As regards GASSNER, it is admissible that many more cures of disease can be effected by what some vaguely call the Imagination, and others Mental Action, than is generally supposed.  Science now proves every year, more and more, that diseases are allied, and that they can be reached through the nervous system.  In the celebrated correspondence between KANT and HUFELAND there is almost a proof that incipient gout can be cured by will or determination.  But if a merely temporary or partial cure can really be obtained, or a cessation from suffering, if the ill be really curable at all, it is but reasonable to assume that by continuing the remedy or system, the relief will or must correspond to the degree of “faith” in the patient.  And this would infallibly be the case if the sufferer had the will.  But unfortunately the very people who are most frequently relieved are those of the impulsive imaginative kind, who “soon take hold and soon let go,” or who are merely attracted by a sense of wonder which soon loses its charm, and so they react.

Therefore if we cannot only awaken the Will, but also keep it alive, it is very possible that we may not only effect great and thorough cures of diseases, but also induce whatever state of mind we please.  This may be effected by the action of the minds or wills of others on our own, which influence can be gradually transferred from the operator to the patient himself, as when in teaching a boy to swim the master holds the pupil up until the latter finds that he is unconsciously moving by his own exertion.

What the fickle and “nervous” patients of any kind need is to have the idea kept before their minds continuously.  They generally rush into a novelty without Forethought.  Therefore they should be trained or urged to forethink or reflect seriously and often on the cure or process proposed.  This is the setting of the nail, which is to be driven in by suggestion.  The other method is where we act entirely for ourselves both as regards previous preparation and subsequent training.

I here repeat, since the whole object of the book is that certain facts shall be deeply and clearly impressed on the reader’s mind, that if we will that a certain idea shall recur to us on the following, or any other day, and if we bring the mind to bear upon it just before falling asleep, it may be forgotten when we awake, but it will recur to us when the time comes.  This is what almost everybody has proved, that if we resolve to awake at a certain hour we generally do so; if not the first time, after a few experiments, apropos of which I would remark that “no one should ever expect full success from any first experiment.”

Now it is certainly true that we all remember or recall certain things to be done at certain hours, even if we have a hundred other thoughts in the interval.  But it would seem as if by some law which we do not understand Sleep or repose acted as a preserver and reviver, nay, as a real strengthener of Thoughts, inspiring them with a new spirit.  It would seem, too, as if they came out of Dreamland, as the children in TIECK’S story did out of Fairyland, with new lives.  This is, indeed, a beautiful conception, and I may remark that I will in another place comment on the curious fact that we can add to and intensify ideas by thus passing them through our minds in sleep.