“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door wil be opened”.

The full tri-part formula, as given in the Bible (and advocated by subsequent authors such as Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich; Law of Success), Charles Haanel (Master Key System), James Allen, etc.) specifies an active component (“seek”, “knock”). Perhaps a lack of success associated with visualizing is due to a lack of associated effort to assist realization / manifestation?

An Engineer does not just design a bridge and then visualize it, waiting for it to appear. A farmer praying for rain is not likely to wait for rain to plant his seed. I believe the ground must be prepared so as to receive the object or goal desired. Visualization is necessary, but only part of the process required, and clearly outlined by numerous authors.

Is this not the idea underlying James Allen`s statement in `Light on Life`s Difficulties`:

`To live is to think and act, and to think and act is to change. While man is ignorant of the nature of thought, he continues to change for better and worse; but, being acquainted with the nature of thought, he intelligently accelerates and directs the process of change, and only for the better.

What the sum total of a man’s thoughts are, that he is. From this sameness of thought with man there is not the slightest fractional deviation. There is a change as a result with the addition and subtraction of thought, but the mathematical law is an invariable quality.

Seeing that man is mind, that mind is composed of thought, and that thought is subject to change, it follows that deliberately to change the thought is to change the man`.

I believe it is one and the same message.