Our unconscious influence is the projection of our unconscious mind and personality unconsciously over others. This acts unconsciously on their unconscious centers, producing effects in character and conduct, recognized in consciousness. For instance, the entrance of a good man into a room where foul language is used will unconsciously modify and purify the tone of the whole room. Our minds cast shadows of which we are as unconscious as those cast by our bodies, but which affect for good or evil all who unconsciously pass within their range. This is a matter of daily experience, and is common to all, though more noticeable with strong personalities."--Schofield. The mind is a magnet. At the core of the soul lies our attracting power. We get what we expect. We see what we look for. Every thought we think images itself in the mind and every image that is persistently held in mind is bound to materialize. This is the law. I cannot tell why it is so, any more than I can tell why from a few seeds sown in fertile soil we reap an abundant crop. I only know that the law of thought-externalization is as definite and as sure in results as are the laws of seed-time and harvest." -Jean Porter Rudd. CHAPTER III. THE PRACTICE OF MENTAL METHODS-CONTINUED. SUGGESTION TO OTHERS. Concerning the Healer Himself. It was well to begin with auto-suggestion, as he who expects to do good work for others should be able to do good work for himself. I have no faith in the artistic taste of a man who wishes to decorate my house if I find in his own home a most execrable display of artistic ability. He may be a good workman with the brush, but he has not the comprehensive grasp of general artistic concepts that is required properly to choose, to harmonize and to distribute values. It is equally true that I have no confidence in the ability of a man to build me up along right lines and to round me out into full mental and physical proportions whose mind is in evident disorder and whose body is under the power of disease. I should certainly say: "Physician heal thyself." The physician and the surgeon, of all men, should be free from mental, moral and physical taints. Accordingly, he will have abundant occasion to practice upon himself; and he ought to devote his energies to putting himself into a state of mental, moral and physical health before resorting to a use of the delicate, yet tremendous, forces of mind for the alleviation of others' woes. It may be only a vagary, but I conceive that the true healer communicates a certain degree of himself to his patient and that he finds a patient who long remains under his care disclosing some of his own mental and moral characteristics. I do not aver the truth of this, but I have seen what appear to be clinical evidences upon which to base such an opinion. Do not think that I am dwelling at undue length on what may appear to some like unessential phases of suggestion. The feeling that a true healer must be a whole man is consistent. He should not be under the power of evil habits; he should not be a scoffer at good things; he should not be an habitue of disreputable resorts; and he should not carry in his atmosphere anything that will impress a sensitive person unfavorably. On the contrary, he should be self-controlled and in every way poised. This is the healer, and there is no other, who can be trusted to administer suggestions to an open and confiding mind. Reflex Benefits. The healer who gives suggestive treatment cannot escape thinking the thoughts he expresses and sharing the benefits he affirms for his patient. In this way he becomes a partaker of the good things that he would bring to others. Action and reaction are equal. The reflex from an action, a wish or a suggestion is sure. Thus it will be seen that he who solemnly PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. 165 avers to his patient that the unseen forces are beneficent; that they can be relied upon to bring us those things that we crave in the line of our requirements; that disease has no proper place in the economy of nature; that we are what we think we are; and that we can make of ourselves what we really will, is building up his own faith and acquiring a more stable foundation for himself, at the same time that he, by his optimistic suggestion, is steadying another to a better situation and establishing for him a happier mental and physical state. Practice Makes Perfect. In order to acquire a facility of suggestion it is well to pursue a course such as would be undertaken to acquire facility in any other art. The young orator takes for auditors an empty row of benches, the dumb brutes of the stable or the Spirits of the Deep, and seeks to impress these attentive listeners with his strains of eloquence. Facility gives confidence. When we know well our part there is no undue fear, and likewise when we have learned well our role we are better prepared to throw into it the essential spirit. Accordingly, he who would succeed from the start with his attempt at suggestion should practice upon imaginary patients; or, what is far better, he should go through the details of treating some of his real patients, alone, with dignity and zeal, before he undertakes to do so in their presence. I enter thus explicitly into the subject because there are many to whom the whole matter is comparatively new. |