The Law of Likeness

Published by Larry on Tagged Instuctional, Metal Detector Training

I consider this law unequivocal. As a avid practitioner of the Law of Attraction, as a treasure finder and coin shooter, I know I will find plenty of treasure. It is there for the finding! The very first post on this blog deals with having a treasure finding mindset by utilizing the Law of Attraction. However, the Law of Likeness needs to be practiced fervently too. By this law we reproduce like kind.

I learned about this law some years ago from a minister preaching a message on seed-time and harvest. That message got my attention in a big way. I knew his life and the illustrations of the Law of Likeness that he gave were impressive. He was a younger man who had very little going for him financially and someone blessed him with $100.00 to buy a new suit. He felt God spoke to him to give that money to help another minister buy a suit. In sowing a seed into that man’s ministry he was blessed and over the next 18 years he never had to buy a suit as he was blessed by people buying him new suits. A total of 90 suits in 18 years is astonishing and a great example of the Law of Likeness.

The Law of Likeness is very clear. I took a course in Rhetoric and guess what? The Law of Likeness was one of the underlying principles for Rhetoric. Later, I took a college class in Physical Science and a key premise in the mind of the professor was, the Law of Likeness permeates every area of the universe. You might ask how does this relate to metal detecting to build coin collections?

I am fully aware that an orange tree cannot produce peaches, apples or any other fruit except oranges. That the children born to us will generally resemble one or both parents. In like manner, a treasure finder (not a treasure hunter) will find treasure. What kind of treasure will he find? Exactly the kind of treasure that is focused, researched and dreamed for. I found 50 silver coins in a four hour venture and 36 were Mercury dimes. Before leaving to go to this school yard, I knew several key things. The sod and about four inches of soil were going to be removed from my favorite hunting site. I was given only four hours to hunt before the new sod would cover most of the school grounds that I had hunted for several years. I knew that removing a total of about six inches of soil would likely bring many smaller targets that I could not reach previously to the reach of my detector signal. Dimes and pennies would probably be in much greater number than bigger coins and most of the surface junk would be gone leaving more good signals to dig. Having taken several hundred silver dimes from this school yard, I focused on Mercury dimes. I took out my coin folders with Mercury dimes, including my nearly complete dug set and visualized finding several new ones as well as better condition coins to upgrade some of those sets. My biggest silver day (ever) was the end result of applying the Law of Likeness and the finds were 36 Mercury, 3 Roosevelt, 7 War Nicks, 2 Washington Quarters, a 1918 Standing Half and a 1945 dime-sized Phillipines silver coin minted by the US Mint. This is just one of many accounts where seed sown produced a harvest of like kind. The Mercury dime is my favorite silver coin and more than 40% of my 15,000 plus silver finds have been Mercs (6,342). My focus, experience and research was on Mercs that day and I knew without a doubt that my efforts would produce what I wanted. Here’s a picture of the Mercury dimes found that day.

Another fun example of the application of this law took place with my children’s ministry of about 200. We decided to collect one million pop tops as a missions project. People seeing children picking up pop tops at playgrounds and at the beach became contagious. Hundreds of people including a 90 year old gentleman who lived by a train depot, began picking up tabs to aid the children’s project. I went daily to the beaches and detected thousands of the tops and tabs and other detector users inquired why I was going for the junk items. In a few weeks time other metal detectorists gave me more than 50,000 pull tops as they lowered their discrimination levels to pick up the tops. In two months time the children’s ministry had a net 14 feet long, 3 feet wide and 7 feet tall, full of aluminum pull tabs and pop tops. The sale netted the children only $144.00 but many people gave them small offerings making the total raised in this venture to more than $500. My focus on pop tops was very intense and my coin finds dwindled during this 2 month time frame. However, I did find 7 gold keepers and a handful of sterling items too as I chose not to notch in or out any particular items. It would be easy to say that this is just an example of the Law of Attraction. Though it played a part in the project, the beauty of seeing the children and my actions causing others to start picking up pull tabs and pop tops to aid the project is Likeness at work. We were not attracting pop toppers and tab collectors, we were creating them. Like creates like. Can you see the applications?

If you want the coin collecting hobby to thrive help a youngster to get started with the 50 States Set. Take a friend to a major coin show or a good coin club meeting where door prizes are given away. Share the history of coin collecting and show off some of your prized coins and how you received them. Like will reproduce like!

As a metal detectorist promote the hobby by answering questions of both children and adults who want to know what you are doing or finding. I always wear one or two of my ring finds when I water hunt to show off the greatest hobby I know. Help newbies to get started right by giving good instruction and taking them to a favorite spot that will always produce nice coin or relic finds. I did an Easter Egg hunt with my children’s ministry by putting coins into the eggs and burying them. I am not sure we found all the eggs, but the kids are wanting to do more fun activities with metal detectors. Here is a picture of a few of the kids in action

Sharing the stories of your finds and how you got started is a great way to encourage others. Aiding law enforcement, historical societies and anyone who needs help in finding a lost valuable will only work to reproduce yourself. A final step to really demonstrate the power of the Law of Likeness, is to obey the Treasure Hunting Code of Ethics. Setting a good example is critical to the life of the hobby in these changing times. Here’s to “diggin it!” Larry