Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Bailes' Disciplined Imagination
To deliberately and persistently hold a clear, untroubled mental picture of the wished-for condition as already true — refusing to entertain the contrary picture — so the subconscious takes that picture as its working pattern.
Bailes’ disciplined imagination: You’re always imagining — usually the thing you fear. Take command. Choose a clear, definite picture of the END condition (whole, resolved, adequate). Hold it as already true, in calm assurance — not anxious wanting. When the feared picture intrudes, don’t fight it; turn back to your chosen picture. Return to it briefly, many times a day, so the subconscious gets one steady pattern. Keep it honest; pair it with action; never use it to skip medical care.
What it is
Frederick W. Bailes taught that “man’s imagination is the man himself,” and that the trouble is not too little imagination but undisciplined imagination — most people use this faculty constantly, but against themselves, vividly picturing the feared and unwanted.
Following Troward’s idea of the imaging faculty, Bailes’ practice is to take deliberate command of the picture-making power: to choose, build, and hold a clear mental image of the desired condition as an accomplished fact, and to refuse residence to the contrary picture.
Where his Seven-Step treatment is a discrete, reasoned procedure, disciplined imagination is the continuous background habit — the day-long guarding and shaping of the inner picture, on which the formal treatment then rests.
The picture must be clear, must be of the end (the perfect/whole condition), and must be held without anxiety — anxious picturing is just the feared image wearing a hopeful mask.
The Method
- Catch what you are already imagining. Bailes’ first move is awareness: notice that you are constantly running mental pictures, and that most distress is a vivid picture of the unwanted. You cannot discipline a faculty you don’t notice using.
- Decide the picture deliberately. Choose the image of the end-state — the body whole, the situation resolved, yourself adequate to the matter. Bailes wants the completed condition pictured, not the process of getting there and not the lack.
- Make it clear and definite. Build a specific, clear image rather than a vague wish. Bailes ties effectiveness to clarity: a clear picture gives the subconscious a clear pattern; a fuzzy one gives it nothing to work on.
- Hold it as already true — in calm assurance. Dwell in the picture with the settled feeling that it is so, not the straining feeling that it must become so. This is the same “quiet, calm assurance” of his realization step. Feeling-tone matters: hold it restfully.
- Refuse the contrary picture. The discipline is largely negative — the steady refusal to entertain, dwell on, or re-run the image of the feared/unwanted condition. When the old picture intrudes, you don’t fight it head-on (that strengthens it); you turn back to the chosen picture. Bailes treats this redirection, repeated faithfully, as the heart of disciplining imagination.
- Return to it often. Not one long session but many brief returns through the day — re-establishing the picture and its calm feeling — so the subconscious is steadily fed one consistent pattern rather than a war of images. (Sourcing note: “man’s imagination is the man himself,” the diagnosis that few have disciplined their imagination, the clear-picture-of-the-end and refuse-the-contrary-picture instructions, and the “calm assurance” feeling-tone are Bailes’ documented teaching in Your Mind Can Heal You and his Science of Mind course. Faithful paraphrase; only short phrases quoted.)
Source & Lineage
Frederick W. Bailes (1889-1970), Science of Mind teacher under Ernest Holmes. His imagination teaching descends directly from Thomas Troward’s “imaging faculty” and the New Thought axiom that the subconscious accepts and reproduces whatever picture the conscious mind impresses on it.
It runs parallel to Neville Goddard’s assumption work and Maltz’s self-image psycho-cybernetics, though Bailes frames it as healing/treatment support rather than wish-fulfilment.
The Traditions' versions
Troward’s imaging faculty — the philosophical source; thought as the mold the formless takes.
- Neville’s “live in the end” — picture/feel the wish fulfilled as already so.
- Maltz’s self-image (Psycho-Cybernetics) — the held mental picture of oneself sets the “servo” target.
- Mental rehearsal / motor imagery (sports & clinical psych) — the evidence-based secular cousin: vivid rehearsal of a performance improves it.
- Coué — imagination beats will; never force the picture.
Common refinements
Anxious picturing. Holding the good picture with a tight, “please-let-it-be-true” feeling is just the fear-picture in disguise. The feeling must be calm assurance. If you can’t reach calm, relax first.
- Vague pictures. “Things getting better” is too fuzzy to work on. Make it clear and definite.
- Picturing the process / the wanting. Picture the end (already accomplished), not the striving toward it — striving implies absence.
- Fighting the intruding image. Wrestling the feared picture feeds it (reversed effort). Don’t argue with it; turn back to the chosen picture.
- One big session. Better: many short, faithful returns through the day than one strained marathon.
- Using the picture to deny reality. Picturing health while ignoring symptoms is dangerous denial, not discipline.