personality the hypnotist chooses to impress upon it; and the
unavoidable inference is that its realization of personality proceeds from
its association with the particular objective mind of its own
individuality. Whatever personality the objective mind impresses upon it,
that personality it assumes and acts up to; and since it is the builder of
the body it will build up a body in correspondence with the personality
thus impressed upon it. These two laws of the subjective mind form the
foundation of the axiom that our body represents the aggregate of our
beliefs. If our fixed belief is that the body is subject to all sorts of
influences beyond our control, and that this, that, or the other symptom
shows that such an uncontrollable influence is at work upon us, then this
belief is impressed upon the subjective mind, which by the law of its
nature accepts it without question and proceeds to fashion bodily
conditions in accordance with this belief. Again, if our fixed belief is
that certain material remedies are the only means of cure, then we find in
this belief the foundation of all medicine. There is nothing unsound in the
theory of medicine; it is the strictly logical correspondence with the
measure of knowledge which those who rely on it are as yet able to
assimilate, and it acts accurately in accordance with their belief that in
a large number of cases medicine will do good, but also in many instances
it fails. Therefore, for those who have not yet reached a more interior
perception of the law of Nature, the healing agency of medicine is a most
valuable aid to the alleviation of physical maladies. The error to be
combated is not the belief that, in its own way, medicine is capable of
doing good, but the belief that there is no higher or better way.

Then, on the same principle, if we realize that the subjective mind is the
builder of the body, and that the body is subject to no influences except
those which reach it through the subjective mind, then what we have to do
is to impress _this_ upon the subjective mind and habitually think of it as
a fountain of perpetual Life, which is continually renovating the body by
building in strong and healthy material, in the most complete independence
of any influences of any sort, save those of our own desire impressed upon
our own subjective mind by our own thought. When once we fully grasp these
considerations we shall see that it is just as easy to externalize healthy
condition