illustrate further the power of imagination and blind belief, I will relate the case of a relative of mine who had tuberculosis. His lungs were badly diseased. His son decided to heal his father. He came home to Perth, Western Australia, where his father lived, and said to him that he had met a monk who had returned from one of the healing shrines in Europe. This monk sold him a piece of the true cross. He said he gave the monk the equivalent of $500 for it.
This young man had actually picked up a splinter of wood from the sidewalk, went to the jeweler's, and had it set in a ring so that it looked real. He told his father that many were healed just by touching the ring or the cross. He inflamed and fired his father's imagination to the point that the old gentleman snatched the ring from him, placed it over his chest, prayed silently, and went to sleep. In the morning he was healed. All the clinic's tests proved negative.
You know, of course, it was not the splinter of wood from the sidewalk that healed him. It was his imagination aroused to an intense degree, plus the confident expectancy of a perfect healing. Imagination was joined to faith or subjective feeling, and the union of the two brought about a healing. The father never learned of the trick that had been played upon him. If he had, he probably would have had a relapse. He remained completely cured and passed away fifteen years later at the age of 89.
One Universal Healing Principle
it is a well known fact that all of the various schools of healing effect cures of the most wonderful character. The most obvious conclusion, which strikes your mind, is that there must be some underlying principle, which is common to them all, namely, the subconscious mind, and the one process of healing is faith.
It will now be in order to recall to your mind once more the following fundamental truths:
First, that you possess mental functions which have been distinguished by designating one the conscious mind and the other the subconscious mind.
Second, your subconscious mind is constantly amenable to the power of suggestion. Furthermore, your subconscious mind has complete control of the functions, conditions and sensations of your body.
I venture to believe that all the readers of this book are familiar with the fact that symptoms of almost any disease can be induced in hypnotic subjects by suggestion. For example, a subject in the hypnotic state can develop a high temperature, flushed face, or chills according to the nature of the suggestion given. By experiment, you can also suggest to the person that he is paralyzed and cannot walk: it will be so. By illustration, you can hold a cup of cold water under the nose of the hypnotic subject and tell him, “This is full of pepper, smell it!” He will proceed to sneeze. What do you think caused him to sneeze, the water or the suggestion?
If a man says he is allergic to Timothy grass, you can place a synthetic flower or an empty glass in front of nose, when he is in a hypnotic state, and tell him it is Timothy grass. He will portray the usual allergic symptoms. This indicates that the cause of the disease is in the mind. The healing of the disease can also take place mentally.
You realize that remarkable healings take place through osteopathy, chiropractic medicine and naturopathy, as well as through all the various religious bodies throughout the world, but it is obvious that all of these healings are brought about through the subconscious mind the only healer there is.
Notice how it heals a cut on your face caused by shaving. It knows exactly how to do it. The doctor dresses the would and says, “Nature heals it!” Nature refers to natural law, the law of the subconscious mind, or self-preservation, which is the function of the subconscious mind. The instinct of self-preservation is the first law of nature. Your strongest instinct is the most potent of all autosuggestions.
Widely Different Theories
It would be tedious and unprofitable to discuss to any great extent the numerous theories advanced by different religious sects and prayer therapy groups. There are a great number who claim that because their theory produces results it is, therefore, the correct one. This, as explained in this chapter, cannot be true.
You are aware that there are all types of healing. Franz Anton Mesmer, an Austrian physician (1734-1815) who practiced in Paris, discovered that by applying magnets to the diseased body, he could cure that disease miraculously. He also performed cures with various other pieces of glass and metals. He discontinued this form of healing and claimed that his cures were due to “animal magnetism,” theorizing that this substance was projected from the healer to the patient.
His method of healing disease from then on was by hypnotism, which was called mesmerism in his day. Other physicians said that all his healings were due to suggestion and nothing else.
All of these groups, such as psychiatrists, psychologists, osteopaths, chiropractors, physicians and all the churches are using the one universal power resident in the subconscious mind. Each may proclaim the healings are due to their theory. The process of all healing is a definite, positive, mental attitude, an inner attitude, or a way of thinking, called faith. Healing is due to a confident expectancy, which acts as a powerful suggestion to the subconscious mind releasing its healing potency.
One man does not heal by a different power than another. It is true that he may have his own theory or method. There is only one process of healing and that is faith. There is only one healing power, namely, your subconscious mind. Select the theory and method you prefer. You can rest assured, if you have faith, you shall get results.
Views Of Paracelsus
Philippus Paracelsus, a famous Swiss alchemist and physician, who lived from 1493 to 1541, was a great healer in his day. He stated what is now an obvious scientific fact when he uttered these words, “Whether the object of your faith be real or false, you will nevertheless obtain the same effects. Thus, if I believed in Saint Peter's statue as I should have believed in Saint Peter himself, I shall obtain the same effects that I should have obtained from Saint Peter. But that is superstition. Faith, however, produces miracles; and whether it is true or false faith, it will always produce the same wonders.”
The views of Paracelsus were also entertained in the sixteenth century by Pietro Pomponazzi, an Italian philosopher and contemporary of Paracelsus, who said “We can easily conceive the marvelous effects, which confidence and imagination can produce, particularly when both qualities are reciprocated between the subjects and the person who influences them. The cures attributed to the influence of certain relics are the effect of their imagination and confidence. Quacks and philosophers know that if the bones of any skeleton were put in place of the saint's bones, the sick would nonetheless experience beneficial effects, if they believed that they were veritable relics.”
Then, if you believe in the bones of saints to heal, or if you believe in the healing power of certain waters, you will get results because of the powerful suggestion given to your subconscious mind. It is the latter that does the healing.
Bernheim's Experiments
Hippolyte Bernheim, professor of medicine at Nancy, France, 1910-1919, was the expounder of the fact that the suggestion of the physician to the patient was exerted through the subconscious mind.
Bernheim, in his Suggestive Therapeutics, page 197, tells a story of a man with paralysis of the tongue, which had yielded to no form of treatment. His doctor told the patient that he had a new instrument with which he promised to heal him. He introduced a pocket thermometer into the patient's mouth. The patient imagined it to be the instrument which was to save him. In a few moments he cried out joyfully that he could once more move his tongue freely.
“Among
