1

The Online Books of Harold Sherman

Your Key to Happiness

First published 1935 by G.P. Putnam's Sons

CONTENTS

To You Who Are About to Read This Book

editions]

[added in later

IThe Key to (a) Relaxation (b) Concentration

Your Inner Self

IIThe Creative Power Within (a) Importance of right mental pictures (b) Your mind and your future IIIThe Physical Side (a) Nothing happens by accident (b) The part that faith plays IVFear: How to Control (a) Worry: handmaiden of fear (b) Neurotic tendencies

You

It

VTaking Life Too Seriously (a) The fear of growing old (b) The fear of death VISelf-Pity (a) False pride (b) The martyr complex VIThe Quality of Decision (a) Overcoming inferiorities VIIIThe Need of Real Understanding (a) How to get along with others IXHow to Determine (a) Self-confidence

Your Talent in Life

XSuccess

in Life
2

TO YOU WHO ARE ABOUT TO READ THIS BOOK THERE is much very much, I would like to say to you, could I meet and talk personally with you, who are about to read this book. But perhaps, if you will let yourself feel that I am talking to you now, alone, we can have a good visit together. I have been asked by so many thousands of men and women, as the result of my radio talks on personal philosophy, how I came to believe, as I do, in the power of right thinking and the unquestioned existence of a personal God, that I feel this will be one of your first questions, too. You have a right to ask me this question for you are a searcher after truth, as am I, and you have sought the answer to these age-old and perplexing problems in your life. Each seeker brings to the quest his own degree of belief or skepticism, based upon the nature of his past experience. While we of today have been told that faith is the substance of things unseen, few of us are willing to accept the evidence of faith unless we can see its works. Whatever your belief, or lack of belief, either in higher powers within yourself, or in a direct personal relation to God, you do not want to be deluded. This was my own attitude, years ago. Certain unusual mental experiences had come to me which I could not explain in accordance with my youthful concept of this material world. It seemed fantastic and impossible, for instance, though radio was then being talked about, that human thought could ever be transmitted from one mind to another. And yet, there had been forced upon me several startling and undeniable evidences that my mind had received such thoughts. I was greatly disturbed by these happenings and found that I could confide them to few people for fear of being considered on the fringe of lunacy or placed in the category of an abnormal child who was subject to hallucinations. The experiences impressed me so deeply, however, that I resolved to spend my life, devoting all the time I could possibly afford, in a study of these strange and little-understood faculties of mind, with the hope that I might, at least, clarify for myself what these mental processes were which sometimes operated beyond the so-called normal. I thought the answer might be found in the religions and philosophies of the world, and so I began a study of them. I found much of inspiration but little of illumination. I became more and more certain that the spiritual