I cannot explain everything at once, and so obviously many questions would remain unanswered until we can get to them. For the original thought, as an identity, to actually be transmitted to a sender, you would have to face the inevitable result: If the identical thought were actually transmitted from A to B, then A would have it no longer. Since A obviously may still have the original thought, then B has not the identical thought; not an exact duplicate, but instead a similar but still unidentical thought.

Now. The nature of the thought that is received by our sender B is determined by many factors. We shall merely consider a few of these. These include, to begin with, the original intensity of the thought as A possesses it, A’s ability to duplicate the thought as far as possible, the relative stability of the electrical thought unit as it is formed by A, the familiarity or unfamiliarity of the range of frequencies that compose the new thought to any intended receiver.

If you will consider the projection of a thought, that is intangible, so that it affects another individual, and hence both directly and indirectly affects the action of physical matter, then you may consider the possibility of other such projections. We have here a rather delicate point. I have said that there are no duplicates. Yet you may say, are not some thoughts duplicates? The variations may indeed be slight, but the variations are always present. A thought transmitted knowingly or unknowingly by “A” is not precisely the same thought when it reaches receiver “B”.

(Pause at 9:16.) Your physical body … give us time … is, as an entity, the fleshed-out version — the physically alive version — of the body of your thoughts. It is not that your thoughts just trigger chemical reactions in the body, but that your thoughts have a chemical reality besides their recognizable mental aspects. [...] It is not the best, but I hope it will get the point across: It is as if your thoughts turned into the various appendages of your body. [...] Your thoughts are as physically pertinent to your body as viruses are, as alive and self-propagating, and they themselves form inner affiliations. [...] When you think thoughts, they are conscious. [...] Those thoughts, as clearly as I can explain this, rise from inner components of which you are unaware.

When the thought is thought, it is, say, broken down again to those components. Your thoughts have an emotional basis, also. The smallest c-e-l-l (spelled) within your body contributes to that emotional reality, and reacts instantly to your thoughts.

You think of viruses as physical, and of thoughts as mental. You should know that thoughts also have their physical aspects in the body, and that viruses have their mental aspects in the body. At times you have both asked why an ailing body does not simply assert itself and use its healing abilities, throwing off the negative influence of a given set of beliefs and thoughts.

As you all know, and this is not new, your pitiful body changes with each thought that you have and with each emotion. [...] There is no other place where you can lay the blame and it is up to you, to each of you individually, to watch the nature of your thoughts for with your thoughts you created the body that you have, the individual realities that you know. [...] When you allow your thoughts to run riot then your life runs riot. [...] The negative habits knock away even spontaneity for all thoughts of good will and health and vitality disappear beneath these thoughts that you are handing yourself every day like poison upon the spoon, whether the spoon be wooden or tarnished or silver. [...] If you do not know your own thoughts, and if you cannot change them when you want to, you are not at the mercy of your thoughts. [...]

A negative thought alone would be followed by a more positive one. [...] Thought patterns and emotional patterns, left alone, would change one into the other as stormy weather changes into sunny. It is only when strong negative patterns are allowed to flow unrestrained and indulged in so that they become a barrier holding back positive thoughts that you run into difficulty. You get into a habit and you do not realize that you have done so, where predominately your thoughts about yourselves and others are all negative with very few positive ones in between and then the positive ones have no chance to grow. [...] I am not telling you to be so frightened of a negative thought that you want to run into a corner or hide under the bed or say “Oh, this is a negative thought, I must change it at once” and half-terrify yourselves to death. I am telling you that when you indulge in such thoughts for a period of time so that they become habitual then you must change them and no one can do this but yourself. There is no one else that has control over your own thought patterns and you would be very upset, indeed, if anyone else did. [...]

The point I wanted to make is this—each thought is an electromagnetic reality on its own, a unique electromagnetic reality. Now, your thoughts create patterns in dimensions that you do not perceive. [...] Now, when you allow negative thoughts to predominate in your conscious mind you then become more open to the negative thoughts of others. You are given a natural protection but you weaken this protection when your conscious thoughts are negative. [...] It is you who open these channels through your thoughts, a sort of psychic contagion in which you are the agent. [...]

Forget now that in this case such a division occurred, and imagine instead the successive thoughts and feelings that you possess. [...] If you think, “Aha, then from now on I will only think good thoughts — and therefore be healthy, and inhibit my ‘bad’ thoughts, or do anything at all with them but think them,” then in your own way you are doing what Augustus did. He began by believing that some of his thoughts were so evil that they must somehow be made nonexistent. So inhibiting what you consider as negative thoughts, or assuming that they are so terrible, is no answer.

[...] You may have been told, or read, that the spirit is perfect, and hence thought that your duty was to reproduce that perfect spirit in flesh as best you could. To this end you attempt to deny all imperfect thoughts and emotions. Your own “negative” thoughts appall you. You may believe also what I have told you — that your thoughts create your reality — so you become all the more frightened at mental or actual expressions of an aggressive nature. [...]

As living cells have a structure, react to stimuli and organize according to their own classification, so do thoughts. Thoughts thrive on association. They magnetically attract others like themselves, and like some strange microscopic animals they repel their “enemies,” or other thoughts that are threatening to their own survival.

[...] Nevertheless it must be clearly understood that thoughts and emotions are actualities in themselves, that directly work upon the physical mechanism. Any thought or emotion is bound to directly affect the physical body. Because thoughts and emotions, as electrical actualities, are independent from their subjective point of origin, a given thought or emotion, initiated by an individual, may be rejected by him and cast out. If the thought or emotion is similar to those usually accepted, then this will take time, for new electrical patterns must be set up. But an idea, thought or emotion so rejected still has independent actuality, and may be attracted to the emotional climate of another.

You are familiar with such a limited portion of the actuality of your own thoughts. These thoughts are things, so to speak, as real as a chair; but you are acquainted only with their purely subjective reality. [...] If you could fully understand or comprehend directly the reality of a thought in its full actuality, you would be amazed at the power behind it.

Each thought or emotion exists then as electric action within the mind. [...] Thoughts and emotions then, being independent however, are not bounded by or held within the physical body. The physical barriers of skin, for example, the physical limitations of that structure, do not exist and are not recognized by thoughts or emotions. [...]

What happens to a thought when it leaves your conscious mind? [...] Therefore, it seems that the thought disappears. It seems also that your subjectivity has a mysterious unknown quality about it, and that even your mental life has a sort of insidious dropping-off point, a subjective cliff over which thoughts and memories fall, to disappear into nothingness. [...] Instead, you see, you can follow these thoughts and emotions simply by realizing that your own reality continues in another direction, beside the one with which you mainly identify. For these thoughts and emotions that have left your conscious mind will lead you into other environments.

[...] You stress those ideas and thoughts and attitudes that you recall from “past” experience as your own, completely ignoring those that once were “characteristic” and now are vanished — ignoring the fact also that you cannot hold thought. The thought of a moment before, in your terms, vanishes away.

[...] When my associates and I meet, we often translate each other’s thoughts into various shapes and forms out of pure enjoyment in the practice. We have what you might call a game, demanding some expertise, where for our own amusement we see which of us can translate any given thought into the most numerous forms. [...]

You must remember that you dwell always in a natural framework — which means that your thoughts themselves are as natural, say, as the locks of your hair. In what may seem to you to be an odd analogy I will compare your thoughts with viruses,¹ for they are alive, always present, responsive, and possess their own kind of mobility. Physically speaking at least, thoughts are chemically propelled, and they travel through the universal body as viruses travel through your temporal form.

Now: As stated, thoughts are as natural as any portion of the body. They are as much a part of nature as feelings are, but if you set up an arbitrary division — considering thoughts mental as distinguished from the physical — then your body may give a truer reflection of your being than your thoughts do.

Your thoughts are as natural as the cells within your body, and as real. [...] If you think there is, then you do not sufficiently understand the spirituality of the flesh or the physical reality of your thought.

In the normal course of a day your thoughts dwell to some degree on the issues that you have mentioned, and about which you are concerned. Now in the past such thoughts were often highly negative, and they have resulted in negative conditions. No special efforts are required, save that such thoughts are now made positive.

[...] Let your thoughts flow naturally during the day. [...] When they do then correct any negative thoughts with positive ones.

Remember that your present reality is the result of years of positive and negative thought patterns. [...]

Thought cannot be seen or touched. Thought is action. A thought within your field must vanish, be terminated, disappear, before it can be replaced by another. The identical thought will not return. A very similar thought may return, but the two thoughts will not be identical, although you may perceive them as identical. [...]

A note now concerning thought, as it is a form of action with which all men are familiar. Here you can see that your ego accepts thoughts as a part of its identity. Thought’s actions are accepted by the ego, yet the ego seems to stand apart from them; and because of ego’s nature it fears to plunge into the action of a thought. [...]

[...] If one thought were held forever, no other thoughts would follow, no action would follow, and no identity. In your own intimate psychological experience, in the intimate psychological experience of every individual within your race, you will find recognition of the thought.

Sometimes my thoughts

Sometimes my thoughts gather force

My thoughts need

[...] The thoughts are as necessary to the whole system as the body’s cells are. Ruburt correctly interpreted an analogy I gave him in which I compared thoughts to individual cells, and belief systems to the physical organs, which are composed of cells. [...]

[...] You give no conscious thought to the coming and going of cells within your organs. Left alone, your thoughts will come and go through your belief systems just as naturally; and ideally, they will balance out, maintaining their own health and directing your body so that its innate therapies take place.

Your systems of belief will of course attract certain kinds of thoughts, with their trails of emotional experience. A steady barrage of hateful, revengeful thoughts should actually lead you to look for the beliefs from which they are gaining their strength.

Experience is the product of the mind, the spirit, conscious thoughts and feelings, and unconscious thoughts and feelings. [...] You are so intimately connected with the physical events composing your life experience that often you cannot distinguish between the seemingly material occurrences and the thoughts, expectations and desires that gave them birth.

An examination of your conscious thoughts will tell you much about the state of your inner mind, your intentions and expectations, and will often lead you to a direct confrontation with challenges and problems. Your thoughts, studied, will let you see where you are going. [...] What exists physically exists first in thought and feeling. [...]

Each thought has a result, in your terms. The same kind of thought, habitually repeated, will seem to have a more or less permanent effect. If you like the effect then you seldom examine the thought. [...]

When I say “You create your own reality through your thoughts,” you, meaning anyone, have a tendency to imagine each thought as a small brick, a psychological object, each one being formed into the structure of your experience. [...] In your existence it is quite reasonable to visualize a desired event, for example, in the belief that the image and thought will help make the event physically real – and so it shall. It may also of course mean that other, perhaps more desirable events that you have not thought of may not happen—because you have been so specific, and perhaps determined your desire from your own level of understanding only—where the reservoirs of this deeper mental system might have been able to tell you that the event you want so badly is not, after all, to your best interest.

[...] It seems to Ruburt that his thoughts are negative a good deal of the time—naturally—and that he must take effort to change them. Of course, instead it is the other way around: his thoughts are creative and exuberant—naturally—when he leaves himself alone, and the troublesome thoughts that seem so natural now are the results of acquired mental patterns as he began to distrust his own nature, as given many times.

[...] He became overly cautious because he thought he should be that way, though he was not by nature. He thought it was not mature or reasonable to trust people. [...]

The thought, as an electrical reality, is not subject to the physical laws that bind the physical body. The durability of the thought as an electrical act is determined by its initial electric charge. This electric charge can propel the thought, as an electrical action, through the apparent dimensions of your physical time in such a manner that it can exist simultaneously within your past and your present. Because a thought, as electric action, may exist both within your past and your present, this is not to say that it becomes two electric actions, one existing in the past and one existing in the future. Rather the one electric action or thought is simultaneously projected, through a peculiarity of its axis, so that it appears within your field, not in two places at once, but in two times at once.

[...] Thoughts, human thought, has an electric reality; a human thought exists as an independent electrical action, and as such it continues to exist within the electrical system long after it has left its point of origin. [...]

Now again: regardless of current scientific thought, there are at least three different kinds of electric force which your scientists have not yet discovered, and one of these has much to do with the intensity of thoughts as they are formed in the intangible mind, and translated to the physical brain and then into action, as the case may be.

[...] Within your own system, thought becomes materialized, and there is literally no end to the activity of thoughts. Thoughts however are connected with language and with highly organized ego development. [...]

The thoughts may rather faithfully, though never completely, translate such data, or they may considerably distort it. Behind thoughts are images, which are more basic but still physically oriented. [...] They are more emotionally charged, more concise than thoughts, and they are directly connected with the mechanics involved in translating inner data to physical reality.

[...] From these, you see, normal images are built up, and from the images thoughts are formed.

[...] Your actual words convey information, feelings, or thoughts. Obviously the thoughts or the feelings, and the words, are not the same thing. [...] You take it for granted without even thinking of it that the symbols — the letters — are not the reality — the information or thoughts — which they attempt to convey.

HOW THOUGHTS FORM MATTER —
COORDINATION POINTS

[...] The true information is not in the objects any more than the thought is in the letters or in words. [...]

[...] It is basic patterns of thought that help you or impede you, psychological colorations of thought that form the general overall pattern of your physical reality. One thought alone seems to matter little, and yet it is part of a characteristic pattern of inner behavior, and as such has its place either in bringing you freedom and abundance, or in denying you freedom and abundance.

[...] In one frown of yours he saw ten, and imagined all kinds of dire thoughts were going on within your head. A myriad of negative thoughts paraded and were exaggerated.

[...] Ruburt thought it was natural for him to become ill because of his background, and to overreact for the same reason. He thought it was natural for him to be afraid of life because his mother was.

You do not understand the dimensions into which your thoughts drop, for they continue their own existence, and others look up to them and view them like stars. Now I am telling you that your own dreams and thoughts and mental actions appear to the inhabitants of other systems like the stars and planets within your own; and those inhabitants do not perceive what lies within and behind the stars in their own heavens.

[...] The whole cosmic structure however was the materialization of one original thought, for the thought, the real reality, must always exist before the representation of it.

The void, in other terms, can therefore be compared to a mind, and who can predict what images or thoughts will be given birth there? [...]

(Then this noon we received from Prentice-Hall copies of the revised index for Volume 1 of “Unknown,” plus new page proofs of the type chosen for Volume 2—a matter we’d thought already settled. We liked everything except that I thought the italic type looked rather crowded compared to that used in Volume 1. Jane thought it looked okay. [...]

The idea of a van to Florida led Ruburt into daydreaming, though he was very frightened of the idea, but you immediately thought of the difficulties, that it would not work, and overall neither of you have applied creative, imaginative, positive thought, steadily. You pick up each other’s thoughts and feelings. [...]

[...] Ruburt first of all thought of how he could get his socks and shoes on, but then he tried to overcome those thoughts, and imagine the trip.(Sayre, PA—my home town.)

The old man changed probabilities, you see, moving into another, and your thought patterns deal with probabilities all the time, at one level, as your c-e-l-l-s (spelled) do at another—so perhaps that will help you see more clearly the connections between health and illness, and the directions that your thoughts take.

[...] To that point, he had believed that his thoughts had no effect upon his body. [...]

There is the other side of the picture, for his new thoughts physically regenerated the body, or allowed it to regenerate itself. [...]