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The Law of Suggestion

James H. Loryea a.k.a. "Santanelli"

Pub. 1902

Chapter 4 SUGGESTION

Suggestion, anything that arouses an action.

The following incidents will make my meaning clearer than all the dissertations that could be written. This book is not to teach you how to specifically apply suggestion, but to open your eyes to the power that rules – cause – suggestion.

Man's closest environment is his body.

Story of Lily

A few summers ago, I spent some four months with a family in Ohio, studying particularly a three-year-old daughter of the woman employed to do the housework. The child dined at the table with the others of the family, was very fat, having chops like a monkey and eyes like a pig, and the mother made it her special duty to stuff the child. When the child's eyes wandered around the table more food was given her, and when she said she had enough her mother insisted on her having a little more. I asked why this was, and the mother replied that she had had a hard time getting enough to eat, so she was going to be sure that the child had enough. I said, "Madam, you are ruining the child, you are making of her a hog."

She replied, "No, the child is all right."

The child simply was a two-legged hog.

The routine

The day's routine was something as follows: Being accustomed all my life to staying up nights, I rarely fall asleep until daylight, and get the better part of my sleep in the forenoons. At nine a. m., I would hear, "Lily, Lily, come in out of that, or I will spank you." In a few minutes a repetition would occur, and I would hear Lily being spanked. The child seemed to enjoy the spanking, and it simply wallowed in the dirt. At noon the mother would change the child's frock, complaining of the many frocks soiled and how dirty she became, stuffed her little belly full of food and put the child on the sofa to sleep, which it would do until about four p. m.

Hog nature

The child would then get up, wallow in the dirt, soil another slip, and at night the mother would stuff her again. After supper the mother would undress her, wash her and put her to bed. At about one a. m., we would hear, "Mamma, mamma, dink, mamma." The mother, who ate as vigorously as the child, slept like a hog and was hard to arouse. So little Lily would call, "Mamma, mamma, dink, mamma," until the mother awoke and gave her a drink of water; the child would then sleep till morning. The same repetition day in and day out. Lily's greatest pleasure was rolling on her belly in the dirt.

In about a month the mother took a vacation of two weeks, leaving the child with the family. I immediately asked the lady of the house if she would treat the child my way for a couple of weeks and see what would be the result. She acquiesced.

An experiment

"First of all, place on the child's plate a reasonable amount of food, about one-quarter of what the mother is in the habit of giving her, and the moment the child's eyes wander around the table to see something to tempt her appetite, dismiss her." We began, and that night Lily feebly called for a drink; after that she failed to call, inasmuch as the stomach was not full of undigested food to cause a feverish condition.

Great change in five days

In five days Lily stopped rolling in the dirt. Instead of dirtying five frocks, she soiled but one, and that not very badly. Instead of sleeping in the afternoon, she was wide-awake; the pig look left her eyes, they became bright; the fulness of her chops began to disappear. Up to this time it had been impossible for her to control her bladder. One spanking settled that. In a week Lily was an entirely different girl, and a very pretty child. At the end of the second week, when the mother returned, her first remark was, "My goodness, how beautiful and nice Lily is looking." But in two or three days the mother went back to the old regimen – Lily must not be starved, and I suppose by this time she is a big hog.

To look at the mother, the scientists (?) would say it was inherited from her. No; it was her mother's ways – the environment. The environment given the child by her mother was her inheritance.

Wallow in the dirt

Why did Lily wallow in the dirt? Because she had learned that the irritation caused by rubbing her abdomen against some object would relieve the congestion; that the cool earth relieved the feverish congested condition of her abdomen, which came from overloading her stomach.

Loved to be spanked

Lily loved to be spanked. Why? Because the spanking drew the blood from the congested parts and was a relief, and she always felt better after this operation. The same congested condition was the cause of her not being able to control her bladder action. When the congestion was removed, the child could do as others. Therefore, the child being in the condition that she must be in now, it is plain to see she inherited nothing but an environment which was possible in the early-stages to correct.

Degenerate children

If the child is a degenerate, a criminal, it should not be punished. It is doing only what its environment forced upon it. Many children enjoy being punished. Why? For the same reason that Lily enjoyed it. Many children have no fear of a whipping, simply because the nerve-ends of feeling are so dulled that they fail to receive the effect usually produced. Those children should be sent to a surgeon, who generally can remove the cause. Their food should be changed. I know of a case of a very estimable lady who had two of the handsomest and sweetest little children I had ever seen. She came to me and said, "Mr. Santanelli, I have two beautiful children, but they are the two meanest young ones in the city, they are quarreling with everybody; they are vicious. I have whipped them, I have punished them in every manner, but I cannot cure them. What can I do with them? Can they be cured?"

Animals

"Yes, madam; it is very easy. You simply have two little animals. What do you feed them?"

"Oh, in the morning we have a little ham and eggs, bacon or a little steak, at noon a little cold meat of some kind, and at dinner hot meat of some kind."

"And you wonder that your children are as they are? What can you expect. You are feeding them on flesh. Their bodies are one mass of concentrated energy. Their digestive organs are all worried, irritated and overtaxed; they are in a naturally vicious mood. Take meat from their bill of fare, particularly the pork, and you will find you have no trouble with your children."

The mother did so, and some three months afterwards wrote to me that the change was marvelous; the children were what she hoped them to be.

Hunger

Dear reader, were you ever hungry? Do you know what hunger is? As everything is a combination of attributes, what are the attributes of hunger? Hunger, as we know it, is entirely artificial. A child is born and put to the breast, and the "good" mother does her best to force the child to fill itself; in a short time the child learns never to release the breast until its little abdomen is distended, and soon associates the feeling of distention as one of the attributes necessary before the cessation of filling up. As the child progresses, it learns or associates the ideas as to eating at certain hours; being in an uncomfortable (not comfortable now) but an "abnormal" condition, to always eat until its clothes are too tight, until it has a distention about the stomach; when these conditions are present it is not hungry, at all other times it is (?).

If you think a minute, you would conceive that what we call hunger is false – acquired; few of us have ever experienced real hunger. I believe that real hunger is only when the digestive apparatus is forced by the mind to manifest an action with which we are unfamiliar, and even that action, or the necessity of the action is mostly acquired, learned of the different foods, the kinds of foods, the temperature of the food, and builds up an artificial or false memory condition.

All is acquired

Everything man does after birth, other than the AH is replacing of his body, is acquired. Any action connected with the cerebro-spinal system is acquired and responsive to present environment (suggestion). It can be trained in any way, provided we know what environment to place around it.

Theoretically, a healthy man should digest one hundred per cent of all food taken into the stomach, and the quantity of such food should be at most one-tenth of the amount he now consumes. He can be taught to live on anything. His digestive apparatus, if taken in time, can be taught, within a certain limit, to be satisfied and to properly take care of himself by any simple combination.

Sleep false (?)

Speaking of the acquisition of habits, sleep is nearly all false and acquired; aside from the inactivity of the "mind," sleep is greatly false. A babe falls out of bed, man does not, provided he is sober. Some require a soft bed, some a hard one, some need a high pillow. A monkey must learn to wrap his tail around the branch of a tree, the chicken to hold on to the roost with its feet. How much of man is inherent? I think nothing other than the building of his body.

Try to comprehend this story

Some three years ago in Cleveland, Ohio, I placed an advertisement in the morning papers asking for the services of a young lady to travel with me and assist in hypnotizing, receiving some two hundred answers.

The face tells

Knowing well my nerve-ends, and being able to read the physical conditions, thereby the mental conditions, of a woman, by the "reflexes" in her face, I chose one, refusing several whom I had much rather have engaged, but whose faces told me that their troubles were such that, in the ordinary experience of mankind, they had responded to their deplorable suggestions, therefore, were not such as I desired. The face of the young lady whom I engaged plainly indicated her purity, inasmuch as I deduced from it that her purity, physically at least, had to be. I hired this young lady on the condition that the first time I desired her to go on the surgeon's table for an operation she would do so, telling her her troubles. The girl's eyes opened in astonishment, and she asked if I could look into people, wondering how it was possible for me to state the condition of her health, as I had, without asking her questions.

A real doctor

Note here, dear reader, that I am different from a doctor. When you go to the doctor, you tell him what is the matter with you, and then he prescribes. It strikes me that a real doctor could tell you what is the matter with you.

Now, my troubles began. The girl's mother undertook to blackmail me; then the girl's father; then her brother; and then the newspapers of Cleveland were full of stories about Santanelli hypnotizing and stealing away a young lady. The would-be professional men who were hypnotists (?) had an excellent opportunity of telling the newspaper reporters what they didn't know about hypnosis, what was possible, and what was not possible; but I, being a good (?) showman, did not object to all this valuable advertising, and found a good many of my friends ready to assure the young lady that it was a terrible thing; that, now she was in my power, there was no telling what I would do with her. For some strange reason, probably because the young lady was possessed of what is usually called "common sense," failed to accept their advice, and after they had locked her up in the Home of the Good Shepherd and her good minister refused to extend a helping hand, I sent word to her to promise anything demanded, which she did, and was taken "home"; on that night she jumped out of a second-story window and disappeared.

Perversion

The young lady joined me and soon became an adept as a hypnotist, and to me an exceptionally interesting study. She had graduated from one of the best seminaries in Ohio, was full of alleged learning, and hated above all things "love" poetry and married men (to her women that had more than two children were beasts), in her opinion, the most disgusting thing in the world was kissing, and she failed to understand how people could tolerate pets. If you will note, she objected to, or was positive against, anything that had at the root of it connubial love (sexuality). Ask her why she disliked these things and she could give no comprehensive answer. It was only after six weeks' study that I discovered the key-note to be a perverted love nature. Now, dear reader, remember a perversion is not always bad, it is other than the accepted "normal."

In Kentucky, I placed this young lady on the surgeon's table and she was operated upon, my diagnosis being pronounced perfect by the surgeon, who, when I made it known to him, laughed at me, stating that I was some kind of a fool. After he had made a physical examination, he wondered greatly at my ability to "look into" people, as he called it. The most important trouble was an undeveloped uterus, which was properly curetted. I might note here that the young lady, although not being hypnotized, was, in the first quarter of a minute after the chloroform cup was placed over her face, completely unconscious; that several times during the operation when I remarked to the surgeon who was giving the anesthetic, to "crowd it, and she would do so and so," the moment that the cup was replaced she immediately responded. At the completion of the operation she was laid on the bed, and I remarked that in one minute she would be herself, and in that time she was. Here is a case of "suggestion," pure and simple. I had never attempted to hypnotize this young lady, inasmuch as I was ever expecting to again be the object of an attempt at blackmail.

Suggestion

This girl was not anesthetized by the chloroform; the suggestion of the chloroform emphasized by her perfect confidence in me, knowing the result desired and being of an intelligence capable to respond, took on the entire condition at the suggestion of the chloroform.

A quick change

One hour after the operation my wife told her that, as she was now comfortable, she – my wife – would go down and have supper, and the young lady turned to her, saying, "Mrs. Santanelli, will you kiss me before you go?" My wife dropped the glass that was in her hand and remarked, "Why, you don't want me to kiss you?" And the young lady said, "Yes." Later the same night, she turned to my wife and said, "Mrs. Santanelli, do you know, I believe I did not mean all I said when I laughed at you for caring so much for your little dog that died."

Lady visitors came, and the young lady seemed much hurt if they did not kiss her on departing.

The girl made a quick recovery, traveled with me for several months, during which time her entire nature and disposition changed. Those things that she had so disliked were now reasonably liked. At one time I was a bit frightened, being fearful that perhaps I had stirred up irritations that would result in a much more detrimental manner than had been the ones removed, but I can say that the good expected was accomplished.

Positive against to positive for

The sudden change was brought about through the inflamed and now counter-irritated parts that previously had produced the positive against, and now were forcing thought positive for. If her mental state and its explanation to you is comprehensible, you can readily understand how it is possible for me to state that in many cases of insanity, perversions, et cetera, I can positively name the lesion or cause, and it is always orificial – excepting injury to the brain centers.

No mental diseases

Insanity is a physical disease, there are no mental diseases.

So-called mental diseases are the result of a physical disease, and the disease, per se, is not mental. Many of the so-called insane cases of mothers are the result of scars in the cervix. I have had examinations made where surgeon after surgeon had denied the existence of a scar, I still insisting, and in the end found a surgeon capable of discovering that which I persistently maintained; after removal, complete mental recovery has always followed.

Fear, et cetera

I have never known of a case with a fear of dying, a feeling that everyone hates one, that one has no friends, sometimes going to extremes as to "spirits," – seeing and hearing them, et cetera, – where there was not a scar in the cervix, always the result of improper delivery.

Loss of memory

Loss of memory, where there is no lesion in the head, will always be found the result of an enlarged or shrunken prostate. The prostate gland in man may be compared as to its reflexes with the uterus in women. Loss of memory in old age among men is always accompanied by, or the result of, an "abnormal" prostate. Remember, reader, every nerve has two ends; at one end is cause (suggestion), at the other is result (response).

Negro problem

The negro problem of the South could readily be adjusted by enforcing the law of Moses. The negro's body is built of sow-belly – his brain like-wise. Give him proper orificial treatment, thus removing the suggestion of sensuality, and your negro will be a harmless, valuable citizen.

Not free agents

They are burned for rape, yet that fails to lessen the number of assaults. If burning fails to stop it, surely "mind" has nothing to do with the act. The history of rape cases is that the ones assaulted are, as a rule, children, old women and those whom a "normally" passionate man would fail to be attracted to, proving that this so-called reason is lacking when the assault occurs. Hence, I again affirm that we are not free agents, we are ruled by our environment; our bodies are our closest environment; crime and insanity are physical diseases.

Pasteur and "bugs"

In France they have erected monuments to one Pasteur, a discoverer of bugs, who claimed that by "shooting" more bugs into us, he could prevent a disease that man never has experienced.

Hydrophobia

Hydrophobia in man is purely a suggested disease, none of the symptoms being like those of a dog suffering from rabies. There are several cases on record which have been cured by personal suggestion, and it is strange to me that a child of ten being bitten by a dog, should not develop rabies until reaching the age of forty or forty-five. That bug must have been an extremely slow worker or propagator of a following. Statistics show that "hydrophobia" in man increased seven-fold after Pasteur's discovery (?) was made known to the world. Many doctors in America have written to the authorities and begged that the establishment of Pasteur institutes be prohibited on this account.

Instinct

The scientific world claims that animals do not reason, they have instinct. All my animals have demonstrated beyond any question they can reason (transform sense-impression into action).

"Miss Donk"

I owned a donkey last year, and like all good donkeys, she was "strong-minded." We desired to teach her to go up stairs. When the wise (?) persons of the company gathered around with whips and clubs, I asked what that was for, and they replied, "That is the only way you can make a donkey do anything." After thinking it over for a few minutes, I realized that most donkeys looked as intelligent as at least forty per cent of mankind, and nightly I was able to cause them to do many things through what I call the Law of Suggestion, so it might be possible to make Miss Donkey comprehend. I will not bother with details, but in seven minutes Miss Donkey climbed the stairs, and then she climbed down. Next time she went up with practically no urging, and I find, through my little experience with four-legged donkeys, that if the teacher possesses equal intelligence to the donkey, it can be made to comprehend.

As to dogs

On Christmas, a few years ago, I gave my wife a little dog, a puppy, saying to her, "Keep this dog in the room. I am anxious to discover what he has inherited. I believe that he acquires most of his actions, hence will either have to imitate us or work a way out himself."

At the end of two years, this dog, which was a thoroughbred black-and-tan, lacked all of the dominant actions of an ordinary dog. His first mouse was a surprise, the first rat scared him. He developed into a clever ratter. Why? The dog had inherited, physically, a big bunch of muscles at the back of his neck, and early learned that the exercising of them was pleasing. His greatest pleasure was to be "ragged" – to play in a manner to exercise his neck. After he was taught that killing mice put those muscles in action, he liked to kill mice, not as cruel man does, for the pleasure of killing, but to respond to a suggestion forced by the construction of his neck.

Comprehensive

The mistake the investigating world makes is in overlooking the fact that man can comprehend nothing that he has not experienced. All that he can do is to compare ("think"), and as his ability to receive sense-impressions is entirely different, either as to acuteness or dullness, from lower (?) animals, he is in no position to more than guess, and it will be a poor guess at that. The atmosphere is full of sounds he never hears. Musical notes make from sixteen and one-half to four thousand two hundred and twenty-four vibrations each second; when the vibrations are greater or less he fails to comprehend them. All forms of life differ as to the amount of vibration they will respond to, this graduation being necessary to keep up the constant transformation of energy (life). This energy is constantly being "passed along." When there is a deficiency, epidemic or plague appears.

Man's senses are not made up in degree of fineness of composition as other animals, therefore, he fails to comprehend (other than seeing the result and calls that action he fails to comprehend "instinct."

Instinct

Man cannot smell as (not like) dogs do; see, as birds do; nor hear as all lower animal life does. Animals communicate, they do all that man does, except that their senses are differently balanced, and therefore, not comprehensible to us. The beavers in building their dams, bees, in storing their supplies, could not accomplish their work without intelligent communication. Dogs communicate, also understand words when properly associated with tone and expression.

A bishop

A few winters ago in a city in Texas, I met a bishop, and oh ! he was a bishop so different from any minister I had ever met. He was in a promising field, for in this city they attempted to murder me because I was a hypnotist.

At the conclusion of my first evening's performance, I went into the railroad eating house to get a cup of coffee. Four men were seated a few chairs to my left, and through every method possible other than using physical force, they tried to induce a quarrel. Being naturally quick-tempered, and thinking over the matter later, I wondered what it was that caused me to refrain from beating some of them with my cane. After finishing my cup of coffee, I started to leave the saloon, when I was met by a number of the reputable citizens, who exclaimed, the moment they saw me, "Thank God! you are alive." In answer to my inquiries as to what they meant, they hurried me over to the hotel and told me that the four men who had been passing all kinds of comments while I was drinking my coffee, intended to get me into a quarrel and kill me.

Instinct?

What was it that kept me from accepting their challenge? No. Luck? Instinct (?) No. The all-wise hand (law) of Providence? Yes. Man's thoughts are forced, not chosen. A thought is action. What was there about them that forced the action of keeping quiet on my part? It was the tone in their voices that was positive against my interfering; it aroused in me an unconscious action of reserve. This I will better explain by relating the following oft-occurring incident:

We read in the newspapers of an engineer having felt that a certain bridge was unsafe and, on reaching it, stopping his train, finding, upon investigation, that the bridge had been washed away, he claiming to know of no reason for his surmise except that when he was within five miles of the bridge, a peculiar nervousness took possession of him, which very rapidly developed into a feeling that the bridge was insecure. The explanation is very simple. From long association and habit, a locomotive engineer unconsciously realizes (as a hypnotized subject) the peculiar sound caused by the train passing over the rails when everything is in perfect order; the break in the bridge causing a sound different from the one he was accustomed to hear.

Rhythm

This unconscious noting of the change naturally "suggested" something out of order with the track, and as the bridge was a very pronounced idea in the engineer's mind, it is the first thing that the disturbance of the rhythm would "suggest."

To revert to the bishop: He was a small man, smoothly shaven, and one who did not hesitate to visit saloons and other places that ministers are supposed to refrain from. When he came into the parish, it was extremely poor; in fact, it did not seem possible, with such a poor parish, such a small following and in such a wild town, that any headway could be gained. Notwithstanding this, when I met him he had been there about a year, and had already succeeded in accomplishing more than many ministers with wealthy congregations had been able to do in ten years. He preached practical sermons; or, in other words, showed them how to be better men, and omitted telling them twice on Sunday how they were bound to be burned in hell-fire.

Comprehensiveness

His sermons were interesting, comprehensive, and always had a moral which it was unnecessary for him to elaborate, but which his hearers could naturally deduce.

When he took charge of this fold he began requesting and inviting the young men who were loafing on the street corners and in the saloons to come down and hear him preach, and naturally they refused. After succeeding in inducing a few to hear him, the young men, the boys, became interested, and as he preached for their benefit, but in an unobtrusive, comprehensive manner, they liked to listen to him. When they came to church they were met with a royal welcome and a smile, and when he bade them good-night there was a pleasant, manly look on his face, and he was not constantly hammering at them "the good of their souls."

A little party

One evening he had a number of young ladies of his congregation meet at a residence and suggested to them that they give a little party, a little candy-pull which they thought would be "real nice," and then he named the young men who should be invited; the young ladies thought that was "horrid." He told each young lady whom she must stop on the street, when and where, to invite to attend the party. The young ladies at first objected, but he carried his point and something like the following took place:

Bill Jones came from the machine shop on the way to the saloon to get a drink before going home to supper. Miss Brown stepped up and said, "How do you do, Will? We are going to have a party down at Miss Smith's next Thursday evening, and we would like you to attend." Bill was dumbfounded. He didn't know what to say; in fact, he said nothing. The young lady went on and in a couple of minutes, apparently by accident, the minister appeared and said, "How do you do, Bill? What's the matter, you look kind of broke up?"

And the preacher took him over to a member of his congregation who owned a clothing store, and said to the merchant, "I will go good for a suit for Bill." Bill went home to supper, forgetting to take a drink, and was pleased to think he was going to Miss Smith's party.

On Saturday night, Bill, with his week's wages in his pocket, from force of habit, started for the saloon, but on the way there, for some reason or other, met the minister, who said, "How do you do, Bill?" and Bill said, "How do you do?"

A suggestion

The minister went right on, not asking Bill if he was going to pay for the suit, or anything else. He went around the corner and watched Bill go directly into the clothing store and make a payment on his account.

My friend, the bishop, did this with some fifteen or eighteen young men whom he had picked out; he attended the party, which was very successful, standing around to see that the young ladies entertained their guests properly; and behold, on the next Sunday all of these young men were at church, and the preacher still refrained from telling them of hell-fire, but preached a common-sense sermon that was comprehensive to them, of how man could progress through the world.

Negative is positive against

The saloon men began to object, the money that they were in the habit of getting was now being given to the merchants, and the more they objected – as a negative is always an affirmation against – it caused the young men to "think."

As they had no place to congregate other than the street corners or the saloon, the minister went to the members of his congregation, whose trade had now picked up through the divergence of the weekly salaries that had been going to the saloon-keeper, and demanded of them that they pay the rental of a little house which was then empty; that they pay for the subscription to a certain number of magazines.

A club

The minister and some of the members of his congregation fitted up a set of club rooms in this house and invited the young men there, but the boys were a little loath at first to attend, expecting to hear nothing but preaching.

Their way

Instead of that, they met a jolly good fellow in the minister, and the evenings were spent their way, with the exception of swearing and gambling, the young men learning after a few weeks that it was possible to have a minister around and still have a good time.

As winter progressed, a club was formed, the dues made very light, the money being handled by the minister, and the club in a short time became self-supporting.

Practical personal suggestion

As the minister's congregation grew larger, the merchants profited, the young men began to appreciate that they profited, and through practical suggestion, he had succeeded in building up a congregation out of material which a majority of our ministers would have considered hopeless. He did not tell them what to do, but surrounded them with an environment which forced them to do what he knew such environment would.

A lady in New York City, after taking a lesson from me, said, "Now, I have learned the mechanical part of this art, can I hypnotize and cure my brother who has 'gone to the dogs' through liquor?"

Ideas registered

"No. What must be done? First, in the 'normal' state, you must associate in his mind through the proper senses the desire to be cured; then, if you will re-establish his physical condition, you can assist in his cure; but all ideas must be associated – that is, registered – while the patient is in his 'normal' condition."

Cigarettes

How is this, reader? It is impossible to bring out of the mind what is not there. The first lad, desirous of being cured, has the thought there to be put in action. I induce hypnosis and say to him, "After you open your eyes, every time you think of smoking a cigarette, a nasty taste will come into your mouth; and every time you put a cigarette in your mouth you will vomit."

Positive for / Positive against

Now, the moment the lad thinks of a cigarette the nasty taste aroused causes him to think, "Mr. Santanelli's inspiration is working." If he puts a cigarette in his mouth and vomits, he says, "Good, Mr. Santanelli has succeeded both with the nasty taste and the vomiting." But the boy who does not want to be cured of the habit thinks of the cigarette and the nasty taste comes in his mouth and he says, "I will fool Mr. Santanelli, I will be able to smoke soon," and then he puts the cigarette in his mouth and if he does throw up, he says, "Well, never mind, by and by I will fool Mr. Santanelli;" and in an hour or so he again thinks of it and smokes one; the result is that my inspiration has aroused and forced into action the positive against me, and I have only succeeded in effecting a temporary substitution.

A good minister once came to me and said, "Mr. Santanelli, many members of my congregation are hard drinkers, and I have preached and preached and preached to them of the sin of drinking, yet they drink just the same. What other suggestion (?) can I give them? What can I do for them?"

Comprehensive thoughts

I replied, "My good father, you make two mistakes. First, your sermons are such as fail to arouse comprehensive thoughts in the minds of your hearers; secondly, you try to put in through one sense (hearing) that which the economy of man intended to be received through another. Thoughts not in existence cannot be brought out. You fail to put into the "minds" of your hearers the thought of the ill of drinking. No thought can be formed through affecting less than two senses, and it requires three to obtain an effective result. Now, you quote me Pat Murphy, and say Pat has taken the pledge and you have lectured and lectured to him, yet he continues to drink.

If I were you, and desired to cure Pat Murphy, I would do as follows: I would meet Pat Murphy some evening after work, talk with him pleasantly and walk or drive by Mike O'Hara's house. Mike works along with Pat. I would pass comments as to Mike having his house paid for; of the neatness of the yard; as to the appearance of his children. In fact, I would cause Pat to see the condition of Mike's house.

I would then enter Pat's home, ask him what rental he was paying; if the landlord would not fix the house up if he was asked; ask Mrs. Pat what cloth for the dressing of her children was worth a yard. I should then say something about Pat getting the same wages as Mike, and there would be no need of saying anything whatever about drinking, as every question asked would arouse a positive against it, in pictures of Mike's prosperous condition, resulting from abstaining from drink; and I will promise you that the next time Pat went into a saloon there would be a picture aroused in his mind which would cause him to bring home a little of his money; or, in other words, by putting them in through the proper senses, I would have established a series of ideas positive against drinking, and the suggestion that formerly aroused the thought of drinking, would with a little careful nursing, be forced to respond positive against it."

Conception

["Indian story"]   [Return to Chapter 5 ]

If a man should meet an Indian who had seen nothing of civilization, how could he describe to him comprehensively the strength and power of a locomotive? It would be necessary to associate an idea common to the Indian with an idea common to the locomotive, thus: as the Indian is thoroughly familiar with the horse and its strength, associate in that Indian's mind an idea that the pale-face had a horse twenty times larger than his, a thousand times stronger; that it ate coal; that breath came in clouds from its nostrils; that it traveled in a carefully arranged pathway, that it drew twenty large tepees, and although you would not have formed in the Indian's mind a correct picture of a locomotive, he would have a conception of a locomotive's power and strength.

A drawing made of a locomotive would produce an impression through the eye, which, with the Indian's comprehension of its power and strength (association of ideas), would enable the Indian, when he first saw a locomotive, to deduce what it was. First, by its form, or the "suggestion" produced by seeing the escape of steam and smoke, or the drawing of the cars. Or, if he had never seen the form, seeing it move on the pathway or track would suggest to the Indian the story of the big horse as told by the pale-face. Note that two senses, feeling and sight, have been affected.

Doctors

In Tennessee, a couple of winters ago, I met the doctors of a city, who, being good, true Southern gentlemen, proved themselves to be good fellows. They all laughed about one doctor in the city, a man who knew nothing of "bugology," who had one of the largest practices, in fact, the largest practice in the city, tired out two horses every day, owned a great deal of property, and was a very busy man.

After making a number of inquiries concerning this man, I concluded I would like to meet him and asked one of his friends to take me over and introduce me. I went over in the afternoon; the doctor had just finished with a little surgical case and was washing his hands. He was over six feet tall, had on a suit of clothes that was made for somebody; or, if they had been made for him, he had changed his shape; the material was of the best, but the fit was quite English.

Upon being introduced, the doctor looked at my feet, my legs, my abdomen, my chest, my face, put out his hand and said "Hello, Santanelli, I like you," and asked me to go out to his home and take dinner. I informed the doctor that I could not, that I was too busy, but would dine with him some other time. He said he would be glad to have me, and I left.

I was in the city several weeks, becoming quite friendly with the doctor, being in his office one day when a lady came in with a little boy, the lady badly frightened, the lad likewise. The boy had been bitten by a dog and the mother had heard of Pasteur and his wonderful discovery (which he failed to make), and was afraid the boy was going to shun water, foam at the mouth and do a lot of very disagreeable things that dogs are popularly supposed to do and men do not, and asked the doctor to "do something," which he did, and the little boy was awfully scared and cried. He sent the boy home all wrapped up, smelling very strongly of iodoform. ^[Wikipedia]

Hydrophobia

I turned to the doctor and said, "Doctor, what do you think of hydrophobia?"

He replied, "I think it's all rot, but they wanted something done, and I did it."

"Why," said I, "I have a better cure than yours for hydrophobia." He wanted to know what it was, and I told him if any of my children (provided I had any) should claim they had been bitten by a dog, I would take them across my knee and spank them.

Practical suggestion

"Why would you do that?" he asked. "I am one of those foolish people who believe suggestion. A little boy is bitten by a dog he tells his mother what has happened and the look on her face forces on him the thought that something awful has happened, perhaps to himself; he feels nothing but a little smarting, and his mother goes to the doctor; she is frightened all the time, tells the neighbors about it and they become frightened and the little boy is more scared; when he gets to the doctor's office and watches him treat the wound, he is still more scared, and when it is all bandaged up he is most scared; he has about him the odor of iodoform and it is constantly reminding him that he has been bitten by a dog; then he has to have the wound redressed several times, and the result is that he does nothing but 'think, think, Think' of being bitten by the dog, and by and by somebody tells him what to do–to shun water and foam at the mouth and have hydrophobia – and seventy times out of a hundred he does so.

A lazy bug

Very strange, isn't it? A child bitten by a dog when five years of age, sometimes dies of hydrophobia when he is fifty, but still the scientists (?) tell us that a bug did it. What a procrastinator that bug must have been."

It so happened in a few days that another lady came in, with her little boy who had been bitten by a dog. The doctor said to the mother, "Madam, I would spank that young man." The mother wanted to know why, and he said, "I would spank him for fooling with the dog." The mother did so. The result was that the boy who had his wound dressed had quite a sore hand before he got through, and the boy who got the spanking, and hadn't been bitten on the place he was spanked, stopped thinking of being bitten by the dog, and failed to have an irritated wound.

One afternoon I went riding with the doctor, and he told me that he was a farmer's son, that he had wanted to study medicine because he thought it was easier than ploughing, so went to work for a doctor, took care of his horse, studied medicine, went to college, and at last graduated; when he came back with his diploma he had eight dollars, knew a real nice girl, got married and started in.

A rara avis [rare bird]

To-day he owns one of the largest factories in the city, a great deal of real estate, and is trying to make a few hundred thousand for his last child. He informed me that he was not much of a doctor, wasn't even a good enough doctor to kill his patients; that he kept them alive and got his pay; that there were lots of good young doctors in town, who, when they came down the street, kept doffing their hats to the germs they met, inasmuch as they were familiar with all, and knew each and every one by name; that he had his hands full caring for his patients, without being bothered by germs, inasmuch as he didn't know a germ when he saw one; he had heard about them, but they didn't bother him.

Driving with a doctor

Becoming very much interested in the doctor, I asked him if he would take me out calling with him some afternoon, and he said he would. If you have never gone driving with a physician, it is an experience worth undertaking, inasmuch as the doctor generally drives you to the outskirts of the town and lets you hold the reins while he goes in and gets warm and visits his patient. The doctor gets warm, comes out feeling comfortable, takes the reins from you and goes on a piece; while you are shivering with the cold, he talks to you, visits some more patients, and, after you have ridden with him for an hour or two, you wish you were home.

But with this doctor it was different; he drove up close to one house, and said to me as he was getting out of the buggy, "You don't want to go in here; they have got a little typhoid fever, it don't amount to much," and went in. He stopped a few moments then came to the door followed by some young ladies and they were all laughing and joking. I asked how he found the patient. "I think he is better," said the doctor; and he got in and drove to another place, letting me hold the reins again. The next place he drove to was a little cottage; when we got in front of it, the doctor hollered, "Whoa," to the horse (you would think he was the butcher or milkman), gave me the lines, went to the front door, and pulled the bell in a manner which led one to think he was going to pull the knob clear off, when some one came to the door and let him in. Pretty soon he came to the door and hollered, "Santanelli, tie up the horse and come in, I want to introduce you to these people."

I went into the house, a nice little cottage where everything was neat and trim. There a young mechanic was sick abed, and his young wife, together with two nice little children, were in the room.

The doctor said, "This is Santanelli; they say he can hypnotize. I don't know whether he can or not. I like him, he's a pretty good fellow. This fellow in bed here thinks he is sick, but I don't think so. Santanelli, are you hungry?" I said I was not. "Well," said the doctor, "this woman makes the best pies and cakes in the country," and with that he went into the kitchen, and in a few minutes came back with the measure of his mouth in a pie, and likewise in a cake in his hand. He offered me some, but I refused.

Do something

After eating what he wanted, he placed the rest on the mantel-piece, and pretty soon said, "Come on, Santanelli, let's go." The sick man said, "Doctor, hold on. Ain't you going to do something for me?" The doctor stopped, scratched his head, and said, "The best thing you can do is to go to work in the morning," and started. The man said, "Ain't you going to give me some medicine?" The doctor found a mutilated prescription blank in one of his pockets, wrote on it, dropped it on the floor and said, "If you don't get better, you might get up and go down to the drug store, and have this filled. I think the best thing you can do is to go to sleep now, and go to work in the morning."

Health

I visited several other places with the doctor and he treated them all the same way. And you, good reader, wonder how such a man had any practice. Well, I thought over it a few minutes, but it is readily understood. The doctor looked health, acted health, and when they heard his merry voice at the front door, a suggestion of health entered the house, and when the patient heard his vigorous ring, there was a suggestion of strength in it, and by the time the doctor had entered the sick-room the several suggestions of health had already preceded him.

The doctor talked in a cheery voice; he was hungry, he looked hungry; all these suggestions had their effect upon the sick man. He went into the kitchen and got something to eat, came back, ate it and enjoyed eating it, and the sick man received these suggestions. Then he started to go away, which had its effect on the sick man who said, "Give me something for my money," the doctor writing a prescription which he dropped on the floor, saying, "If you are not better, get up and go down and get it filled; goodnight. Come along, Santanelli." His tone was healthy and this doctor gave forth every suggestion of health.

Like likes like

But that is not what the "world" wants. When the "world" is sick, it responds to the Law of Suggestion, and wants to be surrounded with sickness; and the doctors who are wise (?) do this, charge big fees and have a small and select practice, culled from the few they fail to kill.

Look your part

A doctor should look the doctor (?); he should carry the sign of his profession on his face; should be dignified looking, having the look that is always associated with doctors or sickness; he should have a medicine case (the larger the better) in his hand, and should have a carriage that everybody knows is the doctor's; in other words, every suggestion of sickness must surround him, then he is surely a dignified doctor.

He drives cautiously to the front of the house; quietly times his step; gently rings the bell, and goes into the sick-room still giving forth every suggestion of sickness as he takes off his gloves. If he is an up-to-date doctor, he will immediately disinfect them; he takes off his coat and disinfects that; then he disinfects his hair and hands, so that all will be free and clear of bugs. In the meantime the patient responds to the suggestion of sickness through a sick man coming to him; that is, a man carrying the thought of sickness.

A real (?) doctor

The doctor then goes to the patient and pounds him all over the chest, puts his ear down to hear the heart beat, and then puts a thermometer in the patient's mouth to find out if he has a fever – sorry a doctor who cannot tell a fever without a thermometer, – and the patient, while holding this in his mouth, has a suggestion of sickness forced on him through feeling, a suggestion of sickness forced on him through his eye by the person of the doctor, and the expression he sees steal over the doctor's face intimates that the thermometer is going to register more than "normal." The family is about him in the room, magnifying in their's the expression which they reflect from the doctor's face; and the doctor goes to the window with the thermometer and frowns – ninety-nine times out of a hundred because he cannot read the thermometer, but the frown and expression on his face is magnified by those around the bedside, the man accepting the suggestion beyond all question, thinking "I am very sick."

Then the doctor wants all the usual environment banished, noise must be stopped, the bed must be changed, the blinds pulled down, and everything that will force the thought of sickness must be arranged. The doctor then writes out three or four prescriptions, and does so writing at a table beside the sick man – because it is a magnificent suggestion to convince him that he is sick – the doctor then handing the prescriptions to one of the family, leaving behind a most encouraging thought by saying, "If he is not better in two hours, send for me."

Time for a change

This doctor brought the thought of sickness into the house and magnified that thought while there; when he left, he implanted in the "mind" of the patient, "Be worse in two hours." (Isn't the day at hand to change this?)

"Nice" medicine

Suggestion is anything that arouses an action. Modern medicine loses much of its effectiveness if it possesses any, through our doctors making the medicine "nice" to take, by using syrups, capsules, et cetera. As it requires two senses to put a thought in action, and the sense of taste is practically unaffected, a great factor in the result desired is thereby lost. "Nasty" medicine is far more effective than "nice" medicine.

Children vs. doctors

How many children are there who, when mamma promises or threatens to send for the doctor, begin to cry? To cry when offered the services of the one who should do them the most good. Why has this child such ideas positive against the doctor? If he be what is claimed, the child should smile at the thought of doctor. How many among the laymen of to-day "smile" when they think of a doctor? The ideas associated with the word "doctor" are abhorrent.

An ordinary occurrence

This last summer in Ontonagon, Michigan (and, dear reader, you would never be able to find the place if I told you where it is), I hypnotized a lad of ten and stuck him full of pins. That night the family physician was seated in the second row of seats in the theater. I brought the lad from off the stage, told him to go to sleep, that he had no feeling in his ear, and although he went into hypnosis, he had plenty of feeling in the ear, and would not take the inspiration. I awakened him; he was trembling all over. On the stage I told him to go into hypnosis, but he was afraid. After assuring him that I would not put any pins into him, he did as I requested. After the performance I asked him what was the matter, and he replied, "I didn't care about your sticking pins in me when the doctor ain't there; but," he added, "I am afraid of the doctor, the doctor always makes trouble."

"Isn't he the family physician?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied, "but I am afraid of the doctor."

Why this association of ideas so contrary to the doctor. Whose fault is it, the doctor's or the profession's? No. Because the grandest profession in the world is that of medicine (?). (Rather, that of healing.) He who ministers to the sick, and will give them a sound body, a good body, a clean body, therewith a clean "mind," can do more for the world than the spiritual (?) adviser.

The minister

Why is it, when the minister calls on us, that the children and nearly all of the family go out? The minister as a rule does not seem to be welcome. Why is this ? His profession, next to that of the doctor, is the noblest, the grandest, still the children very rarely welcome him. There must be something wrong. It is this: they arouse thoughts antagonistic to themselves, instead of the thoughts they desire.

Negatives

This is done by using negative (telling the people what not to do, instead of surrounding them with suggestions of what they should or what they can do).

"Scientific" therefore lawful murder

Man, being ruled by his environment, is the reproduction of that environment; the wise (?) doctor, examining a child's throat, says, "Ah, the child has diphtheria," and he locks up the family of six or eight in the house to keep the disease from spreading (?). No; but in an attempt to murder the others of the family. The environment forced on the child the diphtheria, and he locks up the healthy people in that environment to see if they get the disease and die or not. The same with small-pox and every alleged contagious disease; they lock the people in the environment that produced the result, expecting them not to get well. Why is it the doctor, who does not live in that environment, very rarely gets the disease, unless the disease is caused by the environment of the entire city?

A Jew doctor

"I am a Jew (doctor). Hath not a Jew (doctor) eyes? Hath not a Jew (doctor) hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same disease, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winters and summers, as a Christian (the sick) is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? *

* "If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that." – Shylock, Act III. Scene I.

A pest house

If he is safe (and rarely does he contract the disease), why are not the others of the family safe if removed from their present environment? If you wish to isolate them, build a hospital, a pest house, or whatever you wish to call it, in the most sanitary portion of the city, then move these people to that healthy environment, and see how quickly the disease will die out, and how few of the remainder of the family will "catch it."

Yellow fever

Yellow fever was very prevalent in Santiago; the moment the environment was changed through the establishment of good sanitation, the yellow fever disappeared. It has long been observed that when the frost comes in the South, yellow fever disappears; cold kills the yellow fever germs (?). Oh ! our wise (?) doctors. Take a man suffering with yellow fever and put him in cold storage and the germs will quickly die (?); so will the patient. When the frost comes, a latent mineral element is released by its action, and the moment that element once more permeates the atmosphere and man gets his natural allowance, he no longer has the mal-transformation or yellow fever, but gets a "normal" or healthy transformation and well being.

If our doctors would study the environment, the elements necessary for health, there would be more well people on the face of the earth.

Epidemics

Epidemics are caused by the lack of an element, and when the demand is greater than the supply, those most in need fall by the wayside. The moment the supply and demand are equalized, some wise (?) doctor discovers a cure (?) for the alleged epidemic. During all the epidemics at least ninety per cent die from fear. I think it was in 1893, during the cholera epidemic in France, that for ten days, successively, a reporter on the New York World ate the germs of cholera and seemed to thrive on them. A homeopathic doctor rarely loses a cholera patient if he can get the case in any of its early stages.

Yet he dies

More men die of pseudo disease than real disease, but that is only something for the learned (?) scientists to wrangle over; he dies, whether it was through cholera or pseudo cholera, it makes no difference; he dies.

I once took in charge a subject who had suffered from a severe form of Southern malaria; his blood had been examined by a physician and pronounced most healthy. I hypnotized him, forced on him the thought of the malaria and in two days he had perfect malaria, even to the protoplasm in the blood.

Environment kills

Our hospitals and prisons carry with them every suggestion positive against the result sought. The patient lies in a ward of the hospital, thinking sickness; the prisoner, in jail, thinking crime. Hospitals should suggest health. There should be healthy doctors, sunlight and flowers, and live animals (other than bed bugs); but our hospitals of to-day have sick doctors, the majority of the nurses are sick, and the whole environment is one against just what the doctors are striving to accomplish.

The history of the so-called advance in medicine travels side by side with the advance in sanitation.

No advancement in medicine

Rational medicine has made no progress. We have gained anesthetics, and skilled butchers, who can cut neatly and cleanly. Hunchbacks now walk straight, but live no longer. Other than the "orificial" thought (and that is the surgeon's), I deny any advancement.

The Law of Suggestion balances itself. The sexually degenerate die off as consumptives, et cetera, conditionally failing to reproduce, while those in health continue the race.

Germs and sewers

Civilization carries with it filth. If the germ theory be right, the first thing that our wise (?) boards of health should do is to abolish sewers, pipes that lead to a cesspool where the germs are propagated, and from there conducting them into our bedrooms, our ballrooms and our offices, thereby committing murder by distributing these alleged germs that they seem so anxious to destroy.

If the germ theory be true, abolish sewers. Primitive races, races that lived out of doors, and did not congregate in great numbers, were free from disease.

Civilization

Man, civilized (?) man, always leaves disease in his wake. Doctors are needed only in modem civilization.

Vaccination

Our soldiers, before being sent to Cuba, were vaccinated– polluted with cow-syphilis – and, although the papers and army reports tried to keep the knowledge from the public, small-pox was prevalent among these vaccinated soldiers, the excuse being that the vaccination "didn't take." Tommy-rot.

Man, being a creature of his environment, can find about him all that is necessary for his welfare; and, if he would obey the law discovered by Darwin, by Herbert Spencer, he would find that he who is most apt, who is most quickly assimilated with his environment, is the one who will survive the longest.

Government murders

The government murders our soldiers in the Philippines and in Cuba by feeding them with hog meat, "embalmed" beef, and food-stuffs that grow only in the temperate zones, while all round them are the necessary and proper foods to keep them in health in their present environment. Natives in the tropics eat but little of flesh, little of the elements that are found in the foods of the colder climes; yet our soldiers, unaccustomed to the enervating environment of the tropics, are fed on flesh, a food necessary (?) to keep men alive in a cold climate. It is simply murder; there is no excuse for such stupidity.

Why is it that those who live in the Southern climes eat so much of red-peppers, spices, et cetera? For the reason that the heat of the atmosphere, draws all of the energy and circulation to the surface of the body to induce perspiration, the evaporation of which cools the skin. The stimulation of the hot spices is a counter-irritant and draws the blood to the stomach, giving it the energy necessary to perform its proper function. Our soldiers in the Philippines are fed with the most indigestible food, unprovided with the irritants necessary to produce the required digestion, and although our newspapers fail to tell the public, our army insane asylums are being filled at a rate that is appalling.

Driving soldiers insane

The meat trust and the ignorance of our doctors are decimating the ranks of our soldiers far more rapidly than the Filipinos could were they furnished with arms. Eat of your environment if you would be of that environment and survive.

D––n you, die

What killed her?

The question is did the body force the thought, or did the external environment force the thought, which resulted in death?

Better than drugs

Another time, a young lady living at home became ill. Her physician concluded that drugs would be of little avail, and hired a robust, rosy-cheeked, romping tomboy of a nurse, to whose presence the family objected. The doctor insisted, and the patient got well.

The family still hold that the doctor made a grave mistake in forcing them to endure the presence of this nurse, who was a suggestion of health in appearance, in tone, and in manner; and her constant attendance on the patient was more potent through its effect on the patient's senses than all the medicine in Christendom.

Telepathy

The Mental Scientists believe in telepathy, claiming that if all the neighbors wished health to the sick one, they would get a telepathic effect of mind upon mind. This explanation will not hold water. What you think, you look, you do. Therefore, if you think health, you communicate that suggestion to the patient through the patient's senses, for in no other way can he receive the impression. It is open (direct), personal suggestion – nothing telepathic about it.

Christian Science

The same with Christian Science, pure and simple suggestion; for it matters not what the method, so long as the thought is put in action, whether by praying or exhortations (facial expression and tone). The necessary attributes are desire and sincerity on the part of those offering the suggestion. Let there be one insincere person in the party and that one can produce a stronger positive against the others than twenty can counteract.

Healing

I have known many cases where the individuality and personality in touch, accompanied by tone, has been so forcible that fever in a child has been allayed within a minute. Personally, I have gone to the bedside of a stranger, and in less than one minute re-established a circulation throughout the entire lower limbs, the patient at the time being what the doctors call delirious.

The snapping, snarling little house dog has never been known to bite a person who would hold his hand still when the dog bit at it. The manner in which you place your hand on an animal, the suggestion of the touch, is the secret of success in handling snakes. When one is afraid of the snake, the touch tells him so; when one is not, he knows.

The power in the eye

It is said that if we will stare a lion or a savage dog in the eye he will not bite us. This is wrong. Of course, in most cases if we stare at them we are not afraid, but if we stare at them and are afraid, my experience is, the bull-dog will "go for" us.

Horses and pet animals are "spoiled," made vicious, et cetera, by the ineffectual attempts to force them to "mind." Animals are like babies, if we make them comprehend through the proper senses, and are just, little trouble is required to force them to understand.

Mental healing possible

Mental healing is possible where cerebro-spinal (conscious) memories are associated with sympathetic memories; it will be, or is, through cerebro-spinal (conscious) memories that we arouse sympathetic memories in mental healing. The sympathetic must have a memory of "normal" or healthy action. Sickness is the unhealthy action of the Sympathetic System. After hypnotizing a subject, if we can lock a thought in the "mind" through a word (cerebro-spinal) or a series of words that will arouse the associated action desired in the Sympathetic System, we can produce a cure. Therefore, all diseases having a name (cerebro-spinal), a recognized result (cerebro-spinal), and the unconscious actions of the sympathetic that produces these conditions, become workable the moment they are associated.

Imagination

Imagination is a word I do not like, inasmuch as what a man imagines he believes, and what he believes, is. If one looks at a color, and is color-blind, one will believe that the color is such as the impression given, notwithstanding what one's neighbor says. Therefore, I deny imagination as accepted by the general public, and say what a person believes is, so far as he is personally concerned. A man is just as sick as he believes himself to be, and just as well as he believes himself to be; because, if his thought is of health, all the attributes of which he is possessed that makes health are certain to take place. If he believes himself to be sick, the memory actions of that sickness are bound to occur.

Absent treatment

I do not believe in the philosophy of absent treatment, yet the so-called absent treatment is successful with many patients. That cures are produced through telepathy and by an operator sitting down every day and thinking of the welfare and good of his patient for an hour, to me is "tommy-rot." If we can make the patient believe or accept that we are going to "will" him well, and every afternoon or morning he will deliberately take a certain position, sit in a certain place and try to make himself passive, a result can be accomplished. It is only suggestion, however. All is suggestion, and it must come through the senses.

Superstition

Superstition, the relic of unenlightened (?) days.

If you were a hypnotist, you would wonder when those unenlightened and non-superstitious days ended. Ninety-nine out of every hundred of the people who tell us they do not believe in hypnosis are so deathly afraid of it that they will not look the operator in the eye. They are not afraid of what he claims, but of the great big phantom that they, in their ignorance, have built around the art. The moment they succeed in comprehending what I claim, they are of my most ardent followers. Superstitious; who is not? I believe I will have bad luck if I go to the theater without my cane (because on these nights it rains and I take my umbrella). Ben Johnson used to touch every post he passed. People will not re-enter their homes for something they have forgotten. The little superstitions are limitless, the big ones "more limitless."

Superstition the all

The superstition that surrounds medicine and disease is appalling. The superstition and jugglery that permeates the profession of medicine and law, is the Sympathetic System, the Abdominal Brain of their very existence. Remove superstition from these two professions and little is left. Yesterday's paper states that the board of health of Liberty, Sullivan County, New York, has had passed an ordinance placing consumption in the same class with small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria and other contagious (?) diseases, and prohibiting any hospital or sanitarium for consumptives within the village limits.

Violation of the ordinance is punishable by the fine of fifty dollars for the first offense, and for each subsequent offense the penalty is discretionary with the board, but is not to exceed one hundred dollars.

Mummery

Having established the superstition that small-pox (when not preceded by cow-pox, inoculated by a high priest of medicine, who procured his "charm" by mutilating a calf or cow), scarlet fever, et cetera, are "contagious," to further his mummery, he prohibits the consumptive from living elsewhere than where he dictates, and the non-superstitious (?) public submits to the dictates of these high priests who worship at the shrine of bugs, and start their mummery by taking from a patient a "culture," then go into a sacred chamber, amid a lot of mysterious paraphernalia, to incant and decant. Returning with a very grave face, they tell you that the bug is there, but they know of a bug that can catch your bug and kill him (and perhaps you); that they will now let loose the bug they have caught by chasing some other bug through a horse, a goat, a dog, a rabbit, a guinea-pig and a monkey. So they "shoot" the bug into your blood; and, behold! if you fail to be impressed (suggested to) through this mummery, you go to some other doctor.

Why be sick?

Pick up a daily paper – read – why be sick? The advertisements tell you of bugs discovered, a sure cure. If these licensed "doctors" can do as they claim, why so much legislation?

Now. reader, you are not superstitious. Oh! no, you are "scientific." If you can show any difference between the "science" of to-day and the mummery of the "dark ages" you will enlighten sincere and anxious students who are striving to enlighten their fellow man.

Here, reader, are a few of your superstitions:

1. That you can comprehend more than three units at one time.
2. That other than matter is appreciable.
3. That man is a free agent.
4. That man is possessed of "will power."
5. That man is just.
6. That law is justice.
7. That "justice" is achieved by hounding a supposed criminal.
8. That prosecuting attorneys prosecute criminals from a sense of duty only.
9. That the verdict of a jury is always just.
10. That punishment prevents crime.
11. That legislators represent the people.
12. That legislation should be invoked against all things not understood.
13. That newspapers print the truth only.
14. That a diploma makes a doctor.
15. That medical statistics are reliable.
16. That drugs of themselves cure.
17. That there are contagious diseases.
18. That vaccination prevents small-pox.
19. That quarantine prevents the spread of disease.
20. That boards of health are useful in preventing disease.
21. That medical experts are possessed of knowledge.
22. That two "experts," who swear directly opposite to one another, are both experts.
23. That modern science is scientific.
24. That an "authority" knows whereof he talks.
25. That the experts on hypnosis who write for the New York papers know whereof they write.
26. That the psychologists who investigated the phenomena (without the phenomena) of Mrs. Piper are psychologists, or even thinkers.
27. That Mental or Christian Scientists are fools.
28. That the ten commandments have benefited mankind.
29. That attending church will reserve for you a place in heaven (?).
30. That a professor of Christianity will not "do" his neighbor.
31. That in attempting to simulate you deceive others than yourself.
32. That there are idolatrous religions.
33. That sensuality is love.
34. That blushing is a sign of purity.
35. That colleges graduate practical men.
36. That physical and mental traits are inherited, per se, from the father.
37. That one is born with a thirst for liquor (yet takes milk straight without an objection).
38. That the American public desires to be deceived.
39. That there is more than one way to hypnotize.
40. That man can travel, build a following, and earn a living through fraudulent methods only.
41. That the performing of orificial work, particularly circumcision, is a sin, for, "What God gave, no man should take away."

Note. – This being true, although the Nazarene was circumcised, the cataract should not be removed from an eye, because "God" gave man the cataract. A child, born blind, deaf or dumb, should not have its senses established, because "God" has made the child that way. An individual God would be too busy to look after us as separate beings; but God is good, and what God does is perfect. If a personal God made each one of us, we would be in His image, each of us would bear His features, and therefore be perfect physically, perfect mentally; but God is the Law of Suggestion, and those of us who have been circumcised find that we are better than those who claim they should keep all that "God" gave them. If we can better the animal's physical condition, so then should physical condition be changed in man, as the necessity for circumcision is a result of the irritation of the mother, her irritated ganglion teaching the ganglion of the child to build redundantly.

Stupid superstition is as rife to-day as it was in the alleged "dark ages."

Palmistry, telepathy, et cetera

Back of what the "scientists" claim to be pure superstition, is a grain of truth. I believe there is some truth in palmistry, telepathy and clairvoyance, and it is proven that there is efficiency in fetishes, amulets, charms, et cetera, though I have yet to observe a case of either telepathy or clairvoyance that I considered a demonstration of phenomena. It is possible for one familiar with human nature to foretell to a reasonable extent, or predestine personal actions. If a right-handed man is lost in a forest and we meet him, we can tell him that he is moving in a circle to the left, because he will step a little further with his right foot.

So-called superstitious people have a right to their superstitions; they were sick, procured their charm and got well. It is well-known that a patient, lacking confidence in his physician, receives but little benefit from his treatment (charm). When our non-superstitious people call on the doctor and he fails to cure them; he then berates their lack of superstition.

The tale of a wart

Let us follow a "superstitious" lady who desires to get rid of a wart on her finger. Auntie brings the washing some Saturday evening, and notes the wart on madam's finger. She says, "Lawd, lady, why don't you get rid o' dat wart?" and madam replies that she has consulted several doctors, but they cannot get the roots out; the wart always grows back. Auntie informs her that an old mammy she knows would charm that wart away; she has seen her do so lots of times; it is easy. Madam becomes interested, so she thinks it over and all the time she is thinking about going to mammy's cabin, she is holding in her "mind" the thought of getting rid of the wart. She dresses very plainly one afternoon, and starts for mammy's cabin, all the time nervous and afraid that somebody will see her and know where she is going. Therefore, she is thinking all the time of getting rid of that wart. Timidly knocking at the door, she goes in, filled with awe and fear, and notes the surroundings. After talking with her, mammy has her sit down, takes her hand, makes some cabalistic passes, telling her just exactly what she must do, and that at a certain time, exactly, she must do a certain thing; if she will do so for a certain length of time, the wart will surely disappear.

The woman, after watching mammy's work and manipulations, returns home, still afraid of being observed by her neighbors, and at last sits down with a sigh of relief, thankful that the ordeal is over, not realizing that for the past two hours her mind has been set on getting rid of the wart. Now her curiosity is aroused; will the wart disappear?

Will it disappear?

Every time she feels the wart, it arouses in her "mind" the thought of its disappearance; and every little while she goes to the light to see if the wart has really vanished. In time it does.

"It shore will"

If this is not a practical case of suggestion by reaching the mind, I do not know what is. I fail to see the superstition, as the wart disappears by suggestion. Madam does not care whether it was suggestion, or what it was, she knows the wart was on her hand, and remembers the learned (?) doctor's failure, realizing that mammy has done what the doctor failed to do, and is happy, or, as the doctors say, she is now extremely superstitious. No! What you think is, what you believe is, as far as you are personally concerned.

Emotion

Our psychologists are always talking of emotion. Emotions are extremes and the same nerve-ends are stimulated to produce the two opposite emotions. Sadness affects certain muscles of the face and forces the tear ducts to pour forth tears. Extreme mirth produces the same result.

The myriads of deductions, as to emotion, made by our psychologists are entirely false. We have five ways of receiving ten extreme ideas, and to the degree of emphasis or stimulus (suggestion), and of the ideas already associated, do the emotions respond.

Abdominal brain

I believe the Sympathetic System and the cerebro-spinal system to be of one Abdominal Brain. The cerebro-spinal receives the impressions and carries them to the sympathetic ganglion, which receives unconsciously and can perform this function free from the cerebro-spinal, but the cerebro-spinal can do absolutely nothing without the sympathetic. In other words, it is inherent with, and cannot be disassociated from the sympathetic.

You see, hear, smell, feel or taste something repulsive, and immediately become sick at the stomach. The cerebro-spinal simply registers the memory of the sense-stimuli, but the nerve-ends that receive this are beyond all question sympathetic, the cerebrum being simply a side issue, and like the registering mechanism of a phonograph; so, instead of being sick through a reflex action, which I cannot comprehend, it is all direct.

All action direct

So-called reflex action has never been comprehensively explained to me. All action is direct.

Magnetism

If matter is the expression of mind, so-called magnetism must be an expression in matter that attracts other matter. Therefore, a person possessed of a pure body will have a pure mind, consequently, a pure expression in his face, attracting the pure, and vice versa. That this is true, I have proven.

How I cleaned house

There was a time in my life when pure women, children and babes were afraid of me, and would not look at me. I decided to "clean house," and after my surgeons had finished with me, acquired the thought that man partakes of the nature of the food he eats. I was in Kansas, where they fed us on ham and eggs or bacon and eggs for breakfast, roast pork for dinner, and cold ham and sausage for supper; at last I concluded I was a hog, and began experimenting.

Stopped liquor

Desiring to cease drinking liquor, I stopped eating pork, and, strangely, the amount of liquor I consumed proportionately decreased. I then quit eating flesh, and in eight months, with no effort on my part, ceased drinking liquor.

Before this, I had reached such a stage that when a gentleman invited me to his home I would refuse; being afraid to meet the ladies of the family. In a city in Arkansas I played an engagement of one week, returning after a couple of weeks, and had to lay off one night. That night I was invited to a children's party. I was afraid to go, but went after my friend insisted. The children, of course, knew who I was; they began talking to me and I forgot myself. For a time I was thoroughly unconscious of my environment, recovering to find that I was in the middle of the parlor on my knees with some dozen little girls around me, some with their arms about my neck, and the tears were rolling down my cheeks; then I realized that I had "cleaned house," that the brutal nature had passed away, and the "magnetism" with which I had been blessed as a lad, had partially returned; had returned to the extent that the children had seen in my face and responded to the love I now had for them. This is the pleasantest memory of my life.

Babes no longer cried

After that I used to smile and speak to the babes as I passed them on the street, and they always smiled in return. A year before this time, if I looked at a baby it was certain to cry.

To further prove this thought, about a year afterward, I met a party of ladies in a hotel parlor, became very angry, and dismissed them. Going onto the porch of the hotel (this was in the South), I saw a baby in a carriage. When I spoke to the baby it began yelling, and would not stop until I left. Upon meeting the baby the next day, when I was in a good humor, it was pleased to see me, thus showing that personal magnetism is simply the expression in matter of mind. Therefore, the foul mind gives forth foul expression, which is immediately responded to by those of the same type.

To cultivate personal magnetism

To cultivate personal magnetism, cultivate purity. The orator or the actor who magnetizes (?) his audience is simply a person possessing much expression, and who unconsciously tells his story by affecting two senses. The non-magnetic man is the one who affects only one – the ear, – but the man who affects both the eye and the ear, who is full of expression and gesture, is the most magnetic always.

Sleep in church

My dear reader, you are a hypnotist, why is it that people in the front pew of a church, particularly if the altar be high, so readily fall asleep? Easy position, upturned eye, concentration, and monotony in the voice of the minister. There is but one way to hypnotize, and that is by bringing the proper five attributes together. The making of "passes" is simply using the deaf and dumb language to a person. They suggest through feeling what the comprehensive hypnotist suggests through the ear. Downward passes mean sleep, therefore every time the subject feels the downward passes he thinks of sleep and goes to sleep (?), or is in hypnosis, with the sense of feeling keen and acute, waiting for the upward passes. When the upward passes are made, he awakens, because that is associated with and forces the thought of awakening.

A thought consists of two or more associated sense-impressions.

My dear reader, you love your mother, your father, your brother, your sister and wife (if you have one), and children if you are so blessed. Just think of the all-wise provisions that the "scientific" world has made for your welfare.

Scientific teaching

You or I knew a young man, a boy. We knew him playing in the street and going to school. His father possessed a little money and did not wish the boy to perform manual labor, so at eighteen or nineteen years of age he is sent to a medical college. Now, mind, this boy has no practical knowledge of anything. He has had no experience, whatever, in the world. He is a suckling, and spends four years in this college listening to words, watching the professors of anatomy demonstrate (feeling-sense), watching operations by old men, visiting the hospital and watching the doctors prescribe. His actual experience consists of cutting up one cadaver, perfunctorily; the proper dissection of one cadaver would have taken him at least four years. It would be necessary for him to dissect at least a dozen before he could properly become familiar with the structure of the human body.

A diploma

At the end of the fourth year, being still a boy, he graduates by answering a lot of questions – words associated with words, necessarily carrying with them no comprehension – and this boy, after taking the oath to be honorable, which as yet he is too young to comprehend, is given a parchment which entitles him to assume the treatment of the most vicious diseases, to reduce the most intricate dislocations, to assist "nature" in bringing new beings into the world; to have entree to our homes under all of the most delicate circumstances, and thus come into possession of the skeletons in our closets; to be sent for when our dearest relative is likely to pass away.

Is this right?

This boy – inexperienced as to all things worldly – is entitled by law to this right. Is it sensible, is it just?

To further strengthen this injustice, the law designates to whom {experience not being a factor) we shall go when we are sick; failing to do so, we shall be punished. All other contracts, to stand before a court of law, must be equitable; a just consideration must be given. What consideration do we get in return for being forced to go to this man with a parchment? Does he guarantee to cure us? Will he cure us? Does he cure us? Can he cure us? If he fails, why should we not have redress?

Why this law?

Again, we know of a person who is of mature Why this age, who knows life, who knows from experience ,aw? right from what the world calls wrong, and through the proper senses, how to treat disease; who is capable of handling diseases – proving his capability by past deeds, – and why should we not go to him? Why should he be punished for treating us? Why should we be punished for accepting his treatment?

If the graduates, at the end of four years, were possessed of any actual knowledge, if they could demonstrate any other than an ocular one of displaying their diplomas, I would have nothing to say. I do not believe that the Supreme Court of the United States will sustain any such law, inasmuch as the Constitution gives us the right to choose whom we shall have dealings with. The wise (?) legislators, knowing nothing of medicine, and little of farming, unhesitatingly dictate to the world to whom the sick shall go for relief.

The Nazarene

The Nazarene cured by suggestion. The Christian Scientists cure by suggestion; the Mental Scientists cure by suggestion; the so-called Faith Curists cure by suggestion; the Hypnotist cures by suggestion, and what cures the physician accomplishes are by suggestion; but a wise medic whispers into the ear of the farmer legislator – who is another of the modern superstitions, as we believe him to be a representative man, a maker of laws for the good of men, – this medic whispers in his ear, "These other people do not cure."

Who cures?

Then who does? It is passing strange that, with all his curing, he has to force the people to patronize him while all the other scientists fall under the ban of the law.

In this country of alleged freedom, let the curists fight their own battles, let them live by the deeds they do. In all other affairs that is the law, but a man's life is so dear to the legislators – who are always standing around the lobbies with their hands behind them – that they cannot allow man to care for his own life, it is not precious enough to him; he is not capable of "choosing" to whom he shall go; he must be saved from himself; he must go to a man with a parchment and have that man pour a serum – the putrefaction of disease of horses, cows, dogs, goats and rabbits into his blood, to kill a poor little bug.

The bug was there

If the patient dies, and a post-mortem is held, the doctors state that the bug was there; other doctors state that they are right, the diagnosis was correct, the bug was there. The doctors put it there. The taking of human life is nothing.

Now, dear reader, I am not railing at the doctors personally, but at their pseudo philosophy. They mean well, poor, helpless creatures, they learned (?) what their tutors taught (?) them. They saw surgical operations, they obtained (?) through the eye that which should have been acquired through feeling. Their wise preceptors had a law made; and now, as they have listened four years and can answer questions, they are given diplomas which entitle them to go forth to fight the mighty hosts of bugs.

A la Sampson

They are fortified with the "jaw-bone of an ass," and the world looks on and says, "Hallelujah!" For some reason they accept what old Doc So-and-so said, take it for granted, fail to investigate and try to succeed. They have no true knowledge with which to work. To show how false the present theory of medicine is, when a man is suffering from indigestion he is given pepsin, which merely digests the food in the stomach, failing to reach any cause whatever. A bucket has been filled with water; the water is thrown out and the bucket again placed under a spout, with the expectation of its remaining empty.

Cause vs. effect

They do nothing but attempt to remove effect, never once reaching cause.

The "rational" school of medicine is the most irrational; purely attempts at drug suggestion without any certainty as to the result, contradicting their own consciences every day, deceiving the general public by asserting that they produce disease through inoculation with germs; and right here I unhesitatingly deny that they ever produced a tubercular lung in a rabbit or guinea-pig with any germ they inoculated him with, and assert that they kill him with septicemia or blood-poisoning, by introducing into his blood foreign matter. They know the exact manner in which he will die, they find his lungs full of bugs; his entire body is full of bugs because they filled him with them.

Here's a chance

Allow me to furnish the rabbit and my doctors to watch the experiment, and I will give one thousand dollars to any doctor who will produce the disease, per se, in my rabbit or guinea-pig through inoculation with his bugs. They must produce a tubercular lung, not a sound lung filled with bugs.

I know of dozens of cases of diphtheria (?) where the membrane, when examined by the bacteriologist of the Board of Health of Brooklyn, N. Y., and pronounced true diphtheria, were not diphtheria in any shape or form, and dozens of cases where they pronounced it not diphtheria, that were, beyond all question, notwithstanding the test (?), true diphtheria. This wrangling over the word "true" is all "tommy-rot"; whether it is true or not, the patient dies, no need of wrangling over whether it is true or pseudo.

If I were a doctor

If I were a doctor, not merely a man with a "sheep-skin," but a real doctor, a man who had goods to deliver, a man who could say, "I will cure, or accept no pay," I would have an office of three rooms and have all my skeletons in the first room; reversing the usual arrangement of our present wise doctors, it should be a gloomy room and I would hire sick people – awfully sick people – to sit around the room so that when a patient entered he would have sickness suggested very strongly, and would know that he was sick; and after the sick people had told him how awfully sick they were, their "minds" being full of sickness, and he had that thought of sickness thoroughly emphasized, I would have him step into another room that had minor surgical instruments on display and lesser suggestions of sickness.

Then I would invite him into my office where I would be sitting in the shadows so that he could not readily perceive the involuntary and unconscious expressions that would appear in my face as he told me of his illness. My office would be bright and full of flowers, and birds, and pictures of health; no stuffed animals, but live ones; I should try to have a smile on my face, and the moment he took a seat, responding to the suggestion of the present environment, he would say to me, "Why, doctor, I feel better already."

And he would feel better, because from every suggestion of sickness I should have carried him into a room that was full of every suggestion of health. No drugs, no odor of drugs, no instruments, no death's head calendars; but life, in expression, in plants, in flowers, in birds, in animals; I would have surrounded him with health. And, good reader, he could go away with no drugs, but with a memory of that office that would make him feel better.

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