The Invisible Influence
By Alexander Cannon
Chapter VII
Pain and the Imagination
IN the middle of the night, about two of the clock in the early morning, we were all awakened by the groans of our house boy who was apparently in great pain. I went along to see what was the matter, and was immediately followed by the Sage; but the Knight still remained in bed, though awake.
The house boy had developed an acute attack of sciatica and the pain was so great that I found that my ordinary methods of hypnosis were useless, and my supply of morphia was exhausted. So my friend the Sage also tried. By this time the Distinguished Guest had arrived on the scene, and seemed not only somewhat astonished, but a little disappointed that we had, for the time being, failed to relieve the pain.
Then in words that were forceful, slow and penetrating, the Knight Commander commanded the pain to go; and immediately it departed, and the boy fell into a deep sleep and was comforted.
"Don't you realize", said the Austere Personage, "that primitive man annulled pain, after realizing the danger, by merely directing his mind to cease interpreting pain as such? Man [107] has drifted from Nature and in so doing has lost faith in himself and in his own powers.
"There is not only physical pain but mental pain called anguish; the pain of the Soul itself. How great are its torments, all originating from a single idea!
"Nature never alters her laws which are pitiless as they are good. Beware therefore if you are given to constant, uncontrollable fits of passion and anger, lest a sure inevitable destruction suddenly come upon you. In a lesser degree the irritable man or woman is a miserable exhibition of worn-out nerves; a condition created by the want of a little self-control. And all these things are based on telepathy. Oh! Telepathy, thou Great Master of Destiny, whose Invisible Influence is felt everywhere!
"Small minds and weak characters exhibit this nervous condition or lack of control. The intellectual find relief from worry by thinking of others more than of themselves, and in pursuits that create unquenchable interest in the real things of life and of the Soul.
"It may appear unbelievable, although it is a scientific fact, that pain, as we know it, is a part of the imagination; although sufficient to cause death if prolonged. Therefore we must concede that pain is a vibration created purely by suggestion, which is construed or interpreted by the mind as pain. It must be realized that thoughts, pain, movement and life itself are really different rates of vibration in the ether.
For instance, in normal pain caused by an injury, which in reality is a vibration caused by too much or too little blood in a nerve, as is often the cause of sciatica; or else some pressure or injury to the nerve sheath; the instant an injury takes place from whatever cause, or a serious change of condition of cell life from too much of one ingredient or the reverse, there will be a vibration accordingly sent to the mind, which is sent back again with the mind's interpretation of pain; then pain in name becomes pain in reality to the imagination, caused either by an idea of such; or sensed by vibrations as stated. When we fully discern the meaning of pain, so called, we must ascribe to it a blessing; for without pain man would have destroyed himself long ago, by taking fire materially in his hands, or cutting himself with sharp instruments, in a thousand different ways, and in injuring himself internally with scalding liquids.
"Pain is also useful in the correction of children and animals; and in disease it is of inestimable benefit, as it localizes the internal disorder or disease which would not be diagnosed unless pain was the indicator; so that we must accord to pain a wise intuition of the mind, beneficial in a thousand and more ways."
As the clock struck the hour of four in the morning, we again retired, our minds filled with new thoughts based on ideas which have been formulated in former days, of truths which are as old as the hills.
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