Hypnotic Suggestion News Buletin

Here, then, is the way toward the solution of an old problem. Within the human organism, there lies a nervous system which controls and regulates the mechanical behavior of the body. Involuntary as it usually is, it is not entirely separated from consciousness. The autonomic system is connected with the central system by means of two channels, emotion and suggestion. It was the pathway of suggestion-ornamented with prejudice and superstition-that was unwittingly exploited from the olden days to the present, from the witch-doctors to the psychoanalysts. Whereas they failed to comprehend the physical mechanism of suggestion and ascribed their powers to the spirits or by whatever other names these forces were called, it is time now to abandon the antiquated attitude and to seek the explanation of phenomena of suggestion within the organism itself-that is to say, to study functions of the autonomic nervous system and structures connected with it. When we finally learn to understand this mechanism in its major details, we shall be enabled to treat human beings not at random and through guesses, but scientifically, with all that this word implies.