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to corroborate this conclusion of their ancient brothers. Therefore, we have thought it well to present this phase of our subject to you in the form of these three ancient formulas, adapted to modern needs, and expressed in the plain terms of the western world rather than in the verbal imagery of eastern lands.
The Three Formulas of Personal Power are as follows: (1) The Formula of Idealization; (2) the Formula of Affirmation; and (3) the Formula of Actualization. A formula is, “a prescribed, set rule or method of application”. You are asked to consider carefully the description and instruction concerning these three several formulas, as hereinafter presented to you in detail under their respective headings and categories.
THE FORMULA OF IDEALIZATION. Idealization consists of the act or process of creating the ideal (mental) form, pattern, design, or mold of that which you desire to materialize in objective reality. Ideals, dearly defined in outline and sharply defined in configuration, well energized and vitalized by an inflow of WillPower, tend to materialize themselves in objective reality, by means of (a) building up a corresponding ethereal pattern, outline, design or mold, around which is deposited the substance of materialization; and (b) by means of attracting to themselves the persons, conditions, things and environmental factors which aid in the process of materialization. Materialization is the act or process of investing with material form, or material properties, that which has previously existed in idealized form or condition.
In the Formula of Idealization there is embodied a wonderful truth concerning the manifestation of Nature’s Finer Forces, which truth was well known to the ancient esoteric schools of philosophy, and which has always been accepted (in one form or another) by the advanced students and teachers of the Ancient Wisdom or Esoteric Doctrines, of all lands, and in all times.
Our Western science, however, has heretofore been disposed to treat all such teachings as idle superstition, or “occult nonsense”. The wonderful discoveries of science during the past twenty years, however, have tended to break down the barrier between esoteric science and exoteric science, and, at the present time many careful advanced thinkers in the ranks of modern science are disposed to manifest a far greater tolerance toward these ancient teachings; and are furnishing explanations along the lines of modern scientific discoveries, which seek to account for the phenomena explained in other terms by the ancient thinkers.
In the meantime, however, thousands of persons are making wonderful demonstrations of these truths in their everyday life and work; and, consequently, are not much concerned over what modern science may or may not have to say concerning the explanation in modern scientific terms. They are interested far more in the fact that “the thing works”, and in learning “just how it works”, than in theories attempting to explain “why it works, if it does work as is claimed.”
The gist of the ancient and modern teachings upon the subject of the workings of the process of Idealization, may be stated as follows: A strongly projected ThoughtForm, or Idealized Form, vitalized and energized by WillPower, tends to attract to itself, and to build around itself, its materialized counterpart or material representation. In this way, the Ideal becomes Real (in the sense of objective and material existence and condition); and Idealization is transformed into Materialization.
It is not our intention, nor our purpose, in this book, to go into technical details nor to enter into academic discussions concerning the processes performed by Nature in working these wonders. To attempt this would be to enter into an endless discussion and explanation which would take the whole instruction out of the region of practical, popular examination and consideration. But, nevertheless, we wish to mention briefly the general principles involved, and thus to give you a hint as to the direction in which the technical explanation of these phenomena lies, and where it may be sought if one so desires to pursue the inquiry further in that direction.
A leading writer upon the teaching of Ancient and Modern Magic, says: “The central doctrine of Magic may be summed up as follows:
“(1) That a supersensible and real ‘cosmic medium’ exists, which interpenetrates, influences and supports the tangible and apparent world, and which is amenable to the categories of both philosophy and physics. This ‘cosmic medium’ or ‘astral light’ is first cousin to the intangible ether of the physicists. From the earliest times, occult philosophy has proclaimed its knowledge of this medium, always describing it as a scientific fact, outside the range of our normal senses, but susceptible of verification by the trained powers of the initiate. It was the first object of occult education and initiation to actualize this supersensible plane of experience, teaching the student how to impose upon its forces the directive forces of his own thought and will, as easily as he might impose these upon the material things of sense.
“(2) That there is an established analogy and equilibrium between the material and supermaterial world. This doctrine of Analogy, or correspondence between the seen and the unseen worlds, is the basis of the speculations of occultism. ‘As above, so below; as below, so above’, the first axiom of Hermes Trismegistus, is also agreeable to all Platonists. Says Eliphas Levi: ‘Analogy is the last word of science, and the first word of faith; it is the key of all the secrets of nature’. It was admitted into the system of the Kabalah, and Boehme and Swenborg gladly availed themselves of its method in presenting their intuitions to the world. Sir Thomas Browne said: ‘The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein, as in a portrait, things are not in material shapes, but in ideal shapes which picture some material substance in that invisible framework’.
“(3) That the equilibrium between the material and supermaterial worlds may be controlled by the disciplined Thought and Will of man. In its essence, magical initiation is a traditional form of mental discipline, strengthening and focusing the will. Says Eliphas Levi: ‘Just as the powers of the body can be developed to an amazing extent by athletics, so may the powers of the soul be likewise developed; learn how to will’. This power of the will is daily gaining recognition in the camps of science, as the chief factors in religion and in therapeutics—of the healing of the body and the healing of the soul—for our most advanced theories on these subjects are little more than the old wine in the new bottles.”
Modern philosophy, supported to a great extent by the facts of science, explain some of the asserted facts of “Magic”, as just stated, by the theory of Unconscious Will and Unconscious Idea as Cosmic Principles—the extension of this conception to Man, on the principle of Analogy, “as above, so below; as below, so above”, giving the key to the secret of the creative activities of Man. In short, it implicitly asserts that Man, the microcosm, may proceed to create by means of the deliberate employment of the same methods and processes, and through the same principles, as those employed by Nature, or the Cosmos, the macrocosm. And, as we shall show you in the following paragraphs, modern science postulates the existence of a counterpart of the “cosmic medium” or “astral light” of the occultists.
Modern science, in the conception of the Universal Ether, asserts the existence of an immaterial, imponderable substance similar to that postulated by the ancient Hindu philosophers under the name of “Akasha”, or “Prakriti”. This Universal Ether is held by modern Science to pervade all space, and to be “the ultimate state or condition of all materiality”; matter is held to be a derivative product of it, and to be destined eventually to return to it.
Stockwell says: “The Ether is coming to be apprehended as immaterial, superphysical substance, filling all space, carrying in its infinite throbbing bosom the specks of aggregated dynamic force called worlds. It embodies the ultimate spiritual principle, and represents the unity of those forces and energies from which spring, as their source, all phenomena, physical, mental, and spiritual, as they are known to us.” Bigelow speaks of: “That extraordinary entity upon whose inferential existence the lines of modern scientific thought seem to converge, the instellar Ether, which seems likely to prove the ultimate form of Matter out of which everything comes and to which everything must eventually return. The Ether is unconditioned, an entity of no properties, or more exactly not an entity at all, but an infinite possibility.”
So then, if you demand to know what support our Formula of Idealization has in ancient thought, or in modern science, you have it suggested to you in the foregoing.