Chapter 7

Watch the children; don't let them eat too much salt.

INSOMNIA

It's Caused By High Mental Tension

Sleeping, like breathing and digesting, is controlled by the subconscious brain centers. Natural sleep requires no positive mental impulse; it's just relaxing and nature takes care of the process.

That is natural sleep, but when you start your dry cell battery, the brain, and commence to worry and fear, you are going to stay awake; then the conscious mind dominates the subconscious mind and you banish the very comforter you seek to woo.

Business men who keep up high tension all day on business matters, and high tension all evening in threshing all over again the business of the day, are almost sure to suffer from insomnia.

The continuance of the day and night habit of thinking of business brings on the insomnia habit and that starts the auto suggestion that you are fighting for your natural sleep. This produces worry, the demon that kills and maims.

To have an occasional wakeful night is natural; it is an evidence of intelligence: the mental dullard never has wakeful nights.

Unless the fear of sleeplessness becomes a full grown phobia no anxiety need be felt. The fear of insomnia, the over anxiety to go to sleep, is to be more dreaded than insomnia itself.

To get refreshing sleep you must get physical tiredness. Take exercise. Walk in one direction until the first symptoms of becoming tired appears, then walk home. Take a hot bath, then sponge with cold or cool water. Put a cold cloth at the head, rub the backbone with cold water.

Open your windows wide, then relax. Don't worry; you are going to sleep.

Lie on your back, open your eyes wide, look up as if you were trying to see your eyebrows, hold your eyes open this way ten to twenty seconds, then close them slowly. Repeat this several times. Soon the sandman will come.

Concentrate your mind on auto suggestion like this: "I am going to sleep--sound heavy, restful, peaceful sleep. My eyelids are getting heavy--heavy. I am going to close them and go to sleep."

Don't try counting imaginary sheep jumping over fence rails. Don't count numbers. It is a bad habit.

If these suggestions do not help you the first night say, "All right, my brain was too active, so then tomorrow I will let down a bit."

Next night eat one or two dry crackers, chew them slowly, masticate them thoroughly until you can swallow easily.

This little food will draw the blood pressure from the brain and help you to go to sleep.

Drive out business and worry thoughts. Think faith and courage thoughts.

MISTAKES

Not the Making But the Repeating, Is Your Danger

To live down the past and erase the errors, live boldly the present.

Do not chastise or condemn yourself for mistakes you have made; you are not alone; everyone has made missteps, has hurt others, has wronged himself.

Everyone has had trouble, reverses and misfortune; it's the plan of things, and these things come to give us experience and correct our future acts by the knowledge of how to avoid errors and wrongs.

Yesterday is dead; forget it. Face about; live today; be busy, be active, be intent on doing right and accomplishing things worth while.

The world's memory is short. A misdeed, an error, a wrongful act on your part may set busy tongues wagging today and you may suffer from calumny and criticism. Of course your errors will be magnified and your wrongs enlarged beyond the truth; that's the penalty you pay.

Lies are always added to truth in telling of one's misdeeds. Be brave; weather the storm, it will soon blow over. Tomorrow the world will forget.

You've suffered in your own conscience; that's all the debt you can pay on the old score.

Now, then, get busy with the glorious opportunity today presents. Don't make the same mistake again. There are no eyes in the back of your head; look forward.

Don't worry by envying the other fellow and comparing his good deeds with your mistakes; you only see his good. He has had troubles and made mistakes too, but you and the world have forgotten them.

If every man's sins were printed on their foreheads the crowds you pass would all wear their hats over their eyes.

I'm trying to comfort you, and slap you on the back and tell you you are just human and all humans make false steps.

The patriarchs in the Bible made mistakes, but they got in the fold. History has perpetuated their names. Their lives on the whole were worth while. It's the sum total of acts that count.

TOMORROW

A Little Analysis of Our Relation to Eternity

One man says the present is everything, the eternity is nothing.

The other man says eternity is everything, present is nothing.

I believe the real truth is, both are man's chief concern, and neither is all truth.

In this matter the general rule I have so often pointed out will harmoniously apply; that rule is, avoid extremes.

Those who believe that the now, the present, is the all important thing in man's life have the fashionable or favorite point of view.

Man definitely knows much about the present, he knows much about life. He is in the midst of life--it pulsates all around him and in him.

We know positively that the law of compensation is inexorable in its demands for right and positive in its punishment of wrong.

We know that on this earth kindness, love, occupation, help, truth, honor and sympathy are investments which bring happiness today. You get your pay instantly when you have done a helpful act and you get your punishment instantly when you have done a hurtful act.

That there is a future most of us agree, because good sense and logic points to that sane and reasonable conclusion.

So be it, with a belief in the future estate, it is reasonable to assume that our acts and lives in the present estate will have influence on our future estate.

We know positively of today, and the happiness we can get from good deeds done today.

If we will have power in the future to look back to today's acts, well and good, if today's acts are worth while.

The other view that eternity is everything and the present is nothing is the antiquated view, the narrow view; the, I might say, illiterate view.

That view warps the present life; it calls for present self-chastisement, present gloom, present sorrow and present misery.

It takes the tangible definite today, calls it nothing, and accepts the intangible unknown eternity as everything.

It trades the definite for the indefinite. It calls life a bubble, a vapor, a shadow. In fact, it makes gloom on today's sunshine and puts its believers into a purgatory; a dismal unhappy punishment antechamber where man exists and waits peeping out of his cell windows for a little imagined view of eternity.

He waits and endures the unpleasant interval, steeled against definite pleasures and evident life of today, and worried into an intoxicated colored belief in the expected happiness of the undefined future.

He refuses to think of definite life of today and spoils the thought of those who do.

He is a blockade to progress, a disagreeable part of life's picture.

He gets no happiness in the today which is in his hands, he loses this opportunity during his definite existence, and lives on future hopes in a future state which no man today knows what it will be.

Both theories as ultimate beliefs are wrong, yet each has some truth in its conclusion.

By taking the words eternity and present and saying both means everything, we avoid extremes and form a truth that is rational, and harmonious to good reason.

The man who says present is all does so because he is an utilitarian. He acts on the definite and refuses to believe in the abstract. Anything that is outside the sphere of his vision and action is of little concern to him.

The man who says eternity is all, wastes opportunity, example and warps himself into a miserable hermit.

Life is irrevocable. Every act in our life is placed, set, and fixed.

Every act goes in the record book of yesterday and it cannot be changed.

Acts that hurt others will rebound and hurt us. Deeds that helped others will rebound and help us. This much is certain.

There is a future, I believe that. There is a God, I believe that.

Just what the future is, and just what God is, I do not know in perfect detail.

Reward for good and punishment for bad, is part of God's plan, and I am conscious of this truth.

I know that justice prevails in this life, and this life is what I am living now.

If I live and act today in what I sincerely believe is in tune with God's purpose, I shall in my future estate benefit by those acts.

If I live and act today, disregarding all around me, selfishly catering to personal purpose, believing that eternity is everything and present is nothing, I am passing definite opportunity to do good now, for a hope of personal reward in an eternity, the which is indefinite as to what it shall be.

I shall therefore strive to do, and to be, right; to be kind, helpful, cheery and smiling now, for the reward such acts bring now.

And I shall doubtless have as good a record and passport to the future as the man who suffers now and lives only upon his selfish hope of the future.

His is fear thought, mine is faith thought, in the all wise, all powerful, all seeing, all right Ruler of the universe, who gave me my life, my brain, my reason, which I am trying to use, as nearly as my limitations will allow, to helping myself and helping others to smile, to be happy, to be serene, to be confident, to be competent, to be useful.

This is as I see it. I wouldn't do what I do, think what I think or act as I act unless I were sincere.

Below all this is charity, which means you have the unquestioned right to do and to be what your best thought and conscience tells you to do and to be.

Nevertheless it is well to reason with one another on the subject of the now and the tomorrow of our existence for it is a universal subject on which all men must make a decision.

SINCERITY

Do Not Accept Sincerity as Proof of Truth

"I believe in him because he is so sincere."

You've heard that, haven't you? I never could understand why a sensible person would use such logic.

Sincerity is no evidence of truth. The Hindu mother is sincere who throws her babe to the crocodiles, but her sincerity is no proof that by this sacrifice she is sure of her salvation.

The Christian Scientist is sincere in the belief that medicines do not cure diseases. The doctor is equally sincere that medicines will cure disease.

The Theosophist is sincere, the Atheist, the Agnostic, the Christian, the Pagan, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist, the Sun-worshipper, the Republican, the Democrat, the Progressive, the Prohibitionist, the Brewer, all these are sincere in their beliefs. And as these beliefs are different, it is common sense to say that no one creed, sect, belief, branch, dogma or system, is all truth.

It is true every channel or avenue we meet in life's travel has some truth, but it is not for you or me to assume that we are the sole possessors of wisdom and the real discoverers of all truth.

We must not take the conclusions we arrive at and expect to force the world to accept without protest our rules for conduct, our methods for living, our practices for morals, or our beliefs, for their guide.

Converts to new doctrines, new issues, new cults and to the old ones, too, are made largely because the ambassadors or proselyters seem so fervid and sincere in expounding what they claim is the definite truth.

The believers in a cult or code of ethics are auto hypnotized, their visions are narrowed.

By focusing their thought on their special belief they bring together sophistry, arguments, examples and so-called proof that gives them facility in arguing the case or expounding their doctrine.

You can make no gain to try to argue with a Christian Scientist. You ask for concrete rules, definite answers and other proofs than their flat statements, and you are told you have not the understanding, that your attitude is not in the right plane, and that the truth cannot be shown you.

You are told to have faith, belief, to eliminate antagonism, and to study "Science and Health" and you will receive the divine spirit and see the light.

The Scientist is sincere; he shows you "Science and Health" with a lot of testimonials in the back to prove that Christian Science cures disease. Every patent medicine, every science, every system of healing has testimonials by the hundreds.

Scientists say there is no disease, no material, that we are only spirit or soul, or thought; that we are not matter but mind. That health is truth and disease is error. They deny disease yet "Science and Health" and the midweek experience meetings have testimonials of disease cured by Christian Science.

There is much truth in Christian Science. People are helped by it, people are sincere in their belief in it, but that Christian Science is all truth, all powerful, all right, all sufficient, cannot be proven.

What about the people who have gone hence before Christian Science was ever heard of?

The theological religion today, the practices and beliefs, differ from the vogue of fifty years ago.

If the Protestant religion be all truth what became of our religious ancestors who died before Martin Luther found the truth?

I have no quarrel with the Christian Scientist, the Protestant, the Roman Catholic, the Buddhist, or the Mohammedan. I must be generous and broad enough to say others have the right to think and be sincere. All sciences have truth, but no science, sect, cult, dogma, or creed is ALL truth.

Sincerity may be satisfaction and necessary for the possessors of that sincerity, but that your sincerity in your belief must be accepted by me as proof that I should believe as you do, is, I believe, the place where I have the undoubted right to say, "I reserve the right to my own conclusions and I am unjust to myself if I force myself to accept your viewpoint without full belief myself that you are right."

So, then, because a person is sincere in a belief that is contrary to your conscientious belief, do not be disturbed or swerved from common sense analysis or convinced against your better judgment.

No one possesses all the truth. It is for you and me to do our plain duty as we see it, to do the best we can each day in act and thought and word.

We can pretty much agree on the simple essential truths which are proven. That is, being honest, truthful, kind, lovable, sympathetic, cheerful, doing good, helping one another and doing things worth while.

If we agree on these things and do useful work and think helpful thoughts, we are doing our duty.

Theories, arguments and studying too deeply on bootless systems, codes, beliefs, cults, isms, or doctrines, is a waste of time.

When we can here and now derive definite benefits from doing the simple and helpful things and acting and thinking the simple practical cheer thoughts, it is not necessary or good for us to waste time on spiritualism or theoretical beliefs that cannot be proved to our own selves satisfactorily.

We are asked to believe these strange, impractical, unnatural beliefs, because of the sincerity of others. It's better to do, and to be the thing we can ourselves measure, understand and sincerely believe.

There are hundreds of strange beliefs and spiritual systems, each claiming to be all powerful, all right. If any one is all truth then all the others are all wrong.

The bigot who assumes he is the sole possessor of truth, the cult, sect, ism, or science that claims to possess all truth, and the exact rules for the world to obey, should be classed with those other misguided men and religions which burned human beings who dared to doubt their right to the possession of all truth.

God never gave his approval to any one man-made religious sect.

God is the universal good power; man often tries to interpret God's idea to his own selfish narrow vision.

PILLS

The Man Who Has a Pill for Every Ill

How often we see the pill fiend. In his vest pocket he has a small apothecary shop, a collection of round paste-board boxes and little bottles.

Every little while he dopes himself. If his stomach is on a strike he pops in a pill. If his head aches he takes a tablet. If he sneezes he takes a cold cure pill.

When anyone around speaks of a pain or ache he hands the person a pill.

The pill eater is a hypochondriac and very likely his doctor knows it. The salvation is that the doctor probably gives him harmless stuff in pill form. The patient doesn't know this and it's like a rabbit's foot or a piece of pork rubbed on a wart; it satisfies the mind and nature makes the cure.

Often, however, the pills are not innocent; the pill fiend buys the tablets and pills direct from the druggist. The headache tablet is most likely one of the coal tar drugs like acetanilid, and that is positively harmful when taken too often.

There are times to take pills, in cases of emergency, when you can shock nature with a poison and bring a wholesome reaction.

These times are rare, and the doctor should be the sole judge as to when they are necessary.

Exercise, diet, correct habits of living will prevent congestion and illness that cause pain.

The pill habit is nothing less than a drug habit, and the drug habit positively weakens the system.

The headache tablet does not cure the headache, it only stops the pain; the evil is still there. The headache is merely nature's signal that something is out of whack.

Headaches are generally caused by the stomach, eye strain, or neuralgia; the latter in turn is caused by too much uric acid in the system.

Eat fruit, drink plenty of water, and that will flush the system and stop stomachic headache.

See the optician if it's eyes. If you have frequent headache in the forehead, very likely it's the eyes, even though you do not suspect it.

If it's neuralgia, get a corrective diet list from the doctor.

I know scores of men and women, too, who take pills enough to kill a person. Their systems have been educated up to it; they are saturated with poison.

And the worst of it is they never get well while taking the pills; it is only a temporary deadening of the pain.

Then there are many who take pills to make them sleep. That's a crime. It's murder in slow degrees for they are surely shortening their lives by this poison dope pill habit.

Mark this: Nature, and Nature alone, effects cures and it's in very, very few instances that a poison pill can be used to advantage.

You can keep well by getting good air, good water, good sunshine, good food, good exercise, good rest, good cheer and good thought. That is what I call my golden prescription, and it will do wonders for you, and every doctor will tell you so.

Pills kill, if you keep up the habit. There are no two ways about it. I say positively and knowingly, that this pill habit is absolutely life shortening.

Don't try to argue; the evidence is unshakable on this point.

If you had seen the derelicts in the hospitals I have seen, if you had seen the wretched bodies, destroyed nerve systems, the drugged, shattered, hopeless patients resulting from the baneful pill habit, you would be as positive as I am in saying pills kill if you keep up the habit.

Life is sweet and precious to us all. Do not shorten it by taking pills and tablets for every ache or pain. Try nature's way. Realize that mental suggestion and will power will drive away most pains or temporary aches.

Brace up, cheer up; chuck the pills in the garbage can.

FAKE MEDICINES

Like Whiskey, the End Is Near

Whiskey must go. It is written on the pages of the records of man's progress. Likewise must the quack doctor and the fake medicine go.

The side-whiskered advertising doctors are nothing short of criminal when they by powerful use of words magnify symptoms and feelings to be grave, serious fore-runners of awful disease, and by fright, bring in the hypochondriac to his spider-web and filch him in a manner no better than a thief uses. The thief is really more honorable, for he steals because he wants your money and makes no bones about it.

The doctor charlatan steals your money under the guise of being your benefactor.

As I have explained in "Pep," illness, feeling out of sorts, local pains and sickness, unless of the contagious or infectious kind, are largely conditions of the mind and of food habits, and surely are accentuated by fear thought.

Because people have off days, and aches and pains, the frock-coated, white lawn tie doctors and pseudo professors work on the minds and imaginations, magnify trifles into troubles, then when the victims lose courage these charlatans rob them under the guise of professional advice and treatment.

Most of the temporary ailments are caused by constipation, wrong diet or lack of exercise. The doctor gives a laxative, nature re-asserts herself, and the patient is cured.

Chronic ailments require long treatments, so as to make long bills and many visits for the quack doctor.

Read "Pep" and fool the doctors. Your health and happiness are things largely in your own control.

When you feel you must have a doctor, go to your family physician and not to a strange doctor who advertises. His advertisement is merely a spiderweb to catch and hold you while he robs you.

It is a hopeful sign of the brighter future to which man is progressing, that the respectable papers will not lend their aid to swindling doctors. The best papers will not carry these doctor or fake medicine ads.

Before long the government will pass laws on this baneful, shameful, quack advertising. Quack doctors, gambling houses, liquor selling, are all swindling methods to get money, and in the getting they are killing men, ruining homes, destroying happiness, holding back progress.

The one object of the quack doctor is to size you up and see what you "are good for." "Good for" means how much money can he get from you and how long can he keep you as a patient to contribute to his coffers.

Let every reader of this book enroll as an opponent to quack doctors and quack medicines, and by word and influence help to hasten the day when such pernicious swindlers are things of the past. You can't get health out of a bottle.

And this is true.

THE CHURCH

It Is Hampered By Too Many Sects

No two minds can see the same picture, nor can two persons with logic, on religion, come to the same definite conclusion.

The old Scripture said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The new Scripture teaches us to "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemies."

Two hundred years ago they burned witches.

Thirty years ago the preacher who took exception to the universal belief of a hell of fire and brimstone was thrown out of the church. Today no preacher believes in such a hell.

Present day religion is really a Sunday religion. One and a half hours a week the members of the church join in singing "we shall know each other there." The remainder of the week they make it a point to keep from knowing each other here.

The protestant church divides itself into a lot of sects, each one built on some particular ordinance or practice and each one swallows a camel and strains at a gnat. One sect insists that baptism shall be by immersion because the disciples baptized that way. They believe in following customs literally, yet in the cities they immerse the members in a big tub under the pulpit, which practice is entirely different from the method employed by John the Baptist.

One sect insists upon having a communion every Sunday because the Bible says, "as often as you do this," etc. To be literal in the matter of communion, the Lord's Supper should be served at night as the original was, and it should be supper and not a few pieces of broken crackers.