The Statement of Being

1. Begin from the whole, not the problem. Before treating any condition or making any other affirmation, state the foundation: “God is all, both invisible and visible. One Presence, One Mind, One Power is all.” Cramer taught that this truth must be accepted “not merely intellectually, but as a foundation principle by which to live.”
2. Declare being, not becoming. The statement is present-tense and absolute — God is the all-good, equally present everywhere, now. You are not asking God to become present; you are recognizing a presence Cramer held to be already total.
3. Include yourself in it. Bring the statement home: as Cramer phrased her own realization, “I realized It to be my Life, my Being, my health, knowledge and power.” The one Being is declared as the substance of your own life, not a power outside you.
4. Hold until felt. Stay with the statement, repeating and resting in it, until it settles from a recited sentence into a felt conviction — until, in Divine Science language, you “feel the truth” of it.
5. Repeat daily and on rising. Cramer’s Basic Statements treats such statements as a regular discipline; the conviction is installed by steady repetition, especially first thing each morning and whenever the opposite (fear, lack, sickness) presses in. (Sourcing note: “limitless Being, God, is Good, is equally present everywhere, and is the All of everything” and “I realized It to be my Life, my Being, my health, knowledge and power” are attributed to Cramer; “One Presence, One Mind, One Power is all” is the representative Divine Science Statement of Being. The five-step shaping is attributed paraphrase, not a numbered list in the original.)

Malinda Cramer (1844-1906) co-founded Divine Science after her own reported healing in 1885, establishing the Home College of Divine Science in San Francisco and publishing Harmony.

She set out the foundation truth in Lessons in the Science of Infinite Spirit, and the Christ Method of Healing (1890), revised as Divine Science and Healing (1902), and gathered her affirmations in Basic Statements and Health Treatment of Truth (1917).

The Statement of Being became the doctrinal keynote of the Divine Science denomination carried forward by Fannie James and the Brooks sisters.

A short, absolute declaration of the one Reality — affirmed until conviction — recurs across the affirmation traditions, but Cramer’s is distinctively a statement of being (what IS), not a petition, a decree to get, or an instruction to the subconscious:

• Nona Brooks’ affirmation-and-denial and realizing omnipresence — the same Divine Science oneness, but Brooks’s emphasis is realizing the Presence in the moment/problem; Cramer’s is stating the whole truth of being as the standing premise.,
• Emma Curtis Hopkins / Cady / Myrtle Fillmore denials-and-affirmations — Cramer’s teacher-lineage; the foundation statement is the affirmation half held as ground.,
• Moses “declaring oneness” (the Shema) — declaring the One as the first act of the day.
• Rama Tirtha “I am the Infinite” — affirming identity with the one Being.

Stopping at the intellect. Cramer was explicit that the truth must be lived “as a foundation principle,” not merely conceded as an idea; hold the statement until it is felt.

• Turning it into a petition. It is a statement of what is, not a request for what should be; phrasing it as “please make.” collapses the practice.
• Arguing with the symptom. The Statement of Being affirms the whole; quarrelling with the specific appearance belongs (if anywhere) to the treatment, not to the foundation statement.
• Affirming against reality with gritted teeth. The aim is recognition and inner steadiness, not strained denial of facts; pair it with practical action.
• Using it once. Cramer’s framework is a daily discipline; the conviction comes from steady repetition, especially on rising.