NOTHING IS SIMPLER than forming tensing habits , and blending them into the various activities of life, The only difficulty arises in learning the difference between setting the muscles and tensing the nerves as both processes seem associated in part at least. The distinction has been made clear in the preceding lessons, thirtyeight and thirty-nine. They should be carefully reviewed. If the purpose is to exert muscular strength, a firm preparation for that effort is necessary, but that kind of effort never develops magnetism.

The latter comes from the progressive increase of nervous effort, beginning with the lax or relaxed condition, and gradually vitalizing the nerves in any part of the body. It is better always to devitalize the part that is to be trained; then slowly vitalize it. This change is seen in the tensing of the hands. Try at first with one hand, the right. Relax that, so that it is devoid of any power. Slowly vitalize it by closing the fingers; but closing them is not enough; add vitality as you close them; but add it gradually to avoid setting the muscles.

Another way is to shut the fist tightly and yet relax it so that there is no vitality in it; then slowly add vitality. In the first case you closed the fingers at the same time that the tensing was going on; closing and tensing together. In the second case, you closed the fist first, and afterwards slowly tensed it.

Any increase of vitality by the process known as tensing that does not go far enough to set the muscles, draws magnetism from its diffused or scattered state in the body, to the nerve centers,and to the nerves that are being tensed. This has always been Nature's way, and there is no other method that is natural. In these lessons we are simply copying Nature. A test of whether you are actually tensing instead of graduallysetting the muscles is found in the following experiment. Learnfirst to relax or devitalize. Relax the hand. By this is meant that all muscular effort has gone out of it; the fingers may be shaken about like so many limp rags.

The test is made by maintaining that relaxed condition of thehand while tensing the whole arm from the shoulders down to the wrist, and there ending the tensing effort. In other words you cut off the vitality at the wrist, holding it in the arms.When you can do this you will recognize what is meant by tensing; for it is not possible to set the arm muscles while the wrist is devitalized. The test is so valuable that, if you can meet the requirements, you will quickly be able to generate an unlimited amount of magnetism throughout the whole body.

Next after completing this test, you may proceed rapidly with the rest of the body. But first carry the test to the left arm and hand after finishing with the right; and then make yourself so skilful in the action that you can at any time on a second's notice repeat the performance with either arm.

Repeat these conditions with the right leg and foot; relaxing thelatter until it is devitalized, then while maintaining that state tense the whole leg. Transfer the test now to the left leg and foot; and keep practicing until you are an expert at it. The neck must receive attention now. Before making the experiment at that part of the body, look back to the lessons of the Magnetic Eye, in which the vital centers are explained. To sum them up briefly, all that is necessary here to say is that the center of the top of the head, the center of the neck, the center of the chest and the center of the hips, all must be in a vertical line, one above the other as if a plumb line had been dropped down through them. Stand and sit always with these vital centers maintained. It means a great deal to you eventually; besides which it is the only natural position that indicates vigor, strength, mental power and magnetism.

We have witnessed many episodes in human experience, and we have never seen any exhibition of magnetic power that was not accompanied by the maintenance of these vital centers More than this, it means better health, better form, better physical appearance, and the status of youth; for the man or woman who always maintains the vital centers in the vertical line, will never take on age.

Having learned this, now try to tense the neck, not by setting the muscles, but by slowly calling nerve force into the support of the head. Do not forget that, in an early lesson, it was shown that the third brain controls all the vital functions of life; that after the vital centers were discovered and kept constantly in their vertical line, the attempt to force the top of the head a half inch nearer the ceiling by lifting the head so as to pull at the muscles of the neck, stimulated the circulation of the blood, one of the most noticeable effects being the warming of the feet and hands by this increased excitement of the function of circulation; and that respiration was increased to a wonderful degree, thereby bringing new life into the blood and helping the development of greater magnetism. We have said that all magnetic people have warm hands and feet.

Following along this same line of experiment, we learn to tense the neck while at the same time stretching it all we can, even if less than one one-hundredth of an inch, by trying to raise the top of the head in the direction of the ceiling above.

When this double practice has been developed to a proper degree of efficiency, the results will be wonderful. They will surprise you. Many of our pupils have expressed themselves as believing them to be uncanny. One of the greatest psychologists now living who visited America not long ago, witnessed these experiments, and became so interested in them that he set about practicing this double action, which he mastered in a few days. He said of the results: "The stretching of the neck pulls on the spine, pulls on the muscles and nerval that are meshed about the medulla, and excites enough flow of vitality to that locality to stimulate it. So delicate is it that the influence of the weight of a feather reaching it would excite it to greater activity. But it would not need any appreciable excitement to make it accomplish wonders. We know that the touch of a needle point on certain parts of the brain would produce mountainous results, if that term is allowable. So the pulling of the neck muscles in an upward direction may do as much. But in addition to this, is your tensing, which in and of itself is a wonderful reproduction of Nature. The two combinedare capable of exerting unlimited powers. Then will follow the psychological value of the combination, and you have the most powerful agency in life transforming the body into a dynamo of energy. I have never seen its equal."

This medulla, or third brain, is the top section of the spinal column, and while it controls and directs all the vital functions ofthe body, it also throws a powerful flood of magnetism into thebrain itself when these double experiments are made. Do not treat this part of the work hastily. If you will take time for the study and practice of this combination, we promise that you will meet with a degree of success in this and other lines that will astound you beyond all words of description.

Having mastered the above combination which stands out as the greatest aid to human power ever known, you are next to develop the tense chest.

GRAND PRINCIPLE The tense chest generates vital-magnetism.

To the man or woman who would become magnetic in the shortest possible time this principle is most important, for it ismost helpful. It is not enough that the vital organs be raised and maintained; that is of inestimable value, but the life itself of the chest and all its contents must be kept energized. This does not mean that the chest is to be set or strained by muscular effort, for that will lead to no good.

Direct the mind as closely as possible to the inner portion of the chest, keeping the outward part immovable. Think of a point as near the center as possible. Make the whole internal portions tense, and as gradually as possible. It will be some time before this can be accomplished. The nerves and not the muscles are, in fact, exercised by this process.

A magnetic person can in an instant generate, also, a heat within that can be felt very distinctly, giving a glow of warmth that is transmitted by the vibratory process through the eye, voice or touch to any person within reach of these.

When the voice is impelled by these influences it becomes an agency of great power.