The Art Of Getting Rich

More and more is it being recognized that there is scarcely a single phase of existence which is not the result of the immutable laws. At one time it was believed that only the physical kingdom was under its sway; later it was seen that in the moral world cause and effect — heredity as it was termed — was paramount. Because the working of the law cannot be readily observed it does not follow that it is non-existent. The law of gravitation has always existed, although it was thousands of years before it was discovered, so in the same way there are many laws in the universe today of which we never dream. Psychology in the West is too modem a science to permit one to dogmatize as to its limitations, but in every realm of inquiry experience is teaching man that what he once regarded as chaotic is in reality an ordered sequence; that chance and luck are merely names invented to cover our ignorance of the underlying factors at work. Every thinking man and woman is forced to the conviction that justice rules the world ; any other conception is impossible, yet were luck or chance (the absence of which does not necessarily imply the presence of fate) an actual force in the universe, justice would be in- compatible with it. Think this well over before proceeding any further, because its acceptance admits such immense possibilities. A belief in it opens up a new world, and the "unlucky/' the downtrodden life's ''failures/' the friendless, the outcast —all see in it undreamt of possibilities. Getting rich is as much under the domination of an immutable law as are the tides, and in this most wonderful of all the centuries it will become manifest by the demonstrations of those who employ it. All successful men and women obey this law, though they do so unconsciously, for it is impossible to work outside of it,no success is the result of chance,"^ though people will point to a single incident which served to raise an individual from poverty to affluence.

A man can only reap what he sows, and the stumbling across the opportunity has been prepared by the man himself previously, though he is probably unaware of it The true inwardness of life can only be apprehended by the man who cognizes its operations upon all planes, and here and there such men have sprung up, shedding light upon what have hitherto been regarded as insoluble problems. As time goes on this class will increase, and more and more will the universality of law throughout Nature be proved. Within the last decade or two the science of metaphysics has been brought down to a practical working code for the everyday life of the man in the street, and every teacher of Practical Psychology and Scientific Concentration could show from his own experience or that of his fellow-students the truth of this. It is the application of this science with which many are concerned, and the application to the problems of daily life of a law which is unerring, and which places prosperity within the reach of every man or woman.

In Nature there is a constant tending of things from better to best, a proceeding from simplicity to complexity, but a complexity which means wider scope, more adaptability. We name this tendency Evolution, and it must not be restricted to the narrow sense in which it is generally used. Nature ever aims at perfection, an evolving, or expounding, so that more life may be expressed, and however slow this process may seem to the impatient reformer, who expects with a single act of congress to abolish poverty, crime, and injustice instantly,it is nevertheless very sure. Man can, however, delay the march forward; he can fall out of the ranks for the time being and rejoin later, but he must sometime or other obey the law of his being. A man of iron constitution may treat his body with impunity long past the period a more delicate man could, but later he has to pay the penalty.

The purpose of evolution has not been recognized fully,yet, so man has blundered along and created for himself poverty and vice, disease and old age, and thereby learned a much needed lesson — for all experience is but a lesson. He is beginning to wriggle out of it, and when he really desires a change he will get it.

Co-operation with nature is the point to aim at, for by so doing he achieves his true goal. There is one fact from which there is no getting away : progress is eternal, and man can help in this progress if he wishes.

There does not seem one epoch in the history of the world when the inhabitants of it were more *' alive" than today. Mental activity and industrial activity were surely never more intense! Scarcely a plot of the earth's surface remains unmapped, and few regions that are at all hospitable but have been ''annexed*' by some government or other. We have vast continents in an undeveloped condition, and the wealth of the world continues to increase at a rapid rate. If there are more for the trade of the world there are more opportunities than ever there were. Life is far more, complex; the wants of today have been a thousandfold increased as compared with those of our forefathers. As lesser evolved nations follow in the wake of The United States and Europe — and that they will is a foregone conclusion, look at Japan — more and more wealth will be created.

It is outside my purpose to consider whether all this leads to more happiness among humanity; the point is that where a century ago there was one opportunity today there are a hundred consequent upon our more complex civilization. This complexity is the outcome of the forces of evolution at work,and rightly interpreted, like pain and disease, are important factors in the advancement of man's conquest over his environment. Opportunity* is not that which comes once or twice in a man's lifetime, but something which may be created at pleasure. This superstition has perhaps played more havoc with the human race in all ages in regard to getting on in life than that of any other. Quite a host of proverbs foster this delusion, such as, "Every dog has his day*' ''There is a time in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.^' Few men can say that they have not missed opportunities; we all do frequency, and it is galling when so many men become despondent and lose heart when they realize that they have allowed a splendid chance to slip through their fingers, especially if, as sometimes happens* it is apparently through no fault of their own.

The superstitions in which they have been cradled, which obsessed their parents and great-grandparents, which confront them nearly every day of their lives among their fellows,thundered at them from the pulpits, emphasized in the literature of all nations and times, objectivised in the columns of the newspaper, in the records of crime and suicides, but above all, in one's own daily life — it is perhaps not surprising that the bogey of opportunity should bear the semblance of reality. How many men have not fallen under the glamor of this gigantic illusion ; when tired out with writing dozens of letters or tramping many weary miles and meeting with repeated failure to secure a berth, they have exclaimed, "It's just my luck"! You see, the idea is so ingrained in ones make-up, part of one's nature, that it seems very real If I could convince you of its emptiness these pages would not have been written in vain, yet I do not hesitate to assert that opportunity is not a thing which fate provides for man, but something created by man himself. The limits of space do not permit the proof of this assertion being shown step by step, but that man is master of his fate has been proved by hundreds if not thousands of students of ''Concentration'' and faith in Self in America, the home of the movement which is spreading over East and West rapidly, and destined in the not far distant future to revolutionize all our preconceived ideas of the world, man's place in it and his destiny. This emancipation from the ogre of circumstances is not instantaneous; it is a matter of growth, because it is based on law,outside which neither gods nor men are able to step.

We live in a veritable age of advancement, surmounted as we are by the triumphs of science and industry, but we are merely in the kindergarten of the powers of which men are now learning something. Create your opportunities, but how? By having belief in yourself. Remember that, "to him that hath, faith in himself shall, be given; but him who hath no faith in himself, even that which he hath shall be taken away."

This truth, "have faith in yourself* has been lost sight of except by a few, and they have not sought to force it upon a humanity which was not ready to receive it. Even today,with some, it is a matter of experiment, more or- less. The ideas set forth here may not be fully appreciated by many, and for them the time has not arrived for the practical using of their thought-force. Even otherwise intelligent literary critics have shown a deplorable want of knowledge on the most elementary laws of practical metaphysics ; luckily for their bumptiousness their opinions are in cold type, so that the world will be able later to measure their ignorance by the demonstrated powers of thought. A sign of the times is the thousands of students of Concentration