The Prosperity & Wealth Bible. Kahlil Gibran

that the creative energy sends its plastic substance in the direction indicated by the tendency of your thoughts. Herein lies the advantage of holding your thought in the form of a mental picture.

      The more enthusiasm and faith you are able to put into your picture, the more quickly it will come into visible form, and your enthusiasm is increased by keeping your desire secret. The moment you speak it to any living soul, that moment your power is weakened. Your power, your magnet of attraction is not so strong, and consequently cannot reach so far. The more perfectly a secret between your mind and outer self is guarded, the more vitality you give your power of attraction. One tells one’s troubles to weaken them, to get them off one’s mind, and when a thought is given out, its power is dissipated. Talk it over with yourself, and even write it down and at once destroy the paper.

      However, this does not mean that you should strenuously endeavor to compel the power to work out your picture on the special lines that you think it should. That method would soon exhaust you and hinder the fulfillment of your purpose. A wealthy relative need not necessarily die or someone lose a fortune on the street to materialize the $10,000 that you are mentally picturing.

      One of the doormen in the building in which I live heard much of the mental picturing of desires from visitors passing out of my rooms. The average desire was for $500. He considered that five dollars was more in his line and began to visualize it, without the slightest idea of where or how he was to get it. My parrot flew out of the window, and I telephoned to the men in the courtyard to get it for me. One caught it and it bit him on the finger. The doorman, who had gloves on, and did not fear a similar hurt, took hold of it and brought it up to me. I gave him five one-dollar bills for the service. This sudden reward surprised him. He enthusiastically told me that he had been visualizing for just $5, merely from hearing that others visualized. He was delighted at the unexpected realization of his mental picture.

      All you have to do is to make such a mental picture of your heart’s desire, hold it cheerfully in place with your will, always conscious that the same Infinite Power which brought the universe into existence brought you into form for the purpose of enjoying itself in and through you. And since it is all life, love, light, power, peace, beauty and joy, and is the only creative power there is, the form it takes in and through you depends upon the direction given it by your thought indicator. In you it is undifferentiated, waiting to take any direction given it as it passes through the instrument that it has made for the purpose of self-distribution.

      It is this power which enables you to transfer your thoughts from one form to another. The power to change your mind is the individualized universal power taking the initiative, giving direction to the fluent substance contained in every thought. It is the simplest thing in the world to give this highly sensitive plastic substance any form you will through visualizing. Anyone can do it with a small expenditure of effort.

      Once you really believe that your mind is a center through which the plastic substance of all there is in your world, takes involuntary form, the only reason why your picture does not always materialize is because you have introduced something antagonistic to the fundamental principle. Very often this destructive element is caused by the frequency with which you change your pictures. After many such changes you decide that your original desire is what you want after all. Upon this conclusion you begin to wonder why, “being your first picture,” it hasn’t materialized. The plastic substance with which you are mentally dealing is more sensitive than the most sensitive photographer’s film. If, in taking a picture, you suddenly remembered you had already taken a picture on that same plate, you would not expect a perfect result of either picture.

      On the other hand, you may have taken two pictures on the same plate unconsciously. When the plate has been developed, and the picture comes into physical view, you do not condemn the principle of photography, nor are you puzzled to understand why your picture has turned out so unsatisfactorily. You do not feel that it is impossible for you to obtain a good, clear picture of the subject in question. You know that you can do so, by simply starting at the beginning, putting in a new plate, and determining to be more careful while taking your picture next time. These lines followed out, you are sure of a satisfactory result. If you will proceed in the same manner with your mental picture, doing your part in a correspondingly confident frame of mind, the result will be just as perfect.

      The laws of visualizing are as infallible as the laws governing photography. In fact, photography is the outcome of visualizing. Again, your results in visualizing and your desires may be imperfect or delayed through the misuse of this power, owing to the thought that the fulfillment of your desire is contingent upon certain persons or conditions. The originating principle is not in any way dependent upon any person, place or thing. It has no past and knows no future.

      The law is that the originating creative principle of life is “the universal here and everlasting now.” It creates its own vehicles through which to operate. Therefore, past experience has no bearing upon your present picture. So do not try to obtain your desire through a channel that may not be natural for it, even though it may seem reasonable to you. Your feeling should be that the thing, or the consciousness which you so much desire, is normal and natural, a part of yourself, a form for your evolution. If you can do this, there is no power to prevent your enjoying the fulfillment of the picture you have in hand, or any other.

      Chapter 5 — Expressions from Beginners

      Hundreds of persons have realized that “visualizing is an Aladdin’s lamp to him with a mighty will.” General Foch says that his feelings were so outraged during the Franco Prussian war in 1870 that he visualized himself leading a French army against the Germans to victory. He said he made his picture, smoked his pipe and waited. This is one result of visualizing we are all familiar with.

      A famous actress wrote a long article in one of the leading Sunday papers last winter, describing how she rid herself of excessive body fat and weight by seeing her figure constantly as she wished to be.

      A very interesting letter came to me from a doctor’s wife while I was lecturing in New York. She began with the hope that I would never discontinue my lectures on visualization making humanity realize the wonderful fact that they possess the method of liberation within themselves. Relating her own experience, she said that she had been born on the East Side of New York in the poorest quarter. From earliest girlhood she had cherished a dream of marrying a physician some day. This dream gradually formed a stationary mental picture. The first position she obtained was in the capacity of a nursemaid in a physician’s family.

      Leaving this place she entered the family of another doctor. The wife of her employer died, and in time the doctor married her, the result of her long-pictured yearning. After that both she and her husband conceived the idea of owning a fruit farm in the South. They formed a mental picture of the idea and put their faith in its eventual fulfillment. The letter she sent me came from their fruit farm in the South. It was while at the farm that the doctor’s wife wrote me. Her second mental picture had seen the light of materialization.

      Many letters of a similar nature come to me every day. The following is a case that was printed in the New York Herald last May:

      “Atlantic City, May 5. — She was an old woman, and when she was arraigned before Judge Clarence Goldenberg in the police court today she was so weak and tired she could hardly stand. The judge asked the court attendant what she was charged with. “Stealing a bottle of milk, Your Honor,” repeated the officer. “She took it from the doorstep of a downtown cottage before daybreak this morning.” “Why did you do that?” Judge Goldenberg asked her. “I was hungry,” the old woman said. “I didn’t have a cent in the world and no way to get anything to eat except to steal it. I didn’t think anybody would mind if I took a bottle of milk.” “What’s your name?” asked the judge. “Weinberg,” said the old woman, “Elizabeth Weinberg.” Judge Goldenberg asked her a few questions about herself. Then he said:

      “Well, you’re not very wealthy now, but you’re no longer poor. I’ve been searching for you for months. I’ve got $500 belonging to you from the estate of a relative. I am the executor of the estate.”

      Judge Goldenberg paid the woman’s fine out of his own pocket, and then escorted her into his office,