Imagination · “Feel It Real”
The Ideal Made Real
Give your energies a definite pattern to work toward by fixing your highest ideals clearly, imaginatively living in them during spare moments, then applying all your powers to make the picture real.
Step 1: Settle exactly what you want — surroundings, friends, work — as fixed, lofty ideals you can see at all times. Step 2: In your spare moments (instead of idle imagining), live inside those ideals — picture yourself already being and doing them. Hang those pictures where your mind sees them constantly. Step 3: Apply every power and act — make your prediction, then go to work daily to make it come true. Hold the success picture; never picture failure.
What it is
Larson’s signature visualization, and the title-theme of an earlier book (The Ideal Made Real, 1909). His premise: “The forces of the human system must have something definite to work for… some model or pattern to follow,” and “every mental force is an artist, and it paints according to the model.
What you imagine is the model.” Since “it is practically impossible to be awake without imagining something,” the question is only what you imagine — so he turns idle imagining into deliberate construction. The practice is a three-step:
(1) settle exactly what you want — surroundings, friends, work — as fixed ideals; (2) imaginatively live in those ideals in every spare moment; (3) apply all your powers to realise them. The distinctive Larson notes: the picture is of your greater future self and surroundings (not a single object), you dwell in it during the spare moments most people waste, and step three is real-world action — “make your prediction. Then go to work and make it come true.”
The Method
- Step one — settle the ideals clearly. “Make up your mind as to what you really want in every respect. Determine what surroundings or environment you want… the kind of friends… what kind of work you would prefer. Make all those ideals so good and so perfect that you will have no occasion to change them. Then fix those ideals so clearly in mind that you can see them at all times, and proceed to desire their realization with all the power of mind and soul.”
- Step two — live in the ideal imaginatively. “Imagine yourself living in those surroundings… make it a point to live in that imagination every moment of every day. Instead of imagining a number of useless things during spare moments, as people usually do, imagine yourself living in those surroundings and those ideals.” Picture the ideal friends, the work done as well as you’d wish, “results as large as your greatest desires could expect.”
- Hang the pictures where the mind sees them. “Hang up pictures in your mind that will inspire you to do your best… by imagining yourself being that greater something that you want to be and doing that greater something that you want to do.” Keep them “in the most conspicuous position of your mind.”
- Hitch your wagon to a star. Aim high — “The star may be something quite out of reach as far as present circumstances indicate,” but a lofty model makes the mind “take wings… We shall begin to rise.”
- Step three — apply every power, and act. “Proceed to apply the power of desire, the power of will, the power of scientific thought… all your powers, in trying to realize those beautiful ideals… Do as the ancient Hebrews did. First make your prediction. Then go to work and make it come true… working for its realization every day.”
Source & Lineage
Your Forces and How to Use Them (1912), Chapter XVIII, “Imagination and the Master Mind,” developing the central theme of his The Ideal Made Real (1909). Larson is an important New Thought source for the imagination strand later carried by Neville Goddard and the wider visualization tradition.
Christian D. Larson (1874-1962). → (larson christian d).
Common refinements
Skipping step three. Imagining the ideal without the daily action is the failure mode Larson guards against (“then go to work and make it come true”). Pleasant fantasy alone can reduce drive.
- Vague or shifting ideals. Step one demands ideals “so perfect that you will have no occasion to change them,” fixed clearly enough to “see them at all times.” A blurry target gives the mind no model.
- Picturing lack while wanting plenty. Larson warns that fear/failure imagery gives the energies “a model of failure.” Hold the success picture.
- Only doing it in a formal session. The power is in reclaiming the spare moments you’d otherwise spend imagining “useless things.”