Scripting · “You Assign the Meaning”
Behrend's Written Picture
After building the mental picture, write it all out exactly as you saw it, in the present tense with the feeling that ‘the best there is, is mine’ — using the writing to fix and sharpen the picture; then, if you need to vent the desire, write it and destroy the paper to keep it secret.
After you’ve built and felt your mental picture, write it down exactly as you saw it, in the present tense, sealed with “The best there is, is mine — my mind is a center of divine operation.” Keep one picture. If you only need to vent a desire, write it and then destroy the paper to keep it secret.
What it is
Behrend makes writing an explicit step inside her visualization sitting, with two distinct uses. (1) Fix the picture: once you have built and felt the mental picture, “write it all down just as you have seen it, with the feeling that: ‘The best there is, is mine.
There is no limit to me, because my mind is a center of divine operation.’” The writing condenses the imagined scene into definite, present-tense detail and seals it with her signature affirmation. (2) Vent without leaking: because she also insists the desire be kept secret, she gives a release valve — “talk it over with yourself, and even write it down, then destroy the paper.” Writing lets you externalize the desire safely; destroying the paper preserves the secrecy that (in her model) protects its power.
This is the Mental-Science ancestor of modern “scripting,” and it differs from the generic version in three ways: it is the written record of an already-built mental picture (not a free-form journaling session), it is bound to a specific affirmation (“my mind is a center of divine operation”), and it carries the unusual destroy-the-paper instruction that ties it to her secrecy discipline rather than to keeping a manifestation diary.
The Method
- Build the picture first. Do the full picturing sitting — “go all through” the house/scene, “until you feel the reality of it”.
- Write it exactly as you saw it. “Then write it all down just as you have seen it” — concrete, present-tense, the details you actually pictured (the rooms, the windows, how “healthy, wealthy, and happy you look”).
- Seal it with the affirmation and feeling. Write it “with the feeling that: ‘The best there is, is mine. There is no limit to me, because my mind is a center of divine operation,’” so the page carries glad assurance, not anxious wishing.
- If venting, then destroy it. When you write merely to get a pressing desire “off your mind,” “talk it over with yourself, and even write it down, then destroy the paper” — keeping the desire secret.
- Keep one written picture. As with the mental version, don’t keep rewriting different desires — the “double-exposed plate” warning applies to the page too. (Sourcing note: from Your Invisible Power, “Suggestions for Making Your Mental Picture” (the “write it all down” instruction) and Ch. IV (the “write it down, then destroy the paper” instruction); quoted phrases are Behrend’s, numbered structure an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Genevieve Behrend, Your Invisible Power (1921). She also practiced it herself in the $20,000 demonstration: “I wrote out my picture, saw myself buying my steamer ticket, walking up and down the ship’s deck. and finally, saw myself accepted as Troward’s pupil.” It is the written companion to her mental-picture method and her secrecy guard.
Common refinements
Future-tense wishing. Write it as already true (“the best there is, is mine”), not as “I will” or “I hope.”
- Writing without first picturing. The page records a picture you actually built and felt — it is not a substitute for the imaging.
- Hoarding many scripts. Keep one written picture; rewriting many different desires re-exposes the plate.
- Confusing the two uses. The kept page fixes the chosen picture; the destroyed page is for venting a desire you want off your mind while keeping it secret.