Affirmation · “The Subconscious Says Yes”
Behrend's Speaking the Word
Repeat a single chosen word or definite affirmation ‘secretly, persistently, and emphatically’ to set its inner ‘power germ’ vibrating and expanding into a felt state — or to ‘speak the word’ of supply for a definite need as an already-accomplished fact.
Pick one word that names the state you want — “joy,” “supply,” “peace.” Repeat it secretly, persistently, emphatically until your whole being feels its reality. For a definite need, “speak the word” once, in the present tense, as already accomplished, then let it go. What counts is the innermost conviction behind the word, not how it sounds to others.
What it is
For Behrend, every word carries a “power germ which expands and projects itself in the direction your word indicates, and ultimately develops into physical expression.” The practice is to take one word naming the state you want — her own example is “joy” — and “repeat the word. secretly, persistently and emphatically,” until “your whole being is filled with joy.” In her teaching practice this also takes the form of “speaking the word” of supply for a definite need: a short, authoritative affirmation that the desired thing already exists (“Infinite substance is manifesting in you right now”).
This is the Troward-lineage affirmation: the word is not a wish or a plea but the channel through which “the creative energy takes form” — “the words you use are the instruments. through which the creative energy takes form. this sensitive Creative Power can only reproduce in accordance with the instrument through which it passes.” That framing distinguishes it from its neighbours.
Coué’s autosuggestion repeats a general formula to bypass the will; Spiritual Mind Treatment runs a multi-step argument; Behrend’s version is narrower and more vivid — one word repeated to release the “germ” inside it, or one definite spoken word of accomplished supply.
The Method
- Choose one word naming the state. Pick the single word that names the consciousness you want — “joy,” “supply,” “peace.” “Joy is a state of consciousness, and consciousness is purely mental.”
- Repeat it secretly, persistently, emphatically. The repetition “sets up a quality of vibration which causes the joy germ to begin to expand and project itself until your whole being is filled with joy.”
- Repeat until you feel its reality. Continue “until you feel the truth and stimulating reality of the words which you are affirming” — the felt shift, not the count, is the marker.
- Or ‘speak the word’ for a definite need — in the present. For supply, affirm it as eternally present and already accomplished: money “was present for him at that very moment”; “it could not come too late, as it was eternally present.” Speak it with quiet authority, then release it.
- Mean it inwardly — the secret thought is what counts. “’As you think, so are you’ does not mean ‘as you tell people you think’. It means your innermost thoughts.” A word affirmed against a contrary inner conviction is the “crooked pipe” the substance cannot flow straight through. (Sourcing note: from Your Invisible Power, Ch. XI “How to Bring the Power in Your Word into Action,” Ch. XIII–XIV, and the Forward’s “speak the word” anecdotes; quoted phrases are Behrend’s, the numbered structure an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Genevieve Behrend, Your Invisible Power (1921), chiefly “How to Bring the Power in Your Word into Action.” The “power germ in every word” and “as the instrument, so the form” are Behrend’s renderings of Troward’s teaching that mind works by suggestion and reproduces “in accordance with the instrument through which it passes,” which she quotes directly.
Common refinements
Reciting without feeling. The germ “expands” only as the repetition is carried to felt reality; flat repetition does little.
- Affirming against an inner ‘no’. Behrend is explicit that the innermost thought governs; do not “make yourself believe that which you know to be untrue.” Better to start with a word you can actually accept.
- Broadcasting it. Like her picturing method, the word is kept “secret” — spoken to oneself, not announced.
- Speaking the word for another as control. Behrend forbids trying “to take possession of the mind of another”; you affirm the truth into “First Cause,” then dismiss their personality.