Mind and Body; or, Mental States and Physical Conditions

by William Walker Atkinson

“The cure consists in the repairing of the wasted tissue, and in the cells restoring and repairing themselves into a definite pattern, necessary to mutual work, so that the commonwealth may prosper. Air, water, sunshine, food, etc., are necessary to the performance of this work of repair. When these are furnished, even under the best conditions possible, the cells must use them to build up the waste, and this they do by their internal forces. But this process is what is called repair on the one hand, and cure on the other. External means may be essential, but that will not make them really curative.... It is well, also, to keep in mind that external in the true sense of the term as we are using it here. Any force outside of the diseased cell is an external force to that cell even if it be thought-force. Disease is always treated by external force, external as defined above, and all disease is just as surely cured by internal force—viz.: force resident in the cell itself. Here we all stand around the suffering cell, one with drug-power in his hand, another with electricity, or water, or heat, or directed attention—thought-force or more nourishment which necessitates a better circulation to that area, or some other of the thousand therapeutic measures, and we are close enough together at last to see that we are simply using different stimuli to try to aid the real worker within the cell to do his work by furnishing, not only material that is necessary, but force as well, that out of the abundance his work may be easy and rapid.”

The reader who will consider the numerous instances of cure by Suggestion or Faith-Cure, as noted in the following chapters, will be better able to understand the principle underlying these cures if he will realize the fact brought out so forcibly by Dr. Meacham, as above quoted. The attention of the patient being directed to the organ affected, in connection with the stimulating and vitalizing effect of Faith and Belief, starts into renewed activity the cell-mind of the organ in question, and arouses its reparative and recuperative energies. Each organ, and its component cells and cell-groups, is of course under the control of the Subconscious Mind, and forms a part of the material embodiment thereof. The Subconscious Mind, being stimulated by the Suggestion and Faith, and having its Expectant Attention aroused, concentrates its energies upon the reparative and recuperative processes in the organ, and the work of cure proceeds. The cure, in every case, is simply either repair work, or else the restoration of normal functioning—in either case the cells themselves doing the work.

In the consideration of the reasons underlying the cure of disease by Psycho-Therapeutics, we must first consider the question of what disease really is. And in this phase of the consideration, it will be well for us to first dispel the erroneous ideas concerning disease which we have been entertaining. Perhaps the following striking statement from Sidney Murphy, M. D., printed in the magazine “Suggestion” several years ago, may help you to form a correct idea of the nature of disease, or rather a correct idea of what disease is not. Dr. Murphy says, in the said article, among other things: “Prof. S. D. Gross, formerly of the New York University Medical School, says: ‘Of the essence of disease very little is known—indeed nothing at all.’ Nevertheless it is evident that medical men have an idea on the subject. The theory generally held, I believe, is that disease is destructive action; but just what this means, whether destructive action on the part of vitality itself, or by something acting upon the vitality, is not so clear; but we are enabled to gain some light by reference to the expression used in medical books concerning it. Thus we find that disease ‘attacks us,’ that it ‘seats itself in an organ,’ that ‘it works through us, runs its course,’ etc. It is also said to be ‘very malignant,’ or ‘quite mild,’ ‘persistently resisting all treatment,’ or ‘yielding readily’ to it. In fact, it is considered an entity, possessing character and disposition and general vital qualities—a something which domiciles itself in the vital domain, and exercises its forces to the destruction of the vital powers. It is indeed spoken of as one would speak of a rat in his granary, or a mouse in his cupboard, and efforts are made to dislodge it, or kill it, as one would dislodge or kill any other living thing. This theory of disease is beginning to be looked upon even by the medical world as untenable. Living things are always possessed of organizations having form or shape; and hence if disease were such, its form would be discerned and described; a thing which never has been done. Disease by our ancestors was considered a subtile and mysterious thing which pounced down upon us, and runs its course without any reference to causes; and language being formed to convey this idea, it has been transmitted almost unchanged from generation to generation down to the present time. And the medical profession of to-day is simply an embodiment of that idea. It is probable that the term ‘destructive action’ is generally held to mean destructive action on the part of the vitality itself.... Life in organic form is developed according to law. Slowly rising into power, organization at length reaches its zenith, and then goes down the gentle declivity, until the soul steps off into the great beyond, without pain or struggle, provided always that the conditions of life are natural and therefore favorable; but if these be unfavorable, unfavorable results must of course follow; vitality, nevertheless, doing the best it can under the circumstances to preserve the normal state of the body. Disease, we propose to show, is not antagonistic to vital action, but the opposite, a remedial effort, or vital action on the defensive. It is not a downward tendency, nor the result of a downward tendency on the part of a living organism, but is itself an upward or self-preservative tendency, the result of disobedience to natural laws. It is simply abnormal action, because of abnormal conditions.”

In considering the above revolutionary statement of Dr. Murphy, we must remember that “vitality” or “vital force” is simply the action of the Subconscious Mind operating through the sympathetic system, the organ-minds, and the cell-minds. All vital energy, at the last is mental energy. And, we must also remember that the “abnormal conditions” which Dr. Murphy speaks of as being the cause of “abnormal action” or disease, are not confined alone to physical or material conditions, but also to abnormal mental conditions, such as fear-thought, adverse suggestions, improper use of the imagination, etc. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, the causes of disease may be mental as well as material or physical.

The Subconscious Mind in its vital activities is constantly at work building up, repairing, growing, nourishing, supporting and regulating the body, doing its best to throw off abnormal conditions, and seeking to do the best it can when these conditions cannot be removed. With its source pure and unpolluted the stream of vitality flows on unhindered, but when the poison of fear-thought, adverse suggestion and false belief is poured into the source or spring from which the stream rises, it follows that the waters of life will no longer be pure and clear. Let us notice the general direction of the vital activities of the Subconscious Mind.

In the first place we find that the vital activities are primarily concerned with self-preservation, that is with the preservation of the individual and the race. One has but to notice the ever-present manifestation of the “race instinct” which draws the males and females of the several species together, that they may mate and bring forth the young needed to keep alive the species. The parental devotions, with its many sacrifices of personal pleasure for the young, are instances ever before us. And no less striking is the companion activities which make for the preservation of the individual. The instinctive tendency toward self-preservation is so strong that it overpowers the reason in the majority of cases. Men may decry the value of life, but let their life be threatened and the instinctive protective feeling causes them to fight for life against all odds. “All that a man hath will he give for his life.” And this instinctive activity is manifest not only in the individual as a whole, but in every cell of his body. Every cell is striving hard for the welfare of the community of which it forms a part. Even in disease it strives to throw off the abnormal conditions which afflict the body, and failing to do so it hobbles along doing the best it can under the circumstances.

The tiny seed sprouting in the ground, and lifting weights a thousand times that of itself, shows the self-preservative energies and activities of the mind principle within it. The healing work of the cells in the case of a wound, or of a broken bone, as described elsewhere in this book, gives us another example. The healing efforts of the organism striving to throw off the morbid substances within the body, purging them away in a flux, or burning them up with a fever, show the operations of the same principle. This, we have seen, is called the vis medicatrix naturae, or “healing power of nature,” which operates in man as well as in the case of the lower animals—but it is really but the operations of the great Subconscious Mind of the individual. As Dr. Murphy, previously quoted, says: “Certainly all experience declares and all physicians will admit that where vital power is abundant in a man he will get well from almost any injuries short of complete destruction of vital organs; but where vitality is low, recovery is much more difficult, if not impossible, which can only be explained on the principle that vitality always works upward toward life and health to the extent of its ability under the circumstances, because, if it worked downward, the less vitality, the more surely and speedily would death result.”

Following the law of self-preservation, we find that of accommodation manifesting itself in the vital activities of the Subconscious Mind. This principle or law works in the direction of adjusting the organism to conditions which it cannot remedy. Thus a sapling bent out of shape, will bend its branches upward until once more they will reach toward the sky notwithstanding the deformed trunk. Seed sprouting from a narrow crevice in a rock, and unable to split the rock, will assume a deformed shape but will hold tenaciously to life, and will thrive under these abnormal conditions. This principle of accommodation acts upon the idea of “life at any price,” and of “making the best of things.” Man and the lower animals accommodate themselves to their environment, when they are unable to overcome the unsatisfactory conditions of the latter. The study of anthropology, natural history, and botany will convince anyone that the principle of accommodation is everywhere present in connection with that of self-preservation. And the diseased conditions, and abnormal functioning, which we find in cases of chronic diseases is simply the principle of accommodation in the vital activities of the Subconscious Mind, but which it is “trying to make the best of it,” and holding on to “life at any price.”

Dr. Murphy, previously quoted, says: “Disease, in its essential nature, has a deeper significance than simply abnormal manifestations. It is really a remedial effort, not necessarily successful, but an attempt to change, or have changed existing conditions. And for this reason any improper relation of the living organism to external agents necessarily results in an injury to that organism, which by virtue of its being self-preservative, immediately sets up defensive action, and begins as soon as possible to repair the damages that have accrued. This defensive or reparative action, of course, corresponds to the conditions to be corrected, and hence is abnormal and diseased; and its severity and persistence will depend upon the damages to be repaired, and the intensity and persistence of the causes that produced it. Serious injury present or impending will demand serious vital action; desperate conditions, desperate action. But in all cases the action is vital, an attempt at restoration, and the energy displayed will exactly correspond to the interests involved and the vitality that is available.”

From the above, and from what has been shown in previous chapters, it will be seen that just as is health the result of the normal functioning of the Subconscious Mind, so is disease the result of its abnormal functioning. And it may also be seen that the true healing power must come alone from and through the Subconscious Mind itself, although the same may be aroused, awakened and directed by various outside agencies. As Dr. Thomson J. Hudson says: “Granted that there is an intelligence that controls the functions of the body in health, it follows that it is the same power or energy that fails in case of disease. Failing, it requires assistance; and that is what all therapeutic agencies aim to accomplish. No intelligent physician of any school claims to be able to do more than to ‘assist nature’ to restore normal conditions of the body. That it is a mental energy that thus requires assistance, no one denies; for science teaches us that the whole body is made up of a confederation of intelligent entities, each of which performs its functions with an intelligence exactly adapted to the performance of its special duties as a member of the confederacy. There is, indeed, no life without mind, from the lowest unicellular organism up to man. It is therefore a mental energy that actuates every fiber of the body under all its conditions. That there is a central intelligence that controls each of these mind organisms, is self-evident.... It is sufficient for us to know that such an intelligence exists, and that, for the time being, it is the controlling energy that normally regulates the action of the myriad cells of which the body is composed. It is, then, a mental organism that all therapeutic agencies are designed to energize, when, for any cause, it fails to perform its functions with reference to any part of the physical structure.”