Most therapists working with clients in hypnosis will sooner or later encounter the strange and often quite surprising phenomena labelled as spontaneous regression.

Being well trained, the therapist immediately follows the client keeping in mind Milton Erickson’s advice “Accept and Utilize”. This regression can be to the clients’ childhood or, even further back in time, to a past life. I remember well the first time that happened to me. I had my client in deep hypnosis doing free associations, i.e. remembering situations in her childhood. It seemed to me that a lot of these memories centered around her angry and impatient father. Their relationship was, and had always been, strained. Suddenly the picture changed and the client, without missing a beat, describes how she (then a he) is advancing on an angry and highly exited crowd. Being the officer in charge my client commands the crowd to disperse but that seemed to make them even angrier. In the tumult that ensued my client stabs one of the main agitators in the chest but gets, at the same time, a terrible blow to the head and dies there on the street.

There were other benefits resulting from the session as well but I can’t nowUpon returning to normal awareness a few things were immediately clear to my
client. The man she, as the officer in charge, had killed was her father in a past life. Within minutes her animosity to her father melted away and she clearly understood why their relationship was so dysfunctional. She also understood and resolved her fear of crowds.

remember exactly what they were. My client was delighted but at the same time
completely surprised. She had never really given the idea of a past life a thought. Now, was this a true past life, a concoction of the mind or something else entirely?

As a clinical hypnoanalyst I have to say that I don’t particularly care what it was – the important thing was that my client was tremendously benefited by the session.

However, I have had the opportunity to research some clients past life experiences with the help of historians – some of these regressions were filmed and shown on national television – and my present understanding is that at least with some clients the information given to them about a past life is correct. What is unclear is where that information comes from. I can think of several sources but none of theme are less “metaphysical” than the theory of past lives.

In my practice I have done many, many hundreds of past life regressions and have seen the good therapeutic results of these sessions. For an experienced hypnotist it is surprisingly easy to bring somebody back in time to a past life but it takes some skill to bring about the “moment of enlightenment” when everything falls in place.

By Jörgen Sundvall

This came to us from a Rebel who Learned How, and wishes to remain anonymous, reason stated in the end…  

For years when I was growing up I didn’t want to become a part of the system… so I chose to drop out of college… not go to school… I wanted to be a rebel… and I was convinced that I could make great money doing that and in doing that I learned because I had such great disdain for the system and I rebelled against it so much that I thought I was out of the system…

Turns out I only became a part of another system, a more deprived part of it, because we do not partake in any of the excesses of the actual system… right then and there I realized no matter where I go there is a system… even a counter system… or the counter culture as it’s currently called

“I’m a rebel… I’ll never do that otherwise I’m a sell out…”

That is the refrain that is commonly repeated.

“Rebel against the system…”

First mistake: Rebel!
That was my first mistake, rebelling against the system… because when I used to get tickets or protest my taxes I lost all legal recourse against the system… because I rejected the system, and the system was more powerful.

Second mistake: Slave…
When I started to obey the law because I made it my master I started to learn that there were many things out of my control and they would just happen to people and because that was the law. I never fought it so I was a victim of circumstance…

Insight: Utilize The System!
Then I learned it was about utilizing the system… which was hard for me because, you have to remember: I had started out as a rebel and then learned to obey it… and then I learned laws were made to be were made to be utilized …

When I was in college one time I had gotten straight A’s… 6 classes in a row… and I paid my money… took the classes… gotten the grades… But when it came time to get my grades… Half of them were taken away… why?

 

The Victim

Unbeknownst to me I had broken the rules. And I was pissed off and angry and felt like a complete victim.

I was like

“fuck it! I’ve been screwed over… I’ll never get them back this is just another example of the system kicking Me around…”

And then a woman… actually the one I went to complain to about this… listened to me and how fair my plight was… and I told her how unfair it was and then she told me she was sorry but there was nothing that she could do for me… Shit… I was on the brink of tears… it was so god damn unfair… but as she finished telling me there was nothing she could do for me… she said

“You know what you should do? You should appeal it…”

and I told her it will never work… I’ll just end up getting fucked over by the system like I already have… it’s just a waste of money… but then she looked at me and said:

“it probably is but, you should appeal it, it’s not a lot of money (it was only like 3 bucks)”

And she pushed the form towards me and she was like:

“it’s really not a lot of paper work all you have to do is get your professors to sign off…”

So I was like

“fuck it… I’m not going to get it anyways but it’s only a few bucks and I might as well try anyways.”

I went home that day feeling absolutely miserable in every way… and couple weeks later I was still sour on what happened. I went to my post box. Quite frankly I had already assumed those grades were gone… I pulled out the letter fully expecting the hear I was denied only to see that the university gave them all back!

And that’s only one example of how I almost missed the train. Rebel…

Today I work with clients in a drug and alcohol program, and for the most part they perpetually try to fight the system.

Not because the program they are in is correct but because there is a system that is involved… remember, a system is an over arching organizing structure. It’s the thing that keeps things from being messy… and to those of you who know how messy things can be imagine no structure…

 

Cause and Effect

When I was in the marines there was a system you did x, y, z,… when you were told do and if you chose to rebel or to break the rules the system had ways of dealing with you in order to put the system in balance…

Now let’s bring it back to a more individual level… there are things that you do… and you do them… they are like rules that you HAVE to adhere too… it’s like a run a way train… you can either choose to break those rules or to try to circumvent or even try to obey them but for most people after they do all that they still have their same problem…

My recommendation to you is to utilize these rules… and to know there will never be a right answer but there will be a right enough answer that will allow you to proceed.

Remember my school grades? I almost lost that battle, because I wasn’t in my right answer to them. Let’s face it: I broke the rules, I just didn’t know I did. Thanks to good advice I managed to be right enough in my response so things ended up working out. They can for you too rebel. If you rebel the right way: utilize the system…

😀

Clinical hypnosis and Patanjali yoga sutras 
Shitika Chowdhary, Jini K. Gopinath Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bangalore, India

Abstract 

The trance states in yoga and hypnosis are associated with similar phenomena like relaxation, disinclination to talk, unreality, misrepresentation, alterations in perception, increased concentration, suspension of normal reality testing, and the temporary nature of the phenomena.

While some researchers consider yoga to be a form of hypnosis, others note that there are many similarities between the trance in yoga and the hypnotic trance. The present study aimed to find similarities between the trance states of hypnosis and Patanjali’s yoga sutras.

The trance states were compared with the understanding of the phenomena of trance, and the therapeutic techniques and benefits of both. An understanding of the concept of trance in Patanjali’s yoga sutras was gained through a thematic analysis of the book Four Chapters on Freedom by Swami Satyananda Saraswati. This led to an understanding of the concept of trance in the yoga sutras.

The obtained concepts were compared to the concepts of trance in hypnosis (obtained through the literature on hypnosis) to investigate whether or not there exist similarities.

The findings of the study show that there are similarities between the trance in hypnosis and the trance in Patanjali’s yoga sutras in the induction and deepening of the trance states in hypnosis and that of Samadhi, the phenomena present in hypnosis and the kinds of siddhis that are obtained through Samadhi, and the therapeutic techniques and the therapeutic process in Patanjali’s yoga sutra and hypnosis.

Read the full article: Clinical Hypnosis and Yoga>>

Jini k Gopinath
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