or in any other relation in life, up to love-making, there is this will-fight going on, commonly enough without any consciousness of the struggle.  There is a dim consciousness of the result, but none of the processes.  It often takes years of the intimacy of married life to find out with whom of the pair the mastery really lies.  Often the far stronger character, to all appearances, has to yield; it is this will-element which underlies the statement:  ’The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’  In Middle-march’ we find in Lydgate a grand aggregation of qualities, yet shallow, hard, selfish Rosamond masters him thoroughly in the end.  He was not deficient in will-power; possessed more than an average amount of character; but in the fight he went down at last under the onslaught of the intense, stubborn will of his narrow-minded spouse.  Their will-contest was the collision of a large warm nature, like a capable human hand, with a hard, narrow selfish nature, like a steel button; the hand only bruised itself while the button remained unaffected.”

You must not, however, imagine that every person with whom you engage in one of these psychic duels is conscious of what is going on.  He usually recognizes that some sort of conflict is under way, but he does not know the laws and principles of psychic force, and so is in the dark regarding the procedure.  You will find that a little practice of this kind, in which no great question is involved, will give you a certain knack or trick of handling your psychic forces, and will, besides, give you that confidence in yourself that comes only from actual practice and exercise.  I can point out the rules, and give you the principles, but you must learn the little bits of technique yourself from actual practice.

When you have crossed psychic swords with the other person, gaze at him intently but not fiercely, and send him this positive strong thought-vibration:  “I am stronger than you, and I shall win!” At the same time picture to yourself your forces beating down his and overcoming him.  Hold this idea and picture in your mind:  “My vibrations are stronger than are yours—­I am beating you!” Follow this up with the idea and picture of:  “You are weakening and giving in—­you are being overpowered!” A very powerful psychic weapon is the following:  “My vibrations are scattering your forces—­I am breaking your forces into bits—­surrender, surrender now, I tell you!”

And now for some interesting and very valuable information concerning psychic defense.  You will notice that in the offensive psychic weapons there is always an assertion of positive statement of your power and its effect.  Well, then, in using the psychic defensive weapon against one of strong will or psychic force, you reverse the process.  That is to say you deny the force of his psychic powers and forces, and picture them as melting into nothingness.  Get this idea well fixed in your mind, for it is very important