The route by which we approach the pinnacle of MASTERY OF SELF now takes a new turn. It is neither that of Business and Financial achievement, as we studied in the First Division of the course, nor is it that of Success and Magnetism as was taught in the Second Division. For many students we now come to the real battle- ground where they must wage the fight for supremacy. The final 14 lessons group under the general title, The CULTURE OF COURAGE.
There is an insidious foe to mastery and freedom, which dooms millions to self-imposed bondage. Most people know it has them in its grip; countless others do not know what the hidden power is which holds them from the richer, freer, happier conditions of life.
This foe is FEAR. It assumes numerous disguises. It appears in many phases of our daily lives. It has done more to wreck careers and ruin happiness than all the wars of history. Hordes of earth toilers believe themselves beyond its influence—while all the time it is riding their backs and laughing at them.
One reason for this is the common misunderstanding of what fear really is. Most people think of it only as fearing to meet certain people, or fearing some accident may happen to them or their loved ones. Yet there are fears of the future, fears of one's self, fears of events, fears of natural phenomena, fears of old age, fears of poverty. And there are still more hidden, stunting fears developed by the un-religious teachings of blind, bigoted, crafty Religion.
Therefore our higher advance to MASTERY OF SELF is up the steps of the following 14 lessons, in which the underlying note is the everlasting declaration, "I AM COURAGE! WHATEVER BETIDES, THE TRUE SELF OF ME DEMANDS COURAGE!"
Dr. Haddock will open new views of individual nature, personal fears, avenues of self-unfoldment, which are wholesome and uplifting for you. The following lessons are more than a conquest of fear; they are A GREAT ADVENTURE into the heart of a courageous life philosophy. They tear away bond after bond of habit, thought and action which have smothered your true, inner Self.
Passing the brief "Introductory" matter, you start in lesson one— "The World's New Dawn," laying the foundation for Courage-power. Dr. Haddock first makes it clear why man is steadily becoming more free—why darkening, dreadful, shackling fear is being dispelled from the world. His second lesson analyzes Fear and Reason. The third lesson explains why the healthy "tone" of mind and body is the basis upon which the structure of personal Courage is to be reared.
"For all may have,If they dare choose, a glorious life."—Herbert.
I have received many letters from people who are distressed by their fears. To every such an one let me send this assured message:
You can grow in your soul a perfect courage.
The methods adapted to this ideal are simple, not impossible to any, and will become less and less difficult as you continue to make them more and more a real part of your life.
I do not say, "Be courageous."
I do not say, "Destroy your fears."
Such advice is common enough, but it is altogether barren unless you know how to carry it out. I hope, rather, to present methods which shall be definite and practical, so that you will be able to do the very thing needful. These methods, in the large, I now announce as follows:
FIRST METHOD: THE INSPIRATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. You are invited, always through the reading of this book and during life, to believe, assume and realize—
SECOND METHOD: THE ELIMINATION OF FEAR. This is the negative phase of our work. Specific instructions will be given having to do with every kind of fear. I shall endeavor to suggest practical help to all readers for each particular difficulty.
THIRD METHOD: THE CULTURE OF SPIRITUAL COURAGE. By the word "spiritual" I mean not merely religious in the ordinary sense, but rather that kind of courage which is just the breath and tone of the White Life manifest in the human life. The WHITE LIFE in you is harmony with the White Life which is The Good, The Beautiful, The True, The All-Health, The Father, The Infinite Soul of this wonderful Universe in which we live. If you come to harmony with the White Life, your fears will vanish because you will then share in the Courage of the Eternal Good.
There are two kinds of courage:
THE COURAGE THAT DARES AND WINS; and
"And shall I with a Giant strive,And charge a Dragon on the field?"
In these lines we have the first kind of courage. It is good, but there is a type which is vastly superior:
These lines indicate the second kind of courage—than which there is no higher. "Herein is love with us made perfect, that we may have boldness."
These are our methods. They are commended to your approval. I shall try to state them plainly, going on from one fear to another, and another, until the long list is disposed of, and always shall I follow details of procedure similar to those set forth in "POWER FOR SUCCESS," the ideal constantly being
"There is no limit to the knowing of the mind that knows."—Indian Upanishads.
I wish to indulge in a little Foreword because in this way may be indicated a warning against contentment with a seemingly very sensible conclusion which will prove, on further thought, to be hasty and incomplete.
Five years ago I wrote in this identical place in our study these words:
"Fear will never go out of this world until pleasure loses value, desire ceases for want of an object, and reason no longer imposes responsibility.
"The best gift of Nature to primitive man, after reason, was fear.
"The imagination is reason's magnifying power.
"Fear observed and obeyed by reason is a friend.
"Fear and reason take care of man.
"Fear and imagination send him into a panic."
To many minds these statements will have the look of sanity.
But there are others who will instantly perceive that they represent thought on a comparatively low plane. I now observe:
The best gift of Life to primeval man, after love, was reason.
The imagination, void of love,—the feeling of harmony with all,— forgets reason and permits fear to enter the soul.
Fear is an ALIEN to our life, and never a friend. The real friend is reason, acting amid harmonic conditions.
When you are threatened by some hostile force or event, reason tries to induce self-protection, but you know no real fear if you are saturated with the feeling of harmony. You may believe it is FEAR that seeks your self-protection. But your REASON can do precisely the same thing without fear. Fear is, then, only an extra, a distressing extra, foisted in front of reason.
You are invited now to live the WHITE LIFE, to cast fear out, and to make real reason its substitute. By so much you will add immeasurably to personal comfort and power.
Love and reason alone can take care of man, so far as his own efforts are concerned. In properly blended proportions these constitute the very life of courage. What conceivable service then, can fear render any man or woman?
If you desire panic and distress, let imagination fill your soul with fears. But if peace, happiness, health and power be your desires, live the WHITE LIFE and hold fast only to reason.
By the reality called reason I do not mean mere cold calculation and hard logic. Such phases of reason are legitimate in their place, if freed from cunning and deceit, but the higher reason is to these as a woman's love—look is to the glitter of ice. The higher reason is not alone intellection, it is also intuition and harmonic assurance—what religious thought calls faith. The higher reason declares self-preservation to be the first law of life, and then, just because this is true, it cares for self and trusts the White Universe to assist. I really do not see what a human soul need actually fear when that soul and the White Universe are bent on the same goal, the soul's welfare.
The Universe is a growing organism. It is forever striving to realize its own best estate. This is the true goal for all individuals. It is saying the same thing if we affirm the goal to be Health—for worlds or man: Body-Health, Mind-Health, Self- Health.
When any form of health is threatened, you say, perhaps, it is FEAR that warns you to self-preservation. But I say it is REASON, and your fear-feeling is unnecessary and hurtful. If you can remember that the White Life or Universe and you have the same desire, your highest welfare, you can banish the fear-element, reserving only the reason-assurance element. All the fears in the world cannot benefit you. Harmony and courage will sublime your whole life.
I have never known a person whose reason has induced self- suffering. Suffer-fear is always a product of diseased imagination. What some may call reason-fear, when they think they are extremely sensible, is simply fear, and nothing but fear, and it is due to imagination, not to reason.
"But," you say, "are there not all sorts of evils in the world, and do they not threaten us, and should we not forefend against them? In this forefending, how can we escape fear?"
These questions show how thoroughly fear is knit into our very lives.
Now this is precisely the point. Fear has no rightful place with any rightful living, because the WHITE LIFE alone is rightful, and in that life reason-assurance only is possible, and, therefore, rightful.
The best way in which to forefend against evil is to deny it and cast out the fiction.
This entire question of evil is at your command. Evil exists because other people admit its existence. If all were to live the WHITE LIFE, each person might rightly declare, "There is no evil." The only real evil is that which can hurt your best self. When anything hurts your best self, it is your self that hurts your self. The only evil in the Universe is some one's act hurting others, but more, hurting self. If to you evil is, then, it is yourself. You can so live the sublime WHITE LIFE of harmony as to be able to say: "So far as I am concerned, evil has gone out of the world. There is no evil to me."
You see, surely now, that you need not fear "evil." I do not know anything more absolutely and sufficiently opposed to the permission of that self-acting which alone, for you, is evil, than reason. Fear has nothing properly to do with the matter. And reason-assurance has to do with it only by living the WHITE LIFE and denying fear and evil altogether.
You are invited to make these heaven-born truths your own.
"The New Dawn""Fear-Thought and Fear-Feeling""The Soul of the Cell""A Regime""Fear Not Thyself"Fear Not For Others""Fear Not Dumb Things""The Massing of a Hundred Faces""Fear Not Thy Fellows""Life's Relations""The Raw Material""Youth is Courage""Fear Not Events""The Rock of Courage"
The Call of Life.
Now must the man be summoned forthTo discover himself, his dual reality:His world, ten thousand fathoms deep,His star-vault, ten thousand spaces high;And come to his own like a king.
"The dawn of a New Day!"Never an Aryan felt the flare of this electric Fact,Nor any, or priest at his worship or earth-toiler swarming the land,Till Zarathustra discovered Ahura Mazda,Till Buddha discovered himself, the Thou of THAT, BRAHMA,Till the CHRIST-MIND assumed IT to be theIAM THATIAM.
(The flare—the ghostly breath of the long-coming Dawn—Had passed o'er the Nature-Face, had kissed the swart Human,Ages and ages, with never a conscious startIn the Man-Soul, till these had upsprung as if gods.—For, whosoever kens the flare, kens THAT and knows the ONEONLY WHO IS).
So, thrice have men ventured the Word:"Comes now a full Day that is New!"
Since these giant Men-Types, what times of the SmallHave opened and set on poor mouthings of Truth!What Night for a thousand years twice told!With Fear, and the fierce Stars, and no Sun in the Void!Shadows—and Fear—and Death!
A fourth time man whispers: "The Dawn!"We LIVE! And behold a New Day!"Does the Flare of its Flood-Tide winds stir YOU?Does the light of its splendoring Sun thrill YOU?Does the marvelous Life of it stimulate YOUTo a birth of the self and the kingship of THAT?
YOU live! The New Day is for each:For the hitherto Common Man, slave,For the Women, no longer a Thing,For the Child, now escaped from the animal lair.Dawn's here!(With Opportunity leading "captivity captive,"(And the stars urging on to achievement,(And the Sun, breeding life triumphant);With heart courageous and faith almightyTo fare forth and possess the whole world!Soul of YOU, awaken! The New Day is yours.
"Let us not look at ourselves but onwards, and take strength from the leaf and the signs of the field. He is indeed despicable who cannot look onwards to the ideal life of man. Not to do so is to deny our birthright of mind."—Thomas Coke Watkins.
I am often asked, "Do you think the world is really becoming better?"
My inmost self—the self I trust and try to assist—is sure that the world is growing better, whatever the hampered intellect may from time to time aver.
For one thing, I FEEL that the world's mind is slowly yet swiftly changing its adjustment to one supreme reality—Truth.
Always have men believed that they desired only the truth, and always have they sought and found it in part. But then they have immediately wrapped it in packages and stowed it in boxes with elaborate labels. Our nature craves reality, not wrappings and tables of contents. Therefore every age has torn off some of the ancient outer things, and insisted at last on truth alone. More than during all the centuries before, men today demand reality— just the essential reality a human soul craves, and can recognize, and can use in the building of its life.
Henry Drummond spoke of the adjustment which a great telescope needs for photographing the stars. Let us think of one fixed star. "No adjustment is ever required on behalf of the star. That is one great fixed point in this shifting universe. But the WORLD MOVES. And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and adjustment of the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clock-work, but the clock-work of the soul is the WILL." The world and the man must WILL TO ADJUST TO TRUTH if they would really find and know Truth.
I hold that the world to-day, more perfectly than ever before, is urging an accurate adjustment of the human soul to truth—that which alone the body demands for health, the mind for development, the deeper self for peace and power.
The old adjustments no longer satisfy. Truth is, indeed, eternal, but our relation must keep pace with it as we swing through the vast heavens of time. The photographs of yesterday do not speak correctly for to-day. We do not deny the stars; we only deny the science that is past.
This adjustment is a huge PRAYER. It is a request for truth, in a sense, but for truth only. And it is an ASSURANCE. It expects the truth. Now, that is the best kind of praying I know—Expectation in Adjustment.
When you plant your seed or properly place your telescope, you have created adjustment, and you expect harvest and picture. EXPECTATION IN ADJUSTMENT IS ASSUMPTION.
The world no longer merely ASKS for truth; it harmonizes withNature and Life, and so, APPROPRIATES.
The World's New Dawn.
You are invited to make this thought a lifelong affirmation: INHARMONYIAPPROPRIATE ALL GOOD.
Such is one of my reasons for believing that the world is growing better. This attitude toward Truth has influenced for the better every legitimate activity of man. The results are seen in Benevolence, Business, Education, Government, Religion. A new day of splendid, unhampered, happy and growing spiritual life is bursting over the earth. Souls are coming free. Hearts are thrilling with courage. In minds has begun the swing and heave of the sea.
I ask you to take the following lines as a symbol of the world's wonderful sense of appropriation that is everywhere evident.
The sea, the pine, the stars, the forest deep,Bequeath to me at will their subtle wealth.Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep,Mine is the buoyant earth-man's vibrant health:All things for love of me their vigils keep—I am the soul of health, of wealth.
Run, sea, in my heart!Pine, sing in my heart!Stars, glow in my heart!For ye are mine, and my soul,Like ye, is a partOf the Marvelous Whole.
There's no thing dear to me is not my wealth,And none that sees me I would distant keep;For swift possession is my earth-man's health,Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep:All things for love of me their vigils keep—I am the soul of health, of wealth.
You are invited, now, to seize and use the spirit of this attitude of appropriation for your own welfare and power.
And I hold that our life is growing better for the reason that I discover, in all this new adjustment to truth, this expectation and assumption that Good will not withhold itself, and BECAUSE of these things, a new era of courage sweeping the heart of humanity from sea to sea. There is abroad a Universal Breath, manifest of Life. This breath consists of two general activities, that of Denial and that of Affirmation. Courage is a denial of fear and of the reality of fear's cause. But denial is only the beginning; the really vital thing is confidence in self and in the huge friendly Universe in which we live. Kindly remember this. You are not making progress merely because you turn your back on the Night. Progress means that you also turn face to the Sun and walk buoyantly into the Day. Courage is affirmation:
I am the spirit of the soulHarmonic with the Perfect Whole.
Why, the attitude of healthy denial is everywhere apparent. Permit me to run over some of the things that are coming more and more to be refused acceptance. You will understand that the items are illustrations only. We are denying: The divine right of kings; the littleness and unholiness of fundamental human nature; a God who is a kind of huge carpenter; a Deity who needs to be appeased; a Providence which punishes; the idea that some people are created for toil and service and others for ease and to be served; the notion that we must eschew all drugs or depend only on drugs; the thought which makes disease an entity; the fancy that the illness of some is a divine will; the feeling that wealth should not be craved, or that it exists for a favored few; the creed that "evil" is a necessary existence; the faith that heaven is reserved for the "elect" who "believe" a number of things; the horror of an eternal hell; the heresy that religion, the spiritual, need have anything to do with creeds, rites or ceremonies; the feeling that success is only for the favored ones of earth; and so on, and so on.
These are merely miscellaneous examples of the thousand old-time "truths" which are now more and more denied. Many pages would be required to set forth the ideas and dogmas which are unceasingly and emphatically being rejected, thoughtfully, deliberately, and in a wholesale manner throughout the world of earnest men and women to-day.
But when you deny, it is a great mistake if you do not affirm something better. The breath of courage which is sweeping over the earth, therefore, is splendidly declaring for ten thousand deathless realities to take the place of mistaken beliefs. I have space simply for a few illustrations. Are we not affirming somewhat as follows at the present time?
Deity is neither Jew nor Gentile; He is the Infinite All-Good—theEternal White Life.
The Infinite and Eternal White Life is evolving a Universe toward the ultimate perfection of absolute harmony.
All HUMAN BEINGS are in fundamental nature divine.
We are here for the purpose of GROWING TO BEST ESTATE.
Every man, woman and child in the world is ENTITLED TO HEALTH,HAPPINESS, POWER.
"EVIL" is derangement in individual life induced by individual and world-thought gone wrong. As such derangement "evil" is real, but this reality is not necessary or essential, and it may be banished totally and forever.
DISEASE is dis-easement of the matter of a body induced by dis- easement of soul in a body. The self creates or builds its own body, and the condition of the self determines the condition of the body. In "Power For Success" I have stated what I believe to be the growing conviction in this regard. "The sound body is a perfect material expression of the Universal Forces playing into its field, and its physical character is determined by the psychic character of its owner." "In a state of health, all physical movements must necessarily cooperate harmoniously with one another and with the Universal Forces."
What we call MIND is a collection of powers organized for use by the self, and these powers are rightly developed only by the good, the true, the beautiful. If the feeling of goodness, or of trueness, or of beauty, is deep within the subconscious phase of the self, mind-life exhibits as mental health. Mental health is a universal right.
The "SPIRIT"—not to refine on philosophy—is the real self which builds body and may unfold mind. The highest state of the individual, therefore, is religious at the top. This is spirituality. But the only conceivable essential to spirituality is a belief in, and an intelligent (truth-using) surrender to, the White Life—conceived in one's own way—for harmony and oneness therewith.
HAPPINESS consists in being consciously harmonized with the true, the good and the beautiful. It is not necessary, however, although it is, of course, better, to know these words. The child vibrates with goodness without understanding the name "goodness." And so on.
All things exist for all beings.
Such are some of the realities that are being quietly and potently assumed and affirmed to-day throughout the world. Of course the language of assertion will vary with each individual, but this is immaterial. The essences affirmed are beyond cavil. Other illustrations might be given, but they would be mere phases of that one breath of new hope and courage that is stirring in every land, to "spread contagion on mankind," of the "life which really is."
These higher thoughts, however, are of the Dawn only. The full Day is not yet with us. Shadows still there are, and error, disease and pain. Why must these false "realities" remain? Solely because of three things that linger on:
And when fear vanishes, replaced by the WHITE LIFE, selfishness will die as impossible, and thought will no longer be false for the reason that only truth will be possessed.
If the whole world, then, would but thrust out fear and receive the spirit of courage, I do not know any "evils" that could endure a century.
And if you who read these pages will but swing up to the WHITE- LIFE harmony-plane, Health, Happiness and Power must be yours as surely as air rushes into a broken vacuum. If you ask, "What are the limits of this truth?" I answer, "I don't know." To speak otherwise would be mere speculation. I affirm the great truth: All things are yours. That YOU, if stricken through and through with dis-harmony, may be ABLE to receive ALL you crave, I may not affirm. Nevertheless, it is permitted to say:" Launch out! Launch out in the New Thought of Life, and receive, as you do so, whatever is rightly your own, as you are increasingly able to do so."
Man has banished many of his fears already. It is not a long run of the centuries since he quaked before the gloom of the forest, the solitude of the hills, the fog of the vast sea, and, creating innumerable gods and devils by that wizard of distortion, the imagination, lodged them in every object of existence under and in the heavens. He has gotten rid of these.
But when we observe the fear of water, the fear of tornadoes, the fear of lightning, the fear of fire, the fear of disease, the fear of accident, the fear of death, the fear of ridicule, the fear of public opinion, the fear of bankruptcy, the fear of self, the fear for self, the fear of others, the fear of failure, the fear of devils, the fear of a vindictive God, the fear of the future, the fear of a hell—Oh, then, we know that the sun of light is not at his meridian height. We can yet get rid of these also. This is one of the world's tasks. This is your task, if you would make the most of your self and life.
"There is yet very much land to be possessed." No one will possess all of that land in the present stage of existence. Some will be able to claim more than others, but they will err if they assume themselves to be favorites, and the "others" will do worse than err if they complain, "We, alas, are down on our luck." Be assured of one thing: all may be rid of their fears and the whole mass of distress induced by fears. All may acquire dauntless yet serene courage. In that state, if it be of the highest, as it may be, will come to them a peace, a happiness, an influx of buoyancy, a confidence, a sense of well-being, the like of which they have never known.
You who now read this page are, thus, invited to begin our study by denying and affirming, as follows:
I deny the existence of error, so far as I am concerned.I deny disease to be my necessary portion.I deny the need of any of my fears.I deny the reality of any cause for fear.I deny that I am less than a king.I deny that ignorance is an essential part of my lot.I deny that poverty is decreed to me.I deny that I am low-born or of bad blood.I deny that I am "down on my luck."I deny by my life that others are my superiors.I deny that anything can hurt the essential ME.I deny a vindictive God.I deny that slavery is religious.I deny that I am not the friend of the White Life.I deny that I am mean, low or ignoble in morals.I deny that my best life depends on creeds.I deny that the Universe is not for me.I deny that health is not my rightful claim.I deny that I am unhappy or depressed.I deny that I am weak and a nonentity.I deny that I shall not unfold forever.I deny all that is opposed to my best welfare.
SECOND—THE DAILY REGIME OF AFFIRMATION.I affirm truth to be my desire and possession.I affirm health to be my rightful claim.I affirm fearlessness of that which I have fearedI affirm cause and reason only for courage.I affirm that reason is independent of fear.I affirm my sovereign selfhood.I affirm that life is my perfect university.I affirm that I am success.I affirm that a part of the world's plenty is for me.I affirm myself the WHITE-LIFE equal of others.I affirm my real self impregnable to hurt.I affirm the Infinite Life to be my Friend.I affirm that spirituality is true freedom.I affirm myself the friend of the Infinite.I affirm that mine is the WHITE-LIFE.I affirm my independence of narrow creeds.I affirm buoyant happiness as my present possession.I am power!I shall live and unfold forever.
It may be that all this is strange thought to you, almost meaningless, perhaps. You are invited, therefore, to remember that thousands of people have felt similarly at first, have then caught a glimpse of the truth here and there, and finally have experienced a wondrous recognition of the New Dawn which has now surely come to the world. It is significant that these are saying, "There is nothing else worth while in the whole earth."
Two men were scraping paint from a house preparatory to putting on. a new coat of color, One of them who had been helped back from mental unbalance, and helped solely by thought, broke a long silence and said: "This is the whole thing." He referred to the dawn of Real Life in himself.
If, now, this chapter has seemed to broach the subject of religion, remember, it does not deal with religion as you perhaps know religion. The only thing valuable in religion is the White Life within the human self. That alone is religion. Call it what you will. And it means just that courage which makes us buoyantly equal to any kind of life that is right. The methods of this book will prove of value to you, whether or no you go into the WHITE- LIFE phase of existence. But they will realize completest value if you will swing at the start clean out into the one greatest thought—"ISURRENDER TO, ANDIRECEIVE, THE INFINITE WHITE LIFE."
It is because I desire every reader to get this perfect start in our study that I have indulged in the rather general outlook on the world's New Dawn. Hereafter our work will be more specific and adressed to the varying conditions of the individual man or woman.
The INTELLECT coldly reflects What Is:An icy, crystalline lake portraying earth and skyIn shadows beautiful as death—And void of pulse, or warmth, or music of good life.This is no Eye with which to view the world!
The SOUL reflects the universeWith ECSTASIES of heat, of hue, of harmony!Its INNER gaze creating Life in Fact,So, robing sheer Reality in colors ravishing,Giving it Voice, forming within it Heart,And vitalizing All with Feeling—Being's blood.This is our Eye, viewing the world it builds.
Fear blurs that Eye, while Reason clears:Pure mind lacks Passion adding values to existence;(Who loves mere ghost—flowers born of moonlight?)Pure Feeling lacks in REASON, needing values,And, lacking so, fills Eye of Soul with fantasies,With wild distortions of imagination's lust.(Who loves the fire—hued, smoke blooms of Hell's Land?)And always Fear feeds Feeling's grotesque growthsTill Soul's Eye on its own creation looksAs on eternal Truth.Then Truth and Nature, Deity and ManEvolve dread enmity and horrors multiple,And Soul flees terror-stricken on to Death.
Oh, I will rule heart's Feeling for good Life,Given Soul's Mind for this—naught else:That Reason may re—think the Beautiful and HappinessAnd see eternal Truth and Truth-Fact as my lovers—Veracious Guardian Angels guiding all my way—Cooperative, like the brain and heart of body,To lead my soul on Courage (not on Death)And make me worth the skillOf the illimitable years—a Mind—Man, whole!—THE AUTHOR.
"In civilized life it has at last become possible for large numbers of people to pass from the cradle to the grave without ever having had a pang of genuine fear. Many of us need an attack of mental disease to teach us the meaning of the word."—William James.
We have all heard the seemingly discriminating remarks that fear is normal and abnormal, and that normal fear is to be regarded as a friend, while abnormal fear should be destroyed as an enemy.
The fact is that no so—called normal fear can be named which has not been clearly absent in some people who have had every cause therefor. If you will run over human history in your mind, or look about yea in the present life, you will find here and there persons who, in situations or before objects which ought, as any fearful soul will insist, to inspire the feeling of at least normal self-protecting fear, are nevertheless wholly without the feeling. They possess every feeling and thought demanded except fear. The idea of self-preservation is as strongly present as with the most abjectly timid or terrified, but fear they do not know. This FEARLESS awareness of fear—suggesting conditions may be due to several causes. It may result from constitutional make-up, or from long—continued training or habituation, or from religious ecstasy, or from a perfectly calm sense of spiritual selfhood which is unhurtable, or from the action of very exalted reason. Whatever the explanation, the fact remains: the very causes which excite fear in most of us, merely appeal, with such people, if at all. to the instinct of self-preservation and to reason, the thought-element of the soul which makes for personal peace and wholeness.
It is on such considerations that I have come to hold that all real fear-FEELING should and may be banished from our life, and that what we call "normal fear" should be substituted in our language by "instinct" or by "reason," the element of fear being dropped altogether.
"Everyone can testify that the psychical state called fear consists of mental representations of certain painful results" (James). The mental representations may be very faint as such, but the idea of hurt to self is surely present. If, then, it can be profoundly believed that the real self cannot be hurt; if the reason can be brought to consider vividly and believingly all quieting considerations; if the self can be held consciously in the assurance that the White Life surrounds the true self, and is surely within that self, and will suffer "no evil to come nigh," while all the instincts of self—preservation may be perfectly active, fear itself must be removed "as far as the east is from the west."
This splendid conviction I earnestly commend to all readers.
These are the ways, then, in which any occasion for fear may be divided:
As a warning and as a maker of panic. But let us say that the warning should be understood as given to reason, that fear need not appear at all, and that the panic is perfectly useless pain. With these discriminations in mind, we may now go on to a
Fear is (a) an impulse, (b) a habit, (c) a disease.
Fear, as it exists in man, is a make-believe of sanity, a creature of the imagination, a state of insanity.
Furthermore, fear is, now of the nerves, now of the mind, now of the moral consciousness.
The division depends upon the point of view. What is commonly called normal fear should give place to REASON, using the word to cover instinct as well as thought. From the correct point of view all fear is an evil so long as entertained.
Whatever its manifestations, wherever its apparent location, fear is a psychic state, of course, reacting upon the individual in several ways: as, in the nerves, in mental moods, in a single impulse, in a chronic habit, in a totally unbalanced condition. The reaction has always a good intention, meaning, in each case, "Take care! Danger!" You will see that this is so if you will look for a moment at three comprehensive kinds of fear—fear of self, fear for self, fear for others. Fear OF self is indirectly fear FOR self—danger. Fear for others signifies foresensed or forepictured distress to self because of anticipated misfortune to others. I often wonder whether, when we fear FOR others, it is distress TO SELF or hurt to THEM that is most emphatically in our thought.
Fear, then, is usually regarded as the soul's danger signal. But the true signal is instinctive and thoughtful reason.
Even instinct and reason, acting as warning, may perform their duty abnormally, or assume abnormal proportions. And then we have the FEELING of fear. The normal warning is induced by actual danger apprehended by mind in a state of balance and self-control. Normal mind is always capable of such warning. There are but two ways in which so-called normal fear, acting in the guise of reason, may be annihilated: by the substitution of reason for fear, and by the assurance of the WHITE LIFE.
Let it be understood, now, that by normal fear is here meant normal reason—real fear being denied place and function altogether. Then we may say that such action of reason is a benefactor to man. It is, with pain and weariness, the philanthropy of the nature of things within us.
One person said: "Tired? No such word in my house!" Now this cannot be a sound and healthy attitude. Weariness, at a certain stage of effort, is a signal to stop work. When one becomes so absorbed in labor as to lose consciousness of the feeling of weariness, he has issued a "hurry call" on death. I do not deny that the soul may cultivate a sublime sense of buoyancy and power; rather do I urge you to seek that beautiful condition; but I hold that when a belief or a hallucination refuses to permit you to hear the warning of nerves and muscles, Nature will work disaster inevitably. Let us stand for the larger liberty which is joyously free to take advantage of everything Nature may offer for true well-being. There is a partial liberty which tries to realize itself by denying various realities as real; there is a higher liberty which really realizes itself by conceding such realities as real and by using or disusing them as occasion may require in the interest of the self at its best. I hold this to be true wisdom: to take advantage of everything which evidently promises good to the self, without regard to this or that theory, and freely to use all things, material or immaterial, reasonable or spiritual. I embrace your science or your method; but I beg to ignore your bondage to philosophy or to consistency. So I say that to normal health the weary-sense is a rational command to replenish exhausted nerves and muscles.
It is not liberty, it is not healthful, to declare, "There is no pain!" Pain does exist, whatever you affirm, and your affirmation that it does not is proof that it does exist, for why (and HOW) declare the non-existence of that which actually is non-existent? But if you say, "As a matter of fact I have pain, but I am earnestly striving to ignore it, and to cultivate thought-health so that the cause of pain may be removed," that is sane and beautiful. This is the commendable attitude of the Bible character who cried: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." To undertake swamping pain with a cloud of psychological fog—that is to turn anarchist against the good government of Nature. By pain Nature informs the individual that he is somewhere out of order. This warning is normal. The feeling becomes abnormal in the mind when imagination twangs the nerves with reiterated irritation, and Will, confused by the discord and the psychic chaos, cowers and shivers with fear.
I do not say there is no such thing as fear. Fear does exist. But it exists in your life by your permission only, not because it is needful as a warning against "evil."
Fear is induced by unduly magnifying actual danger, or by conjuring up fictitious dangers through excessive and misdirected psychical reactions. This also may be taken as a signal of danger, but it is a falsely-intentioned witness, for it is not needed, is hostile to the individual because it threatens self-control and it absorbs life's forces in useless and destructive work when they ought to be engaged in creating values. Hence we state
Timidity, apprehension, fear, alarm, fright, consternation, terror, panic, desperation, are all false imitations of reason's interpretation of the warning signals of Nature, to be displaced by reason itself, which may then determine whether the occasion be real or unreal, and always to be disregarded and overcome if evidently refering to causes which do not actually exist.
This principle is adduced in the interest of three things: peace, health, power. You are invited to note how vital these interests really are.
The truest peace, of which courage is a sublime bloom, is a growth solely of honorable living and robust self-respect.
Health is of the following realities: body, mind, soul—the deeper self. Health is soundness. A sound human is a triune wholeness. Physical soundness with weak intellect is often the athletic field of superstitions innumerable. Intellectual greed in an unsound body may breed the direst fears of life. A decayed soul is always a House of Fear. The ideal of human existence is—The white life in the sound mind in the vibrantly whole body.
It is because there are so many people who are in some sense sick, that fears abound in every direction. But—it is because so many fears are permitted and actually nursed as boons that so many sick people abound in every direction. If all our fears could be removed absolutely, we should no longer require physicians. This world would be a paradise in every respect. I do not know anything wrong with it that cannot be traced to a fear.
The causes of fear are weak reason, uncontrolled imagination, want of self-control, and ill-health. And the first three items are really phases of the last.
The ability to master and destroy fear depends, it would now seem, upon the following factors of our life:
The General Tone of the Individual; The Soul's Power of Will; TheDevelopment and Balance of the Reason.
Reason is demanded to distinguish between right and wrong causes for personal effort in self-protection, and to utterly ignore all wrong causes.
Will-power is demanded to banish fears and to utilize reason's dictates.
But the sway of reason and the force of action are always immensely assisted by a vigorous general tone of the personal life. Now appear, in view of these considerations,
FIRST LAW: The warnings of reason are based in the nature of things within us, and are universal benefactors.
SECOND LAW: Fear is contrary to the ground-plan of life. It is no primary part of the nature of things; it is an alien in the world- system.
THIRD LAW: The destruction of fear always follows the growth of general courage in the individual. The fear-brood will not depart until the soul has acquired a fixed habit of courage. Whatever establishes that habit, or spirit, secures the service of reason- instinct, and so undermines and finally destroys the power of every variety of fear. These laws formulate a great
Let your soul be saturated, with the sure conviction that fear is an alien in the world-system of life, having no proper place nor legitimate rights therein, and meanwhile resolutely set about the task of cultivating in every possible way the permanent habit- spirit of courageous living.
This book was written for the sole purpose of suggesting definite methods by which such courage-habit may be developed. In order that our practical methods may be understood, it is now necessary to analyze the subject of fear in its general outlines.
It is important to remember that the warnings of reason, sometimes called normal fears, may have actual causes outside the mind and are rightly proportioned thereto and to possible consequences, while real fear is due to causes not based in reality, or, if so based, is permitted to agitate the mind in a way not warranted by possible consequences viewed by a rational, well-balanced life. Our analysis, then, exhibits fear where reason ought to appear, in
Fear of hurt of self by self (fear of self): substitute reason, thus—just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.
Fear of hurt of self by outer things (fear for self): substitute reason, thus—just estimate; no cause; cause magnified.
Fear of threat by things: substitute reason, thus—right cause; no cause; cause magnified.
Threat by others: substitute reason, thus—right cause; no cause; cause magnified.
Threat to others: substitute reason, thus—right cause; no cause; cause magnified.
Threat by events: substitute reason, thus—right cause; no cause; cause magnified.
Threat by the future: substitute reason, thus—right cause; no cause; cause magnified.
You are invited to work out the particulars of this analysis, and to examine them with reference to your self and life. You will make some important discoveries. One of the many questions suggested is this: Is the cause of anticipated possible consequences justly estimated in your thought—is it a right cause—is it really as you suppose? The idea is that you think of any one of your fears and then ask the question in the form just indicated. Thus we may have the following statement of
Fear of Self: timidity, lack of confidence, possible unaccountable states.
Fear for Self: weakness, anticipated failure, imagined disgrace.
Fear of Things: animals, inanimate objects, physical forces.
Fear of Others: human beings, apparitions, devils, Deity.
Fear for Others: children, parents, husband, wife, relatives, friends, strangers.
Fear of Events: present, future, imaginary, possible, probable, contingent.
Fear of the Future: in life; beyond the present life.
Instinct and reason strive to place us in right relations with all these causes. The existence in us of fear shows that we already are, either in mind or in fact, in wrong relations therewith.
The mastery of fear involves the discovery of right relations, mental or concrete, and the placing of self in those right conditions which are determined and provided for by the ground- plan of our nature.
And the first thing thus provided for is health. All treatment for the conquest of our universal enemy must begin with development of individual tone: tone of body, tone of mind, tone of the deeper self.
I am not writing for those who are constitutionally fearless, but I have in mind all who do yield to the feeling of fear. Our ideal, however, is not a mere animal courage, not the courage of insensibility. It is rather the courage of the whole man or woman making for the WHITE LIFE. If you are only partially yourself, you cannot possess the highest courage. Such courage may be yours, infallibly, if you will but resolve for the goal and go on into the great ideals of the harmonic personality. This you can do— anyone can do. And to come thereto is the greatest thing in the world.
You are invited, then, to begin by substituting in your thought the idea of self-preserving reason for any kind of fear (even the so-called normal) as your perpetual guard and guide. Make it a profound conviction of your deepest self that no real harm can come to that self because you have entered the highway of the WHITE LIFE—THE LIFE OF PURITY, REASON, HONOR, GOOD-WILL, AND CONFIDENT ASSURANCE. Swing your life into the unfolding and infolding of the Infinite White Life of Worlds. Courage will become to you the very breath of your lungs.
I send you this sure message: Fear is deadIn all the pure, by reason's wisdom led,Who wear white honor and evince good-will,And trust the self to Love's unfailing skill.I send you this sure message: Courage livesWhen man to Courage all assurance gives.