Speaker 1: The use of the mentative instruments. In the use of
the eyes for the purpose of conveying mentative currents, you
should always remember that the feeling is the real power
behind these currents of force, and that the brain is
the dynamo from which the currents originate. The brain, you know,
is the great transformer or converter of the menative energy,
and acts just as does a dynamo in the direction
of sending forth great waves of force. Consequently, if you
wish to send out mentative currents for the purpose of
inducing feeling in others, you must first have feeling generated
in your mental dynamo. Valuable exercises. It will be well
for two people to practice the eye exercises together, but
in the absence of a friend in whom you have
confidence you may obtain excellent results by practicing before your
friendly mirror. In either case, you must first arouse in
your mind the feeling that you wish to express in
mentative currents. Put your feeling into your glance, and it
will be felt. Exercise one look into the eyes of
your friend or your own in the mirror, and then
say mentally, I am stronger than you. Throw into your
glance as much of the feeling of strength as you can.
Exercise two, say mentally, I am more positive than you.
I am out gazing you, throwing as much positivity as
possible into your gaze. The saying being inspired, of course
by your feeling. Exercise three, say and feel you are
afraid of me, I am making you feel my strength,
throwing the feeling into your gaze. Actual practice. After you
have acquired the faculty of making your strength felt by
the above exercises, you may use same upon other people
when the occasion renders it advisable. If you are addressed
by some person whom you think is trying to master
you mentatively, or whose strong influence you wish to ward off,
you may use the above method on him. As a rule,
the person who is doing the talking has a slight
advantage over the listener, all else being equal, the speaker
is the more positive because he is expressing more energy.
But you may counteract this if you are the listener
by simply sending him a glance accompanied by the feeling
of I scatter your force into bits. You cannot affect me.
Points of practice in resisting an attack of this sort,
keep your mouth closed with the teeth touching. For this
bite denotes strength and firmness and brings into play the
parts of the brain manifesting these qualities, and thus charges
your mentative currents with these feelings. At the same time,
gaze firmly and steadily into the eyes of the other
using the fascinating gaze. I would bid you remember my
remarks and mental magic about the person standing having the
advantage of the one sitting. Avoid the sitting position when
the other person is standing. Do not give him this advantage,
but take it for yourself if you can. Mental commands
and refusals. In speaking to persons and requesting them to
do something, you should accompany the verbal request by a
mental command. For instance, if you say you will do
this for me, won't you? This is the suggestive form
of questioning. Remember you should accompany the question with the
command made mentally, with the proper glance you will do this.
If you are the person requested to do something that
you do not wish to do, you should answer no,
I do not care to do this, or I do
not see my way clear to do it, or I
am unable to oblige you, et cetera, et cetera. But
at the same time, you must send the mental answer
with its accompanying glance. I will not do it, and
you cannot make me certain dangerous teaching. A well known
teacher along these lines several years ago taught his pupils
to gaze into the eyes of persons whom they wished
to effect at the same time, saying mentally, I am
looking at you. I am looking through your eyes into
your brain. My will power is stronger than yours. You
are under my control. I will compel you to do
what I wish. You must do what I say. You
shall do this, do it at once. It will readily
be seen that this will generate a powerful mentative current
if there is a sufficiently strong feeling, will and desire
behind it. But right here I shall give you an
ade dote for this kind of influence. In all cases
where you are attacked mentally in this way, you may
dissolve the force by a positive denial. The positive denial,
the positive denial is the powerful force that scatters into
tiny bits, the force directed against one. It is a
destructive agent, just as is the positive statement a constructive
or creative one. One who understands the scientific use of
this destructive force may undo the mentative work of others
to a surprising degree. Some day I shall have more
to say regarding these two warring forces along the broader
lines of the entire subject of telementation. But at present
I shall confine myself to their use in personal influence.
By a strong positive denial, you may scatter and disintegrate
any mentative influence directed against you. This formula will give
you a general idea of it. Suppose that you are
repelling a statement such as given above. In that case,
you should say mentally accompanying it with the proper glance,
with feeling back of it. I deny positively your power
over me. I deny it out of existence. I will
not do your bidding, and I deny your right and
power to command me. I deny your power, and I
affirm my own. How to cultivate this power? You may
cultivate this power to use the positive denial by practicing
on an imaginary person whom you may suppose is trying
to influence you. Imagine the strong positive person before you
trying to influence you, and then start in to practice
the positive denial on him until you feel that you
have beaten him off and have sent him flying away
in retreat. These imaginary mental battles will develop a great
power of mentative resis distance in you, and I advise
you to strengthen yourself along these lines. If you feel
that you are weak, you may improve on the above
exercise by imagining that, after your enemy is in full retreat,
you follow him up and pour statement after statement into him,
changing your position from a defender into an attacking force.
The secret of effective speaking. In personal conversation with another
you will find it of the greatest value to see
as clearly as possible a mental picture, chart or map
of what you are saying to him. By so doing,
you will impress most forcibly upon his mind that which
you wish him to see and feel. In this statement
is compressed the secret of effective speaking. In the degree
that you see and feel the thought that you are
expressing in words will be the degree of impression made
upon and menative induction produced in the other person. The secret,
of course, lies in the law of visualization, as explained
in Mental Magic, and in this book Psychological Experiments. You
may find an evidence of your increasing mentative influence by
trying the physiological experiment of willing people to move this
way or that way by gazing intently at them. In
this experiment, it is not necessary for you to gaze
into their eyes. Gazing at their back, preferably at the
upper part of the neck at the base of the brain,
will answer. You may try willing persons to look around
on the street or in public places, et cetera. Or
you may will that they turn to the right or
left of you when approaching each other on the street
or in stores. You may will that a certain clerk
from out of a number will step forward to wait
upon you. These and many similar experiments have an interest
to the majority of students, and are accomplished with imperative
ease after sufficient practice. The whole theory and practice consist
of a steady gaze and the mental command and will
that the person will act so and so, together with
the earnest expectation that they will obey the command and
the mental picture of their doing so. That is all
there is to it. General advice and the use of
the eye as a menative instrument. Remember, first, last, and
all the time that desire and will are the phases
of the mentative energy, and that in the degree that
desire is kindled and will is exerted. So will be
the power expressed by yourself and impressed upon others. Read
mental magic over a number of times until you have
fully grasped the underlying principles. Then reread the present book
and commit its exercises and instructions to memory. Then practice
frequently and perfect yourself and the methods pointed out until
you render them second nature. You will be conscious of
a gradual growth and development along the lines of mentative
power and influence. The flame of electromagnetic power, once lit,
will never die out. Tend the flame carefully, keep the
wick trimmed clean, and fill the lamp with oil, and
it will ever burn bright and emit heat and light
and power. The magnetic touch. The last mentative instrument mentioned
in a previous chapter is the touch. There was a
time in my early stages of experimentation and psychological research
when I laughed at the idea of the touch playing
any real part in the work of mentative influence. Of course,
I saw the effect of the touch in certain phases
of psychological work, but I believe that it was all
merely suggestion. But I soon learned that the touch was
really a most potent instrument of mentative energy. I now
explain it by the idea of the nerves being like
the wires upon which the electric current travels. The brain
is the dynamo or converter of the energy. And while
the latter travels in waves and currents without any wires,
just as does the wave of the wireless telegraph. Still
if there is a wire to be had, then it
follows the lines of least resistance and takes the advantage
of the nerve wire. Certain parts of the body have
nerve cells very highly developed in them, and are in
fact miniature brains. In the cases of some persons of
sensitive and trained touch, there exist little clusters of nerve
cells at the ends of the fingers that act like
miniature brains. The lips are also highly developed in this respect,
as the well known phenomena of kissing evidences. The fingers
in hand are excellent polar mediums for conveying the manative
energy that pours down over the nerves from the brain
and through which it passes to the other person. How
to use the hands The use of the touch of
the hands as a channel for conveying mentative energy depends
greatly upon the development of the hands by the individual.
Those who understand this matter develop the conductivity of the
hands by treating them as follows. Think of your hands
as excellent conductors of mentative energy, and imagine that you
can feel the energy pouring down the nerves of your
arms and out your hands obeying your will. When you
shake hands with people, you will soon develop your hands
to such a degree that some sensitive persons will actually
feel the current passing into them. Always accompany the passage
of the current with the thought or feeling that you
wish to induce in the other person, just as you
do when you use the fascinating gaze. In fact, the
gaze and the hand clasp should be used together when possible,
for by doing so you double the effect the magnetic
hand clasp. When you shake hands with a person, throw
mind and feeling into it, and do not fall into
the mechanical lifeless method so common among people. Throw your
feeling down to your hand, and at the same time
make a mental command or statement appropriate to the case.
For instance, grasp the person's hand with feeling and interest,
saying mentally at the same time you like me. Then,
when you draw your hand away, if possible, let your
fingers slide over the palm of his hand in a
caressing manner, allowing his first finger to pass between your
thumb and forefinger close up in the crotch of the thumb.
Practice this well until you can perform it without thinking
of it. That is, make it your natural way of
shaking hands. You will find that this method of shaking
hands will open up a new interest in people toward you,
and in other ways you will discover its advantage. You
will never know a fascinating person who did not have
a good hand clasp. It is a part of the
fascinating personality. Other uses of the hands, there are many
persons well grounded on the psychological principles underlying mental fascination,
who use the hands as a medium fermentative energy without
shaking hands. For instance, they sit near the other person
and place their hands so that their fingers will point
toward him at the same time, willing that the current
flow through the fingers and toward the other. They also
use their hands in conversation so as to have the
tips of their fingers pointing toward the other. This last
plan becomes highly effective when used with the appropriate gestures,
for it is akin to the mesmeric pass of the hands.
In this connection, I would say, beware of the person
who is always trying to put his hands on you.
Beware of the pawing over process. Avoided in the ordinary way,
if possible, or else deliberately practice the positive denial toward
the person holding the idea and mental statement that I
deny the power of your magnetism. I scatter it by
my denial. A warning to women. In concluding this chapter,
I would especially caution young women and older ones for
that matter, against allowing men to be familiar with them
in the direction of holding hands or similar practices. Not
only does this familiarity breed contempt, but there are good
psychological reasons why the practice is to be condemned. You
have seen what part the hands play in magnetizing, as
it is called, and is it not clearly discernible how
one may use the hands in this petting and all
that sort of thing in order to psychologically affect another person.
I am not speaking now of the caresses indulged in
by honorable true lovers, for all the talk in the
world would not change that sort of thing. But I
am alluding to the indiscriminate pawing over on the part
of strange men that some young girls allow. There is
a danger in this sort of thing, and I want
you to know it. If you have daughters or young
female relatives, warn them against this thing and tell them
the reasons why a caution to men. And the same
thing is true of the man who is always patting
other men on the shoulder, or resting his arm around them,
or else taking hold of them in a friendly caressing
way during a conversation. Such men may not know the
psychology of the thing, but they have found out that
this sort of padding up makes other men more impressionable
and amenable to their influence, and so they practice it.
Make them stop it, either by moving away or by
positive denial the protective armor. Now once more, remember the
power of this positive denial as a disperser and disintegrator
of adverse influence. If this book taught you nothing else,
it would still be with while to you because of
this one point of instruction for this positive denial is
a menative armor that will protect you, a menative sword
that will defend you, a menative lightning flash that will
clear the mental atmosphere. Learn the secretive positive statement and
positive denial, and your clad in an invulnerable armor, and
armed with the weapon of strength. And so you may,
like the warrior bold, go gayly to the fray. May
the victory be yours.