Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion

    Mme. L. T–,
    Rue du Laos, 4, Paris.

***

I want to tell you what excellent results M. Coué's wonderful method has produced in my case, and to express my deep gratitude for your valuable help. I have always been anaemic, and have had poor health, but after my husband's death I became much worse. I suffered with my kidneys, I could not stand upright, I also suffered from nervousness and aversions. All that has gone and I am a different person. I no longer suffer, I have more endurance, and I am more cheerful. My friends hardly recognize me, and I feel a new woman. I intend to spread the news of this wonderful method, so clear, so simple, so beneficent, and to continue to get from it the best results for myself as well.

    M. L. D–,
    Paris, June, 1920.

***

I cannot find words to thank you for teaching me your good method. What happiness you have brought to me! I thank God who led me to make your acquaintance, for you have entirely transformed my life. Formerly I suffered terribly at each monthly period and was obliged to lie in bed. Now all is quite regular and painless. It is the same with my digestion, and I am no longer obliged to live on milk as I used, and I have no more pain, which is a joy. My husband is astonished to find that when I travel I have no more headaches, whereas before I was always taking tablets. Now, thanks to you, I need no remedies at all, but I do not forget to repeat 20 times morning and evening, the phrase you taught me: "Every day, in every respect, I am getting better and better."

    B. P–,
    Paris, October, 1920.

***

In re-reading the method I find it more and more superior to all the developments inspired by it. It surpasses all that has been invented of so-called scientific systems, themselves based on the uncertain results of an uncertain science, which feels its way and deceives itself, and of which the means of observation are also fairly precarious in spite of what the learned say, M. Coué, on the other hand, suffices for everything, goes straight to the aim, attains it with certainty and in freeing his patient carries generosity and knowledge to its highest point, since he leaves to the patient himself the merit of this freedom, and the use of a marvellous power. No, really, there is nothing to alter in this method. It is as you so strikingly say: a Gospel. To report faithfully his acts and words and spread his method, that is what must be done, and what I shall do myself as far as is in any way possible.

    P. C.

***

I am amazed at the results that I have obtained and continue to obtain daily, by the use of the excellent method you have taught me of conscious autosuggestion. I was ill mentally and physically. Now I am well and am also nearly always cheerful. That is to say that my depression has given way to cheerfulness, and certainly I do not complain of the change, for it is very preferable, I assure you. How wretched I used to be! I could digest nothing; now I digest perfectly well and the intestines act naturally. I also used to sleep so badly, whereas now the nights are not long enough; I could not work, but now I am able to work hard. Of all my ailments nothing is left but an occasional touch of rheumatism, which I feel sure will disappear like the rest by continuing your good method. I cannot find words to express my deep gratitude to you.

    Mme. Friry,
    Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris.

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS

Addressed to Mlle. Kaufmant, Disciple of M. Coué

As I have been feeling better and better since following the method of autosuggestion which you taught me, I feel I owe you the sincerest thanks, I am now qualified to speak of the great and undeniable advantages of this method, as to it alone I owe my recovery. I had a lesion in the lungs which caused me to spit blood. I suffered from lack of appetite, daily vomiting, loss of flesh, and obstinate constipation. The spitting of blood, lessened at once and soon entirely disappeared. The vomiting ceased, the constipation no longer exists, I have got back my appetite, and in two months I have gained nearly a stone in weight. In the face of such results observed, not only by parents and friends, but also by the doctor who has been attending me for several months, it is impossible to deny the good effect of autosuggestion and not to declare openly that it is to your method that I owe my return to life. I authorize you to publish my name if it is likely to be of service to others, and I beg you to believe me.

Yours most gratefully.

    Jeanne Gilli,
    15, Av. Borriglione, Nice, March, 1918.

***

I consider it a duty to tell you how grateful I am to you for acquainting me with the benefits of autosuggestion. Thanks to you, I no longer suffer from those agonizing and frequent heart stoppages, and I have regained my appetite which I had lost for months. Still more, as a hospital nurse, I must thank you from my heart for the almost miraculous recovery of one of my patients, seriously ill with tuberculosis, which caused him to vomit blood constantly and copiously. His family and myself were very anxious when heaven sent you to him. After your first visit the spitting of blood ceased, his appetite returned, and after a few more visits made by you to his sick bed, all the organs little by little resumed their normal functions. At last one day we had the pleasant surprise and joy of seeing him arrive at your private séance, where, before those present, he himself made the declaration of his cure, due to your kind intervention. Thank you with all my heart.

Yours gratefully and sympathetically,

    A. Kettner,
    26, Av. Borriglione, Nice, March, 1918.

***

. . . From day to day I have put off writing to you to thank you for the cure of my little Sylvain. I was in despair, the doctors telling me that there was nothing more to be done but to try the sanitorium of Arcachon or Juicoot, near Dunkirk. I was going to do so when Mine. Collard advised me to go and see you. I hesitated, as I felt sceptical about it; but I now have the proof of your skill, for Sylvain has completely recovered. His appetite is good, his pimples and his glands are completely cured, and what is still more extraordinary, since the first time that we went to see you he has not coughed any more, not even once; the result is, that since the month of June he has gained 6 lbs.; I can never thank you enough and I proclaim to everyone the benefits we have received.

    Mme. Poirson,
    Liverdun, August, 1920.

***

How can I prove to you my deep gratitude? You have saved my life. I had a displaced heart, which caused terrible attacks of suffocation, which went on continually; in fact they were so violent that I had no rest day or night, in spite of daily injections of morphia. I could eat nothing without instant vomiting. I had violent pains in the head which became all swollen, and as a result I lost my sight. I was in a lamentable state and my whole organism suffered from it. I had abscesses on the liver. The doctor despaired of me after having tried everything; blood letting, cupping and scarifying, poultices, ice, and every possible remedy, without any improvement. I had recourse to your kindness on the doctor's advice.

After your first visits the attacks became less violent and less frequent, and soon disappeared completely. The bad and troubled nights became calmer, until I was able to sleep the whole night through without waking. The pains I had in the liver ceased completely. I could begin to take my food again, digesting it perfectly well, and I again experienced the feeling of hunger which I had not known for months. My headaches ceased, and my eyes, which had troubled me so much, are quite cured, since I am now able to occupy myself with a little manual work.

At each visit that you paid me, I felt that my organs were resuming their natural functions. I was not the only one to observe it, for the doctor who came to see me every week found me much better, and finally there came recovery, since I could get up after having been in bed eleven months. I got up without any discomfort, not even the least giddiness, and in a fortnight I could go out. It is indeed thanks to you that I am cured, for the doctor says that for all that the medicines did me, I might just as well have taken none.

After having been given up by two doctors who held out no hope of cure, here I am cured all the same, and it is indeed a complete cure, for now I can eat meat, and I eat a pound of bread every day. How can I thank you, for I repeat, it is thanks to the suggestion you taught me that I owe my life.

    Jeanne Grosjean,
    Nancy, Nov., 1920.

***

. . . Personally the science of autosuggestion–for I consider it as entirely a science–has rendered me great services; but truth compels me to declare that if I continue to interest myself particularly in it, it is because I find in it the means of exercising true charity.

In 1915 when I was present for the first time at M. Coué's lectures, I confess that I was entirely sceptical. Before facts a hundred times repeated in my presence, I was obliged to surrender to evidence, and recognize that autosuggestion always acted, though naturally in different degrees, on organic diseases. The only cases (and those were very rare) in which I have seen it fail are nervous cases, neurasthenia or imaginary illness.

There is no need to tell you again that M. Coué, like yourself, but even more strongly, insists on this point: "that he never performs a miracle or cures anybody, but that he shows people how to cure themselves." I confess that on this point I still remain a trifle incredulous, for if M. Coué does not actually cure people, he is a powerful aid to their recovery, in "giving heart" to the sick, in teaching them never to despair, in uplifting them, in leading them . . . higher than themselves into moral spheres that the majority of humanity, plunged in materialism, has never reached.

The more I study autosuggestion, the better I understand the divine law of confidence and love that Christ preached us: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor" and by giving a little of one's heart and of one's moral force to help him to rise if he has fallen and to cure himself if he is ill. Here also from my Christian point of view, is the application of autosuggestion which I consider as a beneficial and comforting science which helps us to understand that as the children of God, we all have within us forces whose existence we did not suspect, which properly directed, serve to elevate us morally and to heal us physically.

Those who do not know your science, or who only know it imperfectly, should not judge it without having seen the results it gives and the good it does. Believe me to be your faithful admirer.

    M. L. D–,
    Nancy, November, 1920.

THE MIRACLE WITHIN

(Reprinted from the "Renaissance politique, littéraire et artistique" of the 18th of December, 1920)

HOMAGE TO EMILE COUÉ

In the course of the month of September, 1920, I opened for the first time the book of Charles Baudouin, of Geneva, professor at the Institute J. J. Rousseau in that town.

This work, published by the firm of Delachaux and Niestle, 26, rue Saint-Dominique, Paris, is called: "Suggestion et Autosuggestion". The author has dedicated it: "To Emile Coué, the initiator and benefactor, with deep gratitude".

I read it and did not put down the book until I had reached the end.

The fact is that it contains the very simple exposition of a magnificently humanitarian work, founded on a theory which may appear childish just because it is within the scope of everyone. And if everyone puts it into practice, the greatest good will proceed from it.

After more than twenty years of indefatigable work, Emile Coué who at the present time lives at Nancy, where he lately followed the work and experiments of Liébault, the father of the doctrine of suggestions, for more than twenty years, I say, Coué has been occupied exclusively with this question, but particularly in order to bring his fellow creatures to cultivate autosuggestion.