How To Put The Subconscious Mind To Work
	Unfriendly Suggestion <  Previous Contents Next  >

God's universe is to every man exactly what his mind sees it to be. If the mind be free, and light, and joyous, the world is ablaze with sunlight, joy, and happiness, even though in appearance it be the darkest day of all the year. But if sorrow and despair have found lodgment there the world's delights and grand activities are huge mountains of dreariness in which is no fascination at all, but intensest weariness instead. Develop the mind by educational processes and the universe is no longer the shallow thing it was before, but a profound aggregate of cause and effect, of mysterious laws and forces, of deepest, grandest purposes and design. Instill lustful thoughts into it, and a world of animalism results. While if spiritual thoughts hold possession, and the mind endures as seeing Him who is invisible, the world's barren waste becomes a paradise again.

"Morbid mentality is death's advance agent, and if you persist in picturing calamity it may, indeed, come to pass."

A physician who for twenty-five years practiced medicine, gives this interesting illustration:

Even the doctor himself shakes his head when he comes, as if to say, you are not much longer for this world. The patient is obliged to submit to his surroundings, take whatever is given him, and, worse than all, has to listen to everything that is said of and about him. And if the patient happens to belong to a family in which some popular family disease has prevailed, such as consumption, asthma, apoplexy, paralysis, or rheumatism, this inheritance is held up before him or her, day in and day out.

Unfriendly suggestions of every kind should be avoided in all cases. If we cannot say something good or encouraging, something that will make people feel better, we should say nothing.

An internationally famous physician is on record as saying:

I, myself, have committed the same fault. A female attendant suffered with pains in the stomach. I diagnosed and treated her anxiously for gastric ulcer. For months she kept her bed, and gradually recovered with the stomach very sensitive for years. I have not now the slightest doubt that her long sickness was produced by over-anxious investigations and strict regimen.

We think many physicians as they read this will search their own memories and find recorded there more than one parallel case.

On every hand we see unfriendly suggestion dealt a smashing blow squarely between the eyes.

The curse pronounced upon our grandmother Eve operates as an ever-present suggestion to the mothers of Christendom that painful parturition is an inalienable inheritance; whereas among other races, this inevitable crisis in every normal woman's life is attended with comparatively little pain or inconvenience.

We hear more about germs and the mischief they do than about the suggestions which render people immune. We see scareheads and placards and billboards advertising the symptoms of disease and the ills from which people suffer, dangers of contagion, and need for physic at all crossroads of civilization.

If we spent one half as much printer's ink and one-tenth as much energy and one-hundredth part as much faith in creating a healthful atmosphere as we do in advertising the dangers of diseases besetting the human race, it wouldn't take long to shoo-fly diseases, disease germs and medicine kits out of the closets of the human family.

This unfriendly suggestion has been habitual from time immemorial down until the present day. Indeed, in heathen countries now, the suggestion of devils and imps of sickness and sorrow, and superstitious ravings about ill health, misfortune, poverty and death, stares man in the face everywhere.

But in our own country the suggestion of sickness is seen and heard at every crossroad of man's activity and experience. Warnings of this, that or the other sickness, of nose, throat, ear, eyes, smallpox and yellow fever, bronchitis and appendicitis, operations and amputations, patent medicine and quack serums, make up a major part of man's daily round of living. We come into the world in superstitious dread of sickness, we travel through this "veil of tears" between the two peaks of eternity, urged on to our dreadful end by ill suggestions of every kind on every hand, at every turn.

Fear--the suggestive fear of poverty and old age, of loss of leg, arm or ear, fear of failure, lack and limitation, fear of not getting married and fear of the divorce court after we are hooked up, fear of the circumstances and environment round about us! Fear of getting no business and after it grows fear that we can't take care of it! Fear of the devil, damnation, death and the judgment!

It is one roly-poly, whirly-gig, merry-go-round, ring-a-round-the-rosie of fear, from the time our eyes are opened to see the light of day until they are closed by the hands of another as if to cover the last long fear stare as we make our exit from this stage of life.

It has been supposed that one must pass through a round of children's diseases and other maladies of early and later life, culminating in the loss of faculties and in death, with all of the horrors and all of the pitfalls that average life may have.

It is asserted by physicians of experience that in cholera epidemics a large proportion--more than half--of the cases are the result of "fear," otherwise suggestion.

Sir William Hamilton has mentioned the case of a row of billiard balls.

When one is struck the impetus is transmitted through all the row but only the last ball moves, the others remaining in their places.

Something like this seems often to occur in a train of thought, one idea immediately suggests another into consciousness--this suggestion passing through one or more ideas which do not themselves rise into consciousness. This point, that we are not conscious of the formation of groups, but only of a formed group, may throw light on the existence of unconscious judgments, unconscious reasonings and unconscious registrations of experience.

Referring to suggestion causing death, Dr. Alfred T. Schofield, the famous physician author, says in "The Force of Mind":

Only recently I heard of a case in the South of Scotland when two medical men were walking together, and one was saying that he could make a man ill by merely talking to him (I do not give the doctor's name for obvious reasons). The other doctor doubted this. So, seeing a laborer in a field, the first speaker went up to him, and, telling him he did not like his appearance, proceeded to diagnose some grave disease. The man was profoundly struck, left off work soon after, feeling very ill, took to his bed, and in a week died; no sufficient physical cause being found. This was of course a shocking misuse of the power, causing great grief at the time at the unexpected and fatal result.

Also: A gentleman known to me, seeing a friend with stricture of the gullet, soon experienced an increasing difficulty in swallowing, which ultimately was a cause of death.

Philip Zenner, in "Mind Cure and Other Essays", also agrees with other authorities about the influence of suggestion.

Suggestion of disease comes from many sources. Seeing its manifestations may give rise to the same symptoms. A case of St. Vitus dance in the schoolroom may give rise to an epidemic of the disease. There have been instances where the appearance of bizarre phenomena of this order has resulted in an epidemic throughout a whole land.

As one works over a problem, puts it aside unsolved and awakes in the morning with the solution in his mind, so suggestion of disease, received by the conscious--or possibly only partly conscious--mind, may be forgotten and yet continue its blighting effect subconsciously. Perhaps the suggestion does the more harm, because nothing is known of its presence.

Not only does the human race collectively feel the steadily corrosive effect of unfriendly suggestion, but:

Parents and guardians may ruin children by giving them bad suggestions; they may not only make maniacs of them, but they may, by abuse and bad suggestions, make them profane, untruthful, wicked, and almost worthless.

By continually scolding and berating a child, telling it that it is mean, that it cannot do a good thing, it cannot tell the truth, it is worthless, that it never will be of any account, and that nobody likes it or cares for it, they are certainly building up a bad character, the very opposite of what they are trying to make.

If you want to make a boy bad, tell him he is mean and despised by all good people; but if you want him to be good, appeal to his pride. All boys have more or less good in them, and if we would develop this, we should frequently remind them of their good qualities and make them know that they have good hearts in them.

From the days of Socrates to the present time, there have been great sages, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists who believe that criminality is more a matter of suggestion and environment than anything else.

The late Hugo Muensterburg, commenting upon this assumption is reported to have said:

The criminal is therefore never born as such. He is only born with a brain which is in some directions inefficient and which thus, under certain unfavorable conditions, will more easily come to criminal deeds than the normal brain.

With the idea of a stereotyped born criminal there disappears also the idea of a uniform treatment against criminal tendencies. That men are different in their power of resistance or in their power of efficiency or in their intellect or in their emotions, we have to accept as the fundamental condition with which every society starts. It would be absurd to remodel them artificially after a pattern. The result would be without value anyhow, inasmuch as our appreciation is relative. No character is perfect. The more the differences were reduced, the more we should become sensitive even for the smaller variations. All that society can do is, therefore, not to remodel the manifoldness of brains, but to shape the conditions of life in such a way that the weak and unstable brains also have a greater chance to live their lives without conflicts with the community.

The situation is different as soon as the particular surroundings have brought it about that such a brain with reduced powers has entered a criminal career. The thought of crime now becomes a sort of obsession or rather an autosuggestion. The way to this idea has become a path of least resistance, and as soon as such an unfortunate situation has settled itself, the chances are overwhelming that a criminal career has been started. If such eases should come early to suggestive treatment which really would close the channels of the antisocial autosuggestion, much harm might be averted. Yet again the liability of the brain to become antisocial would not have been removed, and thus not much would be secured unless such a person after the treatment could be kept under favorable conditions. With young boys who through unfortunate influence have caught a tendency, for instance, to steal, and where the fault does not yield to sympathetic reasoning and to punishment, an early hypnotic treatment might certainly be tried. I myself have seen promising results.

Says an eminent authority:

Bad autosuggestion’s occur involuntarily with all of us from time to time, and in many cases, alas! are all too frequent. The emotion which has special power in rein- forcing them is the emotion of fear. These autosuggestions tend especially to exaggerate and to prolong ill-health of mind and body. In a certain proportion of cases they may perhaps be held responsible even for the initiation or production of such ill-health. It is therefore clear that in all cases of ill-health the inculcation of habits of good autosuggestion is most desirable, both to neutralize the previous bad autosuggestions, and also to give an additional uplift to the vital powers of the mind and body.

At the sight of roses or goldenrod many people promptly develop a congestion of the nasal mucus membrane with sneezing, watering of the eyes and profuse nasal secretions. It matters not if the flowers be artificial or real or it may be they associate hay fever with "the last week of June" and because they expect it they get it.

A young man had hay fever and was sure it was caused by inhaling the particles blown from the center of a daisy. Whenever he came near daisies his eyes swelled, tears ran, his nose discharged and he had a cough. Someone who understood the power of mind put a bunch of daisies in his room at night. "When he went to bed at night he was not near the regular periodicity for hay fever. When he wakened in the morning and saw the bouquet of daisies the old symptoms immediately returned. By the time he had made his toilet and ready to leave for business, his friend brought to his attention that these were not real daisies but artificial. This brought the counter suggestion with such suddenness and abruptness that he never had hay fever or the symptoms afterward.

Tuke relates this incident:

Two boys were sent to a man's house for arum roots. He was from home, but the boys went to the field and procured them; the owner, returning before they had left, pronounced the most dreadful imprecation upon one and both of them, threatening them with the agony of body equal to that arising from a heated spear or hook. The boys returned. One of them was shortly afterwards taken ill, and his friends concluded that it was the result of the malediction. He soon after died in dreadful agony.

Again--Erasmus Darwin relates the following:

A young farmer, in Warwickshire, finding his hedges broken and the sticks carried away during a frosty season, determined to watch for the thief. He lay under a hay stack, and at length an old woman, like a witch in a play, approached, and began to pull up the hedge; he waited till she had tied up her bundle of sticks, and was carrying them off, that he might convict her of the theft, and then springing from his concealment he seized his prey with violent threats. After some altercations, in which her load was left upon the ground, she kneeled upon the bundle of sticks, and raising her arms to heaven beneath the bright moon, then at the full, spoke to the framer: "Heaven grant that thou never mayest known again the blessing to be warm." He complained of cold all the next day, and wore an overcoat, and in a few days another, and in a fort- night took to his bed, always saying nothing made him warm; he covered himself with very many blankets, and had a seive over his face as he lay, and from this one insane idea he kept his bed about twenty years for fear of the cold air, till at length he died.

No thinking person would believe that these "curses" were the result of divine interposition. They were the direct results of wicked prayers which again proves the wonderful power of suggestion. In both instances the men thought the prayers--the curse--would follow them and because they expected it, it was the natural operation of the law of autosuggestion.

But the encouraging thing is that positive thoughts called blessings or prayers for success and health are more effective than wicked prayers.

"Thoughts are things," says Shakespeare, but good thoughts and positive thoughts are by far better things than wicked thoughts and negative thoughts.

In "Mental Medicine" by Oliver Huckel, we get another aspect of unfriendly suggestion, that of the person who will not be responsive or give in to unfriendly suggestion.

This is a phase of unfriendly suggestion which we all want to study, understand and conquer.

A volunteer in the recent Spanish-American war lay sick with typhoid fever in a Southern hospital. The physician passing through the ward on his tour of inspection noticed his weakened condition and said to the nurse in attendance. "That man can't live." The young man overheard the remark, and with what remaining strength he had cried out, "I will live!" The physician's remark aroused his antagonism and impelled an auto-suggestion contradictory to the physician's declaration. The determination to live started all the curative forces of his subconscious nature, and the ideal of life, "I will live," crowded out the expectation of death. He did live.

Dr. Bernheim was about to treat a young woman who was afflicted with aphonia (loss of voice) with electricity. Before doing so he put his hand over the larynx and moved it up and down and said to her, "Now you can speak aloud." He told her to say "a." She said it and the aphonia disappeared.

A Catholic woman went to Dr. Hammond to consult with him about her sickness. He considered that she had an incurable disorder and he told her so. She turned away with a sigh. "Ah," she said, "if I only had some of the water of Lourdes, then I should be cured." It so happened that a friend had brought the Doctor a bottle of the genuine water, that he might chemically analyze it and find out its medicinal properties. He told her that he had some of the water and promised to give her some of it, provided she would first try a more potent remedy. Aqua Crotonis--Croton Acqueduct water. She said that it would not reach her case. (The suggestion of the water of Lourdes had complete control of her mind). He gave her a little bottle of Lourdes water, but labeled it Aqua Crotonis. She returned to his office no better. Then he gave her a vial of Croton water and labeled it ''Water of Lourdes." She was completely cured.

As all of us are susceptible to unfriendly suggestion, so all of us are equally susceptible to friendly suggestion. That is the encouraging part of the study of psychology. When we turn our faces from all unfriendly suggestion toward the friendly, from the bad to the good, from the sick to the well, from the unhappy to the happy, we change our whole world.

This method of healing has been and will be performed by the power of mind.

We have asserted elsewhere that there is only one law of healing and that this one law was operated by Jesus in many different ways. Take for instance, the story of the blind man in St. John, Chapter 9. Jesus, we are told spat on the ground, made a paste out of the clay, and anointed the blind man's eyes then told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. Note how the man's healing power within was aroused and stimulated by the act and the suggestion.

Of course, there was no healing power in the clay that was used, nor was there healing power in the spittle, but the suggestion of the clay, augmented by the reputation of Jesus, stimulated a faith within the man to such an extent that the healing took place.

After the clay was made and put upon the blind man's eyes, it became dry and sticky--I suppose similar to that "mud stuff" the barbers use in giving a mud massage. The longer the clay stays on the face, the more drawing effect it seems to have. It seems to crack and crackle on the face, and as it does this, pulls the skin and annoys the subject (one mud massage was enough for me). I suppose as this mud began to cake and draw the eyes of the man, he went through the streets with his mind deeply aroused to the fact that he wanted to get the mud off. So as he rubbed his eyes and brought his mind to the weak spot, circulation increased; this created a warm sensation; aroused a vibration, and by the time he reached the Pool of Siloam, and without soap or towel washed this sticky, dry, clinging mud from his eyes, the healing power within was so aroused that the man "went on his way rejoicing"--seeing.

Do not forget that, in addition to the suggestion of the mud and the reputation of Jesus, a command from the greatest teacher of the ages was given to the blind person--"Go wash in the Pool of Siloam."

The same law of suggestion is apparent in the leper whom Jesus cleansed by telling him to go show himself to the Priest and make an offering as prescribed by Moses, as a testimony.

The Priest in this capacity acted as quarantine or health officer, and to get by him was some job. No one else could have instilled the confidence into the leper to even attempt to get by this quarantine board. But Jesus' reputation had so grown, and the leper was so anxious to be healed, that a great faith was established in him when Jesus said--"Be thou clean." And as he went, he was healed.

Jesus understood how healing was done, but you remember he told his disciples on one occasion, that he had many things to tell them that they could not yet hear. Jesus did not tell everything he knew. That he healed was enough for them in their day and in their state of consciousness. If he had attempted to explain from a scientific or psychological standpoint how the healing was effected, those primitive, superstitious, unlearned people could not have understood and would have gone away disappointed or doubting.

Long before we made a science of the power of mind to heal, primitive peoples and superstitious folk believed in it and employed it.

Pvrrhus, king of Epirus, had the power of assuaging colic and affections of the spleen by laying the patients on their backs and passing his great toe over them. The Emperor Vespasian cured nervous affections, lameness, and blindness, solely by the laying on of his hands (Suelin, Vita Yespas). According to Coelius Spartianus, Hadrian cured those afflicted with dropsy by touching them with the points of his fingers, and himself recovered from a violent fever by similar treatment. King Olaf healed Egill on the spot by merely laying his hands upon him and singing proverbs (Edda, p. 216). The kings of England and France cured diseases of the throat (goitre) by touch. It is said that the pious Edward the Confessor, and in France that Philip the First, were the first who possessed the power. The formula used on such occasions was, "Le roi te touche, allez et guerrisses," so that the word was connected with the act of touching—physical contact. In England the disease was called the King's Evil; and in France the power was retained until within the memory of men now living.

Among the German princes this curative power was ascribed to the Counts of Hapsburg, and they were also able to cure stammering by a kiss. Pliny says, "There are men whose whole bodies are possessed of medicinal properties, as the Marsi, the Psyli, and others, who cure the bite of serpents merely by the touch." In later times the Salmadores and Ensalmadores of Spain became very celebrated, who healed almost all diseases by prayer, laying on of hands, and by the breath. In Ireland, Valentine Great-rakes cured at first king's evil by laying on of hands; later, fever, wounds, tumors, gout, and at length all diseases. In the seventeenth century the gardener Levret and the notorious Streeper performed cures in London by stroking with the hand. In a similar manner cures were performed by Michael Medina, and the child of Salamanca; also Marcellus Empiricus (Sprengel, Gesch. der Med., part ii. p. 179). Eichter, an innkeeper at Eoyen, in Silicia, cured, in the years of 1817-18, many thousands of sick persons in the open fields, by touching them with his hands. Under the Popes, laying on of the hands was called Chirothesy. Diepenbroek wrote two treatises on it; and, according to Lampe, four-and-thirty Chirothetists were declared to be holy.

In the "International Science Series," Binet, in an article entitled, "Animal Magnetism", refers to this.

Those who undertake miraculous cures ... do not deny the existence of disease, but assert that it may be cured by supernatural power. They act by means of suggestion and by gradually inculcating the idea that the disease is curable, until the subject accepts it. The cure is sometimes effected by the suggestion, and when it is said to be by saving faith, the expression is rigorously scientific. These miracles should no longer be denied, but we should understand their genesis, and learn to imitate them. These are therefore no imaginary diseases, but are diseases due to the imagination, and accompanied by real functional disturbances. Such disturbances may be developed under the influence of spontaneous (unconscious), accidental, or deliberate (conscious) suggestion, and they may be cured under the influence of another suggestion of equal intensity working in an inverse direction. The moral treatment ought not therefore to consist in denying the existence of the disease, but in asserting that it is susceptible of cure, that the cure has actually begun, and will soon be completed.

The skin of a rabbit's stomach tied around a baby's neck to give it painless cutting of the teeth; put a live toad in the mouth to cure whooping cough; dangle frog legs back of the ears to cure any form of excessive bleeding; fasten your clothes with pins that have been stuck into a frog to cure rheumatism; carry a potato in the pocket to cure rheumatism; a wife who has a cold should sneeze in her husband's shoe; one with a colic should hold a live duck to the parts--the colic will cease and the duck will die.

As examples of cures by faith in the personal power of man we may cite the case of the power of the touch of kings to cure sickness. Dr. Carpenter tells us, concerning Charles II: " Some of the principal surgeons of the day certified that the cures were so numerous and rapid that they could not be attributed to any natural cause."

A very curious case of the belief in the person is in the person of Dr. Tuke himself, and in connection with the extremely prosaic and apparently organic disease of "warts." Having heard of "wart cures" by faith, and being at an asylum on an official tour (where, of course, he was the great person, and, in the eyes of the poor inmates, possibly almost divine), he happened to see several afflicted with warts, and he solemnly predicted to the sufferers by what day each wart would have disappeared. He quite forgot the circumstance, but, on his next round, was agreeably surprised by the hearty thanks of his patients, who had been cured so near the time predicted that his fame as a "wart-curer' was firmly established.

Suggestions lodged in that mind can effect a complete change, morally and physically. If mankind could become in spirit "as a little child," trusting in God implicitly, the greatest power would be utilized in the establishment of health and equilibrium, and the results would be untold in comfort, sanity, and blessing. For instance, here is one who is suffering from worry, fear, and the vexations of life. How can he get rid of these things and relieve this suffering? Let him go to a quiet room or place, twice a day, lie down and relax every muscle, assume complete indifference to those things which worry him and the functions of the body, and quietly accept what God, through this law of demand and supply, can give. In a few days he will find a great change in his feelings, and the sufferings will pass away and life will look bright and promising. Infinite wisdom has established that law; and its utilization by those who are worried and fearful will secure amazing results in a short time.

The reader may ask how this is secured. The explanation is not far to seek. The physical system has been on a severe strain, owing to depressing effects of worry and fear, and has come almost to the point of breaking. Its nervous equilibrium has been greatly disturbed and the depressed condition has affected the heart action, the digestion, and the vital functions. When the person becomes quiescent, and relaxes the muscles by an act of the will and persistent passivity, the nerves have a chance to regain their normal, healthful action, all the functions of the body commence to work naturally, the health is restored, and the unreasonableness of fretting, fearing, and worrying becomes so apparent that the afflicted one sees the foolishness of that course of life and gives it up. The real reason for the change is found in the possibility of recovery by using the laws that God has placed within our reach, and thus securing the coveted health and power for all that we want and ought to do. The subliminal life is the connecting link between man and God, and by obeying His laws one's life is put in contact with Infinite resources and all that God is able and willing to give. Here is the secret of all the cures of disease and the foundation for the possibility of a joyful existence, happiness, and eternal life.

Suggestion is the method of securing what God gives, and the mind is the agent through which these gifts are received. This is not a matter of theory, but a fact. If any one who is sick or who desires to be kept well will have stated periods of relaxation, open-mindedness, and faith, he can prove the beneficial and unvarying result of this method.

The necessity of study of suggestion and autosuggestion has been so strongly emphasized by H. C. Sheppard, in "Psychology made Practical" that we quote here in full:

Suggestion is a meaningful word and is becoming more meaningful with the advance of psychology. To illustrate a complication in the way it is often wrongly applied, yet not too far fetched for the reader to see the point:

It will be helpful for the student to consider well and think out for himself and draw conclusions from cases paralleling or similar to the following--Suppose a man dominated (but not admitting it--that is, subconsciously dominated) by the impression and evidence of dishonesty. Presume such a man applying strong suggestions to him- self for success. He does this consistently, systematically and progressively, never once touching upon an equally strong suggestion for honesty. What will occur? Will the man experience success? He surely will! But it will be a DISHONEST success! It may be so dishonest a success that some feature of it may come under observation of the authorities, and he and his whole success may next find themselves in the penitentiary. This, under analogical analysis, may be of inestimable enlightenment in application on less extreme, but at the same time much more important considerations valuable to the student.

From observation and comparison of results following application of progressive suggestion by various persons, there is one recommendation which logically forms itself and is fitting to all. "We hope and strongly advise that it be not carelessly ignored.

THE BASIC ASPIRATION AND UNDERTONING SUGGESTION THROUGHOUT ENDEAVORS OF THIS NATURE SHOULD BE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF HONEST AND ROUNDED CHARACTER IN PURSUIT OF THE ALTRUISTIC MASTER IDEAL.

The predominant mental impression in the subconscious mind determines one's temperament and the temperament determines the manner in which we react toward the events of life. The neighbor to the right, let us fancy, has brooded over this, that or the other until the predominant impression with him is one of gloom. A prolonged, dreary rain sets in. He groans, sighs and mourns, blaming every- thing but the thing he should blame and transform—his own gloomy disposition. That is the manner of his reaction. This reaction, of course, is a weightier reimpression and serves to add to his already enlarged gloom. Gloom has become temperament or character. A comet is seen, or he dreams a dream, or an enemy speaks injuriously of him, and with a heavier groan than usual he gets him a rope and seeks a lofty rafter in the old barn. The comet or the scandal does not prompt the act; his own character drives him to suicide.

So the predominant mental impression carried by the subconscious mind may not or need not always be simple. It seldom is. It is usually complex. It may be Gloom and Crookedness. It may be Gloom and Honesty. It may be Cheerfulness, and Trickery and Daring; Cheerfulness-- Trickery--Cowardice; Cheerfulness -- Honesty -- Cowardice; Cheerfulness--Honesty--Daring, and so on. Make one out to fit your own case; see wherein it can be advantageously changed, then proceed conscientiously to change it, as your study even thus far should enable you to do so. If you cannot make out your own diagnosis prevail through some acquaintance to have your worst enemy make it for you. Do you think it would be far off? Is your diagnosis of the one you dislike so far from the mark?

The legitimate and proper labor to which knowledge and application of psychology should be put is to help discard the weak or destructive traits, even if they are to be torn away with pain. Thereafter Suggestion should be applied to build over the innate constellation of thought and tendency into a predominating mental impression worth while. If the old, undesired weaknesses and tendencies seem natural, then by analysis and Suggestion something better can be made just as natural. Held in mind that with this should go the realization that such mental reconstruction must lead to an effective, achieving personality and a cultivation of a feeling of identity with a sublime ideal.

In that way there is put into operation the Law of Constructive Suggestion which underlies all broad, clean thinking and right living. The aura becomes bright, and with a clean magnetism advertises the character of the spirit within.

In "Mental Medicine" the author supplements the former author's point of view:

Two questions have been asked by speculative philosophers of all the ages, neither of which could ever be satisfactorily answered prior to the discovery of the law of suggestion. The first is, Why are the lower animals so much more healthy than the human race? The second is, Why does man grow weaker as he grows wiser? Both these questions have been answered more or less satisfactorily from various standpoints, but it is now safe to say that the law of suggestion reveals the prime factor in the solution of both problems.

In the first place, the lower animals, owing to their lack of intelligence, are entirely exempt from the influence of suggestions adverse to health. The same is true of idiots and of many insane persons, and for the same reason. In neither case can adverse suggestions reach the subjective mind, owing to the limited intelligence of the objective. Hence "nature," as the world loosely defines that mysterious energy within which keeps us alive, is left free and untrammeled to follow its natural trend, which is always toward health and the conservation of the vital forces.

On the other hand, man, whose objective mind is capable of receiving and assimilating impressions from innumerable sources, is the constant prey of suggestions adverse to health; and the most significant feature of it is that, the more numerous are the sources from which man receives his impressions, the greater are the dangers which beset his pathway through life. In other words, the history of the world shows that as the sources of information multiply, the diseases of mankind increase in number and prevalence; and this in spite of man's increased knowledge of medicine, sanitation, and hygiene. This fact alone points unmistakably to a psychological cause; and to those who have followed my remarks thus far it will be obvious that popular ignorance of the law of suggestion is responsible. For if suggestion is a therapeutic agency as effective and universal as we found it to be, it follows that suggestions adverse to health must be equally potent in the other direction.

This view of the case will be con- firmed if we find that suggestions adverse to health are as common and as prevalent and as virulent, so to speak, as the diseases themselves. That is to say, we may expect to find that the increase of such suggestions, and the facilities for imparting them to the public, are proportioned to the increase in the number of diseases which afflict man- kind; and this, as a matter of fact, is precisely what we do find. Beginning with the lower animals and idiots, neither of whom are capable of receiving either a therapeutic suggestion or one adverse to health, and ascending through all the grades of human intelligence, we find that this ratio prevails. It follows that as in these days books and newspapers furnish facilities, greater than ever before existed, for imparting suggestions to those who read them, we may expect to find that books and newspapers are the prime sources of the suggestions, good or bad, which dominate mankind of the present day. Now, it can- not be denied that the press, especially the newspaper, leads the van in the world's material and intellectual progress; but it is equally true that the newspaper, as a means of promoting or promulgating psychological knowledge, has thus far proved a dismal failure. This is not the fault of the newspaper, per se; but it arises from the fact that the average newspaper man shows the prevailing ignorance of the fundamental principles of psychology, especially of the new psychology.

I shall not stop to dwell upon the fact that the new psychology, in the hands of ignorance, readily lends itself to the uses of newspaper sensationalism, for that is not the worst feature of the situation. It matters little that the newspaper has succeeded in frightening its readers into an insane prejudice against hypnotism, for popular prejudice against that psychological agency is not without its value in guarding the public against the possible evils of hypnotism in the hands of ignorance and charlatanism. But the case assumes a serious aspect when we consider the newspaper as an agency for the promulgation of suggestions adverse to public health; and the fact that it is done unintentionally and in ignorance of the law of suggestion serves but to enhance the gravity of the situation.

The first and most obvious agency through which the newspaper assists in the promulgation of suggestions ad- verse to health is the patent-medicine advertisement. Everybody is familiar with the patent-medicine man's insidious ways, and with what preternatural cunning he insinuates ideas of ill health into the minds of his readers.

If his medicine is not a panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to, he usually selects some disease that is quite common--say, dyspepsia, or liver complaint, or kidney trouble, or impure blood--and then proceeds to tell us that all other diseases arise from the particular disease which he has selected for a base of operations. He then proceeds to dilate upon the fatal character of his selection, and usually appends a long list of "symptoms" by which any one can know that he is a victim. The list is always extensive enough to include every conceivable sensation that is at all uncomfortable, so that few healthy persons escape, and none who are watchful for pathological "symptoms" in themselves can possibly count their cases outside of the fatal category. Fortunately for the patent medicine business, the latter class is very numerous. In fact, there are few persons who cannot, by persistent "introspection," evoke any particular "symptom" that has been suggested.

The tendency to do so is one of the serious difficulties encountered by the students of pathology in our medical colleges; and before the law of suggestion was understood by the faculties, many students were compelled to abandon their studies because of their irresistible tendency to "imagine," and eventually to experience, every symptom of the diseases they were called upon to study. Some, indeed, of the more persistent, paid the penalty of death by diseases brought on by the suggestions borne in upon them by their studies. I personally know one physician, a graduate of a regular medical college, whose usefulness has often been seriously impaired in critical cases by the fact that he almost invariably "took on the conditions" of the patient while at the bedside, especially if the patient experienced any great amount of pain,--cases of parturition forming no exception to the rule. Husbands have been known to suffer equally with their wives in such cases, and instances are not uncommon where the husband suffers all the pangs of "morning sickness" during the pregnancy of the wife. In one case the husband was personally known to the author. His first experience occurred while he was temporarily absent from home, and it continued for two weeks before he re- turned. In the meantime he consulted an eminent physician who happened to be familiar with the phenomenon, having met with several such cases in the course of his practice.

He recognized the symptoms at once; but the fact of the absence of the husband from home when he was first attacked puzzled him, for telepathy was not then recognized as a possible factor in such cases by physicians of the old school. Nevertheless, the doctor was so sure of the significance of the symptoms that he urged a comparison of notes when the husband returned home; "for," said lie, "what mysterious bond of psychological sympathy may exist between husband and wife, no one can tell." A comparison of experiences proved the correctness of the doctor's diagnosis; for the husband's and wife's sufferings were found to have been coincident as to time and character, day by day, from the beginning.

Just as we may be affected consciously or unconsciously by unfriendly suggestion so we can much more readily be affected by a "friendly" or positive suggestion.

This is taken up elsewhere under "Suggestion and Autosuggestion."

Hudson recapitulates thus in the Law of Mental Medicine:

1. Avoid all suggestions, from extraneous sources, which are adverse to health.

2. If such suggestions are forced upon you, meet them by counter suggestions affirmative of your own immunity from the suggested diseases.

3. Inhibit all conversation at the table adverse to the quality of the food set before you, especially as to its supposed indigestibility.

4. Never refuse to give a child the food it desires on the ground of its hurtfulness. If you are too stingy to give him what he wants, say so. But, as you value the health of your child, never suggest that the food he eats is liable to "make him sick,"--first, because you know you are lying, and, secondly, because he will find it out some day, and despise you for it.

5. Talk hopefully to the chronic invalid, for his sake; and for your own sake, when you leave him, thank God that you are immune from his diseases.

6. Think health and talk health on all suitable occasions, remembering that under the law of suggestion health may be made contagious as well as disease.

7. Finally, meet the first symptom of disease with a vigorous and persistent auto-suggestion of your immunity from disease or of your ability to throw it off. When you go to bed at night, direct your subjective mind to employ itself during your sleep in restoring normal conditions, strongly affirming its ability to do so; and when you rise in the morning, assume the attitude, in mind and body, of restored health and vigor. Should these prophylactic efforts fail to produce the desired effect, and should disease come upon you in spite of them, it is not the fault of the system. It is because you are not well grounded in the conditions precedent to success. Mental remedies are dependent for success upon mental conditions, just as physical remedies are dependent for their efficacy upon physical conditions.

Just as many a man has become sick by reason of adverse suggestion so in the same way sick people become well by positive and helpful suggestions which reach the subconscious.

As an illustration a famous physician tells the following incident which occurred during the great war.

During the war, those of us who had the opportunity of seeing nerve cases near the firing-line met innumerable examples of functional nerve illness (i.e., illness involving no detectable organic or structural change in the nervous system) initiated by bad auto-suggestion. One of my soldier-patients was guarding an ammunition-dump, when the dump was blown up by bombs from a German aeroplane. The man, in a state of intense fear, began to run away. Trembling at the knees, he fell down, and at this moment the idea crossed his mind that he was paralyzed. He then found that his legs actually were paralyzed, and as he had been hit by fragments of earth, he attributed his condition to this.

On examination of him at the casualty clearing station I found no signs of organic injury of his nervous system, and therefore dragged him out of bed and urged him to walk, assuring him with the utmost confidence that he would certainly be able to do so. This suggestion neutralized his original bad auto- suggestion, and within a few minutes he had completely regained the power over his legs. Even in such a simple case as this, however, there was an additional mental factor, viz., the wish to become a casualty and so get away from the danger area. In other cases this wish often played a more prominent part in the production of symptoms, although in a subconscious form, i.e., not clearly present in the patient's main consciousness. It played a still more prominent part in fixing the symptoms if the soldier reached the base or England untreated.

The various mental factors at work in producing shell- shock were especially easy to disentangle in early cases, before the lapse of time had consolidated the illness and complicated it with the effects of meditation, false theorizing, and the subconscious working of other motives and desires in the patient's mind.