Your Invisible Power

Name: Your Invisible Power
Author: Genevieve Behrend

Genevieve Behrend192118 Chapters1h 31m read

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In brief

Your Invisible Power (1921) by Genevieve Behrend is a practical New Thought manual on visualization and the creative use of mind, written by the only personal pupil of Thomas Troward. Each individual mind is a center of the Universal Mind, and a mental picture held with feeling and faith, as already received, is reflected into that Mind and returns in physical form.

Key ideas

Visualization sets the mind in order, and an ordered mind attracts all that its picture requires
Every individual mind is a branch of the Universal Mind and draws its supply from that source
Matter is not illusion, and every physical thing begins as a sustained thought
Every word carries a power germ that moves toward physical expression
Answered prayer is the habitual affirmation of what is already received in thought

You already hold a picture of the life you want, and it is shaping your days whether you tend it or not. Genevieve Behrend, the only personal pupil of Thomas Troward, teaches how that picture is drawn into form from Universal Substance, and names the single power able to hold it back.

This Book Is: New Thought · Visualization · Mental Science

Chapters

ForewordA photographer with five dollars to his name learns that supply cannot come too late, because it is eternally present.6 min

IOrder of VisualizationTwo brothers kept seeing themselves riding a machine with no gas bag, while everyone around them said it could not be done.6 min

IIHow to Attract to Yourself the Things You DesireA magic lantern shows nothing without its light, and your mental picture stays dark until something steady stands behind it.7 min

IIIRelation Between Mental and Physical FormAmong millions of suns lie spaces of equal substance where nothing stirs, and what moves one and passes the other shapes your mental4 min

IVOperation of Your Mental PictureA doorman pictured five dollars, and an escaped parrot brought them to him by the same law that formed the worlds.14 min

VExpressions from BeginnersAn old woman arrested for stealing a bottle of milk meets a judge who has been searching for her for months.5 min

VISuggestions for Making Your Mental PictureEvery chair began as someone's desire to be at ease, and your own picture begins the same way, at a quiet window before breakfast.3 min

VIIThings to Remember in Using Your Thought Power for the Production of New ConditionsA young man with a small salary longs to marry, and a few months later he stands radiant in the study with his wife.4 min

VIIIWhy I Took Up the Study of Mental ScienceOne memorized paragraph about a mind that is a center of Divine operation lifts a seeker out of years of lonely wandering.7 min

IXHow I Attracted to Myself Twenty Thousand DollarsTwenty imaginary thousand-dollar bills, counted over each night at bedtime, stood as a real sum in the bank six weeks later.8 min

XHow I Became the Only Personal Pupil of Thomas Troward, the Great Mental ScientistA Persian cat jumps into a stranger's lap in Paris, and the meaning of the foursquare city in Revelation comes with it.12 min

XIHow to Bring the Power in Your Word Into ActionWithin every word you speak lies a power germ that expands in the direction the word points, until it takes physical form.3 min

XIIHow to Increase Your FaithYour fear of smallpox or poverty proves you already have the faith you think you lack.2 min

XIIIThe Reward of Increased FaithWater must take the shape of the pipe it flows through, and the Creative Power takes the shape of every word you think.2 min

XIVHow to Make Nature Respond to YouSuggestions toward your heart's desire can reach you from the flowers, the grass, the trees, and the rocks themselves.1 min

XVFaith With Works: What It Has AccomplishedA bushman earning three shillings a day took his cue from a violet and set out to make the Australian desert blossom.6 min

XVISuggestions as to How to Pray or Ask, Believing You Have Already ReceivedNo one can think a thought in the future, and so what you pray for is already yours in its first, original thought-form.7 min

XVIIThings to RememberYour first demonstrations in Mental Science often succeed best, and the reason has nothing to do with how much you understand.3 min

Everything has its origin in the mind, and that which you seek outwardly, you already possess.

About This Book

Anyone who has wanted something deeply has stood at the same threshold: is desire only a longing, or is it the first stirring of a creative power already at work within? Your Invisible Power answers from the far side of that door. Visualization here is no daydream. It is the conscious, orderly use of the creative power of mind. The individual mind is a center of Divine operation, a point through which the one Life expresses itself in particular form. Undifferentiated Universal Substance, everywhere present and responsive, takes shape in the moulds of thought, and the picture held clearly in mind becomes the pattern by which Spirit enters the visible.

Behrend holds Spirit and matter as polar complements, never enemies. Matter is the channel through which Spirit differentiates itself, and so the physical plane is honored, not fled. The will is the steady light that projects the mental picture outward, as a lantern throws an image onto a screen. It does not force; it holds. Faith is the vitalizing quality of the creative word, and fear is its counterfeit, giving form to what it dreads. Supply is eternally present and never failing, and so the student learns to hold the picture without strain or anxiety, and without dictating the channels through which it must arrive.

Here the teaching turns practical. Faith is joined with works: each lead that appears on the physical plane is followed step by step, as the next visible sign of an invisible process already complete. Prayer becomes scientific, an affirmation of what is already possessed in thought rather than a petition to a distant power. Beneath every particular desire Behrend uncovers the true aim, which is inner contentment and self-mastery, and beneath that lies the birthright she names plainly: Divine sonship, dominion, and the joy of living.

Behrend writes as the personal pupil of Thomas Troward, and his principles run through every page, made warm and usable by one who tested them in her own life. She sets the Christ teaching above occult study, turning the reader away from curiosity about hidden powers and toward the simpler and deeper discipline of living as an expression of the One Mind. The book is brief, but it is a door, and whoever passes through it finds that the power was never invisible to the one who uses it.

About the Author

Genevieve BehrendGenevieve Behrend (1881-1960) was the only personal student of the Mental Science teacher Thomas Troward. She took his principles to American audiences as a lecturer, teacher and author, above all in Your Invisible Power (1921), a clear handbook on the creative use of mental pictures.

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About this edition

First published 1921.

Because of when it was first published, this text is in the public domain in the United States.

Presented as a reading edition by Better Thought. Typography, chapter titles and glossary links are ours. The words are the author's.

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