Joseph Murphy – Believe in Yourself

THIS BOOK TEACHES YOU HOW TO TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE THROUGH THE ART OF BELIEVING.

EACH CHAPTER IS FULL OF POWERFUL, PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY SHOWING YOU WHY

“MAN IS BELIEF EXPRESSED.”

 

CONTENTS

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
Chapter 1 – MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE
Chapter 2 – USING THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IN BUSINESS
Chapter 3 – HOW TO IMAGINE SUCCESS

 

Publisher’s Preface

The story of Joseph will live forever. Joseph is Divine imagination. Dr. Murphy shows you the science of imagination in a vivid, intensely, practical way. The “how” is portrayed through many case histories, and you learn to use the two great pillars of Truth — disciplined imagination plus faith — enabling you to realize your fondest dreams. Here is a book that shows you how to believe and succeed.

“The greatest and richest galleries of art in the world are the galleries of the mind devoted to God’s Truths and Beauty.”

Dr. Murphy gives you in this book a universal guide in the art of making your life much more effective and satisfying by developing Belief in Yourself. The magic formula is, “All things are possible to him that Believeth.” You want freedom, health, and happiness. You can have them by changing your conscious belief to subcon­scious belief.

Chapter 1

MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.

“And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.

“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him all the more.

“And he said unto them, Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:

“For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.

“And his brethren said to him, Shall thou indeed reign over us? or shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dream, and for his words.

“And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.

“And he told it to his father, and his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?” (Genesis 37:3-10.)

Joseph in the Bible means disciplined or controlled imagination. It is one of the primal faculties of mind, and has the power to project and clothe your ideas, giving them visibility on the screen of space.

Israel loved Joseph. Israel is the spiritually awakened man who knows the power of controlled imagination. It is called the son of his old age. Son means expression. Old age infers wisdom and knowledge of the laws of mind. When you become familiar with the power of imagination, you will call it “the son of your old age.”

Age is not the flight of years; it is really the dawn of wisdom and Divine knowledge in you. Imagination is the mighty instrument used by great scientists, artists, physicists, inventors, architects, and mystics. When the world said, “It is impossible. It can’t be done,” the man with imagination said, “It is done!” Through your imagination you can also penetrate the depths of reality, and reveal the secrets of nature.

A great industrialist told me one time how he started in a small store. He said that I used to dream (Joseph was a dreamer) of a large corporation with branches all over the country. He added that regularly and systematically he pictured in his mind the giant building, offices, factories, and stores, knowing that through the alchemy of the mind, he could weave the fabric out of which his dreams would be clothed. He prospered, and began to attract to himself by a universal law of attraction the ideas, personnel, friends, money, and everything needed for the unfoldment of his ideal. He truly exercised and cultivated his imagination, and lived with these mental patterns in his mind until imagination clothed them in form.

I liked particularly one comment which he made as follows, “It is just as easy to imagine yourself successful, as it is to imagine failure, and far more interesting.”

Joseph is a dreamer, and a dreamer of dreams; this means he has visions, images, and ideals in his mind, and knows that there is a Creative Power which responds to his mental pictures. The mental images we hold are developed in feeling. It is wisely said that all our senses are modifications of the one-sense-feeling. Troward says, “Feeling is the law, and the law is the feeling.” Feeling is the fountain-head of power. We must charge our mental pictures with feeling in order to get results..

We are told, “Joseph dreamed a dream, and told it to his brethren, and they hated him.” Perhaps as you read this, you have a dream, an ideal, a plan, or purpose that you would like to accomplish. To hate is to reject in Bible language. The thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and opinions in your mind are your brethren which challenge you, belittle your dreams, and say to you, “You can’t; it is impossible.” “Forget it!” Perhaps other thoughts come into your mind which scoff at your plan or ambition. You discover there is a quarrel in your mind with your own brethren; opposition sets in. The way to handle the opposition in your mind is to detach your attention from sense evidence and appearance of things, and begin to think clearly and with interest about your goal or objective. When your mind is engaged on your goal or objective, you are using the creative law of mind, and it will come to pass.

“Lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.” Lift your ideal or desire up in consciousness. Exalt it. Commit yourself whole-heartedly to it. Praise it; give your attention, love, and devotion to your ideal, and as you continue to do this, all the fearful thoughts will make obeisance to your exalted state of mind; i.e., they will lose their power, and disappear from the mind. Through your faculty to imagine the end result, you have control over any circumstance or condition. If you wish to bring about the realization of any wish, desire, or idea, form a mental picture of fulfillment in your mind; constantly imagine the reality of your desire. In this way you will actually compel it into being. What you imagine as true already exists in the next dimension of mind, and if you remain faithful to your ideal, it will one day objectify itself. The master-architect within you will project on the screen of visibility what you impress on your mind.

Joseph (imagination) wears a coat of many colors. A coat in the Bible is a psychological covering. Your psychological garments are the mental attitudes, moods, and feelings you entertain. The coat of many colors represent the many facets of the diamond, or your capacity to clothe any idea in form. You can imagine your friend who is poor living in the lap of luxury. You can see his face light up with joy, see his expression change, and a broad smile cross his lips. You can hear him tell you what you want to hear. You can see him exactly as you wish to see him — i.e., he is radiant, happy, prosperous, and successful. Your imagination is the coat of many colors; it can clothe and objectify any idea or desire. You can imagine abundance where lack is; peace where discord is; health where sickness is.

“His brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us?” Imagination is the first faculty, and takes precedence over all the other powers or elements of consciousness. You have twelve faculties or brethren, but your imagination when disciplined enables you to collapse time and space and rise above all limitations. When you keep your imagination busy with noble, God-like concepts and ideas, you will find it is the most effective of all faculties in your spiritual ongoing.

The phrase, “Joseph is sold into Egypt —” means that your concept or desire must be subjectified (Egypt) first before it becomes objectified. Every concept must go “down into Egypt”— meaning into the subjective where the birth of ideas takes place.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son—” Joseph is commander of Egypt which tells you that imagination controls the whole conceptive realm. Whatever prison you may be in, whether it is the prison of fear, sickness, lack, or limitation of any kind, remember that Joseph is the commander in prison, and can deliver you. You can imagine your freedom, and continue to do so until it is sub­jectified; then after gestation in the darkness the manifestation comes—your prayer is answered.

Consider for a moment a distinguished, talented architect; he can build a beautiful, modern, twentieth century city in his mind, complete with super highways, swimming pools, aquariums, parks, etc. He can construct in his mind the most beautiful palace that eye has ever seen. He can see the building in its entirety completely erected before he ever gives his plan to the builders. Where was the building? It was in his imagination.

With your imagination you can actually hear the invisible voice of your mother even though she lives 10,000 miles from here. You can also see her clearly, and as vividly as if she were present; this is the wonderful power you possess. You can develop and cultivate this power, and become successful and prosperous.

Haven’t you heard the sales manager say, “I have to let John go, because his attitude is wrong?” The business world knows the importance of “right attitude.”

I remember many years ago having printed a small article on Reincarnation. These pamphlets were on display on a book counter of a church where I lectured. In the beginning very few of them were sold, because the salesgirl was violently opposed to its contents.

I explained to her the Biblical meaning of Reincarnation, the origin of the story, and what it was all about. She understood the contents of the drama, and became enthusiastic about the booklets; they were all sold before my lecture series was completed. This was an instance of the importance of the right, mental attitude.

Your mental attitude means your mental reaction to people, circumstances, conditions, and objects in space. What is your relationship with your co-workers? Are you friendly with people, with animals, and with the universe in general? Do you think the universe is hostile, and that the world owes you a living? In short what is your attitude ?

The emotional reaction of the above mentioned girl was one of deep-seated prejudice. That was the wrong attitude in selling books; she was biased toward the book and the writer.

You can develop the right, mental attitude when you realize that nothing externally can upset you or hurt you without your mental consent. You are the only thinker in your world; consequently nothing can move you to anger, grief, or sorrow without your mental consent. The suggestions that come to you from the outside have no power whatsoever, except you permit them to move you in thought negatively. Realize you are master of your thought-world. Emotions follow thought; hence you are supreme in your own orbit. Do you permit others to influence you? Do you allow the headlines in the newspapers, or the gossip, or criticism of others to upset you, or bring about mental depression? If you do, you must admit you are the cause of your own mood; you created your emotional reaction. Your attitude is wrong.

Do you imagine evil of others? If you do, notice the emotion generated in your deeper self; it is negative and destructive to your health and prosperity. Circumstances can affect you only as you permit them. You can voluntarily and definitely change your attitude toward life and all things. You can become master of your fate, and captain of your soul (subconscious mind). Through disciplined, directed, and controlled imagination you can dominate and master your emotions and mental attitude in general.

If you imagine, for example, that the other is mean, dishonest, and jealous, notice the emotion you evoked within yourself. Now reverse the situation. Begin to imagine the same girl or boy is hon­est, sincere, loving, and kind; notice the reaction it calls forth in you. Are you not, therefore, master of your attitudes? In reality the truth of the whole matter is that it is your real concept of God which determines your Whole attitude toward life in general. Your dominant idea about God is your idea of life; for God is Life. If you have the dominant idea or attitude that God is the Spiritual Power within you responsive to your thought, and that, therefore, since your habitual thinking is constructive and harmonious, this Power is guiding and prospering you in all ways; this dominant attitude will color everything. You will be looking at the world through the positive, affirmative attitude of mind. Your outlook will be positive, and you will have a joyous expectancy of the best.

Many people have a gloomy, despondent outlook on life. They are sour, cynical, and cantankerous; this is due to the dominant, mental attitude which directs their reaction to everything.

A person’s mood of joy is usually short-lived who is constantly singing the blues when something wonderful comes into his experience or that of his family.

A young boy of sixteen years going to high school said to me, “I am getting very poor grades. My memory is failing. I do not know what is the matter.” The only thing wrong was his attitude. He adopted a new, mental attitude by realizing how important his studies were in gaining entrance grades to college in order to become a lawyer. He began to pray scientifically, which is one of the quickest ways to change the mentality.

In scientific prayer we deal with a principle which responds to thought. This young man realized there was a Spiritual Power within him, and that It was the only Cause and Power. Furthermore he began to claim that his memory was perfect, and that Infinite Intelligence constantly revealed to him everything he needed to know at all tunes everywhere. He began to radiate Love and goodwill to the teachers and fellow students. This young man is now enjoying a greater freedom than he had known for several years. He constantly imagines the teachers and his mother congratulating him on all “A’s.” It is imagining the desired results that have followed this change of attitude toward his studies.

We have said previously that all our mental attitudes are conditioned by imagination. If you imagine: It is going to be a black day today; business is going to be very poor; that it is rain­ing; no customers will come into your store; they have no money, etc., you will experience the result of your negative imagery.

One time Troward was walking the streets of London, and he imagined he saw a snake on the street. Fear caused him to become semi-paralyzed. What he saw looked like a snake, but Troward had the same mental and emotional reaction as if it were a snake.

Imagine whatsoever things are lovely, noble, and of good report, and your entire emotional attitude toward life will change. What do you imagine about life? Is it going to be a happy life for you? Or is it one long series of frustrations? “Choose ye whom ye will serve.”

You mold, fashion, and shape your outer world of experience according to the mental images you habitually dwell on. Imagine conditions and circumstances in life which dignify, elevate, please, and satisfy. If you imagine life is cold, cruel, hard, bitter, and that struggle and pain are inevitable, you are making life miserable for yourself.

Imagine yourself on the golf course. You are free, relaxed, full of enthusiasm, and energy. Your joy is in overcoming all the diffi­culties presented by the golf course. The thrill is in surmounting all the obstacles.

Now let us take this scene: Imagine yourself going into a funeral parlor. Notice the different, emotional response brought forward as you picture yourself in each of the above mentioned situations. In the funeral chapel you can rejoice in the person’s new birthday. You can imagine the loved one surrounded by his or her friends in the midst of indescribable beauty and love. You can imagine God’s river of peace flooding the minds and hearts of all present. You can actually ascend the heavens of your own mind wherever you are; this is the Power of your imagination.

“And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.”

In ancient symbology, the sun and the moon represent the conscious and subconscious mind. The eleven stars represent the eleven powers in addition to imagination. Here again the inspired writers are telling you that disciplined imagination takes precedence over all other faculties of the mind, and controls the direction of the conscious and subconscious mind. Imagination is first and foremost; it can be scientifically directed.

I was examining one of the Round Towers of Ireland with my father over fifty years ago. He said nothing for one hour, but remained passive and receptive, seeming to be in a pensive mood. I asked him what was he meditating on? This is the essence of his answer: He pointed out that it is only by dwelling on the great, wonderful ideas of the world that we grow and expand. He con­templated the age of the stones in the tower; then his imagination took him back to the quarries where stones were first formed. His imagination unclothed the stones. He saw with the interior eye the structure, the geological formation, the composition of the stone, and reduced it to the formless state; finally he imagined the oneness of the stones with all stones and with all life. He realized in his Divine imagery that it was possible to reconstruct the history of the Irish race from looking at the Round Tower!

Through the imaginative faculty this teacher was able to see the invisible men living in the Tower and to hear their voices. The whole place became alive to him in his imagination. Through this power he was able to go back in time when there was no Round Tower there. In his mind he began to weave a drama of the place from which stones originated, who brought them, the purpose of the structure, and the history connected with it. As he said to me, “I am able to almost feel the touch, and hear the sound of steps that vanished thousands of years ago.”

The subjective mind permeates all things; it is in all things, and is the substance from which they are made. The treasure-house of eternity is in the very stones comprising a building. There is nothing inanimate; all is life in its varied manifestations. (The sun and the moon make obeisance to Joseph — imagination.) Truly through your faculty of imagination you can imagine the invisible secrets of nature are revealed to you; you will find that you can plumb the very depths of consciousness calling things that be not as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.

The other night I sat in a park, and looked at the setting sun. Suddenly I began to think that the sun is like a house in the City of Los Angeles; there is a greater sun behind our sun, and so on to Infinity. It staggers the imagination to ponder and meditate on the myriads of suns and solar galaxies extending into infinity beyond the Milky Way. This world is only a grain of sand in the infinite seashore. Instead of seeing the parts, let us look at the wholeness, the unity of all things. We are, as the poet said, “All parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul.”

It is really out of the imaginative mind of man all religions are born. Is it not out of the realm of imagination television, radio, radar, super jets, and all other modern inventions came? Your im­agination is the treasure-house of Infinity, which releases to you all the precious jewels of music, art, poetry, and inventions. You can look at some ancient ruin, an old temple, or pyramid, and re­construct the records of the dead past. In the ruins of an old church yard you can also see a modern city resurrected in all its beauty and glory. You may be in a prison of want, lack, or behind stone bars, but in your imagination you can find an undreamed of measure of freedom.

Remember how Chico, the Parisian sewer cleaner, imagined and lived in a paradisiacal state of mind called the seventh heaven even though he never saw the light of day.

Bunyan in prison wrote the great masterpiece, Pilgrim’s Progress. Milton though blind saw with the interior eye. His imagination made his brain a ball of fire, and he wrote Paradise Lost. In this way he brought some of God’s Paradise to all men everywhere.

Imagination was Milton’s spiritual eye which enabled him to go about God’s business whereby he annihilated time, space, and matter, and brought forth the truths of the Invisible Presence and Power.

A genius is a man who is en-rapport with his subconscious mind. He is able to tap this universal reservoir, and receive answers to his problems; thus he does not have to work by the sweat of his brow. In the genius type of mind the imaginative faculty is developed to a very high degree. All great poets and writers are gifted with a highly developed and cultivated imaginative faculty.

I can now see Shakespeare listening to the old stories, fables, and myths of his day. I can also imagine him sitting down listing all these characters in the play in his mind; then clothing them one by one with hair, skin, muscle, bone, animating them, and making them so much alive that we think we are reading about ourselves.

Use your imagination, and go about your Father’s business. Your Father’s business is to let your wisdom, skill, knowledge, and ability come forth, and bless others as well as yourself. You are about your Father’s business if you are operating a small store, and in your imagination you feel you are operating a larger store giving a greater measure of service to your fellow creature.

If you are a writer of short stories, you can be about your Father’s business. Create a story in your mind which teaches something about the Golden rule; then pass that story and all its characters through your spiritualized and highly artistic mentality; your article will be fascinating and intensely interesting to your public.

The truth about man is always wonderful and beautiful. When writing a novel or story, we should be sure that we clothe Truth in her garment of Loveliness and Beauty. You could now look at an acorn, and with your imaginative eye construct a magnificent forest full of rivers, rivulets, and streams. You could people the forest with all kinds of life; furthermore you could hang a bow on every cloud. You could look at a desert, and cause it to rejoice and blossom as a rose. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” Men gifted with intuition and imagination find water in the desert, and they create cities where formerly other men only saw a desert and a wilderness.

An architect of a city sees the buildings and fountains already in operation before he ever digs a well or builds a house. “I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”

Long hours, hard labor, or burning the midnight oil will not produce a Milton, a Shakespeare, a Phidias, or a Beethoven. Men accomplish great things through quiet moments imagining that the invisible things of Him from the foundation of time are clearly visible.

You can imagine the Indescribable Beauty of He Who Is is being expressed on your canvas, and if you are a real artist in love with beauty, great beauty will come forth effortlessly. Moments of great inspiration will come to you; it will have nothing to do with perspiration or hard, mental labor.

In Greenwich Village I met a poet who wrote beautiful poems; he had them printed on cards, and sold them at Christmas time. Some of these poems were beautiful gems of spiritual love. He said when he got still, the words would come into his mind accompanied by a lovely scene. Flowers, people, and friends would come clearly into his mind. These images spoke to him. They told him their story. Oftentimes the complete poem, song, or lullaby would appear complete and ready in his mind without the slightest effort. His habit was to imagine he was writing beautiful poems which would stir the hearts of men.

Shelley said poetry was an expression of the imagination. When the poet meditates on Love, and wishes to write on Love, the Invisible Intelligence and Wisdom within him stirs his mind, casts the spell of God’s beauty over him, and awakens him to God’s Eternal Love, so that his words become clothed with wisdom, truth, and beauty.

The Great Musician is within. If it is your business to play music or compose music, be sure you are on your Father’s Business. Your Father’s Business is first of all to recognize God as the Great Musician; then meditate, feel, pray, and know that the Inner Music sings or plays through you the Song of God’s Love, and you will play like you never played before.

Every invention of Edison’s was first conceived in his imagination. The same was true of Tesla, another great inventor and scientist.

I think it was Oliver Wendall Holmes who said we need three story men who can idealize, imagine, and predict. I believe it was the capacity to imagine and dream that caused Ford to look forward to putting the world on wheels.

Your capacity to imagine causes you, and enables you to remove all barriers of time and space. You can reconstruct the past or contemplate the future thought through your inner eye. No wonder it says in Genesis, “Israel loved Joseph [imagination] more than all his brethren.” Imagination when disciplined, spiritualized, con­trolled, and directed becomes the most exalted and noblest attribute of man.

I was in conversation some years ago with a young chemist, who stated that his superiors for years had tried to manufacture a certain German dye and failed. He was given the assignment when he went with them. As he commented, he did not know it could not be done, and synthesized the compound without any difficulty. They were amazed and wanted to know his secret. His answer was that he imagined he had the answer. Pressed further by his superiors he said that he could clearly see the letters, “Answer!” in blazing red color in his mind; then he created a vacuum underneath the letters knowing that as he imagined the chemical formula underneath the letters, the subconscious would fill it in. The third night he had a dream, in which the complete formula and the technique of making the compound was clearly presented.

“Joseph [imagination] is a dreamer, and a dreamer of dreams.” “They conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.” Perhaps as you read these Biblical quotations there are thoughts of fear, doubt, and anxiety conspiring in your own mind to slay or kill that desire, ideal, or dream of yours. You look at conditions or circumstances, and fear arises in your mind; yet there is the desire within you which if realized would bring you peace and solve your problem.

You must be like Joseph, and become a practical dreamer. Decide to make your dreams come true. Withdraw and abstract your attention now from appearances of things and from sense evidence. Even though your senses deny what you pray for, affirm it as true in your heart. Bring your mind back from its wandering after the false Gods of fear and doubt to rest in the Omnipotence of the Spiritual Power within you. In the silence and quietude of your own mind, dwell on the fact that there is only One Power and One Presence. This Power and Presence is now responding to your thought as guidance, strength, peace, and nourishment for the soul. Give all your mental attention to recognizing the absolute sov­ereignty of the Spiritual Power knowing that the God-Power has the answer, and is now showing you the way. Trust It; believe in It, and walk the earth in the Light your prayer is already answered.

All of us read the story of Columbus and his discovery of America. It was imagination that led him to his discovery. His imagination plus faith in a Divine Power led him on, and brought him to victory.

The sailors said to Columbus, “What shall we do when all hope is gone?”

His reply was, “You shall say at break of day, ‘Sail on, sail on, and on.’ ” Here is the key to prayer; be faithful to the end; full of faith every step of the way, persisting to the end, knowing in your heart the end is secure, because you saw the end. Having seen and felt the end, as Troward said, you have willed the means to the realization of the end.

Copernicus through his vivid imagination revealed how the earth revolved on its axis, causing the old astronomical theories to be cast in the discard.

I think it would be a wonderful idea if all of us from time to time recast our ideas, checked up on our beliefs and opinions, and asked ourselves honestly, “Why do I believe that? Where did that opinion come from?” Perhaps many ideas, theories, beliefs, and opinions which we hold are completely erroneous, and were accepted by us as true without any investigation whatever as to their truth or accuracy. Because our father and grandfather believed in a certain way is no reason why we should.

One woman said to me that a certain idea she had must be true, because her grandmother believed it. That is absurd! The race mind believes in many things which are not true. What came down from generation to generation is not necessarily valid or the final word and authority.

The above mentioned woman who was honest and well-meaning had a mind that was very touchy on psychological truths. She took everything in the Bible literally. This mind worked by prejudice, superstition, and opposed everything which was not in accord with her established beliefs, opinions, and preconceived notions.

Our mind must be like a parachute. The latter opens up; if it does not, it isn’t any good. Likewise we must open our eyes and minds to new truths. We must hunger and thirst after new truth and new knowledge, enabling us to soar aloft above our problems on the wings of faith and understanding.

The famous biologists, physicists, astronomers, and mathematic­ians of our day are men gifted with a vivid, scientific imagination. For instance the Einstein theory of relativity existed first in his imagination.

Archaeologists and paleontologists studying the tombs of ancient Egypt through their imaginative perception reconstruct ancient scenes. The dead past becomes alive and audible once more. Look­ing at the ancient ruins and the hieroglyphics thereon, the scientist tells us of an age when there was no language. Communication was done by grunts, groans, and signs. The scientist’s imagination enables him to clothe this ancient temple with roofs, and surround them with gardens, pools, and fountains. The fossil remains are clothed with eyes, sinews, and muscles, and they again walk and talk. The past becomes the living present, and we find in imagination there is no time or space. Through your imaginative faculty you can be a companion of the most inspired writers of all time.

I gave a lecture on the twenty first chapter of Revelation some time ago in the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles to our Sunday audience. The previous night while I was meditating on the inner meaning of the following verses, I intuitively and actually felt the presence and the intimate companionship of the mystic seer who wrote the inspired verses.

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and be their God.” (Rev. 21:2, 2)

Can’t you now walk down the corridor of your own mind, and there see, inwardly perceive, feel, and sense God’s river of peace flowing through your mind? You are now in the Holy City—your own mind—inhabited by such lovely people as bliss, joy, faith, harmony, love, and good will. Your mind is clothed with God’s radiant beauty, and your mood is exalted, noble, and God-like. You are married mentally and spiritually to God and to all things good. You have on your wedding garment, because you are in tune with the Infinite, and God’s Eternal Verities constantly impregnate your mind. In your imagination you sense and feel that you are the tabernacle of God, and that His Holy Spirit saturates and fills every part of your being. Your imagination now becomes seized with a Divine frenzy. You become God-intoxicated, having received the Divine antibody, the Presence of God in the chamber of your heart.

You can look at a rock, and out of that rock through Divine Imagination you can reveal the Madonna, and portray a vision of beauty and a joy forever. Never permit your imagination to be used negatively; never distort or twist it. You can imagine sickness, accident, and loss, and become a mental wreck. To imagine sick­ness and lack is to destroy your peace of mind, health, and happi­ness.

On board ship one time I heard a passenger exclaim when looking at the setting sun, “I am so happy, I hope this lasts forever!”

How often have you seen a glorious sunrise—perhaps you said, “I hope this lasts forever?” Nothing in this transitory world lasts eternally; however the Truths of God last forever. Darkness follows night, but morning will come again. Twilight will also come. You do not want things to stand still. You do not want to stand still either; for there are new worlds within and without to conquer. Change eternal is at the root of all life.

You do not want to remain in a rut. Problems are life’s way of asking you for an answer.

The greatest joy and satisfaction is in overcoming, in conquering. Life would become unbearable and unendurable if we did not experience change. We would be bored by the monotony of things. You meet with night and day, cold and heat, ebb and flow, summer and winter, hope and despair, success and failure. You find yourself moving through opposites; through your power to imagine what you wish and to feel its reality subjectively is to reconcile the opposites, and bring peace to the mind.

In the midst of sorrow, grief, or the loss of a loved one, your imagination and faith, the two wings of the bird, take you aloft into the very Bosom of God, your Father, where you find peace, solace, and Divine rest for your soul.

In your imagination you look into the very Face or Truth of God, and God wipes away all tears, and there shall be no more crying. All the mist and fog of the human mind dissolves in the sunshine of God’s Love.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither, shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Behold I make all things new.” (Rev. 4,5.)

When the night is black, you see no way out; i.e., when your problem is most acute, let your imagination be your saviour.

“I will lift up mine eyes [imagination] unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” (Ps. 121:1.) The hills are of an inner range—the Presence of God in you. When you seek guidance and inspiration, fix your eyes on the stars of God’s Truth, such as “Infinite Intelligence leads and guides me,” or “Divine Wisdom floods my mind, and I am inspired from on High.”

There is a designer, an architect, and a weaver within you; it takes the fabric of your mind, your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and moulds them into a pattern of life which brings you peace or discord, health or sickness. You can imagine a life which will take you up to the third heaven where you will see unspeakable and unutterable things of God, or through the distorted, morbid use of your imagination you can sink to the depths of degradation.

Man is the tabernacle of God, and no matter how low a man has sunk, the Healing Presence is there waiting to minister to him. It is within us waiting for us to call upon It.

You can use your imagination in all business transactions in a wonderful way. Always imagine yourself in the other fellow’s place; this tells you what to do. Imagine the other is expressing all that you long to see him express. See him as he ought to be, not as he appears to be. Perhaps he is surly, sarcastic, bitter, hostile; there may be many frustrated hopes and tragedies lurking in his mind. Imagine whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and through your imagination you have covered him with the garment of God. God’s world of ideals and God’s infinite ideas are within him waiting to be born and released. You can say if you wish, “God waits to be born in him.” You can open the door, and kindle the fire of God’s Love in that man’s heart, and perhaps the spark you lit will burst into a Divine Fire.

The greatest and richest galleries of art in the world are the galleries of the mind devoted to God’s Truths and Beauty. Leonardo Da Vinci through his gift of imagination meditated on Jesus and the Twelve Disciples, and what they meant. Lost in deep reverie, his imagination secreted the perfect pictures from the Infinite Reservoir within him, and due to his perfect focus his inner eye glowed with an interior luminosity, so that he was inspired, and out of his Divine Imagery came the masterpiece—The Last Supper.

You have visited a quiet lake or a mountain top. Notice how the placid, cool, calm surface reflected the heavenly lights, so does the quiet mind of the spiritual man reflect God’s interior Lights and Wisdom.

Picture your ideal in life; live with this ideal. Let the ideal captivate your imagination; let the ideal thrill you! You will move in the direction of the ideal which governs your mind. The ideals of life are like the dew of heaven which move over the arid areas of man’s mind refreshing and invigorating him.

The inspired writer’s imagination was fired with Truth when he wrote, “There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.” (Ps. 46:4.)

By now you know that imagination is the river enabling you to flow back psychologically to God. The streams and rivulets are your ideas and feelings, plus the emanation of love and good will that goes forth from you to all men everywhere.

Man looks out into the world, and he sees sickness, chaos, and man’s inhumanity to man. The man with the disciplined imagin­ation soars above all appearances, discord, sense evidence, and sees the sublime principle of harmony operating through, in, and behind all things. He knows through his Divine imagery that there is an Everlasting Law of Righteousness behind all things, an Ever Abiding Peace, a Boundless Love governing the entire Cosmos. These Truths surge through the heart, and are born of the eternal Truth which through the imagination pierces the outer veil, and rests in the Divine meaning of the way it is in God and Heaven.

Imagination was the workshop of God which inspired the writer of the following matchless, spiritual gems which will go down through the corridor of time, and live forever. For tender beauty and for Divine imagery they are unsurpassed in dealing with the availability and Immanence of God’s Presence.

“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Ps. 91:11.)

“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

“If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

“Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

Chapter 2

USING THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND IN BUSINESS

LONG before our Bible was published ancient wisdom said, “As a man imagines and feels, so does he become.” This ancient teaching is lost in the night of time; it is lost in antiquity.

The Bible states, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”

Legend relates that many thousands of years ago the Chinese sages gathered together under the leadership of a great sage, to discuss the fact that vast legends of brutal invaders were pillaging and plundering the land. The question to be resolved was, “How shall we preserve the ancient wisdom from the destruction of the invaders?”

There were many suggestions: Some thought that the ancient scrolls and symbols should be buried in the Himalayan Mountains. Others suggested that the wisdom be deposited in monasteries in Tibet. Still others pointed out that the sacred temples of India were the ideal places for the preservation of the wisdom of their God.

The chief sage was silent during the entire discussion; in fact he went to sleep in the midst of their talk, and snored loudly, much to their dismay! He awakened in a little while, and said, “Tao [God] gave me the answer, and it is this: ‘We will order the great pictorial artists of China,—men gifted with Divine imagination,—[which is the workshop of God] and tell them what we wish to accomplish. We will initiate them into the mysteries of Truth. They will portray or depict in picture form, the great Truths which shall be preserved for all time, and for countless generations yet unborn. When they are finished with the dramatization of the great Truths, Powers, Qualities, and Attributes of God through a series of picture cards, we will tell the world about a new game that has been originated.

Men throughout the world for all time will use them as a game of chance, not knowing that through this simple device, they are preserving the sacred teaching for all generations.’ ” This was the origin of our own deck of cards.

The ancient Chinese sage according to the legend added, “If all the sacred writings were destroyed, they could again be resurrected at any time through the symbolic teachings and inner meanings of the various designs on the playing cards.”

Imagination clothes all ideas, and gives them form. These artists through the Divine artistry of imagination clothed all these ideas with pictorial form. In the act of imagination that which is hidden in your deeper self is made manifest. By imagination what exists in latency or is asleep within you is given form in thought. We contemplate that which hitherto had been unrevealed.

Let us take some simple examples: When you were going to be married, you had vivid, realistic pictures in your mind. With your power of imagination you saw the minister or priest. You heard him pronounce the words; you saw the flowers, the church, and you heard the music. You imagined the ring on your finger, and you travelled through your imagination on your honeymoon to Niagara or Europe. All this was performed by your imagination.

Likewise before graduation, you had a beautiful, scenic drama taking place in your mind; you had clothed all your ideas about graduation in form. You imagined the professor or the president of the college giving you your diploma. You saw all the students dressed in gowns. You heard your mother, or father, or your girl friend congratulate you. You felt the embrace and the kiss; it was all real, dramatic, exciting, and wonderful. Images appeared freely in your mind as if from nowhere, but you know and must admit there was and is an Internal Creator with Power to mould all these forms which you saw in your mind, and endow them with life, motion, and voice. These images said to you, “For you only we live!”

A young man said to me in the army before he was discharged, “I see my mother clearly. I can now imagine her welcome. I see the old home. Father is smoking a pipe. My sister is feeding the dogs. I can see every mark and corner of that home. I can even hear their voices.”

Where do all these vivid pictures come from? Keats said that there is an ancestral wisdom in man, and we can, if we wish, drink of that old wine of heaven.

The spirit or God in you is the real basis of imagination. Once in an examination in London, I did not know the answer to an important question. I got still and quiet, and said over and over again slowly, meditating in a relaxed way, “God reveals the answer!” In the meantime I went on answering the other questions which were easy.

We know that when you relax the conscious mind, the subjective wisdom rises to the fore. In a short while the picture of the answer came clearly into my mind. It was there in words like a page of a book with the entire answer written out as a graph in the mind. A Mightier Wisdom than that of my conscious mind or intellect spoke through me.

I had a very religious school boy about 14 years old come to me. Whenever he had a problem, he said to me that he would imagine Jesus was talking to him giving him the answer to his problem, and telling him what to do. His mother was very ill; this boy was highly imaginative. He read the story of Jesus healing the woman with fever. My little friend related to me, “Last night I imagined Jesus saying to me, “Go thy way; thy mother is made whole!” He made that drama of the mind so real, vivid, and intense, that due to his faith and belief he convinced himself of the truth of what he heard subjectively.

His mother was completely healed; yet she was considered at that time hopeless and beyond medical help.

Being a student of the laws of mind, you know what happened. He galvanized himself into the feeling of being one with his image, and according to his faith or conviction was it done unto him. There is only One Mind and One Healing Presence. As the boy changed his conviction about his mother, and felt her perfect health, the idea of perfect health was resurrected in her mind simultaneously. He did not know anything about spiritual healing or the power of imagination. He operated the law unconsciously, and believed in his own mind that Jesus was actually talking to him; then according to his belief was it done unto him.

To believe something is to accept it as true. This is why Paracelsus said in the 16th century, “Whether the object of your belief be true or false, you will get the same results.” There is only one spiritual, healing Principle and one Process of healing called faith. “According to your faith is it done unto you.” There are many processes, methods, and techniques of healing, and all of them get results—not because of the particular technique or method, but because of imagination and faith in the particular process. They are all tapping the One Source of healing which is God. The Infinite Healing Presence permeates all things and is Omnipresent.

The voodoo doctor with his incantations gets results. So does the Kahuna of Hawaii with his ministrations, the various branches of New Thought, Christian Science, the Nancy School of Medicine, Osteopathy, etc. get healings. All these schools of thought are meeting levels of consciousness, and are doing good.

Any method or process which alleviates human misery, pain, and distress is good. Many churches practice laying on of hands; others make novenas and visit shrines; all are benefited according to their mental acceptance or belief.

When you are willing to stand alone with God, and cease completely giving power to external things; when you no longer give power to the phenomenalistic world, which means to make a world of effect a cause; when all your allegiance is given to the Spiritual Power within you, realizing it as the only Presence and the only Cause, you will not need any props of any kind. The Living Intelligence which made your body will respond immed­iately to your faith and understanding, and you will have an instantaneous, spiritual healing. If you are not at that level of consciousness where you can grow a tooth through prayer, the obvious thing to do is to go see a dentist; pray for him and for a perfect, Divine, oral adjustment. As long as you believe in external causes, you will seek external remedies.

To illustrate further the power of imagination, I will tell you of a close relative of mine who had tuberculosis. His lungs were badly diseased. His son decided to heal his father. He came home to Perth, Western Australia, where his father lived, and said to him that he had met a monk who sold him a piece of the true cross, and that he gave him the equivalent of $500 for it. (This young man had picked up a splinter of wood off the sidewalk, went to a jeweler’s and had it set in a ring so that it looked real.) He told his father that many were healed just by touching the ring or the cross. He inflamed and fired his father’s imagination to the point that the old gentleman snatched the ring from him, placed it over his chest, prayed silently, and went to sleep. In the morning he was healed; all the clinic’s tests were negative.

You know, of course, it was not the splinter of wood from the sidewalk that healed him. It was his imagination aroused to an intense degree, plus the confident expectancy of a perfect imagin­ation was joined to faith or subjective feeling, and the union of the two brought about the healing. The father never learned the trick that had been played upon him; if he had, he probably would have had a relapse. He remained completely cured, and passed away 15 years later at the of 89.

I know a business man here in Los Angeles has reached the top in his field. He told me for 30 years the most important decisions he made were based on his imaginary conversation with Paul. I asked him to elaborate, and he remarked that few people in the business world realized the wonderful guidance and counsel they could receive by dramatizing in their imagination that they were receiving counsel from the writers or great seers of the Bible.

I will quote this successful executive as accurately as I can. “Many times my decisions might have prospered the company or plunged it into bankruptcy. I vacillated, wavered, got high blood pressure, and heart disease. One day the idea came to me why not ask Jesus or Paul. I loved the Epistles of Paul, so when an important decision was to be made, I would imagine Paul was saying to me: ‘Your decision is perfect; it will bless your organization. Bless you, my son! Keep on God’s path.’ After imagining I saw Paul and heard him, a wave of peace and inner tranquility would seize me; I was at peace about all decisions.”

This was this business man’s way of receiving Divine Guidance by using his imagination to convince himself that right action was his. There is only one Principle of Intelligence in this world; all that is really necessary is to say and believe, “God is guiding me now, and there is only right action in my life.”

The mind, as Troward tells you, works like a syllogism. If your premise is correct, the conclusion or result will correspond. The subjective reasons deductively only, and its sequence or conclusion is always in harmony with the premise. Establish the right premise in your mind; you will be subjectively compelled to right action. Inner movement of the mind is action. The external movements and action is the automatic response of the body to the internal motion of the mind. Hearing a friend or associate congratulate you on your wonderful decision will induce the movement of right action in your life.

The man who used St. Paul to impregnate his mind with the belief of right action was using the One Eternal Principle of Intelligence. His technique of arriving at that place in his mind does not really matter.

Goethe used his imagination wisely when confronted with diffi­culties and predicaments. His biographers point out that he was accustomed to fill many hours quietly holding imaginary con­versations. It is well-known that his custom was to imagine one of his friends before him in a chair answering in the right way. In other words if he were concerned over any problems, he imagined his friend was giving him the right or appropriate answer, accompanied with the usual gestures, tonal qualities of the voice, making the entire imaginary scene as real and vivid as possible.

I was very well acquainted with a stock broker in New York City, who used to attend my classes at Steinway Hall there. His method of solving financial difficulties was very simple. He would have mental, imaginary conversations with a multimillionaire banker friend of his who used to congratulate him on his wise and sound judgment, and compliment him on his purchase of the right stocks. He used to dramatize this imaginary conversation until he had psychologically fixed it as a form of belief in his mind.

Mr. Nicols, Ouspensky’s student, used to say, “Watch your inner talking, and let it agree with your aim.”

This broker’s inner talking or speech certainly agreed with his aim to make sound investments for himself and his clients. He told me his main purpose in his business life was to make money for others, and to see them prosper financially by his wise counsel. It is quite obvious he was using the laws of mind constructively.

Prayer is a habit. This broker regularly and at frequent intervals during the day returned to the mental image in his mind; he made it a deep, subjective pattern. That which is embodied subjectively is objectively expressed. It is the sustained mental picture which is developed in the dark house of the mind. Run your mental movie often. Get into the habit of flashing it on the screen of your mind frequently. After awhile it will become a definite, habitual pattern. The inner movie which you have seen with your mind’s eye shall be made manifest openly, “He calleth things that be not as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.”

Many people solve their dilemmas and problems by the play of their imagination, knowing that whatever they imagine and feel as true will and must come to pass.

Sometime ago, a certain young woman was involved in a complicated law suit which had persisted for five years. There was one postponement after another with no solution in sight. At my suggestion she began to dramatize as vividly as possible her lawyer having an animated discussion with her regarding the outcome. She would ask him questions, and he would answer her appro­priately; then she condensed the whole thing down to a simple phrase as suggested years ago by the French School of Mental Therapeutics. She had him repeat it over and over again to her. The phrase she said was, “There has been a perfect, harmonious solution. The whole case is settled outside court.” She kept looking at the mental picture whenever she had a spare moment. While in a restaurant for a cup of coffee, she ran the mental movie with gestures, voice, and sound equipment. She could imagine easily the sound of his voice, smile, and mannerism. She ran the movie so often, it became a subjective pattern—a regular train track. It was written in her mind; or as the Bible says, it was “written in her heart and inscribed in her inward parts.” Her conclusion was, “It is God in action,” meaning all round harmony and peace. (Harmony is of God, and what you want in a legal case is a harmonious solution.)

In the science of imagination you must first of all begin to discipline your imagination, and not let it run riot. Science insists upon purity. If you wish a chemically pure product, you must remove all traces of other substances as well as extraneous material. You must in other words separate out and cast away all the dross.

In the science of imagination you eliminate all the mental impurities, such as fear, worry, destructive inner talking, self condemnation, and the mental union with other miscellaneous negatives. You must focus all your attention on your ideal, and refuse to be swerved from your purpose or aim in life. As you get mentally absorbed in the reality of your ideal, by loving and remaining faithful to it, you will see your desire take form in your world. In the book of Joshua it says, “Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve.” Let your choice be, “I am going to imagine whatso­ever things are lovely and of good report.”

I know and have talked to many people who diabolically invert the use of their God-given faculty. The mother, e.g., imagines something bad has happened to her son, John, because he is late coming home. She imagines an accident, a hospital, Johnny in the operating room, etc.

A business man whose affairs are prospering, yet dwells on nega­tivity, is another example of the destructive use of imagination. He comes home from the office, runs a motion picture in his mind of failure, sees the shelves empty, imagines himself going into bankruptcy, an empty bank balance, and the business closed down; yet all the time he is actually prospering. There is no truth whatsoever in that negative, mental picture of his; it is a lie made out of whole cloth. In other words the thing he fears does not exist save in his morbid imagination; the failure will never come to pass, except he keeps up that morbid picture charged with the emotion of fear. If he constantly indulges in this mental picture, he will, of course, bring failure to pass. He had the choice of failure or success, but he chose failure.

There are chronic worriers; they never seem to imagine anything good or lovely. They seem to know that always something bad or destructive is going to happen. They cannot tell you one reason why something good should and could happen; however they are ready with all the reasons why something dire and evil should occur.

Why is this? The reason is simple; these people are habitually negative; i.e., most of their thinking is of a negative, chaotic, destructive, morbid nature. As they continue to make a habit of these negative patterns of thought, they condition their sub­conscious mind negatively. Their imagination is governed by their dominant moods and feelings; this is why they imagine evil even about their loved ones.

For example, if their son happens to be in the army, they imagine he is going to catch cold, become an alcoholic, become loose morally; or if he is in combat they imagine he will be shot, and all manner of destructive images enter their mind. This is due to the hypnotic spell of habit, and their prayers are rendered null and void.

Make a choice now! Begin to think constructively and harmon­iously. To think is to speak. Your thought is your word. Let your words be as a honeycomb, sweet to the ear, and pleasant to the bones.” Let your words be “like apples of Gold in pictures of silver.” The future is the present grown up; it is your invisible word or thought made visible. Are your words sweet to the ear? What is your inner speech like at this moment? No one heard you; it is your own silent thought. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “I can’t; it is impossible.” “I’m too old now.” “What chance have I?” “Mary can, but I can’t. I have no money. I can’t afford this or that. I’ve tried; it’s no use.” You can see your words are not as a honeycomb; they are not sweet to your ear; they do not lift you up or inspire you.

Ouspensky was always stressing the importance of inner speech, inner conversation, or inner talking. It is really the way you feel inside; for the inside mirrors the outside. Is your inner speech pleasant to the bones? Does it exalt you, thrill you, and make you happy?

Bones are symbolic of support and symmetry. Let your inner talking sustain and strengthen you. “But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it. See I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”

Decree now, and say it meaningly: “From this moment forward I will admit to my mind for mental consumption only those ideas and thoughts which heal, bless, inspire, and strengthen me.” Let your words from now on be as “apples of gold in pictures of silver.” An apple is a delicious fruit. Gold means power. Pictures of silver mean in the Bible your desires. The picture in your mind is the way you want things to be. It is the picture of your fulfilled desire. It could be a new position or health. Let your words, your inner silent thought, and feeling coincide and agree with the Picture of silver or your desire. Desire and feeling joined together in a mental marriage will become the answered prayer.

Be sure you follow the imagination of the Bible, and let your words be sweet to the ear. What are you giving your ear to now? What are you listening to? What are you giving attention to? Whatever you give attention to will grow, magnify, and multiply in your experience.

“Faith cometh by hearing,” Paul says. Listen to the great truths of God. Listen to the voice of God. What language does He speak in? It is not Gaelic, French, Italian, but the universal language or mood of love, peace, joy, harmony, faith, confidence, and goodwill. Give your ear to these qualities and potencies of God. Mentally eat of these qualities and as you continue to do so, you will be conditioned to those positive, enduring qualities, and the Law of Love will govern you.

You have heard this oft repeated quotation, “Man is made in the image and likeness of God.” This means your mind is God’s mind, as there is only One Mind. Your Spirit is God’s Spirit, and you create in exactly the same way, and through the same law as God creates. Your individual world, i.e., experiences, conditions, cir­cumstances, environment, as well as your physical health, financial states, social life, etc., is made out of your own mental images and after your own likeness. Like attracts like. Your world is a mirror reflecting back to you your inner world of thought, feeling, beliefs, and inner conversation. If you begin to imagine evil powers work­ing against you, or that there is a jinx following you, or that other forces and people are working against you, there will be a response of your deeper mind to correspond with these negative pictures and fears in your mind; therefore you will begin to say that everything is against you, or that the stars are opposed to you, or you will blame karma, your past lives, or some demon.

Truly the only sin is ignorance. Pain is not a punishment; it is the consequence of the misuse of your inner power. Come back to the one Truth, and realize that there is only One Spiritual Power, and It functions through the thoughts and images of your mind. The problems, vexations, and strife are due to the fact that man has actually wandered away after false Gods of fear and error. He must return to the center—the God-Presence within. Affirm now the sovereignty and authority of this Spiritual Power within you—the Principle of all life. Claim Divine guidance, strength, nourishment, and peace, and this Power will respond accordingly.

I will now proceed to point out how you may definitely and positively convey an idea or mental image to your subconscious mind. The conscious mind of man is personal and selective. It chooses, selects, weighs, analyzes, dissects, and investigates. It is capable of inductive and deductive reasoning. The subjective or subconscious mind is subject to the conscious mind. It might be called a servant of the conscious mind. The subconscious obeys the order of the conscious mind. Your conscious thought has power. The power you are acquainted with is thought. Back of your thought is Mind, Spirit, or God. Focused, directed thoughts reach the subjective levels; they must be of a certain degree of intensity. Intensity is acquired by concentration.

To concentrate is to come back to the centre and contemplate the Infinite Power within you which lies stretched in smiling repose. To concentrate properly you still the wheels of your mind, and enter into a quiet, relaxed, mental state. When you concentrate, you gather your thoughts together, and you focus all your attention on your ideal, aim, or objective. You are now at a focal or central point, where you are giving all your attention and devotion to your mental image. The procedure of focused attention is somewhat similar to that of a magnifying glass, and the focus it makes of the rays of the sun. You can see the difference in the effect of scattered vibrations of the sun’s heat, and the vibrations which emanate from a central point. You can direct the rays of the magnifying glass, so it will burn up a particular object upon which it is directed. Focused, steadied attention of your mental images gains a similar intensity, and a deep, lasting impression is made on the sensitive plate of the subconscious mind.

You may have to repeat this drama of the mind many times before an impression is made, but the secret of impregnating the deeper mind is continuous or sustained imagination. When fear or worry comes to you during the day, you can always immediately gaze upon that lovely picture in your mind, realizing and knowing you have operated a definite, psychological law which is now working for you in the dark house of your mind. As you do this, you are truly watering the seed and fertilizing it; thereby accelerating its growth.

The conscious mind of man is the motor; the subconscious is the engine. You must start the motor, and the engine will do the work. The conscious mind is the dynamo that awakens the power of the subconscious.

The first step in conveying your clarified desire, idea, or image to the deeper mind is to relax, immobilize the attention, get still, and quiet. This quiet, relaxed, peaceful attitude of mind prevents extraneous matter and false ideas from interfering with your mental absorption of your ideal; furthermore in the quiet, passive, receptive attitude of mind effort is reduced to a minimum.

In the second step you begin to imagine the reality of that which you desire. For example you may wish to sell a home. In private consultation with real estate brokers I have told them of the way I sold my own home; they have applied it with remarkable results. I placed a sign in the garden in front of my home which read, “For sale by owner.” The second day after placing the sign, I said to myself as I was going to sleep, “Supposing you sold the house, what would you do?”

I answered my own question, and I said, “I would take that sign down, and throw it in the garage.” In my imagination I took hold of the sign, pulled it up from the ground, placed it on my shoulders, went to the garage, and threw it on the floor, saying jokingly to the sign, “I don’t need you anymore!” I felt the inner satisfaction of it all, realizing it was finished. The next day a man gave me a deposit of $1,000, and said, “Take your sign down; we will go into escrow now.”

Immediately I pulled the sign up, and took it into the garage. The outer action conformed to the inner. There is nothing new about this. “As within, so without,” meaning according to the image impressed on the subconscious mind, so is it on the objective screen of your life.

This procedure or technique is older than our Bible. The outside mirrors the inside. External action follows internal action.

I was engaged by a very large organization to do some spiritual work for them. Through fraudulent means others were trying to lay claim to their vast mining and other interests. They were harassing the company by legal trickery, and trying to get something for nothing. I told the lawyer to dramatize vividly in his imagination several times daily the president of the company which he rep­resented congratulating him on the perfect, harmonious solution. As he sustained the mental picture, through continuous, mental application, the subjective wisdom gave him some new ideas,—as he said, “Right out of the blue!” He followed these up, and the case was closed soon afterwards.

If a person has a mortgage due at the bank, and he does not have the money to cover it, and if he will faithfully apply this principle, the subconscious mind will provide him with the money. Never mind how? when? where? or through what source? The subjective mind has ways you know not of; its ways are past finding out. It is one of the instruments or tools which God gave man, so he could provide himself with all things necessary for his welfare. The man who hasn’t the money to meet the mortgage, can imagine himself depositing a check or currency required in the bank; i.e., giving it to the cashier. The important point is to become intensely interested in the mental picture or imaginary act, making it real and natural. The more earnestly he engages his mind on the imaginary drama, the more effectually will the imaginary act be deposited in the bank of the subconscious mind. You can take a trip to the teller’s window in your imagination, and make it so real and true that it will actually take place physically.

There is a young lady who comes regularly to our Sunday morning lectures. She had to change busses three times; it took her one and one half hours each Sunday to come to the lectures. In the sermon I told how a young man prayed for a car and received one. She went home, and experimented as follows: Here is her letter in part published by her permission:

”Dear Dr. Murphy:

This is how I received a Cadillac; I wanted one to come to the lectures on Sunday and Tuesdays. In my imagination I went through the identical process I would go through if I were actually driving a car. I went to the show room, and the salesman took me for a ride in one. I also drove it several blocks. I claimed the Cadillac car as my own over and over again. I kept the mental picture of getting into the car, driving it, feeling the upholstery, etc., consistently for over two weeks. Last Sunday I drove to your meeting in a Cadillac. My uncle in Inglewood passed away; left me his Cadillac and his entire estate. ”

If you are saying now, I do not know of any way to get the money to pay off the mortgage; do not worry about it. To worry means to strangle. Realize there is a Power inherent within you which can provide you with everything you need when you call upon It. You can decree now with feeling and conviction, “My house is free from all debt, and wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance.” Do not question the manner in which the answer to your prayer will come. You will do the obvious things necessary knowing that the subconscious intelligence is directing all .your steps; for it knows everything necessary for the fulfillment of your desires. You can imagine also a letter from the mortgage company informing you that you are paid up; rejoice in that image, and live with that imaginary letter in your mind until it becomes a conviction.

Become convinced now that there is a power within you capable of bringing what you imagine and feel as true into manifestation. Sitting idly by, day dreaming, and imagining the things you would like to possess will not attract them to you. You must know and believe that you are operating a law of mind; become convinced of your God-given power to use your mind constructively to bring into manifestation the thing you desire.

Know what you want. The subconscious mind will carry out the idea, because you have a definite, clear-cut concept of what you wish to possess. Imagine clearly the fulfillment of your desire; then you are giving the subconscious something definite to act upon. The subconscious mind is the film upon which the picture is impressed. The subconscious develops the picture, and sends it back to you in a material, objectified form.

The camera is you consciously imagining the realization of your desire through focused attention. As you do this in a relaxed, happy mood, the picture is cast on the sensitive film of the sub­conscious mind. You need also a time exposure; it may be two or three minutes or longer depending on your temperament, feeling, and understanding. The important thing to remember is that it is not so much the time as the quality of your consciousness, degree of feeling, or faith. Generally speaking the more focused and absorbed your attention is, and the longer the time, the more perfect will be the answer to your prayer. Believe that you have received, and ye shall receive. “Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” To believe is to accept something as true, or to live in the state of being it; as you sustain this mood, you shall experience the joy of the answered prayer!

Chapter 3

HOW TO IMAGINE SUCCESS

GOD is always successful in His undertakings. Man is equipped to succeed, because God is within him. All the attributes, qualities, and potencies of God are within.

You were born to win, to conquer, and to overcome! The Intelligence, Wisdom, and Power of God are within you waiting to be released, and enabling you to rise above all difficulties.

There are many men who quietly use the abstract term, “Success,” over and over many times a day until they reach a conviction that success is theirs. Remember that the idea of success contains all the essential elements of success. As man repeats the word, “Success,” to himself with faith and conviction, his subconscious mind will accept it as true of himself, and he will be under sub­jective compulsion to succeed.

We are compelled to express our subjective beliefs, impressions, and convictions. The ideal way to succeed is to know what you want to achieve. If you do not know your right place, or what you would like to do,, you can ask for guidance on the question. The deeper mind will respond; as a result you will find a push or tendency in a certain field of activity.

The deeper mind is responsive to your thought. The subcon­scious—sometimes called “subjective or deeper mind”—sets in operation its unconscious intelligence which attracts to the individual the conditions necessary for his success. Man should make it a special point to do the thing he loves to do. When you are happy in your endeavor, you are a success.

Accept the fact that you have an inner Creative Power. Let this be a positive conviction. This Infinite Power is responsive and reactive to your thought. To know, understand, and apply this principle causes doubt, fear, and worry to gradually disappear.

If a man dwells on the thought, for example, of failure, the thought of failure attracts failure. The subconscious takes the thought of failure as his request, and proceeds to make it manifest in his experience, because he indulges in the mental practice of conceiving failure. The subconscious mind is impersonal and non- selective.

A business friend of mine, a tailor by trade, has a favorite saying, “All I ever do is add. I never subtract.” He means success is a plus sign. Add to your growth, wealth, power, knowledge, faith, and wisdom.

Life is addition! Death is subtraction. You add to your life by imagining whatsoever things are true, lovely, noble, and God-like. Imagine and feel yourself successful, and you must become successful. You are never a slave to circumstances, environment, or conditions. You are master of conditions. You can become a victim of conditions by mentally acquiescing to things as they are. As you change your mind, you change conditions.

A movie actor told me once that he had very little education, but he had a dream as a boy of being a successful movie actor. Out in the field mowing hay, or driving the cows home, or even when milking them, he said, “I would constantly imagine I saw my name in big lights in a large theatre. I kept this up for years until finally I ran away from home; got extra jobs in the motion picture field, and the day came when I saw my name in great, big lights, as I did when a boy!” Then he added, “I know the power of sustained imagination to bring success.”

What does success imply to you? You want undoubtedly to be successful in your relationship with others. You wish to be outstanding in your chosen work or profession. You wish to possess a beautiful home, and all the money you need to live comfortably and happily. You want to be successful in your prayers, and in your contact with the Universal Power within you.

Imagine yourself doing the thing you long to do, and possessing the things you long to possess. Become imaginative; mentally participate in the reality of the successful state; enter into that state of consciousness frequently; make a habit of it; then you will find you will be guided to do everything necessary for the realization of your dream. Go to sleep feeling successful every night and perfectly satisfied. You will succeed eventually in implanting the idea of success in your subconscious mind.

I know a drug clerk who was a licensed pharmacist receiving $40 a week plus his commission on sales. “After twenty five years,” he told me, “I will get a pension and retire.”

I said to him, “Why don’t you own your own store? Get out of this place. Raise your sights! Have a dream for your children. Maybe your son wants to be a doctor; your daughter desires to be a musician.”

His answer was that he had no money! He began to awaken to the fact that whatever he could conceive as true, he could give it conception.

The first step toward your goal is the birth of the idea in the mind, and the second step is the manifestation of the idea. He began to imagine he was in his own store. He participated in the act mentally. He arranged the bottles, dispensed prescriptions, imagined several clerks in the store waiting on customers. He visualized a big bank balance. Mentally he worked in that imaginary store. Like a good actor he lived the role. (Act as though I am, and I will be.) This drug store clerk put himself whole­heartedly into the act, living, moving, and acting in the assumption that his store was his.

The sequel was interesting. He was discharged from his position; went with a large chain store, became manager, and district manager. He made enough money in four years to make a down payment on a drug store of his own. He called it his “Dream Pharmacy.” “It was,” he said, “exactly the store he saw in his imagination.” He became successful in his chosen field, and was happy doing what he loved to do.

The individual who habitually maintains a mental attitude of faith and expectancy of the best is bound to succeed and advance in life. The individual who is depressed, dejected, morbid, and despondent attracts failure all along the line. Fear is truly a lack of faith in Divine supply. It is faith misplaced. Fear is faith in the wrong thing. Fear is a belief in lack, or that man’s good is being withheld from him.

“Son thou are ever with me, and all that I hath is thine.” All things you need are in the invisible. It could be said, that all things needed are in the abstract. You must desire to be greater than you are, in order to advance in life. Desire comes first followed by a recognition of the Power within you enabling you to manifest what you want. The subconscious mind is the medium through which all that you desire can be brought into objectivity. You are the one giving orders in the form of habitual thinking, feeling, opinions, and beliefs. The subconscious mind obeys the orders given by the conscious mind. If your conscious mind is opposed to all negative thoughts, they can make no impression upon your subconscious mind. You become immunized.

If, for example, you say, “I wish I were healthy; then I could be much more successful in my work;” begin now to realize your body is your mind expressed. The subconscious mind is the builder of the body, and controls all its vital functions. Your conscious mind has power to change any idea or group of thoughts held in the subconscious mind. You can impress the idea of health on your subconscious mind when you know it can be done. A conviction and sincere belief is necessary. Affirmative statements establish definite impressions on the subconscious mind.

A wonderful way to impress the subconscious is through disciplined or scientific imagination. By illustration if your knee is swollen, and you are lame, imagine you are doing the things you would do were you in perfect health. You might say that I would go down town on a bus, visit friends, ride horseback, go swimming, or hiking. First in your imagination you go on these psychological journeys, making them as real and natural as possible. Continue to go on these psychological journeys! You know that self-motivation is yours.

All movement is first of the mind or consciousness of man before any external movement can take place.

By example the chair does not move of itself. You must impart motion to it. The same is true of your body. As you continue to do all the things you would do were you healed, this inner movement will cause the subconscious to build the body in accordance with the image back of it.

The following is a wonderful prayer for perfect health. A minister I knew in South Africa applied this prayer, and healed himself. Several times a day he would affirm slowly and quietly, first making certain he was completely relaxed mentally and physically: “The perfection of God is now being expressed through me. The idea of health is now filling my subconscious mind. The image

God has of me is a perfect image, and my subconscious mind recreates my body in perfect accordance to the perfect image held in the mind of God.” This is a simple, easy way of conveying the idea of perfect health to your subconscious mind.

You can develop confidence by knowing and realizing that nothing can prevent you from achieving success. Develop a certainty in your mind that this Inner Power can be called upon to overcome all obstacles. There must be an assurance and determination on your part that you can achieve and accomplish what you set out to do. This positive, affirmative attitude constitutes confidence.

You have heard the Biblical expression, “According to your faith is it done unto you.” Faith in God is the realization that there is only One Spiritual Power which is Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omni­potent, All Love, All Light, All Beauty, All Life, and An Ever­Present Help in time of trouble. Know that His Power responds to your thought.

Cease looking upon God as some Being living in the skies with a long beard. God is the Essence of man. God is the Life of man. We cannot comprehend all of God; for the finite mind cannot compre­hend the Infinite en toto.

For example, your conscious and subconscious mind are project­ions of God; they are working tools. God is Infinite Wisdom, Boundless Love, Infinite Intelligence, Absolute Bliss, Eternal Har­mony, and Indescribable Beauty. All these, and others, are Qualities and Attributes of God.

You are not cast adrift on the ocean of life deserted by the Creator of Life. This Presence and Power is within you. This Knowledge or Awareness of Divinity within you is the greatest and most powerful contributing factor to success.

Develop your talents; begin to use them; they are God-given. You have faculties and powers which require constant development.

“Man shall decree a thing, and it shall come to pass.” What are you mentally decreeing now? What is the nature of your inner talking, inner conversation, and your idle moods? Man shall account for every idle word he speaks. The idle words are doubt, fear, anxiety, and worry. If these are present, you are not giving definite, positive orders to your subconscious mind, because there is no definite impression made as to what you wish to bring to pass.

Fear and worry cause confusion in the conscious mind. This creates confusion in the subconscious mind, and nothing happens but confusion in man’s affairs. Continue to trust in the Divine Power, and that which you desire will come to you in some manner. Have faith in God, in the Divine Power, in His Divine Love, and His Overshadowing Presence always watching over you, and you will become invincible. “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.”

 

The End