Some may think that we are laying too much stress upon the negative side of the question, but we feel that what we have said is timely, and much needed by many who read these lessons.  There has been so much said regarding this negative, adverse power of thought, that it is well that all should be taught that it is in their power to rise above this thing—­ that the weapon for its defeat is already in their hand.

The most advanced student may occasionally forget that he is superior to the adverse influence of the race-thought, and other clouds of thought influence that happen to be in his neighborhood.  When we think of how few there are who are sending forth the positive, hopeful, thought-waves, and how many are sending forth continually the thoughts of discouragement, fear, and despair, it is no wonder that at times there comes to us a feeling of discouragement, helplessness, and “what’s the use.”  But we must be ever alert, to stand up and deny these things out of existence so far as our personal thought world is concerned.  There is a wonderful occult truth in the last sentence.  We are the makers, preservers, and destroyers of our personal thought-world.  We may bring into it that which we desire to appear; we may keep there what we wish, cultivating, developing and unfolding the thought-forms that we desire; we may destroy that which we wish to keep out.  The “I” is the master of its thought-world.  Think over this great truth, O student!  By Desire we call into existence—­by affirmation we preserve and encourage—­by Denial we destroy.  The Hindus in their popular religious conceptions picture the One Being as a Trinity, composed of Brahma, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the Destroyer—­not three gods, as is commonly supposed, but a Trinity composed of three aspects of Deity or Being.  This idea of the threefold Being is also applicable to the Individual—­“as above so below.”  The “I” is the Being of the Individual, and the thought-world is its manifestation.  It creates, preserves, and destroys—­as it Will.  Carry this idea with you, and realize that your individual thought-world is your own field of manifestation.  In it you are constantly creating—­constantly preserving—­constantly destroying.  And if you can destroy anything in your own thought-world you remove it from its field of activity, so far as you are concerned.  And if you create anything in your own thought-world, you bring it into active being, so far as you are concerned.  And if you preserve anything, you keep it by you in effect and full operation and influence in your life.  This truth belongs to the higher phases of the subject, for its explanation is inextricably bound up in the explanation of the “Thing-in-Itself”—­the Absolute and Its Manifestations.  But even what we have said above, should give to the alert student sufficient notice to cause him to grasp the facts of the case, and to apply the principles in his own life.