flow. The practical application of the laws of your mind as illustrated in each chapter of this book will cause you to experience abundance for poverty, wisdom for superstition and ignorance, peace for pain, joy for sadness, light for darkness, harmony for discord, faith and confidence for fear, success for failure, and freedom from the law of averages. Certainly, there can be no more wonderful blessing than these from a mental, emotional, and material standpoint.
Most of the great scientists, artists, poets, singers, writers, and inventors have a deep understanding of the workings of the conscious and subconscious minds.
One time Caruso, the great operatic tenor, was struck with stage fright. He said his throat was paralyzed due to spasms caused by intense fear which constricted the muscles of his throat. Perspiration poured copiously down his face. He was ashamed because in a few minutes he had to go out on the stage, yet he was shaking with fear and trepidation. He said, “They will laugh at me. I can’t sing.” Then he shouted in the presence of those behind the stage, “The Little Me wants to strangle the Big Me within.”
He said to the Little Me, “Get out of here, the Big Me wants to sing through me.”
By the Big Me, he meant the limitless power and wisdom of his subconscious mind, and he began to shout, “Get out, get out, the Big Me is going to sing!”
His subconscious mind responded releasing the vital forces within him. When the call came, he walked out on the stage and sang gloriously and majestically, enthralling the audience.
It is obvious to you now that Caruso must have understood the two levels of mind—the conscious or rational, and the subconscious or irrational level. Your subconscious mind is reactive and responds to the nature of your thoughts. When your conscious mind (the Little Me) is full of fear, worry, and anxiety, the negative emotions engendered in your subconscious mind (the Big Me) are released and flood the conscious mind with a sense of panic, foreboding, and despair. When this happens, you can, like Caruso, speak affirmatively and with a deep sense of authority to the irrational emotions generated in your deeper mind as follows: “Be still, be quiet, I am in control, you must obey me, you are subject to my command, you cannot intrude where you do not belong.”
It is fascinating and intensely interesting to observe how you can speak authoritatively and with conviction to the irrational movement of your deeper self bringing silence, harmony, and peace to your mind. The subconscious is subject to the conscious mind, and that is why it is called subconscious or subjective.
Outstanding differences and modes of operation
You will perceive the main differences by the following illustrations: The conscious mind is like the navigator or captain at the bridge of a ship. He directs the ship and signals orders to men in the engine room, who in turn control all the boilers, instruments, gauges, etc. The men in the engine room do not know where they are going; they follow orders. They would go on the rocks if the man on the bridge issued faulty or wrong instructions based on his findings with the compass, sextant, or other instruments. The men in the engine room obey him because he is in charge and issues orders which are automatically obeyed. Members of the crew do not talk back to the captain; they simply carry out orders.
The captain is the master of his ship, and his decrees are carried out. Likewise, your conscious mind is the captain and the master of your ship, which represents your body, environment, and all your affairs. Your subconscious mind takes the orders you give it based upon what your conscious mind believes, and accepts as true.
When you repeatedly say to people, “I can’t afford it,” then your subconscious mind takes you at your word and sees to it that you will not be in a position to purchase what you want. As long as you persist in saying, “I can’t afford that car, that trip to Europe, that home, that fur coat or ermine wrap,” you can rest assured that your subconscious mind will follow your orders, and you will go through life experiencing the lack of all these things.
Last Christmas Eve a beautiful young university student looked at an attractive and rather expensive traveling bag in a store window. She was going home to Buffalo, New York, for the holidays. She was about to say, “I can’t afford that bag,” when she recalled something she had heard at one of my lectures which was, “Never finish a negative statement; reverse it immediately, and wonders will happen in your life.”
She said, “That bag is mine. It is for sale. I accept it mentally, and my subconscious sees to it that I receive it.”
At eight o’clock Christmas Eve her fiancé presented her with a bag exactly the same as the one she had looked at and mentally identified herself with at ten o’clock the same morning. She had filled her mind with the thought of expectancy and released the whole thing to her deeper mind which has the “know-how” of accomplishment.
This young girl, a student at the University of Southern California, said to me, “I didn’t have the money to buy that bag, but now I know where to find money and all the things I need, and that is in the treasure house of eternity within me.”
Another simple illustration is this: When you say, “I do not like mushrooms,” and the occasion subsequently comes that you are served mushrooms in sauces or salads, you will get indigestion because your subconscious mind says to you, “The boss (your conscious mind) does not like mushrooms.” This is an amusing example of the outstanding differences and modes of operation of your conscious and subconscious minds.
A woman may say, “I wake up at three o’clock, if I drink coffee at night.” Whenever she drinks coffee, her subconscious mind nudges her, as if to say, “The boss wants you to stay awake tonight.”
Your subconscious mind works twenty-four hours a day and makes provisions for your benefit, pouring all the fruit of your habitual thinking into your lap.
How her subconscious responded
A woman wrote me a few months ago as follows: “I am seventy-five years old, a widow with a grown family. I was living alone and on a pension. I heard your lectures on the powers of the subconscious mind wherein you said that ideas could be conveyed to the subconscious mind by repetition, faith, and expectancy.
“I began to repeat frequently with feeling, ‘I am wanted. I am happily married to a kind, loving, and spiritual-minded man. I am secure!’
“I kept on doing this many times a day for about two weeks, and one day at the corner drugstore, I was introduced to a retired pharmacist. I found him to be kind, understanding, and very religious. He was a perfect answer to my prayer. Within a week he proposed to me, and now we are on our honeymoon in Europe. I know that the intelligence within my subconscious mind brought both of us together in divine order.”
This woman discovered that the treasure house was within her. Her prayer was felt as true in her heart, and her affirmation sank down by osmosis into her subconscious mind, which is the creative medium. The moment she succeeded in bringing about a subjective embodiment, her subconscious mind brought about the answer through the law of attraction. Her deeper mind, full of wisdom and intelligence, brought both of them together in divine order.
Be sure that you think on whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. PHIL. 4:8.
Brief summary of ideas worth remembering
1 The treasure house is within you. Look within for the answer to your heart’s desire.
2 The great secret possessed by the great men of all ages was their ability to contact and release the powers of their subconscious mind. You can do the same.
3 Your subconscious has the answer to all problems. If you suggest to your subconscious prior to sleep, “I want to get up at 6 A.M.,” it will awaken you at that exact time.
4 Your subconscious mind is the builder of your body and can heal you. Lull yourself to