As you read these lines, a part of you is working tirelessly, in the background, to bring about whatever you hold to be true about your life. That part is your subconscious mind. And in 1963, one man wrote the book that taught millions of people to program it deliberately: Joseph Murphy, with The Power of Your Subconscious Mind.
We're not going to sell you magic. Just share with you, the way you would with a friend who's starting out, the central idea of this classic, and how to reprogram your own subconscious (your unconscious mind, if you prefer that word).
Who was Joseph Murphy?
Joseph Murphy (1898-1981) was an Irish-born author and lecturer, a leading figure of the New Thought movement, the very one that produced Charles Haanel and Neville Goddard. Decades later, his book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind remains one of the best-selling personal development works in the world. His message is simple and radical: your outer life is the faithful reflection of what your subconscious has accepted as true.
The core idea: the law of belief
The whole book rests on a single law, which Murphy repeats again and again:
"The law of your mind is the law of belief."
Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963)
It isn't what you believe in that matters, he pointed out, but the very act of believing in your own mind. Your subconscious does not argue and does not judge: it accepts what you impress upon it with conviction, and sets to work to make it real.
"Whatever you impress upon your subconscious mind, the latter will move heaven and earth to bring it to pass."
Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963)
It's a double-edged blade: impress fear and lack, and it manufactures lack; impress confidence and abundance, and it steers your life in that direction. So the question isn't "is my subconscious working?", it always is. The question is: what are you giving it to bring about?
How your subconscious receives
Murphy stresses a point many people miss: the subconscious is not convinced by willpower or by reasoning. It is convinced by repetition, emotion, and quiet conviction. An affirmation recited mechanically, without belief, slides right off it. An idea felt as true, sustained day after day, becomes engraved in it.
It's the same chain the whole lineage describes: thought sows, feeling imprints. Where Haanel spoke of the inner world and Goddard of the feeling of the wish fulfilled, Murphy speaks of the subconscious and of belief. Three languages for one and the same mechanism.
Murphy's sleep technique
Murphy's most concrete contribution is the moment he identifies for impressing the subconscious: the threshold of falling asleep. He called it the "passing over" technique, slipping an idea into the subconscious just before sleep, when the mind's vigilance fades.
This is no idle intuition. On the edge of sleep, you pass through the hypnagogic state, where the critical mind lowers its guard and the mind becomes far more receptive. It's exactly what Neville Goddard aimed at with his technique at the threshold of sleep. Murphy advised repeating a short phrase, charged with feeling, or imagining the desired scene as already real, and falling asleep inside it. We covered this practice in detail in our article on Neville Goddard's SATS technique.
Why it works, without magic
There's nothing supernatural in any of this, and that's what makes Murphy solid. What he calls "impressing the subconscious" covers real mechanisms: a repeated belief tunes your attention, so you start noticing opportunities that were invisible before; it shapes your self-image, and therefore your reflexes and what you dare to do; and the emotion that accompanies it anchors it in memory. Your subconscious doesn't "create" things by magic: it changes your perception and your behavior, and that is what moves reality. As always here, the law of attraction in Murphy's version is anything but passive: it transforms you, and you act from that transformation.
How to apply Murphy day to day
The method comes down to a few gestures: choose a belief or a goal in the present tense, affirm and feel it every day, and above all slip it into your mind at the threshold of sleep. The only trap is consistency: an affirmation said once engraves nothing, it's repetition that reprograms.
That's exactly why we built the Manifestation and Visualization Journal: a daily framework that has you set your intention, feel it, and anchor it, over 90 days, bringing together the lineage of Haanel, Goddard, Wattles and Hill. It isn't just another notebook, it's a concrete way to impress your subconscious day after day, instead of leaving it to chance. The PDF of the full method comes free with it, and it also exists as a standalone PDF to start today.
Frequently asked questions
What is The Power of Your Subconscious Mind about?
About the idea that your subconscious brings about what you deeply hold to be true, and about how to program it deliberately: through belief, emotion, repetition, and especially at the threshold of sleep. Joseph Murphy turns it into a law: the law of your mind is the law of belief.
How do you reprogram your subconscious according to Murphy?
By impressing upon it, with conviction and emotion, what you want to live: a short affirmation in the present tense, felt as already true, repeated every day, and slipped into your mind just before you fall asleep.
Does Murphy's sleep technique really work?
It rests on a real state: on the edge of sleep (the hypnagogic state), the critical mind stands down and the mind becomes more receptive. It's the same principle as Neville Goddard's SATS technique.
How does it connect to the law of attraction and the law of assumption?
It's the same mechanism, put differently. Murphy speaks of belief and the subconscious, Goddard of the assumed feeling, Haanel of the inner world. All of them describe the same chain: what gets impressed within you ends up reflected outside.
Go further
Joseph Murphy belongs to the lineage we explore:
- Feeling Is the Secret by Neville Goddard feeling as the language of the subconscious.
- Charles F. Haanel and The Master Key System the origin of the chain thought, feeling, action.
Your subconscious is already working, day and night.
The only question is what you give it to bring about.
Choose it. Feel it. Fall asleep inside it.
Sources: Joseph Murphy, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963).