Part 19

I have never known of a case with a fear of dying, a feeling that everyone hates one, that one has no friends, sometimes going to extremes as to “spirits,”—seeing and hearing them, et cetera,—where there was not a scar in the cervix, always the result of improper delivery.

Loss of memory, where there is no lesion in the head, will always be found the result of an enlarged or shrunken prostate. The prostate gland in man may be compared as to its reflexes with the uterus in women. Loss of memory in old age among men is always accompanied by, or the result of, an “abnormal” prostate. Remember, reader, every nerve has two ends; at one end is cause (suggestion), at the other is result (response).

The negro problem of the South could readily be adjusted by enforcing the law of Moses. The negro’s body is built of sow-belly—his brain likewise. Give him proper orificial treatment, thus removing the suggestion of sensuality, and your negro will be a harmless, valuable citizen.

They are burned for rape, yet that fails to lessen the number of assaults. If burning fails to stop it, surely “mind” has nothing to do with the act. The history of rape cases is that the ones assaulted are, as a rule, children, old women and those whom a “normally” passionate man would fail to be attracted to, proving that this so-called reason is lacking when the assault occurs. Hence, I again affirm that we are not free agents, we are ruled by our environment; our bodies are our closest environment; crime and insanity are physical diseases.

In France they have erected monuments to one Pasteur, a discoverer of bugs, who claimed that by “shooting” more bugs into us, he could prevent a disease that man never has experienced. Hydrophobia in man is purely a suggested disease, none of the symptoms being like those of a dog suffering from rabies. There are several cases on record which have been cured by personal suggestion, and it is strange to me that a child of ten being bitten by a dog, should not develop rabies until reaching the age of forty or forty-five. That bug must have been an extremely slow worker or propagator of a following. Statistics show that “hydrophobia” in man increased seven-fold after Pasteur’s discovery (?) was made known to the world. Many doctors in America have written to the authorities and begged that the establishment of Pasteur institutes be prohibited on this account.

The scientific world claims that animals do not reason, they have instinct. All my animals have demonstrated beyond any question they can reason (transform sense-impression into action).

I owned a donkey last year, and like all good donkeys, she was “strong-minded.” We desired to teach her to go up stairs. When the wise (?) persons of the company gathered around with whips and clubs, I asked what that was for, and they replied, “That is the only way you can make a donkey do anything.” After thinking it over for a few minutes, I realized that most donkeys looked as intelligent as at least forty per cent of mankind, and nightly I was able to cause them to do many things through what I call the Law of Suggestion, so it might be possible to make Miss Donkey comprehend. I will not bother with details, but in seven minutes Miss Donkey climbed the stairs, and then she climbed down. Next time she went up with practically no urging, and I find, through my little experience with four-legged donkeys, that if the teacher possesses equal intelligence to the donkey, it can be made to comprehend.

On Christmas, a few years ago, I gave my wife a little dog, a puppy, saying to her, “Keep this dog in the room. I am anxious to discover what he has inherited. I believe that he acquires most of his actions, hence will either have to imitate us or work a way out himself.”

At the end of two years, this dog, which was a thoroughbred black-and-tan, lacked all of the dominant actions of an ordinary dog. His first mouse was a surprise, the first rat scared him. He developed into a clever ratter. Why? The dog had inherited, physically, a big bunch of muscles at the back of his neck, and early learned that the exercising of them was pleasing. His greatest pleasure was to be “ragged”—to play in a manner to exercise his neck. After he was taught that killing mice put those muscles in action, he liked to kill mice, not as cruel man does, for the pleasure of killing, but to respond to a suggestion forced by the construction of his neck.

The mistake the investigating world makes is in overlooking the fact that man can comprehend nothing that he has not experienced. All that he can do is to compare (“think”), and as his ability to receive sense-impressions is entirely different, either as to acuteness or dullness, from lower (?) animals, he is in no position to more than guess, and it will be a poor guess at that. The atmosphere is full of sounds he never hears. Musical notes make from sixteen and one-half to four thousand two hundred and twenty-four vibrations each second; when the vibrations are greater or less he fails to comprehend them. All forms of life differ as to the amount of vibration they will respond to, this graduation being necessary to keep up the constant transformation of energy (life). This energy is constantly being “passed along.” When there is a deficiency, epidemic or plague appears.

Man’s senses are not made up in degree of fineness of composition as other animals, therefore, he fails to comprehend (other than seeing the result) and calls that action he fails to comprehend “instinct.”

Man cannot smell as (not like) dogs do; see, as birds do; nor hear as all lower animal life does. Animals communicate, they do all that man does, except that their senses are differently balanced, and therefore, not comprehensible to us. The beavers in building their dams, bees, in storing their supplies, could not accomplish their work without intelligent communication. Dogs communicate, also understand words when properly associated with tone and expression.

A few winters ago in a city in Texas, I met a bishop, and oh! he was a bishop so different from any minister I had ever met. He was in a promising field, for in this city they attempted to murder me because I was a hypnotist.

At the conclusion of my first evening’s performance, I went into the railroad eating house to get a cup of coffee. Four men were seated a few chairs to my left, and through every method possible other than using physical force, they tried to induce a quarrel. Being naturally quick-tempered, and thinking over the matter later, I wondered what it was that caused me to refrain from beating some of them with my cane. After finishing my cup of coffee, I started to leave the saloon, when I was met by a number of the reputable citizens, who exclaimed, the moment they saw me, “Thank God! you are alive.” In answer to my inquiries as to what they meant, they hurried me over to the hotel and told me that the four men who had been passing all kinds of comments while I was drinking my coffee, intended to get me into a quarrel and kill me. What was it that kept me from accepting their challenge? Instinct? No. Luck? No. The all-wise hand (law) of Providence? Yes. Man’s thoughts are forced, not chosen. A thought is action. What was there about them that forced the action of keeping quiet on my part? It was the tone in their voices that was positive against my interfering; it aroused in me an unconscious action of reserve. This I will better explain by relating the following oft-occurring incident:

We read in the newspapers of an engineer having felt that a certain bridge was unsafe and, on reaching it, stopping his train, finding, upon investigation, that the bridge had been washed away, he claiming to know of no reason for his surmise except that when he was within five miles of the bridge, a peculiar nervousness took possession of him, which very rapidly developed into a feeling that the bridge was insecure. The explanation is very simple. From long association and habit, a locomotive engineer unconsciously realizes (as a hypnotized subject) the peculiar sound caused by the train passing over the rails when everything is in perfect order; the break in the bridge causing a sound different from the one he was accustomed to hear. This unconscious noting of the change naturally “suggested” something out of order with the track, and as the bridge was a very pronounced idea in the engineer’s mind, it is the first thing that the disturbance of the rhythm would “suggest.”

To revert to the bishop: He was a small man, smoothly shaven, and one who did not hesitate to visit saloons and other places that ministers are supposed to refrain from. When he came into the parish, it was extremely poor; in fact, it did not seem possible, with such a poor parish, such a small following and in such a wild town, that any headway could be gained. Notwithstanding this, when I met him he had been there about a year, and had already succeeded in accomplishing more than many ministers with wealthy congregations had been able to do in ten years. He preached practical sermons; or, in other words, showed them how to be better men, and omitted telling them twice on Sunday how they were bound to be burned in hell-fire. His sermons were interesting, comprehensive, and always had a moral which it was unnecessary for him to elaborate, but which his hearers could naturally deduce.

When he took charge of this fold he began requesting and inviting the young men who were loafing on the street corners and in the saloons to come down and hear him preach, and naturally they refused. After succeeding in inducing a few to hear him, the young men, the boys, became interested, and as he preached for their benefit, but in an unobtrusive, comprehensive manner, they liked to listen to him. When they came to church they were met with a royal welcome and a smile, and when he bade them good-night there was a pleasant, manly look on his face, and he was not constantly hammering at them “the good of their souls.”

One evening he had a number of young ladies of his congregation meet at a residence and suggested to them that they give a little party, a little candy-pull which they thought would be “real nice,” and then he named the young men who should be invited; the young ladies thought that was “horrid.” He told each young lady whom she must stop on the street, when and where, to invite to attend the party. The young ladies at first objected, but he carried his point and something like the following took place:

Bill Jones came from the machine shop on the way to the saloon to get a drink before going home to supper. Miss Brown stepped up and said, “How do you do, Bill? We are going to have a party down at Miss Smith’s next Thursday evening, and we would like you to attend.” Bill was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to say; in fact, he said nothing. The young lady went on and in a couple of minutes, apparently by accident, the minister appeared and said, “How do you do, Bill? What’s the matter, you look kind of broke-up?”

“Well, what do you think? Miss Brown just invited me up to a party at Miss Smith’s house, what do you think of that?”

The minister said, “You’re going, are you not?”

“No, I guess I ain’t going.”

“Would you like to go?”

“You bet.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“I can’t go in these duds.”

“Ah! Is that the best suit you’ve got?”

“Well, pretty near.”