PERSONAL POWER (Complete 12 Volume Edition). William Walker Atkinson
power and energy; it will serve as a great magnet which will draw to you the things, persons, and circumstances which you will need in your tasks of life. Use the White Magic of the “I AM I” affirmation.
As we proceed with our instruction, you will see that this “I AM I” is even greater and grander than we are now stating it to be. It is a focalized centre of Something or Somewhat infinitely greater—the point of contact between the Universal and the Particular, the Unmanifest and the Manifest, the Uncreate and the Create, the Infinite and the Finite. YOU are far greater than you know. When you say “I AM I,” you are uttering a tremendous statement of Truth, the full meaning of which you as yet only faintly glimpse. The individual who can say “I AM I,” with full recognition in thought, and with full realization in feeling, has lighted for himself a lamp which can never be extinguished by the winds of adversity nor the rains of circumstances. Such a one is well on the path to Mastery!
The seventh stage of your selfanalysis—the stage to which you proceed after you have discovered the ultimate nature of the “I AM I” or Master Self—is that which is known as the stage of “POWERConsciousness.” In this stage of consciousness, while holding firmly and with doubtdefying conviction to the recognition and realization of the “I AM I” as the ultimate and essential base and ground of your individual being, you nevertheless intuitively are aware of the existence of an Underlying Reality, with which in some intimate and essential way your “I AM I” is united, connected, and co-ordinated.
When this consciousness is awakened by the proper methods, you will become as actually conscious of this intimate relationship, as you are now conscious of the existence of your “I AM I” or Master Self. In fact, the two phases of consciousness will seem gradually to coalesce and combine in your higher perception of Reality. Even when the intellect has not as yet been able to “work out the puzzle,” or to “ree the riddle,” the intuitive faculties will report that “it is true nevertheless.”
In the following sections of this book, we shall point out the road whereby the intellect may logically approach the facts concerning this highest Truth; for the present, we wish merely to indicate the general nature of the subject, and possibly to cause your intuition to begin to unfold so as to receive the full strength of the rays of the sun of Truth which is beating upon it.
In the stage of POWER-Consciousness, you will know that not only is your “I AM I,” your Master Self, your Real Self a real Centre of Power in the Cosmos: you will also know that back of, under, and around that “I AM I” or Real Self, is the great Ultimate Principle of POWER itself; that the “I AM I” is in actual contact with that POWER—and that the rhythmic vibrations of POWER are at least faintly discernible as they throb and thrill through your being.
Feeling this, all fear will drop away from you, and a new and strange courage will take possession of you: you will thereafter proceed to the Great Adventure of Life, fearlessly and confidently. You will enter into the conscious realization that POWER—AllthePowerThereIS—is back of and supporting you. You will enter into the conscious recognition that in the great substance and strength of POWER, you live, and move, and have your being. With the dawn of this consciousness, you will, in all truth, be “born again.”
While it is true that but comparatively few individuals actually experience this consciousness in full degree, yet it is true that many experience it in at least some degree; all may gradually unfold into it if they will but turn their attention to that direction. The men and women who have “done things” in the world of everyday life, if they would speak frankly and freely for publication, could give to the world the testimony that at some time in their lives had come to them a certain strange and wonderful, mysterious sense of actual contact with, and relation to, a great Something, the essence of which was felt to be Strength or Power. Varying as are the reports of the different individuals who have testified to this phenomenon there is found a common and general agreement upon the fact that there has been an “actual contact with, and intimate relation to, a Something or Somewhat Infinitely Powerful and Strong.” There is always the consciousness of Immanent Presence, and of Power and Strength.
These individuals have interpreted to themselves these experiences in many ways, each coloring it according to his previous trend of belief or general philosophy of life. To some it has appeared to partake of a religious nature and color—as if the Supreme Being, or at least one of His archangels has hovered near, brooded over them, and reflected a portion of the Infinite Power upon them. Many a successful man has experienced this strange phenomenon, and has been comforted by the conviction that he has God “on his side,” or that God is “working in and through me.” One of the richest men of our times has repeatedly made statements at least implicitly expressing this idea; and many of the lesser lights of the world of success have had similar experiences and resulting convictions.
Others have attributed the experience to the presence and aid of some friendly beneficent entity or supernatural personality—a friendly “spirit” from “the other shore.” Others have felt it to be a hint of the presence and power of a kindly Destiny or Fate, or the influence of a beneficent “star.” Napoleon’s belief in his “star,” and the influence it exerted over him for many years of his rapid rise, is said to have arisen from an experience of this kind occurring at the Bridge of Lodi. He was reticent concerning the actual experience; but he often spoke freely of his Star of Destiny, at times going so far as to indicate the particular star which he believed was favoring him.
Others do not attempt to explain the experience, even to themselves; they are content to think of it as “That Something,” the presence and strength of which they have felt—the resulting sense of power after the visitation of which, they have experienced. Many others could testify to these strange experiences of contact with POWER, and to the resulting remarkable increase of Strength and Power therefrom, which afterward flowed into them and through them; the experience, however, is of such an intimate nature, and so likely to be regarded as “queer” by others, that most of these individuals have but little or nothing to say concerning it. The following may be stated as the rule: The more successful the individual has been—the higher he has risen in his particular field of endeavor—the greater is the degree of probability that he has undergone some experience similar to that which we have just stated.
There may be some who will criticize the above as “impractical,” and “fantastic”; but such criticism is not likely to come from those who have been exceptionally successful—who have “done things,” and accomplished great achievements—and who also have good memories of their early experiences. Repeat this statement to some man or woman of this kind—then see that individual smile in a peculiar way, and note the strange expression which will pass over his or her face, though a direct answer may be avoided.
This phenomenal experience is not “supernatural,” nor is it “mystic”; on the contrary, it is quite natural, and intensely practical in its effect. It means simply that the individual in the course of his mental or spiritual evolution has arrived at a stage where in the natural course of things he “contacts” POWER itself—the Principle of POWER which animates, energizes, and vitalizes the Cosmos. He becomes actually aware of the contact, and of the influx of Power which results from it. Moreover, in many cases—in most cases of the kind, in fact—when this contact is once experienced and established, thereafter the individual finds it comparatively easy to make a “short cut” to POWER by opening himself to the inflow of Strength and Power from the POWER Principle.
It is the phenomenon of the spiritual trolleypole coming in contact with the great servicecable of POWER. It is the most natural, and the most practical thing in the world. As we have said, it has been experienced in some degree by many of the most practical persons in the world; and much of the subsequent success of such persons has arisen therefrom— and many of such know this to be the cause of their success and power. Moreover, many of the world’s most practical individuals are recognizing the existence of this phase of natural phenomena, and are striving to effect this contact of the “spiritual trolley-pole.” There is more inquiry concerning these things on the part of such individuals than the great masses of the people even dream of.
This is not the statement of a “new religion,” nor of some strange philosophy