Tag Archives: mental equivalent

Philosopher Ernest Holmes said, “The limit of our ability to demonstrate depends upon our ability to provide a mental equivalent of our desires, for the law of correspondence works from the belief to the thing.” By “ability to demonstrate” he meant our ability to manifest something or bring it forth in our lives.

A mental equivalent can also be described as an inner embodiment that corresponds to what we want to manifest. We start with the end in mind and then we explore what would be an inner likeness to what we want to experience in the outer.

Before going too much further into it, let me share a personal story. This is a case where I manifested something I did not want to experience, and yet it highlights how what we become on the inner manifests in our lives. Years ago, I used to play basketball. I wasn’t the best player, but I enjoyed playing. One day as I was heading to the gym to play, I thought, with strong feeling, “Why am I even going to the basketball court? I’m not even any good.” Upon arriving at the gym, the first person I encountered quickly snapped at me, saying “Why are you even here? You’re no good.” My first thought was “how dare someone speak to me that way.” Before I could offer a retort, I remembered that I talked to myself that way. My own inner dialogue and feelings about myself had quickly manifested in the outer.

Manifestations don’t always happen this quickly, but this example shows how powerful we are. We manifest in our lives what we become within ourselves. What we become represents our predominant way of thinking and feeling, which in turn becomes our vibration. Our vibration is what attracts or brings forth what we experience in life.

The law of correspondence, to which Ernest Holmes refers, is the nature of life, and our experience of it, to correspond to what we become.

How Do We Build A Better Mental Equivalent?
A short way of thinking of it is: see it, feel it, be it. First, we begin to see ourselves having or doing what we want. Then we use our imagination to create the feeling we would have if we were experiencing what we want, and we allow ourselves to feel that right now, as the vibration that will create or attract it. Thirdly, we start to be the way we would be if our desire were fulfilled. We walk the way we would walk, and we talk correspondingly, and align all of our other actions and ways of being with how we would be were our desire fulfilled. In other words, we are becoming the thing before we even see it manifested.

By becoming the thing first, we draw it into our experience. Similar to how I created the undesired experience of receiving an unflattering comment at the gym, we also can consciously create the experience we want through the same law of correspondence.

If we want to manifest our perfect employment, we begin to get a picture in our mind of what that would look like. Would it be an office job, or outdoors, or one where we are working more independently? We see it. Then, as we see ourselves in this perfect employment, we allow ourselves to feel the joy, the sense of fulfillment and empowerment, the feeling of our creativity being expressed, and any other feelings that come forth as we engage our imagination while seeing ourselves in this perfect employment. Finally, we start to be all that the perfect employment entails. If there are particular skills needed, we acquire those skills. If there is a way of dressing, perhaps we begin to move our wardrobe in that direction. If there are publications commonly read by those in that employment, we begin to read those. We become it, before having the thing. And, soon enough, we do have it.

See it, feel it, be it. It’s yours!

Enjoy the journey.