Law of Attraction Classics: Practical Mental Influence - Attracting Thought-Waves - WW Atkinson
The Law of Mental Influence is the natural law that governs the way all living things, including human beings, attract thoughts into action. It is not necessary to have any special gift or ability to use this law. Neither does it require a change in your present beliefs nor creed; only an understanding of its principles and an appreciation of its power.
This text by WW Atkinson, originally published in 1909 and now available from the Gutenberg Project, offers a clear explanation of this law as it applies to healing and magnetizing thought-waves through positive thinking about what you want – whether for yourself or for others. It includes exercises that will help you become more familiar with how it works.
Chapter V
Practical Mental Influence—Attracting Thought-Waves
The laws of mental influence, like all natural laws, are immutable and unchangeable. They can be made use of only through the principle of correspondence which gives them power. This is a scientific fact that will never change. The moment we understand this and learn the secret method by which it operates, we shall have reason to believe that we have mastered the most important feature in the operation of this law. There must be perfect understanding on your part as well as on mine if I am to make you see how practical influence by means of thought-waves is possible to anyone who understands and applies these laws.
I shall now endeavor to describe the way to accomplish this. First of all we must understand what influence is and how it becomes possible for one mind or brain-cell to get into the state of vibration where it can send out vibrations that will respond to and attract like vibrations from other brain-cells.
Next I shall have to demonstrate how these responsive vibrations become, by their very nature, almost irresistibly attractive, and force themselves on the attention even of those who are not desirous at first of having such thoughts in their minds. This demonstration will require an understanding and practical use of certain mental laws which govern the principle of analogy and which are known as "the law of association" and "the law of repetition. "
The Law of Association is that law which causes one idea to suggest another, similar one. It has a constant tendency to reproduce itself and this reproduction may occur either consciously or unconsciously to the individual. The law operates in some other way than through the action of the will, though its activity is limited by the will; but I shall have more to say on this subject later on. The law of association is based on natural analogies or likenesses between objects, actions and persons. These likenesses serve as a basis for inferences or deductions which extend beyond what we know directly from experience alone. By the operation of this law we are led to draw certain conclusions about things because of their likeness to other things which we have seen or heard of.
The Law of Repetition is based on the principle that like is attracted to like, and it will give us a better understanding as well as some suggestions for applying the Law of Association. This law is sometimes called "habit" and "suggestion." It is also known as "habit motor" and "suggestive habit," or sometimes simply as habit. It operates through association.
The habit may be conscious, or it may be unconscious. The habit is formed through repeated acts of physical action. It is often very closely connected with the ancient instinct which has been called by many other names. You find it in nearly all animals and also in man. In man it is closely related to reason, morals and religion, because under certain conditions only a few people can act contrary to the habit that has been formed through association. These few are called "saints." Those who are constantly following their instincts would never think of doing anything against their habits. They also have very few other virtues. You will find them at one time or another following their desires and doing their best to secure the things they desire. I should say that nearly all men are closely connected with their instincts—with those wants which are by nature implanted into human beings—and they follow them more or less in spite of the mind, and under certain conditions of experience. Hence we find that a few people have morals in their conduct and others do not.
You can see from this that instinctive habits are often formed through association with similar acts by others or by oneself. Now let us see how the association is brought about. Let us take an example:
Suppose one of your friends, Mr Jones, is absent from home for three weeks, and then returns with a violin in his hand. The first thing that you notice is that he has an instrument in his possession which you have frequently heard him play, and it does not matter how often or how well you heard him play before or whether you ever saw the instrument before or not. You would assume at once that he has probably taken up this instrument again from the beginning because of its likeness to popular songs of the day and to many other things which you have heard through association.
Suppose that a child has never touched a toy wagon before, yet when he tries it for the first time he pushes it about as he would push any other object that had wheels. It is not the wheels or the handle that attracts him to this object, because he may take first one thing and then the other into his hand and do the same thing with them. So we see that children are led to play with objects of this kind through a sort of unconscious association which in this case is called "habit." In fact you will find that every human being is constantly following his or her own habits as well as those which they have formed through association with others.
"Repetition breeds habit," as the saying goes, and habit is what causes men to take up particular pursuits or to favor some objects or persons more than others. It also causes one thing to suggest another, just as association does. And the second thing that we find by repeated action is that a man developed a liking for his violin because he has taken it up again from the beginning—perhaps several times —and because of its similarity to other things which he has known.
These two laws of association and repetition which I have spoken of affect the mind in different ways. The Law of Association can be used for good only through the artificiality that we create in our minds by forcing ourselves to follow it. For instance, if you took up an instrument and played with it until your fingers became accustomed to it, you would then find as a result of repeated practice that you had a liking to playing the violin because you could not help liking it. You had become so accustomed to this instrument that you could not resist its influence or its attraction consciously. You went on playing and practicing until your fingers became so sensitive through accustomization that they responded at once when you touched the strings.
Conclusion
In this chapter we have been occupied with the Law of Association and its results. Now one may ask whether all associations are good or whether it would be better for us if the law did not exist at all. This question is perhaps more difficult to answer than the previous one, because the idea of good or bad is a very difficult thing to decide. It is almost impossible to say at what rate associations should be formed in order that they may become effective, and how far they should go beyond their direct usefulness. The most important fact about them is that they can be used for good or for bad; hence you can see that this law has quite different effects depending on how it operates in our minds.