Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion Will and Imagination : Emile Coue

If we open a dictionary and look up the word "will", we find
this definition: "The faculty of freely determining certain
acts". We accept this definition as true and unattackable,
although nothing could be more false. This will that we
claim so proudly, always yields to the imagination. It is an
absolute rule that admits of no exception.

"Blasphemy! Paradox!" you will exclaim. "Not at all! On the
contrary, it is the purest truth," I shall reply.

In order to convince yourself of it, open your eyes, look
round you and try to understand what you see. You will then
come to the conclusion that what I tell you is not an idle
theory, offspring of a sick brain but the simple expression
of a fact.

Suppose that we place on the ground a plank 30 feet long by
1 foot wide. It is evident that everybody will be capable of
going from one end to the other of this plank without
stepping over the edge. But now change the conditions of the
experiment, and imagine this plank placed at the height of
the towers of a cathedral. Who then will be capable of
advancing even a few feet along this narrow path? Could you
hear me speak? Probably not. Before you had taken two steps
you would begin to tremble, and in spite of every effort of
your will you would be certain to fall to the ground.

Why is it then that you would not fall if the plank is on
the ground, and why should you fall if it is raised to a
height above the ground? Simply because in the first case
you imagine that it is easy to go to the end of this plank,
while in the second case you imagine that you cannot do so.

Notice that your will is powerless to make you advance; if
you imagine that you cannot, it is absolutely impossible for
you to do so. If tilers and carpenters are able to
accomplish this feat, it is because they think they can do
it.

Vertigo is entirely caused by the picture we make in our
minds that we are going to fall. This picture transforms
itself immediately into fact in spite of all the efforts of
our will, and the more violent these efforts are, the
quicker is the opposite to the desired result brought about.

Let us now consider the case of a person suffering from
insomnia. If he does not make any effort to sleep, he will
lie quietly in bed. If on the contrary he tries to force
himself to sleep by his will, the more efforts he makes, the
more restless he becomes.

Have you not noticed that the more you try to remember the
name of a person which you have forgotten, the more it
eludes you, until, substituting in your mind the idea "I
shall remember in a minute" to the idea "I have forgotten",
the name comes back to you of its own accord without the
least effort?

Let those of you who are cyclists remember the days when you
were learning to ride. You went along clutching the handle
bars and frightened of falling. Suddenly catching sight of
the smallest obstacle in the road you tried to avoid it, and
the more efforts you made to do so, the more surely you
rushed upon it.

Who has not suffered from an attack of uncontrollable
laughter, which bursts out more violently the more one tries
to control it?

What was the state of mind of each person in these different
circumstances? "I do not want to fall but I cannot help
doing so"; "I want to sleep but I cannot"; "I want to
remember the name of Mrs. So and So, but I cannot"; "I want
to avoid the obstacle, but I cannot"; "I want to stop
laughing, but I cannot."

As you see, in each of these conflicts it is always the
imagination which gains the victory over the will, without
any exception.

To the same order of ideas belongs the case of the leader
who rushes forward at the head of his troops and always
carries them along with him, while the cry "Each man for
himself!" is almost certain to cause a defeat. Why is this?
It is because in the first case the men imagine that they
must go forward, and in the second they imagine that they
are conquered and must fly for their lives.

Panurge was quite aware of the contagion of example, that is
to say the action of the imagination, when, to avenge
himself upon a merchant on board the same boat, he bought
his biggest sheep and threw it into the sea, certain
beforehand that the entire flock would follow, which indeed
happened.

We human beings have a certain resemblance to sheep, and
involuntarily, we are irresistibly impelled to follow other
people's examples, imagining that we cannot do otherwise.

I could quote a thousand other examples but I should fear to
bore you by such an enumeration. I cannot however pass by in
silence this fact which shows the enormous power of the
imagination, or in other words of the unconscious in its
struggle against the will.

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.