a matter of indifference.
In both cases it undergoes the same process: it is submitted to the
Unconscious, accepted or rejected, and so either realised or ignored.
Thus the distinction between Autosuggestion and Heterosuggestion is
seen to be both arbitrary and superficial. In essentials all
suggestion is Autosuggestion. The only distinction we need make is
between Spontaneous Autosuggestion, which takes place independently of
our will and choice, and Induced Autosuggestion, in which we
consciously select the ideas we wish to realise and purposely convey
them to the Unconscious.

CHAPTER V

THOUGHT AND THE WILL

If we can get the Unconscious to accept an idea, realisation follows
automatically. The only difficulty which confronts us in the practice
of Induced Autosuggestion is to ensure acceptation, and that is a
difficulty which no method prior to that of Emile Coue has
satisfactorily surmounted.

Every idea which enters the mind is charged, to a greater or less
extent, with emotion. This emotional charge may be imperceptible, as
with ideas to which we are indifferent, or it may be very great, as
when the idea is closely related to our personal interests. All the
ideas we are likely to make the subjects of Induced Autosuggestion are
of the latter class, since they refer to health, energy, success or
some goal equally dear to our hearts. The greater the degree of
emotion accompanying an idea, the more potent is the autosuggestion
resulting from it. Thus a moment of violent fright may give rise to
effects which last a lifetime. This emotional factor also plays a
large part in securing acceptation.

So far as one can see, the acceptation or rejection of an idea by the
Unconscious depends on the associations with which it is connected.
Thus, an idea is accepted when it evokes similar ideas charged with
emotion of the same quality. It is rejected when it is associated with
contrary ideas, which are, therefore, contrary in their emotional
charge. In the latter case, the original idea is neutralised by its
associations, somewhat in the same way as an acid is neutralised by an
alkali. An example will serve to make this clearer.

You are on a cross-channel boat on a roughish passage. You go up to a
sailor and say to him in a sympathetic tone: "My dear fellow, you're
looking very ill. Aren't you going to be sea-sick?" According to his
temperament he either laughs at your "joke" or expresses a pardonab