You ultimately become what you confess
- Anonymous
The concept of audible autosuggestion is in line with the focus of this book: bringing out the most in you, mentally and materially, until you become the best you can be.
The concept of autosuggestion
Autosuggestion is a ‘combination’ of two words: ‘auto’, which means self and ‘suggestion’, which implies a thought or an expression. Autosuggestion thereby means a thought or expression which is from inside a person, as opposed to that which he receives from outside.
Specifically, the principle of autosuggestion simply means that an individual uses his own thoughts or spoken words to stimulate and bring about those conditions and circumstances he desires in life. This is a principle that has been used for ages by men with discerning minds.
Particularly, King David and the Lord Jesus Christ employed this principle extensively in the course of their earthly lives.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” David was quoted as saying. And the Lord Jesus Christ several times exhorted his followers to note that you end up getting what you confess in faith. These are examples of the principle of autosuggestion.
This principle corroborates or is a corollary to the art of developing the right mental attitude and thoughts, since you cannot declare what you have not thought first. So to declare the positive in words, you must first think the positive.
According to Sidney Newton Bremer, reflecting the thoughts of Herman Randall, “We can create the thought, we can produce the impression, we can lodge in the subconscious mind the suggestion that will work out within ourselves, physical health, material wealth, mental power and moral strength.”
These thoughts are given the most effective expression through our spoken words. Thus both the mental thought and the consequently spoken word form part of autosuggestion.
Of audible autosuggestion
As an extension of the concept of autosuggestion, we can actually speak the words to ourselves in what is referred to as audible autosuggestion; we can keep reaffirming what we desire to our own loud hearing in our moments of devotion and meditation until the subconscious mind catches the message and influences conscious actions and efforts on a continuous basis.
According to Randall, “Few people realise the tremendous creative power in stout self-assertion; in the vigorous affirmation of the ego, the ‘I’, the ‘I am’. But those who have once properly put it in practice never again doubt its efficacy.”
Audible autosuggestion, which is merely a continuation or extension of the affirmation principle, is one of the greatest aids to self-development. The very act of talking to oneself vigorously and earnestly seems to arouse the sleeping forces in the subconscious self even more effectually than just thinking the same thing.
There is indeed a force in words spoken aloud to oneself. They send a strong message to the subconscious, which in itself cannot ‘see’ the surface circumstances, which the conscious can, but only receives instructions from the conscious realm, as is given by thoughts and the spoken word.
Randall likens the subconscious to brave men down in the hold of a warship, who keep the engines going, but who have no eyes or ears for what is going on above. It is therefore for the conscious self to send messages to the brave ‘men’ below who take the action necessary to keep the system in good working order. One of such powerful means of doing this is through audible autosuggestion.
