The Victorious Attitude

by Orison Swett Marden

It doesn't matter what we call them,—subconscious and conscious self, or subjective and objective mind, we are all conscious that these are two forces constantly at work in us. One commands and the other obeys. We know that one of these, the subjective mind, does not originate its acts, but gets its instructions from the objective mind, which contains the will power. Experience shows us that the subjective or subconscious mind, which I have called a "personal secretary," is a servant which obeys our will, carries out our wishes, and registers in the brain a faithful record not only of every thought, word and act of ours, but of everything we see, and everything we hear others say.

Coleridge tells of a remarkable instance of the truth of this. A young German servant girl was taken ill with a fever, and in her delirium she recited correctly long passages from famous authors in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Scholars were called in to hear this uneducated girl speaking fluently tongues of which she had no knowledge in her conscious moments, and to tell if they could what it meant. They were much puzzled and could make nothing of it; but later the miracle was explained. Years before, it seems, the girl had lived in a minister's family, and was accustomed to hear her master recite the classics aloud. She had listened attentively, and her subconscious mind had faithfully recorded every word in her brain, and reproduced what it had heard when the objective mind was quiescent.

Numerous instances might be cited to show that our subconscious mind is the record storehouse of all that has ever happened to us. Every thought, every experience, whatever passes before the eye, or that we see or hear or feel is registered accurately in our brain by our subconscious mind.

Now, if this other self, personal secretary, subconscious mind, or whatever we choose to call it, has such enormous power, why can it not be trained to work for us when we are asleep as well as when we are awake? Have you ever thought of the possibilities of spiritual and mental development during sleep? Has it ever occurred to you that while the processes of repair and upbuilding are proceeding normally in the body, the mind also may be expanding, the soul as well as the body may be growing?

"When corporal and voluntary things are quiescent, the Lord operates," said Swedenborg. The great Swedish philosopher was a firm believer in the activity of the other self during sleep. He claimed that his "spiritual vision" was opened in the unconscious hours of the night.

The Bible teems with illustrations of the activity of the subconscious mind or self during sleep. Warnings are given, work is commanded to be done, visions are seen, plans are outlined, angels are conversed with, courses of conduct advised; and every suggestion made to the soul in the dream state is literally carried out in the waking hours.

Theosophists believe that during sleep the soul or spirit acts independently of the body; that it actually leaves the body and goes out into the night to perform tasks appointed it by the Creator.

As a matter of fact, few people realize what an immense amount of work is carried on automatically in the body under the direction of the subconscious mind. If the entire brain and nervous system were to go to sleep at night all of the bodily functions would stop. The heart would cease to beat, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys and the other glands would no longer act, the various digestive processes would cease to operate, all the physical organs would cease working, and we should stop breathing.

One of the deepest mysteries of Nature's processes is that of putting a part of the brain and nervous system, and most of the mental faculties which were in use during the day, under the sweet ether of sleep while she repairs and rejuvenates every cell and every tissue, but at the same time keeping in the most active condition a great many of the bodily processes and even certain of the mental and creative faculties. These are awake and alert all the time while the sleeper is in a state of unconsciousness.

Most of us probably have had the experience of dropping to sleep at night discouraged because we could not solve some vexing problem to our satisfaction. It may have been one in mathematics during our school days, or, later on, a weightier one in business or professional life, and behold, in the morning, without any conscious effort on our part, the problem was solved; all its intricacies were unraveled, and what had so puzzled us the night before was perfectly clear when we woke up in the morning. Our conscious, objective self did not enter the mysterious laboratory where the miracle was wrought. We do not know how it was wrought. We only know that it was done somehow, without our knowledge, while we slept.