T he term auto-suggestion simply means self-suggestion, suggestion which one deliberately makes to oneself.
James Allen, in his excellent little magazine, As a Man Thinketh, has given the world a fine lesson in auto-suggestion by having shown that a man may literally make himself over through this process of self suggestion. This lesson, like James Allen’s magazine, is intended mainly as a means of stimulating men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that ‘‘they themselves are makers of themselves,’’ by virtue of the thoughts which they choose and encourage; that mind is
the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance; and that as they have hitherto woven in ignorance, pain, and grief, they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
This lesson is not a preachment, nor is it a treatise on morality or ethics. It is a scientific treatise through which the student may understand the reason why the first rung in the magic ladder to success was placed there, and how to make the principle back of that rung a part of his or her own working equipment with which to
master life’s most important economic problems.
This lesson is based upon the following facts:
1. Every movement of the human body is controlled and directed by thought, that is, by orders sent out from the brain, where the mind has its seat of government.
2. The mind is divided into two sections, one being called the conscious section (which directs our bodily activities while we are awake), and the other being called the subconscious section, which controls our bodily activity while we are asleep.
3. The presence of any thought or idea in one’s conscious mind (and probably the same is true of thoughts and ideas in the subconscious division of the mind) tends to produce an ‘‘associated feeling’’ and to urge one to appropriate bodily activity in transforming the thought so held into physical reality. For example, one can develop courage and self confidence by the use of the following, or some similar positive statement, or by holding the thought of this statement in one’s
mind constantly: ‘‘I believe in myself. I am courageous. I can accomplish whatever I undertake.’’ This is called autosuggestion.
We shall now proceed to give you the modus operandi through which the first step in the magic ladder to success can be appropriated and used. To begin with, search diligently until you find the particular work to which you wish to devote your life, taking care to see that you select that which will profit all who are affected by your activities. After you have decided what your life work is to be, write out a clear statement of it and then commit it to memory.
Several times a day, and especially just before going to sleep at night, repeat the words of this written description of your life work, and affirm to yourself that you are attracting to you the necessary
forces, people, and material things with which to attain the object of your life work, or your definite aim in life. Bear in mind that your brain is literally a magnet, and that it will attract to you other people who harmonize, in thought and in ideals, with those thoughts which dominate your mind and those ideals which are most deeply seated in you.
There is a law, which we may properly call the law of attraction, through the operation of which water seeks its level, and everything throughout the universe of like nature seeks its kind. If it were not for this law, which is as immutable as the law of gravitation which keeps the planets in their proper places, the cells out of which an oak tree grows might scamper away and become mixed with the cells out of which the poplar grows, thereby producing a tree that would be part poplar and part oak. But, such a phenomenon has never been heard of.
Following this law of attraction a little further, we can see how it works out among men and women. We know that successful, prosperous men of affairs seek the companionship of their own
kind, while the down-and-outer seeks his kind, and this happens just as naturally as water flows downhill. Like attracts like, a fact which is indisputable.
Then, if it is true that men are constantly seeking the companionship of those whose ideals and thoughts harmonize with their own, can you not see the importance of so controlling and directing your thoughts and ideals that you will eventually develop exactly the kind of ‘‘magnet’’ in your brain that you wish to serve as an attraction in drawing others to you?
If it is true that the very presence of any thought in your conscious mind has a tendency to arouse you to bodily, muscular activity that will correspond with the nature of the thought, can you not see the
advantage of selecting, with care, the thoughts which you allow your mind to dwell upon?
Read these lines carefully, and think over and digest the meaning which they convey, because we are now laying the foundation for a scientific truth which constitutes the very foundation upon which all
worthwhile human accomplishment is based. We are beginning, now, to build the roadway over which you will travel out of the wilderness of doubt, discouragement, uncertainty, and failure, and we want you to familiarize yourself with every inch of this road.
No one knows what thought is, but every philosopher and every man of scientific ability who has given any study to the subject is in accord with the statement that thought is a powerful form of energy which directs the activities of the human body, that every idea held in the mind through prolonged, concentrated thought takes on permanent form and continues to affect the bodily activities according to its nature, either consciously or unconsciously.
Auto-suggestion, which is nothing more or less than an idea held in the mind, through thought, is the only known principle through which one may literally make oneself over, after any pattern he or she
may choose. How to Develop Character through Auto-Suggestion This brings us to an appropriate place at which to explain the method through which your author has literally made himself over during a period of approximately five years.
Before we go into these details, let us remind you of the common tendency of human beings to doubt that which they do not understand, and all that they cannot prove to their own satisfaction, either
by similar experiences of their own or by observation. Let us also remind you that this is no age for a Doubting Thomas. Your author, while a comparatively young man, has nevertheless seen the birth of some of the world’s greatest inventions, the uncovering, as it were, of some of the so-called ‘‘hidden secrets’’ of nature. And he is well within the bounds of accuracy when he reminds you that during the last sixty years, science has lifted the curtains that separated us from the light of truth, and brought into use more tools of culture, development, and progress than had been discovered in all the previous history of the human race.
Within comparatively recent years, we have seen the birth of the incandescent electric light, the typesetting machine, the printing press, the x-ray, the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, the submarine, the wireless telegraphy, and myriad other organized forces which serve mankind and tend to separate him from the animal instincts of the dark ages out of which he has risen. As these lines are being written, we are informed that Thomas A. Edison is at work on a contrivance which he believes will enable the departed spirits of men to communicate with us here on earth, if such a thing is possible. And if the announcement should come from East
Orange, New Jersey, tomorrow morning, that Edison has completed his machine and communicated with the spirits of departed men, this writer, for one, would not scoff at the statement. If we did not accept it as true until we had seen proof, we would at least hold an open mind on the subject, because we have witnessed enough of the ‘‘impossible’’ during the past thirty years to convince us that there is but little that is strictly impossible when the human mind sets itself to a task with that grim determination that knows no defeat.
If modern history informs us correctly, the best railroad men in the country scoffed at the idea that Westinghouse could stop a train by jamming air on the brakes, but those same men lived to see a law
passed in the New York legislature compelling railroad companies to use this ‘‘foolish contrivance,’’ and if it had not been for that law, the present speed of railroad trains and the safety with which we may travel would not be possible.
We are reminded to state, also, that had the illustrious Napoleon Bonaparte not scoffed at Robert Fulton’s request for an interview, the French capital might be sitting on English soil today, and France
might be the mistress over all of the British empire. Fulton sent word to Napoleon that he had invented a steam engine that would carry a boat against the wind, but Napoleon, never having seen such a contrivance, sent back word that he had no time to fool with cranks, and, furthermore, ships could not sail against the wind because ships never had been sailed that way.
Well within the memory of your author, a bill was introduced in Congress asking for an appropriation with which to experiment with an airplane which Samuel Pierpont Langley had worked out, but the
appropriation was promptly denied, and Professor Langley was scoffed at as being an impractical dreamer and a ‘‘crank.’’ No one had ever seen a man fly a machine in the air, and no one believed it
could be done. But, we are becoming a bit more liberal in our viewpoint concerning powers which we do not understand; at least those of us who do not wish to become the laughingstock of later generations are.
We felt impelled to remind you of these ‘‘impossibilities’’ of the past which turned out to be realities, before taking you behind the curtains of our own life and displaying, for your benefit, certain principles which we have reason to believe will be hard for the uninitiated to accept until they have been tried out and proved sound. We will now proceed to unfold to you the most astonishing and,
we might well say, the most miraculous experience of our entire past, an experience which is related solely for the benefit of those who are earnestly seeking ways and means to develop in themselves those qualities which constitute positive character.
When we first commenced to understand the principle of autosuggestion several years ago, we adopted a plan for making practical use of it in developing certain qualities which we admired in certain men who are familiar characters in history, viz.: Just before going to sleep at night, we made it a practice to close our eyes and see, in our imagination (please get this clearly fixed in your mind—what we saw was deliberately placed in our mind as instructions, or as a direct command to our subconscious mind, and as a blueprint for it to build by, through our imagination, and was in no way attributed to anything occult or in the field of uncharted phenomena) a large counsel table standing on the floor in front of us.
We then pictured, in our imagination, certain men seated around that table, those men from whose characters and lives we wished to appropriate certain qualities to be deliberately built into our own
character, through the principle of auto-suggestion. For example, some of the men whom we selected to take an imaginary place at the imaginary counsel table were Lincoln, Emerson, Socrates, Aristotle, Napoleon, Jefferson, Elbert Hubbard, the man from Galilee, and Henry Ward Beecher, the well-known English orator. Our purpose was to impress our subconscious mind, through auto-suggestion, with the thought that we were developing certain qualities which we admired most in each of these and in other great men.
Night after night, for an hour or more at a time, we went through this imaginary meeting at the counsel table. As a matter of fact, we continue the practice to this day, adding a new character to the
counsel table as often as we find someone from whom we wish to take certain qualities, through emulation.
From Lincoln, we wanted the qualities for which he was most noted—earnestness of purpose; a fair sense of justice toward all, both friends and foes alike; an ideal which had for its object the uplift of the masses, the common people; the courage to break precedents and to establish new ones when circumstances demanded it. All these qualities, which we had so much admired in Lincoln, we set out
to develop in our own character while looking upon that imaginary counsel table, by actually commanding our subconscious mind to use the picture which it saw, at the counsel table, as a plan to build from.
We wished to take from Napoleon the quality of dogged persistency; we wanted his strategic ability to turn adverse circumstances to good account; we wanted his self-confidence and his wonderful ability to inspire and lead men;we wanted his ability to organize his own faculties and his fellow workers, because we knew that real power came only through intelligently organized and properly directed efforts. From Emerson, we wanted that remarkably keen insight into the future for which he was noted. We wanted his ability to interpret nature’s handwriting as it is manifested in flowing brooks, singing birds, laughing children, the blue skies, the starry heavens, the green grass, and the beautiful flowers. We wanted his ability to interpret human emotions, his ability to reason from cause to effect and, inversely, from effect back to cause.
We wanted Elbert Hubbard’s power of words and his ability to interpret the trend of the times; we wanted his ability to combine words so they would convey the exact pictures of the thoughts we created; we wanted his ability to write in a rhythmic strain that would be unquestioned as to its meaning or its sincerity.
We wanted Beecher’s magnetic power to grip the hearts of an audience, in public address, his ability to speak with force and conviction that moved an audience to laughter or to tears and made his listeners feel with him mirth and melody, sorrow, and good cheer. As I saw those men sitting there before me, seated around the imaginary counsel table, I would direct my attention to each of them
for a few minutes, saying to myself that I was developing those qualities which I aimed to appropriate from the character before me.
If you have tears of grief to shed for me, on account of my ignorance in going through this imaginary role of character building, get ready to shed them now. If you have words of condemnation to utter against my practice, utter them now. If you have a feeling of cynicism which seems to strive for expression in the nature of a scowling face, give expression to it now, because I am about to relate something which ought to, and probably will, cause you to stop, look, and reason!
Up until the time that I began these imaginary counsel meetings, I had made many attempts at public speaking, all of which had been dismal failures. The very first speech I attempted to deliver after a
week of this practice, I so impressed my audience that I was invited back for another talk on the same subject, and from that day until the time of the writing of these lines, I have been constantly improving.
Last year, the demand for my services as a public speaker became so universal that I toured the greater portion of the United States, speaking before the leading clubs, civic organizations, schools, and specially arranged meetings. In the city of Pittsburgh, during the month of May, 1920, I
delivered the ‘‘Magic Ladder to Success’’ before the Advertising Club. In my audience were some of the leading businessmen of the United States, officials from the Carnegie Steel Company, the H.J.
Heinz Pickle Company, the Joseph Horne Department Store, and other great industries of the city. These men were analytical men.
Many of them were college and university graduates. They were men who knew when they heard something that was sound. At the close of my address, they gave me what several members of the audience afterward told me was the greatest ovation ever given a speaker before that club. Shortly after my return from Pittsburgh, I received a medal from the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World, in memory of that event, engraved as follows: ‘‘In Appreciation of Napoleon Hill, May 20, 1920.’’
Please do not make the mistake of interpreting the foregoing as an outburst of egotism. I am giving you facts, names, dates, and places, and I am doing this only for the purpose of showing you that the
quality which I so greatly admired in Henry Ward Beecher I had actually commenced to develop in myself. This quality was developed, around the imaginary counsel table, with my eyes shut, while
looking at an imaginary figure of Mr. Beecher seated as a member of my imaginary board of counselors.
The principle through which I developed this ability was autosuggestion. I filled my mind so full of the thought that I would equal, and even excel, Beecher before I stopped that no other result could
have been the outcome. Nor is this the end of my narrative—a narrative which, by the way, the hundreds of thousands who know me now, located in nearly every city, town, and hamlet throughout the United States, can corroborate! I began, immediately, to supplant intolerance with tolerance; I began to emulate the immortal Lincoln in those wonderful qualities of justice toward all, friend and foe alike. New power began to come, not alone to my spoken words, but to my pen as well, and I saw, as plainly as I could see the sun on a clear day, the steady development of that ability to express myself with force and conviction by the written word, which I had so much admired in Elbert Hubbard.
In speaking of this very point, not many months ago, Mr. Myers, an official of the Morris Packing Company of Chicago, made the remark that my editorials in Hill’s Golden Rule Magazine reminded him very forcefully of the late Elbert Hubbard, and added that he had just stated to one of his associates a few days previously that I was not only big enough to fill Elbert Hubbard’s shoes, but that I had already outgrown them.
Again, I remind you not to brush these facts aside lightly, or to charge them to egotism. If I write as well as Hubbard, it is because I have aspired to do so, first having deliberately made use of autosuggestion to charge my mind with the aim and purpose of not only equaling him, but of excelling him if possible. I am not unmindful of the fact that the display of egotism is an unpardonable weakness, in either a writer or a speaker, and no one more readily denounces such shallowness of mind than this writer.
However, I must also remind you that it is not always a sign of egotism when a writer refers to his own personal experiences for the purpose of giving his readers authentic data on a given subject.
Sometimes it requires courage to do so. In this particular case, I would refrain from the free use of the personal pronoun ‘‘I’’ which has so frequently crept into this narrative, were it not for the fact that
to do so would take away much of the value of my work. I am relating these personal experiences solely because I know they are authentic, believing, as I do, that it is preferable to run the risk of being classed as egotistical rather than use a hypothetical illustration of the principle of auto suggestion or write in the third person.
The Value of a Definite Aim in Life
Your author gives the same care and attention to the details of his definite aim in life as he would to the plans of a skyscraper if he contemplated building one. Your achievement in life will be no more
definite than were the plans by which you attained your objective. A little more than a year and a half prior to the writing of these lines, I revised my written statement of my definite aim in life, changing the paragraph headed ‘‘Income’’ to read as follows: There will be no lasting peace on earth until the human race is taught that physical conflict cannot decide a moral issue.
I will earn $100,000 a year because I will need this sum to carry on the educational program which I
have outlined for my School of Business Economics. Within less than six months from the day that I made this change in the wording of my definite aim in life, I was approached by the head of a corporation who offered me a business connection at a salary of $105,200 a year, the $5,200 being intended to cover my traveling expenses to and from the place of employment, which was a
long distance from Chicago, leaving the amount agreed upon for the salary exactly the amount that I had indicated in my written statement of my definite aim.
I accepted this offer, and in less than five months, I had created an organization and other assets for the concern that employed me that were estimated to be worth over $20 million. I refrain from mentioning names only for the reason that I feel duty-bound to state that my employer found a loophole through which he defrauded me out of the $100,000 salary agreed upon.
There are two outstanding facts to which I would direct your attention, namely:
- First, I was offered exactly the amount which I had set out in my definite aim as being the amount I intended to earn during the ensuing year.
- Secondly, I actually earned the amount (and, in fact, many times more than earned it) even though I did not collect it.
Now, please go back to the wording of my declaration that I would ‘‘earn $100,000 a year’’ and ask yourself the question, ‘‘What would have been the difference, if any, had the declaration read, ‘I will earn and RECEIVE $100,000 a year’?’’ Frankly, I do not know whether it would have made any difference in results if I had so worded my definite aim. On the other hand, it might have made a great deal of difference.
Who is wise enough to either affirm or deny the statement that there is a law of the universe through which we attract to us that which we believe in life that we can attain through this same law; that we receive that which we demand, providing the demand is possible of attainment and is based upon equity, justice, and a clearly defined plan. I am convinced that it is impossible to defeat the purpose of a person who organizes his or her efforts. Out of such organization, your author has attained, with astounding speed, the position in life to which he aspired, and he knows anyone else can do the same.
In my public addresses during the past twelve months, I suppose I have stated it as my opinion, at least a thousand times, that the person who takes the time to build a definite plan that is sound and
equitable, that benefits all whom it affects, and then develops the self confidence to carry it through to completion cannot be defeated. I have never been accused of being overly credulous or superstitious.
I have never been impressed very much by so-called miracles, but I am compelled to admit that I have seen the working out, in my own evolution during the past twenty-odd years, certain principles
which have produced seemingly miraculous results. I have watched the development and unfoldment of my own mind, and while I ordinarily am not very deeply impressed by any ‘‘miracle,’’ the cause
of which I cannot trace, I must admit that much has happened in the development of my own mind which I cannot trace back to original cause.
This much I do know, however; I know that my outward bodily action invariably harmonizes with and corresponds to the nature of the thoughts which dominate my mind, the thoughts which I permit
to drift into my mind, or those which I deliberately place there with the intention of giving them domination over my bodily activities.
Service and sacrifice are passwords to the very highest success. My own experience has proved conclusively that character need not be a matter of chance! Character can be built to order just the
same as a house can be built to correspond to a set of previously drawn up plans. My own experience has proved conclusively that a man can rebuild his character in a remarkably short length of time,
ranging all the way from a few weeks to a few years, depending upon the determination and the desire with which he goes at a task.
A few months before I began these lessons on applied psychology, I had an experience which gained considerable attention among the interested parties here in the city of Chicago. As I was getting off an
elevator in the retail department of A.C. Mc Clurg & Company (Chicago’s largest book and stationery house), the elevator man allowed the elevator door to slip and catch me between the door and the wall of the elevator. Besides causing me great pain, the accident tore the sleeve of my coat, damaging it to what looked like beyond repair.
I reported the accident to the store manager, a Mr. Ryan, who very courteously informed me that I would be reimbursed for the damage done. After a time, the insurance company sent out its agent, looked my coat over, and paid me $40 for the damage. After the settlement was made and all parties concerned were satisfied, I took the coat to my tailor, and he made such a neat repair that one could not tell where the coat was torn. The tailor’s bill was $2.
I had $38 that did not belong to me, yet the insurance company was satisfied, mainly, I suppose, because it got off by paying for less than half the cost of a new suit. A.C. McClurg & Company was
satisfied because my damage had been made good by their insurance company, and the affair had cost them nothing. Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy
is now. The way to be happy is to help make others so. —ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
But I was not satisfied! There were many purposes for which I could use that $38. Legally, it belonged to me, I was in possession of it, and there was no one to ever question my right to it or the means by which I acquired it. Had the insurance company known that the suit could have been
so neatly repaired, it probably would have demurred against paying such a large bill, but the question of how the repair would turn out was one that could not be determined in advance.
I argued with my conscience for that $38, but it would not permit me to keep it, so I finally compromised by handing back half of the amount and keeping the other half, on the theory that I had lost considerable time in bringing about the adjustment, and also on the theory that the repair might show up the defective part of the garment later on. I had to stretch matters considerably in my own
favor before I felt justified in keeping more than the actual cost of the repairs.
When I handed back the money, the representative of McClurg & Company suggested that I just keep the money and forget it, to which I replied, ‘‘That’s just the trouble; I would like to keep it, but I couldn’t forget it!’’ There was a sound reason why I handed back that $20. That reason had nothing to do with ethics or honesty. It had nothing to do with the rights of A.C. McClurg & Company or of the insurance company that was protecting McClurg & Company. In arriving at my decision to hand back the money, I never took into consideration either McClurg or the insurance company. They were entirely out of the transaction because they were satisfied. What I really took into consideration was my own character, knowing as I did that every transaction was influencing my moral fiber, and that character is nothing more or less than the sum total of one’s habits and ethical conduct. I knew that I could no more afford to keep that $20 without first having earned the right to it than an apple merchant could afford to place a rotten apple in a barrel of sound ones prior to storing the barrel away for the winter.
I gave back the $20 because I wanted to convince myself that no material could find its way into my character, with my knowledge, except that which I knew to be sound. I gave back the money because
it offered a splendid opportunity for me to test myself and ascertain whether or not I possessed that brand of honesty which prompts a man to be honest for the sake of expedience, or that deeper, nobler,
and more worthy brand which prompts a man to be honest that he may grow stronger and more able to render his fellowmen service that grows out of a desire to be all that he tells the other man to be.
I am convinced that if a man’s plans are based upon sound economic principles; if they are fair and just to all whom they affect; and if the man, himself, can throw behind those plans the dynamic
force of character and belief in self that grows out of the transactions which have always satisfied his own conscience, he will ride on to success, with and by the aid of a tremendous current of force which no power on earth can stop, nay, a force which but few can correctly interpret or understand.
Power is organized knowledge that is controlled and directed to ends that are based upon justice and equity to all who are affected. There are two classes of human power. One is attained through the
organization of the individual faculties, and the other is attained through the organization of individuals who work harmoniously to a common end. There can be no power except through intelligently directed organization.
You cannot organize your individual faculties except through the use of the principle of auto-suggestion, for the simple reason that you cannot vitalize or give dynamic force to your faculties, your emotions, your intellect, your reasoning powers, or your bodily functions, without collecting all of these together, co-relating them, and working them into a plan.
No plan, great or small, can be developed in your mind except through the principle of auto-suggestion. The mind resembles a rich garden spot in that it will grow a crop of outward, physical, bodily activity which corresponds exactly to the nature of the thoughts that dominate the mind, whether those thoughts are deliberately placed there and held until they take root and grow, or merely drift in as so many stragglers, taking up their abode without invitation.
There is no escape from the effects of one’s dominating thoughts. There is no possibility of thinking of failure, poverty, and discouragement and at the same time enjoying success, wealth, and courage. You can choose that which holds the attention of your mind; therefore, you can control the development of your character, which, in turn, helps to determine the character of people whom you will attract to you. Your own mind is the magnet which attracts to you those with whom you
associate most closely, the station in life you hold.Therefore, it is within your province to magnetize that mind only with thoughts that will attract the sort of people with whom you wish to associate and the station in life to which you are willing to attain.
Auto-suggestion is the very foundation upon which and through which an attractive personality is built, for the reason that character grows to resemble the dominating thoughts that help in the mind,
and these, in turn, control the action of the body. When you make use of the principle of auto-suggestion, you are painting a picture or drawing a plan for your subconscious mind to work by. After you learn how to properly concentrate or fix your attention on this process of plan building, you can reach your subconscious mind instantly, and it will put your plans into action.
Beginners must repeat over and over again the outline of their plans before the subconscious mind will take over the plans and transform them into reality. Therefore, be not discouraged if you do
not get results on the spur of the moment. Only those who have attained master ship can reach and direct their subconscious mind instantaneously.
In closing this lesson, let me remind you that back of this principle of auto-suggestion is one important thing which you must not overlook, and that is strong, deeply seated, highly emotional desire. Desire is the very beginning of mind operation. You can create in the physical reality practically anything you can desire with deep, vitalized emotion. Deep desire is the beginning of all human accomplishments. Autosuggestion is merely the principle through which that desire is
communicated to your subconscious mind. Probably you do not have to go outside of your own experience to prove that it is comparatively easy to acquire that which one strongly desires.
Next time, we will take up the subject of suggestion and show how to use your dynamic, attractive personality after you have developed it through auto-suggestion. Suggestion is the very foundation of all successful salesmanship.
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