Joseph Murphy - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Joseph Murphy - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
Joseph Murphy - The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
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The law of life is the law of belief, and belief could be summed up briefly as a thought in
your mind. As a man thinks, feels, and believes, so is the condition of his mind, body,
and circumstances. A technique, a methodology based on an understanding of what you
are doing and why you are doing it will help you to bring about a subconscious
embodiment of all the good things of life. Essentially, answered prayer is the realization
of your hearts desire.
Desire is prayer
Everyone desires health, happiness, security, peace of mind, true expression, but many
fail to achieve clearly defined results. A university professor admitted to me recently, I
know that if I changed my mental pattern and redirected my emotional life, my ulcers
would not recur, but I do not have any technique, process, or modus operandi. My mind
wanders back and forth on my many problems, and I feel frustrated, defeated, and
unhappy. This professor had a desire for perfect health; he needed knowledge of the way
his mind worked which would enable him to fulfill his desire. By practicing the healing
methods outlined in this book, he became whole and perfect.
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Experiments by psychologists
Innumerable experiments by psychologists and others on persons in the hypnotic state
have shown that the subconscious mind is incapable of making selections and
comparisons, which are necessary for a reasoning process. They have shown repeatedly
that your subconscious mind will accept any suggestions, however false. Having once
accepted any suggestion, it responds according to the nature of the suggestion given.
To illustrate the amenability of your subconscious mind to suggestion, if a practiced
hypnotist suggests to one of his subjects that he is Napoleon Bonaparte, or even a cat or a
dog, he will act out the part with inimitable accuracy. His personality becomes changed
for the time being. He believes himself to be whatever the operator tells him he is.
A skilled hypnotist may suggest to one of his students in the hypnotic state that his back
itches, to another that his nose is bleeding, to another that he is a marble statue, to another
that he is freezing and the temperature is below zero. Each one will follow out the line of
his particular suggestion, totally oblivious to all his surroundings, which do not pertain to
his idea.
These simple illustrations portray clearly the difference between your conscious
reasoning mind and your subconscious mind, which is impersonal, nonselective, and
accepts as true whatever your conscious mind believes to be true. Hence, the importance
of selecting thoughts, ideas, and premises, which bless, heal, inspire, and fill your soul
with joy.
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Review of highlights
1. Think good, and good follows. Think evil, and evil follows. You are what you think all
day long.
2. Your subconscious mind does not argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind
decrees. If you say, I cant afford it, it may be true, but do not say it. Select a better
thought, decree, Ill buy it. I accept it in my mind.
3. You have the power to choose. Choose health and happiness. You can choose to be
friendly, or you can choose to be unfriendly. Choose to be cooperative, joyous, friendly,
lovable, and the whole world will respond. This is the best way to develop a wonderful
personality.
4. Your conscious mind is the watchman at the gate. Its chief function is to protect your
subconscious mind from false impressions. Choose to believe that something good can
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Views of Paracelsus
Philippus Paracelsus, a famous Swiss alchemist and physician, who lived from 1493 to
1541, was a great healer in his day. He stated what is now an obvious scientific fact when
he uttered these words, Whether the object of your faith be real or false, you will
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Bernheims experiments
Hippolyte Bernheim, professor of medicine at Nancy, France, 1910- 1919, was the
expounder of the fact that the suggestion of the physician to the patient was exerted
through the subconscious mind. Bernheim, in his Suggestive Therapeutics, page 197, tells
a story of aman with paralysis of the tongue which had yielded to no form of treatment.
His doctor told the patient that he had a new instrument with which he promised to heal
him. He introduced a pocket thermometer into the patients mouth. The patient imagined
it to be the instrument, which was to save him. In a few moments he cried out joyfully
that he could once more move his tongue freely.
Among our cases, continues Bernheim, facts of the same sort will be found. A young
girl came into my office, having suffered from complete loss of speech for nearly four
weeks. After making sure of the diagnosis, I told my students that loss of speech
sometimes yielded instantly to electricity, which might act simply by its suggestive
influence. I sent for the induction apparatus. I applied my hand over the larynx and
moved a little, and said, Now you can speak aloud. In an instant I made her saw a,
then b, then Maria. She continued to speak distinctly; the loss of voice had
disappeared.
Here Bernheim is showing the power of faith and expectancy on the part of the patient,
which acts as a powerful suggestion to the subconscious mind.
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A cripple walks
Dr. Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, of whom we spoke previously in this chapter, used the
absolute method in the latter years of his healing career. He was really the father of
psychosomatic medicine and the first psychoanalyst. He had the capacity to diagnose
clairvoyantly the cause of the patients trouble, pains, and aches.
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Why its normal to be healthy, vital, and strong its abnormal to be sick
The average child born into the world is perfectly healthy with all its organs functioning
perfectly. This is the normal state, and we should remain healthy, vital, and strong. The
instinct of self-preservation is the strongest instinct of your nature, and it constitutes a
most potent, ever-present, and constantly operative truth, inherent in your nature. It is,
therefore, obvious that all your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs must operate with greater
potentiality when they are in harmony with the innate life principle in you, which is
forever seeking to preserve and protect you along all lines. It follows from this that
normal conditions can be restored with greater ease and certainty than abnormal
conditions can be induced.
It is abnormal to be sick; it simply means you are going against the stream of life and
thinking negatively. The law of life is the law of growth; all nature testifies to the
operation of this law by silently, constantly expressing itself in the law of growth. Where
there is growth and expression, there must be life; where there is life there must be
harmony, and where there is harmony, there is perfect health.
If your thought is in harmony with the creative principle of your subconscious mind, you
are in tune with the innate principle of harmony. If you entertain thoughts which are not
in accordance with the principle of harmony, these thoughts cling to you, harass you,
worry you, and finally bring about disease, and if persisted in, possibly death.
In the healing of disease, you must increase the inflow and distribution of the vital forces
of your subconscious mind throughout your system. This can be done by eliminating
thoughts of fear, worry, anxiety, jealousy, hatred, and every other destructive thought
which tends to tear down and destroy your nerves and glandsbody tissue which
controls the elimination of all waste material.
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Pointers to review
1. Your subconscious is the builder of your body and is on the job 24 hours a day. You
interfere with its life giving patterns by negative thinking.
2. Charge your subconscious with the task of evolving an answer to any problem, prior to
sleep and it will answer you.
3. Watch your thoughts. Every thought accepted as true is sent by your brain to your solar
plexusyour abdominal brainand is brought into your world as a reality.
4. Know that you can remake yourself by giving a new blueprint to your subconscious
mind.
5. The tendency of your subconscious is always life ward. Your job is with your
conscious mind. Feed your subconscious mind with premises, which are true. Your
subconscious is always reproducing according to your habitual mental patterns.
6. You build a new body every eleven months. Change your body by changing your
thoughts and keeping them changed.
7. It is normal to be healthy. It is abnormal to be ill. There is within the innate principle of
harmony.
8. Thoughts of jealousy, fear, worry, and anxiety tear down and destroy your nerves and
glands bringing about mental and physical diseases of all kinds.
9. What you affirm consciously and feel as true will be made manifest in your mind, body
and affairs. Affirm the good and enter into the joy of living.
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Easy does it
A house owner once remonstrated with a furnace repairman for charging two hundred
dollars for fixing the boiler. The mechanic said, I charged five cents for the missing bolt
and one hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents for knowing what was wrong.
Similarly, your subconscious mind is the master mechanic, the all wise one, who knows
ways and means of healing any organ of your body, as well as your affairs. Decree
health, and your subconscious will establish it, but relaxation is the key. Easy does it.
Do not be concerned with details and means, but know the end result. Get the feel of the
happy solution to your problem whether it is health, finances, or employment. Remember
how you felt after you had recovered from a severe state of illness. Bear in mind that your
feeling is the touchstone of all subconscious demonstration. Your new idea must be felt
subjectively in a finished state, not the future, but as coming about now.
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The law of reversed effort and why you get the opposite of what you
pray for
Cou, the famous psychologist from France who visited America about forty years ago,
defined the law of reversed effort as follows: When your desires and imagination are in
conflict your imagination invariably gains the day.
If, for example, you were asked to walk a plank on the floor, you would do so without
question. Now suppose the same plank were placed twenty feet up in the air between two
walls, would you walk it? Your desire to walk it would be counteracted by your
imagination or fear of falling. Your dominant idea, which would be the picture of falling,
would conquer. Your desire, will, or effort to walk on the plank would be reversed, and
the dominant idea of failure would be reinforced.
Mental effort is invariably self defeated, eventuating always in the opposite of what is
desired. The suggestions of powerlessness to overcome the condition dominate the mind;
your subconscious is always controlled by the dominant idea. Your subconscious will
accept the stronger of two contradictory propositions. The effortless way is the better.
If you say, I want a healing, but I cant get it; I try so hard; I force myself to pray;
I use all the will power I have, you must realize that your error lies in your effort.
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Money is a symbol
Money is a symbol of exchange. It means to you not only freedom from want, but beauty,
luxury, abundance, and refinement. It is merely a symbol of the economic health of the
nation. When your blood is circulating freely in your body, you are healthy. When money
is circulating freely in your life, you are economically healthy. When people begin to
hoard money, to put it away in tin boxes, and become charged with fear, there is
economic illness. Money has taken many forms as a medium of exchange down through
the centuries, such as, salt, beads, and trinkets of various kinds. In early times a
mans wealth was determined by the number of sheep and oxen he had. Now we use
currency, and other negotiable instruments, as it is much more convenient to write a
check than carry some sheep around with you to pay bills.
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Profitable pointers
1. Success means successful living. When you are peaceful, happy, joyous, and doing
what you love to do, you are successful.
2. Find out what you love to do, and then do it. If you dont know your true expression,
ask for guidance, and the lead will come.
3. Specialize in your particular field and try to know more about it than anyone else.
4. A successful man is not selfish. His main desire in life is to serve humanity.
5. There is no true success without peace of mind.
6. A successful man possesses great psychological and spiritual understanding.
7. If you imagine an objective clearly, you will be provided with the necessities through
the wonderworking power of your subconscious mind.
8. Your thought fused with feeling becomes a subjective belief, and according to your
belief is it done unto you.
9. The power of sustained imagination draws forth the miracle working powers of your
subconscious mind.
10. If you are seeking promotion in your work, imagine your employer, supervisor, or
loved one congratulating you on your promotion. Make the picture vivid and real. Hear
the voice, see the gestures, and feel the reality of it all. Continue to do this frequently, and
through frequent occupancy of your mind, you will experience the joy of the answered
prayer.
11. Your subconscious mind is a storehouse of memory. For a perfect memory, affirm
frequently: The infinite intelligence of my subconscious mind reveals to me everything I
need to know at all times, everywhere.
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Highlights to recall
1. Remember that the subconscious mind has determined the success and wonderful
achievements of all great scientific workers.
2. By giving your conscious attention and devotion to the solution of a perplexing
problem, your subconscious mind gathers all the necessary information and presents it
full-blown to the conscious mind.
3. If you are wondering about the answer to a problem, try to solve it objectively. Get all
the information you can from research and also from others. If no answer comes, turn it
over to your subconscious mind prior to sleep, and the answer always comes. It never
fails.
4. You do not always get the answer overnight. Keep on turning your request over to your
subconscious until the daybreaks and the shadows flee away.
5. You delay the answer by thinking it will take a long time or that it is a major problem.
Your subconscious has no problem it knows only the answer.
6. Believe that you have the answer now. Feel the joy of the answer and the way you
would feel if you had the perfect answer. Your subconscious will respond to your feeling.
7. Any mental picture, backed by faith and perseverance, will come to pass through the
miracle working power of your subconscious. Trust it, believe in its power, and wonders
will happen as you pray.
8. Your subconscious is the storehouse of memory, and within your subconscious are
recorded all your experiences since childhood.
9. Scientists meditating on ancient scrolls, temples, fossils, etc., are able to reconstruct
scenes of the past and make them alive today. Their subconscious mind comes to their
aid.
10. Turn over your request for a solution to your subconscious prior to sleep. Trust it and
believe in it, and the answer will come. It knows all and sees all, but you must not doubt
or question its powers.
11. The action is your thought, and the reaction is the response of your subconscious
mind. If your thoughts are wise, your actions and decisions will be wise.
12. Guidance comes as a feeling, an inner awareness, an overpowering hunch whereby
you know that you know. It is an inner sense of touch. Follow it.
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Why we sleep
Dr. John Bigelow, a famous research authority on sleep, demonstrated that at night while
asleep you receive impressions showing that the nerves of the eyes, ears, nose, and taste
buds are active during sleep, and also that the nerves of your brain are quite active. He
says that the main reason we sleep is because the nobler part of the soul is united by
abstraction to our higher nature and becomes a participant in the wisdom and
foreknowledge of the gods.
Dr. Bigelow states also, The results of my studies have not only strengthened my
convictions that the supposed exemption from customary toils and activities was not the
final purpose of sleep, but have also made clearer to my mind the conviction that no part
of a mans life deserves to be considered more indispensable to its symmetrical and
perfect spiritual development than the while he is separated from the phenomenal world
in sleep.
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He hated audiences
An actor told me that the audience booed and hissed him on his first appearance on the
stage. He added that the play was badly written and that undoubtedly he did not play a
good role. He admitted openly to me that for months afterward he hated audiences. He
called them dopes, dummies, stupid, ignorant, gullible, etc. He quit the stage in disgust
and went to work in a drugstore for a year.
One day a friend invited him to hear a lecture in Town Hall, New York City, on How to
Get Along With Ourselves. This lecture changed his life. He went back to the stage and
began to pray sincerely for the audience and himself. He poured out love and good will
every night before appearing on the stage. He made it a habit to claim that the peace of
God filled the hearts of all present, and that all present were lifted up and inspired.
During each performance he sent out love vibrations to the audience. Today, he is a great
actor, and he loves and respects people. His good will and esteem are transmitted to
others and are felt by them.
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How to be compassionate
Suppose none of the things mentioned in the letter had been true of the teacher. The latter
would have realized that her class material had upset the prejudices, superstitions, or
narrow sectarian beliefs of the writer of the note, and that a psychologically ill person
was simply pouring forth her resentment because a psychological boil had been hurt.
To understand this fact is to be compassionate. The next logical step would be to pray for
the other persons peace, harmony, and understanding. You cannot be hurt when you
know that you are master of your thoughts, reactions, and emotions. Emotions follow
thoughts, and you have the power to reject all thoughts, which may disturb or upset you.
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Technique of forgiveness
The following is a simple method, which works wonders in your life as you practice it:
Quiet your mind, relax, and let go. Think of God and His love for you, and then affirm, I
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Focused attention
Realizing that his conscious mind was simply a camera, he used no effort. There was no
mental struggle. He quietly adjusted his thoughts and focused his attention on the scene
before him until he gradually became identified with the picture. He became absorbed in
the mental atmosphere, repeating the mental movie frequently. There was no room for
doubt that a healing would follow. When there was any temptation to drink, he would
switch his imagination from any reveries of drinking bouts to the feeling of being at
home with his family. He was successful because he confidently expected to experience
the picture he was developing in his mind. Today he is president of a multimillion dollar
concern and is radiantly happy.
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Refusing to admit it
If you are an alcoholic or drug addict, admit it. Do not dodge the issue. Many people
remain alcoholics because they refuse to admit it. Your disease is instability, an inner
fear. You are refusing to face life, and so you try to escape your responsibilities through
the bottle. As an alcoholic you have no free will, although you think you have, and you
may even boast about your will power. If you are a habitual drunkard and say bravely, I
will not touch it anymore, you have no power to make this assertion come true, because
you do not know where to locate the power.
You are living in a psychological prison of your own making, and you are bound by your
beliefs, opinions, training, and environmental influences. Like most people, you are a
creature of habit. You are conditioned to react the way you do.
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Cause of alcoholism
The real cause of alcoholism is negative and destructive thinking; for as a man thinketh,
so is he. The alcoholic has a deep sense of inferiority, inadequacy, defeat, and frustration,
usually accompanied by a deep inner hostility. He has countless alibis as to his reason for
drinking, but the sole reason is in his thought life.
Keep on keeping on
When fear knocks at the door of your mind, or when worry, anxiety, and doubt cross your
mind, behold your vision, your goal. Think of the infinite power within your
subconscious mind, which you can generate by your thinking and imagining, and this will
give you confidence, power, and courage. Keep on, persevere, until the day breaks, and
the shadows flee away.
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Fear of failure
Occasionally young men from the local university come to see me, as well as
schoolteachers, who often seem to suffer from suggestive amnesia at examinations. The
complaint is always the same: I know the answers after the examination is over, but I
cant remember the answers during the examination.
The idea, which realizes itself, is the one to which we invariably give concentrated
attention. I find that each one is obsessed with the idea of failure. Fear is behind the
temporary amnesia, and it is the cause of the whole experience.
One young medical student was the most brilliant person in his class, yet he found
himself failing to answer simple questions at the time of written or oral examinations. I
explained to him that the reason was he had been worrying and was fearful for several
days previous to the examination.
These negative thoughts became charged with fear. Thoughts enveloped in the powerful
emotion of fear are realized in the subconscious mind. In other words, this young man
was requesting his subconscious mind to see to it that he failed, and that is exactly what it
did. On the day of the examination he found himself stricken with what is called, in
psychological circles, suggestive amnesia.
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He dismissed himself
The general manager of an organization told me that for three years he feared he would
lose his position. He was always imagining failure. The thing he feared did not exist, save
as a morbid anxious thought in his own mind. His vivid imagination dramatized the loss
of his job until he became nervous and neurotic. Finally he was asked to resign. Actually,
he dismissed himself. His constant negative imagery and fear suggestions to his
subconscious mind caused the latter to respond and react accordingly. It caused him to
make mistakes and foolish decisions, which resulted in his failure as a general manager.
His dismissal would never have happened,. if he had immediately moved to the opposite
in his mind.
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Life is
A woman asked Thomas Edison, the electrical wizard, Mr. Edison, what is electricity?
He replied, Madame, electricity is. Use it. Electricity is a name we give an invisible
power which we do not fully comprehend, but we learn all we can about the principle of
electricity and its uses. We use it in countless ways.
The scientist cannot see an electron with his eyes, yet he accepts it as a scientific fact,
because it is the only valid conclusion, which coincides with his other experimental
evidence. We cannot see life. However, we know we are alive. Life is, and we are here to
express it in all its beauty and glory.
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Age is an asset
Your age should be a distinct asset to any organization, because of your practice and
application through the years of the principles of the Golden Rule and the law of love and
good will. Your gray hair, if you have any, should stand for greater wisdom, skill, and
understanding. Your emotional and spiritual maturity should be a tremendous blessing to
any organization. A man should not be asked to resign when he is 65 years of age. That is
the time of life when he could be most useful in handling personnel problems, making
plans for the future, making decisions, and guiding others in the realm of creative ideas
based on his experience and insight into the nature of the business.
Be your age
A motion picture writer in Hollywood told me that he had to write scripts, which would
cater to the twelve year old mind. This is a tragic state of affairs if the great masses of
people are expected to become emotionally and spiritually mature. It means that the
emphasis is placed on youth in spite of the fact that youth stands for inexperience, lack
of discernment, and hasty judgment.
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Secret of youth
To recapture the days of your youth, feel the miraculous, healing, self renewing power of
your subconscious mind moving through your whole being. Know and feel that you are
inspired, lifted up, rejuvenated, revitalized, and recharged spiritually. You can bubble
over with enthusiasm and joy, as in the days of your youth, for the simple reason that you
can always mentally and emotionally recapture the joyous state.
The candle, which shines upon your head, is divine intelligence, and reveals to you
everything you need to know; it enables you to affirm the presence of your good,
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Get a vision
Instead of saying, I am old, say, I am wise in the way of the Divine Life. Dont let
the corporation, newspapers, or statistics hold a picture before you of old age, declining
years, decrepitude, senility, and uselessness. Reject it, for it is a lie. Refuse to be
hypnotized by such propaganda. Affirm lifenot death. Get a vision of yourself as
happy, radiant, successful, serene, and powerful.
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Profitable pointers
1. Patience, kindness, love, good will, joy, happiness, wisdom, and understanding are
qualities, which never grow old. Cultivate them and express them, and remain young in
mind and body.
2. Some research physicians say that the neurotic fear of the effects of time may well be
the cause of premature aging.
3. Age is not the flight of years; it is the dawn of wisdom in the mind of man.
4. The most productive years of your life can be from 65 to 95.
5. Welcome the advancing years. It means you are moving higher on the path of life,
which has no end.
6. God is Life, and that is your life now. Life is self renewing, eternal, and indestructible,
and is the reality of all men. You live forever, because your life is Gods life.
7. Evidence of survival after death is overwhelming. Study Proceedings of Psychical
Research Society of Great Britain and America in your library. Outstanding scientists
base the work on the scientific research for over 75 years.
8. You cannot see your mind, but you know you have a mind. You cannot see spirit, but
you know that the spirit of the game, the spirit of the artist, the spirit of the musician, and
the spirit of the speaker is real. Likewise, the spirit of goodness, truth, and beauty moving
in your mind and heart are real. You cannot see life, but you know you are alive.
9. Old age may be called the contemplation of the truths of God from the highest
standpoint. The joys of old age are greater than those of youth. Your mind is engaged in
spiritual and mental athletics. Nature slows down your body so that you may have the
opportunity to meditate on things divine.
10. We do not count a mans years until he has nothing else to count. Your faith and
convictions are not subject to decay.
11. You are as young as you think you are. You are as strong as you think you are. You
are as useful as you think you are. You are as young as your thoughts.
12. Your gray hair is an asset. You are not selling your gray hairs. You are selling your
talent, abilities, and wisdom, which you have garnered through the years.
13. Diets and exercises wont keep you young. As a man thinketh, so is he.
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