Mental energy

“ The consequence is that only an exceedingly small proportion of the mental energy that is developed within us is ever actually displayed. The rest is somehow and somewhere locked up behind the inhibitory threshold. ”

“ And these mental pictures coming into consciousness have brought with them their associated emotions and their associated impulses to muscular action, impulses appropriate to the picture and automatically tending to work its realization.
These impulses constitute the whole of man's achieving power. They are the Initiative Energy of all Success. ”

“ If we can show that the energy exercised by the self is originated by the mind in realising its own purposes, and that the highest kind of mental activity is that in which the Self reacts on the world in which it lives, and occasions changes in it which will promote its own highest good, then we shall be justified in drawing the conclusion that the energy which makes changes in nature, also, has its source in the realisation of a highest good. ”

“ In attention the mind's energy is piled up in a "wave" on the problem occupying our thought, and results follow as they cannot if the stream of mental energy flows at a dead level from lack of concentration. ”

“ The three classes of energies which we generate are those of thought, desire and action. They belong, in the order named, to the mental world, the astral world and the physical world. All people are constantly thinking and desiring and, with varying degrees of energy, are putting thought and desire into action. These forces sent out into the worlds of thought, emotion and action, produce certain reactions, or consequences, and to them the man is bound until justice is done and the soul has learned its evolutionary lesson. ”

“ Can any one of us refine upon the conceptions of mental work and mental energy, so as later to be able to throw some definitely analytic light on what we mean by 'having a more elastic moral tone,' or by 'using higher levels of power and will'? I imagine that we may have to wait long before progress in this direction is made. The problem is too homely; one doesn't see just how to get in the electric keys and revolving drums that alone make psychology scientific to-day. ”

“ It is by attention that we gather and mass our mental energy upon the critical and important points in our thinking. In the last chapter we saw that consciousness is not distributed evenly over the whole field, but "piled up," now on this object of thought, now on that, in obedience to interest or necessity. The concentration of the mind's energy on one object of thought is attention. ”

“ Give more and more time to your business each day until there comes an impairment in the quality of your work. Stop short of this. You have found your norm of efficiency.
[83]
Chapter V THE SECRET OF MENTAL EFFICIENCY
Where Energy Is Stored
You are called upon to master and conserve the innate energies of your mind. This means that you must (1) find out where these energies are stored, and (2) learn the conditions that determine their activity.
All past experiences are conserved within us in the form of complexes. These complexes consist of ideas, emotions and impulses to muscular activity. ”

“ Now if you ask of psychology just how the excitement shifts in a man's mental system, and why aims that were peripheral become at a certain moment central, psychology has to reply that although she can give a general description of what happens, she is unable in a given case to account accurately for all the single forces at work. Neither an outside observer nor the Subject who undergoes the process can explain fully how particular experiences are able to change one's centre of energy so decisively, or why they so often have to bide their hour to do so. ”

“ I wish to spend this hour on one conception of functional psychology, a conception never once mentioned or heard of in laboratory circles, but used perhaps more than any other by common, practical men -- I mean the conception of the amount of energy available for running one's mental and moral operations by. ”

“ Hold the right thoughts persistently in mind, and you cannot help working steadily on toward the goal you are thinking of. Keep steadily at work with the right thoughts persistently in mind and success is sure to come.
Success, then, lies in the concentration of mental energies. And this concentration is to be brought about by holding in consciousness only those ideas that harmonize. ”

“ How far mental power is a "mode of energy" transformable, and obedient to the laws of equivalence, are interesting questions for future research.
The mechanical principle of action and reaction is another which can be traced in mental as well as in physical phenomena. Mental excitement is often succeeded by mental depression, "after pleasure follows pain." The power of mental self-guidance and self-education is largely dependent upon the two well known scientific principles of latent energy, and action and reaction. ”

“ The dependence of the mind (like any other mode of energy) upon physical conditions, is further proved by the fact that the mental and moral states of a man are largely governed by sensation; if the latter is unhealthy it makes the mind so, and it makes some difference what the part of the body is in which the sensation exists ”

“ We need no argument here—for all will readily recognize that behind the physical action of man, animal and plant, lies Life and Mind, and that therefore all Force and Energy arising from such action must be manifestations of Vital-Mental Action. ”

“ We have shown you that your ability to achieve depends upon your ability to utilize to the full your underground mental resources.
But success demands that you do more than merely use all your mental energies. ”

“ It is, therefore, of the greatest importance to cultivate the highest and most buoyant frame of mind which the conditions will admit. The same energy which takes the form of mental activity is vital to the work of the organism. ”

“ A complete explanation of the phenomena, requires us to trace out all the consequences of any given state of consciousness; and we cannot do this without studying the effects, bodily and mental, as varying in quantity at each other's expense. We should probably learn much if we in every case asked—Where is all the nervous energy gone? ”

“ The energetic or powerful hand is the reverse of this, and is probably seen in life only under certain conditions of the mind, producing what we call "mental states," or states giving energy and the feeling of strength. ”

“ And, just as Man is enabled to use elementary the physical qualities that he finds in his body, and to turn same to good account in living his human life, so does man, consciously, or unconsciously, make use of these elementary Mental powers in his everyday mental life. ”

“ We have seen that by the law of mental inertia, a state of consciousness—image, idea, emotion—cannot last for ever, after the exciting cause has ceased to act, for a state of consciousness is a transformation of energy, and it finishes when it has exhausted its initial quantity of force. ”

“ If it were true that there is a necessary relation between vigor of body and vigor of mind; that mental power is proportional to physical power; that thought is but a special form of energy and capable of transformation, like heat, light and electricity; that it, like the various physical forces, has its chemical and mechanical equivalents; that psychic work corresponds to a certain amount of chemical or thermic action; that intellectual capacity in man is proportional to muscular strength ”

“ It is true that mental effort, intellectual work, is accompanied by transformations of matter, chemical changes in the brain, and by transformations of energy. But the mental activity is not a part of the energy or of the matter which is transformed, but the balance of energy and of matter closes.
In the energy transformations accompanying mental activity, just as much energy of one form appears as energy of some other form is consumed, and the mental activity is no part of the energy. ”

“ Whereas we can act on the external world only through our muscles; in ourselves we are aware of things belonging to a totally different category, with which muscle and movement and energy appear to have nothing to do,—such things as thought, purpose, desire, humour, affection, consciousness, will. These mental faculties seem intimately associated with, and are displayed by, our bodily mechanism ”

“ By energy of will, by slowly increasing physical and mental exercise, he reconquered the use of his body and mind—gradually compelled the dormant nerve centres to awake and resume their functions. Later he wrote: “The great lesson it taught me is that man is meant to be, and ought to be, stronger and more than anything that can happen to him. ”

“ Full.—Creates a good share of energy and physical force, yet no more than is necessary to cope with surrounding difficulties; and, with large moral and intellectual faculties, manifests more mental than physical force. ”

“ When, therefore, we speak of a mental cause, a mental agency, we have always a two-sided cause; the effect produced is not the effect of mind alone, but of mind in company with body. That mind should have operated on the body, is as much as to say that a two-sided phenomenon, one side being bodily, can influence the body ”

“ "Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man's bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind. Through pressure of instincts from past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into human consciousness. They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a desirable or an undesirable body. Outward frailty has mental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind. ”

“ In many cases the emotional energy may be directed into other and more valuable channels. It may be transmuted into cognitive or conative energy. "To a certain extent, whatever currents are diverted from the regions below must swell the activity of the thought-tracts of the brain." [3] The emotional power that has been excited should not be allowed simply to accumulate as a dead weight. ”

“ Vitalizing Influence of Certain Ideas One of the greatest discoveries of modern times is the impellent energy of thought.
That every idea in consciousness is energizing and carries with it an impulse to some kind of muscular activity is a comparatively new but well-settled principle of psychology. ”

“ Now, you may ask the question, how do we know that there is such a thing as soul-energy, or that there are inner forces? How do we know? We know as we know everything in life. We have to follow the same methods. How do you know the different details of a machine? ”

“ Some other thinkers have taught that the inner life of thought and feeling is only, as it were, an echo of the really important activity--that of the body and brain. Ideas are just foam-bells on the hurrying streams and circling eddies of matter and energy that make up our physiological life. ”

“ It will be noticed that there are three distinct parts to the process, corresponding to intellect, emotion, will. The initial intellectual part makes us sensitive to certain situations, makes us recognize an object as meaningful and significant, and waves the flag for the emotion; the emotion fires up the engine, pulls the levers all over the body that release its energy and get it ready for action, and pushes the button that calls into the mind an intense, almost irresistible desire or impulse to act. Once aroused, the emotion and the impulse are not to be changed. ”

“ What power, in sum, Can raise with agile leap our body aloft, Save energy of mind which steers the limbs? Now seest thou not how powerful may be A subtle nature, when conjoined it is With heavy body, as air is with the earth Conjoined, and energy of mind with us? ”

“ Accustomed to find objects to occupy my powers wherever I turned, I mistook the simple love of being employed for real energy of mind, and therefore did not even apprehend the want of power to direct these energies to whatever I pleased. But it is not as I thought. My natural turn of mind (if I may so call what is perhaps more a weakness of heart) is for that calm, saddened view of things, which seeks enjoyment from the contemplative in character, and lives rather on the food of imagination than reality. ”

“ Through each one of us course the fiery rays of human emotion, a great seething cauldron of power behind each expression of human energy. Like spirited horses chafing at the bit, like hounds eager for the chase, the emotional powers cannot be held in check, but break the walls of restraint and pour forth as fiery expressions of dynamic energy. ”

“ So far as the physical world is concerned, it is a mere by-product, a useless adjunct—the feeling of energy-expenditure being delusory. Such is the attitude of modern psychology, and a very hopeless and unattractive belief it is!
As opposed to this view, I propose to show that the human will is a definite physical energy, which forms an essential part of our human personality—and forms, indeed, the very core of our being, so far as its expression into the physical world is concerned. ”

“ There come upon us, it seems to me, in those times, fits of musing far deeper and more intense, excitability of feeling—perhaps of imagination too—more acute than at any other time. Perhaps, also, a determination, an energy of will is added, necessary to carry us through, with power and firmness, the struggle, or the change, or the temptation that awaits us. ”

“ But those human energies which are informed with mind, realize themselves in ardent or rational thought, or in uttered words, or in products of the artfully devising hand. All this clearly is expression, and corresponds, if it is not one and the same, with the passing of energy from potency to the actuality which is its end and consummation. Thus love, seeking its end, thereby seeks expression, through which it is enhanced, and in which it is realized. ”

“ But how “mechanical happening” comes to have this marvellous inwardness, which we call sensation, feeling, perception, thought and will, which is neither mechanical nor derivable from anything mechanical; and, further, how physical and psychical can condition one another without doing violence to the law of the conservation of the sum of energy, is an absolute riddle. ”