So, for the background that started this line of thinking, I'm currently studying to be a hypnotherapist because I encountered the opportunity to get a very thorough education in the practice - and, BTW, the foundation course is free, so if you have an interest in exploring the subject, message me and I'll direct you to the institute, it is a very informative series of lectures - and it's something that's always been of interest. In the process I've been reading books on the side about the interplay of cognition and unconscious behavioral patterns and these two related subjects began to ignite a series of curiosities which led me to re-read some other books as well as reflect on my own development both as a sorcerer and as a human being, in terms of unconscious agreements, behavioral changes, and pattern making/breaking over the last decade+.

The basic rundown of these cumulative experiences and stimuli amounts to the understanding that for the most part our lives are directed by our unconscious mind. The amount of cognitive activity present in the conscious mind, that part that we are aware of, doesn't amount to much. Now we can and do, over time, program our unconscious mind by repeating patterns of thought consciously over and over again, but it is a long and arduous process and when our conscious thoughts enter into conflict with unconscious thought patterns - when we think something out of the ordinary or work to convince ourselves of something we don't unconsciously believe already - often times the unconscious wins out because it is the sum total of the structure of our ego personality, and that structure is very stable by necessity. Any new addition threatens that stability and so we have a hard time altering our behavior and thinking patterns.

That is why hypnosis is such a powerful tool - because if you bypass the specialized area of the mind which serves to determine which experiences, thoughts, etc., will or will not create instability in the ego structure of the unconscious mind, then suggestions can be delivered into the unconscious mind without that filter and change can take place very rapidly. What you might see a traditional psychotherapist to resolve over the course of several years can be resolved through hypnotherapy in a matter of months, sometimes less if the subject is actually proactively trying to overcome that behavior. The key is working with the unconscious mind directly rather than convincing it by means of the conscious mind's intercession. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, for instance, is a method of psychotherapy by which the subject becomes aware of a certain pattern of behavior when it happens and then intercedes consciously to play out that behavior differently. Over time, the theory goes, that unconscious pattern is changed to the new one. However, this requires an extraordinary effort on the part of the subject because more than 90% of our behavior takes place entirely unconsciously - we do things and are not even aware of what we are doing, or more precisely, why we are doing it that way. We live in a state of reaction.

Now, part of the nature of enlightenment as I have always heard it explained is that one shifts from a life of reaction to a life of action - living intentionally rather than according to uncontrolled impulses. From culture to culture it is described a little differently, but the main tenet seems to focus on that idea, that the enlightened person is free from the unconscious 'haze' that directs our lives and can more completely experience their true self without that covering. And if the unconscious mind is seen as the structure of Ego, all the patterns that make up the tapestry of the false self, the personality, etc., then it makes sense that enlightenment is, psychologically, a fundamental alteration to the unconscious mind, either to its content or to its very operation.

Now, the other part to enlightenment from a lot of different standpoints on the subject is Karma - it's said in different ways, from the idea that you must resolve all of your Karma in order to reach enlightenment and that, in fact, it is the resolution of karma, or the transmutation of karma, that ultimately causes enlightenment, and visa versa. And many of the methods of doing this seem to be focused on the unconscious mind. For instance in the classical Karma Yoga the path to enlightenment is through selfless service to others. Perhaps be initiating that process of behavioral transformation by engaging this action of selfless service, the unconscious mind is reprogrammed to a series of patterns that revolve around identification and empathy with the suffering of others which would foster, ultimately, a deeply ingrained and automatic attitude of selflessness, universal compassion, and in turn truly compassionate thinking. Right now, for instance, you can think a compassionate thought about some stranger or condition in the world, and although you may consciously have an emotional reaction it will not remain with you for very long - you will not be deeply affected by that thought. Now imagine losing someone very close to you, focus on your own suffering, and if such a thing happened to you, then you would be affected by this all day - perhaps for weeks, months, or even years. If unconsciously your suffering was equal to the suffering of others, or even if the suffering of others was greater, in your mind, than your own in terms of importance, you would either be in a state of persistent depression or you would be driven to alleviate the suffering of others.

But the nature of Karma is essentially this - that suffering which you have caused to yourself and others will be repeated Karmically until you recognize it and resolve it, thus learning that karmic lesson. There is no 'good karma', a principle of doing good things and that they will come back to you, and the reason for this is that the origin of the belief in karma begins with selflessness - a belief that you can propagate goodness in the world and that you will then benefit from it is therefore a product of western, service-to-self mentality. When you consider that many of these east asian cultures have traditionally been focused on the good of the community/nation over the good of the individual it makes sense and gains relevant context.

Well, considering the nature of the unconscious mind, and the methods of CBT to resolve destructive unconscious behavioral patterns, it seems to me that Karma, while I do believe there is a spiritual component, might exist largely in the unconscious mind. Not all of these patterns are 'positive' you see, although they can be. But, it is the negative patterns that tend to impact our lives the most because of course when everything is smooth sailing in life we are just living day to day and perhaps not even noticing that we are largely at peace at the moment. However, something had happens for some reason and this we notice. And if life in general is in a slump, we notice and wish it would change, right? Rarely is life going well and we wake up in the morning and acknowledge how well it is going and how much we are enjoying it. We expect life to be well, and are merely disappointed when it isn't, when it doesn't meet our hopes and expectations.

Well a large part of the reason we encounter the bad day, etc., is because of our unconscious conditioning. We react to a situation based on these patterns and the reaction determines how we feel emotionally. The same reaction tends to yield the same outcome, both internally as feeling and thought patterns, and externally in our actions; and in turn a bad situation plays out the same way each time we encounter it until we interrupt that pattern intentionally to play it out differently. Traditionally, if we do this enough we no longer have the negative reaction and therefore overcome that behavioral pattern. With hypnosis, we identify that situation that causes the pattern to be engaged, associate the event with a different healthier reaction, and this transformation takes place automatically. The event is met with a positive, i.e., pleasure-inducing, outcome and this reinforces the new unconscious pattern (either because the resolution is actually more pleasurable, or because the expected outcome is suggested to be more pleasurable - the unconscious doesn't know the difference).

If Karma is seen as a negative unconscious behavioral pattern - that is, one which decreases the quality of life of the subject or those around the subject in an objective degree (you neighbors dislike for your clothing, for instance, may cause them distress but does not rate as something which decreases his quality of life, while your extreme anger reaction to his incessant gardening is) - which plays itself out again and again until you 'get the point', then through something like hypnosis we are effectively transmuting Karma. And there are a lot of people living incredibly happy, fulfilled lives, living intentionally and in a state of action instead of reaction, specifically because they resolved their issues through hypnotherapy. While I can't say that these people are enlightened, perhaps they are closer to being able to reach that state if they so choose?

This question arose in my mind initially because of the trance practices associated with many traditions, from magical traditions to more mystically oriented, up to the logically reasoned practices like Zen Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism, for instance, there is an emphasis in advanced practices of clearing the unconscious mind through self-reflection and confrontation with the various planes of the inner world.

And all of this leads up to a particularly salient questions which is: can hypnotherapy be directed as a tool for reaching enlightenment?

The process of hypnotherapy itself can be accomplished in many different ways. For instance, if a performer, say a musician, is having anxiety just before going on stage, and has trouble abandoning themselves to the performance, then we might take them through a process under hypnosis whereby they imagine themselves at that moment before going on and feeling excited, or calm, or identifying the anxiety specifically and associating a relaxation response with the onset of the anxiety so that when they go to perform they may begin to have the first rumblings of nervousness which then dissipate into a feeling of calm excitation, and are able to go into their performance hardly aware that they were almost anxious in the first place. These suggestions can be direct and literal, or they can be inferred indirectly or even implied by the use of an illustrative story. In fact this last method is very similar to the anecdotal method of teaching in many eastern practices - we're all aware of the various stories arising from buddhism and hinduism intended to illustrate the enlightened state of mind and the actions that enlightened beings take because of their state of enlightenment. Is it possible that the purpose of those anecdotes are literally to implant these ideas into the unconscious mind? Pair this with the practice of meditation, and we might imagine students sitting before the master in meditation, while the master tells a story, and it begins to sound very much like a hypnosis session in which the subjects' critical mind is put in abeyance while the master implants the suggestive story directly into the students' minds where it can do the most good quickly.

So, this begs the question - is this process of possible hypnosis, carried out knowingly or simply by rote tradition, part of the value of having one's spiritual path directed by a master? Is it ultimately a process of extended hypnotherapy in which the unconscious mind is gradually re-patterned to that of the 'spiritually advanced' being?

Understand that the power of the unconscious mind is formidable, and a powerful deterrent to any kind of self transformation or growth. The impetus to maintain homeostasis isn't just physiological, it is neurological and psychological. Your brain does not want to change, nor does the content of your unconscious mind, which is why building new habits and breaking old ones is so difficult, and why the events of our childhoods can echo well into our advanced years. There are people for whom the content of the unconscious mind will remain relatively static their entire lives and because of this, no matter how perennially they tell themselves it is time to change, they will continue to execute the same behavior over and over again even though they continually get the same traumatic results out of it.

All of this I'm wondering because I am learning hypnotherapy for a variety of reasons. For one, it is of benefit to my existing clientele - I can treat their bodies now, and their energetic being, and I want to be able to assist them in overcoming psychic obstacles as well. However, I would ultimately like to open up a more esoteric branch of my practice to include goals which are significantly more non-traditional - helping practitioners of magical arts achieve agreement from their unconscious minds, overcoming outdated religious dogma implanted in their subconscious in childhood before the defense of the critical mind was available, achieving more 'concrete' goals like astral projection, heightened intuition, and if the research can be trusted, even attaining greater access to supernormal abilities. I'd also like to be able to create trance frameworks so that clients undergoing this kind of work can ultimately access the trance state more easily in order to pursue their esoteric work. However, in the midst of all of this, I began to wonder about something called 'alchemical hypnotherapy' which is a transmutation process for spiritual development assisted by hypnosis.

So the final question is: If we 'reduce' enlightenment down to this model, does it take away from what enlightenment is? Or can we say that enlightenment is still a spiritual, esoteric matter, but is predicated on the condition of the organic mind? We are after all trapped in the Maya until we are free, and the ego is part of that illusion - if we transmute the ego, therefore, to assist us in our process of enlightenment or ascension, is the practice merely a psychological one, or is it ultimately mystical because of it's aim and application?

peace, and congratulations on getting this far, assuming you read it all!

V