THE LAW OF DIVINE TRANSFERENCE
Image: B. Zetterstrom
As we usher in 2022, we want to explore what it means to think differently, to tune the frequency of our thoughts to help catalyze our dreams…because everything on the physical plane first began as a thought. This idea to alchemize how we think has led us down some potent rabbit holes; last year, we explored the writings of Napoleon Hill through a Benshen-esque lens, and it’s inspired us to continue further and discuss the teachings of the entire wave of New Thought Movement leaders from the 20th century…but make it inspiring and actionable and USEFUL in the here and now.
Essentially, there was a small collection of writers in the early 1900s who straddled the worlds of science and metaphysics and created the New Thought or Higher Thought Movement. Kicked off by “mentalist and mesmerist” Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, New Thought was all about unlocking unlimited potential through mind training.
In a collection of excerpts and essays from these important authors called How to Be Rich, the distilled main principle was: “The key to everything is our thought, and we can change our life experiences only when we replace old, limited ideas with new, more expansive ones.” This powerful idea has the potential to help insert each of us into the future we most desire, the future we are aiming to craft for ourselves in the new year.
Together, let’s explore centuries-old concepts with those who channeled them —including Florence Scovel Shinn, Joseph Murphy, and beyond— to understand how their bold perspectives on shifting thought patterns can help us play with our own unlimited potential. We begin with Dr. Julia Seton and her 1914 book, The Science of Success; she was a lecturer and writer enamored with the doctrines of Ancient Egypt, Greece, and India. Today, she’ll teach us about Divine Transference, a cosmic law most appropriate to embody at the start of the year…for what we seek, is seeking us.
“When we know this truth of the law of Divine Transference, we just lift our minds above the thought world of effort and resistance, high above the planes of recognition of competition. We neither know nor care what the external conditions may be; we only know what we want, and know how, and when, and where, we want it. We forget that there is any condition that might have power over us…We know that it is waiting for us in the creative energy, ready to burst into bloom for us the moment we make continuous connection with it.”
— JULIA SETON, "The Science of Success", 1914
Image: Kunie Sugiura, Situations Test A, 1998
WHAT IS THE LAW OF DIVINE TRANSFERENCE?
It’s the concept that our dreams can act as a magnet; meaning, that what we declare and command in the world, form must obey - so long as we take a step in the direction of our desires. The saying goes, “Take one step closer to our dreams and our dreams take one step closer to us.” So many of us have a natural tendency to feel we want it all and all at once and/or we can't have what we want until we're perfect. This law is a law of the universe just like the Law of Gravity - what goes up must come down, what we move toward moves toward us. Knowing this, we don't have to have it ALL together (which is impossible - we're human) and we won't have it ALL at once (which is a GOOD thing because we need time to prepare for everything we want). But what the law does say is that as long as we take that first step - launch the website, send the newsletter, say hi to someone new, sign up for the workout class and go - the Universe will start its engines in motion to bring us what we want. In the words of Dr. Seton, “When we make our whole attitude one of divine recognition of opulence, everything we desire will come from out of the external world around us and attach itself to our lives… we cease then to look to others, but rather to substance itself for our supply.”
Image: Inside Out, Richard Serra
PRACTICE: THE FIRST STEP
The Law of Attraction can feel futile if we haven’t organized the proper structures to connect us with what we most desire. Instead of getting caught up in an avalanche of all the things we want (and remember, we can have it all, we just can’t have it all RIGHT NOW), write down ONE step this week that will move you closer to ONE 2022 goal…and do it. Make it small, actionable, and follow through. And it might be something mundane, like paying a bill or cleaning a drawer or it might be something BIG like whatever you have been putting off doing for months or even YEARS. Follow intuition to see what feels like it could stir momentum, and ultimately create optimal conditions for our minds to magnetize.
“When we first come into the law of this plane of Divine Transference, we feel as if we were magnets attracting to us, from an unlimited source, these things we desire. However, after a while even this much separation ceases and we feel that we are the abundance itself, the law and the Transference. We are it, All in all… Our whole world environment becomes the picture of the wealth and abundance that we have earned for ourselves by our deepened consciousness.”
— JULIA SETON, "The Science of Success", 1914