Subconscious Mind Rules Beauty

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 5 (Supplement)

Subconscious Mind Rules Beauty

There is a strange being in each of us that lies halfdrowsing, ever hungry, licking up each crumb that comes its way, for the most part quiescent, yet yielding a power that we are powerless against. You have heard much of this being in the past few years, and you will hear more of it in years to come. The whole truth of its importance, its service, its. menace, has yet to be uncovered. It governs digestion, circnlation, respiration. It colours our happiness. Its accumulated endowments determine our disposition. Its radiated quality gives, or denies us—beauty. This unintelligent but ruling force is the eub-conscious mind. How does the sub-conscious invade the realms of beauty. You know how readily the fleeting facial expression responds to the conscious mind, to our emotions. Joy, anger, grief transform the appearance at once radically. The subconscious, on the other hand, does not react instantly. Its influence is subtle, slow, inevitable. We can no more escape it than we can the passage of time, the alternating of day and night, the succession of seasons. But we can make the sub-conscious what we would have it. Though having once made, we are in thrall to it, for good or evil, and it, in turn, makes us.

To understand how vitally helpful or harmful this secondary mental nature it, one must know that a queer twist of perversion accompanies its insatiable greed. By a strange lack of necessary egoism, it knows only self, first person, singular number.

It takes slight cognisance of any pronouns, that the conscious mind express, but rather grasps the descriptive, colourful words, and supplies them with the understood pronoun "I". Thus, you think "X —is mean. She is crafty and deceitful." Your subconscious lazily echoes, "mean, crafty, deceitful," passively letting them apply to itself, the only self that exists fc<* it. Awhile, and you say, "What a lovely day!" or "See that adorable child!" And the ready waiting subconscious receives, "Lovely, adorable," basking in them.

Now, anything that is repeatedly admitted by the subconscious mind, any repeated admission, that is to say, becomes, in time, a conviction in the sub-

8y... A Specialist

conscious mind. A conviction of aelf! And any quiescent moment of the reasoning, thinking mind, leaves the soul, the body, the very features, in the keeping of the subconscious, to wield its weight on them, to shape and colour them. It*does not take long for the subconscious to enable or play havoc with one's appearance. I saw a graceful, flower-like girl transformed within a few months, to repellent ugliness. She had learned of the indiscretions of her husband's past and let her imagination run riot in morbid sus-

picion and resentment. Her subconscious mind absorbed each highly seasoned morsel of rancour and bitterness, and when the storm of her first unreasonable anger had passed and left her languid, the monstrous egotism of the lazy second self, with no effort, threw the preponderance of accumulated recriminations against her, and convicted her of them. She is a hag to-day, and it takes a mental effort to identify her with the graceful happy girl of so short awhile back. She has become the embodiment of her hideous thoughts. The subconscious, though never alert, is never asleep. Xot even when the body sleeps. Always on watch, it is hungry. Licking up every crumb of thought and growing, ever growing, in strength, it becomes distorted or beautiful according to its nourishment, giving despite us distortion or beauty in return, measure for measure. Those unsightly little nuisances eallcd pimples arise from various causes, usually from injudicious eating or from neglect of the laws of hygiene. Therefore, the first thing to do is either to consult a doctor or to use your own ingenuity in seeking out the cause. Next, purify the blood with plenty of fresh air, assisting Nature with some such remedy as sulphur and molasses or cream of tartar. Pimples that appear on the top of the forehead or on the chin are said to be caused by some derangement of the stomach, which should be corrected. After having attacked the little enemy as directed above, then you may apply the following lotion locally: Borax, nine grains; rose water, one tablespoonful: orange flower water, one tablespoonful. ♦ ♦ ♦ +

A Few Don'ts Don't forget, when drying the face after washing, to rub upwards towards (the nose. This will prevent wi inkles and help smooth out, co a great extent, the crease alongside of the no*o j Don't use either hot or cold water for ! bathing exclusively. A good rule to follow is a hot bath at night and a Cold one in the morning. \ Don't wear tight slices if you desire ja graceful carriage. No woman can walk comfortably or well in a sho t > that is too small. Resides, a small tlioe distorts the foot in an unnatural manner. ! Don't attribute the desire to preserve |one's physical charms to vanity. The ' first element of beauty is health, and |she who would bo beautiful must have j pure blood and be sound of mind and 'healthy of bodv.