"If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance."
'- Orville Wright (American Inventor), E2, page xviii
"You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."- Buckminster Fuller (American Futurist), E2, page xxvii
In a nutshell: Most people still operate from the mental architecture of our ancestors. We’re oblivious to the “space heaters” around us.
Around birth our minds establish a pattern of perception and promptly proceed to filter out all else. Yikes! Information that doesn’t neatly fit our beliefs gets altered without our even noticing.
For example, the brain receives 400 billion bits of information each second. It would take nearly 600,000 average-size books just to print 400 billion zeroes. Despite our narrowness and screening, we amazingly manage to take in 2,000 bits of information per second. However, what we choose to receive is only one half of one-millionth of one percent. The reason 99.9 percent of our mind is devoted to things we don’t want is because that has become the world’s default setting.
To refute this alarming global pattern, Grout has established a series of 9 “experiments” (with tongue-in-cheek names) set up in the fashion of the Scientific Method. Read on for two of them.
"Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you’d see."- Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events, E2, page 41
This first principle serves as a foundation. Best described as an ultimatum, the hypothesis states that the 24/7 field of possibilities (FP) is yours for the asking.
You demand a clear, unmistakable sign, something that cannot be written off as mere coincidence. Set skepticism aside; accept with your whole heart. Then let go and observe:
If you don’t hear from the FP in 48 hours, feel free to write it off. [I didn’t have to and instead recognized my “sign” in less than 24 hours.]
"It’s right underneath your fingers, baby. That’s all you have to understand – everything is right underneath your fingers."- Ray Charles (American Singer & Pianist), E2, page 53
Most people associate the word abracadabra with magicians pulling rabbits out of hats. Actually, it’s an Aramaic term that translates into English as, “I will create as I speak.” It’s why Jim Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million long before he ever made a movie.
Your every thought affects the FP. “Instead of being one, continuous well-aimed tuning fork, our thoughts are more like a junior high band of beginning trumpet players” purports the author. Yes, you begged for peace of mind today. But you also expended a considerable portion of your average 60,000 daily thoughts on its opposite – worry.
In this experiment, you will magnetize a particular event or thing into your life:
Amusingly, here’s what happened with Pam’s “wiseass” friend Chuck. He asked to sleep with two girls at once. Sure enough, he met a new woman (whom he now dates), ending up in bed with her and her six-year-old daughter, who crawled in for a quick snuggle with her mom. Beware of being very specific in what you seek!
These two experiments only scratch the surface of what’s possible. Did you know there is lodged within you no less than 7 times 10 to the 18th joules of potential energy? To bring home the magnitude, Grout indicates that if you knew how to liberate this force, you could use it to explode yourself with the equivalent of 30 very large hydrogen bombs. Holy! Not that you would want to!
Pam Grout is a hopeless romantic who still believes the world is a beautiful place, that people are noble and that anything is possible.
