we know to be desirable and
beneficial to ourselves, and to avoid thinking of those which are harmful
and detrimental to us. The student of this book will see how this
practical Mental Scientist was really using the same principles that we
have examined and become acquainted within this book, although she called
them by another name, and explained them by another theory. At the bottom
of all the teachings and theories you will always find the one same basic
principle and universal law.

The advanced student of occultism knows that each and every one of us is
really a creator of his own circumstances, environment and conditions, to
a great extent. Each of us is able to so modify our mental activities as
to bring about such changes in our environment and surroundings as to
actually re-create them. The things accomplished by successful men are
really but materializations of that which they have previously held in
their mental vision. Everything is first created on the psychic plane, and
then manifested in the physical world. All the great works of man, the
great bridges, great buildings, tunnels, machinery, cities, railroads,
canals, works of art, musical compositions, etc., first existed in the
mind of their creators, and were then afterward materialized in physical
form and shape. And, so you see we are proceeding with our work of mental
creations whenever we think and make mental images. This, however, is no
new teaching. It is as old as the race of mankind. Over twenty-five
hundred years ago, Buddha said to his disciples: "All that we are is the
result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made
up of our thoughts."

I would be telling you but half the story did I not warn you that strong
Fear may play the part ordinarily filled by Desire in the production of
the psychic phenomena of materialization of mental pictures. Strange as
it may appear at first, a strong fear that a thing will come to pass will
act much the same as a strong desire that the happening will occur.
Consequently, many persons by continually dwelling upon the thing that
they fear may happen to them, actually attract that thing to them, just as
if they had actually desired and wished for it. I cannot go into occult
technicalities in explaining this strange fact; but the gist of the secret
may be said to consist in the fact that the person clearly and vividly
pictures in his mind the thing that he fears may happen to him. He thus