Brains and How to Get Them

Brains and How to Get Them was published in 1913, part of Larson's extraordinarily prolific period in Los Angeles following the collapse of his Chicago publishing company in 1912. The book served as the physical and biological counterpart to his psychological and spiritual volumes, attempting to anchor abstract metaphysical principles directly into the material structure of human neurology.

The Progressive Era context is essential: the period was defined by an obsession with mechanical efficiency and scientific management (Taylorism). Larson translated this cultural obsession into the human mind - viewing the brain not as a static, divinely ordained vessel but as a biological infrastructure project that could be engineered, optimised, and physically expanded.

This perspective represented a major theological departure from both Transcendentalism (which emphasised passive alignment with the Over-Soul) and Christian Science (which denied physical reality altogether). Larson insisted that mind and physical brain exist in a reciprocal, somatic partnership - a view that made his work highly attractive to the emerging class of managers, inventors, and white-collar professionals seeking a non-superstitious framework for self-improvement.

In urban centres across America, the transition from agrarian life to dense industrial cities demanded a new psychological framework for personal development. Larson's democratic claim - that cognitive capacity was developable regardless of genetic or social starting point - offered something rare in an era of rigid class and heredity assumptions.

Larson's collaboration with Ernest Holmes grew from this period. Holmes was so impressed by Larson's textbooks that he abandoned Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science. Holmes and his brother Fenwicke took a formal correspondence course directly with Larson, laying the foundation for what would become the Religious Science movement.

Larson's literal assertion that conscious concentration can rapidly multiply and physically rearrange brain cells on demand in specific cranial regions is scientifically inaccurate. Modern neuroscience confirms that experience alters synaptic strength and neural connectivity (neuroplasticity), but Larson's claims of rapid, localised neurogenesis represent a romanticised exaggeration of biological processes - conflating the metaphorical 'building' of mental pathways with literal, rapid physical construction of new cellular tissue.

In his chapters on specialised genius - music, art, invention, literature - Larson suggests that focusing subjective concentration on targeted brain centres will naturally yield extraordinary talent. This heavily minimises the necessity of technical training, physical practice, external feedback, and the slow accumulation of domain knowledge. Deep concentration can accelerate skill development but cannot substitute for it.

The abstract, undefined terms 'finer forces' and 'subjective concentration' frustrate readers seeking a concrete, step-by-step methodology - highlighting the book's origins as a speculative, pre-scientific text that relies on metaphysical vocabulary where it cannot yet provide mechanical explanation.