Prentice Mulford - The Collected Works of Prentice Mulford

Sometimes you find yourself, without knowing why, in the self-contained, satisfied, contented mood of spirit. You are able to walk leisurely. You are in no hurry. No wild or unconquerable desire is upon you. You feel at peace with all the world. You have forgotten your enemies, your cares, your anxieties. It is then you most enjoy the woods, the skies, the passing crowd about you. It is then, when you are amused by them, that you most study them. You see peculiarities of person and manner which would escape you at other times. Your mind, quiet and undisturbed, is constantly receiving agreeable and vivid impressions. You wish such moods could last forever. So they can. This is the mood born of the concentrated spirit. Your spirit is then focussed to a state of rest; It is holding its strength in reserve, only expending enough to move your body.

We are, when in this state, absorbing thought. To absorb thought is to absorb lasting power. But if, when in the act of such absorption, any thing annoys or hurries us, this power of absorbing thought is instantly destroyed. Our spirit ceases then to be the open hand receiving ideas. It becomes the clinched fist. It is then combative. It goes straight to whatever annoys or hurries it, and rages and frets around it. When we say “goes,” we mean our thought as an element literally goes out to the place we are hurrying to, or the person who troubles. It is a real thing so going out. It is our strength of both body and mind which is constantly leaving us. We cease then to study. Repose and serenity of mind means a condition of perpetual study; and, with such, a continual in-drawing of strength. We can discipline ourselves to such repose, until it will accompany and pervade all efforts, so that we shall rest as we work.

This is the mood of mind proper for study, work, or enjoyment. These three things should mean but one,—enjoyment. Without this mood, nothing can be really enjoyed; with its cultivation, every thing becomes more and more enjoyable. It is the mood of construction. Our unseen forces are then massed together: so massed, they can turn their full strength on any thing at a moment’s notice. It is the mood in which you want to walk into the office of the hard, purse-proud man who proposes to crush you with a look. Keep in this mood, and you are more than his equal. He will feel your power before you speak. It is the mood of mind which you need to deal with the wily shopkeeper, who makes you feel by his manner that he expects you to buy something, whether you wish to or not, and generally succeeds in making you do so. These people throw their thought-force on you for this purpose. They are commercial mesmerizers. Their mesmeric control is as genuine as that shown at public exhibitions. They may not recognize it in this form; yet they work it on their customers, unconscious of the law by which they work.

It is in this mood that the spirit becomes as a magnet. As its forces are so drawn to a centre, their power of drawing to you ideas becomes greater. This power will increase continually by exercise. If you are so ever drawing to you ideas, you are drawing more and more power; you are drawing to you new plans, schemes, and inventions; you are sharpening all your faculties for any kind of work or business. Your spirit so massed is a power, either for resistance, or a power to draw in strength.

The trouble with many of us learners is that we wish to learn too rapidly. We have little knowledge of the power which really brings us all we do acquire,—the power which reaches out from us when the other faculties are temporarily suspended, and brings back not only ideas, but teaches the muscles how to carry out ideas. New invention comes to the mind which originates it when in this state, not when the mind is straining after its plan. You will make a perfect circle on paper with pen or pencil far easier when you do it idly, and care little whether you succeed or not, than if you are tremulous with anxiety to make one. When you are free from that anxiety, your real power has opportunity to act. That is the power of the spirit. It is the man who throws all thought of success or failure to the winds, who is most likely to accomplish the daring act at which others shrink, or, if they try, try with great dread of failure, which is mistaken for care. The best pilot through raging rapids is the man who has the power to forget all danger and see only obstacles. His spirit then possesses his real self. Self-possession means the power of the spirit to possess and control the body its instrument. The lack of it implies that the uneducated spirit, the real self, imagines it is nothing but the body it handles. It is as if the carpenter thought himself only a saw or a hammer. Self-possession forgets all about the body when it is using it. It thinks only on the use. The carpenter is not, while using his saw, thinking perpetually of the instrument. His thought is on the trained muscle which directs the tool.

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Thought being unseen substance is absorbed by all. If you absorb another person’s thought, it mingles with your own. Then in part, if not in whole, you will think that person’s thought. You will to some extent see, feel, judge, and form opinion, as does that person. You are to greater or lesser extent swayed and influenced by the person. His or her thought, or spirit, has mingled with yours. You are not then wholly yourself. You are in part that other person.

This is as much a mesmeric power thrown upon you, as that thrown by the mesmerizer on his subject. It works by the same law. If you associate a great deal with another person, are rarely by yourself, and see few others, you will be constantly taking in that person’s thought. If it is in motive and refinement higher than your own, you will be benefited by it. If it be in motive, taste, and refinement lower than yours, you will be injured. Your taste, your refinement, your motive, and judgment, also will be tinged with the thought of the inferior person. It is in this way that “evil communications corrupt good manners.”

Through this cause, you may see in mind very keenly in one direction and very blindly in another.

To be closely associated with a person thinking much of the time his or her lower thought, is for you to absorb this thought. You imagine, then, the views you take and opinions you form are your own. They are not wholly your own. Were you to leave that person’s association for any length of time, you would find many of your old opinions changing, because you would then be out of reach of that person’s lower and less clear thought.

To be much of the time with a gloomy or despondent person, or one fretful, or easily angered, or cynical, or sceptical, or in any way thinking evil or injurious thought, is for you unsafe. Be you as confident, determined, and courageous as you may, you will still absorb some of their despondency, irresolution, or cowardice, and be affected by it. It will be a blur on your judgment. It will be so much extra load of cowardly or irresolute thought to tax your courage or resolution. Of whatever evil quality that person’s thought is, it will infect you more or less with that quality.

You need never be influenced, swayed, or controlled by another’s thought, if you earnestly desire not to be. Such desire is a prayer. Prayer is the demand of your spirit to be free of every thing that can cripple its power and happiness. Power and happiness mean the same thing. Power means ability to drive off every thing that troubles you. Power means ability to keep your mind in the mood or frame of happiness. When that power is gained, and you rule your mood and do not allow the mood to rule you, every thing on the material plane of life will shape itself and come to you in accordance with your mood. The law of correspondences between spiritual and material things is wonderfully exact in its working. People ruled by the mood of gloom attract to them gloomy things. People always discouraged and despondent do not succeed in any thing, and live only by burdening some one else. The hopeful, confident, and cheerful attract the elements of success. A man’s front or back yard will advertise that man’s ruling mood, in the way it is kept. A woman at home shows her state of mind in her dress. A slattern advertises the ruling mood of hopelessness, carelessness, and lack of system. Rags, tatters, and dirt are always in the mind before being on the body. The thought that is most put out brings its corresponding visible element to crystallize about you, as surely and literally as the visible bit of copper in solution attracts to it the invisible copper in that solution. A mind always hopeful, confident, courageous, and determined on its set purpose, and keeping itself to that purpose, attracts to itself out of the elements things and powers favorable to that purpose.