Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Evans's Identification with the Real Self
To shift identity from the diseased body to the spiritual real self — already whole, well, and divine — so that disease loses its claimed ground in ‘the true self’.
Evans’s real-self identification in 4 lines: Distinguish the real self (spirit, “included in God”) from the body (appearance). Take your stand as the spiritual self that is already whole — “I am neither sick nor unhappy” — recalling it is imperishable and cannot be diseased. Let the body follow the changed self-concept; meet symptoms from that standpoint, all day. (A reframe for fear, not a cure — keep your medical care.)
What it is
Where the changed-belief method withdraws belief from disease, this practice supplies the positive identity to stand in: Evans teaches that “man is already a spirit, and not merely sometime to become one,” and that this spiritual real self is whole, well, and divine by nature.
You identify with the soul, not the diseased body — so disease, belonging only to the outer “appearance,” loses its foothold in what you take yourself to be. His sharpest formulation: “the best remedy for disease. is to find out that I am neither sick nor unhappy,” because “our true being is included in God, and there is no evil in Him.” This is the foundational “I am whole / made in the image of God” identification that runs through all later New Thought.
The Method
Faithful to Evans (Primitive Mind-Cure, Mental Cure):
- Distinguish the two selves. Evans separates the real self (spirit, soul, “included in God”) from the appearance (the body and its states). “If then we are diseased, and sinful, and unhappy, it is not in our true self. but are appearances only.” Begin by deliberately drawing this line.
- Affirm the real self as it truly is. Take your stand as the spiritual self that is already whole. Evans’s affirmation-of-being: “I am neither sick nor unhappy” — said not as a sense-report but as the truth of your deeper identity “included in God, and there is no evil in Him.” 3. Recall its imperishable nature. Steady the identification with Evans’s imagery of the indestructible self: “No weapons will hurt the self of man; no fire will burn it. It is imperishable, unchanging, immovable.” The real you cannot be diseased.
- Let the body follow the changed self-concept. Because for Evans “a man. is only the expression or external translation of his thoughts and ideas,” re-rooting identity in the well, divine self is meant to re-express outwardly as health. You hold the standpoint and let the body conform — you do not argue with symptoms.
- Wear it as a standpoint, not a slogan. The work is to live from the real self all day — meeting symptoms, fear, and limitation from the settled sense of “this is appearance; I, the real self, am whole.” (Sourcing note: all bracketed quotes are Evans’s own wording from the 1869/1885 texts, attributed. Connective explanation is faithful paraphrase. The Bhagavad-Gita-flavoured “no weapons will hurt” passage is Evans quoting/echoing scripture within Primitive Mind-Cure.)
Source & Lineage
Evans (1817–1889) built this from Swedenborg (the spiritual man as the real man), a Berkeleyan idealism (the body as idea/appearance), and Quimby’s practice. It predates and seeds the entire New Thought identity-affirmation line: Cady’s “I am a child of God, therefore whole,” Eddy’s “man is spiritual and perfect,” Holmes’s spiritual mind treatment, and the modern “I am” enthronement and identity-shift practices.
Evans is the earliest form — affirming the real self as already well, before the body.
Common refinements
Spiritual bypass / denial. “I am never really sick” can curdle into ignoring real illness. Evans’s claim is about ultimate identity, not a denial that the body needs care. Hold both: the real self is whole and the body still sees a doctor.
- Slogan without standpoint. Reciting “I am whole” while still identified with the frightened body does little; the shift is one of standpoint, lived.
- Using it to suppress emotion. Calm dis-identification, not forced positivity. You are not pretending not to feel; you are locating the “I” more deeply.
- Refinement: combine with Evans’s interior receptivity to find the real self in stillness before affirming from it.