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Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Archetype, Reason & Heart

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Nature, ego, spirit aligned…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Archetypes are nature’s crowning achievement. Our ability to survive is rooted in the activation of these evolutionarily sound, instinctual patterns of behavior etched in the fabric of the subconscious mind. Before humans had consciousness, with its ability to reason and make decisions, the automatic subconscious mind was the center of human decision making.

The guiding principle for the subconscious mind is association. If my senses detect a loud sound in the woods, images of a falling tree or an exploded firearm immediately come to mind. The subconscious associates the images to the sound, as action hormones are released in the body, which push for cautious investigative action.

With the birth of consciousness I can rationalize, that is, think about, the sound, and talk myself out of the need to investigate. My conscious will can subvert the subconscious story and call to action. Of course, through this suppression of the subconscious, a part of my mind may remain unsettled, but, as compared to primitive humans, I am not obsessively controlled by the absolute rule of the archetype.

Reason’s growing hegemony over the human mind is an evolutionary exercise that has produced mixed blessings. Scientists have proposed that we are now in a new geologic time period, which they are calling the anthropocene epoch, highlighting the overarching impact of human decision making upon the Earth.

It could certainly be argued, as does the Garden of Eden myth, that human beings should never have stolen access to the fruit of the tree of knowledge and instead stayed obediently within the rules and laws of the godly archetypes.

The subconscious, had it remained in total control, would never have allowed the kinds of duplicitous decisions that ego has made during its reign as CEO of the planet. The subconscious rules with the intention of survival. When it acts upon a suggestion, that suggestion has impressed it with its utility, due to its frequency of appearance.

Reason, of course, would argue that evolutionary patterns can be cumbersome and non-related to the challenges of modern life. Despite some truth to this argument, reason itself has been unable to use pure reason as a basis for environmental decisions. In effect, reason has acted like an imperious child, holding the keys to the kingdom in its own self-righteous hands.

The subconscious is the section of the mind where spirit and matter mate. From spirit issues a dynamic suggestion in the form of a word. The subconscious mind opens to receive the word, which it then magnetizes to attract matter and give birth to spirit’s intent in physical form. From this union, the word literally becomes flesh.

The will of ego can, and does, impress its suggestions upon the subconscious mind, subverting its creative potential for its own self-interest alone. The speed of communications nowadays, through social media, flood the collective subconscious with suggestions that are literally generating alternative realities, which are grounded only in the fact of their repetitive frequency.

In the meantime, the archetypes that once balanced the Earth’s ecosystem are flagrantly misfiring, or are being pitted against each other in battles for dominance. Who, for instance, defines modern masculinity? Are ancient archetypal patterns relevant to being a man? Should reason dictate the curriculum of identity?

The subconscious and reason are reconcilable partners. The bridge to this partnership is objective truth. The subconscious might very well be the most powerful section of the mind, but, by lacking critical thinking, it can be manipulated for less than positive intentions.

The ego has free will, its crowning achievement, but it lacks the ethical grounding to do the right thing. The home of truth is the heart. The Egyptian Goddess Maat is the Goddess of Truth, Law and Justice. Upon death, a person’s heart was weighed against her feather. Only a heart weighing less than the feather was a pure heart.

A pure heart, one that tells the truth, can weigh both the appropriateness of ego’s reason and a suggestion posed to the subconscious. Decisions from the heart center elevate the subconscious and the ego to be in alignment with the true needs of the Self, and the planet as a whole.

As individuals, we are most responsible when we bring heart to weigh upon the validity of our thoughts and the appropriateness of our instincts and impulses.

From the heart,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Maturity Of Elemental Emotion

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Maturing…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

How is one not broken open listening to some version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah? Halle means praise, and jah, as the Rasta’s confirm, is God. Praise God!

The emotions aroused in listening to Hallelujah are transcendent bliss and love. These emotions, as reflected in Cohen’s lyrics (which evolved over many years), are refined from hungry sexuality and sensuality to the most expansive level of sublime spiritual union at a soul level.

The soul is the subtle dimension of a human being, which animates the physical body. The soul is composed of elemental emotional substance, as well as mental substance. Emotions are the soul’s passionately magnetic agents of desire that attract to it the substance and body of the human being we become.

The life we enter is constructed to fulfill our High Self’s karmic quest. That which must be fulfilled is the mission of the soul’s desire body, replete with its active body of elemental emotions. Part of that karmic mission is to refine its raw emotional substance to the pure innocence of mature love in human endeavors, attachments and relationships throughout life.

At the primal level of physical life, emotions are the desires that serve our instinctual imperatives to eat, protect and reproduce. Refined through the vicissitudes of human life, emotions draw us into spiritual communion with our source in infinity.

The  active elemental energies present in human emotion are latent elemental forces in all of nature. Fire, for instance, is a consuming elemental of nature that enacts necessary change, as old life is cleared to prepare the ground for new. Human beings have refined nature’s fire to produce warmth and edible food.

Within the human soul the latent elemental of fire is passion, a highly charged emotion that at a base level can lead to violence or simply gruff carnal union.  At a more refined level, passion can motivate a great technological advance, such as AI (artificial intelligence), a revolution currently descending upon us.

Actually, our technological advances, while fueled by elemental passion, are largely accomplished through the rational thinking of the mind, also housed in the human soul, in the mental body.

Our ability to reason is quite advanced, hence we are readily capable of sussing out the subtle elemental properties of the elements in nature, then recombining them to our seemingly unlimited material advantage.

Unfortunately, the ego’s refinement of elemental emotions has not kept pace with its refinement of its mental acuity. Thus greed and dominance have infused our technological advance with irresponsible intent.

The Hindu technology of yoga offers a clear path for the maturation of elemental emotions through the intentional rising of kundalini energy along the progressive energy centers, called chakras, that connect the soul body to the physical body.

Kundalini is the ultimate elemental life force energy that rises from the base of the spine, the root of our stability, through our sexual core to the solar plexus, the center of ego power.

As we align with the guidance of our Higher Self, at the heart center, our ability to speak our deepest truth opens at the throat, then travels to our intuitive center at the third eye. The crowning achievement of spiritual refinement is  enlightenment and deep empathy at the seventh chakra, at the top of the head.

Oftentimes, we might notice our throat tighten if we have an intense emotion and want to speak. Energetically we are experiencing an unrefined elemental emotion, too dense for transmission through the higher chakra channels.

In this case, the emotion might require further processing at a physical level, perhaps through belly screaming at the level of the solar plexus before it can move upward to the compassion center at the heart and then be calmly communicated through the larynx.

A psychological approach to elemental maturity involves similar dynamics at different centers of the soul. The subconscious mind is the base energy center of the soul that has the raw materials, desires and knowhow to manifest anything. The subconscious does not think, it follows orders via suggestions.

The ego, at the mental body center of the soul, has the power of consciousness and free will. The ego is the main character in a human life, orphaned by, yet on its assigned mission from, its High Self.

The ego must struggle to develop confidence and rise above its narcissistic infatuation with power. The ego’s charge, the hero’s journey, is to refine the desire body’s elemental emotions into love, its highest possible development.

The supra-conscious center of the soul houses the High Self, which supports the ego through its suffering journey of human life to transform its karmic elemental roots into the heights of spiritual purity and transcendental love.

Human life unfolds as a growing interaction between these tripartite  centers of the soul—the subconscious, the ego, and the supra-conscious—as ego gradually wakes up and moves toward greater acquiescence to the mission of its High Self in this life. And with that accomplishment we truly can sing Hallelujah!

Hallelujah,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Take Charge Of The Internal Dialogue

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A new internal dialogue…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

The shamans of ancient Mexico coined the term internal dialogue to identify the incessant self-talk that we all engage in that generates our personality.

The content of the internal dialogue is the socialized messages we all receive from the moment we are born, which come to shape our perception and interpretation of ourselves, and the world around us.

What’s key is how the internal dialogue, which is largely internalized verbal and nonverbal messages from significant others, becomes the deeply felt personal definition of self that we accept as our unique personality. Thus, our sense of self is mostly simply a product of external forces of socialization. What we come to covet as our unique self is largely an arbitrary creation of external suggestion.

Psychologically this is what forms and upholds our ego identity. The ego adopts this external messaging as its internal dialogue, which instructs the subconscious mind to manifest the mental and physical being we then become in this world. The subconscious mind is capable of creating anything we say to it—its powers are that extraordinary.

This magic, however, is lost to us, as our magical possibilities are molded externally, and maintained internally, by the incessant unconscious repetition of the same internal dialogue.

Shamans call this fixation of identity, via suggestion, the assemblage point, where unlimited possibility becomes sharply bound by a definite sense of self. Carlos Castaneda called it the place where the wings of our magical selves become clipped.

To further complicate the potential awakening to our innate creative potential is the emotional security we derive from a consistent knowing of ourselves. Thus, for instance, if we are generally somewhat depressed and not hopeful about success in our lives, we may nonetheless cling to and defend this unhappy personality because it provides us with the security of a familiar, trustworthy sense of self.

The rational function of the ego will also likely generate persuasive arguments to dismiss the irrational notion of an unlimited magical potential within the self.

For instance, the subconscious mind is capable of nonlocal perception, such as through remote viewing, channeling or telepathy. The ego, on rational grounds, may dismiss these potential abilities with blocking beliefs that preclude ego even suggesting such a possibility to the subconscious mind.

The shaman proposes that one suspend judgment, and, like a true scientist, approach the subconscious with an unbiased experiment that presents suggestions to it and observes behavioral outcomes.

Too often we try first to reason with the internal dialogue to overcome its objections. This will almost always fail due to the power of the ego’s defenses, which it employs to securely maintain its familiar self.

Rather than battle with reason, accept the product of its internal dialogue, the current ego identity. Instead of an argument, create a new internal dialogue that you volitionally and incessantly repeat, as often as you remember.

For example, state the phrase, “I am calm,” thousands of times a day. It matters little if you believe it or not. In fact, your working definition of self—your standard operating self definition—might be, “I am an anxious person.” Do not challenge this definition, simply repeat, “I am calm,” as often as you can.

Suggestions given to the subconscious just before sleep are the most powerful. In retiring to sleep, both the physical body and the conscious mind are turning down and tuning out, thus the availability of the subconscious to receive new instructions is paramount.

In addition, the subconscious naturally comes alive to creativity and suggestion at night. Why waste it on ordinary dreaming? Give it some direction!

As one works the magic at night, one may soon discover that one is more calm in waking life as well. The more established ego state, which loves rationality, will likely take in this new fact and be willing to incorporate it into its old sense of self with little resistance. What ego would deny the facts of its own experience? That’s reality testing at its most basic level.

The possibility of molding a new sense of self, with consciousness that assumes personal responsibility for the suggestions presented to the subconscious, is the true key to the magical kingdom.

Firstly, it allows one to shed the propositions of early internalized beliefs that don’t truly reflect one’s innate potential. The ego instead becomes the beacon of the true Spirit of the Self.

Secondly, it puts the two minds within the self in an optimal relationship for growth. If the ego suggests, to the subconscious, actions of health, healing and the greater good, the physical body and the manifested world will reflect the instinct of self-preservation taken to the highest level of evolutionary refinement.

Thirdly, we, as human beings, are thus restored to the free exploration of our magical beingness and our greater creative potential. We unclip our wings with the free exercise of our will and become the true artists of our lives.

It’s that simple! Take charge of the internal dialogue and become all that you can be!

I am a being of unlimited potential,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Accessing The Magic

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Tap into the magic…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

Use the remote to turn on the gas heating stove. The remote beeps, the fire does not ignite. Try it a few more times. Finally change the batteries in the remote, as well as in the receiver in the stove. Press ‘on’ again, still no ignition.

Suddenly, a flash of intuition! There’s a thermostat in the stove! The room is too warm for it to allow ignition. Raise the temperature threshold. Press ‘on’. Ignition!

As with the stove, preset suggestions to the subconscious mind can nullify the manifestation of new suggestions. These pre-settings might originate in karmic spells or choices, genetic predispositions, postnatal conditioning via the socialization that has shaped one’s core belief systems, or unrecognized shadow dynamics generating their own  balance/imbalance in the underworld of the personality.

Although our subconscious minds house the materials and facility for the realization of our creative magical intentions, our intent will be ineffective if prior beliefs or hidden agreements contradict our current suggestions. How do I know if I have hidden blocking beliefs?

Begin with this primary question: “Do I believe that anything is possible?”

Does the rational mind permit the possibility that a suggestion can create a reality? Is it willing to suspend its automatic critical judgment and submit that hypothesis to an unbiased experiment?

Spend a half hour a day, for a week, first getting physically relaxed, then stating out loud, or in writing, or both: “Anything is possible.”  At idle times during the day, state it again: “Anything is possible.”

After a week, ask yourself this question: “Am I worthy to receive the change I seek?”

Perhaps, for example, you intend your body to be healed. You might discover that though you believe there could be miracles, you also hold the belief that it could never happen for you.

Again, suspend judgment, and write and state for a half hour each day, incessantly: “I am part of everything; I am worthy to receive the change I seek.”

If you notice the emergence of contrary thoughts, state: “I suspend judgment. I am part of everything, I am worthy to receive the change I seek.”

At the end of the week, having established the foundation to suggest a new belief, state directly your intention for change to your subconscious mind.

As before, state and/or write this intention for a half hour per day, as well as throughout the day, at idle moments, when it pops into your mind to do so. Continue to state this suggestion every day with no attachment to the outcome.

Like true scientists, we are not interested in influencing the outcome, even at the level of thoughts. Yes, a suggestion is a thought, but this is a thought experiment, limited to the impact of experimental suggestions. The outcome of the experiment is what is and what becomes, as a result of specific suggestions being recited.

Most likely, our intention will begin to manifest as we continue our practice. However, if we observe no change, we must re-explore the possibility that another preset blocking belief is interfering with our intent.

Perhaps, for instance, I discover, despite my suggestion to the contrary, that my rational mind is the holdout. Secretly, and tenaciously, it doesn’t believe in the spiritual power of words to generate physical happenings.

Assign the rational mind the dutiful task of stepping up to the objective requirement of a true scientific experimenter: NO PREJUDICE.

Include this in the suggestion, as in: “I suspend judgment. No prejudice. I am part of everything, I am worthy to receive the change I seek.” With this new suggestion in place, restart the practice with your intent for change.

Be present to every suggestion you state. Even if your attention strays, continue the rote exercise. The subconscious listens to all suggestions. Suggestions of longer duration make a definite impression. The subconscious does not think; it needs to be impressed upon, given its marching orders.

We are constantly feeding our subconscious daily suggestions through our incessant internal dialogue, which delivers us our familiar sense of self and our unchanging perspective. Deliberate periods of new focused suggestions can eventually override these habituated, stagnated manifestations.

Be careful what you read, listen to, and state inwardly and outwardly. Words and thoughts are suggestions that bombard the subconscious with suggestions that it constantly reacts to. Be extremely sensitive to the words you live by.

As with all psychic powers, hypnotic suggestion can be used for evil as well as positive intent. This is what is called, unfortunately, black magic. We needn’t look very far to see the impact of negative suggestions made by political figures or influencers on social media, and how they destructively impact our world.

The responsible use of suggestion is suggestion that aligns with the values of one’s High Self. The ego, in its highest integrity, must assure that suggestions to the subconscious are for the greater good of self and other. Narcissistic and destructive suggestions, though they may materially eventuate, carry inevitable karmic consequences.

Also consider, however,  that shadow and light are both part of the same wholeness. Sometimes destruction is divinely necessary and needs to be lived.

Additionally, if one is dealing with a sub-personality that opposes an ego suggestion to the subconscious, this may undermine a stated suggestion. The work here is to first achieve consensus within the personality before proceeding with the practice of suggestion.

To access the true magic in our being we must be patient, persevering, observing, and light as a feather in the knowing that anything is possible and that we are a part of everything, worthy to receive the changes we seek.

Seeing what happens,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Formative Power of The Imagination

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Open to the power of your imagination…
-Illustration © 2023 Jan Ketchel

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh.” – St. John

“Thou shalt not Covet thy neighbor’s wife.” – Tenth Commandment

What do the words Word and Covet have in common? Both are insubstantial. Both issue from the creative action of the mind’s imagination. Imagination is the causal dimension of physical reality.

The mind’s imagination produces the energetic blueprint that draws to it and manifests all material creation. The major attractive energetic activity implied in to covet is judged equal to, if not more sinful than, the action of an actual physical affair itself. Imagination is indeed the primal force of creation.

Be responsible for that which you wish for. Be responsible for that which you think. The mind’s imaginative thought is a living entity, brimming with energy. Thought is a seed that once thought must take root and find completion, somewhere, in some form, somehow. Many a fiction novel is an outlet for the karma of unlived thought.

What does a conservative Jew, devout Catholic, faithful Muslim and evangelical Christian have in common? The answer is, reverence for the Law: the written Words in the sacred texts. This reverence for upholding the Law has animated the behaviors of humankind throughout the centuries. Sacred words originating from the thoughts and images in the imaginative mind are the guardians of that which must be obeyed.

In modern psychology these sacred laws and words are the archetypes of the collective unconscious of humankind. These dominants of our shared human psyche govern the unfolding and autonomous functioning of our physiological being, as well as the species specific behaviors involved in mating, parenting and surviving. In fact, all behaviors available to our species are, at core, latent archetypal potentials.

As conscious beings we’ve been granted the free will to obey, innovate, deviate from, or fully ignore the laws of the archetypes. Clearly, the transgender explorations of our time reflect promptings to express new permutations, beyond the limits of established archetypes. One only need consider the pivotal role that the Tenant, a death defier, had on the evolution of Carlos Castaneda’s shamanic lineage. The Tenant was equally facile at manifesting physically either side of humanity’s  inherent androgynous nature.

This, of course, gives rise to clashes with conservative upholders of primal archetypes, who feel it their duty to uphold the Law as once imagined and laid down.

Others would argue that if we allow the archetypes to press us into their molds we don’t exercise our obligation to evolve and create. The truth is that archetypal patterns are fixed. The phases of the moon never deviate. However, though the waning phase of the moon may urge that new enterprises not be initiated during this phase, a rogue adventurer might launch a successful enterprise anyway, though lacking the moon’s archetypal energetic support.

Typically, archetypes are nature’s best course of action, but humankind was issued consciousness to steer life into new possibility with greater efficiency. For example, to love one’s enemy is an innovative advancement from an eye for an eye, which seeks a new solution to conflict and opposition. So, sometimes archetypes in their primal form fit a need, but at other times, archetypes must evolve to ensure the present survival of the species.

By understanding and respecting the dominance of the archetypes upon life, we are freed to innovate in the magical world of the imagination. In this subtle realm of thought and image we become the weavers of our own lives. While accepting the concrete facts of our material existence, we are freed to suspend our attachment to the belief systems that manifest and uphold our physical lives and imagine a new and changed reality. The imagination has its own facts of reality.

The often laughed-at placebo effect is the greatest proof that what we imagine can indeed become our physical reality. The more we exercise our imagination to create what we want, the more we become the architects of our lives, drawing to us the material manifestation of our imaginal blueprint. The subconscious mind, the factory that converts imagination to materialization, will respond to suggestion.

Realize, however, that if we depart from an archetype we will be tested; archetypes are fierce warriors. We must be prepared to go it alone, as nature guards her established patterns. We must also be humble in our search for new frontiers, and accept that perhaps our ego is deluded by an inflation that is unsupported by the true needs of the Self.

On the other hand, we were granted the power of imagination to exercise the divine right of our existence to create and innovate, so we have every right to take life forward into new possibility.

We are all granted the freedom to square the facts of our own life with the power of the imagination.

Dream on. See what happens!

Imagine,
Chuck