Customer Reviews

Edinburgh and Dore Lectures on Mental Science

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Today not known and obsure writer, Judge Troward writes in a powerful and unique way. His book cover areas such as: Spirit and Matter/Intution/Healing/The creative power of thought. Having read over the years hundreds of metaphysical and science of the mind books I found his work to be thought provoking, compelling and complex especially when he details the relation between the universal mind and the individual mind. His style is his own,a sample:"To get good results we must properly understand our relation to the great impersonal power we are using. It is intellegent,and we are intelligent, and the 2 intelligents must cooperate. We must not fly in the face of the Law by expecting to do for us what it can only do through us;and we should therefore use our intelligence with the knowledge that it is acting as the instrument of a greater intelligence; and because we have this knowledge we may, and should, cease from from all anxiety as to the final result.".....vintage Troward. Highly recommended for those looking for something more "heavy".

When I first decided that I wanted to become a Religious Science Practitioner, I was forewarned that I would probably have to study the writings of Thomas Troward. Most of the people I talked to said that his writing was pendantic, awkward, and cumbersome. When I finally did get into a class that exposed me to Troward, I wondered if I was reading the same man that these others had dismissed.

I love this book. I really do. One reviewer said it was an "imperfect work". Well, mmmm...maybe...sure...why not...but if there is one thing that I have learned over the years of studying metaphysics and attemting to boldly apply my spirituality in "Ordinary, every day living" and that is, the Perfect is always within the Imperfect; that the Living God that makes all things new is waiting to be called forth in each and every moment.

Troward does tend to write very long sentences without much puncuation and they can be awkward to read at times. But do not go into the reading looking for grammatical flaws, because if you do, you will surely find them. Instead, go into the reading with a willingness to know at a deeper level that God, the Infinite Source of all Creation is right where you are and this One Source is constantly supplying your every need.

Life is always responding to our thoughts...to our feelings...look around your life...what is it reflecting? If you are undergoing illness, or personal tragedy, or setbacks, allow yourself to gently and quietly return to your Source. Not out of shame or regret or remorse or guilt, but out of a deep knowing that this Perfect Spirit will shine through the imperfect channel and make Itself known to you and through you.

This is great book and it deserves to be in any great collection of metaphysical books. I recommend it highly for every page has at least one nugget of pure gold just waiting for you to embrace and make your own.

Here's knowing that you are always in the right place at the right time and that God is always guiding you to your Highest and Best.

Peace and Blessings.

Having read most of New Thought Literature over the last few years, my quest for the origins and inspirations of current New Thought literature eventually led me to discover Judge Trowards incredible writings. I believe that our current "we'll believe it when we see it" mindset imprinted in our social memory banks can be a barrier to discovering the true nature and source of our own creative powers. To the analytical mind of today that needs a solid foundation and understanding of how his arguments may be true, I find there is no comparison. Though written in turn of the century language which can be a little heady, his discussions and logical conclusions on how we are "distribution centers for divine unlimited creative power" are simply brilliant. I have not found any single other New Thought book that attempts to explain by "logical argument" from beginning to end, the path that leads the reader to understand the Laws of Cause and Effect and The Descent of Spirit into Matter and how to use these Laws to Create our own positive, unlimited life. Incredible Life Changing Book. READ IT DAILY!

Although many "New Thought" Authors quote Troward or credit him as being a pioneer in this movement, they depart from most all of his basic tenents in their wrtings. Most portray God as Mind which Troward does not. The main difference is whether we use God as most of the other Authors state or allow God to use us, which is the major line of demarcation between them and Trowad, and Scripture(s).

This is great book to establish this and other basic Truths and to begin to come into the understanding of the relationship of the personal to the Universal. I totally recommend this book and Trowad's other books The Creative Process in the Individual and Bible Meaning & Bible Mystery as essential addtions to the library of the serious Disciple.

Another reviewer wrote...

"Although many "New Thought" Authors quote Troward or credit him as being a pioneer in this movement, they depart from most all of his basic tenents in their wrtings. Most portray God as Mind which Troward does not. The main difference is whether we use God as most of the other Authors state or allow God to use us, which is the major line of demarcation between them and Trowad, and Scripture(s)."

... and I couldn't agree more. From "Think and Grow Rich," through, "The Secret," many authors and public speakers have claimed a lineage to Judge Troward's thoughts, but as the above reviewer noted, they part paths with him at one critical juncture. Whether it's through their inability to understand his works, or their desire to make it more appealing as some sort of "quick-fix," the essential message contained in Troward's writings is lost.

Troward's central message about a Creative power in the universe - which is basically the root cause for all existence - is shared by quite a few "new thought" proponents. However, this is generally where the similarities end. The latter authors claim this principle/power can be harnessed to bring about the things and life we desire, and while Troward doesn't disagree with our ability or capability to do so, he tries to nudge the reader and/or student away from this line of thinking.

The central point in Troward's teachings, as to interacting with this Creative power, is that we must allow It to direct us to It's ends - rather than trying to use It to attain our own. This may seem like a minor, inconsequential distinction, but it's essential to truly understanding his works.

The central premise woven throughout his writings is that for this Creative force to even exist at all, every part must essentially be working in harmony, otherwise one part working against another would take away from the whole rather than adding to it. Which would ultimately go against two fundamental principles of It's own existence, namely, Life and Growth.

In his words:

"What we are to dwell upon is the idea of an Infinite Power producing the happiness we desire, and because this Power is also the Forming Power of the universe trusting it to give that form to the conditions (in our life) which will most perfectly react upon us to produce the particular state of consciousness desired."

Rather than going on and on, I would urge whoever is seeking a very old path and trying to understand a very old principle, to not look elsewhere for the answers. Troward's works truly stand alone. The "Edinburgh & Dore Lectures," along with, "The Creative Process in the Individual," present the core of his teaching, however the others may help gain some perspective or clarify some of his points.

This book comprises the complete text of the Edinburgh and Dore lectures on mental science. The first series of lectures deals with issues of spirit and matter, the nature of consciousness, the unity of spirit and the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind. Troward makes profound philosophical concepts clear and easily comprehensible.

In the Edinburgh lectures he explains the difference between form and being: the one is the mode of the relative and the mark of subjection to conditions, whilst the other is the truth of the absolute and that which controls conditions. Because spirit is infinite, it is always present everywhere in space and time. This is a fundamental fact of existence, expressed through the words "in Him we live and move and have our being."

The relation between spirit and being as idea (from which the elements of time and space are absent) and form (the relative which is dependent on those elements) implies that pure spirit continually subsists in the absolute while all the phenomena of being flow from it. Our capacity for producing visible outward results by the action of our thoughts depends on the degree to which we recognize this truth. The practical application of this knowledge in our life and affairs concludes this section.

In the first three Dore lectures Troward explores the nature of the Parent Spirit, the generic relationship of the individual to this all-encompassing Being, and the way to specialize the relationship in order to obtain greater results than would spontaneously arise by mere generic action. A new way of thinking is required for this process of growth, which includes awareness of the Power's existence and a method of application based on understanding its nature.

In discussing the life of the Spirit and mankind as the vehicle or medium of distribution, he explains the principle of receptiveness and its importance. The concept Alpha and Omega designates the entire series of causation from the originating moment to the completed result. Although thought creates form, it is feeling that provides vitality to thought: the heart and mind of the matter. In this context, Troward talks of Messiah and the great affirmative I AM that is the principle of being.

Emphasizing the Oneness of God, Troward explains that Spirit creates ex nihilo. God is one and this oneness finds root in us, hence the expression "My Father and I are one." Thus the Creative Process unfolds in the individual. The Messiah as fulfillment of the law relates to the importance of individual improvement, serving as both explanatory cause and as a display of the full measure of effects. He argues that the better we understand the creative process, the more the objections to the Gospel narratives lose their relevance.

Troward stresses the significance of Monogenesis with reference to the esoteric teaching of the musical octave that completes itself in step seven in order to start a new series in the eighth which becomes the first step again. He hints at a more profound understanding of the doctrine of Christ that reflects deeper levels of the law of being. Other topics include the legend of the Garden of Eden, the doctrine of the fall and the Animus Dei becoming a husband to the soul rather than a master as more comprehensively investigated in his book Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning.

A very pertinent point is the fundamental difference between worship based on fear, ignorance and/or unexplained traditions versus worship in spirit and truth through reciprocity. Troward's views of the loving givingness of Spirit correspond to the nature of the Father as outlined in the epilogue of The Authentic Gospel of Jesus by Geza Vermes. This mutual love is the mystical marriage that refines an individual in a perpetual process of growth. The metaphor of the shepherd and the stone from Genesis 49:24, Daniel and the Gospels finds its fulfillment in Messiah.

Finally, the author looks at the role of certain nations and religions in history as the expression of Spirit on both a universal and specialized level. Further relevant information may be found in the last two chapters of Alter Your Life by Emmet Fox. Troward observes that those who oppose the Hebrew people must fail by a self-destructive principle inherent in the very nature of the position they adopt. The ultimate message of the lectures is that exterior things are molded by a change in the interior attitude of the individual. The Messiah represents the principle of love and new life.

For further mystical interpretations of the Judeo-Christian scriptures and tradition that edify and illuminate, I refer the reader to The Hidden Power of the Bible by Ernest Holmes, A Psychology of Hope by Kalman J Kaplan, In Tune with the Infinite by Ralph Waldo Trine and Cracking the Bible Code by Jeffrey Satinover.

Troward was a late 19th/early 20th C. new thought pioneer, who sets forth in these very accessible pages the outlines of the positive thinking/mental science ideas that others would refine and popularize. Ernest Holmes cited Troward as a major influence, and it is not hard to see why. Troward grasped and expressed well the new thought concepts of the interconnection between thought and the physical universe. Troward is often overlooked today, but he had a great deal of interest to say.

Unfortunately, though Troward had some ideas that were a bit ahead of his time, some of his ideas proved him sadly a creature of his time. The lecture which describes a kind of ethnic manifest destiny for the English people is not a particularly odd notion for his time, but seems particularly poorly-thought-out today. Troward's good ideas are unfortunately leavened with some deeply flawed ones. Still, this book is worth a read, and the fact that its title reflects "lectures" should not be taken to mean that this is one of those dry impress-the-academics lectures. These talks are neither dry nor unduly sermon-y. This book is an interesting read, even though a few of its ideas are deeply unsatisfying.

This is a truly astonishing book which, like the same author's 'The Creative Process in the Individual', has profound practical as well as philosophical implications. It can change not only how we think but the very conditions of our lives (and yes, it can heal). In this review, I will try to explain why this is so.

Many of the leading contributors to the discipline that Thomas Troward termed 'mental science' have aknowledged their debt to this brilliant thinker, but perhaps the most remarkable tribute was written by Frederick Bailes. In 1915, the young Bailes was diagnosed with diabetes, a disease that was not only incurable (as it still is) but, in those pre-insulin days, untreatable as well. He was given eighteen months to live. Coming across a book by Troward at a friend's house, and having nothing to lose, he applied the principles and, as he explains, subsequently recovered completely, a fact attested by extensive medical tests. Over the subsequent decades, Bailes went on to apply what he had learned, and chronicled the many healings (and many other, seemingly miraculous occurences) that followed. I have myself experienced truly remarkable results in health (and, for that matter, in many other areas). Others who acknowledge their intellectual debt to Troward have included Donald Curtis and Emmet Fox. Troward is where this all starts - but what was so remarkable about the man and his works?

Thomas Troward was a judge under the British raj in India, but retired, at a comparatively early age, in 1896, and devoted the remaining twenty years of his life to thinking, writing and lecturing about mental science. In addition to a brilliant intellect, Troward brought to the task two great attributes - a profound knowledge of the various great religions, and an analytical mind trained by the law to weigh evidence and evaluate the facts.

In his two most important works, Troward set out to move, step by logical step, from the known to the unknown, forging strong links at each stage of the chain of evidence. An early premise is the distinction between matter (which has mass and form) and 'livingness', which is not bound by form but is part of an infinite 'spirit' (a term that Troward generally prefers to 'God' in works which are essentially philosophical, not religious). He contends that life, evolution, 'livingness', must be the products of intelligence; that the 'spirit' - and there can, he demonstrates, be only one - creates by using design to mould matter and energy which are, in themselves, incapable of initiating anything.

He employs the principle of thoughts - design - forming the material by emphasising the distinction between the objective and subjective minds (in today's terminology, the conscious and the subconscious). The subjective mind has awesome power, including a remarkable capability for healing, but does not initiate; it works out the directions given to it by the objective mind. Just one implication, Troward says, is that healing can occur if the universal creative process - creation by design - is replicated by the individual, who is advised to supply clear design instruction to the subjective.

There is a lot more to it than this, but the big point about this book is that Troward provides at once both a superb analytical insight and some very practical guidance.

It is sometimes said that Troward's works are difficult to read. The explanation for this apparent difficulty lies in the complexity of the issues and the importance of the logical chain that he establishes. I have found that it really helps to take notes as you read his books.

The effort will be richly rewarded, in terms not only of insights but of potentially profound and life-changing practical results.

This book was required for a class. Having purchased and returned unread a different Troward book a few years ago out of frustration, I thought I was going to struggle through this one. Troward wasn't fond of punctuation -- or, more specifically, periods. His sentences tend to be very long. However, this time around, I stopped noticing after two or three pages in. Troward had a knack for explaining certain things in an exciting, thorough, and articulate way. The class I used this for also used Ralph Waldo Emerson and Emma Curtis Hopkins. Though I've always loved Emerson, his writings can be laborious to get through at times. After reading Emerson, Troward was a refreshing breeze because his writings aren't flowery like Emerson's. There's nothing to try to figure out. (Ironically, after having read Hopkins, even Emerson seemed simple!) I highly, highly recommend this Troward book.

Wow! This was a wonderful read. I will add this to my library of books that I reread. If you are the type of person that needs to understand why the Laws of Attraction and Cause and Effect work the way they do, then this is the only author that I have found that explains them thoroughly. Although, this book is short and the sentences are long the thinking is revealed precisely.

P.S. Think of the short lectures as meditations that require your full undivided attention and you will soar to new heights.