Details

Title

Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion

Author

Coué, Emile

Publication Date

1955

Publisher

George Allen & Unwin

Place of Publication

London

Collection

L.M. Montgomery Institute.

Note

In her journal entry of 18 September 1922, Montgomery noted that she had “been reading Emile Coue’s book on ‘Suggestion.’ I can hardly believe in its miracles. If one could make oneself well and good by repeating over and over before going to sleep the mystic formula ‘every day in every way I am growing better and better’ why couldn’t one make oneself perfect or immortal? Still, I have proved in my own experiments that there is a great power in suggestion.” French pharmacist/psychologist Emile Coué’s (1857–1926) work was a sensation in his time, though contemporary readers might only have heard of his famous mantra. Coué believed that one could use daily, repeated affirmations and “suggestion” to influence one’s subconscious mind, and he believed this suggestion was powerful enough to influence psychological and even physical health. Montgomery’s comments reveal that she had deep skepticism in his idea (“why couldn’t one make oneself perfect or immortal?”), but she also admits in its power. She went on to explain that “I believe I have cured Chester of some annoying little nervous habits—blinking his eyes and tapping his teeth with nail of his forefinger for example—by bending over him every night after he had gone to sleep and suggesting to him aloud, three times, that he wouldn’t do it anymore. At any rate the habits ceased abruptly after two or three nights. The headaches, too, from which he has suffered for years seem to have almost disappeared. Perhaps it was my ‘suggestion’—perhaps he is simply growing out of them. One cannot _prove_ these things. I have been conducting a series of experiments on myself also but cannot as yet say whether they have affected anything or not. Some things happened—but then they might have happened anyway" (L.M. Montomery’s Complete Journals, The Ontario Years, 1922–1925, p. 55). Again, she notes that the method might, perhaps actually work, while suggesting that things might have happened how she wanted anyway. Her cautious mix of skepticism and optimism reflects, at least in part, modern psychologists’ views on “suggestion” and affirmations: that they can be useful in increasing positive self talk and internal dialogue, but the results are hard to measure given the variety of other factors in a person’s life and environment. If nothing else, Montgomery was participating in an early 20th-century societal fascination with psychology. The volume above contains both essays on his methods and reasoning, but also a variety of testimonials and stories from satisfied customers/patients who worked with Coué on suggestion, hypnotism, and even kinds of “séances” focused on affirmation. You can read the full text of the volume here.

Genre

book

Type of Item

contemporaneous