The Magic of Believing- Claude M Bristol
Book Summary and Key Insights
What is the book about?
1. With belief you can manifest anything in your life.
2. You can shape your sub-conscious mind with the help of imagination, affirmation, and incantation.
3. Hold a clear mental picture of your desired goal in your mind all the time.
4. Many people do not succeed because they don’t know what they want in life. To succeed you need to know exactly what do you want in life and then work towards it?
5. Believe, feel and act as if you have already achieved your goals.
Summary of the Book
1. Magic of Belief
i) The importance of our belief is summarized in the following assertion:
Dr. Alexander Cannon, a distinguished British Scientist and Physician declared that while today a man can not grow a new leg ( as a crab can grow a new claws), he could if the mind hasn’t rejected that possibility. If the thoughts are changed in the innermost depths of the conscious mind that man will grow a new leg as easily as the crab grows a new claw.
ii) Belief is the motivating force that enables you to achieve your goals.
iii) Often belief enables a person to do what others think is impossible. It is the act of believing that is the starting force or generating power that leads to accomplishment.
2. Thought Power
i). All your possessions, came as a result of creative thinking. Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that the ancestor of every action is thought. When we understand that, we begin to comprehend that our world is governed by thoughts.
ii) All we are is the result of what we have thought- Gautam Buddha
iii) The secret of success lies not without, but within, the thoughts of a man.
iv) Thought makes giants out of pigmies, and often turns giants into pigmies.
v) Hard work alone will not bring success. Something more than hard work is required; it is creative thinking and firm belief in your ability to execute your ideas. The successful people in history have succeeded through their thinking. Their hands were merely helps to their brains.
3. Burning Desire
i) One essential to success- that your desire be an all obsessing one. Whatever you want, you can have it provided you are willing to make the objective the burning desire of your life.
ii) Desire is the motivating force of life
iii) The first thing to determine is precisely what you want. Starting with general idea that you want be a success, as most people do, is too indefinite. You must have a mental pattern clearly drawn in your mind. Ask yourself: Where am I headed? What is my goal? Have I visualized what I really want? For in their answers are factors which will determine your whole life now on.
iv) There are comparatively few people with great desires. They accept their position in life as something that fate has fixed for them, and very seldom do they make either a mental or physical effort to extract themselves from those positions. Many engage in wishful thinking, but wishful thinking in itself is without effect simply because the power factor is missing.
4. Subconscious Mind
i) The force that brings into play the great system of the subconscious is a sustained thought or, a fixed mental picture
ii) The most effective method of bringing the subconscious mind into practical action is through the process of making mental picture using the imagination perfecting an image of the thing or situation as you would have it exist in physical form.
iii) To draw upon subconscious and awaken it into action, you must first be sure that you are asking for something that is rightfully yours to have and is within our ability to handle.
Then you must have patience and absolute faith. The subconscious will not take the trouble to work for those who do not believe in it.
Next in conveying your need to the subconscious, it must be in the spirit that the work is already been done. Thus while it is necessary for you to feel and think yourself successful, it is important for you to go one step further and actually see yourself as already successful
5. Power of Suggestion
i) It is the power of suggestion that starts the machinery into action or causes the sub-conscious mind to begin its creative work.
ii) It is the repetition of the same chant, the same incantation, the same affirmation that leads to belief and once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen
iii) Hitler used the power of suggestion to mobilise people of Germany. Mussolini, too, used the same law of suggestion in an attempt to make a place for Italy in the sun. Stalin too used the same science to build Russia into what she is today.
6. Mental Picture/Imagination
i) Without question human imagination or visualization and concentration are the chief factor in developing the magnetic forces of the subconscious mind.
ii) The process is the same when you are after a better job or planning a vacation trip. You’ve got to see it in your mind’s eye, see yourself as holding that job, or actually taking the trip.
iii) Without the mental picture of accomplishment, little is done. You want a better job? You’ll get it when you give your subconscious mind a mental picture of yourself holding that job.
iv) Here we must make a distinction between day dreaming and a true mental picture or a proper use of imagination. When you employ your imagination properly, you see yourself doing a thing and you go ahead and do it.
7. The Mirror Technique for Releasing the Subconcious
Stand in front of a mirror. Now breathe deeply 3 or 4 times. Look in to the very depths of your eyes, tell yourself that you are going to get what you want- name it aloud, so you can see your lips move and you can hear the word uttered.
If you are planning on calling a tough person or going for an interview or meeting your boss, whom you previously feared, use the mirror technique and keep it until you are convinced that you can make the proper presentation without any trepidation.
As you stand in frot of the mirror keep telling yourself you are going to be an outstanding success and that nothing in this world is going to stop you.
Emerson wrote that every man carried in his eye the exact indication of his rank. Remember that your own gradation or position in life is marked by what you carry in your eyes. So develop eyes that bespeak confidence. The mirror will help you.
8. Happiness
i) If we are to be happy, we must be busy, working or doing something that holds our attention.
ii) Happiness is the state of mind which we ourselves have the power to control and that control lies within our thinking.
iii) Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner, who has doubled the promontory, thou will find calm, everything stable and a wave less bay- Marcus Aurelius
My Top 5 Key Insights
1. You can achieve anything if you really believe in your dreams and your ability.
2. Your life is shaped by your thoughts. In fact the thoughts that you think repeatedly turns into believe, and the deeply held belief turns into conviction. And your conviction determines your actions that in turn determines your destiny.
3. Belief without action is useless. You should be ready to pay the price to achieve your goals. Higher the goal higher the price.
4. Burning desire is the starting point of all achievements. Strong desire results in strong result and weak desire results in weak result.
5. You should be clear as to what you want in life. If you want money be clear how much money you want? If you want a house, be clear as to what should be the area, how many bedroom, locality of the house? If you want a spouse, what qualities you would want in your spouse? You got to be specific in making your goals.
Top quotes
1. Believe that you have it, and you have it- An old Latin Proverb
2. What do you seek? Pay the price and take it away. There is no limit for the supply, but more precious the thing you seek the higher the price. For everything we obtain we must barter the gold of our own spirit….. Herbert D Seibert
3. If you don’t follow your thoughts, then you will follow the thoughts of the person who followed his.
4. I don’t know any greater thing in life than the satisfaction that comes through serving.
5. Learn to make decisions, because in not deciding you fail to act, and in failing to act you invite failure. So learn to be quick in making decision and audacious in your action.
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