The town thrills at this name, for from every rank of society people
come to him and everyone is welcomed with the same benevolence,
which already goes for a good deal. But what is extremely poignant
is at the end of the séance to see the people who came in gloomy,
bent, almost hostile (they were in pain), go away like everybody else;
unconstrained, cheerful, sometimes radiant (they are no longer in
pain!!). With a strong and smiling goodness of which he has the
secret, M. Coué, as it were, holds the hearts of those who consult
him in his hand; he addresses himself in turn to the numerous
persons who come to consult him, and speaks to them in these terms:
"Well, Madame, and what is your trouble? . . ."
Oh, you are looking for two many whys and wherefores; what does
the cause of your pain matter to you? You are in pain, that is
enough . . . I will teach you to get rid of that. . . .
---
And you, Monsieur, your varicose ulcer is already better. That is
good, very good indeed, do you know, considering you have only
been here twice; I congratulate you on the result you have obtained.
If you go on doing your autosuggestions properly, you will very
soon be cured. . . . You have had this ulcer for ten years, you say?
What does that matter? You might have had it twenty and more, and
it could be cured just the same.
---
And you say that you have not obtained any improvement? . . . Do
you know why? . . . Simply because you lack confidence in yourself.
When I tell you that you are better, you feel better at once, don't you?
Why? Because you have faith in me. Just believe in yourself and
you will obtain the same result.
---
Oh, Madame not so many details, I beg you! By looking out for the
details you create them, and you would want a list a yard long to
contain all your maladies. As a matter of fact, with you it is the
mental outlook which is wrong. Well, make up your mind that it is
going to get better and it will be so. It's as simple as the
Gospel. . . .
---
You tell me you have attacks of nerves every week. . . . Well, from
to-day you are going to do what I tell you and you will cease to have
them. . . .
---
You have suffered from constipation for a long time? . . . What does
it matter how long it is? . . . You say it is forty years? Yes, I heard
what you said, but it is none the less true that you can be cured
to-morrow; you hear, to-morrow, on condition, naturally, of your doing
exactly what I tell you to do, in the way I tell you to do it. . . .
---
Ah! you have glaucoma, Madame. I cannot absolutely promise to
cure you of that, for I am not sure that I can. That does not mean that
you cannot be cured, for I have known it to happen in the case of a
lady of Chalon-sur-Saône and another of Lorraine.
Well, Mademoiselle, as you have not had your nervous attacks since
you came here, whereas you used to have them every day, you are
cured. Come back sometimes all the same, so that I may keep you
going along the right lines.
---
The feeling of oppression will disappear with the lesions which will
disappear when you assimilate properly; that will come all in good
time, but you mustn't put the cart before the horse . . . it is the same
with oppression as with heart trouble, it generally diminishes very
quickly. . . .
---
Suggestion does not prevent you from going on with your usual
treatment. . . . As for the blemish you have on your eye, and which is
lessening almost daily, the opacity and the size are both growing
less every day.
---
To a child (in a clear and commanding voice): "Shut your eyes, I
am not going to talk to you about lesions or anything else, you
would not understand; the pain in your chest is going away, and you
won't want to cough any more."
---
_Observation.--_It is curious to notice that all those suffering from
chronic bronchitis are immediately relieved and their morbid
symptoms rapidly disappear. . . . Children, are very easy and very
obedient subjects; their organism almost always obeys immediately
to suggestion.
---
To a person who complains of fatigue: Well, so do I. There are also
days when it tires me to receive people, but I receive them all the
same and all day long. Do not say: _"I cannot help it." "One can
always overcome oneself."_
_Observation.--_The idea of fatigue necessarily brings fatigue, and
the idea that we have a duty to accomplish always gives us the
necessary strength to fulfill it. The mind can and must remain master
of the animal side of our nature.
---
The cause which prevents you from walking, whatever it is, is going
to disappear little by little every day: you know the proverb:
_Heaven helps those who help themselves._ Stand up two or three
times a day supporting yourself on two persons, and say to yourself
firmly: _My kidneys are not so weak that I cannot do it, on the
contrary I can. . . ._
---
After having said: "Every day, in every respect, I am getting better
and better," add: "The people who are pursuing me _cannot_ pursue
me any more, they are not pursuing me. . . ."
---
What I told you is quite true; it was enough to think that you had no
more pain for the pain to disappear; _do not think then that it may
come back or it will come back. . . ._
(A woman, sotto voice, "What patience he has! What a wonderfully
painstaking man!")
---
ALL THAT WE THINK BECOMES TRUE FOR US. WE MUST
NOT THEN ALLOW OURSELVES TO THINK WRONGLY.
---
THINK "MY TROUBLE IS GOING AWAY," JUST AS YOU
THINK YOU CANNOT OPEN YOUR HANDS.
The more you say: _"I will not,"_ the more surely the contrary
comes about. You must say: _"It's going away,"_ and think it. Close
your hand and think properly: "Now I cannot open it." Try! (she
cannot), you see that your will is not much good to you.
_Observation.--This is the essential point of the method._ In order to
make auto-suggestions, you must eliminate the _will_ completely
and only address yourself to the _imagination,_ so as to avoid a
conflict between them in which the will would be vanquished.
---
To become stronger as one becomes older seems paradoxical, but it
is true.
---
For diabetes: Continue to use therapeutic treatments; I am quite
willing to make suggestions to you, but I cannot promise to cure you.
_Observation._--I have seen diabetes completely cured several
times, and what is still more extraordinary, the albumen diminish
and even disappear from the urine of certain patients.
---
This obsession must be a real nightmare. The people you used to
detest are becoming your friends, you like them and they like you.
Ah, but to _will_ and to _desire_ is not the _same_ thing.
---
Then, after having asked them to close their eyes, M. Coué gives to
his patients the little suggestive discourse which is to be found in
"Self Mastery." When this is over, he again addresses himself to
each one separately, saying to each a few words on his case:
To the first: "You, Monsieur, are in pain, but I tell you that, from
to-day, the cause of this pain whether it is called arthritis or anything
else, is going to disappear with the help of your unconscious, and
the cause having disappeared, the pain will gradually become less
and less, and in a short time it will be nothing but a moment."
To the second person: "Your stomach does not function properly, it
is more or less dilated. Well, as I told you just now, your digestive
functions are going to work better and better, and I add that the
dilatation of the stomach is going to disappear little by little. Your
organism is going to give back progressively to your stomach the
force and elasticity it had lost, and by degrees as this phenomenon is
produced, the stomach will return to its primitive form and will
carry out more and more easily the necessary movements to pass
into the intestine the nourishment it contains. At the same time the
pouch formed by the relaxed stomach will diminish in size, the
nutriment will not longer stagnate in this pouch, and in consequence
the fermentation set up will end by totally disappearing."
To the third: "To you, Mademoiselle, I say that whatever lesions you
may have in your liver, your organism is doing what is necessary to
make the lesions disappear every day, and by degrees as they heal
over, the symptoms from which you suffer will go on lessening and
disappearing. Your liver then functions in a more and more normal
way, the bile it secretes is alcaline and no longer acid, in the right
quantity and quality, so that it passes naturally into the intestines and
helps intestinal digestion."
To the fourth: "My child, you hear what I say; every time you feel
you are going to have an attack, you will hear my voice telling you
as quick as lightning: 'No, no! my friend, you are not going to have
that attack, and it is going to disappear before it comes. . . .'"
To the fifth, etc., etc.
When everyone has been attended to, M. Coué tells those present to
open their eyes, and adds: "You have heard the advice I have just
given you. Well, to transform it into reality, what you must do is this:
_As long as you live,_ every morning before getting up, and every
evening as soon as you are in bed, you must shut your eyes, so as to
concentrate your attention, and repeat twenty times following,
moving your _lips_ (that is indispensable) and counting
_mechanically_ on a string with twenty knots in it the following
phrase: _'Every day, in every respect, I am getting better and
better.'"_
There is no need to think of anything in particular, as the words _"in
every respect"_ apply to everything. This autosuggestion must be
made with confidence, with faith, with the certainty of obtaining
what is desired. The greater the conviction of the person, the greater
and the more rapid will be the results obtained.
Further, every time that in the course of the day or night you feel
any physical or mental discomfort, _affirm_ to yourself that you will
not consciously contribute to it, and that you are going to make it
vanish; then isolate yourself as much as possible, and passing your
hand over your forehead if it is something mental, or on whatever
part that is painful if it is something physical, repeat _very quickly,_
moving the lips, the words: "It is going, it is going . . ., etc., etc." as
long as it is necessary. With a little practice, the mental or physical
discomfort will disappear in about 20 to 25 seconds. Begin again
every time it is necessary.
For this as for the other autosuggestions it is necessary to act with
the same confidence, the same conviction, the same faith, and above
all without effort.
M. Coué also adds what follows: "If you formerly allowed yourself
to make bad autosuggestions because you did it unconsciously, now
that you know what I have just taught you, you must no longer let
this happen. And if, in spite of all, you still do it, you must only
accuse yourself, and say _'Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.'"_
And now, if a grateful admirer of the work and of the founder of the
method may be allowed to say a few words, I will say. "Monsieur
Coué shows us luminously that the power to get health and
happiness is within us: we have indeed received this gift."
Therefore, suppressing, first of all, every cause of suffering _created
or encouraged by ourselves,_ then putting into practice the favorite
maxim of Socrates: "Know thyself," and the advice of Pope: "That I
may reject none of the benefits that Thy goodness bestows upon
me," let us take possession of the entire benefit of autosuggestion,
let us become this very day members of the "Lorraine Society of
applied Psychology;" let us make members of it those who may be
in our care (it is a good deed to do to them).
By this means we shall follow first of all the great movement of the
future of which M. E. Coué is the originator (he devotes to it his
days, his nights, his worldly goods, and refuses to accept . . . but
hush; no more of this! lest his modesty refuses to allow these lines to
be published without alteration), but above all by this means we
shall know exactly the days and hours of his lectures at Paris, Nancy
and other towns, where he devotedly goes to sow the good seed, and
where we can go too to see him, and hear him and consult him
personally, and with his help awake or stir up in ourselves the
personal power that everyone of us has received of becoming happy
and well.
May I be allowed to add that when M. Coué has charged an entrance
fee for his lectures, they have brought in thousands of francs for the
Disabled and others who have suffered through the war.
E. Vs----oer.
_Note._--Entrance is free to the members of the Lorraine Society of
applied Psychology.