Regarding the missing "esoteric" material that had been edited out of Napoleon Hill's original Think and Grow Rich and the original Law of Success

Although I own a physical copy, I wanted a digital copy of Think and Grow Rich to cut and paste with. Searching online for a pdf, I found a number of references to missing "esoteric" material that had been edited out of the original Think and Grow Rich and the original Law of Success, the series of lessons from which Think and Grow Rich had been created. Supposedly, even the "Complete and Unabridged Original" reprints of these two books, the 1937 and 1925 editions respectively, are said to have had the real secret to success that Hill had discovered removed.

One comment suggested that Henry Ford had been furious that he had been played by Hill for his personal knowledge of the law of success, and that his private thoughts had been used as material for Hill's lessons without his consent--as Hill's discovery, no less. Hill hadn't discovered squat. He'd wheedled the ideas out of Ford et al and formed a business out of them. It is said that Ford bought all available copies of the original 1925 Law of Success and surprise, surprise, nary a word of the real, esoteric secret is actually disclosed in the 1928 edition. Ford is praised up and down its chapters as a great genius and benefactor of what of the Law could be revealed--though it was only alluded to. Ford was indeed a very generous man--he didn't have Napoleon Hill killed!

If, indeed, it is true that Ford was angry. He might have been excited about the lessons and just bought up all of the first edition for his own staff. It is strange though, then, that Hill edited OUT a hundred pages of such great esoteric material instead of expanding on it in his revision.

What was edited out? Pretty much the Law of Attraction, discussion on etherial vibration, mental magnetization and the connection of the subconscious mind with the Infinite Intelligence--that kind of stuff. The excuse given for the editing was that the editors did not think that a modern audience would accept ideas about "ether" and "vibration." That is nonsense, of course, as they were otherwise publishing books about ether and vibration "hand over fist" in the 1920s and 30s. Perhaps Hill couldn't because the secret wasn't his discovery, and nor would be his life if he double-crossed Ford and his other sources. Editing their secret out was the price Hill had to pay for The Law of Success and Think and Grow Rich to be published at all.

Still, Hill boldly and repeatedly makes the proclamation in his books, these books from which the secret had been clinically removed, that the true secret of success could be deduced from what remained, that "that which the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve," or something like that. And so people look all through the books for the hidden secret and trying to guess what it is. Where, where, where is it? Is it to have a burning desire? To have passion? Be involved in a labor of love? To give complementary to what is expected? To have a confident, trusting faith?

Actually, Hill told us in his statement what the secret of success is: "that which the human mind can conceive." Conceive. To the fullness of mental conception. It isn't just to think up something, to have an idea; it is to fulfill the thinking of something, to bring thought of what is desired to a mature fullness in imagining, to fully CONCEIVE it. This is Neville Goddard's "feeling is the secret," the power of awareness and the culmination of planting a mental and emotional "seed." If you can fully conceive it, it will be birthed into manifestation.

Adam's excitement becomes the very mother of what is birthed into his living, and WE are Adam, just as was Moses. (Hey, Napoleon, you should have cited public domain of the secret; it is published in every Bible ever printed!)

This, I believe, is the secret, that what we think is what we get. As Neville Goddard stressed, it is our human imagination plus faith.

For some reason, people think in terms of the Law of Attraction. Personally, in my humble opinion, the Law of Attraction ridiculous--a load of crap. Sorry, but it is. The congregation of like things is, if anything, an observable effect, but it is not causal.

On the other hand, the "ether" of divine intelligence (though no modern scientist would dare mention it), I totally get. All--everything---is the ineffable Most High God's imagining. His imagining is CAUSAL. If you are lame and He thinks you can walk, you can walk. His thinking is not indiscriminate. Haven't people ever heard of judgment? The Divine Intelligence that is Power makes distinction. It is a person who has intention, who discriminates between mature and immature, right and wrong, like Him or unlike Him.

Do not for one minute think that just because you believe in God that that buys you any credit with Him. "If I am a Father, where is my honor?" The ancient Jews fervently believed in God--they brought all the tithes into his storehouse so that he would bless them, and he did. They proved him, all right, but then they did not honor him AS THEIR SOURCE! (see Malachi 3 in Victor Alexander's translation from the Ancient Aramaic. Whoa! What a difference when you see what it used to say).

Wise up, friend, and honor the Father, the ineffable Most High God. What we think comes upon our own heads, not by magnetic attraction (that is SO stupid), but by our being the Father who creates it. Our imagining is causal because we are Ashur/Elohim, the Creator God manifested into this dimension WITHOUT SEPARATION FROM ASHUR/ELOHIM, THE CREATOR GOD IN ANY OTHER DIMENSION. Ashur is a package deal: we, whom he became, are him.

I took another look into my late-edition Think and Grow Rich, and the secret can be deduced from what Hill says. The Bible is even clearer if you can read it: Adam is the Divine Life-force, the Infinite Intelligence which is also within us, as us. We are Life-Giving, Living Branches of that ever-expanding Life's "ether" -- the Ineffable's universal Imagining--which ignoranced itself in order to become our death-suffering consciousnesses.

Now we need to un-ignorance ourselves. Our desire is the fount of our lives, and our desire should be the Ineffable's desire, as He is the one who is doing all this. In Exodus 3: 14, Moses said that our life is His life. And like Hill says, what we imagine . . . becomes.

AWK!!! THEN FOR GOD'S SAKE, LET'S STOP IMAGINING BAD STUFF, BELIEVING NEGATIVE STUFF, SPEAKING INSULTS AND USING PUT-DOWNS. LET'S NOT JUDGE ANYONE FOR THEIR PAST BUT SEE THEIR GLORIOUS FUTURE -- NOT TODAY'S POVERTY BUT TOMORROW'S ABUNDANCE. LET'S SEE THE INEFFABLE'S PLAN FOR US MANIFESTED IN MIND AS THOUGH IT WERE MANIFESTED TODAY.

Let's not see ill, not see need, but God's abundance. In faith, let's break out a bill and meet one another's needs.

See only what you want as though it already existed. Speak positively as you want things to be. The Ineffable only wants good for us, so thank him sincerely for it. Believe you have received. Concentrate on the good and the right. Tonight, as you remember what was not good and right in your day, imagine that it was good and that it was right.

Neville Goddard always said, "It costs you nothing, not a dime to imagine." What you want, imagine you have, and honor God for it. Reel Jesus into it, his presence . . . as you. What you want to be, imagine you are, and honor God for it. There is no distance to the Most High; we are not separate: He is not another. The Most High's very being is "the Law," the nature we are to have. Glorious, beautiful, strong, full of grace and excellence. THAT is our inside being, and the Law we are to keep by doing. That vibration is ours to have, and THAT is the secret revealed.


P.S.

Lately I noticed a newer edition of Hill's books published as his original interview with Andrew Carnegie. Funny, ALL of what Hill supposedly learned in the subsequent twenty years of research is found in this initial three-day interview, and ALL is attributed to Andrew Carnegie's wisdom. Sorry, Ford, you didn't contribute anything, and you don't have any protest to lodge!