Chapter 8
Women and the Science of Belief
As ideas for this book occurred to me, I frequently thought of the many famous women who had used the power of belief, and once in discussion with Ben Hur Lampman, nationally known author and naturalist, he suggested that I specifically cover its use by women, saying:
“Many women, perhaps, may not realize that they can use your science just as advantageously as men, and you should be specific in your message to them. Once they understand and apply what you give, they’ll find themselves in a position figuratively to turn the world upside down. If there were some way for women of all nationalities to unite and use this science, there would be no future wars.
“Women are supreme egotists --in the sense that when they get the idea they can do something, and that idea becomes thoroughly imbedded in their consciousness, they will stop at nothing to achieve their purpose. You know the old saying, “The female of the species is more deadly than the male.” That is true, and once women understand their power --and you can gie them the clue-- nothing will stop them. If they wish, they may actually run this old world. ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,’ and once they are aroused and understand what they can accomplish there will be no stopping them. Women are more versatile, more adaptable. Even though Napoleon declared that he made circumstances, most men are its victims, while women by their very nature of thinking make circumstances serve them.”
Then when I read an article by a woman complaining that American women “don’t get a break,” it dawned on me that if women of today “don’t get a break,” it is the fault of no one but themselves. The only thing they have to do is to follow the examples of their sisters who have preceded them and have made their own “breaks.”
Therefore, I want to emphasize the importance of the adoption of this science by women for their own special needs, and in the following pages I shall give examples of women in the past and present who have used it with great effectiveness. Let us realize that when woman awakens, she is going to play a more vital part than ever in the affairs of the world.
As a matter of fact, even today American women, although they may not be aware of it, are potentially in a position to have things pretty much their own way, for they actually control the wealth of this country!
During the war, we had women welders, women riveters, the Wacs, Waves, and Spars, and they all had a taste of actually performing tasks heretofore handled only by men. To thousands of single girls and housewives who had never had an opportunity to do anything outside the home, those experiences should have pointed out their own potential opportunities for taking a more active part in the world of this world.
In our own country today there are thousands of outstanding women --from great educators to bankers and industrialists, to say nothing of the numerous writers, editors, and other professional women. Many of the greatest reforms in America have been the ideas of women; if the facts could be assembled, it could easily be proven that not only did the ideas for these great reforms originate with women, but the women were the driving force behind the ideas. Some male readers may resent these statements, but there is no escaping the facts.
As a former newspaper man, naturally I had to follow the feminist movement, and for nearly forty years I have seen and felt the power of outstanding women.
When it was first suggested that I emphasize the use of this science for women, I immediately thought of Mrs. R.E. Bondurant, who has been active in women’s work, charities, the inauguration of child labour laws, the building of homes and hospitals for delinquent girls, numerous legislative measures to further the interest of women and children, and public movements to aid the blind and other handicapped people. Her nationally known record of nearly forty years is an outstanding one, and today at seventy-one, even though perhaps a partial cripple for the rest of her life, she is just as enthusiastic as ever and seeking new worlds to conquer.
Of late years, Mrs. Bondurant has been an ardent worker in the cause of the Chin-Uppers, an organization consisting of blind, crippled, and otherwise partly disabled men and women. Now she is planning to open a store where articles made by these people may be sold. In this she has the co-operation of a number of business men. Mrs. Bondurant told me that if necessary she was going to pay the rent out of her own pocket, but that all the profit would go to the Chin-Uppers. I spent a Sunday afternoon with her in her sitting-room among her books and flowers. A pair of crutches stood in a corner near the door. (For months Mrs. Bondurant has had to use them, but even at her advanced age she gets around on trolley cars, buses, and in and out of automobiles without help.) Although today she uses a cane when she leaves her home, in my presence she moved around the room without limping. We discussed at length this matter of believing. Mrs. Bondurant said:
There is no question about it, and I can speak from a pretty full life of seventy-one years, during which time I not only raised a family but have taken part in the various movements and activities with which you have long been familiar. There is certainly something, call it a power, God, or anything you wish, which is always there to sustain us in time of need. I have never seen it fail. We’ve just got to believe and when I look back through the years and recall the fine women with whom I was associated when we were working for legislation to bring about better working conditions for women and children, I realized that it was the “indomitable spirit” of these women, who thoroughly believed in the righteousness of the cause, that made the legislation possible and effective.
I am astounded at the fact that the average woman doesn’t realize her tremendous power. I don’t call it stupidity because I would never admit that women are stupid, but rather they lack interest. I am amazed, in talking to women’s groups, to realize that many of them never knew that these great reform movements to help them and their children were initiated by women, and it is my opinion that once women become aware of their strength and power, they can do more to bring about lasting peace and make this world a better place in which to live than all the famous male warriors and would-be peacemakers. All the great forward movements, as a matter of fact, I might say, all the great things in this world, have been done by men and women who were dreamers and believers in their dreams coming true. They could not have accomplished things otherwise. It’s like the old story about climbing to the top of the mountain in search of that indefinable something. It makes no difference from which side the approach is made, those who steadfastly climb reach the top, and so it is with this matter of believing. It isn’t so much what the real or imaginary object of our belief may be, it’s the belief and following through that makes the thing possible.
I don’t want to appear critical, but it has been my observation that people don’t have sufficient action or driving force behind their beliefs. For example, some women’s organizations will pass resolutions in favour of or against this and that, and think that settles the matter. The resolutions are no good unless the sentiments expressed are actually brought to the attention of the powers that be.
I don’t know of any greater thing in life than the satisfaction that comes through serving. During the many years I spent in sponsoring the various causes and getting legislation adopted, I never received a penny in pay or to cover my expenses. While it may sound like Pollyanna business to many people, bread tossed upon the waters does come back. In illustration, I might tell you that during the depression my husband lost $80,000. He was sick in bed at home and I would go to the office daily to get the mail and check the routine. Sometimes it looked as if we would not have sufficient money to meet imperative needs, but just about when we had to meet the obligations, checks would appear in the mail from people to whom Mr. Bondurant had lent money or from long-overdue accounts. We had some pretty hard times those days, but help always came through just in time and I never lost my belief.
As I watched and listened to Mrs. Bondurant, I realized that I was in the presence of no ordinary woman, but rather of a human dynamo who had the spirit and determination to get tings done through her great belief. When I recalled that she had been credited with having had more laws in the interest of women and children passed than any other woman or organization in the state, I realized what it would mean to the world if all women with her vision and driving force undertook to use this science.
In the news not so long ago were found the stories a few weeks apart of the passing of two great women, one of whom was Grace Moore, she with the beautiful singing voice, and the other, that fiery British woman leader, Miss Ellen Wilkinson. Both women knew early in life what they wanted.
In common with a great many men and women who have reached great heights, Grace Moore won her success in the face of difficulties that would have stopped even some of the strongest men. As a child, she dreamed of becoming a great opera singer. The little girl went out to win the hearts of people everywhere. Even as a penniless runaway in New York, where often she had to sing for her supper in small Greenwich Village cafes, Grace Moore never lost her courage. She made her debut at seventeen and was close to the zenith of her career at forty-five. Again and again when it appeared that she was hopelessly defeated, she, with unquenchable courage, emerged victorious. When she lost her voice and was told by a throat specialist she would never sing again, she put up a tremendous battle, and emerged from a year of retirement and rest, singing more beautifully than ever before. Her glorious voice brought her great fame, and up to the time of her unfortunate death in the airplane crash at Copenhagen early in 1947, Grace Moore continued to believe in her dreams.
She was one of the few stars who believed in helping other talented people to achieve their objectives and her timely aid assisted many unknown aspiring singers. When one of her protegees, who had achieved success became temperamental about her part in a performance, it is said that Miss Moore told her that a famous singer had once advised her that to great artists there was no such thing as a small part and to small artists there were no big parts.
Ellen Wilkinson, who was the British Minister of Education, was a tiny, red-haired woman who drove her way upward through her persistence. Less than five feet tall, she was never cowed by the biggest of the British leaders. It is said that she made a career of annoyance, first as a school teacher, then as a suffragist, a novelist, newspaper writer, and finally cabinet minister. She was pleased when someone said of her that no women in the whole of Britain had been more active, more persistent, or more annoying. Probably her greatest contribution in the interest of the people was her campaign to raise the age of leaving of leaving school from fourteen to fifteen. She won this fight in the face of stiff opposition of fellow ministers and the great demand for youths in British industry.
From the time of Cleopatra to the present, there have been thousands of women who, relying on their inmost convictions, have had a direct hand in shaping the lives of millions. It has been said that behind every great ruler was a women. This may not be historically correct, but certain we have enough evidence to know that women have had very much of a guiding hand in history-making. The names of several women who achieved success through their beliefs come to mind.
One was Empress Eugenie who married Napoleon the Third. When a small child she had fallen against a bannister and bruised her body. Her gypsy nurse told her not to cry, that she would be a queen and live to be a hundred. She believed in gypsies and her fortune materialized nearly as prophesized. She became Empress Eugenie and lived until she was ninety-four, just six years less than the age fixed by her gypsy nurse.
Madame Marie Curie, the famous co-discoverer of radium, was told when a child in Warsaw by an old gypsy woman that she would be famous. The story is that Marja Slodowska, later to be known as Madame Curie, was running to join a group of playmates when the old gypsy woman stopped her, demanding that the girl show her hand. The other children did not want Marja to listen to the gypsy, but the gypsy woman held on to the little hand, excitedly commenting on the remarkable lines in her palm and telling the child she would be famous. As we all know, Madame Curie became one of the most famous women of modern times.
The desire to discover what lay behind that strange phenomenon all around us known as radioactivity, literally drove Professor Pierre Curie and Marie, his wife, to the epochal discovery of radium. Whether or not the words of the old gypsy fortune-teller inspired Madame Curie and influenced her career, perhaps history will never know. But as one reads about her life, that conclusion would appear to be an obvious one, for early in her girlhood Madame Curie made up her mind to become a scientist. When she was refused permission to study science at the University of Cracow (the secretary told her that women should not concern themselves with science, and suggested that she enter cookery classes), she went to Paris and entered the Sorbonne, supporting herself by teaching and working in the laboratories. It was there she met Pierre Curie and, once embarked with him on the task of tracking down at least one source of radioactivity, nothing stopped her. She had two daughters, a household to manage, s well as the problem of combating ill health, but she refused to give up her laboratory work even when her husband begged her to. Few women have been so greatly honoured as Madame Curie, the woman who was told by an old gypsy that some day she would be famous. Madame Curie certainly made those childhood prophecies come true.
An amazing story, perhaps one of the strangest on record and one proving further that there is great power in believing, is found in that of Opal Whitely. This astounding historical case clearly shows that, as pointed out by William James, belief creates its verification in fact; it affords unmistakable proof that often events are influenced by our very great desires.
This is the story of a girl who, according to those who knew her in her childhood, was the daughter of an American family named Whiteley, the head of which was an Oregon logger. She, however, believed herself to be the daughter of Henri d’Orleans, heir to the Bourbon claim to the Crown of France. She was credited with having written a diary supposed to have been compiled when she was six or seven years of age, which told about her “angel” father and “angel” mother of royal blood; this was printed in 1920 under the auspices of the Atlantic Monthly. It created a sensation and precipitated a big literary controversy. Drawn into the controversy were psychologists, scientists, astrologers, psychics, editors, clergymen, literary critics, and almost every person who had at any time known Opal.
In Alfred Powers’ History of Oregon Literature, there is a chapter by Elbert Bede, in which Mr. Bede says: “I haven’t the least doubt that a large part of Opal’s diary is a hoax and a large part plagiarism, and I have presented facts that show the foster parentage claim impossible.
The diary was printed when Opal was about twenty-two years of age, and even though Opal Whiteley may not have been born of Indian royalty, she was actually accepted as such in later years.
In 1933, some thirteen years after her diary had been printed, the newspapers carried a story about an American woman travelling in India. While she was in the state of Udaipur, she had a remarkable experience. She was sitting in her carriage, when she was astounded to see another carriage led by a half troop of cavalry coming toward her. In the other carriage was Opal Whiteley, the girl from the logging camp of Oregon, and later investigators disclosed that Opal Whiteley was actually residing in the household of the Maharaja of Udaipur, the ruling Indian prince. The same newspaper stories told how Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly when her diary was printed, verified the story that the girl was actually residing in the royal household. They further related that Mr. Sedgwick had received from the secretaries of two maharajas’ courts substantiation of this story, and in his book, The Happy Profession, Mr. Sedgwick has a chapter devoted to this strange tale.
I have had several talks with Mr. Bede, who for many years was a well-known Oregon newspaper man, and is now editor of the Oregon Mason, regarding the remarkable way in which Opal moulded her destiny, and Mr. Bede said to me: “It was uncanny, almost supernatural, the manner in which circumstances suited themselves to her plans.”
Mr. Bede, like most people who knew the girl in her childhood, is absolutely convinced that Opal was born of American parents, the Whiteleys. He told me that he had known her quite well and that she had frequently been in his home in Cottage Grove. “My first knowledge of Opal came when I was reporting a Junior Christian Endeavour convention in Cottage Grove, and I was informed that a seventeen-year-old girl from a near-by logging camp had been elected president. My first impression of Opal was that of a vibrant, fluttery, exotic, whimsical person, informed strangely beyond her years, eager, deeply earnest, and seriously religious. She later became to me an inexplicable enigma.
“She was always planning, always planning well in advance anything she would undertake. It was most amazing how, in preparation of a nature book, The Fairyland Around Us, which she was writing, she could solicit contributions from such persons as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and actually got money from some of them. A leaflet advertising the book carried expressions of wondering admiration from such persons as Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, Theodore Roosevelt, Nicholas Murray Butler, Gene Stratton Porter, and others of equal prominence.”
I was struck by this paragraph in Mr. Bede’s story: “With all these plans so well laid so long before the jaunt of Opal to Massachusetts’ center of culture, I have often wondered what plans she had made to give the diary to the publishers. And then how Ellergy Sedgwick should accidentally ask for the diary.
As I studied these words, I wondered if it was really an accident that Mr. Sedgwick should ask for the diary and if this strange girl had not “telepathically” given the thought to Mr. Sedgwick. I did not discuss this point with Mr. Bede, but if Opal Whitely knew how to mentally transmit her thoughts to others in advance, then it explains how Mr. Sedgwick happened to ask if she had kept a diary.
For years I have carried the conviction that people close to nature and those intimately associated with both wild and domesticated animals have an understanding or an insight that enables them to see far beyond the horizons of most ordinary folks who live in the cities and never get nearer to a cow than a milk bottle. I have always believed that to these people nature reveals many of her secrets which are withheld from those who live in penthouses in our modern cities. Whether or not telepathy, or the ability to transmit our thoughts silently so that others catch them, is one of the secrets which nature reveals to those close to her, is something I cannot answer, although it is common knowledge that jungle dwellers and savages in all quarters of the world know the secret of telepathy and have used it for centuries. There are numerous books on telepathy among primitives; as a famous editor once said to me, “To accept the idea that these natives don’t use it would put us in the class of the uninformed.”
Now let’s review what Mr. Bede had to say about Opal and her closeness to nature.
“A volume would hardly suffice to summarize the personality of the nature-tutored child, who had at the age of six, so her diary would have us believe, confided her most intimate secrets to Michael Angelo Sanzio Raphael (a fir tree), and whose associates instead of people were Lars Porsena of Clusium (a crow), Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus (a most dear wood rat), Brave Horatius (a shepherd dog), Peter Paul Rubens (a pet pig), and other characters with equally classical appellations.
“In her adolescent years, Opal gathered geological specimens, and bugs and worms by the thousands, by the barrel. She garnered chrysalises by the bucketful and watched how God brought life to his fairies of the great outdoors. Somewhere, somehow, she gained a prodigious amount of knowledge about these things. Without having completed a high school course, this little maid of mystery presented herself at the University of Oregon, where entrance requirements were waived because of her knowledge of geology, astronomy, and biology.”
According to Mr. Bede and others who knew Opal as a girl, no one was ever heard to mention anything that would cause others to believe that she was an adopted daughter of the Whiteleys, and Mr. Bede says it was only with the publication of the diary by the Atlantic Monthly that relatives and friends received the first intimation that Opal claimed foster-parentage.
I asked Mr. Bede what Mr. Whitely (Opal’s real or foster father) thought about her claim to royal blood and he told me that the father thought “his daugher” had been caught in the meshes of some wily promoters.
Shortly after her diary was printed, Opal Whitely left the United States very secretly, travelling with a confidential document --not an ordinary passport-- signed by our Secretary of State and Sir Edward Grey of England of the British Foreign Office. Just how she was able to do this is amazing to Mr. Bede and others who knew the girl in her childhood; but obviously, if she was the bona fide daughter of American parents and not of Indian royal blood, we certainly have here evidence of the workings of the strange powers of the human mind, of which, I repeat, we know little.
At this writing, Opal Whiteley is reported to be living in England. But when Mr. Bede wrote his article a number of years ago he said: “When last definitely heard of, she had been accepted as a princess of India, through an alleged marriage of Henri d’Orleans, the “angel’ father o the diary.” I asked him to explain how Opal had been accepted as a princess of India, if she was not in fact born one, and he said he couldn’t. Then I asked him if he thought her constant thinking so, her very deep belief, had anything to do with it.
He replied: “Frankly, I do not know. It may be, for we haven’t probed to the depths of the mind and don’t know the extent of its powers.”
Reading Mr. Sedgwick’s own story of this strange girl, it would appear that he is also convinced that Opal’s real parents were the Whiteleys and that her belief that she had been born of royal blood was pure fantasy. It may have been fantasy, but she was accepted by royalty, because Opal obviously knew a lot of secrets unknown to the average person. Here in his own words is Mr. Sedgwick’s theory of how this nature child from Oregon made her vision come true.
I have a theory and hold to it. Among an infinitude of letters came one written by an American of French parentage, whose father, so he told me, was a sergeant in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Of this sergeant’s regiment, the colonel or perhaps the general of his division was Prince Henri of Bourbon, and toward the close of his life the prince, travelling across America, stopped in Oregon to have a chat with his old soldier. Whether or not this is fact, I cannot say, but my correspondent had no doubt of it since, chief among his childhood memories, was the arrival of the prince at the cottage door of his father. “I sat on his knee,” he told me, and I believed him.
Now, according to my theory, the visit of a prince of the blood to an Oregon hamlet was an event. The truth and the legend of it spread through the lumber camps and what is more likely than that such a tale captivated the mind of a lonely and imaginative child and that her daydreams centered about it. At the heart of every little girl, Cinderella sits enthroned, and with Opal, the legend grew to be true, and the truth magnified with the years, and finally permeated her entire mind, her fancy, and her life.
Such is my theory of Opal’s childhood, but in after years the story becomes an attested record of fact and yet, to my thinking, loses nothing of its wonder thereby. Opal, who had come to know many notable people in New York and Washington, and who had been petted and patronized by them, grew sick of it all. She went to England, always making friends, took up the faith of her “father,” and established herself in a Catholic community at Oxford. Then one day I had startling news of her. A friend of my youth, Mrs. Rosina Emmet Sherwood, mother of a playwright long since grown famous, wrote me asking whether it was possible to believe a correspondence of hers who stated that with her own eyes she had seen Opal sitting like the princess in the story in an open barouche driving in state down the streets of Allahabad, royal outriders clearing the way for H.R.H. Mlle. Francoise de Bourbon! The story was credible for it was true. I verified it beyond conjecture. First I wrote to Opal, who sent me a collection of photographs of her Indian tour. There she was perched in a howdah on an elephant’s back, ready for a tiger hunt. (Henri de Bourbon, be it noted, was famous for his bag of thirty-six tigers, and I laughed as I recalled Opal chanting French verses in honour of his victory), and there she stood the center many another turbaned group. Photographs, as I have remarked frequently in the narrative, can be liars and many of them stem from Hollywood which hardly contradicts the term. I was not satisfied, and since Opal’s narrative identified two of the greatest maharajas who had been her hosts, I wrote to both their courts. In due time two letters returned, emblazoned with regal crests, each informing me the writer’s royal master bade the secretary reply that it had been his high privilege to entertain H.R.H. Mlle. Francoise de Bourbon, and that a series of fetes had been given to do her honour. And the wonder of all this had not subsided when an unsolicited letter arrived from a lieutenant colonel of His Majesty’s forces occupied at the moment with maneuvers at Aldershot, informing the editor with some asperity that the colonel himself had been honoured by an order to attend Her Royal Highness at an official garden party given for her entertainment, and further he begged to ask who it was that had questioned the authenticity of the lady who had graced the occasion.
“I close this account on a melancholy note. In the journal which Opal sent to accompany her photographs, no vestige remained of the contagious fascination of an earlier day. She described things as they are. The dew of the morning had vanished. The hard sunlight of middle age beat down upon a world that everybody sees only too clearly. The fairy kingdom was not the playground of other children. Its gates were closed, and Opal stood without. But while she was still the Opal of the Journal of an Understanding Heart, she had had her vision, and the vision was true. There is no truth more certain than that which makes bright the heart of childhood.” *
*From The Happy Profession by Ellergy Sedgwick. Copyright, 1946. Reprinted by courtesy of Little, Brown & Company and the Atlantic Monthly Press.
Some readers may question this weird story, but the facts are as related and obviously, as Mr. Sedgwick states, “The child who wrote Opal’s diary believed in it. She knew it for her own.”
No greater verification of the fact that there is genuine magic in believing can be offered that this strange story of Opal Whiteley, who believed she was born a princess of India and later was accepted as one.
From early Biblical times to the present, there have been prophets, oracles, soothsayers, astrologers, and fortune-tellers. As a newspaper man (and I had the reputation of being a hard-boiled one), I have investigated a number of these so-called seers and while some were obviously charlatans of the first water, there were others who mystified me. Certainly there are many of these fortune-tellers who believe in their ability to foretell the future. Materialists will say that that is impossible. For myself, having spent years in research work, I am not so positive, for actually some of the great prophecies of the past have certainly been fulfilled.
Even though there are many who deride the ability of astrologers, fortune-tellers, and the like, there are millions of people in this world, including at the present day some of our greatest financiers, statesmen, and even, according to reports in recent years, members of our own cabinet, actors and actresses, and people in all walks of life, who believe in prophecies. No matter what my views are about the ability of anyone to foretell the future, I have long held the thought that it wasn’t so much what the prophets foretold as it was the reliance of the subjects upon what the astrologer or soothsayer predicted for them that brought certain things to pass. In other words, a suggestion in the form of a prophecy was planted by the seer in the mind of the subconscious mind of the individual, which immediately went to work to make it come true. It was the power of suggestion working in the individual to make the prophecy a reality that finally produced the outcome. I believe that is what happened in the cases which I have cited.
I think of that great trouper, Marie Dressler, who probably evoked more laughter from a greater number of people than any other actress of modern times. Those who saw her in Tillie’s Nightmare, Tugboat Annie, and various stage and screen appearances, will never forget that great personality; those of my readers familiar with her story know that Marie Dressler had a very hard time, suffering many privations before she became the great screen star known to millions. Whether true or not, I have read and heard that it was the advice and prediction of astrologers that landed Marie Dressler at the top.
In this connection, I relate the story of a strange experience I had shortly before Miss Dressler’s death. In explanation let me say that I firmly believe that when people get on a certain plane of thinking or are attuned with their subconscious minds, they automatically become en rapport with on another.
Shortly after I had written my little book, T.N.T.--It Rocks the Earth, it hit me in a flash that all great men and women had been using what I had outlined, and I set out to verify this by writing numerous outstanding men and women for their views and comments.
Marie Dressler, probably because I was her ardent admirer, was one of the first women selected. I heard her on the radio one night and knew instantly that she had a grip on “that something” which many people seek and seldom find, and I “knew” that if I wrote Miss Dressler, I would get a reply. My secretary, when I dictated the letter, volunteered the statement that Marie Dressler would never acknowledge receipt of it or my book. We even made a small wager, as I did later with several others. (It is common knowledge that very few great screen stars personally acknowledge letters from unknowns and it was upon this premise that those who wagered against me based their judgment.)
While I felt that Miss Dressler would immediately respond, I was astounded at her answer and comment, and especially at the sight of her enclosure, a check for twenty copies of my brochure. In her letter she said:
“Thank you so much. Oh! What a book, if used rightly. As I read through it and look back, which I very seldom do, and check up on my own life --it looks as though I had been going down the right path.”
Naturally, now that this great woman has left us, her letter is among my cherished possessions, because I never had personal correspondence with a woman who had put so much of her great heart and soul into her work to cheer up humanity and yet who had had more personal trouble or who had put up a greater fight to reach the pinnacle of success.
Incidentally, there are two fine thoughts in her letter.
First, it is futile to dwell on or think about the past. It is apparent Miss Dressler discovered this a number of years before her death, realizing that she couldn’t give full play to thoughts of future accomplishments if she cluttered up her mind with thoughts of the past.
Second, as she indicated in ordering extra copies of my brochure, she was always trying to help people, which may be a forlorn gesture in many instances; but she must have realized that the extending of such help did bring its own reward, even though it might have meant only personal satisfaction in knowing that a helping hand had been extended.
The name of Helen Keller is known to millions. This famous woman was a marvel to me. As the world knows, she was deprived of her sight, hearing, and speech when she was twenty months old, and yet she became an inspiration, through her talks and her many articles and books, to thousands who were less handicapped than she. The story of her life is fascinating, because when Helen Keller, through stupendous effort, learned to speak, she gave to the world a new vision of what handicapped people could do when once they believed in their ability to achieve. It is interesting to know that Helen Keller was a confirmed Swedenborgian. As many readers may know, Swedenborg lived in the early days of the eighteenth century and was perhaps one of the world’s greatest mystics. He was a very unusual man, as he, too, could foresee the future, having anticipated the submarine, the machine gun, flying machines, and the horseless carriage that would go twenty miles an hour.
I don’t know whether Swedenborg could be called a spiritualist, as we know the meaning of the word today, but he certainly had something far beyond the ken of the average person. He believed greatly in the power of the mind and had trances, visions, and strange dreams, which must have come from his subconscious mind.
Another outstanding woman of our time, who has been the subject of much controversy and whose name is known to millions because a motion picture depicting her life has been shown throughout the world, is Sister Elizabeth Kenny, who brought from Australia in 1940 an idea for treating polio victims. As a nurse in Australia, she discovered what is known as the “hot pack system,” a method of applying hot-water packs to the afflicted portions of the polio victim’s body. Despite the fact that she was ridiculed by many people professional and unprofessional, Sister Kenny, with her vision, persistently through what may even be said to be forceful methods, brought herself and her principles of treatment to the attention of the American public, and through her efforts established the Sister Kenny Institute at Minneapolis.
One has only to study the photograph of Sister Kenny’s face to see in her rugged features the reflection of a powerful mind, which, once in action and aided by a ready tongue, would ultimately help her force her way to victory. In her native land she was fought at every turn, and it was only through the woman’s sheer persistence that the medical profession of America finally gave her recognition. Few women of our day have been the subject of more controversy.
From what one reads and hears about Sister Kenny, she is convinced to the nth degree that her methods are right and practicable, and even though the whole world might attempt to discredit her, she could go marching bravely on. Here is an example of a woman with an idea, a singleness of purpose, and the utmost belief in the efficacy of her methods of treatment who has brought new hope for many polio sufferers throughout the world.
Now we come to a story which shows how the dynamic power in some women continues into their late years. The story concerns Captain Mary Converse, whose exploits were given in newspaper articles early in 1947. Mrs. Converse at seventy-five, a veteran of nearly 34,000 seafaring miles, wants to go to sea again. Born in Boston, she learned seafaring from her late husband, Harry E. Converse, owner of a steam yacht. As a junior navigator, she sailed the seven seas, obtained her second pilot’s license in 1935, and her captain’s license in 1940. Approximately 2,600 navy officers learned navigation from Mrs. Converse. She taught them in the dining room of her Denver home. Captain Mary Converse sails again!
While today a Who’s Who of American women lists 10,222 biographical sketches selected from some 33,000 suggested names of outstanding women in business and the professions, including a number who are executives making more than $50,000 a year, our history recognizes no greater business woman than Lydia E. Pinkham. Her name may not be so well known to the women of today as to those of fifty years ago, but the business which she established and its product, Lydia Pinkham’s vegetable compound, still go merrily on. From a single idea, she built a huge business, which brought a return of millions and established a career the likes of which, for woman, the world has perhaps never known.
Being a man, I know nothing about the efficacy of Mrs. Pinkham’s vegetable compound, but I can remember as a boy often seeing a bottle of it in the family medicine chest. It was Mrs. Pinkham and her business associates who really modernized advertising, for she was one of the greatest of all advertisers. Ideas used in many advertisements today were originally voiced by Mrs. Pinkham. She tied in with much of her advertising a sort of homely philosophy embodying emotional appeals which seemed to have a way of penetrating to the hearts of her fellow-women and which resulted in not only millions of dollars in sales of her vegetable compound but also brought for more than half a century tons of enthusiastic testimonials to the laboratory at Lynn, Massachusetts.
Once more, in this extremely remarkable woman, is demonstrated what belief in personal achievement can and does accomplish. During Lydia Pinkham’s early life, many people were interested in the manufacture of home remedies, and she, too, became interested in the idea. She started making her compound in her kitchen and for some time gave the mixture away to ailing women neighbours, only to awaken later to the fact that it could be sold. She then began promoting it. Like most people who start with an idea, she had many discouragements --lack of finances, the opposition of others, and manufacturing and sales difficulties. But nothing daunted this New England woman, for her tremendous driving force and enthusiasm reached and engulfed every member of her family. Especially was this true after her business really got going.
No book documenting the great power of believing would be complete without mention of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, also a New England woman, who built up that huge religious organization known as Christian Science. As almost everyone knows, Mrs. Eddy was faced with discouragement, strife, and the bitterest ridicule. But after she had caught the flash which gave to the world her Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she began to develop powerful leadership, a tremendous and unshaken belief in her teachings, and a dynamic personality which has left its imprint upon millions of people throughout the world. It has been said that few writings have done so much to influence the sciences of medicine and theology as hers. Christian Science is another practical demonstration of the power of believing.
The world will always be indebted to Florence Nightingale, who was greatly instrumental in saving the lives of thousands, and brought the nursing profession to the high standard now recognized by the entire world. Here again is an example of a woman who knew early in life what she wanted and who set out to realize her ambition. She had been born with a passion to nurse the wounded and the sick; at the time she undertook her great work, nursing was not even recognized as a profession.
She came from one of the richest families in England, but that meant nothing to this great woman. She started in by scrubbing the corridor floor at the Fliedner Nursing School in Germany but she soon showed that she could not only scrub floors, but bind wounds, and with her encouraging talk, revive hopes. She, too, was fought at every turn, but being inspired with the vision of the destiny which she thought was hers, obstacles meant nothing to her. She hated bigots, believing that all should be cared for, irrespective of faith, colour, or creed, and she had a quick tongue when aroused.
During the Crimean War, the males of the British War Office scoffed, saying that Florence Nightingale’s work would only result in failure. Reluctantly they let the “madcap” have her own way. She organized, at her own expense, a private expedition of nurses and took them to Scutari, and even though the officers in charge of the hospital there wanted no woman to interfere with their work, interfere she did. Under the leadership of this originator of modern nursing, the women took over the handling of the hospital. Throughout her stay in the Crimea, her iron will constantly fought against a stone wall of opposition. Something had to give way, and this time it was the stone wall.
Some of the most powerful statesmen of Great Britain ridiculed this astonishing woman’s work and did everything possible to stop her in her reforms; but her letters, “filled with dynamite,” awakened her countrymen until she was adored everywhere. The story is told that when at the age of eighty-two, she became sick, her nurse tucked her into bed, only to have Florence Nightingale get out of her own bed and tuck in her nurse. At the age of ninety, just before she died, a friend asked her if she knew where she was and she replied, “I am watching at the altar of murdered men and I shall be fighting their cause.”
When we think of martyrs, most people have in mind men who have died or been crucified or jailed for espousing causes in which they believed. Let us always remember there are many outstanding women of history who have suffered martyrdom as much as men, from Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake to women of modern times who fought and were jailed because of their efforts in further women’s rights.
The name of Carrie Nation is probably becoming din to the younger generation and perhaps is fading in the memory of many of the older generation. But during the years around the turn of the century, Carrie Nation was one of the greatest of women martyrs. Like many people imbued with an idea, Carrie Nation was convinced that she was “divinely” appointed to destroy the saloons and she set out to end the illegal sale of liquor in her own state of Kansas. Aided by some of her followers, Mrs. Nation succeeded by public prayer and denunciation in closing many illicit barrooms. When she saw this method was slow in its effectiveness, she took to wielding a hatchet, smashing bottles and beer kegs, and demolishing bar fixtures. She was constantly ridiculed and frequently jailed, but so thoroughly was she convinced of the righteousness of her cause that she accepted martyrdom gladly.
Surely everyone knows the story of Sarah Bernhardt. She had the temper of a tigress and yet history records her as one of the greatest emotional actresses of all times. She suffered innumerable failures in her early days on the stage, but she had a passion to make good, and make good she did; by the time she was twenty-four she was famous. She, a woman who smoked cigars and drank strong drinks, was a creature of extraordinary moods. She would visit cemeteries and sit on tombstones as if in grief for the departed. Sarah Bernhardt never appeared to be concerned with what people thought about her, and, as a matter of fact, she revelled in their comment. She was an individualist in the highest sense. The memory of her dramatic acting will probably go on forever. Even though she had to have an artificial leg toward the end of her life, she continued her stage work, for nothing could change her lifelong belief that she was a supremely great actress --and she was to the end of her life in 1923.
Then there was that dynamic person, Madame Schumann-Heink, who was equally an exemplification of what belief can do, once the mind that carriers it gets into action. She was inspired early in life, giving to the world her beautiful voice at the age of fifteen when she became an opera singer. She, too, became famous in the Old World, but when she came to America, it was the fulfillment of a dream that had burned fiercely within her for many years. Her heart was torn many times but even in the face of overwhelming odds, Madame Schumann-Heink always came smiling through.
Here was a woman whose oldest son had gone off in World War I to fight for the Kaiser while her other four boys were in the opposite trenches, but among those of us who heard her sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in her quaint foreign accent, there were many who took off their hats and wept. Over a national radio hookup, her voice became known to millions. She was beloved by everyone and she had that basic thing, born in most people but seldom aroused, the spirit of never quitting. It was at the age of seventy-two, when she was signed up as a successor to Marie Dressler, that the curtain rang down on this great performer.
No matter of what race, creed, or colour, who has heard the wonderful contralto voice of Marian Anderson without being deeply moved and charmed by it! Yet few realize the very humble background of this great artist. I recall the story that as a child of six she wanted a violin; it was at the time she was learning that she could earn five or ten cents by scrubbing doorsteps in Philadelphia. If there ever was a woman who believed in her dreams, and who made them come true, it was Marian Anderson; she climbed to world fame and yet had to overcome, especially in our country, many handicaps and prejudices. Her triumph is one of the most dramatic in musical history. It was in Washington, D.C., on Easter Sunday of 1939, that this Negro girl of humble origin, standing before the Lincoln Memorial, thrilled an audience of 75,000 people, studded with cabinet members, senators, congressmen, and famous people in business and society. As we read the story of Marian Anderson, we must become convinced that she, too, succeeded through her belief, and that the great source of her inspiration came from her subconscious mind.
In this book are to be found numerous examples of men using the subconscious mind to achieve, but it is rather unusual to run across any written records of its use by women. Let me introduce here the story of a young woman who tells how her subconscious mind was directly responsible for her success. She is Angela Lansbury, the well-known young movie actress, who was interviewed by Mildred Mesirow for Reach Magazine. The interviewer tells us:
Angela Lansbury, the brilliant young screen star, aside from having beauty and dramatic ability, was also a girl with an exceptionally good brain. Angela’s blond beauty has become familiar to millions of movie-goers through her masterly interpretation of the maid in Gaslight, her charming adolescent buoyancy in National Velvet, and her poignant interpretation of the tragic café singer in The Picture of Dorian Gray.
So varied a range of character-interpretation requires brain as well as beauty. Angela has both.
It was during a range of character-interpretation here [Hollywood] that she launched forth upon one of her favourite themes --her faith in her own destiny…
“Ah,” she amended quickly, “I think perhaps I’ve phrased that badly. I don’t mean anything magical or occult. Perhaps faith in the power of the subconscious mind would be a better way of saying it.”
“In the manner of Tennyson, perhaps, or Stevenson?” was suggested.
“Exactly! Not that I think my abilities in any way resemble their genius, you understand. But I think I’ve learned how to tap the resources of the subconscious. Everyone knows that the subconscious mind stores all sorts of abilities, memories, and aptitudes we don’t ordinarily utilize… What I’m trying to say is that, when you’ve learned how to draw on your subconscious powers, there’s really no limit to what you can accomplish.”
Angela has schooled herself in the technique of this self-suggestion. Since first she chose acting as a career, she has constantly held in her mind a picture of what she aspires to achieve. She has even, she confessed, written down from time to time the goals she wants to reach. Obviously, she has tapped the reservoirs of creative material which few of us know how to use. Within the subconscious lie the materials of genius itself; of powers which, when properly recognized, may burst into the mental field of activity in patterns which surpass our conscious abilities…
“And how do you go about tapping your subconscious mind?” I asked.
“Heavens! I don’t want to sound stuffy and highbrow, but it’s really awfully simple. If you tell yourself over and over again that there’s no limit to the creative power within you, that’s about all there is to it. Honestly, I believe that’s true. Whatever intelligence or creative force, or whatever it is, that resides in the world is like…” she waved a strong, beautiful hand expressively… “oh, like light or air, or something of that sort. It doesn’t belong to me, especially. It’s there, to be tapped and expressed by anyone who knows how to get at it.
“This isn’t a cut-and-dried formula for success by any means,” she continued. “It doesn’t let you off hard work. You’ve got to keep plugging like mad, perfecting whatever kind of expression you’ve got; adding constantly to your skill, whether it’s in acting or painting, or even making a dress. So that, when the chance for self-expression does come, when the time arrives for you to call on your subconscious power to express itself, you have a good set of tools for it to work with; a proper medium through which your creative urge can be portrayed…. Catch on?” she added with typical humour.
“About the suggestibility of the subconscious?” I prompted.
“Oh that! Well, when you’re about to drop off to sleep, just tell yourself that tomorrow’s the day you’ve got to surpass anything you did today. That, whatever demands are made upon you, all your abilities, all you’ve learned, perhaps things you’ve forgotten you ever knew --all these will be available to you….
“Bearing in mind an actual mental picture of the situation is even better. If you’re scheduled to do a screen test, for example, you see yourself acting-out that test better than anyone’s ever done it before. Act it like mad in your mind! Be Duse; be Bernhardt! In your mental picture, be the best there is! And when the actual test comes off you find, often to your surprise, that you’re acting better than you know how.
“The subconscious is a pretty dramatic factor in personality, I believe. It likes to act and sing and paint and express itself. It likes to surpass in anything it’s called on to do. Your responsibility is to equip it with tools for expression, to give it a chance, and then make it an ally behind the scenes…”
Another example, and one of the most outstanding, is the story of how Uncle Tom’s Cabin came into existence. It will be recalled that it was written by a wisp of a woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose name will be remembered as long as there is American history. In 1850, Mrs. Stowe swore a solemn oath that she would write something “that would make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.” For two months she tried in vain to think of the story which was later to shake the world. In February, 1851, while she was attending communion service at the college church, there came to her mind the picture of Uncle Tom and of his death. According to the story, Mrs. Stowe went home in tears and when she had written out the scene of Uncle Tom’s death and read it to her family, they, too, were in tears.
She did a great deal of research work in trying to secure factual material, but when she actually sat down to write, she needed none of it. The story obsessed her and literally wrote itself. Out of her subconscious mind surged long-forgotten memories and photographic impressions, which arranged themselves almost automatically in proper sequence on paper. Mrs. Stowe didn’t think out these incidents and their background, she actually saw them; and while in her time little was known of the subconscious mind, it is obvious that it was the source of this story, which many claim brought on the War Between the States. Mrs. Stowe to her dying day insisted that it was God and not she who had written this book.
There are many famous women, including the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Browning, Susan B. Anthony, Evangeline Booth, Jane Addams, who attained niches in the hall of fame. And today, while it is too early to tell the complete story, there are three women whose names will go down in history as having influenced and shaped the destinies of millions of Chinese. These are the famous Soong sisters, perhaps the best known of whom is Madame Chiang Kai-shek; the others married respectively Dr. H.H. Kung and Dr. Sun Yat-sen, both Chinese leaders.
As we come down to the present day and read the stories of women who have big ideas, we run across such people as Mrs. Matthew Astor Wilks, one of the richest women in the world and the daughter of the late Hetty Green, who, herself, amassed a fortune of over $67,000,000. Mrs. Wilks is following in the footsteps of her famous mother.
Then we have the account of Vera Nyman, which is literally another story of rags to riches. An idea, fifteen dollars, and a bathtub put her into a business for which Mrs. Nyman recently refused a million dollars. When she married her husband, Bernard, in 1920, she had the belief that she and her husband were going to make a million dollars. It took her twenty-seven years to achieve her objective of the million, but she had it within her grasp when a drug concern offered her that sum for her plant. Mrs. Nyman rang doorbells selling a liquid cleaner and later, by cooking chemical stews night after night in her own home, hit upon a combination of ingredients that would clean 90 per cent of painted surfaces. Her product today is known to millions of housewives and last year her sales topped $25,000,000. Mrs. Nyman, who day after day of making personal calls encountered more than 50,000 housewives, know what it means to face discouragement, but her belief that she would ultimately make a million dollars never faltered.
Who’s Who in America gives the stories of dozens of women who, as top-flight executives, writers, and professional women, receive from $25,000 to $100,000 a year. For example, here’s the case of Mrs. George T. Gilmer of New Orleans, better known under the name of Dorothy Dix, the famous adviser to the lovelorn, who is reported to have received better than $75,000 a year. Then there is Mary A. Bair, president of the Oliver H. Bair Company of Philadelphia, with a salary of $50,000. And by no means is Helena Rubenstein, who owns the famous cosmetic manufacturing company and whose income must be tremendous, to be overlooked.
Success stories could embrace dozens of women, such as Mary Dillon, president of the Brooklyn Borough Gas Company, who started in as a six-dollar-a-week office helper in the $5,000,000 corporation which she now heads; and Mrs. Ora H. Snyder of Chicago, who, about thirty-five years ago and with a capital of only five cents, began building up a candy business which centers around several shops and which was, at one time, worth more than a million dollars.
Add the story of Alice Foote MacDougall, president of the Emceedee Corporation Cortile, Inc., and many others like her who have built up huge businesses which have been managed as well as those headed by male executives.
An entire book could be written about women who have achieved fame and fortune in the field of radio and motion pictures as artists, writers, and executives. The name of Mary Pickford is known to millions, not only as a screen favourite but also as a motion picture corporation executive.
For a number of years Bertha Brainard was a program director of the National Broadcasting System , with a salary that ran into five figures; she was said to be one of the highest paid women radio executives. It all came about through her getting an idea for feature radio programs. That was in 1922 and her first effort brought her a return of $50.
The whole world knows the story of Amelia Earhart, famous American aviatrix, who was lost with her plane in the South Pacific. While a teacher and a social worker, she became interested in aviation and became one of the world’s greatest flyers. She was the first woman to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. In 1931 she made a solo flight across the Atlantic and four years later flew the Pacific alone from Honolulu to California.
One writer has said that the vast majority of American men do not believe that women are even their equals. But when we stop to examine the record, the list of women who have achieved success in every line of endeavour is an impressive one.
Here is the story of a great American woman who scored a double success --as a homemaker and a career woman. She is Mary Roberts Rinehart, who for more than forty years has thrilled the mystery-story fans of the world. Necessity forced her to make some money to retrieve the family fortunes which she and her doctor-husband had lost in a stock-market crash. With one hand, she wrote those great stories of fiction which gained her more than ten million readers, while with the other hand, she tended her babies and handled the details of housekeeping.
There are many women who have remained single simply because they feel deeply about marriage and are not willing to marry “just any man.” But surely if this science of creative thinking can work for men, it can work also for women --even to the point of woman’s actually creating an image of the man of her desires and literally bringing him into reality. In other words, if a single woman could visualize the kind of man she wanted and steadfastly held to the thought, in accordance with the principles of this science, she could bring the object of her mental picture into her presence. This may sound silly to some of my women readers, but it has been my good fortune to have given this science to many women who have used it most effectively. Therefore, if you are single and with your whole heart and soul you desire a certain type of man to walk into your life as a husband, merely picture him, not necessarily in physical form but in the abstract, setting forth in your thought projection the attributes that you would like to have in your man, and the day will surely come when you will meet him.
It seems to me that the women of today have the means of getting about everything they set their minds to. Certainly, opportunities are all around them. In fact, there never was a time in history when the world was so open to women as it is today. There are comparatively few fields among those which were formerly restricted to men in which women are not now represented. Today you’ll find women in science, the fine arts, journalism, publicity, government, and various other branches, all working intelligently and with full knowledge of their duties and aware of their new opportunities and responsibilities.
There can hardly be any doubt that all of this is largely because modern women are receiving the same education as men, with the result that they are not alone becoming acquainted with subjects hitherto regarded as essentially for men, but that their conscious or reasoning mind is being developed. In a way, it is perhaps superfluous for me to call women’s attention to the importance and advantage of using their subconscious mind, for they have always used it. As a matter of fact, they are experts in the use of it --only they have always thought of it as woman’s intuition. My point is that the subconscious is much more than intuition and that it possesses great forces which can be set in motion for the benefit not only of men but of women also, through the application of the power of dynamic believing. As I pointed out earlier, wonderful results are brought about by the conscious mind’s conveying the will-to-do through believing to the subconscious, and this immediately sets the subconscious in action to carry out the desires of the individual.
Now the women of modern times have a unique advantage, I might say, a twofold mental advantage: to develop their subconscious mind the skilled use of which is characteristic of their sex and which has been highly developed and been their unconscious, though intuitive, guide through the ages, there has been added their conscious mind which has been specially developed by the scientific method of modern education. In my opinion, it is this combination which accounts for the speed with which women have acquired such rapid proficiency in so many of the so-called masculine subjects; and it is largely responsible not only for women’s emerging from the traditional life within the home, but also for their entrance into the world where their view of people and practical affairs is broadened, made more objective and more understanding. Furthermore, it enables women in the home to have a better comprehension of the work of their men, as well as a deeper interest in the school studies and future life-work of their children.
My fundamental aim is to show how each person can develop his plus-powers, the seeds of which lie within his subconscious mind. It is these plus-powers which will enable you to obtain the things you want and the things you would like to be in addition to what you have and what you are already. By this new co-operation of the conscious and subconscious minds, you can gain those things which you feel deeply are necessary to your life and happiness, and also keep alive the feeling that no matter how long you live, you are undergoing personal development, are, in a word, progressing.
Always remember that the subconscious mind, in addition to being the seat of intuition, is a repository of great power and has inexhaustible resources. The more you call upon these resources, the more there are placed at your disposal. Remember also: the subconscious is ageless; it can never grow old or tired, and you can draw upon it all your life. The only thing you need is the power of believing --sincerely, strongly, and completely; once the subconscious has received your message and understands your desires and ambitions, it will be only a short time when your desire will be fulfilled and your ambition achieved. This book tells of the many men who have used this science and succeeded, but I would like to impress upon my women readers that they have the same two minds, conscious and subconscious, and that through them they can succeed just as men have. It is all a matter of believing and of co-operation of the two minds, according to the principles here set forth. The magic which comes from believing is real, for it had been demonstrated in the lives of some of the most successful. It can be demonstrated in your life --by your own personal believing.
