Part 8

When you approach a man on business, with your mind laden with thoughts of Fear, Lack of Confidence, etc., you strike a similar keynote in that man, and he instinctively feels that he has no confidence in you or your business, and if he is a man whose predominant note is Courage, he will feel the inharmony and get rid of you as soon as he can. If, on the contrary, he is also a "I Can't" man he will feel a fellow feeling for you, but it will do you no good; it will be a case of "misery loves company," and the first thing you know you will find yourself and that man in an earnest conversation about "dull times," "poor crops," "the country is going to the dogs," "no chance for a man nowadays," "we're all going to the poorhouse," etc., etc. I've seen it happen many a time, haven't you?

But if you are an "I Can and I Will" man, and he is the same, see how different things are. He will warm up to you and will feel that he understands you, and sooner or later you and he will do business with each other, in fact, the arrangement is begun with your first meeting. If you can get yourself in something like the same mental attitude of a man with whom you wish to do business, you will get along with him, never fear.

When you have something in mind upon which you are working, and you are at the same time maintaining the proper mental attitude, you are placing yourself in psychic touch with every other man in the same line who is holding the same mental attitude. You draw inspiration from them, and both parties to the mental partnership share in the profits. Both will share, to a certain extent, in each other's progress and both will draw largely from the mental stock of those who are working along the same lines, but who are holding a negative mental attitude. In fact, the whole store of knowledge and progress along those lines will be tapped by these partners holding the positive mental attitude. New plans, ideas, combinations, schemes, devices will spring into being in their minds, and they will not only help each other, but will draw upon the less positive people. This seems a hard law, but it is like all of Nature's laws, so severe that we are forced sooner or later to learn the lesson. We learn by experience only. This operation of the Law of Mental Attraction is a good example of one of the meanings of that saying, so dark to many: "To him that hath shall be given; to him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath." At any rate, that is the way the law works.

And it is not only in the matter of Success that this mental partnership works. Its operations are manifest everywhere. You will notice that the negative emotions draw to themselves people, thoughts and things upon which they can feed. Let a man or woman manifest Jealousy, and, lo! as if from the earth spring apparent causes for that jealous feeling. All sorts of things seem to conspire to feed "the green-eyed monster" into a state of fatness. And let a man or woman get a notion that people are trying to "slight" them, and let them continue to hold this thought, and it will soon seem to the poor victim of Fearthought as if everybody in the world was determined to snub, slight and tread upon him and hurt his feelings. If he persists in this attitude, life will become a burden too heavy to bear, and there will be no possible relief for him except a change of mental front. Let one imagine that everyone is trying to cheat him, and he will be a lucky man if he does not find that the things he feared have come upon him. Let a man cherish thoughts of Hate and Malice, and sooner or later he will become involved in all sorts of hateful, malicious schemes and occurrences, with his partners whom he has drawn to him. "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword," is proven every day. He who thinks every man is a rogue will see enough rogues to justify him in his belief, and will probably end up by having people think of him as a rogue--he will draw all sorts of roguish people, things and circumstances to him.

Did you ever start in the morning feeling cross and crabbed? Well, if you did you probably found that after the inevitable domestic row over the buckwheat cakes and coffee--after you had left your wife with tears in her eyes, and the children in good shape to get into trouble in school--that everyone seemed to "have it in for you." Some fellow in the train seemed to deliberately tread on your pet corn, another jostled you, and so on. When you got down to business, everything went wrong, and unless you brought yourself up with a short turn you had a dreadful time of it all day, and were glad when night came that you might sleep it off. You will always find that there are plenty of people waiting to go into mental partnership with you in such cases. If you are looking for fight, you will get it.

I tell you, friends, that people are all more or less in psychic touch with each other, and the sooner we recognize this fact the better it will be for us. This Law of Mental Attraction works either good or bad for us, according to the uses we make of it. If we run contrary to the law we will be taught lesson after lesson, until we learn something. But if we fall in with the workings of the law we will reap the benefits that come to Man when he masters and controls any of Nature's great forces.

Now, don't make partnerships of an undesirable kind. If you do you will have to bear the consequences. If you have already formed such a partnership, dissolve it at once and go into liquidation. After a while you will have cleared up the old debts and straightened matters out and will begin to do business on another basis. And I want to tell you right here that you can get into the best mental firms in the world if you only go about it right. They will not object to you if you are a fit member, and, in fact, they could not keep you out even if they wished. The doors will open at the magic touch of the spoken word backed up by the proper mental attitude. Cut loose from the old thought associations and form new connections. Get in touch with the right kind of thought-waves, people and things. Cultivate the proper mental attitude and demand an entrance to the firm you wish. Good men are scarce in all branches of business, trades and professions. There's room for you--away up at the top, too. Get what belongs to you; do not be cheated out of your heritage. Assert yourself. Join to-day that good, hustling firm, whose name on the signboard reads: "I CAN, I WILL, I DO, I DARE."

THE SEEKERS.

The secret of life--The riddle of existence--Sought now as ever--The whyness of things--Attempts to answer the riddle--The Seekers--Fantastic creeds and queer philosophies--Revamping old ideas--The story of the man and the stars--The answer to be found within the soul.

"I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan, For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?"

--Emerson.

Man is trying to reason out now as in the past, the secret of Life--the riddle of Existence. He seeks to know from whence he comes, whither he goes, and what is the object of his existence. He wants to know the _whyness_ of things--what it all means. He is like the squirrel in the cage, which exhausts itself in traveling the long road of the wheel, only to find itself at the end of its journey just where it started. Or worse still, like the newly-caged wild bird, he dashes against the bars of his prison, again and again, in his efforts to regain his freedom, until at last he lies weak and bleeding, a captive still.

It has ever been so, from the childhood of the race until the present time. Sages, seers, prophets and philosophers have endeavored to reason out the problem, but their labors have availed nothing, and the riddle remains unanswered. Man has traveled over and over the circular road of thought, only to discover that it has no beginning--no ending. He thinks that he has explained things, but he has merely given them names. All the scientific research, all the theological and metaphysical speculation, has failed even to explain the sprouting of the mustard seed. Life and Death is a mystery to the most brilliant man of this civilization, as it was to the ignorant creature of the stone age. Races, nations, civilizations rise and fall; creeds are born, grow strong, weaken and die, but the secret remains a secret still.

The present day seems to have reawakened the latent desire of man to see behind the veil. The pendulum which carried so many thinkers to the materialistic extreme is beginning to swing in the opposite direction, and is causing a strange and wonderful revival of ancient creeds and philosophies. Those who have long since turned their backs upon the accepted creeds now find themselves in the company of those who still claim allegiance to the church, but who feel themselves cramped by the creeds fashioned for them by their fathers.

The leader of the New Thought, reaching the top of the mountain, often finds himself face-to-face with a scientific _savant_ who has reached the same place by climbing up the other side of the hill. And the scientist and the New Thought man need not be surprised to find a leader of advanced religious thought claiming a foothold on the top of the same hill. But the trio, after they have congratulated themselves upon reaching the summit and ending their journey look around them, and lo! their mountain is but a foothill, and far above them, towering higher and higher, rise range after range of the real mountains, the highest peaks being hidden among the clouds!

One has but to look around him to see how strenuous has grown the search for the answer to the riddle. New creeds, philosophies, cults and schools confront us at every turn. The past has been ransacked for its discarded philosophies, which have been renovated and trimmed anew for modern use. The dust has been brushed off many an old and almost forgotten creed, which is pushed to the front under a new name and with new trimmings. Plato is worked overtime to furnish the twentieth century creed promoters with material to be done over. The wildest dreams of the ancients are toned down a little, and boldly offered to the eager multitude as the long sought for solution of it all. Priests and teachers of all the religions of all lands are among us vying with the priests and priestesses of the new philosophies and creeds of our own land, and bidding for public favor. And these new home-made philosophies, how frightfully and wonderfully are they made! The old philosophies of Greece and Rome are skilfully dovetailed with the creeds of the Orient, and the result is a thing differing from anything ever seen before by gods or men.

Brahmins, Buddhists, Confucians, Mahommedans and Sun Worshippers claim thousands of followers in our land, and Isis and Osiris will before long again be given a place and duly installed in the new Pantheon. Thor and Odin will doubtless be revamped, and the rites of the Druids revived. We are looking every day for the arrival on our shores of the advance agent of the Joss propaganda from the Celestial kingdom.

And the home product is, if possible, more fantastic and _bizarre_ than the imported article. The wildest claims and statements are made with an air of authority, and are accepted as "gospel" by the adherents of the several sects. One does not know whether to sigh or weep as he watches some of the modern prophets and prophetesses strutting their little stage and cutting fantastic capers before high heaven, thus adding to the gayety of the nations. The demand for these things has been created, and nothing seems too highly spiced for the devotees of the latter day creeds.

And the followers of those strange prophets, what of them? Many of them are mere excitement hunters; others that class of people possessed of a consuming thirst for something new; some are honest seekers for the Truth; and others are those who have cut away from their old moorings and are drifting about, rudderless and without an anchor, at the mercy of any stray current which may sweep them along. There are thousands of people who never heard of the philosophies and creeds of the ancients, who are now dazzled by the revamped doctrines expounded by the modern prophets, and who, being impressed with the strangeness and novelty of the (to them) new truths, accept them as inspired and emanating from the ABSOLUTE. New gods have arisen and also new devils. The "Malicious Mental Magnetism" of the Christian Scientists is as much a devil to them as was the orthodox devil of one hundred years ago to our forefathers.

The new cults usually begin by performing cures by means of the power of the mind and other natural laws, which they attribute to the principles and teachings of their particular sects. Many of them now, however, frankly admit that they are past the healing stage, and look down upon the mere healing of disease as a thing too nearly allied to the detested "material" plane to be seriously considered. The time of the leaders is now principally occupied in announcing and elucidating wonderful, high, spiritual truths for the seekers, soaring away up in the clouds of transcendentalism, leaving their followers behind, gaping upwards like a crowd at a country balloon ascension.

Once upon a time there was a reformer who attended a public meeting, and took part in an exciting debate on an important question of the day. At last, heated, wearied and disgusted by the fruitless struggle, he left the hall and started for home. It was a beautiful, cold winter's night, and the heavens were studded with stars shining bright through the clear frosty atmosphere. Pausing for a moment in his rapid walk, he glanced upward. The stars were twinkling away merrily. They did not seem to be at all disturbed by what had been going on in the meeting. They appeared just the same as when, in years past, as a boy he had looked at them with wondering eyes. As he gazed, a peaceful calm came over him, and his worry, doubts and fears seemed very petty. At last one little star appeared to notice him, and he thought he could see it cast a good-natured glance downward, saying, in a cheerful voice, "Why so _hot_, little man?"

When we feel cast down with doubt, torn with anxiety, weak from loss of faith, faint with fear, let us look aloft at the stars. When we see those distant points of light, knowing them to be centers of solar systems, knowing that beyond, beyond and beyond are countless other suns and world, let us pluck up a little courage and realize that we are a part of a mighty Law, a stupendous plan. Let us know that the Power which called these things into life, and which is able to manage them, and even greater things, has us in charge and will not allow us to be destroyed. Let us know that we are but in the kindergarten stage of existence and that we shall go on and on and on, from plane to plane, ever onward and upward in the scale, until at last we shall be able to spell out the lines of the primer of Life, and learn the multiplication table of the Universe.

Let us in the meanwhile live on in trust and hope; one day at a time; living our own lives; doing our best work; getting the joy which comes from the simple, human life; lending a helping hand. Let us abolish Fear and Hate, and replace them with Courage, Confidence and Love. Let us look for Good rather than Evil. Let us know failure as merely a lesson in Success. Let us look upon Death as Birth. Let us do the best we can with this world, knowing that the next world will find us prepared for its task. Let us know that we are in Eternity right NOW. Let us know that God is not so far away as we have been taught, for is it not true that in Him "we live and move and have our being!"

Let us preserve our sense of humor--for it will guard us against many a fear, many a folly, many a delusion.

And, finally, let us keep out of the throng which is rushing wildly hither and thither, after leaders, prophets, sages, seers. Let us look within ourselves and see the little flame which burns steadily there. Let us know that we have within us the Light of the Spirit which naught can extinguish. And let us say with good old Newman:

"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom Lead thou me on. The night is dark, and I am far from home; Lead thou me on. Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me. Lead thou me on."

MENTAL PICTURES.

"I hang bright pictures in my mind"--Bright pictures encourage one; gloomy ones depress--Get rid of your old gloomy mental pictures--Make a bonfire of them--Get rid of the particularly miserable one, first of all--Then put bright ones in their places.

"I now hang bright pictures in my mind," said a friend to me, recently. Her remark explained to me without the necessity of further words, the cause of her bright, cheerful and happy disposition, so greatly in contrast with that of the despondent, fretful woman I had known a few months ago. The change seemed so remarkable that one would have almost expected her to have claimed some startling occurrence as the cause of the wondrous transformation, instead of giving so commonplace an explanation.

But just think how much there is in this thought: "I hang bright pictures in my mind." Stop a moment, and let the thought sink deep into your inner consciousness. "Bright pictures in the mind," why not, indeed? If we wish to make a chamber, or office, bright and cheery, we see that nothing but pictures representing bright, cheerful subjects are hung there. They may be the choicest engravings or paintings, or they may be some little inexpensive things, but just so they are bright and cheery the purpose is accomplished, and the room somehow seems a happier, more joyous place than before.

If we were preparing a new room for the occupancy of some dear one, would we place there any but the brightest picture? Would we hang there pictures of pain and misery, hate and murder, jealousy and revenge, sickness, suffering and death, failure and discouragement? Would we do this thing I ask you? Would _you_ do it? And if not, why not, pray? Simply because you instinctively feel that the gloomy, hateful subjects would react upon the loved one. And you know, is the same way that the bright, cheerful, inspiring subjects are likely to uplift, stimulate, encourage and make better the occupant of the chamber.

Have you ever noticed that some rooms always seem to exert a beneficial effect upon you, while others seem to depress you? Certainly you have. Well, the next time you go into these rooms, look around a little and see if the explanation of your moods is not to be found in the character of the pictures on the walls. You may not have specially noticed them before, but your sub-conscious mental faculties have taken up the impression, and the reflex action has affected you. Who can resist the "fetching" qualities of a bright, baby face, smiling from a little picture on the mantel, or on the wall? Not I, for one. And who can help feeling the sense of comradeship for the kindly St. Bernard whose great, affectionate eyes look down upon you from the engraving on the other side of the room. And on the other hand, who could--but, now I'm not going to describe the other kind of pictures in this article.

But now to get back to the "pictures in the mind." If the gloomy pictures on the wall affect people, what do you suppose will be the effect of carrying around gloomy, fearful, hateful, jealous, envious, despondent mental pictures? Can any good come of lugging this trash around with you? Come, now, be honest. Why don't you bundle up these horrible chromos of the mind, and then make a bonfire of the lot. Now is the time for a mental house-cleaning--get to work and clean out these miserable daubs, and replace them with nice bright, cheerful, happy, sunny, mental works of art. Do it to-day. You can't afford to put it off until to-morrow--indeed you can't.

Oh, yes, I know that you have grown attached to some of these old mental pictures--you've had 'em around so long that you hate to part with them. There's that particular miserable one at which you're so fond of looking--you know which one I mean. You see, I know all about it. You've been in the habit of standing before it with folded hands, and gazing, and gazing, and gazing at it. And the more you gazed, the more miserable you grew, until at last you felt that you would like to lie down and die, only that there was some work to do around the house, and you couldn't spare the time. Yes, _that's_ the picture I mean. Take it down and put it on top of the bonfire pile, and touch off the whole lot. Then go back into the house and hang up all the new ones to be found, and the brightest one of the lot must hang in the place of that dear old miserable one that you threw out last--that one which was so hard to part with (the meanest one in the lot, always).

And after you have done these things, how good you will feel. See how bright and cheerful the sun is shining; how pure and fresh the air seems--take a good long draught of it; look out the window and see the fleecy white clouds floating across the sky; the sky itself--how blue it is; and just listen to the bluebirds down by the old gate--Spring must be coming. Ah, how good it is to be alive!

DON'T RETAIL YOUR WOES.

A miserable habit--It grows as it is fed--A nuisance to friends and neighbors--It brings to you more of the same kind--You will get what you look for--Looking for trouble brings it--Don't imagine that you are being "put upon"--Don't retail your woes.

Don't retail your woes. Do you think that it does you any good to go around with a long face, telling your tale of woe to everyone whom you can induce to listen to you? Do you think that it does you any good? Do you think it helps you to overcome your troubles, or makes your burden any lighter? No, I don't believe that you think any such things. All your experience teaches you that people do not like to listen to long-drawn-out tales of your troubles--they have enough of their own. Even those who are always ready to lend a helping hand and to give what aid they can to one who needs it resent being made targets for a continuous fusillade of troubles, woes, griefs, etc. And you know very well that a constant repetition of your own woes will only make them seem greater and more real to you. And then the chronic retailer of woe grows to be like the journalist--develops a keen scent for matter to be dished out to others--she needs it in her business. When one gets into this habit of carrying about tales to her friends, she runs out of ready material, and eagerly looks around for more with which to supply the demand. She becomes quite an adept at discovering insults, sneers, double-meaning remarks, etc., on the part of her friends and relatives, where nothing of the kind was intended, and she rolls these things over and over in her mind like sweet morsels before she serves them up with appropriate trimmings, to her listeners.