act when a food that we
believe to disagree with us is merely mentioned, of course they would
contract all the more when we ate it. Naturally our digestive organs
would be handicapped by the contraction which came from our attitude of
mind and, of course, the food would appear not to agree with us.

Take, for instance, people who are born with peculiar prenatal
impressions about their food. A woman whom I have in mind could not
take milk nor cream nor butter nor anything with milk or cream or
butter in it. She seemed really proud of her milk-and-cream antipathy.
She would air it upon all occasions, when she could do so without being
positively discourteous, and often she came very near the edge of
discourtesy. I never saw her even appear to make an effort to overcome
it, and it is perfectly true that a prenatal impression like that can
be overcome as entirely, as can a personally acquired impression,
although it may take a longer time and a more persistent effort.

This anti-milk-and-cream lady was at work every day over-emphasizing
her milk-and-cream contractions; whereas if she had put the same force
into dropping the milk-and-cream contraction she would have been using
her will to great advantage, and would have helped herself in many
other ways as well as in gaining the ability to take normally a very
healthful food. We cannot hold one contraction without having its
influence draw us into many others. We cannot give our attention to
dropping one contraction without having the influence of that one
effort expand us in many other ways. Watch people when they refuse food
that is passed them at table; you can see whether they refuse and at
the same time contract against the food, or whether they refuse with no
contraction at all. I have seen an expression of mild loathing on some
women's faces when food was passed which "did not agree with them," but
they were quite unconscious that their expressions had betrayed them.

Now, it is another fact that the contraction of the stomach at one form
of food will interfere with the good digestion of another form. When
cauliflower has been passed to us and we contract against it how can we
expect our stomachs to recover from that contraction in time to digest
perfectly the next vegetable which is passed and which we may like very
much? It may be said that we expand to the vegetable we like, and that
immediately counteracts the former contraction to the vegetable which
we do not