Truth from the Trance

At times he would lapse into a trancelike swoon (his Maltese cat on the table by his side), the swoon sometimes lasting for hours. At such times the members of his family would take particular care not to disturb him. When he emerged from these lapses of the senses, he would write down the truths which had been revealed to him. Once he wrote on his memorandum pad, " AM' is the word of power. It you think your thought is powerful, your thought is powerful?' It may be interesting to recall that such authorities as Barnett and the new American Encyclopedia, in their biography of Socrates, mention similar trancelike experiences of his. While serving in the Greek army, Socrates suddenly found his feet seemingly rooted to the earth, where he remained in a trance for twenty-four hours. I le awakened with a spiritual knowledge that transformed his life,and, later, the lives of many others. The similarity of the life of this Athenian philosopher to that of Troward is that both relied chiefly upon intuition and common sense for their theory and system of living. A difference between Troward's teaching and that of Christian Science is that he does not deny the existence of a material world. On the contrary, he teaches that all physical existence is a concrete corresponding manifestation of the thought which gave it birth. One is a complement of the other. I once asked him how one could impart to others the deep truths which he taught. "By being them," he answered. "My motto is, 'Being, and not possessing, is the great joy of living.'"