-- $$$$$ -- $$$ -- $$ -- $$$$ --

Claude M. Bristol (1891-1951) served as a soldier in WW1 in France and Germany. He worked on the army newspaper, Stars and Stripes until 1919. His best known book is The Magic of Believing, published in 1948, which has sold well over a million copies, and is widely regarded as a prosperity classic.

Claude Bristol was a hard-headed journalist for several years, including stints as a police reporter and as church editor of a large city newspaper. In this post he met people from every denomination and sect, and later read hundreds of books on psychology, religion, science, metaphysics and ancient magic. Gradually, Bristol began to see the 'golden thread' which runs through all religions and esoteric teachings: that belief itself has amazing powers.



Having spent years thinking about the power of thought, he had assumed others knew something about it too. He was wrong. Strangely, he found that most people go through life without realising the effect that strong belief can have on reaching their goals - they leave their desires vague and so they get vague outcomes.

When Bristol was a soldier in World War One, there was a period in which he had no pay and couldn't even afford cigarettes. He made up his mind that when he got back to civilian life "he would have a lot of money". In his mind this was a decision, not a wish. Barely a day had passed after his arrival back home when he was contacted by a banker who had seen a story on him in the local newspaper. He was offered a job, and though he started on a small salary, he constantly kept before him 'a mental picture of wealth'. In quiet moments or while on the telephone, he doodled '$$$' signs on bits of paper that crossed his desk. This definiteness of belief, he suggests, more than anything else paved the way for a highly successful career in investment banking and business.

Bristol had learned the truth of philosopher William James' statement that

"Belief creates its verification in fact"

Just as fearful thoughts set you up to experience the situation you can't stop thinking about (the Biblical Job said: 'What I feared most had come upon me'), optimistic thoughts and expecting the best inevitably form favourable circumstances.

The Magic of Believing was written, he says, for ex-service men and women who would have to adjust to civilian life and try to prosper in it. It was published when he was in his 50s and followed the success of a small book he published in 1932 entitled T.N.T.— It Rocks The Earth.


Bristol was a popular speaker to clubs, business organizations and salespeople.

Determination:
"It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles."

Challenge:
"It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles.

Attitude:
It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen."

Desire:
"One essential to success is that your desire be an all obsessing one, your thoughts and aims be co-ordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup."

Success:
"One essential to success is that your desire be an all-obsessing one, your thoughts and aim be coordinated, and your energy be concentrated and applied without letup."

Expectation:
"We usually get what we anticipate."

Dreams:
"You have to think big to be big"

Objective:
"The person with a fixed goal, a clear picture of his desire, or an ideal always before him, causes it, through repetition, to be buried deeply in his subconscious mind and is thus enabled, thanks to its generative and sustaining power, to realize his goal in a minimum of time and with a minimum of physical effort. Just pursue the thought unceasingly. Step by step you will achieve realization, for all your faculties and powers become directed to that end."

How I came to tap the power of belief
Many people in moments of abstraction or while talking on the telephone engage in doodling -- drawing or sketching odd designs and patterns upon paper. My doodling was in the form of dollar signs like these -- $$$$$ -- $$$ -- $$ -- $$$$ -- on every paper that came across my desk. The cardboard covers of all the files placed before me daily were scrawled with these markings, as were the covers of telephone directories, scratch-pads, and even the face of important correspondence.