Is Your “Personality House” Crumbling? A 1924 Structural Engineer’s Guide to Character

How the Roaring Twenties Revolutionized Self-Improvement Through Architecture

We often talk about “building” character in today’s world, but in 1924, psychologists and self-improvement writers took that metaphor literally—and brilliantly. During an era when America’s skyline was transforming overnight and construction was the language of progress, one innovative thinker asked a deceptively simple question: If your personality were a house, would it pass a building inspection?

The Historical Context: When Psychology Met the Construction Boom

The 1920s were a transformative decade for both American architecture and psychology. The nation was experiencing unprecedented urbanization—by 1920, for the first time in U.S. history, more Americans lived in cities than in rural areas. Skyscrapers were rising across major metropolitan centers, and the language of construction, foundations, and structural integrity permeated everyday conversation.

Simultaneously, psychology was emerging from the shadows of parlor trick mysticism into something approaching scientific respectability. Sigmund Freud had visited America in 1909, planting seeds that would bloom throughout the 1920s. Carl Jung’s theories of personality types were gaining traction. And popular magazines were beginning to democratize psychological knowledge, bringing concepts of self-improvement to the masses.

It was against this backdrop that Honore Wright penned “Psychology Organized” for the December 1924 issue of Character Reading Magazine—a fascinating publication that bridged the gap between serious psychological inquiry and accessible self-help literature. Wright’s genius was recognizing that the construction metaphor resonating through American culture could provide the perfect framework for understanding personality development.

Character Reading: More Than Just a Parlor Game

Wright opens with a bold declaration: “Character reading is not a parlor game! It is the light, clean paved road to gaining the world. Character reading is the architect of your personality!”

This wasn’t mere poetic flourish. In the 1920s, “character reading” was a legitimate field of study that combined elements of phrenology (reading skull shapes), physiognomy (analyzing facial features), and early personality psychology. While some aspects seem pseudoscientific today, the underlying principle—that we can analyze and improve ourselves through systematic observation—was revolutionary for mainstream audiences.

Wright argues that the word “personality” had become “elusive” and “puzzling,” lost in “the prairie of vague psychology.” But by applying the concrete language of architecture and urban planning, she proposes to “put streets on this psychology desert—to number them, and put brightly lighted sign posts all along the way.”

The Blueprint of the Soul: Four Essential Systems

Wright’s central metaphor proposes that every human being is a “Personality House” composed of four essential structural systems. Like any building, if one system is missing or weak, the entire structure becomes unstable.

1. The Foundation: Bones as the Structural Beams

Just as no house can stand without a solid foundation and strong beams, Wright argues that human beings need Motive Power—the skeletal structure that provides stability and longevity.

In 1920s physiognomy, bone structure was considered indicative of fundamental life force. Large-boned individuals were believed to have the best “foundation” for long life and stability. This wasn’t entirely unfounded—skeletal health does correlate with overall physical resilience, though Wright’s era lacked our modern understanding of bone density, calcium metabolism, and genetics.

The architectural metaphor works beautifully here: without strong beams and joists, a house will collapse under its own weight. Without a robust skeletal system, the human body cannot support the “upper floors” of mental and spiritual development.

2. The Heating System: Muscles as Vital Warmth

The second essential system is the heating apparatus—what Wright calls Vital Power. In her metaphor, this corresponds to muscles, ligaments, and the small amount of fat necessary for proper bodily function.

Just as a house needs lathing and plastering to hold the warmth generated by its heating system, the human body needs muscular tissue to “bind the bones together, hold the body warmth, create flexibility and good digestion.”

This emphasis on “warmth” reflects 1920s theories about vitality and life force. The concept of metabolic heat and muscular energy was becoming better understood scientifically, though it was still often discussed in quasi-mystical terms. Wright’s genius is making these abstract concepts tangible through architecture.

3. The Lighting System: The Brain as Mental Illumination

“A house without lights is dark and useless,” Wright declares, and she identifies the brain as the body’s lighting system—providing Mental Power to “light up its body, to inspire and direct it.”

This metaphor would have resonated powerfully with 1920s readers. Electric lighting was still relatively new—many rural areas wouldn’t receive electricity until the 1930s Rural Electrification Administration programs. The transformation from gaslight and candlelight to electric illumination was one of the most dramatic technological shifts of the era. A house with electric lights represented modernity, progress, and enlightenment in the most literal sense.

By positioning the brain as the “lighting system,” Wright elevates intellectual development to the status of modern convenience and necessity. You wouldn’t live in a dark house—why would you live with an underdeveloped mind?

4. The Surroundings: Spirit as Communal Connection

Wright’s fourth system is perhaps the most sophisticated: the surroundings. A house doesn’t exist in isolation—it has neighbors, a lawn, a relationship to the community. This is Spiritual Power—the ability to cooperate, to reach out beyond the self, to ensure that one’s “front and rear lawns should reach out gracefully to the lawns of its neighbors.”

This emphasis on community and cooperation reflects Progressive Era values that extended into the 1920s. Despite the decade’s reputation for individualism and materialism, there remained a strong current of thought emphasizing social responsibility and interconnectedness. Wright’s metaphor suggests that true personality development requires not just personal strength, but the ability to harmonize with others—to improve “not only its own house, but the whole town.”

A Walk Through “Personality Town”: Diagnosing Character Types

The most engaging section of Wright’s article is her invitation to take a diagnostic walk through “Personality Town,” inspecting various neighbors to identify different personality imbalances. This section reveals both the cleverness of her system and the sometimes problematic physiognomic assumptions of the era.

The Shaky House: The Ungrounded Intellectual

“Here is a house full of bright, scintillating lights,” Wright writes, describing a structure where “the architect put in too much equipment in electric lights, decorations and windows, and forgot about the foundation.”

This is the over-intellectualized person—the type common in 1920s bohemian circles and university towns. According to Wright’s physiognomic system, this individual has “a two-story brain, brilliant ideas and many desire to do things, but it has no foundation of bones, no warmth of muscles or padding to give it Motive Power.”

Physically, Wright describes this type as having “a thin and slight neck in back, the forehead large, and the body pale and slender.” While modern readers might recognize eating disorders or certain health conditions in this description, Wright frames it as a correctable imbalance rather than a pathology.

Her prescription is both nutritional and practical: such individuals “should go to work to build their foundation by a sufficient amount of the calcium, or bone making foods. They should be greedy for fresh air, and should make a religion of eating.”

This dietary emphasis reflects emerging nutritional science of the 1920s. Vitamins had only recently been discovered (Vitamin A in 1913, Vitamin D in 1920), and the relationship between nutrition and health was becoming increasingly understood. Wright’s recommendation of “raw egg yolks without the white, in orange juice” sounds unusual today but reflects contemporary nutritional theories about protein absorption and vitamin intake.

The Dark House: The Unenlightened Laborer

Wright’s second type is “another Personality House with plenty of foundation, or bony growth, but no warmth, heat or light, from their vital or mental side.”

This is the laborer, the manual worker—someone with “prominent bones, low foreheads, heavy knuckles, angular lines” and “a greater prominence of bone over the eyes than in the upper forehead, indicating their material interests and physical interests over their mental, spiritual or vital interests.”

This description reveals the class assumptions embedded in early 20th-century physiognomy. The idea that manual laborers could be identified by their physical features—and that these features indicated limited mental capacity—was a common but deeply problematic belief of the era.

However, Wright’s prescription shows surprising egalitarianism for her time: she doesn’t suggest these individuals are doomed to their station. Instead, she recommends they “think more of their food, but to eat less, and very slowly, to develop the digestive centers, and the padding of muscles or flesh—to study and build a better brain or lighting system.“

The emphasis on study as transformative reflects the Progressive Era’s faith in education as a vehicle for social mobility—a belief that anyone could develop themselves through systematic effort.

The Overstuffed House: The Comfortable but Complacent

Wright’s third type is the Personality House “with too much padding of flesh, and without a sufficient amount of the foundation to their house, or a sufficient amount of mental interest to lighten them into activity.”

This person has “big, possibly fat bodies with rounded contours and small bones. The brain is larger in the back, the side, and the base than in the forehead.” They lack “Mental, Motive, and Spiritual power.”

This character type—the comfortable, sedentary individual who has allowed physical comfort to eclipse intellectual and spiritual development—would have been recognizable to Wright’s middle-class readers. The 1920s saw increasing prosperity and the rise of consumer culture. For the first time, many Americans had access to abundant food, comfortable furniture, and leisure time. Wright’s warning suggests that these comforts could become traps if not balanced with continued self-development.

Her prescription is fascinating: “Such people need books, historical novels, biography, science and philosophy, so that they can gradually develop mental interests.” But she also recommends physical challenge: “They need to force themselves and to stick to things they do not like to do, to create a foundation of larger bones, because hard work attracts the bone element calcium, to the body.”

This belief that challenging work could literally reshape the body—attracting calcium to strengthen bones—reflects a blend of emerging exercise science and older vitalistic theories about the body’s capacity for transformation.

The Prescription: Spiritual Balance as the Ultimate Goal

After diagnosing the various imbalanced “houses,” Wright offers her ultimate prescription: spiritual balance.

“Spiritual balance in all personality houses may be created by directing the mental powers to reflect on the feelings of others—by imagining their opinions, their desires, their rights.”

This emphasis on empathy and perspective-taking is remarkably modern. While cloaked in the language of “spirituality,” Wright is essentially describing what contemporary psychology calls “theory of mind” and “emotional intelligence”—the capacity to understand and consider other people’s mental states.

She concludes: “Such thinking is the basis of harmony and balance. By balancing ourselves, we reach out from our own personality house so that we improve the whole Personality Town.”

This vision of individual development as inherently communal—the idea that by improving ourselves, we improve society—captures something essential about Progressive Era and early 1920s American idealism, before the full cynicism of the later decade set in.

Practical Self-Improvement: Diet, Exercise, and Mental Cultivation

Wright’s final section addresses readers directly, asking them to honestly assess which parts of their “personality house” are weak:

• Are you interested in study to the exclusion of physical well-being? If so, “you are in danger of knowing a great deal that you cannot use, for your vitality and energy are on the wane.”
• Are you over-developed spiritually, giving constantly to others while neglecting yourself? If so, “your source of supply—your own personality house will crumble so that you cannot help others for long.”
• Are you too fond of physical activity and manual work to devote time to study? If so, “there will come a day when your cells cannot study, through lack of use, and old age makes your a prisoner in your own house, unable to reap the joys of mental interest.”
• Are you too fond of warmth, coziness, food, and padded chairs to exert yourself? Wright playfully adds: “Not if you are reading this magazine!”

This final joke reveals the audience for Character Reading Magazine—earnest middle-class Americans seeking self-improvement, people who would never describe themselves as lazy but who might occasionally need a gentle nudge toward greater balance.

Why This Metaphor Still Resonates

Nearly a century later, Wright’s “Personality House” metaphor remains compelling because it addresses a fundamental human challenge: how to conceptualize and work on something as abstract as personality development.

By grounding psychology in the concrete language of construction and architecture, Wright made self-improvement tangible. You can’t easily visualize “improving your mental health,” but you can absolutely picture “installing better lights” or “reinforcing your foundation.”

The metaphor also emphasizes balance rather than perfection. Wright isn’t suggesting there’s one ideal personality type; rather, she’s arguing that all four systems—physical (bones), vital (muscles), mental (brain), and spiritual (community)—need adequate development. A house can be beautiful in many styles, but it must be structurally sound.

Finally, the metaphor captures something profound about human development: we are both the architect and the building. We inherit our basic structure (what we might now call genetics), but through conscious effort—proper nutrition, physical exercise, intellectual cultivation, and spiritual practice—we can strengthen and improve our “personality house” throughout our lives.

The Historical Legacy of “Psychology Organized”

Wright’s article appeared during a pivotal moment in American self-help culture. The 1920s saw an explosion of popular psychology publications, bringing previously elite or academic concepts to mass audiences. Magazines like Character Reading sat at the intersection of serious psychological inquiry, practical self-improvement advice, and entertainment.

While some aspects of physiognomy and character reading have been thoroughly debunked—the idea that you can determine someone’s intelligence by their forehead size, for instance—the underlying project of making psychology accessible and actionable for ordinary people was genuinely progressive.

The dietary and exercise recommendations, while sometimes based on incomplete science, anticipated modern holistic health approaches that recognize the interconnection between physical health, mental well-being, and social connection.

The emphasis on community and spiritual development—what Wright calls “reaching out from our own personality house”—echoes through contemporary positive psychology and mindfulness movements, which similarly emphasize that individual well-being is inseparable from social connection and contribution.

Conclusion: Building Your Character in Any Era

Honore Wright’s “Psychology Organized” reminds us that the fundamental questions of self-improvement are timeless, even as our methods and metaphors evolve. Whether we’re talking about “personality houses” in 1924 or discussing “growth mindset” and “emotional intelligence” today, we’re grappling with the same essential challenge: How do we become better versions of ourselves?

Wright’s answer—that we need strong foundations, vital warmth, mental illumination, and spiritual connection—remains surprisingly relevant. Strip away the outdated physiognomy, and you’re left with a remarkably balanced prescription: take care of your body, cultivate your mind, and maintain meaningful connections with others.

The next time you think about “building character” or “working on yourself,” you might try Wright’s exercise: Take a walk through your own “Personality Town.” Which part of your house needs the most attention? Is your foundation crumbling from lack of physical care? Are your lights flickering from intellectual neglect? Is your heating system inadequate because you’ve ignored emotional and vital needs? Or have your lawns grown so overgrown that you’ve lost connection with your neighbors?

As Wright wrote in 1924: “Find out which street you and your friends live on in Personality Town.” It’s a question worth asking in any era.

P.S.: A Window Into 1920s Self-Improvement Culture Through the Advertisements

If you think the article itself is fascinating, the advertisements scattered throughout these pages offer an equally captivating glimpse into the wild, unregulated world of 1920s health and wellness marketing. Before the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, advertisers could make virtually any claim they wanted—and boy, did they ever.

The Complexion Obsession

Page 38 opens with Dorothy Ray’s promise of a “Beautiful Complexion in 15 Days”—claiming to eliminate “pimples, blackheads, whiteheads, red spots, enlarged pores, oily skin and other blemishes” to give you a complexion “soft, rosy, clear, velvety beyond your fondest dream.”

What makes this advertisement particularly intriguing is what it doesn’t include: cosmetics, lotions, salves, soaps, ointments, plasters, bandages, masks, vapor sprays, massage, rollers, diet, fasting, or “anything to take.” So what exactly was the method? The ad doesn’t say—you had to send away for the “Free Booklet” to discover the mysterious secret. This deliberate vagueness was a common marketing tactic of the era, designed to pique curiosity and generate mail-order responses.

The 1920s marked a pivotal moment in American beauty culture. The cosmetics industry was exploding (sales increased from USD 17 million in 1914 to USD 141 million by 1925), yet there remained a tension between modern makeup and “natural” beauty. Dorothy Ray’s emphasis on achieving results “naturally” appealed to women caught between these competing ideals.

The “Pep Cocktail” and Dietary Salvation

The Character Reading Diet Bureau offered a “PEP COCKTAIL” formula that would make you “wonder where you’ve been since birth” after just one week. For five two-cent stamps (covering printing and mailing costs), you could receive this miracle formula.

This advertisement reflects the 1920s obsession with “pep” and energy—a cultural fixation that would later contribute to the widespread use (and abuse) of amphetamines. The decade saw countless products promising to boost vitality, from Coca-Cola (which still contained cocaine derivatives until 1929) to various “tonics” and “elixirs.” The promise that a simple dietary adjustment could transform your entire existence was irresistible to a generation seeking shortcuts to the American Dream.

“Stop Digging Your Grave With Your Teeth”: The Iriology Craze

Perhaps the most pseudoscientific advertisement is for the Levine Health Institute’s “Iriological” diet system—the supposed science of “feeding the body according to the colors found in the eye.”

According to this advertisement, your eye color reveals which foods you should eat:

• Brown-eyed people should avoid milk and eggs
• Gray-eyed people should use certified milk but avoid bread and cereals entirely
• Eye colors are produced by “acids, toxins, and drugs inherited or acquired due to wrong eating from childhood”

The ad promises that following an “Iriological Diet” can cure asthma, catarrh, eczema, acne, goiter, constipation, headaches, indigestion, and nervousness. It even offers “testimonials of chronic cases cured where others have failed.”

Iriology (or iridology) had gained popularity in the late 19th century through the work of Hungarian physician Ignaz von Péczel, and by the 1920s, it had become a minor wellness fad. While modern science has thoroughly debunked any connection between eye color and nutritional needs, the appeal is understandable: it offered a personalized, “scientific” approach to health in an era when nutrition science was still in its infancy.

Mind Control and Telepathic Will Projection

The Constructive Psychology League offered training in “MIND TRANSFUSION”—teaching you to “Project your WILL by Telepathy and get what you want.” This system could supposedly be “mastered in a week.”

This advertisement reflects the period’s fascination with mental powers and the popularization of New Thought philosophy, which emphasized the power of positive thinking and mental visualization. Books like Napoleon Hill’s “The Law of Success” (1925) and the earlier work of William Walker Atkinson were making these ideas mainstream. The promise that you could telepathically influence others to give you what you wanted was the 1920s equivalent of today’s “manifestation” trends—though presented with considerably more pseudo-mystical terminology.

The Numbers Never Lie: Numerology Analysis

An advertisement for Character Reading Publishers offered a free “analysis by the science of numbers and vibration” with a USD 1.50 subscription. By sending your birth name, current name, and exact birth date, they would reveal “your own evolution—just how far you have come along the path of progress, and what you are endeavoring to learn in this—the present expression of your eternal life.”

Numerology experienced a massive surge in popularity during the 1920s, partly due to the work of L. Dow Balliett and later, Florence Campbell. The combination of ancient mysticism with modern “scientific” language made it appealing to educated Americans who wanted spiritual guidance but didn’t want to appear superstitious. The offer of a “free” analysis with a paid subscription was brilliant marketing—you paid for the magazine, but the numerology reading felt like a bonus.

Dr. McFerrin’s Kitchen Chart: The Food Combining Craze

Page 39 features Dr. Charles B. McFerrin’s Kitchen Food Chart (USD 2.50)—a large wall chart (17 inches by 25 inches) promising to teach proper food combining for “stable, lasting health.” The chart included sections on:

• Wrong Food Combinations vs. Right Combinations
• Gas Forming Foods vs. Non Gas Forming Foods
• Digestion times for different foods
• The Medicinal Value of Vegetables
• How to Tell Tubercular Meats (!)
• “Transitional Dinners” and “Atonement Menus”

Food combining—the theory that certain foods should not be eaten together because they interfere with digestion—was popularized by Dr. William Howard Hay in 1911 and remained influential throughout the 1920s and 1930s. While largely debunked by modern nutrition science (the human digestive system is perfectly capable of handling mixed meals), the theory persists in various alternative health communities today.

The mention of “tubercular meats” is particularly chilling, reflecting the pre-refrigeration era’s genuine food safety concerns. Tuberculosis could indeed be transmitted through unpasteurized milk and undercooked meat, making such charts potentially life-saving before modern food safety regulations.

Prosperity Gospel Meets Self-Help

Rev. N. Ve Simmons-Keeler advertised 12 lessons on “The Dynamic Law of Prosperity” for USD 1.00, promising to “SHOW YOU JUST HOW to build yourself up and get the good things of life your heart craves.”

This advertisement exemplifies the emerging prosperity gospel movement that would dominate much of 20th-century American religious thought. The idea that spiritual development would lead directly to material wealth was perfectly aligned with 1920s capitalism and the decade’s emphasis on abundance and success.

Love by the Numbers: Compatibility Analysis

Jordan U. Curtis offered comparative astrological/numerological analysis for couples (USD 2.00) or love triangles (USD 3.00), promising to reveal “your strong points of attraction” based on birth dates and names.

This service reflects the 1920s tension between traditional courtship and modern dating. As urbanization brought young people together in unprecedented numbers, away from family supervision, many sought “scientific” guidance about romantic compatibility. The fact that you could pay extra to analyze two potential partners reveals the decade’s more relaxed attitudes about exploring multiple romantic options.

What These Advertisements Tell Us

Collectively, these advertisements reveal several key aspects of 1920s American culture:

1. The Democratization of Expertise: Services once available only through expensive consultations with specialists (diet advice, psychological analysis, compatibility readings) were now accessible by mail order to anyone with a few dollars to spare.
2. Scientific Language as Marketing: Nearly every advertisement uses pseudo-scientific terminology—”iriological,” “vibration,” “mind transfusion,” “chemical analysis”—reflecting the era’s faith in science while lacking actual scientific rigor.
3. The Self-Improvement Industrial Complex: The sheer variety of products and services promising transformation reveals that Americans in 1924 were just as anxious about self-optimization as we are today. They wanted better complexions, more energy, romantic success, financial prosperity, and spiritual enlightenment—preferably quickly and without too much effort.
4. Mail-Order Commerce: Before internet shopping, mail-order businesses thrived by offering products and services that couldn’t be obtained locally. The repeated emphasis on “send no money now” or “enclose only five two-cent stamps” shows sophisticated marketing techniques designed to lower barriers to initial contact.
5. The Health Food Movement’s Roots: The emphasis on diet, food combining, and the medicinal properties of various foods shows that “clean eating” and nutritional anxiety are nothing new. Americans have been worrying about “digging their graves with their teeth” for at least a century.
6. Spiritual Seeking: The prominence of numerology, astrology, and metaphysical services alongside more conventional self-help offerings reveals the spiritual hunger that would characterize American culture throughout the 20th century and into our own era.

The Uncomfortable Truth

What’s perhaps most striking about these advertisements is how many of the promises they made—rapid transformation, personalized “scientific” guidance, dietary cures for complex health problems, mental techniques for material success—continue to appear in modern wellness marketing, simply repackaged with updated language. We may laugh at “iriological diets” and “mind transfusion,” but our own era’s biohacking, manifesting, and personalized nutrition apps aren’t always that far removed from their 1920s predecessors.

The advertisements in Character Reading Magazine remind us that the human desire for self-improvement, the appeal of pseudo-scientific explanations, and the willingness to believe in quick fixes are timeless. We’re all still walking through “Personality Town,” looking for ways to strengthen our foundations, improve our lighting systems, and maybe—just maybe—stop digging our graves with our teeth.

Original Text: Psychology Organized

(Transcribed from the December 1924 Issue of Character Reading)

Psychology Organized

So That All May Read, and All May Understand

By Honore Wright

CHARACTER reading is not a parlor game! It is the light, clean paved road to gaining the world.

Character reading is the architect of your personality!

And did you ever stop to think that just by building your own personality you build millions of others as a result?

But “PERSONALITY” has been an elusive, puzzling word!

Its true meaning has been lost out on the prairie of vague psychology.

Today we are able to put streets on this psychology desert—to number them, and put brightly lighted sign posts all along the way.

You can put your personality house right down on the street that belongs to you.

And it is up to you, with character reading as your architect, to live in the tenements of personality town, or on the Gold Coast.

So let us start with the architect to find out what kind of a personality house you have already built for yourself, so that we can find out what is lacking, and build a new and more prosperous house on a more beautiful street.

The first thing we will do is to get out our rulers and measure the personalities of our friends. Perhaps the neighbor on our right has no strong foundation for his personality house. The neighbor on our left may have a strong foundation, but no lights or pictures in his personality house. Across the street another neighbor may have a pretty house, but it has no heating system—no warmth.

With a good character reading ruler we can place our fingers on their mistakes so that we can gradually find our own, and begin to build our own house from what we learned about our neighbors.

We will first picture a perfect house. This house must have

1. Strong foundation, beams, and window and door frames. Likewise the personality house must have good sized bones to give it a firm foundation, long life and endurance. Large boned people live longest and have firmness and stability.
2. Firm but flexible finish, lathing, plastering, etc., to bind the foundation together, and hold in the warmth. The personality house must have muscles and ligaments to bind the bones together, hold the body warmth, create flexibility and good digestion.
3. The house must be well lighted, furnished and decorated, or its inmates do not grow, but instead, grope around in the dark and die. The personality house must have likewise a good brain to light up its body, to inspire and direct it.
4. The perfect house must have good surroundings. It must be in harmony with the houses around it. Its front and rear lawns should reach out gracefully to the lawns of its neighbors. The personality house must likewise have the right surroundings. It must be in the right relation to the personality houses about it. It must be able to COOPERATE with others, to develop a soul or spirit, so that it can reach out and improve not only its own house, but the whole town.

Our personality house then must have:

1. MOTIVE POWER of bones, or foundation, so that walking, working, traveling, do not allow our personality house to crumble away too soon.
2. VITAL POWER of muscles, and small amount of fat, to give warmth, assimilate food, and bear children.
3. MENTAL POWER, or good brain development to light the way and direct the body.
4. SPIRITUAL POWER to serve our fellow man in harmony, to inspire, reach out and realize the oneness of all things.

Now we will walk through Personality Town and look at the personality houses of our neighbors. We are seeking, remember, to find a BALANCED house.

Here is a house full of bright, scintillating lights. The architect put in too much equipment in electric lights, decorations and windows, and forgot about the foundation, the lathing and heating system. It shakes in the wind.

Such a personality house has a two-story brain, brilliant ideas and many desire to do things, but it has no foundation of bones, no warmth of muscles or padding to give it MOTIVE POWER. The neck is thin and slight in back, the forehead large, and the body pale and slender. There is plenty of animation in this personality house—plenty of light (Continued on Page 38.)

Psychology Organized (Continued from Page 14.)

and vivacity, but the brain is top heavy. The foundation of bones, muscles, and vitality are missing.

Such people should go to work to build their foundation by a sufficient amount of the calcium, or bone making foods. They should be greedy for fresh air, and should make a religion of eating so that their bodies can gradually grow a new foundation. They need to eat little and often, leaving out much starch and sugar, because they cannot assimilate these things, and supplying instead, raw egg yolks without the white, in orange juice.

Here is another PERSONALITY HOUSE with plenty of foundation, or bony growth, but no warmth, heat or light, from their vital or mental side. Such people have prominent bones, low foreheads, heavy knuckles, angular lines, fairly wide heads, and a greater prominence of bone over the eyes than in the upper forehead, indicating their material interests and physical interests over their mental, spiritual or vital interests.

Those with heavy foundations to their personality houses, but insufficient finishing, warmth and light, from muscles, flesh, mental and spiritual interests, need likewise to think more of their food, but to eat less, and very slowly, to develop the digestive centers, and the padding of muscles or flesh—to study and build a better brain or lighting system.

Then again we find PERSONALITY HOUSES with too much padding of flesh, and without a sufficient amount of the foundation to their house, or a sufficient amount of mental interest to lighten them into activity. Such personalities have big, possibly fat bodies with rounded contours and small bones. The brain is larger in the back, the side, and the base than in the forehead. They are lacking in MENTAL, MOTIVE, and SPIRITUAL power.

Such people need books, historical novels, biography, science and philosophy, so that they can gradually develop mental interests. They need to force themselves and to stick to things they do not like to do, to create a foundation of larger bones, because hard work attracts the bone element calcium, to the body. They need to eat little and seldom, to grow the spiritual faculty of self denial.

SPIRITUAL BALANCE in all personality houses may be created by directing the mental powers to reflect on the feelings of others—by imagining their opinions, their desires, their rights.

Such thinking is the basis of harmony and balance.

By balancing ourselves, we reach out from our own personality house so that we improve the whole PERSONALITY TOWN. (Continued on Page 39.)

Psychology Organized (Continued from Page 38.)

Which part of your personality house is weak? Are you interested in study to the exclusion of your physical well being? If so you are in danger of knowing a great deal that you cannot use, for your vitality and energy are on the wane. Are you too over-developed in the spiritual part of your personality house so that you give constantly to others, neglecting to replenish yourself? If so, you might help others, but your source of supply—your own personality house will crumble so that you cannot help others for long. Are you too fond of movement, physical activity, change and manual work to devote any time to study? If so, there will come a day when your cells cannot study, through lack of use, and old age makes your a prisoner in your own house, unable to reap the joys of mental interest. Or are you too fond of warmth, coziness, food, and padded chairs to exert yourself to work, to study, or to help others? Not if you are reading this magazine!

Find out which street you and your friends live on in Personality Town.

Advertisements from these pages:

Advertisements on Page 38

Beautiful Complexion IN 15 DAYS Clear your complexion of pimples, blackheads, whiteheads, red spots, enlarged pores, oily skin and other blemishes. I can give you a complexion soft, rosy, clear, velvety beyond your fondest dream. And I do it in a few days. My method is different. No cosmetics, lotions, salves, soaps, ointments, plasters, bandages, masks, vapor sprays, massage, rollers or other implements. No diet, no fasting. Nothing to take. Cannot injure the most delicate skin. Send for my Free Booklet. You are not obligated. Send no money. Just get the facts. Dorothy Ray, 646 N. Michigan Blvd., Suite 186, Chicago

WHO’S STOPPING YOU from getting all there is in life? Is It You? Start the day right with a “PEP COCKTAIL” and in a week’s time you will wonder where you’ve been since birth. “Character Reading” Diet Bureau will send you this cocktail formula FREE but five two cent stamps should be sent to cover cost of printing and mailing. Address: CHARACTER READING DIET BUREAU 159 N. State St., Chicago, Ill.

STOP DIGGING YOUR GRAVE WITH YOUR TEETH Learn to eat Iriologically. The new scientific discovery of feeding the body according to the colors found in the eye. Do you know why your eyes are green, gray, brown, hazel, etc. These colors are produced by the acids, toxins, and drugs inherited or acquired due to wrong eating from childhood. Iriology is a science that explains this unusual discovery. Most diseases are due to wrong food combinations. You may be eating wholesome food, and still be poisoning your body, with a chemical your body does not demand. Most people spend from $2 to $10 a week on foods that they could save, and ultimately feel better. For instance, brown eyed people should not use milk or eggs, whereas gray eyed people should use certified milk, but no bread or cereals of any kind. ASTHMA, CATARRH, ECZEMA, ACNE, GOITER, CONSTIPATION, HEADACHES, INDIGESTION, NERVOUSNESS, ETC., can be cured by an Iriological Diet. Testimonials of chronic cases cured where others have failed. Tell us the colors of your eyes and send us twenty cents, and we will send you colored charts, also articles on Human Vibrations and A Fight for Life. LEVINE HEALTH INSTITUTE Suite 611—162 N. State St., Chicago, Ill.

The Radiant Will Project your WILL by Telepathy and get what you want. Our system of “MIND TRANSFUSION” brings surprising results. Can be mastered in a week. Address CONSTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY LEAGUE Dept. ?, 4675 Lake Park Avenue, Chicago

We Can Analyze Your Brain! We can analyze your face! We can analyze your handwriting! We can analyze the chemicals of your body! We can analyze the astrological influence at work in you! BUT That inner urge—that inner life lesson—that subconscious dream— Your Purpose Here Did you ever come face to face with it? The most ancient science, and yet the most modern one— The Science of Numbers and Vibration reveals the naked truth about where you stand in the universe. It reveals your evolution. Take Advantage of This Offer Without Charge to You Send us your name just as it was given you at birth, and also the names you have used since then. Send us the exact date of your birth. We will send you free of charge the story of your own evolution—just how far you have come along the path of progress, and what you are endeavoring to learn in this—the present expression of your eternal life. Character Reading Publishers 159 No. State St., Chicago I enclose $1.50 for one year’s subscription to Character Reading, with which I am to receive a free analysis by the science of numbers and vibration. Name ……………………….. Name at birth ……………….. Names used since……………… Birthday …………………….

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For Those Who Search for Treasures The Character Book Club Has Secured the Following Courses: Complete course in spiritual numerology, the science of numbers. Based on the Bible. The most thorough and exhaustive work ever done on this absorbing subject…………… $25.00 Esoteric and Exoteric Phrenology, by Rev. N. Ve Simmons Keeler…………. $10.00

DECIDE RIGHT NOW TO BE WELL! We have no time in this life to be sick and besides, when we think it over, there is no fun in it—and less money. Here Is Information on How to Eat for Real Health Dr. Chas. B. McFerrin, one of the foremost Diet experts in America has compiled a Kitchen Food Chart that tells at a glance what foods combine and what foods cannot be eaten at the same time. All the information that this great student of diet has gained in over 20 years of constant study has been employed in compiling this chart for you. Dr. McFerrin’s Kitchen Chart will instruct you in a few moments how to combine foods that will build stable, lasting health so that you may be efficient in your work and produce to the maximum. Following are some of the headings of subjects given on this chart: Wrong Food Combinations Right Combinations Gas Forming Foods Non Gas Forming Foods Foods That Digest in 1 Hour Foods That Digest in 2 Hours Foods That Digest in 3 Hours The Medicinal Value of Vegetables How to Tell Tubercular Meats Transitional Dinners Atonement Menus Many other hints and pointers are given in this large two page chart. 17 inches wide and 25 inches long, ready to hang in the kitchen. Printed in red and black on white, heavy paper. Price only $2.50. A splendid Christmas present. Order from CHARACTER READING DIET BUREAU 159 North State Street Chicago, Ill.

CHARACTER READING LEADS TO CHARACTER BUILDING [Photo of a woman in a hat] My 12 Lessons on “The Dynamic Law of Prosperity” will SHOW YOU JUST HOW to build yourself up and get the good things of life your heart craves. Send $1.00 today for TONIC TALK No. 1. Full information on PROSPERITY BUILDING will be sent free. Rev. N. Ve Simmons-Keeler Character and Personality Analyst 825-27 Kimball Bldg. Chicago, Illinois

ARE YOU IN LOVE? Do You Wish to Attract More Friends of the Opposite Sex? Or Realize More Harmony with Your Better Half? Send us your birth date and that of your “best friend” with an enclosure of $2.00 and we will give you a comparative analysis of your strong points of attraction. If you are at a loss to choose between TWO equally interesting friends, send us both names and enclose $3.00. Please include full names at birth and present signatures with the birth dates. JORDAN U. CURTIS Suite 1313 8 E. Randolph St. Chicago, Ills.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW What the New Year Has in Store For You? Ask our Character and Personality Analyst 159 N. State CHICAGO, ILL.