Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion Part 1

Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion.

by Emile Coue.

WILL AND IMAGINATION

If we open a dictionary and look up the word "will", we find this definition: "The faculty of freely determining certain acts". We accept this definition as true and unattackable, although nothing could be more false. This will that we claim so proudly, always _yields_ to the imagination. It is an _absolute_ rule that admits of no _exception_.

"Blasphemy! Paradox!" you will exclaim. "Not at all! On the contrary, it is the purest truth," I shall reply.

In order to convince yourself of it, open your eyes, look round you and try to understand what you see. You will then come to the conclusion that what I tell you is not an idle theory, offspring of a sick brain but the simple expression of a _fact_.

Suppose that we place on the ground a plank 30 feet long by 1 foot wide. It is evident that everybody will be capable of going from one end to the other of this plank without stepping over the edge. But now change the conditions of the experiment, and imagine this plank placed at the height of the towers of a cathedral. Who then will be capable of advancing even a few feet along this narrow path? Could you hear me speak? Probably not. Before you had taken two steps you would begin to tremble, and _in spite of every effort of your will_ you would be certain to fall to the ground.

Why is it then that you would not fall if the plank is on the ground, and why should you fall if it is raised to a height above the ground?

Simply because in the first case you imagine that it is easy to go to the end of this plank, while in the second case you _imagine_ that you _cannot_ do so.

Notice that your will is powerless to make you advance; if you _imagine_ that you _cannot_, it is _absolutely_ impossible for you to do so. If tilers and carpenters are able to accomplish this feat, it is because they think they can do it.

Vertigo is entirely caused by the picture we make in our minds that we are going to fall. This picture transforms itself immediately into fact _in spite of all the efforts of our will_, and the more violent these efforts are, the quicker is the opposite to the desired result brought about.

Let us now consider the case of a person suffering from insomnia. If he does not make any effort to sleep, he will lie quietly in bed. If on the contrary he tries to force himself to sleep by his _will_, the more efforts he makes, the more restless he becomes.

Have you not noticed that the more you try to remember the name of a person which you have forgotten, the more it eludes you, until, subst.i.tuting in your mind the idea "I shall remember in a minute" to the idea "I have forgotten", the name comes back to you of its own accord without the least effort?

Let those of you who are cyclists remember the days when you were learning to ride. You went along clutching the handle bars and frightened of falling. Suddenly catching sight of the smallest obstacle in the road you tried to avoid it, and the more efforts you made to do so, the more surely you rushed upon it.

Who has not suffered from an attack of uncontrollable laughter, which bursts out more violently the more one tries to control it?

What was the state of mind of each person in these different circ.u.mstances? "_I do not want_ to fall but I _cannot help_ doing so"; "I _want_ to sleep but I _cannot_ "; "I _want_ to remember the name of Mrs. So and So, but I _cannot_ "; "I _want_ to avoid the obstacle, but I _cannot_ "; "I _want_ to stop laughing, but I _cannot_."

As you see, in each of these conflicts it is always the _imagination_ which gains the victory over the _will_, without any exception.

To the same order of ideas belongs the case of the leader who rushes forward at the head of his troops and always carries them along with him, while the cry "Each man for himself!" is almost certain to cause a defeat. Why is this? It is because in the first case the men _imagine_ that they must go _forward_, and in the second they _imagine_ that they are conquered and must fly for their lives.

Panurge was quite aware of the contagion of example, that is to say the action of the imagination, when, to avenge himself upon a merchant on board the same boat, he bought his biggest sheep and threw it into the sea, certain beforehand that the entire flock would follow, which indeed happened.

We human beings have a certain resemblance to sheep, and involuntarily, we are irresistibly impelled to follow other people's examples, _imagining_ that we cannot do otherwise.

I could quote a thousand other examples but I should fear to bore you by such an enumeration. I cannot however pa.s.s by in silence this fact which shows the enormous power of the imagination, or in other words of the unconscious in its struggle against the _will_.

There are certain drunkards who wish to give up drinking, but who cannot do so. Ask them, and they will reply in all sincerity that they desire to be sober, that drink disgusts them, but that they are irresistibly impelled to drink against their _will_, in spite of the harm they know it will do them.

In the same way certain criminals commit crimes _in spite of themselves_, and when they are asked why they acted so, they answer "I could not help it, something impelled me, it was stronger than I."

And the drunkard and the criminal speak the truth; they are forced to do what they do, for the simple reason they imagine they cannot prevent themselves from doing so. Thus we who are so proud of our will, who believe that we are free to act as we like, are in reality nothing but wretched puppets of which our imagination holds all the strings. We only cease to be puppets when we have learned to guide our imagination.

SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION

According to the preceding remarks we can compare the imagination to a torrent which fatally sweeps away the poor wretch who has fallen into it, in spite of his efforts to gain the bank. This torrent seems indomitable; but if you know how, you can turn it from its course and conduct it to the factory, and there you can transform its force into movement, heat, and electricity.

If this simile is not enough, we may compare the imagination--"the madman at home" as it has been called--to an unbroken horse which has neither bridle nor reins. What can the rider do except let himself go wherever the horse wishes to take him? And often if the latter runs away, his mad career only comes to end in the ditch. If however the rider succeeds in putting a bridle on the horse, the parts are reversed. It is no longer the horse who goes where he likes, it is the rider who obliges the horse to take him wherever he wishes to go.

Now that we have learned to realize the enormous power of the unconscious or imaginative being, I am going to show how this self, hitherto considered indomitable, can be as easily controlled as a torrent or an unbroken horse. But before going any further it is necessary to define carefully two words that are often used without being properly understood. These are the words _suggestion_ and _autosuggestion_.

What then is suggestion? It may be defined as "the act of imposing an idea on the brain of another". Does this action really exist?

Properly speaking, no. Suggestion does not indeed exist by itself. It does not and cannot exist except on the _sine qua non_ condition of transforming itself into _autosuggestion_ in the subject. This latter word may be defined as "the implanting of an idea in oneself by oneself."

You may make a suggestion to someone; if the unconscious of the latter does not accept the suggestion, if it has not, as it were, digested it, in order to transform it into _autosuggestion_, it produces no result. I have myself occasionally made a more or less commonplace suggestion to ordinarily very obedient subjects quite unsuccessfully. The reason is that the unconscious of the subject refused to accept it and did not transform it into _autosuggestion_.

THE USE OF AUTOSUGGESTION

Let us now return to the point where I said that we can control and lead our imagination, just as a torrent or an unbroken horse can be controlled. To do so, it is enough in the first place to know that this is possible (of which fact almost everyone is ignorant) and secondly, to know by what means it can be done. Well, the means is very simple; it is that which we have used every day since we came into the world, without wis.h.i.+ng or knowing it and absolutely unconsciously, but which unfortunately for us, we often use wrongly and to our own detriment. This means is _autosuggestion_.

Whereas we constantly give ourselves unconscious autosuggestions, all we have to do is to give ourselves conscious ones, and the process consists in this: first, to weigh carefully in one's mind the things which are to be the object of the autosuggestion, and according as they require the answer "yes" or "no" to repeat several times without thinking of anything else: "This thing is coming", or "this thing is going away"; "this thing will, or will not happen, etc., etc... ." [*] If the unconscious accepts this suggestion and transforms it into an autosuggestion, the thing or things are realized in every particular.

[*] Of course the thing must be in our power.

Thus understood, _autosuggestion_ is nothing but hypnotism as I see it, and I would define it in these simple words: _The influence of the imagination upon the moral and physical being of mankind_.

Now this influence is undeniable, and without returning to previous examples, I will quote a few others.

If you persuade yourself that you can do a certain thing, provided this thing be _possible_, you will do it however difficult it may be.

If on the contrary you _imagine_ that you cannot do the simplest thing in the world, it is impossible for you to do it, and molehills become for you unscalable mountains.

Such is the case of neurasthenics, who, believing themselves incapable of the least effort, often find it impossible even to walk a few steps without being exhausted. And these same neurasthenics sink more deeply into their depression, the more efforts they make to throw it off, like the poor wretch in the quicksands who sinks in all the deeper the more he tries to struggle out.

In the same way it is sufficient to think a pain is going, to feel it indeed disappear little by little, and inversely, it is enough to think that one suffers in order to feel the pain begin to come immediately.

I know certain people who predict in advance that they will have a sick headache on a certain day, in certain circ.u.mstances, and on that day, in the given circ.u.mstances, sure enough, they feel it. They brought their illness on themselves, just as others cure theirs by _conscious autosuggestion_.

I know that one generally pa.s.ses for mad in the eyes of the world if one dares to put forward ideas which it is not accustomed to hear.

Well, at the risk of being thought so, I say that if certain people are ill mentally and physically, it is that they _imagine_ themselves to be ill mentally or physically. If certain others are paralytic without having any lesion to account for it, it is that they _imagine_ themselves to be paralyzed, and it is among such persons that the most extraordinary cures are produced. If others again are happy or unhappy, it is that they imagine themselves to be so, for it is possible for two people in exactly the same circ.u.mstances to be, the one _perfectly happy_, the other _absolutely wretched_.

Neurasthenia, stammering, aversions, kleptomania, certain cases of paralysis, are nothing but the result of unconscious autosuggestion, that is to say the result of the action of the _unconscious_ upon the physical and moral being.

But if our unconscious is the source of many of our ills, it can also bring about the cure of our physical and mental ailments. It can not only repair the ill it has done, but cure real illnesses, so strong is its action upon our organism.

Shut yourself up alone in a room, seat yourself in an armchair, close your eyes to avoid any distraction, and concentrate your mind for a few moments on thinking: "Such and such a thing is going to disappear", or "Such and such a thing is coming to pa.s.s."

If you have really made the autosuggestion, that is to say, if your unconscious has a.s.similated the idea that you have presented to it, you are astonished to see the thing you have thought come to pa.s.s.

(Note that it is the property of ideas autosuggested to exist within us unrecognized, and we can only know of their existence by the effect they produce.) But above all, and this is an essential point, the will must not be brought into play in practising autosuggestion; for, if it is not in agreement with the imagination, if one thinks: "I will make such and such a thing happen", and the imagination says: "You are willing it, but it is not going to be", not only does one not obtain what one wants, but even exactly the reverse is brought about.

This remark is of capital importance, and explains why results are so unsatisfactory when, in treating moral ailments, one strives to _re-educate_ the will. It is the _training of the imagination_ which is necessary, and it is thanks to this shade of difference that my method has often succeeded where others--and those not the least considered--have failed. From the numerous experiments that I have made daily for twenty years, and which I have examined with minute care, I have been able to deduct the following conclusions which I have summed up as laws:

1. When the will and the imagination are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, _without any exception_.

2. In the conflict between the will and the imagination, the force of the imagination is in _direct ratio to the square of the will_.