It has been observed that the rooting out of any particular phase of fearthought, weakens the strength of all of the other phases. For instance, suppression of anger and worry tends to suppress all suspicion, and even fear itself, while special attack upon the fearthought called envy will perceptibly diminish the tendency to jealousy and avarice. There seems to be such close relationship between all of the forms of fearthought, that whatever affects one, affects all.
Fear of death undoubtedly underlies all fearthought. Fear of poverty, fear of accident, fear of sickness, all reach further than these calamities, to the possibility of death resulting from them. In this way we can trace all expressions of fear, either directly or indirectly, through the different forms of selfness, to fearthought of death.
In Menticulture I suggested the elimination of anger and worry as the roots of all the evil passions. On page 17, however, I gave "fear" as the tap-root of the evil emotions, including anger and worry, and stated my reason for attacking the surface roots best known and associated together, rather than the tap-root itself. It was because I believed at the time Menticulture was written, with people in general, that fear was a constituent weakness of all consciousness, and only expressions of it were eliminable.
I find in my later experience in practice, however, and in conveying the suggestion to others, that fear itself is possible to be rooted out by the force of counter-suggestion of one sort or another, and that there is no mental habit or impression that cannot be counteracted by some other more powerful habit or impression, and that it is best to attack the bottom cause of all weaknesses at once, and thereby wage warfare upon their innermost citadel.
As fearthought is the parent of all the evil emotions, so is fear of death the first of all the causes of fearthought.
It is not a difficult matter to eliminate the fear of death. It is first necessary to do away with any dread of a lifeless human body. There are few who feel dread of the flesh of animals as they see it hanging in the stalls of the butchers. There is no more reason to have a feeling of fear in connection with the sight of dead human flesh than there is to feel uncomfortable in the presence of the flesh of a lifeless lamb or a lifeless chicken.
There have lived people who were as accustomed to seeing human flesh exposed in butchers' shops as we are accustomed to see the flesh of animals so exposed, and there is an engraving of a cannibal meat-stall in Huxley's "Man's Place in Nature," copied from an old book of travel to the coast of Africa, which Mr. Huxley offers authoritatively.
The subject may seem to be a grewsome one to many readers, and reference to the customs of cannibals may shock their supersensitive habits of thought, but the object is sufficient justification. Such may, however, soothe their injured feelings by remembering that our meat-selling and meat-eating customs seem as inhuman to many Buddhists as do the customs of cannibals to us.
If we value essentials impartially, soul and mind count above everything, and tissue which they once animated counts for nothing when they have left it, no matter what have been the associations, especially if dread of the dead tissue inspires emotions that are detrimental to the welfare of soul or mind.
My object in suggesting a systematic reversal of our feeling towards lifeless human flesh is because it is a basic cause of fear. Remove this dread, and half of the terror of death is removed with it.
In this connection, the suggestion should be urged, that separation—as in death—is unessential as compared with the privilege of having known a beloved one, and that appreciation and gratitude should always outweigh regret in relation to an inevitable change.
All of the observed processes of nature teach that every normal change is for the better, and the change called death is as normal as the change called birth. The full term of human life is but a pin-point in the great span of evolution. How unreasonable it is to protest the measurement of the breadth of a pin-point with Him who doeth all things well!
Life is like the ticking of a clock; each passing of the pendulum may be a day or a year; when the clock strikes, one period only is ended, but a new period is also begun. Why mourn at the striking of the clock! A new and happier hour has begun. Why mourn the passing on of a beloved one! For to Christian, or to Buddhist, as well as to all sentient beings, a new and a better life has then begun.
The attitude towards the separation called death should be such as to induce the thought, and even the expression, "Pass on, beloved; enter into the better state which all of the processes of nature teach are the result of every change; it will soon be my time to follow; my happiness at your preferment attend you; my love is blessed with that happiness; and what you have been to me remains, and will remain forever. Amen."
Sorrow was dignified by Christ. He has been wrongfully called "The Man of Sorrow." His sorrow was for the evils which men suffered, and never was caused by any of the beneficent decrees of the Father. Protest against the decrees of the Father is blasphemy. Some forms of sorrow are blasphemy.
Sorrow and optimism do not go together. Christ was (and is) the Supreme Optimist, and taught nothing but optimism. Tears do not always express sorrow. Wherein tears express selfishness, especially in the form of anger, they are bad. Wherein tears are free from selfishness, they may do no great harm. In such case, what may seem to be sorrow may be an expression of loving sympathy, and, as such, may be good.
Without careful analysis of the quality of the emotion, love may be thought to be righteous cause for fearthought. This is a vicious thought. Nothing is righteous that is harmful, and fearthought is harmful. Love, without any element of fearthought in it, is infinitely better than love that is tinctured with fearthought. Forethought is the necessary accompaniment of perfect love, but fearthought is its enemy.
Separation can be made to gladden love through self-sacrifice. Separation—as in death—can be made to gladden love by supreme self-sacrifice to the beloved one who is preferred by death, and thereby made to disarm that underlying fear of all fears—the fear of death.
If, however, the fear of lifeless human flesh is eliminated, the fear of death itself will be found to be greatly modified. From this point the elimination of special pet fears, whether of the individual or of the community sort, will become an easy matter, as the greater is but the sum of the lesser.
In looking for means with which to attack so great an enemy as fear, either in one's self or in another, any weapon is a good weapon that is found to be effective. Logic is more respectable, but such is the foolishness of many forms of fear that ridicule is more often effective. Appeal to honor, self-respect, love, logic, ridicule, and to fear itself, may be had in so worthy a cause as the vanquishing of the arch-enemy of growth and happiness.
Old soldiers sometimes admit that their courage in battle has been the result of their fear of seeming to be cowards. When the far-reaching and poisonous effect of the evil of fearthought is properly understood, and the possibility of its elimination generally believed in, people will be afraid to be afraid—afraid of ridicule and criticism, as well as afraid of evil and unhealthful effects. The cure will have been homœopathic, in that like has been employed to cure (or kill) like.
Logic is the most rational weapon, but ridicule is sharper. Logic may not cure a robust woman of the woman-habit-of-thought that a mouse is a fearsome thing, but reference to the fact that it is ridiculous for a five-foot woman to be afraid of a two-inch mouse may effect the result, especially when it is known that the mouse is more afraid of the woman, according to his capacity for fear, than it is possible for the woman to be afraid of the mouse.
Acquaintance is another effective cure. It may not be necessary that all afflicted ones should serve an apprenticeship at undertaking in order to be cured of fear of a lifeless human body, but if the fear of a corpse cannot be eradicated by other means, it is worth while to do that or anything else, no matter how uncanny or disagreeable, in order to accomplish the object. So necessary is the eradication of the germ principle of fear to the cultivation of growth and happiness, that if it is found that fear of the lifeless human body cannot be cured otherwise, even a real apprenticeship in a hospital dissecting-room would be a profitable expedient as a last resort. To seek the acquaintance of fearsome insects and animals, through close observation and study of their habits, is better than to suffer harm from a needless prejudice against them.
Cure of the fear of one dreaded insect or reptile is sure to modify the fear of all other things dreaded, so that the difficult part of the cure is acquiring the belief that it is possible, and making the resolve to attempt it.
If parents realized the full importance of the eradication of fearthought from the minds of their children, they would stop immediately all other occupation, and rest not nor be content until the germ of fearthought in their children had been located and killed; and those skilled in such search and cure would become the physicians most in demand.
Exciting interest in the intrinsic beauties and usefulness of things thought to be disagreeable or dreadful, is an excellent way of curing fear of them.
I once had an opportunity of experimenting with this method of curing particular fears by testing it on a mother and children whose bête noir was a thunderstorm.
I had seen them at the World's Columbian Exposition, wrapt in the enjoyment of the great displays of fireworks that were operated on the lake front of the Exposition grounds each evening. I also happened to be provided with statistics, showing that the chance of being struck by lightning was only one in a great many thousand, and that if one were to seek to be struck, he would have to wait about ten thousand years for his average turn. I recalled the greater real beauty of the natural fireworks of the summer season, and their comparative harmlessness. This was the logic of it, and modified somewhat the attitude of the children, as well as the fear of the mother, relative to lightning and thunder; but the real cure came through appreciative suggestion and acquaintance.
On the approach of a storm wherein lightning might be expected, and even before it was visible, the mother had been in the habit of assuming a frightened expression, of gathering the children together, of cowering in a corner, and sometimes in a closet, in fear and trembling, until the storm had passed. From infancy the children had been in the habit of associating something fearful with the idea of lightning and thunder, and had never had a chance to observe their beauties.
I started in to correct the bad impressions, and to teach the attractiveness of storm phenomena, by calling out, on the approach of a storm, somewhat in this wise: "Oh! children, do you remember the beautiful fireworks at the Exposition? Come here quick! let's watch; we are going to have something ten times more beautiful, and, oh! such big booms and bangs. Watch now! ah! that wasn't much, but keep a-watching and we'll have some beauties. Crash! bang! blizzard! My! but wasn't that a beauty? Watch sharp, now, or you'll miss the best one,—what! afraid? Why, Alice, afraid of a beautiful thing like that! Nonsense! Come here, dear, and sit in my lap and watch out sharp, and then you can't be afraid. There! that's a little lady. Splendid! I reckon you know how to enjoy something beautiful, as well as any one. Boom, boom, boom! Did you ever hear anything so grand? Great big drums up yonder. I wonder what sort of a Fourth of July they are having? Wouldn't World's-Fair fireworks seem tame beside this? And think of it!—they don't cost a cent, and they are clearing the atmosphere so that the sun will shine brighter to-morrow than it ever did. It will shine for us, and for the plants, and for the butterflies. My! but aren't we lucky to have good eyes and good ears when such things are going on! and don't we pity the poor little blind and deaf children! Does lightning sometimes strike people and kill them? Why, yes, once in a great, great long while; but when it does, they say it is the pleasantest sensation possible. Don't you mind when you have pleasant shivers, what a delightful feeling it is? Well, they say being struck by lightning is like that—only more so. I have never had the experience of being killed by lightning, of course, but when my turn to enter the next life comes, I hope it will be that way; but the chances of being that lucky are very slim. Somebody, some great schoolmaster that knows almost everything, has calculated that if a man wanted to be struck by lightning he would probably have to wait about ten thousand years. That is too long. Life is delightful as it is; but if I had to wait even a thousand years or even an hundred years more for my promotion that way, I think I would rather choose a more common and less agreeable way"; and so on, governed by the interest and the effect upon the children. I impressed on them the real beauty of the storm, and taught them appreciation, to take the place of fear.
It is needless to say that that family no longer dreads the storm cloud. The suggestion reversed their way of looking at storms, and they then found great beauty in them and ceased to fear them.
Another experience: I once had the privilege of spending some time in close relations of friendship to a family composed of a widowed mother and several children, sons, daughter, nephews and nieces. A sister of the mother, who was pronounced to be an incurable invalid, had come from her Northern home to seek relief in the climate of the Southland. It is impossible to imagine more tender care of an invalid. Each member of the family vied with the others in offering gentle attentions, so that the waning life was filled with happiness that made invalidism almost a pleasure, as being the cause of so much loving consideration.
One morning the life-light flickered for a little and then went out. The usual funeral preparations which are the custom were attended to, and the remains were sent away to the far-distant home, and the family burial-lot.
While the remains were awaiting the appointed time of removal, the children of the family, of all ages and both sexes, passed in and out of the death-chamber, by day or by night, as if there had been no death, and there was not a semblance of dread, nor fearthought nor mourning. It was such a beautiful expression of loving consideration, unmarred by dread or fearthought, that one might well choose such a time and such a place and such environment on the occasion of one's passing on to the better life.
If it be possible to be a spirit, conscious of material environment, and in such guise to attend one's own funeral, which would be the environment of choice? Egotism, disembodied, would undoubtedly choose a scene of violent mourning, long drawn out, and painful to as many as possible. Loving Unselfishness would as certainly choose a funeral scene such as I witnessed in the house of my friends. Which would you choose? And if, as is most reasonable to suppose from observing the sequences of nature's processes that show that the seed of a flower has a more nearly perfect flower enfolded within itself, spirits also become purer by each unfolding through the release called death, and being made pure and unegotistic by the change, they must prefer, if they have the privilege, to have their old home remains viewed with loving and fearless consideration, rather than with fearsome dread and ostentatious emotion.
Then let us abjure fear in connection with death, and also in connection with the mortal remains of the beloved.
If the conventional premises relative to death be correct, the common attitude towards it is useless; and if the hypothetical premises be correct, as it is better to suppose, even if we cannot assert it, the common attitude is worse than useless, for it is both harmful and unjust. If we cultivate fear and mourning in connection with death, we are unjust to the dead, we are unjust to the living, we are unjust to ourselves; and, above all, cruel to the tender and impressionable emotions of children, to whom we are constantly leaving legacies of cowardice and ignorant egotism, or legacies of pure suggestion, love and appreciation.
Much might be written about the subject of this chapter, and many illustrations could be given wherein illogical fears have been, or can be, ridiculed away, but inasmuch as some of the following chapters are mainly devoted to this purpose, it is not necessary to more than suggest a line of argument under the present caption.
Let us work together for a season in the Now-Field.
We cannot work in any other field, but we can and do waste much valuable time in trying to work in the past or in the future, and in so doing neglect the precious now.
For recreation we may pleasantly, and perhaps profitably, speculate as to what there may be in the way of atoms finer than star-dust, and as to the possible degree of invisibleness of the ultimate ether. We may also exercise and strengthen our imagination by trying to give form to the Source of it all. Tiring of guessing in these directions, we may vary our recreation by attempts to peep under or through the veil which Nature so persistently holds between the present conscious life and the one we hope for beyond the veil. It can do no harm to think form into a forgotten past and into an uncertain future, if, in so doing, the vital and superprecious now be well guarded against the things we know to be deterrent to the best growth of the life-plant.
In considering the duty of the now, let us, for convenience of comparison, liken life to an agricultural season of one year's duration. We find, in ourselves, that the seed from which we have unfolded has already been sown, and the life-plant pretty well grown before we attain consciousness of duty and begin to think independently. If we are lucky, we have been taught early what the real object of life is, our duties in it, and the true values to be cultivated in connection with it.
We have very sensibly learned to get in out of the wet when it rains, and many other useful aids to comfort as well as to protection, but the most vital assistants of growth have been neglected, and many positive deterrents to growth have been cultivated by those who have been our teachers, and hence it behooves us to look to our habits of thought and of action in order to get rid of those which are detrimental to our growth.
Of first importance is the care of the Now-Field.
We have already suggested, and it cannot be too often repeated, that the condition favorable and necessary to growth is that of harmony—an harmonious present is the living heir and parent of all harmonies—that growth is the evident object of life, and that when anything ceases to grow it begins to die—there is no growth except in the present, and no cultivable field other than the Now-Field—that harmony, through one's ability to always furnish the concordant note, one's self, is within the power of each, regardless of environment or physical conditions, if only present conditions and environment are considered, and that growth is the certain result of harmony; that our function relative to growth is only to keep deterrent influences out of the present; that, if we do this, Nature never fails to develop better results from the unfolding of each succession. We have learned that all of the deterrents we have been able to discover and classify are phases of fearthought; that fearthought is no creation of the present, but is sought in the future and nourished on the life-blood of the present—an excrescent and altogether parasitic abnormality, unnecessary to the thing it feeds on.
We have discovered, in our search for deterrents, that, if encountered in the now, they are easily routed. We have also discovered that the longest life is but a succession of nows. If so, how easy becomes the problem: Work diligently in the Now-Field.
In arguing against the potency of anger and worry and other expressions of fearthought, where the contention has been persisted in that they were necessary evils, and amenable only to suppression, not to elimination, I have invariably won my point when suddenly asking the question, "Are you angry or worried at this moment?" by the admission of my opponent, "No; not at this moment, because my mind is occupied with something which has no element of worry or anger in it." The replies vary, of course, but are to the same effect. I immediately return with the question: "Is not all time but a succession of nows, and, if so, cannot all of the nows, as well as this one, be exempt from apprehension and irritation, by continuing to think of pleasanter and more hopeful and helpful things?"
Each succeeding now is easier of control than the preceding one from which it learns the habit-of-control, and, if the immanent now is guarded, all the nows that follow will take care of themselves.
As we have observed, we need not think of the growing if we are only diligent in keeping fearthought out of our minds. Nature will do abundant growing for us, and if we do not seek fearthought beyond the now, we will have nothing to keep out. It is easier than not!
Does it not seem very easy when one thinks reasonably about it? If we confine our efforts to the Now-Field, we leave our enemy out in the cold by the comfortable process of non-invitation. Therefore, let us work together for a season in the Now-Field.
Fear is fearthought only.
Fear is caused by the self-imposed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority.
Fear is not a physical thing, but it causes physical derangement.
Fearthought is self-imposed, and is therefore unnecessary.
Fearthought, being evil and unnecessary, is therefore not-respectable.
Fearthought is a habit which is altogether irrational and illogical.
Fearthought is a parasite which, in civilized man, is entirely abnormal.
Fearthought can be eliminated from the mind.
Fearthought is the tap-root of all evil and trouble.
Anger and worry are expressions of fearthought.
All forms of worry are directly caused by fearthought.
Anger is directly or indirectly caused by fearthought.
All of the evil passions which group themselves under the class-names of anger and worry are therefore the result of fearthought.
Fearthought is the result of egotism. Egotism is the reverse, or, rather, perverse, of Egociation. It is caused by self-separation from Co-operative-Strength, from Universal-Good—from God.
Selfishness is the fruit and the evidence of egotism.
Fearthought is the first expression of selfishness.
Fearthought is, therefore, the tap-root of evil and consequent unhappiness.
Forethought invites success.
Fearthought invites failure.
The future is the vital part of life—the dead past furnishing only food for reminiscence and experience.
Consideration of the future must partake of either forethought or fearthought—it cannot partake of both at the same time.
Fearthought is in no way related to forethought except as the shadow is related to the tree behind which it hides from the light—the light of right-thinking.
Forethought stimulates, aids, fosters, encourages, and insures success of honest aims—its child is growth.
Fearthought relaxes, hampers, strangles, and thereby retards growth, to the end of dwarfing, if not killing, it—its children are paralysis, disease, unhappiness and death.
Forethought is a producer.
Fearthought is a robber.
Forethought is constructive.
Fearthought is destructive.
Forethought suggests the building of houses for shelter wherein there can be no fearthought about storms.
Fearthought fusses and worries over the possibility of not getting the shelter ready in time to protect against inclement weather, and thereby wastes the available energy, and delays the completion of the shelter.
Forethought calmly proceeds to perform a useful task without fearthought of the extent of it. It does all that it can do—it can do no more.
Fearthought wrings its hands, and wastes its time in saying, "How can I ever do it?"
There is no difficulty in determining between forethought and fearthought.
Whatever thought is constructive, is forethought.
Whatever thought is destructive or wasteful is fearthought.
Fearthought is the devil.
Fearthought is the arch-enemy of man, whose influence can be traced in every form of calamity and unhappiness.
Fearthought is the cause of indecision, suspicion, apprehension, jealousy, envy, indifference, self-degradation and all other forms of weakness which separate the afflicted from the tide of success and happiness, and which condemn them to the whirling and restless eddy of isolation and non-progression.
Fearthought is blasphemy, because it gives the lie to the fixed promises of God, as evidenced by experience.
Fearthought is like carbonic-acid gas pumped into one's atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death—death to energy, death to tissue and death to all growth.
Fearthought is a liar, and the father of lies.
Quarantine against Fearthought first.
Fearthought is more contagious than any other disease.
Fearthought is the chief distributer and promoter of other contagious diseases.
Fearthought can be guarded against by anti-toxic means, just as smallpox and diphtheria can be guarded against.
The serum to be used against fearthought is intelligent, persistent right suggestion.
Fearthought can also be quarantined against, the same as other contagious diseases.
Society can quarantine against fearthought by refusing to tolerate it as a necessity of civilized life—by classing it as not-respectable, and by refusing to feed it with sympathy.
Quarantine against fearthought in the individual is an easy matter to any one who will learn that it is only evil and never good.
Fearthought should be kept "without the gates."
Forethought for others is the most intelligent altruism.
Forethought is the natural condition, but can exist only in the absence of fearthought.
Forethought growing out of disagreeable or disastrous experience is a useful and worthy fruit; but fearthought taken from the same experience adds to the evil.
If a child be guarded against fearthought, he will enjoy immunity from it during life—a life twice or thrice prolonged in consequence. Parents should note the responsibility.
The consensus of the experience of parents, of physicians, of biologists, and of everyone who has observed child-life, is that the premises and deductions here given are correct, but as yet there has been no systematic effort made to eliminate fearthought out of the atmosphere of children, as there has been to eliminate weeds, malaria, contagious diseases, and other evils. Society should unite for defense against, and the extermination of, childhood's worst enemy.
Fearthought is the most pregnant cause of disaster and death.
Whoever teaches fearthought to a child, by either legend or example, may be a murderer by so doing.
Whoever permits or nurses fearthought within himself, sows the seed of suicide.
Whoever robs a child of the freedom of mind with which nature prefers to endow it, whether it be through pre-natal suggestion or through suggestion given after birth, is more a thief than one who robs it of its patrimony of goods or lands.
Whoever teaches or permits a child to suffer fearthought may never know the end of the disturbance caused thereby. Lying, stealing, avarice, suicide and murder may lie within the wake of its influence.
If parents have wronged their children unwittingly, they may yet correct the infliction by right example and by right counter-suggestions, lovingly, patiently, persistently and religiously given until the evil has been eradicated.
Fearthought is the seed of Suicide.
Freedom is a Birthright.
Civilized Society insures Freedom.
The author has had much experience within the past few years which teaches that fearthought itself, and tendency to fearthought, are bad habits of the mind, that can be entirely counteracted if so desired, and if the desire be accompanied by reasonable assistance on the part of the afflicted ones.
Fearthought is the last relic of animal suspicion to be located, analyzed and dispelled. When it is entirely killed; then, and only then, will man become free—free to grow, free to appreciate his divine inheritance and free to enjoy it as ordained. As in agriculture and in horticulture, so in menticulture, and its contingent, physiculture, will it be found that deterrents to perfect growth can be eradicated, and that if attention to the germ-eradication of the deterrents is intelligent and persistent, God will surely develop perfect growth and the perfect fruit of happiness.
Freedom is easier than not.
Fearthought is the result of ignorance or perversity.
Fearthought which is perverse is criminal.
Fearing for others is criminal, because it not only depresses and weakens them, but because it robs them of some part of the strength that encouragement and hopeful thought would give them.
Parents who do not wish to poison the natural energy of their children by depression and weakness, should learn the effect of telepathic influence for good or for evil, and thereby know that all of the expressions of fearthought are rank poisons.
Parents hold the key to character.
Whenever parents allow or teach their children to have fearthought, they foster in them the temptation to lie and steal.
Crime lurks in fearthought.
Ignorance is not bliss.
Ignorance can no longer be accepted as an excuse for the toleration of fear.
Thought precedes every emotion and every act of life. It must have no element of fear in it, if it is to lead up and on.
Habit-of-thought asserts itself on all occasions. Habit-of-feeling is the truer description, for the reason that it is the emotional self and not the thought-self that first responds to surprise.
Habit-of-thought or habit-of-feeling can be trained to respond to surprise with "I must not be afraid," as easily as it is permitted to respond with the cowardly dictum, "I am afraid."
If one have the habit-of-fearthought in any form or degree, surprise may cause it to inspire rash action which may end in disaster. More lives are lost through jumping into danger under the impulse of fearthought, than are ever saved by it. Calm forethought is the better friend in a case of peril than quaking fearthought.
I must not be afraid!
Fearthought is a dissembler.
Fearthought is a very dangerous enemy, because it habitually masquerades in the garb of forethought.
Many earnest persons who desire to cultivate only the best thought, believe that fearthought is forethought, and invite and nurse it as such.
The lexicographers even, have failed to separate fearthought from forethought, and hence it does not appear in the dictionaries under its specific descriptive appellation.
Let fear be disguised no longer. It is a child of ignorant or perverse imagination. It is fearthought only. It is always irrational and illogical. It has no element of good nor of protection in it. Separated from forethought, fearthought causes only paralysis and death, and neither energizes nor saves life. It is the devil. It is the result of false premises or impressions, but can be counteracted by logical premises and right impressions.
Fearthought is a masquerader.
The timid are the most impressionable, and can be cured of fearthought by intelligent, persistent, counter-suggestion.
Impressibility is as powerful an aid to good or right suggestion as it is to bad or false suggestion. Differently used, an element of weakness becomes an element of strength. In a matter of mind-accomplishment no one need say "I can't," for mind is what it most earnestly wishes to be.
Limiting weaknesses there are, at present, but these are generally found in asylums. A crusade against fearthought would, within one generation, make asylums unnecessary.
Average intelligence can be cleared of fearthought. A crusade against fearthought would immeasurably raise the average of intelligence.
Let no one deprecate himself or his fellows as to his or their possibilities. The timid may become courageous; the weak may become strong; the sick may become well, and the unhappy may become happy, by the reversal of the attitude of their energy toward life's problems.
Courage is a birthright.
Fearlessness of death insures the strongest love of life.
No one can know what it is to appreciate life at its best until he has ceased to have any suspicion of dread of death.
No one can realize the keenest enjoyment of life until he has grown to feel—appreciate—that this life is an important stage of an evolutionary process, in which the dawning of spiritual possibilities opens up the realm of divine existence to him, and introduces to his consciousness that appreciation of God which gives birth to love, growth and happiness.
When fearthought is entirely eradicated from the mind by the elimination of the basic fear—the fear of death—man begins to feel the responsibility of growing his best, of ripening in natural manner, and of dropping into the lap of Mother Earth only when he has instilled into himself the richest and sweetest juices of an appreciative and altruistic life.
Fear not Death if you would know and love life.
Mother-thought is the strongest of all thought.
Voluntary motherhood is the bravest of all acts common in life.
Whoever teaches a child to be fearless, builds greater than she can ever know, for fearlessness in one inspires courage in many; and as courage inspires strength and causes action, there is no end to what may grow out of the fearless influence of the frailest and physically weakest of women, and any young mother, in the quiet and seclusion of a modest home, can set in motion vibrations of strength and fearlessness that may result in the building of a great city or the invention of some world-emancipating tool of progress.
All great accomplishments can be traced back to mother-influence. Mother-muscle may be wanting, but mother-thought rules the world.
Mother-thought is always brave-thought in one emergency, and therefore can be strong in all emergencies.
Mother-thought rules the world.
Mother-thought blesses life.
All water is pure water.
It is impurities within water that muddy it.
All men are innately good.
It is the presence of false impressions, the result of false suggestions, that makes men selfish and bad.
There is no impurity in water that cannot be removed by some means within the reach of chemistry, and there is likewise no bad suggestion impressed on a sane human mind that cannot be counteracted by some right and good suggestion.
In your judgment of men, judge the sum of their opportunities and the quality of their environing atmosphere, and not the individuals themselves. It will aid you to a more just appreciation of the possible goodness of your neighbors, and greatly help to conserve your own happiness, through the diffusion of the warm blood of charitable impulse.
Mould conditions aright, and men will grow good to fit them.
The perfect man is the harmonious man.
The perfection of anything is dependent upon the perfection of all its parts.
Good society is made up of good individuals; individuals are measured by their qualities of mind and character; and mind and character are pure and good according as their constituent elements are pure and good.
Fearthought is a weak element of mind and its influence on character is blighting.
In chemistry and in mechanics we analyse and test with greatest care the material we use, to learn its value as related to our purpose. If it have any element of weakness we discard it.
Measure, and weigh well, thought about the future; if it partake of fearthought, expel it from the mind, for it is evil; if it be filled with strength, and hope, and confidence, nurse it tenderly, for it is good.
Harmony is strength.
Forethought is strong thought.
Fearthought is weak thought.
Nervousness is frequently discreditable, and, therefore, not-respectable.
Nervousness is the "scapegoat" for much cowardice, ignorance and perversion, sometimes of prenatal, but generally of post-natal, origin. It is not as respectable as scrofula, for the reason that scrofula may have been inherited or contracted by the accident or evil doing of another, and can be corrected only by process of regeneration; while nervousness is an expression or reflection of fearthought which can be corrected by one's own right-thinking.
Whoever is not nervous when he is asleep need not be nervous when he is awake.
Eminent physicians have recently authorized the above assertions relative to nervousness. If it is evil and unnecessary, it is, therefore, not-respectable.
When nervous, seek within the habit-of-thought for a cause.
Attraction rules the universe.
The rivalry between attraction and counter-attraction is friendly.
Evolution is the result of being attracted to increase and to growth, and not the result of being pushed to growth.
All plant life inclines towards the light and the sun.
Plant life that is strong enough to withstand the storms, turns its back in protest to the wind.
Pessimists snarlingly assert that attraction is the pushing of desire for change, but pessimists are diseased themselves, and therefore call things by wrong names, and give the wrong construction to everything.
Appreciation and resultant Love are caused by attraction, and not by fear.
Whatever is attracted forward or upward, will remain in advance or above.
Forethought is eagerly receptive and seeks progress through attraction.
Fearthought pushes to action by its own cowardice, and accomplishes nothing useful.
Altruism is a powerful magnet; good men are "as true as steel."
Consideration is practical altruism.
Consideration for others is evidenced by desiring to do for them what is most desired by them, or, what is best for them. It assumes no superiority.
Consideration is "catching," and the easiest way to accomplish one's own desires, in connection with others, is to suggest consideration by consideration.
No one ever "lost a trick, or missed a meal," by being considerate; and simple, unaffected consideration has often been the means of adding great possessions to its own richness.
"After you," will unravel a crowd quicker than any pushing to be first.
Fearthought, and the selfishness growing out of it, are the origin of all lack of consideration for others; and contact with others, and the every-day amenities of life furnish constant opportunity for attacking one of the strongest expressions of the disease of fearthought by practice of altruistic consideration.
The first requisite of gentility is consideration.
"Good morrow," "good day," "good morning," and "good evening," were originally intended to have the same significance as our opening salutation, but now they have generally become stale and mean no more than "how are y—" "how d'y" and other perfunctory greetings that are ridiculous when rendered with an inflection that resembles a grunt.
Elsewhere it is related how "happy day" is used in some families to greet the morning.
What humanity is suffering from is a restriction of affections, and an effusion of fears.
People are afraid of being frank and therefore cultivate the sulks, suffer and become ill from the repression.
If you cannot greet the morning and likewise every living thing and every inanimate thing that there is with "Happy Day," you had better take medicine for the trouble, for you are really ill.
Happy Day!
Forethought is Optimism.
All good men are optimists.
The contrastive definitions of "optimism," and "pessimism" and "content," as given by Rev. Dr. Newel Dwight Hillis in an address on optimism, which the author had the pleasure of hearing, are in themselves an epitome of good suggestion relative to the profitable attitude toward the past, the present and the future.
Said Dr. Hillis, "The pessimist cries, 'all is ill, and nothing can be well'; the idle dreamer assumes that 'all is well,' but the optimist declares that 'all has not been ill, and all has not been well—all is not ill, and all is not well—but all can be and therefore shall be well.'"
Appreciation of ever-present blessings—the sun, the birds, the perfume of the flowers, the mist, the constant changes in the aspect of nature, the love of friends, the hurdles that are met and cleared at a bound, and even the obstructions that Providence places in the wrong road, make them all seem to chant in chorus,—"No matter what has been; no matter what is; all can be and shall be well."
Optimism is life.
Fearthought inspires Pessimism.
Pessimism is a false prophet.
It would certainly seem to be in the interest of freedom if the utterances of evil foreboding and pessimistic prophesy were frowned upon, if pessimists were avoided as lepers are avoided, and if their effect on growth and development were to measure the merit or demerit of thoughts or teachings, as well as of actions.
Society's duty toward the individual is wisely to prevent him from doing harm, either to himself or to others. All experience teaches that pessimism is generally lying prophesy. To prohibit false prophesy, that can only injure both the maker and the hearer of it, would seem, then, to be not only the right, but the duty, of society. To prohibit bad suggestion as well as bad action, when action is known to be but materialized or realized suggestion, would seem to be a duty of society.
Pessimism is poison.
"Perfect Love Casteth out Fear."
But:
Perfect Love cannot exist until Fear is first cast out.
Forethought is essential to cultivation and happiness.
But:
Fearthought in forethought prevents cultivation and kills happiness.
Fear is Habit-of-Fearthought only, and is self-imposed, or imported.
It is, therefore:
Unnecessary.
Fearthought, being unnecessary, is a weak, or a cowardly, self-infliction.
It is, therefore:
Not-Respectable.
Fearthought, the arch-enemy of mankind, can be eliminated from the Habit-of-Thought—can be entirely eradicated.
But:
not by repression.
Man, equipped with divine selection, is the only cultivator in Nature. Nature does all growing herself, and assigns all cultivating to Man.
But:
He cultivates only through removing deterrents to growth.
Man's value, as assistant in evolution, consists in his ability to create harmonic conditions favorable to growth through the exercise of divine selection.
But:
He secures perfect harmony only by first harmonizing himself.
Happiness is "the aim and the end of existence."
But:
Happiness can rest only in Harmony, Appreciation, Love and Altruism.
Happiness is "The Greatest Thing in the World."
But:—If sought aright,