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: Accepting The Truth

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The truth will set you free…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The greatest challenge of all, in this life of physical form and beyond, is accepting the truth. For one thing, truth is relative.

In childhood we believe we are responsible for everything. Mature adulthood allows us to accept the separate existence of others, including their contributions toward our difficulties.

Wisdom, the next level of truth, takes us full circle. Reflecting objectively upon life, from the  pinnacle of spiritual acuity, we see ourselves in everyone. From this perspective our oneness is restored.

Our evolutionary journey requires that we traverse successfully these developmental stages of truth.

The Buddhists suggest that we reincarnate into bardos, into dreams of our own construction, until we are at peace with the full truth of the lives we have lived, which then enables us to be open to life beyond them. This is the true achievement of detachment—the freedom to move into new life, fully resolved from dilemmas of previous lives lived.

Frequently, loyalty to unresolved issues results in counter-suggestions to the subconscious mind around changes we intend to make in our lives. For example, if one fundamentally maintains the belief that they are unworthy, a suggestion for prosperity may be cancelled by this blocking belief of unworthiness.

In this case, the subconscious may generate incidents to reinforce one’s loyalty to the felt undeservedness. Detaching from this belief will require recapitulation of formative experiences that reinforced this belief. This may expose distortions that were formerly needed to protect a significant other, or a part of the self.

This recapitulation may also lift the veil of narcissism shrouding the belief that dates to the primary narcissism period of childhood. From this view, one is able to assign responsibility for events where they should be truthfully assigned, unseating younger interpretations of reality. From this perspective one is able to accept the fuller truth of self and other.

Ultimately, one might reach a perspective that once again assigns one full responsibility for the life one is in. This might include realizing one’s decision to enter life in the time period, and family constellation, one was born into, as one’s contribution toward one’s greater soul’s journey of infinite growth and awareness.

This does not absolve a perpetrator from responsibility for their behavior. However, it might explain the choice of a victim-experience as part of one’s spiritual growth.

Accepting the truth also requires that we face the ulterior motives within the self. From a holographic perspective we are comprised of the same everything as everyone else. If we attempt to solve the polarities that live within the self via projection onto others, we lose the thread of our fuller inner truth.

Fuller acceptance of our shadow self, with all of its desires, manipulations, cruelty and greed, allows us to be in full truth with ourselves. Acceptance requires that we live our wholeness as responsibly as possible.

Every day we are offered countless opportunities to be in truth with ourselves. We just need think about the world and our relationship with others; what truths are we being asked to face each day, in each moment, as we live out our lives.

From a place of higher truth, we are quite likely to manifest the kinds of experiences that will bring us fulfillment, as we eliminate negative counter-suggestions from an unknown shadow self. And then we can fully own our whole, integrated and wise self.

Be in truth. The truth will set you free.

Truthfully,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Intensity Is The Key To Manifestation

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When all else fails, hone your superpower & stay grounded too…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

In a dream, I arrive at a conference site early in the day. I’m allowed to check into my room, one of many cottage-like structures scattered about the grounds. I go into my room to discover a man taking a shower. The room had not been vacated.

This room disruption became the theme of the dream, as my room number changed constantly, even while I was asleep in it. All orienting signs became meaningless.

When the rules that govern our familiar reality are interrupted we arrive at the gate of new manifestation. The first challenge in this dream is to not be offended by its unfairness. No point in an irate call to the desk clerk. Such an intense act would simply manifest and reinforce a typical drama around self-importance and entitlement.

If we cling to the rules that govern our consensus reality we miss the fine print of that contract, which states, “All rules were made to be broken.” Don Juan Matus stressed that he refused to uphold rules that he had not personally agreed upon. Despite appearances, reality is relative. Consciously, or unconsciously, we are the creators of our own reality.

The more appropriate reaction, in this dream, is to say to self, “Chuck, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” This is the attitude that invites the intensity of awe, which in turn potentiates the magic, the freedom to manifest one’s own creative intent.

The subconscious mind is the power plant of manifestation, but realize, it is quite neutral as to the outcome of its physical creation. It responds to intensity rather than morality. If one chooses the intensity of anger, it will attract a reality befitting that emotion. If the mood is more hopeless, it will cast defeat upon all that one sees. If fear is the main attraction, it will riddle the mind with horror stories and the body with anxiety.

If one is passionate about a belief, positive or negative, it is sure to activate the attractive power of the subconscious. The key is in the faith and passion one holds; the intensity of one’s belief. There is little intensity in idly wishing and hoping that someday something will happen.

Our consensus reality has largely maintained itself by a default agreement passively accepted through the influence of strong socialization. We have disowned and projected our innate magical beingness onto fairy tales, while we have hardened into solid reality.

The world events of our time, like the ruptures in my dream, are shattering this fixation, shredding the very fabric of our weathered consensus reality. The emotional intensities of left and right are generating fantastical realities that then clash into even greater  calamities.

As I said above, the subconscious responds to intensity of emotion and thought. It is the responsibility of human consciousness to exercise responsible choice. Current events are powerfully waking us up to assume responsibility for our own creative power and to use it wisely.

May we exercise our power like Jupiter in Libra. May the intensity of our awe expand, like Jupiter, into Libra, whose outstanding characteristic is one of balance. To expand without balance is delusion, yet even delusion, when embraced with intensity, can manifest.

An agreement that is inclusive of the true needs of all is the creative exercise of power we need. May it, with intensity, prevail.

With Intensity,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: Restoring Sovereignty To The Inner Creator

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Say but the word…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

Hypnotism as a healing art was in its heyday in the mid to late 19th century. The turn of the 20th century heralded the birth of the modern advertising industry, when industrial psychologists galvanized the power of suggestion to influence public thinking and spending.

Today, in the early 21st century, we are witnessing the extreme  exercise of the power of suggestion in political attempts to whitewash blatant lies and install an alternative sovereign reality. The absurdity of this global drama draws attention to the profound creative power of suggestion to materialize a new reality. Say something enough times and people will believe it.

The interplay between the use of word and material creation is fundamental to human life. “In the beginning was the word and the word was made flesh,” begins John’s Gospel. Human beings are creators who use words to suggest physical activity to the subconscious mind, countless times, every day.

Many of the suggestions we live by are embedded in the cells and organs of the body. The subconscious automatically goes with these default suggestions due to their proven evolutionary effectiveness. However, one can override an instinctive suggestion. For instance, the suggestion to simply hold the breath interrupts such a default habit of automatic breathing.

The process of human aging reveals the impact of inherent suggestions upon changes in the human body. These changes are so universal that they are generally accepted as irrevocable. Nonetheless, as I explored in a recent blog, the placebo effect demonstrates clearly the power of  conscious suggestion to potentially override disease.

Christian Science discovered the practical use of autosuggestion in its approach to healing, but it exhausted itself with its denial of physical reality as it attempted to influence the subconscious. One needn’t deny physical reality to successfully manifest changes in it. The greater challenge is to suspend the limiting judgment of the rational mind that disables one’s conscious practice of autosuggestion.

If you don’t believe that something is possible, you are not likely to practice it, or you will too quickly give up trying when you don’t see the results you seek. Blocking beliefs can be quite debilitating, as they present the subconscious with contradictory suggestions that undermine one’s conscious intent.

Rather than engage in interactions with blocking beliefs, let them be. Simply take attention off them and continue to state your desired intent. Say to yourself that anything is possible, at least until proven otherwise, and continue with your practice of stating your conscious autosuggestion.

Do not attach to the outcome of your subconscious’s manifestation of your suggestion. Determine that your subconscious has its own mysterious method of realization. Trust it; let go of any controlling thoughts.

Assume full responsibility for your suggestions. I stopped doing clinical hypnosis years ago in favor of suggesting self-hypnosis to my clients, where one assumes full responsibility for suggesting to themselves the changes they seek. One really only grows through one’s own efforts. Autosuggestion restores one’s sovereignty to one’s inner creator.

As a spiritual mentor, I do not hold myself accountable for the decisions of those whom I mentor. I do, however, hold myself responsible for tackling their challenges as they live within myself. As without so within.

Telepathically, my influence is one of compassion and unconditional positive regard for the sovereignty of all fellow travelers.

I do suggest that one be very sparing of sharing with others one’s auto-suggestive intentions. Sharing can activate doubting and blocking beliefs in others, which can then be conveyed telepathically back as suggestions to one’s own subconscious mind.

If what we intend to manifest requires that we address issues that must be tackled first, we will be led to that realization. If what we intend to manifest throws us off balance, we will be guided, through experience, to that realization.

If what we seek to manifest does not materialize, we will be led to the understanding that our soul requires the course we are on for our greater evolution. Here, the ego is freed to acquiesce to one’s greater good.

The profound power of suggestion currently dominating our world reflects to us the importance of assuming full responsible sovereignty for the inner creators that we all are.

Inwardly, we are offered the opportunity to realize our full potential. Outwardly, we are in a position to materialize a consensus reality dedicated to the greater good of all.

To the greater good,
Chuck

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Chuck’s Place: Getting To The Deepest Root

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Time to get to the deepest roots?
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

At some level of our multidimensional being we decided to enter the life we are in to fully explore and master a specific issue. Carl Jung would ask people to discover the myth they were living, alluding to this deeper dimension of being that ushered us into the drama of our life.

Typically, we are so absorbed by the drama we are living that it can take the lion’s share of a lifetime to arrive at a detached enough perspective to begin to unravel the mysteries of our lives and to discover our true mission in coming here.

Often, we are so caught by the compensatory defenses that protect us from the vulnerability of our core issue that we mistake the troublesome defense for the root issue itself.

The psychic channel for Seth, Jane Roberts, was a prolific author who demanded of herself that she spend several hours every day at her writing table. Her eating habits were highly restrictive, definitely qualifying for an eating disorder diagnosis. The longterm impact of these compulsive habits eventuated in near total paralysis.

Those who knew and loved her prayed that she might free herself from these fatal defenses, that she might enjoy the physical freedom of a fulfilled life.

When Jane’s mother died in a nursing home in 1972, of advanced rheumatoid arthritis, Jane was 43 and hadn’t seen her mother in 15 years, largely due to the unresolved trauma she had suffered at her mother’s hands as a child and young adult, and which haunted her throughout her life. At this point, Jane was already well into having symptoms of the same debilitating disease.

Jane was riveted by her mother’s death and writes in her journal of her fear that her mother would continue to actively haunt her, not only emotionally but also somehow embody Jane with her paralysis while she finally went free.

Ironically, Jane, fully in possession of herself, clung to the rigid defenses that led to her own debilitating paralysis and her eventual death, at the age of 55, from the same disease. In effect, she was haunted by her mother for her entire life.

Clearly, for Jane, it appears that her core challenge was mastering her feelings for her mother, which she failed to complete during her lifetime, and which accompanied her on her journey into life beyond human form. And yet, as a pioneer in transpersonal psychology, her contributions are fundamental, as attested to by fellow pioneers, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson and Louise Hay.

From a multidimensional perspective, the primal trauma of her childhood dissociated her from human connection, while at the same time it launched her so deeply into subtle reality that she energetically was able to make contact with a highly evolved teaching being who mapped the deeper dimensions of the psyche and shared the tools for human evolution, which are still so crucial at this stage of our collective development.

In the role of a wounded healer, Jane channelled the material to enable spiritual seekers to discover and interact with their soul while they navigate the meaning of their lives. Though she could not fully use the insights to help herself heal, I suspect that Jane chose this extreme imbalance to be energetically available to deliver this invaluable gift.

Carlos Castaneda, another wounded healer, delivered to the modern world the shamanic tool of recapitulation to fully master the kinds of trauma at Jane’s core. With recapitulation, we fully reclaim our energetic selves to explore transpersonal reality with balance and confidence.

Trauma appears to be a precondition to human life, as clearly delineated by Stan Grof’s documentation of universal birth trauma. Nonetheless, the root of trauma can be fully neutralized and the thrust for spiritual exploration be one of innocence and wonder, instead of being one of compensatory defense.

Many a masterpiece is the product of an extreme compensatory defense. But continued spiritual evolution requires that we ultimately master the deepest root of why we are here. And from there, our possibilities are unlimited, in this life and beyond.

Evolving,
Chuck

Chuck's Blog

Chuck’s Place: I Shall Please

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The subconscious is magical…
-Artwork © 2024 Jan Ketchel

The word placebo is Latin for, I shall please. We have within us a power that literally fills our suggestions. This power is situated in what has been called the subconscious mind. In subtle anatomy, the subconscious mind is part of the soul, or astral body, that exists independently of its host, the physical body.

Specifically, the subconscious mind houses the desire body, the home base for Yin, the receptive feminine center of our being. If a suggestion is accepted by the desire body, it is true conception, and the miracle of creation begins. The desire body has the magnetic force to draw to it and assemble physical reality to please, or make substantial, that which we suggest to it.

Ironically, science has designated placebo as that which has no real effect upon physical reality, seeing its impact as a kind of mental aberration. Science uses placebo in experimentation as a control to determine whether a real agent has therapeutic value, or is merely a product of the mind, i.e., is a placebo effect.

So, if the mind alone is capable of eliminating symptoms and keeping one alive, it doesn’t count as real cure. The miracle of mental healing is simply placebo, not genuine healing. I find it rather stunning that the rational mind has completely forsaken and denigrated the subconscious mind’s power of creation and healing, even when directly confronted with irrefutable evidence of its benefits.

The shamans of ancient Mexico understood this loss of magic, and consequent polarization within our astral energy body, as the product of a predatory, inorganic entity that feasts upon the emotional dysregulation that this struggle generates. We are constantly in an inner battle between embracing our magical potential versus the limits of our dominating mental fixation of rationality.

This battle of bipolarity is everywhere apparent in our world, as the irrational has grown to outlandish proportions in its quest to unseat the controlling rationality of civilization. We are actually  on the cusp of seeing the irrationality of lies become the accepted ruling order of the world.

Reason is an extremely valuable tool for navigation, but when it strips us of our divine creative healing potential it can only generate sterility. This inner struggle for redemptive balance is the crossroads every human now faces, both within the psyche and without, in the outer world.

Author Sue Watkins published a memoir in 2001 that reviews her relationship with the psychic Jane Roberts (Speaking of Jane Roberts). In it, she reveals for the first time a miraculous physical healing she experienced in a self-hypnosis exercise undertaken with Jane and a few other people.

Back in late 1969, Sue had been suffering from an extremely irritating STD called Trichomoniasis. Putting herself in a calm alpha brainwave state, she gave herself the suggestion that the body would heal itself. Immediately the discomfort disappeared and, as she immediately discovered, upon self-examination in the bathroom, the physical evidence of infection had completely cleared from her body as well.

Sue’s battle with her own inner rationality, and fear of the rational critical police, had her actually cut this vignette, at the last minute, from her book, Conversations with Seth, published in 1980. It would take another 20 years for her to accrue the confidence to document this physical healing that had occurred solely through self-hypnosis.

The key to success with self-hypnosis is to just do it. Despite the limiting judgment of the rational mind, one is always free to get relaxed and present a suggestion to the subconscious mind. Say it many times and see what happens. At the same time, don’t attach to the outcome. Allow that center that says, I Shall Please, to do its job, as it sees fit, without pressure.

Obviously, with respect to medical issues, one should fully avail oneself of medical support. Also, realize that suggestions can be manifested that are not best for one’s personal evolution, nor for that of the world. Greed, for instance, can manifest just as well as altruism.

Always intend the greater good with all suggestions. Restore the magic to both the creative and rational minds of the soul.

I shall please,
Chuck