'At last, Someone finally believes me...'

'Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. Somebody finally believes me...'

A week or two ago, these words over e-mail literally brought a tear to my eye. They came from an experiencer whom I will call "Lucy" (actually a composite of several callers), who had called me to tell me about her experiences. Like other experiencers, Lucy had been a 'favorite' of the phenomenon, having been plagued by anomalous intrusions for nearly all of her life. And like so many of her contemporaries, she was unable to speak to anyone about her experiences.

The loneliness of this experience must be staggering. As I listened to her speak, I heard her voice waver, breaking into tears on several occasions. She spoke of how her first memories, from roughly age three, were about intrusions by alien beings - strange creatures entering through the closed window. She spoke of the fear that accompanied going to bed every night - fear that the 'strangers' and the 'dreams' would come again.

For some experiencers, childhood experiences sometimes take on a positive character. Some experiencers describe 'magical playmates,' who brought them psychic toys and took them on fun adventures. In one case, which I describe in The Cosmic Bridge, the Visitors appeared in the form of 'fun' little cartoon characters. While on the surface, they seemed to be positive, there were definite darker undertones to the 'fun and games' of these childhood events - but at least on the surface, there was a positive facade. In Lucy's case, there was apparently no such thing.

As we talked, it became apparent that Lucy's experiences were far more numerous than those of most. She indicated that the experiences were nearly nightly, a prodigious rate. If the abduction phenomenon is a physical one, this means that a UFO has had to (her experiences are still on-going) enter Earth's atmosphere and remain undetected as it took its position over Lucy's home every night for several decades. This suggests either that the phenomenon has some incredible level of stealth, or that - at least in some cases - there is an other-than-physical explanation. And yet, given the emotional effects of the experience, it seems absolutely and powerfully real.

From the emotional intensity and the mystery of Lucy's account, we can once again see the power and magnitude of the phenomenon. The biggest of all the effects, however, is that few if any people accept their account. Peers, doctors and psychologists, nearly all dismiss the events, which are so brutally real to the experiencer. Unless the experiencer happens to live in a community where the topic is ‘acceptable,’ she finds herself alone, bearing the weight of two conflicting realities upon her shoulders.

On that day, as the woman I call "Lucy" cried on the phone - the magnitude of her isolation was fully and brutally apparent. After a lifetime of nobody believing her, I can fully imagine her relief when somebody on the other end of the phone line finally listened to her and accepted what she had to say. While there was nothing I could physically do to help her, for the moment just my ear was enough - confirmed by the e-mail the next day when she wrote, 'At last, someone finally believes me...'

The challenge of the answer...

I have had a number of interesting replies to my last post 'What will we see when...'. The most interesting thing to note is who responded. Nearly all respondents were metaphysically oriented. I have met many of them personally and know and respect each of them. And in each case, the comments they have made are - shall we say - not for the left brained. Like the question, itself, the answers are challenging.

The prevailing theme I hear is that the date 12/21/2012 is unimportant per se. The process has begun and the actual date is arbitrary. I have heard this from many people, including viewpoints ranging from the strongly metaphysically oriented and the most left-brained rationalists. So in the end, the answer to the question, 'what will happen on 12/21/2012' may just be 'not much.' And yet, at the same time, that date may be a marker - a roadsign on the path to transformation.

One interesting analogy is of just that - the roadsign. If one imagines driving on the interstate, entering a city - say, Saint Paul. At some point, one might pass a sign saying Saint Paul, next five exits. This is a sign that we are approaching Saint Paul, but at what point do we actually say that we are nearing the city? We see signs that this is happening, but the actual moment of arrival is uneventful. All we see are indicators, including a view of tall buildings nearby - but we never have a distinct moment when we can say 'I am in Saint Paul.'

Another example, in Christian theology the story of the empty tomb is probably the ultimate turning point. When Mary, Mary and Salome arrived to find the tomb empty, only those three people (and a couple of sleepy Roman guards) knew that something extraordinary had happened. Yet at that very instant, the course of history had changed.

Yet another example I have heard; when a handful of Aztec-era indigenous people saw a boat full of spanish soldiers land on the shore of Mexico, they could perhaps know that the whole world was about to change - and yet only they knew it. What happened instead might just have been the contemporary play of regional politics - regional resistance to an imperial power (the Aztecs) finding a sudden ally in a group of strangers from the sea. While at that moment, the world turned upside down and the full nature of the change was not visible to anyone in the scene - Spanish, natives, etc...

I often wonder, will we notice anything on that day - 12/21/2012? what I conclude from the comments I've heard back is 'probably not.' Yet on or about that time, I suspect that we will notice a lot of change. Indeed, we do now - on this very day - as I hear of a snowballing of psychic and spiritual awakening. Many more experiencers appear to be remembering extraordinary events within their lives. Many more are awakening with gifts suddenly activated, the 'suddenly psychic' phenomenon we occasionally hear about.

Yet the biggest change appears to be simply that of outlook. My ultimate hope is that the change is one of social viewpoint. As transformation comes to pass, I would hope that, as with every social change, it advances the quality of our world civilization. Like the decline of slavery, the rise of democracy, etc., the change will certainly not be painless. Many upheavals and wrong turns occur in every change. But ultimately, I believe the final awakening is certain.

In the end, I believe we will grow and mature into a civilization worthy of the Cosmic Community we find ourselves facing. Our biggest challenge now is to face and surmount what I see as 'the challenge of the answer...'

What will we see when...

In the last month or two, while collecting rejection slips from literary agents regarding my first novel, The Fifth Key, I have continued writing the sequel story, Children of the Stars. One of the biggest themes I am attempting to capture in the second story is the role of the individual (human, hybrid and alien) in the global transformation that appears to be occurring in our time. Thus, as I plink away on CotS, I find myself attracted to the question of the day - what will happen on 12/21/2012? What will the average person see as they go to work, do their Christmas shopping and see/hear the news on the days immediately preceding the critical moment?

Over the last few months, I have been glued to the History Channel on Wednesday nights watching their series The Nostradamus Effect, depicting the intricate web of (supposedly) corroborating prophecies from multiple sources throughout history. While entertaining and informative, it has offered little actual predictive value in its own right, yet has done a great job of exploring the various predictions and those making them. The series does a good job of exploring the ambiguity of the question - highlighting the multiple, often contradictory predictions. Thus, it merely accentuates the lack of answers to the biggest question of all - what will we see when...

I have posted this same question 'what will we see when...' on several blog sites with varying results. I have also spent myriad hours on the web researching various sites and theories, and have simply asked a lot of people online and in person, what they think will happen. In short, nobody knows but there are a lot of theories.

Scenarios of 2012 are many and varied. Yet they seem to fall into a number of major categories:

1. Natural disaster. This is the biggest, most powerful and probably the most entertaining (unless you are at ground zero) set of predictions. One proponent of this scenario, Richard C. Hoagland, is predicting glogal disaster as a result of some form of hyperdimensional energy shift. [I've been looking for a reference on this. So far, no luck]. Others have predicted pole shifts (physical shift of Earth's rotation, shift of magnetic field, shift of the planetary crust, etc), asteroid impacts, etc. The global disaster scenario is the one in which scientists have weighed in most heavilly on, generally skeptically.
2. Human-created disaster: These generaly include nuclear war, coupled with economic collapse or some other massive societal breakdown. If a major cataclysm occurs in conjunction with 2012, I suspect a combination of these is the most likely.
3. Sudden climate change - the "Day After Tomorrow" scenario: The biggest advocate for this is probably Whitley Strieber in his book with Art Bell, The Coming global Superstorm, in which he advocates that climate chage will be sudden, catastrophic and unexpected. In short, the result of global warming (whether natural or human-caused) could be an ice age. This may be nearly instantaneous and take society largely by surprise. Other examples of past civilizations collapsing because of climate change appear to be those of Easter Island, the Viking colony on Greenland, and the Mayan civilization in MesoAmerica.
4. The arrival of Planet X (Nbiru) passing through our neighborhood raises all kinds of holy heck with our planet. This is a favorite of those who have followed Zacharia Sitchin's work. While it is not particularly compatible with what astronomers tell us of nearby planets (or the lack thereof), it still gives pause for thought.
5. Political shift - this could be either gradual or sudden, peaceful or violent. In my view, this is likely, whether there is anything special about 2012 or not. My guess is that at the critical moment, this change could take a sudden, unexpected turn - for better or for worse.
6. Global psychic/spiritual transformation: This is my favorite, a scenario in which somehow, the psychic interconnections of newly-awakened human beings reach critical mass. I describe this extensively in my book, The Cosmic Bridge. In a relatively short time some form of expansion occurs of the mass human consciousness. It's not clear to me what the effect of this would be on the individual at that moment. Would it be immediate or would it be gradual? Perhaps this is the core of my whole question - what would we see when...
7. The singularity - current events, and the information they generate in the aggregate human communications grid, field consciousness, etc., will reach a mathematical singularity - suddeny going to infinity. What this means, I don't know - perhaps it will tie in to the previous item - consciousness transformation. Or maybe it results in a breakdown in the human communications grid.
8. Extraterrestrial contact - This is the best-loved scenario of many UFOlogists. It would assume that the Cosmic Community has concluded that humanity is ready for contact. Whether this takes the form of fleets of UFOs appearing over one or more populated regions of the world, or whether it is more of a bottom-up strategy (as I suggest), it might just be an objective of the Visitor phenomeon. Whether 2012 is a critical milestone, I don't know. However, I suspect that if a 2012 transformation is a distinct event, then contact will tie into it - in some way...
9. Disclosure of previously secret UFO-related knowledge, held within the most secretive governmental organizations - most noteably, the USA. What would be the impact of this? It will depend upon the information disclosed, of course. This seems to be a steady course of events throughout the world. Hopefully the USA will join the world in bringing its presumed vast collection of UFOlogical data/evidence into the public light.
10. Historical transformation: Currents in history seem to shift in ways that are often not visible at the moment. Like the events at the start of Christianity (in Christian theology, the story of the empty tomb, found by the two Marys) or other similar key moments in history, few if any are aware of them at the key moment. Perhaps none present at some key event on 12/21/2012 would notice that their world had changed. It might take many years for such a change to take hold, yet the change will always be seen as occurring at that key instant.
11. Absolutely nothing noticable occurs - In this scenario (the favorite of most skeptics), either nothing will happen at all (maybe there is absolutely nothing to 2012), or the change will not be apparent to the perception of the everyday person (see above). In either case, the morning of 12/23/2012 would dawn like every other morning in modern times.

So, which of these will happen? I certainly don't know, but I doubt the items on this list are mutually exclusive. I also doubt that I have identified all of the possibilities (indeed, the list has continued to grow as I write this article).

In addition, I believe that it is impossible to predict what will actually happen. In the words of one contemporary arch-skeptic, "prediction is difficult, especially about the future." If human thought and consciousness are quantum in nature (which I believe), then there is a random element to human thought and action. Thus, current events in human affairs, become inherently unpredictable. Given this quantum scenario, we can only speak of probabilities of events occurring, rather than events themselves.

Ultimately, I suspect that even with the key date fast approaching - two years or less by the time this article goes to press, the future is not cast in stone. I doubt if I will know until the date actually arrives, what will happen when...

Nobody expects the Minnesota Inquisition

There is a wonderful line in Monty Python's Flying Circus, when out of the blue we hear the line "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition..." This line has always amused me. Today, it seems like synchronicity.

I had arranged to do a trance workshop with a student group at a college in the Twin Cities - a Catholic school, though the student body is of all faiths. There was a lot of enthusiasm for this, as the students were interested in meditation, guided imagery, etc. In addition, progressive relaxation and stress management were very timely as they were just heading into exam week. So, following the talk with the guy who was arranging it, I planned out my presentation, looking forward to a great evening of meditation work.

I got a call from the organizer yesterday, telling me that there was a hitch. It turns out that the church bureaucracy was opposed to the workshop. Catholic doctorine forbids hypnotism, and even thought I referred to it as guided meditation, it was too close to comfort for the conservative folks in the school and church bureaucracy. At the organizer's request, I wrote up a bio and an article on what hypnotism and meditation were all about, sending it to him last night. Today, I got a note from him saying the workshop had not been approved. Nobody expects the Inquisition.

When I told my wife about this, she said that it was good that the school remains true to it's beliefs. I can't argue with that. However, it is still suprising to realize that there are many folks out there who do not understand what hypnotism and meditation are all about. Furthermore there have been many misconceptions propogated about these gifts of the mind (sometimes by mistake, sometimes deliberately). They obfuscate what is, in my view, a healing gift from God. And the biggest propogator of this misinformation is the traditional church - the two thousand year old bureaucracy whose roots date back to the Roman empire of Emperor Constantine.

I have always been fascinated by the history of Christianity, two thousand years of tradition, currents and trends in human thought and action. Still, that same history that brought us the Sermon on the Mount, also brought us the Inquisition, the extermination of the Cathars and Templars, etc. History is so often checkered that way.

A few weeks ago, I watched a History Channel piece on Gallileo, and other thinkers during the rennaisance. Among them, Nostradamus was an interesting example in that he needed to carefully conceal his work from the inquisition. Any questioning or variation from orthodox doctorine was considered heresy and could result in being hauled in front of the tribunal, imprisoned or even killed. During a trip from Provence to Paris for an audience with the Queen, herself, Nostradamus once narrowly escaped being caught by the inquisition in Paris, warned at the last minute by someone in the royal court. Fortunately, modern civilization holds such drastic affairs in check - but not entirely.

In fact, the current head of the Church is from the organization which is, in fact, the direct descendent of the Inquisition. My own sense is that old habits die hard. Any big organization - especially one that is two thousand years old and is, in fact, an independent nation, greatly resists any exceptions to its orthodoxy. Place in this context, this stress management and imagination workshop for a small student group; perhaps you can see it for the microcosm that it is.

I doubt that the Congregation for the Preservation of the Faith, formerly known as the Inquisition (Note: to be fair, the website makes clear distinction between the "Holy Inquisition" or "Holy Office," and the Spanish Inquisition) cares much about a present day stress management workshop. Yet the philosophy remains. Any departure from orthodoxy is treated with suspicion. The bureaucracy which takes upon itself the role of preserving orthodoxy takes its job seriously - whether formally as in burning Templars and astronomers at the stake, or informally, as in denying approval for a student workshop. Even two thousand years into the Christian era, the shadow remains, even as the body itself has (hopefully) receded into history.

Indeed, in dealing with a large orthodox theocracy, Monty Python has a point. To paraphrase and place it into a local context, "Nobody expects the Minnesota Inquisition."

The healing you deserve...

I was just reading an article on salon.com (http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2009/11/19/trust/index.html?source=rss) in which a person was talking about their years of mistrust, anger and resentment. They had been in talk therapy for 18 months and had not made much progress. As a matter of fact, they even felt betrayed by their therapist because of something the therapist said and it simply made the issue worse. The upshot was that they were going through untold years of grief over events in the past that were imprinted deeply into their subconscious.

Just about everyone I know of has, at sometime or another, benefited from some kind of counseling, talk therapy, etc. Talk therapy can be extremely effective if the therapy client is willing to let it work, and if the therapist is the right one for the client. But it takes a lot of patience. It's also a long process, sometimes longer than the duration of the client's insurance, so the process often stops (and hopefully re-starts as the new plan year begins) short of its goal.

But there are quite a few ways to make talk therapy more efficient. NLP, EMDR, Hypnotherapy, Meditation, EFT, just to name a few. My own background is in hypnotherapy, certified through the National Guild of Hypnotists, and I offer hypnosis as service not in place of, but as an adjunct to the client's regular therapist. If someone describes an issue such as that in the salon.com article, a lifetime of anger and depression, I usually insist that they be seeing a therapist, and that the therapist give them a referral to see me as a hypnotist. But having said that, I believe that hypnosis work, such as the path methodologies pioneered by Calvin R. Banyan, could be of boundless help to that particular correspondent.

If one is willing to get out of their own way, to let go and allow the process to work, one can accomplish amazing things while in hypnosis. The healing possibilities are endless; I've seen people do amazing feats of healing while in hypnotic trance. And the beauty is that I'm just the guide, the clients do the work, themselves.

Typically, in a multiphase hypnotherapy sequence such as the path methodologies, the client begins with short term suggestion work to help alleviate the initial pain and to get them used to working with the hypnotist. You get to realize that being in trance is really nothing more than focused concentration and bypassing of the critical faculty, i.e. letting go and letting the process work.

The next step is to work backward in hypnotic regression to the original event that began the subconscious imprint - the Initial Sensitizing Event (or ISE). In the case of this correspondent, there is probably one lurking back in childhood that is at the center of the issue. Finding that would greatly help in healing - and that is the key, healing the hurt. In the first regression session(s) we can bring the adult resources and perspective - from those times when the client feels strong - back to assist that hurt little child. To the inner mind (often manifest in subconscious memories living somewhere in the Amygdula) this is emotionally indistinguishable from being physically held by a caring adult. Knowing that somebody cares is the greatest thing in the world to that little inner child. Again, the result of this on a client's face can be a joy to behold.

In most hypnotherapy work, the core of healing is forgiveness. In nearly every case, I've noted the client going back to some time when they have been hurt by someone. Many times, the person doing the hurting doesn't even know they've done it. But it happens, and to a little child it can be catastrophic. Thus, using some healing method like chair therapy can have truly amazing results.

In chair therapy, I invite the client to imagine the offender sitting in a chair across my studio from the client - safely far away, yet close enough for the client to let'em have it.... The client usually does just that and sometimes the air can get a bit blue in my studio. But the end result is nearly always a degree of forgiveness, far more than the person ever imagined was possible. The result is clearly visible in the client's bearing. Right in the chair in my studio, I can see their shoulders square up. Metaphorically, it is the weight of their anger and hatred, a heavy burden they have carried for years, being lifted off.

In many cases, that's all that's needed. But in others, there are possibilities such as putting a version of one's self in the chair and repeating the process - forgiving one's self just like forgiving anyone else. And the results can be similar, especially when a person feels a lot of guilt. There are lots of other techniques as well, but those above can really help. For more on this, I invite you to check out my Hypnotherapy Homepage.

The most critical thing is to allow the process to work. When the client is willing to set their resistance and disbelief aside, just as if they were reading a good book, amazing feats of emotional healing are possible. And when this happens, hypnosis as an adjunct to the person's normal therapy can help accelerate their healing in ways they may never have thought possible.

If you feel like that person in to Salon.com, please seek some kind of help. You deserve better than to live with a burden like that on your shoulders. If appropriate, please feel free to look for a therapist, a hypnotherapist if you and your therapist feel the situation warrants. Above all, please seek the healing you deserve - because you deserve it.

A lot of reality to create.

I just sent out several new query letters today. Both are to some pretty high profile literary agents. When I looked at the stats for one of them, the Maas Agency, it showed that they had accepted no SF submissions in the last 30 days while rejecting at least 30 - at least among the users of http://www.querytracker.com. Not sure about the queries from other folks, but assuming that QueryTracker users are at least somewhat representative, this is a rather challenging statistic...

This is one of those times in which the ideas in The Secret can come in rather handy. Specifically, I like the idea of putting intent out to the Universe, in this case to have an agent accept my work - and subsequently, a publisher.

There is always the question: When putting intent out to the Universe, praying for results, or however you wish to phrase it, does something paranormal or metaphysical happen? Or does it simply mean that you really want something so you are going to go the extra mile to make sure the result happens? There is the old example of trying to manifest a new Maserati in your driveway - can it happen? Or does it simply mean that you will go to whatever lengths it takes to make that dream come true. In this case, I don't give a hoot about Maserati's, but agents and publishers would be really nice.

What I did do over the last couple of days, is to greatly optimize my query letter. Re-reading a few more of the tutorials on various writing websites, I discovered that I had made some big mistakes on the first set of queries I sent out. I'm not surprised as those were the first ones, even though at the time I thought I had them right. Now, I wish I could re-do those with a better submission. There has to be a first step for everything. We live and learn...

'Nuff for now. It's time to go meditate and maybe put out to the Universe visions of a zillion readers just loving The Fifth Key, flocking in droves to book signings everywhere.
Looks like I have a lot of reality to create. Wish me luck... :-)

Predictions of Disclosure

In the last few weeks, the rumor mill has been busy. We hear myriad dispatches from "rumor central' about pending disclosure of government UFO secrets, impending Armageddon, open contact, chemtrails, global warming (and global warming not existing). It is fascinating to be an observer to the traffic on a number of e-mail lists - UFO, New-Age, Christian, political (right wing, left wing and the radical middle), etc., etc., etc...

One of the biggest surges of e-mails have been dispatches from contactees. Teachings of the Pleiadeans/Pleijarans, channeling from the Galactic Federation, apocalyptic scenarios left over from abduction encounters, etc. All seem to have the same theme - the crossroads has arrived. The theme is consistent; the lesson is the same. Yet in each case, the details are very different.

In a number of regressions I've done with experiencers, they have made predictions based upon information "the aliens told me". In each case, the central theme, whatever it might be, is very valid. There is a lesson to be learned in nearly every case. However, the details are nearly always wrong.

I have had several experiencers tell me while they were in deep trance, that they knew something was about to happen, a sighting, an encounter, a political or scientific occurrence, or some other event that could potentially be confirmable. Frequently, it's a prediction of some kind of contact. And in each case, the event did not occur.

A few years ago, a group of us on the New Civilization Network (http://www.newciv.org/) had a virtual room set up, the PSI room. In the PSI room, we had several years worth of round-robin remote viewing experiments. Over time, I noticed a pattern emerge - the generalities tended to be pretty accurate. We got pretty good at getting the general picture, observations - the emotions, impressions, sensations, etc. - all tended to be spot on. However, once we got into any kind of interpretation, or detailed predictions of what the scene was, we were pretty far off. It seems to work if one just sticks to the impressions and observations. When one starts getting analytical, the local mind replaces the non local and the channel shuts down. (or as skeptics would say, generalities are easy, specifics are-tough).

The most recent, very spectacular case of channeled predictions is that of Blossom Goodchild, the Australian Psychic who predicted that the Visitors would openly arrive in the skies over Alabama. It never happened.

Now on several e-mail lists, we hear channeled messages that disclosure is imminent. just like the aliens in the Alabama skies, we hear that very soon now (perhaps before the end of the year) President Obama is going to make a public announcement that the Visitors are real, and they are here. Will it happen? I certainly don't know - I'm not privy to the inner circles of the president's cabinet. However, I don't think I'll hold my breath.

On numerous occasions, I and other researchers have written speculative articles about how, in the grand phenomenal scheme of things, the government doesn't matter much. The Visitors will do what they do, regardless of what the government does. How does this make the government look? Certainly not very powerful. The result has been fear, a frantic effort to understand these Visitors from the sky. They may have a lot of data, but I doubt if there has been much understanding.

Steven Greer and other disclosure advocates have long been advocating a "come clean" philosophy, that government should simply put all their cards on the table. What would happen if they did? I suppose that depends upon what those cards are - cards that may or may not have fallen from the sky. Would it cause the collapse of society? I doubt it - unless, that is, the cards say something dark and sinister - something like "aliens have infiltrated every part of our society and are bent on taking over Earth." But again, I doubt that's the real picture.

I often wonder if such channelings are a reflection of the aggregate field consciousness of humanity. The details may be superfluous. The important part is the underlying theme, the Jungian archetype that is the foundation of the message. In the case of the Visitor arrival predictions, the archetype is simple - the desire to see positive, benevolent beings arrive from elsewhere. In the case of disclosure, again the overall theme is quite apparent - the desire to know the truth. Perhaps the details are not as important as the expression of the desire to understand, once and for all, what our authority structures's role is in the Visitors' interaction with humanity. Thus, the message I take away from the increase in 'disclosure is imminent' messages is the crescendo of desire to know the truth - whatever it is.

So in the end we are back to the channeled predictions. Are we going to have disclosure in the near future? Is President Obama going to go on Prime Time TV and announce that the Visitors have arrived? If it happened, I would be pleasantly and profoundly surprised. But my bet is that the year will end, and next year will play out, with no official announcement. There will probably be no spectacular disclosure. There might be sighting info, investigations and Bluebook or other reports, etc., posted online, as the Canadian government apparently did earlier this year. But I won't expect to see too many alien ships appear in the Alabama skies, nor to hear an announcement on UFOs from President Obama.

When it comes to the question of coverup vs disclosure, I don't know what really goes on behind the curtain, but I predict that tomorrow will be pretty much the same as today.

"The game is afoot" - but what is the game?

Late this afternoon, I got a call from someone half way across the country. This particular person had had a lifetime of unexplained experiences. Apparently, most of them were not scary, but left the person with a tremendous sense of mystery - a big unresolved hole in life. For many, this seems to be the case. They don't have lot of fear, save for some anxiety about exploring the unknown. Just what might be behind the veil of amnesia? Mostly, they have an overwhelming curiosity - a desire to fill in the blanks in life.

For some reason, the last month or two has seen an upturn in calls like this. It's not clear whether the phenomenon is up to something new, whether people are remembering their experiences more for some reason, or whether this is simply a random grouping of events. Still, the content is interesting as always.

At the last MUFON meeting, another member told me about a presentation by one of the abduction researchers, describing a recent trend in abduction accounts. Apparently, the particular researcher (not sure which one) stated that nearly every abductee they worked with described how "They" seem to be integrating into our society. While, admittedly, I'm hearing this third or fourth hand, it still gives one pause for thought.

Over the last few years, I've written several articles about such "human-aliens" and their interaction with experiencers. Aparently, these beings/folks(?) are becoming harder to recognize, except by eachother and sometimes by experiencers. On more than one occasion, the Visitors have appeared to debrief the experiencer during an encounter. They seemed interested in how well the experiencers could recognize the ersatz-human. When the experiencer indicated that the being/person was difficult to distinguish from those around them, the Visitors said something like "good" (telepathically. of course).

There have been increasing indications that the Changes - to use David Jacobs' terminology - are pretty close to being upon us. For better or for worse, the Visitors seem about ready to do whatever it is they are going to do. Unfortunatley, researchers have very little idea what that is. However, such human-alien reports seems consistent with the Hopkins/Jacobs model.

Just how consistent is this flow of information from experiencers. Several researchers describe this as being nearly ubiquitous - a deep consistency in the accounts of alien abduction events. We hear about the small gray "away team", the escort to a waiting UFO, the reproductive/medical procedures while the experiencer is lying on the table. All seems powerfully consistent. The only problem is that people aren't telling me this same thing.

While I have a bit smaller of a database than does Budd Hopkins, David Jacobs, etc., in the last year, I have still had far fewer accounts in which experiencers tell me of the classic small-gray abduction. Granted about half of events seem to fit the mold, but about half of them don't.
In addition to the classic gray alien encounter, I hear people describe metaphysical events, metaphorical/symbolic (dreamlike) events, and even a few cases of "simply" (it's never simple to be an experiencer) Awareness during Sleep Paralasys.

In every case, the experience is powerful. I believe that the experience is very real for the person to whom it is occurring, and it is not mine to judge whether an event is physical, metaphysical or from some other source. From a hypnotherapy perspective, they are all important. Yet the discrepency between what I hear and what other researchers seem to describe raises questions.

Am I simply not digging deep enough? Am I not asking enough questions, probing enough for details? Or are other researchers pushing too hard - a case of seek and ye shall find? In a sense, the skeptics are right when they say that a person in hypnotic trance is very suggestable. It might be easy to unconsciously impress one's own beliefs onto a client, and I've noted that beliefs within the UFO community tend to be relatively strong. During deep hypnotic rapport, there even appers to be a psychic link between hypnotherapist and client. Thus, when a researcher tells me that all of his/her clients are describing the same thing, I tend to wonder...

The same person I was talking with this afternoon told me that they had noted a lack of professionalism in UFO research. Indeed, there is a lot of "religion" in UFOlogy, an emphasis on spirituality (which is just fine) and a lot of deeply held beliefs. There are always politics present in any endeavor, and UFO research is no exception. Yet most of the people I know in the field maintain a solidly professional attitude. So I suggest that rather than a lack of professionalism, what is lacking is more scientific rigor.

How can we establish a scientific method - in the field of abduction research especially. What do we need to do to establish a body of knowledge, backed by hard data. And does such hard data even really exist? - It would be an understatement to say that there a lot of subjective and metaphysical aspects to this field. So what can we establish as provable hypothesis in the field?

The objective of the opening phases of a scientific inquiry is generally to establish a model, a working hypothesis of the phenomenon under study. The mark of a good hypnothesis is its ability to make testable predictions about phenomenon. What must we see to know whether our model of the phenomenon is true or false?

In my article on the Indigo hypothesis, I offer a few testable predictions that would tell us whether my theory is or isn't true. One of these is genetic - do indigo children (a criterion we still need to define) have specific genetic markers? Do the families of experiencers have these same markers? Does the population of Indigos and the population of experiencers correlate? Is there an overlap or is there no relationship at all?

What other solid physical evidence can we use to determine the nature and reality of close encounters? Dr Roger Lier's work with implants is probably a good example of a solid scientific approach. Other areas might be measurements of the physical aspects of encounters, electronic monitoring of the experiencer's environment, etc. There are many possibilities for initial data and ultimately, I suggest that we can gather enough solid data to build a picture of the physics behind the Visitor presence - a working hypothesis that we can test further with observation and experiment.

In the mean time, most abduction resarch continues using tools such as witness interviews, hypnosis and, if we're extremely lucky, an occasional tidbit of physical evidence. Mostly, we are left in the subjective world of the anecdotal account. While extremely meaningful, it is not easly to glean concrete data from subjective human observations - especially when the human may be in fear an duress. It is also difficult to discern whether an event is physical, metaphysical, (para)psychological, etc. Thus, it becomes harder to develop a reliable picture of the nature oand purpose of the Visitors, etc.

Furthermore, while others describe a coherent picture of alien activity, a solid trend of activity leading toward - well, toward something..., I have not discerned this. While many researchers have described consistency between their own clients, I'm not sure how much similarity there is between researchers. To date, I'm aware of little if any rigorous meta-analysis of the data across multiple researchers (the Abduction Transcription Project, in the late 1990s was a good start).

Furthermore, I suspect that we know far less about close encounters than we think. Yet,I think the future of this research is bright. We are just beginning, and there is so much more to learn - assuming that the catastrophic changes such as those described in David Jacobs' book, The Threat don't occur and somehow hose us all. Truly, abduction research is at a crossroads.

What is happening? I have little or no idea, but something is. What is the phenomenon up to? There is the definite but subjective sense that, in the words of Sherlock Holmes, "The game is afoot." Unfortunately, we (or at least I) just don't know what that game is...

Notes from MN MUFON 11/14/09 Talk

Went to the Minnesota MUFON meeting yesterday and heard one of the most fascinating talks I've heard in quite some time. They could probably be entitled something like "The further adventures of..." - presented by one of our field investigators who had recently done several fascinating UFOlogical and Cryptozoological trips out west.

The first part of his talk was on his trip out to Washington this summer, Bigfoot hunting with the BFRO (Big Foot Research Organization). He had some fascinating stories, and s bit of physical evidence to describe. Apparently, one night while in camp, they were visited by the object of their hunt. They heard a crash during the night, and also a distant howl, often attributed to Sasquatch. The next morning, they found several snapped trees (relatively sizable trunks) and some pretty sizable tracks - definitely not those of a bear.

His next stop was at Jim Gilliland's ranch in Trout Lake, Washington. He spent at least one night there on a sky watch and had some pretty fascinating things to tell about it. Not sure how much they saw in the sky, but he had some great things to say about a Cherokee shaman who was there at the same time. Shamanism has always fascinated me - and it served as a little hook for me back into the metaphysical.

The next part of his presentation was on the Galactic Conference he attended in Denver. This is a fascinating talk and meeting in itself. Much of it was channeled material on how the coming changes will affect us, how this will open the door to open contact itself.
There was more, but I think you get the idea - this talk was fascinating...

I am attaching the rough notes I made from the talk. To see them, click here.

Hope you enjoy reading my rapid touch typing - lotsa typos there, but lotsa wisdom, too.
Enjoy...

The beat goes on...

This is a draft of this months article, The CE4 Corner. Please feel free to read here, or go to my site and read this and previous editions of The CE4 Corner.

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A couple of weeks ago, I had begun to wonder. I had had several successful clients, including one who just contacted me this evening as I was writing this article, telling me that she was doing great. Our work had worked. Then another client told me that he didn't think that his did - even though the symptom that he came to see me about had vanished.

Even though the work we had done was great, something about the work - something he couldn't identify - led him to his strange conclusion. It wasn't clear why he didn't think the work was effective - even when I pointed out that his issue was no longer present. Somehow, to him, the work didn't work, yet the person had healed. The news left me both encouraged and discouraged, and a little bit confused.

After hearing back from this person, I had to remind myself that the ultimate goal of a healer is to heal. The best thing you can tell a healer is that you don't need them any more. If you are speaking the truth as you see it, if the healing is complete, then the healer's work as an instrument of God/The Universe/The Higher Power/whatever you wish to call it, is done. Ultimately, the final outcomes, any secondary effects of the healing in the client's life are beyond our control. Their life is their own.

I believe this is a lesson the Universe has been trying to teach for many years. While one can continuously work for Good, doing healing work, research exploration and discovery, or any other endeavor - results are often beyond our control. In the end, each of us can only do our best. And it is vital to not become attached to outcomes. Shortly thereafter, work resumed with several new clients - each with successful results. The beat goes on...

Earlier this fall, I had the honor of meeting several new and wonderful close encounter experiencers. Both lived in the same area about a half-day's drive south of my home. Both had had powerful experiences with the extraordinary, and while they were both encounters, they had little resemblance to eachother.

One experiencer described an encounter with what can best be described as a 'monster' - somewhat vampire-like, yet with dragon wings and scales. As we delved further, it became clear to me that this was becoming a metaphorical exploration of her own life. Rather than a physical close encounter experience, this event belonged to the metaphysical, archetypal realm of the mind and soul. Still, her roommate had seen evidence that there was more to this than "just a dream." Both had seen the UFO that had prompted the original report. I finally concluded that this event was one of those 'outliers' that occasionally crop up in my own case files - not quite a dream but not a well-defined UFOlogical event, either.

While we ended up doing some great healing work, the inner skeptic in me surfaced. This often happens when events turn out to be non-UFOlogical in nature. It reminded me that 'we had not found our aliens.' Skepticism and discernment, UFOs and dreams, reality anomalies and mysteries of the mind; a flurry of questions and a fair degree of doubt filled my mind - the beat goes on...

Then came the next day and work with the other experiencer I had come to visit. This person turned out to have had much more of a classic close encounter experience. He described a classic sequence of events; lying in bed when he suddenly felt the familiar paralysis set in. Suddenly, the ‘little guys’ were again surrounding him - beings he had seen so many times before. Soon thereafter, he found himself in the alien realm, subject to medical procedures, etc. It was all classic stuff - straight out of Hopkins and Jacobs' books. After an hour or so, reliving a series of frightening events and resolving the fear surrounding them, we began the final phase of our work - forgiveness and personal empowerment.

Hypnotic regression sessions often conclude with a process called 'Forgiveness of Others' - also known as gestalt or chair therapy. In this work, the experiencer imagines that the offending party - in this case, the leader of the aliens - is sitting in a chair a safe distance away. The hypnotist then invites the experiencer to say whatever he/she wishes, with the understanding that the alien can not do or say anything in return. As a result, the air sometimes gets rather blue in the studio at that moment. The alien can then respond, eventually fostering a dialog between the experiencer and this representation of the aliens. If all goes as planned, the result is a degree of forgiveness - a releasing of the burden the experiencer has carried for years. When such forgiveness occurs, I often see the person's shoulders visibly lift, as if a physical weight had been removed from them. This case was no exception. Once again, I felt the satisfaction of having participated in a wonderful healing event.

As I drove home from this final session, I concluded that the trip had been a success. We had learned a lot, two experiencers had come to terms with - well, with whatever had happened to them. The intricacies of the phenomenon again drove home the point of how little we really know about close encounters. I also had to remind myself, once again, that the work was that of God - and to void becoming too attached to outcomes (even positive ones).

Since that time, additional experiencers have appeared in the world of Minnesota MUFON. Each has a powerful story to tell and each is at a distinct point in their phenomenal journey. Several have begun hypnotherapy work - including a couple of people from other areas of the country. Several hypnotherapists in the National Guild of Hypnotists have begun working more with experiencers. If this trend continues, more and more people will be able to find help in their own location. .

The journey continues; progress occurs one step at a time. The phenomenon is busy as always and so are the UFO researchers and the hypnotherapists of the world. They mystery continues. The beat goes on...

Phases and Bridges

It takes all kinds to make a world and many experiences to make a lifetime.

Each presentation I give on close encounters and alien abduction seems to recieve a different reaction. In some cases, after my presentation people seem to line up waiting to talk with me - frequently about their own experiences. At other times - even when I get enthusiastic applause and lots of discussion during the presentation - few people have their own experiences to describe.

The population of experiencers (having answered "yes" to all of the check questions on the Roper Poll of unexplained experiences) in the general population appears to be slightly less than one percent. Generally, the percentage I observe is higher. In each talk, I have found that about two to five people out of twenty have raised their hands when I have asked if anyone has had personal experiences with the unexplained. Indeed, among people attending a talk on UFOs and close encounters we would certainly expect to have a MUCH higher percentage, and in the end, I find relatively consistent numbers - about 10% to 25% of those attending are aware and acknowledged experiencers.

There are many ways in which researchers hear from experiencers. In addition to conversation following a talk, contact is often via phone or e-mail, and the rate of these has been about two to ten per week. And the biggest thing I have noticed - the rate of people contacting me has steadily climbed over the last year.

In each case, I marvel at how consistent their accounts are. Most fall into the classic Hopkins/Jacobs model, with frequent variations on a theme. But the most common component of a person's awareness is fear - how does one experience something which pulls the rug out from under one's personal reality, then return to everyday life. Added to this is the knowledge that such an experience can happen again at any time, without warning. In many cases, the exepriencer has no memory of the event, yet is left with a legacy of fear directed toward - what?

Where there is darkness, there is also light, and it appears that the realm of the phenomenon is no exception. Like every other passage in life, each stage of the phenomenon seems to have a finite duration. For most experiencers, the stage of fear-generating abduction encounters seems to last through the early adult years, at most. For many, they are even briefer. Furthermore, I have found that, with awareness, the experiencer can manage - and even take power over - their interactions with the phenomenon. Some appear to have even shut the phenomenon out of their lives completely. I have written on this in the past, and discuss it extensively in The Cosmic Bridge. In the future, I plan to hold a lot more discussion on how people have accomplished this. I am always interested to hear from anyone, just how they have managed their own interactions with the phenomenon - how it has changed over time. But for now, let us just presume that it is possible to take charge of your own life, even when it is beset with intruders from elsewhere.

I have often made the verbal observation that humans are scarier to me than aliens, and in the last several weeks, a number of people-oriented events have borne out this view. While the Visitors may be a source of fear and mystery, they do not seem to be overtly motivated by money or power - unfortunately, this seems to be the very core of the human motivation. A quick glance at the news will show this as a fundamental driver of current events - wars, corporate scandals, political quibbles over how to restructure our health-care system; all trace their roots back to this basic drive, money and power. I suspect that the Visitors are very well aware of this aspect of human nature, and thus we would probably not be considered to be qualified participants in the cosmic community.

On a personal note, I have noted several instances of the duality between human nature - in this case monetary/economic - and spiritual growth. This has seemed to limit what would otherwise be a great spiritual teaching. Again, to me this seems to be the Universe teaching transcendence of this type of polarity. I won't go into details, save to say that in some cases, proprietary and monetary considerations often appear to reduce what would otherwise be a powerful spiritual and healing tool, for both healer and client. I'm sure each of us has our own example(s) of this. 'Nuff sed...:-)

To me, this is another instance of the need to rise above such issues, to maintain perspective. Any particualar school or teaching must be seen in the context of the many. As with lifelong experiences with the encounter phenomenon, one lesson appears to be how to live life in multiple worlds - physical and metaphysical, earthly and extraordinary, spiritual and economic. In oh-so-many ways, we spend much of our lives in multiple points in the journey over The Cosmic Bridge.

Each phase of life leaves us with lessons, gifts of spiritual and practical growth. Whether the characteristics of any given phase of experience is positive or otherwise, each leaves us with something that enriches us. In my own life, Christianity, Transcendental and Himalayan Meditation, various hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis methodologies, all have left their gifts with my own soul, and hopefully these have passed in their own way to others around me. Like the experiences of many, these passages in life are part of the tapestry of our experience, in their own way, always remaining in our lives.

In recent months, I have found work again shifting from general healing back toward close encounter work. I'm not sure if this shift is long term, or if it is a short-term turn in the road. However, it feels like a fundamental shift in phase. Like experiencers, teachers and students, the world of hypnosis work changes continually. And each twist provides brings with it a lesson in the phases of life - changes in the world of humans and visitors - another step across The Cosmic Bridge.

Subconscious/Superconscious and Hypnosis - response to a question on my Plaxo site

This post is a reply to a question someone posted on my comment box on Plaxo. In summary, the person was asking about properties of the subconscious, superconscious and how hypnosis fit into the picture. Unfortunately, this is a big subject and the comment box is way too small to address such a detailed question. So I am posting the response in my blog, instead.

Read on and let me know what you think. Feel free to check out my site: http://www.craigrlang.com/ for more on hypnosis, and http://www.thecosmicbridge.com/ for more on human interactions with the extraordinary.

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Hi Chuck,

I'm not familiar with the particular quote you describe, specifically from Stewart Edward White's The Betty Book (1936) one of "the invisibles" comments that "the subconscious is to the Beta [or spirit] body what the conscious is to the physical." However, I think that it has touches on some interesting points.

The relationship between the conscious, superconscious, subconscious, unconscious and the physical depends alot upon how one views models of the spirit/mind/body. In hypnosis theory, the beta state is the waking, conscious state of mind, the state in which your critical faculty is in full swing. In the alpha, theta or delta states, respectively, the subconscious and superconscious are increasingly accessible. Not sure about the analogy of the beta/subconscious relationship with the conscious/physical relationship. That's one I haven't heard.

The topic of the subconscious could take hours to discuss. I usually use the theatre metaphor. The conscious mind is what it within the spotlight. The subconscious is the part of the stage is not. Hypnosis is one process of allowing one's self to access the subconscious.

Simply stated, hypnosis consists of:
- focus and selective thinking
- bypass of the critical faculty, a.k.a. the suspension of disbelief.
It's the same process that you experience when you get absorbed in a story, a book, a movie, etc. or when you get 'in the groove', etc...

The critical faculty is what screens material according to your beliefs, etc. When bypassing the barrier of disbelief, it the subconscious will be more open to suggestion. However, it is important to note that the critical faculty is never very far away, and if there is something that crashes into your belief system, it will step in in an instant. Thus, in hypnosis, you still can't be "talked into" something that is contrary to your beliefs.

Also, strictly speaking, your brain records everything you've ever perceived. However, it is not typically possible for the conscious mind to access these deep memories due to the mental filtering of a lifetime of experiences and beliefs. In deep trance, it is possible to access memories in great detail - a phenomenon called hypermnesia.

There is a big debate of the relationship between the subconscious and the superconscious (the nonlocal spiritual part of the mind/soul). Some say that they are the same thing, others say that they are separate parts of the mind. Basically, assuming your beliefs accept parapsychology, the superconscious is the site of nonlocal phenomena such as past life association, etc.

Hope this helps.Let me know if you have any other questions.
Thanx,
-Craig

"... and the sky will turn red."

As I sit in my studio, looking out the window, I can see the weather changing. An hour or two earlier, we had warm sunshine in a blue cloudless sky. It was a perfect September day. Now, the clouds have moved in, the wind has picked up and the temperature has dropped. The storm coming in seems like a fitting metaphor for the topic I'm writing about today.

In the last few weeks, I've noted a lot more interest in the topic of 2012, Armageddon and similar cheery subjects. I'm not sure if it's an artifact of the tense times we live in, or if it's just that I'm a History Channel buff and 2012 sells. But in either case, my own consciousness has been bombarded with this stuff. Nevertheless, it's gotten me to thinking. The biggest themes that come through in many of the documentaries I've watched, the interplay of events within history, and the convergence of multiple threads of prophecy regarding this time period.

• The Mayan Calendar
• Hopi prophecy
• Nostradamus (as interpreted by John Hogue, etc.)
• Interpretations of Biblical books such as Revelation, Daniel, etc...
• Father Malachai's listing of future popes - in which the current one is the last or next to last(?)
• Mother Shipton
• Terrance McKenna's TimeWave Zero interpretation of the I-Ching
• The WebBot predictions
• Writings of Jay Weidner and numerous others interpreting astrology, tarot, etc...

... and the list goes on.... Added to that mix, I hear a lot from close encounter experiencers, who describ nearly the same thing. Like the list of prophetic sources above, they differ in details, but the overriding theme is the same - we live in a moment of history, a crossroads in time that can lead us into a golden age, or into the abyss.

I have often dismissed such apocalyptic predictions with a brief smile before I move-on to the next thing on my daily list of things to do. And then I saw something else that gave me pause for thought. Some time ago, at a Minnesota MUFON meeting, we watched an older documentary on UFO abduction; at one point one of the abductees describes an apocalyptic warning from the Visitors. This came in response to her question of how we will know when these apocalyptic events are to come. The response was "you will see the sky turn red..." After reading the news of the last few days and seeing reports of the gigantic dust storms in Australia - apparently the worst dust storms they have ever had - I got very curious about this particular quote. Looking at the pictures from Sydney

Is there a background in the prophetic literature about this scenario? And have other prophets, or experiencers, described this same vision? I did a web search on red sky theme and came up with some interesting material.

• http://newprophecy.net/ has some ineteresting material on the red sky. On this site, the author, Michael McClellan, author of Nostradamus and the Final Age, makes predictions based upon his own interpretation of a host of different prophetic sources. Among them, recently has appeared "red sky" material.
• http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/prophecy/23/Books/Ishtar.htm has a number of UFOlogical-related sources, describing this.
• http://robertstan.bravehost.com/cccc.html describes a prophecy by Mother Shipton regarding the sky turning red and black...

...and the list goes on. I've always been pretty skeptical of the literal truth of such prophecy. Yet every time I hear of "warning signs" such as the red-and-black sky, the moon disappearing, etc., it gives me pause to wonder.

Currents in history have always fascinated me - foreshadowings, chains of events, people appearing out of the social woodwork to fulfill roles predicted in prophecies - all have a poetic and eerie ring to them. As I watched several History Channel shows about the rise of Hitler, I noted multiple predictions and foreshadowings from psychics as his time approached. As the critical time approached, the signs seemed to increase in detail. Currents in history became more finely resolved as such a key event approached. So today, are we seeing similar things happen? Are we seeing prophecy converging and becoming more detailed?

• According to John Hogue and several others who study Nostradamus extensively, we are still in the setting of the stage. Multiple "bad guys" will need to appear before the Third Antichrist (AC3) appears
• We don't yet have a particular person identified as AC3, though several candidates appear to be plausible
• We have apparently entered the era of the final pope, or the second to the last one, anyhow...
• We have the Christian vs Muslim conflict apparently shaping up, perhgaps providing the Armageddon stage setting(?)
• we have many of the 'signs and wonders' predicted in Matthew 24.
• We also have the 'spider web' over the world predicted in Hopi prophecy.

... again, the list goes on. But I think you get the idea. In each case, as we approach the critical times in history, prophecy and foreshadowing seem to converge. We arrive at more detailed, and increasingly precise predictions about events to come - warning signs that a tipping point of history is upon us.

In my web-search wanderings I found several interesting articles on just such tipping points. Simply put, the idea is that we have reached a tipping point in many of our world systems. A web search on "System tipping points" yielded the following interesting set of articles:

• http://researchpages.net/ESMG/people/tim-lenton/tipping-points/ explores the idea that many of the world systems such as climate, ocean currents, etc. are close to their points of instability and transition.
• http://www.usnews.com/mobile/articles_mobile/tipping-points-what-wall-street-and-nature-have/index.html describes research on multiple systems showing similar behavior. They all have unrecoverable tipping points, plus clearly defined signs that these have arrived.

All of these articles advance the idea that as we increase the levels of stress on the complex systems of our world - climate, economic, food distribution, land use, political/military, etc. - we will see characteristic signs.

Perhaps, in a way, prophetic signs correspond with some of the tipping-point indicators described in the above articles. It might be an interesting area of research to compare prophetic indicators to signs of critical world system tipping points. I'm betting that there will be at least some correlation. I suggest that the converging currents of history and the pace of change may have us past the point of no return. Perhaps the critical changes have already begun.

What the result will be, I doubt anyone knows. Will it be a social change? A shift in human consciousness? A much more physical change? Will it be something we can't even imagine? Or will absolutely nothing happen at all? Whether you, the reader, lives in a part of the world where the sky is red and black from smoke, clear fresh and blue, or (like my sky) gray from an incoming weather front, the message is the same. We seem to have reached that point where, at least metaphorically, the sky has turned red.

Crop Circle Experiment Update

Preliminary results are in on the crop circle experiment. I described this experiment in a previous post (see link: http://thecosmicbridge.blogspot.com/2009/07/crop-circle-parapsychology-experiment.html).

Mike picked one of five unmarked envelopes at the July MN MUFON meeting and gave the sealed envelope to Margaret.

The design picked was #3.
Results: One crop circle was laid down on July 22 in the UK that comes somewhat close to the selected picture. It has an overall resemblence to the design, though the detail within the triangle is nothing like the design chosen. -- I'd give it about a 3 out of 10... :-)

I have attached a link to the ppt file containing all of the designs as follows:
http://home.comcast.net/~lang.craig/cropcircles1.ppt

Here is a link to the page describing the circle on CropCircleConnector.com:
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/Woodborough/Woodborough2009.html

IMHO not toooo bad for a first cut at an experiment like this.

The rules of the school.

My own work of hypnotherapy and hypnosis in my work toward healing and understanding of the Human-Visitor relationship has just taken a giant new step.

I just got done with my free repeat of the training in 5-PATH® hypnotherapy and the 7th Path Self Hypnosis® technique - a combination that I will refer to as the "path methodologies." I have a lot of very, very positive things to say about this set of techniques. Since I have adopted them, I have found that clients have been increasingly successful in resolving the issues they have come to see me for.

In addition, I am once again reminded of what an excellent teacher Susan is. She is a superb teacher at multiple levels and I would recommend her to anyone wanting to learn the path methodologies. Susan teaches the them as originally developed by Cal and Maureen Banyan. She complies closely to the guidelines they set for teaching and practicing these methodologies. And one of the things she stressed was how the founders heavily frown upon deviations from the original methodology. More on this later...

There are many differences between the training I took from Kevin Hogan ten years ago, and what I've learned from Susan. Both have been excellent teachers, and while Kevin is no longer teaching hypnotherapy certification (he now teaches persuasion techniques par excellence), Devin Hastings has effectively picked up his teaching work. The biggest difference is that when I took my original certification classes ten years ago, Kevin taught the ability to conduct a complete piece of therapy from start to finish in one session. The class was heavily focused on practical work in real situations and by the time you got done with the class, you had some real experience dealing with real issues.

In classes with Cal/Susan, it was deliberately stressed - we are not doing hypnotherapy here. When practicing regression, one did not go back on difficult times, only happy ones. While this does give one practice in the mechanics of hypnotic regression, it does not give the context of being able go back on an issue. One doesn't develop the ability to use the many reframing techniques available with hypnotic regression. At the conclusion of the class, I noted that the beginning students still needed to get the feel of the full session, the context of each step within the whole process, something that they had a clearer picture of in my original training.

The downside of my original training of ten years ago was that while one understood the context of each activity within the hypnotherapy process, the methodology, itself, was single-session oriented. For small pieces of work, this was great. However for larger work, I found it didn't emphasize the strategy of work over multiple sessions, following that strategy from benchmark to benchmark, start to finish.

The beauty of the path methodologies is that at any stage of the game, you always know where you are. At the core is a five-phase process, beginning with the pretalk and interview, then hypnotic regression and reframing, followed by forgiveness of others and self (chair therapy), concluding with parts mediation work. While I believe that there is sometimes too much emphasis on the strict order of phases and rules within each phase, this sequence works well 99% of the time. Upon adopting this framework, I found that most areas of my work have become easier and more effective.

Along with this is the emphasis on self-hypnosis and meditation called The 7th Path®. I've found this to be extremely effective, both for myself and for my clients. So I heartily recommend it - as usual, with a few caveats. The biggest caveat I've noted is that there are quite a few rules associated with it and, while I've tended to take these with a grain of salt, the originators of the path methodologies are quite adamant that the rules be followed. On this point, I have sometimes needed to turn the other cheek. In addition, the originators have tended to be quite proprietary about practice of this teachnique.

I won't go into details on specific quibbles, as there are a fair number of minor issues involved. I will simply suggest that the difference between spirituality and religion is that in my view, spirituality focuses on metaphysical concepts and experiences. It is generally deeply intuitive, and is largely about relationships between the individual and the Higher Power.
Meanwhile, in religion, the spiritual aspects can become bounded by rituals, icons, rules and leaders. In extreme cases, the rules may become the complete focus, and failure to follow these will result in negative consequences. This is what I picture as fundamentalism and, at its worst, the cult.

As I conduct path work with clients, I think alot about this. How much latitude does the hypnotherapist have with these methodologies? Which rules are important and which can be treated as softer guidelines? In my case, I try to stay out of the orbit of any particular school or teacher, so I feel freer to adapt any particular tool in my toolbox to fit the situation. But for anyone who does this, I suggest being very circumspect when talking with the teacher of that particular methodology. The teacher is often very focused on teaching the methodology and so, for very good reason, the purity of that methodology may be quite important to him/her.

In any technique or spiritual path, there are many tradeoffs. In study of several hypnotherapy and meditation traditions, I have now seen the similarities and differences, along with the balances inherent in each. And in each, I have found a similar/analogous yet widely varying combination of strengths and issues.

In the realm of healing and metaphysical study there are truly many techniques, traditions and beliefs. And with these come a host of schools, rules and paths. In traveling one's own path, each seeker and healer must understand how each school relates - how each affects their own path, their relationship to their world and Higher Being. What is their own latitude of practice, and how strongly should they adhere to the rules of the school.

Lights and Numbers on the Range

In recent "tweets", I mentioned the lecture I was presenting on the Minnesota Iron Range, at the Gilbert, MN public library. I just got back from that talk, today, and like most talks, I discussed the topic of UFOs and abduction as well as listened to some very interesting comments in return.

I've always been told that the "rangers," the folks living on the iron range, are pretty quiet and reserved. That seemed to be the casewhen I asked my usual questions at the start of the lecture:
- How many have seen something in the sky that they could not explain?
- How many have had some kind of experience that they couldn't explian?

A few people raised their hands, very furtively, when I asked the first question. Usually, when I ask this question, number of people raising their hand is about ten percent of those present. However, this time I found much less response. In addition, among a few of those with "non-raised" hands, I could sense a moment of indecision - to raise their hand or not? I suspected there was alot more to some of their biographies than I saw during the show of hands (or lack thereof).

One exception to the lack of response was a person sitting in the front row who, when I asked if anyone had seen something unusual, quickly told about her sighting on a road deep in the north woods. She described seeing a bright light in front of her, a flash, then it was gone. She asked the general question of what she had seen and my response was that, from what she had described, it was pretty clearly an unknown. Unfortunately, she had to leave before the end of my talk, so I never got the chance to talk with her further. My bet is that there was considerably more to that event than was first described.

When I asked the second question, I got essentially no response - not entirely unusual for such a powerful event and conservative audience. However, I also noted the looks on a couple of peoples' faces. I noted that a few people shifted in their chair when the topic of alien abduction first came up in the lecture. My bet is that, similar to some other public talks I've given, a number of those present were unaware experiencers. They had probably seen or experiencd something that they wouldn't describe in public - if indeed, they had little much of any conscious memory of it. Perhaps there was only a sense of mystery pervading their lives.

I gave my talk, covering material similar to that which I have covered in other talks, with some material added describing some more recent encounter reports. I concluded with some speculative comments on where we are in UFO/CE4 research - which in my view, is not very far at all. I described a couple of the leading theories and then concluded the talk, opening the floor for questions.

There were a number of general questions about the phenomenon - what is it, who are the entities behind it, etc., interesting questions for which in many cases, the answer is not known. Several questions were from people who seemed to know quite a bit about the phenomenon, while most didn't seem to know much at all about the state-of-the-topic on UFOs. At one point, I asked how many people had seen pictures of "grays" or other reported alien beings and most indicated that they had not. This was a bit surprising to me, as I thought the "gray head" was pretty much of a ubiquitous symbol in our society. In retrospect, a picture of the typical alien-face might have been useful. Apparently, not everyone folows the UFO literature - hmmm, go figure.... :-)

After the talk, several people from the audience came up to buy a copy of The Cosmic Bridge. I got to talking with several of them and learned that about three people (out of the 20 or so attendees) had definitely experienced something unusual, while another told me that a friend had had a solid history of paranormal experiences in their family line and also had a child that matched the classic description of an Indigo child.

Ultimately, the numbers matched up - sort of. Over 10 percent had seen something worth mentioning to me in relative privacy. Of these, maybe ten percent were experiencers. Another example of the typical numerical rule of thumb: 10% of all people are sighting witnesses, and of these 10% have had close encounter experiences.

So in the end, I got to meet some interesting folks, hear about a number of peoples' experiences and learn a few things myself. It was an evening of lights and numbers on the Range...

What to do - a beginning draft of the next CE4 Corner artilce

What to do if you have had a close encounter...

This is an evolving draft of my next article for The CE4 Corner, my series both in the Minnesota MUFON Journal and in my newsletter, News from the Bridge. Please feel free to read it and make comments if you wish. Please also remember that it is a work in progress. What you see here may not be the final version.

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The closing days of the National Guild of Hypnotists convention, followed by the flight home, have given me a little while to reflect on the work of the last year. Of this, I've noted that some of the most challenging and interesting work has continued to involve helping clients to come to terms with close encounters with the unexplained. Another thing I've noted is that those who have contacted myeslf or other researchers seem to be only a small fraction of the total number of experiencers. For every encounter experiencer that comes into my studio, there are untold more that never seek help. Among those, perhaps some of them never tell anyone what they have experienced, instead bearing the weight on their solitary shoulders.

I've written in past articles about the challenge of the healers' doorway. How to get help if you find that you need it. But if something happens to you, what is the first thing you should do? Whom can you tell and whom can you trust? What help is available?

In an earlier article entitled What to do, I described some suggestions of what someone can do in the event of a UFO sighting. I described cases of sightings, distand encounters, and finally close encounters of the first, second and third kind. In each case, the encounter can be thought of as a relationship - increasingly close, the more meaningful and unexplained the sighting is. A close encounter of the fourth kind (CE4) is where an interaction takes place between the entities and the witness in the reality of the phenomenon. A CE4 is no longer simply a sighting but becomes an experience. In such a case, the witness seems to be the focus of the phenomenon.

A possible CE4 experience can be suspected if the following is observed:

1. A diversion of attention toward the phenomenon. This can include the sighting of a UFO, a change in the environment (such as a sudden quietness or sense of unreality), or a change in state of mind (such as the compulsion to pull the car over to the side of the road, or a feeling that for some reason you must go outside).
2. A capture scenario, in which the witness is somehow immobilized, “fetched" by entities, and transported into their domain.
3. A subsequent encounter with the entities in the reality of the phenomenon.
4. A return to the location of the initial encounter - usually after a delay on the order of an hour or two. This may include a discontinuity or ambiguity in your memory of the sighting, where the sequence events may not make sense.
5. An aftermath of possible confusion, and psychological and/or spiritual side effects.

Since events in a CE4 seem to be under the control of the phenomenon it is not overly useful to suggest any procedures for the witness to follow. However, if possible, try to note as much as you can, including the time both before and after the event. Some experiencers have stated that the memory of an event seems to persist for a moment or two after the event. Some have described the memory vanishing in a manner simiar to that of a dream when one awakens in the morning (sometimes, an encounter may be re-enacted in recurring dreams). Thus, it might help, if one notices some suggestion of a close encounter experience, to write down as much as one can as quickly as possible. This can be a matter of instants, so rapidity is vital.

Ultimately, do not try to keep the event to yourself. Instead, if possible, try to inform someone you trust about it. If you feel that some medical symptom may be traceable to the event, contact your health care provider. He/She may or may not be willing to believe your account so you will need to decide how much of your experience you want to share with them. However, it is important to document as rapidly as possible, any medical effect that might be related to the encounter and to obtain treatment for any condition that may have resulted.

In addition, a number of experiencers have told me that they now carry a camera with them, ready to use at all times. Most of the latest model cell phones have built-in cameras, so this may not be as difficult as it once was. However, when something strange and powerful happens, perhaps the initial stages of a close encounter, the challenge is often to remember to use the camera. I have heard many a witness tell me about spectacular encounters - and only after the UFO was long gone did they remember that they had a camera close by. Like any tool, a camera is only useful if one remembers to use it. In the pace of the moment, remembering such a thing may be a tall order, indeed. However, anything that can be recorded is better than nothing...

The close encounter experience can be reality-shattering. In The Cosmic Bridge, I discuss the impact of such an event in the life of the experiencer. It can be easy to feel stuck between worlds, in the abyss between our everyday world and the realm of the Visitors. Perhaps the best thing the experiencer can do is to contact someone who will provide an empathetic ear - accepting their story for what it truly is, their memory of an encounter with the extraordinary. The right hypnotherapist, UFO researcher, or even understanding friend, can help the experiencer to come to terms with their shattered reality.

After a sighting or encounter, if you have memories or feelings possibly related to a CE4, don't try to deny them. Rather, in a way in which you feel comfortable, you may wish to report the event to a trusted UFO researcher. This can be someone from MUFON, ICAR, or another organization or researcher (including myself). In addition, you can contact the National Guild of Hypnotists (603.429.9438) for help in finding a hypnotherapist in your area. The most important criterion is your level of comfort in discussing the event.

For better or for worse, a UFO encounter can be an incredible experience. Hopefully these suggestions offer some guidelines so that an experience can be of less impact to the experiencer and of benefit to the greater UFO research community. Hopefully, with enough data from witnesses and experiencers, this phenomenon can be better understood, and we can add one more piece to the Cosmic Bridge between the human and phenomenal worlds.

NGH - notes from day 3

Last day of the NGH convention, the end of a great weekend.
I learned alot about just about everything in the field in hypnotherapy. In just about every talk I went to, I heard something new, along with a review/reinforcement of what I already knew.

Part of what I learned was about interviewing and sales, the next "opportunity" in my HT path. I went to a couple of talks on the pretalk. One of the things I learned was that the fear of hypnosis and of the process in general may be left. Often people don't realize that they don't understand what it is that they don't understand. During the initial intake interview this may not be noticable but later, when hypnosis begins, it could easily show up as questions and unease - and thus, limitations on the hypnotic process.

So in the morning, we talked alot about how to better explain the hypnosis process, how to ease fears and concerns, how to be increasingly confident. This was one of the most useful series of talks I've been to in a long time. And I think that, for present and future clients, it will be a tremendous boon...

Another talk - probably the most rewarding talk I went to this whole weekend, was the talk by Lee Peletier, on Hypnosis and the Conservative Christian. This directly addressed the issues I described in earlier posts, on confrontation issues with Christians who were afraid of hypnosis.
We discussed how to allay fears about hypnosis being a occult oriented, diabolical, allowing negative influences to attach to the Christian client.

The biggest thing to note was that hyposis is a normal part of the human experience. We each experience hypnosis several times a day - typically once each 90 minute cycle of consciousness. Everybody has daydreams, moment of focus, etc. We all get focused on something like a book, a movie, a television show, a conversation, etc. These are all spontaneous hypnosis events.
Any moment of highway amnesia is also an instance of spontaneous hypnosis. In short, hypnosis is part of everyone's experience.

In addition, Lee pointed out several very good passages in scripture describing stress management. The biggest one is Phillipians 4: 4-9 - which effectively describes stress management using selective focus - one definition of hypnosis. Another is in Romans, 12:9 - love what is good, hate what is evil, which to me, means that the Christian will not accept anything that doesn't pass their own discernment filter. The way Lee put it, Hypnosis has learned alot from the Christian traditions - it's just called a different thing.

In the end, it was a very useful day, full of practical tips, inspiration and ideas.

NGH Day 2 notes

Some brief notes, since it's pretty late - about five minutes to midnite, actually...

Another great day. Lotsa talks on all aspects of the profession.
Went to several talks on marketing, how to update my website and how to use social networks for marketing. Sounds like I'm doing some things right, and have "opportunities" in some areas. Lots of new ideas to mull over and filter through.

Also went to a couple of talks on new hypnotic inductions and several new hypnotherapy modalities. Both of these were some very new ways of looking at things we had known for a long time. Sometimes, it's the essence of creativity to look at old things in new ways, and this was no exception.

A growing list of things to do coming from today's workshops, the indicator of a very useful conference. Lots more stuff later, as my mind wraps around what I've picked up today and yesterday.

End of brief notes.

Notes from the Guild - Day 1 of the NGH convention

Greetings from day 1 of the National Guild of Hypnotists conference in Marlborough (Boston), MA., the main gathering of the National Guild of Hypnotists each year.

Each year, we take over the Royal Plaza center in Marlborough, with three days of study of healing, trance and consciousness study. This is the tenth year I've been to the NGH, and each time I come here, I find something new and different - learning a totally new dimension of things about hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It's been a long day - starting at 9AM (I overslept the opening session, if you must know... :-). The whole day was filled with workshops - of varying topics and leaving me with varying impressions.

• Combining EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, aka tapping) with hypnotic induction.
• Hypnosis and the Internet.
• Developing and using ESP in your hypnosis practice, presented by Barbara Dryden Masse, a psychic and hypnotherapist with whom I've associated over the last 10 years.
• "how to use the web mesmerizingly" - a discussion on how to write material more in story form, a way to make the greatest impression on the reader.
• A workshop on personal/professional safety, put on by two speakers on self defence, law enforcement, etc., who are also hypnotists.
• Mid afternoon, I went to a talk on working with children. This was appropriate for me, since several of my recent (and presumably future) clients have been adolescents to young teens.
• The final talk I went to during the day was on working with deep trance, what is known as the Esdaile, Seycort and similar states - deep delta-state hypnosis. I also went to this talk last year and found that the teacher had done some interesting research since then.

After supper, I went to a two-hour workshop how to anchor hypnotic effects using cues from the physical environment, memories, touching the fingers together, etc., honing and fine-tuning the NLP and anchoring techniques I've learned over the years. The biggest theme of the day was fine-tuning - honing and improving what I've learned in the past.

One thing I've realized - I have become one of the more senior members of the guild - at least among those at the NGH conference this year. Many attendees were in their first or second year of their practice and reminded me of where I was about 10 years ago. Much of what I've noted is that the best teacher is experience. We all have a lot of learning to do...

And that was just day one...

Hypnosis and Religion - some healing words in a world of fear

Note: This article is based upon a Judeo-Christian perspective. For those readers of different faiths, including those which are non-theistic, please read on. The message is the same regardless of what your spiritual beliefs may be...

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About a month ago promising client of mine suddenly cancelled a session for which he had prepaid well in advance. He indicated that he was unable to get there and gave an ostensibly good reason for not showing up. I accepted the reason and left it at that. Then I learned more...

It turns out that this person, a man with high motivation, definite healing goals and a well-planned path toward achieving them, suddenly locked up in fear. What was the source? Unfortunately, for him it was a fundamentalist Christian relative who was frightened of hypnosis. This family member had unfortunately convinced him that I was doing the Devil's work. Hypnosis is evil and therefore a "true" Christian must avoid such temptations - at least according to this particular person.

These days, unfortunately, we live in a world ruled by fear. Some fear what is in the near future, including the uncertainty of dark economic times. Others fear what they do not understand - be it scientific anomalies or things outside of their own religious box. The latter definitely appeared to be the case here.

I have heard similar arguments about the "evils of hypnosis" before, often from well meaning "guardians" of clients, usually friends or family menbers who want to save them from "the dark side." All too often there is a misconception that hypnosis is about control, that it involves surrendering one's will (and maybe one's soul) to the hypnotist. There is also the belief that hypnosis opens one up to possession by the devil. Then, there is the misconception that hypnosis is somehow based upon occult religion, even leading to dark negative claims regarding the very motivations of the hypnotist.

I have written about these fears, misconceptions and limiting beliefs before (See The Christian view is... thoughts on religion and hypnosis), but for the sake of the reader, I will do so again, here:

1) Hypnosis is about mind control: This is a common myth, held by the fundamentalist Christian community, and by many in the meditation community as well. It states that hypnosis gives the hypnotist control over the client and that it results in the client becoming subject to the hypnotist's will. In fact, the core of hypnosis is just the opposite. It is about the clients assertion of control over their own mind and their ability to allow themselves to go inside to do the work of healing.

For a client to do well in hypnosis, they must have their own will intact. They must be able to concentrate, and to allow themselves to suspend disbelief in their own mental abilities. Hypnosis works best when the client has a strong discernment, the ability to see truth from falsehood. Fostering this ability by allowing them to understand and forgive past wrongs is an important part of hypnotherapy.

2) Hypnosis requires surrender to the hypnotist: This, too is a common myth, a close companion to that described above. However, the contrary is true. During hypnosis, the client ALWAYS has control of their own mind and soul. For hypnosis to work the best, the client has to be able to feel that self-control and let it guide them into their own work.

In fact, all hypnosis is really self hypnosis, with the hypnotist only acting as a guide. The real person doing the work is the client. I just ask the right questions at the right time, and the client's mind then provides the insight that leads to healing.

3) Hypnosis opens one up to demonic or diabolical possession: This idea is closely related to the claim that hypnosis reduces one's own personal discernment. Hypnosis functions best when the client suspends disbelief in his/her own inner capabilities. This also involves relaxation and other techniques to bring a shift in perspective. Unfortunately, suspension of disbelief and the talent for self-guided selective focus is often mistaken for "opening up" to potential negative (a.k.a. demonic) influences. However, each human being has their own God-given gift of discernment - the ability to discern right and wrong, good and evil. This is unaltered during the hypnotic process.

I have indeed had instances during hypnotic work where people encountered influences which were not in their best interests. However, these were invariably present prior to their meeting with me. Indeed, I've noted that such influences have often been carried with them from present or former religious associations. And these influences are frequently the exact issue that must be released and forgiven.

4) Hypnosis is associated with occult religions: This idea probably stems from the resemblance of hypnotic trance work with the practices and the rituals of most religions (including Christianity). in most faiths, consciousness-altering practices help people into a state of spiritual-related thought. These includes hymns and other music with binaural tones and/or a minor key, extensive use of lighting and symbolism, and messages fostering a shift to a spiritual persepctive.

These consciousness-related shifts are neither good nor bad, except in the eyes of the beholder. And especially in this case, when the beholder views any religious practice but their own as inherently evil, any such practice becomes branded with terms such as "occult", "satanic" or worse.

Many fundamentalist Christian writers like to talk about Mesmer, one of the pioneers of hypnosis, having had "occult" leanings. Indeed, hypnotists over the ages have most likely held a variety of spiritual beliefs, as have their contemporaries. While Mesmer and other pioneers may have had spiritual views that varied from orthodox Christianity, their views were most likely little different from those of their 18th Century contemporaries. At that time, this was most likely a mix of rationalism, Christianity and spiritualism.

Rather than bringing any message of spiritual belief to a client, I instead invite the client to use their very discernment to open their metaphorical eyes to the difference between the light and the dark side. I ask people to inquire for themselves, to form their own conclusions regarding that which is good and that which is evil.

Instead, of a dark focus, as part of healing work, I often invite my clients to focus on that which their faith is truly based - the envisioning of God, Jesus, or whichever religious figure they believe in. In truth, I have found that hypnotherapy deepens Christianity, rather than corrupting it. When so strengthened, I find that it fosters a whole-soul following of God, rather than a fear-based, rule-based orthodoxy.

5) Hypnotists are inherently occult-based; thus their motivations are suspect: This is an interesting myth, indeed. How can one truly gauge the motivation of each person? Are hypnotherapists somehow motivated by the dark side? And who but God is qualified to make that judgement?

In fact, the greatest motivation of the hypnotherapist is to bring healing work to those who ask for it. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, hypnosis is a gift that God has given to humanity. It is a natural state of being - occuring at least once each 90 minute ultradian cycle of consciousness. People often describe spontaneous hypnotic phenomena such as daydreaming, highway amnesia and deeply focused concentration (being "in the groove"). As a hypnotherapist, it is my job to help people utilize this gift to bring healing to their own lives.

My own belief is that true healing comes from God. And like any person who tries to do God's work, I am but an instrument. In this case, I have been given the gifts of opportunity to study and employ this amazing aspect of the human mind to help people achieve their healing goals.

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I often wonder, is the reaction I saw that day based upon a concern for a friend or family member's another's well-being? Or is it a fear that the the other person will begin to see for themselves that rules and fear do not work. Is it the fear that someone will begin to think and grow for his or her self and thus form their own personal relationship with their Higher Power? In that sense, rather than hypnosis being about control, perhaps it is the opposition to hypnosis which is based upon that very need for control.

Truly, the job of the healer is to provide the services in their specific tradition to foster wellness, empowerment and health, to act as a tool for release and forgiveness in a world dominated by fear. The mandate is clear while the gap within the community of fear is wide. Perhaps, one place to begin might just be with those very ones who fear the healing traditions.

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8/22/09 Update - More notes on hypnosis and religion:

I recieved a note from another friend of mine, who read this article. It contained a link to the website of a very respected clergyman and hypnotist, the Reverend Paul Durbin. Rev. Durbin is a highly respected member of the National Guild of Hypnotists, a long-standing authority on hypnotism, and of the Christian clergy. He has written an excellent article on this very subject, Hypnosis and Religion.

Paul is the consumate healer, and in my mind, the image of what a clergyman should be - kind, caring and compasionate - while at the same time, knowledgeable and authoritative on Christian beliefs and traditions.

For all interested in the topic of religion and hypnosis, I highly recommend Reverengt Paul Durbin's webpage: Hypnosis and Religion for a well-thought-out treatment of this subject by an expert in the field.