688 THE PRINCIPLES OF SELF-CREATION
An outstanding characteristic of the subconscious mind is that it
records the suggestions that you send it through autosuggestion and it
invokes the aid of infinite intelligence in translating these suggestions
into their natural physical form. It is important that you understand
this last sentence, for if you fail to understand it, you are likely to also
fail to understand the importance of the very foundation upon which
this entire course is built-the principle of infinite intelligence, which
may be reached and used at will through the aid of the law of the
Master Mind described in Lesson One.
Study carefully, thoughtfully, and with meditation, the entire pre-
ceding paragraph.
An outstanding characteristic of the subconscious mind is that it
accepts and acts upon all suggestions that reach it, whether they are
constructive or destructive, and whether they come from the outside
or from your own conscious mind.
You can see, therefore, how essential it is to observe the law
of evidence, and to carefully follow the principles laid down at the
beginning of this lesson, in your selection of what you will pass on
to your subconscious mind through autosuggestion. You can see why
you must search diligently for facts, and why you cannot afford to
listen to the slanderer or the scandalmonger, for to do so would be
poisonous to the subconscious mind and ruinous to creative thought.
The subconscious mind may be likened to the sensitive plate of a
camera on which the picture of any object placed before the camera
will be recorded. The plate does not choose the sort of picture to be
recorded on it; it records anything that reaches it through the lens.
The conscious mind may be likened to the shutter, which shuts off
the light from the sensitized plate, permitting nothing to reach it for
record except what the operator wishes to reach it. The lens of the
camera may then be likened to autosuggestion, for it is the medium
that carries to the sensitized plate of the camera the image of the
object to be registered.