Page:Hatha yoga - or the yogi philosophy of physical well-being, with numberous excercises.djvu/246

246 destroys the appetite, and the consequence is that the body does not receive the proper nourishment, and the blood becomes impoverished. On the other hand, cheerful, optimistic thought promotes the digestion, increases the appetite, helps the circulation, and, in fact, acts as a general tonic upon the system.

Many persons suppose that this idea of the affect of the mind upon the body is but the idle theory of occultists, and persons interested along the line of mental therapeutics, but one has but to go to the records of scientific investigators to realize that this theory is based upon well established facts. Experiments have been tried, many times, tending to prove that the body is most receptive to the mental attitude or belief, and persons have been made sick, and others cured by simple auto-suggestion or the suggestion of others, which in effect are but strong mental attitudes.

The saliva is rendered a poison under the influence of anger; mother's milk becomes poisonous to the babe if the mother manifests excessive anger or fear. The gastric juice ceases to flow freely if the person becomes depressed or fearful. A thousand instances of this kind could be given.

Do you doubt the fact that disease may be primarily caused by negative thinking? Then listen to the testimony of a few authorities of the Western world.

"Any severe anger or grief is almost certain to be succeeded by fever in certain parts of Africa."—Sir Samuel Baker, in the "British and Foreign Medico Chirurgical Review."