Auto Suggestion (ePub)

"Let the young man learn of the laws explained in this book, and he need not fear failure, or sickness, or the ills and woes of life." -The Law of Suggestion, 1906

"Excellent manual of autosuggestion...it has its amusing side." -Baudouin, Suggestion and Autosuggestion, 1922

"Read with deepest interest...tremendous possibilities are opened to us as we look into the future now." - The Practical Farmer, 1905

"Parkyn has very much simplified our understanding of auto-suggestion. He has given it to us in a clearer and more tangible manner." -Dental Review, 1897

We have all heard or used the expression, "Says I to myself." Well, this is exactly what we do when we employ voluntary auto-suggestion. This same force may be employed for many other purposes, and when the reader understands what it is, he will use it continually to assist himself.

In Dr. Herbert Arthur Parkyn's 1909 book "Auto Suggestion: What it is and how to Use it for Health, Happiness and Success," he notes that it is only within the last few years before his book was published that we have thoroughly recognized the existence of one of the greatest forces in Nature, auto-suggestion.

He argue that it is now a demonstrable fact that all the phenomena of Christian Science, Magnetic Healing, Divine Science, Mental Science, Sacred Shrines, Absent Treatment, Success Circles, etc., are due to auto-suggestion. In fact, he believed, that the majority of cures made under the direction of the practitioners of the various schools of medicine can be traced directly to the same cause, and progressive physicians everywhere are now studying the phenomena of auto-suggestion.

Autosuggestion is a psychological technique related to the placebo effect. It is a form of self-induced suggestion in which individuals guide their own thoughts, feelings, or behavior. The technique is often used in self-hypnosis.

In discussing auto-suggestion, Parkyn writes:

"The involuntary mind is automatic in its operations, but is always open to control by the impressions made upon it by the voluntary mind. The student of suggestion, by talking health to others and thinking health thoughts himself, with a view of charging his involuntary mind with ideas of healthy conditions, reaps a rich harvest in the form of improved or sustained health. Learn to influence the involuntary mind and you can influence yourself mentally and physically, as you desire."

Dr. Herbert Parkyn (1869-1927) was the medical superintendent Chicago School of Psychology on Bowen Avenue. Dr. Parkyn used suggestion successfully for years in medicine and as an anesthetic in surgery. He reported that the success of his treatment by suggestion in the case of women who suffered periodically was so great, that he branded as a criminal the physician who wilfully neglected to make use of suggestion to cure this intense suffering.