Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion · 6 of 12

A Survey of the “Séances” at M. Coué’s

The town thrills at this name, for from every rank of society people come to him and everyone is welcomed with the same benevolence, which already goes for a good deal. But what is extremely poignant is at the end of the séance to see the people who came in gloomy, bent, almost hostile (they were in pain), go away like everybody else; unconstrained, cheerful, sometimes radiant (they are no longer in pain!!). With a strong and smiling goodness of which he has the secret, M. Coué, as it were, holds the hearts of those who consult him in his hand; he addresses himself in turn to the numerous persons who come to consult him, and speaks to them in these terms:

“Well, Madame, and what is your trouble?…”

Oh, you are looking for too many whys and wherefores; what does the cause of your pain matter to you? You are in pain, that is enough…I will teach you to get rid of that…

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And you, Monsieur, your varicose ulcer is already better. That is good, very good indeed, do you know, considering you have only been here twice; I congratulate you on the result you have obtained. If you go on doing your autosuggestions properly, you will very soon be cured… You have had this ulcer for ten years, you say? What does that matter? You might have had it twenty and more, and it could be cured just the same.

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And you say that you have not obtained any improvement?… Do you know why?… Simply because you lack confidence in yourself. When I tell you that you are better, you feel better at once, don’t you? Why? Because you have faith in me. Just believe in yourself and you will obtain the same result.

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Oh, Madame not so many details, I beg you! By looking out for the details you create them, and you would want a list a yard long to contain all your maladies. As a matter of fact, with you it is the mental outlook which is wrong. Well, make up your mind that it is going to get better and it will be so. It’s as simple as the Gospel…

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You tell me you have attacks of nerves every week… Well, from to-day you are going to do what I tell you and you will cease to have them…

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You have suffered from constipation for a long time?… What does it matter how long it is?… You say it is forty years? Yes, I heard what you said, but it is none the less true that you can be cured to-morrow; you hear, to-morrow, on condition, naturally, of your doing exactly what I tell you to do, in the way I tell you to do it…

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Ah! you have glaucoma, Madame. I cannot absolutely promise to cure you of that, for I am not sure that I can. That does not mean that you cannot be cured, for I have known it to happen in the case of a lady of Chalon-sur-Saône and another of Lorraine.

Well, Mademoiselle, as you have not had your nervous attacks since you came here, whereas you used to have them every day, you are cured. Come back sometimes all the same, so that I may keep you going along the right lines.

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The feeling of oppression will disappear with the lesions which will disappear when you assimilate properly; that will come all in good time, but you mustn’t put the cart before the horse… it is the same with oppression as with heart trouble, it generally diminishes very quickly…

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Suggestion does not prevent you from going on with your usual treatment… As for the blemish you have on your eye, and which is lessening almost daily, the opacity and the size are both growing less every day.

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To a child (in a clear and commanding voice): “Shut your eyes, I am not going to talk to you about lesions or anything else, you would not understand; the pain in your chest is going away, and you won’t want to cough any more.

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Observation.—It is curious to notice that all those suffering from chronic bronchitis are immediately relieved and their morbid symptoms rapidly disappear… Children are very easy and very obedient subjects; their organism almost always obeys immediately to suggestion.

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To a person who complains of fatigue: “Well, so do I. There are also days when it tires me to receive people, but I receive them all the same and all day long. Do not say: “I cannot help it.” “One can always overcome oneself.”

Observation.—The idea of fatigue necessarily brings fatigue, and the idea that we have a duty to accomplish always gives us the necessary strength to fulfill it. The mind can and must remain master of the animal side of our nature.

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The cause which prevents you from walking, whatever it is, is going to disappear little by little every day: you know the proverb: Heaven helps those who help themselves. Stand up two or three times a day supporting yourself on two persons, and say to yourself firmly: My kidneys are not so weak that I cannot do it, on the contrary I can…

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After having said: “Every day, in every respect, I am getting better and better,” add: “The people who are pursuing me cannot pursue me any more, they are not pursuing me…

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What I told you is quite true; it was enough to think that you had no more pain for the pain to disappear; do not think then that it may come back or it will come back…

(A woman, sotto voice, “What patience he has! What a wonderfully painstaking man!”)

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All that we think becomes true for us. We must not then allow ourselves to think wrongly.

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Think “my trouble is going away,” just as you think you cannot open your hands.

The more you say: “I will not,” the more surely the contrary comes about. You must say: “It’s going away,” and think it. Close your hand and think properly: “Now I cannot open it.” Try! (she cannot), you see that your will is not much good to you.

Observation.—This is the essential point of the method. In order to make auto-suggestions, you must eliminate the will completely and only address yourself to the imagination, so as to avoid a conflict between them in which the will would be vanquished.

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To become stronger as one becomes older seems paradoxical, but it is true.

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For diabetes: “Continue to use therapeutic treatments; I am quite willing to make suggestions to you, but I cannot promise to cure you.

Observation.—I have seen diabetes completely cured several times, and what is still more extraordinary, the albumen diminish and even disappear from the urine of certain patients.

This obsession must be a real nightmare. The people you used to detest are becoming your friends, you like them and they like you.

Ah, but to will and to desire is not the same thing.

Then, after having asked them to close their eyes, M. Coué gives to his patients the little suggestive discourse which is to be found in “Self Mastery.” When this is over, he again addresses himself to each one separately, saying to each a few words on his case:

To the first: “You, Monsieur, are in pain, but I tell you that, from to-day, the cause of this pain whether it is called arthritis or anything else, is going to disappear with the help of your unconscious, and the cause having disappeared, the pain will gradually become less and less, and in a short time it will be nothing but a moment.”

To the second person: “Your stomach does not function properly, it is more or less dilated. Well, as I told you just now, your digestive functions are going to work better and better, and I add that the dilatation of the stomach is going to disappear little by little. Your organism is going to give back progressively to your stomach the force and elasticity it had lost, and by degrees as this phenomenon is produced, the stomach will return to its primitive form and will carry out more and more easily the necessary movements to pass into the intestine the nourishment it contains. At the same time the pouch formed by the relaxed stomach will diminish in size, the nutriment will not longer stagnate in this pouch, and in consequence the fermentation set up will end by totally disappearing.

To the third: To you, Mademoiselle, I say that whatever lesions you may have in your liver, your organism is doing what is necessary to make the lesions disappear every day, and by degrees as they heal over, the symptoms from which you suffer will go on lessening and disappearing. Your liver then functions in a more and more normal way, the bile it secretes is alcaline and no longer acid, in the right quantity and quality, so that it passes naturally into the intestines and helps intestinal digestion.

To the fourth: My child, you hear what I say; every time you feel you are going to have an attack, you will hear my voice telling you as quick as lightning: “No, no! my friend, you are not going to have that attack, and it is going to disappear before it comes…”

To the fifth, etc., etc.

When everyone has been attended to, M. Coué tells those present to open their eyes, and adds: “You have heard the advice I have just given you. Well, to transform it into reality, what you must do is this: As long as you live, every morning before getting up, and every evening as soon as you are in bed, you must shut your eyes, so as to concentrate your attention, and repeat twenty times following, moving your lips (that is indispensable) and counting mechanically on a string with twenty knots in it the following phrase: “Every day, in every respect, I am getting better and better.”

There is no need to think of anything in particular, as the words “in every respect” apply to everything. This autosuggestion must be made with confidence, with faith, with the certainty of obtaining what is desired. The greater the conviction of the person, the greater and the more rapid will be the results obtained.

Further, every time that in the course of the day or night you feel any physical or mental discomfort, affirm to yourself that you will not consciously contribute to it, and that you are going to make it vanish; then isolate yourself as much as possible, and passing your hand over your forehead if it is something mental, or on whatever part that is painful if it is something physical, repeat very quickly, moving the lips, the words: “It is going, it is going…, etc., etc.” as long as it is necessary. With a little practice, the mental or physical discomfort will disappear in about 20 to 25 seconds. Begin again every time it is necessary.

For this as for the other autosuggestions it is necessary to act with the same confidence, the same conviction, the same faith, and above all without effort.”

M. Coué also adds what follows: “If you formerly allowed yourself to make bad autosuggestions because you did it unconsciously, now that you know what I have just taught you, you must no longer let this happen. And if, in spite of all, you still do it, you must only accuse yourself, and say “Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

And now, if a grateful admirer of the work and of the founder of the method may be allowed to say a few words, I will say. “Monsieur Coué shows us luminously that the power to get health and happiness is within us: we have indeed received this gift.”

Therefore, suppressing, first of all, every cause of suffering created or encouraged by ourselves, then putting into practice the favorite maxim of Socrates: “Know thyself,” and the advice of Pope: “That I may reject none of the benefits that Thy goodness bestows upon me,” let us take possession of the entire benefit of autosuggestion, let us become this very day members of the “Lorraine Society of applied Psychology;” let us make members of it those who may be in our care (it is a good deed to do to them).

By this means we shall follow first of all the great movement of the future of which M. E. Coué is the originator (he devotes to it his days, his nights, his worldly goods, and refuses to accept… but hush; no more of this! lest his modesty refuses to allow these lines to be published without alteration), but above all by this means we shall know exactly the days and hours of his lectures at Paris, Nancy and other towns, where he devotedly goes to sow the good seed, and where we can go to to see him, and hear him and consult him personally, and with his help awake or stir up in ourselves the personal power that everyone of us has received of becoming happy and well.

May I be allowed to add that when M. Coué has charged an entrance fee for his lectures, they have brought in thousands of francs for the Disabled and others who have suffered through the war.

E. Vs… oer.

Note.—Entrance is free to the members of the Lorraine Society of applied Psychology.