hemselves to
be ill mentally or physically. If certain others are paralytic without
having any lesion to account for it, it is that they _imagine_
themselves to be paralyzed, and it is among such persons that the
most extraordinary cures are produced. If others again are happy or
unhappy, it is that they imagine themselves to be so, for it is possible
for two people in exactly the same circumstances to be, the one
_perfectly happy_, the other _absolutely wretched_.

Neurasthenia, stammering, aversions, kleptomania, certain cases of
paralysis, are nothing but the result of unconscious autosuggestion,
that is to say the result of the action of the _unconscious_ upon the
physical and moral being.

But if our unconscious is the source of many of our ills, it can also
bring about the cure of our physical and mental ailments. It can not
only repair the ill it has done, but cure real illnesses, so strong is its
action upon our organism.

Shut yourself up alone in a room, seat yourself in an armchair, close
your eyes to avoid any distraction, and concentrate your mind for a
few moments on thinking: "Such and such a thing is going to
disappear", or "Such and such a thing is coming to pass."

If you have really made the autosuggestion, that is to say, if your
unconscious has assimilated the idea that you have presented to it,
you are astonished to see the thing you have thought come to pass.
(Note that it is the property of ideas autosuggested to exist within us
unrecognized, and we can only know of their existence by the effect
they produce.) But above all, and this is an essential point, the will
must not be brought into play in practising autosuggestion; for, if it
is not in agreement with the imagination, if one thinks: "I will make
such and such a thing happen", and the imagination says: "You are
willing it, but it is not going to be", not only does one not obtain
what one wants, but even exactly the reverse is brought about.

This remark is of capital importance, and explains why results are so
unsatisfactory when, in treating moral ailments, one strives to
_re-educate_ the will. It is the _training of the imagination_ which is
necessary, and it is thanks to this shade of difference that my method
has often succeeded where others--and those not the least
considered--have failed. From the numerous experiments that I have
made daily for twenty years, and which I have examined with
minute care, I have been able to deduct