Finding True Magic: Transpersonal Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy/NLP

Finding True Magic is the primary training text for the Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP Certification Program offered by the Institute for Therapeutic Learning. Finding True Magic and the Transpersonal Hypnotherapy/NLP trainings are appropriate for laypeople seeking personal growth, as well as for therapists and other professionals intent on advancing their therapeutic skills. In fact, about 50 per cent of ITL students take the training primarily for personal development.

This book explores the possibilities for recognizing and freeing ourselves from a destructive process of perceiving, thinking, and acting that can be viewed as a pernicious worldwide epidemic. Unlike other diseases, which we strive to isolate and cure, this insidious fever has a characteristic that makes us blind to its presence: we come to identify its symptoms as our very own true self. We lovingly speak of this disease as our ego, our sense of limited separate selfhood. Jack Elias calls it "egoic-minding," because it is a process, not a thing.

Egoic-minding is a fragmented, biased way of perceiving and thinking. It can be viewed as a sort of destructive hypnotic trance that causes us to experience each other as strangers, as different, as threats. The delirium of this trance causes us to do violence to each other and to our world, without ever recognizing that it (our egoic thought process) is the true enemy.

By synthesizing insights and techniques of Eastern and Western philosophy and psychology, Finding True Magic explores various ways to disperse the feverish trance of egoic-minding, heal the trauma it causes, and wake us up to the sacred magic of our true Self. This true inner Self is the wellspring of our capacity for cooperation, community-building, and the celebration of life.

Everyone has the right to the make use of the essential insights and dynamics of healing communication, without resorting to the long-term expense of a professional intermediary. The model of such therapeutic relationships has changed in recent years, due to the financial burdens it places on our medical system. Financial considerations aside, however, therapy and therapists should change simply because there is a more effective approach to healing and personal growth.

That approach, which is the subject of this book, relies on the inherent goodness of our shared Being, a resource that is surprisingly easy to contact in the space between egoic thoughts. Most of us do not experience that space in the normal course of our thinking, however. We may be surprised to hear such a thing, given our experience of the seemingly impenetrable stream of our thoughts. But this space is quite real. It is the space of Silence, Healing Power, and Insight.

We have all experienced this silence on occasion, perhaps through prayer, or in a tender moment of love or awe. Most of us have not been taught, and have remained unaware that this silent Presence is always so close and available. Holistic mind/body therapeutic techniques, such as those presented here, derive transformative power when they help us to tap into this willing Presence, also called Grace.