Coué now proceeded to outline the theory given in the pages which follow. It is sufficient here to state his main conclusions, which were these: (1) Every idea which exclusively occupies the mind is transformed into an actual physical or mental state. (2) The efforts we make to conquer an idea by exerting the will only serve to make that idea more powerful. To demonstrate these truths he requested one of his patients, a young anaemic-looking woman, to carry out a small experiment. She extended her arms in front of her, and clasped the hands firmly together with the fingers interlaced, increasing the force of her grip until a slight tremor set in. "Look at your hands," said Coué, "and think you would like to open them but you cannot. Now try and pull them apart. Pull hard. You find that the more you try the more tightly they become clasped together."
The girl made little convulsive movements of her wrists, really doing her best by physical force to separate her hands, but the harder she tried the more her grip increased in strength, until the knuckles turned white with the pressure. Her hands seemed locked together by a force outside her own control.
"Now think," said Cone, "'I can open my hands.'"
Slowly her grasp relaxed and, in response to a little pull, the cramped fingers came apart. She smiled shyly at the attention she had attracted, and sat down.
Coué pointed out that the two main points of his theory were thus demonstrated simultaneously: when the patient's mind was filled with the thought "I cannot," she could not in very fact unclasp her hands. Further, the efforts she made to wrench them apart by exerting her will only fixed them more firmly together.
Each patient was now called on in turn to perform the same experiment. The more imaginative among them—notably the women—were at once successful. One old lady was so absorbed in the thought "I cannot" as not to heed the request to think "I can." With her face ruefully puckered up she sat staring fixedly at her interlocked fingers, as though contemplating an act of fate. "Voilà," said Coué, smiling, "if Madame persists in her present idea, she will never open her hands again as long as she lives."
Several of the men, however, were not at once successful. The whilom blacksmith with the disabled arm, when told to think "I should like to open my hands but I cannot," proceeded without difficulty to open them.
"You see," said Coué, with a smile, "it depends not on what I say but on what you think. What were you thinking then?"
He hesitated. "I thought perhaps I could open them after all."
"Exactly. And therefore you could. Now clasp your hands again. Press them together."