Every element in nature influences only an element that is the same in its essence and gives birth only to the same element. A plant gives birth to a plant; an emotion gives birth to exactly the same emotion in the soul of another person.
When one man acts benevolently toward another, his benevolence “communicates” with the same benevolence in the other man. If the first man contacts the second man through another element, then the same element functions in the second man.
Extended description of this law
In everyday life we often see the following situation. A man undertakes an act of a certain character toward another and, in return, gets back an act of a different character. For example, in response to his benevolent acts, the beneficiary can get angry or upset, use them for his own mercenary purposes, and bluntly hurt the first man in return, and so on. The reason why the second man reacts in these ways is as follows. When the first man
performs acts of a certain character, they also contain acts of a different character but in smaller amount, less noticeable; and these are the acts to which the second man reacts, rather than the main ones. Every element of a man — a thought, emotion, desire, and feature — is born deep in his psyche, almost in his subconscious. Therefore, this beginning is very “thin,” not discernible to the man’s consciousness. On the surface level, these elements take their rougher, more obvious forms, accessible to the consciousness. Since a man realizes only the rough parts of his elements, he operates those parts only. He distinguishes the rough parts of elements in his consciousness and thus separates them; but he does not distinguish the thin parts from each other in his soul or else attaches little importance to them. Therefore, they are not separated from each other but are combined. The man distinguishes in his consciousness the rough part of one or another element that he clearly sees and contacts the other man through this element. The thin part of the element develops together with the rough part; and with that thin part, those of other elements often develop, too, because they are combined. Therefore, when a man undertakes acts of one character, inside them acts of different characters are present.
Often a man knows that when he communicates with someone through one of his elements, he has other elements deep in his soul. Then he mistakenly assumes that if he hides these admixtures deep in his soul and does not show them, the other man will not see them. But that, of course, is not true. Almost all people can sense very well whether their conversant is sincere or not, whether he has a “second bottom” in his soul. But for some reason, most people who can see insincerity in other people think that those others cannot see their own insincerity.
Even if the second man does not see the elements of another character in the first, those elements will still trigger corresponding elements in the second man’s subconscious through the internal relationship between them. This process is a law of nature and happens automatically, regardless of whether people want it to. Thus all the elements, hidden or obvious, present in the first man’s acts are agitated in the second man’s subconscious. Now any of them can get out. Which elements will come out depends on the man’s level of intellect, his notions, features, habits, and moral qualities. All these form a set of elements in a man that are easily agitated in him.
On the basis of this schematic, we can see four main types of everyday-life situations.
1. One man does not discern the elements of another’s character in his acts. The second man does not see them either.
2. The first man does not see the elements of another’s character in his acts, but the second man sees them.
3. The first man sees that he has elements of another’s character in his soul, but the second man does not see them.
4. The first man sees that he has elements of another’ character in his soul, and the second man sees them, too.
Every one of these situations can develop in several different ways. Here are a few examples.
Situation 1. The first man undertakes a benevolent act toward the second. Among the negative elements that can easily be agitated in the second man’s consciousness, some are in the background of the first man’s acts. Therefore, in answer to the first man’s benevolent acts, in the second man there arise envy, fury and a desire to do something negative, which he then does. At the same time, the second man will not know why this desire has arisen in him in answer to the first one’s benevolent acts.
Situation 2. The second man can also see that the first man has no intentional negative admixtures in his soul; but he might not see that, and then he will think the first one intends to cheat him. Each of these variants has a corresponding future development.
Situation 3. The first man knows that he has negative admixtures in him. He might think that they do not matter, because they are not significant and he is not using them intentionally. Internally he turns away from them and pays no need to them, thinking that suffices to get rid of them. But he may also have them in his soul deliberately, and then his benevolent acts will be only a cover. With their help he tries to make the second man act benevolently toward him (that is, to agitate in him the same benevolence), to “open” him psychologically so as to take advantage of him. These two variants have a further development depending on the concrete conditions.
Situation 4. This is usually a situation where the first man wants to cheat the second one and the latter knows it. How the second man will react (under the condition that his negative elements are the easiest ones to get agitated) also depends on the attendant circumstances.
Let us now consider the important question “Who is right?” as it presents itself in these life situations, using one as an example. Let us take a general case. The first man undertakes positive acts toward the second; and the second man, in response, undertakes negative acts. It does not matter what either of them realizes or does not realize at the time; the first man will still think that the second acted incorrectly, but the second did so because he thought or felt (consciously or subconsciously) that the first was not right. Who is right? In one respect, the first man is right, because he undertook positive acts; but, in another respect, he is not right, because he had negative admixtures in him. Conversely, in one respect the second man is not right, because he did not react positively to the positive acts; but in another respect he is right, because he reacted naturally to the negative admixtures. Thus in general this situation (like all situations in life) is harmonious, emotionally neutral.
Like other laws, the law of likeness contains smaller laws that interrelate. For example, (1) this law contains the law “Nothing can influence something that does not exist.” In truth, when one man has discovered, realized and destroyed his negative desire, the second man will never be able to use his corresponding negative desire against the first. (2) Another law is “If a feature in one man irritates another, that means that the second man has the same feature in his soul.” Thus the law of likeness enables us to know the contents of people’s psyches in a certain field by the presence or absence of their elementary reactions to various irritants. (3) If the second man has this feature, it means this feature is stronger than his consciousness. That means that there are life situations in which he will use this feature apart from his will (because it is stronger than his consciousness). This feature will automatically take the form of (materialize as) the exact situation that will influence the man’s weak sides, so that he will be unable to resist and will use this feature.
For example, a situation that will scare a man materializes in his life, and he will use this feature; an other man then gets into a situation where it will be to his advantage to use this feature; a third man will then be forced to use this same feature for the sake of a fourth; and so on. Thus if a man has an uncontrolled negative feature, that feature already exists in his future life in the form of a corresponding situation, and when he reaches that time, he will meet with it.
However, a man may not know that he has an uncontrollable element in him, because he sees only its visible, rough form and, if that is a negative one for him, he dismisses this visible part from his consciousness. Yet, the thin, invisible part stays in his subconscious and gradually gets stronger. The man may think that he has completely got rid of it, but in fact, he has only pushed it into his subconscious, locked it inside him.
The strength of the invisible element does not always accumulate up to a critical volume and materialize as a negative situation. Sometimes it keeps getting out of the man into the external world, and this volume of power is always smaller than the critical one. Then it will not form into a visible situation but stay in the surrounding situations in a form that remains invisible to the man. I will show this using the example of deception. A manufacturer produces some product. As a decent man, he dismisses from his consciousness the visible part of his deception: that is, he tries to produce goods of a good quality. However, the thin part of the deception still stays in his subconscious; and if its power gets out, it will cause him to make products with hidden defects without knowing it. When the general amount of this hidden but already existing defective production reaches a critical volume, it becomes known that the product is defective. However, the producing firm might have a good quality control with great power. Then that control will soon
discover the hidden defects in the products and will not let them be sold. How will the power of deception then manifest itself? Not in the quality of the product but in the form of small problems that happen to people when they use it.
Having identified thin parts of the elements that are present in a man’s soul (which one can discern by his reaction to external irritants) and knowing their external form of existence, one can confidently predict how the man will act in given life situations and calculate when they will be likely to happen to him. This knowledge can be used, for example, when hiring employees, when forming a team, or in everyday life.
The problems involved in the operations of the Law of Likeness arise from its uncontrolled functioning in a man. A man needs to activate this law, its power within himself. In this natural condition its power becomes his own life power, and the possibilities of the law are his natural possibilities.
How can a man activate this law within himself? First he must identify elements, admixtures in his soul that are present as components of his general activities. Some admixtures are easy to find, while others have been lurking disguise since childhood; then a psychologist will help find them. Then one must reach a logical understanding of the essence of these admixtures (see chapter 28 “Four criteria (laws) of truth”). One must understand whether they are right, harmonious ones or egoistic, disharmonious ones. This can be done without a logical analysis and understanding. The thin parts of elements exist in the soul in the form of feelings. To find a feeling of the main element in one’s soul, one must amplify this feeling, make it clear, to separate it from other feelings, from admixtures. Then the main element becomes homogeneous, “pure.” This is the separation of thin parts
from each other. At the moment of separation, a man feels that a knot has untied itself in the depth of his soul. He feels relief, freedom. He begins to feel his forgotten life power. He understands that he has become stronger than the surrounding disharmonious elements. This is the feeling of the power of the law of nature, the truth that has begun to function in him consciously. The appearance of such feelings is a natural sign that the man has correctly purified his main element (the third criterion of the truth). More superficially, on the level of consciousness, power exists in the form of satisfaction with one’s conviction of one’s invulnerability and safety in similar life situations.
Every law of nature is a part of a man’s psyche, his natural abilities. In the form of what ability does the law “Similar gives birth to similar” exist in man? This ability enables a man to become the sole master of his situation and produces all the abilities that flow from that. Here are the main ones.
1. The quality a man has in him in the pure form during a contact with another man is the exact quality that will live in the second man’s soul with regard to the first one. For the first man such a contact is completely predictable, controllable and safe. This natural ability of a man is an essential one: for example, for politicians making speeches.
2. If a man purifies all his elements, it is impossible to influence him negatively, first, because he has no uncontrolled elements in his soul that can be influenced and secondly, because he can only be contacted through the element that he wants to use for the contact.
In conclusion I will examine these abilities of a man from the outer side. Let us suppose that a man has purged his positive relation from admixtures. How will a conversant
view this relation? To the conversant this man will look like a completely open one, sincere in this relation, lacking a second bottom, as indeed he really is. It gives birth to a complete trust on both the conscious and on the subconscious level. It also produces a feeling of deep mental comfort during the contact. This comfort is the sense of the great power that the first man and his acts possess. To the surrounding people, a man with purified acts is a bright personality, one who possesses his own opinion and great internal strength and is a trustworthy person.
Since he has no negative thoughts, his conversant thoughts do not become negative either. But let us suppose that the conversant wants to hurt the first man for his own part. Then he will find it hard even to think of that, and this negative thought will disperse his life power. Within a few moments, this thought will exhaust him. His dispersed power will soon manifest itself in his life in the form of suffering, for example, an accident. Moreover, the situations will happen in such a way that they will hinder the second man from undertaking any negative acts toward the first one.
When a man purifies his thoughts and acts, he becomes the sole master of his situation not only during a contact with other people but also with other objects of nature: for example, with animals, material items, and natural elements. The only situations that will materialize in the surrounding world will be ones that correspond to his purified thought: that is, harmonious situations. For example, if it snows, he will always have warm clothes handy and will not get cold; if he is a farmer, the weather will always be favourable to him; if he is a military man, he will destroy his enemy and remain safe himself; if he gets lost in a forest, he will not meet beasts on his way and rescuers will soon find him; and so on.