According to Atkinson, there are eight metaphysical elements to success: the individual, spiritedness, latent powers, soul-force, the power of desire, the law of attraction, personal magnetism, and attractive personality. There are three parts of the individual: the physical body, the vital energy, and the mind. The vital energy is independent of the body and vitalizes, energizes, and animates it. The mind is that which the I uses in order to know. Latent powers are the second wind that exists within the individual, i.e. the ability to stick to the task when one is about to give up. It is difficult to tell what causes this second wind, but it seems to be an opening up of the reserve stores of vital energy; all people have the ability to tap into these latent powers and accomplish wonders. Enthusiasm is an imaginative zeal or interest, or a lively manifestation of joy, and is really a force coming from the inner part of a person’s mind or soul. Without a certain amount of enthusiasm, a person cannot achieve success. Few people acknowledge the importance of enthusiasm. You cannot accomplish tasks unless you show a degree of interest in them and that is what enthusiasm is, i.e. inspired interest. The law of attraction is the universal principle in both the physical and mental realm in which all things are attracted toward each other to the degree in which they are alike and repulsed from each other to the degree that they are unlike. This happens in the physical world where certain electrons attract each other causing them to combine into atoms, which attract and repulse each other to form matter. The law of attraction on the mental plane is similar since we bring things to ourselves in accordance to our desire demand and will. Personal magnetism is the ability to bring other people into a mood sympathetic to that of the magnetic person. This is similar to what occurs with magnets, although this occurs on the mental plane, i.e. the person sends vibrations which are caught by the other people. One should have enthusiasm and earnestness to conduct personal magnetism and the more lively and contagious the better. Every person should make his personality as pleasing and attractive as he is able to do. One should always be cheerful even if they are actually in a bad mood for a number of reasons: (a) it induces a more buoyant and positive state of mind in oneself, (b) it attracts cheerful persons to oneself through the law of attraction, and (c) it presents an attractive personality to other people.
Atkinson’s work is taken both from Indian influences and Western influences. In particular, I believe that Atkinson was clearly indirectly influenced by Fichte. When you look at Indian philosophy, you see more extreme a posteriori interactions between the subject and the physical world than in the West, although there are certain a posteriori interactions in the West as well. In particular the law of Attraction has similarities to Jainism and Hinduism. In particular, the word law is borrowed directly from Hindu thought. Atkinson accepts a dualism equipped with a scientific antirealism, in which large portions of science can be neglected; the dualism allows less paradox in a number of places than an idealism. Finally, Atkinson takes influence from occultism which attempts to reconcile science with philosophy and mysticism. Atkinson takes a mystical starting point in the law of attraction, but this is done in many places in Eastern philosophy. Atkinsons positing of the vital energy might seem a bit crackpot, but it is a good idea since sometimes you need to posit a metaphysical entity in order to make sense of things better than through the sciences. I am not sure if the sciences give an explanation for second wind, as some people are capable of having it and others are not, and this seems to go beyond what explainable through empirical methods. If there is a scientific explanation, it does not have the same effect as the metaphysical explanation since according to Atkinson’s explanation, the second wind has an enormous amount of ability and this can only be verified a posteriori. If it does, the metaphysical explanation captures the same material as the scientific explanation and gets the job done the same since the effect transcends the physical.
Idealism Studies 