l find that when we
next think of it the matter has somehow cleared up and straightened
itself out, and we seem to have learned something about it that we did
not know before. We do not understand it, and are apt to dismiss it as
"just one of those things." In these lessons we are attempting to explain
some of "those things," and to enable you to use them consciously and
understandingly, instead of by chance, instinctively, and clumsily. We
are teaching you Mastery of the Mind.

Now to apply the rule to another case. Suppose you wish to gather
together all the information that you possess relating to a certain
subject. In the first place it is certain that you know a very great deal
more about any subject than you think you do. Stored away in the various
recesses of the mind, or memory if you prefer that term, are stray bits
of information and knowledge concerning almost any subject. But these
bits of information are not associated with each other. You have never
attempted to think attentively upon the particular question before you,
and the facts are not correlated in the mind. It is just as if you had
so many hundred pounds of anything scattered throughout the space of a
large warehouse, a tiny bit here, and a tiny bit there, mixed up with
thousands of other things.

You may prove this by sitting down some time and letting your thoughts
run along the line of some particular subject, and you will find emerging
into the field of consciousness all sorts of information that you had
apparently forgotten, and each fitting itself into its proper place.
Every person has had experiences of this kind. But the work of gathering
together the scattered scraps of knowledge is more or less tedious for
the conscious mind, and the sub-conscious mind will do the work equally
well with the wear and tear on the attention. In fact, it is the
sub-conscious mind that _always_ does the work, even when you think it is
the conscious mind. All the conscious mind does is to hold the attention
firmly upon the object before it, and then let the sub-consciousness pass
the material before it. But this holding the attention is tiresome work,
and it is not necessary for it to expend its energies upon the details of
the task, for the work may be done in an easier and simpler way.

The best way is to follow a plan similar to the one mentioned a few pages
back. That is, to fix the interested attention firmly upon the question
before you, until you mana