THE POWER OF MIND. William Walker Atkinson
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from the Brooklyn bridge, stated that it seemed as if, during the few seconds required for his descent to the water beneath, there passed through his memory all the acts of his life, in their proper order—some of which had not appeared in his recollection for years, and which would have all his life remained dormant except for some extraordinary stimulus such as this. It is the almost universal experience of drowning persons who have been rescued at the last moment and resuscitated, that during the few moments just preceding the loss of consciousness, the memory suddenly grasps with a marvelous vigor the deeds of the life which seems about to end, and by some mysterious compelling intuition the sufferer is able and obliged to recognize at the same time, and more fully than ever before, the right or wrong of each particular act.”
The following quotations will show you, at a glance, what an important part is played by this Inner Conscious faculty of Memory, in the domain of knowledge, in the opinion of eminent authorities:
“All knowledge is but remembrance.”—Bacon.
“That which constitutes recollection or an act of memory is the present image which a past sensation has left in us, an image which seems to us the sensation itself.”—Taine.
“Memory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other can work; the cement, the bitumen, the matrix in which the other faculties are imbedded. Without it all life and thought were an unrelated succession.”—Emerson.
“There is no faculty of the mind which can bring its energy into effect unless the memory be stored with ideas for it to look upon.”—Burke.
“Every organ—indeed, every area and every element—of the nervous system has its own memory.”—Ladd.
“Memory is the golden thread linking all the mental gifts and excellences together.”—Hood.
“Memory is the cabinet of imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and the councilchamber of thought.”—Basile.
“A man’s real possession is his memory; in nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.”—Alexander Smith.
“I would rather have a perfect recollection of all that I have thought and felt in a day or a week of high activity, than read all the books that have been published in a century.”—Emerson.
And, after reading the above, remember that all of the records of Memory are stored away on the planes of the Inner Consciousness, the existence of which has been denied by the majority of people until very recently. In considering the marvelous phenomena of Memory, what thinking man can doubt that his Mind, and Self, are greater by far than the little, narrow field of outer consciousness, which is nothing by the eyepiece of his mental telescope, or microscope, before which pass in review the objects rising from, or superimposed by, the planes of the Inner Consciousness?
Lesson IV.
The Mental Storehouse.
IN THE previous lessons we have stated that there are planes of the Inner Consciousness which resemble vast mental storehouses in which are placed the materials from which much of our thinking is composed. These thoughtmaterials are brought by the porters and Carriers of our mental warehouse into the field of consciousness, or thoughtfactory, where they are manufactured into the fabric of conscious thought and action. In those vast mental warehouses are much that we never placed there ourselves—the remnants of mental goods stored by countless ancestors, which are constantly being brought forward to be woven into the fabric of our thoughts. But, there are also vast quantities of material, good, bad and indifferent, placed there by ourselves, and it is these personal contributions to the storehouse which largely determine that thoughts and acts which result from what we call “our character” or our “nature.” And this being the fact, is it not of the greatest importance that we should be careful just what kind of material we place in these great mental warehouses and storage chambers? Our present thoughts and actions—our characters, in fact, are largely the result of our past thoughts and mental attitude. And the thoughts, actions and character of each of you, in the future, will be largely the result of the mental material which you are now placing in these storage rooms of your mind. This is not “preaching” or “moralizing,” but is merely the calling of your attention to facts and truths known to, and admitted by, all students of psychology.
We are today largely the result of what we have thought, or what we have allowed to impress us in the past. Our Mental Attitude, together with the kind of suggestions that we have allowed to impress us in the past, determines to a great extent our “character” and “self” of today. When we think, we do not manufacture the thoughtfabric out of the thin air, or sunlight, or out of “nothing” as many seem to suppose. Each bit of wonderful fabric of thought and action is the result of the weaving of the mental material that we have accumulated in the past and stored away in some of the storage rooms of the Inner Consciousness. This surely is plain enough to everyone who will give the matter a moment’s thought, and yet how few really have realized the truth and still fewer are those who have learned to act upon this principle. If we were building a house, store or any other building, how careful we would be to see that none but the best materials were delivered to the builders in whose hands the erection of the property was placed. How carefully each item of material would be inspected. If we were in the manufacturing business, and wished to turn out goods of fine quality, how careful we would be regarding the grade of the material to be used. Our buyer would exercise his skill, and the inspector would look over each consignment as it arrived, rejecting all imperfect and unsatisfactory material. And yet, how careless we are regarding our thoughts, moods, mental attitudes, and autosuggestions that we place among the material to be used in our mental building and manufacturing in the days to come. Is it not time to call a halt on these careless and almost criminal methods, and adopt a sane, scientific plane of thought-life?
The Mental Attitude of a man is represented by the character of thoughts which he allows to “take a hold on him.” If he allows every despondent, negative, hurtful thought to obtain lodgment in his mind, his mental attitude will gradually become in harmony with such thoughts, and he will be laying away a fresh stock of negative thoughts each day, which will surely be woven into the mental-fabric he turns out on some future day. Can you doubt this, when you know of the effects of certain mental “habits” of manifestation? And what are these habits, but the using of the thought-material of the past? How much harder is it for a man whose mind is full of these negative thought-materials to present a bold, confident, courageous front in the battles of life? His every instinct and habit of thought is against it. It is so much easier to droop the shoulders, and fold the hands, and say “what’s the use?” in such a case— because all the mental material is of that dark grey, negative hue—all the material is of that rotten, worthless quality. But if, in the past you have cultivated the habit of refusing to admit the negative thoughts and suggestions—have thrown them out on the scrap-pile, and have stored away nothing but the bright, cheerful, courageous and positive thoughts and suggestions— then when you begin to build or weave you will surely produce the best kind of thought and action. You cannot help it, for you are working with the best materials, and with your mental machine adjusted to the proper gauge.
All this is far more than “jollying” or “cheering-up talk”—it is a statement of psychological fact which if once thoroughly understood by the masses of people, would make this old world of ours over into a much brighter and cheerful place. An understanding of these principles will make you over mentally, if you will but act upon your new knowledge. There is no “secret process” connected with this work—all that is necessary for you to do, is to Will that henceforth you will allow no negative, depressing or undesirable thought take lodgment in your mind, but will on the contrary keep steadily at work replacing the undesirable things in your mind with desirable material. When a negative thought comes into your field of consciousness, dismiss it with the thought “there is another bit of that mental truck that I stored away—away with it to the scrap-pile.” And lose no opportunity of thinking the bright, optimistic, positive, desirable thoughts,