Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Definite Treatment for a Goal
Form a clear mental likeness of a specific desired good and hold it, with feeling, as already an accomplished fact in Mind, persisting past doubt until it is established in conviction.
Choose one definite good. Make a clear mental likeness of it as already accomplished and feel it as yours now. Know Mind receives the picture. Refuse every contradicting thought — return to the image. Repeat daily until conviction holds, and act on the openings that come.
What it is
This is the early, imaginal form of Holmes’s method from Creative Mind and Success (1919), before he codified the five-step verbal treatment. Here the operative act is to make a clear mental likeness of the specific thing you want — a position, a sum, a flourishing business — and hold that picture as an already-accomplished fact in Mind, feeling it as real, until conviction is established.
Holmes’s premise: “whatever you imagine in your mind will come to you exactly as you picture it,” because the creative Principle takes the mental likeness you give it and tends to externalize it. Where his later spiritual mind leads with a verbal declaration and his impressing the leads with a single abstract idea, this practice leads with a vivid, definite image of the outcome and the felt certainty that it is yours.
The Method
- Decide on one definite good. Be specific. The Creative Principle works on a clear likeness, not a wish-list. Choose exactly what you intend to experience.
- Make the mental likeness. Build a clear mental picture of the thing as accomplished — see yourself already in the position, the business already prosperous. Holmes stresses definiteness: a clear image, not a hazy hope.
- Affirm it as present fact and feel it. Declare the pictured good as already so in Mind, and feel the satisfaction of having it now. Belief and feeling are what make the likeness “take.”
- Know Mind receives it. Treat the picture as handed to the creative Medium, which receives and acts on it. You are not creating by willpower; you are giving Mind a definite pattern to externalize.
- Refuse the contradicting thought. Whenever doubt or the appearance of lack arises, do not entertain it — return to the picture. A treatment is undone by contradicting it; keep the mental likeness clean.
- Persist and act. Repeat the treatment daily until conviction is settled (The Inner Creates the Outer), and take the practical steps and opportunities that present themselves. Picturing sets the direction; action travels it. (Sourcing note: quoted phrase is a short attributed quote; the numbered method is a faithful rendering of Holmes’s “make a mental likeness / hold it as done / refuse contradiction” teaching in Creative Mind and Success.)
Source & Lineage
Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) published Creative Mind and Success in 1919, his first popular statement of the method that he later systematised into The Science of Mind (1926).
It draws directly on Thomas Troward and the New Thought picturing tradition (Wattles, Behrend).,
Common refinements
Vague picture. A hazy image gives Mind a hazy pattern. Be definite about the specific good.
- Picturing the wanting, not the having. Rehearsing longing or lack reinforces it. Hold the likeness as already accomplished and feel the satisfaction of having it.
- Entertaining the contradiction. Dwelling on doubt or current shortfall undoes the treatment. Notice it, drop it, return to the picture.
- Picturing without acting. Holmes expects you to take the practical openings; visualization sets direction, action covers the distance.
- Treating once. Repeat daily until the conviction is established.