Chapter V

Psychological Difficulties Relieved by Multiple

Mentalism

Exercise IV may have seemed difficult at first. But by the time you take up this chapter, you will -- if you are fair to yourself -- have mastered Exercise IV and will now be able to do the drill easily.

This is as good a time as any for me to go on record with this statement, substantiated by every scientific authority on the workings of the human mind: THINKING NEVER HURT ANYBODY! Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of America’s outstanding philosophers, said: “It probably is easier for great men to do great things than it is for little men to do little things”. So, if you have found it difficult to do the little exercises I have thus far given you, your brain has not yet really begun to realize its capacity and it still stamps you, comparatively, as a “little” man. However, to quote another famous figure in history, Thomas Edison once said, “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”. Consequently, the effort you devote to these exercises will lead you surely and uninterruptedly to GREATNESS OF INTELLECT. And greatness of intellect is characterized by greatness in other things -- in understanding, in sympathy, in charity and in our daily conduct. Many ends well worth striving for!

And if, in the striving, you occasionally feel a touch of “brain fatigue”, remember this: physical exercises that build up your muscles and framework are invariably accompanied, at first, by physical stiffness. This stiffness is in itself PROOF that the exercises are benefiting you -- calling into play parts of your body that have been “rusting”, unused. So with the mental exercises that are given here. If they seem to make your brain stiff and somewhat “numb”, you may be sure that they are helping you. The stiffer they make you feel, in fact, the more you have been in need of just this kind of “limbering up”, and the more good you will get from it.

You are now becoming able to carry on four or five mental processes simultaneously. Your thoughts of self are no longer able to crowd other thoughts out of your mind. Expressed in another way, Multiple Mentalism has left you still conscious of self, but no longer self-conscious! You are four or five times the individual you formerly were and you have outgrown your childish self-consciousness just as you have outgrown the clothes you wore as a child!

The same factors account for the disappearance of stuttering and stammering in several others who have perfected themselves in these drills. Where thought was too rapid for words, consequently crowding the consciousness so that no part of the mind was free to direct the speech, they stuttered and stammered. With the ability to think several things at once, they were free to complete their lines ofthought while other parts of their brains followed along, putting the thoughts into words and seeing that the words were properly uttered, clearly and impressively. So, too, with those who hem’d and haw’d and er’d while sparring for time in which to think. Mental agility -- the ability to see and weigh all sides of a question simultaneously -- now enables them to speak right out, without impediment.

Some stutterers and stammerers, we are told by psychiatrists, are victims of neuroses and complexes all unknown to themselves. Even so, when they are relieved of these neuroses, freed from these complexes by Multiple Mentalism, is there anything in that “cure” to surprise the thinking man? Complexes and neuroses hide in dark corners of the mind -- hidden from sight -- unpleasant experiences or desires that we wish to forget -- unhappy memories or unworthy desires that our conscious minds do not want to face but which melt away instantly when dragged out into the light and dissolved by the illumination of Reason and Understanding. As you already can see, by its effects on your own mind, Multiple Mentalism opens up chamber after chamber in your brain -- airs and purifies it -- lets in the sunshine of Intelligence to disperse any unwholesome, buried memories that may be festering there -- gives you mastery in your own mind, over all that it is and all that it contains.

After all the foregoing, you might expect Exercise V to be a drill featuring Peter Piper and his peck of pickled peppers, or the ragged rascal who ran ‘round the rugged rock! However, it is not. You will find it, instead, a continuation of No. IV -- a trifle more complex, perhaps -- but even more interesting. If you have been faithful in your practicing and have mastered the four exercises given you so far, you have reached the point where your increased mental abilities are a constant source of amazement and pleasure to you!

Exercise V:

Warning: if you have to any degree slighted the previous lessons, GO BACK AND MASTER THEM NOW, or you will fall by the wayside in your effort to acquire a Multiple Mind! Exercise V will absolutely stop 999 out of every thousand men who have not approached it by mastering Nos. I, II, III and IV. However, if you have been conscientious and regular in your practice and can now intermingle three-letter and four-letter words with ease and speed, these gymnastics will give you a genuine thrill!

First, write 24 four-letter words from memory. It is easy, of course. You have used so many of them in the preceding lesson. Now, take any two of your four-letter words (select them in your “mind’s eye”, NOT by looking at the list you have written!) and intermingle their letters so that you spell one word frontwards; the other, backwards. Like this:

HOLD & SOIL = H L O I L O D S

and

PIPE & PUFF = P P I U P F E F

Naturally, you understand that this is to be done entirely from memory -- utilizing the blind man’s gift of seeing with his mind -- and writing the intermingled letters on a clean sheet of paper, without having the words themselves before you as a guide. Just select the words, reach for a clean sheet of paper and write down S N U O R O E L after having selected, for example, the words SURE and LOON in your mind. Do not write SURE and LOON, themselves, at all -- just their letters, intermingled as explained, and NOTHING ELSE. Pair off other four-letter words and write them similarly for 30 minutes. Do not overdo yourself by practicing more than 30 minutes at present, for you must spend at least a week, and perhaps more, on Exercise V. You will have time tomorrow and in the days following to become really proficient in this and the following drill (also a part of Exercise V). It is better, you know, to take six hours in six days, for drilling than to take even twelve hours in a single day. You learn better, and retain what you learn, which you cannot hope to do if you “cram”.

After you have practiced the above lesson for 30 minutes, go on to words of five . Write JSULMLPSAF if you have selected JUMPS and FALLS. Pair off five-letter words and write them thus FOR 30 MINUTES --- no more, no less, for the first day.

Tomorrow and in the days following, until you have MASTERED this drill thoroughly, spend AT LEAST 30 minutes daily on four-letter words and five-letter words. Thirty minutes EACH, that is. Or more. Two hours in all if you can find the time --- an hour and a half if you cannot manage two hours --- but, at all costs, AT LEAST one full hour. And KEEP AT IT, day after day, until you can make four-letter and five-letter words “jump through the hoop” for you, in accordance with this drill.

How does this fit into your daily life and help you in solving business or household problems? Well, think it over. Something occurs on your job, let us say. Perhaps someone has been advanced over others’ heads, or someone has been unexpectedly discharged, or a deal that you thought was “in the bag” falls through. Why? You may be sure that any totally unexpected happening of any importance was preceded by an entire series of events --- long and short and, perhaps, seemingly unrelated to the action in which they culminate. The most recent event in the series is probably familiar to you, but you may not see its connection with other, partially forgotten events. Now that your mind is becoming trained to break down and reconnect words, to take ten apparently unrelated letters and see them in their true relationship to each other, as two separate and distinct words, your mind will become equally able to analyze and reconstruct events in your business life --- to understand that which is now a puzzle to you.

Better yet: Perhaps a series of events is now under way, but has not yet culminated in any definite action. With your new-found ability to recognize seemingly heterogeneous elements as coherent entities, you will in many cases find yourself anticipating forthcoming actions and “beating the other fellow to the gun”, or preparing yourself in advance to handle situations that otherwise would prove too much for you.

Need I say that when you can do this, and your rivals cannot, you --- and not they --- will win out in business competition?

Multiple Mentalism Brain Stimulator: Calculating Drill

This is NOT an arithmetical drill in the sense that it is designed to improve your

arithmetic. However, even before the time of Omar Khayam, various mathematical

exercises were much in vogue to develop judgment, reasoning power and mental

alertness. The following drill will stimulate your brain to greater nimbleness than

you would have dreamed possible just a few weeks ago.

Drill A

Spell your own name aloud and add this row of figures:

9 + 28 + 56 + 124 + 43 + 68

Work on this drill for days, create more additions, and while adding RECITE the alphabet ALOUD. Spell your friends names, recite poetry. As the new awakened cells are called into play, continue creating more difficult additions.

Drill B

Spell your own name and MULTIPLY:

6 x 42 9 x 18 8 x 17 6 x 56 4 x 37 3 x 59 9 x 39

Spell your friends names, using new ones at each attempt:

8 x 45 7 x 78 8 x 29 7 x 345

Create your own problems, adding, multiplying or subtracting.

Drill C: 154 567 437 989 873

-132 -234 -342 -657 -675

756 -546