Mind ideas for millions of wonders far greater than the “Seven Wonders of the World.” And those ideas are just as available to you as they were to the artisans of old, as they were to Michael Angelo when he built St. Peter’s in Rome, as they were to the architect who conceived the Woolworth Building, or the engineer who planned the Hell Gate Bridge.
Every condition, every experience of life is the result of our mental attitude. We can do only what we think we can do. We can be only what we think we can be. We can have only what we think we can have. What we do, what we are, what we have, all depend upon what we think. We can never express anything that we do not first have in mind. The secret of all power, all success, all riches, is in first thinking powerful thoughts, successful thoughts, and thoughts of wealth, of supply. We must build them in our own mind first.
William James, the famous psychologist, said that the greatest discovery in a hundred years was the discovery of the power of the sub-conscious mind. It is the greatest discovery of all time. It is the discovery that man has within himself the power to control his surroundings that he is not at the mercy of chance or luck that he is the arbiter of his own fortunes that he can carve out his own destiny. He is the master of all the forces round about him. As James Allen puts it:
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.”
For matter is in the ultimate but a product of thought. Even the most material scientists admit that matter is not what it appears to be. According to physics, matter (be it the human body or a log of wood — it makes no difference which) is made up of an aggregation of distinct minute particles called atoms. Considered individually, these atoms are so small that they can be seen only with the aid of a powerful microscope, if at all.
Matter — Dream or Reality?
Until recently these atoms were supposed to be the ultimate theory regarding matter. We ourselves — and all the material world around us — were supposed to consist of these infinitesimal particles of matter, so small that they could not be seen or weighed or smelled or touched individually — but still particles of matter and indestructible.
Now, however, these atoms have been further analyzed, and physics tells us that they are not indestructible at all — that they are mere positive and negative buttons of force or energy called protons and electrons, without hardness, without density, without solidity, without even positive actuality. In short, they are vortices in the ether — whirling bits of energy — dynamic, never static, pulsating with life, but the life is spiritual! As one eminent British scientist put it — “Science now explains matter by explaining it away!”
And that, mind you, is what the solid table in front of you is made of, is what your house, your body, the whole world is made of — whirling bits of energy!
To quote the New York Herald-Tribune of March 11, 1926: “We used to believe that the universe was composed of an unknown number of different kinds of matter, one kind for each chemical element. The discovery of a new element had all the interest of the unexpected. It might turn out to be anything, to have any imaginable set of properties.
“That romantic prospect no longer exists. We know now that instead of many ultimate kinds of matter there are only two kinds. Both of these are really kinds of electricity. One is negative electricity, being, in fact, the tiny particle called the electron, familiar to radio fans as one of the particles vast swarms of which operate radio vacuum tubes. The other kind of electricity is positive electricity. Its ultimate particles are called protons. From these protons and electrons all of the chemical elements are built up. Iron and lead and oxygen and gold and all the others differ from one another merely in the number and arrangement of the electrons and protons, which they contain. That is the modern idea of the nature of matter. Matter is really nothing but electricity.”
Can you wonder then that scientists believe the time will come when mankind through mind can control all this energy, can be absolute master of the winds and the waves, can literally follow the Master’s precept — “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
For Modern Science is coming more and more to the belief that what we call matter is a force subject wholly to the control of mind.
How tenuous matter really is, is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that a single violin string, tuned to the proper pitch, could start a vibration that would shake down the Brooklyn Bridge! Oceans and mountains, rocks and iron, all can be reduced to a point little short of the purely spiritual. Your body is 85 per cent water, 15 per cent ash and phosphorus! And they in turn can be dissipated into gas and vapor. Where do we go from there?
Is not the answer that, to a great degree at least, and perhaps altogether, this world round about us is one of our mind’s own creating? And that we can put into it, and get from it, pretty much what we wish? You see this illustrated every day. A panorama is spread before you. To you it is a beautiful picture; to another it appears a mere collection of rocks and trees. A girl comes out to meet you. To you she is the embodiment of loveliness; to another all that grace and beauty may look drab and homely. A moonlit garden, with its fragrant odors and dew-drenched grass, may mean all that is charming to you, while to another it brings only thoughts of asthma or fever or rheumatism. A color may be green to you that to another is red. A prospect may be inviting for you that to another is rugged and hard.
To quote “Applied Psychology,” by Warren Hilton:
“The same stimulus acting on different organs of sense will produce different sensations. A blow upon the eye will cause you to ‘see stars’; a similar blow upon the ear will cause you to hear an explosive sound. In other words, the vibratory effect of a touch on eye or ear is the same as that of light or sound vibrations.
“The notion you may form of any object in the outer world depends solely upon what part of your brain happens to be connected with that particular nerve-end that receives an impression from the object.
“You see the sun without being able to hear it because the only nerve-ends tuned to vibrate in harmony with the ether-waves set in action by the sun are nerve-ends that are connected with the brain center devoted to sight. ‘If,’ says Professor James, ‘we could splice the outer extremities of our optic nerves to our ears, and those of our auditory nerves to our eyes, we should hear the lightning and see the thunder, see the symphony and hear the conductor’s movements.’
“In other words, the kind of impressions we receive from the world about us, the sort of mental pictures we form concerning it, in fact, the character of the outer world, the nature of the environment in which our lives are cast — all these things depend for each one of us simply upon how he happens to be put together, upon his individual mental make-up.”
In short, it all comes back to the old fable of the three blind men and the elephant. To the one who caught hold of his leg, the elephant was like a tree.
To the one who felt of his side, the elephant was like a wall. To the one who seized his tail, the elephant was like a rope. The world is to each one of us the world of his individual perceptions.
You are like a radio receiving station. Every moment thousands of impressions are reaching you. You can tune in on whatever ones you like — on joy or sorrow, on success or failure, on optimism or fear. You can select the particular impressions that will best serve you, you can hear only what you want to hear, you can shut out all disagreeable thoughts and sounds and experiences, or you can tune in on discouragement and failure and despair.
Yours
