Part 2 (1/2)
Again, a sudden emergency arises. You stand trembling and weak with fear. Why are you powerless to move? Why do you tremble? And yet you believe that the mind has but little influence upon the body. You are for a moment dominated by a fit of anger. For a few hours afterwards you complain of a violent headache. And still you do not seem to realize that the thoughts and emotions have an effect upon the body.
A day or two ago, while conversing with a friend, we were speaking of worry. ”My father is greatly given to worry,” he said. ”Your father is not a healthy man,” I said. ”He is not strong, vigorous, robust, and active.” I then went on to describe to him more fully his father's condition and the troubles which afflicted him. He looked at me in surprise and said, ”Why, you do not know my father?” ”No,” I replied.
”How then can you describe so accurately the disease with which he is afflicted?” ”You have just told me that your father is greatly given to worry. When you told me this you indicated to me cause. In describing your father's condition I simply connected with the cause its own peculiar effects.”
Fear and worry have the effect of closing up the channels of the body, so that the life forces flow in a slow and sluggish manner. Hope and tranquillity open the channels of the body, so that the life forces go bounding through it in such a way that disease can rarely get a foothold.
Not long ago a lady was telling a friend of a serious physical trouble.
My friend happened to know that between this lady and her sister the most kindly relations did not exist. He listened attentively to her delineation of her troubles, and then, looking her squarely in the face, in a firm but kindly tone said: ”Forgive your sister.” The woman looked at him in surprise and said: ”I can't forgive my sister.” ”Very well, then,” he replied, ”keep the stiffness of your joints and your kindred rheumatic troubles.”
A few weeks later he saw her again. With a light step she came toward him and said: ”I took your advice. I saw my sister and forgave her.
We have become good friends again, and I don't know how it is, but somehow or other from the very day, as I remember, that we became reconciled, my troubles seemed to grow less, and today there is not a trace of the old difficulties left; and really, my sister and I have become such good friends that now we can scarcely get along without one another.” Again we have effect following cause.
We have several well-authenticated cases of the following nature: A mother has been dominated for a few moments by an intense pa.s.sion of anger, and the child at her breast has died within an hour's time, so poisoned became the mother's milk by virtue of the poisonous secretions of the system while under the domination of this fit of anger. In other cases it has caused severe illness and convulsions.
The following experiment has been tried a number of times by a well-known scientist: Several men have been put into a heated room.
Each man has been dominated for a moment by a particular pa.s.sion of some kind; one by an intense pa.s.sion of anger, and others by different other pa.s.sions. The experimenter has taken a drop of perspiration from the body of each of these men, and by means of a careful chemical a.n.a.lysis he has been able to determine the particular pa.s.sion by which each has been dominated. Practically the same results revealed themselves in the chemical a.n.a.lysis of the saliva of each of the men.
Says a noted American author, an able graduate of one of our greatest medical schools, and one who has studied deeply into the forces that build the body and the forces that tear it down: ”The mind is the natural protector of the body. . . . Every thought tends to reproduce itself, and ghastly mental pictures of disease, sensuality, and vice of all sorts, produce scrofula and leprosy in the soul, which reproduces them in the body. Anger changes the chemical properties of the saliva to a poison dangerous to life. It is well known that sudden and violent emotions have not only weakened the heart in a few hours, but have caused death and insanity. It has been discovered by scientists that there is a chemical difference between that sudden cold exudation of a person under a deep sense of guilt and the ordinary perspiration; and the state of the mind can sometimes be determined by chemical a.n.a.lysis of the perspiration of a criminal, which, when brought into contact with selenic acid, produces a distinctive pink color. It is well known that fear has killed thousands of victims; while, on the other hand, _courage is a great invigorator_.
”Anger in the mother may poison a nursing child. Rarey, the celebrated horse-tamer, said that an angry word would sometimes raise the pulse of a horse ten beats in a minute. If this is true of a beast, what can we say of its power upon human beings, especially upon a child? Strong mental emotion often causes vomiting. Extreme anger or fright may produce jaundice. A violent paroxysm of rage has caused apoplexy and death. Indeed, in more than one instance, a single night of mental agony has wrecked a life. Grief, long-standing jealousy, constant care and corroding anxiety sometimes tend to develop insanity. Sick thoughts and discordant moods are the natural atmosphere of disease, and crime is engendered and thrives in the miasma of the mind.”
From all this we get the great fact we are scientifically demonstrating today,--that the various mental states, emotions, and pa.s.sions have their various peculiar effects upon the body, and each induces in turn, if indulged in to any great extent, its own peculiar forms of disease, and these in time become chronic.
Just a word or two in regard to their mode of operation. If a person is dominated for a moment by, say a pa.s.sion of anger, there is set up in the physical organism what we might justly term a bodily thunder-storm, which has the effect of souring, or rather of corroding, the normal, healthy, and life-giving secretions of the body, so that instead of performing their natural functions they become poisonous and destructive. And if this goes on to any great extent, by virtue of their c.u.mulative influences, they give rise to a particular form of disease, which in turn becomes chronic. So the emotion opposite to this, that of kindliness, love, benevolence, good-will, tends to stimulate a healthy, purifying, and life-giving flow of all the bodily secretions. All the channels of the body seem free and open; the life forces go bounding through them. And these very forces, set into a bounding activity, will in time counteract the poisonous and disease-giving effects of their opposites.
A physician goes to see a patient. He gives no medicine this morning.
Yet the very fact of his going makes the patient better. He has carried with him the spirit of health; he has carried brightness of tone and disposition; he has carried hope into the sick chamber; he has left it there. In fact, the very hope and good cheer he has carried with him has taken hold of and has had a subtle but powerful influence upon the mind of the patient; and this mental condition imparted by the physician has in turn its effects upon the patient's body, and so through the instrumentality of this mental suggestion the healing goes on.
”Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene Supports the mind, supports the body, too.
Hence the most vital movement mortals feel Is _hope_; the balm and life-blood of the soul.”
We sometimes hear a person in weak health say to another, ”I always feel better when you come.” There is a deep scientific reason underlying the statement. ”The tongue of the wise is health.” The power of suggestion so far as the human mind is concerned is a most wonderful and interesting field of study. Most wonderful and powerful forces can be set into operation through this agency. One of the world's most noted scientists, recognized everywhere as one of the most eminent anatomists living, tells us that he has proven from laboratory experiments that the entire human structure can be completely changed, made over, within a period of less than one year, and that some portions can be entirely remade within a period of a very few weeks.
”Do you mean to say,” I hear it asked, ”that the body can be changed from a diseased to a healthy condition through the operation of the interior forces?” Most certainly; and more, this is the natural method of cure. The method that has as its work the application of drugs, medicines and external agencies is the artificial method. The only thing that any drug or any medicine can do is to remove obstructions, that the life forces may have simply a better chance to do their work.
_The real healing process must be performed by the operation of the life forces within_. A surgeon and physician of world-wide fame recently made to his medical a.s.sociates the following declaration: ”For generations past the most important influence that plays upon nutrition, the _life principle_ itself, has remained an unconsidered element in the medical profession, and the almost exclusive drift of its studies and remedial paraphernalia has been confined to the action of matter over mind. This has seriously interfered with the evolutionary tendencies of the doctors themselves, and consequently the psychic factor in professional life is still in a rudimentary or comparatively undeveloped state. But the light of the nineteenth century has dawned, and so the march of mankind in general is taken in the direction of the hidden forces of nature. Doctors are now compelled to join the ranks of students in psychology and follow their patrons into the broader field of mental therapeutics. There is no time for lingering, no time for skepticism or doubt or hesitation. _He who lingers is lost, for the entire race is enlisted in the movement_.”
I am aware of the fact that in connection with the matter we are now considering there has been a great deal of foolishness during the past few years. Many absurd and foolish things have been claimed and done; but this says nothing against, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the great underlying laws themselves. The same has been true of the early days of practically every system of ethics or philosophy or religion the world has ever known. But as time has pa.s.sed, these foolish, absurd things have fallen away, and the great eternal principles have stood out ever more and more clearly defined.
I know _personally_ of many cases where an entire and permanent cure has been effected, in some within a remarkably short period of time, through the operation of these forces. Some of them are cases that had been entirely given up by the regular practice, _materia medica_. We have numerous accounts of such cases in all times and in connection with all religions. And why should not the power of effecting such cures exist among us today? The _power does exist_, and it will be actualized in just the degree that we recognize the same great laws that were recognized in times past.
One person may do a very great deal in connection with the healing of another, but this almost invariably implies co-operation on the part of the one who is thus treated. In the cures that Christ performed he most always needed the co-operation of the one who appealed to him.
His question almost invariably was, ”Dost thou believe?” He thus stimulated into activity the life-giving forces within the one cured.
If one is in a very weak condition, or if his nervous system is exhausted, or if his mind through the influence of the disease is not so strong in its workings, it may be well for him for a time to seek the aid and co-operation of another. But it would be far better for such a one could he bring himself to a vital realization of the omnipotence of his own interior powers.
One may cure another, but to be _permanently healed_ one must do it himself. In this way another may be most valuable as a teacher by bringing one to a clear realization of the power of the forces within, but in every case, in order to have a permanent cure, the work of the self is necessary. Christ's words were almost invariably,--Go and sin no more, or, thy sins are forgiven thee, thus pointing out the one eternal and never-changing fact,--that all disease and its consequent suffering is the direct or the indirect result of the violation of law, either consciously or unconsciously, either intentionally or unintentionally.