ight of blood, or why most
of us turn giddy when we look down from a great height?

If we turn to the sufferers from neurosis we find some who have lost
their powers of speech or of vision; some, like the blacksmith we saw
in Coue's clinic, who have lost the use of their limbs; others
suffering from a functional disturbance of one of the vital organs.
The cause in each case is nothing more tangible than an idea which has
become realised in the Unconscious mind.

These instances show clearly enough that the thoughts we think do
actually become realities in the Unconscious. But is this a universal
law, operating in every life, or merely something contingent and
occasional? Sometimes irrelevant cheerfulness seems only to make
despondency more deep. Certain types of individual are only irritated
by the performance of a stage comedy. Physicians listen to the
circumstantial accounts of their patients' ailments without being in
the least upset. These facts seem at first sight at variance with the
rule. But they are only apparent exceptions which serve to test and
verify it. The physical or mental effect invariably corresponds with
the idea present in the mind, but this need not be identical with the
thought communicated from without. Sometimes a judgment interposes
itself, or it may be that the idea calls up an associated idea which
possesses greater vitality and therefore dislodges it. A gloomy person
who meets a cheerful acquaintance may mentally contrast himself with
the latter, setting his own troubles beside the other's good fortune,
his own grounds for sadness beside the other's grounds for
satisfaction. Thus the idea of his own unhappiness is strengthened and
sinking into the Unconscious makes still deeper the despondency he
experienced before. In the same way the doctor, listening to the
symptoms of a patient, does not allow these distressful ideas to dwell
in his conscious mind. His thought passes on immediately to the
remedy, to the idea of the help he must give. Not only does he
manifest this helpfulness in reasoned action, but also, by Unconscious
realisation, in his very bearing and manner. Or his mind may be
concentrated on the scientific bearings of the case, so that he will
involuntarily treat the patient as a specimen on which to pursue his
researches. The steeplejack experiences no giddiness or fear in
scaling a church spire because the thought of danger is immediately
replaced by the knowled