Right And Wrong Thinking And Their Results
	Suggestion <  Previous Contents Next  >

Analysis of the elements of that relationship which exists between man and man shows that in its more subtle as well as in its more apparent activities suggestion plays an important and almost universal part. Who is there who has not over and over again responded joyously to the hearty laugh of a friend or been possessed by the opposite emotion in response to the sad face of grief, even of a stranger? This occurs though one may be ignorant of the cause of the laughter or of the tears, and it is the result of the suggestions conveyed by outward expressions. It operates not only through deeds, words, expressions of form and face, but also through the unspoken thought. The yawn that goes around the room in quick response to the unintended action of a single member of the company is full refutation of the assertion that suggestions do not have any effect. Even the best-poised and most self-controlled are not entirely free from their influence.

When undecided as to the course to be pursued a suggestion from another frequently becomes a turning-point to influence the decision. Men, looking for something which shall show them the way they ought to go, in their dilemma often seek such suggestions. The frequency of these occasions will be surprising to one who has never taken note of them. They are not aware that they are fostering a mental condition which will render them more susceptible to the influence, control, or even to the absolute domination of another. They think they exercise their own judgment in forming their conclusions when really they have been seeking something to influence that judgment and to aid them in their decision. This is correct enough if the final decision is really their own. It is right to seek information and advice from all sources, but at the last one should decide the issue independently and of one's self.

Every one is open to the suggestive influence of external things as well as to the personal and mental influence of others. This varies with character, temperament, and experience, at last turning chiefly on one's control of his thinking. Many are veered this way and that by very slight suggestion. This is especially noticeable in all weak characters, and their susceptibility is the cause of their weakness; but even the self-reliant and strong are also largely influenced by friends and associates, and particularly by those whom they believe to be possessed of greater ability, experience, or wisdom.

The difference is great between the weak hypnotic subject who stands at one end of the long line and the well-balanced, self-contained, and self-controlled person who stands at the other end; but the difference is small between any two who stand next each other in that line, and one may glide from one condition into the other by insensible degrees. Yet suggestions do not necessarily control, for every one has received many with which he has not complied, and this fact implies the possibility of complete self-control even under the most extreme conditions of suggestion.

Wise discretion is necessary on the part of those who would wield an influence for good, and this furnishes an additional reason for the exercise of rigorous mental control for the advantage of others as well as for one's own self. A recent writer ex- claims: "How many thousands, nay millions, of poor souls all over the world will have their lives saddened by the drip of your tears who might have been gladdened by the sunlight of your smile!"

This may be poetic exaggeration, but after all who knows where the suggestive influence of a word, or look, or even an unexpressed but positive thought, shall cease ? If " the fall of a pebble echoes through- out the farthest corridors of the universe," how much more may a thought!

It is unquestionably a disadvantage to tell an- other, whether acquaintance or otherwise, that he is "out at the elbows." The strong probability is that he knows it already, and an allusion to it will tend to rouse discordant thoughts in his mind and to intensify those already there, no one knows how much to his harm. It would be far wiser to arouse harmonious thinking with all its advantages by calling his attention to some of his desirable or praise- worthy qualities, or conditions, thereby encouraging,

conditions will not be difficult to find even in the worst possible person, especially if one has trained himself in the habit of seeking them. Advantages will as surely follow cheerful suggestions as harm will follow depressing ones.

It is being widely recognized that all this is of special value in health as well as in morals. The wise physician understands that it is his duty to cultivate confidence and cheerfulness not only in his words but in the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, and his whole manner toward his patient.

Hudson says of disease induced by erroneous suggestion that it is safe to say that nine-tenths of all the ailments of the human family may be traced to this source.

Albert Moll, who is good scientific authority on this topic, and who cannot be accused of exaggeration, says in his work on hypnotism: "There are few people who are not injured when they are assured on all sides that they look ill, and I think many have been as much injured by this cumulative process as if they had been poisoned."

A single well-authenticated case of intentional suggestion will illustrate the disasters which may result. In one of the shops of a large manufacturing company a young man of vigorous health was subjected to the "practical jokes" of his fellow- workmen. One morning a half-dozen of them stationed themselves just out of sight of each other along the way he was to go to his daily work. The first one accosted him pleasantly with inquiries after his health and with various assertions that he was not looking well. To all this he responded according to the fact; he had enjoyed a good night's sleep, had eaten a hearty breakfast, and felt well in every way.

To the suggestion that he must have a head- ache he answered in the negative. The next one he met had questions and statements like the first, only a little more positive in their character. To these he did not respond with so much confidence as at first. His positive ness decreased as each succeeding fellow-workman whom he encountered met him with stronger assurances of his ill health, until at last, by these repeated suggestions, he was really convinced that he was ill. On his arrival at the shop, instead of going to his work he went to the superintendent, asked for leave because of sickness, went home, and was sick in bed two weeks under the care of a physician. Of course the adept in mental self-control would avoid all this by refusing to allow the presence in his mind of the discordant thoughts which had been suggested.

But it is not alone among the joking workmen of the shops that this sort of thing occurs. Dr. Arthur T. Schofield narrates the following: "Two medical men were walking together, and one was saying that he could make a man ill by merely talking to him. The other 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."

In an article on hypnotism, which is only an extreme form of suggestion, is governed by similar fundamental principles, act? through similar mental methods, and differs from it more in its completeness than otherwise, Dr. Menard sets forth the injurious effects and possibilities of suggestion. He says: "When a subject is in the state of hypnosis, his mind accepts without control the ideas that are suggested to him, and these ideas are translated into actions. . . . The subject who is persuaded that he cannot raise his arm, open his eyes, rise from his chair, or cross a threshold, really experiences those forms of paralysis. He cannot move, because he is convinced of the impossibility of movement. In hypnosis, with or without sleep, if you give your subject a glass of water to drink, telling him it is a strong purgative, he will experience its effect, as if it had been so really. . . .

"The idea need not have been introduced into the mind during hypnosis and by another person; it may spring up in the mind in an apparently spontaneous fashion, following a strong emotion due to the erroneous interpretation of a special sensation. The individual who believes himself ill is really so; he is not an imaginary sick man, but a man who is sick because of his imagination. He may, as in hypnotic experiments, be dyspeptic or paralyzed or drunk by auto-suggestion. ... A conscious or subconscious fixed idea is the cause of the whole trouble."

In other words, the change of the mind – whether that change occurs in consequence of the silent dictum of the hypnotist, or in response to the verbal suggestion of a friend, or because of a suggestion received from some external action or condition, or even in the course of one's own thinking and from one's own conclusions -- really produces in the physical structure those conditions which have been taken note of and accepted by the mind as real; and this occurs wholly regardless of the fact that those conditions did not have any existence outside of the thinker's own mentality.

What a wrong it is, then, even though with the best intentions, to say to a person sitting by an open window, "Aren't you afraid you will take cold?"

The more earnest the speaker, the more surely will the injury be inflicted. According to Dr. Menard, the cold is far more liable to be caused by the suggestion than by the exposure, and therefore the suggestion is the more dangerous of the two. How often at the table is heard the remark, "I am afraid that will hurt you." This habit persistently followed is more certain to cause injury than any kind of injurious food. The same is true of a thousand similar well-meant cautions which any one can recall from his own experience.

The number of cases is innumerable where careful, anxious, painstaking, and conscientious mothers, by their needless caution and care-taking, and by their persistent suggestions of danger from cold, wet feet, drafts, overexertion, and the thousand and one other things which over anxiety presents to their minds, have planted inability, effeminacy, decay, disease, misery, and even death in the minds and bodies of the children they love so well and care for so anxiously.

Similar error is wrought, not alone by mothers, but by relatives, friends, acquaintances, and incidental associates through their well-meant but erroneous cautions, which are really suggestions of impending evil. Herein is at least one reason why the children of the poor are so often more vigorous, hardy, and healthy than those of the wealthy. These mothers have something else to do besides to suggest evils to their children, and they do not have time to educate them into disease, so the children escape the infliction and are happier all their lives.

Two things are worthy of note in this connection. One is that the principle will work both ways. If, as Menard says, change of mind will produce these ills, a change of mind to the contrary direction will cure them when once contracted. A guest who was a confirmed dyspeptic and afraid to eat any but the simplest food, was encouraged by his hostess, who assured him with much positiveness that no one was ever injured by anything eaten at her table.

He yielded to her suggestion, ate a good meal, partaking of several articles of food which he had thought were harmful, and was not injured. This experience so changed his mind that he lost his fear, continued to eat, and his dyspepsia of years' standing was cured. Numerous similar instances of helpful suggestion might be given.

The other point worthy of note is that if one has so trained his mind as to exclude the harmful suggestion, never allowing lodgment of the noxious mental seed, he will have complete immunity from all such harm. But to do this in the face of the persistent endeavors of the "calamity howlers" necessitates both skill and tact, because no class of a community is more thoroughly convinced that they are right, and none more sincere and persistent in their well-meant but pernicious endeavors.

Their motive is right. It is their method that is wrong. They thoroughly believe all that they say, really are solicitous for the welfare of their friends, and often are greatly disturbed if their suggestions are not heeded. These suggestions would soon cease if one would keep his own mind steadily poised and admit no discordant thoughts.

Of the same class are those who pursue a similar course toward their friends in the sick room, and toward those who complain of sickness in any degree. They commiserate them, tell them how badly they look, "sympathize" with them with the "sympathy" which destroys, and enlarge upon the more serious phases of their disease. These people seem happy when they can tell one who is ill about the extreme suffering of others in a like condition; and if they know of some one who has died of a similar disease they retail all the particulars to the sufferer who lies there at their mercy. This kind of consolation for the sick has a wonderful fascination for those who indulge in it, and they think them- selves comforters, but in reality they are human vampires.

Such a habit indicates unhealthy, morbid mental conditions. Its viciousness need not be enlarged upon, but it cannot be too strongly condemned. No one should need even a hint that he ought to avoid all such suggestions of evil either to the sick or to the well. Yet large numbers who recognize the correctness of the general position here set forth thoughtlessly indulge themselves in the vice, for vice it is. What more can be said to influence such persons to better ways? A multitude of publications set forth the evils which such a course entails, but it is worth another effort if even a single person is restrained by these words.

Looked at from one point of view, such suggestions are little short of criminal. We are eager to stop the career of him who robs another of his material possessions, and he who poisons another's food is held to be a murderer, yet people go on poisoning the minds of their associates and robbing them of their birthright of health and happiness, and no one is held accountable. If it were possible, there ought to be a law prohibiting such suggestions, with due penalties for their utterance; but, better still, each one may make such a law for himself and then obey it.

If we desire habitually to scatter sunshine and health among our fellows wherever we meet them, not only our deeds and words, but our facial expressions and our thoughts themselves, must be well con- trolled and cheerful. If the right mental habits are established, all the external expressions will take care of themselves without attention or effort, and our presence alone will carry suggestions of gladness wherever we go.