
-Artwork © 2026 Jan Ketchel
I once had a professor hand me back a paper and say, “Yeah, you can write, but don’t get a fat head.” He was a weathered Irish alcoholic, a seasoned veteran of many a late night lecture at the pub.
He would write two sentences on the board from the current New York Times, then spend the entire class breaking it down, demonstrating countless violations in grammar, printed in this ‘revered’ newspaper.
He taught me to stay humble and play by the rules. I’ve never written anything since where I haven’t had his critical eye challenging my every word.
Christianity holds humility as a foundational virtue. “Pride goeth before the fall,” counsels King Solomon in Proverbs.
Certainly, the guidance to avoid ego inflation is central to psychological health. Its danger, in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, couldn’t be more evident than on today’s world stage.
Its prominence in Schizophrenia is also evident, where ego is often swallowed by the grander personality of a Napoleon or a Joan of Arc.
The struggle in Bipolar Disorder is often to take the elixir that renders one to the ordinariness of everyday life, surrendering a dip into the mania of infinite possibility, or a retreat into the utter inertia of depression.
This well-armed war on specialness requires us to knock on wood, to not tempt fate after making a boast. So great is the penalty for assuming even a hint of divine identification.
In fact, this overarching law to refuse all specialness has insisted that humankind disown and project any hint of supernatural power onto an outside entity, be it God, Goddess, or the Universe, as it fully embraces its unworthiness.
As they pray at the Catholic Mass, just prior to receiving Holy Communion, with its human ingestion of the Divine: “Lord I am not worthy, speak but the word and my soul will be healed.”
This preponderance of caution around assuming human specialness is not simply a conspiratorial effort to control the masses and create dependency upon manipulative prophets. To enter into one’s true specialness one must first defeat any attachment to self-importance.
Ego must be honed to handle the enormity of self found in the breadth of the subconscious mind. For much of life ego enjoys the falsehood of its self-importance. Its true task is to grow up and assume responsibility for directing its own inner divinity, the subconscious mind, to exercise its power for the greater good.
Rationality, the greatest achievement of the conscious mind, must be freed from its know-it-all fixation of ego certitude, to its necessary role of producing appropriate suggestions for the subconscious mind’s creation.
In this role, ego surrenders its self-importance to authentically serve the greater Truth. The truth is that we are beings with a dual mind. The conscious mind is assigned the role of leadership; the subconscious mind is the creator.
The subconscious mind can “heal your body and mind of all disease,” states Joseph Murphy in his epic, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. However, to tap into such power the ego must lose its obsession with its own specialness and fully embrace its actual superpower of suggestion, responsibly.
The ego must also exercise its powers of reflection to arrive at truth, then deliver its suggestions faithfully to the subconscious mind.
To believe in the power of the subconscious mind is to know its power through direct experience. The road to that knowing requires ego’s dedication to exercising this power of intent, without attachment to the outcome.
The power of the subconscious mind can be used for healing, manifesting, change, creativity, inspiration, intuition, telepathic communication, a whole host of positive intentions.
Simply, or not so simply, closing the door to distraction, and incessantly repeating one’s intent through suggestion, initiates the journey of cooperative wholeness between the dual mind in the service of the greater good. A more special relationship there could not be.
Continue to be well,
Chuck

