I have been thinking about The Seven Laws of the Mind a lot this week. Working to commit them to memory and obviously trying to use them whenever I can.

The Law of Substitution is number one with good reason. I have used it for many years without ever putting a name to it. Forcing myself to sing a happy song when under pressure, quoting a meaningful promise from scripture or a powerful proverb from elsewhere when faced with a difficult situation; even trying to transport myself mentally to a better time and place. I have probably done all of those things most of my life but usually only in very difficult situations. Now I think quickly about using it even when a fleeting negative thought comes in. The birds can hover but I am not letting them nest.

I have been using the other laws more too. The Law of Practice can work both ways. That’s why we make the proviso, Perfect Practice Prevents Poor Performance. Look what happens if you reverse the order of ‘poor’ and ‘perfect’, the opposite affect.

If someone is doing something the wrong way and keeps on practicing without correction then things can only get worse. We all hate criticism and whilst I don’t want to go off at a tangent here perhaps we should use The Law of Dual Thought and take criticism as a gift, even if it was not meant that way. Then wouldn’t that be a great opportunity to use The Law of Forgiveness.

But let me return to The Law of Practice and give you an example of how using it in combination with The Law of Relaxation and The Law of The Subconscious has been working for me recently.  I like to play table tennis and found when we practice regularly just on Friday evenings both my playing partner and I are getting better continually.

But more than that, I am learning to play without engaging my conscious mind. I jokingly call it using the force to the guys I play with but I can honestly say I am getting better than I have ever been in my life. I am in my mid 60’s and not as fit as some of the other guys but they can’t get near me when I am able to zone in, which is happening more and more; although not yet all of the time. I must practice not just the game itself but my ability to ‘zone in’.

I have always been able to play better when just knocking up and then seemed to go all tense once the game started causing me to make silly errors and throw away vital points. By using The Law of Relaxation…bypassing the conscious mind and letting the subconscious mind and muscle memory come together I am not only hitting great shots but am also moving much faster than when I was thinking too much.

I know it is only a game but I believe this principle is transferable into anything we might want to do. I am planning to teach the church congregation from the 4th chapter of Philippians on New Years Day. It is very rare I have a sermon outlined so far in advance but I saw so much more in it while preparing for last Sunday’s message that I had to say I will leave this portion and come back later. I think that’s the first time I have ever given a movie trailer for a future sermon, I am looking forward to hearing it myself.

Philippians Chapter 4 has always been important to me: this is what it says from verses 4-9 The Apostle Paul writes

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 

Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

How powerful is this? To Rejoice is a choice anyone can make.  You could worry if you wanted to, but there is always an ‘instead’ with God. Pray Instead.

Giving thanks is a choice…having an attitude of gratitude…we can be upset at what we don’t have right now but ‘instead’ count your blessings one by one. You will be amazed at how much you do have.

Use The Law of Substitution…FIX YOUR THOUGHTS…its another choice and maybe the most important one. You choose what you think about and that is the cause before the effect. What will be the effect of focussing on things that are “true, and honourable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.”

God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand… will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Solomon tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence for out of it come the issues of life. So it’s our choice to do it and God has our back when we do. I understand that it is a stretch for some people to recognise that God is real and He came in a human body in the person of Jesus Christ but that’s just your old blueprint at work. It’s the conditioning we were all given in this post Christian land. It took me till I was 30 to have my eyes opened a little. I just accepted the words of Christ by faith, faith is the substance. But what I have learned on this MKMMA has so enhanced my faith…I can almost see how everything works now. The 7 Laws, the Master Key, particularly finding out about the Solar Plexus have been nothing short of revelation knowledge. I knew my spirit had been reborn and now linked me to the Holy Spirit but just how that happened was a mystery on which much light has now been shed.

The law of Forgiveness is the drawbridge…Jesus is the Door…I forgive, I seek forgiveness…I am forgiven…forgiven for everything and let me tell it plainly; I needed quite a lot of forgiveness . So I give thanks, I aim filled with gratitude and I know that gratitude is not only the result of receiving God’s mercy but the seed of much greater blessings to come.

I can hardly believe my own cheek…A world famous author writes a best selling book and I don’t like a paragraph so I have rewritten it and glued mine into his book over his paragraph. Well I paid for the book so really its mine and I don’t suppose he will mind too much since he went to meet his maker 20 years ago…but why would I do such a thing? I love books, I have thousands of them in my home library… I get heated if someone even turns a corner over as a bookmark and now this…I have been blacking words out with children pencils…altering the odd word here and there and now I have taken to sticking in whole paragraphs.

But the fact is it’s my subconscious mind we are dealing with here and I have a duty to feed it with the right stuff.  The Wise King said, “Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it come the issues of life” So that means the conscious mind calling the shots on what is allowed to get through to the subconscious.

The deceased writer is Og Mandino and the book is called “The Greatest Salesman in the World” I have, in obedience to the instructions, established the habit of reading a particular chapter three times each day for 30 days… and it is a very good habit too, because I have gleaned more than I could have imagined the book contained as each month has gone on.  We so often read a book, enjoy it, learn new things from it but then never take action. It’s not long before we forget what we learned and really that means we may as well have never bothered in the first place.

Certain chapters of The Greatest Salesman , the ones called scrolls, are designed to be repeated daily in order to turn the apprentice or the seasoned professional into the best salesman he can possibly be. It is only a little book but it has huge potential to unlock greatness in those who will follow its instructions. I highly recommend it not just to salesmen but to everybody who seeks self development. So having said all that why have I dared to alter it?

I have been used to a certain metaphor for half of my life, when I was 30 years old I first met the Good Shepherd. He has said “My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow Me.” I am not ashamed to follow Him or to be called His sheep and that does not condemn me to the slaughterhouse as Og suggests but rather it keeps me safe from it. So I can’t allow my subconsciouses mind to hear my own voice repeating daily words that belittle and condemn the sheep as the originals do.

So here is my replacement paragraph.

I was not delivered into this world in defeat, nor do I tolerate failure. I care for the sheep entrusted into my care. Some weep and complain but I am immune to their negativity because the Good Shepherd protects me, I follow Him and listen to His voice. I give without expectation of reciprocity from the channel I enrich because I know I am in the dynamic flow and will receive compensation from another source.

That is the fourth law of Giving and it allows me the freedom to trust completely as do the doctors and nurses who minister in the midst of plague and pestilence. I hear the Master’s voice saying,  “A thousand may fall at your side but it will not come near you.”

Some things are difficult to understand and some things we may not want to even try to understand because of fear that we might be straying from the path.

But as Haanel says in Master Key 11:23  All truth is the same.  (Morris Cerullo has often said it another way, “all truth is parallel” which I think is a clearer definition.) but the same, whether stated in modern scientific terms or in the language of apostolic times.

I believe the Bible is the truth but even the most serious contender for the faith must admit that it has not revealed all of the truth to us, many mysteries remain though the curtain has been pulled back time and again through the centuries. True science has revealed much truth but even eminent scientist will admit the limitations even as they continually push at the envelope seeking ever new and more exciting discoveries. One thing I do know, where there is serious effort to know the truth there will be no contradictions, science will only support the scripture and the Spirit of Truth will open doors for the listening scientists; there can only be continual unfolding revelation.

Religious traditions that have bound us, deceptions that have been used to control us, scientific slight of hand that has been used to ‘prove’ false theories will all fail. But the truth is being revealed as the Master Teacher promised it would and it will set free those men who desire to know it.

To quote Haanel one more time. 11:27  A new faith has been born, a faith which demands a new form of expression, and this faith is talking form in a deep consciousness of power which is being manifested, in the present spiritual activity found on every hand.

And that is why I feel empowered to re-write the paragraphs that do not edify my subconscious. Why I will re-write whole chapters if I need to. Those authors are respected far more than those whose books I will discard completely and the contributions they have made are greatly appreciated. I am in a state of gratitude for all they have done and for the continued unfolding after they were finished.

Switching to the next scroll in Og’s Greatest Salesman was a bit of a challenge. Scroll 2 was flowing off the tongue so nicely that I almost didn’t want to leave it.

Then I read “each day I am tested by life in like manner”, like the bull being pricked by the picadors lance and just when I thought everything was going swimmingly it is almost as if I asked for this phrase to manifest. Someone told me just the day before that Mike Tyson is famous for saying “everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face” I laughed but not for long because the punch came the very next day.

Well the only thing I can say is I must be up to the test. I have grown in these last 10 weeks and perhaps the test that would have floored me for weeks previously knocked me back for about an hour. I was able to use the Law of Substitution quickly and to great effect.

I find I really am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy. I have been speaking that over my life but there have been a few other people this last week who need it more than me so I have been speaking it over them too. I even made a card all colourful for one person who is very dear to me. I wrote the law of substitution on one side and an explanation that he should turn the card over and read the other side as his thoughts began to wander down that road into depression. I had written the words, whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy in big bold letter in several crayons colours filling the whole card.  He looked at me as if I were from another planet or a child just out of a craft class. I am neither, I am his dad and I love him every much and it was hurting me to see him lying for over 30 days in a hospital bed and beginning to lose his mind. Crazy Dad or not he was out of hospital and home with his wife three days later. It matters not a jot to me if he thinks these things are off the wall, I have more than enough faith for both of us.

It didn’t stop me getting punched in the face though and reading and also listening to Haanel week 10 I have to take the blame. I broke the polarity! I cut myself off from the source with wrong thinking. My relationship with my creator was damaged for a little while and the flow just stopped. Maybe you think God is not like that, but you would be wrong to think that. We had a discussion about it.

He said “Think about you and your son…He does something right in front of you that he knows you don’t like, how do you feel?

Well I don’t feel particularly good about it, in fact I am saddened by it.

You feel sadness and let down right, and do you want to bless him with good things at that moment.

Well not at that moment no, actually I want to shout but I resist.

But is he still your son? or is your relationship ended?…

NO OF COURSE HE IS STILL MY SON…

and do you still love him?

YES MY LOVE IS NOT AFFECTED AT ALL.

But do you want the rift between you healed?

YES.

And what does he need to do to make that happen?

STOP, TURN away from what he is dong, Ask for FORGIVENESS.

And how long will you wait before you grant him forgiveness?

“I WILL NOT WAIT not even for a second, my forgiveness will be immediate as soon as he fulfils the conditions. STOP- TURN – ASK”

And that is exactly how I feel about you…So I repented which is one word for stop and turn and I asked forgiveness, I accepted that the pain of the punch in the face was worth it. The flow was restored, the lesson learned.

After all these years how could I not have understood that God is bound by his own words. How can I have thought I could do something that offends Him right in front of His face and expect him to let it pass.

He loves me far too much to do that. I will greet each day with love in my heart even if the day brings tests and trials because I know they only make me stronger.

I wish I could have been on the Week 9 webinar but the lateness of the hour meant I could not find WiFi anywhere in the hidden corner of Tenerife where we were staying. It was the first webinar I had missed and it showed me how difficult it is to try and catch up. Anyway I am getting there, running to keep up was hard enough and running even faster to catch up seemed too big an ask but I just did the week 10 assessment and new encouragement has come in like a flood.

I have just slipped into the top bracket that says I am on my way, and I genuinely feel that I am. This whole exercise has been such an uplifting experience for me. For a  number of years I have felt that my life was coming to an end…I know that 60 is quite young in today’s world but with a few health issues…some of which I now believe are the figment of the combined imaginations of myself and the doctor, and a few difficult times at work and in the church too, (sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks church people are all sweetness and light but pastors are fair game in hunting season) I was just getting more and more convinced that it was almost time to go home.

I was hauling myself to my feet slowly, things were gradually picking up, work got better, the hunters left the church and God sent some sheep to replace them: and actually it’s a pretty happy family now, so things were picking up, slowly, one step at a time. But in the last 9 weeks they have taken off, the Master Key, the MMA has made so much that was already there in my mind, but hazy and a little dull leap out into the brilliant sunlight. Just like in Og Mandino’s Scroll 1.. I awake each morning with a vitality I have never known before. My vigour increases, my enthusiasm rises, my desire to meet the world overcomes every fear…Fear has been replaced with renewed faith…I have clarity of vision… I have massive goals, I am totally convinced that they are not just possible but that they must be attained,  and not as a chore or a task that I need to do to fill my time or to build myself a monument but as a service to the community, and to all the people who are waiting for the benefits our business will bring them. We are going to help hundreds of families to build viable, enjoyable businesses and to achieve goals they can only dream of right now… but on the way we are going to help those people develop so they are not phased by the money when it comes rolling in like the tide, they will know who the source is so they don’t worship the money but will use it to enjoy the abundant life they were designed for and to bring blessings to all around them.

I have learned from Scroll 2 that most of all I must love myself and when I do I will zealously guard my body, my mind, my soul and my heart but although I am to love myself it is because unless I do I cannot really love anyone else.

Solomon the wise king tells us to “Guard your Heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23.  I always knew in part what he was trying to tell me but now I know for sure…now I understand what Paul meant when he said “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,” 1 Corinthians 6:19  Well who do I belong to then?  I belong to God but through Him I belong to all humanity…we are all linked and we are all supposed to love and to serve one another, thats why Paul also wrote  Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 1 Corinthians 3:16.

There is no escaping the scripture, the words of Solomon, and Jesus and Paul can either be trusted completely or not at all. Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you…he also said you cannot see the Kingdom of God unless you are born again,  Og says in scroll 2 “I look on all things with love and I am born again”. God is love and as he expands the capacity of our heart to know and love him and our neighbour as ourselves the kingdom of God is manifest in the earth. Jesus told us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. He also said forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…if you do not forgive , your heavenly Father cannot forgive you. The law of Forgiveness named explicitly as an unavoidable condition for the abundant life.

There are no workarounds, no short cuts, no ignoring the words of the Master or His eternal work at the cross, the crossroads of time. Love and forgiveness are the only way to truth. If you are looking for prosperity it is hidden in plain sight… Jesus himself told us how to find it…Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.

“Successful men make it their business to hold ideals of the conditions which they wish to realize. They constantly hold in mind the next step necessary to the ideal for which they are striving. Thoughts are the materials with which they build and the imagination is their mental workshop. Mind is the ever moving force with which they secure the persons and circumstances necessary to build their success structure and imagination is the matrix in which all great things are fashioned.” Charles Haanel  The Master Key 8:24

An interesting word ‘matrix’…I still haven’t really got my head round the films.

Nearly 30 years ago my wife, who had been barren 5 years after surgery, chemo and radiotherapy had just about won the battle with Hodgkin’s Disease. Miraculously she gave birth to our first daughter.  We had been told by all the experts that a child would never be possible and after 5 years we had come to believe it. Then one evening in a Wigan Hotel an after dinner speaker turned our beliefs and  our lives upside down, or maybe I should say the right way up. He was a carpet salesman from the other end of the country who knew nothing whatsoever about me or about Steppy’s medical history when he told us quite plainly that she would have a baby within a year.  I did not see anything funny about teasing a young woman on an issue that had caused her so much emotional distress and I was not very happy with the man. He stood his ground, was bold as a lion and insisted that ‘his Jesus’ could do anything and impossible was not a word in his vocabulary.

Well, John Bryant, as was his name, turned out to be correct, Deborah was born just nine months and a few days later by a caesarian section in Hope Hospital, Salford. A further 7 children came forth from that barren womb over the years but the reason for me telling the story here concerns the word matrix. Before Deborah was born we were convinced, mainly because of various prophecies that had been given to us, that she would be a boy. One such prophesy went along the lines of, “the man child that opens the matrix shall be called holy unto the Lord”

So Steppy really struggled and was convinced that they had mixed the babies up in the hospital. It was not that she was ungrateful but that she was so convinced it was to be a boy who we would dedicate to serve God. Then God actually spoke to me, which I found hard to believe back then but find easy to understand these days.

He said the promise was the man child that opens the matrix shall be called holy  to me. I said, Yes Lord but Deborah, for I had named her without even consulting Steppy, isn’t a man child. And the Lord said quite clearly, like another man speaking to his friend, no and she hasn’t opened the matrix either, the next one will and you will name him Joshua. I had never heard of the matrix, it was the word used for the womb in the King James Version of the Bible, written back in 1611. Pardon my ignorance. 18 months later Joshua was born, and despite all the protests of the doctors one of them was willing to go against the hospital policy and let her try for a normal birth.

The matrix is the secret place where life takes shape from a tiny seed. A place where what seems impossible comes into manifestation. Even where there have been no problems, behold the miracle of a human being coming into the world. A vehicle fashioned to carry an eternal spiritual being around for his sojourn on the earth. To think that the successful man, according to Haanel, builds his success structure with mere thoughts in the mental workshop which is the imagination, thoughts combined with faith and almost anything is possible for him. Think then of all the vast universe, the little blue plant less than a pinprick in its midst, the vast oceans and the mighty mountains on that little pinprick a home for the most wonderful of all creations, the man made in God’s image.

How can I be so sure…could it not have all been spontaneous…green slime and 460 million years and who can tell what might happen? What do you take me for? Only a fool would say in his heart there is no God.  All of this had to be conceived in a mental workshop with thoughts as building blocks and faith as mortar. Only God could do this and then give His man the ability to use the very same tools in his attempt to rule in the earth, have dominion over it, to tend and keep it according to the maker’s instructions.

It has taken me longer than in previous weeks just to sit down to write this post. I have been greatly moved and have seen new light. My understanding is being opened more and more and it is glorious.

As I am thinking about the restoration of the building where we meet as a church and sometimes catch myself wondering how will it be possible, I am encouraged to know that I don’t have to know. It is enough to know that God knows. And God has shown me that my request is nothing that He has not heard and answered many times before but He has graciously taken me back to the first time.

In part 7 of the Master key 2. Haanel says “Make the pattern clear and make it beautiful; do not be afraid, make it grand; remember that no limitation can be placed upon you by any one but yourself; you are not limited as to cost or material; draw on the infinite for your supply, construct it in your imagination; it will have to be THERE before it will ever appear anywhere else. 3. Make the image clear and clean cut, hold it firmly in the mind and you will gradually and constantly bring the image nearer to you. You can be what you will to be.

Moses was taken up in the Spirit when he went on the mountain with God. He came down with Ten Commandments written on Stone Tablets but also with a pattern in his mind to build a dwelling place for God that the Israelites would be able to move with them as they travelled. When God moved they picked up the tabernacle, a complicated operation fully describes by Moses, and each person had their part to play as the whole community of several million people moved with Him, following His presence signified by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day.

I had always thought that Moses had seen an actual tabernacle in Heaven and the one he made in the wilderness was copy of it. I am not inclined to believe that it was such a mental image in the mind of Moses as Haanel describes: beautiful and grand, without limitation as to cost or material. You can read how a bunch of refugees wandering around the wilderness came up with enough wood and linen,  silver and gold and every other thing needed to manifest the vision and even how people were taught skills beyond human capability to put it all together in the book of Exodus.

So if Moses saw it so clearly in his imagination and the clarity of it brought about its perfect physical manifestation it must be the pattern given to us by God through scripture to manifest the calling on our lives.  The Psalmist says if we delight in Him He will give us the desires of our hearts and I have always understood, mentally and experientially that meant He put the desire there in the first place.

The apostle John in his 1st Epistle wrote “…we are confident that He hears us whenever we ask for anything that pleases Him. 15 And since we know He hears us when we make our requests, we also know that he will give us what we ask for.

There are two things to note here and Haanel points both of them out. 1. Our will must be in line with the divine will…and…2. it does not happen by magic…generous people brought the materials that God had provided and willing people did the work as God gave the ability.

So Moses had the idea by inspiration, He visualised it until he could see it in every detail and like John says he already had it at that point though it was not yet visible to the physical eyes. Maybe  people close to Moses thought he had flipped as he described it to them in great detail but he was not fazed.

Faith was the substance of the very thing for which Moses held a sure and certain hope.

Since every single item in the tabernacle has its purpose and each tells a prophetic story of the coming Christ it seems even God Himself is practicing what He taught Moses and is teaching us. He planned from the beginning that all those who believed in the redeeming power of the Only Begotten Son of God would themselves become the tabernacle of God on earth. Some people once said to Jesus “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”  His reply is quite surprising. there was no difficult task to perform, no hoops to jump through.  Jesus simply told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:28

The pin fell out of my watch yesterday and the watch dropped off my wrist. I saved the watch but I couldn’t find the pin and it turns out that it’s not so easy to replace. I will persevere though,  I love that watch because it has significant meaning for me. It’s a Raymond Weil bought in Cyprus in the year I turned 50 but more importantly it marks the time my oldest daughter went over there to work and the first of our 8 children left the nest.

Why bother with a story like that in week 6 of the Master Key experience? Well I think it is pretty significant actually and I have long since stopped putting these little things down to coincidence. This is the week we talked about not running our lives by the clock but by the compass. The clock is relentless and unforgiving and time is definitely an important measure but have you ever noticed how work has a habit of expending into and then beyond the time allocated to it. Have you noticed that the time we think a task will take is almost always an underestimation. Well in this last few weeks, using the methods taught in the course I have been getting so much more done and still have had time to sit and think.

Someone said, “Think? Whats all that about? I don’t have time to just sit and do nothing, thinking,  dreaming more like.”

And believe me, I do know where he was coming from, life can be such a rush,

Remember the words of Cliffs old song; Time Goes By                                                                                                Sitting on a log, watch the world go by                                                                                                         Fat old frog thinking: My oh my                                                                                                                 Funny thing that human race                                                                                                                        Rush here, rush there, get no place

I think the fat old frog was probably right… we all have this amazing capacity to sit quietly and receive from out of our own memories, experiences, previously acquired knowledge, new combinations, new uses and what seems like good ideas. But there is a limit to that isn’t there. It has to be in there to be able to come out. We can go beyond that, we can read new material, everything is written down somewhere, the second wisest man who ever lived says there is nothing new under the sun. But I will say if a poor uneducated man were to try and read some great piece of literature from one of the great books for instance he would not gain anything from it. His capacity to lean is governed by what he already knows. His capacity to learn is limited.

But if we can sit quietly, and reverently, David the King put it this way, “Be still, and know that I am God”. Things from outside of our current clan be revealed to us. We pick up most of what we know through our 5 senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, and we would not want to live without them would we, though many do and perhaps more fully than those of us who have it all. But there is another sense in which we can commune with God, in this place we know things that we have not learned. They are revealed to us by His grace. I have known this for many years but my ‘use’ of it has been sporadic because I have only seen it as a mystery. I was happy with mystery but not complete. When Jesus said “Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water” I thought I knew what he meant. When He said “I AM the light of the world” and later “You are the light of the world”, and, “Let your light shine before men”. I just thought He meant live a good life as far as you can and set a good example.

What I missed is when He said “I and My Father are one” and “if I go to my Father I will come and we will make our home in you” that he was saying all the fullness of heaven will be available to the earth though you. Not just through me.  Jesus had the Spirit without measure. It seems that I have it in the measure that I can “Believe in my heart”. What I have learned is the spirit lives and connects me to God… and through God to all people and in fact to all of creation because God is everywhere present, all knowing and all powerful.

But what does it mean… “Believe in your heart”?  It was always a mystery…but now I know that the place I feel stress, the place I feel fear, the place I feel elation, somewhere right in the middle of my body…”out of your belly shall flow” there is an organ no-one seems to want to talk about. It is not mentioned in my version of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Its not the 24 volume World of Science I own. I looked at anatomy web sights that seem to be very authoritative and I searched and was told ‘no results were found’. The Solar Plexus seems to be a bit of a mystery and yet Charles Haanel wrote about it in the Master Key over 100 years ago in 1912. I have not the time or the knowledge as yet to explainMy Solar Plexus but now I know I have one and doors are opening.

The time is important…but I know I am an eternal being …so now I am moving according to the compass and not the clock. No more Rush here rush there get no place… I am definitely moving in the right direction, a direction that I have determined for myself.

Reading the second scroll from Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in The World  three times every day I am repeatedly telling myself: my heart, my Inner Man. “I will Greet each day with love in my heart.”

God is Love. Can I also say in agreement with Jesus. “I and my Father are one”?

How many people leave school and think that’s it. They think “I have finished that phase of life now its time to draw the line under it.” They get a job, work hard, set up home have a family and work though to retirement. They spend most of their evenings tired out watching one box before they finally put them in another box and nail the lid on. Box to box.

Well maybe it used to work that way but those days are well and truly gone. I was brought up in that old mindset and I guess like many of my old schoolmates I could have stayed there. But I have found there is something much more exciting, constant and continual learning and the application of that learning can bring rewards the old mindset could never have asked for or even imagined.

We educated our children at home…all 8 of them. When I say we I really mean my wife Steppy who worked such wonders with little resource. I am not sure al the children have quite grasped their advantage yet but they are doing very well for the main part. What the homeschooling did for them was teach them to be resourceful, to seek out the information they needed at the time they needed it and to build the habit into them of always wanting to satisfy that curiosity. I believe it taught them more than anything else to think for themselves. The girls especially will argue with the old dinosaur they think I am on all points. I feel a bit put out sometimes but I am glad deep down that they can make their own minds up about serious issues…and we don’t have to agree about everything to be in unity and love one another. Otherwise how would we ever make progress if someone didn’t disagree with the previously accepted norms.

Thats is what I have been getting out of the Master Key MMA. I am not taking on board the views of the authors we are reading without question, I am processing them and they are making clear the reason why some things I knew by faith can actually be shown to work on a scientific basis. For instance some of the things Jesus said were not clear to me but I would accept them simply because He said them…and that was enough for me…but I have discovered things in the course that have made it more than enough.

I have had several WOW moments during the last 5 weeks when I thought, do you know, Jesus said that really clearly in John’s Gospel in this chapter and such and such a verse, He said we could not understand it at that time but when the Holy Spirit comes He would lead us into all truth. I thought WOW!  Jesus knew about all this science two thousand years ago.  Then I realised, well actually He knew a long time before that…because He set it all up that way in the first place. Some things we learn through our five senses and our powers of deduction but when He the Holy Spirit comes He really does leads us into deeper truth,  not by sense knowledge but by revelation.

In case you are wondering its not code…it stands for MasterKey Mastermind Alliance. Its a group of like minded people studying some serious self development material together. Charles Haanels’s Master Key System and Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman to start with but more important works will be added later.

35 years ago as a very raw 25 years old I started my first sales job.  It was with an electric shower company called Instalow. They gave me three days in the classroom and then threw me out with a presenter and a curtain swatch. There were a few leads knocking about but they were not for the likes of me. It was a case of knocking on doors and drumming up some business of my own. Most of my fellow trainees were gone after a week and I was sorely tempted to throw in the towel myself but I had nowhere else to go and I always was a bit stubborn so I stuck around. I sold the odd shower mainly because it was a bit of a boom time and it just about kept me afloat.

Then a new National Sales Manager called Frank Sinclair and his partner the National Sales Trainer Pat Edrich rode into town. They had a plan, which is always a good start. They hired about 50 young kids straight out of school and fed them lots of excitement and the motivational stuff that Pat was clearly devoted to.  I was instantly a senior sales person and I had to move fast to stay ahead and work loads of leads these young guys were producing. Pat had me saying “Do it now” 20 times whilst nodding vigorously and smiling. He had us saying things like.”If it is  to be it’s up to me”. and “Every day in every way I get better and better”….and “I feel happy, I feel healthy, I feel terrific”. I had no idea why…I thought he was nuts but I was enjoying the ride and the excitement so I stayed and played the game. A few weeks later I sold 5 showers on one Friday in Northwich, Cheshire. All these years later I still have proud possession of all the certificates for 4,5,6,7,8+ sales in a week. I met my wife there too, she was one of the young canvassers,  so it was a fun time that I remember fondly.

The problem was I never really understood what was going on. I didn’t get it. The stuff Pat was teaching was really deep and meaningful but I just thought it was fluff and excitement. I am still selling 35 years later and I have always earned a good living but now all the same materials are back in my life. Mark J is going through it all again in Master Keys MMA. Not similar stuff…word for word. It must have been what Pat had just discovered and was trying to teach us.  If I had grasped this back then, if I had known what powerful, scientific information this really was I can only guess how different things might have been. I have nothing to complain about and don’t think I am complaining but I know if I had had more colours on my palette and appreciated what I was being given I could be a multi millionaire right now. I could have achieved so much more.

When I tell my 16 year old twin boys, they have not got enough colours on their palettes to appreciate the things I have learned by experience they just laugh…just like I did back then. In the Greatest Salesman in the World Og Mandino says “…experience teaches thoroughly yet her course of instruction devours men’s years so the value of her lessons diminishes with the time necessary to acquire her special wisdom.

What would I do to have those years again and the wisdom to know the power of thought. Even more what would I give to have my children learn from all my life of lessons and just pick up the batten. It seems everyone wants to re-invent the wheel. Maybe its just that the young people think their elders don’t understand that times have changed. They certainly have changed… but principles never change.