Section 4 - Part A:

 Releasing the Prisoners of the Subjective Mind 

Have you ever felt a strong and persistent desire to do something that you considered immoral or indiscreet? Did you consider that desire immoral or antisocial? 

Are you now in a situation in which you would prefer not to be, and being in that situation have you sacrificed something dear to you? 

Have you ever done anything that you were very much ashamed to do? Or have you ever engaged in any line of conduct which put you in constant or frequently recurring fear? 

Has any one of your natural desires, appetites or passions ever become so strong that you felt you ought to repress it? And have you succeeded in doing so? Or have you ever for a while freely indulged such a natural desire, appetite or passion, and then suddenly stopped? 

I do not want you to give me your answers to these questions. I am asking them merely to set you thinking, and to turn your attention towards your mental prison. 

If you answer "Yes" to any one of these questions, then you are harbouring at least one mental prisoner. The chances are that you are harbouring several. The presence of some of these prisoners may have no other effect upon you than to determine your disposition and colour your general taste and outlook on life. The presence of others may seriously damage your mental or bodily health or both. The most seriously troublesome mental prisoners are those that are related in general to the love-life of the individual and to the passions and desires associated with the love-life. Because Psycho-analysis has discovered and proclaimed this important fact, some prudish people have said that it deals too much with "sex". But by a straightforward and common-sense method of dealing with this problem, it has saved many men and women from suicide and mental illness, and has released many others from physical ailments that otherwise would have permanently destroyed their comfort and usefulness and dragged them down to a premature death. 

The favourite methods by which subjective prisoners make their presence known are the following symptoms: nervous disturbances, constant feeling of impending evil, chronic anxiety, outbursts of hysteria, local paralysis, loss of sexual faculty or desire, delusions, insomnia, disturbance of the heart action, suicidal depression, restlessness impairing efficiency, inability to concentrate, irritability, sensitivity to noise, nightmares, unsociability, a feeling of being talked about, constant doubt, chronic indecision, obsessive thoughts, compulsive actions, chronic constipation, indefinite and shooting pains, headache, backache, stomach ulcer, loss of appetite, asthma and a long line of mental and mixed mental and physical disturbances grouped under the names "neurosis", "psychosis" and "psycho-neurosis". 

Mental Repressions 

Obviously, some of these symptoms may arise from physical causes, but when they fail to respond to medical treatment, there is excellent reason to suspect that they are based upon repression in the mental realm, and the passions and desires related to the love-life of the individual are most strongly to be suspected. 

If the afflicted individual can be led to discover the repression, the very fact of that discovery releases it and abates the symptoms; for it is not the passion, desire or tendency that does the mischief, but its repression. When it is remembered it is no longer repressed, for "repression" means putting it down so deeply in the Subjective Mind that it is forgotten. I will describe just one form of repression which will illustrate all the principles, involved in any repression manifesting mental or physical symptoms, and it is a form of repression not involving any element of "sex". 

During the first World War, the term "shell-shock" started to be used. Many soldiers were disabled mentally or physically or both by this peculiar illness. For a long time "shell-shock" defied diagnosis, and stubbornly refused to respond to medical treatment. 

At first it was thought that "shell-shock" was caused by being too close to the bursting of high-explosive shells hence its name. For a long-time doctors in charge of "shell-shock" cases proceeded to base their treatments on that theory. Now, however, doctors realise that "shell- shock" is purely a mental illness and cure it by purely mental means. 

The Tragic Story of Jimmy Blank 

Here is the story of a typical "shell-shock" case.

Jimmy Blank was a brave and loyal soldier. He had served as an infantryman throughout the world. Near the close of World War II his command was ordered to advance, as they had done on numerous occasions. This time, however, they were subjected to unusually heavy fire. Jimmy saw his friends and comrades falling thick and fast around him. Although brave and loyal, he was suddenly seized with an almost irresistible urge to run back to safety to run back to safety the "first Law of Nature" temporarily asserted itself. 

This impulse to run away was so powerful that it was like a strong physical force pulling him back. It lasted only a moment.

Jimmy was shocked and filled with shame and humiliation because of his "cowardice" - the "yellow streak" in his character. Shaking himself free from the impulse to run, he pulled himself together and advanced. 

Jimmy repressed a violent primal instinct the instinct of self- preservation in the face of appalling danger. For a moment this violent impulse to run was held by him in isolation, and then he repressed it so violently that it broke through his Subjective Mind and embedded itself in his Subconscious. 

He failed to answer at the next roll-call. Some of his friends found him wandering aimlessly about. He was totally blind, and had lost his mental faculties. Jimmy was sent to hospital. He was "shell-shocked". 

What really happened to Jimmy? His desire to get to a place of safety had for a moment been held fixedly, and so had reached his Subconscious Mind. The desire became bound to realise itself. His further advance into danger was in violent opposition to a desire that had become subconscious, and set into violent operation the Law of Reversed Effort. His Subconscious Mind struck him blind and laid an inhibition on the normal functions of his reason, so he was made unfit for further service, and his desire for a place of safety was realised. 

Jimmy Blank was cured, as were others like him, by the simple process of putting them into a profound hypnotic sleep, having them re- live their experiences and telling them that the war was over and the danger past. Others who could not so readily be hypnotised were cured by psycho-analytical methods. But proficient psycho-analysts are all too few, and many of these brave and loyal soldiers were the pitiful victims of their triumph over a powerful primal instinct which caused many others not so brave to fake wounds and to creep into shell-holes and other places of more or less security. 

Shell-shock is a marked result of violent repression; but, even so, the methods and mechanisms by which it is affected are the same methods and mechanisms by which all shades of harmful results are affected by repression. The difference between the causes producing it and the causes producing milder forms of repression symptoms is merely a difference of degree, and not of kind.

The Results of Repression 

Some people have, from one cause or another, entirely repressed their normal sexual nature, so that they no longer have either the desire or the capacity for sexual relationships. Such people are almost invariably afflicted with some form of mental or physical ailment as a result of this repression. Not infrequently their dreams are shockingly erotic - that is to say, the repressed passion plays at make-believe in the Subjective Mind during sleep. 

The principal business of Psycho-analysis is releasing the prisoners of the Subjective Mind. But, while Psycho-analysis is merely one branch of the general science of Psychology, it involves many intricate details, and any understanding of its practical methods demands long and tedious. study that could not be undertaken in this Course of work. I have merely noted the general principles involved in it, so that I may prescribe a simpler and more practical method which you can use to relieve yourself of any possible evil effects of repression. 

If you show any symptoms indicating repression, I suggest that you first consult a doctor to make sure that the cause of your symptoms is not physical. If the usual medical treatment fails to cure you, then try self-analysis. 

Self-Analysis 

In attempting such self-analysis you should first devote a few minutes of your spare time every day for a few days to a line of thought something like this: "There has never been any passion, desire, longing or tendency shown or felt by me that was not a part of my very self; and however I might have felt at that time about such passion, desire, longing or tendency, I now realise that it was good, and that if I had frankly acknowledged it to myself, and had educated, controlled and directed it, it would have become a powerful factor in the achievement of happiness. If I have ever repressed anything that was a part of my very self, I am sorry for having done so, and from now on I will frankly acknowledge myself to myself, and seek to make that self and all its parts the foundation on which to build my future health and happiness. If there is within my Subjective Mind any passion, desire, longing or tendency that I have tried to banish, I now call it back in order that I may come to terms with it, educate it, direct it, and make it my helpmate in my work of self-liberation." 

This final summons will soon begin to knock at the door of your subjective prison. After following this line of thought for a few quiet minutes each day for several days, change your method of thought to one of "free association of ideas". Fix your mind first upon your particular symptoms of repression, and mentally go back to the very first time they occurred that you can remember. Then ask yourself: "What do I think of next?" When the next thought comes, write it down, and then again ask yourself: "What do I think of next?" And again, put the thought down in writing, and so forth until you tire of the process. You should then read all you have written. 

Repeat the exercise the next day, and on subsequent days, until the memory of some long-forgotten event or experience of your past life swoops down upon you with such force that it makes you blush with shame, or moves you to tears. At this point the self-analysis should be temporarily halted, and a sincere and prolonged effort made to become reconciled to the disturbing thought or memory. You should hold it in your mind, go over all its ugly details again and again, cry over it, get angry about it, or entertain any other state of feeling concerning it that may come into your mind. 

Whatever else you may do, however, you should not mentally run away from it. By this process of close association with the unpleasant thought or memory you will soon discover that it is not nearly so bad as it seemed at first, and will eventually reach the point where you can treat it lightly or even laugh at it. You will then release the "prisoner" whose confinement is causing your trouble, and if you keep going back to it, and blushing over it, or crying about it, or shuddering over the very thought of it, your troublesome symptoms will disappear. 

This little exercise, which is a simple application of one of the methods of Psycho-analysis, approaches the problem of repression from the Objective and Subjective Minds. You ought at the same time to approach it from the Subconscious Mind. For instance, you may use the clock-method at night, beginning with a repetition of the general assertion: "I remember all the things that have been repressed". When you become drowsy let the ticking of the clock say to you: "I remember - I remember" - and so on until you fall asleep. Or, if you go into mental blankness by looking steadily at a small, bright object, do so with the general idea that after your mind has become blank you will remember the things repressed. 

I think you will find these simple methods to be sufficient; but if you have difficulty, or fail to get results, I would advise you to persevere until the difficulty is resolved or results are obtained.

Sublimation of Desires 

This Lesson deals with a difficult subject. In the practical handling of many of the cases that fall within its scope, one often finds things that are unpleasant, particularly to sensitive people. Yet it has one redeeming quality, apart from its usefulness in relieving human suffering, and no presentation of the subject would be complete without some kind of reference to that quality. 

The so-called "baser" passions are sometimes repressed and then changed into something higher. Psycho-analysis calls this process "sublimation". Sex is more often sublimated than any other, and I will quote from history an example which shows the mental mechanism of repression and the results of sublimation. 

Leonardo da Vinci was an illegitimate child. His father, who later married, but not da Vinci's mother, took the illegitimate son into his home to be reared when his marriage proved to be childless. Leonardo was, of course, from time to time subjected to taunts and jeers from his playmates on account of his social status, and was therefore made to feel that he was under the weight of some terrible handicap. When his own sexual nature began to assert itself, he realised that his unfortunate status was the result of an illicit indulgence by his father and mother of the same passion that was now showing itself in him. And so he began to despise himself, hating the passion that had made him what he was. This revulsion of feeling repressed his sexuality, but he happened to be of such a mental mould that he switched the repressed creative force into the realm of art and learning, and became the greatest genius the world has ever known. He was a great painter, a great sculptor, a great soldier, a great civil engineer, and a brilliant scientist. Modern scientists are only now beginning to understand his recorded announcements of many of the discoveries which he made.

Such transmutation of a repressed passion, desire or tendency is the exception, rather than the rule; but in a number of cases in which Psycho-analysis has been able to bring the intimate early history of a notable genius to light, it has found repression and sublimation. When one's sexual nature is repressed but not sublimated, it often proves to be the individual's mental or physical undoing-sometimes both. 

It is not generally considered that the process of repression and sublimation is subject to control by the will of the individual concerned. Therefore, you are not advised voluntarily to forego the satisfaction of a normal sex life in the hope that you will be rewarded by becoming a genius. In fact, as will be seen from Lesson Five, an ideal sexual relationship is an indispensable requirement for the happiness of the average person. 

The Origin of Genius 

The repression and sublimation of one of the primal passions, springing from the accidents of environment, gives only a partial explanation of the origin of genius in some cases. For a complete

explanation of the matter we must take account of another factor, the nature of which will be described in Lesson Nine in discussing the storehouse of memory. For the time being, however, we leave the matter in abeyance in order to continue our work of improving your health and teaching you how to improve the health of others.