Master Mind (The Key to Mental Power Development & Efficiency). William Walker Atkinson
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But, if you are speaking literally, if you say that it is in the brain, as a pencil is in the pocket, then you must mean that it takes up room, that it occupies space, and that would make it very much like a material thing. In truth, the more carefully you consider it, the more plainly you will see what thinking men have known for a long time— that we do not know and cannot learn anything about the thing which thinks, and feels, and wills. It is beyond the range of human knowledge. The books which define psychology as the science of mind have not a word to say about that which thinks, and feels, and wills. They are entirely taken up with these thoughts and feelings and acts of the will—mental facts, in a word—trying to tell us what they are, and to arrange them in classes, and tell us the circumstances or conditions under which they exist. It seems to me that it would be better to define psychology as the science of the experience, phenomena, or facts of the mind, soul, or self—of mental facts, in a word."
And, so in this book, we shall not invade the field of metaphysics or the region of philosophy, with the endless discussions of "about it and about" concerning the "just what is" of the soul, self, or mind. Rather shall we dwell contentedly in the safer region of "mental facts," and speak only of the "just how to do things'' with the mind, based upon the discovery of "just how the mind works" made by advanced psychology. This is the method of the Pragmatic Plan now so favored by modern thinkers—the plan which is concerned with the "how," rather than with the "ultimate why." As William James has said: "Pragmatism is the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, categories, supposed necessities; and of looking forward toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts." As another writer has said: "Modern psychology is essentially prismatic in its treatment of the subject of the mind in giving to metaphysics the old arguments and disputes regarding the ultimate nature of mind, it bends all its energies upon discovering the laws of mental activities and states, and developing methods whereby the mind may be trained to perform better and more work, to conserve its energies, to concentrate its forces. To modern psychology the mind is something to be used, not merely something about which to postulate and theorize. While the metaphysicians deplore this tendency, the practical people of the world rejoice."
Mind Mastery vs. Mind Slavery
But, you may say, what do you mean by "The Master Mind?" What is the difference between a Master Mind and any other form of Mind? Simply this, good readers, that the Master Mind is consciously, deliberately, and voluntarily built up, cultivated, developed, and used; whereas the ordinary mind is usually unconsciously built up, cultivated, and developed, without voluntary effort on its own part, but solely by the force and power of impressions from the outside world, and is usually employed and used with little or no conscious direction by its own will. In short, the ordinary mind is a mere creature of circumstances, driven hither and thither by the winds of outside forces, and lacking the guidance of the hand on the wheel, and being without the compass of knowledge; while the Master Mind proceeds in the true course mapped out by Intelligence, and determined by will—with sails set so as to catch the best breeze from the outside world, and steered by the master-hand at the wheel, under the direction of the compass of intelligence. The ordinary mind is like a dumb, driven animal, while the Master Mind is like the strong-willed, intelligent, masterful Man.
The average man is a very slave to his thoughts and feelings. A stream of thought and feeling flows through him, moving him hither and thither with little or no voluntary choice on his own part. Even those men who have attained a certain degree of mental mastery do but little more than to feebly steer their mental bark by the rudder of a wobbling will—they do not realize that Mastery is possible to them. Even a well known writer has said: ''We do not voluntarily create our thinking. It takes place in us. We are more or less passive recipients. We cannot change the nature of a thought; but we can, as it were, guide the ship by a moving of the helm.'' It would be truer to say that we can deliberately and voluntarily select and choose the particular wind which is to force our mental boat forward or, changing the figure, to choose and select the particular stream of thought and feeling which is to be allowed to flow through our mind.
There are three general conditions of human mentality, viz.: (1) Mental Slavery, in which the mind is the slave and servant of outside forces and influences; (2) Partial Freedom, in which the mind is largely controlled by outside influences, while at the same time a limited amount of voluntary control and direction has been acquired; and (3) Mental Mastery, in which the mental faculties, and emotional organism have been brought under the control of the will and judgment, and the individual is a master of, and not a slave to, environment and circumstances. The great masses of persons are in the first or the above named classes; a comparatively small number have passed into the second class; while a still smaller number have passed into the third class, and have become the Master Minds of their time and place.
A talented writer has said along these lines: "We moderns are unaccustomed to the mastery over our inner thoughts and feelings. That a man should be a prey to any thought that chances to take possession of his mind, is commonly among us assumed as unavoidable. It may be a matter of regret that he should be kept awake all night from anxiety as to the issue of a lawsuit on the morrow, and that he should have the power of determining whether he be kept awake or not seems an extravagant demand. The image of an impending calamity is no doubt odious, but its very odiousness (we say) makes it haunt the mind all the more pertinaciously, and it is useless to expel it. Yet this is an absurd position for man, the heir of all the ages, to be in: lag-ridden by the flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble in our boot torments us, we expel it. We take off the boot and shake it out. And once the matter is fairly understood, it is just as easy to expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from the mind. About this there ought to be no mistake, no two opinions. The thing is obvious, clear and unmistakable. It should be as easy to expel an obnoxious thought from the mind as to shake a stone out of your shoe; and until a man can do that, it is just nonsense to talk about his ascendancy over nature, and all the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and a prey to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through the corridors of his own brain. Yet the weary and careworn faces that we meet by thousands, even among the affluent classes of civilization, testify only too clearly how seldom this mastery is obtained. How rare indeed to find a man! How common rather to discover a creature hounded on by tyrant thoughts (or cares, or desires), cowering, wincing under the lash—or perchance priding himself to run merrily to a driver that rattles the reins and persuades him that he is free— whom he cannot converse with in careless tete-a-tete because that alien presence is always there, on the watch.
"It is one of the prominent doctrines of some of the oriental schools of practical psychology that the power of expelling thoughts, or if need be, killing them dead on the spot, must be attained. Naturally the art requires practice, but like other arts, when once acquired there is no mystery or difficulty about it. It is worth practice. It may be fairly said that life only begins when this art has been acquired. For obviously when, instead of being ruled by individual thoughts, the whole flock of them in their immense multitude and variety and capacity is ours to direct and dispatch and employ where we list, life becomes a thing so vast and grand, compared to what it was before, that its former condition may well appear almost ante-natal. If you can kill a thought dead, for the time being, you can do anything else with it that you please. And therefore it is that this power is so valuable. And it not only frees a man from mental torment (which is nine-tenths at least of the torment of life), but it gives him a concentrated power of handling mental work absolutely unknown to him before. The two are corelative to each other.
"While at work your thought is to he absolutely concentrated upon and in it, undistracted by anything whatever irrelevant to the matter in hand—pounding away like a great engine, with giant power and perfect economy—no wear and tear or friction, or dislocation of parts owing to the working of different forces at the same time. Then when the work is finished, if there is no more occasion for the use of the machine, it must stop equally, absolutely—stop entirely—no worrying (as if a parcel of boys were allowed to play their devilments with a locomotive as soon as it was in the shed)—and the man must retire into that region of his consciousness where his true self dwells.
"I say that the power of the thought-machine is enormously increased by this faculty of letting it alone on the one hand, and of using it singly and with concentration on the other. It becomes