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Exercise and Air
459
was concerned; but diseased imagination led her to conclude that
she could not, and she did not arouse the power of the will to resist
this deception. The imagination said: You cannot walk, and you had
better not try. Sit still; your limbs are so weak that you cannot stand.
Had this sister exerted her will power and aroused her benumbed
and dormant energies, this deception would have been exposed. In
consequence of yielding to the imagination, she probably thinks, to
this day, that when she was so helpless she was so of necessity; but
this was purely a freak of the imagination, which sometimes plays
strange tricks upon diseased mortals.
Some are so afraid of air that they will muffle up their heads
and bodies until they look like mummies. They sit in the house,
generally inactive, fearing they shall weary themselves and get sick
if they exercise either indoors or out in the open air. They could
take habitual exercise in the open air every pleasant day, if they only
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thought so. Continued inactivity is one of the greatest causes of
debility of body and feebleness of mind. Many are sick who ought
to be in very good health and thus in possession of one of the richest
blessings they could enjoy.
I have been shown that many who are apparently feeble, and are
ever complaining, are not so badly off as they imagine themselves to
be. Some of these have a powerful will, which, exercised in the right
direction, would be a potent means of controlling the imagination
and thus resisting disease. But it is too frequently the case that the
will is exercised in a wrong direction and stubbornly refuses to yield
to reason. That will has settled the matter; invalids they are, and the
attention due to invalids they will have, irrespective of the judgment
of others.
I have been shown mothers who are governed by a diseased
imagination, the influence of which is felt upon husband and chil-
dren. The windows must be kept closed because the mother feels
the air. If she is at all chilly, and a change is made in her clothing,
she thinks her children must be treated in the same manner, and thus
the entire family are robbed of physical stamina. All are affected
by one mind, physically and mentally injured through the diseased
imagination of one woman, who considers herself a criterion for the
whole family. The body is clothed in accordance with the caprices of
a diseased imagination and smothered under an amount of wrappings