196 MENTAL HEALING. 



quiescent state, it will be particularly in sleep, natural or induced, 

 that these lower modes of consciousness will exhibit their activity. 



And another point follows : if the patient's condition is one of 

 passive receptivity then certain instructions, a definite cue, must 

 be given to him if any subconscious activity is to follow. The 

 subconscious mind cannot originate, but it can carry out instruc- 

 tions. And where the subconsciousness does seem to act spon- 

 taneously, as in dreams or in lunacy, its productions are still a 

 parody or caricature of intelligent conduct. 



It cannot originate because of its position of vassalage and 

 tutelage to the dominant reason. Even when it rebels successfully 

 against its master, as in cases of alternate personality, it only 

 exchanges one master for another ; the new personality is a rational 

 one like the old one, only on different lines — when its mysterious 

 power transformed a dissenting minister into an Italian warehouse- 

 man who had no memor}^ of his ecclesiastical past, one rational 

 personality is succeeded by another. 



The subconscious mind being the vassal of reason cannot itself 

 originate. Facts or commands must be put before it. This was 

 so in those instances I mentioned of its wonderful powers. When 

 it solves a problem in sleep, the elements of the problem are first 

 given to it by the reason ; where it constitutes a story the idea 

 (as in Stevenson's case) was first impressed on it, and it was then 

 able to work it out. When a moral convulsion takes place the 

 moral idea must have been sown in that fruitful seed plot ; and 

 it will be the same in mental healing. 



There must be a state of passive quiescence on the part of the 

 patient ; and when he is in that state a powerful cue or suggestion 

 must be conveyed to his subconscious self in order that it may 

 ■exert its beneficial activity. And so we find that when a man is 

 put into that artificial form of sleep, which is called the hypnotic 

 state, all kinds of suggestions will be obediently followed. He 

 will no longer feel the pain of his toothache if he is told that the 

 ache does not exist ; he will feel excruciating pain in his arm if 

 he is told that he has broken it, and a similar command will produce 

 a condition of profound unconsciousness in which a surgical 

 operation can be performed without his feeling the smallest dis- 

 comfort. These facts are quite familiar, and the principle involved 

 is not confined to temporary relief in the hypnotic state ; it is only 

 a further extension of the same principle when — outside of the 

 hypnotic state — a strong suggestion made either by the patient 

 himself or an outsider affects a permanent cure of some obstinate 

 malady. 



How exactl}' this subliminal mind, which is co-extensive with 

 life, and is diffused throughout this body, exerts this action on the 

 diseased tissue is a great problem lying before psychology and 

 physiolog3^ to solve between them. We must be content with an 

 obvious analogy. Just as the reason can set the body in motion 

 and initiate action and change in it by an impulse issued through 

 the brain and travelling down the motor nerves, so the diffused 

 departmental consciousness can initiate various changes and dis- 

 turbances in the various nerve centres with which it is associated. 



