2. The Book of Knowledge. 9. 3. The Looking Glass

The BOOK of KNOWLEDGE,
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series

PART 2. ANOTHER REALITY

DAY 9.

CHAPTER 9.3. THROUGH the LOOKING GLASS

We went down to the hall. RAM told us to take out the small mirrors we had brought with us and drew the curtains on the windows.

“Now you’ll go through the Looking Glass. Breathe as I show you and look into your mirror. This way of breathing quickly leads to the state of falling asleep, in which the Door to Another Reality opens. You should seize the moment to slip through the Looking Glass. Your main task is not to fall asleep and not to close your eyes completely. If what you see in the mirror scares you, give me a sign. A few minutes before you need to return, I’ll warn you. It’s strictly forbidden to do this exercise on your own, because you can stay there forever.”

So I was looking in the mirror. After a while I started yawning constantly. I was about to close my eyes and fall asleep. I could hardly keep myself there. Suddenly, the mirror became large and rectangular. My eyes in the mirror enlarged, withdrawing the Consciousness into themselves. I flew from the Earthly into Another Reality through the pupils and found myself in the Library of the Universe. Huge shelves, countless books. I walked to the left into one of the halls and saw myself there, reading a book. My Moon Cat was wandering nearby. I decided not to disturb them and went to the other halls.

A seminarian, having seen something horrible in the mirror, called RAM. I kept breathing according to the technique voiced by RAM and almost fell asleep again, but at the last moment I grasped the Door and kept it ajar.

Suddenly, the picture in the mirror changed. The rectangular screen shifted, forming a forty-five degrees angle to the mirror plane. As a result, in the opened space, I saw a glittering golden cocoon in the fog on the right. I knew, it was the Girl I had painted. The cocoon was spinning around its axis, and glittering, it was coming towards me or after me?

“You have five minutes left, but if someone is scared, uncomfortable or wants to return, you may return. Don’t forget to thank those you have seen or those who have shown you something.”

And I really wanted to return, if I merged with the cocoon, I would stay There forever.

RAM asked us about our experience, and then offered to paint it on a piece of paper without brushes, with our fingers. I painted the Girl with an open pink Lotus flower in the solar plexus area, holding the globe in her palms. The picture, of course, lacked my Moon Cat, but he didn’t fit at all.

I turned to Sasha, “What do you think?”

“Amazing, Daphne!”

During the spine to spine dance, a roar was suddenly heard in the hall. But we continued dancing with our eyes closed. When the dance ended, we saw Natasha lying on the floor, her heels were purple-blue. At first we thought that she had just fallen and would get up, but Natasha kept lying motionless in an unnatural position. RAM spoke to her, but she didn’t respond. We formed a circle and watched in horror. RAM tried to bring Natasha back, whispering something while rubbing her stiff body. It was unbearably hot outside and too stuffy in the hall. Natasha’s legs were blue and icy.

Suddenly, Natasha shouted in a heart-rending voice, “Leave me alone! I don’t want, I don’t want to go back!”

When she returned, RAM didn’t let her out for a long time. Sasha leaned over to me and asked in a whisper, “Do you want that too, Daphne?”

“No, Sasha, I don’t.”

We went to our rooms before dinner in deathly silence.

***

Svetlana and I were standing on the roof.

“Alice, what was that?”

“Through the Looking Glass, as RAM told us.”

“We practiced self-hypnosis, didn’t we?”

“You can say so… The transition from the phase of Consciousness to the phase of the Unconscious, or the Subconscious. Usually, it happens on its own, being unnoticed by a person. Several times during the day, we fall into a state of altered Consciousness when we are immersed in thinking about something, or wandering somewhere, or travelling in the subway, or standing in a queue, or sitting at a desk. We are absent in the Earthly Reality. So we may not even hear the words addressed to us. Involuntary trance is a natural and necessary for a person ability to switch the body off periodically. Now we have gone There purposefully.”

“Who invented hypnosis?”

“In Russia, the founder of the school of clinical hypnology, is Bekhterev. Until 1950, hypnosis wasn’t used officially, the faculties for training hypnologists were opened, probably, when I was born, or even a little later. However, it all started with Paracelsus in the 16th century, but I’ll talk about it another time. In general, hypnosis is dangerous.”

“Why?”

“A person with a stronger Will immerses a weaker one into an altered state of Consciousness to make suggestion or influence. Suggestion can be used also for selfish purposes. In any case, the person, by his own Will, removes the natural protective barriers given from Above, that is, let the Doors wide open himself under the power of the hypnotist. At the same time, he leaves the body and enters the Spheres, where there are a lot of different entities. The risks are too high. For example, the hypnotist will lose contact with the person and won’t be able to bring him back, or inspire to go and do something bad to someone. In fact, in a state of hypnosis, any person is absolutely defenseless and can become a robot in the hands of the hypnotist-sorcerer or a Dark Force.”

“For example?”

“The hypnotist created a wax doll, copy of the patient, without telling her about it, and pricked the doll with a pin, and the patient screamed in pain. Doesn’t it remind you of anything? Or, for example, the patient didn’t see that the hypnotist had made two deep scratches on the negative of her photograph with his fingernail, but felt a wild pain, and a few minutes later the same scratches appeared on her physical right hand, at the same place as on the negative. By the way, Svetlana, this example is not from a book about Black Magic, but from a textbook on hypnotherapy. Moreover, hypnosis is contraindicated in mental disorders, schizophrenia and the like. Therefore, in the East, they work through heart suggestion, that is, by transferring of a feeling of Love in the conversation with a person, working with the heart chakra, in a soul-to-soul communication. Are there enough examples?”

“What about NLP?”

“I would say that NLP is subtler and more gentle than hypnosis, the work is done in a state of light trance or no trance at all, in the usual state. But it’s better to deal with yourself, without strangers. NLP is a purposeful work with words and images, reprogramming. They choose words as the keys to the Subconscious, pull the causes of problems to the surface, into the area of Consciousness and work with them. Again, the techniques are neutral, but depending on the purpose they are used for and their consequences, they can turn out to be Black Magic. It’s from the field of psychotherapy, the humanity has been engaged in throughout its existence. When we cry into each other’s vest or comfort someone, it’s psychotherapy, too. A person needs to speak out, cry out, and not to leave the experiencing inside. The task of any psychotherapist is to find the cause if one is unable to do it oneself. The psychotherapist should understand what is behind the pain, behind the silence, what the body language is saying, why memory lapses occur, what one’s dreams mean. It’s advisable not to be lazy and dig yourself, dig deep. If it doesn’t work out, then go to the Teacher.”

“Are you saying that today we went through the Looking Glass to visit our Subconscious, which showed us the causes of our problems?”

“Yes, first there was tuning, then induction, then the entrance to the Subconscious. We looked at it, went out and put everything down on paper.”

“Well, what are the causes and where to look for them there? The Subconscious, where is it situated?”

“It’s a Black Hole, Svetlana. You dive there like in a quiet pool, and you know who is found there. Freud discovered the Unconscious as the unspoken and unexpressed by man. Unfortunately, most of the causes of our problems are in the Black Box, that is, we don’t understand why something is so and not otherwise. At the same time, each our action is dictated by the good intention of the Subconscious. Its main task is to protect us from all sorts of troubles, to keep the inner peace of the Soul. It knows our true desires. We need to understand the reason. It’s a program that needs to be extracted and reprogrammed. When we bring the hidden in the Subconscious to the surface, we take off the heavy rucksack and free ourselves from the burden.”

“Are there only causes in the Subconscious?”

“All the information about each of us in general, plus everything that comes to us from the outside in a huge avalanche every second. To avoid overload, Consciousness filters the flow in every possible way. But sometimes, at the right moment, the Subconscious mind slips the necessary information to the Consciousness or advises us something in a dream, because the unconscious memory is constantly in operation and never sleeps, unlike the Consciousness. We are not free in our actions. We depend on the accumulated in the Black Box since our birth.”

“Is everything there?”

“The memory capacity of the Subconscious is unlimited. It’s connected to the Universal Computer. In a state of hypnosis, a woman spoke Aramaic quickly and correctly, but she didn’t know it at all. Then it turned out, when she was 9 years old, she lived in the rabbi’s house. He read aloud books in Aramaic at night, while the girl slept in the next room. The content of the books became fixed in her Subconscious, bypassing her Consciousness. How do you like the example?”

“All in one heap?”

“No, the Black Box is dominated by priority information or image. There is a constant struggle for the palm of superiority: the image, initially received more energy, has the ability to displace competitors. Whatever comes first in the correspondent field determines the behavior of a person. It may seem to us that we have long forgotten an episode, but in terms of the strength of our feelings, it was the most powerful, so it continues to guide our behavior.”

“How is it filtered between the Consciousness and the Subconscious?”

“Each person has his own filters, the main task of which is to avoid information overload, leaving what is necessary for a particular person in a given place at a given time. As a result, each of us gets a purely individual, reduced version of Reality. Filters are formed by us. For example, if we don’t want to see or know something, it’s difficult for us to keep it in the Consciousness, the information passes into the Subconscious, up to the loss of the Earthly Vision. Protection disconnects the senses from threatening information, which increases the threshold of perception, an insurmountable obstacle arises on the way to conscious perception of information. It doesn’t reach Consciousness.”

“Alice, give an example, please!”

“I come home at night and take off my heavy white dress with the Armani tag. It’s heavy for me personally, because I bought it yesterday for crazy money to wear it on a date today, and the prince, instead of checking out the bride, told her that he would marry another girl tomorrow. I take off my dress and throw it into the Black Box, on the mezzanine in the Wardrobe. As soon as the door slammed shut, the Subconscious clicked on the ‘Save as’ button, a file with the new pattern was created. The appropriate filter was installed, ‘White dress is a tragedy, if any white dress catches your eye, don’t notice it anymore, send it immediately to the Wardrobe on the mezzanine.’ That’s it. A lot of years will pass, I’ll forget about the decayed Armani, with the only zipper left. I’ll marry the best man in the world and be happy with him. But no one removed the filter with the pattern, it’s still in effect, so I either have to rewrite the program, remembering that episode, or you, Svetlana, will never see me in a white dress or in Armani, neither will others.”

“Skeleton in the Closet!”

“This is one of the psychological defense mechanisms based on our own unique experience. We link things with a certain emotion, anchoring them. For me spider means death, loss of the closest person, for someone some name means danger, for another one love means danger, and so on.”

“A thing, a name, a concept equal to something according to our own experience?”

“Not only. Another kind of individual pattern is the behavior pattern. Once a person did something, perhaps not one step, but several steps at once in a certain sequence, which led him to a positive result. For example, he got the position of general director after carrying out several reforms at the enterprise. After some time, he was fired for corruption and changed his job for a mechanic. What do you think will happen next?”

“He’ll start stealing again.”

“First, and perhaps unconsciously, he will take the same steps that led him to the top position in the past. Just not the fact that the new enterprise needs the same reforms. But the behavior pattern has already been created. Similarly, a man achieved reciprocal love for the first time by giving his beloved a bouquet of lilies of the valley. He sought her for a long time, but it happened after the lilies of the valley. The strongest emotions prescribed a pattern. In the future, since the man didn’t turn out to be monogamous, he will always look for lilies of the valley to get reciprocity. It would never occur to him that there’s no need to wait for a certain time of the year when the lilies of the valley bloom in the forest, he could invite his girl to go skating, for example.”

“So that’s why there are almost no lilies of the valley left in the world!”

“If a person imagines that something is useful to him, he behaves as if it were true. The choice of options for behavior is narrowed, since the thought slips into familiar patterns, the person walks in a vicious circle and doesn’t see the possibility of doing something else.”

“Does it turn out that all the patterns are made by us?”

“Not all of them, there are filters or patterns of the World Description. They are written by parents, teachers and other instructors. All stereotypes, patterns, filters in total lead to the fact that each of us has his own cockroaches in his head and lives in his own Reality.”

“What can be done to create some Other Reality?”

“First of all, realize that it exists. Then get rid of the fear. One of the main causes of our problems is fear. Fear of changing something in our life, because we are more comfortable in static, stable, familiar, albeit not the best, but well-known. We stop and don’t move forward, we fixate on something or someone. Life should be a constant movement and development, but we are chronically afraid of changes. It’s easier for us to walk in circles than to take a step to the side. Or we live in fear of losing someone or something, or in the fear of facing the truth. An inner conflict arises. At the level of Consciousness, we want something to change, but in the Subconscious, something stubborn, like a sheep, resists.”

“Well, please, give me an example.”

“You want to meet your man finally. You wish love. Earthly and mutual. Sincerely absolutely. But at the level of the Subconscious, fear of pain screams in you, because you experienced extreme stress with the previous prince. And when you meet a man who, at the level of Consciousness, you will really like, and you will even fall in love with him, the Subconscious will immediately provoke something so that the man disappears from your life instantly and forever. As Avicenna said, a healthy lamb irreversibly withers and dies only because a cage with a wolf … wolf … wolf is installed next to its place… Eh, Svetlana, where is my Grey Wolf?”

“Wait with your Wolf, selfish girl! You haven’t told me everything yet! Let’s say I really want to change something, so?”

“You must first realize what exactly needs to be changed. To do this, you need to find programs installed in the Past. We all come from childhood. Dig there first. For example, there is such a concept of a strong word effect from an authoritative person. As a child, you painted, but your teacher at school said, ‘What kind of an artist are you if you can’t even paint an apple naturally!’ That’s it. The program starts running. Another interesting example, a woman was tormented by a chronic disease, and during a hypnosis session it turned out that at the age of a year and a half, she had been dying from this disease, and the doctor had announced his verdict, ‘It’ll never leave her,’ meaning, that the child would die soon. She didn’t die, but the phrase in the Subconscious was installed and started running. The woman realized the cause and recovered.”

“Did you have a strong word effect?”

“I did, yes… Since then, I’ve got a problem addressing to close people as ‘you’ instead of You, I mean, informally. Someone offers me, I’m very happy at the level of Consciousness, with all my hands voting for, both in writing and in my mind, I address one informally, but verbally I can’t turn my tongue. Once, many, many years ago, I asked a person who addressed me like that, and not only, if I could start addressing him in the same way. I was left speechless by his response. Later, he begged me to address him informally, but … My brother, for example, tamed me for about half a year so that…”

“What were you said in response?”

“Svetlana, I can’t say it out loud, because you’ll be speechless, too, 100%. At least the few people I voiced the answer didn’t think it was possible. So let’s go on.”

“Okay, then tell me what other causes of problems might be hiding in the past.”

“Unforgiven injustices. For example, a woman received an inheritance to the detriment of her sister. The recipient may develop a guilt complex. The one who didn’t receive it has a victim complex. Similarly, in the war, one brother survived, and the other died. It also happens that a sense of duty eats a person, as in the case of the gratitude trap. For example, someone gives you an expensive gift or renders an invaluable service, perhaps even from a pure heart, without any desire to be rewarded, but you subconsciously begin to feel eternally indebted to the giver. There is a feeling of pressure, heaviness, you want to get rid of.”

“Yes, I’ve got it, I remember.”

“An unfinished business or story, although it may seem to you long finished, is even worse. This is the Zeigarnik effect. The mental overstrain created in the Unconscious requires discharge. When you read a book, it’s always more interesting, if the denouement is on the last page, the tension increases. So, all the unfinished stories stored in the Subconscious must be completed, otherwise they, like a running program, will continue to put pressure on you and lead somewhere you don’t want to go at all.”

“So until you finish writing your Book, your Subconscious will keep the Stone Wall away from you in every possible way, won’t it?”

“Looks like. There are also problems of the substitution syndrome. For example, if the first child in the family has died, and the second, as it were, replaces the deceased. Similarly, if the children are named after a relative. Initially, they are linked. As Freud said, names make ghosts of children. Each person should live his own life and not be a copy of his grandmother or whoever else, his parents would like him to be. Parentification, or misidentification with parents, is a kind of substitution. The roles in the family are turned upside down. For example, a daughter plays the role of a mother for the whole family, and as a result doesn’t get married. Or the role of hunter and head in the family was performed by the mother, while the father was lying on the sofa, occasionally cooking dinner. Accordingly, their son will learn this model of relationship as the correct one. In general, every family has its own unspoken rules. We need to recall them, because they always leave an imprint on patterns and filters and can be the cause of our problems in the present.”

“So we need to dig ourselves.”

“Secrets are always a problem. Emotional pain, unexpressed anger, resentment, aggression – everything negative lives in the Subconscious and is just waiting to splash out or to win back. You never know where it will manifest itself. Like seeds that will sprout one day. If you know what is planted, you know what will grow up. You can dig up weed seeds and plant daisies. The more we take out of the Black Box, or the mezzanine in the Closet, into the light, that is, make it clear, the better. You can work with the obvious. Feel it, turn it around, look at it from all sides, turn it into something else, and so on. It depends on our fantasy.”

“What if I can’t dig myself up and get to the truth? Should I go to a hypnotist?”

“To the gardener. There are two types of hypnosis. The first one is called open, directive, when they shout, ‘Sleep!’ It’s considered pop, classical, but only about ten per cent of people obey it. I’m categorically against aggression and violence against a person. It’s Black Magic. The second type of hypnosis is Erickson-like, soft, hidden, associated with NLP, working with words and images. As I’ve already said, in fact, it’s a conversation with a psychologist in a state of light trance. The same one we automatically dive several times during the day. It’s dangerous to immerse people in a hypnotic-somnambulistic state, it smacks of Black Magic.”

“Okay, we won’t go to hypnosis. I’ll talk to a psychotherapist. What kind of person should he be, Alice?”

“Wise, good at understanding people so that he can speak with everyone in their own language. He should become your assistant so that you can correctly decode the information extracted from your Unconscious. It’s always easier for us to open heart to a stranger we see for the first and last time in our life, than to a person we’ll meet again. Even sincere diaries and autobiographies leave gaps or distort information. If you go to a psychotherapist, be as open as possible to cooperation, otherwise he won’t help you. The church confession intends the same mechanism, to tell everything without concealment. But not all priests are good psychologists. They may answer in such a way that you won’t go to the church anymore. The person to whom one turns for help, a psychologist or a priest, should be a person of Light in order to reprogram people for Light and Good. Such people are rare.”

“Let’s suppose I found such a person, came to him. What will he do with me?”

“First, he’ll adjust himself to your vibrations to be on the same wavelength with you and, while communicating, dance one dance for two with the help of body language, facial expressions, words. If a person is an audial, there are often words associated with sound in his speech, like ‘it sounds’, ‘I hear’, ‘quiet’. Visuals have words associated with vision, ‘I see’, ‘imagine’, ‘beautiful’. Kinesthetics speak the language of feelings and sensations. There are also specific words for this particular person, so you need to adapt to his speech. Adjustment is rapport, communication. Usually, we set it automatically. The main thing is not to interrupt the connection during communication, for example, by looking at your watch or yawning. Any ‘no’ and ‘but’ negatively affect the adjustment. To understand a person, it’s important to know what type he belongs to. There is a model of 4 realities.”

“Are these your geometric figures?”

“No, there are 5 psychotypes in geometry. You can classify people in different ways. The first type of people in this model is called ‘Individuals’, I would call them ‘correct’ or ‘right’ ones, among them there are many military men, priests, lawyers. These are people who act as they should, according to the established rules, norms, laws, live within the framework of a certain system. They do everything strictly according to instructions or prescriptions from their bosses, constantly checking with the standards, they are too much afraid of taking a step aside. They have a convergent type of thinking, there is determinism, in fact, there is no choice, because it’s conditioned and not by themselves. Their clothes are mostly uniforms. Everything is divided by them into two categories, right or wrong. They can be extremely intolerant of other people’s opinions, because the true path is only one, the one they follow. Other people are outcasts, infidels, heretics. They tend to blame others. To adapt to this type of people and earn their trust, you need to know and follow their rules.”

“Is our ‘right’ Boy, we worked with, of this category? I still remember his ruler!”

“That Boy of ours is a mixture of the first and second types. Pure specimens are rare. The second type is called ‘Computer’, it relies on facts, logic, numbers, calculating details. Determinists, but they strive for plurality, there are alternatives in choosing, but they are beyond human control. They like to divide a whole into small pieces, lay it out on different shelves, scrupulously analyzing each stage, then make a logical decision. They need evidence, proof, including those obtained through their own senses. Information appears neutral for them, they like to observe and analyze how one phenomenon leads to another. They strive to improve the world. They live in the world of scientific facts and figures, among them there are many scientists, physicists, geneticists, mathematicians, accountants, engineers, technologists. They wear practical clothes, according to the situation. In order to adjust to them, you need to mirror their postures and gestures, speak logically, operate with concrete and 100% verified information, never express your doubt like it seems to be.”

“They are boring. Let’s talk about others!”

“The third type is called ‘Social’, or ‘Peacemaker’. The main feature is belonging to a social group, some class, a pack. Values, morality and estimation, approval of the group are very important. They are striving for plurality and sacrifice for the good of society. They make decisions based on beliefs and emotions, preferably by consensus. They have normative thinking mind, tend to evaluate others by the standards of morality. Status is important for them, so many prefer clothes of certain brands, accessories with prestigious labels, cars corresponding to their status. This category includes social workers, doctors, teachers. You need to adjust to their class and values.”

“It doesn’t sound like you. So you must be the fourth psychotype.”

“That’s right, the ‘Creator’ is my favorite mythical type of person. Cats walking on their own. They strive for singularity, are freedom-loving and inquisitive. They act in their own way, wondering what will come out of all this? They are constantly creating their own unique reality, knowing that everything is possible and nothing is predetermined. Their world is their toy. It’s plasticine, it can be modified in every possible way at will. Their Universe is gushing with ideas and saturated with images. They are self-ironic, their language is used creatively and abounds in metaphors. It’s the world of a thinker, inventor, poet, writer, artist, where everyone you meet is perceived as a figment of the imagination, a literary hero. They have synthetic creative thinking, study of associations, the flow of Consciousness. Rather, it is in people of this type that the Subconscious dominates. Life is interesting and multifaceted. Perhaps tomorrow the flow of inspiration and fantasy will lead them to the next fairy-tale. They are original in everything. It’s not boring to be with them. They are quite open to people and the world. To adjust to them means to get interested in their Reality, to improvise on the go, trying to create something magical together. They are the real Magicians. The only question is: Black or White ones?”

“Alice, that’s great! I want to be a magician too!”

“Someday you’ll definitely be.”

“Okay, we’ve done the adjustment, what’s next?”

“Next, Svetlana, you’ll be put into a trance in order to slightly open the Door to the Subconscious. When I come to my Teacher, we often just talk, because my Subconscious dominates in the usual state, so there’s no need for any trance.”

“It’s clear with you, but how does it happen with others?”

“In the past, they often used a shiny object, placed in front of the eyes. A flashing button, a silver pen, a rotating mirror, a disk, an electric light, a repeated mechanical action, as a result of which the eyes or the nerve endings of other sense organs were overtired, and one’s Consciousness was switched off. Someone says that the eye is a mediator, through it one’s vibrations are tuned in unison with the vibrations of the object on which the eye stops its attention. But I think the hypnotic state arises precisely because of overload.”

“Of the eyes?”

“Not necessary. You can fix your attention on sounds, tell long stories in a monotonous voice, this is a chattering technique: too many unnecessary details, the inclusion of truisms-banalities, the lack of a logical connection between sentences. Consciousness fails, gets confused, overloaded and turned off. Erickson liked to use the triple helix, he started the first story, but didn’t reach the denouement, immediately started the second, cut it off in the same way at the most interesting place and told the third one. Then he made the suggestion, because the Consciousness was busy unraveling the plot or was turned off, that is, the filters were turned off, the suggestion went straight to the Subconscious. Then Erickson completed the second story, then the first one.”

“How do gypsies induce their hypnosis?”

“Gypsies use the double overload technique when they approach a person from different sides and try to speak quickly and simultaneously, touching him with their hands and gesticulating. The overload is complete. They use also visual methods, putting shiny things like beads, bracelets, gesturing; kinesthetic methods such as touching, running fingers on the palm, and auditory ones – talking. No one can stand it for more than five minutes and turns off. By the way, they touch the right palm and lightly move their fingers along its surface, because the right hand is connected with the Subconscious, the gypsies act directly on it.”

“Do you remember, you said when you recite poetry, people fall somewhere? Is it hypnosis?”

“When I recite poems, specially selected in a certain sequence, for fifteen or twenty minutes, people turn off, yes. But, of course, I don’t aim to hypnotize them. Poems are not prose, they are easier to be read with the eyes, and not to be perceived by ear. It’s difficult to understand them instantly, since the lines are short, and the meaning is compressed, therefore, listening to them without a break, people turn off. Moreover, I recite poems, entering the Flow and even putting powerful energy into them. I recite them about Love, Svetlana, and they wander in the memories of their Love. They might even dig up something useful.”

“What else promotes trance?”

“Music. Not all kinds of, of course. To deepen the trance, you can use the images of diving under water, into the sea, going into the distance through a tunnel, along a corridor leading down. Some phrases are conducive to relaxation. For example, ‘Don’t relax, I don’t need it.’ Your Consciousness won’t take the phrase as an order and won’t resist, but your Subconscious will ignore the particle ‘not’, and you’ll immediately relax. Don’t say ‘not’ with negative words, because ‘I’m not scared’ really equals ‘I’m scared’ and the Subconscious will trigger the fear program. The phrase, ‘You may close your eyes or not close,’ in fact, means that you told the person to close his eyes twice. It’s better to highlight the right words with intonation. ‘Before you go into a trance, make yourself comfortable in a chair.’ It’s a presupposition, there is no alternative not to plunge into a trance. ‘Do you prefer a light or medium trance?’ It’s a choice without a choice.”

“Do you use anything from NLP in your life?”

“I often used the pattern break, without even knowing about its existence. Erickson pointed to the chair on the left and said, ‘Take the chair on the right.’ The goal is to suddenly interrupt the chain of actions carried out automatically, to break the stereotype, to cause surprise. There is a pause, the person is confused. Non-standard behavior is beyond the earthly logic. However, I made non-standard actions unconsciously.”

“You are all out of standard. It’s natural for you. What happens to those who are next to you at that moment?”

“The Door is ajar, because the lock is broken. You can tell a person, for example, to do something. Your information will go straight to the Subconscious. The person will fulfill your request in order to quickly restore the usual course of events. It’s no good to use the pattern break for selfish purposes, only for the benefit of the one whose Door has been opened. There are other technics, but I think it’s already clear to you.”

“What are the signs of trance?”

“The breathing is slowed down, the gaze is motionless, the pupils are dilated, the speech is slow and not articulated. Even if the person is uncomfortable, he doesn’t change the posture, it’s called catalepsy. If the trance has not got, the psychotherapist behaves as if the patient is in a trance. Usually, they first make tests to check how suggestible a person is. By levitation of the hand, falling of the body forward and backward. But I’ll be honest with you, my Teacher never practiced this with me. In general, deep hypnosis is harmful. You should not resort to it.”

“What if a person doesn’t want to be hypnotized?”

“No one can be hypnotized by force. There must be a voluntary refusal to resist.”

“Well, let’s say, not hypnosis, but a light trance, how long does it last?”

“It’s the content that matters, not the duration. On average, twenty minutes is enough, sometimes less. After coming out of the trance, a person remains in a suggestible state for another five to ten minutes, there is no resistance of the Consciousness. Then an hour and a half of conscious work to launch the program. Each person has it like this: an hour and a half of work and twenty minutes of rest.”

“So what do they do with a person while he is in a trance?”

“It depends on who is working with him. As a rule, they try to bring to the surface of the Consciousness the skeleton hidden in the Closet. Insight may occur, that is, suddenly everything will fall into place, and you’ll find the answer, the reason. I had that when Hera was digging me about those fat, black, furry paws in the center of a big net with a cross on the back. The results of excavations are handled separately.”

“How?”

“Sometimes they take you to the cinema to cut out negative shots and burn them, or to review a fragment of life from a different perspective, in order to change your attitude. The autopsy, or the extraction of a traumatic memory out of the Subconscious, or abreaction, is often accompanied by tears, while you return to the unwept pain. A hole is opened through which the inner emotional tension flows out.”

“What to do in case of abreaction?”

“You can’t let a person go away in such a state. It can be suggested that he, from the position of today’s Self, console his Self in the past. If the trauma is in childhood, caress and take pity on yourself as a child. The child is not to blame for the situation. Perhaps you can explain something to the child that you didn’t know then. RAM used to work with us when the adult Self met with the child Self.”

“Yes, I remember. What else do they do?”

“Exercises to restore inner harmony by means of the creative imagination. Sometimes a program of unconscious search for the best solution is launched while you are enjoying the memory of the happiest day of your life or your Place of Power. Some, like Erickson, tell a similar story about a fictional character. The Subconscious of a person tries on the story, and it has a happy ending.”

“Why then hypnosis is so dangerous?”

“They can suggest anything. You can be hypnotized to kill an innocent rabbit, for example, in exactly so many days and hours or 666 minutes, this is a post-hypnotic suggestion. Your inner clock is counting time unconsciously. Exactly at the appointed time, you’ll again fall into a trance without the participation of the hypnotist and will automatically do what you were ordered to do. You’ll commit an act beyond your Will and won’t be able to stop or suspend the suggested. If you are asked why you did it, you’ll come up with an explanation. For example, you’ll say that you suddenly wanted rabbit meat, although you are a vegetarian.”

“Wait, how does the inner clock count time?”

“Svetlana, don’t you feel sorry for the rabbit? And how do they wake me up before the alarm clock? I turn to my Subconscious to wake me up. In the case of the rabbit, the hypnotist turns to your Subconscious, so that an innocent poor animal. Well, zombies, as I have already said, are exclusively about Black Magic.”

“What else can they suggest?”

“An event or action you didn’t commit. So you’ll confess to killing the rabbit, which is alive and well, or who someone else stabbed to death. They can block access to files, erase anything from your memory, deprive you of knowledge. For example, you won’t be able to speak your native language or play the guitar. They can make you blinded or deaf. True, this is a psychological factor, that is, the eyes still see, the ears hear, but their information doesn’t reach the Consciousness. A woman was told that she could see everyone except Mr. X, who was present there too. Mr. X went to the table, took a glass of water and was coming back with it when the woman shouted that the glass was flying through the air. They can disconnect your intellect and emotions, and a feeling of joy will arise from the news of the death of a loved one, and, conversely, you’ll weep, having learnt about a joyful event.”

“Listen, is all this in a trance?”

“In a deep trance, or artificial somnambulism. A somnambulist has no will, he is a puppet in the hands of a hypnotist. There is not a single function in his body that would not obey the hypnotic suggestion. It’s very dangerous, harmful for health.”

“So, the main thing is to dig ourselves, isn’t it?”

“First, you should want to dig, then take a shovel. The Subconscious knows everything about you and has answers to all questions. If you set a goal to get an answer, you’ll definitely get it. There are a lot of techniques. The main thing is to formulate a clear, unbending intention to get to the truth. Ask your Higher Self, turn to the Divine Spirit. The transcendental connection with God is carried out through the Subconscious. You can talk to family or friends. As a last resort, go to a psychotherapist. As I come to my Teacher sometimes. He doesn’t make me a somnambulist. He communicates with me. Hera said once, ‘You know everything yourself, why did you come? You’re too lazy to work on your own, it’s easier to ask us.’ And she is absolutely right. That’s why RAM says, ‘Imagine I am absent!’”

“Okay, I get it. Is today’s mirror the Door?”

“Working with a mirror is one of the methods of dissociation of the Consciousness and the Subconscious. In the same way, you can look into the water. The mirror is one of the eight precious items that bring good luck. The goddess presented a mirror as a gift to the Buddha for good luck and removing obstacles on the Path to Knowledge. In Tibetan Buddhism, it symbolizes the Void of the Universe. During the funeral, the priest shows the mirror to the Soul of the deceased, reciting sacred texts over it, so that the deceased realizes this very Void. The mirror reflects different things and forms. We all live on the surface of a great big Mirror.”

“You’re talking in riddles again!”

“Well, shouldn’t you think a little about something yourself?”

“Where should mirrors not be hung in the house?”

“They say it’s undesirable in the bedroom. The soul might be afraid of its own reflection or non-reflection, while your body is peacefully sleeping in the bed. Don’t hang mirrors opposite each other and opposite the front door. However, Svetlana, the less you know, the sweeter you sleep.”

“Well, I think … since you and I have mirrors here, let’s do fortune-telling?”

“I think, Svetlana, it’s time for us to go down to dinner.”

At that moment, we heard a knock at the door.

“Welcome, it’s open!” I shouted.

Sasha came to us.

“Daphne, I’m here for your painting.”

“Which one?”

“The Girl with the globe. You have already gifted it to me!”

“When?!”

“When you asked whether I liked it. Daphne, don’t be greedy, I asked you to paint me something. Moreover, I have already figured out how to arrange it, what kind of frame and all that.”

I took out the picture and, as soon as I handed it over to Sasha, Larisa appeared on the threshold.

“Alice, I’m here for your picture, for the Girl with the globe. You promised to paint me something, do you remember? Give it to me, please.”

“Larisa, Daphne has already given it to me, I’m sorry,” Sasha smiled. “But she’ll paint you the Girl with the Cat. It’ll be more fun with the Cat, I assure you!”