From Thomas Parker Boyd’s The Voice Eternal
CHAPTER XII
THE LAW OF SUGGESTION
I AM often asked, “Is there any book that gives the form of suggestions to be used in specific cases?” In the nature of the case one can hardly do more than to give the general principles of suggestion with a few illustrations of their use, for the reason that no two cases are just alike, any more than any two people are just alike. A book of forms of suggestion to cover all the cases that arise in my practice would make a volume something like the old fashioned family doctor books that are used mostly to hold open the front doors of farm houses through the rural regions. But to help those who would know and use the power of suggestion for their own and others’ good I will give an outline of first principles with illustrations, and if you will intelligently and persistently follow them you will get results in any case amenable to suggestion. The mind is Conscious and Sub-conscious. The conscious has to do with that realm of sensation and thought of which we take cognizance. The sub-conscious has to do with those sensations, thoughts, and activities of which we are unconscious.
The conscious side of the mind is the master of the house of the Lord, usually called the body. It is the architect of life and destiny. It creates the ideals for body, mind and character. It is equipped with every method of reasoning so that it may determine what is good or bad, right or wrong, in a world where these are so entangled as to set the wisest by the ears.
It can reason by induction, i.e., it can take a large number of separate facts and draw from them a general principle or law. It can reason by deduction, i. e., it can take a given fact and draw from it every logical sequence. It can reason by comparison, i. e., it can take a proposed fact and compare it with a known fact and determine its probable truth or value. It can reason by analysis, i. e., it can separate a proposition into its elements and determine their relative value. It can reason by synthesis, i. e., it can take a large number of related facts and bind them into a consistent whole. It is therefore peculiarly fitted for such a world as that in which we live, but it would have no place in a world where only truth and right existed.
The subconscious is the servant in the house. It can reason only by deduction.
It cannot compare any suggested fact with a known one for the reason that it can hold but one idea at a time. True it can hold one idea and all its specifications, such as “My whole body shall be perfectly well,” and then the specifications: “My stomach shall digest thoroughly the food I give it, my bowels shall act vigorously, my kidneys, liver, heart shall all act normally, etc.,” but it cannot hold any contrasting ideas, such as ease and pain at the same time; fear cannot be held while love is the dominating idea. Being unable to hold two contrasting ideas for the purpose of comparison, it cannot therefore tell whether a thing is good or bad, true or false. Its deductions from any suggested fact are perfectly logical but if there is a false premise involved it has no means of detecting the fallacy. It is essentially the builder of the body. It cannot originate anything. It can only carry out hereditary tendencies, traditional ideas, or things suggested by the conscious mind. It is as tenacious in holding to a good idea or habit as it is in holding a bad one. It will work out any idea held over it by the conscious mind. If that idea is repeated often enough it will work it out automatically, without any conscious thought taking place. It is the seat and creature of habit.
All habits are subconscious. And they are produced by the repetition of a thought in the conscious thinking. And the of tener the thought is repeated the more rapidly will the habit be formed. For instance if a man smokes one cigar a month he will not get the habit very quickly. If he takes one per week he will get it four times as fast. If he takes one per day he will get the habit thirty times as fast. Any idea whether good or bad becomes a habit of the subconscious on the same principle. Set times for “going into the silence” to think of the things we want to materialize in our lives is a good practice. The of tener it is done, the quicker are the results obtained. We affirm over and over the things we want, or just steadily hold them in thought and the subconscious takes the thought and begins to work it out into experience. To get results quickly we must set the will to holding the conscious mind upon the thing we want to be, and keep it off the thing we do not want. One must begin by thinking of the thing as something to be desired, then as something he believes he may have, and then as something he is determined to have. Then he must think the thing about himself, and keep it up until the idea has become a fixed habit of the subconscious, and then the thought and himself have become one, for a man becomes what he persistently thinks about. “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.” Health, strength, happiness, success, prosperity, in fact anything can be secured by following this method.
In thinking to form health habits, success habits, or any other sort, remember to use only the positive, constructive thought forms, and refuse to allow their opposites any place in the conscious thinking. You can, for instance, say to yourself a score of times,
“I will not have the headache,” and when you have gotten through with your suggesting the strongest idea you have given your mind is that contained in the word headache, and in due time it will arrive as usual. But if you say, “I shall spend the day in perfect comfort ; my head shall be filled with sensations of ease, etc., you will find that these ideas persistently thought will impress on the subconscious the idea of ease and comfort, and it will proceed to work them out. Pain will go only when the subconscious is filled with the idea of ease. Poverty will go only when it is displaced in the thought habits with the idea of prosperity or plenty. Our bad luck will end when we begin to think of our good luck. Failure gives way to the persistent thought of success. Fear gives place to love. Despondency is routed by hope. Doubt yields to faith. Weakness must go before the thought of strength. Self loses its sense of isolation by identifying itself with God. Every form of obsession goes out into the deep by the full realization of the idea of selfmastery.
The designation of the functions of the conscious and subconscious is not an arbitrary arrangement but is based upon known facts of Physiology and Psychology. The body is made up of bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels, and various fluids. The tissues of the body are composed of cells, estimated at 17,000 trillions.
The muscles are divided into two classes known as voluntary and involuntary.
The nervous organism is divided into the Cerebro-spinal and Sympathetic systems. The voluntary muscles are furnished their nerve equipment from the cerebro-spinal system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord. Presiding over this is the conscious mind with its seat of authority in the brain, so that we move the body, arms, limbs, and other voluntary parts of the body by the action of the conscious mind.
The involuntary muscles such as the heart, stomach, liver, kidneys, and the organs of the pelvic region, are largely equipped with nerves from the sympathetic system whose center is the Solar plexus, sometimes called the ” Abdominal brain,” which is the seat of authority of the subconscious mind. Under its direction the heart keeps beating, the blood keeps moving, the stomach digests food, the liver and other organs do their work whether we sleep or wake. Incidentally, the subconscious carries on the work of creating and repairing the 17,000 trillion cells of the body, each one equipped with a sensory and a motor nerve, a capillary from the veins and arteries, and a branch of the lymphatic system. Through these various channels the subconscious is busy every moment running supply trains to the cells and running funeral trains away from them. Its place as the builder of the body is therefore undisputed. For while these two nervous systems are intimately connected and related, their normal functions are practically independent so that all the functions of the internal organs are carried on without our giving them a conscious thought. In fact, a normally healthy man never has occasion to think of his stomach or heart or other organs at all. The less he does so, the better. It is a notorious fact that the most depressing exercise one can take is to listen to the detailed account of the aches and pains and ills of people who delight to dwell upon their troubles. If there is an exception to this it is the case of those who persist in talking about themselves or thinking to themselves of their dreadful experiences, and fears and apprehensions, which are always magnified if not wholly imaginary. Usually there is no malice in the process for they are ignorant of the forces whose laws they are unconsciously setting into action, but the result is none the less deadly.
Such people ought to be suppressed or otherwise shut up until they are treated and mentally re-educated to avoid playing with deadly agencies. This may sound harsh but it is judicious, for the reason that when the conscious mind dwells upon such things the thought is at once handed down to the subconscious, which immediately telegraphs the abnormal thought form out through the sympathetic nervous system to every involuntary muscle and organ of the body, and begins to work out an imitation of the idea received by, or originated in the conscious mind. The effect may be only a brief ” depression of spirits,” but if repeated it becomes a habit that deranges the action of one or more organs of the body. The integrity of the tissue of the organ may not be affected but its action may be very seriously impaired, in fact so much so that it is sometimes difficult to tell it from an organic disease in which there is destruction of the cells and tissues of the organ affected.
In this way such thoughts as fear, worry, grief, trouble, traditional notions about hereditary influences, get in their deadly work, derange the functions of the body, and work havoc to our health, happiness, and usefulness. The cure is brought about by instructing the patient in the laws of his own mind by showing him just how he has been unconsciously wrecking his own health, and then by carrying it over into the realm of ethics, and showing him that to know what is good and fail to do it is to be an intentional sinner. For what he knows he may do he must do or be a sinner, if not theologically, at least physiologically. He must fill the conscious mind with the truth in thought- images of health, happiness and usefulness. A cheerful philosophy such as is set forth in this book will banish doubts, fears, the ” blues,” and all such like and speedily relieve the body of its ills.
Let it be further remembered, as set forth in Chapter I, that every good in God’s world is attained by obedience to the laws by which that good finds expression. A man may sit cross-legged and look down his nose between his feet and think, “I am prosperity,” until Gabriel sounds his traditional trumpet, but unless he obeys the law by which prosperity finds expression, by being ” diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord,” he will probably scratch a poor man’s back all Ms life.
In like manner a man may say, “I am health,” and go on sleeping in an unventilated room, neglect to take proper exercise, or feed his body on an unbalanced diet, and in general fail to observe dietetic, hygienic, or other laws of health, and wonder why his “thought” doesn’t create a perfectly healthy body. “Faith without works is dead,” said St. James, a noted healer of the early church. Health without observing its laws is impossible.
If one does not know the laws then he needs to consult a physician, or some one trained in such knowledge, and get a start in the truly great and often heroic achievement of knowing himself. For be it remembered that no one man’s scheme of diet or living can fit every body. There are physiological reasons for the saying that “what is one man’s meat is another’s poison.” The whole matter of applying the laws of living is a personal affair, a thing to be worked out by the individual for himself.
So also a man may say, “I am a Christian,” and fill his mind with such notions as that there is one holy day and six profane ones in a week ; that some duties are sacred while the rest are secular; that God is pleased with poverty, or sickness, or anything short of ” wholeness” a whole man the whole time; that he may depend upon some one else doing what he can do for himself, will never come to the heights of self-mastery, and will get little of the joy and peace and power that is the right of a real Christian. Jesus found in his day that the greatest drawback to spiritual progress was that the people believed and knew so many things that were not true. Therefore he said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” And this chapter sets forth why the truth in any realm of life cannot fail to produce the desired results.