Tag Archives: hypnosis

Chuck’s Place: The Path to Heart

Wherever your path to heart may lead…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Often, what is experienced as traumatic in the moment becomes the seed of great growth and liberation when viewed from a deeper perspective at a future time.

Maya, a central concept in Hindu cosmology, is considered illusion at the level of everyday life, as events in the moment veil the fuller picture beyond the container of space and time. Yet, at the fully transparent level of the highest spiritual plane, Maya radiates as ultimate truth. The key to accessing ultimate truth is to revisit experience from the fullest and deepest perspective.

Thus, everything that challenges us, no matter how terrifying or painful, ultimately has the potential to lead us into deeper truth as we trod upon our path to heart. However, to benefit from this gift we must allow ourselves to review what we have already lived, by viewing it with a ruthlessly open and conscious mind and heart.

In viewing from a different perspective, we can release the emotions that have protectively shielded us and view the deeper truth that lies beyond our limiting beliefs. With this, the protective chaff falls away, as we now have direct access to the seed of our fuller knowing and future possibility.

One great antagonist in 2020 is Covid-19. At the level of everyday human life, its impact upon the world has been devastating. As a world, we hope to neutralize its impact upon us, even as I write. Many lives have been lost at the physical level, and many livelihoods and life plans have been radically changed through the lethal invasion of this virus.

Beyond personal impact, however, is the interruption it is causing to the energetic flow of the planet. Travel is severely limited. Gatherings of humanity, even the smallest of nuclear families, are suspended in physical space and consigned to connection only at the vibrational level of virtual reality.

The next higher vibrational dimension of humanity, the soul level, operates via thought and feeling, in its energy body, independent of the physical body. Though the virtual reality experience during the pandemic has largely been dependent upon human technology, it has also challenged the physical human being to find mental and emotional connection in non-physical contact. This has been a tremendous crash course on spiritual contact beyond the human body.

Of course, we all crave physical contact, as we also exist in human form. However, we are being ushered, via virtual reality, into another dimension of our human potential. When this potential is more inwardly developed, via the discovery and practice of innate psychic powers—such as intuition, conscious dreaming, and telepathy—the door is opened to unlimited possibility for travel and connection beyond physical reality.

Within the physical dimension, the quality of connection is spiritually enhanced to include greater movement to the heart, in a deeper experience of abstract love; that is, love beyond strictly physical attachment. The legacy of Covid-19 has launched us forever into a greater world of energetic possibility to satisfy our deeper mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

Donald Trump has certainly presented as both central protagonist or antagonist, depending upon your perspective, in 2020. In fact, as I write this blog, it remains unclear what is actually going to happen at the completion of his current term.

Regardless of one’s perspective, Donald Trump has championed the fact that reality is truly relative. He has shown us that it is consensus of agreement that actually generates a reality. What we believe is true is more powerful than objective reality.

This is most powerfully demonstrated via the placebo effect in scientific medical trials. Many a person has actually been cured of a disease because they wholeheartedly believed they were being administered the curing agent, even if it was actually a placebo sugar pill. Though medicine may dismiss the change as mere placebo, cure is cure! The power of belief can concretely transfigure physical reality.

The power of the subconscious to change our mental and physical conditions is the essence of hypnosis. What we tell ourselves, often via forgotten or unknown subconscious programs, is what we manifest.

Donald Trump, as master hypnotist, has demonstrated the power of repetitive speech to determine one’s belief system. The use of affirmations, mantra, prayer, and suggestion to shift belief and behavior is extremely powerful. The collective massing of such efforts, when attuned to the common good, can spiritually advance the planet.

Donald Trump has also embodied the ego at its me-first zenith, which is a reflection of the collective planetary ego of our time. Every individual human must face that the dominance of the ego within their own personality is their greatest resistance to desired spiritual growth.

On a planetary level, it is the collective human ego that puts the wants and desires of itself above the true needs of the whole planet, presenting the greatest blockade to needed planetary change. Donald Trump has impeccably embodied this attitude of resistance, reflecting humanity’s struggle with its own massive ego entrenchment.

For the planet to arrive at the heart center, the needed perspective for planetary survival, the ego must acquiesce to the needs of the greater planetary whole. It is inevitable that we will get there, but we don’t know how far planetary disruption will go before we arrive at the heart center consensus.

To arrive at the position of unconditional love for all that is, is where we are headed. Begin to practice it now in full unconditional love for self. To love every aspect of self, from lowest to highest, will end the need for projection of one’s personal evil upon other.

To love other as self is indeed the path to heart. May we all take giant steps upon it this coming year.

Love to all,

Chuck

Chuck’s Place: Masters of Intent

Masters of Intent…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

All human beings are Masters of Intent. Intent is the active side of our humanness, that which delivers us a definite identity, that which pronounces, “I AM….  such and such”. And whatever description we provide to ourselves of who we are, we reinforce it incessantly throughout life to maintain a cohesive, consistent sense of self.

Perhaps not until the day we may find ourselves in a nursing home, when that familiar mastery of the intent of self gives way to what is called dementia, may we encounter a broader depth of knowing or encountering ourselves in ways held in abeyance for a lifetime.

Like Elmer Green,* I envision the journey of Alzheimer’s as a time of inner exploration into the fullness of self, perhaps a final opportunity in physical form to reconcile one’s life in preparation for one’s definitive journey in infinity. This dementia journey is often experienced as horror and grief by many loved ones who might only observe the disintegrating faculties and loss of familiarity of their cherished loved one or dear friend.

I would argue that this apparent weakening of the mastery of intent in Alzheimer’s is actually the freeing of the greater intent within the Self to complete its earthly individuation. The seed that we once were is freed to complete its journey here, which may require a temporary or permanent suspension of the narrow identity it assumed in this life that limited its full realization. Of course this process is very difficult to appreciate by most onlookers who might only conclude the obvious picture of physical and psychical disintegration.

The power of intent to manifest even the most bizarre and fantastic behaviors is most evident in hypnosis. In hypnosis the inner master of intent is projected upon the hypnotist who then manifests in the passive subject the suggestion or intent that is proposed while the subject is in trance.

Here we see the clearest expression of the Yin and Yang of our human nature. Our Yin is the waiting material or physical part of our being, which dutifully creates the behavior dictated by the Yang or the master of intent part of our being: the instruction giver.

Freud suggested that a good hypnotic subject displayed the blind obedience to parental authority that the child originally experienced  in early childhood. Thus a good hypnotic subject fully obeys the parental hypnotist.

However, there are many people who do not respond to the suggestions of the hypnotist. This is often seen as a strong ego that simply cannot be hypnotized. To the contrary, I would simply suggest that the inner master of intent is not projected upon the hypnotist and is inwardly powered. But who really is this inner master of intent?

The inner master of intent is what the Shamans of Ancient Mexico called the internal dialogue. The internal dialogue is the incessant voice, the inner commentator that constantly informs us who and what we are, what we feel, what our abilities and limitations are, and constantly judges both ourselves and everyone and everything around us.

This voice is such a constant presence that through its incessant patter we find ourselves in continual trance, perceiving and being what it tells us is and what we ourselves are. So formidable is the trance it puts us in that we find ourselves ‘consciously’ restating to ourselves what it tells us, i.e., “I could never do that…” Or, “I have always been…” Or, “I will never be…” And this is who we become and experience ourselves to be.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico would heartily agree with Freud that this voice is the internalized voice of a child’s socialization that takes on the role of defining the limits of what we become largely due to the limiting beliefs it, the internal dialogue, unceasingly espouses. Here we have the hidden reality that all humans are in a constant state of trance, controlled by the outer masters they project upon, or by the inner master of intent, the internal dialogue.

Shamans discovered that the automatic function of the internal dialogue can be silenced and that this silencing opens the gateway for humans to discover their far greater potential, a potential that is highly different from the one casually accepted as the true self as previously presented by the internal dialogue.

The technology to truly assume ownership for one’s ability to be a master of intent is strikingly identical to the socialization process of early childhood. Shamans state their intent as incessantly as all the authoritative voices of childhood routinely corrected and defined who one should be, eventuating in the internalized internal dialogue. The perseverance of this conscious repetition of intent gradually overrides the prevailing internal dialogue and begins to manifest the consciously chosen intent.

The greatest obstacle to change is the belief that something so simple can’t be enough. We would rather argue the impossibility of such a possibility than actually try it! It simply can’t work, at least not for me!

The second greatest obstacle is lack of perseverance. If things don’t change quickly enough and in ways we deem should happen we give up. Here the guidance is gentle but persistent perseverance, with no attachment to the outcome.

The third obstacle to engaging intent is our attachment to our familiar definition of self. Like a person in the grip of Alzheimer’s we may be threatened to discover the vast aspects of ourselves that have never been known that might force us to consider major uncomfortable changes in our lives.

The process of unfolding of a new intent might also force us into recapitulation experiences that have forged our familiar sense of self by keeping us unaware of the full truth of experiences lived in this life. Intent will insist that we free ourselves from these limiting beliefs to allow greater manifestation of who we truly are. This can be a terrifying process, encountering much that has been repressed in life.

Finally, intent is a powerful force that can be used by both the light and the dark side. We are in a particular world phase where we are witnessing master hypnotists in the persons of political figures giving free license to intent from the dark side. Intent in and of itself is amoral. Intent is an energetic force that operates according to the intent stated.

Our focus has always been upon the conscious use of intent for healing and exploration of our full potential. This conscious use of intent finds resonance with the truth of the heart who carries the full intent of the seed of possibility we were planted with when we arrived here in human form.

May all become true masters of their intent, claiming full conscious control for the manifestation of their lives in alliance with the truth of the heart.

Intent!

Chuck

*Elmer Green, PhD, noted biofeedback pioneer is also the author, among other books, of The Ozawkie Book of the Dead: Alzheimer’s Isn’t What You Think It Is

Chuck’s Place: Simply Sacred

We can create mandalas anywhere, to trace or walk, to calm or intend change... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
We can create mandalas anywhere,
to trace or walk,
to calm or intend change…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The borders of the world are swiftly evaporating as we swirl ever so rapidly into our One World family. This transformation has been heralded by the diaspora of formerly-cloistered knowledge and practices of the world’s most ancient spiritual traditions.

Tibet is a regular at the White House now, in the form of the Dalai Lama’s chats with the President. Mindfulness has infiltrated into the core of brain research at major universities and is at the heart of modern psychotherapeutic treatment. The technologies of the Upanishads and the wisdom of the ancient Hindus is available in most adult ed programs, and in storefronts in most cities in the world, in the form of yoga practice. The energetic medicine of the ancient Chinese, in the practice of acupuncture, is now covered under most health insurance plans. The knowledge and methods of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico are readily available, to anyone seeking to deepen their energetic evolution, through the published works of Carlos Castaneda.

The age of exclusive godly gurus and saviors is over, at least in projected form. Even the Catholic Pope admitted to his human frailty when having to prematurely retire. The Dalai Lama’s successor is dubious; Carlos Castaneda ended his shamanic line; India is steeped in desecration of the feminine, and China has forgotten the I Ching.

The legacy, the deepest gold of these ancient fading traditions, lies in their technologies, offering pathways to the soul. These methodologies, stripped of their proprietary and ritual wrappings are now available to anyone who chooses to engage in their practices. It is true that we still need teachers and guides as we experiment with these ancient practices. For instance, Kundalini, the powerful instinctive energy that lies coiled like a snake at the base of the spine in all of us, once activated, can wreak havoc with the central nervous system, such as triggering a physical recapitulation that may confusedly land one in the emergency room! It is wise to proceed with caution and seek out experienced guides and helpers for these practices.

But, by and large, our greatest guide is our own resonance. The teachers and teachings that are synchronistically drawn to us and resonate with our own energy are most likely to be trusted. We are all guided now by our own inner Naguals—the title afforded, in earlier times, to the leader of a shamanic party. No one else’s rules or resonances necessarily apply to our own journey. And that journey can take many different roads.

Many people value the concept of meditation. In fact, it’s at the top of many a New Year’s resolution scroll. Most, however, find its actual practice daunting or frustrating. When TM, Transcendental Meditation, was the rave in the 1970s, Dr. Herbert Benson, in his lab at Harvard, discovered the Relaxation Response, a simplified, demystified 10 minute practice that achieved the same physical and emotional benefits as the ancient esoteric mantras of TM. There are many simple roads to meditation, like washing the dishes with full mindful presence.

A calm walk on a simple path... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
A calm walk on a simple path…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The ancient Tibetans and Navaho Indians used sand paintings of mandalas to heal and commune with deep spiritual forces. Carl Jung had his patients paint mandalas to connect with the healing support of their own deep unconscious during analysis. When I seek such a connection, I will simply walk slowly in a circle, then in a square, touching four points of that circle. In this simple gesture the energetic pathways to the deeper self are opened. A calm walk on a simple labyrinth can facilitate a similar experience.

The other day, Jan offered a recorded hypnosis to easily shift awareness and access deep calm from the sacred within. Hypnosis is one of those ancient practices: “En arche en ho lógos (John 1:1);” “In the beginning was the word.” And with words we construct our worlds and commune with our deepest spiritual forces. When we choose our words wisely, the words we take in and the words we exhale can invite in benevolent and compassionate energies to support and guide our journeys. It’s all in the word. A simple calm word can change the structure of water and what it does to us; it can become healing balm.

Partake in the simply sacred with the guides and practices that resonate. Trust your inner Nagual. Peace.

On the simple path,
Chuck

A Day in a Life: You Are A Calm & Radiant Being!

ALERT: What follows is a hypnotic recording. A hypnotic recording should never be listened to while driving!

Morning sun hitting a window... Reminding us that we too are radiant! - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Morning sun hitting a window…
Reminding us that we too are radiant!
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Hypnosis is a natural state. We go into hypnosis all the time, though we don’t often give it this name. There is a term, highway hypnosis, meaning a deep sense of detachment that naturally happens as we do something that is automatic, such a driving, especially as we drive the same route each day. Often we can’t remember passing any of the familiar landmarks. All of a sudden we are at our destination unaware of how we got there! We go into hypnosis when sitting in a movie theatre, our attention focused on the movie so that our surroundings disappear. It’s a good writer and director who can put us so deeply into hypnosis that we enter the world of the movie and forget everything else for a few hours, even the person sitting next to us! When plugged into our music, when reading, when engaged in creative endeavors such as painting, playing an instrument, dancing, etc., we also go into states of hypnosis, also known as trance.

We hypnotize ourselves all the time by going into emotional states of fear and worry, by letting the mind take over. Unconscious habits may also be states of hypnosis as well, as we eat in trance, putting food or drink that we don’t really need or want into our mouths, seeking to fill a void, or as we physically push ourselves, avoiding something, refusing to face what is nagging at us. So, if you’ve never experienced hypnosis in a clinical setting, you have nothing to fear as you listen to the following recording, as it’s a perfectly natural state!

The ten minute hypnosis that follows is a gentle, calming hypnosis, allowing the mind, body, emotions and spirit to relax and release normal tensions and interruptions, allowing you to be more present in your body. The body speaks to us all the time, but can we hear it? Do we listen? A few minutes of calming relaxation and hypnosis, with beneficial and healthy suggestions to the mind and body, can make a world of difference, setting us on a new healthy path to communication within the totality of who we are, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

ONCE AGAIN: What follows is a hypnotic recording. A hypnotic recording should never be listened to while driving! Please keep this in mind. Instead, take some time to sit calmly, preferably lying down, with legs, hands and arms uncrossed to allow for good circulation. Listening with headphones may enhance the experience. Perhaps a blanket to cover you and keep you warm will make you more accepting and calm as you allow yourself to have an experience like no other, the experience of hypnosis!

To reinforce and achieve the full benefit of any hypnosis, repeated listening—at least once a day—will work wonders! So take some time each day over the next few weeks to sit and listen to the hypnotic recording that follows, and reap the benefits. Remember: You are a calm and radiant being!

I send you my very best, and may you enjoy the experience!
Jan

Here is the recording:

A Day in a Life: You Are A Calm & Radiant Being

Chuck’s Place: Inhabit New Habit

Nature is on automatic pilot... - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Nature is on automatic pilot…
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

Reasoning, or thinking, is a function of consciousness. The far greater share of our mental functioning operates on automatic pilot, in the vast realm of the unconscious mind.

Although we can consciously decide to breathe, to breathe deeper, to adjust the rhythm and length of a breath, the majority of breaths we will take in our lifetime will happen automatically, outside the purview of our conscious awareness.

Our unconscious is filled with billions of such preset programs that we all share and inherit from the evolutionary journey of our species. This was why Jung named the deepest level of the unconscious the “collective,” versus personal, as at the deepest level we all share in common the same preset programs to react and survive as living human beings.

The unconscious mind does not need to think through eons of experience in order to gain the precise knowledge of how to react to a given need or stimulus. I was once deeply wounded in the palm of my hand on a beach. I was alone. I passed out; that is, consciousness left. When it returned, I discovered my hand packed in sand, the bleeding completely stopped. I was good to go. The program to “dress” that wound lay dormant and ready in the unconscious. It was triggered to action upon contact with the stimulus of the wound as it pushed the ego out of the way and took care of business. This is the essence of instinct—inherited habits to address adaptive needs to ensure survival.

With the advent of consciousness, human beings have a new source of habit making. Utilizing our faculty of reasoning and learning, we introduce new patterns of behavior into our lives. When we learn to drive, for instance, we—with consciousness—repetitively practice a series of behaviors, such as learning to brake and drive with one foot, learning to turn the wheel, to park, and to stay in lanes with others going in the same direction. Once these tasks are consciously mastered, they slip into the realm of the unconscious, as habits that react on demand, as needed, when we drive. After awhile, driving starts to require minimal consciousness—in fact, we easily daydream while our unconscious reacts to all the stimuli we encounter as we safely take our journeys.

The unconscious is a habitual mind that reacts to needs and commands. This fact lies at the essence of hypnotic suggestion. Like the habit of driving that we ask the unconscious to perform when we enter our cars, the unconscious awaits orders constantly throughout the day. Hypnotists are aware of this part of the mind that responds to suggestion, and speak directly to it.

The truth is, we are all our own hypnotists. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico identified our inner hypnotist as the internal dialogue that incessantly barks orders at the unconscious mind, manifesting in how we see ourselves and construct our world. That internal dialogue may tell us that we are inadequate, unattractive, unfulfilled, undervalued, underserving, etc. Of course, it can also deliver other consistent messages that support a sense of worthiness and adequacy, but this is less common. We become so entranced by the habitual definitions of our internal dialogue that we construct a personality and sense of self according to its dictates. We become entrenched in a familiar definition of self that, however uncomfortable or unfulfilled it may be, persists because of the constant redundant messages and orders delivered by the incessant internal dialogue.

Ready to dive in and create some new waves? - Photo by Jan Ketchel
Ready to dive in and create some new waves?
– Photo by Jan Ketchel

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico suggest that we interrupt this automatic flow of messages by canceling the internal dialogue and consciously delivering new suggestions, what they call intent. Intent is the mantra of a new, consciously delivered, command, bent on manifesting a new sense of self, as well as a new world.

When we coin a new intention—i.e., I am calm—and repeat it religiously, like a prayer, we are delivering new working orders, entering a new habit into our unconscious mind that will activate the programs associated with manifesting that intent. We must be religious in our practice—highly repetitive—if we are to push aside the old messages, the conflicting old messages of the reigning internal dialogue, which can only serve to confuse, that is, deliver mixed signals to the unconscious mind. And mixed messages, as we know, confound the manifestation of change.

We must be disciplined and persistent in our practice. Remember, it took a long time and a lot of practice to truly master the art of driving as a guaranteed habit. It is the same with manifesting and inhabiting a new habit. Perseverance and repetitive practice will, ultimately, manifest intent in new habit!

Chuck