Thus we find that the initial movement, though working in and through the particles of primary substance, is not the particles themselves. It is this something we mean when we speak of Spirit. The same power that brought universal substance into existence will bring your individual thought or mental picture into physical form. There is no difference of kind in the power. The only difference is a difference of scale. The power and the substance themselves are the same. Only in working out your mental picture it has transferred its creative energy from the universal to the scale of the particular, and is working in the same unfailing manner from its specific center, your mind.
Chapter 4 — Operation of Your Mental Picture
The operation of a large telephone system may be used as a simile. The main or head central subdivides itself into many branch centrals, every branch being in direct connection with its source and each individual branch recognizing the source of its existence, reports all things to its central head. Therefore, when assistance of any nature is required, new supplies, difficult repairs to be done or what not, the branch in need goes at once to its central head. It would not think of referring its difficulties (or its successes) to the main central of a telegraph system (though they belong to the same organization). These different branch centrals know that the only remedy for any difficulty must come from the central out of which they were projected.
If we, as individual branches of the Universal Mind, would refer our difficulties in the same confident manner to the source from which we were projected, and use the remedies that it has provided, we would realize what Jesus meant when he said, “Ask and ye shall receive.” Our every equipment would be met. Surely the Father must supply the child. The trunk of the tree cannot fail to provide for its branches.
Everything animate or inanimate is called into existence or outstandingness by a power which itself does not stand out. The power that creates the mental picture, the originating spirit substance of your pictured desire does not stand out. It projects the substance of itself that is a solidified counterpart of itself, while it remains invisible to the physical eye. Only those will ever appreciate the value of visualizing who are able to realize Paul’s meaning when he said “The worlds were formed by the word of God. Things which are seen are not made of things which do appear.”
There is nothing unusual or mysterious in the idea of your pictured desire coming into material evidence. It is the working of a universal natural Law. The world was projected by the self-contemplation of the Universal Mind, and this same action is taking place in its individualized branch which is the Mind of Man. Everything in the whole world has its beginning in mind and comes into existence in exactly the same manner from the hat on your head to the boots on your feet. All are projected thoughts, solidified.
Your personal advance in evolution depends upon your right use of the power of visualizing, and your use of it depends on whether you recognize that you, yourself, are a particular center through and in which the originating spirit is finding ever new expression for potentialities already existing within itself. This is evolution; this continual unfolding of existing though outwardly invisible things.
Your mental picture is the force of attraction that evolves and combines the originating substance into specific shape. Your picture is the combining and evolving powerhouse, so to speak, through which the originating Creative Spirit expressed itself. Its creative action is limitless, without beginning and without end, and always progressive and orderly. “It proceeds stage by stage, each stage being a necessary preparation for the one to follow.”
Now let us see if we can get an idea of the different stages by which the things in the world have come to be. Troward says, “If we can get at the working principle which is producing these results, we can very quickly and easily give it personal application. First, we find that the thought of originating life or Spirit about itself is its simple awareness of its own being and this produced a primary ether, a universal substance out of which everything in the world must grow.
Troward also tells us that “though this awareness of being is a necessary foundation for any further possibilities, it is not much to talk about.” It is the same with individualized spirit, which is yourself. Before you would entertain the idea of making a mental picture of your desire as being at all practical, you must have some idea of your being, of your “I am,” and just as soon as you are conscious of your “I-am-ness” you begin to wish to enjoy the freedom which this consciousness suggests. You want to do more and be more, and as you fulfill this desire within yourself, localized spirit begins conscious activities in you.
The thing you are most concerned with is the specific action of the creative spirit of life, universal mind specialized. The localized God-germ in you is your personality, your individuality, and since the joy of absolute freedom is the inherent nature of this God-germ, it is natural that it should endeavor to enjoy itself through its specific center. And as you grow in the comprehension that your being, your individuality, is God particularizing Himself, you naturally develop Divine tendencies.
You want to enjoy life and liberty. You want freedom in your affairs as well as in your consciousness, and it is natural that you should. Always with this progressive wish there is a faint thought-picture. As your wish and your recognition grow into an intense desire, this desire becomes a clear mental picture. For example, a young lady studying music wishes she had a piano in order to practice at home. She wants the piano so much that she can mentally see it in one of the rooms. She holds the picture of the piano and indulges in the mental reflection of the pleasure and advantage it will be to have the piano in the corner of the living room. One day she finds it there just as she had pictured it.
As you grow in understanding as to who you are, where you came from, and what the purpose of your being is, how you are to fulfill the purpose for which you are intended, you will more and more afford a center through which the creative spirit of life can enjoy itself. And you will realize that there can be but one creative process filling all space, which is the same in its potentiality whether universal or individual. Furthermore, all that there is, whether on the plane of the visible or invisible, had its origin in the localized action of thought or a mental picture, and this includes yourself, because you are universal spirit localized, and the same creative action is taking place through you.
Now you are no doubt asking yourself why there is so much sickness and misery in the world. If the same power and intelligence which brought the world into existence is in operation in the mind of man, why does it not manifest itself as strength, joy, health and plenty? If one can have one’s desires fulfilled by simply making a mental picture of that desire, holding on to it with the will, and doing without anxiety, on the outward plane, whatever seems necessary to bring the desire into fulfillment, then there seems no reason for the existence of sickness and poverty. Surely no one desires either.
The first reason is that few persons will take the trouble to inquire into the working principle of the laws of life. If they did they would soon convince themselves that there is no necessity for the sickness and poverty that we see about us. They would realize that visualizing is a principle and not a fallacy.
There are a few who have found it worthwhile to study this simple, though absolutely unfailing law that will deliver them from bondage. However, the race as a whole is not willing to give the time required for this study. It is either too simple, or too difficult. They may make a picture of their desire with some little understanding of visualizing for a day or two, but more frequently it is for an hour or so.
But if you will insist upon mentally seeing