Excerpts from

  SUCCESS AND CONQUEST
The Creed of the Conquering Chief
An Experiment in Psychology
by Albert Lewis Pelton




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THE PROFESSOR’S PROLOGUE

Man is the crowning work of the Maker of all created things.

He gains his greatness and maintains his position of supremacy, solely because he possesses that wonderful endowment: MIND—the ability to think and reason; and having thought—to forge ahead along such lines as he chooses.

He is forever separated from—and superior to—all other orders of creation, because no other has this "Mind" attribute.

* * * * * * *

For many years I have been an investigator in that great field of phenomena known as Psychology—the study of the Human mind.

In my studies and researches into the Science of mental power, my experiments had been largely in the realm commonly termed Genius.

Genius is the classification given certain men who exhibit rare qualities of mind-power. It is used to describe the sort of men who concentrate and intensify to the nth degree, phases of brain energy which the mass of men use only in a weak, scattering way.

"The highest form of creation, whether in art or life, is genius" says Wingfield-Stratford. "Genius is natural to man, and in no way more mysterious than any other faculty of the mind. It may be defined as subconscious activity functioning rightly."

Men of Genius are unmistakable guide-posts where History records man's passage from the beginning to the end of world-life. Men of genius are stately peaks rising above the foothills covered by the submerged multitudes.

I had sought to discover the causes or secret — the foundation principle, as it were — of the great man. Time after time I had mentally asked myself:

Are there any definite laws which the superior man applies?

Is "Genius" a divine endowment — the despair of all to whom it does not come early and clearly in life?

''Are men of genius a "race apart" — each one struck off from the Great Center only at odd intervals?

Those were some of the questions for which I tried to find answers in my mind. They caused much thought and mediation. In whatever direction I pursued my quest for some tangible result — always was it made manifest that the genius-mind exemplified these deep truths:

1.    Thought intensified.

2.    Vision made concrete.

3.    Clear observation frozen into fact.

In short — it is Mind-power turned into ACTION. Genius is energy-charged, Will-directed Thought-force vitalized into life. This is the turning point at which the man of genius separates himself from the hum­drum crowd.

Thought is Power!

Again and again declare that great truth. Believe it. Dream it. Go forth and PUT IT INTO ACTION.

Ah yes! — ability to think — that is the great man's chief characteristic. It is Brain-energy harnessed and made productive; it is the trait which infallibly makes men masters.

I have watched men at work and men at play. I have studied the mass—the so-called "submerged mil­lions"—and their minds grow little more than weeds. Their brains are giving them scant harvests. Some­thing has blighted and stunted their productiveness. Their brain plants seem to have scarcely enough depth or root to save them from blowing across the sands — withering and disappearing.

And they constitute the bulk of mankind!

Yet again — here and there I have seen men whose minds were productive to a remarkable degree. Deep, fertile, steadily reaching upwards — self-centered, stur­dy and strong. They owned brains which were yielding rich fruits of thought—a Mind in all its greatness.

The Mind has two levels or phases of action. The upper or surface level which often reveals beautiful creations and hangs heavy with rich and luscious fruits — those wonderful products of mental growth and har­vest. The lower level — that deep, unfathomable sea — is where the surface life roots down and from which it draws its nourishment and power.

These two levels of the Mind are given the names conscious and sub-conscious. The mind-life of which we are aware in the round of the day's duties, is the Conscious phase of mind. Deep down below the sur­face, there exists a vast mental life of which we are not aware. It is the sub-conscious realm — the power­house of Thought-energy.

It is from these depths that men of genius draw a brimming measure of creative power. It is from this unfailing spring the great man brings up into con­scious use, the huge stores of thought or idea-force which he turns into visible ACTION or RESULTS. Then men call him "genius".

The relation of the conscious mind to the sub-con­scious (under) mind, might be illustrated in this way: after a heavy rain storm you will find the ground still damp or wet on the surface. But deeper and deeper down—trickling through the grains of sand—the bulk of the rain has passed, finally to accumulate far below the surface, awaiting the call of the artesian drill.

Such a reservoir is your sub-conscious mind. During your waking hours it is incessantly receiving a supply of thought material from the upper or conscious mind. It is storing, combining, mixing, increasing and amass­ing BRAIN-POWER. All that you have ever seen, heard or felt has sunk down into your sub-conscious storehouse. It is almost as Prof. Babbage has said: "The air is one vast library, on whose pages are forever written all that man has ever said, or woman whis­pered."

Great is he who has learned the secret of making the sub-conscious yield up its unlimited wealth. HE IS A GENIUS.

* * * * * * *

I asked of many I met: "What is the secret of reaching this great reservoir of Power? How can this sub-conscious mind be tapped in the way the genius draws upon it? How can the average man command this creative force in a masterly fashion?"

And always did those who had given the subject any thought reply "O, genius is just 'inspiration', that's all," or words to that effect. Others said: "Genius is the result of hard work".

To be a genius one need only study hard enough to be able to tell the people what they already think. The superiority of genius is therefore no different from that of any educated person; except in the degree of application. Anyone might possess this superiority.

People seem to hold the common belief that the great man is a peculiar personality, unsolvable excepting on the ground of a divine "inspiration" having aroused his every cell and fibre and nerve — and made him what he is.

Therefore my problem resolved into this question: "What is 'inspiration,' so called?"

I say:

Inspiration, as explaining the great man's secret, is nothing else than energy from the sub-conscious mind flaring up into the field of the conscious mind—and rapidly ripening fruits or products which astonish the average person.

I have seen men at their work—dull, listless, men­tally asleep. "Nobody at home" as the expression is. And again, here and there I have seen another kind of man, in whom was pulsating a vibrant Life-energy—a Mind-energy—a Creative energy. He is eager, am­bitious, alert, and alive in every cell. His very soul seems to be peering out of his eye-windows—beaming in every action and effort to express his true Self. It is to men of this type that "inspiration" comes as a spark which flashes into action the gift of greatness.

"God creates by intuition; man creates by inspira­tion, stren-

gthened by observation. This second crea­tion, which is nothing else but divine action carried out by man, is what is called genius".

"What, then, is the secret of this inspirational spark?

To solve this question called for deep thought, careful test and close observation. I confess that even now I have found no universal, good-for-all formula. I fear that none ever will be found. The training, the goals, the heritage and the lives of men are so widely different, that each must find his own special route.

But I have been told that what I did find, and teach, has been of priceless help in many lives—and such as it is I give it freely in the pages that follow.

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