1) The identity of word with ‘thing’.

2) The identity of image made substantive with reality.

3) The identity of Self with image made substantive.

4) The identity of effects with ‘causes.’

For instance, let us take our higher order of abstraction called ‘divine life’. It is through the habit of identifying word with ‘thing’ that naturally then we will conclude that the term ‘divine life’ represents a reality, when it only represents a higher order of abstraction.

This habit of identifying word with ‘thing’ creates verbalism. We use many words under the delusional evaluation that we are talking about ‘beings’, ‘entities’, and ‘things’, when in fact the words are only symbols for different orders of abstractions. The entire race has become afflicted with this habit, which has resulted in elementalism, infantilism, and dense ignorance. Why? Because the race lives on the verbalistic level, under the delusion that all words represent and stand for ‘things’, ‘beings’ and ‘entities.’ So a general racial, mesmeric, psychic consciousness is built up which has no foundation whatever in truth, in fact, or in reality. In that delusional, mesmeric, and psychic state, we think we are talking about factual, important, and actual ‘things’ as subjects; whereas we are merely making noises—bla bla about tra tra.

This is serious, because it leads to nervous breakdowns, various forms of neuroses, loss of faith in reality, confusion, and abandonment of hope (with its train of vicious consequences). It also develops grievous disappointment and disillusionment.

For instance, on disappointment and disillusionment: one on the verbalistic level may use words which are really labels for abstractions but which have been identified with ‘entities’, ‘beings’, ‘things’, etc., - such as the ‘Creator’, the ‘kind loving Father’, ‘God’. Then with the faith, hope, plans and confident expectations that have been built up, the individual finds in the end nothing proved, that nothing pans out.

Today (1941) we witness entire races—Danish, Norwegian, DUTCH, Belgians, to mention only a few—who believed in words (which are and were merely labels for abstractions), and who had built up hopes, faith, sincere longing, and beliefs in or upon those words. Then comes the juggernaut of destruction and runs over them. Is there a ‘divine life’, a ‘universal love’? Is there any such? These people may well ask. Here is the terrible disillusionment: neither the words nor the abstractions came to help them. Of course, they did not expect an abstraction to come to help them; but they did expect a ‘being’ to do so. Why? Because they identified word with ‘thing’, or with their reified ‘idea’.

Disappointment without exception, and for many, unutterable anguish, is the fate of those who make a word, which symbolizes a higher order of abstraction, a ‘being’, ‘entity’, or a ‘deity’. There are some who escape this anguish in finding the truth of reality, but many more, in grievous disappointment and rebellion, become cynics, theists, and agnostics. There are those who incite rebellion, particularly against those who have represented themselves as the interpreters of and mediators between man and deity.

What happens when the masses rise, seize power, and overthrow constitutional authority? The church is the first object of attack. This happened in Russia, Mexico, Spain, and elsewhere. They tear the church to pieces in their rebellious reactions against the false words that were perpetrated upon them. The fact is that a word which symbolizes a higher order abstraction does not represent an ‘entity’, a ‘being’, or a ‘deity’.

If leaders in general, and ecclesiastical authorities in particular had represented the truth of reality, there would be no rebellion against the church anywhere. But rebellion is created against the deceptions perpetrated by these blind leaders of the blind. The teaching of the truth of reality would not only preserve orderly development into the higher states of understanding for those who would be led, but would also serve the objects and aims of the sincere leaders better.

It is noteworthy that the ecclesiastical authorities in England met in 1940 for the purpose of devising a new program which they intend to stand behind when the war is over. In that program they state that they will tell ‘the truth about God—acknowledging by this confession that they have not been telling ‘the truth about God’. But, through the blitz of their churches, their homes, and their jobs, the self-righteous self-complacency in which they were immersed has been shattered. They are humble enough now to confess that they have been using words only, and setting themselves up as representatives of those words, which they knew had no meaning. We can not blame them for striving to escape the holocaust that is in store for them.

All this is terrific in its far-reaching consequences. It is something that is costing hundreds of thousands of lives and untold misery. What brought it about? It was brought about by the habit of identifying word with ‘thing’. And this is not all that identity of word with ‘thing’ has done; it has made words and other symbols for ‘things’ magical, so that many have been lead to believe that a word or number has magic; that is, that the word or number itself has power. That a mere symbol which is used as a convenient label for the sake of communication (and having no other use) should have been hypostatized into a magical power in its own right, for the enslavement of innumerable individuals, races and cultures, will constitute the deepest enigma to future historians.

Think of the mumbo-jumbo which has been indulged based on the belief that words as symbols have magical powers. This is not only confined to what we call the fetish of numerology. It also extends to various sorts of magical formulas, as well as to the entire delusional mess that has been created under the ‘science’ of religion, of metaphysics, and of astrology. Conceptual values also rest upon the magical properties ascribed to symbols. A symbol has no more power than the strength of the force you put into the value you give to it. This delusional ‘stuff’, including the values given to symbols, is due to the fact that we cannot separate word from ‘thing’.

After the above has been reflected on, then consider the effects on your neural organization of identifying words with ‘things’. Your neural system, which includes the sympathetic, the autonomic, and cerebrospinal structure-functions, is developed by and in accordance with the structure of nature or reality. (Remember that our referent for nature or reality is the energy world plus Mind. However, from a yet higher level, this would be stated thus: structure, on any level, is the exact representation of the state in which the Power-to-be-conscious is aware of itself. Therefore, structure is the activity (act) of Self-awareness. Always think of ‘structure’, whether of the energy world or of any individualized system therein, as dynamic.)

Your nervous system has been built by nature; and nature has built it in accordance with its own structure. We attempt to reverse this structure by identifying word with ‘thing’, instead of keeping in mind that word is only a symbol representing ‘thing’ The constant play of a false and reversed structure on our neural organism results in breakdowns, neuroses, and maladjustments. The wonder is that, subjected to the onslaught of the forces in the modern Tower of Babel (edifice of words), our neural organism has stood up as well as it has.

Students who are endeavoring to reorient themselves to the truth of reality should endeavor to destroy this habit of identifying word with ‘thing’. It is not difficult to do this; it simply requires the creation of a new habit. In due course the new habit becomes established as an unconscious reflex action. The conscious effort which is necessary at first is as follows:

When you use a word, read a word, or hear a word spoken, you are to remember that it is only a symbol, a label, and not a ‘thing’. It is just that simple; but, the habit of identifying word with ‘thing’ is so established and so unconsciously strong, that it is not easy. You will find yourself so associated with the habit of identifying that it not only seems natural and normal to you, but it also seems foolish or unnecessary to break the habit. It seems perfectly natural to say: ‘this (pointing) is a chair’. In reality, ‘this’ is an energy system—a configuration of units of energy—which we label, call, or designate chair, in order that we may speak and communicate one with another about it. It serves no other purpose.

After receiving this instruction, if you would say to a guest, “Take this chair,” remembering that c-h-a-i-r is a word, a label for a configuration of units of energy, you might think, my! I should have said, “Be seated on what we call a chair.” But that might cause the guest to think you are peculiar; so we must continue to use the aristotelian language, but remember mentally (that is, consciously) to abstract by thinking, this is an energy system called chair, labeled chair etc. In our minds we should consciously abstract while under the necessity of using the language of identity.