Excerpts from
Your Forces and How to Use Them by Prentice Mulford Order in Adobe PDF eBook or printed form for $7.95 (+ printing charge) or click here to order in printed form from Amazon.com for $21.95 Book Description GOD A Supreme
Power and Wisdom governs the Universe. The Supreme Mind is measureless,
and
pervades endless space. The Supreme Wisdom, Power and Intelligence is
in every-thing
that exists from the atom to the planet. The
Supreme Power and Wisdom is more than in everything. The Supreme Mind is
everything.
The Supreme Mind is every atom of the mountain, the sea, the tree, the
bird,
the animal, the man, the woman. The Supreme Wisdom cannot be
understood by man
or by beings superior to man. But man will gladly receive the Supreme
thought
and wisdom, and let it work for happiness through him, caring not to
fathom its
mystery. The Supreme
Power has us in its charge, as it has the suns and endless systems of
worlds in
space. As we grow more to recognize this sublime and exhaustless
wisdom, we shall
learn more and more to demand that wisdom draw it to ourselves, make it
a part
of ourselves, and thereby be ever making ourselves newer and newer.
This means
ever perfecting health, greater and greater power to enjoy all
that exists,
gradual transition into a higher state of being and the development of
powers
we do not now realize as belonging to us. We are the
limited yet ever growing parts and expressions of the Supreme Never
Ending
Whole. It is the destiny of all in time to see their relation to the
Supreme
and also to see that this straight and narrow path to ever-increasing
happi-ness
is a perfect trust and dependence on the Supreme for the all round
symmetrical
wisdom and idea which we, individually cannot originate. Let us then
daily
demand faith, for faith is power to believe and power to see that all
things
are parts of the Infinite Spirit of God, that all things have good
or God in
them, and that all things when recognized by us as parts of God must
work for
our good. Chapter 1
YOU TRAVEL WHEN YOU SLEEP YOU travel
when your body is in the state called sleep. The real "you" is not
your body; it is an unseen organization, your spirit. It has senses
like those
of the body, but far superior. It can see forms and hear voices miles
away from
the body. Your spirit is not in your body. It never was wholly in it;
it acts
on it and uses it as an instrument. It is a power which can make itself
felt
miles from your body. One-half
of our life is a blank to us: that is, the life of our spirit when it
leaves
the body at night. It goes then to countries far distant, and sees
people we
never know in the flesh. Sleep is a
process, unconsciously performed, of self-mesmerism. As the mesmeric
operator
wills another into unconsciousness, so do you nightly will yourself, or
rather
your body, into a state of insensibility. What the
mesmeric operator really does is to draw the spirit out of the body of
the
person he mesmerizes. He brings the thought of his subject to some
focus or
centre, as a coin held in the hand. While thus centred, the thought (or
spirit)
of the subject is put in such a condition that he can most easily
affect it by
his will. He wills then the person's spirit out of his body. This
done, he
throws his own thought in that body. It is then as a house left open by
its
owner. The mesmerizer then takes possession of that body by the power
of his
own thought. It is not the subject at all who sees, feels, and tastes
as the
operator wills: it is the spirit or thought of the mesmerizer himself,
exercised in another body, temporarily left vacant by its own
spirit. Thought is
a substance as much as air or any other unseen element of which
chemistry makes
us aware. It is of many and varying degrees in strength. Strong
thought or mind is the same as strong will. Some persons are so weak in
thought,
as compared with the practised mesmerizer, that they cannot resist him.
Others
of even stronger thought can give themselves up voluntarily to his
control. You
need not be overpowered by any one in this way, providing you resist
them in
mind, and call upon the higher power to assist you, if you feel their
thought
overcoming you. When we
"go to sleep," the spirit has been by its day's workings sent widely
scattered away from the body: with so little of its force left by it,
the body
falls into the trance state of slumber. As the mesmerizer draws
the spirit
away from the body of his subject, so has our spirit drawn itself away
from our
bodies by its many efforts during the day. Your body
is not your real self. The power that moves it as you will is your
spirit. That
is an invisible organization, quite distinct and apart from your
body. Your
spirit (your real self) uses your body as the carpenter does his hammer
or any
tool to work with. It is the
spirit that is tired at night. It is exhausted of its force, and
therefore not
able to use the body vigorously. The body is really then as strong as
ever, as
the carpenter's hammer has the same strength when his arm is too weak
to use
it. The spirit is
weak at night, because its forces have in thought been sent in so many
different directions during the day that it cannot call them together.
Every
thought is one of these forces, and a part of your spirit. Every
thought,
spoken or unspoken, is a thing, a substance, as real, though invisible,
as
water or metal. Every thought, though unspoken, is something which
goes to
that person, thing, or locality on which it is placed. Your spirit,
then, has
during the day been so sent in a thousand, perhaps ten thousand different
directions. When you think, you work. Every thought represents an
outlay of
force. So sending out force for sixteen or eighteen hours, there is not
at
night sufficient left in or near the body to use it. The body therefore
falls
into the condition of insensibility we call sleep. During this
condition the
spirit collects its scattered forces, its thoughts which have been sent
far and
wide; it returns with its powers so concentrated to the body, and again
possesses it with its full strength. It is when scattered as so many
scattered
rills of water trickling in many directions. Put all these together in
a single
volume, and you have the power that turns the mill-wheel. Could you
call all of your spirit at once to its centre, and so collect its
widely
scattered forces, you could be fresh and strong in as many minutes as
it now
takes hours to rest you. This power was known to the first Napoleon,
and
sustained him for days with very little sleep during the crisis of his
campaigns
when his energies were taxed to the utmost. It is a power which can be
acquired
by all through a certain training. It is done
by first placing the body in a state of as complete rest as possible;
stopping
all involuntary physical motions, such as the swinging of limbs,
tapping with
the foot, or drumming with the fingers. All such involuntary movements
waste
your force, and, worse, train you unconsciously to a habit hard to
break, of
wasting force. The involuntary working of the mind, the straying of
thought in
every direction,—towards persons, things, plans, and projects,—the
useless
frettings over cares great and small, must be similarly stopped, and
the mind
for a few minutes made as near a blank as possible. Concentration
of thought on the word "in-drawing," or "drawing into
self," or the mind-picture of your spirit with its fine electric
filaments
reaching to persons, places, and things far from you, being all drawn
back, and
massed in a focus, is a help to do this; because whatso you imagine in
your
mind is a spiritual reality. That
is, what you image, you are actually
in spirit and Inspirit
doing. Every plan or invention clearly seen in thought is of
thought-substance,
as real a thing as the wood, stone, iron, or other substance in which
afterward
it may be embodied and made visible to the body's eye, and made to work
results
on the physical stratum of life. If a man thinks
murder, he actually puts out an element of murder in the air. He sends
from him
a plan of murder as real as if drawn on paper; its thought is absorbed
by
others; so is this element and unseen plan of murder absorbed by other
minds;
it inclines them towards violence if not murder. If a person is ever
thinking
of sickness, he sends from him the element of sickness; if he thinks of
health,
strength, and cheerfulness, he sends from him constructions of
thought
affecting others to health and strength as well as himself. A man sends
from
him in thought what he (his spirit) is most built of. "As a man
thinketh,
so is he." Your spirit is a bundle of thought; what you think most of,
that is your spirit. Imagine, then, yourself as such a being, drawing
in all
these filaments, sent and placed as they are to so many things. The
thoughts so
passing from you in one minute could hardly be plainly written out in
an hour.
You gather them to a centre. You have then gathered in and concentrated
your
full motive power; then you can put all its force on any thing you
please. When
the eye and mind are put on any single object that does not tax the
energies,
say a spot in the wall, the positive thought or filaments reaching out
are
drawn in to the common centre. Your absorption on any single thing
loosens them
from their near or far point of contact. Before such loosening, the
spirit is
as the expanded hand and ringers. When the thought is drawn in, the
spirit is
as the closed or clinched fist. When
thought is sent out to any thing, you send out your force. When it is
centred
in a single thing, and so drawn in and kept from straying every moment,
you are
drawing in force. The Hindu
"adept" becomes able, through a certain training of mind, to send
his spirit or himself from his body. It is still connected with it by
the fine
unseen current of life known in the Bible as the "silver thread."
When that thread is snapped, body and spirit are completely severed,
and the
body dies. The "adept" has allowed himself to be buried alive. Rice
has been sown over his grave, and sprouted. Seals were put in his
coffin, and
the grave carefully watched. He has so remained for weeks, and when dug
up
"came to life." The real
man was never buried at all. It was only his body in the self-induced
trance
state, that was buried. Between his body and spirit, possibly miles
away, the
fine thread of spirit kept up the body's life, or rather such supply of
life as
the body needed to keep it from decay. When the body was dug up, his
spirit
returned, and took full possession of it. He was able to do with his
own body
what the mesmerizer does with the body of his subject. He sent his own
spirit
out of it; the mesmerizer sent his subject's spirit out.
Before so sending out his
spirit, the
adept makes his mind a blank. Before drawing out the spirit of his
subject, the
operator causes the subject to make his own mind a blank; in other
words, he
stops the resisting forces of the other person's thought by turning all
his
thought to a centre. Your
spirit can, and does frequently, go from your body to other places
during
sleep. It is then still connected with it by this thread of exceedingly
fine
element. This can be drawn out to a great distance. It is as an
expanding or
contracting electric wire connecting your spirit with the
instrument it
operates, your body. This power of
the spirit so to leave the body accounts for the phenomenon of
persons being
seen in two places far distant at the same time. It is the spirit that
is seen
by some clairvoyant eye. It is the "double," the "doppel
ganger" of the German, the "wraith" of the Scotch. The
spirit may even be far from the body just previous to the body's death.
It is
only the feeble supply of life sent it through the connecting thread,
which
causes the involuntary throes (so called) of dissolution. These
are not as
painful as they seem. The real self, the spirit, even then may be
unaware of
the "death-bed scene." It may go to some person, possibly at a
distance, to whom it is much attracted; and thereby is solved the
mystery of
the apparitions, seen by distant friends, of persons whose deaths
at or about
the time of such appearances were not heard of until months after. Sometimes
people, during periods of sickness, fall uncon-sciously into a state
where the
spirit leaves the body, without snapping the threads of life. The
body's trance
has then been mistaken for its real death, and it (the body) has been
buried alive.
The spirit has been compelled to return to its body in the coffin. The
thread
could only be severed after such return. Your real
being is ever sending out, with each thought, a fine electric ray or
filament,
representing so much of your life, your force, your vitality, and
reaching to
the object, place, or person to which such thought is sent, be it six
feet or
thousands of miles from your body. Your
thought is your real strength. When you lift a weight, you put your
thought on
the muscle that lifts. The heavier the weight, the more of your thought
do you
put on it. If, in so lifting, a part of your thought is turned in some
other
direction, if someone talks to you, if something frightens or
annoys you, a
part of your strength or thought leaves you. It goes to whatever has
taken away
a part of your attention from lifting. It is
mind, thought, spirit, that use the muscle to lift, as we use a rope to
pull up
a weight. There is no lifting or working without intelligence.
Intelligence,
thought, mind, and spirit mean about the same thing. It does
not matter, in order to give strength, whether the spirit, when once
called
together, be near the body or at a distance from it. So that it brings its forces (its
thoughts)
together, be it far from its body or near it, it is strong; and when it
again
takes possession of your body, and wakes it up, it is able to use the
body with
its full strength. But the
spirit may remain scattered all night. It may never be able to bring
its forces
together at any time. It may be living, as many now are, with its
thought
always in advance of the act it is now doing or trying to do. It is
walking the
body and sending out its force (its thought) to the place it hurries
to. It is
writing with the body, and thinking of something else. When it frets,
it sends
out force to the thing fretted about. These states of mind, acts of
thought,
and useless waste of force become at last so confirmed in habit, that
the
spirit may lose all power of bringing all its strength together. In
this state
it gathers no strength by night or day. Sleeplessness
comes of the difficulty of the spirit to bring itself to a centre and
collect
its forces. Insanity comes of the total inability of the spirit to
focus its
thoughts. The permanent cure for sleeplessness must commence in
the daytime.
You must drill your mind to put its whole thought on the act you are
now doing.
If you tie your shoe, think shoe and nothing else. Then you bring
yourself to a
centre, and collect your forces. If you tie your shoe, and think of
what you
are going to buy the next hour, you are sending needlessly half of your
force
from yourself. You are in reality trying to do two things at once. You
do
neither well. You are scattering your spirit on as many things as
you think of
while tying the shoe. You are cultivating the bad habit of scattering
your
force, until such habit becomes involuntary. You are making it more and
more
difficult for your spirit to collect itself together. By so doing, you
make it
more difficult for the spirit to return with strength to its body in
the
morning, or to leave it at night. You can get no healthy sleep at night
unless
your spirit does withdraw from its body. Sleeplessness means simply
that your
spirit cannot leave its body. If you
fall into the dangerous habit of fretting, your spirit may fret as much
on
going from its body at night as when using it in the daytime. Or, if
you are of
a quarrelsome disposition, it may be quarrelling, fighting, and
hating all
night, and so return to its body without any strength to use it;
because all
quarrelling, if only in thought, is constantly using up force. It is for
this very reason dangerous and unhealthy to let the "sun go down on
your
wrath;" that is, to have in mind, just before the body's eyes close in
sleep, the recollection of the persons you dislike, and be then engaged
in
sending hating thought to them. The spirit will keep up the process
after
"it leaves the body. To hate is simply to expend force in tearing
yourself, your spirit, to pieces. Hate is a destructive force.
Good-will to all
is constructive: it builds you up stronger and stronger. Hate tears you
down.
Good-will to all draws to you healthy and constructive elements
from all with
whom you come in contact. Could you see the actual, elements as
they flow from them to you, in their
liking for you, you would see them as fine rills of life feeding yours.
Could
you see the contrary elements of hatred which you may excite in others,
you
would see them flowing toward you as dark rays or
rills of dangerous, poisonous substance. If you send
out to it its like, the thought of hatred, you only add to the
unhealthy force
and power of that element, because these two opposed and dangerous
elements
meet and mingle, act and re-act on those who send them, ever calling on
each to
send fresh supply of force to keep up the war, until both are
exhausted.
Self-interest should prompt people to hate none. It weakens the body,
and
causes disease. You never saw a healthy cynic, growler, or grumbler.
Their
soured thought poisons them. Their bodily disease originates in their
minds.
Their spirits are sick. That
makes the
body sick. All disease originates in this way. Cure the spirit, change
the
state of the mind, replace the desire to make others feel disagreeably
by that
of making them feel agreeably, and you are on the road to cure
disease. When
the spirit originates no warring, hating, gloomy, despondent thought,
no manner
of unpleasant thought, the body will take no disease whatever. You can only
oppose successfully the hatred or evil thought of others by throwing
out toward
it the thought of good-will. Good-will as a thought-element is
more powerful
than the thought of hate. It can turn it aside. The "shafts of
malice," even in thought, are real things. They can and do hurt people
on
whom they are directed, and make them sick. The Christ precept, "Do
good
to them that hate you," is based on a scientific law. It means that
thoughts are things, and that the thought of good can always overpower
that of
evil. By power is here meant power in as literal a sense as in
speaking of the
force that lifts a table or chair. The fact that all thought, all
emotion, all
of what is called sentiment, or qualities such as mercy, patience,
love, etc.,
are elements as real as any we see, is the cornerstone to the
scientific basis
of religion. What you
call dreams are realities. Your spirit away from your body at night
goes to and
sees persons and places. To some of these you may have never gone
with your
body. You remember on the body's awakening very little of what you have
seen.
What you do remember is mixed pell-mell together. That is because your
memory
of the body can hold but a little of what is grasped by the memory of your spirit. You have two
memories, one trained and adapted to the life of your body, the other
of your
spirit. Had you known of the life and power of your spirit from
infancy, and
recognized it as a reality, the memory of your spirit would have been
so
trained that it would remember all of its own life and bring it back to
you on
the awakening of the body. But as you have been taught to regard even
your
spirit as a myth, so you make of its memory a myth. Were a human being
taught
from infancy to discredit the evidence of any of its senses, then that
sense
would be blunted and almost destroyed. Let all associated with a child
for
years deliberately set to work and tell it that they could not see the
sky or
houses, fields, or other familiar objects at hand; and with none
allowed to
break the delusion, that child's eyesight as well as its judgment would
be
seriously affected. We are similarly taught to deny all the senses and
powers
of our spirits; or, rather, the real powers of ourselves, of which the
senses
of the body are a faint counterpart, are persistently denied.
Substantially we
are taught that we are nothing but bodies. This is equivalent to
telling the
carpenter that he is nothing but the hammer he uses. If in a
so-called dream you see a person who died years ago, you see simply a
person
whose body, being worn out, could no longer be used by him on this
stratum of
life.
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