How Suggestion Works

In order to understand properly the part played by suggestion or

rather by autosuggestion, it is enough to know that the unconscious

self is the grand director of all our functions. Make this believed,

as I said above, that a certain organ which does not function well

must perform its function, and instantly the order is transmitted. The

organ obeys with docility, and either at once or little by little

performs its fun tions in a normal manner. This explains simply and

clearly how by means of suggestion one can stop haemorrhages,

cure constipation, cause fibrous tumours to disappear, cure paralysis,

tubercular lesions, varicose, ulcers, etc.



Let us take for example, a case of dental haemorrhage which I had

the opportunity of observing in the consulting room of M. Gauthe, a

dentist at Troyes. A young lady whom I had helped to cure herself

of asthma from which she had suffered for eight years, told me one

day that she wanted to have a tooth out. As I knew her to be very

sensitive, I offered to make her feel nothing of the operation. She

naturally accepted with pleasure and we made an appointment with

the dentist. On the day we had arranged we presented ourselves at

the dentist's and, standing opposite my patient, I looked fixedly at

her, saying: "You feel nothing, you feel nothing, etc., etc." and then

while still continuing the suggestion I made a sign to the dentist. In

an instant the tooth was out without Mlle. D---- turning a hair. As

fairly often happens, a haemorrhage followed, but I told the dentist

that I would try suggestion without his using a haemostatic, without

knowing beforehand what would happen. I then asked Mlle. D---- to

look at me fixedly, and I suggested to her that in two minutes the

haemorrhage would cease of its own accord, and we waited. The

patient spat blood again once or twice, and then ceased. I told her to

open her mouth, and we both looked and found that a clot of blood

had formed in the dental cavity.



How is this phenomenon to be explained? In the simplest way.

Under the influence of the idea: "The haemorrhage is to stop", the

unconscious had sent to the small arteries and veins the order to stop

the flow of blood, and, obediently, they contracted naturally, as

they would have done artificially at the contact of a haemostatic like

adrenalin, for example.



The same reasoning explains how a fibrous tumour can be made to

disappear. The unconscious having accepted the idea "It is to go" the

brain orders the arteries which nourish it, to contract. They do so,

refusing their services, and ceasing to nourish the tumour which,

deprived of nourishment, dies, dries up, is reabsorbed and

disappears.