Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
The Self-Healing Realization
In a state of stuck suffering, sit in earnest inquiry — ‘Is there any power that can free me?’ — and turn from the body’s testimony of illness to the felt realization that one’s own Life and Being IS the omnipresent Spirit, holding that identity until conviction settles.
When suffering and out of options, sit in earnest: “Is there any power that can free me?” Settle on one premise — there is one omnipresent Spirit. Turn from the body’s testimony of sickness and realize the identity: “I am that Omnipresence; It is my Life, my Being, my health and power.” Hold until it is felt as release, return to it daily — and keep your medical care the whole way.
What it is
This is the founding practice of Divine Science: the actual inner move Malinda Cramer made in 1885, after roughly twenty years of chronic invalidism, that she described as the beginning of her recovery and the seed of her whole teaching.
It is not a general “practice of the Presence” applied to a passing problem (that is closer to Nona Brooks’ form) but a self-directed realization undertaken from inside long suffering: sitting in earnest, almost desperate inquiry, then turning attention away from the body’s testimony of sickness and toward the felt recognition that one’s own Life and Being is not the failing body at all but the one omnipresent Spirit.
Its distinctive note is the identity claim — not “God is here helping me” but, in Cramer’s words, “I was that Omnipresence which lies back of all form” and “I realized It to be my Life, my Being, my health, knowledge and power.” The body’s report is demoted; the deeper Self is realized as whole.
The Method
Faithfully reconstructed from Cramer’s account of 1885:
- Come to the end of the old props. Cramer began only when ordinary means had failed and the suffering was acute. The practice starts from honest desperation, not casual interest — she gave it “an hour in earnest meditation and prayer.”
- Ask the real question. She asked, sincerely: “Is there any way out of these conditions? Is there any power in the vast universe that can heal me?” The inquiry is genuine, not rhetorical — it opens the mind to an answer.
- Receive the premise. Her response was the realization that “if I got well it would be by the power of the Infinite Spirit” — affirming “the Infinitude, Omnipresence, and Allness of God; that God is Spirit.” Settle on this one premise: there is one all-present Spirit.
- Turn from the body’s testimony. Deliberately withdraw attention from the picture and felt-report of the sick body as the truth of who you are. The body’s verdict is no longer treated as the final word on your being.
- Realize the identity. Move from “Spirit is present” to the felt recognition “I am that”: “I was that Omnipresence which lies back of all form”; “It is my Life, my Being, my health, knowledge and power.” Rest as the undivided, whole awareness rather than as the suffering form.
- Hold to felt conviction, and return. Stay until it is felt as real release, not merely thought; then return to it again and again over the following days. Cramer described her freedom as beginning in that hour and her recovery unfolding over the following two years. (Sourcing note: “Is there any way out of these conditions? Is there any power in the vast universe that can heal me?”, “I realized It to be my Life, my Being, my health, knowledge and power”, “the Infinitude, Omnipresence, and Allness of God; that God is Spirit”, and “I was that Omnipresence which lies back of all form” are attributed to Cramer’s own account. The six-step shaping is attributed paraphrase, not a numbered list in the original.)
Source & Lineage
Malinda Cramer (1844-1906) dated the birth of Divine Science to this 1885 realization, which freed her from “the belief that her medical condition controlled her” and over two years accompanied her recovery.
She studied with Emma Curtis Hopkins, systematized the experience as Lessons in the Science of Infinite Spirit, and the Christ Method of Healing (1890) / Divine Science and Healing (1902), and built the denomination on it with Fannie James and the Brooks sisters.
The realization is the experiential root behind her two teaching practices — the Statement of Being and the Christ Method of Healing.
The Traditions' versions
Turning from the testimony of the suffering body/ego to the realization “I am the deeper, undivided Self” recurs across nondual and New Thought lines; Cramer’s is distinctive as a self-healing realization driven by acute illness and culminating in an explicit identity claim:
- Nona Brooks’ realizing omnipresence — the same Divine Science oneness, but applied as “God is present in this moment/problem” rather than as Cramer’s “I am that Omnipresence.”
- Rama Tirtha “I am the Infinite” / Shankara “Aham Brahmasmi” — the Vedantic identity-realization Cramer’s claim echoes.,
- Hamblin’s real-self realization — disidentifying from the limited self to rest in the true Self.
- Sedona “diving into the core” / Merrell-Wolff’s high indifference — releasing into the ground beneath the troubled self.,
Common refinements
Faking the desperation or the realization. Cramer’s move came from genuine inquiry; performing it as a technique-to-get-healed reinstates the very grasping it releases.
- Denying the body rather than reidentifying. The shift is where you locate your “I,” not pretending the body or its needs don’t exist; keep eating, resting, and getting care.
- Treating the felt release as proof of cure. A powerful experience is not a diagnosis; do not stop treatment because the realization felt real.
- One-and-done. Cramer returned to it over two years; the conviction deepens with repeated holding, not a single peak.
- Forcing it. Realization is allowed, not strained into being; relax the effort and let the identity settle.