The reader will absolutely not understand this book unless he or she does the exercizes given at the end of each chapter.'
To explore the Thinker and the Prover, try the following:
1. Visualize a quarter vividly, and imagine vividly that you are going to find the quarter on the street. Then, look for the quarter every time you take a walk, meanwhile continuing to visualize it. See how long it takes you to find the quarter.
2. Explain the above experiment by the hypothesis of "selective attention" - that is, believe there are lots of lost quarters everywhere and you were bound to find one by continually looking. Go looking for a second quarter.
3. Explain the experiment by the alternative "mystical" hypothesis that "mind controls everything." Believe that you made the quarter manifest in this universe. Go looking for a second quarter.
4. Compare the time it takes to find the second quarter using the first hypothesis (attention) with the time it takes using the second hypothesis (mind-over-matter).
5. With your own ingenuity, invent similar experiments and each time compare the two "attention" (coincidence) vs. "mind controls everything" (psychokinesis).
6. Avoid coming to any strong conclusions prematurely. At the end of a month, re-read this chapter, think it over again, and still postpone coming to any dogmatic conclusion. Believe it possible that you do not know everything yet, and that you might have something still to learn.
7. Convince yourself (if you are not already convinced) that you are ugly, unattractive and dull. Go to a party in that frame of mind. Observe how people treat you.
8. Convince yourself (if you are not already convinced) that you are handsome, irresistible and witty. Go to a party in that frame of mind. Observe how people treat you.
9. This is the hardest of all exercizes and comes in two parts. First, observe closely and dispassionately two dear friends and two relative strangers. Try to figure out what their Thinkers think, and how their Provers methodically set about proving it. Second, apply the same exercize to yourself.
If you think you have learned the lessons of these exercizes in less than six months, you haven't really been working at them. With real work, in six months you should be just beginning to realize how little you know about everything.
10. Believe it possible that you can float off the ground and fly by merely willing it. See what happens.
If this exercize proves as disappointing to you as it has to me, try number 11 below, which is never disappointing:
11. Believe that you can exceed all your previous ambitions and hopes in all areas of your life.