Inside-out Plastic Surgery

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz Download from here:- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UXGPqaKIOgz5LAm1xrTHhqrqgsyLQ5GU/view?usp=drivesdk Chapter 2 Discovering the Success Mechanism Within You 1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 @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. 5 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. 6 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 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. 7 @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. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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. 11 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. 12 “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.” 13 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.” 14 @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. 15 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.” 16 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.” 17 @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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 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. 21 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 feedback. 22 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. 23 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. 24 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. 25 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. 26 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. 27 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. 28 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. 29 @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. 30 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. 31 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. 32 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. 33 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. 34 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. 35 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. 36 @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. 37 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. 38 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.” 39 @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. 40 “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. 41 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. 42 @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. 43 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. 44 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. 45 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.” 46 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. 47 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.”

48 @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.” 49 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. 50 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. 51 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. 52 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. 53 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. 54 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. 55 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. 56 @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. 57 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.” 58 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 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. 59 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. 60 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: A. 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. 61 B. 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. 62 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. 63 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.” 64 C. 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. 65 D. 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. 66 E. 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. 67 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.

Chapter THREE Imagination: The First Key to Your Success Mechanism 1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 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. 5 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. 6 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. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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. 10 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. 11 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. 12 @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: 13 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 that the hypnotist’s words are true statements , the subject then behaves differently because he thinks and believes differently. 14 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. 15 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. 16 @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. 17 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. 18 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. 19 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. 20 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. 21 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. 22 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. 23 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. 24 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. 25 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. 26 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! 27 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.” 28 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. 29 @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. 30 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.” 31 @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. 32 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.” 33 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. 34 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. 35 @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. 36 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. 37 “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. 38 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.” 39 @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.” 40 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. 41 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 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.

42 @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. 43 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. 44 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. 45 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. 46 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. 47 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. 48 @The Real Secret of Mental Picturing 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. 49 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. 50 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. 51 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. 52 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.” 53 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.” 54 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. 55 @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. 56 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. 57 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: 58 @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. 59 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. 60 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.” 61 @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. 62 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 a true evaluation? It seems to me that here psychology must turn to religion. 63 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. 64 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. 65 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? 66 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.” 67 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. 68 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. . . . 69 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. 70 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.” 71 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. 72 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. 73 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. 74 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.” 75 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. 76 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. 77 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. 78 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. 79 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. 80 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. 81 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. 82 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. 83 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.

Chapter 4 Dehypnotize Yourself from False Beliefs 1 Dr. Alfred Adler, psychotherapist and founder of the school of individual psychology, had an experience when he was a young boy that illustrates just how powerful belief can be on behavior and ability. He got off to a bad start in arithmetic and his teacher became convinced that he was “dumb in mathematics.” 2 The teacher then advised the parents of this fact and told them not to expect too much of him. They, too, were convinced. Adler passively accepted the evaluation they had placed on him. And his grades in arithmetic proved they had been correct. 3 One day, however, he had a sudden flash of insight and thought he saw how to work a problem the teacher had put on the board, and which none of the other pupils could work. He announced as much to the teacher. She and the whole class laughed. Whereupon he became indignant, strode to the blackboard, and worked the problem much to their amazement. 4 In doing so, he realized that he could understand arithmetic. He felt a new confidence in his ability, and went on to become a good math student. Dr. Adler’s experience was very much like that of a patient of mine some years back, a businessman who wanted to excel in public speaking because he had a vital message to impart about his outstanding success in a difficult field. 5 He had a good voice and an important topic, but he was unable to get up in front of strangers and put his message over. What held him back was his belief that he could not make a good talk, and that he would fail to impress his audience, simply because he did not have an imposing appearance; he did not “look like a successful executive.” 6 This belief had burrowed so deeply into him that it threw up a roadblock every time he stood up before a group of people and began to talk. He mistakenly concluded that if he could have an operation to improve his appearance, he would then gain the confidence he needed. An operation might have done the trick and it might not . . . my experience with other patients had shown that physical change did not always guarantee personality change. 7 The solution in this man’s case was found when he became convinced that his negative belief was preventing him from delivering the vital information he had. He succeeded in replacing the negative belief with a positive belief that he had a message of extreme importance that he alone could deliver, no matter what he looked like. In due time, he was one of the most sought after speakers in the business world. The only change was in his belief and in his self-image. 8 Now, the point I want to make is this: Adler had been hypnotized by a false belief about himself. Not figuratively, but literally and actually hypnotized. Remember that we said in the last chapter that the power of hypnosis is the power of belief. Let me repeat here Dr. Barber’s explanation of the “power” of hypnosis: “We found that hypnotic subjects are able to do surprising things only when convinced that the hypnotist’s words are true statements. . . . 9 When 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.” 10 The important thing for you to remember is that it does not matter in the least how you got the idea or where it came from. You may never have met a professional hypnotist. You may have never been formally hypnotized. But if you have accepted an idea—from yourself, your teachers, your parents, friends, advertisements, from any other source—and further, if you are firmly convinced that idea is true, it has the same power over you as the hypnotist’s words have over the hypnotized subject. 11 Scientific research has shown that Dr. Adler’s experience was not “one in a million,” but typical of practically all students who make poor grades. In Chapter 1, we told of how Prescott Lecky had brought about almost miraculous improvement in the grades of schoolchildren by showing them how to change their self-image. After thousands of experiments and many years of research Lecky concluded that poor grades in school are, in almost every case, due in some degree to the students’ “self-conception” and “self-definition.” 12 These students had been literally hypnotized by such ideas as “I am dumb,” “I have a weak personality,” “I am poor in arithmetic,” “I am a naturally poor speller,” “I am ugly,” “I do not have a mechanical type mind,” etc. With such self-definitions, the student had to make poor grades in order to be true to himself. 13 Unconsciously, making poor grades became a “moral issue” with him. It would be as wrong, from his own viewpoint, for him to make good grades, as it would be to steal if he defines himself as an honest person. 14 @The Case of the Hypnotized Salesman In the book Secrets of Successful Selling, John D. Murphy tells how Elmer Wheeler used Lecky’s theory to increase the earnings of a certain salesman: Elmer Wheeler had been called in as a sales consultant to a certain firm. The sales manager called his attention to a very remarkable case. A certain salesman always managed to make almost exactly $5,000 per year, regardless of the territory they assigned him or the commission he was paid. 15 Because this salesman had done well in a rather small territory, he had been given a larger and much better one. But the next year his commission amounted to almost the same amount as that he had made in the smaller one—$5,000. The following year the company increased the commission paid to all salesmen, but this salesman still managed to make only $5,000. He was then assigned one of the company’s poorest territories—and again made the usual $5,000. 16 Wheeler had a talk with this salesman and found that the trouble was not in the territory but in the salesman’s own evaluation of himself. He thought of himself as a $5,000-per-year man and as long as he held that concept of himself, outside conditions didn’t seem to matter much. 17 When he was assigned a poor territory, he worked hard to make that $5,000. When he was assigned a good territory, he found all sorts of excuses to coast when the $5,000 was in sight. Once, when the goal had been reached, he got sick and was unable to work anymore that year, although doctors could find nothing wrong with him and he miraculously recovered by the first of the next year. 18 @How a False Belief Aged a Man 20 Years In a previous book, Adventures in Staying Young, I gave a detailed case history of how Mr. Russell (a pseudonym) aged 20 years almost overnight because of a false idea, and then regained his youth almost as quickly when he accepted the truth. Briefly, the story is this: I performed a cosmetic operation on Mr. Russell’s lower lip for a very modest fee, under the condition that he must tell his girlfriend that the operation had cost him his entire savings of a lifetime. 19 His girlfriend had no objection to his spending money on her, and she insisted that she loved him, but explained she could never marry him because of his too large lower lip. However, when he told her this and proudly exhibited his new lower lip, her reaction was just as I had expected, but not as Mr. Russell had anticipated. She became hysterically angry, called him a fool for having spent all his money, and advised him in no uncertain terms that she had never loved him and never would, and that she had merely played him for a sucker as long as he had money to spend on her. 20 However, she went further than I had counted on. In her anger and disgust she also announced that she was placing a voodoo curse upon him. Both Mr. Russell and his girlfriend had been born on an island in the West Indies where voodoo was practiced by the ignorant and superstitious. His family had been rather well-to-do. His background was one of culture and he was a college graduate. Yet, when in the heat of anger, his girlfriend cursed him, he felt vaguely uncomfortable but did not think too much about it. 21 However, he remembered and wondered when, a short time later, he felt a strange small, hard bump on the inside of his lip. A so-called friend who knew of the voodoo curse insisted that he see a certain Dr. Smith, who promptly assured him that the bump inside his mouth was the feared “African Bug,” which would slowly eat away all his vitality and strength. Mr. Russell began to worry and look for signs of waning strength. He was not long in finding them. He lost his appetite and his ability to sleep. 22 I learned all this from Mr. Russell when he returned to my office several weeks after I had dismissed him. My nurse didn’t recognize him, and no wonder. The Mr. Russell who had first called on me had been a very impressive individual, slightly too large lip and all. He stood about 6 feet, 4 inches, a large man with the physique of an athlete and the bearing and manner that bespoke an inner dignity and gave him a magnetic personality. The very pores of his skin seemed to exude an animal-like vitality. 23 The Mr. Russell who now sat across the desk from me had aged at least 20 years. His hands shook with the tremor of age. His eyes and cheeks were sunken. He had lost perhaps 30 pounds. The changes in his appearance were all characteristic of the process that medical science, for want of a better name, calls “aging.” 24 After a quick examination of his mouth I assured Mr. Russell I could get rid of the African Bug in less than 30 minutes, which I did. The bump that had caused all the trouble was merely a small bit of scar tissue from his operation. I removed it, held it in my hand, and showed it to him. The important thing is he saw the truth and believed it. He gave a sigh of relief, and it seemed as if there was an almost immediate change in his posture and expression. 25 Several weeks later, I received a nice letter from Mr. Russell, together with a photograph of him with his new bride. He had gone back to his home and married his childhood sweetheart. The man in the picture was the first Mr. Russell. Mr. Russell had grown young again overnight. A false belief had aged him 20 years. The truth had not only set him free of fear and restored his confidence—but had actually reversed the “aging process.” 26 If you could have seen Mr. Russell as I did, both “before” and “after,” you would never again entertain any doubts about the power of belief, or that an idea accepted as true from any source can be every bit as powerful as hypnosis. 27 @Is Everyone Hypnotized? It is no exaggeration to say that every human being is hypnotized to some extent, either by ideas he has uncritically accepted from others, or ideas he has repeated to himself or convinced himself are true. These negative ideas have exactly the same effect on our behavior as the negative ideas implanted into the mind of a hypnotized subject by a professional hypnotist. Have you ever seen a demonstration of honest-to-goodness hypnosis? If not, let me describe to you just a few of the more simple phenomena that result from the hypnotist’s suggestion. 28 The hypnotist tells a football player that his hand is stuck to the table and that he cannot lift it. It is not a question of the football player “not trying.” He simply cannot. He strains and struggles until the muscles of his arm and shoulder stand out like cords. But his hand remains fully rooted to the table. 29 He tells a championship weight lifter that he cannot lift a pencil from the desk. And although normally he can hoist a 400-pound weight overhead, he now actually cannot lift the pencil. 30 Strangely enough, in the above instances, hypnosis does not weaken the athletes. They are potentially as strong as ever. But without realizing it consciously they are working against themselves. On the one hand they “try” to lift their hand, or the pencil, by voluntary effort, and actually contract the proper lifting muscles. But on the other hand, the idea “you cannot do it” causes contrary muscles to contract quite apart from their will. 31 The negative idea causes them to defeat themselves—they cannot express, or bring into play, their actual available strength. The gripping strength of a third athlete has been tested on a dynometer and has been found to be 100 pounds. All his effort and straining cannot budge the needle beyond the 100-pound mark. Now he is hypnotized and told, “You are very, very strong. Stronger than you have ever been in your life. Much, much stronger. You are surprised at how strong you are. Again the gripping strength of his hand is tested. This time he easily pulls the needle to the 125-pound mark. 32 Again, strangely enough, hypnosis has not added anything to his actual strength. What the hypnotic suggestion did do was to overcome a negative idea that had previously prevented him from expressing his full strength. In other words, the athlete in his normal waking state had imposed a limitation on his strength by the negative belief that he could only grip 100 pounds. The hypnotist merely removed this mental block, and allowed him to express his true strength. The hypnosis literally “dehypnotized” him temporarily from his own self-limiting beliefs about himself. 33 As Dr. Barber said, it is awfully easy to assume that the hypnotist himself must have some magical power when you see rather miraculous things happen during a hypnotic session. The stutterer talks fluently. The timid, shy, retiring Caspar Milquetoast becomes outgoing, poised, and makes a stirring speech. Another individual who is not especially good in adding figures with a pencil and paper multiplies two three-digit figures in his head. Apparently all this happens merely because the hypnotist tells them that they can and instructs them to go ahead and do it. 34 To onlookers, the hypnotist’s “word” has a magical power. Such, however, is not the case. The power, the basic ability, to do these things was inherent in the subjects all the time—even before they met the hypnotist. The subjects, however, were unable to use this power because they themselves did not know it was there. They had bottled it up, and choked it off, because of their own negative beliefs. Without realizing it, they had hypnotized themselves into believing they could not do these things. And it would be truer to say that the hypnotist had “dehypnotized” them than to say he had hypnotized them. 35 Within you, whoever you may be, regardless of how big a failure you may think yourself to be, is the ability and the power to do whatever you need to do to be happy and successful. Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as soon as you can change your beliefs. Just as quickly as you can dehypnotize yourself from the ideas of “I can’t,” “I’m not worthy,” “I don’t deserve it,” and other self-limiting ideas.

36 @You Can Cure Your Inferiority Complex At least 95 percent of people have their lives blighted by feelings of inferiority to some extent, and to millions this same feeling of inferiority is a serious handicap to success and happiness. In one sense of the word every person on the face of the earth is inferior to some other persons or person. I know that I cannot lift as much weight as Paul Anderson, throw a 16-pound shot as far as Parry O’Brien, or dance as well as Arthur Murray. 37 I know this, but it does not induce feelings of inferiority within me and blight my life—simply because I do not compare myself unfavorably with them and feel that I am no good merely because I cannot do certain things as skillfully or as well as they. I also know know that in certain areas, every person I meet, from the newsboy on the corner, to the president of the bank, is superior to me in certain respects. But neither can any of these people repair a scarred face, or do any number of other things as well as I. And I am sure they do not feel inferior because of it. 38 Feelings of inferiority originate not so much from facts or experiences, but our conclusions regarding facts, and our evaluation of experiences. For example, the fact is that I am an inferior weight lifter and an inferior dancer. This does not, however, make me an “inferior person.” Paul Anderson’s and Arthur Murray’s inability to perform surgery makes them “inferior surgeons,” but not “inferior persons.” It all depends on “what” and “whose” norms we measure ourselves by. 39 It is not knowledge of actual inferiority in skill or knowledge that gives us an inferiority complex and interferes with our living. It is the feeling of inferiority that does this. And this feeling of inferiority comes about for just one reason: We judge ourselves, and measure ourselves, not against our own “norm” or “par” but against some other individual’s “norm.” When we do this, we always, without exception, come out second best. 40 But because we think and believe and assume that we should measure up to some other person’s “norm,” we feel miserable, and second-rate, and conclude that there is something wrong with us. The next logical conclusion in this cockeyed reasoning process is to conclude that we are not “worthy”; that we do not deserve success and happiness, and that it would be out of place for us to fully express our own abilities and talents, whatever they might be, without apology, or without feeling guilty about it. 41 All this comes about because we have allowed ourselves to be hypnotized by the entirely erroneous idea that “I should be like so-and-so” or “I should be like everybody else.” The fallacy of the second idea can be readily seen through, if analyzed, for in truth there are no fixed standards common to “everybody else.” “Everybody else” is composed of individuals, no two of whom are alike. 42 The person with an inferiority complex invariably compounds the error by striving for superiority. His feelings spring from the false premise that he is inferior. From this false premise, a whole structure of “logical thought” and feeling is built. If he feels bad because he is inferior, the cure is to make himself as good as everybody else, and the way to feel really good is to make himself superior. 43 This striving for superiority gets him into more trouble, causes more frustration, and sometimes brings about a neurosis where none existed before. He becomes more miserable than ever, and “the harder he tries,” the more miserable he becomes. Inferiority and superiority are reverse sides of the same coin. The cure lies in realizing that the coin itself is spurious. The truth about you is this: You are not “inferior.” You are not “superior.” You are simply “You.” 44 “You” as a personality are not in competition with any other personality simply because there is not another person on the face of the earth like you, or in your particular class. You are an individual. You are unique. You are not “like” any other person and can never become “like” any other person. You are not “supposed” to be like any other person and no other person is “supposed” to be like you. 45 God did not create a standard person and in some way label that person by saying “this is it.” He made every human being individual and unique just as He made every snowflake individual and unique. God created short people and tall people, large people and small people, skinny people and fat people, black, yellow, red, and white people. 46 He has never indicated any preference for any one size, shape, or color. Abraham Lincoln once said, “God must have loved the common people for he made so many of them.” He was wrong. There is no “common man”—no standardized, common pattern. He would have been nearer the truth had he said, “God must have loved uncommon people for he made so many of them.” 47 An “inferiority complex,” and its accompanying deterioration in performance, can be made to order in the psychological laboratory. All you need to do is to set up a norm or average, then convince your subject he does not measure up. According to a report in Science Digest, a psychologist wanted to find out how feelings of inferiority affected ability to solve problems. He gave his students a set of routine tests. 48 But then he solemnly announced that the average person could complete the test in about one-fifth the time it would really take. When in the course of the test a bell would ring, indicating that the “average man’s” time was up, some of the brightest subjects became very jittery and incompetent indeed, thinking themselves to be morons. 49 Stop measuring yourself against “their” standards. You are not “them” and can never measure up. Neither can “they” measure up to yours—nor should they. Once you see this simple, rather self-evident truth, accept it, and believe it, your inferior feelings will vanish. 50 Dr. Norton L. Williams, a psychiatrist, addressing a medical convention, said that modern man’s anxiety and insecurity stemmed from a lack of self-realization, and that inner security can only be found “in finding in oneself an individuality, uniqueness, and distinctiveness that is akin to the idea of being created in the image of God.” He also said that self-realization is gained by “a simple belief in one’s own uniqueness as a human being, a sense of deep and wide awareness of all people and all things, and a feeling of constructive influencing of others through one’s own personality.” 51 @How to Use Relaxation to Dehypnotize Yourself Physical relaxation plays a key role in the dehypnotization process. Our currently held beliefs, whether good or bad, true or false, were formed without effort, with no sense of strain, and without the exercise of “willpower.” Our habits, whether good or bad, were formed in the same way. It follows that we must employ the same process in forming new beliefs, or new habits—that is, in a relaxed condition. 52 It has been amply demonstrated that attempting to use effort or willpower to change beliefs or to cure bad habits has an adverse, rather than a beneficial, effect. Émile Coué, the little French pharmacist who astonished the world around 1920 with the results he obtained with “the power of suggestion,” insisted that effort was the one big reason most people failed to utilize their inner powers. 53 “Your suggestions (ideal goals) must be made without effort if they are to be effective,” he said. Another famous Coué saying was his Law of Reversed Effort: “When the will and the imagination are in conflict, the imagination invariably wins the day.” 54 Dr. Knight Dunlap, a psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association, made a lifelong study of habits and learning processes and perhaps performed more experiments along this line than any other psychologist. His methods succeeded in curing such habits as nail-biting, thumb-sucking, facial tics, and more serious habits where other methods had failed. 55 The very heart of his system was his finding that effort was the one big deterrent to either breaking a bad habit or learning a new one. Making an effort to refrain from the habit actually reinforced the habit, he found. His experiments proved that the best way to break a habit is to form a clear mental image of the desired end result, and to practice without effort toward reaching that goal. 56 Dunlap found that either “positive practice” (refraining from the habit) or “negative practice” (performing the habit consciously and voluntarily) would have beneficial effect provided the desired end result was kept constantly in mind. 57 “If a response habit is to be learned, or if a response pattern is to be made habitual,” Dr. Dunlap wrote in Personal Adjustment, “it is essential that the learner shall have an idea of the response that is to be achieved or shall have an idea of the change in the environment that the response will produce. . . . 58 The important factor in learning, in short, is the thought of an objective to be attained, either as a specific behavior pattern or as the result of the behavior, together with a desire for the attainment of the object.” 59 In many cases, the mere relaxation of effort, or too much conscious straining, is in itself enough to eradicate the negative behavior pattern. Dr. James S. Greene, founder of the National Hospital for Speech Disorders in New York City, had a motto: “When they can relax, they can talk.” 60 Dr. Matthew N. Chappell pointed out, in his book How to Control Worry, that often the effort or “willpower” used to fight against or resist worry is the very thing that perpetuates worry and keeps it going. 61 Physical relaxation, when practiced daily, brings about an accompanying mental relaxation and a relaxed attitude that enables us to better consciously control our automatic mechanism. Physical relaxation also, in itself, has a powerful influence in dehypnotizing us from negative attitudes and reaction patterns. 62 @PRACTICE EXERCISE How to Use Mental Pictures to Relax (To be practiced for at least 30 minutes daily.) Seat yourself comfortably in an easy chair or lie down on your back. Consciously “let go” the various muscle groups as much as possible without making too much of an effort of it. Just consciously pay attention to the various parts of your body and let go a little. You will find that you can always voluntarily relax to a certain degree. You can stop frowning and let your forehead relax. 63 You can ease up a little on the tension in your jaws. You can let your hands, your arms, your shoulders, and legs, become a little more relaxed than they are. Spend about five minutes on this and then stop paying any attention to your muscles. This is as far as you are going to try to go by conscious control. From here on out you will relax more and more by using your Creative Mechanism to automatically bring about a relaxed condition. In short, you are going to use “goal pictures,” held in imagination, and let your automatic mechanism realize those goals for you. 64 MENTAL PICTURE 1 In your mind’s eye see yourself lying stretched out on the bed. Form a picture of your legs as they would look if made of concrete. See yourself lying there with two very heavy concrete legs. See these very heavy concrete legs sinking far down into the mattress from their sheer weight. Now picture your arms and hands as made of concrete. They also are very heavy and are sinking down into the bed and exerting tremendous pressure against the bed. In your mind’s eye see a friend come into the room and attempt to lift your heavy concrete legs. He takes hold of your feet and attempts to lift them. But they are too heavy for him. He cannot do it. Repeat with arms, neck, etc. 65 MENTAL PICTURE 2 Your body is a big marionette doll. Your hands are tied loosely to your wrists by strings. Your forearm is connected loosely by a string to your upper arm. Your upper arm is connected very loosely by a string to your shoulder. Your feet, calves, thighs are also connected together with a single string. Your neck consists of one very limp string. The strings that control your jaw and hold your lips together have slackened and stretched to such an extent that your chin has dropped down loosely against your chest. All the various strings that connect the various parts of your body are loose and limp and your body is just sprawled loosely across the bed. 66 MENTAL PICTURE 3 Your body consists of a series of inflated rubber balloons. Two valves open in your feet, and the air begins to escape from your legs. Your legs begin to collapse and continue until they consist only of deflated rubber tubes, lying flat against the bed. Next a valve is opened in your chest, and as the air begins to escape your entire trunk begins to collapse limply against the bed. Continue with arms, head, and neck. 67 MENTAL PICTURE 4 Many people will find this the most relaxing of all. Just go back in memory to some relaxing and pleasant scene from your past. There is always some time in everyone’s life when he felt relaxed, at ease, and at peace with the world. Pick out your own relaxing picture from your past and call up detailed memory images. Yours may be a peaceful scene at a mountain lake where you went fishing. If so, pay particular attention to the little incidental things in the environment. Remember the quiet ripples on the water. What sounds were present? Did you hear the quiet rustling of the leaves? Maybe you remember sitting perfectly relaxed, and somewhat drowsy, before an open fireplace long ago. Did the logs crackle and spark? What other sights and sounds were present? Maybe you choose to remember relaxing in the sun on a beach. How did the sand feel against your body? Could you feel the warm, relaxing sun, touching your body, almost as a physical thing? Was there a breeze blowing? Were there gulls on the beach? The more of these incidental details you can remember and picture to yourself, the more successful you will be. 68 Daily practice will bring these mental pictures, or memories, clearer and clearer. The effect of learning will also be cumulative. Practice will strengthen the tie-in between mental image and physical sensation. You will become more and more proficient in relaxation, and this in itself will be “remembered” in future practice sessions. 69 When lying down to practice, many practitioners fall asleep. If you fall asleep, you don’t get the same level of benefits. Due to my martial arts training in Tai Chi and Qi Gong, I prefer to do all exercises while seated or standing. In a standing or seated position, by using your imagination and relaxing, you can still make your legs and arms and entire body feel heavy. You can also let the air out of valves and inflate or deflate your various body parts like balloons. 70 Does this rule out the lying down practice? Not at all. Once you’re grounded in these techniques, you can practice in virtually any position. However, if you are feeling weak or unwell, then to practice while lying down is probably ideal. You can experience positive results quickly—in as little as ten minutes, especially when you let go and truly allow yourself to relax. Once you’re in the daily habit, 30 minutes will be easy, if you so desire. 71 Many people start with a morning practice. After a month or so they may naturally gravitate toward a twice-daily routine. Many people feel the best times to practice are upon rising and before going to bed, a time when your brain and nervous system are most agreeable to new suggestions. 72 Yet, if you can only find time during your lunch hour or a scheduled break during the day, doing it then is far better than not doing the practice because you are too tired upon awakening or exhausted just before bed. Daily practice is the key to getting results. Avoid judging yourself in this process. Regardless of where you start, you will improve with practice.