Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, identified 12 spiritual abilities perfectly expressed by Jesus that are present in every person. He called them “The Twelve Powers of Man.” These 12 spiritual gifts can be used to transform your thoughts and feelings to create a meaningful and abundant life.

A Twelve Powers retreat will be held July 15–18, 2010, at Unity Village, Mo., to teach participants how to use the Twelve Powers to achieve spiritual growth and live from a higher level of consciousness. Presented by Rev. Dr. Paul Hasselbeck and Rev. Phil Pierson, the retreat is called PowerUp! The Twelve Powers Revisited as Accelerated Abilities.

Hasselbeck, the dean of Spiritual Education and Enrichment at Unity Village and host of the Unity.FM online radio program Metaphysical Romp, has taught classes about the Twelve Powers for a number of years to students around the world. “The Twelve Powers is by far the most concrete and practical way to raise consciousness and realize your innate Christ potential,” says Hasselbeck.

Pierson began his ministry in 1959 as an associate minister at the Unity Church in Seattle. He has founded and/or served several Unity ministries, introduced thousands of people to the concept of spiritual healing principles, and with his wife Dorothy pioneered the popular television show, The Best Is Yet To Be, a weekly program seen in a number of western states for 25 years.

Together Hasselbeck and Pierson will show retreat participants how they are already using the Powers every day and will explore the logic behind the Twelve Powers, where science and spirituality meet.

For people who are not able to attend the retreat, Hasselbeck recently led a 13-week webinar about the Twelve Powers. Archives of this course are available online.

Understanding the Twelve Powers
The Twelve Powers are present in every person. They include: Faith, Strength, Wisdom, Love, Power, Imagination, Understanding, Will, Order, Zeal, Elimination and Life.

The following excerpt from New Thought for a New Millennium: Twelve Powers for the 21st Century by Michael A. Maday provides a brief overview of the Powers.
 

What is meant by “the Christ” is “the fully awakened human being.” … It is the state of consciousness within us that is completely one with God. Jesus, the man from Galilee, born in Bethlehem, realized his true spiritual nature and became the Christ … showing us the way for each of us to know our Christ nature and to fully realize it.

When Unity and New Thought speak of the Christ, we do not generally have Jesus exclusively in mind. We are usually speaking of the divine potential that we are here on earth to realize. Charles Fillmore saw 12 pathways for realization of this one Truth; they are twelve paths that lead to the one mountain.

Fillmore also saw the 12 disciples of Jesus as symbolically representing each of these 12 pathways, these twelve powers of the Christ. He believed that each disciple manifested one aspect of the Christ more perfectly than any other and connected that power to that disciple. Peter became Faith; James became Wisdom; John, Love; Andrew, Strength; and so on. …

Just as Jesus tended to send his disciples out two by two (Luke 10:1) or in other combinations greater than one, the powers themselves do not truly work in isolation. If you contemplate it, you can see that the power of love needs the power of divine discrimination, of wisdom, to complement it. Faith works wonderfully well with understanding; imagination is activated by the power of order, and so on. In reality, all the powers are always at work, even when one seems to be predominating; all are really the Christ power manifesting itself in different ways. … The Christ is the vine, the powers are the branches, and the branches tend to intertwine.

Learn more about the PowerUp! retreat.

Access music, meditations, articles and other resources about the Twelve Powers at Unity's Online Twelve Powers Resource Center. 

Order your free copy of Discover Your God-Given Potential: 12 Spiritual Abilities to Change Your Life, a new booklet about the Twelve Powers from Unity.