Love the Antidote of Anger I By ORISON SWETT MARDEN CARTOON BY GORDON ROSS 'N his recent book, "The Influence of Thought," the psychologist author, H. Ernest Haupt, makes this suggestion: “If everyone were to know that for every exhibition of anger he manifested he would be compelled to swallow a dose of poison, anger would probably, to a large extent, go out of fashion. Yet, it is a fact that this is exactly what happens, only the poison is self-generated.” It is well-known that a violent fit of temper affects the heart instantly, and psychophysicists have discovered the presence of poison in the blood immediately after such outburst. This explains why one feels so depressed and exhausted after a storm of passion has swept through his being. It has left in its wake vicious mental poison and other harmful secretions in the brain and blood. Every physician knows how disastrous are the effects of violent fits of rage, which tear the nervous system to pieces, and leave the victim, for a long time afterwards, a nervous wreck. Some people will tremble for hours after the storm of passion has passed, and be wholly unfitted for business or work for the rest of the day. Many people when in the grip of anger act more like demons than human beings. I know a man who has suffered for many years from the effects of a frightful temper, who is absolutely insane while under its influence. I have seen him, when in a rage, whip a cow or a horse until he would actually fall to the ground exhausted. Sometimes he would seriously injure the victim of his wrath, even breaking its bones. How many, in moments of uncontrolled passion, have become murderers, committing some awful deed which wrecked their whole lives and brought disgrace on their families! I have seen young children smash windows or furniture; throw things across the room-knives, scissors, whatever happened to be in their hands-at brothers or sisters who had in some way, perhaps unintentionally, provoked them. In many instances, they A only did what their parents had done to them or to one another; but it is fearful to think what havoc these uncontrolled tempers may play in their future lives. We are all afraid of physical poisons, afraid of taking them by mistake; and we caution our children to be very careful about what they take out of bottles, to be sure always to look at the label and see that they make no mistake, because so many harmless-looking liquids are deadly poisons. But how few of us ever caution children to beware of mental poisons! Do we ever tell them that every fit of temper, every angry thought and word, every hatred thought, every jealous thought, every envious thought, every grudge, every feeling of resentment, of malice, of ill will, of bitterness, of the determination to "get square" with another, is a real poison? Do we ever point out to them how most people suffer constantly from those selfgenerated poisons, which make perfect health and strength, unimpaired physical vigor, impossible, to say nothing of peace of mind, happiness, and efficiency? Do we ever teach them how to control their temper by applying the right mental antidote before there is an explosion? How many of us, without realizing the crime we are committing, do just the opposite. When a neighbor's house is on fire we do not run with an oil can to put out the flames; we do not throw on kerosene but the proper antidote. Yet, when a child is on fire with passion, most of us try to put out the fire by adding fuel to it, pouring out upon him a torrent of angry words and abuse. Our treatment of older people is just the same. If we were to see a person desperately struggling to extricate himself from a swamp, we would at once run to his assistance and try to help him out. But when we see a person storming about in a violent temper, raging like maniac, we only add fuel to the flames by still further irritating him. Yet people are grateful to those who help them to do what they have not yet VIOLENT fit of anger affects the heart instantly, and poison has been discovered in the blood immediately after such an outburst. a learned to do themselves to control their temper and prevent them from saying and doing things that they will afterward bitterly regret. Before physicians discovered the antidotes of the different poisons, multitudes lost their lives by poisoning when the remedy that would have saved them was close at hand. Hundreds of people have died by poison when they had the antidote right in their homes and didn't know it. Just a glass of milk would have saved many of them. Now, however, not only physicians, but those who have learned elementary lessons in first aid to the injured, when they know what poison the sufferer has swallowed-and the symptoms tell this-they also know just the antidote for that particular poison, and, by applying it immediately, save a human life. Just as multitudes of human beings have died in the past from physical poisoning because the antidotes to the different poisons were not known to them, so multitudes have died of mental poisoning because they didn't know the antidote for it. They didn't know that there was such a thing as mental chemistry, a science of mind that furnishes antidotes for all sorts of mental poison: anger, hatred, revenge, jealousy -all the explosive passions and harmful emotions that work such havoc in the lives of human beings. We are beginning to learn that just as water is the natural antidote for fire, so there is an equally simple and natural antidote for the fire of anger. When our own or a neighbor's house When our own or a neighbor's house is on fire, we know that no one but an insane person would try to extinguish the flames with kerosene is on fire, we know that no one but an insane person would try to extinguish the flames with kerosene. The sane man would at once throw water on the flames. That is, he would apply the natural antidote. Now, when a friend's brain is all on fire with anger, that is just what those of us who know anything about mental chemistry do-we at once apply the natural antidote of anger-Love. We do not throw kerosene on the flames by adding our own anger fuel to his brain con flagration. We do not get angry with him, because we know that would only increase the fire which he is powerless to extinguish, and that it would also fatally injure ourselves. So we antidote the anger flame burning in our friend's brain with love, with kindness, with gentleness. Instead of retaliating, we try to help him put out the fire which is consuming his vitality and making a fool of him against his wishes. A little knowledge of mental chemistry will enable any man to neutralize his own hot temper before it gets the better of him, by applying its natural antidote, the love thought, the peace and harmony thought, the good-will thought. The Creator has implanted in every human being a divine power that is more than a match for his worst passion. If he will only develop and use this power he need not be the slave of his temper, or of any degrading, destructive emotion. How Madame Curie Struggled Until She Found the Needle in the Haystack W By CARSON C. HATHAWAY 'HEN M. and Mme. Pierre Curie were working with a metal called uranium, their interest was aroused by evidences of a strange presence which seemed to be exhibiting electrical activity. To study it more thoroughly, Mme. Curie determined to visit the mines where uranium was being extracted. By the side of the mine she saw a huge pile of minerals thrown aside as waste. "May I use this?" she asked. Her request was granted and with this material, in which no one else saw the slightest value, she began her tests. To her delight, she found that it was many times as strong as uranium in electrical power. She knew that the familiar metals in the ore, such as silver and lead, possessed no such power so she dissolved them out and found that the remainder was 60 times as strong as uranium. What was this powerful substance? Was it something hitherto undiscovered? Many others had noticed the peculiar rays associated with uranium and were working at the same problem. Day and night, Mme. Curie and her husband worked in their laboratory. "The problem seems hopeless," said her husband. "You must not go on; you will break down." But with a dauntless determination she would not leave her task. At thirty-one years of age-a mere baby among the scientists-she announced the discovery of a new element called radium from the rays it emitted. The words, "new element," have a harmless sound but they mean to a scientist what a new planet means to an astronomer. The importance of a new element is that it may prove useful to man. So scientists seize upon it eagerly. They heat it, freeze it, combine it with hun dreds of other substances, and finally decide on its value. Only experiments will create its value. One day, Professor Antoine Henry Becquerel, Mme. Curie's co-worker, placed a tiny tube of the new substance in his vest pocket. Some time later, he discovered that his flesh near the tube was being eaten away. Thus originated the "Becquerel burn.” Immediately to Mme. Curie came this idea: If it has this effect on the body, it may be used in medicine. Perhaps it is the long-dreamed-of cure for cancer, next to tuberculosis and pneumonia, man's most deadly foe. Herein lies her claim to fame. Nearly all of Mme. Curie's radium is exhausted. The Austrian emperor once gave her a ton of radiumcontaining metal, but it yielded only a fraction of a gram. From 21 carloads of radium-containing metal received at the National Radium Institute of America, only .01 of a pound of radium was extracted. Mme. Curie's gift from American women-a gram of radium, weighs 1-454 of a pound. At current prices, if it could be obtained, pound of radium would cost about $54,000,000, nearly 8 times the amount we paid for Alaska. However, officials of the Bureau of Mines in Washington tell us that there is hardly a quarter of a pound of the extracted substance in existence. A gram of radium is capable of giving out as much energy as a ton of coal, which weighs 907,000 times as much. Mme. Curie has used her talents for the sake of generations yet unborn. She has brought to light a substance 170,000 times as valuable as gold, a substance so rare that practically none of it is available to-day, yet so potential in its possibilities that the lives of millions may depend upon its power. It is much easier to keep up than to catch up. D By ORISON SWETT MARDEN R. PERRY GREEN says that Job's lament, "The thing which I feared is come upon me," should be changed to "The thing which I was greatly conscious of is come upon me." That is, it is the thing we hold in our consciousness, whether good or ill, that comes to us. It is the victorious consciousness that achieves victory in every age and in every field. After many years' study of the lives and methods of successful men in every department of life, I have found that the men who win out in a large way are great believers in themselves, in their power to succeed in the things they undertake. Great artists, scientists, inventors, explorers, generals, business men, and others who have done the big things in their specialty, have always held the victorious consciousness. WE are not huddled together in a The whole secret of individual growth and development, of health, of success, of happiness, is locked up in our consciousness, for this is the door of life itself. Every experience, whether of joy or of sorrow, of health or disease, of success or failure, must come through our consciousness. There is no other way by which it can enter and become a part of our life. You cannot have what you are not conscious of; you cannot do what you are not conscious of being able to do. In other words, your consciousness, that is the sub-conscious power which feels, knows, visualizes, decides what will come to you in life; world of chance, buffeted about by a cruel destiny; we are in a current which runs Heavenward in a world of absolute law and order, where nothing happens by chancenothing without a cause, a sufficient cause, where the minutest detail of our lives obeys a law as unerring as that which holds the heavenly bodies in their courses with such perfect adjustment that they do not vary a fraction of a second in a century in their orbits of untold millions of miles. So what you will achieve; what you will be. Success was the goal they constantly visualized, and they never wavered in their conviction that they would reach it. The trouble with those of us who do not win out, who make a bungle of our lives, is that we do not hold the right consciousness. We do not hold the victorious consciousness, the consciousness that we are going to win. We do not live in the expectancy of winning, in the belief that we will succeed in attaining the goal of our ambition. If we could only learn to hold constantly in mind the consciousness of our ambition whatever it is, the consciousness of our heart's longings, our soul's desire; if we could only hold the truth consciousness, the God consciousness, the harmony consciousness, then we should really begin to live. Life would mean something more than it does to most of us-a mere struggle for existence. UR consciousness is the creative force in our lives; that is, it puts the mentality in a position to attract from the great cosmic supply its affinity-that which is like itself. If you have a poverty consciousness, a limited consciousness, a "can't-afford-it" consciousness, a consciousness of limitation and failure-these are the things you will attract, that you will bring into your environment, that you will manifest in your life. A penury consciousness cannot demonstrate, cannot attract a fortune; a failure consciousness attracts more failure; it's a law. All of life and its achievements, its possibilities, depend upon our consciousness, and we can develop any sort of consciousness we wish. The great musician has developed a musical consciousness of which most of us are ignorant, because we are not conscious of this mode of activity; our musical consciousness has not been developed. The mathematician, the astronomer, the writer, the physician, the artist, the specialist in whatsoever line, has developed a particular consciousness, and he realizes the fruits of that consciousness. He manifests and enjoys a special power just in proportion as he has developed his specialty consciousness, which attracts that which corresponds to itself. W is equivalent to supremacy itself, the consciousness of self-confidence is what gives us the assurance that we are equal to the thing we undertake. What we are conscious of, we possess. We cannot get what we are not conscious of. It is not ours until we become conscious of it. If you are not conscious of the ability to succeed, you can't succeed. If you are not conscious of your own superiority you cannot become superior. But if you hold in your consciousness the picture of masterfulness, of invincibility; if you hold the thought of superiority in your mind, you are putting in operation a little law of mastership, a little law of superiority, you begin to manifest these things in your life. OUR enjoyment, your happiness, your satisfaction, your achievement, your power, your personality, will all depend upon the nature of your consciousness, the aim and direction in which that consciousness will unfold. Just keep this one thing in mind; that we are always creating, always manifesting in our lives the things which correspond to our consciousness. that is a wholesome consciousness, 8 We shall some time learn that only the good is true; that harmony is the reality; that discord is merely the absence of it. There is only one Creator, and He made all that is made; hence everything must be in His likeness, perfect; nothing that is real can be unlike Him, and therefore, only the good, the harmonious, the pure, the clean, the true, can be real. All else must be false, a seeming, a delusion. God could not create anything unlike himself. HAT sort of a consciousness do you want to develop? What do you want to get, to do, to become? The first step toward the development of a new consciousness is to get a thorough grip upon your purpose, your desire, your aim; to get a picture of it firmly fixed in your mind, to visualize it intensely. The next thing is to establish the conviction that you can achieve whatever you desire. This is a tremendous step in the way of accomplishment, for conviction is stronger than will-power. That is, you may will ever so hard to do a thing; but if you are convinced that you can't do it, the conviction of your inability will prevail over your will-power. Your conviction is your strongest lever of accomplishment. This is what has enabled so many poor boys and girls to climb to high place and power in spite of all sorts of obstacles, and going contrary to the opinion and advice of those who knew them best. They were so thoroughly conscious of their ability to do the thing they wanted to do and so convinced that they would do it, that nothing could hold them back from their own. The beginning of every achievement must be your consciousness. That is the starting point of your creative plan. In proportion to the intensity, the persistence, the vividness, the definiteness of your consciousness of it do you begin to create in any line. The consciousness that you can sets into operation the power that can. For instance, consciousness of power creates power; the consciousness of supremacy If worthy consciousness, we are creating 8 worthy thing, just in proportion as we back up our consciousness with our best efforts to realize it on the plane of our activities. We are all creators with the great Creator, and can make our lives according to the plan of our consciousness. The half satisfied consciousness is a curse to multitudes of people. It is dissatisfaction, a divine discontent, a burning desire to lift life up to its highest that has pushed man on to do the great and noble things that have carried civilization forward. It is consciousness of power to do the higher thing that brings out our divine possibilities and ennobles our lives. Emerson says, "Every soul is not only the inlet but may become the outlet of all that is in God." The consciousness of this great truth is the secret of all power. It is the full realization of our connection with Omnipotence, with Omniscience, with the Source of all there is, that enables us to use the vast powers that are within us, always waiting to accomplish our ends. |