PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson

      I

       EMOTIVE POWER

       Table of Content

      DESIRE POWER is one of the many phases of Personal Power—of that Personal Power which flows into and through the individual from that great source of the All-­Power of All­Things which in this instruction is known as POWER.

      You do not create your own Personal Power of any kind, though you may modify it, adapt it, develop it, and direct it. POWER, the source of All-­Power, has always existed and will always exist. You generate Personal Power by drawing upon the great Source and Fount of All-­Power; by opening your natural channels to its inflow; and by supplying it with the proper physical and mental mechanism by means of which it is enabled to express and manifest itself efficiently.

      There are not, in reality, many distinct kinds of Personal Power—though there are many forms and phases of its expression and manifestations. Just as, by means of being supplied with the appropriate apparatus, Electricity is transformed into light, heat, energy, motive­power, telegraphic power, telephonic power, and “wireless message” power, so is your Personal Power transformed into mental power and physical power; into thinking power, feeling power, and willing power; by reason of the various channels of expression and manifestation supplied to it.

      Personal Power manifests along the lines of mental activity in three great forms, viz., along the respective channels of (1) Feeling, (2) Thinking, and (3) Willing. These three channels, however, are not absolutely set apart and separated from each other, but, on the contrary, have many intersecting and connecting lines or channels of intercommunication; their activities are closely coordinated. Accordingly, in practically all instances of mental activity, we find the coordination and blending of the activity of these great phases of mental activity.

      Desire is the highest wave of the waters of Feeling or Emotion. Feeling is “the agreeable or disagreeable phase of a mental state.” Emotion is a complex form of Feeling, into which is blended the element of the representative ideas of memory or imagination. Desire is the strong urge or pressure of Emotion toward an idea or object which promises emotional satisfaction and content; or away from an idea or object which threatens emotional dissatisfaction or discontent. If the emotional urge becomes sufficiently strong, the Desire develops a conational activity, i. e., an activity tending toward will­action along the lines of the satisfaction and gratification of the Desire. On one side, Desire arises from Emotion; on the other side, Desire evolves into Conation—and Conation is the elementary active phase of Will.

      Before you can expect to understand the nature of Desire, its laws, the principles of its development and application, you must first know something of the general form of mental activity of which it is the highest and most active phase, i. e., the mental activity known as Emotion.

      Emotion is defined as: “An excitement of the feelings, whether pleasant or unpleasant”; Feeling being “the agreeable or disagreeable side of any mental state.” Feeling may be described as “a simple emotional state”; and Emotion may be described as “a complex state of Feeling”—the difference is a matter of degree and not of kind. Emotion, however, has Idea blended with it—memories of previous experiences supplied by recollection or instinct (the latter reporting race­memories). Feeling (simple) may arise from a purely physical cause, and no definite Idea may be involved in it. But Emotion (complex) necessitates the presence and influence of representative Idea to direct it and to continue it beyond the stage of simple Feeling.

      A leading teacher of psychology illustrated this distinction to his pupils by directing their attention to the analogy of the junction of the Upper Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. He pictured the Missouri as a stream of Representative Ideas, and the Upper Mississippi as a stream of simple Feeling arising from sense­impressions. The two streams meet; their waters join and, blending, compose the complex Lower Mississippi of Emotion now flowing to the Gulf of Desire and Will. The teacher, however, always cautioned his pupils to remember that this illustration was used merely for convenience: for Feeling and Idea are never so far apart (before the junction) in the mind as are the waters of the two rivers.

      The highest activities of Feeling and Emotion are known as Affection and Desire, respectively.

      Affection is defined as: “An emotional drawing of the mind toward any person or thing, which does not necessarily depart even when that person or thing is absent.” In its latent state, Affection may be termed a “disposition or tendency toward a person or thing.” In its active state, Affection may manifest as Passion, especially in the presence of its object. The term is usually employed to denote the state of emotional feeling toward persons, but it is also properly employed in connection with anything capable of exciting regard. Affection, likewise, has its negative aspect; in such aspect the tendency or disposition is that of drawing­away­from, instead of drawing­toward, the object or person arousing the emotional feeling. Positive Affection arises from Attraction; Negative Affection arises from Repulsion. Affection, then, is seen to be composed of the following two elements, viz., (1) the Emotional Feeling, and (2) the tendency or disposition to be attracted toward (or repelled from) the object arousing the emotional feeling.

      Desire is a more complex, and a more active phase of Emotional Feeling than is Affection. Desire combines and includes the element of Affection, but it goes beyond the latter. It may be defined as: “The strong wish or inclination to attain, secure, reach, or to retain, hold, and own, the object which has attracted it; or to get away

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