Thought Culture, Or, Practical Mental
Training by William Walker Atkinson
After reading sixteen titles written by
W. W. Atkinson, I thought of reading the first title in the
compilation. The first book in the compilation is the "Art of
Expression". On the first page, it is recommended that one
should first read a book on Logic and then on Thought Training in
order to fully utilize the content of the title. I have read the book
on Logic. A review is already on this blog. This is the next book.
A Reminisance:
The books or the titles which I have
already reviewed and commented upon on this blog, were mostly on
esoteric sciences. There is a story behind it. I wanted to read about
Patanjali. On the basis of my prior knowledge, I tried to acquire the
book written by Swami Vivekananda on Patanjali. While I was searching
for that on the Internet, I came across a book on Philosophy of a
Yogi by Yogi Ramcharaka. The discourse in that book was written in
such a manner that I was highly impressed by the thought process that
it was inducing in my perception and understanding. Gradually, I
observed that it was written by a person who had good knowledge of
Christianity and Western literature. I directed my attention and
efforts to learn about Yogi Ramcharak. In due course, I discovered
that the real author was W. W. Atkinson. Soon, I was able to find a
compilation of his writings for a very small amount.
One of the supporting factor in
facilitating this reading was the free software of Kindle. I had
learned about Kindle when it was not available in India. As it is a
general response of most of the people, that when something new is
introduced, the people tends to pass a judgement without caring to
know that whether they are really genuine, right, and they are fully
qualified to pass that judgement. I am no different from such people.
Therefore, I did not care to look into the Kindle. I had learnt there
were many more e-book reader softwares. However, in between, I was
able to collect PDF format books from Google Books ( When I started,
it was called Google Print). They were free. They were related to my
subject of History. They were providing me such documents which I
could have acquired only from archives. If I had ever tried that, at
the maximum, I would have been declared a good research scholar and
obtained a PhD. I have not done that. The technology has proved
itself a blessing for the creatures like me. I was happy and content
in realing PDFs of old books provided by Google Books. I even bought
some google books also. But there I encountered a problem. I needed
internet when I desired to read them. I could read them offline as I
could do in case of PDF books. In India, the continuity of
electricity supply and consistency of the internet are an issue. No
doubt, it is gradually improving but, it is still there. I do not
know what actually is the situation in the developed countries. But
anyhow, let me come back to my topic of this post. When I was able to
locate, Swami Viveknanda on Kindle store, then came the issue of
getting that software. The bait was that the price was very less.
Soon, I learnt that I could get the Kindle software free of cost. I
downloaded it. Then I bought the books of Swami Vivekananda and also
the book by Yogi Ramchakara. Till this day I have not read the books
by Swami Vivekananda which I have downloaded. I had been reading W.
W. Atkinson.
The guiding query, interest and motive
were to read about Patanjali and Yoga and what he had told about
Yoga. The books by Yogi Ramchakara was on Yogic practices. From there
on, the event of reading on Kindle continued. The features on Kindle,
like highlighting, which I had been doing on PDF also, the online
dictionary, the facility to read it offline etc, all these
facilitated my reading urge. But I was hooked to Ramchakara. My
discovery of Atkinson behind that Yogi, was an award to me by my
ownself. My topic was study of Yoga Philosophy. I knew little bit
before hand. Therefore, there was enough grounds to explore the
compilation which I had obtained as a lottery. However, I gradully
learned about the method and style of writing by Atkinson. I found
that he had developed numerous titles on different Ideas related to
Yoga. There was no sequence. Therefore, I had then decided to read
the compilation from the first title itself. I had an experience of
the style of title making by Atkinson. I picked the first title
called "The Art of Expression". In the first chapter
itself, rather on the very first page, he had suggeted that one
should read his book on Logic before fully appreciating his title. I
did not continue with the Art of Expression book. I picked the title
which he had suggested on Logic and immediately shifted to the book
of Logic. I have posted the review on it on my blog already. It was
in the book on the Logic,that, he suggested that one should also read
his book on "Thought Culture". I, then, started that book.
In the book on Thought Culture, he suggested that one should read his
book on developing Memory. I completed the book on Thought Culture
and started the reading of Memory Development. But, here I did not
fulfill my commitement with this blog. I have completed the reading
of book on Memory Development but had not written the review on
Thought Culture. Now I am trying to do that.
The Review:
Thought Culture; or, Practical Mental
Training is one of the title in which the smooth English of the
writer is well demonstrated. I read it within few hours. In this
book, it is suggested that one should also read his book on Memory
development. I started that book after completing the reading of this
book without posting my first impression on the blog. It was the
attractiveness of the writing which was the motivation to learn about
the memory development. Memory development is one issue which is
cherished by people from all age group. Therefore, I should eagerness
to read that book without writing any post.
No doubt, I had highlighted many lines
within the book. I also recorded some comments. But, I did not write
anything on the register which I usually did while reading. I even
tried to look towards other titles also, which carried the term
'thought' in its title. However, I moved to the title of Memory
development and then later to Memory Culture.
This book is definitely required to be
read if you want to fully explore and get benefit out of his book on
Logic titled the Art of Logical thinking about which I have already
posted my comment.
The book contains fourteen chapters. In
this way, it is one of the smaller book as compared to other books.
It is a smaller book because it has a lesser number of chapters.
The firt four chapters are merely an
introduction type chapters. He introduces you to the ides of Thought
and Thought Culture or motivate to go for Mental Training.
The substantial topic begins in Chapter
5 titled Attention. Kindly look into the following list.
Senses
Sensation
Attention, concentration and Desire
Perception
Representation
Abstraction
Association of Ideas
Generalization
Judgement
Derived Judgement (A difficult and
technical chapter probably based on the hypothesis of William Stanely
Jevons.)
Reasoning.
If you are student and want to improve
enjoyment of study, then learn the meanings of the terms given in the
above list. You may learn the meaning of these terms from a
dictionary or the Internet. However, I will suggest you to learn
their meaning from this book written by William Walker Atkinson. Each
term is a heading of a chapter. You can now make it out the actual
nature of the suggestion. Those of you, who may have some training in
psychology, may join in to talk about these topics in reference to
the content in the book. It is a request that kindly do not give your
modern research narrative here. Kindly come up with a narrative which
everyone could understand in a way that it may benefit them without
paying any fees to an expert. After all, everyone has his mind and
owner of his or her mind. Help them to use it without imposing your
intitutionalised degree on the society. I am not here to hurt some
one but everyone owns his or her brain and mind. If you help to get
optimum benefit of it, then it is right of the society of to get it
as it is the society which has provided to you a setup in which you
acquired your degree.
Now I will talk about "Memory: How
to Develop, Train and Use It" as explained by W. W. Atkinson, in
the next post.
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