AUTO-SUGGESTION

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17461, 23 May 1922, Page 11

AUTO-SUGGESTION

3J»* "l- «Cn of and & *ore o* *****? ZjSdMs lie has The soil, i»ftU^ m P^ondit«oi) 6 and, TO** ee Sf iSsnltiag from tha Sfi« *# Se's minds to F. fits life- H», I and. £ »££» whose workings are ■> ftfetoeveryone, and disarm* *!**•• •• a irreflt deal of what TK'SftSw mSondy consented dSWtS it » interesting to I. r* «Tu fit Englishman to go. to ;• irto * l *Sf-Se express purpose, of 1— He describes the * **G£ir, and M. Coue, who «■** English, read* »*S.*ls «oerptß which are the &ft«ffitioM of his discourses to Ttajg he asks his hearers

pWttont Win be fixed,, imjam minds; ??!£,, will remain fixed, imprinted, SSSS'Sw.'" that without withou t y°" r E££sßff«™» of what is tak - and your whole *@sbw them, i y° u SSStpEy* three times a doy ' SSSFand evening, at mealgSSSfcbe hungry; th«t ie to that pleasant sensaJS;M«inafces us think and say: •/Sy§pd like something to eatl' I Bil9l*en«at with excellent appe*/&mSj»g'y°ar food, but you will SPBikll You will eat the neither too much nor too ftflfi#«l you wul know . intuitively had sufßcient. You will o&siyo : ttr food thoroughly, trans(mpjfft.inio a smooth paste, before rfppi':'H well, and so feel no dismmffl any kind, either in the fiSch or the intestines. Assimilation performed, and your mm will make the best, possible use Rfobd to create blood, muscle, fflHl§; energy, in a," word —Life. JSm;yW have digested your food ipjfrnihe excretory functions will gprily performed.. This will take Iprery morning immediately on Sgfand without your having reS'tq, any laxative medicine or nripneans of any kind. Every night mm. fall asleep at the hour you Kind will continue to sleep until ■Mrat which you desire to wake , ■wrnlhg. Your sleep will' be peaceful, and profound,- nnHjfi|by bad dreamt' or undesirable You may dream, but jsHgttLwill be pleasant-ones. On feel well, bright, alert, day's tasks. If in the Deen subject to depresmelancholy forebodhenceforward be free '«wh|!s)aous, and depressed, you Miepeßrfal'and happy. You. will «iift|SirßK:if. you have no particuso, just its in the j without good reason, even, that if you to be worried or debe so.

ih s& dtfciW Unmoved. Inpatient or fllle contrary, you ; and self-con-iga which, .used re you entirely you have someevil and unJy cease to op-, will melt away ream: vanishes ese vain images, all ?your: organs i circulation of 1 it should. The , the liver,' the j,-and the-hlad-f functions corb any of the Order, the disace of time it peared, and the ids its normal in any organ ion, it will from aired/and in a, mpletely jestor>ven- if you are

!it is extremethe past you 1 yourself,, this liy disappear, in yourselfc; I ifidenee. Your >wer which is ou can accomrour reason apLdence you will' oil wish to do, , and anything iVhen you have )'u will always words aB 'dim. so, considering it is difficult to ay-to you. You ssly.and with-J athe possesses I heal- ;; His patients he phrase with' iated: "Day by getting better 1 Mind, the philosophy at, it » founa t of supervisor MS; Digestion, lungs, the kid! organs are con.

only revealing new depths of mystery. But the unconscious seems to be familiar with it in every detail. '•lt may be added that the unconscious never sleeps; during the sleep of the conscious it seems to be more vigilant than during our waking hours. In comparison with these, the powers of the conscious mind seem almost insignificant. Derived from the unconscious during the process of evolution, the conscious is, as it were, the antichamber where the crude energies of the unconscious are selected and adapted for action on the world outside us. In the past we have unduiy exaggerated the importance of the conscious intellect. To claim for it the discoveries of civilisation is to confuse the instrument n-ith the agent, to attribute eight to the field-glass instead of to the eye behind it." And here is the basic law of auto-sug-gestion :—"Everjr idea which enters the conscious mind, if it is accepted by the unconscious, is transformed by it into I a reality, and forms henceforth a permanent element in our life.". In one essential detail Cone's methods seem to differ from other healers, and it is probably in this particular that the secret of his success lies. "Systems which hitherto have tried to make use of auto-suggestion have failed to secure reliable results because they did not place their reliance on the imagination, but tried to compel the unconscious to accept an idea by exercising the will. Obviously," such attempts are doomed to failure. By using the will we automatically wake ourselves upj suppress the encroaching tide of the unconscious,' and thereby destroy the condition by which alone we can succeed. It is worth our while to note more closely how this happens.. A sufferer, whose mind is filled with thoughts of illhealth, sits down to compel himself to accept a good suggestion. He calls up a thought of health and makes an effort of the will to impress it on the unconscious. This effort restores him to full wakefulness, and so calls up the customary associations-disease. Consequently, ne finds himself contemplating, the exact opposite of. what he desired. Ho summons his will again and recalls the healthful thought, but since he is now wider awake than, ever, association is even more rapid and powerful than before. The disease-thought is now in. full possession of his mind, and all the efforts of his will fail to dislodge it. Indeed, the harder he struggles the more fully the evil thought possesses' him. This gives us a glimpse of a new and startling discovery to which Goue's uniform success is due; namely, that when the imagination and the will are in conflict, the imagination invariably gains the day." Although Coue? lays particular stress on his general formula, he approves of special suggestions. For instance, a bad memory might be treated in some such terms as these: "My memory from to-day on will improve in every deThe impressions received will be clearer and more definite; I shall retain them automatically and without any effort on my part, and when I wish to recall them they will immediately present themselves in their corredt form to my mind. This improvement will be accomplished rapidly, and very soon my memory will be better than it- has ever been before." Or irritability and bad temper which are very susceptible to auto-suggestion, might,be thus treated: "Henceforth I shall daily grow more good-humoured. Equanimity and cheerfulness will become my normal state of mind, and in a shore time all the little happenings of life will be received in this spirit. I shall be a centrejof cheer and helpfulness to those about me, infecting them with my own good-humour, and this cheerful mood will become bo habitual that nothing can rob me of it.'

To Deal with Pain. "If we speak a thought, that thought, while we speak it, must occupy our minds We could not speak it unless we thought it. By continually repeating,. 'I hare no pain,' the sufferer conI stantly renews . that thought in his f mind. Unfortunately, after .each repetition the pain-thought insinuates itself, so - that the mind oscillates between 'I have no para! and 'I have some pain-,' or 'I nave; a bad pain.' But if we repeat our phrase so rapidly that, the contrary, association has no time to insert itself, we compel the mind willy-nilly to; dwell on it." But it is suggested that'a more convenient word to, repeat, rapidly; is "going, goingi"- with a conclusive "gone/' It has, the additional advantage of not including the word "pain," which one is apt to stress, so strengthening in the mind the very idea one is trying to dislodge. • •" It is finally pointed, out that induced auto-suggestion is not a substitute for medical practice. "It will not make us live for ever, neither will :it free us completely from the common ills of life. What it may do in the future, when all its implications have been realised, all its resources,exploited, we cannot eay. There is no doubt that a generation brought up .by its canons would; differ profpunwy.frbm the dis-ease-ridden-population of to-day. But our immediate interest is with the present. The adult of to-day carries in his unconscious mind a memory clogged with a mass of adverse, vsuggestions which have been accumulating since childhood. Hie first task of induced auto-sugges-tion will be to clear away this mass of mental lumber. Not until this has been accomplished can the real man appear, and the creative powers : of auto-sugr gestion begin to manifest themselves."