return to our “mind map” and show them a different, sound course. And not to get too scientific, back to our stack of cans.
The top row represents symptoms. Each can represents some form of disease manifesting as a specific doctor-identified disorder. It can be mental and/or physical. Everything between that top row and the single can at the bottom we are going to call subsequent sensitizing events (SSEs). The bottom can represents the initial sensitizing event (ISE). What I’m saying is this: We come into this world knowing nothing of man-only the goodness of God. Time passes and with its passing, events occur. Human intent is to naturally let the infant be bathed in goodness forever. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. So for most people, there is a moment when we go from knowing only the pureness of His way, to that first pie in the face that says, “Life’s not such a bowl of cherries down here, pal” In the Course in Miracles this is called the moment of separation. To the cause-oriented healer, it’s the initial sensitizing event. This is where the chance for permanent and complete healing lies. Let’s see why.
An orthopedic surgeon came to me for joint pain. (Think about that.) As I was explaining this same model to him, I asked, “Do you replace hips?” He did. I asked, “Out of 100 or so hip replacement clients, how many would end up back in treatment for some other joint problem of a serious nature in the near future following the surgery?” He replied, “Almost all of them.” That was staggering. I could have made my point if he had said 30 or 40 percent. But almost all of them? Wow! From this point he went on to explain that he had actually got his start in medicine via his own search for relief from bursitis. With all the teachings he received and all the years that had passed, and despite the gallons of cortisone injected, he still had the bursitis. He had heard me tell my own story of bursitis on the radio and said my explanation fit his life to the letter. Besides getting rid of his bursitis, I got confirmation on the power of this model!
We will use joint pain to take us to the next level of understanding--that the ISE of any negative symptom carries a subconscious calling for some form of self-mutilation. That calling is confirmed and reconfirmed through a sequence of SSEs. Straight from the adage “the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” one final subsequent event compounds the calling for self-mutilation so powerfully that the subconscious goal-achieving mind literally sees its own manifestation of a nasty illness as a goal successfully achieved. If the doctor cuts out the manifested disorder, with no appreciation for the calling for self-mutilation, the symptom reappears. They call that a recurring disorder.
Sometimes when the doctor mutes one symptom, something else manifests. He mutes that second symptom and out of the blue comes something else. The doctor ends up chasing shifting symptoms all over a person’s body. Usually the doctor gives up, prescribing heavy medication and calling the problem a chronic illness. That’s a cheap way out. Chronic illness is a checkers game between the doctor and a subconscious mind programmed for self-punishment. The subconscious mind’s power and tenacity will guarantee the good doctor the loss. For the orthopedic surgeon who replaces a hip oblivious to the calling for self-mutilation, the subconscious mind basically says, “You can replace the hip, Doc, I’ve got another hip. Beyond that I’ve got ankles. I’ve got an elbow and a knee. In fact, I’ve got more joints than this patient’s got coverage! Shall we play a game?” And the good doctor ends up in this losing battle called chronic illness.
One evening in August of 1994 as I was writing this part about chronic illness, I turned on the TV to hear Professor Marc J. Roberts of Harvard University speak as a panel expert on health care reform. He mentioned the screening tendencies of the insurance companies. I taped it. Here’s what he said: “The fundamental problem is that health care costs are no longer an insurable risk. Because the bulk of disease in this country is chronic illness, we know who’s going to get sick this year . . . Answer: The people who are already sick.” I couldn’t believe I was able to get that on tape! What a gift. We must someday see the silliness of paying doctors to label symptoms and then go chasing them all over a patient’s body. If there is a chance of developing a condition of permanent healing for a person suffering the label of chronic illness, it will come once this deeply rooted calling for self-mutilation is removed not before! Okay. So it’s more than a stack of cans. It’s the expanding accumulation of perception-building experiences. Doctors focus only on the top row. Psychology and psychoanalysis work in the realm of the subsequent sensitizing events. We’re going to focus on the initial sensitizing event, and here’s why.
Look at the inverted pyramid and take away the can on the top left as if we have just muted a symptom through traditional means. The structure of the cans remaining below should be seen as the roots of that symptom. The roots are all that’s necessary for the above-ground growth (symptom) to reoccur, as new experiences from the arriving future are stopped by the critical faculty and again found to be in harmony with those earlier events represented by the remaining cans below. Next go down one row, then two, pulling out a particular can from each. The farther down into the structure you go, the more symptoms that get toppled. But as long as you stay in the realm of subsequent sensitizing event, there is always something deeper for the regrowth to spawn from.
This time, let’s pull out the bottom can. Now the whole structure crumbles, and the only thing to regrow from is what remains below. Under the bottom can, the only thing remaining is God’s love and goodness. When the present and future grow from this kind of reconnection, we have permanent healing! What we have just unveiled makes the initial sensitizing event so very important to healing. If I open the critical faculty through hypnosis, but then regress no further than some subsequent sensitizing event, I will expect to see the healing effect be as temporary as would the result of any other symptom-oriented medicine. It’s when I can help a person get to the ISE of his problems, and successfully resolve it, that I feel as though my work carries special meaning.
8: QUEST FOR THE ISE
What has been found at the count of one could be considered better than anything Stephen King ever conjured.
Maybe we should start by discussing the process we use to get to the ISE of a problem. Let’s walk through a hypnotic regression and see what a search for the ISE of a problem looks like. Regressions can be directed or non-directed to varying degrees. In the chapter on hypnosis I share my feelings on the different forms of regression and other hypnotic techniques. For now we will mainly focus on non-directed technique. The reason I prefer this technique is that it respects the nature of the subconscious mind. When a person has a problem, there are only two agencies anywhere that know the cause and cure for that problem--God and the person’s subconscious mind. Go anywhere else for answers and we’re wasting time. Here’s how it works. Once we have bypass of the critical faculty, we basically excite the symptom. And by the way, when I’m describing the process, the reason that I say “we” is that I am the first to point out that I am not the only one doing work this way, nor am I the only one getting great results. We shouldn’t be discussing one person’s work. This is a method to be shared between professionals who want results. It’s also an understanding that will hopefully generate a more sensible national track toward healing.
Returning to the process, we bypass the critical faculty and excite the symptom. And again, the chapter on hypnosis tells you how the critical faculty bypass is performed. Exciting the symptom is easy. I’ll demonstrate a simple version of that here. Remember that the subconscious mind will not judge a suggestion. So once in trance, all I have to say is something close to this: “You have a feeling inside yourself that you don’t like. You’ve tried running from it, you’ve tried numbing
