Chapter VII: Part 7

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.”

[Sidenote: Superstition the all]

[Sidenote: Mummery]

[Sidenote: Why be sick?]

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. 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. 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:

That you can comprehend more than three units at one time.

That other than matter is appreciable.

That man is a free agent.

That man is possessed of “will power.”

That man is just.

That law is justice.

That “justice” is achieved by hounding a supposed criminal.

That prosecuting attorneys prosecute criminals from a sense of duty only.

That the verdict of a jury is always just.

That punishment prevents crime.

That legislators represent the people.

That legislation should be invoked against all things not understood.

That newspapers print the truth only.

That a diploma makes a doctor.

That medical statistics are reliable.

That drugs of themselves cure.

That there are contagious diseases.

That vaccination prevents small-pox.

That quarantine prevents the spread of disease.

That boards of health are useful in preventing disease.

That medical experts are possessed of knowledge.

That two “experts,” who swear directly opposite to one another, are _both_ experts.

That modern science is scientific.

That an “authority” knows whereof he talks.

That the experts on hypnosis who write for the New York papers know whereof they write.

That the psychologists who investigated the phenomena (without the phenomena) of Mrs. Piper are psychologists, or even thinkers.

That Mental or Christian Scientists are fools.

That the ten commandments have benefited mankind.

That attending church will reserve for you a place in heaven (?).

That a professor of Christianity will not “do” his neighbor.

That in attempting to simulate you deceive others than yourself.

That there are idolatrous religions.

That sensuality is love.

That blushing is a sign of purity.

That colleges graduate practical men.

That physical and mental traits are inherited, _per se_, from the father.

That one is born with a thirst for liquor (yet takes milk straight without an objection).

That the American public desires to be deceived.

That there is more than one way to hypnotize.

That man can travel, build a following, and earn a living through fraudulent methods only.

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.”

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Will it disappear?]

[Sidenote: “It shore will”]

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? 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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: All action direct]

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

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: How I cleaned house]

[Sidenote: Stopped liquor]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

[Sidenote: Scientific teaching]

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.

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.

[Sidenote: A diploma]

[Sidenote: Is this right?]

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 entrée 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. 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?

[Sidenote: Why this law?]

Again, we know of a person who is of mature age, who knows life, who knows from experience 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.

[Sidenote: The Nazarene]

[Sidenote: Who cures?]

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.” 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.

[Sidenote: The bug was there]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: A la Sampson]

[Sidenote: Cause vs. effect]

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

[Sidenote: Here’s a chance]

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. 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.

[Sidenote: 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.

WORDS

[Sidenote: Thinking]

Man’s thoughts are made up of the association of the different nerve-end stimulation of the senses. His comprehension is to the extent of his correlated experiences, and all that is possible for him to do is to _compare_. (See Indian story, p. 179). His fund of experiences with which to compare is to the degree of the fineness of his nerve-ends to receive all variable impressions so affecting them. To try to convey to you my thought, I will use general terms and expressions, thus: to say to you what you call “thinking” is nothing but comparing. (Thinking is the transformation of energy and afterward realizing the transformation.)

[Sidenote: Psychology]

Words of themselves force no action; they are meaningless. A word is supposed to be a symbol to arouse a sense-memory. To understand the use and application of words it is necessary for us to comprehend the action of words in arousing sense-memories. Psychology—as yet a meaningless word—has been the cause of many well-intending non-thinking people writing books that are termed psychologies, which name conveys the thought of irrational, incomprehensive theorists, never holding to a premise, massing a myriad of words, explaining (?) something that they themselves do not understand, and, consequently, cannot explain, fully demonstrating Talleyrand’s expression, “Words were given to hide thoughts.” I believe—and, dear reader, it is only a belief—that I possess an average amount of so-called human intelligence, and I have yet to read a psychology that I can comprehend the least portion of.

[Sidenote: Say something]

Writing words, after stating that words of themselves mean nothing, I will be paradoxical, and with words try to say something, a thing that few people succeed in doing. If the people in their business and social pursuits would always say something—making affirmations,—there would be fewer lawsuits, much less misunderstanding; in fact, no misunderstanding whatever; but man utters words, and, intuitively comprehending that words are meaningless, makes his own deduction; if he deduces correctly we call him clever, bright; if incorrectly, a fool.

Those of you who have had experience with employés can readily comprehend how hard it is to say something, or to have the employés comprehend that you have said something.

[Sidenote: Not as you think, but as I say]

One season there was with me as treasurer a college graduate. When he was engaged, I said, “You have not been hired to do the thinking, but to do as I say.” In the first city we visited, I told him to take a package of school tickets to the public schools and give them to the children. He was back in ten minutes.

“Where have you been?”

“To the school.”

“Did you give out the tickets to the pupils as I told you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Truly, you can work fast. Now tell me what you actually did?”

“Oh, I handed the tickets to the teacher, and she said _she_ would give them out to the pupils.”

“Then _you_ did not give the tickets to the pupils, as I told you?”

“Well, I did the same thing.”

[Sidenote: Another]

At another time, I told him that every evening after the performance he should write to the manager of the company, who was ahead, stating the receipts, and to put the letter in the postoffice. A few evenings later, he was in my room when one of my subjects was sent out to get some refreshments.

The treasurer turned to the boy and said, “Harry, post this letter for me, will you?”

Harry said, “All right.”

I interfered and said, “No”; turning to the treasurer, I continued, “Is this what I told you to do?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did I tell you to do?”

“To send a letter to the agent every night.”

“Is that all?”

“Oh, you said for me to put it in the postoffice, but Harry can do it just as well.”

[Sidenote: Not just as well]

“No, not just as well; because if the letter fails to reach its destination, it is impossible to place the blame. You failed to do as I told you; Harry is in no way responsible; he may do by you as you have done by me, fail to post it.”

Another season I had a treasurer with me who did as he was told. One evening the manager of the theater in which we were playing, turned to my treasurer and said, “Here is your share of the money; no need to count the tickets.”

The treasurer had been at the door, seen the tickets sold and was thoroughly convinced that all was right, yet had been told to always count the tickets. He began doing so, and the manager of the theater said, “What is the use? It is just a waste of time. I do not care to rob you; here’s your share of the money.”

[Sidenote: As he was told]

The treasurer answered, “Mr. Santanelli told me to always count the tickets, and I shall do so.”

At the conclusion of the count, my treasurer remarked to the manager of the house that his tickets called for thirty dollars more.

“Impossible,” replied the manager of the opera house.

“I know nothing of that; I have tickets here representing thirty dollars more than you claim you have,” replied my treasurer.

After much worrying, the treasurer of the opera house suddenly remarked, “By George, I forgot the advance sale.”

Now, the treasurer of the hall was honest, but if my treasurer had not done as he was told I would have been out twenty-four dollars.

[Sidenote: Don’t]

[Sidenote: Positiveness]

[Sidenote: Extremes side by side]

Everything in life is affirmative; all else is incomprehensible. “Don’t” is a positive against you. If I say to you, “Don’t do that,” I mean, “Keep still,” or to do something else. When I speak to you of “long,” what do you think of, dear reader? Long? Oh, no; you think of short, because it is the realization of short and the comparison of that with long which makes the difference. When I say to you, “Smith is fat,” you think of lean. Now, if I say to you, “Smith is not fat,” I arouse and put in action in your “mind” the thought of a lean man. If I say to you, “The man is fat” you think of lean, but fat is the dominant idea. Grammarians will tell us the following sentence is correct: “See the young man put to sleep in the opera house Monday night; after which he will be taken to Smith’s show window, where you may see him sleeping; and, on Wednesday, see him awakened in the opera house.” It is entirely incorrect. It is like putting the right glove on the left hand; it does not fit. The proper writing of the sentence would be: “See the young man put to sleep in the opera house on Monday evening; see him awakened on Wednesday evening; and, in the meantime, see him sleeping in Smith’s show window.” The idea I am trying to convey is this: That when I talk of putting a person to sleep, the first idea aroused is of his awakening, and the two extremes should be placed side by side, the modifications to come afterward. Where the modifications come between the two extremes it is very difficult of comprehension and for the hearer to remember; but if the extremes are placed side by side the glove would be snugly fitted to the hand that it was made for. To acquire this art is very difficult after being schooled as we have. I fail to obey it in this book.

[Sidenote: $100]

I speak to you of one hundred dollars; do you comprehend what I am talking about? What sense-picture have I aroused in your mind? One of a piece of paper with a figure one and two ciphers in the corner, and the other associated figures; nothing more.

_The “mind” can comprehend but three units at one time._

[Sidenote: Can comprehend but three]

For years I have wondered why the unaccountable three has appeared in every art and science. To-day it is perfectly comprehensible to me, because man can comprehend but three.

If you doubt this, look at the signs when going down the street; we comprehend two or three letters the moment we glance at them, but if there be four or five, we at once comprehend the first three and then the balance, if the group does not contain more than six. Some learn to do this very quickly.

If we are looking at a party of three on the street corner, and I ask you how many there are, you will immediately tell me; if there are six, you will say six, provided they are divided into groups of three; the same with nine; but, if they are in one group, they must be counted; or, in other words, separated into groups of three.

A little experimenting will very readily demonstrate this. It is so simple and easily conceived—if you will make a series of fair experiments—that I wonder why our alleged scientists have not discovered it ere now. Any quantity over three is abstract; it is a mere term. If I speak of one hundred thousand feet of lumber, what picture am I arousing in the “mind?” None. A man who is accustomed to handling lumber might conceive the space it would occupy. If he is a wood-chopper he might conceive the energy and time necessary to cut and saw this lumber; but to conceive it as one hundred thousand _feet_ is utterly impossible.

We hear of speculators in Wall Street buying a million bushels of wheat, and look wise, believing that we comprehend what was said. We have no comprehension; nor has he who purchased it. Perhaps the men who have large grain elevators have a conception of it as to bulk, as to the space it would occupy, measured by the eye, but no comprehension is possible.

[Sidenote: Comprehension]

I speak to you of space, an incomprehensible word; I speak to you of spirit; that is also incomprehensible. Form is merely the outline of matter, and it requires two senses to acquire conception—sight and feeling—or, in other words, two forms of feeling. Man can comprehend only by associating what he has seen, smelled, tasted, heard or felt. It is impossible to register through one sense that which the economy of man built to register through another; hence, it is impossible for me to _give you_ through the ear a smelling, tasting, sight or feeling memory; but one already possessed may be readily aroused.

[Sidenote: Words arouse memories indefinitely]

[Sidenote: Convincing]

Words arouse memories indefinitely. When used in association with the affecting of other senses, words put thoughts in action that form new combinations or associations, thereby forcing new forms of thought. Taking up the illustration of man being a camera, taking a picture, the hypnotized subject being a stereopticon throwing out a picture, the “mind” can only hold one of these pictures at a time, and a negation always forces the opposite picture into place. It is possible, however, to take a minor attribute of a picture and make it dominate the picture. The art of doing this is what is called proving to, or convincing persons, and forcing them to think your way. (Making the indefinite definite.)

To illustrate, we will take the fishing scene. I tell the subjects that when they open their eyes they will find themselves alongside of a fishing stream; that they will see beside them, bait, lines and hooks; that there are some fine fish in the stream they are welcome to if they can catch, and they commence fishing. But, if I say to them, “You must not swear,” or “refrain from swearing, as there are ladies in the audience,” the word “audience” revives the picture of where they were when they went into hypnosis; consequently, I have lost the thought I attempted to give them. But if I keep within the picture and say, “there is a party of ladies fishing a little way down the stream,” the subjects will fish.

[Sidenote: Emphasizing a minor attribute]

Now, reader, can we still keep them within the picture of the fishing scene and force them to cease fishing? I suppose you would say no, inasmuch as they are surrounded with all the attributes of fishing, and, not being free agents, they would be forced to fish. Very true, but an attribute which, of itself, must be a combination of other attributes, can be so divided—emphasized—that it will practically rule the picture. Therefore, if I would add to the fishing scene a very severe rain storm, carrying with it the disagreeableness of being wet, the danger of sickness, a place of cover, et cetera, it would force these fishermen to seek shelter, and still be within the fishing picture.

[Sidenote: A lawyer]

If I were a lawyer, never would I try to prove or show a negation, or the negative side of a case. Defending a criminal, I would accept every fact proven by the prosecution, accepting its premises “good,” and would build on it better, best.

We will assume that a young man has been arrested for beating his mother, and the mother appears in court with a bruised face, black eye, et cetera. Knowing the jury can comprehend nothing they have not experienced through their senses, we must arouse in them sense-memories with which they are thoroughly familiar; that we must always impress two senses; that when we picture to them with words the hovel wherein he was reared, we must also speak of feeling, of smell; otherwise the mere mention of a hovel, a sight picture, will lack in effect; but if we properly associate with the sight picture feeling memories, smell memories, we will have succeeded not only in arousing a thought but have put it in action. As the defendant’s attorney, I would admit that the boy beat his mother, and state that it was the natural outcome of the environment. I would show the early surroundings of the boy, and the way his mother guided and allowed him to adapt himself to those environments to his injury; that as he grew up she continued to cultivate and allow to accumulate ideas and actions perfectly consistent with the beating given by her son. Inasmuch as no other result could possibly happen under such environment, nothing else could be expected of the young man; he responded as all others would under like conditions. This argument, being thoroughly developed by the association of the different sense-pictures, would create a sympathetic feeling for my client, and could not do otherwise than cause the jury to comprehend that the action was the natural outcome; or, to put it very brutally, the mother deserved what she got.

[Sidenote: Natural response]

If you were a customer, desiring to buy goods of me, and I should say to you, “This is the best thing on the market,” what would you be thinking of? That there are bad things on the market. Then, what proof have I that this is the best? As a good, wise purchaser you will go to some other store to look around, and I prove myself to be a very bad salesman by the use of one word.

If I was an insurance man, and some one told me that he had insurance in another company, and I said that it was bad, what would you be thinking of? “Who in the mischief has any good?” But if I should say to him, “That company is good, but we have something a little better,” always taking our opponent’s side as good—then better and best, we are keeping within the picture; then, if we can take the minor attributes and split them up, they can be made to dominate the picture as the rain storm did the fishing scene, and thereby carry conviction.

[Sidenote: Proper personal suggestion]

If you were a writer of accident insurance and had climbed to the top of a high building, there meeting a carpenter, I suppose you would say to him, “It would be quite dangerous to fall from here.” I would not; but would look him in the eye, then at the ground and ask how far it was, and the other ideas would be immediately forced into action. I might then say something about how often people fall, or ask him if he ever fell. I will promise you that by following out this line, if, in ten minutes he was asked to be insured, and had the money, he would be.

[Sidenote: Realize]

The art of talking is to know what and how to accentuate, to force the listener to make _your_ argument _himself_. The mere statement of fact produces no result; but suggestion, properly applied, will cause the hearer to evolve what you evolved, to separate the attributes that you have separated, and, by so doing, will convince himself (realize). He will have emphasized through the proper channels the associated attributes favorable to you. Always talk in affirmatives, using a positive for, and thus hold the picture in your hearer’s mind.

[Sidenote: Actors]

An actor does not act. He leads his auditors; they do their own acting. How is it possible for Bill Jones, who has never experienced the different emotions that Hamlet is supposed to have had, to _reproduce_ them? How can his mind reproduce something that he has not experienced? Acting, so-called, carries with it no conviction, nothing real. The successful actor is one who can force his auditors to do their own acting. The attributes, scenery, music, costumes and word-picturing, merely arouse a memory in the auditor. I have seen “Camille” played by an actress and company talking entirely in Italian, and enjoyed it better without comprehending a word, than any performance of that play I had ever witnessed in the English language. If our actors would devote more study to emphasis and leading their auditors, they would succeed far better than they do at the present day by trying to simulate (trying to reproduce something they have never experienced), which is an impossibility.

Many of the incongruities in the Bible are now comprehensible to me, the translators failing to convey the original through the translation. For example, take a correct translation of the Lord’s Prayer, and see how different the meaning from the one you have learned:

[Sidenote: The Lord’s prayer]

“Our Father Who are in Heaven, we hallow Thy name that Thy Kingdom may come and that Thy will may be done, here upon earth, even as it is in Heaven. Give us, day after day, our necessities, and forgive us our debts as we ought to forgive our debtors; leading us out of temptation and delivering us from evil. For Thine is the power as also the kingdom, forever and eternity. Amen.”

Note the entire absence of negation.

[Sidenote: The devil]

The word “don’t” is the cause of more sin than his Satanic Majesty ever conceived; for, in fact, this word _is_ the devil.

The ten commandments have been the cause of, and are responsible for, more sin than they have ever prevented.

[Sidenote: The Indian and missionary]

I was born in the extreme west, in Oregon. My grandfather walked across the plains in 1840, and was well acquainted with the Indians. He, with other pioneers, always had a great dislike for missionaries. I asked him why, and he said they caused all the trouble with the Indians. How was that? The Indians were good and peaceable as long as the white man treated them justly. When the missionary came among them and said, “Don’t steal,” the Indian asked, “What is ‘don’t steal’”? and the good missionary explained it to him; the Indian said, “Why, I never thought of that, guess I will try it.” The advent of missionaries is always associated in the “minds” of the early pioneers with the beginning of thievery on the part of the Indians.

[Sidenote: Murder]

[Sidenote: Say something]

The mother says to her children, “Now, little ones, I am going out. I want you to be good, and, while I am gone, _don’t_ play with the fire.” Up to this time the thought of fire was composed of the attributes that it gave forth heat, that it would burn. In fact, these were the only attributes they had of fire other than the comfort to be derived from its heat. For the first time, the mother now associates with the thought of fire that it is something to be played with, and the moment she goes out, responding to her suggestion, the thought of playing with the fire is aroused in the “minds” of the children, and they begin playing with it and are burned, perhaps to death. According to the _just_ laws of to-day, that mother should be arrested for infanticide. She has unintentionally killed her children by speaking the words, “Don’t play with the fire,” and is just as guilty of their death, as though she left a can of nitroglycerin for them to play with. If we wish children to keep from the fire, we should say to them, “Now, little ones, move all your toys over in this corner of the room; I want you to play here until I come back.” _We have said something._ It was all affirmative. We told them what we desired them to do, not what we desired them _not_ to do. Every time we use the word “don’t,” we make a positive affirmation against ourselves. Mothers are so small-minded that they believe their daughters to be as experienced as themselves—in bad—always harping to them “Don’t do this, that and the other,” things that up to this time the girls never thought of. Many girls are ruined by their mothers trying to make them good through their “don’ts,” arousing a series of ideas just contrary to those desired.

[Sidenote: Ministers’ sons]

Why is it that ministers’ sons are proverbially “bad”? Because sin is being instilled in their minds by the constant mention of sinful acts, preceded by the word “don’t,” the good father always striving to find “badness” which he tells the son not to do, thus telling him of sins hitherto unthought of.

[Sidenote: Oh! Say something]

Tell the children what to do; it is quicker and comprehensive. Say something. Oh! if I could only get the mothers and teachers to comprehend that a negative is always an affirmative against, or the opposite to what you are trying to say. Learn to say something. Here is a common expression, “I will not see you until to-morrow.” That is not what you intend saying, you intend to say that you will see me to-morrow. You have no way of being certain that you will not see me before, and may see me a dozen times before to-morrow, but what you mean to say is that you will try or endeavor to see me to-morrow.

A child is playing in the street, and you say to it, “Don’t play in the street.” Is that what the child desires to know? No. What the child desires to know is where it may play; again, you say to the child, “Don’t stand out in the rain,” but what you intend to say is, “Come in out of the rain.” Say something and perhaps your hearer will comprehend you, but when you use a negative you are saying nothing (?), and “nothing” is incomprehensible.

[Sidenote: Learning to lie]

The tone in which a word is uttered is of more importance than the word itself. To illustrate: A mother says to her child, “If you don’t stop that, I’ll whip you.” The child continues, seeing in the mother’s face an expression which, associated with the tone, plainly says “continue,” as they have forced a continuance of the thought, being positive against the words uttered. After a few years, the mother says to her husband, “We must remove from this locality, as the _neighbors’_ children are teaching ours to lie.” (Do you see it?)

[Sidenote: Teachers]

[Sidenote: Scientific teaching]

Many times have I lectured before the pupils of the normal schools in many states, and must say that I found the mode of teaching the most ridiculous attempt at instruction imaginable. If I had a ten-year-old boy, reared with me, who did not possess more actual knowledge than any of the pupils I have lectured before in the normal schools, I would be tempted to spank him, or to send him to an institution for the imbecile. These poor would-be teachers, having no experience in life, seated day after day on a bench, having words poured into their ears without the association of the other senses, it being impossible to get a conception with less than two, or a comprehension without affecting three senses—and one sense only, their hearing being affected, the words poured into their ears are merely idle ones, and then these poor creatures are supposed to go out into the world to teach children that, which they, themselves, have failed to comprehend. Not the fault of the teachers, but the fault of the scientific (?) manner of teaching. Our teachers show _us_ (through the eye) how to do something which _they_ do through the feeling-sense. Our eyes cannot accept feeling memories. You show (?) me how to pare an apple? No, you allow me to _see_ you pare an apple. Schools, other than those of manual training, are failures.

Here is a suggestion that will make a fortune for some ingenious lover of children. Make a set of the letters of the alphabet in pieces, each to fit only in its proper place; have the joints of a pronounced angle, curve or square, so that the child can be taught to fit, correlate, “think”; to learn that an acute angle will not fit a right angle or circle, et cetera. The moment the child has learned this, it has learned to “think,” and not before. When this has been learned, the child will instantly, from out the heap, pick the parts (attributes) that form the letter. Reader, if you had such an alphabet, _you_ could not instantly do so. You are not a ready thinker.

[Sidenote: Pictures]

Pictures are false, one has to be taught to read them. Showing a child a picture of a cow, saying “cow,” associating form (?) and sound, starts the thought, but not of the real cow. After a child has seen a real cow, the picture may _recall_ the true memory. A picture is only a word. Writing arouses sound memory, and a picture arouses sight memory, but the real thing must first be registered in the memory.

I knew a lad of twelve years exceptionally bright, who went into the country, looked at a cow for five minutes, and said, “That must be a cow.” This lad had exceptionally fine tutors and opportunities for learning, yet it took him five minutes to deduce that he was looking at a cow. The suggestion of the environment did more to force the conviction than anything that he had seen pictured.

[Sidenote: Train the proper senses]