"Beloved ones, you must understand that when the subject is unknown and not always sought after, those who would be students if they knew better may not be students. And they must be convinced that they need to take this course in the divine geometry of Being, renewing their awareness on the outer of that which they have known on the inner.

"Therefore, you have heard of and read the book of the greatest salesman in the world who comes preaching the pure Word of the living Christ by example. You understand, then, that the desirability, the practicality, the necessity, and the benefits of the Teaching must be proclaimed. You must plant the seed of some awareness on the part of the would-be student that this is indeed the very understanding and the teaching and the knowledge he must have to get
on with his life and to conquer himself and to fulfill his mission.

"This is the responsibility of the teacher. The teacher is not passive to wait and wait for all eternity for someone to say, 'I finally see that I need this teaching.' Beloved ones, at that moment the student is already becoming the teacher, for enlightenment is self-Beness in the Teaching itself. That student will teach himself. Understand this. That student will take all of the information and the books and the tape recordings, ravenous, and will devour them."

"Therefore, the perpetual call to the seraphim is truly the key of Light taught to you by the Messenger. The seraphim come with swords and fiery auras recharged once in every seven days by the Central Sun itself. Thus they saturate those individuals who are of the Light with a mighty flame and perfume of roses. They lead them by the hand, they bind the demons—and where there is a will and a heart in those souls, they do indeed bring them to the fount of knowledge. But you, beloved, must establish those founts of knowledge, those places of availability and likelihood where many may pass in the marts of life.

"You must become, indeed, the greatest salesmen in the world. You must realize that you do have already the most salable item. It is the Teaching itself. The Messenger long ago realized this when torn and pulled and almost sawn asunder by those forces that determined to draw her into outer activities involving commerce and money.

"Beloved ones, all of this is the lie that we have not provided you and this organization with sufficient material to create such an abundance, such a release of Light to the co-workers as for the building of the entire Inner Retreat.

"The gold mine is here. It does not have to be sought and found. There is no need for merchandising in the marts of the world. There is a need for intense practicality in the presentation and packaging of the most interesting information and subjects and lectures and sermons that are going forth on the planetary body at this time."

"Take heed, then, that you understand that that which occurs on a planet and in spiritual cycles is a sine wave. Thus, it is written that there is a tide in the affairs of men. When this tide is taken at its crest, so it leads on to fortune, and that fortune is a divine fortune.

"Thus, there is a tide in the cycles, the sine wave of being, and you must mark those points of the peaks and the lows. You must understand there are economic cycles, though they are denied. There are waves that are predictable in all areas of existence because they line up with the cycles of karma which have been observed and plotted on graphs by those who were inspired by us to warn humanity of the hundred-year cycles and more.

"Therefore, you are experiencing cycles.* Do not count, then, on another day as an opportunity. When you have the maximum attunement and Light, it is time to capitalize on it. It is a good investment that will bear fruit from your causal body. At the moment that you have the greatest Light to invest yourself in the greatest Word and Work for God, it is like being on a giant roller coaster.

"When you have the momentum behind you and the wind in your sails, I say, make the most of it. For the hour comes when you will harvest that which you sow and you will be on the receiving
end and it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to undo the course you have set in motion. Thus, if you do not sow, you do not reap, and then you are hungry in the winter."



* Dewey & Mandino; Cycles—The Mysterious Forces that Trigger Events, NY, Hawthorne, 1971. Covers the interrelationships of biological, geological, and astronomical cycles with those that are social, political, and psychological. The basic book on cycle theory.

"We are Elohim of all cosmos. May we be the first to applaud the victory of Keepers of the Flame and friends of the Light in this violet flame experiment. And may we say, beloved, that to increase and multiply it can only bring to earth greater mitigation and mercy, clearing the way not only for Kuan Yin and her assistance in delivering to you the secret-ray initiations but also for any number of hierarchs who have not descended to earth for whom you have actually woven a violet flame carpet, making it once again lawful to place their feet upon this earth, not to mention, beloved, the blessings to elemental life and the hope to many hearts who are enslaved under totalitarian regimes.

"Blessed ones, it is only a beginning, but what a beginning and what promise. May you become as the 'greatest salesman in the world,' taking those violet flame tapes [to many, many souls] as your auras are so heartily charged with the Seventh Ray; and, by the sheer enthusiasm and joy, lightness and freedom you carry, ignite something that is catching and that will catch the world and draw them into Aquarius and therefore allow them to lock gears with a new dispensation and vibration.

"I pray that you will devise the most ingenious means of self-perpetuating the sending out of these violet flame cassettes even to the extent of drawing up a list of spiritual souls and Lightbearers known to you and praying for them daily to be cut free by Elohim beginning with Astrea—cut free, therefore, to be free to invoke freedom’s flame so that when after a fortnight you do send to them that cassette they will receive it as though they had been waiting for it all along. Just remember, the violet flame begets more lovers of the violet flame."

"I am come, beloved. Do not tarry and tarry again [in the outer way] unto future ages down the halls of eternity. Take [the initiation] in this hour. O take it! Take it and work so much good by my Sacred Heart become thy heart.

"Surely this is the key to your becoming a candidate for the ascension. Surely thou canst not ascend without the prior bonding to that heart. Know it early, that all the days of thy life thou might impart to many the flame of Love that is the bonding of our union.

"I woo you to the bridal chamber that you might bear in your being and life that special love that all recognize and know as my love. When you are bonded to my heart you also have the Holy Spirit, whose gifts you can increase and multiply.

"I desire you to be, as it were, salesmen for God, for the path of Christic union, for Love itself. The world has not tasted the sweetness of this love, and souls who have lost it so long ago cannot remember the taste."

The Og Mandino Story


Hello . . . This is Og Mandino.

Some memories of my long-ago childhood are still very vivid, especially when I think of that special little red-headed Irish lady who was my loving mother. She had a special dream for her son. "Someday," she would tell me, again and again, "someday you will be a writer . . . not just a writer but a great writer! "

Well . . . I bought her dream. Most kids resent having their parents plan their future but I liked the idea. A famous writer. Yes! Mother had me reading grown-up books from the library long before I entered the first grade and I was always writing short stories for her approval.

In my senior year of high school I was editor of the school paper and our plans were that in the fall I would attend the University of Missouri because we believed that they had the best journalism school in the country.

And, then . . . six weeks after I graduated from high school, my mother dropped dead in our kitchen while she was making lunch for me.

I had a terrible time trying to deal with her passing. Instead of going on to college in the fall of 1940, I went to work in a paper factory and, in 1942, I joined the Army Air Corps. In 1943 I received my officer's commission and my silver wings as a bombardier. I was an "officer and a gentleman" two weeks before I could legally vote. I flew thirty bombing missions over Germany in a B-24 Liberator. Jimmy Stewart also flew in the same heavy bombardment group . . . the 445th. Nice man.

I returned to the United States, after the war had ended, and discovered quickly that there wasn't much of an employment market for bombardiers with only a high school education. After many months of unemployment checks and painful searching, I finally secured a job selling life insurance and married the lady I had been dating before I went to war.

The following ten years were a living hell . . . for me, for her, and even for the lovely daughter we had been blessed with. It seemed that no matter how many hours of the day and night I worked, struggling to sell insurance, we drifted deeper and deeper into debt and I began to do what so many frustrated individuals still do today, to hide from their problems.

On the way home, after a long day of sales calls and canvassing for business, I would stop at a barroom for a drink. After all, I deserved it, didn't I, following such a tough day? Well, soon one drink became two, two became four, four became six and finally my wife and daughter, when they could no longer endure my behavior, left me.

The following two years are no more than a hazy memory. I traveled the country in my old Ford, doing any kind of odd jobs in order to earn enough for another bottle of cheap wine and I spent countless drunken nights in gutters, a sorry wretch of a human being, in a living hell.

Then, one cold wintry morning in Cleveland, one I shall never forget, I almost took my life. I had passed the window of a dingy pawn shop and paused when I saw, inside on a shelf, a small handgun. Attached to its barrel was a yellow tag . . . $29. I reached into my pocket and removed three ten dollar bills . . . all I had in the world and I thought . . . "There's the answer to all my problems. I'll buy that gun, get a couple of bullets and take. them back to that dingy room where I'm staying. Then I'll put the bullets in the gun, put the gun to my head . . . and pull the trigger. . . and I'll never have to face that miserable failure in the mirror again."

I don't know what happened next. I joke about it now and say that I was such a spineless individual at that time that I couldn't even muster enough courage to do away with myself. In any event, I didn't buy that gun. As the snow was falling I turned away from the pawn shop and commenced walking until I eventually found myself inside a public library. It was so warm after the outside chills of November.

I began wandering among the thousands of books until I found myself standing in front of the shelves containing scores of volumes on self-help, success, and motivation. I selected several of them, went to a nearby table and commenced reading, searching for some answers. Where had I gone wrong? Could I make it with just a high school education? Was there any hope for me? What about my drinking problem? Was it too late for me? Was I doomed now to a life of frustration, failure, and tears?

That library visit was the first of many library visits I began making as I wandered across the country, searching for Og Mandino. I must have read hundreds of books dealing with success and gradually my drinking subsided. Then, in a library in Concord, New Hampshire, I discovered W. Clement Stone's great classic, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude . . . and my life has never been the same since then.

I was so impressed with Stone's philosophy of success, that one must be prepared to pay a price in order to achieve any worthwhile goals, that I wanted to work for the man. His book jacket indicated that he was president of Combined Insurance Company of America and I searched until I found a subsidiary of that company in Boston and applied for a salesman's job. At about that same time, I met a lovely lady who had a lot more faith in me than I had in myself and when Mr. Stone's insurance company hired this thirty-two year old loser, I married the lady. Bette and I have now been together for forty years.

Within a year I was promoted to sales manager in the wide-open, and cold, territory of Northern Maine. I hired several young potato farmers, taught them how to sell, applying Stone's philosophy of a positive mental attitude, and we were soon breaking company records.

Then I took a week off from work and rented a typewriter. You see, the dream of writing had never really faded from my heart. I wrote a sales manual on how one sells insurance in the rural areas, typed it as neatly as I could and sent it to Combined Insurance's home office in Chicago . . . just praying that someone there would recognize the great talent they had buried in Northern Maine.

Well, someone did! The next thing I knew, Bette and I and our new young son, Dana, were moving to Chicago, with all our possessions tied to the roof of our car and I was assigned to the sales promotion department, writing company bulletins. At last . . . I was finally writing!

Mr. Stone also published a small book titled Success Unlimited which was circulated to all his employees and shareholders. I had been working at the home office for several months and had become a friend of Mr. Stone's when the editor of his magazine retired. I boldly applied for the position, although I knew nothing about magazine editing, and he not only gave me the job but also entrusted me with a mission.

I was to convert his publication from a house organ to a national magazine and I had a blank check from him to take all the steps that were necessary to accomplish our goal. In the following ten years our magazine staff grew from two to sixty-two and we attained a paid circulation
of close to a quarter of a million!

Several months after I became the magazine's editor I realized that I needed one more article to fill the next issue that was going to press in just a few days . . . and there was nothing suitable in our files. Well, I'm a golf nut and so I went home and worked all night, writing a piece about Ben Hogan and his terrible automobile accident when they told him he would never walk again. The great man not only walked again, he won the National Open again!

I ran the article in Success Unlimited and then fate took over. A letter arrived on my desk from a New York publisher . . . the kind of letter all writers dream about receiving. He had enjoyed the Hogan article and believed I had much talent and if I ever decided to write a book his company would be interested in considering it for publication.

Eighteen months later we published a tiny book entitled The Greatest Salesman in the World. Of course, since no one had ever heard of Og Mandino, the first printing was rather small, 5,000 as I remember. But here's where fate stepped in again. Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway Corp., was addressing an Amway Convention and he told his people that there was a new book just published that he believed would help all of them, The Greatest Salesman In the World, written by a man with a funny name, he said, Og Mandino.

Rich DeVos's testimonial triggered an unbelievable number of book sales and many reprintings. When total sales reached 350,000 copies within a couple of years, Bantam Books purchased the paperback rights . . . for more money than I believed there was in the entire world. The book's sales have never abated. Even now, thirty years after initial publication, it still continues to sell more than 100,000 copies each month in paperback!

For many years now, I have received approximately 80 to 120 letters each week from grateful readers thanking me for The Greatest Salesman in the World and relating examples of how the book saved or changed the writer's life. Most amazing to me is how many of these letters are lovingly sent by individuals we would categorize as celebrities in the world of business, entertainment, and sports. I respond to all of them, of course, but I respect their privacy too much to divulge their names, ever.

What a lucky man I am!