Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Bailes' Seven Steps of Spiritual Mind Treatment (the 'Seven R's')
To erase from one’s own mind every picture of imperfection or lack and reach an inner state of ‘realization’ — calm, settled certainty that the perfect outcome already IS — then release it to be expressed.
Bailes’ Seven R’s: (1) Relax the body.
(2) Recognize the one Universal Mind.
(3) Unify — you are one with it.
(4) Reason your way out of every doubt until no argument against the good remains.
(5) Realize — hold the quiet, settled certainty that it IS so.
(6) Release it; you don’t run the mechanism.
(7) Rejoice — give thanks as if done. Repeat daily until knowing replaces arguing. Alongside, never instead of, medical care.
What it is
Frederick W. Bailes — a New-Zealand-born former medical-missionary trainee who attributed his own recovery from diabetes (before insulin) to mental work after reading Thomas Troward — became one of the most systematic teachers of “spiritual mind treatment” in the Science of Mind movement, serving alongside Ernest Holmes.
A treatment in Bailes’ system is not a prayer of supplication and not a willed affirmation repeated by force. It is a disciplined, reasoned mental procedure whose sole aim is to change the practitioner’s own mind — to remove from it every idea or picture of imperfection — until a state of quiet, unargued certainty (he calls it realization) is reached.
He organizes the procedure into a sequence often remembered as the “Seven R’s.” The governing premise: the person treated for is “a perfect idea in the Mind of God,” and the work is simply to clear one’s own consciousness of the contrary picture.
The Method
Bailes lays out the steps as a movement from physical quieting to inner conviction to release. The widely cited sequence:
- Relaxation. Sit or recline in a position that lets the body go quiet and the mind settle. Bailes is emphatic that strain and effort defeat treatment; you cannot reach realization from a tense, anxious place. Let go physically first.
- Recognition. Recognize what you are speaking into — that there is one Universal Mind/Intelligence, everywhere present, and you are “not speaking into a void.” This step establishes the medium in which the treatment works.
- Unification. Recognize your own oneness with that Mind — that you are not separate from it, pleading to a distant power, but an expression of it. (Some of Bailes’ presentations fold this into Recognition; he treats the union of the treater with Universal Mind as essential before reasoning begins.)
- Reasoning (Argument). This is Bailes’ distinctive contribution. You reason your way out of doubt. You do not merely assert health; you argue the case in your own mind — marshalling the truth (the person’s real nature is perfect; the condition is a false belief, not a fixed fact) and dissolving every objection, fear, and contrary picture as it arises, until the mind has no remaining argument against the desired truth. Treatment for Bailes is “clear thinking” — a courtroom of the mind in which the verdict of perfection is made unassailable.
- Realization. The reasoning is not finished when you run out of words; it is finished when you feel the shift — arriving at “a place of quiet, calm assurance,” an inner knowing that the truth is so. This felt certainty (not verbal repetition) is the active ingredient. You hold there.
- Release. Let it go entirely. You are not responsible for the outcome or the mechanism — only for building the clear picture and removing doubt. Hand the realized picture over to the Creative Mind to bring into form, and stop straining toward a result. (This is Bailes’ guard against the law of reversed effort.)
- Rejoice (Thanksgiving). Give thanks as though it is already done — not to flatter or persuade the Mind, but to confirm and seal your own conviction that “the entire situation is resolved in exactly the right and ideal way.” Repeat the whole treatment daily (or several times daily) until the realization is stable and you no longer need to argue — you simply know. (Sourcing note: the Seven-R sequence and the quoted phrases — “a perfect idea in the Mind of God,” “not speaking into a void,” “quiet, calm assurance,” “resolved in exactly the right and ideal way” — are Bailes’ documented method from Your Mind Can Heal You and his Science of Mind course. Faithful paraphrase; only short phrases quoted.)
Source & Lineage
Frederick W. Bailes (1889-1970), born in New Zealand, trained as a medical missionary; diagnosed with diabetes before insulin, he credited Troward’s writings and mental treatment for his recovery.
He became Assistant Dean of the Science of Mind Institute in Los Angeles under Ernest Holmes and one of the movement’s leading lecturers.
His Seven-Step treatment is a refined, teachable version of Holmes’ five-step treatment (recognition, unification, realization, thanksgiving, release), with Bailes’ added emphasis on reasoning/argument as the engine.
The Traditions' versions
Holmes’ Five-Step Treatment (Science of Mind) — the direct parent; recognition → unification → realization → thanksgiving → release.
- Troward’s “right thinking” — Bailes’ philosophical source; the reasoned conviction that mind precedes manifestation.
- Affirmative prayer (Unity / Fillmore) — declaring the good as already true, with thanksgiving.
- Coué’s autosuggestion — shares the “don’t force it / release” insight, but Bailes adds explicit reasoning rather than mechanical repetition.
- CBT cognitive restructuring — the secular cousin of Bailes’ “Reasoning” step: identifying and disputing a distressing belief until it loses its grip.
Common refinements
Repeating words instead of reasoning to conviction. Treatment is finished at the felt shift (realization), not at a word count. If you don’t feel the quiet certainty, keep reasoning — or stop and try later.
- Treating from tension/desperation. Skipping relaxation poisons the whole thing; the anxious “I MUST fix this” state is the opposite of realization.
- Refusing to release. Anxiously checking for results re-engages doubt and reversed effort. After thanksgiving, drop it.
- Arguing AT the problem. The point is not to fight the symptom but to establish the truth so firmly that the contrary picture has nothing to stand on.
- Using it instead of medicine. The single dangerous error. Treat and see your doctor.