It must be remembered that for the very great majority of cases, if really not for all, the practicer of this process must be of temperate habits, and never attempt after a hearty meal, or drinking freely, to exercise Forethought or Self-Suggestion. Peaceful mental action during sleep requires that there shall be very light labor of digestion, and disturbed or troublesome dreams are utterly incompatible with really successful results. Nor will a single day's temperance suffice. It requires many days to bring the whole frame and constitution into good fit order. Here there can be no evasion, for more than ordinary temperance in food and drink is _absolutely indispensable_.
It is a principle, recognized by all physiologists, that digestion and fixed thought cannot go on together; it is even unadvisable to read while eating. Thus in all the old magical operations, which were, in fact, self-hypnotism, a perfect fast is insisted on with reason. This is all so self-evident that I need not dwell on it. It will be needless for anyone to take up this subject as a trifling pastime, or attempt self-suggestion and development of will with as little earnestness as one would give to a game of cards; for in such a half-way effort time will be lost and nothing come of it. Unless entered on with the most serious resolve to persevere, and make greater effort and more earnestly at every step, it had better be let alone.
All who will persevere with calm determination cannot fail ere long to gain a certain success, and this achieved, the second step is much easier. However, there are many people who after doing all in their power to get to the gold or diamond mines, hasten away even when in the full tide of success, because they are fickle--and it is precisely such people who easily tire who are most easily attracted, be it to mesmerism, hypnotism, or any other wonder. And they are more wearisome and greater foes to true Science than the utterly indifferent or the ignorant.
This work will not have been written in vain should it induce the reader to reflect on what is implied by patient repetition or perseverance, and what an incredible and varied _power_ that man acquires who masters it. He who can lead himself, or others, into a _habit_ can do anything. Even Religion is, in fact, nothing else. "Religion," said the reviewer of "The Evolution of the Idea of God," by GRANT ALLEN, "he defines as Custom or Practice--not theory, not theology, not ethics, not spiritual aspirations, but a certain set of more or less similar observances: propitiation, prayer, praise, offerings, the request for Divine favors, the deprecation of Divine anger, or other misfortunes"--in short, Ritual. That is to say, it is the aggregate of the different parts of religion, of which many take one for the whole. But this aggregation was the result of earnest patience and had good results. And it is by the careful analysis and all-round examination of Ideas that we acquire valuable knowledge, and may learn how very few there are current which are more than very superficially understood--as I have shown in what I have said of the Will, the Imagination, Forethought, and many other faculties which are flippantly used to explain a thousand problems by people who can hardly define the things themselves.