THESE pages have been written for the purpose of furnishing you a key to the
attainment of your desires, and to explain that Fear should be entirely banished
from your consciousness in order for you to obtain possession of the things you
want.
This presupposes, of course, that your desire for possession is based upon your
aspiration for greater happiness. For example, you feel that the possession of
more money, lands, or friends will make you happier, and your desire for
possession of these things arises from a conviction that their possession will
bring you freedom and contentment
In your effort to possess, you will discover that the thing you most need is to
consistently “Be” your best self.
One morning after class a man came to me and asked if I would speak the word of
supply for him, as he was sadly in the need of money. He offered me a $5 bill
with the remark:
“Dear Madam, that is half of every dollar I have in the world. I am in debt; my
wife and child have not the proper clothing; in fact, I must have money.” I
explained to him that money was the symbol of differentiated substance, that
this substance filled all space, that it was present for him at that very
moment, and would manifest to him as the
5
money he required. “But,” he questioned, “it may come too late.” I told him it
could not come too late, as it was eternally present. He understood and got the
uplift of my spoken word.
I did not see the man again, but six months later I had a letter from him
stating he was in New Orleans. He said, “I am well established here in my
regular profession of photography; I own my own home, have an automobile of my
own, and am generally prospering. And dear Mrs. Behrend, I want to thank you
for lifting me out of the depths that day in New York.
Three days after I talked to you, a man whom I have not seen for years met me on
the street. When I explained my situation to him, be loaned me the money to pay
my bills and come down here. The inclosed check is to help you continue your
wonderful work of teaching people how to mentally reach out and receive their
never-failing supply. I would not take anything for my understanding as you have
given it to me. God bless you.”
A feeling that greater possessions, no matter of what kind they may be, will of
themselves bring contentment or happiness, is a misunderstanding. No person,
place, or thing can give you happiness. They may give you cause for happiness
and a feeling of contentment, but the Joy of Living comes from within.
Therefore, it is here recommended that you should make the effort to obtain the
things
6
which you feel will bring you joy, provided that your desires are in accord with
the Joy of Living.
It is also desired, in this volume, to suggest the possibilities in store for
all who make persistent effort to understand the Law of Visualization, and who
make practical application of this knowledge on whatever plane they may be. The
word “effort,” as here employed, is not intended to convey the idea of strain.
All study and meditation should be without strain or tension.
It has been my endeavor to show that by starting at the beginning of the
creative action, or mental picture, certain corresponding results are sure to
follow. “While the laws of the Universe cannot be altered, they can be made to
work under specific conditions, thereby producing results for individual
advancement which cannot be obtained under the spontaneous workings of the law
provided by Nature.”
However far these suggestions I have given
—of the possibilities in store for you, through visualizing, may carry you
beyond your past experience, they nowhere break the continuity of the law of
cause and effect.
If through the suggestions here given, any one is brought to realize that his
mind is a center through and in which “all power there is”is in operation,
simply waiting to be given direction in the one and only way through which it
can take specific action—and this
7
means reaction in concrete or physical form
—then the mission to which this book is dedicated has been fulfilled.
Try to remember that the picture you think, feel, and see is reflected into the
Universal Mind, and by the natural law of reciprocal action must return to you
in either spiritual or physical form. Knowledge of this law of reciprocal action
between the individual and the Universal Mind opens to you free access to all
you may wish to possessor to be.
It must be steadfastly borne in mind that all this can be true only for the
individual who recognizes that he derives his power to make an abiding mental
picture from the All-Originating Universal Spirit of Life, and can be used
constructively only so long as it is employed and retained in harmony with the
nature of the Spirit which originated it. To insure this there must be no
inversion of the thought of the individual regarding his relationship to this
Universal Originating Spirit, which is that of a son, through which the parent
mind acts and reacts.
Thus conditioned, whatever you think and feel yourself to be, the Creative
Spirit of Life is bound to faithfully reproduce in a corresponding reaction.
This is the great reason for picturing yourself and your affairs the way you
wish them to be as existing facts— though invisible to the physical eye—and
living in your picture. An honest endeavor to do this, always recognizing that
your own
8
mind is a projection of the Originating Spirit, will prove to you that the best
there is, is yours in all your ways.
G.B.
Los Angeles, California;
May, 1929.
9
CHAPTER I
Order of Visualization
The exercise of the visualizing faculty keeps your mind in order, and attracts
to you the things you need to make life more enjoyable in an orderly way.
If you train yourself in the practice of deliberately picturing your desire and
carefully examining your picture, you will soon find that your thoughts and
desires proceed in a more orderly procession than ever before.
Having reached a state of ordered mentality, you are no longer in a constant
state of mental hurry. Hurry is Fear, and consequently destructive.
In other words, when your understanding grasps the power to visualize your
heart’s desire and hold it with your will, it attracts to you all things
requisite to the fulfillment of that picture by the harmonious vibrations of the
law of attraction.
You realize that since Order is Heaven’s first law, and visualization places
things in their natural order, then it must be a heavenly thing to visualize.
Everyone visualizes, whether he knows it or not. Visualizing is the great secret
of success.
11
The conscious use of this great power attracts to you multiplied resources,
intensifies your wisdom, and enables you to make use of advantages which you
formerly failed to recognize.
A lady once came to me for help in selling a piece of property. After I
explained to her just how to make a mental picture of the sale, going through
the details mentally, exactly as she would do if the property were sold, she
came a week later and told me how one day she was walking along the street, when
the thought suddenly occurred to her to go and see a certain real estate dealer,
to whom she had not yet been.
She hesitated for a moment when she first got the idea, as it seemed to her that
that man could not sell her property. However, upon the strength of what I had
told her, she followed the lead and went to the real estate man , who sold the
property for her in just three days after she had first approached him. This was
simply following along with the natural law of demand and supply.
We now fly through the air, not because anyone has been able to change the laws
of Nature, but because the inventor of the flying machine learned how to apply
Nature’s laws and, by making orderly use of them, produced the desired result.
So far as the natural
12
forces are concerned, nothing has changed since the beginning. There were no
airplanes in “the Year One,” because those of that generation could not conceive
the idea as a practical, working possibility. “It has not yet been done,” was
the argument, “and it canuot be done.” Yet the laws and materials for practical
flying machines existed then as now.
Troward tells us that the great lesson he learned from the airplane and wireless
telegraphy is the triumph of principle over precedent, the working out of an
idea to its logical conclusion in spite of accumulated contrary testimony of all
past experience.
With such an example before you, you must realize that there are still greater
secrets to be disclosed. Also, “That you holdthe key within yourself, with which
to unlock the secret chamber that contains your heart’s desire.
All that is necessary in order that you may use this key and make your life
exactly what you wish it to be, is a careful inquiry into the unseen causes
which stand back of every external and visible condition. Then bring these
unseen causes into harmony with your conception, and you will find that you can
make practical working realities of possibilities which at present seem but
fantastic dreams.”
A woman came to me in New York City,
13
asking for help, as she was out of work. I spoke the word of ever-present supply
for her and intensified it by mentally seeing the woman in the position she
dreamed of, but which she had been unable to make a practical reality.
That same afternoon she telephoned and said she could hardly believe her senses,
as she had just taken exactly the kind of a position she wanted. The employer
told her she had been wanting a woman like her for months.
We all knew that the balloon was the forefather of the airplane. In 1766 Henry
Cavendish, an English nobleman, proved that hydrogen gas was seven times lighter
than air. From that discovery the balloon came into existence, and from the
ordinary balloon the dirigible, a cigar-shaped airship, was evolved.
Study of aeronautics and laws of the aerial locomotion of birds and projectiles
led to the belief that mechanism could be evolved by which heavier-than-air
machines could be made to travel from place to place and remain in the air by
the maintenance of great speed, which would overcome by propulsive force the
ordinary law of gravitation. Professor Langley of Washington, who developed much
of the theory which others afterward improved upon, was subjected to much
derision when he sent a model airplane up, only to have it bury its nose in the
muddy waters of
14
the Potomac. But the Wright Brothers, who experimented later, realized the
possibility of traveling through the air in a machine that had no gas bag. They
saw themselves enjoying this mode of transportation with great facility. It is
said that one of the brothers would tell the other, when their varied
experiences did not turn out as they expected:
“It’s all right, Brother, I can see myself riding in that machine, and it
travels easily and steadily.”
Those Wright Brothers knew what they wanted and kept their pictures constantly
before them. Now transportation through the air is developing rapidly and we all
feel sure it will in the near future become as ordinary a method of travel as
the automobile.
In visualizing, or making a mental picture, you are not endeavoring to change
the laws of Nature. You are fulfilling them.
Your object in visualizing is to bring things into regular order, both mentally
and physically. When you realize that this method of employing the Creative
Power brings your desires, one after another, into practical, material
accomplishment, your confidence in the mysterious but unfailing law of
attraction, which has its central power station in the very heart of your
word-picture, becomes supreme. Nothing can shake it. You never feel that it is
necessary to take anything from anybody
15
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
else. You have learned that asking and seeking have, as their correlatives,
receiving and finding. You know that all you have to do is to start the plastic
substance of the Universe flowing into the thought-moulds your picture-desire
provides.
16
CHAPTER II
How to Attract To Yourself
The Things You Desire
The power within you which enables you to form a thought-picture is the starting
point of all there is. In its original state it is the undifferentiated formless
substance of life. Your thought-picture makes the model, so to say, into which
this formless substance takes shape.
Visualizing, or mentally seeing things and conditions as you wish the to be, is
thecondensing, the specializing power in you which might be illustrated by
comparison with the lens of a magic lantern, which is one of the best symbols of
the imaging faculty.
It illustrates the idea of the working of the Creative Spirit on the plane of
initiative and selection—or in its concentrated, specializing form —in a
remarkably clear manner.
The picture slide illustrates your own mental picture—invisible in the lantern
of your mind until you turn on the light of your will.
That is to say, you light up your desire with absolute faith that the Creative
Spirit of Life, in you, is doing the work. By the steady flow of the light of
the Will on the Spirit, your desired picture is projected upon the screen of
17
the physical world—an exact reproduction of the pictured slide in your mind.
A woman came to me for help to cause her husband to return to her. She said she
was very unhappy and lonely without him and longed to be reunited. I told her
she could not lose love and protection, because both belonged to her. She asked
what she should do to get her husband back again. I told her to follow the great
power of intuition and think of her husband as perfectly free, and the
embodiment of all that a husband should be.
She went away quite happy, but returned in a few days to tell me that her
husband desired a divorce in order to marry again. She was quite agitated and
had evidently relaxed her will in following the instructions given at the former
interview. Again I told her to hold constantly in her mind that the loving
protection of the Spirit of Life would guide her in perfect happiness.
A month later she came again and said that her husband had married the other
woman. This time she had completely lost her mental grip. I repeated the words
for her as before, and she regained her poise. Two months later she came back to
me, full of joy. Her husband had come to her, begging her forgiveness, and
telling her what a terrible mistake he had made, as he could not be happy
without her. They are now living happily together. and she, at least, learned
the necessity
18
of holding her pictured desire steadily in place by the use of her will.
Visualizing without a will sufficiently steady to inhibit every thought and
feeling contrary to your pictured thought would be as useless as a magic lantern
without the light.
On the other band, if your will is sufficiently developed to bold your picture
in thought and feeling, without any “ifs”; simply realizing that your thought is
the great attracting power, then your mental picture is as certain to be
projected upon your physical world as a picture slide put into a magic lantern
shows on the screen.
Try projecting the picture in a magic lantern with a light that is constantly
shifting from one side to the other, and you will produce the effect of an
uncertain will. It is as necessary that you should always have back of your
picture a strong, steady will, as it is to have a strong steady light back of a
picture slide.
The joyous assurance with which you make your picture is the very powerful
magnet of Faith, and nothing can obliterate it. You are happier than you ever
were, because you have learned to know where your source of supply is, and you
rely upon its never-failing response to the direction you give it.
All said and done, happiness is the one thing which every human being wants, and
the
19
study of visualization enables you to get more out of life than you ever enjoyed
before. Increasing possibilities keep opening out, more and more, before you.
A business man once told me that since practicing visualization, and forming the
habit of devoting a few minutes each day to thinking about his work as he
desired it to be, in a large, broad way, his orders had more than doubled in six
months.
His method was to go into a room every morning before breakfast and take a
mental inventory of his business as he had left it the evening before, and then
enlarge upon it. He said he expanded and expanded in this way, until his affairs
were in a remarkably successful condition. He would see himself in his office
doing everything he wanted done. His occupation required him to meet many
strangers every day.
In his mental picture he saw himself meeting these people, understanding their
needs, and supplying them in just the way they wished. This habit, he said, had
strengthened and steadied his will in an almost inconceivable manner.
Furthermore, by thus mentally seeing things as he wished them to be, he had
acquired the confident feeling that a certain Creative Power was exercising
itself, for him and through him, for the purpose of improving his little world.
When you first begin to visualize seriously,
20
you may feel, as many others do, that someone else may be forming the same
picture you are, and that, naturally, would not suit your purpose. Do not give
yourself any concern about this.
Simply try to realize that your picture is an orderly exercise of the Universal
Creative Power specifically applied. Then you may be sure that no one can work
in opposition to you. The universal law of harmony prevents that.
Endeavor to bear in mind that your mental picture is Universal Mind specifically
exercising its inherent powers of initiative and selection. God, or Universal
Mind, made man for the special purpose of differentiating Himself through him.
Everything there is, came into existence in this same way, by this self-same
law of self-differentiation, and for the same purpose. First came the idea, the
mental picture, or the prototype of the thing, which is the thing itself in its
incipiency.
The Great Architect of the Universe contemplated Himself as manifesting through
his polar opposite—matter—and the idea expanded and projected itself until we
have not only a world, but many worlds.
Many people ask, “But why should we have a physical world at all ?” The answer
is:
“Because it is the nature of Originating Substance to solidify, under
directivity rather than activity, just as it is the nature of wax to
21
harden when it becomes cold, or plaster of paris to become firm and solid when
exposed to the air.
Your picture is this same Divine Substance in its original state, taking form
through the individualized center of Divine operation, in your mind; and there
is no power to prevent this combination of Spiritual Substance from becoming
physical form. it is the nature of Spirit to complete its work, and an idea is
not complete until it has made for itself a vehicle.
Nothing can prevent your picture from coming into concrete form except the same
power which gave it birth—yourself.
Suppose you wish to have a more orderly room. You look about your room, and the
idea of order suggests boxes, closets, shelves, hooks, and so forth. The box,
the closet and the hooks, are all concrete ideas of order, because they are the
vehicles through which order and harmony suggest themselves.
22
CHAPTER III
Relation Between Mental And Physical Form
SOME persons feel that it is not quite proper to visualize for things. “It’s too
material,” they say. Why, material form is necessary for the self-recognition of
Spirit from the individual standpoint, and this is the means through which the
Creative Process is carried forward.
Therefore, far from matter being an illusion and something which ought not to
be, matter is the necessary channel for the self-differentiation of Spirit.
However, it is not my desire to lead you into lengthy and tiresome scientific
reasoning, in order to remove the mystery from visualization and to put it upon
a logical foundation.
Naturally, each individual will do this in his own way. My only wish is to point
out to you the easiest way I know, which is the road on which Troward guides me.
I feel sure you will conclude, as I have, that the only mystery in connection
with visualizing is the mystery of life taking form, governed by unchangeable
and easily understood laws.
We all possess more power and greater possibilities than we realize, and
visualizing
23
is one of the greatest of these powers, it brings other Possibilities to our
observation. When we pause to think for a moment, we realize that for a cosmos
to exist at all, it must be the outcome of a Cosmic Mind, which binds “all
individual minds to a certain generic unity of action, thereby producing all
things as realities and nothing as illusions.” If you will take this thought of
Troward’s and meditate upon it without prejudice, you will surely realize that
concrete material form is an absolute necessity of the Creative Process; also
“that matter is not an illusion but a necessary channel thru which life
differentiates itself.” If you consider matter in its right order, as the polar
opposite to Spirit, you will not find any antagonism between them. On the
contrary, together they constitute one harmonious whole. And when you realize
this, you feel, in your practice of visualizing, that you are working from cause
to effect, from beginning to end. In reality your mental picture is the
specialized outworking of the Originating Spirit. One could talk for hours on
purely scientific lines, showing, as Troward says, “that raw material for the
formation of the solar systems is universally distributed throughout all space.
Yet investigation shows that while the Heavens are studded with millions of
suns, there are spaces which show no signs of cosmic activity. This being true,
24
There must be something which started cosmic activity in certain places, while
passing over others in which the raw material was equally available. At first
thought, one might attribute development of cosmic energy to the etheric
particles themselves. Upon investigation however, we find that this is
mathematically impossible in a medium which is equally distributed throughout
space, for all its particles are in equilibrium; therefore, no one particle
possesses in itself a greater power of originating motion than the other. Thus
we find that the initial movement, though working in and through the particles
of primary substance, is not the particles themselves. It is this something we
mean when we speak of Spirit.”
This same power that brought universal substance into existence will bring your
individual thought or mental picture into physical form. There is no difference
in the power. The only difference is a difference of degree. The power and the
substance themselves are the same. Only in working out your mental picture, it
has transferred its creative energy from the Universal to the particular, and is
working in the same unfailing manner from its specific center, your mind.
25
CHAPTER IV
Operation of Your Mental Picture
The operation of a large telephone system may be used as a simile. The main, or
head central subdivides itself into many branch centrals, every branch being in
direct connection with the main central, and each individual branch recognizing
the source of its existence, reports all things to its central head. Therefore,
when assistance of any nature is required: new supplies, difficult repairs to be
done, or what not, the branch in need goes at once to its central head. It would
not think of referring its difficulties (or its successes) to the main central
of a telegraph system, though they might belong to the same organization. These
different branch centrals know that the only remedy for any difficulty must come
from the central out of which they were projected and to which they are always
attached.
If we, as individual branches of the Universal Mind, would refer our
difficulties in the same confident manner to the source from which we were
projected, and use the remedies which it has provided, we would realize what
Jesus meant when he said, “Ask and ye
26
shall receive.” Our every requirement would be met. Surely the Father must
supply the child. The trunk of the tree cannot fail to provide for its branches.
A man came to me in great distress, saying he was about to lose his home in the
South. In his own words, it was mortgaged to the hilt, and his creditors were
going to foreclose. It was the house in which he had been born and had grown to
young manhood, and the thought of losing it filled his heart and mind with
sorrow, not only from a money standpoint, but from the standpoint of sentimental
association. I explained to him that the Power that brought him into existence
did so for the purpose of expressing its limitless supply through him; that
there was no power on earth which could cut him off from his source except his
own consciousness, and that in reality he would not be cut off then. I explained
to him that he had it, but was unable to recognize that it was there, and said
to him, “Infinite substance is manifesting in you right now.” The next week, on
Sunday, just before leaving my dressing room in the Selwyn Theatre to give my
afternoon message, I received the following note: “Dear Mrs. Behrend: I want you
to know that I am the happiest man in the whole city of New York. My home in the
South is saved. The money came in the most miraculous way, and I have
27
telegraphed enough to pay off the mortgage. Please tell the people this
afternoon about this wonderful Power.
You may be sure I did, explaining to them that everything animate or inanimate
is called into existence or outstandingness by a Power which itself does not
stand out. The Power which creates the mental picture—the Originating Spirit
Substance of your pictured desire—does not stand out. It projects the substance
of itself, which is a solidified counterpart of itself, while it—the
Power—remains invisible to the physical eye. Those will appreciate the value of
visualizing who are able to realize Paul’s meaning when he said, “The worlds
were formed by the word of God. Things which are seen are not made of things
which do appear.”
There is nothing unusual or mysterious in the idea of your pictured desire
coming into material evidence. It is the working of a universal, natural Law.
The world was projected by the self-contemplation of the Universal Mind, and
this same action is taking place in its individualized branch which is the Mind
of Man. Everything in the whole world, from the hat on your head to the boots on
your feet, has its beginning in mind and comes into existence in exactly the
same manner. All are projected thoughts, solidified. Your personal advance in
evolution depends on your
28
right use of the power of visualizing, and your use of it depends on whether you
recognize that you, yourself, are a particular center through and in which the
Originating Spirit is finding ever new expression for potentialities already
existing within Itself. This is evolution.
Your mental picture is the force of attraction which evolves and combines the
Originating Substance into specific shape. Your picture is the combining and
evolving power house, in a generative sense, so to say, through which the
Originating Creative Spirit expresses itself. Its creative action is limitless,
without beginning and without end, and always progressive and orderly. “It
proceeds stage by stage, each stage being a necessary preparation for the one to
follow.”Now let us see if we can get an idea of the different stages by which
the things in the world have come to be. Troward says, “If we can get at the
working principle which is producing these results, we can very quickly and
easily give it personal application. First, we find that the thought of
Originating Life, or Spirit, concerning Itself is its simple awareness of its
own being, and this, demanding a relationship to something else, produces a
primary ether, a universal substance out of which everything in the world must
grow.”
Troward also tells us that “though this
29
awareness of being is a necessary foundation for any further possibilities, it
is not much to talk about.” It is the same with individualized Spirit, which is
yourself. Before you can entertain the idea of making a mental picture of your
desire as being at all practical, you must have some idea of your being; of your
“I am”; and just as soon as you are conscious of your “I-amness,” you begin to
wish to enjoy the freedom which this consciousness suggests. You want to do more
and be more, and as you fulfill this desire within yourself, localized spirit
begins conscious activities in you. The thing you are more concerned with is the
specific action of the Creative Spirit of Life, Universal Mind specialized. The
localized God-germ in you~ is your personality, your individuality and since the
joy of absolute freedom is the inherent nature of this God-germ, it is natural
that it should endeavor to enjoy itself through its specific center. And as you
grow in the comprehension that your being, your individuality, is God
particularizing Himself, you naturally develop Divine tendencies. You want to
enjoy life and liberty. You want freedom in your affairs as well as in your
consciousness, and it is natural that you should. With this progressive wish
there is always a faint thought-picture. As your wish and your recognition grow
into an intense desire, this
30
desire becomes a clear mental picture. For example, a young lady studying music
wishes she had a piano in order to practice at home. She wants the piano so much
that she can mentally see it in one of the rooms. She holds the picture of the
piano and indulges in the mental reflection of the pleasure and advantage it
will be to have the piano in the corner of the living room. One day she finds it
there, just as she had pictured it.
As you grow in understanding as to who you are, where you came from, what the
purpose of your being is, and how you are to fulfil the purpose for which you
are intended, you will become a more and more perfect center through which the
Creative Spirit of Life can enjoy itself. And you will realize that there can be
but one creative process filling all space, which is the same in its
potentiality whether universal or individual. Furthermore, all there is, whether
on the plane of the visible or invisible, had its origin in the localized action
of thought, or a mental picture, and this includes yourself, because you are
Universal Spirit localized, and the same creative action is taking place through
you.
Now you are no doubt asking yourself why there is so much sickness and misery in
the world. If the same power and intelligence which brought the world into
existence is in operation in the mind of man, why does it not
31
manifest itself as strength joy, health and plenty? If one can have one’s
desires fulfilled by simply making a mental picture of that desire, holding on
to it with the will, and without anxiety, doing on the outward plane whatever
seems necessary to bring the desire into fulfillment, then there seems no reason
for the existence of sickness and poverty. Surely no one desires either. The
first reason is that few persons will take the trouble to inquire into the
working principle of the Laws of Life. If they did, they would soon convince
themselves that there is no necessity for the sickness and poverty which we see
about us. They would realize that visualizing is a principle and not a fallacy.
There are a few who have found it worth while to study this simple, though
absolutely unfailing law, which will deliver them from bondage. However, the
race as a whole is not willing to give the time required for the study. It is
either too simple, or too difficult. They may make a picture of their desire
with some little understanding of visualizing for a day or two, but more
frequently it is for an hour or so.
If you will insist upon mentally seeing yourself surrounded by things and
conditions as you wish them to be you will understand that the Creative Energy
sends its substance in the direction indicated by the tendency of your thoughts.
Herein lies the advantage of
32
holding your thought in the form of a mental picture.
A man in the hardware business in New Jersey came to me in great distress. He
would have to go into bankruptcy unless something happened in a fortnight. He
said he had never heard of visualizing. I explained to him how to make a mental
picture of his business increasing, instead of a picture of losing it. In about
a month’s time he returned very happy and told me how he had succeeded. He said,
“I have my debts all paid, and my shop is full of new supplies.” His business
was then on a solid basis. It was beautiful to see his Faith.
The more enthusiasm and faith you are able to put into your picture, the more
quickly it will come into visible form, and your enthusiasm is increased by
keeping your desire secret. The moment you speak it to any living soul, that
moment your power is weakened. Your power, your magnet of attraction is not that
strong, and consequently cannot reach so far. The more perfectly a secret
between your mind and your outer self is guarded, the more vitality you give
your power of attraction. One tells one’s troubles to weaken them, to get them
off one’s mind, and when a thought is given out, its power is dissipated. Talk
it over with yourself, and even write it down, then destroy the paper.
33
However, this does not mean that you should strenuously endeavor to compel the
Power to work out your picture on the special lines that you think it should.
That method would soon exhaust you and hinder the fulfillment of your purpose. A
wealthy relative need not necessarily die, or someone lose a fortune on the
street, to materialize the $10,000 which you are mentally picturing. One of the
doormen in the building in which I lived heard much of the mental picturing of
desires from visitors passing out of my rooms. The average desire was for $500.
He considered that five dollars was more in his line and began to visualize it,
without the slightest idea of where or how he was to get it. My parrot flew out
of the window, and I telephoned to the men in the courtyard to get it for me.
One caught it, and it bit him on the finger. The doorman, who had gloves on, and
did not fear a similar hurt, took hold of it and brought it up to me. I gave him
five one-dollar bills for his service. This sudden reward surprised him. He
enthusiastically told me that he hadbeen visualizing for just $5, merely from
hearing that others visualized. He was delighted at the unexpected realization
of his mental picture.
All you have to do is to make such a mental picture of your heart’s desire, and
hold it cheerfully in place with your will, always
34
conscious that the same Infinite Power which brought the universe into
existence, brought you into form for the purpose of enjoying Itself in and
through you. And since it is all Life, Love, Light, Power, Peace, Beauty, and
Joy, and is the only Creative Power there is, the form it takes in and through
you depends upon the direction given it by your thought. In you it is
undifferentiated, waiting to take any direction given it as it passes through
the instrument which it has made for the purpose of self-distribution—you.
It is this Power which enables you to transfer your thoughts from one form to
another. The power to change your mind is the individualized Universal Power
taking the initiative, giving direction to the unformed substance contained in
every thought.
It is the simplest thing in the world to give this highly sensitive Substance
any form you will, through visualizing. Anyone can do it with a small
expenditure of effort. Once you really believe that your mind is a center
through which the unformed substance of all there is in your world, takes
involuntary form, the only reason your picture does not always materialize is
because you have introduced something antagonistic to the fundamental principle.
Very often this destructive element is caused by the frequency with which you
change your pictures. After many such
35
changes, you decide that your original desire is what you want after all. Upon
this conclusion, you begin to wonder why it (being your first picture) has not
materialized. The Substance with which you are mentally dealing is more
sensitive than the most sensitive photographer’s film. If, while taking a
picture, you suddenly remembered you had already taken a picture on that same
plate, you would not expect a perfect result of either picture. On the other
hand, you may have taken two pictures on the same plate unconsciously. When the
plate has been developed, and the picture comes into physical view, you do not
condemn the principle of photography, nor are you puzzled to understand why your
picture has turned out so unsatisfactorily. You do not feel that it is
impossible for you to obtain a good, clear picture of the subject in question.
You know that you can do so, by simply starting at the beginning, putting in a
new plate, and determining to be more careful while taking your picture next
time. If these lines are followed out, you are sure of a satisfactory result. If
you will proceed in the same manner with your mental picture, doing your part in
a correspondingly confident frame of mind, the result will be just as perfect.
The laws of visualizing are as infallible as the laws governing photography. In
fact, photography is the outcome of visualizing.
36
Again, your results in visualizing the fulfillment of your desires may be
imperfect, and your desires delayed, through the misuse of this power, owing to
the thought that the fulfillment of your desire is contingent upon certain
persons or conditions. The Originating Principle is not in any way dependent
upon any person, place, or thing. It has no past and knows no future. The law is
that the Originating Creative Principle of Life is “the universal here and
everlasting now.” it creates its own vehicles through which to operate.
Therefore, past experience has no bearing upon your present picture. So do not
try to obtain your desire through a channel which may not be natural for it,
even though it may seem reasonable to you. Your feeling should be that the
thing, or the consciousness, which you so much desire, is normal and natural, a
part of yourself, a form of your evolution. If you can do this, there is no
power to prevent your enjoying the fulfillment of the picture you have in mind,
or any other you may create.
37
CHAPTER V
Expressions from Beginners
HUNDREDS of persons have realized that “visualizing is an Aladdin’s lamp to him
with a mighty will.” General Foch says that his feelings were so outraged during
the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 that he visualized himself leading a French army
against the Germans to victory. He said he made his picture, smoked his pipe,
and waited. This is one result of visualizing with which we are all familiar.
A famous actress wrote a long article in one of the leading Sunday papers last
winter, describing how she rid herself of excessive avoirdupois by seeing her
figure constantly as she wished to be.
A very interesting letter came to me from a doctor’s wife, while I was lecturing
in New York. She began with the hope that I would never discontinue my lectures
on visualization, which were helping humanity to realize the wonderful fact that
they possessed the means of liberation within themselves. Relating her own
experience, she said that she was born on the East Side of New York in the
poorest quarter. From earliest girlhood she
38
had cherished a dream of marrying a physician some day. This dream gradually
formed a stationary mental picture. The first position she obtained was in the
capacity of a maid in a physician’s family. Leaving this place, she entered the
family of another doctor. The wife of her employer died, and in the doctor
married her—the result of long-pictured yearning. After that, both and her
husband conceived the idea of owning a fruit farm in the South. They formed a
mental picture of the idea and put their faith in its eventual fulfillment. The
letter she sent me came from her fruit farm in the South. Her second mental
picture had seen the light of materialization.
Many letters of a similar nature come to me every day. The following is a case
that was printed in the New York Herald last May:
“Atlantic City, May 5—She was an old woman, and when she was arraigned before
Judge Clarence Goldenberg in the police court today she was so weak and tired
she could hardly stand. The Judge asked the court attendant what she was charged
with. ‘Stealing a bottle of milk, Your Honor,’ repeated the officer. ‘She took
it from the doorstep of a downtown cottage before daybreak this morning.’ ‘Why
did you do that?’ Judge Golden-berg asked her. ‘I was hungry,’ the old
39
"' Well, you’re not very wealthy now, but you’re no longer poor. I’ve been
searching for you for months. I’ve got $500 belonging to you from the estate of
a relative. I am the executor of the estate.’
“Judge Goldenberg paid the woman’s fine out of his own pocket, and then escorted
her into his office, where he turned her legacy over to her and sent a policeman
out to find her a lodging place.”
I learned later that this little woman bad been desiring and mentally picturing
$500, while all the time ignorant of how it could possibly come to her. But she
kept her vision and strengthened it with her faith.
In an issue of Good Housekeeping there was an article by Addington Bruce
entitled “Stiffening Your Mental Backbone.” It is very instructive, and would
benefit anyone to read
it. He says, in part: “Form the habit of devoting a few moments every day to
thinking about your work in a large, broad, imaginative
40
way, as a vital necessity to yourself and a useful service to society.”
James J. Hill, the great railway magnate, before he started building his road
from coast to coast, said that he took hundreds of trips all along the line
before there was a rail laid. It is said that he would sit for hours with a map
of the United States before him and mentally travel from coast to coast, just as
we do now over his fulfilled mental picture. It would be possible to call your
attention to hundreds of similar cases.
The method of picturing to yourself what you desire is both simple and
enjoyable, if you once understand the principle back of it well enough to
believe it. Over and above everything else, be sure of what it is you really
want. Then specialize your desire along the lines given in the following chapter
41
CHAPTER IV
Suggestions for Making Your
Mental Picture
PERHAPS you want to feel that you’ve lived to some purpose. You want to be
contented and happy; you feel that good health and a successful business would
give you contentment. After you have decided once and for all that this is what
you want, you proceed to picture yourself healthy, and your business just as
great a success as you can naturally conceive it growing into. The best times
for making your definite picture are just before breakfast, and again, before
retiring at night. As it is necessary to give yourself plenty of time,it may be
necessary to rise earlier than you usually do. Go into a room where you will not
be disturbed, meditate for a few moments upon the practical working of the law
of visualizing, and ask yourself, “How did the things about me first come into
existence? How can I get more quickly in touch with my invisible supply?”
Someone felt that comfort would be better expressed and experienced by sitting
on a chair than on the floor. So the very beginning of a chair was the desire to
be at ease. With
42
this came the picture of some sort of a chair, The same principle applies to the
hat and the clothes you wear. Go carefully into the thought of the principle
back of the thing. Establish it as a personal experience; make it a fact to your
consciousness. Then open a window, take about ten deep breaths, and during the
time draw a large imaginary circle of light pound you. As you inhale—keeping
yourself in the center of this circle of light-—see great rays of light coming
from the circle and entering your body at all points, centralizing itself at
your solar plexus. Hold the breath a few moments at this central point of your
body—the solar plexus—; then slowly exhale. As you do this, mentally see
imaginary rays, or sprays, of light going up through the body, and down and out
through feet. Mentally spray your entire body with this imaginary light. When
you have finished the breathing exercise, sit in a comfortable upright chair and
mentally know there is but one Life, one Substance, and this Life Substance of
the Universe is finding pleasure in self-recognition in you. Repeat some
affirmation of this kind, until you feel the truth and stimulating reality of
the words which you are affirming. Then begin your picture. If you are thorough
in this, you will find yourself in the deep consciousness beneath the surface of
your own thought power.
43
Whether your desire is for a state of consciousness, or a possession, large or
small, be gin at the beginning. If you want a house, begin by seeing yourself in
the kind of house you desire. Go all through it, taking careful note of the
rooms, where the windows are situated, and such other details as help you to
feel the reality of your picture. You might change some of the furniture about
and look into some of the mirrors just to see how healthy, wealthy, and happy
you look. Go over your picture again and again, until you feel the reality of
it, then write it all down just as you have seen it, with the feeling that:
“The best there is, is mine. There is no limit to me, because my mind is a
center of divine operation,” and your picture is as certain to come true, in
your physical world, as the sun is to shine.
44
CHAPTER VII
Things to Remember
In Using Your Thought Power for the Production of New Conditions
1. Be sure to know exactly what conditions wish to produce. Then weigh carefully
what further results the accomplishment of your desire will lead to.
2. By letting your thought dwell upon a mental picture, you are concentrating
the Creative Action of Spirit in this center, where its forces are equally
balanced.
3. Visualizing brings your objective mind into a state of equilibrium, which
enables you to consciously direct the flow of Spirit to a definitely recognized
purpose, and to carefully guard your thoughts from including a flow in the
opposite direction.
4. You must always bear in mind that you are dealing with a wonderful potential
energy, which is not yet differentiated into any particular form, and that by
the action of your mind, you can differentiate it into any specific form that
you will. Your picture assists you to keep your mind fixed on the fact that the
inflow of this Creative Energy.
45
is taking place. Also, by your mental picture, you are determining the direction
you wish the sensitive Creative Power to take, and by doing this, you make the
externalization of your picture a certainty.
5. Remember when you are visualizing properly that there is no strenuous effort
to hold your thought-forms in place. Strenuous effort defeats your purpose, and
suggests the consciousness of an adverse force to be fought against, and this
creates conditions adverse to your picture.
6. By holding your picture in a cheerful frame of mind, you shut out all
thoughts that would disperse or dissipate the spiritual nucleus of your picture.
Because the law is Creative in its action, your pictured desire is certain of
accomplishment.
7. The seventh and great thing to remember in visualizing is that you are making
a mental picture for the purpose of determining the quality you are giving to
the previously undifferentiated substance and energy, rather than to arrange the
specific circumstances for its manifestation. That is the work of Creative Power
itself. It will build its own forms of expression quite naturally, if you will
allow it, and save you a great deal of needless anxiety. What you really want is
expansion in a certain direction, whether of health, wealth.
46
or what not, and so long as you get it—as you surely will, if you confidently
hold to your picture
—what does it matter whether it reaches by some channel which you thought you
could count upon, or through some other of whose existence you had no idea. You
are concentrating energy of a particular kind for a particular purpose. Keep
this in mind and let specific details take care of themselves, and never mention
what you are doing to anyone.
Remember always, that “Nature, from her clearly visible surface to her most
arcane depths, is one vast storehouse of light and good entirely devoted to your
individual use.” Your conscious Oneness with the great Whole is the secret of
success, and when once you have fathomed this, you can enjoy your possession of
the whole, or a part of it, at will, because by your recognition you have made
it, and can increasingly make it, yours.
Never forget that every physical thing, whether for you or against you, was a
sustained thought before it was a thing.
Thought, as thought, is neither good nor bad; it is Creative Action and always
takes physical form. Therefore, the thoughts you dwell upon become the things
you possess or do not possess.
A man came to me telling me how be longed to marry a certain young woman, but
felt he
47
could not afford to as his salary was small, and work uncertain. I spoke the
word of ever-present Certain, Unlimited Supply and explained that Love knows no
failure.
“It is yours to enjoy. See yourself in the kind of a home you both want. Do your
part, keep on loving the girl, and believe absolutely in that which Lives and
Loves in you.”
A few months later they both came to my study looking radiantly happy. I knew
they were married. The wife said to me: “Dear Mrs. Behrend, we are very happy
because we now know how to use our thought power and hold our consciousness as
one, with all we want.”
So be yourself and enjoy Life in your own Divine way. Do not fear to be your
true self, for everything you want, wants you.
48
CHAPTER VIII
Why I Took Up the
Study of Mental Science
I HAVE frequently been questioned about my reasons for taking up the study of
Mental Science, and as to the results of my search, not only in the knowledge of
principles, but also in the application of that knowledge for the development of
my own life.
Such inquiries are justifiable, because one who essays the role of a messenger
of psychological truths can only be convincing as he or she has tested them in
the laboratory of personal mental experience. This is particularly true in my
case, as the only personal pupil of Judge Troward, the great Master in Mental
Science, whose teaching is based upon the relation borne by the Individual Mind
toward the Universal Creative Mind, which is the Giver of Life, and the manner
in which that relation may be invoked to secure expansion and fuller expression
in the individual life.
My initial impulse toward the study of Mental Science was an overwhelming sense
of loneliness. In every life there must come some such experience of spiritual
isolation as
49
pervaded my life at that period. Notwithstanding the fact that each day found me
in the midst of friends, surrounded by mirth and gaiety, there was a persistent
feeling that I was alone in the world. I had been a widow for about three years,
wandering from country to country, seeking for peace of mind.
The circumstances and surroundings of my life were such that my friends looked
upon me as an unusually fortunate young woman. Although they recognized that I
had sustained a great loss when my husband died, they knew that he had left me
well provided for, free to go anywhere my pleasure dictated.
Yet, if my friends could have penetrated my inmost emotions, they would have
found a deep sense of emptiness and isolation. This feeling inspired a spirit of
unrest, which drove me on and on in fruitless search upon the outside, for that
which I later learned could only be found within.
I studied Christian Science, but it gave me no solace, though fully realizing
the, great work the Scientists were doing, and even having the pleasure and
privilege of meeting Mrs. Eddy personally. But it was impossible for me to
accept the fundamental teachings of Christian Science and make practical
application of it.
When about to abandon the search for contentment and resign myself to resume a
life
50
of apparent amusement, a friend invited me to visit the great Seer and Teacher,
Abdul Baha. After my interview with this most wonderful of men, my search for
contentment began to take a change. He had told me that I would travel the world
over seeking the truth, and when I had found it, would speak it out. The
fulfillment of the statement of this Great Seer then seemed to be impossible.
But it carried a measure of encouragement, and at least indicated that my former
seeking had been in the wrong direction. I began in a feeble groping way to find
contentment within myself, for had he not intimated that I should find the
truth? That was the big thing, and about the only thing I remember of our
interview.
A few days later, upon visiting the office of a New Thought practitioner, my
attention was attracted to a book on his table entitled “The Edinburgh Lectures
on Mental Science,” by T. Troward. It interested me to see that Troward was a
retired Divisional Judge from the Punjab, India. I purchased the book, thinking
I would read it through that evening. Many have endeavored to do the same thing,
only to find, as I did, that the book must be studied in order to be understood,
and hundreds have decided, just as I did, to give it their undivided attention.
After finding this treasure book, I went to the country for a few
51
days, and while there, studied the volume as thoroughly as I could.
It seemed extremely difficult, and I decided to purchase another book of Troward
‘s, in the hope that its study might not require so much of an effort. Upon
inquiry I was told that a subsequent volume, “The Dore Lectures,” was much the
simpler and better of the two books. When I procured it, I found that it must
also be studied. It took me weeks and months to get even a vague conception of
the meaning of the first chapter of Dore, which is entitled “Entering Into the
Spirit of It.” I mean by this that it took me months to enter into the spirit of
what I was reading.
But in the meantime a paragraph from page 26 arrested my attention, as seeming
the greatest thing I had ever read. I memorized it and endeavored with all my
soul to enter into the spirit of Troward‘s words. The paragraph reads:
“My mind is a center of Divine operation. The Divine operation is always for
expansion and fuller expression, and this means the production of something
beyond what has gone before, something entirely new, not included in the past
experience, though proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence or growth.
Therefore, since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must operate
in the same manner with me; consequently, in my own
52
special world, of which I am the center, it will move forward to produce new
conditions, always in advance of any that have gone before.”
It took an effort on my part to memorize this paragraph, but in the endeavor
toward this end, the words seemed to carry with them a certain stimulus Each
repetition of the paragraph made it easier for me to enter into the spirit of
it. The words expressed exactly what I had been seeking for. My one desire was
for peace of mind. I found it comforting believe that the Divine operation in me
could expand to fuller expression and produce more and more contentment—in fact,
a peace mind and a degree of contentment greater than I had ever known. The
paragraph further inspired me with deep interest to feel that the life-spark in
me could bring into my life something entirely new. I did not wish to obliterate
my past experience, but that was exactly what Troward said it would not do. The
Divine operation would not exclude my past experience, but proceeding out of it
would bring some new thing that would transcend anything that I had ever
experienced before.
Meditation on these statements brought with it a certain joyous feeling. What a
wonderful thing it would be if I could accept and sincerely believe, beyond all
doubt, that this one
53
statement of Troward‘s was true. Surely the Divine could not change its inherent
nature, and since Divine life is operating in me, I must be Divinely inhabited,
and the Divine in me must operate just as it operates upon the Universal plane.
This meant that my whole world of circumstances, friends, and conditions would
ultimately become a world of contentment and enjoyment of which “I am the
center.” This would all happen just as soon as I was able to control my mind and
thereby provide a concrete center around which the Divine energies could play.
Surely it was worth trying for. If Troward had found this truth, why not IT The
idea held me to my task. Later I determined to study with the man who bad
realized and given to the world so great a statement It bad lifted me from my
state of despondency. The immediate difficulty was the need for increased
finances.
54
CHAPTER IX
How I Attracted to Myself Twenty
Thousand Dollars
In the laboratory of experience in which my newly revealed relation to the
Divine operation was to be tested, the first problem was a financial one. My
income was a stipulated one quite enough for my everyday needs, but it did not
seem sufficient to enable me to go comfortably to England, where Troward lived
and remain for an indefinite period to study with so great a teacher as he must
be
So before inquiring whether Troward took pupils, or whether I would be eligible
in case he did, I began to use the paragraph I had memorized. Daily, in fact,
almost hourly, the words were in my mind: “My mind is a center of Divine
operation, and Divine operation means expansion into something better than has
gone before.”
From the Edinburgh Lectures I had read something about the Law of Attraction,
and from the Chapter on” Causes and Conditions” I had gleaned a vague idea of
visualizing. So every night, before going to sleep, I made a mental picture of
the desired $20,000 which seemed necessary to go and study with Troward
55
Twenty imaginary $1,000 bills were counted over each night in my bedroom, and
then, with the idea of more emphatically impressing my mind with the fact that
this twenty thousand dollars was for the purpose of going to England and
studying with Troward, I wrote out my picture, saw myself buying my steamer
ticket, walking up and down the ship’s deck from New York to London, and
finally, saw myself accepted as Troward’s pupil. This process was repeated every
morning and every evening, always impressing more and more fully upon my mind
Troward‘s memorized statement: “My mind is a center of Divine operations.” I
endeavored to keep this statement in the back part of my consciousness all the
time, with no thought in mind of how the money might be obtained. Probably the
reason why there was no thought of the avenues through which the money might
reach me was because I could not possibly imagine where the $20,000 would come
from. So I simply held my thought steady and let the power of attraction find
its own ways and means.
One day while walking on the street, taking deep breathing exercises, the
thought came:
“My mind is surely a center of Divine operation. If God fills all space, then
God must be in my mind also; if I want this money to study with Troward that I
may know the truth of
56
Life, then both the money and the truth must be mine, though I am unable to feel
or see the physical manifestations of either. Still,” I declared, “it must be
mine.”
While these reflections were going on in my mind, there seemed to come up from
within me the thought: “I Am all the substance there is.,, Then, from another
channel in my brain the answer seemed to come, “Of course, that’s it; everything
must have its beginning in mind. The idea must contain within itself the only
one and primary substance there is, and this means money as well as everything
else.” My mind accepted this idea, and immediately all the tension of mind and
body was relaxed. There was a feeling of absolute certainty of being in touch
with all the power Life has to give. All thought of money, teacher, or even my
own personality, vanished in the great wave of joy which swept over my entire
being. I walked on and on, with this feeling of joy steadily increasing and
expanding until everything about me seemed aglow with resplendent light. Every
person I passed appeared illuminated as I was. All consciousness of personality
had disappeared, and in its place there came that great and almost overwhelming
sense of joy and contentment.
That night when I made my picture of the twenty thousand dollars it was with an
entirely
57
changed aspect. On previous occasions, when making my mental picture, I had felt
that I was waking up something within myself. This time there was no sensation
of effort. I simply counted over the twenty thousand dollars. Then, in a most
unexpected manner, from a source of which I had no consciousness at the time,
there seemed to open a possible avenue through which the money might reach me.
At first it took great effort not to be excited. It all seemed so wonderful, so
glorious, to be in touch with supply. But had not Troward cautioned his readers
to keep all excitement out of their minds in the first flush of realization of
union with Infinite supply, and to treat this fact as a perfectly natural result
which had been reached through our demand? This was even more difficult for me
than it was to hold the thought that “all the substance there is, I Am; I (idea)
Am the beginning of all form, visible or invisible.”
Just as soon as there appeared a circumstance which indicated the direction
through which the twenty thousand dollars might come, I not only made a supreme
effort to regard the indicated direction calmly as the first sprout of the seed
I had sown in the absolute, but left no stone unturned to follow up that
direction, thereby fulfilling my part. By so doing, one circumstance seemed
naturally to
58
lead to another, until, step by step, my desired twenty thousand dollars was
secured. To keep my mind poised and free from excitement was my greatest effort.
This first concrete fruition of my study of Mental Science as expounded by
Troward’s book had come by a careful following of the methods he had outlined.
In this connection, therefore I can offer to the reader no better gift than to
quote Troward’s book, “The Edinburgh Lectures,” from which may be derived a
complete idea of the line of action I was endeavoring to follow. In the chapter
on Causes and Conditions he says:
“To get good results we must properly understand our relation to the great
impersonal power we are using. It is intelligent, and we are intelligent, and
the two intelligences must co-operate.) We must not fly in the face of the law
expecting it to do for us what it can only do through us; and we must therefore
use our intelligence with the knowledge that it is acting as the instrument of a
greater intelligence; and because we have this knowledge we may and should cease
from all anxiety as to the final result.
“In actual practice we must first form the ideal conception of our object with
the definite intention of impressing it upon the Universal Mind—it is this
thought that takes such thought out of the region of mere casual fancies
59
and then affirm that our knowledge of the Law is sufficient reason for a calm
expectation of a corresponding result, and that therefore all necessary
conditions will come to us in due order. We can then turn to the affairs of our
daily life with the calm assurance that the initial conditions are either there
already or will soon come into view. If we do not at once see them, let us rest
content with the knowledge that the spiritual prototype is already in existence
and wait till some circumstance pointing in the desired direction begins to shop
itself. It may be a very small circumstance, but it is the direction and not the
magnitude which is to be taken into consideration. As soon as we see it we
should regard it as the first sprouting of the seed sown in the Absolute, and do
calmly, and without excitement, whatever the circumstances seem to require, and
then later on we shall see that this doing. will in turn lead to a further
circumstance in the same direction, until we find ourselves conducted, step by
step, to the accomplishment of our object. In this way the understanding of the
great principle of the Law of Supply will, by repeated experiences, deliver us
more and more completely out of the region of anxious thought and toilsome labor
and bring us into a new world where the useful employment of all our powers,
whether mental or physical, will only be an unfolding of our individuality
60
upon the lines of its own nature, and therefore a perpetual source of health and
happiness; a sufficient inducement, surely, to the careful study of the laws
governing the relation on between the individual and the Universal Mind.’
To my mind, then as now, this quotation utlines the core and center of the
method and manner of approach necessary for coming in touch with Imfinite
Supply. At least it, together with the previously quoted statement,
“My mind is a center of Divine operation,” etc., constituted the only apparent
means of ata: tracting to myself the twenty thousand dollars. My constant
endeavor to get into the spirit of these statements, and to attract to myself
this needed sum, took about six weeks, at the end of which time I had in my bank
the required twenty thousand dollars. This could ‘be made into a long story,
giving all the details, but the facts, as already narrated, will give you a
definite idea of the magnetic condition of my mind while the twenty thousand
dollars was finding its way to me.
61
CHAPTER X
How I Became The Only Personal Pupil
of Thomas Troward,
The Great Mental Scientist
As soon as the idea of studying with Troward came to me, I asked a friend to
write him for me, feeling that perhaps my friend could couch my desire in better
or more persuasive terms than I could employ. To all the letters written by this
friend, I received not one reply. This was so discouraging that I would have
completely abandoned the idea of becoming Troward‘s pupil, except for the
experience I had had that day on the street, when my whole world was
illuminated, and I remembered the promise “All things whatsoever thou wilt,
believe thou hast received, and thou shalt receive.”
With this experience in my mind, my passage to England was arranged,
notwithstanding the fact that apparently my letters were ignored. We wrote
again, however, and finally received a reply, very courteous though very
positive. Troward did not take pupils; he had no time to devote to a pupil.
Notwithstanding this definite decision, I declined to be discouraged, because of
the memory of my experience
62
upon the day when the light and the thought had come to me, “I Am all the
Subtance there is.” I seemed to be able to live that experience over at will,
and with it there always came a flood of courage and renewed energy. We
journeyed on to London, and from there telegraphed Troward, asking for an
interview. The telegram was promptly answered, setting a date when he could see
us.
At this time Troward was living in Ruan Manor, a little out-of-the-way place in
the Southern part of England, about twenty miles from a railway station. We
could not find it on the map, and with great difficulty Cook’s Touring Agency,
in London, located the place for us. There was very little speculation in my
mind as to what Troward would say to me in this interview. There always remained
the feeling that the truth was mine; also that it would grow and expand in my
consciousness until peace and contentment were outward, as well as inward,
manifestations of my individual life.
We arrived at Troward‘s house in a terrific rainstorm, and were cordially
received by (Troward himself, whom I found, much to my. surprise, to be more the
type of a Frenchman than an Englishman, (I afterward learned that be was a
descendant of the Huguenot race), a man of medium stature, with a rather large
head, big nose, and eyes that fairly
63
danced with merriment. After we had been introduced to the other members of the
family and given a cup of hot tea, we were invited into the living-room, where
Troward talked very freely of everything except my proposed studies. It seemed
quite impossible to bring him to that subject. Just before we were leaving,
however, I asked quite boldly: “Will you not reconsider your decision to take a
personal pupil? I wish so much to study with you,” to which he replied, with a
very indif ferent manner, that he did not feel he could give the time it would
require for personal instruction, but that he would be glad to give me the names
of two or three books which he felt would not only be interesting but
instructive to me. He said he felt much flattered and pleased that I had come
all the way from America to study with him, and as we walked out through the
lane from his house to our automobile, his manner became less indifferent, a
feeling of sympathy seemed to touch his heart, and he turned to me with the
remark: “You might write to me, if so inclined, after you get to Paris, and
perhaps, if I have time in the autumn, we could arrange something, though it
does not seem possible now.”
I lost no time in following up his very kind invitation to write. My letters
were all promptly and courteously answered, but there was never a word of
encouragement as to my proposed
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studies, Finally, about two months later, there came a letter with this question
in it: “What do you suppose is the meaning of this verse in the 21st Chapter of
Revelation?”
“‘16. And the city lieth foursquare and “‘the length is as large as the breadth;
and he “‘measured the city with the reed, twelve “‘thousand furlongs. The length
and the “‘breadth and the height of it are equal.’”
Instinctively I knew that my chance to study with Troward hung upon my giving
the correct answer to that question. The definition of the verse seemed utterly
beyond my reach. Naturally, answers came to my mind, but I knew intuitively that
they were incorrect. I began bombarding my scholarly friends and acquaintances
with the same questions. Lawyers, doctors, priests, nuns, and clergymen, all
over the world, received letters from me with this question in them. Answers
began to return to me, but intuition told me not one was correct. All the while
I was endeavoring to find the answer for myself, but no answer came. I memorized
the verse in order that I might meditate upon it. I began a search of Paris for
the books Troward had recommended to me, and after two or three days’ search we
crossed the River Seine to the fle de Cite to go into some of the old bookstores
there. The books were out of print, and these were the last places in which
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to find them. Finally we came upon a little shop which had them. The man had
only one copy of each left, consequently the price was high. While remonstrating
with the clerk, my eye rested upon the work of an astrologer, which I laughingly
picked up and asked: “Do you think Prof.— would read my horoscope?” The clerk
looked aghast at the suggestion, and responded, “Why, no, Madame, he is one of
France’s greatest astrologers. He does not read horoscopes.”
In spite of this answer, there was a persistent impulse within me to go to the
man. The friend who had accompanied me in my search for the books remonstrated
with me, and tried in every way to dissuade me from going to the famous
astrologer, but I insisted. When we arrived at his office, I found it somewhat
embarrassing to ask him to read my horoscope. Nevertheless, there was nothing to
do but put the question. Reluctantly, the Professor invited us into his
paper-strewn study; reluctantly, and also impatiently he asked us to be seated.
Very courteously and coldly he told me that he did not read horoscopes. His
whole manner said, more clearly than words could, that he wished we would take
our departure.
My friend stood up. I was at a great loss what to do next, because I felt that I
was not quite ready to go. Intuition seemed to tell me
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there was something for me to gain there. Just what it was I was unable to
define, so I paused a moment, much to my friend’s displeasure and embarrassment,
when one of the Professor’s enormous Persian cats jumped into my lap. “Get down,
Jack!” the Professor shouted. “What does it mean?” he seemed to ask himself.
Then with a greater interest than he had hitherto shown in me, the Professor
said with a smile:
“I have never known that cat to go to a stranger before, Madame; my cat pleads
for you. I, also, now feel an interest in your horoscope, and if you will give
me the data it will give me pleasure to write it out for you."
There was a great feeling of happiness in me when he made this statement, which
he concluded by saying, “I do not feel that you really care for your horoscope.”
The truth
of this statement shocked me, because I did not care about a horoscope, and
could not give any reason why I was letting him do it. “However,” he said, “may
I call for your data next Sunday afternoon?”
On Sunday afternoon at the appointed time, the Professor arrived, and I was
handing him the slip of paper with all the data of my birth, etc., when the idea
came to ask the Professor the answer to the question Troward bad given me from
the 16th verse of the 21st Chapter of
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Revelation. The thought was instantly carried into effect, and I found myself
asking this man what he thought this verse meant. Without pausing to think it
over, he immediately replied, “It means: the city signifies the truth, and the
truth is non-invertible; every side from which you approach it is exactly the
same.” Intuitively and undoubtingly I recognized this answer as the true one,
and my joy knew no bounds, because I felt sure that with this correct answer in
my possession, Troward would accept me as his pupil in the fall.
As the great astrologer was leaving, I explained to him all about my desire to
study with Troward, how I had come from New York City for that express purpose,
seemingly to no avail, until the answer to this test question had been given to
me by him. He was greatly interested and asked many questions about Troward, and
when asked if he would please send me his bill, he smilingly replied, “Let me
know if the great Troward accepts you as his pupil,” and bade me good afternoon.
I hastened to my room to send a telegram to Troward, giving my answer to the
question from the 16th verse of the 21st Chapter of Revelation.
There was an immediate response from Troward which said: “Your answer is
correct. Am beginning a course of lectures on
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The Great Pyramid in London. If you wish
to attend them, will be pleased to have you, and afterward, if you still wish to
study with me, I think it can be arranged.” On receipt of this reply
preparations were at once made to leave Paris for London.
I attended all the lectures, receiving much instruction from them, after which
arrangements were made for my studying with Troward. Two days before leaving for
Cornwall, I received the following letter from Troward clearly indicating the
line of study he gave me:
31 Stanwick Road,
W. Kensington, England.
Dear Mrs. Behrend:
I think I had better write you a few lines with regard to your proposed studies
with me, as I should be sorry for you to be under any misapprehension and so to
suffer any disappointment.
I have studied the subject now for several years, and have a general
acquaintance with the leading features of most of the systems which,
unfortunately, occupy attention in many circles at the present time, such as
Theosophy, The Tarot, The Kabala, and the like, and I have no hesitation in
saying that, to the best of my judgment, all sorts and descriptions of so-called
occult study are in direct opposition
69
to the real life-giving Truth, and therefore, you must not expect any teaching
on such lines as these.
We hear a great deal these days about initiation; but, believe me, the more you
try to become a so-called “Initiate” the further you will put yourself from
living life.
I speak after many years of careful study and consideration when I say that the
Bible and its Revelation of Christ is the one thing really worth studying, and
that is a subject large enough in all conscience, embracing, as it does, our
outward life and of everyday concerns, and also the inner springs of our life
and all that we can in general terms conceive of the life in the unseen after
putting off the body at death.
You have expressed a very great degree of confidence in my teaching, and if your
confidence is such that you wish, as you say, to put yourself entirely under my
guidance, I can only accept it as a very serious responsibility, and should have
to ask you to exhibit that confidence by refusing to look into such so-called
“Mysteries” as I would forbid you to look into.
I am speaking from experience; but the result will be that much of my teaching
will appear to be very simple, perhaps to some extent dogmatic, and you will say
you have heard much of it before.
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Faith in God, Prayer and Worship, approach to the Father through Christ—all this
is in a certain sense familiar to you; and all I can hope to do is perhaps to
throw a little more light on these subjects, that they may become to you, not
merely traditional words, but present living facts.
I have been thus explicit as I do not want you to have any disappointment, and
also I should say that our so-called course of study will be only friendly
conversations at such times as we can fit them in, either you coming to our
house, or I to yours, as may be most convenient at the time.
Also, I will lend you some books which will be helpful, but they are very few,
and in no sense occult.
Now, if all this falls in with your ideas, we shall, I am sure, be very glad to
see you at Ruan Manor, and you will find that the residents there, though few,
are very friendly and the neighborhood very pretty.
But, on the other hand, if you feel that you want some other source of learning,
do not mind saying so, only you will never find any substitute for Christ.
I trust you will not mind my writing you like this, but I do not want you to
come all the
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way down to Cornwall, and then be disappointed.
With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
(Signed)
This copy of Troward’s
is the greatest thing I can
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CHAPTER XI
How To Bring The Power In Your Word
Into Action
In every word you use, there is a power germ which expands and projects itself
in the direction your word indicates, and ultimately develops into physical
expression. For example, you wish the consciousness of joy. Repeat the word
“joy” secretly, persistently and emphatically. The repetition of the word joy
sets up a quality of vibration which causes the joy germ to begin to expand and
project itself until your whole being is filled with joy. This is not a mere
fancy, but a truth. Once you experience this power, you will daily prove to
yourself that these facts have not been fabricated to fit a theory, but the
theory has been built up by careful observation of facts; Everyone knows that
joy comes from within. No one can give it to you. Another may give you cause for
joy, but no one can be joyous for you. Joy is a state of consciousness, and
consciousness is purely mental.
Troward says the “Mental faculties always work under something which stimulates
them, and this stimulus may come either from
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without, through the external senses, or from within, by the consciousness of
something not perceptible on the physical plane. The recognition of this
interior source of stimulus enables you to bring into your consciousness any
state you desire.” Once a thing seems normal to you, it is as surely yours,
through the Law of growth and attraction, as it is yours to know addition after
you have learned the use of figures.
This method of repeating the word makes the word in all of its limitless meaning
yours, because words are the embodiment of thoughts, and thought is creative;
neither good nor bad, simply creative. This is the reason why Faith builds up
and Fear destroys. “Only believe, and all things are possible unto you.” It is
Faith that gives you dominion over every adverse circumstance or condition. It
is your word of Faith that sets you free not faith in any specific thing or act,
but simple Faith in your best self in all ways. It is this ever-present Creative
Power within the heart of the word that makes your health, your peace of mind,
and your financial condition a reproduction of your most habitual thought. Try
to believe and understand this, and you will find yourself Master of every
adverse circumstance or condition, for you will become a Prince of Power.
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CHAPTER XI
How To Increase Your Faith
But you ask, “How can I speak the word of Faith when I have little or no faith?”
Every living thing has faith in something or somebody. Faith is that quality of
Power which gives the Creative Energy a corresponding vitality, and the vitality
in the word of Faith you use causes it to take corresponding physical form. Even
intense fear is alive with faith. You fear smallpox because you believe it
possible for you to contract it. You fear poverty and loneliness because you
believe them possible for you. It is the Faith which understands that every
creation had its birth in the womb of thought-words, that gives you dominion
over all things, your lesser self included, and this feeling of faith is
increased and intensified through observing what it does.
Your constant observation should be of your state of consciousness when you did;
not when you hoped you might, but feared it was too good to be true. How did you
feel that time when you simply bad to bring yourself into * better frame of mind
and did, or you had to have a certain thing and got it? Live these
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experiences over again and again—mentally
—until you really feel in touch with the self which knows and does, and then the
best there is, is yours.
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CHAPTER XIII
The Reward of Increased Faith
YOUR desire to be your best has expanded your faith into the faith of the
Universe which knows no failure, and has brought you into conscious realization
that you are not a victim of the universe, but a part of it. Consequently you
are able to recognize that there is that within yourself which is able to make
conscious contact with the Universal Law, and enables you to press all the
particular laws of Nature, whether visible or invisible, into serving your
particular demand or desire. Thereby you find yourself Master, not a slave, of
any situation. Troward tells us that this Mastering is to be “accomplished by
knowledge, and the only knowledge which will afford this purpose in all its
measureless immensity is the knowledge of the personal element in universal
spirit,” and its reciprocity to our own personality. In other words, the words
you think, the personality you feel yourself to be, are all reproductions in
miniature of God, “or specialized universal spirit.” All your word-thoughts were
God word-forms before they were yours.
The words you use are the instruments—
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channels—through which the creative energy takes form. Naturally, this sensitive
Creative Power can only reproduce in accordance with the instrument through
which it passes. All disappointments and failures are the resuit of endeavoring
to think one thing and produce another. This is just as impossible as it would
be for an electric fan to be used for lighting purposes, or for water to flow
through a crooked pipe in a straight line. The water must take the shape of the
pipe through which it flows. Even more truly this sensitive, invisible Substance
must reproduce outwardly the shape of the thought-word through which it passes.
This is the law of its Nature; therefore, it logically follows, “As a man
thinketh, so is he.” Hence, when your thought or word-form is in correspondence
with the Eternal constructive and forward movement of the Universal Law, then
your mind is the mirror in which the Infinite Power and Intelligence of the
Universe sees itself reproduced, and your individual life becomes one of
harmony.
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CHAPTER XIV
How To Make Nature Respond To You
It should be steadily borne in mind that there is an Intelligence and Power in
all Nature and all space, which is always creative, and infinitely sensitive and
responsive. The responsiveness of its nature is two-fold: it is creative, and
amenable to suggestion. Once the human understanding grasps this all-important
fact, it realizes the simplicity with which the law of life supplies your every
demand. All that is necessary is to realize that your mind is a center of Divine
operation, and consequently contains that within itself which accepts
suggestions, and expect all life to respond to your call. Then you will find
suggestions which tend to the fulfillment of your desire coming to you, not only
from your fellowmen, but also from the flowers, the grass, the trees, and the
rocks, which will enable you to fufill your heart’s desire, if you act upon them
in confidence on this physical plane. “Faith without works is dead,” but Faith
with Works sets you absolutely free.
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CHAPTER XV
FAITH WITH WORKS -- WHAT IT HAS
ACCOMPLISHED
IT is said of Tyson, the great Australian Millionaire, that the suggestion to
“make the desert land of Australia blossom as the rose” came to him from a
modest little Australian violet while he was working as a bushman for something
like three shillings a day. He used to find these friendly little violets
growing in certain places in the woods, and something in the flower touched
something akin to itself in the mind of Tyson. He would sit on the side of his
bunk at night and wonder how flowers and vegetable life could be given an
opportunity to express themselves in the desert land of Australia. No doubt he
realized that it would take a long time to save enough money to put irrigating
ditches in the desert lands, but his thought and feeling assured him it could be
accomplished, and if it could be done, he could do it. If there was a power
within himself which was able to capture the idea, then there must be a
responsive power within the idea itself which could bring itself into a
practical physical manifestation. He resolutely put aside all questions as to
the specific
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ways and means which would be employed in bringing his desire into physical
manifestation, and simply kept his thought centered upon the idea of making
fences and seeing flowers and grass where none existed at that time. Since the
responsiveness of Reproductive Creative Power is not limited to any local
condition of mind, his habitual meditation and mental picture set his ideas free
to roam in an infinitude, and attract to themselves other ideas of a kindred
nature. Therefore, it was not necessary for Tyson to wait until he bad saved
from his three shillings a day enough money to irrigate the land, to see his
ideas and desires fulfilled, for his ideas found other ideas in the financial
world which were attuned in sympathy with themselves, and doors of finance were
quickly opened.
All charitable institutions are maintained upon the principle of the
responsiveness of life. If this were not true, no one would care to give, simply
because another needed. The law of demand and supply, cause and effect, can
never be broken. Ideas attract to themselves kindred ideas. Sometimes they come
from a flower, a book, or out of the invisible. You are intent upon an idea not
quite complete as to the ways and means of fulfillment, and behold along comes
another idea, from no one can tell where, and finds friendly lodging with your
idea; one idea attracting another,
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and so on until your desires are physical facts. You may feel the necessity for
improvement in your finances, and wonder how this increase is to be brought
about, when there seems suddenly to come from within the idea itself, the
realization that everything—even money—had its birth in thought, and your
thoughts turn their course. You simply hold to the statement or affirmation that
the best, and all there is, is yours. Since you are able to capture ideas from
the Infinite through the instrument of your intuition, you let your mind rest
upon that thought, knowing full well that this very thought will respond to
itself. Your inhibition of all doubt and anxiety enables the reassuring ideas to
establish themselves and attract to themselves “I can” and “I will” ideas, which
gradually grow into the physical form of the desire in your mind.
In the conscious uses of the Universal Power to reproduce your desires in
physical form, three facts should be borne in mind:
First—All space is filled with a Creative Power.
Second—This Creative Power is amenable to suggestion.
Third—It can only work by deductive methods.
As Troward tells us, this last is an exceedingly important point, for it implies
that the
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action of the ever-present Creative Power is in no way limited by precedent. It
works according to the essence of the spirit of the principle. In other words,
this Universal Power takes its creative direction from the word you give it.
Once man realizes this great truth, the character with which this sensitive,
reproductive power is invested becomes the most important of all his
considerations. It is the unvarying law of Creative Life Principle that “As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If you realize the truth that the Creafive
Power can be to you only what you feel and think it to be, it is willing and
able to meet your demands.
Troward says, “If you think your thought is Powerful, your Thought is Powerful.”
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” is the law of life, and the Creative
Power can no more change this law than an ordinary mirror can reflect back to
you a different image than the object you hold before it. “As you think, so are
you” does not mean “as you tell people you think,” or “as you would wish the
world to believe you think.” It means your innermost thoughts; that place where
no one but you knows. “None can know the Father save the son,” and “No one can
know the son but the Father.” Only the reproductive Creative Spirit of Life
knows what you think. until your thoughts become physical
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facts and manifest themselves in your body, your brain, or your affairs. Then
everyone with whom you come into contact may know, because the Father, the
Intelligent Creative Energy which heareth in secret your most secret thoughts,
rewards you openly reproduces your thoughts in physical form. “As you think,
that is what you become” should be kept in the background of your mind
constantly. This is watching and praying without ceasing, and when you are not
feeling quite up to par physically, pray.
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CHAPTER XVI
Suggestions as to How to Pray or Ask, believing you have already received.
Scientific Thinking – Positive Thought
Suggestions for Practical Application
Try, through careful, positive, enthusiastic (though not strenuous) thought, to
realize that the indescribable, Invisible Substance of Life fills all space;
that its nature is Intelligent, Undifferentiated Substance.
Five o’clock in the morning is the best time to go into this sort of meditation.
If you will retire early every night for one month, and before falling asleep,
impress firmly upon your subjective mind the affirmation: “My Father is the
ruler of all the world, and is expressing His directing power through me,” you
will find that the substance of life takes form in your thought molds. Do not
accept the above suggestion simply because it is given to you. Think it over
carefully until the impression is made upon your own subconscious mind
understandingly. Rise every morning, as was suggested before,
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at five o’clock, sit in a quiet room in a straight-back chair, and think out the
affirmation of the previous evening, and you will realize and be able to put
into practice your Princely Power with the realization to some extent, at least,
that your mind really is a center through which all the Creative Energy and
Power there is, is taking form.
Scientific Prayer
The Principle Underlying Scientific
Prayer
In prayer for a change in condition, physical, mental, or financial, for
yourself or another, bear in mind that the fundamental necessity for the answer
to prayer is the understanding of the scientific statement:
“Ask, believing you have already received,
And you shall receive”
This is not as difficult as it appears on the surface, once you realize that:
Everything has, its origin in the mind, and that which you seek outwardly, you
already possess.
No one can think a thought in the future.
Your thought of a thing constitutes its origin.
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THEREFORE:
The Thought Form of the Thing is Already
Yours
As soon as you think it.
Your steady recognition of this Thought Possession causes the thought to
concentrate, to condense, to project itself, and to assume physical fonn.
To Get Rich Through Creation
The recognition or conception of new sources of wealth is the loftiest
aspiration you can take into your heart, for it assumes and implies the
furtherance of all noble aims.
Items to be remembered about Prayer for
Yourself or Another
(Remember that that which you call treatment or prayer is not, in any sense,
hypnoIt should never be your endeav9r to take possession of the mind of
another).
Remember that it should never be your intention to make yourself believe that
which you know to be untrue. You are simply thinking into God or First Cause
with the understanding that:
“If a thing is true at all, there is a way in which it is true throughout the
universe.”
Remember that the power of thought works by absolutely scientific principles.
These
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principles are expressed in the language of the statement:
“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” This statement contains a world of
wisdom, but man’s steady recognition and careful application of the statement
itself is required to bring it into practical use.
Remember that the principles involved in being as we think in our heart are
elucidated and revealed by the law: “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
Remember that your freedom to choose just what you will think, just what thought
possession you will affirm and claim, constitntes God’s gift to you.
It shows how First Cause has endowed every man with the power and ability to
bring into his personal environment whatever he chooses.
Cause and Effect in reference to Getting.
If you plant an ACORN, you get an OAK.
If you sow a GRAIN OF CORN, you reap a stalk and MANY kernels of corn.
You always get the manifestation of that which you consciously or unconsciously
AFFIRM and CLAIM, habitually declare and expect, or, in other words, “AS YOU
SOW.”
Therefore, sow the seeds of—
I AM. . .1 OUGHT TO DO. . .1 CAN DO... I WILL DO.
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—that because you ARE you OUGHT to do;
—that because you OUGHT to, you CAN do;
—that because you CAN do, you DO do.
The manifestation of this truth, even in a small degree, gives you the
undisputable understanding that DOMINION IS YOUR CHARTER RIGHT.
You are an heir of First Cause, endowed with all the power He has.
God has given you everything. ALL is yours, and you know that all you have to do
is to reach out your mental hand and take it.
This Formula may serve as a pattern to shape your own Prayer or Affirmation into
God for the benefit of another or yourself.
If for another, you speak the Christian name of the person you wish to help;
then dismiss their personality entirely from your consciousness.
Intensify your thought by meditating upon the fact that there is that in you
which finds the way, which is the Truth and is the Life.
You are affirming this fact, believing that since you are thinking this, it is
already yours. Having lifted up your feeling to the central idea of this
meditation, you examine your own consciousness and see if there is aught which
is unlike God. If there is any feeling of fear, worry, malice, envy, hatred, or
jealousy
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turn back in your meditation to cleanse your thought through the affirmation
that God’s love and purity fills all space, including your heart and soul.
Reconcile your thought with the love of God, always remembering that:
You are made in the Image and Likeness of
Love.
Keep this cleansing thought in mind until you feel that you have freed your
consciousness entirely of all thoughts and feelings other than:
Love and Unity with all Humanity.
Then if denials do not disturb you, deny all that is unlike your desired
manifestation. This accomplished, you almost overlay your denial with the
affirmative thought that You are made in the Image and Likeness of God, and
already have your desire fulfilled in its first, its original thought-form.
Closing of prayer
Prayer as a method of thought is a deliberate use of the Law which gives you the
power of dominion over everything which tends in any way to hamper your perfect
liberty.
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YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN LIFE
THAT YOU MAY ENJOY IT MORE AND
MORE FULLY.
The steady recognition of this Truth makes you declare yourself a
PRINCE OF POWER.
You recognize, accept, and use this power as
THE CHILD OF A KING, AND HENCE DOMINION IS YOUR BIRTHRIGHT.
Then when you feel the light of this great truth flooding your
consciousness—open the flood-gates of your soul in heartfelt praise because you
have the understanding that
THE CREATOR AND HIS CREATION
ABE ONE;
also that the Creator is continually creating through his creation.
Close your treatment in the happy assurance that the prayer which is fulfilled
is not a form of supplication, but a steady habitual affirming that: “The
Creator of all creation is operating specifically through me,” therefore—
THE WORK MUST BE PERFECTLY
DONE. YOUR MIND IS A CENTER OF DIVINE OPERATION
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Hints for application and Practice
For every five minutes given to reading and study of the theories of Mental
Science, spend fifteen minutes in the use and application of the knowledge
acquired.
1. Spend one minute in every twenty-four hours to conscientiously thinking over
the specification that must be observed in order to have your prayers answered.
2. Practice the steady recognition of desirable thought possession for two
periods of fifteen minutes each every day. Not only time yourself each period to
see how long you can keep a given conception before your mental vision, but also
keep a written record of the vividness with which you experience your mental
image. Remember that your mental senses are just as varied and trainable as your
physical ones.
3. Spend five minutes every day between 12 noon and 1 o’clock with a mental
research for new sources of wealth.
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CHAPTER XVII
Things TO Remember
THAT the greatest Mental Scientist the world has ever known (Jesus Christ, the
Man) said all things are possible unto you.
Also, “the things I do, you can do.” Did he tell the truth?
Jesus did not claim to be more divine than you are. He declared the whole human
race children of God. By birth he was no exception to this rule. The power be
possessed was developed through His personal effort. He said you could do the
same if you would only believe in yourself.
A great idea is valueless unless accompanied by physical action. God gives the
idea; man works it out upon the physical plane.
All that is really worth while is contentment. Self-command alone can produce
it.
The soul and body are one. Contentment of mind is contentment of soul, and
contentment of soul means contentment of body.
If you wish health, watch your thoughts, not only of your physical being, but
your thoughts about everything and everybody. With your will, keep them in line
with your
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desire, and outwardly act in accordance with your thoughts, and you will soon
realize that all power both over thoughts and conditions has been given to you.
You believe in God. Believe in yourself as the physical instrument through which
God operates.
Absolute dominion is yours when you have sufficient self-mastery to conquer the
negative tendency of thoughts and actions.
Ask yourself daily: “What is the purpose of the Power which put me here?”
“How can I work with the purpose for life and liberty in me?”
After having decided these questions, endeavor hourly to fulfil them. You are a
law unto yourself.
If you have a tendency to overdo anything:eat, drink, or blame circumstances for
your misfortunes, conquer that tendency with the inward conviction that all
power is yours. Eat less, drink less, blame circumstances less, and the best
there is will gradually grow in the place where the worst seemed to be.
Always remember that all is yours to use as you will.You can if you will; if you
will, you do.
God the Father blesses you with all He has to give. Make good Godly use of it.
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The reason for greater success when you first began your studies and
demonstrations in Mental Science, was your joy and enthusiasm at the simple
discovery of Power within, which was greater than you were able to put into your
understanding later. With increased understanding comes increasing joy and
enthusiasm, and the results will correspond.
The End
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