Master Mind (The Key to Mental Power Development & Efficiency). William Walker Atkinson
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have found an Ultimate Something which defies all analysis, refinement, or separation."
This Something Within—this "I"—is that entity which in philosophy and metaphysics has been called "The Ego"; but such name does nothing in the way of defining it. You need not stop to speculate over "just what" the Ego is, for you will never learn this. All that you can know is that it IS—and you know this from the ultimate report of your own consciousness, and in no other way, for nothing outside of yourself can make you know this otherwise.
This Ego is the Mind Master—the Central Authority of your Mind. It is this that is able to master, control, manage, rule, regulate and direct all of your mental faculties, energies, powers, forces, and mechanism. It is this Ego, when fully awakened into activity, which constitutes the essence of the Master Mind.
Your task is not to try to learn "just what" the Ego is, for as has been said, you will never know this. Your task is to strive to awaken it into active consciousness, so that it may realize its power and begin to employ it. You can awaken it by the proper mental attitude toward it—by the conscious realization of its presence and power. And you can gradually cause it to realize its power, and to use the same, by means of exercises calling into play that power. This is what Will Power really means. Your Will is strong already—it does not need strengthening; what is needed is that you urge your Ego into realizing that it can use your Will Power, and to teach it to use the same by means of the right kind of exercises. You must learn to gradually awaken the half-asleep Giant, and set it to work in its own natural field of endeavor and activity. In this book the way will be pointed out to you so that you may do this; but you will have to actively DO the thing, after being shown how He who will, carefully consider the above statements of truth, and will make them apart of his mental armament, will have grasped the secret of the Master Mind.
Chapter 3
The Slave Will and The Master Will
All deep students of psychology discover that the Will is the innermost, garment of the Ego—the mental sheath which lies beneath all the others, and which clings closely to the substance of the Ego, so closely that it can scarcely be distinguished from its wearer. And so, the race has become accustomed to identifying the Will with the Ego. For instance, we speak of a "weak will," or a "strong will," a "vacillating will," or a "persistent, determined will"; when we really mean to indicate the different degrees of the activity and expression of the Ego itself.
Perhaps you will get more clearly this conception of the Ego behind the Will, if we continue our illustration of the Ego as sleeping in the cast of the great masses of the race, half-awake in the smaller portion of the race, and wide-awake in the elect few who may be called the Master Minds. While this illustration is of course figurative, it is based upon the actual facts of the case before us, and, moreover, comes so closely to the real manifestations of the Ego that it may he used in almost a literal sense.
The sleeping Ego is like a person wrapped in slumber, who is almost unconscious, but who will "turn over," or "move over" at the command of the bedfellow. In some cases the degree of waking-consciousness is somewhat higher, as in the case of the child who, half roused from slumber, will do what it is told by its parent, but without clearly realizing just what it is doing. This illustration may be carried even still further, and the sleeping Ego compared to the somnambulist, or "sleep-walker," who "goes through the motions" of performing many tasks and actions, but who is but very dimly conscious (or practically unconscious) of just what he is doing or how he is doing it.
The masses of the race, in whom the Ego is dwelling in this condition, are really little more than automatons. Their wills are called into activity by every passing desire, their passions and desires are uncontrolled, and their thought-processes are the result of suggestions made by others but which they accept and then fondly imagine they have thought the thing for themselves. They are like the wind-harps upon which the winds of the passing breeze blow, and from which the responsive sounds are produced. It is a fact known to careful students of psychology that in the case of the masses of the race the mental processes, and the will activity, are practically those of an automaton, or psychical machine, there being little or no voluntary effort exerted or voluntary choice or decision made.
The wills of such persons are Slave Wills, subject to the influence, control, and direction of others; although their owners may fondly imagine that they are sound thinkers and possessed of powerful wills. The will processes of such persons are almost entirely what are known as "reflex" activities, requiring the employment of but little powers of judgment and little or no exercise of voluntary control. Do you realize just what this means? Probably not; so you are asked to consider what ''reflex'' activity really is.
The following quotation from a leading psychologist will throw some light on the matter for you. This writer says: "Reflex nervous action is the result of that power resident in nervous ganglia, which often unconsciously causes many muscular and vital movements. The spinal cord is largely made up of such masses of nervous matter, which have sometimes been called 'little brains.' If one were to prick the foot of a sleeper, the sensory nerve at that point would report the fact to one of the lower spinal nerve masses. This ganglion, without waiting to hear from the brain, would issue a command to the motor nerve, and the foot would be immediately withdrawn. Unless the thrust were severe, the sleeper would not awake, nor would he be conscious of pain or of the movement of his foot. This nervous action is called 'reflex,' because, when the sensory nerve conveys an impulse to the ganglion, this impulse is at once, and without the action of the mind, reflected back by a motor nerve. Thus the mind is not only saved the trouble of attending to every little movement, but much time is gained. After the child has learned the difficult art of balancing himself on his feet, walking becomes largely a reflex act. At first, the child must center his whole attention on movements to balance the body. The man can think out the most complex problems while walking, because the reflex nervous centers are superintending the balancing process.
"Few men remember which end of the collar they button on first, or which shoe they put on first, yet the reflex nerve center, if left to itself, has an invariable order in executing these movements. Some vertebrates have much more reflex power than man. The spinal cord in such animals keeps its vitality for a long time after decapitation, and the nerve masses in the cord have the power to set the motor nerves in action, causing muscular contraction. For this reason a decapitated snake will squirm around in a lively manner if its tail is struck. The reason why fowls often flutter so violently after the fatal stroke is because they are thrown roughly down. The sensory nerves report the bruise or jar to a reflex center, which agitates the motor nerves controlling the muscles which would ordinarily move them out of a harmless way. If beheaded fowls are laid carefully on straw or some soft substance, they will scarcely move. But if they should be kicked a moment or two later, they will frequently jump around in a lively manner. If acid is placed on the side of a decapitated frog, the animal will, by reflex action, bring its foot to the spot and try to brush the drop away. Man also has something of this reflex power after death. The pectoral muscle of a beheaded French criminal was pinched, and the right hand was raised to the spot as if to remove the cause of the injury.''
Some may object that we are making too strong a statement when we say that the mental activity of the great masses of people are practically akin to the "reflex'' actions above described. People "think" about what they do, before doing it, these objectors say. Of course "people think"; or, rather, they "think that they think"; but in reality the process of their "thinking" is almost reflex, that is to say it is automatic and mechanical rather than deliberate and controlled by will and judgment. Their thought is usually based upon some suggested premise— some so-called fact accepted through suggestion from others and without verification or duo consideration. Their accepted "facts" are usually found to be those which agree with their likes, feelings, or prejudices, rather than which are based upon careful and unprejudiced investigation. If the facts do not agree with these prejudices and wishes, then "so much the worse for the facts," and the latter are discarded, and eliminated from the so-called "thinking."
And the process of reasoning of these people is likewise