Welcome to Chuck’s Place! This is where Chuck Ketchel, LCSW-R, expresses his thoughts, insights, and experiences! Currently, Chuck posts an essay once a week, currently on Tuesdays, along the lines of inner work, psychotherapy, Jungian thought and analysis, shamanism, alchemy, politics, or any theme that makes itself known to him as the most important topic of the week. Many of the shamanic and psychological terms used in Chuck’s essays are defined in Tools & Definitions on our Psychotherapy page.
Just wanted to let everyone know that we have added a New Sidebar Feature: 365 Days of Drawing Meditation, just below the “Add Riverwalker to your phone” feature.
We thought we would share the drawings Jan has made so far to meet her 2026 New Year Challenge of drawing one drawing a day, with a wooden stick, in small scratchboard pads. Originally, we gave the scratchboard pads as Halloween treats and Jan soon began drawing in the leftovers. She loved it and has not stopped since! In fact, most of the drawings she has now been doing to illustrate our posts are done on the same scratchboard pads. Her New Year’s intention is to keep drawing, one a day, while meditating. So check back often to see how it’s going!
“For out of the earth the Lord made man (not woman) and the word man refers to that part of every person that must perish; it is error.” – P. P. Quimby, The Complete Writings, Volume 2, p. 49.
I read and contemplated this passage shortly before I went into my Holy Union breath practice. I started my practice by repeating the word peace in my mind, associated with the proverb, “and all her paths are peace.” The phrase, woman is the resurrection, jumped out at me as my meditation deepened. What does it mean?
In the quote above, Quimby was obviously referring to the Book of Genesis, where Eve is said to be created from Adam’s rib. Quimby has been called the world’s first psychoanalyst, having written the above around 1865, when Freud was 9 years old and Jung was yet to be born for another 10 years.
Quimby anticipated the hermaphroditic male/female psyche in all humans that Jung, some 55 years later, was to define as the contrasexual female anima in a man and the contrasexual male animus in a woman. Male and female qualities and parts function in both sexes. We are all a composite of masculine and feminine energies.
Quimby identified the male quality with a materialistic focus. This is the natural human that reasons only with what can be experienced through the body’s physical senses. This approach to physical reality is illustrated well by modern medicine, which accepts as reality only that which cures through verifiable scientific method. From this perspective, non-materially explainable cures are judged, at best, as placebo or idiosyncratic healings.
Quimby identified the female qualities in a manner similar to the Hebrew word chokmah, whose qualities include Wisdom, intuition, and moral discernment. These are all spiritual rather than materialistic qualities, in alignment with higher Truth, in whatever higher power configuration one might identify with.
Chokmah is a feminine noun, and the personification of woman in proverbs, such as Lady Wisdom, is not actually designating an actual woman but the feminine side of, or wife of, God. Here too is an androgynous Higher Power of male/female composition, as also reflected in Quimby’s configuration of humanity. It is also reflected in the Hermetic phrase: as above, so below.
Quimby capitalizes the word Wisdom, referring to the feminine element in its higher spiritual energy state and its higher spiritual truths, such as energy healing and healing dynamics for the greater good of all. These non-material considerations may provide healing on a personal or planetary level yet are completely anathema to the natural physical human element, or man, the masculine side, whose purview is wholly materialistic.
This may explain why Quimby states that woman is not made of the earth but is a rib taken out of man. Man, in this context, is the physical, earthy, animal state of humanity that is materialistically focused and self-serving. Woman is the spiritual refinement of this material matrix that broadens its vision to include energetic reality and Cosmic Truth. To be clear, we all contain both of these aspects in equal measure, as stated above, for we are all comprised of both masculine and feminine, anima and animus, error and wisdom, body and spirit.
Quimby states that the part of every human that is in error must perish, or refine, to reach this higher Wisdom. Error is physical reality that has been constructed by opinion, not by truth. The subconscious mind will create what we believe, for better or for worse. If we believe an untruth, we will materialize that belief, but the karma, or effect of that belief, will eventually lead to its ultimate destruction, because only that which is spiritually true can live on.
This refinement process of spiritual liberation of the female element, in both man and woman, is the crucifixion of these errors of belief that materially imprison Wisdom and true moral discernment. The false beliefs we harbor must be suffered in the course of our daily lives. For instance, if I believe I am not worthy, my body and emotions will reflect such belief and I will attract circumstances that will reinforce this belief. This is the action of the Cosmic Law of Attraction.
This point is supremely illustrated in Anita Moorjani’s explanation of her own spontaneous healing from Hodgkins Lymphoma when, during a Near Death Experience, she learned that she had developed cancer due to accumulated fears and a sense of unworthiness. She ultimately reached a place of higher Wisdom and understanding and was able to completely heal. Listen to her story on The Telepathy Tapes, in two Talk Tracks episodes: Part 1 and Part 2.
As Anita learned, in order to obtain the cosmic Truth of Lady Wisdom, that I am inherently worthy, I must be crucified by the error of my mistaken beliefs. This was Buddha’s Noble Truth, that life is suffering until we experience enough disappointments to burn off our illusions and become fully who we truly are. With this enlightened Wisdom as our foundation, we reach the end of fear, which is pure love.
Here the natural human opens the channel to the spiritual, chokmah self, that defers to the guidance of higher Wisdom, rather than the opinions and manipulations of the material mind, steeped in error.
The bottom line is, the masculine, in all of us, is the executive function in the personality. The optimum alignment, however, is that executive function in alignment with true Wisdom. And that Wisdom is the feminine, which is far more connected to the true needs of the self, and the planet. And yes, the executive function can dominate the feminine in a self-serving way, but ultimately it’s all folly and error if the Truth is not served.
When we resurrect from error, we are freed to live this life to the fullest, in harmony with the greater good, for self and all. May all men and women align with the true spiritual element within, as the feminine truly is the Path of Resurrection.
What rules the outer world, at this moment in time, is the most fantastic display of self-importance the world has ever known. Of course, it’s the most fantastic display, ever! It wields the Midas Touch, as everything it touches turns to gold, real or imagined!
Let us face this outer reflection of insatiable self-importance as we discover its hidden presence within the workings of our own inner Soul. We are all subject to the Hermetic Law, as without so within. May we all truly find the gold within in this golden moment of our planetary progression.
Self-importance has its roots in the developmental needs of the human ego. The mention of ego often provokes a pejorative reaction, as it is frequently associated with negative self-importance, one of its trappings so offensive to the virtue of humility. However, in its functional form, ego is the part of the personality that forms an identity that navigates the life we were born into, and the entire journey of our lifetime in human form.
In fact, ego is a part of our Soul that generally suffers amnesia at birth—what is called a blank slate—where it is separated from its royal ancestry of infinite Soul, to be born into a human family, as a mere mortal who will live and die in human form. This royal scheme is the greater Soul’s intent to explore vistas of being that only life and death in finite form can provide.
Ego, born into this state of alienation, is obsessively driven to bond to parents who will ensure its survival. It grows through helplessness and dependence to secure independence, when it can more fully undertake its hero’s journey to complete the mission it unknowingly signed up for prior to birth.
Ego has an insatiable desire for attention, particularly from its parents, which is largely met by parents through mirroring glances of acknowledgement, joy, and welcomeness to young ego, who experiences validation and the definitive right to take up space and thrive in this world. Failures in early mirroring can lead to depression and obsessive attention seeking behaviors, as such an ego lacks secure attachment and inner worth.
Ego may revert to strategies such as ego inflation, where it puffs up its self-importance to more securely navigate life. Equally, ego may choose to hide, seeking no attention. Attention entails performance, which can lead to failure, shame, and rejection. In this adaptive hideout, one may live a fantasy life of importance and fulfillment, though secretly feel entitled, superior, and resentful.
Another ego strategy for navigation is the pursuit of perfection to avoid the judgments inherent in being seen. The problem with perfection is that it leaves no space for the acceptance of being a mortal human with flaws and inadequacies. Avoidance of rejection and shame can monopolize all of one’s energy for life.
Blatantly mirrored, in current world rule, is an ego strategy that exercises its full might to consume all world attention and stamp out all possible criticism and limitation. This strategy is a concretized attempt to achieve wholeness and oneness by literally having, and becoming, all that is.
Ultimately, we are all being challenged to address our fixations with self-importance as the collective planetary ego prepares to evolve in this Age of Aquarius, which we have recently entered. The ego of the Aquarian Age is opening up to telepathy, where thoughts and feelings are transmitted without verbal communication. This mind-reading function does not require another to be locally present for thought-sharing to occur.
Ego cannot hide out during telepathic communication. The ego becomes the emperor with no clothes in this scenario, for all is known. Ego can no longer hide behind words and persona; it is simply seen as it truly is. This progression in evolution requires that ego be in acceptance of the truth of what it is, with all its flaws and limitations. This alignment with truth opens the door to love of self, as well as love of equally flawed neighbor.
P. P. Quimby discovered that most of what becomes disease in our lives is erroneous ego beliefs, which condense and are reflected in the external conditions of our body. His method of cure was to have his patients see the blatant truths of these errors and open to the love and truth of their divine beingness. This orientation also opens us to the truths and intentions for the greater good for all rather than the cloistered, self-serving ego of deception.
This attitude of love and reverence for everyone prepares us to take full conscious possession of our divine ability to manifest, via suggestion to our divine subconscious mind, sincere fulfillment for self and all others.
Until recently, we have all projected these divine abilities to create and manifest onto godly beings beyond ourselves, or concretely upon money and physical objects. The Age of Aquarius is reflecting to us our royal potential, as we retrieve our projections and advance our innate energetic abilities.
In effect, the more truthfully we face and accept the full truths of our lives, the more ego discovers its true royal heritage, which it can then align with for the greater good of self, and all others. Ego then serves the needs of its greater Soul, in truth and wisdom, rather than its own self-aggrandizement.
The shamans of ancient Mexico, who recognized the utter necessity to become free of self-importance, stressed that laughter was the best medicine in accepting our flawed selves and the wily ways we adopt to cover ourselves up.
Every one of us has the capacity now to advance the world from within, by facing the giant of self-importance, so boldly mirrored to us from without. May we follow the true guidance reflected by this utterly glaring projection!
We arrive at the place of wisdom when we stop active thinking and open to receive inner knowing. We innately know when we are in sympathy with our own High Self. We are in sympathy when both our conscious presence and our High Self are each experiencing the same feeling at the same time. Wisdom springs from this union, this oneness.
When we think, we invariably separate from this state of oneness. Thinking requires contrasts, as it reasons, weighs and compares. In oneness we are in pure light, absent the shadows generated by thinking. In thinking, we actively turn our light toward, and interact with, the created objects of our thoughts. As valuable as thinking is, it separates us from our oneness of being.
This interaction of light and separate objects does produce knowledge of the workings of the physical world, which often condenses into opinions and beliefs, but the best of this knowledge is always shy of the wisdom born of the pure light of absolute oneness. Without wisdom, all knowledge is limited by some shadow of error.
The current renaissance in psychedelic journeying is born of the spiritual impulse to bypass the errors and constraints of the thinking left brain to obtain wisdom through the right-brained experiences of greater oneness.
This method of bypassing the filtering power of the left brain involves the ingestion of synthetic drugs or plant medicines that deliver their own intents in steering the brain into latent but frequently unused neural pathways.
If the insights gained in these journeys are recapitulated and integrated into daily consciousness one might incorporate new wisdom in one’s perception of life, resulting in new behaviors. This is called neuroplasticity, where the neurons of new experience are paired with the neurons of ordinary life, forming new neural pathways. As Joe Dispenza frequently points out, “neurons that fire together, wire together.”
However, let not the pervasiveness of psychedelic use create the illusion that psychedelics are legal. Though many clinical trials are exploring the clinical value of psychedelics—as was the case in the 1970s when Richard Nixon, fed up with the Vietnam War protests of the love generation, shut down all clinical trials and made all psychedelics illegal— they are still mostly illegal in today’s world.
One potential side effect of psychedelic journeying is a kind of fascination with the heightened awareness experienced through the substances ingested, which beckons repeat and novel experiences, but which fails to integrate those experiences into new neural pathways, or to change default habits.
Other approaches to the transpersonal states of wisdom involve the use of the breath. In fact, after the 1970s shutdown of psychedelic trials, researcher Stan Grof, together with his wife Christina, developed Holotropic Breathwork to achieve the same experiential outcomes he had accessed with psychedelics.
I will offer an insinuation of a practice with breathwork that I personally use to actualize this intent of greater union. I use the word insinuation rather than structured practice, for to make it an official thing robs it of its spontaneous wisdom. If something resonates for you, try it, but allow your own wisdom to guide you in how you practice it.
I call this practice, Holy Union. I must confess that I am very much a failed Christian, but I have always appreciated the insinuation of a union with the Divine, as suggested by the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion.
Both Christian Communion and Jewish Sabbath utilize the substances of bread and wine to sanctify spiritual union. In Holy Union Breathwork, one inhales and holds the spirit of air, or the Holy Spirit of Wisdom.
Every time we breathe in air, we are communing with the spirit dimension, whose air physically enters and nourishes the body and then exits with its toxins. If we choose to hold our breath after an inhalation, we enter a state of prolonged union of the greater oneness of body and spirit.
Certain Pranayama breathing practices, such as Kumbhaka, incorporate holding the breath, as do breathing practices established by Wim Hof. It matters little how long one might hold one’s breath. One should always pay attention to the body and only hold the breath for as long as is comfortable. What is important is the intent to be in a state of oneness, however brief that might be.
Set the intent for Holy Union with the High Self before the inhalation. Breathe in a comfortable level of air. Hold the breath according to the limits suggested by a method you have chosen, or simply for as long as you feel comfortable. Do not struggle! That will only lessen the intention. The intent is deeply relaxed, loving union. After the exhalation one might choose to hold the breath briefly again, before taking another inhalation of Spirit.
Sometimes, I might choose a mantra, a word that has spiritually presented itself to me, and quietly say that word over and over again while I hold the breath. Words are power objects, especially if they have been previously paired with, or become wired with, transcendent experience.
The words relax, oneness, love, peace, if imbued with spiritual mana, will immediately calm the solidity of the physical body to join the higher vibration of the High Self.
At other times, I might completely silence the mind and put full attention to the physical experience of vibration, as body and mind blend into a oneness of sheer energy.
Sometimes, I have entered the Holy Union with the intention of total adjustment or healing from a physical condition I have felt imprisoned by.
Often, upon entering this state of vibratory oneness, I discover a total realignment to health from my previous frozen state of energy, which is then sustained throughout the day.
Again, I could not prescribe for anyone how they might structure their own spiritual breathwork practice. These are just suggestions for beginning a process of self-exploration.
We all, universally, breathe. I simply offer the possibility of an awareness with breath that offers everyone the opportunity to partake in being in the oneness of wisdom.
Matter comes from the Latin word materia, which means the physical substance that is born of mater, who is mother. Our physical body, our physical lives, and the life of our times is the creation of the father-of-suggestion in union with mother, the material substance of the subconscious mind.
Mother brings forth all physical life. The state of that life reflects the quality of the suggestions it has been impregnated with; are they of wisdom or are they of error? Wisdom is infused with impartial truth, error is filled with one-sided opinion.
Our current world is largely defined by the instant reactions of social media, from the White House on down, where the play and battle of opposites vie for dominance of public opinion, which serves as the ruling suggestions to the matter of our time.
Prior generations have struggled to establish union in response to this volatile battle of opposite opinions, often resorting to suppression, or to passing on to the future the insolvency of unrealized truth.
The founding fathers of America knew very well that slavery was immoral, but did not address it in the Constitution, forcing the future America, some 75 years later, into Civil War to resolve the issue. And though the outcome of that war ended slavery, the North and the South never came into real union.
The discontent over this imposed solution was suppressed and housed in the body of America, giving rise to a diseased nation, at war with itself, once again seeking solution in one-sided rule. Such is the karma of unsettled solutions, yet to be resolved into the peace of true Wisdom.
These unsolved issues—be they the equality of the sexes and races, an equitable outcome of Zionism, the divine might-makes-right of kings in imperialist acquisition, or the racist intent of Naziism that seeks its alchemical gold through the destruction of its projected shadow—have all broken through from the body of the world’s suppressed unconscious, once again begging completion, as we prepare to receive the advanced wisdom of the Aquarian age we are now physically living in.
The stupendous overarching truth of now is that human consciousness is on the cusp of a major evolutionary leap that requires a clearing of all the errors and opinions that have formed the ruling suggestions to our subconscious minds, and created our current reality. Take for instance the power of suggestion itself. Once an individual awakens to their personal power to create their physical life, the sky is the limit.
Donald Trump, a master hypnotist, astutely aware of the power of suggestion, recently offered this guidance when asked about the limits on his own global power: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
This is indeed a fundamental truth for everyone in relation to their subconscious mind. The suggestions to the subconscious mind are all powerful. Mother subconscious will produce in matter that which is suggested to her. The question, as Donald Trump points out, is the state of one’s morality. Is it based on the wisdom of truth, or the error of opinion? Either way, those suggestions will be manifested.
The unsolved matters of prior times, currently living through us, cannot find peace until we face them squarely and submit to the truth of Wisdom. We cannot revert to old defenses or old beliefs. These unsolved matters demand truthful resolution before we can evolve.
Resolution requires that we suspend the judgment of blame. Full acceptance, of what was and what is, is the precursor to a morality that will produce suggestions to materialize our creative potential for the greater good of all.
Inwardly, we must face the isms that have ruled our sense of self and our sense of the world. Inwardly, we must ask: Is our morality narcissistically dominated by the desire of ego for its own aggrandizement, or is it serving the wisdom of what is truly right? Inwardly, we must free our beliefs from internalized false opinions about ourselves based upon the thoughts and actions of others.
I close with this matter, the guidance and support of Lady Wisdom from Proverbs 3:16-18:
“Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.”
