50 pages • 1 hour read
Dr. Joseph MurphyThe Power Of Your Subconscious Mind
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 16-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 16 Summary: “Your Subconscious Mind and Harmonious Human Relations”
Murphy begins by issuing a reminder of the golden rule and quoting Matthew 7:12: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them” (153). Murphy again quotes from the Book of Matthew and warns against judging others because a person’s creative thoughts will then create the same internal experience within oneself. Similarly, all good and evil acts come back to the person who initiated them, as the impersonal subconscious records every act and reacts according to the person’s intention.
Murphy gives several examples. The first is a man whose reaction to the news brought on bleeding ulcers. Murphy claims to have cured the man by helping him acknowledge the freedom of journalists to express themselves and the freedom of the individual to write a letter disagreeing with published statements. He also discusses a woman who disliked her coworkers because they were women. Murphy’s solution was for her to affirm her spiritual values and radiate peace and tolerance toward the other women. She discovered that “there [was] no one to change but [her]self” (156).
Similarly, for a salesman who did not get along with his manager, the solution was for the man to wish the manager health, success, and peace of mind. Before sleep, he pictured a mental movie in which the manager congratulated him, and over time, the vision came true.
Murphy states that others can only annoy a person if that person permits it: a sign of emotional immaturity. Emotional maturity lies in the inner sense of peace and health, which others cannot disturb. Everyone wants to be loved, a fact stated by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Those who recognize the worth of others will find their goodwill returned in kind. Even troubled people should not be condemned; instead, they should be understood and forgiven, for they are out of tune with the infinite and resent the happiness of others.
Empathy is the imaginative projection of one person’s mental attitude onto another person. When someone is envious of or angry with someone else, the solution is to project oneself into the mind of Jesus and feel the truth that everyone should love one another. At the same time, Murphy warns against tolerating the exploitation and manipulative tactics of others. He stresses the importance of remaining focused on the broader goal of expressing one’s talents, serving humanity, and revealing God’s wisdom, truth, and beauty.
Chapter 17 Summary: “How to Use Your Subconscious Mind for Forgiveness”
Murphy starts by explaining that “God is Life, and this Life-Principle is flowing through you this moment” (165). God expresses himself through people with positive energies such as peace, beauty, joy, and abundance. People should not resist this flow or blame God for the woes of humankind. Instead, it is necessary to believe that God and the life principle are sustaining forces.
Life always forgives, and so people must learn to forgive themselves. Self-condemnation is hell, and forgiveness is heaven. To forgive means to “give for,” and it is essential to mental peace and radiant health. Murphy asserts that people can forgive by sincerely wishing others positive energies and blessings.
Murphy offers a technique for forgiveness. First, quiet the mind and think of God and his love. Then, affirm forgiveness for the offender, naming the person. Release them from your feelings toward them and acknowledge that you both are free. Whenever the person comes to mind again, wish the offender peace.
The author offers an acid test for forgiveness, saying that it is important to reach a point where the offender is no longer a source of painful emotions. This is a goal because people make their own destiny through their thoughts and feelings, so others should not be able to mar their happiness. To believe so is unacceptable when one understands that “thoughts are things” (173).
Chapter 18 Summary: “How Your Subconscious Removes Mental Blocks”
Murphy states that the best way to find an answer or solution is to assume that infinite intelligence in the subconscious has the answer and will reveal it. He explains how to break or build a habit. The process of building a habit is a matter of doing something over and over with the conscious mind until it becomes a part of the subconscious. People can break a bad habit, such as binge drinking, by first admitting that the problem exists. Then, it is possible to release feelings of powerlessness by consciously thinking of the desired result, such as sobriety and peace of mind.
Similar to other techniques, the one required to remove mental blocks is to relax and assume a drowsy state and then fill the mind with a picture of the desired end. He compares the conscious mind to a camera and the subconscious mind to the plate on which the picture is registered. The acts of speaking statements that affirm freedom from the habit and assert the reign of peace and confidence help people reach their desired goal.
Murphy discusses the law of substitution, asserting that because imagination has created the mental block or bad habit, imagination can also remove it. Any suffering along the way is constructive. He gives the example of alcohol addiction, which he claims is caused by feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, defeat, and frustration. He states that this addiction can be healed in three steps. First, enter the drowsy state. Then, repeat an affirmative phrase over and over, such as “Sobriety and peace of mind are mine now, and I give thanks” (183). Finally, just before sleep, imagine the congratulations of a loved one and envision their smile and voice.
Chapter 19 Summary: “How to Use Your Subconscious Mind to Remove Fear”
Murphy states that the subconscious can be used to remove fear, which is a person’s greatest enemy and the cause of failure, sickness, and poor human relations. Murphy says that most fears have no reality. He quotes Emerson, saying, “Do the thing you are afraid to do, and the death of fear is certain” (186). He also says that the positive affirmation to master one’s fears has the same effect.
He repeats several examples given in previous chapters: a woman who conquers stage fright and a student who overcomes a mental blockage during exams. Then, he turns to specific phobias, such as the fear of water, mountains, or closed places. The technique for overcoming a phobia is to sit several times a day and picture oneself in the feared situation, such as swimming or riding in an elevator, making the images as vivid and positive as possible. If the fear is something tangible, the person can bless their fear, saying something like, “The elevator came out of the universal mind” (190).
Murphy distinguishes between normal fears based on real-world risks and abnormal fear based on the whims of the imagination. He states that a fear of flying, for example, is one of the latter. The technique for curing abnormal fear is to focus on its opposite. For instance, a soldier parachuting into a jungle overcame his fear of being lost by picturing his rescue.
Chapter 20 Summary: “How to Stay Young in Spirit Forever”
In his last chapter, Murphy discusses how to stay young in spirit. He begins by pointing out that the subconscious mind, being the timeless and endless mind of God, never grows old. Similarly, qualities such as patience, kindness, truthfulness, humility, and goodwill never age, nor will one’s character, faith, and convictions. Murphy says that generating those qualities on “this plane of life” and thinking about them constantly is the secret to staying young in spirit (197).
To cultivate the idea that a person is ruled by physical ailments is to invite sickness. Murphy states that the fear of aging has a similar effect. To counter this dynamic, he recommends welcoming the changes that come with aging and remembering that life is eternal, as documented by reports of near-death experiences. Age is an asset because it brings greater knowledge, maturity, and opportunities for learning. In retirement, in particular, people should pursue new challenges and interests.
Murphy also promotes being a “producer and not a prisoner” of society (204). He predicts that there will one day be a law preventing discrimination based on age; this law will allow older workers to continue contributing to the social order. The author adds that people can find rejuvenation by feeling the healing and self-renewing power of their subconscious moving through their bodies and by getting a vision of themselves as happy, serene, and powerful. He cites various people who made their greatest accomplishments in their old age, including Michelangelo and Isaac Newton. He closes the book by saying that old age provides the highest standpoint from which to contemplate God’s truths and that people are children of infinite life, which is eternal.
Chapters 16-20 Analysis
Murphy firmly believes that the power of the subconscious can solve any problem, and he frequently reiterates this point from multiple angles in the book’s final chapters. In his discussions of the nuances of human relationships, the challenge of battling personal demons, and the process of aging, he employs several different methods in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. He also pulls examples from a variety of concrete sources, such as historical events and figures and the experiences of those in prominent occupations. He also cites the experiences of ordinary people and bolsters his techniques for Tapping the Subconscious to Achieve Personal Goals with specific scripts that can be used to reach a desired outcome. By drawing on a range of sources to support the efficacy of his techniques, he attempts to appeal to a wide array of people who may hold vastly different worldviews. However, despite this attempt to acknowledge philosophical diversity, his arguments are often tied to quotes from the Bible, especially when he seeks to support his suggestions for improving relationships.
In a sharp contrast to this spiritual approach, Murphy also invokes key concepts from the field of psychology when addressing the topic of healing addiction, mental blocks, and fear. He specifically aligns himself with the premises of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), a form of structured talk therapy that was developed in the 1950s. REBT, which is used to treat mental health challenges such as anxiety and substance use, focuses on identifying automatic negative thoughts and learning new beliefs. With a PhD in psychology, Murphy was on the cutting edge of a treatment that would be popularized under the name of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) later in the 1960s. Many of his ideas are among the core principles of CBT, such as his law of substitution, which holds that imagination creates the block or habit and can also remove it. Additionally, he supports the basic premise that thoughts impact feelings, which in turn impact behavior. Murphy’s suggestions would have been especially impactful for people who received little to no benefit from Freudian psychoanalysis.
Chapter 20, which addresses techniques for staying young in spirit, represents a departure from the rest of the book, for it is more of an essay than a self-help text. In this chapter, Murphy defends the wisdom of welcoming senior citizens into the workplace and calls for an end to forced retirement at age 65, referencing the power of the subconscious only in passing. A closer analysis of this chapter can be taken with the knowledge that in 1963, Murphy was himself 65 years old—an age he mentions over half a dozen times in the chapter—and he was also at the height of his professional success. His discussion of the topic of aging correctly predicts the passage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which forbids discrimination against people who are 40 or older, and Murphy also anticipates the 1978 amendment to prohibit mandatory retirement before age 70.
