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Chuck’s Place: Video Poker

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About a month ago I was introduced to a book entitled Heaven is for Healing by Joseph Gallenberger, a clinical psychologist and trainer at The Monroe Institute. The book details his healing process, including OBEs and channelings, following the death of his brother, Peter, who committed suicide in Las Vegas in 1991.

Shadowland anyone?

Very familiar with the OBE work of pioneer out-of-body explorer Robert Monroe, founder of The Monroe Institute, and having used Hemi-sync products from the Institute for many years, I had nonetheless never come across Joseph Gallenberger.

I purchased his book and was fascinated by his experiences, which paralleled many of my own, particularly his OBE explorations and the channelings he’d received, messages delivered in a language style very similar to those Jan receives from Jeanne.

Jan became interested in him too and discovered that he’d written another book, Inner Vegas, where he describes using psychic abilities to win big in Las Vegas, often playing video poker. Jan’s inner imp bought that book, which set the stage for a reconsideration of our basic values and became the basis for a whole new adventure.

I’ve never allowed myself to invest in the Stock Market, despite a pretty keen intuition of where money can be made, because to do so would have forced me to be indifferent to the impact that demanding high profits has upon the earth. I also never wanted to have my attention monopolized by constant tracking of world events and their impact on the markets.

The notion, however, of video poker, where you test your skill against a machine, seems like a cleaner opportunity to open to abundance. Interesting proposition: you invest your skill and money; you might be very successful, you might lose, fair and square. No one is harmed or tricked in your attempt to win big!

A gambling experience is one I shunned all my life as well. It seemed like a foolish waste of money. However, after reading Joseph Gallenberger, plans quickly germinated to go to a casino to try our skills, something neither of us had ever done before.

Suddenly, Stephen Paddock, a multimillionaire, highly successful at video poker, massacred 58 people and injured hundreds of others from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas. No motive has been ascertained.

On the surface his life circumstances, at age 64, would appear to be the flowering of the American Dream: successful in business, multimillionaire, freed to fully enjoy the luxury and pleasures of gambling at video poker, well known and well attended to in the top casinos.

How were Jan and I to understand the flow of synchronicities appearing in our lives around video poker just as we were about to set off on an adventure into casino land? Clearly this man, Stephen Paddock, had fully indulged in the opportunities of amassing abundance in the material plane. Why would he choose to end his life with such horrific carnage?

My speculation, as a psychotherapist, is that he misread an inner call to open up to his spirit. He had spent his whole life concentrated on the material plane to the total neglect of his spirit. I suspect, by way of compensation, that he harbored a psychotic voice that instructed him to kill off his materialistic, fun loving side. From his vantage point high above the casinos he likely projected his materialistic side onto a fun loving concert audience. From this “spirit” vantage point he killed off the material side of many, including himself.

Indeed, to open to the spiritual plane one must be willing to tame the material side of oneself. Unfortunately many suicides have resulted from a misreading of this inner command, which really says “time to kill off obsession with the material,” NOT “time to kill the physical self or others.”

Last week someone sent me an article entitled Jung and the Trumpian Shadow* by Alexander Blum. The gist of this essay pinpoints Trump as embodying America’s projected, disavowed shadow. This shadow part of the self is far more instinctual and conservative, focused on self needs and wants.

The American persona and spiritual ideal of altruistic values, progressive in its inclusiveness of all diversity and care for the deepest needs of the world, is countered by a hidden, self-centered preoccupation and entitlement that feels held back from speaking and living its true mind. Trump singlehandedly is living out this unacknowledged side of the American psyche. The real problem is the conflict of the evolved mind of modernity with its instinctual core. The tragedy in Las Vegas is an expression of the clash of these Titans.

In fact, if we could erase the bizarre behavior of that Sunday night in Las Vegas, many Americans would have seen Stephen Paddock as a shining example of their own unlived shadow side. To the contrary Stephen Paddock emerged as the darkest example of the shadow unleashed, wreaking utter destruction.

The dilemma we all must face is that if we don’t acknowledge, live out, and assume responsibility for our shadow/materialistic side, we will manifest people who will completely act it out for us, abusing with lethal power. On the other hand, we can open up to our deepest earthly impulses and with consciousness (spirit) and responsibility live a whole and fulfilled life.

With full knowledge of this backdrop of world events, Jan and I took it upon ourselves to have a conscious adventure in shadowland. Perhaps the imp will write about it sometime!

Play responsibly,

Chuck

*Read Jung and the Trumpian Shadow by Alexander Blum here

A Blog by Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Parallel Lives, the Maze, and the Ego Self

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The Big Bang

In the beginning, so say the scientists, was the Big Bang, and the universe was born. In his seminal piece, The Trauma of Birth (1924), Otto Rank describes the Big Bang experience of human birth and its psychological impact throughout the life cycle.

On a soul level, many have retrieved their journeys through infinity; their lives lived before the big bang birth into their current lives in this world. These soul retrievals point to a parallel life, a soul of many lives that gives birth to the Self of this life.

The decision as to what life to be born into is made at that soul level, as part of that soul’s evolving journey and needs in infinity. Some have called this process Karma.

For most of us, the big bang experience of our birth trauma into the life we are in is a shock that severs us from the knowing of our soul and our many lives previously lived. We are born into a maze with huge walls that seal off the memory of prior life and our connection to our greater soul that continues to live in tandem with the self we become in this world.

A hint of previous lives

We are here on a mission, and that mission requires a blank slate maze-of-unknowing. A maze is a definite, constrained life: a family, a culture, a set of circumstances, a world within which to encounter specific challenges, and a world within which to develop an identity, a sense of self, an Ego—a point of consciousness.

That ego will become our working definition of who we are and also our engine to accomplish our mission in this world, that is: the reason we came here, the reason we were born into the circumstances we arrived into.

Had we the full awareness of our greater soul coming into this life, our mission would be compromised. We’d be unable to fully inhabit the role we need to experience in taking on the challenge of this life. However, the ego does, in its separated state from its greater soul, experience a deep underlying sense of insecurity and separation anxiety. The ego retains an awareness of its orphan state and part of its mission in this world is to reunite with its true birth parent, its greater soul.

The circumstances we are born into

Life for the ego is a fragmented self in a fragmented world—life in a maze—a neatly constructed world, but only a fragment of life at large.

Traumas beyond birth continue the fragmentation of ego self into Ego States. Ego states are separate senses of self that coexist and live in tandem—parallel lives in tandem, parallel lives within the ego’s life in this world.

Ego states may be hidden from or known to each other. Some ego states remain largely in the closet, holding frightening traumatic memories. Some ego states suffer arrested development, child states necessarily pushed aside or denied for adaptive reasons. We discover and live the parallel lives of our ego states in our symptoms—i.e.: ailments, diseases—hinting at and suggesting the truths of our parallel lives. We discover and live the parallel lives of our ego states in our mood states—i.e.: depression, elation, hope, hopelessness, fear, etc. We also discover our ego states in obsessive projections—those we are drawn to in admiration or those we abhor. Somewhere in those projections are the mirrors to our unknown, unloved, or forgotten ego states. We also discover our ego states and our connection to our greater soul in dreams, active imagination, and synchronistic phenomena.

Parallel lives

If we can suspend our rational judgments and explore the characters and messages of dreams, synchronicities, and other psychic phenomena, we begin to step outside the maze of our narrow selves and access the fullness and resource of all that we truly are.

This is the process of integration that unites the fragments of this life and potentially the fragments of all lives lived—our greater soul—within this life. This is a mighty task though, as it asks us to truly take in the Big Bang realization of all that we are: We are much more than our orphan ego clings to in its neatly defined maze.

Though the knocking down of the walls of our mazes may shatter our “known” selves, it is not without its rewards. We discover a-maze-ing resources and a life of magic now freed for fulfillment beyond the maze, a once needed but now much too small home.

Out of the many become one: Parallel lives united, beyond the maze, continue the soul’s journey in infinity.

Chuck

Messages from Jeanne

#662 You Are All Bodhisattvas in Intent

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Today’s question comes from Chuck followed up by a question from Jan.

Jeanne Marie Ketchel
Channeled by Jan Ketchel

Dear Jeanne,
When you first left this world you returned briefly to Cambodia to effect the completion of your life as Jeanne Ketchel, not needing to fully reincarnate. You then returned in spirit as guide and support for Jan in her long and arduous recapitulation. Things then shifted as I was fully brought in to participate in this mystery, greatly shifting my own evolution.

Your place of compassion continues to flow though Jan and I, as we deepen our abilities to detach. At this stage, I see you functioning in the role of a Bodhisattva, one who is enlightened but chooses to remain connected to this world as a teacher with deep compassion for all. Would you agree with this characterization of you at this time?

My Dear Ones, I am one of many such connectors, trained through our own evolving to be available as teachers. So, yes, your characterization fits well the place I now inhabit, the title Bodhisattva bestowed by men who long ago learned the truths of life and meaning. These ancient knowers do not now hold back their knowledge, but half of the world does not avail themselves of such ancient knowledge. Too fearful of life itself are they to even consider that life is meant to be lived in preparation for death of the human form and entry into life and adventure beyond that human form.

As you know, I have spoken of my early times after death as my learning ground, and I have been on quite an adventure, I can tell you. Chuck, our adventures into Tensegrity were nothing compared to the instruction I have received and completed on my most recent travels due to my level of awareness now. That being said, yes, this life I now lead is quite rightly one of advanced knowledge with its purpose as teacher, its greatest and most humble task. For I do not hold reign, nor do I capitalize upon any position, for I am not ego or self, but energy itself. I can only hold what I have rightfully learned and what I have trained hard for, earning energetic intent and content of knowledge as I progress.

In my own practices I have advanced many levels since I departed that realm, since I left behind the body of Jeanne Ketchel to be dealt with by you, My Chuck. I have worked hard to grasp not only the true meaning of all that I encountered upon my transformation, but I chose this life I now lead. For the time being, I am content to be part of the process of teaching not only love and compassion, detachment and evolution, but also in giving you access to connection with us and to offer greater knowledge and awareness to those of you who reside upon that earth.

I ask that you allow yourselves to let go of fear of what I speak of, for there is no harm in exploring the possibilities that lie before you, as you will one day leave that earth. I offer what I can through the many channels that I have available to me. And by channel I do not only mean people such as Jan, who “channel,” but I also encompass in that statement the energetic means by which I have access to that realm. In energetic form one has possibility to go between worlds, to access for reasons of guidance, comfort, enlightenment, etc., and to teach, in order for those of you upon that earth to have the opportunity to grow and to resolve the issues that bind you so heavily to that realm.

In teaching, in reaching out, in presenting what I too had to learn as a student of energy, I offer you the other side of life. Your life upon that earth is but only half of what you have available to learn about. I appreciate your braveness in daring to trust my words of guidance. I humbly acknowledge your innocence and I hold it most tenderly. All of my readers and students of energy, all who look for connection and guidance, I hold you most humbly to my center of love, of compassion, and of innocence too. For in my state, I encompass all those things, while at the same time I am a being who continues to evolve, to learn, and to understand that which is available to me at this level.

You have taught us so much over the years and we continually find your teachings reflected in the works of others, both in current and past channeled works, in ancient texts, and in the writings of those who have truly explored their inner world. Many who have done the inner journey have learned what we have been learning through you. I would have to say that, although I was always innerly turned and spiritually driven, I, Jan, was not as widely read on the inner world as you and Chuck were. In your pursuit of careers as psychotherapists you did a lot of deep inner work at an earlier age. My inner journey was always based more in my experiences and my exploration of them. Now I see the journeys we all three took as equally valid and necessary, each of us learning in the way that fit us most well.

Now we have this connection, with you having gone ahead to teach from there, me as your channel, interpreting your guidance, and Chuck as the real teacher of how to take the inner journey here on earth. Our connection bridges our two worlds so that we can offer, most humbly and from our hearts’ intents, what we learn. We are able to anchor with you through the experiences we have had with you, gaining a fuller understanding of the meaning and purpose of life upon this earth. Previously, you have spoken of the three of us having been connected in past lives, and that we have rejoined now in order to do this work together. I find it amazing and yet I struggle with finding a better way to make your teachings more well known. For we often feel that you are a modern version of that very ancient knowledge you speak of.

How can those of us who are channeling and teaching what it means to take the inner journey —and trying to do so without personal gain, using only energetic intent— offer what we are learning? There are many who are in this role, with purity of intent and purpose in their hearts. Is it enough to do what we are doing now?

Those of you upon that earth in the role of channel, of having private connections, those of you who innocently and shyly have been accepting your abilities to communicate on such a level, must continue to allow your personal connections to evolve. As you practice, you begin to change the self, and that is always the first step in enacting evolutionary change on a greater level: to first dare the self to change. As you allow the self to take the inner journey and go into the unknown, as you return to your innocence and your trust in the energy of all life, you confront your fears and inner issues that block your energy from its true purpose.

In your personal inner work you will discover the many layers of self: the ego self, the big baby self, the inner child self, the fierce adult self, the hidden parent self, the masculine/feminine selves, etc. As you do your inner work the process becomes just that, a totally innerly process. It is a process of breaking down all that you suppose, know, and adhere to about the self and the world, allowing the elements to be sifted through, until they become but grains of sand in your hands. At that point you are ready to blow it all into the wind and totally accept that you are nothing of importance, except energy that is available to channel. Then you are ready to be present upon that earth without ego and attachments to the past, available to go forward without fear and to bring back what you learn, simply because it is available to you and it is right to do so.

You are not special, any of you. This you learn as you take the deeper inner journey. Once you have reduced your ego —your past, your present, your future selves— to that sand, and allow it to be taken by the wind, you will enter the world of energy more fully and you will begin to get it, to get what life is all about, and your purpose will become most clear.

I say: Stay open. Do the inner work at all times. Question your actions. Face your fears. Provide the self with opportunities to make spiritual, energetic contact that carries right resonance for you alone. Your connection awaits. You will discover, as you work with your personal guide and as you take your personal inner journey, what you alone must learn, and your purpose in the world will unfold.

So, to firmly answer your question, I say, keep doing your inner work, trust your connections, allow the self to take the journey that unfolds, and allow your innocence to guide you to what is right to do next. How will you know it is the right next step to take? As I have said many times before:

It will be the direction that challenges and frightens you the most. It will be the one that is most energetically charged. It will be no less challenging than the day you die and face what comes next. As you continue to do your inner work, My Dear Readers All, you will understand that you are all Bodhisattvas in intent. For it is that which lies at the root of all beings, and it is that which you seek: total alignment with the soul’s purpose.

Take your soul’s journey, even as you take your human journey, parallel lives that eventually merge. And when that happens you will know exactly what to do in order to teach what you too have learned. But first must you truly live it, and that is what we, your guides, are teaching you how to do. We are teaching you how to live your soul’s journey.