56.
The ideas and moods to which you constantly return define the state with which you are fused. Therefore train yourself to occupy more frequently the feeling of your wish fulfilled. This is creative magic. It is the way to work toward fusion with the desired state.
If you would assume the feeling of your wish fulfilled more frequently, you would be master of your fate, but unfortunately you shut out your assumption for all but the occasional hour. Practice making real to yourself the feeling of the wish fulfilled.
After you have assumed the feeling of the wish fulfilled, do not close the experience as you would a book, but carry it around like a fragrant odor.
Instead of being completely forgotten, let it remain in the atmosphere communicating its influence automatically to your actions and reactions. A mood, often repeated, gains a momentum that is hard to break or check. So be careful of the feelings you entertain. Habitual moods reveal the state with which you are fused.
57.
Suppose I am capable of acting with continuous imagination, that is, suppose I am capable of sustaining the feeling of my wish fulfilled, will my assumption harden into fact?
And, if it does harden into fact, shall I on reflection find that my actions through the period of incubation have been reasonable? Is my imagination a power sufficient, not merely to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, but is it also of itself capable of incarnating the idea?
After assuming that I am already what I want to be, must I continually guide myself by reasonable ideas and actions in order to bring about the fulfillment of my assumption?
Experience has convinced me that an assumption, though false, if persisted in, will harden into fact, that continuous imagination is sufficient for all things, and all my reasonable plans and actions will never make up for my lack of continuous imagination.
58.
As already stated, righteousness is the consciousness of already being what you want to be.
“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing
the wrath of the king: for he endured,
as seeing Him Who is invisible.”
“Egypt” means darkness, belief in many gods (causes).
The “king” symbolizes the power of outside conditions or circumstances.
“He” is your concept of yourself as already being what you want to be.
“Enduring as seeing Him Who is invisible”
means persisting in the assumption that your desire is already fulfilled.
Thus, this quotation means that, by persisting in the assumption that you already are the person you want to be, you rise above all doubt, fear, and belief in the power of outside conditions or circumstances; and your world inevitably conforms to your assumption.
59.
I tell you: imagination will not fail you if you are faithful. What could I say when I was confronted with the negation of my assumption? Nothing. I simply would not give up, and when the time was right my assumption became a fact. I urge you to set your goal high. Assume the feeling it has been reached and sleep in that feeling.
Persist and I promise you that not one thing in this world can rob you of that which you have assumed. But the most important thing is to know that which is housed within you is God’s plan of redemption, and he only redeems himself. God came down into the world and housed himself in you. Now he is going to discover who he is, for it is in you as a person that the nature of God is revealed.
60.
Take his wonderful precept and believe that you can have anything you desire. There is no restriction placed upon the power of belief. There is no need to first consult some holy man to see whether you should have it or not. You be the judge. Choose your desire and, to the degree that you are self-persuaded that you have it, you will get it. And, because we are all one, if it takes one million people to aid the birth of your assumption, they will do it, without their knowledge or consent, so you don’t have to ask anyone to aid you. They will do it not even knowing that they are. All you are called upon to do is to assume that you have it. An assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact. That is the principle.