If your delusion is mental, swing to the other side of the circle, and read or study the most agreeable things that are widely apart from what you have been dwelling upon. Exercise strengthens the mind. It is the folly of fools to speak of the brain being over-worked. It may be stupidly exercised, but if used in a catholic development, the use makes it more vigorous. Look at the blue sky; not the ground. God is the Creator, but man is also a creator. His health depends largely on his will,—that is to say, in the sense of that will being plastic to the Divine will.
If your illness is physical stop thinking about yourself,—do as Saint Teresa did, take up some other subject, and suddenly you will find yourself well. Nature requires only a few months, not years, to make the body all over again.
Death is natural. Few physicians know anything about it. They have shut down every window in their souls to the light. For your comfort let me tell you that what I am saying is the subject of a long talk with one of the first physicians on the Continent.
Many things, accepted by the common people to be the result of miracle, are really the result of thought. That is, of mental force, used or misused. Don't misuse your forces. Read Plato if you have been reading too much modern fiction, or have been dipping too deep into Wittemberg's philosophy. It seems to me there can be no doubt of the survival of the individual soul. Why not plant your feet on the facts we possess, and on faith, and philosophy? Read your "Imitatione Christi." It fits every mind by transposing the symbolism. I tell you frankly that even if no such man as Jesus ever lived, I can be serene with Plato's guidance and light.
Stop critical reading. Really a critic is an interpreter, but what modern critic knows this? The only modern critic I honor is Herbert Spencer.
Believe me,
Yours with great respect,
Pascal Germain.
From the same