In 1920 Emile Coué published a book called Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion. The book is now in the public domain and you can download it for free here. It is a relatively short book but quite often it is the short books which carry the greatest power. The book starts with an explanation of the difference between the conscious and the subconscious mind. The power of the subconscious mind is so great that it will overpower your will when the two conflict:
“There are certain drunkards who wish to give up drinking, but who
cannot do so. Ask them, and they will reply in all sincerity that
they desire to be sober, that drink disgusts them, but that they
are irresistibly impelled to drink against their will, in spite of the
harm they know it will do them.
In the same way certain criminals commit crimes in spite of
themselves, and when they are asked why they acted so, they
answer “I could not help it, something impelled me, it was
stronger than I.”
And the drunkard and the criminal speak the truth; they are forced
to do what they do, for the simple reason they imagine they
cannot prevent themselves from doing so. Thus we who are so
proud of our will, who believe that we are free to act as we like,
are in reality nothing but wretched puppets of which our
imagination holds all the strings. We only cease to be puppets
when we have learned to guide our imagination.” – Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion, Emile Coué.
Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestions
“Thus understood, autosuggestion is nothing but hypnotism as I
see it, and I would define it in these simple words: The influence
of the imagination upon the moral and physical being of mankind.
Now this influence is undeniable, and without returning to previous
examples, I will quote a few others.
If you persuade yourself that you can do a certain thing, provided
this thing be possible, you will do it however difficult it may be. If
on the contrary you imagine that you cannot do the simplest thing
in the world, it is impossible for you to do it, and molehills become
for you unscalable mountains.” – Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestions, Emile Coué.
This is a similar idea to that of Napoleon Hill which he shares in his book Think and Grow Rich:
“The subconscious mind is a fertile garden spot, in which weeds will grow in abundance if seeds of a more desirable crop are not sewn therein” – Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich (PDF)
By carefully selecting the information which reaches the subconscious mind, through choosing the words and ideas to “plant” in your “garden”, you can become a more conscious creator, rather than haphazardly creating through default.
“Autosuggestion is, as I said above, an instrument that we possess
at birth, and with which we play unconsciously all our life, as a
baby plays with its rattle. It is however a dangerous instrument; it
can wound or even kill you if you handle it imprudently and
unconsciously. It can on the contrary save your life when you
know how to employ it consciously. One can say of it as Aesop
said of the tongue: “It is at the same time the best and the worst
thing in the world”.” – Emile Coué
How Beliefs Propagate Into “Reality”
It is our beliefs, says Emile, can help or harm us. We believe things into being by our deliberate act of giving those particular thoughts and intentions energy:
“Every thought entirely filling our mind becomes true for us and
tends to transform itself into action.
Thus if you can make a sick person think that her trouble is
getting better, it will disappear; if you succeed in making a
kleptomaniac think that he will not steal any more, he will cease to
steal, etc., etc.” – Emile Coué
Suggestions are incredibly powerful and if you haven’t watched Darren Brown’s TV episode on this phenomenon I suggest you check it out below. In it Darren applies a multiple layered placebo suggestion to his test subjects:
