When I completed the writing the first version of ITLAD back in 2000 I contacted Near-Death researcher Dr. Phyllis Atwater. Much to my surprise and delight Phyllis suggested that I send her a full copy of the book.A few weeks later I received an email from Phyllis praising the book, saying that my theory and writing style reminded her of Dr.Melvin Morse, a founding father of NDE research. However she suggested that I had written it for myself rather than for a potential audience. She suggested that I go away and “re-write it for your readers”. I subsequently took this advice and the rest is, as they say, history.
However it is rather ironic that in the subsequent versions of ITLAD, and indeed the published version that you all know and love, the sections on Dr. Atwater’s research never made it through the process. However this does not mean that her work was invalid with regard to CTF – on the contrary. I was reading through the original version today and I came across the following section that is hugely supportive of my now, much refined, Daemon-Eidolon Dyad.
‘Dr. Atwater, stimulated by experiences of her own, has spent many years researching the theory of reincarnation and practiced as a professional hypnotherapist for six years. During this time she specialised in past life regressions as described earlier. However encounters with our ‘hidden entity’ contributed to her decision to close her practice.
After facilitating many past-life recollections she came to the conclusion that the significance of these memories was not what they literally described but what they said about the individual experiencer. As she writes “Regression sessions serve only one purpose, I came to realise, and that is to assist the client in gaining detachment and perspective.” However this was only a contributory factor because:
“Then I happened upon the human soul. It was most unusual how that occurred. The soul just ‘popped in’ and took over a session one day, surprising me and changing all the ‘rules’ I thought had applied to hypnosis.”
In my terminology the Daemon is simply the higher self, the all knowing, and immortal element of human consciousness. As such Dr Atwater choice of the term ‘soul’ is totally equivalent. For her this being exists outside of not only normal perception but also is in no way related to ‘personalities’ encountered in past-life recalls:
“After this first encounter I discovered that the soul, anyone’s soul, is unlike any individual or personality type supposed incarnation. It is unique unto itself. I came to recognise the soul as an objective and loving source of limitless knowledge. The room temperature would feel warmer when it emerged during a session and the client would seem to glow. Advice would be given either for the prostrate client, for me, or another not present. The soul never limited itself or played favourites. Sometimes discourses would issue forth on life and its purpose- gentle, effective discourses that seemed somehow awesome and sacred.”
Indeed as she rightly points out psychiatry now has a term for this personality behind the personalities. Known by the name of the ‘Inner Self Helper’ or ISH this being has the interests of its host personality as a priority and in this capacity assists and guides the therapist to rid its ‘lower self’ of multiple personalities. As Dr Atwater perceptively says “The ISH seemed to be the central organising core of the individual’s essence.’
I am now keen to discuss this ISH with my new friends, the Australian psychiatrists, and the rest of you on this Blogsite. Is this “Inner Self Helper” something that you have experienced?
(The two quotations are taken from P.M.H. Atwater – Beyond The Light (Thorson – 1994). Pages 117 & 118).
If you are interested in Dr. Atwater and her work check out her website at
http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/
17 comments:
Anthony:
I did watch Oprah yesterday and Dr Sam Weiss (http://www.brianweiss.com/).
His work would agree with Atwater's I believe. When he hypnotised Catherine and encountered her past lives, he encountered a being that had knowledge of obscure and detailed information about his father and son that the doctor felt noone could know. If the "soul" or "daemon" or "spirit" or "inner self helper" can access information about the doctor then they could access information about any past lives, but that doesn't mean they are reincarnated.
If we are all part of one entangled consciousness or morphogenic field as Karl would best explain any identity is there for any of us to access?
Here I get very shy as Karl may mark me harshly on my understanding of his theory.
I understood from watching Dr Weiss talk about regressions that it is helpful for the people to explore the "past life" issues because it clears them of some emotional hang-ups. I am puzzled therefore why Atwater gave it up.
As I have told you before my experience of the daemon came with the voice and my premonitory painting. I was interested to see at Brian Weiss's website that he doesn't just regress people through hypnosis, he progresses people into the future!!! This fits with my experience does it not!
I said Sam Weiss but meant Brian. They are two different Weiss's.
Now, regarding ISH.
As Tony, and those unfortunate enough to have met me will know, I am a deeply self-aware fella! A Reflective, Introspective Extrovert!
If I have any "Inner Self Helper", and I certainly DO, then I don't feel it is detached from my sense of self.
The only duality I do witness is that I seem to have the ability, no matter what life's pants are thrown at me, to view my problems both subjectively and objectively.
What I mean is, although I am immersed in the problem subjectively I am capable of taking a breath and stepping back to observe it from an outsiders point of view as if what is happening to me was happening to a friend, and then I can advise myself what to do, as I would advise a friend whose problem was related to me.
This is some level of duality I agree but to do it I must be self-aware of doing it so I can't detach the other from what is "me"!
But then I am, admittedly, somewhat odd!
*smile*
Hi Ra,
I've read Brian Weiss's book and I like this theory that the daemon has access to other lives. It would make sense that the daemon or ISH would gain information from these other consciousnesses as a therapeutic tool for the eidolon?
Also, if the daemon/ISH has this access then is it not plausible that it can obtain information from a person who is deceased within our own subjective universe but is living out another version of their lives as contained within the objective consciousness field? This therefore allows for the possibility of mediumship as well.
And finally, if all permutations of our lives are being lived out within the subjective consciousness field it is also plausible that the the daemon could provide US with information from our deceased loved ones which we can 'sense'.
Karl, Is this ability you have to 'detach' evidence of the very thing we've all been discussing regarding your VL. That, in fact, you are not a VL but a UL, that you are what you is, more daemon than eidolon or an amalgamation/fusion/absorption of the 2?
And ODD? Understatement, there are no words in the dictionary my dear!
'And finally, if all permutations of our lives are being lived out within the subjective consciousness field it is also plausible that the the daemon could provide US with information from our deceased loved ones which we can 'sense'.'
I meant to say objective consciousness field
Johar:
I've asked that very question in my last comment to your "Karl the Virgin Lifer" post!!
And yes, not only do I want my own genre in Waterstone's but I also want my own word in the dictionary!
*smile*
And to your last question on my theory absolutely yes, this is why my theory and Tony's CTF and ITLAD are so powerful when considered together.
That is very nice Johar. If the Daemon is in fact able to receive messages from our deceased loved ones it would explain why we feel they watch over us. It's a comforting thought. Brian Weiss... another author/book for my list of must reads!
Not to mention the plethora of books on the PMH Atwater site I'd already added to the list. Thank you all for advancing my studies!!
Robin: Well I was writing something along those lines today in my theory.
If we are all part of one consciousness then the Akashic Records will hold the thoughts, feelings and experiences of all of us, including those deceased within our own subjective phaneron, so it is feasible that the Sensation of Being Stared At (see my old post), would also apply to the residual energies.
KLLM: I wanted to comment on your 2 remarks on this post. First, I too have the ability to be at once subjective and objective; William James has an essay , a very fine one, on just this phenomenem, but I have forgotten it's title at the moment. Also, I see clearly what you are speaking of in terms of the residual energies of the deceased. These can be interactive; I know from my own experience regarding my deceased husband. Thank you as always for your enlightening remarks, and also to all others whom I have read, but right now too tired to comment on them all. smk
Susan Marie:
Knowing you, as I do, your mutual understanding of my subjective/objective viewing of the self doesn't surprise me.
I seem to recall the James essay you mention, yes, I shall have to go delve in my library (there is seldom a greater pleasure) to find it. I hope you get some rest, as your philosophical insight is greatly valued by me personally and by this ITLADian community in general.
I think (ha!) the essay Susan Marie referred to is William James'
"Does Consciousness Exist" which is online here:
Classics In The History Of Psychology
But even if it is not that one, then it is still a great read and worth considering within ITLAD and "Collapsing The Consciousness Wave"
My god: and so it is! That is the essay; with lightening speed you have once again leapt to the purpose. Do you know that there was something on our news in the US, some weeks ago, a corporate man had remarked, "Obama is Google-like!" -- and this was picked up by the press, and much was made of it, that Obama was THE 21st century man, a Renaissance man. And to you as well, Google-like. Very telling also of your theory; it is a web, the web that connects all. Awesome to all who have sought this interconnectedness within the technological and philosophical realms; and have loved Tony's beautiful theories from day one. Such affirmation is very timely, sorely needed, but I won't ramble on at present. . .
I’ll quote from the essay where James himself quotes from Münsterberg's Grundzuge:
“ I may only think of my objects," says Professor Munsterberg; "yet, in my living thought they stand before me exactly as perceived objects would do, no matter how different the two ways of apprehending them may be in their genesis. The book here lying on the table before me, and the book in the next room of which I think and which I mean to get, are both in the same sense given realities for me, realities which I acknowledge and of which I take account. If you agree that the perceptual object is not an idea within me, but that percept and thing, as indistinguishably one, are really experienced there, outside, you ought not to believe that the merely thought-of object is hid away inside of the thinking subject. The object of which I think, and of whose existence I take cognizance without letting it now work upon my senses, occupies its definite place in the outer world as much as does the object which I directly see."
[……] “This not-me character of my recollections and expectations does not imply that the external objects of which I am aware in those experiences should necessarily be there also for others. The objects of dreamers and hallucinated persons are wholly without general validity. But even were they centaurs and golden mountains, they still would be 'off there,' in fairy land, and not 'inside' of ourselves."[
And I am forced to consider whether my head filled with all this knowledge is, as I originally thought, merely accumulated from 37 years of existence and reading or whether it is from thousands and thousands of years of Bohmian IMAXian recurrences.
(which probably isn't the best thing for an Insomniac like me to be considering at 2:15AM!!!!)
Yes; that is it, a beautiful quote, and still affirms the Bohmian IMAX. No, obviously, you are not 37. Cannot be.. . Also: Fechner has some lovely essays, which go through the same process, and arrive by way of a similar declension, at the same conclusion.
And so the synchronicities twist and turn and in doing so create a carpet of the most intricate weave. Our task is to interpret the image on the carpet.
I say this because the way in which everything is linking is becoming both fascinating and worrying at the same time. I say worrying because, as I said to Ed yesterday, "why me?", "why now?" I feel like I am in the epicentre of something of huge significance but I don't know what to do.
For example. Up until last night I had never heard of Gustav Fechner. Last night I started to re-read Dr. Paul Marshall's "Mystical Encounters With The Natural World" (Paul and I both did presentations at last years SMN Annual Conference and we chatted afterwards and swopped books). Paul mentions Fechner's 'dual aspect monism'. I found this fascinating and profoundly itladian.
This morning I woke up early in a fair degree of pain. Because it was already light I picked up a book on my bedside cabinet that I have been slowly making my way through over the last few weeks. The book is called 'The Centaur' by Algernon Blackwood. This copy was kindly sent to me by Baroness Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, the head of an occult organisation called 'The Servants of the Light (SOL). Dolores is a great fan of my writing and theories. She sent me the book a couple of months ago telling me that it was important that I read it.
I am not a great fiction reader so I have been spending twenty minutes or so per night reading it. It is a wonderful book and demands a slow read in order to appreciate Blackwood's ideas and beautiful prose.
As the dawn light flooded through the windows a name jumped out of the page at me. The central character of the book was discussing the theories of Fechner!!!
This had me stop with a start (can one do such a thing?). I went back to my notes on this book. I had earlier noticed one or two Daemonic allusions in Blackwood's writing (such as when the main character O'Malley says "You mean, of course, that this Double in me would escape and build its own heaven?"). I absolutely knew there would be more.
As I read on, knowing that something profound was about to leap from the page, it did. This line shouted at me as if it had already been doubly underlined in red ink:
"The perfect man you dream of perhaps is he who shall eventually combine the two, for there is, I think, a vast amount the race has discarded unwisely and prematurely. It is of value and it will have to be recovered. In the subconsciousness it lies secure and waiting. But in the super-consciousness that you should aim for, not the other, for there lie those greater powers which so mysteriouly wait upon the call of genius, inspiration, hypnotism and the rest".
Now Dolores is considered by many to be the top occultist in the world. She has sought me out, invited me to take her place in making the keynote speech at an international ceremony last November, and then, at her cost, sends me this specific book telling me that I must read it.
I then get up to make myself a cup of tea, switch on my computer (with only two books on my desk, the Blackwood and the Marshall. I had brought the Blackwood book down with me and the Marshall was there from the evening before) and there is, leaping out from Susan Marie's comment, the word "Fechner".
A little voice in my head is now shouting at me - "Join the dots, you idiot!"
Of course, another voice is saying, equally loudly,
" Kangaroo Effect, old boy, simply the Kangaroo Effect".
So which is right?
Tony: I think, in the larger scheme of things and the interconnections, that we are well beyond the Kangaroo Effect here !
(of course, it is still a useful tool to use in conjunction with Occam's Razor - and I'm not suggesting we shave marsupials there!)
I would advise you that instead of "Why Me?" and "Why Now?" you should in fact be asking "Why Not Me??" and "Why Not Now?" and as I have commented on Ed's post "What Once Seemed Just A Wall, Is Now A Door...", you do not need to feel alone at the epicentre with a darkened path ahead - we can illuminate it!!!!
Re: Gustav Fechner, I quote from Robert Wozniaks's, "Introduction to Elemente der Psychophysik":
"Dual-aspect monism holds that mind and body are two aspects of one and the same existent. Just as a curved line can be characterized at every point by both concavity and convexity, all nature, Fechner argued, can be as readily viewed from the psychical as from the physical perspective. The psychical and the physical, in other words, are the dual aspects under which nature appears in experience.
Given nature's two-sidedness, the question then arises as to the functional relationship that exists between its psychical and physical aspects. In addressing this question, Fechner worked out the program of psychophysics. As he himself described it: "The task did not at all originally present itself as one of finding a unit of mental measurement; but rather as one of searching for a functional relationship between the physical and the psychical that would accurately express their general interdependence"
Wozniak's full introduction to Fechner's classic of Psychology is online here:
Wozniak on Fechner
Re: Algernon Blackwood, I can fully appreciate Dolores being a Blackwood reader, and I would suggest after you read 'The Centaur' that you grab a copy of his 'Julius Le Vallon' and sequel 'The Bright Messenger' especially the latter (although reading the first in the series would be a help), as it deals in the evolution of human consciousness.
Finally (YES you all cry), and skillfully dragging back to original topic, I say this:
TONY: Listen to your Inner Self Helper, and Listen to Me - There is a path ahead which no-one has traversed, thus it is dark and unknown, but in order for it to be known it must be travelled and illuminated.
My backpack is ready, do you wanna walk with me???
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