Denis Saurat’s strange vision – part 2

Denis Saurat.

Denis Saurat remembered that the two officers in his vision, from what he “perceived”, were connected to no campaign or battle.  It then came to him that he could have been witness to a scene of military occupation carried out in execution of a treaty.  He therefore sent his daughter again to the library to bring him back a Diplomatic History of Napoleon.  When he had the work, he attentively studied all the treaties.  He soon arrived at that of Tilsit and discovered that, by the terms of this treaty, Napoleon had obtained the right to militarily occupy Germany’s South, and that the troops of his allies, the Confederation du Rhin, had advanced as far as the Bohemian forest, precisely to Fichtel Gebirge.

The operation had been executed by the German troops of Rhenania, but was commanded by French officers.

At Tilsit, Napoleon had obtained from Alexander I the right to occupy Southern Germany.

Denis Saurat understood then that the two young officers in his vision had a mission of surveillance over the passages of the troops as far as the Naab, to the East of which, in all probability, other officers would take over.

He had therefore witnessed, in his vision, in 1939, a scene which had unfolded in 1808…

***

Denis Saurat reports this vision, in all its details, in one of his most fascinating books entitled:  L’Experience de l’Au-dela.  He was very interested in dreams;  not for their Freudian signification, nor for their interpretation through any sort of “key to dreams”, but in dreams as images of the future or the past perceived during sleep.

***

In this case, it was a sort of waking dream.  At the moment when Denis Saurat saw the scene that he recounted, he was in that intermediate state between waking and sleeping, where it is enough to just close one’s eyes to see images forming.  It’s a sort of little cinema that everyone knows and of which we usually only conserve a vague memory, or even, very often, no memory at all…

***

Denis Saurat’s vision seems to have been particularly long.  The people who studied this case generally think that the exceptional length of this vision could have been due to the febrile state of the writer.  We have said that he was in bed, with the ‘flu and a high temperature.  This fever could have made the vision more precise, clearer and more stable.  For he had the time to look attentively at the map and to fix its important details in his memory.

***

The Naab and its affluents.

Thinking that he may have seen the map on a previous occasion, he did some research on it.  Knowing that he had learnt Geography from a Vidal-Lablache atlas, he looked for this book and noticed that the course of the Naab is only just indicated, without its affluents…  Which is the case in most school atlases.  And pupils are hardly able to remember the Naab after having studied the Danube basin…  Denis Saurat had never had before his eyes any detailed map of this part of Germany.  It must therefore be concluded that, on this January morning in 1939, for inexplicable reasons, (a)  he had a precise vision of an object – in this case, a map of Germany’s South;  (b)  he had witnessed a scene connected to an historical context of which he knew nothing and which he was able to reconstitute by investigating it…  Which necessarily leads to this conclusion:  that an image of the past, surging from we don’t know where, appeared in front of his half-closed eyes, one feverish evening…

***

Certain biologists think that our genes are able to channel information, and possibly images, from the past…  This could be an explanation.  If this is true, some of our dreams could be retained as documents…  One day, perhaps, we will know how to see, sort, capture and use the millions and millions of images coming from the depths of the ages, which are sleeping inside us, and to which we attach no importance.  As Jung said,

“the History of the world is perhaps written in our memory”…

***

There is another hypothesis emitted by American psychiatrists who have studied this case:  it’s that Denis Saurat had been one of the two officers in a former life…  His vision would then be only a memory of a moment lived by him in 1808.  Eminent scholars like Ian Stevenson, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, devote their careers to the exploration of the possibilities of reincarnation, and a “must-read” is the remarkable work by Isola Pisani, Mourir n’est pas mourir [Dying is not dying], on Mrs Grant-Kelsey and Doctor Kelsey who cure, in Pangbourne, in Berkshire, sixty kilometres from London, illnesses caused by a trauma suffered during a preceding life.  Dr Kelsey discovered that most psychoses and neuroses come from unconscious memories of past existences, and he evolved from this a revolutionary therapeutic method.  To put his clients into contact with images of their preceding lives, he uses hypnosis.  It could be thought that Denis Saurat found himself placed by fever in a state of consciousness close to that into which Dr Kelsey’s patients enter… 

***

Denis Saurat’s strange vision

The French writer Denis Saurat.

The writer, Denis Saurat, was born in 1890 and died in 1958.  He was a Professor at London University from 1925 to 1945, the author of works on Milton, Blake, Victor Hugo, and of a curious study on Atlantis and the Reign of the Giants [L’Atlantide et le Regne des geants].

***

On 31 January 1939, Denis Saurat was in bed with the ‘flu.  Feverish, he had taken two grains of quinine around 11 p. m.  Just before going to sleep, in that intermediate state between wakefulness and sleep, when the Conscious is still functioning clearly, he suddenly had a curious vision.  Two young officers in a navy-blue uniform were leaning over a table where a fairly big map was spread.  They were attentively looking at this map and appeared very satisfied.

Denis Saurat then had the impression that he was double.  While witnessing the scene, he was at the same time identifying himself with one of the officers, the younger one.  This is how he knew that the two men had received the order to make all the necessary preparations for a passage of troops through a country that they did not know, and that they were happy to have discovered this map.

This feeling of being double, which was making him live both in an unclear past and, at the same time, on the 31 January 1939, allowed him to see the two officers and know as well what the younger of the two was thinking.  This is how he knew that these soldiers were not organizing a war operation, but a movement of troops during peacetime.  They were not of a very high grade, Lieutenant or Captain at the most.  Denis Saurat understood that they must be preparing the manoeuvre on paper and submitting their work to a higher authority.

They were, for the moment, very interested in the course of a river which flowed from North to South.  Denis Saurat noticed that this river began by a fork.  That is to say by two bodies of water which joined into one.  It received, on the right bank, two principal affluents.  He also noticed that the second affluent toward the South, itself had one on the right bank.

The two officers were seeking, it seemed, to avoid as much as possible crossing the river, trying not to concentrate troops between the Southern affluent and its secondary affluent.

The map, which was extremely detailed, allowed them to minutely prepare all the operations.  Denis Saurat, who was carefully following all of their movements, noticed that they were not thinking of sending their troops through the two Northern water courses.

While observing the scene which continued to unfold in front of his half-closed eyes, the writer then held the following reasoning:

“The map that I see at the moment is perfectly unknown to me.  What a marvellous proof if I could identify the rivers!  That would bring absolute proof of the perception of events before my birth;  what a pity that I can’t get up and write down all of this;  for I would catch a worse cold than the one that I already have.  I shall therefore go to sleep, and, as usual, tomorrow morning I shall have forgotten everything.  Anyway, I probably wouldn’t have been able to identify the river system… “

Upon which, he went to sleep.

But the following day, to his great amazement, he remembered the map perfectly.  As he had to remain in bed all day and had nothing to do, he decided to try to identify the river.  He would later write:

“I was sure that it existed.  If I was lucky enough to discover its name and situate it, I would have succeeded in the observation of a phenomenon of real vision.”

Firstly, he drew the map to the best of his ability and showed it to his daughter – so as to have a witness.  He told her to look at the sketch, then go to the library for an atlas.  While she was gone he reflected.  He would write:

“I was perfectly awake on this morning of 1st February 1939, in full possession of the memory of the vision, but was no longer, in any way, identifying myself with the young officer.

“The first fact which now hit me, was that the map that I had seen the day before was excellent, and not one of those sketches from the XVIIth or XVIIIth Centuries, more picturesque than precise.  It was, in its way, a scientific map:  no doubt a map from the beginning of the XIXth Century”.

The second fact which appeared to him was that there weren’t any railroads on the map;  and that, in the minds of the young officers, railroads did not exist.  Their problem was a road problem, and as they did not regret the absence of railroads, Denis Saurat concluded that it was because they hadn’t been invented at the time.

These two facts seemed to designate – and this corresponded to the uniforms – a period of the Napoleonic epoch;  but, a rather curious detail, a period of peace.

Plus, it wasn’t an important operation, but a small movement, prepared by young officers.

To have a starting point, the writer tried to concentrate his thoughts on the rivers flowing from the North to the South near which Napoleon had fought battles.  He soon realised that there weren’t many in Europe.  The Saone and the Rhone first came to mind;  but, very evidently, they had nothing to do with the facts.  Then he thought of the Ulm, one of Napoleon’s great victories.  A glance at the atlas brought by his daughter showed him that no river around Ulm flowed from North to South.

In his vision, Denis Saurat saw a map with the Naab and its affluents.

He was beginning to think that the search was impossible when his eyes, following the course of the Danube, fell on Ratisbonne.  Immediately, the shape of its water course clearly appeared to him.  And he recognised all the details of the map:  the fork to the North, the two affluents on the right bank and the secondary affluent of the most Southern water course.  The map that he had seen was bigger, more detailed than that which was now in front of him, but it concerned the same region, that is to say a country going from Fichtel Gebirge to Ratisbonne.  There, he was able to see why the two young officers were not thinking of making the troops cross the Northern fork:  that region was that of the high mountains of the Boehmer Wald.  The river was the Naab.

“My rough morning sketch was therefore not too bad for an inexperienced eye and hand;  the river system was perfectly recognizable, even on my sketch.

“I had therefore proven that my vision was a real vision, since it had given me the drawing of something which really existed and which I had never seen before.”

There remained the historical aspect of the vision.  To what event was the scene which he had witnessed connected?

To be continued.

Thoughts are eternal

In 2002, the following poem was published in the United States of America.  The first version of it.  I later tweaked it a bit.  Having this week posted a two-part piece about the Emile Coue Method and its repercussions, something keeps prodding me to also publish my “Thoughts” poem here.  I have been resisting the urge, but shall not have any peace until I do it, so here is the “tweaked” version of it.  I hope that someone out there likes it.

THOUGHTS ARE ETERNAL

 

Thoughts are eternal.  A thought never dies.

Thoughts swirl around us.  The truth and the lies

Flow from the future, roll back from the past.

Whatever you think, your thoughts will all last.

 

Sure of their beauty?  They’ll live after you.

They influence others, influence you.

Proud of your thoughts, or ashamed of their hold?

A penny for one – can your thoughts be told?

 

Think always with love.  It shows on your face.

Your aura will change.  You’ll seem full of grace.

Then look for the light in each one you meet,

Give him your smile when you pass on the street.

 

Yes, think well of others – no-one’s all bad;

Aggressive young men might only be sad.

It’s not always easy.  I’ll grant you that,

But spare them a thought, or even a chat.

 

Thoughts are eternal.  A thought never dies.

Thoughts swirl around us.  The truth and the lies

Flow from the future, roll back from the past.

Whatever you think, your thoughts will all last.

 

There must be some reason why it is important that this poem be published this week.  It might only be as a reminder to myself.  However, it is done now, so I am free to get back to my translating.  I hope that I haven’t chased away any subscribers or habitual visitors.

The magic of words – part 2

Emile Coue.

Words have an extraordinary action.  And if a particular formula to be repeated exists for each pain, each action, each state (it’s going away, I’m cured, I digest well, I’m happy, I can walk, I have no reason to be shy, etc.) the key sentence which must be said in a continuous murmur is:

“Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.”

Emile Coue affirms that this sentence is sufficient to heal any lesion, any phobia, any dysfunctional organ, as the Subconscious knows how to choose on its own what type of action it needs to exercise.

***

English caricature of Emile Coue which appeared in the "Passing Show", in 1924.

For example, to go to sleep, you must avoid saying “I want to go to sleep”.  I want doesn’t work because your Will has no power in this domain.  On the other hand, I can sleep, convinces your Subconscious, which then does what is necessary.

***

Lots of things can be cured by this method.  Neurasthenia, stammering, phobias, certain paralyses, fibromes, haemorrhages, asthma, enteritis, certain lesions, gout, eczema, warts, certain heart diseases, varicose ulcers, rheumatisms, depressions, Pott’s disease, etc.  Some of these illnesses, according to the disciples of Emile Coue, are also due, most of the time, to the action of unconscious autosuggestion.  Saying or believing oneself to be ill, effectively causes illness.  And, according to Emile Coue himself:

“Each of our thoughts, good or bad, are concretised, materialised, become, in a word, a reality in the domain of possibility.”

To say to oneself:  “I hope that I don’t have a migraine”, is the same as saying:  I will have a migraine!”.  Everything feared is immediately imagined, therefore presented as acceptable to the Subconscious.

***

French cartoon by Dorville, inspired by Marco Rizzi, mocking one of Emile Coue's basic formulae, "It's passing", meaning that it's going away (for pain).

The Coue Method can be used in domains other than pathology.  It can help to make disappear faults and vices like alcoholism, sloth, gluttony, shyness, kleptomania, violence, toxicomania, etc.  In this case, the disciples of Emile Coue use suggestion under hypnosis.  It can also be practised by anyone, during natural sleep.  It’s very simple:  You penetrate the bedroom where the person on whom you want the suggestion to act is sleeping, being careful not to wake him or her.  Then, placing yourself one metre from the bed, you repeat fifteen to twenty times, in a murmur, all of things that your want for him or her.  You can, for example, help a child in his schoolwork, act on his application, on his conduct, etc.  The extraordinary results obtained by suggestion during sleep are fairly easy to understand.  At this moment, the body and the conscious part of the individual are resting:  they are sort of annihilated;  but the Subconscious is awake.  It is therefore the Subconscious alone that you are addressing and, as we know that it is very credulous, it accepts everything said to it.

The Americans even successfully use suggestion recorded on CDs or tapes.  Naturally, the person treated like this, must not know about it, so that his Will does not handicap the action of his Subconscious.

***

It can easily be seen that this process is very dangerous, for it is a double-edged sword.  If we can remove vices, we can also make someone nasty, miserly, addicted to drugs, naive, amorous…

Words have an extraordinary, mysterious and terrifying power.  A power feared by monks who make a vow of silence, known to the people of Antiquity who practised the magic of incantation, domesticated by a few men to whom we give the title of Prophet or Saint, exploited by those sorcerers’ apprentices that are our politicians and radio and television advertisers, used, not always very effectively, by hypnotisers, psychotherapists, Coueists and sophrologists.  In short, a power so great that, one day, one word was sufficient for Lazarus to come forth from his tomb and that, surging from the uncreated, there was light…

***

The famous Swiss psychiatrist, Doctor Schultz, invented a treatment inspired by the Coue Method.  It’s the famous method of auto-hypnosis called autogenous training, which is applied today throughout the whole world.

It’s a treatment by concentrative auto-decontraction.  But, to arrive at the desired muscular relaxation, the patient must repeat formulae like:  “I am calm, I am completely calm”.  To combat cardiac arythmias or attacks of tachycardia, it is recommended that the patient repeat:  “My heart is beating calmly, my heart is beating calmly”.  This psychotherapeutic method is used with success in cases of vascular troubles, cardiac troubles, arterial hypertension, bronchial asthma, functional perturbations of the digestive apparatus, depression, anguish, neurosis, etc.  In the countries of Eastern Europe, principally in the former USSR, autogenous training was used to form champions…  The results in the Olympic Games regularly proved the efficacity of this method.

***

On the other hand, in the country of Emile Coue’s birth, the country in which he lived, worked, studied, and created his world-renowned Method, the people of France continue to reason with Descartes and sneer with Voltaire…

***

The magic of words

Emile Coue, the creator of a method of healing by autosuggestion.

Many American, German and Russian doctors today treat people according to the principles of the famous Nancy pharmacist, Emile Coue, and obtain astounding results.  Without counting the disciples of a Swiss psychiatrist, the inventor of a psychotherapy where the bases of the Coue Method are to be found.

***

Emile Coue is born Emile Coue de la Chataigneraie, in Troyes, on 26 February 1857, into an old Breton family.  In 1882, he becomes a pharmacist in the town of his birth.  One day, he receives the visit of a patient who asks him insistently for a medication, the deliverance of which is forbidden without a doctor’s prescription.  To get rid of him, Coue gives his customer a little bottle of distilled water and warns him not to take more than the doses indicated on a paper.  One week later, the man returns to thank him:  he is cured.

This incident is significant in the life of Emile Coue, for it leads him to conclude that the imagination can act on the organism.  So, from 1885, he undertakes studies in Applied Psychology.  Then he follows the works of a Nancy doctor, Doctor Liebault, who practises suggestion and the treatment of patients by sleep.  He also meets Doctor Bernheim, a Professor at the Faculty of Medicine in Nancy, who is trying to act on the Subconcious of his patients, too.

In 1902, Coue leaves Troyes and abandons Pharmacy to settle in Nancy where there is research being done which is so close to his own.  This is where he perfects his autosuggestion method.  He dies in 1926 after having suscitated disciples in the medical milieux of the whole world, France being the only country where his works are still mocked…

***

Emile Coue discovered that our Subconscious is credulous and that it is possible, through words, to bring it, among other things, to replace an organ that is deficient, in optimal conditions, by making it believe that the said organ functions well.

This might seem a bit simplistic, but the fact is that people are cured.  Which once more proves the strange powers of our mind…

***

Doctor Joseph Murphy, of Los Angeles, who has successfully prescribed  the Coue Method to his patients and studied its benefits, writes in The Miracles of the Mind [Les Miracles de l’Esprit]:

“The Subconscious is constantly docile to the power of suggestion;  on top of that, it exercises an absolute domination over the functions, the states and the sensations of our body.”

“Our Conscious is the Captain, the master aboard our ship;  the Subconscious is the crew which obeys without discussion…  If you repeat ‘I don’t like mushrooms’, when you eat them, you have an indigestion because your Subconscious is saying:  ‘the Captain doesn’t like mushrooms!’…  If someone says:  ‘When I drink coffee in the evening, I wake up at three o’clock in the morning’, each time that he drinks it, his Subconscious, thinking that it is doing the right thing, wakes him in the middle of the night…  But, if you are careful about not pronouncing imprudent words, you can use your Subconscious like a docile servant.  For example, if you need to wake up at seven o’clock in the morning and you give it the order, it will wake you at seven o’clock precisely.  Everyone has observed this phenomenon… “

***

Emile Coue, who identified the Subconscious with Imagination, had edicted a law which Professor Charles Baudoin, of the University of Geneva, has called the law of converted effort [loi de l’effort converti].  It goes like this:

“Each time that there is conflict between the Imagination and the Will, it is always the Imagination which wins and, in this case, not only do we not do what we want to do, but we do precisely the opposite to what we want to do;  and the more that we make voluntary efforts, the more we do the opposite to what we want to do.”

And Andre Dumas, the President of the Coue Institute in Paris, who has prefaced the Complete Works [Oeuvres completes] by Emile Coue [Editions Astra] adds:

“In the conflict between the Imagination and the voluntary effort, the voluntary effort is always vanquished and converted into powerlessness and into contradiction.”

***

Here is an example of the superiority of the Imagination over Willpower.  It is very simple.  If you place a plank ten metres long by twenty-five centimetres wide on the ground, everyone is capable of going from one end of it to the other without putting a foot off it.  But if this plank is fifty centimetres from the ground, few people are capable of taking one step over the void, in spite of all the efforts of their Will.  Why?  Because, Emile Coue tells us, in the first case, we imagine that it is easy to go to the end of the plank, while in the second case, we imagine that we can’t do it.  Vertigo has no other cause than this image of a possible fall.  Pascal had already told us:

“The idea of a fall determines the fall”…

In the same way, it is because we imagine that a suffering is inevitable or incurable that we can’t, in spite of medication, prevent it or make it disappear.  Coue said:

“To fear an illness is to determine it.”

We imagine, for example, that a toothache is normal, therefore we accept it.  Why, in this case, would the Subconscious use the anaesthetics which we have in us, and which it is perfectly capable of using?  If we have not shown it that the absence of suffering, in this precise case, is a natural thing, it won’t intervene to stop it.

The role of autosuggestion is therefore to force the Imagination – since all our gestures and all our comportment depend on it – to put the Subconscious into the necessity of making us execute certain acts or to make certain pains cease.

***

To be continued.