POWER OF THOUGHT

Southland Times, Issue 24438, 19 May 1941, Page 11

POWER OF THOUGHT

“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he,” declared Mr FI. H. Banks, national lecturer for the Theosophical Society in New Zealand, in an address which he delivered in Invercargill on Saturday night. Mr Banks said that character was built up by thought, dwelling upon a virtue, drawing its essence into the mind, and at the same lime shaking out thought material of a vicious kind. The value of people gathering together for a religious service, for example, was that a powerful collective radiation of aspirational thought was set up which elevated the thought atmosphere of the immediate neighbourhood, as well as strengthening these desirable thought tendencies in the worshippers themselves. In the same way, a young, responsive person was affected by the company he kept. Fie is mentally uplifted by superior minds to his own with whom he associated, or was adversely affected by the low mental tone of the group to which he belonged. Worry could be cured by setting into motion by an effort of the will another and more peaceful train of thought. Wisdom could be gained by meditation, for as Lord Bacon once remarked: “Knowledge dwells in minds replete with thoughts of other men, wisdom in those attentive to their own.” The best way to eliminate defects from the character was not to fight them, but steadily to fix the mind on the opposite virtue. “We grow like the quality we admire and aspire to,” he said.