Conscious Autosuggestion E-Book

Emile Coue

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 129

Beschreibung

Suggestion, or rather Autosuggestion, is quite a new subject, and yet at the same time it is as old as the world. It is new in the sense that until now it has been wrongly studied and in consequence wrongly understood; it is old because it dates from the appearance of man on the earth. In fact autosuggestion is an instrument that we possess at birth, and in this instrument, or rather in this force, resides a marvelous and incalculable power, which according to circumstances produces the best or the worst results. Knowledge of this force is useful to each one of us, but it is peculiarly indispensable to doctors, magistrates, lawyers, and to those engaged in the work of education. By knowing how to practise it consciously it is possible in the first place to avoid provoking in others bad autosuggestions which may have disastrous consequences, and secondly, consciously to provoke good ones instead, thus bringing physical health to the sick, and moral health to the neurotic and the erring, the unconscious victims of anterior autosuggestions, and to guide into the right path those who had a tendency to take the wrong one.

Leseprobe

Conscious Autosuggestion

Conscious AutosuggestionSELF MASTERY THROUGH CONSCIOUS AUTOSUGGESTIONTHE CONSCIOUS SELF AND THE UNCONSCIOUS SELFWILL AND IMAGINATIONSUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTIONTHE USE OF AUTOSUGGESTIONHOW TO TEACH PATIENTS TO MAKE AUTOSUGGESTIONSMETHOD OF PROCEDURE IN CURATIVE SUGGESTIONTHE SUPERIORITY OF THIS METHODHOW SUGGESTION WORKSTHE USE OF SUGGESTION FOR THE CURE OF MORAL AILMENTS AND TAINTS EITHER CONGENITAL OR ACQUIREDA FEW TYPICAL CURESCONCLUSIONTHOUGHTS AND PRECEPTS OF EMILE COUÉOBSERVATIONS ON WHAT AUTOSUGGESTION CAN DOEDUCATION AS IT OUGHT TO BEA SURVEY OF THE "SÉANCES" AT M. COUÉ'SEXTRACTS FROM LETTERS ADDRESSED TO M. COUÉFRAGMENTS FROM LETTERS Addressed to Mme. Emile Leon, Disciple of M. CouéEXTRACTS FROM LETTERS Addressed to Mlle. Kaufmant, Disciple of M. CouéTHE MIRACLE WITHINSOME NOTES ON THE JOURNEY OF M. COUÉ TO PARIS IN OCTOBER, 1919"EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE"Copyright

Conscious Autosuggestion

Emile Coué

SELF MASTERY THROUGH CONSCIOUS AUTOSUGGESTION

Suggestion, or rather Autosuggestion, is quite a new subject, and yet at the same time it is as old as the world.It is new in the sense that until now it has been wrongly studied and in consequence wrongly understood; it is old because it dates from the appearance of man on the earth. In fact autosuggestion is an instrument that we possess at birth, and in this instrument, or rather in this force, resides a marvelous and incalculable power, which according to circumstances produces the best or the worst results. Knowledge of this force is useful to each one of us, but it is peculiarly indispensable to doctors, magistrates, lawyers, and to those engaged in the work of education.By knowing how to practise itconsciouslyit is possible in the first place to avoid provoking in others bad autosuggestions which may have disastrous consequences, and secondly, consciously to provoke good ones instead, thus bringing physical health to the sick, and moral health to the neurotic and the erring, the unconscious victims of anterior autosuggestions, and to guide into the right path those who had a tendency to take the wrong one.

THE CONSCIOUS SELF AND THE UNCONSCIOUS SELF

In order to understand properly the phenomena of suggestion, or to speak more correctly of autosuggestion, it is necessary to know that two absolutely distinct selves exist within us. Both are intelligent, but while one is conscious the other is unconscious. For this reason the existence of the latter generally escapes notice. It is however easy to prove its existence if one merely takes the trouble to examine certain phenomena and to reflect a few moments upon them. Let us take for instance the following examples:Every one has heard of somnambulism; every one knows that a somnambulist gets up at nightwithout waking, leaves his room after either dressing himself or not, goes downstairs, walks along corridors, and after having executed certain acts or accomplished certain work, returns to his room, goes to bed again, and shows next day the greatest astonishment at finding work finished which he had left unfinished the day before.It is however he himself who has done it without being aware of it. What force has his body obeyed if it is not an unconscious force, in fact his unconscious self?Let us now examine the alas, too frequent case of a drunkard attacked bydelirium tremens. As though seized with madness he picks up the nearest weapon, knife, hammer, or hatchet, as the case may be, and strikes furiously those who are unlucky enough to be in his vicinity. Once the attack is over, he recovers his senses and contemplates with horror the scene of carnage around him, without realizing that he himself is the author of it. Here again is it not the unconscious self which has caused the unhappy man to act in this way? [*][*] And what aversions, what ills we create for ourselves, everyone of us and in every domain by not "immediately" bringing into play "good conscious autosuggestions" against our "bad unconscious autosuggestions," thus bringing about the disappearance of all unjust suffering.If we compare the conscious with the unconscious self we see that the conscious self is often possessed of a very unreliable memory while the unconscious self on the contrary is provided with a marvelous and impeccable memory which registers without our knowledge the smallest events, the least important acts of our existence. Further, it is credulous and accepts with unreasoning docility what it is told. Thus, as it is the unconscious that is responsible for the functioning of all our organs but the intermediary of the brain, a result is produced which may seem rather paradoxical to you: that is, if it believes that a certain organ functions well or ill or that we feel such and such an impression, the organ in question does indeed function well or ill, or we do feel that impression.Not only does the unconscious self preside over the functions of our organism, but also overall our actions whatever they are. It is this that we call imagination, and it is this which, contrary to accepted opinion,alwaysmakes us act even, andabove all, againstour willwhen there is antagonism between these two forces.

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, alwaysyieldsto the imagination. It is anabsoluterule that admits of noexception."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 afact.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, andin spite of every effort of your willyou 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 youimaginethat youcannotdo so.Notice that your will is powerless to make you advance; if youimaginethat youcannot, it isabsolutelyimpossible 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 factin 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 hiswill, 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, substituting 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 circumstances? "I do not wantto fall but Icannot helpdoing so"; "Iwantto sleep but Icannot"; "Iwantto remember the name of Mrs. So and So, but Icannot"; "Iwantto avoid the obstacle, but Icannot"; "Iwantto stop laughing, but Icannot."As you see, in each of these conflicts it is always theimaginationwhich gains the victory over thewill, 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 menimaginethat they must goforward, and in the second theyimaginethat 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,imaginingthat 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 pass by in silence this fact which shows the enormous power of the imagination, or in other words of the unconscious in its struggle against thewill.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 theirwill, in spite of the harm they know it will do them.In the same way certain criminals commit crimesin 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 wordssuggestionandautosuggestion.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 thesine qua noncondition of transforming itself intoautosuggestionin 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 intoautosuggestion, 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 intoautosuggestion.

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 wishing or knowing it and absolutely unconsciously, but which unfortunately for us, we often use wrongly and to our own detriment. This means isautosuggestion.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,autosuggestionis 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 bepossible, you will do it however difficult it may be. If on the contrary youimaginethat 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.