THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

BY THE METHOD _of_ EMILE COUÉ

_Revised Edition_

BY

C. HARRY BROOKS

WITH A FOREWORD BY

EMILE COUÉ

 "For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of the man which is in him?"

 1 CORINTHIANS ii. 11. 

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1922

COPYRIGHT 1922

BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 

 First Printing, May, 1922 Second Printing, June, 1922 Third Printing, June, 1922 Fourth Printing, July, 1922 Fifth Printing, July, 1922 Sixth Printing, Aug. , 1922 Seventh Printing, Aug. , 1922 Eighth Printing, Aug. , 1922 Ninth Printing, Sept. , 1922 Tenth Printing, Sept. , 1922 Eleventh Printing, Nov. , 1922 Twelfth Printing, Nov. , 1922 Thirteenth Printing, Dec. , 1922 Fourteenth Printing, Jan. , 1923

 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY The Quinn & Boden Company BOOK MANUFACTURERS RAHWAY NEW JERSEY

TO

ALL IN CONFLICT WITH

THEIR OWN IMPERFECTIONS

THIS LITTLE BOOK

IS DEDICATED

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

To my American readers a special word of gratitude is due for theirgenerosity to this little book. I hope that it has given them as muchencouragement and help as they have given me. 

In America, the home of so many systems of mental healing, it isperhaps even more necessary than in Europe to insist on the distinctivefeatures of M. Coué's teaching. It is based, not on transcendental ormystical postulates, but on the simple and acknowledged facts ofpsychology. This does not mean that it has no relation to religion. On the contrary it has a very close one. Indeed I hope in a futurevolume to point out its deep significance for the Christian churches. But that relationship remains in M. Coué's teaching unexpressed. Thepowers he has revealed are part of the natural endowment of the humanmind. Therefore they are available to all men, independently ofadherence or non-adherence to any sect or creed. 

The method of M. Coué is in no sense opposed to the ordinary practiceof medicine. It is not intended to supplant it but to supplement it. It is a new ally, bringing valuable reinforcements to the commoncrusade against disease and unhappiness. 

Induced Autosuggestion does not involve, as several hasty critics haveassumed, an attack upon the Will. It simply teaches that during theactual formulation of suggestions, that is for a few minutes daily, theWill should be quiescent. At other times the exercise of the Will isencouraged; indeed we are shown how to use it properly, that is withoutfriction or waste of energy. 

C. H. B. 

19 _October_, 1922. 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The discoveries of Emile Coué are of such moment for the happiness andefficiency of the individual life that it is the duty of anyoneacquainted with them to pass them on to his fellows. 

The lives of many men and women are robbed of their true value bytwists and flaws of character and temperament, which, while defying theefforts of the will, would yield rapidly to the influence ofautosuggestion. Unfortunately, the knowledge of this method hashitherto been available in England only in the somewhat detailed andtechnical work of Professor Charles Baudouin, and in a small pamphlet, printed privately by M. Coué, which has not been publicly exposed forsale. To fill this gap is the aim of the following pages. They aredesigned to present to the layman in non-technical form the informationnecessary to enable him to practise autosuggestion for himself. 

All readers who wish to obtain a deeper insight into the theoreticalbasis of autosuggestion are recommended to study Professor Baudouin'sfascinating work, _Suggestion and Autosuggestion_. Although in thesepages there are occasional divergences from Professor Baudouin's views, his book remains beyond question the authoritative statement on thesubject; indeed it is hardly possible without it to form an adequateidea of the scope of autosuggestion. My own indebtedness to it inwriting this little volume is very great. 

My thanks are due for innumerable kindnesses to M. Coué himself. Thathe is the embodiment of patience everyone knows who has been in contactwith him. I am also indebted to the Rev. Ernest Charles, of MalvernLink, who, though disclaiming responsibility for some of the viewsexpressed here, has made many extremely valuable suggestions. 

C. H. B. 

MALVERN LINK, 21 _February_, 1922. 

FOREWORD

The materials for this little book were collected by Mr. Brooks duringa visit he paid me in the summer of 1921. He was, I think, the firstEnglishman to come to Nancy with the express purpose of studying mymethod of conscious autosuggestion. In the course of daily visitsextending over some weeks, by attending my consultations, and byprivate conversations with myself, he obtained a full mastery of themethod, and we threshed out a good deal of the theory on which it rests. 

The results of this study are contained in the following pages. Mr. Brooks has skilfully seized on the essentials and put them forward in amanner that seems to me both simple and clear. The instructions givenare amply sufficient to enable anyone to practise autosuggestion forhim or herself, without seeking the help of any other person. 

It is a method which everyone should follow--the sick to obtainhealing, the healthy to prevent the coming of disease in the future. By its practice we can insure for ourselves, all our lives long, anexcellent state of health, both of the mind and the body. 

E. COUÉ. 

NANCY. 

CONTENTS

PREFACE

FOREWORD

I

COUÉ'S NANCY PRACTICE

CHAPTER

 I THE CLINIC OF EMILE COUÉ II A FEW OF COUÉ'S CURES III THE CHILDREN'S CLINIC

II

THE NATURE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

 IV THOUGHT IS A FORCE V THOUGHT AND THE WILL

III

THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

 VI GENERAL RULES VII THE GENERAL FORMULA VIII PARTICULAR SUGGESTIONS IX HOW TO DEAL WITH PAIN X AUTOSUGGESTION AND THE CHILD XI CONCLUSION

I

COUÉ'S NANCY PRACTICE

CHAPTER I

THE CLINIC OF EMILE COUÉ

The clinic of Emile Coué, where Induced Autosuggestion is applied tothe treatment of disease, is situated in a pleasant garden attached tohis house at the quiet end of the rue Jeanne d'Arc in Nancy. It washere that I visited him in the early summer of 1921, and had thepleasure for the first time of witnessing one of his consultations. 

We entered the garden from his house a little before nine o'clock. Inone corner was a brick building of two stories, with its windows thrownwide to let in the air and sunshine--this was the clinic; a few yardsaway was a smaller one-storied construction which served as awaiting-room. Under the plum and cherry trees, now laden with fruit, little groups of patients were sitting on the garden seats, chattingamicably together and enjoying the morning sunshine while otherswandered in twos and threes among the flowers and strawberry beds. Theroom reserved for the treatments was already crowded, but in spite ofthat eager newcomers constantly tried to gain entrance. Thewindow-sills on the ground floor were beset, and a dense knot hadformed in the doorway. Inside, the patients had first occupied theseats which surrounded the walls, and then covered the availablefloor-space, sitting on camp-stools and folding-chairs. Coué with somedifficulty found me a seat, and the treatment immediately began. 

The first patient he addressed was a frail, middle-aged man who, accompanied by his daughter, had just arrived from Paris to consulthim. The man was a bad case of nervous trouble. He walked withdifficulty, and his head, arms and legs were afflicted with a continualtremor. He explained that if he encountered a stranger when walking inthe street the idea that the latter would remark his infirmitycompletely paralysed him, and he had to cling to whatever support wasat hand to save himself from falling. At Coué's invitation he rosefrom his seat and took a few steps across the floor. He walked slowly, leaning on a stick; his knees were half bent, and his feet draggedheavily along the ground. 

Coué encouraged him with the promise of improvement. "You have beensowing bad seed in your Unconscious; now you will sow good seed. Thepower by which you have produced these ill effects will in futureproduce equally good ones. "

The next patient was an excitable, over-worked woman of the artisanclass. When Coué inquired the nature of her trouble, she broke into aflood of complaint, describing each symptom with a voluble minuteness. "Madame, " he interrupted, "you think too much about your ailments, andin thinking of them you create fresh ones. "

Next came a girl with headaches, a youth with inflamed eyes, and afarm-labourer incapacitated by varicose veins. In each case Couéstated that autosuggestion should bring complete relief. Then it wasthe turn of a business man who complained of nervousness, lack ofself-confidence and haunting fears. 

"When you know the method, " said Coué, "you will not allow yourself toharbour such ideas. "

"I work terribly hard to get rid of them, " the patient answered. 

"You fatigue yourself. The greater the efforts you make, the more theideas return. You will change all that easily, simply, and above all, without effort. "

"I want to, " the man interjected. 

"That's just where you're wrong, " Coué told him. "If you say 'I wantto do something, ' your imagination replies 'Oh, but you can't. ' Youmust say 'I am going to do it, ' and if it is in the region of thepossible you will succeed. "

A little further on was another neurasthenic--a girl. This was herthird visit to the clinic, and for ten days she had been practising themethod at home. With a happy smile, and a little pardonableself-importance, she declared that she already felt a considerableimprovement. She had more energy, was beginning to enjoy life, ateheartily and slept more soundly. Her sincerity and naïve delighthelped to strengthen the faith of her fellow-patients. They looked onher as a living proof of the healing which should come to themselves. 

Coué continued his questions. Those who were unable, whether throughrheumatism or some paralytic affection, to make use of a limb werecalled on, as a criterion of future progress, to put out their maximumefforts. 

In addition to the visitor from Paris there were present a man and awoman who could not walk without support, and a burly peasant, formerlya blacksmith, who for nearly ten years had not succeeded in lifting hisright arm above the level of his shoulder. In each case Coué predicteda complete cure. 

During this preliminary stage of the treatment, the words he spoke werenot in the nature of suggestions. They were sober expressions ofopinion, based on years of experience. Not once did he reject thepossibility of cure, though with several patients suffering fromorganic disease in an advanced stage, he admitted its unlikelihood. Tothese he promised, however, a cessation of pain, an improvement ofmorale, and at least a retardment of the progress of the disease. "Meanwhile, " he added, "the limits of the power of autosuggestion arenot yet known; final recovery is possible. " In all cases of functionaland nervous disorders, as well as the less serious ones of an organicnature, he stated that autosuggestion, conscientiously applied, wascapable of removing the trouble completely. 

It took Coué nearly forty minutes to complete his interrogation. Otherpatients bore witness to the benefits the treatment had alreadyconferred on them. A woman with a painful swelling in her breast, which a doctor had diagnosed (in Coué's opinion wrongly), as of acancerous nature, had found complete relief after less than threeweeks' treatment. Another woman had enriched her impoverished blood, and increased her weight by over nine pounds. A man had been cured ofa varicose ulcer, another in a single sitting had rid himself of alifelong habit of stammering. Only one of the former patients failedto report an improvement. "Monsieur, " said Coué, "you have been makingefforts. You must put your trust in the imagination, not in the will. Think you are better and you will become so. "

Coué now proceeded to outline the theory given in the pages whichfollow. It is sufficient here to state his main conclusions, whichwere these: (1) Every idea which exclusively occupies the mind istransformed into an actual physical or mental state. (2) The effortswe make to conquer an idea by exerting the will only serve to make thatidea more powerful. To demonstrate these truths he requested one ofhis patients, a young anaemic-looking woman, to carry out a smallexperiment. She extended her arms in front of her, and clasped thehands firmly together with the fingers interlaced, increasing the forceof her grip until a slight tremor set in. "Look at your hands, " saidCoué, "and think you would like to open them but you cannot. Now tryand pull them apart. Pull hard. You find that the more you try themore tightly they become clasped together. "

The girl made little convulsive movements of her wrists, really doingher best by physical force to separate her hands, but the harder shetried the more her grip increased in strength, until the knucklesturned white with the pressure. Her hands seemed locked together by aforce outside her own control. 

"Now think, " said Cone, "'I can open my hands. '"

Slowly her grasp relaxed and, in response to a little pull, the crampedfingers came apart. She smiled shyly at the attention she hadattracted, and sat down. 

Coué pointed out that the two main points of his theory were thusdemonstrated simultaneously: when the patient's mind was filled withthe thought "I cannot, " she could not in very fact unclasp her hands. Further, the efforts she made to wrench them apart by exerting her willonly fixed them more firmly together. 

Each patient was now called on in turn to perform the same experiment. The more imaginative among them--notably the women--were at oncesuccessful. One old lady was so absorbed in the thought "I cannot" asnot to heed the request to think "I can. " With her face ruefullypuckered up she sat staring fixedly at her interlocked fingers, asthough contemplating an act of fate. "Voilà, " said Coué, smiling, "ifMadame persists in her present idea, she will never open her handsagain as long as she lives. "

Several of the men, however, were not at once successful. The whilomblacksmith with the disabled arm, when told to think "I should like toopen my hands but I cannot, " proceeded without difficulty to open them. 

"You see, " said Coué, with a smile, "it depends not on what I say buton what you think. What were you thinking then?"

He hesitated. "I thought perhaps I could open them after all. "

"Exactly. And therefore you could. Now clasp your hands again. Pressthem together. "

When the right degree of pressure had been reached, Coué told him torepeat the words "I cannot, I cannot.... "

As he repeated this phrase the contracture increased, and all hisefforts failed to release his grip. 

"Voilà, " said Coué. "Now listen. For ten years you have been thinkingyou could not lift your arm above your shoulder, consequently you havenot been able to do so, for whatever we think becomes true for us. Nowthink 'I can lift it. '"

The patient looked at him doubtfully. 

"Quick!" Coué said in a tone of authority. "Think 'I can, I can!'"

"I can, " said the man. He made a half-hearted attempt and complainedof a pain in his shoulder. 

"Bon, " said Coué. "Don't lower your arm. Close your eyes and repeatwith me as fast as you can, 'Ca passe, ça passe. '"

For half a minute they repeated this phrase together, speaking so fastas to produce a sound like the whirr of a rapidly revolving machine. Meanwhile Coué quickly stroked the man's shoulder. At the end of thattime the patient admitted that his pain had left him. 

"Now think well that you can lift your arm, " Coué said. 

The departure of the pain had given the patient faith. His face, whichbefore had been perplexed and incredulous, brightened as the thought ofpower took possession of him. "I can, " he said in a tone of finality, and without effort he calmly lifted his arm to its full height abovehis head. He held it there triumphantly for a moment while the wholecompany applauded and encouraged him. 

Coué reached for his hand and shook it. 

"My friend, you are cured. "

"C'est merveilleux, " the man answered. "I believe I am. "

"Prove it, " said Coué. "Hit me on the shoulder. "

The patient laughed, and dealt him a gentle rap. 

"Harder, " Coué encouraged him. "Hit me harder--as hard as you can. "

His arm began to rise and fall in regular blows, increasing in forceuntil Coué was compelled to call on him to stop. 

"Voilà, mon ami, you can go back to your anvil. "

The man resumed his seat, still hardly able to comprehend what hadoccurred. Now and then he lifted his arm as if to reassure himself, whispering to himself in an awed voice, "I can, I can. "

A little further on was seated a woman who had complained of violentneuralgia. Under the influence of the repeated phrase "ça passe" (it'sgoing) the pain was dispelled in less than thirty seconds. Then it wasthe turn of the visitor from Paris. What he had seen had inspired himwith confidence; he was sitting more erect, there was a little patch ofcolour in his cheeks, and his trembling seemed less violent. 

He performed the experiment with immediate success. 

"Now, " said Coué, "you are cultivated ground. I can throw out the seedin handfuls. "

He caused the sufferer first to stand erect with his back and kneesstraightened. Then he asked him, constantly thinking "I can, " to placehis entire weight on each foot in turn, slowly performing the exerciseknown as "marking time. " A space was then cleared of chairs, andhaving discarded his stick, the man was made to walk to and fro. Whenhis gait became slovenly Coué stopped him, pointed out his fault, and, renewing the thought "I can, " caused him to correct it. Progressiveimprovement kindled the man's imagination. He took himself in his ownhands. His bearing became more and more confident, he walked moreeasily, more quickly. His little daughter, all smiles and happyself-forgetfulness, stood beside him uttering expressions of delight, admiration and encouragement. The whole company laughed and clappedtheir hands. 

"After the sitting, " said Coué, "you shall come for a run in my garden. "

Thus Coué continued his round of the clinic. Each patient sufferingfrom pain was given complete or partial relief; those with uselesslimbs had a varying measure of use restored to them. Coué's manner wasalways quietly inspiring. There was no formality, no attitude of thesuperior person; he treated everyone, whether rich or poor, with thesame friendly solicitude. But within these limits he varied his toneto suit the temperament of the patient. Sometimes he was firm, sometimes gently bantering. He seized every opportunity for a littlehumorous by-play. One might almost say that he tactfully teased someof his patients, giving them an idea that their ailment was absurd, anda little unworthy; that to be ill was a quaint but reprehensibleweakness, which they should quickly get rid of. Indeed, this denial ofthe dignity of disease is one of the characteristics of the place. Nohomage is paid to it as a Dread Monarch. It is gently ridiculed, itsterrors are made to appear second-rate, and its victims end by laughingat it. 

Coué now passed on to the formulation of specific suggestions. Thepatients closed their eyes, and he proceeded in a low, monotonousvoice, to evoke before their minds the states of health, mental andphysical, they were seeking. As they listened to him their alertnessebbed away, they were lulled into a drowsy state, peopled only by thevivid images he called up before the eyes of the mind. The faintrustle of the trees, the songs of the birds, the low voices of thosewaiting in the garden, merged into a pleasant background, on which hiswords stood out powerfully. 

This is what he said:

"Say to yourself that all the words I am about to utter will be fixed, imprinted and engraven in your minds; that they will remain fixed, imprinted and engraven there, so that without your will and knowledge, without your being in any way aware of what is taking place, youyourself and your whole organism will obey them. I tell you first thatevery day, three times a day, morning, noon and evening, at mealtimes, you will be hungry; that is to say you will feel that pleasantsensation which makes us think and say: 'How I should like something toeat!' You will then eat with excellent appetite, enjoying your food, but you will never eat too much. You will eat the right amount, neither too much nor too little, and you will know intuitively when youhave had sufficient. You will masticate your food thoroughly, transforming it into a smooth paste before swallowing it. In theseconditions you will digest it well, and so feel no discomfort of anykind either in the stomach or the intestines. Assimilation will beperfectly performed, and your organism will make the best possible useof the food to create blood, muscle, strength, energy, in a word--Life. 

"Since you have digested your food properly, the excretory functionswill be normally performed. This will take place every morningimmediately on rising, and without your having recourse to any laxativemedicine or artificial means of any kind. 

"Every night you will fall asleep at the hour you wish, and willcontinue to sleep until the hour at which you desire to wake nextmorning. Your sleep will be calm, peaceful and profound, untroubled bybad dreams or undesirable states of body. You may dream, but yourdreams will be pleasant ones. On waking you will feel well, bright, alert, eager for the day's tasks. 

"If in the past you have been subject to depression, gloom andmelancholy forebodings, you will henceforward be free from suchtroubles. Instead of being moody, anxious and depressed, you will becheerful and happy. You will be happy even if you have no particularreason for being so, just as in the past you were, without good reason, unhappy. I tell you even that if you have serious cause to be worriedor depressed, you will not be so. 

"If you have been impatient or ill-tempered, you will no longer beanything of the kind; on the contrary, you will always be patient andself-controlled. The happenings which used to irritate you will leaveyou entirely calm and unmoved. 

"If you have sometimes been haunted by evil and unwholesome ideas, byfears or phobias, these ideas will gradually cease to occupy your mind. They will melt away like a cloud. As a dream vanishes when we wake, sowill these vain images disappear. 

"I add that all your organs do their work perfectly. Your heart beatsnormally and the circulation of the blood takes place as it should. The lungs do their work well. The stomach, the intestines, the liver, the biliary duct, the kidneys and the bladder, all carry out theirfunctions correctly. If at present any of the organs named is out oforder, the disturbance will grow less day by day, so that within ashort space of time it will have entirely disappeared, and the organwill have resumed its normal function. 

"Further, if in any organ there is a structural lesion, it will fromthis day be gradually repaired, and in a short period will becompletely restored. This will be so even if you are unaware that thetrouble exists. 

"I must also add--and it is extremely important--that if in the pastyou have lacked confidence in yourself, this self-distrust willgradually disappear. You will have confidence in yourself; I repeat, _you will have confidence_. Your confidence will be based on theknowledge of the immense power which is within you, by which you canaccomplish any task of which your reason approves. With thisconfidence you will be able to do anything you wish to do, provided itis reasonable, and anything it is your duty to do. 

"When you have any task to perform you will always think that it iseasy. Such words as 'difficult, ' 'impossible, ' 'I cannot' willdisappear from your vocabulary. Their place will be taken by thisphrase: 'It is easy and I can. ' So, considering your work easy, evenif it is difficult to others, it will become easy to you. You will doit easily, without effort and without fatigue. "

These general suggestions were succeeded by particular suggestionsreferring to the special ailments from which Coué's patients weresuffering. Taking each case in turn, he allowed his hand to restlightly on the heads of the sufferers, while picturing to their mindsthe health and vigour with which they would soon be endowed. Thus to awoman with an ulcerated leg he spoke as follows: "Henceforth yourorganism will do all that is necessary to restore your leg to perfecthealth. It will rapidly heal; the tissues will regain their tone; theskin will be soft and healthy. In a short space of time your leg willbe vigorous and strong and will in future always remain so. " Eachspecial complaint was thus treated with a few appropriate phrases. When he had finished, and the patients were called on to open theireyes, a faint sigh went round the room, as if they were awakingreluctantly from a delicious dream. 

Coué now explained to his patients that he possessed no healing powers, and had never healed a person in his life. They carried in themselvesthe instrument of their own well-being. The results they had seen weredue to the realisation of each patient's own thought. He had beenmerely an agent calling the ideas of health into their minds. Henceforth they could, and must, be the pilots of their own destiny. He then requested them to repeat, under conditions which will be laterdefined, the phrase with which his name is associated: "Day by day, inevery way, I'm getting better and better. "[1]

The sitting was at an end. The patients rose and crowded round Coué, asking questions, thanking him, shaking him by the hand. Some declaredthey were already cured, some that they were much better, others thatthey were confident of cure in the future. It was as if a burden ofdepression had fallen from their minds. Those who had entered withminds crushed and oppressed went out with hope and optimism shining intheir faces. 

But Coué waved aside these too insistent admirers, and, beckoning tothe three patients who could not walk, led them to a corner of thegarden where there was a stretch of gravel path running beneath theboughs of fruit trees. Once more impressing on their minds the thoughtof strength and power, he induced each one to walk without support downthis path. He now invited them to run. They hesitated, but heinsisted, telling them that they could run, that they ought to run, that they had but to believe in their own power, and their thoughtwould be manifested in action. 

They started rather uncertainly, but Coué followed them with persistentencouragements. They began to raise their heads, to lift their feetfrom the ground and run with greater freedom and confidence. Turningat the end of the path they came back at a fair pace. Their movementswere not elegant, but people on the further side of fifty are rarelyelegant runners. It was a surprising sight to see these threesufferers who had hobbled to the clinic on sticks now covering theground at a full five miles an hour, and laughing heartily atthemselves as they ran. The crowd of patients who had collected brokeinto a spontaneous cheer, and Coué, slipping modestly away, returned tothe fresh company of sufferers who awaited him within. 

[1] The translation given here of Coué's formula differs slightly fromthat popularised in England during his visit of November, 1921. Theabove, however, is the English version which he considers most suitable. 

CHAPTER II

A FEW OF COUÉ'S CURES

To give the reader a better idea of the results which InducedAutosuggestion is yielding, I shall here describe a few further casesof which I was myself in some part a witness, and thereafter let someof Coué's patients speak for themselves through the medium of theirletters. 

At one of the morning consultations which I subsequently attended was awoman who had suffered for five years with dyspepsia. The trouble hadrecently become so acute that even the milk diet to which she was nowreduced caused her extreme discomfort. Consequently she had becomeextremely thin and anaemic, was listless, easily tired, and sufferedfrom depression. Early in the proceedings the accounts given byseveral patients of the relief they had obtained seemed to appeal toher imagination. She followed Coué's remarks with keen interest, answered his questions vivaciously, and laughed very heartily at theamusing incidents with which the proceedings were interspersed. Aboutfive o'clock on the same afternoon I happened to be sitting with Couéwhen this woman asked to see him. Beaming with satisfaction, she wasshown into the room. She reported that on leaving the clinic she hadgone to a restaurant in the town and ordered a table d'hôte luncheon. Conscientiously she had partaken of every course from the horsd'oeuvres to the café noir. The meal had been concluded at 1. 30, andshe had so far experienced no trace of discomfort. A few days laterthis woman returned to the clinic to report that the dyspepsia hadshown no signs of reappearing; that her health and spirits wereimproving, and that she looked upon herself as cured. 

On another occasion one of the patients complained of asthma. Theparoxysms destroyed his sleep at night and prevented him fromperforming any task which entailed exertion. Walking upstairs was aslow process attended by considerable distress. The experiment withthe hands was so successfully performed that Coué assured him ofimmediate relief. 

"Before you go, " he said, "you will run up and down those stairswithout suffering any inconvenience. "

At the close of the consultation, under the influence of the suggestion"I can, " the patient did this without difficulty. That night thetrouble recurred in a mild form, but he continued to attend the clinicand to practise the exercises at home, and within a fortnight theasthma had finally left him. 

Among other patients with whom I conversed was a young man sufferingfrom curvature of the spine. He had been attending the clinic for fourmonths and practising the method at home. His doctor assured him thatthe spine was gradually resuming its normal position. A girl oftwenty-two had suffered from childhood with epileptic fits, recurringat intervals of a few weeks. Since her first visit to the clinic sixmonths previously the fits had ceased. 

But the soundest testimony to the power of Induced Autosuggestion isthat borne by the patients themselves. Here are a few extracts fromletters received by Coué:

"At the age of sixty-three, attacked for more than thirty years byasthma and all the complications attendant upon it, I spentthree-quarters of the night sitting on my bed inhaling the smoke ofanti-asthma powders. Afflicted with almost daily attacks, especiallyduring the cold and damp seasons, I was unable to walk--I could noteven _go down hill_. 

Nowadays I have splendid nights, and have put the powders in a drawer. Without the slightest hesitation I can go upstairs to the first floor. "

 D. (Mont de Marsan. ) 15 _December_, 1921. 

"Yesterday I felt really better, that is to say, of my fever, so Idecided to go back to my doctor, whom I had not seen since the summer. The examination showed a normal appendix. On the other hand, thebladder is still painful, but is better. At any rate, there is atpresent no question of the operation which had worried me so much. Iam convinced that I shall cure myself completely. "

 M. D. (Mulhouse. ) 24 _September_, 1921. 

"I have very good news to give you of your dipsomaniac--she is cured, and asserts it herself to all who will listen. She told me yesterdaythat for fourteen years she had not been so long without drink as shehas been lately, and what surprises her so much is that she has not hadto struggle against a desire; she has simply not felt the need ofdrink. Further, her sleep continues to be splendid. She is gettingmore and more calm, in spite of the fact that on several occasions hersang-froid has been severely tested. To put the matter in a nutshell, she is a changed woman. But what impresses me most is the fact thatwhen she took to your method she thought herself at the end of hertether, and in the event of its doing her no good had decided to killherself (she had already attempted it once). "

 P. (a Paris doctor. ) 1 _February_, 1922. 

"For eight years I suffered with prolapse of the uterus. I have usedyour method of Autosuggestion for the last five months, and am nowcompletely cured, for which I do not know how to thank you enough. "

 S. (Toul). [1]

"I have a son who came back from Germany very anaemic and sufferingfrom terrible depression. He went to see you for a short time, and nowis as well as possible. Please accept my best thanks. I have also alittle cousin whom you have cured. He had a nervous illness, and hadbecome, so to speak, unconscious of what was going on around him. Heis now completely cured. "

 S. E. (Circourt, Vosges. ) 19 _October_, 1921. 

"My wife and I have waited nearly a year to thank you for themarvellous cure which your method has accomplished. The very violentattacks of asthma from which my wife suffered have completelydisappeared since the visit you paid us last spring. The first fewweeks my wife experienced temporary oppression and even the beginningsof an attack, which, however, she was able to ward off within a fewminutes by practising Autosuggestion. 

In spite of her great desire to thank you sooner my wife wished to addmore weight to her testimony by waiting for nearly a year. But the badtime for asthma has not brought the slightest hint of the terribleattacks from which you saved her. "

 J. H. (Saarbruck. ) 23 _December_, 1921. 

"All the morbid symptoms from which I used to suffer have disappeared. I used to feel as though I had a band of iron across my brain whichseemed to be red-hot; added to this I had heartburn and bad nights withfearful dreams; further, I was subject to severe nervous attacks whichwent on for months. I felt as though pegs were being driven into thesides of my head and nape of my neck, and when I felt I could notendure these agonies any longer a feeling would come as if my brainwere being smothered in a blanket. All these pains came and went. Ihad sometimes one, sometimes others. There were occasions when Iwanted to die--my sufferings were so acute, and I had to struggleagainst the idea with great firmness. 

At last, having spent five weeks at Nancy attending your kindlysittings, I have profited so well as to be able to return home in astate of normal health. "

 N. (Pithiviviers le Vieil. ) 16 _August_, 1921. 

"After having undergone four operations on the left leg for localtuberculosis I fell a victim once more to the same trouble on 1September, 1920. Several doctors whom I consulted declared a newoperation necessary. My leg was to be opened from the knee to theankle, and if the operation failed nothing remained but an amputation. 

Having heard of your cures, I came to see you for the first time on 6November, 1920. After the sitting I felt at once a little better. Ifollowed your instructions exactly, visiting you three times. At thethird time I was able to tell you that I was completely cured. "

 L. (Herny, Lorraine. )

"I am happy to tell you that a bunion that I had on my foot, which grewto a considerable size and gave me the most acute pain for over fifteenyears, has gone. "

 L. G. (Caudéran, Gironde. )

"I cannot leave France without letting you know how grateful I feel forthe immense service you have rendered me and mine. I only wish I hadmet you years ago. Practically throughout my career my curse has beena lack of continuous self-control. 

I have been accused of being almost brilliant at times, only to befollowed by periodic relapses into a condition of semi-imbecility andself-indulgence. 

I have done my best to ruin a magnificent constitution, and have wastedthe abilities bestowed upon me. In a few short days you have mademe--and I feel permanently--master of myself. How can I thank yousufficiently?

The rapidity of my complete cure may have been due to what at the timeI regarded as an unfortunate accident. Slipping on the snow-coveredsteps of the train when alighting, I sprained my right knee badly. Atthe breakfast table, before paying you my first visit, a fellow-guestsaid to me: 'Tell Monsieur Coué about it. He will put it all right. '

I laughed and said 'Umph!' to myself, and more for the fun of the thingthan anything else did tell you. I remember you remarking 'That'snothing, ' and passing on to the more serious part of our conversation, preliminary to commencing your lecture to the assembled patients. 

I became more than interested, and when at the conclusion you suddenlyturned round and asked me: 'How's your knee?' (not having alluded toknees in particular), and I discovered there _wasn't_ a knee, I laughedagain, as did those who saw me hobble into your room; but I laughedthis time from a sense of bewildered surprise and dawning belief. Thisbelief you very soon firmly implanted in me. "

 G. H. (London. ) 11 _January_, 1922. 

[1] This letter, together with the two quoted on page 34, is reprintedfrom the _Bulletin de la Société Lorraine de Psychologie Appliquée_ ofApril, 1921. They were received by Coué during the preceding threemonths. The other letters were communicated to me privately by Couéand bear their original dates. 

CHAPTER III

THE CHILDREN'S CLINIC

In different parts of France a little band of workers, recruited almostexclusively from the ranks of former patients, is propagating the ideasof Emile Coué with a success which almost rivals that of their master. Among these helpers none is more devoted or more eminently successfulthan Mlle. Kauffmant. She it is who, at the time of my visit, wasmanaging the children's department of the Nancy clinic. [1]

While Coué was holding his consultations on the ground floor, youngmothers in twos and threes, with their babies in their arms, could beseen ascending to the upper story, where a little drama was performedof a very different nature from that going on below. 

In a large room, decorated with bright pictures and equipped with toys, a number of silent young women were seated in a wide circle. Theirsick children lay in their arms or played at their feet. Here was achild whose life was choked at the source by hereditary disease--asmall bundle of skin and bone with limbs like bamboo canes. Anotherlay motionless with closed eyes and a deathly face, as if pining toreturn to the world it came from. A little cripple dragged behind it adeformed leg as it tried to crawl, and near by a child of five wasbeating the air with its thin arms in an exhausting nervous storm. Older children were also present, suffering from eye and ear trouble, epilepsy, rickets, any one of the ailments, grave or slight, to whichgrowing life is subjected. 

In the centre of this circle sat a young woman with dark hair and akindly keen face. On her lap was a little boy of four years with aclub foot. As she gently caressed the foot, from which the clumsy boothad been removed, she told in a crooning tone, mingled with endearingphrases, of the rapid improvement which had already begun and wouldsoon be complete. The foot was getting better; the joints were moresupple and bent with greater ease; the muscles were developing, thetendons were drawing the foot into the right shape and making itstraight and strong. Soon it would be perfectly normal; the little onewould walk and run, play with other children, skip and bowl hoops. Hewould go to school and learn his lessons, would be intelligent andreceptive. She told him too that he was growing obedient, cheerful, kind to others, truthful and courageous. The little boy had put onearm round her neck and was listening with a placid smile. His face wasquite contented; he was enjoying himself. 

While Mlle. Kauffmant was thus engaged, the women sat silent watchingher intently, each perhaps mentally seeing her own little one endowedwith the qualities depicted. The children were quiet, some dreamilylistening, some tranquilly playing with a toy. Except for anoccasional word of advice Mademoiselle was quite indifferent to them. Her whole attention was given to the child on her knee; her thoughtwent out to him in a continual stream, borne along by a current of loveand compassion, for she has devoted her life to the children and lovesthem as if they were her own. The atmosphere of the room was more likethat of a church than a hospital. The mothers seemed to have lefttheir sorrows outside. Their faces showed in varying degrees anexpression of quiet confidence. 

When this treatment had continued for about ten minutes, Mlle. Kauffmant returned the child to its mother and, after giving her a fewwords of advice, turned to her next patient. This was an infant ofless than twelve months. While suffering from no specific disease itwas continually ailing. It was below normal weight, various foods hadbeen tried unsuccessfully, and medical advice had failed to bring aboutan improvement. Mademoiselle resumed her seat with the child on herlap. For some time the caresses, which were applied to the child'shead and body, continued in silence. Then she began to talk to it. Her talk did not consist of connected sentences, as with the elderchild who had learned to speak, but of murmured assurances, as if herthoughts were taking unconsciously the form of words. Thesesuggestions were more general than in the previous case, bearing onappetite, digestion, assimilation, and on desirable mental and moralqualities. The caress continued for about ten minutes, the speech wasintermittent, then the infant was returned to its mother andMademoiselle turned her attention to another little sufferer. 

With patients who are not yet old enough to speak Mlle. Kauffmantsometimes trusts to the caress alone. It seems to transmit thethoughts of health quite strongly enough to turn the balance in thechild's mind on the side of health. But all mothers talk to theirchildren long before the words they use are understood, and Mlle. Kauffmant, whose attitude is essentially maternal, reserves to herselfthe same right. She adheres to no rigid rule; if she wishes to speakaloud she does so, even when the child cannot grasp the meaning of herwords. 

This is perhaps the secret of her success: her method is plastic likethe minds she works on. Coué's material--the adult mind--is morestable. It demands a clear-cut, distinct method, and leaves less roomfor adaptation; but the aim of Mlle. Kauffmant is to fill the childwithin and enwrap it without with the creative thoughts of health andjoy. To this end she enlists any and every means within her power. The child itself, as soon as it is old enough to speak, is required tosay, morning and night, the general formula: "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better. " If it is confined to its bed, it isencouraged to repeat this at any time and to make suggestions of healthsimilar to those formulated in the sittings. No special directions aregiven as to how this should be done. Elaborate instructions would onlyintroduce hindersome complications. Imagination, the power to pretend, is naturally strong and active in all children, and intuitively theymake use of it in their autosuggestions. Moreover, they unconsciouslyimitate the tone and manner of their instructress. 

But the centre of the child's universe is the mother. Any system whichdid not utilise her influence would be losing its most powerful ally. The mother is encouraged during the day to set an example ofcheerfulness and confidence, to allude to the malady only in terms ofencouragement--so renewing in the child's mind the prospect ofrecovery--and to exclude as far as possible all depressing influencesfrom its vicinity. At night she is required to enter the child'sbedchamber without waking the little one and to whisper goodsuggestions into its sleeping ear. Thus Mlle. Kauffmant concentrates amultiplicity of means to bring about the same result. In this she isaided by the extreme acceptivity of the child's mind, and by theabsence of that mass of pernicious spontaneous suggestions which in theadult mind have to be neutralised and transformed. It is in children, then, that the most encouraging results may be expected. I will quotethree cases which I myself investigated to show the kind of resultsMlle. Kauffmant obtains:

A little girl was born without the power of sight. The visual organswere intact, but she was incapable of lifting her eye-lids and soremained blind to all intents and purposes up to her seventh year. Shewas then brought by the mother to Mlle. Kauffmant. After a fortnight'streatment the child began to blink; gradually this action became morefrequent, and a month after the treatment began she could see wellenough to find her way unaided about the streets. When I saw her shehad learnt to distinguish colours--as my own experiments proved--andwas actually playing ball. The details supplied by Mlle. Kauffmantwere confirmed by the mother. 

A child was born whose tuberculous father had died during the mother'spregnancy. Of five brothers and sisters none had survived the firstyear. The doctors to whom the child was taken held out no hope for itslife. It survived, however, to the age of two, but was crippled andnearly blind, in addition to internal weaknesses. It was then broughtto Mlle. Kauffmant. Three months later, when I saw it, nothingremained of its troubles but a slight squint and a stiffness in one ofits knee-joints. These conditions, too, were rapidly diminishing. 

Another child, about nine years of age, also of tuberculous parents, was placed under her treatment. One leg was an inch and a half shorterthan the other. After a few months' treatment this disparity hadalmost disappeared. The same child had a wound, also of tuberculousorigin, on the small of the back, which healed over in a few weeks andhad completely disappeared when I saw her. 

In each of the above cases the general state of health showed a greatimprovement. The child put on weight, was cheerful and bright evenunder the trying conditions of convalescence in a poverty-strickenhome, and in character and disposition fully realised the suggestionsformulated to it. 

Since the suggestions of Mlle. Kauffmant are applied individually, themothers were permitted to enter and leave the clinic at any time theywished. Mademoiselle was present on certain days every week, but thiswas not the sum of her labours. The greater part of her spare time wasspent in visiting the little ones in their own homes. She penetratedinto the dingiest tenements, the poorest slums, on this errand ofmercy. I was able to accompany her on several of these visits, and sawher everywhere received not only with welcome, but with a respect akinto awe. She was regarded, almost as much as Coué himself, as a workerof miracles. But the reputation of both Coué and Mlle. Kauffmant restson a broader basis even than autosuggestion, namely on their greatgoodness of heart. 

They have placed not only their private means, but their whole life atthe service of others. Neither ever accepts a penny-piece for thetreatments they give, and I have never seen Coué refuse to give atreatment at however awkward an hour the subject may have asked it. The fame of the school has now spread to all parts not only of France, but of Europe and America. Coué's work has assumed such proportionsthat his time is taken up often to the extent of fifteen or sixteenhours a day. He is now nearing his seventieth year, but thanks to thehealth-giving powers of his own method he is able to keep abreast ofhis work without any sign of fatigue and without the clouding of hishabitual cheerfulness by even the shadow of a complaint. In fact, heis a living monument to the efficacy of Induced Autosuggestion. 

It will be seen that Induced Autosuggestion is a method by which themind can act directly upon itself and upon the body to produce whateverimprovements, in reason, we desire. That it is efficient andsuccessful should be manifest from what has gone before. Of all thequestions which arise, the most urgent from the viewpoint of theaverage man seems to be this--Is a suggester necessary? Must onesubmit oneself to the influence of some other person, or can one in theprivacy of one's own chamber exercise with equal success this potentinstrument of health?

Coué's own opinion has already been quoted. Induced Autosuggestion is_not_ dependent upon the mediation of another person. We can practiseit for ourselves without others being even aware of what we are doing, and without devoting to it more than a few minutes of each day. 

Here are a few quotations from letters written by those who have thuspractised it for themselves. 

"For a good many years now a rheumatic right shoulder has made itimpossible for me to sleep on my right side and it seriously affected, and increasingly so, the use of my right arm. A masseuse told me shecould effect no permanent improvement as there was granulation of thejoints and a lesion. I suddenly realised two days ago that thisshoulder no longer troubled me and that I was sleeping on that sidewithout any pain. I have now lost any sensation of rheumatism in thisshoulder and can get my right arm back as far as the other without theslightest twinge or discomfort. I have not applied any remedy or doneanything that could possibly have worked these results except mypractise of Coué. "

 L. S. (Sidmouth, Devon). 1 _January_, 1922. 

"At my suggestion a lady friend of mine who had been ill for a good tenyears read _La Maîtrise de soi-meme_. I encouraged her as well as Icould, and in a month she was transformed. Her husband, returning froma long journey, could not believe his eyes. This woman who never gotup till midday, who never left the fire-side, whom the doctors hadgiven up, now goes out at 10 a. M. Even in the greatest cold. Otherfriends are anxiously waiting to read your pamphlet. 

 L. C. (Paris). 17 _December_, 1921. 

"I am very much interested in your method, and since your lecture Ihave, every night and morning, repeated your little phrase. I used tohave to take a pill every night, but now my constipation is cured andthe pills are no longer necessary. My wife is also much better inevery way. We've both got the bit of string with twenty knots. "

 H. (a London doctor). 7 _January_, 1922. 

"Your method is doing me more good every day. I don't know how tothank you for the happiness I now experience. I shall never give uprepeating the little phrase. "

 E. B. Guiévain (Belgium). 23 _November_, 1921. 

"I have followed your principles for several months and freed myselffrom a terrible state of neurasthenia which was the despair of my threedoctors. "

 G. (Angoulême). 23 _January_, 1922. 

"My friend Miss C. Completely cured herself of a rheumatic shoulder andknee in a very short time, and then proceeded to turn her attention toher eyesight. 

She had worn spectacles for 30 years and her left eye was much moreshort-sighted than her right. When she began she could only read(without her glasses and with her left eye) when the book was almosttouching her face. In six weeks she had extended the limit of visionso that she saw as far with the left as formerly with the right. Meanwhile the right had improved equally. She measured the distancesevery week, and when she was here a few days ago she told me she had inthree days gained 4 centimetres with her left and 6 centimetres withher right eye. She had done this on her own. "

 G. (London). 5 _January_, 1922. 

[1] Since this time (July, 1921), the clinic has been in some respectsreorganized and Mlle. Kauffmant is now pursuing her work independently. 

II

THE NATURE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

CHAPTER IV

THOUGHT IS A FORCE

Autosuggestion is not a pseudo-religion like Christian Science or "NewThought. " It is a scientific method based on the discoveries ofpsychology. The traditional psychology was regarded by the layman, notwithout some cause, as a dull and seemingly useless classification ofour conscious faculties. But within the past twenty-five years thescience has undergone a great change. A revolution has taken place init which seems likely to provoke a revolution equally profound in thewider limits of our common life. From a preoccupation with theconscious it has turned to the Unconscious (or subconscious), to thevast area of mental activity which exists outside the circle of ourawareness. In doing so it has grasped at the very roots of lifeitself, has groped down to the depths where the "life-force, " the élanvital, touches our individual being. What this may entail in thefuture we can only dimly guess. Just as the discovery of Americaaltered the balance of the Old World, shifting it westward to theshores of the Atlantic, so the discovery and investigation of theUnconscious seems destined to shift the balance of human life. 

Obviously, this is no place to embark on the discussion of a subject ofsuch extreme complexity. The investigation of the Unconscious is ascience in itself, in which different schools of thought are seeking todisengage a basis of fact from conflicting and daily changing theories. But there is a certain body of fact, experimentally proven, on whichthe authorities agree, and of this we quote a few features whichdirectly interest us as students of autosuggestion. 

The Unconscious is the storehouse of memory, where every impression wereceive from earliest infancy to the last hour of life is recorded withthe minutest accuracy. These memories, however, are not inert andquiescent, like the marks on the vulcanite records of a gramophone;they are vitally active, each one forming a thread in the texture ofour personality. The sum of all these impressions is the man himself, the ego, the form through which the general life is individualised. The outer man is but a mask; the real self dwells behind the veil ofthe Unconscious. 

The Unconscious is also a power-house. It is dominated by feeling, andfeeling is the force which impels our lives. It provides the energyfor conscious thought and action, and for the performance of the vitalprocesses of the body. 

Finally the Unconscious plays the part of supervisor over our physicalprocesses. Digestion, assimilation, the circulation of the blood, theaction of the lungs, the kidneys and all the vital organs arecontrolled by its agency. Our organism is not a clockwork machinewhich once wound up will run of itself. Its processes in all theircomplexity are supervised by mind. It is not the intellect, however, which does this work, but the Unconscious. The intellect still standsaghast before the problem of the human body, lost like Pascal in theprofundities of analysis, each discovery only revealing new depths ofmystery. But the Unconscious seems to be familiar with it in everydetail. 

It may be added that the Unconscious never sleeps; during the sleep ofthe conscious it seems to be more vigilant than during our waking hours. 

In comparison with these, the powers of the conscious mind seem almostinsignificant. Derived from the Unconscious during the process ofevolution, the conscious is, as it were, the antechamber where thecrude energies of the Unconscious are selected and adapted for actionon the world outside us. In the past we have unduly exaggerated theimportance of the conscious intellect. To claim for it the discoveriesof civilisation is to confuse the instrument with the agent, toattribute sight to the field-glass instead of to the eye behind it. The value of the conscious mind must not be underrated, however. It isa machine of the greatest value, the seat of reason, the socialinstincts and moral concepts. But it _is_ a machine and not theengine, nor yet the engineer. It provides neither material nor power. These are furnished by the Unconscious. 

These two strata of mental life are in perpetual interaction one withthe other. Just as everything conscious has its preliminary step inthe Unconscious, so every conscious thought passes down into the lowerstratum and there becomes an element in our being, partaking of theUnconscious energy, and playing its part in supervising and determiningour mental and bodily states. If it is a healthful thought we are somuch the better; if it is a diseased one we are so much the worse. Itis this transformation of a thought into an element of our life that wecall Autosuggestion. Since this is a normal part of the mind's actionwe shall have no difficulty in finding evidence of it in our dailyexperiences. 

Walking down the street in a gloomy frame of mind you meet a buoyant, cheery acquaintance. The mere sight of his genial smile acts on youlike a tonic, and when you have chatted with him for a few minutes yourgloom has disappeared, giving place to cheerfulness and confidence. What has effected this change?--Nothing other than the idea in your ownmind. As you watched his face, listened to his good-natured voice, noticed the play of his smile, your conscious mind was occupied by theidea of cheerfulness. This idea on being transferred to theUnconscious became a reality, so that without any logical grounds youbecame cheerful. 

Few people, especially young people, are unacquainted with the effectsproduced by hearing or reading ghost-stories. You have spent theevening, let us say, at a friend's house, listening to terrifying talesof apparitions. At a late hour you leave the fireside circle to makeyour way home. The states of fear imaged before your mind haverealised themselves in your Unconscious. You tread gingerly in thedark places, hurry past the churchyard and feel a distinct relief whenthe lights of home come into view. It is the old road you have sooften traversed with perfect equanimity, but its cheerful associationsare overlooked and the commonest objects tinged with the colour of yoursubjective states. Autosuggestion cannot change a post into a spectre, but if you are very impressionable it will so distort your sensoryimpressions that common sounds seem charged with supernaturalsignificance and every-day objects take on terrifying shapes. 

In each of the above examples the idea of a mental state--cheerfulnessor fear--was presented to the mind. The idea on reaching theUnconscious became a reality; that is to say, you actually becamecheerful or frightened. 

The same process is much easier to recognise where the resultant is nota mental but a bodily state. 

One often meets people who take a delight in describing with a wealthof detail the disorders with which they or their friends are afflicted. A sensitive person is condemned by social usage to listen to aharrowing account of some grave malady. As detail succeeds detail thelistener feels a chilly discomfort stealing over him. He turns pale, breaks into a cold perspiration, and is aware of an unpleasantsensation at the pit of the stomach. Sometimes, generally where thelistener is a child, actual vomiting or a fainting fit may ensue. These effects are undeniably physical; to produce them the organicprocesses must have been sensibly disturbed. Yet their cause liesentirely in the idea of illness, which, ruthlessly impressed upon themind, realises itself in the Unconscious. 

This effect may be so precise as to reproduce the actual symptoms ofthe disease described. Medical students engaged in the study of someparticular malady frequently develop its characteristic symptoms. 

Everyone is acquainted with the experience known as "stage fright. "The victim may be a normal person, healthy both in mind and body. Hemay possess in private life a good voice, a mind fertile in ideas and agift of fluent expression. He may know quite surely that his audienceis friendly and sympathetic to the ideas he wishes to unfold. But lethim mount the steps of a platform. Immediately his knees begin totremble and his heart to palpitate; his mind becomes a blank or achaos, his tongue and lips refuse to frame coherent sounds, and after afew stammerings he is forced to make a ludicrous withdrawal. The causeof this baffling experience lay in the thoughts which occupied thesubject's mind before his public appearance. He was afraid of makinghimself ridiculous. He expected to feel uncomfortable, feared that hewould forget his speech or be unable to express himself. Thesenegative ideas, penetrating to the Unconscious, realised themselves andprecisely what he feared took place. 

If you live in a town you have probably seen people who, in carelesslycrossing the street, find themselves in danger of being run down by avehicle. In this position they sometimes stand for an appreciable time"rooted, " as we say, "to the spot. " This is because the danger seemsso close that they imagine themselves powerless to elude it. As soonas this idea gives place to that of escape they get out of the way asfast as they can. If their first idea persisted, however, the actualpowerlessness resulting from it would likewise persist, and unless thevehicle stopped or turned aside they would infallibly be run over. 

One occasionally meets people suffering from a nervous complaint knownas St. Vitus' Dance. They have a disconcerting habit of contortingtheir faces, screwing round their necks or twitching their shoulders. It is a well known fact that those who come into close contact withthem, living in the same house or working in the same office, areliable to contract the same habit, often performing the action withoutthemselves being aware of it. This is due to the operation of the samelaw. The idea of the habit, being repeatedly presented to their minds, realises itself, and they begin to perform a similar movement in theirown persons. 

Examples of this law present themselves at every turn. Have you everasked yourself why some people faint at the sight of blood, or why mostof us turn giddy when we look down from a great height?

If we turn to the sufferers from neurosis we find some who have losttheir powers of speech or of vision; some, like the blacksmith we sawin Coué's clinic, who have lost the use of their limbs; otherssuffering from a functional disturbance of one of the vital organs. The cause in each case is nothing more tangible than an idea which hasbecome realised in the Unconscious mind. 

These instances show clearly enough that the thoughts we think doactually become realities in the Unconscious. But is this a universallaw, operating in every life, or merely something contingent andoccasional? Sometimes irrelevant cheerfulness seems only to makedespondency more deep. Certain types of individual are only irritatedby the performance of a stage comedy. Physicians listen to thecircumstantial accounts of their patients' ailments without being inthe least upset. These facts seem at first sight at variance with therule. But they are only apparent exceptions which serve to test andverify it. The physical or mental effect invariably corresponds withthe idea present in the mind, but this need not be identical with thethought communicated from without. Sometimes a judgment interposesitself, or it may be that the idea calls up an associated idea whichpossesses greater vitality and therefore dislodges it. A gloomy personwho meets a cheerful acquaintance may mentally contrast himself withthe latter, setting his own troubles beside the other's good fortune, his own grounds for sadness beside the other's grounds forsatisfaction. Thus the idea of his own unhappiness is strengthened andsinking into the Unconscious makes still deeper the despondency heexperienced before. In the same way the doctor, listening to thesymptoms of a patient, does not allow these distressful ideas to dwellin his conscious mind. His thought passes on immediately to theremedy, to the idea of the help he must give. Not only does hemanifest this helpfulness in reasoned action, but also, by Unconsciousrealisation, in his very bearing and manner. Or his mind may beconcentrated on the scientific bearings of the case, so that he willinvoluntarily treat the patient as a specimen on which to pursue hisresearches. The steeplejack experiences no giddiness or fear inscaling a church spire because the thought of danger is immediatelyreplaced by the knowledge of his own clear head and sure foot. 

This brings us to a point which is of great practical importance in theperformance of curative autosuggestion. No idea presented to the mindcan realise itself unless the mind accepts it. 

Most of the errors made hitherto in this field have been due to theneglect of this fundamental fact. If a patient is suffering fromsevere toothache it is not of the slightest use to say to him: "Youhave no pain. " The statement is so grossly opposed to the fact that"acceptation" is impossible. The patient will reject the suggestion, affirm the fact of his suffering, and so, by allowing his consciousmind to dwell on it, probably make it more intense. 

We are now in a position to formulate the basic law of autosuggestionas follows:--

_Every idea which enters the conscious mind, if it is accepted by theUnconscious, is transformed by it into a reality and forms henceforth apermanent element in our life_. 

This is the process called "Spontaneous Autosuggestion. " It is a lawby which the mind of man has always worked, and by which all our mindsare working daily. 

The reader will see from the examples cited and from others which hewill constantly meet that the thoughts we think determine not only ourmental states, our sentiments and emotions, but the delicate actionsand adjustments of our physical bodies. Trembling, palpitation, stammering, blushing--not to speak of the pathological states whichoccur in neurosis--are due to modifications and changes in theblood-flow, in muscular action and in the working of the vital organs. These changes are not voluntary and conscious ones, they are determinedby the Unconscious and come to us often with a shock of surprise. 

It must be evident that if we fill our conscious minds with ideas ofhealth, joy, goodness, efficiency, and can ensure their acceptation bythe Unconscious, these ideas too will become realities, capable oflifting us on to a new plane of being. The difficulty which hashitherto so frequently brought these hopes to naught is that ofensuring acceptation. This will be treated in the next chapter. 

To sum up, the whole process of Autosuggestion consists of two steps:(1) The acceptation of an idea. (2) Its transformation into a reality. Both these operations are performed by the Unconscious. Whether theidea is originated in the mind of the subject or is presented fromwithout by the agency of another person is a matter of indifference. In both cases it undergoes the same process: it is submitted to theUnconscious, accepted or rejected, and so either realised or ignored. Thus the distinction between Autosuggestion and Heterosuggestion isseen to be both arbitrary and superficial. In essentials allsuggestion is Autosuggestion. The only distinction we need make isbetween Spontaneous Autosuggestion, which takes place independently ofour will and choice, and Induced Autosuggestion, in which weconsciously select the ideas we wish to realise and purposely conveythem to the Unconscious. 

CHAPTER V

THOUGHT AND THE WILL

If we can get the Unconscious to accept an idea, realisation followsautomatically. The only difficulty which confronts us in the practiceof Induced Autosuggestion is to ensure acceptation, and that is adifficulty which no method prior to that of Emile Coué hassatisfactorily surmounted. 

Every idea which enters the mind is charged, to a greater or lessextent, with emotion. This emotional charge may be imperceptible, aswith ideas to which we are indifferent, or it may be very great, aswhen the idea is closely related to our personal interests. All theideas we are likely to make the subjects of Induced Autosuggestion areof the latter class, since they refer to health, energy, success orsome goal equally dear to our hearts. The greater the degree ofemotion accompanying an idea, the more potent is the autosuggestionresulting from it. Thus a moment of violent fright may give rise toeffects which last a lifetime. This emotional factor also plays alarge part in securing acceptation. 

So far as one can see, the acceptation or rejection of an idea by theUnconscious depends on the associations with which it is connected. Thus, an idea is accepted when it evokes similar ideas charged withemotion of the same quality. It is rejected when it is associated withcontrary ideas, which are, therefore, contrary in their emotionalcharge. In the latter case, the original idea is neutralised by itsassociations, somewhat in the same way as an acid is neutralised by analkali. An example will serve to make this clearer. 

You are on a cross-channel boat on a roughish passage. You go up to asailor and say to him in a sympathetic tone: "My dear fellow, you'relooking very ill. Aren't you going to be sea-sick?" According to histemperament he either laughs at your "joke" or expresses a pardonableirritation. But he does not become sick because the associationscalled up are contrary ones. Sea-sickness is associated in his mindwith his own immunity from it, and therefore evokes not fear butself-confidence. Pursuing your somewhat inhumane experiment youapproach a timid-looking passenger. "My dear sir, how ill you look! Ifeel sure you are going to be sea-sick. Let me help you down below. "He turns pale. The word "sea-sickness" associates itself with his ownfears and forebodings. He accepts your aid down to his berth and therethe pernicious autosuggestion is realised. In the first case the ideawas refused, because it was overwhelmed by a contrary association; inthe second the Unconscious accepted it, since it was reinforced bysimilar ideas from within. 

But supposing to a sick mind, permeated with thoughts of disease, athought of health is presented. How can we avoid the malassociationwhich tends to neutralise it?

We can think of the Unconscious as a tide which ebbs and flows. Insleep it seems to submerge the conscious altogether, while at ourmoments of full wakefulness, when the attention and will are both atwork, the tide is at its lowest ebb. Between these two extremes areany number of intermediary levels. When we are drowsy, dreamy, lulledinto a gentle reverie by music or by a picture or a poem, theUnconscious tide is high; the more wakeful and alert we become thelower it sinks. This submersion of the conscious mind is called byBaudouin the "Outcropping of the Subconscious. " The highest degree ofoutcropping, compatible with the conscious direction of our thoughts, occurs just before we fall asleep and just after we wake. 

It is fairly obvious that the greater the outcropping the moreaccessible these dynamic strata of the mind become, and the easier itis to implant there any idea we wish to realise. 

As the Unconscious tide rises the active levels of the mind areoverflowed; thought is released from its task of serving our consciousaims in the real world of matter, and moves among the more primalwishes and desires which people the Unconscious, like a diver walkingthe strange world beneath the sea. But the laws by which thought isgoverned on this sub-surface level are not those of our ordinary wakingconsciousness. During outcropping association by contraries does notseem readily to take place. Thus the mal-association, whichneutralised the desired idea and so prevented acceptation, no longerpresents itself. We all know what happens during a "day-dream" or"brown-study, " when the Unconscious tide is high. A succession ofbright images glides smoothly through the mind. The original thoughtspins itself on and on; no obstacles seem to stop it, no questions ofprobability arise; we are cut off from the actual conditions of lifeand live in a world where all things are possible. These day-dreamscause very potent autosuggestions, and one should take care that theyare wholesome and innocent; but the important point is that on thislevel of consciousness association seems to operate by similarity, andemotion is comparatively intense. These conditions are highlyfavourable to acceptation. 

If, on getting into bed at night, we assume a comfortable posture, relax our muscles and close our eyes, we fall naturally into a stage ofsemi-consciousness akin to that of day-dreaming. If now we introduceinto the mind any desired idea, it is freed from the inhibitingassociations of daily life, associates itself by similarity, andattracts emotion of the same quality as its own charge. TheUnconscious is thus caused to accept it, and inevitably it is turnedinto an autosuggestion. Every time we repeat this process theassociative power of the idea is increased, its emotional value growsgreater, and the autosuggestion resulting from it is more powerful. Bythis means we can induce the Unconscious to accept an idea, the normalassociations of which are contrary and unfavourable. The person with adisease-soaked mind can gradually implant ideas of health, filling hisUnconscious daily with healing thoughts. The instrument we use isThought, and the condition essential to success is that the consciousmind shall be lulled to rest. 

Systems which hitherto have tried to make use of autosuggestion havefailed to secure reliable results because they did not place theirreliance on Thought, but tried to compel the Unconscious to accept anidea by exercising the Will. Obviously, such attempts are doomed tofailure. By using the will we automatically wake ourselves up, suppress the encroaching tide of the Unconscious, and thereby destroythe condition by which alone we can succeed. 

It is worth our while to note more closely how this happens. Asufferer, whose mind is filled with thoughts of ill-health, sits downto compel himself to accept a good suggestion. He calls up a thoughtof health and makes an effort of the will to impress it on theUnconscious. This effort restores him to full wakefulness and soevokes the customary association--disease. Consequently, he findshimself contemplating the exact opposite of what he desired. Hesummons his will again and recalls the healthful thought, but since heis now wider awake than ever, association is even more rapid andpowerful than before. The disease-thought is now in full possession ofhis mind and all the efforts of his will fail to dislodge it. Indeedthe harder he struggles the more fully the evil thought possesses him. 

This gives us a glimpse of the new and startling discovery to whichCoué's uniform success is due; namely, that when the will is inconflict with an idea, the idea invariably gains the day. This istrue, of course, not only of Induced Autosuggestion, but also of thespontaneous suggestions which occur in daily life. A few examples willmake this clear. 

Most of us know how, when we have some difficult duty to perform, achance word of discouragement will dwell in the mind, eating away ourself-confidence and attuning our minds to failure. All the efforts ofour will fail to throw it off; indeed, the more we struggle against itthe more we become obsessed with it. 

Very similar to this is the state of mind of the person suffering fromstage-fright. He is obsessed with ideas of failure and all the effortsof his will are powerless to overcome them. Indeed, it is the state ofeffort and tension which makes his discomfiture so complete. 

Sport offers many examples of the working of this law. 

A tennis-player is engaged to play in an important match. He wishes, of course, to win, but fears that he will lose. Even before the day ofthe game his fears begin to realise themselves. He is nervy and "outof sorts. " In fact, the Unconscious is creating the conditions bestsuited to realise the thought in his mind--failure. When the gamebegins his skill seems to have deserted him. He summons the resourcesof his will and tries to compel himself to play well, straining everynerve to recapture the old dexterity. But all his efforts only makehim play worse and worse. The harder he tries the more signally hefails. The energy he calls up obeys not his will but the idea in hismind, not the desire to win but the dominant thought of failure. 

The fatal attraction of the bunker for the nervous golfer is due to thesame cause. With his mind's eye he sees his ball alighting in the mostunfavourable spot. He may use any club he likes, he may make a longdrive or a short; as long as the thought of the bunker dominates hismind, the ball will inevitably find its way into it. The more he callson his will to help him, the worse his plight is likely to be. Successis not gained by effort but by right thinking. The champion golfer ortennis-player is not a person of herculean frame and immensewill-power. His whole life has been dominated by the thought ofsuccess in the game at which he excels. 

Young persons sitting for an examination sometimes undergo this painfulexperience. On reading through their papers they find that all theirknowledge has suddenly deserted them. Their mind is an appalling blankand not one relevant thought can they recall. The more they grit theirteeth and summon the powers of the will, the further the desired ideasflee. But when they have left the examination-room and the tensionrelaxes, the ideas they were seeking flow tantalisingly back into themind. Their forgetfulness was due to thoughts of failure previouslynourished in the mind. The application of the will only made thedisaster more complete. 

This explains the baffling experience of the drug-taker, the drunkard, the victim of some vicious craving. His mind is obsessed by the desirefor satisfaction. The efforts of the will to restrain it only make itmore overmastering. Repeated failures convince him at length that heis powerless to control himself, and this idea, operating as anautosuggestion, increases his impotence. So in despair, he abandonshimself to his obsession, and his life ends in wreckage. 

We can now see, not only that the Will is incapable of vanquishing athought, but that as fast as the Will brings up its big guns, Thoughtcaptures them and turns them against it. 

This truth, which Baudouin calls the Law of Reversed Effort, is thusstated by Coué:

"_When the Imagination and the Will are in conflict the Imaginationinvariably gains the day. _"

"_In the conflict between the Will and the Imagination, the force ofthe Imagination is in direct ratio to the square of the Will. _"

The mathematical terms are used, of course, only metaphorically. 

Thus the Will turns out to be, not the commanding monarch of life, asmany people would have it, but a blind Samson, capable either ofturning the mill or of pulling down the pillars. 

Autosuggestion succeeds by avoiding conflict. It replaces wrongthought by right, literally applying in the sphere of science theprinciple enunciated in the New Testament: "Resist not evil, butovercome evil with good. "

This doctrine is in no sense a negation of the will. It simply puts itin its right place, subordinates it to a higher power. A moment'sreflection will suffice to show that the will cannot be more than theservant of thought. We are incapable of exercising the will unless theimagination has first furnished it with a goal. We cannot simply will, we must will _something_, and that something exists in our minds as anidea. The will acts rightly when it is in harmony with the idea in themind. 

But what happens when, in the smooth execution of our idea, we areconfronted with an obstacle? This obstacle may exist outside us, asdid the golfer's bunker, but it must also exist as an idea in our mindsor we should not be aware of it. 

As long as we allow this mental image to stay there, the efforts of ourwill to overcome it only make it more irresistible. We run our headsagainst it like a goat butting a brick wall. Indeed, in this way wecan magnify the smallest difficulty until it becomes insurmountable--wecan make mole-hills into mountains. This is precisely what theneurasthenic does. The idea of a difficulty dwells unchanged in hismind, and all his efforts to overcome it only increase its dimensions, until it overpowers him and he faints in the effort to cross a street. 

But as soon as we change the idea our troubles vanish. By means of theintellect we can substitute for the blank idea of the obstacle that ofthe means to overcome it. Immediately, the will is brought intoharmony again with thought, and we go forward to the triumphantattainment of our end. It may be that the means adopted consist of afrontal attack, the overcoming of an obstacle by force. But before webring this force into play, the mind must have approved it--must haveentertained the idea of its probable success. We must, in fact, havethought of the obstacle as already smashed down and flattened out byour attack. Otherwise, we should involve ourselves in the conflictdepicted above, and our force would be exhausted in a futile internalbattle. In a frontal attack against an obstacle we use effort, andeffort, to be effective, must be approved by the reason and preceded, to some extent, by the idea of success. 

Thus, even in our dealings with the outside world, Thought is alwaysmaster of the will. How much more so when our action is turned inward!When practising autosuggestion we are living in the mind, wherethoughts are the only realities. We can meet with no obstacle otherthan that of Thought itself. Obviously then, the frontal attack, theexertion of effort, can never be admissible, for it sets the will andthe thought at once in opposition. The turning of our thoughts fromthe mere recognition of an obstacle to the idea of the means toovercome it, is no longer a preliminary, as in the case of outwardaction. In itself it clears away the obstacle. By procuring the rightidea our end is already attained. 

In applying effort during the practice of Induced Autosuggestion, weuse in the world of mind an instrument fashioned for use in the worldof matter. It is as if we tried to solve a mathematical problem bymauling the book with a tin-opener. 

For two reasons then, effort must never be allowed to intrude duringthe practice of autosuggestion: first because it wakes us up and sosuppresses the tide of the Unconscious, secondly because it causesconflict between Thought and the will. 

One other interesting fact emerges from an examination of the foregoingexamples. In each case we find that the idea which occupied the mindwas of a final state, an accomplished fact. The golfer was thinking ofhis ball dropping into the bunker, the tennis-player of his defeat, theexaminee of his failure. In each case the Unconscious realised thethought in its own way, chose inevitably the means best suited toarrive at its end--the realisation of the idea. In the case of thegolfer the most delicate physical adjustments were necessary. Stance, grip and swing all contributed their quota, but these physicaladjustments were performed unconsciously, the conscious mind beingunaware of them. From this we see that we need not suggest the way inwhich our aim is to be accomplished. If we fill our minds with thethought of the desired end, provided that end is possible, theUnconscious will lead us to it by the easiest, most direct path. 

Here we catch a glimpse of the truth behind what is called "luck. " Weare told that everything comes to him who waits, and this is literallytrue, provided he waits in the right frame of mind. Some men arenotoriously lucky in business; whatever they touch seems to "turn togold. " The secret of their success lies in the fact that theyconfidently expect to succeed. There is no need to go so far as thewriters of the school of "New Thought, " and claim that suggestion canset in motion transcendental laws outside man's own nature. It isquite clear that the man who expects success, of whatever kind it maybe, will unconsciously take up the right attitude to his environment;will involuntarily close with fleeting opportunity, and by his innerfitness command the circumstances without. 

Man has often been likened to a ship navigating the seas of life. Ofthat ship the engine is the will and Thought is the helm. If we arebeing directed out of our true course it is worse than useless to callfor full steam ahead; our only hope lies in changing the direction ofthe helm. 

III

THE PRACTICE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

CHAPTER VI

GENERAL RULES

With our knowledge of the powerful effect which an idea produces, weshall see the importance of exercising a more careful censorship overthe thoughts which enter our minds. Thought is the legislative powerin our lives, just as the will is the executive. We should not thinkit wise to permit the inmates of prisons and asylums to occupy thelegislative posts in the state, yet when we harbour ideas of passionand disease, we allow the criminals and lunatics of thought to usurpthe governing power in the commonwealth of our being. 

In future, then, we shall seek ideas of health, success, and goodness;we shall treat warily all depressing subjects of conversation, thedaily list of crimes and disasters which fill the newspapers, and thosenovels, plays and films which harrow our feelings, without transmutingby the magic of art the sadness into beauty. 

This does not mean that we should be always self-consciously studyingourselves, ready to nip the pernicious idea in the bud; nor yet that weshould adopt the ostrich's policy of sticking our heads in the sand anddeclaring that disease and evil have no real existence. The one leadsto egotism and the other to callousness. Duty sometimes requires us togive our attention to things in themselves evil and depressing. Thedemands of friendship and human sympathy are imperious, and we cannotignore them without moral loss. But there is a positive and a negativeway of approaching such subjects. 

Sympathy is too often regarded as a passive process by which we allowourselves to be infected by the gloom, the weakness, the mentalill-health of other people. This is sympathy perverted. If a friendis suffering from small-pox or scarlet fever you do not seek to proveyour sympathy by infecting yourself with his disease. You wouldrecognize this to be a crime against the community. Yet many peoplesubmit themselves to infection by unhealthy ideas as if it were an actof charity--part of their duty towards their neighbours. In the sameway people deliver their minds to harrowing stories of famine andpestilence, as if the mental depression thus produced were of somevalue to the far-away victims. This is obviously false--the onlyresult is to cause gloom and ill-health in the reader and so make him aburden to his family. That such disasters should be known is beyondquestion, but we should react to them in the manner indicated in thelast chapter. We should replace the blank recognition of the evil bythe quest of the means best suited to overcome it; then we can lookforward to an inspiring end and place the powers of our will in theservice of its attainment. 

 Oh, human soul, as long as thou canst so, Set up a mark of everlasting light Above the heaving senses' ebb and flow ... Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night, Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. 

Autosuggestion, far from producing callousness, dictates the method andsupplies the means by which the truest sympathy can be practised. Inevery case our aim must be to remove the suffering as soon as possible, and this is facilitated by refusing acceptation to the bad ideas andmaintaining our own mental and moral balance. 

Whenever gloomy thoughts come to us, whether from without or within, weshould quietly transfer our attention to something brighter. Even ifwe are afflicted by some actual malady, we should keep our thought fromresting on it as far as we have the power to do so. An organic diseasemay be increased a hundredfold by allowing the mind to brood on it, forin so doing we place at its disposal all the resources of our organism, and direct our life-force to our own destruction. On the other hand, by denying it our attention and opposing it with curativeautosuggestions, we reduce its power to the minimum and should succeedin overcoming it entirely. Even in the most serious organic diseasesthe element contributed by wrong thought is infinitely greater thanthat which is purely physical. 

There are times when temperamental failings, or the gravity of ouraffliction, places our imagination beyond our ordinary control. Thesuggestion operates in spite of us; we do not seem to possess the powerto rid our minds of the adverse thought. Under these conditions weshould never struggle to throw off the obsessing idea by force. Ourexertions only bring into play the law of reversed effort, and weflounder deeper into the slough. Coué's technique, however, which willbe outlined in succeeding chapters, will give us the means of masteringourselves, even under the most trying conditions. 

Of all the destructive suggestions we must learn to shun, none is moredangerous than fear. In fearing something the mind is not onlydwelling on a negative idea, but it is establishing the closestpersonal connection between the idea and ourselves. Moreover, the ideais surrounded by an aura of emotion, which considerably intensifies itseffect. Fear combines every element necessary to give to anautosuggestion its maximum power. But happily fear, too, issusceptible to the controlling power of autosuggestion. It is one ofthe first things which a person cognisant of the means to be appliedshould seek to eradicate from his mind. 

For our own sakes, too, we should avoid dwelling on the faults andfrailties of our neighbours. If ideas of selfishness, greed, vanity, are continually before our minds there is great danger that we shallsubconsciously accept them, and so realise them in our own character. The petty gossip and backbiting, so common in a small town, produce thevery faults they seem to condemn. But by allowing our minds to restupon the virtues of our neighbours, we reproduce the same virtues inourselves. 

But if we should avoid negative ideas for our own sakes, much moreshould we do so for the sake of other people. Gloomy and despondentmen and women are centres of mental contagion, damaging all with whomthey come in contact. Sometimes such people seem involuntarily toexert themselves to quench the cheerfulness of brighter natures, as iftheir Unconscious strove to reduce all others to its own low level. But even healthy, well-intentioned people scatter evil suggestionsbroadcast, without the least suspicion of the harm they do. Every timewe remark to an acquaintance that he is looking ill, we actually damagehis health; the effect may be extremely slight, but by repetition itgrows powerful. A man who accepts in the course of a day fifteen ortwenty suggestions that he is ill, has gone a considerable part of theway towards actual illness. Similarly, when we thoughtlesslycommiserate with a friend on the difficulty of his daily work, orrepresent it as irksome and uncongenial, we make it a little harder forhim to accomplish, and thereby slightly diminish his chances of success. 

If we must supervise our speech in contact with adults, with childrenwe should exercise still greater foresight. The child's Unconscious isfar more accessible than that of the adult; the selective powerexercised by the conscious mind is much feebler, and consequently theimpressions received realise themselves with greater power. Theseimpressions are the material from which the child's growing life isconstructed, and if we supply faulty material the resultant structurewill be unstable. Yet the most attentive and well-meaning mothers areengaged daily in sowing the seeds of weakness in their children'sminds. The little ones are constantly told they will take cold, willbe sick, will fall down, or will suffer some other misfortune. Themore delicate the child's health, the more likely it is to be subjectedto adverse suggestions. It is too often saturated with the idea of badhealth, and comes to look on disease as the normal state of existenceand health as exceptional. The same is equally true of the child'smental and moral upbringing. How often do foolish parents tell theirchildren that they are naughty, disobedient, stupid, idle or vicious?If these suggestions were accepted, which, thank Heaven, is not alwaysthe case, the little ones would in very fact develop just thesequalities. But even when no word is spoken, a look or a gesture caninitiate an undesirable autosuggestion. The same child, visited by twostrangers, will immediately make friends with the one and avoid theother. Why is this?--Because the one carries with him a healthfulatmosphere, while the other sends out waves of irritability or gloom. 

"Men imagine, " says Emerson, "that they communicate their virtue orvice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue and vice emit abreath every moment. "

With children, above all, it is not sufficient to refrain from theexpression of negative ideas; we must avoid harbouring them altogether. Unless we possess a bright positive mind the suggestions derived fromus will be of little value. 

The idea is gaining ground that a great deal of what is calledhereditary disease is transmitted from parent to child, not physicallybut mentally--that is to say, by means of adverse suggestionscontinually renewed in the child's mind. Thus if one of the parentshas a tendency to tuberculosis, the child often lives in an atmosphereladen with tuberculous thoughts. The little one is continually advisedto take care of its lungs, to keep its chest warm, to beware of colds, etc. , etc. In other words, the idea is repeatedly presented to itsmind that it possesses second-rate lungs. The realisation of theseideas, the actual production of pulmonary tuberculosis is thus almostassured. 

But all this is no more than crystallised common-sense. Everyone knowsthat a cheerful mind suffuses health, while a gloomy one producesconditions favourable to disease. "A merry heart doeth good like amedicine, " says the writer of the Book of Proverbs, "but a brokenspirit drieth the bones. " But this knowledge, since it lacked ascientific basis, has never been systematically applied. We haveregarded our feelings far too much as _effects_ and not sufficiently as_causes_. We are happy because we are well; we do not recognise thatthe process will work equally well in the reverse direction--that weshall be well because we are happy. Happiness is not only the resultof our conditions of life; it is also the creator of those conditions. Autosuggestion lays weight upon this latter view. Happiness must comefirst. It is only when the mind is ordered, balanced, filled with thelight of sweet and joyous thought, that it can work with its maximumefficiency. When we are habitually happy our powers and capabilitiescome to their full blossom, and we are able to work with the utmosteffect on the shaping of what lies without. 

Happiness, you say, cannot be ordered like a chop in a restaurant. Like love, its very essence is freedom. This is true; but like love, it can be wooed and won. It is a condition which everyone experiencesat some time in life. It is native to the mind. By the systematicpractice of Induced Autosuggestion we can make it, not a fleetingvisitant, but a regular tenant of the mind, which storms and stressesfrom without cannot dislodge. This idea of the indwelling happiness, inwardly conditioned, is as ancient as thought. By autosuggestion wecan realise it in our own lives. 

CHAPTER VII

THE GENERAL FORMULA

We saw that an unskilled golfer, who imagines his ball is going toalight in a bunker, unconsciously performs just those physicalmovements needful to realise his idea in the actual. In realising thisidea his Unconscious displays ingenuity and skill none the lessadmirable because opposed to his desire. From this and other exampleswe concluded that if the mind dwells on the idea of an accomplishedfact, a realised state, the Unconscious will produce this state. Ifthis is true of our spontaneous autosuggestions it is equally true ofthe self-induced ones. 

It follows that if we consistently think of happiness we become happy;if we think of health we become healthy; if we think of goodness webecome good. Whatever thought we continually think, provided it isreasonable, tends to become an actual condition of our life. 

Traditionally we rely too much on the conscious mind. If a man suffersfrom headaches he searches out, with the help of his physician, theircause; discovers whether they come from his eyes, his digestion or hisnerves, and purchases the drugs best suited to repair the fault. If hewishes to improve a bad memory he practises one of the various methodsof memory-training. If he is the victim of a pernicious habit he isleft to counter it by efforts of the will, which too often exhaust hisstrength, undermine his self-respect, and only lead him deeper into themire. How simple in comparison is the method of InducedAutosuggestion! He need merely think the end--a head free from pain, agood memory, a mode of life in which his bad habit has no part, andthese states are gradually evolved without his being aware of theoperation performed by the Unconscious. 

But even so, if each individual difficulty required a freshtreatment--one for the headache, one for the memory, one for the badhabit and so on--then the time needful to practise autosuggestion wouldform a considerable part of our waking life. Happily the researches ofthe Nancy School have revealed a further simplification. This isobtained by the use of a general formula which sets before the mind theidea of a daily improvement in every respect, mental, physical andmoral. 

In the original French this formula runs as follows: "Tous les jours, àtous points de vue, je vais de mieux en mieux. " The English versionwhich Coué considers most satisfactory is this: "_Day by day, in everyway, I'm getting better and better_. " This is very easy to say, theyoungest child can understand it, and it possesses a rudimentaryrhythm, which exerts a lulling effect on the mind and so aids incalling up the Unconscious. But if you are accustomed to any otherversion, such as that recommended by the translators of Baudouin, itwould be better to continue to use it. Religious minds who wish toassociate the formula with God's care and protection might do so afterthis fashion: "Day by day, in every way, by the help of God, I'mgetting better and better. " It is possible that the attention of theUnconscious will thus be turned to moral and spiritual improvements toa greater extent than by the ordinary formula. 

But this general formula possesses definite advantages other than mereterseness and convenience. The Unconscious, in its character ofsurveyor over our mental and physical functions, knows far better thanthe conscious the precise failings and weaknesses which have thegreatest need of attention. The general formula supplies it with afund of healing, strengthening power, and leaves it to apply this atthe points where the need is most urgent. 

It is a matter of common experience that people's ideals of manhood andwomanhood vary considerably. The hardened materialist picturesperfection solely in terms of wealth, the butterfly-woman wants littlebut physical beauty, charm, and the qualities that attract. Thesensitive man is apt to depreciate the powers he possesses andexaggerate those he lacks; while his self-satisfied neighbour can seeno good in any virtues but his own. It is quite conceivable that aperson left free to determine the nature of his autosuggestions by thelight of his conscious desire might use this power to realise a qualitynot in itself admirable, or even one which, judged by higher standards, appeared pernicious. Even supposing that his choice was good he wouldbe in danger of over-developing a few characteristics to the detrimentof others and so destroying the balance of his personality. The use ofthe general formula guards against this. It saves a man in spite ofhimself. It avoids the pitfalls into which the conscious mind may leadus by appealing to a more competent authority. Just as we leave thedistribution of our bodily food to the choice of the Unconscious, so wemay safely leave that of our mental food, our Induced Autosuggestions. 

The fear that the universal use of this formula would have astandardising effect, modifying its users to a uniform pattern, isunfounded. A rigid system of particular suggestions might tend towardssuch a result, but the general formula leaves every mind free to unfoldand develop in the manner most natural to itself. The eternaldiversity of men's minds can only be increased by the free impulse thusadministered. 

We have previously seen that the Unconscious tide rises to its highestpoint compatible with conscious thought just before sleep and justafter awaking, and that the suggestions formulated then are almostassured acceptation. It is these moments that we select for therepetition of the formula. 

But before we pass on to the precise method, a word of warning isnecessary. Even the most superficial attempt to analyse intellectuallya living act is bound to make it appear complex and difficult. So ourconsideration of the processes of outcropping and acceptation hasinevitably invested them with a false appearance of difficulty. Autosuggestion is above all things easy. Its greatest enemy is effort. The more simple and unforced the manner of its performance the morepotently and profoundly it works. This is shown by the fact that itsmost remarkable results have been secured by children and by simpleFrench peasants. 

It is here that Coué's directions for the practice differ considerablyfrom those of Baudouin. Coué insists upon its easiness, Baudouincomplicates it. The four chapters devoted by the latter to"relaxation, " "collection, " "contention, " and "concentration, " producein the reader an adverse suggestion of no mean power. They leave theimpression that autosuggestion is a perplexing business which only thegreatest foresight and supervision can render successful. Nothingcould be more calculated to throw the beginner off the track. 

We have seen that Autosuggestion is a function of the mind which wespontaneously perform every day of our lives. The more our inducedautosuggestions approximate to this spontaneous prototype the morepotent they are likely to be. Baudouin warns us against the danger ofsetting the intellect to do the work of intuition, yet this isprecisely what he himself does. A patient trying by his rules toattain outcropping and implant therein an autosuggestion is sovigilantly attentive to what he is doing that outcropping is renderedalmost impossible. These artificial aids are, in Coué's opinion, notonly unnecessary but hindersome. Autosuggestion succeeds whenConscious and Unconscious co-operate in the acceptance of an idea. Coué's long practice has shown that we must leave the Unconscious, assenior partner in the concern, to bring about the right conditions inits own way. The fussy attempts of the intellect to dictate the methodof processes which lie outside its sphere will only produce conflict, and so condemn our attempt to failure. The directions given here areamply sufficient, if conscientiously applied, to secure the fullestbenefits of which the method is capable. 

Take a piece of string and tie in it twenty knots. By this means youcan count with a minimum expenditure of attention, as a devout Catholiccounts his prayers on a rosary. The number twenty has no intrinsicvirtue; it is merely adopted as a suitable round number. 

On getting into bed close your eyes, relax your muscles and take up acomfortable posture. These are no more than the ordinary preliminariesof slumber. Now repeat twenty times, counting by means of the knots, the general formula: "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better andbetter. "

The words should be uttered aloud; that is, loud enough to be audibleto your own ears. In this way the idea is reinforced by the movementsof lips and tongue and by the auditory impressions conveyed through theear. Say it simply, without effort, like a child absently murmuring anursery rhyme. Thus you avoid an appeal to the critical faculties ofthe conscious which would lessen the outcropping. When you have gotused to this exercise and can say it quite "unself-consciously, " beginto let your voice rise or fall--it does not matter which--on the phrase"in every way. " This is perhaps the most important part of theformula, and is thus given a gentle emphasis. But at first do notattempt this accentuation; it will only needlessly complicate and, byrequiring more conscious attention, may introduce effort. Do not tryto think of what you are saying. On the contrary, let the mind wanderwhither it will; if it rests on the formula all the better, if itstrays elsewhere do not recall it. As long as your repetition does notcome to a full-stop your mind-wandering will be less disturbing thanwould be the effort to recall your thoughts. 

Baudouin differs from Coué as to the manner in which the formula shouldbe repeated. His advice is to say it "piously, " with all the wordsseparately stressed. No doubt it has its value when thus spoken, butthe attitude of mind to which the word "pious" can be applied isunfortunately not habitual with everyone. The average man in trying tobe "pious" might end by being merely artificial. But the child stillexists in the most mature of men. The "infantile" mode of repeatingthe formula puts one in touch with deep levels of the Unconscious wherethe child-mind still survives. Coué's remarkable successes have beenobtained by this means, and Baudouin advances no cogent reason forchanging it. 

These instructions no doubt fall somewhat short of our ideal of athought entirely occupying the mind. But they are sufficient for abeginning. The sovereign rule is to make no effort, and if this isobserved you will intuitively fall into the right attitude. Thisprocess of Unconscious adaptation may be hastened by a simplesuggestion before beginning. Say to yourself, "I shall repeat theformula in such a manner as to secure its maximum effect. " This willbring about the required conditions much more effectively than anyconscious exercise of thought. 

On waking in the morning, before you rise, repeat the formula inexactly the same manner. 

Its regular repetition is the foundation stone of the Nancy method andshould never be neglected. In times of health it may be regarded as anenvoy going before to clear the path of whatever evils may lurk in thefuture. But we must look on it chiefly as an educator, as a means ofleavening the mass of adverse spontaneous suggestions which clog theUnconscious and rob our lives of their true significance. 

Say it with faith. When you have said it your conscious part of theprocess is completed. Leave the Unconscious to do its workundisturbed. Do not be anxious about it, continually scanning yourselffor signs of improvement. The farmer does not turn over the clodsevery morning to see if his seed is sprouting. Once sown it is lefttill the green blade appears. So it should be with suggestion. Sowthe seed, and be sure the Unconscious powers of the mind will bring itto fruition, and all the sooner if your conscious ego is content to letit rest. 

_Say it with faith_! You can only rob Induced Autosuggestion of itspower in one way--by believing that it is powerless. If you believethis it becomes ipso facto powerless for you. The greater your faiththe more radical and the more rapid will be your results; though if youhave only sufficient faith to repeat the formula twenty times night andmorning the results will soon give you in your own person the proof youdesire, and facts and faith will go on mutually augmenting each other. 

Faith reposes on reason and must have its grounds. What grounds can weadduce for faith in Induced Autosuggestion? The examples of curesalready cited are outside your experience and you may be tempted topooh-pooh them. The experiment of Chevreul's pendulum, however, willshow in a simple manner the power possessed by a thought to transformitself into an action. 

Take a piece of white paper and draw on it a circle of about fiveinches' radius. Draw two diameters _AB_ and _CD_ at right angles toeach other and intersecting at _O_. The more distinctly the linesstand out the better--they should be thickly drawn in black ink. Nowtake a lead pencil or a light ruler and tie to one end a piece ofcotton about eight inches long; to the lower end of the cotton fasten aheavy metal button, of the sort used on a soldier's tunic. Place thepaper on a table so that the diameter _AB_ seems to be horizontal and_CD_ to be vertical, thus:

[Illustration: Autosuggestion diagram]

Stand upright before the table with your miniature fishing-rod heldfirmly in both hands and the button suspended above the point _O_. Take care not to press the elbows nervously against the sides. 

Look at the line _AB_, think of it, follow it with your eyes from sideto side. Presently the button will begin to swing along the line youare thinking of. The more your mind dwells easily upon the idea of theline the greater this swing becomes. Your efforts to _try_ to hold thependulum still, by bringing into action the law of reversed effort, only make its oscillations more pronounced. 

Now fix your eyes on the line _CD_. The button will gradually changethe direction of its movement, taking up that of _CD_. When you haveallowed it to swing thus for a few moments transfer your attention tothe circle, follow the circumference round and round with your eyes. Once more the swinging button will follow you, adopting either aclock-wise or a counter clock-wise direction according to your thought. After a little practice you should produce a circular swing with adiameter of at least eight inches; but your success will be directlyproportional to the exclusiveness of your thought and to your effortsto hold the pencil still. 

Lastly think of the point _O_. Gradually the radius of the swing willdiminish until the button comes to rest. 

Is it necessary to point out how these movements are caused? Yourthought of the line, passing into the Unconscious, is there realised, so that _without knowing it_ you execute with your hands theimperceptible movements which set the button in motion. TheUnconscious automatically realises your thought through the nerves andmuscles of your arms and hands. What is this but InducedAutosuggestion?

The first time you perform this little experiment it is best to bealone. This enables you to approach it quite objectively. 

CHAPTER VIII

PARTICULAR SUGGESTIONS

The use of particular suggestions outlined in this chapter is of minorimportance compared with that of the general formula--"Day by day, inevery way, I'm getting better and better. " The more deeply Couépursues his investigations, the more fully he becomes convinced thatall else is secondary to this. It is not difficult to make a guess asto why this should be. In the general formula the attention is fullyabsorbed by the idea of betterment. The mind is directed away from allthat hinders and impedes and fixed on a positive goal. In formulatingparticular suggestions, however, we are always skating on the thin iceround our faults and ailments, always touching on subjects which havethe most painful associations. So that our ideas have not the samecreative positiveness. However that may be, it is a matter ofexperience that the general formula is the basis of the whole method, and that all else is merely an adjuvant, an auxiliary--useful, butinessential to the main object. 

We have seen that a partial outcropping of the Unconscious takes placewhenever we relax our mental and physical control, and let the mindwander; in popular language, when we fall into a "brown study" or a"day-dream. " This outcropping should be sought before the specialsuggestions are formulated. 

But again we must beware of making simple things seem hard. Baudouinwould have us perform a number of elaborate preparatives, which, however valuable to the student of psychology, serve with the laymanonly to distract the mind, and by fixing the attention on the mechanismimpair the power of the creative idea. Moreover, they cause thesubject to exert efforts to attain a state the very essence of which iseffortlessness, like the victim of insomnia who "tries his hardest" tofall asleep. 

In order to formulate particular suggestions, go to a room where youwill be free from interruption, sit down in a comfortable chair, closeyour eyes, and let your muscles relax. In other words, act preciselyas if you were going to take a siesta. In doing so you allow theUnconscious tide to rise to a sufficient height to make your particularsuggestions effective. Now call up the desired ideas through themedium of speech. Tell yourself that such and such ameliorations aregoing to occur. 

But here we must give a few hints as to the _form_ these suggestionsshould take. 

We should never set our faith a greater task than it can accomplish. Apatient suffering from deafness would be ill-advised to make thesuggestion: "I can hear perfectly. " In the partial state ofoutcropping association is not entirely cut off, and such an idea wouldcertainly call up its contrary. Thus we should initiate a suggestionantagonistic to the one we desired. In this way we only courtdisappointment and by losing faith in our instrument rob it of itsefficacy. 

Further, we should avoid as far as possible all mention of the ailmentor difficulty against which the suggestion is aimed. Indeed, our ownattention should be directed not so much to getting rid of wrongconditions as to cultivating the opposite right ones in their place. If you are inclined to be neurasthenic your mind is frequently occupiedwith fear. This fear haunts you because some thwarted element in yourpersonality, surviving in the Unconscious, gains through it a perversesatisfaction. In other words, your Unconscious enjoys the morbidemotional condition which fear brings with it. Should you succeed inbanishing your fears you would probably feel dissatisfied, life wouldseem empty. The old ideas would beckon you with promises, not ofhappiness truly, but of emotion and excitement. But if yoursuggestions take a positive form, if you fill your mind with thoughtsof self-confidence, courage, outward activity, and interest in theglowing and vital things of life, the morbid ideas will be turned outof doors and there will be no vacant spot to which they can return. 

Whatever the disorder may be, we should refer to it as little aspossible, letting the whole attention go out to the contrary state ofhealth. We must dwell on the "Yes-idea, " affirming with faith therealisation of our hopes, seeing ourselves endowed with the triumphantqualities we lack. For a similar reason we should never employ a formof words which connotes doubt. The phrases, "I should like to, " "I amgoing to try, " if realised by the Unconscious, can only produce a stateof longing or desire, very different from the actual physical andmental modifications we are seeking. 

Finally, we should not speak of the desired improvement entirely as athing of the future. We should affirm that the change has alreadybegun, and will continue to operate more and more rapidly until our endis fully attained. 

Here are a few examples of special suggestions which may prove useful. 

For deafness: Having closed the eyes and relaxed body and mind, say toyourself something of this nature: "From this day forth my hearing willgradually improve. Each day I shall hear a little better. Graduallythis improvement will become more and more rapid until, in acomparatively short space of time, I shall hear quite well and I shallcontinue to do so until the end of my life. "

A person suffering from unfounded fears and forebodings might proceedas follows: "From to-day onward I shall become more and more consciousof all that is happy, positive and cheerful. The thoughts which entermy mind will be strong and healthful ones. I shall gain daily inself-confidence, shall believe in my own powers, which indeed at thesame time will manifest themselves in greater strength. My life isgrowing smoother, easier, brighter. These changes become from day today more profound; in a short space of time I shall have risen to a newplane of life, and all the troubles which used to perplex me will havevanished and will never return. "

A bad memory might be treated in some such terms as these: "My memoryfrom to-day on will improve in every department. The impressionsreceived will be clearer and more definite; I shall retain themautomatically and without any effort on my part, and when I wish torecall them they will immediately present themselves in their correctform to my mind. This improvement will be accomplished rapidly, andvery soon my memory will be better than it has ever been before. "

Irritability and bad temper are very susceptible to autosuggestion andmight be thus treated: "Henceforth I shall daily grow moregood-humoured. Equanimity and cheerfulness will become my normalstates of mind, and in a short time all the little happenings of lifewill be received in this spirit. I shall be a centre of cheer andhelpfulness to those about me, infecting them with my own good humour, and this cheerful mood will become so habitual that nothing can rob meof it. "

Asthma is a disease which has always baffled and still baffles theordinary methods of medicine. It has shown itself, however, in Coué'sexperience, pre-eminently susceptible to autosuggestive treatment. Particular suggestions for its removal might take this form: "From thisday forward my breathing will become rapidly easier. Quite without myknowledge, and without any effort on my part, my organism will do allthat is necessary to restore perfect health to my lungs and bronchialpassages. I shall be able to undergo any exertion withoutinconvenience. My breathing will be free, deep, delightful. I shalldraw in all the pure health-giving air I need, and thus my whole systemwill be invigorated and strengthened. Moreover, I shall sleep calmlyand peacefully, with the maximum of refreshment and repose, so that Iawake cheerful and looking forward with pleasure to the day's tasks. This process has this day begun and in a short time I shall be whollyand permanently restored to health. "

It will be noticed that each of these suggestions comprises threestages: (1) Immediate commencement of the amelioration. (2) Rapidprogress. (3) Complete and permanent cure. While this scheme is notessential, it is a convenient one and should be utilised wheneverapplicable. The examples are framed as the first autosuggestions ofpersons new to the method. On succeeding occasions the phrase "fromthis day forth, " or its variants, should be replaced by a statementthat the amelioration has already begun. Thus, in the case of theasthmatic, "My breathing is already becoming easier, " etc. 

Particular suggestions, though subsidiary in value to the generalformula, are at times of very great service. The general formula looksafter the foundations of our life, building in the depths where eyecannot see or ear hear. Particular suggestions are useful on thesurface. By their means we can deal with individual difficulties asthey arise. The two methods are complementary. 

Particular suggestions prove very valuable in reinforcing and renderingpermanent the effects obtained by the technique for overcoming pain, which will be outlined in the next chapter. Before commencing theattack we should sit down, close our eyes and say calmly andconfidently to ourselves: "I am now going to rid myself of this pain. "When the desired result has been obtained, we should suggest that thestate of ease and painlessness now re-established will be permanent, that the affected part will rapidly be toned up into a condition ofnormal health, and will remain always in that desirable state. Shouldwe have obtained only a lessening of the trouble without its completeremoval our suggestion should take this form: "I have obtained aconsiderable degree of relief, and in the next few minutes it willbecome complete. I shall be restored to my normal condition of healthand shall continue so for the future. " Thus our assault upon the painis made under the best conditions, and should in every case provesuccessful. 

We should employ particular suggestions also for overcoming thedifficulties which confront us from time to time in our daily lives, and for securing the full success of any task we take in hand. The useof the general suggestion will gradually strengthen ourself-confidence, until we shall expect success in any enterprise ofwhich the reason approves. But until this consummation is reached, until our balance of self-confidence is adequate for all our needs, wecan obtain an overdraft for immediate use by means of particularsuggestion. 

We have already seen that the dimensions of any obstacle depend atleast as much upon our mental attitude towards it as upon its intrinsicdifficulty. The neurasthenic, who imagines he cannot rise from hisbed, cannot do so because this simple operation is endowed by his mindwith immense difficulty. The great mass of normal people commit thesame fault in a less degree. Their energy is expended partly in doingtheir daily work, and partly in overcoming the resistance in their ownminds. By the action of the law of reversed effort the negative ideathey foster frequently brings their efforts to naught, and the veryexertions they make condemn their activities to failure. 

For this reason it is necessary, before undertaking any task whichseems to us difficult, to suggest that it is in fact easy. We closeour eyes and say quietly to ourselves, "The work I have to do is easy, quite easy. Since it is easy I can do it, and I shall do itefficiently and successfully. Moreover, I shall enjoy doing it; itwill give me pleasure, my whole personality will apply itselfharmoniously to the task, and the results will be even beyond myexpectation. " We should dwell on these ideas, repeating themtranquilly and effortlessly. Soon our mind will become serene, full ofhope and confidence. Then we can begin to think out our method ofprocedure, to let the mind dwell on the means best suited to attain ourobject. Since the impediments created by fear and anxiety are nowremoved our ideas will flow freely, our plans will construct themselvesin the quiet of the mind, and we shall come to the actual work with acreative vigour and singleness of purpose. 

By a similar procedure the problems of conduct which defy solution byconscious thought will frequently yield to autosuggestion. When we are"at our wits' ends, " as the saying goes, to discover the best path outof a dilemma, when choice between conflicting possibilities seemsimpossible, it is worse than useless to continue the struggle. The lawof reversed effort is at work paralysing our mental faculties. Weshould put it aside, let the waves of effort subside, and suggest toourselves that at a particular point of time the solution will come tous of its own accord. If we can conveniently do so, it is well to leta period of sleep intervene, to suggest that the solution will come tous on the morrow; for during sleep the Unconscious is left undisturbedto realise in its own way the end we have consciously set before it. 

This operation often takes place spontaneously, as when a problem leftunsolved the night before yields its solution apparently by aninspiration when we arise in the morning. "Sleep on it" still remainsthe best counsel for those in perplexity, but they should preface theirslumbers by the positive autosuggestion that on waking they will findthe difficulty resolved. In this connection it is interesting to notethat autosuggestion is already widely made use of as a means of wakingat a particular hour. A person who falls asleep with the idea in hismind of the time at which he wishes to wake, will wake at that time. It may be added that wherever sleep is utilised for the realisation ofparticular suggestions, these suggestions should be made in addition tothe general formula, either immediately before or immediately after;they should never be substituted for it. 

With some afflictions, such as fits, the attack is often so sudden andunexpected that the patient is smitten down before he has a chance todefend himself. Particular suggestions should be aimed first of all atsecuring due warning of the approaching attack. We should employ suchterms as these: "In future I shall always know well in advance when afit is coming on. I shall be amply warned of its approach. When thesewarnings occur I shall feel no fear or anxiety. I shall be quiteconfident of my power to avert it. " As soon as the warning comes--asit will come, quite unmistakably--the sufferer should isolate himselfand use a particular suggestion to prevent the fit from developing. Heshould first suggest calm and self-control, then affirm repeatedly, butof course without effort, that the normal state of health isreasserting itself, that the mind is fully under control, and thatnothing can disturb its balance. All sudden paroxysms, liable to takeus unexpectedly, should be treated by the same method, which in Coué'sexperience has amply justified itself. 

Nervous troubles and violent emotions, such as fear and anger, oftenexpress themselves by physical movements. Fear may cause trembling, palpitation, chattering of the teeth; anger a violent clenching of thefists. Baudouin advises that particular suggestions in these casesshould be directed rather against the motor expression than against thepsychic cause, that our aim should be to cultivate a state of physicalimpassibility. But since a positive suggestion possesses greater forcethan a negative, it would seem better to attack simultaneously both thecause and the effect. Instead of anger, suggest that you will feelsympathy, patience, good-humour, and consequently that your bodilystate will be easy and unconstrained. 

A form of particular suggestion which possesses distinct advantages ofits own is the quiet repetition of a single word. If your mind isdistracted and confused, sit down, close your eyes, and murmur slowlyand reflectively the single word "Calm. " Say it reverently, drawing itout to its full length and pausing after each repetition. Graduallyyour mind will be stilled and quietened, and you will be filled with asense of harmony and peace. This method seems most applicable to theattainment of moral qualities. An evil passion can be quelled by theuse of the word denoting the contrary virtue. The power of the worddepends largely upon its aesthetic and moral associations. Words likejoy, strength, love, purity, denoting the highest ideals of the humanmind, possess great potency and are capable, thus used, of dispellingmental states in which their opposites predominate. The nameReflective Suggestion, which Baudouin applies indifferently to allautosuggestions induced by the subject's own choice, might well bereserved for this specific form of particular suggestion. 

The field for the exercise of particular suggestions is practicallylimitless. Whenever you feel a need for betterment, of whatever natureit may be, a particular suggestion will help you. But it must oncemore be repeated that these particular suggestions are merely aids andauxiliaries, which may, if leisure is scant, be neglected. 

CHAPTER IX

HOW TO DEAL WITH PAIN

Pain, whether of mind or body, introduces a new element for which wehave hitherto made no provision. By monopolising the attention itkeeps the conscious mind fully alert and so prevents one from attainingthe measure of outcropping needful to initiate successfully anautosuggestion. Thus if we introduce the "no-pain" idea into theconscious, it is overwhelmed by its contrary--pain, and the patient'scondition becomes, if anything, worse. 

To overcome this difficulty quite a new method is required. If wespeak a thought, that thought, while we speak it, must occupy ourminds. We could not speak it unless we thought it. By continuallyrepeating "I have no pain" the sufferer constantly renews that thoughtin his mind. Unfortunately, after each repetition the pain-thoughtinsinuates itself, so that the mind oscillates between "I have no pain"and "I have some pain, " or "I have a bad pain. " But if we repeat ourphrase so rapidly that the contrary association has no time to insertitself, we compel the mind willy-nilly to dwell on it. Thus by a freshpath we reach the same goal as that attained by induced outcropping; wecause an idea to remain in occupation of the mind without calling up acontrary association. This we found to be the prime condition ofacceptation, and in fact by this means we can compel the Unconscious torealise the "no-pain" thought and so put an end to the pain. 

But the sentence "I have no pain" does not lend itself to rapidrepetition. The physical difficulties are too great; the tongue andlips become entangled in the syllables and we have to stop to restoreorder. Even if we were dexterous enough to articulate the wordssuccessfully, we should only meet with a new difficulty. The mostemphatic word in the phrase is "pain"; involuntarily we should findourself stressing this word with particular force, so strengthening inour minds the very idea we are trying to dislodge. 

We shall do best to copy as closely as we can Coué's own procedure. The phrase he uses, "ça passe, " makes no mention of the hurt; it isextremely easy to say, and it produces an unbroken stream of sound, like the whirr of a machine or the magnified buzz of an insect, which, as it were, carries the mind off its feet. The phrase recommended byBaudouin, "It is passing off, " produces no such effect, and in factdefies all our attempts to repeat it quickly. On the whole, the mostsuitable English version seems to be "It's going. " Only the word"going" should be repeated, and the treatment should conclude with theemphatic statement "gone!" The word "going, " rapidly gabbled, givesthe impression of a mechanical drill, biting its way irresistibly intosome hard substance. We can think of it as drilling the desiredthought into the mind. 

If you are suffering from any severe pain, such as toothache orheadache, sit down, close your eyes and assure yourself calmly that youare going to get rid of it. Now gently stroke with your hand theaffected part and repeat at the same time as fast as you can, producinga continuous stream of sound, the words: "It's going, going, going ... Gone!" Keep it up for about a minute, pausing only to take a deepbreath when necessary, and using the word "gone" only at the conclusionof the whole proceeding. At the end of this time the pain will eitherhave entirely ceased or at least sensibly abated. In either case applythe particular suggestions recommended in the previous chapter. If thepain has ceased suggest that it will not return; if it has onlydiminished suggest that it will shortly pass away altogether. Nowreturn to whatever employment you were engaged in when the pain began. Let other interests occupy your attention. If in a reasonable space, say half an hour, the pain still troubles you, isolate yourself again;suggest once more that you are going to master it, and repeat theprocedure. 

It is no exaggeration to say that by this process any pain can beconquered. It may be, in extreme cases, that you will have to returnseveral times to the attack. This will generally occur when you havebeen foolish enough to supply the pain with a cause--a decayed tooth, adraught of cold air, etc. --and so justify it to your reason, and giveit, so to speak, an intellectual sanction. Or it may be that it willcease only to return again. But do not be discouraged; attack itfirmly and you are bound to succeed. 

The same procedure is equally effective with distressing states ofmind, worry, fear, despondency. In such cases the stroking movement ofthe hand should be applied to the forehead. 

Even in this exercise no more effort should be used than is necessary. Simply repeat rapidly the word which informs you that the trouble isgoing, and let this, with the stroking movement of the hand, which, asit were, fixes the attention to that particular spot, be the sum andsubstance of your effort. With practice it will become easier, youwill "drop into it"; that is to say, the Unconscious will perform theadaptations necessary to make it more effective. After a time youshould be able to obtain relief in twenty to twenty-five seconds. Butthe effect is still more far-reaching; you will be delivered from thefear of pain. Regarding yourself as its master, you will be able withthe mere threat of treatment to prevent it from developing. You willhang up a card, "No admittance, " on the doors of your conscious mind. 

It may be that the pain attacks you in the street or in a workshop; insome public place where the audible repetition of the phrase wouldattract attention. In that case it is best to close the eyes for amoment and formulate this particular suggestion: "I shall not add tothis trouble by thinking about it; my mind will be occupied by otherthings; but on the first opportunity I shall make it pass away, " Thenas soon as you can conveniently do so make use of the phrase "It'sgoing. " When you have become expert in the use of this form ofsuggestion you will be able to exorcise the trouble by repeating thephrase mentally--at any rate if the words are outlined with the lipsand tongue. But the beginner should rely for a time entirely onaudible treatment. By dropping it too soon he will only courtdisappointment. 

It sometimes happens that a patient is so prostrated by pain or miserythat he has not the energy to undertake even the repetition of the word"going. " The pain-thought so obsesses the mind that the state ofpainlessness seems too remote even to contemplate. Under thesecircumstances it seems best to employ this strategy. Lie down on abed, sofa, or arm-chair and relax both mind and body. Cease from alleffort--which can only make things worse--and let the pain-thought haveits way. After a time your energies will begin to collect themselves, your mind to reassert its control. Now make a firm suggestion ofsuccess and apply the method. Get another person to help you, as Couéhelps his patients, by performing the passes with the hand andrepeating the phrase with you. By this means you can make quite sureof success. This seemingly contradictory proceeding is analogous tothat of the angler "playing" a fish. He waits till it has run itscourse before bringing his positive resources into play. 

Baudouin recommends an analogous proceeding as a weapon againstinsomnia. The patient, he says, should rapidly repeat the phrase, "Iam going to sleep, " letting his mind be swept away by a torrent ofwords. Once more the objection arises that the phrase "I am going tosleep" is not such as we can rapidly repeat. But even if we substitutefor it some simple phrase which can be easily articulated it isdoubtful whether it will succeed in more than a small percentage ofcases. Success is more likely to attend us if we avail ourselves ofthe method of reflective repetition mentioned in the last chapter. Weshould take up the position most favourable to slumber and then repeatslowly and contemplatively the word "Sleep. " The more impersonal ourattitude towards the idea the more rapidly it will be realised in ourown slumbers. 

CHAPTER X

AUTOSUGGESTION AND THE CHILD

In treating children it should be remembered that autosuggestion isprimarily not a remedy but a means of insuring healthy growth. Itshould not be reserved for times when the child is sick, but provideddaily, with the same regularity as meals. 

Children grow up weakly not from lack of energy, but because of a wasteand misapplication of it. The inner conflict, necessitated by thecontinual process of adaptation which we call growth, is often of quiteunnecessary violence, not only making a great temporary demand on thechild's vital energy, but even locking it up in the Unconscious in theform of "complexes, " so that its future life is deprived of a portionof its due vitality. A wise use of autosuggestion will preclude thesedisasters. Growth will be ordered and controlled. The necessaryconflicts will be brought to a successful issue, the unnecessary onesavoided. 

Autosuggestion may very well begin before the child is born. It is amatter of common knowledge that a mother must be shielded duringpregnancy from any experience involving shock or fright, since theseexert a harmful effect on the developing embryo, and may in extremecases result in abortion, or in physical deformity or mental weaknessin the child. Instances of this ill-effect are comparatively common, and the link between cause and effect is often unmistakable. There isno need to point out that these cases are nothing more than spontaneousautosuggestions operating in the maternal Unconscious; since duringpregnancy the mother moulds her little one not only by the food sheeats but also by the thoughts she thinks. The heightened emotionalitycharacteristic of this state bespeaks an increased tendency tooutcropping, and so an increased suggestibility. Thus spontaneousautosuggestions are far more potent than in the normal course of life. But, happily, induced autosuggestions are aided by the same conditions, so that the mother awake to her powers and duties can do as much goodas the ignorant may do harm. 

Without going into debatable questions, such as the possibility ofpredetermining the sex of the child to be born, one can find manyhelpful ways of aiding and benefiting the growing life byautosuggestive means. The mother should avoid with more than ordinarycare all subjects, whether in reading or conversation, which bear onevil in any form, and she should seek whatever uplifts the mind andfurnishes it with beautiful and joyous thought. But the technicalmethods of autosuggestion can also be brought into action. 

The mother should suggest to herself that her organism is furnishingthe growing life with all it needs, and that the child will be strongand healthy in mind, in body, and in character. 

These suggestions should be in general terms bearing on qualities ofundoubted good, for obviously it is not desirable to define anindependent life too narrowly. They need consist only of a fewsentences, and should be formulated night and morning immediatelybefore or after the general formula. Furthermore, when the mother'sthoughts during the day stray to the subject of her child, she can takethis opportunity to repeat the whole or some part of the particularsuggestion she has chosen. These few simple measures will amplysuffice. Any undue tendency of the mind to dwell on the thought of thechild, even in the form of good suggestions, should not be encouraged. A normal mental life is in itself the best of conditions for thewelfare of both mother and child. For her own sake however the mothermight well suggest that the delivery will be painless and easy. 

The only direct means of autosuggestion applicable to the child forsome months after birth is that of the caress, though it must beremembered that the mental states of mother and nurse are alreadystamping themselves on the little mind, forming it inevitably forbetter or worse. Should any specific trouble arise, the method ofMlle. Kauffmant should be applied by the mother. Taking the child onher knee she should gently caress the affected part, thinking the whileof its reinstatement in perfect health. It seems generally advisableto express these thoughts in words. Obviously, the words themselveswill mean nothing to an infant of two or three months, but they willhold the mother's thought in the right channel, and this thought, bythe tone of her voice, the touch of her hand, will be communicated tothe child. Whether telepathy plays any part in this process we neednot inquire, but the baby is psychically as well as physically sodependent on the mother that her mental states are communicated bymeans quite ineffective with adults. Love in itself exerts asuggestive power of the highest order. 

When the child shows signs of understanding what is said to it, beforeit begins itself to speak, the following method should be applied. After the little one has fallen asleep at night the mother enters theroom, taking care not to awaken it, and stands about a yard from thehead of the cot. She proceeds then to formulate in a whisper suchsuggestions as seem necessary. If the child is ailing the suggestionmight take the form of the phrase "You are getting better" repeatedtwenty times. If it is in health the general formula will suffice. Particular suggestions may also be formulated bearing on the child'shealth, character, intellectual development, etc. These of courseshould be in accordance with the instructions given in the chapterdevoted to particular suggestions. On withdrawing, the mother shouldagain be careful not to awaken the little one. Should it show signs ofwaking, the whispered command "sleep, " repeated several times, willlull it again to rest. Baudouin recommends that during thesesuggestions the mother should lay her hand on the child's forehead. The above, however, is the method preferred by Coué. 

This nightly practice is the most effective means of conveyingautosuggestions to the child-mind. It should be made a regular habitwhich nothing is allowed to interrupt. If for any reason the mother isunable to perform it, her place may be taken by the father, the nurse, or some relative. But for obvious reasons the duty belongs by right tothe mother, and, when a few weeks' practice has revealed its beneficentpower, few mothers will be willing to delegate it to a less suitableagent. 

This practice, as stated above, may well begin before the child hasactually learned to speak, for its Unconscious will already be forminga scheme more or less distinct of the significance of the sounds thatreach it, and will not fail to gather the general tenor of the wordsspoken. The date at which it should be discontinued is less easy tospecify. Growth, to be healthy, must carry with it a gradual increasein independence and self-sufficiency. There seems to be some slightdanger that the practice of nightly suggestions, if continued too long, might prolong unduly the state of dependence upon parental support. Reliable indications on this point are furnished, however, by the childitself. As soon as it is able to face its daily problems for itself, when it no longer runs to the parent for help and advice in everylittle difficulty, the time will have arrived for the parentalsuggestions to cease. 

As soon as a child is able to speak it should be taught to repeat thegeneral formula night and morning in the same way as an adult. Thuswhen the time comes to discontinue the parent's suggestions theireffect will be carried on by those the child formulates itself. Thereis one thing more to add: in the case of boys it would seem better atthe age of seven or eight for the father to replace the mother in therôle of suggester, while the mother, of course, performs the officethroughout for her girls. Should any signs appear that the period ofpuberty is bringing with it undue difficulties or perils, the nightlypractice might be resumed in the form of particular suggestions bearingon the specific difficulties. It must be remembered, however, that thechild's sexual problem is essentially different from that of the adult, and the suggestions must therefore be in the most general terms. Hereas elsewhere the end alone should be suggested, the Unconscious beingleft free to choose its own means. 

As soon as the child has learnt to speak it should not be allowed tosuffer pain. The best method to adopt is that practised by Coué in hisconsultations. Let the child close its eyes and repeat with theparent, "It's going, going ... Gone!" while the latter gently strokesthe affected part. But as soon as possible the child should beencouraged to overcome smaller difficulties for itself, until theparent's help is eventually almost dispensed with. This is a powerfulmeans of developing self-reliance and fostering the sense ofsuperiority to difficulties which will be invaluable in later life. 

That children readily take to the practice is shown by these examples, which are again quoted from letters received by Coué. 

"Your youngest disciple is our little David. The poor little chap hadan accident to-day. Going up in the lift with his father, when quitefour feet up, he fell out on his head and on to a hard stone floor. Hewas badly bruised and shocked, and when put to bed lay still and keptsaying: 'ça passe, ça passe, ' over and over again, and then looked upand said, 'no, not gone away. ' To-night he said again 'ça passe' andthen added, 'nearly gone. ' So he is better. "

 B. K. (London). 8 _January_, 1922. 

Another lady writes:

"Our cook's little niece, aged 23 months--the one we cured ofbronchitis--gave herself a horrid blow on the head yesterday. Insteadof crying she began to smile, passed her hand over the place and saidsweetly, 'ça passe. ' Hasn't she been well brought up?"

All these methods are extremely simple and involve little expenditureof time and none of money. They have proved their efficacy over andover again in Nancy, and there is no reason why a mother of averageintelligence and conscientiousness should not obtain equally goodresults. Naturally, first attempts will be a little awkward, but thereis no need for discouragement on that account. Even supposing thatthrough the introduction of effort some slight harm were done--and thechance is comparatively remote--this need cause no alarm. The rightautosuggestion will soon counteract it and produce positive good in itsplace. But any mother who has practised autosuggestion for herselfwill be able correctly to apply it to her child. 

At first glance the procedure may seem revolutionary, but think it overfor a moment and you will see that it is as old as the hills. It ismerely a systematisation on a scientific basis of the method mothershave intuitively practised since the world began. "Sleep, baby, sleep. Angels are watching o'er thee, "--what is this but a particularsuggestion? How does a wise mother proceed when her little one fallsand grazes its hand? She says something of this kind: "Let me kiss itand then it will be well. " She kisses it, and with her assurance thatthe pain has gone the child runs happily back to its play. This isonly a charming variation of the method of the caress. 

CHAPTER XI

CONCLUSION

Induced Autosuggestion is not a substitute for medical practice. Itwill not make us live for ever, neither will it free us completely fromthe common ills of life. What it may do in the future, when all itsimplications have been realised, all its resources exploited, we cannotsay. There is no doubt that a generation brought up by its canonswould differ profoundly from the disease-ridden population of to-day. But our immediate interest is with the present. 

The adult of to-day carries in his Unconscious a memory clogged with amass of adverse suggestions which have been accumulating sincechildhood. The first task of Induced Autosuggestion will be to clearaway this mass of mental lumber. Not until this has been accomplishedcan the real man appear and the creative powers of autosuggestion beginto manifest themselves. 

By the use of this method each one of us should be able to look forwardto a life in which disease is a diminishing factor. But how great apart it will play depends upon the conditions we start from and theregularity and correctness of our practice. Should disease befall uswe possess within a potent means of expelling it, but this does notinvalidate the complementary method of destroying it from without. Autosuggestion and the usual medical practice should go hand in hand, each supplementing the other. If you are ill, call in your doctor asbefore, but enlist the resources of Induced Autosuggestion to reinforceand extend his treatment. 

In this connection it must be insisted on that autosuggestion should beutilised for every ailment, whatever its nature, and whether itsinroads be grave or slight. Every disease is either strengthened orweakened by the action of the mind. We cannot take up an attitude ofneutrality. Either we must aid the disease to destroy us by allowingour minds to dwell on it, or we must oppose it and destroy it by astream of healthful dynamic thought. Too frequently we spontaneouslyadopt the former course. 

The general opinion that functional and nervous diseases alone aresusceptible to suggestive treatment is at variance with the facts. During Coué's thirty years of practice, in which many thousands ofcases have been treated, he has found that organic troubles yield aseasily as functional, that bodily derangements are even easier to curethan nervous and mental. He makes no such distinctions; an illness isan illness whatever its nature. As such Coué attacks it, and in 98 percent. Of cases he attains in greater or less degree a positive result. 

Apart from the permanently insane, in whose minds the machinery ofautosuggestion is itself deranged, there are only two classes ofpatient with whom Induced Autosuggestion seems to fail. One consistsof persons whose intelligence is so low that the directions given arenever comprehended; the other of those who lack the power of voluntaryattention and cannot devote their minds to an idea even for a fewconsecutive seconds. These two classes, however, are numericallyinsignificant, together making up not much more than 2 per cent. Of thepopulation. 

Autosuggestion is equally valuable as an aid to surgical practice. Abroken bone--the sceptic's last resource--cannot of course be treatedby autosuggestion alone. A surgeon must be called in to mend it. Butwhen the limb has been rightly set and the necessary mechanicalprecautions have been taken, autosuggestion will provide the bestpossible conditions for recovery. It can prevent lameness, stiffness, unsightly deformity and the other evils which a broken limb is apt toentail, and it will shorten considerably the normal period ofconvalescence. 

It is sometimes stated that the results obtained by autosuggestion arenot permanent. This objection is really artificial, arising from thefact that we ignore the true nature of autosuggestion and regard itmerely as a remedy. When we employ autosuggestion to heal a malady ouraim is so to leaven the Unconscious with healthful thoughts, that notonly will that specific malady be excluded, but all others with it. Autosuggestion should not only remove a particular form of disease, butthe tendency to all disease. 

If after an ailment has been removed we allow our mind to revert tounhealthy thoughts, they will tend to realise themselves in the sameway as any others, and we may again fall a victim to ill-health. Oursickness may take the same form as on the preceding occasion, or it maynot. That will depend on the nature of our thought. But by theregular employment of the general formula we can prevent any suchrecurrence. Instead of reverting to unhealthy states of mind we shallprogressively strengthen the healthy and creative thought that hasalready given us health, so that with each succeeding day our defencewill be more impenetrable. Not only do we thus avoid a relapse intoformer ailments but we clear out of our path those which lie in waitfor us in the future. 

We saw that in the Nancy clinic some of the cures effected are almostinstantaneous. It would be a mistake, however, to embark on thepractice of Induced Autosuggestion with the impression that we aregoing to be miraculously healed in the space of a few days. Grantedsufficient faith, such a result would undoubtedly ensue; nay, more, wehave records of quite a number of such cases, even where the help of asecond person has not been called in. Here is an example. A friend ofmine, M. Albert P. , of Bordeaux, had suffered for more than ten yearswith neuralgia of the face. Hearing of Coué, he wrote to him, andreceived instructions to repeat the general formula. He did so, and onthe second day the neuralgia had vanished and has never since returned. But such faith is not common. Immediate cures are the exception, andit will be safer for us to look forward to a gradual and progressiveimprovement. In this way we shall guard against disappointment. Itmay be added that Coué prefers the gradual cure, finding it more stableand less likely to be disturbed by adverse conditions. 

We should approach autosuggestion in the same reasonable manner as weapproach any other scientific discovery. There is no hocus-pocus aboutit, nor are any statements made here which experience cannot verify. But the attitude we should beware most of is that of the intellectualamateur, who makes the vital things of life small coin to exchange withhis neighbour of the dinner-table. Like religion, autosuggestion is athing to practise. A man may be conversant with all the creeds inChristendom and be none the better for it; while some simple soul, loving God and his fellows, may combine the high principles ofChristianity in his life without any acquaintance with theology. So itis with autosuggestion. 

Autosuggestion is just as effective in the treatment of moraldelinquencies as in that of physical ills. Drunkenness, kleptomania, the drug habit, uncontrolled or perverted sexual desires, as well asminor failings of character, are all susceptible to its action. It isas powerful in small things as in great. By particular suggestions wecan modify our tastes. We can acquire a relish for the dishes wenaturally dislike, and make disagreeable medicine taste pleasant. Soencouraging has been its application to the field of morals that Couéis trying to gain admittance to the French state reformatories. Sofar, the official dislike for innovations has proved a barrier, butthere is good reason to hope that in the near future the application ofthis method to the treatment of the criminal will be greatly extended. 

By way of anticipating an objection it may be stated that the Couémethod of Induced Autosuggestion is in no sense inferior to hypnoticsuggestion. Coué himself began his career as a hypnotist, but beingdissatisfied with the results, set out in quest of a method more simpleand universal. Conscious autosuggestion, apart from its convenience, can boast one great advantage over its rival. The effects of hypnoticsuggestion are often lost within a few hours of the treatment. Whereasby the use of the general formula the results of Induced Autosuggestiongo on progressively augmenting. 

Here we touch again the question of the suggester. We have alreadyseen that a suggester is not needed, that autosuggestion can yield itsfullest fruits to those who practise it unaided. But some personscannot be prevailed on to accept this fact. They feel a sense ofinsufficiency; the mass of old wrong suggestions has risen somountain-high that they imagine themselves incapable of removing it. With such the presence of a suggester is an undoubted help. They havenothing to do but lie passive and receive the ideas he evokes. Evenso, however, they will get little good unless they consent to repeatthe general formula. 

But as long as we look on autosuggestion as a remedy we miss its truesignificance. Primarily it is a means of self-culture, and one farmore potent than any we have hitherto possessed. It enables us todevelop the mental qualities we lack: efficiency, judgment, creativeimagination, all that will help us to bring our life's enterprise to asuccessful end. Most of us are aware of thwarted abilities, powersundeveloped, impulses checked in their growth. These are present inour Unconscious like trees in a forest, which, overshadowed by theirneighbours, are stunted for lack of air and sunshine. By means ofautosuggestion we can supply them with the power needed for growth andbring them to fruition in our conscious lives. However old, howeverinfirm, however selfish, weak or vicious we may be, autosuggestion willdo something for us. It gives us a new means of culture and disciplineby which the "accents immature, " the "purposes unsure" can be nursedinto strength, and the evil impulses attacked at the root. It isessentially an individual practice, an individual attitude of mind. Only a narrow view would split it up into categories, debating itsapplication to this thing or to that. It touches our being in itswholeness. Below the fussy perturbed little ego, with its localhabitation, its name, its habits and views and oddities is an ocean ofpower, as serene as the depths below the troubled surface of the sea. Whatever is of you comes eventually thence, however perverted by theprism of self-consciousness. Autosuggestion is a channel by which thetranquil powers of this ultimate being are raised to the level of ourlife here and now. 

What prospects does autosuggestion open to us in the future?

It teaches us that the burdens of life are, at least in large measure, of our own creating. We reproduce in ourselves and in ourcircumstances the thoughts of our minds. It goes further. It offersus a means by which we can change these thoughts when they are evil andfoster them when they are good, so producing a corresponding bettermentin our individual life. But the process does not end with theindividual. The thoughts of society are realised in social conditions, the thoughts of humanity in world conditions. What would be theattitude towards our social and international problems of a generationnurtured from infancy in the knowledge and practice of autosuggestion?If fear and disease were banned from the individual life, could theypersist in the life of the nation? If each person found happiness inhis own heart would the illusory greed for possession survive? Theacceptance of autosuggestion entails a change of attitude, arevaluation of life. If we stand with our faces westward we seenothing but clouds and darkness, yet by a simple turn of the head webring the wide panorama of the sunrise into view. 

That Coué's discoveries may profoundly affect our educational methodsis beyond question. Hitherto we have been dealing directly only withthe conscious mind, feeding it with information, grafting on to ituseful accomplishments. What has been done for the development ofcharacter has been incidental and secondary. This was inevitable solong as the Unconscious remained undiscovered, but now we have themeans of reaching profounder depths, of endowing the child not onlywith reading and arithmetic, but with health, character and personality. 

But perhaps it is in our treatment of the criminal that the greatestrevolution may be expected. The acts for which he is immured resultfrom nothing more than twists and tangles of the threads of thought inthe Unconscious mind. This is the view of eminent authorities. Butautosuggestion takes us a long step further. It shows how thesediscords of character may be resolved. Since Coué has succeeded inrestoring to moral health a youth of homicidal tendencies, why shouldnot the same method succeed with many of the outcasts who fill ourprisons? At least the younger delinquents should prove susceptible. But the idea underlying this attitude entails a revolution in our penalprocedure. It means little less than this: that crime is a disease andshould be treated as such; that the idea of punishment must give placeto that of cure; the vindictive attitude to one of pity. This bringsus near to the ideals of the New Testament, and indeed, autosuggestion, as a force making for goodness, is bound to touch closely on religion. 

It teaches the doctrine of the inner life which saints and sages haveproclaimed through all ages. It asserts that within are the sources ofcalm, of power and of courage, and that the man who has once attainedmastery of this inner sphere is secure in the face of all that maybefall him. This truth is apparent in the lives of great men. Martyrscould sing at the stake because their eyes were turned within on thevision of glory which filled their hearts. Great achievements havebeen wrought by men who had the fortitude to follow the directions ofan inner voice, even in contradiction to the massed voices they heardwithout. 

Suppose we find that the power Christ gave to his disciples to workmiracles of healing was not a gift conferred on a few selectedindividuals, but was the heritage of all men; that the kingdom ofheaven within us to which He alluded was available in a simple way forthe purging and elevation of our common life, for procuring sounderhealth and sweeter minds. Is not the affirmation contained in Coué'sformula a kind of prayer? Does it not appeal to something beyond theself-life, to the infinite power lying behind us?

Autosuggestion is no substitute for religion; it is rather a new weaponadded to the religious armoury. If as a mere scientific technique itcan yield such results, what might it not do as the expression of thosehigh yearnings for perfection which religion incorporates?