Akashic Records and Past Lives - Speculations in an e-mail dialog

In the last few days, I have been putting together a couple of workshops I am teaching on past lives and on the Akashic records. This will be at the Minneapolis Theosophical Society in August. 

• August 11th, at 7PM to 9PM, I will be talking about the Akashic Records in Physics and Meditation.
• August 25th, at 7PM to 9PM, I will be leading a workshop on past life regression

These will be at the MInneapolis Theosophical Society, 
which meets at Spirit United Church, 3204 Como Ave SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414


Synchronistically, I received several e-mails today asking about the same topic.  So below, I am including a paraphrase of several of them, combined into one, along with my reply to "Bob".
 

To: craig@craigrlang.com
Subject: past lives and the Akashic Records

Dear Craig;

I recently visited your website and saw your articles on the Akashic Records, past life regression and related topics. What is the difference between past lives and the Akashic records? Are our past life memories stored in the Akashic records? How can we access the Akashic records to learn about our past lives? Are the Akashic records stored within our subconscious mind? Superconscious mind? etc...



Sincerely,
"Bob"

HI Bob,

Thanks for your note.

You have asked a powerful set of questions.
I am certainly not a great expert on Vedic traditions that go back thousands of years. Yet at the same time, there are a lot of things about these topics that have always intrigued me, so I've dug into them quite a bit. I hope this can help bring some insight to the topic. I will do my best... :-)

Among those who believe in the idea, there are a lot of theories as to what past lives are. Some think past life memories are a literal record of a soul’s experiences in each lifetime. Others suggest that different incarnations have non-local access to consciousness at other times/places, but perhaps not as a literal re-incarnation of a specific soul. For the moment, let's assume that past lives are experiences of an individual soul, manifesting in separate incarnations. As such, each soul may have access to its own experiences in other lifetimes. In the Vedic traditions, at least in part, this memory is perhaps contained within the Akashic records.

There are a lot of potential explanations as to what the Akashic records actually are. My own belief is that they are simply one way to view the trace that each event leaves on the non-local fabric of space-time. From the concept of quantum non-locality, we can reason that every point in space-time is non-locally connected with every other point through quantum entanglement due to past and future interactions. This interaction perhaps extends all the way back through the Big Bang. We can think of this implicit interconnection as a universal record/memory. In the Vedic traditions, this would correspond to the Akashic Records. [I recommend Michael Talbot’s book, The Holographic Universe, for a good treatment on the universal non-local holographic field.]

Another way of looking at it is that Akasha is the fifth element, the other four being Earth (solid), Water (liquid), Air (gas), and Fire (energy). Akasha is the potentiality from which the other elements arise. We can think of this as the fabric of space-time, or the zero-point field. Every event in space-time is formed from a condensation of the zero-point field - or manifestation of the Akasha, depending upon what terminology you want to use. Conversely, like the wake of a boat, every event in space-time leaves its wave(s) of history in the Akashic field. [I highly recommend the book entitled Science and the Akashic Field, by Ervin Laszlo for a great treatment of this topic.]

From the perspective of parapsychology, a way to access the Akashic field would be through the  superconscious, opening up our psychic selves to the non-local field of space-time. One could perhaps do this using hypnosis or meditation. In the Akashic Hall metaphor, we can think of this as accessing a library of information. Edgar Cayce developed this idea/metaphor to a high degree and spoke extensively of the Akashic Records. He used these to help his clients explore their past (and future?) lives.

The question often arises as to what the subconscious, the superconscious, the personal and/or the collective unconscious, actually are. That is definitely an open question. These are probably arbitrary labels that allow us to view an infinite phenomenon with our own limited rational minds. I look on the subconscious as if it were the part of a stage that is not in the spotlight. While the conscious mind could be thought of as that which is in the light, the sub/super conscious is that part that is off stage. 

We could think of the subconscious as that part that is local to a person’s mind/brain, while the superconscious would be that part that transcends it. In my own view, the superconscious is one way to think of that infinite extension of the human psyche, the mind/soul of each person. Perhaps in some way, the individual superconscious and the collective superconscious become one. Some people suggest that the individual is like a manifestation of the universal aggregate consciousness.

Many of the sages of our world have written about accessing the Akashic records. They can be used to explore past lives, study metaphysical truths, etc. Many teachers also tell us that there are limits to the use of the Akashic library. For example, you probably couldn’t use it to go find next week’s lottery numbers. You also would be bound in your personal searches to remain within ethical limits - for example, you are able to read only your own records, not someone else’s.

Note that this is only speculation and metaphor, there may be an infinity of other ways to explore the superconscious, the Akashic records, etc. Also, what is actually happening is not provable. It is speculative and metaphysical. Your own beliefs may be considerably different from this, so please accept my rambling simply as the speculation that it is.

Still, I hope you find this helpful.

Let me know if you have more comments, questions, etc…

Thanks again for writing,

 -Craig

Explore with Hypnosis

Growth, Exploration and Healing for Mind, Body, Spirit and Beyond

   Craig R. Lang, Certified Hypnotherapist,

      Researcher, Writer, Speaker

 763-257-7334   e-mail: craig@craigrlang.com

   www.exploreWithHypnosis.com

   www.hypnosis-storefront.com

   www.thecosmicbridge.com

Notes from 2014 MUFON Conference - the business of MUFON

This is the first blog entry - a look at the inner workings of the group as I saw it over the last few days.

Friday, at State Directors Meeting - general turn-the-crank business meeting where the business of MUFON gets done. First thing in the morning, the State Direcro's meeting began with has had nitial panel meeting with MUFON board. Focus is about the upcoming plans for MUFON operation. Some interesting things in the works.

An update: the show Hangar 1 is a big hit. Hangar 1 is starting its second season. Been responsible for growth in MUFON so far, as well as a lot of new interest in UFOs in general public. Show 

Shows MUFON investigations and shows both the mystery of UFOs and those cases where UFO sightings turn out to have ordinary explanations (IFOs). 

Beginning to focus on lesser known cases. 

Not sure if/when they will begin to look at abduction cases. Currently lookng at historical cases, and then at some lesser known but classic CE1 and CE2 events from MUFON case files.

Tony Cataldo is the latest addition to the board. A hollywood producer, brings lots of media experience, plus large corporate boardroom experience as well. In short, this guy knows how to grow companies and auidiences. Stated goal, he wants to grow MUFON from current 3500 members to about 50,000 members in the next year or so. And based upon what I've seen so far, I think he just might do it.

MUFON.com is a work in progress - which is good. Especially on the web, nothing is ever done. But the biggest plan is to leverage social media much more extensively. Plans are to expand the demographics form the middle-aged to senior population present to more young adult population. Againl, based upon what I've seen, I think they will do it.

Several high-level contacts between MUFON and various research organizations - such as GEPAN, the French UFO investigative agency, taking shape. In short, sInce the French government can't form a relationship with the US Govt, GEPAN, andseveral other  governmental and quasi-governmental agencies are forming a relationship with MUFON - we are doing the government's job.

Sunday, I went to a planning and focus meeting on future upgrades to the MUFON.com website, and IT strategy for MUFON. We looked at where we need to go to attract a wider range of ages to MUFON.  what can we offer that will provide value to peope of allages. Lots of good stuff in the works, beginning with a whole new website that is fully responsive, coordination between reporting, membership, MUFON store. etc. Look for some impressive things to happen in the next few months.

Also, it looks like several other research initiaves are just beginning to take shape. One is a UFO monitoring system UFOTOG2. It is modeled after the UFOTOG project, created a few years ago, which provided automated monitoring of the sky for UFOs. UFOTOG was a beginning, although it was huge and expensive - mounted as part of a Hummer that was driven to key hotspot areas and left in observer mode for days toweeks on end. The biggest thingwas that there was only one of it, so it was not able to get triangulation of any objects it detected.

UFOTOG2 plans to focus on making small, inexpensive versions of a similar monitoring set. It would have no moving parts, and would contain a multispectral camera, EM monitor, radiation monitor, etc. These would be deployedin threes in areas of high UFO activity, to try and automatically capture UFO activity on film, and with physics data that might be able to help us undestand the reality of the phenomenon(a) better. Look for this to take shape in the next year or two...

Other endeavors include objective research on abduction and contact. This includes further building our network of MUFON therapists and abduction researchers. One key will be to better connect the experiencer with the help he/she needs. Lookfor more on this as well in the near future.

So, all in all, the picture that came out of the State Directors meeting and various working groups, appears to be very positive indeed. It was a forward looking and enthusiastic gathering and told me that the MUFON organization appears to have found its footing. 

Prophecies and Hypotheses - What should we expect from contact cases?June/July, 2014 CE4 Corner Article Draft

This is a draft of my article for The CE4 Corner - July/August, 2014

Prophecies and Hypotheses - What should we expect from contact cases?

(c)2014 by Craig R. Lang, MS CHt

www.explorewithhypnosis.com

Comments are always welcome

----------------------------------------------------------------------

In recent weeks, I have been the recipient of a storm of e-mails regarding the Billy Meier case. The mega-dialog began with a note from an advocate and representative of Billy Meier in the English-speaking world. In his note to a large e-mail list regarding the Billy Meier case, he stated that he believes the Meier case to be the only legitimate case of ET contact, and was critical of other UFO investigative organizations for ignoring it.

Needless to say, a significant, rather acrimonious dialog ensued, escalating until finally put to rest with a peace call from the MUFON executive director. Following the peace agreements, as it were, I received an e-mail asking some interesting questions. Since in my book, The Cosmic Bridge, I state that any valid hypothesis needs to provide verifiable predictions and tests, what did I think would constitute tests of the Billy Meier case? To me, this raises a greater question - what would constitute validation tests of any contact case?

How can we validate a "Secret" experience, which only the experiencer has undergone? At its very core the contact experience seems designed to confound the scientific method? Yet to satisfy the criteria of science, we need to apply exactly that method to the alleged events of the contact.

Generally speaking, the MUFON field investigation process is designed to do exactly this. Field investigation of sightings and close encounters has evolved quite a bit in the nearly twenty years I have been involved with MUFON. From a relatively informal process, it has evolved a rather high degree of rigor. While there is probably a ways to go, the intent is to maintain a very high degree of integrity in the collection of data and interactions with the witnesses/experiencers of the phenomena.

Validation Criteria

There are several areas of validation that, alone or in combination, make a sighting or encounter case credible (or otherwise). These include (but are not limited to) some of the following criteria

1 - Consistent narratives from each witness

The narrative must pass tests of forensic interviewing. These are quite well documented in the MUFON field investigator manual, so I won't go into great detail on them here.

2 - Corroboration from other witnesses

The best sightings involve multiple independent witnesses. In these cases, the witness accounts must agree to a high degree of detail when elicited under clean forensic interviewing techniques (a'la the MUFON FI Manual).

3 - Physical evidence

Any ground traces, physical objects, or other evidence must be carefully acquired, and associated with a solid investigation. The chain of acquisition and custody needs to be clearly documented and verified, from its origin to/through the collection and analysis process. Anything short of that casts significant doubt on the validity of the case.

4 - Photographic evidence

Photographs need to be thoroughly documented and combined with investigation results as described above. They need to be subject to the same evidence documentation and custody criteria as physical evidence. It needs to be clearly established that the photographs are/could-not-be hoaxed, requiring investigation and analysis of the camera, metadata (for digital photographs) and related information. For a photograph to be taken as legitimate evidence for an anomalous event, these criteria must all be met.

5 - In cases of contact (or abduction), where information is obtained from the  entities with which/whom the experiencer has allegedly interacted, that information needs to be clearly captured during the witness interview, and/or recorded as quickly as possible. And here is where contact research gets particularly interesting.

Testing Contactee Claims

In many cases of UFO abduction, I have heard claims made supposedly by the visitors themselves. These include their location of origin (e.g. another star system, dimension, time, etc.), the nature of their mission, their purpose for being here, etc. When distinct information has been provided, it is often possible to compare that information with the best information we have to date. This suggests several hypothesis tests for the narrative.

ü  The "Origin Test"

in many cases, a location of origin for the beings is claimed. Is it possible to verify whether or not that location exists? Are there, or could there be, planets surrounding that star? We are just beginning to be able to detect planets around other stars. Thus, as our capabilities advance, we should be able to verify ever more clearly whether or not a life-supporting world might be present at that location.

Some potentially testable origin claims have been offered to date.

·         In the Hill abduction case, Marjorie Fish's analysis of the Hill star map has suggested Zeta Reticulii as a possible location of origin.

·         In the Billy Meier case, the claim is that his visitors came from a star somewhat beyond the Pleiades star cluster.

I suspect several other cases exist, which also provide similar claims.

When the claim is that "They" originate from another time or dimension, it becomes difficult to impossible to prove. Thus the "origin test" has minimal use in the more metaphysical or other-than-physical origin claims. Yet in my view, we need to document these claims thoroughly, so that as our technology advances sufficiently we might be able to test/verify them in the future.

ü  The "Prediction Test"

Many experiencers describe being shown specific prophecies of events on Earth, to happen in the near future. When such predictions occur, are they objective forecasts of events to occur, are they metaphorically true, are they some type of warning parables, or do they have another explanation? If they are predictions, then we need to carefully record the events, locations and dates, to verify as the time comes to pass, whether or not the events occurred as predicted.

If they don't then is it clear why? Were they conditional on other actions - human or otherwise - occurring before the predicted moment? In the Judeo-Christian tradition, prophecy is generally not a specific forecast of events, but rather a warning to society - "Change your ways or else "x" will happen" (and usually "x" is rather unpleasant).

ü  The "Technology Test"

Many experiencers also describe observing extraordinary technoogy, or being given specific information about science, engineering, mathematics, etc. In such cases, is it possible to verify the information? Again, it may not be possible to fully verify with present knowledge, yet it should be thoroughly documented so that in the future, if/when the capability develops, this knowledge can be verified.

In addition, the investigators need to establish whether the experiencer had been exposed to the advanced knowledge prior to the event? While someone with an eighth-grade education may not have formal training in quantum physics, perhaps they have a deeper understanding or exposure to it than even the experiencer, his/herself knew.

Subjective Considerations

Many other logical tests could be probably applied to a specific experiencer narrative. But in the end, the account is often largely subjective. It is the story of what the person has experienced. And assuming that the experiencer is telling the truth as he/she believes it, then for them it is true - regardless of whether or not it is objectively verifiable. In such cases, the account probably needs to be taken at face value, added to the massive body of data already present and left at that. Even then, it is valuable as statistical or correlative material for future researchers.

Applying the Tests

So how can we apply these tests to the case of Billy Meier, or any other contact claims? Fortunately, Meier case and similar Pleiadean/Plejaren contact cases, as well, offer some testable claims.

1) The Meier case is the only legitimate case of contact

This claim is potentially easy to test. If any other cases cases of contact or abduction turn out to be true, then at least part of the case is falsified. Since I work with experiences on a regular basis, I see some cases that are rather clearly supported by evidence. This alone would suggest to me that the "exclusivity claim" is false, casting doubt on the whole Meier scenario.

2) The visitors come from a world just beyond the Pleiades star cluster.

If this is true there should be a star system at that location which would include at least one habitable world. As long as the claims state that this world is a physical place, then at least in this aspect, the Meier case provides a scientifically testable prediction. Otherwise, it ceases to be within the realm of science and becomes metaphysical - essentially a form of religion.

3) Specific predictions in contact prophecies

Assuming the prophecies are thoroughly documented, and include events to occur in the relatively near future, it should be possible to track these and verify whether they actually come topass. While I am not very familiar with the Meier prophecies, presumably others are, and could provide validation tracking of any predictions.

These are just a few potential ways to validate/falsify contact scenarios. They provide a few ways to determine whether we are being visited, by whom, for what reason, and from what origin. It is a quick look into a realm of contact, a study of prophecies and hypotheses.

Cultures and Circles - How do non-hierarchical organizations govern themselves?

In the last few years have been a journey into a brave new world, indeed. From a neat, tidy world of corporate hieararchy, I have transitioned into the world of self-employment - a world of alternative and complimentary healers and of spiritually-based organizations and a business called Explore with Hypnosis. What I love about this world is that, for the most part, there is no boss. Diffuse though it may be, we all serve with one goal, and one focal point - spirit and the betterment of our world. 

Having said that, I have found that spiritual, healing and non-hierarchical organizations tend to have the same issues as any other organization. While we may seek to be part of a collective soul, field consciousness, spirit of unity - there are many names for it - each organization is made up of humans. Humans have viewpoints, egos and emotions. And so, like any organizations I have ever worked with in corporate America, the spiritual healing world finds the same problems of team building, group management and interpersonal dynamics. 

In our own organization, The Circle of Healing Arts, we have been studying possible ways of more efficient decision making. We have looked at a number of ways, including the coop and communal models of the early1900's, a board-and-committees model of present day business, and a few others. In the process we have discovered the same question as any other spiritual, new-age or healing-focused organization. How do we combiner business and spirit in a way that gets things done while maintaining the integrity of the organization? 

This has all led me to become interested in one big question. How do non-hierarchical organizations manage themselves? How does a leaderless organization get business done? And how does such an organization avoid chaos. 

There is one difference between the corporate world and that of the healing and spiritual oriented organization. In the corporate world, there is usually some degree of hierarchy. At the top is the CEO and/or the chairman of the board. Further down the food chain are varying degrees of management - ranging from almost none in the tiniest startups to many layers of unwieldy bureaucracy in the most behemoth organizations. In the corporate world, At the end of the day, it is results that count. Regardless of how the organization is structured, each person within it is accountable for their work. The CEO is accountable to the owner, investors or stockholders. Managers and/or directors are responsible to the directors, and so on down the hierarchy. 

This chain of accountability is built in to even the flattest of organizations - it's part of the culture. If absolutely necessary, a manager or director can step in and impose order. For better or for worse, such as during a crisis, sometimes the boss has to call the shots. Yet, in a non-hierarchical world, there is no boss. Thus, in crisis mode, who fills that role? 

In more than one new-age organization I've seen, we had the abrupt and brutal realization that non-traditional though we might be, we were still a business. Like any business, we ultimately had to provide value and quality results to our customers (clients). We also had to balance income and expenses, pay the bills, market ourselves, etc. We had to organize meetings and conduct the work of the organization. This sometimes led to conflicts of philosophies, styles, personalities, etc. 

So how does a new-paradigm (whatever that means) organization run itself? Is there a president? is there a board of directors? I've been reading a number of business case studies on-line, from business and new-age journals, etc. Many talk about how the non-hierarchical structure for a business is a concept fraught with peril. Yet I have also seen it work.

The largest organizations I've read about, which embodied non-hierarchical principles have been diverse entities such as the Occupy movement, the software organization Mozilla, and many semi-private or non-profit foundations. Among them are non-business entities such as Alcoholics Anonymous. So, again I ask, how do they do it? And how can organizations such as some that I belong to at the present time do the same?

One interesting book I've been reading is Calling the Circle, by Christina Baldwin. Diane, one of the healers in our coop, suggested it as a possible idea, and I believe it has a lot of merit. It combines a certain amount of structure, yet retaining a consensus-driven, non-hierarchical approach - perhaps the best of both worlds.

In Calling the Circle, Christina Baldwin gives a methodology for conducting leaderless - or as she puts it, shared leadership - councils for decision making and problem solving. She says that the council circle is one of the oldest forms of governance in humanity, what she says is the First Culture. And her claim is that by returning to this form of communication/meeting, we can again solve problems that have bedeviled our current culture.

According to Baldwin, we now are in what she calls the Second Culture - comprised of hierarchical governance, with a designated leader or leadership structure, and the rest who do the following. She states that by integrating the council structure into the modern world of business, government and spirituality, we can create the Third Culture, a return to some of the First Culture principles, bringing their benefit into our present-day world.

Baldwin provides distinct rules and procedures for conducting a circle. She has combined these into a trademarked process she calls PeerSpirit. We are currently studying this as a possible way to run coop meetings. It will be interesting to see what works, what doesn't, and how we might adapt this methodology to the  operations of The Circle of Healing Arts. 

Meanwhile, I wonder if Christina Baldwin's Peer Circle methodology would have interesting applications in other areas of life. As I/we study it more, learning the ins and outs of this Third Culture, the results will be fascinating to see. Maybe we will begin to see the answer to the question, how can non-hierarchical organizations govern themselves?

The wonder in our back yards

Draft of my article in the May, 2014 Minnesota MUFON Journal, the CE4 Corner.

----------------------------------------------------

In early April, I had the pleasure of attending the Ozark UFO Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. In a word, it was great, a fascinating experience. And the greatest thing about it was the ability to rub elbows, to be in the presence of so many others who really take the UFO and close encounter question seriously.

I drove down with a couple of friends, fellow UFO enthusiasts who also share my passion for hypnosis, hypnotherapy and abduction research. Thus, we had several hundred miles of fascinating conversation about everything from the subconscious mind to the alien agenda - not to mention some deep glimpses into each others' personal stories.

In the days before we left for Arkansas, I had the feeling that something about this trip was going to deeply affect my life. As the days of the conference passed, I realized I had been right. At the conference, I met several people who rocked my world. One of them was an experiencer named Sherry Wilde and it turns out that she grew up only a few miles from where I did. In fact, many of her experiences were occurring only a few miles from my own doorstep.

I often find myself lost in thought about what might be way out there, out among the stars and planets, out in deep space, etc. With news from the planet hunters, NASA's Kepler mission having returned volumes of data, from which we are now discerning hundreds of new planets - at least one of them possibly habitable to us - the sense of wonder is sparked anew. And then I heard Sherry Wilde, and realized once again that her story was not out there, but right in my back yard.

I get several calls a week from experiencers around the country, sometimes around the world. Yet on some occasions, the calls are local. A few days prior to writing this article, I got a call from a man in Minnesota. He had seen several UFOs up close  and had experienced numerous psychic phenomena. I can always tell when it's going to be a long phone conversation - when I hear the "you're going to think I'm crazy but...", and in this case, I was right. He had a lot to say, and to this point, he had never found anyone who would listen.

What again struck me was how this person wasn't somewhere far away. He lived only a few miles from me. During some of the events he described, I should have been able to look out my own back door and see something - perhaps a UFO hovering over his house. (the fact that I didn't is another story in itself...)

As a hypnotherapist, I find myself seeing into the inner recesses of peoples' lives on a daily basis. I hear accounts of deeply private events and experiences - some involving the visitors, some not. Yet what I realize is that the close encounter phenomenon reaches into the very core of the experiencer's life. It lands in your and my back yards, intrudes into our bedrooms and deep into our souls.

Most of us think of the UFO topic as something that's safely far away. They zip around among the distant stars, or high in the atmosphere. However, listening to Sherry Wilde and others talk about the close encounter phenomenon being right here and now, and then getting this local witness call, all served to again drive the point home. The UFO and close encounter phenomenon is right here, in our yards and in our bedrooms. Almost literally, it is in our face. This makes it one of the most mysterious, and possibly one of the most urgent problems our nation and world face.

Who or what are these beings? why are they here? Are they good or evil? As I have stated many times in this column, I don't know the answers to any of these questions. Like any other researcher, I can pose theories, but humanity has very little solid knowledge of the phenomenon. All we really have at the present time are wonder and mystery.

For now, all we can do is try to gather as much knowledge as possible, applying as much discernment as possible as we face the wonder in our own back yards.

Reprint of my article: A Short Pattern to Manage Visual Floaters

This is a draft of my re-written article on visual floaters. It's an updated version of the article I wrote for The book "Through the Open Door, Secrets of Self-Hypnosis," by Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee LaBay. 

Enjoy, and feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanx,

 -Craig

*  *  *  *  *  *

A Short Pattern to Manage Visual Floaters

© 2000-2014 by Craig R. Lang, CHt

    612-888-4976(HYPN)   craig@explorewithhypnosis.com  

    www.explorewithhypnosis.com  or  www.thehypnosisstoreonline.com

Very common among we 50-somethings, visual floaters are those annoying dark spots that occasionally appear to swim into one's field of vision. At their most benign, they are merely the result of the normal aging process of our eyes. For many years, these have come and gone from my visual field, usually lasting a few days to weeks, and then vanishing. However, during the fall of 1998, one particularly annoying spot appeared, permanently fixed at the center of the visual field of my right eye. This very large dark spot occasionally interfered with my ability to focus - and occasionally even caused a degree of pain.

Several trips to the ophthalmologist established that there was no actual problem with my eyes - no retinal damage, no degeneration, etc.  The good news was that that my eyes, like the rest of me, were merely growing older. The bad news was that there is no treatment for the problem. Floaters are just something you have to live with - even this large obnoxious one swimming in the very center of my vision.

During the months prior to writing this article, in preparation for an upcoming hypnotherapy certification class, I had been reading many books on NLP, hypnotherapy, and self-hypnosis by authors such as Rossi, Hogan and Hunter. Inherent in many of the techniques suggested by these authors was the use of metaphor and guided imagery. An example might be to control pain by imagining a device, perhaps with a control knob that could be turned down to decrease the pain. Since I am an electrical engineer by trade, being both visual and analytical, such a device metaphor seemed useful in dealing with my annoying visual companion.

Also, during this time, I had become very dedicated to the study and practice of meditation, spending approximately an hour in trance each evening before retiring. In the practice of meditation, affirmations are also very significant tools. Some authors [Peterson, "Creative Meditation"] describe them as a means to accomplish useful change through the meditative process. The idea immediately suggested itself that my normal mediation time could be used to install a simple self-hypnotic pattern, reinforcing it using affirmations to help me manage the obnoxious floater problem.

That evening, as I was going into meditation, an image formed in my mind of an optical filtering device, which I imagined in place between my retina and my brain. This device was "programmed" to filter out unwanted "garbage" images, such as my floaters. I mentally switched it on and reinforced it with the affirmation: "You have a filter in your mind that removes unwanted spots from your field of vision". In addition, I installed an anchor on my left hand by touching my left thumb and middle finger (convenient when driving, with your hand around the steering wheel). Descending into a meditative state, while holding my thumb/finger anchor in place, I silently and continuously repeated this affirmation in place of my normal meditative cue words.

The next day was sunny and bright, a perfect opportunity to test my imaginary filtering device. While stuck in traffic on my way to work, the familiar spot appeared. Gripping thumb to finger around the steering wheel and silently repeating to myself: "you have a filter..." the spot abruptly vanished. It remained delightfully absent for several moments - until I moved my eyes. As it reappeared, I again repeated, "You have a filter...", placing thumb to finger. The spot again obediently faded to oblivion. Each time the spot appeared I repeated my affirmation and the spot vanished.

The next several days were clear and bright, affording lots of additional practice opportunity. Within a few weeks, I found that the mere appearance of the spot would the trigger thought of the affirmation, thus invoking the filter. Now, the moment the spot appears it triggers the filter, which suppresses it. The spot has become its own demise.

Visual floaters can be a major annoyance, and might be the sign of a more serious vision problem. Please consult your eye doctor should you experience a sudden or extraordinary occurrence of them. However, for floaters resulting from the normal aging process, this simple combination of self-hypnotic imagery, anchoring, and affirmation can help you manage them conveniently and effectively. A few evenings of trancework, combined with a few days to weeks of practice, and you may find that they have become manageable to insignificant. And the more you practice this technique, the less you will experience your unwanted visual companions.

This article was written at the request of Dr. Kevin Hogan, and can be found on page 257 of the book “Through the Open Door, Secrets of Self Hypnosis” by Kevin Hogan and Mary Lee LeBay.

Bio of Craig R. Lang  MS, CHt

E-mail: craig@craigrlang.com

Craig R. Lang is a Certified Hypnotherapist with the National Guild of Hypnotists and the principal of Explore with Hypnosis. He specializes in hypnotic healing work with people who have experienced reality-transforming events such as UFO encounters, metaphysical experiences and sudden psychic awakenings. His dream is to help others to integrate these events into their lives. He also does hypnotherapy work to help people with career, mind-body, and life-quality issues. These include weight loss, pain relief, fear reduction and building personal confidence.

Craig is certified through the Minnesota Institute of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy, in Minneapolis as an Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapist, NLP Practitioner and Hypnotherapy Instructor. He lives and practices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, working with a variety of clients. In addition to hypnotherapy, his other interests include meditation and research into new-science areas such as consciousness studies, UFOs and psychic phenomena.

He can be reached at his website: www.explorewithhypnosis.com, by phone at 612-888-4976(HYPN), or by e-mail at craig@explorewithhypnosis.com.