Auto-Facial-Construction
by Mina Loy (1882-1966)
The face is our most potent symbol of personality.
The adolescent has facial contours
in harmony with the condition of his soul.
Day by day the new interests and activities
of modern life
are prolonging the youth of our souls,
and day by day we are becoming more aware
of the necessity for our faces to express that youthfulness,
for the sake of psychic logic.
Different systems of beauty culture
have compromised our inherent right not only to be ourselves
but to look like ourselves
by producing a facial contour in middle age
which does duty as a “well preserved appearance.”
This preservation of partially distorted muscles is,
at best,
merely a pleasing parody of youth.
That subtle element of the ludicrous
inherent in facial transformation by time
is the signpost of discouragement
pointing along the path of the evolution of personality.
For to what end is our experience of life
if deprived of a fitting esthetic revelation in our faces?
Once distorted muscle causes a fundamental disharmony in self-expression,
for no matter how well gowned or groomed men or women may be,
how exquisitely the complexion is cared for,
or how beautiful the expression of the eyes,
if the original form of the face
(intrinsic symbol of personality)
has been effaced in muscular transformation,
they have lost the power
to communicate their true personalities to others
and all expression of sentiment is veiled in pathos.
Years of specialized interest in physiognomy as an artist
have brought me to an understanding of the human face
which has made it possible for me
to find the basic principle of facial integrity,
its conservation, and,
when necessary, its reconstruction.
I will instruct men or women who are intelligent
and for the briefest period, patient,
to become masters of their facial destiny.
I understand the skull with its muscular sheath
as a sphere whose superficies can be voluntarily energized.
And the foundations of beauty
as embedded in the three interconnected zones of energy
encircling this sphere:
the centers of control being at the base of the skull
and the highest point of the cranium.
Control,
through the identity of your Conscious Will
with these centers and zones,
can be perfectly attained through my system,
which does not include any form of cutaneous hygiene
(the care of the skin being left to the skin specialists)
except insofar as the stimulus to circulation it induces
is of primary importance in the conservation of all the tissues.
Through Auto-Facial-Construction
the attachments of the muscles to the bones are revitalized,
as also the gums,
and the original facial contours
are permanently preserved as a structure
which can be relied upon without anxiety as to the ravages of time
a structure which Complexion Culture enhances in beauty
instead of attempting to disguise.
This means renascence for the society woman,
the actor, the actress,
the man of public career, for everybody who desires it.
The initiation to this esoteric anatomical science is expensive,
but economical in result;
for it places at the disposal of individuals
a permanent principle for the independent conservation of beauty
to which,
once it is mastered,
they have constant and natural resource.
***
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-Lunar-Baedeker-Poems/dp/0374525072
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