Psychogenesis

Faithfully described from Addington’s teaching (short attributed phrases only):

1. Name the recurring condition. Pick one pattern that keeps showing up — not a one-off, but a theme.
2. Trace it back to its mental cause. Ask what you have been habitually assuming, fearing, or telling yourself in that area. Addington’s premise is that “everything begins in mind,” so the recurring outer fact points to a recurring inner sentence.
3. Withdraw consent from the old directive. See the old self-statement plainly and decide it is no longer your instruction to the subconscious. (This is a denial in the New Thought sense — not pretending the fact away, but refusing to keep authorizing it.)
4. Choose the new directive. State, in the present tense, the constructive truth you want the subconscious to act on — clear, short, believable enough to accept. Addington frames the subconscious as a faithful servant that carries out whatever directive it is given.
5. Re-impress by repetition. Repeat the new directive daily, with feeling, especially in the relaxed state before sleep, until it becomes the automatic background assumption rather than an effort.
6. Act consistently with the new directive. Let conduct match the re-charted mind; behaviour that contradicts the directive re-installs the old one. (Sourcing note: phrasing such as “re-train your subconscious mind, re-chart your life, and re-make your world” and “everything begins in mind” is Addington’s, given here as brief attributed quotation, not full reproduction.)

Jack Ensign Addington (1915-1998) was a lawyer turned New Thought minister who, with his wife Cornelia, founded the Abundant Living Foundation and reached a large lay audience by radio and the monthly Abundant Living magazine.

Psychogenesis distils his “constructive thinking” teaching into a named technique; it stands in the Religious Science / Science of Mind current descending from the Emma Curtis Hopkins lineage, where mind is treated as causal and the subconscious as re-impressionable.

The shared move — find the habitual inner pattern, cancel it, install a chosen one, repeat until automatic — recurs widely; Addington’s version is distinctive in foregrounding the diagnostic trace-back (“what mental cause produced this?”) rather than starting straight from the affirmation: - Impressing the Law (Ernest Holmes) — embodies the new idea so the creative Law acts on it; Holmes affirms the realized truth, Addington first hunts the mental cause to be replaced.

• Sleep impregnation (Joseph Murphy) — hands a chosen idea to the subconscious in the drowsy pre-sleep state; Addington uses the same channel for the new directive.
• Denials and affirmations (Cady / Fillmore lineage) — cancel the false belief, affirm the true one; Addington’s step 3-4 is this two-beat structure.
• Cognitive reappraisal (CBT) — identify the automatic thought driving a reaction, then substitute a more accurate one.

Skipping the trace-back. Jumping straight to a pleasant affirmation without finding the old directive leaves the old pattern running underneath. Do step 2 honestly.

• A directive you can’t accept. If the new statement feels like a lie, soften it to a believable bridge (“I am learning to handle money calmly”) rather than a denial you reject.
• One enthusiastic session. Re-impression is by repetition over days, not a single sitting.
• Treating it as fault-finding. “Mental cause” is a lever for change, not a verdict that you are to blame for hardship. Use it forward, not as self-accusation.
• Re-charting in words while acting the old way. Behaviour that contradicts the new directive re-installs the old one.