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FURTHER APPLICATION OF THE LAW OF COSMIC HABIT FORCE

Thank you for joining me for my final broadcast in this series here in Paris. Tonight I will complete the discussion of this supreme principle, the law of cosmic habit force.

I have been illustrating how to practically apply this law. The next application is using cosmic habit force to develop a system for budgeting and making better use of your time. Procrastination can be conquered, and procrastination, as you may know, is one of the major enemies of all mankind.

Many of you ladies and gentlemen have heard me speak of the affliction of my second son, my son Blair, who was born without any signs of ears. When Blair was born, the doctors who delivered him told me that he would be a deaf and dumb mute all his life. I never accepted that edict; I didn’t accept it at the beginning, I haven’t ever accepted it since. As a result of my application of the law of cosmic habit force, although I didn’t know the law existed at that time, I devoted some nine years to working on my son, with the result that I induced nature to improvise a hearing system for him which gave him sixty-five percent of his natural hearing. I want to tell you that called forth not only for an application of this law of cosmic habit force, but it called for the application of the principle of applied faith. I had to believe that it could be done. I had to think about it and focus on it. The technique that I followed was to give him directions through his subconscious mind.

I did not procrastinate. I did not wait. Every night, for approximately three years, I sat by his crib and directed through his subconscious mind that nature would improvise some form of hearing that would enable him to hear like a normal person. Years later, when he became associated with the great Acousticon Hearing Aid Corporation of the United States, the company doctors, some six or seven of the most outstanding ear specialists in the world, made hundreds of X-rays of Blair’s skull, and they said that the psychological treatment which I gave him evidently influenced nature to extend a set of nerves from the center of the brain, or from some portion of the brain, to the inner walls of the skull, enabling him to hear by what they now call bone conduction. At that time, they knew nothing about bone conduction.

In the past thirty-five to forty years, during which I have been working with this philosophy, I have seen the impossible done so many times that I don’t recognize that word “impossible” anymore.

I have learned that if you really and truly take possession of your own mind, if you recognize the power of it and learn to make use of the law of cosmic habit force, you can determine your own earthly destiny.

You come into this world without your knowledge or consent, and you go out of it the same way. But while you’re here, you have a tremendous scope of operations, during which you can use your mind as you please, constructively or otherwise, for good purposes or bad. It’s all up to the individual. You can become a success or you can become a failure, and the way you become a success is by recognizing the power of your mind, by laying out the patterns that you wish to carry out, and by keeping your mind focused on those patterns until this great law of cosmic habit force automatically picks up the patterns and carries them out to their logical conclusion.

It may sound silly to some people to know that I sit on the side of my bed every night and talk to invisible, unseen entities known as the eight guiding princes. It may sound fantastic and impractical. My answer to that, ladies and gentlemen, is that for me it works, and for hundreds of other people to whom I have taught my system, it also works. And that’s answer enough.

I don’t fool myself in any way about these guiding princes; they are creations of my own mind entirely, as far as I know. But their influence on me is very real. When I make demands upon them, I often get instantaneous returns on those demands.

As many of you know, during these thirty-five or forty years that I have been before the public, I have established a reputation extending throughout two thirds of this civilized world. It has been said by those who have made surveys on the subject that I have helped to make more successful men than any person living at this time. That’s quite a claim, and quite a statement. I’m quoting other people. Yet I have reason to believe that statement is true. The reason I have helped to make successful people, ladies and gentlemen, is that I have worked out for myself ways and means of attaining success, and I’ve reduced my formula to terms which everyone can understand. Just because you may not have heard of some of the formulas that I give you is no reason to doubt that these formulas will work. The thing for you to do is to accept them, to carry them out to the letter. Don’t undertake to modify them. Do the things that you are told to do, and do them in the spirit of belief that you’re going to get results. If you do, you’ll get them.

The next practical application of the great law of cosmic habit force is the development of a system for protecting yourself against outside negative influences. Do you recognize, ladies and gentlemen, that you can’t just leave yourself wide open to all of the remarks, to all of the influences, to all of the negative thoughts that are being broadcast through the ether at all times? If I were not immune to negative remarks, I think perhaps I never would have come back to Paris for these radio shows. Because of all the places that I’ve ever been in my life where people conjured up things to say about me that didn’t have any relation to the facts, I’ve had that experience here. It had no more influence upon me than water upon a duck’s back. Not a bit. That is because I recognize that people, in the very nature of things, are suspicious of anything new, and generally suspicious of any new person that comes into the neighborhood. What would have surprised me would have been for me to come into this community and for nobody to have been suspicious of me. I would have thought something was really wrong.

This great law of cosmic habit force means that there are ways and means of giving yourself an immunity against all outside influences, especially the negative ones, the ones that are liable to injure you. If you become true students of this philosophy and learn how to apply it, neither criticism nor other negative remarks will have any influence on you whatsoever. I have never known a person in public life yet who attained any degree of accomplishment who was not criticized. As a matter of fact, there was a very great man who passed this way a long time ago by the name of Christ. When I compare the amount of criticism I get with the amount that he got, I think I’m coming off pretty well.

This system of applying the law of cosmic habit force in giving yourself immunity against the negative things that people believe, and in connection with the thoughts that people broadcast, is one that you can work out very easily. I have it worked out. I call it the three walls of protection. I have around myself one rather high wall and rather wide wall, over which everyone who wishes to communicate with me in any way must jump. When my friend decided to bring me over here to Paris to appear on the radio, he jumped over that wall. He got over it very easily. But immediately he was confronted with another wall, a much higher one, and one not quite so wide. I didn’t let him get over that wall quite so easily. Nobody ever gets over that wall unless he has something that I want, something in common with me. That reduces the crowd to a relatively small number. Well, he made the jump, all right, and here I am. But immediately, he was confronted with another high wall, as high as eternity itself, over which neither he nor any other living person ever has or ever will climb. Not even my own wife. That’s the place where I go into seclusion and communicate only with infinite intelligence. I communicate through that wall with no one else. At that wall I stop dead every influence that tries to reach my inner consciousness. I simply don’t let it go by.

I don’t have any voluntary association with anybody who doesn’t have some sort of good influence on me. I immediately disassociate myself from the person who carries only negative influences. I don’t care who it is. It might even be my mother-in-law or a close relative. Oftentimes, believe you me, I have had to disassociate myself from close relatives.

Next is the use of the law of cosmic habit force in developing a system for the application of faith in your own ability to attain the objects of your earthly destiny as laid out for yourself. You might be surprised to know that ninety-eight percent of the people, even in this great country where we have an abundance of so many things that people need, are not convinced of their ability to get the things they want, right here in the midst of plenty. They suffer from a lack of confidence in self. There is a technique for using the principle of applied faith in the development of that much-needed thing called self-confidence. If I hadn’t learned that fact years ago, I never would have had a following of 65 millions of people throughout two thirds of the world. I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you tonight. I never would have completed the Law of Success—as a matter of fact, I never would have begun it. Because when I was given the assignment by Andrew Carnegie to organize the world’s first practical philosophy of individual achievement, it almost scared me to death. I didn’t even know the meaning of the word “philosophy.” I had to go over to the library and look it up.

But I had an inherent capacity for faith. I began to work on my mind. I began to prepare myself. I began to believe that I could do the thing if Mr. Carnegie said I could do it. And lo and behold, the time came when people stopped laughing, stopped scoffing, and the keenest minds of this world embraced this philosophy, made use of it and recommended it. It has a tremendous following in India because that great personality Mahatma Gandhi came into contact with my success philosophy and ordered it published and distributed throughout India. Of its own accord and on its own merit, it has spread itself throughout more than two thirds of this world.

There’s something in that philosophy that came only by my application of faith, by my system of projecting myself and educating myself and preparing myself to do the job. You’ve got to do the same thing. Life is an eternal proposition of education. You never get through learning. If you really and truly want to make the most of this great prerogative, the privilege which the Creator gave you of using your own mind, you’ve got to recognize that every day is a day of schooling. It’s a schoolhouse, so to speak, a means of educating yourself, of learning more about the ways of nature. You’ll never be an educated person, no matter how many degrees you have, unless you understand and adapt yourself to the laws of nature, and especially this great overall comptroller of all of the natural laws known as the law of cosmic habit force.

Next, you should apply the law of cosmic habit force in developing a system for keeping your mind so busy working out ways and means to acquire everything you desire that no time will be left for you to waste in connection with the things you do not desire. Unless I made extensive comment on that particular point, you might overlook it. You may be interested in knowing, ladies and gentlemen, that the majority of people go all the way through this world with their minds fixed upon the fear of poverty, the fear of ill health, the fear of criticism, the fear of the loss of love of someone, the fear of the loss of liberty, the fear of old age, and the fear of death. They have at least those seven fears, and probably a lot more that I haven’t time to mention. The major portion of their time is taken up with allowing those fears to discourage them from taking advantage of their own prerogative rights to use their own minds.

What do you suppose those persons are getting out of life? They are getting the things that they allow their minds to dwell upon. That’s exactly what they are getting and nothing else. I suspect that there’s not a person in this room who hasn’t at one time or another suffered with all seven of these basic fears. If you’re going to make the most out of the great thing that was given you at birth, the right to control your own mind, you’ve got to learn that whenever fear appears, there’s something in your makeup that needs to be corrected. Fear is something like physical pain; it’s an indication that there is a problem that needs to be dealt with.

The most marvelous device of nature is the device of physical pain. It’s the one universal language through which nature speaks to every living creature, and which every living creature respects. When you are suffering mental pain through any form of fear, it means there is something in your character, something in your makeup, that you have allowed to get in there that needs to be removed. Those fears are not going to remove themselves, ladies and gentlemen. You’ve got to remove them. You’ve got to find the cause; you’ve got to work out a plan for eliminating that cause, whatever it may be.

Next is the application of the law of cosmic habit force in developing a system for transmuting sex emotion by directing it through creative habits connected with your major purpose in life. I can remember the time when even the very word “sex” couldn’t be mentioned in mixed company. Of course, that great emotion is the creative device of nature through which she perpetuates all living species. But I have never found an outstanding person yet, in the pulpit, in law, in medicine, in authorship, in public speaking, in art, or in any other calling, that had not also learned how to convert sexual emotion into doing the constructive things necessary to obtain that person’s major objective in life. In the very nature of the subject, I can’t go into finer details with an audience like this without risking embarrassment to tender ears, but certainly it is up to you adults to learn the possibilities of making use of the law of cosmic habit force in converting that great creative emotion of nature into the things that you wish to accomplish in this life.

Next is the use of cosmic habit force in a system for developing one or more mastermind alliances from which you may borrow the education, the personality, the specialized knowledge, the experience, and the spiritual forces of others whose cooperation you may need in the attainment of your self-created earthly destiny. Remember, you have here in Paris, Missouri, ladies and gentlemen, a cross section of the American people. You can form mastermind alliances here for the purpose of doing practically anything you wish to carry out, and I hope that you’ll each and every one take advantage of that opportunity. What one person can accomplish alone is relatively small. The greater things in life, the bigger and the more worthy undertakings, always have been the result of the coordination in a spirit of friendliness and perfect harmony of two or more minds.

Those of you who are Bible students are quite familiar with the statements that appear in many places in the Bible about the power available when two or more people meet and ask for things in the name of the Master. Those quotations from the Bible have reference to the same thing that I have reference to when I mention the mastermind principle. Because whenever two or more minds come together in a spirit of harmony and are directed to the attainment of a definite objective, there is born of that blending of the minds an outside, invisible power that is available to each one of the individuals. I have never known an outstanding business success or professional success that was not the result of the application of the mastermind.

Next is the application of the law of cosmic habit force in the development of a system which will preclude you from ever speaking of another person in derogatory terms, no matter how much he may deserve it. If you must slander someone, do not speak it, but write it. Write it, though only in the sands near the ocean side, and don’t go away until the tides have washed it away. This business of slandering people, and especially slandering people you don’t know, like some people in this town have slandered me, is bad. It didn’t hurt me. I’m not hurt. I’m not scared. I’m not afraid. I’m not resentful. I feel sorry for them. They haven’t learned the great laws of life. They haven’t learned that when you criticize another person, you’re damaging yourself, whether or not the other person may deserve to be criticized.

You ask me, am I perfect in that? Have I always followed that admonition? I answer you no. Of course I’m not. But I’ll tell you one thing: Whenever I have failed to follow that admonition, whenever I have criticized someone, I have always paid for it with some form of sorrow. There’s so many good things that you can think and say about people that it hardly behooves you to pick out the worst things that you can think and say about them, as so many people are inclined to do. To avoid that mistake, you must have a system of controlling yourself. Keeping your tongue in your mouth, your mouth closed, and your eyes and ears wide open is a mighty good habit to follow, and let the law of cosmic habit force take that over and carry it out automatically. That would be very helpful to anybody.

Next is the application of the law of cosmic habit force in connection with a daily system of prayer, through which you will express gratitude for all your blessings, naming them one by one. You can choose your blessings in your own wording. Your list of blessings wouldn’t be the same as mine, but certainly you have some blessings. You all in the studio have one blessing that I can think of, that I can tell you about right now: You are in pretty good health. You came down here, and you haven’t fallen asleep while I’m talking, and you haven’t fallen out of your chairs. I haven’t seen any of you get mad and go out because I was telling you some of the truths that you might not have been in accord with. So at least you have one thing to be thankful for. You don’t have to go very far to find some people who couldn’t get down here; they’re not able. They’re afflicted, or they’re afraid. There are people right here in this town who would be afraid to be caught in this crowd. Indeed they would. There are also some who would be afraid not to be caught in it.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen, you can’t prosper and have peace of mind without being in tune with the infinite. That’s a foregone conclusion. You’ve got to find ways and means of getting yourself into harmony with that great overall principle known as infinite intelligence. You may call it by some other name, if you choose. But if you did, you and I would still be talking about the same thing.

There are definite ways and means of establishing in your life the kind of habits that you want to see carried out. But you’ve got to take the initiative. The Creator, while he gave you that great power to use your own mind as you chose, didn’t undertake to tell you how to use it. He never will. That’s up to you. If you make mistakes, you pay the penalties. If you get on the beam, as we sometimes say, and adapt yourself to these great laws of nature, you get the rewards. Nobody but yourself can keep you away from those rewards.

Next is use of the law of cosmic habit force in the development of a plan by which you will begin teaching the philosophy you have been taught in these lectures, starting with those nearest to you in your own home, in your place of business, or in your neighborhood. Give and you shall receive. No matter what you give, you shall receive in like terms. You’ll never have this philosophy mastered any other way. It certainly never will get to you until you start giving it to other people. Just remember that. You don’t have to be a great teacher of it, you don’t have to be an orator. You only have to be a person who recognizes the soundness of the philosophy and who starts where you stand to pass it on to somebody who may need it. If you look around, I’m sure you will find a lot of people in this community who could profit by this philosophy—especially my broadcast on a positive mental attitude.

Last but not least, let us remember that whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve. I’d like for you to write that down. Put it into letters maybe an inch high, on nice paper. Get an artist to do the job. Maybe make up three or four of these cards. Put one in the bathroom where you’ll see it every day. Put another one in the dining room, where you’ll see it every morning when you have breakfast, and put another one in the bedroom, where you sleep at night. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

How does that happen to be true? It happens to be true because if you conceive a thing and believe it and make a definite picture of it in your own mind, the law of cosmic habit force takes over that picture and guides you to the physical equivalent of that thing, whatever it may be. That’s how it happens to be true. You’ll be surprised at how many things will come to you that you wanted before, that you worked hard for and didn’t get, when you learn how to fasten upon your mind a definite outline of the things that represent to you success in this life.

It is part of nature’s plan for rivers to follow the path of least resistance. Crooked rivers create fertile deltas which would not exist if the river ran straight to the sea. All rivers follow the path of least resistance, and it is good that they do. But nature did not intend man to follow such a path. Unfortunately, some men do, to their ultimate regret. Meandering and drifting will not lead to success. One must use the power of cosmic habit force to take the straight and narrow path to success. Failure follows those who do not take this path.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may have noticed that I have referred to rivers often in these broadcasts. Perhaps these references were inspired by the beautiful Salt River, the three forks of which flow into the Mississippi River, and the beautiful Middle Salt which runs right through Paris. It twists and turns lazily, creating rich farmland as well as good fishing and recreation. The people of Paris can enjoy their river, but they must not follow its example. If Paris is to prosper, its people must forge ahead in a straight line, with a purpose and a plan taken over by habit to propel them directly to where they want to go.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes my series of broadcasts here in Paris, Missouri, on the principles of success. Members of this community have faced, and continue to face, many adversities. I was invited here by a farsighted businessman in town who has used my teachings to achieve success. He believed my lectures could help you all overcome the obstacles you face. I hope that these broadcasts will help you overcome these adversities and that you will find success and happiness.

Thank you very, very much for welcoming me to Paris. I have greatly enjoyed my time here. Good night and good wishes.