Chapter VIII

Chapter VIII. Slides

A slide is a belief that distorts how you see yourself and others, and outer intention slowly makes it fact. Dissolve negative slides by withdrawing importance, build positive ones, and visualize your current step.

In one paragraph

The chapter first argues that dreams, hallucinations and some mental illness are glimpses of other sectors of the information field. Its main subject is the slide: a belief you carry in your head that bends how you see yourself and other people, and that outer intention slowly turns into fact. Slides rest on importance. You dissolve a negative slide by withdrawing attention from it, not by fighting it, and you can build a positive one in its place. The second half covers permission to have, the comfort zone, and the book's version of visualization: hold the goal as a background slide, but picture the process of your current step toward it.

Key ideas

  1. Illusions are not just fantasy. Dreams, hallucinations and psychosis are described as perception tuned to unrealized sectors of the alternatives space while the body stays in the material one. Reality itself is not an illusion. [0:00:11]
  2. Psychiatric example: a woman obsessed with an ideal family, then abused and childless, comes to believe she is an English lord's wife. Her sector did not materialize, he says, because heart and mind could not unite or the gap was too wide. [0:03:45], [0:05:04]
  3. What you have absorbed shapes what you can perceive. Kittens raised without vertical (or horizontal) lines later bumped into chair legs (or slipped on stairs). The mind imagines only from old material. [0:06:38]
  4. The slide model: the world is the light, your worldview is the slide, your perception is the image on the screen. [0:08:54]
  5. A slide distorts twice: it misreads what others think of you, and it misreads the world. It also changes your behavior, so the slide gets acted out. Example: worry about your looks makes laughter sound like mockery. [0:11:21], [0:14:11]
  6. Projection: you pin on others the traits you reject in yourself. If someone accuses you unfairly, ask whether the accuser has that trait. [0:15:51], [0:16:43]
  7. Importance is the foundation of every slide. Toulouse-Lautrec, in the author's telling, thrived once he stopped attaching importance to his deformity. [0:17:33]
  8. Outer intention realizes slides, negative ones included, gradually: the worrier gets more of what he fears. Remove importance and the slide collapses. [0:19:19], [0:21:17]
  9. Fighting a slide feeds it. Move attention to the qualities you want. Repeated systematically, the picture is accepted by the heart, then dissolves once it is part of you. [0:23:15], [0:26:26]
  10. Start with a reachable version of the quality, not an absolute ideal, and never copy someone else's image. Admired qualities have small starting forms (bravery as resoluteness). [0:27:28], [0:28:14]
  11. The will to have means giving yourself permission to have what you want. Arguing "I can't afford it" is inner intention; outer intention needs you to feel worthy. Examples: a homeless man at a window, a nervous shopper, Russian oligarchs. [0:32:55], [0:46:53]
  12. Three kinds of visualization: the dream (weak), the film (you watch; you get a house owned by someone else), and the role (you act inside the scene). [0:52:19], [0:53:58]
  13. Visualizing the goal only widens the comfort zone. Movement comes from visualizing the process, because intention is attention on movement and desire is attention on the goal (the raised-arm demonstration). [1:02:53], [1:04:21]
  14. Transfer chains: distant goals are reached link by link. Visualize the process of your current link only. Signs are reliable only for the current link. [1:12:23], [1:18:05]

Terms

  • Slide — a distorted picture of yourself or the world, held in your head and not shared by others. In his words, it is something you carry around that others "do not have in theirs" At [0:10:31] First appears [0:08:54].
  • Importance — the weight you give to something; the foundation of every slide. First appears [0:16:43] (introduced in Chapter IV. Balance).
  • Projection — pushing your own rejected traits onto other people. First appears [0:15:51]
  • Positive slide — a chosen picture of the person you want to be, or of a world you want, held until it dissolves into fact. First appears [0:21:17]
  • Will to have — the settled knowledge that you deserve what you want and that having it is your choice; this is knowing, not believing. Summary wording: "the immutable knowledge that you deserve what you want" At [1:22:24] First appears [0:32:55].
  • Comfort zone — the range of things that feel normal and acceptable to you. Slides push its edge outward. First appears [0:41:02]
  • Desire / intention — desire is attention on the goal; intention is attention on moving toward it. First appears [1:02:53]
  • Transfer chain — the ordered series of stages (links) leading from where you are to a distant goal. First appears [1:14:39]
  • Virtual sector — a part of the information field not yet materialized, which perception can tune to. First appears [0:00:11]

Practices

Clear a negative slide and build a positive one

  1. List what you dislike about yourself or want to hide. [0:22:13]
  2. Do not fight these items. Drop the importance and turn attention elsewhere. [0:24:01]
  3. Draw the person you would like to be. It can be movement, manner or charm, not just a still image. [0:24:43], [0:25:28]
  4. Choose an achievable version first. Do not copy anyone. [0:27:28]
  5. Return to the picture often and add detail. Try it first on strangers. [0:29:27]

Live inside the slide (third-type visualization)

  1. Enter the scene as a participant, not a viewer. [0:55:59]
  2. Treat the goal as already yours and ordinary. Drive out awe. [0:46:03]
  3. Repeat it systematically until it is a habit, and take an interest in anything related to the dream. [0:43:36]

Rehearse in an expensive shop

  1. Go in as a buyer, calm and unhurried. [0:44:20]
  2. Ignore prices. Handle and compare items as if you will buy soon. [0:44:20]
  3. Be discerning, not superior. [0:45:09]

Visualize the process of your current link

  1. Keep the goal as background only. [1:03:48]
  2. Picture the work in progress: details done today, additions planned tomorrow. [1:07:32]
  3. Picture yourself as the creator, like a mother tending a child. [1:08:29]
  4. Imagine only your present link, not later ones. [1:15:34]
  5. If the route is unknown, keep running the slide instead. [1:17:21]

Watch out for

  • The claims about psychosis and about slides becoming fact are asserted, not supported. He admits the line between imagination and perceiving another reality is unclear. [0:07:36]
  • The 90% figure for self-preoccupation [0:10:31] has no source. The kitten study is real; the leap from it to slides is the author's. [0:06:38]
  • The Lautrec story is told as a tidy cure by dropping importance. The chapter gives no source, and his life was more complicated than that. [0:18:25]
  • He says a negative slide comes from heart-mind unity [0:19:19], yet earlier says positive outcomes need that unity. Compare Chapter VII. Intention, where agreement of heart and mind is what lets outer intention work at all.
  • The oligarch example credits permission, yet the account says those men stood next to the feed box. Position may explain more. [0:46:53]
  • Goal visualization is said to move you no step yet is called essential. Read this as two jobs: widening the comfort zone versus movement. [1:06:03], [1:19:06]
  • He calls sign interpretation nearly the least reliable technique. Compare the weight Chapter VI. The Alternatives Flow gives guiding signs. [1:19:06]
  • No time scale is given. Results come at an unknowable time. [0:57:27]

Review questions

Try each one cold, then open the answer.

  1. What are the three parts of the projector analogy?
    Show answer
    Light is the world, the slide is your worldview, and the image on the screen is your perception.
  2. In what two ways does a slide distort things?
    Show answer
    It misreads how others see you, and it distorts your perception of the outside world.
  3. What does the author say is at the root of every slide?
    Show answer
    Importance: attaching weight to something, especially to others' opinions of you.
  4. Why does fighting a negative slide fail?
    Show answer
    Battling gives the slide more attention, which is what sustains it. You must withdraw attention and importance.
  5. Why should a positive slide be an achievable one, and not a copy of someone else?
    Show answer
    A copy has no connection to your own heart, and a reachable version lets outer intention deliver a first small result. An absolute ideal is too far for the comfort zone.
  6. What is the difference between the film and role types of visualization?
    Show answer
    In the film type you only watch and so never own what you see. In the role type you act inside the scene as its owner.
  7. According to the chapter, why does picturing a suitcase of money bring no result?
    Show answer
    Money is an attribute, not the real goal, and fixating on the end state does not move you. Only process visualization does.
  8. What is a transfer chain, and which link should you visualize?
    Show answer
    It is the ordered series of stages toward a distant goal. Visualize the process of your current link only.

Desk work

  1. Write down one slide you carry about yourself. Say what importance it rests on.
  2. Pick one admired quality. Write its small first form and one scene where you live it.
  3. Choose a current project. Write a short process visualization: what you did today and will add tomorrow.

Connections

Mastery checklist

Tick an objective when the evidence is on the page. Ticks stay in this browser. The same list, with the terms to own, is on itsown page.

Objectives

0 of 13 ticked

  • explain Evidence: write three sentences with the "English lord's wife" case; give his two guesses why her sector did not materialize. [0:00:11] [0:03:45] [0:05:04] [0:07:31]

  • explain Evidence: label light, slide and screen with world, worldview and perception; note that the experiment is real but the leap to slides is his. [0:06:34] [0:08:54] [0:10:31]

  • apply Evidence: do Desk work 1; write what you misread in others, what you misread in the world, and one thing you do differently because of it. [0:11:21] [0:13:24] [0:14:11] [0:14:56]

  • apply Evidence: recall an unfair remark made to you or by you; apply the test and write the result in two sentences. [0:15:51] [0:16:43]

  • analyse Evidence: answer review questions 3 and 4; state the conflict (heart-mind unity makes outer intention work, yet he credits it with negative slides); give one gap in the Lautrec story. [0:16:43] [0:17:33] [0:19:19] [0:20:17] [0:21:17]

  • explain Evidence: take the slide from 8.3 and write what you stop doing and where attention goes. [0:23:15] [0:24:01] [0:24:43]

  • apply Evidence: do Desk work 2; answer review question 5. [0:25:28] [0:26:26] [0:27:28] [0:28:14] [0:29:27]

  • analyse Evidence: state the two senses he uses (worthiness; knowing, not believing); give one rival explanation for the oligarchs. [0:32:55] [0:37:11] [0:38:06] [0:38:44] [0:39:44] [0:46:53]

  • apply Evidence: write the three behaviors of a buyer versus a window shopper, then a rehearsal of your own for something you hesitate to own. [0:41:02] [0:42:46] [0:44:20] [0:46:03]

  • explain Evidence: answer review question 6; note that he also calls the role type "a slide" (third sense of the word). [0:52:19] [0:53:58] [0:55:04] [0:55:59] [0:57:27]

  • explain Evidence: answer review question 7; write the difference between desire and intention in one sentence each. [1:00:29] [1:02:03] [1:02:53] [1:04:21]

  • apply Evidence: do Desk work 3 with your current link only; answer review question 8. [1:07:32] [1:12:23] [1:14:39] [1:15:34] [1:16:30]

  • analyse Evidence: write the two jobs (widening the comfort zone, moving you); compare his low rating of signs with Chapter VI. [1:06:03] [1:18:05] [1:19:06] [1:19:58]

Readiness check

Answer these without looking anything up.

  1. What are light, slide and screen in the projector image, and what are the two ways a slide distorts?
  2. Why does he say a worry about your looks makes laughter sound like mockery?
  3. What does he say is under every slide, and what does outer intention do with it?
  4. Why does fighting a negative slide fail, and what do you do instead?
  5. Why start a positive slide with a reachable version, not an ideal or a copy?
  6. What is the will to have, and how does it differ from telling yourself "I can afford it"?
  7. Why does the film type give you someone else's house, and how does the role type differ?
  8. Which link of a transfer chain do you picture, and why not the later ones?

The next chapter assumes you hold one idea: outer intention gives you only what you allow yourself to have, and a slide held without importance and lived from inside is how the heart learns to agree with the mind.