As I was driving home last week, I noticed a little boy and his mother by the side of the road. They had stopped walking and the mother was adjusting a toy crossbow to fit more comfortably over the boy’s shoulder. I realized that at that moment in the heart and mind of that small boy, he was not on a sidewalk by a busy road. Perhaps he was hunting in a forest, or was an intrepid explorer of the unknown, ready to pull out his bow and arrows at the slightest hint of danger. In his imagination he was a hero, confident, skilled, and brave. He was alert, prepared, with the expectation of overcoming danger or threat with his skill and swift reflexes.

For a child involved in imaginative play, there is very little distinction between fantasy and reality. Children live and play out their dreams totally in the moment.

There are many principles of success that can be learned by looking through the eyes of a child. Children’s eyes see with clarity and perception and reflect the reality of who they are. Children are uncluttered by training, brainwashing, and by living according to the unwritten rules and etiquette that have assailed the adult mind. For a child life has limitless possibilities that have not been squashed by logic, common sense, or limiting expectations that become part of the adult mind.

What principle of success can be drawn from the little boy with his bow and arrow?

One of the most powerful and yet unused principles of success is the process of visualization. Visualization is the act of creating compelling and vivid pictures in your mind. This is just what the little boy was doing. He was “that hero”; he acted like him, dressed like him, and could picture himself in another time and another place. For him, it seemed like reality. This is a spontaneous, natural process for a child.

Researchers have found that visualization accelerates achievement in powerful ways. It has been proved by research that when performing any task in life the brain uses the same identical processes that it would if you were only vividly visualizing that activity. The brain sees no difference at all between visualizing something and actually doing it.

This principle also is applicable when a person is learning something new. Visualization makes the brain achieve more. In a study by researchers at Harvard University, it was found that students who visualized in advance were able to perform tasks with nearly 100 percent accuracy. Students who performed tasks without using visualization only achieved 55 percent accuracy.

Visualization is frequently used by Olympic and professional athletes to improve performance.
Jack Nicklaus, a legend in the golfing world, once described how he uses visualization. “I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp in-focus picture of it in my head. It’s like a color movie. First I “see” where I want it to finish, nice and white and sitting high on the bright green grass. Then the scene quickly changes, and I “see” the ball going there: its path, trajectory, and shape, even its behaviour on landing. Then there’s a sort of fade out, and the next scene shows me making the kind of swing that will turn the previous images into reality.” The results of the power of visualization for Jack Nicklaus are convincing: he has won over 100 tournaments earning over 5.7 million in the process.

For a child a high proportion of time is spent in visualization. Adults may say, “He’s only playing” and not see the potential power for success that the child is practicing. Visualization is a process that is naturally strong in the learning and formative years of the child. Research now confirms that visualization activates the creative powers of the subconscious mind. It focuses the brain by programming its reticular activating system (RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but previously unnoticed. Visualization, incredibly, also magnetizes and attracts you to the people, resources, and opportunities you need to achieve your goal.

Next time you see children playing, pause to watch visualization in its purest form. What can you learn and apply to your own life to accelerate and achieve greater success using the principle of visualization?

Best-selling author Dr. Wayne W. Dyer has suggested that the purpose of life is to know God. Similarly, another best-selling author and pastor, Rick Warren, notes in The Purpose Driven Life that the search for life’s purpose begins with God. Both Dyer and Warren are correct, we think, but by pointing us to God they place a bigger maybe the biggest question squarely before us: What do we mean by “God”?

Multiple religious traditions across millennia have reflected on the divine. Taking just one notion, albeit a persistently popular one, let’s turn to Michelangelo’s sixteenth century depiction at the Sistine Chapel. Here one encounters the classic white beard and muscles image. Does the purpose of life really begin with this attractive, sixty-something grandfather with a piercing gaze and bulging biceps? Is this the guy who we are supposed to get to know in order to fully understand ourselves? Does he the Man Upstairs hold the key to discovering our life’s purpose?

We do not think so. While some might find inner inspiration with this notion of God, it does not work for us. As we struggle with questions of purpose and meaning, we are only frustrated by the literal and mental images and energy conjured by this classic portrait of the divine.

While a host of religious traditions point to a God who is “out-there” somewhere, waiting for our prayers and perhaps willing to help us (at least to the extent we are aligning our lives with “His purposes”), we wonder whether our search for the divine, meaning, and purpose in our lives ought to start “in-here” somewhere. Perhaps the first step to discovering God and ultimate meaning in our lives is through discovering and exploring the divinity that inhabits each one of us.

We are suggesting that traditional notions of a God who has wisdom, power, and goodness wholly external to us is possibly a distraction that keeps us from recognizing the divine potential for flourishing that each person already contains within his or her Authentic Self. What would happen if we broke-free of ancient ideas regarding humanity’s limitations, sinfulness, and powerlessness? What if we consciously rejected the language of divine parent residing outside and apart from us this Father God “upstairs” or “out there” to whom we as subservient children must look to and rely upon? What if we instead embraced a more universal concept of the divine as the animating and empowering Source of everything that has been, is, and might be created? What if our life’s purpose was understood as harmonizing with the Uni-Verse, the One Song that sustains and connects all of us? What if we viewed our ultimate life’s purpose and destiny as knowing our Authentic Self, learnin! g to sing our own song in harmony with others, and playing our own music in concert with this Animating Energy that connects everything? Perhaps it is in discovering our own divine attributes and then living a life with the intent of collaborating with God that we might fully realize our life’s greatest purpose and meaning.

These insights are ancient and their inspiration rooted in our earliest texts. Consider the exchange between Eve and the Serpent in the mythical Garden of Eden. God had commanded Adam not to eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because doing so, God warned, would result in death. But we are told that the Serpent was crafty, and the snake suggested to Eve that far from death, taking and eating the tree’s fruit would open Eve’s eyes, animate her awareness, and make her like God. And the Serpent was right. Eve took a bite of the luscious fruit, and she did not die. She then shared the fruit with Adam, and he did not die either. Rather, the eyes of both Eve and Adam were opened, and, as the Serpent had predicted, the holy scripture tells us that they became like Gods.

In this story, which circulated as an oral tradition throughout the wandering tribes of the ancient Near East, we are confronted with two important concepts. First, the concept of a God up in Heaven answering prayers and demanding our allegiance the parental God that many of us were raised to believe in provides an inadequate conceptual framework for realizing our divine potential. If you continue reading beyond these opening verses of Genesis’s third chapter, you will find these first two human beings making clothes and making offspring. Neither of them died on the day they touched and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Rather, and this brings us to the second point, Eve and Adam demonstrated an admirable boldness as they challenged the received wisdom. Rather then accepting the limits imposed by the social forces of her environment, Eve challenged the constraints of both Adam and God, and she modeled an unbridled courage that refused to settle for less than life’s best fruit. And in the process of recklessly and passionately pursuing where her instincts guided her, Eve had her eyes opened. She was enlightened and empowered. She discovered something about herself that living a safe, uninspired life would have always kept hidden.

And in this act of challenging the status quo and rejecting the conventional wisdom the commands from those in authority Eve models the type of behavior that always enlightens and empowers us to discover the Authentic Self our unique voice in the song of the Uni-Verse. Eve gives us an example to follow. Eve points us down the path to discovery of our Authentic Self. The danger lies not in eating of life’s fruits, rather it lies in the limitation we place on our ability to be open and aware. As quantum theory demonstrates, every thing emanates from Source energy and every thing is, ultimately, connected. We should not be surprised, therefore, when our departure from the collective whole leaves us feeling inadequate and incomplete. What we must do to reclaim our Authentic Self is to reclaim that we are entirely Source, wholly god- vibrations. And when we are operating like Eve with our eyes wide open and our spiritual frequency tuned to the unity vibrations of! the divine One Song, such a state resonates with our soul. When we live a life of divine resonance we are living a life of authenticity.

Thus, the first step in our exploration of the Authentic Self is the realization that a divine Spirit vibrates within each one of us. And what do we mean by “divine”? Originally from the Latin, divinus literally translates as “of a god.” So, the first step in recognizing and realizing your Authentic Self is the acknowledgment that you are “of a god.” You are divine. You are eternal. Embrace the possibilities. Feel the resonance. Take the first step.

But it did not seem sufficient to enable me to go comfortably to England where Troward lived, and remain for an indefinite period to study with so great a teacher as he must be. So before inquiring whether Troward took pupils or whether I would be eligible in case he did, I began to use the paragraph I had memorized.

Daily, in fact, almost hourly, the words were in my mind: “My mind is a center of Divine operation, and Divine operation means expansion into something better than has gone before.”

From the Edinburgh Lectures I had read something about the Law of Attraction, and from the Chapter of “Causes and Conditions” I had gleaned a vague idea of visualizing.

So every night, before going to sleep, I made a mental picture of the desired $20,000. Twenty $1,000 bills were counted over each night in my bedroom, and then, with the idea of more emphatically impressing my mind with the fact that this twenty thousand dollars was for the purpose of going to England and studying with Troward, I wrote out my picture, saw myself buying my steamer ticket, walking up and down the ship’s deck from New York to London, and, finally, saw myself accepted as Troward’s pupil.

This process was repeated every morning and every evening, always impressing more and more fully upon my mind Troward’s memorized statement: “My mind is a center of Divine operations.” I endeavored to keep this statement in the back part of my consciousness all the time with no thought in mind as how the money might be obtained.
Probably the reason why there was no thought of the avenues through which the money might reach me was because I could not possibly imagine where the $20,000 would come from. So I simply held my thought steady and let the power of attraction find its own ways and means.

One day while walking on the street, taking deep breathing exercises, the thought came: “My mind is surely a center of Divine operation. If God fills all space, then God must be in my mind also; if I want this money to study with Troward that I may know the truth of Life, then both the money and the truth must be mine, though I am unable to feel or see the physical manifestations of either; still,” I declared, “it must be mine.”

While these reflections were going on in my mind, there seemed to come up from within me the thought: “I am all the substance there is.” Then, from another channel in my brain the answer seemed to come, “Of course, that’s it; everything must have its beginning in mind.

The “I” the Idea, must be the only one and primary substance there is, and this means money as well as everything else.” My mind accepted this idea, and immediately all the tension of mind and body was relaxed.

There was a feeling of absolute certainty of being in touch with all the power Life has to give. All thought of money, teacher, or even my own personality, vanished in the great wave of joy which swept over my entire being.

I walked on and on with this feeling of joy steadily increasing and expanding until everything about me seemed aglow with resplendent light. Every person I passed was illuminated as I was. All consciousness of personality had disappeared, and in its place there came that great and almost overwhelming sense of joy and contentment.

That night when I made my picture of the twenty thousand dollars it was with an entirely changed aspect. On previous occasions, when making my mental picture, I had felt that I was waking up something within myself. This time there was no sensation of effort. I simply counted over the twenty thousand dollars.

Then, in a most unexpected manner, from a source of which I had no consciousness at the time, there seemed to open a possible avenue through which the money might reach me.

At first it took great effort not to be excited. It all seemed so wonderful, so glorious to be in touch with supply. But had not Troward cautioned his readers to keep all excitement out of their minds in the first flush of realization of union with Infinite supply, and to treat this fact as a perfectly natural result that had been reached through our demand?

This was even more difficult for me than it was to hold the thought that “all the substance there is, I am; I (idea) am the beginning of all form, visible or invisible.”

Just as soon as there appeared a circumstance which indicated the direction through which the twenty thousand dollars might come, I not only made a supreme effort to regard the indicated direction calmly as the first sprout of the seed I had sown in the absolute, but left no stone unturned to follow up that direction by fulfilling my part. By so doing one circumstance seemed naturally to lead to another, until, step-by-step, my desired twenty thousand dollars was secured. To keep my mind poised and free from excitement was my greatest effort.

This first concrete fruition of my study of Mental Science as expounded by Troward’s book had come by a careful following of the methods he had outlined. In this connection, therefore, I can offer to the reader no better gift than to quote Troward’s book, “The Edinburgh Lectures,” from which may be derived a complete idea of the line of action I was endeavoring to follow.

In the chapter on Causes and Conditions he says: “To get good results we must properly understand our relation to the great impersonal power we are using. It is intelligent, and we are intelligent, and the two intelligences must co-operate.

We must not fly in the face of the Law expecting it to do for us what it can only do through us; and we must therefore use our intelligence with the knowledge that it is acting as the instrument of a greater intelligence; and because we have this knowledge we may and should cease from all anxiety as to the final result.

In actual practice we must first form the ideal conception of our object with the definite intention of impressing it upon the universal mind -it is this thought that takes such thought out of the region of mere casual fancies -and then affirm that our knowledge of the Law is sufficient reason for a calm expectation of a corresponding result, and that therefore all necessary conditions will come to us in due order.

We can then turn to the affairs of our daily life with the calm assurance that the initial conditions are either there already or will soon come into view. If we do not at once see them, let us rest content with the knowledge that the spiritual prototype is already in existence and wait till some circumstance pointing in the desired direction begins to show itself.

It may be a very small circumstance, but it is the direction and not the magnitude that is to be taken into consideration.

As soon as we see it we should regard it as the first sprouting of the seed sown in the Absolute, and do calmly, and without excitement, whatever the circumstances seem to require, and then later on we shall see that this doing will in turn lead to a further circumstance in the same direction, until we find ourselves conducted, step by step, to the accomplishment of our object.

In this way the understanding of the great principle of the Law of Supply will, by repeated experiences, deliver us more and more completely out of the region of anxious thought and toilsome labor and bring us into a new world where the useful employment of all our powers, whether mental or physical, will only be an unfolding of our individuality upon the lines of its own nature, and therefore a perpetual source of health and happiness; a sufficient inducement, surely, to the careful study of the laws governing the relation between the individual and the Universal Mind.”

To my mind, then as now, this quotation outlines the core and center of the method and manner of approach necessary for coming in touch with Infinite supply. At least it, together with the previously quoted statement, “My mind is a center of Divine operation,” etc., constituted the only apparent means of attracting to myself the twenty thousand dollars.

My constant endeavor to get into the spirit of these statements, and to attract to myself this needed sum, was about six weeks, at the end of which time I had in my bank the required twenty thousand dollars. This could be made into a long story, giving all the details, but the facts, as already narrated, will give you a definite idea of the magnetic condition of my mind while the twenty thousand dollars was finding its way to me.

What we focus on expands, so what are you manifesting?

Why not stop and think about it, what you are manifesting right now.

How do you feel about what you are manifesting and do you feel like it is your creation?

You may have some doubts about this but you are already an expert at manifesting?

Just look at everything around you and all the experiences that you have been having.

If we can move forward from that belief that we are already creating the things that are in front of us, we can also think that it is possible to change what we are manifesting.

So if manifestation is a given, then how do we change what we are manifesting.

Focus on what you want: Focus on the feelings of what you want and feel positive about it, positive about having it, feel good in your body and emotions.

The opposite of this is to focus on not having it and that we should have it. This is an important point so think about this for awhile. Think back to the experiences that you have had and how you felt about those things before they were delivered. Think about things that came easy and things that were difficult. Use you own experiences to take this point to a deeper level deeper.

Start to take inspired action towards having what you want. Inspired action means to take action with awareness of how it makes us feel as we move towards having what we want.

Taking action with awareness allows us to know when we are coming across some limiting beliefs and to recognize the negative voice that tells us to stop or change direction.

The simplest method to follow when we hit a negative belief, it to just ignore it and replace it with a positive one. This may take some repetition but it is well worth it.

There are plenty of other techniques for belief change which can be used at a later stage. Starting the ball rolling is the most important thing at first.

Continue to take action with awareness and you will know when you making the decisions that will support what you want. If you get off track, just laugh and get back on again.

Choose what resources you would like to help you and stay aware for their delivery.

Personal growth is a lot about knowing who we really are and using conscious manifestation is a great tool to learn a lot about ourselves. When you master conscious manifestation you will also realize at a deeper level that it was really you who created all those experiences.

Enjoy your manifestations!

Starting with a baseline is about honestly figuring out where you are and what you are doing so that you know exactly what needs to be changed. It may sound odd, but many of us are unaware of what we do. When my clients tell me they want to lose weight the first thing I do is have them keep a food journal for a week just to get a baseline. The next week they share how shocked they were to see not only how much they were eating, but also what they were eating. Many of us are on autopilot and we simply are not aware of what we are doing. When you track it – and this works with anything – you have a real picture of where you are and what needs to change.

I read a statistic once that said most people consistently spend about 10% more than they make. I believe that is true, and it is because what is being spent, especially on a credit card, is not tracked. I once had a client that just didn’t have enough time to accomplish everything she needed to do. When she tracked her time for a week she was made painfully aware that she was spending hours in front of the television. The first step in change is awareness. You have to become aware of what you are doing and exactly where you are before you can proceed forward. Keeping track for a week or two will provide you with valuable information that will support your change effort.

Before you embark on any type of change effort you have to know where you are. I liken it to those travel maps that have an X printed next to “You are here.” Until you are aware of exactly where you are – and many of us don’t have a clue – it will be impossible to make the needed change.

The first step in your change effort is to determine where you are. Keep a log for a week or two. This will give you a realistic idea of what you are doing. You can track anything from how much money you spend to how many hours of sleep you get. Once you know the truth about where you are you can proceed.

Firstly write down a statement outling your intent and alter it so that it becomes an affirmation or set of affirmations. Make it present tense and very positive in nature. “I am increasing my confidence everyday”, “I am self assured and self confident in every situation” and “I can feel my self-esteem increasing everyday” are a few good examples.

Ensure that you do not include the negative aspect your goal or what you do not want such as “I am no longer lacking in confidence” or “My low self-esteem is getting better”. These statements focus on the situation as it is not how you want it to be. So remember keep the statement positive and only include what you do want! While still in a waking state imagine how you would look and feel if these statements were true. Make a quick mental movie of how the new you would walk, talk and interact with people. Create a mental movie that shows you being confident in situations that would normally leave you feeling a lack of confidence. You will use this mental movie during your self-hypnotic trance session.

Begin by breathing deeply. In through your nose to the count of five and out through your mouth to the count of five. This will relax your body.

Focus your gaze softly on a spot in front of you. Look for somewhere that is slightly above eye-level while you keep your head straight.

Relax each muscle group of your body beginning with your feet and moving up to your head. While doing this allow your eyes to close when they begin to feel heavy.

Now take a deep breath and on the exhale mentally repeat your affirmation. Do this for several cycles until you feel that the affirmation is beginning to feel like the truth.

Continue to breathe deeply and imagine that you are at a movie theatre. Directly in front of you hangs a huge wide projection screen. Up on the massive widescreen begin to project the mental movie you made earlier and let it run several times. Hear the audience cheer as the movie runs. Clap and cheer yourself as you watch that ‘other’ you acting how you want to act and exhibiting the type of confident behaviour you want to have.

Continue your deep slow breathing as it will keep you relaxed.

Now imagine that you are floating up towards the screen. The audience is going wild as they know what is about to happen. They are cheering you on! Imagine that you float into the screen and become part of the movie. You stop behind the “other confident you” and find yourself facing the back of his/her head.

At this time take a step and walk into that ‘new’ you just as you would step into a projection or as though you wear trying on some new clothes. The new you is a perfect fit! Watch as the colours around get brighter, the sounds get louder and the scene gets bigger. As you enter the new you, feel how it feels to be that person. See what that person sees. Hear what that person hears.

In the distance on the other side of the screen you can hear the audience going wild with delight as you perform and act as that ‘other’ you would act. Feel how good that feels.

Now repeat your affirmations as you imagine the ‘other’ confident you would say them. Believe the truth behind these statements and feel that they are true. Say them with conviction.

Now once you feel all those great feelings of confidence, self assurance and self esteem just allow the scene to begin to fade. Mentally begin to count down from five to one as you allow your eyes to slowly open. Become fully aware of your surroundings as you bring yourself back to physical reality but bring with you all those good feelings.

Sometimes the closest people to you are the ones that stop you form achieving greatness in your life. You go to them, full of excitement, to tell them all the great things that you want to do in life. Instead of hearing the support and encouragement from your friends and family, you hear words of doubt and fear.

They may not be saying these things to purposely hurt or discourage you, but they don’t want you to fail or get hurt. So, to stop you from getting hurt down the road they try to stop you at the beginning.

Still, others may try to tell you why it can’t be done and how there are many obstacles in the way that can’t be moved. They look at who you are currently and don’t see the greatness that’s hidden on the inside.

Don’t let these people stop you from reaching your greatness. Here are 4 ways to overcome the naysayer’s.

1. Protect Your Dream.

Whenever you have a burning desire to do something great in life, it’s very hard to not tell everyone you know. You just assume that everyone will be just as excited about it as you are. Minimize the amount of naysayer’s in your life by not telling everyone. You will probably still have people who are negative, but a few naysayers’ are better than a ton of them.

2. Surround Yourself With Greatness.

If you want to do great things in life you need to be around others that have done great things. I’m sure you have heard the saying ‘Success breeds success’. If you are always around people who have never accomplished anything, and never want to accomplish anything great, it will be hard for you to do it yourself. Successful people will help you understand how to overcome the obstacles that you will face. Which leads me to the next point.

3. Get A Coach Or A Mentor.

If a professional sports team wants to be the best, they hire a coach to help get them there. If they don’t have a coach that can encourage them, train them, guide them, and give them a good kick in the backside when needed, they will never become a great team. Find someone that has done something similar to what you want to do and have them mentor you. Keep this in mind, they are probably very busy and may not have any interest in coaching or training anyone. Don’t let that stop you. If they can’t or won’t, keep looking until you find someone who will. Also, bring something to the table for them as well. You need to give to get.

4. Your Past Doesn’t Dictate Your Future.

You may not have a successful life but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful future. Naysayer’s will always try to remind you of your past failures or inadequacies. Keep improving yourself and keep growing. Learn from your past but don’t let it stop you from having a great future. If there is something that you need to change in your life in order to achieve success, then change it. You are the deciding factor on how great your life is going to be. DON’T let your past dictate your future.

If you want to do something great with your life, there will always be someone there to tell you that it can’t be done. Practice these four keys and you will be able to overcome the naysayer’s.

There are times when listening to your ‘gut’ comes in handy, but for the most part, what is perceived as a gut reaction is simply fear of failure or rejection before the event even takes place. How can you squelch your inner critic so that you can move on and build the business that you dream of?

According to Jennie England’s article ‘Make Friends With Your Inner Critic’ from the direct sales resource ‘Build It Big’, there are steps you can take to transform your critic. First, listen to your inner voice and make a list of what you hear, elaborating on how you feel about each. Ms.England says that you should choose a response to what your critic tells you, and make a choice to ignore the negative. Remember to reaffirm your best qualities daily and you will ‘reprogram’ yourself to take your critic’s suggestions as positive messages rather than constant negatives. (Build It Big. http://mydswa.org)

There is a concept that is finding a huge following with work at home moms or women who simply desire to create a positive life of abundance. Although this idea is in no way new, the Law of Attraction is changing the lives of people in amazing ways. Whether you’re a religious person or not, the basics are simple, you attract what you think. This theory too is another direction to follow for achieving your dreams and not allowing negativity to lead your life.

Choosing to challenge your ‘little voices’ and change your negative thinking will have an impact on every aspect of your life, creating positive habits that even your worst inner critic can’t bring down.

Lewis Terman made some revisions to this assessment in 1930 and renamed it the Intelligence Test. During this time, intelligence quotient tests were used to measure children’s mental age against their chronological age.

Our school systems have come to rely on IQ and other standardized tests. This kind of testing puts a great deal of focus on verbal-linguistic and math-logical intelligences, but they have left out other types of intelligences.

In 1983, Dr. Howard Gardner stated that intelligence consists of three key components:

1. The ability to create an effective service or product that is of value to one’s community or culture.

2. A set of skills that enable a person to find solutions to problems encountered in life.

3. Having the potential for creating solutions for problems, and setting up systematic methods to enable people to acquire new knowledge.

Dr. Gardner has become a world-renowned authority on what is known as Multiple Intelligences. This theory has its roots on research that is based on extensive brain research, tests, interviews, and studies of hundreds of individuals.

Dr. Gardner studied the cognitive abilities of individuals who were accident victims, autistic, had strokes, were child prodigies, and some who had learning disabilities.

He came to the conclusion that intelligence is not an inborn, fixed trait that dominates a person’s problem solving abilities. It is each person’s different part of their brains that are more developed than other parts of their brain.

While these parts of the brain are interconnected, they can work independent of each other or they can work in synchronicity with each other to help that person learn, depending on the environment and the person’s preferences.

Having this in mind, Dr. Gardner pin-pointed eight different Intelligences that every person has, to varying extents. These intelligences are;

Linguistic/Verbal
Logical/Math
Spatial
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Musical
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalist

Eight Intelligences Defined

Linguistic/Verbal- these are individuals who will have sensitivity to the nuances of the spoken word. They love to read, write, and also tell stories. They are good at remembering places, dates, and names. Professionals with a strong verbal/linguistic intelligence are public speakers, teachers, actors, radio broadcasters, and writers.

Some examples are Charlton Heston and Abraham Lincoln.

Math-Logical

These are individuals with a strong ability to reason. They are able to recognize and manipulate abstract relationships and patterns. People who have strong reasoning skills and problem-solving skills are especially strong in the math/logical intelligence. Professionals with this intelligence are computer programmers, lawyers, scientists, mathematicians, and accountants.

Some historical examples are Alexander Graham Bell and Albert Einstein.

Spatial

Individuals with a strong spatial intelligence have the ability to create visual-spatial models and are able to transfer them mentally. They usually need a mental or physical “picture” to help them understand the ideas and concepts being presented. Professionals with this spatial intelligence are graphic artists, cartographers, sculptors, and architects.

Some historical figures include Pablo Picasso and Bobby Fischer.

Musical

Individuals with a highly developed musical intelligence are sensitive to the rhythm, itch, timbre, and composition of sound. They enjoy listening to music and may work as songwriters, vocalists, composers, or music teachers.

Some Historical examples include Mozart, Beethoven, and J.S. Bach.

Bodily-Kinesthetic

Individuals with strong kinesthetic intelligence are drawn to the athletic field. They may also use their physical bodies to convey ideas, thoughts, and emotions and solve problems. They have good hand-eye coordination and usually have a tendency to move around a lot while expressing them.

Professionals with a high kinesthetic intelligence are dancers, inventors, athletes, and surgeons.
Some historical figures include Tiger Woods and Andre Agassi.

Interpersonal

These individuals work effectively in group settings and are able to understand and recognize motivations, goals, and intentions of others. People with this intelligence thrive in group work situations and are very skilled at mediating, communicating and negotiating.

Professionals with interpersonal intelligence are therapists, social workers, counselors, teachers, and salespeople.

Historical examples include Ghandi and Mother Theresa.

Intrapersonal

Individuals with a strong intrapersonal intelligence possess the ability to understand their own goals, emotions and motivations. These people have very good instincts about their abilities and strengths. In the professional settings, these persons will be psychiatrists, philosophers, or religious leaders.

An historical example of this is Sigmund Freud.

Naturalist

These individuals are “earth lovers”, who have a strong affinity for nature. They enjoy learning about flora, fauna, and other nature topics. Professionals with this intelligence are farmers, botanists, biologists, and forest rangers.

Historical figures include John Muir and Charles Darwin.

Remember, that although this report has outlined specific traits, everyone has some level of ability in every intelligence. It is important that we learn how to cultivate each and every single one of these intelligences.

You Don’t Have To Be Smart To Be A Genius

Many of the most influential iconoclasts suffered from their own misalignment with the “status quo” of their times. Among them were;

Beethoven whose music teacher said of him, “As a composer, he’s hopeless”

Walt Disney a newspaper editor fired him because he had “no good ideas.”

Albert Einstein he was four years old before he was able to speak and seven before he was able to read

Thomas Edison his teachers told him he was too stupid to learn anything

With the Information Age being upon us, now is the time you can dig and soak up as much valuable information as possible on the Internet to help you develop all of your Multiple Intelligences.

Some everyday Initiations you may already be familiar with:

Christening. Baptism. Bar or Bat Mitzvah. Induction into any institution. Your first day of school. University Matriculation Day. Graduation Day. The rigorous training of the armed forces. The first day of a new job. Joining the local Golf or Rugby Club. The Freemasons. American Fraternity Houses. The Mile High Club.

In a new job, the Initiation may be simply learning the ropes, being taught procedures, where to put your coffee mug and what time the “in crowd” work till. You usually get a special “tome” full of arcane laws and guidelines that no one really ever reads. There may even be a joining fee.

History shows that medicine, physics, chemistry, reading, mathematics, writing, astronomy and anatomy were all at one time “occult” secret arts. In the modern world, you were probably initiated into most of those before you were 16 years old.

Definition from The Oxford Dictionary:

Initiation [v] to begin and admit a person with introductory rites into secrets, mysteries or science. Latin root “initium” means “to begin”. So it’s a rite of passage ceremony, which signifies the transformation of an individual into a higher, more desired level of identity.

Initiate [n] the person who has been initiated

Imagine you want to join an exclusive members-only social club. You can walk up to the building, but the people on the door will usher you away unless you’re a member. However, if you have a friend who is already a member, you will walk up the steps together and will be given a warm reception. Now you have access to higher powers [in this case the social, economic and prestige benefits of club membership] as well as the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual changes initiation brings about.

Now if you don’t have a friend who’s already a member, the alternative is to keep going over to the club, getting your face known, trying to schmooze the doorman and occasionally peeking through the window to see what’s going on inside. The way people do that is by reading books and trying things out haphazardly.

Unfortunately enlightenment doesn’t come from books it is experience alone that brings realization.

Initiation gives you membership, companionship with like-minded individuals and access to deeper and broader levels of insight and power. In many systems, it is believed that many of your new contacts will be previous Initiates who are no longer with us. Initiation gives you nothing in tangible terms. Instead, it allows you to begin a particular system or practice.

Practical training involves:

Training the physical body a regimen of toughening, strengthening and purifying. This is usually achieved through exercises, breathing, and postures.

Learning how to control your emotions. Feel the full range of positive and negative. Be able to accept and release the painful, and bask in the pleasant. Never be at the beck and call of involuntary emotion.

Training the mind to focus on what you want and to eliminate the “noise”. Train up the laser-like focus. Develop discipline and single mindedness on your outcome. This is one purpose for ritual and ceremony. You’ll soon learn if you have the discipline to practice every single day. Learn how to and consistently practice meditation stillness of the mind.

Conscious knowledge of logic and philosophy giving you the full range of thinking on all logical levels, as recommended by Aristotle.

Develop and utilize the imagination. What the mind can conceive it can achieve. All physical manifestation first requires the spark of creativity.

Science starts with reference experience data then searches for principles to explain it. Experiment leads to knowledge. “I’ll believe it when I see it”. Proof is required to prove something is real.

Esoteric study begins with the guiding principles, then watches for reference experiences to back them up. Knowledge leads to experiments. “I’ll see it when I believe it”. Faith is required to know something is real.

A spiritual initiation is therefore the process through which a student is given access to deeper layers of knowledge and practice [often called secrets] by their teacher or mentor.

In the worlds of mysticism and esoteric study, this is purported to cause a fundamental shift within the person being initiated. The initiator, bearing a certain power or state, transfers this to the person being initiated. Symbolically this is a simultaneous death and rebirth, because not only is it a beginning, its also an ending of sorts as the student ascends to a new level.

Very often you would be given a new name, a magical name. One of the many reasons for that was to reinforce the change in your identity.

Fully initiated means devotion to the mystic, occult wisdom and contact with natural forces. It also brings with it the Fraternity and comradeship with the group or “family” you are initiated into. Because you don’t start off born with mystic, magic or psychic abilities you have to learn and practice them. The training and guidance is there if you’re willing to do the work. Unfortunately more people read about esoteric study than practice. The real measure of a spiritual initiate is how they demonstrate it in real life, not their intellectual knowledge. It’s what you do that counts.

This was repeatedly stressed by Dion Fortune who lived from 1891 1946 [real name Violet Firth] a member of The Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn [a magic organization formed in the 1880's], prolific author, psychologist, Christian and psychic.

She recommended an Initiate should be living a normal life and not be closed off in a secret order. Remember where Obi Wan Kenobi lived? You don’t want to become the eccentric weirdo in the woods!

You also don’t want to be a “fair weather” devotee. You know, the type who practices religiously on Sundays, but lets charity, forgiveness and moral fortitude slip a little from Monday to Saturday!

An initiate’s mindset should be centered around the approach that he or she has been initiated into. So no matter where you are, who you’re with or what you’re doing, you always have the method’s philosophy in the back of your mind.

There are three Initiators in your path the first great initiation begins with your birth, the second is from your teacher, the third and most important are the lessons you learn through your life experience and learning’s from Higher Self.

The real question is the issue of authority who is in charge, and what their intentions are. This is often abused and therein lie all the horror stories you might have thought this article was about.

And “as within so without”. Be wary of the Initiate who has no money, dysfunctional relationships and emotional baggage. The outer signs of the effects are usually the symptoms of the inner causes. If a person is lacking in the everyday world, they probably lack in the esoteric world too.

Finally, know that many believe it takes three lifetimes to become an initiate. So the sooner you start the better!