Coué: Imagination v. Will....Winner: Imagination

Reading one of John Galsworthy's follow-up novels to his famous Forsyte Saga, set in the late 19th/early 20th century England, I kept encountering a strange French word/name: Coué. I didn't immediately look it up, but gathered from context that it was some kind of method for ...what's nowadays called "self-help"; a specific system which, in the early 1920s, must have been "the fashionable in-thing" from France. On finishing the novel I searched the net for information on Coué/Couéism. It turns out that it was the brainchild of Émile Coué, French Pharmacist and Psychologist .

From THIS website

Émile Coué (1857-1926), a French Psychologist and Pharmacist, introduced a new method of psychotherapy based on the simple use of auto-suggestion, or ‘self-suggestion’, whereby a person repeats suggestions to themselves in order to spur the imagination. He believed that where there was conflict between the will and the imagination, the imagination invariably wins the battle. So rather than using will power alone, one must also make use of their imagination to better health. He believed that repetition of suggestion increased the likelihood of images being projected into reality; most especially when implanted in the morning, and again before sleeping. Coue learned hypnosis from Liébeault and in 1913 founded the Lorraine Society of Applied Psychology.

Coué's best known affirmation was, and still is : "Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and better." Followers of his system were advised to repeat to themselves, in a clear and focused state of mind this, or other custom-designed affirmations, over and over several times each day, especially first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Coué noticed, also, that he could improve the effectiveness of a medication by praising its effectiveness to his patients, producing a kind of placebo effect.

Coué 's natal chart:

Born on 26 February 1857 in Troyes, France at 3 PM (data from astro.com - AA rating = reliably accurate).

Émile Coué certainly lived up to that Aries pioneering reputation! He had four personal planets plus North Node of the Moon in Aries. His natal Sun was in Pisces, however, along with the sign's modern ruler, Neptune, planet of imagination, creativity, dreams, illusions, which points to his gravitation to the particular area of his pioneering - a type of mini-hypnosis or auto-suggestion. His Pisces Sun harmoniously trines Saturn in Cancer blending in Saturn's work/career connection. A helpful sextile from Mercury in Aquarius to Jupiter in Aries points to the blending of a forward-thinking mind with philosophical yet dynamic purpose. Leo rising speaks to the degree of showmanship Coué surely exhibited, helping him to propel his method to a wider, international audience.