Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Bailes' Seven-Step Mental Treatment
Heal a condition by building and holding, wholly in one’s own mind, a clear ‘mental equivalent’ of the perfect True Idea, removing every inner picture of imperfection.
The seven R’s: Relax → Recognise → Relate → Release → Rejoice → Realise → Repeat. Build a clear inner picture of perfection, erase every image of sickness, release it to Creative Mind, give thanks, and hold the conviction.
What it is
Frederick W. Bailes’s distinctive form of Science of Mind treatment, set out in Your Mind Can Heal You (1941). Unlike the generic five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment, Bailes’s version is explicitly a wholly mental discipline done inside the practitioner’s own consciousness: the entire task is to build a clear mental equivalent of perfection — the “True Idea” that the person is a perfect idea in the Mind of God — and to erase from one’s own mind every picture of sickness or imperfection.
Nothing is done to the patient; the work is the practitioner’s inner change. Bailes codified it into seven steps, the seven “R’s.”
The Method
Bailes taught that treatment “starts with the fundamental truth that the person for whom we are treating is a perfect idea in the Mind of God, and our whole procedure during a treatment is intended to remove from our own mind any idea or picture of imperfection or sickness.” The seven steps:
- Relaxation. Assume a position that assures physical relaxation and a quiet mind.
- Recognition. Recognise you are not speaking into a void — you are surrounded by a Creative Mind that receives the thought embodied in your words and works to bring it into form.
- Relationship. Consciously unify with that Creative Mind, knowing that you, the one treated for, and this Mind are one.
- Release. You are not responsible for the outcome. Your only task is to build a clear picture of perfection and remove all doubt about it, then release that picture to the Creative Mind.
- Rejoice. Give thanks for the success of the treatment — not to influence Mind, but to confirm your own belief that the situation is already resolved.
- Realisation. Hold the inner conviction (the “embodiment”) that the perfect True Idea is the only reality, until it feels settled and certain.
- Repetition. Treat again as needed, repeating the work until contrary belief clears and the mental equivalent holds. (Sourcing note: steps 1–5 follow Bailes’s documented seven “R’s” and quoted opening; the realisation/repetition emphasis paraphrases his teaching that treatment is held to conviction and repeated.)
Source & Lineage
Frederick W. Bailes (1889–1970) was Assistant Dean of the Science of Mind Institute under Ernest Holmes and led a large Religious Science congregation in Los Angeles.
His seven-step method systematises Holmes’s treatment into a strictly inward, mental-equivalent procedure. Compare the generic form.
Common refinements
Working on the patient, not your own mind. The whole method is inward; the change is in the practitioner’s consciousness.
- Holding the picture of sickness. Dwelling on the symptom reinforces the very image you must erase.
- Skipping Release. Anxious watching of results contradicts the act of releasing to Mind.
- One pass and stopping. Bailes taught repeated treatment until doubt clears and the equivalent is firmly held.