From Reporting-Tuesday Night Talks
(*Audience participation is in parentheses--notations in brackets have been added for clarification )

[Definition of Suggestion from "The Place of Language in the Teaching"
Suggestion: An idea that creates expectation that something ideal or not ideal will happen in the future.

Also "A Formula for Making a Suggestion"
1. Create desire by identifying need.
2. Set up a goal with the promise of being "better off."
3. Show the method and how "easy it is."
4. Act upon it and imply a guarantee.

From "Who Is In Charge Of My Inner State Of Being?"
It is only a suggestion when it promises you pleasure or comfort; or, when it threatens pain or discomfort of some sort.

Here begins the excerpt

Well the great game is people are highly suggestible. I have been talking for many years that possibly our greatest accomplishment would be to lessen our degree of suggestibility; and to be aware of when you're hearing a suggestion. A suggestion is when somebody offers you a reward if you do certain things; and if you don't do it there's a great punishment.

(You're talking about taking on suggestion, what if someone gives you suggestion that wonderful things are going to happen, isn't that sort of a good suggestion to buy?)

Well, if you accept it and act upon it, you'll probably bring it to pass.

(So the danger of buying suggestion……..)

Well, if you buy one, you're apt to buy them all. It's kind of like that--if you buy one, you'll buy them all. I'd rather not buy. Why can't I give myself my own pretty pictures. I keep beautiful pictures around.

(But they're not suggestions.)

No, I make them myself. I dream them up myself and decide I'm going to act upon them--and I do. So I bring about some very lovely desirable states of being. I decide how I'm going to feel everyday-with minor variations. You know I could be up or down a little bit according to what I hear on the phone or somebody says to me or what comes in. But I'm going to be in that higher state. Now I don't need some funny-looking card to tell me that's the way I'm gonna feel. Nor I don't string out a bunch of numbers tied on the letters of my name, or you name it-the horriblescope -- or any of those things---or the moon. I can always tell when the moon's full even though it's cloudy. During the full moon, the phone calls get three times as thick and people do unusual things. They didn't name the moon Luna for nothing.

(In relation to what you were saying, when you wake up in the morning. Will you comment?)

Well, it's usually real good then and I'm gonna keep it that way.

(You were talking about writing your own role and your own part. Would you talk about that?)

Ok, I'll give a little discussion. I said that each of us every day (we can everyday) write the script, direct the part and play the role. I got the whole show, so I can do it all. I'm the chief actor. Now I can act any way I want to. I can write the script of how I want to act today; and I can direct the part.

Now if you don't do that, you leave it to the tender mercies of whoever you meet to start directing you--you're like the extra in the show in the mob scene. They say, "Everybody run!" and everybody gets up and runs. And they say, "Everybody yell go." And they all yell go. So who is going to write your script for today--whose going to direct it and who's going to act out the role.

Now you're always going to act out a role, but you gonna let somebody else write the script and somebody else direct it? Huh? You do that Warren? I don't want to play that game.

(It seems like you'd have more energy?)

Oh sure. You don't need as much of any of those suggestions because you're gonna do it. No telling what those other jerks will have you doing. They holler do this, do that, stand on your chair, sit on the floor or whatever. So you don't have to let them do it--you got plenty of energy--basically the rest of them are dissipating it all over the place because they're letting somebody else write the script, direct the part and they're just playing out the role and don't really know why in the hell they're doing it, isn't that right?

When you accept a role that somebody has set out for you, you might not even like doing it; but if you don't do it, you'll be embarrassed, is that about correct? So I have to act out their role, is that right?

There is a different way of doing things when you choose your own role, write the script and act it out.

[It often happens that there is a suggestion of something I should do or shouldn't do. The "suggester" doesn't even state a reward or punishment; but I internalize what they've said, the "pleaser" takes over or I "give them authority over me" and/or I imagine they are/will disapprove; and then I am caught. That's definitely a reason to wake up and write my own role regardless ……………Marsha]