The Practice of AutosuggestionBrooks, C. Harry (Cyrus Harry)
Science
The Practice of Autosuggestion
Brooks, C. Harry (Cyrus Harry)
Coué, Emile, 1857-1926; Mental suggestion
That Coue's discoveries may profoundly affect our educational methods
is beyond question. Hitherto we have been dealing directly only with
the conscious mind, feeding it with information, grafting on to it
useful accomplishments. What has been done for the development of
character has been incidental and secondary. This was inevitable so
long as the Unconscious remained undiscovered, but now we have the
means of reaching profounder depths, of endowing the child not only
with reading and arithmetic, but with health, character and personality.
But perhaps it is in our treatment of the criminal that the greatest
revolution may be expected. The acts for which he is immured result
from nothing more than twists and tangles of the threads of thought in
the Unconscious mind. This is the view of eminent authorities. But
autosuggestion takes us a long step further. It shows how these
discords of character may be resolved. Since Coue has succeeded in
restoring to moral health a youth of homicidal tendencies, why should
not the same method succeed with many of the outcasts who fill our
prisons? At least the younger delinquents should prove susceptible.
But the idea underlying this attitude entails a revolution in our penal
procedure. It means little less than this: that crime is a disease and
should be treated as such; that the idea of punishment must give place
to that of cure; the vindictive attitude to one of pity. This brings
us near to the ideals of the New Testament, and indeed, autosuggestion,
as a force making for goodness, is bound to touch closely on religion.
It teaches the doctrine of the inner life which saints and sages have
proclaimed through all ages. It asserts that within are the sources of
calm, of power and of courage, and that the man who has once attained
mastery of this inner sphere is secure in the face of all that may
befall him. This truth is apparent in the lives of great men. Martyrs
could sing at the stake because their eyes were turned within on the
vision of glory which filled their hearts. Great achievements have
been wrought by men who had the fortitude to follow the directions of
an inner voice, even in contradiction to the massed voices they heard
without.
Suppose we find that the power Christ gave to his disciples to work
miracles of healing was not a gift conferred on a few selected
individuals, but was the heritage of all men; that the kingdom of
heaven within us to which He alluded was available in a simple way for
the purging and elevation of our common life, for procuring sounder
health and sweeter minds. Is not the affirmation contained in Coue's
formula a kind of prayer? Does it not appeal to something beyond the
self-life, to the infinite power lying behind us?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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