This little book, like my book on Christian Science which appeared a year ago, is the evolution of a pamphlet.

The first half of the pamphlet was written in the middle of a sleepless night some years ago. The last half was written about two years ago, after I had found relief by auto-suggestion from the lifelong bondage of insomnia and had thereby doubled my capacity both for work and play.

First published in the spring of 1907 as my weekly message under the heading of “The Parson’s Outlook” to the 5000 readers of The Hampshire Gazette in and about Northampton, the article on sleeplessness was republished by request in the same paper some months later; then, as the demand increased for it, in pamphlet form. This year past it has been used in the Emmanuel Clinic, both in Boston and Northampton, with such gratifying results that more than 300 sufferers from insomnia in one part of the country or another have testified by letter or by word of mouth to the benefit they have received from it.

At the suggestion of the Rev. Elwood Worcester, Ph.D., D.D., two magazine editors, and two publishing houses, the pamphlet is now enlarged into a book with the earnest hope that the suggestions it contains may be of service to many whom the pamphlet, privately printed and gratuitously distributed, could not reach at all.

There are books enough, perhaps, on the theory of sleep. The volume by Marie de ManaceÏne on Sleep—Its Physiology, Pathology, Hygiene, and Psychology will surely long remain the standard work. Dr. Upson’s Insomnia and Nerve Strain is based on the author’s discovery of the vaso-neural circuit and will not be neglected by those who wish to understand certain physical obstacles to sleep which have hitherto been largely overlooked. Religion and Medicine, the official book of the Emmanuel Movement, is indispensable to any knowledge of the drugless cure of sleeplessness and other nervous functional disorders. And the writings of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Dr. Woods Hutchinson, and Dr. J. Madison Taylor are, of course, of lasting value on this subject.

The purpose of this little book is very simple. It is designed to help physicians, Emmanuel workers, and others who believe in the art of natural sleep to aid those committed to their care. It is designed, also, to be of service to the thousands who never go to anyone for aid in learning how to sleep, and to this end is kept as free as possible from all technical terms and all theoretical discussions.

To Dr. Worcester I owe the title of the book; to Rev. H. L. Taylor of the Emmanuel Church staff certain of the illustrative cases from the Emmanuel Clinic in Boston; to Mr. W. P. Cutter, Librarian of the Forbes Library in Northampton, many special courtesies; and to Dr. Francis S. Wilson, expert diagnostician and experienced practitioner, goodly counsel in the preparation of the book.

Trusting that directly or indirectly this little book may set many an unhappy victim of insomnia free from his hard bondage, I send it forth in faith.

L. P. P.

St. John’s Rectory,
Northampton, Mass.
September 15, 1908.