il ee 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.n6375 ¶1
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.n6375 ¶2
Everyone visualizes, whether he knows it or not. Visualizing is the great secret of success.n6375 ¶3
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.n6375 ¶4
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.n6375 ¶5
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 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 cannot be done.’’ Yet the laws and materials for practical flying machines existed then as now.n6375 ¶6
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.n6375 ¶7
With such an example before you, you must realize that there are still greater secrets to be disclosed. Also, ‘‘ That you hold the 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.’’n6375 ¶8
A woman came to me in New York City, 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 know 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 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: “‘Tt’s all right, Brother, I can see myself riding in that machine, and it travels easily and steadily.”’n6375 ¶9
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.n6375 ¶10
In visualizing, or making a mental picture, you are not endeavoring to change the laws of Nature. You are fulfilling them.n6375 ¶11
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 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 picturedesire provides.n6375 ¶12
How ro Attract to YoursELF THE THINGS You Dzsrezn6375 ¶13
4 Bote 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 them to be, is the condensing, 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.n6375 ¶14
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 the physical world—an exact reproduction of the pictured slide in your mind.n6375 ¶15
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 of holding her pictured desire steadily in place by the use of her will.n6375 ¶16
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 hand, if your will is sufficiently developed to hold 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.n6375 ¶17
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.n6375 ¶18
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.n6375 ¶19
All said and done, happiness is the one thing which every human being wants, and the 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.n6375 ¶20
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 uponit. 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.n6375 ¶21
When you first begin to visualize seriously, 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.n6375 ¶22
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.n6375 ¶23
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 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, hecause they are the vehicles through which order and harmony suggest themselves.n6375 ¶24
Form coe 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.n6375 ¶25
We all possess more power and greater possibilities than we realize, and visualizing 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 ‘fall 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.n6375 ¶26
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, 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 the development of cosmic energy to the etheric particles themselves. Upon investigation, however, we find that this is math>- matically 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.n6375 ¶27
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.’’n6375 ¶28
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.n6375 ¶29
OprraTion or Your Mrntau Picture if fae 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.n6375 ¶30
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 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.n6375 ¶31
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 telegraphed enough to pay off the mortgage. Pleas? tell the people this afternoon about this wonderful Power.’’n6375 ¶32
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—re mains 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.’’n6375 ¶33
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 udvance in evolution depends upon your 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.n6375 ¶34
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.”’n6375 ¶35
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.”’n6375 ¶36
Troward also tells us that ‘‘though this 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 ‘‘l-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 specifir action of the Creative Spirit of Life, Univer sal 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 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.n6375 ¶37
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.n6375 ¶38
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 manifest itself as strength, joy, health and plenty? If one can have one’s desires fulfiled 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.n6375 ¶39
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 holding your thought in the form of a mental picture.n6375 ¶40
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.n6375 ¶41
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.n6375 ¶42
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 had been visualizing for just $5, merely from hearing that others visualized. He was delighted at the unexpected realization of his mental picture.n6375 ¶43
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 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.n6375 ¶44
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.n6375 ¶45
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 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.n6375 ¶46
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.n6375 ¶47