Success

Goethe tells us that he himself went where there was malignant fever and never contracted it because he put forth his will. These giants among men knew something WE ARE SLOWLY BEGINNING TO FIND OUT - the power of Autosuggestion!

This means the influence we have upon ourselves by believing we cannot catch a disease or be sick. There is something about the operation of the automatic or sub-conscious mind by which it rises above disease germs and bids defiance to them when we resolve not to let the thought of them frighten us, or when we go in and out among the sick, even the contagiously sick, without thinking anything about it.

Imagination will kill a cat, so runs the old adage. It certainly will kill a man, or, on the other hand, it will help him rise to heights of achievement of the most astounding nature, providing he uses it as the basis of self-confidence.

There are authentic cases on record of men having actually died because they imagined they were cut by a knife across the jugular vein, when in reality a piece of ice was used and water was allowed to drip so they could hear it and imagine their blood was running out. They had been blindfolded before the experiment was begun.

No matter how well you may be when you start for work in the morning, if everyone you meet should say to you, How ill you look; you should see a doctor, it will not be long before you begin to feel ill, and if this keeps up a few hours you will arrive at home in the evening as limp as a rag and ready for a doctor. Such is the power of the imagination or Autosuggestion.

The imaginative faculty of the human mind is a marvellous piece of mental machinery, but it may, and usually does, play queer tricks on us unless we keep constantly on guard and control it.

If you allow your imagination to expect the worst it will play havoc with you. Young medical students not infrequently become frightened and believe they have every disease on the medical calendar, as the result of medical lectures and classroom discussions of the various diseases.

As has been stated, hypochondria may often be super induced by toxic poisoning, through improper elimination of the waste matter of the body; also, it may be brought on by false alarm, through improper use of the imagination. in other words, the hypochondriacal condition may have as its cause a real physical basis, or it may arise entirely as the result of allowing the imagination to run wild.