[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by Dien Rice

Hi Gordon,

I feel the "gray on red" at the top and bottom are a little hard to read...

Looking forward to the book, though! I think I'm hooked by the title...

Best wishes,

Dien

Thanks Dien, I have several versions of the cover, will test more.

I've written about James T. Mangan, the author of THE SECRET TO PERFECT LIVING, the book where I first heard the "switchword" concept. Although, many years prior to this, in golf, the great Ben Hogan talked about simple KEY thoughts, focusing on one word to convey an idea.

Jack Nicklaus perfected this key thought idea, and it is the basis for my golf book, THINK AND REACH PAR, where I teach the four shots of golf and give KEY WORDS for a better game.

In reality, they are SWITCHWORDS, and today, the idea and definitions have been swiped and a quick search at Amazon will show all kinds of so-called switchwords at play.

I like Mangan's original use and definition, it is a way to instantly get to the subconscious mind. We know in hypnosis about trance states and autosuggestion, and in works like SCIENCE OF MIND by Ernest Holmes we see the concept of Universal Mind and it's connection to us via the subconscious.

From a practical metaphysical view, in alliance with Edgar Cayce, there is a way to tap into this collective consciousness, and that is normally done via a trance state and guided instruction.

I like results, even if they are anecdotal, I'm willing (or was) to test and try things out. Maybe it is placebo at work, serendipity or coincidence, but I've had a lot of great results with my use of Switchwords, and I was for a decade true to Mangan's list, but then, I started testing, and my discovery, if we can call it that was:

PERSONALIZED switch words. We can create our own switches from the experiences we've had, this in combination with a study of PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS by Maxwell Maltz, led me to believe we all have these past successes we can modify and call upon for use today.

Take sales. In your case, a Switch might be "comedy". If you were about to enter a sales situation, you could instantly get back to the STATE OF MIND you were in when you had success in selling what you did (you know), but to everyone else, saying the word comedy, wouldn't work.

So my premise is A) the shortest connection one can make between conscious awareness to the sub-conscious vault of stored memories and the collective consciousness that Cayce wrote about, is through a single word.

Milton Erickson, whose critics oft said he didn't really hypnotize people because they weren't in a trance state, shrugged it off and uttered "results", and his were hard to match.

So switchwords have that distraction/focus element to them.

And B) Through personalization and practice, we can connect at anytime by throwing the right switch.

Heck, now you don't need to read the book, HA!

GordonJ

PS. For me, results, and I don't approach it from a scientific perspective, I don't care about empirical or repeatable laws, I say test it out, try it, and if it works for you, then great. Psycho-Cybernetics asks people to visualize past success, and some people have a hard time with visualization, so a more holistic sensory approach suits some better.