Chapter VI: Part 6

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 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.

[Sidenote: 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).

[Sidenote: “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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Instinct]

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.”

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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Instinct (?)]

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. What was it that kept me from accepting their challenge? Instinct? No. Luck? 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:

[Sidenote: Rhythm]

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. 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.”

[Sidenote: Comprehensiveness]

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. 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.”

[Sidenote: 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, Bill? 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?”

“Well, what do you think? Miss Brown just invited me up to a party at Miss Smith’s house, what do you think of that?”

The minister said, “You’re going, are you not?”

“No, I guess I ain’t going.”

“Would you like to go?”

“You bet.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“I can’t go in these duds.”

“Ah! Is that the best suit you’ve got?”

“Well, pretty near.”

“You are making good money in the machine shop are you not?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do with your money?”

“Well, I have to pay my board, and after I do that and pay the saloon keeper, I ain’t got anything left.”

“So that is the reason that keeps you from attending the party?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you get paid next Saturday night, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“If you had a new suit you would go?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you go and get a suit?”

“Why, I haven’t money enough.”

“Won’t the merchant trust you?”

“No; the only man that trusts me is the saloon man, and he won’t trust me for much.”

“Now, Bill,” the minister said, “if you would like to go, I will fix it so that you can get a suit.”

“How?”

“If you will promise me you will pay so much every week until the suit is paid for, I will go on your bond down here at the clothing store.”

“Will you?” says Bill.

“Yes,” replied the preacher.

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.

[Sidenote: A suggestion]

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?” 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.

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: A club]

[Sidenote: Their way]

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. 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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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?”

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: Cigarettes]

On the stage are several bright lads; they smoke cigarettes. One comes to me and says, “Mr. Santanelli, will you cure me of smoking cigarettes?”

“Certainly,” I reply, and in four or five days he is cured.

The mother of another comes to me and says, “Mr. Santanelli, will you cure of smoking cigarettes, my boy Jack, who is on your stage?”

“Does he wish to be cured, madam?”

“No.”

“Then I cannot cure him.”

[Sidenote: Positive for]

[Sidenote: Positive against]

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.” 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?”

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: Conception]

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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Hydrophobia]

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. 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.

“Why would you do that?” he asked.

[Sidenote: Practical suggestion]

[Sidenote: A lazy bug]

“I am one of those foolish people who believe in 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. 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.

[Sidenote: A rara avis]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: Do something]

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. After eating what he wanted, he placed the rest on the mantelpiece, 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.”

[Sidenote: 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; good-night. Come along, Santanelli.” His tone was healthy and this doctor gave forth every suggestion of health.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Look your part]

[Sidenote: A real (?) doctor]

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. 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.”

[Sidenote: Time for a change]

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.” 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?)

[Sidenote: “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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: The minister]

[Sidenote: Negatives]

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. 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. 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).

[Sidenote: “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?

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.”

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Epidemics]

[Sidenote: Yet he dies]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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._

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Germs and sewers]

[Sidenote: Civilization]

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

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Driving soldiers insane]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: D——n you die]

In a certain hospital in Chicago an old maid, a patient, had undergone a successful operation, but was firmly convinced that she would die. Her old maid sister visited her and agreed with her that she would die. Every time she saw the doctor she told him she would die; and, at last, losing patience (not “patients,” though sometimes he did) one evening, after she had repeatedly informed the doctor she would die, he turned to her and said, “Damn you, die!” and went down stairs. About forty minutes later the nurse called the doctor and said, “She did it.”

“Did what?”

“As you told her.”

“What was that?”

“She has died.”

[Sidenote: What killed her?]

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

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Superstition]

Superstition, the relic of unenlightened (?) days.