conversational hypnosis such as the type being imparted through the Underground Hypnosis movement can be quickly expressed as placing your subject in trance. How deeply the person enters the trance, however, will be affected by factors such as their hypnotist’s ability, emotional status, and personality.

As you first induce trance, the subject’s minor muscle systems will slacken following an unconscious decision. As their eyelids begin to weigh on the subject, they’ll experience lethargy, wanting to sleep. As the hypnotist takes the subject deeper, this lack of tension gradually spreads to larger muscles. This often takes no longer than a few moments.

Imagine only having the ability to perceive one person. A seasoned hypnotist will let you experience this with a sufficiently deep trance state. And as they’re led to this state, the power of suggestion comes in, creating a pathway to the unconscious mind. Should you lead your subject further into trance state, you’ll find a point beyond which they are able to ignore pain, and discard bodily sensation.

Beyond that you enter the realm of hallucination and similar altered perceptions, and should you press on, you’ll eventually bring yourself to a state akin to that seen when undergoing general anesthetic. People could undergo certain medical procedures at this point without no need for anesthesia. You won’t find out how to achieve that state via Underground Hypnosis, but keep in mind you’d seldom need to. In the majority of cases, the lower levels are more than enough.

So look into the Underground Hypnosis teachers – all are welcome. How much time would this take, you wonder? Not long – some quick studying, a day or two to test the techniques you’ve just learned, and in no time at all you’ll have an amazing party piece. That’s all you have to do – no reason to be concerned.

It started with that impending nationwide glitch called Y2K. While so many of the people around me were stockpiling food and water and building networks of cooperation, not to mention paranoia, I went about the business of running the community’s conference center. Did I concern myself about the impending threat and rally with them? Not a whit. Around the same time, the WTO Seattle protests found busloads of my friends traveling about 150 miles to get suppressed by the Police State, and I didn’t blink.

Then, some guy named Gore did blink in a showdown with a guy named Bush, and it was all a big Ho-hum, business-as-usual thing to me. Shortly thereafter, the World Trade Center got slammed, and, of course, at first appalled, within a short period of time I came to the conclusion that the bigwigs were using the whole mess to set something up for something that I wasn’t in the know enough to understand, let alone affect. Sure enough, the Iraq war (?) sprung from those loins and then occupation came and continues, and, outside of a cursory wonderment, I have no cry of outrage in me.

These are things that happen like many other things that happen throughout the world that I choose not to concern myself with anymore. The list seems endless. Yet, apathy is a pretty strong word to use to describe myself. How then, knowing that my life is about activism, could I live with my apathy?

The world I was born into was in the grip of forces that were beyond my reach. At ten years old, the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred. Daily, for weeks on end, we’d “duck and cover,” practicing how to protect ourselves (!) in the event of nuclear attack. Once a week we’d have what I’d call “Hellfire Drills” where we’d be directed to silently file down into our concrete bunker-like basement and await an all-clear signal, which, depending upon the sadism factor of the nuns that day, would come quickly or excruciatingly slowly.

Every day for years, the noon air-raid sirens wailed and the radio regularly blared out an ominous tone, followed, at its cessation, by the message, “The foregoing was a test!” I’d have waves of apprehension commencing when I’d hear a plane overhead. The knowledge, drilled in to my bones, was that death would come from above. It doesn’t matter that with each report of danger there was an associated report of how our “resolve” would save the day, death was on its way. Period.

I fully expected the tension between Russia and my own country to explode in everyone’s face, much as I had been witness to countless explosions between my own parents. By the time I was six I figured out that adults, as a whole, were out of their minds and did not have the love in them to avoid destroying everything in my world, from top to bottom.

In my own home, Mother was poised to go berserk at any moment. At school, the Nuns laid in wait for me to do anything wrong as an excuse to whack the pointer on my butt. And then, in the news, Nikita Khrushchev armed with God-knows how many nuclear warheads was looking for any excuse to obliterate my neighborhood, which happened to be in Brooklyn, close enough to Manhattan for horseshoes.

When I was in my thirties, I started to really delve into my childhood experiences. The word that kept coming up for me was grief. It was personal grief, of course, but on the larger scale, grief about living in a world of moment-to-moment uncertainty. I really wasn’t gonna get to see a whole lot in my life because the USSR was out to get us and we were willing to retaliate unto total annihilation. History had brought us to the place where we were so well-armed that it was only a matter of time before we eradicated everything. I was convinced we truly were an experiment that failed.

As a child I was asked to make a decision that most people don’t face until they are adults. I had no doubt that the world was going to end, though I didn’t know when. So the central question of my life became, “How am I going to do this thing called life between now and when?

Next: A simple concept.

Russ Reina shares over 35 years of experience in the healing arts through his web site http://mauihealingartist.com It is a potent resource for those wishing to deepen their abilities in connection and develop their powers as healers. For a powerful free tool to explore your inner world, please check out his adjunct site http://thestoryofthis.net (Permission is granted to reprint this article, unedited, provided proper attribution is made and the signature line — the above resource paragraph — is kept intact)

Let me give you an analogy that Barbara Rose actually went through as a perceived “tragedy” so that you can better relate to the concepts given to you here.:

Barbara had a former husband that filed lies with a court to gain primary custody of their shared children, to avoid child support obligations that he had previously been sentenced to jail for twice before.

Barbara did not have money for an attorney, and experienced (on the ego and personality level) the injustice in the American justice system: i.e.; if you don’t have money for legal representation, then you have pretty much lost before you even have a chance to “win.”

Barbara on the ego and personality level experienced “severe and tragic loss” in “what she interpreted to be “losing her children.” She nearly took her own life over the injustice she perceived.

It was during many writings, and one in particular, that she received the words of God in her writings, which were: “You did NOT “lose” your children, you are merely sharing for the physical care for them with their father. You are still their mother, and always will be in this lifetime. You can see them, and be very active in their lives, so please understand that this was not a “punishment” or a “tragedy” this was a soul agreement, because you have other work to do in this life, while you are still a mother.”

Even if a person “dies” in physical life, they are NOT “dead” at all. They are vibrant and alive on the other side, and often visit loved ones in the physical realm, even if the person in a physical body cannot see their loved one. In MANY cases, the person that “died” is so much HAPPIER and MORE ALIVE on the other side, than they were in their physical life. It is the ego’s attachment that causes suffering. Pure Love would say: “I love you, and I know that your soul, spirit, and Life cannot ever be extinguished, so I will see you after this life again, and I will always love you.”

Many people try with all of their mind’s might to hold on to people, situations, external conditions and a host of other perceived areas as their source of happiness out of attachment. Once whatever the source of attachment is in their life is suddenly “gone” it is viewed as a “tragedy.” Love, Light, and God NEVER bring tragedy into people’s life. PEOPLE’S MINDS create the tragedy by their THOUGHTS. If something is loved Unconditionally, then there is NOT a condition that MUST be set in order for the love to continue.

Some people LOVE their money. Some people commit suicide when they lose their money. The same is true for a loved one. When you can begin to view the impermanence of things in life as the only constant, combined with Love, you will be free from suffering and tragedy permanently.

If you wish to do something about the madness and chaos you see in this world that was the seeming “cause” of the “tragedy” then you are doing so out of LOVE, which is WHY you will begin to feel better! It is the Love that is your natural state that brings you back into a feeling of wholeness, and oneness once again.

Please remember that the ego is very invested in keeping the status quo – whatever that may be. The ego has a comfort zone, and anything that disrupts that comfort zone is viewed as a “tragedy.” For goodness sake, there are people that get a scratch on their car, and have a fit over it, as if their home fell down a mountain. Moreover, there ARE people that have had their homes slide down a mountain, and were NOT so attached to that structure, and simply went about to buy or build another dwelling.

You are in this life for one purpose only, and that is to Love. It is to become One with your true essence of Love. Once you do, you will never again view something as a tragedy, but will understand the Divine orchestration of this Universe, and realize that you are forever at-one with your Source, and that IS Divine Source. That is all that will ever get you to feel better, is to become one with your true nature, and that is God.

View the things of this world with a LOT less meaning. View the people of this world with a LOT more unconditional Love and compassion. Realize that you do Not OWN another person, but you ARE ONE with ALL people – always. Release the sense of separation you feel from others, and you will come to know the inner peace of spirit, that dwells in your deepest heart, and is never separate from another spiritual being. All spiritual beings are One. YOU have to take a LOT of your situations much LESS SERIOUSLY. You are not your rent, or your relationship, or your bank account, or job status, or degree, you are Love, period.

When you learn that everything is of Love, you will come to know true inner peace, and will cease to be fraught with despair in the conditions that your eyes may see before you. You will come to trust that your essence, which is pure Love cannot EVER be extinguished. You NEVER “die”, your spirit is eternal, every spirit is eternal. Death is the illusion, because it is viewed as “death” however, there is no death there is only eternal life – so it is the mind’s illusion of death, and all other outer conditions that it is attached to, and has not awakened enough yet to free itself (the mind, YOUR mind) of the attachment to outer conditions. That is what was meant by the saying “Be in this world but not of it.”

The more you can detach from your external conditions, the more inner peace you will feel. Life is meant to be filled with pure love and joy – bliss – at ALL times. So do not let appearances shake you, or get to you. Make your ego’s investment in how things “must” be mean less to you, and allow yourself to observe with pure Love, and without judgment. You CAN change the feeling of tragedy by changing your perspective within your mind – where ALL feelings are created.

This may not be the “fix” that you were looking for, as it takes a tremendous amount of wisdom without an ego invested in outcomes to live this message. However, this message is one of truth, so as you ponder it, you will come to understand it more. The truth is eternal, so please do try to contemplate and awaken to this message, because it WILL lead you out of suffering, and it is ONLY your peace of MIND that will transform and overcome ANY seeming tragedy, forever.

© Copyright by Barbara Rose. All Rights Reserved.

Barbara Rose is an Internationally acclaimed public speaker, spiritual author of: “Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE” “If God Was Like Man”and “Individual Power: Reclaiming Your Core, Your Truth, and Your Life”, founder of The Rose Group publishing company, inspire! Magazine, Institute of Higher Self Communication, and Rose Humanitarian Alliance.

She works in Divine Cooperation with others to uplift the spiritual consciousness of humanity. Through a Divine Spiritual gift she brings through information to create the highest vision of your life, and our world. Her internationally praised seminars, widely published articles, Higher Self Certification intensives, and Divinely Channeled private consultations have changed the lives of thousands across the globe.

For enlightening info, contacts, books, articles and resources to help you become your highest self, visit Barbara’s website: http://www.borntoinspire.com

It is exceedingly difficult to simply recite a traumatic experience. Outside of verbal consciousness memory fragments fester like “memory shrapnel” and prevent narrative closure. Enlisting the help of the “mind’s eye” and the imagery of the right brain can facilitate the assimilation of these nonverbal images into verbal memory. It is not just what the mind’s eye sees but how it beholds and reports. When the mind’s eye serves narration it is observing and describing through the perspective of a hidden observer. It is helping to protect the person from reliving the experience.

The methods to recruit the mind’s eye to the work of narrative processing depend on visual imagery even though many of the memory fragments may not be visual. They may consist of bodily sensations such as pain or pressure or feelings of terror. Whatever the content, their presence can be detected by the mind’s eye and reported by the hidden observer. It is the duty of the hidden observer to give an objective narration while resisting the subjective pull of unfinished experience and avoiding reliving of the experience. Once narrative closure is achieved there is no more pull into the traumatic experience.

The Hidden Observer

In the 1970’s the research psychologist Ernest Hilgard experimented with the hypnotic induction of analgesia and discovered that a hidden observer could be elicited in those subjects claiming to feel no pain. He asked for a report by a part of the subject that did feel the pain and could rate the severity. Some subjects responded from a part of themselves that was aware of the pain and could rate it on a scale of ten during the time the subject had claimed analgesia. These elicited parts were very much alike from subject to subject. The part was normally hidden from the subject’s awareness although the part claimed to have always been there. The part was aware of the experimentally induced pain (produced by ischemia of the arm deprived of circulation by the tourniquet effect of a blood pressure cuff inflated to a pressure above the systolic pressure) but the part denied suffering. Dr. Hilgard designated these parts “Hidden Observers.” The Hidden Observers claimed to be onlookers of the person’s experiences at all times, whether the subject was hypnotized or not. They played no role in executing action and did not participate in the emotional experience of the subject.

More than 90% of the patients undergoing hypnosis in an intensive trauma therapy clinic were able to liberate a Hidden Observer. Following hypnotic induction by progressive relaxation the patient visualizes an imaginary scene and executes the imaginary action of stepping out of the body and observing the body from the outside. The therapist refers to the onlooker as the Hidden Observer and points out the capacity for emotional distance from the patient. The Hidden Observer then temporarily leaves the patient in the imagined scene and goes to the time of the trauma to observe the traumatic event as it unfolds. The Hidden Observer narrates the event impassively, referring to the self in the trauma in the third person – as “him” or “her” – and telling the story from beginning to end. The narration is recorded by videotape for subsequent review by the patient in a normal waking state. The hypnotic session ends after the Hidden Observer returns to the self left in the imagined scene.

Reviewing the videotaped narrative in the waking state completes the hypnotic narrative processing. The patient and the therapist watch the replayed videotape together. Now the patient no longer has the emotional distance of the Hidden Observer. The patient may only dimly remember much of the narrative and there is a risk of being triggered into a re-experiencing of the trauma. If this happens the therapist will stop the tape and help the patient become grounded.

Usually there is little or no triggering or abreaction with review of the tape. This is positive because abreaction interferes with verbal narrative assimilation. There may be an element of desensitizing in the review. Emotional desensitization can also diminish assimilation because the patient might escape full avowal or owning of the experience and feel instead as if it happened to someone else. If this failure is not corrected, the entire narrative processing must be repeated.

Usually when the narrative processing is repeated the second narration is more detailed and complete and makes it possible to fill in gaps that were not detected during the first. When this still does not relieve the intrusive symptoms of PTSD the cause might be that the symptoms arise from earlier traumas. The patient may have to search for unremembered traumas, such as preverbal ones or overlooked traumas due to medical or surgical procedures, for example.

Processing traumatic memories with the mind’s eye and the Hidden Observer makes it possible to do trauma therapy rapidly and safely without re-traumatizing the patient.

Louis W. Tinnin, MD
Psychiatric Consultant, Intensive Trauma Theapy, Inc.
http://traumatherapy.us