Rebecca Fine Article

Back when Mr. Wattles' Science of Getting Rich was first published in 1910, it was a raving success. And a large part of that success was due to the powerful influence and personality of his publisher, Elizabeth Towne.

It's likely that you've never heard of her before, but she was an amazing woman, and if there was ever anyone who was "ahead of her time," Elizabeth Towne surely was!

Born in the 1860s, she was already a mother at 17, and then just a few years later a SINGLE mother -- this at a time when divorce was beyond scandalous and women in the United States couldn't even vote. In fact, women at that time had very few rights assured them. If they married, they basically became chattel property of their husbands.

Without going into all the details here and now (more later!), I'll just skip ahead to "the good stuff." ;-D

Elizabeth was clearly a woman who learned how to focus on what she wanted rather than what she didn't. Faced with a society that denied good-paying work and even most basic human rights to women, Elizabeth took matters into her own hands.

With little formal education and less capital, she started a publishing company to share the universal principles of prosperity and well being that we've learned about from our friend Wally, and eventually employed about a dozen young women while providing paying work for countless writers and helping to launch the careers of many famous authors.

She remarried -- this time to a younger man who was her true match, intellectually and spiritually, and who believed in the equality of women. For quite a while, he worked for her! Then he eventually became her business partner and co-publisher.

By the time she died at age 95, Elizabeth Towne had reached more than a million readers with her positive message and example of living in the certain way.

Today I want to share with you a few tidbits culled from just ONE of her many, many wonderful articles -- this one from 1911. So sit back and enjoy these ideas from the pen and press of the amazing woman who discovered and promoted Wallace Wattles ...

The statement that brings into realization all material desires is this: I AM what I desire.

Believe that you receive NOW -- and you shall have it.

In other words, if you believe in the NOW, that very belief sets in motion the hidden forces that materialize the thing desired.

To IMAGINE in exact detail the thing desired, and to affirm it as yours, rejoicing in it NOW, is the way, the truth and the life of it.

But every bit of thought and emotion wasted in impatience or discouragement because the desired thing is not NOW manifested, means a possible postponement of its realization.

I know a woman who is the very successful manager of a nine-story hotel, which she calls her "play house." For several years she has thought she could manage a much larger hotel and she has promised herself that some day she will do it.

The other day, out of a clear sky, without one word from her, came an invitation for her to assist in the management of one of the largest and most magnificent hotels in the whole world.

She had pictured such a hotel in her mind, beside which her nine-story hotel was to her a "play house," and she told herself she could manage such a hotel, and that some day she would.

In the meantime, she made the most of her "play house," which was to her the college preparation for the great opportunity to come "some day."

When she was offered the new work, she exclaimed, "Why, how do those people know anything about me or my work? I never even met one of them!"

"Oh, they know all about you," replied the man who first approached her on the subject. "They have been watching you for a long time, and one of them has dined at your place as my guest and looked the hotel over from top to bottom."

Suppose this woman manager had run her "play house" on the principle that it was ONLY a play house and she needn't exert herself until she got hold of the great big hotel she had promised herself.

Suppose she had spent more energy in merely LONGING for the big hotel and in scheming to get it.

Would she have stood the scrutiny of those millionaires who were looking for the right woman?

That is the pinch with most of us -- we fret away our energy on our desires, instead of pouring mind and soul into doing our level best with the "play house" at our command.

Our desires and ideals are to be believed and affirmed -- while our energies of mind and body are to be turned full upon the work that lies before us.

Some men and woman are born to their work, others achieve work, others have work thrust upon them. It is my experience that Life thrusts upon us the work we need to do well as the next step toward things desired, and that the more we try to slide out of that work, the harder and oftener it is thrust upon us until at last we accept it and do our best with it -- whereupon we find the way out and into the next class in line for our desires.

To gaze and strain after our desires is to turn our backs on the means of working them out.

Affirm and believe in your desires -- and do good work.

Look out that your desires don't get swamped for lack of intelligent direction of your energies -- thought energies as well as physical energies.

You can work for several desires at one time, in exactly the same way that you work in school for proficiency in several studies at the same time. In other words, you can take time every day for special concentration upon each specific desire. You can concentrate on your special desires in turn. In this way they will develop side by side and each will come to pass in due time.

And you can help all desires to come to pass by cultivating the attitude of EXPECTING GOOD in everything and through everything.

Remind yourself whenever you think of it that God is working in and through you to manifest the things you desire, that your desires are God's desires, that your brain and hands are God's brain and hands, that every good impulse of your heart is the impulse of God, that all things in the invisible world and in the visible world are working together to manifest the good that you desire -- that God desires THROUGH you.

Keep reminding yourself of these truths of being until the attitude becomes habitual. You will soon be surprised to see how things do really work for good to you -- how the information you need comes to you at unexpected times and from unlikely quarters ... how ideas crop up in your mind in answer to questions you have been asking yourself ... how books you need come into reach ... how people you need are drawn to you ... how you are drawn to places where you can learn more on the lines of your desire.

You will be surprised to see how inspirations flow to you from all directions, seen and unseen.

Self-suggestion simply means suggesting things to your Self. In other words, you talk to your Self. You know you do it anyway. Everybody does.

You merely take advantage of that power to talk to your Self, and you tell your Self the sort of things you WANT your Self to really believe and act upon.

That is the entire meaning of self-suggestion. You can suggest to your Self exactly as you would suggest to your brother or to your child -- only your Self is MUCH more obedient at taking your suggestions than other people would be! Keep on repeating your suggestions and by and by your Self will act upon them.

And remember that your Self is a very much greater, more beautiful, more powerful and wise Being than your conscious self has any idea of. Suggest all sorts of beautiful things to your Self, believe in them, and you will find them coming true.

I especially love how Elizabeth distinguishes between contemplating your clear mental image (as Wally advises) and merely longing for or yearning after your desires.

After all, when you find yourself in that place of longing or yearning, you are focusing on the ABSENCE or LACK of what you want rather than going ahead and feeling all the joy and gratitude and enthusiasm of it right NOW. And when you do that, you can only attract more lack.

She also makes it plain that once you know what you definitely want, it's time to take "efficient action" to "more than fill your present place."

And what a wonderful reminder this is that, as much as the world has changed in the last hundred years and as much as our circumstances seem so totally different, at heart we human beings are still very much the same. As our friend Wallace Wattles has pointed out, the desires of our hearts are constant, even though they often show up for us today in modern trappings Elizabeth and Wally wouldn't recognize.

Now if you enjoyed these little "appetizers" and would like to know more about Elizabeth Towne and her work, have a look at a web site created by Certain Way reader Romy Macias. Romy has republished several of Elizabeth Towne's most widely-read books in ebook form, with a special emphasis on women and success.

That makes a lot of sense, because while the principles apply to men and women alike, of course, Elizabeth Towne is an amazing example of the truth of the science of getting rich during times when the social, political and economic decks were firmly stacked against women (among other "classes" of people) both in her own country and around the world.

"NO possible combination of circumstances can defeat a MAN OR WOMAN who is proceeding to get rich along strictly scientific lines!"

(Emphasis added by me -- with pleasure!) ;-D

"When our thoughts and feelings are in harmony with the desire, then the action necessary will come naturally and easily to us -- and it will be much less action than we might have thought would be required."

Rebecca Fine-Certain Way Newsletter, Sept. 15, 2005
http://www.scienceofgettingrich.net

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