Personal Power

Discover How to Use Your Own Subconscious Energies for
Health, Prosperity and Personal Achievement!

"The Personal Power Course" by Wallace D. Wattles




Lesson 1 - Fundamentals

In order to get what you want, you must act; and in order to
act, you must apply force. And it is self-evident
proposition that the force to be applied is one within
yourself. If you are to use external forces, they can only
be made to act by compelling them to obey you; and to compel
them to obey you, you must use your internal force. So,
whether you seek health, wealth, development, position or
happiness, you must expect to get it by applying your own
inward force, and you cannot get it any other way.

Is the force within you sufficient for the task? Yes; the
force within you is all the force there is, and contains the
potentialities of all life. All life is the same, and
contains the same essentials, powers, and possibilities.
Nobody ever had a talent which you have not, either as a
developed or an undeveloped faculty. Nobody ever did a thing
which you cannot do by developing the faculty or talent
required; and since perfection has not been reached in
anything, nobody ever did anything so well but that you can
do it better. It is possible for you to become a better
soldier than Napoleon, a better lawyer than Daniel Webster,
a greater orator than Ingersoll, or a greater inventive
genius than Edison; the power is within you, and it is only
a matter of development. And if you can eat even a very
little food and assimilate it, having it built into new
cells, you can have health. The force which can build a few
new cells can build you a new body, if it is continuously
directed in the right way.

Given, the fact that you have the force, it all becomes a
matter of directing that force. The force being sufficient
for the work, the sole question is whether you can learn to
use it constructively; for we must bear in mind that every
act of force is either constructive or destructive in its
tendency. Nature is always working along two general lines;
integrating atoms, drawing them together into forms, and
scattering and dispersing the same atoms; dissolving the
forms. The same agencies are employed in construction and
destruction; there is no duality, and we do not find two
sets of forces at work. Nature, working with the chemistry
of life, with oxygen and the food particles of matter,
builds a great oak tree; but when it is finished it is
already dead at the heart, and Nature goes on with the same
agencies - oxygen and the chemical processes - to
disintegrate its form. The same oxygen, which is the
principal agent in building our living bodies, is the chief
agency in disintegrating them when dead. It is a matter of
constructive or of destructive use of the same things
whether we have health or sickness, success or failure.

In our bodies, the process of cell construction and of cell
destruction are going on continuously; and whenever cell
destruction in any part is in excess of cell construction,
we are dying in that part. Nothing can save us then but a
reversal of the process; we must make constructive action
equal to, or greater than destructive action. If
constructive action equals destructive, we shall hold our
own and continue to live; if constructive action exceeds
destructive action by even a very little, we shall grow
stronger, and the tissues of our bodies will grow finer in
texture, more flexible and beautiful, and more youthful in
appearance; all these truths are self-evident. What we want,
therefore, is to make constructive action slightly exceed
destructive action in every part, so that a continual
refining process may go on in our physical bodies. This we
can do.

In the matter of business success, we find the same basic
principle obtaining. Business success is a matter of using
certain mental and physical materials so as to combine them
into a certain relationship. To succeed in business, we must
take certain people and certain things, and combine them
together in a certain way; and when we have done this, we
have succeeded. Just as, in building a house, the mason
takes bricks and mortar and combines them into a structure,
so in business we seek to take people, goods, money, and
bring them into such relations to each other as to form a
certain structure. You are trying to build a structure, and
your materials are people, goods, and money.

The certainty and rapidity of the process will depend upon
how great a proportion of your actions are constructive. A
good bricklayer may waste a great deal of time by doing many
things which are not essential to his work at all; he can
kill time in lighting his pipe, and in various other ways.
And a poor bricklayer may lose by imperfect construction;
part of his work may fall down, or he may have to tear it
down, changing activity from the constructive line to the
destructive one. The best bricklayer is he who wastes no
time in irrelevant and negative actions, and who loses none
by destructive action; making every act distinctly rightly
constructive. That is what you must learn to do in business;
make constructive use of every person and thing.

In order to do this in his work, the bricklayer must have a
pretty clear idea of what he wants to build; he must know
whether he is working on a square house, or a circular
chimney. And in order to build your business structure, you
must know what you want. Actions which would be constructive
upon a building of one type would be destructive upon a
building of another type. If you are going to build a brick
house, you will not buy lumber for a frame house; you will
buy brick. And the more clearly you have in mind the house
you wish to build even to its least important details, the
more completely you can provide the necessary materials, and
the more definite and constructive you can make every
action.

I cannot lay too much stress on the necessity of wanting to
do something, and of knowing what you want to do and what
you want to be. You might as well put to sea without knowing
which port you wish to make as to start in life without a
definite purpose. You cannot work constructively unless you
have in mind to construct something; and you must have in
mind a picture of that which you wish to construct. Aim
high; but know what you are aiming at; do not fire into the
air. Hitch your wagon to a star, but know what star it is,
and know why you hitch to it. What kind of structure would a
bricklayer build who was not sure whether he was working on
a circular chimney or a square cottage?

We have now called your attention to two fundamental facts:
first, that you have within you the power to get what you
want; and second, that in order to use this power
constructively, you must KNOW what you want. We now proceed
to the third fact, which is that before you can act
constructively, you must attain to a certain STATE OF MIND.

We will assume that there are two general states of mind,
which we will call the ELECTRICAL and the MAGNETIC. In the
electrical state of mind, your personality resembles a
highly charged electrical conductor. There is a constant
giving off of energy on all sides, most of which escapes,
performing no work. Objects brought near are first violently
attracted, and then as violently repelled. Action is sudden,
powerful, and inconstant; therefore, often ineffectual. The
expenditure of force may be in any direction; there is no
continuity of purpose.

In the magnetic state, there is always an attraction of
certain things, and always a repulsion of others. The action
is fixed, certain, and always in the same direction. There
is no leakage, or waste of force. A magnet is a center
toward which certain things are irresistibly impelled to
move, and from which certain things are as irresistibly
driven. So among men, the electrical person sometimes
attracts and as often repels those whose friendship he
seeks, but the magnetic person always attracts those whom he
seeks to attract. The actions of the electrical personality
are often destructive and disintegrating; but every act of
the magnetic person is a constructive act. So we must learn
to avoid the electrical mental state, and cultivate the
magnetic state.

As physical friction generates electricity, so mental
friction causes the electrical state of mind. Worry is
mental friction, and the one and only cause of worry is
fear. Where fear is present, worry is also present. It is
all very well to talk of the uselessness of worry, the folly
of it, and so on; and it is all very well to tell you not to
worry, but you cannot help worrying, so long as you have any
fear as to the future. You can only eliminate worry by
eliminating fear. You cannot get rid of worry by telling
yourself that it is useless, foolish and harmful; so long as
you have fear, you will worry just the same.

And you will have fear just as long as you have doubt or
uncertainty. So long as you have doubt or uncertainty as to
whether you will get well, you will worry about your health;
so long as you have doubt or uncertainty as to whether you
will succeed in business, you will worry about failure; and
so on. Where there is no doubt or uncertainty as to future
health or success there can be no fear, and where there is
no fear, there can be no worry, or mental friction. So long
as there is doubt or uncertainty there must be fear; and as
long as there is fear, there will be worry, mental friction,
and the electrical state of mind, resulting in destructive
action. So you must eliminate from your thoughts all doubt
and uncertainty that you will get well; that you will
succeed; that you will gain your point and get what you
want. You may have some uncertainty as to methods, but you
must have none as to ultimate results. You may not feel
certain that you will succeed today, or next week, but you
must feel certain that you will succeed sometime.

Now, nothing can eliminate doubt but faith; and only
certainty can remove uncertainty. How can you make yourself
CERTAIN that you will get well, and that you will succeed?
You can only do it by BELIEVING something; by getting down
to some basic FACT, the knowledge of which will give you
certainty. And here is the basic fact, stated in several
ways:

You have within you the power which can give you perfect
health; if constructively used, it WILL give you perfect
health, and you can certainly learn to use it correctly. So
there is no uncertainty as to health.

You have within you the power which can bring you to
abundance; if constructively used it WILL bring you to
abundance, and you can certainly learn to use it
constructively. So there is no uncertainty about wealth.

You have within you the power which can develop any or all
of your talents; if constructively used it WILL develop
them, and you can certainly learn to use it constructively.
So there is no doubt about development.

Now, you have the bad habit of thinking of these things as
matters of uncertainty; and you must get rid of this habit,
and form the one of thinking of them as matters of
certainty. This you can do by making the power within you
the subject of constant meditation; by thinking it all the
time. As an abstract proposition, you know that you can get
what you want; keep thinking about this as a fact until you
HABITUALLY think that you can get what you want; and then
keep on meditating and considering until you continually
FEEL that you can get what you want. Continuous meditation
upon the fact that you CAN get what you want will in a very
short time establish feeling that you CERTAINLY WILL get
what you want; and when that feeling is established, you
will enter the poised, or magnetic state of mind. It is not
enough to merely give your intellectual assent to the
proposition that you have within you the power which can;
you must FEEL that you have this power; and the feeling is
only established by continuously meditating upon the FACT.

For a month, then spend all the time you possibly can in
pondering upon the fact that you have within you the power
which CAN accomplish what you want. It is not a theory or a
supposition, but a fact; think of it as a fact until you
feel that it IS a fact, and then you will have taken that
first great forward step in constructive thought and action.


Want to know more? Here is the link to "The Personal Power Course"