Émile Coué and Autosuggestion

Summary

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Stuff You Missed in History Class

Episode: Émile Coué and Autosuggestion
Date: March 30, 2026
Hosts: Holly Fry & Tracy V. Wilson

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Overview

In this episode, Holly and Tracy delve into the life and influence of Émile Coué, the early 20th-century French pharmacist whose concept of "autosuggestion" became a cornerstone for self-help, affirmations, and modern manifestations practices. Known for the phrase "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better," Coué's methods straddle the worlds of psychology, medicine, and popular culture, sparking both enthusiastic adoption and harsh skepticism over the decades.

The hosts explore Coué's origins, his development of autosuggestion, his rejection of mystical and miraculous claims, the widespread fame and misconceptions he faced, and the scientific research (and questions) surrounding the effectiveness of his approach. The episode draws connections between Couéism and today’s wellness culture, including visualization and manifestation.

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Key Discussion Points

1. Beginnings and Motivations

• Émile Coué's Early Life:

  • Born February 26, 1857, in Troyes, France, to a working-class family. (04:51)
  • Pursued education diligently despite family struggles; initially self-studied, eventually succeeded in sciences. (04:51–06:11)
  • Shifted from chemistry to pharmacology at his father's urging, ensuring a stable career path. (06:11)

• Pharmacy Career:

  • Worked diligently, earning recognition and eventually owned his own pharmacy. Known for personal attention—adding encouraging notes to patients’ prescriptions. (06:59)

• First Steps Toward Autosuggestion:

  • Noticed that when he positively framed a medicine’s effects, patients responded better, spurring his belief in the power of expectation and suggestion. (06:59–08:02)

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2. Encounters with Hypnosis and Suggestion

• Meeting Ambroise Auguste Liébeault:

  • Liébeault, a physician fascinated by hypnosis and suggestion, invites Coué to join his experiments. (08:37–10:05)
  • Liébeault offers free treatment to anyone willing to be hypnotized, claiming “almost miraculous” results. (08:37)
  • “The initial meeting of Kue and Libo is often described as being an encounter for Kue that, in the words of one biographer, quote, decided his entire life.” —Tracy V. Wilson (09:03)

• Diving into Hypnosis and Critique of Existing Literature:

  • Coué studies hypnosis for over a decade, becoming aware that much of the literature is “total garbage,” filled with unscientific claims and charlatanism, though he finds value in understanding public appeal. (10:53)

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3. Moving Toward Autosuggestion

• Key Influences and Shaping Philosophy:

  • Studied with Liébeault and Hippolyte Bernheim of the Nancy School, aligning with evidence-based, non-mystical hypnosis. (19:24–20:38)
  • Identified imagination as the critical factor—more important than willpower—in self-change and healing.
    • “If someone thinks things like, ‘I can’t help it’ in regard to a behavior...they’re very unlikely to stop because they can’t imagine a version of themselves without that behavior.” —Tracy V. Wilson (20:38)
  • Developed the concept of “autosuggestion,” transferring the suggestion process from the hypnotist to the patient. (21:25)
  • Introduced the “law of reversed effort,” where actively doubting a suggestion undermines its effectiveness. (21:25)
  • “He believed that imagination was more important than a person’s will...if they can’t imagine it, they won’t succeed.” —Tracy V. Wilson (20:38)

• Institutionalizing the Work:

  • Founded the Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology (1913), systematizing his observations and theories. (22:25)

• Vivid Metaphor for Imagination:

  • “We can compare the imagination to a torrent which fatally sweeps away the poor wretch who has fallen into it...But if you know how you can turn it from its course...you can transform its force into movement, heat and electricity.” —Holly Fry reading Coué (22:58)

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4. The Method of Autosuggestion

• Core Practice:
  • Advocated focusing intently on an achievable, desired outcome and repeating it to oneself, e.g., “every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” (25:20)
  • Insisted that autosuggestion should supplement—not replace—medical care.
    • “I am not a doctor and would much prefer to be considered in the light of being the doctor’s auxiliary...” —Tracy V. Wilson quoting Coué (27:29)
    • “If they reply no [to seeing a doctor], I say, consult a doctor then and follow his treatment as well as using autosuggestion...” (27:29)
  • Maintained that outcomes depended on the individual's own thought—he simply taught people to help themselves. (26:11, 27:29)

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5. Going Global: Fame, Misunderstanding, and Criticism

• Rise to Fame:

  • Coué’s book, Self Mastery Through Autosuggestion, published 1920 (French); 1922 (English), initially slow but gaining popularity. (28:50)
  • Visited London (1922) and the US (1923), drawing huge crowds and media attention.
    • “He startled a number of the assembled journalists and enthusiasts by making very clear that he was neither a doctor nor a miracle man, that he had never cured anyone, and that, quote, I merely help people to help themselves.” —Holly Fry (35:04)
    • Annoyed by the mystical aura cast over him in the public eye, and rejected any claims of miracle cures or being saintly. “I am not a saint, but a man. I can affect no cures. I can only help you to help yourselves.” —Holly Fry quoting Coué (37:34)

• Phrase Attribution Controversy:

  • “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”—so widespread it was quickly misattributed to others (Socrates, Pliny the Elder, E. Virgil Neal). (38:50)

• Criticism and Medical Skepticism:

  • Medical establishment in both England and America labeled Coué and autosuggestion as a fad or “dangerous menace.” (37:34)
  • Despite fame, Coué consistently turned down lucrative offers to profit from his methods, reinforcing his earnestness and rejection of charlatanism. (37:34)
  • Coué institutes sprang up but fizzled once enthusiasm waned; many “cured” patients later relapsed. (40:34)

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6. Coué’s Later Years and Legacy

• Final Years and Death:

  • Died July 2, 1926, of heart failure after an exhausting lecture tour at age 69. (40:34)
  • Wife, Lucie, survived him by nearly 30 years. (40:34)

• Influence Today:

  • Modern fitness, therapy, and manifestation practices often reflect Coué’s methods: visualization, positive self-talk, self-driven change. (41:22)
    • “When you see or hear a fitness trainer telling a client that they have to see themselves achieving their fitness goals...that is an implementation of Couéism.” —Holly Fry (41:22)
    • Manifestation, though different in philosophy, channels autosuggestion’s self-motivation. (41:22)

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7. Scientific Study and Ongoing Debate

• Modern Research:

  • Studies on “autogenic training” and self-suggestion show measurable brain activity changes and clearer emotional processing in participants. (43:21)
    • “Patients who had autogenic training also processed their emotions differently...and had increased levels of self awareness.” —Tracy V. Wilson (43:22)
  • A 2017 study found that daily recorded autosuggestions improved geriatric patients’ perceived quality of life, reduced cortisol, and boosted immunity. (43:40)

• Limitations and Uncertainties:

  • Difficulty measuring specific effects. Outcomes may be due to increased self-care and attention, not just autosuggestion. (44:23)
  • Placebo effect and self-perception can complicate results; debate continues about autosuggestion’s true efficacy. (45:53)
    • “People still argue about it in scientific community all the time because we don’t know. I find it fascinating. My thing is like, probably couldn’t hurt. If it makes you feel better, great.” —Holly Fry (45:53)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” (25:20)
• “You have come here in search of someone who can cure you. You are on the wrong track. I have never cured anyone. I merely teach people to cure themselves.” —Holly Fry reading Coué (26:11)
• “If someone thinks things like ‘I can’t help it’...they’re very unlikely to stop because they can’t imagine a version of themselves without that behavior.” —Tracy V. Wilson (20:38)
• “I am not a saint, but a man. I can affect no cures. I can only help you to help yourselves.” —Holly Fry (37:34)
• “If we compare the conscious with the unconscious self, we see that the conscious self is only possessed of a very unreliable memory, while the unconscious self, on the contrary, is provided with a marvelous and impeccable memory...” —Holly Fry reading Coué (24:41)
• “Manifestation...works for some people because they’re practicing a different form of autosuggestion, right?...setting themselves in motion to turn the thing they imagine into a reality through their own efforts.” —Holly Fry (41:22)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------| | 03:28 | Introduction to Émile Coué and his signature phrase | | 04:51 | Coué’s early life, education, and perseverance | | 06:11 | Pharmacy career and insight into effect of suggestion | | 08:37 | Meeting Liébeault and introduction to hypnosis | | 10:53 | Coué’s critical study of hypnotism literature | | 19:24 | Nancy School influence and focus on imagination | | 21:25 | Emergence of autosuggestion, law of reversed effort | | 22:25 | Founding the Lorraine Society, codifying the method | | 25:20 | “Every day, in every way...” – creation and practice of autosuggestion | | 27:29 | Coué’s clear stance on supplementing—not replacing—medicine | | 28:50 | Book publications, British and American fame | | 34:57 | US tour, celebrity status, Coué’s refusal of “miracle” status | | 41:22 | Influence on modern self-help, manifestation, and fitness | | 43:21 | FMRI studies: How autosuggestion affects the brain | | 43:40 | 2017 study on elderly patients, health outcomes | | 44:23 | Challenges of measuring and interpreting autosuggestion’s effects | | 45:53 | Ongoing debate about legitimacy and value |

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Tone and Takeaways

The tone is affable, balanced, and keenly analytical—clear admiration for Coué’s sincerity and the influence of his ideas is tempered by a critical assessment of evidence and the mixed historical reception. Both hosts spotlight how Coué’s legacy persists in unexpected corners of wellness and motivation culture, even as scientific consensus remains elusive.

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For Listeners New to Coué

This episode provides a rich, thorough introduction to Coué’s life, philosophy, and the real-world impact of autosuggestion. It connects historical detail with enduring cultural influence, making it clear why and how Coué’s ideas persist—often uncredited—in fitness, therapy, and self-improvement circles today.

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Transcript

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[Holly Fry]

welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

So if you have ever heard the phrase every day and in every way I'm getting better and better, you know the work of today's subject. That saying, incidentally, was co opted by Tony Robbins for his motivational coaching business, which today's subject really would not have been cool with. It really belongs to a pharmacist from Trois, France who in the early 20th century developed a method that was intended to help people overcome illnesses and make their lives better. This kind of goes back to the Self Help Books episode that we did earlier this year. He is tied to that and was a thing that I was debating over including in that episode and decided I wanted to do one on him on his own. He's kind of a little offshoot of that so they make one bigger picture of like this concept of self help. The lovely thing about it is that Emile Kuei was refreshingly earnest. He genuinely seems to have wanted to help people. Regardless of what anyone thinks of his system and his approach. I don't think he was a particularly squirrely person. So it's nice to have somebody who's not a Jerk as the main person, because whether or not he and his ideas were effective, that is something that is still debated. And we will talk more about some of that at the end.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Emile Couet was born on February 26, 1857, in Troyes, France. His family was not wealthy. His father was a railroad worker. And not long after he was born, the family moved to Nougat sur Seine, which was about 50 kilometers or 30 miles northwest of Troyes. Emile was smart, and all the biographical descriptions of him make it sound like pursuing an education was just a given, even coming from this working class family. He attended school in New Jean sur Seine until he was a teenager, and then at 15, he moved back to Troyes, where he lived with an aunt who enrolled him in school there. After that, he went to college to get a science degree. A biography of coue written in 1923 by his supporter Charles Baudouin, suggests that there was some kind of issue, maybe with getting into college, but it is not really clear what happened. All it says in this biography is quote, Then, having leaning for science, he began to prepare unaided for his degree of Bachelor of Science. In itself fine proof of perseverance. His first failure did not discourage him. He tried again and won out.

[Holly Fry]

Initially, Kuei wanted to get a chemistry degree, but his father thought that that was going to leave his future a bit too uncertain, and he instead encouraged his son to get a pharmacological degree that would include some chemistry, but it also had a very clear career path. And Emile Kuei took his father's advice and he followed that path. When he finished his first run of school, he served in the army for a year, and then he started working as an apothecary assistant, essentially in his hometown of Troyes. For a while, he worked for a druggist named Delany, who was incredibly pleased with Emile's work ethic. He kept assigning him more and more responsibilities. One of the biographies I read suggested that eventually Koue took on the work of three different people who may have lost their jobs because he was so good at his work.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Next, Coue attended the College of Sainte Barbe in Paris. He won a government scholarship to continue his studies. While he was there, he graduated with his pharmacology degree in 1876. Kuwe stayed in Paris to work as a pharmacist intern at the Carre Enfant Malade Hospital. After that, he moved back to Troyes, where he started working as a pharmacist at an apothecary owned by a man named Chauminau. Couet became a full partner in this store and then, after just a few years of working there, he became owner of the shop after Chaumino died. One of the kind of charming anecdotes about his work in this shop is that he would include brief, upbeat notes personalized for his clients with every prescription and. And he felt that when he praised how effective a medication was, those patients seemed to do better than if he did not specifically call out the treatment as good when he was sending these little notes.

[Holly Fry]

While attending a wedding in Troyes in the early 1880s, Emile met two sisters, Marie and Lucy Lemoine. He and Lucy hit it off and they began a courtship. They were married in Nancy on August 30, 1884. Lucy's father, incidentally, was a famous horticulturist in France. If you are fond of lilacs, you have probably admired his work. He developed many of the breeds of plant that remain popular today, and particularly the double bloom lilacs that were first popular in France and now are all over the world.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1885, Cou met the physician Ambroise Auguste Libeau, who was 34 years older than Emile. In spite of that age difference, these two men really got along. Like Kuei, Libo was from a working class family and had sought a career in science. Libo had become a doctor and was also interested in magnetism. Not magnetism in the context of physics, but magnetism as it related to mesmerism. Franz Anton Mesmer had put forth the idea that animal magnetism was a mysterious force that could influence people, and he used that in the context of hypnosis. Lebow was so fascinated with hypnosis and so eager to study it himself that he offered to treat medical patients for free if they would consent to being hypnotized. He believed that he could influence patients subconsciously in ways that would help their body heal. He was said to have achieved almost miraculous results with these methods. He wrote a book about his work, which was published in 1866 under the title Sleep and analogous States, considered mainly from the point of view of the influence of moods on physical well being. The initial meeting of Kue and Libo is often described as being an encounter for Kui that, in the words of one biographer, quote, decided his entire life.

[Holly Fry]

Once these two men met, Couet was invited by Li Beau to assist with some of his cases. And this led the pharmacist to really dive as deeply as he could for the next decade plus into the study of hypnosis and suggestion. He soon determined that Lebow was not really being as methodical as he could or should with this, and that there were actually far more possibilities for suggestion treatment if only a clear process for its use could be established. He did not think that he knew what that process was, though. He instead wanted to study a lot more. So he spent a great deal of time observing doctors and patients, making notes about every aspect of their interactions, their medical cases, whether they were being treated with medications, et cetera.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

This was also around the time that mesmerism and ideas like mind cures had become very popular throughout Europe and the United States. So a growing number of papers and books were being produced on these topics. Kuei read them all, or at least tried to like as many as he could get his hands on, and some of them he found to be total garbage. But he included these in his study of alternative treatments. It doesn't seem like he took them at face value, though. He recognized that a lot of the writing was muddled by the kind of eagerness that can just obliterate a scientific understanding, and some of it was just straight up charlatanism. But he did think that even those kinds of texts might have kernels in them that were worth studying, even if it was, to see what sorts of claims held the most appeal for the general public. Viewed through that lens, every piece of information had some value to Kuei. One of these pieces of writing was a book on hypnotism written in the United States.

[Holly Fry]

Precisely what book that was remains a little bit unclear. There are different things cited depending on what biography of Kuei. You look at. Some name a specific book. Other accounts will differ. In Kuwei's New York Times obituary, it mentions that this book came from Rochester, New York. But that leaves a couple of interesting possibilities. One of these is Hypnotism and Hypnotic A Scientific Treatise on the Uses and Possibilities of Hypnotism, Suggestion, and allied phenomena by 30 authors. That book was edited by stage hypnotist and patent medicine peddler E. Virgil Neal, as well as medical assistant Charles S. Clark. I will say I could not find any information on Clark or the veracity of his credentials. E. Virgil Neal, though, is 100% on my list for a future episode because he was a big old fascinating mess. He was accused of mail fraud, and for a while he actually fled the country. He is a minor character here today, though. This book does have a section titled how to Hypnotize and Awaken a Subject, and that was written by Edward H. Eldridge of Temple College. This is interesting because as I did some digging, I discovered that Eldridge and a handful of other academics issued a disclaimer in Science magazine in November 1900 that they did not willingly have their work included in that book. Their various researches and their papers had been requested by the publisher, they were told, for research purposes only.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Another candidate for what book this was was Hypnotism as It Is a Book for Everybody, which was published in 1897 and was written by ex LaMotte Sage, who had a number of dubious credentials. This book is laid out as an informational examination of hypnotism that seems to have been motivated to just largely bust myths about the practice. Sage lays out early in the book that his 11 fundamental propositions of hypnotism. This list begins with quote. 1. Hypnotism within itself is absolutely harmless. 2. No one can be hypnotized against his will. From there, it includes the ideas that hypnotism is not a special power, that being hypnotized does not mean that a person is weak, that hypnotism is temporary and cannot affect a person's will forever, et cetera. There's also discussion in the book of various methods of hypnotism, but not specific how to's on how to do it. There's also a plot twist. Ex LaMotte Sage was a pseudonym of E. Virgil Neel.

[Holly Fry]

So whichever book it was, and it may have actually not been a book but a correspondence course, depending on what source you look at. But whatever material it was that Coue got from the United States, it seems like E. Virgil Neel was behind it. He did, incidentally, offer a correspondence course in hypnotism, so that may hold water. It doesn't seem as though Kue knew about that disclaimer that Eldridge and other academics had been a part of. But after reading whatever this material was, he started to implement its techniques in hypnotism, offering, as Libaud did, his services to clients for free if they were game to be hypnotized. And over time, he started to develop his own theory about why hypnosis worked. This is again an instance where we assume that Couet, as one biographer put it, quote, brushed aside all that was nothing better than puffery and humbug. And he likewise rejected the mystical postulates which underlay some of the theories.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Coming up, we'll talk about the ways that Emile Kuer started to expand his understanding of hypnosis and what he thought was even better. But first we will pause for a sponsor break

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[Holly Fry]

Kuei was really developing some very strong opinions about suggestion as it related to health and well being. But he also recognized that his own small experiments were not giving him nearly enough information to draw any real conclusions. So 16 years after his first meeting with Libaud, Couet started to study hypnotism and suggestion in earnest under him as well as another man, Hippolyte Bernheim. Bernheim, who was originally from Mulhouse, France, was right between Coues and Libau in age. He had gotten his medical degree in Strasbourg and became the chair of ambulatory medicine in Nancy in 1879. Then, after an 1882 meeting at Libaud's clinic, he came away convinced that hypnosis had great potential in the field of medicine, and he became an ardent supporter and student of Libaud. His work helped cement what came to be called the Nancy School, which encompassed the scientific hypnotism work being done by Libaud and others who wish to get out from under that mystical and seedy and kind of woo woo assortment of associations that came with the practice.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

As Kui worked with Libaud and Bernheim, he started to think that there was a key element to the way people thought that enabled them to get the body over obstacles in their treatment to actually get better. And that element was imagination. This was linked not only to medical outcomes but also to behavior. So he thought, if someone thinks things like I can't help it in regard to a behavior that they would like to stop, they're very unlikely to stop because they can't imagine a version of themselves without that behavior. Kuei came to believe that imagination was more important than a person's will, because even if somebody wanted very badly to change their own behavior, if they can't imagine it, they won't succeed.

[Holly Fry]

And you can see seeds of his eventual method here, something that he would come to call autosuggestion. So this meant taking the idea of giving a subject a suggestion through hypnosis, the way Libo and others had been working, and transitioning it to give the power of the suggestion to the patient themselves. So in very concrete terms, it's the difference between a hypnotist telling someone, you will no longer crave cigarettes and having the subject tell themself, I will no longer crave cigarettes. And as Kuei worked, he also came to the conclusion that an adverse imagination, one that was prone to counter suggestion and doubt, could actually undermine all of this work. He called that the law of reversed effort. If that phrase sounds familiar, it is also attributed to Aldous Huxley, Although in Huxley's case, it applied to the concept of trying too hard and thus undermining the outcome of your desires. So, kind of a different thing with the same name.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Kuei believed that Otto's suggestion would work because he had come to the determination that the source of the command isn't actually the important part, it's the recipient and their imagination doing the actual work. He founded the Lorraine Society of applied psychology in 1913 to continue his work in the field. He had sold his pharmacy in Troy and moved back to Nancy in the years before this. Over the next several years, he started collecting and systematizing his method into what would become a book.

[Holly Fry]

He described the power of the imagination this way. Quote, we can compare the imagination to a torrent which fatally sweeps away the poor wretch who has fallen into it in spite of his efforts to gain the bank. This torrent seems indomitable. But if you know how you can turn it from its course and conduct it to the factory, and there you can transform its force into movement, heat and electricity. And he believed that any person could control their own imagination, writing to do so. It is enough in the first place to know that this is possible, of which fact almost everyone is ignorant, and secondly, to know by what means it can be done. Well, the means is very simple. It is that which we have used every day since we came into the world without wishing or knowing it, and absolutely unconsciously, but which, unfortunately for us, we often use wrongly and to our own detriment. This means is autosuggestion.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Kuei thought that people are actually always giving themselves unconscious autosuggestions and that we just need to learn to apply conscious autosuggestions to. To self influence our lives. He instructed people to start small by concentrating on some outcome they desired. He used example phrases like this thing is coming, this thing is going away, and this thing will or will not happen, and then to repeat those phrases to themselves several times without thinking of anything else. According to Kuei, quote, if the unconscious accepts the suggestion and transforms it into an auto suggestion, the thing or things are realized in every particular.

[Holly Fry]

One of Kuei's conclusions was that it was the unconscious that truly held onto all of the information that a person is presented with in the course of their days. He later wrote, quote, if we compare the conscious with the unconscious self, we see that the conscious self is only possessed of a very unreliable memory, while the unconscious self, on the contrary, is provided with a marvelous and impeccable memory which registers without our knowledge the smallest events, the least important acts of our existence. Further, it is credulous and accepts with unreasoning docility what it is told over time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Kuwei abandoned hypnotism entirely in favor of training patients to use auto suggestion. It was through this work that he developed phrases like, every day and in every way, I am becoming better and better. That, of course, is a translation. Cowet's French version was tous les jour a tout point de vu, je vait de mus amus. He worked with patients one on one and in group settings and developed programs to help people control their pain and to recover from ailments, with the caveat that recovery had to be in the realm of possibility. So he wasn't looking at people who had some kind of terminal situation saying that he was going to make them live. Right. And Koay claimed in his treatment journals that a lot of his patients did recover from their illness, but there's no real substantiation for data on that.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, he was very careful to be like, I can't make someone regrow a lost limb, or as Tracy said, like, somebody that is very near death, I can't, like, pull them back from the brink. Like, that's. But if they have a prognosis where they could get better, but we don't know, they have a good chance if they'll apply these methods. In his Nancy research center, Kue would tell patients that came for treatment, quote, you have come here in search of someone who can cure you. You are on the wrong track. I have never cured anyone. I merely teach people to cure themselves. I have taught many persons to cure themselves, and that is what I am going to teach you. The experiments in which you are about to participate will always succeed, even if they should seem to fail. For I have never claimed that my thought can realize itself in you. My claim has always been that each person's own thought realizes itself in himself. If therefore, at the moment when I ask you to think I cannot unclasp my hands, you think, on the contrary, I can, you will inevitably be able to unclasp them. You may imagine that you have convicted me of error, but in reality you will have proved the soundness of the principle of autosuggestion.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

One of the things about Kuei's work and its popularity, I think, especially in the age that we're living in, people intentionally undermining the reputation of medicine. It's kind of a nice surprise that he was not trying to replace medical treatment with his idea of autosuggestion. He wanted people to see doctors. So unlike a lot of other non medical approaches to maladies, he was not touting this as something to do in cases some instead of a scientific medical treatment, he wrote of it, quote, I am not a doctor and would much prefer to be considered in the light of being the doctor's auxiliary in all cases of serious organic disability. I say to those who seek me out, are you receiving medical treatment? If they reply yes, I give the advice. Continue with it then and practice auto suggestion also. If they reply no, I say, consult a doctor then and follow his treatment. As well as using autosuggestion, you will find that the two treatments help each other in just about any instance where someone tried to call him like a miracle worker or heap similar praise on him. Kuei was always very quick to negate those kinds of ideas. He always stated that the work was done by the person using his method, not by himself, and that it could help, but it should not be considered a miracle.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, we'll have a particular instance that comes up later when he's on tour. In 1920, Kuwei published his book Self Mastery through Auto Suggestion and after an initial slow start, it became a very big hit in France and in 1922 it was published in English. Early on in this writing, he explains his idea of the conscious and unconscious selves in relation to auto suggestion, writing quote in order to understand properly the phenomena of auto suggestion, or to speak more correctly of autosuggestion, it is necessary to note that two absolutely distinct selves exist within us. Both are intelligent, but while one is conscious, the other is unconscious. For this reason, the existence of the latter generally escapes notice. It is, however, easy to prove its existence if one merely takes the trouble to examine certain phenomena and to reflect a few moments upon them. Let us take, for instance, the following examples. The examples he gives are the way that a sleepwalker can rise from bed and do various things and then return to bed all unconsciously while the conscious mind has no memory of doing so. Or what he called the quote too frequent case of a drunkard attacked by delirium tremens. Just in case you don't know what that word is or those those words are, delirium tremens is not when someone is deeply intoxicated. It is a severe alcohol withdrawal which can result in delirium, confusion, hallucinations, and other symptoms. So if you have ever heard the colloquial saying of someone who is not drinking being described as getting the dts, delirium tremens is what that refers to in Kuei's writing. He uses the example of someone in this delirious state becoming violent and then when they return to consciousness, being horrified at their own actions.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Kuei visited London in 1922 to talk about his method and became incredibly popular there. But there started to be some problems in its perception. This was in the post World War I period when the English had a fresh surge of spiritualism and mysticism and some of the work Kue was doing seemed enough like magic to people that it got sort of folded into these less scientific ideologies. That meant that even though Kue wanted to keep his work strictly scientific, its reputation got a little muddled in the public eye. This made it really easy for detractors to criticize his efforts as being woo woo fluff or charlatanism. And that was a problem that would follow him across the Atlantic.

[Holly Fry]

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[Holly Fry]

In early 1923, Kua made a visit to the US to tour and to lecture about his work. Newspapers were so expectant of his arrival that they reported everything about his crossing that he was seasick on the voyage. But he had used his auto suggestion method to get rid of that problem. He was already famous when he arrived, in part because British Foreign Secretary Lord George Curzon had publicized the claim that Kue's method had cured him of insomnia. And he was not the only person that did this. Other foreign leaders, dignitaries and celebrities had offered similar stories of the French pharmacists positive impact on their well being. By the time this famed proponent of auto suggestion arrived in New York, there were already plans for a national KU A Institute to be established there. He was interviewed at a press conference that was literally waiting for him on the dock the second he stepped off the ship. And he startled a number of the assembled journalists and enthusiasts by making very clear that he was neither a doctor nor a miracle man, that he had never cured anyone, and that, quote, I merely help people to help themselves. While he toured and gave clinics, every minute detail of his days was reported. Papers ran stories literally about the items he carried in his hands. The phrase he most commonly used in group sessions when talking to individual attendees, which was sapas or it's working. And even the way his mustache was waxed from day to day. All of this got written about every single day. The country very clearly had Kue fever at this point.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Once Kue got to the US in addition to giving talks, he wrote articles that were published in major newspapers all across the country. In one of them, he encouraged people using his method to just plant the suggestion and then kind of chill out. Quote, let the imagination do its work alone. Be quite passive. Through mysterious, still unexplained processes, our subconscious does marvelous things. Think of the very commonest movements of the human body and ask yourself how they are operated. What has set in motion the complicated mechanism when you stretch your arm to reach a glass on a table or when you take a cigarette from your case? No one knows. But if we cannot explain the phenomenon, we do know that in actual fact it is an order resulting from a mere suggestion which is transmitted through the nervous system and translated into action at a speed infinitely greater than that of lightning.

[Holly Fry]

There were detractors, and the medical establishment made very clear that they wanted nothing to do with auto suggestion. He was labeled as everything from just being a fad to actually being a dangerous menace. But Kuei's work was also embraced by a lot of people, and there was talk of Kuei ism seemingly everywhere. In Boston, it was reported that he had to make a sneaky escape after he gave his last lecture in the city because there was an eager crowd of people hoping to talk to him, many of whom were upset that booksellers had sold out of his book before they could buy a copy. Throughout his US visit, Emile Kuei was offered massive sums of money for various engagements, but he turned all of them down, regardless of where anyone stood in their assessment of him and his work. No one could claim he was a charlatan because he didn't seem at all interested in cashing in on his own popularity. And when people did things like begging him to cure the sick, as though he were some sort of mystic, healer or religious figure, he actually exclaimed, I am not a saint, but a man. I can affect no cures. I can only help you to help yourselves. I get the feeling he got a little frustrated in the US at times.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Before Kui ever got to the States, the phrase every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better had become so well known that riffs on it were even being used in advertising to claim that sales were getting bigger and bigger, for example. But then a series of claims that Kue had not come up with this phrase began. This was attributed to everyone from Socrates to Pliny the Elder to our old friend in this episode, E. Virgil Neal. Still, Kue was enthusiastically greeted as he toured around the eastern half of the country for almost six weeks. He returned again later in 1923, but his second US tour was pretty quiet by comparison. People had just moved on to other things.

[Holly Fry]

Also in 1923, while all of this touring was happening, psychoanalyst Charles Baudouin wrote that biography, biography of Kue that we referenced earlier. Baudouin had openly endorsed the work of Kue even before that, and his biography began, at least to my mind, somewhat comedically, with a physical description of Kue. This is literally how it opens. Quote, thick set, somewhat short, quiet, compact strength, a remarkably high forehead, hair brushed back, a little thinned out and perfectly white for a number of years already, as also the short, pointed beard. The rest of Baudouin's description shares what a lively and upbeat personality Coue had also Noting, quote, he is the type of what is known in England and especially in America as the self made man. He never denies his lowly origin, and you feel that he loves the masses with a sympathy that may be called organic.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In late June 1926, Kue went on a lecture tour of the Alsace region of France. He reported that he felt incredibly tired on this tour, and when he got home, he felt completely worn out. Just a few days later, on July 2, 1926, Emile Couet died of heart failure in his home in Nancy, France. His wife, Lucie, lived for almost 30 more years. She died in 1954. In the last years of Emile Kue's life, a number of Kuwe institutes popped up in cities in Europe and the United States. But most of those sputtered out. People who claimed they had been cured using his method often reported later that their problems had come back. The enthusiasm for auto suggestion really started lagging, and these institutes shut down.

[Holly Fry]

But we see the echoes of Kui's work everywhere today, although his name is rarely invoked. When you see or hear a fitness trainer telling a client that they have to see themselves achieving their fitness goals in order to more effectively achieve them. And that is an implementation of Kueism, the very popular idea of manifestation, also rooted in Kuei's work, although in a slightly different application. Of course. Instead of telling yourself that something can happen in an effort to influence yourself to do it, you are, according to people who believe in manifestation, telling the universe that you want that thing to influence it. But in reality, this idea works for some people because they're practicing a different form of auto suggestion, right? They may think that they're drawing energies to themselves, but they're kind of setting themselves in motion to turn the thing they imagine into a reality through their own efforts.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We'll never know how Kuei would have reacted to these modern versions of his ideas, though, given how concerned he was about people just throwing out scientific treatments to focus exclusively on suggestion or auto suggestion, it stands to reason that he might worry a little bit. A lot of scientists have outright dismissed Kuei's work over the decades or framed it as sort of quaint. But there has actually been quite a bit of scientific study of autosuggestion in the last century. In 2010, research into autogenic training, which is a type of autosuggestion that's designed specifically to teach patients how to relax, found via FMRI that the brains of study participants who used autosuggestive phrases of autogenic training showed activation in parts of the brain that subjects who did not use autosuggestion did not show. That just means something was happening in the brain, not necessarily an effect beyond that.

[Holly Fry]

Yep.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

According to researcher Mark Schlaman and his team in their paper, autogenic training alters cerebral activation patterns and FMRI patients who had autogenic training also processed their emotions differently than subjects who didn't have it and had increased levels of self awareness.

[Holly Fry]

Another study conducted in 2017 led by Nina Kamalasari, examined auto suggestion in relation to quality of life for geriatric patients. The participants in the active group were given scripts of auto suggestive phrases which they were recorded saying and then they listened to those recordings of their own voices or multiple times a day for 30 days. The control group had no autosuggestion. And at the end of the 30 days, the patients who had listened to their auto suggestion recordings showed improvements in their perceived quality of life, meaning the patients felt that they had improved as well as in their serum cortisol levels and their adaptive immunity.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So auto suggestion seems to have some uses that could have some scientific validity, but there's also a lot of difficulty measuring the specifics, even with a scientific study that includes hard numbers on body chemistry. And that's because there are so many nuances to this whole thing, like how much does visualization play a part. Someone who's telling themselves something positive may or may not form an image in their mind of that outcome and it is hard to sort out that variation and its possible contribution to the efficacy even with some kind of testing. Additionally, people who are using auto suggestive self talk specifically crafted to accompany medical treatment might also subconsciously or maybe even consciously take better care of themselves and pay closer attention to their health because they're being reminded of it regularly. In some cases, that could also improve their outcomes. And of course, every person is wired differently. Not everybody will be successful with any of these methods, whether they have any merit or not. Additionally, there are ongoing debates about whether someone self evaluating can even report a true improvement or if the auto suggestion actually just shifted their perception rather than their actual state of being. So while there's research on auto suggestion that can be seen as encouraging, it's not necessarily considered definitive in any way.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, people still argue about it in scientific community all the time because we don't know. I find it fascinating. My thing is like, probably couldn't hurt. If it makes you feel better, great.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I'll have plenty to say about this on Friday in our behind the scenes.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. In the meantime, listen, I promise one day I'LL stop talking about embroidery. But that day is not today. And it's cause we keep getting so many good emails from listeners.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

We do.

[Holly Fry]

And this one touches me so I hope I don't cry, but I might. It's me. This is from our listener Christine who writes hi Holly and Tracy, longtime listener and periodic writer. I am still stuck thinking about your embroidery episode. Needle crafts are a huge part of my life and when I started thinking about writing, the list of everything I wanted to tell you just kept getting longer and longer. I know how that happens. That's why I'm so bad at replying to emails. Christine continues. I learned to cross stitch, sew and crochet at a young age. It keeps my hands busy and helps me calm my brain. I My mom does beautiful cross stitch Christmas stockings for all her grandkids and as wedding gifts, they make such an amazing gift for anyone who celebrates Christmas. She follows a pattern but also adds in some personal touches and puts each person's name on their stocking. It's a beautiful gift. That's the kind of stuff you will keep for your entire life. I love it. This is the part that gets me choked up. So sorry. I am attaching a photo of one of the most amazing needle art gifts my husband and I have ever received. A few years ago our best friend tragically passed away. He and my husband were close as brothers and had gotten tattoos not too long before his death. That translated to brother. When he passed, we received the attached needlework with the Greek lettering from the tattoo. I don't know who made it. It was an anonymous gift, but it is precious to both of us. This is the sweetest thing I've ever heard. Needlework has taken on a little more meaning for me in the last three years. I hope the person who made it knows how much it means to us. So sweet. And then excitement. I have also included some pet tacts for you our two rescue kitties, Tiger and Bean. Bean thinks it is essential to sit on the food bucket so we don't forget to feed her. Listen, that's just efficient. Bean knows what's up. Thank you for highlighting stories we don't hear every day and for not shying away from the hard stuff. I think it is too easy for many people to avoid discomfort, making it far too easy to allow harmful things to happen around us without getting involved. Keep speaking up, saying the hard things and advocating for the people and stories who have been missed in history. Christine Christine, I obviously love this email. Thank you. These kitties are Listen Tiger and Bean are very precious and they need kisses and hugs and like listen the food. Sometimes you gotta be reminded that there's food there. If you would like to write to us, you can do so@history podcastheartradio.com we will be right back here with more episodes coming up. Thank you so much for spending this time with us. And if you would like to subscribe to the podcast and you haven't done that yet, you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Holly Fry]

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I think I might just have solved a murder, Vera.

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Now we're getting somewhere.

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