A Story Of Imprisonment (Emmet Fox)

This is an old legend of the Middle Ages.

It's found in The Mental Equivalent,

The Secret of Demonstration by Emmett Fox.

It seems that a citizen was arrested by one of the barons and shut up in a dungeon in his castle.

He was taken down dark stairs,

Down,

Down,

Down,

By a ferocious-looking jailer who carried a gray key a foot long.

The door of the cell was opened,

And he was thrust into a dark hole.

The door shut with a bang,

And there he was.

He lay in that dark dungeon for twenty years.

Each day,

The jailer would come.

The big door would be opened with a great creaking and groaning.

A pitcher of water and a loaf of bread would be thrust in,

And the door closed again.

Well,

After twenty years,

The prisoner decided that he couldn't stand it any longer.

He wanted to die,

But he did not want to commit suicide.

So he decided that the next day,

When the jailer came,

He would attack him.

The jailer would then kill him in self-defense,

And thus his misery would be at an end.

He thought he would examine the door carefully so as to be ready for tomorrow,

And going over,

He caught the handle and turned it.

To his amazement,

The door opened,

And upon investigation,

He found that there was no lock upon it,

And never had been,

And that for those twenty years,

He had not been locked in,

Except in belief.

At any time in that period,

He could have opened the door if only he had known it.

He thought it was locked,

But it was not.

He groped along the corridor and felt his way upstairs.

At the top of the stairs,

Two soldiers were chatting,

And they made no attempt to stop him.

He crossed the great yard without attracting attention.

There was an armed guard on the drawbridge at the great gate,

But they paid no attention to him,

And he walked out a free man.

He went home unmolested and lived happily ever after.

He could have done this at any time through those long years since his arrest,

If he had known enough,

But he did not.

He was a captive,

Not of stone and iron,

But of false belief.

He was not locked in.

He only thought he was.

I'm Carol.

Leave me a comment.

By the way,

The door is open for you.

You know that,

Don't you?