Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Decreeing Perfect Health
To occupy and hold the felt state of wholeness by affirming perfect health with conviction, impressing the subconscious with an image of healing — strictly as an adjunct to medical care.
In 5 lines: Stop rehearsing the illness. Pick a short present-tense statement of wholeness. Relax, and repeat it feelingly with conviction for ~5 minutes, two to three times daily, giving thanks. Persist for weeks. Keep all medical care — this supports treatment, it does not replace it.
What it is
Murphy’s healing practice: rather than dwelling on symptoms, you repeatedly affirm and inwardly occupy a state of wholeness and perfect health, with calm conviction, so the subconscious receives an image of health rather than sickness.
Murphy’s own oft-cited example is his recovery from a skin condition by repeating a short statement of faith in his subconscious healing power, with thanks, several minutes a few times daily over months. He framed bodily healing as the subconscious “intelligence that made the body” responding to a confident mental pattern of health.
In this knowledge base it is documented strictly as a mind-body adjunct, not as a cure.
The Method
A faithful reconstruction of Murphy’s healing affirmation:
- Refuse to rehearse the illness. Stop dramatizing symptoms and fearful diagnoses in the mind; Murphy held that fearful attention impresses sickness on the subconscious.
- Choose a short, present-tense statement of wholeness. For example: “The healing intelligence within me is now transforming every cell of my body; I am whole, perfect, and well.” Murphy used statements acknowledging the subconscious as the maker and healer of the body.
- Enter a calm, relaxed state. Sit or lie quietly, easing body and mind — the receptive condition in which suggestion takes best.
- Affirm slowly, feelingly, with conviction. Repeat the statement for about five minutes, meaning it, building the feeling of wholeness — not arguing with it, not straining.
- Add thanksgiving and trust. Close by giving thanks for the healing as already underway, then release it; Murphy stressed faith and confidence over anxious checking.
- Repeat two to three times daily, persistently. His example ran several weeks to months; this is conditioning, not a one-time decree.
- Continue all medical care throughout. (Documentation note: Murphy’s era underplayed this; the responsible framing — and this library’s rule — is that the affirmation runs alongside professional treatment.) (Sourcing note: short illustrative phrasing above paraphrases Murphy’s consistently-taught healing method; the exact decree wording is a representative example, not a verbatim quotation.)
Source & Lineage
Joseph Murphy (1898–1981) inherited mental healing from the New Thought / mind-cure tradition — Phineas Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science (which Murphy departed from by retaining medicine in principle), Emma Curtis Hopkins, and the Fillmores’ Unity. “Decreeing” and “affirming wholeness” are core New Thought treatment moves.
Common refinements
Using it to avoid the doctor. The single most dangerous error. It is an add-on, never a substitute.
- Affirming health while inwardly terrified. A statement contradicted by felt fear plants a counter-suggestion. Build the calm feeling first.
- Straining or “willing” the cure. Force breeds tension; ease and conviction work better.
- One-shot decreeing. This is sustained conditioning, not a magic sentence.
- Denying real symptoms. Affirming wholeness is not pretending pain isn’t there; report symptoms honestly to clinicians.
- Guilt if it “doesn’t work.” Illness is not a moral failure of belief — a harmful corollary to reject.