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.
Infinite intelligence is an ocean of oneness that exists at the subconscious level of everything.
Our conscious minds are like a droplet from that ocean spray that, for the moment of a human lifetime, rises above that ocean and participates, as an individual identity, in an intimate creative partnership with its underlying infinite oneness of intelligence.
Both conscious and subconscious minds are of the same divine oneness. However, their temporary separateness affords consciousness the power to create by accessing the knowledge and manifesting the capabilities latent in the subconscious mind.
The subconscious, while deeply impressed with the instinctive knowhow of infinite intelligence, quite willingly opens to the suggestions that the conscious mind impresses upon it through its strong beliefs. The subconscious does not judge, it reflects, via its physical constructions, the intentions of the conscious mind.
This is its teaching contribution to the conscious mind. It constructs our lives in accordance with our thoughts. These experiences give us concrete physical experiences of who we are on the inside, and the opportunity to change our thoughts for the betterment of our spiritual, emotional and physical lives.
As we grow, we deepen our knowledge of the effects of our thoughts and beliefs as they manifest in our health and fulfillment in life. With this growing wisdom, gained from observing, and often through suffering the cause and effect of our core beliefs, we learn that we can make changes to our lives by exercising new thoughts that break us out of old habitual patterns. Change your mind, change your life.
We also learn that we are deeply connected to our subconscious minds and can call upon its infinite intelligence to mold our lives for the greater good of self and all. We hold the power within.
Appealing with passionate speech, or thought, to the infinite intelligence in your subconscious mind, as your most trusted and appreciated partner, for the changes you deeply desire, is an interaction that won’t be ignored.
Remember, though, that just like in any true partnership, you cannot control the behavior of your partner. Trust in the intelligent ways of infinite intelligence.
I mentioned to Jan that I was reading Castaneda again, a man whose works have had a profound impact upon me.
She handed me a book. “You should read this,” she said.
The book surprised me. It was a book I’d avoided reading for years: A Magical Journey With Carlos Castaneda by Margaret Runyan Castaneda, once Carlos’ wife.
Carlos and Margaret got together in the mid 1950’s, married on January 27, 1960 and divorced in 1973. In all actuality, they lived together for less than a year, as Carlos was quite preoccupied with visits to Mexico and his apprenticeship with don Juan Matus. I add here the trickster caveat that, as with all things Castaneda, there is no real documentation of anything.
Most striking to me in Margaret’s book was the discovery that Margaret’s guru was Neville Goddard, a prominent New Thought teacher, whom though aware of, I had never immersed myself in.
Particularly striking to me was the discovery that both Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy were prominent students of a learned man, named Abdullah, a black rabbi in New York City, originally from Ethiopia.
There are several unknowns about the true origin of Abdullah, a bit of a mysterious character it seems, much like Carlos Castaneda and don Juan Matus, but he had a profound impact on both Murphy and Goddard.
I have extolled the virtues of Joseph Murphy’s The Power Of The Subconscious Mind in numerous blogs, and am now exploring the work of Neville Goddard.
What I never knew was that Carlos Castaneda was directly exposed to the New Thought lineage through Margaret, as she frequently spoke to him about the impact Goddard’s teachings had upon her, and she personally brought him to a Neville Goddard lecture.
For me, this unexpected knowledge brings the teachings of the shamans of ancient Mexico, in accessing the divine power of the subconscious mind, full circle into alignment with the New Thought lineage.
Rather than expound more upon the curious interconnectedness of what has preoccupied me most of my spiritual life, I share the following inks:
Beliefs are thoughts that become living things. There is an energy of intent in a belief that attracts matter to it to express its realness in physical form. Even when beliefs are disproven or go out of fashion they nonetheless remain subtle energetic entities, capable of a comeback at any time. Be mindful of your intent.
The time we now live in is filled with old beliefs finding new playing time on the world stage. Inwardly, we are subject to all the ancient beliefs of humankind that lie dormant in the depths of what Jung called the collective unconscious.
Our subconscious mind has access to all these beliefs in the depths of the unconscious. In fact many of these beliefs have become instinctual habits during the course of human evolution. Thus, for instance, if our life were to be threatened, the instinct of self-preservation would likely override our thinking mind and have us act instinctively to save our life.
Some instinctual habits may actually threaten life. Racism can be seen, at least in part, as issuing from a primitive self-preservation instinct that categorizes people as part of an in-group with similarities, or an-out group with many differences. The out-group is seen as dangerous and becomes subject to racist treatment.
Within our psyche we are subject to many old beliefs from our evolutionary history, as well as family history and post-birth socialization. There are consensus beliefs that form a consensus reality. The notion of old age, and illnesses associated with aging, is a strong consensus reality.
What we believe does become our physical reality, even if we don’t know that we believe it. How often do we check in with our age and understand our physical condition to be ‘normal’ for our age. With this thought, we then affirm to our subconscious mind that we are in agreement with the ancient program for bodily conditions in aging.
The wonder of the subconscious is that although, like AI, it has access to all knowledge, it gives absolute preference to the beliefs of the conscious mind in directing its actions, unless an unconscious powerful belief upstages its conscious intent. Know thyself, deeply. This does place an awesome responsibility upon the conscious mind to truly be a man or woman of knowledge.
Don Juan Matus distinguished two kinds of shamans in ancient Mexico: men and women of knowledge, and sorcerers. Though both groups had mastery of the powers of the subconscious mind, sorcerers acted from self-importance and exploitation. People of knowledge acted from the heart, in alignment with Spirit.
To act from the heart one must do an honest inventory of the beliefs one houses in the hidden depths of the self. One must be willing to go it alone if one’s heart is not in agreement with conventional wisdom.
As I experience it, all objective reality is relative. Everything that we believe becomes a reality. If I hear someone sneeze and believe I have been infected, I will likely begin to sneeze and manifest a cold. And that cold is absolutely real! So of course, who could deny its validity?
On the other hand, if we are able to detach from all the hidden beliefs, agreements that were made without our conscious consent, we are freed to introduce beliefs to the subconscious mind that may construct a reality of our choosing. The greater the concentration, the greater the success.
The subconscious mind attaches to the premise most powerfully presented to it. Hence, repetitive affirmations expressed with powerful emotion and supportive mental imagery attract the subconscious to accept its intent as its premise for manifestation.
Our current world leaders are exercising the powers of the subconscious mind through sorcery. We all have the power to free ourselves from the influences of sorcery by becoming men and women of knowledge, believing and acting for the greater good for all.
The subconscious mind never sleeps. How could it, when it runs the physical body, and the energy body as well in its nightly journeys in infinity?
The conscious mind, by contrast, does nod off during sleep, and unless something wakes it into a lucid state while dreaming, it brings but vague downloads back to waking life upon awakening. Those downloads are known as dreams.
Actually, even in waking life the conscious mind can be said to be largely asleep. When driving a car, or performing a routine task, the conscious mind typically turns over the wheel to the subconscious mind that then steers the body and mind via the established programs stored within it, known as habits.
The conscious mind often takes flight into fantasy or thought until called back to task for necessary direction. When not mindfully present, the conscious mind is subject to an internal dialogue that is constantly defining and judging how it sees the world.
This judging activity actually creates the self and the world we live in through the consistency of its judgments and the personal identity it suggests to the subconscious mind.
Thus, for instance, the internal dialogue will deliver feedback every morning about the quality of one’s appearance during a quick or extended view from the mirror. It will remind us of unfavorable issues as it surveys its reflection, likely generating uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about ourselves.
Moving along, there are countless judgments about clothing, food decisions, and news and social media presentations that are categorized by such parameters as safety/threat, like/dislike, good/bad, positive/negative, approach/avoid, relax/get tense. This nonstop background judging function is active every waking moment of the day.
Once a judgment, good or bad, has been assigned by the conscious mind the subconscious mind faithfully codes it as a generalized guide that is then applied to ongoing daily encounters and reinforced by the conscious mind via passive acceptance of the judgments presented by the internal dialogue. The internal dialogue suggests what we think and feel about everything.
This dialogue establishes our true working definition of our identity. It’s how we know ourselves and are recognizable to others. The dialogue is incessantly active in the background of our minds, informing and reinforcing our sense of self. Unless the conscious mind brings its awareness to the directives of this dialogue and introduces a new perspective, this habitual mind runs nonstop, defining our lives.
Shamans covet a state they call inner silence, where the internal dialogue is abruptly halted, as an opportunity to collapse the world held in place by the internal dialogue. At such moments, one becomes privy to truths camouflaged by the internal dialogue, as it constantly generates ordinary reality.
Meditation practices that assign attention to a single focus, such as a word or the breath, accrue, over time, to moments of respite from the internal dialogue in the quiet of inner silence. However, experiences of inner silence and non-ordinary reality are not sustained indefinitely, as navigating our everyday world requires reentering a fixation upon the ordinary state of solid reality.
Quantum reality may be a truer picture of ultimate reality but the discreet physicality of Newtonian physics is crucial to functioning in everyday life. The internal dialogue quickly restores the familiar such-and-such of our consensus ordinary reality.
However, the silver lining of the internal dialogue is its magical ability to construct our world according to what we tell ourselves. It runs on autopilot but we can consciously take charge of the internal dialogue and what we tell ourselves. We can change the suggestions we deliver to the subconscious mind, from negative or habitual to positive and helpful, which are then manifested as the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual circumstances of our lives.
Yes, we can change our minds, even permanently. Mind is the spiritual substance that condenses into physical reality. A changed thought or suggestion rearranges the physical state of our being. This is our magical potential.
We can use our propensity for an internal dialogue to create a new experience of self and world. To achieve this, we must take conscious control of the internal dialogue, for good.
When we volitionally express gratitude, compassion, and loving intentions toward self and others in our internal dialogue, we become the positive being that radiates such qualities. This entails a persevering effort to bring alertness to our ever-active but half-asleep conscious mind, to be mindfully present and positive toward all things.
I am a loving, compassionate being, grateful for everyone, and in awe of everything,
I once had a professor hand me back a paper and say, “Yeah, you can write, but don’t get a fat head.” He was a weathered Irish alcoholic, a seasoned veteran of many a late night lecture at the pub.
He would write two sentences on the board from the current New York Times, then spend the entire class breaking it down, demonstrating countless violations in grammar, printed in this ‘revered’ newspaper.
He taught me to stay humble and play by the rules. I’ve never written anything since where I haven’t had his critical eye challenging my every word.
Christianity holds humility as a foundational virtue. “Pride goeth before the fall,” counsels King Solomon in Proverbs.
Certainly, the guidance to avoid ego inflation is central to psychological health. Its danger, in Narcissistic Personality Disorder, couldn’t be more evident than on today’s world stage.
Its prominence in Schizophrenia is also evident, where ego is often swallowed by the grander personality of a Napoleon or a Joan of Arc.
The struggle in Bipolar Disorder is often to take the elixir that renders one to the ordinariness of everyday life, surrendering a dip into the mania of infinite possibility, or a retreat into the utter inertia of depression.
This well-armed war on specialness requires us to knock on wood, to not tempt fate after making a boast. So great is the penalty for assuming even a hint of divine identification.
In fact, this overarching law to refuse all specialness has insisted that humankind disown and project any hint of supernatural power onto an outside entity, be it God, Goddess, or the Universe, as it fully embraces its unworthiness.
As they pray at the Catholic Mass, just prior to receiving Holy Communion, with its human ingestion of the Divine: “Lord I am not worthy, speak but the word and my soul will be healed.”
This preponderance of caution around assuming human specialness is not simply a conspiratorial effort to control the masses and create dependency upon manipulative prophets. To enter into one’s true specialness one must first defeat any attachment to self-importance.
Ego must be honed to handle the enormity of self found in the breadth of the subconscious mind. For much of life ego enjoys the falsehood of its self-importance. Its true task is to grow up and assume responsibility for directing its own inner divinity, the subconscious mind, to exercise its power for the greater good.
Rationality, the greatest achievement of the conscious mind, must be freed from its know-it-all fixation of ego certitude, to its necessary role of producing appropriate suggestions for the subconscious mind’s creation.
In this role, ego surrenders its self-importance to authentically serve the greater Truth. The truth is that we are beings with a dual mind. The conscious mind is assigned the role of leadership; the subconscious mind is the creator.
The subconscious mind can “heal your body and mind of all disease,” states Joseph Murphy in his epic, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. However, to tap into such power the ego must lose its obsession with its own specialness and fully embrace its actual superpower of suggestion, responsibly.
The ego must also exercise its powers of reflection to arrive at truth, then deliver its suggestions faithfully to the subconscious mind.
To believe in the power of the subconscious mind is to know its power through direct experience. The road to that knowing requires ego’s dedication to exercising this power of intent, without attachment to the outcome.
The power of the subconscious mind can be used for healing, manifesting, change, creativity, inspiration, intuition, telepathic communication, a whole host of positive intentions.
Simply, or not so simply, closing the door to distraction, and incessantly repeating one’s intent through suggestion, initiates the journey of cooperative wholeness between the dual mind in the service of the greater good. A more special relationship there could not be.
