1881–1960 — Troward's only personal pupil
Behrend studied personally with Thomas Troward — the only student he ever took — and then spent her life turning his dense mental science into instructions an ordinary reader could follow. Your Invisible Power, published in 1921, is the result.
Behrend was widowed young and, by her own account in Your Invisible Power, came across Troward's Edinburgh Lectures and decided she had to study with the man who wrote them. She had no introduction and not nearly enough money, and she describes at length the mental work she did until both arrived.
Troward had refused students. He accepted her, and she worked with him in Cornwall for about two years. She returned to New York, founded the School of the Builders, later taught in Los Angeles, and wrote and lectured on his method for the rest of her life.
The book is short and almost entirely procedural. Behrend's subject is the mental picture: how to form one, how much detail it needs, how long to hold it, and — the part she stresses hardest — when to leave it alone.
Troward explains why the thing works; Behrend tells you what to do on Tuesday. Almost every later visualisation instruction — hold the end, add sensory detail, do not rehearse the route, do not check on it — is present here in plainer language than anywhere else from the period.
Her autobiographical chapters are also unusually honest about the practical side: the money she needed, the doubt she had, and the ordinary-looking steps by which things arrived.
The exercise of the visualizing faculty keeps your mind in order, and attracts to you the things you need to make life more enjoyable in an orderly way.
Your Invisible Power, Order of Visualization, 1921
Having reached a state of ordered mentality, you are no longer in a constant state of mental hurry. Hurry is Fear, and consequently destructive.
Your Invisible Power, Order of Visualization, 1921
An American teacher of mental science and the only personal pupil Thomas Troward ever accepted. She studied with him in Cornwall for about two years, then taught his method in New York and Los Angeles and wrote Your Invisible Power in 1921.
It is a short practical guide to visualisation: forming one clear mental picture of the end result, holding it calmly, acting as though it were assured, and releasing it rather than anxiously checking for results.
Yes. It was published in 1921 and is in the public domain in the United States. The complete text is in our Source Archive at no cost and with no email required.
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