What you are about to listen to in this first part of the video is an account by Conny Méndez herself, describing how she discovered metaphysics in the midst of a life-or-death situation involving her and her husband. She shares how she came across a small book that freed her and solved all the problems in her life. This book is exactly what you are about to listen to. Pay attention.
One night, I was with Conny in her private room at the Quinta El Javillo. I asked her, “Well, Conny, how did you start in metaphysics?” Conny, seated in her armchair with that regal air that always accompanied her, began to tell me, “We were in New York when World War II broke out, and my husband and I wanted to return to Venezuela, but we couldn’t find a way. Through some contacts, we found a way to travel on a cargo ship that was scheduled to stop in Puerto Cabello. We boarded, and on board, we found ourselves in circumstances similar to ours, along with the wise Henri Pittier and his wife, who also needed to travel to Venezuela.
We spent a week on the ship without being able to leave Manhattan Bay because a German submarine was lurking in the ocean, waiting to sink us along with our ship. There were many others heading to different parts of the world that also couldn’t leave. Finally, we set sail, hugging the coast, only navigating during the day, and stopping at night. All the lights were turned off so we wouldn’t be discovered. Inside the ship, there was a climate of anguish. Only Mrs. Pittier was singing with the sailors and seemed happy. I couldn’t take it anymore, and one day I grabbed her by the collar and said, ‘How can you be dancing like nothing is happening when we are in a war? Don’t you know that at any moment a German submarine could sink us?’ And Mrs. Pittier responded, ‘Nothing will happen to us because God is with us.’ I replied, ‘And why isn’t God with the soldiers in the war to keep them from being killed?’ Mrs. Pittier said, ‘Conny, since they don’t know they are with God, they don’t have His protection. God acts through consciousness.’
After many days of sailing, we finally arrived in Puerto Cabello, where the entire town was waiting for us. When we disembarked, people were saying, ‘You made it, you made it!’ That’s when we learned that out of the nine ships that left Manhattan, ours was the only one to reach its destination. I went to Mrs. Pittier again, grabbed her by the collar, and said, ‘You saved us! What do you know that gives you that power?’ And she told me, ‘Metaphysics.’ So I asked her to give me something to learn metaphysics, and she only gave me the little booklet, ‘The Golden Key’ by Emmet Fox. Conny, with an inflection in her voice, told me, ‘I spent 20 years reading just that little booklet, “The Golden Key,” and I managed to solve all my problems.’
After the war, I returned to New York, and one day, as I passed by the door of Carnegie Hall, I saw that Emmet Fox himself was giving a lecture. I went in, and eventually, I became his disciple. And here you see how the little booklet, “The Golden Key,” has led to all of Venezuela embracing metaphysics through my little book on metaphysics.
What you are about to hear is the very booklet, “The Golden Key,” the one Conny studied for 20 years and used to resolve all her problems. Therefore, pay close attention. I have condensed this text. If it were possible, I would have reduced it to five lines. It does not aim to be a treatise of instruction but a practical formula for freeing ourselves from difficulties. Study and research have their place, but neither will free you from any concrete difficulty.
Only through your own consciousness can you achieve this. The mistake many people make when things go wrong is to seek quick knowledge by skimming through books, and this gets you nowhere. Read “The Golden Key” several times. Do exactly what it says, and if you are persistent enough, you will overcome any difficulty. Emmet Fox’s scientific prayer will, sooner or later, make you capable of getting yourself or others out of any difficulty existing on the face of the Earth. It is the golden key to harmony and happiness. For those unfamiliar with the greatest power that exists, this may seem like a bold assertion.
But it will only take an honest trial to demonstrate, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is true. You don’t need to believe what you are told about it. Simply try it for yourself and you will see. God is omnipotent, and man is made in His image and likeness and has dominion over all things. This inspired teaching should be taken literally for its current value. Here, “man” means all and each of us, and therefore, the ability to wield this power is not the special prerogative of the mystic or the saint, as is often supposed, nor even of the best-trained practitioner of truth.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, the golden key to harmony is in your hands right now. The reason for this is that scientific prayer is God at work, not you, so your particular limitations and weaknesses don’t factor into the matter at all. You are merely the channel through which divine action takes place, and your conduct in receiving the benefits of this treatment will really be nothing more than stepping aside.
Beginners often achieve remarkable results on their first attempts because all that is absolutely essential is to maintain a receptive mind and enough faith to try the experiment. Besides that, you can hold any religious viewpoint or none at all, as the actual method of prayer, like all fundamental things, is the very essence of simplicity. All you have to do is this: stop thinking about the difficulty and instead think about God.
This is the complete rule. And if you do nothing but this, the difficulty, whatever it is, will soon disappear. There is no difference in the type of difficulty—it may be great, it may be small, it may concern health, finances, a lawsuit, a quarrel, a burning house, or any other conceivable thing. But whatever it is, simply stop thinking about it and instead think of God—that is all you have to do. Could anything be simpler? God Himself could hardly be simpler, yet it never fails when applied correctly. Do not try to form a mental image of God, which is, of course, impossible. Act by repeating everything you know about God: God is wisdom, truth, inconceivable love. God is present everywhere, has infinite power, knows everything, and so on. No matter how well you think you understand these things, repeat them without ceasing. But you must stop thinking about the difficulty. Whatever it is, the rule is to think of God, and if you are thinking of your difficulties, it is because you are not thinking of God.
Incessantly observing matters with suspicion to see how they are progressing is fatal because this amounts to thinking about the difficulty. And you must think about God and nothing else. Your goal should be to erase the difficulty from your consciousness, if only for a moment, by replacing it with the thought of God. This is the special part—if you can become absorbed in this consideration of the spiritual world so that you actually forget for a while all that relates to the difficulty that led you to pray, you will find yourself safely and comfortably free from that difficulty. If you want to apply “The Golden Key” to someone who annoys you or a difficult situation, think, “I am applying ‘The Golden Key’ to Pepe or Maria or this danger that threatens me.”
Then proceed to eliminate from your mind all thoughts related to Pepe, Maria, or the danger. Replace them with thoughts of God. If you do this with a person, it will not affect their behavior in any way except that it will prevent them from harming or disturbing you, and in doing so, you will only do them good. From then on, they will likely be a slightly better person, more enlightened and spiritual. Nothing more, because you have applied “The Golden Key” to them. A pending lawsuit or any other difficulty will probably vanish without becoming more serious, with justice being imparted to all involved.
If you can do this promptly, repeat the process at intervals several times a day. However, be sure that each time you do it, you withdraw all thoughts about the matter until the next occasion. This is very important. We have said that “The Golden Key” is simple, but of course, it is not always easy to apply. If you are very scared or worried, it may be difficult at first to distract your thoughts from material things, but by constantly repeating some expression of absolute truth that you consider important, such as “Only God’s power exists,” “I am a child of God, penetrated and enveloped in God’s perfect peace,” “God is love,” “God guides me,”
Or perhaps the simplest of all, “God is with me.” No matter how mechanical or useless this treatment may seem to you at first, you will soon realize that it begins to have an effect and that your mind becomes clear. Do not struggle violently, but with quiet persistence. Every time you find your attention wandering, direct it back to God. Do not try to outline in advance the solution that your problem must have. That would only delay the demonstration. Leave the matter of means and the final outcome strictly to God. What you want is to be free from the difficulty—that is enough. Do your part, and God will surely do His.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
