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Desire is only a thought, an impulse. It is nebulous and
ephemeral. It is abstract, and of no value, until it has been
transformed into its physical counterpart. While the synthetic
imagination is the one which will be used most frequently, in the
process of transforming the impulse of DESIRE into money, you
must keep in mind the fact, that you may face circumstances and
situations which demand use of the creative imagination as well.
Your imaginative faculty may have become weak through
inaction. It can be revived and made alert through USE. This faculty
does not die, though it may become quiescent through lack of use.
Center your attention, for the time being, on the development
of the synthetic imagination, because this is the faculty which you
will use more often in the process of converting desire into money.
Transformation of the intangible impulse, of DESIRE, into the
tangible reality, of MONEY, calls for the use of a plan, or plans.
These plans must be formed with the aid of the imagination, and
mainly, with the synthetic faculty.
Read the entire book through, then come back to this chapter,
and begin at once to put your imagination to work on the building
of a plan, or plans, for the transformation of your DESIRE into
money. Detailed instructions for the building of plans have been
given in almost every chapter. Carry out the instructions best
suited to your needs, reduce your plan to writing, if you have not
already done so. The moment you complete this, you will have DEF-
INITELY given concrete form to the intangible DESIRE. Read the
preceding sentence once more. Read it aloud, very slowly, and as
you do so, remember that the moment you reduce the statement of
your desire, and a plan for its realization, to writing, you have
actually TAKEN THE FIRST of a series of steps, which will enable
you to convert the thought into its physical counterpart.
The earth on which you live, you, yourself, and every other
material thing are the result of evolutionary change, through which
microscopic bits of matter have been organized and arranged in an
orderly fashion.
Moreover—and this statement is of stupendous importance—
this earth, every one of the billions of individual cells of your body,
and every atom of matter, began as an intangible form of energy.
DESIRE is thought impulse! Thought impulses are forms of
energy. When you begin with the thought impulse, DESIRE, to
accumulate money, you are drafting into your service the same
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“stuff” that Nature used in creating this earth, and every material
form in the universe, including the body and brain in which the
thought impulses function.
As far as science has been able to determine, the entire
universe consists of but two elements-matter and energy.
Through the combination of energy and matter, has been
created everything perceptible to man, from the largest star which
floats in the heavens, down to, and including man, himself.
You are now engaged in the task of trying to profit by Nature’s
method. You are (sincerely and earnestly, we hope), trying to adapt
yourself to Nature’s laws, by endeavoring to convert DESIRE into its
physical or monetary equivalent. YOU
CAN DO IT! IT HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE!
You can build a fortune through the aid of laws which are
immutable. But, first, you must become familiar with these laws,
and learn to USE them. Through repetition, and by approaching the
description of these principles from every conceivable angle, the
author hopes to reveal to you the secret through which every great
fortune has been accumulated. Strange and paradoxical as it may
seem, the “secret” is NOT A SECRET. Nature, herself, advertises it
in the earth on which we live, the stars, the planets suspended
within our view, in the elements above and around us, in every
blade of grass, and every form of life within our vision.
Nature advertises this “secret” in the terms of biology, in the
conversion of a tiny cell, so small that it may be lost on the point of
a pin, into the HUMAN BEING now reading this line. The conversion
of desire into its physical equivalent is, certainly, no more
miraculous!
Do not become discouraged if you do not fully comprehend all
that has been stated. Unless you have long been a student of the
mind, it is not to be expected that you will assimilate all that is in
this chapter upon a first reading.
But you will, in time, make good progress.
The principles which follow will open the way for
understanding of imagination. Assimilate that which you
understand, as you read this philosophy for the first time, then,
when you reread and study it, you will discover that something has
happened to clarify it, and give you a broader understanding of the
whole. Above all, DO NOT STOP, nor hesitate in your study of these
principles until you have read the book at least THREE times, for
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then, you will not want to stop.
HOW TO MAKE PRACTICAL USE OF IMAGINATION
Ideas are the beginning points of all fortunes. Ideas are
products of the imagination. Let us examine a few well known ideas
which have yielded huge fortunes, with the hope that these
illustrations will convey definite information concerning the method
by which imagination may be used in accumulating riches.
THE ENCHANTED KETTLE
Fifty years ago, an old country doctor drove to town, hitched
his horse, quietly slipped into a drug store by the back door, and
began “dickering” with the young drug clerk.
His mission was destined to yield great wealth to many people.
It was destined to bring to the South the most far-flung benefit
since the Civil War.
For more than an hour, behind the prescription counter, the
old doctor and the clerk talked in low tones. Then the doctor left. He
went out to the buggy and brought back a large, old fashioned ket-
tle, a big wooden paddle (used for stirring the contents of the
kettle), and deposited them in the back of the store.
The clerk inspected the kettle, reached into his inside pocket,
took out a roll of bills, and handed it over to the doctor. The roll
contained exactly $500.00-the clerk’s entire savings!
The doctor handed over a small slip of paper on which was
written a secret formula. The words on that small slip of paper were
worth a King’s ransom! But not to the doctor! Those magic words
were needed to start the kettle to boiling, but neither the doctor nor
the young clerk knew what fabulous fortunes were destined to flow
from that kettle.
The old doctor was glad to sell the outfit for five hundred
dollars. The money would pay off his debts, and give him freedom of
mind. The clerk was taking a big chance by staking his entire life’s
savings on a mere scrap of paper and an old kettle! He never
dreamed his investment would start a kettle to overflowing with
gold that would surpass the miraculous performance of Aladdin’s
lamp.
What the clerk really purchased was an IDEA! The old kettle
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and the wooden paddle, and the secret message on a slip of paper
were incidental. The strange performance of that kettle began to
take place after the new owner mixed with the secret instructions
an ingredient of which the doctor knew nothing.
Read this story carefully, give your imagination a test! See if
you can discover what it was that the young man added to the
secret message, which caused the kettle to overflow with gold.
Remember, as you read, that this is not a story from Arabian
Nights. Here you have a story of facts, stranger than fiction, facts
which began in the form of an IDEA.
Let us take a look at the vast fortunes of gold this idea has
produced. It has paid, and still pays huge fortunes to men and
women all over the world, who distribute the contents of the kettle
to millions of people.
The Old Kettle is now one of the world’s largest consumers of
sugar, thus providing jobs of a permanent nature to thousands of
men and women engaged in growing sugar cane, and in refining
and marketing sugar.
The Old Kettle consumes, annually, millions of glass bottles,
providing jobs to huge numbers of glass workers.
The Old Kettle gives employment to an army of clerks,
stenographers, copy writers, and advertising experts throughout the
nation. It has brought fame and fortune to scores of artists who
have created magnificent pictures describing the product.
The Old Kettle has converted a small Southern city into the
business capital of the South, where it now benefits, directly, or
indirectly, every business and practically every resident of the city.
The influence of this idea now benefits every civilized country
in the world, pouring out a continuous stream of gold to all who
touch it.
Gold from the kettle built and maintains one of the most
prominent colleges of the South, where thousands of young people
receive the training essential for success.
The Old Kettle has done other marvelous things. All through
the world depression, when factories, banks and business houses
were folding up and quitting by the thousands, the owner of this
Enchanted Kettle went marching on, giving continuous employment
to an army of men and women all over the world, and paying out
extra portions of gold to those who, long ago, had faith in the idea.
If the product of that old brass kettle could talk, it would tell
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thrilling tales of romance in every language. Romances of love,
romances of business, romances of professional men and women
who are daily being stimulated by it.
The author is sure of at least one such romance, for he was a
part of it, and it all began not far from the very spot on which the
drug clerk purchased the old kettle. It was here that the author met
his wife, and it was she who first told him of the Enchanted Kettle.
It was the product of that Kettle they were drinking when he asked
her to accept him “for better or worse.”
Now that you know the content of the Enchanted Kettle is a
world famous drink, it is fitting that the author confess that the
home city of the drink supplied him with a wife, also that the drink
itself provides him with stimulation of thought without intoxication,
and thereby it serves to give the refreshment of mind which an
author must have to do his best work.
Whoever you are, wherever you may live, whatever occupation
you may be engaged in, just remember in the future, every time you
see the words “Coca-Cola,” that its vast empire of wealth and
influence grew out of a single IDEA, and that the mysterious
ingredient the drug clerk—Asa Candler—mixed with the secret
formula was. . . IMAGINATION!
Stop and think of that, for a moment.
Remember, also, that the thirteen steps to riches, described in
this book, were the media through which the influence of Coca-Cola
has been extended to every city, town, village, and cross-roads of
the world, and that ANY IDEA you may create, as 8OUfld and
meritorious as Coca-Cola, has the possibility of duplicating the
stupendous record of this world-wide thirst-killer.
Truly, thoughts are things, and their scope of operation is the
world, itself.
WHAT I WOULD DO IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS
This story proves the truth of that old saying, “where there’s a
will, there’s a way.” It was told to me by that beloved educator and
clergyman, the late Frank W. Gunsaulus, who began his preaching
career in the stockyards region of South Chicago.
While Dr. Gunsaulus was going through college, he observed
many defects in our educational system, defects which he believed
he could correct, if he were the head of a college. His deepest desire
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was to become the directing head of an educational institution in
which young men and women would be taught to “learn by doing.”
He made up his mind to organize a new college in which he
could carry out his ideas, without being handicapped by orthodox
methods of education.
He needed a million dollars to put the project across! Where
was he to lay his hands on so large a sum of money? That was the
question that absorbed most of this ambitious young preacher’s
thought.
But he couldn’t seem to make any progress.
Every night he took that thought to bed with him. He got up
with it in the morning. He took it with him everywhere he went. He
turned it over and over in his mind until it became a consuming
obsession with him. A million dollars is a lot of money. He
recognized that fact, but he also recognized the truth that the only
limitation is that which one sets up in one’s own mind.
Being a philosopher as well as a preacher, Dr. Gunsaulus
recognized, as do all who succeed in life, that DEFINITENESS OF
PURPOSE is the starting point from which one must begin. He
recognized, too, that definiteness of purpose takes on animation,
life, and power when backed by a BURNING DESIRE to translate
that purpose into its material equivalent.
He knew all these great truths, yet he did not know where, or
how to lay his hands on a million dollars. The natural procedure
would have been to give up and quit, by saying, “Ah well, my idea is
a good one, but I cannot do anything with it, because I never can
procure the necessary million dollars.” That is exactly what the
majority of people would have said, but it is not what Dr.
Gunsaulus said. What he said, and what he did are so important
that I now introduce him, and let him speak for himself.
“One Saturday afternoon I sat in my room thinking of ways
and means of raising the money to carry out my plans. For nearly
two years, I had been thinking, but I had done nothing but think!
“The time had come for ACTION!
“I made up my mind, then and there, that I would get the
necessary million dollars within a week. How? I was not concerned
about that. The main thing of importance was the decision to get
the money within a specified time, and I want to tell you that the
moment I reached a definite decision to get the money within a
specified time, a strange feeling of assurance came over me, such as
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