Make positive your psychic atmosphere, particularly towards the person whom you seek to influence, by statements and pictures something along the following lines: "I am positive to this man"; "He is negative to me"; "He feels my power and is beginning to yield to it"; "He is unable to influence me in the slightest, while I can influence him easily"; "My power is beginning to operate upon his mind and feelings." The exact words are not important, but the idea behind them gives them their psychic force and power. Then should you begin your direct attack upon him, or rather upon his psychic powers. When I say "attack," I do not use the word in the sense of warfare or actual desire to harm the other person--this is a far different matter. What I mean to say is that there is usually a psychic battle for a longer or shorter period between two persons of similar degrees of psychic power and development. From this battle one always emerges victor at the time, and one always is beaten for the time being, at least. And, as in all battles, victory often goes to him who strikes the first hard blow. The offensive tactics are the best in cases of this kind. A celebrated American author, Oliver Wendall Holmes, in one of his books makes mention of these duels of psychic force between individuals, as follows: "There is that deadly Indian hug in which men wrestle with their eyes, over in five seconds, but which breaks one of their two backs, and is good for three-score years and ten, one trial enough--settles the whole matter--just as when two feathered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, come together. After a jump or two, and a few sharp kicks, there is an end to it; and it is 'After you, monsieur' with the beaten party in all the social relations for all the rest of his days."