Book Description
It is claimed by some that it is diffi­cult to make money, and that most of those who do make it have small defer­ence for the decalog. It is the author's assertion that the making of money is no more difficult than the harvesting of any other crop whose seed we have planted. To know what this seed is, to sow it, and consequently to reap the harvest is to put oneself in the posses­sion of wealth. This volume is the book of personal development and the law of psychology applied to the attainment of financial freedom.

Book Contents:

Chapter 1 -   Financial Freedom and Money…………………

Chapter 2 -   Money, Souls, and Psychology…………………

Chapter 3 -   Wealth and Self-Expression……………………

Chapter 4 -   Suggestion………………………………………

Chapter 5 -   The Necessity of Choosing What We Want……

Chapter 6 -   The Subconscious Mind………………………..

Chapter 7 -   Suggestion and the Subconscious Mind……….

Chapter 8 -   Physical Fitness and Personal Magnetism……...

Chapter 9 -   Mental Alertness………………………………..

Chapter 10 - Personal Appearance…………………………...

Chapter 11 - Originality……………………………………...

Chapter 12 - Independence and Self-Reliance……………….

Chapter 13 - Imagination…………………………………….

Chapter 14 - Purpose…………………………………………

Chapter 15 - Foresight………………………………………..

Chapter 16 - Enthusiasm……………………………………..

Chapter 17 - Self-Control………………………………….…

Chapter 18 - Will-Power……………………………………...

Chapter 19 - Obedience and Loyalty…………………………

Chapter 20 - Persistence……………………………………..

Chapter 21 - Cheerfulness and Courage……………………...

Chapter 22 - Good-will and Friendship………………………

Chapter 23 - Tact……………………………………………..

Chapter 24 - Bigness and Detail……………………………...

Chapter 25 - Knowledge of the Laws of Suggestion…………

Chapter 26 - Work, Thrift, and Investment…………………..

Chapter 27 - Moral Standards and Religious Faith…………..

Chapter 28 - Conclusion………………………………..…….

ARE some born to the hovel and others to the hotel, some to the ditch and others to the dutchy? Has the divine economy arranged that of two, born side by side, one is designed to be "waiter" and the other to be waited upon? No greater falsehood was ever perpe­trated upon the human race than the promulgation of such a doctrine.

On the other hand, a second lie has been conceived to combat the first, to wit, that everyone has an equal right with every other, not to the reward of his own brain and toil, but to the brain and toil of others.

The fact is that what a man is to possess has not been arbitrarily settled upon by a designing Creator. It has been put under a fixed and invariable principle which is no respecter of persons and metes out to each accord­ing to his use of the law of getting and keeping. For while there is plenty of all for each, he obtains it only in proportion to his knowledge and use of the law of financial freedom, which rewards those who obey the rules and deprives those who break them.

We are all "to the manor born," and the difference in degree of possession is not to be measured by privilege but by the development of capacity which enables each to make a more or less intelligent demand upon an equally impersonal law.

It is said by some that it is hard to make money, and that those who do make it usually have no deference to the decalog. As a matter of fact, the making of money is no more difficult than the harvesting of any other crop whose seed we have planted. The analogy is perfect, for we literally "reap as we have sown," and if we know how to sow the seeds of success, we shall reap it. To know what this seed is, to sow it, and conse­quently to reap the harvest, is to put oneself in the possession of wealth. Nor will he resent its possession by another when he has made plenty of his own. The universe is full of the raw materials of wealth and plenty, so that there is enough for all. It only remains to learn the secret of its acquisition, to lift the world out of poverty and want.

The great seers of the past have understood this law and have declared that "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap," but it has not generally been con­sidered that the statement refers to anything else than religion. It has remained for the present day to in­vestigate the psychological, metaphysical, and financial law that underlies this statement, and present it as a science to the human race. As H. G. Wells has remarked, in effect, "The next century will be a century of applied psychology." We have the materials and the machinery of universal financial freedom. We must cultivate the knowledge which will utilize them for the good of each.

This knowledge is psychological and metaphysical, and it is our purpose in the present volume of this series to show how those who aspire to financial freedom may develop and employ the necessary mental qualities to produce complete economic independence and soul-satis­fying environment for themselves and those who are dear to them.

This volume is the book of personal development and the law of psychology applied to the attainment of finan­cial freedom.

Fenwicke L. Holmes.

San Francisco, California, September 7, 1926.

Chapter 1

FINANCIAL FREEDOM AND MONEY

MONEY is a word of magic. Speak it with authority and the world will bring its rarest treasures to your door,—its wood cut in the depth of swamps or primeval forests and cunningly wrought and finished; its finely-carded wool woven on ancient looms in far-away places; its silks spun by insects and patterned by man; its skins from the remotest wilderness; its ores grubbed from the heart of the earth and fashioned into half-human bodies to wash and sew, to drive your wheels and take you hither and yon; its canvases touched to life by the soul of the artist; its songs and melodies; its feasts and festi­vals. These are the treasures which the magic of money will draw to your door.

Is it any wonder that all the world is interested in money, eager to learn the secret of the acquisition of wealth? And why should we assume that it is wrong for the spiritually-minded to inquire into it? Is all money "tainted"? Are they alone saintly who live with­out food, shelter, and beauty?

Character is not a problem of money but a question of method. There are those who have character and no money, others who have money and no character; there are those who have both, and there are those who have neither. I propose to show that it is possible to obtain one without losing the other, how it is done by mental law; and how each individual may possess all he desires without robbing any other.

Money is power. Money is freedom. Money is a universal solvent. Money is a god that settles disputes, heals wounds and fosters brotherhood; it is a devil that makes war and in its frenzy feeds on its own vitals. Money in a crucifix or a cannon, a palace or a prison, a friend or a foe. But it is always a force.

Money is houses, lands, railways, ships, services, honors, ease, travel. Money is nothing. Now we get down to the meat of it. Money is nothing! A bar­rel of marks may not be worth a bottle of beer, a liter of lira, not worth the trouble of figuring the exchange. But the same may be said of a paper dollar, or a thou­sand dollar bill! If you doubt this, note what happens to the man who removes the "one" from a dollar bill and reprints it with two ciphers. Nothing is changed but the ink; but when the government superscription is gone, it is "all gone."

The value of money in itself is the value of the paper on which it is printed. Money is nothing.

Money is mutual agreement, cooperation, coordina­tion, confidence, faith. Money is faith. It is the belief men have in each other. The word creed and the word credit both come from the same Latin root, "credo," I believe. When I take money from you in exchange for my labor it is because of my belief. I believe that when I take this money to the grocer he will give me flour; to the baker, he will give me bread; to the tailor, he will give me clothes. I believe that each of them will believe in my money.

Money is a symbol. It symbolizes the labor you have performed, the crops you raised, the goods you manu­factured; the book you wrote, the picture you painted, the song you sang, the sermon you preached. It is a sign, the sign of boiled-down labor of brains or brawn. It is a symbol of the exchange you are about to make, your brawn for another's brains, your brains for another's brawn.

Money is service. The world pays for whatever it values—a trinket, a car, a painting, a teacher, a preacher, a dream, a thought. The world always wants some­thing; whatever it wants it must pay for, and whatever it pays for it must want or it would not pay for it. Therefore whoever satisfies a want becomes a servant, and his services must receive their hire.

Summing it all up, then, money is the symbol of service. There are many kinds of services, but all of them can be turned first into the symbol or medium of exchange which we call money and then back into services and things. In this form it becomes a great force. It is power and this power is neutral. That is, the money can become anything we want it to be­come. That is why the world wants money so that it can have not what anyone happens to give it, but what it wants to get.

Money is freedom to do what we want to do, to go where we want to go, and to be what we want to be. There is nothing bad in money, for who can see wrong in a symbol of service which is a great, impersonal force, inspiring faith and convertible into other forms which the possessor can creatively mold into whatsoever he wills?

The wrong associated with money lies not in the money but the association—how it was gained and how it is spent. Was it acquired in honorable service, is it spent for honorable ends? Is the labor worth the hire, or did he who gained the hire lose his own soul in the acquisi­tion? And what is it to "lose one's own soul"?

It is evident from the foregoing that money is simply a convenient method of Transformation, the medium in which we dissolve one form and bring forth another. Form is transferred into energy or force and from energy or force refashioned into form. Just as we cast all our old trinkets into the crucible and remold them into a dish or a statue so we cast all our possessions into the matrix called money and bring forth other desired forms. Of course there are other and more primitive methods of exchange. I may saw wood for my dinner or ex­change a sonnet for a saw. Or I may repudiate money as "the root of all evil" and say to my employer, "I will trust you tomorrow to give me bread for the work I did yesterday." To so repudiate money is to deny myself the conveniences of civilization. Only the ignorant or the fanatical, therefore, will dispense with the services of money; and this book is not written for either.

It is not money, but "the love of money," that is the "root of all evil." The quest of a competence in the medium of money is, therefore, legitimate, and the only moral or ethical question that may be raised is, "How did you get it?"