Will.

In many cases Desire does not advance beyond the feeling

stage it contents itself with a more or less vague feeling or
attraction toward the thing or object which aroused it, and
it manifests little or no call upon the Will. In other cases the
feeling excited blazes up so fiercely that the second phase, the
phase of calling upon the Will to respond and bring about
gratification and accomplishment, is vigorously manifested.
This feeling, of course, is in the direction of the attainment,
enjoyment, or possession of some object from which pleasure,
profit, or gratification is expected, or else the reverse phase of
escape from, getting rid of, or striving away from, some object
thought to be the possible, probable, or existing source of pain,
discomfort, or dissatisfaction. There must always be an object
precedent to this feeling stage of Desire; that is, either an object
calling forth the want to of possession, act, or attainment; or
else an object from which one wishes to escape.
It is a paradox of psychology that while Desire arouses Will,
yet Will may arouse Desire. That is, while the Desire-Will may
and does call into activity the Action-Will, nevertheless the
Decisive-Will may employ the Action-Will to direct and hold
the attention upon some object until interest and consequent
Desire is aroused in the mind. But, of course, even in this case
there must be some form of precedent Desire inspiring the
Intellect or Decisive-Will to so act. Interest and attention have
a tendency to arouse Desire, and in that sense these mental
acts may be considered as precedent conditions to desire,
inasmuch as they hold up to Desire the objects calculated to
arouse the feeling phase of the latter. Interest and attention
may be aroused without the use of the Will of the individual,
by the presentation of outside objects. But the Will may inhibit
or destroy the attraction of the outer object; or, on the other
hand, may encourage and develop it by directing the attention
and thus arousing interest. There exist numerous instances of
this action and reaction in the phenomena of Will.
The Will
14
We have spoken of subconscious and superconscious
Desires. Subconscious Desire has several possible causes. Many
of our subconscious desires are the result of heredity and race
experience. We find many feelings arising from the depth of
the subconsciousness which startle us by their unsuspecting
presence and unexpected appearance. We have countless
seed-desires in the great storehouse of the subconscious,
which lie latent there awaiting the appearance of some object
or circumstances which will revive the latent vigor within
them, and which will start them forward toward the field of
consciousness in their attempt to manifest the second stage
of Desire the stage of the call upon the Action-Will. Likewise
we have many subconscious desires which have been placed in
the subconscious storehouse by reason of our own experiences,
and the suggestions we have received from others or from
ourselves, as we have explained in the volume upon Suggestion
and Auto-Suggestion. These desires also move forward toward
possible manifestation, upon the appearance of some exciting
object of circumstances. The greater portion of our desires
arises below the field of consciousness, having lain latent
in that great storehouse of desires, instinct, inclination and
tendencies the subconsciousness. The only conscious desires
we have are those which are in the field of consciousness by
reason of the attraction and exciting influence of objects or

circumstances which either cause us to want to, or else to

get-away-from. In what has been called the superconscious
region of the mind that higher and greater field of mentation
toward the unfoldment of whose faculties we are evolving
there are also many seeds of Desire, some of which occasionally
drop down into the field of consciousness and there arouse
strange feelings, and want-to or get-away-from calls upon
the Will. We call these Intuitional Promptings and similar
names, or even imagine that we are receiving suggestions from
beings on a higher plane but they really come from our own
higher regions. We hesitate to speak regarding these things in
Desire-Will
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