THE POWER OF MIND. William Walker Atkinson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ let us remind you always that there is nothing good enough to allow it to “use” you—use many things, but allow nothing to use you.

      There are other planes of the Inner Consciousness in which rest the many suggestions placed there by your outer consciousness or that of others. You have a queer storehouse of acquired Suggestion, some good, some bad, and some neither or both. And from this storehouse comes the “habit­thought” of which such a large part of our mental processes are composed. In that storehouse are packed away countless impressions, ideas, opinions, prejudices, notions, likes and dislikes, and similar mental furniture. Much of this has been placed there by ourselves as the result of past thinking or half­thinking. And much has been placed there by the opinions, statements and suggestions of others, which we have admitted to our Inner Consciousness without due consideration and examination. As we shall see later on, this storehouse is an important part of our mental dwelling, and we should be careful just what we admit there. We shall also see that by means of Auto­Suggestion we may place there just what is likely to aid and help us in our lives, and that by the same means we may counteract the effect of many adverse and hurtful suggestions and “mental­habits” that we have allowed to find a home and storage room on these important planes of our minds. An understanding of these facts will be of the greatest importance and benefit to us.

      On other planes of the Inner Consciousness are to be found the impressions and records comprising that which we know as “Memory.” The Memory part of our mentality is like a vast collection of phonographic records upon which are registered the countless impressions that we have received during our life. Some of these records bear deep, clear and distinct impressions which when placed in the “Recollecting” machine send forth a clear reproduction of the original which produced the impression. Others contain impressions less clear—some bear very indistinct impressions, which are most difficult of reproduction. But there is this difference between these memory records, and those of the phonograph. The phonographic records grow fainter and less perfect according to the frequency of their use, while the memory records register a still deeper and clear impression the oftener they are reproduced. If one dwells in memory upon certain past events, he will find that each reproduction gives out a clearer response. Of course, it is likewise true that one may mix outside facts and imaginary events with the real recollections, in some cases, so that in future reproductions the real and the false appear together. But this is merely another proof of the rule. One may (and many often do) add to a tale at each telling, until at last the re­told tale bears but little resemblance to the original—in so doing one mixes the new impressions with the old, on his mental phonographic records, and at the next reproduction both the original and the added points sound forth together. This is why some people “tell a lie so often that they actually believe it”—the repeated impressions upon the tablets of memory become deeper and clearer, and the notes of the false mix with those of the true. One should always endeavor to keep an honest collection of memory records, and be careful to avoid adding false impressions to the original ones.

      It is astonishing that anyone at all familiar with the phenomena of Memory should doubt for a moment the existence of planes of consciousness beneath that of the ordinary outer consciousness. Every moment of our everyday life we are drawing upon these Inner Conscious Planes of Memory for the many things stored away there—far below the everyday outer consciousness. Not only do we draw upon these planes in this way, but in moments of intense stress— sudden danger—and other critical periods of life, these gates between these planes swing ajar and a flood of recollection pours out from them. It is related in numbers of instances that as a writer well expresses it: “The acts of a whole lifetime which are of consequence, and many that are not, will be flashed across the screen of memory with such lightning rapidity and with such distinctness as to seem like a vast panorama whose every detail is grasped by the mind in an instant of time. A noted high­bridge jumper, in describing his feelings while making his famous leap from the Brooklyn bridge, stated that it seemed as if, during the few seconds required for his descent to the water beneath, there passed through his memory all the acts of his life, in their proper order—some of which had not appeared in his recollection for years, and which would have all his life remained dormant except for some extraordinary stimulus such as this. It is the almost universal experience of drowning persons who have been rescued at the last moment and resuscitated, that during the few moments just preceding the loss of consciousness, the memory suddenly grasps with a marvelous vigor the deeds of the life which seems about to end, and by some mysterious compelling intuition the sufferer is able and obliged to recognize at the same time, and more fully than ever before, the right or wrong of each particular act.”

      The following quotations will show you, at a glance, what an important part is played by this Inner Conscious faculty of Memory, in the domain of knowledge, in the opinion of eminent authorities:

      “All knowledge is but remembrance.”—Bacon.

      “That which constitutes recollection or an act of memory is the present image which a past sensation has left in us, an image which seems to us the sensation itself.”—Taine.

      “Memory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other can work; the cement, the bitumen, the matrix in which the other faculties are imbedded. Without it all life and thought were an unrelated succession.”—Emerson.

      “There is no faculty of the mind which can bring its energy into effect unless the memory be stored with ideas for it to look upon.”—Burke.

      “Every organ—indeed, every area and every element—of the nervous system has its own memory.”—Ladd.

      “Memory is the golden thread linking all the mental gifts and excellences together.”—Hood.

      “Memory is the cabinet of imagination, the treasury of reason, the registry of conscience, and the council­chamber of thought.”—Basile.

      “A man’s real possession is his memory; in nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.”—Alexander Smith.

      “I would rather have a perfect recollection of all that I have thought and felt in a day or a week of high activity, than read all the books that have been published in a century.”—Emerson.

      And, after reading the above, remember that all of the records of Memory are stored away on the planes of the Inner Consciousness, the existence of which has been denied by the majority of people until very recently. In considering the marvelous phenomena of Memory, what thinking man can doubt that his Mind, and Self, are greater by far than the little, narrow field of outer consciousness, which is nothing by the eye­piece of his mental telescope, or microscope, before which pass in review the objects rising from, or super­imposed by, the planes of the Inner Consciousness?

      Lesson IV.

       The Mental Storehouse.

       Table of Content

      IN THE previous lessons we have stated that there are planes of the Inner Consciousness which resemble vast mental storehouses in which are placed the materials from which much of our thinking is composed. These thought­materials are brought by the porters and Carriers of our mental warehouse into the field of consciousness, or thought­factory, where they are manufactured into the fabric of conscious thought and action. In those vast mental warehouses are much that we never placed there ourselves—the remnants of mental goods stored by countless ancestors, which are constantly being brought forward to be woven into the fabric of our thoughts. But, there are also vast quantities of material, good, bad and indifferent, placed there by ourselves, and it is these personal contributions to the storehouse which largely determine that thoughts and acts which result from what we call “our character” or our “nature.” And this being the fact, is it not of the greatest СКАЧАТЬ