VERY person who possesses this book should be­come related to it in one of two ways:

1. Either as a reader.

2. Or as a student.

Only the latter will accomplish the full re­sults of the work. There are three things to do :

1. To study.

2. To think.

3. To execute.

There can be such a thing as reading that is deep and student-like; but a casual reader, who absorbs nothing, is the most superficial of all persons. Whoever reads the fewest booksis apt to be the best thinker. A rapid reader cannot be a student.

A casual reading of this book will produce in the pupil no results whatever. It will be time wasted; but perhaps well wasted.

The author prefers that no person should have the cus­tody of this book, excepting the owner, or excepting the per­son who is to use it. A book of study should have but one owner.

Lending and borrowing are relics of barbarism, and twin brothers of poverty and bad business methods.

Polonius, in Hamlet, says:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

But a stronger reason prevails in the present instance.

The purchaser of this book, or whoever studies it, should at once procure some strong but thin writing paper, and paste leaves between all the pages of this volume, in the chapters on On these blank leaves he should keep a record of his practice and the time when it is first undertaken, the amount of time each day, and the progress made. Annota­tions of all kinds pertaining to the study and practice will be found beneficial and of great value to the student.

The high character of the results to be attained necessi­tates constant companionship of book and user, which is impossible if two friends or two members of the same family are using the same copy; and is just as inconvenient as one plate would be to two hungry people eating out of it.

The mark of a true student is in note-making. People who absorb the most, observe the most; and the noteworthy facts are preserved. This has been true of every successful man and woman who has ever lived; and a thousand instances might be cited of those who preserved in the form of notes every occurrence that had value.

You meet people every day. They meet you or others. You know what they say, and from that you judge of their motives and their attempts to influence you or others. Not a single day will pass without one or more illustrations of the power of magnetism being exerted, even in some slight degree. The really magnetic people you will not meet, for their ability has carried them to a higher plane of success, and they come across your path but seldom.

The preparatory lesson is a simple one; but, if you pur­sue its plan faithfully, you will agree that it is a most im­portant one. It consists in becoming a conscious observer of every transaction between yourself and others, or between other parties in their efforts to gain advantages. Let your mind be awake to the fact that, however trivial the occur­rence, one person will in some slight way control the other.

Your observations must be conscious; that is, you must Bay mentally, "I am watching this affair to see who appears to have the superiority." If you are involved, you may take it for granted that, as long as you are conscious of watching results, you will never be taken advantage of. But this consciousness must relate entirely to the question of who has the superior influence.

The following facts are preparatory principles, and embodyin part a review of what has already been said.

1. The human body is a collection of individual energies.

2. These energies are adrift.

3. Life is an expression of drifting energies.

4. Drifting life involves a vast waste of energy.

5. Nature, left to drift, overflows with energy. This is seen in buds, blossoms and fruits, and in all impregnation, as well as in a thousand other facts of life.

6. Concentration collects and holds the energies of the body for some specific use; and here magnetism begins.

7. There is no limit to the power of the nerves, when directed by the will. A human being is capable of anything.

8. The muscles are but agents of the nerves.

9. The nerves are agents of the concentrated energies of the body.

Having generalized to this extent, we will proceed to the discussion of these laws as crystallized in the form of principles. In this way everything will be better understood.

Forthe present we must be getting ready for the technical training which appears in the latter pages of this volume; yet the steps taken in getting ready are progressive and pro-deductive of results.

TWENTY-FIRST GRAND PRINCIPLE

Mental electricity is generated by conscious atten­tion.

If you allow horses to roam at will in the pasture their energies are wasted, and their future usefulness will be abridged. If you use the muscles of the body with indifference, they will possess neither strength nor trained value in any department of action. If you permit the brain to wander about and roam at will over fields of interest, its power of concentration will be lost, and weakness follows all lack of concentration.

Loose reading takes away this ability. The knocking about of the mind in daily flights to sensations found in the papers, or the feeding of the most depraved of all mental tastes, curiosity, by pursuing items of special news, or the stimulating of the emotions by exciting novels, as well as the general habit of inattention seen in usual conversations, are quick destroyers of the highest form of vital electricity or personal magnetism. In man the mind is the engineer and the pilot. It must retain its place and its control over the vast enginery of the body, or the great craft will drift to dis­aster.

Conscious attention is of the highest possible value as a means of generating this best of all forms of power. It does not do all the work, nor a tenth of it, but it performs a neces­sary part in the development of the coveted energy. Mag­netic persons are well known, and they show this faculty of fixing the whole mind upon what is transpiring. If you ad­dress such a person he gathers all his attention like so many parts of a splendid machine and lays them before you in detail. If you appeal to his sympathy it is yours; the appeal is not met by mind-wandering, drifting of the thoughts or a half­hearted response. If you Seek information, it is ready if it can be supplied; and, if not, then such guidance as is possible will be tendered to you.

Magnetic persons never listen by halves. With them it is all attention or none. They show full deference, or they are unapproachable. As the art of control is chiefly the art of winning, they give no offense, yet are not sycophants. These distinctions are important A poor listener is almost always disliked. You know when you must struggle to hold the attention. The cat-and-dog life of some so-called friends, and of some married couples, is generally accompanied by this constant endeavor to be understood, as in the following illustration:

Husband. What did you say?

Wife. I spoke distinctly. I told you that the next day they left town and never came back. See?

H. Yes.

W. What?

H. Of course I see. They came back to town. I heard it all.

W. They never came back. You sit there looking at the ceiling, thinking of everything but what I am saying.

H. I tell you I heard you.

Another case is typical of the fashionable woman who looks you full in the face and doesn't think of anything. We will call her Mrs. B.

Mrs. A. As I was saying, the first part of the exercises continued rather too long, and we got wearied.

Mrs. B. Indeed.

Mrs. A. And we did not wish to do anything to show that we were wearied, so we remained. You understand ?

Mrs. B. What? Yes. Perfectly.

Mrs. A. And we were well repaid. The most delightful time followed. We gathered much information which we would have regretted the loss of, if we had not remained. I presumed you are interested in the life of R------and the influ­ence he has upon the world of to-day. You understand?

Mrs. B. Yes, indeed. Why, of course. Who was it you mentioned? How beautiful it must all be.

And the woman was ogling an imaginary vacuity miles and miles beyond the opposite wall.

Such persons are not only devoid of all magnetism, but are tiresome bores. To talk to a poor listener is bad enough, but to have an upturned face and empty head poised just in front of you is much more exasperating.

The power of mental concentration is acquired by steady practice. It is hard work at first, but it pays. The best of all methods is to fix the attention upon the mind and ideas of each individual who addresses you, and not allow your interest to flag a second. Even if worthless thoughts are expressed, the exercise and training are of the utmost value to you. Listening to sermons is one of the severest and yet one of the best means of learning to fix the attention.

TWENTY-SECOND GRAND PRINCIPLE Animal electricity serves only the brute creation.

As we have hinted in earlier pages, the power to lure Other life to its death is undoubtedly bestowed by nature as a means of self-preservation. A balance is maintained by affording to each species the weapons of defense, but only against common attacks. The electric fish that charges the water with a shock which is too much for the approaching enemy, employs an instantaneous tensing action that creates the power out of the general life of the fish. The claim that it is stored away in a battery is not borne out by facts. Yet the electric fish is not always immune, for it would so multi­ply as to drive all others out of the ocean.

Then the ink fish, that makes the water cloudy, is like­wise following a law of self-protection. The smaller fish are able to retire to nooks that cannot be reached by the larger species; yet when they venture into greater expanses of water they stand more than an equal chance of floating down the throats of their pursuers. The birds of the air are equipped with various means of defense. Animals that live upon the earth protect themselves in peculiarly different ways. The horse has nothing but his heels with which to combat a foe; he may kick or run. Horned animals are armed at the oppo­site end. Then others are given teeth and tusks. The ele­phant has his trunk and his powerful tread. The bear hugs to kill, or breaks his opponent's back by a blow of his paw. The poisonous reptiles and insects depend upon a fatal com­pound that is dreaded so much as to ostracize the crea­tures; they are let alone. The porcupine shoots barbed quills that eat their way intothe vitals of their victims. The polecatdefends himself by a rank odor that is a disgrace to his kind. Moles hide so cleverly that they are rarely caught. Bats and owls are protected by the night's darkness. Treetoads are of the color of the tree; and many species of lower life are given colors exactly like their surroundings.

Against this unending variety of self-defense we have the power of animal magnetism to lure them to their death. We cannot take the time at this place to discuss the many ways in which the power is exercised. It is commonly illustrated in the familiar habits of reptiles, birds, felines and others of stilling the resistance of their prey until they can be caught. The charm of the snake is sometimes thrown over a human being. A child has been fascinated more than once by a venomous reptile. The boa is able to put the lamb to sleep and thus approach it. A woman was once caught by the brilliant eye of a huge anaconda and held powerless until over­come. In other instances the speed and fury of the enemy are evidences of the irresistible force of animal magnetism, and in all cases this power is given by nature to take away from the victims all sensibility to pain. Suffering is entirely removed. Death is delightful in the jaws of brutes.

TWENTY-THIRD GRAND PRINCIPLE Mental electricity serves only the human species.

It becomes necessary to draw the line between the will or determination of brute life, and the will or determination of the mind. A physical purpose is often carried into exe­cution through animal magnetism. The power to hypnotize, to put into a sleep or a dazed wakefulness, is part of animal magnetism.

No human being, dealing with another human being, has a right under normal conditions to deprive the other of the use of his faculties. To use animal magnetism is wrong.

The victim is never so bright afterward. If the law of life compelled us to kill and devour him it would be a mercy to hypnotize him, especially if we were to commence to eat him alive. But such law belongs to the brute realm. Imagine a man in love with a woman who was slow to give her consent to marriage, trying to win that consent from her by the act of hypnotism. What has he gained? A dead thing. Certainly not her consent. He might as well use a club to deaden her opposition as to put her into a cataleptic sleep. All this is animal magnetism, and belongs to brutes for brute purposes. Man possesses the faculty because he is an aggregate collection of vegetation, brute and human.

On the one hand the consent is given negatively by de­stroying the conscious mind. On the other hand, personal magnetism awakens the whole being, stimulates the heart, wins the good opinion, betters every faculty and makes the woman a more desirable companion. A hypnotized subject is a temporary corpse, even to coldness and rigidity. A magnet­ized person is not a subject, but a peer for the time being. Humiliation and shame give way to exaltation and pride. The man who loves a woman and who wishes her full consent, must not make her his slave, but his idol. To raise her in her own esteem, to surround her life with his own apprecia­tion, to excite into being the charms that rest so grandly upon her nature and pay homage to them—this is magnetism. She feels her better self to have sprung into recent existence and finds it inextricably involved in his life. It is the heart-throb of the child for the parent, and of the parent for the child.

Sex influences are interchangeable, and the man who can exalt woman by his own magnetism has won her. There is no escape. Likewise the woman who can exalt man has won him. When the child is cowed by the nervous energy of the parent, it is animal magnetism; when it is brought into a state of obedience by methods that exalt its little and beautiful nature, that is magnetism. More of this power is needed in home life. The sexes are opposite poles. They are best held together by magnetism, as is explained in the larger volume, known as Man and Woman, or Sex Magnetism. Magnetism is of two poles, and sex energy runs in the same divergence, each seeking the other pole while maintaining opposing na­tures. The study is exceedingly valuable as well as inter­esting.

Mental magnetism is an all-powerful tool of one's person­ality. It never harms another. It always helps both per­sons involved. It does the mind good. We have compared it with animal magnetism in order that the difference might be apparent. The latter joins well with the former so long as the mind is in control, for all the vitalities are means of additional strength to this one supreme power.

At this point it may be well to again remind you of the general purpose of the study of magnetism which is:

1. To emancipate people from the slavery of the influence of others.

2. To teach each member how to take advantage of every opportunity in life.

When these two objects are attained by any person, the character of the individual is completely altered.