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: The Energy of Consciousness

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What are you radiating?
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

“Consciousness is energy,” asserts Mark Certo, longtime friend of and sound engineer for Robert Monroe and host of the the Monroe Institute’s recent inaugural podcast, Expanding On Consciousness.

I would add to this definition that the energy of consciousness has awareness and volition that can reflect inwardly upon itself, as well as direct its attention outwardly. Shamans define this active state of consciousness as intent, the energy of focused consciousness.

Healers send the intent of healing energy to a patient, often at great physical distance. This focused consciousness travels to its intended destination on the wings of intent. Frequently, we suddenly think of someone who is about to call us from a great distance. This telepathic transmission and reception is fueled by the energy of focused consciousness.

Shamans, such as Carlos Castaneda, hide their true identities, to an extreme, to avoid the impact of outer consciousness being focused upon them. No one really knows Carlos’ real date of birth, name, country of origin, or actual date or cause of death.

These indeterminate facts so infuriated historians that Carlos was written off as a charlatan and is basically forgotten some 25 years after his transition from this world. Carlos, however, is free to travel in infinity unburdened of the energetic impact of the public’s attention.

Toward the end of his time in this world, Carlos emerged from seclusion and launched Tensegrity. This was the time I was privileged to experience him. His reversing of classic shamanic secrecy was an attempt to responsibly prepare the world for greater transparency, the prerequisite for greater mastery of consciousness and evolutionary advancement.

Critical to this advancement is to avoid the trapping of self-importance. This trapping is currently expressed in the insatiable hunger for attention that social media has unleashed within the human species. The energetic impact of such a tide of attention, both coming and going, devours people’s energy, strongly impacts their mood, identity and mental status, and frequently infiltrates their core beliefs about themselves and others.

The sudden conversion into one-sided beliefs, which divides friends and family in our currently polarized world, reflects the impact of targeted messages impacting the consciousness of those receiving them. Repetitive suggestions from political leaders entrance citizens, as they commandeer the subconscious minds and critical thinking abilities of those impacted. When we lose control of our own minds we are no longer in charge, and when we are no longer in charge we lose connection to, and mastery of, true consciousness.

Robert Monroe, a true American shaman (though I’m certain he’d reject that designation!), devised tools to protect the integrity of self from the energetic impact of the focused consciousness of others upon the self. First and foremost, he stated an intent to only interact with beings who could be authentic and helpful, rejecting interactions with nefarious and self-serving, manipulative beings.

That intent was then embodied in a resonant, subtle energy state that he called a REBAL, a resonant energy balloon, as he journeyed in infinity. Everyone can benefit from stating their intent to interact with positive, helpful people, using their imagination and breath to protect their body, physical and subtle, from the intrusion of non-resonant energy that attempts to penetrate their minds.

Intent has its own powerful energy of focused consciousness to fend off the unwanted impact of outside thoughts. In fact, the energy of intent can be turned to the protection and healing of one’s own physical body. However, if one’s belief system rejects such a possibility, it will not be possible to benefit from such an intent. Intent requires unbending focused consciousness to deliver its action.

Disbelief and doubt fragment the energy of intent. The placebo effect demonstrates the power of intent to impact the physical body when one is convinced of its benefits. The benefits of the placebo effect are often immediately erased when the subject discovers they were not given the “real” drug.

If one can suspend the judgment of disbelief and open to the legitimate possibility that an intent can be realized, one might indeed discover the true power of consciousness. Thus, stating an intent, without doubt or attachment to the outcome, is an opportunity to discover its true impact.

Hypnosis demonstrates the power of intent via the focused energy of suggestion. The best use of hypnosis is self-hypnosis, where the conscious mind, though relaxed and peripheral, embraces the suggestion presented to the subconscious. Self-hypnosis preserves the authority to direct one’s life collaboratively, within the confines of the various dimensions of self.

These dimensions of self coexist and yet often remain unknown to each other in the fuller consciousness that holds them together. Thus, a meeting with another at a soul level, in a dream or in waking life, may quickly be lost to memory. Mastery of consciousness requires a remembering that includes encounters we typically forget, like dreams lost upon awakening. Only through training ourselves to remember can we achieve a fuller conscious presence now.

The energy of consciousness is deeply impactful and it behooves us all to assume full responsibility for our thoughts and where we put our attention, keeping in mind the direct impact they have upon the self and the world.

We are currently experiencing an accelerated world war of nuclear thoughts, each day bombarded with new toxic ideas and decisions. Our ability to both protect ourselves from non-resonant toxic thought, as well as to project outwardly the energy of compassionate intent, is our best opportunity to stabilize the world and advance its evolution.

Our choices, rooted in the responsible intent for our energy of consciousness to grow in the direction of love, compassion and kindness, will change the world.

Exercising the free will of consciousness for the greater good,

Chuck

NOTE: Expanding on Consciousness podcast is available wherever you normally get your podcasts. New episodes are dropped every Tuesday.

ALSO: Chuck has written a blog this week packed with plenty of ideas to assimilate and work on, plenty to consider while he takes a break from blogging over the next few weeks. His next blog will appear on Tuesday July 19, 2022.

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Mind Your Words

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Practice saying it…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

There are many voices in the head. The most prominent is that of the ego itself, the voice of consciousness that directs thought and decision making in waking life.

Just beneath the ego is the voice of the subconscious, that which stores the knowledge of our personal experiences in this life, as well as our genetic and ancestral knowledge and the archetypal programs that distinguish our species.

The subconscious also houses the split-off complexes formed through traumatic experience, which maintain their own consciousness. The voices of these split-off complexes represent learned beliefs, which exert their influence upon our everyday emotional states and mental functioning.

Additionally, the subconscious houses the soul’s journey through eternity, which includes many sub-personalities that weigh in on current life from their vast and varied experiences in infinite life. These influences, though pronounced, are generally veiled from waking ego consciousness, which spends most of its energy navigating survival and the tasks of daily waking life.

The subconscious is also the powerhouse of manifestation. All humans generate the life they are in via the suggestions delivered to the subconscious mind. The mere flicker of a possibility, housed in the words of a thought, immediately registers in the chemistry and emotion of the human body. The thought, “Did they get home OK?” can generate acute anxiety in the pit of the stomach, as the mind imagines possible accidents.

The shamans of ancient Mexico identified a parasitic, inorganic entity that produces an internal dialogue, which they called a flyer. The flyer influences the subconscious mind with incessant negative thoughts, generating intense emotion, the stuff of its sustenance. This parasitic relationship between species is quite common, as all life feeds upon life on this planet.

Whether the flyer be considered real or metaphorical, the effect of the internal dialogue upon human life is the manifestation of the consensus reality we live in. Essentially, the internal dialogue is a tour guide that cynically, and incessantly, defines who we are and the life we are in. The inner dialogue knows the fragility of the ego’s plight: a stranger in a strange land, cut off from the knowledge of its soul’s fuller journey and resources by the veil of the blank slate, which is installed upon birthing into this human life.

Through the internal dialogue’s generation of constant negative thoughts about the ego’s incompetency, and its negative view of outer reality, the ego easily becomes overwhelmed and thus spends much of life preoccupied with attempting to establish its worthiness. Meanwhile, it remains cutoff from its true royal lineage as a magical being. As a result, all the capabilities of its energy body soul self remain unknown and unavailable to ego consciousness.

The advantage of this parasitic arrangement is that the ego is able to remain fixed in the waking life it is in, thus effectively fulfilling its purpose for being in this life, which, cutoff from its history, it has little knowledge of. Had we full knowledge of our history, we would know of our immortality. Such knowledge would overshadow the time space limitation of this life, which actually motivates our efforts for fulfillment because of those limitations.

The disadvantage of the internal dialogue is the constant negativity it spews to the subconscious mind, which manifests in both anxious and depressed mood states. When we are cut off from our soul self, life can be made to appear nihilistic, foreboding and meaningless, with little possibility for joy and fulfillment.

Actually, the internal dialogue can be viewed as the gargoyle that guards the gates to the deeper knowing of our true selves, until we are able to subdue its influence upon us. Despite its negative influence, we tend to become addicted to the familiar sense of self that its cynical words generate and, regardless of our conscious intent to become more positive, we resist moving away from the comfort of a known self and world, with all its inferiorities and limitations.

Perhaps the greatest suggestion the shamans of ancient Mexico offer to transcend the insidious effect of the internal dialogue is to suspend judgment. When the ego gives this suggestion to the subconscious mind in the presence of an extraneous thought or interpretation, it opens the doorway to the world of possibility. Limiting beliefs are mere hypotheses that needn’t automatically define reality.

If we truly suspend judgment we are freed to open to a world of infinite possibility, with access to our magical selves. We are free to explore the subtle dimensions of the energy body, with its ability to travel beyond the body and communicate with more evolved spirits, who can guide us to latent abilities, such as telepathy and the deeper knowledge of the soul’s journey, with its many relationships in infinity.

The practice of suspending judgment is quite simple. Don’t engage in argument with the internal dialogue. Accept the basic truth of the inferior position of the ego. Rather than get caught in the struggle for proving self-importance, utilize the ego’s ability to approach life with the innocence of a child, in awe with the discovery of life and all its possibilities.

Mind your words.

State the intent: “Suspend Judgment.”

Enjoy the momentary inner silence such a suggestion manifests.

Allow the suggestion that anything is possible to be tested in the experiment of daily life.

Discover the positive outcome of such unbiased exploration. You won’t regret it!

Suspend judgment,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Soulful Times

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What does the future look like?
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

The rapid-fire explosive energy of now leaves little doubt that great change is on the very near horizon. The path of human evolution is abundantly clear. The human soul, in the form of the energy body, has emerged as a utilitarian entity, destined to play a major role in the living of future life in human form.

Bob Monroe journeyed to a future permutation of Earth where humans lived primarily in their energy body state and kept their human bodies safely tucked away, visited once or twice a week by their owners. He experienced the Earth itself as nature completely flourishing, with no sign of human transportation systems. In this new world, the fuel for travel in the energy body was the intent of thought alone. In a world of energetic mastery, materialism—the current human obsession—had largely become a laborious anachronistic pastime.

The worldwide trauma of now is the cracking open of the defensive wall that has blocked access to the soul. The dominant rational mind’s ability to dismiss  the soul, with all its subtle power to direct human life, is on the wane. The impotence of reason itself, in the face of the irrational, is evidenced at the highest levels of governance.

Life in the energy body is life in total transparency, where non-verbal communication is the norm. In energetic reality there is no such thing as lies, as the truth is completely revealed. Hence, acquiescence to the true needs of the planet becomes the no-brainer of energetic reality. The cumbersome practice of material hoarding is retired in favor of the materialization of imagination.

The Earth and all its inhabitants are currently confronting the upsurge of civilization’s suppressed shadow. The primal human ego that seeks power and abundance for itself and its own is having its day. The hatred and rageful energy accompanying this unleashing of the suppressed is inevitable. We cannot evolve without squaring with the fullness of our wholeness. We cannot evolve without transcending the chokehold of our narcissism.

Begin with suspending judgment. Judgment is the cynical internal dialogue that devalues and doubts the integrity of everything and everyone, seeking to distract us from the positive potential of our souls. How easy it is to identify the flaws in self and other. Shift to compassion. “Forgive them father, they know not what they do” is helpful guidance.

Be guided by synchronicities, which are stirrings from the soul reaching out to awaken us to its active existence. Use recapitulation, shamanic magical passes, breathing, Hemi-sync, and dreaming to discover and journey into the true depths of the soul.

Stay positive in these most soulful of times, it truly is all good.

Perseveringly positive,

Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Beyond The Tyranny of Archetypal Misinterpretation

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How to break free from the patterns of the archetypes…
– Artwork © 2022 Jan Ketchel

Why are so many people afraid of public speaking? Simply put, it’s a situation of one person against many.

A mass of people wield a higher power than that of a lone individual. Talking to a group is thus experienced as a direct, terrifying encounter with a God!

How can a mortal stand up before a God without disintegrating? How could the offering of a mere  person be worthy before an audience of a God?

Our subconscious minds are programmed to interpret and respond to reality, based on what Jung called archetypal images. The image of a terrifying numinous energy hovers over a public gathering. This is the same image behind agoraphobia, the Greek word that literally translates as fear of the marketplace, a place of public gathering.

Archetypal images are preformed interpretations of energy that assemble and generate the reality we live in. They define what Robert Monroe called local traffic, the roads we travel in waking life. Monroe also discovered the interstate, roads that lead to the subtler energetic states of non-ordinary reality. The shamans of ancient Mexico call these different locales, alternative positions of the assemblage point, which generate real but relative realities.

Carlos Castaneda’s teacher, Don Juan Matus, was clear that we are solid beings in a solid world but that we are energetic beings, or spirit beings, first. Ultimately, archetypes are illusory and must be transcended to allow direct communication and relationship, as well as the freedom to navigate without the limits of preformed emotional reactions that inhibit genuine connection and expression.

When ego encounters archetype it experiences terror or ecstasy. The archetype behind attraction is, again, the energy of the divine. To be captivated by the beauty of another is a royal encounter with a prince, princess, God or Goddess. Fear and trembling hinder approach to one’s divine object of desire.

Archetypes can be helpful tools of interpretation, but they are projected images from within the psyche, not actual facts. Beneath the attractive person is a mere mortal being. Beneath the powerful uniform of a police officer or doctor is a flawed mortal, like all mortals. Uniforms serve to stir archetypal images, commanding high respect and trembling.

Often, individuals protect themselves from numinous archetypal encounters by staying safe at home. Others may take pharmaceuticals to regulate the anxiety activated by these projected archetypal images. Although these strategies may protect one from becoming diminished by the power of these images, they also reinforce the interpretation of these images as powers greater than the self.

The better course of adaptation is to withdraw the archetypal projection upon the outside world, neutralizing its overwhelming emotion of divine encounter. Projection, however, is not a choice, it simply happens to us: an object is encountered in the world and an archetypal image is activated to define it. However, the ego can take actions to master its ability to go into the world, speak publicly, and approach a person of interest.

Ego must first become humble and accepting of the self as it is. To inflate or deflate the ego to adapt to an archetypal encounter is merely transient survival. Ego should do the work it can do to improve itself. If you are going to give a speech, practice it many times.

Ego can practice biofeedback and neurofeedback to gain mastery over the emotions activated by archetypal images. This will allow the prefrontal cortex to remain online, granting access to one’s prepared talk. The subconscious can be instructed, through self-suggestion, to check the activation of archetypal images, thus enabling one to approach a person of interest as an ordinary human being.

Regular meditation and pranayamic breathing serve to ground the ego and invite higher spirit entities to energetically join with one’s intent. Ego’s ability to align with Spirit’s intent brings one’s greater wholeness to bear upon the ability to remain fluid during a numinous encounter.

Mastering archetypal images leads to true human interaction, perhaps the essential ingredient missing from the world stage at the moment. That work can advance on an individual level, as we each are free to free ourselves from the tyranny of archetypal misinterpretation.

Mastering,

Chuck