COUE METHODS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18759, 12 January 1923, Page 6

COUE METHODS

FAITH THAT MOVES MOUNTAINS. “1 CAN”--NOT ‘‘l WILL.” Nothing. M. Emil Coup told a Manchester audience recently, is “iri'yo'Fihle so long ns it is within the domain of (he possible, and for a Frenchman to speak perfect Eng lish is certainly a possil 1.; thing. There is a naivete about .'.I. Cone’s whole manner that suits well ills hesitating pronunciation of the English tongue. He is rather a little man (s>y.- ihc Manchester Guardian), his hair and short, pointed beard almost while. Nothin-; suggests (ho philosopher or (he believer in the indomitable “I cm.” 'lhe hal© face is lir by twinkling eyes, not always io bj .seen, for he has a curious lecturing manner. For the most, part he stands with twos closed, moveless, his hands clasped behind his back. Encouraged by the declaration of his chairman, (hat he believed “there was somethin;' in” auto-suggestion, M. Cone smilingly fated ids packed audience—inet one-sixth of the people who had wanted to come —and waved lightly aside nil title to be a “healer ’ or miracle-worker. If he wore a healer, he said, obviously his influence would vanish whan the patient was separated from hint; but. die fact was that the patients, when they were miles away from him, continued to get better and better. He read some letters from people who had attended his seances in Nancy; and when at the end ol one of them the audience cheered a story of pain overcome he waa careful to say, in his twinkling manner: “But remember, it’s not me you’re cheering; it’s the lady.” And uiat, of course, is the essence of his teaching: that he can do nothing for you if you do not think you can do it for yourself. What emphasis he lays on that word “can”! He has no use for the old adage that nourished our childhood, ‘‘lf at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” Don’t sav “I’ll try,” he says; say “I can!” He devoted his famous theory that conscious will is subject to the imagination, and that when the two come into conflict the will is beaten every time. You get a fit of uncontrollable laughter and say, "I will stop,” but that mere assertion inters a dithculty in stopping, and therefore you can’t. The will is 'beaten by the imagination suggesting a difficulty. If the audience had to keep itself constantly on the stretch to hear M. (Joue’s spoken word, there was a crystal clearness about his practical experiments. Seven or eight people came up indiscriminately from the audience—men and women. The demonstrations were to prove that the will could not beat the imagination. 'These people were to want very much to do certain things, but they were to be unable to do them because they imagined difficulty. They were not “subjects.” Professor Coue was anxious to explain. He had carried out the same experiments that afternoon at the University with 12 or 15 persons, and all had succeeded. The experiments were much the same in all cases. The man or woman would be asked to hold the arms straight out and clench the fists as tightly as possible. “Tighter! Tighter!” Mr Coue would say. "till you tremble.” And then he would cast this insidious little doubt into the imagination. “Abm can’t open them ! You cant, you can’t! They’re getting tighter and tignterl” And so they were till the man or woman seemed racked with the unavailing attempt to tear the hands asunder. And then: “You can open them!” “You can! You can!” And slowly the hands parted. Or a strong, healthy-look-ing man would- place his hand palm downwards on the Table, and, under suggestion, would be unable to remove it, A couple of men with palm laid on open palm were unable to move their hands up or down. A woman, told she was “nailed to the flooi ’ and given the alarming news that she could not move hand or fool, waa nailed to the floor and could not move hand or foot. She stood there ns rigid os u column till told she could move. One sceptic there was who came up witn an aggressive head-up altitude which plainly denoted an intention to “expose’ something. With him M. Coue did not. succeed; but it was evident to anybody that ho was' antagonistic to the whole idea, and that he refused to enter into the rite in the almost devotional spirit, that M. Coue exacts. M. Cone is very em phatic about this spirit, as nil have been who in the past have used his methods. “In a simple, child-liko way, as i, you were reciting them in church,” is his injunction concerning the manner of repeating his “better and better” formula. “Elvery time you say your pain is going,” he said, “It is the same as a nhuio taking a shaving off a plank, which will disappear in time.” We must not say. “I will try to send the pain away,” because that expresses doubt; we must confidently declare and truly believe that we can send it away, and, preferably in the quiet of our rooms, we must pass the hand oyer the forehead, exclaiming, “It is going, it is going”; or, better still. “Oa passe, ca passe”—‘‘because it runs better in French.” M. Cons goes so far as to say that it is sufficient- to think ‘T am blind, paralysed, or deaf," to bo blind, paralysed, or deaf. “I do not say,” he added, “that all who are blind, paralysed, or deaf are so because they think they are so. But there are some: I have seen such persons several times, and it. is with such that the ‘miracles’ take place.” He had seen people cured after being blind for years. In such calsea it waa clear there had been no lesion. The conclusion he drew was that, the “idea” of healing being grasped by tho sub-conscious mind, the healing took place in the domain of possibility. ‘‘lf tlie healing is possible, it takes place; if it is not possible it does not take place, but one obtains the greatest improvement it is possible to obtain.” Those who realised the truth of theso things, said M. Cone, could become masters of themselves, physically and morally.