The nagual shaman, don Juan Matus, explained to his apprentice, Carlos Castaneda, that yes, the solid object reality we live in is indeed real, but, it is energy first. Our thoughts, which are interpretations of energy, manifest our physical reality.
What we manifest is real, but the broader truth is that all manifested realities are but an interpretation of infinite energy. Like the Hindu image of the cosmic ocean, the wave is but the manifested surface that appears, and then disappears, back into its underlying cosmic oneness.
From the Thoth Tarot deck of Aliester Crowley
Aleister Crowley, in discussing the Three of Swords, in his Thoth tarot deck, states that the extreme sorrow of this card can be likened to the Buddha’s initial stage of enlightenment when he encountered the pure potential of unmanifested reality: no forms, no reason.
Despite the bliss of this pure clarity, there is the necessary sorrow of releasing attachment to the familiar. Here, one is challenged to surrender to a consciousness greater than one’s current manifestation.
It all begins in the mind. Outer reflects inner. It’s all in what one chooses to emphasize. Negative thought is certainly an option; it’s just as real an option as a positive thought—divinity includes everything.
Everything is possible, but the paradox is that to realize this truth we must be willing to let go of our cherished beliefs, which are fixations of energy that block the natural flow of energy needed to manifest desired change. The struggle is indeed one of submitting to enlightened sorrow, the necessary crossroad that accompanies moving beyond the familiar habitual self.
Take for instance a desired physical change in the body. One may state a healing intent of change but is constantly assaulted by the feedback of sensory evidence that contradicts one’s stated suggestion to their subconscious mind. This sensory feedback loop becomes its own internal dialogue that presents a more powerful counter-intention to the subconscious mind.
The technology of change, through the use of autosuggestion, insists that one emphasize repeatedly that their desired change is already accomplished. The seed has been planted in the divine substance of the subconscious mind and its full manifestation cannot be stopped, despite the presence of a solid sensory artifact, rooted in a prior interpretation of energy.
I suggest resting the body so that the subconscious mind, relieved of its physical oversight responsibilities, might clearly receive its new directive and move toward manifestation. With presence and passion, repeat the stated intention. Be bold, no hesitation, thy will is done.
At other times, be willing to suffer those moments of fear and sorrow when one glimpses the real possibility of letting go of the cherished limited self. Yes, you are chosen; you have chosen to emphasize the red pill: the life-changing, often painful truth beyond the current fixation of solid energy.
From the Thoth Tarot deck of Aliester Crowley
Of course, when the gig is up, the gig is up. In another card of Crowley’s Thoth tarot deck, the Three of Cups, we find the near perfect realization of the manifested intent of abundance. The presence of pomegranate seeds in the cups, though symbolic of abundance, also recall Persephone’s required stay in the underworld for six months of the year with her husband Pluto, god of the dead.
We cannot escape the expiration date located in the small print of every manifestation. Life insists upon growth, which always requires the letting go of the known.
This recalls the Buddha’s suggestion that life is suffering. Everything that we attach to ultimately limits our growth. But that sorrow can be sweet when we embrace love for all in this adventure of forever. One always has the choice to emphasize love and let it fully manifest.
Sit quietly and contemplate life from a heart centered place, keeping in mind that body and spirit are one, that they communicate all the time without you being aware. You can have them communicate with awareness, bringing them together in a concentrated and directive way, getting them in sync and balance with each other so that their agenda is one and the same. With mind concentrated on such a task, body and spirit can align and work together to do anything you wish. They are magical companions wishing only for your best health, beauty and prosperity, in all areas of life.
The source of our creative, and therefore healing, power is the subconscious mind. If the subconscious mind believes something to be true, it will do everything in its power to make it physically happen.
The subconscious mind is a completely receptive mind. It receives suggestions that it may then manifest in physical reality. Its suggestive sources originate internally—from instincts, genetic code, archetypal rules that govern the human species and, most prominently, the ego—with its beliefs and internal dialogue of thoughts, which incessantly barrage the subconscious mind with their many proposals.
Externally, the subconscious mind is flooded constantly by a marketplace of messages from well-funded sources seeking to influence one’s pocketbook and behaviors. What is glaringly made apparent, especially at this point in our political history, is that influence is gained primarily at the subconscious level of the mind, through receiving incessant repetitions of a version of reality, not necessarily the truth of it.
The subconscious mind is the moon, the ultimate feminine magnetic force, both in our solar system and in our personality. In her hands lies the ability to reshape physical reality beyond the laws of Newtonian physics. She can perform true magic. Her power to manifest is unparalleled. However, she turns to her masculine partner, the ego, to initiate her creative process via suggestion.
Firm suggestions may attract her attention to manifest creatively, but beware the karma of manifestations that violate her deepest nature. Be firm and definite with a suggestion, but honest with intention, in order to achieve lasting, sustainable change. Illusions can become physical reality, at least for a short while, but nature demands ultimately the truth.
Once the subconscious mind accepts a proposition, it backs it with the full power of its creative potential. Even the most irrational proposition, such as an out-and-out lie, will be believed with the full force of one’s subconscious mind.
This manifests as powerful emotions that staunchly defend one’s beliefs, independent even of reason. This kind of contagion has its roots in the subconscious mind being in complete rapport with the suggestion it adopts. Oftentimes, the ego, with its capacity for rational thought, can be so swept away by the emotive power of a belief that it either suspends its reasoning ability or adjusts its logic to support the belief it is under the influence of.
These mesmerizing dynamics are in extreme force in the world currently, and, though they threaten the future of civilization, they most aptly demonstrate the psychodynamics of hypnotic influence.
Internally, the ego is our chief navigator for the life we are in. Its reasoning ability, as applied to the physical world, has worked tirelessly to understand and control nature, to provide for our basic survival needs and ability to have a fulfilling life.
Currently, its dominant logical perspective largely dismisses the inherent powers of the subconscious mind to influence material reality. This dominant doubting belief from the ego suggests impotence to the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind does not reason, it creates, based on suggestions it adopts. If it is told that it’s powerless it manifests powerlessness.
The ego is actually the main internal influencer of the subconscious mind. Consequently, the subconscious mind may adopt the suggestion that it is not capable to heal itself, despite the fact that it actually has total command of the physical body. In this scenario, the subconscious mind simply passively runs well-established programs in the body, essentially its default position.
To activate new possibilities the subconscious requires faith in its possibility to heal itself. That faith can only come from suggestions it receives from outside itself. In the case of autosuggestion, that source would have to be from the ego itself.
Can a doubting ego inspire the subconscious mind to have faith and confidence to heal, using methods that defy the ego’s strong rational sensibility? Yes! By employing the same rote method of repetition employed by political figures, the ego can inspire the subconscious mind to exercise its latent innovative healing powers.
It is not necessary for the ego to believe it, but it must be willing to state incessantly, “My subconscious mind has the power to heal.” Eventually the subconscious mind will get the message and become all that it can be.
It is critical to not attach to outcome. Individual thresholds for the subconscious mind to pick up a suggestion vary considerably. Don’t allow doubt to demand outcomes in a particular timetable. Present suggestions when calm and sleepy, as the subconscious mind is most readily available to receive suggestions when the running of daily life is largely offline.
Once an underlying confidence begins to be felt, hone suggestions to achieve specific physical results, such as with desired physical changes and healing concerns. It goes without saying that requested changes ought be in alignment with the greater good of self. Be firm and definite. If something appears cloudy, demand, “Clarity Now!”
Just as outwardly we are witnessing changes of highly questionable morality, we must realize that we too are capable of abusing our power. May all assume responsibility for creating for the greater good of self, and other.
As the doubting ego witnesses the facts of the subconscious mind’s creative abilities, it will expand its limited rational horizons to include the facts of these magical abilities and become a true collaborator with its equal partner, the subconscious mind. Until then, let it doubt, but state the suggestion nonetheless, “My subconscious mind has the power to heal.”
In a conversation, I joked that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a doctor. I knew immediately that the die had been cast. Send out a message like that and you’ve invited a stream of subliminal thought forms, with contrary suggestions, to compete with your own intent. What inside me was being so careless, or so determined?
Days later, I noticed a tickle and niggling cough throughout the day. By the end of the day a dizziness set in, an intense vibratory disorientation, coupled with a chill that had me wear a wool vest and wrap up in a blanket, despite the 80 + degree temperature of the day.
I consented to a thermometer, which revealed a heightened temperature. Suggestions of covid, flu or, at the very least, the onset of a course of a lengthy cold emerged. It was clear to me that these were all genuine possibilities.
A chain of associations began to present themselves to support and prepare for a healing process of several days. Although this would be a quite legitimate course of care, I seized upon this unusual opportunity to test my soul’s ability, via autosuggestion, to alter the natural course of my recovery. And so, I’ve decided to share how I practice what I preach!
My stated intent was to completely resolve these symptoms so that I would be present, in optimal physical health, with maximal clinical and intuitive acuity, for a full day of meetings starting at 7 am the following morning.
I instructed my subconscious: “My body is healing, my body is healed.”
I repeated it incessantly, coupling it with an eight count breathing pattern, saying the first part of the phrase with a four-count in breath and the latter part with a four-count out breath. By 7 pm I was so tired and disoriented that I collapsed into bed.
A restlessness slowly crept in and I knew there would be no rest if I remained in the bedroom. I relocated myself to the living room, which was quite warm, yet I shook with chills and knew that air conditioning was not an option. I considered an ibuprofen. I flipped a coin and got tails: No, to ibuprofen. If I was to be sincere in my commitment to a clean experiment, my only intervention could be: “My body is healing, my body is healed.”
I began to experience a throbbing headache that came and went, seemingly for hours. I did allow myself to utilize a well-anchored healing suggestion: “My headache is healing, my headache is healed.” Though effective immediately, the duration of relief was no more than a couple of minutes before its vicious return. I finally decided to recite only my eight count breathing and body healing suggestion.
I attempted to lie down but was continuously bombarded with a smorgasbord of pain sensations and dizziness. I could not find my calm center. I felt myself on the acute edge of annihilation. My only momentary glimpse of a potential grounding was noticing the autonomous playing of the synchronous rhythm that had been established by my incessant eight count breath.
For the next four hours I caved to the relief of restless shifting: laying one way on the couch, then the opposite; changing pillows, throwing pillows, no pillows; collapsing onto the floor, turning over, feet up on the coffee table, the contents of which became strewn about the room. I’d sit momentarily in different positions, in different chairs; nothing offered a moment’s peace.
A sensation of nausea flirted in the background. It invited the suggestion of immediate relief through facilitated release. I refused. “If that is to happen, let it happen on its own,” I insisted. Despair and futility dragged me into the underworld of self-pity and fraudulence. I began actually to wonder if I needed the rescue squad to bring me to the ER. Thoughts of physical death seemed a genuine possibility.
Eventually, I was so despondent that I sat and silently cried out to my High Self and teachers for help! No one came. I sank to the rock bottom depression of, “Why have you forsaken me?” I was sitting curled up in a chair when I noticed that I might have dozed off for a moment. An inkling of constancy of presence appeared. “Might I be able to sleep?” I pondered.
It was 1:30 am. I knew that in order to be able to practice in the morning I’d have to be 100% healed by 3:15 am. This seemed utterly impossible. I hadn’t slept at all, my symptoms were all still fully present, but I had had a calm moment. I closed my eyes. I awoke at 2:30, no change. I told my subconscious, which never fails at a wakeup request, to wake me at 3:15. I drifted off immediately.
I next awoke to Jan checking on me at 3:30 am. Wow, my subconscious had not responded to my 3:15 am suggestion! I let it go. The room was a mess, but I wasn’t! No temperature. No headache. No dizziness. No nausea. No vibratory shakiness. Full calm breaths. Utter clarity. Well rested.
We went for a walk, did some reading. My thinking and intuition were clear as a bell. I showered, had some breakfast and started my day at 7 am, finishing at 5 pm, without a glitch. Subsequent days were equally symptom free.
My medicine journey, initiated by the active substance of my self-important comment, showed me how far the soul could potentially go to accelerate the action of the innate healing archetypes latent in the physical body.
I arrived at the experience of total transformation, as my subconscious led me rapidly through the stages of healing at light speed to meet my stated deadline intent. Mine was but one dark night of the soul.
The physical body is its own entity, separate and distinct from its companion soul. Often, when the soul has decided it’s time to leave this life, the physical body resists, clinging to life for extended periods of time. The soul cannot fully break the cord and be free until the body acquiesces to its own physical death.
The soul body entered and attached to the physical body before birth. Both bodies agreed to a relationship for a human lifespan for reasons which benefit each individually. For the body, the conservative evolutionary archetypes that rule it are introduced to new possibilities through the soul’s suggestions. For the soul, the depth of its experience gained through a drama lived in a physical body deeply enhances its knowing of all that is.
The body has a powerful set of rules that independently govern the course of physical life. The body is prepared to live the stages of life, grow old and die. The soul, through its subconscious mind, assumes full control of the human body, though it generally acquiesces to run the body’s evolutionarily established healing programs.
However, the soul, which operates under different rules than the physical body, can think and suggest outside the instinctive box. Thus, the soul knows that beyond heredity and the rules that govern physical life, a suggestion such as I made, to heal from an infection, within hours as opposed to days, is possible.
Of course, the soul cannot change the fact that, ultimately, the physical body will die. Some shamans, called death defiers, have been able to delay death for generations, but ultimately have had to eventually surrender their physical counterparts to death.
Nonetheless, the soul can contribute greatly to the health and healing of the physical body, particularly through the use of autosuggestion. At times it can indeed achieve miracle cures. Modern medicine has yet to discover this healing potential, as it remains almost exclusively focused on the material workings of the physical body.
The most important variable to approaching the subconscious mind with healing suggestions is to have faith that anything is possible, to swiftly release any doubt and stay focused on the intent. This guarantees nothing, but without it, suggestions lack the potency of conviction needed to attract the subconscious mind’s attention.
No attachment to outcome. No shirking of the responsibility to also explore the best that mainstream medicine has to offer. Assume full responsibility for life. Explore your fullpotential. See what happens!
Suggestions can be likened to sperm, whose intent is to impregnate the egg of the subconscious mind, the mother of manifestation.
Suggestions abound from many sources, such as habits, instincts, and the thoughts and beliefs of others. However, the optimal source of suggestion for the growth of the personality is the conscious ego presenting suggestions to the subconscious in alignment with its soul’s mission in this life.
The oddity of this necessary relationship is that the ego has a long developmental process to arrive at the necessary maturity to optimally lead the personality. This challenge is blatantly illustrated in the power struggles currently riddling the Earth. Rather than address the true needs of the planet, the world ego is stuck in greed, or essentially a narcissistic worldview, which obscures the execution of suggestions of right action to resolve crises.
This same limitation applies to the individual personality, whose narcissistic needs and desires can monopolize habits that impact the health of the physical body, as well as the quality of connection possible in relationships with others.
Many of the suggestions from ego to subconscious result in poor health and failed relationships. It often requires the learning curve of a lifetime for the ego to arrive at the optimal spiritual alignment to truly lead the personality.
At the receptive end is the subconscious mind, whose powers are truly supernatural, yet it lacks the reasoning power of consciousness to select the best suggestions to fulfill. Of course, it has the suggestive influence of the whole of human evolutionary history that expresses itself powerfully in the emotions of instincts, yet even these reactions may not fit with the true needs of life in the modern word.
For example, the instinct of self-preservation might insist upon a prolonged war as the necessary reaction to an attack. As appropriate a reaction to this survival threat as this reaction might be, the more conscious human potential to arrive at resolution through negotiation might prove more effective at finding lasting resolution.
In this case, the ego, with its higher capacities for reason and right action might be the better center for decision making, offering better suggestions to the subconscious mind than the deeply engrained instinctive suggestions that were more necessary at a purely instinctive age of human history.
In contrast to the ego, the subconscious mind does not need to undergo a developmental process. It is fully formed in childhood where its power is quite evident in play. A slight suggestion of a peer as monster, in a game of tag for instance, can preoccupy a group of kids for hours, as they are filled with intense emotional reactions to the easily imagined chasing monster.
The subjective mind in childhood and adulthood can equally take charge of one’s perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, and physical actions when a suggestion successfully impregnates it. The subconscious acts as a creative manifester, fully believing and becoming the suggestion it takes in. It remains for the ego alone to reality-test the validity of this activated, or we could even say, possessed, state.
It becomes evident how this odd couple needs each other’s capacities to fully succeed in life. Ego must carefully guard against underhanded suggestions, which abound, from taking root in the subconscious. Energy practices, including stated intentions, can create boundaries against unwanted influences.
The subconscious, in response to ego suggestion, can provide information to the ego similar to the capability of artificial intelligence (AI), which can advance the ego’s problem-solving or knowledge of lived events with its perfect memory. Like AI, however, the subconscious must be monitored and led to exert its influence for the greater good of all. For this, as in all things, one needs a mature adult ego that submits to right action as its guiding principle.
A healthy, intimate relationship between each mind of this odd couple suggests the ultimate evolutionary track for mind during its sojourn in human form. In human terms, it represents the optimal relationship to find fulfillment and individuation in this magical life.
