George Schubel – Seeing Our Mental Pictures Through

 

CONTENTS

FOREWORD
CHAPTER I SELECTING OUR MENTAL OBJECT
CHAPTER II VIEWING OUR MENTAL OBJECT
CHAPTER III LOOKING INTO MENTAL ILLUMINING CHAMBER
CHAPTER IV SEEING BY REFLECTION
CHAPTER V CONTEMPLATING THE PROJECTED THOUGHT
CHAPTER VI RIGHT POINT OF VIEW NECESSARY
CHAPTER VII MENTAL FOCUSING TO BE CONSIDERED
CHAPTER VIII FINDING THE RANGE OF OUR IMAGED THOUGHT
CHAPTER IX ENLARGING OUR MENTAL IMAGE
CHAPTER X QUANTITY OF MENTAL LIGHT A FACTOR
CHAPTER XI QUALITY OF MENTAL LIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED
CHAPTER XII QUALITY OF MENTAL-CHEMICAL SOLUTION
CHAPTER XIII STRENGTHENING THE MENTAL DEVELOPING SOLUTION
CHAPTER XIV FIDELITY NECESSARY IN VISUALIZING
CHAPTER XV PATIENCE IN MENTAL DEVELOPING PROCESS
CHAPTER XVI OURSELVES THE DEFINITE OBJECT
CHAPTER XVII OURSELVES THE IMAGED OBJECT
CHAPTER XVIII WE ARE THE SEEING I
CHAPTER XIX OURSELVES THE FINISHED PICTURE

 

FOREWORD

The phenomenal sale of “ How To Make Our Mental Pictures Come True ” has dem­onstrated the wide-spread interest existing in the subject of Visualizing, and this, to­gether with the great demand for further enlightenment, has prompted the publica­tion of this second book.

The author is considered the foremost writer of the day on Visualizing, and in practically every instance where his instruc­tions have been faithfully carried out, the same remarkable results have been achieved which he has achieved in his own business and private career. His mental pictures of a newspaper, a prosperous business, fac­tory and office buildings, friends, and all the luxuries of life can be made realities by everyone who studies this book and ap­plies the principles explained therein.

The present supplementary volume re­states some of the fundamental principles of mental photography, and provides in de­tail many illuminating examples and experiences from real life to help illustrate the lessons set forth. Follow the instructions and you can make your hearts fondest desire come true.

 

Seeing Our Mental Pictures Through

CHAPTER I

SELECTING OUR MENTAL OBJECT

IT is expected that the previous lessons contained in the volume: — * ‘ How To Make Our Mental Pictures Come True ^M have made the student reasonably familiar with the mento-mechanical and men to- chemical principles involved in the science of Visualizing. The purpose of this present volume is to present to the student certain preliminaries and preparations which have been found to be of great value in the actual application of these principles in visualiz­ing work.

The first preliminary, of course, on the part of one interested in visualizing is to know just what is wanted to be reproduced.

One must have a definite object in view. This point may seem trite but not so when applied to visualizing work.

We find that many minds when con­fronted for the first time with the sugges­tion to fix upon some definite object which they would like to have materialized in their outward lives, are unable to do so.

All of us would like to have the ^u better things of life ” because that is the continual tendency which serves us in our outward de­velopment into ever finer men and women; but the outpush of this desire is general, and for this reason our minds are indefinite, wavering, and indetermined when we are asked to specialize this desire into some­thing definite. We say that we cannot “make up ” our minds, meaning thereby that we are mentally unable or disinclined to put forth the necessary mental effort to ^u make up ” a definite object out of the luminous primary substance upon which our minds work.

Why Your Mental Pictures Sometimes Fail

Minds which cannot form mental con­cepts in a definite, orderly and selective manner, are of many kinds. The faculties of some are weak, or undeveloped, and therefore unable to perform the structural work involved in mechanically formulating a definite object of thought, and in this class we place those whose inability has been as­cribed generally to mental laziness or in­dolence. We would say rather that in most cases this inability is due to mental weak­ness or undevelopment. Very often such minds ^{4 4} feel ” that they want “ something different ” but are unable to say just what it is that they want, indicating that the gen­eral urge within them is functioning normally in desire, but that they are unable mentally to manipulate and formulate it to a point where it becomes a definite concept of the mind.

Such minds in fulfilling the necessities of their outward existence can be assisted in two ways. One may be through the aid of another mind whose ability in formulat­ing mental concepts is strong and positive. This requires a visualizing instructor pos­sessing a strong, constructive mind, and who will work in love and in truth, for us and with us. In fact any friend, possessing this up-building power of mind, can assist by simple encouragement as we go on, and such a friend is a friend indeed who “ calls us out of ourselves,” meaning that we are helped to formulate our subjective thinking in the direction of outward things; such a friendly mind is able to show us what we want to be or do or have and can help us to establish definite mental objects for our out- picturing. The other method is to be found in the elementary actions and reactions on our natures whereby our outward lives are differentiated and formulated spontan­eously and by a general law outside of our immediate individual application. It is the elementary method by which we are fash­ioned by forces outside of our own con­trol and direction. We react against an unpleasant environment, condition, circum­stance, or affair in our lives, or in response or opposition to a powerful tendency or de­sire within, until by an elementary force of this kind we are driven, many times with suffering, to “ make a change ” which could have been accomplished by the definite and deliberate erection of mental concepts.

How to Regulate Your Visualizing

We must remember that in its elementary stage, the specialization of the light within us into thought-images, or pictures, is not a regulated specialization. We know by the experience of what we call dreams, and dur­ing our waking hours as well, that there is an uncontrolled imaging taking place, sometimes as unintermittently as a reel of moving pictures, yet without the order and meaning which a moving picture would have, appearing in rapid, often haphazard and unreasoned sequence, without an indi­vidual initiative on our part; and conse­quently disordered because mordered, without the stages of progression which conscious specialization through us brings. By the process of conscious specialization we mean the conscious action of our special­ized minds upon the thought-images as they present themselves, and this action, in all conscious visualizing, is very much like the censorship board which passes upon the pictures of the movies. It selects the pic­ture to be developed, making our visualiz­ing a governed visualizing.

In this regulated visualizing, we are able to select the picture which we want and can test its acceptability by asking ourselves ^{4 4} Is this the thought-image or picture of my life, my business, my home, my family, my surroundings which I want to specialize, or bring into concrete manifestation? ”

In many instances we try to resist this elementary outpush, yet have no deliberate mental method to take its place in express­ing and fulfilling our outward destiny. When this occurs we struggle against in­stead of working with, and giving direction to this urge within, proceeding with very little change in our outward lives, and con­tinuing poor indeed insofar as a wholesome, well-rounded, well-filled and fully evolved objective life on this plane is concerned.

Just as there are minds with weak and undeveloped mechanical faculties, unable to see and formulate definite mental objects, so there are minds with a directly opposite failing. Their faculties are prodigiously active; too active for normal development on the outward plane. They are able to glimpse the countless paradigms one after another as they disclose themselves subjectively in the pattern-world. We say that such minds have a rich and active imagination; their imaging faculties are constantly active in the mechanically struc­tural work of building or erecting thought- patterns. They are the minds with whom it is necessary for the mind weak in visual­izing and in object-building to associate, because they are rich in inspiration and il­lumination, but of course, their imaging power must be regulated and controlled otherwise they find themselves in the same unfortunate position of their opposites. They will go forth in life, very much like the camera-enthusiast who goes forth for the purpose of taking some snap-shots and then, coming amid scenes and views aplenty which catch the fancy of his eye, is unable to decide upon just what objects he wants to focus his camera.

In our wonderful inward lives we are given an unlimited wealth of choice and range of mental objects which we may re­produce outwardly for our greater joy and happiness; the prospect before us is un­limited ; all that we want to be, or have, or do is given unto us to outpicture, but in visualizing as in photography, we must de­cide upon a definite object and hold it in view.

How to Get Your Mental Energy Down to Business

There is another type of mind to which no object in life in particular occurs. Per­sons of this kind are very much in the same position as a person who might go forth with a Kodak on a Sunday afternoon with nothing in particular in mind which they desire to reproduce; the mind-camera of such persons is trained nowhere in particu­lar ; and they are just as well satisfied when no object occurs to them on their journey through life. Such minds have very few definite objects in life; and until they are animated by the glory, inspiration and en­thusiasm experienced by the amateur cam- era-enthusiast who takes joy in reproduc­ing the wonders and beauties of nature and of all things, they will not find interest in deliberately and scientifically providing those definite mental objects in the reproduction of which there is so much creational inspiration and in the rightful having of which we can find such intense joy and happiness.

Lastly we speak of the abstract-thinking mind which finds the deliberate formulation of a definite mental object difficult, We cannot mentally photograph an abstract thought, as little as a photographer can take a photograph of the sky or of a landscape unless these contain objects — clouds, birds, horizon-line, hills, cows, trees and roads. If these objects were not a part of his outlook the reproduced picture would appear as a blank. Visualizing cannot deal with mental abstractions and until this type of mind is educated and trained to develop and use its mechanical faculties, definite visualizing re­sults are impossible. It is only as we define our desires into modes or moulds of objec­tive thinking, and our objective thinking into terms of three dimensions — length, breadth and thickness — that we are able to establish definite objects of thought for reproduction.

It will be found helpful for such minds to formulate and establish definite mental concepts by direct means of visible objects.

Thus, a student of this type of mind, anxious to visualize let us say a home, should secure catalogues and books illus­trating homes, select the one most desirable and then hold it in consciousness until it can be seen very definitely in the mind with eyes closed and without the outward illustration. Rooms can be selected in a similar manner, together with their furnishings and all other details, until finally the mind has a very definite and detailed pattern of a home on which to work.

This happens unconsciously in many cases where a certain mental object of the mind is acted upon by outside conditions and circumstances favorable to the estab­lishment and development of the picture. An intern, for instance, attends patients just as if he were a physician, and even though he does do a lot of damage to us at this time, he talks, acts and feels like a “ regular ” and glides into his career as a physician almost without any conscious evi­dence of the transition.

We observe this still more in the girl who, for instance, is unconsciously visualizing a home of her own. We see her fussing about the kitchen, attempting to bake cakes, and persisting in making biscuits which every- me tries to excuse themselves from eating. CJnwittingly she is making her picture by the help of these outward related things to which she applies herself with such interest.

A Mental Picture that Came True

Another instance is interestingly told by a successful business man:

“One of the strongest patterns outlined in my own mind was a long while materi­alizing. It was etched upon my mind as a lad of twelve growing up in Kentucky.

“On our main street was the county’s only bank, and in the president’s office was the county’s only roll-top desk. From the hour I first laid eyes upon it, the enchant­ment was enslaving. Once when selling a newspaper to this money king, I had dared to raise and lower its folding mechanism and my imagination continued the opera­tion far into the night. I began to visualize the future in the terms of a roll-top desk.

“From my mother’s millinery shop I se­cured an old-fashioned spool case which, thanks to rare flights of imagination, I im­provised into my first roll-top desk. This mechanical success was achieved only to find a roll-top desk of little consequence in the absence of mail to be answered from it or filed away in its pigeon holes. This handicap was short lived, for a travelling man who shared my confidence was quick to suggest that I would find in the mail-order houses of New York and Chicago prolific correspondents. I recall the day my postal cards were sent to the big mail-order houses, asking them to put me on their mailing lists for catalogues, circular letters, etc. Soon I began to reccive all the mail I could answer. We had in our town what we called a tri-daily mail service, — that is, the train ran around the foot-hills to the trunk line every morning and tried to get back that night. That train never came in late enough to find me in bed. I was always at the Post Office with the village merchants, waiting for my mail: moreover, I took it home, spread it out on my roll-top desk, and answered it with all the promptness of a man who had money with which to buy. My friends said that I was spending all my time and postage for nothing, because I could not buy anything. Years later, upon reach­ing New York and taking possession of my first roll-top desk, I found how true it was to the mental pattern.

“Thus my roll-top desk became the re­minder of one of life’s most valued lessons —  that I am always seeing what I look for. My roll-top desk has been ^u seed-corn ” which sent in an abundant harvest on the first incoming ship. Since that* day I have taught myself to expect nothing for which I cannot construct the concrete mental life; that every great career has had its air- castle stage; that the world’s greatest em­pire builders first ran toy trains over toy railroad tracks. One of life’s best hours was when the drayman moved that roll-top desk into my home study.”

You Can Consciously Establish Your Concept

However, we can consciously and deliber­ately establish our mental concepts just as this business man did in an unconscious manner. We are acquainted with a dress goods merchant in a prosperous small town who makes it a practice to visit the large department stores of New York City once a week. He goes there, he says, to browse and dream, and saturate himself with the atmosphere of the place. He makes himself cognizant of big things and then mentally appropriates them for the purpose of the enlarged picture of his own store which he is establishing in his mind.

This method of establishing mental con­cepts is by means of what we call outer re­actions, whereby our mechanical faculties are heated by desire to a degree where they begin to move into self-operation, impress­ing upon the invisible substance of mind a corresponding reproduction in the form of an object of thought of what has been ob­served in an outward way. But there is a higher method which the master mind prac­tices; the method of going into the pattern- world of thought and there seeing the para­digm of what we want, and wanting it to an extent where it causes an inner reaction, thereby setting into operation the same mcchanical faculties which the outer reac­tions do. In fact the inner reaction must occur. We cannot make a mental object which has been stimulated as the result of some reaction from without, a truly definite object, unless it comes through the same form of evolvement by means of which the pattern-thought forms itself into a mental object. Whether from within or without, our mental object must originate as the re­sult of a primary desire ingenerated within ourselves.

It is desire which heats the mechanical faculties into motion, and it is the same warmth of desire which provides the struc­tural energy or vitality which fashions, sus­tains, and holds together in form the ele­mental substance of our picture giving it sufficient vitality to stand alone until the mental impression has been made.

To Make Your Mental Picture Strong and Substantial

The stronger our desire for a thing can be made, the more definite and strong and substantial becomes the mental object. Hence in our deliberative visualizing work it is necessary to select an object for our reproduction which is strongly desired rather than one which we might establish purely by the reasoning and seeing principle of mind, and which would be without the warmth, the vitality and the generative power which is inseparable from the desire- quality of our thinking.

Similarly an object which is energized purely by a mode of thinking which ex­presses itself in terms of ⁴⁴1 wish ⁹⁹ and “ I hope ” will never establish itself into any­thing more than a shadow-object of the mind. To say “ I wish I had a home like that,” or “ I hope I can get together three thousand dollars ⁹⁹ is a feeble form of initial generating power in formulating a substan­tial object of thought, and will never bring it to a point where it becomes a forcibly re­sistant object of matter.

It is only when the fervor of our want has made it practically a mandate upon our­selves, when it becomes an overwhelming desire which for the time takes possession of our whole being; when it haunts us, so to say, day after day; when not only we have come into possession of it as a mental object of our lives, but when it has come into possession of us; when it presses for further reproduction and externalization in us and through us; it is then that our energy- charged object establishes itself most defi­nitely in our consciousness. It is because of this fact that our most elementary desires find quickest propulsion into the veil of dense matter which they assume.

The more a thing is craved by us, the more definite, taut, and substantial it be­comes as an object of thought.

Make Your Object a Desirable One

In deliberate visualizing work we may not be able to bring into play the same amount of primal generative or propulsive power, or put into the building of our men­tal object the same initial structural and sustaining qualities of thinking-vitality which a magnificent passion, for instance, might generate, and so we cannot establish a thought-object which compares with the more substantial object established by the power of the passion. But always we can make our definite object a desirable object, an object strongly desired because of the values which we have reasoned out to be a part of its being, and in this way put into it a certain amount of the inherent motivating and vitalizing force which is part of the original primary movement of desire within us.

Let it not be understood that there is not a method of reproducing mental objects without having them surcharged and sus­tained by the vital quality of our desire- thinking. There is a method transcendant whereby a quality of thinking-light is ap­plied to our faculties which is as different and superior to desire-thinking as the white light of an acctylene flame is to the lurid light of a gas-flame. It is a transmutation of desire-thinking into a purer and more powerful incandescent radiancy or glow of white light. Of this form of visualizing we will speak later; — meantime we are deal­ing here with the quality of thinking with which each one of us is endowed, and this quality will determine the quality of the thing which has been reproduced out of it.

We see then that we must have a definite object in view. We must ask ourselves what we want to reproduce. Is our object a new career, a new condition, a new kind of life, or is it some more specific object such as money, diamonds, automobile, yacht, home, children, husband, wife, friend, lover, business, bank account, travel, social position or clothes? By means of visualizing we can have any or all of these things reproduced and become a part of our outward lives, provided they are first of all established as definite objects of our inner lives.

Also let us remember that the establish­ment of such a definite object in the mind serves the purpose of supplanting any un­desirable picture which may exist mentally or outwardly.

If we do not substitute some positive object in our minds and hold that object before us for reproduction, then, the unpleasant object  —  whether it be a condition, circumstance, person, or thing — will continue to stay in our lives, and cause us un­happiness. We will touch upon this more fully later on.

 

CHAPTER II

VIEWING OUR MENTAL OBJECT

FOR purpose of comparison let us again refer to the photographer. Having selected a definite object for photographic purposes, his next step is to make a study of it through the camera in order to see his object in the “ right light ” ; to get a proper focus and perspective of it, and to get its proper range. So he throws the dark cloth over the opening of the camera’s illumining chamber and underneath this he peers at his ohject by means of a sheet of ground glass called the “ focusing screen.”

By this we observe that he does not look at his object directly but at the projected object of light reflected in the camera. He studies his object by means of reflection. He can ohserve it only as it reflects itself to him. In a word, he sees by reflection.

In like manner, having selected a definite mental object, the next step in visualizing is to make a conscious study of the thought through our mcntal-eamera in order to see our object in the ⁴⁴ right light ” ; to get a proper focus and perspective of it, and to get its proper range. We peer into the dark illumining chamber at the established thought which we desire to reproduce.

We do not see our mental object directly but rather its image or projection reflected in the mind. We study our object by means of reflection. We are able to observe it only as it reflects itself to us. In a word, we see by reflection, so that when we say we are “ reflecting ” upon a certain object, we are speaking with scientific accuracy, since that is precisely what we are doing men­tally. Our inner vision, by means of reflec­tion, beholds the illumined thought-image which our desire has brought forth for us to contemplate, and possibly to reproduce in the outwardly visible world. If it is desirable we say that it “ looks good ” to us, and unconsciously we proceed further along the lines of reproduction.

 

CHAPTER III

LOOKING INTO MENTAL ILLUMINING CHAMBER

THE black focusing cloth which the photographer throws over the top opening of the camera provides the means which enables him to see his object in reflec­tion. By means of it he is also able to see his object first of all in the “ right light.” If he allowed the general outside light of the sun to pour into the opening at the top of the camera, it would break in upon the differentiated and specialized light which has established itself and is suspended as a light-image inside. It would break in upon his reflection. But by thus keeping all other outside light-reactions from enter­ing into the illumining chamber, the photog­rapher’s reflection remains undisturbed.

In our preparations in visualizing, the quiet, dark room in which our mental work is done, serves the purpose of the dark cloth in an outwardly corresponding sense. The daylight is coarse and crude in contrast to the mind-light which forms our thought- objects and so even though our thought- form is protected within the mind, yet our outer consciousness is cognizant of and vi­brating at the rate of the daylight which is present, and to this extent at least inter­feres with the clearness of the reflected image of the finer light in the mind’s dark chamber.

More than this, our darkened room pro­vides the outward condition by means of which we facilitate our entrance mentally into the inner condition, or rather that quiet darkened place in our consciousness where we are able to see and examine all things by reflection; where we can see them “ in the right light ” ; where the undifferen­tiated, unspecialized general light of our ob­jective thinking cannot break in upon and pour itself upon the differentiated, spe­cialized, projected thought which has es­tablished its illumined self and is suspended in our consciousness.

By keeping the pulsations of all other light, whether daylight or the subtler light of our outer thinking from penetrating to this dark chamber of our being, our il­lumined reflection of our object remains un­disturbed.

In preparing a room of this kind, the more completely dark it can be made, the better we will be able to condition our mind subjectively for reflection. If such pro­vision cannot be made during the day, then we can arrange an hour of the night. Often our best reflections are at night in bed.

Of course, it must not be understood that we are unable to condition ourselves sub­jectively except by the use of this outer method. The trained mind can enter into a subjective condition at any time and in any place. But it is well for the beginner in visualizing to observe these external helps at least until dependence upon them is found unnecessary.

 

CHAPTER IV

SEEING BY REFLECTION

WE have ohserved up to now that the outward object which the photog­rapher seeks to photograph is really a body of light densified to a degree where we call it a concrete thing or ohject visible to the eye. We have observed that against this ohject the finer rays of sunlight, as yet unformed, are continually pouring themselves hut that when the lens of the camera catches and focuses them into the illumining chamber, they do take form, shaping themselves into the exact image of the ohject from which they happen to he reflected. It is hecause of this fact that the photographer is ahle to peer into the top opening of his camera and see his ohject in the illumining chamher by means of reflection.

Precisely so with the illumined object of thought estahlished and held in the mind. It is a hody of mental light, densified or “ thought out ” as we would say; thought outwardly to a degree where it becomes an actual⁴⁴ object of thought” ; a thing of our desire-thinking, mentally visible to the inner eye. We have observed that against this ⁴⁴ object of the mind,” whatever it may be, we direct the rays of a finer, whiter quality of ingenerated mental-light. This finer thinking we call ⁴⁴ the light of wis­dom,” ⁴⁴ the light of understanding, ⁴⁴ the light of reason.” We pour it against⁴⁴ the thing in mind ” in a continuous spray as it were, and so we say we are ⁴⁴ thinking upon it.” But this thinking is of an unformed kind. It is only when the faculties of the mind are leveled toward this thinking- light ; when the camera-eye of the mind catches and focuses it into the illumining place of our consciousness where we can be­hold it, that this inner light takes form, shaping itself into the exact image of the mental object which it is mentally reflect­ing. As a result of this, we are able to see our object in the form and light of our understanding, wisdom, reason, or what­ever other term our illumined thinking may be called.

 

CHAPTER V

CONTEMPLATING THE PROJECTED THOUGHT

WE see by the preceding chapter, that the photographer in peering through his camera observes not his object but the image of his object which is made up of the collected rays of sunlight. By means of this reflection he now examines his object from every angle. He contemplates its pos­sibilities or lack of possibilities from a photographic point of view; its advantages and disadvantages — everything concern­ing it is brought under his careful and de­liberate judgment, wisdom, reason and knowledge.

In our studies now we know that what we contemplate is not our objective thought but its projection, its image which is made up of the light of our understanding. By means of this reflection we ought to examine our object of thought from every angle. We should contemplate its possibilities or lack of possibilities from a visualizing point of view; its advantages and disadvantages — so that everything concerning it will be brought out in the imaged thought itself, because it is made up of the light of our own judgment, wisdom, reason and under­standing.

We pass upon its value to us; its fitness, in the same light not only in which the photograpber passes upon his object, but in which a Board of Censors of the movies, let us say, passes upon the worth and desira­bility of a projected picture. The light of our own understanding and judgment is taking imaged form, and while this reflec­tion is formulating itself within our con­sciousness, a number of questions, relative to our thought in mind will present them­selves.

Am I Making the Bight Mental Picture?

“Am I permitted to visualize this desire which has formed itself as an object of thought and is now projected in my mind ? ” asks the moral mind.

“I do not know whether it is right to take it upon myself to bring this thing to pass; whether God really wishes I should have it,” says the meek-minded.

“I do not think it is wise to use this power deliberately in attaining material success, social position, increased husiness, automobile, money, diamonds, yachts or clothes,” says the spiritual-minded.

“Is this possible of being visualized”? ” asks the doubtful one.

“I desire these things which can he had through visualizing, and which are now be­fore me for contemplation, but how am I to know whether I will like them when they are come into my life? ⁹⁹ asks the expedient mind. ^{4 4} How do I know whether they will prove good or bad for me when visual­ized? ”

Finally the reasonable question is: “Is this ohject now under contemplation really the thing which I want to bring into my outward life? Will it make me happier, better, more joyous?”

This is the asking element usually in­carnated as a part of our object of thought and which manifests itself during our re- flection upon it. Let us see how we will arrive at the answer to it.

 

CHAPTER VI

RIGHT POINT OF VIEW NECESSARY

BY means of the reflection in the camera, the photographer is able to establish a point of view. Here a wide latitude is pos­sible. Watch two photographers, for in­stance, photographing a similar object in their studios. Probably we will find two entirely different photographic views be­cause their points of view mentally are dif­ferent.

The one may produce a better picture be­cause his point of view both from a photo­graphic and mental standpoint was better —  he had more and better light, together with more and better judgment of relative values, of proportion, of fitness and beauty, than that of the other.

The photographer who has the best knowl­edge of perspectives obtains the best results. He places stress upon this part of the tech­nique of his work. Watch him as he shifts his tripod or object from place to place in order to get the very best point of view pos­sible. He tries many so that he may get what to him is the best. To the ordinary observer his efforts may appear to be in the nature of exaggerated carefulness, but the professional photographer knows how much depends upon the point of view. He may have a clear and vivid object in his camera but if his perspective is not correct, he will reproduce a disproportioned and distorted picture.

In a similar manner it goes without say­ing that in reflecting upon our thought-ob- ject, we are really seeking to get the best possible point of view.

So much in our deliberate visualizing de­pends upon how we look at things mentally; upon our viewpoint, not only as it relates it­self to the reflection of the object in mind, but to all things in general. How often we invite this or that into our lives which we regret later on! All because our outlook upon things, upon life, upon the world, or whatever the specific object on which we re­flect, was not based upon a proper point of view. We may have a clear and vivid object in mind and yet, because of a distorted perspective, a disproportioned out­come of our visualizing may result. For this reason, and until we come into the con­sciousness which enables us to see truly all things which we visualize, it is advisable to look at our thought-image from many points of view just as the photographer does, taking wisely into consideration the viewpoints of others whose minds have specialized in the study of the particular object we are seeking to reproduce, making these serve in correcting and assisting us until finally we come to a single, satisfying reflection of our own, and to us then this is the right perspective, the right point of view to take relative to the imaged thought in mind, the best for us for the time being.

The True Point of View for Your Picture

Potentially, of course, the true point of view for us exists and always has existed within our own consciousness. In a subse­quent chapter we will be assisted scientifi­cally in consciously establishing this always correct viewpoint as it relates itself to all our thoughts. Meantime, as a help to us in establishing our point of view mentally, let us remember that we are permitted to vis­ualize and reproduce whatsoever we will, and that whatsoever we are able to will we are able to formulate into a thought-image, and anything which the mind can thus formulate into a thought-image, we have the power to reproduce in the outwardly visible world.

Anything which the heart desires to have is right to be visualized, providing, of course, that we know to what purpose our heart desires it. We are given unlimited choice and the fullest freedom in our mental photography in reproducing those things which we want to impress and express in our ever-expanding outward lives; in repro­ducing everything which we feel will make life more delightful, more beautiful, more good for us. There are no “do not tres­pass ” signs anywhere in all the unlimited range of prospect with which we deal in mind.

The only restrictions or limitations to our outpieturing of the things which we desire, are the circumstances and conditions which are inherent in and are a part of all conditional things, and the only penalty attached to the seeking and possession of them is that which is involved in the use to which things are put and the purpose they serve.

So, while our choice of mental objects is as unlimited and free as mind itself, yet before we definitely set to work upon any one of them, whether money, automobile, home, business, clothes or aught else, we stop for a moment to ask ourselves the pur­pose of our outpicturing. What are we go­ing to do with these mental objects when they come to us as things f

Do we mean to hoard our money when we get it ? Do we mean to use it to enforce our will upon others % Do we expect to use it in establishing a business or a home where we can hire employees or servants to do our work for us, and so allow us to indulge our­selves and to “ take things easy? ^r’ Do we plan a home and a style of living which will only serve to arouse the envy and hatred of others ?

Do we plan clothes to display ourselves in a manner unbecoming to us? Or do we plan every mental picture to have it serve and help others as well as ourselves attaching to it a purpose commendable and praise­worthy in the eyes of all.

In either case, of course, our picture will come forth into realization regardless of the purpose in back of it, but nevertheless its purpose will decide whether the realization of our picture will be of real use to us, and whether the effort and time used in bring­ing it into our lives was really worth while.

So we see that our visualizing powers are entirely passive, and so we can use them for bringing whatsoever we will out of the in­visible everywhere into the visible here: ever conscious, that the exercise of our free choice entails a definite result correspond­ing with our choice.

The thief can establish a perfect conccpt of a home which he desires to burglarize, and find that home; he can visualize each step of the way, and if his mental picture is perfect, his results will be perfect. The gam­bler can visualize a gambling house crowded with gamblers, and if his inner picture is correct he can establish a gambling house on the outward plane which will correspond with the concept in his mind, but he does not know that the exercise of this perfectly passive power, so completely under the con­trol and direction of his own free will and choice, entails a definite result correspond­ing not only with his mental picture, but with his choice.

As neophytes in the study of visualizing we will not be able to understand this fact fully at this time, but as we go forward in our lessons, the truth of it will disclose it­self more clearly.

Why it is Right to Demonstrate Beautiful Clothes, an Automobile, etc.

Let us remember another truth in con­nection with our efforts here to arrive at a correct viewpoint, and that is, that the thing visualized is as passive as is the visu­alizing power itself in its effect for good or so-called bad. The most material thing imaginable can be visualized to good pur­pose. In fact, in true visualizing we spirit­ualize everything, as we shall see in our studies later on. We need simply to under­stand the underlying spiritual significance attached to the thing we want, in order to have it serve its purpose in good or God.

It is just as legitimate to visualize a beauti­ful wardrobe of clothes, an automobile, a diamond, a home, a piano, a bank account, a husband, a wife, a child, a lover, a friend, a strong body or a more beautiful environ­ment, as it is to visualize ourselves as saints. In fact, true sainthood in this world will de­pend ultimately upon the manner in which we sanctify the object and purpose to which we put the good things which are so abun­dantly provided for us to have, to use, and to enjoy. When we get this point of view established, then we will see that a mere ap­pointment mutually visualized, can be made a divine arrangement full of inspiration and joy to the two minds participating therein, and however far we go in the enumeration of what may be even purely sense-desires and sense-objects, we find that when we look at them from the proper point of view, we find that they are intended to serve the normal and necessary fulfillment of our outward sense-life. The mind which needs sense-development will manifest this need by perfectly normal desires for emo­tional experiences, and such needs will make our minds receptive mediums for the passing in and through us of this elementary kind of “ enlightment.” The proper point of view is that primary desires of this kind under regulation and control and with due regard for other minds are legitimate to be formulated and reproduced until that time in our lives has been reached when our out­ward unfoldment on the sense-plane has been fulfilled both insofar as it concerns us individually and as it concerns the univer­sal elementary thinking which seeks to ex­press itself through us in elementary forms.

Then this quality of desire-thinking ceases to pass through us of its own accord as motion or emotion owing to the fact that we have ceased to be appropriate channels for its operation or because we have made ourselves finer mediums for a different, higher, finer urge of thinking-light which manifests itself in the higher, finer forms of desire which we call aspirations.

There is a method by means of which all our lower forms of desire may be trans­muted into aspirations. When our desires are thus refined, our point of view toward its reflected mental object becomes finer, and the thought-image which reflects this object makes a clearer impression, develops more rapidly and definitely, because more finely outlined, though not as luridly as the desire-objects of a more elementary kind.

Nevertheless, our point of view remains the same, namely, that desire in its most elemental movement or emotion within us and through us is always pure. It is only at the time when we specialize it as an ob­jective thought and contemplate its re­flected image in our sense-consciousness by means of the light of our understanding, that we are liable to get a wrong point of view as to its purpose in manifesting in us and through us; we are liable to get a wrong perspective toward it; to make it an end in­stead of a means in our outward sensc-de- velopment, and in this wise a refraction occurs. Our thought-image becomes in­verted, and often thus the desire which we had hoped and prayed for, comes into fulfill­ment as a source of sorrow, disappointment, woe. It was not the desire which brought about the misery but our misconception of it due to a wrong point of view insofar as its purpose in our lives is concerned.

 

CHAPTER VII

MENTAL FOCUSING TO BE CONSIDERED

IN the contemplation of his object for the purpose of reproduction, the photog­rapher seeks to fix his image properly and definitely in the illumining chamber. He seeks to get the clearest and sharpest light- image possible, and then to steadily hold it there with the help of his tripod until an accurate impression has been made.

This is so in contemplating our projected thought in reflection. We must seek to get a correct focus, to fix our illumined thought- image properly and definitely in the il­lumining chamber of our consciousness; to get the clearest and sharpest concept pos­sible, and then steadily hold it before us with the help of the tripod of the mind — the will — until an accurate mental impres­sion has been made.

As in other instances where the fixed will is brought into play, the focusing and con­centrating of the imaged thought within the range of our comprehension, and its retention there, does not imply a tension of mind. True concentration, as we have ex­plained before, does not imply mental rigidity or strained effort of any kind. The firming principle in our thinking which holds our object of thought until its im­pression is made, ought to be brought into use as easily as the photographer uses his lens and tripod for the same purpose.

It ought to be, as we said before, one of the most delightful phases of our visualiz­ing work, and it will be when we fix our attention upon the imaged object of our thought, because we love it; when we can say of that which we are contemplating: ^u This one thing ‘ I do,^? or ‘ will have * or ⁱ will be ^? with all my might, with all my joy, with all the power of application which I possess, with all the faith, all the assurance, all the ability, all the interest and attention of which I am capable.”

Focusing Your Attention on the Imaged Object

It is unnecessary to say that real focusing means that our imaged object must claim all our attention and interest at the time of impression. Our focusing must be single to the thought held in view. We must concen­trate our entire mental faculties on it. ‘‘ Keep thine eye single,” Solomon advised, and this advice is applicable in focusing upon our mental object. We must keep our eye single to the imaged thought upon which we are concentrating our attention. No other object must be permitted to es­tablish and intrude itself unless directly re­lated to it.

However, when we speak of one object of thought, we do not mean that this object necessarily must be comprised of only one thing. One thought may take in a number of things, so long as they are directly re­lated. In fact, it may take a number of things to make a complete picture, just as the camera focuses upon a house, a ham, fence and tree, all of which are a part of the one picture which the photographer intends to reproduce.

The highly imaginative mind always will find many tliouglit-images crowding them­selves forward. In fact, there is no limit to the capacity of our consciousness to receive related objects, and in every instance where these are associated with the original concept or purpose of our visualizing, they become a part and often a very essential part of our outpicturing.

But sometimes it is quite a task to ex­clude images from the mind which are en­tirely unrelated to the one on which we are focusing, especially if they be images which symbolize or have in them the elements of failure, discouragement and disharmony. They intrude themselves into the charmed circle of focused light which our mental ob­ject or picture has become, and very often, if we do not hold to the central thought in our mind steadfastly, then these other thought-imagcs will eclipse it, causing a continual distraction of attention. These vagrant thoughts are very much like the small boys who try to intrude themselves in the picture when objects for a movie film are being photographed in the streets, and when the utmost vigilance is necessary to prevent their entrance into the picture. So in outpicturing a certain mental object, we must ever be alert to exclude all those imaged thoughts which are not associated with, or a part of, the mental object which we are planning to outpicture.

Sometimes thought-objects make their appearance which are not only alien, but in opposition or contradiction to the ob­ject under reflection. Often an opposing thought-image of this kind is provoked into being by the element of fear.

We may have had need, say of a thousand dollars; we may have formulated a thought- object of this amount of money; we may have imaged it in our consciousness when probably a counter-image slides into the field of our focusing; “ What will happen ” we say, ^{4 4} if I do not get the thousand dol­lars? ” We conjure the sheriff and see him at our doors, we see our business brought to ruin, or some other image appears to sup­plant the true image upon which we have sought to focus our attention.

How to Image a Beautiful Home and Prosperous Business

We may visualize and establish a concept of a beautiful home; we may establish in it a most beautiful suite of furniture, and then, soon after, we may go to our present living rooms and there allow ourselves to see our old shoddy furniture so vividly that it fixes itself in our minds to an extent where we “ grow sick at the thought of it.” The imaged thought of the new home and the new furniture is spoiled and in some in­stances effaced by the stronger and more vitalized thought-image of the shabby fur­niture upon which we have permitted our attention to be focused.

This applies to the imaged thought of a prosperous business or of any form of af­fluence and success which we are trying to visualize. If our attention is focused upon our debts, or any of the circumstances of our seeming poverty or failure, the other object upon which we are trying to focus will be blurred or obscured and will be spoiled before ever it reaches the stage of outward development.

We hear a person in such a condition of mind say: “I see want staring me in the face.” The probability is that if the atten­tion is focused upon want, we will find it making its outward appearance in the form of a poverty-stricken home, or condition, or even in a poverty-stricken body. Our true object which should occupy our complete attention, should be in the form of plenty, not want. We should be able to declare ^{i 1}1 see plenty staring me in the face,” whether in the form of a comfortable home, a pros­perous business, or a rich life. When we can dcclare this as our object and no other, then we know that we are reflecting upon the scientific truth of our being which nor­mally objectifies itself in life, healtb, strength, power and plenty. An instance of shutting out the picture of an undesirable physical condition, and focusing upon a perfect physical one, is illustrated in the following:

A Possible Cancer Healed by True Mental Images

“About two months after I came home from the hospital I noticed a peculiar gray­ish-brown horny growth in the cuticle of my thumb-nail. It looked so odd I kept looking at it and wondering what it could be

“At first the chief annoyance was the disfigurement, hut during the following year it hegan to have spells of burning and biting, and hegan to spread up the side of the nail. I began to fear a cancer on my thumb, and had visions of the doctor having to ampu­tate the thumb or at least one joint of it. As I had heen reading everything I could get on the mind and the different methods of curing disease through faith and mind, I tried visualizing. I gave the treatment of picturing the thumb smooth, white, and just as it should look, about a week, trying not to look at it at all. Then I calmly forgot all ahout the thumb and the treatment for ahout a month. One morning it came into my mind that my thumh had not heen sting­ing and burning for a long time, and the thought of the forgotten treatments struck my heart with a pang and I hastily looked carefully at my thumb, to find that the wart had taken advantage of my lack of memory to * fold its tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away/ ⁹⁹

The element of fear at the moment of our focusing may not always provoke an op­posing object of thought, but it can disturb the whole mental-mechanical apparatus of which the physical eye is a part. Throw a person into a state of fear and his or her eyeballs fairly stand out from their sockets and the lenses converge to a point where the whole sight becomes distorted and re­fracted, and we find that such a person “ cannot see straight.”

Aside from possible temporary interfer­ences of this kind, our focus upon things, upon ourselves, upon the world, and upon life is not always of a correct kind. Some** times there is a fundamentally incorrect position of the lense of our mental-eye, causing a refraction mentally just as there may be a fundamentally incorrect position of the camera-eye or physical eye, causing a wrong focus upon objects. Sometimes there exists a hlurred mental-light, caused hy an unhealthy mental condition, and preventing a true focus. We hear persons say: “ When I look ahead I see nothing hefore me,” or “ the future looks dark.” These mental conditions must first he corrected before a true focus can occur. What the skilled camera-lens maker can correct in the physi­cal eye, we can correct in the single inner eye of our mental-camera, or in our mental

 

CHAPTER VIII

FINDING THE RANGE OF OUR IMAGED THOUGHT

THE photographer peers into the dark chamber of the camera in order to get the proper range of his photographic ob­ject, and to get everything within this range which he feels will serve in enhancing his object as a reproduced picture. He may decide to take in the whole of a beautiful landscape or he may narrow his range to a single object — say a house — to the exclu­sion of all else.

Looking at our imaged thought, we ap­ply our range-finding faculty for the same purpose in order to get everything neces­sary within the range of our comprehen­sion; everything which we feel will serve in enhancing our object of thought under reflection.

Our visualizing will be either broad or narrow according to the range of outlook directed not only toward our mental object but toward all that which relates itself to our object.

Especially is this so in those instances where minds have become focused upon the things which hamper, or circumscribe or limit, or enslave, or deprive them from see­ing the larger and more comprehensive ob­jects in life. We cannot, for instance, pic­ture a substantial mansion if wc cannot look beyond the vision of ourselves huddled in a small room. We cannot comprehend the whole of a beautiful landscape, or of a life, if our breadth of vision enables us to see nothing more than the ant-hill at our feet.

We have a habit, too, of so adjusting our “ inner eye ” the eye of our mental-camera, that our perspective seems ^u too far away ¹⁹ for our attainment as the common expres­sion is. Let us remember that in our as­pirations and desires, nothing that we con­ceive should seem too far away for possible attainment. We have the ability in visual­izing to bring everything into close per­spective to us if we will. We would be sur­prised to have an amateur photographer de­clare: ^u There is a beautiful scene which I wish I could take, but it is too far away. I cannot adjust my perspective to take it in. It is not within the range of my camera.” Others see rocks, shoals, and all sorts of snags and dangers ahead. This is not the case with the camera-enthusiast. He clam­bers rocks, struggles through ravines, scratches himself going through thickets, and wades swift running brooks until he has planted his camera within range of the picture which he wants.

How to Co-operate in Making Our Mental Pictures Come True

Our mental attitude must be the same toward that which we want, but which does not seem to be within our mental reach. We must co-operate by moving consciously to­ward it, not only by constantly enlarging our vision, our picture of that which we wish to be, or have, or do, but by acting, by moving toward it in a physical sense, just as the amateur moves toward his prospect, joyously, expectantly, enthusiastically, even though brambles and brooks intervene.

In visualizing we train ourselves to see beyond the momentary crisis, beyond the unpleasant features, beyond the human ele­ments with which we may be seemingly sur­rounded, making our small vision, the large vision, and so touching those distances and heights of which we will speak more fully in our concluding studies.

Let us not forget that as we enlarge our own heart, our own seeing of everybody and everything will enlarge itself and this in turn will help us in visualizing big things. Let us see in everybody that which is great and big, and then our inner spiritual pic­tures will take the same proportions.

It is impossible for the range-finder of a camera, which has been adjusted to take in a large perspective, to see the smaller things which it may happen to encompass, and should we ever see smallness in anybody or anything, it behooves us to adjust our visu­alizing instrument to a point where the smallness in our minds is lost in the larger vision. Our own lives are either broad or narrow according to the range of outlook directed toward that which relates itself to our lives.

If our outlook is small, then our lives will be small, and encompassed with limitations. The Israelites who went to the edge of the land of milk and honey saw only how little they were. They declared: “We were in our own sight as grasshoppers.” To be thus small in our own eyes is a tragedy. It is only those who dare to see themselves great; who dare to vision the big things of life, “ the big idea ” who are great.

When our range of vision once finds the bigger things of life, then we cease to be the man or woman of small affairs, holding to the personal point of view, striving for personal ends; and we become the types of man &nd woman universal, who live and love and are a part of a great and gloriously big world, capable of seeing themselves as a part of the Larger Self which encompas­ses not only ourselves but all else. The limited, small self disappears, and in its place appears the larger man, the larger woman, untrammeled and expanding into the image and likeness of the divine pro­jection.

It is by means of our range-finding faculty that we are able to extend our mental object into time and space.

Projecting Your Thought Images Into the Future

Once we thought it incredible to be able to “”look into the future” ; to foresee the future; but today we know that the mind is capable of doing this by projecting its seeing faculty, its range-finding faculty not into the future but into the everywhere and eternal present of which the so-called future is a part. We know that in reality there is no future, except as it is conceived within the limits of our sense-restrictions. The photographer does not project his range-finding instrument into the future or into time. He projects it into distance, as distance is measured by this range-finding device of the camera, and by his outward sense-vision. But our true vision; our in­ner vision knows neither time or distance, and when we bring it into play in visualiz­ing, we are not seeing our mental object or thought-image in the future, but in the present. The really true so-called “ fortune teller ” or clairvoyant does not need the crystal or the star or the tea leaves in order to project his range-finding faculty to a point which affords him a larger and more complete outlook upon our affairs than we ourselves may be able to exercise. If he be a true seer, he will see what he sees because he has developed within him the ability to bring into play his range-finding faculty, so that he can see more of the continuation of our­selves, our environment, our condition, or our surroundings than we can see, just as the photographer by the manipulation of his range-finding instrument is able to extend the originally limited scene toward which his camera is directed until he sees more and more of the distant landscape. In what seemed simply a general landscape, a sheep appears, or a tree, or a house which he was not able to see before, although these always existed and were always present as a part of the landscape as a whole. So the true seer sees as a part of our lives those things which are not yet within the range of our own more limited vision. In like manner we have the same range-finding power to see the full picture of whatever we plan to bring into realization.

Often we have heard the expression ^u He has an eye to the future,” or he has an eye on the position of manager or superintend­ent or president of the company. The term, scientifically explained, means that this far­sighted one has brought his range-finding faculty into use, he is looking into the present in a projected or far-seeing or fore­seeing manner, so that he is able to image or shape more of his life’s picture than is visible or apparent in the outward present. His full picture may take some years to make its outward appearance by steps of promo­tion and preparation which follow in logical outward order, but his arrival at the place or in the position pictured, is already an established fact of the present moment.

In that period of time when our spiritual eye beheld the image; when we saw the thought, and impressed it upon the infinitely sensitive filmy-texture of our subconscious mind, then the picture became a definite thing.

It exists in reality, and, as observed in other lessons, all that we must do is to pro­ceed with that definite and intelligently directed outward effort which is necessary on our part.

In the manner that our picture is a spiritual reality, so are all those things which belong to it, a reality in our existence. It is just like the myriads of atoms in the photographic solution of which we have spoken in a previous lesson. They are in solution; they cannot be seen by the eye, but they are in existence nevertheless, ready to move toward the light-image on the film the moment the conditions are made favor­able. So everything which belongs to our picture is already in existence, in solution, and if, in our visualizing we observe care­fully, in the conscious activities of the day, the developing process, then we will see com­ing into our lives, one thing after another, in due order, to the end that our picture may be fulfilled.

Mental Images of a Man Who Became Twenty-four Times a Millionaire

We recall the instance of James Tyson, twenty-four times a millionaire. He went to Australia a poor man, but his range of vi­sion enabled him to see “ the desert blossom­ing as the rose. ” He saw beyond the desert, farther than the desert, not by means of out-

 

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in regard to some action that we want to take, we must see it with our visualizing eye, our “ inner eye,” and if we want to look ahead, we must picturize the ahead until we see every condition, every possible circum­stance that will be a part of the thing we want to accomplish.

So we see that our so-called future is only as much of the ever-present part of ourselves as our range-finding ability discloses to us. “We plan for the next day,” we “look ahead,” and “ see our way clear ” or not clear in proportion that this part of our mental photographic equipment for visual­izing is brought into use, and the more wc recognize this faculty and use it in our visualizing work, the less will we be subject to the circumscribed limitations which we so often establish for ourselves in our outward lives.

 

CHAPTER IX

ENLARGING OUR MENTAL IMAGES

WE have spoken of an enlarging device attached to the more improved cam­eras for enlarging the light-image in the camera. As the photographer peers at his object under reflection, he uses this device to “ bring out ” whatever he feels is most desirable to be brought out in the picture he is preparing to photograph.

In our actual visualizing work we will have occasion similarly to use the enlarging faculties of the mind for “ bringing out ” whatever we feel is most desirable to be brought out in connection with our mental object. In fact, the best results will depend upon the faithful application of this mental principle. Whatever we visualize — friend­ships, surroundings, conditions, circum­stances, money, home, business — all that we want to do or be or have, will be based upon the largeness or smallness of the imaged thought of these things in our minds. If we determine at the time of reflection to see mentally all things which we wish to bring into outward manifestation in a “ large way,” then these things will outpicture themselves in like proportion. If we reflect upon them in a small way, then the results of our visualizing will be small.

The easiest and most successful method of enlarging our concepts, and, in fact, the easiest and most successful method of visualizing at all times, is to select our con­cepts from among the most desirable things which are already a part of our outward lives, and see them mentally in an enlarged way.

The good is always close by, and in every­thing, though unperceived at times by our limited visions. It is for us to see it men­tally in everything, in an enlarged sense; to see it enlarged in our consciousness by the magnifying power of our mental-camera. The affair, the environment, the circum­stance, the condition, the friend, the home, the husband, which or who we would fain see changed, is part of the background for the larger picture which we must establish in our own consciousness first.

Poor indeed, are those in whom this en­larging power has never been developed; who say that they “ can see nothing ” in this or that; “ nothing worth while.” For these let us say, that everything in which we are engaged is worth while as a means of estab­lishing the larger concept within our con­sciousness. Nothing is “ too small ” if we know how to make the small thing the large thing. In most instances the small things in our lives are such only because our manner of “ looking at things,” our mental per­spective, is small, and we fail in making the small things of life big by not seeing the opportunities which they possess. We must remember that a lifelong consciousness of so-called limitations makes it difficult for us to see the potential possibilities inherent in the most commonplace environment, situ­ation, condition or thing.

The story is told of a western youth who saw a small heap of scrap tin which had been thrown into a vacant lot as waste. He looked at the scrap intently for a moment, and then an idea came into his mind. He picked up a piece of the waste tin, and began to bend and shape it according to the picture in his mind, and soon he had fashioned a small pocket match-box. He sold the box, crude as it was, and with the small capital of fifteen cents, he invested in some enamel in order to give a better finish to his next box. His idea grew and became a big seller.

This lad saw the greater thing in the seem­ingly lesser thing, and the waste tin re­turned him a fortune.

There is nothing with which we are sur­rounded, whether it be circumstance, condi­tion, or anything else, which has not in it the expanding possibilites for which we seek. The thing to do in our visualizing is to dis­cern these possibilities, to see them with the range-finding device and the enlarging de­vice of our mental facilities, and by the same focusing arrangement which exists in the enlarging camera, re-establish that which is already a desirable part of our lives, into an enlarged and idealized mental image for the purpose of reproduction and for making our lives fuller, larger and happier.

It is easier to elaborate upon and idealize that which we already are, or possess, or have accomplished, than to formulate objects in our consciousness which may involve an entirely new set of circumstances and condi­tions, because then we are expanding, en­larging, unfolding, in a logical and progres­sive mode of outward mental development. We do not assume that one who is by trade a printer is planning to visualize an automo­bile business or that a bookkeeper in an auto­mobile business is visualizing a printing establishment, although we have countless instances of attempts to visualize business enterprises in this manner. Let us cite an instance of this: A man who conducts a printing establishment would, for one secondary reason or another, like to visual­ize another business. He goes among his friends and finally he hears that there is a good field for flying-machines, and so he sells his business and visualizes on the business of flying-machines. His visualizing efforts lead him quite normally in the direction of those things having to do with, or relating to flying-machine companies, and he invests possibly with a concern started by someone more foolhardy than himself, and who knows as little about the flying business as he does, and the concern comes down to earth with a smash.

Similar instances could be recited in the nature of inquiries from those who would like to “try a hand ” at this or that, and who seek visualizing instructions. A mechanic would like to “ try his hand ” at “ the sell­ing game,” not realizing that more “ head ” than hand is needed for this form of en­deavor, and a gardener would like to become a manager of a large hotel requiring differ­ent mental training and experience. Let it not be misunderstood that a person in one form of business or position cannot visualize himself or herself into another form of busi­ness or position, but never if he or she is ac­tuated to make the change because of some secondary motive. If a person because of certain temporary conditions or circum­stances finds himself or herself in a position or business unloved by them, and is visualiz­ing himself or herself into the other position or business because of a genuine love for it, then it is evident that they are not in their right places, and that they are responding to some fundamental outworking of their own minds toward a more corresponding and harmonious outward form. But the printer who is satisfied with his business except that there is “not enough money in it,” ought to continue in the printing busi­ness, evolving from the business of simply printing dodgers and handbills, to printing booklets, stationery and catalogues, and from this to magazines and fine books, until from a bedstead printer who started by kicking his own foot-press, he becomes the president of an international printing estab­lishment with a dozen monster presses at his command.

The mechanic who wants to try his hand at “ something else,” if he is a good, me­chanic and loves his work, will visualize a small machine-shop in some empty loft in the neighborhood where he works, then hav­ing attained this he will see himself, and finally outwardly find himself, in a factory which manufactures machinery, and so es­tablish a larger and larger unit of his own mechanical mind, always working along the normal lines of expansion of the thing in which he is most proficient, for which he is most adapted by temperament and training, and to which he is attracted because of his love for the work with which he is asso­ciated.

 

The East Side Photographer Who Visualized Himself Into a Merchant Prince

Let us illustrate this more clearly by the story of an East Side photographer who died a wealthy merchant prince. His initial start in business threatened to prove a dis­appointment to him. Few customers pat­ronized his studio and he began to complain. He blamed his friends who encouraged him to establish the place; he blamed the land­lord whose unwillingness to improve the entrance to the place kept his patrons away; and he blamed the location, terming it “ a poor neighborhood in which to do business ” and asserting that its people had “ no money to spend.” In a word, he very humanly blamed circumstances, conditions, environ­ment and everything outside of himself as the cause of his seeming failure. He was seeing only the picture of his business which he had established, and was unable to see anything else except its limitations.

He poured forth his troubles to a friend who happened to call on him one day, and this friend unwittingly gave him the scien­tific formula which we are aiming to impart here.

“Since you cannot get people to give you an order for more than a half dozen photo­graphs,” he said, “ enlarge their order by enlarging their photographs for them. Whenever they call for their photographs, show them the enlarged photograph of themselves and you will make an extra sale.”

The idea took. In addition to the order for the regular half dozen or dozen photo­graphs, the photographer was able to sell a large portrait for the purpose of framing. This certainly was enlarging both the photo­graphs and the sales.

Then another elaboration of the same thought presented itself. Why not supply the frame ? He had a class of trade which would take to a highly ornamented and gilded frame, and so in inducing a flattered patron to buy an enlargment, he succeeded also in having him or her buy a gilded frame.

His business enlarged itself immensely. People from all over the populated neigh­borhood came to him with their photo­graphs taken from the family albums, of fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts and children whose visages they wanted enlarged and framed. The idea became a fad which spread out beyond the confines of the locality.

It was not long before the photographer saw that there was more money in the gilded, plaster-of-paris frames than in photographs, and so he very naturally evoluted into the business of manufacturing picture frames which he sold to other enter­prising photographers who followed his en­larging plan.

In time he became the wealthiest picture- frame manufacturer in the country, not be­cause he changed his original business, but because he was led to enlarge his thought about his business. He was given a “larger outlook.” Instead of abandoning the seemingly limited or restricted business of which he complained, he gradually came to see possibilities of expansion in it which before he had not been able to see.

How many photographers in business see possibilities of expansion of this kind? How many of them know to what extent their work can be commercialized and made profitable? Speaking before a convention which had for its purpose, the development of Northern Minnesota, a well-known pho­tographer gave a glimpse of the possibilities of the camera, and incidentally revealed in himself the type of thinking by means of which business expansion is possible.

“How many of you,” he said, ^u appreci­ate how much has been done, is being done, and can be done, by pictures % Having had years of experience in photography, facts, ideas and philosophies concerning pictures have come to me, that might not have come as fully to many others.

“Several years ago, a series of some eighty pictures that I took on and near some large tracts of land within 15 to 30 miles of my home city of Bemidji, Minn., all ten miles or more from a railroad sold 2,700 acres at retail in about 30 days after the sets of photos were put out, and wholesaled the balance of 8,300 acres soon after, so that the entire tract of 11,000 acres was sold out in about 60 days. The entire cost of a special auto trip with a party of four, to secure the views, and have the sets of post cards made, was only about $200.00, which figures out an advertising cost of 2 cents per acre.

“ Some pictures — movies and stills — of Northern Wisconsin and Upper Mich­igan — their advantages and opportunities, were shown to a western wool man at a Chi­cago convention. He was interested, and made a trip up into the territory.

“ The results have been that 25,000 sheep have already come into the territory from the west.

“ Visual instruction is being used more and more for educational purposes; by the schools, the churches, various departments of our government, etc. The problem of the Northern Minnesota Development Associa­tion is to educate people to our natural in­trinsic advantages and opportunities.

“ Our problem being, then, to educate, my plea is to do it by pictures.

“ The great preacher, Phillips Brooks, said: ^< Sight strikes deeper than sound.’ Some one else said, ‘The most direct path to the mind is through the eye.’ It is not hard to see why this is so. When one names to you anything, as table, potato, sheep, etc., your mind calls up a picture of that thing, and that picture is what conveys the idea to your mind.

“ Does any one doubt this? Why, the entire history of human speech is of man’s efforts to make sounds stand for things and ideas. Naming a thing calls up its picture in your mind, and the picture makes the impression direct, — and the intermediate speech sound is saved — one step is taken to produce the impression, instead of two. Is it not, then, entirely clear that the pic­ture is the more direct ? — speech — sound — mind picture — thought impression — two steps; photograph — thought impres­sion — one step.

You’ll be glad to think that your little Kodak, that is so much pleasure, can be of use in boosting. Snap shot the beauty spots, especially of lake and stream, for water scenes are the prettiest pictures, and they are our greatest attraction. Snap shot the good catches of fish, and the good bags of game. Snap shot the good herds and flocks; the pure bred stock; the good crops. Snap shot every large outdoor gathering of your community and all its organizations — celebrations, picnics, parades, etc. Snap shot your good roads and their making, new ditches, new land clearing, new industries, new buildings. Keep sets of such snap shots — make up simple albums of such sets — to show visitors and others. Give and send such snap shots, singly and by sets, to friends, but especially to those whom you want to interest in your section, to visit, settle, or invest.

“ They will say: ⁱ What beautiful scen­ery! What great fishing and hunting! What rich soil and prosperous people! What a lively, progressive community! ’

“ Thus you will boost by your Kodak,” See how this man has enlarged mentally the business of taking pictures. Every busi­ness has the same unlimited possibilities of application and use.

Not Necessary to Change Your Business or Position to Succeed

We see that it is not necessary to change our business, our life, our position, or any­thing in the sense in which we generally think of a change, that is, by establishing a new concept of something else in the mind, but by seeing that which is already ours, or with which we are employed, in an enlarged sense. We change these things by enlarging our consciousness toward them. We advance out of a restricted or limited en­vironment or condition by seeing the possi­bilities of expansion in it.

This is the normal way of vizualizing. Our outpicturing cannot begin at any other point of departure except at the very ccnter of that with which we may be occupied and concerned now, and when we make our i image with this in mind, then it falls into \ perfectly logical order as a sequence of a succession of events all leading from an orderly beginning or cause, and not from a number of changes.

So instead of trying to visualize some­thing radically different from that which we already are, or possess, or in which we are engaged, we will use these as the start­ing point for our imaging, viewing them as the means of leading us outward and for­ward into the more desirable, greater and better things which we seek outwardly to have, or be, or do.

In order to do this, we must see all things that are a part of us at present, not as un­desirable, but as desirable. We must put into them, all the love, all the interest, all the enthusiasm of which we are capable, seeing them in a larger and larger sense, until eventually they will disclose within themselves those enlarged concepts which when they materialize, will bring with them all the joy, all the happiness, all the success and prosperity which we believed could be had only through some entirely new source.

 

 

CHAPTER X

QUANTITY OF MENTAL LIGHT A FACTOR

ANOTHER reason why the photog­rapher contemplates his object in the illumining chamber of his camera is that he seeks to get the most possible sunlight upon it. He positions bimself this way and that way until he satisfies himself that he sees his object in the “ right light.” He places great stress upon the amount of light which pours itself upon bis object, because it is tbis light which reassembles itself in the camera as the ligbt-image, and the more in­tense this light is, the more dear and defi­nite will be the reflected image. What is more, as we observed in an earlier lesson, the depth or density of penetration of the light-image in the film-substance at the moment of impression depends upon the intensity of this very light which the photographer is now taking into considera­tion.

“ More light!” seems to be his continual thought at this stage, and so it is with us mentally in the contemplation of our thought-object. The ultimate success of our projected mental picture depends upon how clearly we are able to see it in the mind’s camera at this time. It is for this reason that we must lay the greatest stress upon the matter of having as much mental-light, as much under standing-light as possible thrown upon our thought, because it is this understanding-light which reassembles it­self in our objective consciousness as the thought-image, and the more elear the understanding is, the sharper and more clear will be its projection. In fact, as with the photographic light-image, so the depth and density of penetration of our thought upon our subjective thinking at the moment of impression depends upon the intensity of the mental-light which at this time sheds itself upon our mental object.

“ More light” will be our mental fiat during this contemplative period, remem­bering always that while the quantity of this mental-light is fixed by the unit of mind which each one of us represents, yet it has within itself the remarkable generative power of unlimited expansion, so that our declaration: “ I want all the light of under­standing possible for me to command,” means that we can command all that we will to command, and our willing can be carried to a point where our mental-object literally is bathed in understanding light, appearing to us in the highest and most effulgent manner.

There is nothing magical about this, nor do we mysteriously summon a light gener­ated somewhere within ourselves. We are able simply to secure more light upon our thought by a willingness to know our men­tal object; we must be desirous of under­standing it; we must be willing to see it from every possible angle of enlighten­ment; to see clearly all that which relates itself to our thought near and afar off, and this is the only way in which the under­standing-light within can pour itself upon our objective thought.

To secure “ more light ” upon our mental object is merely a willingness to condition our illumined thinking to a state which resolves itself into nothing more than what we term experience and observation. These we call an in-formative state of understand­ing. We say that we are well in-formed about our object. We really mean by this that everything which we have seen, heard or read in regard to our object in mind, has in-formed itself in our memory or our re­tentive phase of thinking, and what we really do mentally in providing more think­ing-light is to re-collect all these illumina­tive things and make them a part of the light of understanding which sheds itself upon our thought-object.

If this understanding-light is not suffi­cient insofar as it relates itself to our men­tal object, then we must provide more of it by making ourselves familiar with our ob­jective thought.

How to Visualize $1000

How is this done? Suppose our object in visualizing is one thousand dollars. We have a very hazy idea of a thousand dollars. Our understanding offers us a very indis­tinct image of the amount because we may seldom, if ever, have handled thousand dol­lar bills. So we must get “more light” upon our thought. We do this perhaps by going to a bank or to some place where we can see and study a thousand dollar bill or ten one hundred dollar bills at close range. If we need “ more light ” than this we may go to the extent of noting the color of the bills, the emblems upon them, the signa­tures, the numbers, the designs, the texture and the manner in which the silk fibre is woven into them. In this way our under­standing of them is made more definite and more clearly imaged in the mind, until the time when they will be impressed upon our sensitive subjective thinking.

If our thought-object is that of a busi­ness, then we obtain “more light ” upon it by becoming acquainted with the details of the kind of business which we are visualiz­ing. We go about and find out about the machinery, the building, or the store front, or the shelves, or the desks, or whatever else we need in order to illumine and make more clear the imaged enterprise in our minds.

If our mental-object is that of a home, we “throw more light” on it by going about and visiting many homes. We become acquainted with the details of a home, the furniture, the books, the rooms, the en­trance and whatever else we associate with the thought of a home, and by means of a familiarity with these things, we throw light upon our thought.

If we plan to live in a hotel, then we must frequent some of the large hotels, sit in the lobbies as part of our recreation, and ac­tually saturate our mental filament-picture with the comfortable surroundings and so- called atmosphere of the place.

However, often we do the reverse of this in our objective imaging. We see things “ in the wrong light,” meaning thereby that the light of our understanding and wisdom which we pour upon our imaged object is not sufficiently illumining to allow for clear­sightedness in our reflection, with the re­sult that we fail at the very outcome in that which we seek to bring into our lives. We entertain desires and objects at times with which we are not familiar, in a dream-like sort of way, with little real knowledge about the thing we seek to have. It is as if a photographer leveled his camera in the di­rection of the shadow of his object, instead of at the object itself. The best he can get under a condition of this kind is an obscured outward reproduction.

While we have learned that there is noth­ing else but light in all the universe, and that in reality there is no darkness, yet we know that the light which has become suffi­ciently densified as a visible object, throws a shadow.

We know, for instance, that the earth and all other outward objects, cause a shadow of this kind, and in an infinitely rarer yet parallel manner, our thought- objects throw a shadow, so that when we view them from a point or perspective where we see them in shadow instead of under the light of understanding, we get an obscured mental reproduction, and the fact that visualizing under these conditions has been the rule, has given us the many obscure lives and obscure surroundings with which we arc familiar.

When we view our mental-object with uncertainty, fear, anxiety, doubt, worry, or scepticism, we are viewing it from the wrong side, from its shadow side, and its impression will be obscured.

Viewing Your Mental Picture in the Right Light

On the other hand, when we see our men- tal-object in the ^u right light when we position ourselves toward our object in a manner where the bright light of our under­standing and wisdom can pour itself upon it, then a good impression is assured. We will be helped in this connection when we know not only all about the thing we want to have, or do, or be, but when we have a thorough understanding of why we want it, and how we intend to make use of that which we seek. It is of little value to a child wanting a toy to have it, if it does not understand how to use it. So with a clerk who might visualize the position of mana­ger. It would be of little value for him to be a manager if he did not understand the duties of a manager; likewise it would be of little avail for anyone to visualize doing a certain thing if he did not understand how to do it. All this implies the higher and finer spiritual understanding of how to use that which we seek to have, or do, or be. It means not only that we must understand the thing in mind, but the purpose for bringing it into outward expression. The understanding of this purpose will be helped when we remember that our mental pictures or thought-forms are not in them­selves the end. They are only the means to the end. If we understand this, then our visualizing becomes easy, and our faith in its outcome becomes certain.

Our light becomes the “ light of an un­derstanding faith,” and we go about in the fulfilling of our picture in the same manner in which the movie-director for instance, proceeds in creating his picture, realizing that all things are placed at his command for the making of his picture, so that when he wants a limousine, a garden, or a cottage, as a part of his proposed picture, he requi­sitions these things. He is conscious of the resources in back of Mm, and when we are conscious that in the mental realm we have even greater resources at our call, then we can go ahead with our picture with the same perfect assurance as the director does, knowing that what we need for its fulfill­ment is already in existence, and at our command.

In fact, what we usually term assurance is the result of the illumined understanding which we have regarding the thing of which we are assured.

The moving picture director, the man re­sponsible for the wonderful productions with which we are all familiar, enters upon the work of each picture with a splendid faith in its successful outcome, because he understands his work. He has faith in him­self as a directing power because he knows his power; faith in the worth of the picture which he visualizes in his mind’s eye because he understands what the public wants; faith in the selection of actors and actresses, be­cause he understands to just what parts they adapt themselves; faith in the skill of the photographer because he knows the skill of the photographer; in a word, his faith dominates the entire working out of his pic­ture, because the light of his understanding dominates his entire picture.

Back of the director stands a group of men, the promoters, who give him the im­portant assignments and the unlimited capital with which to produce the picture. They have faith in him because they know his ahility; faith in the puhlic success of the picture hecause they know he knows what the public wants.

The photographer proceeds at the very beginning of his work on the assumption that every smallest factor involved in the process of materializing his picture, will not fail him. The lens, the mechanism of the camera, the film, the developing solution — all these he takes for granted will serve him faithfully in his work of bringing his picture from the unseen film to the seen picture. The reason for this, is that he understands his instrument and the formula of reproduction; he has familiarized him­self with the laws underlying lights and shadows, time exposure, and all the other essentials for bringing ahout good results.

He does not douht or dishelieve the prin­ciple governing the operation and mecha­nism of his camera because he knows. He knows when he operates the camera in a certain way that it will reproduce the light thrown into it with unerring accuracy and truthfulness. So do we work in perfect assurance and faith when we once under­stand the principles governing the divine mechanism of the mind. They are mathe­matically true and accurate, and when we know their mode of operation, we get results just as mathematically definite, just as truthful and accurate, as those produced by the perfect camera, which, by the way, is in itself, the result of a mental picture.

What We First See in the Mind

Before the inventor of the camera brought his idea into the outwardly visible world, he had a picture of the camera in his mind, and before he had a picture of the camera mentally, the camera already existed in mind as a principle. That is why in mental science we speak of all things that we know by means of our sense-sight as noth­ing but outward symbols of that which we first see as a picture, or spiritual prototype, in the mind, and that which we see as a pic­ture in the mind, is, first of all, a principle that has always existed in Mind and in fact is a very part of Mind itself.

In the instance of the invention of the camera, certain mathematical principles of vision and light formulated themselves in the mind as a mental picture of a camera. They resolved themselves into the thought of a lens, a focusing mechanism, an adjusting arrangement, and all those other mechani­cal features that are a part of the popular camera that we know.

If the camera were to be resolved back, it would be resolved into the thought of the in­strument, and then back of the thought to the mechanical faculties that form them­selves into definite thoughts in order to find a medium of operation, and back of the fac­ulties we find the principles of vision and light at work, seeking through the faculties to clothe themselves in thought, and then in a still more concrete way manifesting in the things with which our sense-sight is fa­miliar.

When we understand these scientific facts of visualizing in the same way in which the photographer and movie director understand their work then we can say of our faith that it is an illumined faith, an understanding faith, based not on blind be­lief, but on knowledge; a part of the very light of understanding of which we have so frequently spoken; a part of the very light of knowledge which comes to us as the re­sult of reassured and tried conclusions.

It is this kind of understanding faith both in ourselves and in the outcome of our visualizing, which we must possess in order to illumine the object of what we want to he, or do, or have, and if our faith is not a part of this mformed mental-light, then it is not understanding hut merely belief, which can at any moment become apprehension, fear, douht, and discouragement.

This light of understanding applies not only to our faith in that which is visible, hut invisible as well. The photographer does not know in just what manner the gathered light pouring through the lens of his camera, acts upon and transforms the silver salts on the highly sensitized film. No one as yet knows the mystery of the invisible action of light upon chemicals and metals. But the photographer does know that there is an invariable law which acts under cer­tain conditions which he himself provides, and this knowledge is what provides him with a perfect faith in the outcome of his work.

In the very same manner, while we do not know as yet the mystery of the action of the pure, undifferentiated light of mind which pours itself through the lens of our mental camera-eye; which establishes itself in our thought-consciousness as understanding, yet we do know that there is an invariable law which operates perfectly under conditions which we ourselves provide, and which by mental impression transfers our thought of understanding to the sensitized subjective state or substance of our thinking and finally objectifies it into the physically visi­ble world.

The Substance of Mental Pictures

What the photographer sees in the shadow-box of his camera after all is the most intangible of all things, simply a re­flection of light, deflected from some image or object outside, so that a sceptic would de­clare that the photographer is trying to create something out of shadows. Yet the photographer knows that ephemeral as the light-image within his camera may seem, it is really the rarest substance of his picture, the reality which by successive stages of development will become a very tangible photograph in a short time.

His understanding of this fact is the premise of his faith in his picture.

So shall we come to understand that our dreams, our desires, our visions, call our mental objects what we will — seen through the lens of our mind’s eye, in reflection, are really seen in the light of our understand­ing, that they really take shape out of our understanding, and that this light of under­standing is really the substance out of which our pictures are developed into out­ward material manifestation. When we realize this, then we will proceed not only to acquire all the understanding possible toward our picture, but will do so in a per­fectly composed manner, confident that the outcome will be successful.

In fact, with sufficient light of under­standing upon our object, we are placed not only in a confident attitude insofar as the ^exercise of the visualizing powers is con- ‘ cerned, but toward all those elements which must enter into our picture in order to bring it into successful materialization — toward ourselves, toward our surroundings, toward our friends, and toward conditions, however unfavorable they may seem for the moment as a part of our developing picture.

With the true light of understanding, our faith becomes more than an understanding faith; it becomes a seeing faith; a seeing understanding which is able to ^{4 4} look through ⁹⁹ seeming conditions and circum­stances into that which is back of all condi­tions and circumstances; able to see itself in a place in consciousness where it is be­yond all seeming obstacles, beyond the limi­tations and restrictions that seem to hamper it, and where it can be sustained and held steadfast until it materializes and becomes part of our lives.

Seeing our Mental Pictures Through

According to our seeing faith will our heart’s desire be given unto us.

When the light of understanding of our thought has become so clear a light that it becomes a seeing faith, then we proceed in this light to contemplate our thought in a positive attitude of mind; we know that our understanding will formulate itself into outward manifestation, and in this way our seeing faith becomes a convincing faith, a conviction, and when this conviction takes possession of us, then we declare: “ I am going to see this thing through meaning that we are determined to “ see through ⁹⁹ or penetrate every seeming obstacle up to a point where the real picture, the desired picture reveals itself free from all obstacles.

Let us not assume that this convincing light of understanding, this convincing faith, this positive conviction to “ see our picture through,” leads to rashness, but rather to that fine steadfastness which watches carefully over our entire thinking, leading to the inhibition of every thought which does not fit into the reflected picture established in the mind.

Let us make this clear by presuming that a business man, confronted with a business which is ^u falling off,” decides to visualize an improved business. He establishes a mental picture of himself in the midst of a prosperously going enterprise. Yet each time that he steps up to his desk, he is con­fronted by a pile of unpaid bills “ staring him in the face.^{7 7} He sees his stock on hand becoming depleted; fewer and fewer cus­tomers coming into his store, and, if his imagination is at all active, it may lead him to see the sheriff nailing a notice on his door.

It is under conditions such as these that his light of understanding must be present; it must be so clear, so sufficient, so assuring, so convincing that it enables him to “ see it through to see through all the outward evidence of impending failure, and behold only the one real thought of his improved business — of shelves abundantly stocked with goods and customers crowding his doors.

This is the determination to “ see our picture through ” the light of our under­standing of its reality; a determination which expresses itself in a certain tenacity of purpose, when the mind says: “ I will,” and by this mandate holds steadily to its understood picture through every obstacle, through every circumstance and every con­dition.

This high determination, this positive, forceful attitude of the mind in holding to our mentally-established picture, must never be mistaken for tlie self-willfulness which is most apparent when understanding is least present.

We must not use our will in the sense of willfulness; that is, in the sense of insisting that what we want must come to pass de­spite all other things to the contrary.

The moving picture director, and those concerned with him in his picturizing work, again serve here as a concrete example in defining the exercise of the will.

The director has perfect freedom insofar as exercising his own judgment, intelligence and ability is conccrned. He is privileged to carry out his own free will in the out­working of his picture — but he does not do this. However supreme his individual authority is, he bears in mind always, if he is a successful producer of pictures, that in producing his picture, he is responsible to a source of authority higher than himself. This authority in his ease is the general will of the public whom he serves.

The scenario writer subordinates his will in a similar manner. He may have pro­nounced ideas of his own, but in visualizing his scenario and penning it on paper, he governs himself not by what he wants to de­pict, but by what the public demands.

In turn, the producing company itself, in undertaking to finance one of its million dollar productions, invests its tremendous sums of money, not in bringing into life a picture toward which each of the producing concern may hold different ideas, but rather in producing a picture which, to the light of their best understanding, will “ take ⁹⁹ with the public.

The very actors and actresses concerned in visualizing the picture, while allowed to play their parts in just the way that they themselves see their parts, and while their own individuality predominates to make their own part charming, must conform themselves to the picture as a whole and with due regard to the general mind which they aim to please.

So we see each personalized factor in­volved in the production of a picture, while working in the light of its own highest un­derstanding, yet submitting itself to an understanding light which is more uni­versal than its own.

Each exhibits an unswerving devotion to the picture which is given to them to faithfully reproduce, and each one, in more or less degree, is determined to “ see through ” his or her part of the picture, but this determination on the part of each is not born of self-will but rather of that will­ingness which all minds of sufficient under­standing manifest in their work.

If those concerned in producing a picture insisted upon putting into the picture their likings instead of the liking of the general mind of the public whom they seek to please, they would fail!

In visualizing, our understanding must lead us to see that while we have freedom of will, unrestricted insofar as introducing and expressing our individuality is con­cerned, yet we must conform this will to the requirements of the law as a whole, if we would be successful.

It is the self-willed mind, working along its own lines, unrelated and out of touch with the universal mind, or which wilfully refuses to conform itself to the universal want of all other minds, which proves it­self a failure.

Like those who produce moving pictures, we must conform ourselves to the general mind and we can feel quite sure that when we work along the lines of meeting a univer­sal demand in what we plan to have, or be, or do, then we are coming somewhere near to meeting and conforming to the univer­sal mind.

We call this attitude of mind obedience, but we know that it is nothing more than a receptive attitude which makes it easy for the light of our understanding to form or conform our thought to the One Will of which all our willing is a part.

 

CHAPTER XI

QUALITY OF MENTAL LIGHT TO BE CONSIDERED

WE spoke of the quantity of light which the photographer takes into con­sideration for the purpose of reflection, hut he also lays great stress upon the quality of light, because it is the quality which fixes its impressibility upon the delicate chemical texture of the film.

The photographer might have any amount of daylight on a day when the sun is hidden, but it would not be of a kind powerful and strong enough to produce an impression. At night he could have his studio fully lighted hut it would not he the quality of light produced by the intense flashlight.

So with the quality of thinking-light which goes to make up the reflection of our thought in consciousness. Our understand­ing, our wisdom, must possess a certain “ impressiveness ” if a good impression upon the subjective state of our minds is to be made. It becomes impressive when we can say of the thing in mind, “ This one thing I feel and know that I can do; this one thing I know I can accomplish and carry through; this one thing I understand so thoroughly that it is the one thing in life I want to have or do or be.”

This is the impressive element, the “ feel­ing ” element, the quality element of our mental light. We are all in possession of this basic quality in equal measure except that in some it is potential, in others active. Where it manifests feebly we observe only a feeble understanding present, and feeble understanding or wisdom brings feeble re­sults. There is no impressiveness present because there is no certainty and there is no certainty because there is no true under­standing directed against the object we seek to image and reproduce. We see this evi­denced in vacillation, instability, indeter­mination and uncertainty, and when an un­impressive condition of this kind exists, our object is imaged less and less in the mind and finally disappears.

We see then that we must apply not only the full light of understanding to our object in order to get a clear image of it by reflect­ing upon it, but we must make tins light impressive. How is this done ?

Under certain supernormal and super­natural conditions, such as a great crisis or accident, for instance, in which feeling en­ters, a deep impression upon our subjective thinking is created in the ^u twinkling of an eye.” But in deliberate visualizing we must remember that our understanding is not acting under any enforced and powerful re­action of this kind. We must deliberately condition our mental-light very much in the same manner in which the photographer in his studio conditions the light for the pur­pose of time exposure. We must make our understanding impressible. Just as we may have studied the details regarding a busi­ness or a thousand dollars, or a home, in order to get a clear and definite image of these mental objects, so we must see and feel ourselves in actual possession of them.

We must infuse into the light of our un­derstanding of them a certain quality of our own feeling, our own livingness or life, so to say; in fact we must inject into our under­standing the very spirit of our own selves. In visualizing we do this by mentally taking the ten one hundred dollar bills which we have studied, and counting them one, two, three and so on, passing them from one hand to another, or placing them upon our knees, or upon the table, repeating the operation as many times as we feel it is necessary to vivify the imaged action in our minds, and then we follow this with further action until mentally we have placed the money in the bank or pocketbook, or where- ever else we intend finally to transfer it.

If a home, then we must see ourselves actually moving about in it, as well as others who will find their happiness therein; we will see hedges growing, flowers blooming, the lawn-mower whirling; we will see our­selves picking our favorite flowers; we will see everything animated which we feel to be a part of a happy home.

How Two Young People Visualized a Home

We have been told of a very interesting visualization of a home accomplished by two young people who knew nothing of vis­ualizing yet practiced it unconsciously. Circumstances and conditions on the outward plane were such that to an ordinary mind, the hope of ever having the joy of coming together in marriage, and enjoying a home in common seemed next to impossible in this world. Yet unwittingly on the occasions when they came together, they entered into the only world of reality which is or ever will be; they dwelt in happy thought about their prospective home, wrote for cata­logues to the various concerns which build portable bungalows, studied the different designs, selected the one which best an­swered their needs, and then, at every oc­casional meeting they brought out their precious plans and specifications and talked about them. They decided upon this and that alteration and addition, upon the dis­position of the piano, the bookcases and the furniture; they decided upon the kind of garden, the location of the home and upon every smaller essential which goes to make up a cozy and happy home of love. During all this time they completely obliterated every thought relating to the conditions and circumstances which outwardly would pre­clude such a delightful consummation of their love-affair, and which without their mowing would have negated and probably spoiled the mental picture they were pro­jecting and impressing upon their subjec­tive thinking for outward development. In a word they allowed no negative inward condition or circumstance to be established, and, taking no cognizance of the outward circumstance or condition, which is never a real condition or circumstance unless in­wardly recognized, there was nothing in the way to prevent their mental picture from becoming an outward fact. It was only a short time when the outward conditions and circumstances which seemed insurmount­able were removed, due to the chemicaliza­tion which occurs in the mental fixing-bath of subconsciousness, and by means of which all that which does not belong to our picture, which is not given recognition or acceptance in our picture, becomes removed.

How a Man Successfully Visualized the Sale of His Business

Another instance is that of a business man who was accustomed unconsciously to employ visualizing in his business affairs. He had a business which he desired to sell. He had no prospective buyer in outward view at the time but he began by writing out a bill of sale, something like this: “ Terms: Selling price $100,000. Payahle $50,000 cash and $50,000 in notes of $5,000 each payable every twelve months; assets; good will, real estate, presses, furniture, fixtures, etc.” At first the thought of the Bill of Sale seemed strange to him hut, in reading it over from time to time, he began to ac­cept the thought, then it became a feeling of an actual transaction taking place, and finally this feeling became an outward reality, resulting in the successful sale of this man’s business.

If we seek to visualize a factory, we must see it in process of erection; we must see the wheels of the machinery turning, the workers moving to and fro; we must see orders piling in; salesmen traveling on the road, or employees busy behind the count­ers, and we must see ourselves an actual part of it, moving about in the midst of it, directing the working forces, if that is to be our function. In a word, we must “ live up ” in an actual and real sense of under­standing to the image within the mind; not as if the enterprise were established on the outward plane of things, but in truth be­cause we understand it is already estab­lished on the inward plane; not because we may perhaps be occupied in this manner in the outward enterprise but because that with which we now occupy ourselves within must and will become our outward occupa­tion. It will be an outward reality because, and only because, it is an inward reality.

As already said, we can only “ see our way clear ” in the future as we project and penetrate with our visualizing powers the ever-present: wc can only “look ahead” to the extent that we are able to look within. We can see the future only so far as we can see into the present. Our so-called future is nothing more than the mental prototype established as a thought-image in our con­sciousness notv, and this thought-image is the reality of the outward thing, condition, circumstance or environment which will manifest itself outwardly to us in the fu­ture.

We see then at this stage in our visualizing studies that the thought-image is not what we want to have or be, but what we feel we are and have; not what we want to do but what we are doing; not a thing existing in the future but in the ever-present now, { and the more of this conscious recognition which we can put into this collected image of light of the mind, the more livingness and spirit and life which we can put into our understanding, the more vital and powerful will the impress of the image be upon the film-like texture of our subcon­sciousness at the moment of impression.

Our imaged thought must be so impres­sive to us that we are able to look upon it as a part of the reality of our own being, for that is what our understanding light really is in truth; so impressive that we arrive at a point where we actually see ourselves an integral living part of the thought-image upon which we are reflecting.

In that moment the miracle of impression is wrought, for we enter into the very image existing in our consciousness; our own spirit becomes part of its impression, and it is only a matter of time, depending upon con­tingencies largely within our own control,

 

CHAPTER XII

QUALITY OF MENTAL-CHEMICAL SOLUTION

WE have spoken of the active and responsive elements which are a part of the photographer’s developing solution; but there is another element which he takes into consideration, and this is the quality or purity of the chemical precipitates which he uses. The chemicals must be of that degree of purity or fineness which corre­sponds to the enfilmed or impressed light which he dips into it. Otherwise there is no chemical affinity, no attraction between the positive solution and the magnetized light-image.

In our mental chemicalization, this affin­ity between our magnetized thought-image and our positive subconsciousness must be present, otherwise there is no attraction or development.

Our feeling responds to our purpose i always. We say that we would like to “ feel right ” about the certain thing which we intend to have or be or do, and the only way in which we are able to “ feel right ” is to have the object correspond in quality to the subjective element which is to act upon it.

Let us remember that the subjective phase of our mind has in it all the elements of purity. It can be no different in its nature than pure. But just how much its purity infuses itself into our thought de­pends upon the purity of the thought which attracts it.

So that the purer our purposed object is, the purer will be the feeling charge of joy and happiness and love evoked in our sub­consciousness, and which is to impregnate the imaged thought. The purity of our purpose is or ought to be by this time a fixed formula in all our visualizing. We know now that in visualizing we deal with spiritual laws, and that what they bring us must be used spiritually. Otherwise they will react. We cannot imagine for instance, that there is any student who having fol­lowed the lessons carefully would want to concentratc for more money for the mere sake of money, or in order to use it for selfish purposes. We know that the law would work regardless of the purpose, but the price paid would be great, and the money might prove a curse, as all those who pur­sue money for money’s sake, well know. We know that our true purpose is to obtain harmony, love, peace, happiness, joy and good, and that the objects we picture men­tally are simply the outward means and con­tainers for holding these qualities in form for us.

We may say that this purpose is the pur­pose to be. It is the most primary purpose of our being — to be glad, happy, healthful; it is the purpose of well-being. Then this purpose enlarges itself in the desire to have, which is an extension of the desire to be; we desire to have an automobile, a home, fine dresses, money, in order that we may be more happy, glad, healthful and well in an outward form. But we come to a stage in our outward development and expression which implies more than mere outward being; it is a stage or state which provides still greater happiness, gladness and joyous­ness, and that is the state of doing. To do is a higher expression of the One Being than merely to be, and as we do, we render ourselves still closer to the First Cause, and this doing in its higher form is expressed i in doing for others. The less self enters – into the picture the more beautiful the picture will be, and the more we include others ) the more comprehensive and successful our visualizing is. The purity then of our ob­ject is unquestioned.

It is well to know here that the fineness of our object gives it an element of spiritual strength observed in a certain indefinable, subtile, attractive power which quickens and facilitates the elements of all forms of development, and it is to this kind of feel­ing, whether ours or that of another, to which our thought most readily responds.

If by no other token, then we will know the purity of the object we seek to materialize not only by the quantity but by the grade, or fineness of feeling which our thought has aroused, and by this we mean the joy and the happiness which our purest feel­ings represent.

When later we sit in our silence room and quietly concentrate on our developing pic­ture, reviewing every incident, which manifests itself as a part of its formulation, we will be able to tell by its progress just what quantity of pure joy our thought has called forth, just what quantity of pure love it has caused to be infused into it. With a formula of this kind, our thought as well as our con­centration upon our thought will become one of consecration and that is the holy feeling which should be present in all our outpic- turing work, if we want it to serve the very highest purposes in our life.

 

 

CHAPTER XIII

STRENGTHENING THE MENTAL DEVELOPING SOLUTION

WE observe that the photographer occasionally strengthens his photographic solution in order to facilitate developing. The science of photography is discovering chemicals and methods from time to time which serve this purpose.

In a similar manner, the developing proccss of our mental picture is strength­ened and facilitated by just the amount of feeling of which we have already spoken, and which we are able continually to dis­charge into our subconsciousness at any stage of the development deemed necessary.

The more feeling we are able to generate the better our reproduction will be. By this we mean that element of spirit of which we have already spoken and which we know as the life — the livingness of our thinking. We must enter “ into the spirit ” of our outwardly formulating thought, and by getting “ into the spirit ” of it we get our feeling into it.

We must remember that we are bringing into outward manifestation not that which has no life but that which is life; seeking expression not only through the brain of us but through the heart of us as well.

That is why we shall be expected as we proceed in our work not only to see the en- filmed image of our thought but to feel it as well, and this quality is supplied as we said before, only when we are satisfied that our object is a good one. It is then that we are able to review our developing mental picture with a “ feeling ” of great happi­ness and great joy; with a feeling which results from the realization that the light of our best understanding has carnated it­self; that it is gestating and developing unseen; that it is becoming the thing which we have wanted all our lives, and that it is now being felt in its movement outward into visible manifestation.

This is the feeling of joy, of eager antici­pation, of gladness, of love which should be applied to strengthen every real and big and true mirrored-thought which is intended to be brought into outward actuality; a joyous and happy anticipation no less thrilling than that which fills the mind of the ama­teur enthusiast as he watches and traces his developing picture in the photographic solu­tion.

We cannot enthuse toward that which we want to bring into our outward lives unless we love it; and it is when this highest feel- ing-quality surcharges our subconscious­ness that the quickest and finest results are obtained. It is when we love the enfilmed thought which is taking form in our own or universal subconsciousness, be it the thought of money, business, home, travel, clothes or child, that we generate an element which serves as the warming, nurturing, mothering-quality by means of which all things are upbuilded into outward form.

When we thus love our thought it means that we are charging our subconsciousness with more than the element of livingness of which we have spoken; we discharge into it an element of givingness; an element which readily gives itself to the ⁱ ‘ center of attrac­tion;” to our enfilmed thought as it rests in subconsciousness.

The more of this feeling of love which we can generate, the more responsive every­thing subjectively pertaining to our devel­oping picture will be; and in turn, the quicker will be its development. When our imaged thought is nourished by a really great love, then we literally love it into being. It ceases to be an elemental desire which constitutes most of our developing mental objects, and becomes transmuted into an imaged object of white love-light, permeated abundantly with the higher feeling and en­ergizing power which causes almost in­stantaneous development.

When our developing mental picture is thus intensified, then everything which enters into the life of the day, every inci­dent, every happening, every seemingly chance remark of another which indicates association or relationship to our outwardly developing mental object becomes a matter of inward rejoicing, and it is this rejoicing whicb gives our picture life, movement, animation; which vivifies everything which is a part of our picture; which causes our friends, seeking our joyousness to act more joyously toward us; and which provokes a vitalizing, living response in everything which is to become a part of us; of our busi­ness, our home, our lives.

Thus we come to Live in our mental pic­ture, until wc feel ourselves moving about in our new environment, in our new condition; among those with whom we love to be, or with the things with which we would like to surround ourselves, not as if they were real but because they are real.

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

FIDELITY NECESSARY IN VISUALIZING

THE fickle type of mind cannot success­fully visualize. Inconstancy toward our mental objcct at any stage and especially during the period of its development out­wardly, will result in an unfinished or spoiled reproduction.

We may he ahle to decide very definitely upon what we want to visualize. We may he ahle to formulate our ohject to a point where it is established in the mind, and then, after a short time we may decide to “ change ” our minds. This is an altogether common occurrence in the lives of most of us.

We desire, let us say, a home. We form­ulate it as an ohjeet of thought by recalling to mind this home and that home which we have had occasion to visit. We reflect upon our ohjeet for a time, or we may even go further: we may impress and place it in the everywhere of subjective consciousness, and then while our picture is in the very process of formulating itself, we begin to wonder whether it would be really advisable for us to work toward the realization of a home, especially since, for instance, we enjoy traveling so much better. We begin to change our minds. Our interest in travel­ing grows apace, and our interest in the establishment of a home grows less and less, and so our thinking skips from one fitful desire to another, a veritable inconsistent jumble of mental pictures, none of them ever very definite, clear or final in our lives.

This lack of fidelity is true of our higher as well as of our lesser mental objects. We all know of some period of great exaltation in our lives; a time when a vision was born of some high resolve within us; a vision connected with some great purpose or love. We held to the picture of our dream for awhile; perhaps we actually moved in the direction of its fulfillment; we were able to see things “ shaping ⁹⁹ themselves, when gradually the lesser interests again intruded themselves upon our attention. We began to give less and less sustained interest to the big thing forming itself outwardly in our lives, and after a time it became dis- solved and life took on its old aspect once more. This reversion seems to be a fact in the lives of most of us. Desires move and formulate themselves in us to a point when we glimpse them as pictures of a better life, a nobler purpose, a grander love, hut we do not seem to be able to hold our vision stead­fastly enough, loyally enough, long enough to develop them into some sort of possible fulfillment.

If we were candid enough with ourselves, we would know hy reasons such as this, why this or that certain picture did not material­ize in our lives. Possihly years afterward when perhaps our picture is almost for­gotten, yet when circumstances are all lead­ing up to the grand fulfillment, we have introduced and interwoven into our original thought so many lesser ohjects and purposes that the aspect of our original picture is changed.

Our lives are made up for the most part of pictures that might have heen! Wasted mental impressions! Wasted work!

What would we think of a camera-enthusi- ast who, after finding a landscape to his lik­ing, would snap it and then each time seeing what he imagines to be a better pros­pect, would successively discard his films, or in the midst of their development, would discontinue his interest in them? Yet similarly we find types of mind that go from ^u one thing to another,” mentally drifting, shifting, confusing, blurring and spoiling the thoughts, images and impressions which come about naturally in the exercise of the visualizing powers.

Conserving Our Visualizing Forces

A photographer would not think of wast- mg a photographic film as carelessly as we waste the precious mental forces of our being in visualizing the things we only think we want to have, or do, or be. They form a gallery of wasted impressions, of thought- objects and images which were either never vitalized beyond the mere movement which brought them to mind, or in the process of development never developed to the point of outer realization; pictures of a home; the dream of a lifelong association, of a great love, of a business enterprise, of a full and complete companionship, of fatherhood and motherhood, of a hope of any kind un­fulfilled, or of a dream which might have blossomed into otherwise splendid realiza­tion.

This lack of fidelity to the object which we seek to develop may be caused not merely by an inconstancy or instability of mind, but sometimes by a lack of faith. We have seen the picture of a friend which was sought to be visualized into a beautiful rela­tionship, blurred by a lack of faith at the moment when faith, even as much as that contained in a mustard seed, would have brought the one back who had defaulted in friendship; so too, some seeming disappoint­ment ; some seeming discouragement, or doubt, or fear, or hesitancy, may cast its wavering shadow upon the sensitive film just at the moment when the clear, steady light of our understanding-faith was needed most to impress our picture clearly in the mind.

Once we have decided upon a definite pic­ture of what we want to do, or be, or have, we must “ see it through;” that is we must continue to see our picture through all the intervening circumstances and conditions which may arise. Whatever obstacle, what­ever experience may intervene, we have the divine power of seeing through it, and look­ing steadfastly upon it as the one picture which we want to come into our lives. That is what is meant when we declare that we must “ see it through.”

Finally another form of wavering often met with in visualizing is that which is found in lack of assurance at the period when we are called away from the old life into the new. Few of us enter without occasional glances back upon the old life, or without those moments of trepidation and fear which accompany our entrance into a changed condition. In fact, we know of many instances where those confronted with the approaching condition for which they have been working all their lives, have stepped back, prefering perhaps what is their bondage to the seeming uncertain yet positive freedom for which they have prayed.

We may have undertaken to visualize a change in our business, position or environ­ment, necessitating travel, change of loca­tion, investment or some other actual physical readjustment or outlay. We begin to “ fear to take the step; ” we excuse our­selves by saying that we dare not take the chance because of others depending upon us; we dare not make the investment in­volved, and so the thought-image which we have formed to the point of its outward manifestation, is ruined by our doubts, our hesitancy, our fears, our lack of assurance at the end. We plod along again in the same old routine, deprived of the thing we visual­ized, until perhaps another thought-image presents itself of that which we might do, or be, or have, if only our understanding faith or assurance were held to the end.

Minds of this weak kind who visualize only to retreat again and again, when the time comes and when their picture begins to make itself outwardly apparent, are very much in the position of some magician who by some magic power, has summoned an entirely new world of his own creation, and now stands awed and afraid to enter.

However, when we are trained to visual­ize only that which we truly know we want, and when we know why we want it, then we will be content to let the old pass away for-

 

CHAPTER XV

PATIENCE IN MENTAL DEVELOPING PROCESS

IN the subjective subconscious process of development which, as we have observed, is largely beyond the control of our outward objective thinking, we must learn to “ labor and to wait.” It is easy to be impatient of results. Often after having guided students to this point and during the time necessary for the development to take place, we are confronted with a condition of impatience. Very often indeed, we find among those who have carried along their visualizing work to this stage, that the entire mental process is abandoned because of the seemingly slow progress observed in the outworking of their mental picture.

We could not conceive of a photographer who would declare in the midst of his de­veloping work that “ It takes too long; ” yet in a mental developing process infinitely more complex, infinitely more comprehensive and expansive, infinitely more extended when reduced to time and space, and in­finitely less understood as yet, we show the utmost impatience at times.

Here again the example of the photog­rapher serves us in our work. Sitting pa­tiently and quietly beside the developing picture, with his small lamp beside him, he watches and waits for the first faint out­lines of his picture to appear. There is no impatience. In bringing his picture into visibility, the photographer knows that he cannot hurry the process by a single mo­ment except insofar as he may facilitate the forces of development in the solution by working with them.

He knows that the sure and certain law of development to which his picture is sub­ject, has its own time. He knows that it cannot be hurried by impatience or anxiety or the introduction of any inverted or secondary objective action which he might apply.

He knows more than this. He knows that lie can never “force ” or facilitate the de­velopment except insofar as he improves the formula of his solution, and the formula in our instance is the intensity of our love which hastens our picture into fulfillment.

All that the photographer can do, all that he is expected to do, is to work as we have already stated, in co-operation with the law, in patient co-operation, making the condi­tions as favorable as possible for the suc­cessful outcome of his picture.

The truth is that he obediently suspends his own action in the matter for the time in order to allow the action of the subjective law of development to have its own perfect way. He does more! He puts his mind, his will, in abeyance and allows it to be subject to that principle of direction inher­ent in the infinite particles of the develop­ing solution in order to successfully bring about the results which he is seeking.

Mow to Co-operate With Our Mental Pictures

So in our visualizing work, with all the intensity of love which is present, we must learn to work in patient co-operation with the forces which we have set in motion, making the conditions as favorable as possible for the successful outcome of our pic­tured thought.

We must learn that we can never “force” a formulating principle which is at work in our behalf in the sense of exerting our wil­fulness upon it. There is as little coercion possible in visualizing as there is in the outworking of any other principle of our consciousness.

We must learn obediently to suspend our individual action for the more comprehen­sive action of the wonderful law which we know is working with us and for us in order to bring our “ heart’s desire ” into outward visibility.

The Bible says: “ He that believeth shall; not make haste.” This is true in the case of the photographer and equally true in the case of the initiate in the art of visualizing.

The photographer knows that having pro­vided the conditions for a good picture, a good result is certain. So do we know that in visualizing that which has been con­ceived in good, we are certain of a good result. We leave the matter of results to the law itself, certain of its perfect fulfill­ment.

Finally, in dosing this part of our hook, let us rememher not to make our waiting moments anxious moments, or even tiresome moments. It may he poor consolation to many who start in to visualize to know that the development of their picture may take a month, a year, or a score of years to develop. We have been witness to instances of almost instantaneous development, depending upon the ohjeet, the mental-ehemicalization and the conditions and circumstances which entered into the development of the picture, and we have witnessed a heautiful outward materialization of a love-ohject loved and cherished in the mind for many years.

Whatever the time that intervenes, let it be made up of pleasurable moments of re­view and glad expectancy, such for instance as those of the amateur camera-enthusiast who in his darkened room watches enthusi­astically for each sign which shows the pro­gress of his picture.

If we assume this expectant attitude, then even the least casual indications, the things we ordinarily take for granted will assume an important and welcome relationship to our developing picture; the seemingly casual talk with another, the seemingly chance meeting, a book read, a hand shaken in the street for the first time and perhaps never again, all of these incidents mentioned in a previous lesson, will take on a glorious and joyful significance as we watch them co­ordinating themselves in the waiting hours of our developing picture.

If our waiting at any time becomes anx­ious or wearisome, it is best to forget our developing picture for a time and to think of other things not in conflict with it. The purpose of our picture will go on its devel­oping proccss just the same, and the time quickly returns when we feel impelled again to give the picture our pleasurable attention. We go to our silence room and meditatively watch beside it, so to speak, with the help of the small, still inward glow which forever illuminates the interior developing room of the subconscious, watching its wonderful development until the final outcome of our hearts’ desire has been obtained.

This one supreme fact we know, that our picture will develop, whether good or so- callcd bad, small or great, worthy or un­worthy. The law of development, once inyvoked, is unfailing in its response. It knows not the limit of time, or space, earth or the airy frontiers of earth, life or so-called death. Its unit-power survives here and hereafter to the extent that our will gives it the power to persist, and just so long as our individual desire survives in preference to all subsequent or previous desires.

 

 

CHAPTER XVI

OURSELVES THE DEFINITE OBJECT

WE said in one of our previous lessons that the first preliminary on our part, as on the part of the photographer, is to know just what wc want to reproduce; that we must have a definite purpose in view. In the higher consciousness of what our pur­pose in visualizing really is, we know that whatever we decide to reproduce, whatever definite purpose we have in mind, can never be anything different than the purpose of outpicturing ourselves. We say that the five-thousand dollars will provide the occa­sion for service, for helpfulness; that our business will benefit and help others; that our home will provide protection, shelter, and give expression to filial and domestic virtues; yet all these in turn are secondary to the fact that our purpose is the outpictur­ing of the inherent qualities of our own be­ing, such as beauty, strength, harmony, health, happiness, goodness and love; a definite even though objectively unconscious purpose to east these into some sort of pat­tern or mould by means of which we can view them as objects, first mentally, and then in their reproduced state as objects of the outwardly visible world.

So we see that our selves are made up not only of our emotions and desires, but we enter into and become the definite object established in objective consciousness. It is only in this way that we can symbol­ize our desire to formulate and extend our­selves.

We see, then, that it is not really the symbol, or object, or thing within the mind which we seek to bring into visibility but ourselves; and all the mento-ehemieal activi­ties, mechanical operations, and mental structural work which we start in motion to establish a mental concept in objective con­sciousness, at the moment, is primarily for the purpose of formulating, expanding, en­larging, and fulfilling a definite self. As we said elsewhere, we want to have and do, so that we may outwardly be.

To sum up, our mental object, whatever it may be, is nothing else but the formulation on the objective plane of consciousness of some pattern of our invisible selves in order that we may know and rccognize our­selves in inward form and eventually in out­ward form of being.

This is the only way in which we can see ourselves inwardly or outwardly. We would not be able to behold ourselves as beings or units of light, nor could we behold the quali­ties which are a part of us, except in just this manner of forming our emotions and our desires into objects comprehensible to the mind. These serve us unconsciously in seeing, measuring, comparing, appraising, contemplating, and, we may say, anticipat­ing ourselves outwardly.

Since we are in every formulated object of our minds, and since our object is a very part of our own being, it can be no different in character, quality and choice than we our­selves are. In fact, our mental object is the result or summing up of our emotions and desires up to this point of reproduction of ourselves. It is the mode or momentum of our emotion, passing into and becoming our desire-thinking which finally shapes itself into our mental object, so that from the very low and lurid emotions which form our mos elemental objects, to the very highest trans mutation of our thinking-light into object: divine, they can be nothing different and nothing else than ourselves in the process of becoming objectified.

The desire for extreme and gaudy apparel which takes shape in the mind of a certain woman, and becomes the height of her ambi­tion, describes that woman, even before she makes a public exhibition of herself. On the other hand, the desire for simplicity and re­finement in dress which becomes the objec­tive in the mind of another kind of woman gives us an admirable idea of her type. This applies itself to all objects established in the mind.

There is, of course, a normal tendency of the mind toward the idealization of ourselves in and through the objects of the mind. All of us are striving constantly to see ourselves as better, finer men and women. We want others to see us as such. We really want to portray our truest, our best, our highest selves, but we must know that we portray ourselves best in that which we think. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he ” is but the figurative way of putting the truth of that which visualizing demonstrates to us in connection with the establishment of mental objects in the mind.

 

 

CHAPTER XVII

OURSELVES THE IMAGED OBJECT

IN an earlier lesson we learned that against the formed and luminous ohjects of mental-light held within the mind, a spray of much finer, unformed mind-light pours itself in a steady stream, very much in the same manner in which the sprays of un­formed sunlight pour themselves upon the denser formations which we call material objects. We learned that this mind-light is the “light of our understanding”; that when this understanding-light is directed toward, and pours itself against our thought- ohject, it is deflected, as it were, and is then thrown back into consciousness where lit forms itself as a reflection or thought-image exactly like the object of thought which it reflects.

However, now, in our self-conscious recog­nition of ourselves as the definite ohjective in all our visualizing work, we find that our imaged objject is simply another phase of this outward formulation of ourselves, caused by the generation within of a higher mode of thinking upon ourselves as objects of thought; a state of our thinking which is pure and unformulated objectively as yet, and which we can say pours itself into our outer consciousness not simply as our under­standing but rather now as our self-under­standing, and as our understanding-light shapes itself into money, the business and the home, it becomes, like the mental object which it reflects, a further differentiated, specialized and projected part of our out­ward existence by means of which we can judge and examine ourselves.

 

CHAPTER XVIII

WE ARE THE SEEING I

WHEN we sit in our “ silence room ” T V now and meditate upon the mechani­cal process of our visualizing, we call to mind the lens of the camera which transmits and concentrates the light-objects of the outer world into the dark chambers of the camera, and we remember that this camera- eye is an extension or outward symbol of the physical eye; we call to mind the physical eye which transmits and concentrates the light- objects of the outer world into the dark chamber directly in back of the physical eye and we recall that the physical eye is an ex­tension or outward symbol of the single inner mental eye to which Solomon referred when he said: “ Let thin eye be single,” and to which we find reference in the Upan- ishads: “ Thou canst not behold me with thy two outer eyes: I have given thee an eye divine and now in the light of our self­understanding, we find that this single eye of the mind is but the final extension or im­mediate unseen protection of the eternal “I” which we ourselves are.

We recall the fact that the camera-eye does not see; it simply concentrates and transmits the outer light; the physical eye does not see, it simply concentrates and transmits the outer light; the mental eye does not see, it simply concentrates and transmits the imaged inner light, but now as we meditate upon the very innermost “I” which we are, we find that it embodies not only the principles of concentration and transmission of light, but the principle of sight as well, so that we possess within our true spiritual selves ^{4 4} the subtile ability to look whithersoever we will, to transcend the deeps of the earth, and to look beyond the stars; to see swifter than time can tell the relation of all things in this related world of forms.”

We find that this seeing “ 1⁹⁹ which we are, transcends and is greater than the rea­soning principle which we are, since we can ⁴⁴ see a thing at once ⁹⁹ whereas we can rea­son a thing out only as we see it within our­selves first.

We recall the old Yedic hymn which ex­presses a profound truth in this respect, namely, that “ it is impossible for anything to take place save in connection with an on­looker,” and we are not only the onlooker but the “I” through which the undiffer­entiated mind of selflessness of which we are a part, is able to see itself when formed, into a self of color, shape, breadth and dimension.

It is thus that sight became a principle of this mind-light, and sight, necessarily, in order to function, had to formulate for itself some medium by means of which seeing was made possible.

Wc could not see ourselves as differenti­ated, specialized, formulated selves of the undifferentiated, unspecialized, unformu­lated light if the principle of sight was not an element of the light, and sight in order to function, necessarily had to formulate some medium or focusing center by means of which outward seeing was made possible; it had to have everything that the camera has, and so we find that it personalized an “I” through which to see, and through this “ I ” established an inner mental eye, and then extended its seeing externally through the projection of the physical eye, and so on yet more outwardly in the eye of the camera and of other objects through which sight is augmented.

We are both the light and the seeing prin­ciple of the light and through our personal­ized selves as the “ 1” of this light, we see and gather and transmit its pure rays as they formulate themselves in us and through us in the form of the mental pictures which become our own.

We observe an audience of a thousand at the movies, and each is a specialized “1⁹⁹ watching intently, not the moving picture, but itself moving with the picture, since we can only cognize and know that part of the picture which we have experienced and which has hecome a part of our conscious­ness at some time or other of our lives. The movies help us in a most direct way to see ourselves portrayed, and that is why they have met with such instant and universal popularity. They are hreaking down social lines, racial lines, and all those negatively mental harriers which have prevented our knowing ourselves and each other, in “the true light” which is the one light in which we shall all some day see one another.

Our own deliberate visualizing serves the same purpose. The divine law recognized of old is “ That thou see’st, that thou be’est.” We are what we train ourselves to see men­tally. Our actions follow our inner visions. We are nothing different than what we have seen ourselves to be throughout life.

Once we come to recognize ourselves as the real seeing “ I ’ ’ of being; the individualized point of concentrated light which sees, then we will consciously direct our “ singleness of sight⁹⁹ so often spoken of in a spiritual sense; seeing ourselves and all things and conditions in the very inner illumining chamber of our consciousness; seeing our­selves as perfect in our harmonious relations with one another and in the things with which we deal, each one of us a perfectly personalized part of a perfect whole.

 

CHAPTER XIX

OURSELVES THE FINISHED PICTURE

WE have seen that it is in us the pulsations of mental-light arise; in us they specialize themselves in the form of the desire for the five thousand dollars, the busi­ness and the home; in us this desire formu­lates itself into illumined objects capable of being seen mentally; in us these objects are reflected; upon us their impression is made, and in us these objects are mentally devel­oped until they become the outward objects of our outward lives.

In the light of self-understanding we have a more intensive range of vision even than this; we now see that we ourselves are a specialization of the mind-light; that we are in the movement which is characteristic of this light-substance; that we are the illu­mined objects which form themselves out of our desire and which we behold in self-con­templation in the silence of our “ dark chamber we see that we are in every part of the visualizing process which we employ to materialize that which we plan to have, and in the end it will be we who will stand in the midst of things which we have visual­ized for ourselves; the outpictured center of a business and a home, forming themselves into a miniature universe of conditions, cir­cumstances and things all our own.

We are today nothing more or less than the mental outpicturing which we have done consciously or unconsciously in the past; our bodies, our environments, our businesses, positions, friends — the things which we have gathered about us in our daily lives — are nothing else but the accretion of thought- forms such as we are holding in our minds for development now, representing a long train of picturized thinking of ourselves into visibility and attaching itself to us as we pass through life like the trail of a comet passing through space.

We may say that we are the outwardly photographed inner self; the representation or reproduction of this inwardly visible self of ours into outwardly visible form or forms; the seemingly hidden self which sought and found itself on the external plane through the things it visualized for itself; and what our outward lives will be tomorrow depends upon the kind of picture we are holding in our minds today.

We may try to persuade ourselves that some of the outpictured things, persons, cir­cumstances, or conditions which appear as an unpleasant part of our outward lives, are not of our own making, yet scientifically we can as little deny them in truth as belong­ing to us as we can deny the five thousand dollars, the business and the home when these appear. If the unpleasant things, persons, circumstances or conditions which may be a part of our outward lives at pres­ent were not related to us, we would not be aware of their presence in our lives regard­less of their nearness, since we can be con­scious only of that which has passed through and become a part of our consciousness directly or by transmission at some time or other in the past.

It is difficult even for the advanced student in visualizing to realize that the moinent we establish or accept a concept in our con­sciousness of any object whatsoever, it be­comes a part of us to the very end of its ultimate fulfillment into outward form. It may never at the outset be sufficiently vitalized or motivated mentally to enable it to be formulated into anything more substantial than an outward shadow, or it may make its appearance outward long after the original object we entertained is seemingly forgotten by our objective mind, but formulate itself it will in its own true time and according to the inherent law of its development in and through us.

Our bodies, as we have observed, are nothing more than a physical conception of this kind; a movement or pulsation at first upon or within the substance of light; then a densification of the substances ⁴⁴ thought out ’⁹ whether subconsciously or consciously into the outward to a point where they be­come the compacted form comprehended on the outwardly visible plane of life. If we can come to understand that our bodies, as an instance, are thus the result of our pro­jected thoughts regarding them, and subse­quently formed or reformed over and over again subconsciously or consciously accord­ing to these thoughts, then we will realize that in visualizing we can change our bodies by changing our thought-ohject of them. Probably there is no one among us today who knows the scientific formula for liqui­dating or resolving some concrete malfor­mation of the hody to a point of plasticity or solubleness where reformation into a per­fect form is possible, hut this we know of a truth, that our hodies are the imaged like­nesses of our real selves which we have come to see in our self-contemplation as selves of light, and the nearer we approach our real selves in our projections of the thoughts of our bodies, the nearer we approach that which is perfect since our real selves are made in His likeness and image and cannot become diseased or imperfect. Instead of looking upon our bodies as we once falsely did, as “ corrupt and perishahle ” we now look upon them as an evidence, for the most part, of our own outpicturing, and when we come into this recognition we are able to idealize the body mentally and transmit to it those qualities of life, health, strength and power which are inherent within ourselves.

This applies equally as cogently to all other outpictured things in our lives and will apply to the money, the business and the home which we are bolding in self “Contem­plation now. In seeing these as a part of the finished picture of our career, we see our­selves, brought forth out of the invisible everywhere of which we are a part, into the visible world of the here of which we are also a part.

It is the one wish of the author in closing these lessons that your picture be the very best, the most worthy and the finest, for in this you outwork not only the very best for yourself but contribute the very best of yourself to your picture, which picture, after all, as we know, is but a part of the One Divine Picture of The Whole in which all of us are included.

In the same manner in which this booh has helped you, so it will help others. Keep it in circulation!

 

THE END