etter
results than any attempt to follow somebody else's method, which was
successful in their hands precisely because it was theirs. Never fear to be
yourself. If Mental Science does not teach you to be yourself it teaches
you nothing. Yourself, more yourself, and yet more yourself is what you
want; only with the knowledge that the true self includes the inner and
higher self which is always in immediate touch with the Great Divine Mind.
As Walt Whitman says:--"You are not all included between your hat and your
boots."
* * * * *
_The growing popularity of the Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science has led
me to add to the present edition three more sections on Body, Soul, and
Spirit, which it is hoped will prove useful by rendering the principles of
the interaction of these three factors somewhat clearer_.
XIV.
THE BODY.
Some students find it difficult to realize that mental action can produce
any real effect upon material substance; but if this is not possible there
is no such thing as Mental Science, the purpose of which is to produce
improved conditions both of body and environment, so that the ultimate
manifestation aimed at is always one of demonstration upon the plane of the
visible and concrete. Therefore to afford conviction of an actual
connection between the visible and the invisible, between the inner and the
outer, is one of the most important points in the course of our studies.
That such a connection must exist is proved by metaphysical argument in
answer to the question, "How did anything ever come into existence at all?"
And the whole creation, ourselves included, stands as evidence to this
great truth. But to many minds merely abstract argument is not completely
convincing, or at any rate it becomes more convincing if it is supported by
something of a more concrete nature; and for such readers I would give a
few hints as to the correspondence between the physical and the mental. The
subject covers a very wide area, and the limited space at my disposal will
only allow me to touch on a few suggestive points, still these may be
sufficient to show that the abstract argument has some corresponding facts
at the back of it.
One of the most convincing proofs I have seen is that afforded by the
"biometre," a little instrument invented by an eminent French scientist,
the late Dr. Hippolyte Baraduc, which shows the action of what he calls the
"vital current."
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