Close Encounters and Alien Contact - Why the Government Doesn't Matter

This is a draft of the fourth article in my four part series in The Edge

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In 15 years of working with UFO abduction experiencers, I've lost count of the number of times people have asked me 'how does the government fit into all of this?' The question is frustrating because I certainly don't know the answer. Yet it is also a very legitimate one, encapsulating the 64 thousand dollar question. How do the authorities of our world react to a presence from elsewhere that is beyond their control - even beyond their understanding?

At the same time, I frequently hear experiencers describe encounters both with alien beings and with military personnel. What is the relationship between them? Are they working together or do they oppose each other? Or is there a completely different dynamic at work here?

In my last article, I talked about the experiences of "Evelyn," one of the experiencers I describe in my book, The Cosmic Bridge. In that article, I described the initial stages of an alien encounter in which she was floated out of her bed and into a UFO. The result was intense fear and it it took considerable hypnotherapy work before we were able to begin regression. 

After being taken into the UFO, one of Evelyn's next memories is of walking down a hallway accompanied by several of the gray aliens. Through a glass panel on one side of the hallway, she observed a number of aliens as well as humans. At least some of the humans appeared to be high ranking military officers, apparently Air Force. She was compelled to walk down this hall in front of those behind the glass as if being reviewed. 

Was Evelyn actually being observed as part of a joint military/alien project? I don't know. But the account is similar to that of quite a few other experiencer encounters with both humans and aliens while in the alien realm. If we assume for a moment that Evelyn's experiences were not illusory and that the military personnel she observed were exactly that, we are left with tremendous questions. What is the relationship between the military and the phenomenon? Is the military, in some way, working with aliens? If so, toward what end? I suspect the answer is both complex beyond understanding, and yet also quite simple. 

Perhaps viewing the problem from the point of view of our military thinkers might yield a very different perspective. It's the job of a nation's military to protect that nation's security from threats by others. The job of a nation's Air Force is to secure its skies. For the US military, the job is to protect the USA from threats - whatever they may be.

Looking back over the last sixty years or so, we have seen a rapidly growing visitor presence in our skies - undeniable and beyond the reach of our military. Furthermore, this phenomenon is ls kidnapping our citizens and conducting experiments on them we don't even begin to understand. Given that the government's job is to protect its citizens - how do you think they would react?

In my previous article, we discussed some ideas of why the visitors might be here. Given our warlike nature and viewing our world and our civilization from the perspective of "Them" what would one conclude? Now imagine that this planetary species lurching toward its own destruction is developing the capability of carrying that destruction out into the galaxy. If you were the neighbors, what would you do?

In the previous article, and in my book, The Cosmic Bridge, I offer the hypothesis that the visitors are conducting what amounts to a "Human Improvement" project (improvement at least from their perspective). While there are probably multiple agendas behind the visitor presence, I suggest that one key purpose is to somehow modify humanity in preparation for the day when we humans begin to venture out into the stars on our own. 

During the 1940's and 50's, both the US and the Russian air forces had a shoot to kill order. The result was the brutal realization that their abilities are far beyond our own. If they wanted to, they could have destroyed us long ago. Yet they didn't - but they did learn that humans can't be trusted, at least at the top political levels.

So now, rather than Klattu landing on the White house lawn and saying "take me to your leader," contact appears to be occurring from the bottom up, one experiencer at a time. This process is occurring in our very midst. The visitors are able to come and go at will, with governments powerless to stop them. As a result human authorities have no say or control over the process. They are non-players in the contact drama.

Yet, from the point of view of governments, it is their job to create and enforce law and order, to protect their citizens and control their territory. Thus, to any military, the idea of something coming and going at will, abducting and potentially harming our citizens, would be fully unacceptable. Thus, we can imagine that there MUST be some kind of effort to reach technological or military parity with "Them." 

Given the high strangeness of close encounters, the hyper advanced visitor technology, apparent metaphysical and psychic nature of the phenomenon, how can governments even pretend to have any form of control? How could they try to understand the human-visitor interaction if not by observation, covert surveillance and interference in the lives of experiencers. Furthermore, while the government/military can't control the phenomenon, it can do the next best thing, control the people involved.

Many experiencers I have talked to over the phone, interviewed, or conducted hypnotherapy with have also described encounters with menacing but very human figures. They appear to stalk and monitor the experiencer, sometimes re-abducting experiencers following their close encounter experience. Several famous writers on the phenomenon have described abductions by military personnel. In many of these cases, the abductors appear to be trying to discover the reality behind the experiencer's interactions with the visitors.

I suspect government and military organizations throughout the world are all, in some way, trying to understand the phenomenon, come to terms with it, and perhaps gain the upper hand. To some extent, they are simply trying to do their jobs - for better or for worse. Yet contact goes on at the individual level and the government has little say in that process. So the answer to the question of what is the government and military's role in alien contact might just have a very simple answer: Ultimately, the govern doesn't matter.

CE4 Corner draft - Reclaiming our lives from 'Them'

This is a draft of my upcoming article for my column The CE4 Corner, in the Minnesota MUFON Journal. Comments are always welcome.

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In recent hypnotherapy work at Explore with Hypnosis, I have observed a common, sometimes heart-wrenching theme. Whether the cases involved alien abduction or more earthly issues, the theme is there. More often than not, the person's life story involves some form of life-long abuse and the sense (whether real or not) that at any moment, it could happen again. Often, the person involved has found themselves in the role of victim. In many aspects of life, the person has lost control of their very being.


In this article, I aggregate several recent cases into one to illustrate how this particular issue shows up, and how it can be resolved. A week or two ago, a woman I will call "Eleanor" came into my studio with a significant mind-body health issue. In this case, although she was an experiencer, the issue she wanted to work on had little to do with close encounters (at least on the surface). Rather, it involved significant pain, both physical and emotional. As I interviewed her, I found she had endured a life of abuse, both at the hands of humans and of other-than-humans.

There is no predicting either UFO abduction or abuse. An event causing intense fear could occur at any moment. There is no defense against it. The result is often a victim mentality - the sense that one isn't in control of one's own life. Left unchecked, the effects can cascade into fatalism, depression, substance abuse, and the litany goes on... The result can be severe, even life-threatening, while at the very least a source of misery to the client. In Eleanor's case, she had nearly given up, deciding there was nothing she could do. As a result, instead of externally, she carried the pain and struggle within her own body - resulting in significant mind-body illness.

During hypnotherapy with close encounter experiencers, I often find this issue of loss of control. Thus one of the greatest objectives often involves keeping, regaining or reasserting control over life. This is especially true when the event could occur again at any time.

During hypnotic regression, it turned out that there had probably been several abusers - some human, some nonhuman. In each case, Eleanor found herself back in earlier moments in life when she was being tormented. In each case, we had to do significant fear and pain management using a number of powerful hypnotherapy tools (the topic of another article) to help her come to terms with what had happened.

In the face of this seemingly random peril - this sword of Damocles hanging overhead, how could I help Eleanor resolve the fear, anger and helplessness that came with her experiences? How could she resolve her fear of "Them" returning at any moment.

In hypnotherapy, there are several techniques available to help a person come to terms with past or present pain. More often than not, they involve resolution, confrontation and forgiveness. Each is powerful, moving, and sometimes painful. And almost always, they are stunningly effective.

In one of the simplest techniques, which hypnotherapists call "chair therapy" or "forgiveness of others" (FOO for short), I invite the client/experiencer to imagine that the offender is sitting in a chair some distance away from the client (whether that offender is an alien or a human abuser is largely immaterial). In this case, I will just call the offender 'the bad guy'. As the FOO session gets going, I invite the client can say whatever they wish - the bad guy has to listen - it's my studio and my rules.

Now, as Eleanor confronted her abuser, a rather powerful string of expletives (quite uncharacteristic of Eleanor) flew across the room. While most such sessions are far less colorful, regardless of the delivery the core message gets through - a message of pain and confrontation.

Then I invited Eleanor to give the bad guy an opportunity to respond to her diatribes. The ultimate intent is to foster a dialog leading to forgiveness and in some cases, this can occur relatively quickly. In Eleanor's case, one of the bad guys - a relative from the past - quickly apologized, then faded from the scene.

But often - including other bad guys in Eleanor's life - it isn't that easy. When the bad guy is particularly abusive, he often feels little remorse. He either doesn't understand or he adopts an arrogant attitude. There is almost no way he's going to apologize - at least not without a little help. At this point, I invite the client to imagine filling a bucket with the pain the bad guy caused her. She imagines ripping it out by the roots and plopping it in the bucket or some similar imagery. In this case Eleanor's bucket was chock full of some very ugly stuff - both physical and mental/emotional pain.

I then have the client give the pain back to the bad guy. Again, since it's my studio and my rules, the bad guy has to take the pain, own it, feel it. Often at this point, the bad guy displays a powerful change of tone - a shift from arrogance to regret when the bad guy realizes the extent of the pain he has caused. When he feels all that pain cascading back to him, suddenly a change occurs. Often times, the result is an apology - tearful, heartfelt regret.

This basic sequence most often occurs when the bad guy is human - an unrepentant abuser from the client's childhood (usually no longer alive). Once this transformation occurs, the client/victim can then forgive the bad guy (at least in part) and let go of the hurt carried in their mind/body/soul most of their lives. The result is like shedding a hundred-pound weight, a burden they have carried on their shoulders for years.

As I watched, Eleanor confronted the abuser in her childhood and then let him go. In an instant, she shed the burden of years, setting aside most of a lifetime burden of anger and hatred. Her shoulders relaxed. She sat taller in the chair and looked as if she had just cast off a weight equivalent to that of a canoe or an ox yoke.

But sometimes, especially when dealing with alien abduction, the bad guy digs in and becomes even more arrogant. Especially when dealing with an 'alien' persona, the bad guy sometimes takes on the air of entitlement - a 'scientist' entitled to do what it wishes with it's experimental humans. On multiple occasions, the alien persona told me, directly channeling through the experiencer, that it/he/she has the right. They are superior beings, scientists conducting research for our own good. In Eleanor's case, this 'alien' was truly an arrogant piece of work.

I often hear the 'alien' claim that the experiencer agreed to this role, perhaps in a previous life, perhaps while a soul in a life between lives, or some other metaphysical (i.e. unprovable) scenario. In this case, an 'alien leader' claimed that Eleanor had given them permission while in the inter-life.

My response was "BS" (I often spell out the expletive full form but this is a newsletter fit for the whole family). I often tell the alien persona that I don't believe them, that the person (my client) is a living, conscious, sentient being in a free-will universe. He/she has the right to self-determination, happiness and free will. And 'you' (the bad guy) have no right to interfere with that.

The 'alien' persona often challenges me at that point - who am I (a mere human) to challenge its authority? (Imagine a lab mouse standing up to the scientist). My usual response is that I am the healer/hypnotherapist that Eleanor (or whatever the experiencer's name is) has asked for help. Eleanor has asked my help to deal with the pain YOU have inflicted upon her. This gives me every right to challenge you (the bad guy - add a few !!!! points here).

Often, at that point, the client/experiencer chimes in, concurring, emboldened. All during this time, she is feeling increasingly empowered by the fact that someone has finally believed them, finally stood up to the abuser. As Eleanor broke into the conversation, I heard her increasingly strident voice telling the alien persona in no uncertain terms, to go away.

I often ask the client's spiritual side or higher self what relationship he/she actually wants to have with the phenomenon. At that point, the experiencer often asserts her own authority over her life, telling her alien tormentors, 'I forbid this' or 'I revoke permission' to do this. The result is often a surprise.

On more than one occasion, I have heard the 'alien persona' suddenly change from a heartless lab scientist to something more like a teacher. In The Cosmic Bridge, I describe the case of 'Jenny,' who had experienced a lifetime of torment at the hands of the phenomenon. During this confrontational stage of hypnotherapy, as she stood up to her alien captors, I heard the leader unexpectedly say something like 'GOOD, you finally get it...'

For Jenny and Eleanor, the lesson appears to be that each of us is a soul living a human existence. And as such, we each have the inalienable (no pun intended) right to our own sovereignty. We have the right to grant and/or revoke permission in any relationship, be it with humans or aliens.

Could that be the actual point, the reason for at least some of the negative aspects of the close encounter phenomenon? Could part of our interaction with the phenomenon, the darker, challenging side, actually be a lesson? Could the phenomenon in some sense be trying to teach us this very subject?

When this change occurs within the experiencer's subconscious, the result is nearly always a profound transformation. Fear becomes greatly reduced (or vanishes). Often, the abduction events change character - or even cease altogether.

It's a matter of individual discernment, whether the experiencer is actually talking with a real alien being. One hypothesis is that there is indeed a degree of telepathic contact going on. However another view is that, like release and forgiveness involving other human bad guys (living or deceased), the alien persona is simply a representation within the experiencer's mind. While several experiments might be possible to prove which is the case, for the healing process in my studio, the result is immaterial.

In addition, it's not clear whether an actual change occurs in the physical dynamics of the phenomenon. In my view, since we don't understand what the phenomenon actually is, the actual impact on the abduction scenario is still beyond understanding. But that's a topic for a different article - one we've covered in the past, and will again in the future. But whatever the case, nearly every experiencer has told me that their interactions with the phenomenon changed dramatically following this work.

Following forgiveness and assertion process, the fear they once felt, the dread of random kidnappings during the night, vanishes. Sometimes abductions turn into contacts - voluntary interactions. Sometimes they involve metaphysical gifts such as healing, psychic abilities, etc. Some become a religious experience - turning their soul and their experiences over to God (in whatever way they believe in God). And for still others, the interaction ceases altogether as they slam the door on their abductors.

Have we 'solved' the problem of alien abduction? No(!!!). I do not believe we even understand what the phenomenon is and what it's doing in our world. Therefore, as mentioned above, we still don't know how it has actually changed for the experiencer.

Have we found a way to help the experiencer? Yes, I believe we definitely have found a way to reduce the pain of the experience. Now, the experiencer can come to terms with whatever is going on. And in that, I believe we have made an important first step, helping the experiencer to regain sovereignty over his/her life. Now, we can begin to reclaim our lives from 'Them.'

The Tyrany of the to-do list

In recent weeks, The Circle of Healing Arts, the healers' cooperative where Explore with Hypnosis calls home, has been growing. We have added several new people in various forms of healing modalities, and all of our practices have been growing. This next couple of weeks, our open house is taking shape. We are busier than ever...

All of this growth and activity means that we've experienced a few growing pains. One of them has been the electronic infrastructure, another has been the financial structure, while yet another another has been the organization - who does what, when. Each one of these questions has found answers and it's been fascinating to watch and be part of an organization as it takes shape. It's been a fascinating study in dynamic self-organization, a structure arising based upon a need/objective and a source of energy = us.

For me, one of the side effects has been that as we get busier, my to-do list has grown. As I think of things that need to be done, I add them to the list. In fact, I now have several lists, one for short term things - things that need to get done promptly by yesterday, one for ideas, one for tasks that take a little longer, etc.etc.etc. While they such lists tend to make it easier keep track of things I need to get done, they also can take on a life of their own. The end result is these little stress-reduction tools can, in themselves, become a source of stress.

One of the things a to-do list does for you is to lay out in full detail, just what I have set out for myself to do. As the list grows, it is immediately obvious. And I often find that when the list has reached a certain size, I begin to feel overwhelmed - usually when the window displaying the list suddenly shows a scroll bar... :-)

A couple of times, in the last month or two, I have actually awakened early - before the alarm, totally uncharacteristic of me - with the to-do list dancing in front of my mind's eye. If a client were to describe something like that to me, I would ask what they could do to lighten their load, to prioritize, to pursue other stress management strategies - time to practice what I preach.

Sometimes, when an immediate set of tasks weighs on your mind, especially if it's early in the morning, it is just best to get up, get going and get things done. I often find that checking off a few of the to-do items helps alot, and then I can close my eyes in meditation a little bit later.

Other times, to manage the stress of having too much to do - how am I ever going to get all of this done? - is to sit back and simply do nothing. A couple of days ago, as we were thick into the planning of the Circle of Healing Arts open house, and at the same time I was wrestling with some of the coop electronic infrastructure, I simply did that. Gwyn and I got out a bottle of wine, put a couple of burgers on the grill, and simply enjoyed a nice summer evening. It did wonders for putting things into perspective.

Some times you just have to play fetch with the dog, watch an old movie on TV, or do other things that have no productive value whatsoever. Not everything has to serve a purpose, and the dog dropping a rag bone at your feet is one of the best ways in the world for God to remind you of that.

Finally, I have pulled out my iPhone or iPod and played my own stress management self-hypnosis recording. Many others have told me it is pretty effective, and at times like this, it's important to remember to practice what I preach - and it helps.

But probably the best thing is to remember that like all other things in life, this too shall pass. The to-do list can sometimes look endless and ominous, yet it is made up of events and tasks that will pass, one way or another. You can simply decide not to do them, you can get them done, or you can ignore them. Either way, at some point they will be a distant memory. And on that day, you will realize that they were - and you are.

Ultimately, the key is to remember that they are only what you make them to be. It's easy to forget that in the heat of battle. But sometimes to-do lists can be challenges that force us to look away from those very to-do lists. Mindfulness exercises can help - focusing on the physical world, playing fetch with the dog, flipping a burger on the grill, wiggling your toes and feeling the beauty of a late summer evening.

The ultimate gift is the freedom of now. It is a wonderful refuge and a great way to beat the monster - the tyrany of the to-do list.

The view from the horizon

So you want to make a change - a fundamental shift in your career or life direction.

For each of us, at some point, the question arises - where am I going? Where does my path lead? Do I like where that path is taking me? Does it go where I want to go? For many, the answer is yes - but for many more, the answer is no - not any more... When that not-anymore feeling hits you, what do you do?

Maybe you have a vision, an idea. Maybe you want to start your own business, become a healer, consultant, coach, inventor, freelance engineer, or some other endeavor. The idea runs through your mind daily - especially just after you've gotten back from lunch, just before the afternoon staff meeting. What am I doing still here in this cubicle? How can I shake off the golden handcuffs? why am I still in my day job? And most of all, how can I bust out of the box.

I remember these feelings well. I spent many years asking myself these same questions, with the cubicle walls looking back at me - silent and mocking, giving no answer. I worked at my job, trying to find a way into the world where I knew I belonged. Yet I saw no way of actually getting there. So finally, hopelessly, I changed roles in my present-day (at that time) job. In that more tolerable situation, I watched and waited until the right moment. And then, when I least expected, the right moment came.

But what was the difference between the day I wondered if I would ever get away and the day I finally did? Were those two days any different from each other? Or were they, in a sense, the same?

The answer to both questions is yes.

The only reason that, today, I can call myself a freelancer is that someone or something opened the door. Blessings in disguise, in the form of company layoffs and a good severance, my wife having a good military retirement package, and other pieces of providence suddenly and unexpectedly combined to close off the old path. And in the process, it opened a new door. It is not something I could have planned, or even predicted. Suddenly the changes were just there.

During my years of casting about with the question of where my road actually went, I went to many, many career workshops. Over about five years, I think I must have undergone at least ten (probably a lot more) "what do I want to do when I grow up" classes and exercises. And they all came back with the same answer. The clearly spelled out what I already know - what I really wanted to do in life. But they said next to nothing about how I should go about doing it. In that, I was on my own.

So on the day you get your own answer back - where do I want to go - what are you going to do about it? Will you, like I did for so many years, let yourself flounder about lost? Will you be stuck in the same paradigm box? Or will you find a way to break out? I'm betting there is a way, but it will require a sudden leap of creativity - an imaginative solution that seems beyond the pale, beyond linear thinking. Or, perhaps, like me, you could just get lucky - in a way, I wonder if the two are the same thing.

The journey to successful change is a long, difficult one. But it is traveled one step at a time. each of us started somewhere, and each of us wants to end up somewhere. Do you have a vision already? If so, then looking at some the most successful people in your field do you wonder - "could I possibly ever accomplish that?" Is there any hope? Are your current actions such that they could possibly lead to the future you want? What do you need to do? 

Can you achieve that using the same techniques and traditions - the same paradigm - you've always used? Most of us are bound by the constraints of present-day thinking. We use the model of incremental change, continuous improvements, steady refinements to solve existing problems. Yet can these get you beyond the horizon? With them, can you do the impossible? Or will you continue doing the same old thing - albeit maybe with a slightly different twist?

Over the years, I have always been a space buff. One of my greatest passions has been the idea of one day traveling to the stars. And in the last 20 years, as the internet has come onto the scene, I have taken every opportunity to follow the work of researchers seeking to push the outer edge of the known. Many physicists have been quietly working to come up with that breakthrough that will take us into the cosmos, and in studying their work I came across an interesting new way of thinking.

It was at the 1996 National Space Society conference in Orlando Florida when I first heard of it. During a pesentation by Dr. Mark Millis, entitled 'Warp Drive When?', I heard of what is entitled the Horizon Mission Methodology. It is structured thought process for breaking out the box in a very well-defined way, bringing usable but unprecedented results. It is a way to envision the future in a constructive, creative non-linear way, yet apply structure to that creativity to bring it back to the present day. Then finally, it helps us to figure out how to make that creativity happen, beginning with the first step.

So what is the Horizon Mission Methodology? How does it work? How does one go into the future, then come back in such a way that they can make that future happen? As its name implies, the Horizon Mission Methodology (HMM for short) is not about incremental improvements. It is about reaching over the horizon. It is about radical change, beyond linear thinking. And to do this, we need to be in the future. The most beautiful thing about this - hypnotists are very good at doing just that. We call it future pacing and it is something I do with clients on an almost-daily basis. 

In subsequent incarnations, the HMM has become de-NASA'ized (the word 'mission' has been removed, and its applicability to other areas besides space travel has been explored). It has now become known as the New Horizon Methodology (NHM). This adapted HMM or NHM consists of five steps:

Step 1) World Building

Envision the future - where do you want to be?

Venture beyond the possible.  Let your imagination go beyond what we can currently do. The only requirement is that this new world must in some way be 'impossible.'

Step 2) Details of the Future

Characterize and analyze this future world. What are the motivating forces, dynamics, etc? What makes this new world beyond the horizon tick.

Step 3) Enabling Elements

Identify key elements of this new world - key innovations needed. What key things are required to make it happen? At this point, the biggest challenge is to stay out of the box, not lapse back into incremental thinking. We need to use high-level description and imaginative terms here - to stay out in the 'blue sky'.

Step 4) Seeing the long path

Now, imagine looking back from the horizon world: What changes were required - what paths did you need to follow to make these key things happen? Note the journey(s) that got you to this realm beyond-the-horizon.

Step 5) The first steps

Finally, identify the early steps along the path(s) identified in step 4. What are the biggest-bang-for-the-buck endeavors to achieve these changes. At this point, you can begin to plan out how to take those first gigantic 'baby steps,' leading beyond the known.

As I look back at the changes I've experienced over the last year or two, I now realize that the HMM was exactly what I did. Once I was able to give up 'hope' (i.e. linear thinking), and let-go/let-God, suddenly the future happened. Without knowing it, I had formed the world, seen the changes, and followed them, one step at a time. I had no idea at the time that I was doing this. But now, as I look back on the pivotal events of early 2012, I realize this is exactly what happened. I followed the path and suddenly, before I knew it, I was on the horizon. And if I can do it, anyone else can, too. 

So let's go back to the problem that bedeviled me, and now bedevils so many potential entrepreneurs, healers and individual idealists of the present day: How can I transcend the bounds of my 'day job' to launch my own endeavor? How can I make a radical career change, breaking out of my present paradigm box. The problem is very easy to state - the horizon is clear. Unfortunately, the path to it seems 'impossible.' And yet, this makes it a perfect candidate for the HMM. 

To someone like me - i.e. a hypnotist - the HMM is a great way to envision and create the future. For anyone who studies consciousness studies, meditation, manifestation, or any of the other means of  future world-building, envisioning is a well-established skill. And in HMM, it is the first step. So let's go into a meditative state and imagine this future world. Let's identify what we see in this world, then develop our path from the present day to that future:

Step 1) World Building: In the case of radical career change, what does this mean? In short, it means you need to create your new 'horizon' world in your mind. 

Imagine you are there. What does this new world look like? What is your role - your 'be'ing? What do you do as your part of that world? What is your job? Or do you even have a job? What does your day look like? What does it feel like going to work? What does your workplace or personal environment look like? As part of your work-life balance, what is your personal life like? Are you married or single? In a relationship? At the end of the day (does the day even end?) how do you feel when you go home from work? What does it feel like when you are not at work? Do you feel at home?  And what does it feel like when you are on vacation?

For anyone experienced in meditation, this is an easy step. As long as we can get out of our own way, we can allow the future to build itself within the mind. We can see the new world growing, first within us and then in the world outside of our own minds. Let go, let God - allow the world to build - and then let it manifest around you.

Step 2) Details of the future: Once you have envisioned this world, you can begin to ask some questions. What about this time makes you happy and why? What is it about this world that caused you to build it in the first place? 

In this world, what works and what could work better? Are there problems you are working on here? what is your mission in this world? What is it about this time you are striving for?
In this world, what is your next goal and how will you know when you have achieved it?

In subsequent meditations, allow yourself to notice details. See and feel the details of your day in this horizon world. What do you love about it? Being somewhat realistic (casting aside the rose-colored glasses) what challenges are there in this world?

Step 3) Key elements of this world

What key aspects of this world are different from the present-day world? Staying abstract and at a high level, what are the most important and most novel things about this world? How are they different from the world of the present day?

While in deep meditation, begin to look at some of the key elements of this world. What are the cool new things here? What do you see that looks impossible, or that is far removed from your everyday reality? Note them and - without judging or becoming 'realistic,' simply accept them as part of this future 'horizon' reality.

Step 4) Paths to the horizon
Now look back from this time in the future. Tell your story from the perspective of your horizon world. How did you get here? What fundamental changes had to occur? What challenges did you have to meet to allow your horizon world to take shape?

While still in deep meditation, look back from your horizon world. What did you have to do to get here? Along that road what were some of your challenges? What were some of your triumphs? How long of a road was it? What did you have to learn and what did you have to un-learn? Looking back along that road, what did it feel like as you were traveling it? When did you have the most hope? When did it seem the most difficult? And when was the goal 'impossible?'

Step 5) The first steps
Now we come back to the present day. When in meditation or hypnosis, imagine what it was like when you first started out on that road from the present day toward your new horizon world. What was the first step you took along the path? What was the next step, and the next?

Shifting your perspective back to the present day, what step(s) will you take now? What is your short-term time horizon for these steps? What will you achieve from eafchand how will you know when you have accomplished them?

Allow your mind to fix the perspective of traveling that path, assume success and set your sights on that nearer-term goal. Anchor the idea of being on the path, and the vision of being at different points along the way - perhaps by touching a finger to a thumb and rubbing it slightly. In NLP, this is known as an anchor, a reminder to your inner mind that you can achieve each new step along the way.

Ultimately, in the present day, How can you develop a plan, a set of steps to take you down your road to the horizon? And now that you've identified those step(s), what will you do to follow up - making sure you stay on track with each step?In one month? two months? six months? How can you keep yourself moving? 

Each day, I challenge you to envision yourself on the path. Each day, I challenge you to do the meditation or self-hypnosis to reinforce that vision and keep yourself on that path.

In future articles, we will look at each individual step in the HMM - applying it using self-hypnosis and thus, from your new horizon, seeing yourself reaching that goal one step at a time.

The view through the window

A friend of mine called a few weeks ago, someone I hadn't talked with for a while. She and I had talked for years, intermittently by phone, facebook, IM, and lots of other ways. Like me she had spent years in the comfort of CubeWorld, wearing beautiful golden handcuffs - shackled to her job and its steady income as she raised a family. Yet her greatest desire has always been to be a healer to serve the world. She was already pratcticing very part time and she was champing at the bit, wanting go get her show on the road (in her case, the world will be a much better place as she takes that step). Yet for now, like me for so many years, she was stuck in that holding pattern - waiting for the right time, the right resources, the right family circumstances to finally make her move.

Well, to my delight, it appears that process is now in the works. While at this moment she is still at the "day job," she appears poised to make that leap. It is that sudden stomach leaping, heart stopping jump off the high dive. I'm not sure what she had done in the week or two since I talked with her, but my guess is that God's world now has another, very skilled full-time healer. And that evening on the phone, she told me she had a dream of being outside of a department store window, a beggar looking in at a wealth of material goods with no way to purchase any of them. I asked her how she felt during the dream - what her emotions were. She said 'cold and free'. 

Another friend of mine, a business coach, once likened the difference between being an employee and being freelance to the difference between house pet and a wild animal. The house pet has it made - a warm bed, fed every day, held on it's human's lap and petted, etc. But there is no freedom, no room for initiative. It will never start a company and it will never solve any of the world's great problems. For the house pet, there are only expectations that it is and always will be at the bottom of the heap. Its only purpose is to entertain its humans. It lives in a comfortable gilded cage and if it's home is good, then it is set for life.

And then there is the wild animal. The wild animal has left the comforts of home - living out in the world where there are no comfy beds or guaranteed food. The wild animal never quite knows where its next meal is going to come from, yet It has complete freedom - if it can survive. If it is good at living in the wild, it can thrive. But first it must stay alive.

I remember vividly the first day I had as a freelancer. It was the day I got laid off from the day job. I had a great time in my exit interview, handing out my hypnotherapy flier. Then, suddenly that evening, I realized the magnitude of what I had decided to do. Now, I was on my own and the thought was terrifying. 

That night I had a dream very similar to my friend's. I had been walking up a stairs through interesting rooms and floors in a comfortable house (in truth, I really enjoyed what I was doing at my last job. It was the corporate culture I disliked). There were pleasures and challenges but most of all, it was an interesting, comfortable place to be.

Then, as I ascended the stairs, they suddenly ended in a glass doorway, and beyond that door there was nothing. I could see a lighted hallway beyond. It was sparse, but it was large and free. No more comfortable rooms and no more pleasant places within the house. Now I was free in a vast but cold world. There was enough to live on, if I knew how. As I stepped out the exit, I could look back through the window and see the pleasant apartment building with gardens, and with dinner tables set with food and drink. But that door was now closed. I was free and on my own.

The dream hit me even harder the next night as during the day, I had decided not to pursue a new job lead. I had committed to the path that left behind my career as a software developer - that nice cushy house-pet job - to become a freelance healer. That day, I filed my corporate papers and made my statement to the world. I was now a hypnotherapist with my own business and no salary (to be fair I did have a nice severance to tide me over for a while). 

I have heard many spiritual teachers tell me all about the law of abundance. When you are on the right track, when you are doing what you are meant to do, somehow the Universe falls in step with you. Like the lillies of the field, God takes care of them. In the Christian teachings, it's called having faith. And now, as I book new clients, sell books and CDs and arrange new speaking engagements, that road is clear to me. Yet on that day, a year and a half ago, just as for my friend on the phone a week or so ago, that table of abundance looked a long ways off.

Now, I was on the life path of an independent business person - feeling as if I had just walked from a warm comfortable pet bed out into the dark mysterious forest. While I might still be able to see in the door, it was now closed behind me. Like my friend who is just beginning her entrepreneurial path, I was free. And like her, I could feel the cold of being outside, staring into the unknown.

On that moment, I could see comfort and abundance at the table behind me but that was not where my path lay. Now, all I could do was look backwards in the window one more time - and then take my first steps out into that brave new world.

Tell me a story...

I've always been amazed at the power of stories both to bring healing into the thoughts, emotions and beliefs, and to help us understand the innermost dynamics of the subconscious mind. They can be a big help when a person is new to hypnosis, or otherwise less able to go into hypnotic trance using a traditional formal induction. And this has often gotten me to thinking about how throughout our history, stories have been key to shaping our views and beliefs. Indeed, they seem to be the most natural way for the inner mind to communicate ideas and beliefs.

Over the last week or two, I've had several clients who had difficulty initially going into hypnosis. Most often, I've found this to be with a first time client who doesn't quite know what to expect. The person often wants to make the process work so badly that the conscious mind pitches in to help. The person 'tries and tries' but gets nowhere. That's because the part of the mind that 'tries' is the conscious mind, not the subconscious. To quote Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, 'There is no try, only do.' 

During my pretalk with new clients, I talk about the expectations - what will you most likely experience during hypnosis, how will you know when you are in hypnosis, etc. I explain what hypnosis is and what hypnosis is-not. Specifically, hypnosis is NOT a form of magic. It is also not sleep. While in a hypnotic state, you will probably feel just about like you feel in everyday life. Some may experience a sensation similar to a daydream, or to reading a book. Whenever you experience the sensation of 'time-flies when you're having fun' you have experienced hypnosis.

Another analogy I use is the experience of reading a good novel. When you're really got into that story, perhaps you experienced that same time-flies feeling. Maybe you found yourself identifying with the hero, or maybe some other character in the story. Most of all, you found you were able to build a picture in your mind of the world the author described. For the moment, that is a temporary reality, suspension of disbelief just long enough to accept this temporary world. This, too, is hypnosis. 

Technically, hypnosis is merely that bypass of the critical/skeptical factor - that disbelief factor that does a good job of protecting the subconscious mind. It provides our innate discernment against falsehood in our world. It does its job well - often too well and in some cases, the story is one of the few ways to get that suspension of disbelief. While only a short-term reality, the lessons contained within a story are ways in which the subconscious mind can be influenced - or, in  other words, one way of bringing about a hypnotic trance.

With first-time clients, after having completed the initial pre-hypnotic interview, and then explaining about hypnosis, I spend the last half of the first session guiding the client into the initial trance experience. Usually this is a combination of a gentle but formal induction, guided imagery, NLP and direct suggestion. It is a time when the client can feel what it's like to move around in trance and it's a time to visit positive memories, empowering events, etc.

Yet sometimes - usually with new clients - I find the traditional hypnotic induction doesn't work as well. Often, even after an extensive hypnotic pre-talk, the person still doesn't know what hypnosis should feel like. At that point, the conscious mind can sometimes step in and make up its own expectations - often wrong. So how do we establish that initial trance state when the client isn't yet ready to go in using a formal abduction. This is when we can fall back on the world's oldest hypnotic induction - the story.

The story (or naturalistic) induction can weave a deep, captivating hypnotic trance state even as the client is carrying on a casual conversation in my office. So for the client who 'can't get there' or 'doesn't feel anything' I sometimes say 'screw the hypnosis. Just tell me a story about when felt..." As the client relates an account of whatever event is most in their mind, they invariably begin to experience hypnotic regression - they are in deep trance in a moment, without doing any kind of formal hypnotic induction.

So in several cases, as formal inductions didn't work the first time, I simply asked the client to "tell me a story about..." Before you know it, the client has slipped into that daydream state, or deeper. It's always a joy (and alot humbling) to see everyone so soon afterwards, just as if I had done a formal induction and soon client is in deep trance.

So, when a ritualized formal induction breaks down, it is critical to be able to haul out your narrative skills. It is a wonderful gift to speak with the inner-child elements within a person. And in this case, we can bring hypnosis to a client, bringing out these skills simply by asking the client to "Tell me a story..."

'Nobody believes me" - Facing the extraordinary experience

Each year, on the day after the NGH convention, I come home with my head chock full of ideals. One of those is the echo of feedback I get every year from other hypnotists who ask me, 'when are you going to teach your class on UFOs again?' I have to tell the person that my class proposal got rejected several years in a row. Yet every day, a new person contacts Explore with Hypnosis with the same comment, "Nobody believes me, but..."

This year, I think I'll put in for a workshop that boils the extraordinary experience down to its essence. The core of the experience - the shattered reality - revolves around one question. What can you do to heal the pain when nobody believes you?

I went to several classes on topics such as chakra balancing, energy healing and past-life regression. In each case, there was a common theme, techniques (however new-agey) that appear to be quite effective. They are each ways, tools in the toolbox, aiding hypnotists in work with their clients. But what happens when the client comes into the hypnotherapist's office with something truly unusual? What happens when the story the client brings in goes beyond the paradigm box of the hypnotist or other provider?

Extraordinary experiences don't necessarily need to involve the "U" word (silently, looking both ways, he whispers the three forbidden letters 'U-F-O'). They can involve a lot of different unusual events. These can include near-death experiences (anyone who has had one will tell you there is nothing "near" about them), sudden psychic awakenings and spiritual experiences, unexpected kundalini awakenings during meditation, shamanic journeys that resulted in more than the journeyer bargained for - and/or simply feeling lost on the spiritual/metaphysical road of life. The common thread is that, for the person sitting in my office, the experience was either unexpected or uninvited.

I don't know of anyone who would voluntarily undergo most of the experiences in this general category of events. Yet for each, the trial ultimately seems to lead to an awakening. I call it the Forge of God, that time in life where God subjects you to fire and torment, ultimately forging an entirely new you. Yet the Forge of God is a fiery place and in the process of remaking you, it leaves that "you" with a lot of stress and pain to work out. It leaves that "you" with a shattered reality that needs to heal.

Whether it is the UFO abductee in my office, the person undergoing paranormal or metaphysical challenges, physical injuries or mind-body health issues, each person has a story to tell. It's often a story of karma, past-life and present-day challenges and/or a host of extraordinary events. In each case, few people in the world seem willing to listen with an open mind and empathetic heart. 

During late night calls, and/or when the experiencer is sitting in my studio, I oh-so-often find myself listening to the same narrative. It's begins with "you're going to think I'm crazy but..." - and proceeds from there. And buried within each is the plaintive voice alone in their own private wilderness crying: 

"...nobody believes me"

The day after...

It's good to be home. And today is definitely the day after...

Yesterday afternoon, about mid-afternoon, I got home from the National Guild of Hypnotists (NGH) convention in Marlborough MA. Gwyn picked me up from the airport - and she was definitely a sight for sore eyes. I had been traveling for three weekends in a row, now. The last weekend of it, the Guild is always an intense weekend. Seeing my dear wife's face as she waited for me at luggage claim was a delight.

We stopped for lunch and then returned home - to be greeted by the other two ladies in my life - Libby and Stormy. It's nice to be home.

After getting home and unpacking, I went in to work for a few hours, time at the Explore with Hypnosis office, which turned out to be quite a few hours. I spent quite some time dealing with technology issues, reading through about 180 e-mails and other back-from-traveling things that await you on your desk. The biggest of these is a three-mile-long to-do list.

One of the biggest things I bring home from NGH each year is that big to-do list. NGH is full of practical hints, tips and tricks on how to conduct your healing practice. I learned a lot about marketing - including some things I seem to be doing correctly and a few areas of "opportunity." I also learned quite a few things about how to set up automation for my storefront, how to plan and schedule clients, how to give and get referrals, etc. All in all, it was an action-packed weekend and gave me the sense of trying to drink from a firehose.

All tolled, I think I'm doing things pretty well. I think I've learned a few things in 15 years as a hypnotists, and I think I have a whole lot more things to learn. I connected with a lot of old friends and made some really great new ones. I came away with a lot of things to do, and I also learned a few things that I didn't need to do after all. And just as in every year, this time, I get a full charge of inspiration by the end of the weekend - and a very long to-do list.

Today, I spent most of the day doing paperwork, including a fair amount of time and money ordering new inventory of my CDs and books. I booked a couple of new trade shows and prepared a workshop for tomorrow evening at the Circle of Healing Arts. And like any coop, the Circle is reaching its stride. We have an open house tomorrow with mini-sessions during the day. In the evening I am teaching a stress-management workshop. So that was another thing I was busy putting together. 

Each year, as I'm sitting on the airplane returning from NGH, I find myself taking stock of what's happened and how it's gone so far. This year has been one of getting my feet on the ground as a full-time entrepreneur. It is a time when I am getting my hypnosis practice going full-boar and starting to see quite a few clients. So, in the end, I feel blessed - blessed that I can be of service to those around me, and that those around me see value in what I have to offer.

All in all, it's been a busy day, and a very positive one. It's also been typical of those moments after I unpack the suitcase, clear out the paperwork and dig through the e-mails. Like any other trip, business or pleasure (when you love what you do, it tends to be both at the same time), today was definitely the day after.

Alien variations on a theme.

As I start to write down this blog entry, it's mid morning on a beautiful day - at least as beautiful as a Monday gets, anyway. I'm waiting for my ride back to the airport from a weekend of doing regression work for a MUFON team in another part of the USA. 

Yet just as I've done several times this summer, on this weekend, I've been doing a lot of hypnotic regression work on location with other state MUFON chapters. Mostly, it's been for MUFON field investigation organizations with on-going close encounter cases and no available hypnotherapist. Now, it's once again time to return home to Explore with Hypnosis, resume building my hypnotherapy practice and begin once again helping people quit smoking, lose weight and build their own confidence.

Yet even among my own efforts at normalcy, it appears that the UFO phenomenon has been pretty busy, and as a result, so am I. But what am I actually finding? What are experiencers telling me? Is there a single coherent message? A single set of events that repeats over and over? Actually, no. Instead, I'm seeing a lot of different types of things happening in the abduction experience - a wide variety of variations on a theme.

At the MUFON conference a few weeks ago, a lecture by one famous abduction researcher (I won't mention his name) talked about how the phenomenon appears to have a very definite agenda, one quite unhealthy for humanity and it's sovereignty over Earth. UFO abduction seems to follow a defined process and gives rise to some well-documented events. According to this hypnotist's findings, everything seems very consistent from one abductee to the next. In subsequent discussions with him I pointed out that in my hypnosis work with experiencers, I don't get the same consistency he does. In response he told me that (roughly paraphrased) I must not be looking hard enough.

Could this be the case? Could there be a consistency that somehow the aliens are concealing? Or is there another explanation? To push much harder, would I be peeling layers off the onion, or adding new layers?

One of the foremost tenets of the hypnotherapy school, through which I trained and certified, has been the absolute necessity of clean, non-leading regression. Especially when trying to understand events as the experiencer lived them, it is vital that we avoid any suggestion that might artificialy influence the clients biographical memory. Thus, when doing hypnotic regression for close encounter work, I try to limit my questions to generic ones such as "please continue", "what's happening?", "what else do you notice?" and similar. Perhaps as a result of accepting whatever arises, I find the client's biographical memory (memory of physical events as the client lived them) tend to be quite varied.

One's memory is a mixture of physical perceptions, conscious interpretations, subconscious metaphors, etc. Each person's story, as told by their subconscious during hypnosis is exactly that - their story. Perceptions are seldom the same. Yet in cases such as multiple participant UFO sightings and close encounters, details and different people's narratives do sometimes corroborate each other. Thus we can surmise that at least some of the time, we are getting objective recall of events as the experiencer  lived them.

So, what does it tell me when different experiencers describe very widely varying types of close encounters? Does it mean that the actual encounters themselves are different? Or as the speaker at the MUFON conference stated, does it mean that the experiencers, themselves are changing the narrative?

One way of eliciting detail in hypnotic regression is to have the client repeatedly pass through the event during hypnotic regression. If the narrative is of a biographical memory, the account should be identical from one pass to the next, yet with increasing detail. (as Mark Twain said, 'Tell the truth, you have to remember so much less.'). In many a close encounter regression, I have done just that. I have had the client repeatedly pass through the narrative. In some cases, the narrative does not remain stable, suggesting that this is a metaphor, a dream or some type of creative material. In other cases, the narrative develops just exactly as described above - stable with increasing detail.

In one case, which I describe in The Cosmic Bridge, an experiencer described having childhood memories of playing with elves in her back yard. I figured that once in trance, this would probably resolve into an encounter with aliens, probably the classic small grays. However, when we began regression and she described once again how she played with elves - and the were elves. We examined this event in several different ways, recounting it forward and backward. And the elves remained elves. Finally, I had pushed it enough. I had examined the narrative from every angle I could think of and to do anything more would potentially result in leading the experiencer into describing something that she hadn't actually experienced. And so, as far as I'm concerned, this little girl played with elves in her back yard.

Do I really believe that this little girl played with elves? Her narrative was consistent and bore all the hallmarks of a biographical (i.e. true) memory - but of elves? Ultimately, we just have to take this as being one of those strange mysteries the universe throws at us, and put this in the file drawer next to all the other mysteries. I can only accept that for this woman, her story is true - it is her story and she's sticking to it...

In many other cases, I have found the narrative deviates from the classic small-gray abduction scenario, what I refer to as the "Standard Model" of alien abduction. In several regressions I performed this weekend, the beings experiencers described were quite different from the classic small grays. Their mannerisms and description differed. The abduction scenario was very different from one experiencer to the next. Even the descriptions of the beings themselves were different. While there is a core commonality to the experience, I tend to find wide variations on that theme.

According to the presenter I talked with, this meant I wasn't pushing enough, yet I was as persistent as I dared to be. Anything more than that would require me to lead the witness beyond the data inherent in their actual experiences. So what does imply for the claims that the alien abduction narrative seems to be standard across the entire world population? To me it raises questions, and I will let the reader conclude exactly what those questions should be (without leading them to the answer).

In summary, while there does seem to be a core consistency to the alien abduction narrative, there are also a lot of difference - Alien variations on a theme. Who is right, the clean regression school or those hypnotists who consistently produce the same narriative each time. 
What do you conclde?