WILLING TO BE WELL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18455, 17 January 1922, Page 9

WILLING TO BE WELL

THE POWER OF AUTO-SUGGESTION. FRENCH PSYCHOLOGIST IN LONDON. SEX DETERMINATION. i (From Ode Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 30. Dr Emil Coue, the founder of the new School of Applied Psychology at Nancy, fans come to London at the invitation of the deans, doctors, surgeons,' and psychologists, to lecture and to help people to heal themselves. He is a gay and modest little French doctor, very delightful and simple to talk with. He deprecates any excessive belief in faith-healing. "It is absurd, ho said, “ to think that a lost arm will grow toy thinking it will.” And he regards ms system as what another doctor called a sort of sublimation of common sense. Mona. Coue lives at Nancy, the headquarters of the school of auto-suggestion, and students go there from all parts of the world. One of his English doctor pupils has started a clinic in Chelsea —chiefly for poor people to be healed by auto-sugges-tion. > One of his hosts here is the Rev. Harold Anson, who is. concluding a series of lectures in public schools in England for the Guild of Health, which desires, to adopt into the Church of England a sort of Christian Science founded on faith in “ getting better every day.” The professor has been practising in London his curious art of healing people by groups of 30 or 40 at a time. He quite discounts mesmerism, but his gay and hopeful temperament helps io persuade people that they are getting better; '.and each of the group turns the general message to his—or her—particular case. Roughly stated, his teaching is that anyone suffering from physical disordered mental trouble should repeat to him or horscif the formula: ‘‘Every day I am getting better and better.” Forty times a day--20 in the morning and 20 at nightr-these words should be repeated; and results follow. During the last 20 years Monsieur Coue has treated many cases of illness and disease. Definite cures have resulted. Every Friday some 200 people, afflicted in various ways, assemble before his door, and within they learn the secret —which is no secret—of curing themselves. Happy in his own small independent income, and happier in communicating his knowledge to others,' Monsieur Coue has never yet accepted a fee for his instructions, though he has reiceived or returned many. IMAGINATION HOLDS THE STRINGS. Monsieur Coue' speaks, not as a healer, but as a man who helps others to heal themselves. Auto-suggestion he describes as a, power that we all possess at birth. In it rests a marvellous .power. Suggestion is the act of imposing an idea on the brain ■of another, but it nas no effect unless it be transformed into auto-suggestion in the subject. Auto-suggestion is implanting an idea in oneself by oneself. We arc, in fact, the wretched i puppets of our unconscious selves, of which imagination holds the strings, and we shall only cease to be puppets when wo have learned to guide our imagination. In contents between the will and _ imagination, the victory is always with imagination. To that rule there is no exception. " Always “ I cannot ” triumphs over “ I will.” The imagination must bo controlled. We are doing that everv day, but unconsciously, and unfortunately often to our detriment. TRAINING THE IMAGINATION. What is needed is conscious auto-sugges-tion ; and its influence on the moral and physical well-being of mankind is undem-. able. If one can persuade oneself that one can dp a certain thing—provided it; bo not impossible—one can do it, however difficult it might be. But if, on the contrary, one imagines that he cannot do the simplest thing, in the world it is impossible to do it. If certain people are ill, mentally or physically. it is because they imagine themselves to be ill, and among such persons Extraordinary cures-are produced. If people ore happy or unhappy, it is because they imagine themselves to bo so. It is possible for two people to be in exactly the same ciroumstances. and orio to be perfectly happy, and the other absolutely wretched. In certain cases, mental and physical ailments are nothing' but the result of unconscious auto-suggestion. They can be cured by conscious auto-suggestion. In practising auto-suggestion the will must not be brought into play. It is the training of the imagination that is necessary; and it is owing to this slight difference that the methods advocated have succeeded where others have foiled. TWENTY KNOTS IN A STRING. . Conscious auto-suggestion can be practised thus: Every, morning before rising, and every evening as soon 1 as he is in bed, the patient should close his eyes and murmur twenty times, “Day by day in all respects I grow better.” He should have a piece of string with twenty knots .tied in it, so that he can count mechanically. This auto-suggestion- should bo made ■with confidence and faith. The greater i*he conviction the more rapid and certain will be the result. There ihould be no concentration of the mind on a particular ill. The words “in all respects” cover all Whenever physical or moral suffering is experienced, whether by day or night, the patient should form the understanding •with himself that ho will not consciously en courage its existence.’ and that he caxi make it disappear. If possible, fie should close, his eyes, isolate himself in thought, pass his hands lightly over the seat of the pain—or the forehead, if the suffering is mental—and repeat as rapidly as possible, “It’s going,” as long as is necessary. This exercise must be made with great simplicity, and, above all, without effort. Physical or mental distress will pass in 20 or 25 seconds. THE LAME RUN. , “Is anyone here in pain?” asked Mens. Coue, at one of his private receptions. A woman pointed to her staff arm. and said she was always conscious ,of suffering because of it. He gently nibbed the arm for two minutes, after telling her to repeat quickly with him the French works “ca passe.” 1 “Sapasse-sapa-sapa-sapa-aapa-sapa - sapa,” they said together, and afterwards Mans. Oouo suggested that she should move the arm. This she did easily and without aoparent effort, and announced: “It feels ever so much better.” Next a lame ,man lirhped a tew steps to show, his difficulty in walking unaided. Again, the rubbing by Mons. Coue, and the convincing chorus: “Sapa-sapa-sapa-sapi-sapa-sapa.” “Now walk,” ordered the demonstrator. “You know you can do it easily.” The man did indeed walk much more easily. But this was not enough... “Run!” cried Mons. Coue. The man ran around the carpet in fairly long strides, and by now was not limping at all. “It. doesn’t feel much easier,” he complained, however, as he sat down again. “There are degrees in all .things, my dear sir,” was Mono. CotieV comment. “You will find a vast improvement if you continue to practise auto-suggestion cm the lines I am about to feuggest.” ) At a recent demonstration ho induced a subject to imagine away her toothache within a few minutes. And a rheumatic woman declared that before her Inst visit she had to trail slowly down the stairs, one at a time, bat she ran up them when she returned home. So Londoners seeking health are tying knotted strings to their bedsteads and repeating the formula:—Every day and in evpry respect I am getting better and better.” ■ , . The Professor advises his hearers to avoid speaking of illness, to banish the words “I cannot,” “impossible,” and “difficult” from their vocabulary, and. above all (a- frequent expression used by him) to train the imagination into practical auto-suggestion try murmuring, “I can,’” “I will,” “it is possible,” and the like. SEX DETERMINATIbN, He holds that auto-suggestion can dote rrhine .the sex of a child. If the mother before the birth of tho child concentrates her thoughts on her wishes and hopes, those he says, will be realised. In this way, by auto-suggestion, tho Spartans product boy-babies who grow up into mighty warriors. He mainfcians also that it is possible to -influence tho character of a child whilst if sleeps by approaching its bed to within two or three feet, and murmuring in a low, monotonous voice what it eliould do and what it should be.