I realized that I had run across something that was practical and 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. This “something” has always been known to a fortunate few down the centuries, but for some unknown reason it is still barely understood by the average person.
Again I wondered when I accompanied the police in answering a riot call: some Holy Rollers in a moment of hysteria had knocked over a stove and set fire to their meeting hall. When I attended my first (and only) meeting of Shakers, I wondered – as I did while attending various spiritualistic meetings. I wondered as I heard the testimonials at the Christian Scientists’ Wednesday night meetings. I wondered when I watched a group of people immersed in the icy waters of a mountain stream and coming up shouting “Hallelujah!” even though their teeth were chattering. I wondered at the Indians’ ceremonial dances and their rain-dance rituals. Billy Sunday also caused me to wonder as, in later years, did Aimee Semple McPherson.
In my early days as a newspaper man, I saw a famous medium try to make “spirits” respond before a crowded courtroom of antagonistic scoffers. The judge had promised to release the medium if he could get the “spirits” to speak in the courtroom. Yet they failed to materialize, and I wondered why – because the medium’s followers had testified to remarkable seances.
Many years later, I was commissioned to write a series of articles on what the police call the “fortune-telling racket.” I visited everyone from gypsy phrenologists to crystal-ball gazers, from astrologers to spiritualistic mediums. I heard what purported to be the voices of old Indian “guides” tell me the past, the present, and the future, and I heard from relatives I never knew existed.
Apparently I was born with a huge bump of curiosity, for I have always had an insatiable yearning to seek answers and explanations. This quest has taken me to many strange places, brought to light many peculiar cases, and caused me to read every book I could get my hands on dealing with religions, cults, and physical and mental sciences. I have read literally thousands of books on modern psychology, metaphysics, ancient magic, Voodoo, Yoga, Theosophy, Christian Science, Unity, Truth, New Thought, Couéism, and many others dealing with what I call “Mind Stuff,” as well as the philosophies and teachings of great masters of the past.
Many were nonsensical, others strange, and many very profound. Gradually I discovered that a golden thread runs through all the teachings and makes them work for those who sincerely accept and apply them, and that thread can be named in the single word belief. It is this same element or factor – belief – that causes people to be cured through mental healing, enables others to climb high the ladder of success, and gets phenomenal results for all who accept it. Why belief works miracles is something that cannot be satisfactorily explained; but have no doubt that there’s genuine magic in believing. “The magic of believing” became a phrase around which my thoughts steadily revolved.
I am convinced that the so-called secret fraternal organizations guard a real “royal secret” which very few members ever grasp. The conclusion must be that “no mind ever receives the truth until it is prepared to receive it.” One order provides candidates with a very profound book (to be studied in connection with the degree work), which itself would be practically an open-sesame to life if the candidates could understand and follow its tenets. But few read it, complaining that “it is too deep” for them. I am convinced, too, that some of these organizations, like many secret orders which possess a knowledge and understanding of life, use parables and misinterpretations to mislead.
Fortunately for the world, people are coming to the realization that there is something to this “mind-stuff” after all. I believe that millions of people would like to get a better understanding of it – and prove that it does work.
Early in 1918, I landed in France as a “casual” soldier, unattached to a regular company. As a result, it was several weeks before my service record (necessary for my pay) caught up with me.
Shortly after the idea of T.N.T. – It Rocks the Earth came to me but before I put it on paper, I took a trip to the Orient and sailed on the Empress of Japan, noted for its excellent cuisine. In my travels through Canada and in Europe I had developed a fondness for Trappist cheese made by the Trappist monks of Quebec. When I couldn’t find it on the ship’s menu, I laughingly complained to the chief steward that I had sailed on his ship only to get some of the famous ‘Trappist” cheese. He replied that he was sorry, but there was none aboard.
The more I thought about it, the more I hungered for some of that cheese. One night a ship’s party was held. Upon returning to my cabin quarters after midnight, I found a big table had been set up in one of the rooms. On it was the largest cheese I had ever seen. It was “Trappist” cheese.
Later I asked the chief steward where he found it. “I was certain we had none aboard when you first mentioned it,” he answered, “but you seemed so set on having some, I made up my mind to search through all the ship’s stores. We found it in the emergency storeroom in the bottom of the hold.” Something was working for me on that trip, too, for I had no claim to anything but ordinary service. However, I sat at the executive officer’s table and was frequently his personal guest in his quarters, as well as on inspection trips through the ship.
The ship got under way. As we steamed out of the harbor, the dining-room steward asked passengers to appear in the dining room for assignment to tables. When I came before him, about half the assignments had been made. He asked for my ticket, glanced at it and then at me, saying, “Oh yes, table A, seat No. 5.” It was the captain’s table, and I was seated directly across from him.
You have often heard it said that you can if you believe you can. An old Latin proverb says, “Believe that you have it, and you have it.” Belief is the motivating force that enables you to achieve your goal. If you are ill and embedded deeply within you is the thought or belief that you will recover, the odds are that you will. It’s the belief or the basic confidence within you that brings outward material results. I speak of normal and mentally healthy people. I wouldn’t tell a handicapped person that he could excel in baseball or football. Nor would I tell a woman who was quite plain-looking that she could make herself into a great beauty overnight, since the odds are against it. Yet these things could happen, for there have been many remarkable cures. And when more is learned about the powers of the mind, I firmly believe that we shall witness many cures that today’s medical profession deems impossible. Finally, I would never discourage anyone; for in this life, anything can happen – and what can help bring it to pass is Hope.
My neighbor said he looked at the stranger for a moment, then said: “While you’re about it, will you count mine, too?” He did, and my neighbor thought no more about it until after he had gone home and he happened to look at his hands one day. “The mess of warts had entirely disappeared!” he told me.
I told this story to a group of doctors one day. A well-known specialist – and personal friend – grunted, saying, “Preposterous!” Across the table, another doctor who had recently been teaching in a medical school came to my aid, declaring that there were many authenticated cases of suggestion having been used to cure warts.
Since this conversation, considerable publicity was given to the findings of Dr. Frederick Kalz, a noted Canadian authority who flatly stated that suggestion works in many cases, even to curing warts that are infectious and caused by a virus. In a 1945 article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr. Kalz declared that, “In every country in the world some magic procedures to cure warts are known . . . It may be anything from covering the wart with spider-webs to burying toad eggs on a crossroad at new moon; all these magic procedures are effective, if the patient believes in them.” In describing the treatment of patients with skin trouble, he says, “I have often prescribed the very same ointment, accompanied by some promising words, which has been tried unsuccessfully by some other medical man, and got credit for a quick cure.” He also points out that X-ray therapy is especially suggestive; it works even when the technician fails to switch on the high power! Experiments with systematic fake irradiation bear out this observation. Here in Dr. Kalz’s work we see actual examples of the magic of believing at work in the curing of warts and the treatment of skin trouble.
“Oh, he was just a senile old man,” remarked another specialist at the table, a nationally known member of the American Medical Association.
Great investigators and thinkers of the world, including many famous scientists, are in the open today, freely discussing the subject and giving the results of their experiments. Shortly before his death, Charles P. Steinmetz, famous engineer of the General Electric Company, declared, “The most important advance in the next fifty years will be in the realm of the spiritual – dealing with the spirit – thought.” Dr. Robert Gault, while professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, was credited with the statement: “We are at the threshold of our knowledge of the latent psychic powers of man.” Much has been written and said about mystical powers, unknown forces, the occult, metaphysics (beyond science), mental physics, psychology (the science of mind), black and white magic, and many kindred subjects, causing most people to believe that they are in the field of the supernatural.
“Your book T.N.T. put forth in workable form all that I had known before. It was like seeing Niagara Falls for the first time. One knew there was such a place; but confirmation was the actual personal contact with it. And so, T. N. T. gave me in print the facts I had known and used, but in a clear form. Here was something I could read and use day by day, holding the thoughts till they were fully demonstrated.
“It was no easy matter, at first, to completely accept your ideas. But my circumstances and physical condition forced me to keep at it continuously until understanding came. . . .You see, in February, 1924, I was stricken with partial paralysis of my lower limbs. I needed crutches to even get about at all, and at best, for only short distances, and at a snail’s pace. For a bank executive who had been active in the business world this forced inactivity was not easy to get used to. It was bearable only because I received government compensation – my disability being considered due to service during the World War. However, in 1933, the Government dropped me from the compensation rolls, and I was forced to make a living. My home and other properties were about to be repossessed. It was not a pleasant picture, nor a hopeful future.
“Necessity forced me to put into practice the principles you explained so well. Sticking to it proves them. Possibly I was favored because I couldn’t quit the insurance and public accounting business – due to my inability to enter any other kind of work. But persistence gives confidence, and continued right mental attitude followed by consistent action will bring success. I haven’t reached the degree of success I desire, but that does not bother me at all, for now I am making a good living, have saved my properties, and know the formula that leads to the fullest success.
I don’t know whether I was inspired, but I dictated the first draft of my brochure in its entirety in less than five hours, without notes or references of any kind before me. At the same time the idea for the brochure came to me, the words, “cosmic consciousness,” floated before my mind. They meant nothing then.
In the same letter, she urged me to read Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness, declaring that it contained brilliant accounts of the actual experience of illumination. When I did, I was astounded to discover that my experience actually paralleled the illuminations listed and explained by Dr. Bucke. In the original draft of my brochure, I had described in detail my experience with “brilliant white light.” But subsequently, when I showed the manuscript to a close friend, he urged me to tone down the wording: “People won’t know what you are talking about in referring to that ‘white light’ – some may think you’ve gone off the deep end.” Consequently, I changed it. But those of you that know something about “cosmic illumination” and have read my earlier small book will catch my reference to the “light.” However, the memory of that singular experience will always remain with me: in those few seconds, I received more knowledge and understanding than I had ever received in years of reading and studying.
Therefore, take great care that you do not misuse the science of “Mind Stuff.” I cannot emphasize this too strongly, for if you employ it for harmful or evil purposes, it will boomerang and destroy you just as it has others down through the centuries. These are not idle words, but solemn words of warning.