FIGURE 10.3. Frequency of Appearance of Suggestibility, Autosuggestion, and Crowd Psychology in Books,
1800–2008
This figure shows three recurrences of epidemics of confidence narratives with somewhat different
embellishments and contexts. Source: Google Ngrams, no smoothing.
The idea that the human mind is suggestible is diametrically opposed to the
concept of economic man who is a rational optimizer, who acts as if guided by
careful calculations. Suggestibility implies that oftentimes we are acting blind or
as in a dream. By 1920, the concept of suggestibility was widely known,
indicating that people of that era may have felt that other people are easily
influenced by abstract or subtle examples, and are therefore more likely to
conduct their economic behavior expecting a highly unstable world. The
narrative would lead them to expect herd-like behavior and perhaps to contribute
to such behavior. If you think that other people are members of an
impressionable herd, you may be more likely to try to anticipate the herd’s
movements and try to get ahead of them.
We can use the concepts of crowd psychology and suggestibility to
understand depressions, such as the Great Depression of the 1930s. In doing so,
we should look not only at the direct applications of these concepts but also at
the ways in which people think that these concepts help explain the depressions.
These were their concepts much more than ours.

The Psychology of Suggestion and the Autosuggestion
Movement
Close to the beginning of the suggestibility epidemic, in 1898, The Psychology
of Suggestion was published. The book, written by Boris Sidis, a colleague of
psychologist William James, reported on experiments conducted at the Harvard
Psychological Laboratory. Sidis defines suggestibility as follows:
I hold a newspaper in my hands and begin to roll it up; I soon find that my
friend sitting opposite me rolled up his in a similar way. This, we say, is a
case of suggestion.
My friend Mr. A. is absent-minded; he sits near the table, thinking of some
abstruse mathematical problem that baffles all his efforts to solve it. Absorbed
in the solution of that intractable problem, he is blind and deaf to what is
going on around him. His eyes are directed on the table, but he appears not to
see any of the objects there. I put two glasses of water on the table, and at
short intervals make passes in the direction of the glasses—passes which he
seems not to perceive; then I resolutely stretch out my hand, take one of the
glasses and begin to drink. My friend follows suit—dreamily he raises his
hand, takes the glass, and begins to sip, awakening fully to consciousness
when a good part of the tumbler is emptied.6
The term autosuggestion came a little later than suggestibility, but it led to
new expectations that one could manipulate not only oneself but also economic
activity. Starting in 1921, the autosuggestion epidemic attracted widespread
public interest. Emile Coué, a French psychologist who went on a book tour in
the United States in 1922, was the most influential proponent of the
autosuggestion movement. The key idea, attractive to so many millions, was that
most of us are not successful because we do not believe we can succeed. To
achieve success, one must repeatedly suggest to oneself that one will be a
success. Coué advised people to recite frequently a key affirmation: “Every day
in every way I get better and better.” Napoleon Hill, whose varied career
included motivational speaking, added to the self-empowerment narrative with
his 1925 book, The Law of Success in 16 Lessons and his 1937 best seller, Think
and Grow Rich. He emphasized channeling the power of the subconscious mind
to adopt a positive, wealth-building attitude.

The autosuggestion narrative was a mutation of an earlier hypnosis narrative
that went viral over the few decades before the 1920s. That narrative described
traveling hypnotists who put people into a trance. Those in a trance then showed
immense suggestibility. According to the 1920 book Success Fundamentals by
Orison Swett Marden:
One reason why the human race as a whole has not measured up to its
possibilities, to its promise; one reason why we see everywhere splendid
ability doing the work of mediocrity, is because people do not think half
enough of themselves. We do not realize our divinity; that we are part of the
great causation principle of the universe. We do not know our strength and
not knowing we can not use it. A Sandow could not get out of a chair if a
hypnotist could convince him that he could not. He must believe he can rise
before he can, for “He can’t who thinks he can’t,” is as true as “He can who
thinks he can.” [Eugen Sandow, 1867–1925, was a muscleman and
bodybuilder who amazed and inspired audiences with his feats.]7
The autosuggestion movement started to peter out after 1924, but it appears to
have had aftereffects. Notably, the highly successful 1935 pro-Nazi film Triumph
of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl appears to borrow from autosuggestion. Hitler’s
appeal was based in part on the idea that he would inspire the German nation out
of the depression into which it had sunk, despairing and insecure, in the wake of
World War I. At the time, it was widely believed that the Depression resulted
from a loss of confidence and that Germans needed a leader to restore the
nation’s confidence. Riefenstahl’s movie depicts Hitler, in a speech before the
adoring multitudes, saying, “It is our will that this state shall endure for a
thousand years. We are happy to know that the future is ours entirely!” Hitler
says, “It is our will,” as if saying those words will magically turn Germany into
the dominant world power.
Behind all this interest in the unseen force of confidence in human affairs was
an analogy to the unseen force of air pressure on weather, and the possibility of
forecasting both.