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Synthetic Outline of 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 PERSONAL and ESSENTIAL 
 
 To be read in connection wi& the Public 
 and Private PsycKology Tuition of 
 
 ANNA- MAUD- HALLAM 
 
 H. C SHEPPARD 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/psychologypersonOOshep 
 
^vin^i II llll l l l lllll LUkTmTnnnTTTTTI I n il 111 lllll I I I II 1 
 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY: 
 PERSONAL and ESSENTIAL 
 
 BY 
 H. C. 5HEPPARD 
 
 iiiii ii ii iii iii miiimuiiii 
 
 Published by 
 
 J. F. ROWNT PRESS 
 
 Los Angeles 
 

 Copyright, 1920 
 
 by 
 H. C. SHEPPARD 
 
 Los Angeles 
 Cal. 
 
 ©CI.A597136 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ARE YOU THINKING? Undoubtedly you are, Some think 
 only "after a fashion;" still, even that is thinking. 
 
 ARE YOU ALIVE? ARE YOU LIVING? Surely NOT 
 "only after a fashion!" 
 
 LIFE AND THOUGHT, broadly are a Search— For What? 
 Health? Wealth? Power? Wisdom? Beauty? Charm? 
 
 All these, PLUS unbounded genius, are either awake in you, 
 asleep in you, or dreaming in you. To search, find and awaken, 
 KNOW YOUR MIND,— KNOW YOUR INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 This tuition is not made to dazzle you like a movie drama — 
 to stimulate while it lasts, but quickly to fade from mind. 
 
 It will not beglitter and bedevil you with what this or the 
 other Tom, Dick, or Harry among the blatant may have SAID 
 about Success. 
 
 It will not conceal lack of tuition with displays of fictitious 
 air castles intended to derail attention from the main issue — the 
 achievement of a Successful and Happy Life HERE AND NOW. 
 
 It will show why the successful "are there;" better still, it 
 shows you how you yourself can and must become a success, and 
 improve your community by vitalizing your own type. A great 
 success of your very type is needed or you would not be here. 
 
 It does make you familiar with plans and tools, so that your 
 purposes can be achieved, then sets you to work building the real 
 castle of your own choosing. 
 
 It encourages discarding of opinions and convictions when- 
 ever facts and laws can be put in their place. Briefly, it shows 
 you how you can achieve and Enjoy Active, Buoyant Life by 
 working with facts and laws of mind as your secret animating 
 sources of energy — instead of opinions, convictions, and fables. 
 It shows how you can make Success, Personal Attractiveness and 
 Health AUTOMATIC and HABITUAL, and the gleaning of Wis- 
 dom INTELLIGENT, ACCURATE and INTUITIONAL. 
 
 This conforms with what Plotinus said almost two thousand 
 years ago, that Life and Knowledge have three degrees— Opinion, 
 Science, Illumination. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 This Is the Mate- 
 rial Out of Which 
 Your Machinery Is 
 Constructed. 
 
 Page 
 Lesson 1 5 
 
 LET THERE BE HEALTH 
 
 Lesson 2 - - - - 27 
 MENTAL INFLUENCE 
 
 Lesson 3 - - - - 41 
 VITAL NERVE ENERGY 
 THE CELL CONSCIOUS- 
 NESS 
 
 Lesson 4 - - - - 58 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 Analysis or Psychic Surgery; 
 and Suggestion. 
 
 Lesson 5 - - - - 77 
 REACHING THE INNER 
 MIND 
 
 The place for Understanding. 
 
 Lesson 6 - - - - 93 
 SUBJECTIVE INSIGHT 
 AND OBJECTIVE ACCOM- 
 PLISHMENT; OR, DREAM 
 AND REALITY 
 
 The place for Self-Conversion 
 
 or Self-Healing. 
 
 Lesson 7 - - 110 
 
 HOW YOU CAN BEGIN TO "WORK MIRACLES" NOW 
 
 Here Is Your 
 Constructed 
 Machinery and 
 How It Operates. 
 
 Lesson 8 - - 
 A DAY DREAM 
 
 128 
 
Lesson I. 
 "LET THERE BE HEALTH' 1 
 
 WE SHOULD like to see a knowledge of psychology so 
 prevalent that the word would need no explanation. 
 Psyche, of course, means soul, and logos means rec- 
 ord, discourse or wisdom. Psychology therefore means the 
 discourse, record and wisdom of the soul. We do not possess 
 souls. We are souls. Hence the study of psychology is soul- 
 study or j<?//-study. We should learn to think ourselves to be 
 souls building and then inhabiting bodies we have built. This 
 releases us at the start from allowing the condition of the body 
 to play ducks and drakes with our poise. 
 
 No line of distinction need be drawn between the names 
 mind and soul. Splitting hairs might impede the liberation 
 intended for every one who reads these chapters, from self- 
 suppression and mental confinement. There are practical 
 values and practical principles in psychology; it is better to 
 have the reader swing into an applicable conception of the sub- 
 ject than into a hair-splitting one. 
 
 Most people are so hypnotized with a belief, admitted or 
 unadmitted, that the bodily condition is imposed by something 
 extraneous to themselves, that much of the best tuition along 
 these lines, even if they themselves seek it, falls flat with them. 
 The bodily condition is no more and no less than an outward 
 expression or reflection of the state of mind. You may not 
 admit an impaired state of mind. ' That merely means the im- 
 pairment is deeper than any state you can recognize. It means 
 that some fundamental attitude of mind or character, unaware 
 to yourself, is not in line with evolutionary law. It can be found 
 by Analysis and can be corrected by Suggestion. Analysis and 
 Suggestion are two great tools of Psychology, to be explained 
 later in this book. A healthy mind or soul cannot tolerate an 
 impaired body; automatically and in the long run, it always 
 rebuilds according to its own innate state. 
 
 5 
 
6 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Some folks have claimed to be perturbed that psychology 
 may trespass on religious beliefs, which of course is beside the 
 point. Psychology does no such thing, any more than does the 
 art of photography or the science of mathematics. Yet the 
 expression of such a fear or objection often can be taken as 
 mental laziness disguised. It is a trite observation of psychol- 
 ogists that persons mentally and physically lazy will not hesi- 
 tate to draw down divinity itself by corkscrew processes of 
 reasoning, to defend an otherwise reprehensible attitude. 
 There are fundamental verities in religion which psychology 
 and science reverence with a depth of understanding unknown 
 to that brand of pietist. If you have no faith, psychology 
 will aid you to reestablish it within yourself; you could not have 
 been born if you did not have it. If you have faith, psy- 
 chology will strengthen it. 
 
 As the proportions of this outline of psychology permit, 
 we shall take up the specific study of Mind in its objective and 
 subconscious phases, and of the laws, powers and possibilities 
 of mind. This lesson is devoted to the subject of bodily 
 health. No study of the body or any other phase of man's 
 being is independent of mental law. Some scholar, who evi- 
 dently had deep insight, once called the body but a "function 
 of mind." If that is remembered, the student, with further 
 application, should find superb health not only accessible, but 
 should also be able to make it habitual with himself. Superb 
 and abounding health should always go with real efficiency. 
 All of us like to imagine that it always should be so. Yet we 
 see well organized minds, capable men and women, genial and 
 competent persons getting along ever so often the best they 
 may, without that basis. 
 
 Why is this? 
 
 Is there a way out? Racially? Individually? 
 
 Wherever there is inattention, there also is deterioration. 
 The kitchen itself teaches that when something is not "attended 
 to" it spoils. For the past century we have been riveting our 
 attention to machines, systems, and to material things in gen- 
 eral. We have, for instance, established government depart- 
 ments to facilitate the raising of wheat, or of hogs. And we 
 do have splendid wheat and superb hogs. We have built 
 superb systems and edifices, while Ave ourselves all that time 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 7 
 
 have been deteriorating for lack of attention. So we have no 
 government departments to facilitate human health and to 
 promote happiness. We would take such a department as a 
 fit subject for a comic opera plot, very much as the Spartans 
 or the Greeks and other splendidly embodied races might have 
 poked fun at a hog-raising department if they had ever heard 
 of it. So today, the science of true human culture is not so 
 cushioned with facilities. The findings of the late military 
 examination boards show to what bad extremes such lop-sided 
 interest may lead. It has required an unparalleled holocaust of 
 blood to startle us from a two-thousand-year nap. Since 
 Athens we have ignored man, his own consciousness, the bring- 
 ing into play of his latent powers. We have twisted around, 
 as a palliative for our own laziness, one of the most signifi- 
 cant psychological phrases in our own scriptures, from "Thy 
 Kingdom Come," — to "No, 'I'd rather sicken, stay sick, die, 
 or get shot and go to Thy Kingdom." We have paid little 
 or no attention to the existence of laws by which development 
 and growth of the human species must proceed. At last hu- 
 manity has elevated an eyebrow in mild astonishment. It 
 required no less a cataclysm than a world war to do it. Lan- 
 guidly man surveys himself, mud, blood and inefficiency, and 
 debates whether greater things even than his "civilization" 
 could be accomplished if he were to swing his attention around 
 for a while to that most ancient command, "Man, Know 
 Thyself." We can no more than encourage the present swing 
 of the pendulum. Where a half century ago no scientist 
 viewed any psychic or spiritual hypothesis without scorn and 
 contempt, today there is not one scientist of first rank in the 
 world who is not only conversant with the fundamental psy- 
 chological laws, but who does not also hold such laws as 
 underlying, and, in fact, controlling the universe of matter 
 and of humanity. 
 
 So universal a subject as psychology of course has various 
 and absorbing branches. For our present effort, therefore, we 
 shall have to sift and select. We will choose for study only 
 those features which can be applied to the development of 
 human personality, to an improvement in its efficiency. Em- 
 phasis should be laid on the attainments of greater capacity 
 for Life, Love, Activity, Intelligence and Power, here and 
 
8 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 now, but not to the exclusion of the higher psychic and spiritual 
 demands. 
 
 Let us cultivate that broad tolerance from the start, so 
 if some isolated statement may startle and amaze for the time, 
 we will yet know that before the course is completed all preju- 
 dices and doubts will have been resolved, — will have been 
 sublimated — to use a word much in vogue today, — into perfect 
 answers for whatever questions may in the meantime arise in 
 our minds. 
 
 In Pursuing Health, Please Run in One Direction 
 At a Time; If Possible, the Right One 
 
 "What would I be willing to give" — asks Dr. Watson 
 S. Rankin, president of the American Public Health Associa- 
 tion, "for something in a bottle that carried with it the absolute 
 guarantee that my vitality, my strength, bodily and mental, my 
 efficiency, would be increased from five to ten per cent a year?" 
 Indeed, Dr. Rankin shows sanely and conclusively in the prog- 
 ress of his talk that no such bottle is available; that the loss of 
 vitality does not take place suddenly, and that its conservation 
 and increase is mostly up to the amount of conscious effort 
 which the individual is willing to pay for it. Yet the material 
 views with which we have saturated ourselves thru several 
 generations still makes of the many — a community of drug- 
 store haunters. This helps in some ways undoubtedly, — but 
 not in the ways usually imagined. It helps patent medicine 
 millionaires to winter in Florida or in Pasadena, but it does 
 not add to the sum total of health. Sooner or later the drug- 
 store haunter must learn to face the fact; he must learn that 
 the contents of the bottle he is seeking cannot be bought with 
 money. It can be bought only by readjustment of his own 
 thinking, and that to such a fundamental and pervasive extent 
 that the bodily functions cannot help but follow suit. 
 
 Let us take a group of seventy-one typical Americans. 
 Dr. Rankin says that out of this group one will die within the 
 year. Only thirteen will be rated as in practically perfect 
 health, with 90 per cent, or more of efficiency; 25 will have 
 "good health," with from 70 to 90 per cent, of vitality; just 
 below them in healthfulness, more or less impaired, are 30 
 individuals, still out of the original group of 71. The re- 
 mainder will comprise persons in various stages of imperfect 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 9 
 
 health, including two who are in bed all the time and the one 
 who is dead. Translated into terms of the whole population,, 
 there are about 1,500,000 deaths annually, but there are some 
 three millions who are sick all the time, while there are 45,- 
 000,000 in the "zone of impairment." These forty-five mil- 
 lions would give freely of their substance if health could be. 
 bought for cash. Most of them would not pay the equivalent 
 in personal effort. Few of them see or care to pay attention 
 to such proffers as are contained within the pages of this book. 
 — simple, readily understood measures for health, easily 
 within the reach of all. The partly efficient division already 
 includes 1 million out of the 45, "victims of tuberculosis, not 
 yet bedridden, but sowing the seeds of death in new soil." 
 
 Coming to the revelations disclosed by the draft, 38 per 
 cent, of those rejected were of the dubious "good health" 
 classification, enjoying from a scant 70 per cent, to a possible 
 90 per cent, of full vitality. Included among them were those 
 afflicted with serious maladies in their early stages, and a still 
 larger company suffering from mild forms of intemperance, 
 such as over-eating and consequent undernourishment or "mal- 
 nutrition," under-sleeping and lack of sufficient exercise. Let 
 us remember that as we pass sage remarks about them we are 
 merely shifting and evading. The sage remarks apply to the 
 person who speaks them. We will "get somewhere" only 
 when we realize that in studying any appreciable sector of 
 humanity we are indeed and in truth studying ourselves. For 
 it is exactly in this dubious "good health" column that we 
 would find many a capable business man. Often he is the best 
 example of ourselves that we have to show. The Sunday 
 edition of the local newspaper will often print his picture, and 
 an enthusiastically careful "blurb," presumed to be a story of 
 his life. In all, it is supposed to act as an "ikon" of success 
 for the growing boy to read, remember and copy after. Inves- 
 tigation would often dispel all mystery as to why the otherwise 
 careful and capable man is in the "dubious" list. If we could 
 watch some such criterion of perfection, more than likely we 
 would see him hurrying nervously thru breakfast, scurrying 
 next to his garage or commutation train, hurrying thru his 
 morning's routine, the walls of the office showing mottoes to 
 "hurry," and to "do it now." We'd see him snatching a quick 
 
10 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 lunch at noon so that nothing will interfere with his hurry to 
 get back to the office. Later we would see him hurried and 
 jostled in traffic and in crowds. He is going home. But 
 again, the supper must be hurried, for there the evening is 
 already "dated." If the date is for an amusement, considering 
 the man's state of mind by this time, — it must prove at best 
 but distraction. It may as well be a business engagement, — 
 and often it is. Then the ride home at last. Probably there is 
 even the common tho' tragic attempt to hurry sleep — which 
 can't be done. All this that he might hurry to get up in the 
 morning and hurry thru breakfast once more. What now of 
 the boy reading the "blurb" entitled: "Series 41144; Our 
 Prominent Citizens; Their Stories of Success." Probably the 
 youngster is already hampered by a faulty dietary, which as 
 yet he trusts. Probably a murderous home psychology is being 
 inflicted on him by a doting mother, and no psychology at all 
 by a business-engrossed father. This he is beginning to mis- 
 trust just a trifle. He says nothing. But if he be wise, the boy 
 will be doing a lot of silent speculation. That speculation will 
 be filled with doubt and foreboding what would become of him 
 if he really did take the newspaper's advice and use the business 
 man pictured, as a complete model for his own life. 
 Thou Shalt Not Kill 
 
 To take life by carelessness or omission is 2d degree mur- 
 der legally, 1st degree murder morally. Indifference to one's 
 own health is not at all removed from indifference to the health 
 of others. It is "the public be damned attitude;" it is sustained 
 violation of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Public 
 health is a private concern; private health is a public concern. 
 No one is too dull-witted to understand this simple statement. 
 Selfishness will of course stand in the way of applying it. But 
 its application is the only remedy, and it lies in our own hands. 
 The price of health is not alone individual care, but participa- 
 tion as well in health matters of public moment. Nature is 
 teaching us a mild lesson in this direction, which we persist- 
 ently take in a manner that is drastic beyond all bounds. We 
 "miss"-take it. The sloven, for instance, learns nothing from 
 his mistake; he tolerates filth, contracts a disease, is relieved 
 by a charitable practitioner or clinic, and returns to his en- 
 trenchment of filth to menace the community. The plutocrat 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 11 
 
 who not only tolerates, but often helps to perpetuate the neigh- 
 boring disease-fester of slums, thereafter also makes a mistake 
 in falsely imagining that he can go to a practitioner or doctor 
 and buy immunity for himself or his sons and daughters. He 
 is likewise deceived by some temporary relief into resuming his 
 entrenchment. In ignoring the sources of his own comfort 
 and competence, he is no less a threat to his own and the com- 
 munity health than is the most abjectly ignorant sloven. 
 
 During an epidemic we quit pretending that we cannot 
 understand these simple rules against selfishness. We will do 
 the obviously right and simple thing if we are sufficiently 
 mauled and shocked, — not otherwise. Can the well-intentioned 
 individual do anything to improve this situation, besides nursing 
 his good intentions? Yes. Try to remember this preliminary 
 table of 
 
 The Ten Encouragements — 
 
 I. If unwell, desire health so systematically and so much 
 that you will have no mental energy left with which to 
 worry about any disorder you may have. Translate 
 the desire into effort and action whenever possible. 
 Ways for improvement and health will present them- 
 selves. 
 II. Whether well or unwell, work to make sickness and 
 epidemics unpopular; work to make health contagious, 
 popular, fashionable, desirable, and available to all who 
 sufficiently desire it. 
 
 III. Enact, enforce and observe laws concerning commu- 
 nicable disease and child hygiene. 
 
 IV. Enact, enforce and observe laws to stamp out the last 
 criminal blots of child slavery wherever they still befoul 
 the map. 
 
 V. Encourage only those practitioners and physicians 
 who emphasize diet, exercise and natural recuperation 
 much, and who use drugs and surgery only when patients 
 (not the bank accounts of the practitioners) are in 
 extremis. 
 VI. Realize and help others to realize that psychological or 
 mental law ultimately shapes the physical form and 
 condition; that health or disease are symptoms of 
 chronic tho' often somewhat obscure mental attitudes. 
 
12 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 VII: Encourage in yourself and others realization of the fact 
 that self-study, self-training and self-culture are the only 
 forms of currency with which health and true growth 
 can be bought. Money payment is symbolic; don't stop 
 at the symbol. 
 VIII. Don't "Oh!" "Ah!" and gush over this book or any- 
 thing else; discourage undefined thought. Exercise feel- 
 ing only in connection with things that are worth it. 
 Find such things. You can if you yourself are worthy. 
 IX. Dig in and stir up the fields of indifference in the race- 
 consciousness; help to bring about a universal realiza- 
 tion of the fact that health and disease, fortune and mis- 
 fortune are self-made, and that the making starts with 
 thought. 
 X. Specialize in persuading that individual effort be used 
 for currency as readily and cheerfully as payments are 
 made for other less valuable objects where the price is 
 translated into dollars and paid in a lump sum. 
 
 These are some ways of translating your desires into 
 effort. In practicing them, soon enough you can become a 
 veritable dynamo for the increase of vital efficiency of those 
 around you, by no means excluding yourself. 
 The Best Study of Mankind Is Yourself 
 
 There is but one thing to study, to know about, to 
 "tune-up-to," in order to improve one's health, efficiency and 
 personality, and thereby help in the development of a perfect 
 race: It is your own mind. As you are mind or soul, the 
 physical machine notwithstanding, — it is yourself. In a larger 
 sense, — when studying all of psychology, you are always learn- 
 ing about yourself. 
 
 We find three factors which undoubtedly influence our 
 mental and soul attitudes during life. These are : 
 
 1. Heredity, 
 
 2. Prenatal Influence, 
 
 3. Subsequent experience and training. 
 Someone may ask, How am I to change the influence of 
 
 these ? They can be changed and improved by applied psychol- 
 ogy. But a greater object even than that is so to enlighten the 
 race-mind that every newcomer into our world will be certain 
 
&J° PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 13 
 
 of the best in regard to these three factors. Heredity itself is 
 peculiarly in the province of psychology. We see that the 
 three factors mentioned serve to develop a fundamental atti- 
 tude of character, and are the hidden springs which make each 
 individual react to experience and to life itself differently from 
 all other individuals. What science could be greater than one 
 which can, even in the slightest measure, gain control of these 
 hidden springs? 
 
 All human beings are in school. On the other hand, no 
 human being is "all here." There is a vast phase of each indi- 
 vidual's mind, it seems, which never comes into the field of his 
 awareness. That phase is the subconscious or bigger half of 
 his mind. It is the phase that builded the body in the first 
 place. If it seems to have done an imperfect job, there was 
 something to hamper it among the three features of heredity, 
 prenatal life, — or some violent obstruction developed as a re- 
 sult of personal experience. The latter feature, any individual 
 may rectify by learning and applying the simple and correct 
 psychological principles. He can modify and improve infin- 
 itely the influence of the former two — heredity and prenatal 
 influence. To do these things, in fact, is a great part of the 
 program of "studies" in which he must perfect himself before 
 he can graduate from the "school." Not to be interested in 
 the science of life is a sign of retarded evolution, — more 
 specifically, a sign of self-impairment. 
 
 To "do the lesson" most easily, it is necessary for the 
 individual to realize that somewhere in his unplumbed psychic 
 self, the subconscious mind has imprinted within it the picture 
 of a perfect human being, — perfect with you according to your 
 type. The brain is still in the process of evolving, — not yet 
 perfect. Hence with it there is no possibility of forming a 
 real picture of perfection. Therefore, psychologists have 
 sometimes called this real subconscious design of a perfect man 
 or woman the "divine" image. That might serve for a name, 
 except that with most people the mention of such a word as 
 "divine" acts as a signal to quit thinking. It is wise to drop 
 those words which no longer challenge our aggressive interest, 
 and to substitute such as do. After all, it is the idea, the prin- 
 ciple and the reality that we want; words or names are of no 
 importance. 
 
14 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 That perfect plan or picture of what you should strive to 
 he is the thing which every cell and automatic function in your 
 body and being is working ably to bring into substantial reality 
 for you. You will find that by acquirement and application 
 of psychological knowledge, you will be in better position to let 
 them work out this design unimpeded and unimpaired. 
 
 Thru psychology you will find how to remove and to coun- 
 teract any adverse impediments placed upon your subconscious 
 "picture of perfection," by heredity, prenatal influence and 
 personal experience. 
 
 All the bodily and psychic automatisms are tremendously 
 susceptible to heredity and the other two factors. But psy- 
 chology tells us that all these things, when acting, act as 
 bundles of mental energy, and therefore by mental law. Your 
 mental attitude of this year or this minute is just as much a 
 bundle of mental energy. It may be that both with old and 
 with new bundles the kind of application of mental law has 
 been adverse to your human welfare. Then the right and 
 helpful application will open to you thru a knowledge of the 
 facts and laws which you are now reading. 
 
 This ensemble of facts, conclusions and laws, which con- 
 stitutes our present knowledge of psychology, is the entering 
 wedge to permanent improvement, self-development and ulti- 
 mate perfection, not only in health, poise and efficiency, but 
 finally into the acquirement of powers now hardly guessed or 
 dreamed of by man. In that part of our tuition where "psychic 
 faculties" fall into the sequence, it will be demonstrated how 
 psychological law may be invoked to improve and strengthen 
 the will, the reason, the memory, the emotions, and also that 
 greatest single feature in the category of powers, human or 
 "divine," — the Imagination. . 
 
 Some day, as this knowledge spreads, it will be seen that 
 heredity, prenatal influence and even personal thought resulting 
 from drastic experience, need not be the formidable bugaboos 
 they now seem to be. True enough, so long as we are ignorant 
 and unable to use our own powers, these features are the causes 
 of practically the sum total of our miseries. But the evolution 
 of the you, the individual, no less surely than the evolution of 
 the race, can surely be hastened by self-study, and by the con- 
 structive application of laws which we may discover by that 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 15 
 
 process. It is the only sure means; if its acceptance and appli- 
 cation spreads, then only do we approach a real and never- 
 ending millenium of a civilization that will be supreme, and not 
 a cringing apology for itself such as the present. An Olympic 
 image of perfect man will dominate life; gods of beauty and 
 power will reign supreme in the hearts of men. 
 
 In the main people are yet blindly and tragically ignorant 
 of the one thing they should know, — the tremendous influence 
 which Mind, their own mind, has over their bodies. They 
 have totally forgotten that they are the visible expressions of 
 their own mental attitudes, — that their thoughts and dreams, 
 night and day, make them what they are. They forget that 
 children are as they are, and often cannot find the ability to 
 grow outside the bents given them by suggestions and impres- 
 sions while yet unborn, or during infancy. We all need to be 
 reminded that life and destiny are what we make them by our 
 casual thoughts, by our intense thoughts, and by our lack of 
 thoughts. 
 Racial Development 
 
 Activity and work, selfishness disregarded, are the only 
 forms of worship you approve in yourself during your best 
 moments. Those are the moments, if ever, that you are ex- 
 periencing a reflection of higher (or if you prefer — "divine") 
 guidance and approval. 
 
 This all should apply to personal and racial improvement. 
 We must work actively for it; that means we should dare to 
 experiment in order to find out laws, and then again dare to 
 apply our findings. 
 
 Look at Nature, which someone has called The Garment 
 of God. All about us we see where outside his own clan man 
 has improved things by adding to — where Nature left off. 
 He has incurred no "divine" disapproval by that course, but, 
 on the contrary, has been richly blessed for it. A god evi- 
 dently never objects to having his garments altered by man so 
 the latter may use them. 
 
 Man placed his attention on fruits and vegetables. In 
 early Aryan and Persian times he took a plant a little worse 
 than our present thorn-rose, tampered with it, and today that 
 thorny shrub is our Hood River Apple. The history of our 
 great sunny and seedless orange is similar, even more recent. 
 
16 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 A wild little hedge vine has thus been made into our American 
 Beauty rose. 
 
 . Nature only contained the wild dog or wolf, the wildcat 
 and the wild horse. Man, again, by sundry attempts at domes- 
 ticating members of these animal tribes, plus judicious inter- 
 ference even in their own generative selections, has produced 
 those thorobreds which now we enjoy for utility or pleasure. 
 
 With plants, birds and animals, science has demonstrated 
 that selection, care, intelligence, and finally an applied intuition 
 resulting from these (which we may call the "psychology" of 
 the thing) — the superior specimen thus evolved becomes so 
 common that we regard it as always having been with us. 
 
 Nature unaided produces only species. Man must study 
 and labor to produce specific types of use to himself; he must 
 himself produce the superior specimen. 
 
 We need not go to Malthus. We need not scan the 
 academic fields. We can go to any neighboring farm and see 
 that the laws of natural selection, heredity, prenatal influence 
 and environment, can be understood, manipulated and im- 
 proved. We can see there that experimentation need not be an 
 abomination. Laws can be discovered. As they are more and 
 more completely understood and applied, the program more 
 than vindicates itself because the succeeding generations of off- 
 springs are superior. Today we are using what we recognize 
 of these laws — with our livestock. Therefore, our livestock 
 today is the best in the history of the world. 
 
 Not neglecting the psychic and spiritual factors involved, 
 man, some day, will quit his foolish disdain of these same laws 
 in his own case. Up to the present time man has allowed un- 
 controlled Nature, — that is to say, Nature, hampered with the 
 unattended and complacent incrustations of human ignorance, 
 to run her own course in the evolution of mankind. Psychology 
 means to, and in time, surely will throw light on this problem. 
 
 Personal Development; How We 
 Cause Our Own Illnesses 
 
 Disease is better understood when spelled "dis"-ease, 
 when it means lack of ease, physical, psychic or mental. It 
 has only one source, which is the sufferer's state of mind. How 
 can this be in the case of a broken limb ? The carelessness, or 
 the moment of inattention which preceded it, shows that the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 17 
 
 mind had to "break" before the leg could. It requires mental 
 effort of some sort to grasp and apply even physical laws. A 
 balanced diet never yet helped a person with unbalanced emo- 
 tions and a floundering mind. Says the proverb: Whiskey 
 never yet made a drunkard; vice (a mental defect always) has 
 made many. Intolerance and lack of balance are two major 
 vices. Most prohibitionists have both. Drunkards usually 
 have only the latter. It stands to reason that if we were fully 
 conversant with both mental and physical aspects in the laws 
 of health and applied them, the person and the race 
 would become at once physically perfect. There is a physical 
 side to consider in all this. It is a mistake, the effects of which 
 are foolishly suppressed by some, entirely to ignore application 
 of physical measures. Psychology makes the use of physical 
 'measures more intelligent, powerful and helpful. One of the 
 first steps in real mind and soul growth is the thorough learn- 
 ing NOT TO IGNORE FACT, and NOT TO MISCONSTRUE FACT 
 EVEN IF YOUR FAMILY, YOUR CULT OR DENOMINATION AND 
 THE WHOLE WORLD ARE ALL DOING SO. 
 
 A few necessary things in regard to health must be taken 
 up from an angle that does not appear psychological. Yet 
 nothing is, or transpires, but has its effect on mind. Psychology 
 is "built up" knowledge concerning such effects. At first blush 
 some parts of this first chapter may sound "materialistic." 
 Essentially, however, they will prove themselves as sound in- 
 gredients of a broad and deep psychology. We will see, for 
 instance, how necessary it is to accomplish the habit of health. 
 Habit is purely a psychological or mental entity brought into 
 being by your own thinking. The question is, how may we 
 build into ourselves such habits as will always be stimulating us 
 into good health? We have already despaired of buying for 
 money the "miraculous bottle" of the doctor quoted. Let us 
 despair also of those sweeping slogans replete with mystery 
 and metaphysics, which some people use to veil their difficul- 
 ties. The answer is much more simple than all that. 
 
 In Nine Cases Out of Ten, Cleanliness 
 Insures Health 
 
 The healthy system is never an unclean system. The 
 clean constitution is healthy. Disease, as shown, has only one 
 source of origin — mind. But the grosser symptoms of it at- 
 
18 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 tach themselves to both mind and body. The body reflects it 
 as internal uncleanliness. If ignorance and neglect are main- 
 tained after that, the disordered condition may become com- 
 plicated and chronic. 
 
 We shun or ignore persons who disobey the dictates of 
 good breeding, who neglect themselves outwardly in point of 
 cleanliness. Yet self-neglect as regards internal cleanliness, 
 not so visible, does not receive a similar condemnation which 
 it richly deserves. Many speak glibly of their bodies being 
 temples for the indwelling of the holy ghost. Often those 
 very individuals will be found too lazy to apply intelligent 
 effort at least to have healthy digestive and intestinal action. 
 If the reeking and poisonous bodily condition of many such 
 individuals were as apparent as their well-groomed exteriors, 
 they would land in jail forthwith; no evidence of any misde- 
 meanor but that would justify their incarceration. 
 
 Water 
 
 Further on we shall delve somewhat into the intelligence 
 and activity of the cells which compose the tissues and flesh of 
 our bodies. Yet at this point it will be wise to remember to 
 what an astonishing extent water enters as an ingredient of all 
 these minor components of the body. The cells themselves, 
 almost in a strictly literal sense, are marine animals. The 
 body, without an inflow of fresh water, like the Great Salt 
 Lake, or the Dead Sea, poisons of itself the life of its cell con- 
 stituency. The lives in water want fresh water, not dead 
 water. Yet Nature, thru the neglect of many persons to drink 
 ample quantities of fresh water, — to make up the lack, is 
 forced to reabsorb from the bowels liquids already fouled and 
 intended to aid in the sewerage processes of elimination. This 
 is often a prime cause of "auto intoxication," hardening of the 
 arteries, — the otherwise quite mythical malady called "old 
 age." Coffee or tea and their denatured substitutes cannot be 
 depended upon to take the place of clean, fresh water, and the 
 same is true of most liquid beverages. Many such, it is true, — 
 especially fruit juices (if one is sure they are not "faked" in 
 manufacture) may be wholesome tonics; but for cell-rejuvena- 
 tion and renovation, why not do the obvious, — quit arguing or 
 "disliking" water, and instead drink plenty of it? Children, in 
 the main, obey their instincts in this regard generously, and are 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 19 
 
 rewarded just as generously with that vigor which we take to 
 be the child's due. 
 
 With adults it becomes practically necessary to lay down 
 some rule. In the majority of instances, it would be well if 
 that rule were made for a half, or even whole, tumbler-full of 
 water every hour of the active day. Thruout this study we 
 shall be learning how enormous an influence the mental attitude 
 exercised toward every physical act has on the subconscious 
 self, with a consequent reaction on the body. It is not too 
 early, however, to say this in regard to the drinking of water: 
 Get a supply which your common sense (or the common sense 
 of someone else, if you have none) tells you is clean, fresh, 
 and dependable. Such fundamentals of physical life, as water, 
 must be taken with utter confidence. If you have lost it, regain 
 it in regard to all the essential fundamentals, not only of the 
 physical life, but of the mental life as well. Then train your- 
 self from the core of your soul to feel that water is life-giving, 
 rejuvenating, — a pure tonic without adverse reaction. If you 
 will do this seven or eight times a day for a week, you will 
 have established the habit of deriving good mental influence 
 from your hourly tipple of water for the rest of your life. In- 
 dulge it from that time on as a permanent and pleasant habit. 
 If you take it as a painful duty, you will be cheating yourself 
 out of more than half the benefit it could otherwise do for 
 your bodily health. 
 
 Constipation 
 
 Do not overdo the matter. It is not necessary to flush 
 and drown the system. Use sense. Develop it as the most 
 valuable counter-habit to the constipation habit, — the prolific 
 root of many "filth diseases." It is a more gentle and effective 
 way to "bathe internally" than the enema (rectal injection of 
 warm water containing a trifle of castile soap) — altho' the 
 enema need not be prohibited if the filth accumulation is unduly 
 aggravated. The water drinking as described above will the 
 sooner warrant that injections may be entirely dispensed with. 
 
 In pronounced cases of faulty elimination, there is a fur- 
 ther item to practice when the regime of drinking more water 
 is first adopted. Every person can make certain movements 
 with the abdominal muscles (which, by the way, are remark- 
 ably strong even in the weakest bodies) — that will amount to 
 
20 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 "churning the stomach." This can be done right after a 
 tumbler of water has been drunk, and even during the process 
 of the enema. After this, lie flat on the back on the floor (the 
 resilience of a couch or bed spoils the effect) and forcibly, with 
 the aid of the hands, if necessary, bring the knees up to touch 
 the abdomen. Repeat twenty times with due rest intervals. 
 This will often bring immediate results. 
 
 Most cases, however, are too mild to require this last 
 exercise. With such, a slow but thorough squeezing and mas- 
 saging of the upper abdomen and its sides will often produce 
 the same result, provided the ?ystem is not dry-rotting for lack 
 of water. The person fulfilling these requirements must with 
 it all demand of himself, insist, and above all EXPECT that 
 the eliminatory functions act efficiently and that they com- 
 mence at once. So much for water. 
 
 The Clean System Is the Healthy System 
 
 Bathing, external or internal, alone, cannot keep the sys- 
 tem clean. If the mind is fouled, the cells and tissues and 
 organs of the body will surely reflect its condition. Now, it 
 may be true that sensuality and prurient desires may often clog 
 an otherwise good mind. But these "side-tracks" are but 
 child's play when compared to adverse emotions, such as Fear, 
 Anxiety, Envy, Greed and Jealousy. Indeed, the all too com- 
 mon tendency to view a perfectly necessary function and its 
 biological expression in an over-puritanical or prudish manner 
 is often in the first place the cause of mental filth and the cor- 
 responding destructive emotionalism. These are the forms of 
 mental action which defile the physical system as surely and 
 much more poisonously than physical constipation. The latter, 
 itself, from a psychological point of view, often is nothing 
 more than one of the minor and comparatively harmless effects 
 produced by years of indulgence in such emotions and attitudes. 
 Sound the tocsin of cleanliness, so that it will reverberate 
 and register not only in the physical habits, but thruout the 
 psychic habits as well. The religious aphorism has it that 
 "Cleanliness is akin to godliness." Psychology says it is sure 
 that cleanliness is a synonym of Health. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 21 
 
 Man Received the Breath of Life 
 and Thus Became a Living Soul 
 
 The sentence is paraphrased from the bible; but what did 
 the Hebrew writer mean? What meant the wise Egyptians in 
 keeping among their most treasured scriptures a "Book of the 
 Breaths of Life?" What meant the Aryans by "Pranayama — 
 the spiritual science of breath?" 
 
 The author recalls the advice of an old physician. He 
 knew drugs, but was not bound by them. He knew well the 
 ways in which Nature acts under given circumstances. He was 
 conferring with a young graduate physician in regard to pul- 
 monary tuberculosis. "If your patient breathes less air than 
 a pint and a half at a breath, get rid of him as a patient, — 
 send him to Arizona, — anywhere, — he will die on your hands 
 otherwise." 
 
 To breathe amply for all the needs of the body is a lost 
 art with the majority of adults. We all know, of course, that 
 oxygen in the air refreshes the blood stream in the body," and 
 is necessary for the combustion and elimination of effete or 
 "used out" components of the cell tissues. Few realize the 
 importance of this process, and the wisest have probably not 
 as yet guessed all that is tied up in the mysterious activity of 
 mere breathing. It is significant that a body may live without 
 food a month and frequently even longer; it may be deprived 
 of sleep indefinitely and still maintain fairly well; it may go 
 without moisture several days without suffering, but it will die 
 within a few moments if deprived of air. The breath, like the 
 taking of water, serves surely both to rejuvenate the vitality 
 of the body, and to purify. Only its action is more vital and 
 more keen than that of any other one thing we may use to 
 maintain the physical mechanism. 
 
 The Aryan sages claimed to become aware of an element 
 or principle "within" the air which they called "Prana." We 
 hesitate to interpret this term, — it might probably be called 
 "the source of life." Its more specific meaning seems to be 
 somewhat like "pure, nascent energy, capable of becoming or 
 doing anything if propelled by Will — human or divine." 
 
 Some of the better exercises for forming the habit of 
 breathing more amply are as follows : 
 
22 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 I. Lie flat on the back, on the floor or on a lawn. 
 Spread the arms as far as they will reach to either side. 
 Breathe, and encourage the muscles and vertebrae immediately 
 behind the lungs to arch, as they will have a tendency to do 
 during the exercise. Relax, and repeat slowly and with rest 
 periods, ten to twenty times. 
 
 II. When walking, select some square or block occa- 
 sionally where there is not much traffic. Inhale, while walk- 
 ing, as usual, — but instead of exhaling take an additional 
 breath over and above the one already held. Walk twelve or 
 fifteen steps with this double expansion and exhale. To avoid 
 constriction or a tendency to cough, make the exhalation in 
 two efforts; that is, when the breath is half exhaled, take a 
 "catch" breath, and then release the rest of the air held in the 
 lungs. 
 
 III. Do not forget that the lungs have great areas of 
 cells which are for the most part practically dormant. Such 
 dormant "pockets" often contain fouled "residual" air, — air 
 that may have been inhaled days ago. Eliminate this two or 
 three times every day. It can be done by reversing exercise 
 No. 2. That is, exhale as usual, but instead of inhaling at 
 once according to natural tendency, just exhale vigorously once 
 more with a prolonged wheeze if necessary, and then when 
 you know that every atom of air has been expelled, inhale 
 once to your normal capacity, slowly. 
 
 Let Us Watch One Breath 
 
 There is a deep psychological connection between breath- 
 ing and the character and purposefulness of mental action, 
 and the resultant emotions and thoughts. We shall some day 
 find the scriptural quotations and the Oriental sage's views in 
 regard to breath of vast and vital significance. We may well 
 imagine that the blood-cells physically renewed and given a 
 new lease of life with every breath do not travel away from 
 the lungs empty-handed psychically. We may well imagine 
 them imbued with the thought held at the time of the (to it) 
 rejuvenating process. The cell comes to the lungs half dead, 
 laden with a burden of poison and debris; fatigued to the limit 
 of its endurance. Of a sudden its burden melts; it is vital, 
 strong, elastic and buoyant once more. To you or to me it was 
 nothing, — merely taking a new breath, — nothing. But to the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 23 
 
 cell, it was the one thing needed; without it there would be 
 no more life as a cell entity. Have you ever remembered, 
 when awakening from a profound sleep, from a faint, from 
 an anaesthetic, how the thing that first attracted your atten- 
 tion, in some unaccountable way, was magnified in your imagi- 
 nation, in fact, in some way actually influenced the currents of 
 your life? The thing that first attracts the cell's attention in 
 each of these re-awakenings from near death is your thought 
 of the moment, as well asyour basic attitude toward life. And 
 it proceeds to build your embodiment accordingly. It rushes 
 away from the lungs and heart, imbued with what was you at 
 the time it re-awakened there. Then as it travels to fulfill its 
 mission throughout the veins and arteries of the body, other 
 cells, more stationary, by the contagion of its influence, take up 
 the thought, and build and function accordingly, weighed down 
 only by the essence of the thoughts you have thought during 
 your life. The new thought is continually acting on the layer of 
 old ones. It is either "fluffing" them out, or it is compressing 
 them with more weight, into prejudices and convictions. Our 
 prejudices and convictions make up the several dispositions 
 which each one of us carries. These dispositions mold and 
 shape the character, which generally, but not always, is more 
 of a unity. The character determines the kind of embodiment, 
 for out of the "breath" (refer again to "prana") we are se- 
 lecting ingredients of life and embodiment only according to 
 our characters ; and the character in turn shows forth in the 
 manner of the embodiment; character influences, as well as de- 
 termines, the kind of environment we will gravitate toward 
 willy nilly, and the manner of friends and associates, — even 
 the kind of enemies we will attract. This is in part what is 
 meant by the "chemistry" of the body and the "chemistry" of 
 personality, when those terms are found in the literature of 
 modern thought. This shows in some slight way how our 
 destinies, our fortunes and our adversities are self-made. It 
 shows how to bolster our faith with an insight into natural 
 operations, and thereby make it more vital. 
 
 Overeating Means Undernourishment 
 
 Obesity itself means usually that by overeating the person 
 has starved his assimilating mechanism out of all ability other 
 than the weak effort needed to turn certain food ingredients 
 
24 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 into fat, The measures suggested in reference to the proper 
 use of air and of water, if carried out, will make the appetite 
 more normal. Our tastes cannot be "natural" no matter how 
 much we insist that they are if the system is clogged with filth, 
 and if the organs of the body must crowd into distorted posi- 
 tions by a flattened chest. We must learn to stand, sit and 
 walk in healthy postures, and that is easiest done bj breathing 
 amply. By amply, we mean the full capacity, and that itself 
 increased judiciously by the exercis.es given. An "ample" 
 breath will crowd outward the small, loose, or "floating" ribs, 
 which may be felt two or three inches above the bones of the 
 hip. If your appetite has not been normal, you will notice an 
 imperative change creeping into its demands as you keep up 
 with rational breathing, and maintain the body as clean as 
 sufficient quantities of good, fresh water will make it. 
 
 If there has been a tendency toward high blood pressure, 
 for instance, or toward hardening of the arteries, — toward 
 deposits of uric and other acids, cropping out in twinges of 
 neuritis and of rheumatism, — then if you have given your body 
 the drill already described, you will notice a tendency in your 
 appetite not to call for the products of the farmer's barnyard 
 and slaughter-house. Fish, eggs, milk, cheese, and meat are 
 richly nitrogenous foods, excellent for the growing body of the 
 child and adolescent, but furnishing an over-plus of unusable 
 building material if taken into the body of the average adult. 
 If the condition has been diabetic, the appetite you will note, of 
 itself, will begin to call less and less for sugar and for starchy 
 foods, which readily change into sugar when once introduced 
 into the system. And so on. 
 
 The same "inner" consciousness that digests, and knows 
 how to digest perfectly, also knows how to select perfectly. If 
 it is given a chance to function unhampered by a clogged 
 physique, unhampered by an emotion-ridden mind, the diet 
 itself will not matter much. You will automatically find your- 
 self eating the things that you need, instead of the things that 
 you want. If by chance occasionally you do eat things that you 
 merely want, even then, if unhampered, that alimentary intel- 
 ligence will take what it needs out of the dish you wanted and 
 discard the rest in Nature's way after you have eaten it. It h 
 not so much a question of "What shall I eat," as it is a ques- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 25 
 
 tion of "What are you thinking of, and Who are you that are 
 going to eat." If you eat in a worried condition, you are 
 actually building into yourself greater capacity for more worry. 
 It is a thankless undertaking. If you are flatulently optimistic 
 at such times, you are then and there increasing your inability 
 to help in the "big scheme," — for if you should even a thou- 
 sand years later see a man with his leg suddenly broken or cut 
 off in some traffic accident, you will be able to tell him to be 
 cheerful, and that is all. The mind at all times should be bent 
 not only on willingness, but upon the acquisition of knowledge 
 and ability to serve. Optimism and cheerfulness are the 
 most valuable sidelines in the world, but that person is doing 
 himself an injustice who prides himself on them as his chief 
 stock in trade to the exclusion of Integrity, Knowledge, Will- 
 ingness, and Ability. 
 
 Movement 
 
 A stationary body may do all the things so far discussed, 
 and yet receive not one whit of benefit in the way of health. 
 We exist in a plane where physical movement is practically 
 synonymous with life itself. If the body is gently moved, 
 exercised both in limbs and organs during a deep breath, for 
 instance, then all the organs, instead of only the lungs, have a 
 chance to participate in the benefit. Again, during any form of 
 exercise, the benefits are doubled, if the mind is made to co- 
 operate with the action. Thinking intently of a promissory 
 note due tomorrow, while flailing the air wildly with the arms, 
 is not exercise even if you call it that; it will not develop the 
 biceps; it will only increase your capacity for worry. It is 
 doubtful whether it will in the least help to pay the note. The 
 blood circulates easily according to the currents of one's atten- 
 tion. The visit of blood to any part of the body means either 
 one or the other of these two things, and sometimes both: 
 The (1) nutrition or (2) stimulation, in short, the building 
 of tissue, form or function visited. If you want a well-rounded 
 neck, exercise in a fashion to bring the blood there naturally, 
 helping with gentle massage anon, and always Imagining the 
 result you want. If it is more weight that is wanted, use the 
 imagination — impress it with a picture of your body as you 
 should like it to be. 
 
26 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Do not depart too widely from your type in the 
 picture you thus hold, or you will be wasting energy and time. 
 Nature seems to decree that we must Avork toward a perfection 
 each person of his or her particular type, and if we do this 
 with every tool we have, above all, with fundamental expecta- 
 tion, we are richly rewarded. Do this with especial vigor dur- 
 ing exercises, and expect results ; no matter how much or how 
 little you desire, want or wish for results, EXPECT them. 
 Sleep more than heretofore, if possible, should added weight 
 be the necessity; sleep a little less, if reduction of weight is 
 desired. Also if the latter be the case, resolutely eliminate from 
 the diet such nitrogenous foods as were formerly enumerated. 
 
 Whatever the .departure from normal physical perfection 
 may be, exercise is the great equalizer, — the "normalizer." 
 You may be nervous, catarrhal, rheumatic, too fat, too lean, 
 or tubercular. The essentials so far recommended, if carried 
 out with plenty of exercise to effectualize the application of 
 the former factors, will do for you what a regiment of physi- 
 cians and trained nurses can never do. 
 
 And after all they are simple to remember and to apply; 
 the first two are the greatest cleansers and vitalizers in the 
 world — not merely AIR and WATER, — but the right and ample 
 use of AIR and WATER. 
 
 The Items necessary for building, rebuilding, eftectualiz- 
 ing and maintaining are the proper use of food and physical 
 exercise. These four features may be imagined as four pow- 
 erful horses, galloping in the most sure-footed manner wher- 
 ever your fundamental attitude toward life, the quality and 
 character of your mental activity is directing them. Or again 
 they may be pictured as four expert mechanics, building your 
 earthly tabernacle according to the way you allow either your 
 irresponsible emotions, or your rational, purposeful WILL, to 
 boss them. 
 
Lesson II. 
 MENTAL INFLUENCE 
 
 "You never can tell what a thought will do, 
 In bringing you hate or love ; 
 For thoughts are things, and their airy wings 
 Are swifter than carrier doves. 
 They follow the law of the universe; 
 Each thing creates its kind. 
 They speed o'er the track to bring you back 
 Whatever went out from your mind." — (E. W. Wilcox) 
 
 IN THE foregoing lesson we observed the four main 
 physical essentials of health, namely, the proper use of 
 Water, Air, Food and Exercise. Now, if we were to pick 
 ten passersby from the main street of your town or city, and 
 could induce these ten persons faithfully to adopt a correct 
 regimen in regard to all those essentials, we would probably 
 note at the end of a year that, altho each of the ten benefited, 
 yet the benefits would be of different kinds. How would we 
 account for these differences? By the basic mental atti- 
 tude of the person himself. 
 
 All those four activating factors act according to the 
 kind of mental influence radiated upon them by the person. It 
 is well known to specialists that food stock should never be 
 slaughtered when in a state of fatigue, anxiety or fear, — as 
 the meat then will not prove edible. Chemical actions and 
 reactions are at all times taking place within the body. There 
 may be many causes, obscure as well as obvious, for those 
 changes, but one of the most obvious causes lies in the state of 
 the emotions. 
 
 In some laboratories one may perchance find a delicate 
 balancing table. A person may so adjust himself upon it that 
 the scales at both ends show equal weight. An interesting 
 proof of the physiological effect of thought and emotion may 
 then be witnessed. If the person so laid out on the table can 
 stimulate his imagination that he is running, — running as from 
 some impending danger, — very soon the foot end of the table 
 will show overweight and the head end underweight. The 
 
 27 
 
28 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 blood, and naturally the energies of the body, have followed 
 the emotions and the thought to the feet. Let the same person 
 now imagine that he is being crushed beneath a falling log, 
 and that alternate lifting with each shoulder is all that will 
 free and save his life. Let him continue this purely imaginary 
 exercise vigorously only a few moments, and presently the 
 markings of the scales will have reversed themselves — the foot 
 end underweight and the head end overweight. 
 
 Fear, anxiety, envy, jealousy, all these destructive emo- 
 tions, are allowed to play through us only because of ignor- 
 ance as to what their consequences are. Acute, excited fear or 
 anxiety will open the adrenalin glands, releasing copious quan- 
 tities of that fluid into the blood stream of the body. Nature, 
 evidently on the theory that if you fear or are anxious, neces- 
 sarily you must be wanting to fight physically, or to run fast 
 and far, then supplies you with this powerful stimulant. Un- 
 less dissipated in vigorous and prolonged physical exercise, it 
 does not prove to be a stimulant at all, but seems to act more 
 like an insidious and persistent poison. It is the conjecture of 
 psychology that many ailments such as paralysis, diabetes, 
 Bright's Disease, etc., are the results of ignorant indulgence in 
 violent and destructive emotions, — that they are to be classed 
 among the worry and anxiety diseases, as typhoid and similar 
 ailments have long been classed among the filth diseases. 
 
 Self-neglect causes the filth diseases. 
 
 Self-abuse causes the anxiety diseases. The worst form 
 of self-abuse is destructive emotionalism. It is just as easy to 
 saturate oneself with enthusiasm, self-confidence, and optimism 
 by the mere insistence to oneself that the opposite mental atti- 
 tudes are irrational. There are many people who must be in a 
 frantic state of activity and distraction; quiet or solitude with 
 such immediately brings on a mood of depression. If the 
 mind is trained to stand always in a constructive attitude, 
 however, there is nothing more valuable than a frequent with- 
 drawal from all activity, and the person will learn to value 
 such periods every, bit as much as the active "good time." 
 Spontaneously, pictures will spring up in the mind at such 
 times — representations of ideals to be attained with means 
 suggested how to attain them. Feel yourself being submerged 
 in and surcharged with a fullness of energy that sends you 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 29 
 
 back into the world of activity buoyant, genial, successful. Too 
 many people are satisfied barely to drag along through life, — 
 but gladly would grasp at vitality and health and success if it 
 were handed them on a silver platter. Psychology merely ex- 
 plains that each one of us may grab the means of health and 
 success. If we have ailments then we have made them. If we 
 have made them, then we ran unmake them. And as we proceed 
 to unmake our ailments and inefficiencies, if only by the methods 
 already suggested, we will find our personalities growing so 
 magnetic that it will be a stimulation for others merely to meet 
 us. This last should be qualified before going further, with 
 this question: If you are not in possession of many friends > 
 just how glad are you to meet and commune with those you do 
 possess? There is a deep law of cause and effect running 
 underneath and within all features of life. It is a curious 
 fact that many people, apparently quite successful, are often 
 found without true friends merely because the law, "If you 
 want friends, be one," is not understood. 
 
 Picture yourself to yourself — be proud of the fact that 
 you can lend yourself your own encouragement, — and then 
 substantiate your pride by actually doing the things that appeal 
 to you as meant for your progress toward your ideal. There 
 will be much improvement in the mental influence you give 
 yourself and radiate to others if only this one instruction is 
 whole-heartedly carried out for a month. You will find your- 
 self rising in your own estimation, — really on the par instead 
 of whiningly apologizing for this defeat and the other. You 
 will observe facts, and take them for what they are. If you 
 are in the wrong situation, you will not any more allow it to 
 magnify itself in your mind as some monster that enslaves you 
 from eternity and unto eternity. You will take it merely as 
 the present temporary fact, of no more significance than a 
 thousand other facts which surround you. You will see that 
 just as great a fact as the unwelcome or unworthy situation is 
 the overwhelming fact that you will get out, and 
 that the getting out will be an improvement over the 
 old environment. The secret of developing, improving and 
 strengthening mental influence is just this ability to recognize 
 fact, without minimizing the importance of it, nor yet piling 
 
30 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 on it extravagant theories, or meanings, and then allowing 
 such theories and meanings to enslave us. 
 
 The successful man or woman is never known to build 
 cramping nightmares even out of the most distressing facts. 
 If heredity were the formidable thing claimed for it some 
 decades ago, some of the greatest personages in history would 
 never have been great. Many of them sprang from hereditary 
 strains that were poor and obscure, without faculty or talent. 
 They were strong enough to take the fact of a poor heredity 
 at its face value, and overtop it with the greater fact of their 
 determination to be what they wished to be. 
 
 Don't be afraid of facts. Don't deny facts. For the 
 most part, physical conditions, whether they pertain to health 
 or to other circumstance, are the result or effects of mental 
 causes. Realize that to the extent which you control your own 
 mind and emotions, to the extent you transform irresponsible 
 destructive emotions into constructive attitudes, — to that ex- 
 tent will your dreams and your wishes come true according to 
 the silent operations of your will. 
 
 People who indulge in destructive emotions always 
 have real reasons for doing so. The truly advancing student 
 of psychology must learn to REFUSE anxiety, worry, jeal- 
 ousy, pettiness and selfishness, — must learn to refuse them 
 entrance at the threshold of his mind, no matter how valid 
 may sound their reasons for wanting entrance. Insist that 
 only such material may enter your mind as will help, and not 
 oppose the wonderful way of body-building which Nature has 
 ordained. Insist that you will see more and more clearly, 
 and comply more and more easily with the constructive phase 
 of that law. It will become apparent that each person builds 
 his destiny not only year to year, but minute to minute. You, 
 as you find yourself today, ARE your destiny THUS FAR. You 
 are what you are and where you are today, as the result of 
 mental attitudes you have indulged and thoughts you have 
 given birth to in the past. No phrase sums it up better than 
 this: The thoughts of today become the dreams of tonight, 
 the actions of tomorrow, and the character of the future. 
 Thoughts long held become convictions; they reach their nth 
 power — like weak fluids that we watch fermenting for a while 
 and then turning into alcohol. Such "essences" of thought, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 31 
 
 deep convictions, often cannot be changed quickly by taking up 
 a new channel of "surface thinking." The realization 
 that you are an all-powerful soul with absolute dominion over 
 the weal or woe of your own body can be brought about 
 through persistence. Deepen and yet more deepen the funda- 
 mental changes in your convictions, and look less for quick re- 
 sults in these things. The results will come quickly enough 
 and in abundant measure as soon as your mental currents be- 
 come obedient to your will. 
 
 Note the things that you are today, the things that 
 happened TO you today. They are, and they befell you 
 in exact obedience to the same law. They happened as a 
 result of your subconscious WILL. The subconscious will, if 
 we have not forgotten, acts only with as much freedom, only 
 with as much choice, as the weight of your biases, prejudices, 
 destructive emotions, and the essences of your past thinking 
 will allow. The sooner you can completely rid it of all en- 
 cumbrances, the sooner will it operate just as magically, just 
 as effectively, to make you and your environment over into 
 what you dream of, imagine, yearn after and idealize. Your 
 body is a solidified substance, builded subtly and wonderfully 
 by the action of mind. The action of mind made a "matrix," 
 as the printers call it, into which as it were this body has been 
 poured, and by which it has been moulded. No illness, no 
 defect in physique, can appear, except by some defect or 
 impairment in our thinking. It is the influence of our own 
 thinking which either topples us from the road of health, or 
 with gyroscopic stability, keeps us in the sunny middle road of 
 health and poise. 
 
 It is not what happens to us that matters. To the bright- 
 est luminaries in history more dreadful things happened than 
 will ever, it is hoped, happen to you. It did not matter; they 
 did not allow it to matter. The great thing that does matter 
 is, how will you react to this or that occurrence in your life? 
 In other words, How will you take jt? How you take a thing 
 determines what yoiTare engraftingmto your own character — 
 determines in fact then and there some corresponding modifi- 
 cation in the strength and quality of your mental influence. 
 And it is interesting to note that the great shocks in life seldom 
 are reacted to badly. We seem to be elevated and dignified, 
 
32 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 as by the touch of some superior being then, and the reaction 
 to the sudden and real soul cataclysm is seldom destructive. 
 Where attention is needed, however, is on the common detailed 
 occurrences of everyday life. It is the reaction we give, it is 
 how we take what this person did, and what the other person 
 said, that needs readjustment in line with correct psychology. 
 
 Any person, unless he be a yellow cur, will die that others 
 might live; but we often find the same person an unbearable 
 cad or shrew in everyday life. It is so easy to die, especially 
 if our pictures will be put in the papers after the event. But 
 it is such a bother to live, grow, and help others in living and 
 growing. The psychological student reverses the channels of 
 this sort of "heroism" and renews his efforts every minute of 
 the waking day, if necessary, to keep the energy wasted in day- 
 dreams of martyrdom down to the business of living 
 efficiently. People do not need others to die for them so much 
 as they need more units in society who will make effort to live 
 for each other's benefit. If every key on the piano determined 
 grimly to "live its own life" (that is, its own exclusive or selfish 
 life) we'd have mighty poor harmony from that instrument. 
 Moreover, an expert musician would declare each individual 
 key as "no good." 
 
 The first thing, then, in order to develop the habit of right 
 and constructive mental influence, is to favor curiosity and 
 knowledge of natural laws more, and to favor our accumula- 
 tions of convictions less. Our "likes" and "dislikes" often have 
 nothing whatever to do with natural law; our likes and dislikes 
 often oppose the laws of nature. Natural laws are psycho- 
 logical first, foremost and all the time. By studying our own 
 mental actions we find how character and personality are con- 
 structed. If we do not like the manner of construction so far, 
 we must learn to operate mental laws according to the design 
 we do want. 
 
 How? Our character selects for us ingredients out of 
 food, air and water in order to build according to its own 
 nature. A bird eating the same wheat you eat for breakfast 
 makes of that wheat feathers, claws, and vitalizes its ability to 
 sing. Its bird character does the selecting quite automatically. 
 Your character is not the bird's. You could not make feathers 
 of that wheat if you wanted to. Your subconscious processes 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 33 
 
 make of it tissue, bone, muscle, hair, nails, fluids, etc. But 
 here are Mrs. Jones, red-headed and squat; Mr. Brown, bald- 
 headed and dignified and tall, and Miss Graham — neurotic, 
 esthetic and anaemic, all eating wheat porridge at the break- 
 fast table. Mrs. Jones, ignorant of the fact that by thought 
 'she can gradually and effectively change her character, allows 
 her present character and disposition to do her selecting, and, 
 of course, the subconscious processes all work dutifully to 
 keep her squat, and mentally dense — all from the same wheat 
 porridge, out of the same beverages and water that may be 
 drunk, out of the same air breathed by Mr. Brown and Miss 
 Graham. Mr. Brown, by the same token, has a subconscious 
 mind that keeps him dignified, probably priggish enough to 
 lose out on many prospective friendships which would be 
 valuable to him. Miss Graham, daintily imbibing the same 
 porridge, does not see, of course, that the subconscious mind 
 is twisting and perverting her quite natural desires and urges 
 into thinned-out, pseudo-enthusiasms for "art," or "bohemian- 
 ism," or parlor bolshevism, and thereby building into her, ac- 
 cording to her character, the mental influence of still more self- 
 fear, which is neurosis. A cobra eating of the same porridge, 
 would turn it into a poison so violent as to turn any chemist 
 green with envy, — according to its cobra character, and then 
 the lawn-rabbit would turn the same wheat, according to its 
 character into timidity and fat. 
 
 The subconscious mind builds according to the ideas, 
 emotions and pictures which mentally you are holding before 
 it. That is the mental influence you are continually playing 
 upon yourself; that is the mesmeric or hypnotic influence by 
 yourself upon yourself which never ceases and never will cease. 
 It will, however, improve or deteriorate according to your 
 character. You can change your character by realizing that 
 you built it by conscious thinking in the first place, and that its 
 reconstruction will be accomplished in the same way. In fact, 
 even if one ignores the issue, it is being added to, or some- 
 thing is being taken away from it, at all times, without a mo- 
 ment's cessation. And the "selecting" which is discussed in the 
 foregoing takes place not only with the food eaten, but just 
 as effectively out of the air breathed, the water consumed, 
 from the stimulation of exercise, and from the collective 
 
34 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 "auras" of people contacted in everyday life. The nature of 
 mind is that it is not quiet for a moment. Just because some 
 phases of mind are not in your field of awareness does not 
 make such subconscious phases less active than that part which 
 you can watch. The subconscious phase is much greater, much 
 more active than that phase of mind with which you commonly 
 identify yourself. 
 
 But great as is the subconscious mind, it works in line 
 with such mental influence as you are able to radiate from 
 your aware and conscious feelings, emotions, thoughts and 
 aspirations. Bear all this in mind when walking, when danc- 
 ing, when swimming, when eating, drinking or resting. Insist 
 on the freed activity of your own self; determine to master 
 states of consciousness, especially in the emotional field, in- 
 stead of allowing them to enslave you. 
 
 Determine to be glad you are in this world; work for, 
 demand and expect success. Picture that success as the 
 kind that benefits your entire circle of friends and acquaint- 
 ances. Picture at the same time that circle as ever widening 
 and growing; for much of life is lived thru our contacts, 
 friendships and acquaintanceships. Demand that you get more 
 than diversion and amusement from reading and from the 
 theatre. Expect to see in and thru things, to derive their inner 
 meaning, their distillation, their essence, their soul. Such liv- 
 ing will enrich the personality, and make you a radiating, mag- 
 netic, beneficial unit in society. You will then be a real success. 
 And yet, do not forget that the greatest successes often con- 
 sider themselves failures. Richelieu regarded himself as a 
 failure, — great statesman that he was, he wanted to be a poet. 
 He probably would have been a very bad one. Beethoven 
 considered himself as a tyro and bungling amateur in music, — 
 yet unmistakably he was the greatest master of music that has 
 trod this earth. This world is, as it were, a participial class 
 in school. Everything ends with "ing." Nothing in the past 
 perfect tense ending with "ed" is to be found. To realize this 
 will add to the effect of our efforts by lending us a legitimate 
 contentment. Yet, let us realize that pursuit of knowledge, of 
 happiness, of efficiency and success are methods of carrying out 
 the divine command, "Be Ye Perfect," and that the best way 
 of obeying that command is to start with self-study. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 35 
 
 "In the Beginning" Means NOW. 
 
 No system of philosophy, no scheme of life, is complete 
 without first postulating the eternal, causeless being of an all- 
 pervasive intelligence and power. In religion this power is 
 called God. Some call that originating point of all life and 
 being by the name of Spirit. Some call it the Oversoul. Some 
 scientific philosophers call it the Ether, but they know little 
 about it. Some apply to It such descriptives as Light, Life, 
 Love, Omnipotence, Omniscience, Compassion, etc. Undoubt- 
 edly It is the source of ALL. But, again, not to trespass or 
 subvert in the least any faith or conception of that ONE, let 
 us view the matter just to see if psychology can add anything 
 to our clearness of comprehension. 
 
 Psychology says merely that with every different form of 
 organism that One manifests and acts only according to what 
 that particular organism offers as a "machine" thru which to 
 act. Psychology points out that in every so-called "act of j 
 providence," machinery seen or unseen was used. If we have 
 a prophecy from some one, and that prophecy comes true, we 
 must admit that the mind of some man or woman was the in- 
 strument thru which it came. If for the major part of my life- 
 time I so attuned my mind only to the deepest verities of 
 nature, and to altruistic purposes, I have no doubt but that 
 even my fancies and my dreams would be clairvoyant of actu- 
 alities — past, present or future. If I had my mind so attuned 
 that it was hostile to every morbid whim, impervious to de- 
 pression, — I know that the one can work, and must then 
 work, thru me to radiate health and beneficence on others, and 
 that I myself would not be excluded. If, however, my mind 
 was carelessly governed; if I allowed facts to fly out, and my 
 own prejudices and whims and selfish emotions to rule, then 
 the more I prayed for the presence and the inflow of that 
 one, the more ill at ease I would become — because that most 
 tremendous energy in the universe could do no more than to 
 animate the machinery I held up to it. Study, work, willing- 
 ness and ability to serve, — these are psychologically, we see, 
 the only valid forms of worship. The "blessings" from that 
 form of worship are immediately apparent in improved health 
 and efficiency, physical, moral, mental, psychic and spiritual. 
 
 True psychology is not so much concerned with teaching 
 
36 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 students mental tricks. It is concerned utterly and absolutely 
 with making the mind a subservient tool and instrument for 
 the true self. If "tricks" are needed at any time for purposes 
 of demonstration, if the mind has been drilled in correct atti- 
 tudes, the ability will be there. What if very Bowery thug 
 could do what Houdini does? What if one of such thugs 
 went to Houdini for "lessons?" What would Houdini say? 
 I do not know how much of a sage that clever prestidigitator 
 may be, but I rather think he would send back the denizen of 
 the Bowery to some school or other, where a wholesome re- 
 spect for the decencies and amenities of human life would first 
 be inculcated into him. Houdini's knowledge and ability 
 spilled into the machinery which the thug holds up would 
 destroy and ruin every one whom the thug thereafter con- 
 tacted, and would figuratively send the thug himself to hell. 
 For the thug, no matter how or in what manner Houdini 
 would teach him, subconsciously would be "selecting" accord- 
 ing to his character. And he would thereafter use his "selec- 
 tion" according to that same character. That is what most of 
 us do after reading or studying the New Testament. Then we 
 wonder what mysterious fate hounds us with mental ineffi- 
 ciency, restlessness, or physical impairment. Nothing hounds 
 us, nothing hampers us, except the veils of misconception 
 which we hug the tighter around us in the face of FACTS and 
 natural laws. When we can look our own prejudices 
 in the face and expose them with the same blithesomeness that 
 we perform that service for unwilling Mrs. Jones in the next 
 house or Mr. Brown in still the next, a great deal of the 
 mystery will dissipate into thin air. 
 
 If you have apparently been inefficient before then, you 
 will see clearly why'. You will be able to deal intelligently 
 with yourself. You will be able to place yourself. You will 
 no longer be a square peg in a round hole. You will be able 
 to criticise yourself intelligently, and to encourage yourself 
 intelligently. You will avoid the sin of self-condemnation and 
 of self-belittling as tho' it were poison. Next to self-praise 
 and self-inflation, the greatest crime is self-condemnation. All 
 these are disguised, and therefore the most dangerous manifes= 
 tations of selfishness. Selfishness means that you are excluding 
 knowledge from yourself to the extent that you are excluding 
 
ed | 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 37 
 
 considerations of other folks' welfare. Nature or the ONE 
 intends that each human being realize that he is united 
 and at one with every other. While we refuse to recognize 
 and live according to that FACT in Nature, the one will see 
 to it that we "die" again and again, in order that with the 
 essential accumulation gathered, we may, refreshed by the 
 oblivion of detailed memory, try again and yet again. 
 
 But, in the meantime, let us use our mental influence, 
 while we are improving it, according to the knowledg of psy- 
 chology we already have. There is not one but may improve 
 his value to himself and others by becoming more efficient in 
 the business of living. Too many in contemplating abstract 
 verities, are like the girl in the missionary school. She was 
 undergoing training to become what is known as a medical 
 missionary. But she was so imbued with all she was going to 
 do for the poor benighted heathen that her mind utterly 
 failed to register any of the technique of medicine and of nurs- 
 ing which she was there to learn. Of course she was expelle 
 in due time, still ineffectually blubbering about the dire fate of 
 the poor heathen without her ministrations. Lucky heathen, — 
 that she never found her way to them! 
 
 If you are a mother, how much more of a real mother 
 you may be by revealing to yourself thru psychology some 
 of the wonderful laws concerned in the building up of 
 the budding personalities entrusted to your custody. You are 
 the Priestess of the one in a far more real sense than any 
 mitered dignitary in a temple or cathedral. You can make 
 or mar the blueprint of human perfection, which in its soul, 
 the child has brought down to earth from God. Learn more 
 and yet more how to make conformation to that ideal design 
 easy and habitual as the personalities whom you call your 
 children begin to mature. 
 
 If you are a father, learn the psychological weight that 
 exists, admitted or unadmitted, in the mere fact of being the 
 "head of the household." You will learn thru psychology, 
 that no matter What You Are, unconsciously you are being 
 "selected" as an ideal to follow. Your influence, the actions 
 which you conceal from the child, the schemes you never reveal 
 to the child, are modifying his own ideal of perfection. Let 
 the actions and the schemes at least be definite, if possible, even 
 
38 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 great. The child is seeing, hearing, and telepathically in his 
 subconscious self perceiving and appropriating for the first 
 time, and to a great extent from you, his ideas and tendencies 
 in regard to the "new" world he is in. It is establishing prece- 
 dents. If you are a lawyer or a judge, you will appreciate 
 the significance of that. Govern yourself, if possible, that 
 the child's list of precedents will not be a category of vague 
 and petty and devious items. 
 
 Thru psychology the business executive realizes in his 
 relations toward "connections" and subordinates, that through- 
 out the complexities of business life there is one simple unity 
 easily understood if sympathetic attention be directed toward 
 it. That simple, easily learned unity, is Human Nature. Its 
 god is integrity; its devil is selfishness. Neither its god nor 
 its devil can be done away with, but the best aim in business, 
 according to psychology, is to make selfishness subservient to 
 integrity. Those executives and captains of industry who have 
 followed that principle thru thick and thin, stand at the top ; 
 and among those who stand at the top, they are the best 
 examples of business success. 
 
 The clerk will see thru psychology that he is not work- 
 ing at all to make his living. He will see that he is where 
 he is because of necessity. Necessity is self-devised and self- 
 induced. It is not a void, but a made thing. He will see, 
 if he wishes to advance and to progress, that he must manu- 
 - facture a necessity for the "raise." A determination to forge 
 ahead is not enough, but it is a necessary item. But over 
 and above that determination, there must be a progressive 
 accumulation of specific knowledge peculiar to the station 
 ahead which is being idealized. When that accumulation has 
 grown to so great an extent that "in spirit" you are already 
 occupying the higher position and are homesick for it, — then 
 you may work in your old position with cheer. It is but a 
 matter of a very short time before you'll be at home. 
 
 The mechanic need not think because his employment is 
 so thoroughly concerned with physical and material things, 
 that an insight into psychology does not touch him vitally. 
 Psychology after all is one big department in the science of 
 life, and a mechanic as a rule is not dead. In my experience, 
 I have yet to find a community of mechanics wherein at least 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 39 
 
 75 per cent are not either active or latent inventors. The 
 latent ones are kept so by their own inertness, due to a kind 
 of hypnosis of "weight," I suppose, that may or may not be 
 caused by a sort of psychic reaction from the very metals 
 handled. A thorough grounding in the facts regarding mental 
 influence would serve to wake them up. We are not yet a 
 quarter thru with mechanical inventions, great as the progress 
 has been in the last half-century. 
 
 The laborer will find his lot ameliorated by an applica- 
 tion of psychological laws. It is a curious fact that the 
 roughest laborers often have a keen intuitional appreciation 
 of Natural Law. Such knowledge with them often is made 
 void of good effects, however, because of ignorance of con- 
 ventional culture, tradition, etc., which latter in turn act with 
 the power of veritable gods on other strata of society. Psy- 
 chology does its bit to bridge the gap, for it shows that the 
 methods of advance, of growth, of progress, are the same 
 with one member of the race as with the other. The impedi- 
 ments of worry, anxiety, fear, etc., for instance, will "play 
 hell" with a laborer in his life and environment in much the 
 same destructive way that it will act in the life, home and 
 environment of the millionaire. 
 
 Professional people and artists are found in great num- 
 bers as the keenest students of psychology. They suffer some 
 handicap because of their vocabulary, however. Often they 
 play hide-and-seek with words. For instance, a destructive 
 emotion is poison, it is just as deadly if we shift words and 
 call it temperament, or incompatibility, or neurosis. The "sen- 
 sitiveness" about which some of them take pride, is selfishness. K 
 Take any person extremely susceptible to petty annoyance, — ^ 
 tear off the disguise, and you find an extremely selfish person. 
 It is not that we are trying to slide out of a difficult situation 
 by preaching altruism and ethics — but merely pointing out 
 with the finger of psychology why some professional people 
 are real (not merely financial) successes, and why others are 
 not. 
 
 In all progress toward achievement, whether socially, or 
 with the ideal of business success, realize that you have unlim- 
 ited power, but that this unlimited power can act only thru 
 the efficiency of your mental influence. If the mind is trained, 
 
40 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 and its influence is for "increase," for certainty, for success, 
 the power will never fail. Think definitely and with con- 
 tinuity. I've known imbeciles to think of sublime things. It 
 does them no good because they cannot establish in them- 
 selves either definiteness or continuity. The monkey is clever, 
 but it has not evolved one bit since recorded human history, 
 because it utterly lacks continuity. It plays with the sand one 
 second, the next second it is in the topmost branch of the 
 tree, and the next moment it is grimacing and scratching at 
 the bite of a flea with one hand while distractedly reaching 
 for a succulent beetle with the other. Is that a picture or even 
 a logical caricature of your mental regime? If so, for good- 
 ness sake, change it. Ideals and sublime objects of thought 
 are not half so valuable psychologically, as the establishment 
 of definiteness, integrity, and continuity. I'd rather have a 
 Darwin tell me about the habits of the angle worm than listen 
 to the sermon some illiterate dodo of a preacher might pour 
 into my ear. Again, I'd rather listen to the ideas of a Tal- 
 madge, or a Cardinal Newman, than to the "Truth From the 
 Other Side" by some greasy, undisciplined and wilfully ignor- 
 ant person, for some strange reason called a "medium." 
 
 These, then, are a few of the fundamental things to con- 
 sider, and to seek to apply while pursuing further knowledge 
 of "applied psychology." 
 
Lesson III. 
 VITAL ENERGY AND CELL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 IN a vague, harmless and useless sort of way, everyone 
 knows about "vitality." We speak of a person as being 
 full of "pep," — meaning by that, that the other is to under- 
 stand what we mean. If pressed for a definition, we may 
 mean one of a hundred things. The person accused of posses- 
 sing vitality and "pep," we might find, may have come under 
 that suspicion only thru loudness or incontinence either in 
 speech, dress or action. Those who truly possess vitality in 
 abundant measure and are well-disposed otherwise, invariably 
 have also that indefinable something called magnetism or 
 "charm." Their actions are effective — as if fraught with 
 more significance than a similar action by another. The 
 speech of one abounding in magnetism carries weight, because 
 it enforces activity in the imagination of the listener. 
 
 The vital energy may or may not work out as physical 
 strength. Napoleon was truly a dynamo of vital energy, 
 exceedingly magnetic, and yet physically he was by no means 
 a giant. Mohammed, who by help of his mental and vital 
 magnetism inaugurated a system of religious thought which 
 today promises to engulf all the Orient with the possible ex- 
 ception of the Mongols, himself was not a strong man. He 
 was puny and an epileptic. Loyola founded the strongest or- 
 der within the Catholic church after he had been dismissed 
 with a permanently impaired body from a hospital. These 
 persons, and hundreds like them in the world today, are ex- 
 amples of all that is. tied up in that rather obscure phrase which 
 is becoming popular, — "The redirection of the energy." We 
 shall try to discuss and clarify that phrase presently. 
 
 In the meantime, let it be understood that no one knows 
 exactly what vital energy is. Neither does anyone know 
 exactly what electricity is. But it is safer to hold some con- 
 ception regarding electricity, conforming to its known actions 
 and possibly explanatory of them, than to deny its existence. 
 
 4! 
 
42 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 One can say All is God, God is Love, Pain is Error, grasp 
 a live wire after a trolley accident, and be electrocuted. This 
 may cause some to elevate an eyebrow, but whether or not 
 the eyebrow is elevated, it is true — and a truth-resenting mind 
 is not progressing. The results of holding erroneous con- 
 ceptions regarding the vital energy of the body, may for all 
 we know, prove as dangerous, tho' probably not so spectacular, 
 as when we try to dissipate the results of electrical action by a 
 play upon abstractions. 
 
 Indeed, it will not harm matters to use an abstract state- 
 ment as proof. For instance, the statement that every known 
 energy and power in the universe is the manifestation of one 
 fundamental and universal energy, — is an abstraction. Yet 
 it seems so self-evident, so axiomatic to the thinking mind, that 
 science does not hesitate even in its material speculations to 
 acquiesce to it as a prime hypothesis. Now, our simile, used 
 just a moment ago, becomes more valuable. We see that the 
 very electricity, industrially and commercially used, which 
 there we mentioned by indirection, is one of the manifestations 
 of that one universal energy. We imagine it to be about the 
 most marvelous discovery, considering the almost miraculous 
 ramifications of its uses, that man ever made or ever will make. 
 And yet look at the clumsy wire coil around the magnet; the 
 ponderous metallic dynamo; the sloppy storage tanks and vats 
 of corroding minerals ! Wonderful things can be accomplished 
 with the energy conveyed by the cables from those same tanks. 
 How came it into the tanks? It was transformed into a con- 
 ductible energy, we hear the reply, — from a grosser form of 
 non-conductible power — from steam churning the pistons of 
 an engine, or from water turning mill-wheels or turbines. 
 
 In the form it assumes when leaving the "power-house" 
 it is a very different thing. Movements of great force were 
 available from the energy before it was transformed into 
 electricity, the turning of wheels for manufacture, for trans- 
 portation, etc. But once the same energy has been turned into 
 electrical energy, those movements are at once dropped down 
 to the bottom of the list of things that it can perform, as the 
 least important. We find that energy so transformed can be 
 turned into light, into heat, into a chemical agent and reagent, 
 into a transmitting agent for sound as in the telephone, into 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 43 
 
 a medium for the transmission of other impulses as in the 
 telegraph; to make opacity transparent as in the X-ray; to 
 detect impulses in a field of energy more subtle than itself, as 
 in the wireless apparatus. 
 
 How Do We Appropriate Energy? 
 
 We live and move and have our being not only in an 
 ocean of universal intelligence, but likewise in an ocean of 
 energy. By all the acts and functions which go to make up 
 the mere act of living, we appropriate each one, according to 
 his mentally fixed standard, our quota of this energy. Any 
 person who says he has not enough energy and vitality is lying, 
 for in truth any person has a universe full of it at his disposal, 
 and, if not too greedy, that should be enough. It is as if 
 a sardine in the middle of the Pacific Ocean were to complain 
 about the lack of water. 
 
 How Do We Transform It? 
 
 But we forget that each and every one of us is a peram- 
 bulating and walking trans forming power house in a universal 
 Niagara of energy, — an energy so terrific that every visible 
 form of it is but a weak reflection of some principle in it. 
 Psychology would bid us recall its only dogma at this point, 
 that Man is Not a physical being, — but a psychic being living 
 in a physical machine. All the transforming, therefore, must 
 be psychically done. Your quota is always the amount you 
 can transform. All psychical action takes place in accordance 
 with the kind of thought you think and the manner in which 
 you think it, — in accordance with the emotion or mood you 
 entertain and the amount of control you exercise during its 
 entertainment. 
 
 A Common "Snag" 
 
 To hold a "small calibre" conception in regard to that 
 energy, therefore, limits its action down to the level of your 
 erroneous notion. When brought down to so base a level of 
 action, it then disappoints, sickens, thwarts and even kills you. 
 Error kills the person who nurtures it, even if the person 
 worships the error and calls it Truth, Religion, or Science. 
 Altho' the energy in the ether and in the air is superlatively 
 powerful, yet it is so delicate and subtle, that even our thoughts 
 in regard to it, or in regard to anything else, swerve it, direct 
 
44 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 it, bind or release its action. If we ignore it, we are as the 
 fish denying the presence of water. It is fortunate only that 
 our ignoring of it does not lessen the quantity available for 
 others, any more than it would matter if some poor lone fish 
 were to ignore the existence of the water in which it swims. 
 
 The Machinery for Transformation 
 
 Once more, to re-enter into the power house illustration. 
 Man is a psychic power house. That is to say, with each 
 breath he breathes, he is imbibing this energy, and every 
 mechanism in his being, psychic, ghostly if you will, as well 
 as physical, sets about to transform it into something as 
 specifically characteristic of himself as commercial electricity 
 is characteristic of the concrete power house at the foot of 
 the waterfall. He is subconsciously converting it into human 
 electricity, — vitality and strength, whether physical, moral, 
 mental, psychic, — or all combined. The energy taken in, we 
 saw, is the source or creator of all other energies. Hence, 
 it is probably a reasonable surmise that the physically creative 
 organs and their psychic correspondences specialize this current 
 in the first place. It is then ready for the use and the direction 
 of the imagination, desire, and will of the individual. 
 
 If the specializing functions are abused, impairment will 
 result. If I went into a power house, at the foot of Niagara 
 Falls, and deliberately vandalized the most important unit of 
 machinery in the place for the mere sensuous joy of hearing the 
 wheels hum or to watch the sparks fly, the wires from that 
 plant would not thereafter carry as much electricity as wires 
 from other power houses. But let us look closely just what 
 goes to make up vandalism in the human power house. Is it 
 the organs and act of creation plus the various perversions 
 and inversions of the latter? Is it the oft-quoted "conspiracy 
 of silence" on the part of parents, and the consequent forcing 
 of little May and little Jimmie to gather furtively, information 
 most important to later health and peace of mind? Is it all 
 the current rasping about purity, the upshot of which seems 
 to be the doing away with physiology by legislation? Is it the 
 "double" standard that says man may indulge the lust of his 
 eyes but that woman must not? 
 
 "Sabotage" In the Power House 
 
 Humankind is suffering from a vandalism that is being 
 
PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 45 
 
 currently perpetrated in this regard. Of this there can be little 
 doubt, if we look around. Only 20 per cent of adults have 
 really anywhere near the normal and abundant quota of 
 physical and mental vitality to carry on the business of living 
 successfully. But in regard to the popular notion that crim- 
 inal tendencies, insanity, etc., for the most part, originate in 
 the perverse practices, we bear in mind conclusions of Jung, 
 Silberer, and Dr. White — the latter's authoritative review of 
 causes for sub-normality in the federal prisons of the United 
 States, dismisses perverse practices out of the possible category 
 with a brief paragraph of about six lines. There is nothing 
 to it. But there is a great deal to the diabolical fears and 
 bugaboos parrotted down from one generation of ignoramusses 
 to the next, usually during those years when a child is still 
 miraculously susceptible to suggestion, — picturing in pictures 
 that arise from Hell "what will happen" if the child should 
 now, or at any future time "do" this or that. There is an 
 item of real vandalism, and there is no need to mystify our- 
 selves with conjectures. Undue shaming of a child, if ever 
 as a race we develop sense, will be penalized as murder is now 
 penalized. 
 
 A child rushed up to its mother to know the meaning of 
 an indecent word she had heard. (Why are there indecent 
 words, anyway? What, after all, is the difference between a 
 belly and an abdomen, or between a gut and an intestine? In 
 older civilizations the ribald song was composed, and could 
 only be composed of the same words used in the sophist's 
 academy, the orator's rostrum, or the theatre.) The child 
 was agog with desire for information. The mother slapped it 
 violently and sent it whimpering to bed. That mother, no 
 matter how saintly her deportment might have been in the 
 street, in society, or in the church, by that action proved her- 
 self an indecent woman. By that inadvertence, surely, she 
 transferred her shame to the child. Shame is the mould on 
 mental filth. Filth of that kind is a matter of self-devised 
 and self-inflicted attitudes. No act or fact in Nature is either 
 pure or impure. It is one's own motive, character, attitude 
 and thought that makes of it for any given individual one or 
 the other. If one has nothing to transfer to the child but 
 anxieties and prejudices and bugaboos in regard to sex mat- 
 
46 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 ters, it is probably a thousand times better to keep up with 
 the "conspiracy of silence" than to break it. If our minds 
 are continually clogged with such mental debris, — and if it 
 is true that the condition of the body reflects the condition 
 of the mind, — here then is one of the main causes of all 
 that train of self-poisonings, constipations, atrophies and mal- 
 formations, physical and mental, which go to make up the 
 dictionary of human ills. Elimination of mental debris is as 
 necessary as the elimination of physical waste. 
 
 Speculative Definitions and Comment 
 
 The cosmic universal energy, first translated or trans- 
 formed into human terms, again is called by various names 
 and descriptives. Some bluntly call it the sex urge, which is 
 incomplete and deceptive, tho' certainly in part true. Some 
 philosophers say it can all be summed up in the word "desire." 
 Schopenhauer called it the "Will To Be." The Psycho- 
 analysts call it by the arbitrary, but rather expressive word, 
 "The Libido." This libido, like all other faculties now sub- 
 conscious, must in the course of evolution be made utterly sub- 
 servient to the enlightened human will. Even in the present 
 juncture of human development, it is the accompanist or vital- 
 izer for every action whether physical or mental. Without 
 the control of the will, it, like mind, is never quiescent, but fol- 
 lows along the grooves of old habits, old fears, old memories, 
 striving to give them life and even physical manifestation, — 
 such as the deposits of acids, colonies of "rebel" cell growths, 
 tumors, malformations, etc. From the literature of mysticism, 
 plus the better works on psycho-analysis, one would think that 
 it is this very energy which acts most powerfully in making 
 of man a saint, an adept in the manipulation of occult forces, 
 or in the orient, the holy yogi. To quote from one of our 
 former books, — "When stain (meaning all that is conveyed 
 by the term 'mental debris' in former paragraphs) is no longer 
 possible, the same force of the 'libido' seeking higher expres- 
 sions becomes the medium of illumination. Instead of barrier 
 to 'seeing' and understanding, it becomes aperture for apprecia- 
 tion and comprehension of seen and unseen realities. Instead 
 of a creative matrix of woes, while defiled by our fears and 
 anxieties and selfish indulgences, it now transcends itself into 
 a tractable power for tolerant understanding and keen discern- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 47 
 
 ment. Erotomania becomes spiritual passion for the ideal, 
 an ally, a motive power aiding in yet greater transcensions 
 over material limitations of mind and body." 
 
 However, this is a mere "outline" and a more practical 
 view of this phase of "energy direction" would be more to 
 the point. A careful and considerate discussion of the subject 
 would require many volumes, and then would leave the mat- 
 ter incomplete. Psychology, far from claiming the "last word" 
 in the matter, far from dogmatizing, declares only that dogma 
 is fatal. Let us see, however, before leaving the subject, if 
 we can gather anything of help from the following picture : 
 
 Is There Anything "To" This Parable? 
 
 We will imagine a man of uncertain age, — he may be 
 young, or he may be old, it does not matter, — stationed as 
 the lone caretaker of a great house. He seems always to have 
 been a prisoner therein, and within the walls that surround 
 the grounds. Since "finding" himself here he has known only 
 the kitchen, that is to say, the "utility room," of the place. 
 He has available an oil well in a part of the grounds, and a 
 distillation manufactory in fairly good order distills as much 
 of it as he needs into the form of gasoline. This he uses to 
 warm himself, to cook his food, to minister to his physical or 
 animal wants and needs. We will fancy that there is an exhil- 
 iration about the distilled product, which tempts him to com- 
 mit excesses and debauches with it. But he soon learns that 
 because the reactions to such actions are rather drastic, it is 
 best to limit them, and he finds indeed that they are self- 
 limiting. He was content for a long time to minister, with 
 the energy available from the fluid distillations, only to his 
 creature comforts, his physical and animal needs and wants. 
 But he is no longer content to do so. Something about the 
 impalpable exhiliration' emanating and influencing him, does 
 not allow him to rest. Discontent drives him to investigate 
 further into the house. Presently he finds a room containing a 
 library. It is cold and the books are covered with the dust of 
 ages. He now has a new use for the heating which his supply 
 of the fuel oil warrants. He builds in the necessary piping 
 and installs his radiators, and finds that to the extent he 
 removes the dust from the books, to that extent can he spend 
 his time profitably indeed. He does not cease using the com- 
 
48 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 modity for strictly utilitarian purposes, — but by no means does 
 he neglect the new opportunities which it has opened up to 
 him. 
 
 Perchance in the library room, he now finds a book 
 descriptive of the very house in which he is stationed. He 
 learns things about it he never suspected. Suppose that he 
 puts items he reads together, and finally finds a way to pick 
 the locks of still other rooms. Maybe he finds a music room. 
 He improves his opportunity there, — warming and lighting 
 the room with still the same supply — which now he finds help- 
 ing him in three departments of his "house," — namely, the 
 physical or utilitarian, — the mental, or "library," and his 
 sense of the aesthetic, or the "music room." He neglects none 
 of these. Presently, because he is diligent, he actually evolves 
 a way of converting the gasoline into power thru a machine — 
 and that power thru still other converters and dynamos, in 
 turn he learns how to transform into electricity. He finds 
 queer, half-built, incomplete but ingenious machines every- 
 where he looks now, for one becomes strangely intuitive as one 
 sympathetically and earnestly explores the interior of the house 
 called "consciousness." He finds an X-ray machine, incom- 
 plete probably, but in time he completes it, and then he dem- 
 onstrates to himself that the walls of his house are not a totally 
 hopeless prison, for when the machine is in good trim, he can 
 see thru those self-same walls. He may, because he has con- 
 verted his gasoline into electricity, even find and use a wire- 
 less apparatus. Then his imprisonment is truly ended, for his 
 caretaking of the house becomes a pleasure. He can now send 
 and receive messages to and fro with other caretakers of such 
 houses. It may be that occasionally he can even send mes- 
 sages to the "Landlord" or to one who knows everything pos- 
 sible about house construction, and knows the laws of con- 
 struction. He will begin then to comprehend laws of archi- 
 tecture — the secrets of dynamics. As he goes on, he sees his 
 only source of dissatisfaction and confinement was not the 
 walls. Neither was his unhappy condition entirely caused by 
 his ignorant (tho' legitimate) use of the "gasoline." The 
 cause of his confinement was: pinning down of its use exclu- 
 sively to the satisfaction of bodily needs and appetites. 
 
 In short, the subconscious mind, because of Natural Law, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 49 
 
 is under the compulsion of progressively refining and extending 
 the channels of usefulness of u the libido," with the ideal of an 
 all-knowing and perfect human being always before it. 
 
 Occasionally that urge By the Same Natural Law is for 
 the act of physical creation, according to your sex polarity, 
 This may be deplorable in the eyes of those who are quite sure 
 that they are more proper and more pure than Nature, but 
 Nature evidently is not sending in payment of regular dues 
 to the Purity League. She does not act according to the code 
 of the Puritan, in fact, she playfully afflicted the Puritan with 
 dyspepsia, witchcraft and gloom. Nature is ever ready to aid 
 those who study her to become her masters. She is incapable 
 of helping those who arbitrarily legislate against her without 
 any attempt to understand. Laws in this regard are only one 
 more sly attempt on the part of man to escape the painful 
 necessity of thinking. An unworldly pose will not answer the 
 purpose. It also is a cheap substitute for thought. And evo- 
 lution decrees that we think, and act in accordance with our 
 best thought. No excuse will palliate swerving from this 
 course. /'We dare not make a dogma nor an unrepealable law 
 even of our best thought. We can act in accordance with it, 
 but we must hold ourselves a living question mark for further 
 illumination, individually and racially, or we stagnate, rot, or 
 are enslaved by the uncivilized. We must learn to have an 
 ideal and a standard, to be true to the ideal and the standard, 
 
 but to CHANGE THE IDEAL AND STANDARD WHEN REASON AND 
 INTUITION DICTATE. / 
 
 Probably the greatest psychological mistake lies in men- 
 tally pinning this nerve energy down to the one function of 
 propagation. We observed formerly that it has no recourse 
 but to work according to the deepest laid personal convictions. 
 If such pinning down is the thought, the person must burn in 
 the sexual excitement which he constantly stirs up by main- 
 taining that attitude. Moreover, tho' not given to violence 
 personally, I can sympathize with the husband or wife of such 
 a person giving the other vigorous treatments with a baseball 
 bat, and not absent treatments either. That attitude is the 
 cause of untold misery and unhappiness in domestic life; the 
 chronic mental resentment on the part of the more intelligent 
 of the two becomes a manufactory in time of neuroses and even 
 
{ 
 
 50 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 physical disease. If there are children, they are truly to be 
 pitied. And yet bestiality will be defended often as not, by the 
 person sunken in it, with bible quotations and what not. Prob- 
 ably by the "unpardonable sin," the writers of that book meant 
 the dragging down of its texts to validate bestiality. If not, 
 at least I hope that is what they had in mind. If I had my 
 way, I should make it an unpardonable sin to quote even a 
 Peruna almanac for such a purpose. 
 
 Metaphysics 
 
 We have finished for the time with the subject of Vital 
 Energy. We imagined the universe as flooded with an ocean 
 of energy, and the vital energy of each organized life as a cell 
 therein. Each cell is of the same original power, but special- 
 ized, "personalized," and "transformed" in hundreds of 
 various ways, in ways enforced by the kind of "machines" you 
 have equipped in the power house of your mind and emotions. 
 Man, psychically, therefore, can be considered as a more or 
 less evolved cell in the organism called the universe. 
 
 But there is an old guiding post which the medieval 
 scholars used in all their efforts of learning, consisting of the 
 phrase "As above, so below." It means to say that anything 
 true of the bigness of things, in some analogous way is true 
 in the littleness of things, or vice versa. So we find that the 
 conception of man being a cell in a spiritually organized uni- 
 verse, is carried out in miniature quite graphically throughout 
 the physical structure not only of man, but of all living 
 organisms. 
 
 It is the purpose of psychology to teach that substance 
 and matter are subject to mental law. Mind does not rule 
 matter intelligently, however, until it recognizes its own pow- 
 ers. Mere assertion and affirmation are not enough; they do 
 not constitute knowledge or realization. However, when we 
 have learned to see and cognize matter and substance in terms 
 of the energies which compose them, we are nearer to that 
 mark. For we see that the subtlest and most powerful ener- 
 gies, those, in fact, which are the sources of all visible ener- 
 gies, — are mentally directed. 
 
 Worlds of Which "You" are God 
 
 We look at the physical body, or at any organ or tissue 
 taken therefrom, and it seems incomprehensible how so gross 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 51 
 
 a lump of substance can in anywise be influenced by mind. 
 But suppose that our vision had the acuteness of a high- 
 powered microscope. We would then see that the tissue or 
 the organ is composed of millions upon millions of cells; 
 world upon worlds of them. Considering their infinitesimal 
 minuteness, they are mobile in their sphere about as much as 
 other animals, including man, are in theirs. Thru investiga- 
 tion in that channel of science which has devoted itself to 
 researches concerning cell life, it is apparent that the life of 
 the cells is one of intelligence and direction. H. S. Jennings, 
 authority in this field, says: "The cell shows remarkable 
 pertinacity when continuing its attempts to put forth efforts 
 to accomplish this (the taking of food) in various ways, and 
 it shows remarkable pertinacity in continuing its attempts to 
 ingest the food when it meets with difficulties. Indeed, the 
 scene could be described in much more vivid and interesting 
 way by the use of terms still more anthropomorphic in ten- 
 dency." 
 
 The cell selects and absorbs its requirements of food by 
 wrapping itself around the particle to be devoured. It appears 
 to possess not only an intelligence, but also a power of perfect 
 response to its desires or mental stimuli. If it is in need of a 
 limb for some special purpose, immediately there appears a 
 temporary outgrowth of the transparent outer layer of the 
 soft protoplasmic body. It forms a gas in its body at will to 
 rise in a liquid, or as readily discharges the gas to sink lower. 
 It immediately creates a protective shell around itself if placed 
 in water containing an acid. It is perceived to recognize its 
 enemies and either fights and devours them or hides itself for 
 protection. It knows its kind. It seems to have the ability 
 "to be what it wishes to be" in a startling and literal degree. 
 The muscle cell in the muscle works with an apparent omnis- 
 cience of the laws of expansion, elasticity, resilience and con- 
 traction,— as do the heart cells. The glandular cells work 
 with just as miraculous a knowledge of secretions — thyroids, 
 toxins, digestive fluids. The white blood corpuscles, which are 
 cells, labor in harmony with the laws of food absorption and 
 distribution. The brain and ganglion cells work with a knowl- 
 edge of the mechanisms involved in the effect of thought and 
 nerve vibrations. So do the cells not only have memory and 
 
52 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 intelligence, but they have, moreover, the specialized knowl- 
 edge of their particular field of work. And according to 
 what tendency will all this work, of a million different kinds, 
 be done? 
 
 The elan vital, — the vital energy, which concerned the 
 first half of this chapter, let us remember, carries in solution 
 the psychic chemicalization of your thoughts and emotions, in 
 short of your character. That elan vital of yours, that vital 
 energy, is appropriated and regarded as "life" by the cells, in 
 the same way that you regard your appropriation of the uni- 
 versal energy as your life. What kind of a universal mind 
 and vitality are you furnishing to your subjects? You are 
 their universe and their god. You are the supreme being so 
 far as they are concerned. If by anxiety and worries and all 
 manner of exclusive and selfish emotions you demand of them 
 neuroses and blues, they cannot do otherwise but obey what to 
 them is a divine command; moreover, they will duly build for 
 you some physical defect. Their logic, if such it may be called, 
 seems to run in this wise : "If you are worried, anxious, blue, 
 morbid, — surely it must be because you want something to 
 warrant these attitudes. Let us make haste to bring it about 
 forthwith." 
 
 The actions of cells, their display of definite memory and 
 intelligence, forces us to the conclusion that they possess not 
 only a vague something for which we must apologize before 
 we call it consciousness; they possess consciousness imprinted 
 with an accumulation of experience, remembered and sequen- 
 tial, — and that is intelligence. Not only their work, but even 
 their play (for they do play, as can be proved by watching that 
 cell known as the "amoeba," readily visible under the micro- 
 scope) — in a general way is all designed for the growth and 
 maintenance of their "universe," which is your body. Psy- 
 chological insight leads inevitably to the conclusion that there 
 is indeed a mental or conscious side to all matter. Especially 
 is that so with this phase of matter which we are now dis- 
 cussing. For convenience we may call this phase "physicality," 
 composed as it is of these interesting cells. 
 
 From an analysis of the construction of matter, we find 
 that the constituents of the cell are, as we all know, single 
 atoms and molecules. (Molecules are double, triple, etc., or 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 53 
 
 "group" atoms.) Atoms, as also is now conjectured by 
 science, are infinitesimal "solar systems," — an electron of one 
 polarity acting as the sun, and numbers of electrons of the 
 opposite polarity acting as planets. The whirling of these 
 electronic mites is so intensely rapid that in the atom we have 
 the first illusion or apparency of that solidness which in higher 
 syntheses becomes a major characteristic of all material or 
 physical substance. The cell, as the second or third synthesis 
 of such vortices, must of course be in possession of the collective 
 life and consciousness of its component atoms. Says Her- 
 schel : "All that has been predicated of atoms, their attrac- 
 tions and repulsions, according to the primary laws of their 
 being, only becomes intelligible when we assume the presence 
 of mind." Thus, as the atom is seen to be impelled in part 
 by some sort of memory, so the cell, possessing the aggregate 
 memory of its atoms, must be said to have some kind of intel- 
 ligence; it stands to reason that it has more than mere con- 
 sciousness, — it has, to be exact, also the result of experience, 
 not only its own, but of its components. It must have a more 
 complex memory and a more complete one than its component 
 forms. Hence all that Herschel says of the atom may be 
 raised to its third power and applied even more appropriately 
 to the cell. 
 
 The understanding of the cell to be a mental as well as 
 physical creature shows to the student the actual point of im- 
 pingement for the suggestions or thought attitudes that sink 
 deeply enough. The cells have no working orders, no initia- 
 tive but that. They are the visible beings visibly carrying out 
 your "orders," for illness or for health, for an efficient or for 
 a deficient body. A thorogoing study of this phase alone, 
 inclusive of correspondences and analogies, will give an under- 
 standing of the "how" of the bald head here, the abundant 
 locks over there, the narrow six-footer and the genial, broad 
 four-foot-one-er ; the shape of the features and head, the cast of 
 the countenance, good looks or bad, brown eyes, black or blue, 
 the gait, the posture, the general decency or general "cussed- 
 ness" of any given person. In the cell we see a perfect ex- 
 ample of the correlation of thought and action. Its body 
 always corresponds with the attitude of its mind. Given a 
 thought that it needs a limb or three or four limbs, the limbs 
 
54 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 at once appear as projections. If the need was but temporary, 
 the limbs are reabsorbed in the globular body. If the need 
 is impressed upon it as permanent, the limbs so produced re- 
 main permanently. It endows itself in just such fashion with 
 whatever limbs, adaptabilities and capabilities it needs, and in 
 giving birth or division to new cells, it is shown that these 
 capabilities become fixed in the type. 
 
 But psychology shows that for the development of some 
 desirable capability, or the elimination of another that is not 
 desirable, the urge must start with you, as a conscious, think- 
 ing "Lord" of your cell universe. Altho' the ability of the 
 cells is such that they can build into your body, brain, nerves 
 and psychic organism anything that you desire, still before 
 they can do anything like that for you, you must desire it 
 definitely, consistently, and persistently. You must learn to 
 
 ! master and to eliminate those desires and mental attitudes 
 which will conflict with the main desire. You must learn to 
 uncover biases, fears, and other sources of weakness which 
 are asleep or dreaming in you. You must learn to throw out 
 unadmitted envies, hatreds, greeds, and other sources of in- 
 justice to others, which, tho' repudiated by you consciously, 
 may still be dominating you unconsciously. 
 
 Millions of cells are dying and being born in the system 
 constantly. In the interval between its "death" and "rebirth," 
 why is it not probable that the mind of the cell is merged with 
 your (aggregate) subconscious mind? If that is so, then it 
 will be reborn with a saturation of what it has bathed in, — 
 and fn that interval it has bathed in your predominating ideas 
 and qualities, — in the deepest hopes and fears, in the funda- 
 mental urges and repulsions underlying your character. It is 
 reborn of the protoplasm of the bodily system physically ; it is 
 reborn of your "elan vital," your vital energy psychically. 
 With each such "rebirth" it embodies more specifically time 
 after time the actual physical and mental and psychic results 
 to which the person is progressively entitling himself. 
 
 The entire physical body thus renews itself in not more 
 than five years, and the probability is that the transformation 
 takes place in less time than that. It is certain that character 
 and faculty transformation can and does take place in less 
 time than that under intelligent and enthusiastic effort. But 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 55 
 
 what is the good of the transformation if the new cells must 
 multiply and continue working along preconceived ideas, per- 
 sonal and racial habits, and all the doleful horde of current 
 superstitions? 
 
 It is erroneous to imagine that only New Thoughtists, 
 Christian Scientists, Theosophists, Spiritualists, and the like, 
 appreciate the value of mental states as related to physical 
 welfare. The most authoritative representatives of science 
 have swung over to a vivid appreciation of the psychological 
 factors in all biological phenomena. The leaders of medical 
 science especially are by no means ignorant of the significant 
 things pointed out in this chapter. It is only the numerous 
 tribe of dodos (the dodo is a big, foolish bird now extinct, but 
 so foolish that it probably does not know it) among the 
 medical profession who would deny the influence of mind over 
 the cell activities of the body. In the "bulk" sense, how- 
 ever, science, not excluding medicine, has been and is yet an 
 unconscionable laggard. Why and how? Because it- strives 
 only in what seems to be a joking way to do materially 
 (glands, serums, inoculations, etc.) what must be done, if it is 
 ever to be done at all, with more appreciation of the psychic 
 and mental laws involved. We are speaking of the inability 
 which "bulk" science shows, to get away from the popular 
 dogma and superstition that it is "natural" for the human 
 being, immediately the period of youth is past, to spend the 
 remainder of his life under impairment. 
 
 The deductions of psychology and the observations of 
 physiology have been both drawn upon to afford the picture 
 of cell life and its significance as here presented. If we can 
 boil down any reasonable conclusion therefrom, surely that 
 conclusion will not be hostile to the idea that renewal and 
 rejuvenation of the body is practicable. But in making any 
 experiment or effort at such practice, we can now see how 
 futile would be the endeavor if we eliminate the factor of 
 mental attitude. The internal operations of the subconscious 
 mind, once understood, the subject becomes more clear. If 
 you are subjecting the vital energy of the body to cyclones of 
 temper, to drouths of depression, floods and storms of emo- 
 tionalism, and the destructive fires of greed and passion, then 
 a world of surface thinking and wishing for health or youth- 
 
56 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 fulness will do you no good. Why? Because your thinking 
 and wishing then acts only as a disguise or cover, under which 
 vour "self-aging" or "self-destruction" goes on more virulently 
 than if it were going on exposed. 
 
 The term of the average human life is todav longer than 
 it was a hundred years ago. This was accomplished by an 
 elimination from the mind of man of the debris of theological 
 twaddle, bigotry and superstition piled up during the medieval 
 period. The mind, thus partly cleaned up, a phvsical cleaning 
 up appeared as a reflection of that first or "real" house-clean- 
 ing. Incomplete and unfinished as that cleaning-up was, yet 
 the "reflection" appeared in the form of hygiene, sanitation. 
 Soap and water replaced musks and perfumes. The odor of 
 cleanliness replaced the bogus odor of sanctity. 
 
 It is a pity that the main bulk of scientists, and other 
 "middleman" leaders of thought, have not yet completely 
 availed themselves of the splendid data and theories afforded 
 by psychology. To do that would be the first step in making 
 human life more ample and more joyful directly. To use 
 science in the improvement of machines is a pursuit to the 
 same end, it is true, but the pursuit by that method is indirect. 
 This is so wrong, now, that it is little wonder entire communi- 
 ties sporadically attempt demonstrations of physical perfect- 
 ability. Bunglesome as many such efforts prove to be, the in- 
 tensity or religious zeal of them can be condoned when it is 
 seen that guilt of a great delinquency still rests with those in 
 possession of scientific knowledge sufficient to improve the 
 fundamental ideas of the race in these matters, but who refuse 
 to do so. The "conviction of the race" is a tough taskmaster. 
 The race conviction right there proves itself to be stronger 
 even than the penetration of the scientific mind. For the race 
 conviction is able to steer the dodo scientist's penetration 
 away from the bogus character of its pet superstition — which 
 is — the "naturalness" of human impairment. Having sub- 
 mitted to that trick of hypnotism, the scientist in the face of 
 that bugaboo becomes as blunt and as unreasoning as any 
 other imbecile we might see in some ten-cent theatre during 
 the act of Marvelous Marvelo, the Hypnotist. We bring him 
 testimony of the lower kingdoms, of plant and animal and 
 cell — it passes unnoticed. Analogy of a sudden becomes inad- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 57 
 
 missable. Tho' he may have trained his brain to its present 
 scientific proportions by the power of his thoughts, yet con- 
 fronted with that particular race superstition, his child-like 
 nature (what psycho-analysis would call his infantile complex) 
 takes charge, and once more he will repeat as in his infancy 
 that thought is a secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of 
 the liver. 
 
 And the ordinary person, "even as you and I," continues 
 to find out the truth about his real life and his real health 
 through experience and independent study such as this presen- 
 tation, only because the unadmitted working hypothesis of 
 the scientific man has been that it is "natural" for human 
 beings more or less chronically to be sick or impaired. 
 
 Leading scientists and physicists the world over today 
 are postulating a psychological basis as underlying matter and 
 existence. In time this will of course bring logically in its train 
 the "scientific" corroboration to prove thought as the dynamic 
 power used, consciously or unconsciously, in modifications of 
 that existence. Once the materialistic bogey even yet so dear 
 to many mediocre scientists and practitioners has become 
 odious by losing in fashion and orthodoxy, ways of improve- 
 ment will open more widely. And such changes in the learned 
 world are in the way of occurring here and now. It seems, 
 however, that the new light, in spreading, has to leap from 
 the enlightened leaders of science and thought directly to the 
 laymen, unperceived and over the heads of the "middleman." 
 For a time a certain "middleman" portion of science and the 
 professions appears inclined to remain impervious. 
 
 
 "/ do not believe that matter is inert, acted upon by an 
 outside force. To me it seems that every atom is possessed 
 by a certain amount of primitive intelligence." — Edison. 
 
Lesson IV. 
 THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND 
 
 IF WE observe keenly, we find that but a very small frac- 
 tion of the life of the personality results from a direct 
 effort of the will. The blood circulates without a con- 
 scious thought directed toward it. Breathing, digestion, assimi- 
 lation and elimination all "take care of themselves." These 
 processes are automatic. We may and often should change 
 or modify some features of a given automatism — and that sort 
 of "modifying for the better" was implied in the recommen- 
 dations set down about the proper uses of Air, Water, Food, 
 Exercise and Mental Influence; but the bodily processes are, 
 and will remain essentially automatic. 
 
 When we speak of anything in a living organism as being 
 "automatic" — precisely what do we mean? In the preceding 
 chapters we observed those processes of organic life which as 
 a rule are unnoticed, — which, in fact, short of some instrument 
 trrat would combine more facilities for observation than con- 
 tained both in X-ray and microscope, cannot be seen. Viewing 
 the complexity in the life and work of cells, tissues, nerves, 
 muscles and organs, we had to admit the supervision there of 
 mind and intelligence, or else throttle reason and deny plain 
 inference from observed fact. The physical organism is but 
 an aggregate of billions of minute lives, of uncounted legion- 
 aries made up of intelligent workers. Intelligent tho' they be, 
 something directs them into combining their efforts in groups. 
 Something specializes them for particular lines of work and 
 induces them to segregate to the end that their own bodies and 
 thru their own efforts the organs, tissues, and all that goes to 
 make up the physical system, may be constructed and then 
 kept in repair and in vigor. What is "that something"? 
 
 Let us begin our reply in this fashion : You as a person- 
 ality, as the Mr. Jones, Miss Brown, or Mrs. Smith who are 
 reading this treatise, are only a fraction of your real self. 
 
 58 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 59 
 
 That fraction of your consciousness with which you identify 
 yourself, from a mathematical standpoint, would probably be 
 too small to warrant bother. A sentimental mathematician 
 (if we could imagine a mathematician who worked according 
 to his impulses and enthusiasms, according to his likes and dis- 
 likes) would impetuously erase it. But Nature, or that phase 
 of YOURSELF which knows all Nature's laws, is an exact 
 mathematician. Nature is not impetuous. And, curiously 
 enough, to you — the smallest fraction in the^problem of indi- 
 viduality, She has given you, the conscious, arguing, doubting, 
 cheating, loving and hating, waking and working YOU, the 
 possibility of power and mastery of the entire equation. She 
 has given you the job of being boss, — the position of com- 
 mander. In precise psychological terms, you as the boss are 
 not even a person; you are the objective phase of your mind. 
 In all, you are objective mind commanding yourself, the sub- 
 conscious mind. 
 
 The Objective Mind 
 
 But, someone may question, I command my subconscious 
 mind to do things for me, and it does not do them; how am I 
 to account for that? It is to be accounted for by the fact that 
 with very few exceptions we are all as yet very ignorant com- 
 manders. 'As a matter of fact, too many people are hoping, 
 yearning and wishing, and not commanding at all. 
 
 Fancy now a captain of a steamship. He stays a good 
 deal in his cabin enjoying the pictures on the wall, rhapsodizing 
 about the motion of the ship as it glides over the moonlit waves. 
 There appear shoals ahead, and the boat must stop. Of a 
 sudden the captain realizes that he doesn't know a blooming 
 thing about navigation. The next morning he pretends to 
 consult his charts, but does not know how to read them. He 
 finds the ship is surrounded by rocks. He does not know his 
 longitude nor latitude. Day after day goes by. His crew 
 brews mutiny. He yearns and wishes that they remain loyal 
 and keep the ship in good trim. He frets and he fumes. This 
 distracts him so much that he forgets what port he was bound 
 for when he started out. He has no goal. Now he com- 
 mands this, and now he commands the other of his subordi- 
 nates. It does not matter what he commands. In a 
 situation like this the REAL command overshadowing the con- 
 
60 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 sciousness of all the subordinates is this : We have no Cap- 
 tain, LET US DO AS WE JOLLY WELL PLEASE. And they do, 
 and the "captain" that was "gets it in the neck." 
 
 The more he had learned of navigation, and of the 
 duties of his own crew, even of the machinery contained in his 
 own ship, the more of a real commander would he have been. 
 His crew did not want to become a disorganized mob of muti- 
 neers; the ignorant captain himself forced them into that kind 
 of action. The more knowledge he had stowed away in him- 
 self regarding all that concerned his position, the more could 
 he have depended upon his commands being carried out auto- 
 matically and without friction. One must know the thing 
 commanded. 
 
 Psychology is in the business of accumulating and sup- 
 plying that knowledge. Psychology says that the position of 
 the personality, or the objective phase of mind, is analogous 
 to the position of the captain of the ship, but that the relation- 
 ship is more intimate, because in a sense, the entire "crew" 
 that makes for the success or failure of the individual has been 
 created by the person in the manner of reactions given to 
 experience. 
 
 Psychology says that you, the captain, have Initiative 
 and that is all. Your first assistant or "vice-captain" or pilot, 
 as it were, is Discrimination, — the ability to form right con- 
 clusions from mental or physical experience. If you have not 
 with you your "vice-captain," therefore, you will meet disaster 
 during tfTe very first emergency. Encourage Discrimination to 
 improve itself in every possible opportunity. It will recipro- 
 cally, then, enlarge and enrich opportunities for the exercise 
 of your prime and peculiar quality, — Initiative. Your first, 
 second and third mates are Imagination, Will and Desire. 
 They can work wonders in securing compliance, in enlisting 
 obedient and intelligent effort from the lesser members of 
 your crew. Your petty officers are your emotions, passions, — 
 and like most petty officers, are more or less inclined to silent 
 conflict one against the other. Correct them by empowering 
 your "mates" and "vice-captain." And your flunkeys and 
 laborers are your habits, habits, habits; — all mentallv created 
 by yourself — the act of creation always some attitude or 
 
PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 61 
 
 thought consciously entertained — the growth of the habit not 
 seen, — but subconscious. 
 
 Again, it is as tho' the mind — objective and subconscious, 
 resembled a factory. To derive a picture that would instruct 
 us truly, we should probably have to outline it about as 
 follows : 
 
 The executive or managing office is the objective phase of 
 mind, or that phase with which you commonly identify your- 
 self. Its functions are concerned with the policies, motives and 
 objects of the concern; the executive does not do the detail 
 work. Its functions are inclusive of such as observation, criti- 
 cism, comparison, analysis, aggression, defense — of all that 
 goes to make up the meaning in the word "Initiative." The 
 duties of you, the objective phase, just like the duties of the 
 managerial staff in a commercial institution, consist of buying 
 and selling. The institution buys raw material; you as the 
 manager of the institution of personality, do the same thing as 
 "buying" when you "lay in" the raw material of ideas. Re- 
 membering the law of selection, as presented in a past chapter, 
 you can judge as to the quality of your current "selections," 
 and begin even now to think over methods of improvement. 
 In both operations, mechanical or mental, the "raw materials" 
 will be worked over into things to use and things to sell. Out 
 of the entire operation that consists of "buying," then "work- 
 ing over," and then of "selling," the profit is gold with the 
 commercial institution, — the profit is poise, wisdom, and power 
 with the institution of personality. Your personal influence, 
 your self-expression, is what you are selling. If your attitude 
 toward life is one of repression or depression, your "sales- 
 product" of personal influence will not be desirable. The man- 
 ager must learn how to control the actions of his employees, or 
 sabotage may be practiced on him. 
 
 Whenever depressing and repressing captains of industry 
 get the reins of commerce into their hands, we have abor- 
 tive strikes and financial panics. Control does not mean un- 
 reasoning "bossing" and tyranny. It means acting in accord- 
 ance with our best thinking and understanding, and then not 
 being too infernally hide-bound that the present standard is 
 the final and ultimate law. As we have arrived at our present 
 status by "knocking out" old convictions, so can we arrive at 
 
62 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 still better things by clutching and clinging to our present 
 standards just a little more loosely. The personality must 
 learn to employ only constructive emotions and attitudes, and 
 treasure knowledge of fact and law above all things. The 
 biggest and most successful manufactories in the world are 
 those having well equipped legal (as well as scientific research) 
 departments. The attitudes engendered or "born" in you 
 while sympathetically perusing such chapters as these are the 
 best kind of "help" to take into your employ. 
 
 Now the managers of commercial institutions must know 
 their raw material, must know their machinery, must know 
 their superintendents and laborers. They must consult their 
 own likes and dislikes less and less, otherwise they never will 
 be able to judge values accurately. To know their raw mate- 
 rial means that they have trained their observation, discrimi- 
 nation, and are not easily beguiled by flattery. They must 
 scout around, which serves two purposes; the first is that it 
 saves them from being immersed too long in their own pre- 
 delictions about things, and the second is that by scouting 
 around they can check up their ideas of excellence in raw 
 material and finished products by observing what others are 
 handling in both departments of similar industries. Thus, if 
 we stretch the word "observation" to include much more than 
 given it in a careless acceptance, — it is thru observation they 
 have learned values. They must know their machinery; then 
 in event a reasonable improvement suggests itself, they will not 
 be so sentimentally attached to the old ones. They must know 
 their superintendents and laborers, in order to imbue these 
 subordinates with a loyal will to exert themselves for "the 
 good of the house." The more and better an executive does 
 all these things, the better and more are the products of his 
 factory. 
 
 Your duties or functions, objectively (as a "personality") 
 are just like that. Your observations must carry the faculty 
 of an ever-improving discrimination right with it, so that your 
 tendency to exaggerate or to minimize events and ideas will 
 grow less. If you exaggerate, you pay too much for your 
 "raw" material. If you minimize, you cheat yourself, — for 
 someone else will take the idea for what it is worth, and make 
 a profit out of it. Like with the executives of a manufacturing 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 63 
 
 plant, you are to exercise initiative; you must scout around as 
 they do, to get away from your habit of viewing things thru 
 the spectacles of your own likes and dislikes, to compete ably, 
 and to profit by comparisons of ideas held by associates and 
 competitors. For we are all in the business of living. With 
 this brief survey, we will leave the objective, or waking per- 
 sonality phase of mind, to return for a review, it may be, later. 
 
 The Subconscious 
 
 Now we come to the factory proper. We have left the 
 objective phase of mind, or the executive offices. We are on 
 the "subconscious" side of the partition. It covers infinitely 
 more space — but like in any factory the atmosphere outside 
 of the managing office is DEDUCTIVE, whereas the atmosphere 
 in the executive office of the successful factory is redolent 
 always of INITIATIVE, and of the INDUCTIVE processes of mind. 
 Now, then, in the deductive or subconscious vistas, we will 
 fancy that there stretches before us a panorama of machinery, 
 of workers, — the atmosphere itself vibrant with activity. But 
 there is always and at all times a waiting attitude about those 
 workers, superintendents they may be, whose working stations 
 in the subconscious phase of this factory are nearest the execu- 
 tive office. They are nearest the boss, and the secret of their 
 expectant or waiting attitude is not difficult to fathom. They 
 are awaiting always to hear the wishes, the new orders, from 
 the "boss." The boss is you. We may at times have to 
 stretch the imagination ever so little to learn from this picture, 
 but that, too, is the best kind of mental exercise. Look well, 
 and in the interest of becoming a more able executive, learn 
 about the working force of your "factory." 
 
 First as to machinery; you have two main divisions, as 
 already seen — the physical cells, tissues, nerves, organs — con- 
 stitute one of these main divisions; — the psychic, or the pas- 
 sions, feeling and emotions are the second, and by far the most 
 important division. 
 
 The psychic machinery is the most important because the 
 physical is merely its outward "ex-pr ess-ion" — that is to say, 
 what has been oppressed. 
 
 The important machinery is made up of your fundamental 
 attitudes toward life; of your deepest convictions. It is psychic 
 machinery. It is not visible. 
 
64 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 The dynamos or sources of power for that machinery are 
 your strong passions plus the constant currents of emotion and 
 feeling. 
 
 f The directing lever is the Will. 
 
 A capable manager discards an inadequate machine, with- 
 out sentiment, and replaces it with a new one. 
 
 It may be more difficult, but it is a necessary psychological 
 achievement so to discard and replace old or inadequate con- 
 viction-attitudes toward life. Only rarely progressive persons 
 really care to do what the wise manager does. The person 
 usually wants to hug his conviction to himself forever. He 
 grows sentimental about it, tho' it may be spoiling, not only his 
 mental efficiency, but his health as well. 
 
 / A deep conviction, a tightly held mental concept, an atti- 
 tude toward life, — these are just as much machines as is a 
 lathe or a loom. 'They will work out the raw material of 
 ideas according to the innate pattern of the conviction or atti- 
 tude. When the replacement of a self-limiting conviction is 
 heroically done, then the dynamos of passion, emotion and 
 feeling, of thought, and even the directing lever of Will, all- 
 work: more smoothly and effectively. 
 
 The old "common laborers" presiding over this machin- 
 ery are your mental habits, more mental habits, — thousands of 
 mental habits. 
 
 The new laborers, continually trooping in, are your 
 thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts. 
 
 The Habits are the old employees, always teaching the 
 thoughts, which are the more recent ones, how to work. 
 
 It must be a strong thought to resist the influence of 
 merely adding to the volume of your habits. Thinking "after 
 a fashion" has no chance. It will succumb to the tuition of the 
 "old-timer" — who is already a habit, and in a short time will 
 be but another habit or reinforcement to an old one. 
 
 Mental habits are much more numerous, subtle and pow- 
 erful than those physically observable. Well has the auto- 
 matic or subconscious mind been termed a "synthesis of 
 habits." 
 
 So far, this has been but a view of the "floor plan" of the 
 conscious and subconscious phases of mind. What all resides 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 65 
 
 in the subconscious part of the factory no sane investigator yet 
 dares say in full. 
 
 Knowledge 
 
 We do know that it is a living — joyfully feeling, and 
 painfully suffering REGISTRY of all your experiences and your 
 thoughts regarding them. We do know that it is "self-aware" 
 in that sense, of such bad suggestions as are at the bottom of 
 outward hysteria, incapacity, and often of physical disease. 
 Esculapius and Hippocrates proved that anciently; Freud 
 is proving it again, — modernly. 
 
 Suspicion 
 
 We suspect it has direct connection with a real tho' in- 
 visible plane of sub-human, extra-normal, and at times even 
 super-normal intelligence, energy and power. Ennemoser 
 enumerates scores of attested cases wherein the physical bodies 
 of recluses, hysteriacs, monks, nuns, etc., were floated thru the 
 air, often in the direction willed by the person so in the grip 
 of his "subconscious." The literature of psychical research 
 teems with instances describing unaccountable manifestations 
 of just as startling a nature. Some students go so far as to 
 speculate that the Stonehenge monoliths and the Egyptian 
 pyramids were erected under the supervision of people who 
 knew how to direct such occult powers ; that the transportation 
 and placement of these gigantic blocks of stone was not accom- 
 plished by purely physical means. 
 
 Investigation 
 
 In the main, up to this time, it is thru hypnotism, or thru 
 so-called trance, ensuing upon temporary paralysis of the ob- 
 jective functions, that systematic research and collection of 
 data has been possible. This has been especially true of the 
 more startling phenomena, such as levitation, clairvoyance, 
 prophecy, quick and lucid diagnosis of obscure maladies, often 
 with prescriptions, the applications of which result in almost 
 "miraculous" cures, etc. 
 
 But the desirability of hypnotism is much in question. 
 Danger, some comprehended, some not yet understood, seems 
 to accompany the practice. Personally, I cannot see why an 
 intelligent person, who has studiously acquired all the infor- 
 mation available on the subject, should not practice hypnotism 
 
66 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 — if for no other purpose than to add more illumination to 
 that conjectural field. If there are unknown dangers, the 
 sooner we know them the better. We cannot remove a danger 
 until we know what it is. 
 
 The fact is that whether we believe or disbelieve, we are 
 nevertheless practicing hypnotism upon ourselves and upon 
 others, unconsciously. For instance, a person who enforces 
 upon you a dogma that hypnotism is of the devil, has prac- 
 ticed hypnotism upon you. The perfection of his experiment 
 is determined by the amount of rigor you manifest in later 
 avoiding the topic. 
 
 Hypnotism, thinned out, to be sure, but still hypnotism, 
 is so universal and penetrating inherency of mental action that 
 no more ridiculous thing has ever been perpetrated than to 
 pass laws against it. We might as well pass laws against 
 seeing grass as green; we might as well try to divorce the 
 alphabet from written language. 
 
 Ignorance, of course, is penalized throughout Nature. 
 The ignoramus who practices or submits to a deliberated and 
 specific act of hypnotism may be doing no more than to accel- 
 erate the infliction upon himself of the penalties of ignorance. 
 Those consequences of ignorance otherwise could have come 
 upon him "thinned out," — and he might normally stand them 
 better. 
 
 It might be but a weird and insane speculation to guess 
 that the intelligent man would probably accelerate the rewards 
 of his intelligence in the same way. Before Freud perfected 
 his later and valuable theories in regard to the psychology of 
 sex, he had much experience in the French hospitals where 
 hypnotism is deliberately and systematically used. 
 
 If your intelligence, courage and aspiration are genuine, 
 I do not believe that hypnotism could mar you. If you are 
 selfish and rabbit-hearted, undoubtedly it would in some sense 
 kill you. At least I hope it would. I do not know but that it 
 might be a good test for many to find out once and for all if 
 the intelligence and other high qualities of which they are so 
 proud are real, or merely mislabeled conceit, prejudice or 
 conviction. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 67 
 
 Another Thing About the "Factory" 
 
 It has been proven that telepathy is a function of the sub- 
 conscious mind, tho' it may not be readily and cheaply avail- 
 able to prejudiced investigators. The existence of this faculty 
 can teach us one thing; we harm ourselves if we do not con- 
 sider it. It is this : To receive messages sent mentally by an- 
 other human being is no more wonderful than the constant 
 telepathic interchange going on in one's own psychic and phys- 
 ical constitution. We must not forget that the executive in the 
 office of personality is (or rather, you are) subject to the play 
 of telepathic and even hypnotic influence of the laborers in the 
 deeper recesses of the "factory," who strive and yearn to have 
 the executive conform more to their collective atmosphere of 
 established habit. They wish to empower themselves — to 
 make it easier for themselves, always. All this must be intelli- 
 gently resisted by a counterplay of telepathic or mesmeric will 
 upon them from your station in the directing office, — with a 
 comprehensive but firm and persistent assertion of your ideals 
 and purposes. The manager of a good institution contrives 
 in a thousand ways to bring to the minds of all employees his 
 insistence that in every way possible they conform to the main 
 policies of his plant. 
 
 Another View of "Vital Energy" 
 
 In tests conducted by expert investigators, it has been 
 determined that to a person in the subconscious state of mind, 
 the vital energy and other principles of the human constitution 
 become visible as an aura, which appears as a somewhat lumi- 
 nous, oval cloud about the physical body. It is claimed by such 
 clairvoyants that persons in good health and with tranquil 
 minds possess auras that are clear, and that with persons who 
 have acquired a high degree of knowledge or of physic power, 
 the aura is not only clear, but brilliantly luminous. It is also 
 claimed that the play of the person's emotions, thoughts and 
 feelings can be seen as great flashes of color, bright, stimulat- 
 ing and attractive, or, on the other hand, livid, depressive, and 
 repulsive, — according to the character of the feelings or 
 thoughts. 
 
 To prove that this aura is not an hallucination, Emile 
 Boirac, a French investigator, and others, show that it 
 can be injured in certain non-physical ways, and that subse- 
 
68 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 quently the injury will appear "miraculously" upon the corre- 
 sponding portion of the physical body. 
 
 Mediums, so-called, have often furnished good material 
 for such investigations, tho' with few exceptions, they as well 
 as their "guides" seem to lack sufficient sense to give a rational 
 or even coherent explanation of the phenomena. 
 
 A great deal has been written on the subject of auras by 
 men and women whose plain desire it is that students should 
 infer they (the writers) are "Masters" or "Adepts." Briefly, 
 it is their students' belief that Adepts, Masters, and "great 
 souls" exist, who have already acquired all knowledge in re- 
 gard to human evolution; that they have already applied all 
 such knowledge, and are therefore far in advance even of our 
 greatest scientists. The beliefs of such students are stimulat- 
 ing, but should be classed as beliefs. If not entirely foolish, 
 such students would readily see they can never verify the ex- 
 istence of a "Master," unless they themselves already were 
 masters — which brings them back to the point from which they 
 started. 
 
 It is wise always to distinguish between belief and knowl- 
 edge. It is good to have a belief and a faith; but it is also 
 good to refrain from calling that possession "knowledge," — 
 as it is good to refrain from all lies. In a treatise on psychol- 
 ogy, it is to be expected that whenever belief is mistaken for 
 investigation and knowledge of fact, there the mistake will be 
 pointed out. 
 
 Application 
 
 Telepathy, clairvoyance and clairaudience, of course, are 
 not limited to investigating other people's auras. Telepathy, 
 clairvoyance, etc., quite likely are the inner senses, which in 
 this stage of human progress, and probably for the next mil- 
 lion years or so, are to go thru the process of being awakened. 
 We spoke of the only dogma that psychology cares to enforce : 
 that Man is a psychic being inhabiting a physical machine. 
 
 It is important if the vital body or aura can be damaged 
 by others, especially if that damage later reproduces itself in 
 or on the physical body. But it becomes infinitely more im- 
 portant, then, that by my attitudes and moods I myself impair 
 or distress that vital body. I begin then to realize that it is 
 the connecting link between myself — the power of perception 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 69 
 
 and initiative, — and my "expression" or physical machine. I 
 begin to comprehend, then, that if I can impair the vital body 
 and later experience the impairment physically, then I can also 
 vitalize it, strengthen it, make it more brilliant, and likewise 
 get the beneficent physical reactions. If I am mystically in- 
 clined, I begin to view that aura as an indication of a body 
 much more "real" and eternal, than this other function, the 
 "out-pressed" physical body. 
 
 Dr. Crawford is proving that the matter of the vital 
 body, manipulated to resemble a rope or semi-rigid water 
 hose, is the invisible instrument used in instances of telekinesis 
 or levitation of heavy objects apparently without "physical" 
 contact. A curious instance occurs to mind as I write, and I 
 hope it may have some bearing as a citation. A young lady, 
 and I understand in a remote way related to me, on a rainy 
 Autumn evening some years ago found herself alone in the 
 kitchen possessed with a raging tooth-ache combined with neu- 
 ralgia. She had been helping the cook put up preserves, an 
 innocent and noble occupation, by the way, — and near her 
 stood one of those tall, two-bushel baskets common in our 
 Eastern states. In the bottom of the basket there remained a 
 layer of rather large tomatoes. The cook, and it seems also 
 the other members of the household, had all gone out for the 
 evening. The neuralgic attack came on severely and suddenly; 
 to compose herself the girl sat down on a corner of the table. 
 She held her hands to her face as one sometimes does in pain. 
 Automatically she was staring into the tall basket, as she now 
 thinks of it, but at the time probably did not know at what she 
 was staring. Just at the instant when the neuralgia gave her 
 an exceptionally diabolical throb, one of the biggest and 
 heaviest of the tomatoes jumped fully four feet into the air 
 toward her face, did not quite reach her, and then fell on the 
 floor and rolled to the other end of the kitchen. I am not sure 
 that the incident is correctly reported in detail; but I am as sure 
 that essentially it is the statement of a fact as I am that the 
 girl in question does not lie. She is a whole-souled and rather 
 retiring woman today, with a family of her own, and no in- 
 terest whatever in cults or isms that make specialties of the 
 weird. What puzzles her is that altho' the neuralgia had. been 
 attacking her off and on all that Fall, after that tomato 
 
70 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 jumped, she did not have any neuralgia — not from that instant 
 to the present day. Yet if the mediums under investigation 
 by Crawford produce frr lV i - \ : i?A todies "ropes" that can 
 be detected by the crudest clairvoyance and even by physical 
 tests, then I cannot see why the unusual pain may not have 
 made the girl mediumistic for a second, with just that kind of 
 mediumship. In other words, the subconscious did a little 
 telekinesis and self-healing in one and the same instant. 
 
 A Generalization 
 
 The building of the embodiments, psychic and physical, 
 is a function of the subconscious mind. The character of the 
 embodiments is determined by the predominating impressions 
 contained in the subconscious mind. 
 
 This is but one function or power of the subconscious 
 among many others. 
 
 There are many ways in which intuitively we prove our 
 faith in the resources of the subconscious, — tho' objectively 
 we may refuse to acknowledge it. Among these many ways, 
 there is, for instance, the practice widespread as the human 
 race itself, harmless and often successful, of "sleeping over" 
 a problem. The occasional successful results serve to show 
 that in the archives of that "factory" of the subconscious, 
 there are accumulations of information not ordinarily avail- 
 able in the objective state. Inspirations of poetry, music, art, 
 philosophy, no less than occasional solutions of technical prob- 
 lems, are on record as having been received in that way. We 
 have the testimony of Coleridge insofar as poetry is concerned. 
 Beethoven has the same to say with regard to the method by 
 which his genius instructed him. Socrates seems to have been 
 so sensitive that the voice or instruction of his genius or 
 "daemon" (apparently a "personification" of his segregated 
 best subconscious accumulations) — according to his own testi- 
 mony, was not lost to him even in the more active hours of the 
 day. 
 
 Self-Diagnosis 
 
 This searchlight ability of the subconscious can be di- 
 rected. The historical founders of medicine, namely, Hip- 
 pocrates and Esculapius, had their patients sleep at the foot of 
 some statue representing the patient's own favorite divinity. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 71 
 
 They directed that searchlight cognizance back upon the con- 
 dition of the patient himself. The temple atmosphere, and 
 the sacerdotal features were all calculated to enlist the faith 
 of the sick ones, and thereby impress the subconscious mind. 
 It was during sleep that priests who were versed in what mis- 
 takenly we fancy to be a strictly modern practice (namely, 
 hypnotism) would induce in the sleeper the somnambulistic 
 or "lucid" state. The subconscious thus induced to explore 
 its own recesses, the patient would murmur to the attendant 
 not only a diagnosis of his ailment (probably a la psychoan- 
 alysis), but often would add to that information a prescrip- 
 tion intended to cure it — or a prognosis of the malady that 
 invariably "worked out." 
 
 I was speaking only a few days ago to a prospector. He 
 has no education. He has by no means the wide, cheap view 
 and the tiny faith that often goes with literary folks, and with 
 folks who shop around among all the cults and isms for what 
 they can "get" out of them. He had read one rather authentic 
 book on the power of the mind, and it had taken him six 
 months to do it. He assumed in his naive way that if it took 
 him that long to read it, naturally it must have taken the 
 learned man who wrote it many arduous years at hard labor. 
 Then if it took that long, it surely must be true, and he would 
 apply it. One of his legs troubled him, both with rheu- 
 matism and with varicose veins. He concentrated from noon 
 until it was time to retire, that during the night, subconsciously, 
 he would remove the ailment from that leg. What was his 
 surprise to note that as soon as he laid his head on the pillow, 
 he could not open his eyes, and yet he had done less work that 
 day than on any previous day which he could remember. At 
 any rate, falling asleep, he dreamed that a doctor came into 
 the cabin. He ordered the prospector to bring him a basin of 
 water. Then he opened his valise, took out some surgical 
 tools, — did a few things to the body (note: it is the prospec- 
 tor's own body which he is viewing in the dream), worked on 
 the offending leg some fifteen or twenty minutes, bandaged it 
 and departed. The prospector woke up in the morning with a 
 vivid recollection of the dream. He jumped out of bed. The 
 rheumatism was gone. He looked for the bandages, and there 
 were none. He felt for the varicose veins; they were still 
 
72 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 somewhat bunched, but not so badly as on the preceding day. 
 But his joy at the departure of the rheumatism was so great, 
 so filled his mind that he forgot all about the veins. Six 
 weeks after the occurrence he went to be examined by a physi- 
 cian, merely to satisfy me. Of varicose veins — the physician's 
 report had it, "No trace." 
 
 Some people are unable to understand why others should 
 have predominant mental impressions different from their own. 
 Some would say that because this miner in his dream visualized 
 a physician who used material means, he was, so to say, "on 
 the wrong track;" that he "should have been more spiritual. I 
 may be a poor hand at metaphysics, but yet it is my opinion 
 that a spiritual power has never yet been invoked for physical 
 ends, and never will be. The power used is a rather strong 
 psychic effluvium, quite physical in many of its characteristics, 
 tho' invisible. But to our dreams or trance perceptions, this 
 effluvium in action dramatizes according to our deepest con- 
 victions about healing. The good ignorant christian, under 
 the same circumstances, undoubtedly would "see Jesus," or 
 the virgin Mary, ministering in the same goodly office; the 
 Christian Scientist would see Mary Baker Eddy, the Theo- 
 sophist might be honored by a visit from Madame Blavatsky; 
 and if we could fancy some backwoods farmer's wife with a 
 sublime and unsullied faith in patent medicine advertisements, 
 then the healing of that kind of dear lady might dramatize in 
 her dream a visit from Lydia E. Pinkham. When we quote 
 the "according to your faith" passage from the bible, let us 
 look carefully into the word "according." It is a hint, which, 
 when amplified, explains more of subconscious law than we can 
 ever rationally hope to put between the covers of an 
 encyclopaedia. 
 
 There are many things not yet understood even about the 
 symptoms and faint indications of man's complete nature. All 
 that we have seen so far, currently as well as throughout the 
 pages of recorded history, are but traces and hints. Psychol- 
 ogy does but humbly attempt to rationalize and put into a 
 helpful system the results of glimpses so far gained to the end 
 that they may not be crassly forgotten. It is a mistake, con- 
 sidering the fact that our knowledge is incomplete, to dog- 
 matize and to label, — for instance, in a case such as that of 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 73 
 
 Joan of Arc. Here is a simple, untutored, unlettered, inex- 
 perienced country girl. She conducts an effective and complex 
 military activity. She confounds the opposition of a soldiery 
 who are led by tacticians and generals efficiently equipped with 
 the knowledge of warfare which obviously she lacks. She 
 makes no mistakes save when accepting the advice of some 
 friendly general, marshal or other war expert. Later she is 
 confronted by the crafty beasts who are to murder her. To 
 make that action safer for themselves, from her own replies 
 in that "court," they strive to find material with which to rouse 
 antagonisms among her pious admirers. The latter at the 
 time are split in allegiance between two claimants of the 
 papacy, both sides vociferating that there is only one. It is a 
 grand opportunity to have Joan entrap herself by replying to 
 an apparently guileless question as to which pope she prefers. 
 And into the teeth of her abysmal torturers she hurls the his- 
 toric counter question, mildly spoken: "Are there then two 
 popes?"— by which she places her inquisitors in precisely the 
 position they had wished her to occupy / Whence came this 
 wisdom, this ability? What do the resources of the subcon- 
 scious mind not encompass? If she was the tool of angels, or 
 of occult adepts, or of the spirits who had once been incarnate 
 as statesmen or rulers of France, can the mind of any person 
 be shaped into the same sort of instrument? If so, what are 
 the conditions? Was she herself perchance the reincarnation 
 of some former warrior? Here is a well-attested "miracle," 
 covering not moments, but many months, in consummation. It 
 was not a momentary occurrence, leaving observers confused 
 as to what really did happen. It is a good axiom that can be 
 turned and applied both ways. So if it is true that things 
 happen because we thought them into happening, so also is it 
 true that things happen in order that we should think about 
 them. To canonize Joan is not doing that. It may be a good 
 thing to sanctify her, but that in no wise tells us the how and 
 why of the mystery surrounding her life and actions. It is a 
 good thing to bake a cake; but if I want to find the location of 
 Chicago on a map, no matter how many cakes I bake, I will 
 not find Chicago. I'll have to look at a map. 
 
 Now we are not in the position of having "invented" 
 psychology, or of having been inspired with the "ultimate 
 
74 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 truth" in regard to it. Psychology is the only map at which 
 we may look to find things as they are, but, frankly, the con- 
 sensus of knowledge of pschology so far accumulated is far 
 from complete. We have, as already said, but traces, indica- 
 tions and hints. But they are unmistakable traces and hints. 
 Wherever we find enforced dogma of revealed and "ultimate" 
 truths, there, curious as it may seem, we may look for an 
 abortion of man's evolutionary endeavors. Why? Because 
 in the racial sense dogmas serve the same way with the com- 
 munity subconscious mind that the personal deep convictions 
 and attitudes toward life serve the individual. That at least 
 is a law worthy of incorporation in the psychological hand- 
 book. Then and thereafter, the application of the other things 
 recommended as helpful will not be twisted from their purpose 
 by an underlying and unrecognized danger. 
 
 On the basis of accumulated facts, it is the conclusion of 
 psychology that within the precincts of that subconscious mind 
 of yours there exist detailed, complete knowledge, genius and 
 power. Metaphysics would say it is your apportionment, as 
 seen in foregoing illustrations, of universal intelligence and 
 power, — of omniscience and omnipotence, if you will. And it 
 is subordinate to you. It obeys every command of yours to 
 the extent that your commands are reinforced by the deepest 
 convictions of your character. It obeys still more promptly 
 and effectively when such commands are "in tune" with its 
 laws. Its laws, because it is an apportionment of universal 
 mind, are universal laws, not the personal laws of your likes 
 and dislikes; nor are they the laws of your convictions, even if 
 you should have made a religion out of your convictions. The 
 first feature in the understanding of that universal law is now 
 covered. How many saw it? It is this: Objective action is 
 Initiative; Subconscious or Subjective action is Deductive. 
 
 Ability, from the meanest to superlative, is subconscious. 
 The expert linotyper sets the printed words you are reading 
 now, mostly thru "force of habit;" his initiative or will are 
 little concerned in the process, or not at all. You will to walk 
 to town, or across the room, and again, your habit walks or 
 transports you there. It may be that at some time you, as 
 mere "power to perceive," desired embodiment, as now you 
 desire to cross the room, — and were embodied because the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 75 
 
 subconscious took your desire then as a command to embody 
 as now it takes your command to walk. It may be that always 
 that "power to perceive," which is the most essential you, has 
 been embodied, in psychic or spiritual bodies, or even in phys- 
 ical ones, and that the progressive embodiments represent no 
 more than a re-awakening of the subconscious "habit" to 
 embody, — always in line with the essence of former convic- 
 tions, unexpended ambitions and desires. Once in a while one 
 finds a child who has more than the usual power of memory. 1 
 have asked three or four such tots how they felt when first 
 learning to walk. One described it as rather a fearful new 
 adventure. The others believed they had always walked, but 
 somehow had forgotten, and were now re-learning. I've con- 
 versed with a musical genius, who said that altho' he was not 
 brought into touch with music until his 15th year, yet unmis- 
 takably he knew he was resuming something he'd previously 
 acquired thru study, drill, and sacrifice of other pleasures. 
 Many people feel the same way when suddenly confronted with 
 this very line of thought, tho' for the former section of the 
 current "life" they had never heard of it. 
 
 It would seem that every detail of the various pinnacles 
 of human perfectability are already resident in the subcon- 
 scious mind. The ability to tap cosmic sources of intelligence 
 and knowledge actually seems to reside there. It builds the 
 body in the first place, then maintains it to the extent that you 
 do not throttle its activity with home-brewed faiths, dogmas, 
 convictions and selfish emotions. It seems that the things so 
 far discussed, such as health, buoyancy, the ability to succeed 
 financially or socially, are but the kindergarten toys in the less 
 important storerooms and workrooms of that "subconscious" 
 factory. Yet at our present stage of evolution health and suc- 
 cess are important. We cannot do our work, we cannot claim 
 we are doing our best, if we have not enlisted subconscious 
 cooperation to the extent of decent physical maintenance. 
 Health and Success are legitimate standards at the present 
 time; we must learn to master them; we work and live to a 
 great extent for them and with them. When we have mas- 
 tered them, we will see them to have been minor considerations 
 after all. We will see, then, that by mastery of them thru expe- 
 rience in them, we but intended to teach ourselves a capacity 
 
76 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 for issues, powers (now occult) and activities that now are 
 undreamed — that now would seem superhuman. But we can- 
 not expect to solve problems in higher mathematics while we 
 still cut each other's throats, or destroy each other's characters 
 while disagreeing that two and two make four. Even telep- 
 athy, for instance, now established beyond peradventure of 
 doubt, as a common possibility of the subconscious, were it 
 brought universally into play as an active faculty, would make 
 hell, where now we fortunately have but the ante-room of 
 hell — in regard to industry and commerce. The stronger 
 would use it to the impoverishment of the weak, as they do now 
 with every other tool. Telepathy is akin to mind-reading. 
 If I can receive thought messages sent to me intentionally, it 
 will require but a slight extension of the power to enable me to 
 take forcibly thoughts, messages and private secrets, not in- 
 tended for me. That would give me an unsportsmanlike ad- 
 vantage over the rest of mankind. As long as we gouge each 
 other with the tools we have, we would act in just as unsports- 
 manlike fashion with more perfect or more powerful tools. 
 To eliminate danger, we see now how necessary it is that an 
 attitude toward life, constructive, healthful and helpful, be in- 
 stalled as the main machine in the subconscious mind, before 
 sleeping abilities are awakened. 
 
 t^* t£* fc?* 
 
 Every ability that has ever been manifested in the world is 
 either active in you, asleep in you, or dreaming in you. 
 
 Every evil that has ever been thought or practiced is either 
 active in you, asleep in you, or dreaming in you. 
 
 Shakespeare, Beethoven, Napoleon, Edison, Burbank, Christ, 
 Buddha, Manu, Magicians, Sorcerers, Sibyls and Prophets, — are 
 either active, asleep or dreaming in you. 
 
 Psychology will not put to sleep those qualities which damn 
 you by their actions if they ARE awakened. 
 
 Psychology will not awaken those qualities which you fancy 
 you would desire. 
 
 Your COMPREHENSION of psychology, plus your appli- 
 cation of what you comprehend, WILL "bind or loose" any or all 
 of them, ACCORDING to your faith and character. 
 
Lesson V. 
 REACHING THE INNER MIND 
 
 THE topic of the Subconscious Mind is, of course, inde- 
 pendent of any limits which we could prescribe. We can 
 turn our attention to such angles of vision as will most 
 efficiently give us a working grasp of the indications and hints 
 which psychology has accumulated. To arrive at such a "work- 
 ing grasp" it is necessary to devise if possible certain working 
 formulas, the intelligent use of which may be expected to bring 
 about definite, dependable and desirable results. A chemical 
 formula means nothing to one not acquainted with the rudi- 
 ments of chemistry. Likewise, with the formulas herein to be 
 given, — their use will result in nothing, or in worse than noth- 
 ing, if what has foregone is treated as of no importance. The 
 best artisans use their tools in a manner so efficient as to excite 
 the wonder and admiration of the beholder. That is because 
 the best artisans know their tools; they could construct new 
 and better tools if the ones they have were to break. So it is 
 with the laws of mind; one must see their necessity, their im- 
 portance, their construction; one must understand their why 
 and how before they will justify the complete dependability 
 which the advanced student places upon them. 
 
 We saw that the "big" thing which animates the subcon- 
 scious mind is the predominant mental impression which 
 reigns there. We have not only one such predominant im- 
 pression, but many. In regard to every cardinal aspect or 
 feature of life, you have some sort of conviction, or predomi- 
 nant impression. You will accept things out of that particular 
 channel or aspect of life, only according to some conviction of 
 your character. It does not matter in the least whether you 
 admit to yourself or others that your character has such secret 
 controllers and animators; admission and inadmission of that 
 sort is part of your present surface thinking, which in the course 
 of time may modify your fundamental character if persisted in. 
 
 77 
 
78 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Is there a "short cut" way of changing the undesirable 
 predominant subconscious impressions? Inferring from sud- 
 den changes in character; sudden mental degenerations and just 
 as sudden and seeming miraculous regenerations, "conver- 
 sions," and reforms; inferring from instantaneous healings of 
 mental and physical diseases and malformations, — psychology 
 says there undoubtedly is a short cut. 
 
 Tho' we must with broad tolerance view the claims of 
 persons healed, that some particular doctrine or religious de- 
 nomination possesses the last word in explanation of how it 
 happened, yet psychology says there is a similarity in procedure 
 which goes before each and every instantaneous and genuine 
 "conversion" or physical cure. If we will glue our observation, 
 our powers of analysis and of synthesis, to that thread of simi- 
 larity, and really know what it is, then says psychology, we will 
 know how actually to reach the subconscious mind, and also 
 how to substitute constructive fundamental impressions there 
 to replace the old and destructive ones. 
 
 How to Build a Formula 
 
 First, then, to learn our "tools;" — the best observations 
 so far vouchsafed of those "traces" which denote a miraculous 
 subconscious activity, have occurred as a rule during "trance," 
 whether induced by hypnotism or otherwise. That means first 
 that the objective processes of mind are in such instances in 
 abeyance. But it means first that the body, its posture or activ- 
 ities in no wise attracted the attention of the mind, — otherwise 
 the attention so required will keep the objective operations 
 active. We are building our formula for reaching the subcon- 
 scious mind by a short cut, and find that the first requisite in 
 that formula is 
 
 Physical Relaxation. 
 
 The second feature is not hard to find, whether the at- 
 tempt to re-impress the subconscious mind is pursued thru 
 hypnotic procedure or otherwise. The sick negro in Hayti has 
 done all the reasoning and arguing he is going to do before 
 calling in the dreaded practitioner of "voodoo," who, tho 
 dreaded, yet has the power of life and of death in his grimy 
 fists, — according to the sick one's deepest faith. The weary 
 pilgrim to the cave of Our Madonna of the Lourdes is not 
 going there to engage in quarrels in exegesis or in differences 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 79 
 
 of opinion over canonical authorities. This mental "letting 
 go" of everything, most of all, letting go of the mental rivet 
 or fixation on the undesired or unworthy condition itself, is of 
 equal importance to the physical relaxation. We shall call 
 this second ingredient of our formula 
 
 Mental Passivity. 
 
 The more this "letting go" process has been expertly ful- 
 filled, the more does the subconscious, then in line with the ob- 
 jective mind, photograph as an indelible picture, whatever 
 engages the attention at the magical moment. If the objective 
 mind has been paralyzed thru hypnotism, then the object itself, 
 and not the objective opinion about it, is the impression made. 
 When we speak of a sudden burst of inspiration or enthusiasm, 
 we commonly say that the person so inspired or enthused "let 
 himself go." It means, psychologically, that his objective self 
 at such a time was reinforced by the energies and other re- 
 sources of the subconscious mind. In a destructive sense, but 
 just as truly do we awaken similar energies when we indulge in 
 a fit of intense anxiety, anger or fear. It is psychologically 
 just as much of a "letting go" as any other. It furnishes what 
 one might aptly call a "camera moment." At such a moment 
 as that, whatever engages the attention becomes indelibly fixed 
 in the subconscious character, there to work out according to 
 its type in your personality and hence in your future welfare. 
 The ancients called such moments, whether deliberately in- 
 duced or accidentally indulged, "mantic frenzy." But here 
 is the gist psychologically, here is the valuable thing for which 
 the letting go of mental endeavor is necessary — that the atten- 
 tion may be fixed on One Thing. The One Thing, with the stu- 
 dent practicing along lines suggested by all that has now fore- 
 gone, will be the new or efficient predominant mental impres- 
 sion, which is to dominate over inadequate old ones. Hence 
 the third feature of our formula for reaching and improving 
 the impresses of the subconscious mind is 
 
 Fixation of Attention. 
 
 Now it is not necessary to go into brainstorms, or convul- 
 sions, or into hysteria, to get fixation of attention. Indeed, 
 the more one can make the mind motionless before that condi- 
 tion is brought into play, the better and more sane and more 
 clear will be the impression; and later the more strong will be 
 
80 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 the working out of that impression into actuality. A quiet 
 assurance, yet ever so deep, that one is fulfilling a formula 
 exact as a mathematical formula is exact, is the best attitude to 
 maintain. 
 
 A verse of a few lines occurs to mind. It is quite apro- 
 pos at this juncture, as it depicts in one octave the state of mind 
 necessary to secure the fixation on an ideal to be attained, even 
 if for the time the "ideal" is not so loftily vague as the lines 
 would have it. The energies otherwise wasted in the pyro- 
 technics of emotional agonies, frenzies, hysterias, etc., so often 
 unnecessarily accompanying inner psychological, or even re- 
 ligious endeavors, can as well be so restrained and directed as 
 to make all the stronger the new order which you are going 
 to implant upon the tablets of the subconscious during the 
 moment of the fixation. The writer probably had some idea 
 of that sort in mind when putting down the lines. The desire 
 expressed to rise past "meditation" is worthy of note. It is pos- 
 sible that a limited (not the dictionary) meaning is given the 
 word. The imbroglio of thought-arguments which arise in 
 mind sometimes to confuse the inept concentrator is probably 
 meant. 
 
 Then view in peace the high star worlds this night, 
 
 With quiet gaze so rise past meditation 
 
 That dark or petty things of life, thru concentration 
 
 So consecrated clear, must fail to pierce — 
 
 That in frustration 
 
 Must flee all thoughts but one — 
 
 All thoughts but one must, helpless, take to flight. 
 
 Rather tough on the helpless thoughts, — and yet there is 
 enough in the lines to constitute a sort of "direction," in apply- 
 ing the formula. Probably it would be a little difficult to define 
 that self same "direction," and yet, if we tried, it would amount 
 to this : So fix the new standard in your mind, for days in 
 advance, that during the practice quarter hour or half hour, 
 other thoughts will have little chance to activate your mind; 
 they will indeed be "helpless." 
 
 If we try to apply this formula with too much vigor, in 
 other words, we are likely to overstep the fine line of effective- 
 ness. Most powerful effects are brought about spontaneously 
 and easily. This can almost be held as a dogma in psycho- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 81 
 
 logical practices. We shall discuss it more fully a little later. 
 But in the meantime, remember that in the moment of the 
 "fixation, of attention," you have what many psychologists call 
 a "psychological moment," during which you are the master 
 of a photographing camera, — and the photographs that you 
 then take by ear, by eye, by emotion, by any perception, inner 
 or outer, will subtly rule you thereafter, — modified only by 
 other such photographs already existing and strong enough to 
 conflict with the new one. 
 
 The famous "curse of the Hapsburgs" was probably ef- 
 fected at least in part thru an accidental employment of the 
 psychological factors shown as the three ingredients of our "in- 
 fallible formula." The grieved and, it may be, partly insane 
 noblewoman when delivering that historic malediction upon 
 Francis Joseph, certainly had the latter's undivided, hypnotic, 
 or "fixed" attention. While listening to that horrible sequence 
 of prophecies, all pictures of horrors and disasters to occur 
 in the lives of those he most loved, — we would not imagine him 
 as concerned over the ventilation of the room or with anything 
 whatever to do with his body. We would not fancy him as 
 mentally occupied with a mortgage, or a note, or giving 
 his mind to any of those things which usually fritter away 
 the average student's best psychological opportunities. If the 
 same woman, with the same frenzied energy, had then and 
 there in that manner pierced the shell of Francis Joseph's 
 objective personality with prophecies of growth and expan- 
 sion for his family and empire, — well, we can but wonder. 
 On the other hand, it may be, after all, that in her "mantic 
 frenzy," she saw clairvoyantly and prophetically into the future 
 of the king she felt had needlessly robbed her of her son, 
 and in that dramatic manner recited what she saw. Never- 
 theless, even that would again show that fixation of atten- 
 tion had been brought about in her through that terrific surge 
 of emotion or mantic frenzy, and that this moment of fixation 
 is, therefore, more replete with "miracle" than carelessly other- 
 wise we would have thought. 
 
 I Wish I Knew What to Wish For 
 
 How common an attitude this is ! And yet, in the little 
 citation just concluded, we have a clew how the formula may 
 be applied to help in this very situation. If within the un- 
 
82 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 plumbed depths and heights of consciousness there is a depart- 
 ment that knows even the future, then surely there are depart- 
 ments that know well what is best for you as personality "to 
 do." It is a mistake, however, to assume or to expect that such 
 departments of your cosmic being will command you positive- 
 ly. If we have made even one item of things psychological 
 clear to the student by this time, we hope it has been this : You 
 as objective personality are the only fraction in the entire of 
 your being, which during the earth life is positive. The voice 
 depicting what to do is still and small — passive — negative. 
 Each prejudice and whim can easily out "holler" it. Often, 
 those not evolved far enough for true endeavor inflate some 
 selfish desire ; the next step is wonder at the proportions and 
 power of the desire ; still the next step with such is to decide 
 that it could not be so vast unless their "soul" or "god" wanted 
 them to do or possess the thing desired. Such "rational 
 maniacs" spout from platforms in every town and city; nothing 
 is so irresistable as mania. But it is not the kind of "advance" 
 really needed. Too much semi-insanity and quasi-sanity is 
 already among us. 
 
 Let us made a demand on the soul, if we employ the fore- 
 going formula, for sanity first. Grow as enthusiastic in 
 anticipating a psychological exercise for that object as you 
 would in "holding the thought" for a new automobile so fer- 
 vently advocated by some of the "prosperity cults." Con- 
 tinued for a season, it will enable you to tap a veritable well- 
 spring of philosophy and ethics. The influence of that spring, 
 welling from within, will cause you to view things mathematical- 
 ly and yet sympathetically, instead of in the common emotional 
 way, that is either repelled from a thing or condition by dis- 
 like, or on the other hand merely gushes and brays in true jack- 
 ass fashion over the thing or condition it "likes." 
 
 Sanity established, then and not till then, is the time to 
 progress and to act with every tool at one's command. The 
 formula and all that went before, which must be imagined as 
 concentrated within the formula, is one of the tools now in 
 hand. If sane, use that formula; it is a sin of omission not to 
 use it. The insane are using it and there are many of them. 
 If you lack sanity, use the same formula to get it. It is a crime 
 against yourself to use it for any other purpose than that, if 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 83 
 
 you are still subject to personal or to racial insanities. Think 
 well, then think again. 
 
 A Bit of Psychoanalysis En Passant 
 
 While thinking, also think over this : Automatically 
 every feature of that formula you have used since you were one 
 second old as measured by an Elgin watch. You could not 
 help it. You used it automatically. When your mother told 
 you bedside stories, your body was relaxed; your mind was at 
 rest; you gave the narrative of adventure, of courage, of dar- 
 ing, — or the story of goody-goodiness or wish-washiness, — you 
 gave all that your undivided, and often your "fixed" hypnotic 
 attention. When some adult stopped you abruptly with a ter- 
 rible threat, warning, or "prophecy" in regard to what would 
 happen if you "did" this or that, again subconsciously you 
 photographed a terribly potent "photograph" right then and 
 there. The conversation you overheard, that you had no busi- 
 ness to overhear, according to adult standards, photographed 
 itself with intensity because then your objective operations, 
 bodily and mental, were very, very still. The sight you saw, 
 that you were not supposed to see, did likewise; because every 
 time you puzzled over it thereafter, it grew very, very strong; 
 and because no one explained to you what it all meant, certain 
 of your childhood phantasies in regard to that sight, to those 
 words, or to other impressions, — these infantile phantasies still 
 dominate you. Psychically you still have the 3 or 4-year-old 
 in you. 
 
 Subconsciously, no matter if you are 80 years old, you still 
 respond, and are drawn into many situations of life because of 
 that subconscious search for the mother, the father, or to what- 
 ever else represented felicity to the babe. Some of those infan- 
 tile phantasies are desirable. Some are undesirable. Some of 
 them have become "sublimated" into noble actions. But on 
 some of them the incrustations of fear fantasies have kept you 
 down, — have kept you out of entire sectors of life and action 
 so far. Do you wish to enter such self-inhibited, self-forbidden 
 sectors? Then use the formula — for sanity first. We see 
 now that precaution is not so unnecessary after all. It is quite 
 necessary. It will give you, first of all, power and courage to 
 face yourself. It will give you the power to call a spade a 
 spade, even if it is an agricultural implement. Of course, when 
 
84 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 thus "shaking loose" from undesirable subconscious sources 
 of fear and incapacity, certain of our more pleasant illusions 
 concerning ourselves also "go" in the process. But the com- 
 pensation is this: We find the truth underlying the layer of 
 illusions, by far a more vital thing, and to the sane mind, more 
 attractive than the most alluring mental postures and poses 
 with which theretofore we may have tried to impress our- 
 selves and others. 
 
 The Effect of Experience 
 
 Experience may occur to us physically, psychically, or 
 mentally. All experiences are stored in the subconscious mind. 
 The inner archives are like unto a dictaphone and motion pic- 
 ture camera combined. But every genuine experience so stored 
 away is cushioned about with living feeling or thought. Noth- 
 ing that has ever happened to you is dead merely because you 
 have neglected, forgotten, or repudiated it. The living feel- 
 ing or thought surrounding each occurrence occupies more 
 "space," is more weighty by far than the nucleus of experience 
 to which it impinges. It is weighty either with anxiety or with 
 expectation. Imagine a glass of very clear jam or jelly; 
 imagine that this comestible is made of strawberries. Look 
 thru it at the sun. In the wine colored yet translucent sub- 
 stance you see innumerable seeds, — yet by volume, if those seeds 
 were segregated, you would probably have a half thimbleful 
 and the diminution in the volume of jam or jelly would not be 
 noticeable. Now imagine that the little solid points of actual 
 experience stored in the subconscious are just like that. They 
 are numerous, of course, but are entirely surrounded and float 
 in our feelings and phantasies in regard to them. Around but 
 very few of such points of experience is the surrounding feeling 
 in tune with fact. Moreover, the "jell" which we have built 
 around each such point, usually disagrees or contradicts another 
 kind of phantasy which we have built or wound round a neigh- 
 boring point, and so on. The fears and hopes around one 
 contradict the fears and hopes around another. 
 
 When it is seen that the waking, every day personality is 
 in one sense the "out-working" of the subconscious self, we see 
 that the past events and occurrences of any given life are not 
 the dominant things controlling that life now. "You" are the 
 sum total of the kind of emotional and mental reactions you 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 85 
 
 have given events and occurrences. The occurrences them- 
 selves do not much matter. Among many psychologists, all 
 these reactions, — in fact, anything which then or later is to 
 affect the workings of the subconscious mind, goes by the gen- 
 eric name of "Suggestion." Understood in that sense, it will 
 save many students disappointment; for there are "teachers" 
 with limited and inadequate knowledge in these matters, whose 
 only idea of a Suggestion is something merely spoken to one's 
 self or another in quite a positive or almost vindictive manner. 
 Yet, if care and persistence is used to widen and enlarge the 
 meaning implied in that word suggestion, then it becomes true 
 
 that SUGGESTION, NOTHING MORE AND NOTHING LESS, IS THE 
 ACTIVATOR OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 If such a suggestion has been built around a memory of a 
 painful experience, quite likely it is not in line with fact. You 
 have built some kind of phantasy or "white lie" about it. You 
 may not have done this as a matter of deliberation. The point 
 is, — to the extent that the fantasy-mechanism is there be- 
 cause of fearing to face the fact itself, to that extent is it harm- 
 ful. Things psychologically done because of fear, in effect are 
 as bad as the fear itself. 
 
 The subconscious mind is a faultless recorder of every- 
 thing that has transpired throughout the life. We are all fa- 
 miliar with instances that illustrate this point. Two or three 
 cases are on record, one, if I recall in the book "Man's Uncon- 
 scious Conflict," by Wilfrid Lay, Ph.D., of an elderly woman, 
 who, in her early 'teens, had been within hearing range (but 
 had never objectively listened to) recitations in Hebrew; it is 
 a number of decades after this that she is ill, and in delirium 
 mystifies those at the bedside with recitations in the strange 
 language. The unconscious, or rather the subconscious, there 
 showed that it remembers impressions gathered by the percep- 
 tions. It remembers these, whether or not they are objectively 
 learned in the accepted sense. The recording is done with 
 equal impartiality in either case. 
 
 In the years of infancy, certain specific things are so "laid 
 in" with a greater amount of feeling than with other things. 
 This overweight of emotional concern will accompany impres- 
 sions that have anything at all to do with what the infantile 
 subconscious carries as its three dominant "urges." Those 
 
86 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 dominant urges, which nothing can uproot, are the yearnings 
 toward Life, Love and Activity. Love and Sex, even in the 
 tiny infant, tho' latent objectively, yet in the subconscious sense, 
 constitute the magnet that incites accumulation of observed 
 facts. Anything that bears on the "magnet" itself, therefore, 
 arouses a volume of energy, for which the infant as yet has no 
 means of disposal. Hence such infantile impressions, as it 
 were "turn upon themselves" in the form of phantasy and fable- 
 building. These inner distortions and fables, later in life, will 
 make of the sex life, and consequently of the emotional and 
 psychic life, a thing according to their own nature. If the act- 
 ing out of those buried impressions is contrary to accepted 
 social usages, then in the average individual there will grow 
 up the faculty of psychic repression, which may, by its close 
 connection (already seen) with the very wellsprings of life, 
 impair the person's life and efficiency as a social unit. This, 
 then, is the context of that padding and cushioning of feeling 
 and of thought, with which we surround in our subconscious- 
 ness the bare facts, occurrences and experiences of life. It is a 
 condition obtaining with every human being on earth, in greater 
 or lesser degree. Its kind and degree is the root to study and 
 to comprehend if we wish to know more why the tree shows 
 the form of success or failure. 
 
 Yet, taking the broad and thorough meaning which now 
 should go with the word "Suggestion" (preceded where the 
 "photograph" or impression has been deeply engrafted upon 
 the subconscious, by relaxation, passivity, and fixation of atten- 
 tion) — we see then that all this psychic operation, where un- 
 worthy or undesirable, — has been accomplished through ig- 
 norant application of that potent tool of mind. Accidentally, 
 some suggestions may be good; they often are. But the pur- 
 pose of psychology is to learn how to draw life away from the 
 dizzy precipice of uncertainties and accidental benefits. Psy- 
 chology recommends the best use of what tools we have. Its 
 method of determining a tool is to find out first what we are 
 doing automatically and ignorantly, and then to make the same 
 process objective and intelligent. Plainly, its purpose is to 
 draw that which is hidden out into the sunlight. If auto- 
 matically we have been using suggestion and to our own detri- 
 ment, then, if we learn to do the same thing consciously, we can 
 improve the results heretofore seen. We can learn, by per- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 87 
 
 severance, to do wisely and well what has been done ignorantly 
 without our objective knowledge. 
 
 Again, the subconscious, tho' it has worked out sugges- 
 tions ignorantly, as just stated, — yet the word would probably 
 describe psychologic fact better if we twisted it into "ignor- 
 ingly." All that we have ever learned of suggestion, and all 
 that we are likely to learn, must be borrowed from observations 
 of the subconscious itself. Hence, the subconscious is not ig- 
 norant of suggestion. It ignores, however, your aims, your 
 ideals, and your best wishes. Its business is solely and com- 
 pletely that of working out suggestions implanted upon it. It 
 is YOU who must learn how to incorporate your ideals and best 
 wishes into that mechanism of Suggestion. <" 
 
 The first thing in learning to do this is to learn how to 
 face the condition prevailing in the lower subconscious mind. 
 If the situation there prevailing is ignored, it acts as a basement 
 foundation that has, by flood or earthquake, been thrown out 
 of plumb and into a slant. The entire superstructure of sub- 
 conscious and even of objective operations will then be "out of 
 kilter;" neuroses and failure will be there, maybe ill health 
 physically as well. The first use of the Formula should be 
 for Sanity, as we said before, — but for self-analysis as well, 
 as we will say now. Not to add to the subconscious clutter, but 
 to straighten out what is there, should be the first aim. 
 
 We must put forth effort to become effective and efficient 
 human beings before we go about bombastically storming the 
 gates of heaven. Willingness is not enough; ability must ac- 
 company it. The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of personality 
 is gauged and determined by the number and virulence of inner 
 "complexes," the nature of which we have but touched upon. 
 Any artificially built up — and then ignored — phantasy sur- 
 rounding the impress of an undesirable experience, is called a 
 complex. This is but an "outline," and the discussion of such 
 contents of the subconscious has been by no means complete. 
 We have but brushed on the first big task that confronts every 
 true student of psychology. Many "teachers" ignore this 
 phase; but with such it is of common note, that the students 
 derive no more lasting benefit than a chance to worship the 
 teacher while that person deigns to stay in any given city. 
 
 As Wilfrid Lay so well points out, — if a mere thought 
 can induce a flow of energy and blood to the face and cause 
 
88 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 a blush, there is no reason to doubt similar, slower but more 
 subtle and powerful physiological effects from more funda- 
 mental attitudes of mind. Thus, a young girl rather imper- 
 tinently questioned by a mother who could ill-disguise her own 
 prurient complexes, becomes deaf. The desire of the girl not 
 to hear the mother is the Suggestion in this instance, and the 
 deafness is a wish fulfillment. A man who has lost his love for 
 his wife, yet unwilling to bring upon her and the family all 
 the "shake-up" that divorce would entail, suddenly goes blind. 
 Subconsciously, the Suggestion is, "blindness will the most likely 
 allow me to live as if she were not with me," again the "ignor- 
 ing" way of creating a wish fulfillment. Partial paralysis has 
 been known to follow sometimes as the result of a long nursed 
 resentment at having to do intimate or menial chores for 
 others. In most instances of this kind, merely the Suggestion 
 for health would not do at all. All the "holding the thought" 
 in the world would only add to the malady, or cover it up with 
 a yet deeper incrustation of lies. Almost invariably, the hope 
 of cure lies first in intellectualizing the hidden emotion — the 
 concealed attitude. It is difficult, because the objective person- 
 ality will deny upstandingly the existence of each and all of 
 the real causes of the disorder. Often healing, therefore, is 
 to be expected as part of a re-education; for otherwise the 
 patient continues to feed the causes of his trouble. But all this 
 is improved when we begin to see that all attitudes of mind 
 are energic, not static. That is to say, mental attitudes act as 
 energies, with a semi-intelligence built up as already shown, — 
 while at the same time acting as channels or conductors for 
 other forms of force and energy. 
 
 Then when this view has been thoroughly established, you 
 will see the necessity of work. This enables the energies of- 
 body and mind to carry out the ROOT SUGGESTION of the RACE 
 — to do something worth while outwardly. The ROOT sug- 
 gestion referred to just now, if it could be vocalized, would 
 tell us that we must do something to impress material en- 
 vironment. We must do something that will make the world 
 a little better for those who are younger, and for those not yet 
 born. The ROOT suggestion says we dare not feed on our 
 own emotions; it says if we pity ourselves, or worry ourselves, 
 or are anxious, we will get olenty of things to fear and to be 
 anxious about. It says to do something for the bettering of 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 89 
 
 material and outward conditions, it is not necessary to indulge 
 in rhapsodies about man's glorious future. It says juggle the 
 garbage cans at your kitchen door, if this morning the servant 
 is indisposed. It says, get a hammer and pin down the loose 
 corner of that rug yourself, if husband is busy, or if the carpet 
 layers are not available. It says indulge your selfishness less, 
 even if you have been prone to disguise that selfishness by at- 
 tendance of "uplift" meetings, or by taking it out in the wor- 
 ship of some itinerant "psychologist." If you yearn to write 
 poetry instead of doing all these things, it makes rejoinder that 
 your poetry will then be of better savour. Probably then some- 
 one will actually read it, and even enjoy doing so. If you rein- 
 force the subconscious and ingrained tendency toward in- 
 grainedness by demanding service when you yourself are not 
 serving, your attitude toward life then is infantile. Subcon- 
 sciously the babe of a few months still dominates you. In soul 
 growth you are then still the puling infant. Here then is the 
 reason and the rationale behind that oft repeated slogan : When 
 feeling sorry for yourself, do something for somebody else 
 QUICK. How many "babes" we have among our "great ones." 
 Among kings and potentates; among government officials; 
 corporation heads and executives ; down to the neurotic social 
 leader, who admits incapacity for real life by adopting a con- 
 summately artificial pose, — mere infants, bawling and screech- 
 ing that the rest of the social family give them for nothing the 
 things they want just as the baby "gets" its needs. As the 
 babe tyrannizes over the rest of all our ill-regulated families, so 
 in the family politic the infant still gets his way, because the 
 rest of the family are dunces. 
 
 No one is to blame, except if we take the extreme posi- 
 tion that ignorance is blameworthy always. But we see Nature 
 prodigally bestowing failure and disease wherever her laws are 
 ignored. So whether we blame or refrain from blaming, it is 
 at least prudent to learn. Sympathetic learning in itself seems 
 practically the complete "fulfilling of the law." Some day it 
 will be a slogan of healing, that "In the correct and complete 
 diagnosis lies the cure." It will be seen that no more is re- 
 quired of any ill than to diagnose it properly, to make it vanish. 
 Why? Because the cause of the majority of disorders is pas- 
 sional and emotional, below the mind, not admitted to, or 
 repudiated by the mind. The mind represents sunlight; the 
 
90 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 position of the causes of the disease before diagnosis, is in the 
 dark and damp basement, where vile things breed and batten. 
 Once the offending cause is hauled out into the germicidal sun- 
 light of rational analysis, it loses its effectiveness for evil and 
 ill. To maintain the pose that one is too much of a saint to 
 harbor such complexes is the most effective defense that the 
 disordered phase of the subconscious could have induced you 
 to take. It is the same as saying "I prefer to stay sick," and 
 that guise acts as a permanent and hypnotic Suggestion to keep 
 things in statu quo. 
 
 So, again, the first use of our formula should be for Sanity 
 first. There is no man, woman, boy or girl, without a range of 
 complexes personal to each. This is said with a view to demon- 
 strating that "to be analyzed" by someone claiming the ability 
 to do so is quite likely to fail of results unless you yourself are 
 already well versed in psychology. I pity the wretches who will 
 try to carry out the habit of "shopping around" among folks 
 who hang out shingles as "psychoanalysts," as now they do 
 among less effective and therefore less dangerous quacks. The 
 root suggestion of the race, again says: "Thou shalt not try 
 to evade the painful necessity of thinking," and running to an 
 "analyst" is often an attempt at just such evasion. Learn also 
 to distinguish between thinking, which, to justify the name 
 should be analytical and constructive, — -and on the other hand, 
 mere brooding and worrying. The latter forms are attacking 
 always, and actually twisting and perverting the life energies 
 themselves. 
 
 Do consciously and wisely what you have been doing 
 habitually and ignorantly. Subconsciously or habitually, — 
 always you have been acting according to the law of Sugges- 
 tion, or if we wish to paraphrase that, then according to the 
 Law of Predominating Mental Impressions. Such impressions 
 are made on the subconscious when for a second or for an hour 
 you have fulfilled the three conditions enumerated. Whenever 
 the pose or activity of your body has not occupied the mind; 
 whenever at such a time your mind itself has become passive, 
 and then when this physico-mental condition obtained, you 
 have also given fixed or undivided attention to something, — 
 then that thing, or your emotions concerning it, have become 
 indelibly impressed in your subconscious mind as dominators 
 of action for the subconscious energies. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 91 
 
 All these conditions may have occurred a thousand times 
 today, in situations where you least expected that they would 
 happen. I have, on looking back and analyzing, seen where, 
 automatically and without volition, the entire formula has been 
 in force while I was pursuing a fleeing trolley car. Again 
 I've seen it occur of itself with less distraction at a concert; 
 at hearing a word that I tried to place and thereby became 
 abstracted for a moment; in viewing a sunset. I've heard of it 
 occurring this way: A boy mocked his rather irascible and 
 stammering grandfather, who was occupied at a carpenter's 
 bench at the time. The boy paid no attention to the old gentle- 
 man's stuttering warnings that he would be punished if he did 
 not desist. The boy, studying over a childish drawing of a 
 penciled plan, absent mindedly, or thru force of habit, was 
 again aping the grandfather's impeded speech. Out of patience' 
 then, and without further warning, the old man dealt the boy a 
 light and sudden blow on the back, exclaiming loudly, "You will 
 stammer, will you?" And the boy did stammer for months 
 thereafter. He had fulfilled the three requirements of the 
 formula; the older man, if the story is true (and there is no 
 reason why it should not be), had merely furnished the object 
 for the camera moment of the fixed attention to photograph. 
 Throughout most of life, people submit to doing and 
 thinking automatically, according to "habit complexes." It is 
 so easy to do things according to habit, which we glorify by 
 calling our "nature." This is wrong. It leads to worse than 
 nowhere. These habits for the most part were formed un- 
 consciously under circumstances which do not now obtain. 
 From the standpoint of true progress, there is no mental habit 
 adeauate for this day's or this moment's endeavor. Habit 
 and stagnation, incompetence — are psychological synonyms. 
 Do not throw your present problem down to your habit mind 
 for solution. Solve it by thought. See that the kind of thought 
 vou use comprehends things as they are, not as the colored 
 soectacles of habit would twist them. Solve the new impres- 
 sion, the new experience, the new difficulty — by thought, not 
 by habit. Suspect yourself if you cannot think it out. En- 
 courage yourself if wise clews result from thinking; that means 
 you are getting away from the subconscious tendency to stow 
 away the kernel of experience in a pickle solution of futile 
 phantasies. 
 
92 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 That formula given in this chapter is meant to enable you 
 to produce at will the "camera moment" which automatically 
 is a mechanism in your mental life. If you practice the form- 
 ula, you will have many of such camera, or fixation of attention 
 moments. You may never notice having one. That does not 
 matter, because noticing is an objective function, and the fixa- 
 tion moment is an act of the subconscious. Objectively you 
 can only furnish the required ingredients of the formula. In 
 anticipation of such fixation moments, whenever and wherever 
 they may occur, have ready the standing Demand for greater 
 and keener powers of conscious thought. Have ready a deep- 
 rooted determination to get away from viewing and solving 
 things by a play on your own emotions, convictions and ideals 
 to the extent that your life shows so far such have been in- 
 adequate. 
 
 A Bit of Useless (?) Speculation 
 
 He who dominates the subconscious mind in line with 
 reality needs thereafter but to photograph on it what he will. 
 
 The counter-claims of conflicting desires not being there to 
 obscure the picture, — the creative forces bent without dissipa- 
 tion or deploy to the end of vitalizing the imprint — that and 
 nothing more — then a tremendous effect at once is produced on 
 physical matter thru its phase of entelechy — the ether. 
 
 Instantaneous healing may be the item pictured, the appor- 
 tation of matter thru matter, the miraculous growth of a fruit- 
 bearing tree, the magical creation of loaves and fishes, the walk- 
 ing on water or in air, the seeing and comprehending of inner, 
 psychic and spiritual realms of nature, the making of man a 
 magi, adept, or "god." 
 
 ^?* (<?* t£fc 
 
 In TRUTH nothing is impossible. 
 
 We are, however, but learning the truth, despite our pious 
 claims that we already have it. 
 
 Psychology but hopes to help in this learning, and that is all. 
 
Lesson VI. 
 
 SUBJECTIVE INSIGHT AND OBJECTIVE 
 
 ACCOMPLISHMENT; or, DREAM 
 
 AND REALITY 
 
 WHEN airplanes were first invented, we read much 
 about how the air seems to move in strata or layers. 
 Up to an altitude of say, 500 feet, the movement 
 of air or wind might be in an easterly direction; then the next 
 500 or 1,000 feet would probably be found comparatively 
 quiet, without any motion; yet, if the ascent were continued, 
 the aeronaut would as likely as not .find that at a still greater 
 altitude a veritable gale was blowing in a westerly direction, 
 directly opposite to the wind direction of the lowest air-layer. 
 
 Now, the analogy or similarity is beautiful. Psychology 
 draws attention again and again to the fact that movements 
 or activities of consciousness are also in layers. 
 
 You may be occupied with your normal current activities. 
 Yet suddenly, if you stop for a moment, you will note that 
 underneath this, another substratum of more or less discon- 
 nected thought has been "moving" in you all that time. This 
 substratum may not, and as a rule is not, in any apparent way 
 connected with the duty of the moment. This undertone of 
 thinking is not objective as we see, and yet it is without diffi- 
 culty perceived, if one takes the trouble to stop the strictly 
 objective operations of mind. Hence it is not strictly sub- 
 conscious; or as the later schools of analytical psychology 
 would say, it does not out and out belong in the cryptic or 
 obscure realms of the "unconscious." 
 
 A Highly Important "Crossroads" of Consciousness 
 
 We will therefore call this middle stratum of thinking, the 
 "subjective" phase of mind. It is a sort of dream obligato to 
 the solo of objective or initiative activity. To continue the 
 musical analogy, — we know that "middle C" is the property 
 neither of the base nor of the treble clef; and yet it is the 
 property of both. So with the subjective phase of thinking, — 
 
 93 
 
94 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 it is neither objective nor subconscious, and yet is a strategic 
 something, "belonging" to both. It is the "sitting on the 
 fence" phase of mind. It seems lazily to refuse co-operation 
 with either the field on one side or the field on the other. If 
 we suddenly turn the searchlight of curiosity on him, for a 
 few moments, we may observe him, but the light is too much. 
 The subjective current of thought then either merges into 
 some phase of the objective thought, or disappears into the 
 hidden field of the subconscious. As soon as the searchlight 
 of attention is withdrawn, he begins slowly to resume his day- 
 dream seat on the fence. 
 
 Again this subjective phase is like the middle layer of 
 comparatively quiescent air between two active and moving 
 strata. In the normal individual, so quiet and unobtrusive 
 is its function, that it hardly does to call its activity by the 
 name of "thinking." We might call it by that rather obscure 
 word "mentation," which means merely an "act of mind," 
 without particularizing about the kind of act. 
 
 Its action is easily observed in children. This is especially 
 noticeable at such times as when we say of the child that it 
 is "absorbed" in playing. The child then is not in its strictly 
 objective phase; the environment is ignored except for the 
 small fraction of it that can be drawn in appropriately to 
 furnish ingredients in the phantasy evoked by the game. The 
 child, strictly speaking, is not awake to its surroundings. Yet 
 it is not asleep. It is in a state of wakefulness, asleep to a 
 (for the time being) repudiated portion of consciousness. 
 
 The position of the subjective phase of consciousness is 
 between the waking objective and the sleeping or subcon- 
 scious state. Understanding this, many students are able to 
 study its activities until drowsiness becomes so insistent that 
 it is prudent to resume full wakefulness in order that the 
 impressions gained may not be lost to memory. 
 
 In watching the activities of this subjective phase, — and 
 they can easily be watched, if one only has the persistence, — 
 it seems as tho' the actions there prevalent could never be 
 brought under volitional control. The pictures which arise 
 in it; the thoughts or shadows of thoughts, the emotions or 
 ghosts of emotions, all flit in and out, to and fro, apparently 
 with no correlation. Objectively the mind may be occupied 
 in solving a problem in arithmetic; in the same instant, by a 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 95 
 
 flash of attention, by a flash of withdrawal from that prob- 
 lem, — one will see that subjectively one is attending again a 
 tea-party or a political discussion that happened in reality ten 
 years ago. Objectively the maiden is practicing her piano 
 lesson; subjectively, she is brooding over what she should have 
 said in the parting by moonlight the other evening. 
 
 Deeper still, in the utterly subconscious mind of mystery 
 and magical ability, other activities are being carried on at 
 the same time. That deeper phase is not now under discus- 
 sion, however. We are concerned only with that middle layer, 
 the subjective, the seemingly capricious and elusive plane of 
 mentation that only with difficulty can be defined into thought. 
 
 Is the function of this field of consciousness only as impor- 
 tant as its conspicuousness, or rather its lack of conspicuous- 
 ness? I rather think that by this time we are convinced that 
 nothing in the psychic make-up of man can be safely ignored. 
 We shall try, therefore, to find what can be known of the sub- 
 jective phase, — the middle ground between the two grand 
 divisions in consciousness. 
 
 Let us have it this way. We have two adjoining rooms 
 connected by a door. Again, we will see in our two rooms 
 a faithful representation of the factory simile, drawn in a 
 previous chapter. Now imagine that door as a mirror on both 
 sides. It is reflecting all the essences of the automatic habit 
 complexes, all the primitive, introversional and selfish phases 
 of the subconscious on one side, and on the other side it is 
 reflecting the precipitations cast upon it by the objective 
 thoughts and endeavors of personality. The attention, when 
 directed toward that door which we have been calling the sub- 
 jective phase of mind, sees both sides of the door at once. 
 Hence the fragmentary and contradictory nature of all that 
 flits so rapidly and- so capriciously thru our perceptions when 
 we watch it. It seems meaningless. J 
 
 Its Function In Dreams 
 
 Yet a door is a door; that is to say, this phase of mind 
 has an exceedingly important function. If one could examine 
 it with something like a spiritual microscope, undoubtedly in 
 its very texture one would find the quintessence of the entire 
 being, plus a "censorship" principle that prevents too great 
 an uprush from the subconsciousness. In dreams, one would 
 
96 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 find that door practically entitized into rather an intelligent 
 and very powerful censor. One would find that the representa- 
 tions of raw passional desires from the subconscious must dis- 
 guise themselves very cleverly indeed in order, as dreams, to 
 reach any department where a record might later be made of 
 them by the objective phase. One would, on closer examina- 
 tion, ascertain that no dream has yet been dreamed without 
 such censorship or "retouching" by this censorious door, or 
 this door-like censor. And yet, one would also find that like 
 with every phase of mind, even its censorship had a "tone" 
 entirely in line with the fundamental character of the dreamer. 
 Some people have much coarser dreams than others. The 
 subconscious content is no "worse" than in any other human 
 being. The censor has been trained to a stricter puritanism, 
 that is all. This is mentioned merely to provoke profitable 
 thought in regard to other departments of character. For 
 instance, the refinement and severity of the censorlike activities 
 of the subjective phase may be pronounced as to sexual con- 
 tents, while in regard to real morality-it may be utterly deficient. 
 Unselfishness, willingness and ability to serve, of course, are 
 the only real morality. At present that is only an ideal concept 
 with humanity, with which the objective activities are endeavor- 
 ing to conform. The subconscious, tho' possessed of practically 
 infinite resources, is also the residuary of all that the race mind 
 and the individual mind has traversed in the process called 
 life. It is neither moral nor immoral. It is dominated by 
 the greeds, the lusts, the passions of the savage, the psychic 
 phases of which items were again epitomized in the personal 
 infancy and childhood, no less than it is influenced by your 
 aims and efforts of the present day. "Thus," says Isador H. 
 Coriat, in his book, "The Meaning of Dreams," "the uncon- 
 scious contains not only recent experiences, but likewise impres- 
 sions of infantile childhood life, all of which are actively and 
 dynamically functioning like conscious processes. The uncon- 
 scious is therefore the great repository of our mental life; in 
 it are contained thoughts and wishes which may be foreign to 
 our personality, to our moral or ethical nature, thoughts which 
 we constantly and apparently successfully repress, but which 
 inadvertently to our surprise suddenly crop out as symptomatic 
 actions, psychoneurotic symptoms, or dreams. All functional 
 nervous disturbances, dreams, and slips of the pen or tongue 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 97 
 
 are motivated by unconscious mental processes, of which they 
 are the symbolic expression. The unconscious (in one sense) 
 is a kind of limbo of seemingly forgotten groups of thoughts or 
 complexes, which are constanty striving to reach consciousness 
 and are just as persistently rejected by the repressive action 
 of the censor. But frequently the censor nods and is caught 
 unawares, the repressed wish slips through in the form of a 
 dream, and we are repeatedly surprised to discover how prim- 
 itive, how selfish and savage, may be our unconscious desires." 
 And further, "this repression of emotions at the same time 
 admits their reality by trying to avoid and negate them. The 
 effort of these repressed emotions to find an outlet leads to 
 all forms of nervous invalidism such as so-called nervous pros- 
 tration and various types of morbid fears. Such individuals 
 externally appear cold and austere, apparently emotionless, 
 and lacking all essentials of human feeling, yet their dreams 
 show various degrees of forbidden desires which only in this 
 manner come to expression. Conditions like these teach us 
 that we are all emotional volcanoes, and when we pride our- 
 selves on having subdued our emotions and on not yielding 
 to so-called vulgar feelings and temptations, nevertheless, it 
 is certain that, hidden within the depths of our unconscious, 
 these repressed desires are as potent and active as though they 
 assailed every second of our conscious thinking." 
 
 Its Function in Regard to Ability 
 
 We see here, that under the guise of reflector for the 
 flitting shadows of two sides of consciousness, the subjective 
 or "middle layer" has one very important function. It is the 
 phase in which resides the censor. It stands to reason that 
 the individual method of censorship, no less than the innate 
 method of phantasy-building formerly discussed, will often 
 keep out of the objective chambers such features of ability 
 as are closely tied up in mind with one or another suppression. 
 Thus, a citation comes to mind of a boy, brilliant in his school 
 studies with one exception, namely the study of mathematics. 
 He dreads the mention of arithmetic and of numbers. Careful 
 analysis discloses that subconsciously the boy hates his father, 
 tho' consciously he would not admit even to himself that such 
 was the case. The father has reiterated to the child many 
 times that it was imbecility to pursue other studies without a 
 
98 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 basic mathematical grounding. The brilliancy in other studies 
 represents how strongly the subconscious energies unite to dis- 
 prove the elder's opinions. 
 
 With every unreasoned destructive emotion, it may be 
 active as in fear or worry, or passive as in long indulged hate 
 or envy, we shut ourselves out from some valuable department 
 of our own abilities. It may be worry over material welfare, 
 or the egotistical brooding over what "my own life" has been, 
 is, or is to be; that does not matter in the least insofar as the 
 same destructive result is concerned. 
 
 All the fruits of education are the results of co-operation 
 between the subconscious and objective phases of mind. Take 
 the lawyer, for instance. For a matter of three to five years 
 he directs his attention to the matter of laws and ordinances. 
 He views things more or less as the tuition proceeds, thru 
 legal spectacles. Psychologically, he is converting the censor, 
 however, to allow more of the subconscious resources that are 
 appropriate to this branch of human activity to well up from 
 within. The censor phase in the early months of the schooling 
 acts like a restless needle in a cheap compass. It quivers and 
 passes the mark of the true north many thousands of times a 
 day, regardless of how sincere the effort of the beginner. 
 Once in a while, for moments or hours at a time, the novice 
 feels that he has an intuitional grasp of the entire subject, — 
 that he sees the theory of the entire system of jurisprudence 
 so vividly, that now nothing remains to be done but to fill in 
 the details. Then this "perspective" vanishes quite unaccount- 
 ably, to stay away maybe for days. Yet the constant effort of 
 the volition to enlist the attention is kept up, and parallel with 
 this effort more and more do the moments and hours of "intui- 
 tional grasp" come over the student. Psychologically, this 
 means that concurrently with the objective accumulation of 
 facts,' more and more was the censor trained to "release" the 
 subconscious energies and resources compatible with the sub- 
 ject. The watchman, the capricious, censorious, subjective 
 "middle-mind" was itself "bent," in the process, itself was 
 educated to hold a more liberal view toward formerly sup- 
 pressed "complexes," which it began now to release generously, 
 provided such had any bearing on the success or failure of 
 the endeavor. Then comes a day when the lawyer is "admitted 
 to the bar." If that means that he has truly mastered his sub- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 99 
 
 ject for permanency, the moment when that permanent mastery 
 began, marked the point at which the action of the censor, at 
 least in one department of the mind, was changed from sup- 
 pression to TRANSFORMATION. 
 
 Failure is self suppression. But success is not "letting 
 go" of one's suppressions. Success is transformation of 
 subconscious energies otherwise made to run in hidden, vicious 
 and morbid circles. If one were to "let go" of the suppressed 
 complexes clothed in the raw and chaotic savage and childish 
 phantasies they subconsciously dwell in, it would not be only 
 failure, but insanity as well. 
 
 Objectively we must contrive mechanisms to aid just those 
 projects or objects, in regard to which we may be making 
 demands on the subconscious. The successful student, whether 
 of psychology or of music or of engine-construction does that. 
 The young lady using the formula explained in a prior chap- 
 ter, would be foolish to idealize herself during a "camera 
 moment" as a skilled singer, if at the same time she were not 
 taking music lessons in the prosaic and everyday fashion. 
 Energies if released, as they are likely to be during the psy- 
 chological exercise, would have to work out in some other way 
 than music, if she were not training objectively and physically 
 for that purpose. Whatever she did other than music with 
 the sudden overplus of (then) refined energy, she would have 
 a tendency to repeat. The habit mind, that is to say the sub- 
 conscious and subjective combined, would pounce upon what- 
 ever was done as a substitute for the music, and a "split" atti- 
 tude toward music would result. The attitude of "It is the one 
 BIG thing to do," would be gone, and the student would be 
 now equally sincere in voicing the more common "After all, 
 true proficiency is not for me," — "Is it worth while, consider- 
 ing the effort?" — and "What is the use?" 
 
 Education' 
 
 Psychologically we may brazenly enumerate the names of 
 all the world geniuses as perfect (more or less) examples of 
 co-operation between- the subconscious and objective depart- 
 ments of mind. Education achieves the same object, — in part. 
 In instances of genius the same process has been more com- 
 plete. Acute neuroses or so-called manias again represent re- 
 sults of the same process, but instead of the energies vitalizing 
 
100 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 some mechanism having to do with recognized reality, the 
 vitalizing has been played upon, and made to inflate some 
 phantasy personal to the sufferer. 
 
 In applied psychology various attempts have been made 
 to incorporate certain physical and mental features in a mode 
 of concentration that would epitomize in miniature that entire 
 process for specific ends which the student would wish to achieve. 
 The formula given is such an attempt, and where sanely prac- 
 ticed while objectively the student is intelligently learning all 
 he can from comparative and contemporary presentations of 
 the subject herein taught, we believe that in six months it will 
 do as much as six years in the average school would do. We 
 do not mean that it can be used as a substitute for the accepted 
 forms of education. We do mean this: The word education 
 itself is the noun form of the verb "educe" — "to draw out." 
 To draw out of where? From the inner accumulations and 
 resources both of energy and knowledge — the subconscious or 
 subliminal. Our accepted usages, customs, forms, conven- 
 tions, amenities and ethics, all that combined we call our civ- 
 ilization, demand that the educing be done along certain lines, 
 but slightly varying decade to decade. That probably is as it 
 should be. We do mean, that education often leaves untouched 
 the only ways and means by which the student might hope to 
 realize some helpful and unique station in life, to achieve some 
 form of perfection peculiar and personal to himself. Con- 
 ventional education, no matter how well thought out, will never 
 be able to do for people what a good sound drill in self-study 
 or psychology can do in such regards. And, moreover, psy- 
 chology is best studied as a matter of self-induction and self- 
 devisement after a number of years have been spent in life 
 away from school. The "mysteries" in classical times, were 
 not entered until the decade that signified middle age was 
 already passed. However, we can see no harm in getting this 
 "second sighting" as a gunner might say, at any time after 
 experience at self directing has been undergone. 
 
 And yet, in some exceptional instances, the subconscious 
 movements and resources of mind seem to have been all suffi- 
 cient to furnish a perfect substitute for education. Such was 
 the case of Joan of Arc from a strictly psychological angle, — 
 although again such a magnificent instance is left open for 
 other and perhaps greater disclosures as time advances. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 101 
 
 Andrew Jackson Davis was, if some reports of his early life 
 may be believed, mentally dense and incapable of response to 
 the schooling he was expected to undergo. His rather read- 
 able and phantastic expose of transcendentalism can be well 
 compared with the effort of a man fairly well educated. His 
 subconscious faculties were aroused thru the .efforts of a mes- 
 merist. Then, as we had it in our previous book, "Psychology 
 Made Practical," — the case of Blind Tom has been rather 
 incompletely handled by the rigidly limited theories of 
 academic psychologists. "Here is the blind negro boy, Blind 
 Tom, basking day in and day out on the front porch of the 
 landowner's house. Within, the daughter of the householder, 
 an advanced musical student, is incessantly practicing at the 
 pianoforte. Suddenly, when opportunity offers, the colored 
 boy sits down and demonstrates that he can play, and play 
 well, not only everything his unknowing teacher (the land- 
 owner's daughter) had ever played in his hearing, but that 
 he is able to execute without flaw anything that anybody, includ- 
 ing a skeptical world-known virtuoso or two, plays before him. 
 Unconscious cerebration? Clear as mud, if taken as an all- 
 explanatory theory; although 'unconscious cerebration' pos- 
 sibly constitutes a necessary part of the physical mechanism 
 employed by the subconscious mind in carrying out its orders. 
 Perfect suggestibility then? Yes. Now let us strive to under- 
 stand what all this implies. Whence Blind Tom's technique? 
 Whence the finger dexterity? Blind Tom's playing was with- 
 out mistakes, we hear, but we have heard the foolish criticism 
 that his fingering and technique were more crude than Pad- 
 ereweski's. Sit down at the piano, if you have NEVER seen A 
 piano (as Blind Tom had not) , and try a very simple thing — - 
 say 'Chop-Sticks Waltz.' You will find that normally five 
 or six days of finger drill will be necessary to play this trifling 
 inanity CRUDELY." 
 
 "If we will remember that a suggestion once accepted as 
 an order by the subconscious mind is worked out to its logical 
 conclusion; then if we will pay more attention to this 'logical 
 conclusion' dictum, as it would apply in a case of this kind, 
 we will gain new light. The undeniable will dawn upon us 
 that, given favorable or perfect conditions, the subconscious 
 faculties will work to develop the necessary physical media for 
 
102 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 expressing and externalizing results of a suggestion well im- 
 planted and reinforced thru accepted reiterations." 
 
 We must remember also, that Blind Tom was psychically 
 a child to the end of his days. A child is impressionable. That 
 is to say, he is in the dream or semi-objective phase of mind. 
 If he can be fully enlisted in any pursuit while still in that 
 state of mind, you have him then enlisted censorship and all. 
 You have no complex to vitiate and deploy the energies; all 
 of the subconscious resources can then be used in vitalizing 
 and making real the blue-print being implanted deeper and 
 yet deeper during the long successions of "camera moments." 
 
 Concentration 
 
 In the normal adult, much experience has been stored 
 away in the subconscious. This experience, as shown, is 
 wrapped in phantasy, in self-flattery or in self-defense, or in 
 suppression. These all have a tendency to draw the new 
 vision, the new ideal or the new mental pursuit down to their 
 own level, or to repudiate it if it does not in anywise conform 
 to them. Hence what the child can do negatively, the adult 
 must do positively. Where Blind Tom could lie down and 
 drink in his life's ability negatively, — the adult must concen- 
 trate his mind and make consecutive and systematic endeavors. 
 The child has not the resistances: the adult has, but can over- 
 come them. 
 
 Concentration of mind i*s necessary. Concentration is not 
 difficult. It is easy. Worrying that "nobody loves us," and 
 that we may die in the poorhouse, are perfect examples of con- 
 centration. Most people do it superbly well without any tui- 
 tion and without hours spent in practice. Psychologically, con- 
 centration is no more and no less than paying attention. If 
 you would learn mental concentration, learn to manipulate and 
 direct your own attention, instead of allowing those fragments 
 of your "complexes" which evade or are passed by the censor, 
 to guide and misguide it for you. Don't fight the complexes; 
 furnish a mechanism, and currently go on completing and per- 
 fecting your mechanism, as we saw the law student do. When 
 writing a letter, complete a subject before jumping to another. 
 That does not mean that your letters should be wordy. When 
 reading a paragraph, determine to understand it; if it is not 
 understandable, something is the matter either with the writer 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 103 
 
 or with yourself. What is the matter? When thinking a 
 thought, think intelligently. It is not necessary to come to a 
 final judgment and to "set" an opinion on each subject that 
 enters the mind. A thought should come to some conclusion, 
 but in the interests of sanity, why not let that conclusion be 
 that up to the present time you have not enough evidence and 
 data at hand to warrant a conviction? Yet think in a certain 
 instead of in an uncertain way. These are intensely more 
 effective ways of developing mental concentration, than the 
 weird concoctions of ink-spot gazing, crystal gazing, punk 
 burning, etc., sometimes handed out by would-be teachers as 
 infallible "formulas." 
 
 When you have trained a while in enlisting your attention 
 to obey your will, then start in on the re-education of your 
 subjective phase of mind, — preferably while practicing the 
 formula, but alert at other times to the value of playing a 
 current counter censorship yourself in the interest of 
 
 YOUR PRESENT IDEALS. 
 
 Do You Ever "Brood?" — Then 
 Make Your Brooding Pay 
 
 Aside from being capricious and elusive, the subjective or 
 middle layer of consciousness is also the "brooding" phase 
 of mind. Learn to brood constructively. Learn to brood 
 cheerfully and definitely and with certainty. Learn to brood I 
 over realities instead of in your own phantasies, likes, dis- 
 likes, past injuries, anticipated troubles, and what not. The 
 brooding phase is the subjective — the watchman from whom 
 the great magical subconscious gets its working orders. Learn 
 to brood constructively and attentively, that is, with the atten- 
 tion directed to the object or condition you most need. Don't 
 lie to yourself that you already have it; that is not at all 
 necessary in the first place, and in the second place, it is doing 
 just the thing that you need to get away from — the habit of 
 fiction building, which dissipates the energies of the subcon- 
 scious. The house contractor never loses sight of the archi- 
 tect's plan, but parallel with his visualizing of the blue-print, 
 he is working constructively day by day to realize it. When 
 the foundation is barely built, he does not waste time lying to 
 himself or others that the house is completed, sold and 
 occupied. 
 
104 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Reconstruction 
 
 In brief, the reconstruction of some part of one's self is 
 the work that mentally all of us are doing, consciously or 
 unconsciously, whether we want to and believe we can, or 
 whether we disbelieve it and don't want to. The part under 
 alteration may be from good health to disorder and impair- 
 ment, or it may be from incapacity to health. It may be from 
 mental peace to chronic anxiety, or it may be from this sort 
 of neurosis back to poise and buoyant mental efficiency. It 
 may be from despondent ineffectiveness back into the mild and 
 sane aggression that spells certainty and success. 
 
 The "middle" layer of consciousness, that which we have 
 called the "subjective" is the place where most of this is deter- 
 mined. Because it is so easily reached, and because of its 
 valuable position in relation to the subconscious resources and 
 energies, it is the "place" in which to try as much definite 
 thinking along these lines as possible. The censor resident 
 there will of course remain a censor, but he will become in 
 that wise an intelligent official, instead of the sickness and 
 failure producing ignoramus and nuisance which usually we 
 find him to be. The capricious phase there will then slowly 
 begin to transform into the constructive, brooding phase. 
 There will be less flitting to and fro of counter motives, 
 negativing one another and making your efforts futile. You 
 will slowly become a unified personality, which means a suc- 
 cessful personality. The entire subjective phase will begin 
 more and more to respond to the dictates of the attention. 
 The attention itself will become more docile to your will. 
 Speaking of the effect of the mental arrangement on the phy- 
 sical, Wm. A. White, M.D., says in his "Outlines of Psychia- 
 try:" "Here the much vexed question of the relation of mind 
 to body is touched upon. An appeal to facts would show that 
 the individual reacts to his milieu by the development of 
 mechanisms that may include as parts the crass physical at one 
 end, the refined psychic at the other. In these experiments of 
 Pawlow and Cannon, for example, mechanisms were created 
 which acted as a whole. Like a watch, the parts were so inti- 
 mately related that no portion could he set in motion without 
 setting the whole going." So it is in timing up or mastering 
 any fraction of consciousness, — such as the subjective tendency 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 105 
 
 to dream and abstraction. Practice to make it conform to 
 your attention, and behold, the attention itself slowly becomes 
 more docile to your will. 
 
 In "sizing up" the average half-failure, half-success, no 
 comment fits so well as Bergson's: "Doubtless we think with 
 only a small part of our past, but it is with our entire past, 
 including the original bent of our soul, that we desire, will 
 and act." To train the subjective tendency away from intro- 
 version and phantasy, means that you are slowly beginning to 
 enlist the co-operation of all you have accumulated in the past. 
 It is a fight after all as to whether you will (or have already) 
 become one of your own habits, or whether you will whip 
 all your habits into line and transform them into willing and 
 able co-operators with you. 
 
 But it is a fight in name only. Its technique is that of 
 re-educating the subjective phase now pointed out. Some day 
 during such a process of re-education, probably this will happen 
 to you : probably you will experience one of those common and 
 harmless abstractions of a moment from the work, study or 
 play in which you then may be employed. You make thou- 
 sands of such visits to the subjective every day. But some 
 day, in one such visit, instead of Sittings and caprices entirely 
 foreign to your life as you used to experience there in the past, 
 you will then note with satisfaction that the brooding subjec- 
 tive is contentedly ruminating in accordance with your own 
 avowed projects and activities. That will mean that you have 
 made of an automatic and ignorant censor an intelligent one. 
 You will have won over to you a co-operator in your desire 
 to bring your habits into line. The "subjective mentation" 
 will have become something that transforms, alters, and 
 enthuses your subconscious energies from "away-running" 
 habits, into "with-you-running" aids. 
 
 In instances of genius, there is a great amount of such 
 transforming, but it is often exclusive; that is to say, the censor 
 releases so generously in line with the type of genius, that com- 
 plexes and other ferments of thought and energy not in line 
 with it, are released but little, or not at all. Hence a genius is 
 often a neurotic. 
 
 More mildly, gloom and the blues, are likewise such fer- 
 
106 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 ments of unexpended energy, barred from expenditure because 
 they seek exit in dress not suitable to your censor. 
 
 The fallacious sense of inferiority which many people 
 feel, diffidence, shyness, bashfulness, even the often lauded 
 "esthetic" poses, to the extent that they disguise inefficiency — 
 are all in the same category, but each would require lengthy 
 analytical disclosures not exactly in line with the purposes of 
 this book. "The way out" from these maladjustments of the 
 psyche is practically the same in each instance — it will always 
 have to do with re-educating and readjusting that turnstile of 
 consciousness which in this chapter we are calling the subjec- 
 tive mind. As you persist in taking the effort on your own 
 shoulders, learn in this endeavor to shield yourself less, and 
 to pity or condemn yourself not at all. The results will then 
 be more genuine and more permanent. Strength after all must 
 be gained of one's own efforts. 
 
 Failure, disease, poverty, are all the results of thought in 
 the ways shown. They have no existence in reality. Remove 
 their cause in the consciousness if you would be rid of the ef- 
 fects. It is true that in a few isolated cases one may find con- 
 ditions which seem stubbornly to refute the truth of this. That 
 means that man's insight is not in those channels of his own 
 consciousness keen and deep enough, nor his faith strong 
 enough to disclose and dislodge the cause. But if endeavors 
 for self improvement thru applied psychology have proven 
 one thing, it has been this : that of all the ways and means to 
 that end, psychology itself in comparison has been the most 
 fruitful. 
 
 Generalization 
 
 Our present attempt to analyze things as they act out in 
 the lives and actions of persons, is called analytical psychology, 
 or psycho-analysis. Its literature dates back only to 1900. 
 We do not yet fully realize its importance because of its mag- 
 nitude. Centuries hence, provided there are no cataclysms to 
 erase our civilization, the first psycho-analysts, such as Freud, 
 Silberer, Jung, Ferenczi and others, will be viewed with the 
 same respect that we now view Esculapius, Hippocrates, Har- 
 vey, — or as in another department we view Bruno, Gallileo 
 and Herschel. 
 
 From the standpoint of Success and How to Achieve It, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 107 
 
 this field of study is of infinitely more worth than the findings 
 of a psychic research society. There have always been well 
 authenticated reports of psychic or so-called "supernatural" 
 happenings. An endeavor framed only to tabulate things of 
 this sort, when they happen, is not of half the worth as a sys- 
 tematized and progressive endeavor toward the end that we 
 may know why and how they happen. However, the work 
 of such psychic research societies may be called the tabulating 
 or recording department of psychology. 
 
 Then, there are a number of able minds throughout the 
 world conducting experiments in so-called animal magnetism; 
 in mediumship, in clairvoyance, in the possibility of apporta- 
 tion of material objects, etc. This might be called the ex- 
 perimental department. 
 
 To balance the analytical phase at one end, there is found 
 the synthetic psychology at the other. It is concerned mostly 
 in extracting from the tabulating and records of experiments 
 applicable laws of mind, which the person bent on improving 
 himself may grasp and use. 
 
 Analysis Synthesis 
 
 Applied 
 
 Recording Psychology 
 
 We might put it in the form of a diagram, merely to aid 
 the imagination. It looks like the swinging board which in 
 childhood days we called the "teeter-totter." That's what it's 
 meant to look like. A teeter-totter is a simple form of ma- 
 chine. That is the conception or idea that we want. A ma- 
 chine produces something, or is supposed to. Some machines 
 produce nothing but noise, or motion that is lost within itself. 
 Yet every machine produces, something. The machine as 
 here represented is meant to produce what is known as "Ap- 
 plied Psychology." It is meant to produce a psychology that 
 each and every one of us can apply to become more efficient; 
 to live more abundantly, and to have more horse-sense. 
 Recorded fact must first be analyzed, then "put together" 
 again for the purpose of deriving a working knowledge of 
 the thing studied. This should make plain the inadequacy of 
 some systems of applied psychology, "success courses," etc., 
 
108 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 before the public, which as a matter of fact, whatever they are 
 — are not applied psychology at all. 
 
 Suggestion is the law of the mind. Even the objective 
 and critical phase is not entirely immune to its influence. All 
 that phase of being now described as the subconscious, the sub- 
 jective, — and their methods of expression such as the intelli- 
 gent cell activities, the action of the semi-intelligent vital 
 energy, — all that goes on in our being tho we be not aware 
 of it, — all this is subject to the power of suggestion. Sugges- 
 tion to one's self, that is to say, to one's own subconscious mind, 
 is best applied in accordance with the formula already given. 
 When that is understood, the first question arising in the stu- 
 dent's mind is, "What sort of impression shall I implant in my 
 subconscious?" To answer that, we attempted to describe the 
 lack of sanity, and that "sanity first" should be the object. The 
 thoughtful student soon sees that this is not so easy as it ap- 
 pears, inasmuch as the "phantasy" or mental conception of 
 what sanity and success are, might be so utterly out of line with 
 either the "bent" already existing in the subconscious, or with 
 external fact itself, that stimulation of such a "bent" by so 
 potent a tool as Suggestion might only aggravate whatever 
 undesirable condition may already exist. Hence the better 
 part of the formula-lesson and of this, is concerned with ways 
 of dissipating, or rather, ways of "transforming" such funda- 
 mentally adverse "bents" into constructive mechanisms. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 The thoughtless student might find an idea developing 
 within him, to this general effect: If I allow my habit reposi- 
 tory, or my subconscious mind to become too wise as to its own 
 laws, it will be a keener opponent than ever to my real ideals 
 and needs. To that, if it were articulate, the Subconscious 
 itself might be imagined as replying: "I am after all yourself. 
 I possess powers of which you dare not even dream as yet; I 
 possess lucidity which I practice even now in ways you least 
 suspect. My welfare is yours. I can act, I do act, I shall con- 
 tinue to act. I know no fatigue. But I am entirely limited as 
 to the effectiveness of my actions by the dimensions of your 
 intelligence and faith. If your faith is strong and blind, I work 
 potently to bring about in you a desire for knowledge. I may 
 have to do this by bringing about what you would call failure, 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 109 
 
 the insane asylum, or other calamities. It was in this connec- 
 tion that I was speaking, when I had Phillips Brooks say: 
 'The noisy waves are failures, but the great silent tide is a 
 success. Do you know what it is to be failing every day and 
 yet to be sure that your life is, as a whole, in its greatest move, 
 ment and meaning, not failing but succeeding?' If your faith 
 is intelligent, that is good. But I am working even for more 
 than that. I desire that you reach all that you have repudi- 
 ated, forgotten, and stored within me, — to face these things 
 and give them energetic, intelligent current disposal in some line 
 of thought and objective action benefiting others than your- 
 self. I already know all the laws which mistakenly you thought 
 you should hide from me, but it is your place not mine, to apply 
 those laws. I await your suggestions. Make them inclusive 
 of what intelligence you have gleaned from experience and 
 study. My present purpose is to make of you, (if you will thus 
 permit me, and your permission must be in the form of positive, 
 intelligent suggestion) not only a healthy individual physically, 
 but to bend heaven and earth that your ideal of a complete and 
 successful life here and now may be realized. My ultimate 
 purpose is to make of you a being who is not afraid of truth, 
 a being who has at his finger tips every secret of nature, who 
 controls his own mind and environment with a nod. I shall not 
 rest until my powers are united with your initiative by the 
 elimination of selfish content with which you have thru aeons 
 burdened me. I shall chip, hue and alter until you stand a 
 never-dying, passionate and powerful god among other gods 
 on high Olympus." 
 
Lesson VII. 
 
 HOW YOU CAN BEGIN TO "WORK 
 MIRACLES" 
 
 YOU, as personality, are the working out of your own 
 subconscious accumulation. Broadly, that accumula- 
 tion consists of Suggestions, which according to your 
 "bent" you have derived and absorbed from mood, dream, 
 phantasy, emotion, thought, speech, conviction and action. 
 
 Whenever we have said the "law" of mind, we have 
 used the word law by way of euphemism, for no one yet knows, 
 much less applies the entire law of mind. But one active and 
 mighty fraction in that entire law is covered by what you now 
 know of Suggestion. Suggestion might well be called a 
 "method" of mind. 
 
 Whatever enlists the attention of the subconscious, is a 
 Suggestion and acts as such. 
 
 This chapter is intended to help the student in outlining 
 specific ways of applying this method or law of Suggestion. 
 Throughout the foregoing it was intended to show that in men- 
 tal readjustment, Suggestion plays a major part. If mental 
 readjustment is fundamental then complete physical readjust- 
 ment follows. If the mind is well proportioned and well 
 poised, so will the body be. Suggestion can be used for the 
 cure of disease; alterations and improvements, of character; 
 the reclaiming of the incorrigible, and bringing the sub-normal 
 back to normal. 
 
 A suggestion once implanted in the subconscious mind, 
 provided it is not contradicted by weightier suggestions, tends 
 to work out to a logical conclusion and result. If the Sug- 
 gestion has been constructive, as for instance, a demand for 
 health or added capacity for knowledge, then this logical con- 
 clusion will show forth in time as a new factor in the character 
 of the person; as a sharpening of an old ability or the addition 
 of a new one; as a change for the better in the permanent 
 health of the individual, etc. There is an irradiation about 
 the working out of all such acts of consciousness. That irradia- 
 
 110 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 111 
 
 tion leaves no department of the individual untouched. All 
 his "natures" — spiritual, mental, psychic, emotional, passional, 
 physical, — receive the influence and subtly partake of the im- 
 provement. 
 
 To the degree that you've given fixed attention to the 
 statements made in these chapters, to that extent have those 
 very ideas been absorbed as concepts by the objective mind, 
 and also as Suggestions by your subconscious mind. 
 
 Your subconscious phase always had perfect machinery, 
 psychic and physical, with which to make you "over" in a short 
 space of time. It was unable to make use of that machinery 
 to the extent that your objective lack of intelligent faith dis- 
 allowed it. 
 
 To the extent you have allowed this tuition to act as a 
 Suggestion, to the same degree have you now supplied that 
 lack. 
 
 In many a case there is no option for the subconscious 
 but to do the ignorant thing, because the accumulation of com- 
 plexes (adverse suggestions) and ignorance, outweigh the nor- 
 mal evolutionary trends. With those who have merely read 
 these chapters in a spirit of deep consideration and fair play, 
 a new option has been given the subconscious. But all students 
 have done that much. Hence it is up to the enterprise of you, 
 the individual reader and student, to take every advantage of 
 that option. And it is fair to presume the new option, at least 
 weighs as much as any one separate item in the old (and to 
 some extent — undesirable) accumulation. It is up to the stu- 
 dent to make the intelligent view thus to outweigh the old items, 
 — separately at first. You will soon enough see some unsatis- 
 factory item that did not suit your ideal at all, surely and 
 fundamentally changing for the better by virtue of your appli- 
 cation of psychology — the new searchlight. Several of such 
 items might in time so transform and begin aiding you instead 
 of hindering you — all thru the same sort of application, modi- 
 fied only by the dictates of your own discrimination or com- 
 monsense to suit the specific problems that arise in you. Then 
 out of it all, you will yourself begin to arrive at the deepest 
 conviction you've ever had — that you can alter your entire life 
 and destiny in this fashion, since you yourself have built it 
 so far. Such deep convictions when arrived at thru individual 
 
112 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 effort and realization, mold character. If accepted merely 
 because some teacher or writer said so, such "accepted" realiza- 
 tions often do more harm than good. Why? Because then 
 they stretch the credulity instead of stimulating initiative and 
 thought. Nature is determined to wean each human being, 
 not excluding you or me, — from the universal disinclination to 
 think. 
 
 Character once molded in line with facts and laws of self- 
 knowledge (which is psychology) — then immediately the sub- 
 conscious selection of ingredients is changed chemically to con- 
 form to, and to build out, to "ex-press" the new mold of char- 
 acter, mentally, psychically, physically. 
 
 Having done this for yourself, your conviction in that 
 regard will be an intelligent conviction, because based on a 
 demonstrable fact, which you now know you could repeat. An 
 intelligent conviction of that kind is a real brick in the real 
 edifice of real faith. Any other kind of faith is a confession 
 of disinclination to think and eventually to know; any 
 other "belief" is a confession of ignorance, and moreover, is 
 as often a confession of being content to remain ignorant. 
 The kind of faith that is required is a working faith, the kind 
 that makes you conclude that if you could do a thing once, — 
 then whenever necessary you can consciously undertake the 
 process again in whole or in part, and get equally good results. 
 That stage arrived at, there is no harm in forming such con- 
 victions as prove by themselves that they are supported by 
 deeply laid laws of the mind. At that stage it is no longer 
 good to be so open minded that everything flies out. Con- 
 victions actually based on inherent laws of nature will act like 
 exhaustless batteries for the electrical current of an irresistible 
 Faith. 
 
 When? And When Not? 
 
 Before that phase is arrived at, it is not advisable to 
 proselyte and to try to spread your benefits. Your benefits up 
 to that time are likely to prove of dubious value to others. 
 However, you will arrive at a state of so-called advance some 
 day, where your intelligent appreciation of things as they are, 
 and your faith, combine. You will then legitimately and in- 
 telligently wish to spread the benefits that you know can be 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 113 
 
 experienced by anyone who will apply and realize in ways 
 similar, tho' possibly by no means identical, to your own. 
 
 Healing 
 
 Now in healing^ and dealing with others with a view to 
 helping them by what you know of psychology, bear in mind 
 that magnetism as well as mind at once come into play. Be 
 easy about your arguments; your magnetism will often argue 
 more eloquently than you ever could. It is seen at once, that 
 the way you feel about it must, as it were, be laid to one side, 
 there to act as a silent source of power to you. The person 
 you wish to benefit may not be able to agree with your view- 
 point in the least. Probably the more intelligent your argument, 
 the more widely will he disagree. That is but natural; he 
 has not covered the same ground. Yet because you have 
 studied psychology and he has not, he should not be deprived 
 of what benefit you can help bring about for him. You see 
 the situation is quite the other way around. Any premature 
 attempt to "convert" your beneficiary to your viewpoint might 
 touch adversely on some well disguised "soul-wound" (trauma 
 — as it is called in psychoanalysis) or some complex of impor- 
 tance, sensitiveness, or painfulness to him. If you descend to 
 argument with him, the chances are that no matter how rea- 
 sonable his statements, he will "lead you on," unconsciously, 
 and quite likely never admitting to himself for a moment that 
 he is doing so. The situation can be likened to the feigned 
 leading-on flight of the thrush who wishes to lead you away 
 from her nest, tho' apparently trying to impress you that she 
 is flying toward it. 
 
 Analysis 
 
 Of course, if your friend wished to subject himself to that 
 form of mental surgery known as psychoanalysis, the fore- 
 going advice could be modified in detail, yet not essentially. 
 Frankly, these pages have not supplied sufficient tuition in that 
 specific field. We shall try to include a page containing a 
 bibliography of psychoanalytical and other valuable literature 
 at the end of this book. A good psycho-analyst must be a 
 rare combination of detective, psychologist, surgeon and arch- 
 angel. Experience seems to show that those persons who pre- 
 cisely are not psychoanalysts, whatever else they might be, most 
 often are the ones who advertise asd announce themselves as 
 
114 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 psychoanalysts. A cure can be more than spoiled by reading 
 or "imprinting" one's own neuroses into the patient. There is 
 small chance for the patient if the analyst is not adept. And 
 self-appointed "phychoanalysts" are not without their own 
 neuroses, complexes and even traumas. Freud himself has 
 called the procedures of such — "Wild psychoanalysis." 
 
 However, if your friend unmistakably shows that he feels 
 the better for having someone to listen to his confessions, let 
 him confess. Take advantage even of that. Keep alert. Con- 
 siderately and consistently you may even probe then — especially 
 if your best surmises tell you that his silence really is a dis- 
 guised invitation to probe. Sometimes a play of hysteria may 
 occur during such a confession. Remember that the person in 
 such trouble does not want your expressions of sympathy; he 
 wants you to understand. As a psychologist, remember also 
 that strong emotion equals a "camera moment." Implant then 
 and there, the rational psychological interpretation. Let the 
 subconscious mind of your visitor in that manner, receive direct 
 from your lips the illuminating and intelligent understanding 
 of the things it has been working out under a misapprehend- 
 ing suggestion. The intelligent operator should be able to 
 maintain all of this procedure at a level quite above the banal- 
 ity of a face to face argument. Whatever cheapens the exter- 
 nal procedure, it can be easily seen, also cheapens the sugges- 
 tional value of all the other things said or done. 
 
 Healing — Comment and Method 
 
 You know, or should have realized by the time you feel 
 able to benefit others with applied psychology, that organized 
 faith is more powerful than were it blind or unorganized. You 
 have gone to systematic effort thus to add strength to your 
 faith, and to whatever your faith should prompt you to do. 
 A chronometer or a Swiss watch is worth dozens of clattering 
 alarm clocks. Either is more systematically organized, and 
 can be used to regulate (to bring back to normal) the con- 
 stantly recurring aberrations of the cheaper time machines. 
 The oriental boy, hardly more than a babe, leads where he 
 wishes the lumbering elephant — whose intelligence tho' high 
 for an animal, is not the synthetic and finely organized intelli- 
 gence of a human child. 
 
 Therefore, in the usual instance, where no confession is 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 115 
 
 offered, do not argue. Say what you are prompted to say. 
 But in imagination and in the "brooding phase" by all means 
 encompass the powerful tools that the subconscious has at its 
 command. You will then know, that the task of healing is not 
 impossible. It is but child's play to the miracle working giant 
 which it is in your power to arouse. 
 
 Whether you are discussing current events with the friend 
 you have decided to help, the weather, or any other inoffen- 
 sive topic does not so much matter. Under all the surface 
 features of the visit you know he is there to be helped and 
 that you are there to help him. You are at liberty to appear 
 quite ordinary, quite professional or quite friendly, as you 
 choose; yet in the depths of your consciousness you can still 
 realize clearly that both of you subconsciously possess the pow- 
 ers of heaven and earth with which to change the undesirable 
 condition. 
 
 If the condition to be relieved is physical, you know by 
 this time that the organs, limbs and features of your visitor's 
 body are but complicated worlds of intelligent cells, living, 
 working and building according to the imprints in his subcon- 
 scious mind. You saw the cells to be sensitive and sensible, — 
 living their lives as active artisans; working, selecting their 
 nourishment with rare discrimination; ejecting effete matter; 
 playing, reproducing their kind, and magically evolving limbs, 
 features or faculties needed by unforseen emergencies. In 
 looking further, you would find that they are capable of war- 
 ring upon, devouring or destroying and eliminating from the 
 physical system the most deadly of invading bacilli. And yet, 
 this cell-universe is but one of many instruments used by the 
 subconscious mind in carrying out the fundamental orders given 
 it by your character, and the detail directions given it by your 
 objective thoughts. 
 
 The Healing Procedure — Continued 
 
 Let us take it for granted now that thru experience and 
 conclusions derived therefrom by meditation, you have realized 
 that illuminating and constructive suggestions implanted in the 
 subconscious mind will work out in rebuilt health and strength 
 for your visitor. Your thought, then, which comprehends all 
 this, is more systematized, and, therefore, from the subcon- 
 scious standpoint, is stronger than any loud-mouthed opinion 
 
116 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 or notion about such things that the other may have. A 
 thought based on experience and conviction of law and fact, 
 is mesmeric. We might put it this way: — Thought based 
 on experience and conviction of fact, both possesses and like- 
 wise engenders mesmeric values. It has a power in itself to 
 penetrate the critical and argumentative objective phase, then 
 the censorship of the subjective, and to reach the very roots of 
 the mind — namely the subconscious. 
 
 To get a still greater impingement of "power for health" 
 for your thought, spoken and acted procedure, — imagine, 
 design, and again imagine the condition desired. Imagine it 
 until its vividness outshines every other feature in your "brood- 
 ing" or subjective phase of mind. It is not necessary to say 
 much. What is said must carry weight, of course. But the 
 "great work" is always accomplished telepathically, whether 
 the person to be benefited is in your office or a thousand miles 
 away. As you imagine definitely what is desired, you will sud- 
 denly feel within you a movement of Will. That movement 
 of will acts as pressure or influence both on your own subcon- 
 scious and on that of your friend. The object of that pressure 
 and influence is that the designed and desired condition, just 
 as it is glowing in your imagination, be made manifest in the 
 physical body of your visitor. It means that the design of 
 Health has overflowed the banks of your own mind, and into 
 the subconscious reservoir of the other. There automatically 
 it will be absorbed by the intelligent cells of the other. It 
 will be taken up by them as a burning lamp would be "taken 
 up" if brought into a darkened room containing a thousand 
 mirrors. 
 
 The cells work broadly in line with the picture, be it of 
 health or of sickness, that is thus reflected by their tiny minds. 
 With this "movement of will" you have done much, probably 
 all, that is needed to change the disease picture the cells of 
 your friend were carrying and working out, to a health-picture 
 — which now they will carry, reflect and work out with the 
 same degree of skill and conscientiousness. 
 
 A Word for Magnetism and Rapport 
 
 The vital energy, or magnetism, formerly described, itself 
 is not devoid of a form of intelligence. It might be called 
 semi-intelligent. Emotions and thoughts are built out of this 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 117 
 
 semi-intelligent essence; imagination molds it as a lightning- 
 rapid sculptor would mold clay. It swarms and surges with 
 a sub-human yearning to be made use of by you. It is the 
 carrier of vital currents, finer but analogous to electricity. It 
 extends from a few inches to several feet outside of the body 
 which it pervades. One's own room or office is usually per- 
 vaded with it, even long after the departure of the tenant. 
 Often sensitive people will note strange thoughts and impulses 
 assailing them immediately after moving into new living quar- 
 ters. "Checking up" on the conditions of the preceding ten- 
 ancy will usually solve the mystery regarding the origin of 
 such compulsions. 
 
 Saturating the office of the practitioner, if healthful and 
 constructive, this vital magnetism will of itself act as a helper 
 in any specific work or object to be accomplished along this 
 line. This makes it more desirable to have those you wish 
 to benefit, call on you, if possible, than for you to call on 
 them. Use common sense in making exceptions, as well as in 
 working up psychological advantages to compensate when you 
 do make the exceptions. 
 
 We had it a moment ago that the "aura" of psycho- 
 physical force, "extends from a few inches to several feet out- 
 side the body which it pervades." In a state of intense objec- 
 tive activity, — running, wrestling, etc., the aura retracts almost 
 entirely to the proportions of the physical body. In deep 
 trance it extends outward many feet. In resting, as for in- 
 stance after pleasant fatigue, it extends outward a number of 
 feet, passively. It is then that it most easily establishes a 
 temporary blending with the aura of any well disposed person 
 who may be present. The nearer to a state of perfect rest, 
 physical and mental, that you can bring your friend, the greater 
 results and better will he carry away with him at the end of 
 his visit. 
 
 In short, tactfully contrive that in some way he fulfills the 
 formula of: 
 
 1. — Relaxation (physical). 
 2. — Passivity (mental). 
 
 3. — Fixation of Attention (on the subject of health 
 exclusive of his worries). 
 
118 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Be always alert; during the entire procedure see to it that 
 in a whole-souled manner you are always thinking and acting 
 in terms of certainty instead of uncertainty. "For ye know 
 not at what hour," — nor for that matter do you know during 
 which particular moment of that unknown hour, your visitor 
 may be in his most camera-like moments of fixed attention. 
 His subconscious will then take pictures from your mind, from 
 your magnetism, your aura, and from all that is you. The 
 pictures so taken will probably be by ear, tho' not necessarily; 
 probably by his eyes, — but not necessarily, — but always by his 
 (already) clairvoyant and clairaudient subconscious thru his 
 own sensitive aura of vital energy. 
 
 You may well imagine, as soon as your visitor is at rest 
 mentally and physically — if he is no longer fidgeting, nor 
 worrying, nor arguing, — that then his aura has begun to con- 
 tact "you" with a million feelers the intelligent sensitiveness of 
 which could be described by no physical simile. A perfect con- 
 dition of that kind is called "rapport." Often it is well to 
 take such a state of rapport for granted. There seem to 
 be no certain physical indications for it. Sometimes, but not 
 always, with the establishment of the rapport there may be 
 detected a deepening of the breathing, a sudden more complete 
 relaxation of muscular and nervous tension, or an unusual 
 steadiness of gaze. For the duration of such rapport regard 
 your visitor as stationed in a "camera position," in a "fixation 
 of attention position." The entire period of rapport is a pro- 
 longed psychological moment. It means in short, that then 
 the subconscious mind of the person is taking a succession of 
 photographs exclusively from the person, object, or condition 
 with which the rapport is established. 
 
 If the condition of rapport is taken for granted as soon 
 as the visitor is at rest, no advantages will be lost. Often a 
 psychologist loses magnificent opportunities by trying ineptly 
 to induce the condition when already in that very sitting, it 
 has probably* occurred a dozen times — only to be spoiled by 
 the psychologist suggesting the induction of a condition that 
 is already there. 
 
 However, again use common sense. Play to the gallery 
 of the visitor's mind if necessary. If you are in position to 
 know that mental argument, anxiety, impatience, etc., flee him 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 119 
 
 at the sight of some book, sacred or profane, then read a few 
 passages with emphasis and unction from such a book. If the 
 lack of rapport is after all only too obvious, have the subject 
 mentally count with you the ticking of a clock or metronome. 
 Count with him. Do not count audibly. Once in a while rap- 
 port may be hastened, — (tho' it is always preferable not to 
 hasten it) by breathing at the same rate of speed — in unison — 
 with the person whose subconscious phase of mind is to be 
 reached. 
 
 Then, when argumentative resistance is no longer ex- 
 erted nor contemplated, — visualize strongly the condition you 
 wish to bring about in your caller. As before recommended, — 
 encompass in your imagination the powerful and efficient 
 resources which in reality the mind of each person has to bring 
 this about. NOW, with all this as your mental backing, Speak 
 Slowly and Distinctly, Directly to the ENTIRE Personality Be- 
 fore You — full knowing that a radiation, appropriately trans- 
 formed, is reaching his inmost self. Do this in conjunction 
 with the movement of Will described above. All this is reach- 
 ing to the roots of his mind by a thousand different channels, — 
 thru the apparent and physical senses, as well as thru invisible 
 counterparts of them; thru the vital aura, — thus exerting an 
 electrical and controlling contact with a veritable center of 
 omnipotence within himself. 
 
 The Healing Procedure — Concluded 
 
 If the subject is at all responsive, he will experience a 
 great benefit then and there. Dismiss him without anxious 
 inquiry as to how the suggestions "took." If you inquire, you 
 are pulling the seed up to see how it will grow. All "after- 
 visit" enthusing is just that and nothing more. Discontinue it 
 if it has been your practice, and note the hastened good results. 
 Have a termination routine to your procedure just as genial, 
 just as' clean cut, just as certain as your start-routine. Then 
 those whom you are helping, even while at their usual activities 
 away from you, will be able to advert back to you mentally 
 with a clearer picture. Whenever your picture, plus your en- 
 vironment, plus your procedure occurs to them, the definite 
 picture aroused in their minds will act as an inner or silent 
 repetition of your Suggestions for their benefit. "The devils 
 steal only from uncounted stores," say the Chinese. Crispness, 
 
120 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Definiteness, etc., are psychological "counts," — themselves are 
 healthful suggestions. See if in the spirit of this the office 
 arrangement itself is conducive to the best psychological effects. 
 Remove distracting pictures or wall papers. Have your en- 
 vironment suggest utility, cleanliness, efficiency and health. 
 
 Do not submit to be leaned upon. Do not bargain with 
 nor have anything to do with those who want "treatments." 
 Let them seek their education elsewhere until they actually 
 expect to be healed. You worked for the ability to benefit 
 others; let them work to deserve it. Refuse the chronic shop- 
 per among quacks and healers. It would take a million years 
 to teach one of that feather what expectation is. 
 
 The Sub-Normal Back to Normal 
 
 In academic presentations regarding imbecility, idiocy, 
 insanities, and the like, there has been, and still is, much danger 
 of adopting too physical a view of these forms of incompe- 
 tence. Only one form, paresis, would in some measure seem 
 to justify that view. In regard to it, the conclusions seem to 
 be along this line: the ataxias (difficulties of movement, etc.) 
 accompanying, show the degeneration as affecting the entire 
 organism, not the brain alone, and the disease is associated 
 with syphilitic infection of long standing often enough to indi- 
 cate its presumable origin. In a deep sense, and possibly in a 
 racial sense, it can be seen that misapplied psychology there 
 too is the ulterior source of origin. Where in autopsies degen- 
 eration of the brain is found occasionally (it is but seldom 
 found), with one or two forms of the major dementias, there 
 is danger of being blinded by the apparency, and of concluding 
 erroneously that the condition of the brain and body induced 
 the condition of mind. 
 
 Science can tell us with infinite precision the way that 
 physical things act, how they appear, etc., under given. circum- 
 stances. , It is the systematized knowledge of things observable 
 by the senses. Psychology tells us that the senses themselves 
 are ex-press-ions of the self — the self being the thing that has 
 generated and knitted together thru anterior evolution its own 
 needs and their fulfillments, in the form of the five senses as 
 we have them today, — and is by no means finished with the 
 process of enabling itself still further In these directions. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 121 
 
 Psychology is coming to the conclusion that no condition 
 of the embodiment, (nor any part of it, such as the brain) 
 ever yet preceded the condition of the mind. It is the other 
 way around. No disease starts of itself. A deliberate mis- 
 management of the psychic self, indulged in at some time, 
 always has been the cause of psychic disease, exactly in the 
 same way that ignoring or deliberate mis-handling of physical 
 laws causes physical disease or impairment. It may be difficult 
 or even impossible for the impaired one to remember when 
 and how he purchased the disorder he now has. But if psy- 
 chology has hit upon an axiom in declaring that all health and 
 all disease are endogenous (self-caused) not exogenous (caused 
 from outside of self), then it does not matter much where 
 and how the purchase was made. The problem is how to 
 "un-purchase." 
 
 A Stimulating Speculation 
 
 Some of those who are philosophically inclined and who 
 accept that axiom (self causation of all fortune and misfor- 
 tune) as the only one conformable to the dictates of justice 
 and reason, believe with Hegel, Spinoza, Nietzsche and other 
 great philosophers, that reincarnation may be a factor. We 
 are reaping to some extent, according to that belief, right now, 
 the results of thought and action in previous lives, as well as 
 of the present life. Of course that would imply that all we 
 have said about suggestion, in the long run works even more 
 effectively on the originator of the thought, suggestion or 
 action, when propelled against another, than if merely applied 
 to one's self. It would mean that everything we think or 
 wish or perform for or against others, then and there uncon- 
 sciously we incorporate as health and fortune, or as disease 
 and misfortune, into our own ruling subconscious suggestions, 
 complexes, urges, repressions, — themselves later to work out 
 into our life here and now, or in a future re-embodiment. 
 Adherents of that belief explain that there is a universal law 
 of moral justice, and that our earthly joys and sufferings are 
 but the balancing of reaction to action in the instigator of the 
 action, whether the action originally was mental or physical. 
 This supposed inherency in all action, they call Karma. Look 
 the word up in the largest and most recent dictionaries if it 
 interests you. 
 
122 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 The advantage in that belief is that soon its votary sees 
 he lives in a universe of law; that he must learn to cope 
 with responsibilities and not evade them; that there is no injus- 
 tice. On the other hand, believers in reincarnation are often 
 at a disadvantage in trying, by a sort of garrulous prosiness, to 
 make their belief explain things too easily, and entirely too 
 much. A belief, or even the knowledge that the world is 
 round, does not enable us to travel any faster, yet in the main 
 it tends to make our travelling less uncertain. To travel faster, 
 we had to invent railways, steamships and airplanes. As 
 beliefs, reincarnation and justice (Karma) may be stimulating 
 to high endeavor, but do not afford any technique, or any 
 method of going about to improve one's embodiment, charac- 
 ter, success, etc., here and now. Whatever may be the larger 
 metaphysical movements outside the mentally observable 
 kaleidoscope of birth, life and death, our surest and sanest 
 method of co-operating and achieving the best here and now, 
 is in learning and more ably using the tools we have. That 
 again is psychology. 
 
 Helping the Sub-Normal — Continued 
 
 Let us fancy that among your circle of acquaintances there 
 is a case of arrested mental development. He is a burden to 
 all concerned. He is, let us say, hopelessly backward, not only 
 in his education, but even in his power to associate ideas. He 
 does not seem to reflect upon his observations. Yet in a sense, 
 he is precocious — tho' again incorrigible and selfish. A typical 
 case. Somewhere, other psychologists have called him a 
 moron. Your talk about Karma and reincarnation, your talk 
 of sun-worship, of Jesus' great love for sinners, of God-good — 
 evil-devil, error and mortal mind, is not calculated to radiate 
 anything that the unfortunate one himself can recognize as 
 illumination. What, from the standpoint of applied psychol- 
 ogy, can be done? Can he be made to comply with the for- 
 mula? Probably not, on casual trial. He may be able to 
 rest and relax bodily. So far so good. Have him do that the 
 best he can. Failing that, he may easily be induced to give 
 up the mental chatter which he is using in place of thought. 
 You can then and there begin to rehabilitate his badly dis- 
 ordered "brooding phase" or subjective "cross-road" of con- 
 sciousness. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 123 
 
 All the "mental backing" required by you in such an 
 effort, is discussed in former paragraphs. It all applies here 
 as there. Develop a real interest in your protege. Realize 
 that you yourself are not entirely rid of the moron phase. 
 No one is. Realize that your comparative excellence, as you 
 view him, is a permanently assured thing conditionally. It is 
 not an absolute certainty. Were you to misapply yourself, in 
 ways that now seem foreign to your nature, you would be as 
 much of an outcast child of evolution as he seems to be. By 
 such understanding you are developing intelligent interest in 
 him. Pick out his outstanding quality; cogitate over, and cul- 
 tivate your grasp of that quality. It is worth its weight in 
 diamonds to you, because shortly you are to transform that 
 salient into your entrance wedge to the nascent roots of his 
 real character. Often, the strongest quality in the sub-normal 
 is his selfishness. He is self centered; his only consecutive 
 interest is his self interest. 
 
 There may be an infinity of reasons why all his other men- 
 tal mechanisms save that one, have ceased to grow. If the 
 sub-normal himself demonstrates a conscious insight into his 
 own condition (colloquially — if he knows he is "off"), it may 
 not be beside the point to probe and rationalize any phantasies 
 which may by the process of probing be externalized. If that 
 process be used, then this also may be borne in mind: there is 
 a thinly veiled lunacy indulged by many well-meaning people, 
 which right down at bottom would classify everything in life 
 as wicked and unworthy. The subconscious in such cases, of 
 course, is crammed with idiotic complexes based on such notions 
 as: that it is wicked to breathe or drink with enjoyment; eat- 
 ing is wickedness; the sexual act or thought regarding it is 
 wickedness; ministering to the body is degrading; to enjoy life 
 in any form is sin, etc. If this foul condition is transferred 
 unconsciously to a susceptible child, subconsciously the logical 
 conclusion is likely to be a decision to remain a moron. If 
 that subconscious decision could be articulated, it would prob- 
 ably amount to this: "Since I cannot get back to where I 
 started; and since the land I was supposed to travel bristles 
 with prohibitions against life, love and activity, it is better 
 for me to abide at this way-station; thus far and no further." 
 This "abiding at a way-station" may be a mild form of demen- 
 
124 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 tia precox, of paranoia, depressive or hysteriform incapacity, 
 moronism, — in degrees all spelling "failure" from the social 
 and ethical standpoint. 
 
 Your business is so to contrive, that he will of himself 
 once more wish to jump on the train, leave the little way- 
 station, and go on into useful and efficient life. If his self- 
 interest is the only angle that juts out from the futile circle of 
 introversion, then use that angle. Excite his sense of posses- 
 sion. Let him feel that to own and to possess is good. Let 
 him see that exertion and effort will increase his capacity for 
 ownership. Do not let him have things because he asks for 
 them or cries for them. That is not enough. That would be 
 too strong a suggestion that he remain an infant. Do not 
 point to the self-satisfied plutocrat or the absolute monarch 
 as examples of anything worth emulating. In another octave 
 they are babes, getting things because they ask for them. As 
 a race we've held the ill-mannered baby-brat ideal too seriously 
 and too long. It enters as an ingredient into all our success 
 manias. Lie, if necessary, that all possession is the result of 
 endeavor. Paint life in colors that are attractive to him, not 
 to you, — so he will urge himself to make the necessary endea- 
 vors to own and enjoy more of it. Convince him that he has 
 but misplaced possessions already his — possessions of untold 
 value. And that is the truth. If you must do this in ever 
 so childish a way, do it,- — it is just as well. Stoop to conquer. 
 The more readily, then, will he see it is necessary for himself 
 to seek, hunt and dig. He is to learn that selfishness itself is 
 better served if he develops several intelligent interests out- 
 side himself. 
 
 Helping the Sub-Normal — Concluded 
 
 Melancholia, the various depressed attitudes toward life, 
 and numerous other entrenchments of failure, can be made to 
 improve if environed by persons constantly thinking and acting 
 in ways here described. Often there is no physical impairment 
 as yet to retrieve. It is misharnessed and misguided energy, 
 physical, psychic and mental, jostling the dazed rider and im- 
 perilling bystanders. It is ignorantly misapplied psychology; 
 often nothing but that. Its corrective is wisely applied psy- 
 chology. That wise application must be conducted by sur- 
 rounding people to so fine and so comprehending an extent 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 125 
 
 that the central person in question himself and of himself, 
 finds and continues in the reconstructive application. 
 
 Complicated cases should of course receive institutional 
 care. They should not be tampered with; never should they 
 be regarded as chances for the beginner to "try my luck." 
 Charlatans in this field should be coldly and completely boy- 
 cotted, because penalization by such is often turned into self- 
 advertisement. 
 
 Generalization 
 
 No person exists but responds to human encouragement. 
 Correct psychology can make of encouragement a fine science. 
 Its purpose always should be that the temporarily discouraged 
 one seek and find in himself the source of his own encourage- 
 ment. We all have the phobias and neuroses in various de- 
 grees of attenuation, — which in the institutions we may see 
 precipitated and then inflated into obsessional values. Hence 
 the pharisaical attitude is the least calculated to benefit those 
 who merit benefit from you, and in the long run that attitude 
 is the most damaging to yourself. 
 
 Methods of aid by applied psychology can be inferred 
 to any degree of practical value, limited only by the capability 
 and initiative of the student. Originality is a big factor. The 
 formulas can be effectualized in innumerable ways by those 
 who have learned to put two and two together. 
 Conclusion 
 
 In the hands of those who cannot analyze nor synthesize 
 nor draw sane conclusions, all the formulas and citations in 
 the world would be but futile instruments. To such it can 
 only be said, "you'll never get the 'blessed truths' which you're 
 waiting open-mouthed to receive and believe. You'll never 
 evade the necessity and responsibility of learning to think by 
 any such infantile ruse as that. To those who are for the 
 moment infinitely more abject failures than yourself, — the 
 advice was, seek, dig, apply yourself. It is the same to you. 
 If you knew from the reports of honest neighbors, that during 
 a fit of amnesia or loss of memory, you had buried a basket 
 of your own diamonds somewhere in your own back yard; if 
 you knew that your present impoverished condition, in all 
 phases of life — friendship, success, happiness, purpose, health, 
 — would be yours only upon their recovery, — who and what 
 
126 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 could then dissuade you from digging, until you had every 
 square inch of that back yard spaded up and spaded up deep? 
 Learning to think is just that. Psychology or self-knowledge 
 is one of the jewels contained in that neglected basket, of 
 greater value than all the diamonds yet dug. Do not flatter 
 yourself that you already know how to think. There are still 
 possibilities in that direction. No great thinker has ever yet 
 so flattered himself. The savage seated in his hollow log, 
 paddle in hand, might well have nodded his head sagely, say- 
 ing: 'I already know all about navigation, for I convey myself 
 over the water.' Lucky then we poor benighted agnostics who 
 have gone right ahead and invented the steamship anyway." 
 
 The reader has covered a range, which so far as tuition 
 by printed word can go, may be regarded as complete. At 
 any rate it is complete in one direction. There are many 
 directions, some just as valuable as the one now traversed. 
 
 We have attempted to show a phase of universal law 
 which most intimately touches ourselves. That law cannot be 
 seen, touched, nor heapd. Yet the degree to which it is com- 
 prehended, adds value to seeing, touching and hearing; makes 
 of existence — Life; makes of life — Realization of the Ideal. 
 
 The next chapter, which concludes the present manuscript, 
 is not intended for a lesson. It is merely proferred as a sharing 
 of experience with fellow students. Before indulging in its 
 rather too metaphysical ramblings, a little fable occurs to us, 
 which might be entitled: 
 
LAW 
 
 A MAN of common sense heard among sea-faring men that 
 Longitudes, Latitudes and especially the Equator were 
 in fabulous repute. He chartered a yacht and braved ocean 
 storms that he might see the Equator. He never saw it. He 
 returned safely, but he had suffered mal de mer and was much 
 disappointed for having believed the wild tales of mariners. 
 
 Again from astronomers and philosophers the man of 
 common sense heard about the incredible value of the Earth's 
 Axis. He extorted the wealth of Croesus and of Rockefeller, 
 he exhausted the genius of Archimedes and of Edison to con- 
 trive apparatus; he enslaved the labor of a million men, who 
 dug four thousand, and then eight thousand miles straight 
 down and thru the globe, — all that he might see the Axis 
 around which the world revolves. And he did not see it. 
 Neither did he prove his own foolishness. He wrote books, 
 and convinced thousands of gushing truth seekers that no axis 
 exists. 
 
 Yet navigation continued; commerce went on unperturbed 
 as tho' this man of common sense had never lived. More- 
 over, the morning after the publication of the books, the four 
 cardinal directions were not in the least disturbed, nor the 
 measurements of Time. 
 
 And to add insult to injury, the world continued to re- 
 volve on its axis. 
 
 Moral : IT IS A VICE OF MATERIALISM TO 
 
 DENY THOSE REALITIES WHICH WILL NOT 
 BECOME UNREAL ENOUGH TO OBJECTIFY. 
 
 127 
 
VIII 
 
 A DAY DREAM 
 
 1WAS wandering thru the park of a great city. In the morn- 
 ing's preparations for my walk, I had spontaneously im- 
 planted in my mind a suggestion for the main thoughts of 
 the day. We all do this whether or not we know it. I wanted 
 some clear and valuable conception which I could transfer to 
 fellow students. I was seeking a clearer view, a more com- 
 prehensive revelation of the causes underlying success — the 
 ability to live more and to grow more. I did not mind if my 
 fancies proved airy, so long as they were in that direction. I 
 felt more metaphysical than analytical. Whenever we make 
 mind or thought itself the subject of our thinking, we are 
 headed toward the subconscious in the most intelligent way. 
 
 Occasionally I regarded the trees and flowers. Once I 
 noticed also that a squirrel came near me. Then chattering 
 at my lack of foresight that I had brought him no nuts, he dis- 
 appeared in the foliage of a great tree. 
 
 I came presently to an obscure little bypath. It led me to 
 an artificial lake, at the edge of which, seeing an inviting shrub- 
 encumbered bench, I obeyed what seemed to be a subconscious 
 summons to sit and rest. 
 
 It may be that I went to sleep. I do not know. Through- 
 out the incidents of the following vision drama, I recall often 
 seeing the sparkle of the lake. 
 
 I had no sooner sat down than it was quite clear to me 
 that I was just now departing from a certain location outside 
 our solar system. I had resided there for uncounted aeons. 
 While there, I had not been learning to live, — as the inhabit- 
 ants of this planet without exception are doing, — but had al- 
 ready been living, — physically immortal, if I chose to be, or 
 changing embodiment consciously, if I cared for a new or dif- 
 ferent sort of body. In that place the effects of no elemental 
 buffeting of storms, either of wind cyclones, nor the internal 
 gales of pride, vanity, or avarice, could touch me. Such gales 
 and cataclysms did ride and blow there as thruout the universe. 
 
 128 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 129 
 
 But in that old, mellow, perfected planet I had a well trained 
 host of magic servants, who counteracted inadvertencies and 
 accidents with ease at a mere nod from rne. On this morning 
 of my departure the great sun presiding in that remote do- 
 minion of space, rose in wondrous magnitude; the air itself 
 shimmered with the colors of rose and gold. I set out, riding 
 the air in a chariot-like vehicle, drawn with whirlwind force by 
 a harnessed legion of brilliant beings who seemed to be each a 
 composite of a god and an animal. 
 
 Something said to me: "You are viewing His descent 
 and yours; an old eternity is left and a new one is entered." 
 I could not understand this ; I forgot to ask an explanation ; 1 
 was too much absorbed in beholding the glorious spectacle — 
 for I was both rider and beholder. In the etherially golden 
 harness, I noted again with a great throb those fabulously per- 
 fect embodiments of energy; they were like lithe, tawny ani- 
 mals; yet they were not unlike active young gods. I marveled 
 again at the incredible ease with which they conveyed the 
 equipage in the direction the rider wished to go. 
 
 That they should ever become disorganized! That they 
 should become things of cunning and selfishness — which now I 
 felt by prescience they might become ! 
 
 I alighted blithesomely, a strange visitor on a strange 
 little planet called Earth. The wild life scampered to cover, 
 torn between terror and innate curiosity The hills quaked 
 slightly. I had landed on a great sunlit plateau. "This truly 
 is the roof of this little world," was my first thought. I felt 
 like some great Nature Spirit, delegated to brood over this 
 spring-decked and breeze-blown land. I seemed immeasur- 
 ably huge, cosmic, universal. If I had seen humans at the 
 time, I might have been interested in them as in some race of 
 rather active insects. My senses of sight and hearing were 
 intelligent; with humans this is not so. For instance, I needed 
 to strain but little, and the wind rustling in the grass with 
 something in it of legend and tradition, would tell me the 
 secret history of galaxies and other things immeasurable to 
 the human mind. 
 
 For the first time I gave way to two great emotions, based 
 on some false conviction of superiority. 
 
 First, — I allowed myself to luxuriate in unbounded con- 
 
130 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 tempt for those who must involuntarily inhabit this puny 
 sphere. / would sojourn here a while because I willed it. 
 
 Second, — I gave way to the unbounded elation of a 
 Nirvanee, — of a DeQuincy under an overdose of opium- — in 
 thinking that this new little place could throw no difficulty upon 
 me that I could not manipulate as a pellet of putty in my hand. 
 Emotions produce reactions. I was not prepared. It 
 came slyly — in what apparently was an honest form of fatigue 
 following a long journey. My lithe, magical servants whis- 
 pered languorous insinuations. They lied — the most refresh- 
 ing rest would be abrogation of authority and responsibility. 
 I forgot this would mean abrogation of the same amount of 
 liberty, and believed them. The drowsy, tangled dream into 
 which I was already sinking was filled with subdued chatter of 
 the treasons they were then enacting. It sounded melodiously 
 in my ears. I was already in the anteroom of the palace of 
 slumber. I allowed the new environment to gain ascendancy 
 over myself. I could feel it, as I lay pillowed in the mosses 
 and grass. It seemed a mountain had begun to accumulate 
 over me. I did not know what I was to experience in conse- 
 quence of allowing a surface ripple thus to outweigh a long 
 established tidal sweep toward an ideal. The symbol of that 
 unified purpose, the etherially light harness or chain of gold 
 which my magical subordinates had worn with honor, I saw 
 was suddenly broken into bits. I did not care then. I fell 
 asleep. 
 
 I awoke — it seemed in a few moments — it seemed from 
 death. I was feverish and delirious. I wanted to know how 
 long I had slept. A voice in the delirium replied, "Three hun- 
 dred thousand and forty years of the earth." I was now a 
 giant both in body and soul. I was not sure of this, but that 
 also in a mysterious way, I had been told. I believed it be- 
 cause of my vast suffering. None but a giant could suffer so 
 much. The former and more happy impressions seemed now 
 withdrawn to some remotely past eternity. I wanted so much 
 to be sure I was a giant. That would lend me self-confidence. 
 But infallible assurance seemed out of my reach, for tho' I 
 could look around and outward, I could not look inward nor 
 in anywise make known to myself my own proportions. Up 
 to my head I was buried under a veritable mountain, so that 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 131 
 
 my limbs were not free. Any attempt to move my concealed 
 self resulted in friction and great pain. Out of shere anguish 
 at having to be so stagnant, occasionally I would shrug an 
 arm, move a foot, or try to bend an elbow. And I noted then, 
 that great boulders often would be dislodged from the moun- 
 tain side, and roll into the adjoining abysses with a loud crash. 
 
 I wondered if I should have to remove the entire moun- 
 tain by such meager and spasmodic efforts. I speculated 
 drearily how long that would take. For huge as I suspected 
 myself to be, the mountain which so imprisoned me, was vast. 
 When I grieved, it seemed the tears themselves made the moun- 
 tain more concrete, and that around my head — a most awkward 
 place. Once, insanely impatient, I shook at the impediments 
 £o my liberty with the energy of a cyclonic demon. But after 
 a brief numbness the pain was worse, and the resulting per- 
 spiration only solidified the cement bearing rocks about my 
 body the tighter. I was again outwitted. I dared not give 
 way to any form of excess. I had the Will to do, but did not 
 know how. 
 
 Daily I had observed separate hordes of little sprites 
 gamboling about the rocks and furrows of this mountain, which 
 seemed to be their natural habitation. There were several 
 distinct tribes; there were striking characteristics to distinguish 
 one clan from another, among which always appeared the 
 same figure woven in the clothes worn by members of the 
 same tribe. For instance, there was one tribe which appeared 
 absurdly pious, and in their clothes always appeared the 
 numeral 6. Another clan impressed me as being specialists in 
 some kind of training; if they had been human, they 
 would have been designated as the "mental type;" their 
 numeral was 5. Another legion looked ridiculously senti- 
 mental — unadulterated embodied emotions; these wore the 
 number 4. Most of them were active. Some seemed weirdly 
 intelligent. Some again showed no more intelligence than a 
 vegetable or a lump of lead, living quite passively in the rocks 
 and shrubs. The shrub dwellers displayed the number 2, and 
 the rock dwellers the number 1. 
 
 I began to wonder if any of these could give me a help- 
 ful hint about self-liberation. One of the pious sprites hap- 
 pened to be nearby. I hailed him. Twirling his thumbs in 
 
132 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 a most quaker-like fashion, he approached me sedately. I had 
 wanted to explain my condition to him — but he did the explain- 
 ing. Of course he had everything wrong. But he said it all 
 with a great air of unctuous omniscience. He told me I should 
 be more trusting, but he said it in such a "don't-ask-me-what-I- 
 mean-by-that" manner, with such sanctimonious posing, that I 
 was non-plussed. If we say we trust, and then do not act, we 
 are lying. Only mistrust enforces idleness and confinement. 
 But I did not dare to say this to him. He must have been 
 nervous, for he was careful to tell me that if I did not believe 
 him I would go to hell. Evidently he had forgotten how hard 
 it is to scare any person who is already in the place that suits 
 him least. He had admonished me to do as he said, yet he had 
 said nothing that I could do. The means of doing anything^ 
 were not in my possession so long as I lay buried. 
 
 When he left, I found a small ivory casket which he had 
 dropped while speaking to me. I would have called to him, 
 but he was already on the other side of the mountain. On 
 second thought, I covered the little box with my hair, where it 
 would be invisible should he return. 
 
 Next I hailed a "5." I expected much from him. He 
 seemed an able fellow. I fancied his tribe most resembled 
 myself. He, just like the "6" had done, enlarged miraculously 
 as I thought these things of him. After the salutation, he 
 arranged a chart, illustrating my difficulty to me. This he did 
 skillfully, yet I could feel he had some trace of ulterior pur- 
 pose of which I knew nothing, and suddenly cared even less. 
 I knew, what he comprehended only in ingenious but erroneous 
 theory. I felt sure that in some subtle way he was conniving 
 with my pious friend of the previous day to keep me in bond- 
 age. I dismissed him in a huff. His departure was so hasty 
 that he left a tiny clasped scroll, which at no time during the 
 visit had he unrolled. I could not unclasp it, of course, with 
 my hands still buried. So I treated it as I had treated the ivory 
 casket of the pious sprite, and concealed it under my hair. I 
 now began to doubt seriously whether any help at all could be 
 expected of these curious gentry. 
 
 Yet I called in the tribe of the emotional dancing folks, 
 their pink and green drapes showing the figure 4. Among 
 them there was much sentiment, much infatuation one for the 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 133 
 
 other, with incontinent flurries of dislike. Their chatter was 
 sweet and melodious. Despite their voluble professions of 
 sympathy, they did not know how to give sane advice. Most 
 of them said that I should find a great deal of pleasure if I 
 decided only to enjoy my confinement, instead of straining 
 always to be free. Gloat over my own confinement indeed ! 
 I was glad when they wearied of me and left, bent on their 
 own airy gambols. 
 
 Two or three times I hailed other legions. I remembered 
 one disorderly tribe, with bodies of animal strength — the hides 
 they wore for clothes stamped with the number 3. They 
 showed their teeth, sneering at me as much as to say, "Why 
 do you not use brute strength?" but remained impervious to 
 my explanation that I had tried that method and failed. Yet 
 thereafter, it was these brutes who brought me food, often 
 snarling the while. The shrub dwellers, showing the number 2, 
 once proposed to make my mountain more beautiful with flow- 
 ers, if I would but promise not to try to get away from it; 
 and the still more inert rock dwellers consented (as tho' I had 
 ever asked them any such thing!) to weight the entire moun- 
 tain with gold and precious stones on the same condition. 
 
 I was more weary than ever of all this business of talking 
 in a circle. Everything had been cheaply and copiously dis- 
 cussed but liberty. And after all, everything but liberty and 
 power to do things for myself, was so utterly beside the point. 
 Was all my search vain? 
 
 At this moment a startling thing happened. It unnerved 
 me for a moment. Out of the mountain, — or it might have 
 been from its summit, — a voice spoke : "You have taken their 
 message despite their words," The shock — combined with a 
 feeling that the possessor of that voice intended for me a great 
 good, struck me as a double shaft of lightning might strike. 
 It was not at all like the voice I had heard in delirium. I felt 
 privileged to relax for a moment, and moved my hand to 
 release it from strain. In doing so, accidentally the scroll 
 became uncoiled with a snap. It had been wound with a strong 
 outward-bearing spring. I read its contents. It seemed to be 
 in two divisions. The first I could decipher. I was not im- 
 patient about the rest, feeling that in time I would ascertain 
 the entire meaning. The readable part was a strange thing. 
 
134 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 It seemed to be a sort of secret prayer or incantation. Likely 
 this "5th triber" had never dared to breathe it audibly. Per- 
 haps, way down, he had even dreaded that the wishes therein 
 contained might be carried out. Yet there it was: "I hate 
 the stone-sitters and these shrub-sitters fervently ! They are 
 inert! By their stupidity they impede my researches whereby 
 I might gain more power over the sleeping giant. I curse the 
 brutish third tribe; may they sicken! Their insolence stands 
 between me and entire subjugation of the giant! Maledic- 
 tions upon the pink and green clan — intent upon each other's 
 worthless selves by way of love, hate, and all that follows ! 
 Not one in a hundred of my traps- for the sleeper remains 
 unbroken, by their carelessness, long enough to show its worth ! 
 And O that collective horror of hypocrisy, the tribe of the 
 pious ones! May a venomous plague exterminate them during 
 the dark of the moon and in one fatal night! If only 'He' 
 knew how important in keeping him pinioned, and yet how 
 easily dislodged is the very rock on which he rests his head! 
 Woe is me if he discovers!" — here the readable part of this 
 curious tirade ended, and the undecipherable characters com- 
 menced. 
 
 Of course I directed what force I was free to use upon 
 the rock I had used for a pillow. And sure enough, this great 
 stone, worn smooth by my own head, was quickly wrenched 
 from its position, and I heard it crash on some ledge far below. 
 I had always refrained from trying any movement whatever 
 with that particular rock. Like a mental habit, — like a famil- 
 iar attitude, it always had seemed gratefully comfortable. 
 Now that I had dislodged it in the face of discomfort, I noted 
 with joy I had one arm free already, and there were clefts 
 visible in many of the boulders, which before had been solid. 
 I set to work with my free arm. Alas ! I could not in any- 
 wise find leverage enough to move even the smallest of the 
 remaining huge rocks, which still weighed down the rest of 
 my body. 
 
 Just then a little cynical imp appeared. I forget which 
 tribe he belonged to. He pretended not to notice my predica- 
 ment. I asked him, exasperated, if his grin was the only aid 
 he could lend me in my effort. That banished his taciturnity. 
 He replied that the only liberty I would ever achieve would be 
 in the anticipations and expectations of it; that I was fruit- 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 135 
 
 lessly exerting myself. He said if I gained freedom, I would 
 be more than ever dissatisfied; that I would pine not only for 
 the reclining pose, but actually for the involuntary imprison- 
 ment, which, of course, once broken, I should never be able to 
 regain in full measure. Even if I should imprison myself 
 thereafter, he assured me, it would be a counterfeit imprison- 
 ment, because voluntary. He declared he knew many who 
 were free, and the possession of their full powers was too 
 much and too irksome. They spent their after days in keen 
 regrets for the happiness lost forever when freed from their 
 stony prisons. He left then, burning a weedy cigarette, from 
 which live sparks fell and scorched my free hand. 
 
 I believed nothing he said. Yet it weighed in upon me 
 as to the probable uselessness of further effort. I recalled 
 the ivory casket now, and opened it. It was significantly made 
 in the form of a prayer book. The pious "6th tribers" evi- 
 dently were nursing wishes just as virulent as those of the 
 "5th." The readable paragraph closed with these words : "O 
 that the imprisoned one were to forget his effort but for a 
 day; for his habitual distraction alone keeps him inflamed and 
 swollen, and without that the cave could not hold him. I 
 would incite him to slay all the tribes but mine. I would then 
 fill him with remorse, for I know his weakness. He would 
 then crawl back into his prison — and his subjugation to me 
 alone would be permanent." 
 
 Thought I to myself, "Why this amazing enmity between 
 these different tribes, and what is the mysterious connection 
 their own welfare seems to have with me?" I wondered if 
 I could not carry out the bloody things hinted in this last 
 parchment, and escape the remorse and self-reimprisonment. 
 The same clear voice, as from off the mountain top, inter- 
 rupted, bidding me to recognize, if I could, in the dubious and 
 devious little folks, who furtively tried to misinform me now, 
 during lapses in their own activities on the mountain, the dere- 
 licts of that former wonderful organization with which I had 
 "landed," an eternity ago. 
 
 "No living thing has yet been killed since' the dawn of 
 time. To 'slay' means to analyze, understand, and thus to en- 
 force a change of embodiment, degree and manner of action. 
 Do this sort of thing 'with all your might,' which again means 
 
136 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 'with .all your intelligence.' ' Benign wisdom vibrated in that 
 voice. I formed a strong wish to see its source, — so strong, in 
 fact, that I must have swooned — for I experienced that strange 
 yet not uncommon phenomenon of a dream within a dream. 
 In this, I was not the imprisoned giant, but walked on the 
 mountain top, the clear voice leading me to a pool. I saw no 
 man, and surmised the voice emanated from the pool's crys- 
 taline depths. I bent over its brink and looked within it. What 
 a reflection! I saw a face unmistakably possessing miraculous 
 wisdom. If / had it, surely I would not have remained im- 
 prisoned so long. It could not be myself! With a pang I 
 realized this liberty would prove the transitory privilege of a 
 dream, and that I would awaken again in prison. And from 
 the pool came the words: "The thought must lead the soul, 
 and the soul is pioneer of the embodiment!" 
 
 "Who are you, and how came I here?" I asked in a sort 
 of desperation. And the answer was: "I am You, or rather 
 I am What you Will — your ideal — at this time — Liberty. The 
 mind becomes like unto the thing thought of. Thinking of 
 me in terms of liberty, your mind became liberated. Accord- 
 ing to its fundamental attractions and attitudes, the mind 
 builds or with equal ease, reconstructs the body and its environ- 
 ment. It is the way to freedom. Your body is no longer 
 swollen from the fight of prison thoughts and freedom actions. 
 Go re-inhabit it and take it out of the cave with you." 
 
 There was a great lull, a long hushed pause, as tho' 
 interminable abysses of expanse were being traversed. I 
 awoke, — still under the rocks. But I did not ponder. A flash 
 of the great remembrance acted like an instant and powerful 
 spring. Literally I catapulted myself out of the cave, leaving 
 it maybe some skin, — yet glad that I need never enter such 
 confinement again. There was a shudder perceptible in the 
 air itself, and all but visible in the shrubs and among the rocks. 
 Perhaps the sprites knew telepathically that their master was 
 once more at liberty, and that a new order would now come 
 into being among them. 
 
 In the first flush of this great boon of freedom, being 
 weak from lack of food, I seemed for a moment to experi- 
 ence a kind of hysteria. I cried wildly into the air: "O how 
 may I most adequately thank and worship You?" — and at once 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 137 
 
 there was an unmistakable reply: "By eating! Whatsoever is 
 necessary, that do with all your intelligence." I ate some nuts, 
 herbs, and fruit, and drank water from a neighboring spring. 
 
 I knew now that I should have to bring myself to a test. 
 My strength was growing within me. I decided to summon 
 all the tribes I had seen, and to organize them into a corps of 
 intelligent and obedient servants. No sooner had the echoes 
 of my resolute call died down, than from rock, shrub, furrow 
 and cliff, came trooping the legions of sprites. Their advance 
 guards approached as if to offer me advice. From habit born 
 of captivity, I was about to listen to them, and immediately 
 the would-be advisors began miraculously to grow in size. 
 Then I remembered some of the things said to me by the 
 Voice, and abruptly called a halt. I commanded them. I 
 could hardly believe myself, — yet I commanded them. And it 
 even seemed a familiar thing to do, — an establishment within 
 myself, obscured for a short time, 'tis true, but more ancient 
 within me than the prison habit of listening to the vagaries and 
 whinings of my mind. As I commanded, I saw just a shadow 
 of a diaphanous golden chain entwine the entire legion ever 
 so lightly, yet securely, and the controlling reigns to these 
 chains I noted ended in two places, my chest and my head. 
 There was something yet to learn, I felt. There was some- 
 thing sinister, like a problem a child dreads and yet knows 
 will be solved when it becomes an adult, — there was some- 
 thing of that kind in the feelings I had while viewing my re- 
 organized legions. Especially was this so with the tribe pos- 
 sessing bodies of wild animal suppleness and perfection — the 
 "3s," and to some extent also with the sentimental "4s." 
 
 Suddenly, I recalled that all that was transpiring might 
 have an every-day human application. What, for instance, 
 was meant by the mountain imprisonment? The best-inten- 
 tioned of people are sometimes desperately unsuccessful. Had 
 I but experienced a dramatization of the subconscious mind 
 during any given period of such incapacity? Surely! It may 
 mean more; it certainly had not meant less! The tendencies 
 and energies which in synthesis are Mind, there I had seen just 
 as active and powerful as ever, but split and disorganized. 
 Commonly underlying many failures in life, there is a care- 
 fully nursed "blanket" suggestion. Whether it is denied or 
 
138 PSYCHOLOGY — Personal and Essential 
 
 called by pretty names, it amounts always to Selfishness and 
 Negligence. Before they fail, such people are concerned in 
 sensuously experiencing "What Will Come" to them. They 
 are keen on "What Fate Has In Store For" them. They buy 
 horoscopes. They refer unfortunates to Jesus, or to a philos- 
 ophy, instead of aiding them. They forget completely the 
 evolutionary law which says: "Your fate of tomorrow has in 
 store for you exactly what you stored in it today by the qual- 
 ity of your thought and your treatment of the other fellow." 
 Theirs is the blanket suggestion of negligence and selfishness, — 
 the worst weakener and disorganizer of the subconscious. Each 
 subconscious tendency ceases work for the unified purpose, and 
 becomes a leach. Powers wane. Lack of ease, or "dis"-ease 
 ensues. No longer united in its energies, the subconscious can- 
 not reconstruct fundamentally, but garnishes the disorder with 
 a concealment of fables and lies, pose and neurosis. The 
 subconsciousness of the oyster so builds the pearl, as a pro- 
 tection against the invading and irritating grain of sand. The 
 sprites offered you, while you were satisfied to remain no 
 stronger than they, to flower and jewel your mountain prison, 
 but they did not volunteer to remove it. "Remember you have 
 to direct and control the mind, instead of listening to and 
 obeying its vagrant and conflicting trends." 
 
 I remarked that I was well cognizant of the law of Sug- 
 gestion. "Yes, you have learned laws. But witness in all 
 human laws, for instance, in the securing of property and 
 possessions, there is one underlying thing, which, if understood 
 and applied, places the person above and beyond the reach of 
 their penalties, and that is Integrity, or real, whole-souled hon- 
 esty. So with the law of Cause and Effect, working in and 
 thru psychology as everywhere else. Observe, if the deepest 
 Cause animating one is directed by just as deep laid a Sug- 
 gestion of an ideal, — and if that ideal is Liberty thru Control 
 and Unity of Mental Purpose, — then all the petty effects, 
 detriments, accidents, inadvertencies, sicknesses and misfor- 
 tunes, — in short, the confinement of the giant under a moun- 
 tain of inertness, need never occur. That mountain to many 
 people is physical disability today; they need to hear and heed. 
 To a great many more, that mountain is a psychic prison, 
 composed of those concrete boulders more commonly known 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 139 
 
 as creeds, dogmas, convictions, biases, greeds and prejudices. 
 They need to hear and heed even more; they can never be 
 physically well while they are mental cripples." 
 
 I began to consider what I should now do with m} 
 "legion." I had "mustered my forces," — and now must engage 
 in some great task. It seemed that this great work would 
 have to do either with removing the mountain of my former 
 imprisonment, or probably with building a road so that there- 
 after it could be easily scaled. In fact, I made this point the 
 topic of a question. I heard the Voice replying, hardly audible 
 now, but yet quite distinct: "You are both to scale it and at 
 the same time to remove it. Living and your life's work will 
 both be features in this process." 
 
 "But what in very truth is this mountain? Is it of quartz, 
 and shale, and lava, as it appears to be?" 
 
 And the reply was, "Mainly, it is composed of Ignorance." 
 
 Then what — yes what ! A block away thru the trees 
 came the noise of a trolley car clanging on its way, and the 
 honking of automobiles. I had awakened. 
 
 t&* t£*i »^* 
 
 What would I not have given for a reply to just one more 
 question ! Those sprites — and in a golden harness again, — 
 what possibilities was one to read into this symbol? And was 
 there anything impossible? But I was hopelessly wide-awake 
 now, and arose to leave the park. Once or twice, as I saun- 
 tered home, there occurred to me an enumeration of a sort, 
 which I had compiled for myself as an aid in my early studies. 
 I used to "play" that it tabulated the octaves thru which I 
 fancied energy is made to transform by evolutionary effort. 
 I do not know if it should be of any importance in this con- 
 nection. It ran, if I remember, somewhat in this fashion : 
 
140 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Name (a) 
 and Symbol (b) 
 
 a. Inertness. 
 
 b. Mineral. 
 
 2. 
 
 a. Passivity. 
 
 b. Plant. 
 
 3. 
 a. Appetite. 
 
 a. Passion. 
 
 b. Animal. 
 
 Nature therein 
 is enforcing 
 
 In the "present" 
 human this often 
 appears as 
 
 Response to stimuli. Heaviness or lazi- 
 ness. 
 
 // can be trans- 
 formed into 
 
 Sub stantiality or 
 "well - grounded- 
 ness." 
 
 Organization and The "human vege- Systematizati on — 
 diverse forms. table" a 1 1 i tude. Aptness in forrrj, 
 
 Blind submission. and technique. 
 
 Mobility; senses; Debauch and Re- 
 intelligence thru morse, 
 selfishness. 
 
 Ductile and tract- 
 able energy — for 
 healing, etc. Basis 
 of the vital aura. 
 
 a. Emotion. 
 
 b. Human. 
 
 a. Reason. 
 
 b. Human 
 
 ("to be" 
 
 6. 
 
 a. Ideal. 
 
 (not your 
 mental 
 picture 
 of it). 
 
 b. Human 
 
 ("to be"). 
 7. 
 
 a. Abstraction. 
 
 b. Human 
 
 ("to be"). 
 
 Self-direction ; 
 Volition — 
 Individuality. 
 
 Powerfully organ- 
 ized thought. Ani- 
 mal selfishness was 
 a tool, now to be 
 discarded. 
 
 Relinquishment of 
 mechanism in fa- 
 vor of principle. 
 
 Sacrifice of all de- 
 sire — poisonous be- 
 fore this stage. 
 Such "sacrifice" is 
 cause of neurosis 
 with students who 
 over-estimate their 
 "grade." 
 
 Selfish elation coun- 
 teracted by selfish 
 depression. 
 
 Capacity for conse- 
 cutive thots, them- 
 selves no more 
 than anxieties ; 
 and this only when 
 one's own welfare 
 is concerned. 
 
 Selfish piety; the 
 exploded orthodox 
 conception of a 
 god acting unlaw- 
 fully. 
 
 Sacerdotal twaddle ; 
 Agnostical twaddle; 
 or — 
 Nothing. 
 
 Refined, Magnetic 
 Charm. Incipient 
 (tho' often decep- 
 t i v e) clairsen- 
 tience. 
 
 Ability, means and 
 position of benefit 
 to others than self. 
 Self ^regarding 
 intellect and gen- 
 ius. 
 
 Balance; Poise, 
 Highest degree of 
 human enlighten- 
 ment. 
 
 Illumination. 
 
 A method of trans- 
 cension. Gradua- 
 tion from the hu- 
 man into a super- 
 human cycle of 
 evolution. 
 
PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 141 
 
 GOOD BOOKS TO READ 
 
 Subject and Title. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY: 
 
 Author. 
 
 Brain and Personality, 
 Law of Psychic Phenomena, 
 What Is Psychoanalysis? 
 
 The Meaning of Dreams, 
 
 Three Contributions to the 
 Theory of Sex, 
 
 Man's Unconscious Conflict, 
 
 W. H. Thomson. 
 
 Thomson Jay Hudson. 
 
 Isador H. Coriat. (Published by 
 
 Moffat, Yard & Co., N. Y.) 
 Isador H. Coriat. (Published by 
 
 Little, Brown & Co., Boston.) 
 Sigmund Freud. (The Nervous and 
 
 Mental Disease Publishing Co., 
 
 Washington, D. C.) 
 
 Wilfred Lay, Ph.D. (Published by 
 Dodd, Mead & Co., N. Y.) 
 
 PHILOSOPHY AND MISCELLANEOUS: 
 
 White Cross Library (compris- Prentice Mulford. (Published by 
 
 and recently reprinted, F. J. 
 Needham, 52 W. 14th St., N. Y.) 
 
 ing 6 or 7 very helpful books, 
 tho' elementary. Each, 
 $2.00). 
 
 Rasselas, 
 
 Esoteric Buddhism, 
 
 History of the Conflict Between 
 Religion and Science, 
 The Madman, His Parables 
 and Poems, 
 
 OCCULT AND MYSTICAL: 
 Light on the Path, 
 
 Samuel Johnson. 
 
 A. P. Sinnett. (Houghton-Mifflin 
 
 Co., Boston.) 
 Jno. W. Draper. 
 
 Kahlil Gibran. 
 York.) 
 
 (A. A. Knopf, New 
 
 Mabel Collins. (T. S. Pub. Co., 25 
 W. 45th, N. Y.) 
 
 Bhagavad-Gita, Translated from the Sanscrit by W. 
 
 Q. Judge. (T. S. Publishing Co., 
 25 W. 45th St., N. Y.) 
 
 New Testament in Translations, James M. Pryse. (Published by 
 
 John M. Pryse, N. Y. Also 
 available at the T. S. Pub. Co.) 
 
 FICTION: 
 
 Mysterious Stranger, 
 Personal Recollections of 
 
 Joan of Arc, 
 Food of the Gods, 
 Island of Dr. Moreau, 
 Time Machine, 
 
 Mark Twain. 
 
 Mark Twain. 
 H. G. Wells. 
 H. G. Wells. 
 H. G. Wells. 
 
142 PSYCHOLOGY— Personal and Essential 
 
 Dracula, Bram Stoker. (Doubleday, Page & 
 
 Co., Garden City, N. Y.) 
 Zanoni, Bullwer-Lytton. 
 
 Strange Story, Bullwer-Lytton. 
 
 Coming Race, Bullwer-Lytton. 
 
 Etidorhpa, John Uri Lloyd. 
 
 N. B. — Those books, the publishers of which I have not mentioned, 
 are available even in the smaller public libraries. In the larger cities, 
 it is likely that any of them can be secured without writing to the 
 publishers. 
 
 H. C. SHEPPARD, 
 Care The J. F. Rowny Press, 
 
 Los Angeles, Calif. 
 
 Psychology Made Practical. 
 
 By H. C. Sheppard (1919). 
 Psychology : Personal and Essential. 
 
 By H. C. Sheppard (1920). 
 
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