Bodily Effects of Mental States
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Impellent Energy of Thought
Note this general law: The idea of any bodily action tends to produce the action.
This conception of thought as impellent—that is to say, as impelling bodily activity—is of absolutely fundamental importance. The following simple experiments will illustrate its working.
Ask a number of persons to think successively of the letters “B,” “O,” and “Q.” They are not to pronounce the letters, but simply to think hard about the sound of each letter.
Bodily effects of Mental States
Now, as they think of these letters, one after the other, watch closely and you will see their lips move in readiness to pronounce them. There may be some whose lip-movements you will be unable to detect. If so, it will be because your eye is not quick enough or keen enough to follow them in every case.
Have a friend blindfold you and then stand behind you with his hands on your shoulders. While in this position ask him to concentrate his mind upon some object in another part of the house. Yield yourself to the slightest pressure of his hands or arms and you will soon come to the object of which he has been thinking. If he is unfamiliar with the impelling energy of thought, he will charge the result to mind-reading.
Illustrative Experiments
The same law is illustrated by a familiar catch. Ask a friend to define the word “spiral.” He will find it difficult to express the meaning in words. And nine persons out of ten while groping for appropriate words will unconsciously describe a spiral in the air with the forefinger.
Swing a locket in front of you, holding the end of the chain with both hands. You will soon see that it will swing in harmony with your thoughts. If you think of a circle, it will swing around in a circle. If you think of the movement of a pendulum, the locket will swing back and forth.
These experiments not only illustrate the impelling energy of thought and its power to induce bodily action, but they indicate also that the bodily effects of mental action are not limited to bodily movements that are conscious and voluntary.
By: Warren Hilton
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