"How To Develop Positive Thinking, Right and Wrong Thinking & Their Results..."

St. Francis of Assisi furnishes the earliest historical case. His contemplation of the wounds of Jesus was of such an intense character and so long continued that his own body finally presented appearances similar to the mental picture which he had so long entertained.

Not only were there similar wounds in his hands, in his feet, and in his side, but the appearance of nails in the wounds was so realistic that after his death the attempt was made to draw them out, supposing them to be really nails.

There have been something like ninety or a hundred well-authenticated cases of a similar character since the time of St. Francis.

For a long while it was believed by many that these conditions were results of self-inflicted wounds or that the story of them was mere fabrication. Some were probably fraudulent, but others were so well authenticated as to remove ail doubt.

Parallel cases of physical effects due to mental suggestion are well known. Experiments are now often performed in psychological laboratories which, by means of mental action, produce appearances similar to the stigmata.

If abnormal physical conditions of such extreme character can be produced by thinking, certainly healthy and normal ones can be produced and maintained by the same means.

Professor Elmer Gates, of the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychurgy, Washington, D.C., showed the same motor influence and effect of mind action in an entirely different way. He plunged his arm into a jar filled with water up to the point of overflow.

Keeping his position without moving, he directed his thinking to the arm, with the result that the blood entered the arm in such quantities as to enlarge it and cause the water in the jar to overflow.