Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Call Yourself a Child of God
To shift identity from a limited, reactive self to one’s own indwelling divine nature (‘the Christ in you’) by deliberately claiming it — declaring and then dwelling in the felt realization ‘I am a spiritual being with the power of peace, harmony, and overcoming within me at all times.
Claiming the Christ within in 5 lines: Turn attention inward — the power is a depth within you, not out there. Take the action step: call yourself a child of God. Declare it as fact: “I am a spiritual being with peace, harmony, and overcoming within me at all times.” Go within and rest in oneness until it is felt, not just said. Then meet the day as a creative source, returning to the identity whenever you’re triggered.
What it is
Eric Butterworth’s central thesis was that Jesus did not come to be worshipped as a unique exception but to reveal the divinity latent in every person — “the Christ that was in Jesus is the Christ in us,” what Paul called “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” From that thesis Butterworth drew a concrete, repeatable practice he called the action step: “call yourself a child of God.” Rather than treating divinity as an abstract belief, you claim it as your present identity — affirming and then resting in the realization that you are “a spiritual being with the potential for peace and harmony and overcoming within you at all times.” It belongs in embodiment state because the move is not chiefly to repeat words (affirmation) or imagine a scene (visualization) but to occupy a new sense of who you are — to stand in your divine identity until it becomes your operating state.
The Method
Faithfully synthesised from Discover the Power Within You (the divinity-of-man chapters and “the action step”):
- Accept the premise — the power is within, not out there. Butterworth’s starting point: stop looking to an external, distant God or to circumstances for your good. The kingdom, the power, the Christ, is an unexplored depth within you. Begin by turning attention inward.
- Take the action step — call yourself a child of God. Deliberately and personally claim your divine sonship/daughtership. Butterworth made this the first action: you “must call yourself a child of God,” affirming “that you are divine in potential.”
- Declare your spiritual identity. In Butterworth’s words, declare for yourself: “I am a spiritual being with the potential for peace and harmony and overcoming within me at all times.” Say it as a statement of fact about your nature, not a wish.
- Center in oneness — go within and commune. Quietly turn from the surface self to the indwelling Presence; rest in the realization of your oneness with God. This is the contemplative core: not arguing yourself into it, but settling into it until it is felt, not merely thought.
- Stand as a “dynamo of thought energy,” not a reactor. Butterworth taught that we are “not unthinking reactors to life, but dynamos of thought energy.” From the centered identity, meet the day as a creative source rather than a victim of conditions.
- Carry the identity into the situation. When difficulty, fear, or limitation arises, return to the claim: the Christ in me — peace, harmony, overcoming — is here now. Respond from that identity rather than from the reactive self. (Sourcing note: “the Christ in us,” “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” “call yourself a child of God,” “the action step,” the “spiritual being… peace and harmony and overcoming” declaration, and “dynamos of thought energy” are Butterworth’s, attributed. The numbered protocol is a faithful synthesis of his teaching, not a reproduction of his text.)
Source & Lineage
Eric Butterworth (1916–2003) was a Unity minister, leader of the Unity Center of New York, and author of sixteen books; Discover the Power Within You (1968) is his best-known work and was admired by Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey.
The “Christ within / divinity of man” teaching descends from the Unity founders (Charles and Myrtle Fillmore) and the wider New Thought reading of the Gospels as metaphysics (Emmet Fox, H.
Emilie Cady). It overlaps with Quimby’s original “the Christ is the science/truth in every person” and with the perennial “indwelling divine spark.”
The Traditions' versions
Unity “I AM the Christ” / decrees — claiming the indwelling Christ-Self; the immediate kin of this practice.
- Quaker “that of God in everyone” — the inward Light/divine indwelling as a lived orientation.
- Hindu Tat Tvam Asi (“Thou art That”) / So’ham — identity practice realizing the Self as the divine.
- Christian theosis / “putting on Christ” — becoming partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
- Neville’s “I AM” / assumption of identity — assuming the wished-for self as already true.
- Emmet Fox “the Christ in you” — New Thought scriptural metaphysics.
Common refinements
Reciting without realizing. The point is to feel and occupy the identity, not parrot a sentence. Slow down at step 4 until it lands.
- Externalizing the power again. The whole move is “the power is within.” Slipping back into petitioning an outside God undoes it.
- Grandiosity. “Divinity of man” is easily distorted into ego inflation. Butterworth meant a humble recognition of shared divine nature, not personal superiority — keep it as service-oriented, not status.
- Using it to bypass. Claiming “peace and overcoming” must not be a way to deny real grief, conflict, or problems that need action.
- One-and-done. It is an identity to return to, especially when triggered — daily practice plus in-the-moment recall.