Foundation for Research and Exploration of Mind Motivation

Hugh Harmon, Ph.D. Founder      Pamela Chilton, C.Ht. Director

The Treasure Chest

DR. GUANG YUE - CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION - 2003 - OFFICIALLY PROVED YOU CAN BUILD BIGGER MUSCLES JUST BY THINKING ABOUT USING THEM IN A STUDY PRESENTED TO SOCIETY OF NEUROSCIENCE: 30 Adults spent 15 minutes a day visualizing exercising the little finger. All increased the strength of the pinkie by 35% and buffed up the muscle around the elbow 13%. In a second study, 10 adults aged 20-35 imagined flexing one of their biceps as hard as possible in training sessions five times a week. Electrical impulses at the motor neurons of their arm muscles were monitored to make certain they were not unintentionally tensing. After a few weeks biceps showed 13.5% increase in strength and maintained that gain for three weeks after training stopped. Read more on this here: The Art of Mental Gymnastics

Patients in clinical studies often feel relief even when they’re given placebos - pills that do NOT contain medication. The cause, doctors think, is the power of the mind to influence the body. Scientists at the University of British Columbia report that Parkinson’s Patients taking a placebo had an increase in the release of dopamine in the parts of the brain that are damaged by the disease equal to the actual drugs used to accomplish the same thing.

Prisoner of War - North Vietnam for 7 years. Imprisoned in a cage four and one half feet high and five feet long. Saw no one. Talked to no one. No physical activity. During first few months slept, hoped, prayed. Realized he had to find something to occupy his mind or lose his sanity and probably his life.

In his mind, selected a favorite golf course and started playing golf. Played a full 18 holes every day. Imagined and strove to FEEL everything to the last detail. Saw himself dressed in his golfing clothes. Smelled the fragrance of the trees and the freshly trimmed grass. Experienced different weather conditions and seasons - windy days, overcast days, sunny days, even rainy days. In his imagination trees, blades of grass, singing birds, scampering squirrels and the lay of the golf course became totally real. He felt the grip of the club, instructed himself as he practiced smoothing out his down-swing and the follow through of his shot. Watched the ball arc down the exact center of the fairway, bounce a couple of times, roll to the exact spot he’d selected. Imagined and felt every step as he walked to the ball. Took him just as long in imaginary time to play 18 holes as it would have taken in reality. Not a detail was omitted. Not once did he ever miss a shot, never a hook or a slice, never a missed putt. Seven days a week. Four hours a day. Eighteen holes. Seven years. FIRST time he actually stepped on a golf course after his release, and played 18 holes, he had improved his game by 20 strokes. He shot a 74.

Les Cunningham, HypnoSport (Maryborough Victoria Australia: Hedges & Bell, 1980) A number of studies have shown that a mental rehearsal of an upcoming performance can improve the eventual performance. Two Examples from Example: Study I: Australian Psychologist Alan Richardson tested three groups of basketball players on their ability to make free throws. Then, over the next twenty days each group was subjected to the following routine: Group A: Engaged in no practice whatsoever. Group B: Practiced free-throws for 20 minutes each day. Group C: Spent 20 minutes each day simply imagining that they were throwing the ball at the basket. After twenty days Group A showed no improvement in their ability. Group B: Improved their scoring rate by 24%. Group C: Improved their scoring ability by 23%. (Additional Reference: Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)

Study II: Group A: Practiced throwing darts for 10 days. Group B: Sat in front of dart board and imagined throwing darts for 10 days. Group A and Group B improved equally in dart throwing skills.

"Constant effort does not yield the best results. Two studies of athletic performance validate this. In one study a group of Soviet athletes was brought together and divided into four groups. One group spend time training for their sport. Group two was asked to train only 25% of the time and spend the other 75 percent visualizing the precise movements and outcomes that they wanted in their performance. The third group spent half their time in training and half in visualizing. The forth group spent 75% in training and 25% in visualization. At the 1980 Winter Games in Lack Placid., New York, the group that excelled was the group that spent the highest amount of time in visualization. The lowest improvement was among those who spent all of their time training. In each case, the group with the higher visualization periods did better than the other groups." (Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)

Subjects of 75 years of age or older given a battery of tests to measure posture, physical strength, manual dexterity, perceptional cognition, I.Q., short term memory, hearing, sight, taste and finger length (Fingers get shorter as a person ages. One of the ways of determining the age of a person, at death, from a skeleton is to measure finger length.)

CONTROL GROUP. Put in a resort for ten days, with normal resort activities.

TEST GROUP: Put in a resort for ten days. Everything in resort set up to be 20 years earlier. Television shows from 1959, magazines and newspapers from 1959, movies from 1959. Men wore resort clothes from 1959. They were told to converse as though it was 1959, discussing the events of the day as though they were back in 1959.

CONTROL GROUP: People picked randomly were shown pictures taken of the men before their ten days at the resort and after 10 days at the resort. People guessed before and after ages as same.

TEST GROUP: People judged after pictures as three years younger.

CONTROL GROUP: Some improvement in some areas though ˝ declined in I.Q tests. Finger length remained the same.

TEST GROUP: Significant improvement in all areas, including I.Q. which was a surprise as before this it was thought I.Q. could not increase after adulthood. Biggest surprise of all: Their fingers lengthened!!!!!!

Owner of a 17^th Century Paris Salon famous throughout Europe. Renown for her accomplishments in music, literature, love making, and influential friends. Became more renown for her ability to avoid aging. When she was age 70, two young noblemen fought a duel for her favors. When she died at age 85, all of Paris was shocked to discover her skin, sans makeup, was as young and unwrinkled as a young woman’s. Her house-keeper and maids were grilled mercilessly in trying to discover her secret. The most that could be ascertained was that Ninon spent time everyday sequestered alone in her room where she would "exercise her face and her youth". She had often remarked she did not believe in aging and vowed she would not, and indeed, she did not, as verified in numerous public and church documents on file in Paris to this day.

ADDENDUM: The importance of such information is to get your disbelieving conscious beliefs out of the way so your subconscious can 'do its thing'. The key, you will note as you read the information above is in the detail and the TIME. One must put the TIME in for physical changes. Two minutes of mental imaging 'ain't gonna do it' if you want physical changes. By detail we mean imaging yourself doing what you would need to do to improve a skill, a muscle, your youth etc. as well as the desired result.

I had a client whose brain stem she and I 'accidentally' changed. I say accidentally because we thought I was giving her suggestions that after her operation at John Hopkins Medical Center to correct her brain stem (which was pressing on her spinal chord) her brain would be perfect. With this thought in mind, for several weeks I would suggest as part of her induction into hypnosis that her brain stem was perfect. (Our thinking also being a perfect thought form of a brain stem would help her surgeon do the operation perfectly.)

When she got to John Hopkins in Maryland she had a pre-operation X-Ray taken. Guess what? You guessed it. Her brain stem was perfect. As the surgeon surveyed the old X-Rays (sent to him by UCLA which referred her) and the new ones, he kept shaking his head muttering, "This just can't be right, these things don't change on their own."

True. Suggestion (which triggers mental imagery) did it. I'm convinced if she and I had thought we were trying to change the brain stem ourselves it would not have happened - our conscious disbelief would have interfered. We accidentally got around that by placing our faith in the thought 'Of course her brain stem would be perfect', she was going to John Hopkins to take care of it.

This same woman asked me to ask Master of Spirit (Higher Spirit) if plastic surgery for her nose would interfere with all the great healing work we'd done. (we healed her nerves and muscles too).

Master of Spirit said: "Isn't this the young woman who changed her brain stem and fingers by her own mental efforts?" When I replied yes, Master of Spirit said, "Suggest she do the same with her nose."

When I imparted this to her she got to work - on her own. I forgot about it until one day while she was in hypnosis I thought I saw a shadow nose superimposed over her real nose. I rubbed my eyes and it disappeared. As she left she said goodbye to Dr. Hugh who said to me after she left: "What's with the second nose on her face?" He'd seen it too.

I watched her nose like a hawk after that and watched it change week by week. When she had a new nose I asked what she'd done. Here is what she said:

"I put up a picture on my bathroom mirror of the nose I wanted. I would stand there 10-15 minutes a day, talking to my nose. I would shine a flash light on the nose I wanted and then I would shine it on my own nose and say things like 'See here? There's a bump here. I don't want a bump here, I want it to look that that right there.' Then I'd shine the light on the nose I wanted again. Then I 'd shine the light on my own nose and imagine the bump going down and disappearing. I did this until the bump was gone - it took a few weeks. Then I'd work on another part - like the tip. Mine was too wide and flat. I wanted it more sculptured and pointy."

I asked her how she'd ever found the patience to continue before the first sign it was working. She said she'd started with the bump and had had a mental image one day of an angel kissing the bump on her nose. 'That's when I knew it was going to work', she said.

This woman also grew and slenderized her fingers with suggestion and mental imagery. I dearly wish we had a picture of the first day she came - frumpy, over-weight, walking with a cane - and the last day she came to say goodbye (she moved away after she finished her healing work, including healing the sexual abuse that created so many of her health issues). She truly did not look like the same person at all. She was the picture of confidence, standing proud and slim (she lost 50 pounds over the course of her healing) in stiletto heels, with a new nose and longer fingers on her well manicured hands. She was ready to start life over and she looked and felt terrific.

Could she have done it all with mental imagery alone? No, she tried. She was one who needed to get rid of the self hate, shame and rage she held inside for the mental imagery to work. But...mental imagery was definitely a big part of what she accomplished. It DOES work.

Note: When using Mental Imagery or any other modality for healing, heed what Light writes in Book II: “Cancers, as well as other illness and disease, can be healed without an understanding of what caused them. However, if the cause or causes remain a part of what one thinks, does, or feels the healing is incomplete and conditions remain ripe for future illness and disease."