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Chapter Four

The Creative Law of Prosperity

Let us get down to business about prosperity. Now that you have formed a vacuum, you are ready to fill that vacuum with rich, new good through the creative law of prosperity. Actually, the creative law of prosperity concerns the three basic steps given in this chapter and the next two: (1) Having a plan, writing out one’s desires concerning that plan, and constantly expanding that plan; (2) Mentally imaging that plan and those plans desired as fulfilled; (3) Constantly affirming their perfect fulfillment. However, the first part of the creative law, as discussed in this chapter, is all-important, because without a plan and notes concerning it, the other two steps are ineffective.

Strong Desire Is Success Power

The first step in the creative law of prosperity is desire, and the ability to do something constructive about that desire. Recently a businessman told me he has discovered in his work that when a customer comes to him greatly desiring certain products, he has found it best always to sell that customer what he really desires. This businessman said that even though he personally may feel that there are other products that would better serve his customer, if his customer has already made up his mind and strongly desires certain products, he never tries to change that desire, because desire is so impelling. He stated that strong desire denotes faith in the product, which almost inevitably brings satisfaction. There is nothing weak or lukewarm about true desire. It is intense and powerful. If properly developed and expressed, a strong desire always carries with it the power for success. The stronger your desires for good, the greater the power of your desires to produce that good for you.

I have discovered in counseling people who have various problems that the right kind of desire will dissolve anything that has stood in the way of fulfillment. Right desire is truly the first step in solving problems and getting on the road to prosperity. How can you release your deep-seated desires for prosperity and success? By centering your attention on one big goal at a time.

One big goal always includes a number of smaller desires that are automatically fulfilled when the big one is achieved. Psychologists agree that we influence people and events by having great desires and great goals. It is as though everything and everybody subconsciously tunes in on our big desires and goals, and gets busy helping us to achieve them. The amazing thing is that, of the millions of people who think they want to be successful, few of them have any really strong, impelling desires. They have been content to idly drift in a stream of small events and small expectations. When you meet a person who is really going places in this world, usually it is a person of intense desire for the highest and best in life. One of the basic statements I have often asked people to use to help expand and intensify their constructive desires is: I desire the highest and best in life, and I now draw the highest and best to me.

Write Down Your Desires

The law of creative prosperity is to take your deep-seated desires and, instead of suppressing them as impossible dreams, begin expressing them constructively through deciding what they really are, and then doing something very simple but very powerful about them: Write them down! That is, make a list or draw up some kind of potential plan, which you should feel free to change, revise, reform and rearrange as your ideas about it unfold. This idea of writing out your desires and formulating a plan on paper clarifies the desires in your mind, and the mind produces definite results only when it has been given definite ideas through which to work.

Many people work hard at prosperity in external ways, but they miss the mark because they are afraid to get definite in their thoughts and desires. They want to live better and to have more money, but they never get definite in their desires about how they want to live better or how much more money they need. In fact, many people hesitate to get definite, fearing that they are telling God what to do. But as Dr. Emilie Cady once wrote: “Desire is God tapping at the door of your mind, trying to give you greater good!’ If you suppress those deep desires, they have no constructive outlet and often turn into destructive channels expressed as neurotic tendencies, phobias, tension, or perhaps as suppression that finds outlet through alcoholism, mental illness, dope addition, sexual imbalance, or other negative actions. The power of writing out one’s desires and plans was first proved to me by my former boss, Joe Tally, a number of years ago. One day, just after he had been defeated in a Congressional race, instead of feeling sorry for himself, he immediately got busy formulating a new plan. He stated his desire for larger law offices; his desire for the expansion from a two-man firm to a five- or six-man firm; and the desire to increase the annual income he wished the firm to attain year by year for the next five years.

At that time, I did not know that this was one of the most powerful methods for attaining success. It seemed so simple! Nevertheless, I watched his scribbled plan come to life and fruition. The law firm gradually expanded into a five-man arrangement in which each attorney specialized in certain phases of legal practice. The firm moved from two small offices into spacious new quarters that occupied the entire floor of a modern, new bank building.

“Nothing succeeds like success” was surely manifested for Joe Tally after he formulated a plan, dared to put it in writing, and started moving toward it.

Prosperity Is a Planned Result

A stockbroker’s story further proves the power of formulating plans for prosperity and success. A few years ago, the president of a large corporation died. At the time of his death, this corporation was in financial difficulties. The vice-president, who had been considered outstanding in a financial way, then took the helm. Immediately this corporation began to prosper, and today its stock is one of the best on the market. Its sales records during recent years have superceded those of all of its well-known competitors. The prosperity secret? Well, it seems that this vice-president had for years worked on a plan he felt wise for the growth and prosperity of this corporation. The day he became president, he took that plan out of his desk drawer and began executing it. Today his corporation is no longer a mediocre one with indebtness pulling it down. Instead, it is one of the most prosperous in the country! He proved that prosperity is a planned result.

Prosperity is the result of deliberate thought and action. There is nothing hit and miss about prosperous living. It is a planned result, just as a bridge or building is a planned result. Without deliberate, prosperous plans, there will be no prosperous results on a consistent, permanent basis.

This law of creative prosperity was one that has surely “clicked” with the students in my prosperity classes. Many of the business people who attended told me that this one idea turned their previous faltering efforts toward prosperity into amazingly successful results. They had worked long and hard, but not in definite or specific ways. Then they discovered there was no reason to be afraid to ask for what they really desired. The Bible promises, Ask and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and the door shall be opened.

Perhaps you are thinking that you do not really know what you want; that your desires are not that definite as yet. In that case, simply begin thinking about and even making lists of what you don’t want in your life that is there. List the things you wish cleared up and eradicated from your life. To that list declare, This too shall pass, or, Be thou dissolved.

I know of a man in the electrical business who did this. His business partner had died months earlier, leaving his share of the business in the hands of uncooperative heirs who would neither buy nor sell. It was almost in desperation that the surviving partner began applying prosperous thinking. His main desire was either to buy the other half of the business or sell his half. He simply wanted to dissolve the deadlock which was costing the business money; and he wanted to eradicate the unpleasantness, confusion and uncertainty of his business situation. Within a month after he wrote out notes about the unpleasantness and uncertainty being dissolved, he received word from a lawyer that his partner’s heirs would sell! They did immediately with no further ado.

A Prosperity Formula

One group of business people that experimented with me on prosperous thinking during a recent recession did this: They first wrote out their desires for six months hence, and then wrote out their desired achievements for each month of the six. Each week they added to their list or changed their list of desired results, as they felt led. In some instances, they changed the list completely, expanding their desires or crossing off desires that no longer appealed to them.

Then each week the class members brought these listed desires to class. No one ever saw these individual lists except each student. We began each class period by privately taking our lists in hand and verbally declaring together concerning them: I am the rich child of a loving Father. All that the Father has is mine to share and to experience. Divine Intelligence is now showing me how to claim my own God-given wealth, health and happiness. Divine Intelligence is even now opening the way for my immediate blessings. I have faith that all that is mine by divine right now comes to me in rich abundance. My rich blessings do not interfere with anyone else’s good, since God’s rich substance is unlimited and everywhere for all to use. There is no delay! That which is not for my highest good now fades from me and I no longer desire it. My God-given desires are richly fulfilled now in God’s own wonderful way.

The students were also instructed to spend at least 15 minutes a day pouring their verbal prayers and blessings (which we will talk about in the sixth chapter) upon their listed desires, and daily to work on their lists, revising, changing, expanding them. They were asked to do very definite things, such as listing the amount of money they wished to make for the day, week or month. They were also asked to place a time limit and definite dates by which they wished the fulfillment of their desires. They were further instructed not to wonder, doubt or question how their rich good was to be fulfilled, but they were to stay busy putting the creative laws of prosperity into action in these simple ways. The results they attained were fabulous and I have received letters from people all over the world who read of this creative method of prosperity, and who tried it, with similar prosperous results! As the group worked with their lists, revising and changing them, we often affirmed the words of Goethe, “What you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” We often declared, What we can conceive, we can achieve with the help of God. And we often reminded ourselves of this truth: Every obstacle rushes to get out of the way of the man who knows where he is going; and all the world seems on the side of the man who tries to rise. There seems to be almost magical power in thinking of one’s desires, expressing them constructively by writing them down, stating the time by which one wishes their fulfillment, and then praying that God’s good will be done in the matter. Does it sound too simple to work? Great truths and powerful secrets often appear simple. So simple, in fact, that the average person overlooks them in trying to find a more difficult way.

Write a Letter to God

One businesswoman invoked the creative method of prosperity in a slightly different way. At the first of the year, instead of making a lot of New Year’s resolutions, she wrote a letter to God in which she honestly listed all of her desires for the New Year. She then placed the sealed letter in her Bible. Toward the end of the year, she showed me that letter, which had specifically listed many things. All of the big desires she had expressed had been fulfilled: She was widowed and had expressed a desire to marry happily again. Toward the end of the year, I performed a private wedding ceremony for her and the bridegroom, whom she had met through friends after writing out that desire. She also had stated in the letter her desire for a better home.

The bridegroom gave it to her! Her other big desire had been for a better job. In the middle of the year, that too had come forth as a pleasant, satisfying, higher-paying position. But I must caution you: Be honest with yourself when you write out your desires. Express, as did this woman, your really deep feelings. Don’t write out what somebody else wants for you, or what you think you should desire. Be honest with yourself and your Maker, if you really want happy results.

I know of another businesswoman who wrote a similar letter to God at the first of the year, but instead of writing out her deep and big desires, she listed in a lukewarm, half-hearted way some of her surface and smaller desires. The things really gnawing at her heart were not even mentioned. And nothing happened. Because she had kept her really deep desires locked within her, there had been no opened channel through which God’s substance could pour forth its rich good for her. A loving Father always wants you to have better than the best that you are now experiencing. Because “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” if you wish God’s help in experiencing it, the least you can do is to be honest with Him and with yourself. Otherwise, you block any possibility of fulfillment.

Perhaps you are thinking, “Yes . . . but what if my desires are not of the highest? Should I still be honest and list them?’ Certainly, because by being honest, you are releasing them instead of suppressing them; and as you release and face them, a loving Father can help you readjust them for good. I have observed this principle work in counseling people who wanted spiritual help, but who would perhaps feel that their problem was embarrassing or shocking. They would speak of their lesser problems, but would keep the thing which was really bothering them tight within them. It was only when they got at the heart of their problems that the answer and divine solution could come forth.

Make a Daily List

The creative method of writing out one’s desires proved so effective for a friend who has a modeling school that she recorded on tape specific instructions about making lists, revising them daily, etc. She plays that tape as a part of her modeling school course of instruction. The result? Scores of her students have obtained jobs of their choice in fashion modeling as well as in television and radio work, after faithfully making specific lists of the work they desired, the pay they desired, the hours they wanted to work and the working conditions they hoped for. Another simple but effective way of invoking the creative law of prosperity is by beginning and ending your day making notes and lists. In the morning I always sit quietly for a few minutes, often with a cup of coffee, while I think of my day and the many big and little things I wish to see accomplished by myself and others. I make lists of those desired accomplishments. It takes only a few minutes, which is time well spent, because I then feel in control of my day. I usually write a note of thanks to God at the end of that list for the “divine fulfillment and the divine achievements.” It is amazing how many things are taken care of for me, without my doing anything more than listing them and giving thanks for their divine fulfillment.

In like manner, at the end of the day I take another few minutes, go back over the day and write “thank you” notes to God for the blessings received and the good accomplished. I usually also begin thinking of the following day and make some notes concerning its perfect fulfillment. It seems to assure me of a peaceful mind and a restful night. I have found this practice of making morning and evening lists so satisfying and enlightening–because there are always more blessings to list than expected–that I now feel something is amiss if I do not observe this daily ritual. Things rarely go wrong in my day if I stick to my list-making.

Many People Use This Method

In case this list-making technique is beginning to sound slightly trivial to you, let me assure you that it is a success technique used by a number of successful people–more than most of us realize because they do not advertise their success secrets. Two prominent engineers have confidentially shown me little books that they keep in an inside coat pocket, which they take out when things become hectic during their business day, and in which they quickly make notations of the way they wish things to work out. No one suspects what they are doing, and so in the midst of people all around them, they quickly gain control of the various problems that confront them with their list-making.

Recently a mother in one of my classes asked her son who is a young business executive about a special course of instruction that he was currently studying with his company. He explained that he had been instructed to use a new psychological technique in solving his executive problems. This course had taught him that the proper modem method for solving problems was to sit down quietly, write out the problem, write out what he considered the highest and best solution, then tear up his notes and relax, knowing that his solution or something better would work out, since he had been able to work out a possible solution in his mind and on paper! This executive was quite surprised when his mother informed him she had been using that method for many months, having learned it at our study class.

A doctor’s financial income was boosted considerably within a few weeks after he began to write out the financial sum that he wished his practice to bring in each week. Previously, he had tried thinking in terms of boosted monthly income, but the figures had seemed too large for him to accept mentally. When he brought it down to a weekly level, it seemed easier for his mind to accept the idea of the weekly increase, and so it quickly manifested.

I agree with the writer of the Book of Proverbs when he instructed us, Let not kindness and truth forsake thee; bind them about thy neck; write them upon the tablet of thy heart; so shalt thou find favor and good understanding, in the sight of God and man. (Proverbs 3:3,4) When you are trying to find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man, the writing-out technique is indeed powerful.

Write to Their Angel

If you seek understanding regarding financial matters, it is good to secretly write out notes to those involved, seal those notes and place them in your Bible for the time being. The mystics used to teach that everyone has an “angel” or higher self, and that when we cannot reach that angel in the usual ways, we should secretly write to it. In fact, the mystics even went so far as to describe seven types of people with whom it is easier to deal satisfactorily, by writing their “angel,” than by trying to reason with them in the usual ways.

Perhaps you are thinking, “I am sure that is fine mysticism, but how practical is this angel-writing method?” Well, you should realize that anyone you are having difficulty with, you have not been able to reach in the usual ways. So what have you to lose, by secretly trying to reach them through their higher self or “angel”?

A businessman was having difficulty closing a business matter which had long been pending. Everyone involved was quite congenial and wished to conclude this matter, except one man who kept changing his mind and who seemed quite unsure about everything. This man kept things unsettled. In desperation this businessman decided to try the angel-writing method. It seems that the man giving the trouble was timid, apprehensive, always fearful about something. The businessman secretly wrote out just the opposite: “To the angel of (let us say) John Brown, I bless you and give thanks that you are bringing to a perfect conclusion this business matter, and that all concerned are satisfied and blessed by it.” This businessman wrote out this statement fifteen times, because he had learned that the ancients believed in using the number fifteen to break up and dissolve hard conditions. Within a few days this businessman telephoned me long distance to report that the person causing the difficulty had visited his office and had said, “Come down to my office tomorrow morning and the papers will be ready for signatures. This situation has been delayed too long, and I am anxious to conclude it.” The transaction was quickly completed.

Note-Writing Gets the Bills Paid

Another note-writing technique that is particularly helpful in getting the bills paid is this: When those bills begin to arrive in the mail, instead of silently resenting them, write on the envelopes, I give thanks for your immediate and complete payment. You are immediately and completely paid through the rich avenues of Divine Substance. It is also good, when the bills have already piled up, to make a list of those owed and the amount owing, and beside or beneath each one to write out the same statement concerning their immediate payment. A businessman once brought a file folder full of bills and said, “How can I possibly use the power of prosperous thinking to get these paid? Some of them are several months old.” We then sat for an hour or so, making a list of the amounts owed and to whom, listing first those owed the longest and those which were the most urgent. We then wrote out the above statement about their immediate payment. Since it seemed humanly impossible to pay all these bills immediately, we then made a second list, showing the ones that should be absolutely paid within the next week, along with the statement, I give thanks that you are immediately and completely paid by _________and listed the date a week hence.

Once a week this businessman came with his file folder of bills and we watched them get paid step-by-step. It took about two months to completely bring his financial affairs up-to-date. When he did, it was agreed that he would use this same technique at the first of each month to get current bills paid on time. This method seemed to help him gain control in this thinking about his financial affairs. Once he gained mental dominion, he was able to meet his financial obligations on time.

Woe Unto Them That Write About Their Troubles

It was Isaiah who advised us, Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to writers that write perverseness. (Isaiah 10:1) This surely applies to one’s financial affairs. A man I know was having business difficulties. At the start, they were not too urgent and with a change of attitudes could doubtless have been solved easily. But not realizing this, in his worried state of mind, this man began writing about his difficulties in detail to a number of his friends. As he magnified the difficulty in his mind and in the minds of others, it literally multiplied in his affairs. After he began to apply prosperous thinking to the situation, it took him several months to clear it up. He found it necessary to stop talking about his troubles to others and to stop putting anything negative in writing. When he started reversing the process and secretly writing out how he wished his business affairs to be, his difficulties began to diminish for the first time in months.

In like manner, it is good in the face of adverse appearances to secretly write out each day how you wish your affairs, might be, in contrast to how they appear. Not only does that help your mind to accept the improvement you desire; but it is as though your written out desire goes out into the ethers and is subconsciously tuned in on and everyone concerned begins to cooperate and help. Again, it may seem a mystical method, but if it produces practical, helpful results for you, why not dare to be a modern mystic?

Gain Control of Your Past and Future

It is also good to gain control of the past or future by writing out statements concerning them. I find in counseling people that many are still living in the past and regretting past mistakes; but the backward look keeps you from going forward and making present and future progress. I also realize that many fine people are afraid of the future. In either event, write out how you wish things might have been concerning some past mistake; or how you wish your life to be in the present and in the future. When you write out notes about how you wish past events might have been that have proved disappointing, it seems to take the “sting” out of the memory of those events. I have known of several instances where those involved in past unhappy experiences would write, telephone or appear to say the incident no longer mattered, and that all were forgiven concerning it. In some instances, better relationships than ever were happily reestablished between those who had experienced past bitter grievances and misunderstandings.

In like manner, if there is some future event that seems to threaten you, take control of it in your thinking by making lists concerning the way you wish it to be. If there is a business conference about which you are unsure, write out the names of all involved and write out definite statements of harmony, understanding and perfect results that you desire to see come forth. Since there is no time factor in the mental realm, your mind can project itself into a future experience and can prepare harmony and right results ahead of time, so that everything will move easily, quickly and successfully. The mind is man’s wonderful servant, when he realizes this and trains his mind to work for him.

One of the most successful young executives I have ever met told me that, while he was still in his teens, he wrote out a twelve year plan of progress for himself, which has amazingly manifested itself for him. Although he is still under thirty, he is considered wealthy, and it has been predicted that he will surely become a millionaire within the next ten years.

This Method Is All Powerful!

The creative law of prosperity can be all-powerful for producing success and happiness concerning your past, your present and even your future. There are desires that all of us wish to see come into visible expression and to grow into fine results. Why not begin quietly joining countless others in producing greater good in your life through these creative methods for prosperity? Begin now by first asking yourself just what it is that you honestly desire most in your life. Be specific, be definite, and sincere with yourself. Then write down your dominant desires. Thereafter, declare in privacy, without telling anyone what you are doing, the divine fulfillment of your desires. Declare: I give thanks for the immediate, complete, divine fulfillment of these desires. This or something better comes forth with perfect timing, according to God’s rich good for me. Then daily change and revise your lists as you feel led. Spend at least fifteen minutes a day on your list. Dare to persist in this simple procedure and then get ready for a landslide of happy results. More than you have dreamed possible will come your way because God’s friendly universe wishes you to be prospered and blessed.

Again I wish to remind you of the promise of Goethe, “What you can do or dream you can, begin it; boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Why not prove it now? As one prosperous thinker has often said to me, “I find the results really begin to come forth only after I start toward them.” The creative methods I have presented here are simple but provable ways of helping you start toward your good. After you do start toward your good, however, don’t be surprised if it rushes forth to meet you more than halfway!