Category Archives: Chuck’s Blog

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.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Love Trumps Hate

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Aspire to higher bands of love energy…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

“Do not let the sun go down on your wrath.” (Ephesians 4:26-27) In modern terms this simply means, “don’t go to bed angry.” Certainly the calm of good will to all, before sleep, allows the body to release into restful rejuvenation as the mind goes off to dream, in the depths of infinity.

This nightly journey of mind, in its soul body, into the subtler dimensions of life, is full of encounters with the wandering souls of other sleepers in human form, as well as with those in soul states no longer attached to human bodies.

Robert Monroe, in his journeys beyond the body, charted the various bands of energy one can visit on one’s nightly journeys. The band of energy closest to earth Bob designated as the M band field. This energy, though subtler in composition than the physical body, is nonetheless focused upon the passions and desires of life in human form.

Many souls in M band have yet to fully accept their physical death and exist in a limbo state of private dream, a bardo, where their imagination recreates a life in human form, with its attempts to satisfy its physical longings. Souls in this state are dominated by need and are largely unawakened to their true state of being.

When we go to sleep with unsettled thoughts, or hate, our soul launches in a volatile state of energy that is naturally drawn to like-energy in the M band field. Typically, we arrive in M band with very little consciousness and find ourselves interacting with unknown souls with similar torments, either entering into their dreams or co-creating new ones with them.

Sometimes these are the dreams of intense emotion that generate nightmares. Other dreams find their impetus in what Freud called wish fulfillment, in the playing out of suppressed aggressive and sexual impulses.

The upshot of  all these encounters is an unsettling impact upon our waking consciousness, as our soul returns to its physical body. The download of these nefarious engagements typically casts a negative shadow upon the mood and thoughts of the day ahead.

The bands of energy that Bob Monroe mapped in infinity mimic the chakra centers in the physical body. These ascending chakras, from the root, at the base of the spine, to the crown, at the top of the head, reflect the transformational journey of energy from the grossest state, at the root of the spine, to the most refined, at the crown of the head. The journey of energy through these energy centers is the journey from crude passion and narcissism to refined all-inclusive love and oneness.

To achieve the level of refinement at the crown chakra, we must fall in love with life, with equanimity. At the heart center, for instance, we learn to love our enemies as ourselves.  This profound depth of love extends love to those whom are embroiled in hatred. This is how love trumps hate. Whereas hate has no room for love, love includes hate, in all its vitriolic and sadistic forms. Love only wants the best for all, including those whom hate.

When we end our day with detached, loving thoughts, we launch into infinity with our soul body drawn to the higher dimensions of love that reflects our waking thoughts and emotions. Furthermore, we interact with more enlightened souls who can shed their guidance and wisdom upon issues that engage us in waking life. And though we might not fully remember our encounters in infinity, we return deeply calmed, wiser and rejuvenated as we reenter our bodies and take on the day ahead. We enter with love and optimism, and look forward to the gifts to come.

These journeys into the higher bands of infinity also accrue to a growing awareness of the terrain beyond the physical body, where we will one day settle in as we embark upon our definitive journey, into life beyond the physical body at physical death. With increasing lucidity in sleep and waking life our lives are enriched now, as well as then.

The key to richness of life, now and then, is love. The more mature the love, the greater the wholeness and the acceptance that hate is simply a cruder form of love. Welcome its refinement that all might wake up to the overarching reign of love.

Loving intent for all,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Completing The Swim Across The Great River

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Up from the depths come pearls of wisdom…
-Hudson River Brick wrapping by Maggie R.

In a dream, I am swimming across the Hudson River, beneath the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge. As I swim along, I reach up and gather thousands of fishing lines, thin filaments that originate from the top of the bridge and hang down to the water. No one is now fishing from above, these are the remnants of past efforts.

When I gather, in one hand, enough entwined lines to form a thick rope, I use it to propel me forward. Then I let go of it and begin gathering new lines. I awaken before reaching the Kingston shore.

Crossing the river is a powerful archetypal symbol of significant Completion, be it with a stage of life, a relationship, a passionate obsession or a dominant attitude. To truly complete, we must be ready to let go of the solid ground we have habitually walked upon, as we venture forward into the unknown of murky waters, replete with powerful tides and undercurrents of emotional uncertainty, before arriving at a new solid ground of knowing. Such is the perennial opus of human life.

Incidentally, the currents of the Hudson River are so powerful that they have claimed the lives of many a seasoned and professional swimmer. I associate those potentially fatal undercurrents with the state of the  global energy of our time. We are dealing with volatile, unpredictable currents of energy that can exhaust one’s intent to stay afloat, or simply move forward.

The dream offers a technology to successfully traverse such chaotic times. The suggestion is to grasp and appreciatively weave together the thousands of attempts to spiritually advance. This processing and act of love can now provide the strength for a major advance.

One powerful association, for me personally, with fishing, is the act of remembering and interacting with dreams, messengers from the depths of the unconscious, or infinity, who nourish and share their pearls of wisdom, as they deliver needed guidance to the conscious mind.

As all who fish are well aware, patience and effort are required to successfully reel in the fish that is quite energetically capable of slipping back into the river. In practical terms, this means setting the intent to lucidly remember the dream and then record it immediately upon awakening, before the familiar thought of, “Oh, how could I forget this?” lulls us back into oblivion and lost dreams.

There is no actual waking-life fishing permitted on this bridge of my dream. The fishing lines presented are symbolic of countless attempts  to align the efforts of waking life with the spiritual guidance from the depths. These are the many cycles of groundhog days we have endured to inch our way beyond our default habitual patterns.

In Buddhist tradition, this completion is emergence from a path of Avidya, which means ignorance, unwisdom or delusion. By suspending judgment we can see Avidya as a necessary stage of learning, whose cycles accrue to a broader awakening to the true nature of reality. We see the deeper picture and no longer need the support of older scaffolds of attachment. We can let go with love and compassion. The many strands of this journey, when fully entwined and grasped, thrust us forward into new life.

Completion requires us to not turn back. To move forward may require some sacrifice, but energetically we have fully explored and exhausted our attachment to our prior way of being. To look back at this point is to lose our fluidity and turn to stone. We no longer need to go there; it is done.

The many fishing lines also represent the efforts of our ancestors, whose knowledge is there to be grasped and consciously integrated. This is a major feature in the technology of advance in the water. By grasping and intertwining so many threads the strength is gained to propel forward. There is also the suggestion to stay collectively united with resonant beings who strengthen our resolve.

Inwardly, our greatest resource lies in the Divine Intelligence accessed in our subconscious minds. The subconscious is the storehouse of all memory and experience, the many fish brought up from the sea of human history.

As I write this blog, my subconscious immediately responds to my conscious mind’s deliberations with associations to vaster knowledge, both personal and collective. This interactive relationship between conscious thought and subconscious associative memory, personal or collective, is a constant creative interaction within and between our minds and bodies.

My subconscious brings to the surface several memories of frightful encounters with the undercurrents of the mighty Hudson River. I’m reminded of the I Ching, hexagram #63, After Completion, depicting the river being successfully crossed. Psychological references to the island in the ocean as ego, in its relation to the greater collective unconscious of humankind, flood my mind.

Aside from the powerful ability of the subconscious mind to miraculously manifest desired change, is this automatic ability to constantly interact with the conscious mind by presenting a treasure trove of timeless knowledge, accrued through evolutionary history.

Of course, it remains for the conscious mind to weave or process these associations in such a way that they provide the solution to the dilemmas and questions we face.

We can quite directly ask the subconscious a question before sleep that will spin its strands of knowledge into the dream we are invited to participate in.

And finally, we can retrieve those dreams, as I have done here, and deepen our ability to successfully navigate our lives, and the troubled waters of our time.

Entwining,
Chuck 

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Chuck’s Place: From Ruin To Love

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Ruin—Thoth Tarot Deck

The Tarot delivered me the 10 of Swords, Ruin, to represent the state of things leading into today, and the 2 of Cups, Love, as the energy of today. How does ruin turn into love?

The culprit of ruin is an undisciplined, warring force seeking complete disruption and failure, a marplot who loves to overthrow the happiness of others by ruining all intellect and moral qualities. This energy is amply being reflected on the outer world plane at this time. Joyce Sequichie Hifler, in A Cherokee Feast Of Days Volume III (p.66), states:

“When someone is angry or hurt or spoiled, they tend to want everyone to pay for it. Don’t… Go on with your life, but be alert. Know in your heart and in your spirit that you cannot be put down. Hold tight to your common sense and know you are spiritually protected always.”

Then of course we must face the inner truth of this outer mirror, reflected so powerfully to us at this time. Who is this inner encroacher, this meddler disrupting our inner true peace? Responsibility, ultimately, resides with the conscious mind, whose thoughts and beliefs are the major source of suggestions to the subconscious mind.

Of course, we receive countless hetero-suggestions each day, meaning the conscious and unconscious taking in of suggestions from outside influences. Nonetheless, responsibility for raising these suggestions to conscious scrutiny rests with the conscious mind. 

The royal couple who govern our inner and outer selves represent the conscious and subconscious minds. The true divine abilities of this couple has been known for centuries. In the 16th century, Paracelsus stated, “Whether the object of your faith be real or false, you will nevertheless obtain the same effects.”  

This translates today as, “you manifest what you believe.” The subconscious mind will generate your mood, state of health, and your position in life based upon the thoughts and beliefs of your conscious mind. This is at the heart of the paradigm shift awakening within us.

We possess the ultimate power over our lives. And that power initiates from what we think, believe, and intend. Even Victor Frankl, while incarcerated in Auschwitz, could sustain his life based upon his attitude and imagination, both strong sources of suggestion to the subconscious mind. The times we are living in ask us to wisely exercise this truth.

Whether we are aware of it or not, our conscious minds are in a very intimate relationship with our subconscious minds, determining the course of our earthly existence. In truth, we exist in constant trance, manifesting our innermost thoughts. When we practice responsible autosuggestion, we are bringing conscious intent to the construction of our lives.

Love—Thoth Tarot Deck

We arrive at responsible autosuggestion at the heart center, where we learn the truth from the High Self. Modesty is the requirement of the ego in this communication. If the ego can surrender its narcissism, its willfulness, and its bad temper it will be granted the necessary clarity to know what to intend.

This acquiescence to the truth is the ego’s expression of love to its subconscious, as it delivers suggestions to grow and advance the overall needs of the Self. This royal union of selfless truth, with its creative manifestation in physical form, is how that which was once ruinous becomes love.

Becoming love,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: The Truth About The Absurdity Of Now

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Hang onto your hats!
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

We are on a quantum joyride, without seatbelts! The only choice is to let go and go with the inevitable flow. In truth, it really isn’t a choice, for we have already blasted off into the cosmos. Hold on as tightly as you will, for the ride is already fast and furious. No one can stop our present ride into the realm of quantum possibility.

Suspend judgment. Rationality cannot forestall this absolute power of absurdity. Judgment is a desperate attempt to hold onto the security of a known reality. Our known world of physical certainty is disintegrating into the fluidity of energetic possibility. With nothing to hold onto we have nothing to lose, and possibly, everything to gain.

Non-speaking autistics have been mirroring this human transformational process.* Locked into physical bodies, with limited functionality, they opened to quantum possibility. Non-speaking autistics have created a consensus reality called The Hill, where they meet and commune telepathically, defying all the laws of Newtonian physics that construct the known physical world we have lived in.

This is our destiny. All physical certainty is in jeopardy. The knowns of science and medicine, the boundaries and alliances of countries, the security of ownership, savings, and reliable currency are all losing their solidity. Like the non-speaking autistics, we are all being challenged to expand beyond physical certainty into the new possibilities latent in quantum reality.

Back to the hologram of Self. As without, so within. We all want something to change. For change to happen, the energy we have condensed to create the security of a known physical reality for ourselves must be freed in order to flow into new life. The habits our subconscious minds have solidified, to create our physical bodies and lives, must break down and be overridden for new suggestions to take shape.

Can we be as radical inwardly as the current world is outwardly? Can we let go of the security of the known, and ride instead the wave of new energetic possibility? Rather than rage at the unfairness and incredulity of the outer world, can we follow its insinuation and boldly suggest a whole new self to the subconscious mind? 

Radical breakdown of the known is the suggestion being mirrored outwardly. What is also being mirrored is the exercise of divine right, albeit as both divine tragedy and divine comedy. Can we acknowledge and exercise our own true divine powers to manifest what we so desire, without falling prey to the inflation of Icarus? Are we willing to simply stop and ask the High Self, “What is truly right?”

“And what,” as many ask, “can I do about my blocking belief, which compromises the strength of my divine suggestions?”

If your suggestion is a defensive attempt to override a disowned truth, the power of that truth will likely remain the dominant suggestion to the subconscious mind. Face and integrate the truth, whereby nullifying its blocking impact and freeing desired manifestation.

And yes, even the truth can at times be overridden by suggestion, but the karma of such action is ultimately the fate of Icarus. Nonetheless, even such a fall is instructive to future development.

Perhaps the most insidious of blocking beliefs are those that doubt our divine capabilities. These may have their origin in protecting us from the fate of Icarus, yet, in so doing, they deeply bury us in deflation and limitation.

Blocking beliefs are also installed by reigning powers that seek to control us like chickens in a chicken coop. But truthfully, the worst offender is our own reluctance to change, as we secretly defeat the threat of moving beyond the security of the known, however stifling it may be.

Taking another cue from without, the tried and true way of overcoming a blocking belief is constant repetition of the same message. We have seen how effective such a strategy has been in influencing a majority of people to sign up for the reality we are currently experiencing.

Design your suggestion in consort with your High Self. Then, saturate your life with its constant repetition. This is pure rote repetition, pounding away at the door until it finally opens and takes the seed to root. Perseverance, without attachment to outcome, never fails.

Such is the truth of the pounding absurdity of now: it is inevitably taking us to the door of quantum possibility. This is the opportunity for a quantum leap, within and without.

Ready or not, the time for that leap has arrived.

In free fall,
Chuck

 *Listen to The Telepathy Tapes podcast for further explanation.

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Chuck’s Place: The Divine Power Of The Human Mind

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Ask the High Self for help…
-Artwork © 2025 Jan Ketchel

When humanity acquired consciousness it gained the divine prerogative  to tell the subconscious mind what to do. The subconscious mind has the divine capacity to create whatever is suggested to it. Both the conscious and subconscious minds have divine attributes. Words, in the form of suggestions from the conscious mind, become flesh, as they are outwardly manifested by the divine power of the subconscious mind.

Back in the days before Prometheus stole the fire of consciousness from the gods, and Adam and Eve from the Tree of Knowledge, human beings had no choices; they religiously obeyed the divine laws of instinct. Instinct is housed in the subconscious mind, which essentially ruled human life in a consistent way until the birth of human consciousness.

With consciousness as the new absolute ruler, suggestions are able to be delivered that can override instinctive programs with new programs that  create and  destroy with abandon.

There are a couple of checks to this absolute power. Most powerful has been the rational mind, which dismisses divine power outright. With its material bias, it limits people’s belief in their latent divine powers. If you don’t believe you have an ability you won’t exercise it.

Furthermore, you won’t arouse the emotional enthusiasm needed to attract the subconscious mind’s attention to a new suggestion. In this scenario the subconscious will nonetheless continue to exercise its divine power by manifesting life scenarios that fulfill the conscious mind’s limited views of itself. 

The other major check on these divine powers is the nearly absolute power of socialization, saturated with limiting negative thoughts, which becomes internalized as an incessant internal dialogue, that then creates the shadowy reality envisaged by such suggestions. Such is the great mirror of this time on the world stage.

Suggestions are everywhere. Besides the billions spent to influence people’s minds at every turn are the thoughts of humanity, and dimensions beyond, that telepathically impinge upon the subconscious mind. The seduction of social media opens the floodgates to intense emotion and powerful suggestions.

Some form of meditation practice, as well as a strong suggestion to the subconscious to block the messaging of outside influences, can greatly protect one’s mind space and the ability to think and feel for oneself.

Consciousness itself must also assume responsibility for the suggestions it chooses to expose itself to. The suggestions we impress upon the subconscious are expressed in our physical reality. Suggestion is destiny. We become what we feel and believe to be true.

Our ego consciousness is largely centered in three-dimensional reality, hence it tends to be more narcissistically concerned about its own survival. This isn’t a judgement, it’s a fact. However, ego has the capacity to turn to its High Self, at the meeting place of the heart center, and ask for guidance.

The High Self lives in the subtle plane of fourth-dimensional reality. From its perspective of refined love and infinity it will tell the ego the truth, what is truly right. Of course, it remains for the ego to acquiesce or continue to operate in feigned ignorance as it struggles to evolve. The High Self never insists; it knows the ego must mature into adulthood and truly assume responsibility in its current plane of existence.

Nonetheless, the High Self feels nothing but unconditional love for the ego self. Actually, the ego, in its three-dimensional life, is the dream of the High Self. Nothing but love and truth is felt and offered to this child of the dream.

When the ego approaches the subconscious mind, with its divine capacity to create, it’s critical to be sure of the greater rightness of that which it asks for. The subconscious will not challenge or question a suggestion—that is rightly the job of consciousness.

If the intent and emotion is strong enough the subconscious will manifest the suggestion into reality. It is equally capable of manifesting good or evil. The ego is responsible for assuring the greater good of all with its suggestions. The divine in the subconscious mind allows the ego total freedom of choice. The ego will ultimately grow by experiencing the full effect of its manifested suggestions. These are divine lessons.

When requesting healing from the subconscious mind it is wise to consult with the High Self as to the true etiology of one’s symptoms. In general, all physical manifestations, including illness, issue first from the subtle mental plane, as suggestions that then physically manifest.

These are the kinds of questions to ask the High Self, with true receptivity to exploring the answers one receives:

“What is the cause of the symptom I bear?”
“From whence and where has this suggestion originated?”
“Am I being shown the negative effects of a suggestion I insisted upon manifesting?”
“Is the cause of my symptoms a reflection of error in my intentions?” 

Of course, we must address issues of our physical reality with physical interventions, but getting to the true subtle mental root of an issue can mitigate a recurrence of that physical issue. Relief of symptoms is welcome, but no guarantee of cure.

Sometimes merely aligning one’s resolve with one’s deepest truth provides instant cure. Oftentimes, however, a greater process of discovery and transformation will unfold. 

The key to the responsible use of the divine power of the human mind is to obtain the truth and guidance from the High Self. We are clearly in the early adolescence of our divine power maturation.

Be humble, be honest with self. Assume responsibility. Be in awe, be in love.

The divine is always helping us,
Chuck