EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON HEALTH AND BODY
The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the oper-
ations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or
automatically expressed. At the bidding of unlawful thoughts
the body sinks rapidly into disease and decay; at the com-
mand of glad and beautiful thoughts it becomes clothed with
youthfulness and beauty.
Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in
thought. Sickly thoughts will express themselves through a
sickly body. Thoughts of fear have been known to kill a
man as speedily as a bullet, and they are continually kil-
ling thousands of people just as surely though less rapid-
ly. The people who live in fear of disease are the people
who get it. Anxiety quickly demoralizes the whole body,
and it lays it open to the entrance of disease; while im-
pure thoughts, even if not physically indulged, will soon
shatter the nervous system.
Strong, pure, and happy thoughts build up the body in
vigor and grace. The body is a delicate and plastic instru-
ment, which responds readily to the thoughts by which it is
impressed, and habits of thought will produce their own
effects, good or bad, upon it.
Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood so
long as they propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean
heart comes a clean life and a clean body. Out of a de-
filed mind proceeds a defiled life and a corrupt body.
Thought is the font of action, life, and manifestation;
make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.
Change of diet will not help a man who will not change
his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no
longer desires impure food. [But change of diet can be
used as a physical manifestation and reminder of an inten-
ded change or actual change of thoughts. I think psycholo-
gy teaches that cause and effect in the human mind are not
always clearly delineated -- for example if you believe that
eating certain foodstuffs will make your thinking purer, it
might well end up doing so because of the faith you have in
that belief -- the placebo effect. -David]
Clean thoughts make clean habits. The so-called saint
who does not wash his body is not a saint. He who has
strengthened and purified his thoughts does not need to
consider the malevolent microbe.
If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you
would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of mal-
ice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its
health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it
is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by
folly, passion, pride.
I know a woman of ninety-six who has the bright, innoc-
ent face of a girl. I know a man well under middle age
whose face is drawn into inharmonious contours. The one is
a result of a sweet and sunny disposition; the other is the
outcome of passion and discontent.
As you cannot have a sweet and wholesome abode unless you
admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a
strong body and a bright, happy, or serene countenance can
only result from the free admittance into the mind of
thoughts of joy and good will and serenity.
On the faces of the aged there are wrinkles made by sym-
pathy; others by strong and pure thought, and others are
carved by passion: who cannot distinguish them? With those
who have lived righteously, age is calm, peaceful, and soft-
ly mellowed, like the setting sun. I have recently seen a
philosopher on his deathbed. He was not old except in years.
He died as sweetly and peacefully as he had lived.
There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissi-
pating the ills of the body; there is no comforter to com-
pare with good will for dispersing the shadows of grief and
sorrow. To live continually in thoughts of ill will, cyni-
cism, suspicion, and envy, is to be confined in a self-made
prison hole. But to think well of all, to be cheerful with
all, to patiently learn to find the good in all--such unsel-
fish thoughts are the very portals of heaven; and to dwell
day by day in thoughts of peace toward every creature will
bring abounding peace to their possessor.