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sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower. The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions, or his willpower, even if opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one “who was meant to suffer,” will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions. The self-image is a premise, a base, or a foundation upon which your entire personality, your behavior, and even your circumstances are built. Because of this our experiences seem to verify, and thereby strengthen, our self-images and a vicious or a beneficent cycle, as the case may be, is set up. For example, a schoolboy who sees himself as an “F”-type student, or one who is “dumb in mathematics,” will invariably find that his report card bears him out. He then has “proof.” A young girl who has an image of herself as the sort of person nobody likes will indeed find that she is avoided at the school dance. She literally invites rejection. Her woebegone expression, her hangdog manner, her over-anxiousness to please, or perhaps her unconscious hostility toward those she anticipates will affront her—all act to drive away those whom she would attract. In the same manner, a salesman or a businessman will also find that his actual experiences tend to “prove” his self-image is correct. Because of this objective “proof” it very seldom occurs to a person that his trouble lies in his self-image or his own evaluation of himself. Tell the schoolboy that he only “thinks” he cannot master algebra, and he will doubt your sanity. He has tried and tried, and still his report card tells the story. Tell the salesman that it is only an “idea” that he cannot earn more than a certain figure, and he can prove you wrong by his order book. He knows only too well how hard he has tried and failed. Yet, as we shall see later, almost miraculous changes have occurred both in students’ grades and in the earning capacity of salesmen when they were prevailed upon to change their self-images. 2. The self-image can be changed. Numerous case histories have shown that one is never too young or too old to change his self-image and thereby start to live a new life. One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the center. Numerous patients have said to me something like the following: “If you are talking about ‘positive thinking,’ I’ve tried that before, and it just doesn’t work for me.” However, a little questioning invariably brings out that these individuals have employed “positive thinking,” or attempted to employ it, either on particular external circumstances, or on some particular habit or character defect. (“I will get that job,” “I will be more calm and relaxed in the future,” “This business venture will turn out right for me,” etc.) But they have never thought to change their thinking about the “self” that was to accomplish these things. Jesus warned us about the folly of putting a patch of new material on an old garment, or of putting new wine into old bottles. “Positive thinking” cannot be used effectively as a patch or a crutch to the same old self-image. In fact, it is literally impossible to really think positively about a particular situation as long as you hold a negative concept of your “self.” And numerous experiments have shown that once the concept of self is changed, other things consistent with the new concept of self are accomplished easily and without strain.

The Self-Image: Your Key to a Better Life During the past decade a revolution has been quietly going on in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and medicine. New theories and concepts concerning the “self” have grown out of the work and findings of clinical psychologists, practicing psychiatrists, and cosmetic or so-called plastic surgeons. New methods growing out of these findings have resulted in rather dramatic changes in personality, health, and apparently even in basic abilities and talents. Chronic failures have become successful. “F” students have changed into “straight A” pupils within a matter of days and with no extra tutoring. Shy, retiring, inhibited personalities have become happy and outgoing. Writing in the January 1959 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, T. F. James summarizes the results obtained by various psychologists and MDs as follows: Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difference between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of the real self can rescue a crumbling marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of “personality failure.” On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity. Your Key to a Better Life The most important psychological discovery of this century is the discovery of the “self-image.” Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze. In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the “sort of person I am.” It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood. From all these we mentally construct a “self” (or a picture of a self). Once an idea or a belief about ourselves goes into this picture, it becomes “true,” as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity, but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true. This self-image becomes a golden key to living a better life because of two important discoveries: 1. All your actions, feelings, behaviors—even your abilities—are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will “act like” the

salesman who had already prepared a letter of resignation because he “just wasn’t cut out for selling,” and six months later was number one man on a force of 100 salesmen. The minister who was considering retirement because “nerves” and the pressure of preparing a sermon a week were getting him down, and now delivers an average of three “outside talks” a week in addition to his weekly sermons, and doesn’t know he has a nerve in his body. How a Plastic Surgeon Became Interested in Self-Image Psychology Offhand, there would seem to be little or no connection between surgery and psychology. Yet it was the work of plastic surgeons that first hinted to me of the existence of the “self-image” and raised certain questions that led to important psychological knowledge. When I first began the practice of plastic surgery many years ago, I was amazed by the dramatic and sudden changes in character and personality that often resulted when a facial defect was corrected. Changing the physical image in many instances appeared to create an entirely new person. In case after case the scalpel that I held in my hand became a magic wand that not only transformed the patient’s appearance, but transformed his whole life. The shy and retiring became bold and courageous. A “moronic,” “stupid” boy changed into an alert, bright youngster who went on to become an executive with a prominent firm. A salesman who had lost his touch and his faith in himself became a model of self-confidence. And perhaps the most startling of all was the habitual “hardened” criminal who changed almost overnight from an incorrigible, who had never shown any desire to change, into a model prisoner who won a parole and went on to assume a responsible role in society. I reported many such case histories in my book New Faces, New Futures. Following its publication, and similar articles in leading magazines, I was besieged with questions by criminologists, psychologists, sociologists, and psychiatrists. They asked questions that I could not answer. But they did start me upon a search. Strangely enough, I learned as much if not more from my failures as from my successes. It was easy to explain the successes, such as the boy with the too-big ears, who had been told that he looked like a taxicab with both doors open. He had been ridiculed all his life—often cruelly. Association with playmates meant humiliation and pain. Why shouldn’t he avoid social contacts? Why shouldn’t he become afraid of people and retire into himself? Terribly afraid to express himself in any way, it was no wonder he became known as a moron. When his ears were corrected, it would seem only natural that the cause of his embarrassment and humiliation had been removed and that he should assume a normal role in life—which he did. Or consider the salesman who suffered a facial disfigurement as the result of an automobile accident. Each morning when he shaved he could see the horrible disfiguring scar of his cheek and the grotesque twist to his mouth. For the first time in his life he became painfully self-conscious. He was ashamed of himself and felt that his appearance must be repulsive to others. The scar became an obsession with him. He was

Jesus warned us about the folly of putting a patch of new material on an old garment, or of putting new wine into old bottles. “Positive thinking” cannot be used effectively as a patch or a crutch to the same old self-image. In fact, it is literally impossible to really think positively about a particular situation as long as you hold a negative concept of your “self.” And numerous experiments have shown that once the concept of self is changed, other things consistent with the new concept of self are accomplished easily and without strain. One of the earliest and most convincing experiments along this line was conducted by the late Prescott Lecky, one of the pioneers in self-image psychology. Lecky conceived of the personality as a “system of ideas,” all of which must seem to be consistent with one another. Ideas that are inconsistent with the system are rejected, “not believed,” and not acted on. Ideas that seem to be consistent with the system are accepted. At the very center of this system of ideas—the keystone—the base upon which all else is built, is the individual’s “ego ideal,” his “self-image,” or his conception of himself. Lecky was a schoolteacher and had an opportunity to test his theory on thousands of students. Lecky theorized that if a student had trouble learning a certain subject, it could be because (from the student’s point of view) it would be inconsistent for him to learn it. Lecky believed, however, that if you could change the student’s self-conception, which underlies this viewpoint, his attitude toward the subject would change accordingly. If the student could be induced to change his self-definition, his learning ability should also change. This proved to be the case. One student, who misspelled 55 words out of 100 and flunked so many subjects that he lost credit for a year, became one of the best spellers in the school and made a general average of 91 in the next year. A boy who was dropped from one college because of poor grades entered Columbia and became a straight “A” student. A girl who had flunked Latin four times, after three talks with the school counselor, finished with a grade of 84. A boy who was told by a testing bureau that he had no aptitude for English won honorable mention the next year for a literary prize. The trouble with these students was not that they were dumb, or lacking in basic aptitudes. The trouble was an inadequate self-image (“I don’t have a mathematical mind”; “I’m just naturally a poor speller”). They “identified” with their mistakes and failures. Instead of saying “I failed that test” (factual and descriptive), they concluded, “I am a failure.” Instead of saying “I flunked that subject,” they said, “I am a flunk-out.” For those who are interested in learning more about Lecky’s work, I recommend securing a copy of his book, Self-Consistency: A Theory of Personality. (Note: This book is now out of print.) Lecky also used the same method to cure students of such habits as nail biting and stuttering. My own files contain case histories just as convincing: the man who was so afraid of strangers that he seldom ventured out of the house, and who now makes his living as a public speaker. And there was the salesman who had already prepared a letter of resignation because he “just

different” from other people. He began to wonder what others were thinking of him. Soon his ego was even more mutilated than his face. He began to lose confidence in himself. He became bitter and hostile. Soon almost all his attention was directed toward himself—and his primary goal became the protection of his ego and the avoidance of situations that might bring humiliation. It is easy to understand how the correction of his facial disfigurement and the restoration of a “normal” face would overnight change this man’s entire attitude and outlook, his feelings about himself, and result in greater success in his work. But what about the exceptions who didn’t change? The duchess who all her life had been terribly shy and self-conscious because of a tremendous hump in her nose? Although surgery gave her a classic nose and a face that was truly beautiful, she still continued to act the part of the ugly duckling, the unwanted sister who could never bring herself to look another human being in the eye. If the scalpel itself was magic, why did it not work on the duchess? Or what about all the others who acquired new faces but went right on wearing the same old personality? Or how to explain the reaction of those people who insist that the surgery has made no difference whatsoever in their appearance? Every plastic surgeon has had this experience and has probably been as baffled by it as I was. No matter how drastic the change in appearance may be, there are certain patients who will insist that, “I look just the same as before—you didn’t do a thing.” Friends, even family, may scarcely recognize them, may become enthusiastic over their newly acquired “beauty,” yet the patients themselves insist that they can see only slight or no improvement, or in fact deny that any change at all has been made. Comparison of “before” and “after” photographs does little good, except possibly to arouse hostility. By some strange mental alchemy the patient will rationalize, “Of course, I can see that the hump is no longer in my nose—but my nose still looks just the same,” or, “The scar may not show anymore, but it’s still there.” Scars That Bring Pride Instead of Shame Still another clue in search of the elusive self-image was the fact that not all scars or disfigurements bring shame and humiliation. When I was a young medical student in Germany, I saw another student proudly wearing his “saber scar” much as an American might wear the Medal of Honor. The duelists were the elite of college society, and a facial scar was the badge that proved you a member in good standing. To these boys, the acquisition of a horrible scar on the cheek had the same psychological effect as the eradication of the scar from the cheek of my salesman patient. In old New Orleans, a Creole wore an eye patch in much the same way. I began to see that a knife itself held no magical powers. It could be used on one person to inflict a scar and on another to erase a scar with the same psychological results. The Mystery of Imaginary Ugliness To a person handicapped by a genuine congenital defect, or suffering an actual facial disfigurement as a result of an accident, plastic surgery can indeed seemingly perform magic. From such cases it would be easy to

theorize that the cure-all for all neuroses, unhappiness, failure, fear, anxiety, and lack of self-confidence would be wholesale plastic surgery to remove all bodily defects. However, according to this theory, persons with normal or acceptable faces should be singularly free from all psychological handicaps. They should be cheerful, happy, self-confident, free from anxiety and worry. We know only too well this is not true. Nor can such a theory explain the people who visit the office of a plastic surgeon and demand a “face-lift” to cure a purely imaginary ugliness. There are the 35- or 45-year-old women who are convinced that they look “old” even though their appearance is perfectly “normal” and in many cases unusually attractive. There are the young girls who are convinced that they are “ugly” merely because their mouth, nose, or bust measurement does not exactly match that of the currently reigning movie queen. There are men who believe that their ears are too big or their noses too long. No ethical plastic surgeon would even consider operating on these people, but unfortunately the quacks, or so-called beauty doctors whom no medical association will admit to membership, have no such qualms. Such “imaginary ugliness” is not at all uncommon. A recent survey of college co-eds showed that 90 percent were dissatisfied in some way with their appearance. If the words “normal” and “average” mean anything at all, it is obvious that 90 percent of our population cannot be “abnormal” or “different” or “defective” in appearance. Yet similar surveys have shown that approximately the same percentage of our general population finds some reasoning to be ashamed of their body image. These people react just as if they suffered from an actual disfigurement. They feel the same shame. They develop the same fears and anxieties. Their capacity to really “live” fully is blocked and choked by the same sort of psychological roadblocks. Their “scars,” though mental and emotional rather than physical, are just as debilitating. The Self-Image: The Real Secret Discovery of the self-image explains all the apparent discrepancies we have been discussing. It is the common denominator—the determining factor in all our case histories, the failures as well as the successes. The secret is this: To really “live,” that is, to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can live with. You must find your self acceptable to “you.” You must have a wholesome self-esteem. You must have a self that you can trust and believe in. You must have a self that you are not ashamed to “be,” and one that you can feel free to express creatively, rather than hide or cover up. You must have a self that corresponds to reality, so that you can function effectively in a real world. You must know yourself—both your strengths and your weaknesses—and be honest with yourself concerning both. Your self-image must be a reasonable approximation of “you,” being neither more than you are nor less than you are. When this self-image is intact and secure, you feel good. When it is threatened, you feel anxious and insecure. When your self-image is adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident

adequate and one that you can be wholesomely proud of, you feel self-confident. You feel free to “be yourself” and to express yourself. You function at your optimum. When it is an object of shame, you attempt to hide it rather than express it. Creative expression is blocked. You become hostile and hard to get along with. If a scar on the face enhances the self-image (as in the case of the German duelist), self-esteem and self-confidence are increased. If a scar on the face detracts from the self-image (as in the case of the salesman), loss of self-esteem and self-confidence results. When a facial disfigurement is corrected by plastic surgery, dramatic psychological changes result only if there is a corresponding correction of the mutilated self-image. Sometimes the image of a disfigured self persists even after successful surgery, much the same as the “phantom limb” may continue to feel pain years after the physical arm or leg has been amputated. I Begin a New Career These observations led me into a new career. Some years ago I became convinced that the people who consult a plastic surgeon need more than surgery and that some of them do not need surgery at all. If I were to treat these people as patients, as a whole person rather than as merely a nose, ear, mouth, arm, or leg, I needed to be in a position to give them something more. I needed to be able to show them how to obtain a spiritual face-lift, how to remove emotional scars, how to change their attitudes and thoughts as well as their physical appearance. This study has been most rewarding. Today I am more convinced than ever that what each of us really wants, deep down, is more life. Happiness, success, peace of mind, or whatever your own conception of supreme good may be, is experienced in its essence as more life. When we experience expansive emotions of happiness, self-confidence, and success, we enjoy more life. And to the degree that we inhibit our abilities, frustrate our God-given talents, and allow ourselves to suffer anxiety, fear, self-condemnation, and self-hate, we literally choke off the life force available to us and turn our backs on the gift which our Creator has made. To the degree that we deny the gift of life, we embrace death. Your Program for Better Living In my opinion, during the past 30 years psychology has become far too pessimistic regarding man and his potentiality for both change and greatness. Since psychologists and psychiatrists deal with so-called abnormal people, the literature is almost exclusively taken up with man’s various abnormalities, his tendencies toward self-destruction. Many people, I am afraid, have read so much of this type of thing that they have come to regard such things as hatred, the “destructive instinct,” guilt, self-condemnation, and all the other negatives as “normal human behavior.” The average person feels awfully weak and impotent when he thinks of the prospect of pitting his puny will against these negative forces in human nature, in order to gain health and happiness. If this were a true picture of human nature and the human condition, “self-improvement” would indeed be a rather futile thing. However, I believe, and the experiences of my many patients have

However, I believe, and the experiences of my many patients have confirmed the fact, that you do not have to do the job alone. There is within each one of us a “life instinct,” which is forever working toward health, happiness, and all that makes for more life for the individual. This “life instinct” works for you through what I call the “Creative Mechanism” or, when used correctly, the “Success Mechanism” built into each human being. New Scientific Insights into “Subconscious Mind” The new science of cybernetics has furnished us with convincing proof that the so-called subconscious mind is not a “mind” at all, but a mechanism—a goal-striving “servo-mechanism” consisting of the brain and nervous system, which is used by, and directed by the mind. The latest and most usable concept is that man does not have two “minds,” but a mind, or consciousness, that operates an automatic, goal-striving machine. This automatic, goal-striving machine functions very similarly to the way that electronic servo-mechanisms function, as far as basic principles are concerned. But it is much more marvelous, much more complex, than any computer or guided missile ever conceived by man. Today, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that all electronic gadgets and computerized technology of any sort, from the Internet to cell phone technology or satellites bringing us hundreds of channels on television, were programmed and made functional by human beings who formed a mental picture of something they thought was possible, then made it happen. We human beings not only have the capacity to create cybernetic systems outside of ourselves, but also the ability to learn how we can run our own cybernetic systems in ourselves. This Creative Mechanism within you is impersonal. It will work automatically and impersonally to achieve goals of success and happiness, or unhappiness and failure, depending on the goals that you yourself set for it. Present it with “success goals,” and it functions as a Success Mechanism. Present it with negative goals, and it operates just as impersonally, and just as faithfully, as a Failure Mechanism. Dr. Maltz makes it clear that all of us have goals, whether we intentionally articulate them or not. The brain and nervous system are continually leading us in the direction of images we think about consciously, or images that are so much a part of us that we’re led toward them on autopilot. The alcoholic or drug addict has goals just as much as the entrepreneur, politician, professional athlete, or mother-to-be. With this in mind, we can become aware of what’s “under the hood”—and whether or not we want the goals we’re unconsciously

whether or not we want the goals we’re unconsciously moving toward, or the ones that we consciously choose and work toward. Like any other servo-mechanism, it must have a clear-cut goal, objective, or “problem” to work on. The goals that our own Creative Mechanism seeks to achieve are mental images, or mental pictures, which we create by the use of imagination. The key goal-image is our self-image. Our self-image prescribes the limits for the accomplishment of any particular goals. It prescribes the “area of the possible.” Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism works on information and data that we feed into it (our thoughts, beliefs, interpretations). Through our attitudes and interpretations of situations, we “describe” the problem to be worked on. If we feed information and data into our Creative Mechanism to the effect that we ourselves are unworthy, inferior, undeserving, incapable (negative self-image), this data is processed and acted on as is any other data in giving us the “answer” in the form of objective experience. Like any other servo-mechanism, our Creative Mechanism makes use of stored information, or “memory,” in solving current problems and responding to current situations. Your program for getting more living out of life consists in, first of all, learning something about this Creative Mechanism, or automatic guidance system within you and how to use it as a Success Mechanism, rather than as a Failure Mechanism. The method itself consists in learning, practicing, and experiencing new habits of thinking, imagining, remembering, and acting in order to (1) develop an adequate and realistic self-image, and (2) use your Creative Mechanism to bring success and happiness in achieving particular goals. If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe, you can succeed. As you will see later, the method to be used consists of creative mental picturing, creatively experiencing through your imagination, and the formation of new automatic reaction patterns by “acting out” and “acting as if.” I often tell my patients, “If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe, you will have no trouble applying this method.” The things you are called upon to do are simple, but you must practice and “experience.” Visualizing (creative mental picturing) is no more difficult than what you do when you remember some scene out of the past, or worry about the future. Acting out new action patterns is no more difficult than “deciding,” then following through on tying your shoes in a new and different manner each morning, instead of continuing to tie them in your old habitual way, without thought or decision. Dr. Maltz’s words “If you can remember, worry, or tie

Dr. Maltz’s words “If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe” are key to understanding how easy it is to get results using Psycho-Cybernetics, provided you allow yourself to believe that even a seemingly small victory (learning to tie your shoe or write your name for the first time) is all you need to reverse the course of negativity in your life. In order to direct your servo-mechanism toward success instead of failure, all you need is one experience that made you feel good about yourself. Remembering and then using that modest accomplishment will be instrumental in improving your self-image. You do not need a huge success experience to alter your self-image for the better. You do not need an experience that is a mirror of what you’re trying to create or accomplish. All you need is an experience like tying your shoe or learning to write your name for the first time, wherein you can say, “Yes, I’m glad I learned that skill. Yes, I remember the first day I could do it. Yes, I was happy.” This one memory, this one positive experience, no matter how long ago it took place, is all you need to begin changing the course of your life in the present. KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER (You fill in here.)

Chapter number two. Discovering the Success Mechanism Within You It may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true that up until ten years prior to this writing, scientists had no idea of just how the human brain and nervous system worked “purposely” or to achieve a goal. They knew what happened from having made long and meticulous observations. But no single theory of underlying principles tied all these phenomena together into a concept that made sense. R. W. Gerard, writing in Scientific Monthly in June 1946, on the brain and imagination, stated that it was sad but true that most of our understanding of the mind would remain as valid and useful if, for all we knew, the cranium were stuffed with cotton wadding. However, when man himself set out to build an “electronic brain,” and to construct goal-striving mechanisms of his own, he had to discover and utilize certain basic principles. Having discovered them, these scientists began to ask themselves: Could this be the way that the human brain worked also? Could it be that in making man, our Creator had provided us with a servo-mechanism more marvelous and wonderful than any computer or guidance system ever dreamed of by man, but operating according to the same basic principles? In the opinion of famous Cybernetic scientists like Dr. Norbert Wiener, Dr. John von Neumann, and others, the answer was an unqualified yes. Your Built-In Guidance System Every living thing has a built-in guidance system or goal-striving device, put there by its Creator to help it achieve its goal—which is, in broad terms—“to live.” In the simpler forms of life the goal “to live” simply means physical survival for both the individual and the species. The built-in mechanism in animals is limited to finding food and shelter, avoiding or overcoming enemies and hazards, and procreation to insure the survival of the species. In man, the goal “to live” means more than mere survival. For an animal “to live” simply means that certain physical needs must be met. Man has certain emotional and spiritual needs that animals do not have. Consequently for man “to live” encompasses more than physical survival and procreation of the species. It requires certain emotional and spiritual satisfactions as well. Man’s built-in Success Mechanism also is much broader in scope than an animal’s. In addition to helping man avoid or overcome danger, as well as the sexual instinct, which helps keep the race alive, the Success Mechanism in man can help him get answers to

race alive, the Success Mechanism in man can help him get answers to problems, invent, write poetry, run a business, sell merchandise, explore new horizons in science, attain more peace of mind, develop a better personality, or achieve success in any other activity that is intimately tied in to his “living” or makes for a fuller life. The Success Instinct A squirrel does not have to be taught how to gather nuts. Nor does it need to learn that it should store them for winter. A squirrel born in the spring has never experienced winter. Yet in the fall of that year it can be observed busily storing nuts to be eaten during the winter months when there will be no food to be gathered. A bird does not need to take lessons in nest-building. Nor does it need to take courses in navigation. Yet birds do navigate thousands of miles, sometimes over open sea. They have no newspapers or TV to give them weather reports, no books written by explorer or pioneer birds to map out for them the warm areas of the earth. Nonetheless the bird “knows” when cold weather is imminent and the exact location of a warm climate even though it may be thousands of miles away. In attempting to explain such things, we usually say that animals have certain instincts that guide them. Analyze all such instincts and you will find they assist the animal to successfully cope with its environment. In short, animals have a Success Instinct. We often overlook the fact that man, too, has a Success Instinct, much more marvelous and much more complex than that of any animal. Our Creator did not shortchange man. On the other hand, man was especially blessed in this regard. Animals cannot select their goals. Their goals (self-preservation and procreation) are preset, so to speak. And their success mechanism is limited to these built-in goal-images, which we call “instincts.” Man, on the other hand, has something animals don’t: Creative Imagination. Thus man of all creatures is more than a creature, he is also a creator. With his imagination he can formulate a variety of goals. Man alone can direct his Success Mechanism by the use of imagination, or imaging ability. We often think of Creative Imagination as applying only to poets, inventors, and the like. But imagination is creative in everything we do. Although they did not understand why, or how, imagination sets our Creative Mechanism into action, serious thinkers of all ages, as well as hardheaded practical men, have recognized the fact and made use of it. “Imagination rules the world,” said Napoléon Bonaparte. And Glenn Clark, author of The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe, said, “Imagination of all man’s faculties is the most God-like.” Dugold Stewart, the famous Scottish philosopher, also observed, “The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement. . . . Destroy this faculty, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes.” Henry J. Kaiser, the industrialist considered the father of American shipbuilding, attributed much of his success in business to the constructive, positive use of Creative Imagination with these words: “You can imagine your future.” How Your Success Mechanism Works You are not a machine.

How Your Success Mechanism Works You are not a machine. But discoveries in the science of cybernetics all point to the conclusion that your physical brain and nervous system make up a servo-mechanism that you use, and that operates very much like a computer and a mechanical goal-seeking device. Your brain and nervous system constitute a goal-striving mechanism that operates automatically to achieve a certain goal, very much as a self-aiming torpedo or missile seeks out its target and steers its way to it. Your built-in servo-mechanism functions both as a “guidance system” to automatically steer you in the right direction to achieve certain goals, or make correct responses to your environment, and also as an “electronic brain,” which can function automatically to solve problems, give you needed answers, and provide new ideas or “inspirations.” In his book The Computer and the Brain, Dr. John von Neumann says that the human brain possesses the attributes of both the analog and the digital computer. The word “cybernetics” comes from a Greek word that means, literally, “the steersman.” Servo-mechanisms are so constructed that they automatically “steer” their way to a goal, target, or “answer.” Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Concept of How Your Brain Works When we conceive of the human brain and nervous system as a form of servo-mechanism, operating in accordance with Cybernetic principles, we gain a new insight into the why and wherefore of human behavior. I choose to call this new concept Psycho-Cybernetics: the principles of cybernetics as applied to the human brain. I must repeat: Psycho-Cybernetics does not say that man is a machine. Rather, it says that man has a machine that he uses. Let us examine some of the similarities between mechanical servo-mechanisms and the human brain. The Two General Types of Servo-Mechanisms Servo-mechanisms are divided into two general types: (1) where the target, goal, or answer is known and the objective is to reach it or accomplish it, and (2) where the target or answer is not known and the objective is to discover or locate it. The human brain and nervous system operate in both ways. An example of the first type is the self-guided torpedo, or the interceptor missile. The target or goal is known—an enemy ship or plane. The objective is to reach it. Such machines must “know” the target they are shooting for. They must have some sort of propulsion system that propels them forward in the general direction of the target. They must be equipped with “sense organs” (radar, sonar, heat perceptors, etc.), which bring information from the target. These “sense organs” keep the machine informed when it is on the correct course (positive feedback) and when it commits an error and gets off course (negative feedback). The machine does not react or respond to positive feedback. It is doing the correct thing already and “just keeps on doing what it is doing.” There must be a corrective device, however, that will respond to negative

must be a corrective device, however, that will respond to negative feedback. When negative feedback informs the mechanism that it is “off the beam,” too far to the right, the corrective mechanism automatically causes the rudder to move so that it will steer the machine back to the left. If it “overcorrects” and heads too far to the left, this mistake is made known through negative feedback, and the corrective device moves the rudder so it will steer the machine back to the right. The torpedo accomplishes its goal by going forward, making errors, and continually correcting them. By a series of zigzags it literally gropes its way to the goal. Dr. Norbert Wiener, who pioneered the development of goal-seeking mechanisms in World War II, believes that something very similar to the foregoing happens in the human nervous system whenever you perform any purposeful activity—even in such a simple goal-seeking situation as picking up a pen from a desk. We are able to accomplish the goal of picking up the pen because of an automatic mechanism, and not by “will” and forebrain thinking alone. All that the forebrain does is to select the goal, trigger it into action by desire, and feed information to the automatic mechanism so that your hand continually corrects its course. In the first place, said Dr. Wiener, only an anatomist would know all the muscles involved in picking up the pen. And if you knew, you would not consciously say to yourself, “I must contract my shoulder muscles to elevate my arm, now I must contract by triceps to extend my arm, etc.” You just go ahead and pick up the pen, and are not conscious of issuing orders to individual muscles, or of computing just how much contraction is needed. When you select the goal and trigger it into action, an automatic mechanism takes over. First of all, you have picked up the pen, or performed similar movements, before. Your automatic mechanism has “learned” something of the correct response needed. Next, your automatic mechanism uses feedback data furnished to the brain by your eyes, which tells it “the degree to which the pen is not picked up.” This feedback data enables the automatic mechanism to continually correct the motion of your hand, until it is steered to the pen. For a baby, just learning to use its muscles, the correction of the hand in reaching for a rattle is very obvious. The baby has little stored information to draw upon. Its hand zigzags back and forth and gropes obviously as it reaches. It is characteristic of all learning that as learning takes place, correction becomes more and more refined. We see this in a person just learning to drive a car, who “overcorrects” and zigzags back and forth across the street. Once, however, a correct or “successful response” has been accomplished, it is “remembered” for future use. The automatic mechanism then duplicates this successful response on future trials. It has “learned” how to respond successfully. It forgets its failures, and repeats the successful action without any further conscious thought—that is, as a habit. How Your Brain Finds Answers to Problems Now let us suppose that the room is dark so that you cannot see the pen. You know, or hope, there is a pen on the table, along with a variety of

other objects. Instinctively, your hand will begin to “grope” back and forth, performing zigzag motions (or “scanning”), rejecting one object after another, until the pen is found and “recognized.” This is an example of the second type of servo-mechanism. Recalling a name temporarily forgotten is another example. A “scanner” in your brain scans back through your stored memories until the correct name is “recognized.” A computer solves problems in much the same way. First of all, a great deal of data must be fed into the machine. This stored (or recorded) information is the machine’s “memory.” A problem is posed to the machine. It scans back through its memory until it locates the only “answer” that is consistent with and meets all the conditions of the problem. Problem and answer together constitute a “whole” situation or structure. When part of the situation or structure (the problem) is given to the machine, it locates the only “missing parts,” or the right size brick, so to speak, to complete the structure. The more that is learned about the human brain, the more closely it resembles—insofar as function is concerned—a servo-mechanism. For example, Dr. Wilder Penfield, who was the director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, reported at a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences that he had discovered a recording mechanism in a small area of the brain that apparently faithfully records everything that a person has ever experienced, observed, or learned. During a brain operation in which the patient was fully awake, Dr. Penfield happened to touch a small area of the cortex with a surgical instrument. At once the patient exclaimed that she was “reliving” an incident from her childhood, which she had consciously forgotten. Further experiments along this line brought the same results. When certain areas of the cortex were touched, patients did not merely “remember” past experiences, they “relived” them, experiencing as very real all the sights, sounds, and sensations of the original experience. It was just as if past experiences had been recorded on a tape recorder and played back. It is still a mystery how a mechanism as small as the human brain can store such a vast amount of information. British neurophysicist W. Grey Walter has said that at least ten billion electronic cells would be needed to build a facsimile of man’s brain. These cells would occupy about a million and a half cubic feet, and several additional millions of cubic feet would be needed for the “nerves” or wiring. Power required to operate it would be one billion watts. A Look at the Automatic Mechanism in Action We marvel at the awesomeness of interceptor missiles that can compute in a flash the point of interception of another missile and “be there” at precisely the correct instant to make contact. Yet are we not witnessing something just as wonderful each time we see a center fielder catch a fly ball? In order to compute where the ball will fall, or where the “point of interception” will be, he must take into account the speed of the ball, its curvature of fall, its direction, the wind’s speed and direction, the initial velocity, and the rate of progressive decrease in velocity. He must make these computations so fast that

he will be able to “take off” at the crack of the bat. Next, he must compute just how fast he must run, and in what direction, in order to arrive at the point of interception at the same time the ball does. The center fielder doesn’t even think about this. His built-in goal-striving mechanism computes it for him from data that he feeds through his eyes and ears. The computer in his brain takes this information and compares it with stored data (memories of other successes and failures in catching fly balls). All necessary computations are made in a flash and orders are issued to his leg muscles—and he “just runs.” Science Can Build the Computer but Not the Operator Dr. Wiener has said that at no time in the foreseeable future will scientists be able to construct an “electronic brain” (computer) anywhere near comparable to the human brain. “I think that our gadget-conscious public has shown an unawareness of the special advantages and special disadvantages of electronic machinery, as compared with the human brain,” he says. “The number of switching devices in the human brain vastly exceeds the number in any computing machine yet developed, or even thought of for design in the near future.” But even should such a machine be built, it would lack an “operator.” A computer does not have a forebrain, nor does it have an “I.” It cannot pose problems to itself. It has no imagination and cannot set goals for itself. It cannot determine which goals are worthwhile and which are not. It has no emotions. It cannot “feel.” It works only on new data fed to it by an operator, by feedback data it secures from its own “sense organs” and from information previously stored. Is There an Infinite Storehouse of Ideas, Knowledge, and Power? Many great thinkers of all ages have believed that man’s “stored information” is not limited to his own memories of past experiences and learned facts. “There is one mind common to all individual men,” said Emerson, who compared our individual minds to the inlets in an ocean of universal mind. Edison believed that he got some of his ideas from a source outside himself. Once, when complimented for a creative idea, he disclaimed credit, saying that “ideas are in the air,” and if he had not discovered it, someone else would have. In writing his doctoral thesis, Dr. Tom Hanson, author of Play Big, interviewed Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Stan “the Man” Musial, who stated, “When I was concentrating, something used to tell me what this guy’s going to throw . . . and this thing never deceived me.” When Dr. Hanson referred to this ability as ESP, Musial immediately agreed that ESP was the correct term. Dr. J. B. Rhine, as head of Duke University’s Parapsychology Laboratory, proved experimentally that man has access to knowledge, facts, and ideas other than his own individual memory or stored information

from learning or experience. Telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition have been established by scientific laboratory experiments. Dr. Rhine’s finding, that man possesses some “extra-sensory factor,” which he calls “Psi,” is no longer doubted by scientists who have seriously reviewed his work. As Professor R. H. Thouless of Cambridge University, author of Straight and Crooked Thinking, has stated, “The reality of the phenomena must be regarded as proved as certainly as anything in scientific research can be proved.” “We have found,” said Dr. Rhine, “that there is a capacity for acquiring knowledge that transcends the sensory functions. This extra-sensory capacity can give us knowledge certainly of objective and very likely of subjective states, knowledge of matter and most probably of minds.” Schubert is said to have told a friend that his own creative process consisted in “remembering a melody” that neither he nor anyone else had ever thought of before. Many creative artists, as well as psychologists who have made a study of the creative process, have been impressed by the similarity between creative inspiration, sudden revelation, intuition, etc., and ordinary human memory. Searching for a new idea, or an answer to a problem, is in fact very similar to searching memory for a name you have forgotten. You know that the name is “there,” or else you would not search. The scanner in your brain scans back over stored memories until the desired name is “recognized” or “discovered.” The Answer Exists Now In much the same way, when we set out to find a new idea, or the answer to a problem, we must assume that the answer exists already—somewhere—and set out to find it. Dr. Norbert Wiener wrote in The Human Use of Human Beings, “Once a scientist attacks a problem which he knows to have an answer, his entire attitude is changed. He is already some 50 percent of his way toward that answer.” When you set out to do creative work—whether in the field of selling, managing a business, writing a sonnet, improving human relations, or whatever, you begin with a goal in mind, an end to be achieved, a “target” answer, which, although perhaps somewhat vague, will be “recognized” when achieved. If you really mean business, have an intense desire, and begin to think intensely about all angles of the problem—your Creative Mechanism goes to work—and the “scanner” we spoke of earlier begins to scan back through stored information, or “grope” its way to an answer. It selects an idea here, a fact there, a series of former experiences, and relates them—or “ties them together” into a meaningful whole that will “fill out” the uncompleted portion of your situation, complete your equation, or “solve” your problem. When this solution is served up to your consciousness—often at an unguarded moment when you are thinking of something else—or perhaps even as a dream while your consciousness is asleep—something “clicks” and you at once “recognize” this as the answer you have been searching for. In this process, does your Creative Mechanism also have access to

In this process, does your Creative Mechanism also have access to stored information in a universal mind? Numerous experiences of creative workers would seem to indicate that it does. How else, for example, to explain the experience of Louis Agassiz, told by his wife: He had been striving to decipher the somewhat obscure impression of a fossil fish on the stone slab in which it was preserved. Weary and perplexed, he put his work aside at last and tried to dismiss it from his mind. Shortly after, he waked one night persuaded that while asleep he had seen his fish with all the missing features perfectly restored. He went early to the Jardin des Plantes, thinking that on looking anew at the impression he would see something to put him on the track of his vision. In vain—the blurred record was as blank as ever. The next night he saw the fish again, but when he waked it disappeared from his memory as before. Hoping the same experience might be repeated, on the third night he placed a pencil and paper beside his bed before going to sleep. Towards morning the fish reappeared in his dream, confusedly at first, but at last with such distinctness that he no longer had any doubt as to its zoological characters. Still half dreaming, in perfect darkness, he traced these characters on the sheet of paper at the bedside. In the morning he was surprised to see in his nocturnal sketch features which he thought it impossible the fossil itself would reveal. He hastened to the Jardin des Plantes and, with his drawing as a guide, succeeded in chiseling away the surface of the stone under which portions of the fish proved to be hidden. When wholly exposed, the fossil corresponded with his dream and his drawing, and he succeeded in classifying it with ease. PRACTICE EXERCISE Get a New Mental Picture of Yourself The unhappy, failure-type personality cannot develop a new self-image by pure willpower, or by arbitrarily deciding to. There must be some grounds, some justification, some reason for deciding that the old picture of the self is in error, and that a new picture is appropriate. You cannot merely imagine a new self-image, unless you feel that it is based on truth. Experience has shown that when a person does change his self-image, he has the feeling that, for one reason or another, he “sees,” or realizes, the truth about himself. The truth in this chapter can set you free of an old, inadequate self-image, if you read it often, think intently about the implications, and “hammer home” its truths to yourself. Science has now confirmed what philosophers, mystics, and other intuitive people have long declared: Every human being has been literally “engineered for success” by his Creator. Every human being has access to a power greater than himself. This means you. As Emerson said, “There are no great and no small.” If you were engineered for success and happiness, then the old picture of yourself as unworthy of happiness, a person who was “meant” to fail, must be in error. Read this chapter through at least three times per week for the first

Read this chapter through at least three times per week for the first 21 days. Study it and digest it. Look for examples in your experiences, and the experiences of your friends, that illustrate the Creative Mechanism in action. Memorize the following basic principles by which your Success Mechanism operates. You do not need to be an electronic engineer, or a physicist, to operate your own servo-mechanism, any more than you have to be able to engineer an automobile in order to drive one, or become an electrical engineer in order to turn on the light in your room. You do need to be familiar with the following concepts, however, because when you have memorized them, they will throw new light on what is to follow: 1. Your

Your built-in Success Mechanism must have a goal or “target.” This goal, or target, must be conceived of as “already in existence—now” either in actual or potential form. It operates by either (1) steering you to a goal already in existence or (2) “discovering” something already in existence. 2. The

The automatic mechanism is teleological, that is, it operates or must be oriented to “end results” goals. Do not be discouraged because the “means whereby” may not be apparent. It is the function of the automatic mechanism to supply the means whereby when you supply the goal. Think in terms of the end result, and the means whereby will often take care of themselves. The means by which your Success Mechanism works often take care of themselves and do so effortlessly when you supply the goal to your brain. The precise action steps will come to you without stress, tension, or worry about how you are going to accomplish the result you seek. Many people make the mistake of interfering with their Success Mechanism by demanding a how before a goal is clearly established. After you’ve formed a mental image of the goal you seek to create, the how will come to you—not before. Remain calm and relaxed and the answers will arrive. Any attempt to force the ideas to come will not work. As Brian Tracy wrote, “In all mental workings, effort defeats itself.” 3. Do

Do not be afraid of making mistakes, or of temporary failures. All servo-mechanisms achieve a goal by negative feedback, or by going forward, making mistakes, and immediately correcting course. 4.

Skill learning of any kind is accomplished by trial and error, mentally correcting aim after an error, until a “successful” motion, movement, or performance has been achieved. After that, further learning, and continued success, is accomplished by forgetting the past errors, and remembering the successful response, so that it can be imitated. 5.

You must learn to trust your Creative Mechanism to do its work and not “jam it” by becoming too concerned or too anxious as to whether it will work or not, or by attempting to force it by too much conscious effort.

You must “let it” work, rather than “make it” work. This trust is necessary because your Creative Mechanism operates below the level of consciousness, and you cannot “know” what is going on beneath the surface. Moreover, its nature is to operate spontaneously according to present need. Therefore, you have no guarantees in advance. It comes into operation as you act and as you place a demand on it by your actions. You must not wait to act until you have proof—you must act as if it is there, and it will come through. “Do the thing and you will have the power,” said Emerson. KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER (You fill in here.)

THREE  Imagination: The First Key to Your Success Mechanism Imagination plays a far more important role in our lives than most of us realize. I have seen this demonstrated many times in my practice. A particularly memorable instance of this fact concerned a patient who was literally forced to visit my office by his family. He was a man of about 40, unmarried, who held down a routine job during the day and kept to himself in his room when the workday was over, never going anywhere, never doing anything. He had had many such jobs and never seemed able to stay with any of them for any great length of time. His problem was that he had a rather large nose and ears that protruded a little more than is normal. He considered himself “ugly” and “funny looking.” He imagined that the people he came into contact with during the day were laughing at him and talking about him behind his back because he was so “odd.” His imaginings grew so strong that he actually feared going out into the business world and moving among people. He hardly felt “safe” even in his own home. The poor man even imagined that his family was “ashamed” of him because he was “peculiar looking,” not like “other people.” Actually, his facial deficiencies were not serious. His nose was of the “classical Roman” type, and his ears, though somewhat large, attracted no more attention than those of thousands of people with similar ears. In desperation, his family brought him to me to see if I could help him. I saw that he did not need surgery . . . only an understanding of the fact that his imagination had wrought such havoc with his self-image that he had lost sight of the truth. He was not really ugly. People did not consider him odd and laugh at him because of his appearance. His imagination alone was responsible for his misery. His imagination had set up an automatic, negative failure mechanism within him, and it was operating full blast, to his extreme misfortune. Fortunately, after several sessions with me, and with the help of his family, he was able gradually to realize that the power of his own imagination was responsible for his plight, and he succeeded in building up a true self-image and achieving the confidence he needed by applying Creative Imagination rather than destructive imagination. Dr. Maltz shows how we have goals and are using our

Dr. Maltz shows how we have goals and are using our imagination whether we think we are or not. We either use our imaginations constructively or destructively. The key is becoming aware of which way you’re using yours—and improving on it daily. Creative Imagination is not something reserved for the poets, the philosophers, the inventors. It enters into our every act. For imagination sets the goal “picture” that our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of “will,” as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination. A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment. This is a basic and fundamental law of mind. It is the way we are built. When we see this law of mind graphically and dramatically demonstrated in a hypnotized subject, we are prone to think that there is something occult or supra-normal at work. Actually, what we are witnessing is the normal operating processes of the human brain and nervous system. For example, if a good hypnotic subject is told that he is at the North Pole, he will not only shiver and appear to be cold, his body will react just as if he were cold and goose pimples will develop. The same phenomenon has been demonstrated on wide-awake college students by asking them to imagine that one of their hands is immersed in ice water. Thermometer readings show that the temperature does drop in the “treated” hand. Tell a hypnotized subject that your finger is a red hot poker, and he will not only grimace with pain at your touch, but his cardiovascular and lymphatic systems will react just as if your finger were a red hot poker and produce inflammation and perhaps a blister on the skin. When college students, wide awake, have been told to imagine that a spot on their foreheads is hot, temperature readings have shown an actual increase in skin temperature. Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a real experience. In either case, it reacts automatically to information that you give to it from your forebrain. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you think or imagine to be true. The Secret of Hypnotic Power Dr. Theodore Xenophon Barber conducted extensive research into the phenomena of hypnosis, both when he was associated with the psychology department of American University in Washington, DC, and also after becoming associated with the Laboratory of Social Relations at Harvard. Writing in Science Digest, he said: We found that hypnotic subjects are able to do surprising things only when convinced that the hypnotist’s words are true statements. . . . When the hypnotist has guided the subject to the point where he is convinced

the hypnotist has guided the subject to the point where he is convinced that the hypnotist’s words are true statements, the subject then behaves differently because he thinks and believes differently. The phenomena of hypnosis have always seemed mysterious because it has always been difficult to understand how belief can bring about such unusual behavior. It always seemed as if there must be something more, some unfathomable force or power, at work. However, the plain truth is that when a subject is convinced that he is deaf, he behaves as if he is deaf; when he is convinced that he is insensitive to pain, he can undergo surgery without anesthesia. The mysterious force or power does not exist. (“Could You Be Hypnotized?” Science Digest, January 1958.) A little reflection will show why it is a very good thing for us that we do feel and act according to what we believe or imagine to be true. Truth Determines Action and Behavior The human brain and nervous system are engineered to react automatically and appropriately to the problems and challenges in the environment. For example, a man does not need to stop and think that self-survival requires that he run if he meets a grizzly bear on a trail. He does not need to decide to become afraid. The fear response is both automatic and appropriate. First, it makes him want to flee. The fear then triggers bodily mechanisms that “soup up” his muscles so that he can run faster than he has ever run before. His heart beat is quickened. Adrenaline, a powerful muscle stimulant, is poured into the bloodstream. All bodily functions not necessary to running are shut down. The stomach stops working and all available blood is sent to the muscles. Breathing is much faster and the oxygen supply to the muscles is increased manifold. All this, of course, is nothing new. Most of us learned it in high school. What we have not been so quick to realize, however, is that the brain and nervous system that react automatically to the environment are the same brain and nervous system that tell us what the environment is. The reactions of the man meeting the bear are commonly thought of as due to “emotion” rather than to ideas. Yet it was an idea—information received from the outside world, and evaluated by the forebrain—that sparked the so-called emotional reactions. Thus, it was basically idea or belief that was the true causative agent, rather than emotion—which came as a result. In short, the man on the trail reacted to what he thought or believed or imagined the environment to be. The “messages” brought to us from the environment consist of nerve impulses from the various sense organs. These nerve impulses are decoded, interpreted, and evaluated in the brain and made known to us in the form of ideas or mental images. In the final analysis it is these mental images that we react to. You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like. You have certain mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent. Let us suppose, for example, that the man on the trail had not met

Let us suppose, for example, that the man on the trail had not met a real bear, but a movie actor dressed in a bear costume. If he thought and imagined the actor to be a bear, his emotional and nervous reactions would have been exactly the same. Or let us suppose he met a large shaggy dog, which his fear-ridden imagination mistook for a bear. Again, he would react automatically to what he believed to be true concerning himself and his environment. It follows that if our ideas and mental images concerning ourselves are distorted or unrealistic, then our reaction to our environment will likewise be inappropriate. Why Not Imagine Yourself Successful? Realizing that our actions, feelings, and behavior are the result of our own images and beliefs gives us the lever that psychology has always needed for changing personality. It opens a new psychological door to gaining skill, success, and happiness. Mental pictures offer us an opportunity to “practice” new traits and attitudes, which otherwise we could not do. This is possible because, again, your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined. If we picture ourselves performing in a certain manner, it is nearly the same as the actual performance. Mental practice helps to make perfect. In a controlled experiment, psychologist R. A. Vandell proved that mental practice in throwing darts at a target, wherein the person sits for a period each day in front of the target and imagines throwing darts at it, improves aim as much as actually throwing darts. Research Quarterly reported an experiment on the effects of mental practice on improving skill in sinking basketball free throws. One group of students that practiced throwing the ball every day for 20 days was scored on the first and last days. A second group was scored on the first and last days but engaged in no sort of practice in between. A third group was scored on the first day then spent 20 minutes a day imagining that they were throwing the ball into the hoop. When they missed, they would imagine that they corrected their aim accordingly. The first group, which practiced 20 minutes every day, improved in scoring 24 percent. The second group, which had no sort of practice, showed no improvement. The third group, which practiced in their imagination, improved in scoring 23 percent! I was asked by Randy Sullivan, a coach at a pitching academy, to help him with the “mental game” for his high school and college baseball players, many of whom had a goal to throw the ball 90 miles per hour. Randy said, “When an athlete is within a few miles per hour of the

Promised Land, crossing the line is more mental than physical.” I witnessed many athletes struggle with all their might to throw 90 miles per hour—and fall short. Yet, after I taught these athletes a number of mental imagery and relaxation exercises, they were able to relax their bodies and hit 90 for the first time. Afterward, their self-images usually adjusted to the rate of velocity and hitting 90 was no longer difficult. Eighteen months after implementing the Psycho-Cybernetics techniques, the number of players who broke 90 miles per hour at Randy’s facility skyrocketed from 18 to 98. How Imagination Practice Won a Chess Championship Reader’s Digest reprinted an article from The Rotarian by Joseph Phillips called “Chess: They Call It a Game,” in which Phillips tells how the great chess champion Capablanca was so superior to all competition that it was believed by experts that he would never be beaten in match play. Yet he lost the championship to a rather obscure player, Alekhine, who had given no hint that he even posed a serious threat to the great Capablanca. The chess world was stunned by the upset, which today would be comparable to a Golden Gloves finalist defeating the heavyweight champion of the world. Phillips tells us that Alekhine had trained for the match very much like a boxer conditioning himself for a fight. He retired to the country, cut out smoking and drinking, and did calisthenics. “For three months, he played chess only in his mind, building up steam for the moment when he would meet the champion.” Mental Pictures Can Help You Sell More Goods Charles B. Roth, author of Secrets of Closing Sales, recounted in one of his books how a group of salesmen in Detroit who tried a new idea increased their sales 100 percent. Another group in New York increased their sales by 150 percent. And individual salesmen, using the same idea, have increased their sales up to 400 percent. And what is this magic that accomplishes so much for salesmen? It is something called role-playing, and you should know about it, because if you will let it, it may help you to double your sales. What is role-playing? Well it is simply imagining yourself in various sales situations, then solving them in your mind, until you know what to say and what to do whenever the situations come up in real life. It is what is called on the football field “skull practice.” The reason why it accomplishes so much is that selling is simply a matter of situations. One is created every time you talk to a customer. He says something or asks a question or raises an objection. If you always know how to counter what he says or answer his question or handle the objection, you make sales. A role-playing salesman, at night when he is alone, will create these

A role-playing salesman, at night when he is alone, will create these situations. He will imagine the prospect throwing the widest kind of curves at him. Then he will work out the best answer to them . . . No matter what the situation is, you can prepare for it beforehand by means of imagining yourself and your prospect face-to-face while he is raising objections and creating problems and you are handling them properly. Use Mental Pictures to Get a Better Job William Moulton Marston, psychologist, lawyer, and inventor (who may be best remembered as the creator of Wonder Woman, under the pen name Charles Moulton), recommended what he called “rehearsal practice” to men and women who came to him for help in job advancement. If you have an important interview coming up, such as making an application for a job, his advice was: Plan for the interview in advance. Go over in your mind all the various questions that are likely to be asked. Think about the answers you are going to give. Then “rehearse” the interview in your mind. Even if none of the questions you have rehearsed come up, the rehearsal practice will still work wonders. It gives you confidence. And even though real life has no set lines to be recited like a stage play, rehearsal practice will help you to ad-lib and react spontaneously to whatever situation you find yourself in, because you have practiced reacting spontaneously. “Don’t be a ham actor,” Dr. Marston would say, explaining that we are always acting out some role in life. Why not select the right role, the role of a successful person—and rehearse it? Writing in Your Life magazine, Dr. Marston said, “Frequently the next step in your career cannot be taken without first gaining some experience in the work you will be called upon to perform. Bluff may open the door to a job you know nothing about but in nine cases out of ten it won’t keep you from being fired when your inexperience becomes evident. There’s only one way I know to project your practical knowledge beyond your present occupation and that is rehearsal planning.” A Concert Pianist Practices “In His Head” Artur Schnabel, the world famous concert pianist, took lessons for only seven years. He hated practice and seldom did practice for any length of time at the actual piano keyboard. When questioned about his small amount of practice, as compared with other concert pianists, he said, “I practice in my head.” C. G. Kop, of Holland, a recognized authority on teaching piano, recommends that all pianists “practice in their heads.” A new composition, he says, should be first gone over in the mind. It should be memorized and played in the mind before the pianist ever touches fingers to the keyboard. Clayton, a virtuoso violinist, was convinced he needed to retire. He came to this conclusion, in part, due to a wrist injury. It was more difficult for him to practice, and this

injury. It was more difficult for him to practice, and this weighed heavily on his mind. How could he be good without practice? In a coaching session I asked him to play the violin without his violin. He did as I advised and a week later gave the best concert of his life. He was so pleased with his performance that he decided it was no longer a good idea to retire. Imagination Practice Can Lower Your Golf Score Time magazine reported that when golf champion Ben Hogan played in a tournament, he mentally rehearsed each shot, just before making it. He made the shot perfectly in his imagination—“felt” the club head strike the ball just as it should, “felt” himself performing the perfect follow-through—and then stepped up to the ball, and depended on what he called “muscle memory” to carry out the shot just as he had imagined it. Alex Morrison, perhaps the most well-known golf teacher in the world, actually worked out a system of mental practice. It enables you to improve your golf score by sitting in an easy chair, and practicing mentally what he called the “Seven Morrison Keys.” The mental side of golf represents 90 percent of the game, he said, the physical side 8 percent, and the mechanical side 2 percent. In his book Better Golf Without Practice (now out of print), Morrison recounted how he taught comedian and writer Lew Lehr to break 90 for the first time, with no actual practice whatsoever. Morrison had Lehr sit in an easy chair in his living room and relax while he demonstrated for him the correct swing and gave a brief lecture on the Morrison Keys. Lehr was instructed to engage in no actual practice on the links, but instead spend five minutes each day relaxing in his easy chair, visualizing himself attending to the Keys correctly. Several days later, with no physical preparation whatever, Lehr joined his regular foursome, and amazed them by shooting nine holes in an even par, 36. The core of the Morrison system is: You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully. Morrison, by this method, enabled Paul Whiteman, and many other celebrities, to chop as much as 10 to 12 strokes off their scores. Johnny Bulla, the well-known professional golfer, wrote an article in which he said that having a clear mental image of just where you wanted the ball to go and what you wanted it to do was more important than form in golf. Most of the pros, said Bulla, have one or more serious flaws in their form. Yet they manage to shoot good golf. It was Bulla’s theory that if you would picture the end result—see the ball going where you wanted it to go—and have the confidence to know that it was going to do what you wanted, your subconscious would take over and direct your muscles correctly. If your grip was wrong, and your stance not in the best form, your subconscious would still take care of that by directing your muscles to do whatever was necessary to compensate for the error in form. The Real Secret of Mental Picturing Successful men and women have, since the beginning of time, used

Successful men and women have, since the beginning of time, used “mental pictures,” and “rehearsal practice,” to achieve success. Napoléon, for example, “practiced” soldiering in his imagination for many years before he ever went on an actual battlefield. Webb and Morgan in their book Making the Most of Your Life tell us that “the notes Napoléon made from his readings during these years of study filled, when printed, four hundred pages. He imagined himself as a commander, and drew maps of the island of Corsica showing where he would place various defenses, making all his calculations with mathematical precision.” Conrad Hilton imagined himself operating a hotel long before he ever bought one. When a boy, he used to play that he was a hotel operator. Henry Kaiser has said that each of his business accomplishments was realized in his imagination before it appeared in actuality. It is no wonder that the art of mental picturing has in the past sometimes been associated with “magic.” However, the new science of cybernetics gives us an insight into why mental picturing produces such amazing results, and shows that these results are due not to “magic,” but to the natural, normal functioning of our minds and brains. Cybernetics regards the human brain, nervous system, and muscular system as a highly complex servo-mechanism: an automatic goal-seeking machine that “steers” its way to a target or goal by use of feedback data and stored information, automatically correcting course when necessary. As stated earlier, this concept does not mean that you are a machine, but that your physical brain and body functions as a machine that you operate. This automatic Creative Mechanism within you can operate in only one way. It must have a target to shoot at. As Alex Morrison said, you must first clearly see a thing in your mind before you can do it. When you do see a thing clearly in your mind, the creative Success Mechanism within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort, or “willpower.” Instead of trying hard by conscious effort to do the thing with ironed-jawed willpower, and all the while worrying and picturing to yourself all the things that are likely to go wrong, you simply relax the strain, stop trying to do it by strain and effort, picture to yourself the target you really want to hit, and let your creative Success Mechanism take over. Thus, mentally picturing the desired end result literally forces you to use “positive thinking.” You are not relieved thereafter from effort and work, but your efforts are used to carry you forward toward your goal, rather than in the futile mental conflict that results when you want and try to do one thing, but picture to yourself something else. Finding Your Best Self This same Creative Mechanism within you can help you achieve your best possible “self” if you will form a picture in your imagination of the self you want to be and see yourself in the new role. This is a necessary

condition to personality transformation, regardless of the method of therapy used. Somehow, before a person can change, he must see himself in a new role. Edward McGoldrick, founder of New York’s Alcoholic Therapy Bureau in the 1940s, used this technique in helping alcoholics cross the bridge from the old self to the new self. Each day, he had his students close their eyes, relax their bodies as much as possible, and create a “mental motion picture” of themselves as they would like to be. In this mental motion picture they would see themselves as sober, responsible persons. They would see themselves actually enjoying life without liquor. I myself have witnessed veritable miracles in personality transformation when an individual changes his self-image. However, today we are only beginning to glimpse the potential creative power that stems from the human imagination, and particularly our images concerning themselves. Consider the implications, for example, in the following news release, which appeared under an Associated Press dateline: Just Imagine You’re Sane SAN FRANCISCO—Some mental patients can improve their lot and perhaps shorten their stay in hospitals just by imagining they are normal, two psychologists with the Veterans Administration at Los Angeles reported. Dr. Harry M. Grayson and Dr. Leonard B. Olinger told the American Psychological Assn. they tried the idea on 45 men hospitalized as neuro-psychiatrics. The patients first were given the usual personality test. Then they were asked flatly to take the test a second time and answer the questions as they would if they were “a typical, well-adjusted person on the outside.” Three-fourths of them turned in improved test performances and some of the changes for the better were dramatic, the psychologists reported. In order for these patients to answer the questions “as a typical, well-adjusted person” would answer, they had to imagine how a typical well-adjusted person would act. They had to imagine themselves in the role of a well-adjusted person. And this in itself was enough to cause them to begin acting like and feeling like a well-adjusted person. We can begin to see why Dr. Albert Edward Wiggam, author of Marks of a Clear Mind and other books on the mind, called your mental picture of yourself “the strongest force within you.” Know the Truth About Yourself The aim of self-image psychology is not to create a fictitious self that is all-powerful, arrogant, egoistic, and all-important. Such an image is as inappropriate and unrealistic as the inferior image of self. Our aim is to find the real self, and to bring our mental images of ourselves more in line with the objects represented by our goals. However, it is common knowledge among psychologists that most of us underrate ourselves; short change ourselves and sell ourselves short. Actually, there is no such thing as a “superiority complex.” People who seem to have one are actually suffering from feelings of inferiority—their “superior self” is a fiction, a cover-up, to hide from themselves and others their deep-down feelings of inferiority and insecurity. How can you know the truth about yourself? How can you make

How can you know the truth about yourself? How can you make a true evaluation? It seems to me that here psychology must turn to religion. The Scriptures tell us that God created man “a little lower than the angels” and “gave him dominion”; that God created man in his own image. If we really believe in an all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving Creator, then we are in a position to draw some logical conclusions about that which he has created—man. In the first place such an all-wise and all powerful Creator would not turn out inferior products, any more than a master painter would paint inferior canvases. Such a Creator would not deliberately engineer his product to fail, any more than a manufacturer would deliberately build failure into an automobile. The fundamentalists tell us that man’s chief purpose and reason for living is to “glorify God,” and the humanists tell us that man’s primary purpose is to “express himself fully.” However, if we take the premise that God is a loving Creator and has the same interest in his Creation that an earthly father has in his children, then it seems to me that the fundamentalists and the humanists are saying the same thing. What brings more glory, pride, and satisfaction to a father than seeing his offspring do well, succeed, and express to the full their abilities and talents? Have you ever sat by the father of a football star during a game? Jesus expressed the same thought when he told us not to hide our light under a bushel, but to let our light shine “so that your Father may be glorified.” I cannot believe that it brings any glory to God when his children go around with hangdog expressions, being miserable, afraid to lift up their heads and “be somebody.” As Dr. Leslie D. Weatherhead, Christian theologian and author of The Will of God, wrote in Prescription for Anxiety: If . . . we have in our minds a picture of ourselves as fear-haunted and defeated nobodies, we must get rid of that picture at once and hold up our heads. That is a false picture and the false must go. God sees us as men and women in whom and through whom He can do a great work. He sees us as already serene, confident, and cheerful. He sees us not as pathetic victims of life, but masters of the art of living; not wanting sympathy, but imparting help to others, and therefore thinking less and less of ourselves, and full, not of self-concern, but of love and laughter and a desire to serve. . . . Let us look at the real selves which are in the making the moment we believe in their existence. We must recognize the possibility of change and believe in the self we are now in the process of becoming. That old sense of unworthiness and failure must go. It is false and we are not to believe in what is false. PRACTICE EXERCISE “Hold a picture of yourself long and steadily enough in your mind’s eye and you will be drawn toward it,” said Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, the prominent liberal minister. “Picture yourself vividly as defeated and that alone will make victory impossible. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone will contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.” Your present self-image was built on your own imagination pictures of

Your present self-image was built on your own imagination pictures of yourself in the past, which grew out of interpretations and evaluations that you placed on experience. Now you are to use the same method to build an adequate self-image that you previously used to build an inadequate one. Set aside a period of 30 minutes each day when you can be alone and undisturbed. Relax and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Now close your eyes and exercise your imagination. Many people find they get better results if they imagine themselves sitting before a large motion picture screen—and imagine that they are seeing a motion picture of themselves. The important thing is to make these pictures as vivid and as detailed as possible. You want your mental pictures to approximate actual experience as much as possible. The way to do this is to pay attention to small details, sights, sounds, objects, in your imagined environment. One of my patients was using this exercise to overcome her fear of the dentist. She was unsuccessful, until she began to notice small details in her imagined picture—the smell of the antiseptic in the office, the feel of the leather on the chair arms, the sight of the dentist’s well-manicured nails as his hands approached her mouth, etc. Details of the imagined environment are all-important in this exercise, because for all practical purposes, you are creating a practice experience. And if the imagination is vivid enough and detailed enough, your imagination practice is equivalent to an actual experience insofar as your nervous system is concerned. The next important thing to remember is that during this 30 minutes you see yourself acting and reacting appropriately, successfully, ideally. It doesn’t matter how you acted yesterday. You do not need to try to have faith you will act in the ideal way tomorrow. Your nervous system will take care of that in time—if you continue to practice. See yourself acting, feeling, “being,” as you want to be. Do not say to yourself, “I am going to act this way tomorrow.” Just say to yourself: “I am going to imagine myself acting this way now—for thirty minutes today.” Imagine how you would feel if you were already the sort of personality you want to be. If you have been shy and timid, see yourself moving among people with ease and poise and feeling good because of it. If you have been fearful and anxious in certain situations, see yourself acting calmly and deliberately, acting with confidence and courage—and feeling expansive and confident because you are. This exercise builds new “memories” or stored data into your mid-brain and central nervous system. It builds a new image of self. After practicing it for a time, you will be surprised to find yourself “acting differently,” more or less automatically and spontaneously—without trying. This is as it should be. You do not need to try or make an effort now in order to feel ineffective and act inadequately. Your present inadequate feeling and doing is automatic and spontaneous because of the memories, real and imagined, you have built into your automatic mechanism. You will find it will work just as automatically on positive thoughts and experiences as on negative ones. Some people who follow the Psycho-Cybernetics principles began with doubts that they could spend 30 minutes a day picturing who they want to be. They also had difficulty visualizing a goal clearly. Finally, when they did form mental pictures, they found that their minds would wander and they judged themselves harshly for this. Essentially, like anything else, getting good at picturing who you want to be requires practice. As Olympic champion and coach Dan Gable said, “The only place you start at the top is digging a hole.” Just because the mental imagery isn’t clear when you begin does not mean it won’t get clearer, more vivid, more detailed, and more powerful each time you practice. When you begin, it’s good to scan your body for tension

When you begin, it’s good to scan your body for tension and begin to consciously relax your head, torso, waist, legs, and so on. And, as strange as it may sound, allow yourself to “smile” into your brain and body, which greatly helps you relax. As you begin to relax, concentrate on breathing deeply. Follow your inhale and your exhale. Allow positive energy to enter as you exhale the negative. After you’ve done this, you can go back into your past and find a “successful” memory, an occasion when you did something well. Again, this could be as simple as tying your shoes for the first time or writing your name in school. When it happened is irrelevant. How “big” the success was doesn’t matter either. All that matters is that the memory triggers a positive, happy, feel-good experience in you right now. Replay and relive the positive memory, then go into the future and picture how you want to be with the same feeling you felt in the past. Add emotion to what you’re seeing in your mind’s eye. If you find your mind wandering, don’t get upset or be hard on yourself. Relax and picture again. Each time your mind wanders, bring yourself back. No worries. As for the 30-minute time? You can begin experiencing positive results in five or ten minutes per day. Visualizations that last no longer than 10 to 15 minutes can result in extraordinary changes. The biggest key is to practice every day. Once you’ve established this habit and you’re seeing and feeling the results, it’s easy to find more time. KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER (You fill in here.)