Quiescence, attention, and emotional interest are then the conditions of successful suggestion.  We have further to notice two characteristics which have been described by the Nancy school of psychologists; and which are of some importance for those who wish to understand the mechanism of religious experience.  These have been called the law of Unconscious Teleology, and the law of Reversed Effort.

The law of unconscious teleology means that when an end has been effectively suggested to it, the unconscious mind will always tend to work towards its realization.  Thus in psycho-therapeutics it is found that a general suggestion of good health made to the sick person is often enough.  The doctor may not himself know enough about the malady to suggest stage by stage the process of cure.  But he suggests that cure; and the necessary changes and adjustments required for its realization are made unconsciously, under the influence of the dynamic idea.  Here the direction of “The Cloud of Unknowing,” “Look that nothing live in thy working mind but a naked intent directed to God"[113]—­suggesting as it does to the psyche the ontological Object of faith—­strikingly anticipates the last conclusions of science.  Further, a fervent belief in the end proposed, a conviction of success, is by no means essential.  Far more important is a humble willingness to try the method, give it a chance.  That which reason may not grasp, the deeper mind may seize upon and realize; always provided that the intellect does not set up resistances.  This is found to be true in medical practice, and religious teachers have always declared it to be true in the spiritual sphere; holding obedience, humility, and a measure of resignation, not spiritual vision, to be the true requisites for the reception of grace, the healing and renovation of the soul.  Thus acquiescence in belief, and loyal and steady co-operation in the corporate religious life are often seen to work for good in those who submit to them; though these may lack, as they frequently say, the “spiritual sense.”  And this happens, not by magic, but in conformity with psychological law.

This tendency of the unconscious self to realize without criticism a suggested end lays on religious teachers the obligation of forming a clear and vital conception of the spiritual ideals which they wish to suggest, whether to themselves in their meditations or to others by their teaching:  to be sure that they are wholesome, and really tend to fullness of life.  It should also compel each of us to scrutinize those religious thoughts and images which we receive and on which we allow our minds to dwell:  excluding those that are merely sentimental, weak or otherwise unworthy, and holding fast the noblest and most beautiful that we can find.  For these ideas, however generalized, will set up profound changes in the mind that receives them.  Thus the wrong conception of self-immolation will be faithfully worked out by the unconscious—­and