WHAT are your mental or psychic pictures like? Have you
ever given a thought to the fact that you are continually influenced for good
or for bad by your mental pictures ? No ? Then I would advise you hereafter to
pay some attention to the mental pictures you conjure in your mind every day of
your life, for they play an important part in your life and in your destiny,
and can be made to play a still more important part and enable you to shape
your destiny if you will learn to control them voluntarily. Have you never seen
a psychic picture of yourself playing a weak, impotent, fearful part, with
everything going gainst you? And have you noticed when you have persisted in
drawing up these fear-thought pictures that everything seemed to go wrong with
you, that they depressed you and that the very fears of your mental pictures
seemed to materialize?
Remember this:
THOUGHT TENDS TO TAKE FORM IN ACTION, AND MENTAL PICTURES TEND TO MATERIALIZE
I suppose this is only another way of saying "As a
man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It is true also that our thoughts or
mental pictures, besides influencing ourselves mentally and physically, actually
affect the people around us, and at times apparently influence even inanimate
objects; so subtly does the mind work in its endeavor to make our thoughts
realities.
Of course I do not mean by this that the mind is
actually projected from the body for the purpose of removing material obstacles,
but so great is the power of the mind, when it is earnestly riveted on a
desired goal, that our every voluntary or involuntary action is influenced by
it and at times, in the concentration upon the goal, many acts are
unconsciously performed, which, as I said, make it appear superficially as if
the mind influences even material objects.
Frequently I am called upon to treat persons suffering
from nothing but the effects of persistently holding wrong mental pictures.
Some of these patients have held mental pictures of themselves in which they
were afraid to meet people and could feel their own embarrassment as depicted
in these mental pictures.
The result of habitually holding a mental picture of
this kind is self-consciousness.
UNDESIRABLE
PSYCHIC IMAGES
Others have held pictures in which they have seen
themselves on the road to insanity, and the insane asylum yawning for them at
the end of the road. And although it is true that a man who is actually going
insane never realizes his trouble, yet the victims of these mental pictures of
insanity may eventually become insane if the mental pictures are persisted in;
but the insanity in these cases arises from the poor physical condition into
which the patient falls as the result of fear and worry.
Fear and worry interfere with the normal desires for the
life essentials—air, water and food—and their neglect causes general physical
deterioration in which the brain shares.
Others, again, have held mental pictures of failure and
poverty with the poorhouse well defined in the background.
Psychic pictures of this kind produce fear, worry and
unhappiness, and these lead to general physical deterioration; with the loss of
health comes loss of ambition, leading to failure and not infrequently to the
actual materializing of the mental picture.
Poor physical health, following the neglect of the life
essentials, is the most frequent cause of injurious psychic impressions. But it
is also true that thought forms of sickness and disease will induce poor
physical health. Consequently, in banishing injurious or undesirable mental
states, it is important in every instance to improve the general physical
condition at the earliest possible moment, for with good health it is much
easier to hold the mind on beneficial mental images than when the body and brain
are suffering from physical deterioration.
It is impossible to hold a mental picture of health at
the same moment with a picture of disease, or to hold a picture of confidence
and fearlessness with a picture of self-consciousness and timidity, and, since
it is a fact that mental pictures do materialize, it is not difficult to select
the classes of mental pictures one should encourage his mind to hold.
The mental pictures of the average man drift into his
mind unconsciously, and if they be injurious«they may injure him greatly before
he realizes the actual cause of his troubles and learns how to remove it. Every
man should be taught how great an influence his mental pictures exert over his
mental and physical welfare and his fortunes, and he should learn that it is
possible for him to choose voluntarily his mental pictures.
CHOICE OF
MENTAL IMAGES
The voluntary selecting of mental pictures is not an
easy feat at first for a person whose mental images have been allowed to run
riot or for one who endeavors to hold a mental picture directly opposed to a
conception that has been held in his mind habitually. However, a little
practice in holding voluntarily created mental imagery assists greatly, and if
the practice be persisted in daily it will not take long to establish a fair degree
of voluntary control over the subjective thought forms.
To the man in poor health I would suggest that he first
give careful attention to the life essentials and then hold mental pictures of
health. He must call up a picture in which he sees himself in good health in
every organ and every cell of his body. He should see himself strong and
vigorous. The timid and self-conscious should see themselves playing the part
of strong, determined, aggressive, confident, fearless men. The man with fears
and worries should picture himself fearless, light-hearted and happy. The man
who feels himself unjustly oppressed, or down-trodden or over-burdened, should
see himself absolutely freed from his objectionable environment—a veritable
monarch of all he surveys.
The unsuccessful or the unfortunate should let his mind
dwell on pictures of successful attainment; while a man with an ambition should
see himself attaining his ambition.
RULE FOR
PRODUCING DESIRABLE PSYCHIC STATES
The simplest rule to follow in conjuring mental forms
that will prove most serviceable in a given case is to picture, voluntarily, in
one's mind, the exact conditions it is desired to bring about.
To secure the results desired it is not sufficient
merely to draw up an occasional mental picture of attainment.
On the contrary, the mental picture should be formed
hundreds of times every day, if only for a moment at a time, until a habit of
calling up the desired conditions is formed. It is a little more difficult if
the new picture happens to be directly opposed to an old picture, but the new
picture must be called to mind so often that there is no time left for the mind
to dwell on the old scenes, and as often as the old impression manages to slip
into the mind it must be supplanted immediately with the new picture and
eventually the old thought picture will fade away.
AUTO-SUGGESTION
HELPFUL
The materializing of any reasonable mental picture can
be hastened by accompanying the picture with earnest verbal auto-suggestion.
The idea of mental pictures materializing may seem
absurd to some, and impractical to others, but I have seen too many positive
results follow the voluntary use of mental pictures to question their efficacy
as a means of attaining desired ends of almost every nature.
AUTOSUGGESTION
WHAT IT IS AND
HOW
TO USE IT FOR
HEALTH
HAPPINESS AND
SUCCESS
BY
HERBERT
A. PARKYN, M.D., CM.
1906
