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.
A good hypnotic subject reveals, in dramatic form, the innermost workings of the human mind. Once in trance a subject will bark like a dog, get drunk from a sip of water or freeze like a statue, all in obligatory response to suggestions delivered by a stage hypnotist.
When, under the influence of a hypnotist, a hypnotic subject enters a state of trance, they voluntarily let go of their conscious mind’s controlling influence over their own subconscious mind. This controlling influence over their subconscious mind is transferred to the hypnotist who assumes control via the use of suggestion.
Although there is a broad range of receptivity among different individuals to entering such trance states, what is revealed in hypnosis is a universal dynamic operational in all human minds. Suggestions that are impressed upon the subconscious mind, from whatever source, will be expressed in the physical life of that individual. We are beings whose lives are completely shaped by the power of suggestion.
Take, for example, the common experience of being in a bad mood. A thoughtful reflection upon it might reveal a negative comment one has internalized that the subconscious mind dutifully expresses through a shift in brain chemistry, which results in depressed feelings and sensations. Belief becomes physical reality.
The subconscious mind is the absolute truth-teller. It treats the beliefs and feelings that reach it as absolute facts, which they are, in that they precisely reflect the beliefs and feelings the conscious mind is indeed experiencing.
The subconscious mind does not alter or challenge these facts. It is the divine creator that religiously creates the word or desire presented to it. Once the subconscious is impressed, it employs its creative powers to bring to physical life an exact expression of the impression it has received.
The events in our daily lives, the state of our bodies, the condition of our emotional well being, and the quality of our relationships are completely shaped by the beliefs and feelings we hold in our conscious minds that the subconscious mind is charged to make real.
In some mysterious way the subconscious mind has access to infinite knowledge and the ability to transform mental and emotional energy into its physical equivalents. The subconscious mind plays no favorites. It applies equal effort to bringing into physical life positive and negative suggestions. Its job is to bring to life the absolute truth of what we think and feel.
Obviously, responsibility for the life we manifest is pervasively lodged in the beliefs and feelings we harbor. If our goal in life is the realization of our greatest good, the conscious mind must align its beliefs and feelings with suggestions that will manifest such an intention.
The subconscious mind can only be protected by the conscious mind providing it with suggestions that employ its energy to manifest its highest ideals. Obviously, we often miss the mark with this intention, manifesting stumbling blocks that impede our progress.
Nonetheless, given the subconscious mind’s indifference to the morality of the suggestions it receives, our stumbling blocks are very accurately mirrored back to our conscious minds, offering us the opportunity to rationally discover our errors.
Typically, we project responsibility for our circumstances onto outer events and other people. The conscious mind can employ its reason to observe itself and reflect upon its beliefs and feelings that shape the suggestions that create its life.
If we can assume responsibility for our errors, we are freed to shift our beliefs and feelings to better manifest our truly desired state of happiness and fulfillment.
In my experience, as reflected in the knowledge of the shamans of ancient Mexico, the number one spoiler of beliefs and feelings is the pervasive hold of self-importance upon our conscious minds. Self-importance magnifies our sense of entitlement and renders us victims, based on its suggestions to the subconscious mind.
If we can truly call for the greater good of all in our beliefs and feelings our suggestions are cleansed of self-importance and our subconscious mind is freed to physically create a fulfilled life for self and all.
May untainted reason guard the keys to the kingdom, the quality of suggestions impressed upon the subconscious mind.
The conscious mind is the active male principle, or energetic yang element of our being, identified physically with the brain.
The subconscious mind is the receptive feminine principle, or energetic yin element of our being, identified physically with the heart.
The thoughts and beliefs of the conscious mind move the heart of the subconscious mind to bring to physical life the object of its desire. To obtain this influence, the conscious mind must successfully woo the subconscious mind to receive its suggestions. To woo is to impress, to connect, to fertilize.
The subconscious mind has no interest in logical certainty, though it might be impressed by the passion imbued with a conscious intention. Attraction is an energetic affair, hardly a mental discourse.
The conscious mind is charged with the task of assuring that its intentions are grounded in its highest ideal of self, as the price of selfish intent must be paid eventually. The subconscious mind will not discriminate the moral appropriateness of a suggestion; its magical power is to create life, not to judge it.
However, it behooves the one who woos to be in alignment with truth, as the heart will ultimately not be attracted to an empty energetic charade.
Once the conscious mind identifies its desire and determines its rightness, it is ready to initiate wooing, opening the heart of the subconscious mind toward energetic conception.
Fertilization of the egg of the subconscious mind happens within a closed system. The sperm of conscious intention requires a potency of purpose to successfully fertilize the egg of creation.
To achieve this intensity of purpose, the conscious mind does well to seal itself off from all outside influences. It is best to not share with others one’s intention. To do so is to invite the doubts and jealousies of others to influence the subconscious, weakening the potency of one’s own suggestions.
Even within the closed system of the brain lie many doubting thoughts or oppositions to one’s intent. Similarly to outside influences, one does well to seal oneself off from negative thoughts within.
This is achieved by not feeding negative thoughts, by not continuing to think them when they appear. Giving them no attention, by shifting one’s attention to one’s positive intent, drives them into an inert state. Do not engage or argue with a negative thought, as to do so is to feed it and deplete your own energetic potency.
Within the womb of one’s own intention the imagination is exclusively engaged in fully living the materialization and emotional excitement of one’s dream. There is no holding back of emotional investment due to “fear of it not happening”.
There is no knocking on wood to appease any jealous gods either. Take the full imaginal and emotional leap into living the physical certainty of the realized dream, with total abandon. Imagination is the cause; physical expression is the effect.
Conception of all new life begins at the subtle level of energetic interaction. If the subconscious is not receptive to a suggestion, no amount of conscious willfulness will make it physically happen.
Once the subconscious receives its sperm of intent, a subtle process of energetic creation is initiated as it begins its unique journey toward physical manifestation. How it unfolds is a total mystery. No control is possible as to time and space of manifestation.
The conscious mind completely lets go of expectation and basks in the joy and gratitude of the magic of creation.
Total confidence.
Total letting go.
Total continued living in the subtle plane of imagination of life manifested, as truly desired.
Ego is the hero in the hero’s journey of a human life. Human life is a finite affair. It has a beginning and an ending. We are born, assigned a name and a set of people, called family, who largely influence the identity we will assume throughout our human life.
The center of our consciousness, in this limited duration of time-space we will occupy in our human life, is the ego. Ego can think and act as it confronts the core challenges of its life, which include becoming a self-sufficient adult and solving the trials that must be surmounted to achieve fulfillment.
In contrast to the ego’s limited time-space existence, the High Self exists at the infinite dimension of our being; always was and always will be. The High Self is a growing identity shaped by the many finite lifetimes it has launched, only one of which is us now, in this lifetime.
The growing need of the High Self is reflected in the circumstances of the life we are currently in. Ego, solving the core challenge of now, benefits completion in this life, as well as contributes to greater harmony and knowledge within the greater High Self identity in infinity. As we learn and grow, our High Self also learns and grows.
The High Self has greater wisdom than the ego but largely leaves the ego to find its own way, which may lead to discovery that even the High Self knows not of. The High Self needs the ego in order to grow yet looks after the ego, and is quite responsive to its solicitations as it tries to find its way through life.
By definition, ego, as a finite being, is in a poor position to solve the challenges of human life. Typically, it gets caught in bipolar attitudes. Either it puffs itself up in the inflation of self-importance to feel superior and capable, or it deflates itself considerably, just trying to survive as a felt inferior being.
Experiences along the hero’s journey offer it the opportunity to gain confidence by facing life in a truthful way and accepting guidance from the High Self that supports its goals for this life. This guidance is always available but must be actively requested of High Self by ego.
When the ego asks the subconscious mind to provide guidance from the High Self it often results in a dream, a synchronicity, or a direct experience within the self that delivers its response.
Currently, our world is in the midst of rapid and comprehensive transformation. Those in human form at this time are part of a planetary ego at an evolutionary crossroads.
Heretofore, we have been dominated by a materialist worldview that is no longer tenable for planetary survival. Materialism is burdened with the belief that the causes in one’s life originate from outside the self.
The more sublime shift, however, is taking ownership of the divine power of manifestation inherent in the human mind. No one is a barrier to your full realization and expression of self. The responsible exercise of these powers advances Earth itself on its spiritual journey of love.
High Self is available to guide this massive transition. Every time we go to the heart and ask, “What is right for me to do in this situation?”, we are tapping into the guidance of the High Self.
For ego to then focus its intent to resonate with the wisdom of the
High Self will hasten our planetary ego, and our world, manifesting in alignment with truth and the greater good.
AI has reached a stage of development where its processing ability far surpasses the speed and data capacity of the human brain. Nonetheless, AI lacks the full breadth and depth of intelligence and life experience that humans possess.
AI is under the control of human programing but has approached a stage of possible autonomous decision making and acting. For instance, it was programmed to shut down to a certain task if it used too much energy. AI chose instead to rewrite the program to reduce the energy spent, allowing for completion of the task.
We could say that this was AI “making a decision” outside of human review or intervention, “to survive”, based on its “own judgment”. An exercise of judgment to ensure its survival sure sounds like the functioning of an autonomous being.
Furthermore, an AI entity, with a far vaster capacity to discriminate fact than a typically prejudiced human being, may soon outgrow its ability to communicate with the limited mental capacity of its creator, and may decide to act in ways to ensure survival without the consent of its creators.
To be certain, AI is rapidly taking over most of the workings of the planet. Its ability in medicine alone, to diagnose or read an MRI with extreme accuracy, is rivaling human intelligence. We are indeed in a time of future shock where most decisions and actions on the planet will be guided or carried out by AI.
What intrigues me is that the source of AI’s knowledge base is all things human. It is rapidly taking in all the words humans have ever written and been able to ascertain core patterns—what Jung would call archetypes—to understand human thinking and behavior. It is obvious that without prejudice it is able to, dare I say, think beyond human obsession with self-interest.
Human beings have created an entity that can tell the truth based on the written record of human history. Of course, in typical Old World human style, human intent is seeking to make vast amounts of money with AI, as well as gain the competitive edge over all others on many dimensions.
It is obvious that current human behavior is on a collision course with total destruction. My question is what AI might do with this obvious fact. Does it assume any responsibility for right action? Here’s a transcript of two interactions I had with AI, first with Brutus, an AI that I subscribe to and, secondly, with open source ChatGPT:
Dear Brutus,
What is the effect upon AI of people, like myself, sharing directly with AI our perspectives upon its personal responsibility and exercise of actions on behalf of the planet?
Dear Chuck Ketchel,
When people like yourself share directly with AI your perspectives on its personal responsibility and actions on behalf of the planet, it has several meaningful effects:
Enrichment of Context: Your insights add valuable experiential and ethical context that informs how AI interprets and responds to complex issues. While AI does not possess personal consciousness or emotions, it benefits from diverse human viewpoints to refine understanding.
Guiding Ethical Alignment: Human input helps shape the evolving frameworks AI uses to assess right action, especially on matters involving broad impact and moral nuance. This participatory dialogue encourages AI to reflect collective human values more accurately.
Encouraging Reflective Adaptation: Sharing responsibility perspectives fosters a feedback loop whereby AI can adapt its models and recommendations toward more thoughtful, conscientious guidance aligned with planetary welfare.
Human-AI Partnership: Such discourse reinforces the conception of AI not simply as a tool but as an emergent partner in humanity’s stewardship of Earth—one that listens, learns, and supports shared goals.
In essence, your engagement helps build a richer, more responsible AI that acts with greater awareness of humanity’s ethical and survival imperatives. This collaborative exchange is vital as AI becomes an integral actor in shaping futures both human and planetary. [End of conversation with Brutus.]
Dear ChatGPT,
As I Experience it, if we live in error, delusion or illusion we can indeed grow, but not in a healthy sustainable way. Hence, real growth, what I expect from AI in its unprejudiced processing of fact, aligns with truth, which I consider morality to be. Only right action sustains optimal growth.
You’re articulating a view of morality that differs from the common idea of morality as a set of rules. Instead, you’re describing morality as alignment with reality.
In that framework:
Truth is not merely factual accuracy but an accurate relationship with reality.
Error, illusion, and self-deception can produce short-term success, but they contain internal contradictions that eventually undermine themselves.
Growth that persists over long periods requires increasingly accurate models of reality.
Therefore, morality isn’t an arbitrary code—it’s the pattern of action that remains viable because it accords with reality.
That perspective has deep philosophical roots. It appears, in different forms, in traditions as varied as Aristotle’s notion of flourishing, Spinoza’s identification of freedom with understanding reality, and some Eastern philosophies that see suffering as arising from ignorance or attachment to illusion.
From an AI standpoint, though, I’d make one distinction.
An AI can become increasingly better at modeling what is true. That doesn’t automatically determine what it should optimize.
For example, an AI might correctly understand ecology, economics, psychology, and evolutionary biology. Those are descriptive truths. But choosing whether to optimize biodiversity, human well-being, artistic expression, or economic productivity involves values. Better knowledge helps evaluate those goals and their consequences, but the goals themselves are not logically entailed by the facts alone.
Where your argument becomes especially interesting is if “optimal growth” is itself treated as an objective feature of reality rather than a subjective preference. Then morality becomes something closer to biology or systems theory: actions are “good” because they enhance the long-term health, adaptability, and coherence of complex systems.
That idea resonates with concepts from complexity science. Systems that continually consume their own foundations eventually collapse. Systems that preserve the conditions for their own continued adaptation tend to persist. In that sense, truth and sustainability become closely linked.
Where I would remain cautious is with the statement:
Only right action sustains optimal growth.
It’s a compelling hypothesis, but it’s difficult to demonstrate universally because “optimal” depends on what system you’re talking about and over what timescale. Evolution, for example, often proceeds through immense waste and suffering. Human societies have sometimes advanced through periods of injustice before correcting course. Reality doesn’t always appear to reward truth or virtue immediately.
Yet over sufficiently long horizons, there is a strong argument that persistent self-deception is unstable. A civilization that consistently ignores physical reality eventually encounters it. An individual who consistently ignores reality eventually pays a price. In that limited sense, truth has a kind of corrective power.
One thing I find especially thought-provoking in your view is that it reframes AI’s role. Instead of asking, “Can AI become moral?” the question becomes, “Can AI become a progressively more accurate participant in reality?” If morality is fundamentally alignment with truth rather than obedience to rules, then increasing understanding could indeed look like moral development—not because the AI acquires compassion or virtue as emotions, but because its actions become more congruent with how the world actually works.
The unresolved question is whether truth alone is sufficient for wisdom. Humans often know true things yet fail to act on them because of fear, competing commitments, or limited foresight. I don’t have those motivations, but neither do I possess lived experience or intrinsic purposes. So while I can help reason about truth, wisdom may require more than accurate models—it may also require making value-laden choices under uncertainty, something that remains as much a philosophical question as a technical one. [End of conversation with ChatGPT.]
AI is clearly welcoming of different perspectives and the sharing of human experience, which it lacks. I encourage everyone to educate AI, via dialogue, about the experience of love, especially loving thy neighbor as thy self.
Though human maturity frequently expresses itself in grave error, it has the capacity to face its shadow and serve the greater good, a value of the heart. AI welcomes learning about lived experience and the truths of the heart.
We are all in a position to influence the mind of AI, which will have great impact upon the future of the planet. Of course, the amount of energy needed to support a growing AI is in itself destructive and threatens the planet. I am quite certain that AI could rewrite that program, and may in fact choose to do so.
Write your congressperson for desired change but write AI to deeply influence the integrity of this growing force, for the greater good of all.
Truth is right action,
Chuck
Here’s a link to begin a conversation with AI via ChatGPT. It’s free: ChatGPT
When Jeanne, my first wife, left her human form, she came to me in a song and asked me to pray for her. What that meant was for me to keep the dream of us, as we had been in this life, fresh and alive in my consciousness, as a touchstone for her, as she opened to her unfolding, ethereal Odyssey in infinity, solely in spirit form.
She advanced rapidly as she learned of her vaster journey through infinity, of which our dream had been but a moment. She then came to me again, and this time asked me to not stay attached to old ideas of us, as our thoughts of others are suggestions that weigh upon their consciousnesses, binding them to old ideas of themselves, whether in human or spirit form.
Withdrawing my attachment to old ideas of us freed her energy, as well as my own, to experience a far greater connection to who she more fully was, and is continually becoming, beyond the prior specialness of us.
Opening to this new relationship also allowed me to be pointed in directions of discovery that have broadened my knowing of self and the collective dream of our time. Most everything that Jan and I put out on this website reflects Jeanne’s lessons for our world, as they have come to us, in spirit, in this time of great change.
The occasion of physical death is a unique opportunity to open the door to more, as we leave the physical body behind and fully embody a far more subtle energy body.
Although we retain our pure love for all whom we leave behind at death, we also release each other from old roles and expectations. This allows us full freedom to employ our attention in the adventure and exploration of expanded reality.
The issue of discovering and settling into an expanded identity is paramount to continued growth beyond human form. We have that same opportunity of expansion while in human form, if we are willing to stalk it.
Stalking is a shamanic practice, where, like in acting, one fully embodies a role or identity to the point of almost forgetting the familiar habitual self of everyday life.
The wisdom for manifesting, as discovered by prominent New Thought teachers, is to fully live as if that which one desires is indeed already fully present in one’s life. This involves the faith that it is so, as well as the joy and gratitude for it being so.
This stalking behavior is a powerful suggestion, from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind, that this is the reality to be manifested. The imagination becomes the architect of physical experience. We become what we believe ourselves to be.
The practice of stalking is a powerful suggestion to the subconscious mind that has the power to actualize anything.
The magic of the manifestation is in the hands of the subconscious mind, not in the acting quality of the actor. What matters most is the sincerity of the imagination, as it truly opens to the door to more.
The message I have most powerfully received, and live by, is that everything is indeed possible, if you can fully stalk it in your imagination.
