Almost every time I have been to the gym I have seen men running with their shirts off on the treadmills.  Beads of sweat fly off them onto other adjacent equipment.  People just do not act the way they should in the gym.  Other people talk loudly on cell phones while people like me are trying to get some exercise right next to them.  I was working out there a while back and saw an old guy with headphones, singing very loudly to himself.  Many people do not wipe the equipment off when they get off the machines, and people seem to loiter in a way that makes me uncomfortable.  For example, there are a ton of kids in their early 20s, who like to go sit in the gym because they can pick up free wifi there.

Las Vegas is in the middle of a real estate meltdown.  Condominiums in the building that might have been $10,000,000+ a few years ago are now $3,000,0000, and condominiums that might have been $650,000 are now $150,000.  Even at these massive discounts, however, properties are not selling all that well.  I would estimate that my building is less than twenty percent full, and many of the units have been rented out for a short term by the banks, with the hopes that things will return to normal soon, and they will be able to sell them.  When I walk up to this giant building at night, only a few lights can be seen on inside the units from the street.

At least once every few weeks there is some sort of “sales event” at the condo, wherein the owners of the property bring in all sorts of free food and attempt to interest people in buying the vacant units.  They have hired real estate agents that look like models to give tours.  In front of the building, they have leased Bentleys, Porsches and so forth, which they park there to make people think these expensive vehicles are part of the lifestyle of the condominium.  In reality, however, the garages are filled with primarily older model American cars, driven by twenty somethings, who drive back and forth each day to their jobs in hotels and so forth around Las Vegas.

In front of the building, there are a couple of giant black signs that are at least 10 feet tall, which say: “Condos from the Low $100s!!”.  The signs have been planted in the astroturf (there is no real grass there) in front of the building.  When you get close to the sign you can see that the area that says ”Low $100s!” has been painted over several times after successive price cuts, which just keep coming.  The paint looks extra thick in this particular area of the sign.

Since there are so many younger people living inside of the building, and we are in Las Vegas, as I am sure you can imagine, there are also people that appear to be prostitutes and strippers living among us.  A few months ago I was in the elevator and there was a female midget standing there alongside a very tall tall woman.  They were all dressed up, talking about how they had just charged some guy $1,500 for a “fantasy hour”–whatever that meant, but that he probably would have paid $2,000, if only the tall woman had not been in such a hurry.  They were holding alcoholic drinks.  (That’s another thing about this building: people walk around with alcohol much more than they probably do anywhere else in the world.)

The elevators on the weekends are regularly filled with young kids exchanging quick innuendos about whatever craziness occurred the night before.

“Dude, I cannot believe you made me sleep in the hall.  My neck hurts!” I heard a guy say to his buddy the other day in the elevator, as I stared at the numbers of the passing floors, waiting to reach the lobby.

“Sorry man.  I could not believe she came home with me!  I would have done the same for you.”

The few times I have been on the elevator during these sorts of exchanges, the people in the midst of them have looked over at me as if I were going to smile at them and give them some sort of nod of approval, or share a smile with them about this.  I guess I must be getting old because I have realized that I have passed that point, and I no longer find these sort of things funny, like I once did.  I see the humor in it, but it just is not that cool to me anymore–especially when I am pushing my two year old in a stroller and wondering about the sort of people she will be meeting and learning from a few years from now.

What is wrong with the building I am in?  Nothing.  It is a very nice building, and it appears to be very well constructed.  I also think the management of the building is absolutely exceptional, and is really on top of most things going on there.  Given the massive drop in home values in Las Vegas and the timing this recently completed building came to market, this has turned it into a “party building”, and it is not filled with the sort of people I am comfortable living with at my age.  It is not a family building.  The people that are living there are not interested in living there, and they all plan on moving on at some point in the not-so-distant future.

It is not the income level of the people there either.  Some of the nicest buildings I know of in New York City, for example, are luxury buildings that, as a condition of being built in certain neighborhoods, have low income housing in them.  I know someone who is a bartender with a masters degree from an Ivy League college, who lives in a studio in one of these buildings and pays $250 a month for an apartment that probably would normally cost $3,500.  The thing is that he and the other low income people that live there treat the place like a home, and feel glad to be there.  He has been there for over 10 years and is extremely grateful.  The people in our building in Las Vegas are just “passing through”.  They do not care what anyone thinks of them, or how they behave.

Thus, the problem is the environment.

As we were coming back from Las Vegas yesterday, we stopped at the Mad Greek Restaurant in Baker, California (considered to have some of the hottest temperatures on earth), and I picked up the local real estate magazine.  The magazine was filled with houses for $30,000 and giant luxury houses in the middle of the desert for less than $600,000, which would easily cost millions in Los Angeles.  As I started thinking about this, however, I realized that no matter how nice the house might be, the purchaser still would be stuck living in an environment that is among the hottest places on earth.

A few weeks ago, a friend of my wife’s invited us to an open house for a private school in Los Angeles.  I sat there with probably at least 100 other people, learning about how competitive it is for parents to get their kids into this particular kindergarten.  Parents were on their absolute best behavior as they learned about the many months it could potentially take for their kids to get  accepted into the school.  Some parents will happily and aggressively do everything they can to get their kids into kindergartens that cost over $20,000 a  year–even when there are perfectly good public schools in many of the upscale neighborhoods they live in.  Why on earth would someone do this?

The reason for all this nonsense is the environment: Parents want their kids to get into good schools because they feel this will lead to success down the road.  People believe in the power of environments to shape their futures and the futures of their children.

The environment that you are in makes all the difference.  It ultimately shapes who you become.

There has been an ongoing debate for some time about the importance of the intelligence characteristics we inherit genetically from our parents, versus what we learn from the people and circumstances we are around.  This debate is known as nature versus nurture, and was ignited with a particular amount of passion with the 1994 publication of the book The Bell Curve.  The Bell Curve was co-written by the late Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray.   The book quickly became a bestseller.

The Bell Curve’s central argument is that between 40% and 80% of our intelligence is genetically inherited from our parents, and that genetics have more of an effect on us than our socioeconomic background (i.e., our environment), in the determination of whether we are likely to succeed in our lives going forward.  In addition to stating that our IQ comes primarily from our parents, the book also argues that having a high IQ is extremely important for getting a good job, having a high income, doing well in school and, similarly, that having a low IQ correlates with having a low income, not doing well in school and other similar failures.  The most controversial idea of The Bell Curve revolves around the idea that you cannot “reform” or help low IQ people by modifying their social environments.

When the book was originally published, as might have been expected, there was a great deal of debate set off by The Bell Curve, and many scientists, educators, sociologists and others quickly came to the opposite conclusion.  For example, studies of adopted children have shown that even their IQs will increase if they are put in improved environments.

“Well-controlled adoption studies done in France have found that transferring an infant from a family having low socioeconomic status (SES) to a home where parents have high SES improves childhood IQ scores by 12 to 16 points or about one standard deviation, which is considered a large effect size in psychological research.”   “The malleability of intelligence is not constrained by heritability”.  (p. 76, Wahlsten, D.)  In B. Devlin, S.E. Fienberg., & K. Roeder. Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists respond to The Bell Curve. New York: (1997).

There are also numerous other studies that show the effect of environment on IQ, success and other areas of people’s lives.  Personally, I believe that it is next to impossible that our environment and the people that we live with, work with and associate with can have anything less than a major impact on what ends up happening to us and the people we become.  It would be incorrect to claim that a good environment has little impact on how successful we ultimately end up becoming.

Your career and your life will be largely determined by the environment you operate in.  You need to seek out environments that support you becoming the person you want to be, and the person you believe you can become.  A strong environment can make all the difference.  Put yourself in the most demanding work environments and you will likely develop a great deal of skills you would not otherwise develop.  Work around the smartest and most ambitious people and you too will likely become smarter and more ambitious.  Your environment will shape you far more than you may realize.  Your environment comes down to where you live, the people you associate with, where you work and more.

When I picked a place in Las Vegas I made a mistake that many of us make.  I picked a place that had the best view and was the best deal.  I did not consider the environment.  I was blinded by things other than the environment.  The environment I am in is so bad that every time I leave the confines of the condominium I am reminded of the mistake I made.

We lose sight of the environments of the jobs we choose as well.

We may choose a job that has the best salary.  We may choose a job that has the best commute.  We may choose an employer that has the best brand.  We may choose a job that has the best benefits or vacation policy.

We choose places to work for all sorts of reasons; however, ultimately it is the environment and people we will be around every day that is the most important.  We need to be focused on the environment in addition to all of the other things.  It is the environment that will ultimately determine our happiness, and shape who we become.

Related posts:

1. You Need to be in the Right Environment
2. Control Your Environment
3. Harmonize With the People in Your Environment

–Harrison

MENTAL EFFICIENCY AND OTHER HINTS TO MEN AND WOMEN

Arnold Bennett

THE APPEAL

CHAPTER I

IF there is any virtue in advertisements –and a journalist should be the last person to say that there is not–the American nation is rapidly reaching a state of physical efficiency of which the world has probably not seen the like since Sparta. In all the American newspapers and all the American monthlies are innumerable illustrated announcements of “physical-culture specialists,” who guarantee to make all the organs of the body perform their duties with the mighty precision of a 60 h.p. motor-car that never breaks down. I saw a book the other day written by one of these specialists, to show how perfect health could be attained by devoting a quarter of an hour a day to certain exercises. The advertisements multiply and increase in size. They cost a great deal of money. Therefore they must bring in a great deal of business.

Therefore vast numbers of people must be worried about the non-efficiency of their bodies, and on the way to achieve efficiency. In our more modest British fashion, we have the same phenomenon in England. And it is growing. Our muscles are growing also. Surprise a man in his bedroom of a morning, and you will find him lying on his back on the floor, or standing on his head, or whirling clubs, in pursuit of physical efficiency. I remember that once I “went in” for physical efficiency myself. I, too, lay on the floor, my delicate epidermis separated from the carpet by only the thinnest of garments, and I contorted myself according to the fifteen diagrams of a large chart (believed to be the magna charta of physical efficiency) daily after shaving. In three weeks my collars would not meet round my prize-fighter’s neck; my hosier reaped immense profits, and I came to the conclusion that I had carried physical efficiency quite far enough.

A strange thing –was it not? –that I never had the idea of devoting a quarter of an hour a day after shaving to the pursuit of mental efficiency. The average body is a pretty complicated affair, sadly out of order, but happily susceptible to culture. The average mind is vastly more complicated, not less sadly out of order, but perhaps even more susceptible to culture. We compare our arms to the arms of the gentleman illustrated in the physical efficiency advertisement, and we murmur to ourselves the classic phrase: “This will never do.” And we set about developing the muscles of our arms until we can show them off (through a frock coat) to women at afternoon tea. But it does not, perhaps, occur to us that the mind has its muscles, and a lot of apparatus besides, and that these invisible, yet paramount, mental organs are far less efficient than they ought to be; that some of them are atrophied, others starved, others out of shape, etc.

A man of sedentary occupation goes for a very long walk on Easter Monday, and in the evening is so exhausted that he can scarcely eat. He wakes up to the inefficiency of his body, caused by his neglect of it, and he is so shocked that he determines on remedial measures. Either he will walk to the office, or he will play golf, or he will execute the post-shaving exercises. But let the same man after a prolonged sedentary course of newspapers, magazines, and novels, take his mind out for a stiff climb among the rocks of a scientific, philosophic, or artistic subject. What will he do? Will he stay out all day, and return in the evening too tired even to read his paper? Not he. It is ten to one that, finding himself puffing for breath after a quarter of an hour, he won’t even persist till he gets his second wind, but will come back at once. Will he remark with genuine concern that his mind is sadly out of condition and that he really must do something to get it into order? Not he. It is a hundred to one that he will tranquilly accept the status quo, without shame and without very poignant regret. Do I make my meaning clear?

I say, without a very poignant regret, because a certain vague regret is indubitably caused by realizing that one is handicapped by a mental inefficiency which might, without too much difficulty, be cured. That vague regret exudes like a vapour from the more cultivated section of the public. It is to be detected everywhere, and especially among people who are near the half-way house of life. They perceive the existence of immense quantities of knowledge, not the smallest particle of which will they ever make their own.

They stroll forth from their orderly dwellings on a starlit night, and feel dimly the wonder of the heavens. But the still small voice is telling them that, though they have read in a newspaper that there are fifty thousand stars in the Pleiades, they cannot even point to the Pleiades in the sky. How they would like to grasp the significance of the nebular theory, the most overwhelming of all theories ! And the years are passing; and there are twenty-four hours in every day, out of which they work only six or seven; and it needs only an impulse, an effort, a system, in order gradually to cure the mind of its slackness, to give “tone” to its muscles, and to enable it to grapple with the splendors of knowledge and sensation that await it! But the regret is not poignant enough. They do nothing. They go on doing nothing. It is as though they passed for ever along the length of an endless table filled with delicacies, and could not stretch out a hand to seize. Do I exaggerate? Is there not deep in the consciousness of most of us a mournful feeling that our minds are like the liver of the advertisement –sluggish, and that for the sluggishness of our minds there is the excuse neither of incompetence, nor of lack of time, nor of lack of opportunity, nor of lack of means?

Why does not some mental efficiency specialist come forward and show us how to make our minds do the work which our minds are certainly capable of doing? I do not mean a quack. All the physical efficiency specialists who advertise largely are not quacks. Some of them achieve very genuine results. If a course of treatment can be devised for the body, a course of treatment can be devised for the mind. Thus we might realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of that magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums. We have the desire to perfect ourselves, to round off our careers with the graces of knowledge and taste. How many people would not gladly undertake some branch of serious study, so that they might not die under the reproach of having lived and died without ever really having known anything about anything! It is not the absence of desire that prevents them. It is, first, the absence of will-power–not the will to begin, but the will to continue; and, second, a mental apparatus which is out of condition, “puffy,” “weedy,” through sheer neglect. The remedy, then, divides itself into two parts, the cultivation of will-power, and the getting into condition of the mental apparatus. And these two branches of the cure must be worked concurrently.

I am sure that the considerations which I have presented to you must have already presented themselves to tens of thousands of my readers, and that thousands must have attempted the cure. I doubt not that many have succeeded. I shall deem it a favour if those readers who have interested themselves in the question will communicate to me at once the result of their experience, whatever its outcome. I will make such use as I can of the letters I receive, and afterwards I will give my own experience.

THE REPLIES

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

The correspondence which I have received in answer to my appeal shows that at any rate I did not overstate the case. There is, among a vast mass of reflecting people in this country, a clear consciousness of being mentally less than efficient, and a strong (though ineffective) desire that such mental inefficiency should cease to be. The desire is stronger than I had imagined, but it does not seem to have led to much hitherto. And that “course of treatment for the mind,” by means of which we are to “realize some of the ambitions which all of us cherish in regard to the utilization in our spare time of the magnificent machine which we allow to rust within our craniums”–that desiderated course of treatment has not apparently been devised by anybody. The Sandow of the brain has not yet loomed up above the horizon. On the other hand, there appears to be a general expectancy that I personally am going to play the role of the Sandow of the brain. Vain thought!

I have been very much interested in the letters, some of which, as a statement of the matter in question, are admirable. It is perhaps not surprising that the best of them come from women–for (genius apart) woman is usually more touchingly lyrical than man in the yearning for the ideal. The most enthusiastic of all the letters I have received, however, is from a gentleman whose notion is that we should be hypnotized into mental efficiency. After advocating the establishment of “an institution of practical psychology from whence there can be graduated fit and proper people whose efforts would be in the direction of the subconscious mental mechanism of the child or even the adult,” this hypnotist proceeds: “Between the academician, whose specialty is an inconsequential cobweb, the medical man who has got it into his head that he is the logical foster-father for psychonomical matters, and the blatant ‘ professor’ who deals with monkey tricks on a few somnambules on the music-hall stage, you are allowing to go unrecognized one of the most potent factors of mental development.” Am I? I have not the least idea what this gentleman means, but I can assure him that he is wrong. I can make more sense out of the remarks of another correspondent who, utterly despising the things of the mind, compares a certain class of young men to “a halfpenny bloater with the roe out,” and asserts that he himself “got out of the groove” by dint of having to unload ten tons of coal in three hours and a half every day during several years. This is interesting and it is constructive, but it is just a little beside the point.

A lady, whose optimism is indicated by her pseudonym, “Esperance,” puts her finger on the spot, or, rather, on one of the spots, in a very sensible letter. “It appears to me,” she says, “that the great cause of mental inefficiency is lack of concentration, perhaps especially in the case of women. I can trace my chief failures to this cause. Concentration is a talent. It may be in a measure cultivated, but it needs to be inborn. . . . The greater number of us are in a state of semi-slumber, with minds which are only exerted to one half of their capability.” I thoroughly agree that inability to concentrate is one of the chief symptoms of the mental machine being out of condition. “Esperance’s” suggested cure is rather drastic.

She says: “Perhaps one of the best cures for mental sedentariness is arithmetic, for there is nothing else which requires greater power of concentration.” Perhaps arithmetic might be an effective cure, but it is not a practical cure, because no one, or scarcely any one, would practice it. I cannot imagine the plain man who, having a couple of hours to spare of a night, and having also the sincere desire but not the will-power to improve his taste and knowledge, would deliberately sit down and work sums by way of preliminary mental calisthenics. As Ibsen’s pup-pet said: “People don’t do these things.” Why do they not? The answer is: Simply because they won’t; simply because human nature will not run to it. “Esperance’s” suggestion of learning poetry is slightly better.

Certainly the best letter I have had is from Miss H. D. She says: “This idea [to avoid the reproach of ' living and dying without ever really knowing anything about anything'] came to me of itself from somewhere when I was a small girl. And looking back I fancy that the thought itself spurred me to do something in this world, to get into line with people who did things – people who painted pictures, wrote books, built bridges, or did something beyond the ordinary. This only has seemed to me, all my life since, worth while.” Here I must interject that such a statement is somewhat sweeping. In fact, it sweeps a whole lot of fine and legitimate ambitions straight into the rubbish heap of the Not-worth-while. I think the writer would wish to modify it. She continues: “And when the day comes in which I have not done some serious reading, however small the measure, or some writing … or I have been too sad or dull to notice the brightness of colour of the sun, of grass and flowers, of the sea, or the moonlight on the water, I think the day ill-spent. So I must think the incentive to do a little each day beyond the ordinary towards the real culture of the mind, is the beginning of the cure of mental inefficiency.” This is very ingenious and good. Further: “The day comes when the mental habit has become a part of our life, and we value mental work for the work’s sake.” But I am not sure about that. For my-self, I have never valued work for its own sake, and I never shall. And I only value such mental work for the more full and more intense consciousness of being alive which it gives me.

Miss H. D.’s remedies are vague. As to lack of will-power, “the first step is to realize your weakness; the next step is to have ordinary shame that you are defective.” I doubt, I gravely doubt, if these steps would lead to anything definite. Nor is this very helpful: “I would advise reading, observing, writing. I would advise the use of every sense and every faculty by which we at last learn the sacredness of life.” This is begging the question. If people, by merely wishing to do so, could regularly and seriously read, observe, write, and use every faculty and sense, there would be very little mental inefficiency. I see that I shall be driven to construct a program out of my own bitter and ridiculous experiences.

THE CURE

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

“But tasks in hours of insight willed

Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.”

The above lines from Matthew Arnold are quoted by one of my very numerous correspondents to support a certain optimism in this matter of a systematic attempt to improve the mind. They form part of a beautiful and inspiring poem, but I gravely fear that they run counter to the vast mass of earthly experience. More often than not I have found that a task willed in some hour of insight can not be fulfilled through hours of gloom. No, no, and no! To will is easy: it needs but the momentary bright contagion of a stronger spirit than one’s own. To fulfill, morning after morning, or evening after evening, through months and years–this is the very dickens, and there is not one of my readers that will not agree with me.

Yet such is the elastic quality of human nature that most of my correspondents are quite ready to ignore the sad fact and to demand at once: “what shall we will? Tell us what we must will.” Some seem to think that they have solved the difficulty when they have advocated certain systems of memory and mind-training. Such systems may be in themselves useful or useless – the evidence furnished to me is contradictory – but were they perfect systems, a man cannot be intellectually born again merely by joining a memory-class. The best system depends utterly on the man’s power of resolution. And what really counts is not the system, but the spirit in which the man handles it. Now, the proper spirit can only be induced by a careful consideration and realization of the man’s conditions –the limitations of his temperament, the strength of adverse influences, and the lessons of his past.

Let me take an average case. Let me take your case, O man or woman of thirty, living in comfort, with some cares, and some responsibilities, and some pretty hard daily work, but not too much of any! The question of mental efficiency is in the air. It interests you. It touches you nearly. Your conscience tells you that your mind is less active and less informed than it might be. You suddenly spring up from the garden-seat, and you say to yourself that you will take your mind in hand and do something with it. Wait a moment. Be so good as to sink back into that garden-seat and clutch that tennis racket a little longer. You have had these “hours of insight” before, you know. You have not arrived at the age of thirty without having tried to carry out noble resolutions -and failed. What precautions are you going to take against failure this time? For your will is probably no stronger now than it was aforetime. You have admitted and accepted failure in the past. And no wound is more cruel to the spirit of resolve than that dealt by failure. You fancy the wound closed, but just at the critical moment it may reopen and mortally bleed you. What are your precautions? Have you thought of them? No. You have not.

I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. But I know you because I know myself. Your failure in the past was due to one or more of three causes. And the first was that you undertook too much at the beginning. You started off with a magnificent program. You are something of an expert in physical exercises –you would be ashamed not to be, in these physical days –and so you would never attempt a hurdle race or an uninterrupted hour’s club-whirling without some preparation. The analogy between the body and the mind ought to have struck you. This time, please do not form an elaborate program. Do not form any program. Simply content yourself with a preliminary canter, a ridiculously easy preliminary canter. For example (and I give this merely as an example), you might say to yourself: “Within one month from this date I will read twice Herbert Spencer’s little book on ‘ Education ‘ –sixpence –and will make notes in pencil inside the back cover of the things that particularly strike me.” You remark that that is nothing, that you can do it “on your head,” and so on. Well, do it. When it is done you will at any rate possess the satisfaction of having resolved to do something and having done it. Your mind will have gained tone and healthy pride. You will be even justified in setting yourself some kind of a simple program to extend over three months. And you will have acquired some general principles by the light of which to construct the program. But best of all, you will have avoided failure, that dangerous wound.

The second possible cause of previous failure was the disintegrating effect on the will-power of the ironic, superior smile of friends. Whenever a man “turns over a new leaf ” he has this inane giggle to face. The drunkard may be less ashamed of getting drunk than of breaking to a crony the news that he has signed the pledge. Strange, but true! And human nature must be counted with. Of course, on a few stern spirits the effect of that smile is merely to harden the resolution. But on the majority its influence is deleterious. Therefore don’t go and nail your flag to the mast. Don’t raise any flag. Say nothing. Work as unobtrusively as you can. When you have won a battle or two you can begin to wave the banner, and then you will find that that miserable, pitiful, ironic, superior smile will die away ere it is born.

The third possible cause was that you did not rearrange your day. Idler and time-waster though you have been, still you had done something during the twenty-four hours. You went to work with a kind of dim idea that there were twenty-six hours in every day. Something large and definite has to be dropped. Some space in the rank jungle of the day has to be cleared and swept up for the new operations. Robbing yourself of sleep won’t help you, nor trying to “squeeze in” a time for study between two other times. Use the knife, and use it freely. If you mean to read or think half an hour a day, arrange for an hour. A hundred percent margin is not too much for a beginner. Do you ask me where the knife is to be used? I should say that in nine cases out of ten the rites of the cult of the body might be abbreviated. I recently spent a weekend in a London suburb, and I was staggered by the wholesale attention given to physical recreation in all its forms. It was a gigantic debauch of the muscles on every side. It shocked me. “Poor withering mind! ” I thought. “Cricket, and football, and boating, and golf, and tennis have their ‘ seasons,’ but not thou!” These considerations are general and prefatory. Now I must come to detail.

MENTAL CALISTHENICS

CHAPTER I CONTINUED…

I have dealt with the state of mind in which one should begin a serious effort towards mental efficiency, and also with the probable causes of failure in previous efforts. We come now to what I may call the calisthenics of the business, exercises which may be roughly compared to the technical exercises necessary in learning to play a musical instrument. It is curious that a person studying a musical instrument will have no false shame whatever in doing mere exercises for the fingers and wrists while a person who is trying to get his mind into order will almost certainly experience a false shame in going through performances which are undoubtedly good for him.

Herein lies one of the great obstacles to mental efficiency. Tell a man that he should join a memory class, and he will hum and haw, and say, as I have already remarked, that memory isn’t everything; and, in short, he won’t join the memory class, partly from indolence, I grant, but more from false shame. (Is not this true?) He will even hesitate about learning things by heart. Yet there are few mental exercises better than learning great poetry or prose by heart. Twenty lines a week for six months: what a “cure “for debility! The chief, but not the only, merit of learning by heart as an exercise is that it compels the mind to concentrate. And the most important preliminary to self-development is the faculty of concentrating at will. Another excellent exercise is to read a page of no matter-what, and then immediately to write down–in one’s own words or in the author’s –one’s full recollection of it. A quarter of an hour a day! No more! And it works like magic.

This brings me to the department of writing. I am a writer by profession; but I do not think I have any prejudices in favour of the exercise of writing. Indeed, I say to myself every morning that if there is one exercise in the world which I hate, it is the exercise of writing. But I must assert that in my opinion the exercise of writing is an indispensable part of any genuine effort towards mental efficiency. I don’t care much what you write, so long as you compose sentences and achieve continuity. There are forty ways of writing in an unprofessional manner, and they are all good. You may keep “a full diary,” as Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson says he does. This is one of the least good ways. Diaries, save in experienced hands like those of Mr. Benson, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend to strife. Further, one never knows when one may not be compelled to produce them in a court of law. A journal is better. Do not ask me to define the difference between a journal and a diary. I will not and I cannot. It is a difference that one feels instinctively. A diary treats exclusively of one’s self and one’s doings; a journal roams wider, and notes whatever one has observed of interest. A diary relates that one had lobster mayonnaise for dinner and rose the next morning with a headache, doubtless attributable to mental strain. A journal relates that Mrs. ———-, whom one took into dinner, had brown eyes, and an agreeable trick of throwing back her head after asking a question, and gives her account of her husband’s strange adventures in Colorado, etc.

A diary is All I, I, I, I, itself I (to quote a line of the transcendental poetry of Mary Baker G. Eddy). A journal is the large spectacle of life. A journal may be special or general. I know a man who keeps a journal of all cases of current superstition which he actually encounters. He began it without the slightest suspicion that he was beginning a document of astounding interest and real scientific value; but such was the fact. In default of a diary or a journal, one may write essays (provided one has the moral courage); or one may simply make notes on the book one reads. Or one may construct anthologies of passages which have made an individual and particular appeal to one’s tastes. Anthology construction is one of the pleasantest hobbies that a person who is not mad about golf and bridge –that is to say, a thinking person –can possibly have; and I recommend it to those who, discreetly mistrusting their power to keep up a fast pace from start to finish, are anxious to begin their intellectual course gently and mildly. In any event, writing – the act of writing –is vital to almost any scheme. I would say it was vital to every scheme, without exception, were I not sure that some kind correspondent would instantly point out a scheme to which writing was obviously not vital.

After writing comes thinking. (The sequence may be considered odd, but I adhere to it.) In this connexion I cannot do better than quote an admirable letter which I have received from a correspondent who wishes to be known only as “An Oxford Lecturer.” He says: “Till a man has got his physical brain completely under his control –suppressing its too-great receptivity, its tendencies to reproduce idly the thoughts of others, and to be swayed by every passing gust of emotion –I hold that he cannot do a tenth part of the work that he would then be able to perform with little or no effort. Moreover, work apart, he has not entered upon his kingdom, and unlimited possibilities of future development are barred to him. Mental efficiency can be gained by constant practice in meditation –i. e., by concentrating the mind, say, for but ten minutes daily, but with absolute regularity, on some of the highest thoughts of which it is capable.

Failures will be frequent, but they must be regarded with simple indifference and dogged perseverance in the path chosen. If that path be followed without intermission even for a few weeks the results will speak for themselves.” I thoroughly agree with what this correspondent says, and am obliged to him for having so ably stated the case. But I regard such a practice of meditation as he indicates as being rather an “advanced” exercise for a beginner. After the beginner has got under way, and gained a little confidence in his strength of purpose, and acquired the skill to define his thoughts sufficiently to write them down – then it would be time enough, in my view, to under-take what “An Oxford Lecturer ” suggests. By the way, he highly recommends Mrs. Annie Besant’s book, Thought Power: Its Control and Culture. He says that it treats the subject with scientific clearness, and gives a practical method of training the mind. I endorse the latter part of the statement.

So much for the more or less technical processes of stirring the mind from its sloth and making it exactly obedient to the aspirations of the soul. And here I close. Numerous correspondents have asked me to outline a course of reading for them. In other words, they have asked me to particularize for them the aspirations of their souls. My subject, however, was not self-development. My subject was mental efficiency as a means to self-development. Of course, one can only acquire mental efficiency in the actual effort of self-development. But I was concerned, not with the choice of route; rather with the manner of following the route. You say to me that I am busying myself with the best method of walking, and refusing to discuss where to go. Precisely. One man cannot tell another man where the other man wants to go.

If he can’t himself decide on a goal he may as well curl up and expire, for the root of the matter is not in him. I will content myself with pointing out that the entire universe is open for inspection. Too many people fancy that self-development means literature. They associate the higher life with an intimate knowledge of the life of Charlotte Bronte, or the order of the plays of Shakespeare. The higher life may just as well be butterflies, or funeral customs, or county boundaries, or street names, or mosses, or stars, or slugs, as Charlotte Bronte or Shakespeare. Choose what interests you. Lots of finely-organized, mentally-efficient persons can’t read Shakespeare at any price, and if you asked them who was the author of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall they might proudly answer Emily Bronte, if they didn’t say they never heard of it. An accurate knowledge of any subject, coupled with a carefully nurtured sense of the relativity of that subject to other subjects, implies an enormous self-development. With this hint I conclude.

EXPRESSING ONE’S INDIVIDUALITY

CHAPTER II

A MOST curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows the impression one is creating on other people. One may often guess pretty accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent –some people render it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically inform one –but that is not what I mean. I mean much more than that. I mean that one has one’s self no mental picture corresponding to the mental picture which one’s personality leaves in the minds of one’s friends. Has it ever struck you that there is a mysterious individual going around, walking the streets, calling at houses for tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, arguing, and that all your friends know him and have long since added him up and come to a definite conclusion about him –without saying more than a chance, cautious word to you; and that that person is you? Supposing that you came into a drawing-room where you were having tea, do you think you would recognize yourself as an individuality? I think not.

You would be apt to say to yourself, as guests do when disturbed in drawing-rooms by other guests: “Who’s this chap? Seems rather queer. I hope he won’t be a bore.” And your first telling would be slightly hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in an unsuspected mirror in the very clothes that you have put on that very day and that you know by heart, you are almost always shocked by the realization that you are you. And now and then, when you have gone to the glass to arrange your hair in the full sobriety of early morning, have you not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that stranger piqued your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise external details of form, colour, and movement, what may it not be with the vague complex effect of the mental and moral individuality?

A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the result? The result merely is that his friends, in the privacy of their minds, set him down as a man who tries to make a good impression. If much depends on the result of a single interview, or a couple of interviews, a man may conceivably force another to accept an impression of himself which he would like to convey. But if the receiver of the impression is to have time at his disposal, then the giver of the impression may just as well sit down and put his hands in his pockets, for nothing that he can do will modify or influence in any way the impression that he will ultimately give. The real impress is, in the end, given unconsciously, not consciously; and further, it is received unconsciously, not consciously. It depends partly on both persons. And it is immutably fixed before-hand. There can be no final deception. Take the extreme case, that of the mother and her son. One hears that the son hoodwinks his mother. Not he! If he is cruel, neglectful, overbearing, she is perfectly aware of it. He does not deceive her, and she does not deceive herself. I have often thought: If a son could look into a mother’s heart, what an eye-opener he would have! “What!” he would cry. “This cold, im-partial judgment, this keen vision for my faults, this implacable memory of little slights, and injustices, and callousness’s committed long ago, in the breast of my mother!” Yes, my friend, in the breast of your mother. The only difference between your mother and another person is that she takes you as you are, and loves you for what you are. She is n’t blind: do not imagine it.

The marvel is, not that people are such bad judges of character, but that they are such good judges, especially of what I may call fundamental character. The wiliest person cannot for ever conceal his fundamental character from the simplest. And people are very stern judges, too. Think of your best friends –are you oblivious of their defects? On the contrary, you are perhaps too conscious of them. When you summon them before your mind’s eye, it is no ideal creation that you see. When you meet them and talk to them you are constantly making reservations in their disfavour –unless, of course, you happen to be a schoolgirl gushing over like a fountain with enthusiasm. It is well, when one is judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality. It is well to grasp the fact that you are going through life under the scrutiny of a band of acquaintances who are subject to very few illusions about you, whose views of you are, indeed, apt to be harsh and even cruel.

Above all it is advisable to comprehend thoroughly that the things in your individuality which annoy your friends most are the things of which you are completely unconscious. It is not until years have passed that one begins to be able to form a dim idea of what one has looked like to one’s friends. At forty one goes back ten years, and one says sadly, but with a certain amusement: “I must have been pretty blatant then. I can see how I must have exasperated ‘em. And yet I hadn’t the faintest notion of it at the time. My intentions were of the best. Only I didn’t know enough.” And one recollects some particularly crude action, and kicks one’s self. . . . Yes, that is all very well; and the enlightenment which has come with increasing age is exceedingly satisfactory. But you are forty now. What shall you be saying of yourself at fifty? Such reflections foster humility, and they foster also a reluctance, which it is impossible to praise too highly, to tread on other people’s toes.

A moment ago I used the phrase “fundamental character.” It is a reminiscence of Stevenson’s phrase “fundamental decency.” And it is the final test by which one judges one’s friends. “After all, he ’s a decent fellow.” We must be able to use that formula concerning our friends. Kindliness of heart is not the greatest of human qualities –and its general effect on the progress of the world is not entirely beneficent –but it is the greatest of human qualities in friendship. It is the least dispensable quality. We come back to it with relief from more brilliant qualities. And it has the great advantage of always going with a broad mind. Narrow-minded people are never kind-hearted. You may be inclined to dispute this statement: please think it over; I am inclined to uphold it.

We can forgive the absence of any quality except kindliness of heart. And when a man lacks that, we blame him, we will not forgive him. This is, of course, scandalous. A man is born as he is born. And he can as easily add a cubit to his stature as add kindliness to his heart. The feat never has been done, and never will be done. And yet we blame those who have not kindliness. We have the incredible, insufferable, and odious audacity to blame them. We think of them as though they had nothing to do but go into a shop and buy kindliness. I hear you say that kindliness of heart can be “cultivated.” Well, I hate to have even the appearance of contradicting you, but it can only be cultivated in the botanical sense. You can’t cultivate violets on a nettle. A philosopher has enjoined us to suffer fools gladly. He had more usefully enjoined us to suffer ill-natured persons gladly. … I see that in a fit of absentmindedness I have strayed into the pulpit. I descend.

BREAKING WITH THE PAST

CHAPTER III

ON that dark morning we woke up, and it instantly occurred to us –or at any rate to those of us who have preserved some of our illusions and our naivete –that we had something to be cheerful about, some cause for a gay and strenuous vivacity; and then we remembered that it was New Year’s Day, and there were those Resolutions to put into force! Of course, we all smile in a superior manner at the very mention of New Year’s Resolutions; we pretend they are toys for children, and that we have long since ceased to regard them seriously as a possible aid to conduct.

But we are such deceivers, such miserable, moral cowards, in such terror of appearing naive that I for one am not to be taken in by that smile and that pretence. The individual who scoffs at New Year’s Resolutions resembles the woman who says she doesn’t look under the bed at nights; the truth is not in him, and in the very moment of his lying, could his cranium suddenly become transparent, we should see Resolutions burning brightly in his brain like lamps in Trafalgar Square. Of this I am convinced, that nineteen-twentieths of us got out of bed that morning animated by that special feeling of gay and strenuous vivacity which Resolutions alone can produce. And nineteen-twentieths of us were also conscious of a high virtue, forgetting that it is not the making of Resolutions, but the keeping of them, which renders pardonable the consciousness of virtue.

And at this hour, while the activity of the Resolution is yet in full blast, I would wish to insist on the truism, obvious perhaps, but apt to be overlooked, that a man cannot go forward and stand still at the same time. Just as moralists have often animadverted upon the tendency to live in the future, so I would animadvert upon the tendency to live in the past. Because all around me I see men carefully tying them-selves with an unbreakable rope to an immovable post at the bottom of a hill and then struggling to climb the hill. If there is one Resolution more important than another it is the Resolution to break with the past. If life is not a continual denial of the past, then it is nothing. This may seem a hard and callous doctrine, but you know there are aspects of common sense which decidedly are hard and callous. And one finds constantly in plain common-sense persons (O rare and select band!) a surprising quality of ruthlessness mingled with softer traits. Have you not noticed it? The past is absolutely intractable. One can’t do anything with it. And an exaggerated attention to it is like an exaggerated attention to sepulchers –a sign of barbarism. Moreover, the past is usually the enemy of cheerfulness, and cheerfulness is a most precious attainment.

Personally, I could even go so far as to exhibit hostility towards grief, and a marked hostility towards remorse -two states of mind which feed on the past instead of on the present. Remorse, which is not the same thing as repentance, serves no purpose that I have ever been able to discover. What one has done, one has done, and there’s an end of it. As a great prelate unforgettably said, “Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be. Why, then, attempt to deceive ourselves “–that remorse for wickedness is a useful and praiseworthy exercise? Much better to forget. As a matter of fact, people “indulge “in remorse; it is a somewhat vicious form of spiritual pleasure. Grief, of course, is different, and it must be handled with delicate consideration. Nevertheless, when I see, as one does see, a man or a woman dedicating existence to sorrow for the loss of a beloved creature, and the world tacitly applauding, my feeling is certainly inimical. To my idea, that man or woman is not honouring, but dishonouring, the memory of the departed; society suffers, the individual suffers, and no earthly or heavenly good is achieved. Grief is of the past; it mars the present; it is a form of indulgence, and it ought to be bridled much more than it often is. The human heart is so large that mere remembrance should not be allowed to tyrannize over every part of it.

But cases of remorse and absorbing grief are comparatively rare. What is not rare is that misguided loyalty to the past which dominates the lives of so many of us. I do not speak of leading principles, which are not likely to incommode us by changing; I speak of secondary yet still important things. We will not do so-and-so because we have never done it – as if that was a reason! Or we have always done so-and-so, therefore we must always do it – as if that was logic! This disposition to an irrational Toryism is curiously discoverable in advanced Radicals, and it will show itself in the veriest trifles. I remember such a man whose wife objected to his form of hat (not that I would call so crowning an affair as a hat a trifle!). “My dear,” he protested, “I have always worn this sort of hat. It may not suit me, but it is absolutely impossible for me to alter it now.” However, she took him by means of an omnibus to a hat shop and bought him another hat and put it on his head, and made a present of the old one to the shop assistant, and marched him out of the shop. “There!” she said, “you see how impossible it is.” This is a parable. And I will not insult your intelligence by applying it.

The faculty that we chiefly need when we are in the resolution-making mood is the faculty of imagination, the faculty of looking at our lives as though we had never looked at them before –freshly, with a new eye. Supposing that you had been born mature and full of experience, and that yesterday had been the first day of your life, you would regard it today as an experiment, you would challenge each act in it, and you would probably arrange to-morrow in a manner that showed a healthy disrespect for yesterday. You certainly would not say: “I have done so-and-so once; therefore I must keep on doing it.” The past is never more than an experiment. A genuine appreciation of this fact will make our new Resolutions more valuable and drastic than they usually are. I have a dim notion that the most useful Resolution for most of us would be to break quite fifty per cent, of all the vows we have ever made. “Do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility with vows. . . . Take this warning; it is of great importance.” (The wisdom is Johnson’s)

SETTLING DOWN IN LIFE

CHAPTER IV

THE other day a well-known English novelist asked me how old I thought she was, really. “Well,” I said to myself, “since she has asked for it, she shall have it; I will be as true to life as her novels.” So I replied audaciously: “Thirty-eight.” I fancied I was erring if at all, on the side of “really,” and I trembled. She laughed triumphantly. “I am forty-three,” she said. The incident might have passed off entirely to my satisfaction had she not proceeded: “And now tell me how old you are.” That was like a woman. Women imagine that men have no reticences, no pretty little vanities.

What an error! Of course I could not be beaten in candor by a woman. I had to offer myself a burnt sacrifice to her curiosity, and I did it, bravely but not unflinchingly. And then afterwards the fact of my age remained with me, worried me, obsessed me. I saw more clearly than ever before that age was telling on me. I could not be blind to the deliberation of my movements in climbing stairs and in dressing. Once upon a time the majority of persons I met in the street seemed much older than myself. It is different now. The change has come unperceived. There is a generation younger than mine that smokes cigars and falls in love. Astounding! Once I could play left-wing forward for an hour and a half without dropping down dead. Once I could swim a hundred and fifty feet submerged at the bottom of a swimming-bath. Incredible! Simply incredible! . . . Can it be that I have already lived?

And lo! I, at the age of nearly forty, am putting to myself the old questions concerning the intrinsic value of life, the fundamentally important questions: What have I got out of it? What am I likely to get out of it? In a word, what’s it worth? If a man can ask himself a question more momentous, radical, and critical than these questions, I would like to know what it is. Innumerable philosophers have tried to answer these questions in a general way for the average individual, and possibly they have succeeded pretty well. Possibly I might derive benefit from a perusal of their answers. But do you suppose I am going to read them? Not I! Do you suppose that I can recall the wisdom that I happen already to have read? Not I! My mind is a perfect blank at this moment in regard to the wisdom of others on the essential question. Strange, is it not? But quite a common experience, I believe. Besides, I don’t actually care two pence what any other philosopher has replied to my question. In this, each man must be his own philosopher. There is an instinct in the profound egoism of human nature which pre-vents us from accepting such ready-made answers. What is it to us what Plato thought? Nothing. And thus the question remains ever new, and ever unanswered, and ever of dramatic interest. The singular, the highly singular thing is –and here I arrive at my point –that so few people put the question to themselves in time, that so many put it too late, or even die without putting it.

I am firmly convinced that an immense proportion of my instructed fellow-creatures do not merely omit to strike the balance-sheet of their lives, they omit even the preliminary operation of taking stock. They go on, and on, and on, buying and selling they know not what, at unascertained prices, dropping money into the till and taking it out. They don’t know what goods are in the shop, nor what amount is in the till, but they have a clear impression that the living-room behind the shop is by no means as luxurious and as well-ventilated as they would like it to be. And the years pass, and that beautiful furniture and that system of ventilation are not achieved. And then one day they die, and friends come to the funeral and remark: “Dear me! How stuffy this room is, and the shop’s practically full of trash! “Or, some little time before they are dead, they stay later than usual in the shop one evening, and make up their minds to take stock and count the till, and the disillusion lays them low, and they struggle into the living-room and murmur : “I shall never have that beautiful furniture, and I shall never have that system of ventilation.

If I had known earlier, I would have at least got a few inexpensive cushions to go on with, and I would have put my fist through a pane in the window. But it’s too late now. I am used to Windsor chairs, and I should feel the draught horribly.”

If I were a preacher, and if I hadn’t got more than enough to do in minding my own affairs, and if I could look any one in the face and deny that I too had pursued for nearly forty years the great British policy of muddling through and hoping for the best –in short, if things were not what they are, I would hire the Alhambra Theatre or Exeter Hall of a Sunday night –preferably the Alhambra, because more people would come to my entertainment –and I would invite all men and women over twenty-six. I would supply the seething crowd with what they desired in the way of bodily refreshment (except spirits –I would draw the line at poisons), and having got them and myself into a nice amiable expansive frame of mind, I would thus address them –of course in ringing eloquence that John Bright might have envied:

Men and women (I would say), companions in the universal pastime of hiding one’s head in the sand, –I am about to impart to you the very essence of human wisdom. It is not abstract. It is a principle of daily application, affecting the daily round in its entirety, from the strap hanging on the District Railway in the morning to the strap hanging on the District Railway the next morning. Beware of hope, and beware of ambition! Each is excellently tonic, like German competition, in moderation. But all of you are suffering from self-indulgence in the first, and very many of you are ruining your constitutions with the second. Be it known unto you, my dear men and women, that existence rightly considered is a fair compromise between two instincts–the instinct of hoping one day to live, and the instinct to live here and now. In most of you the first instinct has simply got the other by the throat and is throttling it.

Prepare to live by all means, but for heaven’s sake do not forget to live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present. You may think you will have, but you are mistaken. Pardon this bluntness. Surely you are not so naive as to imagine that the road on the other side of that hill there is more beautiful than the piece you are now traversing! Hopes are never realized; for in the act of realization they become something else. Ambitions may be attained, but ambitions attained are rather like burnt coal, ninety percent, of the heat generated has gone up chimney instead of into the room. Nevertheless, indulge in hopes and ambitions, which, though deceiving, are agreeable deceptions; let them cheat you a little, a lot. But do not let them cheat you too much. This that you are living now is life itself –it is much more life itself than that which you will be living twenty years hence. Grasp that truth. Dwell on it. Absorb it. Let it influence your conduct, to the end that neither the present nor the future be neglected. You search for happiness? Happiness is chiefly a matter of temperament. It is exceedingly improbable that you will by struggling gain more happiness than you already possess. In fine, settle down at once into life. (Loud cheers.)

The cheers would of course be for the refreshments.

There is no doubt that the mass of the audience would consider that I had missed my vocation, and ought to have been a caterer instead of a preacher. But, once started, I would not be discouraged. I would keep on, Sunday night after Sunday night. Our leading advertisers have richly proved that the public will believe anything if they are told of it often enough. I would practice iteration, always with refreshments. In the result, it would dawn upon the corporate mind that there was some glimmering of sense in my doctrine, and people would at last begin to perceive the folly of neglecting to savour the present, the folly of assuming that the future can be essentially different from the present, the fatuity of dying before they have begun to live.

MARRIAGE

CHAPTER V

THE DUTY OF IT EVERY now and then it becomes necessary to deal faithfully with that immortal type of person, the praiser of the past at the expense of the present. I will not quote Horace, as by all the traditions of letters I ought to do, because Horace, like the incurable trimmer that he was, “hedged” on this question; and I do not admire him much either. The praiser of the past has been very rife lately. He has told us that pauperism and lunacy are mightily increasing, and though the exact opposite has been proved to be the case and he has apologized, he will have forgotten the correction in a few months, and will break out again into renewed lamentation.

He has told us that we are physically deteriorating, and in such awful tones that we have shuddered, and many of us have believed. And considering that the death-rate is decreasing, that slums are de-creasing, that disease is decreasing, that the agricultural laborer eats more than ever he did, our credence does not do much credit to our reasoning powers, does it? Of course, there is that terrible “influx” into the towns, but I for one should be much interested to know wherein the existence of the rustic in times past was healthier than the existence of the town-dwellers of to-day. The personal appearance of agricultural veterans does not help me; they resemble starved ‘bus-drivers twisted out of shape by lightning.

But the piece de resistance of the praiser of the past is now marriage, with discreet hints about the birth-rate. The praiser of the past is going to have a magnificent time with the subject of marriage. The first moanings of the tempest have already been heard. Bishops have looked askance at the birth-rate, and have mentioned their displeasure. The matter is serious. As the phrase goes, “it strikes at the root.” We are marrying later, my friends. Some of us, in the hurry and pre-occupation of business, are quite forgetting to marry. It is the duty of the citizen to marry and have children, and we are neglecting our duty, we are growing selfish! No longer are produced the glorious “quiverfuls” of old times! Our fathers married at twenty; we marry at thirty-five. Why? Because a gross and enervating luxury has overtaken us. What will become of England if this continues? There will be no England! Hence we must look to it! And so on, in the same strain.

I should like to ask all those who have raised and will raise such outcries. Have you read “X”? Now, the book that I refer to as “X” is a mysterious work, written rather more than a hundred years ago by an English curate. It is a classic of English science; indeed, it is one of the great scientific books of the world. It has immensely influenced all the scientific thought of the nineteenth century, especially Darwin’s. Mr. H. G. Wells, as cited in “Chamber’s Cyclopedia of English Literature,” describes it as “the most ‘ shattering’ book that ever has or will be written.” If I may make a personal reference, I would say that it affected me more deeply than any other scientific book that I have read. Although it is perfectly easy to understand, and free from the slightest technicality, it is the most misunderstood book in English literature, simply because it is not read. The current notion about it is utterly false. It might be a powerful instrument of education, general and sociological, but publishers will not reprint it –at least, they do not. And yet it is forty times more interesting and four hundred times more educational than Gilbert White’s remarks on the birds of Selborne. I will leave you to guess what “X” is, but I do not offer a prize for the solution of a problem which a vast number of my readers will certainly solve at once.

If those who are worrying themselves about the change in our system of marriage would read “X,” they would probably cease from worrying.

For they would perceive that they had been put-ting the cart before the horse; that they had elevated to the dignity of fundamental principles certain average rules of conduct which had sprung solely from certain average instincts in certain average conditions, and that they were now frightened because, the conditions having changed, the rules of conduct had changed with them. One of the truths that “X “makes clear is that conduct conforms to conditions, and not conditions to conduct.

The payment of taxes is a duty which the citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with the begetting of children, is not a duty which the citizen owes to the state. Marriage, with its consequences, is a matter of personal inclination and convenience. It never has been anything else, and it never will be anything else. How could it be otherwise? If a man goes against inclination and convenience in a matter where inclination is “of the essence of the contract,” he merely presents the state with a discontented citizen (if not two) in exchange for a contented one! The happiness of the state is the sum of the happiness of all its citizens; to decrease one’s own happiness, then, is a singular way of doing one’s duty to the state! Do you imagine that when people married early and much they did so from a sense of duty to the state –a sense of duty which our “modern luxury “has weakened? I imagine they married simply because it suited ‘em. They married from sheer selfishness, as all decent people do marry. And do those who clatter about the duty of marriage kiss the girls of their hearts with an eye to the general welfare? I can fancy them saying, “My angel, I love you –from a sense of duty to the state. Let us rear innumerable progeny –from a sense of duty to the state.” How charmed the girls would be!

If the marrying age changes, if the birth-rate shows a sympathetic tendency to follow the death-rate (as it must -see “X”), no one need be alarmed. Elementary principles of right and wrong are not trembling on their bases. The human conscience is not silenced. The nation is not going to the dogs. Conduct is adjusting itself to new conditions, and that is all. We may not be able to see exactly how conditions are changing; that is a detail; our descendants will see exactly; meanwhile the change in our con-duct affords us some clew. And although certain nervous persons do get alarmed, and do preach, and do “take measures,” the rest of us may re-main placid in the sure faith that “measures” will avail nothing whatever. If there are two things set high above legislation, “movements,” crusades, and preaching, one is the marrying age and the other is the birth-rate. For there the supreme instinct comes along and stamps ruthlessly on all insincere reasoning’s and sham altruisms; stamps on everything, in fact, and blandly remarks: “I shall suit my own convenience, and no one but Nature herself (with a big, big N) shall talk to me. Don’t pester me with Right and Wrong. I am Right and Wrong. …” Having thus attempted to clear the ground a little of fudge, I propose next to offer a few simple remarks on marriage.

THE ADVENTURE OF IT

CHAPTER V CONTINUED…

Having endeavored to show that men do not, and should not, marries from a sense of duty to the state or to mankind, but simply and solely from an egoistic inclination to marry, I now proceed to the individual case of the man who is “in a position to marry” and whose affections are not employed. Of course, if he has fallen in love, unless he happens to be a person of extremely powerful will, he will not weigh the pros and cons of marriage; he will merely marry, and forty thousand cons will not prevent him. And he will be absolutely right and justified, just as the straw as it rushes down the current is absolutely right and justified. But the privilege of falling in love is not given to everybody, and the inestimable privilege of falling deeply in love is given to few. However, the man whom circumstances permit to marry but who is not in love, or is only slightly amorous, will still think of marriage. How will he think of it?

I will tell you. In the first place, if he has reached the age of thirty unscathed by Aphrodite, he will reflect that that peculiar feeling of roman-tic expectation with which he gets up every morning would cease to exist after marriage –and it is a highly agreeable feeling! In its stead, in moments of depression, he would have the feeling of having done something irremediable, of having definitely closed an avenue for the out-let of his individuality. (Kindly remember that I am not describing what this human man ought to think. I am describing what he does think.) In the second place, he will reflect that, after marriage, he could no longer expect the charming welcomes which bachelors so often receive from women; he would be “done with” as a possibility, and he does not relish the prospect of being done with as a possibility. Such considerations, all connected more or less with the loss of “freedom” (oh, mysterious and thrilling word!), will affect his theoretical attitude. And be it known that even the freedom to be lonely and melancholy is still freedom.

Other ideas will suggest themselves. One morning while brushing his hair he will see a gray hair, and, however young he may be, the anticipation of old age will come to him. A solitary old age! A senility dependent for its social and domestic requirements on condescending nephews and nieces, or even more distant relations! Awful! Unthinkable! And his first movement, especially if he has read that terrible novel, “Fort comme la Mort,” of De Maupassant, is to rush out into the street and propose to the first girl he encounters, in order to avoid this dreadful nightmare of a solitary old age. But before he has got as far as the doorstep he reflects further. Suppose he marries, and after twenty years his wife dies and leaves him a widower! He will still have a solitary old age, and a vastly more tragical one than if he had remained single. Marriage is not, therefore, a sure remedy for a solitary old age; it may intensify the evil. Children? But suppose he doesn’t have any children! Suppose, there being children, they die –what anguish! Suppose merely that they are seriously ill and recover–what an ageing experience!

Suppose they prove a disappointment –what endless regret! Suppose they “turn out badly” (children do) –what shame! Suppose he finally becomes dependent upon the grudging kindness of an ungrateful child –what a supreme humiliation! All these things are occurring constantly everywhere. Suppose his wife, having loved him, ceased to love him, or suppose he ceased to love his wife! Ces choses tie se commandeni pas–these things do not command themselves. Personally, I should estimate that in not one per cent, even of romantic marriages are the husband and wife capable of passion for each other after three years. So brief is the violence of love! In perhaps thirty-three per cent, passion settles down into a tranquil affection –which is ideal. In fifty per cent, it sinks into sheer indifference, and one becomes used to one’s wife or one’s husband as to one’s other habits. And in the remaining sixteen per cent, it develops into dislike or detestation. Do you think my percentages are wrong, you who have been married a long time and know what the world is? Well, you may modify them a little –you won’t want to modify them much.

The risk of finding one’s self ultimately among the sixteen per cent, can be avoided by the simple expedient of not marrying. And by the same expedient the other risks can be avoided, together with yet others that I have not mentioned. It is entirely obvious, then (in fact, I beg pardon for mentioning it), that the attitude towards marriage of the heart-free bachelor must be at best a highly cautious attitude. He knows he is al-ready in the frying-pan (none knows better), but, considering the propinquity of the fire, he doubts whether he had not better stay where he is. His life will be calmer, more like that of a hibernating snake; his sensibilities will be dulled; but the chances of poignant suffering will be very materially reduced.

So that the bachelor in a position to marry but not in love will assuredly decide in theory against marriage –that is to say, if he is timid, if he prefers frying-pans, if he is lacking in initiative, if he has the soul of a rat, if he wants to live as little as possible, if he hates his kind, if his egoism is of the miserable sort that dares not mingle with another’s. But if he has been more happily gifted he will decide that the magnificent adventure is worth plunging into; the ineradicable and fine gambling instinct in him will urge him to take, at the first chance, a ticket in the only lottery permitted by the British Government.

Because, after all, the mutual sense of owner-ship felt by the normal husband and the normal wife is something unique, something the like of which cannot be obtained without marriage. I saw a man and a woman at a sale the other day; I was too far off to hear them, but I could perceive they were having a most lively argument –perhaps it was only about initials on pillowcases; they were absorbed in themselves; the world did not exist for them. And I thought: “What miraculous exquisite Force is it that brings together that strange, sombre, laconic organism in a silk hat and a loose, black over-coat, and that strange, bright, vivacious, querulous, irrational organism in brilliant fur and feathers ?” And when they moved away the most interesting phenomenon in the universe moved away. And I thought: “Just as no beer is bad, but some beer is better than other beer, so no marriage is bad.” The chief reward of marriage is something which marriage is bound to give –companionship whose mysterious interestingness nothing can stale. A man may hate his wife so that she can’t thread a needle without annoying him, but when he dies, or she dies, he will say: “Well, I was interested” And one always is. Said a bachelor of forty-six to me the other night: “Anything is better than the void.”

THE TWO WAYS OF IT

CHAPTER V CONTINUED…

Sabine and other summary methods of marrying being now abandoned by all nice people, there remain two broad general ways. The first is the English way. We let nature take her course. We give heed to the heart’s cry. When, amid the hazards and accidents of the world, two souls “find each other,” we rejoice. Our instinctive wish is that they shall marry, if the matter can anyhow be arranged. We frankly recognize the claim of romance in life, and we are prepared to make sacrifices to it. We see a young couple at the altar; they are in love. Good! They are poor. So much the worse! But nevertheless we feel that love will pull them through. The revolting French system of bargain and barter is the one thing that we can neither comprehend nor pardon in the customs of our great neighbors. We endeavor to be polite about that system; we simply cannot. It shocks our finest, tenderest feelings. It is so obviously contrary to nature.

The second is the French way, just alluded to as bargain and barter. Now, if there is one thing a Frenchman can neither comprehend nor pardon in the customs of a race so marvelously practical and sagacious as ourselves, it is the English marriage system. He endeavors to be polite about it, and he succeeds. But it shocks his finest, tenderest feelings. He admits that it is in accordance with nature; but he is apt to argue that the whole progress of civilization has been the result of an effort to get away from nature. “What! Leave the most important relation into which a man can enter to the mercy of chance, when a mere gesture may arouse passion, or the color of a corsage induce desire! No, you English, you who are so self-controlled, you are not going seriously to defend that! You talk of love as though it lasted for ever. You talk of sacrificing to love; but what you really sacrifice, or risk sacrificing, is the whole of the latter part of married existence for the sake of the first two or three years. Marriage is not one long honeymoon. We wish it were.

When you agree to a marriage you fix your eyes on the honeymoon. When we agree to a marriage we try to see it as it will be five or ten years hence. We assert that, in the average instance, five years after the wedding it does n’t matter whether or not the parties were in love on the wedding-day. Hence we will not yield to the gusts of the moment. Your system is, moreover, if we may be permitted the observation, a premium on improvidence ; it is, to some extent, the result of improvidence. You can marry your daughters without dowries, and the ability to do so tempts you to neglect your plain duty to your daughters, and you do not always resist the temptation. Do your marriages of ‘romance’ turn out better than our marriages of prudence, of careful thought, of long foresight? We do not think they do.”

So much for the two ways. Patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel, according to Doctor Johnson, I have no intention of judging between them, as my heart prompts me to do, lest I should be accused of it. Nevertheless, I may hint that, while perfectly convinced by the admirable logic of the French, I am still, with the charming illogicalness of the English, in favor of romantic marriages (it being, of course, understood that dowries ought to be far more plentiful than they are in England). If a Frenchman accuses me of being ready to risk sacrificing the whole of the latter part of married life for the sake of the first two or three years, I would unhesitatingly reply:
“Yes, I am ready to risk that sacrifice. I reckon the first two or three years are worth it.” But, then, I am English, and therefore romantic by nature. Look at London, that city whose outstanding quality is its romantic quality; and look at the Englishwomen going their ways in the wonderful streets thereof! Their very eyes are full of romance. They may, they do, lack chic, but they are heroines of drama. Then look at Paris; there is little romance in the fine right lines of Paris. Look at the Parisiennes. They are the most astounding and adorable women yet invented by nature. But they aren’t romantic, you know. They don’t know what romance is. They are so matter-of-fact that when you think of their matter-of-factness it gives you a shiver in the small of your back.

To return, one may view the two ways in another light. Perhaps the difference between them is, fundamentally, less a difference between the ideas of two races than a difference between the ideas of two “times of life “; and in France the elderly attitude predominates. As people get on in years, even English people, they are more and more in favor of the marriage of reason as against the marriage of romance. Young people, even French people, object strongly to the theory and practice of the marriage of reason. But with them the unique and precious ecstasy of youth is not past, whereas their elders have for-gotten its savor. Which is right? No one will ever be able to decide. But neither the one system nor the other will apply itself well to all or nearly all cases. There have been thousands of romantic marriages in England of which it may be said that it would have been better had the French system been in force to prevent their existence. And, equally, thousands of possible romantic marriages have been prevented in France which, had the English system prevailed there, would have turned out excellently. The prevalence of dowries in England would not render the English system perfect (for it must be remembered that money is only one of several ingredients in the French marriage), but it would considerably improve it. However, we are not a provident race, and we are not likely to become one. So our young men must reconcile themselves to the continued absence of dowries.

The reader may be excused for imagining that I am at the end of my remarks. I am not. All that precedes is a mere preliminary to what follows. I want to regard the case of the man who has given the English system a fair trial and found it futile. Thus, we wait on chance in England. We wait for love to arrive. Sup-pose it doesn’t arrive? Where is the English system then? Assume that a man in a position to marry reaches thirty-five or forty without having fallen in love. Why should he not try the French system for a change? Any marriage is better than none at all. Naturally, in England, he couldn’t go up to the Chosen Fair and announce: “I am not precisely in love with you, but will you marry me?” He would put it differently. And she would understand. And do you think she would refuse?

BOOKS

CHAPTER VI

The Physical Side

THE chief interest of many of my readers is avowedly books; they may, they probably do, profess other interests, but they are primarily “bookmen,” and when one is a bookman one is a bookman during about twenty-three and three-quarter hours in every day. Now, bookmen are capable of understanding things about books which cannot be put into words; they are not like mere subscribers to circulating libraries; for them a book is not just a book -it is a book. If these lines should happen to catch the eye of any persons not bookmen, such persons may imagine that I am writing nonsense; but I trust that the bookmen will comprehend me. And I venture, then, to offer a few reflections upon an aspect of modern bookishness that is becoming more and more “actual” as the enterprise of publishers and the beneficent effects of education grow and increase together. I refer to “popular editions” of classics.

Now, I am very grateful to the devisers of cheap and handy editions. The first book I ever bought was the first volume of the first modern series of presentable and really cheap reprints, namely, Macaulay’s “Warren Hastings,” in” Cassell’s National Library” (sixpence, in cloth). That foundation stone of my library has unfortunately disappeared beneath the successive deposits, but another volume of the same series, F. T. Palgrave’s “Visions of England” (an otherwise scarce book), still remains to me through the vicissitudes of
seventeen years of sale, purchase, and exchange, and I would not care to part with it. I have over two hundred volumes of that inestimable and incomparable series, “The Temple Classics,” besides several hundred assorted volumes of various other series. And when I heard of the new “Everyman’s Library,” projected by that benefactor of bookmen, Mr. J. M. Dent, my first impassioned act was to sit down and write a postcard to my bookseller ordering George Finlay’s “The Byzantine Empire,” a work which has waited sixty years for popular recognition. So that I cannot be said to be really antagonistic to cheap reprints.

Strong in this consciousness, I beg to state that cheap and handy reprints are “all very well in their way ” -which is a manner of saying that they are not the Alpha and Omega of bookish-ness. By expending £20 yearly during the next five years a man might collect, in cheap and handy reprints, all that was worth having in classic English literature. But I for one would not be willing to regard such a library as a real library. I would regard it as only a cheap edition of a library. There would be something about it that would arouse in me a certain benevolent disdain, even though every volume was well printed on good paper and inoffensively bound. Why? Well, although it is my profession in life to say what I feel in plain words, I do not know that in this connection I can say what I feel in plain words. I have to rely on a sympathetic comprehension of my attitude in the bookish breasts of my readers.

In the first place, I have an instinctive antipathy to a “series.” I do not want “The Golden Legend” and “The Essays of Elia” uniformed alike in a regiment of books. It makes me think of conscription and barracks. Even the noblest series of reprints ever planned (not at all cheap, either, nor heterogeneous in matter), the Tudor Translations, faintly annoys me in the mass. Its appearances in a series seems to me to rob a book of something very delicate and subtle in the aroma of its individuality –something which, it being inexplicable, I will not try to explain.

In the second place, most cheap and handy reprints are small in size. They may be typo-graphically excellent, with large type and opaque paper; they may be convenient to handle; they may be surpassingly suitable for the pocket and the very thing for travel; they may save precious space where shelf-room is limited; but they are small in size. And there is, as regards most literature, a distinct moral value in size. Do I carry my audience with me? I hope so. Let “Paradise Lost” be so produced that you can put it in your waistcoat pocket, and it is no more “Paradise Lost.” Milton needs a solid octavo form, with stoutish paper and long primer type. I have “Walpole’s Letters” in Newness’ “Thin Paper Classics,” a marvelous volume of near nine hundred pages, with a portrait and a good index and a beautiful binding, for three and six, and I am exceedingly indebted to Messrs. Newness for creating that volume. It was sheer genius on their part to do so. I get charming sensations from it, but sensations not so charming as I should get from Mrs. Paget Toynbee’s many volumed and grandiose edition, even aside from Mrs. Toynbee’s erudite notes and the extra letters which she has been able to print. The same letter in Mrs. Toynbee’s edition would have a higher aesthetic and moral value for me than in the “editionlet” of Messrs. Newnes. The one cheap series which satisfies my desire for size is Macmillan’s “Library of English Classics,” in which I have the “Travels” of that mythical personage, Sir John Mandeville. But it is only in paying for it that you know this edition to be cheap, for it measures nine inches by six inches by two inches.

And in the third place, when one buys series, one only partially chooses one’s books; they are mainly chosen for one by the publisher. And even if they are not chosen for one by the publisher; they are suggested to one by the publisher. Not so does the genuine bookman form his library. The genuine bookman begins by having specific desires. His study of authorities gives him a demand, and the demand forces him to find the supply. He does not let the supply create the demand. Such a state of affairs would be al-most humiliating, almost like the parvenu who calls in the wholesale furnisher and decorator to provide him with a home. A library must be, primarily, the expression of the owner’s personality.

Let me assert again that I am strongly in favor of cheap series of reprints. Their influence though not the very finest, is indisputably good. They are as great a boon as cheap bread. They are indispensable where money or space is limited, and in traveling. They decidedly help to educate a taste for books that are neither cheap nor handy; and the most luxurious collectors may not afford to ignore them entirely. But they have their limitations, their disadvantages. They cannot form the backbone of a “proper” library.

They make, however, admirable embroidery to a library. My own would look rather plain if it was stripped of them.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF BOOK-BUYING

CHAPTER VI CONTINUED…

For some considerable time I have been living, as regards books, with the minimum of comfort and decency -with, in fact, the bare necessaries of life, such necessaries being, in my case, sundry dictionaries, Boswell, an atlas, Wordsworth, an encyclopedia, Shakespeare, Whitaker, some De Maupassant, a poetical anthology, Verlaine, Baudelaire, a natural history of my native county, an old directory of my native town, Sir Thomas Browne, Poe, Walpole’s Letters, and a book of memoirs that I will not name. A curious list, you will say. Well, never mind! We do not all care to eat beefsteak and chip potatoes off an oak table, with a foaming quart to the right hand. We have our idiosyncrasies. The point is that I existed on the bare necessaries of life (very healthy – doctors say) for a long time. And then, just lately, I summoned energy and caused fifteen hundred volumes to be transported to me; and I arranged them on shelves; and I rearranged them on shelves; and I left them to arrange themselves on shelves.

Well, you know, the way that I walk up and down in front of these volumes, whose faces I had half-forgotten, is perfectly infantile. It is like the way of a child at a menagerie. There, in its cage, is that 1839 edition of Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley, that I once nearly sold to the British Museum because the Keeper of Printed Books thought he hadn’t got a copy –only he had! And there, in a cage by himself, because of his terrible hugeness, is the 1652 Paris edition of Montaigne’s Essays. And so I might continue, and so I would continue, were it not essential that I come to my argument.

Do you suppose that the presence of these books, after our long separation, is making me read more than I did? Do you suppose I am engaged in looking up my favorite passages? Not a bit. The other evening I had a long tram journey, and, before starting, I tried to select a book to take with me. I couldn’t find one to suit just the tram-mood. As I had to catch the tram I was obliged to settle on some-thing, and in the end I went off with nothing more original than “Hamlet,” which I am really too familiar with. . . . Then I bought an evening paper, and read it all through, including advertisements. So I said to myself: “This is a nice result of all my trouble to resume company with some of my books!” However, as I have long since ceased to be surprised at the eccentric manner in which human nature refuses to act as one would have expected it to act, I was able to keep calm and unashamed during this extraordinary experience. And I am still walking up and down in front of my books and enjoying them without reading them.

I wish to argue that a great deal of cant is talked (and written) about reading. Papers such as the “Anthenasum,” which nevertheless I peruse with joy from end to end every week, can scarcely notice a new edition of a classic without expressing, in a grieved and pessimistic tone, the fear that more people buy these agreeable editions than read them. And if it is so? What then? Are we only to buy the books that we read? The question has merely to be thus bluntly put, and it answers itself. All impassioned bookmen, except a few who devote their whole lives to reading, have rows of books on their shelves which they have never read, and which they never will read. I know that I have hundreds such. My eye rests on the works of Berkeley in three volumes, with a preface by the Right Honorable Arthur James Balfour. I cannot conceive the circumstances under which I shall ever read Berkeley; but I do not regret having bought him in a good edition, and I would buy him again if I had him not; for when I look at him some of his virtue passes into me; I am the better for him. A certain aroma of philosophy informs my soul, and I am less crude than I should otherwise be. This is not fancy, but fact.

Taking Berkeley simply as an instance, I will utilize him a little further. I ought to have read Berkeley, you say; just as I ought to have read Spenser, Ben Jonson, George Eliot, Victor Hugo. Not at all. There is no “ought” about it. If the mass of obtainable first-class literature were, as it was perhaps a century ago, not too large to be assimilated by a man of ordinary limited leisure in his leisure and during the first half of his life, then possibly there might be an “ought” about it. But the mass has grown unmanageable, even by those robust professional readers who can “grapple with whole libraries.” And I am not a professional reader. I am a writer, just as I might be a hotel-keeper, a solicitor, a doctor, a grocer, or an earthenware manufacturer. I read in my scanty spare time, and I don’t read in all my spare time, either. I have other distractions. I read what I feel inclined to read, and I am conscious of no duty to finish a book that I don’t care to finish. I read in my leisure, not from a sense of duty, not to improve myself, but solely because it gives me pleasure to read. Sometimes it takes me a month to get through one book. I expect my case is quite an average case. But am I going to fetter my buying to my reading? Not exactly! I want to have lots of books on my shelves because I know they are good, because I know they would amuse me, because I like to look at them, and because one day I might have a caprice to read them. (Berkeley, even thy turn may come!) In short, I want them because I want them. And shall I be deterred from possessing them by the fear of some sequestered and singular person, some person who has read vastly but who doesn’t know the difference between a J. S. Muria cigar and an R. P. Muria, strolling in and bullying me with the dreadful query: “Sir, do you read your books ? ”

Therefore I say: In buying a book, be influenced by two considerations only. Are you reasonably sure that it is a good book? Have you a desire to possess it? Do not be influenced by the probability or the improbability of your reading it. After all, one does read a certain proportion of what one buys. And further, instinct counts. The man who spends half a crown on Stubbs’s “Early Plantagenets” instead of going into the Gaiety pit to see “The Spring Chicken,” will probably be the sort of man who can suck goodness out of Stubbs’s “Early Plantagenets” years before he bestirs himself to read it.

SUCCESS

CHAPTER VII

Candid Remarks

THERE are times when the whole free and enlightened Press of the United Kingdom seems to become strangely interested in the subject of “success,” of getting on in life. We are passing through such a period now. It would be difficult to name the prominent journalists who have not lately written, in some form or another, about success. Most singular phenomenon of all, Dr. Emil Reich has left Plato, duchesses, and Claridge’s Hotel, in order to instruct the million readers of a morning paper in the principles of success!

What the million readers thought of the Doctor’s stirring and strenuous sentences I will not imagine; but I know what I thought, as a plain man. After taking due cognizance of his airy play with the “constants” and “variables” of success, after watching him treat “energetic ” (his wonderful new name for the “science” of success) as though because he had made it end in “ics” it resembled mathematics, I thought that the sublime and venerable art of mystification could no further go. If my fellow-pilgrim through this vale of woe, the average young man who arrives at Waterloo at 9.40 every morning with a cigarette in his mouth and a second-class season over his heart and vague aspirations in his soul, was half as mystified as I was, he has probably ere this decided that the science of success has all the disadvantages of algebra without any of the advantages of cricket, and that he may as well leave it alone lest evil should befall him. On the off-chance that he has come as yet to no decision about the science of success, I am determined to deal with the subject in a disturbingly candid manner. I feel that it is as dangerous to tell the truth about success as it is to tell the truth about the United States; but being thoroughly accustomed to the whistle of bullets round my head, I will nevertheless try.

Most writers on success are, through sheer goodness of heart, wickedly disingenuous. For the basis of their argument is that nearly any one who gives his mind to it can achieve success. This is, to put it briefly, untrue. The very central idea of success is separation from the multitude of plain men; it is perhaps the only idea common to all the various sorts of success –differentiation from the crowd. To address the population at large, and tell it how to separate itself from itself, is merely silly. I am now, of course, using the word success in its ordinary sense. If human nature were more perfect than it is, success in life would mean an intimate knowledge of one’s self and the achievement of a philosophic inward calm, and such a goal might well be reached by the majority of mortals. But to us success signifies something else. It may be divided into four branches:

(1) Distinction in pure or applied science. This is the least gross of all forms of success as we regard it, for it frequently implies poverty, and it does not by any means always imply fame. (2) Distinction in the arts. Fame and adulation are usually implied in this, though they do not commonly bring riches with them. (3) Direct influence and power over the material lives of other men; that is to say, distinction in politics, national or local. (4) Success in amassing money. This last is the commonest and easiest. Most forms of success will fall under one of these heads. Are they possible to that renowned and much-flattered person, the man in the street? They are not, and well you know it, all you professors of the science of success! Only a small minority of us can even become rich.

Happily, while it is true that success in its common acceptation is, by its very essence, impossible to the majority, there is an accompanying truth which adjusts the balance; to wit, that the majority do not desire success. This may seem a bold saying, but it is in accordance with the facts. Conceive the man in the street suddenly, by some miracle, invested with political power, and, of course, under the obligation to use it. He would be so upset, worried, wearied, and exasperated at the end of a week that he would be ready to give the eyes out of his head in order to get rid of it. As for success in science or in art, the average person’s interest in such matters is so slight, compared with that of the man of science or the artist, that he cannot be said to have an interest in them. And supposing that distinction in them were thrust upon him he would rapidly lose that distinction by simple indifference and neglect.

The average person certainly wants some money, and the average person does not usually rest until he has got as much as is needed for the satisfaction of his instinctive needs. He will move the heaven and earth of his environment to earn sufficient money for marriage in the “station” to which he has been accustomed; and precisely at that point his genuine desire for money will cease to be active. The average man has this in common with the most exceptional genius, that his career in its main contours is governed by his instincts. The average man flourishes and finds his ease in an atmosphere of peaceful routine. Men des-tined for success flourish and find their ease in an atmosphere of collision and disturbance. The two temperaments are diverse. Naturally the average man dreams vaguely, upon occasion; he dreams how nice it would be to be famous and rich. We all dream vaguely upon such things. But to dream vaguely is not to desire. I often tell myself that I would give anything to be the equal of Cinquevalli, the juggler, or to be the captain of the largest Atlantic liner. But the reflective part of me tells me that my yearning to emulate these astonishing personages is not a genuine desire, and that its realization would not increase my happiness.

To obtain a passably true notion of what happens to the mass of mankind in its progress from the cradle to the grave, one must not attempt to survey a whole nation, nor even a great metropolis, nor even a very big city like Manchester or Liverpool. These panoramas are so immense and confusing that they defeat the observing eye. It is better to take a small town of, say, twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants –such a town as most of us know, more or less intimately. The extremely few individuals whose instincts mark them out to take part in the struggle for success can be identified at once. For the first thing they do is to leave the town. The air of the town is not bracing enough for them. Their nostrils dilate for something keener. Those who are left form a microcosm which is representative enough of the world at large. Between the ages of thirty and forty they begin to sort themselves out. In their own sphere they take their places. A dozen or so politicians form the town council and rule the town.

Half a dozen business men stand for the town’s commercial activity and its wealth. A few others teach science and art, or are locally known as botanists, geologists, amateurs of music, or amateurs of some other art. These are the distinguished, and it will be perceived that they cannot be more numerous than they are. What of the rest? Have they struggled for success and been beaten? Not they. Do they, as they grow old, resemble disappointed men? Not they. They have fulfilled themselves modestly. They have got what they genuinely tried to get. They have never even gone near the outskirts of the battle for success. But they have not failed. The number of failures is surprisingly small. You see a shabby, disappointed, ageing man flit down the main street, and someone replies to your inquiry: “That’s So-and-so, one of life’s failures, poor fellow!” And the very tone in which the words are uttered proves the excessive rarity of the real failure. It goes without saying that the case of the handful who have left the town in search of the Success with the capital S has a tremendous interest of curiosity for the mass who remain. I will consider it.

THE SUCCESSFUL AND THE UNSUCCESSFUL

CHAPTER VII CONTINUED…

Having boldly stated that success is not, and cannot be, within grasp of the majority, I now proceed to state, as regards the minority, that they do not achieve it in the manner in which they are commonly supposed to achieve it. And 1 may add an expression of my thankfulness that they do not. The popular delusion is that success is attained by what I may call the “Benjamin Franklin” method. Franklin was a very great man; he united in his character a set of splendid qualities as various, in their different ways, as those possessed by Leonardo da Vinci. I have an immense admiration for him.

But his Autobiography does make me angry. His Autobiography is understood to be a classic, and if you say a word against it in the United States you are apt to get killed. I do not, however, contemplate an immediate visit to the United States, and I shall venture to assert that Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography is a detestable book and a misleading book. I can recall only two other volumes which I would more willingly revile. One is Samuel Budgett: The Successful Merchant, and the other is From Log Cabin to White House, being the history of
President Garfield. Such books may impose on boys, and it is conceivable that they do not harm boys (Franklin, by the way, began his Autobiography in the form of a letter to his son), but the grown man who can support them without nausea ought to go and see a doctor, for there is something wrong with him.

“I began now,” blandly remarks Franklin, “to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and gained money by my industry and frugality..” Or again: “It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. … I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week. … I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues; on which line, and in its proper column, I might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respecting that virtue, upon that day.” Shade of Franklin, where’er thou art, this is really a little bit stiff! A man may be excused even such infamies of priggishness, but truly he ought not to go and write them down, especially to his son. And why the detail about red ink? If Franklin’s son was not driven to evil courses by the perusal of that monstrous Autobiography, he must have been a man almost as astounding as his father. Now Franklin could only have written his “immortal classic” from one of three motives:

(1) Sheer conceit. He was a prig, but he was not conceited. (2) A desire that others should profit by his mistakes. He never made any mistakes. Now and again he emphasizes some trifling error, but that is “only his fun.” (3) A desire that others should profit by the recital of his virtuous sagacity to reach a similar success. The last was undoubtedly his principal motive. Honest fellow, who happened to be a genius! But the point is that his success was in no way the result of his virtuous sagacity. I would go further, and say that his dreadful virtuous sagacity often hindered his success.

No one is a worse guide to success than your typical successful man. He seldom understands the reasons of his own success; and when he is asked by a popular magazine to give his experiences for the benefit of the youth of a whole nation, it is impossible for him to be natural and sincere. He knows the kind of thing that is expected from him, and if he didn’t come to London with half a crown in his pocket he probably did something equally silly, and he puts that down, and the note of the article or interview is struck, and good-bye to genuine truth! There recently appeared in a daily paper an autobiographic-didactic article by one of the world’s richest men
which was the most “inadequate” article of the sort that I have ever come across. Successful men forget so much of their lives! Moreover, nothing is easier than to explain an accomplished fact in a nice, agreeable, conventional way. The entire business of success is a gigantic tacit conspiracy on the part of the minority to deceive the majority.

Are successful men more industrious, frugal, and intelligent than men who are not successful? I maintain that they are not, and I have studied successful men at close quarters. One of the commonest characteristics of the successful man is his idleness, his immense capacity for wasting time. I stoutly assert that as a rule successful men are by habit comparatively idle. As for frugality, it is practically unknown among the successful classes: this statement applies with particular force to financiers. As for intelligence, I have over and over again been startled by the lack of intelligence in successful men. They are, indeed, capable of stupidities that would be the ruin of a plain clerk. And much of the talk in those circles which surround the successful man is devoted to the enumeration of instances of his lack of intelligence. Another point: successful men seldom succeed as the result of an ordered arrangement of their lives; they are the least methodical of creatures. Naturally when they have “arrived” they amuse themselves and impress the majority by being convinced that right from the start, with a steady eye on the goal, they had carefully planned every foot of the route.

No! Great success never depends on the practice of the humbler virtues, though it may occasionally depend on the practice of the prouder vices. Use industry, frugality, and common sense by all means, but do not expect that they will help you to success. Because they will not. I shall no doubt be told that what I have just written has an immoral tendency, and is a direct encouragement to sloth, thriftless ness, etc. One of our chief national faults is our hypocritical desire to suppress the truth on the pretext that to admit it would encourage sin, whereas the real explanation is that we are afraid of the truth. I will not be guilty of that fault. I do like to look a fact in the face without blinking. I am fully persuaded that, per head, there is more of the virtues in the unsuccessful majority than in the successful minority.

In London alone are there not hundreds of miles of streets crammed with industry, frugality, and prudence? Some of the most brilliant men I have known have been failures, and not through lack of character either. And some of the least gifted have been marvelously successful. It is impossible to point to a single branch of human activity in which success can be explained by the conventional principles that find general acceptance. I hear you, O reader, murmuring to yourself: “This is all very well, but he is simply being paradoxical for his own diversion.” I would that I could persuade you of my intense seriousness! I have endeavored to show what does not make success. I will next endeavor to show what does make it. But my hope is forlorn.

THE INWARDNESS OF SUCCESS

CHAPTER VII CONTINUED…

Of course, one can no more explain success than one can explain Beethoven’s C minor symphony. One may state what key it is written in, and make expert reflections upon its form, and catalogue its themes, and relate it to symphonies that preceded it and symphonies that followed it, but in the end one is reduced to saying that the C minor symphony is beautiful –because it is. In the same manner one is reduced to saying that the sole real difference between success and failure is that success succeeds.

This being frankly admitted at the outset, I will allow myself to assert that there are three sorts of success. Success A is the accidental sort. It is due to the thing we call chance, and to nothing else. We are all of us still very superstitious, and the caprices of chance have a singular effect upon us. Suppose that I go to Monte Carlo and announce to a friend my firm conviction that red will turn up next time, and I back red for the maximum and red does turn up; my friend, in spite of his intellect, will vaguely attribute to me a mysterious power. Yet chance alone would be responsible. If I did that six times running all the players at the table would be interested in me. If I did it a dozen times all the players in the Casino would regard me with awe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. If I did it eighteen times my name would be in every news-paper in Europe. Yet chance alone would be responsible. I should be, in that department of human activity, an extremely successful man, and the vast majority of people would instinctively credit me with gifts that I do not possess.

If such phenomena of superstition can occur in an affair where the agency of chance is open and avowed, how much more probable is it that people should refuse to be satisfied with the explanation of “sheer accident” in affairs where it is to the interest of the principal actors to conceal the role played by chance! Nevertheless, there can be no doubt in the minds of persons who have viewed success at close quarters that a proportion of it is due solely and utterly to chance. Successful men flourish today, and have flourished in the past, who have no quality whatever to differentiate them from the multitude. Red has turned up for them a sufficient number of times, and the universal superstitious instinct not to believe in chance has accordingly surrounded them with a halo. It is merely ridiculous to say, as some do say, that success is never due to chance alone. Because nearly everybody is personally acquainted with reasonable proof, on a great or a small scale, to the contrary.

The second sort of success, B, is that made by men who, while not gifted with first-class talents, have, beyond doubt, the talent to succeed. I should describe these men by saying that, though they deserve something, they do not deserve the dazzling reward known as success. They strike us as overpaid. We meet them in all professions and trades, and we do not really respect them. They excite our curiosity, and perhaps our envy. They may rise very high indeed, but they must always be unpleasantly conscious of a serious reservation in our attitude towards them. And if they could read their obituary notices they would assuredly discern therein a certain chilliness, however kindly we acted up to our great national motto of De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.

It is this class of success which puzzles the social student. How comes it that men without any other talent possess a mysterious and indefinable talent to succeed? Well, it seems to me that such men always display certain characteristics. And the chief of these characteristics is the continual, insatiable wish to succeed. They are preoccupied with the idea of succeeding. We others are not so pre-occupied. We dream of success at intervals, but we have not the passion for success. We don’t lie awake at nights pondering upon it.

The second characteristic of these men springs naturally from the first. They are always on the look-out. This does not mean that they are industrious. I stated in a previous article my belief that as a rule successful men are not particularly industrious. A man on a raft with his shirt for a signal cannot be termed industrious, but he will keep his eyes open for a sail on the horizon. If he simply lies down and goes to sleep he may miss the chance of his life, in a very special sense.

The man with the talent to succeed is the man on the raft who never goes to sleep. His indefatigable orb sweeps the main from sunset to sunset. Having sighted a sail, he gets up on his hind legs and waves that shirt in so determined a manner that the ship is bound to see him and take him off. Occasionally he plunges into the sea, risking sharks and other perils. If he doesn’t “get there,” we hear nothing of him. If he does, some person will ultimately multiply by ten the number of sharks that he braved: that person is called a biographer.

Let me drop the metaphor. Another characteristic of these men is that they seem to have the exact contrary of what is known as common sense. They will become enamored of some enterprise which infallibly impresses the average common-sense person as a mad and hopeless enterprise. The average common-sense person will demolish the hopes of that enterprise by incontrovertible argument. He will point out that it is foolish on the face of it, that it has never been attempted before, and that it responds to no need of humanity. He will say to himself: “This fellow with his precious enterprise has a twist in his brain. He can’t reply to my arguments, and yet he obstinately persists in going on.” And the man destined to success does go on. Perhaps the enterprise fails; it often fails; and then the average common-sense person expends much breath in “I told you so’s”.

But the man continues to be on the look-out. His thirst is unassuaged; his taste for enterprises foredoomed to failure is incurable. And one day some enterprise foredoomed to failure develops into a success. We all hear of it. We all open our mouths and gape. Of the failures we have heard nothing. Once the man has achieved success, the thing becomes a habit with him. The difference between a success and a failure is often so slight that a reputation for succeeding will ensure success, and a reputation for failing will ensure failure. Chance plays an important part in such careers, but not a paramount part. One can only say that it is more useful to have luck at the beginning than later on. These “men of success” generally have pliable temperaments. They are not frequently un-moral, but they regard a conscience as a good servant and a bad master. They live in an atmosphere of compromise.

There remains class C of success –the class of sheer high merit. I am not a pessimist, nor am I an optimist. I try to arrive at the truth, and I should say that in putting success C at ten percent, of the sum total of all successes, I am being generous to class C. Not that I believe that vast quantities of merit go unappreciated. My reason for giving to Class C only a modest share is the fact that there is so little sheer high merit. And does it not stand to reason that high merit must be very exceptional? This sort of success needs no explanation, no accounting for. It is the justification of our singular belief in the principle of the triumph of justice, and it is among natural phenomena perhaps the only justification that can be advanced for that belief. And certainly when we behold the spectacle of genuine distinguished merit gaining, without undue delay and without the sacrifice of dignity or of conscience, the applause of the kind-hearted but obtuse and insensible majority of the human race, we have fair reason to hug ourselves.

THE PETTY ARTIFICIALITIES

CHAPTER VIII

THE phrase “petty artificialities,” employed by one of the correspondents in the great Simple Life argument, has stuck in my mind, although I gave it a plain intimation that it was no longer wanted there. Perhaps it sheds more light than I had at first imagined on the mental state of the persons who use it when they wish to arraign the conditions of “modern life.” A vituperative epithet is capable of making a big show. “Artificialities” is a sufficiently scornful word, but when you add “petty” you somehow give the quietus to the pretensions of modern life. Modern life had better hide its diminished head, after that.

Modern life is settled and done for –in the opinion of those who have thrown the dart. Only it isn’t done for, really, you know. “Petty,” after all, means nothing in that connexion. Are there, then, artificialities which are not “petty,” which are noble, large, and grand? “Petty” means merely that the users of the word are just a little cross and out of temper. What they think they object to is artificialities of any kind, and so to get rid of their spleen they refer to “petty” artificialities. The device is a common one, and as brilliant as it is futile. Rude adjectives are like blank cartridge. They impress a vain people, including the birds of the air, but they do no execution.

At the same time, let me admit that I deeply sympathize with the irritated users of the impolite phrase “petty artificialities.” For it does at any rate show a “divine discontent”; it does prove a high dissatisfaction with conditions which at best are not the final expression of the eternal purpose. It does make for a sort of crude and churlish righteousness. I well know that feeling which induces one to spit out savagely the phrase “petty artificialities of modern life.” One has it usually either on getting up or on going to bed. What a petty artificial business it is, getting up, even for a male! Shaving! Why shave? And then going to a drawer and choosing a necktie. Fancy an immortal soul, fancy a fragment of the eternal and indestructible energy, which exists from everlasting to everlasting, deliberately ex-pending its activity on the choice of a necktie! Why a necktie? Then one goes downstairs and exchanges banal phrases with other immortals. And one can’t start breakfast immediately, because some sleepy mortal is late.

Why babble? Why wait? Why not say straight out: “Go to the deuce, all of you! Here it’s nearly ten o’clock, and me anxious to begin living the higher life at once instead of fiddling around in petty artificialities. Shut up, every one of you. Give me my bacon instantly, and let me gobble it down quick and be off. I ‘m sick of your ceremonies!” This would at any rate not be artificial. It would save time. And if a similar policy were strictly applied through the day, one could retire to a well-earned repose in the full assurance that the day had been simplified. The time for living the higher life, the time for pushing forward those vast schemes of self-improvement which we all cherish, would decidedly have been increased. One would not have that maddening feeling, which one so frequently does have when the shades of night are falling fast, that the day had been “frittered away.” And yet –and yet –I gravely doubt whether this wholesale massacre of those poor petty artificialities would bring us appreciably nearer the millennium.

For there is one thing, and a thing of fundamental importance, which the revolutionists against petty artificialities always fail to appreciate, and that is the necessity and the value of convention. I cannot in a paragraph deal effectively with this most difficult and complex question. I can only point the reader to analogous phenomena in the arts. All the arts are a conventionalization, an ordering of nature. Even in a garden you put the plants in rows, and you subordinate the well-being of one to the general well-being. The sole difference between a garden and the wild woods is a petty artificiality.

In writing a sonnet you actually cramp the profoundest emotional conceptions into a length and a number of lines and a jingling of like sounds arbitrarily fixed beforehand! Wordsworth’s “The world is too much with us “is a solid, horrid mass of petty artificiality. Why couldn’t the fellow say what he meant and have done with it, instead of making “powers” rhyme with “ours,” and worrying himself to use exactly a hundred and forty syllables? As for music, the amount of time that must have been devoted to petty artificiality in the construction of an affair like Bach’s Chaconne is simply staggering. Then look at pictures, absurdly confined in frames, with their ingenious contrasts of light and shade and mass against mass. Nothing but petty artificiality! In other words, nothing but “form” –“form” which is the basis of all beauty, whether material or otherwise.

Now, what form is in art, conventions (petty artificialities) are in life. Just as you can have too much form in art, so you can have too much convention in life. But no art that is not planned in form is worth consideration, and no life that is not planned in convention can ever be satisfactory. Convention is not the essence of life, but it is the protecting garment and preservative of life, and it is also one very valuable means by which life can express itself. It is largely symbolic; and symbols, while being expressive, are also great time-savers. The despisers of petty artificialities should think of this. Take the striking instance of that pettiest artificiality, leaving cards. Well, searchers after the real, what would you substitute for it? If you dropped it and substituted nothing, the result would tend towards a loosening of the bonds of society, and it would tend towards the diminution of the number of your friends. And if you dropped it and tried to substitute something less artificial and more real, you would accomplish no more than you accomplish with cards, you would inconvenience everybody, and waste a good deal of your own time. I cannot too strongly insist that the basis of convention is a symbolism, primarily meant to display a regard for the feelings of other people. If you do not display a regard for the feelings of other people, you may as well go and live on herbs in the desert. And if you are to display such a regard you cannot do it more expeditiously, at a smaller outlay of time and brains, than by adopting the code of convention now generally practiced. It comes to this–that you cannot have all the advantages of living in the desert while you are living in a society. It would be delightful for you if you could, but you can’t.

There are two further reasons for the continuance of conventionality. And one is the mysterious but indisputable fact that the full beauty of an activity is never brought out until it is subjected to discipline and strict ordering and nice balancing. A life without petty artificiality would be the life of a tiger in the forest. A beautiful life, perhaps, a life of “burning bright,” but not reaching the highest ideal of beauty! Laws and rules, forms and ceremonies are good in themselves, from a merely aesthetic point of view, apart from their social value and necessity.

And the other reason is that one cannot always be at the full strain of “self-improvement,” and “evolutionary progress,” and generally beating the big drum. Human nature will not stand it. There is, if we will only be patient, ample time for the “artificial” as well as for the “real.” Those persons who think that there isn’t, ought to return to school and learn arithmetic. Sup-posing that all “petty artificialties” were suddenly swept away, and we were able to show our regard and consideration for our fellow creatures by the swift processes of thought alone, we should find ourselves with a terrible lot of time hanging heavy on our hands. We can no more spend all our waking hours in consciously striving towards higher things than we can dine exclusively off jam. What frightful prigs we should become if we had nothing to do but cultivate our noblest faculties! I beg the despisers of artificiality to reflect upon these observations, however incomplete these observations may be, and to consider whether they would be quite content if they got what they are crying out for.

THE SECRET OF CONTENT

CHAPTER IX

I HAVE said lightly a propos of the conclusion arrived at by several correspondents and by myself that the cry for the simple life was merely a new form of the old cry for happiness, that I would explain what it was that made life worth living for me. The word has gone forth, and I must endeavor to redeem my promise. But I do so with qualms and with diffidence. First, there is the natural instinct against speaking of that which is in the core of one’s mind. Second, there is the fear, nearly amounting to certainty, of being misunderstood or not comprehended at all. And third, there is the absurd insufficiency of space.

However! . . . For me, spiritual content (I will not use the word “happiness,” which implies too much) springs essentially from no mental or physical facts. It springs from the spiritual fact that there is something higher in man than the mind, and that that something can control the mind. Call that something the soul, or what you will. My sense of security amid the collisions of existence lies in the firm consciousness that just as my body is the servant of my mind, so is my mind the servant of me. An unruly servant, but a servant–and possibly getting less unruly every day! Often have I said to that restive brain: “Now, O mind, sole means of communication between the divine me and all external phenomena, you are not a free agent; you are a subordinate; you are nothing but a piece of machinery; and obey me you shall.”

The mind can only be conquered by regular meditation, by deciding beforehand what direction its activity ought to take, and insisting that its activity takes that direction; also by never leaving it idle, undirected, masterless, to play at random like a child in the streets after dark. This is extremely difficult, but it can be done, and it is marvelously well worth doing. The fault of the epoch is the absence of meditative-ness. A sagacious man will strive to correct in himself the faults of his epoch. In some deep ways the twelfth century had advantages over the twentieth. It practiced meditation. The twentieth does Sandow exercises. Meditation (I speak only for myself) is the least dispensable of the day’s doings. What do I force my mind to meditate upon? Upon various things, but chiefly upon one.

Namely, that Force, Energy, Life –the Incomprehensible has many names –is indestructible, and that, in the last analysis, there is only one single, unique Force, Energy, Life. Science is gradually reducing all elements to one element. Science is making it increasingly difficult to conceive matter apart from spirit. Everything lives. Even my razor gets “tired.” And the fatigue of my razor is no more nor less explicable than my fatigue after a passage of arms with my mind. The Force in it, and in me, has been transformed, not lost. All Force is the same force.

Science just now has a tendency to call it electricity; but I am indifferent to such baptisms. The same Force prevades my razor, my cow in my field, and the central me which dominates my mind: the same force in different stages of evolution. And that Force persists for ever. In such paths do I compel my mind to walk daily. Daily it has to recognize that the mysterious Ego controlling it is a part of that divine Force which exists from everlasting to everlasting, and which, in its ultimate atoms, nothing can harm. By such a course of training, even the mind, the coarse, practical mind, at last perceives that worldly accidents don’t count.

“But,” you will exclaim, “this is nothing but the immortality of the soul over again!” Well, in a slightly more abstract form, it is. (I never said I had discovered anything new.) I do not permit myself to be dogmatic about the persistence of personality, or even of individuality after death. But, in basing my physical and mental life on the assumption that there is something in me which is indestructible and essentially changeless, I go no further than science points. Yes, if it gives you pleasure; let us call it the immortality of the soul. If I miss my train, or my tailor disgraces himself, or I lose that earthly manifestation of Force that happens to be dearest to me, I say to my mind: “Mind, concentrate your powers upon the full realization of the fact that I, your master, am immortal and beyond the reach of accidents.”

And my mind, knowing by this time that I am a hard master, obediently does so. Am I, a portion of the Infinite Force that existed billions of years ago, and which will exist billions of years hence, going to allow myself to be worried by any terrestrial physical or mental event? I am not. As for the vicissitudes of my body, that servant of my servant, it had better keep its place, and not make too much fuss. Not that any fuss occurring in either of these outward envelopes of the eternal me could really disturb me. The eternal is calm; it has the best reason for being so.

So you say to yourselves: “Here is a man in a penny weekly paper advocating daily meditation upon the immortality of the soul as a cure for discontent and unhappiness! A strange phenomenon!” That it should be strange is an indictment of the epoch. My only reply to you is this: Try it. Of course, I freely grant that such meditation, while it “casts out fear,” slowly kills desire and makes for a certain high indifference; and that the extinguishing of desire, with an accompanying indifference, be it high or low, is bad for youth. But I am not a youth, and today I am writing for those who have tasted disillusion: which youth has not. Yet I would not have you believe that I scorn the brief joys of this world. My attitude towards them would fain be that of Socrates, as stated by the incomparable Marcus Aurelius: “He knew how to lack, and how to enjoy, those things in the lack whereof most men show themselves weak; and in the fruition, intemperate.”

Besides commanding my mind to dwell upon the indestructibly and final omnipotence of the Force which is me, I command it to dwell upon the logical consequence of that unity of force which science is now beginning to teach. The same essential force that is me is also you. Says the Indian proverb: “I met a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and they were all my brothers.” Yes, and they were all my twin brothers, if I may so express it, and a thousand times closer to me even than the common conception of twin brothers. We are all of us the same in essence; what separates us is merely differences in our respective stages of evolution. Constant reflection upon this fact must produce that universal sympathy which alone can produce a positive content. It must do away with such ridiculous feelings as blame, irritation, anger, resentment.

It must establish in the mind an all-embracing tolerance. Until a man can look upon the drunkard in his drunkenness, and upon the wife-beater in his brutality, with pure and calm compassion; until his heart goes out instinctively to every other manifestation of the unique Force; until he is surcharged with an eager and unconquerable benevolence towards everything that lives; until he has utterly abandoned the presumptuous practice of judging and condemning –he will never attain real content. “Ah!” you exclaim again, “he has nothing newer to tell us than that ‘ the greatest of these is charity’!” I have not. It may strike you as excessively funny, but I have discovered nothing newer than that. I merely remind you of it. Thus it is, twins on the road to Delhi, by continual meditation upon the indestructibility of Force, that I try to cultivate calm, and by continual meditation upon the oneness of Force that I try to cultivate charity, being fully convinced that in calmness and in charity lies the secret of a placid if not ecstatic happiness. It is often said that no thinking person can be happy in this world. My view is that the more a man thinks the more happy he is likely to be. I have spoken. I am overwhelmingly aware that I have spoken crudely, abruptly, inadequately, confusedly.

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As we sat there in the car, we discussed our futures.  He had big plans for himself, which included heading an investment bank in New York, going to a major business school and taking on the world.  When it came time for me to share my plans for the future, I still remember quite well what I said:

“I will be very happy if I get a three bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, and can at least afford to travel once in a while,” I told him.  “I really hope I can get a decent job when I get out of college.”

“It’s tough out there, but I am sure you will manage to get something,” he said.

I never forgot this particular conversation because at that time in my life this was all I expected for myself:

• I thought my biggest challenge would be finding a job when I got out of college.
• I never thought I would be an attorney.
• I never thought I would even go to a good college.
• I never thought I would leave Detroit–and I never really had big plans for myself.

My sense of who I was and what I could achieve was simply not at a high level.  At some point, however, based on encouragement from my father, teachers and others I began to develop a stronger sense of self–a sense of self that encouraged me to aim high in my life, and to believe that I was capable of incredible things.  Over time, this sense of self began to stick, and it continued to grow for me.  A strong sense of self is the most important possible thing you can possess, and developing a strong sense of self will change your life.

Do you think the close friends I had when I was 17 would have helped me develop this strong sense of self?  In most cases it is not our friends who will encourage and push us.  It is not that our friends are trying to hurt us; it is just that, as much as they like us, they may not want us to change.  For example, my friend at the time liked being around people who looked up to him, and avoided people who looked down on him.  If I had changed then, the dynamic between us would have changed (and it eventually did anyway, when I changed).  People around you may want a certain level of control over their relationship with you in your career and life, and they want whatever makes them look and feel the best.  While they may like it if you do well, their doing well is their priority.  Please understand this: If you have a strong sense of self, this will alter the power balance in your relationships with many people around you.  This is why so many people never change and reach their full potential.

Many children develop a strong sense of self starting from the moment they are born, from their parents, who encourage them and help push them to do better and better.  But it is not just parents who help us develop a strong sense of self.  A strong sense of self comes from many areas in our lives, and from the feedback we receive from the world about various areas of our lives:

• Our Recognized Abilities Give Us a Sense of Self-If we are very intelligent and test well we may feel smart, and this may contribute to a strong sense of self.  If we are considered interesting or funny by others, or have been called industrious, inventive and so forth, this may contribute to a strong sense of self.
• Our Various Affiliations Give Us a Sense of Self-We may be members of a certain sports team, college, or other group that is interested in certain things.
• Our Religion Gives Us a Sense of Self-If we are members of a certain religious group, this will give us a sense of self related to the religion.
• Our Social Standing and Relationships Give Us a Sense of Self-We have a sense of self based on the people we are friends with, how we are regarded by others.
• Our Occupation Gives Us a Sense of Self-Our jobs and what we do for a living is something that gives us a sense of self.
• Our Families and Family Relationships Give Us a Sense of Self-Our wives or husbands, our parents and other relatives all contribute to our sense of self.
• Our Past Gives Us a Sense of Self-Things that have happened to us in the past, and which people may have said about us in the past may contribute to our sense of self.

When you get to know people they will constantly be telling you about themselves and various things they have done.  I have heard people brag about being the best free thrower on their basketball team, setting local records for shot put, getting the best score in their school on a standardized test, dating the homecoming queen and more–often forty or more years after all this occurred.  Why?  These peoples’ sense of self is intertwined with things that they achieved decades ago.  It is who they are, and who they consider themselves to be.

Most of us rarely develop our sense of self deliberately.  As children, we may further develop the characteristics for which our parents give us positive feedback, because we naturally seek acceptance, love and protection from the people that provide us care.  As we grow older, we do the same thing with the schools we attend and within our peer groups, where we also seek acceptance and protection.  We may have different senses of self with our peers than we have at home.  We may have a different sense of self on the athletic field than we have off the athletic field.  In addition, our motivation may be affected by our sense of self.  If we are told we are very smart by others, we may study more and work harder in school, due to having a sense of self that is strongly related to our academic skills.  If we are given the impression that a certain behavior will improve our sense of self then we will likely engage in this behavior.

Recently my wife and I have started watching a television show called Bait Car.  The show is about the police parking a nice car in a bad neighborhood with the keys in it.  The car always gets stolen on the show, and the police have a method for turning off the car as the car thieves are speeding away.  In most instances, there is more than one person involved in the theft, and sometimes kids talk other kids into stealing the car.  The kid that ultimately steals the car usually does so because he wants to be accepted by the other kids.  In the worst neighborhoods and around certain people, our sense of self might be related to committing crimes in order to be accepted.

What is inside of you, what you feel and believe is entirely different from what the rest of the world may be telling you.  If you have a strong sense of self, you can overcome every obstacle out there without being concerned with anything–except for what is inside of you, what you feel and what you believe.  Everyone thinks about themselves and their lives in a certain way, and this ultimately ends up controlling the future of everyone’s lives.  Your beliefs about yourself have a tremendous amount to do with what ends up happening to you, what you accomplish, and the quality of your life.

Inside each and every one of us there needs to be an understanding of who we are.  Our sense of self underlies our internal strength as human beings and it enables us to accomplish what we desire.  Our sense of self needs to give us the ability to power through–no matter what others may say about us, and no matter what sort of feedback we may get from the world.

Developing a strong sense of self enables us to be happier, more successful, and to live better lives.  Unfortunately, most of us do not live our lives in accordance with our own sense of self and, instead, our sense of self is based too much on what others are doing out in the world, what others have, and what others say about us –and various externals that are irrelevant to what is really inside of us.  If you have a strong sense of self, then what you do for a living, your past, your religion, your parents, your affiliations, your recognized abilities and more should not affect your thoughts about what you can accomplish.

Having a powerful sense of self is going to make all the difference in your life.  You need to understand that your thoughts about yourself and your capabilities need to come from what is inside of you, not from societal structures that may have led you to believe who you are.

Related posts:

1. Create a Sense of Urgency
2. The Importance of Environment
3. The Importance of Productivity, Focus and Measurement

Throughout the average day, we are making hundreds of decisions about various things. Most of the decisions we make are not based on pure analysis but, instead, on how we perceive and interpret the world. A good part of this perception is based on whether or not we are primarily visual, auditory or kinesthetic. When various concepts and ideas “make sense” to us, why they make sense is often outside of our conscious understanding–they just do.

• People who are visual tend to act based on representations of how things “look” and “appear”. When visual people speak, they say things like “it looks like” or “it appears” or “as I see it”. Their descriptions of the world and of their experiences tend to be based on how things look, not how they feel or sound.
• People who are auditory tend to act based on representations they make to themselves about how things “sound” to them. They would be more likely to say they “hear what you are saying” than they “see what you are saying”, for example.
• People who are kinesthetic tend to act based on how things “feel” to them. When they speak to you they will talk about things like “sensing” and “feeling” and “getting in touch” with various concepts before making decisions.

I have always loved meeting architects and various designer types of people. One of the reasons is that it is fascinating to see how they shape everything from their clothing, to their offices, to the interior of their homes–all to evoke a certain visual sort of image. Even something as simple as a notebook, or a pen, of a design sort of person will have been picked out for the sort of visual image that it presents.

I remember several years ago we were redesigning an office with an interior designer, and we brought along a graphic designer with us to meet the interior designer. After the meeting, the graphic designer commented to me:

“I wish you had told me about this meeting beforehand so I could have dressed differently.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I’d known about this meeting I would have worn more designer-appropriate clothes. Designers judge each other based on how they look, and the sorts of clothes they wear.”

When you speak to people in the design world, they typically think and talk in images. When they walk into a room, they can picture how things will look if the room is redesigned, repainted, and certain types of furniture are put into it. This is simply not the sort of thing that I can do, but someone who is very visual has this skill and, for him or her, it is a gift.

Visual people:

• like to see charts and other visual representations of things such as pictures, videos and so forth;
• are motivated by how things look, and consider appearance of people, places and situations to be highly important.

When I was growing up, I lived next to some neighbors that I liked, but who were quite slovenly and never watched their weight or appearance. I remember one day a friend of my mother’s was visiting and he said something to me that I will never forget:

“Why would you be friends with them? They do not watch their appearance enough!”

This seems like a shallow and strange thing to say to a 12-year-old kid that is friends with the other neighborhood kids. This person was extremely concerned with his appearance, was always dressed perfectly, got his car washed frequently, and kept a very neat home. There are many people like this, who are very visual, and appearances run their lives in many respects.

While designers tend to be visual, of course, people who are visual can still do any sort of job. However, people who think visually are more likely to be persuaded about various things if they are shown “how it looks”, and are described how something appears, rather than “how it feels” or “how it sounds.”

For example, a visual person purchasing a car will be interested in a car that looks good. The salesperson would be wise to have all sorts of pictures of the car to give the prospective purchaser, and would spend a lot of time allowing the person to look at the car. The car should be described to the person in a manner that the person can clearly and easily visualize.

At work, someone who is visual should be shown demonstrations about how work should be done, so he or she can visualize it. Graphs, diagrams and visual procedures are all helpful to a visual person.

A few years ago I had someone working for me, who, in contrast to a visually oriented sort of person, was very auditory. In fact, he was a musician, who had long hair and was completely unconcerned with his appearance. Since most musicians are more auditory, they often tend to be less concerned with their appearances than visually oriented sorts of people. They are more interested in sounds, tonality and the like.

Auditory people:

• like to be around people, places and things that have pleasant voices or sounds;
• get very agitated by loud and unpleasant sounds;
• focus on the sounds of an experience, more so than the visual or kinesthetic stimuli.

If you were selling a car to an auditory person, they would be very focused on how the car sounded. They would be interested in the clicks and so forth inside of the car, the sound of the exhaust and so forth. I know an auditory person quite well, and I recall that when this person purchased a car some time ago, he told me all about the sounds the car made, such as the thud of the door, the click of the turn signal, and how quiet the cabin was. These are the sorts of things that auditory people are interested in.

Auditory people can be stimulated to shop, for example, by hearing soft music playing in the background. They are attracted to a person quite often based on the tone of his or her voice, just as much as they are attracted to how the person looks. They tend to speak in metaphors that are auditory in nature such as how something “sounds”, and often say things like “I hear that” and so forth.

At work, auditory sorts of people want to “hear” about how to do the job, and preferably they want to hear this in a pleasant voice. The auditory person wants to “hear” what others have said about certain parts of the job, and getting him or her to do certain tasks will often be more effective when the person can repeat the task out loud and form an internal auditory representation of the task.

Kinesthetic people are more motivated by how various things “feel” to them than by how they look or sound. The kinesthetic person will gravitate towards people, places and things that “feel good” to them, and will be motivated to stay away from various people places and things that do not feel good to them.

Kinesthetic people:

• like physical contacts such as hugs, handshakes and so forth;
• are motivated typically by the physical feeling something gives them, more than by how it looks or sounds to them;
• thrive on the feeling of movement, and bodily sensation.

If you were trying to sell a kinesthetic person a car, it would be important to let them demonstrate the car by taking it for a test drive. They would want to see “how it feels” behind the wheel, for example. A good salesperson would also discuss the car in terms of how it will make the person feel, such as calm or excited, and so forth. Shaking the hand of the kinesthetic person would also typically be very effective at helping sell the product to him or her.

At work, kinesthetic people typically prefer to “get a sense” of what they are supposed to do. They may need to “feel it” before doing a task, and are going to have more internal reasons for doing a job, rather than relying on demonstrations or descriptions. Sensory based people will do a task when they “have a sense” of it and “it feels right”.

Understanding whether you are more visual, auditory or kinesthetic is something that is relevant to your work style, career and life. For example, you are likely to communicate better with mates, bosses and so forth if you share this information about yourself. You are likely to understand information better if it is presented in such a way that you can absorb it, based on a specific communication style. Understanding your approach to information will also make you more successful in everything and with everyone you deal with.

No related posts.

“We have a deadline of next Thursday. Make sure we have filed the proper form with the SEC.”

“What sort of file are you talking about, and what is the deadline?” I asked. Keep in mind that I was a law student and had no legal experience whatsoever.

“I do not have time for this bullshit,” the partner said picking up his phone. “Just make sure the fucking form is filed.”

Terrified to ask for any further instruction after this exchange, I started asking other young attorneys in the firm if they knew what I should be filing. After around three days of bothering all sorts of attorneys, I came up with a list of around 15 possible forms I could potentially file. At one point, I had to make a telephone call to a stockbroker in the Caribbean for assistance with the question (I have no idea why this was even relevant). After a few days of this I finally went to see the partner again, after making an appointment with his secretary.

I began listing out the possible forms it could be once I got in the guy’s office, and explained to him that I had spoken with a certain associate that had suggested these forms.

“Jesus Christ!! This company is traded on three separate stock exchanges. What a jackass!”

He picked up the phone and started yelling at the associate and then said, “Get out of here!” to me, and I hustled away. The funny thing about this was that this partner had never given me the slightest inclination about how to go about doing the assignment. He had a reputation for doing this with associates, and no one liked to work with him. He had a very global nature to the way he assigned work, and he never gave details. There are people out there who are very general and there are others who are very specific.

Part of being a really good recruiter is giving the candidates you are working for as much information as possible. Throughout my years of recruiting, I have learned that there are also essentially two types of job seekers out there: Those who are concerned with a great number of specifics and those who think more globally and generally.

Several years ago, an important partner at a large law firm called one of our recruiters on the phone, and the recruiter suggested that the partner apply for a job at a certain firm. The partner did not want to know anything about the law firm. In fact, he told the recruiter the details about the firm were “irrelevant”, that he did not want to waste his time with details, and would just meet with the law firm. The recruiter made him an introduction to the firm, and the partner said he would handle it from there.

Within 10 days our recruiter had placed the partner at the firm, and had earned a $250,000 fee. The entire transaction had taken less than an hour of the recruiter’s time. In most cases like this the recruiter would have spent hundreds of hours of his time, working with the partner and helping him choose firms. Even then, the transaction might not have gone through. In this particular case, though, the partner just said he “felt like” he would be more comfortable working at the other firm. He did not have a lot of questions for the firm when he interviewed with them, and the entire move was very painless for everyone involved.

There are people out there who are very general about their approach to work and the world. They are not interested in hearing about and learning about a lot of details. They are people that you could call “big picture” thinkers who only want to hear big pieces of information. In fact, they may be bothered by details. Global people:

• want to understand the forest and not the trees;
• believe that the details about things are not as relevant or important;
• prefer to think about the overall situation, not all the details associated with it.

Global people will not follow a lot of structure and may describe their day in no specific order when speaking about it. When being given assignments or things to do, global people will mostly be more interested in hearing just a general overview of the work they need to do.

In contrast to global people, there are specific people. The specific sort of person typically prefers a lot of details about everything. They like small bits of information and are often not concerned at all with the “big picture”.

One of the best attorneys I ever helped find a job turned me into a full-time researcher in the process. He had come out to Los Angeles from a big city on the East Coast to interview with a multitude of law firms over several days. Prior to coming out to Los Angeles, he had sent me a list of at least 50 items that he wanted investigated. These items included things like

• public and private schools in various areas of Los Angeles;
• commute times from these areas to areas he might be working in at various times of the day;
• male/female ratios in the firms he was considering;
• attrition at the firms he was considering;
• news stories about the firms, from over the previous two years;
• average partner compensation at the firms;
• billing rates of the firms;
• average age of partners at the firms.

This particular attorney was well known and well qualified enough that the odds were pretty good that just about every firm he was interviewing with would be hiring him if he let them. He had taken a week off from work to come out to Los Angeles to work, and his entire week was action packed. I had picked him up from the airport on late Sunday morning and spent the entire day chauffeuring him around Los Angeles to look at various neighborhoods. Although I am not a real estate agent, I had printed up home listings for him in his price range, and drove him by several of them. During the five or six hours I was driving him around he gave me several additional “research assignments” to do for him that evening.

After dropping him off at his hotel, I was up until at least 11:30 doing research for him online and faxing all sorts of documents to his hotel room (laptops were not popular then and older people especially preferred faxing information when travelling). For the next several nights, after coming back from interviewing with law firms that day, the attorney would call me and give me additional research to do about the firm he had interviewed with, and I would tell him about the firm he was scheduled to speak with the next day. The number of details that this attorney wanted was so profound that over the next week I spent several hours each evening doing research for him.

What was so funny about this particular partner is that he was so interested in various details that by the time his offers started rolling in, he became incredibly critical of each firm–so much so that he completely forgot the very important reason he was moving to Los Angeles (to be closer to his kids, who had just moved there with his ex-wife). In fact, the global reason for moving to Los Angeles became completely overwhelmed by these details, which seemed incredibly insignificant to the big picture: he wanted to see his kids grow up. He became completely overwhelmed and obsessed with so many small details that, even in speaking to him on the phone, I felt like I was going insane trying to piece through the morass of incredibly small minutia that he had deemed relevant to his job search.

This is how specific people are, though. They love details and are more concerned with details that the overall picture. Specific people:

• are more interested in the trees than the forest;
• believe that the global way of looking at things is shallow, and even a lazy form of thinking;
• often times cannot understand and/or see the larger picture, in terms of how things work;
• are very good at understanding small bits of data and information.

People that are very focused on specifics typically provide lots and lots of details when you are speaking with them. In fact, specific people love details, order and so forth. When you speak with specific people they typically relate information and things to you in an exact order of how they occurred, and make sure that they give you lots of details about everything. It is fun sometimes interrupting salespeople who are “specific” in terms of how they sell things, because they are always interested in relating each step of a process to you and if they are thrown off, they feel like they need to start again.

Understanding whether you are a global or specific sort of person is quite relevant to your career. It is important that you are in a position that makes the most of your skill of being either general or specific.

If you are a general person, you will be more comfortable with a managerial role, and working in an environment where you are given tasks in such a manner that the “big picture” is explained to you. In addition, you will not want to be given a lot of details and will prefer to be in an environment in which you understand how your tasks are a part of the overall work that the organization is doing. You are unlikely to have a lot of tolerance for being forced to explain all sorts of small details.

If you are a specific person, the opposite is true. You will prefer working for a manager who explains tasks to you specifically and with a lot of details. In addition, you will not want generalizations. Instead, you will want to understand the logical sequence in which the work should be done. You will typically require a lot of information before acting on a task, and will always want to make sure that you understand specifically how things work, and what you should be doing each step of the way. You are a meticulous person.

In my experience, people are generally either predominantly specific or predominantly global. It is important that you are working in a job and environment that makes the most of your natural inclination. It is also important that you recognize the importance of people who make the most out of your skill set.

Related posts:

1. Avoid the Lawyer Mentality

When the bids started coming in I realized that this entire procedure was a little bit out of my league. In fact, most of the bids for this work were in the $200,000 range and only one of them was in the low six figures ($120,000). As is customary with any proposal involving a considerable sum of money, a conference call was arranged to discuss the bids with each of the companies.

“What is involved here?” I typically asked.

“We will come up with a tag line for the business, and several words that describe what you are and what you are not–and then make sure your staff understands this. We will put this all into a report.”

If you are thinking what I am thinking, then I am sure you and I are on the same page. The last thing I wanted to do was pay some high-falutin New Yorkers in $2,500 suits $275,000 to give me 10 different words about what the business stood for. You would be surprised at how deeply involved people get in this process. For example, they have focus groups and other sorts of activities to “get to the bottom of things”, and they manage to spend a loads of money doing the work.

Sitting in the office with the manager I hired for Law Firm Staff, one day I told him that we should go about doing this work ourselves. As I debated how we would do it, I was also cognizant of the fact that coming up with 10 words to describe the business could be a somewhat complicated process, and was something that I should at least do my best to understand before figuring out these 10 words.

“Let’s see if there is a seminar, or someplace where we can learn about this online!” I said.

We were sitting there on a Friday afternoon and had planned on strategizing for the weekend about the business. Within seconds I had discovered a website announcing a big seminar that coming weekend at the LAX Marriott. The headline of the seminar read:

“BRING YOUR PARACHUTE! THIS SEMINAR WILL TEACH YOU IN ONE WEEKEND HOW TO TAKE ON THE ‘BIG BOYS’ ON MADISION AVENUE AND CREATE A BRAND THAT WILL PUT YOU ON A PILE OF CASH SO HIGH YOU’LL NEED A PARACHUTE TO GET DOWN!”

I was mesmerized and knew right then and there that this was a seminar I had to attend. The woman putting on the seminar apparently had worked on Madison Avenue, and for $5,000 she would teach us in one weekend how to create a brand that “sizzled”. Sitting there in my office, the manager and I called the woman on my speakerphone. A man actually answered and we chatted for a few minutes about the branding seminar.

“Can I bring two people for the price of one?” I asked after a few minutes.

“Wait just a moment, I have to check with my partner. She is working at the other end of the building.”

While the man was checking, we were busy poking around the sales letter website and doing other research online, and we very quickly realized that this was not a large company, but just this man and woman, who were putting on the seminar. They were trying to give the impression that it was a giant organization, but in reality it was very small. Within a few minutes they circled back with me and we negotiated some sort of deal for the price of the seminar, which allowed the manager and myself to attend.

I was expecting that the seminar would be packed with hundreds of people in a large auditorium. Instead, when I got there, it was among the strangest things I had ever seen. There were about 6 or 7 people in a small room that had giant speakers set up, which would have been suitable for a conference of 5,000. The woman giving the seminar was wearing a wireless headset, and a DJ in the back of the room was booming all sorts of music. The woman with the headset was jumping up and down, trying to get the audience charged up. There were posters of her on the wall and all sorts of banners announcing the seminar all over the room.

“Are you ready for a breakthrough!!!” the woman was screaming to the seven of us as we all sat there. There were also very expensive looking cameras set up all around the small room. To give you the full perspective of this scene, the entire room was not much larger than an average hotel room.

Without going into too much detail, this was the worst conference I had ever been to. My manager and I were seated next to a woman who had a website called IHateCorporateAmerica.com. The rest of the audience was comprised of a couple of widows whose husbands had died, and who were looking to start online businesses. And there were also a few other random people we had no interest in meeting. I had no idea how we had fallen for this crap. Throughout the conference, the woman kept putting some sort of orange powder in a water bottle and shaking it up. After each sip she would shake her head as if it just gave her a charge, and then continue telling us about her life.

The first day, before lunch, involved the woman telling us how she had worked with the “big boys” on Madison Avenue and realized that she needed to bring what they did to the world, instead of reserving the skill of picking those 10 descriptive words just for the people with $200,000+ to spend. She informed us that we were in for “breakthroughs”, and then spent some time lecturing us about how she had turned her life around and had just published a motivational calendar. That was about all that happened before lunch on the first day. At most of these sorts of conferences for which you pay thousands of dollars, they serve lunch. At this conference, however, we were expected to go find a place to get lunch on our own.

The manager and I went to lunch and sat there a little shell-shocked and confused. We wondered whether or not we could get our money back at this point, and discussed the future of the business and the brand on our own–since we had not yet gotten any meaningful insights from the conference.

When we walked back from lunch the woman had the cameras set out in the hall and someone was in the midst of giving a testimonial:

“My experience at this mega event so far has been incredible. I have learned how to transform my brand from below average to superior. I cannot wait to start putting the concepts I have learned here into action and SUPERCHARGING my brand!”

“That’s it!” said the woman leading the seminar, and she started clapping. I had no idea what was going on, since we had not learned anything yet.

The woman grabbed me by the arm.

“You need to do a video testimonial!” she said. It looked like one of her parents might have been standing off to the side. I was not sure.

“No,” I said. “I do not want to do a testimonial.”

She looked astonished and started to follow me into the seminar room. She had her assistant follow me into the room with her.

“Why not!?” she said. She seemed very upset about my reluctance to give a testimonial. I stood there bantering back and forth over the next few minutes with her about this. I was not trying to be rude, but the seminar really did suck, and I had not learned anything yet. More importantly, I did not want my image plastered all over the Internet as a testimonial for the next 50 years. For the rest of the seminar I was an “outsider” and a persona non grata because I had not given a testimonial.

There was such a lack of any useful information whatsoever that I left about halfway through the second day–but not before being treated to one of the most incredible pitches I had ever seen.

“Today we are going to pay for lunch if you will come to lunch with us and learn about our lifetime membership program called MILLIONAIRE MASTERY!” the woman told the audience. Millionaire mastery involved some sort of phone coaching program in how to be a millionaire for life–at the cost of $25,000. The manager and myself were the only ones in the entire crowd of seven that did not go to the free lunch to be pitched on the MILLIONAIRE MASTERY lifetime membership.

I had spoken with the woman’s assistant during lunch, and learned that she and the rest of these people all worked from home. In addition, the woman lived in a small apartment in Venice Beach. These were not millionaires, but they were more than happy to take your money to tell you how to become one–if you let them.

What I learned in my entire trip into the “branding universe”, about the pitchmen and people involved, is that there is an entire art, science and industry involved in the selling of intangibles. Branding, in essence, is making a brand represent a certain intangible meaning, and there are many people, like myself, who can be sold things that are intangible–after all, I am the sucker who paid over $5,000 in order for a manager and myself to attend a lousy branding conference.

I am sure you have fallen for intangible promises before as well.

One of my favorite pastimes when I was younger was to read magazines like Entrepreneur and other magazines for people interested in starting various businesses. The fun thing about reading magazines like this has never been the content inside of them; instead, what have fascinated me so much are the advertisements. Ever since I can remember, these magazines have been littered with one “income opportunity” after another, in which a guy standing in front of his Ferrari or big-gated house promises to tell you about a business wherein he is making a lot of money, and which you can operate for “30 minutes a day” if you send him $99.00, or something along these lines.

What is so fascinating to me about these sorts of advertisements is that they are so incredibly common. The advertisements never give you any proof that the concept they are talking about works and, instead, they simply talk about how someone made a lot of money, told their boss to go take a hike, has a better life now, and so forth, after discovering some mysterious “secret”.

The most famous income opportunity advertisement of all time was written by Joe Karbo:

The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches

Most People Are Too Busy Earning a Living to Make Any Money

I used to work hard. The 18-hour days. The 7-day weeks.

But I didn’t start making big money until I did less–a lot less.

For example, this ad took about 2 hours to write. With a little luck, it should earn me 50, maybe a hundred thousand dollars.

What’s more, I’m going to ask you to send me 10 dollars for something that’ll cost me no more than 50 cents. And I’ll try to make it so irresistible that you’d be a darned fool not to do it.

After all, why should you care if I make $9.50 profit, if I can show you how to make a lot more?

What if I’m so sure that you will make money my Lazy Man’s way that I’ll make you the world’s most unusual guarantee?

And here it is: I won’t even cash your check or money order for 31 days after I’ve sent you my material.

That’ll give you plenty of time to get it, look it over, try it out.

If you don’t agree that it’s worth at least a hundred times what you invested, send it back. Your uncashed check or money order will be put in the return mail.

The only reason I won’t send it to you and bill you or send it C.O.D. is because both of these methods involve more time and money.

And I’m already going to give you the biggest bargain of your life.

Because I’m going to tell you what it took me 11 years to perfect: How to make money the Lazy Man’s Way.

O.K.–now I have to brag a little. I don’t mind it. And it’s necessary–to prove the sending me 10 dollars . . . which I’ll keep “in escrow” until you’re satisfied . . . is the smartest thing you ever did.

I live in home that’s worth $100,000. I know it is, because I turned down an offer for that much. My mortgage is less than half that, and the only reason I haven’t paid it off is because my Tax Accountant says I’d be an idiot.

My “office”, about a mile and a half from my home, is right on the beach. My view is so breathtaking that most people comment that they don’t see how I get any work done. But I do enough. About 6 hours a day, 8 or 9 months a year.

The rest of the time we spend at our mountain “cabin”. I paid $30,000 for it–cash.

I have 2 boats and a Cadillac. All paid for.

We have stocks, bonds, investments, cash in the bank. But the most important thing I have is priceless: time with my family.

And I’ll show you just how I did it—the Lazy man’s Way—a secret I’ve shared with just a few friends till now.

It doesn’t require “education.”

I’m a high school graduate.

It doesn’t require “capital”. When I started out, I was so deep in debt that a lawyer friend advised bankruptcy as the only way out. He was wrong. We paid off our debts and, outside of the mortgage, don’t owe a cent to any man.

It doesn’t require “luck”. I’ve had more than my share, but I’m not promising you that you’ll make as much money as I have. And you may do better; I personally know one man who used these principles, worked hard, and made 11 million dollars in 8 years. But money isn’t everything.

It doesn’t require “talent”. Just enough brains to know what to look for. And I’ll tell you that.

It doesn’t require “youth”. One woman I worked with is over 70. She’s traveled the world over, making all the money she needs, doing only what I taught her.

It doesn’t require “experience”.

A widow in Chicago has been averaging $25,000 a year for the past 5 years, using my methods.

What does it require? Belief.

Enough to take a chance. Enough to absorb what I’ll send you. Enough to put the principles into action. If you do just that–nothing more, nothing less–the results will be hard to believe. Remember–I guarantee it.

You don’t have to give up your job. But you may soon be making so much money that you’ll be able to. Once again–I guarantee it.

The wisest man I ever knew told me something I will never forget: “Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.”

Don’t take as long as I did to find out he was right.

I’ll prove it to you, if you’ll send in the coupon now. I’m not asking you to “believe” me. Just try it. If I’m wrong, all you’ve lost is a couple of minutes and a postage stamp. But what if I’m right?

Sworn Statement: “I have examined this advertisement. On the basis of personal acquaintance with Mr. Joe Karbo for 18 years and my professional relationship as his accountant, I certify that every statement regarding his personal and business status is tree.” (Accountant’s name available upon request.) Bank Reference: American State Bank675 South Main Street, Orange, California 92688

Joe Karbo17105 South Pacific, Dept. 125-A, Sunset Beach, California 90742Joe, you may be full of beans, but what have I got to lose? Send me the Lazy Man’s Way to Riches. But don’t deposit my check or money order for 31 days after it’s in the mail.If I return your material—for any reason—within that time, return my uncashed check or money order to me. On that basis, here’s my ten dollars. Please send Air Mail. I’m enclosing an extra dollar. Name Address City State Zip

There are advertisements like Karbo’s all over, still to this day. The advertisement above, however, was one of the most successful advertisements of its kind ever, and it sold over 3,000,000 copies of Karbo’s book in short order. In fact, Karbo’s advertisement resulted in him having the best selling self-published book of all time before the book ever even made it to bookstores. Even today legions of copy writers, authors and others are still inspired by Karbo and his advertisement.

When you read an advertisement like Karbo’s you may be struck by how little information it provides. For example, the advertisement does not tell you what the business is that Karbo is promoting. It gives few facts and figures. The advertisement does not tell you very much at all. Instead, the advertisement appeals to:

• what is possible;
• the future and what lies in store;
• a vision for a better life;
• what is naturally obvious to people;
• an abstract sense that success will occur;
• an acceptance of concepts over proof.

It is important to understand that many people out there can, obviously, be sold on intangible ideas. In fact, a great number of people’s expression of the world is based primarily on intangibles and on “what feels right”. Are you an intangible sort of person or a more tangible sort of person?

Someone who is more “tangible” would probably not have been suckered into going to a branding conference like the one I attended. This type of person would not purchase a book by Joe Karbo in response to an advertisement like the one above either. People who are more tangible are more interested in:

• seeing proof that things work;
• focusing on the present moment, with less regard for promises about the future;
• acting, but only if they are sure about something.

You are either someone who is more motivated by tangibles or motivated by intangibles. People are typically motivated by one or the other. Understanding whether you are a tangible or intangible person is incredibly important to understanding the sort of career you should be pursuing, and how you should be spending your time.

Someone who is tangible is typically going to:

• prefer to be told that a certain way of doing things will work because it has been proven by others to work;
• be comfortable with routine, administrative and predictable sorts of tasks;
• be very good at handling detail-oriented tasks;
• be comfortable undertaking tasks that have very clear guidelines.

In my experience, about half of the people out there are like this. If you are like this, you need to be in a job and profession that makes use of your natural inclination. There are people out there who simply need to understand exactly how things should be done, and to work this way consistently. They do not like abstract thinking and are more focused on the “here and now”–more than they are focused on the abstract future.

Someone who is more focused on intangibles, in contrast, will prefer to be given tasks in a manner in which

• they can come up with new ideas;
• they can see new possibilities;
• they do not solely rely on facts and predictable routines;
• they can see how their work fits into the overall scheme of things.

The person interested in intangibles makes up the other half of the population. If you are someone interested in the “intangible side” of things, then it will be important for you to be in jobs in which you can make use of these sorts of skills. You will also, unfortunately, fall into the sorry half of the population that, like me, will sign up for seminars promising transformation, and may even buy books that were written by Joe Karbo.

What is important to understand, though, is that you are either slanted towards being a tangible or an intangible sort of person. I have seen numerous people fail in all sort of jobs, simply because they were in a job that did not make use of their particular skills and interests in this regard. You need to understand what sort of person you are, and to make sure that you are working in a job that takes this into account.

Related posts:

1. Be Interested in Others

The rarest sort of person is the one who is interested primarily in information. For most of his life my grandfather woke up every morning, and studied the day’s news. He would read a variety of newspapers, cut out articles that interested him, organize the articles, and then spend the rest of the day writing his own column. He had started doing this when he was probably around 17 years old, and he continued in college, writing for the newspaper at the University of Michigan. Eventually his career blossomed as a writer with the Detroit News, and as a radio personality with a Detroit radio station, WJR. My grandfather became extremely well known doing this. He had his pictures plastered on the sides of buses, and advertisements on the radio and newspapers hyped his analysis of the news.

My grandfather spent his career doing this because he was so deeply interested in information, specifically foreign affairs and loved studying and writing about this. He loved this so much that he literally worked until his fingers could no longer type. His fascination with studying information was so intense that he became a General in the army at one point, who specialized in gathering intelligence. In addition, he spent a good portion of his career all over the world, writing in Paris and other areas about information that he learned.

Into his 80s, he used to give weekly speeches to people at the public library in Birmingham, Michigan about various things he had learned. He spent most of his life studying and analyzing information, until the weeks before he died.

My grandfather’s fascination made him a bit of a different person from many other people. Unless you were quite intellectual and interested in discussing information all the time you would not have found him all that interesting–and he probably would not have found you all that interesting either. In fact, he had few friends and preferred to spend most of his free time lecturing. He was more focused his entire life on acquiring information than

• doing things with people,
• acquiring material things like cars and houses,
• traveling,
• interacting with people and meeting new people.

He was what I would call, simply, an information person. Information people are primarily interested in things like

• learning and telling others about what they learn,
• investigating facts,
• reflecting on information and facts.

Most people are not interested in information to such a degree. You may know certain people who are interested in information, but there are actually few people like this in the world.

If you are someone who is interested in information primarily, you will have certain needs in your job. You will require lots of information at all times, you will want time to think and reflect on the information you are given, and you will want to be given problems to solve. This is a work style and the better you are at working like this, the better off you will be in your job. Some people need information in order to function effectively in their jobs, and others do not.

People that are focused on information to this degree typically have the fewest close friends. They are most likely to only befriend another rare person that is also interested in information.

I once heard my grandfather criticized for not having lots of close friends, not being interested in leaving the house, except to buy all sorts of exotic newspapers–and he was also praised for not being interested in purchasing things. If you are an information sort of person it is important to be true to yourself and realize that you may not want to be in a job that requires a lot of travel, personal interaction and so forth: You want to be in a job that makes use of your love and fascination with information.

When you look at many of the people who are more comfortable staying home and studying than going out, talking on the phone, spending money and so forth, you will generally find an information-centric sort of person. If you are this sort of person, it is important that you spend your time doing what you like, and that you do not feel pressured to change. You are the person that you are on a deep and fundamental level, and you should embrace this.

While the information-centered person is the rarest, probably comprising less than 1 in every thirty people out there, the person-centered person probably comprises 1 in every 3 people out there. Someone who is person-centered is most interested in people. When you speak to these people, they will be very curious to hear information about other people, whoever they may be, and their conversations will be dominated by learning more about others. Those who are interested primarily in people will:

• want to talk and speak with people a great deal,
• always talk about other people in their conversations,
• constantly want to be in social situations.

When I met my wife she had just spent a year working inside of an intellectual property law firm, with a boss who was an information sort of person, I believe. My wife fits the characteristics of a people person, as I described them above–to a tee. However, she had spent a year around a classic information person, and felt the she too should be the same way. She had started subscribing to magazines like the Economist, and trying to discuss the articles that she read. This did not work, for course, because my wife was simply not acting like the person she was; in reality, she was not interested in the information she was reading, and her efforts to discuss it were in vain. My wife prefers to read magazines like People, for example.

While my wife loves parties and people, an information person does not. The information person would rather stay home and study. Each person is motivated by something different and, again, it is internal and deep seated –and neither person is ever going to change how they are.

• When you speak with someone who is focused on people, his or her conversation will involve the people who were a part of their day–or an event.
• They are the sorts of people who want to show you pictures of their family and friends; they will typically have numerous pictures scattered throughout their office and home.
• If they hear about an event and are telling you about it, they will describe the people who were involved in the event more so than the event itself.

For people who are focused on people, it is the quality of the relationships and people they are working with that is most important. Moreover, they want to work for people with whom they have good relationships. They are very concerned with morale at the office.

If you are a people person you need to understand that it is important for you to work where you can interact with other people, where morale is good, and where you can spend time with your coworkers both inside and outside of work. You also should be working for people that you like. Because of your focus on the “people part” of work, it is important that you avoid working for people you do not like and could not be friends with. Many work environments are not like this, and you need to take extra care to find a compatible workplace for yourself.

The next most common sort of person is focused on doing things all the time. These sorts of people are always “out and about”, focusing on doing various things. They love movement, whether it is driving somewhere or participating in an activity. These people do not like being still. For example, a vacation at the beach for two weeks with no activities planned is not something they would not be at all interested in. Conversely, if the vacation involved constantly doing various things such as scuba diving, hiking and a variety of activities each day, then they would greatly enjoy themselves.

Vacations are generally the time when the “true side” of people comes out.

• The information person will bring a ton of books with them and generally savor the free time to read.
• An activity person will view the vacation as an opportunity to engage in various activities and tours of the area, and will stay occupied with these sorts of things.
• A people person will view the vacation as a great opportunity to meet new people.

When you speak with someone that is focused on activities, he or she will generally describe the activities he or she was involved in on one day or another, and will focus the conversation on describing what various people were “doing” at one time or another. The homes and offices of people interested in activities are typically filled with signs of their activities, whether it is a trophy-fish on the wall, or athletic gear in the closet.

In the workplace, someone who is focused on activities will generally be most interested in doing. For example, these types of people would not be happy sitting around, writing a brief in a law office day after day. They would not be happy being expected to think all day. Instead, it is important for them to be on the move, doing various things day in and day out. Activity people hate inactivity and are always looking for ways to stay occupied.

If you are an activity-based sort of person, it is important that you find yourself jobs that involve lots of action and movement at all times, which do not involve a lot of idle activity. You may be happier outside of the office than inside the office. You may be uncomfortable sitting still for long periods of time.

I have known many people throughout the years who give seminars for a living. Some of these people spend less than a month at home each year, but they appear to love all of the movement from place to place that their jobs involve. This would be my absolute worst nightmare, but for an activity-based sort of person moving from city to city is exactly the sort of work they love to do. It is in their nature. One day I remember corresponding with a well known seminar presenter, and I had looked at their business and I told them that they probably could make much more money selling courses online; plus, this way they could just work in one place. This was not what the person wanted to hear. This person was more interested on being “on the move”, and making money was a secondary concern.

The next most common sort of person is the person who is most interested in various material objects. These types of people may be interested in what things cost, what things are, or the significance of various objects. These sorts of people may be collectors of things, and they tend to purchase things just because they want to have them–not necessarily because they need them. Object-oriented people love to purchase, collect and exchange things.

I am sure you have known numerous people over the years, who are focused on material objects. (In my experience you can find a lot of these people in New York City!) When you speak with people who are focused on objects and things,

• they often will describe various material objects they notice throughout the day;
• they will often tell you about things that other people use or have.

Inside the homes and offices of these sorts of people, you will find lots of various material objects. If you go somewhere with an object-centered person, he or she will describe the objects there, such as the furniture, paintings and so forth–and he or she will dwell on this. When the person describes meeting people, he or she might describe what a given person was wearing and what was inside the room where the meeting took place.

I have met and managed many object-oriented people throughout my career. People who are focused on objects are interested in making money in order to purchase things. In some cases they even view working as a competition to earn the most money, in order to buy the most things.

If you are an object-oriented person, it is important that you are in a job that makes the most of your interests. For example, you might be interested in selling things and explaining their value to others. You might be interested in something that requires you to keep a machine or computer updated. You are interested in jobs wherein you can make as much money as possible, in order to purchase things.

The final sort of person is someone who is interested in locations and spaces. Like the information person, this type of person is very rare. Someone who is interested in locations and spaces is interested in where things occur. Place-oriented people are focused on where they are going to be going at various times.

It is interesting, but my daughter who is less than three years old is someone who I think has this natural inclination, even at this young age. Her conversations are punctuated at all times with questions about where she is going, when she is going somewhere, whether we will be inside or outside, and so forth. This fascination with place is natural to her, the same way that a fascination with people or information is natural to other individuals.

When you speak with someone concerned about place,

• they will want to tell you about where they went on a given day, and will describe the place in detail;
• they will tell you where other people were on a given day;
• they will describe the ambiance of a particular place.

When I was in fifth grade I had a teacher I am almost 100% confident was a place-oriented person, because all he ever did was show us slides, at least a few hours a month, of his various trips to Europe. He would describe all of these places in excruciating detail.

If you are most concerned with places, then you will typically be very concerned with working in locations that you like, or that are convenient to you. You will also be the sort of person who believes that your productivity is tied to the location in which you work. You will place a large focus on the feel of the place where you are working, its physical attributes and geographical surroundings.

Understanding whether you are most interested in information, people, activities, things or places can really help you zero in on what is important to you in your job, career and life. The frustration you may have felt in past jobs or in your current job is likely related to whether or not you were in an environment that supported and nourished your natural inclinations and interests. In addition, the emphasis of your supervisor should ideally fit in with your particular leanings. From your work to the friends you choose, it is important that you understand that people typically are motivated by one of these elements or another. Your ultimate success will in large part be based on whether you stay true to this understanding.

Related posts:

1. Are You Motivated by Power, Relationships, or Achievement?
2. Are You More Motivated by the Opinions of Others–or Your Own?
3. The Importance of Giving Access to Information–and Doing Good

When I first moved to Los Angeles I found myself spending the occasional Saturday or Sunday going to Beverly Hills with a girlfriend to look in clothing stores. One of the stores that I usually ended up in was a store like Barneys, which carries both men’s and women’s clothing. Instead of sitting idly on couch near a dressing room, reading fashion magazines with the other occasional bored male, I typically would go upstairs and look at men’s clothing. What always fascinated me about the menswear I saw during these trips was that it seemed drastically different each year. One year baggy pants would be in and the next year pants that fit men like gloves would be in.

It is always funny going into the men’s sections of these clothing stores because you typically will see men in their 50s with pot bellies, for example, trying to fit into the latest styles. They seem to me to be guys who have finally “made it” and can buy whatever they want, and they have decided it is important to be wearing the latest styles. They will typically be “brand whore” sorts of people that are more likely to be wearing Bvlgari glasses, Gucci belts, and other designer accessories than not. And then there are just other fashion-conscious men wandering around the stores.

It is incredible to watch the men here because they are always throwing around the names of the latest designers, and buying clothes that are ripped, bleached, and all sorts of things–for incredibly high prices.

• $500 tee shirts that are ripped? I’ve seen these.
• Men’s jeans made out of fur? I’ve seen these.
• A $3,000 men’s denim jacket? I’ve seen these.

Barneys has nice suits and normal clothing, of course, but it is the section of their stores that carries the trendy fashions that is most interesting to me, because there they are selling clothing that is here and “in” one minute, and gone the next. I have no idea who the people are that buy this stuff because I have never met one of them in my entire professional and personal career, but they are apparently numerous, and out there waiting to be found. They are intimately familiar with all sorts of fashion labels, and probably in most cases they spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on these fashions. There is an energy in Barneys as these men shop, because they move around with a certain discrimination and enthusiasm, which is unique to Barneys itself.

In Los Angeles at the end of the season these fashions become so undesirable that Barneys rents out an airplane hangar in Santa Monica and takes all of the “undesirable” old fashions there to sell at fire sale prices of 30% or more off of retail. The undesirable fashions are so tainted after a season that they do not even merit being sold in the store itself, and must be relegated to an industrial airline hangar far away from Beverly Hills. I can only assume that second-rate customers, who could not afford $500 for a tee shirt when it was “in-style” are flocking to airline hangars to, instead, purchase the tee shirts for $350.

An even more interesting thing about Barneys is that the salespeople also take themselves quite seriously. They seem to think that it is perfectly normal for a grown man to spend $8,000 on a leather coat, and they fastidiously follow their patrons around, complimenting them on one choice or another. In addition, Barneys even offers a personal shopper service to assist men in repeating this insanity year in and year out, as new wardrobes are brought in to replace the old ones.

One year I was standing around like an anthropologist, in absolute amazement as I watched a couple of men trying on $400 designer scarves that looked like pieces of white ripped sheets on an 80-degree day, and a salesman came up and started speaking with me. I have no idea what happened, and must have been overcome by the energy of the place, because within a few minutes I had given him my email address, telephone number and address. For the next few years Robert sent me email after email about new collections. He called my wife after I got married to tell her that there were “pre-sales” I should go to. He sent me cards in the mail too, and when he figured out how to use the attachment device in his AOL account, he started emailing me grainy pictures of shoes, strange looking ties and so forth. These communications from Robert were among the most entertaining I have ever received in my life, and I always looked forward to them.

One day I got a mass email from Robert, which was sent to around 1,000 other people, stating that he was “making a lateral move”, and going to work at a men’s clothing store called Joseph A. Bank. It was a conservative men’s clothing store. It made no sense because the new store he was going to work in could not have been any more different from the sort of stuff that Robert had been selling at Barneys. Robert called me a few months later from Joseph A. Bank to tell me about a special upcoming event involving sport coats:

“How’s it going?” I asked Robert.

“Ok,” he said.

“Listen, I do not know a lot about men’s fashion, but I think you are in the wrong sort of clothing store and should go back to Barneys. Your customers want hip, like from Barneys, and you went to about the most conservative men’s clothing store imaginable. Your customers are not going to follow you to the new store.”

“I never thought about that. Maybe you’re right,” he said. “I do not know if you know this, but Barneys was recently sold. They have changed the whole commission structure there. Morale is really low.”

I was not expecting to get into a long conversation with Robert about his job especially when, as of yet, I had never actually purchased anything from him. In fact, I was quite sure he did not even remember introducing himself to me while I had been standing, mesmerized, watching perfectly normal looking grown men flinging scarves over their shoulders and primping in front of mirrors several years ago. Robert and I spoke for several minutes and he admitted to me that, even with the commission adjustments at Barneys, he had been making far more money there than he was currently making at Joseph A. Bank. He thanked me for my career advice.

A few months later I got another mass email from Robert, stating that he had made another lateral move, this time to another men’s clothing store, Saks Fifth Avenue.

“NICE WORK!” I responded to the email.

They have marked down all of the Roberto Cavaleri’s 20% until the 1st. Please see me. He responded. Since I had only a vague understanding that Roberto Cavaleri was a designer, I figured Robert must have been doing well, especially since, in this case, the name of the designer was Italian and sounded quite high fashion.

My experience with Robert and Barneys gave me a real understanding of people because the world of men’s clothing says so much to me about who people are. In the world there are essentially two types of people: Externally motivated people and internally motivated people. People who are motivated internally will typically be motivated by the things that they believe are correct and right. In the realm of clothing, for example, they are likely to make decisions based on the things that they feel are right and correct, and not necessarily based on others’ influence. Someone internally motivated would pick out clothes that they like without being too influenced by the opinions of others, for example. They would not feel like they were doing something wrong if they were not wearing the latest fashions.

The second sort of person makes decisions in large part based on what others believe is the appropriate or correct thing to do. If the fashion powers that be declare that tight men’s pants are in, these sorts of people will wear tight pants. If the fashion powers that be declare that loose fitting, baggy and wrinkled pants are in, they will wear these. People who are highly motivated by others’ opinions often have an extremely difficult time making any decisions without relying upon the opinions of others.

In my experience, people out there are generally either motivated by others’ opinions, or motivated by their own opinions.

I have always had a fascination with artists because, in large part, the difference between a good and an average artist is that the better artist often tries to completely ignore the opinions of others. In high school I went to a school called Cranbrook-Kingswood, which also had an art academy attached to it, and lots of graduate students were studying art there. It is actually a pretty good art school, and it was always interesting to see the projects the artists worked on around campus. One thing that I noticed is that the artists were always trying to do projects that were completely shocking and different from anything else out there. For example, one day I might be walking through the campus and see a car painted all different colors and a man lying face-down on the car, wearing nothing but a swimming suite. This sort of thing would be considered an “art” project of some sort. The idea was that these artists were all really “thinking outside the box”, and were trying to do things that were completely unexpected and of their own making. They wanted to be doing a form of art that was informed by what was inside of them, not something that copied the opinions of others.

The pressure to conform to others’ opinions is a major one in our society. Numerous people out there are constantly trying to conform to what others think and believe is the right thing to do and, for this reason, most of their actions are chosen based upon what others feel and believe is the most important thing to do. The experience of the people who shop and spend their time in the “high-style” areas of Barneys is a perfect example of this. These people are trying to largely to do something (in this case, follow styles) based on what other people declare to be the “in styles” of the moment. They base much of their decisions about how to be and act on the opinions of others, and not necessarily on what they are likely to be comfortable doing. They are likely to constantly ask others for feedback about how they are doing.

• They may choose a restaurant and eat at a restaurant because it is considered the best place at the time, and they want to tell others that they ate there–but they may not necessarily really want to eat at the restaurant.
• They may choose a place to work because it is considered a good place to work by others, not because they feel comfortable working there.
• They will ask for approval at work in order to understand whether or not they are doing a good job–less so than simply understanding this internally.
• They purchase things that are recommended more so than the things that appeal to them, or which they like.

People who are external-focused always use sources of reference outside of themselves to understand whether or not they are doing a good job in work and in life. If you are an external-focused person, the chances are very good that:

• You prefer working in jobs in which you are constantly getting lots of feedback and being told how you are doing.
• You like it when people help you set performance goals.

People who are externally motivated look to what others are saying, and to the outside world for guidance in their life, and to understand reality. This is how a large proportion of the world is.

In contrast, people who are more motivated by their own opinions are more like the artists I described earlier. They simply judge the world and their own lives based on their own opinions about what is correct, or what is best for them–and mostly without referring to others’ opinions for guidance. These people’s opinions are generally based on what they believe, not on what others believe.

• They may seek out information from others when making decisions, but will ultimately make decisions for themselves.
• They are internally motivated, not motivated by others. They may not require management, for example.
• They resist feedback from others and, in fact, prefer little or no feedback.
• They know they have done a good job based on how they feel, not based on what others say.

In your career and life you are either more motivated by your own opinions about what is right and how things should work–or you are more motivated by the opinions of others.

I am sure you know of people who are always judging you, themselves and others based on what other people say is the correct thing to say or do. I am sure you also know of people who do not judge themselves and others based so much on what other people say is the correct thing to say or do.

Regardless of which sort of person you are, it is important that you embrace this person. You are almost certainly never going to change the sort of person you are, and understanding what sort of person you are is something that can allow you to make full use of your strengths. You may be best in a job that does not require the approval of others–or, you may be best in one that does. It does not matter. What is important is that you understand the sort of person you are, embrace it, and make sure you are doing work that makes the most of your natural tendency to be one sort of person or the other.

Related posts:

1. Are You Motivated by Power, Relationships, or Achievement?
2. Run Your Career Based on Facts and Statistics — Not Opinions
3. Learn Something from the Upper and Lower Class: Do Not Be Paralyzed by Others’ Opinions

Concentration and the Acquirement of Personal Magnetism is a very important self-improvement book and I am sure its practical exercises will assist you in developing your personal magnetism to use as a powerful force in your personal and professional life.

–Harrison

CONCENTRATION AND THE ACQUIREMENT OF PERSONAL MAGNETISM

By O. Hashnu Hara

INTRODUCTION

IN giving this series of lessons to the public at a nominal fee, I believe I am really doing something that will be of great benefit to all who need a helmsman to guide the rudder of the good boat “Thought” to the harbor of Success.

Thought, unorganized, is so much waste matter; Thought, ORGANIZED, is the greatest power in the world, greater even than the almighty Dollar, for it commands filthy lucre and bids grim poverty farewell – forever? It commands love, which filthy lucre can’t, and it commands all that makes life worth living.

That it is necessary to undergo special mental training to produce this state of mental organization is very apparent, and that people desire daily more light, more knowledge, and for means to overcome their state of ignorance is, as sure as “eggs are eggs,” the reason why Personal Magnetism and the consideration of the Thought Forces have become such a cult.

Personal Magnetism means health, happiness, power and success.

Those who want these things and all they stand for, follow the rules I give you in these pages; read, mark, learn and inwardly digest each lesson, and if you do not live to bless the wonderful force known as Personal or Animal Magnetism; if you do not realize within yourself a new found happiness, because you realize that you are not the weak, downtrodden creature you have so long considered yourself, but a glorified, radiant, happy being; then, I say, my name is not…

O. Hashnu Hara

THOUGHT AND THE BRAIN

LESSON I

THAT a course of lessons fully illustrating the action of thought, explaining its composition, and the correct method of using it, would prove a boon to many students of the Occult and mental sciences, who find this a very great drawback to serious advancement, appear almost a certainty.

The methods usually advocated seem to me very impractical; in the first place, how can a man who has never learned to control thought in everyday matters, such as banishing business worries when he comes home, or goes to bed, or in learning to control small habits, suddenly sit down and “concentrate on Spirit,” when probably his very idea of spirit is such as to awaken all his dormant fancies, and to call forth not one image, but hundreds? Then he fondly believes he is concentrating, until the utter absence of results proves that he has done no such thing, and he begins all over again.

It is only what may be expected, and even a general attempt to simplify the matter would be welcome; but I have had so many letters and so many appeals from men and women who cannot master this one subject – quite the most important in the whole school of Metaphysical and Occult teaching – the door, in fact, which will open to them the whole vista held out in books, an entrancing vision of knowledge, of health, of happiness, and the unseen, which too often will remain in books, simply because the initial step is too difficult – that I have made a great effort to meet the demand in a popular and practical form.

First of all I will beg of my pupils to begin at the bottom. Do not try to concentrate your thought on spirit before you are quite sure:

First. As to what THOUGHT is composed of.

Second. That you are able to concentrate your mind on some unimportant mundane matter, to the exclusion of all else.

Third. Do not try to concentrate your mind for half an hour at a time, until you can concentrate for two consecutive minutes.

Fourth. What spirit is.

I advise the student to practice keeping his mind on one subject for a minute at a time, and then gradually increase the time from day to day.

If you intended to train for, say, a foot race, you would not start with a twenty-mile walk after having been out of training for a long time. Nor if a little child is being taught how to read is he given a difficult scientific book to begin with. Yet men and women are put to a task far more difficult than these, without any preparation or gradual initiation into the processes employed.

Take some subject you are very much interested in for the commencement, then for one minute hold this before your mind’s eye, try to see if it in your imagination, and if you fail, wait another hour or so then try again.

By these means you gradually increase the elasticity of your brain, which, by continual exercises, can be expanded and made to perform tasks which were originally impossible. The next thing is to consider the part our brain plays in the matter of thought generation.

Look upon the brain simply as a very delicate machine, a dynamo that generates thought as an ordinary dynamo generates electricity. The construction of this machine needs some consideration for it is known that certain parts of the brain are put to certain uses, and that a brain left dormant grows gradually incapable of anything much above involuntary action, and that if certain parts even of the brain are neglected they in turn become atrophied and are useless.

The accompanying diagram shows the relative parts of the brain, and the work they do is as follows:

Fig. 1 is the cerebrum, and consists of two hemispheres, which are separated by a very deep fissure. The cerebrum is composed of a thick layer of gray matter, surrounding white fibrous nerve substance. The gray matter is drawn up in to folds, or convolutions, and the whole is covered by a delicate membrane composed of arteries and veins, supported by tissue.

( Diagrams not shown )

This part of the brain is the seat of sensation, of will, of intelligence, and also of the emotions; if this part of the brain is injured, the power of manifesting mental faculties is more or less lost.

Fig. 2 is the lesser brain, or cerebellum, and this guards and regulates the involuntary muscles and movements of the mind and body. I have always placed the subconscious mind here; it seems the most reasonable locality to apportion it to, for the subconscious mind is certainly an involuntary worker; it also depends very little upon the will of the emotions, for all the will-power in the world will not make it manifest if it is not in the state to do so, and the everyday working brain has quite enough to do to look after its own without taking on another function.

Fig. 3, the pons varolli, and Fig. 5, the medulla oblongata, do not immediately concern us, although, of course, their own work is very important. Thus, if the medulla oblongata is destroyed, death at once ensues.

From the under surface of the brain twelve pairs of nerves are given off, called the cranial nerves; each pair supply some sense to the body, generated by the brain machine, just as a dynamo turns out its streams of electricity. One pair of nerves supply the sense of smell; the next the optic nerves; the third pair move the eyeballs; the fourth supply the skin of the face, the muscles of the lower jaw, and the tongue; the sixth pair are supplied to the muscles which turn the eyeballs outwards; the seventh pair supply fibers to the muscles of the face; the eight pair supply the ear; the ninth pair are mixed nerves and they enable us to taste, and also supply the nerves to the pharynx; the tenth pair are very important mixed nerves which send fibers to her larynx, lungs, hear, stomach and liver; the eleventh pair are motor nerves which supply certain muscles to the neck; the twelfth pair are spending fibers to the tongue. So here we get a clear idea of our thought machine, a good thing to start with, since certainly no other kind of engineer would attempt to drive a machine of which he was absolutely ignorant. This direct arrangement from the brain center explains to a great extent how the form of concentration called mental healing can affect the body, and rebuild the tissues.

For each pair of nerves will carry the message given to them by the brain, and it naturally depends upon the message as to the effect produced. Here we get the machine we have to work with, and having mastered the technical parts of it, we will now proceed to see how thought acts, and how concentration affects thought.

It has long been a matter of consideration and study to me as to where the will really is located, and in this matter of concentration it is doubly important, because without that WILL man cannot possibly concentrate. It is the master of the Thoughts Machine, and I have found that the best way to meet the difficulty is to look upon the WILL as the OVER SOUL, that part of man which never dies, and which is carried on from incarnation to incarnation. I am assuming the theory of reincarnation to be something more that theory. It has been given to me to remember past lives, although only two or three; but even if one can remember any it surely renders the theory a fact.

This OVER SOUL, or will-power, is the force which sets the brain in motion, and which determines what effect the thought generated will have, and also what strength; it rests within ourselves to decide the state we are to reach in each successive incarnation (after we have been through a certain number), yet if we seek the intelligent co-operation of the over soul we can, if we so desire, accomplish in one life what might otherwise take centuries to perform.

THE WILL: HOW THOUGHT TRAVELS –VARIETIES OF THOUGHT WAVES

LESSON II

THE seat of WILL, or the over soul, may, I think, be safely placed in the NERVE AURA surrounding the brain.

The exact nature of thought has not, so far as I have been able to discover, ever been fully explained. There is no doubt that thought is of atomic origin, else I do not quite see how, in accordance with Nature’s law, it could travel through the ether.

In regarding the action of thought in the ether, we are too much in danger of regarding the ether as something outside ourselves, and thought as an unconsidered and unknown quantity, a mistake which must be rigorously guarded against.

The ether permeates our whole body, and because of this wonderful invisible medium, thought, magnetism, and other know substances of a similar nature can attract to themselves matter from throughout the universe; thought, of course, having a greater power of attraction than any other substance. There is nothing in the world, which can prevent this attraction, no matter what may intervene between the thought and the object it seeks. The reason for this may be summed up in one word – ether. This acts as a conducting medium for the light waves which travel form the most distant planets and fixed stars, light which takes ten years to reach our little earth; and it acts as a conducting medium for our thought, whether we desire to send it to the other side of the earth, or to some far distant region in the unknown, or back, back into the long forgotten past, or forward into the yet unexplored future.

I have frequently held forth respecting the nature of that invisible substance called ether, but for the benefit of new readers, at the risk of boring the old, I will repeat myself.

The ether, then, is an invisible medium filling all space; scientists accept it as a necessity to account for the transmission of LIGHT through space where no ordinary medium, such as air, is to be found.

It is said by scientists to be of a smooth, jelly-like substance, and by Rosicrucian’s it is looked upon as living flame: We are at present more concerned with the scientific standpoint of what is called the “aluminiferous ether.” As my readers can readily understand, there must be some substance to fill all space, or we could get light from sun or moon, or the far distant stars.

This light travels through the ether by means of “waves,” that is, the tiny atoms, or particles, travel through space in a series of concentric (that is, from a common center) waves, each particle communicating motion to the next adjoining particle, and so on. Remember, too, that each particle, or atom, becomes, in its turn, a center of disturbance, sending out new waves. These wavelengths are exceedingly minute, and travel at an immense speed. They follow the waveform usual to water when, say, a stone is thrown in to cause a disturbance. There is the crest of the wave and the trough, and although the scientific method of measuring the length of these waves does not affect us at present, measured they are.

We know that light travels through ether by means of waves continually spreading outward; that a RAY of light is really non-existent. Light travels in minute particles, or atoms, and THOUGHT is propelled through the ether and through space in a similar manner to light.

You will consider the brain as a dynamo, only, of course, more powerful than any other known machine, and more delicately constructed. Man, as a race, is in constant danger of under-estimating the power of this machine, simply because he cannot CONCEIVE of such power.

From the central point of the brain, where motion is so intense, it almost appears at a standstill, thought radiates outward, as light radiates from our central point of energy -the sun.

We have seen, first, the machine, which generates thought, and secondly, the medium through which thought is propelled in its journey from one point of the globe to another.

The NATURE of thought is such that it is invisible as far as ocular demonstration is concerned, but its POWER is such that it is manifested in our daily life on every hand.

I assume thought to be of atomic origin, and, as I have already explained, the ether is a smooth, jelly-like substance with the property of transmitting atoms and molecules (a molecule is a group of two or more atoms) through space (which it entirely fills) at a terrific speed, the speed, of course, depending entirely upon the nature and size of the atom. Thought atoms are so infinitesimal that they probably exceed the highest known rate of speed, for the smaller the atom the higher and swifter the rate of vibration.

Whenever anybody thinks, even on the most trivial matter, they at once set up a stress (or disturbance) in the ether, and all around them becomes disturbed. If the thought was feeble, the disturbance will be merely local, and affect nobody, although, if charged with anger, worry, or discontent, it will affect the thinker very much for evil.

Such thoughts upset the ether, recoil upon the internal organism through the brain, and set up a state of irritation similar to the mental process, thus affecting not only the secretions of the vital organs, but surrounding the whole with a negative aura, which destroys the waves of love and good feeling which would otherwise surround that person. Then also, in a slight degree, these conditions will affect others in the immediate vicinity. They may experience feelings of depression, and the sensation of a cloudy atmosphere; but the thoughts are too unorganized to have a lasting effect, unless one is continually living with this species of thought emanation; it will not affect anybody seriously, EXCEPT the THINKER. He, or she, will at once show the work they have been unconsciously performing – bad digestion, sleepless nights, wrinkles, flabby cheeks, and the general inability to enjoy anything. These are the lasting results of such disturbance of the etheric substances.

We are all anxious to obtain success in life, and to help others; but the life success must be so perfectly blended with the spiritual success, that the two are one, else neither will be very lasting. I am aware that certain people may take exception to this statement, but it is my firm opinion that true-life success embraces this dual aspect I have described.

The law of vibration is always traveling from a higher to a lower rate and back again; it follows a free-path motion, and returns upon its journey laden with the errand it set out to perform. If you will look at the first diagram of this lesson, you will see a perfect circle, which we will call the sphere of spirit. At the mark “A” in this circle we see pure spirit, and at ‘B” we will place matter. Thus ‘A,” pure spirit is a rate of vibration which is intense –

( Fig. II not shown )

the swiftest possible. From this, spirit travels at a rate that grows slower and gradually slower, and, of course, denser, until it arrives at the base “B,” where it is practically at a standstill. This may be interpreted as the procession of spirit through the grosser shades of matter, until at “B” we find matter almost pure and simple; but from “B” back to “A” again this etheric flow grows swifter and swifter, until at “A” it again assumes its swiftest rate of speed, and, having shaken off the confining elements of matter, is again merged into pure spirit.

We can trace this as the process of life. All life is spirit, and this diagram represents the entire period from the first separation of the individual from spirit, on its journey through life to the time when, having passed through countless incarnations, it is ready to return whence it came. The reason for this journey is not apparent; it is simply the law of Nature.

Thus from “A” to “B” is the spiritual basis upon which we are all founded, and from which, by the slow processes of evolution, we attain the state of so much gross matter, the state in which quite nine-tenths of the population of the world are at present. Then, from here, man’s higher sense begins to crave a higher state of evolution, and at last realizes that he has it in his power to obtain this when he pleases. “We live in the state of development our thoughts create for us.” The higher our mental aspirations, the swifter and purer the rate of vibration we attain. If you live in the dirt you cannot expect to attract anything else; but if you are a child of sunshine, so will you be garbed in light, and draw to yourself all that is your by right.

To retrace our steps a little, we will repeat that the brain center is a medium, a machine for manifesting and creating thought, as a dynamo, only, of course, more powerful than any other know machine, and more perfect.

At the center of the brain, energy is so intense that it almost appears to be still and calm, and from this still center radiates outward thought, the quality and quantity of which depends upon the machine, which generates the power. The generating process takes place through the all-compelling action of the WILL or OVER SOUL, that part of man, which never dies. This action is helped, and often to a very great degree, by correct breathing, which has the most wonderful effect upon concentration of thought.

The following diagrams will illustrate very clearly how thought will proceed under given circumstances. Thought will proceed under given circumstance. Thought is dynamic, or, properly speaking, kinetic; * but, of course, the words apply to the same thing. Under the compulsion of a strong and well-advanced WILL, or over soul, thought travels in a direct line towards that upon which it is concentrated. The more intense this form of concentration, the swifter and more direct the journey of that thought.

Fig. 2 shows the action of thought when directed upon some particular point. From “A” to “B” we get concentrated thought traveling from the brain center, “A,” to the point it is intended to reach, “B.” This may be defined as organized thought, a substance of which the vibrations are almost as subtle as the transmitting medium, etheric waves.

( Diagram not shown )

From “A” to “C,” however, we obtain the action of thought as it is understood in everyday parlance, the vacillating, uncertain thought of the organized mind which follows a zigzag course, varying in strength, and finally filtering away, without ever reaching its goal.

*Producing motion. Force of any kind as a motive power and its action.

THOUGHT WAVES – CONTINUED

LESSON III

TO resume the consideration of the various kinds of thought waves we will now consider Fig. III (Lesson III), which shows the action of the brain when generating another kind of mind wave, when the thought field, which closely resembles the magnetic field, as known to electricians, is composed of lines of forces which are less concentrated because more scattered in area, since they radiate outwards to all points, still from the same calm center.

But under the action of an organized mentality each line reaches the mark.

Thus from “A” to the outermost circle on every side, which in this case we will take to represent the known universe, or perhaps better still, as the world, the thought rays travel in even quality, and with direct force. When the student sits from general concentration, desiring, or expecting some good thing which mankind or nature as a whole (because of his relation to nature) can give him, but without specifying any individual, then his thought follows the directions of this figure, and his brain machine just radiates the thought as the sun radiates light.

It falls gently, and equally distributed upon all, and almost insensibly, often by what may seem the queerest chances, those on whom it falls are drawn to that center power, and the thinker, be if for business, or otherwise, realizes that his concentration has borne fruit.

( Fig III not shown )

Fig. IV clearly indicated the nature of thought sent in the general direction, but consisting of uneven and vacillating action, and will explain better than anything else why it is that some people have never achieved anything by the study of mental and spiritual science, or any other of the many methods of improving thought life.

( Fig IV not shown )

They are not the masters of the laws governing mental action, nor do they clearly comprehend the kinetic nature of this curious and powerful substance, or the methods of its propulsion through the ether.

The third law of motion is, ‘that action and reaction are equal in force, but opposite in direction.”

Here we are considering the action of somebody endowed with energy by natural or mechanical means. As an example, if you take an india-rubber ball and throw it against a wall, it will return to you with exactly the same force with which it struck the wall; and it’s just exactly the same with any other body, or mass of atoms (for do not forget that everything from a stone to the human body is built up of atoms. In some things, such as the human body, gases, electricity, or water, the atoms are in continual motion; in others, such as rocks, certain chemicals, etc., they are in a state known as “inertia,” that is to say, they are resting, waiting for some other substance to come along and wake them up, then, hey presto! They are as full of life and energy as anything else. Often the chemical action of smoke and atmosphere will make large buildings, which are apparently dead, or inert, really a mass of movement, every tiny particle of stone vibrating), they come back to you with exactly the same force you send them, or with which nature sends them, as the case may be.

So that, say, the flinging of the ball against the wall is the action, and the force with which they meet creates the reaction, sending the ball back whence it came; at the same time if the ball strikes the wall so feebly that hardly any reaction is given, it will fall to the ground for want of momentum, or impetus (the force with which a body is driven or impelled).

Thought rays (thought being a vibratory mass, as we have agreed) sent out through the ether with direct force, will return upon their center (the brain) with equal force to that which sent them forth. So, according to this law, thought goes out, charged with its duty, and returns to the starting point having fulfilled its mission, if the thinker is organized. So that thought goes out to perform an errand, and will return to you laden with just what you sent it for, IF YOU ARE MASTER. Thought is your SERVANT, and if properly used will always bring you what you send it for.

In the realm of occultism the psychic forces, which are used by man, follow very much the same laws, which govern the natural, or partly material world, but so far from realizing this important fact man has sought for laws outside those he knows. It has been my experience that the occult is so simple it passes the comprehension of the man in the street whom looks for mystery where there really is none. Life in all its manifestations is simple, and is governed, as the ancients taught, by ONE life, ONE law, ONE word. It is the teachings that are complex, not the subject, and anything that can be done to simplify such teachings is most decidedly a step in the right direction.

There is the old, old motto, used by Freemasons and others of religious and mystic persuasions, in hoc signo vinces (by this sing thou shalt conquer), and man has been speaking also of the esoteric societies and Masonic brotherhood, taken this to mean the sign of the cross. Yet how can a cross help us to conquer? I will tell you what it really means, it is not the cross, but the CHRIST which will help us to conquer, and it is not even the Christ who is but a myth to many, it is the Christ within ourselves, and until we recognize this great power of good within us we shall never conquer. It has always seemed to me that the solidity of our bodies has been a drawback to the mental acceptance of the occult truths we are tying to make a part of our minds, and that the idea that we have so many stones of flesh and blood, bone and muscle to support, keeps us form the realization of the mighty truth that we are all MIND and LOVE, so I am anxious for my pupils to get their minds clear of that and to believe and understand that they are as much spirit as anything else. The very materiality of the fleshy body is a hindrance to mental and physical development, but I do not wish you to deny your body, it is there all right enough, and a very great necessity, too; I only want you to grasp the fact that by recognizing the occult significance of “I AM LOVE,” or “I AM POWER,” you are admitting the fact that our entire body is permeated throughout with the etheric waves which act as a medium for all things throughout the infinite.

So that you ARE love and power, and being all love nothing can ever really harm you if you understand the law. Your body is an animated magnet, and the space it fills in the atmosphere is just a greater center of attraction. Say so half a hundred times a day, think of all it means to you, “I am FORCE, the LAW OF LIFE. The law is manifesting in my body and can be tapped for use whenever I wish to do so.”

There is a great power in words, not that the words themselves are of any value, but they can and do convey suggestions, and when you concentrate upon certain words you set up the conditions those words convey to your brain machine. You say the word LOVE; it at once awakens a certain train of thought, and as you think you set in motion vibrations which, ever reaching outward, bring you into mental contact with the best the world has for you, the best part of the men and women with whom you come into business or social relations, the best of mineral, animal, and vegetable kingdoms, and last, but not least, the best of the spiritual world and of YOURSELF. You MAKE yourself LOVE, and you are love; you simply radiate love as a stove or the sun radiates heat. So let that be your battle-cry; let it be your password to a better state, “I AM LOVE, LOVE FILLS MY ENTIRE BODY.” Even if it brought you no material benefit (which it will do), the experiment is well worth trying for the simple pleasure of seeing how everybody you meet will unbend to your influence, and how much loved in return you will become. It will be simply your mental body responding to the suggestion carried by the word love, and from the mental to the physical meaning of the little word not only mentally, but also physically.

I have shown how thought does and should travel, and why it is capable of performing its journey through ether, but I only treated of this in a perfunctory manner, because I wanted to explain more fully in the lesson of thought fields, to which we are coming in our next lesson.

MAGNETIC POWER – THOUGHT FIELDS – POWER OF ATTRACTION

LESSON IV

THE arguments advanced in this lesson are worthy of particular attention, because, in the first place, they will help us to a clearer understanding of the occult power of thought when properly directed and energized by concentration, and also because it clearly demonstrates the affinity existing between esoteric and physical laws. Before treating of the effects of radiant energy and thought fields, it will be as well to understand, first, what radiant energy is, and second, what a field is?

To take the meaning of energy first, as distinguished from motion; energy is the term applied to any mass (or any body), which, when moving, strikes against another body and sets that also moving, and the power of the original body to move another is known as its energy, and measured according to the amount of movement it is able to impart.

Radiant energy is the term applied to any mass or body of matter possessing energy of a nature that can be imparted to the atmosphere, or the medium, which surrounds it, and the speed with which this energy is transmitted depends entirely upon the ability of the medium to transmit energy, and not upon the force itself.

Thus the thought atoms are in perfect sympathy with the medium, ether, and as a consequence ether is an ideal transmitter for thought waves.

Remember that any substance or matter thus distributing radiant energy can set other masses of matter in motion, and this is an important part of our statement regarding the vibratory nature of thought. The ether transmits such wave motions in straight lines and there is no limit to the distance they can travel, they can go on indefinitely; but the point I am leading up to is what is technically called the field, and the explanation thereof.

To return to my old method of illustration, I will ask you to look carefully at Fig. I.

( Fig. I not shown )

The center “A” is the mass that we know possesses the power of distributing radiant energy. Now all the space outside that mass or body, to the extent within which it is capable of acting in this way upon other bodies, so as to bring them to a similar condition to its own, is what scientific men call the field. That is to say, the space surrounding and in front of the mass forms the field. So that ‘B” in the preceding diagram represents that field; and the extent of the field depends altogether upon the force, or energy, possessed by the mass. The more force it has the wider is the field through which its energy is distributed. Think how the great brains of the world make their influence felt. Or think again how the sun’s energy pervades the vast space separating it from our planet.

Taking the magnet sun as the best possible illustration of an object akin to thought energy, it is known that a magnetic field cannot exist without an inducing magnet, or current of electricity. Every magnet has what are called its poles, the term applied to the two ends, and these poles are called respectively positive and negative. Magnetism as a study is probably unknown to many of my readers, and a few words of explanation may help the student. The common magnet or lode-stone is found in Magnesia, in Asia Minor, and in other parts of the world. It has the property of drawing, or attracting to itself pieces of steel and iron, and also of invariably pointing to the north and south. Artificial magnets are made by rubbing a piece of steel on a lode-stone, when the iron will acquire the properties of the lode-stone. Dr. Gilbert, in 1600, found out that the attraction appeared to reside in a long-shaped magnet at two ends, and these two regions were called poles (Greek polos, from pelo, to move), so the magnetic pole is literally one of the points in a magnet, corresponding to the poles of the earth, the one pointing north and the other south; the poles are almost invariably at the ends. That portion of a magnet lying between the poles is less magnetic, and does not attract so strongly, and half way between the poles there is no attraction at all.

The first law of magnetism is that “like magnetic poles repel one another, and unlike magnetic poles attract one another.” So that two north pointing poles will violently repel one another, but two poles, one north pointing, or positive, and the other south pointing, or negative, will attract one another.

The earth is itself a magnet with its north pointing and south-pointing pole, and man is a magnet also; in fact all nature in its variety of forms and phases is composed of magnets, each atom and molecule having its positive and negative poles.

The human brain has also its positive and negative aspects, and its poles are situated respectively in cerebrum and cerebellum, as the third diagram will show you (see Lesson I for explanation of brain division). Figure 2 shows the ordinary magnetic lives radiating from an ordinary magnet, the space filled with the lines being the magnetic field.

( Fig. 2 not shown )

Now coming to our immediate subject, Thought. You will readily understand how the THOUGHT FIELD can follow the same lines as the magnetic field. Here is the brain and the THOUGHT FIELD. Thus we get “A,” the brain, “B,” the thought lines the thought field. As I explained before, there must be a body, or mass of matter to distribute radiant energy, and unless there is the body or force to create a field – magnetic, electric, chemical, mechanical or thought, which you please – there can be no field.

In the thought field the BRAIN is the mass of matter, the force that radiates energy and creates a “field;” in the feeble, unorganized brain this field is weak, and affects only a limited area. But the greater the personal magnetism, the more powerful and organized the brain, the greater the extent of its radiation, the wider its field, the more lasting its effects. And the generation of thought force, or mind, which I described in my last lessons, makes the advent of some great man or woman. Great, according to the sphere of their labor and their ruling talent.

( Fig. 3 not shown )

Thus, roughly, we have Christ, Buddha, Nero, Shakespeare, Boadicea, just a few names, with different qualities, yet all with sufficient force to have created energy enough to last through the ages!

When two brains are working together for the purposes of telepathy, or healing, one must be positive, the other negative, and they create what is called attraction, for by means of the sympathy between them they set up a stress (pressure) in the ether, and the thought fields act in such a way that they are pushed together (by this I mean the thought lines, not the brains), and commingle and blend under the conditions described above. They exchange, or transfer their energy, the transfer always taking place from the one possessing the higher rate to the one possessing the lower. Thus one person acts as a transmitter, and the other as a receiver. The one is negative, and the other positive, otherwise they would repel instead of attract, since “like magnetic poles repel on another, and unlike magnetic poles attract.” That is to say, two positive poles would repel each other, but a positive pole and a negative pole would attract each other. So like minds repel each other, and unlike minds attract, or perhaps it would be better to say that the strong mind attracts the weak, and vise versa.

( Fig. 4 not shown )

Figure 4 shows how each brain acts upon the thought field of the other, and it should be remembered this action applies more particularly to the various processes of mental healing, success vibration, etc., etc.

CONCENTRATION AND METHODS – BREATHING

LESSON V

WE must not forget that the attributes of the mass are possessed by the atom (that is to say, each atom contains in itself everything to be found in the mass), and that every atom of brain matter or of thought is acting upon each neighboring atom in the same way that one brain will act upon another, and that this is going on indefinitely, so that every object throughout the cosmos is continually affecting the space surrounding it in various ways, its temperature (thought HAS a temperature, and to the sensitive this becomes at once apparent, whether hot, cold or normal, and it is my opinion that a machine will soon be made showing the thought temperatures of people), and its effects upon the surrounding space, with its magnetic or electric qualities, and in the case of thought with its spiritual, material, good and mistaken qualities.

It is because of the vastness of thought and its possibilities that the study of its laws is so interesting and so very complex. When a man makes a movement of his body, he at once alters the position of the ether, and sets up a stress or pressure; but when he thinks, he sets up a much more powerful stress; and when we consider the thinking which characterizes some minds, we can at once understand why they are like a rudderless boat in a stormy sea; they seem to be setting up all sorts of cross currents around them, and the result is a life of misery. When the organized thinker exercises mental power, he sets up an even stress, and, to use a simile, the wind only blows one way, and so this man is not literally devoured by his own conflicts. I do not think that any man would willingly attempt to make his life hell, when he can make it heaven to a very great extent. To show how deeply we are affected by the thoughts of others, consider a clever actress; she can play upon the feeling of her audience, move them to tears, horror, or laughter, just as she pleases, yet her mental state is only simulated; but for the time the greater number of that audience are really CONCENTRATING on the woman before them, and so are swayed by the emotions she depicts.

So I get my pupils to concentrate on what they love to begin with. That is why, as a general rule, people who take up the new thought can route poverty quicker than evil of the body. They are fairly used to sickness, etc., but they can never feel satisfied with the continual grind of poverty.

If you emit love, you will shake off that demon, hate; if you think only of success you will gain it; BUT if you give your heart to these things only you will succeed for a time only. Bear in mind that the voice of the Spirit must be obeyed also, and that before you can achieve earthly happiness you must be equally advanced in both spiritual and material things.

Man is mechanical, and his development to a certain plane is also mechanical, but after that the mind man holds full sway, and we can become just what our minds conceive, ordered only by such laws of nature as are part of our being, and intended for our general enfoldment. It is true, as mental science claims, that we can overcome evil and substitute good, but we can never be quite free from nature’s laws, and the very mistakes we make are prime factors in our mental development.

In the previous lessons we have been chiefly concerned with the projection of thought in a concentrated form, and passing on to the consideration of personal and creative magnetism, we will investigate the methods of concentrating our forces within.

That is to say, instead of projecting our thought outward to either convey a message, bring back an answer, or to attract certain affinities we desire from the infinite, we are now thinking of turning our thought forces inwards, and must contrive to do so in such a manner that no outward radiation takes place whatever.

I am assuming the student to be aware that all force comes from within, and that all spirit is also within; that I to say, there is no need to “prospect” outside the self. Within your own physical body are contained all your psychic forces, and also your spiritual body, whilst locked up in the memory of the past are all the teachings of spirit, all knowledge of life and so-called death, of love, of truth, of power, all that has ever been – you know it all; you have but to unlock the memory of past births and you will speedily find that before you is a store of knowledge such as you never imagined possible before.

To a certain extent we are ordered by destiny, yet so far as the general events of each incarnation are concerned we are alone responsible for them. Each man and woman is a power in them, possessing all the potentiality of divinity. They need not seek for light from without; they have it all within themselves.

This is the most difficult lesson the student has to learn; it is curious that he may read it in hundreds of books, be told it by as many teachers, but until he has arrived at a certain stage of development he cannot realize the fact for what it is worth.

This method of inward concentration is the most precious of all and the most important. The processes I have indicated in previous lessons appertain more to the acquirement of material things than spiritual, but this method applies more nearly to the realm of spirit.

I do not wish to be misunderstood. All thought, as all progress, comes from within, but under certain circumstances you project that thought, and under certain other circumstances it is turned inward, so that all the light of your reason is concentrated upon your soul.

When we project our thoughts we send them outside ourselves, maybe to travel on some mission, or to heal the sick, to carry a message to a friend, or any other material object, good in itself, but not always of the highest piritual benefit – to the thinker. If you will look at Fig. I (Lesson 5) you will see the method involved. The outermost circle may be regarded as the limit of the brain; of course, meaning the machine, not the force generated.

( Fig I -Lesson 5 – Not Shown )

This circle I have marked “B.” “A” is the physical heart, the altar of the etheric centers of the body (according to the Rosicrucian teachings). Now the rays of thought, instead of being projected outwards, are turned directly inwards to the heart, and these rays, or vibrations, follow the direction of “B” to “A,” instead of from “A” to “B.” So that, like a dark lantern, there is nothing to be seen from outside, all the light is concentrated within.

As in the ordinary form of concentration, do not try too much at first. This is even more trying than the other, because, unless a very ardent student of the occult, it is less interesting. At the same time, where true progress is desire it is absolutely necessary.

As long as we learn from books and from lessons we are but novitiates, and the knowledge we obtain is second hand at best, but once we have really learnt how to concentrate we no longer remain in the outer temple, we are no longer dependent upon others, we know for ourselves. Study the foregoing diagram well; then, having gotten the idea firmly in your mind, sit down quietly and turn your thought inwards as I have described.

I find that pupils are more likely to achieve results if they use some word or words in their concentration, and suggest the following: breathe deeply, but perfectly evenly and without effort, do not attempt to count the breathing, nor to hold it any length of time; let the whole process be quite natural and not forced. Deep breathing, that is to say from the abdomen, or rather from behind it, from the solar plexus, has a most curious and direct effect upon all efforts in the way of concentration, clairvoyance and kindred powers of spirit.

As you breathe in, think; think, with every particle of your brain, “Love,” or “Wisdom,” “Life,” “Divinity,” but you must think it up with all your mind and continue to do so until you have taken it in its entirety. You must soak it in, and when you have got it, keep fast hold, and do not ever relinquish.

When you think these words you are gradually molding yourselves into these conditions. Perhaps the best word of all is “Power”; it means so much, but you must clearly realize what you do mean, and you must not take up any side issues, nor let our thoughts wander from the inward focus I have described. That is why I gave the other forms of concentration first, because they are easier to master, and prepare the student for the heavier task now under discussion. Remember that your thought can mold your body, and that as you think so you will become, so that when you stop for ten minutes or longer in the contemplation of your prospective power, wisdom and love, you are actually growing into these things, and as long as you think them intelligently you are bound to become them.

Now when you have accomplished this matter, try a little farther; but although you take all the lessons at once, you cannot do both these exercises at once, and you simply must take one step at a time.

Sit as before, breathe evenly; now ask a question, make your mind blank, and listen for the answer. You will get a clear message in perhaps a month or two. Do not be impatient, you cannot hurry this thing; just listen as if you were waiting for a human voice to speak to you. Listen intently, and at last you will get an answer, either directly or an impression.

It is very difficult for some people to make the brain a blank, and it is not at all easy to teach the process. I think, however, that the best way is to take it by degrees. Try to kill all thought for a minute at a time, gradually increasing the time, from day to day. In this way you obtain perfect control of your brain machine. You can eliminate thought altogether or think on any chosen subject at will, and you must not despair if you do not gain immediate results. You cannot possibly learn in a second, it takes time, and the longer you take to acquire your knowledge the more thorough it will be, and the results more lasting.

HOW TO WEAVE THOUGHT CURRENTS

LESSON VI

THERE are two distinct aims in the attainment of the power of concentration: First, to mold the consciousness into a new and better state; second, to attain the highest possible knowledge of things spiritual.

Remember that habit is what you desire to cultivate, so that you are able to form your body anew, and to repeat the process almost involuntarily is the chief necessity for continual and regular concentration, for the more concentrated and single your mind becomes on any particular point, the more it tends to permanency, and in the same way, if you are irregular, you tend to suppress the thought power you ought to manifest.

The cellular brain tissues are greatly changed by this process of correct thinking, and may be actually increased, whilst those that have been constructed by wrong thinking are caused to waste away. Every effort at right thought, or concentration, brings into play a new set of atoms which tend to build up the new tissues, and at the same time devour and destroy the old.

There is absolutely nothing in the all world so plastic as the brain of man. It can be molded by the will or over soul of the owner or of someone who may have influence over him, and in this way a teacher, by applying the right impulse, may bring the pupil to a higher state of mind, and help him in the process of rebuilding his physical and mental system.

When a man arrives at a state when he realizes how much his over soul can do for him he does not need a teacher to help in the molding process, but when, as very frequently happens, the spirit awakens in a man whose over soul is still more or less dormant, then is the guidance of a teacher more or less of a necessity.

Often the searcher after truth doubts his own power and divinity and so long as he doubts he will obtain little benefit from the occult. It is the poor opinion of his own powers which keeps man in the background, and also that he forgets that every moment of his life he is fashioning the future, that is to say, that all his thoughts today may take material form tomorrow, or the day after, so that each time he fails to concentrate with earnest purpose, each time he omits the daily exercise, he is postponing his future happiness.

The action of breathing deeply, which I have recommended, has the effect of quickening the circulation of the blood, and in some way acts upon the brain tissue, making sight, it the spiritual sense, hearing, and sense all more acute; and when you think some strong and positive thoughts as you breathe, it has the effect of sending this message to every part of the body, right along the nerves, arteries and blood vessels, until the whole body has taken up the chorus and is full of the power of your thought. Here again the value of concentration comes in; a decided message sent along your physical telegraph wire reaches the point at once and makes a firm and decided record, whilst a weak thought has no such effect. So that if you seek to overcome some bodily ill, get a clear grasp of the part that needs renovation, and then turn all your thought force inwards and send a strong message to that part.

“I am strong, I am well, I am divine. All is life, and in my thought and mind dwells infinite life. I am making my future all along the line, and that future shall be perfection. I am invincible, nothing can harm me, and it is my intention to manifest my power right now in my body.”

Do not say these words like a parrot; think of all they mean, think of all they put behind you, and of all they open up before you. You are making your future now, Now, and when you sit in concentration you are weaving your own fate – good, bad, or indifferent.

Having learnt how to concentrate for a few minutes at a time, first on things mundane, then on the more difficult phases of spirit, make a habit of devoting a short time daily to the contemplation of your future prospects. When you begin to know the peace and calm which falls upon you after sitting in this concentration, you will begin to value it accordingly; at first it soon wears off, but as your mind becomes more and more organized so will the results last longer, and the time will come when you can take this infinite peace with you wherever you go, take it with you and bestow it upon others.

In the natural course of events all the thought force, which I am asking you to conserve, is wasted, and so you achieve little success in either business or any other matter. When you desire business success you must concentrate all your thought force upon the matter that must succeed, and you must then name it aloud; in your thought, see it a success, and the expect that success to manifest.

Now having done that, begin to weave your thought into power currents. See these currents traveling to the object and surrounding it on every side, until it is bathed in powerful currents of thought force which are more powerful and can travel faster than a flash of lightening, and are more deadly in execution than a strong electric battery; these in their turn act as magnets and attract all the good forces in other people who are brought into contact with the matter in hand, and they in their turn do all they can to foster its success. You many ask how to weave the thought current I have spoken of.

( Diagram not shown )

I strongly advise the use of the imagination to aid in this. The first ingredient is the power to concentrate; the second is to see in your imagination, your mind machine producing and generating a very fine and subtle fluid, full of this marvelous power; then, of course, you project it as directed in the first lesson, and let it follow the course given in the above diagram. “A” is the brain, “B” is the thought force that travels on its journey through the ether, and “C” is the object you desire to enfold with this mighty current of living mind stuff.

Perform this exercise two or three times a day, and you will never fail, that is to say, as soon as you have got your brain into a sufficiently organized condition to carry out your orders. This ought to be the case in about two or three months, if you follow these lessons implicitly. You see, it is not a case of miracles, but simply as system of organized education, and the results are as sure as the Tower or London.

Always regard thought as a substance. You can conceive very easily of the effect a flash of lightning would have if it played around any given object for a time, or better still, you know well the effect a current of magnetism has upon a bar of iron, and as I have told you again and again, your thought is more powerful than any of these things, and when you play it in the right condition around any given object, then you produce the same results; for as the flow of magnetism produces what it knows as induction that is to say, the transference of a magnetic or electric state from an electrified body to a non-electrified body, by proximity without contact.), so your
thought force inducts its etheric substance into what ever you choose to play it upon. The analogies between the science of electricity, and, indeed, the whole realm of physics and the noumenal world of thought and spirit are curious, and the more one investigates the more certain it appears that the same laws govern both.

PERSONAL MAGNETISM – THE MAGNETIC WILL

LESSON VII

THESE papers would not be prefect without some reference to the method of concentration used by the Indian adepts, who acquire the habit ONLY BY DEVOTING A LIFETIME TO THE STUDY. We in the West have not the time for this, nor do I think we shall benefit very much by the various methods of “killing thought” advocated by those who wish merely to make the mind blank to receive inspirational communications from what is the “unknown,” but I know that we can make our mind blank without any particular effort if we will not attempt to do too much at first; and we must also remember that strong healthy bodies are necessities for those who would take up the concentrating methods with any zest, for when we hold our mind to any given subject for any length of time, the grosser atoms of thought which have traveled to the spot or object concentrated upon, sink down back to the original starting place – in fact they filter away, and their place is taken by finer particles, causing a great mental strain upon the thinker, and unless there is strong health to back up the nervous strain, madness, or brain fever would be the result, but as long as the health is all right concentration will benefit, and not harm the student. Grow to the practice gradually, and you will gain all you need, and find all efforts crowned with success.

It is not at all a bad plan to use a glass bowl of water when concentrating. Fix the desire in mind, and try to see the words spell out in the bowl; this method helps to fix the attention, and if a bowl of water is not handy, try a pencil and a piece of paper; the idea is simply to convey the message to the brain, through the retina of the eye, for this holds the image as does the sensitive plate used by the photographer.

Sit when most convenient – it is almost impossible to have any fixed time. In any course of lessons written for general use it is almost impossible to give just the information needed by each individual, and if my pupils will explain their personal difficulties they will help me and themselves, for I will gladly write a full reply to all their requirement upon receipt of 2s. 6d. to cover time and stationary.

The following brief rules may be remembered:

If you want money, see it coming to you; let your concentration be general; have faith; expect what you want to come to you

If you have ill health, do not think of the particular disease, which may trouble you, but concentrate all your attention upon the acquirement of perfect health; do no let any other idea come into your mind for the time being; say, “I AM WELL, PERFECT HEALTH IS MINE, pure vital blood flows through my veins, I am a perfect manifestation of the All Good, and in every part of my body there is nothing but life and live.” I have found this statement to bring relief even in the most obstinate cases, and it seldom fails. Talk nothing but health, sleep, dream, and EAT it, and you will very soon manifest it, for if people talked health half as assiduously as they discuss their pet ailments, the doctor would have to find a new profession!

Do you think that because you have not immediate health that you are making a false statement; you are, by your mental attitude, preparing the “TOMORROW,” and so the statement is true, for if you say “I will be well,” instead of “I am well,” your are postponing the harvest of your thought.

If your trouble should be some great sorrow let your statement run thus: -I AM LOVE, LOVE FILLS MY BOY, AND I AM FULL OF THE GLORIOUS AND JOYOUS RADIANCE ONLY LOVE CAN EMIT. ALL IS GOOD, AND I AM HAPPY.” Do not say this once but dozens of times, and allow the statement to sink in until you become the image of your ideal.

In time you will become as radiant as the love you profess, and when this takes place you will find the world all right without any further effort on your part.

Now I intend passing on to the subject of “Personal Magnetism,” and the question naturally arises. What is Personal Magnetism?

Followed by the equally pertinent demand. What are its uses?

Personal Magnetism is really many things. First it is organized will power; secondly it is health; thirdly it is the ability to amalgamate the will power and health, and aided by the desire to “obtain” certain objects, to so project the subtle and highly potent magnetic force thus generated in the body, as to attract people and circumstances – it means that every man and woman can become natural magnet they will persevere in their efforts to develop this force.

As for its uses, they are many.

This magnetic force is powerful to heal the sick, the greatest use which, in my opinion, it can be put.

It enables the man or woman who possesses it to attract or repel at will, or to draw to themselves SUCCESS, MONEY, FAME, POWER, HAPPINESS (if they use it wisely)!

Animal magnetism, then, is a very subtle substance filling the entire universe.

It is subtler than ether, just as the ether is subtler than air, and air than water.

As the vibrations of the ether permit light to travel, and the vibrations of the air sound, so the vibrations of the animal magnetism permit and cause other phenomena.

This vibratory substance is sometimes called “od”or “odylic force,” but I prefer the term animal or personal magnetism, because it is so much simpler and easier to understand, whether it is to be used as a healing agent or for any other purpose.

Every magnet has a positive and negative pole (the poles are situated at the two ends of an elongated magnet. These terms are generally accepted to mean – “Positive”-MORE, STRONGER, “Negative” – LESS, OR WEAKER. The first law of Magnetism is that like Magnet poles repel one another, and unlike Magnetic poles attract.

So the positive attracts the negative, the negative the positive, the strong the weak.

In man, the Magnet, his body and mind represent the two poles; we are taught by Helen Wilmans.

The BODY is the negative pole, MIND OR THOUGHT POWER the positive. The positive mind, the mind that has been made familiar with its own unlimited power, can attract to itself, by an ordinary reasoning process Animal Magnetism, and increase and store this force for everyday use, and generate it according to necessity.

It is intimately associated with your will power, your brain, your thought but for the cultivation you must follow the exercises give in a later lesson, and you will attain real life will throw off your years, off your cares, and gain such health and success as you desire – and more!

The recognition of Universal Intelligence is essential.

I want you to become strong Individually, to rest upon the knowledge of your own power; but do not forget this same power is but the reflected glory of the one Light, the center of all things.

It is the custom of many teachers of Metaphysics to assert that a personal God is impossible, that God is an essence, and does not possess a personality.

With this teaching many pupils are repelled who would otherwise be attracted to the Higher Thought.

Science must always advance, and when I undertake the task of assimilating the metaphysical Deity with Theological Deity, I am going one step forward.

Briefly the idea is this: It has been astronomically ascertained that the milky white is a gigantic belt of suns and worlds (of which our won Solar System is a very second rate affair, so far as size is concerned) which is continually revolving around, and is ordered by some unseen center of Gravity, upon which the whole depends. This, I am firmly convinces is “God”-the Father, a God of unlimited power.

From this glorious Being radiates a powerful, subtle essence, which reach throughout the unlimited realms of space – and the name of this emanation is both Life and Love.

Wherever there is substance or life, which it forever creates – there is set up a Holy Shrine, and the place assigned to that shrine in man, is, by Rosicrucian’s, assumed to be the physical HEART, which is the center of the physical body, as the Father is the center of ALL.

Within the valves of the human heart this Holy radiance settles and finds a home, as a sunbeam might settle upon a flower, and from thence, at the dictation of man’s conscious will and thought, this Divine light can again radiate in infinite love, drawing to the man all he needs of health, or wealth, or happiness. For in this way he becomes one with the Father, an intimate and dearly beloved Friend.

This definition may also be applied to the brain, if the student prefers that to the physical heart.

Now FAITH in your power to achieve success in the use of personal Magnetism is a very large factor towards that success.

The man, who has confidence in his ability, when wishing to transmit Magnetism, is going a very long way towards swift results; but the man who doubts his ability to exert this force simply wastes it.

A state frequently seen in the idealistic mind is that of the dreamer who can formulate but never execute, simply because of either intense waste of Magnetic power, or because of prostration of the entire nervous system.

A strong will must be normal, having complete control over every mental and bodily function, and to this end these lessons are intended.

I am teaching you to assert your SELF to be an Individual Entity, instead of a knock-kneed invertebrate, bolstered up at every turn by all sorts of unhealthy, weakening devices. The Magnetic WILL can only be cultivated by constant practice, when instead of being the playing thing of Fate of Circumstance, you become the wirepuller, and order your own Circumstance.

PERSONAL MAGNETISM IN BUSINESS – SUGGESTIONS

LESSON VIII

PERSONAL magnetism, then, means power, and the ability to exert that power over people, and even to a certain extent over circumstances, because the people we influence and come in contact with go a long way towards CREATING circumstances.

The man or woman best able to exert this power belongs to what is known as the VITAL temperament.

This, when analyzed, resolved itself simply into the temperament of perfect health and vitality; although it is very usual to make this temperament a matter of coloring (red, or auburn haired people, in fact), I don’t find it pans out this way at all, in fact, ANY coloring may be vital, provided the person has the energy and perseverance to cultivate the vital principles; and it’s purely humbug to put any hard and fast rule to this matter at all.

The one thing that is certain, however, is that all want to cultivate that temperament that is desirous of obtaining POWER, TRUE LIFE and SUCCESS. Vital means LIFE or relating to life, and the vital temperament is used to describe those people who are in a state of PERFECT MENTAL AND PHYSICAL BALANCE.

They enjoy perfect bodily and mental health, and the one is not developed at the expense of the other.

They have clear, fresh skins, bright eyes, firm flesh, spirits buoyant, and the power of attracting other people very great. These, in a word, are the people who possess the greatest store of NATURAL animal magnetism.

But the great point is that one and all can take on this characteristic, and so increase their stock of magnetic and electric particles that they BECOME VITAL!

The vital temperament radiates magnetism.

The invisible currents pass off in every direction from every part of the body, and so great is the force of this subtle power, that although invisible to the naked eye the camera can reveal it; and the HUMAN BODY and HUMAN MIND at once feel the impression, bodily as a thrill, or sensation of warmth, mentally as an invigorating shock from an electric battery, or as an overpowering desire to “go out and do something”!

Such a temperament has the ability to influence every person (and animal) who comes in contact with him, but has a GREATER POWER THAN THIS.

He can influence those with whom he does not come into actual contact until they are drawn to him, in answer to his thought.

This man radiates his magnetic power in the spirit of UNIVERSAL LOVE. He recognizes the spirit, or the love principle in everyone, shedding his power from the storehouse I have described in Lesson VII upon mankind as a whole.

The powerful magnetic rays issuing from his person draw to him, from out of the immense mass of humanity, all that can be useful to him.

He sees within himself the Love Spirit; he mentally sees this spirit radiating outward from his body an essence of immense force, which finds a resting place within those hearts, or upon those minds, which he so lovingly recognizes.

REMEMBER that the man or woman who minuses this power will surely find it turned backup on themselves to their undoing.

WHEN YOU ATTRACT PEOPLE it is because you supply something they need, something they lack; your powerful magnetism fills an empty space. This is the secret which makes one public speaker a huge success, and another a downright failure.

The one man has a great store of personal magnetism. He holds his audience enthralled; they listen to every word and are carried along by the mighty wave of his immense strength and MAGNETIC FORCE.

The other man has none. His words fall flat. His listeners remain unmoved. Yet he may be a man of polish, of education, of rank, with the easy speech born of cultured ancestors; and the first man might be poor, uncultured, and of the people. But the first man knows his subject, believes in his power to attract, and by sheer will power carries his point.

IN BUSINESS MATTERS the same rule applies: the man of force, possessing this wonderful power of attraction, carries all before him. He is the man who can convince the unwilling (and be it said, unorganized) customer against his will. He is the man who can draw to himself success and DOLLARS in equal proportion, and can climb to the topmost rung of the ladder.

In the acquirement of this life, force applies to every grade of society and to BOTH SEXES.

The next point for consideration is how to generate the force.

To recognize your central spirit light is hardly enough; you must fan the flame, and generate fresh power, concerning the forces you already possess. Brain and nerve power are the secret forces. The brain is to be strengthened and developed and so are the nerves.

SELF-CONTROL is the first factor to be observed. You, sir, who cannot keep your hands still; you, madam, who are forever patting your back hair, or pulling at your dress, or twisting your watch chain. You who startle at every sound, who fidget and fume and worry over trifles, who are nervous and irritable, giving way to passion, and being but the plaything of circumstance, to you, I say, learn to control self, for all these mannerisms are resulting in a continuous and serious leakage of magnetism, which if used aright would enable you to COMMAND SUCCESS.

The “magnetic” people are fair with blue eyes, and pale or delicate skins. They are fidgety, nervous, often hysterical, and suffer as a rule from too great brain activity. Their mind is never at rest, they are continually worrying over trifles, and are of a cold, and often selfish temperament.

By control you can overcome these leakages, and by overcoming, stop them. So, by nerve and brain development – recognizing the brain always as the nerve center, in connection with the ganglionic centers, at the base of the brain – you can control the leakage and waste of magnetism, and so become magnetic.

The so called “electric” temperament, belonging to people who are generally dark in appearance, with sallow, or pale skins, having mental powers which are often sluggish, and a tendency to suffer from liver, laziness and similar complaints, requires plain, non-heating diet, very little meat – vegetarians are the healthiest; I never touch meat-regular hours, and last but not least, in addition to the exercises given in a later lesson, regular mental exercise; they need arousing, and their brain needs stimulation. They need nourishing, heat-producing foods (not necessarily meat), and they also require a time when they can be passive, forcing themselves to either less brain activity, or else to concentrate on one subject only.

These two types can, however, by following the rules I shall give in subsequent lessons, become vital and live as they please, master of their conditions, instead of the conditions being master over them.

The object of the descriptions of the various temperaments is intended to help the student in his knowledge of life and people, and to be used practically in the development of power.

The successful man or woman is master, but cannot be master unless he or she has learned how to be all things to all men.

When you have developed your personal magnetism you also develop your power of selection to an enormous extent, and you realize at a glance which battery to use for those you come into contact with, in business or society.

Personal magnetism, once the power has been developed, resolves itself into sympathy, the act of supplying to others elements they lack.

This you cannot supply voluntarily unless you are in a position to order and command your own forces.

Any man who has complete control over this entire physical and mental organism can hold the world enthralled in time as he enlarges his sphere electricity, stimulate their brains, probe them with questions to make them think, and they will be glad to always do your commands, because you have shown them a new side to their nature.

The magnetic people like to be soothed; some of them, too, do not care for things easily obtained; these people you must repel, show them the independent side of your nature, let them believe you would rather not have any dealings with them, only give in with decided reluctance.

The more you draw back, the more eager they become. Others again need persuasion – help. By mental suggestions you can make up their minds for them.

The mental rules are always as follows; dilute them, please, with three parts common sense, to one part rule or maxim. The physical rules will follow later.

You are conscious of your own strong magnetic power, and you are aware that you radiate this power, or substance, as the sun radiates light.

You have come into business intending to obtain success only, and you hold no doubt in your mind but that the other man will deal just exactly as you desire him to deal.

When dealing with people in business or society, hold your mind firmly to the power you possess, look them squarely in the face, and command them, mentally, to fulfill your desires. Think, “I am a man of organized power; I desire to carry such and such a plan into execution. Your brain is negative to mine, and I demand that you shall do so and so. I am master; I will have what I want.”

You can supply this same magnetic order when writing a letter. Hold the letter in your hand, or to your forehead, and will that it shall come to such and such an issue.

Your magnetic battery exists within your own body; at the command of your will you can radiate and generate this force.

Will power is vital thought, or mind.

Magnetism, therefore, becomes a center of communication between gross spirit or matter, and refined, or etheralized spirit or matter. Spirit is the eternal, active life principle, manifesting in all matter, as well as through the various spheres of spirit.

The force which moves the world, magnetism, may be represented in your mind in one word, suggestion or the command of will power, ending in either the spoken word or concentrated thought, is the weapon you must use through life, and that as your power so you can act by suggestion upon one man, or one thousand men.

BREATHING AND PHYSICAL EXERCISES

LESSON IX

IN the physical exercises I give in these lessons it is as well to remember that very little good will result unless proper breathing exercises are indulged in, as well as the physical. Muscles alone are not the first consideration, and muscle does not really tend to promote personal magnetism. In moderation they are beautiful, but when overdone they transform the most perfectly formed man into a grotesque “something” that ought to be planed down with a carpenter’s plane to reduce it to its proper proportions. Let the muscles be lithe and supple, like steel and whipcord; let the lungs be perfectly developed, so that they can create healthy blood, which is vitality, and let both be equally blended.

Dumb-bell exercises with heavy bells certainly tend to create muscle; but it is heavy, lumbering, useless, except for brute strength, so that the heaviest dumb-bells a man should use are 3 lb. Bells, and a woman 1 lb.

Before commencing any exercises of a muscular nature, first learn how to control the breath. Very deep breathing is injurious, but most people exercise the lungs so slightly that they become atrophied – waste away for want of use, because they are never properly filled or emptied!

Attitude is the first step of importance. You can’t breathe if you round your shoulders and let your chin sink forward on your chest. Stand erect, waist in (in front, please, I must be polite, I suppose; but when I say waist I mean abdomen), shoulders squared and held back, chest well out, head thrown back, chin in. Now, with your mouth closed, draw a slow, deep breath, (not too deep at first, for by violent breathing the lungs only become tender and bruised), hold it for a second, then as slowly exhale, or breathe out through the nostrils.

There are three methods of breathing: from the abdomen, or solar plexus, from the rib and from the abdomen, or solar plexus, from the rib and from the upper chest. Begin right down in the abdomen – but gently, please – and raw the breath in through the nostrils so that the abdomen (don’t forget the abdomen is not the stomach, the two are quite distinct; the stomach is the bag or receptacle for one’s food; the abdomen, the thick fleshy wall which covers the intestines) is drawn in. In this way you force the intestines into action, awaken the solar plexus, and then slowly fill the lungs with fresh air, which in turn generates fresh blood, and fills every fiber and tissue of the body with new life – and ANIMAL MAGNETISM. This process done to excess will tire you, so be gentle at first, especially if you are one of those poor unfortunate wretches whose sole idea of breathing – if they ever think of it at all – is a little, quick, panting action which never fills the lungs once – nor empties them – and accounts so fully for pale cheeks, lifeless eyes, flabby flesh, and narrow pigeon breasts.

Proper action, proper breathing, perfect development, control of will power, and the acquirement by these means of perfect health and animal magnetism, are within the reach of all.

It may be urged that all people who possess this subtle power of magnetism, have not got perfect health.

Agreed, but they have perfect will control, and as a rule are absolute masters of some one or more accomplishments; and their magnetism is very apt to evaporate apart from the said accomplishment. Just think how few popular authors; painters or musicians are interesting, or even attractive, apart from their works. No, you simply must have HEALTH, if you are to fulfill MY ideal of personal magnetism.

Given that, you may be as ugly as sin, have no brains in particular, yet your health and your will power will win you recognition everywhere.

It is not one bit of use starting muscular and physical development until you have learnt how to breathe. Practice this continually until you are master of it. Practice it in the open air if you can; best of all in the sunshine, when you not only draw in pure air, but the subtle magnetism direct which is given off by the sun, the center of magnetism for our wee Universe.

Muscular exercises help us to make and store animal magnetism.

The breathing exercises accomplish the same end. The lessons in concentration already given help to develop the WILL power, and added to these, you have to consider the question of perfecting the magnetic gaze.

The magnetic gaze simply means perfect control of the nerves governing the eyesight, which must be strengthened to that “piercing” degree which can hold another person’s eyes, with or against their will.

Coming now to the subject of physical exercises for the muscular development necessary to the storage of magnetism.

Recollect that you must not only take the muscular exercise, but practice correct breathing at the same time, otherwise your pains are wasted.

Stand erect, as directed above, take the dumb-bells and place your hands to your sides, then begin to inhale a long, deep breath – gently, though; no exertion – and as you inhale, slowly lift your arms above your head, till the dumb-bells clash.

Count five, mentally, holding your breath the while; then slowly return your arms to your side, exhaling the breath as you go.

Repeat this twenty times, but remember very little benefit will accrue if you forget the breathing and attend only to the exercise. This breathing and muscular exercise tends to strengthen the lungs and chest; and is, simple as it may appear, very valuable.

Continue this exercise DAILY, with the breathing exercise.

Now I will show you how to store magnetism for use.

At the close of each spell of exercise, morning or evening as the case may be, or both, draw the breath in as directed before; then as you breathe, slowly stretch one arm at a time straight before you, clenching the hand (without dumb-bells) until every muscle is tense and rigid; relax each arm separately, then repeat with both arms. Making both tense and rigid.

Now make each leg, the trunk and backbone, and the neck equally stiff, holding your breath meanwhile, then as you exhale, let every part of your body RELAX, so that you are limp. Let your arms sink to your side, your neck and body give way, LET GO everything, be limp as a rag, and so rest.

It is not easy, this relaxing process, you want to relax the brain too, for otherwise it continues its hold on the muscles and sinews, and in spite of your efforts they remain strained and tense.

Practice an arm at a time, let the fingers hang loose and helpless, then the wrist, and so on, until the entire organism is at your control, to become tense or relaxed as you please.

But, when you tense your muscles, make them rigid – INHALE YOUR BREATH. When you relax your muscles, EXHALE YOUR BREATH.

It’s no end easy to be limp when, like a pair of un-worked bellows, you have no air in your lungs; and it’s not at all easy to keep rigid with empty lungs. In the next lesson I give a diagram showing the principle muscles, and the best methods of developing them for our present purpose.

PHYSICAL EXERCISES – CONTINUED

LESSON X

TO briefly recapitulate the point of the lessons already given, so as to clearly remember what personal magnetism is, and why the exercises are necessary, I will sum it up under the following headings:

1st Personal or animal magnetism is a subtle essence, the nature of which I have already explained.

2nd It is possessed to a certain extend by most people, but is so faint and undeveloped, it is of little use to them.

3rd MAN IS A MAGNET, and his strength or weakness depends upon his knowledge of the fact, and the development of his thought and will power in response to that knowledge.

4th Animal magnetism is develop by acquiring perfect self-control, and WILL development, and also is very largely dependent upon effect health.

5th It is not hypnotism.

6th By means of it, man (and woman) can attract people and business, and it is the true key to success in any walk in life!

The diagrams of the muscular system of the human frame given with this lesson will show pretty clearly the effects of the various exercises given for developing personal magnetism.

The exercise of last lesson, as you will readily see, acted upon all those muscles marked “A” in diagram 1 and 2, those of the chest, abdomen, arms and back.

The breathing exercise taken in conjunction with this develops the lungs and sends new blood coursing through the entire body.

In the directions for storage of the magnetism, given in the last lesson, remember the flexing of the body and muscles gives rest, the TENSING of the muscles CHARGES THEM WITH MAGNETISM, this magnetism courses through the blood, borne along the crimson tide until it is distributed evenly to every part, there to be stored and kept for use, unless wasted by worry, fear, fidgety ways, lack of self-control, or excess in any form.

The next exercise I want you to take is the American “dry swim.” Stand erect, empty your lungs (exhale), and holding your hands to your sides, gradually sink down into the position of sitting on your heels; then slowly bring your arms to a horizontal position in front. Then slowly inhale, rising easily and gracefully on tiptoe, throwing the arms back as if swimming, and gradually sinking back on to your heels as before. Repeat this for twenty or thirty times. It is just grand. The blood tingles and courses through the body, and as the blood courses, so the magnetism flows through every vein. It is one of the most important, for every muscle is called into play. All the muscles marked “B” in both diagrams, the lungs, and in addition to the lungs, if you follow my directions for correct breathing, given Lesson IX, every organ of your body also does its proper work.

You cannot be magnetic unless you enjoy perfect animal and mental health. Correct breathing is the basis of true health, and it helps the nervous system to throw off worry, etc., for mind and lungs together unite in either perfecting or causing injury to the entire organism.

If the mind is depressed by grief, tormented by anxiety, or absorbed in sedentary meditations, all the bodily functions become weakened, and personal magnetism, so far from being stored to being used to order, LEAKS from every pore and is wasted. I can’t lay too much stress upon the necessity for proper breathing, or the fact that the exercises are useless, except to develop muscle, not magnetism, unless practiced exactly AS I SAY!

The next exercise after the “dry swim” is as follow: Stand erect, inhale, then, without bending the knee, bend over until your fingers touch the floor, exhale as you rise to an erect position, they slowly inhaling, bend in similar manner to the left side, exhale as you come up, and inhaling again slowly bend to the right.

This must all be done in a deliberate orderly method, taking about fifteen seconds, or twenty even, for each inhalation and exhalation, then, after tensing the muscles for the storage of magnetism, as taught in the last lesson.

You do not require any further physical muscular exercises than these to develop animal magnetism and perfect health, but don’t fall into the blunder of thinking you can develop in a week. It will take from two to six months of patient, regular exercise, of not less than thirty minutes daily practice, before you arrive at anything like fitness. And in addition to this, you must guard the mental portals as well.

Learn to practice concentration, to develop your will, to command your brain and its thought forces. In the next lesson I’ll show you the best method of controlling the nervous system and magnetic gaze.

THE MAGNETIC GAZE – NERVE CONTROL – PRACTICAL APPLICATION

LESSON XI

IN the previous lessons I have show you how to develop your lungs and muscles, and so store health and magnetism, and in this lesson we must also consider how to gain complete control over the nerves, both of the body and those connected with sight. The magnetic, or would-be magnetic man or woman who cannot look another full in the face without blinking lacks the most convincing proof of their power.

From the eye proceeds a constant flow of magnetism; it is with the eye “Lion Tamers” hold their captives in thrall; it is through the eye we influence people we come in contact with.

A man instinctively trusts another who can meet his eye with ease, yet many people cannot do this from SHEER NERVOUSNESS.

But before the student can claim a perfect control of all nervous or spasmodic action, he must be able to reserve his power of thus controlling muscular and nervous action under trying circumstances. Among friends, alone, or at one’s ease, nerve control is easy enough.

Stand before the looking glass and practice gazing into your own eyes until you can do so steadily without flinching for any length of time.

Imagine to yourself a constant stream of magnetism flowing from the eyes.

Practice this upon other people; also force yourself to meet their gaze steadily, and never forget that you are the powerful factor, that you are the powerful factor, that you are the one to INFLUENCE, not be influenced.

I could give you several exercises for strengthening the eyesight, but for the magnetic gaze I think you will find the above quite sufficient.

It is not necessary really to go in for more than a few of these exercises.

The basis of all this power is THOUGHT and WILL, and it is not necessary to waste hours in exercises when half an hour twice a day is ample.

Learn to overcome all spasmodic nervous action and trifling habits. Be master of every part of your organization, through your will power. All the foregoing exercises tend to store up magnetism by giving complete control, so that not only the muscles of the body, but the MIND, the Central Telegraph Office of the body, holds every nerve in perfect subjection. Always ready for any emergency, perfect master of yourself and your circumstances, nothing can stand in your path but what your steady flow of magnetism will remove it – provided your object is a land able one.

But one more rule. In the hand of every person there is one spot which is the magnetic center of the entire being, the little god of flesh, or mount, below the third or “ring finger,” called by palmists the Mount of the Sun, or Apollo.

This finger has the most direct nerve connection with the heart, and forms, as I say, a direct magnetic center, the pad of flesh at the base forming the magnetic pole of same.

So that when people shake hands with magnetic centers in close contact a strong magnetic current is established between them.

This effect may be intensified if the mounts at the bases of the other fingers are also brought into as close contact with each other as possible, in this way bringing the minor magnetic poles also together.

A handshake can be made to carry out the magnetic influence of eyes and person, by inducing polarization of the magnetic atoms by contact, which is exactly the course also followed by magnetic healers.

A weak will does not signify a bad man, any more than a strong will signify a good man.

But a weak willed man is essentially negative, and being so, is more likely to be infirm of purpose in questions of mortality.

You have to long been brought up in the belief that you must be the slave of Fate and environment, that the tendencies at birth shape your character, and could not be eradicated.

But the new thought comes to show you that you can both BE and do what you will. Age and sex do not count. The past is over – done with. But the present and the future are your own.

Be positive; send the old negative beliefs flying.

“Let your ‘I will have,’ wait upon your ‘I want.’”

“I will have what I want” will thus carry you through life to a successful goal – to the realization of all your ambitions.

It has been proved that the particles of an ordinary magnet possess the power of selection, that is to say they can attract to themselves anything within their own limited sphere of action. The magnet man, or, the contrary, has unlimited powers of attraction. Once he knows how to send out his demands, the supply will always be equal to the demand, when the demand is made boldly without any shadow of doubt or fear.

Man too often limits himself unnecessarily – he does not demand enough. Big thoughts carried into action end in big results. Let your sphere of action be as side as possible and do not go round by the style to escape leaping the big, double blackthorn hedge.

Another great fault is that people are too chary of giving; they argue that they have enough for themselves, but not enough to give away. Yet they are drawing upon an unlimited supply, the wealth of which is far in advance of the demand – they cannot ask too much, and they cannot give too much.

The most fatal thoughts to success are those of economy, they freeze everything. Nature is lavish to the point of extravagance; it is man only who pinches and saves, and fears there will not be enough to go around, and so becomes his own utter damnation.

If you want to know more of this law of supply and demand, Read Helen Wilman’s works on mental science.

DIET

LESSON XII

THAT diet plays a large part in the acquirement of Personal Magnetism my readers will readily understand. I have laid down such stringent rules as to the necessity for perfect health, and diet has so much to answer for in the acquirement of perfect health, that too much consideration cannot be give to it.

Naturally I do not advocate flesh food in any form; neither do I advise the so-called vegetarian diet.

For perfect health and strength and the “staying” power boasted of by meat eaters nothing can beat a fruitarian diet.

To prove this we need only consider the results of the great International walking race, held at Whitsuntide, in Germany (1902), when the competitors walked from Dresden to Berlin, a distance of 124 ½ miles.

Thirty-two competitors started from Dresden at 7:30 a.m. on May 18th (1902), in bad weather. Of these men part were fruitarians and vegetarians (including the great Karl Mann, the world’s champion walker, of Berlin) part meat eaters.

THE FIRST SIX TO ARRIVE IN BERLIN WERE FRUITARIANS AND VEGETARIANS, the third man, Martin Rehann, being only twenty years old.

Of course Karl Mann was first, having done the distance in twenty-six hours fifty-eight minutes, and fresh as a daisy at the finish, whilst the meat eaters, well known and tried athletes, arrived utterly exhausted.

George Allen, the English (Leicester) hundred-mile walker, is also a vegetarian, and we all know Eustace Miles.

These cases are officially attested, and anybody who likes can verify the statements for themselves.

Karl Mann only takes two meals a day, and he partakes of neither flesh, fowl, alcohol, coffee, tea, chocolate, etc., and when training, neither eggs, milk, cheese, butter, nor pulse.

We personally, have two meals daily, the first at 12:30 p.m., the second at 6:30, working on the no breakfast plan, which I find splendid for health and a clear brain.

The fruitarian diet is fine, and, to my mind, more satisfying than vegetarianism, to say nothing of what it save in household work. However, to the point – it’s no use preaching a fruitarian diet if I don’t give you practical teaching as to rules, quantities, etc.

I read so much about the beauties of the diet, etc., in some fifteen or twenty American magazines, and not one practical hit, that I used to get quite made, and I firmly believe any number of people would turn from a flesh diet if they only knew hot to begin.

The ordinary individual has a tendency to over-eat himself six days out of seven, and to prevent this tendency I advise that a pair of kitchen scales be requisitioned and the proper quantities duly weighed out – indeed this is imperative.

I am allowing the same amount of nutriment for a woman as for a man, but at the same time the fair sex can from the day’s allowance knock of a quarter pound of dried fruit and half a pound of fresh fruit if necessary.

Personally I think the idea that women eat less than men has arisen because they too often eat between meals and men haven’t the chance as a rule.

Every adult requires from twelve to sixteen ounces of DRY food, free from water, daily. To supply this a quarter of a pound of shelled nuts and three-quarters of a pound of any dried fruit must be used.

In addition to this from two to three pounds of any fresh fruit in season goes to compete the days allowance.

These quantities should be weighed out and divide in half for the two meals, and will sustain a full-grown man in perfect health and vitality. The quantity of ripe fresh fruit may be slightly increased in summer, with a corresponding decrease in the dried fruit.

When beginning this diet it is as well to use a little bread (whole meal) and plenty of eggs, milk, cream cheese, and cream, until gradually weaned from cereals. Occasionally Quaker Oats and such nut foods as Bromose may be used.

Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, apples, pineapples, grapes, melons, currants, etc., can all be used in summer, and grapes pears, apples, oranges, bananas, etc., in winter.

For the dried fruit raisins, sultanas, prunes, dates, figs, and plums, and for a change and stewing purposes we have splendid variety in Californian prunes, apricots, peaches, Bartlett pears, dried apples, bananas and plums.

The nut foods are almonds, walnuts, hazels, cashews, pine kernels, peanuts (these can be bought ready shelled), sapricia, pecan, butternuts, hickory, brazils, (excellent for constipation), Japan peanuts, chestnuts, and Coker nuts.

All these should be bought in large quantities – by FAR the cheapest way – and the diet will be found to pan out at from sixpence, one shilling to two shillings per head daily, according to the quality of fruit bought – surely not only a healthier, purer method of living, but infinitely more economical to those who consider such matters!

To cook dried fruit, wash it thoroughly in clean water, place it in a dish with enough water to cover it, and soak ten or fifteen hours; then, leaving it in the water it has been soaked in, put it on the stove and let it simmer gently until cooked. When nearly done add sufficient sugar for individual taste. The fruit cooked in this manner very nearly resembles fresh fruit, with the full flavor and taste.

English women don’t know how to cook dried fruit, and it enters comparatively little into their menus. The above is an American recipe and may be adopted for all the dried fruits, though the dried bananas may be eaten raw or steamed in an ordinary potato steamer and eaten with fresh or whipped cream.

Some people advise regularity of meals. I advise only two daily, but it is best to eat when your are hungry. All the same you WILL be hungry if you follow the “no breakfast” plan, and able to relish your natural food with a natural appetite.

Alcohol kills magnetism.

You will find your magnetic and vital power doubled – nay trebled – by the simple pure food. You will enjoy health such as you never had before, double working capacity, and be able to look God’s creatures in the face without a blush.

MAGNETIC HEALING

LESSON XIII

I HAVE shown how Personal Magnetism is largely a matter of health, and the correct storage and increase of the magnetism or electricity contain in our bodies, and the atmosphere upon which we draw to a certain extent for magnetic supplies, although it must be understood we already posses the force in ourselves.

So far the use of animal magnetism for personal advancement has been the object of the lessons given, but there is another side to the questions, and animal magnetism for healing purposes occupies, in my opinion, a much more important position.

Magnetic healing forms a wonderful means of alleviating pain, and the cures affected by a skillful healer are too numerous to mention.

All nervous diseases, and a good many others, will yield to the treatment, which, needless to say, can only be given by one in perfect health, with a prefect flow of magnetism, and the knowledge of how to treat different diseases.

This requires a certain amount of study on the part of the student, who should have a working knowledge of anatomy, and a good handbook (Furneaux’s is splendid) of physiology is very necessary.

Some people say, I know, that I am something of a crank on scientific matters, but I know that until science is liked with metaphysics, the more traditional teachings of New Thought will be neglected by the masses.

I advise you to thoroughly study the nervous and muscular system, to gain a good working acquaintance with the various organs of the body and their functions, and a knowledge of the symptoms of some of the diseases the flesh of man is heir to.

In previous lessons you have mastered the art of generating magnetism in the body, and if you have followed the teachings and exercises I have given, you will have a store of magnetism to “give off’ for the benefit of others.

If you want to include a flow of magnetism for healing purposes, place your hands together in a cone shape and breathe gently into them until they are moist, then rub them briskly together. Repeat this three times then you will have sufficient “flow” for healing purposes.

Begin with the treatment of simple ailments, such a neuralgia, toothache, headache, and so forth and it is for these I will first give you instruction as to treatment.

Always talk to your patient brightly, and try to instill confidence in his mind with regard to your methods.

Stand behind him, and having first generated a flow of magnetism as directed, place your right hand at the base of his stomach and the left at the back of the head, and will hard that magnetism shall flow thorough the body.

Then lift your hands above his head, and without touching him, make sweeping passes in a downward direction, from head to foot, shaking the hands to “throw off” as you finish each pass.

Open your hands so that the fingers are slightly apart and curved inwards when making the passes.

Then let the patient sit in an easy chair, the head must not rest against the back, or you can’t reach him, stand behind him, and treat him with what we call “contact” passes.

The whole time you are manipulating the patient you must steadily WILL that the flow of magnetism from your fingers shall carry away the pain, and leave him free.

First remember that your two hands are, for the time being, converted into delicate instruments, that in fact you carry an electro-magnetic battery in your fingers.

Of this battery you must make your right hand the positive pole, the left hand the negative pole. Do not forget this in your treatments, for it is most important.

Now, first place your right hand to the patient’s forehead (taking care to press the center of your palm between the eyes) and the left hand at the back of the head; now will earnestly that the magnetic current shall pass through his entire body. You will force this current through the brain from your positive hand, which generates the magnetism, to your negative hand, which, being placed at the base of the brain, carries the current right down the spinal column and through the medium of the cerebro-spinal nerves to all the principal organs of the body.

Having done this you now place your hands firmly on the forehead, and stroke from between the eyes, back over the ears to the back of the neck, when the hands are removed and smartly shaken each time as if something sticky was adhering to the fingers.

This is called the “throw off,” and carries away the magnetism charged with the pain, thus guarding against the danger of forcing the pain from one part of the body to another.

Continue the treatment until the magnetism is gone, willing steadily the whole time that the pain shall vanish. Remember that the animal magnetism is a FORCE; it is not an effort of the imagination of a few occult cranks. It is a force acknowledged by scientists – French, German, American, and English – men whose names stand high in the world of science and of learning.

Moreover, it is not a mere theory on their part, for the flow of magnetism form the human body has been successfully photographed, the camera revealing that which the eye of man could not see.

Experiment has shown that this force can cure disease, which will not yield to rugs or even ordinary mental
treatment.

I have given simple instructions of using the magnetic emanations proceeding from the body for the cure of headache, and now I will show how to cure other diseases of the nervous system.

Let it be understood clearly, however, that magnetic healing will not “set” broken bones any more that Mental or Christian Science will do so; if the Christian and Mental Scientists would take a more rational standpoint and admit certain limitations, they would, at any rate in England, make greater headway. A man who is suffering from a compound fracture of thigh, for instance, won’t fid it mended by the simple assertion that it isn’t broken. So with magnetic healing; but, mark you, once it has been set by the surgeon, magnetic treatment will cause it to heal up twice as quickly, for flow of newly vitalized blood to the injured part; and those of my readers who desire to take up this business as a means of livelihood should remember this, and recognize the value of the medical man as well as the mistakes he makes.

The solar plexus is the nervous center of the body, which has the most direct connection with the emotions. Plexus means a network of nerves and blood vessels, and the solar plexus is situated in the abdomen just behind the stomach (not the intestines, be it understood), and is sometimes called the abdominal brain. The magnetic healer must not fail to recognize the value of this group of nerves, for a steady magnetic flow induced for ten minutes or so at this part of the body will do much to correct the trouble, no matte what it may be, from which the patient is suffering. Placing the right hand over the stomach in front, and the left hand at the corresponding spot behind, and send a steady flow of magnetism right thought from one to the other.

It is as well to remember; too, that water or milk can be magnetized, and when given the patient to drink, or to bathe the affected part with, great relief, or even cue, can be brought about.

I cured a bad case of erysipelas by sending the patient magnetized milk, which she both drank and used to bathe the face.

To do this, pour the milk or water into a scrupulously clean vessel, induce the magnetic flow as already directed, and make passes with both hands over the vessel. Then place the right hand over the mouth of the cup or jug, stiffen the arm, and make the hand vibrate the muscles of the upper arm (this needs practice), sending a steady flow of magnetism into the liquid.

You can always set into better “touch” with your patient by making him drink some magnetized liquid before treating him. In certain diseases the water may be hot.

When treating for troubles, which arise directly from the nerves, place your hands on the seat of the pain and make the currents, pass right through form one side to the other. For such things as neuralgia, toothache, earache, etc., make the hands as hot as possible first.

It is usual to give the patient a general treatment first of all before attempting to treat locally, and to do this you must proceed as follow: Prepare the magnetic flow, and then, having your patient simply garbed in his birthday suit, or a light, loose wrapper, place your right hand at the base of the brain, and pass the left slowly down the spine touching it very gently with the fingers, but sending all your magnetism into the spinal column and directing all your will power to this end.

The patient should take long, deep breaths during the process, breathing from the abdomen.

Now remove your hands and make passes from head to foot – these need not be “contact” passes (that is to say, you do not touch the patient); then treat the solar plexus as already described, and also the chest and lungs in the same manner.

Next, to secure free action of the bowels, place your left hand over the solar plexus in front, and your right at the base of the brain; send strong currents through the body, and will that the bowels shall act freely.

Follow this up by a treatment of from five to ten minutes of the liver, place the right hand over this organ, and then vibrate as I have told you for the magnetized water. Only practice can help you with this; you must go on trying until you can do it properly; but it is the most powerful movement you can use.

This profession of Magnetic Healer is one in which money can be made by those who seek a means of livelihood, and can also be used as a means of alleviating much pain and suffering which drugs cannot move.

I agree with the necessity for surgeons, but the physician would make more cures if he went in for rational health treatments instead of drugging his patients

Those of my readers who seek the professional side of magnetism as a healing agent must practice continually, and ‘treat” everybody they can get hold of.

FURTHER LESSONS ON PERSONAL MAGNETISM

IN the preceding pages I have shown you how to cultivate Personal Magnetism and how, to a certain extent only, to use it.

If you have followed the rules carefully, you will at least have learnt a little on how to concentrate your mind, and, beyond all else, to have faith in yourself and in your own Power.

This is the groundwork, exactly as the ABC forms the groundwork of languages, but believe me, it is very little more; the true power of magnetism lies in the knowledge of how to apply it, and this I do not suppose one out of a thousand of my students can do on the strength of the previous chapters alone. You have studied the mechanism; you have learnt to believe in the power of one mind upon another; you have practiced your scales and five-finger exercise, and now you are ready to proceed to a “piece,” to play a tune, in fact! All true magnetic attraction consists of an interchange of magnetism between two centers. When all is given out and none coming in, the results is utter depletion, so far as the operator goes, and flatness – a gray drab effect upon the receiver, and is, moreover, absolutely a matter of impossibility to consciously create any effect upon the mind of another person without following certain cut-and dried rules which are imperative, if any definite measure of success is to be achieved.

Of course you can make another person like you, or you can carry out small schemes, but you are only using the ordinary power of mental attraction, and not true magnetic attraction.

This can only be accomplished when it is accompanied by: Intensity of purpose. The power of projecting mind images.A knowledge (working) of the true laws of polarity; and A correct understanding of what I choose to call the magnetic instruments. So that at once it becomes apparent Personal Magnetism won’t be really of much avail for playing monkey tricks, such as the American guinea courses extol, nor can it be used excepting by a perfectly organized brain, which

organization includes self-control.

To attract, you must be indifferent, yet intense of purpose and will. You must be patient, all time is at your command; there is no need for hassle, but you must understand that, once embark upon the purpose, whatever it may be, to let go means a weakening of the will force; it is as if the head boy of the class were dismissed to the bottom seat and decked out with the foolscap. Remember that human volition can carry all things before it, but it must be accompanied by faith and persistence.

Also it is no use just thinking a thing, it is necessary to ACT; you must translate your thoughts into deeds.

Never waste your efforts on things that do not matter; never fritter your forces away.

To commence with number 4 conditions, under the old law that the first shall be last, and the last first, the

correct magnetic instruments are: 1st The MIND 2nd The WILL power controlling the mental action 3rd The EYE 4th The power of touch, or contact 5th The human voice This last item is never considered in the usual lessons upon this subject, yet it is as powerful in its own sphere of action as the mental side of the question.

The voice can carry magnetism, can stir up hatred or love, and influence the soul with passions or create coldness; it is the most readily used instrument of them all. But I would have you understand clearly that the conscious brain effort is placed first because it is the chief instrument, and because it is a part of all the rest. The inner gray matter of the brain records and registers thought images – thought images, be it said, which can be projected upon the gray matter of another’s brain, seized and registered by that brain as its own property, making it your unconscious servant, the doer of your bidding, of your will, the executor of your desires. And, all this without any hypnotic control or without speaking a word. The will power is the instrument which assists in the projection of these images and which is the leader, the captain of the ship.

In some extreme case pure desire will accomplish the same end as conscious will effort, but to gain the true effect, the thought must be under the control of the organized will, and for really powerful results to be attained, the determination to succeed must be accompanied by indifference.

For instance, supposing a woman loves a man devotedly, and the man doesn’t care a jot if she is alive or dead, that woman is the man’s slave, he is the center of attraction, not she; and he is the positive pole of which she is very poor negative.

Now such a woman might try to project a thought to that man’s brain, and she could never reach it, she is in the wrong position at the outset, she is not master of herself, but her passions are master of her, and the consequence is she is quite powerless to influence that other person, however great her desire.

By indifference you will understand that I mean you must be master of the desire, which impels your magnetic action, the desire must not be master of you.

When you are indifferent you are invulnerable.

The man, who goes to war praying that he may meet death, returns home with a whole skin.

The man who has plenty of money can go to the race course and bet freely, he will win, it is a matter of indifference to him, whilst the poor beggar whose all depends upon winning will loose everything he has! Will power is the lever, which works the entire mechanism, but will power without the other instruments is no better than mere brute force, it is not magnetism

The eye, which is the next instrument in power, will always directly stir the magnetic centers, but of course few people even look one in the eye.

Lessons on Personal Magnetism are careful to instruct students to look at people between the eyes.

Believe me, magnetism only passes when you look right into the pupil of the eye – a thing which possibly only occurs between lovers, and which with contact, is more than partly responsible for the thrills which they experience.

The majority of people meet you eye without looking into it. When seeing to influence anybody, look directly into his or her eyes. Not many people can stand it, and like all magnetic usages it must not ever be abused.

So far as contact is concerned, most of my students and others also know the value of this, and I need not enlarge upon the subject.

Regarding the human voice, it can be directly charged with magnetism, and the sound waves created by it can transmit the message to be sent quite independent of any word effects.

For instance, a woman might be talking a lot of drivel about a summer sale, and yet she may send some strong magnetic force, some powerful magnetic emotion upon the meaningless sound waves.

Of course, to have the strongest effect the words and the emotion should tally, but whereas the mental images projected by the will power may carry any impression form good health to death, from hate to love, and so on, even to certain definite and concerted actions, the voice can carry emotion only, but the magnetic emotion properly directed can raise such a storm, such an absolute tornado of corresponding emotion, either in on e person or ten thousand people, as to make the uninitiated gasp.

So to recapitulate the use of any five magnetic instruments, the mind is used for creating mind pictures; the will power is used for projecting those mental pictures upon the gray matter of another person’s brain; the eye is used for creating magnetic disturbances or explosions in the aura of that other person; the use of contact as for very much the same purpose, whilst the use of the voice is for the conveyance of any particular emotion.

Now we come to number 3: The knowledge of the true working laws of polarity.

As you know from my preceding pages, polarity stands for the positive and negative condition of the magnetic current. We all know that. It is necessary when teaching pupils music to make him play scales and exercises to render the muscles of the hand lissome, and to give him perfect control over them. Very good.

In my pervious work I have emphasized the necessity for becoming positive – the imperative necessity, maybe for positive mind action.

Let me tell you now that anybody who uses the positive polarity only soon becomes depleted. The law is that of the human heart, where the blood beats in and out, of the tides of the ocean, which come and go, of the seasons of the year, of night and of day.

You cannot give all out and take in nothing. And the great law of polarity is this: first negative conditions, the taking in; then positive, the giving out. This is quite reasonable if you consider the ordinary laws of nature, we do not sow the seed and then plow the
land, but plow the land first of all and sow the seed afterwards.

Now I want you to understand the word receptivity as synonymous for a process of “drawing from,” or an inhalation of force, if you can understand that better. For impression, I want you to understand a “giving out,” and of the same force that you draw from. I want to make you understand this clearly, because the whole use of magnetism depends on this law, which is seldom or never properly understood.
The main object preached by all teachers of magnetism is impress, impress, impress! You may take it from me that by giving out only impression results in a dull gray or drab effect, there is no play of color, no real display of power, no definite result.

And all gray or drab magnetism is like any other drab effect, wanting in life, lacking that pulsating sense of color,
which arrests the eye and warms the whole being of you.
Of course the next question you will ask is how impress? When am I to use the one action and when the other.

Well, I am coming to that later on. Sufficient for the time being, if you will realize the teachings of concentration.

The universe is flooded with the power of Universal Attraction. The Rosicrucian’s speak of it as great white invisible fire – it is called the universal fluid, the astral light, the odic force, the living, pulsating ether of the ancients. It is enough to understand that this force, call it what you will, and floods the universe.

It is in you, it is in me, it is in the space that divides us, no matter if that space is a yard, or if we are separated by half the earth. This, I think, you all understand; the point I want to emphasize is that this force collects at certain living centers in the body – the solar plexus for one, which is situated at the waist centers of the body.

Some people have it in enormous quantities, others are lacking in it. It is the medium, as I have already explained,

which carries our mental messages from one to the other. By my will power, my breath or my voice, or my touch or my merest glance, I can send my force magnetic from me.

And by those same means I can draw your force away from you, draw it to me.

If I only draw from you, you will become asinine, like an animal, passive sleepy. If I only send my force to you, I become limp, weary, inert, and lifeless.

But supposing that I first draw your force from you to me, and at a given moment then proceed to impress my force upon you, alternating the process according to circumstances and conditions, the result will be that you feel alert, charged with new life, strangely excited possibly, thrilled as it were with some curious unknown emotion.

You are receptive, my servant, you accept my thoughts, and you do not know they are my thoughts, you become as one with me, you are for the time being my servant.

And I am quietly charging you with my magnetism, guided by my will, yet without suffering the depletion that would assail me if I had only forced my will upon you. For exercise you may commence this practice with breathing exercises only – and alone! Stand erect, in a proper physical culture attitude, waist in , chest well breasted upwards.

Now imagine a person, or be content to draw in merely from the universal supply. Commence by inhaling slowly; as you do so, will that you draw in the magnetic force from without. You can draw it in with your hands if you like, taking it as if it were something sticky, something that needed a certain amount of muscle to being to you. In other words, a mere light gesture doesn’t convey the correct sensations to your brain center.

Then breathe outwards, still slowly, and as you do it will your own magnetic force outwards and away from you to that other imaginary center. This is for practice only. You can do the same thing (without the gesture) when you are talking to people. It will not have much effect upon them; because of course it is magnetic breathing only, unaided by the brain, or imaginative side of yourself.

I think you understand this now, and we can leave it pro tem. But you can and must practice it regularly.

***********

Now there are two distinct methods of treating people magnetically. One is what we will call distant treatment, for want of a better name; the other is that treatment used when you are face to face with a person or persons.

Curiously enough, the former is infinitely more powerful than the latter, and I will deal with it first of all, although the modus operandi in both cases is similar, somewhat, at any rate. It is not enough to sit down and will that a person shall do so and so, or to even follow up the will conditions with magnetic breathing. To begin with, you must have an absolutely clear conception of what you mean to impress. That impression must be of the nature of an emotion, and an emotion that is universal. This is the very basic soul essence of your message it must fail otherwise.

It is not enough to just think of it in an abstract manner, you will accomplish nothing.

You must absolutely become the emotion, flood your very being with it, and shut out every other sensation. Thus and THUS ONLY can you ever hope to arouse in that other person the sensation you desire. Sit down quietly by yourself, and by the aid of your imagination grow into the semblance of your emotion. Any emotion must be universal and freed from all restrictions.

Something which is governed neither by rare creed nor language. Something which the savage and civilized alike feel and understand. Love, hatred, greed, generosity, fear, courage, health, sickness, passion, power, religion-these are all universal emotions, and with one of these, according to your desires, you must be so saturated that you are for the time being an embodiment of it, and of it alone.
You are master of this emotion, you have put it on like an overcoat, and you can take it off as easily. You are really indifferent.

The next condition still further calls upon our imagination, that wondrous weaver of pictures, of fantasy and fact. The next step is to see the person you would influence. This is not difficult to some, to others its acquirement is tedious, but if you have practiced concentration you should be able to do it well enough. You must see them mentally as clearly as if face-to-face. Every feature, color, and eyes – all must stand out clearly in your mental vision – Good! Now, feeling charged with your emotion, with the mental vision clearly before you, call him (or her) by name.

As your voice goes out draw to yourself strongly the magnetic force from that person, as you have been taught, only remember that whereas in practice you draw the force in whilst you are inhaling, here you have to draw in whilst your voice is ringing outwards, and you man repeat two or three times, just as if you were calling him, and waiting for him to hear you.

Good again!

Now you have gone through three separate phases

1st You have created an emotion.

2nd You have created a mental image.

3rd You have charged yourself with the magnetism of the person you are acting upon and be doing this you have

created a condition of receptivity in him.

Could you be present with him in the flesh, you would find him restless, a little excited, with his thoughts crowded upon you. It is a very curious thing that the moment you build up a mental image of any person, that person immediately receives a mental image of you. Now you are ready to send your desire to the person, but do not forget that the desire must agree with the universal emotion, the message must correspond. As you transmit your message – aloud – send your magnetic force towards the person with all your will power. So far as the message goes you must understand that certain cut and dried laws govern this also. It should be as simple as possible. It should be capable of translation into a mental picture. It must be repeated steadily for any length of time necessary. It depends a great deal upon what the message may be.

You will see from this that telepathy acts as a means of conveying magnetism. But at the same time this method of treatment is really quite apart from telepathy as usually understood, excepting so far as the thought images are concerned.

The time required for treatment depends upon your natural ability.

Say always, “You want,” for it is the very essence of magnetism that this law shall be observed. You must throw your thought across the screen of the other person’s brain, in such form, that the thoughts seem their own.

Perhaps I ought not to speak so freely on these matters, but I know very well there are so few people who can fulfill the conditions or who will persevere, that I don not think there is very much harm done.

Supposing you know somebody who is very unhappy, hopeless, and alone. Saturate yourself with the emotion of Hope, until you feel buoyant with life and joy.

Call up the image of the person you want to influence, and then with the magnetic breathing, call them by name.

Then send your message of magnetic hope: say, “You want to be cheerful, you want to feel happy; you have your heart full of hope you can sing, you can feel the joy of future success surge through your being.” This will have an altogether different effect to the same treatment delivered by the ordinary mans of mental treatment or magnetism.

Of course I only take this as an instance. It is by no means the only kind of use to which magnetism may be put. You may want somebody to care for you, or not to care for some other person. You may want somebody to do you a favor, you may be seeking a situation, there are a thousand uses to which it may be put, but the method is always the same, and in the same order.

Coming to personal contact, of course, although in the main conditions are the same, details differ.

And it must be emphasized also that this method is applicable alike to individuals and to audiences.

Actors and actresses can use it, lecturers and preachers, vocalists and reciters, barristers, in fact anybody dealing with the general public.

Before you come into touch with either the person or the audience, get a clear idea of your plan of campaign.

What is it you are going to do? What are your plans?

I will give an instance, which really happened to a pupil of mine. He is a businessman, and a very big manta that, never mind what sort of business, for that would be telling. Anyway, he had to deal with four men in his own line of business who had been for years bitterly opposed to certain plans he wanted to carry out, and in no way could he influence them. She he came to me and I taught him what I have just taught you. To begin with, I made him treat them first from the distance, each man separately. For his emotional saturation I made him take Power.

Then to each man he gave his ideal, in the form of a mental picture. Next he went to see them, intentionally. Before entering each man’s office he charged himself with magnetism from the man in question. Then, quietly talking to him all the time throwing this vivid mental picture upon his brain.

One man capitulated of his own accord without my pupil even putting the question to him at all, and at a public meeting half a few days later the other three men climbed down gracefully, and through the proper use of magnetism gained a victory he had sought for years in vain.

The great difficulty most people will experience in using my method of magnetic treatment, is what I call the emotional saturation.

To a great actress, a Violet Vanburgh, an Ethel Irving, the emotional saturation is a part of their magic, it is easy, to average English manor woman who has been brought up to stifle emotion, to mask their real feelings until they are sometimes apparently without feeling, this assumption of an emotion is difficult.

It is not any use doing it in milk and water fashion.

If you assume the emotion of, say religion you must bring to yourself that intense sensation of awed reverence, as if in the actual presence of the Deity; if you assume the emotion of love, your whole being must pulsate with the tender passion, you become love personified, the sort of love is a state of being which must also be considered.

There is a wide difference between the love of a mother for her child, and the love of a strong man for the woman of his heart, or the love of a proliferate for some woman who has claimed his butterfly passion. All these shades of difference must be vigorously observed, you must be an artist; you do not merely assume an emotion, you ARE that emotion for the time, every nerve and fiber of your body responds to the call your imagination makes upon it, and yet reserve to yourself the right to become instantly calm, normal, unwept by any form of brain storm.

I am not saying it will not take it out of you a little, but as a matter of fact what you lose is infinitesimal if you follow the laws governing magnetic breathing, and properly charge yourself with odic force before you go any further in your efforts, and the emotional storm cannot touch you.

This is one of the reasons why I am so very decided in my teachings as to the due observance of magnetic breathing and the proper use of magnetic polarity.

It stands to reason that if you do not know how to create receptivity, or when to impress, you must be sadly handicapped in the use of this marvelous force, in fact leave out any one item, or transpose them even, and the result will be failure.

Patience, before all things, and faith, the certitude of obtaining results, are essential factors of success, and again the old Biblical saying that with faith you can remove mountains.

However return the correct method of dealing with people when using magnetism for what I will call “contact work” – i.e., a personal interview – it must be always remembered that whatever subjects of conversation may arise all the time you are charged with your emotional magnetism until the very air becomes electric (or magnetic) as it were with your purpose.

Learn to talk platitudes whilst you are feeling a great emotion, and learn to talk also whilst your brain formulates the words without speech, which carry your secret will message.

This is by no means an easy task, unless you appear pre-absorbed, which is a wrong attitude and not flattering to the person you have to deal with.

I knew a man once who lost a large fortune through yawning at the wrong moment; and any apparent inattention on your part may do more harm than you imagine.

Learn to smile and look interested, to talk lightly about current topics, all the while your body is something in a magnetic storm, and your brain hammers out its silent message with the ceaseless insistence which characterizes most forms of suggestion, and, speaking of suggestion, it is always a helpful addition to the use of personal magnetism, the way a word is put will often make all the difference to any result desired.

To say to some people, “I want you to do so and so,” is to court refusal. To delicately suggest that it is their own special desire to do this particular thing, will generally result in their believing it is their desire.

The whole use of magnetism in its more subtle and useful branches is that of transplanting your own desires to the brain of another in such form that they recognize them only as their own offspring. Constant practice will soon render this easy of accomplishment.

Do not make the common error of over-doing it and growing weary. Personal magnetism is for use, like a pick-me-up, when needed. It can be overdone, and the effect lost. After warmth -cold; after night -day; after a magnetic storm of emotion -rest.

A pupil of mine, a very dear lady (she is dead now) had a beast of a husband who was always straying away from her. I taught her how to bring him back, but I never could convince her that she must give it a rest.

He came back and wooed her again as an ardent lover after a fifteen years’ coldness and practical desertion, but I never could make her alternate her treatment, and after a year’s renewed honeymoon he grew tired again, and once more strayed away form her.

Magnetism appeals so much to lovers that I beg them to remember this law: You can make a man or a woman love you, bit if you go on digging it into their brain it grows FLAT, parrot-like and useless.

You achieve your object, very good, give it a rest, do not think o magnetism, don’t be too everlastingly sugary, let him (or her) go a little, even alternate our treatment with a little judicious coldness or even neglect, then when there is trouble brewing, when the object of your affections grows doubtful, hurt even, uncertain of you, then, if you like, renew your treatment.

Anybody who understands this law of magnetic polarity can hold a man or a woman a willing slave for always. Looks, age, talent; none of these things matter.

But look, you never grizzle – never. Fire up if you must, be cold, be warm, be indifferent, but just take life smiling. The one who goes through life with a song and a smile has a constant magnetic flow. Tears and grizzles will break that flow, you are never magnetic when you grieve. You will get out of the world exactly what you put into it, so be understanding, be sympathetic, be sunshine, and be strong.

Never mind what the surface “you” may be. Underneath, let the current of indomitable will guide you on to that which you desire. Once you have put your hand to the plough do not turn back – go on, fast if you can, if not go slowly, but go on. If you have begun a thing, if you have formulated a desire, regard it as already your own, for it is so indeed if you have the courage to continue.

To recapitulate the order for personal contact:

1st Saturate with your magnetic emotion

2nd As you enter the person’s presence (with full lungs please) and speak the usual greetings, strongly charge yourself with magnetism from them, drawing it to you with your will effort, on the sound waves of your voice.

3rd Formulate your desires into speechless words, with all the force you are able

4th As you formulate charge the person with your own magnetism, the return current.

5th When you come to the point, which may not always be necessary (in actual words, in fact often it is quite unnecessary to formulate your desires into spoken words at all), but assuming that it is so, let the preamble to your request be an indrawn of it magnetism, that is to say, as your voice travels outward along the sound waves it creates your willpower, is drawing into you the necessary magnetic charges from the person you speak to, and then when you reach the crisis send voice, will, brain image all heavily charged with your own magnetism outwards to the person you are dealing with. You will be astonished at the effect, if a strong electric battery were played upon him he could not be more influenced, and it is very seldom indeed that such a charge will fail.

Public speakers, and so forth, can use this power in the same way, of course much depending upon what their subject may be, but it’s no earthly use unless pre-charged with the correct magnetic emotion; that is your groundwork, and whatever your outward words or actions may portray, you must not lose sight of that for a moment. It must be felt, it must radiate from you with intensity that all can feel and understand without speech or action to explain your purpose. As my infant son says when he turns head over heels, or tries to, “that takes a bit of doing” – but whoever can do it is master of a force greater than any other force known to science as yet, master of a power one almost hesitates to use let your use of it be for good only, or believe me it will turn and rend you!

O. HASHNU HARA

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1. Use Personal Stories to Connect with an Employer and Get a Job

While you may be wondering how my restoring cars is relevant to your career and life, I have found that how people react to seeing a restored car is often a good indicator of what the person is like in business and on the job. These two cars have helped me screen countless people for business deals, employment and more.

All I need to do is have someone take a seat inside one of the cars and he or she will start opening up and giving me all sorts of insights into the sort of person he or she is. There are essentially three sorts of personalities that might emerge whenever someone takes a seat in the car. One personality type is concerned with power; another is concerned with relationships, and the other is concerned with achievement. If you take a moment to look at yourself and your work style, personal relationships and so forth, you will soon discover that you are most likely motivated by one of these three primary motivators.

When I meet people who have sought me out to do business deals, the most common sort of person I meet is someone who is concerned with power.

Within moments of taking a seat in the car, this type of person will start asking all sorts of questions about the value of the car, how much time it took to restore, how many of them are on the road, how much the car cost when it was new, and so forth. People concerned with power view cars as a symbol of power and status, and are threatened and intimidated by anything that challenges their own power or status. Because these particular cars are quite valuable, after getting the answers to the above line of questioning, the person will generally start to feel a little threatened. The person might react by mentioning some perceived flaw, or some reason why he does not particularly care for the vehicle.

• They may start telling me about why they would never be interested in collecting an old car because their time is too valuable, and they have better things to do with their time.
• They may ask again about the price of the car and may indicate that they are interested in purchasing it from me (purchasing something valuable from someone is a way of exerting power of him or her).
• They will be critical of the car in several different ways and will likely start telling me why they could afford a similar car, for example, but they have purchased a toy that is even more significant.
• Weeks after seeing me, the person may send me links from Ebay of cars which have not been restored, but which look similar, and are listed at less than half the price. “Looks like you can get a good deal on your car now!” the person might write in an email.

Around Los Angeles I have known at least two people over the past decade or so who purchased brand new and very expensive cars, which got badly scratched up by vandals with knives. I never really understood until recently why people would feel the need to scratch up someone else’s car with knives, but if you think about this, it actually makes perfect sense. Someone who views the world in terms of power and power relationships is likely to be threatened by a nice car; therefore, this person might put down–or even destroy it, so they can feel better than it.

With the Internet, people who are threatened by others can also go on message boards and do anonymous postings, for example, to attack people they are threatened by, and to attempt to lessen their reputation in the eyes of others. This scenario is no different from someone who is carving up a new car in the street with a knife. Both of these are efforts people make to feel more powerful over others, whom they feel otherwise threatened by.

For many people, cars represent power. There are many people who are extremely concerned with power relationships, and their obsession with maintaining power can even be comical. Have you ever known someone who seems to perceive everyone around him or her as an opponent, and someone who needs to be dominated in some form or another? The domination could be mental or physical, for example.

When I was in law school I started working in New York City. I had people from my hometown in Michigan come visit me there during the summers. I remember that those visitors that were “power people” expressed great concern about how everything in New York seemed, compared to how things were back in Michigan.

• If we went to the theater they would say: “We have a theater too, and it is more comfortable and easier to see the people on stage because it is smaller.”
• If we went to a restaurant, they would mention several better restaurants that were located in Michigan.
• Once inside my apartment, these people would go on and on about how I could get a larger and nicer apartment back in Michigan for a better price.

This is just how power people are with most things. Power people do not like anything that they feel is a threat to their perceived power. The idea of someone they know living in a large city is viewed as a sort of threat to the power and influence of the person. Power people see the world as a highly competitive place in which people are constantly struggling for power and influence over others.

A power person will tell you how they won an argument, and they might talk about this for days. Power people are incredibly competitive, are extremely focused on themselves, and have a hard time identifying with others. Power people love to be seen as people who step up and take control of various situations.

Have you ever known someone who seems to be motivated by being in power over other people, places and things? They seem to view every human interaction as a struggle for power. There are people like this all over and they make up a good proportion of society.

• People who are concerned with power are more interested in giving orders than taking them.
• People who are concerned with power have no qualms with yelling at people who upset them.
• People who are concerned with power become quite upset when things do not go their way, or people do not listen to them.
• People who are concerned with power may create problems with others just for the sake of creating problems, and then attempting to assert dominance.

Power people are everywhere. They are good for some jobs and not others. For example, if you are a power person, you need to understand that there are simply numerous jobs you will never be comfortable or happy doing. The need to feel in power and to have power over other people is just a part of who you are. There is nothing wrong with this but you need to be in a position and in a job that makes the most of this characteristic of your personality. You are likely never going to change.

The second type of person who takes a seat in my car sees checking out the car as an opportunity to establish a relationship. When this person sees you are sharing something that is important to you, he or she will get happy and excited–not necessarily about the car, but about the fact that you are providing them with an opportunity to deepen his or her relationship with you. Relationship people are strongly motivated by creating and maintaining positive relationships. They like or dislike people based on whether or not the people help them to create good relationships. Being included in relationship-forming activities is very important to these sorts of people.

When someone concerned with relationships takes a seat in the car and we start driving, they will start saying things like, “It is so cool that you are showing this to me” and, “I really feel included.” Relationship people will not be the least bit intimidated or competitive when checking out the car. While we are driving, they might talk about other people they know who also like cars, and suggest that the two of us get introduced to one another. A few days after showing the person my car, they might forward me the contact information of another person who likes cars, and suggest we get together. They will also tell me how much fun they had and thank me for “including them” by showing them my car.

• People that are interested primarily in relationships enjoy spending their time with people they are close to. In fact, the largest priority for relationship-based people typically revolves around spending time with the people they like or love.
• People that are interested primarily in relationships are more focused on others than themselves.
• People that are interested primarily in relationships are never confrontational with others.
• People that are interested primarily in relationships are not interested in spending time with people who are overly competitive, power hungry, or not nice.
• People that are interested in relationships want to excel in work and other activities in order to please others, and to develop a better relationship with them–not necessarily so that they can earn more money, get more power, or become more successful.
• People that are interested in relationships feel a deep-seated need to be appreciated by others.

A relationship person is likely to be good at some jobs and not others. A relationship person typically is a very good employee, but will not be overly competitive, or interested in managing others in anything but a “cooperative way”. This type of person tends to be much more focused on getting along with others, harmony, friendship, teamwork and so forth–and not authority, for example.

It is important that you identify it, if this is the precise sort of person you are, because you are unlikely to be happy if you are in a position or job that is not making use of your natural interest in getting along with others. I have in the past promoted relationship people to jobs that required them to ruthlessly manage various aspects of businesses–and they found themselves often taken advantage of. Since a relationship person is most interested in harmony, it is never a good idea to put a relationship person in a position in which they are required to see the worst in people, fire people and so forth. This sort of job is better for a power person.

The third type of person who will take a seat in my car is the “type A”, achievement minded sort of person. Have you ever known someone who seems to be completed motivated by success? They set all sorts of goals, and are very opposed to anyone or anything that prevents them from succeeding. They are interested in success personally, professionally and in just about everything they do. People like this are focused on accomplishment–no matter what the cost is.

When an achievement person takes a seat in my car they will typically start asking all sorts of questions about the car. However, in most cases, after learning about the car they will start saying things like:

• “Have you taken the car to any shows, or competitions?”
• “Is this wood on the dashboard the original wood?”
• “How much does it cost for the best possible paint job?”
• “Was the leather on this hand stitched?”
• “How did you prioritize what sort of work to do on the car?”
• “What is the next project you have planned for the car?”
• “Are the others cars like this out there as high quality as this one?”

Each of the questions are geared, in one way or another, towards understanding how much has been accomplished with the car. As you are driving along with an achievement-oriented person, he or she will ask all sorts of questions to assess how the car “pans out” and how you “pan out”, in terms of the restoration work that you have done.

Someone who is motivated by achievement is interested in making sure that things are of the best possible quality. For example, you could pop the hood and explain how some complex welding was done on a certain part under the hood, and explain how this is different from how it is done on other cars–and the person would be impressed. If they were to see you as someone who is obsessed with details and perfection, and making the car the absolute best it possibly could be, they would also be impressed. Because achievement-oriented people are competitive, they like things and people to be the best they possibly can be.

Achievement-oriented people like tasks. They like goals and they like setting priorities. They think in terms of goals, tasks and priorities, and when you speak with them they say things like:

• “My goals for this year include …”
• “My first order of business is to …”

Last night my wife and I went to look at a preschool for our daughter. My wife enjoyed something that she heard during a presentation the preschool gave:

“We want our kids to be competitive with themselves and not other kids.”

People that are achievement-oriented are more concerned with competing with themselves than with others. People who are power-motivated, on the other hand, are more interested in being more powerful than others, and therefore in competing with others. Achievement-oriented people are interested in success, in being experts; they are ambitious, set goals for getting ahead, respect competence, have missions, and think in terms of what they can accomplish and attain.

If you are motivated by achievement, you probably do not like lazy people. You believe that others should constantly be motivated to do things better, just as you are. When they evaluate others, achievement people look at what people have accomplished. For example, an achievement-oriented person is likely to be very concerned with what school someone went to, and how well the person did there.

In your career it is important that you understand and realize whether or not you are mostly motivated by power, relationships or achievement. You need to be in a job that allows you to thrive with whatever your particular personality style is. Failure often comes to people simply because they are in a job, or company, that requires they be motivated by a particular style–when they are not.

You should ask yourself which sorts of people you get along best with. You should consider your favorite activities. It is incredibly important that you are in a position that makes the most of your particular outlook and approach to the world.

Related posts:

1. Relationships, Inefficiency and Your Career
2. Relationships, Commodities and Making Connections
3. Are You Motivated By Information, People, Activities, Things–or Places?