Sacred Texts: New Thought

Creative Mind and Success: Part II: Mental Likeness

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*Creative Mind and Success* (1919) is an early New Thought self-help essay by Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, written in the tradition of metaphysical idealism. Its central argument is that affirmations and positive thinking only work to the extent that the practitioner has genuinely internalized — not merely repeated — the belief being affirmed: "we can effectively affirm only that which we know, and we know only that which we are." Holmes contends that material conditions are downstream of mental states, so a person cannot attract abundance while holding a mental image of scarcity; the inner concept must first expand to match the desired outer reality. The distinctive claim is that this is not passive visualization but active, effortful inner growth — Holmes explicitly accuses most people of being "too lazy" to do the sustained mental work required. The prescribed practice is a daily discipline of deliberately imagining oneself in progressively larger circumstances, inhabiting that expanded identity in thought and feeling until it becomes the operative reality of consciousness. The piece is representative of early 20th-century New Thought literature: confident, prescriptive, and blending quasi-philosophical idealism ("All is Mind") with practical self-improvement instruction.

Creative Mind and Success: Part II: Mental Likeness

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