Mental And Physical Action and Reaction

MENTAL AND PHYSICAL ACTION
AND REACTION

MIND INFLUENCES FUNCTION AND FUNCTION INFLUENCES MIND:
A CASE OF INSANITY:
SICK GENIUSES:
THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND:
THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS

Yet we must not neglect to mark and to ponder the other side of the question, for, as has been said, as mind influences function, so function influences mind. As an example, it is admitted that arterial strain, an undue pressure upon the walls of the arteries commonly known as high blood pressure, tends to produce a fatty degeneration of their inner coat, and thus gives rise to arterial tumors and to cerebral hemorrhage, which sometimes causes paralysis, apoplexy, and softening of the brain. Now it is certain that such tension may result from continued anxiety, and that it is the cause of many cases of angina pectoris or neuralgia of the heart, effecting those cardiac changes to which some of the forms of angina are due.

It is also well established that mental disturbance gives rise to dyspepsia, and observation and experiment show that anger and other emotions arrest the secretion of gastric juice, and that probably the peristaltic action of both stomach and intestines is likewise affected. In this connection the extreme constipation of melancholia is to be noted. Simple jaundice is often the result of sudden emotion, and it is sometimes followed by acute yellow atrophy, a wasting of the liver with yellow pigmentation. In the latter form of jaundice there is always disorganization of the cells of the liver.

A man who works with his brain after a sleepless night or when he is in the clutches of some discomforting indisposition at times does not see how he can possibly accomplish his day's stint. He attempts it, however, and is often surprised to find that he works more rapidly and with more acuity than when in normal state. This occurs because, feeling the necessity, he brings his will into play and concentrates with greater determination than usual upon what is before him. So our attention is often called to the fact, and it is a fact, that a very large percentage of the world's best work has been done by men who were not in health most of the time that they were about it. But does this offer an argument in favor of the possession of a defective unhealthy body? These very men, though we hail them as geniuses, were and are universally under the control of an impressible and capricious nervous temperament, always a handicap upon thorough and efficient accomplishment. And it is interesting to speculate upon the kind and the amount of labor with which the genius in ill health might have enriched the world had he been the possessor of a physically normal body. Would this work have been of a quality surpassing that which was produced by forced concentration; or would the physical ease of health have removed the spur of accomplishment?

We cannot, if we would not eventually fall short of our desired achievements, afford to discriminate in favor of either mind or body. The development of each is equally essential to the greatest and best results from the other. Hence, given a body free from any organic trouble, the successful enjoyment and prolongation of life is as much dependent upon intellectual development as upon physical, and vice versa.

It is thus apparent that the work that the brain can perform is in highest degree proportional to and dependent upon the physical condition of its body. To repeat, a functionally perfect brain is the product only of a physically perfect body. And it is to be emphasized that the brain is not a producer of energy, nor of vitality, nor of the mental processes. It acts but as a medium of reception and transmission, and it in itself no more thinks than do the words that express a thought. Mind, as received from the creative source, is perfect; its expression is affected by the functional ability or inability of its human instrument.

The mysterious forces, energy and vitality, which are seen manifested in the life of the body, exist outside of and independent of the human vehicle. A healthy organism is one that is in position to liberate these principles in the form of power, mental and physical, as it is needed in the activities.

Human beings possess what are known as the conscious and subconscious minds. The conscious mind controls those acts which are subject to the will and those thoughts which are produced by brain effort in conscious moments. The subconscious mind covers that which occurs without conscious perception. The conscious mind could not possibly send messages to the numerous glands that fit the body for action, nor attend to all the delicate adjustments that enter into the process. The conscious mind in most of us does not even know of the existence of the organs and secretions involved. But there is a something in mentality that is without conscious perception, and that takes advantage of all of the past, gauging means to an end with perfect nicety.

All processes of healing are subconscious. Even pain and the distressing symptoms of sickness are to be regarded as benevolent warnings that sharply remind us of our condition, and that compel the repose which we require, or that deter us from admitting into the system substances which are injurious. They not only point to the existence of a mind that is subconscious, but they indicate how great a part that mind plays in the curing of every form of disease. Anything that weakens or depresses the subconscious mind exposes us to disease by making us less able to resist its encroachments. And, on the other hand, we possess such allies and resources within ourselves that the chief function of the physician should be to awaken in his patients the will to live, and to employ every element of resistance which the system itself affords.

If humanity since its creation had constantly been caring for its individual bodies, no condition of disease could make its appearance suddenly. There could be no physical collapse, for cancers, tumors, Bright's disease, diabetes, etc., all require time to develop, and in a body that is both mentally and physically conscious, their beginnings cannot help but be observed, understood, and remedied. For he who is in the habit of caring properly for his body, who understands and obeys natural physical law, cannot for one day neglect his course of action, because, subconsciously if not consciously, he is subjected to irritation and discomfort. To illustrate, he who is used to pure air cannot endure a vitiated atmosphere, and he who bathes his body daily, in case of omission, finds his skin figuratively talking to him because of its neglect.

A diseased body is the product of a process development that began with its birth, for every symptom in its finality is cumulative. The colds and fevers of infancy and adolescence, the causes of which are imperfectly eliminated, leave their residue to accumulate until the eventual crisis occurs. And, as in the physical so in the mental realm, disease of the mind, and in it we include crime as well as insanity, are symptoms of unbalance, often produced because of physical reaction. Crime begins in small acts, develops like a cancer, and in reality it is to be regarded as a cancer of the conscious mind, and hence should be treated as is disease. Instead, society punishes the discovered victim. Insanity is but another form of unbalance that in many instances arises from functional physical disturbance, yet it, too, is handled as is crime, its sufferers being subjected to police authority in ways that are reminders of the dark ages.

And since brain troubles in great part arise from functional physical derangement, their alleviation and cure is to be sought in systemic bodily purification. The text fully covers the manner in which the latter process may best be accomplished, in fact the only way in which it can be done. And, could the fast and its hygienic accessories be introduced and scientifically administered in all asylums, insane as well as criminal, of the land, numbers of their inmates would be restored both in mind and in body. And further, in those in whom mental incapacity is due to organic structural defects that hamper normal function, the form and degree of the latter would at once be revealed, and the knowledge thus gained would determine to what extent treatment should be carried. And it is probable that among even these severely afflicted sufferers there might be many who could be brought to mental responsibility. Apart from its therapeutic worth, a trial of the method in public institutions offers two other points of merit, viz., it would ameliorate much of the suffering now undergone by stimulated unruly patients who need restraint, and it would lower by many thousands of dollars the expense of caring for these wards of the state. But, if not for the sake of those who pay taxes, at least for the salvation of those detained in asylums for the insane and criminal, the method is entitled to a thorough investigation and trial at the hands of government.

To many minds the thought that human life is in any way connected with or dependent upon ordinary natural agencies carries with it denial of faith in the divine. Reasoning thus, these intellects segregate in toto spirituality from materiality, refusing to recognize their manifest interdependence. A calm retrospect of the history of the Christ causes one to know that Jesus, apart from his spiritual endowment, was a man in the flesh and of the flesh; that he was subject to the laws of the body, to its necessities and to its temptations. It is written, "Jesus was led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered."

The application of this fragment of sacred history to the subject matter of the text may not be obvious, but brief explanation will serve to show that the related incident is distinctly pertinent. Fasting the body for the sake of health was understood and followed by the older civilizations; and fasting for the attainment of that higher mentality which borders upon spirituality is still employed by the members of that system of philosophy known as Yoga, in which meditation upon the supreme spirit is inculcated as the way to final beatitude. That the Christ acquainted with and was learned in these practices is fully substantiated by the evident purpose and scientific completion of a period of forty days and nights of abstinence from food. Jesus never overturned natural law; he worked with it always, and his statement concerning prayer and fasting in disease is easy of analysis. "More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of." And fasting, physical in application, conduces to the highest degree of mental clarity. The body, purified of its dross, approaches more nearly the spiritual vehicle it is intended to be. Successfully conducted to the point of the return of hunger, the body and its brain are enhanced in substance and in function. In this condition difficulties are solved, decisions are made, and conclusions are reached with marvelous clearness and despatch.

The Gospel relates that Jesus was led up into the wilderness for the purpose of being tempted--a test through which mere man passes daily, and ofttimes daily fails to meet. But Jesus, before temptation assailed, fasted for the approximate time needful for physiological purification of the adult body, and the fast concluded, we are specifically told, with its physiologically correct symptom, the return of hunger. We do not err, we think, in attributing to the Christ in the flesh the experiences of the flesh. Why else should he have been subjected to temptation? And physically there must have been need for regeneration, for the incident occurred just before the beginning of his active ministry, when all of his power of endurance was to be called forth, and mental acuity more than normal was to be commanded at every future moment of his physical life. And in addition the divine plan embodied further proof of its all-embracing wisdom in that it held up to the world divinity clothed in a material body, endowed with physical attributes, and subjected to the test of physical desire--a test that could perfectly be withstood only by a mind functioning in a body physiologically pure.

The Christ invariably worked through the material, the physical, to the mental and spiritual. And perfect spirituality in man requires its vehicle, the material body, to be physically excellent. Purity of body, purity of mind, purity of heart--these alone may commune with the divine.

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