Subconscious has been traditionally defined as follows: “That portion of mental activity of which the individual has little or no conscious perception.” - Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition.

In our culture, the subconscious mind has been given terrific powers over the consciousness of the individual; it is said that from within your subconscious can come horrible emotions and impulses, forcing you to do things you don't want to do.

The subconscious mind was popularized by Sigmund Freud who, in order to explain neurotic and irrational behavior, developed the idea that consciousness is layered into unconscious, preconscious, and conscious. Because neurotic behavior has no rational explanation, it made sense to Freud that some psychic events must percolate below the surface of the mind; then, like a cancer, explode into conscious awareness. For some reason this idea has found wide acceptance, but vibrationally, it makes no sense at all. Only something that is given conscious attention can get bigger. The pot that sits on low heat will never boil, only when the dial is consciously turned up can enough energy be imparted to the mixture! In other words, things just don’t happen all by themselves. Something that is beneath the surface of your awareness can have no effect upon you, because you are not aware of it!

A vibration will fade away unless more energy is fed to it, or it is entrained by another vibration. But the entrained vibration is already in close proximity to the source of entrainment; and that cannot happen unless there is already a conscious orientation towards it. In other words, if you are already irritated, something trivial might “set you off.” However, we cannot assign the cause of the irrational behavior to the subconscious, for in order to be irritated, there must be conscious thought already present. It’s not possible to be happy, for instance, and suddenly grow angry, for these vibrations are too far apart for instant access. There must be a gradual descent down the scale, and that cannot occur unless there is a conscious orientation towards it.

The subconscious mind does not exist. There is not anywhere a part of your consciousness that is inaccessible to you. What passes for the subconscious mind are usually habitual patterns of thought and belief, and sometimes, thoughts that impinge on you from mass consciousness, brought to you by the Law of Attraction, and based upon your current emotional state.

Even if we grant the existence of subconscious thought, by definition it has very little power. It’s the vibrations you activate consciously which have power. Conscious thought is analogous to the struck piano key, subconscious thought to the vibrations of previous notes that are dying away. The powerful vibration always swallows the weaker one, so decisions made in the present moment are always more powerful than past decisions. Subconscious thought is, by definition, so subtle that it is beneath your awareness. If it’s below your awareness, you’re not aware of it! And if you’re not aware of it, how can it affect you? The answer is, it can’t UNLESS you make a conscious decision, in the present moment, to act upon it. Therefore, all thought which leads to action is conscious thought.

Defense lawyers sometimes use the ‘subconscious’ in an attempt to explain away the reprehensible actions of their clients, and some use it to argue for their limitations. People object to such lawyers tricks, because people instinctively understand their own power.

It’s easy to see that once a vibration is established, the Law of Vibration and the Law of Attraction go to work bringing more and more of it to you, so at first there is vibrational inertia to overcome. That’s why, at first, it is sometimes difficult to change an old belief or pattern of behavior. However, we have seen that the decision right NOW is more powerful than past decisions, so all you have to do is begin and it will get easier and easier. Each and every human being is a powerful, conscious creator of his or her state of being, and of his or her experience.

 

What about impulses or motivations that seem to suddenly come out of nowhere?

One day last winter I was watching a hockey game. One of our players (I am a Red Wings fan) got hit from behind and knocked to the ice. All of a sudden, an impulse rose within me: I wanted to kill the guy who did it.

“Now where did that come from?” I wondered. This impulse seemed to come directly from within me, but at the same time, it felt foreign, and at the time I assumed it came from within my subconscious. But the only reason a “subconscious” impulse can become conscious is through conscious intent, so there must be another explanation. It’s the foreign–ness of the impulse that leads me to believe that such impulses are carried within mass consciousness. It’s the idea of action–at–a–distance, without an intervening, visible medium. In these essays we’ve postulated a field of subtle energy, composed of thought and created by consciousness, which makes instantaneous communication possible through time and space, regardless of distance, but which cannot be detected by instrumentation.

In studying different cultures, the psychologist Carl Jung noticed the universality of  many themes, patterns, stories and images.  These same images frequently appeared in the dreams of his patients. Jung postulated a “collective unconscious” for mankind as a species, which contain psychological archetypes. These archetypes are imprints or patterns that every human being inherits when he or she is born.  Since Jung believed in the unconscious mind, we have to alter this concept a little. Instead of a collective unconscious, we have mass consciousness, composed of thought.

Because we have postulated that thoughts are vibrational, and are real (meaning that it is possible to perceive, or “pick up” on the thoughts of others), there must be an ocean of thought surrounding planet earth, resulting from over 6 billion people jostling each other on a small planetary surface. If thoughts are vibrational in nature then they persist, at least for a little while. This sea of thought affects every one of us, in every moment, and is created by the conscious thoughts of all of us. (Actually ALL thoughts are conscious, because they proceed directly from consciousness. “Subconscious thought” is an oxymoron). The current collection of thoughts at any moment comprises the species consciousness.

Mass consciousness, then, is a continuously created, dynamically changing creation of every human being on earth.

What passes for the subconscious mind is an impinging thought from mass consciousness.

What appears to be subconscious thought is actually a combination of the “collective consciousness” and the laws of the universe at work. In order to understand this idea it's important to first understand the Law of Vibration and the Law of Attraction, which have been explained in previous essays.

A “subconscious” thought arrives in your conscious awareness in the following way:

(1) You set up a vibrational signal through your thoughts, feelings and attitudes about something. In my case, I set up the idea of retaliation in a very powerful way, after I saw the player hammered unfairly to the ice.

(2) The Law of Vibration and the Law of' 'Like attracts like' go to work and immediately puts you in vibrational contact with thoughts and vibrations which match it, from the ocean of thought in which we are all surrounded. This process operates at the speed of thought, which is to say, instantaneously.

(3) A thought or impulse then pops into your conscious awareness.

This thought isn't even your thought! In other words, it's not your stuff. It's someone else's stuff. But you set yourself up to contact it, by your conscious vibrational orientation.

 

To understand that the subconscious mind is a phantom, perform the following experiment: the next time you feel exhilarated, check to see if there are any subconscious thoughts. You won’t find any! That’s because a subconscious thought only appears when you reach the lower states of emotion. And you can’t reach the lower emotions without a conscious blocking or distorting of your human energy field. No one can think or choose for you! A “subconscious” thought is a conscious blocking or distortion within the human energy field causing a distorted vibrational signal. Now our faithful friends, the Law of Vibration and the Law of Attraction, go to work matching you up with vibrations of exactly the same kind.

Consider that a thought is a vibration, a little packet of energy. If every person on earth thinks ten thoughts every day (a pretty conservative estimate I'd say) then every day there are 60 billion new thoughts added to the mass consciousness! There are streams of thought associated with every conceivable subject and emotion, on this planet of free will, from torture and depression to selflessness and joy.

It's up to us which of these streams we will contact, for by our conscious choices we set up the vibrational signal to which the universe is responding in every moment.

So what I'm saying is that far from being subconscious, all of the thoughts we encounter every day have been created consciously, and have been mis–assigned to the subconscious. The subconscious mind is a convenient scapegoat for those who don’t want to be mindful, or take responsibility for their actions. Such a concept places you at effect–point, instead of source–point. Consciousness is always at source–point!

What often passes for subconscious thought are those thoughts at the edge of your vibrational signal range. Sort of like something at the edges of your peripheral vision: It's there, but you can barely make it out.

Example: You have a job interview tomorrow and you're a little nervous. You really want the job and are more than qualified, but you know there are 3 others interviewing as well. Normally you interview very well, but as you walk into the office there are a few thoughts at the edges of your awareness: “I hope I don't screw up,” “What if he doesn't like me?” etc. You shake your head and wonder, “where is all this crap coming from?”

Well, it's just the Law of Vibration and the Law of 'Like attracts like' at work, reflecting back to you the content of your own vibrational orientation!

At this point you have two choices (you always have choices): go with the new stream of thought and get more and more nervous, or laugh and say to yourself, “I always do well and I will this time,” and regain your old confidence.

We can always control the impulses which come to us from mass consciousness by getting a grip on what we are choosing to focus attention upon.

We can't blame the impulses of thought which come to us on the 'other guy,' for all of us have been angry. We all have wanted to kill someone. Almost all of us have placed our focus on the cesspool of life at one time or another, so we have all contributed to the mass consciousness! And of course, we have also contributed to the beauty, the harmony, and the love which exists on our planet. Literally, we are all in this together.

 ("If there is no subconscious mind." you might say, "then explain hypnosis. People can be programmed to all sorts of crazy things." Well, let's agree that a person must agree to be hypnotized. So he or she has consciously agreed to become affected by the hypnotizer. In a universe of free will, you have leave to believe and act in any way you see fit. "What about the guy who is drugged against his will and hypnotized?" Well, you can't  be drugged against your will. If you've met such a person, you have been consciously resonating to something like that for a long time. You don't meet up with criminals like that without sending out a very strong vibrational signal to the universe. Sorry, but you are in charge of your own thoughts and beliefs).

As a species, mankind  has absolutely no clue of the power of thought, and that is very understandable, for we have had drummed into our heads since we were children that thoughts are ephemeral and irrelevant, and the only thing of importance is the solidness of matter and energy. We have been taught that consciousness itself is biologically based, and that thought is a series of electrical impulses in the brain, and that when you die, you’re dead. But this is a delusional philosophy which places consciousness subordinate to the things that it has created!

Our society is inverted. Most of our beliefs are backwards, and that is why there are so many inequalities, so much hatred, conflict, poverty, disease, and war in our world. We have lost our true connection to the divine energy of life, and have instead substituted self–limiting philosophies that degrade a human being and place him or her automatically in the status of a victim.

Your thoughts, choices, and emotions are of paramount importance, for every one of your thoughts contribute to the vast stream of mass consciousness which impinges upon everyone in the world (and yourself as well).

Mankind has imprisoned himself in a vast jail of his own self-limiting thought. But individuals can break free from this self-imposed prison, by understanding the laws of the universe and the power of their own choices!

You are at source-point in every single aspect of your life.

As a wise man once said, “A Master knows that each and every action is caused by the self, and is a reflection of the self.” (John Payne. John is an extraordinarily gifted and inspirational writer).

Freedom is a state of mind, literally, a conscious orientation toward the things that are wanted in life. Understanding that the subconscious cannot rise up and bite you begets a feeling of power and greater self–confidence, and that is always a good thing. Otherwise, we become a prisoner inside our own heads!