The Magic of Believing (Condensed Classics)

The Immortal Program to Unlocking the Success-Power of Your Mind

Claude M. Bristol, Mitch Horowitz

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781722520168
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Your Mind Is a Storehouse of Amazing Possibilities. Start Using Them Right Now for Success and Achievement! In 1948, journalist Claude M. Bristol produced a book that has touched generations of readers: The Magic of Believing. Artists and businesspeople, athletes and entrepreneurs, have sworn by Bristol's program for harnessing the higher energies of the mind for peak performance. Now, this condensed edition of The Magic of Believing allows you—within the space of a lunch hour or morning commute—to discover: • How to transfer your thoughts to other people. • Why a focused aim leads to achievement. • How to project powerful confidence. • What your outer appearance reveals about you. • The one great mental secret to success. Abridged and introduced by PEN Award-winning historian Mitch Horowitz, The Magic of Believing is at once the most grounded and the boldest work of self-development you will ever encounter. Discover what it can do for you.

CHAPTER ONE

How I Came to Tap the Power of Belief

Is there a something, a force, a factor, a power, a science—call it what you will—which a few people understand and use to overcome their difficulties and achieve outstanding success? I firmly believe that there is, and it is my purpose to attempt to explain it so that you may use it if you desire.

About fifteen years ago the financial editor of a great Los Angeles newspaper, after attending lectures I had given to financial men in that city, wrote: “You have caught from the ether something that has a mystical quality—a something that explains the magic of coincidence, the mystery of what makes men lucky.”

I realized that I had run across something that was workable, but I didn’t consider it then, neither do I now, as anything mystical, except in the sense that it is unknown to the majority of people. It is something that has always been known to a fortunate few down the centuries, but, for some unknown reason, is little understood by the average person.

When I started out years ago to teach this science, I wasn’t certain that it could be or would be grasped by the ordinary individual; but now that I have seen those who have used it double and triple their incomes, build their own successful businesses, acquire homes in the country, and create sizable fortunes, I am convinced that any intelligent person who is sincere with himself can reach any heights he desires.

The science of thought is as old as man himself. The wise men of all ages have known about it and used it. The only thing the writer has done is to put the subject in modern language and bring to the reader’s attention what a few of the outstanding minds of today are doing to substantiate the great truths that have come down through the centuries.

Much has been written and said about mystical powers, unknown forces, the occult, metaphysics, mental physics, psychology, black and white magic, and many kindred subjects, causing most people to believe that they are in the field of the supernatural. Perhaps they are for some, but my conclusion is that the only inexplicable thing about these powers is that it is belief that makes them work.

CHAPTER TWO

Mind-Stuff Experiments

In order to get a clearer understanding of our subject, the reader should give thought to thought itself and to its phenomena. No one knows what thought really is, other than it is some sort of mental action; but, like the unknown element electricity, we see its manifestations everywhere. We see it in the actions and expressions of a child, in an aged person, in animals, and, in fact, to varying degrees in every living thing. The more we contemplate and study thought, the more we realize what a terrific force it is and how unlimited are its powers.

Glance around as you read this. If you are in a furnished room, your eyes tell you that you are looking at a number of inanimate objects. That is true so far as visual perception is concerned; but in reality you are actually looking at thoughts or ideas that have come into materialization through the creative work of some human being. It was a thought, first, that created the furniture, fashioned the window glass, gave form to the draperies and coverings.

The automobile, the skyscraper, the great planes that sweep the stratosphere, the sewing machine, the tiny pin, a thousand and one things—yes, millions of objects—where did they come from originally? Only one source. From that strange force—thought. As we analyze further, we realize that these achievements, and in fact all of our possessions, came as a result of creative thinking. Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that the ancestor of every action is thought; when we understand that, we begin to comprehend that our world is governed by thought and that everything without had its counterpart originally within the mind. It is just as Buddha said many centuries ago: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

Figuratively, thought makes giants out of pigmies, and often turns giants into pigmies. History is filled with accounts of how thought has made weak men strong and strong men weak, and we see evidence of its working around us constantly.

You do not eat, wear clothes, run for a bus, drive your automobile, go for a walk, or read a newspaper—you don’t even raise your arm—without a preceding thought-impulse. While you may consider the motions you make as more or less automatic, perhaps caused by some physical reflexes, behind every single step you take in life, regardless of its direction, is that formidable and powerful force—thought.

The very way you walk, the way you carry yourself, your talk, your manner of dress, all reflect your way of thinking. A slovenly carriage is an indication of slovenly thinking, whereas an alert, upright carriage is the outward sign of inward strength and confidence. What you exhibit outwardly, you are inwardly.

You are the pro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction: The Metaphysics of Success
• Chapter One: How I Came to Tap the Power of Belief
• Chapter Two: Mind-Stuff Experiments
• Chapter Three: Suggestion Is Power
• Chapter Four: The Art of Mental Pictures
• Chapter Five: The Mirror Technique for Releasing the Subconscious
• Chapter Six: How to Project Your Thoughts
• Chapter Seven: Belief Makes Things Happen
• About the Authors