The Practice of Autosuggestion.

by C. Harry Brooks.

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

To my American readers a special word of grat.i.tude is due for their generosity to this little book. I hope that it has given them as much encouragement and help as they have given me.

In America, the home of so many systems of mental healing, it is perhaps even more necessary than in Europe to insist on the distinctive features of M. Coue's teaching. It is based, not on transcendental or mystical postulates, but on the simple and acknowledged facts of psychology. This does not mean that it has no relation to religion.

On the contrary it has a very close one. Indeed I hope in a future volume to point out its deep significance for the Christian churches.

But that relations.h.i.+p remains in M. Coue's teaching unexpressed. The powers he has revealed are part of the natural endowment of the human mind. Therefore they are available to all men, independently of adherence or non-adherence to any sect or creed.

The method of M. Coue is in no sense opposed to the ordinary practice of medicine. It is not intended to supplant it but to supplement it.

It is a new ally, bringing valuable reinforcements to the common crusade against disease and unhappiness.

Induced Autosuggestion does not involve, as several hasty critics have a.s.sumed, an attack upon the Will. It simply teaches that during the actual formulation of suggestions, that is for a few minutes daily, the Will should be quiescent. At other times the exercise of the Will is encouraged; indeed we are shown how to use it properly, that is without friction or waste of energy.

C. H. B.

19 _October_, 1922.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The discoveries of Emile Coue are of such moment for the happiness and efficiency of the individual life that it is the duty of anyone acquainted with them to pa.s.s them on to his fellows.

The lives of many men and women are robbed of their true value by twists and flaws of character and temperament, which, while defying the efforts of the will, would yield rapidly to the influence of autosuggestion. Unfortunately, the knowledge of this method has. .h.i.therto been available in England only in the somewhat detailed and technical work of Professor Charles Baudouin, and in a small pamphlet, printed privately by M. Coue, which has not been publicly exposed for sale. To fill this gap is the aim of the following pages. They are designed to present to the layman in non-technical form the information necessary to enable him to practise autosuggestion for himself.

All readers who wish to obtain a deeper insight into the theoretical basis of autosuggestion are recommended to study Professor Baudouin's fascinating work, _Suggestion and Autosuggestion_. Although in these pages there are occasional divergences from Professor Baudouin's views, his book remains beyond question the authoritative statement on the subject; indeed it is hardly possible without it to form an adequate idea of the scope of autosuggestion. My own indebtedness to it in writing this little volume is very great.

My thanks are due for innumerable kindnesses to M. Coue himself. That he is the embodiment of patience everyone knows who has been in contact with him. I am also indebted to the Rev. Ernest Charles, of Malvern Link, who, though disclaiming responsibility for some of the views expressed here, has made many extremely valuable suggestions.

C. H. B.

MALVERN LINK, 21 _February_, 1922.

FOREWORD

The materials for this little book were collected by Mr. Brooks during a visit he paid me in the summer of 1921. He was, I think, the first Englishman to come to Nancy with the express purpose of studying my method of conscious autosuggestion. In the course of daily visits extending over some weeks, by attending my consultations, and by private conversations with myself, he obtained a full mastery of the method, and we threshed out a good deal of the theory on which it rests.

The results of this study are contained in the following pages. Mr.

Brooks has skilfully seized on the essentials and put them forward in a manner that seems to me both simple and clear. The instructions given are amply sufficient to enable anyone to practise autosuggestion for him or herself, without seeking the help of any other person.

It is a method which everyone should follow--the sick to obtain healing, the healthy to prevent the coming of disease in the future.

By its practice we can insure for ourselves, all our lives long, an excellent state of health, both of the mind and the body.

E. COUe.

NANCY.

I

COUe'S NANCY PRACTICE

CHAPTER I

THE CLINIC OF EMILE COUe

The clinic of Emile Coue, where Induced Autosuggestion is applied to the treatment of disease, is situated in a pleasant garden attached to his house at the quiet end of the rue Jeanne d'Arc in Nancy. It was here that I visited him in the early summer of 1921, and had the pleasure for the first time of witnessing one of his consultations.

We entered the garden from his house a little before nine o'clock. In one corner was a brick building of two stories, with its windows thrown wide to let in the air and suns.h.i.+ne--this was the clinic; a few yards away was a smaller one-storied construction which served as a waiting-room. Under the plum and cherry trees, now laden with fruit, little groups of patients were sitting on the garden seats, chatting amicably together and enjoying the morning suns.h.i.+ne while others wandered in twos and threes among the flowers and strawberry beds. The room reserved for the treatments was already crowded, but in spite of that eager newcomers constantly tried to gain entrance. The window-sills on the ground floor were beset, and a dense knot had formed in the doorway. Inside, the patients had first occupied the seats which surrounded the walls, and then covered the available floor-s.p.a.ce, sitting on camp-stools and folding-chairs. Coue with some difficulty found me a seat, and the treatment immediately began.

The first patient he addressed was a frail, middle-aged man who, accompanied by his daughter, had just arrived from Paris to consult him. The man was a bad case of nervous trouble. He walked with difficulty, and his head, arms and legs were afflicted with a continual tremor. He explained that if he encountered a stranger when walking in the street the idea that the latter would remark his infirmity completely paralysed him, and he had to cling to whatever support was at hand to save himself from falling. At Coue's invitation he rose from his seat and took a few steps across the floor. He walked slowly, leaning on a stick; his knees were half bent, and his feet dragged heavily along the ground.

Coue encouraged him with the promise of improvement. "You have been sowing bad seed in your Unconscious; now you will sow good seed. The power by which you have produced these ill effects will in future produce equally good ones."

The next patient was an excitable, over-worked woman of the artisan cla.s.s. When Coue inquired the nature of her trouble, she broke into a flood of complaint, describing each symptom with a voluble minuteness.

"Madame," he interrupted, "you think too much about your ailments, and in thinking of them you create fresh ones."

Next came a girl with headaches, a youth with inflamed eyes, and a farm-labourer incapacitated by varicose veins. In each case Coue stated that autosuggestion should bring complete relief. Then it was the turn of a business man who complained of nervousness, lack of self-confidence and haunting fears.

"When you know the method," said Coue, "you will not allow yourself to harbour such ideas."

"I work terribly hard to get rid of them," the patient answered.

"You fatigue yourself. The greater the efforts you make, the more the ideas return. You will change all that easily, simply, and above all, without effort."

"I want to," the man interjected.

"That's just where you're wrong," Coue told him. "If you say 'I want to do something,' your imagination replies 'Oh, but you can't.' You must say 'I am going to do it,' and if it is in the region of the possible you will succeed."

A little further on was another neurasthenic--a girl. This was her third visit to the clinic, and for ten days she had been practising the method at home. With a happy smile, and a little pardonable self-importance, she declared that she already felt a considerable improvement. She had more energy, was beginning to enjoy life, ate heartily and slept more soundly. Her sincerity and nave delight helped to strengthen the faith of her fellow-patients. They looked on her as a living proof of the healing which should come to themselves.

Coue continued his questions. Those who were unable, whether through rheumatism or some paralytic affection, to make use of a limb were called on, as a criterion of future progress, to put out their maximum efforts.

In addition to the visitor from Paris there were present a man and a woman who could not walk without support, and a burly peasant, formerly a blacksmith, who for nearly ten years had not succeeded in lifting his right arm above the level of his shoulder. In each case Coue predicted a complete cure.

During this preliminary stage of the treatment, the words he spoke were not in the nature of suggestions. They were sober expressions of opinion, based on years of experience. Not once did he reject the possibility of cure, though with several patients suffering from organic disease in an advanced stage, he admitted its unlikelihood. To these he promised, however, a cessation of pain, an improvement of morale, and at least a r.e.t.a.r.dment of the progress of the disease.

"Meanwhile," he added, "the limits of the power of autosuggestion are not yet known; final recovery is possible." In all cases of functional and nervous disorders, as well as the less serious ones of an organic nature, he stated that autosuggestion, conscientiously applied, was capable of removing the trouble completely.