If you wish to treat yourself psychically for some physical disorder, or if you wish to do good to others in the same way, you have but to put into operation the general principles of psychic influence herein described.  That is to say, you must first be filled with the strong desire and wish to make the cure; then you must make a strong mental image of the desired result, as actually present. (Do not think of it as “going to be;” instead say and think that it “is now!"); then concentrate the attention firmly and positively upon the idea.  You may aid yourself and others by affirmations or auto-suggestions (words creating desired ideas and mental pictures) if you wish—­you may get better results in this way.  In this connection, let me remind you that the healing work in many cases consists largely in placing proper mental pictures in the mind of the patient, thereby displacing improper and harmful mental pictures of disease, etc., which have been given lodgment there before.  Many persons are sick because of improper and harmful mental pictures that they have allowed to be placed there by the suggestions of others.  Fear and dread of disease often acts to bring about the feared condition, for reasons that you can readily see.

And, now, finally for the work of “absent healing” by psychic influence.  I can state this to you very simply; it is this:  take what I have just told you regarding personal treatments, and combine it with what I have told you in previous lessons about “long distance psychic influence”—­then you will have the whole thing.  Here is a sample of an effective distant treatment; or “absent treatment,” to use the popular term—­it may be varied and enlarged up to fit individual cases: 

Sit quietly in your own room, inducing a calm, peaceful mental attitude and state.  Then (in the way already told you in this book) make a mental picture of the patient as sitting opposite to you, or lying down in front of you.  If you have never seen the patient, make simply a mental image of a man, or a woman, as the case may be, and think of the figure as being the patient.  The best practitioners of distant psychic healing produce such a strong mental image of the patient that they can often actually “feel” his or her presence. (This of course is the result of a simple form of clairvoyance.) Then make a strong mental picture of the condition that you wish to induce in the patient—­the healthy physical condition of the organ, or part or body, as the case may be.  See this condition as existing at the present time, and not as merely to come in the future.  At the same time, you will do well to mentally speak to the patient, just as you would in case he or she were sitting before you in the physical body.  Tell the patient just what you would in such case.  Pour in the suggestions, or affirmations, or whatever you may wish to call them.  In some cases in which an excellent en rapport condition is established, patients become aware of the treatment, and sometimes can almost see and feel the presence of the healer.