as it were, only a professor teaching him to use this
instrument, and that he must help you in your task. Thus, every
morning before rising, and every night on getting into bed, he must
shut his eyes and in thought transport himself into your presence,
and then repeat twenty times consecutively in a monotonous voice,
counting by means of a string with twenty knots in it, this little
phrase:

"EVERY DAY, IN EVERY RESPECT, I AM GETTING BETTER
AND BETTER." In his mind he should emphasize the words "_in
every respect_" which applies to every need, mental or physical.
This general suggestion is more efficacious than special ones.

Thus it is easy to realize the part played by the giver of the
suggestions. He is not a master who gives orders, but a friend, a
guide, who leads the patient step by step on the road to health. As all
the suggestions are given in the interest of the patient, the
unconscious of the latter asks nothing better than to assimilate them
and transform them into autosuggestions. When this has been done,
the cure is obtained more or less rapidly according to circumstances.

THE SUPERIORITY OF THIS METHOD

This method gives absolutely marvelous results, and it is easy to
understand why. Indeed, by following out my advice, it is
impossible to fail, except with the two classes of persons mentioned
above, who fortunately represent barely 3 per cent of the whole. If,
however, you try to put your subjects to sleep right away, without
the explanations and preliminary experiments necessary to bring
them to accept the suggestions and to transform them into
autosuggestions you cannot and will not succeed except with
peculiarly sensitive subjects, and these are rare. Everybody may
become so by training, but very few are so sufficiently without the
preliminary instruction that I recommend, which can be done in a
few minutes.

Formerly, imagining that suggestions could only be given during
sleep, I always tried to put my patient to sleep; but on discovering
that it was not indispensable, I left off doing it in order to spare him
the dread and uneasiness he almost always experiences when he is
told that he is going to be sent to sleep, and which often makes him
offer, in spite of himself, an involuntary resistance. If, on the
contrary, you tell him that you are not going to put him to sleep as
there is no need to do so, you gain his confidence. He listens to you
without fear or any ulterior thought, and it ofte