MENTAL HEALING. I95 



In what we call genius the ideas which the man is consciously 

 manipulating are reinforced by the up-rush of other ideas which 

 have shaped themselves apart from his will in deeper regions of 

 his being, ideas which have been fused beneath the surface into 

 artistic shape, a shape more or less coherent according to the 

 degree of control which the author exercises over these contributions 

 from the depths. 



And once more, not only does this subconscious mind sometimes 

 overthrow the normal intellect and reign in its stead in some form 

 of alternate personality, or again help it in its scientific or literary 

 work — it also acts at times as a veritable guardian angel in crises 

 and dangers which baffle and unnerve the conscious intellect. It 

 is the providence which watches over the steps of children, drunk- 

 ards and somnambulists, who are directed and safeguarded by an 

 infallible instinct in the midst of pitfalls. We read of men who in 

 an alarm of fire will act with a strength and agility and a resource- 

 fulness to which in their rational life they are utter strangers. 

 When once the intellect with its fears, its questions and its calcula- 

 tions gives up its futile efforts, the subconscious mind will take 

 control and without looking to the right hand or the left will 

 instinctively pick its way without doubt or hesitation through 

 perils and obstacles which have reduced the intellect to the 

 quiescence of despair. 



Lastly, under this head, sudden moral conversions are often best 

 explicable from the point of view of subconscious action. Some 

 lofty ideal, some reminiscence of early teaching, some idea heard 

 in conversation or lead in a book, may have been rejected and 

 scorned by the active intellect wedded to evil — and yet has all 

 this while been growing and germinating in the subsoil of the mind 

 until at last it is strong enough to force its way to the surface and 

 shatter all opposing powers. 



Also— and here at last we seem to get in sight of our subject — 

 these momentous changes are not confined to the moral sphere. 

 They take place also in the physical sphere. The body as well as 

 the mind can be healed by the action of this residual subliminal 

 consciousness. 



I said just now that the subconscious activities can only do their 

 work — in saving a man in perilous circumstances — if the rational 

 intellect resigns its own work and leaves off its own efforts " lets 

 go." At such times, when the intellect (the meddling intellect) is 

 quiescent, and the central office is closed, man ceases for a time 

 to be an argumentative, striving creature ; the placid, vegetative, 

 ruminative life, the life of growth and instinct asserts itself, and 

 submerged modes of consciousness begin to stir and act, hke fairies 

 dancing when the sun has set. This is a very important point. 

 It must be one thing or the other — either the active intellect or 

 the subconscious mind. If the intellect has failed and the sub- 

 consciousness is to have its chance, it must have a free hand, the 

 intellect must not meddle with it. 



The man must allow himself to get into a passive, quiescent, 

 receptive condition, which is the condition necessary for the success- 

 ful working of the subconsciousness ; and as sleep is the typically 



