Charles Robert Darwin (1809-82), English biologist, author of The Origin Of Species and an apostle of the theory of organic evolution by natural selection, was also a Thought Management Therapist. Not many people placed much value on his Doctrine on mental hygiene as everybody did on his theory of evolution. Hear him: “The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognise that we ought to control our thoughts”.
Mental hygiene or the management of thinking process is one area where Nigerians require some orientation and education. It may not be known to everybody that we can build or destroy ourselves by our thinking and mindset. Truly, the key to every man is his thought. Some Nigerians have this habit of talking carelessly which often depicts the mindset of the average Nigerian.
Some people toy with the illusion that thought is free and that they can get away with the consequences arising from what they think and say. There is, indeed, a world of thought forms whose energy and pressures represent various categories of the thoughts, emotions, utterances and mindset of human beings. They coalesce and form into magnetic centres of energy according to the nature of their contents.
Thus, several centres of thought energy, however around human environment, capable of making contacts with people whose thinking and striving are similar to the nature and contents of the various centres of thought forms. We pollute and degrade our psychic environment through the generation of sordid and nasty thoughts and emotions which contribute towards the worsening behaviours and activities of many people.
Darwin’s Doctrine is an explanation of the links and interactive process between visible human environment and a non-visible one that harbours all thoughts which humans generate daily. The Doctrine emphasizes the fact that human beings possess a far-reaching ability in the power of thought, because human volition creates energies that have independent existence. Such artificially created energy or thought centres influence, affect and infect humans in various ways.
This invisible world of thought-forms continues to grow and expand, with every human being contributing his or her own bit to sustain the various kinds. Humans are surrounded and affected by various electro-magnetic radiations and energies, including the artificially created thought centres. There are few positive ones which people have opportunity of mobilizing and using, to carry out works of grace.
However, human environment has been so polluted and degraded that unpleasant energy centres predominate. There are choking and deadly psychic pollutants whose influences are responsible for increasing acts of irresponsibility.
Therefore, while we are talking about clean physical environment and making legislations for the preservation of a healthy ecology, let us give some thought and attention to Darwin’s Doctrine on this matter. It is a doctrine of a sound mental hygiene and the cultivation of a positive attitude or frame of mind. Is it not obvious that what manifests physically is usually the result or by-product of a psychological process? Thoughts may be private, personal and non-visible, but their effects soon become public and visible in the behaviours of the masses.
The consequences of what we think and plan privately manifest sooner or later in the forms of what we say, do or experience. Degrading pollutants in our environment consist of thoughts of bitterness, greed, lust, envy, tension and other nasty emotions. Hardly can any law be made to regulate the thinking of individuals but everyone has a responsibility to control his thoughts, which would reflect in deeds and utterances.
Through the nature of the thoughts and ideas that we cultivate and harbor, we also attract similar thoughts and ideas, thereby building or destroying ourselves. We do much harm to ourselves and others when we engage in thoughts and ideas of evil nature. When a particular kind of mindset or aspiration predominates in a country this can determine the collective orientation of the people. The consequences come as shared experiences.
It was considered needful to bring up Darwin’s Doctrine which can also be called “Thought Management Therapy”, because of some recent utterances of Nigerian politicians. Being role models in the society, the political class should recognise the wide social impact of what they say and do, even in privacy. Nigerian masses are quite poor and hungry, living in squalid hovels.
For a former state governor and now a Chief Whip of the Senate, used to living in affluence, to lament about “Senators’ pay packet” is quite insensitive to the plight of the masses. How would a Nigerian civil servant begging for N30,000 monthly wage feel to hear that “when I was governor, the state was buying my food; the state paid everything, but as a senator, nobody does that”? With N13.5 million as running cost each month and N200 million as constituency allowance for each senator, why must a monthly pay of N750,000 be an issue of lamentation?
Nigerian politicians are advised to acquaint themselves with Charles Darwin’s Doctrine and what lesson it contains. Nigeria cannot be different from what its leaders, senators and the elite harbour as regular thoughts and aspirations.
Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer at the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt..

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