"When you have any task to perform you will always think that it is easy. Such words as 'difficult,' 'impossible,' 'I cannot' will disappear from your vocabulary. Their place will be taken by this phrase: 'It is easy and I can.' So, considering your work easy, even if it is difficult to others, it will become easy to you. You will do it easily, without effort and without fatigue."

These general suggestions were succeeded by particular suggestions referring to the special ailments from which Coue's patients were suffering. Taking each case in turn, he allowed his hand to rest lightly on the heads of the sufferers, while picturing to their minds the health and vigour with which they would soon be endowed. Thus to a woman with an ulcerated leg he spoke as follows: "Henceforth your organism will do all that is necessary to restore your leg to perfect health. It will rapidly heal; the tissues will regain their tone; the skin will be soft and healthy. In a short s.p.a.ce of time your leg will be vigorous and strong and will in future always remain so." Each special complaint was thus treated with a few appropriate phrases.

When he had finished, and the patients were called on to open their eyes, a faint sigh went round the room, as if they were awaking reluctantly from a delicious dream.

Coue now explained to his patients that he possessed no healing powers, and had never healed a person in his life. They carried in themselves the instrument of their own well-being. The results they had seen were due to the realisation of each patient's own thought. He had been merely an agent calling the ideas of health into their minds.

Henceforth they could, and must, be the pilots of their own destiny.

He then requested them to repeat, under conditions which will be later defined, the phrase with which his name is a.s.sociated: "Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."[1]

The sitting was at an end. The patients rose and crowded round Coue, asking questions, thanking him, shaking him by the hand. Some declared they were already cured, some that they were much better, others that they were confident of cure in the future. It was as if a burden of depression had fallen from their minds. Those who had entered with minds crushed and oppressed went out with hope and optimism s.h.i.+ning in their faces.

But Coue waved aside these too insistent admirers, and, beckoning to the three patients who could not walk, led them to a corner of the garden where there was a stretch of gravel path running beneath the boughs of fruit trees. Once more impressing on their minds the thought of strength and power, he induced each one to walk without support down this path. He now invited them to run. They hesitated, but he insisted, telling them that they could run, that they ought to run, that they had but to believe in their own power, and their thought would be manifested in action.

They started rather uncertainly, but Coue followed them with persistent encouragements. They began to raise their heads, to lift their feet from the ground and run with greater freedom and confidence. Turning at the end of the path they came back at a fair pace. Their movements were not elegant, but people on the further side of fifty are rarely elegant runners. It was a surprising sight to see these three sufferers who had hobbled to the clinic on sticks now covering the ground at a full five miles an hour, and laughing heartily at themselves as they ran. The crowd of patients who had collected broke into a spontaneous cheer, and Coue, slipping modestly away, returned to the fresh company of sufferers who awaited him within.

[1] The translation given here of Coue's formula differs slightly from that popularised in England during his visit of November, 1921. The above, however, is the English version which he considers most suitable.

CHAPTER II

A FEW OF COUe'S CURES

To give the reader a better idea of the results which Induced Autosuggestion is yielding, I shall here describe a few further cases of which I was myself in some part a witness, and thereafter let some of Coue's patients speak for themselves through the medium of their letters.

At one of the morning consultations which I subsequently attended was a woman who had suffered for five years with dyspepsia. The trouble had recently become so acute that even the milk diet to which she was now reduced caused her extreme discomfort. Consequently she had become extremely thin and anaemic, was listless, easily tired, and suffered from depression. Early in the proceedings the accounts given by several patients of the relief they had obtained seemed to appeal to her imagination. She followed Coue's remarks with keen interest, answered his questions vivaciously, and laughed very heartily at the amusing incidents with which the proceedings were interspersed. About five o'clock on the same afternoon I happened to be sitting with Coue when this woman asked to see him. Beaming with satisfaction, she was shown into the room. She reported that on leaving the clinic she had gone to a restaurant in the town and ordered a table d'hote luncheon.

Conscientiously she had partaken of every course from the hors d'oeuvres to the cafe noir. The meal had been concluded at 1.30, and she had so far experienced no trace of discomfort. A few days later this woman returned to the clinic to report that the dyspepsia had shown no signs of reappearing; that her health and spirits were improving, and that she looked upon herself as cured.

On another occasion one of the patients complained of asthma. The paroxysms destroyed his sleep at night and prevented him from performing any task which entailed exertion. Walking upstairs was a slow process attended by considerable distress. The experiment with the hands was so successfully performed that Coue a.s.sured him of immediate relief.

"Before you go," he said, "you will run up and down those stairs without suffering any inconvenience."

At the close of the consultation, under the influence of the suggestion "I can," the patient did this without difficulty. That night the trouble recurred in a mild form, but he continued to attend the clinic and to practise the exercises at home, and within a fortnight the asthma had finally left him.

Among other patients with whom I conversed was a young man suffering from curvature of the spine. He had been attending the clinic for four months and practising the method at home. His doctor a.s.sured him that the spine was gradually resuming its normal position. A girl of twenty-two had suffered from childhood with epileptic fits, recurring at intervals of a few weeks. Since her first visit to the clinic six months previously the fits had ceased.

But the soundest testimony to the power of Induced Autosuggestion is that borne by the patients themselves. Here are a few extracts from letters received by Coue:

"At the age of sixty-three, attacked for more than thirty years by asthma and all the complications attendant upon it, I spent three-quarters of the night sitting on my bed inhaling the smoke of anti-asthma powders. Afflicted with almost daily attacks, especially during the cold and damp seasons, I was unable to walk--I could not even _go down hill_.

Nowadays I have splendid nights, and have put the powders in a drawer.

Without the slightest hesitation I can go upstairs to the first floor."

D. (Mont de Marsan.) 15 _December_, 1921.

"Yesterday I felt really better, that is to say, of my fever, so I decided to go back to my doctor, whom I had not seen since the summer.

The examination showed a normal appendix. On the other hand, the bladder is still painful, but is better. At any rate, there is at present no question of the operation which had worried me so much. I am convinced that I shall cure myself completely."

M. D. (Mulhouse.) 24 _September_, 1921.

"I have very good news to give you of your dipsomaniac--she is cured, and a.s.serts it herself to all who will listen. She told me yesterday that for fourteen years she had not been so long without drink as she has been lately, and what surprises her so much is that she has not had to struggle against a desire; she has simply not felt the need of drink. Further, her sleep continues to be splendid. She is getting more and more calm, in spite of the fact that on several occasions her sang-froid has been severely tested. To put the matter in a nutsh.e.l.l, she is a changed woman. But what impresses me most is the fact that when she took to your method she thought herself at the end of her tether, and in the event of its doing her no good had decided to kill herself (she had already attempted it once)."

P. (a Paris doctor.) 1 _February_, 1922.

"For eight years I suffered with prolapse of the uterus. I have used your method of Autosuggestion for the last five months, and am now completely cured, for which I do not know how to thank you enough."

S. (Toul).[1]

"I have a son who came back from Germany very anaemic and suffering from terrible depression. He went to see you for a short time, and now is as well as possible. Please accept my best thanks. I have also a little cousin whom you have cured. He had a nervous illness, and had become, so to speak, unconscious of what was going on around him. He is now completely cured."

S. E. (Circourt, Vosges.) 19 _October_, 1921.

"My wife and I have waited nearly a year to thank you for the marvellous cure which your method has accomplished. The very violent attacks of asthma from which my wife suffered have completely disappeared since the visit you paid us last spring. The first few weeks my wife experienced temporary oppression and even the beginnings of an attack, which, however, she was able to ward off within a few minutes by practising Autosuggestion.

In spite of her great desire to thank you sooner my wife wished to add more weight to her testimony by waiting for nearly a year. But the bad time for asthma has not brought the slightest hint of the terrible attacks from which you saved her."

J. H. (Saarbruck.) 23 _December_, 1921.

"All the morbid symptoms from which I used to suffer have disappeared.

I used to feel as though I had a band of iron across my brain which seemed to be red-hot; added to this I had heartburn and bad nights with fearful dreams; further, I was subject to severe nervous attacks which went on for months. I felt as though pegs were being driven into the sides of my head and nape of my neck, and when I felt I could not endure these agonies any longer a feeling would come as if my brain were being smothered in a blanket. All these pains came and went. I had sometimes one, sometimes others. There were occasions when I wanted to die--my sufferings were so acute, and I had to struggle against the idea with great firmness.

At last, having spent five weeks at Nancy attending your kindly sittings, I have profited so well as to be able to return home in a state of normal health."

N. (Pithiviviers le Vieil.) 16 _August_, 1921.

"After having undergone four operations on the left leg for local tuberculosis I fell a victim once more to the same trouble on 1 September, 1920. Several doctors whom I consulted declared a new operation necessary. My leg was to be opened from the knee to the ankle, and if the operation failed nothing remained but an amputation.

Having heard of your cures, I came to see you for the first time on 6 November, 1920. After the sitting I felt at once a little better. I followed your instructions exactly, visiting you three times. At the third time I was able to tell you that I was completely cured."

L. (Herny, Lorraine.)

"I am happy to tell you that a bunion that I had on my foot, which grew to a considerable size and gave me the most acute pain for over fifteen years, has gone."

L. G. (Cauderan, Gironde.)

"I cannot leave France without letting you know how grateful I feel for the immense service you have rendered me and mine. I only wish I had met you years ago. Practically throughout my career my curse has been a lack of continuous self-control.