Ideas from the book and beyond. Consciousness, thought, science and the philosophy of mind.
In 1912, Haanel described attention as the mechanism through which thought becomes reality. Over a century later, Anil Seth's research on predictive processing says almost exactly the same thing in the language of neuroscience.
The controlled hallucination theory explains why what you focus on literally shapes what you perceive. And it maps perfectly onto Haanel's teachings about the creative power of thought.
Haanel designed the original course to be studied one chapter per week. Here is how to approach the modernised edition for maximum impact, whether you are a first-time reader or returning with fresh eyes.
Haanel devoted an entire chapter to the solar plexus as the seat of subconscious power. It sounds esoteric until you learn what modern vagus nerve research has to say about the gut-brain axis.
A self-made businessman in early twentieth-century St. Louis who wrote a course so influential it was studied by Napoleon Hill and allegedly banned in parts of the world. The real story is more interesting than the myth.
Karl Friston's free energy principle describes the brain as an organ that constantly predicts, then acts to make those predictions true. Sound familiar? Haanel said it first.