The more we grow into a clear perception of what is really meant by "Squaring the Circle," the freer we shall find ourselves from the burden of anxiety. We shall rise to a larger generalization of the Law of Cause and Effect. We shall learn in all things to reach out to First Cause as operating through the channels of secondary causation, — "causa causas" as producing, and therefore controlling "causa causata" — and so we cease to worry about secondary causes. On the plane of the lower personality we see certain facts, and argue that they are bound to produce certain results, which would be quite true if we really saw all the facts. Or, again, allowing that in any particular case we actually did see all the facts as they now exist, we can either deny the operation of First Cause, or recognize its infinite capacity for creating new facts.
Therefore, whatever may be the nature of our anxiety, we should endeavour to dispel it by the consideration that there may be already existing other facts we do not know of, which will produce a different result from the one we fear. And that in any case there is a power which can produce new facts in answer to our appeal to it.
But I can imagine some one saying to us, "You bumptious little midget, do you think First Cause is going to trouble Itself about you and your petty concerns? Do you not know that First Cause works by universal Law, and makes no exceptions?" Well, I would not have written this book if I did not suppose that First Cause works by universal Law, and it is just because It does so that I believe It will work for me and my concerns. The Law makes no exceptions, but it can be specialized through the power of the Word. Then our sceptic says, "What, do you think your word can do that?" To which I reply, "It is not my word because I am not using it in my lower personality, as John Smith or Mary Jones, but in that higher personality which recognizes only one all-embracing Personality and itself as included in that."
Which comes first, the Law or the Word? The distribution of the solar systems in space, the localization of the Spirit in specific areas of cosmic activity, proclaims the starting of all manifestation through the "Word." Then the operation of Law follows with mathematical precision, just as when we write 2 × 2 we cannot avoid getting 4 as the result — only there is no reason why we should not write 2 × 3 and so get 6 instead of 4. Let it be borne in mind that the Law flows from the Word, and not vice versa, and you have got the clue to the enigma of Life.
How far we shall be able to make practical use of this clue depends, of course, on our acceptance of its principle.
The Directing Power of the Word is inherent in the Word, and we cannot alter it. It is the Law of the Law, and so, like any other law, it cannot be broken, but its action can be inverted. We cannot deprive the Word of its efficacy, but our denial of it as the Word of Expansion is equivalent to an affirmation of it as the Word of Contraction, and so the Law acts towards us as a Limitation. But the fault is not in the Law, but in the way we use the Word.
Now if the reader grasps this, he will see that the less we trouble ourselves about what appear to us to be the visible and calculable causes of things, the freer we must become from the burden of anxiety. And as we advance step by step to a clearer recognition of the true order of Cause and Effect, so all intermediate causes will fade from our view. Only the two extremes of the sequence of Cause and Effect will remain in sight. First Cause, moving as the Word, starting a sequence, and the desired result terminating it, as the Word taking Form in Fact. The intermediate links in the chain will be there, but they will be seen as effects, not causes.
The wider the generalization we thus make, the less we shall need to trouble about particulars, knowing that they will form themselves by the natural action of the Law. And the widest generalization is therefore, to state not what we want to have, but what we want to be. The only reason we ever want to have anything, is because we think it will help us to be something — something more than we are now. So that the "having" is only a link in the chain of secondary causes, and may therefore be left out of consideration, for it will come of itself through the natural workings of the Law, set in operation by the Word as First Cause.
This principle is set forth in the statement of the Divine Name given to Moses (Ex. iii, 13-14). The Name is simply "I AM" — it is Being, not having — the having follows as a natural consequence of the Being; and if it be true that we are made in the likeness and image of God, that is to say on the same Principle, then what is the Law of the Divine nature must be the Law of ours also — and as we awake to this we become "partakers of the Divine Nature" (2 Pet. i, 4).
What we really want, therefore, is to be something — something more than we are now; and this is quite right. It is our consciousness of the continually generative impulse of the Eternal Living Spirit, which is the fons et origo (fountain and source) of all differentiated life working within us for ever more and more perfect individual expression of all that is in Itself. If the reader remembers what I said at the beginning of this book about the Verb Substantive of Being, he will see that each of us is in truth a "Word (verbum) of God." Let not the orthodox reader be shocked at this — I am only saying what the Bible does.
They all ride upon "white horses," and the "horse" is the symbol of the intellect. Also in the case of the Leader, the peculiarity of his Name is that "no one knows it but himself," and in Rev. ii, 17, exactly the same thing is said of the "New Name" to be given "to him that overcometh." Again, in Isaiah lxii, 2, "Thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name"; and again in Num. vi, 27, "They shall put my name upon the children of Israel."
Then as the meaning of that Name "the Word of God." In Ps. cxix, 160: "Thy word is true from the beginning," and Jesus said: "Thy Word is Truth" (John xvii, 17).
This also corresponds with the description in Rev. xix, 11-16 where another name for "the Word of God" is "Faithful and True"; and the same metaphor of the Truth "riding into action" is contained in Ps. xlv, 3, 4. "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty; and in thy majesty ride prosperously because of Truth."
The same symbol of "riding" also occurs in Ps. lxviii: "Extol him that rideth upon the heavens," "Sing praises to him that rideth upon the heaven of heavens which were of old (i.e., ab initio); lo, he doth send out his Voice and that a mighty Voice" — and the word "Voice" is the Hebrew Word [Hebrew: "K[=o]l"], meaning "Sound" or "Word" — so that here again we have the idea of "The Word" riding into action.
Once more — "Thou hast magnified thy Word above all thy Name" (Ps. cxxxviii, 2), thus repeating the idea of the Word as the Name.
In other passages we have the idea of the Word as a Weapon. "The Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God" (Eph. vi, 17), which answers to the description in Revelations of the Sword proceeding out of the mouth of the Word. And we have the same metaphor of the Word riding into action in Habakkuk iii, 8 and 9. "Thou didst ride upon thine horses and thy chariots of salvation. Thy bow was made quite naked … even thy Word"; and similarly those that oppose the Word are "killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth."
In other passages we have the Word put before us as a Defence. "His Truth shall be thy shield and buckler" (Ps. xci, 4); and again "The Name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe" (Prov. xviii, 10); and we have already seen that this Name is "The Word of God"; and similarly in Ps. cxxiv, 8: "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth."
Lastly, we get "the Word" as the final deliverance from all ill; "Into thy hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of Truth" (Ps. xxxi, 5).
And the reason of all this is because "His Truth endureth to all generations" (Ps. c, 5). It is everlasting, Changeless Principle. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth" (Ps. xxxiii, 6), as is also said of the Word in the opening of St. John’s Gospel and First Epistle.
Now a careful comparison of these and similar passages will make it clear that the sequence presented to us is as follows: The "Word" is the passing of the Verb Substantive of Being into Action. It is always the same in Principle, on whatever scale, and therefore applies to ourselves also, so that each one of us is a "Word of God." We are this by the very essence of our being, and that is why the first thing we are told about Man is that he is made in the image and likeness of God.
But how far any of us will become a really effective "Word," depends upon our acceptance of the New Name which is ready to be bestowed upon each one. "To as many as receive him, to them gives he power to become Sons of God, even to them that believe on his Name" (John 1:12).
We get the New Name by realizing the Truth, which Truth is that we ourselves are included in THE NAME, and that name is called "The Word of God."
The meaning of which becomes clear if we remember that the spiritual name of anything is its "Noumenon" or essential being, which is manifested through its "Phenomenon" or outward reproduction in Form. So that the true order is first our "Name" or essential Being, then our "Word" or active manifestation of this essential Being, then the "Truth" or the unchangeable Law of Being passing into Manifestation — and these three are ONE.
Then when we see that this is true of ourselves, not because of some arbitrary favouritism making us exceptions to the human race, but because it is the working on the plane of Human Individuality of the same Power and the same Law by which the world has come into existence, we can see that we have here a Principle which we can trust to work as infallibly as the principle of Mathematics. And that therefore the desire to become something more than we now are is nothing else than the Eternal Spirit of Life seeking ever fuller expression.
The correction which our mode of thinking needs therefore is to start with Being, not with Having, and we may then trust the Having to come along in its right order. And if we can get into this new manner of Thought, what a world of worry it will save us! If we realize that the Law flows from the Word, and not vice versa, then the Law of attraction must work in this manner, and will bring to us all those conditions through which we shall be able to express the more expanded Being towards which we are directing our Word. And as a consequence, we shall have no need to trouble about forcing particular conditions into existence — they will grow spontaneously.