^ >* 
 
 d 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A' 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ! 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 \- .<$■' 
 
 -/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 •o <r y o » x* A <* ^o * x * 1 
 
 .3* -* A v ; 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 i « ;? vfc- -. / *'• "\ x ; 
 
 
 
 
 4? 
 
 W J * 
 
 'J' <V V 
 
 
 
 
 ^ V 
 
*L<LO 
 
 EMZABETII TOM'NE. 
 
YOU AND YOUR FORCES 
 
 Or 
 
 The Constitution of Man. 
 
 By 
 
 m 
 
 Elizabeth Towne. 
 
 "Bach in his separate star 
 Shall draw the thing as he sees it, for the God of 
 
 Things as they are." 
 — Kipling. 
 
 PRICE 50 CENTS. 
 
 ELIZABETH TOWNE, 
 HOI,YOKE, MASS. 
 
%i 
 
 31 1905 
 
 B. 
 
 Copyrighted 1905. Enlarged Edition. Elizabeth Towne, 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Can you ' * become as a little child ' ' ? Can you, for the 
 time being, lay aside all your preconceived opinions? 
 Can you let go all the authorities — theologians, scientists, 
 relatives and friends alike — upon whom you have been, 
 perhaps unconsciously, leaning ? Can you leave all these 
 and give these lessons your undivided attention? Only 
 so will you be materially enlightened by what you read, 
 whether it be these lessons or some other book. 
 
 You are not asked to repose a " blind faith," even for 
 the time, in what I write. But you are asked to bring 
 your own reason, and not another's, to bear upon the 
 propositions stated. You are asked simply to give your 
 best attention to the end that you may understand me. 
 Try to see how I arrive at these conclusions. After you 
 have finished the lessons use your own judgment about 
 accepting them as truth. Practice their teachings and 
 you will be convinced of the scientific side, even though 
 you do not accept all the theory. Evolve your own 
 theories. 
 
 There are many names for the First Cause of All 
 Things. There is one objection open to the use of any of 
 the old names — viz., that each bears to some certain class 
 of people a conception of First Cause which does not ac- 
 cord with my conception. ' ' Principle " is a dead nothing- 
 ness to some, although Webster defines it as "that from 
 which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or en- 
 
ergy. " ' ' Law, ' ' or " Law of Attraction, ' ' conveys much 
 the same idea. "Divinity" and "Deity" convey an idea 
 of something pure, outside and apart from creation itself. 
 ' ' Spirit ' ' seems intangible ; ' ' matter ' ' too gross. If I say 
 "God," most people imagine a sort of exaggerated and 
 glorified man away off somewhere on a literal great white 
 throne. Many people who deny such a conception show 
 in the course of conversation that they do entertain some 
 such idea, even though it may be unconsciously. For this 
 reason I use no name constantly and all names as I wish, 
 with a view to helping my readers out of the old rut 
 conceptions. So do not be scared if you fail to see your 
 old pet name for The Infinite First Cause. 
 
 Elizabeth Towne. 
 
GENESIS, 
 
 Is there an individual who has developed intelligence 
 enough to be able to read these lessons, who needs to have 
 proved to him by processes of reason that there is a single 
 unitary Cause behind the visible universe ? Then let him 
 seek first the scientist and the theologian. The natural 
 scientist, with telescope and microscope, geologist's ham- 
 mer and scalpel, has worked his tedious way to the very 
 borders of the realm of causation. The religionist, with 
 the eye of faith, has caught glimpses of it. Neither needs 
 proof that It Is. 
 
 But who has sounded or measured it or understood its 
 workings ? Here scalpel, microscope and the eye of faith 
 are equally useless. Only reason, with the " things that 
 are seen ' ' for its premises, can find a satisfactory answer. 
 
 Reason divests the universe of all form, puts itself in 
 the place of First Cause, and then carefully rebuilds 
 within itself the Whole. After clearing the universe of 
 all forms, Reason proceeds to "take stock" before re- 
 building. When lo ! she discovers none but herself to do 
 the work and nothing but herself out of which to build ! 
 She finds also that what she thought was her nature, 
 Reason, has disappeared also, for reason is dependent 
 upon experience for its existence. Thus she arrives at 
 the conclusion that, while she is potentially the whole 
 universe, "in the beginning" she was omnipresent mind, 
 
6 
 
 without experience from which to reason, therefore con- 
 scions only that "I AM." 
 
 We thus arrive at the conclusion that the original 
 energy, or cause, is Mind, in which are all things, of 
 which they all are built and by which they all are held 
 together. All is mind. Matter itself is mind. 
 
 Pending further knowledge, I am inclined to believe 
 that the "nebular hypothesis" of creation is correct as 
 far as it goes. It is reasonable. But correct or incorrect, 
 it will serve as a means of illustrating the processes by 
 which mind creates form. 
 
 Imagine all "matter" dissolved and diffused equally 
 through space as a '" gaseous vapor. ' ' Think of this vast, 
 empty and yet full "space" as inexperienced mind — 
 mind unconscious of anything other than itself — I AM. 
 
 A gaseous vapor is "matter" — or mind — at a very 
 high rate of vibration. "Matter is atomic," says the 
 scientist, "there is only matter." Ask him what an 
 atom is and he will tell you it is a sort of little whirlwind 
 in the ether — an infinitesimal cyclone of infinite velocity. 
 What is that which rotates at such infinite and tiny 
 speed? Mind, mind, MIND. What is mind? Every- 
 thing and no-thing. Mind is First Cause. If you are 
 not satisfied with that, seek further. 
 
 Imagine these little cyclones diffused throughout 
 space , each a tiny point of consciousness in Mind. Noth- 
 ing more. 
 
 Did you ever stand beside a moving train and feel the 
 suction of its motion? Each of these tiny atoms would 
 have a suction — an attraction — for anything that came 
 within the circle of its influence. It is as unlikely that 
 two atoms move at exactly the same rate of speed as that 
 two persons or two leaves are exactly alike. The atom of 
 
greatest speed — the livest atom — would have the strong- 
 est suction, or attraction. Others would bo ''negative" 
 to it, that is, influenced by it. For this reason the most 
 active little cyclones would attract the less active ones 
 nearer to them, the less active ones ' ' catching ' ' the quicker 
 rate of motion ; at the same time acting as a brake upon 
 the action of the positive atoms, so bringing them to a 
 point of vibration in sympathy with each other. As in 
 answer to attraction they came closely together, each 
 would become conscious of the other. 
 
 All consciousness is presumably caused by this fric- 
 tion. Gradually as they become accustomed to this, each 
 would again become unconscious of the other, just as we 
 are unconscious of a motion when it has become a habit — 
 the motion of the earth, for instance. 
 
 Now, can you see how those two little points of con- 
 sciousness, of I AM, have merged into one larger I AM? 
 And this larger I AM, or ego, would forever be conscious 
 of nothing else than itself unless it attracted still other 
 atoms to itself, the friction of which causes more sensa- 
 tion — more life — more experience. 
 
 By the unconscious action of the law of attraction the 
 little egos keep growing by accretion. They are mind, 
 therefore they reason upon their sensations. Experience 
 teaches them that it is easier to bring into their organiza- 
 tion an atom rotating at nearly their own rate of speed 
 than it is to bring one rotating at a much lower rate. 
 There is less inertia to be overcome. So "natural selec- 
 tion" comes into working order. The tiny mind does 
 not, of course, reason upon the whys of its action — that 
 is reserved for a more complex intelligence. 
 
 All organizations, from the least to the greatest, are 
 mental statements of experience, and grow by — 
 
8 
 
 1. Attracting or drawing to themselves according to 
 their power, from the whole universe. This is Will, or 
 Desire, in the human ego, and in all others as well. 
 
 2. Using discrimination according to past experi- 
 ence. 
 
 3. Arranging its acquisition in most convenient 
 form. 
 
 4. Binding together in one consciousness. 
 
 5. By reason projecting an ideal, which is always an 
 improvement upon realization. 
 
 This ideal causes dissatisfaction, which divides the 
 attention, thus relaxing cohesion and causing disintegra- 
 tion. This disintegration will be just sufficient to permit 
 a change, if he trusts his ideals. Otherwise the dissatis- 
 faction will be great enough to produce complete disin- 
 tegration, or "death." 
 
 His ideal, held in consciousness hopefully, trans- 
 mutes him into a higher statement of being — he reorgan- 
 izes himself. 
 
 These seven steps are repeated eternally, producing 
 growth or evolution. 
 
II. 
 
 YOU AND THE FATHER ARE ONE. 
 
 In lesson one I stated that growth progresses in an 
 orderly manner according to certain fixed laws. I know 
 this by studying myself. Every other individual may 
 learn not only these laws, but all other truth as well by 
 a careful study of himself. Victor Hugo has aptly said 
 that "Man is an infinite little copy of God"; which is 
 equivalent to saying that man is an epitome of the uni- 
 verse as it is and the potential of all creations to come. 
 Man is a microscopic writing of all history. By carefully 
 deciphering himself he is able to understand all else. 
 
 There is one universal mind which fills space and out 
 of which all things are made, in which they all are, and 
 by which all are held in form as long as is best and then 
 dissolved and transmuted into higher statements of truth. 
 The invisible is the cause, the thinker; the visible is the 
 effect, the thought. The thinker and his thought are 
 inseparable ; — they are ' ' One ' ' as Jesus said. • ' I and the 
 Father are one." The "Father" then — the invisible 
 thinker or mind — being the Cause of all things, is the 
 actor ; the form or organization being that which is acted 
 upon. Universal mind thinks the universe into forms, 
 which are mental statements or recognition of itself. 
 Thus the real I of all things is Universal Mind, God the 
 Law — the same I behind, or in, men, animals, plants, or 
 crystals. 
 
 Where does the individual come in then ? Were you 
 
10 
 
 ever so intensely interested in any piece of work that you 
 forgot yourself? That is practically what happened to 
 universal mind when it began to think the universe into 
 form. What was "in the beginning" a nebulous con- 
 sciousness that I AM was gradually formed into state- 
 ments or expressed ideas of WHAT I am. The latent 
 began to manifest. Just as you or I might become so 
 intensely interested in one idea that all others and ourself 
 also would be forgotten, so universal mind in an individ- 
 ual, or expressed idea, would lose consciousness of all 
 else than itself, and other forms as they came into rela- 
 tion with it. Did you ever read "Sara Crewe," by 
 Frances Hodgson Burnett? A poor, forlorn, neglected 
 orphan lives in splendor in imagination. So rapt is she 
 in the beauties of her imaginary surroundings that she 
 is perfectly oblivious of the real and herself. Mrs. Bur- 
 nett is scientific in her conclusion. A wealthy neighbor 
 becomes cognizant through his East India servant, of 
 the child's surroundings and makes her dream real. So 
 intense had been her interest in the ideal that she is not 
 even surprised at first when she walks into her little 
 attic room which has been transformed into a bower of 
 splendid beautj^. Her idea held steadfastly became the 
 real. The intense absorption of this child of fiction 
 illustrates, in a measure, how universal mind lost con- 
 sciousness of itself as a whole in following out individ- 
 ual ideas. "Man is God's idea," some one has said. 
 Man, the idea, will by reason complete the circle and come 
 again to the consciousness that there is only One and I 
 AM that One. This consciousness is probably what the 
 Buddhist means by "Nirvana." 
 
 Do you realize that the unseen is the source of all the 
 power manifest in the visible? The object of these les- 
 
11 
 
 sons is to help awaken man to recognize and calculate 
 from this invisible, all potent part of himself instead of 
 continuing a veritable "worm of the dust," dependent 
 upon what knowledge he has acquired, more or less un- 
 consciously, up to the present time — dependent upon 
 what has been done instead of drawing upon this un- 
 recognized self and so doing more than has been done. 
 
 All progress has been made thus far by a blind de- 
 pendence upon the invisible, omnipresent self ; and intel- 
 ligent recognition of our source of power will enable us to 
 manifest such wonders as we cannot even conceive of 
 now. 
 
 What man has conceived to be a dependence upon 
 "God" is nothing more or less than dependence upon 
 his real and as yet unmanifested Self. In his ignorance 
 he has located "God" outside of himself. The more 
 primitive his knowledge, the farther away has he con- 
 ceived ' ' God " to be. " As a man thinketh so is he. ' ' As 
 he grows in intelligence "God" becomes nearer and 
 nearer to him in recognition, until, at length he knows 
 that he himself is God. There is no separateness. There 
 is only one. 
 
 Man's idea of his own impotence and separateness 
 from "God" is based upon the belief that his body is 
 himself, instead of being the work, the idea, of himself. 
 He himself includes his thought-built body, but he is 
 vastly more than he realizes. He is all. 
 
 Man's body being what he realizes of himself, it is 
 thought-built and modified by every passing fancy. It is 
 the negative pole of his being. 
 
 To be negative is to be attractive, receptive; to be 
 positive is to be active. Man is a complete magnet, hav- 
 ing his positive and negative poles in the unseen and the 
 
12 
 
 seen. When the connection between these poles is broken, 
 the body, no longer acted upon by the positive, is dis- 
 solved. The positive pole in the nnseen continues to act. 
 Wiser by experience he recreates on a higher plane — he 
 recognizes more of himself, makes a clearer statement of 
 truth. 
 
 Universal mind is the positive pole of the universe; 
 "matter," or consciousness is the negative pole. The 
 unexpressed is steadily, irresistibly, pressing out into ex- 
 pression. The invisible positive may be confidently 
 trusted to express itself. All the strivings and heartaches 
 of humanity are due to ignorance of this fact. Man has 
 inverted himself in his own imagination and tried 
 desperately to make the negative man, the body, the actor. 
 He could but fail and by his failure be led to doubt. 
 Doubt being the door by which knowledge enters, he is 
 learning that, by simple recognition of the truth that the 
 body is a medium instead of a source of power, he places 
 it in the proper relation to the positive to enable the posi- 
 tive to use it as a medium for doing what he wills. 
 "Knowledge is power." Kecognition is the coupling by 
 which we "hitch our wagon to a staiv 
 
 1 1 
 
13 
 
 III. 
 IN THE STILLNESS. 
 
 In the Uncreate are all things that ever were, that are, 
 or ever shall be. 
 
 The Uncreate is a limitless, pulsing sea of Energy, 
 with currents and cross-currents, waves and ripples and 
 depths of stillness. 
 
 What is stillness? 
 
 All is motion. Nothing is stationary. Stillness is 
 motion. 
 
 But stillness is motion so intense, vibration so high, 
 that ear nor eye nor nose nor tongue nor finger-tips can 
 register it. 
 
 Time was when those things which we hear now were 
 all in the stillness — in the silence. 
 
 Why! How can that be? 
 
 Because no ears were yet evolved. There were no 
 mechanisms for registering such fine energies. 
 
 The fine vibrations were present then, just as they are 
 now. 
 
 But they were in the stillness. 
 
 No form was conscious of them. 
 
 If nobody had listened in the silence, all things that 
 are in the noise now would have remained in the silence. 
 
 Listening in the silence caused ears to develop. 
 
 It was not the noise that developed the ears. Hands 
 never made them. 
 
 The silence made them. 
 
14 
 
 The silence — not the noise, not the visible — made all 
 things that ever were, or are. 
 
 The silence does not make ears and toss them out 
 into the noise by the handful. 
 
 Silence makes ears where there are places ready for 
 them. Anything will come out of silence when somebody 
 is ready for it. 
 
 There are more things in the silence, in the stillness, 
 than ever came out of it. 
 
 All these things are eager to get out into the noise — 
 they are pressing for expression. 
 
 Everything left in the silence now is much finer and 
 nicer and more enjoyable than anything that has thus far 
 come out into the noise. 
 
 Do you want something better than you ever had, or 
 saw, or tasted, or smelled, or felt? Have you tried all 
 these things and yet are not satisfied? Have you run to 
 and fro for satisfaction, for happiness, and failed to find 
 it? 
 
 If you are satisfied that you can't be satisfied with the 
 world as it is, then shut your eyes to the world as it is. 
 
 And do not call it an "evil" world because you are 
 not satisfied with it. 
 
 It is a good world, a beautiful world. It suits other 
 people. Let them enjoy it. After a while they will get 
 tired of it also, and follow you, perhaps. 
 
 There is just one place of refuge when one is tired of 
 the world as it is. 
 
 Go into the stillness. 
 
 The fine little breezes there are far more gentle and 
 more powerful than the winds and cyclones, floods and 
 earthquakes out in the noise. 
 
15 
 
 Go into the stillness and feel these fine little breezes. 
 
 ,They are always "clean winds." 
 
 They will waft away the malaria of dissatisfaction 
 and the fogs of ignorance from your brain. 
 
 They are refreshing little zephyrs. They bring ' ' heal- 
 ing in their wings." 
 
 Stay in the silence a long time. 
 
 Let these gentle winds of energy flee past you and 
 eddy about you. 
 
 They are wonderful magicians. 
 
 They will build you new organs of sense — new eyes, 
 much finer than the ones you have now, with which to see 
 things in the silence ; new ears that will hear things never 
 yet told in the noise; "things impossible for man to 
 utter." 
 
 Sit still — don't come out of the stillness yet — there 
 are more things the holy, still breezes will do for you. 
 
 They will give you a new tongue, a silvery tongue ; 
 tipped with love; there is lots of love in the Silence — 
 more than there is of noise in the Noise. 
 
 This new tongue will enable you to tell in the Noise 
 — to all people — the things before ' ' impossible to utter. ' ' 
 
 Thus you will become the medium through which 
 more of the beauties of the Invisible shall become visible. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 I wrote a nice "scientific" lesson three; explaining 
 the first step in growth as stated in lesson one : 
 
 ' ' All organizations, from the least to the greatest, are 
 mental statements of experience, and grow by — 
 
 1. Attracting or drawing to themselves, according to 
 
16 
 
 their power, from the whole universe. This is Will or 
 Desire, in the human ego, and in all others as well. ,, 
 
 This "scientific" lesson was too "scientific," and not 
 plain enough to suit me, so I "went into the stillness" to 
 revise it and "received," — i. e., attracted or drew — out 
 of the silence the above prose poem; illustrative rather 
 than explanatory, of the first step of the Law of Growth. 
 
 If the reader will take this lesson with him into that 
 same stillness, and absorb it rather than try to under- 
 stand it, the still forces will make clear to him this first 
 step in growth. 
 
 IV. 
 GROWTH. 
 
 The Uncreate is a pulsing sea of energy, never still; 
 all degrees of motion everywhere present. 
 
 The Create is as much of this energy as has become 
 conscious of itself. 
 
 Consciousness is produced by the friction of energy 
 upon energy; there being only energy, i. e., living sub- 
 stance, in the universe. 
 
 This is illustrated by the currents in a river. If the 
 bed were perfectly even the flow would also be even. The 
 stream would be "unconscious" of its motion. The un- 
 even bed causes currents. Where these currents interfere 
 with each other there is "consciousness"; an eddy is 
 formed. 
 
 ' ' Consciousness is produced by the friction of energy 
 upon form," says C. C. Post. 
 
 Imagine the eddy formed in a stream as having the 
 
17 
 
 power to remain an eddy even though the currents change 
 and cease to sweep past in the manner by which the eddy 
 was first formed, and you will have a fair idea of the 
 mode of creation of the first primitive forms. 
 
 That was the beginning of the individual. 
 
 He would have eddied on forever as he was set going 
 had it not been for the further action upon him of this 
 pulsating sea of energy. 
 
 This little conscious eddy, enjoying the sensation of 
 consciousness, wills to continue it as he first experienced 
 it. Here discrimination, the second step in growth ; order 
 the third, and cohesion the fourth step, are plainly illus- 
 trated. 
 
 As long as this primitive individual chose to remain 
 as he was he remained. He could have perpetuated him- 
 self for all eternity if he had chosen to do so ; so great is 
 the power of the individual. 
 
 What happens to you and me when we have enjoyed 
 a pleasurable sensation for a length of time, without vari- 
 ation ? We become ' ' tired. ' ' 
 
 The primitive eddy became tired of his new sensation 
 for the same reason. 
 
 All this time the ceaseless energy of the universe 
 played about him without effect. He stood like a solid 
 rock in a stream, enjoying himself, oblivious, unawakened 
 to anything beyond his own sensation or consciousness. 
 
 He grew less and less satisfied with himself, his sen- 
 sation, and began to desire a change. What change he 
 desired he did not know ; never having experienced but 
 one kind of sensation. 
 
 This indefinite Something of his desires, is to him an 
 ideal. 
 
 The more he thinks on it the less he enjoys himself. 
 
18 
 
 His ideal causes him to lose his grip, as it were, on 
 himself. He does not longer choose to remain as he 
 is. Choice being Will, and Will being the only power 
 that holds together the individual, he begins to disinte- 
 grate. He softens up. If he were a man (as he will be 
 some day), we would say of him, "He is all broken up." 
 
 Now this living sea of energy gets a chance at him. 
 
 Energy plays upon him; big waves sweep him from 
 his old resting place ; he tumbles around among other dis- 
 satisfied individuals and gets the jagged edges worn 
 smooth ; gentler and more powerful waves play over him ; 
 finer and yet finer forces play through him, changing all 
 the currents of his being. 
 
 The friction of all this energy upon the old form of 
 consciousness, causes new consciousness; new sensations 
 which were impossible to him as long as self-satisfaction 
 held him so closely together that finer energies had not 
 opportunity to affect him. 
 
 By the action of energy upon his old consciousness or 
 form, his vague "ideal" — the "something more" he has 
 craved — assumes form. He becomes conscious of what 
 the more is, which he craves. 
 
 His ideal is always an improvement upon the old 
 reality. 
 
 Why ? Can you not see that his ideal is the result of 
 finer forces playing upon the old form? Hence the old 
 form is refined — made finer ; which is equivalent to saying 
 that the old consciousness is refined — made finer. 
 
 The finer the force, the more intangible, the more 
 powerful it is. This is proved by all observation. If you 
 doubt it study the "material" sciences. 
 
 Tli is fact proves two things : 
 
 1. That the primitive individual must have been a 
 
19 
 
 result of the action of the coarser forces upon each other, 
 because the coarser forces, from steam on down to dust, 
 are most tangible to man. 
 
 2. All change must be from fine to finer, from high 
 to higher, because a form produced by the action of any 
 degree of energy could not possibly be changed by the 
 action upon it of a lower, or less powerful, degree of 
 energy. 
 
 Think well upon this statement. It is the scientific 
 reason why all is good. 
 
 It is also the explanation of the fact that man cannot 
 righteously judge according to outward appearances. 
 
 All acts, as well as all form or consciousness, are pro- 
 duced by the action of invisible forces, always higher, 
 upon visible or realized forces. Only so can growth man- 
 ifest. 
 
 Granting this as the process of growth, retrogression 
 is impossible, unthinkable. 
 
 Disintegration is not retrogression, but progression. 
 
 Disease, sorrow, anger, fury, despair, death, are the 
 effect of the action of finer forces upon realized forces; 
 and always precede the realization of the higher, until 
 such time as the individual knows the law of his growth ; 
 when he will recognize his source, and 
 
 Let 
 
 The higher forces 
 play upon him 
 
 Without resistance. 
 
 He will turn, as a child from a discarded toy, from the 
 already realized to the ideal ; thus reducing resistance to a 
 minimum. 
 
 Eesistance is the cause of all dis-ease; sin, sorrow, 
 sickness and dissolution. 
 
20 
 
 The cause of resistance is fear. 
 
 The cause of fear is a lack of knowledge of the abso- 
 lute certainty of progress ; the absolute certainty that all 
 is Good. 
 
 As the individual's realization of the Law of his 
 growth increases, fear diminishes. 
 
 As fear diminishes, resistance to change diminishes. 
 
 As resistance to change ceases, change produces no 
 dis-ease. 
 
 This law works to the hair's breadth and immutably. 
 The Truth 
 
 Will set you 
 free from sin and death ; and nothing else can. 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 Quit trying to put out fear, and seek understanding. 
 Give yourself up to the play of the higher forces whose 
 action upon your present consciousness produces higher 
 understanding. 
 
 WHAT GOD IS GOOD FOR. 
 
 The Uncreate is not Wisdom ; it is not understanding. 
 
 It is dumb, blind, formless, will-less, ignorant Energy. 
 
 It is "God." 
 
 It is the potential of all things ; just as Niagara is the 
 potential of all the electric lights, street railways and 
 manufactories the United States will ever need. 
 
 God and Niagara are, relatively speaking, equally 
 ignorant. 
 
21 
 
 Intelligence is a matter of consciousness. The word 
 means in-told ; formed in. 
 
 Niagara and God, the Uncreate, both " happened,' ' i. 
 e., unconsciously, swirled and boiled and did a lot of 
 things (and do yet) without knowing what they are 
 doing. 
 
 They made little ' ' eddies, ' ' as I showed you in the last 
 
 And where these little "eddies" are formed, in God, 
 or Niagara, God and Niagara are conscious. 
 
 As much of God as is in one of these little eddies in 
 Him (or it), wants to keep it eddying. 
 
 By the action of the remainder of God, as yet uncon- 
 sciousness, upon these little eddies, they grow, and grow, 
 into more consciousness; with more and more complex 
 motions, producing more and more complex conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 This is the process of forming intelligence. 
 
 We might kneel and, with clasped hands and stream- 
 ing eyes, beseech God, the Uncreate, to do something for 
 us — beseech until we died. ^ 
 
 He, or It, would answer us just as Niagara would 
 under similar circumstances — by rushing on blindly, 
 dumbly, ignorantly, as if we had not besought. 
 
 The only way to get anything you want is to under- 
 stand God, the Uncreate, and use him. Just as we are 
 understanding Niagara and using it — and making it an- 
 swer our prayers. 
 
 God is Good, but he is good for no-thing. 
 
 It takes God and you, or God and me, to be good for 
 something. 
 
 God is asleep. We must waken him to activity. 
 
 He is Almighty Energy. But he needs direction. 
 
22 
 
 The sons of men are the Board of Directors. 
 
 We study the situation. We look over what has been 
 done and, behold, it does not satisfy. 
 
 We see room for great improvement. We desire to 
 improve. 
 
 Having besought loudly and long, without result, we 
 at last have wakened to the Truth that if anything is im- 
 proved we shall have to improve it. 
 
 We have also besought each other to improve present 
 evils. And, behold, each has failed us. 
 
 We are constrained, each for himself, to see what he 
 can do to better conditions. 
 
 So each for himself has rushed wildly up and down 
 trying to reform everybody else — and failed. 
 
 There is just one thing left to try; each for himself 
 must tap the source of power for that wherewith to im- 
 prove himself — the only thing over which he may hope to 
 have power. 
 
 Why, as each seeks to perfect himself, the Whole will 
 be perfected. Of course! How stupid not to think of 
 that before ! But we are learning. 
 
 So each man for himself studies the Create, sees the 
 shortcomings, projects an Ideal; goes into the Silence 
 where the exhaustless Energy free to all flows unceas- 
 ingly, and there appropriates as much of God as he de- 
 sires, with which to manifest his Idea. 
 
 Man and God are ONE. Without man, the Son, God 
 would be blind, formless, ignorant always. 
 
 Without God, the soundless reservoir of Energy, man 
 would have no source of power, and be unable to grow. 
 
 But man is, and God is, and Man and God are 
 .ill rightl 
 
23 
 
 VI. 
 INSPIRATION. 
 
 "There is a Spirit in man, and the inspiration of the 
 Almighty giveth understanding. ' ' — Elihu in the Book of 
 Job. 
 
 "There is a Spirit in man which in-spires the Un- 
 create Spirit just as the lungs in-spire oxygen ; and just 
 as the oxygen received causes chemical changes in the 
 body, so the Uncreate Spirit received causes change in the 
 thought." That is my version of what Elihu said. I 
 like Elihu 's version better than my own, but mine is more 
 scientific and easily understood; while his is poetic and 
 no less true. 
 
 Where do you suppose that Spirit is located? Why, 
 in the highest, of course — in the top of the head. 
 
 There are lots of spirits in man. Good spirits and 
 bad spirits — which are Good spirits too. Every little cell 
 in the body incarnates a spirit. Every group of cells is 
 the incarnation of a larger spirit — an ego — composed of 
 an aggregation of harmonious spirits; just as every so- 
 ciety has a "spirit," even though each separate individ- 
 ual has a "spirit" — is a spirit. 
 
 The whole body is an organization of spirits. 
 
 The body is spirit. 
 
 Spirit is mind. 
 
 Mind is spirit. 
 
 There is only one, 
 
24 
 
 The upper brain, the ideal brain, is a pair of lungs for 
 breathing into the body more of Uncreate Spirit. 
 
 Each portion of the brain beginning with the Solar 
 Plexus, has in its turn been the Ideal brain, the Highest. 
 
 The consciousness has lived in each one of these 
 brains in its turn. 
 
 The consciousness is ever aspiring — reaching up. 
 
 This aspiration is a drawing in of finer forces than 
 have before been realized. 
 
 These finer forces, drawn out of the Uncreate into the 
 Create, cause actual chemical changes in all the tissues 
 of the body; disorganizing; and re-organizing upon a 
 higher plane. 
 
 Do you remember what happens on the window pane 
 on a cold morning, when a fire is kindled ? The pane acts 
 as a condenser, changing the form of the moisture in the 
 air; it becomes tangible. Wherever heat and cold, pos- 
 itive and negative, come into contact there is a precipi- 
 tation. 
 
 The surface of the brain is this point of contact be- 
 tween positive and negative, Uncreate and Create, Spirit 
 and Matter. 
 
 The positive ever acts upon the negative ; the higher 
 and finer forces upon the lower or coarser. 
 
 The natural attitude of man is one of aspiration tow- 
 ard the Uncreate and command toward the Create ; nega- 
 tive to the Highest, positive to all beneath. 
 
 Through all the lower orders of life this natural atti- 
 tude is maintained. Growth is consequently healthy and 
 rapid. 
 
 As intelligence developed, man gradually turned al- 
 most his entire attention to the Create, thus shutting him- 
 self off from the source of his power. He denied his 
 
25 
 
 Highest and centered his attention in the already-mani- 
 fest. 
 
 Thus he became negative to the seen and positive to 
 the unseen ; reversing the natural order. 
 
 Mankind in general has done this. Here and there a 
 wise one has arisen and warned them of their mistake. 
 Few heeded. 
 
 But experience is a thorough teacher. "Famine and 
 plague, tribulation and anguish'' have resulted, until 
 man is compelled in sheer desperation to again lift up his 
 attention to The Highest. 
 
 Man has denied his Highest, his Ideal, his Uncreate, 
 until experience has taught him that nowhere else can he 
 find satisfaction. 
 
 So he arises again to The Highest, the top of the head, 
 and in-spires the Life which has awaited him all this 
 time and from which he has turned. 
 
 The action of the Uncreate Spirit upon the highest 
 brain so far evolved in the individual, produces in con- 
 sciousness — in the brain — the individual's Ideals. 
 
 These Ideals are the most potent forces of his being. 
 
 Attention is the door by which the Ideal enters the 
 reality. 
 
 He who looks with steadfastness to his Highest Ideal, 
 will with the utmost certainty realize it. 
 
 And as he approaches its realization he will find still 
 higher Ideals forming within him. 
 
 The free and constant in-spiration of the Almighty 
 giveth him higher and yet higher understanding. 
 
26 
 
 VII. 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF INSPIRATION. 
 
 Every dis-ease possible to mankind, from "bilious- 
 ness " to a cork leg or impecuniosity, is the result of tem- 
 perament. 
 
 There is no way to heal permanently any unpleasant 
 condition, but by understanding and correcting tempera- 
 ment. 
 
 A healer of any kind, M. D., D. D., or M. S. D., may 
 succeed in alleviating the condition, just as one might an 
 unsightly sore by removing the scab which has formed. 
 
 But as long as the cause remains unchanged the forces 
 are steadily at work which in due time will produce again 
 the dis-easeful condition. 
 
 And over and over the process is repeated, more and 
 more emphatically each time, until the first cause is at 
 last found and eliminated. 
 
 Every phrenologist, astrologist and palmist knows 
 that each temperament has its peculiar diseases and ex- 
 periences. But it remained for the student of mind to 
 discover that these diseases and experiences are the result 
 of temperament, and can be entirely corrected. 
 
 A man's temperament is simply the sum of his fixed 
 habits of thought. 
 
 The most of his habits of thought are received from 
 his parents and attendants while he is too young to con- 
 sciously discriminate. 
 
 The habits of thought of his parents are to the child, 
 
27 
 
 before and after birth, just what the earth and air and 
 water are to the seed; the parents are the environment 
 of the child. 
 
 Just as the seed selects from its environment what it 
 feels is best adapted to its uses, so the unborn ego absorbs 
 from the parents that which harmonizes with it. 
 
 That this is true is amply proved by the thousands of 
 cases of twins ; who, given the selfsame environment, yet 
 are, even in infancy, so unlike each other. Each has 
 assimilated from the parents' temperament (habits of 
 thought) that which is related to itself. 
 
 To me this fact is the strongest proof of the truth of 
 reincarnation. Why should children of one conception 
 choose different elements from the parents unless each is 
 governed in his selection by knowledge gained previ- 
 ously? Desire in some previous state of existence has 
 carried the ego to the particular persons whose thought 
 elements will gratify its desires, true or untrue. 
 
 As each individual embodies both truth and error, it 
 is plain to be seen how two children may assimilate such 
 different temperaments from the same parents. 
 
 The parents are a magnet. The disembodied souls 
 having in them that which relates them to the magnet, 
 thus find, by the working of the omnipresent Law of 
 Attraction, their own particular place in the universe; 
 the one environment which affords them the opportunities 
 they need for further development. 
 
 Each individual temperament has its habits of true 
 thought and its habits of untrue thought ; each particular 
 habit attracting experiences, environment, after its kind. 
 The correspondence of not only bodily diseases, but out- 
 ward experiences, to the temperament, is absolutely fixed. 
 It is governed by unalterable law — the Law of Attraction. 
 
28 
 
 You can no more change that law than you can change 
 the orbit of the earth. "What you have sown, that shall 
 you reap. ' ' All the worrying and fretting and planning 
 and striving to evade the law is worse than useless ; for 
 that very striving is developing another untrue habit of 
 thought whose attracted experience will be unpleasant, 
 and absolutely certain to find you. 
 
 There is just one way to successfully evade unpleasant 
 conditons, be they of body or environment; and that is 
 to correct the temperament. Every thought which passes 
 the mind's eye has its place in the temperamental struc- 
 ture. 
 
 The changing of habits of thought is a matter of 
 forming new habits. 
 
 The forming of all habits of thought is done by con- 
 stant effort of the objective, every-day, surface mind. 
 
 As a mode of thought becomes habitual it sinks grad- 
 ually into the sub-mind; where it acts unconsciously to 
 us. It is said that ninety-five per cent of our thinking is 
 done in this sub-self ; the habit mind. And all this think- 
 ing has been set up there by the conscious five per cent 
 of our thought, in our past lives ; both in this and in pre- 
 vious incarnations or states of being. 
 
 The objective five per cent thought — the creative and 
 directive thought — is done by the use of the upper brain. 
 
 The sub-thinking is done in all other parts of the 
 body. This is no figure of speech. Every organ and 
 ganglion and cell of the body thinks. And it thinks just 
 as it has been taught by its teacher, that mighty five per 
 cent, objective, every-day mind — the one which is taking 
 in the ideas here written. 
 
 The whole body will continue to think and feel just as 
 it is taught to think and feel. 
 
29 
 
 If any change is made in the body it is the result of a 
 changed objective mind. 
 
 Whatever shows forth in the body was sent there by 
 objective mind. 
 
 Every conscious thought is making bodily conditions. 
 
 The body is the obedient servant of the higher brain. 
 It is never master, except as the upper brain allows it to 
 usurp authority; which still places the responsibility in 
 the upper brain. 
 
 The conscious, objective mind in the cerebrum is the 
 positive or active pole of the magnet man; all beneath 
 that is negative ; that is, acted upon. 
 
 The upper brain is and always has been Lord and 
 Master of the body. 
 
 Does that impress you as too " materialistic?" But 
 in reality there is nothing materialistic — "Man does not 
 live in a physical world, but in a physical conception of 
 the world." 
 
 Listen now: While the upper brain is Lord of the 
 body there is yet a higher, which is Lord of All. The 
 i am that i am is positive to the brain as the brain is to 
 the body. 
 
 The highest brain is the present consciousness of the 
 I AM. This is just as true in the lower order of life as in 
 man himself ; as true in primitive man as in Christ. The 
 I AM THAT I AM is constantly working upon the high- 
 est in the individual, to unfold, to make conscious more 
 of itself, the One, to that individual. 
 
 The I AM neither slumbers nor sleeps. It acts with 
 omnipresent power, inexorable power, loving power, upon 
 the brain — pressing for recognition. This it is to which 
 Jesus referred when he declared, "Behold I (the I AM) 
 stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open 
 
30 
 
 unto me I will come unto him and sup with him and he 
 with me. ' ' 
 
 "We are told that the atmosphere presses upon us at 
 the rate of fifteen pounds to the square inch. Who can 
 measure the mighty force of the I AM THAT I AM ? It 
 will not be denied. Sooner or later each individual recog- 
 nizes its insistent knocking and opens the door that it 
 may come in. And "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 nor hath it entered into the heart of man," the glories 
 awaiting him who opens himself to receive from his 
 I AM. 
 
 The door through which I AM enters is in the upper 
 brain. He does not enter as a person, or even as an idea, 
 but rather as a stream of finest energy — most positive 
 energy. 
 
 The action of this stream of finest energy upon the 
 already organized brain, refines it, dissolving and resolv- 
 ing its actual tissues into new Ideas. Ideas are organiza- 
 tions of thought force, and ' ' thoughts are things ' ' ; that 
 is, they are substantial just as the body is, only more so ! 
 — namely, finer and more powerful. 
 
 What is conceived in the brain by the action of the I 
 AM is sent out from the brain, through the nerve high- 
 ways, into all the body. Being finer, and so positive, it 
 acts upon the negative body tissues just as the I AM acts 
 upon the brain; dis-solving and re-solving the tissues 
 after its own pattern — the "pattern given to thee in the 
 mount"; the mountain, or head. 
 
 The highest intelligence in each individual is his most 
 potent force ; the thought conceived by the action of his I 
 AM. It is the truth which the I AM has revealed to him. 
 He has gained it through the "soul sense." It is the 
 
31 
 
 direct result of inspiration ; the same kind of inspiration 
 that we read about. 
 
 The I AM has always been speaking to us in this way ; 
 to every being on earth or in the heavens. 
 
 But, because of our limited intelligence, we have 
 denied our highest thoughts as visionary and impractical. 
 Thus we have ignorantly forbidden them to incarnate in 
 the body. We have refused to receive the inspiration 
 given us, not knowing its divine values. 
 
 We have so made for ourselves a prison of the actual. 
 The actual has held us in its mighty womb, until we have 
 grown to such proportions that we must be "born again" 
 — "born from above." 
 
 ' ' The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together 
 in pain until the manifestation of the sons of God. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the 
 Actual, and criest bitterly to the Gods for a kingdom 
 wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, the thing 
 thou seekest is already with thee, here or nowhere, couldst 
 thou only see ! ' ' — Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Look up, Sweetheart, and see. Look up to the Ideals 
 which are the source of all power ; look out upon the Act- 
 ual which is plastic to receive the impress of the Ideal. 
 Behold the Omnipotent power which is at thy disposal, 
 the realm in which thou mayest create ! 
 
 Caleb went into the promised land because he ' ' wholly 
 followed the Lord his God." Upon the same principle, 
 and only so, will we come into our promised land of im- 
 munity from disease of every form. 
 
 We must consciously rise to the Ideal realm, the high- 
 
32 
 
 est, and live there. For what we think upon, we embody. 
 We are what we have recognized ; we shall be what we are 
 recognizing today. We are choosing each moment either 
 our highest or something less. 
 
 Our highest thought, persisted in will change any 
 defect of temperament, and thus free us from disease and 
 death. "Let patience have her perfect work." 
 
 VIII. 
 DESIRE. 
 
 I wonder if you have realized yet that Reason is a 
 very poor guide ? The very highest intelligence is inade- 
 quate as director of even the everyday affairs of life. 
 The man who depends most absolutely upon his reason is 
 the very one who makes the most mistakes. And then he 
 wails, "Why is it that when I always try so hard to do 
 right everything turns out wrong?" 
 
 Reason is a blind guide and through allowing reason 
 to usurp the throne as director, all the disease and unhap- 
 piness that is, has come into the world. 
 
 And yet reason is altogether good, and infallible — as 
 far as it goes. It does not go far enough to be a safe 
 guide to any man. 
 
 Reason's after-sight is better than its foresight; be- 
 cause experience is the teacher of reason. Experience 
 furnishes the premises from which reason draws its con- 
 clusions. 
 
 Every hour man is passing through new and hitherto 
 
33 
 
 untried experiences. Not until he has passed them has he 
 sufficient data for correct conclusions. 
 
 Therefore man must have a better guide than reason, 
 if he would avoid mistakes. 
 
 Man has instinctively recognized this and evolved a 
 God to do his leading for him. 
 
 As each new experience is added to his stock of 
 knowledge man has re-arranged his concept of God. His 
 God is the product of his reason, and is small or great 
 according to the premises he has to reason from. 
 
 In this way man at last has evolved the conception 
 that God is the law inherent in each atom of the universe ; 
 the Law of Attraction by which we are held in form, or 
 dissolved at the bidding of a stronger attraction, only to 
 be again organized. 
 
 The Law must be our guide, and the enlightener of 
 reason. 
 
 But how are we to know the mind of the Law, and 
 recognize its leadings? 
 
 The Law is inherent in each atom of the universe, and 
 in each organization of atoms. The Law manifest is the 
 simple sensation we call Desire. 
 
 Desire is the voice of God. Desire is the Law of 
 Attraction recognized. 
 
 Desire is the unreasoning and unerring cry of the ego 
 — every ego, from the original atom to the Christ man — 
 for that which is related to itself; for that which is a 
 necessity in the process of unfoldment. The blade of 
 grass desires the sap, without which it must die. The 
 animal desires its prey. And each of these gratifies its 
 desires, and unfolds normally and quickly. 
 
 But man refuses to gratify his desires, and conse- 
 quently gets into all kinds of troubles — i. e., new experi- 
 
34 
 
 ences. The more he denies his desires, the more experi- 
 ence he gets — new premises from which to reason. 
 
 Desire, whether gratified or not, is the enlightener of 
 reason. 
 
 Desire denied, is perverted and brings bitter experi- 
 ence. Desire gratified brings healthy experience. All 
 experience teaches. 
 
 Reason has for ages denied desire its right to rule. 
 The result is a multiplication and complication of ills, 
 physical and environmental. 
 
 From this bitterness reason is learning her mistake, 
 and in due time will again enthrone Desire as ruler — then 
 shall the individual experience ' ' Paradise Regained. ' ' 
 
 Every organism has a conscious and a sub-conscious 
 mind. The conscious mind is employed in gaining new 
 experience. 
 
 As the new is gained it gradually descends into the 
 sub-mind, the habit mind, and there functions as instinct, 
 desire. Instinct is the knowing quality of Desire. Desire 
 is the active quality of Instinct. The two are one. 
 
 Nothing ever descends into the sub-mind, the habit 
 mind, until it has been first completely demonstrated and 
 accepted by conscious mind. 
 
 The conscious mind therefore, while it is ever engaged 
 with highest knowledge yet attained, is of necessity less 
 reliable than the sub-mind, for the reason that its deduc- 
 tions are not yet demonstrated, or proved. The moment 
 they are proved they become a part of the instinct mind, 
 the sub-mind. 
 
 Through all past ages the individual has acquired 
 knowledge by this process. 
 
35 
 
 In the sub-mind is stored all the wisdom of these ages 
 of experience. 
 
 This sub-mind is the human body. Every atom in 
 the body, and organization of atoms, every organ, is the 
 storehouse of its own peculiar kind of knowledge, all 
 gained and tried and accepted in past ages, by the con- 
 scious mind, the reasoning mind. 
 
 It is said by psychologists that ninety-five per cent 
 of our thinking is done sub-consciously. 
 
 All this sub-conscious thought is tried and proved. 
 Therefore it is more reliable as far as it goes, than the 
 conscious reasoning. 
 
 All sub-conscious knowledge is connected with the 
 conscious mind, and can be recalled, remembered at the 
 bidding of conscious mind. 
 
 The only reason that this is not a demonstrated fact 
 with every individual, is that reason has denied a hearing 
 to this previously acquired knowledge. It has more or 
 less completely divorced itself from its own previous con- 
 clusions, by simple denial. Here is the little Garden of 
 Eden story enacted — woman (instinct, intuition, desire, 
 tried wisdom) taken from the side of man (reason) after- 
 ward subservient to him ; reason wills to be self-sufficient, 
 but is tried by desire ; falls ; is cast out of Eden (innocent 
 self -gratification) ; wanders, an outcast, dragging Desire 
 captive; but finally redeemed again by Desire; At-one- 
 ment ; Paradise regained. 
 
 How shall we open up this knowledge stored in the 
 sub-mind, that we may have its premises, as well as our 
 daily newly acquired premises, to reason from? 
 
 By understanding and desiring, instead of denying, 
 the voice of instinctive wisdom. 
 
 Every atom of knowledge stored in the body, the sub- 
 
36 
 
 mind, has its little cry for more ! More ! This little cry- 
 is desire. All these atoms of tried knowledge, wisdom, 
 unite in one great desire for something as yet unattained. 
 This something is to the individual what the sap is to the 
 tree — its life ; that whereby it grows. 
 
 To deny this desire its gratification is to refuse life to 
 the organization. Man grows only by desire gratified. 
 
 Desire is the Law recognized and is unerring ever. 
 
 Desire gratified brings new experience, affording new 
 material for reason to consider. To deny desire is to shut 
 off from reason its only means of orderly development. 
 
 Desire will not be denied. It is omnipotent. Through 
 all these ages when man has tried to deny Desire, it has 
 tempted him and made him "fall" in spite of himself. 
 And every fall has been upward. 
 
 Man has grown by gratifying his desires — never by 
 repressing them. 
 
 Repression but makes Desire the greater, and sooner 
 or later it will break the bonds imposed by reason, and 
 have its will. This is the process by which most of the 
 growth of the ages has been; and all the terrible experi- 
 ences of humanity come from the bursting forth of Desire 
 after periods of repression ; days, or years, or generations 
 of repression, as the case may be. Calamities have mul- 
 tiplied until the world is filled with bondage and force, 
 and fear, explosions and death. 
 
 But in the midst of all this, as the tiny germ in the 
 kernel of corn, is growing the self-knowledge which shall 
 burst the last band and set us free. 
 
 ' ' The truth shall set us free from the law of sin and 
 death." 
 
 Conscious mind and sub-conscious mind are One. 
 
37 
 
 There is no dividing line between them. Except as con- 
 scious reason places a division and says to the sub-mind, 
 1 ' Thus far and no farther shalt thou come. ' ' 
 
 Conscious mind is reasoning will ; sub-conscious mind 
 is instinctive desire, the result of past reasoning will. 
 
 Reasoning will and instinctive desire are one, both in 
 nature and in the character of their functioning. The 
 recognition of that fact is the at-one-ment which all the 
 ages of growth have been leading up to. 
 
 There is no war between right and wrong, no good 
 and evil, except to the mind which denies its own at-one- 
 ment — at-one-mind. 
 
 The at-one-mind knows that all is good and leads to 
 greater good. 
 
 It has found its good (God) in itself ; and has learned 
 that Desire is the voice of God. 
 
 "And there shall be no more war ; 
 
 But each in his separate star 
 Shall draw the thing as he sees it, 
 
 For the God of things as they are." 
 
38 
 
 IX. 
 
 MORE DESIRE. 
 
 Why do you think it a weakness on your part that 
 makes you apply to a healer for help ? That idea is based 
 upon a misconception of your own nature. Desire for 
 anything is an indication of strength, not weakness, and 
 the gratification of desire adds to your strength. 
 
 Suppose you were hungry and refused to eat. Would 
 you gain or lose strength ? Every desire is a hunger, the 
 voice of a need in you; and points always in the right 
 direction. When you desire bread and butter you need it 
 to feed strength. When you desire help from a teacher 
 you need the particular mental pabulum which the 
 teacher can supply you. 
 
 Your strength lies in your ability to assimilate what is 
 given you, not in your ability to get along without it. 
 
 If you refuse to follow your desire in this matter, or 
 in any other, you compel yourself to draw the mental 
 elements you need and must have, from a meager source 
 of supply instead of a rich one. It is as if you refused a 
 rich loam to your growing plants and provided instead 
 only clay. 
 
 You are, in the truest sense, the product of your en- 
 vironment, seen and unseen, Create and Uncreate. De- 
 
39 
 
 sire, the Law, has drawn to you each and every particular 
 of that environment, and Desire, conscious and uncon- 
 scious, is every moment modifying environment. En- 
 vironment is each moment re-acting upon you, producing 
 changes in consciousness, i. e., new intelligence. The 
 manner in which you respond to the stimuli of your 
 surroundings, seen and unseen, determines the quality of 
 the change in you. If you respond unwillingly, protest- 
 ingly, to the demands of environment, the changes in you 
 are slow and painful. If, on the other hand, you respond 
 freely, willingly to your environment, your growth is 
 rapid and delightful. 
 
 It is natural to respond readily to all the stimuli of 
 environment, and such response is a "lost art" only with 
 mankind. Like all other lost arts, this one of ready re- 
 sponse to our surroundings is being rediscovered and put 
 to intelligent use for the blessing of man. 
 
 The idea of evil is the root of all trouble, every dis- 
 ease. Man protests against environment simply because 
 to him it is evil. 
 
 Man responds readily to all stimuli which he recog- 
 nizes to be good. All environment is good, and the rec- 
 ognition of this fact restores the lost art of quick response 
 to its stimulus; which is the secret of rapid and happy 
 growth. 
 
 The key to all that the most radical idealist can desire 
 is the recognition of the positive goodness of all things — 
 the recognition of the positive goodness of all things. 
 
 He who, shutting his eyes to "evil," most persist- 
 ently and patiently lives in the affirmation of all good, 
 will most quickly find Paradise Regained. 
 
 But let me tell you right here that the Christian 
 Science (or, to be more specific, Eddy Science), the 
 
40 
 
 Christian Science manner of saying "All is Good," will 
 avail you nothing permanent in the way of growth. To 
 think that ' ' whatever really is, is good, ' ' and all the sin, 
 sickness and death in the world is "only imaginary/' is 
 simply another way of saying good and evil, God and 
 Devil. Your terms are changed but your mind (all there 
 is of you), still holds the warring elements "good and 
 evil. " "Asa man thinketh so is he. ' ' 
 
 In order to purge your mind of all evil (this purges 
 you of all evil) , you must take sin, sickness and death into 
 the all-good. Affirm them as positively good, until the 
 Good Spirit, the Word in you, teaches your reason to un- 
 derstand how good is All-Mighty, and by the time you 
 have let it teach you to understand how sin, sickness, and 
 death in general and in particular, are good, you will 
 find yourself above sin, sickness and death forever. 
 
 You will never find yourself in that heaven where the 
 "without is as the within"; where your desires are all 
 good and all gratified; where the inner man is glorious 
 and his environment all beautiful; until you can trans- 
 mute each particular "evil," within and without, by 
 recognizing its goodness and responding to its stimulus. 
 
 This is another way of saying "we grow by the grati- 
 fication of our desires." But we cannot consent to 
 gratify our desires until we know they are good. Our 
 desires are many times so strong that they gratify them- 
 selves in spite of our lack of consent. And we grow by 
 that gratification, even though because we responded un- 
 willingly to the desire, we reap from its gratification 
 more pain than pleasure. 
 
 I am much impressed with a beautiful little poem 
 written by my friend, M. Virginia Rust Humphrey, 
 
41 
 
 which illustrates or rather suggests the effect of resisting 
 desire. 
 
 She calls her poem — 
 
 RESISTANCE. 
 
 I met temptation standing by my way, 
 
 Oh, my own life ; how beautiful she was ! 
 
 She held her fair hands out to me and cried, 
 
 "Taste of life's sweets and pleasures while you may." 
 
 O, how my soul was tried, oh, how I yearned 
 
 To fold her to my heart in one impassioned clasp. 
 
 The temptress, pleading still, "Come on, 
 
 Let not this joy elude your eager grasp." 
 
 But e'en while yielding to the call so sweet, so strong, 
 
 I heard another voice ; 'twas low and sad — 
 
 I paused to listen and I heard it say — 
 
 "Yield not, yield not, or thou art lost." 
 
 It was my guardian angel, mindful of my fate. 
 
 I looked into her sweet face, and gained the victory. 
 
 Thank God, thank God, that she was not one moment late, 
 
 Or I was lost and gone beyond recall. 
 
 Oh, yes ; I do thank God — 
 
 And yet, and yet, the joy I lost 
 
 Would have been worth it all. 
 
 "I" have two departments in my consciousness, at 
 war with each other. In one department, " Life's sweets 
 and pleasures" all belong; and in the other "my guard- 
 ian angel" dwells. My desires called for "sweets and 
 pleasures, ' * and yet other desires called for the good rep- 
 resented by my "guardian angel mindful of my fate" 
 (the consequences). If "I" only had known what I do 
 know now — that there is really no fence between these de- 
 partments of my nature ; that all is good — I would have 
 "tasted life's sweets and pleasures"; my "guardian 
 angel" (conscience and caution, both the result of edu- 
 cation) would have smiled approval; "I" having re- 
 sponded naturally to all my desires, to the stimuli of 
 both objective and subjective environment, would have 
 
42 
 
 been richer and happier for the experience, and ready 
 for yet further experience; higher experience; for we 
 soon tire of one kind and reach out for the new. Thus 
 we grow. 
 
 But what did "I" do? "I" weighed "good and 
 evil" (being then too ignorant to know that all is good), 
 and chose to grant the desire of the "guardian angel" 
 side of me, the subjective, and it was content because its 
 desire was gratified. So it was ready for yet higher ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Not so with the objective side, which was hungry, its 
 desire ungratified still. 
 
 Now these two departments of my nature are inter- 
 dependent, and neither can be at ease, happy, unless the 
 other is ; any more than my head can be happy if I have a 
 pain in my chest, or if my stomach cries for food. 
 
 Therefore, through ignorance of the fact that "I" am 
 all good, all my desires (hungers) legitimate, and their 
 gratification a necessity to further growth ; ' ' I " fed one- 
 half my desires and denied the other half, which never 
 ceased to cry out, "The joy I lost would have been 
 worth" all the subjective suffering it cost. 
 
 So " I " am still unhappy, unsatisfied, not ready to go 
 on. This regret will rankle in me. 
 
 This desire for "life's sweets and pleasures" may be 
 deadened in me for a time, but sooner or later it will be 
 gratified, for it is the call of the indestructible I for 
 what I must have in order to grow. 
 
 If "I" starve this objective side of me too long, I shall 
 die. But death is only a gateway into another state of 
 being, and I shall take the result of all my experiences, 
 with all my ungratified longings, into this new state. 
 
 Perhaps the new state will be (as I am inclined to be- 
 
43 
 
 lieve), a new incarnation here. In which case "I" shall 
 come into the world again with a set of instincts or de- 
 sires which are the result of the response I have made to 
 all my past environment. 
 
 And that old, ungratified longing for "life's sweets 
 and pleasures ' ' will wake up and take on the fresh vigor 
 of childhood. 
 
 Now the probability is that this desire will control me 
 in this new state of being, and "I" shall "drink my fill" 
 — " I ' ' shall be ' ' bad. ' ' I shall take all I want of ' ' life 's 
 sweets and pleasures" until I am more than satisfied, and 
 ready to give the subjective side of me another hearing. 
 
 So " I ' ' may swing from one extreme to the other, and 
 back again, numberless times perhaps; always gaining 
 experience and reason, until at last "I" shall recognize 
 my own quality and the unity of that dual nature — the 
 real goodness of all of me. 
 
 Thenceforth " I " am free to follow all desire, for " I ' ' 
 know that all desire is good and leads to more good. " I ' ' 
 am a god, ' ' knowing good and evil. " " I " am ' ' wise as a 
 serpent, harmless as a dove." "I" create by my word, 
 1 ' in my own image and likeness. ' ' Every good and per- 
 fect gift cometh from ME. I AM GOD. 
 
44 
 
 X. 
 
 A DESIRABLE TEXT. 
 
 "The opening article on ' Desire 'comes home to me 
 the more strongly because all my life, from boyhood up, 
 (and I am now forty-eight), I have been a martyr to a 
 full, large New England conscience — my inheritance 
 from my father in particular. My life has been a strug- 
 gle to be guided and governed by moral law rather than 
 by desire. * * * Don't, under the impulse of a 
 woman's love nature reaching out to help others, teach 
 the being led by desire rather than the moral law of God 
 or Good. The race is largely so attuned to the moral law 
 now that it is ' written on their hearts, ' as the Bible puts 
 it, or has become a fixture in their ' instinctive minds/ 
 as you express it — their involuntary, unconscious, sub- 
 liminal self. Don't write to unsettle this by appealing to 
 their reason along contrary lines." 
 
 This extract from a letter written by a New York 
 correspondent affords me a good text for the next chapter 
 upon Desire. 
 
 Let me sum up my teaching regarding Desire: 
 
 1. Desire is the Law of Attraction, become conscious 
 through recognition. 
 
 2. Desire is the will of the sub-self, the conscious at- 
 traction of realized truth for more, more. It is the appe- 
 tite, the hunger of the sub-self for what it needs. 
 
 3. Eveiy realized truth made its entrance to the sub- 
 mind by way of the reason, the objective, surface mind. 
 
45 
 
 Not until reason proves, does the instinct mind, the sub- 
 mind accept. 
 
 4. Once accepted by the sub-self a truth is there for 
 eternity. It is "written on the heart, " and is therefore 
 instinctive, i. e., functions sub-consciously. It is "hab- 
 it." 
 
 5. Reason, dealing ever with new experiences, cannot 
 have all the premises from which to draw a conclusion 
 until the experiences are past. Hence reason is a fallible 
 guide, an uncertain prophet. 
 
 6. Desire is the voice of that ninety-five per cent sub- 
 self of demonstrated truth. Hence it calls for the right 
 thing always; i. e., it attracts the experiences, "good" or 
 "bad," from which reason shall prove and accept new 
 truth ; to find, in turn, its place in the sub-mind. 
 
 It was written centuries ago, "I will put my law in 
 their inward parts, and write it in their hearts ; and will 
 be their God, and they shall be my people. And they 
 shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every 
 man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall 
 all know me." 
 
 The sub-self, the instinctive mind, is the "inward 
 part," the "heart," upon which the law of good is being 
 written. Experience is to us exactly what pictures, bits 
 of cardboard, toothpicks, etc., are to the kindergartners. 
 As with them, reason, objective mind, proves some things 
 as good, some as "bad," i. e., unserviceable, useless. Rea- 
 son accepts only the good finally ; and that good becomes 
 instinctive. 
 
 This statement is corroborated by Thomson Jay Hud- 
 son's conclusions, based upon his very extensive psychic 
 research, and announced in his thoughtful work, ' ' Law of 
 Psychic Phenomena." 
 
46 
 
 By the way, that book is a liberal education in itself. 
 Every thinker on these new lines should read it. 
 
 Hudson is supported by many other scientists 
 in his assertions that no man can be compelled or 
 wheedled into doing, even when hypnotized, what is 
 against his principles; i. e., his "nature," as expressed in 
 "subjective mind," the sub-mind. Hudson's conclusion 
 is that a man's principles are instinctive. I do not know 
 that he understands how they become instinctive. 
 
 "As a man thinketh so is he." Caution and con- 
 science are near akin, and next door neighbors in the 
 cranium. Both are born of a belief in good and evil, God 
 and devil. Both result entirely from ignorance of the 
 fact that there is only one energy, one quality of experi- 
 ence, one law, the Law of Attraction, whose conscious- 
 ness is Desire, in all the Uni- verse. To be a "martyr to 
 a full, large, New England conscience," or a conscience 
 of any other nativity, is a confession of ignorance. 
 
 Nevertheless, conscience and caution are both good. 
 They prod us up and stick pins in us to keep us from 
 going sound asleep in our ignorance. They keep us 
 thinking and working until we finally prove to ourselves 
 that all is really good. I have a large number six con- 
 science myself, and I 've been a martyr to it. I paid it so 
 much attention for years that it repaid me as a child 
 repays the parent who fears it and pampers its every 
 whim. My conscience, and my caution, were a spoiled 
 pair. They kicked at nothing and would not be satisfied. 
 By and by I rebelled at such tyranny and literally ' ' gave 
 them a piece of my mind" — the all-good piece. They are 
 now as docile as Mary's little lamb. They have learned 
 
47 
 
 that I am God and could not be bad if I tried, for the law 
 of love, God, is "written on my heart." 
 
 There is no danger of "unsettling" people by teach- 
 ing the goodness of Desire, because nobody can follow 
 desire until he realizes that it is good; until reason is 
 convinced. 
 
 If he accepts this teaching simply as an excuse to 
 gratify evil desire he will gain experience, it is true, but 
 it will be a kind that he will not care to repeat. Only he 
 "who hath ears" can "hear" or receive any teaching. 
 The Law of Attraction governs in all knowledge. Just 
 remember the hard times you have had trying to hammer 
 mental science, or any other new idea, into peopled 
 heads, and you will realize that only those who "have 
 ears" can "hear." Everybody is just as well-inten- 
 tioned as you or I. They simply have not yet grown ears 
 for our particular kind of truth. Speak the truth as you 
 see it, and let them hear or not as they can. Speak the 
 truth when it is asked of you — "cast not your pearls 
 before swine." You are not required to prevail upon 
 people to see truth. Truth, which is mighty, shall pre- 
 vail. 
 
 What IS moral law? A matter of education, pure 
 and simple. Moral law in India requires the drowning 
 of the very "spiritual" mother's girl baby in the sacred 
 Ganges, and her number six Indian conscience lashes her 
 to despair if she obeys not the moral law. 
 
 Moses promulgated a more complex "moral law," to 
 
48 
 
 whose vibrations the Jewish world is gradually respond- 
 ing. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth announced the height of " moral 
 law/' the only immutable law of the Universe, the Law 
 of Love, or Attraction, or Desire. "Do unto others as ye 
 would — desire — they should do unto you. ' ' 
 
 The Universe is attuned (not is being attuned), to 
 the vibrations of Love. Its tones are swelling in divine 
 harmonies now. The "music of the spheres" is reality— 
 not simply poetic fancy. 
 
 Whatever belief man may hold, not in accord with 
 the Law of Love or Desire, is doomed to the bottomless 
 pit of oblivion. Experience is teaching him that happi- 
 ness, the one end and aim of creation, cannot be attained 
 except by living, i. e., thinking, according to the law of 
 his being, the Law of Love or Desire. Eecognition of 
 Love is Joy, Life. Recognition of Not-Love is pain, 
 death. "As a man thinketh, so is he." To Think love is 
 to Be love, and to Be love is Joy. 
 
 The moral law is variable, the result of man 's reason ; 
 and depends for its nature upon how much love its pro- 
 mulgator has realized. Jesus realized perfect love — 
 "perfect as your Father in heaven," the Law itself, is 
 perfect. Therefore, his "moral law" will never be im- 
 proved upon, though the perfect application of that Law 
 will occupy eternity and infinity. 
 
 "A woman's love nature," says my correspondent. 
 If God is Love, what truer impulse could any human be- 
 ing have than his love nature? Love never errs. It is 
 Not-love impulse that sins — fails to hit the mark of truth. 
 
 My correspondent has patches of the truth which in 
 
49 
 
 the fulness of time will by love, or God, be pieced to- 
 gether into one harmonious whole — a sort of love-quilt 
 which ' * covereth all things. ' ' 
 
 "Appealing to reason along contrary lines." Sweet- 
 heart, there are no "contrary lines." All things fit; 
 everything works for good ; and each thing is needed, and 
 in its place. We have not yet pieced them together in our 
 own minds. That is all. But we are learning. 
 
 XI. 
 
 FOLLOWING DESIRE. 
 
 When a man first begins to believe that he is all good 
 and his desires the expression of the law, he finds himself 
 in the peculiar state of mind described by Paul : l i When 
 I would do good behold evil is present with me. ' ' He can 
 not rid himself of the belief that some of his desires are 
 ' ' evil. ' ' Many of his desires seem to point so evidently in 
 the wrong direction. His desires appear to be divided 
 against themselves. And they are. 
 
 The beliefs in good and evil, God and Devil, have all 
 been built into his being, and each set of beliefs has its 
 own peculiar attractions or desires. " As a man thinks so 
 is he, ' ' and his desires are the attraction of his thoughts 
 for more thoughts which will complement them. 
 
 Man, by thinking there are two powers in the uni- 
 verse, opposites of each other, has built two opposites 
 within himself; has made himself a dual being, a good 
 and evil being, with two kinds of desires to match. The 
 
50 
 
 man with the most thoughts of evil has the most evil de- 
 sires — * ' as he thinks. ' ' 
 
 But the man's thoughts only are dual; man himself 
 is a unit, one with "the Father"; one altogether good 
 being. In proportion as he recognizes this fact will be 
 built good only into his mental mansion, his "house not 
 made with hands," his body; and in that same propor- 
 tion will his desires be good. 
 
 Recognition of good is the only possible means of 
 salvation from evil. 
 
 All is good is the Idea which will transform man by 
 re-newing his mind, which is the builder and ruler of his 
 body. The all is good idea is the real savior of mankind ; 
 the Christ of this age. And truly this second coming of 
 Christ is universal — ' ' from the east even unto the west. ' ' 
 
 It is not a man's efforts at "overcoming the lower 
 self," that will save him from one iota of "sin." He 
 may develop will power enough to prevent his "evil 
 desires ' ' from gratifying, or ' ' expressing ' ' themselves for 
 a time, but they are there, deep down in his conscious- 
 ness like caged beasts only waiting opportunity, which, 
 sooner or later, comes. They were born and bred in him, 
 and grew up within him, by simple recognition — "as a 
 man thinks. ' ' 
 
 And the only way he can ever entirely dislodge them 
 from himself is by displacing them with recognition of 
 their opposite. 
 
 It is a man's IDEAS that form him and transform 
 him; his faith that saves him, not his works. Fight till 
 doomsday the "evil" demons that are in you, and they 
 will but fight back, and, like all hunted creations, grow 
 more fierce and destructive. Your recognition of them 
 keeps them alive, — "as a man thinks." 
 
51 
 
 A starved animal is more dangerous than a well-fed 
 one; so a starved evil desire is more dangerous, more 
 active, than a gratified propensity. A caged animal, sleek 
 and fat, gives little trouble and finally dies comfortably 
 of old age. An evil propensity gratified at the time and 
 then ignored till next time it calls, will sleep just as a 
 gorged animal will, between times, giving little trouble. 
 And in due time it will die out entirely leaving no prog- 
 eny, IF you do not keep life in it by recognition, by con- 
 tinually thinking about it. And let me tell you that 
 every thought of regret and self-censure keeps it alive 
 just so much longer. Every moment you spend ' ' groping 
 among the shadows of old sins," postpones the hour of 
 your freedom. Learn to gratify your "evil" desires; 
 forgive yourself; forget; and set your mind on things 
 above. 
 
 It is the setting your mind on things above that will 
 eventually redeem you from all evil consciousness, within 
 and without. Recognition of good will transform you, 
 and nothing else can. There is only one important thing 
 in life — to think good. The IDEA of good is the Savior, 
 the Christ, the Redeemer. 
 
 "We grow like that which we think upon." When 
 the idea of good comes to us we grow to "be like him," 
 (the Idea of Good) for we see Him as He is. 
 
 To gratify desire, good or ill, is the quickest way to 
 leave the thought force free for the projection of higher 
 desires. 
 
 Keep in mind the saving truth that desire is good 
 and free yourself as fast as you can to follow desire. 
 
52 
 
 XII. 
 
 DESIRE, CRUCIFIED, SHALL RISE 
 AGAIN. 
 
 "Please explain the meaning of your words, 'The 
 crucifixion of desire is good. ' Now I am being taught by 
 mental scientists that our desires are all good, but that 
 they may possibly require modification." 
 
 Our desires are all good just as the human race is all 
 good; and just as some of the human race suppress, 
 oppress, crucify others of the human race, so some of our 
 desires suppress and crucify others. 
 
 In either case the conservative crucifies the radical. 
 The radical is always an expansionist; the conservative 
 an anti. 
 
 The radical, unrestrained, would expand so fast that 
 all semblance to the original would disappear and chaos 
 result. 
 
 The conservative would hold things forever as they 
 are. 
 
 All growth, in plant, animal, man or social organiza- 
 tion, is by one process; by the radical or active life 
 pushing through the weak places in the conservative or 
 negative life. 
 
 Buds do not push out from the solid bark of a tree 
 — the resistance is too great. But that same life force, 
 
53 
 
 pent inside the bark, pushes on and ever upward until it 
 finds an outlet, a place where it can express itself. 
 
 Imagine, if you can, that same tree without bark or 
 fiber. The life force would spread out in all directions, 
 growing but an unsightly, disorderly excrescence instead 
 of a beautiful and orderly tree. 
 
 All through the autumn and winter the tree is peace- 
 fully possessed by the Conservative Element; in the 
 spring the Radical Element rises, rises, seething with 
 New Ideas. 
 
 The Conservative Element strains and strives to hold 
 its time-honored Forms. All the new life forced into it 
 by the rising Radical is used only to enlarge and add to 
 the old form. 
 
 The Radical is not satisfied with the old and pushes, 
 expands, forces, increases, until, between the growth 
 from within and the pressure from without, it rises to the 
 top, finds the weak points in the Conservative armor and 
 pushes through into new expression. 
 
 There is not only room at the top, but all freedom is 
 at the top. 
 
 Anywhere short of the top all is striving and strain- 
 ing. 
 
 The Conservative Element in all life, the restraining, 
 repressing, crucifying element forces life into higher 
 channels ever nearer to freedom. 
 
 Do you catch a glimpse of why the crucifixion of 
 desire is good? Desire is to man what sap is to a tree. 
 Given free run near the earth it would never express be- 
 yond the ' ' worm-of -the-dust ' ' stage. Environment forces 
 desire into higher channels. Self -repression forces it still 
 higher. But at last all this forcing, repression, cruci- 
 fixion, results in freedom of expression. 
 
54 
 
 Today is the day of freedom — now are the new buds 
 bursting forth from every weak place in the old conserva- 
 tive shell. The day of repression and force is past. We 
 are free. 
 
 Therefore we say, "Desire is good; trust desire.' ' 
 And we also say, ' ' The crucifixion of desire is good, ' ' for 
 by it desire rises. And again we exclaim: "All is 
 good!" 
 
 Desire is the only infallible guide. Let him who 
 desires to crucify desire, crucify it. 
 
 Gradually desire will rise above the crucifixion point 
 and express in freedom. 
 
55 
 
 XIII. 
 HOW TO DESIRE. 
 
 "How can a person find out what he really desires? 
 It may be that I am what somebody calls a 'wooden 
 woman,' or have crushed desire till it is too weak to 
 express itself; but I know this; I am not satisfied with 
 what I am doing, never have cared for the work, but had 
 to do it as I could do best with it. I want something else. 
 I have that feeling of longing and looking, expecting 
 something all the time, but do not know what it is I want, 
 and when I look over the field of woman's work, and 
 man 's, too, I do not see any work which I really desire to 
 engage in. When I was quite a little girl and went to 
 Sunday school I used to think that to be a missionary was 
 the finest thing on earth. It may be that it was the stories 
 of the wonderful things in the tropical countries that I 
 desired to see, but it might have been something else. 
 Then as I grew older it was my great desire to be a physi- 
 cian and I started to study, but the opposition was so 
 great that I got disgusted, not with the work, but with 
 the people, and so I went as far away from them as I 
 could get. Once or twice since I have made an effort to 
 take up the study, but never did. That is the only thing 
 that I have ever really desired to do. Everything else 
 has been sort of haphazard, according as it would be the 
 means of taking me to some new place, as I do not like to 
 stay in one place very long. " S. E. 
 
 Desire is a real, an all-powerful force. A force to be 
 effectual must be concentrated, focused. In childhood 
 desire is concentrated; "this one thing, with all my 
 
56 
 
 soul, ' ' is the child's attitude of mind and desire. A child 
 follows its desire until it is satisfied; then turns all its 
 desire, its force, in a new direction. 
 
 Not so with grown up folks. They allow all sorts of 
 things, within and without, to turn their desire aside, just 
 as S. E. allowed opposition to turn her. Part of her 
 force, thought, desire, still flowed in the old course and 
 part was turned in a new direction. Soon her force, de- 
 sire, was again turned and divided. Again and again 
 this operation is repeated until she is like a great stream 
 which is turned into a thousand small channels, running 
 in all directions over a dead level, instead of being One 
 mighty and resistless current. 
 
 Now this is the state of nine-tenths of the race. De- 
 sire in each is turned aside in thousands of small im- 
 potent wishes. Life meanders aimlessly upon a great 
 dead level. 
 
 But all the original force is there. All it needs is 
 direction to concentrate it again and make it a mighty 
 power, the current of which bears the individual easily, 
 delightfully, in the desired direction. 
 
 When a soul wakes up on a dead level like this ; when 
 he finds himself minus an object in life, or a desire 
 worthy the name ; the first thing to do is to do nothing. 
 Be still. Let yourself meander. Be comfortable. Sleep 
 a lot. Sit in the sun and relax, as a hen does in the dust. 
 Let life live you. 
 
 By and by you will grow conscious of a wish that 
 seems to be just a little stronger and bigger than any 
 other wish— as if two or three of those tiny rivulets of 
 desire had run in together. That is just what happened. 
 
 Now lay for that wish, that desire. Make tracks to 
 gratify it. Run along with it as far as you can. But 
 
57 
 
 don 't worry if it soon seems dead level again. Keep quiet 
 again. Go to sleep some more. Sun yourself. After a 
 little you will feel another wish (wishes are tiny rivulets 
 of desire), and this time it will be a little stronger than 
 before. Hop up quickly and run along with it. A few 
 more little rivulets have run in together. Repeat this 
 little alternate rest-and-run act just as wish, feeling, 
 prompts. 
 
 Take it easy, dearie — all eternity's before you. Be 
 aisy wid ye, and one of these fine mornings you will wake 
 up with a real, live desire. While you rested and slept, a 
 lot of these little wish-rivulets all ran in together and 
 made a nice respectable desire. 
 
 But see you don't change your tactics. See you don't 
 expend too much energy — just go with desire. Go slowly 
 when it goes slowly. Keep cool and keep sweet. Desire 
 does the work. Just let it. Keep in the middle of the 
 stream and it will carry you safely. Every little while 
 you will find yourself taking a little extra spurt in the 
 desired direction. That is caused by another wish-rivulet 
 running into the desire stream. One at a time all the 
 little rivulets will run in and you will find yourself being 
 borne swiftly, happily and without straining, in the de- 
 sired directon. Desire did it all. One little rivulet, 
 larger than the others, wanted an object in life, so it 
 flowed in that direction and attracted all the other little 
 rivulets. 
 
 It did not command the other little rivulets, as so 
 many people try to force desire and thought. This little 
 desire ran quietly along humming its own little song and 
 minding strictly its own business ; and gradually, one by 
 one, all the other little rivulets fell in love with its song 
 and came closer and closer, and finally they all ran in one 
 
58 
 
 bed, all in one direction, all for one purpose. That is the 
 way to concentrate, and its's as easy as rolling off a log. 
 
 When I was a very small girl I used to play on a river 
 beach where a small stream ran into the river, and I made 
 little channels and scattered that stream away out. And 
 then I'd run my finger, or a stick, along from one little 
 rivulet to another and coax them all together again. It 
 was great fun, but not as much fun as it is now to coax 
 the little thought-streams, desire-streams, into new brain 
 channels, bringing them closer and closer together every 
 day. Concentration is lots of fun when you know how. 
 And the way to learn how is to practice, practice, con- 
 centrating at the points of least resistance. Be aisy wid 
 ye, but keep at it. 
 
 And never get scared for a moment about the out- 
 come. The force is all there, and you have the whole of 
 eternity to do it in ; and you don 't have to do it anyway 
 if you don't want to. You do just as you please, Sweet- 
 heart. 
 
59 
 
 XIV. 
 
 HOW TO FOLLOW DESIRE. 
 
 "I should like very much to have an interpretation 
 of your 'desire philosophy,' as applied to the case of a 
 girl in love with one whom it is not lawful that she should 
 love, i. e., a man already married. The man contends 
 that there is nothing wrong in such a relation so long as 
 no harm is done to anybody else — that their mutual love 
 is only the working out of the law of affinity, and no 
 more sinful than the operation of the law of gravitation. 
 At first she tried to point out the great sin both were 
 committing against all human and divine laws, but she 
 says her love was so great as to carry her beyond all 
 reason, which nevertheless she will admit to be sound and 
 logical. Do you believe they are committing an actual 
 sin by their mutual declarations of affection ? Or do you 
 believe in any actual sin? Sometimes I don't, and some- 
 times I do. I am mixed. Please tell me what you think 
 right away." Jane. 
 
 No matter how much one may be enamored of another 
 person, if he has real love for truth and honesty, and 
 respect for himself, he will enter no illicit relations. 
 Supposing he has little love for truth and honesty he 
 ought to love the woman too well to rob her of her own 
 honesty and reputation. 
 
 Sin is hitting wide of the mark of rightness with the 
 law of one's own being. Of course I believe in "sin,' ? 
 in missing the mark, and I believe that we gain wisdom 
 
60 
 
 by experience, even if we do miss the mark many times. 
 
 The greatest sin in such cases as this is the sin against 
 self. The law of being is love, and in order to live, love 
 must express itself honestly. 
 
 How is love to express itself honestly under dishonest 
 conditions of mind? When it has to sneak into dark 
 corners to express itself, love soon dies and contempt 
 festers in its place. This is proved by the stories of all 
 illicit love affairs which are permitted to run their course. 
 
 Love grows only in an atmosphere of honesty; 
 cramped in a corner it soon dies. 
 
 Love grows by what it feeds upon. How then can it 
 continue to live when fed upon the poison of deceit and 
 treachery to others and to one's own conscience? 
 
 Only yesterday I had a letter from a heart broken 
 actress whose lover's love has cooled and died. How can 
 such things end any other way ? 
 
 Honesty is natural. Dishonesty is unnatural. The 
 illicit lover must hug dark corners and dodge in and out. 
 He must lie and crouch and hide and pretend, in order 
 to gratify his love. He must live in a strained, unnat- 
 ural mental and even physical attitude. He grows 
 crooked and mis-shapen, mentally and physically. And 
 the strain tells on him exactly as any physical strain tells 
 on anybody. Eventually he wakes up to the truth that 
 the game is not worth the candle. His ardor cools, he 
 grows critical. 
 
 About the time he wakes up the woman wakes up too. 
 He wakes up to the fact that it is better to be square with 
 the world and himself than to skulk and crouch for the 
 sake of a love. He discovers that the world offers other 
 loves, and he has another, or can marry one, whom he 
 can love in the daylight. 
 
61 
 
 She wakes up to the fact that the world is giving her 
 the cold shake. She has nothing left but this love — she 
 has thrown all the other loves away for this one — thrown 
 away the world's love for her, thrown away her family's 
 love for her. She has hidden herself away from all other 
 loves to cultivate this one ; and this one is slipping from 
 her. She too is mentally a stunted, distorted thing from 
 living the dishonest, crouching, lying, little-self life of 
 underhanded love. 
 
 He followed his desire for a woman, and to do it he 
 crushed back his desire to be a free, manly man. By 
 experience he has learned that he followed the lesser 
 love. He concludes that if he had it to do over again 
 he would express himself honestly, he would gratify the 
 loves to which he need not stoop. He concludes that he 
 could have loved better had he loved honor more. 
 
 He has learned his lesson. He is ready to cast the 
 woman off and turn to his wife, whom he now feels, that 
 he might have loved more if he hadn't been so taken up 
 with the clandestine love. He begins to see his wife with 
 new eyes. The relief of not having to lie and sneak is 
 great. His wife wins him again. 
 
 Or, his may be the story attributed by some to Nan 
 Patterson and "Caesar" Young. He may have decided 
 to go home to an honest love, or friendship at least, and 
 at the last moment find himself the victim of a desperate 
 woman whose character he has helped to dwarf and dis- 
 tort and whose reputation he has helped her lose. She 
 may be desperate enough to kill him, and perhaps herself. 
 
 He has followed his desire for a woman until he 
 waked up to his deeper desire for honest living. Just 
 at the hour when he is ready to shed the lesser desire for 
 the greater he dies. He was badly tangled by the illicit 
 
62 
 
 love, tangled by circumstances and by his own distorted 
 character; perhaps if he had lived he would have found 
 the tangle too much for him — he would have ' 'fallen" 
 frequently, to his own self-disgust. 
 
 But he dies; with the desire for truth and honest 
 living strong upon him. Where does he go? I wonder 
 if he does not reincarnate somewhere. I wonder if he 
 does not become again a little child, freed of the old set 
 habits of mind and circumstance, plastic to be moulded 
 by that strong new desire for honest living. 
 
 And the poor girl too has learned her lesson; or she 
 will learn it by repetition of the same sort of experience. 
 She too has grown a desire for honest living; she longs 
 for her own self-respect and that of the world of which 
 she is a member, to which she finds herself bound by in- 
 visible nerves and arteries which she has been trying to 
 ignore. 
 
 Perhaps her lesson is learned before it is too late; 
 before her character is too set in its distortion; before 
 hope and faith in the future are dead within her. If 
 so she " reforms" — literally begins to re-form her char- 
 acter by honest desiring and thinking and living — and 
 makes for herself a new and honorable place in the world. 
 It is never too late to do this so long as faith and patience 
 are still alive. 
 
 But if she has no patience and little faith, with cour- 
 age enough, she follows "Caesar" by her own hand. 
 Then she too may reincarnate somewhere, impelled by 
 her new-born desire to live aright. 
 
 If reincarnation is true the power of attraction, which 
 is desire, will carry the newly reincarnating being to the 
 parents who can afford it conditions for developing ac- 
 cording to its dominant desire. This would carry the 
 
63 
 
 dead " Caesars" and Nan Pattersons to new states of 
 right parentage and training. 
 
 Do you see how desire works ? 
 
 Listen: If you stoop to follow a desire you gain 
 wisdom by hard and bitter experience which wakes you 
 up to the high desire for true living which is the prin- 
 ciple of every human soul. 
 
 If you follow your high desire for honest living before 
 God and man, you miss the bitter experiences of life. 
 
 Ponder well those two statements, dear heart. 
 
 Years of separation from the one you love? Ah, 
 but that is sweet pain, not bitter. Haven't you yet 
 learned the difference between the bitter hardships of 
 the transgressor against self, whose desired things are 
 torn from him ; and the sweet sorrow of him who volun- 
 tarily resigns a joy that he may satisfy his high con- 
 science ? To walk in freedom, upright before your God- 
 self, adds sweetness to any fate. And what is a life time 
 of separation from your mate, with that sweet love within 
 and the sunshine over you, when there is eternity ahead. 
 
 The law of affinity, like the law of gravitation with 
 which it is one, is sinless. But man may use or abuse 
 both. How did "Caesar" and Nan use it? 
 
 Because by the law of gravitation a falling body is 
 drawn to earth is a man excused for pushing his rival 
 off a cliff ? Neither is a man excused for pushing himself 
 or a girl off the solid rock of conscience into the stream 
 of affinity. Neither is a woman excused for courting the 
 edge of the precipice until a misstep, or her own gazing 
 downward, or a little push, carries her over. The good- 
 ness of gravitation or affinity will not keep her from 
 hitting the rocks at the bottom. And about the time 
 she strikes she will wish to goodness she had not taken 
 
64 
 
 moonlight strolls on the edge of a precipice — with a man 
 only too willing to push her off. 
 
 Follow desire ; but observe this rule : Follow only the 
 desire which can be courted in the broad light of con- 
 science. Walk upright, as a god may. 
 
 Use reason ; but don 't use it to bluster conscience into 
 silence that you may follow a desire which must be grati- 
 fied on the sly. 
 
 "Blessed is the man that doubt eth not in that thing 
 which he alloweth," and verily there shall be no bitter- 
 ness in his heart. Life is a complexity of desires. Fol- 
 low the one conscience calls the highest. 
 
 Thus shall you lead the "simple life" of truth, and 
 grow in wisdom whose ways are pleasantness and all her 
 paths peace. 
 
 Children, free love is a beautiful theory which angels 
 may practice with impunity. But as yet we are angels 
 in the grub state only. Don't let's be in too great a 
 hurry to imitate our elders, lest we do it clumsily and 
 reap broken hearts and the bitterness of regret. We are 
 growing up ; let 's make haste slowly. 
 
 But a whole life time separated from your affinity? 
 Such things occurred in the time of Abelard, when people 
 were wedded for life to the church; or in the time of 
 George Eliot when divorce was unknown because every- 
 body was set against such separations. There may have 
 been some excuse for George Eliot and Lewes to defy the 
 world's respect for them; but even George Eliot was 
 not big enough, great enough, strong enough to do it 
 without paying a bitter price. And in this day it is 
 different. An unhappy marriage will in time disinte- 
 grate naturally. Then death or divorce will free the 
 
67 
 
 the mode that's in fashion now. Watch a skyrocket come 
 down and you will get some idea of the primitive mode of 
 motion. Remember that there was no up nor down in 
 those days — thousand year days — that these infinitely 
 tiny spiral, vibratory movements came from all direc- 
 tions, in a space where there were no directions, and col- 
 lided with each other in a most disorderly manner, and 
 you will get a fair idea of the chaos that reigned before 
 there was any sun. 
 
 Now imagine a lot of these spiral, vibratory waves of 
 energy, in their hilarious gambols running bang up 
 against each other — at a center! Is it any wonder that 
 the sparks flew ? That the collision makes light ? 
 
 All those little, mighty little spirals, coming with the 
 velocity of thought, from all directions meet in the center 
 of the sun. They become concentered, or ' ' concentrated ' ' 
 there. They flow steadily in to that center in one mode 
 of motion; they strike against each other there, are 
 changed by the contact and rush out again in other 
 modes of motion we know as ' ' sun rays. ' ' 
 
 In turn these sun rays rush into other centers — are 
 concentrated in crystal, plant, animal or human being, 
 and again thrown off in other modes of motion. 
 
 Think of how sound waves are created and you will 
 get an idea how this mighty in-rushing concentration of 
 energy produces light and heat by contact with itself. 
 Clap your two hands together and you create a motion 
 which is registered by the tympanum as sound. So the 
 meeting of these streams of energy sets in motion the 
 energy we recognize as light and heat. 
 
 Now that is the way the sun is made. I am not 
 alarmed about the fuel giving out. Neither am I afraid 
 
68 
 
 it will be too warm for me to live there if I take a notion 
 some day to emigrate. 
 
 Have I made too large a demand upon your imagina- 
 tion, Sweetheart"? You will never realize the mysteries 
 of creation if you cannot imagine a lot. Imagination is 
 the creative faculty and the only faculty that can glimpse 
 the mysteries of life. 
 
 Man is the most powerful concentrator of energy in 
 this world. He does not have to learn to concentrate. 
 He is the result of ages of concentration of energy. His 
 growth is the result of greater concentration. He couldn 't 
 be anything else than a concentrator if he tried, and he 
 couldn't quit concentrating to save his life. Or, rather, 
 as soon as he quits concentrating he loses his life. 
 
 It is natural for man to concentrate his mind; it is 
 unnatural for his mind to ' ' wander. ' ' This is proved by 
 the fact that a little child evidences perfect concentra- 
 tion, while old people are most afflicted with a wandering 
 mind. 
 
 Did you ever notice how absorbed a child is in what- 
 ever interests it ? ' ' This one thing I do, ' ' is its attitude 
 of mind. That is concentration. 
 
 The first seeds of a wandering mind are sown in the 
 child by compelling it to work against its will. A parent 
 or teacher who has the knack of rousing interest in a child 
 is working with the law of its being. The child will con- 
 centrate knowledge readily because its attention is held 
 steadily in one direction. Whereas the child who works 
 without interest, attention, concentration, is dividing its 
 interest between its task and something it wants to do. 
 In time this habit becomes fixed, the mind wanders al- 
 ways, and finally nothing fully interests. 
 
69 
 
 When the mind scatters, the body follows, for the two 
 are one. You so often hear people say, "Nothing seems 
 to interest me. ' ' All because, unknowingly, the habit of 
 dividing the attention has become second nature. Such 
 a one is never happy or healthy, for health and happi- 
 ness are the result of concentration. 
 
 Every adult person has contracted more or less of 
 this unnatural habit of dividing the attention, and just 
 in proportion as he indulges the habit will he manifest 
 disease. 
 
 It is in every man's power to again "become as a 
 little child. ' ' And to do this he does not have to cultivate 
 a new habit. He simply recalls the natural conditions. 
 
 Whatever a man turns his attention upon is concen- 
 trated within him. The process is not unlike that of 
 photography. If his attention wanders he receives only 
 ' ' under time ' ' impressions. If his attention is undivided, 
 his full attention turned upon any object, thought, or 
 train of thought, he receives a distinct impression; the 
 object or train of thought is concentrated within him. 
 
 To recall this natural attitude of attention, of inter- 
 est, is the one thing necessary to recall all the other 
 conditions of childhood — health, happiness, beauty and 
 youthful appearance. Eternal youth is a result of eter- 
 nal interest in living; the result of continued concen- 
 tration. 
 
 The secret of concentration is interest, attention. If 
 we will forget the very word "concentration" and prac- 
 tice being interested, we will find concentration naturally 
 follow. 
 
 ****** 
 
 All sorts of practices for concentration are good just 
 as long as they are interesting. The moment you lose 
 
70 
 
 your desire for any particular practice that practice be- 
 comes a detriment, in the same way that compulsory 
 work is a detriment to a child, by conducing to the divid- 
 ing of attention, a " wandering mind." 
 
 The idea that there is something wrong with you 
 because you cannot fix your attention — concentrate — for 
 several minutes upon one single word, or because you 
 cannot make your mind a blank, is a most erroneous one. 
 Such mental gymnastics are of no earthly or heavenly 
 value. The attention is for receiving impressions, and 
 should not be held staring for five minutes at an idea that 
 ought to be received in the tenth part of a second. The 
 moment that the full attention has been turned upon an 
 idea the impression is clearly received. 
 
 Every thought and act of your daily living affords 
 opportunity for practice of concentration. Every time 
 you can remember to do it put your whole attention into 
 the thing you are doing or thinking. Stop and make a 
 little address to yourself. Say, ''There is just this one 
 thing for me to do; I want to do it; I am interested in 
 it; I do it with all my mind so that it will be perfectly 
 done with the least outlay of energy/ ' Thus you put 
 your mind, your attention, into it. And you gain time, 
 instead of losing, as you may imagine. Try it thoroughly 
 and you will be convinced. By daily practice of this kind 
 you will soon cultivate control of your attention so that 
 you can turn it wherever your intelligence bids it turn. 
 Then you will find you can fix your attention at will 
 upon a train of thought. The wandering mind habit will 
 leave you. You will enjoy whatever you choose to do. 
 You will find yourself free to follow desire. 
 
71 
 
 XVI. 
 PRACTICE. 
 
 "If ye know these things, happy are ye if you do 
 them." I get letters from all directions written by 
 people who say they have studied the new science of life 
 anywhere from one to almost a score of years, and yet 
 have not reached a point where they are not dependent 
 upon healers for assistance in demonstrating over disease 
 and dissatisfaction. 
 
 Beloved, it does us no good simply to know that mind 
 governs matter. 
 
 We must take charge of our thoughts and rule our 
 bodies. 
 
 Very little is gained by knowing that the law of our 
 being is Love. 
 
 We must think love, act love, in order to be free from 
 dis-ease. 
 
 It is all very pretty to theorize about the Ideal becom- 
 ing manifest in the Real, but theorizing never saved and 
 never will save a man from unpleasant conditions unless 
 he puts his theories into practical, everyday living. 
 
 An ideal is omnipotent. I'm going to re-write that 
 sentence. It is worthy to be perpetuated in stone. We 
 will perpetuate it in material more lasting than marble — 
 the human consciousness. 
 
 AN IDEAL IS OMNIPOTENT. 
 
 An Ideal is the only power in your life. 
 
 But your ideal will not do a thing for you if you don't 
 
72 
 
 keep your eye on him. He is like some employes — he 
 won 't work when he isn 't watched. But watch your ideal 
 and trust your ideal, and there is nothing he will not do 
 for you. 
 
 Beloved, that is why you have not " demonstrated ' ' 
 any better. You have watched your conditions rather 
 than your Ideal. You have kept your eye on the thing 
 you did not want instead of upon the thing you do want. 
 
 And the thing you do not want is also a faithful work- 
 man when he is watched. Quit looking at him and he 
 will go to sleep and tumble over into the bottomless pit 
 of non-recognition. 
 
 Practice, practice, practice ! You can no more learn 
 to think ideally without practice than you can learn to 
 play the piano without practice. Eternal vigilance is the 
 price of liberty from bad habits of all kinds. 
 
 Not eternal fear of forming bad habits : nothing will 
 bring them upon you more quickly. But eternal vigilance 
 in practicing good habits of thought. 
 
 The great secret of healing is to shut your eyes deter- 
 minedly to the manifest and gaze steadfastly upon the 
 unmanif est Ideal. Just in proportion as one is able to do 
 this will his success be. 
 
 Practice makes perfect in this as in other things. Set 
 your mind on the ideal. Set it and re-set it a thousand 
 times a day if necessary. The habit will be formed at 
 last. 
 
 Your mind will be renewed ; your body transformed. 
 
 Your body being a magnet, your environment will 
 be changed as your body changes. 
 
 " Whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you." 
 
73 
 
 XVII. 
 
 TO USE YOUR FORCES. 
 
 "I continually treat myself. Can I treat myself too 
 much?" M. G. 
 
 You can overdo anything, especially self-treatment. 
 If you keep repeating affirmations to yourself your men- 
 tal chattering interferes with the real healing. 
 
 It is not the conscious mind which heals you; it is 
 the subconscious or soul-mind and the super-conscious 
 or Over-Soul-mind. 
 
 Your soul 's expression is guided and directed by your 
 conscious mind. A mental affirmation is simply a word 
 of direction to your soul mind. The soul hears your 
 statements and then builds accordingly. 
 
 But what would happen if you called up your house 
 maids and told them over and over, just what you wanted 
 done and just how to do it? If you spent all your time 
 repeating your directions to them when would they get 
 the work done ? And wouldn 't they get your directions 
 mixed ? Of course. 
 
 You don't do it that way, of course not; not if you 
 are a wise housekeeper. You call up your maids and 
 tell them quietly and kindly, and in as few words as 
 possible, just what you want done. Then they go cheer- 
 fully away out of your presence and do their best to 
 please you. If you later come across something which 
 
74 
 
 was not done right you call in a maid and repeat your 
 directions, with perhaps a little further explanation. 
 Then you go away again and trust her to do it aright 
 this time. 
 
 What would happen if you tagged around after your 
 maids and tried to watch and criticize and direct every 
 little movement? Why, they would grow nervous and 
 make foolish mistakes and you would all give up in 
 despair. 
 
 And what would happen if you directed them to do 
 a certain difficult piece of work and then came back five 
 minutes later expecting to find it all done? Oh, you 
 can 't imagine yourself doing such foolish things ! 
 
 Perhaps you don't with your maids, but evidently 
 you do with your own self. Your objective, every-day 
 consciousness is the mistress or master of your being. 
 Psychologists say the objective mental activities are not 
 more than one-twentieth of all your mental activities. 
 That means that the mistress mind has the equivalent of 
 at least twenty maids under its direction. These "maids" 
 belong to the subjective mind, or soul of you. 
 
 Then there is the great Over-Soul, of which your 
 individual soul is but an atom ; but an atom whose every 
 demand is heard. That means that your little mistress 
 mind not only has at her bidding the equivalent of at 
 least twenty maids of the subconscious, but she has also 
 at her call the equivalent of ten million billion other 
 helpers of the infinite Over-Soul. 
 
 And all the mistress mind has to do is say the word. 
 All these helpers fly to do her bidding. 
 
 Perhaps you think all these helpers don't fly to do 
 your bidding. But they do. The only trouble with you 
 is that you don't give your helpers time and chance to 
 
75 
 
 work out your desires. You keep repeating your direc- 
 tions over and over, and you keep trying to tag around 
 after all your twenty or more house maids to see if they 
 are doing the things you want done. You watch them 
 in your stomach and your liver and your lungs, always 
 fretting for fear they are going wrong. 
 
 No wonder you get nervous and fidgety and strained 
 all over; no wonder your " feelings " are no better than 
 they are ! 
 
 Make your statements of health, happiness and success 
 at certain regular intervals, say two or three times a day. 
 Or make them at times when you can't get your mind 
 off your conditions. 
 
 Make the statements plainly and positively. Then 
 call your mind entirely away from the subject and give 
 your soul and the Over-Soul a chance to work. Make 
 light of your feelings and go get well interested in some 
 good work. 
 
 Take it for granted that all your being and all crea- 
 tion besides, is working out for you the things you desire. 
 Rest easy and trust yourself. 
 
 Don't let your mind tag your feelings and symptoms ; 
 give it plenty of useful work and plenty of play and 
 plenty of rest while your soul works things out for you 
 as fast as it can. Just be as interested and happy as you 
 can while the soul is working. Jolly yourself into having 
 a good time. 
 
 Say the Word, and then be happy and do not allow 
 yourself to doubt that the soul will do the work. This is 
 the secret of quick healing. The nearer you can come to 
 keeping your mind pleasantly occupied between the times 
 when you give yourself special affirmations and treat- 
 
76 
 
 ments, the more quickly you will realize health of mind, 
 body and environment as well as soul. 
 
 Thy faith in thy soul and the Over-Soul, will have 
 made thee whole. 
 
 The faithless mind is a terrible meddler and creator 
 of discords ; and the idle mind, the mind not directed to 
 useful purposes is always a faithless meddler. Moral: 
 Get interested in some good work. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 TO LOVE. 
 
 Man's law of being is Love. 
 
 To love is joy. 
 
 To love always, under all conditions is eternal life. 
 
 To refuse to love is to turn the current of life back 
 upon one's self. Result, stagnation, fermentation, death. 
 We call the unloving one "selfish," and we don't feel 
 like loving him. 
 
 But we must if we would have eternal life, eternal 
 joy. 
 
 How to love the unlovable is a conundrum. But even 
 a conundrum has a solution. 
 
 Would you like to know how I solved it? When I 
 
77 
 
 discovered that the law of life is love I tried mightily to 
 feel love for all people and things. I succeeded beauti- 
 fully with the heathen over in China. But I couldn't 
 apply it to the vegetable Chinaman and the junk man. 
 I could feel an ocean of love for sinners I never saw, but 
 when Mrs. Blank told Mrs. Talker, (and she told me) 
 that she did wish I would select my hats in better taste, 
 I found it impossible to feel any love for Mrs. Blank. 
 
 I could walk along the street and feel a real thrill of 
 loving pity for every little homeless cur, but when one 
 trotted with four muddy paws up my newly scrubbed 
 front steps I felt a lot more like clubbing him than loving 
 him. And I couldn't fool myself into thinking I wanted 
 to club him because I loved him — as I have heard of 
 parents doing with their children. 
 
 I could go about some kinds of housework in a perfect 
 transfiguration of love; but when I had to clean lamps 
 or the cook stove after the jelly boiled over, I dropped 
 from the seventh heaven with a thud. 
 
 Oh, dear, what was I to do ? 
 
 I gave up trying to feel love and went to thinking 
 love. I said, "I CHOOSE to love, whether I feel like 
 it or not. I WILL send out love to everything and every- 
 body, no matter how I feel. I WILL to love." In this 
 way I "treated" myself for love every time I was re- 
 minded of it. I thought it silently. I said it aloud in 
 the privacy of my own room. I went up into the attic 
 and stamped my foot and clenched my fist and hollered 
 it! 
 
 And I succeeded. 
 
 Let me whisper something to you: That is the only 
 way to succeed in anything. Of course the virtue is not 
 
 LtfC. 
 
 ; 
 
78 
 
 in the room or the attic or the "hollering," but in the 
 activity of will induced by it. 
 
 Try it. 
 
 I succeeded in making love a habit of thought. 
 
 When anything becomes a habit of thought it is 
 registered in the ninety-five per cent sub-mind and then 
 we say of it, "I feel" Affirm, affirm, AFFIRM— whis- 
 per — louder — HOLLER! Stamp your foot and hit out 
 from the shoulder! Success must be conquered — not 
 implored. 
 
65 
 
 party whose " affinity" is elsewhere — free him to honest 
 expression of love. 
 
 The man or woman who wants to perpetuate a day- 
 light marriage and a sab rosa love is crooked. Don't 
 trust him. His crookedness and corruptness will crop 
 out in other ways too. A recent big scandal and criminal 
 prosecution in political circles concerns a man who for 
 years and years has been crooked in his loves. 
 
 To live the complex, deceitful life in any direction 
 will eventually distort the straightest character; but 
 crooked love affairs will melt a character out of shape 
 more quickly and surely than anything else I know of; 
 while love controlled in honor beautifies and glorifies 
 mind and body. 
 
 Blessed is the love of one man for one woman; yet 
 more blessed is the resignation of such a love for truth's 
 sake. 
 
 1 ' All things are lawful ; ' ' but blessed is the man who 
 willingly resigns that which is not expedient according 
 to the highest love of his own being, the love of truth 
 and freedom. 
 
 Great is he who, ' ' caught in the gulf stream of some 
 great desire, ' ' breasts the stream and reaches his goal. 
 
66 
 
 XV. 
 
 CONCENTRATION. 
 
 Without concentration ye can do nothing. Without 
 concentration was not anything made that was made. 
 Without concentration will nothing ever be made. All 
 the force in the universe amounts to nothing if not con- 
 centrated. 
 
 Every object in the universe from an atom to a blaz- 
 ing sun, from amoeba to man, is in existence as a result 
 of concentration. 
 
 Diffusion is disintegration, death. Concentration is 
 life. The greater the concentration, the more abundant 
 is life. Think of the sun a moment. That is a fine illus- 
 tration of concentration. Shall I tell you how the sun is 
 made? I saw it made in the silence. I don't ask you to 
 believe that I know what I am talking about. Believe or 
 not as you can. Some day when you get into the silence 
 yourself you will know whether I am right or not. Right 
 or not, I'll tell you how the sun was formed, just as a 
 matter of illustration. 
 
 Let us wipe out the stars, our solar system included, 
 from the heavens as from a great blackboard. Now look 
 closely, Sweetheart, and see what we have left. Space — 
 nothing more. See? That looks easy — doesn't it? But 
 what is space? Space is full — yes, full; of diffused 
 energy; full of motion without mode, or at least without 
 
4 MONTHS FOR lOc. 
 
 THE INfVUXILUS isa uni( l ue monthly stand- 
 ard size magazine (now 
 in its seventh year) by Elizabeth and William E. Towne. 
 Devoted to the attainment of Health and Success through 
 spiritual, mental and physical self-development. It gives 
 practical help in the everyday problems of life. Advocates 
 deep breathing, hygienic living, etc., as well as high thought. 
 ELLA WHEELER WILCOX and FLOYD B. WILSON 
 write for every number of The Nautilus. 
 
 What Polks Think About It. 
 
 "Elizabeth Towne fills her own place in the New Thought 
 world — a place distinctly her own. Personally, I have ob- 
 tained very much good from her writings, and I regard her 
 as one of the most original thinkers of the age — one whose 
 work will be better understood and appreciated twenty years 
 from now than at the present time." — William Walker At- 
 kinson. 
 
 "I am more and more impressed by the splendid work 
 that you and your good husband are doing." — Henry Wood, 
 1654 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 "Your insight is most superb — you go straight to the 
 heart of things." — Elbert Hubbard. 
 
 "I am very fond of your writings. You are doing a 
 splendid work." — Sheldon Leavitt, M. D., Chicago. 
 
 "The Nautilus is such a joy to me— it takes constant 
 effort at concentrating my desires to keep from sending it to 
 50 people ! Each Nautilus is read, unless I give it to some 
 one, until it is worn out." — Mary Herring Hudson, Havana, 
 N. D. 
 
 SPECIAL: Send 10 cents now for four months trial; 
 or send 50 cents and receive the 14 numbers of Volume VII, 
 containing 14 Beautiful New Poems by Mrs. Wilcox and 13 
 fine articles by Wilson, besides all the other good things. 
 DO IT NOW. 
 
 Address the editor of Nautilus, 
 
 ELIZABETH TOWNE, Holyoke, Mass. 
 
HEUPrUb BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 ELIZABETH TOWNE 
 
 PRACTICAL METHODS FOR SELF - DEVELOPMENT; 
 SPIRITUAL, MENTAL, PHYSICAL; 
 
 Just out; 160 pages on antique paper, new half-tone of the author; 
 well bound in cloth; price, $1.00 
 
 JOY PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 75 large pages, bound in purple silk cloth stamped in gold; price, 
 $1.00. "Every line sparkles with life and original thought." 
 
 YOU AND YOUR FORCES, OR THE CONSTITUTION OF 
 MAN. 
 17 chapters, green and gold, flexible cover, half-tone of the author; 
 price, 50 cents. "Full of thought starters.' 1 — "In many respects 
 the most remarkable book I ever read. ,, 
 
 HOW TO GROW SUCCESS. 
 
 71 pages, strong paper cover, picture of author; price, 50 cents. 
 "A well of information and help." 
 
 EXPERIENCES IN SELF HEALING. 
 
 A spiritual autobiography and guide to realization, intensely alive and 
 helpful; new and best portrait of the author; price, 50 cents. "A 
 book of strong common sense, lighting up what to many is a path of 
 fear and mystery." " Has done me more good than anything else. 1 
 
 HAPPINESS AND MARRIAGE. 
 
 The ounce of prevention and the pound of cure; 80 pages; heavy 
 paper binding; likeness of author; price, 50 cents. "The needed 
 book.'' 1 "The ounce of prevention and the pound of cure. 11 
 
 JUST HOW TO WAKE THE SOLAR PLEXUS. 
 
 Paper bound; price, 25 cents. "It contains a FORTUNE in value. 11 
 "Breathing exercises of great value. 1 ' "Not only the key, but 
 explicit method. 11 
 
 JUST HOW TO CONCENTRATE. 
 
 Paper; price, 25 cents. "A bugle call to those who sleep. 11 "A 
 power and inspiration. 11 "So helpful. 11 
 
 HOW TO TRAIN CHILDREN AND PARENTS. 
 
 Paper; price, 25 cents. "It is great.''* "Every father and mother 
 should have it. 11 
 
 JUST HOW TO COOK MEALS WITHOUT MEAT. 
 
 Paper; price, 25 cents. 
 
 The above books are written and published bv ELIZABETH TOWNE, 
 who also publishes THE STORY OF A LITERARY CAREER, 
 by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, which is the autobiography of this great woman, 
 supplemented by a description of her home and life written oy Ella Giles 
 Ruddy. An Edition de luxe in parchment brown paper covers with three 
 half tone pictures; price, 50 cents postpaid. 
 
 Order any of the above books of the publisher, 
 
 ELIZABETH TOWNE, Holyoke, Mass. 
 
 LB S OS 
 
YOU AND jz? 
 
 ■ • ■■■). ' ■■ .. •■ 
 
 . 
 



 
 



 
 c>, v * Y * ° 
 
 AV 
 
 
 %/; 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 © o 
 
 '=%- A 
 
 A" l V 
 
 ^ '<£, 
 
 
 **_ 
 
 ,V '<? 
 
 ^ .0 
 
 
 
 
 ^ '<£, ' 
 
 ..v- 
 
 
 '«/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ ■** 
 
 v* 1 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111 
 
*5 -U. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 ,0c 
 
 ■» .(v ^ A ■ P- 
 
 
 
 
 'OO' 
 
 ^p 
 
 
 ,0o 
 
 
 *X *«M 
 
 ^ 
 
 ,\\ x v> 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 %■ ^ 
 
 
 V 
 
 .A 
 
 
 *b ^ 
 
 
 
 
 *> V 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 "^ ^ 
 
 :