When the student is fully impressed with the details of the process of Attention, and the subsequent unfoldment of knowledge, the Yogi proceeds to inform him that there are other means of obtaining knowledge about an object, by the employment of which the Attention may be firmly directed toward the object and then afterwards held there unconsciously—­that is, a portion of the Attention, or a sub-conscious phase of mentation, which will hold the sub-conscious mind firmly upon the work until accomplished, leaving the conscious Attention and mentality free to employ itself with other things.

The Yogis teach the students that this new form of Attention is far more intense and powerful than is the conscious Attention, for it cannot be disturbed or shaken, or distracted from its object, and that it will work away at its task for days, months, years, or a lifetime if necessary, according to the difficulty of the task, and in fact carries its work over from one life to another, unless recalled by the Will.  They teach the student that in everyone’s life there is going on a greater or less degree of this sub-conscious work, carried on in obedience to a strong desire for knowledge manifested in some former life, and bearing fruit only in the present existence.  Many important discoveries have been made in obedience to this law.  But it is not of this phase of the matter that we wish to speak in this lesson.

The Yogi theory is that the sub-conscious intellectual faculty may be set to work under the direction of orders given by the Will.  All of you know how the sub-conscious mentality will take up an order of the Will, or a strong wish, that the person be awakened at a certain hour in order to catch a train.  Or, in the same way how the remembrance of a certain engagement at, say, four o’clock, will flash into the mind when the hands of the clock approach the stated hour.  Nearly every one can recall instances of this sort in his own experience.

But the Yogis go much further than this.  They claim that any and all faculties of the mind may be “set going,” or working on any problem, if ordered thereto by the Will.  In fact, the Yogis, and their advanced students have mastered this art to such a surprising extent that they find it unnecessary to do the drudgery of thinking in the conscious field, and prefer to relegate such mental work to the sub-conscious, reserving their conscious work for the consideration of digested information and thought presented to them by the sub-conscious mind.

Their directions to their students cover a great deal of ground, and extend over a long period of time, and many of the directions are quite complicated and full of detail.  But we think that we can give our students an abbreviated and condensed idea in a few pages of the lesson.  And the remaining lessons of the course will also throw additional light on the subject of sub-conscious mental action, in connection with other subjects.