24 Chapters

The necessary interaction of the Conscious and Subconscious Mind requires a similar interaction between the corresponding systems of nerves. Judge Troward indicates the very beautiful method in which this interaction is effected. He says: The cerebrospinal system is the organ of the Conscious Mind and the sympathetic is the organ of the Subconscious. The cerebrospinal is the channel through which we receive conscious perception from the physical senses and exercise control over the movements of the body. This system of nerves has its centre in the brain.

These and the following passages are of paramount importance. Why? Because your knowledge of the interaction of the conscious mind (located in the brain) with the subconscious mind (located in the solar plexus) can change any external circumstances. This is the key that so many seek in vain. Your knowledge of this system - this polarisation - is your chance to change. Here you are clearly shown how you can influence your subconscious. Use this unique chance!

The Sympathetic System has its centre in a ganglionic mass at the back of the stomach known as the Solar Plexus (left), and is the channel of that mental action which unconsciously supports the vital functions of the body.

The solar plexus and its effect was hardly paid attention to by the western side, because its functioning could not be measured with conventional devices. This, by the way, is a good example of how no awareness could develop in this direction because no attention was paid to it. Now, however, we know through the chakra teachings what its function is, and we can use this awareness for our benefit.

The connection between the two systems is made by the Vagus nerve (right) which passes out of the cerebral region as a portion of the voluntary system to the thorax, sending out branches to the heart and lungs, and finally passing through the diaphragm, where it loses its outer coating and becomes identified with the nerves of the Sympathetic System, so forming a connecting link between the two and making man physically a »single entity«.

For me, this sentence was a real revelation, because for the first time the physical connection between the mind and the subconscious became clear to me - the connection between the physical world and its Creator. Thus, much that I had previously placed in the realm of faith or esotericism was placed on a scientific basis that was comprehensible to me. Above all, the whole process now made sense because the link was identified via the vagus nerve.

We have seen that every thought is received by the brain, which is the organ of the Conscious; it is here subjected to our power of reasoning. When the Subjective Mind has been satisfied that the thought is true, it is sent to the Solar Plexus, or the brain of the Subjective Mind, to be made into our flesh, to be brought forth into the world as reality. It is then no longer susceptible to any argument whatever. The Subconscious Mind cannot argue; it only acts. It accepts the conclusions of the Subjective Mind as final.

Here it is important to understand that the subconscious mind does not argue, it merely executes. That is why it is so important to pass on only signals and information that are true to life.

The Solar Plexus has been likened to the Sun of the body, because it is a central point of distribution for the energy which the body is constantly generating. This energy is very real energy, and this Sun is a very real Sun, and the energy is being distributed by very real nerves to all parts of the body, and is thrown off in an atmosphere which envelopes the body.

Because it is so important, here again as a reminder: The solar plexus is the place where the spiritual and the material meet. The energies that are passed on here to the endocrine glands lead to immediate experiences on both a physical and emotional level via hormone releases. Here I would like to refer emphatically to Baird Spalding's book 'Life and Teachings of the Masters in the Far East' Volume 3, Chapters 3 and 5. There it is described how the 'God-Man' raises all 7 centres (chakras) of his body in their vibrations and sends out from the solar plexus a ray of pure white light, which is pure love, pure God-energy. This ray not only heals but destroys all evil if it is not received benevolently by the other side. This aspect cannot be given enough attention in our lives. The study of the Master Key System should lead to awakening the Christ Consciousness in you the 'I AM', the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the Sun, the Life-Giving Principle! However, this is not possible without your own purification and the raising of your own vibrations. Look for further literature on this subject and educate yourself accordingly.

If this radiation is sufficiently strong the person is called magnetic; he is said to be filled with personal magnetism. Such a person may wield an immense power for good. His presence alone will often bring comfort to the troubled minds with which he comes in contact.

Because of the life force available, such a person also has a high degree of self-control. A person who does not have the appropriate life force also has no real control over himself. He is and remains weak and in a victim role until he realises that the life force is latent in him and has to be awakened by him.

When the Solar Plexus is in active operation and is radiating life, energy and vitality to every part of the body, and to every one whom he meets, the sensations are pleasant, the body is filled with health and all with whom he comes in contact experience a pleasant sensation.

This also explains why, when we are full of energy, we can pull out trees, i.e. strive outwards, while when we are in a bad way, we withdraw and crawl inwards. Strength and power always have something giving, something expanding, something accumulating.

If there is any interruption of this radiation the sensations are unpleasant, the flow of life and energy to some part of the body is stopped, and this is the cause of every ill to the human race, physical, mental or emotional.

Here there is a disturbance of the harmony, the order and the processes in the system. These disturbances express themselves on a physical level through nerve signals to which you should pay attention. The system thereby tells you: The word 'tune' is extremely clear in its meaning. Voice, harmonious, harmony, order, etc.

Physical, because the Sun of the body is no longer generating sufficient energy to vitalize some part of the body; mental, because the Conscious Mind is dependent upon the Subconscious Mind for the vitality necessary to support its thoughts, and emotional, because the connection between the Subconscious Mind and the Universal Mind is being interrupted.

You recognise right away that the functions of the solar plexus touch all areas of your existence. That is why it is so important to activate the solar plexus and make it radiate, see above! Since this energy is also given off to your surroundings, it does not pass other people by without leaving a trace.

The Solar Plexus is the point at which the part meets with the whole, where the Finite becomes infinite, where the Uncreate becomes create, the Universal becomes individualized, the Invisible becomes visible. It is the point at which life appears and there is no limit to the amount of life an individual may generate from this solar centre.

As the sun is also the centre of our life visually, it is not difficult to understand that the solar plexus is also the centre of our body. 'As above, so below' is the old Hermetic maxim.

This centre of energy is omnipotent, because it is the point of contact with all life and all intelligence. It can therefore accomplish whatever it is directed to accomplish, and herein lies the power of the Conscious Mind; the Subconscious can and will carry out such plans and ideas as may be suggested to it by the Conscious Mind.

The emphasis here is on 'can and will'. That is, it has the capacity to do it and, in a sense, the desire to do it, hence the 'will'. When we become aware of our solar plexus and use it consistently to radiate energy, we have reached another stage in our human development. Through this self-knowledge, self-empowerment and self-realisation, we clear the path that eventually leads to the heart. For this we must first master the solar plexus to open the door to the heart.

Conscious thought, then, is master of this solar centre from which the life and energy of the entire body flows and the quality of the thought which we entertain determines the quality of the thought which this Sun will radiate, and the character of the thought which our Conscious Mind entertains will determine the character of the thought which this Sun will radiate, and the nature of the thought which our Conscious Mind entertains will determine the nature of thought which this Sun will radiate, and consequently will determine the nature of the experience which will result.

Conscious thinking that is in harmony with the forward movement of the Great Whole, that is, with the life principle of the universe, leads to harmonious thoughts, words and deeds. They all have corresponding effects on what you call your life.

It is evident, therefore, that all we have to do is let our light shine; the more energy we can radiate, the more rapidly shall we be enabled to transmute undesirable conditions into sources of pleasure and profit. The important question, then, is how to let this light shine; how to generate this energy?

By 'the more energy' is meant to raise your rate of vibration. You must think higher, loftier thoughts and realise them. You will learn later that a higher vibrational rate regulates, controls, changes or even destroys a lower one. It follows that the subtle energies are the powerful ones, for they override the gross energies.

Nonresistant thought expands the Solar Plexus; resistant thought contracts it. Pleasant thought expands it; unpleasant thought contracts it. Thoughts of courage, power, confidence and hope all produce a corresponding state, but the one arch enemy of the Solar Plexus which must be absolutely destroyed before there is any possibility of letting any light shine is fear. This enemy must be completely destroyed; he must be eliminated; he must be expelled forever; he is the cloud which hides the Sun; which causes a perpetual gloom.

As you have already learned in Chapter 2, fear is something that is not true - it has no principle. It is only seemingly powerful, but can be rendered harmless by the shining of your own light see also the explanations to point 5. It is again your own claim, your recognition of your true nature and the power associated with it, that extinguishes this fear.

It is this personal devil which makes men fear the past, the present and the future; fear themselves, their friends and their enemies; fear everything and everybody. When fear is effectually and completely destroyed, your light will shine, the clouds will disperse and you will have found the source of power, energy and life.

Fear has above all the characteristic that it makes you look for solutions in the outside. Often one even turns to the persons or institutions that caused the fear to arise in the first place, in order to subsequently spread it. This is where utmost attentiveness is called for. On the other hand, study leads you to trust yourself more and more instead of being influenced by others. If for some reason you are still anxious at present, you will increasingly replace this feeling with knowledge, courage, zest for action and joy of life. Look forward to this!

When you find that you are really one with the infinite power, and when you can consciously realize this power by a practical demonstration of your ability to overcome any adverse condition by the power of your thought, you will have nothing to fear; fear will have been destroyed and you will have come into possession of your birthright.

You will learn in the further course that every negative condition is characterised by a lack of vitality. It is the same with fear. It is characterised by an absence of courage and strength. As soon as your focus falls on these two things, fear gradually but surely disappears of its own accord. It does not have to be fought separately, because that would give it the attention and energy it needs to survive.

It is our attitude of mind toward life which determines the experiences with which we are to meet; if we expect nothing, we shall have nothing; if we demand much, we shall receive the greater portion. The world is harsh only as we fail to assert ourselves. The criticism of the world is bitter only to those who cannot compel room for their ideas. It is fear of this criticism that causes many ideas to fail to see the light of day.

Your expectation is nothing other than your claim. You enter into spiritual connection with that which you seek to realise. It is only a matter of time before your desire is realised, for the creative process is subject to laws and not to whims or chance.

But the man who knows that he has a Solar Plexus will not fear criticism or anything else; he will be too busy radiating courage, confidence, and power; he will anticipate success by his mental attitude; he will pound barriers to pieces, and leap over the chasm of doubt and hesitation which fear places in his path.

When Haanel speaks of 'being busy', this also indicates a conscious action, an activity. This shows that the whole thing is not a simple accumulation of knowledge, but a practical transformation into tangible values. This means that the realisation of what the solar plexus represents leads one to 'boldly plan and fearlessly execute', as Haanel calls it in a later chapter. Without a final action, no realisation of mental images can arise. This must be perfectly clear to you.

A knowledge of our ability to consciously radiate health, strength and harmony will bring us into a realization that there is nothing to fear because we are in touch with infinite strength.

'In connection with the infinite power' you stand precisely through the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with the solar plexus.

This knowledge can be gained only by making practical application of this information. We learn by doing; through practice the athlete comes powerful.

Even if you are not immediately successful the first time, that is no reason to give up prematurely. Just keep going. Haanel later writes that every effort is highly valued. It is also important to keep this in mind.

As the following statement is of considerable importance, I will put it in several ways, so that you cannot fail to get the full significance of it. If you are religiously inclined, I would say, you can let your light shine. If your mind has a bias toward physical science, I would say you can wake the Solar Plexus; or, if you prefer the strictly scientific interpretation, I will say that you can impress your Subconscious Mind.

The main point here is that you have true power and strength, but you must use it in order to benefit from it. 'Use is the condition', Haanel later writes.

I have already told you what the result of this impression will be. It is the method in which you are now interested. You have already learned that the Subconscious is intelligent and that it is creative, and responsive to the will of the Conscious Mind. What, then, is the most natural way of making the desired impression? Mentally concentrate on the object of your desire; when you are concentrating you are impressing the Subconscious.

This is often in stark contrast to your present approach, which is characterised by declaring what you do not want to have. But since the universe does not know negation (because it only knows what it has created, but not what it has not yet created), even with negation the attention falls on the subject itself and reinforces it. Everything that you consciously (!) reject, you increasingly draw into your life. It is important to recognise this, because only then can you mentally move in another direction, where a fundamentally different quality prevails. Energy follows attention, no matter in which direction, but only one direction is correct for life, while the other is characterised by the fact that it is defective and cannot exist in the long run.

This is not the only way, but it is a simple and effective way, and the most direct way, and consequently the way in which the best results are secured. It is the method which is producing such extraordinary results that many think that miracles are being accomplished.

To concentrate mentally on the desired object means to take distance from the undesirable. This sets a new cause in motion. As you will learn in the course of your studies, this leads to corresponding effects. This happens through the Hermetic principle of correspondence in connection with the six other principles. In plain language: A mental reorientation takes place in you, for only through this is it possible that new circumstances can arise.

But for the foreseeable future your senses will still reflect the results of your old thinking. You must learn to ignore them in a certain respect, that is, to consciously regard old thoughts as undesirable and to replace them with new thoughts. This includes, by the way, recognising the cause of the present impact and literally 'invalidating' it by lovingly letting go. At the same time, however, one affirms and affirms the new, which will also settle in the subconscious. There is no one but you who decides. Everything happens according to the law! That is what is really wonderful about it, because as you will learn, you can rely on it. This certainty leads to new courage and a thirst for action and thus to the first concrete steps into a new life.

It is the method by which every great inventor, every great financier, every great statesman has been enabled to convert the subtle and invisible force of desire, faith and confidence into actual, tangible, concrete facts in the objective world.

Think about this sentence again, because it shows how one secures power and strength. These inventors, financiers and statesmen are also made of flesh and blood. But they knew something that is now also conveyed to you by the Master Key System. They knew about the creative power of thoughts. You can also assume that they surrounded themselves with people like themselves in order to give these thoughts even more form and shape. This automatically meant that they kept away from the lower levels of thought, feeling and action, for otherwise these too would have manifested for themselves and their surroundings.

The Subconscious Mind is a part of the Universal Mind. The Universal is the creative principle of the Universe, a part must be the same in kind and quality as the whole. This means that this creative power is absolutely unlimited; it is not bound by precedent of any kind, and consequently has no prior existing pattern by which to apply its constructive principle.

Completely unlimited creative energy. You and the Great Whole are One. It is the source of all power and strength. It is up to you to tap into this source and let it flow through you. It is your use of it that brings you what you experience in life. Now ask yourself: What is your intention? What do you want to achieve? What do you use for this purpose?

We have found that the Subconscious Mind is responsive to our Conscious Will, which means that the unlimited creative power of the Universal Mind is within control of the Conscious Mind of the individual.

This is exactly why it is so important to have your thoughts under control, because all that we do not consciously control ourselves is controlled by others, and as we know, that is what they want and not necessarily what we ourselves want or desire.

When making a practical application of this principle, in accordance with the exercises given in the subsequent lessons, it is well to remember that it is not necessary to outline the method by which the Subconscious will produce the results you desire. The finite can not inform the Infinite. You are simply to say what you desire, not how you are to obtain it.

It is the end result to which you should mentally orient yourself and not the way to it. That would not work either, because if you already knew the way, you would have taken it. But this path comes about through your finding yourself in silence, through concentration of thought, through visualisation. You will learn more about this in chapters 5 ff.

You are the channel by which the undifferentiated is being differentiated, and this differentiation is being accomplished by appropriation. It only requires recognition to set causes in motion which will bring about results in accordance with your desire, and this is accomplished because the Universal can act only through the individual, and the individual can act only through the Universal; they are one.

'Recognition' is a beautiful German word, expressive and precise. Recognition leads through 'claiming' to 'appropriation' and 'awareness'. You see how all these parts are connected and how wonderfully clear and expressive the German language is.

For your exercise this week, I will ask you to go one step further. I want you to not only be perfectly still, and inhibit all thought as far as possible, but relax, let go, let the muscles take their normal condition; this will remove all pressure from the nerves, and eliminate that tension which so frequently produces physical exhaustion.

After body control in Chapter 1 and mind control in Chapter 2, we are now dealing with physical relaxation. This is a mental instruction for which you need physical control. It is this physical relaxation that is an indispensable part of the following chapters, because you will not be able to visualise and concentrate if you are physically tense. Therefore, this exercise must also be mastered.

Physical relaxation is a voluntary exercise of the will and the exercise will be found to be of great value, as it enables the blood to circulate freely to and from the brain and body.

Physical relaxation also has a lot to do with breathing. Therefore, especially in situations where you run the risk of becoming hectic and impetuous, make sure to breathe in and out deeply, slowly and rhythmically a few times. This immediately relieves the tension and allows you to become 'normal' again.

Tensions leads to mental unrest and abnormal mental activity of the mind; it produces worry, care, fear and anxiety. Relaxation is therefore an absolute necessity in order to allow the mental faculties to exercise the greatest freedom.

The word tension makes it clear that this is a situation where there are two poles: The one where you are at the moment, and the one that is set opposite it and in all likelihood desired. If you were there, you would be in harmony and everything would be harmonious. But there is a distance between you and the ideal state, which means that you have to reduce this distance. Continued tension stands in the way of new thoughts and thus new realities. Harmony always implies a balanced and not a tense state.

Make this exercise as thorough and complete as possible, mentally determine that you will relax every muscle and nerve, until you feel quiet and restful and at peace with yourself and the world.

This inner peace can hardly be compared to anything else. It is the basis for any kind of decision. It prevents you from rushing into one direction and then regretting it later. This peace also puts you in a position to always act prudently even in extreme situations and to continue to love and sympathise even when others have long been 'on the warpath'.

The Solar Plexus will then be ready to function and you will be surprised at the result.

You see that it does not take too much effort to make the solar plexus work. Relaxation leads to the free circulation of blood and the activation of the solar plexus and the conscious radiation of life-giving energy to all parts of the body.