Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Regime of the Nerves
Quiet and govern the nervous system by will — attending to ‘general consciousness,’ stilling restlessness, and dissolving creeping/itching sensations by redirecting the mind.
Sit in a still room. Attend to “general consciousness” — heartbeat, breath, warmth — excluding all else; write what the body reports. Practice throwing attention to one part, then forgetting a pressure by attending elsewhere. Stand and assume the calm mood: “All is well, good is flowing in” — willed, not passive, fifteen minutes a morning. At night, never scratch the creeping itch: ignore it, or will it to a chosen spot, then will it gone.
What it is
Haddock’s “regime of the nerves” — a set of quiet drills whose principle is that “Cessation of unnecessary motion conserves force” and that habituated control of nervous energy “strengthens and regulates the Will.” Its signature opening is attention to what he calls “general consciousness”: the diffuse bodily awareness you notice when you sit in a perfectly still room — the heartbeat, the breathing, a murmur in the ears, a general warmth.
From there the regime teaches you to govern restlessness and to dissolve the creeping, tickling, itching sensations that rob sleep not by scratching but by an act of redirected will. Distinct from the steadiness/hands drills (which hold the body rigidly motionless), this practice is about inner quieting and attentional disengagement from nervous noise.
The Method
- Attend to “general consciousness” (Ex. 1). “Sit quietly, exclude from the mind all external matters, and take cognizance of the whole body. Put your entire thought upon this one thing.” It “will be difficult, for you will desire to think of a thousand foreign things; but it can be done by persistence and patient willing.” Then write out every fact the body reports. Repeat ten days, rest two; note improvement in the power of attending.
- Localize, then cross consciousness (Ex. 2). Settle into general consciousness, then “throw consciousness to some particular part of the body” — the forearm, say — and exclude all else. Next, press on one spot (back of the hand, a cheek) while resolutely locating attention elsewhere so as to forget the pressure. This is the core nerve-mastery move: feeling is “called in and controlled by the exercise of Will.”
- Carry it into slow motion (Ex. 3-8). Walk the room slowly “keeping the mind wholly upon general consciousness”; then run his slow, deliberate arm / leg / head / shoulder / trunk movements “made deliberately and slowly. Attend to each exercise with the whole mind. Thrust the Will out into the very muscles.”
- Assume the calm, in-flowing mood (Ex. 9-10). Standing erect, let the mind affirm quietly and resolutely: “I am receiving helpful forces! I am open to all good influences!. All is well!” — “Do not be passive. Keep the sense of willing strongly at the fore.” Repeat the assertive, poised mood “fifteen minutes. at least every morning,” and “whenever worried or perplexed or weary.”
- Dissolve the night-time “creeps” (Ex. 13). When, on retiring, the scalp creeps, the neck tickles, a phantom feather roams the skin — do not slap, pinch or rub. “So long as one slaps and rubs and pinches, so long will sensations diabolic continue.” Instead: “Cultivate indifference to the fly by ignoring it. Put the mind upon some important and absorbing subject.” If a tickle persists, will it to move to an exact spot you choose — “it will obey” — then will it from place to place, “and finally will that it shall vanish; it will certainly obey in the end.”
Source & Lineage
Power of Will (1907), Chapter XIV, “Exercises for the Nerves,” in Part II “Physical Regime.” Haddock frames it with Sir Michael Foster’s physiology of the educable nervous tissue and closes on the “compound interest” of will-culture — “the progression is geometrical.” Frank Channing Haddock (1853-1915). → (haddock frank channing).
Common refinements
Fighting the itch. Scratching/rubbing reinforces it; the whole drill is non-engagement, then gentle redirection.
- Going passive. Haddock repeatedly warns “Do not be passive” — this is willed quieting, not drifting into reverie or sleep.
- Chasing a thousand thoughts. Expect the pull to wander; return, “by persistence and patient willing.”
- Using it on a clinical nervous system. For genuine “shattered” nerves he prescribes rest and a physician, not these drills.