The year? 1903. The Wright Brothers' new "contraption" actually flies for a few seconds at Kitty Hawk. Henry Harrison Brown's essay, "Dollars Want Me: The New Road to Opulence" is published in NOW, A Journal of Affirmation," and becomes a bit of a sensation. The reason? I suspect the title "Dollars Want Me" was, for many, proposed a new way of thinking about money. "I want money," "I need more money," "There's not enough money coming in to make ends meet," is what we commonly hear people saying about money. They are always chasing it, but money is never chasing them.

There's a lot of nonsense in Henry Harrison Brown's little essay, but the idea that "Dollars Want Me" is intriguing. Even though Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote "That man is poor who thinks himself poor," he might have added "That rich man is also poor who believes he doesn't have enough of the world's goods and never will," or "That poor man, by the world's standards, has emotional prosperity because he, or she, wealth image isn't defined by how much they do or do not own of the world's goods.

Wealth is, after all, a state of mind, but it does help to have a fair amount of it in reserve to augment being able to say "Wealth is a state of mind."

"It is believed that this little monograph is," Henry Harrison Brown writes, "the first utterance of the thought that each individual has the ability to radiate his mental forces that...cause the Dollar to feel him, love him, and seek him and thus draw at will, all things needed for his unfoldment from the Universal Supply." While I do believe "the universe" is supportive of us and isn't against us, I've never tried to pay my electric bill or water bill with a check written on the Bank of Universal Supply. This doesn't mean I wouldn't like to if I could because being able to do so would make life much easier although with that bank's backing it might complicate my life - or yours.

"Who would be free from the grind of labor?" Henry Harrison Brown asks? If Mr. Brown were giving a wealth seminar today he'd probably ask for a show of hands from the audience of all those who would be free from the grind of labor and the percentage of upraised hands now would probably be about the same percentage he'd see thrust skyward in 1903.

Mr. Brown rightly admits that "Money represents Supply. It stands in our thought for food, clothing and shelter; for books, pictures and companionship; for enjoyment, unfoldment and expression." He further admits that "Until the necessities of life are assured, he is not free." You women reading this article are included also and probably know that back then the use of "he" stood for everybody.

Henry Harrison Brown is no fool. He wisely knows "The Dollar confers liberty." Debt he admits is one of the "most tyrannical of matters." Until those dollars come, however, Mr. Brown - also the author of How to Control Fate Through Suggestion - hold those dollars in your imagination as already existing realities.

Rather than seeking, seeking, seeking money, Mr. Brown says to SEE IT," that's dollars, "AS ALREADY YOURS and LET them come." I love this idea but find that during the times of my life I tried it astrologically Mercury must have been retrograde and the Dollars I hoped were seeking me must have been on vacation or busy seeking someone else. Still, I've had my moments where telling myself "Dollars want me," that I did find that by working awfully hard I did manage to get paid in time to pay a bill before its deadline, as they say, "just in the nick of time."

"Say to the dollar, 'I do not need you. You need me. You are of no use until my brain and hand use you. You wish to be used. You come to me that you may be used. I do not need a dollars. Dollars need me," Mr. Brown tells us in Dollars Need Me. I enjoyed the part of the article that reminded his readers to speak to his Dollars and tell them to get out there and circulate and essentially, "Go to work for me."

"Change your attitude toward the dollars you have. Tell them they are of no use until they are expended. As you see them lying about, say to them, 'Idle dollars, go to work. Go out and circulate about," Mr. Brown insists and "then "When I need you come back again. You are useless and have no value until you go to work. Then LET them go to work, knowing that, when you send this thought with them, they or their fellows will come to you to be set at work." Try saying it for fun. I hope your dollars are more obedient than my dog Rani used to be because she usually insisted on doing the opposite of what I asked her to do. I hope your Dollars don't act like Rani and pull a fast one on you.

"To meet Success, you must have an ideal that enlists your full sympathy," Henry Harrison Brown writes. "You cannot be successful unless you feel that you have a right to succeed. Feel that you have something that the world needs. You can then feel that Dollars want you." Dollars, he claims, have no power until we give it to them. "Make them feel this through your thought-vibrations as you feel the importance of your work. They will then come to you to be used."

I'm attracted to this idea but my mind, as I write these lines, is wandering back to the time when some of my best ideas went unfunded and my now mind is asking why. Oh well, let's rush to the conclusion and be done with present mind trying to make sense out of what probably isn't going to answer that question.

Affirm to yourself many times throughout the day, "Dollars love me. Dollars want me. I am ready to use Dollars and they freely come to me to be used," Brown says. "Make no limit as to the amount. Claim all you can use for good, all that is needed to enable you to be useful and happy, abundant supply, be your demand," and then what?

Wait. "Seeds require time to germinate, grow, leave, bud, bloom, blossom and fruit." A change in our attitude about Dollars is seed time - we're planting seeds as farmers do each spring - and if we plant the idea that "Dollars Want Me," Mr. Brown confidently assures us that we will harvest Dollars if we don't go out to our fields and keep digging up our seeds from the soil to see if they are growing.

"Know, as the merchant knows," Brown writes, "that he has that which the people want, that you have that which Dollars want." How, then, do you get those dollars? Don't print them. That not the kind of wealth creation Mr. Brown would ever have given his approval to. "Advertise in your thought," he reminds us, for all the Dollars you require.

Do these things and "Dollars will flock," Brown assures us, "as do customers to a bargain."

So, just for fun and to humor the spirit of a man now passed from life's stage - yet who I feel genuinely wanted to help lift people out of poverty - let's all join together, say and enthusiastically embrace the idea that, "Dollars Want Me!"

There now. Don't you feel better for having admitted it!

Author's Bio: 

James Clayton Napier worked as a television broadcaster in Texas for thirteen years. He has also taught TV news reporting and speech communication at three universities. Learn more about James' current projects at www.jamesclaytonnapier.com or write ithreads@aol.com