Chapter 3 of Prayer The Art of Believing – Neville Goddard
Prayers are not successfully made unless there is a rapport between the conscious and subconscious mind of the operator. This is done through imagination and faith.
By the power of imagination all men, certainly imaginative men, are forever casting forth enchantments, and all men, especially unimaginative men, are continually passing under their power.
Can we ever be certain that it was not our mother while darning our socks who began that subtle change in our minds? If I can unintentionally cast an enchantment over persons, there is no reason to doubt that I am able to cast intentionally a far stronger enchantment.
Everything, that can be seen, touched, explained, argued over, is to the imaginative man nothing more than a means, for he functions, by reason of his controlled imagination, in the deep of himself where every idea exists in itself and not in relation to something else. In him there is no need for the restraints of reason. For the only restraint he can obey is the mysterious instinct that teaches him to eliminate all moods other than the mood of the fulfilled desire.
Imagination and faith are the only faculties of the mind needed to create objective conditions.
The faith required for the successful operation of the law of consciousness is a purely subjective faith and is attainable upon the cessation of active opposition on the part of the objective mind of the operator.
It depends on your ability to feel and accept as true what your objective senses deny.
Neither the passivity of the subject nor his conscious agreement with your suggestion is necessary, for without his consent or knowledge he can be given a subjective order which he must objectively express. It is a fundamental law of consciousness that by telepathy we can have immediate communion with another.
To establish rapport you call the subject mentally. Focus your attention on him and mentally shout his name just as you would to attract the attention of anyone. Imagine that he answered, and mentally hear his voice. Represent him to yourself inwardly in the state you want him to obtain. Then imagine that he is telling you in the tones of ordinary conversation what you want to hear. Mentally answer him. Tell him of your joy in witnessing his good fortune.
Having mentally heard with all the distinctness of reality that which you wanted to hear and having thrilled to the news heard, return to objective consciousness. Your subjective conversation must awaken what it affirmed.
“Thou shalt decree a thing and it shall be established unto thee.”
It is not a strong will that sends the subjective word on its mission, so much as it is clear thinking and feeling, the truth of the state affirmed. When belief and will are in conflict, belief invariably wins.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
It is not what you want that you attract; you attract what you believe to be true.
Therefore, get into the spirit of these mental conversations and give them the same degree of reality that you would a telephone conversation.
“If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them.” The acceptance of the end wills the means. And the wisest reflection could not devise more effective means than those which are willed by the acceptance of the end. Mentally talk to your friends as though your desires for them were already realized.
Imagination is the beginning of the growth of all forms, and faith is the substance out of which they are formed.
By imagination, that which exists in latency or is asleep within the deep of consciousness is awakened and is given form.
The cures attributed to the influence of certain medicines, relics and places are the effects of imagination and faith. The curative power is not in the spirit that is in them, it is in the spirit in which they are accepted.
“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
The subjective mind is completely controlled by suggestion, so, whether the object of your faith be true or false, you will get the same results.
There is nothing unsound in the theory of medicine or in the claims of priesthood for their relics and holy places. The subjective mind of the patient accepts the suggestion of health conditioned on such states, and as soon as these conditions are met proceeds to realize health.
“According to your faith be it done unto you for all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Confident expectation of a state is the most potent means of bringing it about. The confident expectation of a cure does that which no medical treatment can accomplish.
Failure is always due to an antagonistic auto-suggestion by the patient, arising from objective doubt of the power of medicine or relic, or from doubt of the truth of the theory. Many of us, either from too little emotion or too much intellect, both of which are stumbling blocks in the way or prayer, cannot believe that which our sense deny.
To force ourselves to believe, will end in greater doubt. To avoid such counter-suggestions the patient should be unaware, objectively, of the suggestions which are made to him.
The most effective method of healing or influencing the behavior of others consists in what is known as “the silent or absent treatment.” When the subject is unaware, objectively, of the suggestion given him there is no possibility of him setting up an antagonistic belief. It is not necessary that the patient know, objectively, that anything is being done for him.
From what is known of the subjective and objective processes of reasoning, it is better that he should not know objectively of that which is being done for him. The more completely the objective mind is kept in ignorance of the suggestion, the better will the subjective mind perform its functions.
The subject subconsciously accepts the suggestion and thinks he originates it, proving the truth of Spinoza’s dictum, that we know not the causes that determine our actions.
The subconscious mind is the universal conductor which the operator modifies with his thoughts and feelings. Visible states are either the vibratory effects of subconscious vibrations within you or they are vibratory causes of the corresponding vibrations within you. A disciplined man never permits them to be causes unless they awaken in him the desirable states of consciousness.
With knowledge of the law of reversibility, the disciplined man transforms his world by imagining and feeling only what is lovely and of good report. The beautiful idea he awakens within himself shall not fail to arouse its affinity in others.
He knows the savior of the world is not a man but the manifestation that would save.
The sick man’s savior is health, the hungry man’s is food, the thirsty man’s savior is water. He walks in the company of the savior, by assuming the feeling of his wish fulfilled.
By the law of reversibility, that all transformations of force are reversible, the energy or feeling awakened transforms itself into the state imagined. He never waits four months for the harvest. If in four months the harvest will awaken in him a state of joy, then, inversely, the joy of harvest now will awaken the harvest now.
“Now is the acceptable time to give beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.”