The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

Have you ever wondered why some people seem effortlessly successful, confident, and healthy, while others struggle to achieve anything they truly want? In The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Joseph Murphy offers a striking answer: everything in your life—your health, wealth, relationships, even happiness—is shaped by the interactions between two levels of your mind: the conscious and the subconscious. The thoughts you habitually hold in your conscious mind are impressed upon your subconscious, which in turn manifests them outwardly as experiences, conditions, or events.

Murphy contends that the subconscious mind is not merely memory or emotion—it is an immense reservoir of creativity, intuition, and healing. This "miracle-working power" has built your body from microscopic cells and continues to maintain it. It can also heal you, guide you toward success, and materialize your deepest desires if you learn to communicate with it properly. The book is both spiritual and practical, using real-world examples—from scientists and business executives to ordinary people—to show that understanding and harnessing your subconscious can transform your life entirely.

The Dual Nature of Mind

Murphy divides human consciousness into two parts: the conscious mind, which reasons and makes decisions, and the subconscious mind, which receives and acts upon instructions. Your conscious mind is the captain of your ship—it directs and commands—but the subconscious controls the engine room, carrying out every order exactly as given. It does not argue or reason; it simply accepts what is impressed upon it. As Murphy puts it, if you repeatedly tell yourself “I can’t afford that,” your subconscious ensures that you can’t. Conversely, if you affirm “I can do all things through the power of my subconscious mind,” that inner power will rally all conditions toward success.

The Law of Belief and the Creative Process

According to Murphy, the fundamental law of life is the law of belief. This means that whatever you deeply believe becomes your reality. Your subconscious does not care whether your belief is true or false; it simply manifests it. Whether you affirm success or failure, love or loneliness, health or illness, your belief acts as a seed, and the subconscious mind—the fertile soil—brings it to life. “As a man thinketh in his subconscious mind,” Murphy writes, “so is he.”

This creative process mirrors natural laws. Just as a plant grows according to the seed planted, the subconscious mind manifests events that correspond to the thoughts impressed upon it. Murphy compares this operation to universal principles like heat expanding matter or water seeking its own level—consistent, impersonal, and reliable. Your life, therefore, is not governed by fate or circumstance but by your habitual patterns of thought.

The Subconscious as Infinite Intelligence

Murphy emphasizes that within every person lies an infinite intelligence—a divine power that transcends logical reasoning. This subconscious wisdom can inspire artists, scientists, and inventors alike. The great tenor Caruso overcame stage fright by commanding his “Big Me,” the limitless power of his subconscious, to sing through him. Similarly, Murphy recounts how he healed himself of a skin malignancy by affirming the creative healing presence within. When you learn to align your conscious thought with the life-giving tendencies of your subconscious, “wonders happen,” he assures.

Why It Matters

Understanding your subconscious mind is not simply a matter of positive thinking—it’s about scientific prayer, or harmonizing your conscious and subconscious levels toward a definite purpose. Murphy’s concept bridges psychology, spiritual faith, and metaphysical law. By mastering your inner dialogue, you can direct your subconscious toward health, creativity, abundance, and peace instead of confusion and defeat. It is an empowering philosophy of mental causation: change your inner beliefs and your outer reality inevitably follows.

As you move through the chapters of Murphy’s work, you encounter practical methods—visualization, affirmation, gratitude, forgiveness—to reshape your inner world. Whether you seek healing, success, harmonious relationships, or inner happiness, Murphy’s core message remains the same: the treasure house is within you. Your subconscious mind, once magnetized by faith and clarity, is your faithful servant—ready to build the life you command through thought.

Joseph Murphy compares your mind to a garden: the conscious mind is the gardener planting seeds—your thoughts, habits, and beliefs—while the subconscious is the fertile soil that nurtures and grows whatever seeds are dropped in. Understanding this duality of mind is foundational to all the book’s teachings. You are not merely one stream of thought but two distinct systems working together: the conscious (objective) and the subconscious (subjective).

How Each Mind Operates

Your conscious mind reasons, analyzes, and chooses; it deals with the outside world through your five senses. It decides what to believe about success, health, and relationships. The subconscious mind, meanwhile, accepts whatever the conscious mind believes to be true. It does not question, doubt, or reason. If you picture yourself failing, the subconscious acts out that failure; if you visualize triumph, it mobilizes everything necessary for success. Think of it as the captain (conscious) issuing commands to the crew (subconscious), who obey without argument.

The Captain and Crew Analogy

Murphy’s vivid metaphor of the ship’s captain and engine room captures this operational difference. The captain directs the vessel using instruments of conscious choice, but the crew below—the subconscious—powers the engines according to those commands. If the captain gives faulty directions (“I always fail,” “Life is unfair”), the ship runs aground. The engine room cannot reason; it simply obeys. Similarly, your subconscious mind obeys your habitual thought patterns, whether they are positive or self-defeating. Your task is therefore to issue wise, constructive orders.

This exact mechanism underlies countless real life outcomes. Murphy shares the story of a university student who, instead of saying “I can’t afford that bag,” reversed her thinking mid-sentence and affirmed, “That bag is mine; my subconscious sees to it that I receive it.” Later that same day, her fiancé gifted her the precise bag. By replacing the negative assumption with expectation, she set her subconscious in motion toward fulfillment. These are not coincidences, he insists—they are law.

Planting Seeds Wisely

Whatever you impress upon the subconscious—thoughts of success, love, health, or fear—will grow into corresponding experiences. Every thought is a cause, every condition an effect. The soil itself doesn’t discriminate between roses and weeds; it will grow whatever it receives. You are therefore responsible for what you plant. This is why Murphy urges you to think only on “whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report,” echoing the biblical admonition that right thinking yields right living. When conscious thoughts are constructive, your subconscious responds with harmonious conditions and agreeable surroundings.

Transforming the World Within

Most people live in the world of appearances, reacting to external circumstances rather than shaping them from within. But Murphy insists that “it is the world within”—your feelings, thoughts, and imagery—that creates the world without. To change circumstances, you must first change internal causes. By consciously cooperating with your subconscious’s creative laws, you exchange fear for faith, sadness for joy, and failure for success. The external world will unfailingly mirror the inner transformations you make.

Murphy calls the subconscious mind the “miracle-working power” because it controls all vital processes—from heartbeat to digestion—and can heal you physically and mentally when properly directed. Through deliberate thought, affirmation, and belief, you can access a force that moves planets and restores health. This principle is not mystical, but practical: the subconscious responds to belief in the same way natural law responds to gravity or electricity.

Health and Healing through Thought

Murphy himself was healed of a skin malignancy by applying this power. After consulting medical science without success, he affirmed: “The infinite intelligence in my subconscious mind knows how to heal me.” Within three months, his skin was perfect. He reasoned that the same presence that created his body could also repair it. This healing, Murphy contends, demonstrates that disease originates in mental images and beliefs. If you change those inner pictures—replacing sickness with health—the subconscious reorganizes the body accordingly.

He recounts stories of others who used similar methods. A Protestant minister with lung cancer repeated affirmations of relaxation and perfect health until his subconscious reproduced the divine pattern. Madame Bire of France, who was blind from atrophied optic nerves, regained sight through faith rather than medicine—a case investigated by doctors at Lourdes. “The thought accepted executes itself automatically,” Murphy explains. Belief is the key.

The Law of Impression and Expression

Whatever is impressed on the subconscious (through feeling, repetition, and faith) is expressed outwardly in conditions and events. Thought equals incipient action; the response is manifestation. If you dwell on harmony, health, and peace, those qualities appear in life. Conversely, negative emotions must find outlets through illness or discord. “You injure yourself,” Murphy writes, “by the negative ideas you entertain.” The remedy is to feed your mind life-giving thoughts until the old patterns are wiped away.

The Art of Scientific Prayer

Prayer, for Murphy, is a scientific act—a way of impressing the subconscious with constructive ideas. True prayer is not begging an external deity for favors but aligning your conscious and subconscious in harmony. Before sleep, you can turn over any request—“I am being guided perfectly,” “I am healed,” “Peace fills my body”—to the deeper intelligence. The subconscious continues to work while you sleep, mobilizing creative forces to realize your affirmed state.

Ultimately, this miracle-working power reveals that the spiritual principle governing life is lifeward—toward harmony and growth, not destruction. When you cooperate with this pattern by dwelling on love, gratitude, and faith, your subconscious becomes a conduit for divine intelligence. Healing, abundance, and success are no longer miracles—they are the natural reactions of life to right thought.

Murphy offers practical, reproducible techniques to direct your subconscious mind toward desired outcomes. Like an engineer building a bridge, you must work systematically with mental laws to construct prosperity, health, and happiness rather than leaving your inner life to chance. The following methods teach you how to formulate your thoughts scientifically so your subconscious can manifest them.

Visualization and Mental Movies

Visualization means seeing in your mind’s eye the condition you want as vividly as possible. The subconscious accepts pictures as facts. If you are ill, imagine yourself active and healthy; if you are poor, imagine financial security. Murphy himself visualized successful lectures and audiences uplifted by divine intelligence. Each mental movie created a subconscious pattern that later manifested in experience. “Your mind moves from thought to thing,” he explains.

Sleep and the Subconscious

The best time to plant ideas is just before sleep, when the conscious mind relaxes and the subconscious becomes most receptive. Known as the Sleeping Technique or Baudoin Technique, you condense your desire into a short phrase—“It is finished in divine order,” or “Perfect health is mine”—and repeat it slowly until you drift into drowsiness. The subconscious works through the night, bringing the request to pass.

Thank You and Affirmation Methods

Gratitude speeds manifestation. Saying “Thank you, Father” before results appear signifies faith. One struggling man repeated that phrase daily until he was offered a lucrative job and advanced to vice president of his company. Affirmations also recondition thoughts: stating health, peace, or prosperity as present facts remolds your inner image. “To affirm,” Murphy says, “is to state that it is so.” Persistence dissolves resistance.

Argumentative and Absolute Methods

In the Argumentative Method (from healer Phineas Quimby), you reason with yourself, convincing the subconscious that disease or difficulty is merely false belief. You declare truth until understanding erases error. The Absolute Method bypasses reasoning altogether—silently contemplating divine qualities like harmony, love, and perfection until negative states dissolve. Both approaches result in renewed inner balance, proving that faith and disciplined imagination are truly curative forces.

Murphy believes the subconscious mind always moves toward life, health, and harmony. This innate lifeward tendency means that sickness, fear, and failure are not natural—they are disturbances caused by wrong thinking. If you align your conscious mind with the divine principle of growth, the subconscious automatically expresses vitality and success. When you resist through anxiety or negative emotion, you block life’s natural flow.

The Body Reflects the Mind

Your body is the mirror of your thoughts. Every cell is influenced by the images and emotions in your subconscious. As scientists rebuild skin or muscle every eleven months, you are literally recreating your body from your mental blueprint. Fear, jealousy, and resentment poison this blueprint, while faith, love, and harmony rejuvenate it. Murphy’s example of Frederick Elias Andrews, who healed tuberculosis of the spine by affirming “I am whole, perfect, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, and happy,” illustrates how the subconscious obeys life-affirming beliefs.

Faith in the Inner Power

When you command the subconscious to restore harmony, it responds. A man healed his eyes by imagining his doctor rejoicing and saying, “A miracle has happened.” That mental rehearsal carried conviction into the subconscious, which recreated physical health. “What you affirm consciously and feel as true,” Murphy writes, “will be made manifest in your body and affairs.” The subconscious’s “innate principle of harmony” will always attempt restoration when you cooperate.

Normality of Health

Health is your natural state; sickness is abnormal. Every thought not in accord with harmony introduces disorder. You can restore rhythm by affirming unity with life: “It’s normal to be healthy, vital, and strong.” When you stop feeding fear and begin feeding faith, the subconscious automatically repairs tissues, function, and circumstance. In essence, Murphy urges total mental partnership with the lifeward tendency—the divine impulse forever seeking expression through you.

Fear, Murphy says, is humanity’s greatest enemy. It paralyzes creativity and distorts truth. Yet fear is only a thought—an image in the mind—and can be replaced by faith through the same process by which it was created. “Do the thing you fear,” he counsels, “and the death of fear is certain.” Every normal fear (self-preserving) arises with a desire for safety; abnormal fears persist because imagination magnifies them without action.

Replacing Fear with Its Opposite

The key is substitution: identify what you desire instead of what you fear. If afraid of sickness, affirm health; if afraid of failure, affirm success. Since your subconscious brings about whatever you dwell upon, shifting attention to the positive dissolves fear automatically. A physician trapped in Russian prison mines replaced terror with faith in guidance and visualized walking freely in Los Angeles. His imagination carried him through impossible circumstances until he was rescued, demonstrating the mind’s supremacy even in crisis.

Normal and Abnormal Fear

Murphy differentiates between normal fear (falling or loud noise—nature’s protection) and abnormal fear (psychological paralysis). A man who feared elevators overcame it by blessing them daily, imagining peace and joy each time he rode. Visualization transformed the subconscious image of danger into comfort. Likewise, stage fright or exam panic is cured by affirming calm, poise, and perfect memory until those thoughts dominate emotional reality.

Faith as Emotional Mastery

Fear loses power when you become emotionally mature—able to govern reactions rather than be ruled by them. To form faith, focus repeatedly on right outcomes and rest in the assurance that infinite power within cannot fail. Begin now, Murphy says, to expect the best, imagine the best, and feel gratitude for the best. This love and expectancy “casts out fear,” for confidence in divine order leaves no room for terror. In this way, spiritual understanding becomes psychological freedom.

For Murphy, success is not luck but law—the result of conscious cooperation with the creative intelligence inside you. True success means peace, joy, and purposeful activity, not just accumulation of wealth. By learning to direct your subconscious toward constructive goals, you become what he calls “a spiritual engineer,” building prosperity through thought discipline, imagination, and faith.

Three Steps to Success

The first step is finding the thing you love to do. Desire creates emotional energy that impresses your subconscious. The second step is specializing—knowing more about your work than anyone else, mastering details and serving others through your talent. The third step ensures that your goal benefits humanity, forming a complete circuit of giving and receiving. If your aim serves only yourself, it short-circuits and leads to frustration. When you bless the world with your work, abundance returns multiplied.

Success Stories

Murphy recounts people who transformed mediocrity into achievement through imagination. A movie actor visualized his name in bright theatre lights until he became a star. A pharmacist imagined owning his own store, living the role so vividly that opportunity unfolded naturally; within years, he opened his “Dream Pharmacy.” Each formed and held mental blueprints until the subconscious executed them flawlessly. “Act as though I am,” said the pharmacist, “and I will be.”

The Power of Imagination

Imagination fused with emotion becomes belief. It establishes a subjective pattern that the subconscious reproduces objectively. Goethe would imagine wise friends advising him, and Murphy’s stockbroker student visualized a millionaire congratulating him on successful trades. Both experiments turned imagination into a psychological force aligning with their aims. Repetition converts creativity into reality.

The Measure of True Success

Money gained by fraud or selfishness is not success, Murphy warns—there’s no peace without integrity. Success is harmony between spiritual understanding and worldly activity. When you devote your gifts to helping humanity, you participate in divine order. “Your thought fused with feeling becomes belief,” he writes. Train your subconscious with faith-filled imagination, and your life will radiate prosperity with purpose.

Murphy closes his teachings with perhaps the most vital application of the subconscious mind—psychological peace. Happiness, he insists, is a habit of mind, not a product of circumstances. You become happy when your thoughts align with divine harmony. Similarly, forgiveness releases blocked emotions so life’s energy can flow freely through you again. Unforgiveness, resentment, and guilt create inner resistance that manifests as illness or misfortune.

Choosing Happiness

You have the freedom to choose happiness every morning by directing your thoughts: “Divine order governs my life today; everything works together for good.” The farmer who blessed his crops daily proves happiness is a habit. Like planting seeds of joy, persistent gratitude and goodwill sink into the subconscious until cheerfulness becomes your natural state. As William James wrote (quoted by Murphy), “The greatest discovery of the nineteenth century was the power of the subconscious mind touched by faith.”

Forgiveness as Inner Cleansing

Forgiveness is not heroic magnanimity; it’s practical mental hygiene. When you hold resentment, you poison your inner world. To forgive means to “give for”—to replace negative feelings with love and understanding. Murphy outlines a simple technique: quietly affirm, “I fully and freely forgive [name]; I release him mentally and spiritually; peace be to you.” Repeat until you can think of that person without emotional sting—the acid test of true forgiveness.

Freedom from Guilt and Fear

Countless people torment themselves by believing God is punishing them. Murphy asserts that life never condemns you—it only seeks restoration. When one man realized that his physical exhaustion stemmed from hidden guilt, he forgave himself and recovered. Another murderer who had transformed his life learned that he was “condemning an innocent man,” for the person he had been long ago was mentally dead. Forgiveness is self-liberation, setting your subconscious free to express vitality again.

Peace as the Natural State

When resentment and guilt dissolve, your subconscious resumes its normal lifeward flow. Happiness and peace are natural states—the results of thoughts aligned with love and divine order. “Life forgives you,” Murphy writes, because healing and renewal are built into its design. When you stop resisting that grace through anger or fear, miracles unfold effortlessly. Forgiveness thus becomes not only moral virtue but spiritual science—the restoration of harmony in mind and body alike.