The Mental Highway
	How To Treat By Mental Methods <  Previous Contents Next  >

The first essential thing in giving a mental treatment to yourself, or to others, is to relax. Relax the muscles, let the mind become quiet, receptive and passive as possible. Shake yourself out, physically and mentally, see that you are thoroughly relaxed. Talk to yourself and say "Now relax. Let those muscles down. Let your mind be quiet." Keep up this suggestion until it works. The best method is to draw the attention to something that is so big that it is unthinkable. For instance, try to think of space that has neither length, nor breadth, nor height, nor depth, and so the mind will come to rest when it is trying to contemplate the infinite and absolute.

Having secured this state of relaxation, the next step is to reach either by direct affirmation or by indirect implication, the thing that you desire. In direct affirmation the patient says to himself, "I have a strong will. My body is filled with comfort. All my bodily functions are working normally. My stomach is perfectly normal and will digest its food properly. My circulation is perfect." These are all affirmations that we may carry into the physical, mental or spiritual realms, for ourselves or others.

Many people can give these direct suggestions to themselves or to others with equal ease and success. We realize when we first begin to make such affirmations that they are not actually, literally true. Yet if we will continue to affirm them, we begin to think of ourselves according to the affirmations. We will find that we have passed from the affirmation to the mental atmosphere of attainment. Similarly, our affirmations will work out in results in our physical body.

The indirect form of suggestion presents the result desired as a mere implication of what we will be, by creating a mental ideal, which it is our privilege, and everyone’s privilege to be, by developing the thought of the unity of our life with the Life of God. All material things are simply the organisms through which that Life expresses itself, and we are an integral part of the organism of the universe, and of the life of the universe, which we call God. This divine or Universal Life, called God, knows no such thing as sickness, weakness, or any such thing. Such things as pain are possible only in human consciousness, resulting from material incarnation. Therefore, our suggestion develops in us the consciousness of oneness with the Absolute Life, and to insist upon it so that it displaces the human consciousness and its pains and ills.

Our inherent oneness with this Absolute Life, which apart from all human and material ingredients, is at once perfect health, of which we are partakers, and perfect love, which dwells in us. It is our privilege so to express this love, to be entirely freed from all fears and worries and anxieties, and to be freed physically from all disease and pain. We must see that while pains and ills come, they are merely aids to developing the divine consciousness, to be freed from them, and they disappear when we reach this freedom. We must not dwell upon them, nor recall them, nor fill the mind with images of them in any way. Whatever the expressions of life are, we must discard them when they have served their purpose.

Another thing to remember in treating yourself or another by suggestion, is that the stronger of any two physical sensations is the one reported to the brain and to the consciousness. You cannot feel two pains in the same region simultaneously. If we experience two stimuli that would ordinarily produce pain, only the stronger one is reported, so if we have a headache we create a stronger sensation elsewhere on the skull, we cannot feel or report the first pain.

The same principle in applies in psychology. Two ideas without any contrast between them and any difference in time, leave practically no effect upon the attention and no conscious action or volition follows. It is only the contrast in strength, quality, or time that makes possible the choice between the two, and the stronger sensation or idea is always expressed at the expense of the weaker one. For instance, we hear a very loud noise for a short time and so become incapable of noticing a smaller or weaker sound because we adjust our hearing to the stronger one. So in all sensation and in material processes, we adjust so that the stronger sensation or the greater truth excludes the weaker one.

In treating ourselves or others, some vital truth must penetrate into the mind and displace whatever negative condition exists. The cure for any physical or mental ill is to find the opposite of the particular ailment and present it to the foreground of attention. For instance, to eliminate fear with all its forms that assail and torment people, we must fill the mind with its opposite, which is love. "Perfect love casts out fear" is both a philosophical and spiritual statement. We never fear the people or things we love. Such things are not compatible. Therefore, when people fear insanity, poverty, or sickness, we begin by creating in their minds an understanding of those things upon which the Love of God is based — the infinite wisdom, the infinite care and goodness, God’s presence everywhere, His power under all circumstances, His interest and concern about our welfare, for each of us with is an individual expression of Him. In other words, we must lead them to identify their lives with the Life and Love of God.

This is the first step in casting out fear by an intellectual love. As we realize that God is so identified with our lives and is bringing us continue benefits and so enables us to reach His life for comfort and health, the emotional side of Love arises, born of comfort and care and similar qualities. This furnishes us with the thought of a complete truth. We cast out fear by embracing and dwelling upon the boundless Love of God that dwells in us, which is an intellectual conception and an emotional impulse. We can apply this method no matter whether the agent of fear is a person, thing, or some indeterminate and imaginary object. We simply teach ourselves and others to love that which we fear, and the fear passes away.

Hope and the great spiritual powers and qualities allied to it are the remedies for worry, hurry, and other mental attitudes that wear the nerves to a frazzle. If one is obsessed with the idea of poverty, begin to dwell on the opposite, upon the fact that abundance and plenty are the inherent right of everyone, a part of every life. Of course, life does not consist of the abundance of things that we possess, but consists in our contentment and satisfaction in the things that we have. Yet that very state of mind, of diligence and contentment, tends to increase material conditions because it attracts them to the worker. This is perfectly good psychology. Most new businesses fail. Yet when we work with the idea of satisfaction and contentment, we psychologically prepare the way for the material possessions he would like to have. Happiness does not come by making happiness our primary objective, but we incidentally get what we desire when we serve to bring happiness to others. In other words, for material or spiritual transformation, we must mentally focus on the positive spiritual form and fact of things, rather than on their secondary and material expression.

Make suggestions for the present — the results are taking place now. The work is going on while you are talking to yourself or to others because you speak the truth and it is working its transforming processes now. This work is steadily increasing in its volume of expression. Do not to study symptoms too closely, or emphasize the abnormal conditions that may arise either in sensation or in mental imagery.

Others, by autosuggestion, often unconsciously counter the suggestions you give them. Some people find it difficult if not impossible to relax, simply because you are telling them to relax, so suggest to them just to imagine themselves as relaxing, now being perfectly quiet, receptive and passive.

No two people are equally receptivity to a mental treatment. Some can probably take a simple statement from you that their pain will cease from this hour, and it actually will. Ask tense persons to sit or lie down. Stroke their forehead to relax the vasomotor nerves and explain that you are doing this to help their nervous tension and to treat their heart, liver and stomach. This will quiet them and they will take the suggestion. In other words, you have to rub the suggestion in.

To get the best results, your statements should be perfectly reasonable to them, for their common sense will act against any suggestion that is based on a palpable falsehood. Although you know their pain is illusionary and has no foundation in fact, it is just as real to them as though it were a real pain. Treat them by diverting their mind with some suggestion stronger than the one their mind now holds. Ease is always a greater sensation than pain, pleasure is always greater than discomfort, light more powerful than darkness, goodness is always infinitely more satisfactory in its results than badness. We never analyze these positives, but we do analyze the negatives.

One great drawback in giving suggestions is the subjects’ lack of imagination. Instruct them that they must know that the suggestions are coming to pass. If they have formed some wrong habit of thinking, they must replace it with a right habit. Since repeating a mental or physical act or state causes wrong mental and physical habits, we replace them by repeating a right mental or physical act.

Some people hold deep-seated prejudice against mental healing, or against some material agents, such as medicines. Others have serious doubts about the spiritual life, which will stand as mental barriers to suggestion until you have discussed it. So the personal factor enters, at least in showing your patient how to get the divine healing agencies within himself into operation.

The ideal healing method is to teach any individual that God dwells in us, and is absolutely sufficient for health and strength and peace without relying upon any human agencies or practitioner. In other words, its supreme ideal is that of self-mastery for the whole person, physically, mentally and spiritually.