it and believe it. That simple affirmation effected many
remarkable cures and it will cure a lot of people today.
Since more than half of today's illnesses are
psychosQmatic (which, as you know, means bodily dis-
orders induced by mental or emotional disturbances) it is
clear that Emile Com~ used one of various methods of treat-
ing the source of more than half of all illnesses and, in
addition, provided a favorable mental and emotional atti-
tude toward physically-caused diseases as well.
The use of the conscious mind to implant bene-
ficial suggestions in the subconscious mind is an accepted
form of therapy. It will be dealt with in other chapters
of this book, but it is not the subject of this chapter.
Here we are to consider the insistence of Emile
Coue on using the most general possible affirmation, "Every
day in every way I'm getting better and better." Note how
general and broad the terms of that affirmation are.
This wasn't because Coue was trying to reduce
the therapy of affirmation to its simplest form. Nor was he
seeking an all-purpose cure. He insisted on the use of
broad, general, indefinite terms because he was afraid to
be definite and name the specific ailments or diseases in
the affirmations he had his patients implant in their sub-
conscious minds.
For example, Coue would not permit his pa-
tients to use a specific affirmation such as, "Every day in
every way my sore back is getting better and better." He
was afraid that implanting an affirmation in the patient's
subconscious mind specifying "sore back» would focus the
subconscious on the ailment itself and thus aggravate it or,