." When all you have belongs to the Father-Mother God, and you use it gratefully, leaving it fast in his heart, when you know that the abundant wealth of God is yours to draw on, when you accept that all the Father-Mother God is yours to use — then you shall have added things. Every desire of your heart shall be appeased. It is only because you accept this half-heartedly that it does not work for you immediately.

According to my faith, so shall it be done unto me. My faith is my idea of what this law will do for me right now. If I think it does only two dollars' worth, then I will have that two dollars' worth now. If I can once really know that it means abundant wealth for me now, then I can draw on that abundant idea of wealth. It is so simple to say and so hard to achieve.

Marvelous how the Light works for you when you get in the current of the River of Life, which flows on smoothly and unceasingly by when you refuse to use it. You dip your tiny tin cup into the stream and gloat over a cupful while someone else uses a 1,000 gallon tankful simultaneously. Neither the cupful nor the tankful creates the slightest ripple or hollow in the stream. It flows right on, supplying a cup or a tank a minute, and the same great ceaseless amount remains to dip from the next instant. You wail because your cup is empty, but refuse to fill it again. You declare emptiness where you could declare the fullness of God. Hold up your tank to have it refilled each day with God's life and it must become visible, for that is the law of its own being. It cannot do otherwise. Plenty is its life law, an overflowing abundance of all good things now.

God cannot fail you ever. His abundance is there to draw on, but what do you really believe about it? That is what you need to know and to do accordingly. The source of abundant supply on the outside is God's business. How it comes is His business. Your business is only to know and to keep on thanking God that you have it right now. – Edna Lister, August 1934.


Every idea of men points in one of two directions — disintegration of the old, or construction of the new, from old into new. This keeps you on your toes. The new must include more life, and that life must be good, perfect, and just. It must contain good for each soul, from lowest to highest. It cannot be less, but must be more. God's invisible shelves are filled with divine supply. Bring your needs in, leave them on the altar, and take away your supply. The secret of abundance is dwelling in the heart of God, together with treating every case of need perfectly. – Edna Lister, The Life Practical, September 14, 1934.


"The Almighty will be thy treasure and precious silver unto thee." – Job 22:25. When you have accepted that God gave you "all power and dominion," you confront the how-to-do-it issue, how to release the Light. Anyone can become an expert if he chooses to do so. It makes no difference what you desire to do, you can do it if you invest ten minutes a day in exercising your talent, and another ten minutes in study. Doing this repeatedly, you win the race as did the steadfast tortoise, who won against the hare in Aesop's fable. A Chinese proverb says that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Take that first step toward becoming an expert in doing good. This is the journey that leads to true prosperity. – Edna Lister, The Life Powerful, September 21, 1934.


Your only valuable asset is faith, which determines how much you have of anything else. If you choke off faith, you choke off supply. – Edna Lister, October 3, 1934.


"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." – Jude 1:6. Your original estate is a prospering consciousness. Life consists not in the abundance of things, or riches, but in that rich consciousness of God's power and dominion. – Edna Lister, November 23, 1934.


Actively directing the Christ substance is the right use of the absolute abstract principles of Love, Wisdom, and the Word. Remember God, who He is, and who you are. All Light moves through you as you speak the Word in faith, believing. To "sow sparingly" is to err by sowing too few seeds. To "sow bountifully" is to sow too many. You must sow just the right number, and just the right kind. – Edna Lister, June 16, 1935.


Justification, which comes under the law of justice, is something you can use or abuse: You may use justification to clear someone's name with truth, or you may abuse justification to tear down another's reputation or personality. You may use justification to destroy or to build. For instance, you may incur debt for self-centered reasons — to run up bills you never intend to pay, to make a show, or to take what you cannot otherwise afford. Some people may incur debt to make ends meet, to sign a contract under world laws, all with fine intentions, as a definite desire to succeed. However, incurring debt is not appropriate to ignore, to be intolerant of or easy-minded about. Balanced nonresistance takes the just and middle course, unmoved by failure or success. When you continue in balance, you are a magnet and all things else are added. – Edna Lister, September 12, 1935.


When you stand under Light, you stand where the prophet Hosea stood when he said, "I am become rich. I have found me out substance." – Hosea 12:8. You begin to cast your nets to catch abundance. – Edna Lister, The Substance Hoped For, February 15, 1936.


Resourcefulness is the means of supplying of a want. Of all your resources, the spiritual is most important. Consider the true value of money: What is money for? It is to store away to create a scarcity? Is it for compensation for work rendered? For what work? Whose work? Whose money? What employer? Whose field do you work in? Do you complain about your hire? – Edna Lister, February 15, 1936.


"As ye sow so shall ye reap" (see Galatians 6:7). Prosperity is a state of consciousness. Money, clothes, things, God — all are elements of consciousness. Everything the Father has in store for us is waiting now, just as next season's harvest is the potential in the earth awaiting preparation. Wheat represents good seed for planting. When you sow the seed, you expect a harvest — not less, but more.


If your ambition is to have a salary of $15.00 a week, you are thinking that you are unworthy of more, deserving only $15.00 a week. You are planting this idea in the ethers, twenty-four hours a day. Plant $100.00 each week. Sowing rich seeds creates expectancy. "I am now ready to serve in a new position. I am now receiving a new position, a new salary. I am now receiving $1,000.00 each week. Thank You, Father!" – Edna Lister, April 15, 1936.


Triumph is "a state of being resulting from successful achievement, and exultation." Victory is "the defeat of the enemy in a contest, a battle or a moral victory." When victorious, you feel triumphant, experiencing joy at your success. A ship, slipping its moorings, is not automatically guaranteed victory or success. It must be fueled, provisioned and adequately crewed. The pilot must have all the necessary maps and charts, and finally, a competent captain in command to assure a successful voyage. If you run out or short of any provision, your voyage may end in failure. Yet, once the soul is provisioned with ample and adequate Light, your pilgrimage never fails. – Edna Lister, The Life Triumphant,May 17, 1936.


Your background can be poverty, lack and want, or money, position, family, and honor. Against this, life may paint a foreground filled with trouble, barriers, obstacles, hurdles, handicaps of illness, debt, discouragement, and despair. No matter your background, you can paint your own foreground as a son or daughter of God. – Edna Lister, February 7, 1937.


War is horrible except to those whose gods are money and profit. – Edna Lister, Peace Through Tolerance, September 26, 1937.


Your returns cannot fail, for you send forth in full knowledge of truth. That which you perform shall return to you blessed into abundant measure for your own good. – Edna Lister, July 25, 1938.


God tests you on every count — sensory temptation, money, place, power, pride, bigotry. – Edna Lister, September 24, 1938.


Cease speculation, playing, covetousness and greed for money, even for daily expenses. Only grief comes when you focus your eyes on the world. – Edna Lister, October 12, 1938.


As you release Power, Substance, Light and life for others, so shall it return to you as your heart's desires. God has placed limitless Power, Substance and life as Light at your command. It will go forth and return, according to your impress of faithfulness upon it. – Edna Lister, October 27, 1938.


Let no man hinder or delude you into a false position or false security. You have but one security, Christ, which he gives you. – Edna Lister, October 31, 1938.


When called on, always give more than is asked of time, effort, love, compassion, strength and the greatest of these is gratitude. Give of this in abundance. – Edna Lister, November 13, 1938.


Money is necessary only on earth; in heaven you pay with service and enough sacrifices of the self. – Edna Lister, November 24, 1938.


You balance heavenly gains with earth gains and vice versa. This is the law and it must fulfill itself. You must pay for whatever you force. You cannot go to heaven on get-rich-quick schemes or slick financing. You can't earn heaven through money, only through service. – Edna Lister, November 24, 1938.


You pay a debt for what you take wrongfully. You pay out in money, tears and heartaches while paying your debt on earth, but lay up a heavenly store to pay dividends later. Money is necessary only on earth. In heaven you pay with service and enough sacrifices of self. – Edna Lister, November 24, 1938.


To increase your praise will bring all bread cast upon the waters home speedily. Therefore, cast also your net on the right side of the boat at once. Some have cast their nets on the wrong side, where there are no fish of the abundance of Light. Praise while casting your net on God's side. Light, not dark, will be your return. The net was filled at once and not one fish lost, though heavy. A fisherman's important point is his casting. Cast in the right way and God's abundance will be your reward. Every second, every moment, are you making a new cast. Grow not weary of casting on the right side of your boat, the God-side. – Edna Lister, December 29, 1938.


An expectant attitude greatly aids the Father. Praise, praise, praise that you have it. A little more praise and love and you can be free of physical ailments, of money limitations, of public lacks. You will earn a place of position, money, power and life. No man can take it from you and you will no longer be so foolish as to take it from yourself. Faith has led you to take one step at a time, to live each day knowing that all the days ahead are taken care of physically, materially and spiritually. – Edna Lister, February 22, 1940.


Your returns of prospering success will abound when you can see utter evil, declare it good, and lift it to the Father in love. – Edna Lister, November 26, 1940.


The law is, Ask, believing, then praise and act as if you have it. I am seeing this bountiful supply for all of you. You should see my table — loaded! You have your own place with your desires heaped like a mountain in front of you. As fast as you take them away, it fills up again. – Edna Lister, January 7, 1941.


You need only two ingredients to make the greatest success the world has ever seen, unconquerable faith and unquenchable love. – Edna Lister, January 22, 1941.


God has a million ways for you to earn money, a million ways for you to give truth while many millions, await the substance of the truth you have to give and have to give. "Have" in the sense of its coming through us every second in your fully surrendered "estate" — "have" in the sense of being under the compulsion of desire to release and keep all channels open. – Edna Lister, April 8, 1941.


Do all you can with what you now have, and God will take care of supplying the rest of the increase. – Edna Lister, February 25, 1941.


God is abundantly able to supply all you can imagine or desire. – Edna Lister, February 25, 1941.


Giving God your constant support is the only true way to have your needs met, your added things made visible, your life full and complete. – Edna Lister, October 3, 1941.


Some think only in terms of money, yet anyone who misuses divine substance unwisely or illegally, pays. – Edna Lister, December 6, 1941.


Do not allow the weeping for the old, hanging onto the old, to keep you waiting for the new. Rejoice at once and declare: "I am now ready for my new life and all the wealth it contains." – Edna Lister, January 26, 1942.


"I am now confident of success." – Edna Lister, March 31, 1943.


"There is plenty for all, and I am now prosperous, whole and complete." – Edna Lister, April 27, 1943.


"I now both dare and do in the name of Jesus, the Christ." – Edna Lister, April 27, 1943.


Use only Light, which contains all you need. It is the substance to become your creations, the power to move substance into your molds for creations, and the mind to hold, to direct, to love, to stand steadfast. Light contains all things you need on earth. – Edna Lister, September 16, 1943.


There is no failure in God. – Edna Lister, December 27, 1943.


Light awaits your "Midas touch" to turn it into the glory of outer and inner success now. – Edna Lister, November 30, 1944.


"Thank Thee, God. I already have this position. Let it come to pass now." – Edna Lister, December 19, 1944.


To spend lavishly requires an expansive consciousness. Otherwise, you are stingy. Make up your mind in the realm of invisible substance, and always hold $5,000 in your right hand to create "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail." – 1 Kings 17:14. This is a prescription for prosperity. The barrel of meal symbolizes the pituitary gland and its several hormones. The cruse of oil represents the pineal body and its hormone, melatonin. The pituitary gland and pineal body work together to produce the upward-focused mind, which is the cosmic "mind that was in Christ Jesus." – Philippians 2:5. – Edna Lister, January 1, 1945.


Keep your imagination stayed on perfection for what you want, and thank the Father for it in advance. Do not dwell on the need or on pain. Keep your mind stayed on the things that are pure and just. A prayer is your highest thought about anything. Have you ever just spent a handful of $20 bills as you please? This requires an expansive consciousness. If not, you are stingy. Make your mind up in the invisible substance, and always hold $5,000 in your right hand to create "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail." – 1 Kings 17:14. This is also a prescription for prosperity. – Edna Lister, January 1, 1945.


Today's cultural aspiration is for more — more luxuries, more clothes, more money, more cars, more land, more things. What you need is more love, more knowledge, and more God for more miracles. – Edna Lister, March 4, 1945.


Declare, "I am now ready to surrender in visualization. Thank Thee, Father, that Thou dost always hear us." With the close of that word, lift your head, you open at this point in the work. Hold whatever you are lifting up for a few seconds. "Thank Thee, Father, Thou dost always act. Thy wealth is becoming visible now. So it is." That is the surrendered visualization, which has no reaction of force because it is all within the kingdom. – Edna Lister, May 10, 1945.


Your only point of failure is your idea of desire. How high can you reach? How much heat can you use? How much white Light can you use? – Edna Lister, July 14, 1945.


You, being a daughter/son of God, your heritage is boundless wealth. It is God's decree that you have it now, that you prosper in whatever you do. You are on the high road to wealth and fame. It is now revealed to you how you shall come into your own. Wealth flows to you without effort, the gift of your Father. Every night you bathe in the Fountain of Youth and every morning you return youthful, more beautiful and with renewed strength to carry on. You bathe in the fountain of resourcefulness and return with new inspiration for the service on earth, which you love and which pays you great dividends effortlessly. Nothing can keep you from your own high place now. – Edna Lister, July 31, 1945.


"My pockets are now filled with singing money. I move into a position where money sings all day long. I love my new singing money. My money sings all day long. My purse is now filled with singing money. I give away singing money to all whom I meet.

"I now fill my customers' pockets with singing money, given of God. God's money always sings. I now use God's singing money! Singing money is my miracle money. Singing money delights my soul because it is God's money. I now love my overflowing abundance of God's singing money!" Declare this and your purses shall overflow. – Edna Lister, September 13, 1945.


Love does fulfill the law. Love does open all doors. Love does supply all of us with an earning plan now. Love does give you the key. Love is the door wide open to success. – Edna Lister, May 16, 1946.


Renounce the poverty-laden ideas of "I can't afford" and "When I have time/money." No task is too long. No service is too hard. You can do anything because you have everything you need as a creator. – Edna Lister, December 8, 1946.


The best thing to know is how not to do it. – Edna Lister, June 3, 1947.


Go to the Source for all your needs. When you learn to do this and expect nothing from the world, everything you need will come to you. – Edna Lister, November 15, 1947.


Every day of lack shall be doubled as wealth. – Edna Lister, April 11, 1949.


"I am rich with the wealth of God." The Father will send you what you want according to the price you are willing to pay. How much do you love? Love is the money with which you pay. – Edna Lister, July 1949.


The truth of reality versus the truth of appearance: You are wealthy. How dare you say you are not wealthier each hour? Each hour is greater in faith, love, and fulfillment of desires. That is living under the Love of God and it brings results. When you can face the Lazarus of your life or any barrier of death or cold, and declare that it is good, miracles begin to appear. When you think negatively for even a few seconds, you cut the lines of Light to your security as with a shears. The lines cannot carry Light to you then. – Edna Lister, November 25, 1949.


I have spoken of not using Power to further myself in any way. Yet, for me, the very thought of wanting financial freedom is a “use of power” to the self. It takes so long to rid the appetitive soul of all worldly desires, to reach that point, to lift all ambition, and yet to have all ambition. This is my present soul-task. I realize that it is a matter of working day and night without even thinking of income. Praising and thanking for all I am given to use, with no thought of either need or money. Just pure knowing, loving and standing. It is ridding my self of even thinking of my dependence on gifts. God is my Banker. But, I am always conscious of the sacrifice everyone must make to send gifts. Yet — I must forget this — I believe the root is an original pride of independence, which I came here to conquer.

Anyway, no one can accept with more alacrity, nor search for self more diligently. This one thing I do now while I seek to work harder than ever to do everything I must accomplish. I shall dig out all thought of earth, even to the last, final one, yet work to achieve all success with all my soul, mind, heart, body, and work. Subtle, isn’t it? To be ambitious, yet remain clean and free of all thoughts of the fruits of ambition, even feeling sorry to be a burden, or humiliated by not succeeding at the very impossible. I AM success now. No need to strive. I've done God's will, His best through me now. Therefore, all is well and very well, and my way is clear before me for the next step. – Edna Lister, January 16, 1950.


What you gain from your prayers depends not on God, but on your approach. If you center your prayers on "needs" — money, home, a car, health, harmony, patience, companionship or love — you fill your prayer molds with more needs. – Edna Lister, April 23, 1950.


Avoid making the wrong request. For example, demanding the money to pay bills is force, which pulls your consciousness down into the heavy world mind, and returns as accidents, delay and disappointment. Your gratitude and praise return to us as abundant miracles. Since the Father's "good pleasure" is to give you what you need, you praise, glorify and thank God that you already have the funds you require. – Edna Lister, September 10, 1950.


If you center your hope on material needs only, then needs encircle your hope until it is spelled "needy." The law is "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." In that kingdom "all things" are added, which supplies all your needs. – Edna Lister, September 24, 1950.


It is your responsibility to speak the Word for material things for your spouse, for those on your lines of Light and responsibility, and for the whole world. – Edna Lister, September 25, 1950.


"Thank you, Father! I am such a wealthy woman. The wealth of the universe is mine to use." – Edna Lister, October 1950.


A powerful affirmation is, "The bankers' windows of heaven are wide open and money pours out upon me now. The love windows of heaven are wide open and money pours out upon me now. The joy windows of heaven are wide open and money pours out upon me now. I breathe the Breath of Life. I am the Word of God made manifest. The divine Breath permeates every cell and segment of my being and I am made whole. The graciousness and the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ abides within me and moves through all my affairs. I am now crowned with the graciousness and loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ." – Edna Lister, October 1950.


You will be wealthy. Say, "I am wealthy in strength." Use wealth in all statements. You are the wealthiest on earth. You have more love — more everything than anyone else. – Edna Lister, October 19, 1950.


Some are afraid to be wealthy in strength, afraid to be trusted with money. Those who say, "I did not come for loaves and fishes" are foolish. You can't pay the bills by being proud of being poor. God trusts you with free will. Why shouldn't He trust you with His endless substance?

If you cannot imagine spending, you have no million dollar plans. You should be able to decide what to buy with your first million within an hour or you have no plans. Stop being afraid that if it is good for you it will hurt someone else. – Edna Lister, November 19, 1950.


Do you feel wealthy, like a millionaire? So many poverty-conscious souls answer this question with, "I can't feel like a millionaire while I'm in this fix. Why should I want to feel like a millionaire? They have so much trouble. I don't want to be wealthy. It's too much responsibility. I wouldn't know what to do with so much money." To feel wealthy, you must first accept your heavenly inheritance. Too many people balance the world's ideas against their divine inheritance, and find God wanting! The "don't know" type says, "I don't know what I want."

The "spongers" want God to do it for them, and blame Him when life does not go their way. You can tell who they are by what they say: "If I knew what God wanted, I'd do it. God never answers my prayers. If God wants me to move up, He should lift these things from my path. God is punishing me." The "wisher" class waits for it to fall into their laps, and everything is too much trouble, effort, work and long hours: "This is so hard. I just wish God would take care of it. I never get what I want. God doesn't answer my prayers." The fellow who gets everything that he wants is on the slide into decline.

The "off in a corner" type wants to live in a hut on an island, and says, "Why should I arise? I already pray. I can't stand the vibration of a group. I don't need a teacher. I can get enlightenment by staying in my little corner and doing it alone." The "fearful" type is afraid to be wealthy. How foolish to say, "Money isn't important to me." Who can pay the bills by being proud of poverty? "I can't trust myself." God trusts us with the priceless gift of free choice, so why shouldn't He trust us with His infinite substance? "Oh, well, God must not want me to have it." Stop being afraid that if it's good for you, it will hurt someone else.

You have no million dollar plans if you cannot imagine spending your first million! Keep planning despite your family's opposition. You do not get a single credit in heaven for being soft, so be flexible, not flabby. You can arise and become a creator god, so arise and say, "I've had enough." One good shot of Light could lift you like an atomic bomb! Your wealth increases each time you conquer and receive new illumination. – Edna Lister, November 19, 1950.


All tests and parables are meant to help you in daily life. God is always with you. He never sent anyone to earth with an idea without providing the agents to finance it. Yet to realize the vision, you may not be weak. Some people make endless statements and prayers, yet say, "I can't afford it." Fears about money, jobs, health, time, etc., are all chains that hold you in bondage. World ideas pick at your emotional pin feathers and conflicting desires. World economics deals with your mental life, your will and intellectual concepts. Lift desire and will in the first marriage of the Lamb to become I AM consciousness. It marks the difference between the creature stage and the creator. – Edna Lister, December 3, 1950.


People who have a poverty complex have chosen to love poverty more than they love God. Release Light. You cannot escape one state of consciousness on the way to universal brotherhood, and reach balance to be lifted up. – Edna Lister, June 12, 1951.


The creator agrees with God and adjusts to man without arguing, because he doesn't need to. He lives by the Oversoul's laws, which bring greater health, wealth and security. – Edna Lister, June 17, 1951.


Declare, "The banker's windows of heaven are now wide open pouring money out on me an all those souls on my lines of Light." See the bill stamped with $100. God has windows for everything — joy, trips, vacations, a new car. Say what you mean when you pray, and make the right statements. Coveting is the selfish love of holding, hiding, squeezing, or burying money, and is the root of all evil. But not the love of money to lavishly give and spend. "I accept God as my earthly inheritance, as everything — as money, as clothes, as life, as happiness — all that comes to me is good." – Edna Lister, July 24, 1951.


When you center your thoughts on your needs, the needs multiply. Focus on the Love of God. – Edna Lister, March 15, 1952.


Acceptance means that you recognize that the River of Life bathes you. No matter what the circumstance, it is your choice to accept the wealth of God’s substance by opening your door wide, just a crack or closing it out. Accept your full responsibility as an heir of God. Do you want to be a 24-hours-a-day ascending creator god, eight hours or what? – Edna Lister, June 2, 1952.


Speak the Word for creation, for prosperity, for health, and for specific things. Expect plenty! See it. Make all positive statements for it. Approach it with a wash tub, not a tin cup. For prosperity, make the declaration and believe that you have it. Act as if, sweetly, firmly and finally, and discipline self. Pray and make treatments in the silence.

You have so much of your spiritual and mental lives to cleanse. When you cease believing that God is money, and know it, the funds will come — from benefactors, legacies, grants, gifts, marvelous new ideas for divine supply and prosperity — in a thousand different ways. Money will come when you let God as money take over your consciousness and life. – Edna Lister, September 4, 1952.


Make your ideals great, and stop being stingy. Take time to see what's behind the Gates of Light that swing wide for your soul ascension. The higher you ascend, the more faith descends as substance, so your affairs grow and prosper as you exchange "treasures of darkness" for the bounty of Light. – Edna Lister, October 12, 1952.


If I need money, I pray for all those who need money, knowing that the super-abundance shall return to me. – Edna Lister, November 16, 1952.


"For whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth." – Hebrews 12:6. The soul must have discipline. To be disciplined is the only anchor of security anyone ever has. – Edna Lister, December 9, 1952.


A fellow once wanted to open a lumber camp. First he sold his idea of production and distribution. He approached a buyer with a description of his assets in mind and explained how he could dam a river to float the logs to their mill — all this was invisible. Later he showed a banker his prospective orders. The banker put up the money based on the man's invisible pioneering. He logged in winter, so his creation wasn't visible until the spring thaw when the logs floated down the river to the mill. This man's unconquerable faith provided the outer manifestation of abundance for many because he prayed before his altar and ignited the flame.

Your future resources are the flame of the Holy Spirit on your altar. Nothing limits the burning flame that can energize us and your creations in the fifth dimension. You are just as great a super salesman as the lumberjack. What do you plan to produce and how do you plan to distribute it? God is your banker when your business plan leads to glory. Who will approach God, creature soul "little me" or Oversoul I AM? Every night you are successful in some great venture while you attend the high altar. – Edna Lister, December 14, 1952.


Success consists of continuity in expression. Your highest points of glory come from transmuting your lowest points of weakness. – Edna Lister, December 15, 1952.


Stop withholding self from the sacrifice you make. There is that which withholds unto poverty, and that which gives unto wealth. ["There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." – Proverbs 11:24.] – Edna Lister, December 18, 1952.


Here is a declaration I’ve only needed a few times, but which brought large results each time — "Now is the time for all my talents and abilities to be used in a big way in the outer world, to earn big money. I will take or do anything sent to me, but it must be big!" – Edna Lister, April 20, 1953.


I am doing God’s work as well as I know how, and He always has and always will pour out His abundance on us all. The bankers’ windows of heaven and the vault doors are wide open now. I know this. Anything you do will be perfect. – Edna Lister, April 29, 1953.


A little poison will ruin much water. Negative statements can and will adulterate the whole stream of life flowing through you. You are perfect as to thoughts and statements about wealth and that you will have wealth. Those flow continuously without doubt, without fear, without withholding. No outside opinions can ever cause you to change your wealth ideas.

With only a few cents in your pockets, you are still wealthy, finding it easy to ignore the condition. Yet you persist in declaring other weaknesses because of outer conditions. The same law applies to 10,000 other matters. Your negative statements about petty conditions color all your lines of Light, and they are anchors, holding you to the past, or to heartbreaking delay.

"No task is too hard or too long or too fine, no matter what." You must declare this. Accept and thank the Father for opening doors, ways, places and your purse. "God is good" is the greatest statement anyone on earth can make. It will start wealth flowing as an avalanche down a mountainside. – Edna Lister, June 23, 1953.


In prayer, make no negative thought or statement of your need. You cannot love God and be conscious of your needs at the same time. You must love God enough, and at the boiling point. Love God enough, and Light moves through. Pray once about the need, but if you ask again, you don't believe. When you repeatedly declare for a miracle, you believe that you do not have it. As long as you keep on asking, you do not really believe.

Say, "Father, I love Thee, and I am using Thy abundance." You close out seeing and hearing when you hold onto your need. You can't be loving God completely when you have centered your mind on something negative. Love Him at the white point of heat. You love God, but if you do not rejoice, you do not love Him enough. "Father, I am thanking Thee while rejoicing for all favors to come" is how to draw abundance from God's reserve bank. People pay mostly lip service because they do not comprehend all that God gives for the world. – Edna Lister, October 1, 1953.


The Father sends Light to your star and from there it comes to you. Whenever you visualize, picture everyone else receiving also. That image forms in their star to release whatever they lack, a car, house, money, health. The substance is never lacking, but comes through all the time. Yet, you must go to the Source to begin the vibration. – Edna Lister, October 19, 1953.


Psychologists and metaphysicians too often want to drag heaven down to earth. Psychologists usually tell their patients to talk it out until they have endlessly recreated it. Many metaphysicians tell their clients to pray for peace, a husband, money or a new job instead of doing something about what is keeping them "stuck." – Edna Lister, November 15, 1953.


When you are love, joy, power, and Light, you are like God. By the glory you express, you glorify Him, and you are a part of that glory and lifted up into the heart of God. When that glory is about you and all you do, it will o'ershadow you, and you will have an abundance of all you need for life on earth. – Edna Lister, January 21, 1954.


You choose to accept the wealth of God’s substance, health, wealth, solution of problems, capabilities, etc., by opening your door wide to that substance, by only a crack, or close the door entirely. You either accept your full responsibility as an heir of God, a fraction of it or none at all. It is up to you. Do you want to be a creator god 24-hours a day, eight hours, or what? – Edna Lister, March 29, 1954.


Some, who have pride but no money, want to make everyone conform to one level standard. They have avoided the responsibility of ascension before, and are still avoiding it. Send baskets of money to those who owe you debts, each hour, daily, until they are wealthy, and declare the debt paid. – Edna Lister, May 30, 1954.


"Lord, double the Light for success for everyone on earth, from least to greatest." – Edna Lister, June 17, 1954.


If someone owes you money, write a letter to yourself saying, "Enclosed, please find a check for" the amount, and sign the debtor's name. Do it in complete love and visualize the debtor with money pouring in, enough to repay everyone he owes. Write the answer, put it under your pillow at night and say, "Father, let this be flooded with Light." You can do this for others, too. – Edna Lister, June 28, 1954.


To overcome inadequate attitudes, plan and stamp a mental picture of success indelibly on your mind. Hold this picture tenaciously and never permit it to fade. Never think of failing, or doubt the reality of the mental image. The mind always tries to complete what it pictures. Picture success, no matter how badly things seem to be going. – Edna Lister, October 17, 1954.


You are successful now. Your Father is rich. You are His so wealthy son/daughter. – Edna Lister, January 6, 1955.


The perfect mantra of the conquering soul is "I am. I can. I do all things through Christ which strengthens me." When you totally surrender to this gift of strength, you will forget all silly notions, knowing that "God shall supply all your needs according to His riches." – Philippians 4:19. – Edna Lister, June 12, 1955.


You cannot straddle the fence, hold on to the past and reach for the future simultaneously, because the conflict will pull you apart. The riches you have stored up in heaven are worth more than millions of dollars. When you relax the emotional and mental tension and work more spiritually, you will also have enough money. – Edna Lister, July 26, 1955.


You may have to sell something to raise the money, but you need not feel loss. Heaven is more abundant, and your riches are the gifts of joy. Jesus said to ask anything in his name, believing, and you have it. Ascend higher and increase your love for and gratitude toward God. Thank Him for His ever-present abundance now, for now is the right time.

"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." – Matthew 16:19. This verse is your foundation of life. You have created the lack or abundance you enjoy on the outer. Free your talent for joy. Tell your face about it. Your face shows what you have declared good and the darkness you have created. – Edna Lister, August 14, 1955.


Worship of money creates spiritual "leprosy" in which everything that you really do need falls away from you. – Edna Lister, August 15, 1955.


"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days." – Hebrews 11:30. The legacy of unconquerable faith caused Jericho's walls to fall. Will unconquerable faith work for you? Yes. Money, property, houses, cars, relationships, "it shall come to pass" anytime, all the time. It shall come to pass for you, divine, glorious and free, full of unconquerable faith. You shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever. – Edna Lister, August 28, 1955.


The action of Oversoul I AM in your consciousness opens the door to God's abundance. When you are in I AM consciousness, the abundance pours forth and the added things come. – Edna Lister, October 9, 1955.


On the fate line, we're all geniuses at the wrong thing, the wrong word, neglecting your silence, one great avalanche of "needs." When you walk the Path of Destiny, you are a genius at seeing supply and abundance, brilliant at neglecting emotional hurts. – Edna Lister, October 23, 1955.


Some put off action until sufficient money permits. There is no power in money. Love what you can do with God as money, and focus your action on the reality behind money. – Edna Lister, Rose-Colored Glasses, April 22, 1956.


Light can do anything, if it has enough life to work on. For example, a man inherited a book shop, and in ignorance overstocked and expanded until his money was gone. His creditors put his store up for auction and claimed the proceeds. He was left with many old and damaged secondhand books. He took his unwanted book stock, built a shack beside a well-traveled road, specializing in used books. In three seasons he made his money back and plenty to spare. From this we can learn at least one thing: Start easy with what you have, where you are.

"Let the Light so shine," even if you are hated, although you remain a constant rebuke to family and friends. A defeat is not a failure. You can change even a dozen defeats into experience. Spirit is the Comforter, to console and encourage you to endure until you reap profits from defeat, until you change defeat into success, until you find the pot of gold, your faith unconquerable. – Edna Lister, August 19, 1956.


Every thought, word and desire is a prayer. You are creators and accountable for every idle word. Words create what you think. The hardest to give up are facetious sayings, and the negative are the best of all. We all say witty negatives about life. "I'm not interested in money. I don't care about it." Never say such things. Your lightest thought is a more powerful creator that the worst you could have said twenty years ago. – Edna Lister, May 29, 1957.


Declare, "I now walk softly before God and speak gently before men. I now keep my golden silence about high truth. I now make wise speech under need to defend truth. I now obey all divine laws. I follow the Christed consciousness in all ways, in all places and at all times. I am a radiant center of Light, love and glory. I am now lifting all darkness that Light may absorb it. The joy of the Lord now possesses me. The spirit of wisdom is now my health, my strength, my success in all my affairs." Now reach for the stars. – Edna Lister, July 27, 1957.


Make every word, every gesture, emotion and thought pay the greatest of all dividends. The Light that returns to you, the substance that fills your prayer molds can only be as great as the size, length and height and breadth of the idea behind it. If you want it to return a thousandfold increase, you must see it as increase as it goes forth and see the thousand needs it will fill. The greater your idea, the greater the Light going forth. It must equal the idea. – Edna Lister, October 3, 1957.


Independence to express as a creator is the only true independence. One person's idea of independence is to be left completely alone. He spends his time getting to be alone and fighting to be left alone. All he wants is to be free from dictation about what he must do and how to do it. He's running day and night escaping in mind and heart from his obligations and responsibilities. He ends in frustration and loneliness, alone with less and less and no one to care.

People often seek the opposite form also, to have someone else assume all responsibility for everything. They want another to do the thinking and planning. They want to be told what and how, and are lost without someone to turn to for help. Their idea of independence is to be completely dependent. All insecurity arises from complete dependence whether the state, government, someone or something else.

The only lasting security is your faith in God and your love of work, knowing who you are, where you are going and how to start on the work at hand. All the unrest in the world results from seeking freedom and independence from the fear of bondage. People try to depend on other people and their ideas, nations depend on other nations, all without God. – Edna Lister, October 20, 1957.


Money buys self-confidence for many people, but it will not buy you out of spiritual poverty. You cannot buy God with money. Money will not buy soul-confidence. – Edna Lister, December 1, 1957.


You must obey some limiting laws. You may not spend more money than you have. You may not say, "God is my supply," then use money you have no right to use. – Edna Lister, December 10, 1957.


A fine line separates selflessness and selfishness. Instead of thinking or saying, "I need money," say, "The world needs my writing" or whatever. – Edna Lister, March 12, 1958.


Treatment for abundance: "God is now opening a beautiful, wonderful, glorious, irresistible new position for Name, and all who are out of work." Additionally, exorcize fear and dread in those who fear. Exorcize this from each other's heart. Each still has fear-coded platelets that flare under new stress. Exorcize for yourself, the group, your families, friends and the world. – Edna Lister, March 17, 1958.


First, I must see God as my supply for every need. Physically, I see God as the healing for anything. Emotionally, the love of God absorbs all else. Mentally, I see God as my beliefs, knowing and comprehension. Spiritually, God is my Father upon whom I can lavish love, whom I can idealize. Everyone seeks to idealize a Father, which is the soul's heart-hunger for the memory of God.

I see my Father as rich. He supplies me according to His riches. So, how rich do I see Him as being? The answer has two halves, "according to His riches," and according to my imagination and faith in vision. My faith must reach up to touch the greatness of His riches. I use my imagination to see Him generous beyond my dreams with His riches. I fill my baskets with money, large bills, homes, new cars for everyone. You have already handled these riches yourself. Oh yes, you have. You have seen with your eyes, the flowers, trees, fruit, beauty, homes and wealth. All has come from one Source, all from His Substance. – Edna Lister, June 1, 1958.


Remaining silent on the roots of failure you see in others is wise, so use the lesson for growth. God will never advance you on what you see in others. – Edna Lister, June 8, 1958.


When you wait for the good to drop into your lap, it's often so soft it splashes. – Edna Lister, September 8, 1958.


When you use Light, you can have everything that the world feels necessary — money, power, health, position, control over the elements, you can heal, see, hear, travel through the ethers. Then you come to a crossroad and face a cycle of ascending or living off your credits. God created you for His Light-as-Power to use. – Edna Lister, September 8, 1958.


To brainwash yourself into success, declare: "This one thing I do now, step by step: (Declare your goal.) Love is fulfilling all law for me now." – Edna Lister, October 9, 1958.


When you've learned a lesson well, it's time to move into another grade, and this means promotion in success and in money. – Edna Lister, March 26, 1959.


Some believe great freedom is plenty of money and material abundance. However, those who live by earth standards without the love of God, all follow philosophies of self. They are in total bondage to the little self and their emotions. – Edna Lister, Your Philosophy of Freedom, June 28, 1959.


"I love you" is the switch that turns on the heat to dissolve the ice in hearts, minds and wallets. Say, "I love Thee, Father," and the vibration goes forth to cover needs. – Edna Lister, October 29, 1959.


You may have everything you desire under the laws that govern prayer, so the first temptation is to live by the Word of God, which is "good." What you give returns to feed you, so if you speak only good, abundance returns. If you speak with pessimism about deficiencies and inadequacies, only poverty returns to feed you a starvation diet. – Edna Lister, December 13, 1959.


You give up success because you don't want to give up self. – Edna Lister, February 23, 1960.


Declare, "Faith is the invisible substance of my visible miracles to come." Abundance comes to visibility as the blue sky lies beyond the storm clouds. As clouds cool the temperature, vapor condenses through a lowering vibration into rain, which is a material substance. Between ice and water is the place of miracles where abundance becomes visible as health and things. – Edna Lister, February 23, 1960.


You can create everything that you hold as a goal, including health, wealth, friends, success and illumination. All it takes is burning desire, a flaming imagination, then "acting as if" you had it in your hands, your body, your home, your business. These are your creative tools. Use them as love, in joy and praise. God, the Almighty One overall, does the work. His full Light now moves through you to fulfill your desires, if you clearly picture them as visible now. Use your imagination as your creator power. – Edna Lister, April 7, 1960.


"What agreement has a temple of God with idols? For you are a temple of the living God." – 2 Corinthians 6:16. God permits no idols in the temple. What is your "idol?" Some prefer beefsteaks, others carrots. Anything you worship is your idol — opinions, prejudices, or money. – Edna Lister, May 15, 1960.


Every soul who comes to earth seeks to identify with something — love, money or material goods, but everyone seeks something in which to trust, an identity in which to have confidence. – Edna Lister, May 22, 1960.


"And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." – Isaiah 65:24. The Father knows your needs and He answers before you call. It is easy for you to persevere when you see that God's life is your life. Then you are always in the right place at the right time. If you think to lay up treasures for self, you are not conscious of being rich toward God. Seeking treasures on earth leads you into a wilderness of debts and needs, obligations for clothing, food, and no end of "things."

When you feel right toward God, you always think of God pouring out and giving. What you give God makes you rich. A faith that is focused upward does not lean or create an impoverished consciousness. To grow this faith, you must love enough. "I am become rich, I have found me out substance." – Hosea 12:8. – Edna Lister, May 29, 1960.


When you are rich in God, you are wealthy in harmony, joy and love, eternal youth and immortality. – Edna Lister, May 29, 1960.


You must be rich in God consciousness before God can pour His riches in. There is a giving that gives into wealth and a withholding that impoverishes. – Edna Lister, June 6, 1960.


A good prosperity treatment is to put every purse or billfold on the bed, opened in rows, visualizing until you see each overflowing with bills. Stand and visualize until each is full of invisible $100 bills. Practice walking in bills up to your knees until you know you have created invisible molds for God to fill. Declare, "Let these molds be filled now." Then say, "Thank Thee, Father for filling my prayer molds perfectly" a thousand times an hour.

First, clear your mind of "me," then use soul vision to see the same thing. Use this treatment for prosperity for loved ones! It circles earth condensing substance (like churning cream to make butter), and returns to fill your prayer molds. A treatment for health returns to you as strength because it calls to itself the "orphan" life sparks of soul substance floating about and magnifies itself, as an accelerated miracle. Praise and rejoicing are divine activity and remove road blocks. Rejoice day and night to keep the road open for substance to return. Saying, "Let my prayer molds be filled now. Thank Thee, Father, that my molds are filled" is best. This is not "little me," but soul asking. – Edna Lister, June 15, 1960.


Successful people build their molds with love and wisdom then hold in faith until it comes. – Edna Lister, June 21, 1960.


Success demands great things of soul in confidence, but not in self-confidence. First you must have confidence in the power of God's love, which is bracing and building. Soul moves up in consciousness from the Valley of Dread into the sunlight of thanksgiving. When soul ignores the past, you can use the present perfectly. Thanksgiving is high praise. Praise sets spiritual substance into action to form your abundance "according to His riches in glory." Then spiritual substance pours forth to fill your prayer molds. – Edna Lister, June 26, 1960.


You must visualize your desires for material things, miracles of abundance and healing for loved ones. – Edna Lister, October 9, 1960.


Reach out with arms of Light and gather in the past. Let it be consumed in the glorious present. Open wide your arms and declare that God's agents everywhere are bringing you gifts so that you may do what you desire for others. Do the same to fill a purse or wallet. – Edna Lister, May 30, 1961.


Slanderers will say you have failed to cover up their failure in the world. – Edna Lister, September 16, 1961.


God returns every sacrifice of money you make, doubled as body recreating. You may not need so much of the outer material substance, but your body needs the purity of Christed substance. Continue and the sacrifice will pay great dividends. – Edna Lister, February 24, 1962.


Prosperity treatment: Praise and breathe love from the abundance of your little sheep (prayer thoughts) to the world. Breathe deeply again, then speak the Word. – Edna Lister, April 19, 1962.


Many of God’s agents falter through materialism. A wealthy communist sympathizer engineered the slump in stocks. (The stock market had lost 35 points on average that day.) Surround him and those like him with a pillar of fire to keep him from manipulating and destroying. Declare that Light moves through him to his cohorts to stop them. The market must and will rise. Pray daily to accomplish this. Weak-willed sickly politicians play into the communists’ hands. Now, who is stronger, the stock market, those who work evil, or God? Just one soul who stands can save the world. This market drop has taken the "flate" out of inflation. God uses darkness to consume darkness. – Edna Lister, May 28, 1962.


When you say, "A lack of money stops me from planning a trip," the law believes you, because substance has only the power of becoming. Mind acts upon it by the spoken Word. God does not work on division and subtraction. He works on addition and multiplication only. You use a legal division when you share, yet you give under the principle of multiplication. Repulsion keeps things away from you, but when the law of love fills your aura, it repulses only evil. Wisdom must speak the word to produce action. – Edna Lister, November 14, 1962.


The law of repudiation has no sense in itself. To repudiate one small thing consciously pushes everything away from you, even love and money as well as the thing repudiated. You dare not live by the law of repudiation and denial. – Edna Lister, November 29, 1962.


You have God as all good things, even a hat. You cannot have God and anything, even money. You can have only God as, and when you know this, everything smooths out. – Edna Lister, December 2, 1962.


The law has no sense, but is automatic. If you disobey, it blocks every avenue in life. Law must be acted on by Mind and the spoken Word. It has the power of becoming, but must be fulfilled by Love as Substance. God adds and multiplies the good; but darkness subtracts and divides. Wisdom must speak the Word to put it into action. Do you really know and accept that you are a creator god? If you do, then your birthright is to partake of everything the Father has. This is why you must take your share of His abundance. – Edna Lister, December 17, 1962.


Light forever adds and multiplies the good. Darkness forever subtracts and divides the good. You use division when you share, yet you give under the principle of multiplication. – Edna Lister, December 17, 1962.


The law of repudiation has no sense. It is a great nothing, the great zero of life and the greatest obstruction to progress. Consciously to repudiate anything pushes everything away, love, money with the thing repudiated. Repudiation spreads like spores spread a fungus. – Edna Lister, January 10, 1963.


Money begets money. It gravitates to itself, and becomes a habit of expectancy, if you earn it. Keep the doors open in every direction. It can pour in from dry places and it shall. "I am expecting $100 bills from God knows where. Every cent I pay out is the beginning of my next $100." – Edna Lister, June 10, 1963.


If you pray for abundance, then wonder if it will come, you cross out your prayer. Stand before God's teller counter to receive His bounty. "I stand at the banker's window of life to collect my share of God's inheritance." What are you doing with your share of the River of Life? It's always there for you, full of God's Substance. The River of Life flowing through you, so stamp it with abundance. You can stamp inner substance with your name and number for everything you truly desire.

Make sure that you are stamping your molds with "In the name of Jesus the Christ." Declare all debts paid, the balances to be returned to you ten times over. Bless your money as you send it out to pay bills. Be as lavish as God is with the abundance He wants to pour on us. Wait upon the Lord. – Edna Lister, June 23, 1963.


Investing your soul substance in another is selfish possession. When you possess one from earth, you use your soul substance to establish an inverted and sagging earthly umbilical cord that you trip over and fall into — you can even lose your body doing this. You must withdraw all possessive lines, which drain energy and abundance from your material affairs. Reach out arms of Light to those business contacts whom you would call. You must do this daily. – Edna Lister, June 27, 1963.


You live in a timeless place, but you live with preconceived notions, prejudices, and opinions, which block your mental telepathy, both visual and audible, and block healing and financial abundance. Yet God can do anything. God is good, and would never deny wealth, health, security or achievement. – Edna Lister, November 26, 1963.


You must lift the idea of poverty and want from earth. You have to free yourself of the earthy idea of needs. You are in this new vibration of abundance, of conquering poverty. – Edna Lister, August 27, 1964.


Always act as if the next person you meet is the one to give you a million dollars. – Edna Lister, October 26, 1964.


Each has spent at least a third of his life cutting himself back and having to climb it again. Nothing is hidden to Light, and the most fleeting of thoughts, emotions and vague pictures push one back, sometimes many steps. – Edna Lister, March 21, 1965.


You must fulfill your promises to God before He can fulfill the promises to you! – Edna Lister, April 4, 1965.


Every entrepreneur should remember that the first man through must go the last mile. – Edna Lister, April 22, 1965.


On the outer, you use money as payment. On the inner you pay with sacrifices of self. Always, you must balance outer and inner. – Edna Lister, April 7, 1966.


God creates not only through us but as us. Never "God and" but "God as." See every purse or wallet wide open. Reach up in consciousness. Visualize yourself filling them with $1,000 dollar bills from invisible substance. You bring this substance from invisible Light to make it condense and become visible. Count your blessings when you awaken in the morning. Praise God. If someone owes you, stuff his pockets full of $1000 bills. Let him have so much that he shall repay. Treat from your invisible bank upstairs. Use dynamic treatments every night for the world, your affairs and wealth. – Edna Lister, May 17, 1966.


When people speak of poverty, tell them God is an abundant God. You have money for what you need. It's what you are, and what stand you make about material things, that limits or frees you. Live on the more and more plan. Declare, "The Light of God is vitalizing and quickening Name's brain cells for new ideas." People repudiate and procrastinate about new ideas. They put things off without accepting or rejecting and say, "I'm not quite ready to do it yet." This causes all the delay in the world. Procrastination puts your life in limbo and you forget you plans. Keep your lines of responsibility anchored up in the Light.

The law of abundant ascending faith is the law of more and more, not less and less. When you are up against the need, ask yourself, "Am I a millionaire?" Then, say Yes! Are you going to miss it next year at this time? Then act. Let your hope become your reality. – Edna Lister, September 8, 1966.


Substance can become anything, but you must act on it by your spoken Word. Raise your arms high and say each statement three times: "Let there be money! Let there be wealth! Let all promises be fulfilled!" – Edna Lister, September 25, 1966.


Law will fulfill every promise according to your degree and kind of steadfastness and no shadow of turning. – Edna Lister, October 27, 1966.


You can go no higher or have no more instantaneous miracles than the miracle you are. Reach the point where your desire to succeed consumes you. – Edna Lister, November 28, 1966.


If one door closes, seven will open to give you a choice, and Light will send you through the right door. If you slam the door on yourself, returning is hard. – Edna Lister, May 11, 1967.


Jesus fed the multitude and when his disciples gathered the scraps, twelve baskets were left over to share. You must pick up the fragments of past miracles before you can have another miracle. Keep your baskets full. For example, you must pay a bill, but are out of cash for the month. If you moan over what you could do with money if you didn't have to pay that bill, you destroy your twelve baskets as you mail the check. Instead, say, "This is my miracle substance, and this bank account will be filled." Keep those baskets high on a cloud of Light. When you pay by check, declare, "Father here is a gift for you." This is how to pick up the fragments. – Edna Lister, Power and Imagination, May 21, 1967.


You must build pictures in imagination of everything you desire to see in form. When you build a picture to fill with the Mind, Substance and Power, you can hold the image and visualize it in form on earth. See $1,000 bills raining on everyone. See them handling such wealth. This is a prosperity treatment to bring invisible substance into form as bills. This is just as legal as praying for healing. The life of God forms everything out here. Treat everyone you know by their first name, and declare them healed in all ways, including finances. – Edna Lister, May 26, 1967.


When you live for soul growth, the reward does not always come as money. – Edna Lister, October 23, 1967.


When someone promises you money, he has already drawn invisible substance from his soul account to make the promise. When you thank him, and declare that you have deposited it in the bank, he receives the credit for his gift. However, sometimes people must settle the debt from universal substance. When there is a challenge in the world, it affects my purse. Then I pray for all those who promised me and declare a line from universal supply goes to them for abundance, and that they will remember their various charities, plus me. – Edna Lister, November 16, 1967.


The Via Christa is a way of life and Light that waits upon the Lord for added things, which takes the long way 'round and eats up time, but once abundance starts flowing, nothing can stop its complete fulfillment. You shall see every promise of your mind and heart fulfilled. – Edna Lister, December 15, 1967.


Your unawareness allows opportunities to pass by unconsciously. – Edna Lister, May 17, 1968.


Money is not evil unless speech and thoughts make it so. No one can change God's original substance. A dishonest experience does not alter the life sparks in a dollar bill, so you need not resort to opinion or prejudice about how others earn money. The evil is in he who recreates negativity regarding money. Money circulates among the good and non-good every day. You handle it, but prefer new bills because they give you no responsibility for where they have been. Declare that Light fills the old bills and everyone who touched them. Bless your wallet or purse for greater income, and praise God that you already have it. You handle money more than anything. This is the law to increase good in exchange for darkness, and to absorb evil. – Edna Lister, May 26, 1968.


When you go to a food market with high prices, do you part with money reluctantly? Often you wait ten minutes in line seething with impatience. Instead, spend that time paying your bill mentally, lavishly putting down more than the amount due. Mentally broadcast your wealth to the cashier and your invisible purse will still be filled and running over with extra cash from the River of Life. Your invisible bills will increase the economy of nations. Use this as a prosperity treatment.

Make every moment pay ascension dividends. If you resent the excessive prices and the waiting, you are losing your money seventy times seven. The River of Life then flows by and you are deflated. Become part of the River of Life. Become inflated with life. Make your expenditures and time pay dividends of abundance. Say, "I declare it's raining manna from heaven on you. I am posting advertisements here for abundance. I bless you and declare you abundantly wealthy!"

See everyone you know as being rained on by $1,000 bills. See them handling such wealth. This is a prosperity treatment to bring invisible substance down in bills. This is just as legal as praying for healing. Lack of money or sufficient means is just as serious as a lack of health, so remember that the life of God forms everything out here. – Edna Lister, June 13, 1968.


To treat for success, make your plans, and say, "Father, let these prayer molds be filled. Thank You that it is here, Father." – Edna Lister, June 13, 1968.


The one thing science and religion disagree on is the length of time it takes for Light to become substance. Declare any situation to be pure Light and it can become so instantly. God steps in with His possibles and we call it a miracle. You do not tempt the Lord with seeming impossibles. For example, you earn a living instead of expecting the money to fall into your lap. – Edna Lister, June 24, 1968.


Keep the bankers' windows of heaven open. Visualize abundant wealth. Money is God's Substance used as a medium of exchange. – Edna Lister, November 14, 1968.


Declare each of these statements three times: "Let money come. Let all promises be fulfilled. I am that surrendered, accepting, obedient, repentant and responsible Daughter, free from all past thoughts, emotions, imagination, words and deeds. I am thy Daughter of Light, wedded in Christ, o'ershadowed by my Father, here and now expressing. I stand. I endure. I hold. I know. I arise and ascend to the Source to remain constantly in the Light while work out my salvation here below as a conqueror in Christ. Let there be Light. I rejoice and am glad." Follow this with a prayer of praise and declarations of lifting for all. – Edna Lister, June 1969.


On the Adept Degree you may be overly concerned with your future, security, pride and opinions. These are the real sticking points. You are also quite likely to be overly sensitive emotionally. – Edna Lister, August 7, 1969.


When you lack identity with the Source, you lack a sense of security on earth. To have a permanent identity, one needs a permanent Source, which is the underlying reason for all peoples, nations, races, tribes, who need to worship. They must have God, or a reason greater than self. – Edna Lister, February 5, 1970.


Declare, "Father, open Thou the windows of heaven and the doors and the gates thereof, and pour out Thy abundance in the form needed on earth for Thy children: monies, legacies, silver and gold, in the name of Thy First Begotten Son, whose promises shall be fulfilled and wherever the name of Jesus the Christ shall be spoken!" – Edna Lister, March 1, 1970.


The power of money is the Light of God being focused held and on the needy, so that whatever is needed shall be attended to. – Edna Lister, June 1, 1970.


"If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." – Matthew 17:20. You know water is in the pipe to the faucet — you have faith in that supply — but the water in the pipe does nothing for us, if you are too lazy to get a drink when you are thirsty. – Edna Lister, November 22, 1970.


God provides abundantly for your every need. You must focus your super-conscious mind on God's great Light to give you super abundantly, whatever your need. – Edna Lister, December 13, 1970.


The greedier a man is, the more violently he reacts to having no money. – Edna Lister, Illumination, the Light, June 6, 1971.

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I AM Declarations for Wealth and Prosperity

This Edna Lister lecture outline is dated 1931, Edinburgh, Scotland. Note: Edna Lister was touring and lecturing in the entourage of Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd, an Episcopalian Priest then President of the International New Thought Alliance.

"And I, If I am lifted up, shall draw all to me." – John 12:32. I am now complete success because I am lifted up. I am now seeing my business as a complete success. I am now seeing my children as a complete success. I am now surrendered to this new idea of complete success. I am now filled to overflowing with ideas, which I can bring into outer forms of success. I am now a complete success and tomorrow I shall be an even more complete success. I am now successful through my deep understanding of law. I am now filled with God's Wisdom, which makes me a complete success. I am now completely abandoned to this idea of success. I am now faithful to this idea of success. I am now praising God that I am a deep success.

I desire to realize all the abundance of good things. I desire to call out in myself all the elements of success. I desire to manifest outwardly what is potentially in me. I desire to manifest outwardly all of which I am conscious. I desire to know and keep the laws of prosperity. I desire to make prosperity the normal expression of my life. I desire to have abundance, so that I may use it abundantly. I know that abundance is primarily a state of consciousness. As I realize abundance within, it becomes real. Because I am at one with all abundance, I have only to find and keep the laws of expression.

I am the embodiment of the principles of absolute Being. Because absolute Being is, I am. Because God is abundance, I am prosperous. Because He is health, I am health. Because He is supreme, I am supreme in God. I declare that all abundance is now in me. The power to call miracles and form into expression is mine.

"He who trusts in the Lord will be prospered." – Proverbs 28:25. I can command prosperity and have it come to pass. My every conscious thought is prosperous. My outward appearance is prosperous. My dress and manner are prosperous. I am a magnet to draw prosperity to me. I am centrifugal, exhaling prosperity. I am prosperity incarnated and active. Prosperity is the dominant note of my consciousness. I am prosperity, abundance, plenty.

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God as Consciousness Appears as Form

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 1933, Winthrop Hotel, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." – Philippians 2:5.

There is no such thing as God and. There is no God and man, there is no God and abundance, health or love. God is infinite, so nothing but God can be. God fills all space, so no room exists for God and someone or God and something. God is the Someone, the something. In other words, God appears individually as you. It is not a case of God and you, but God manifested as individual you.

The life of God is your life. There is no Mind of God and your mind. There is no Spirit of God and your spirit. Scripture says that your body is the Temple of God, so it is not even God and your body, but God as your body.

If you perceive God's infinite nature, you perceive that God appears as His Son. Therefore, God is the Father and God is the Son. There is not God and the Son, but God the Infinite Invisible appearing as the Son of God. This is the only reason the Master could say, "He who hath seen me hath seen the Father." – John 14:9.

Unless you understand this identity with God as a universal relationship, the life of the Master is meaningless. If oneness with the Father were the truth about the Master but not about you, then you could not attain oneness, you could not achieve it. Jesus is the way-shower, and the way he lived is the way he is showing you to live, as one with God. Therefore, there is only God expressing as His Creation, as man.

When Scripture says to have that mind in you that was in Christ Jesus, it is telling you that this is possible. Do not think that the mind in Christ Jesus is a different mind that you cannot attain. You may think, "I have a mind. He has a mind. She has a mind." This is not true. Everyone has the one Mind, and it is the same Mind, no matter who is expressing it or to what degree.

A child's mind has an innate, an inborn capacity for intelligence, which he later fills with knowledge of specific things. If he had no capacity for intelligence, a child could not learn. You have the capacity to learn however much you desire. Your intelligence is infinite because God is your intelligence. You can have whatever degree of awareness or knowledge you wish by using that intelligence.

Centuries of separation from spiritual reality have focused your intelligence primarily on material and mental subjects. Therefore, your intelligence lacks spiritual illumination. Your intelligence has the same potential for illumination as a child has the capacity for infinite learning.

Some use the one Mind more than others and outwardly appear smarter, but this is not really true. God has not graded intelligence by degree. Everyone is infinitely intelligent, but not everyone uses his intelligence in full measure. Each has the same infinite potential for spiritual enlightenment as he does for intelligence. You may say that the mind of the human race is spiritually unillumined.

Humanity may be humanly intelligent, humanly creative, humanly brilliant, but it lacks spiritual illumination. You may be led to spiritual teaching, and from the moment you open your first book or have your first interview with an enlightened person, your illumination begins. Further enlightenment or spiritual illumination comes in proportion to your seeking.

In other words, you must make the overture, you must originally reach out, you must pursue the search for God. If you seek God 1 percent, God seeks you 99 percent. No matter how much effort you make, it is only a grain of effort because that is all you know. The rest is up to the grace of God. In other words, as you keep moving toward God, you are drawn toward God ever more rapidly, until spiritual illumination dawns.

When this Light dawns in your consciousness, you behold God as infinite and instantly realize that God and anything else cannot be, or God would be that much less than infinite. Therefore, God must exist as the substance of all that is. Then you see that God constitutes all that is.

You no longer look to God for your health because, as the Psalms say, God is the health of your countenance. A power of resurrection does not exist separate from God. God is resurrection. You cannot get health, but you can get God. When you have God, you have health.

In the same way, you cannot get God to give or send you abundance because God is abundance. You cannot have infinite abundance and then some besides that. God is abundance. I am the bread. I am the wine. I am the water. I am the resurrection. I am the life eternal. There is not God and a power of resurrection. God is the resurrection and the life eternal.

God cannot give you a bomb-proof shelter. God already is your fortress, your high tower, and the only bomb-proof shelter that is. When you are hidden with Christ in God, in the spiritual realization of God as your being, then nothing can reach you — not a bomb, a bullet or a poison.

As you see God as the secret place of the Most High, the high tower, the fortress, the rock, the cave — as you see God as bread, meat, wine and water — as you see God as health, harmony, wholeness, companionship or home — only then can all these things come into manifestation.

People may ask you to pray for a home, companionship or marriage for them. Tell them, "I am sorry. I do not know how to work for those things. Should you find yourself interested in learning about God, I shall be very happy to share what I know, what I have learned, and how I believe you may find God. I would not be surprised that if you find God, you also would find those things you are seeking."

This is what the Master meant when he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." – Matthew 6:33. Seek not material things — seek only God and He will add everything else. Thinking of God as a servant to do your bidding, to supply you with whatever you believe to be your need is sacrilegious.

Your mind, from infancy, is already completely intelligent, potentially spiritual. When you attain even a small measure of spiritual illumination, you perceive that God is your consciousness and your consciousness is the substance of all form. God is your consciousness, which appears outwardly as form.

You cannot transfer your consciousness to another, nor can he transfer his consciousness to you. Once you perceive this truth, it forever lifts you above competition. Never again, whether you are in business, the arts, science, the healing ministry or the spiritual ministry at any level, will competition disturb you. You will be free because you don't have customers, clients, patients or students. You have your consciousness, which externalizes itself as whatever form is necessary to you.

Once you understand that there is no God and, you know that there is no consciousness and. Therefore, you do not have your consciousness and your business. Your business is your consciousness in a specific personalized form. Your customers, clients or students, whom you have gathered through your integrity, represent your consciousness in form. No one can ever take them from you unless you lose your integrity; then, of course, they find their rightful home.

The bread you cast upon the waters is yours; it cannot return to another's hands. The bread you cast forth must return to you because no separation exists between your consciousness, the bread, or the waters. All is consciousness appearing as form, and so it is.

God is the primal Consciousness, the Creative Impulse, the First Cause, which is your consciousness and which appears as safety, security or whatever form is necessary to you. No one can take your externalized consciousness from you because its reality is not a form.

No one can take your money because your money is not money. Your money is your consciousness of God's infinite supply, externalized. People lose money for just one reason: They have not learned that money is not money, that money is not something separate from God, that money is not something separate from infinity.

If God is infinite, money must be a part of infinity. If God is your consciousness, then your money is part of your consciousness, as is your home, your family, all that pertains to you. Neither time nor space can take them from you, for no material forms exist separate or apart from consciousness. The material reality is consciousness itself appearing as individual forms.

If you have one iota of illumined consciousness, then you have all the health, supply, companionship and home you ever need. If you decide to seek these things, you lose them. When you realize that God and does not exist, you will realize that God is your consciousness.

God is. God appears as your consciousness and your consciousness is the substance of all form associated with you. As you know this, you will never again seek bread, wine, water or life eternal. You will never seek companionship, students, patients or customers. You realize that your consciousness is all this. Your consciousness appears as and forms all these things. Then you see that no separation exists in consciousness.

"Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." – Isaiah 65:24. The idea of separation can never enter again. Nothing can separate you from God. This is literally true. All the Father has is yours. You don't experience this because you have a sense of separation born of the materialistic concept that there is a God somewhere, a God and a man, that God is pure and man is a sinner.

How does a sinner get something good from God? The world tells you to be good by attending religious services every week. What is good? How do you conform to some type of good to deserve God? The answer is, you can find no way to get good enough to deserve God. However, you can find a way to realize God as your being. You find that because God is pure, your being is pure, and that truth has washed away all impurity. You forget to be good, and just remember God is your consciousness.

Live with the realization that God is your being, your life, your mind and the only law operating in you. God's presence is purification, and negative experiences disappear. This happens not because you are good, but because God is good. God is infinite, God is omnipresent and He leaves no room for negativity.

God constitutes your being. God is your consciousness. Because God is infinite, your consciousness is infinite. Therefore, your consciousness appears as form infinitely: Your business, your art, your profession, your science is infinite. If you are a healer, your practice is infinite. If you are a teacher, your student body is infinite. No limit exists at all, unless you embroider yourself in limitation.

To keep yourself free from human rules and regulations, live above time, space, and place. Live in and as God-consciousness. Live, move and have your being in the truth that God is all that concerns you.

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." – Acts 17:24-28.

God is the measure of your being, safety, security, and protection. God is the measure of your life, your intelligence and wisdom. Never limit yourself. Then, you manifest a greater measure of infinity than you ever dreamed possible, for there is no God and. There is only God. God is the life and mind, the intelligence and wisdom of the individual being. God is the substance and law in which you live, move and have your being.

Discard yesterday and tomorrow to live in the ever present and eternal now. Then you will perceive that you project all desire into the future. All regret is a return to the past, both of which are dead, without substance or life. Now is the only life, now is the only reality, now is the only time. The future is only an extension of now.

The tree's sap must flow from the roots to the branches to form buds, flowers and leaves. If tree-consciousness worried about whether it would get enough rain or sun, it would interfere with the normal, natural flow of life. You interfere with life's free flowing by injecting I-ness into the already completed picture. I-ness manifests as fear about the past or concern, anxiety or desire about the future.

You may entertain no personal desire, not even the desire to give, for that, too, feeds the sense of I-ness and may bloat the ego. You must be completely nonresistant, as a leaf rests upon water, letting the water propel it wherever and whenever it will.

You overcome time and space by practicing nonresistance. You triumph over time by living only in the now, steadfastly relinquishing the past and the future. You conquer space by relinquishing the desire to be anywhere else, by resting satisfied in this very place, which is holy ground.

This I-ness, this sense of an "I" apart from God, is the very devil causing discord. For, in reality, "I" is God, as God is I. God constitutes all that you are. Therefore, since you are one with the Father, you say not, "I need bread," but "I am bread. I am supply. I have supply of which you know not."

If God is infinite, if God constitutes your being, then your very being contains everything you shall ever need from now unto eternity. You need not try to acquire or attain, but to let what is already embodied within you appear outwardly as form. It is your consciousness, because God is your consciousness. Your consciousness contains all you need — tomorrow, next week, next year and unto eternity.

To know this absolutely, you must develop the practice of entering the golden silence where you can behold and watch as these things appear in your life. If you wanted to compose music, you would not copy what another had written. You would sit in the golden silence and wait until God released within you the melodies that you are to receive. If you were to write poetry, a novel or a book of truth — it makes no difference what you wish to draw forth — it is already there.

Yet you must develop that inner beholding, that listening attitude of soul that creates an inner silence. To the Voice that calls your name, you shall say, "Speak, Lord; Thy servant heareth." – 1 Samuel 3:9.

Let this mind that was in Christ Jesus flow through you as pure knowing, and what you need moves into expression, whether it is business, whether you need employees, more capital in your business or new ideas for advertising. What you need does not exist in time and space. It exists within your consciousness. Your consciousness is the substance of all form and activity necessary to your life.

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This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 1933, Winthrop Hotel, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

Today, as never before, we are concerned with our relationship to "things" on the one side and that unseen Power, which we call God or Spirit, on the other. The solution to financial worries must include this idea of relationship, which we have known as unity, in a broader sense than man has ever used it.

We must sweep aside, for all time, the idea of each of us being a separate part. We must become unified parts, working with and for each other. We must understand ever more clearly the laws of being that bring forth from the invisible into the visible. We must understand how the Master increased the "loaves and fishes," and be able to apply that process to our own needs.

The first step always consists in having your needs met at the time. The second step is to have just enough to meet your needs before you really need to use it. The third step is to have the symbolic "twelve baskets left over" to share freely after you fulfill your own needs.

Let us consider four ideas concerning these laws, which we must use to complete any needed manifestation. The old method was to concentrate or to demonstrate supply of abundance. You sat in the silence, concentrated on your empty purse, and knew that the Divine Infinite would fill it.

If, while you were concentrating on your supply, Billy came home with some claim of illness, you had to stop concentrating on supply and concentrate on Billy. If other needs presented themselves, you had to concentrate on them. Meanwhile, your purse became empty again.

Concentration is a mental power and comes by using will. You can use the power of concentration only in one direction at a time and upon only one thing at a time. Therefore, it will not work well for manifesting supply. You need something that will do all things at once. You can always find this in your ability to surrender yourself completely to the power of love, which is God's Light.

You can concentrate harder than ever before, but only on keeping yourself completely surrendered to this Light, concentrating upon keeping your eye "single" on releasing this Light. As you speak the Word of truth about everything in your life, the Light goes forth and does the work.

When you surrender to the idea that the Light is doing the perfect work, when you surrender yourself to become a perfect instrument through which it can work, when you become a mouthpiece directing it to that place where it is needed, only then can you be sure that your life will be perfect. As an instrument, you release the Light, and as a mouthpiece you control its direction, the two perfect halves of a perfect whole.

The second idea is visualization. If you see empty space anywhere, you will not have any results worth mentioning in manifesting supply. If you are seeing empty cars, empty houses, empty stores, empty rooms, empty cupboards and empty purses, they will never be filled.

You must then see everything as filled with activity, or some outer forms. Yet, it isn't enough to see your own purse or wallet full of bills and gold, for the law is "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." – Luke 6:38.

You can overcome this need by mentally reaching into your own pocket and purse to fill the purse of your friend or the wallet of anyone whom you meet on the street. You can always give from this invisible supply — just as Elijah left the widow of Zarephath with the "barrel of meal that wasted not and the cruse of oil that failed not," so can you use this great law of visualization to increase your own supply.

That which you give, you shall receive. You may have nothing visible to give away right now, but you can surely give from the invisible substance that occupies the whole universe — right where you stand this moment.

Everyone can see Niagara Falls. Anyone can see the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. You do not leave your body to go there, but use the faculty that everyone possesses — you can visualize anything if you try hard enough.

Some have this faculty well-developed but others must work to develop it. However, everyone has the imagination to develop and use. The main idea to keep in mind about visualization is that you must have an unselfish, universal reason for the Power going into action for you.

If the "gimmies" bother you — give me this and give me that — it will not work for you. It is only when you give that which you yourself desire that God can release it through you.

We have all heard people say, "I do not care about money!" Indifference never brought anything to anyone — and it cannot be true at this present stage of development, for we all must use the symbol of God's abundance, which we call money. No one can buy the fabric to make clothes without money. No one can get food without money. No one can ride in cars or on buses without money.

If you do not earn the money that you pay for these things then it is true that someone else is doing it. Someone is earning money for the things that everyone wears and uses. Therefore, no one can honestly say that they do not care for money. Back of that statement is pride that you are not "as other men are." Usually back of that is still another wrong emotion — hatred of the situation of lack and limitation.

Are you to give all your time to thinking about money? Are you to use all your time visualizing money? Most assuredly not, but being indifferent about money — prideful about not caring — or letting someone else do your "worrying" about it is just as negative as it is to be too eager about it. Underestimating it is just as definitely wrong as it is to overestimate it, and undervaluing it is just as wrong as overvaluing it.

You have had God and joy, God and pleasures, God and houses and lands, God and clothes, God and money, and God and all sorts of things. Now you have One God in all, through all, as all. You may have no false god you call money.

Money now takes its rightful place in your life, and you use it without stinting, knowing that it is only the outer symbol of those inner riches that are yours to draw upon. You know that you are entitled, through your inheritance from the kingdom, to all that you can possibly use. "All things that the Father hath are mine." – John 16:15. Everything the Father has is mine to use.

Free yourself from all ideas of it not being the will of God that you have all that you need. Any good idea is God's idea, and it is a good idea for you to be free to grow, unfold and take care of all your obligations.

The fourth idea in which you may have gone wrong in the past is that you think deep down within you that God probably cannot trust you with money. If you had an abundance of all good things, you might be inclined to forget who God really is, or you might get off the path, which you have held to with such great difficulty.

Everything from the outside seems to try to carry you into other ways. Your friends sometimes seem to lead you far afield. You have already left the path so often to pick a few beautiful flowers, which soon fade, to chase a few brilliant butterflies.

Perhaps you are determined to keep your feet planted on the straight and narrow way, fearing that if you have too much ease and comfort, you will again fail to study and grow. Now, if you cannot trust yourself, how then can you imagine that God can trust you? If you are really afraid that you may fail, then how can God release the necessary Power through you?

While you have the fear that you are not ready to be trusted with everything that the universe can supply in the way of abundant riches, just that long will you bar yourself from the kingdom of riches. God cannot trust you with anything that you cannot trust yourself to handle. Eventually, you reach the point in your development where you can stand up and say,

"Please send enough of the Power of Love through me to fulfill all the needs of my family and myself. Father, You can now trust me with the wealth of the Kingdom to distribute to the world. I am now ready to be used to release this Inner Abundance that shall relieve the whole of humanity. You can now trust me to use all that I need for myself and send the rest forth into the world."

When you can also tell God that you are ready to receive the courage to stand steadfast where you are, that all you want is the Power to lift everything given to you daily to lift, that you no longer want to run away from your responsibility but desire to pour out enough love upon it to make it perfect, that you want to be responsible for all your family — "God hath given thee all them that sail with thee." — when you do this, then and then only will God send forth through you that release for all those about you.

Then you discover that He has only been waiting for this one thing — your own sense of ability to stand amid all outer challenges, calm and unmoved, steadfast and sure. You may even have thought with the rest of the world that because a few men have cornered vast wealth, you could not have very much. When you started on this great adventure of life, God sent with you all that you could possibly use or need through the whole of your period of living.

When you stepped into this visible form, you had to leave it just at your fingertips in the invisible. You and I are invisible to the world. All that the world sees is that radiance, which is Spirit. If you have not used the vast supply, which God gave to you, then it is still waiting to come forth for you.

You are here to learn how to be a Master Creator — how to conquer this invisible world. No one else of earth can possibly touch or bring into visibility one particle of that which vibrates only with your own vibration. It waits the magic touch of your spoken word to become! What? That which you desire and need.

This invisible substance, which we call supply, what is it? How do you know that a radio wave exists? Because you have to breathe invisible substance to continue living, and you must tune in to hear a radio wave. Scientific instruments measure, compute and tell us that these things are facts, then we must accept them and use them.

Countless thousands of fruit trees stand idle and bare during one season of the year. Later they put forth tiny leaves, buds, flowers, and then produce the countless tons of fruit that we use. Where has the fruit come from? Out of the invisible into the visible. The tree is larger each year, but leaves no hole in the ground.

Countless acres of wheat fields, endless acres devoted to vegetables and berries, lay empty for months, then suddenly stalks, leaves, and later tons of berries, wheat and vegetables spring up. Where has it all come from? Out of the invisible into the visible, leaving no hole in the ground after the harvesting is finished. Farmers have used the fields for centuries and still they retain the same old level — the hills are still hills and the flat places are still flat.

Countless sheep grow wool, which men shear each year and make into garments. Where does it come from? From the invisible into the visible, and the sheep grow no smaller but reproduce. Our paper money was once wood pulp, made from a tree that came from the invisible into the visible. Men dug gold and silver from the hills, which nature made from single cells that extended and expanded — from the invisible into the visible.

When will you really see it and know? When will you stop fussing and work to use that which is your own? When will you accept your own responsibility to create from this invisible substance of which God formed the whole earth? It is yours to use, yours to bring forth, yours to make and create into any outer form that you choose or desire.

You cannot destroy gold. The hotter you heat it, the more you purify it. The more you burn it, the greater its value. As you put it in the crucible and fire it, the dross comes to the surface and you remove it, leaving only the purified and perfect substance. The refiner knows when it is perfect, for he can see his own image reflected in it.

When the fires of life purify you until God can look at you and see His own image and likeness reflected in you, then and then only will you have become a Master of life. Then and then only will you have become a conqueror of the Inner Kingdom, bringing its perfection into the outer realm.

Whenever you decide to live by this perfect Godly Gold Standard every hour of the day, you shall be able to create the outer and visible sign of wealth. Whenever you lend yourself to the purifying process, through which all gold must go, then you shall be allowed to use all that you can imagine yourself enjoying.

"I am now ready to accept my own inheritance."
"I am now ready to create my own abundant wealth."
"I am now ready to surrender to this Power that works through me."
"I am now ready to release all that Love that belongs to me."
"I am now accepting everything that comes to me as fire to make me perfect."
"I am now being made into perfect and pure gold of Spirit."

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How to Make Your Dreams Reality

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 25, 1933, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

Miracles do not always happen visibly in the objective world, but sometimes come in revelations, visions, and insights. The golden silence, the storm center of quietness in the face of chaos, is your seat of power.

Desire is the creator. So you must have a definite intense desire to create perfection in your life. Lift up your desires. Review your life to discover what your desire really is. To come into outer perfection, you must be unselfish. Purify your desires, and make them universal.

Desire the great good, not for yourself alone, but for all humanity. You can ask for money, if you want to use it to give better service to humanity. A desire to help anyone is the Spirit of God seeking expression through you. Your desire must be that God pours His abundance on those you wish to help, according to His will, His method, His agent, when you ask Him to open your heart, mind and purpose.

An example of prayer: "In this moment we are holding up the desires of your heart, these desires that God has planted in us since the beginning, these great fundamental desires that push us forth, urge us on, those things that we must express, God given, God urged. Here and now we lift them up to Thee that Thy Light may purify them of all selfishness. We would be selfless in our desires, that the light of love, the power of love, may pour forth on them, bringing them into all perfection. Here and now, let these desires be made universal. That which we ask for yourself, we are now asking for everyone. We are open minded, willing to be led, willing to let that agent guide us, lift us and fill us with Thy abundance."

Praise fervently, so that by the power of that marvelous, magnificent, glorious, irresistible love, "all these things shall be added unto you" from the outside. Love is the conqueror, praise is the shortcut, desire is the creator. Praise is the most marvelous shortcut of all.

If you are up against it, if you have an urgent need, you must conquer, not the necessity to manifest supply, health, or so on, but to conquer that outside need. Your attitude should be, "I must conquer." The subconscious mind is the seat of the emotional life. Your ideas of separation, lack, and limitation stand between you and your instantaneous miracle.

The only way to success in prayer is to fix the mind absolutely on perfection, recognizing only that which is perfect. You cannot succeed while you think that you must or can control any aspect of the situation. You can achieve only when you have the driving necessity from within to conquer the self that stands in the way.

Only praise keeps your mind clear. Through steadfastly offering praise for ten minutes, you can overcome any blow whatever. Yet you must have a fervent, burning desire to do so. Desire is the God-given fundamental impulse within each soul. You can lift your desire and have Light purify it.

The world is divided into four classes. Some are born knowing who they are, what they want and where they are going, with desire flaming, and they achieve greatly. The other three classes Hope, Wish, and Want.

The Hoper is often of mournful countenance, sometimes joyous, usually sweet-natured. Yet playing the role of a Hoper is different from having hope itself or exercising it.

The Wisher is a leaner, who has little or no spine. He is cheerful and joyous, often smiling, the "I wish I could do as you do" type. This attitude toward life will never create success.

The Wanter is willful, selfish, greedy, and grasping. When selfishness rules desire, he wants and takes without earning. This is disastrous.

Purify the desire first and say, "Let it come to me," then give praise and love, and thank God that you have it now, and it will come. Purified praise, love and gratitude make the desire right. Then God's love is born within your love.

Love substance goes forth, and it slows in vibration as it returns, into a heavier, though not less spiritual substance, condensed, but still Light. Praise constantly to condense love substance, for praise makes the container, forms the mold.

Your desire must be eager and expectant, burning, flaming enthusiasm. Desire awakens as a whirling fiery nucleus, like a sun center in your heart. As you praise and keep your torch of desire burning brightly, it increases in size and radiates as a revolving, scintillating mass of light.

You cannot achieve complete success unless you desire to create perfection. The desire, which is a burning flame, must be there, to conquer or express. Your desire must be intensely, radiantly active.

A final caution — you may have been working on a problem earnestly, faithfully and untiringly. Perhaps you have seen the good fruits of your labor in the perfect healing of a dear one. Then you may hear someone else claim that he or she was the channel through whom the work was done. This is a test. It is nothing more than a trial.

In such a case, thank God that He has accomplished the healing. Do not claim any part in it yourself or ask any recognition. Then, whatever your part in the healing may have been, you shall receive fully 100 percent Power added, if you relinquish the credit, silently.

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Imagination, the Kingly Faculty

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 26, 1933, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

Imagination is the builder of forms, the kingly faculty.[1] The trend of your life depends on these pictures in imagination, what your creations will look like, how successful your married life or business will be. Imagination determines the "how" of your life.

If you build the right pictures of success and achievement, in the right way, you need not worry, you cannot fail to meet your goal. If you become discouraged and give up, voice the wail of the quitter, the faint-hearted, you will never succeed. You must accept, accept and conquer sometime, so you might as well do it now.

God puts you where you are to conquer, to express this inner ability that you have not yet expressed. God has put you where life has made things easy for you to conquer. Do not pity yourself, but build pictures of yourself conquering, to conquer. To be where you are is a privilege. God is sending you to school and you must reach the goal.

Imagination is your kingly faculty, but you must direct and control it. Mind is a vibration, but also an essence. The essence of Mind permeates everything, passes through every obstacle, and over any distance. Mind's vibrations flows through your receiving set, your brain cells. One man said that the brain secretes thought as a gallbladder secretes bile,[2] and figuratively he was right.

You can go wrong in only three places with visualization: The negative thoughts you project, the negative emotions you feel, and the negative pictures you build in imagination. It takes a real conqueror to hold his peace, to control himself always. Check once a day to see what kind of pictures you are building, to pour love on what you have been dreaming or picturing.

Praise increases the size of your workshop. Desire starts the substance whole, perfect and complete, into radiant activity. Imagination builds a negative, which it flashes against the inner sensorium of the brain, and builds a form in this invisible substance, as definite and perfect as you could build it with a carpenter's tools. You create the invisible form of the thing you desire. Do not haphazardly intermix the photographic negatives of your imagination pictures, or substance will ooze out indiscriminately. You must have a form that will hold substance, and keep filling the form. You create and you destroy, God does not do it.

Desire is an activity, as is the spoken Word that condenses substance into form. You can ask for yourself, but if you color your asking with emotions, you will get nowhere. You cannot ask correctly while you are still full of a mess of self. You cannot ask amiss if you are asking from the soul, not from the emotions and intellect of the solar plexus.

When you no longer have fear or doubt in your heart, are no longer able to think a negative thought, you will not need to bother about imagination. Yet until you are perfect in imagination, you must monitor your pictures.

At night, just before falling sleep, assemble a photographic image for each of your desires. Flash these pictures against the mind's screen to see if they are as perfect as you want them to be. For example, see a picture of work piled up to accomplish. Then see the cash register overflowing with money, the outer returns of your efforts. Do not go to sleep seeing it empty. As your last conscious act, see everything as perfect. If someone owes you money, see his wallet overflowing with money, more clothes and more prosperity than he can handle, because what you give to him in thought, will return to you.

You can make forms of the things you want or the things you do not want. What you give the most time and attention to making is what will return to you. See a perfect picture of what you want, but give it to someone else, see someone else having it. Make your idea universal.

Flash a perfect picture of what you desire, but always give the substance of the thing to the other fellow. He may not want it, but that does not matter. If you want a car, say, "Let everyone in the whole world have the car he or she desires." If someone wants to give you something, always accept. "If you want to give it to me, yes." Never turn anything down, but you must give away the thing you really need.

Just before going to sleep, flash this image against the inner sensorium of the brain, to make absolutely certain that it is perfect. Be sure that the blueprint of your desire is perfect, not the pattern of what you have been thinking all day, the thing you do not want. The blueprint you draw will reflect itself out here in the world. Harness your imagination and get it to working for you.

Erase any wrong pictures you have built, or the subconscious mind, which acts like an alarm clock, will go right on reproducing them. Raise your hands and send the power of love to lift them, then praise God that substance is returning to you. Praise Him for everything you have and have not, to increase the size of your workshop, and bring your desires more rapidly.

Keep your desire perfect, complete and glowing. Have the burning desire to do the thing you are doing perfectly. Then harness and control the imagination, the architect, the construction engineer, to build what you do want. Picture the Master on the Mount of Transfiguration. Put your hand in his and send love along all your lines of Light. Now lift, lift, lift your difficulty, whatever or whoever it is. Know absolute perfection, that your eyes and ears will be opened, imagination will be harnessed from now on, working constructively, a pillar of fire around all, protecting.

Immeasurable Power to use for success lies in that one who becomes enthralled, possessed by the idea of surrender to Power, to complete absorption, complete surrender, complete Power, one with all."I can be what I truly am. I can release Power substance. I can nurture this God-given desire until it is ready to express."

Endnotes

1^ "Imagination, the kingly faculty," Edmund Burke. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. London, John C. Nimmo, 1887.

2^ Russian physiologist, Ivan Sechenov, author of Reflexes of the Brain.

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Creating Your Own Success and Wealth

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 27, 1933, Winthrop Hotel, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

Declare with me, "This is God's perfect hour for me." You can live your whole life like this if you live only one hour at a time. Remember, "Lord, don't let me miss any opportunity today." Also, think to yourself, "I'm some catch."

Let us now hold up everyone on our lines of responsibility. See them at the heart of a perfect radiant center. In this you may abide and rest. Open your mind to receive inspiration and revelation, your heart to be filled with understanding. You are ready to receive the answer to your prayer, the solution to your problem. You are opening your eyes to see that open door to service which belongs to you, your place to fill full of love. You have opened your eyes to see, your ears to hear, and soon you shall receive in great measure, pressed down. and running over to share with the world.

How to create your success and your wealth: the five points I shall present depend absolutely on your ability to separate yourself from the idea of time, that it is always now, and if you live now in absolute perfection, as if God were walking with you, you shall have no need to worry about the future, for it will unfold. People make five mistakes in manifesting the visible from the invisible. The greatest thing to know is that God will provide for you if you give Him service. If you look at imperfection, it will return to you in your life. Five steps are necessary in actually creating, or in manifesting form from the invisible reality.

The first step is concentration, which is a purely mental effort, a use of will power. Will is a God-given mental faculty. You can concentrate on can only one thing at a time, so if you concentrate on manifesting supply, you cannot be doing anything else.

Raise your hands to surrender to God's Light, send forth love, speak the Word, sending the Power directly to where it is needed — it will go anywhere. I concentrate on only one thing — my surrender to the Power. As I speak the Word to release that Power, and "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." – John 14:10. Not I, but the Father, the Light, goes forth and does the work.

In doing this, you are filled with a flaming glory, with the power of love, surrounded with a pillar of fiery glory, radiating light. The Light goes forth in all your affairs, the rent is paid, debts are paid, you can pay everyone you owe. This opens doors to every avenue of income. If you want wealth and success, you must take others with you, the people who owe you and those who are in need. You have to lift all people and be universal in your treatments for them if you are to succeed.

Declare, "The spirit of the Lord goeth before me making clear and easy the way." Those whom you lift are definitely inspired, filled with ideas of abundance, so successful that they want to pay out money. You have to climb above the emotional and mental need to send out love. It takes concentration to keep your eye on sending the Light forth, and not on your conditions. So concentrate continuously on one thing, and if you concentrate on surrender to the Light, your eye will be single and your whole body filled with light. The single eye approach to releasing Light fulfills the law of love instantly.

Visualization: Christian Larson asked me, "What are you seeing? Don't be so satisfied about giving away your last cent. If you see an empty, yawning cavity, an empty purse, and give it away, you will always have an empty purse, because you'll never have anything you don't see." Now picture an image of a $100.00 bill in your wallet, see your wallet and purse full of them. Use your imagination to visualize them where they are not, but will be.

To make visualization work best, picture images on a large scale, like the the barrel of meal that wasted not, and the cruse of oil that never failed or diminished. See all your own wallets and purses full first, then fill everyone else's pockets with invisible bills. By giving these bills from the invisible to the visible, you increase your own abundance. Always give that which you really want to have come to you. At night, visualize putting this money into someone else's hand or pocket. Fill his pockets full to overflowing with these bills. Don't ask for money, but thank God that you already have it.

You can make every cent, every dollar, every bill you handle pay dividends, if when you pay it out, you say to yourself, "Thank God I have this $25 to give," then see yourself giving $50, because you will receive the returns on what you see, and if you give graciously and gladly, and double the amount, you will receive dividends on what you see yourself paying. When you receive bills to be paid, say, "Thank God that this is a sign that I am will have ample money."

Anyone will have sufficient supply, if he will live according to the law to bring it to pass. You are lending money with every bill you pay and it will return to you a thousandfold. Always declare that you will receive twice as much as you need, thereby giving yourself a prosperity treatment. Make it a prosperity treatment every time you pay out money, be it ever so small an amount. Make everything pay you dividends.

You must rise to the point where you are not afraid to accept money. Do not be indifferent to money, but enthusiastic. Only those souls who have someone else furnishing the money for them say, "I am absolutely indifferent to money, I don't need it," because somebody has to provide it.

It is just as wrong to over-emphasize money as it is to under-emphasize it — a middle course is best, where you accept it at its right valuation and in the right place. Wealth is not just money but is the wealth of the universe and takes its rightful place if you neither over- nor underestimate its importance. You cannot escape the need for money at this stage of evolution. You have to use the coin of the realm, and not over-emphasize money.

When I was younger, I felt that perhaps I couldn't be trusted with money. When praying, after asking for money, I said, "Now God, don't let me have it if You think it isn't the right thing for me." I should have said, "God of all that is, fill me with the courage to succeed, the steadfastness to stand, the vision to hold myself to these laws of life. Keep my eyes single upon the truth and pour out the wealth of the universe to me. Keep my eyes open, let it pass through my hands freely because nothing of the world can hold me back from success." Universal substance is always available to draw upon for your needs. This universal substance includes other things besides money — well-being, health, and shelter as well. No man can touch even a fraction of a vibration that belongs to another — it can't be done.

God gave you a certain amount of substance, soul substance, to bring into manifestation, an account to draw on, and to create with, but you have to bring it from the invisible into outer forms. You have not yet begun to draw on your supply. Countersign the blank check on your invisible substance, the magnetic currents of the earth that cause things to move. Praise God and make an added effort to put these truths to the test.

Surrender to this power of love absolutely. It goes forth and does the work for you when you let it. Surrender to the power, tend and watch it. Then while concentrating on the power of love, speak the Word to send it to whatever imbalance needs correcting, and the power will do the work. Just focus on the idea of surrender to this power of the invisible substance of love, and declare, "Release this power of love through me." Then get busy and release more and more love, praise God, and the invincible law of Almighty God will do the work.

It is impossible to help people using mental commands, for that is forcing your will and desire on them, and will cause a reaction. You must work from the realm of spirit in prayer and speaking the Word. You must do most of your prayer silently, even with children. Praise a recalcitrant child to his face for the good qualities he does exhibit. Raise your hands, see a circle of fire about him, and say, "Name, you are filled with the power of love. You are perfect, whole and complete, doing the will of God, filled with this wholeness, completeness, perfection." Then ask God to melt this cake of ice. It all depends on how much love you will pour out upon the situation.

The question was asked: If I have to pay out $50 at a given time and no one owes me anything and I have no known way of having it on hand, what shall I do? Answer: Man's extremity is God's opportunity. Keep on working with these laws and you will reach the place where your only question will be, "How is God going to open the door?" Declare, "I am working in the Light of God, and I am shod with the Light of God as I walk earth today. I thank Thee, Father, that I already have everything I need through the grace of Thy glory. Let it become visible now," and according to your faith, so shall it be done to you.

Praise God twenty-four hours a day, praising Him that you have it, letting it become visible, and you will be freed from need. "I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places." – Isaiah 45:2-3.

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Prosperity 1

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated January 31, 1933, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

What are my thoughts about my financial condition? Are they good? What are my declarations about it? Are they good? If you cannot say, "This is good," you have no inner conviction that it is enough. You must keep on declaring that it is still good.

Declare, "The only thing I want in this life is my very own good." Lay everything, your desires and troubles, on the altar, and you will find the solution is there. Just know the truth and stand, know the truth and the unjust will fall.

You may be keeping your own good away by being unwilling to do something. You say it is mine, my money, etc., because you want to do it your way. Yet the keynote of prosperity is "willingness," willingness to have it God's way, not willfulness, but willingness.

Bring in everything and everyone you want to lift, hold it all up and know the truth. In truth, you are holding up every person, all God's agents, all situations, circumstances and conditions of your life, the lives of your dear ones, and those who have broad interests and broader responsibility. You are holding up the world, and you become a waiter in service.

You have opened yourself to release more selfless love and are willing to be lifted. You are willing to lift humanity and to serve God. You are willing to go wherever He sends you. You are willing to accept your position of service for God, to have health poured into you and on the world, to allow your families freedom of thought, never to disagree in words, but to pour out love, to be guided, sustained and protected by God.

You are willing to have abundance poured on you, to have your mind filled with inspiration and illumination, and you are ready to receive in this instant, in this attitude of acceptance, this eager expectancy. Your own shall be added to you. It is so, and it shall manifest.

If you are living by the law and pouring out enough love, no one can really take advantage of you. Pour out love twenty-four hours a day to melt their hardness of heart. The love you pour forth is our protection, not the love you demand, but the love you give. The love you pour out prospers you.

No one can "take your coat," but you must be willing to let them have it. You must be willing to do anything God asks of you, to pour forth enough love, so you will not have to strip yourself.

In this inner kingdom of love, you cannot lose your own good. The obstacles you meet are just opportunities to unfold and grow. The power of love holds you steadfast. Nothing can disturb or touch you. Strength and confidence fill you with the ability to achieve. You are inspired to lift your family.

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Prosperity 2

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated February 1, 1933, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

God is your banker, and has your treasure. When you eliminate the limitations, you will find out why you were unable to manifest abundance. If anything in your life has grieved you, pour out love, which is the fire that consumes. Pour love on it all to cleanse every old emotion, negative thought and picture that has gone forth and built a form in the subconscious.

Open the closed doors of the past. You cannot close the door, repress or ignore, and get rid of subconscious forms. If you still picture someone doing something to you, you still have a closed door that you must open. You have an affinity for anything that annoys you, and you must clear it out.

Do not use laws mentally — use spirit. Love will do it. Love makes the law perfect. If you are unable to pour out enough love to neutralize the situation, you will fail.

Increase your capacity to love, devotion to service, and lose the Power to behold evil. Then you will look at the other fellow, know that you are responsible for him, pour out love on him, and help him to become perfect. Open the door farther back into the past and pour love back over that line and make it perfect.

The release of Power is the secret of success. If you are going after it in the Light, to be an agent of the Almighty, to put the golden Christed Age in operation, you must ask for success for others also.

Ask to be a purified instrument, so that you may release enough Power to uphold everyone you see and contact. The Power goes forth through you and will return to you, but you must send it forth for a universal reason. Everyone, anyone, anywhere, can lift the world. If you build universal pictures, you can release the world.

Part of the time you do not shine, which is why you do not get what you desire. Leave a cloud of love every place you go, even if only walking through a store. Spray everyone with love, and it lifts people.

Be drawn into the heart of this Power, higher and ever higher into the heart of the fire, for only in the heart of the fire can you stand steadfast, and be worth what you desire to be worth in God's service.

"Name, the power of love, which melts and opens doors and brings to pass, which creates divine activity, and sends forth divine abundance, goes forth from you this moment into all your affairs. Your body is filled with Light, you are whole and complete, and this shall be manifest in your heart, your mind, your body and affairs. Amen."

The one Substance, Power and Mind are "all that the Father hath," and flows as a stream, the River of Life. Use money like free flowing Power. Any holding onto its power is withholding.

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Prosperity 3

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated February 2, 1933, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Clarissa A. Watkins.

To get ahead and have successful results, you must hold up your desires every night and morning, to have them purified, cleansed and made perfect. Poverty is a disease. To be cured of any disease, the patient must be relieved of the idea behind the manifestation. Once you cure a person of the idea of poverty, it works out into the outer form as perfection. You must cure yourself of the idea. The instant you cure the idea, your financial health slips into place.

The first time you speak the Word, the work is done, abundance has gone forth and prosperity is established. It is finished on the inner. Renounce the old ideas of past lacks and wants. After you have lifted the ideas, and they no more enter, keep your eyes fixed on the perfect, by the most strenuous effort.

You could add health, abundance, love, social life, success in business, and all shall come in proportion to the effort you put forth, Yet you must obey the fundamental laws. Love is the conqueror, love is irresistible, is invincible, and is complete. Send this love out on the wings of joy, twenty-four hours a day.

Your heart must be a garden of praise, a paean of thanksgiving backed by praise twenty-four hours a day, just "because." Joyous praise is the shortcut to all manifestation. If you need it in a hurry, pour forth enough praise and it will come quickly.

Love determines the amount, praise determines the time elapsed, and you must use both to be complete. Praise cuts down the time until things happen right now.

Desire is a creative flame. You must desire to express more of God, and you must always keep your flame burning eagerly, to fill the form and increase what is there. The imagination determines the form the demonstration will take. Sometimes it is not perfect, if your pictures are not perfect, square, and complete.

You are responsible for your own life. Every word you speak judges you. You create something with every thought you hold. The emotions you send forth create for you. What are you sending forth?

The secret of success lies within you, and that secret is the ability to stand, despite what enters your life, to accept it as your own creation, to look neither to the right, the left, nor to your family or friend to see where it originated. You take everything that comes as your own personal responsibility, and that attitude will determine your success.

Success consists in the ability to push a little harder, think a little faster, and smile a lot more than the rest of the world. Failure consists in the ability to run, find a corner to sit and think it over, to lie down and cry when blows hit you.

Success consists in standing alone, never whining, never crying, never asking favors, but pressing, loving and praising, which makes you able to push harder, think faster, smile more, lift, and keep on lifting. If you do this, nothing can hold you down. "Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." – Psalm 37:5.

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Prosperity 4

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated December 2, 1933, Buffalo, New York. Scribe: Ruth Bender. Note: Edna Lister became the Minister of the Buffalo Unity Center December 2, 1933.

If you exalt a thing and declare it perfect, it will appear so and bring others to think the same about it. You can apply this to yourself, to your house, or to property you desire to sell. God is the fullness of spiritual substance that fills everything and everyone. God is perfect, therefore any adjustment that needs to be made is within you. Don't pray with demands — "God, do what I want. God, give me what I want" — but pray, "God, please help me to make myself what I need to be, to put my very best into life." You must exalt the self into Light until the self becomes one with God.

All motive power comes through your soul but you must act by directing and commanding the self. The more consciously you act, the more divine inspiration becomes available to you. Always put your best effort into what you do. You must share the good, but you must first get the good to pass it on. Keep the channel from God to you, and from you to your fellow man open. Do not say, "I am putting more into this job than it is worth." The only way to get a better job is to pour more love into the job you have. If you really put your best into life, God will send heavenly talent scouts to promote you.

Do your very best in whatever you do and the great laws of life will compensate you. When you pour out inspiration, life and love, God's talent scouts will be there to take you on. Declare, "I give the best in me for the world, and the world gives its best to me." You must feel that all the beauty of the world belongs to you; possess it and enjoy it even if you don't really have it continually. If you do your very best, God does the rest. Attune yourself to the very finest and best. Do not postpone the good in your consciousness.

Do not say, "When my ship comes in," for by doing so, you connect your personal prosperity with material wealth and conditions. If you tie your chance at success to the rise and fall of the the world's economic tides, then the very fact that you rise dictates that you must later fall. You must believe that a sustained prosperity is possible. In knowing these things, you must partake of the mind that was in Christ Jesus. God is just as rich today and as ready to help you as ever. Christ would not have allowed his faith to be affected by an economic Depression.

Work every day to be perfectly aware that your prosperity is evident and always comes to you directly through your consciousness of divine abundance and supply. Nothing and no one can exhaust this goodness. God's supply is instant, complete, and sustained. You must know this beyond knowing — you must feel these things with every iota of your being. You are a center of God's activity, as are all embodied souls whom God uses as channels for His influence in the world.

Do not look to others for your supply. Exercise the divine active faith that knows that He will supply your needs according to His riches in glory. The virtue of a channel is that it must be open at both ends. All Creation operates under the law of the direct circulation of God's good. Give, and while you also maintain your consciousness of receiving, the free-flowing abundance comes pouring in. Do this consciously and be aware of what you are doing, the way you know the difference between a nickel and a $5 gold piece.

Declare, "My own is coming to me in wealth, plenty and riches." Mind is the interpretive medium between the life of God and its manifestation. No matter how lofty the ideal, you must have a method to attain it.

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Compensation

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated March 9, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

Law is exact and just. You always receive something in return for what you give in the world. You can always give of the richness of your experience, new ideas, love, and understanding.

Treat all those who owe you debts, seeing them with abundant riches to pay everyone whom they owe. Treat the holders of all the debts you owe and must pay. Put the debt contracts on the altar, and see tables loaded with stacks of money, bills and coins.

The ideas of debts and money are your initiators. Remember that every idea of debt and financial security has an outside agent to clothe the idea, waiting to put it into expression. The idea trains you and makes you unfold. Money is no more or less important than anything else. Freely give to freely receive.

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The Spoken Word

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated March 23, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

Your answers to two questions will educate you in how to improve your attitude toward and relationship with money and financial success. Do you generally use some particular tone of voice? Pay attention, for automatically you strike your own keynote. Any whining or wheedling tone is particularly annoying.

Does it help to write out your desires on paper? Yes, because it can clear up confusion or doubt in the subconscious and conscious phases of mind. Every word spoken is the spoken Word.

Idle words are your "I can'ts" returning to you as the form of failure. Your responsibility is to melt and dissolve all the idle or useless forms you have sent out on your spoken Word, to return them to the Light.

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Concentration Versus Surrender

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated April 15, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

When you concentrate upon supply, you must demonstrate, which means you must manifest, exhibit or show proof of your ability to supply the demand in your life. However, concentration is the act of forcing your mental faculty of thinking. Further, since you can concentrate on only one thing at a time, concentration does not pay you enough dividends.

Instead of speaking demands to have your needs met, surrender to God's Power, which is always working now. Lift the physical and subconscious mental phases of life into the realm of spiritual perception. A mere part-time surrender is like a wind that blows from every quarter, buffeting you from every direction at once.

Lift all the idle words that you speak about your self-centered affairs, and lift for others also. Better yet, catch the idle thoughts that lead to the idle words before you speak them. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. – Psalm 19:14. Let your words follow your heart's conviction.

Exercise caution in what you choose to agree with, to make certain that you you are agreeing with only the good and the truth. For example, jokes saying that war munitions are power have the truth exactly backward. Power, as the motivation and energy that transformed a thought into form, is what created the munitions in the first place.

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Attitudes

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated May 11, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

An attitude is "a manner of thinking, feeling, or behaving that reflects a state of mind or disposition; a settled way of thinking or feeling about something; truculent or uncooperative behavior." The attitudes of success and prosperity include joy, love, complete faith or knowing, and surrender of the negative ideas the self generates in its fear of failure.

Your attitude can be defensive or offensive toward others. To attitudinize means "to assume an exaggerated or unnatural attitude or pose; to represent oneself in a given character or as other than what one is; to impersonate or to masquerade." In surrendering self, begin with all the negative assumed attitudes, including posing as something you are not, writing, speaking or behaving affectedly.

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Abundance

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated May 18, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

Abundance is money. How do you manifest abundance? You use high visualization. Give to others and to yourself from above. Play a game of imagination, like playing dolls at a tea party.

Giving is invisible. Receiving is visible. Nothing prevents you from giving good gifts from the universal substance that does not yet appear as form. What you and others receive is that invisible substance precipitated into material form.

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Emancipation Through Self-Mastery

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated May 25, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

To emancipate yourself from a poverty of the purse, from lack of supply to abundance, you must ask yourself three questions: What must I do to find a better position? How do I get into the right place? How do I know this is the right place for me?

What must I do to find a position? Apply prayer treatments and declarations to release the substance today for three months from now. The substance available is not the same every day, and yours is already waiting.

How do I get into the right place? Serve a thousand percent where you are now. How can you achieve emancipation through self-mastery? By practicing two hours per day, four hours per day, ten hours per day until you are perfect.

How do I know this is the right place? Do next thing next. If you are in the right place, you will be promoted or given a raise in salary. If not, the right door will open to your knock.

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The Law of Attachment

This Edna Lister prosperity lecture outline is dated August 24, 1934, Buffalo, New York.

You make your own individual laws. What you love becomes your law, your guide. You take yourself into what you take into yourself, including what you hear, see, and accept. Eliminate the negatives.

Make yourself the third person in a Trinity — the Father, the Holy Spirit, and I, Name, who am Thy son/daughter. As the third person in the Trinity, you are life itself, like the Father. Your capacity to unfold, expand, and produce is divine and thereby endless.

When you are in love, you are in a state of enthrallment, which is "a feeling of intense pleasure and enjoyment for something wonderful and unusual; enchantment, fascination, captivation." The power of enchantment is in the love to which you are enthralled. You may say, "I fell in love," but "I fell" is self-centered, focused on the self, and brings pain, mental or emotional. The soul arises in love divine, which is selfless.

Immeasurable power to use for success lies in that soul who becomes enthralled, possessed by the idea of surrender to the Power of God's Love, to the point of complete absorption, complete surrender, completely one with all that is.

Being enthralled with the Love of God, I can be that which I truly am. I can release God's Power of Love as divine Mind, thinking of new ideas, as the divine substance, fining my prayer molds full to overflowing, and as divine energy with which I may bring all good things to pass. I can mother this God-given desire until it is ready to move forth from the invisible to the visible world.

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Inspiration for Living

Edna Lister created this sermon outline for May 13, 1945, Cleveland, Ohio. Scripture: John 6:1-13.

The miracle of the five loaves and two fishes is so dramatic a story. Yet another real miracle is how any baker can turn wheat into bread, which is also a dramatic miracle of transformation and increase.

A great multitude of people, about 5,000 had gathered to hear Jesus speak. He had thrilled them with his message. When it came time to eat, they were expectant. He had the disciples tell them to sit while they were waiting.

Every miracle has three phases: First, you must do the next thing next. Second, you must make perfect use of what you have. Finally, you must ignore everything else on the outer, and depend on the inner for fulfillment.

So, a great plan for a miracle begins with taking time to live, to dare, to love, to do the next thing next in love, graciously. Take the time to be lovely. Then you must make perfect use of what you have now, including things, people, and time, etc. Ignore the outer with its distractions, disappointments and obstacles. To do so, you must obey several laws: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." – Matthew 6:33. "What is that to thee? Follow thou me." – John 21:22. "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him." – Matthew 5:25.

Do you depend on God? You must for anything you cannot do for yourself. How greatly do you want the object of your desire? How greatly do you aspire? Enough to ascend in consciousness and receive inspiration from above? The greatness of the miracles you experience is in direct proportion to the quality and quantity of your effort. You must have a plan for life. Do the next thing next on the outer, while you give lavishly on the inner. You must give lavishly to receive lavishly.

Are you giving a series of ten-cent gifts, or of the richness of all love? What you give lavishly returns to you on the outer as a gift. Bless and break and share the loaves and fishes you have, then gather up the leftover fragments, keeping the secret of the miracle of abundance.

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Your Thoughts Create Security

This Edna Lister lecture transcript is dated March 20, 1968, Tacoma, Washington. Scribe: Ferne Chapman.

You can always have more of what you have, and receive what you feel is yours though you do not have it yet. Now is the Day of Salvation. Now is the acceptable time. The right time to change is when the desire strikes you. Let go and let the Power of God reveal. The head lets go and the heart takes over. Then you are ready to unify. Changes, about what you want to do, must begin in mind.

You must move in the direction of the good that you want, not just stand there. Your good may be right in front of you, unrecognized. You can keep your door closed, possibly by a single little negative thought. Your good then goes into abeyance, but it does not leave.

Despite your prayers, delay will result when you lack in gratitude, expectation or faith, your spiritual understanding. Faith releases the Power and Substance. You must visualize, expect, and feel as though you are a part of it. There is a responsibility, something you must do, and you may not tell God how.

Rearrange your thoughts in accord with the need, and speak the Word concerning the need. The need is your heart's desire, the Voice of God, as distinguished from want. God will release to you as you accept the responsibility and direct the Power along the right channels. When you know there is a need, forget the body and think of yourself as spiritual, you see from the clear plateau. You get results because God knows you have need of all these things.

You use the five physical senses, which you must adjust to be the precision tools you want them to be. You incapacitate them when you look backward. Many things are ready to be revealed within, but you must accept them, and you cannot when your interest is focused outside. Appreciation, gratitude and expectation are necessary. You will receive full benefits if you use soul vision. The good is close. Your interest must be within.

If your desire was sharply focused, you will still want it when it arrives. Be honest in your need; it must be something you really believe in and desire. Too many people procrastinate. Don't go to others to see what they did. Using another's formula is not sensible or honorable. Go within, where your formula is, and be kind, loving and expectant.

For security, declare, "God is my security." See your thoughts as secure in God. Expect your highest good, which is better than the human mind understands. "I AM secure." See yourself as secure in your present condition or circumstances. Know that the good is there, waiting to reveal itself to you, and bless it, though you do not see it yet. You must bless the old before the new can come. It works the same if you want a new position. The new will come when the old has given all it has to offer you, at the right time.

Happiness begins in your mind. Act it out and it will be this way, if it is right. Think happy thoughts and speak about them in joy. Seek to give within rather than to gather without. You are bankrupt without giving. You will use this method throughout eternity, not just while in the physical body.

Everything is here, but you must bring it into manifestation. Be thankful for this, for the fulfillment, for the potential. When you need it now, be still, be grateful, say, "Now, dear God," with feeling and expectation. Do not strain to find the channel of release, but relax, knowing everything is already there.

"I am in God's image. God's Power is using me and I will succeed at what is before me." Success comes from your Godlike self, the Oversoul, so you are already successful, kind, loving and prosperous. Practice these virtues. Now is the time to destroy the negative thoughts. "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?" – Jeremiah 32:27.

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Money Is a Perfect Metaphor

This Linda Mihalic essay is dated May 17, 2007, Cleveland, Ohio. Edna Lister met and named Linda as her successor in May 1971.

"Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. – 1 Timothy 6:6-10.

Since leaving corporate America in 1982, having decided that the stress level was too high a price to pay (and for what? More stress?), I have not lived in my money, driven my money, or worn my money. This was a conscious decision, long considered. Having decided that money is a perfect metaphor for a "have" versus a "have not" consciousness, I predicated my philosophy of life on believing that my glass is always half-full versus being half-empty.

The choice was simple once I realized that money, in and of itself, could give me nothing that I truly valued as being important to my soul or to my consciousness. If you don't have God at the center of your life, you will believe that you need money to fill that void. Money is a physical symbol for "credits," and a worldly "proof" of your "value." A major illusion and delusion is that physical money can alter a metaphysical or spiritual state, or address a spiritual problem that is value-driven, motivated, or based.

More money can buy more lattes, clothes, new cars, pay for vacations, and club memberships. Money can pay for a surgery, but it cannot prevent cancer. Money is a medium of exchange based in the physical world. It buys physical things that satisfy physical needs or cravings of the appetitive soul.

However, money cannot buy anything of lasting spiritual value. While it may pay for an education, it cannot educate a mind. Money cannot give you more knowledge or understanding, just an awareness of different states of being and experiences. Therefore, to make money a value, in and of itself, creates a materially-based slavery of mind and soul, which is why St. Timothy wrote "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." – 1 Timothy 6:10.

With money, the more you spend, the less you have. With giving from the heart, mind, and soul, the more you give, the more you have. For example, you can give books to your local library. You can shop the library book sale if it is an extension of your values-set. You need not be a formal student to use a library to educate yourself. All colleges and universities began as collections of people and books, those who sought to educate themselves then gave their books to others, thus sharing the wealth of knowledge and wisdom.

Steer clear of believing in the appearance of things. Deal only in the good, the true, the real, and the beautiful. Always remember, the true coin of the realm is love, which produces your soul's spiritual and mental riches, security and supply.

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Endnotes

1^ Source: "What is the spending on Welfare?"

2^ Source: "A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2018", Student Loan Hero, accessed September 27, 2018.

3^ The Federal Reserve Board currently issues $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 notes. The largest denomination Federal Reserve note ever issued for public circulation was the $10,000 note. On July 14, 1969, the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury announced that bank notes in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 would be discontinued due to lack of use.

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Stories That Illustrate Money and Material Possessions

The Parable of the Talents: For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money.

After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.

Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. – Matthew 25:14-30.


The Rich Young Man: And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. – Mark 10:17-27.


The Wealthy Ruler: A certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me.

And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. – Luke 18:18-27.


The Impassable Abyss of Materialism: There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead. – Luke 16:19-31.

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New Testament on Money and Material Possessions

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. – Matthew 6:19-21.


No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [money]. – Matthew 6:24.


By their fruits ye shall know them. – Matthew 7:16.


By their fruits ye shall know them. – Matthew 7:20.


Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. – Mark 10:24-25.


Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. – Matthew 22:21.


Take heed, and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consists not in the abundance of the things which he possesses. – Luke 12:15.


No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [money]. – Luke 16:13.


What is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. – Luke 16:15.


Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to save his life shall lose it; and whoever loses his life shall preserve it. – Luke 17:32-33.


For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. And herein I give my advice: for this is expedient for you, who have begun before, not only to do, but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to will, so there may be a performance also out of that which ye have. For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack. – 2 Corinthians 8:9-15.


Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. – 1 Timothy 6:6-10.

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Old Testament on Money and Material Possessions

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. – Psalm 23.


A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked. – Psalm 37:16.


They that trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him. – Psalm 49:6-7.


Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them. – Psalm 62:10.


Wisdom brings long life, riches and honor. – Proverbs 3:16.


Riches profit not in the day of wrath: but righteousness delivers from death. – Proverbs 11:4.


He who trusts in his riches will fall. – Proverbs 11:28.


There is one who makes himself rich, yet has nothing; and one who makes himself poor, yet has great riches. – Proverbs 13:7.


Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase. – Proverbs 13:11.


A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches. – Proverbs 22:1.


By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches and honor and life. – Proverbs 22:4.


He who oppresses the poor to increase his riches, and he who gives to the rich, will surely come to poverty. – Proverbs 22:16.


A man with an evil eye hastens after riches, and does not consider that poverty will come upon him. – Proverbs 28:22.


He who trusts in the Lord will be prospered. – Proverbs 28:25.


He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; nor he who loves abundance, with increase. – Ecclesiastes 5:10.

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Money and Material Possessions in Other Sacred Writings

Let not your hand be stretched out to receive, and shut when you should repay. – Wisdom of Ben Sirach 4:31.


Do not set not your heart upon unjustly gotten goods, for they will not profit you in the day of calamity. – Wisdom of Ben Sirach 5:8.


Because of unrighteous dealings, injuries, and riches got by deceit, a country is translated from one people to another. – Wisdom of Ben Sirach 10:8.


Prosperity and adversity, life and death, poverty and riches, come of the Lord. – Wisdom of Ben Sirach 11:14.


Wealth and riches cannot avail in the day of wrath and anger. – Book of Jasher 12:67.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884 –1971
The original Pioneering Mystic
minister, teacher, and author

Edna Lister


Etymology of money: Latin moneta, "mint, coinage."

Definition and etymology of wealth: An abundance of valuable possessions or money; the state of being rich; material prosperity; plentiful supplies of a particular resource; archaic: well-being. From Middle English welthe, from well or weal, on the pattern of health.

Definition and etymology of abundance: A very large quantity of something; the state or condition of having a copious quantity of something; plentifulness; plentifulness of the good things of life; prosperity. From Latin abundantia, from abundant- 'overflowing', from the verb abundare (see abound).

Definition and etymology of prosperity: The state of being prosperous; successful in material terms; flourishing financially. From Old French prosperite, from Latin prosperitas, from prosperus 'doing well'.

Definition and etymology of security: The state of being free from danger or threat; feeling safe, stable, and free from fear or anxiety. From Old French securite or Latin securitas, from securus 'free from care' (see secure).

Definition and etymology of success: A person who achieves desired aims or attains fame, wealth, etc. From Latin successus, from the verb succedere 'come close after' (see succeed).

Definition and etymology of supply: To provide with something needed or wanted; to be adequate to satisfy (a requirement or demand) From Old French soupleer, from Latin supplere 'fill up', from sub- 'from below' + plere 'fill'. The early sense of the noun was 'assistance, relief'.



Money, its lack or abundance, is an initiation.



References

The Compact Edition of The Oxford English Dictionary: 2 volumes. E.S.C. Weiner, editor. Oxford University Press, 1971.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, editor. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981.


Related Topics

Desire

God as Consciousness Appears as Form

Imagination

Prosperity and Wealth

Success I

The Gold Standard

Thinking


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