Part 27

“Impossible,” replied the manager of the opera house.

“I know nothing of that; I have tickets here representing thirty dollars more than you claim you have,” replied my treasurer.

After much worrying, the treasurer of the opera house suddenly remarked, “By George, I forgot the advance sale.”

Now, the treasurer of the hall was honest, but if my treasurer had not done as he was told I would have been out twenty-four dollars.

Everything in life is affirmative; all else is incomprehensible. “Don’t” is a positive against you. If I say to you, “Don’t do that,” I mean, “Keep still,” or to do something else. When I speak to you of “long,” what do you think of, dear reader? Long? Oh, no; you think of short, because it is the realization of short and the comparison of that with long which makes the difference. When I say to you, “Smith is fat,” you think of lean. Now, if I say to you, “Smith is not fat,” I arouse and put in action in your “mind” the thought of a lean man. If I say to you, “The man is fat” you think of lean, but fat is the dominant idea. Grammarians will tell us the following sentence is correct: “See the young man put to sleep in the opera house Monday night; after which he will be taken to Smith’s show window, where you may see him sleeping; and, on Wednesday, see him awakened in the opera house.” It is entirely incorrect. It is like putting the right glove on the left hand; it does not fit. The proper writing of the sentence would be: “See the young man put to sleep in the opera house on Monday evening; see him awakened on Wednesday evening; and, in the meantime, see him sleeping in Smith’s show window.” The idea I am trying to convey is this: That when I talk of putting a person to sleep, the first idea aroused is of his awakening, and the two extremes should be placed side by side, the modifications to come afterward. Where the modifications come between the two extremes it is very difficult of comprehension and for the hearer to remember; but if the extremes are placed side by side the glove would be snugly fitted to the hand that it was made for. To acquire this art is very difficult after being schooled as we have. I fail to obey it in this book.

I speak to you of one hundred dollars; do you comprehend what I am talking about? What sense-picture have I aroused in your mind? One of a piece of paper with a figure one and two ciphers in the corner, and the other associated figures; nothing more.

The “mind” can comprehend but three units at one time.

For years I have wondered why the unaccountable three has appeared in every art and science. To-day it is perfectly comprehensible to me, because man can comprehend but three.

If you doubt this, look at the signs when going down the street; we comprehend two or three letters the moment we glance at them, but if there be four or five, we at once comprehend the first three and then the balance, if the group does not contain more than six. Some learn to do this very quickly.

If we are looking at a party of three on the street corner, and I ask you how many there are, you will immediately tell me; if there are six, you will say six, provided they are divided into groups of three; the same with nine; but, if they are in one group, they must be counted; or, in other words, separated into groups of three.

A little experimenting will very readily demonstrate this. It is so simple and easily conceived—if you will make a series of fair experiments—that I wonder why our alleged scientists have not discovered it ere now. Any quantity over three is abstract; it is a mere term. If I speak of one hundred thousand feet of lumber, what picture am I arousing in the “mind?” None. A man who is accustomed to handling lumber might conceive the space it would occupy. If he is a wood-chopper he might conceive the energy and time necessary to cut and saw this lumber; but to conceive it as one hundred thousand feet is utterly impossible.

We hear of speculators in Wall Street buying a million bushels of wheat, and look wise, believing that we comprehend what was said. We have no comprehension; nor has he who purchased it. Perhaps the men who have large grain elevators have a conception of it as to bulk, as to the space it would occupy, measured by the eye, but no comprehension is possible.

I speak to you of space, an incomprehensible word; I speak to you of spirit; that is also incomprehensible. Form is merely the outline of matter, and it requires two senses to acquire conception—sight and feeling—or, in other words, two forms of feeling. Man can comprehend only by associating what he has seen, smelled, tasted, heard or felt. It is impossible to register through one sense that which the economy of man built to register through another; hence, it is impossible for me to give you through the ear a smelling, tasting, sight or feeling memory; but one already possessed may be readily aroused.

Words arouse memories indefinitely. When used in association with the affecting of other senses, words put thoughts in action that form new combinations or associations, thereby forcing new forms of thought. Taking up the illustration of man being a camera, taking a picture, the hypnotized subject being a stereopticon throwing out a picture, the “mind” can only hold one of these pictures at a time, and a negation always forces the opposite picture into place. It is possible, however, to take a minor attribute of a picture and make it dominate the picture. The art of doing this is what is called proving to, or convincing persons, and forcing them to think your way. (Making the indefinite definite.)

To illustrate, we will take the fishing scene. I tell the subjects that when they open their eyes they will find themselves alongside of a fishing stream; that they will see beside them, bait, lines and hooks; that there are some fine fish in the stream they are welcome to if they can catch, and they commence fishing. But, if I say to them, “You must not swear,” or “refrain from swearing, as there are ladies in the audience,” the word “audience” revives the picture of where they were when they went into hypnosis; consequently, I have lost the thought I attempted to give them. But if I keep within the picture and say, “there is a party of ladies fishing a little way down the stream,” the subjects will fish.

Now, reader, can we still keep them within the picture of the fishing scene and force them to cease fishing? I suppose you would say no, inasmuch as they are surrounded with all the attributes of fishing, and, not being free agents, they would be forced to fish. Very true, but an attribute which, of itself, must be a combination of other attributes, can be so divided—emphasized—that it will practically rule the picture. Therefore, if I would add to the fishing scene a very severe rain storm, carrying with it the disagreeableness of being wet, the danger of sickness, a place of cover, et cetera, it would force these fishermen to seek shelter, and still be within the fishing picture.

If I were a lawyer, never would I try to prove or show a negation, or the negative side of a case. Defending a criminal, I would accept every fact proven by the prosecution, accepting its premises “good,” and would build on it better, best.

We will assume that a young man has been arrested for beating his mother, and the mother appears in court with a bruised face, black eye, et cetera. Knowing the jury can comprehend nothing they have not experienced through their senses, we must arouse in them sense-memories with which they are thoroughly familiar; that we must always impress two senses; that when we picture to them with words the hovel wherein he was reared, we must also speak of feeling, of smell; otherwise the mere mention of a hovel, a sight picture, will lack in effect; but if we properly associate with the sight picture feeling memories, smell memories, we will have succeeded not only in arousing a thought but have put it in action. As the defendant’s attorney, I would admit that the boy beat his mother, and state that it was the natural outcome of the environment. I would show the early surroundings of the boy, and the way his mother guided and allowed him to adapt himself to those environments to his injury; that as he grew up she continued to cultivate and allow to accumulate ideas and actions perfectly consistent with the beating given by her son. Inasmuch as no other result could possibly happen under such environment, nothing else could be expected of the young man; he responded as all others would under like conditions. This argument, being thoroughly developed by the association of the different sense-pictures, would create a sympathetic feeling for my client, and could not do otherwise than cause the jury to comprehend that the action was the natural outcome; or, to put it very brutally, the mother deserved what she got.

If you were a customer, desiring to buy goods of me, and I should say to you, “This is the best thing on the market,” what would you be thinking of? That there are bad things on the market. Then, what proof have I that this is the best? As a good, wise purchaser you will go to some other store to look around, and I prove myself to be a very bad salesman by the use of one word.

If I was an insurance man, and some one told me that he had insurance in another company, and I said that it was bad, what would you be thinking of? “Who in the mischief has any good?” But if I should say to him, “That company is good, but we have something a little better,” always taking our opponent’s side as good—then better and best, we are keeping within the picture; then, if we can take the minor attributes and split them up, they can be made to dominate the picture as the rain storm did the fishing scene, and thereby carry conviction.

If you were a writer of accident insurance and had climbed to the top of a high building, there meeting a carpenter, I suppose you would say to him, “It would be quite dangerous to fall from here.” I would not; but would look him in the eye, then at the ground and ask how far it was, and the other ideas would be immediately forced into action. I might then say something about how often people fall, or ask him if he ever fell. I will promise you that by following out this line, if, in ten minutes he was asked to be insured, and had the money, he would be.

The art of talking is to know what and how to accentuate, to force the listener to make your argument himself. The mere statement of fact produces no result; but suggestion, properly applied, will cause the hearer to evolve what you evolved, to separate the attributes that you have separated, and, by so doing, will convince himself (realize). He will have emphasized through the proper channels the associated attributes favorable to you. Always talk in affirmatives, using a positive for, and thus hold the picture in your hearer’s mind.

An actor does not act. He leads his auditors; they do their own acting. How is it possible for Bill Jones, who has never experienced the different emotions that Hamlet is supposed to have had, to reproduce them? How can his mind reproduce something that he has not experienced? Acting, so-called, carries with it no conviction, nothing real. The successful actor is one who can force his auditors to do their own acting. The attributes, scenery, music, costumes and word-picturing, merely arouse a memory in the auditor. I have seen “Camille” played by an actress and company talking entirely in Italian, and enjoyed it better without comprehending a word, than any performance of that play I had ever witnessed in the English language. If our actors would devote more study to emphasis and leading their auditors, they would succeed far better than they do at the present day by trying to simulate (trying to reproduce something they have never experienced), which is an impossibility.

Many of the incongruities in the Bible are now comprehensible to me, the translators failing to convey the original through the translation. For example, take a correct translation of the Lord’s Prayer, and see how different the meaning from the one you have learned:

“Our Father Who are in Heaven, we hallow Thy name that Thy Kingdom may come and that Thy will may be done, here upon earth, even as it is in Heaven. Give us, day after day, our necessities, and forgive us our debts as we ought to forgive our debtors; leading us out of temptation and delivering us from evil. For Thine is the power as also the kingdom, forever and eternity. Amen.”

Note the entire absence of negation.

The word “don’t” is the cause of more sin than his Satanic Majesty ever conceived; for, in fact, this word is the devil.

The ten commandments have been the cause of, and are responsible for, more sin than they have ever prevented.