Chapter 2
Mind-Stuff Experiments
In order to get a clearer understanding of our subject, the reader should give thought to thought itself and to its phenomena. No one knows what thought really is, other than it is some sort of mental action; but, like the unknown element, electricity, we see its manifestations everywhere. We see it in the actions and expressions of a child, in an aged person, in animals, and, in fact, to varying degrees in every living thing. The more we contemplate and study thought, the more we realize what a terrific force it is and how unlimited are its powers.
Glance around as you read this. If you are in a furnished room, your eyes tell you that you are looking at a number of inanimate objects. That is true so far as visual perception is concerned; but in reality you are actually looking at thoughts or ideas which have come into materialization through the creative work of some human being. It was a thought, first, that created the furniture, fashioned the window glass, gave form to the draperies and coverings.
The automobile, the skyscraper, the great planes that sweep the stratosphere, the sewing machine, the tiny pin, a thousand and one things --yes, millions of objects-- where did they come from originally? Only one source. From that strange force --thought. As we analyze further, we realize that these achievements, and in fact all of our possessions, came as a result of creative thinking. Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that the ancestor of every action is thought; when we understand that, we begin to comprehend that our world is governed by thought and that everything without had its counterpart originally within the mind. It is just as Buddha said many centuries ago: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”
Your very life is your thinking and the result of your thinking processes. Your flesh, bones, and muscles can be reduced to 70 per cent water and a few chemicals of small value, but it is your mind and what you think that makes you what you are. The secret of success lies not without, but within, the thoughts of man.
Figuratively, thought makes giants out of pigmies, and often turns giants into pigmies. History is filled with accounts of how thought has made weak men strong and strong men weak, and we see evidence of its working around us constantly.
You do not eat, wear clothes, run for a bus, drive your automobile, go for a walk, or read a newspaper --you don’t even raise your arm-- without a preceding thought impulse. While you may consider the motions you make as more or less automatic, perhaps caused by some physical reflexes, behind every single step you take in life, regardless of its direction, is that formidable and powerful force --thought.
The very way you walk, the way you carry yourself, your talk, your manner of dress, all reflect your way of thinking. A slovenly carriage is an indication of slovenly thinking, whereas an alert, upright carriage is the outward sign of inward strength and confidence. What you exhibit outwardly, you are inwardly. You are the product of your own thought. What you believe yourself to be, you are.
Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement. Without it there would be no great empires, no great fortunes, no great transcontinental rail lines, no modern conveniences; in fact, there would be no advance over life in the most primitive ages.
Your thoughts, those that predominate, determine your character, your career, indeed your everyday life. Thus it becomes easy to understand what is meant by the statement that a man’s thoughts make or break him. And when we realize that there can be no action or reaction, either good or bad, without the generating force of thought initiating it, the Biblical saying, “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” and Shakespeare’s words, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so,” become more intelligible.
Sir Arthur Eddington, the famous English physicist, says that to an altogether unsuspected extent the universe in which we live is a creation of our minds; while the late Sir James Jeans, who was equally famous in the same field, suggested that the universe was merely a creation that resulted from the thought of some great universal mind underlying and coordinating all of our minds. Nothing is clearer than that the world’s greatest scientists and thinkers of our age are not only voicing the ideas of the wisest men of old, but that they are confirming the fundamental principle of this book.
Almost since the beginning of the human race, the molding of men has been done by those who knew something of thought’s great power. All the great religious leaders, kings, warriors, statesmen have understood this science and have known that people act as they think and also react to the thought of others, especially when it is stronger and more convincing than their own. Accordingly, men of powerful dynamic thought have ever swayed the people by appealing to their minds, sometimes to lead them into freedom and sometimes into slavery. There never was a period in history when we should study our thoughts more, try to understand them, and learn how to use them to improve our position in life, by drawing upon the great source of power that lies within each of us.
There was a time when I would have laughed at people who talked about the magnetic force of thought, how thought correlates with its object, how it can affect people and inanimate things, even at great distances. But I no longer laugh, nor do others who know something of its power, for anyone who has any intelligence sooner or later comes to the realization that thought can change the surface of the entire globe.
The late George Russell, famous Irish editor and poet, was quoted as saying that we become what we contemplate. Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage, and he certainly demonstrated it in his own life by becoming a great writer, lecturer, painter, and poet.
However, it must be borne in mind that many of our ideas, the thoughts we think, are not ours at all, or those of our originating. We are moulded also by the thoughts of others; by what we hear in our social life, what we read in newspapers, magazines, and books, what we hear in the movies, the theatre, and on the radio; even by chance remarks from the conversation of bystanders --and these thoughts bombard us constantly. Some of them that accord with our own inmost thoughts and also open the way to greater visions in our life are helpful. But often there are thoughts that are upsetting, that weaken our self-confidence, and turn us away from our high purposes. It is these outside thoughts that are the trouble makers, and later I shall point out how you can keep free of them.
Few people give much thought to the law of cause and effect as applicable to the operation of the mind, or comprehend what is meant when they hear such thoughts as, “Everything is within; nothing is without” or “Mind is the source of all power,” and so on. I believe that no better explanation of this can be given than appeared in an article published in the Commercial and Financial Chronicle (Dec. 10, 1932). This publication has been known for more than a hundred years as the “Bible of business and finance,” and with the permission of Herbert D. Seibert, editor and publisher, I quote it in part. It is entitled “El Dorado.”
El Dorado, a country rich beyond all precedent in gold and jewels, lies at every man’s door. Your bonanza lies under your feet. You luck is ready at hand. All in within; nothing is without, though it often appears that men and peoples by dumb luck or avarice or force or over-reaching strike upon the sea of prosperity… Man individually and collectively is entitled to life in all abundance. It is a most evident fact. Religion and philosophy assert it; history and science prove it. “That they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly,” is the law. What do you seek? Pay the price and take it away. There is no limit to the supply, but the more precious the thing you seek the higher the price. For everything we obtain we must barter the gold of our own spirits…
Where to find the gold of the All Powerful? One secures the gold of the spirit when he finds himself. When he finds himself, he finds freedom and all riches, achievement, and prosperity. High sounding talk? No, the most palpable evidence of American history and biography, of all history. The concrete proof is apparent even in current events if we but open our eyes. Nothing substantial, lasting, powerful, or moving was ever accomplished, nor ever can be, except which commands dominion, power, and accomplishment. Men who know themselves know at once that all material things and ideas have a spiritual counterpart or basis. They see it in money, in credit. The law of supply and demand is not to an awakened man merely an economic principle, but the material manifestation of spiritual law. Such freedom-seeking men see the same principle operating in gravitation, in chemical affinities, in macrocosm and in microcosm…
America has long been the greatest of El Dorados, the stage upon which the most numerous of self-found men worked their bonanzas and their miracles of thought to the enrichment of themselves and mankind at large. There is no exploitation, only a showering of gifts, easily bought by free spirits and generously scattered on all hands according to the expressed law of bargain of the Original, Permanent Owner, and First Producer. To the self-found man of action all the money, credit, and capital goods he can use… Mackay, O’Brian, Hearst, and Fair, brave young Americans of 1849, found gold in themselves before they struck it rich in California. They had to. “If there is gold there,” they told one another, “we’ll get our share”… How great must have been the spiritual wealth of such a free-found man as James J. Hill, who built the Great Northern Railroad from nowhere to nowhere, in a wilderness where no one lives. His madness founded an empire. By spiritual force he turned forests and plains into a thousand El Dorados, and by the same force commanded all the gold and credit needed for the markets of Amsterdam and London and enabled millions of American to discover for themselves great bonanzas in the cold Northwest.
Thomas A. Edison said a few years before he died: “Ideas come from space. This may seem astonishing and impossible to believe, but it is true. Ideas come from out of space.” Surely Edison should have known, for few men ever received or gave forth more ideas… Let each man seek the El Dorado within himself. Power is plentiful. The source is inexhaustible. As the Canonical Fathers of the church expressed it, that which is received is according to the measure of the recipient. It is not the power that is lacking, it is the will. When one finds oneself the will becomes automatically set toward El Dorado.
By a full and powerful imagination anything can be brought into concrete form. The great physician, Paracelsus, said: “The human spirit is so great a thing that no man can express it; could we rightly comprehend the mind of man nothing would be impossible to us upon the earth. Through faith the imagination is invigorated and completed, for it really happens that every doubt mars its perfection. Faith must strengthen the imagination, for faith establishes the will.” Faith is personal, individual. Salvation, any way you take it, is personal. Faith comes in the finding of one’s self. This self-finding establishes a clear realization of one’s identity with the eternal. Strong, self-assertive men built up this El Dorado of America. “Man, know thyself,” thine own individual self, is everlastingly the supreme command. Self-knower always dwell in El Dorado; they drink from the fountain of youth, and are at all times owners of all they wish to enjoy.
The words of Paracelsus just quoted are well worth rereading and further study, for once you grasp their meaning and discover how to apply the principle, you will certainly have more light on how to succeed in your undertakings. However, I would like to point out that hard work alone will not bring success. The world is filled with people who have worked hard but have little to show for it. Something more than hard work is necessary: It is creative thinking and firm belief in your ability to execute your ideas. The successful people in history have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were merely helpers to their brains.
Another important point is that one essential to success is that your desire be an all-obsessing one, your thoughts and aims be co-ordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup. It may be riches or fame or position or knowledge that you want, for each person has his own idea of what success means to him. But whatever you consider it to be, you can have it provided you are willing to make the objective the burning desire of your life. A big order, you say. Not at all; by using the dynamic force of believing, you can set all your inner forces in motion, and they in turn will help you to reach your goal. If you are married, you remember the stimulating and emotional experience of courting the girl you wanted for your wife. Certainly, it wasn’t nerve-racking work --quite the contrary, you’ll admit-- but what were you using, if not this very same science, even though unconsciously. The desire to win a helpmate was uppermost in your mind from the time you got the idea until your marriage. The thought, the belief, was with you every minute of the day and perhaps its was with you in your dreams.
Now that you have a clearer idea of the part that thought and desire play in our daily lives, the first thing to determine is precisely what you want. Starting in with the general idea that you merely want to be a success, as most people do, is too indefinite. You must have a mental pattern clearly drawn in your mind. Ask yourself, Where am I headed? What is my goal? Have I visualized just what I really want? If success is to be measured in terms of wealth, can you fix the amount in figures? If in terms of achievement, can you specify it definitely?
I ask these question, for in their answers are factors which will determine your whole life from now on. Strange as it may appear, not one out of a hundred people can answer these questions. Most people have a general idea that they would like to be a success, but beyond that everything is vague. They merely go along from day to day figuring that if they have ajob today they will have it tomorrow, and that somehow they will be looked after in their old age. They are like a cork on the water floating aimlessly, drawn this way and that by various currents, and either being washed up on the shore, or becoming waterlogged and eventually sinking.
Therefore, it is vital that you know exactly what you want out of life. You must know where you are headed, and you must keep a fixed goal in view. That, of course, is the over-all picture; it makes no difference whether you want a job or a better one, a new house, a place in the country, or just a new pair of shoes. You must have a fixed idea before you’ll obtain what you are after.
There is a great difference between a need and a desire. For example, you may need a new car for business, and you may desire one in order to give pleasure to your family. The one for your business you will get as a matter of necessity. The one for your family you will plan to get as soon as possible. For this car you will make an extra effort, because it is something you have never had before, something that will add to your responsibilities, and something that will compel you to seek new powers within yourself and new resources outside. It is desire for something new, something different, something that is going to change your life, that causes you to make an extra effort; and it is the power of believing that alone sets in motion those inner forces by which you add what I call plus-values to your life.
So you begin with desire if you ever hope to achieve anything or gain more than you have now. It is the prime motivating force in all of us and, without an all-consuming desire, nothing can be achieved or gained. However, as we shall see, there is more to it than mere desire.
I am aware that metaphysicians claim that thoughts are things. They may be in a general sense; but, so far as the effect upon us individually is concerned, they do not become real to us until we give them life with our own thinking or through the workings of our imaginations.
At first reading, this may appear a little strange but it will perhaps become clearer if I cite a few examples. For instance, you are advised to wear rubbers when you go out in the rain. We’ve all heard the remark, “If you don’t, you’ll catch your death of cold.” That thought has never had the slightest effect upon me. I haven’t worn rubbers since I was a small child. I have had my shoes and feet thoroughly wet hundreds of times and often for hours at a time, yet I cannot recall the time I ever caught cold as a result. Some people have a tremendous fear of drafts, but I have often thought that if they did catch cold by being in a draft it was because of the fear thoughts rather than because of the drafts themselves. I sit in drafts for long periods daily, and at night I sleep in a corner room which has windows on both sides of the room that I raise in all sorts of weather, so that the wind often sweeps across me. Yet I’ve never had a cold as a result, because I never give it a thought.
However, I do not advise anyone accustomed to wearing rubbers to go without them, neither do I suggest to anyone afraid of drafts to stay in them. For lifelong habits and beliefs with their consequences are not going to change overnight.
For centuries outstanding thinkers have claimed that man through his mind could shape events and control matter, and the more you study this science, the more you will realize the amazing powers of your own mind.
A. Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, and for many years a member of the British Society for Psychic Research, declared that he believed there was a constructive and destructive power in thought alone which was akin to the “faith that can move mountains.” He said that while the results themselves were conclusive, he had no idea what power it was that came from a man’s mind and that could separate the molecules of a solid object toward which it was directed. I know that materialists will scoff at such a statement. But just remember what is being done with radar and how radio waves go through wood, brick, steel, and other so-called solid objects. If thought waves, or whatever they are, can be tuned to even higher oscillations, why can’t hey affect the molecules of solid objects?
There are many professional gamblers who contend that a strong mental influence has much to do with achieving so-called lucky results in games of chance, such as card playing, the calling of dice, the operation of the roulette wheel, etc. The writer knows one man who can step up to a cigar store punchboard and with a few punches grab off the best prizes. Once I asked him about it and he said: “I never go near a punchboard unless I am in the mood for it, and that means that I must be in the fame of mind that I’m going to win. I’ve noticed that if there’s the slightest doubt in my mind, I don’t win. But I can’t recall the time that I didn’t get winning numbers when the winning idea was firmly fixed in my mind before I started to play.”
Hooey, you say --but wait. Do you know that departments of psychology in great universities have already undertaken experiments to determine whether the mind possesses the power to influence material objects, and that the experiments have already demonstrated the existence of such a power? While the experiments have not been too widely publicized, there have been stories appearing from time to time giving the general facts.
Perhaps the most outstanding work has been done at Duke University, where Dr. J.B. Rhine and his associates have demonstrated that psychokinesis, the name given to designate the power of mind by which material objects are influenced, is much more than idle theory. Dice (yes, the old army type of dice used in crap games) were thrown by a mechanical device to eliminate all possibility of personal influence and trickery. Since 1934 when experiments of this type were started, there have been many tests in which millions of throws of the dice have been made. The results were such as to cause Dr. Rhine to declare that “there is no better explanation than the subjects influenced the fall of the dice without any recognized physical contacts with them.” By mentally concentrating upon the appearance of certain numbers, while at the same time they stood at a distance to avoid all physical contact with the mechanical thrower and with the dice, the experimenters were frequently able to control the dice. In a number of the experiments, the scores made under psychokinesis refuted some of the traditional mathematical odds of millions to one against the reappearance of certain combinations of numbers in repeated succession.
Meditate over this for a few minutes and then realize what it means to you. Those experiments give you some idea of what is meant by “Thought creates after its kind,” “Though correlates with its object,” “Thought attracts that upon which it is directed,” and similar statements that we have heard for years. Recall that it was Job who said: “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.” Our fear thoughts are just as creative or just as magnetic in attracting troubles to us as are the constructive and positive thoughts in attractive positive results. So no matter what the character of the thought, it does create after its kind. When this sinks into a man’s consciousness, he gets some inkling of the awe-inspiring power which is his to use.
However, I cling to the theory that while thoughts do create and exercise control far beyond any limits yet known to man, they create only according to their pitch, intensity, emotional quality, depth of feeling, or vibratory plane. In other words, comparable to the wave length and wattage of a radio station, thoughts have a creative or controlling force in the exact ratio of their constancy, intensity, and power.
While many explanation have been offered, no one knows whether thought is a form of electrical energy or something else yet to be defined. But having been an experimenter in that branch of electricity known as “high-frequency,” in which the great electrical genius, Nicola Tesla, pioneered, whenever I think of thought and its radiations or vibrations, I instinctively link them up with electricity and its phenomena. In this manner they become more understandable to me.
I find that I am far from being alone in holding this idea, for scientists have perfected apparatus that actually charts the oscillations of the vibration emanating from the human brain. The apparatus up to this time has been used primarily to indicate a person’s mental health, but investigators declare that shadings of emotions, dreams, and remote disease are also considered and studied.
In 1944, Dr. H.S. Burr and his co-workers at Yale University, after experimenting for twelve years, reached the conclusion that an electrical aura of their own making surrounds all living things, and that life is connected electrically to the whole pattern of the universe. For years, mystics, occultists, and metaphysicians have claimed that each individual possesses such an aura, and there are countless cases in which these auras have been recorded as actually seen. However, in no instance, until the results at Yale were published, have I found an explanation in which these are linked with electrical phenomena.
Hermes Trismegistus and the ancient Hermetic philosophers all taught the theory of vibration, while Pythagoras, the great geometrician and philosopher, who lived in the sixth century before Christ, held that everything that exists is a vibration. This is the very essence of our scientific electronic theory of today --that all matter consists of electrons (negative) and protons (positive), that is, of particles or charges of electricity which are constantly acting and reacting upon each other. For lack of a better term, I use the word “vibration” or “oscillation,” and when the “frequency” of the electrical particles is changed, the form of material object changes. The difference in matter and the so-called solids as we know them is the difference in the composition of the vibrations --the electrons and protons. Herein we have a possible explanation of the forces used by the ancient alchemists who claimed to be able to transmute the lesser elements and metals into those of greater value: e.g., iron and lead into silver and gold. They claimed also to be able to heal all disease by the same forces. Rutherford, an English physicist, well known for his research into radioactivity, has thrown some light on this theory of transmutation of the elements and the lesser metals in connection with the theory of electronics.
When we realize that our nervous system is reached only through vibration, in other words, that our five known and defined senses record seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling by means of the vibrations given off by the external things themselves, we get a better understanding of the nature of vibrations. For example, we hear a loud noise. It comes to us only via the sound vibration. We see a green leaf, but it is merely the color vibration as gathered by the eyes, and later transmitted to the brain. There are, however, many vibrations which are pitched at a much greater frequency than our five senses are attuned to, and of which we never have any conscious knowledge. By way of illustration, there is a dog whistle pitched so high that only a dog can hear it.
We have all heard of the power of “the laying on of hands,” and most of us know how soothing hands stroking our temples can lessen the intensity of a headache. Can this be due to some form of electrical energy flowing from our finger ends? The Bible tells of numerous instances where healing was accomplished by the touch of Jesus’ hand. Does the explanation lie in this little-known field of electricity --the science of vibration? And does this electrical atmosphere, which Dr. Burr claims is of our own making and which surrounds all living things, enable us to cause certain impulses to pour forth literally from our fingers or from our minds --vibratory forces that can act upon others and upon so-called material objects? All persons living in high altitudes have felt and sometimes observed the electric spark resulting from walking across the room and then touching some metallic substance. That, of course, is a form of static electricity generated by friction, but it gives an idea of how one kind of electricity can be developed through the body.
Among pictures descriptive of the experiments of Yale investigators is one showing that when intact forefingers (that is, without cuts or other injuries) were dipped in salt water cups connected with a galvanometer, there was a flow of electricity between the positive left hand and the negative right hand, measuring 1.5 millivolts. In another picture, two middle fingers, one with a slight cut at the tip, were partially immersed in the cups, but this time the polarity of the hands changed, the left hand changing from positive to negative and the right becoming positive, with the current stepping up to 12 millivolts.
As I looked at those pictures, I recalled an instrument known as a “biometre” perfected man years ago by a French scientist, Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, consisting of a bell-shaped glass in which was suspended a copper needle fastened to a fine silk thread. Below the needle but inside the glass was a circular piece of cardboard marked off into degrees.
Two of these instruments were placed side by side and the fingers of both hands of the operator were held within half an inch of the glasses, his mind concentrated on the delicately balanced needle. By changing his mental attitude or the polarity of his thinking, the operator could cause corresponding changes in the direction of the needle, now in one direction and now in another, the needle following absolutely his changing directive thought currents.
Here is a simple experiment embodying similar principles. Take a piece of medium-weight paper, about three inches square, and fold it diagonally from corner to corner. Then open it and make another diagonal fold so that there will be two folds or creases forming intersecting diagonals. Again open the paper, which will now present the appearance of a low, partially flattened-out pyramid. Now take a long needle and force it through a cork so that the point extends an inch or so above the top side of the cork. Place the cork with its needle, point up, on top of an inverted water glass, so that there may be free movement of both hands and of the paper which is to revolve on the needle point. Then take the piece of paper and balance it, where the creases intersect, on the point of the needle, placing it so that the four sides of the pyramid point downward.
Place the glass, with the cork, needle, and paper on a table or desk in a room free from drafts, keeping away from heat registers or windows, thus avoiding possible heat waves or air currents. Then place the hands around the piece of paper in a semi-cupped position, keeping the hands or fingers a half inch or so away from the paper, so that it may revolve freely. Now order it to revolve upon the needle point. At first it will wobble --perhaps revolving slowly at first and in one direction or the other; but if your hands remain steady and you concentrate upon a certain direction of movement, the paper will revolve until it turns rapidly upon the needle point. If you mentally order a change in direction, the one-way movement will cease and the paper will start revolving in the opposite direction. Of course, it is essential that you do not breathe or exhale in the direction of the paper.
Many explanations of what causes the paper to revolve have been offered, such as heat waves from the hands, a body reflex of some kind, and the like. If the paper revolved in only one direction, then one of these explanations could be accepted. But when a person, with a little practice and confident and concentrated thinking, can cause the paper to revolve first in one direction and then in another by reversing the polarity of his thinking, it is clear that the principle is the same as that which governs the experiments with the biometre.
In carrying out another similar experiment, a small disc of cardboard known as the “dialette” bearing the facsimile of the face of a clock, with numbers from one to twelve, is used. (This is better known as the Rosicrucian Dialette and is issued by Amorc, Rosicrucian Brotherhood.) A sharp needle is pushed through its center and on top of it is balanced a silver of thin cardboard fashioned in the shape of an arrow. The disc is placed on top of a glass filled with water in which the lower part of the needle is submerged. The operator places his hands around the top of the glass, the disc, and arrow; then orders the arrow to revolve, change its position, or stop at any desired position or number. However, it must be recognized in all these experiments that not everyone can immediately get satisfactory results, because the power of mind or thought concentration and projective influence varies in individuals.
If there is a form of electricity which emanates from our hands or fingers in particular and if there are waves, either dynamic or magnetic, caused by vibrations set up either consciously or unconsciously by our thinking, do we not then have an explanation of table-lifting, automatic writing, the performances of the pancetta or Ouija board, and many of the mediumistic or occult operations? Now that the Yale experimenters have concluded that all living things are surrounded by an electrical atmosphere of their own making, and the Duke experimenters are still exploring the field for further proof that thought or some similar force can affect material objects, we are beginning to receive verification of the idea expressed by Dr. Phillips Thomas, research engineer for the Westinghouse Electric Company. In 1937, according to newspaper dispatches, Dr. Thomas told the Utah session of the American Electrical Institute:
“We feel certain that whatever we do, say, or think is accomplished by some type of radiation. We think such radiations are electricity. In the near future we may be able to capture and interpret these radiations of personality and thought through electrical impulses. Prospects of an early solution are bright.”
Since some of my readers may not have a clear understanding of the radiation of thought, I offer a simple explanation. A pebble tossed into a pond immediately upon striking the surface of the water sets up a series of ripples or small waves, which spread out circle-like and ultimately reach the shore line where they appear to stop. The larger the pebble, the higher the waves. Two stones of different sizes and weights tossed in simultaneously at different places but in close proximity will both set up a series of waves, converging upon each other. Where the two sets meet there appears to be a struggle as to which is to overcome or pass the other. As far as our physical vision is concerned, if the waves are of the same size, both seem to stop or merge at their meeting-point; but if one is larger than the other, the larger sweeps over the smaller and creates waves in the wake of the smaller ripples.
Think about this in connection with your own mental impulses --for example, how thoughts of one nature stop or overwhelm others-- and you readily appreciate how the more powerful or concentrated the thought, the quicker its tempo, the greater its vibration, the more it sweeps aside the weaker vibrations, the more rapidly it does its creative work.
We hear and read much about various stages of thought, degrees of consciousness, thought concentration, the strength of our faith, all of which deals with the intensity or the degree of power we send forth. Creative force comes only when there is a completely rounded-out thought, when there is a fully developed mental picture, or when the imagination can visualize the fulfillment of our ambition and see in our mind a picture of the object we desire --a house, a car, a radio, ext.-- just as if we already possessed them.
As a result of my studies of the so-called mystic teachings, the various mental sciences and the regular orthodox church teachings, I am convinced that they all work in varying degrees, but only to the extent that their followers believe. So it is with prayer, whether it be a part of a church service or the purely spontaneous and personal supplication of the individual.
However, I am forced to the conclusion that many people go through the lip-service act of saying their prayers without the slightest belief that those prayers will be answered. Consequently, they are not answered. I am frequently reminded of the story of the old lady who, professing a belief in prayer, undertook to go shopping. The day before she prayed that on her shopping day the sun would shine. But upon completion of her prayer she glanced out of the window, saw some black clouds, and instantly declared: “But I know it’s going to rain.”
In the late fall of 1944, the Saturday Review of Literature, which doesn’t go in for hocus-pocus, contained an article by Thomas Sugrue. He declared that the mind-cure movement had grown so rapidly that it was now encountered everywhere. He cited several cases in which both men and women had secured phenomenal results. One woman, who at sixty-two had been partially crippled and whose fingers were bent with arthritis, had taken up a system of Yogi breathing and had entirely recovered from her physical ailments. Mr. Sugrue declared that after her restoration to health she was adjudged by those who saw her to be about forty. Another woman achieved excellent results under an occult system of metaphysics, and guesses as to her age were fifteen years under her real age. He told also of a retired missionary who for the past twelve years had experimented with psychic phenomena and had obtained most startling results.
We can come to only one conclusion, and that is that all of the systems, creeds, and cults work as a result of the firm beliefs of the individual --and that brings us to the magic of believing.
Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychoanalyst, whose works are today standard for psychiatrists, brought e world’s attention to the hypothesis that there was a powerful force within us, an unilluminated part of the mind --separate from the conscious mind-- that is constantly at work moulding our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Others have called this division of our mental existence, the soul, and some metaphysical teachers claim that is is located in the solar plexus. Others call it the super-ego, the inner power, and the super-consciousness, the unconscious, the subconscious, and various other names. It isn’t an organ or so-called physical matter, such as we know the brain to be, and science hasn’t located its tangible position in the human body. Nevertheless, it is there, and from the beginning of recorded time man has known that it exists. The ancients often referred to it as the “spirit.” Paracelsus called it the will, others have called it the mind, an adjunct of the brain. Some have referred to it as conscience, the creator of the “still, small voice within.” Still others have called it intelligence and have asserted that it is a part of the Supreme Intelligence, to which we are all linked. Hence the name Universal Mind --that which embraces every living thing, all human as well as plant and animal life.
No matter what we call it --the writer prefers the word subconscious-- it is recognized as the essence of life, and the limits of its power are unknown. It never sleeps. It comes to our support in times of great trouble, it warns us of impending danger, often it aids us to do that which seems impossible. It guides us in many ways and when properly employed performs so-called miracles.
Objectively, it does as it is told, that is, when it is commanded or besought by the conscious mind; subjectively, it acts primarily upon its own initiative, or appears to, although there are times when its activity appears to be the result of influences from the outside.
Sir Arthur Eddington is quoted as saying: “I believe that the mind has the power to affect groups of atoms and even tamper with the odds of atomic behaviour, and that even the course of the world is not predetermined by physical laws but may be altered by the uncaused volition of human beings.”
When this idea is fully comprehended, it becomes breath-taking. It is more understandable in the light of the electronic or vibratory theory.
Every student of the subject knows what may be accomplished by getting into direct contact with the subconscious mind --thousands have employed it to achieve wealth, power, and fame in this world, as well as to cure physical ailments and solve countless human problems. And its power is there for you to use. The only steps you have to take are to believe in its power and to use the technique set forth in this book, or else to devise a system of your own that will put it to work for you.
The late Dana Sleeth, whose syndicated column covering the observations of a hillbilly was well known to newspaper readers twenty years ago, once told me that he considered the subconscious mind one of his greatest aids not only in furnishing him with ideas but in assisting him to find lost tools and other articles. Mr. Sleeth at the time was living in the hills remote from cities and towns, alternating as a columnist and farmer. He had made an extensive study of the subject and we often discussed it as well as exchanged letters covering our ideas.
It’s a wonderful thing --the subconscious mind [said Mr. Sleeth], and for the life of me I can’t see why more people don’t lean about it and its use. I don’t know how many thousands of times it has helped me with me problems. Ideas for feature stories have often come to me when I was engaged in such lowly tasks as stump grubbing. And as for locating lost tools --it’s a knockout.
You know nothing is ever lost --it’s just misplaced. It’s right there to be found in the exact place where you left it or dropped it. I have found dozens of misplaced tools in the identical spot where my subconscious mind told me to look. This is the way it would work. Say for example it was a pocket knife --mine’s a good-sized one-- that I had misplaced or dropped. I would say, “Pocket knife, where are you?” Then I would close me eyes for a moment or I might gaze off into space --the answer might not always come immediately, but when it did it would come in a flash, and I would be led right to the spot where lay the knife. It always seemed to work unfailingly --even to such things as axes, rakes, and other tools that I was constantly leaving around somewhere --you know we newspaper people are not very methodical.
I used to have a great deal of difficulty in remembering names, but I have found that if I could visualize the man or woman whose name I had temporarily forgotten, and see an outline of his or her features, the color of the eyes, hair, manner of dress, etc., the subconscious would bring me the name without difficulty.
I don’t know where I learned this but in trying to recall something, a certain story or certain fact that appeared at the moment to escape me, I would relax, elevate my head, put my right hand a couple of inches above my forehead, sometimes I might close my eyes or gaze off into space; but this little trick always seemed to get results.
Never forget: inventions, great musical compositions, poetry, fiction, and all other ideas for original accomplishment, come from the subconscious. Give it the thought or the material and keep it going with a deep-rooted desire for performance and you will get results. There is an old saying that once we start weaving, the Gods will furnish the skein, and how true that is.
When you start to operate with the aid of this power the bricks automatically fall into place as though a magical hand had touched them. Results will certainly follow in a most astounding manner. Ideas for accomplishment will pop here and they will pop there.
What may appear as coincidences are not coincidences at all but simply the working out of the pattern which you started with your own weaving.
I am certain that thousands of successful men and women reach great heights and accomplish marvellous results without knowing anything about the subconscious mind and with no knowledge that it was the power which made for accomplishments.
Living here in the hills away from people and everyday influences, I have often felt that those who live close to nature were in a much better position to utilize the subconscious than others. I believe that day will come when science will prove that the great power of the subconscious is one of the most formidable forces in shaping and controlling our lives.
A passing or momentary thought-flicker dies almost a-borning, although it may later reveal cumulative power. But the force that brings into play the great system of the subconscious is a sustained thought or, as previously stated, a fixed mental picture. There are many methods for stepping up the tempo of the vibrations of conscious thought in order to bring into action the subconscious forces, although sometimes just a single utterance, a momentary glance accompanying a word or two traveling from one person to another, has brought the subconscious into immediate play. So have catastrophic danger, moments of great peril and times of great stress, when, alone or in the company of others, a person is suddenly confronted with the necessity for immediate action. It comes to the aid of those in the habit of making quick decisions almost instantaneously, and it comes into operation when you have cleared your conscious mind of its multitude of conflicting thoughts. “Going into the silence” is another way of expressing it.
Perhaps the most effective method of bringing the subconscious into practical action is through the process of making mental pictures --using the imagination-- perfecting an image of the thing or situation as you would have it exist in physical form. This is usually referred to as visualization.
However, most of the sustained and continuing manifestations come as a result of belief. It is through this belief with its strange power that miracles happen and that peculiar phenomena occur for which there appears to be no known explanation. I refer now to the deep-seated belief --a firm and positive conviction that goes through every fibre of your being-- when you believe it “heart and soul,” as the saying goes. Call it a phase of emotion, a spiritual force, a type of electrical vibration --anything you pealse, but that’s the force that brings outstanding results, sets the law of attraction into operation, and enables sustained thought to correlate with its object. This belief changes the tempo of the mind or thought-frequency, and, like a huge magnet, draws the subconscious forces into play, changing your whole aura and affecting everything about you --and often people and objects at great distances. It brings into your individual sphere of life results that are sometimes startling --often results you never dreamed possible.
There are countless references to it in the Bible. It is the first condition for membership in many religious, fraternal, and political organizations. Everywhere men are looking for people who have the kind of belief they will fight for, because it is the people who are charged with the vibrations of strong beliefs that sometimes do the miraculous, the things we so often say are “unbelievable.” That kind of belief has the magic touch. It is also the basic principle in both white and black magic.
