The first time we heard about an “elevator technique” for manifestation, we assumed it involved visualization during a vertical commute. It does not. The Elevator Technique is a guided meditation script popularized by the New Thought author and spiritual teacher Florence Scovel Shinn — specifically in her 1925 book The Game of Life and How to Play It — and later expanded by the occult writer Joseph Murphy in The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963).
The Elevator Technique teaches that the subconscious mind can be reprogrammed by imagining a physical descent into a lower mental state where resistance dissolves. The technique asks the practitioner to visualize entering an elevator, pressing a button for a lower floor, and feeling the car descend — using the physical sensation of dropping to bypass the conscious mind’s objections and plant a seed directly in the subconscious.
The text is found in Shinn’s original 1925 edition and Murphy’s expanded 1960s version, but the wider conversation around it has grown through online occult communities, New Thought blogs, and contemporary manifestation courses that adapt the core principle.
Where the Elevator Technique Appears in Primary Sources
The original source is Florence Scovel Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925). In chapter 7 titled “Denials and Affirmations,” Shinn writes:
“I will see myself succeeded, prosperous, well, and happy. If you are in an elevator, you say, ‘Going up.’ The man operating it says, ‘Going up.’ That is a statement of fact. The elevators of the mind are your thoughts, and you can say to them, ‘Going up’ or ‘Going down.’”
This is the seed. Shinn frames the elevator as a metaphor for thought direction. “Going up” means aligning with positive, confident frequencies. “Going down” means dropping into doubt, fear, and limitation. She did not develop it into a full visualization technique. She used it as a verbal image to illustrate that the mind moves along a vertical axis, and that we choose the direction.
Joseph Murphy took the image further. In The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (1963), Murphy dedicates an entire chapter to what he calls “The Elevator Technique.” He shifts from metaphor to method. The practitioner is instructed:
- Sit or lie down in a quiet space.
- Close your eyes. Picture yourself standing before an elevator.
- Step inside. See the doors close.
- Imagine pressing a button for the basement or ground floor.
- Feel the elevator descend. Notice the slight drop in your stomach.
- As the doors open, state your affirmation or desired outcome.
Murphy explains that the descent mimics the hypnotic induction used in trance work. The physical sensation of dropping signals to the nervous system that the conscious mind is stepping aside, allowing the subconscious to receive the suggestion.
The technique appears in Murphy’s chapter on “The Subconscious Mind and Sleep.” He frames it as a bridge between waking intention and the dreamlike state where the subconscious is most receptive. His phrasing is direct:
“As you descend in the imaginary elevator, you feel yourself going down, down, down into the deep recesses of your own mind. At the bottom, you give your suggestion.”
We find the text in most editions of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind (still in print, widely available in any bookstore or library as of 2025). Shinn’s work is also in print through multiple publishers, often collected in anthologies like The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn.
What the Technique Teaches About the Subconscious Mind
That history explains why the elevator matters. It is not a gimmick. It is a practical translation of a psychological principle: the conscious mind resists change, but the subconscious accepts what is presented to it during certain physiological states.
The technique teaches three things directly.
First, the descent bypasses the critical factor. Every day, the conscious mind filters information through logic, memory, and fear. When we tell ourselves “I am wealthy” while looking at a bank account that contradicts it, the conscious mind objects: This is a lie. The elevator descent lowers that resistance. By shifting attention to the physical sensation of falling, the practitioner occupies the conscious mind with a neutral task (feeling the drop) while the subconscious opens.
Second, the body leads the mind. The elevator technique is not purely mental. It asks the practitioner to feel the drop in the stomach, the shift in gravity, the slight pressure change in the ears. This is a somatic anchor. The body does not know the difference between an imagined descent and a real one. The nervous system responds to the kinesthetic image as if it were actual. This is the same principle behind hypnotic induction methods that use staircases, escalators, or spiral descents.
Third, the affirmation must be planted at the bottom, not on the way down. Murphy is specific: the suggestion is spoken only after the doors open on the lower floor. This timing matters. The descent is the induction. The bottom is the receptive state. Speaking the affirmation during the descent would engage the conscious mind again. The silence of the descent is the work. The spoken word at the bottom is the seed.
We have seen practitioners misinterpret this. Some speak their affirmations repeatedly while imagining the descent, which defeats the purpose. The silent fall is the preparation. The single statement at the bottom is the instruction.
The Symbolic Architecture: Why an Elevator and Not a Staircase
The choice of an elevator rather than a staircase carries symbolic weight that Shinn and Murphy both understood. An elevator is passive. You step in, press a button, and the machine does the work. A staircase requires effort, steps, counting, muscle tension. The elevator surrenders control to the mechanism.
That passivity is the point. The conscious mind must relinquish control to reach the subconscious. Staircases imply gradual descent, a stepwise approach that the conscious mind can interrupt. The elevator drops suddenly. There is no middle ground. You are on one floor, then you are not.
In classical occult symbolism, descent into the underworld or the inner self is often depicted through spiral staircases (think Apuleius’s The Golden Ass or the Mithraic ladder of seven metals). But the elevator is a modern innovation. It belongs to the New Thought tradition’s adaptation of esoteric principles for urban American audiences in the early twentieth century. Shinn wrote in New York City. Elevators were part of daily life. The technique domesticated the descent.
Murphy later added a hospital bed variant for people who could not visualize easily: imagine yourself lying on a bed that sinks into the floor. This teaches the same principle through a different image. The elevator is not the only door, but it is the most recognizable.
How the Elevator Technique Relates to Other Induction Methods
The elevator technique belongs to a family of {related practices} that use downward movement to quiet the conscious mind.
Progressive relaxation (Edmund Jacobson, 1929) uses muscle tensing and releasing to achieve a similar state. The elevator technique skips the tensing and goes straight to the spatial drop. It is faster, but less thorough.
The hypnotic staircase (Milton Erickson’s indirect induction) asks the subject to imagine descending a staircase of ten steps, one step per breath. Murphy’s elevator is that staircase rendered modern, and with fewer steps. Erickson’s method is subtle; Murphy’s is direct.
The countdown method (used in Silva Method and NLP) instructs the practitioner to count backward from ten to one, feeling themselves sink deeper with each number. The elevator technique replaces the numbers with a single physical event: the drop.
The elevator technique is more concrete than the countdown and faster than the staircase. Its weakness is that it requires strong visualization skills. For practitioners who cannot picture an elevator interior vividly, Murphy recommended the sinking bed variant. For those who can, the elevator remains one of the most reliable entry points we teach in our vertical hub on manifestation.
Common Misconceptions About the Elevator Technique
The most persistent error is believing that the technique itself does the work. The elevator is the vehicle, not the destination. The descent opens the door. The affirmation planted at the bottom must be specific, present-tense, and emotionally charged. “I am prosperous” spoken like a robot in a basement of the mind will produce nothing. The feeling of having the outcome must accompany the words.
Second, some practitioners assume the elevator must always go down. Shinn’s original passage says “going up” is the positive direction. Murphy’s method goes down. These are not contradictions. Shinn used the elevator as a metaphor for conscious thought direction, not an induction technique. Murphy adapted it for subconscious access. Down is for planting. Up is for living.
Third, the technique is not a one-time fix. It is a training tool. The subconscious requires repeated exposure to new suggestions before it accepts them as true. Murphy suggested using the elevator technique nightly for 21 days to establish a new mental pattern. One descent will not erase a lifetime of limitation thinking.
Fourth, the technique is not exclusive to New Thought. We have seen it adapted in chaos magic sigil work, where practitioners use the elevator descent as the state of “no-mind” before charging a sigil. The principle is the same. The tradition is different.
FAQ
Can I use the elevator technique without believing in the subconscious? Yes. The technique works through physiological relaxation and focused attention regardless of your model of mind. You can treat it as a visualization exercise for stress reduction and still benefit.
Do I need to visualize the elevator in detail? No. A generic elevator interior is sufficient. The key is the sensation of descent, not the visual texture of the car. If you cannot visualize at all, use the sinking bed method Murphy suggested.
How long should the descent take? Between 10 and 30 seconds. Too fast and you skip the induction. Too slow and the conscious mind wanders. Let the descent happen at the pace of a real elevator dropping four or five floors.
Can I use this technique for someone else? Murphy taught it as self-hypnosis, not remote influence. Using the elevator technique to plant suggestions in another person’s subconscious crosses into areas of consent that New Thought texts do not address. We recommend keeping it personal.
The elevator technique is not a shortcut. It is a tool for those who understand that the conscious mind is only the gatekeeper, not the garden. The descent teaches what no amount of positive thinking can teach alone: that we must stop directing traffic before we can rebuild the roads.
For a deeper look at the principles behind this technique, explore our guide to the underlying laws of manifestation. You may also find our glossary entry on the subconscious mind useful for understanding the terminology Shinn and Murphy used. And if you want to see how the elevator technique fits into the broader history of New Thought, read our guide on the history of positive thinking.