Week Four of The Master Key System — "Reversing the Process — From Cause to Effect" — is the last exercise that builds the "foundation" upon which all the following exercises will be built. In this exercise, you will effectively master your ability to relax physically as well as mentally. You will master the control of you body and your emotions. You will learn to allow yourself to attain the "state" of physical and emotional control and well-being that will set you apart from the masses. In short, you will learn to be a master of yourself rather than a plaything of circumstances. You will see your intellect rule and over-ride your emotions, thus allowing you to cast aside feelings of fear, anxiety, anger, and any other emotion that serves no useful purpose. The Exercise in Week Four of The Master Key System 29. Last week I asked you to relax, to let go physically. This week, I am going to ask you to let go mentally. If you practiced the exercise given you last week fifteen or twenty minutes a day in accordance with the instructions, you can no doubt relax physically; and anyone who cannot consciously do this quickly and completely is not a master of himself. He has not obtained freedom; he is still a slave to conditions. But I shall assume that you have mastered the exercise and are ready to take the next step, which is mental freedom. 30. This week, after taking your usual position, remove all tension by completely relaxing, then mentally let go of all adverse conditions, such as hatred, anger, worry, jealousy, envy, sorrow, trouble, or disappointment of any kind. 31. You may say that you cannot “let go” of these things, but you can. You can do so by mentally determining to do so by voluntary intention and persistence. 32. The reason that some cannot do this is because they allow themselves to be controlled by the emotions instead of by their intellect. But the will guided by the intellect will gain the victory. You will not succeed the first time you try, but practice makes perfect, in this as in everything else, and you must succeed in dismissing, eliminating, and completely destroying these negative and destructive thoughts because they are the seed which is constantly germinating into discordant conditions of every conceivable kind and description. The Exercise for Week Four Explained The exercise for Week One was to keep your body still. That allowed you to gain control of your physical being. The exercise for Week Two was to inhibit your thoughts. That allowed you to gain control of your thoughts. The exercise for Week Three was to relax your physical body. That allowed you to achieve a physical state in which you can lose your tension at will. The exercise in Week Four brings all of those ideas into one grand exercise in which you will learn to achieve a state of physical and mental well-being — a state that is necessary for one to achieve if you wish to not only get great benefits from the rest of the exercises in The Master Key System, but from any other technique in personal development that you may wish to explore. Why is this so important? Haanel explains why in point #32: "…you must succeed in dismissing, eliminating, and completely destroying these negative and destructive thoughts because they are the seed which is constantly germinating into discordant conditions of every conceivable kind and description." You must learn to master "letting go" of the feeling and emotions that damage you more than you imagine. Remember that one of the main points of studying The Master Key System is to learn how to think, how to really and truly use your brain. Most people don't. They allow their emotions to sway them, to rule them. Fear rules people. Anger moves people. Jealousy sways people. We see these in operation every day in others. And generally, the result of these operations are not very good. In fact, they are destructive. Worse than that, those emotions enslave people in a web of shadows. Thus,
