Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Entering Into the Closet
Withdraw from outer noise into a receptive inner stillness, there to feel the ‘inner consciousness of life’ and realize one’s unity with the one divine Life — as the calm ground from which right thinking and affirmation are done.
“Enter into thy closet and shut thy door” — withdraw from the outer clamour and sit quietly. Let the surface mind settle and turn to the “inner consciousness of life,” resting in the sense that “all life is one.” Begin with the inner life, outer life secondary, working “from cause to effect” — then do your affirmation and meet the day from that quiet.
What it is
For Patterson the inner life is primary and causal, so practice begins by going inward to a receptive stillness. He takes the Gospel image literally as a meditation instruction: “’Enter into thy closet, and. shut thy door.’ These are the words of Jesus.
What does he mean? He means that there is an inner consciousness of life.” The silence is where one withdraws from outer demand to feel that inner consciousness — and, in his unity teaching, to realize one’s life as one with the one divine Life.
It is also the seat from which his other practices operate: “We must begin with the inner life, making the outer life secondary. working from cause to effect.” Right thinking and affirmation are best done from this quiet ground.
The Method
Faithful to Patterson (The Will to Be Well, esp. “Mental Influences”):
- Withdraw and shut the door. Take Patterson’s image literally — “enter into thy closet, and shut thy door” — physically and mentally close out the outer clamour and the day’s demands.
- Settle into stillness. Sit quietly and let the surface activity of the mind subside; you are becoming receptive, not working at anything.
- Turn to the inner consciousness of life. Direct attention inward to what Patterson calls “an inner consciousness of life” — the quiet sense of being and aliveness beneath thought.
- Realize the one Life. Rest in his unity ground — “all life is one. in God we live and move and have our being” — feeling your life as not separate from the one Life.
- Begin from the inside. Hold his order of operations — “begin with the inner life, making the outer life secondary. working from cause to effect” — letting the outer concerns sit secondary while you rest in the inner.
- Carry the quiet out. Let the affirmation or right-thinking work, and the day itself, proceed from this settled stillness rather than from agitation. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are Patterson’s own words; the numbered structure is an attributed reconstruction of his teaching.)
Source & Lineage
Charles Brodie Patterson (1854-1917) drew the New Thought “silence” practice into his health teaching. The going-into-the-silence strand is broad in the movement — Trine, Dresser, the Fillmores, Hamblin — and traces back through the Quimby lineage’s emphasis on the receptive inner state. Contrast (don’t duplicate):
- The generic going-into-the-silence is the movement-wide template; this file is Patterson’s specific framing via the “closet” image and the “inner consciousness of life.”
- Dresser’s the power of silence is the philosophical, receptive-influx version; Patterson’s is plainer and tied directly to his health work as its calm starting point.
- Trine’s receptive silence emphasises a felt inflow; Patterson emphasises withdrawal to an inner consciousness of life and the inside-out order of cause and effect.
- Centering prayer / Christian contemplative forms share the “closet” root but are explicitly theistic-contemplative; Patterson’s is a New Thought unity realization.
Common refinements
Straining for an experience. The silence is receptive; trying to force a profound realization defeats it. Let the surface settle and simply rest.
- Skipping it and affirming from agitation. Patterson treats the silence as the ground for the other practices; affirming or right-thinking while still anxious is weaker.
- Treating calm as proof of metaphysics. A peaceful inner state is a state, not evidence of a divine Life or of bodily cure.
- Refinement: keep sessions short and regular rather than long and occasional; pair with affirmation.