Emotional Release · “Die to Be Reborn”
The Law of Forgiveness
Locate and uproot the ‘harbored’ guilt, resentment, or grievance lodged in memory — by forsaking the underlying thought, genuinely forgiving (self and others), and making amends where needed — so the suppressed emotion stops generating distress and ‘sickness of mind and body.
Law of Forgiveness in brief: When peace won’t come, search your memory for the harbored guilt or resentment lodged there. Go to the cause, not the symptom. Then forgive (others and yourself, without limit), forsake the underlying thought/desire that prompted it — “a sin forsaken is a sin forgiven” — and forget it so healthy thoughts can fill the space. Where a real wrong stands between you and another, make amends. Release others from “debt.” Then go and sin no more — keep the garden clear.
What it is
Holliwell’s Law of Forgiveness (epigraph: “Forgive, and you shall be forgiven,” Luke 6:37) treats a sin as simply “a mistake, a misunderstanding, and a misjudgment” — a falling-short of law — and treats unforgiven guilt or resentment as a harbored thought that lodges in memory and “burns like acid,” producing “sickness and distress in mind and body.” Forgiveness is the act of clearing it.
His operative definition: “Forgiveness of sin means that we must forgive, forsake, and forget that thought or person or condition which prompted the sin.” The decisive move is uprooting, not trimming: like a weed, a guilty or resentful thought “must be pulled out — top, stock, root and all,” because cutting it off at the surface (“surface remedies”) lets it “sprout again.” This is presented as an emotional-release and mental-clearing practice with a striking somatic rationale.
The Method
Faithfully assembled from Holliwell’s “Law of Forgiveness” chapter:
- Search your memory for the harbored, hidden thought. When understanding or peace won’t come, “first search your mind for lurking, unforgiving thoughts that have been tucked away from your notice.” Ask directly: “Is your thought realm filled with resentment that you may hold against some person or condition? Have you a feeling that you have been slighted.?” Look also for self-directed guilt — the buried mistake you “could never forgive yourself” for.
- Go to the cause, not the symptom. Don’t study “the physical actions or the results of the Sin alone” — that “leads to nowhere,” “running around in circles.” Find “some harbored, hidden, and forgotten shock or condition” beneath the distress. “Unless this harbored thought is uprooted. this condition will continue to appear again and again.”
- Forgive — without limit. Holliwell cites Jesus’ “seventy times seven”: forgiveness “must be as limitless as Faith, Hope and Love.” Extend it to others and yourself. He frames it as self-liberating: “A man who is great enough to forgive is always greater than the forgiven.”
- Forsake the thought that prompted it. This is the crux: “A sin forsaken is a sin forgiven when the thought or idea that prompted the sin is corrected.” Using his drinker example — the man is freed only when he “forsakes, not the drink alone, but the desire for the drink.” Abandon and let go of the underlying idea/desire, not just the outward act.
- Forget — refuse to keep re-holding it. Empty the “old bottle” so new wine can be poured: certain ideas “must be dissolved and cleared from the mind in order that other ideas of a different character may replace them.” Stop rehearsing the grievance; let the cleared space fill with “healthy and happy thoughts.”
- Where appropriate, make amends / “make a clean breast of it.” His central healing story: a man dying of melancholia over money secretly taken from his brother was healed only when he confessed and reconciled — “the rooted sorrow had been plucked from his memory.” Where a real wrong stands between you and another, disclosure or amends may be the act that releases the pressure. (See safety caveat — judge this carefully.)
- Release others from debt — including financial-grievance consciousness. “He who does not in his own thought release all men who owe him stands liable, himself, to fall into debt.” Inwardly cancel what others “owe” you (emotionally, and where you choose, materially), so you stop living in “debt consciousness.”
- Then ‘go and sin no more.’ Having uprooted the thought, keep the garden clear: don’t re-plant the resentment or guilt; live the law continually, since “it is in the school of forgiveness that the lessons of life are learned.” (Sourcing note: faithful paraphrase with short identifying phrases quoted; no extended passages reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
Dr. Raymond Holliwell (1900–1986), New Thought / Divine Science; Working with the Law (1964). The chapter draws on Jesus’ teaching (the palsied man healed via forgiveness; “seventy times seven”; “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”), Solomon (“a sin forsaken is a sin forgiven”), and James on lust→sin, and cites period psychology (Prof.
Elmer Gates’ emotion/perspiration experiments; physicians on suppressed grief). It restates the New Thought conviction that mind causes bodily conditions and the mental-healing lineage of Quimby, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Charles Fillmore (Unity), and Emmet Fox (“forgiveness” / “the seven-day mental diet”).
Later taught within the Bob Proctor study-course tradition.
The Traditions' versions
Forgiveness interventions (Enright; Worthington’s REACH) — the evidence-based clinical version of forgive/release.
- Ho’oponopono (Hawaiian) — repentance, forgiveness, release of harbored wrongs.
- Confession / making amends (Christianity; AA Steps 4–9) — disclosure and amends to relieve guilt; Holliwell’s brothers’ story is the AA “amends” dynamic.
- The Work / inquiry (Byron Katie) — finding and dissolving the stressful believed thought beneath a grievance.
- Emmet Fox’s mental diet / forgiveness — clearing resentment as a healing practice.
Common refinements
Trimming the surface, not uprooting. Forgiving the act while keeping the underlying resentment/desire (the “root”) lets it regrow. Forsake the prompting thought.
- Forgiving as a one-time declaration. Real release is a process; expect to revisit it. “Go and sin no more” means keep the garden clear.
- Confusing forgiveness with reconciliation or excusing. You can release resentment without contacting, trusting, or absolving an abuser. Holliwell’s emphasis is on freeing you.
- Forcing premature confession. “Make a clean breast of it” healed the brothers — but disclosure has consequences and isn’t always safe or wise. Judge each case (see safety).
- Self-flagellation instead of self-forgiveness. The buried guilt is often against oneself; the law applies inwardly too.