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Prove The Law Works With Neville Goddard’s Ladder Experiment · Neville Goddard Mindset

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I remember standing before a room in New York City, 1951, on
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a cold February evening, looking out at perhaps sixty faces.
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They had come, most of them out of curiosity.
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A few had come because they had heard something, some whisper of
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a truth they could not yet name. But the majority sat there with
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arms folded, chins slightly raised, wearing that particular
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expression I had come to know so well over the years.
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It is the expression of a person who has decided before a single
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word is spoken that what they are about to hear cannot
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possibly be true. I tell you, from my own
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experience, I have learned to love that expression because I
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know what comes after it. I know what happens when the
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skeptic is given something so simple, so absurd, so seemingly
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meaningless, that their intellect cannot mount a defense
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against it. And that is precisely what I
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gave them that night. I said to them, and I will say
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to you now exactly what I said then.
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I said, tonight when you go to bed, I want you to do one thing.
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I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are
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climbing a ladder, not thinking about climbing a ladder, not
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visualizing a ladder from a distance.
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I want you to feel your hands gripping the rungs.
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I want you to feel the pressure of the wood or the metal against
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the solids of your feet. I want you to feel your body
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rising rung by rung. And I want you to do this until
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it feels so real that but you forget you are lying in bed.
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And then I want you to fall asleep in that feeling.
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That is all. But here is the second part.
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And this is the part that made them shift in their seats, that
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made some of them laugh out loud.
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I said, tomorrow morning, I want you to write on several pieces
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of paper in large, clear letters these words.
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I will not climb a ladder. And I want you to place those
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signs where you will see them throughout the day, on your
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bathroom mirror, on your desk, on your kitchen table.
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I want you to read those signs and mean them.
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I want you to deliberately, consciously intend with every
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fiber of your waking will that you will not climb a ladder.
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And then that night, I want you to go to bed and once again
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climb the ladder in your imagination.
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And the next night, the same. For three nights, climb the
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ladder in your imagination. And every day, insist that you
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will not climb a ladder. One man in the front row
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uncrossed his arms just long enough to raise his hand and ask
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with the air of someone exposing a fraud.
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But what is the point? And I smiled.
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I said. The point, my friend, is that
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within two weeks you will have climbed a ladder, and you will
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have done so despite every conscious effort not to.
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And when that happens, you will know something about the nature
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of reality that no book, no lecture, no philosophy can teach
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you. You will know it in your bones.
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He folded his arms again, but I could see the curiosity behind
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his eyes. And curiosity, I have found, is
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the thin end of the wedge through which truth enters.
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Now, I tell you this because what happened in the weeks that
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followed changed something in every person in that room.
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What happened proved something that no argument, no philosophy,
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no intellectual debate could ever prove.
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It proved that your imagination, exercised in a state akin to
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sleep, is more powerful than your conscious will.
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It proved that the world you see, the events that unfold
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around you, the circumstances that seem to come from outside,
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you are in truth the crystallization of assumption
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born in the deep reaches of your own consciousness.
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And tonight I am going to take you inside this experiment, not
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merely to explain it, but to show you what it reveals about
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the very nature of reality. Because this experiment is not
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about ladders. It was never about ladders.
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It is about the power that creates worlds, the power that
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fashions every detail of your experience, the power that you
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are wielding right now, in this very moment, whether you know it
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or not, you are imagination, and imagination creates reality.
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And by the time we are finished tonight, you will not merely
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believe this, you will know it. You will know it because you
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will have seen through the testimony of those who did this
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experiment and through your own application of it, that the
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world has no choice but to conform to the assumption you
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hold in consciousness. That is the law.
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That is the only law, and it works whether you believe it or
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not. It works whether you understand
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it or not. It works whether you approve of
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it or not. It is not waiting for your
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permission. It is operating now, in this
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moment, shaping the very room around you, the very
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circumstances of your life according to the assumptions you
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hold, most of them unconsciously in the deeper layers of your
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being. Tonight I am going to bring
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those assumptions into the light and I am going to show you how
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to change them deliberately, consciously and irrevocably.
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Let me tell you who I am and why I stand before you with such
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certainty. I am Neville.
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I was born in Barbados, the 4th of 10 children, and I came to
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this country as a young man with nothing but a hunger that the
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world could not satisfy. I studied dance, I performed on
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stages, I pursued every ambition the world told me to pursue, and
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none of it touched the in me. None of it answered the question
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that burned beneath every other question.
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What is the true nature of this life?
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What am I? What power do I possess that I
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have not been told about? I found my answer not in a
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church, not in a university, but in an old Ethiopian rabbi named
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Abdullah who looked at me the first time we met and said, You
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are already the man you want to be.
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That statement changed everything.
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Not because I understood it immediately, I did not, but
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because it planted a seed in my imagination, and that seed,
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watered by years of testing and proving and failing and proving
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again, grew into the tree from which I now speak to you.
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Abdullah taught me that consciousness is the only
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reality, that the world is not something that happens to you,
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but something that is pushed out from within you, and that the
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feeling of a thing held in imagination as though it were
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already accomplished must harden into fact.
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I tell you from my own experience, everything I teach,
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I have lived. I have tested it in poverty.
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I have tested it in heartbreak. I have tested it in
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circumstances so dire that no rational mind would believe a
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way out existed. And every time, every single
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time, the law proved itself. Consciousness is the only
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reality. The state you occupy determines
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the world you see. And so I bring you tonight not a
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theory, but a proven law, demonstrated first in the
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humblest possible way through the act of climbing a ladder in
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your imagination. Now let me give you the
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experiment in its fullness, because the details matter.
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They matter more than you might think.
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When I say imagine climbing a ladder, I do not mean to see a
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picture of a ladder in your mind.
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There is a vast difference between seeing a picture and
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occupying an experience. If I ask you to imagine holding
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a glass of cold water, you can do one of two things.
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You can see yourself as though watching a movie holding a
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glass, or you can feel the glass in your hand.
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You can feel feel the cold against your palm, you can feel
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the weight of it, you can feel the condensation on the outside
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of the glass, the slight slipperiness of it.
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That second way, that is imagination.
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That is the imaginal act, and that is what I asked my students
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to do with the ladder. The first way, the movie
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watching way, is what most people think imagination is.
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They think it is a mental picture, a kind of inner cinema.
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But that is not imagination in the creative sense.
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That is merely visual visualization.
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And visualization alone has very little power.
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The power lies in participation. The power lies in occupying the
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scene from within, feeling it as though you were actually there,
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engaging every in a sense. Touch, texture, temperature,
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weight, pressure, movement. When you do that, you are not
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imagining something. You are for that moment living
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something. And the deeper mind, the
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creative power within you cannot tell the difference between a
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vividly imagined experience and a physically lived one.
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To the deeper mind, they are the same, and it responds to both in
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exactly the same way. It goes to work.
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It begins building the bridge of incidents that will bring the
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imagined experience into physical fact.
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I told them, when you go to bed tonight, lie flat on your back,
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close your eyes, allow your body to relax completely.
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Do not try to fall asleep. Simply let yourself drift toward
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that border between waking and sleeping, that state akin to
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sleep, where you are still aware, but the body is quiet,
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the mind is pliable, the senses are withdrawn from the outer
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world. This state is not mysterious.
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You enter it every single night. It is the drowsy state, the
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state where the body is heavy and the mind is soft, where the
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chatter of the day has quieted. But you have not yet fallen
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asleep. Most people pass through this
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state without noticing it, without using it.
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But I tell you, this is the most powerful moment of your entire
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day. This is the moment when the
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gates of the deeper mind are open, when impressions pass
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directly into the creative power without being filtered or
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rejected by the rational surface mind.
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This is the moment when you sow the seeds of your future, and in
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that state, and only in that state, begin to climb.
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Feel your right hand reach up and grip the rung.
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Feel the solidity of it. Is it wood?
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Is it metal? Is it rough or smooth?
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It does not matter what it is, only that you feel it.
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Now feel your left foot step onto the bottom rung.
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Feel your weight shift. Feel yourself pulling upward.
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Now the left hand reaches up, grips the next rung.
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The right foot follows. You are climbing.
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Feel the slight sway of the ladder.
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Feel the air around you. Feel the effort in your arms.
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Feel the rhythm of it. Hand, foot, hand and foot
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rising. And do this slowly,
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deliberately, with the vividness of an actual experience, until
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you feel yourself there, until the bedroom disappears and there
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is only the ladder, only the climbing, only you in the act of
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ascent. And then let's sleep, take you
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fall asleep climbing. This is essential.
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You must fall asleep in the act, not before it, not after it, in
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it. The last impression you carry
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into sleep is the one that sinks deepest, the one that the
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creative power takes and begins to fashion into physical
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reality. And then I told them the second
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instruction. And this is where the experiment
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becomes something more than a simple exercise.
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I told them tomorrow morning, right on three or four or five
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pieces of paper, I will not climb a ladder and place them
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everywhere. I want your conscious mind, your
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waking, rational, deliberate mind, fully committed to not
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climbing a ladder. I want you to read those words
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and agree with them. I want you to walk past a ladder
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and say to yourself, I will not climb that.
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I told them The purpose of the signs is not decoration.
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The purpose is to engage your conscious will as powerfully as
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possible against the thing you are imagining.
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Because the experiment is not about climbing a ladder.
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The experiment is about demonstrating which is more
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powerful, your waking will, your deliberate conscious intention,
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or the assumption planted in your imagination during the
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state akin to sleep. That is the real question this
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experiment answers. And the answer, as every student
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who has ever done it faithfully has discovered, is devastating
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in its implications. It devastates every theory of
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creation based on willpower. It devastates every system of
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achievement based on conscious effort.
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It devastates the entire structure of the modern self
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help movement, which tells you that if you just think hard
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enough, intend clearly enough, work diligently enough, you can
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create what you want. The latter experiment proves
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that none of that is the creative power.
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The creative power is imagination felt as real in the
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state akin to sleep. Period.
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Now, before I tell you what happened to those 60 people, and
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before I show you why this experiment shatters every
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objection the rational mind can mount, I want you to understand
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something that most people miss entirely.
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Because what I am about to reveal changes the way you will
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approach every desire you have ever held and every desire you
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will ever hold again. Most people, when they hear
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about this experiment, focus on the ladder.
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They think how interesting imagination can make you climb a
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ladder. But the ladder is not the
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lesson. The lesson is the signs.
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The lesson is that the conscious will, the deliberate intention,
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the firmly stated resolution, has no power against the
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assumption held in the deeper mind.
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That is the lesson. And that lesson, properly
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understood, changes everything. Let me tell you what happened
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within in 10 days, reports began to come in, not from one or two
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people, but from dozens. A woman named Margaret, a school
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teacher from Brooklyn, told me she had done the exercise
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faithfully for three nights. She had put up the signs.
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She had read them each morning, and each evening she had told
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herself firmly that she would not climb a ladder.
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On the 4th day she was visiting her sister in Queens.
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Her sister's cat had climbed into the branches of a tree in
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the backyard and would not come down.
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The sister was distraught. The children were crying.
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Margaret, without thinking, without planning, saw a ladder
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leaning against the garden shed. She walked to it, placed it
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against the tree, and climbed. It was only when she was three
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rungs up, reaching for the cat, that she stopped and began to
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laugh. She laughed so hard she nearly
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fell off the ladder, She said. I was so busy rescuing the cat
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that I forgot entirely about the experiment, and when I
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remembered I was already climbing, she told me this with
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a look on her face that I can only describe as wonder.
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It was the look of someone who has glimpsed something enormous,
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something that changes the shape of the entire world.
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And she said to me, Neville, if my imagination can make me climb
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a ladder against my will, what else is it doing?
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What else has it been doing my entire life?
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And I said to her, now you are asking the right question.
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A man named Harold, a banker, a man who I assure you was the
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most skeptical person in that room, told me his experience
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with the tone of someone confessing something he still
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could not believe. He said he had done the
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experiment for three nights and put up the signs everywhere, his
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office, his car, his bedroom. He had even told his wife about
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the experiment and made her promise to remind him not to
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climb any ladders. He was thorough.
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He was determined. On the 5th day he went to a
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hardware store to buy paint for his kitchen.
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The paint he wanted was on the top shelf.
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There was no one around to help him.
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Him. He looked for a clerk.
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There was no clerk. He looked for a step stool.
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There was no step stool, but there was a ladder attached to a
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rolling track along the wall of the store.
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Without a thought, as naturally as breathing, he climbed it.
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He said he was halfway up before the absurdity of it hit him.
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He stood there on the ladder, holding a can of paint and felt
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something shift in him. He said to me, Neville, I have
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studied economics and finance my entire adult life.
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I have built my career on the assumption that the world
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operates according to rational, observable mechanical laws.
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And in that moment, standing on a ladder I had sworn not to
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climb, I realized I had been wrong about the nature of
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reality itself. Something deeper than my
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rational mind had moved me, something I could not see, could
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not analyze, could not put in a spreadsheet, and it was more
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powerful than my best efforts to resist it.
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A third person I will mention a young woman named Rose, a
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secretary, Who she came to me almost apologetically.
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She said she had done the experiment for only two nights
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because on the second day, before she had even completed
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the three nights of imagining, she found herself climbing.
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She was at her apartment building, and the Superintendent
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had left a ladder in the hallway while repairing a light fixture
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she needed to pass through to reach her apartment.
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And rather than walking around the ladder, as she easily could
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have, she felt a sudden impulse to climb over it.
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She grabbed the rungs and climbed up one side and down the
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other like a child on a playground, laughing at herself
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the entire time. She could not explain why she
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did it. She could not point to any
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practical reason. The impulse simply arose and she
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followed it. And it was only afterward that
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she remembered the experiment and realized what had happened.
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I tell you, the law does not wait.
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The law is not patient in the way the world thinks of
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patience. The law is immediate.
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The moment the assumption takes root in the deeper mind, the
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bridge of incidents begins to form.
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Now I want you to hear what I am telling you, because this is not
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merely A charming collection of anecdotes.
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This is a demonstration of the fundamental law that governs
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your experience. Why did Margaret climb the
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ladder? Not because she wanted to.
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Not because she planned to. Not because she forgot the
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signs. She forgot the signs because
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something deeper than her conscious mind was operating.
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The imaginal act she performed in the state akin to sleep
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planted an assumption in the deeper layers of her
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consciousness, the subconscious, the feeling body, the creative
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power that does not argue, does not evaluate, does not question.
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It simply produces. It takes the feeling, the vivid
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sensory assumption impressed upon it in that drowsy state,
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and it goes to work. It begins to rearrange the
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circumstances of the outer world, not by magic, not by some
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vague cosmic force, but through what I call the bridge of
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incidents. It creates a chain of events,
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each one natural, each one explainable, each one perfectly
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ordinary in itself, that leads you inexorably to the
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fulfillment of the assumption. Margaret did not teleport to a
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ladder. A cat climbed a tree.
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A sister became upset. Margaret happened to visit that
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day. A ladder happened to be leaning
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against the shed. Each event was natural, but the
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chain of them, the sequence, the timing, the convergence of all
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those small, ordinary events into a single moment where
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Margaret found herself climbing a ladder.
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That was the work of imagination.
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That was the crystallization of assumption.
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That was the bridge of incidents built silently, invisibly, by
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the deeper mind that knows how to bring about what
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consciousness has assumed to be true.
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And here is the part that should stop you in your tracks.
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The signs did not work. The conscious will, the
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deliberate intention, the firmly stated resolution.
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I will not climb a ladder. Had no power against the
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assumption planted in imagination.
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None 0. The conscious will is not the
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creative power. I need you to hear this.
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The conscious will is not the operant power.
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The operant power is imagination exercised in a state where the
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conscious mind is quiet and the deeper mind is receptive.
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That is where creation happens. That is the only place creation
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happens. You can affirm and declare and
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resolve and intend all day long. And if the assumption held in
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your deeper consciousness contradicts those affirmations,
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the assumption will win every time without exception.
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Harold had his wife reminding him he had signs in three
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locations. He had his full rational
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banker's mind committed to the task of not climbing.
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And none of it mattered. Because the deeper mind does not
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read signs, the deeper mind does not listen to rational
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arguments. The deeper mind responds to one
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thing and one thing only, the feeling of reality impressed
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upon. On it, in the state akin to
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sleep. This is why people fail.
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Not because the law does not work.
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The law always works. They fail because they are
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trying to create with the wrong instrument.
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They are using the conscious mind, the surface mind, the mind
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that makes lists and sets goals and writes resolutions on
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January 1st. And they are ignoring the deeper
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mind, the feeling mind, the mind that is accessed only through
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the state akin to sleep, only through the imaginal act, only
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through the sensory of feeling the wish fulfilled.
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Feeling is the secret, not thinking, not affirming, not
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willing. Feeling the feeling of the wish
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fulfilled, impressed upon the subconscious in the drowsy state
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is the creative act. Everything else is commentary.
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This is why so many people spend years reading books, attending
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lectures, writing affirmations on their mirrors, and nothing
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changes. Because they are writing signs.
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They are operating at the level of the conscious will.
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From the conscious will, as the ladder experiment proves, beyond
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any shadow of doubt, is not the creative power.
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Now I want to take you deeper, because if you truly understand
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what the ladder experiment proves, you will see that it
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proves far more than most people realize.
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And what it proves will change your relationship with every
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desire you have. Stay with me here because this
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next principle is the one that separates those who dabble in
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this teaching from those who live by it.
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And there is a world of difference between the two.
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Consider what happened. I gave my students an absurd
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goal. Climb a ladder.
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Nobody wanted to climb a ladder. Nobody had any reason to climb a
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ladder. It was meaningless.
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That is precisely why I chose it, because I wanted to
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eliminate every variable except one.
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I wanted to isolate the creative act itself.
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If I had told them to imagine getting a raise or finding a
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partner or healing an illness, they would have brought all
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their doubts and fears and beliefs about those subjects
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into the experiment. They would have wondered whether
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they deserved it. They would have worried about
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how it could happen. They would have measured the
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probability and found it wanting.
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But a ladder? A ladder has no emotional
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charge. Nobody has limiting beliefs
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about ladders. Nobody lies awake at night
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afraid they are unworthy of climbing a ladder.
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And so the experiment strips away every interference and
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reveals the mechanism in its pure form.
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Imagination applied in the state akin to sleep, produces its
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correlative in the outer world. Regardless of conscious
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intention, regardless of effort, regardless of belief.
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Dare to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and the
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world must comply. The latter experiment is a
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laboratory experiment. It is designed to isolate the
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variable. And what it isolates, what it
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proves beyond any reasonable doubt, is that imagination is
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the creative power and the state akin to sleep is the creative
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medium. Now here is what most people
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miss, and this is the revelation that separates those who merely
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know about this law from those who live by it.
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If the latter experiment works for something you do not want
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and do not intend, how much more powerfully will it work for
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something you desire with your whole being?
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If a meaningless, uncharged, deliberately resisted imaginal
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act can override your conscious will and produce a physical
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result within days, what do you suppose happens when you apply
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the same technique to the deepest desires of your heart?
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What happens when you fall asleep every night feeling the
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reality of the thing you most want to experience?
23:41
What happens when you do not resist it with signs, but
23:45
embrace it with every fiber of your being?
23:47
I will tell you what happens. It crystallizes.
23:50
It must not because you have earned it, not because the
23:54
timing is right, not because some external power has judged
23:57
you worthy. It crystallizes because that is
24:00
the law. The assumption held with the
24:03
feeling of reality in the state akin to sleep, must produce its
24:06
physical correlative. The world has no choice.
24:10
The world is not a separate thing from your consciousness.
24:13
The world is your consciousness pushed out.
24:15
It is the mirror. It is the reflection.
24:18
And when you change the image held in the depths of
24:21
consciousness, the reflection must change.
24:24
It cannot do otherwise. It would violate the very nature
24:27
of reality for it to do otherwise.
24:29
Imagine standing before a mirror and smiling but insisting that
24:33
the frown. It is absurd.
24:36
The reflection must match the original, and your outer world
24:40
must match the assumption held in your deeper consciousness.
24:43
That is not a metaphor. That is the literal structure of
24:46
reality as I have come to know it, and as you will come to know
24:50
it when you test this law for yourself.
24:52
This is what I mean when I say you are the operant power, not
24:56
God in some distant heaven, not fate, not luck, not
24:59
circumstance. You, your imagination, your
25:02
consciousness, your assumption held and felt and persisted in.
25:06
That is the cause. The world you see is the effect.
25:10
And the latter experiment proves this in the most elegant,
25:13
undeniable, beautifully simple way possible.
25:16
But I know the question that is forming in your mind right now,
25:20
because it is the question everyone asks.
25:23
It is the question that separated the curious from the
25:26
committed in every audience I ever spoke to.
25:29
And the answer to this question is the key that unlocks
25:32
everything else. So stay with me, because what
25:35
comes next is the practical application that transforms this
25:39
from an interesting idea into the most powerful tool you will
25:43
ever possess. And I promise you, what I am
25:46
about to share is not abstract. It is not theoretical.
25:49
It is something you can do tonight, in your own bed, with
25:52
your own imagination and begin to see results in days, not
25:56
years. Let me address this question
25:59
directly because until you resolve it, you will be forever
26:02
stuck between knowing the law, unliving by it.
26:05
The question is this. If the ladder experiment works
26:08
because I had no resistance to climbing a ladder, how do I
26:11
apply this to desires where I have enormous resistance?
26:15
How do I imagine wealth when I look at my bank account and see
26:19
poverty? How do I imagine health when my
26:21
body is in pain? How do I imagine love when I
26:24
have been rejected and abandoned?
26:27
How do I assume the wish fulfilled when every fact of my
26:30
waking life screams that the wish is unfulfilled?
26:33
I tell you, this is the question that matters, and the answer is
26:37
contained within the experiment itself.
26:39
If you have the eyes to see it. Remember what I told my students
26:43
to do. I told them to put up signs
26:46
saying I will not climb a ladder.
26:48
I told them to deliberately, consciously resist the very
26:51
thing they were imagining, and the imagination overrode the
26:55
resistance. The resistance did not matter.
26:58
Do you hear what I am saying? The resistance does not matter.
27:01
The signs, the affirmations of the opposite, the firm conscious
27:05
declarations, they were powerless against the imaginal
27:08
act. And in the same way, your
27:10
resistance to wealth, your doubts about health, your fears
27:14
about love, they are signs. They are paper signs pinned to
27:17
the walls of your conscious mind, and they have no power
27:21
against the assumption planted in your deeper consciousness.
27:24
During the state akin to sleep, you do not have to overcome your
27:28
doubts. You do not have to silence your
27:30
fears. You do not have to convince your
27:32
conscious mind that wealth is possible, that health is coming,
27:36
that love is near. All you have to do is what the
27:39
students did with the ladder. Ignore the signs during the day.
27:43
Let them be. Let the doubts chatter, let the
27:46
fears parade. And when night comes, when you
27:49
lie down and enter the state akin to sleep, climb your
27:52
ladder. Feel the reality of the thing
27:54
you desire, not the wanting of it, not the hoping for it, not
27:58
the wishing for it, the having of it, the being of it, the
28:02
living in it. Sleep as though the wish were
28:04
fulfilled. Wake as though it is already so.
28:07
Your doubts during the day are no more powerful than the signs
28:10
were against the ladder. They are noise.
28:13
They are the surface mind doing what the surface mind does,
28:16
analyzing, evaluating, judging, doubting.
28:19
Let it do its work. It is not the creative power.
28:23
The creative power operates beneath it, in the depths, in
28:26
the silence, in the feeling you carry into sleep.
28:29
That is where your future is being written.
28:31
Not in your daytime worries, not in your conscious calculations,
28:36
in the feeling you hold as you drift into the state akin to
28:39
sleep. A man once came to me.
28:41
A man who had been out of work for over a year.
28:44
He was desperate. He had tried everything the
28:47
world offers. He had applied to hundreds of
28:49
positions. He had networked.
28:51
He had lowered his standards. He had accepted rejection after
28:55
rejection, until rejection itself had become his dominant
28:59
state. He was living in the state of
29:01
unemployment, not merely experiencing it as a
29:04
circumstance, but occupying it as an identity.
29:08
He was an unemployed man, and every thought he had, every
29:11
conversation he held, every morning he woke, confirmed and
29:15
deepened that state. He wore the signs of
29:18
unemployment everywhere, not on paper, but in his bearing, in
29:22
his eyes, in the way he spoke about himself, in the
29:25
assumptions he carried about his own value.
29:28
I told him the same thing I am telling you now.
29:30
I said tonight, forget everything.
29:33
Forget the applications, forget the rejections, forget the
29:37
economy, forget the odds. I want you to lie down and
29:40
imagine one thing. Imagine you are sitting at a
29:43
desk in a beautiful office. Feel the desk under your hands.
29:47
Feel the smooth wood or polished surface.
29:50
Feel the chair beneath you, comfortable, solid, your chair.
29:53
See the nameplate with your name on it.
29:55
Hear the sounds of an office around you, the murmur of
29:58
colleagues, the ring of a telephone, the click of a
30:01
keyboard. Feel the satisfaction of a man
30:04
who has work he loves and does it well.
30:07
Feel the pride of accomplishment at the end of a productive day.
30:10
Feel it as though it were happening right now, as though
30:13
it were the most natural thing in the world.
30:15
Because in imagination it is. And then fall asleep in that
30:20
feeling. I told him to do this every
30:22
night for one week, and I told him something else.
30:25
I told him during the day, do nothing about getting a job,
30:28
nothing. Do not apply, do not network, do
30:31
not search. Let the bridge of incidents
30:34
build itself. Trust the law, persist in your
30:37
assumption, and the world must rearrange itself to conform.
30:40
He argued with me. Of course, he said, how can I do
30:43
nothing? I have bills, I have rent, I
30:46
have a family depending on me. And I said to him, I am not
30:50
asking you to do nothing forever.
30:52
I am asking you to do nothing for one week while you plant the
30:55
seed. One week.
30:57
Can you give me one week of trusting the law instead of
31:00
trusting your own frantic effort, effort which I remind
31:03
you has produced nothing in over a year?
31:06
He saw the logic in that and he agreed.
31:09
He did it. And within 11 days an old friend
31:12
he had not spoken to in three years called him out of the
31:15
blue. Not about a job, just to catch
31:18
up. In that conversation, the friend
31:20
mentioned that his company was looking for someone with exactly
31:24
the skills this man possessed. He interviewed, he was hired,
31:28
the salary was higher than anything he had earned before.
31:31
And he told me with tears in his eyes, Neville, I did not find
31:34
that job. That job found me.
31:37
I said to him, no, you did not find the job and the job did not
31:41
find you. You assume the state of being
31:43
employed. You felt it as real, and the
31:46
world rearranged itself to conform to that assumption.
31:49
The Friends call was the bridge of incidents.
31:52
It was natural, it was ordinary, it was explainable, but it was
31:56
produced by your imagination. His year of frantic searching
32:00
had produced nothing because he was searching from the state of
32:03
unemployment, confirming with every application that he was a
32:07
man without work. The moment he stopped searching
32:10
and began assuming, the world shifted.
32:12
Not because effort is bad, but because effort from the wrong
32:15
state reinforces the wrong assumption.
32:18
Now I want to make something very practical for you,
32:21
something you can use tonight. Not someday, not when you feel
32:24
ready tonight. Because the law does not require
32:27
your readiness, it requires only your assumption.
32:31
So let me walk you through the application of the ladder
32:33
Experiment logic to any desire you hold.
32:37
First, identify the desire. Do not be vague.
32:40
Do not say I want more money. Say I want to hold in my hands a
32:44
check for $10,000. Do not say I want to be healthy.
32:48
Say I want to run up a flight of stairs without effort and feel
32:52
my body alive with vitality. Do not say I want love.
32:56
Say I want to lie in bed beside someone who adores me and feel
33:00
their arm around me. Specificity is the language of
33:03
imagination. Vagueness is the refuge of
33:06
doubt. The more more specific the
33:08
desire, the more vivid the imaginal act and the more
33:11
powerful the impression upon the deeper mind.
33:14
You are not placing an order with some external power.
33:17
There is no distant force out there receiving orders.
33:20
You are assuming a state. You are occupying a feeling.
33:24
And feelings are specific, they are sensory, they are detailed.
33:28
When you actually hold a check for $10,000, you do not feel a
33:32
vague sense of financial well-being.
33:34
You feel the paper, you read the number.
33:37
You feel the specific emotion that comes with that specific
33:40
event. That is what you must feel in
33:42
your imaginal act. Second, construct a single scene
33:46
that implies the fulfillment of the desire.
33:49
Not a scene of the desire being granted, not a scene of you
33:53
receiving it. A scene that could only happen
33:55
if the desire were already fulfilled.
33:57
If you want the check, feel yourself holding it.
34:00
If you want the health, feel yourself running.
34:03
If you want the love, feel the arm around you.
34:06
The scene must be short, vivid, and sensory.
34:09
It must involve you as the participant, not the observer.
34:13
You must be in the scene, feeling it from behind your own
34:16
eyes, with your own hands, in your own body.
34:19
And the scene must imply fulfillment, not process.
34:22
Do not imagine yourself being told you are hired.
34:25
Imagine yourself already working.
34:28
Do not imagine the doctor saying you are healed.
34:30
Imagine yourself running, swimming, dancing free.
34:34
The end, not the means. Living, in the end, is the art.
34:38
Third, enter the state akin to sleep.
34:40
Lie down, close your eyes, relax your body completely.
34:44
Let the thoughts of the day drift away.
34:47
Do not fight them. Simply withdraw your attention
34:49
from them. Let yourself sink toward that
34:52
borderland where you are not quite awake and not quite
34:55
asleep. You will know you are there when
34:57
the body feels heavy and the mind feels dreamy and the outer
35:01
world feels very far away. Some people reach this state
35:04
quickly, others take longer. It does not matter.
35:07
There is no rush. The state will come.
35:10
It comes every night. You simply need to notice it and
35:13
use it rather than passing through it unconsciously as you
35:17
have done every other night of your life. 4th in that state.
35:20
Enter your scene. Do not see it, feel it.
35:23
Feel the check in your hands, feel the paper, feel the weight
35:27
of the envelope it came in. Read the numbers, feel the joy,
35:31
the relief, the gratitude. Not as emotions you are trying
35:34
to generate, but as emotions that naturally surprise when you
35:37
are holding a check for $10,000. Let the scene be so real, so
35:42
vivid, so present that for a moment you forget it is
35:46
imagined. That is the art, that is the
35:49
creative act. If you cannot feel it as real on
35:51
the first night, do not be discouraged.
35:54
The capacity to feel an imaginal act as real grows with practice.
35:58
It is like a muscle. The more you use it, the
36:01
stronger it becomes. And even a faint feeling, a dim
36:05
sense of the wish fulfilled, is a seed planted.
36:08
It will grow. 5th loop the scene.
36:10
Repeat it. Feel yourself holding the check,
36:13
then let it go. Then feel it again.
36:16
Hold the check, read the numbers, feel the joy.
36:19
Let it go, hold it again. Do this gently, without effort,
36:23
without strain, like a beloved memory replaying itself.
36:27
And as you loop the scene, let yourself drift closer and closer
36:30
to sleep. When sleep comes, let it take
36:33
you. Fall asleep holding the check.
36:35
Do not try to stay awake to finish the scene.
36:38
Do not worry about whether you looped it enough times.
36:41
The moment you feel sleep approaching, surrender to it
36:44
while holding the feeling that is the ACT.
36:46
That is the sewing. 6th persist. Do this every night, not once,
36:52
not when you feel like it. Every night, for as many nights
36:55
as it takes, until the feeling of having it is more real to you
36:58
than the fact of not having it. This is the key.
37:02
This is where most people fail. They do the exercise for a night
37:05
or two. Feel nothing changed in the
37:07
outer world and conclude that it does not work.
37:10
But the law requires persistence, not because it is
37:13
slow, but because your old assumptions are deeply rooted,
37:17
and the new assumption must grow stronger than the old one.
37:20
Before the outer world shift. You have been assuming your
37:23
current state for years, perhaps decades.
37:26
You have been falling asleep every night in the feeling of
37:29
whatever your current circumstance is, poverty or
37:32
loneliness or illness or limitation.
37:35
Those assumptions have deep roots.
37:37
The new assumption planted for one or two nights is a seedling.
37:41
It needs time and repetition to grow stronger than the old tree.
37:45
But it will grow, and when it does, the old tree falls.
37:49
Persist in your assumption, and the world must rearrange itself
37:52
to conform. I cannot say this too often.
37:55
The world must conform. And now let me do something with
37:59
you that I did with my students that night in New York.
38:03
Let me guide you through the ladder itself, not as a
38:06
theoretical exercise, but as a living experience.
38:09
If you are listening to this in a place where you can close your
38:12
eyes, close them now. If you are walking or driving,
38:16
simply listen and do this exercise later when you lie down
38:20
for the night. But if you can close your eyes,
38:23
imagine that you are standing at the base of a tall wooden
38:26
ladder. It leans against a wall, perhaps
38:29
in a garden, perhaps against the side of a building on a warm
38:33
afternoon. The sun is behind you.
38:35
You can feel it on your back and shoulders.
38:38
You can see the rungs rising above you, each one worn smooth
38:41
by use, each one solid, trustworthy.
38:44
The wood is old, warm, slightly rough to the touch.
38:48
The ladder is solid. You trust it.
38:50
Now reach out with your right hand and grip the first rung
38:53
above your head. Feel the wood against your palm.
38:56
Feel the grain of it. It is firm.
38:59
It does not bend. It holds your weight.
39:01
Curl your fingers around the rung.
39:03
Feel the edges of the wood pressing into your fingers.
39:06
Now place your left foot on the bottom rung.
39:09
Feel the rung under the ball of your foot.
39:12
Feel your weight shift forward. As you lean into the ladder,
39:15
your body presses against it. You can feel the ladder against
39:18
your chest, the rungs against your body.
39:21
Now your left hand reaches up and grips the next rung.
39:24
Your right foot leaves the ground and steps onto the bottom
39:27
rung beside your left foot. You are off the ground.
39:31
You are on the ladder, you are climbing.
39:33
Feel the rhythm. Right hand up grip, left foot up
39:36
step. Left hand up grip, right foot up
39:39
step. You are rising.
39:40
The ground is falling away below you.
39:42
The air is slightly cooler up here.
39:45
You can feel a faint breeze on the back of your neck, playing
39:48
through your hair. Your arms are working, pulling
39:50
you upward. Your legs are pushing.
39:53
The ladder sways slightly with each step, a gentle, reassuring
39:57
sway, like a boat on calm water. You are three rungs up now, 4-5.
40:02
You look up and see more rungs above you, stretching toward the
40:05
sky. You look down and see the ground
40:07
below, farther now, the grass, the path, the world you left
40:11
behind. You feel strong.
40:13
You feel capable. You feel.
40:15
The simple primal satisfaction of ascending 6 rungs 7.
40:20
The world is spread out below you.
40:22
You can see farther now. Everything looks different from
40:25
up here. The horizon has expanded,
40:27
everything looks possible. You grip the next rung and feel
40:30
the wood warm beneath your fingers, warmed by the sun,
40:34
Solid, ancient, enduring. You are climbing, you are here,
40:38
this is real, this is happening. Feel it, hold it, let it fill
40:42
you one more rung. Feel the pull in your shoulders,
40:45
the push in your legs, the height beneath you, the openness
40:49
around you. And now, gently, slowly, let the
40:52
image fade. Let it dissolve, not with
40:54
effort, but like a breath released.
40:56
Let it go and feel the warmth of where you are, the surface
41:00
beneath you, the air around you. The image is gone, but the
41:03
feeling remains. That warmth in your palms, that
41:06
sense of height, that quiet thrill of ascent, that feeling,
41:10
that sense of having climbed. That is the seed.
41:13
That is the imaginal act. That is what you plant in the
41:17
soil of your deeper mind when you fall asleep in this state.
41:20
And from that seed, a world grows.
41:23
Now let me address something that I know some of you are
41:25
thinking. You are thinking fine, Neville.
41:28
I can imagine climbing a ladder. I can imagine holding a check.
41:32
But what about the impossible? What about the desire that seems
41:36
completely beyond reach? What about the person who wants
41:39
to walk but has been told they never will?
41:42
What about the person who wants a child but has been told it
41:45
cannot happen? What about the person who wants
41:48
something so outrageous, so far beyond their current
41:51
circumstances, that even imagining it feels like a joke?
41:55
I tell you this the law does not distinguish wish between the
41:58
possible and the impossible. The law does not evaluate the
42:02
probability of your desire. The law does not consult doctors
42:06
or economists or experts of any kind.
42:09
The law is absolute. What you assume with feeling in
42:12
the state akin to sleep, the world must produce, must not,
42:16
might, not probably must. The bridge of incidents may be
42:20
longer, the chain of events may be more complex.
42:23
The time may be greater, but the outcome is certain, as certain
42:27
as the sunrise, as certain as the tide, as certain as the law
42:31
of gravity. Because it is a law, not a wish,
42:34
not a hope, not a philosophy. A law.
42:37
And a law by definition, does not have exceptions.
42:40
Gravity does not take days off. Gravity does not decide that
42:44
some objects are too heavy to fall or too light to bother
42:48
with. Gravity operates uniformly,
42:50
impersonally, absolutely, and so does the law of assumption.
42:54
What you assume and feel as real, the world must reduce.
42:58
The size of the assumption does not matter.
43:01
A ladder or a fortune, a cat rescued from a tree or body
43:05
healed from disease, The mechanism is the same, the law
43:09
is the same, only the bridge of incidents differs in length and
43:12
complexity. I have seen things in my years
43:15
of teaching that the rational mind would call impossible.
43:18
I have seen a woman told she could never conceive, imagine
43:22
herself holding a baby, feel the weight of the child in her arms,
43:26
feel the warmth of the tiny body against her chest, smell the
43:29
soft, clean smell of a newborn. And within eight months, she was
43:33
pregnant. The doctors called it a miracle.
43:36
I called it the law. I have seen a man told he would
43:39
never walk again, imagine himself walking on a beach, feel
43:42
the sand between his toes, hear the waves, feel the sun on his
43:46
face, feel the joy of movement in his legs.
43:49
And within a year, he stood on that beach on his own 2 feet.
43:52
His therapist called it unprecedented.
43:55
I called it the law. I have seen fortunes revealed,
43:58
first, relationships healed, diseases cured, opportunities
44:01
created from nothing, all through the simple, faithful,
44:05
persistent application of the imaginal act in the state akin
44:09
to sleep. Man's imagination is the only
44:11
redemptive power in the world. But you must understand one
44:15
thing, and this is the edge that separates the student from the
44:18
master. You cannot do the imaginal act
44:21
and then spend the day worrying about how it will happen.
44:24
You cannot fall asleep feeling the wish fulfilled.
44:27
And then wake up and check the mail every hour for evidence.
44:31
You cannot plant a seed and then dig it up every morning to see
44:34
if it is growing. The how is not your business.
44:38
The how belongs to the deeper mind, to the creative power, to
44:41
the bridge of incidents. Your business is the what and
44:44
the feeling. Your business is the assumption.
44:47
Your business is to persist in the assumption that the wish is
44:50
fulfilled, to live in the end, to occupy the state of the wish
44:54
fulfilled so completely that it becomes your natural dwelling
44:58
place. What you desire, you already are
45:00
in eternity. Your task is not to create it.
45:04
Your task is to assume it, feel it, and let the world catch up.
45:08
If you find yourself wondering how, recognize that wandering as
45:11
a sign. It is a sign that says I will
45:14
not climb a ladder. It is the conscious mind
45:17
asserting its authority over the creative process.
45:20
And you know from the ladder experiment what that authority
45:23
is worth. Nothing.
45:25
Let the how go. Hold the feeling that is enough,
45:28
that is everything. And what about time?
45:31
People ask me how long does it take?
45:34
I tell them. The question itself reveals the
45:36
problem. If you are asking how long it
45:39
takes, you are living in the state of waiting.
45:41
You are living in the state of not having.
45:44
You are wearing a sign that says I will not climb a ladder, and
45:48
the sign will not stop you from climbing.
45:50
But the fact that you keep reading it, keep giving your
45:53
attention to the absence of the thing that slows the bridge of
45:56
incidents. Not because the law is delayed,
45:59
but because you are oscillating between two states, having and
46:03
not having, and the deeper mind receives both impressions and
46:07
produces a mixed result. The most important conversation
46:11
you will ever have is the one you hold with yourself.
46:14
If that conversation is one of doubt and delay, then doubt and
46:18
delay will be your experience. If that conversation is 1 of
46:22
fulfillment and certainty, then fulfillment and certainty will
46:26
be your experience. Choose your conversation.
46:29
Choose the state you will occupy, and when you find
46:32
yourself drifting back into the old state, do not condemn
46:35
yourself. Simply choose again as many
46:38
times as necessary. The law is patient because the
46:41
law is absolute. It does not run out.
46:44
It does not grow tired. It operates as long as you hold
46:47
the assumption. And you can always choose to
46:50
hold it again. Let me say something now about
46:52
revision, because this too is part of the ladder experiment.
46:56
Though most people do not see it.
46:58
Revision is the art of reimagining a past event as you
47:02
wish it had happened. If something went wrong today,
47:05
if you received bad news, if a conversation went poorly, do not
47:09
simply accept it and carry the feeling of failure into sleep.
47:13
Instead, as you lie in the state akin to sleep, reimagine the
47:17
event as you wish it had unfolded.
47:20
Hear the good news instead of the bad.
47:22
Feel the conversation going beautifully instead of badly.
47:26
Revise it in your imagination until the revised version feels
47:30
more real than the original, and then fall asleep in the revised
47:34
feeling. This is not self deception.
47:36
This is the deliberate use of the creative power to reshape
47:40
the assumptions you carry. Because it is the assumptions
47:43
you carry into sleep that build the bridge of incidents for
47:47
tomorrow. If you carry the assumption of
47:49
failure, the bridge which leads to more failure.
47:52
If you carry the assumption of success, the bridge leads to
47:55
more success. Revision allows you to take any
47:58
day, no matter how difficult, and plant the seed of a better
48:02
tomorrow in its place. Now let me bring you back to
48:05
that room in New York City. Let me bring you back to those
48:08
60 skeptics, sitting with their arms folded, their chins raised,
48:13
their minds already made-up. Remember the man in the front
48:17
row who raised his hand and asked, what is the point?
48:20
Within three weeks, I had heard from nearly every one of them.
48:24
Some reported climbing ladders within days, others within a
48:27
week or two. A few held out for three weeks
48:30
before the Bridge of Incidents found them.
48:32
But by the end of that month, every single person who did the
48:36
exercise faithfully, everyone who imagined climbing with vivid
48:40
sensory detail and fell asleep in the act, had climbed a
48:44
ladder. Not one exception.
48:46
Not one. The law does not make
48:48
exceptions. The skeptics were no longer
48:50
skeptical. The folded arms had unfolded,
48:53
the raised chins had softened, and in their eyes I saw
48:57
something that I have lived my life to see.
48:59
I saw the birth of knowing, not belief.
49:02
Knowing because they had experienced it in in their own
49:05
lives, through their own actions, in their own bodies.
49:08
They had felt the rung under their hands.
49:11
They had climbed. And they knew in that marrow,
49:13
deep way that nothing can undo that the law is real.
49:17
The man in the front row came to me after my next lecture and
49:20
said simply, I climbed a ladder at my son's school.
49:24
I was helping set up decorations for a dance.
49:27
I did not realize what I was doing until I was already at the
49:31
top. And then he paused and he said
49:33
something. I have never forgotten, he said
49:36
Neville. If I could not stop myself from
49:38
climbing a ladder, then I have been creating everything in my
49:41
life without knowing it. And I said yes, that is exactly
49:45
what I have been trying to tell you.
49:47
The woman, Margaret, who climbed to rescue the cat, went on to
49:51
use the same technique to imagine herself standing in a
49:54
classroom of her own design, teaching in a school she had
49:58
always dreamed of working in. She felt the chalk in her hand.
50:02
She heard the voices of children.
50:04
She felt the satisfaction of doing the work she was born to
50:07
do. Within four months, she was
50:09
hired at that school. Harold, the banker used it to
50:13
imagine shaking hands on a deal he had been pursuing for two
50:16
years without success. He felt the handshake, firm and
50:19
warm. He heard the words, We have a
50:22
deal. He felt the relief and triumph.
50:25
The deal closed in six weeks. Rose, the secretary, used it to
50:29
imagine herself opening a letter of acceptance to a college she
50:33
had long to attend but believed was beyond her reach.
50:37
She felt the paper, read the words, felt the tears of joy.
50:40
She was accepted. The following autumn, person
50:43
after person took the ladder experiment and extended it,
50:46
applied it, lived by it. Not because I told them to, but
50:50
because they had proven it to themselves.
50:53
The ladder was proof. The ladder was the key that
50:56
opened the door, and once that door is open, it can never be
50:59
closed again. Once you know, truly know that
51:02
your imagination creates your reality, you can never go back
51:06
to the old way of living. You can never again blame
51:09
circumstance or fate or luck or other people for the content of
51:14
your life. You are the operant power.
51:16
You have always been the operant power, and now you know it.
51:20
So I say to you tonight what I have said to every audience in
51:23
every city, in every year of my teaching.
51:26
The state you occupied determines the world you see.
51:29
If you occupy the state of the wish fulfilled, the world you
51:32
see will conform to that state. Not because you have willed it.
51:36
Not because you have earned it. Not because you have figured out
51:39
the right technique, or said the right words, or thought the
51:43
right thoughts. Because you have assumed it.
51:45
Because you have felt it. Because you have fallen asleep
51:48
in the feeling of it, and the deeper mind has taken that
51:51
feeling and gone to work building the bridge of incidents
51:55
that will carry you from where you are to where you have
51:58
assumed yourself to be. This is not a technique among
52:01
techniques. This is not one tool in a
52:03
spiritual toolbox. This is the law, the only law,
52:07
and it operates whether you use it consciously or unconsciously,
52:11
whether you use it for ladders or for empires, whether you use
52:15
it for joy or for sorrow. You are using it now.
52:18
You have always been using it. The only question is whether you
52:21
will begin to use it deliberately.
52:24
Test it tonight, Not next week, not when you feel ready tonight.
52:28
Choose something small if you must, something like the ladder,
52:31
something with no emotional charge, something absurd and
52:35
meaningless. And do the exercise.
52:37
Feel it, climb it, fall asleep in it.
52:40
Put up the signs if you wish. Resist it with all your
52:43
conscious will. It will not matter.
52:46
The imagination will override the will.
52:48
The assumption will crystallize. And then watch.
52:51
Watch the world rearrange itself.
52:53
Watch the bridge of incidents appear.
52:56
Watch the seemingly random events converge.
52:59
And when you find yourself doing the very thing you imagined,
53:02
when you find yourself climbing your ladder despite every sign
53:05
you posted to the contrary, you will know.
53:08
You will know what I know. You will know what my students
53:11
know. You will know what every person
53:13
who has ever faithfully applied this law knows.
53:16
You will know that consciousness is the only reality, that
53:19
imagination is the creative power that the wish fulfilled,
53:23
felt and assumed and persisted in must, must, must crystallize
53:27
into the physical world. Do not take my word for it, do
53:31
not believe me. Test it, prove it, live it, and
53:34
when the proof comes, as it will, as it must, remember what
53:38
brought you here. Remember the ladder, remember
53:41
the signs that could not stop you.
53:43
Remember the night you climbed in your imagination and the day
53:46
the world made it so. And then reach for the next
53:49
rung, and the next, and the next.
53:51
There is no ceiling, there is no limit.
53:54
There is only the assumption you dare to hold and the feeling you
53:58
dare to feel, and the world that dares not refuse you.
54:01
I tell you from my own experience, you are not a
54:04
creature of circumstance. You are a creator of
54:07
circumstance. You are not shaped by the world.
54:10
You shape the world. You are imagination, and
54:13
imagination creates reality. Go now and prove it.
54:17
Not for me, not for anyone else. For yourself.
54:20
Because once you prove it for yourself, no one can ever take
54:23
it from you. It becomes your own.
54:25
It becomes you. And then you will understand,
54:28
finally, fully, irreversibly, that the only ladder you were
54:32
ever climbing was the ladder out of limitation and into the
54:36
infinite reaches of your own consciousness.
54:39
And there is no rung you cannot reach, There is no height you
54:42
cannot attain. There is only the dare, the
54:44
assumption, and the world that conforms.
54:48
Return to this teaching. Listen again.
54:50
Let these words sink deeper each time.
54:53
Share this with anyone who is ready to hear it, anyone who has
54:56
felt in their quiet moments that there must be more to this life
55:00
than what the senses report. There is more.
55:03
There is so much more, and it begins tonight when you close
55:06
your eyes, enter the silence and climb.