YOUR INVISIBLE POWER
By Genevieve Behrend
FOREWORD
These pages have been written with purpose and hope that their suggestions may furnish you a key to open up
the way to the attainment of your desires, and to explain that Fear should be entirely banished from your effort to
obtain possession of the things you desire. This presupposes, of course, that your desire for possession is based
upon your aspiration for greater liberty. For example, you feel that the possession of more money, lands or
friends will make you happier, and your desire for possession of these things arises from a conviction that their
possession will bring you liberty and happiness.
In your effort to possess you will discover that the thing you most and ultimately need is to "Be," always (not
spasmodically) your best self -that self which understands that the mistakes of those you love are simply
misunderstandings. Your feeling that greater possessions, no matter of what kind they may be, will, of
themselves bring you contentment or happiness, is a misunderstanding. No person, place or thing can give you
happiness. They may give you cause for happiness and a feeling of contentment, but the joy of Living comes
from within. Therefore, it is here recommended, rather than otherwise, that you should make the effort to obtain
the things which you feel will bring you joy, provided, as previously stated, that your desires are in accord with
the joy of Living.
It is also desired, in this volume, to suggest the possibilities in store for all who make persistent effort to
understand the Law of Visualization and make practical application of this knowledge on whatever plane he or
she may be. The word "effort," as here employed, is not intended to convey the idea of strain. All study and
meditation should be without strain or tension.
It has been my endeavor to show that by starting at the beginning of the creative action or the mental picture,
certain corresponding results are sure to follow. "While the laws of the Universe cannot be altered, they can be
made to work under specific conditions, thereby producing results for individual advancement which cannot be
obtained under the spontaneous working of the law provided by Nature."
However far the suggestions I have given you of the possibilities in store for you through visualizing may carry
you beyond your past experience, they nowhere break the continuity of the law of cause and effect.
If through the suggestions here given anyone is brought to realize that their mind is a center through and in
which "all power there is" is in operation, simply waiting to be given direction in the one and only way through
which it can take specific action (and this means reaction in concrete or physical form), then the mission to
which this book is dedicated has been fulfilled.
Try to remember that the picture you think, feel and see is reflected into the Universal Mind, and by the natural
law of reciprocal action must return to you in either spiritual or physical form. Knowledge of this law of
reciprocal action between the individual and the Universal Mind opens to you free access to all you may wish to
possess or to be.
It must be steadfastly borne in mind that all this can only be true for the individual who recognizes that they
derive their power to make an abiding mental picture from the All-Originating Universal Spirit of Life (God),
and can be used constructively only so long as it is employed and retained in harmony with the Nature of the
Spirit which originated it. To insure this there must be no inversion of the thought of the individual regarding
their relationship to this Universal Originating Spirit which is that of a son or daughter, through which the parent
mind acts and reacts.
Thus conditioned, whatever you think and feel yourself to be; the Creative Spirit of Life is bound to faithfully
reproduce in a corresponding reaction. This is the great reason for picturing yourself and your affairs as you wish
them to be as existing facts (though invisible to the physical eye), and live in your picture. An honest endeavor to
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do this, always recognizing that your own mind is a projection of the Originating Spirit, will prove to you that
the best there is, is yours in all your ways.
Genevieve Behrend, September 1921
ORDER OF VISUALIZATION
Chapter 1
The exercise of the visualizing faculty keeps your mind in order, and attracts to you the things you need to make
life more enjoyable in an orderly way. If you train yourself in practice of deliberately picturing your desire and
carefully examining it, you will soon find your thought and desires come and proceed in more orderly procession
than ever before. Having reached a state of ordered mentality you are no longer in a constant state of mental
hurry. Hurry is Fear and consequently destructive.
In other words, when your understanding grasps the power to visualize your heart's desire and hold it with your
will, it attracts to you all things requisite to the fulfillment of that picture by the harmonious vibrations of the law
of attraction. You realize that since Order is Heaven's first law, and visualization places things in their natural
element, then it must be a heavenly thing to visualize.
Everyone visualizes, whether they know it or not. Visualizing is the great secret of Success. The conscious use of
this great power attracts to you greatly multiplied resources, intensifies your wisdom, and enables you to make
use of advantages which you formerly failed to recognize.
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 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.
Troward tells us that the great lesson he learned from the airplane and wireless telegraphy is the triumph of
principle over precedent, and the working of an idea to its logical conclusion in spite of accumulated testimony
of all past experience.
With such an example before you, can you not realize that still greater secrets may 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."
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 atmospheric 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 the laws of 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 was
subjected to much derision when he sent a model airplane up only to have it bury its nose in the muddy water of
the Potomac. But the Wright Brothers, who experimented in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, 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 experiments did not turn out as they expected): "It’s all right, brother, I can see myself riding in that
machine, and it travels easily and steadily." Those Wright Brothers knew what they wanted, and kept their
pictures constantly before them.
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In visualizing, or making a mental picture, you are not endeavoring to change the laws of Nature. You are
fulfilling them. Your object in visualizing is to bring things into regular order both mentally and physically.
When you realize that this method of employing the creative power brings your desires, one after another, into
practical material accomplishment, your confidence in the mysterious but unfailing law of attraction, which has
its central power station in the very heart of your word/picture, becomes supreme. Nothing can shake it. You
never feel that it is necessary to take anything from anybody else. You have learned that asking and seeking have
receiving and finding as their correlatives. You know that all you have to do is to start the plastic substance of
the Universe flowing into the thought-molds your picture-desire provides.
HOW TO ATTRACT TO YOURSELF THE THINGS YOU DESIRE
Chapter 2
The power within you which enables you to form a thought picture is the starting point of all there is. In its
original state it is the undifferentiated formless substance of life. Your thought picture forms the mould (so to
speak) 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 that might be illustrated by the lens of a
magic lantern. The magic lantern is one of the best symbols of this imaging faculty. It illustrates the working of
the Creative Spirit on the plane of the initiative and selection (or in its concentrated specializing form) in a
remarkably clear manner.
This 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 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.
Visualizing without a will sufficiently steady to inhibit every thought and feeling contrary to your picture 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 the screen of your physical world as any
pictured slide put into the best magic lantern ever made.
Try projecting the picture in a magic lantern with a light that is constantly shifting from one side to the other, and
you will have the effect of an uncertain will. It is as necessary that you should always stand back of your picture
with a strong, steady will, as it is to have a strong steady light back of a picture slide.
The joyous assurance with which you make your picture is the very powerful magnet of Faith, and nothing can
obliterate it. You are happier than you ever were, because you have learned to know where your source of supply
is, and you rely upon its never-failing response to your given direction.
When 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.
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 business had more than
doubled in six months. His method was to go into a room every morning before breakfast and take a mental
inventory of his business as he had left it the evening before, and then enlarge upon it. He said he expanded and
expanded in this way until his affairs were in remarkably successful condition. He would see himself in his
office doing everything that he wanted done. His occupation required him to meet many strangers every day. In
his mental picture he saw himself meeting these people, understanding their needs and supplying them in just the
way they wished. This habit, he said, had strengthened and steadied his will in an almost inconceivable manner.
Furthermore, by thus mentally seeing things as he wished them to be, he had acquired the confident feeling that a
certain creative power was exercising itself, for him and through him, for the purpose of improving his little
world.
When you first begin to visualize seriously, 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 unnecessary
concern about this. Simply try to realize that your picture is an orderly exercise of the Universal Creative Power
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specifically applied. Then you may be sure that no one can work in opposition to you. The universal law of
harmony prevents this. Endeavor to bear in mind that your mental picture is Universal Mind exercising its
inherent powers of initiative and selection specifically.
God, or Universal Mind, made man for the special purpose of differentiating Himself through him. Everything
that is, came into existence in this same way, by this self-same law of self-differentiation, and for the same
purpose. First the idea, the mental picture or the prototype of the thing, which is the thing itself in its incipiency
or plastic form.
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 a world -many worlds.
Many people ask, "But why should we have a physical world at all?" The answer is: Because it is the nature of
originating substance to solidify, under directivity rather than activity, just as it is the nature of wax to harden
when it becomes cold, or plaster of paris to become firm and solid when exposed to the air. Your picture in this
same Divine substance in its fluent state taking shape through the individualized center of Divine operation, 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 that 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, the hooks, all are concrete ideas of
order. Vehicles through which order and harmony suggest themselves.
RELATION BETWEEN MENTAL AND PHYSICAL FORM
Chapter 3
Some persons feel that it is not quite proper to visualize for things. "It's too material" they say. But 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 that ought not
to be (as some metaphysical teachers have taught), 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 of 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 smoothest way I know, which is the road on which Troward
guides me. I feel sure you will conclude as I have, that the only mystery in connection with visualizing is the
mystery of life taking form, governed by unchangeable and easily understood laws.
We all possess more power and greater possibilities than we realize, and visualizing is one of the greatest of
these powers. It brings other possibilities to our observation. When we pause to think for a moment, we realize
that for a cosmos to exist at all, it must be the outcome of a cosmic mind, which binds "all individual minds to a
certain generic unities 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 through which life differentiates itself."
If you consider matter in its right order as the polar opposite to Spirit, you will not find any antagonism between
them. On the contrary, together they constitute one harmonious whole. And when you realize this you feel, in
your practice of visualizing, that you are working from cause to effect, from beginning to finish. In reality your
mental picture is the specialized working 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 that 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 this to be mathematically impossible in a
medium which is equally distributed throughout space, for all its particles are in equilibrium, therefore no one
particle possesses in itself a greater power of originating motion than the other.
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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. The same power that brought
universal substance into existence will bring your individual thought or mental picture into physical form. There
is no difference of kind in the power. The only difference is a difference of scale. 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 scale of the particular, and is working in the same unfailing manner from its specific center, your
mind.
OPERATION OF YOUR MENTAL PICTURE
Chapter 4
THE operation of a large telephone system may be used as a simile. The main or head central subdivides itself
into many branch centrals, every branch being in direct connection with its source 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 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.
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 that it has provided, we would realize what Jesus
meant when he said, "Ask and ye shall receive." Our every equipment would be met. Surely the Father must
supply the child. The trunk of the tree cannot fail to provide for its branches.
Everything animate or inanimate is called into existence or outstandingness by a power which itself does not
stand out. The power that creates the mental picture, the originating spirit substance of your pictured desire does
not stand out. It projects the substance of itself that is a solidified counterpart of itself, while it remains invisible
to the physical eye. Only those will ever appreciate the value of visualizing who are able to realize Paul's
meaning when he said "The worlds were formed by the word of God. Things which are seen are not made of
things which do appear."
There is nothing unusual or mysterious in the idea of your pictured desire coming into material evidence. It is the
working of a universal natural Law. The world was projected by the self-contemplation of the Universal Mind,
and this same action is taking place in its individualized branch which is the Mind of Man. Everything in the
whole world has its beginning in mind and comes into existence in exactly the same manner from the hat on your
head to the boots on your feet. All are projected thoughts, solidified.
Your personal advance 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; this
continual unfolding of existing though outwardly invisible things.
Your mental picture is the force of attraction that evolves and combines the originating substance into specific
shape. Your picture is the combining and evolving powerhouse, so to speak, through which the originating
Creative Spirit expressed itself. Its creative action is limitless, without beginning and without end, and always
progressive and orderly. "It proceeds stage by stage, each stage being a necessary preparation for the one to
follow."
Now let us see if we can get an idea of the different stages by which the things in the world have come to be.
Troward says, "If we can get at the working principle which is producing these results, we can very quickly and
easily give it personal application. First, we find that the thought of originating life or Spirit about itself is its
simple awareness of its own being and this produced a primary ether, a universal substance out of which
everything in the world must grow.
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 would
entertain the idea of making a mental picture of your desire as being at all practical, you must have some idea of
your being, of your "I am," and just as soon as you are conscious of your "I-am-ness" you begin to wish to enjoy
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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 most concerned with is the specific action of the creative spirit of life, universal mind
specialized. The localized God-germ in you is your personality, your individuality, and since the joy of absolute
freedom is the inherent nature of this God-germ, it is natural that it should endeavor to enjoy itself through its
specific center. And as you grow in the comprehension that your being, your individuality, is God particularizing
Himself, you naturally develop Divine tendencies.
You want to enjoy life and liberty. You want freedom in your affairs as well as in your consciousness, and it is
natural that you should. Always with this progressive wish there is 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.
As you grow in understanding as to who you are, where you came from, and what the purpose of your being is,
how you are to fulfill the purpose for which you are intended, you will more and more afford a 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 that there
is, whether on the plane of the visible or invisible, had its origin in the localized action of thought or a mental
picture, and this includes yourself, because you are universal spirit localized, and the same creative action is
taking place through you.
Now you are no doubt asking yourself why there is so much sickness and misery in the world. If the same power
and intelligence which brought the world into existence is in operation in the mind of man, why does it not
manifest itself as strength, joy, health and plenty? If one can have one's desires fulfilled by simply making a
mental picture of that desire, holding on to it with the will, and doing without anxiety, 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 that we
see about us. They would realize that visualizing is a principle and not a fallacy.
There are a few who have found it worthwhile to study this simple, though absolutely unfailing law that will
deliver them from bondage. However, the race as a whole is not willing to give the time required for this 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.
But 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 plastic 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.
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 so strong, and
consequently cannot reach so far. The more perfectly a secret between your mind and 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
and at once destroy the paper.
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 that you are mentally picturing.
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One of the doormen in the building in which I live 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 the 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.
All you have to do is to make such a mental picture of your heart's desire, 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 indicator. In you it is undifferentiated, waiting to take any direction given it as
it passes through the instrument that it has made for the purpose of self-distribution.
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 fluent substance contained
in every thought. It is the simplest thing in the world to give this highly sensitive plastic 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 plastic substance of all there is in your
world, takes involuntary form, the only reason why 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, "being your first picture," it
hasn't materialized. The plastic substance with which you are mentally dealing is more sensitive than the most
sensitive photographer's film. If, in 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. These lines 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. Again, your results in visualizing and your desires may be imperfect or 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 that 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 for your evolution. If you can do this, there is no power to prevent
your enjoying the fulfillment of the picture you have in hand, or any other.
EXPRESSIONS FROM BEGINNERS
Chapter 5
HUNDREDS of persons have realized that "visualizing is an Aladdin's lamp to him with a mighty will." General
Foch says that his feelings were so outraged during the Franco Prussian war in 1870 that he visualized himself
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leading a French army against the Germans to victory. He said he made his picture, smoked his pipe and waited.
This is one result of visualizing we are all familiar with.
A famous actress wrote a long article in one of the leading Sunday papers last winter, describing how she rid
herself of excessive body fat and weight by seeing her figure constantly as she wished to be.
A very interesting letter came to me from a doctor's wife while I was lecturing in New York. She began with the
hope that I would never discontinue my lectures on visualization making humanity realize the wonderful fact
that they possess the method of liberation within themselves. Relating her own experience, she said that she had
been born on the East Side of New York in the poorest quarter. From earliest girlhood she had cherished a dream
of marrying a physician some day. This dream gradually formed a stationary mental picture. The first position
she obtained was in the capacity of a nursemaid in a physician's family.
Leaving this place she entered the family of another doctor. The wife of her employer died, and in time the
doctor married her, the result of her long-pictured yearning. After that both she and her husband conceived the
idea of owning a fruit farm in the South. They formed a mental picture of the idea and put their faith in its
eventual fulfillment. The letter she sent me came from their fruit farm in the South. It was while at the farm that
the doctor's wife wrote me. Her second mental picture had seen the light of materialization.
Many letters of a similar nature come to me every day. The following is a case that was printed in the New York
Herald last May:
"Atlantic City, May 5. - She was an old woman, and when she was arraigned before Judge Clarence Goldenberg
in the police court today she was so weak and tired she could hardly stand. The judge asked the court attendant
what she was charged with. "Stealing a bottle of milk, Your Honor," repeated the officer. "She took it from the
doorstep of a downtown cottage before daybreak this morning." "Why did you do that?" Judge Goldenberg asked
her. "I was hungry," the old woman said. "I didn't have a cent in the world and no way to get anything to eat
except to steal it. I didn't think anybody would mind if I took a bottle of milk." "What's your name?" asked the
judge. "Weinberg," said the old woman, "Elizabeth Weinberg." Judge Goldenberg asked her a few questions
about herself. Then he said:
"Well, you're not very wealthy now, but you're no longer poor. I've been searching for you for months. I've got
$500 belonging to you from the estate of a relative. I am the executor of the estate."
Judge Goldenberg paid the woman's fine out of his own pocket, and then escorted her into his office, where he
turned her legacy over to her and sent a policeman out to find her a lodging place.
I learned later that this little woman had been desiring and mentally picturing $500, while all the time ignorant of
how it could possibly come to her. But she kept her vision and strengthened it with her faith.
In a recent issue of Good Housekeeping there was an article by Addington Bruce entitled "Stiffening Your
Mental Backbone." It is very instructive, and would benefit anyone to read it. He says, in part: "Form the habit of
devoting a few moments every day to thinking about your work in a large, broad imaginative way, as a vital
necessity to yourself and a useful service to society."
Huntington, the great railway magnate, before he started building his road from coast to coast, said that he took
hundreds of trips all along the line before there was a rail laid. It is said that he would sit for hours with a map of
the United States before him and mentally travel from coast to coast just as we do now over his fulfilled mental
picture. It would be possible to call your attention to hundreds of similar cases.
The best method of picturing to yourself that which you may desire is both simple and enjoyable, if you once
understand the principle back of it well enough to believe it. First and above everything else, be sure of what it is
you really want. Then specialize your desire along these lines.
9
SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKING YOUR MENTAL PICTURE
Chapter 6
Perhaps you want to feel that you've lived to some purpose. You want to be content and happy, and you feel that
with good health and with successful business you could enjoy this state of mind. After you have decided once
and for all that this is what you want, you proceed to picture yourself healthy, and your business just as great a
success as you can naturally conceive it growing into.
The best time for making your definite picture is just before breakfast and before retiring at night. As it is
necessary to give yourself plenty of time, it may be necessary to rise earlier than is your usual habit. Go into a
room where you will not be disturbed, meditate for a few moments upon the practical working of the law of
visualizing, and ask yourself, "How did the things about me first come into existence? How may I find it helpful
to get more quickly in touch with the invisible supply?"
Someone felt that comfort would be better expressed and experienced by sitting on a chair than on the floor. The
very beginning of the meditation, the chair, was the desire to be at ease. With this came the picture of some sort
of a chair. The same principle applies to the hat and the clothes that you wear. Go carefully into this thought of
the principle back of the thing. Establish it as a personal experience; make it a fact to your consciousness.
If you are thorough in this, you will find yourself in the deep consciousness beneath the surface of your own
thought-power. Then open a window, take about ten deep breaths, and during the time draw a large imaginary
circle of light around you. As you inhale (keeping yourself in the center of this circle of light) see great rays of
light coming from the circle and entering your body at all points, centralizing itself at your solar plexus.
Hold the breath a few moments at this central light of your body (the solar plexus) then slowly exhale. As you do
this mentally, see imaginary rays, or sprays, of light going up through the body and down and out through the
feet. Mentally spray your entire body with this imaginary light. When you have finished the breathing exercise,
sit in a comfortable upright chair and mentally know there is but one life, one substance, and this life substance
of the universe is finding pleasure in self-recognition in you. Repeat some affirmation of this kind, until you feel
the truth and reality of the words that you are affirming. Then begin your picture.
Whether your desire is for a state of consciousness or a possession, large or small, begin at the beginning. If you
want a house, begin by seeing yourself in the kind of house you desire. Go all through it, taking careful note of
the rooms, where the windows are situated, and such other details as help you to feel the reality of your concept.
You might change some of the furniture and look into some of the mirrors just to see how healthy, wealthy and
happy you look. Go over your picture again and again until you feel the reality of it, then write it all down just as
you have seen it, with the feeling that, "The best there is, is mine. There is no limit to me, because my mind is a
center of divine operation" and your picture is as certain to come true, in your physical world, as the sun is to
shine.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
Chapter 7
In Using Your Thought Power for the Production of New Conditions,
1. Be sure to know what conditions you wish to produce. Then weigh carefully to what further results the
accomplishment of your desire will lead.
2. By letting your thought dwell upon a mental picture, you are concentrating the creative spirit to this center,
where all its forces are equally balanced.
3. Visualizing brings your objective mind into a state of equilibrium which enables you to consciously direct the
flow of spirit to a definitely recognized purpose and to carefully guide your thought from including a flow in the
opposite direction.
10
4. You must always bear in mind that you are dealing with a wonderful potential energy -which is not yet
differentiated into any particular mould, and that by the action of your mind you can differentiate it into any
specific mould that you will. Your picture assists you to keep your mind fixed on the fact that the inflow of this
creative energy is taking place. Also by your mental picture you are determining the direction you wish the
sensitive creative power to take, and by doing this the externalization of your picture is a certainty.
5. Remember when you are visualizing properly that there is no strenuous effort on your thoughts to hold your
thought-forms in place. Strenuous effort defeats your purpose, and suggests the consciousness of an adverse
force to be fought against, and this creates conditions adverse to your picture.
6. By holding your picture in a cheerful frame of mind, you shut out all thoughts that would disperse the spiritual
nucleus of your picture. Because the law is creative in its action, your pictured desire is certain of
accomplishment.
7. The seventh and great thing to remember in visualizing is that you are making a mental picture for the purpose
of determining the quality you are giving to the previously undifferentiated substance and energy rather than to
arrange the specific circumstances for its manifestation. That is the work of creative power itself. It will build its
own forms of expression quite naturally, if you will allow it, and save you a great deal of needless anxiety. What
you really want is expansion in a certain direction, whether of health, wealth, or what not, and so long as you get
it (as you surely will, if you confidently hold to your picture) what does it matter whether it reaches you by some
channel which you thought you could count upon, or through some other of whose existence you had no idea.
You are concentrating energy of a particular kind for a particular purpose. Bear this in mind and let specific
details take care of themselves, and never mention your intention to anyone.
Remember always, that Nature from her clearly visible surface to her most arcane depths is one vast storehouse
of light and good entirely devoted to your individual use. Your conscious Oneness with the great Whole is the
secret of success and when once you have fathomed this you can enjoy your possession of the whole or a part of
it at will, because by your recognition you have made it, and can increasingly make it yours.
Never forget that every physical thing, whether for you or against you, was a sustained thought before it was a
thing.
Thought as thought is neither good nor bad, it is creative action and always takes physical form.
Therefore, the thoughts you dwell upon become the things you possess or do not possess.
WHY I TOOK UP THE STUDY OF MENTAL SCIENCE
Chapter 8
I have frequently been questioned about my reasons for taking up the study of Mental Science, and as to the
results of my search, not only in knowledge of principles, but also in the application of that knowledge to the
development of my own life and experience.
Such inquiries are justifiable, because one who essays the role of a messenger and teacher of psychological
truths can only be effective and convincing as he or she has tested them in the laboratory of mental experience.
This is particularly true in my case, as the only personal pupil of Thomas Troward, the greatest Master of Mental
Science of the present day, whose teaching is based upon the relation borne by the Individual Mind toward the
Universal Creative Mind which is the Giver of Life, and the manner in which that relation may be invoked to
secure expansion and fuller expression in the individual life.
The initial impulse toward the study of Mental Science was an overwhelming sense of loneliness. In every life
there must come some such experiences of spiritual isolations as, at that period, pervaded my life.
Notwithstanding the fact that each day found me in the midst of friends, surrounded by mirth and gayety, there
was a persistent feeling that I was alone in the world. I had been a widow for about three years, wandering from
country to country, seeking for peace of mind.
11
The circumstances and surroundings of my life were such that my friends looked upon me as an unusually
fortunate young woman. Although they recognized that I had sustained a great loss when my husband died, they
knew that he had left me well provided for, free to go anywhere at pleasure, and having many friends. Yet, if my
friends could have penetrated my inmost emotions, they would have found a deep sense of emptiness and
isolation. This feeling inspired a spirit of unrest that drove me on and on in fruitless search upon the outside for
that which I later learned could only be obtained from within.
I studied Christian Science, but it gave me no solace, though fully realizing the great work the Scientists were
doing, and even having the pleasure and privilege of meeting Mrs. Eddy personally. But it was impossible for me
to accept the fundamental teachings of Christian Science and make practical application of it.
When about to abandon the search for contentment and resign myself to resume a life of apparent amusement, a
friend invited me to visit the great Seer and Teacher, Abdul Baha. After my interview with this most wonderful
of men, my search for contentment began to take a change. He had told me that I would travel the world over
seeking the truth, and when I had found it would speak it out. The fulfillment of the statement of this Great Seer
then seemed to be impossible. But it carried a measure of encouragement, and at least indicated that my former
seeking had been in the wrong direction. I began in a feeble and groping way to find contentment within myself,
for had he not intimated that I should find the truth. That was the big thing, and about the only thing I remember
of our interview.
A few days later, upon visiting the office of a New Thought practitioner, my attention was attracted to a book on
his table entitled "The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science," by Thomas Troward. It interested me to see that
Troward was a retired Divisional judge from the Punjab, India. I purchased the book, thinking I would read it
through that evening. Many have endeavored to do the same thing, only to find, as I did, that the book must be
studied in order to be understood, and hundreds have decided, just as I did, to give it their undivided attention.
After finding this treasure book I went to the country for a few days, and while there studied the volume as
thoroughly as I could. It seemed extremely difficult, and I decided to purchase another book of Troward's, in the
hope that its study might not require so much of an effort. Upon inquiry I was told that a subsequent volume,
"The Dore Lectures," was much the simpler and better of the two books. When I procured it, I found that it must
also be studied. It took me weeks and months to get even a vague conception of the meaning of the first chapter
of Dore, which is entitled "Entering Into the Spirit of It." I mean by this that it took me months to enter into the
spirit of what I was reading.
But in the meantime a paragraph from page 26 arrested my attention, as seeming the greatest thing I had ever
read. I memorized it and endeavored with all my soul to enter into the spirit of Troward's words. The paragraph
reads: "My mind is a center of Divine operation. The Divine operation is always for expansion and fuller
expression, and this means the production of something beyond what has gone before, something entirely new,
not included in the past experience, though proceeding out of it by an orderly sequence of growth. Therefore,
since the Divine cannot change its inherent nature, it must operate in the same manner with me; consequently, in
my own special world, of which I am the center, it will move forward to produce new conditions, always in
advance of any that have gone before."
It took an effort on my part to memorize this paragraph, but in the endeavor toward this end the words seemed to
carry with them a certain stimulus. Each repetition of the paragraph made it easier for me to enter into the spirit
of it. The words expressed exactly what I had been seeking for. My one desire was for peace of mind. I found it
comforting to believe that the Divine operation in me could expand to fuller expression and produce more and
more contentment -in fact, a peace of mind and a degree of contentment greater than I had ever known. The
paragraph further inspired me with deep interest to feel that the life-spark in me could bring into my life
something entirely new. I did not wish to obliterate my past experience, but that was exactly what Troward said
it would not do. The Divine operation would not exclude my past experience, but proceeding out of them would
bring some new thing that would transcend anything that I had ever experienced before.
Meditation on these statements brought with it a certain joyous feeling. What a wonderful thing it would be if I
could accept and sincerely believe, beyond all doubt, that this one statement of Troward's was true. Surely the
Divine could not change its inherent nature, and since Divine life is operating in me, I must be Divinely
inhabited, and the Divine in me must operate just as it operates upon the Universal plane. This meant that my
whole world of circumstances, friends and conditions would ultimately become a world of contentment and
enjoyment of which "I am the center." This would all happen just as soon as I was able to control my mind and
thereby provide concrete center around which the Divine energies could play.
12
Surely it was worth trying for. If Troward had found this truth, why not I? The idea held me to my task. Later I
determined to study with the man who had realized and given to the world so great a statement. It had lifted me
from my state of despondency. The immediate difficulty was the need for increased finances.
HOW I ATTRACTED TO MYSELF TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS
Chapter 9
In the laboratory of experience in which my newly revealed relation to Divine operation was to be tested, the
first problem was a financial one. My income was a stipulated one, quite enough for my everyday needs. But it
did not seem sufficient to enable me to go comfortably to England where Troward lived, and remain for an
indefinite period to study with so great a teacher as he must be. So before inquiring whether Troward took pupils
or whether I would be eligible in case he did, I began to use the paragraph I had memorized. Daily, in fact,
almost hourly, the words were in my mind: "My mind is a center of Divine operation, and Divine operation
means expansion into something better than has gone before."
From the Edinburgh Lectures I had read something about the Law of Attraction, and from the Chapter of
"Causes and Conditions" I had gleaned a vague idea of visualizing. So every night, before going to sleep, I made
a mental picture of the desired $20,000. Twenty $1,000 bills were counted over each night in my bedroom, and
then, with the idea of more emphatically impressing my mind with the fact that this twenty thousand dollars was
for the purpose of going to England and studying with Troward, I wrote out my picture, saw myself buying my
steamer ticket, walking up and down the ship's deck from New York to London, and, finally, saw myself
accepted as Troward's pupil.
This process was repeated every morning and every evening, always impressing more and more fully upon my
mind Troward's memorized statement: "My mind is a center of Divine operations." I endeavored to keep this
statement in the back part of my consciousness all the time with no thought in mind as how the money might be
obtained. Probably the reason why there was no thought of the avenues through which the money might reach
me was because I could not possibly imagine where the $20,000 would come from. So I simply held my thought
steady and let the power of attraction find its own ways and means.
One day while walking on the street, taking deep breathing exercises, the thought came: "My mind is surely a
center of Divine operation. If God fills all space, then God must be in my mind also; if I want this money to
study with Troward that I may know the truth of Life, then both the money and the truth must be mine, though I
am unable to feel or see the physical manifestations of either; still," I declared, "it must be mine."
While these reflections were going on in my mind, there seemed to come up from within me the thought: "I am
all the substance there is." Then, from another channel in my brain the answer seemed to come, "Of course, that's
it; everything must have its beginning in mind. The "I" the Idea, must be the only one and primary substance
there is, and this means money as well as everything else." My mind accepted this idea, and immediately all the
tension of mind and body was relaxed.
There was a feeling of absolute certainty of being in touch with all the power Life has to give. All thought of
money, teacher, or even my own personality, vanished in the great wave of joy which swept over my entire
being. I walked on and on with this feeling of joy steadily increasing and expanding until everything about me
seemed aglow with resplendent light. Every person I passed was illuminated as I was. All consciousness of
personality had disappeared, and in its place there came that great and almost overwhelming sense of joy and
contentment.
That night when I made my picture of the twenty thousand dollars it was with an entirely changed aspect. On
previous occasions, when making my mental picture, I had felt that I was waking up something within myself.
This time there was no sensation of effort. I simply counted over the twenty thousand dollars. Then, in a most
unexpected manner, from a source of which I had no consciousness at the time, there seemed to open a possible
avenue through which the money might reach me.
At first it took great effort not to be excited. It all seemed so wonderful, so glorious to be in touch with supply.
But had not Troward cautioned his readers to keep all excitement out of their minds in the first flush of
realization of union with Infinite supply, and to treat this fact as a perfectly natural result that had been reached
13
through our demand? This was even more difficult for me than it was to hold the thought that "all the substance
there is, I am; I (idea) am the beginning of all form, visible or invisible."
Just as soon as there appeared a circumstance which indicated the direction through which the twenty thousand
dollars might come, I not only made a supreme effort to regard the indicated direction calmly as the first sprout
of the seed I had sown in the absolute, but left no stone unturned to follow up that direction by fulfilling my part.
By so doing one circumstance seemed naturally to lead to another, until, step-by-step, my desired twenty
thousand dollars was secured. To keep my mind poised and free from excitement was my greatest effort.
This first concrete fruition of my study of Mental Science as expounded by Troward's book had come by a
careful following of the methods he had outlined. In this connection, therefore, I can offer to the reader no better
gift than to quote Troward's book, "The Edinburgh Lectures," from which may be derived a complete idea of the
line of action I was endeavoring to follow. In the chapter on Causes and Conditions he says: "To get good results
we must properly understand our relation to the great impersonal power we are using. It is intelligent, and we are
intelligent, and the two intelligences must co-operate.
We must not fly in the face of the Law expecting it to do for us what it can only do through us; and we must
therefore use our intelligence with the knowledge that it is acting as the instrument of a greater intelligence; and
because we have this knowledge we may and should cease from all anxiety as to the final result.
In actual practice we must first form the ideal conception of our object with the definite intention of impressing it
upon the universal mind -it is this thought that takes such thought out of the region of mere casual fancies -and
then affirm that our knowledge of the Law is sufficient reason for a calm expectation of a corresponding result,
and that therefore all necessary conditions will come to us in due order. We can then turn to the affairs of our
daily life with the calm assurance that the initial conditions are either there already or will soon come into view.
If we do not at once see them, let us rest content with the knowledge that the spiritual prototype is already in
existence and wait till some circumstance pointing in the desired direction begins to show itself.
It may be a very small circumstance, but it is the direction and not the magnitude that is to be taken into
consideration. As soon as we see it we should regard it as the first sprouting of the seed sown in the Absolute,
and do calmly, and without excitement, whatever the circumstances seem to require, and then later on we shall
see that this doing will in turn lead to a further circumstance in the same direction, until we find ourselves
conducted, step by step, to the accomplishment of our object.
In this way the understanding of the great principle of the Law of Supply will, by repeated experiences, deliver
us more and more completely out of the region of anxious thought and toilsome labor and bring us into a new
world where the useful employment of all our powers, whether mental or physical, will only be an unfolding of
our individuality upon the lines of its own nature, and therefore a perpetual source of health and happiness; a
sufficient inducement, surely, to the careful study of the laws governing the relation between the individual and
the Universal Mind."
To my mind, then as now, this quotation outlines the core and center of the method and manner of approach
necessary for coming in touch with Infinite supply. At least it, together with the previously quoted statement,
"My mind is a center of Divine operation," etc., constituted the only apparent means of attracting to myself the
twenty thousand dollars. My constant endeavor to get into the spirit of these statements, and to attract to myself
this needed sum, was about six weeks, at the end of which time I had in my bank the required twenty thousand
dollars. This could be made into a long story, giving all the details, but the facts, as already narrated, will give
you a definite idea of the magnetic condition of my mind while the twenty thousand dollars was finding its way
to me.
HOW I BECAME THE ONLY PERSONAL PUPIL OF THE GREATEST MENTAL SCIENTIST OF
THE PRESENT DAY
Chapter 10
As soon as the idea of studying with Troward came to me, I asked a friend to write to him for me, feeling that
perhaps my friend could put my desire in better or more persuasive terms than I could employ. To all the letters
written by this friend I received not one reply. This was so discouraging that I would have completely abandoned
the idea of becoming Troward's pupil except for the experience I had that day on the street when my whole
14
world was illuminated, and I remembered the promise "All things whatsoever thou wilt, believe thou hast
received, and thou shalt receive."
With this experience in my mind, my passage to England was arranged, notwithstanding the fact that apparently
my letters were ignored. We wrote again, however, and finally received a reply, very courteous though very
positive. Troward did not take pupils; he had no time to devote to a pupil. Notwithstanding this definite decision,
I declined to be discouraged because of the memory of my experience upon the day when the light and the
thought came to me, "I am all the Substance there is." I seemed to be able to live that experience over at will, and
with it there always came a flood of courage and renewed energy. We journeyed on to London, and from there
telegraphed Troward, asking for an interview. The telegram was promptly answered by Troward setting a date
when he could see us.
At this time Troward was living in Ruan Manor, a little-out-of-the-way place in the southern part of England,
about twenty miles from a railway station. We could not find it on the map, and with great difficulty Cook's
Touring Agency in London, located the place for us. There was very little speculation in my mind as to what
Troward would say to me in this interview. There always remained the feeling that the truth was mine; also that
it would grow and expand in my consciousness until peace and contentment were outward as well as inward
manifestations of my individual life.
We arrived at Troward's house in a terrific rainstorm, and were cordially received by Troward himself, whom I
found, much to my surprise, to be more the type of a Frenchman than an Englishman (I afterward learned that he
was a descendant of the Huguenot race), a man of medium stature, with rather a large head, big nose, and eyes
that fairly danced with merriment. After we had been introduced to the other members of the family and given a
hot cup of tea, we were invited into the living room where Troward talked very freely of everything except my
proposed studies. It seemed quite impossible to bring him to that subject.
Just before we were leaving, however, I asked quite boldly: "Will you not reconsider your decision to take a
personal pupil? I wish so much to study with you," to which he replied with a very indifferent manner that he did
not feel he could give the time it would require for personal instruction, but that he would be glad to give me the
names of two or three books which he felt would not only be interesting but instructive to me. He said he felt
much flattered and pleased that I had come all the way from America to study with him, and as we walked out
through the lane from his house to our automobile his manner became less indifferent, a feeling of sympathy
seemed to touch his heart, and he turned to me with the remark: "You might write to me, if so inclined, after you
get to Paris, and perhaps, if I have time in the autumn, we could arrange something, though it does not seem
possible now."
I lost no time in following up his very kind invitation to write. My letters were all promptly and courteously
answered, but there was never a word of encouragement as to my proposed studies. Finally, about two months
later, there came a letter with the question in it: "What do you suppose is the meaning of this verse in the 21st
Chapter of Revelation?"
"16. And the city lieth foursquare and the length is as large as the breadth; and he measured the city with the
reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal."
Instinctively I knew that my chance to study with Troward hung upon my giving the correct answer to that
question. The definition of the verse seemed utterly beyond my reach. Naturally, answers came to my mind, but I
knew intuitively that none was correct. I began bombarding my scholarly friends and acquaintances with the
same question. Lawyers, doctors, priests, nuns and clergymen, all over the world, received letters from me with
this question in them. Later answers began to return to me, but intuition told me that none was correct. All the
while I was endeavoring to find the answer for myself, but none seemed to come. I memorized the verse in order
that I might meditate upon it.
I began a search of Paris for the books Troward had recommended to me, and after two or three days' search we
crossed the River Seine to the Ile de Cite to go into some of the old bookstores there. They were out of print, and
these were the best places to find them in. Finally we came upon a little shop that had the books there. These
were the last copies the man had, consequently the price was high. While remonstrating with the clerk, my eye
rested upon the work of an astrologer, which I laughingly picked up and asked: "Do you think Prof. would read
my horoscope?" The clerk looked aghast at the suggestion, and responded, "Why, no, Madame, this is one of
France's greatest astrologers. He does not read horoscopes."
15
In spite of this answer, there was a persistent impulse within me to go to the man. The friend who had
accompanied me in my search for the books remonstrated with me, and tried in every way to dissuade me from
going to the famous astrologer, but I insisted, and she went with me. When we came to his office I found it
somewhat embarrassing to ask him to read my horoscope. Nevertheless, there was nothing to do but put the
question. Reluctantly, the Professor invited us into his paper-strewn study, and reluctantly, and also impatiently,
asked us to be seated. Very courteously and coldly he told me that he did not read horoscopes. His whole manner
said, more clearly than words could, that he wished we would take our departure.
My friend stood up. I was at a great loss what to do next, because I felt that I was not quite ready to go. Intuition
seemed to tell me there was something for me to gain there. Just what it was I was unable to define, so I paused a
moment, much to my friend's displeasure, when one of the Professor's enormous Persian cats jumped into my lap.
"Get down, Jack!" the Professor shouted. "What does it mean?" he seemed to ask himself. Then with a greater
interest than he had hitherto shown in me, the Professor said with a smile: "Have never known that cat to go to a
stranger before, Madame; my cat pleads for you." I, also, now feel an interest in your horoscope, and if you will
give me the data it will give me pleasure to write it out for you." There was a great feeling of happiness in me
when he made this statement. He concluded by saying: "I do not feel that you really care for your horoscope."
The truth of this statement shocked me, because I did not care about a horoscope, and could not give any reason
why I was letting him do it. "However," he said, "May I call for your data next Sunday afternoon?"
On Sunday afternoon at the appointed time, the Professor arrived, and I was handing him the slip of paper with
all the data of my birth, etc., when the idea came to me to ask the Professor for the answer to the question about
the 16th verse of the 21st Chapter of Revelation. The thought was instantly carried into effect, and I found
myself asking this man what he thought this verse meant. Without pausing to think it over he immediately
replied "it means: The city signifies the truth, and the truth is non-invertible; every side from which you
approach it is exactly the same." Intuitively and undoubtingly I recognized this answer as the true one, and my
joy knew no bounds, because I felt sure that with this correct answer in my possession, Troward would accept
me as his pupil in the fall.
As the great astrologer was leaving, I explained to him all about my desire to study with Troward, how I had
come from New York City for that express purpose, seemingly to no avail, until the answer to this test question
had been given to me by him. He was greatly interested and asked many questions about Troward, and when
asked if he would please send me his bill, he smilingly replied, "Let me know if the great Troward accepts you
as his pupil," and bade me good afternoon. I hastened to my room to send a telegram to Troward giving my
answer to the question about the 16th verse of the 21st Chapter of Revelation.
There was an immediate response from Troward that said: "Your answer is correct. Am beginning a course of
lectures on The Great Pyramid In London. If you wish to attend them, will be pleased to have you, and afterward,
if you still wish to study with me, I think it can be arranged." On receipt of this reply preparations were at once
made to leave Paris for London.
I attended all the lectures, receiving much instruction from them, after which arrangements were made for my
studying with Troward. Two days before leaving for Cornwall I received the following letter from Troward
clearly indicating the line of study he gave me:
31 Stanwick Road,
W. Kensington, England,
November 8, 1912.
Dear Mrs. Behrend,
I think I had better write you a few lines with regard to your proposed studies with me, as I should be sorry for
you to be under any misapprehension and so to suffer any disappointment.
I have studied the subject now for several years, and have a general acquaintance with the leading features of
most of the systems which, unfortunately, occupy attention in many circles at the present time, such as
Theosophy, The Tarot, The Kabala, and the like, and I have no hesitation in saying that, to the best of my
16
judgment, all sorts and descriptions of so-called occult study are in direct opposition to the real life-giving Truth,
and, therefore, you must not expect any teaching on such lines as these.
We hear a great deal these days about Initiation; but, believe me, the more you try to become a so-called
"Initiate" the further you will put yourself from living life. I speak after many years of careful study and
consideration when I say that the Bible and its Revelation of Christ is the one thing really worth studying, and
that is a subject large enough in all conscience, embracing, as it does, our outward life and of everyday concerns,
and also the inner springs of our life and all that we can in general terms conceive of the life in the unseen after
putting off the body at death.
You have expressed a very great degree of confidence in my teaching, and if your confidence is such that you
wish, as you say, to put yourself entirely under my guidance, I can only accept it as a very serious responsibility,
and should have to ask you to exhibit that confidence by refusing to look into such so-called "Mysteries" as I
would forbid you to look into.
I am speaking from experience; but the result will be that much of my teaching will appear to be very simple,
perhaps to some extent dogmatic, and you will say you have heard much of it before.
Faith in God, Prayer and Worship, approach to the Father through Christ -all this is in a certain sense familiar to
you; and all I can hope to do is perhaps to throw a little more light on these subjects, that they may become to
you, not merely traditional words, but present living facts.
I have been thus explicit as I do not want you to have any disappointment, and also I should say that our socalled
course of study will be only friendly conversations at such times as we can fit them in, either you coming
to our house, or I to yours, as may be most convenient at the time.
Also, I will lend you some books that will be helpful, but they are very few, and in no sense occult.
Now, if all this falls in with your ideas, we shall, I am sure, be very glad to see you at Ruan Manor, and you will
find that the residents there, though few, are very friendly and the neighborhood very pretty.
But, on the other hand, if you feel that you want some other source of learning, do not mind saying so, only you
will never find any substitute for Christ.
I trust you will not mind my writing you like this, but I do not want you to come all the way down to Cornwall,
and then be disappointed.
With kindest regards,
Yours sincerely,
(Signed) T. TROWARD.
This copy of Troward's letter, to my mind, is the greatest thing I can give you.
HOW TO BRING THE POWER IN YOUR WORD INTO ACTION
Chapter 11
In your every word there is the power germ that expands and projects itself in the direction your word indicates,
and ultimately develops into physical expression. For example, you wish to establish joy in your consciousness.
Just repeat the word "joy" secretly, persistently and emphatically. The joy germ begins to expand and project
itself until your whole being is filled with joy. This is not a mere fancy, but a truth. Once you experience this
power, you will "daily prove that these facts have not been fabricated to fit a theory, but the theory has been built
up by careful observation of facts." Everyone knows that joy comes from within. Another may give you cause
for joy, but no one can be joyous for you. Joy is a state of consciousness, and consciousness is purely Troward
says, "Mental."
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Mental faculties always work under something which stimulates them, and this stimulus may come either from
without, through the external senses, or from within by the consciousness of something not perceptible on the
physical plane. The recognition of this interior source of stimulus enables you to bring into your consciousness
any state you "desire." Once a thing seems normal to you, it is as surely yours, through the law of growth and
attraction, as it is yours to know addition after you have the conscious use of figures.
This method of repeating the word makes the word in all of its limitless meaning yours, because words are the
embodiment of thoughts, and thought is creative, neither good nor bad, simply creative. This is the reason why
Faith builds up and Fear destroys. "Only believe, and all things are possible unto you." It is Faith that gives you
dominion over every adverse circumstance or condition. It is your word of faith that sets you free, not faith in
any specific thing or act, but simple Faith in your best self in all ways. It is because of this ever-present creative
power within the heart of the word that makes your health, your peace of mind and your financial condition a
reproduction of your most habitual thought. Try to believe and understand this, and you will find yourself Master
of every adverse circumstance or condition, a Prince of Power.
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR FAITH
Chapter 12
But, you ask - How can I speak the word of Faith when I have little or no faith? Every living thing has faith in
something or somebody. It is the quality of the creative energy in the positive Faith thought which gives it
vitality, not the form it takes. Even intense fear is alive with faith. You fear smallpox because you believe it
possible for you to contract it. You fear poverty and loneliness because you believe them possible for you.
It is your habitual tendency of thought that reappears in your mind, your body and your affairs, not the
occasional thought upon some specific line or desire. It is the Faith which understands that every creation had its
birth in the womb of thought -words that gives you dominion over all things, your lesser self included, and this
feeling of faith is increased and intensified through observing what it does.
This observation is the observation of your state of consciousness when you did, not when you hoped you might,
but feared it was too good to be true. How did you feel that time when you simply had to bring yourself into a
better frame of mind and did, or you had to have a certain thing and got it? Live these experiences over again and
again (mentally) until you really feel in touch with the self that knows and does, and the best there is, is yours.
THE REWARD OF INCREASED FAITH
Chapter 13
Because you have expanded your faith into the faith and laws of the universe that know no failure, your faith in
the best of yourself (the principle of life in you) has brought you into conscious realization that you are not a
victim of the universe, but a part of it. Consequently, there is that within yourself which is able to make
conscious contact with the universal principal of law and power, and enables you to press all the particular laws
of nature, whether visible or invisible, into serving your particular demand or desire, and thereby you find
yourself Master, not a slave of any situation.
Troward tells us that this Mastering is to be "accomplished by knowledge, and the only knowledge which will
afford this purpose in all its measureless immensity is the knowledge of the personal element in universal spirit"
and its reciprocity to our own personality. In other words, the words you think, the personality you feel yourself
to be, are all reproductions in miniature or specialized God "or universal spirit." All your word-thoughts were
God word-forms before they were yours.
The words you use are the instruments, channels, through which the creative energy takes shape. Naturally, this
sensitive creative power can only reproduce in accordance with the instrument through which it passes. All
disappointments and failures are the result of endeavoring to think one thing and produce another. This is just as
impossible as it would be for an electric fan to be used for lighting purposes, or for water to flow through a
crooked pipe in a straight line.
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The water must take the shape of the pipe through which it flows. Even more truly this sensitive, invisible, fluent
substance must reproduce outwardly the shape of the thought-word through which it passes. This is the law of its
nature; therefore, it logically follows, "As a man thinketh, so is he." Hence, when your thought or word-form is
in correspondence with the Eternal constructive and forward movement of the Universal Law, then your mind is
the mirror in which the infinite power and intelligence of the universe sees itself reproduced, and your individual
life becomes one of harmony.
HOW TO MAKE NATURE RESPOND TO YOU
Chapter 14
It should be steadily borne in mind that there is an intelligence and power in all nature and all space that is
always creative and infinitely sensitive and responsive. The responsiveness of its nature is two-fold: it is creative
and amenable to suggestion. Once the human understanding grasps this all-important fact, it realizes the
simplicity of the law of life.
All that is necessary is to realize that your mind is a center of Divine operation, and consequently contains that
within itself which accepts suggestions, and expect all life to respond to your call, and you will find suggestions
which tend to the fulfillment of your desire coming to you, not only from your fellowmen, but also from the
flowers, the grass, the trees and the rocks which will enable you to fulfill your heart's desire, if you act upon
them in confidence on this physical plane. "Faith without works is dead," but Faith with Works sets you
absolutely free.
FAITH WITH WORKS – WHAT IT HAS ACCOMPLISHED
Chapter 15
It is said of Tyson, the great Australian millionaire, that the suggestion to "make the desert land of Australia
blossom as the rose" came to him from a modest little Australian violet while he was working as a bushman for
something like three shillings a day. He used to find these friendly little violets growing in certain places in the
woods, and something in the flower touched something akin to itself in the mind of Tyson, and he would sit on
the side of his bunk at night and wonder how flowers and vegetable life could be given an opportunity to express
itself in the desert land of Australia.
No doubt he realized that it would take a long time to save enough money to put irrigating ditches in the desert
lands, but his thought and feeling were sure it could be accomplished, and if it could be done, he could do it. If
there was a power within himself that was able to capture the idea, then there must be a responsive power within
the idea itself that could bring itself into a practical physical manifestation. He resolutely put aside all questions
as to the specific ways and means which would be employed in bringing his desire into physical manifestation,
and simply kept his thought centered upon the idea of making fences and seeing flowers and grass where none
existed.
Since the responsiveness of reproductive creative power is not limited to any local condition of mind, his
habitual meditation and mental picture set his ideas free to roam in an infinitude, and attract to themselves other
ideas of a kindred nature. Therefore, it was not necessary for Tyson to wait and see his ideas and desires fulfilled,
until he had saved from his three shillings a day enough money to irrigate the land, for his ideas found other
ideas in the financial world which were attuned in sympathy with themselves, and doors of finance were quickly
opened.
All charitable institutions are maintained upon the principle of the responsiveness of life. If this were not true, no
one would care to give, simply because another needed. The law of demand and supply, cause and effect, can
never be broken. Ideas attract to themselves kindred ideas. Sometimes they come from a flower, a book or out of
the invisible. You are sitting or walking, intent upon an idea not quite complete as to the ways and means of
fulfillment, and behold along comes another idea, from no one can tell where, and finds friendly lodging with
your idea, one idea attracting another, and so on until your desires are physical facts.
You may feel the necessity for an improvement in your finances, and wonder how this increase is to be brought
about, when there seems suddenly to come from within the idea that everything had its birth in thought, even
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money, and your thoughts turn their course. You simply hold to the statement or affirmation that the best, and all
there is, is yours. Since you are able to capture ideas from the Infinite through the instrument of your intuition,
you let your mind rest upon that thought knowing full well that this very thought will respond to itself. Your
inhibition of the thought of doubt and feeling of anxiety enables the reassuring ideas to establish themselves and
attract to themselves "I can" and "I will" ideas, which gradually grow into physical form of the desire in mind.
In the conscious use of the universal power to reproduce your desires in physical form, three facts should be
borne in mind:
First - All space is filled with a creative power. Second - This creative power is amenable to suggestion. Third
- It can only work by deductive methods.
As Troward tells us, this last is an exceedingly important point, for it implies that the action of the ever-present
creative power is in no way limited by precedent. It works according to the essence of the spirit of the principle.
In other words, this universal power takes its creative direction from the word you give it. Once man realizes this
great truth, it becomes the most important of all his consideration with what character this sensitive reproductive
power is invested. It is the unvarying law of this creative life principle that "As a man thinketh in his heart so is
he." If you realize the truth that the only creative power can be to you only what you feel and think it to be, it is
willing and able to meet your demands.
Troward says, "If you think your thought is Powerful, then your Thought is Powerful." "As a man thinketh in his
heart, so is he" is the law of life, and the creative power can no more change this law than an ordinary mirror can
reflect back to you a different image than the object you hold before it. "As you think so are you" does not mean
"as you tell people you think" or "as you would wish the world to believe you think." It means your innermost
thoughts, that place where no one but you knows. "None can know the Father save the son" and "No one can
know the son but the Father."
Only the reproductive creative spirit of life knows what you think until your thoughts become physical facts and
manifest themselves in your body, your brain or your affairs. Then everyone with whom you come into contact
may know, because the Father, the intelligent creative energy which heareth in secret, hears your most secret
thoughts, rewards you openly, reproduces your thoughts in physical form. "As you think you know that is what
you become" should be kept in the background of your mind constantly. This is watching and praying without
ceasing, and when you are not feeling quite up to par to physically pray.
SUGGESTIONS AS TO HOW TO PRAY OR ASK, BELIEVING YOU HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED
Chapter 16
Scientific Thinking - Positive Thought
Suggestions for Practical Application:
Try, through careful, positive, enthusiastic (though not strenuous) thought, to realize that the indescribable,
invisible substance of life fills all space; that its nature is intelligent, plastic, subjective substance.
Five o'clock in the morning is the best time to go into this sort of meditation. If you will retire early every night
for one month, before falling asleep impress firmly upon your subjective mind the affirmation "My Father is the
ruler of all the world, and is expressing His directing power through me," you will find that the substance of life
takes form in the moulds of your thoughts.
Do not accept the above suggestion simply because it is given to you. Think it over carefully until the impression
is made upon your own subconscious mind understandingly. Rise every morning, as was suggested before, at
five o'clock, sit in a quiet room in a straight-backed chair, and think out the affirmation of the previous evening,
and you will realize and be able to put into practice your princely power with the realization to some extent, at
least, that your mind really is a center through which all the creative energy and power there is taking form.
Scientific Prayer:
The Principle Underlying Scientific Prayer
20
In prayer for a change in condition, physical, mental or financial for yourself or another, bear in mind that the
fundamental necessity for the answer to prayer is the understanding of the scientific statement:
"Ask, BELIEVING YOU HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED and you shall receive"
This is not as difficult as it appears on the surface, once you realize that everything has its origin in the mind, and
that which you seek outwardly, you already possess. No one can think a thought in the future. Your thought of a
thing constitutes its origin.
THEREFORE
The Thought Form of the Thing is already Yours as soon as you think it. Your steady recognition of this Thought
Possession causes the thought to concentrate, to condense, to project itself and to assume physical form.
To Get Rich Through Creation
The recognition or conception of new forces of wealth is the loftiest aspiration you can take into your heart, for it
assumes and implies the furtherance of all noble aims.
Items to be remembered about Prayer for Yourself or Another: Remember that that which you call treatment or
prayer is not, in any sense, hypnotism. It should never be your endeavor to take possession of the mind of
another. Remember that it should never be your intention to make yourself believe that which you know to be
untrue. You are simply thinking into God or First Cause with the understanding that -
"If a thing is true at all, there is a way in which it is true throughout the Universe." Remember that the Power of
Thought works by absolutely scientific principles. These principles are expressed in the language of the
statement:
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."
This statement contains a world of wisdom, but man's steady recognition and careful application of the statement
itself is required to bring it into practical use.
Remember that the principles involved in being as we think in our heart are elucidated and revealed by the law
"As you sow, you shall reap."
Remember that your Freedom to choose just what you will think, just what thought possession you will affirm
and claim constitutes God's gift to you.
It shows…
How:
First Cause has endowed every man with the Power and Ability to bring into his personal environment whatever
he chooses. Cause and Effect in reference to Getting:
If you plant an ACORN, you get an OAK. If you sow a GRAIN OF CORN, you reap a stalk and MANY Kernels
of Corn. You always get the manifestation of that which you consciously or unconsciously AFFIRM and
CLAIM, habitually declare and expect, or in other words "AS YOU SOW"
Therefore, sow the seeds of I AM .... I OUGHT.... I CAN.... I WILL REALIZE that because you ARE you
OUGHT, that because you OUGHT, you CAN, that because you CAN, you DO.
The manifestation of this Truth, even in a small degree, gives you the indisputable understanding that
DOMINION IS YOUR CHARTER RIGHT You are an Heir of First Cause, endowed with all the power He has.
God has given you everything. ALL is yours, and you know that all you have to do is to reach out your mental
hand and take it.
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This Formula may serve as a pattern to shape your own Prayer or Affirmation into God for the benefit of another
or yourself.
If for another, you speak the Christian name of the person you wish to help, then dismiss their personality
entirely from your consciousness.
Intensify your thought by meditating upon the fact that there is that in you which finds the way, which is the
Truth and is the Life.
You are affirming this fact, believing that since you are thinking this, it is already yours. Having lifted up your
feeling to the central idea of this meditation, you examine your own consciousness to see if there is ought which
is unlike God. If there is any feeling of fear, worry, malice, envy, hatred, or jealousy, turn back in your
meditation to Cleanse your Thought through the affirmation that God's Love and Purity fill all space including
your heart and soul. Reconcile your thought with the Love of God, always remembering that
You are made in the Image and Likeness of Love.
Keep this Cleansing thought in mind until you feel that you have freed your consciousness entirely of all
thoughts and feelings other than
Love and Unity with all Humanity
Then if denials do not disturb you, deny all that is unlike your desired manifestation. This
accomplished, you almost overlay your denial with the affirmative thought that: You are made in the Image and
Likeness of God and that you already have your desire fulfilled in its first, its original spiritual or thought-form.
Closing of Prayer:
Prayer as a method of thought is a deliberate use of the Law which gives you the Power of Dominion over
everything which tends in any way to hamper your perfect liberty. YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN LIFE THAT
YOU MAY ENJOY IT MORE AND MORE FULLY The steady recognition of this Truth makes you declare
yourself a PRINCE OF POWER.
You recognize, accept and use this power as A CHILD OF A KING AND HENCE DOMINION IS YOUR
BIRTHRIGHT Then when you feel the light of this great Truth flooding your consciousness -open the floodgates
of your soul in Heartfelt Praise that you have the understanding that....THE CREATOR AND HIS
CREATION ARE ONE.
Also that the Creator is continually creating through his creation.
Close your treatment in the happy assurance that the Prayer which is fulfilled is not a form of supplication but a
steady habitual affirming that The Creator of all Creation is operating Specifically through you, therefore
THE WORK MUST BE PERFECTLY DONE - YOUR MIND IS A CENTER OF DIVINE OPERATION.
Hints for Application and Practice:
For every five minutes given to reading and study of the theories of Mental Science, spend fifteen minutes in the
use and application of the knowledge acquired.
1. Spend one minute in every twenty-four hours in conscientiously thinking over the specification that must be
observed in order to have your prayers answered.
2. Practice the steady recognition of desirable thought possession for two periods of fifteen minutes each every
day. Not only time yourself each period to see how long you can keep a given conception before your mental
vision, but also keep a written record of the vividness with which you experience your mental image. Remember
that your mental senses are just as varied and trainable as your physical ones.
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3. Spend five minutes every day between 12 noon and 1 o'clock with a mental search for new sources of wealth.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
Chapter 17
Remember that the greatest Mental Scientist the world has ever known (Jesus Christ, the Man) said all things are
possible unto you.
Also the "things I do you can do." Did he tell the truth?
Jesus did not claim to be more divine than you are. He declared the whole human race children of God. By birth
he was no 'exception to this rule. The power he possessed was developed through His personal effort. He said
you could do the same if you would only believe in yourself. A great idea is valueless unless accompanied by
physical action. God gives the idea; man works it out upon the physical plane.
All that is really worthwhile is contentment. Self-command alone can produce it. The soul and body are one.
Contentment of mind is contentment of soul, and contentment of soul means contentment of body.
If you wish health, watch your thoughts, not only of your physical being, but your thoughts about everything and
everybody. With your will keep them in line with your desire, and outwardly act in accordance with your
thoughts, and you will soon realize that all power both over thoughts and conditions has been given to you. You
believe in God. Believe in yourself as the physical instrument through which God operates. Absolute dominion
is yours when you have sufficient self-mastery to conquer the negative tendency of thoughts and actions.
Ask yourself daily: "What is the purpose of the power which put me here?" "How can I work with the purpose
for life and liberty in me?"
Upon having decided these questions, endeavor hourly to fulfill them. You are a law unto yourself.
If you have a tendency to overdo anything, eat, drink or blame circumstances for your misfortunes, conquer that
tendency with the inward conviction that all power is yours outwardly. Eat less, drink less, blame circumstances
less, and the best there is will gradually grow in the place where the worst seemed to be.
Always remember that all is yours to use, as you will. You can if you will: if you will you do.
God the Father blesses you with all He has to give.
Make good Godly use of it.
The reason for greater success when you first began your studies and demonstrations in Mental Science is that
your joy and enthusiasm at the simple discovery of the power within was greater than you have been able to put
into your understanding later.
With increased understanding put increasing joy and enthusiasm, and the results will correspond

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